Blood and Steel

Chapter 10

Rome

The Carinae,

Eight Days before the Ides of March, AD238

The door was shut. No doubt it was locked and barred. The same would be true of the only other entrance at the rear of the house. It was not yet mid-morning, the second hour of the day, still the time of negotium, when public business was done. Normally the front door would be open, and the Senator Tiberius Pollienus Armenius Peregrinus would be receiving his friends and clients. The times were far from normal. The plebs were out on the streets. The rain had not checked them. There was nothing else to stop them running riot. Neither Sabinus, the Prefect of the City, nor Potens, the Prefect of the vigiles, had been seen in the two days since Vitalianus had been murdered. The men of the Urban Cohorts and the Watch had remained in their barracks. Robbery and murder stalked the Seven Hills. All the luxurious houses in the Carinae district of the Esquiline were tightly shuttered. If Armenius thought it would keep him safe, he was much mistaken.

Timesitheus watched from a recessed doorway, across and down the street. Two bulky men, also hooded and cloaked, stood at his back. It reminded Timesitheus of another time and place. Mogontiacum on the northern frontier, three years before, standing with Maximinus, waiting to burst into the house of Petronius Magnus, and arrest him and his fellow Senators. It had been raining then too.

Some men would say the cases were entirely different. Magnus and the others had been traitors. This thing with Armenius was a personal vendetta. Those men would be wrong. Like everything, both were about self-interest.

Timesitheus despised the hypocrisy of men who clothed their actions in fine-sounding words, even to themselves. Justice was all very well, if it fitted with advantage. Step by step, with infinite care, Timesitheus had led Magnus and his friends into conspiracy. But if they had not been treacherous, they would have denounced him. As Tranquillina had said, best he, rather than another, reap the rewards of exposing their true nature. No one had clearer sight than his wife.

It was the same with Armenius. From obscure equestrian origins on a backwater Greek island, Timesitheus had risen high, the governor of provinces, the councillor of Emperors. He had drawn handsome profits from a succession of military and civil offices, but he had taken no more than was his due. When one of the great patrons of his youth had died, he had left Timesitheus a substantial inheritance. But, on his deathbed, Pollienus Auspex had adopted Armenius. Now the senatorial legacy hunter was contesting the bequest to Timesitheus. Given his connections, Armenius was likely to win the court case.

Timesitheus would not be robbed of what was his by right. Just as Magnus and the others had died because their souls were tainted by treachery, so Armenius would suffer for his avarice.

A squall gusted up the empty street, fat raindrops spattering the pavement. It was near time. Timesitheus hoped that the young cutpurse would be as good as his word. The oaths taken meant nothing, but Castricius had been well paid, and the promise of plunder should outweigh the inclement weather.

Timesitheus thought about that morning in Mogontiacum; the rain falling in sheets, the door splintering, the torchlight glinting on steel. Maximinus could fight, but he had done nothing right since he had become Emperor. The elite hated and feared him for his executions and confiscations. He had never travelled to Rome to attempt to conciliate the Senate. The plebs loathed him for curtailing the games and stealing the treasures from the temples. He had doubled the pay of the troops, but the expense was unsupportable, and soldiers alone could never keep an Emperor on the throne. Maximinus would not survive long. But would this be the revolt that toppled him? Gordian the Elder was an old man, and Africa held no legions. The Senators were better at talking than fighting. They had neither won over Sabinus and Potens, and thus the troops in their charge, nor liquidated them. The Senators commanded no troops in Rome.

Tranquillina was right. In a revolution, you had to choose your side early. Quietism and procrastination won no thanks with the victors. Either Timesitheus must ingratiate himself with those leading the revolt, find something to offer their cause, or he must declare for Maximinus, ride to join him in the north, or perform some open deed on his behalf here in Rome. Timesitheus had never cared for Maximinus; a big, ugly, stupid and violent barbarian. His blood had boiled every time Maximinus called him Little Greek. How dare a hulking Thracian call a true Hellene a Graeculus? Yet the very stupidity of Maximinus was an asset. Timesitheus had convinced him of the guilt of Magnus, and been awarded the province of Bithynia-Pontus. He had done the same with Valerius Apollinaris, and received his province of Asia. Here in Rome, the incompetence and venality of the previous incumbent had made it easy as Prefect of the Grain Supply to increase the dole while cutting the cost to the treasury. Another reward could be expected.

It was a difficult choice. Either he had to reaffirm his allegiance to a doomed regime, or throw in his lot with a revolution that showed scant chance of success. And Tranquillina was right, he had to make that decision soon. Still, clarity of thought demanded one thing at a time. Timesitheus packed the problem away down in the hold of his mind. Today he would settle his account with Armenius, and perhaps there might be opportunity enough to deal with the surviving son of Valerius Apollinaris as well. If you plan one murder, you might as well commit two.

The mob could be heard coming up from the Subura before it could be seen. A menacing roar, the individual shouts and chants indeterminate, torn away by the wind and rain. The bolder spirits, or the more rapacious, ran ahead up the steps. Then the street was filled with a bedraggled phalanx of the impecunious.

Castricius had done well. There were at least a hundred, perhaps many more, scoured from the drinking dens and brothels of the slums. Some carried firebrands, sawing in the wind. Most had knives. A knot of men near the front hefted a large beam of hardwood.

Enemies, enemies! Nail the friends of Maximinus on a cross!

Under his hood, Timesitheus smiled. Armenius had been a Praetor under Maximinus, but was no more his friend than most of the dozens who had held office during his reign.

Hostes, hostes! Nail them, drag them, burn them alive!

Young Castricius had shown admirable resource. Even the sordid plebs fought better if they believed they had a motive beyond mere gain. As if summoned by the thought, like an evil daemon conjured by an incautious word, Castricius was in front of Timesitheus.

‘The back gate?’

‘There are men there,’ Castricius said.

‘Then get to work.’

Castricius smiled — a look of pure delight on his little pointed, angular face — and skipped away.

Timesitheus wondered if he had met his equal in decisive amorality. He was seized by a transient curiosity. Where had the knife-boy come from? What had brought him to the Subura? He was intelligent, spoke good Greek, had educated manners and no lack of courage. Of course, none of it would do him any good. He was destined for the mines, the arena, or the cross.

Ineptly swung, the makeshift battering-ram struck the door. It did no more than rattle the boards.

In an instant, Castricius was there; darting about, pulling men into place, gesturing, shouting — one, two, three. The door jumped on its hinges, groaned. One, two, three. On the third blow, the leaves cracked open.

The mob surged through, momentarily choking the throat of the house with their numbers.

Timesitheus turned to the men behind him. It was important to have friends. Alcimus Felicianus was the Procurator in charge of the Flavian Amphitheatre and the Ludus Magnus, the largest gladiatorial school in Rome. Given the unrest, he had been unsurprised when Timesitheus had requested the loan of a couple of gladiators, not demurring when it was stressed that they should be men of discretion, not the sort who would baulk at any order. All Romans had debts to settle.

The gladiator called Narcissus handed Timesitheus the pantomime mask. The silvered leather depicted a young girl, impossibly beautiful, cold, with narrow slits for eyes and mouth. When Timesitheus put it on, his world narrowed, like a horse in blinkers.

The last of the mob were disappearing into the house. Timesitheus went after them, Narcissus and the other gladia-tor Iaculator following. Toughs from the Subura were fine for looting, spontaneous murder — but calculated killing called for professionals.

The battering-ram lay among the wreckage of the door. Timesitheus stepped over it. The passage into the house was dark, the atrium beyond light. As he emerged into the open space, the noise hit him. Behind the mask, he could not tell its direction. Through the eye holes he saw Castricius’ men hard at work in the surrounding rooms. Portable ornaments were thrust into bags, larger ones wantonly smashed. Furniture was broken, mosaics defaced. A man defecated in a corner. In one chamber a girl had been stripped naked, and was held down ready to be gang raped. Everything was going well.

Timesitheus hurried through the open-sided room that connected the atrium to the peristyle garden. Not many of the mob had penetrated so far yet. A few domestic servants flitted through the columns on the far side, seeking some illusory safety. A handful prostrated themselves before the lararium, beseeching the domestic deities. Fools, there were no gods to hear their prayers.

The set of rooms favoured by Armenius were to the left. A suborned slave had drawn a plan. Timesitheus had memo-rized the entire thing. The outer door was locked. The gladia-tors put their heavy shoulders to the painted panels. It was their diet, all those beans they ate, that made them so bulky. When the door gave, Timesitheus sprang through, sword in hand. The reception room was empty. A Corinthian bronze of an athlete, sheened with age, stood in the centre.

A connecting door led to a bedroom. Not waiting for the gladiators, Timesitheus kicked it open. The cover on the couch was rumpled. A papyrus roll and a glass stood on the bedside table. Timesitheus put his hand on the couch. It was still warm.

Armenius had fled moments before. Signing the gladiators to silence, Timesitheus wondered what he would have done. There were two choices: run or hide. If the latter, Timesitheus would have hidden in the servile quarters, hoping the mob would overlook them as containing little worth looting. Flight was a better option. There was only the one rear door, and that also was through where the slaves lived.

‘Follow me.’

Outside, under the colonnade, Timesitheus ran to the opening on the left. The passage was narrow, the unmortared bricks nearly brushing his shoulders. It was unlit, the air close. His own breathing and the boots of the gladiators were loud in his ears. Tiny cells opened on either side. Check the rear door first. The third opening on the left led there.

As soon as he turned, Timesitheus suspected that he was mistaken. Another corridor led to a storeroom, and no further. Forcing past the gladiators, retracing his steps, he took the next left. A longer passage. It doglegged left then right. The place was a rabbit warren, or a paltry vision of Hades.

More cells on either side. Cheap lamps burnt in some, illuminating tawdry trifles, pathetic attempts to humanize the occupants’ servitude. Timesitheus glimpsed a daubed scene on a wall. A large, pale woman sprawled, naked on a painted bed. Between her meaty thighs a diminutive darker man licked her cunt. He was all eyes and tongue, degraded forever by his unnatural desire.

Shouting ahead. A change in the air. Nearly at the door. Timesitheus rounded a corner, and almost impaled himself on the tip of on outthrust sword. Flinging himself sideways — pain flaring where his left shoulder crushed into the wall — the blade missed his ribs by a hand’s breadth.

His assailant recovered his balance with surprising grace for a large man. Another gladiator. He dropped into a fighting crouch. Timesitheus did the same. The eye slits of the mask restricted his vision; pantomime artists did not often have to fight for their lives. Sword up, he flipped his cloak around his left arm as an improvised shield. The space was too confined for his own gladiators to help. At least they were not crowding his back.

The bodyguard waited. He was there to delay. Timesitheus would have to take the attack to him. Too narrow to cut, it would have to be at the point of the sword, the steel close and deadly.

Timesitheus felt the rodent breath of fear. He would not let Armenius escape. He steadied himself, forced his terror away, heard the scrabble of retreating claws.

He feinted at the face, thrust to the stomach. The gladia-tor caught the blade on his own. Steel rasped on steel, high up near the pommel, near their fingers. They were almost chest to chest, an unwanted intimacy. Their breath hot in each other’s faces. Garlic and stale beans repulsive in Timesitheus’ nostrils.

Both stepped back, careful to give no opening.

Armenius could not escape. Not after all these efforts.

‘Ten thousand sesterces, let me pass.’

The gladiator did not answer.

‘Twenty.’

The gladiator spat.

Timesitheus did not see if the saliva hit him. Peering out from the mask, his eyes never left his opponent’s sword.

‘Suck my prick,’ the gladiator said.

He talked too much. He was a fool. Everyone had a price. Timesitheus had given him a chance. Now he would have to die.

Timesitheus moved his sword to the right. The man’s eyes followed the blade.

Without warning, Timesitheus flicked the trailing edge of his cloak up at the gladiator’s head. Instinctively, his oppo-nent brought his weapon across to protect his face. Ducking low, Timesitheus drove the point of his sword into the man’s guts, twisted the hilt, and withdrew.

Steel clattered onto the brick floor. Both hands clutching the wound, the gladiator dropped to his knees.

Timesitheus seized his victim’s hair with his left hand, yanked his head back. With precision, he thrust down into the man’s throat. A painful death, the steel scraping down inside the ribcage, but quick. One convulsion, and it was over.

Recovering his sword, Timesitheus pushed the dead man to the floor.

‘Follow me.’

Timesitheus stepped over the corpse. He was covered in blood, his hands and forearms slick.

The rear door gaped wide. No one was on guard. The rain-swept street was bright after the gloom of the corridor. Everywhere men shuffled and stooped, picking things up from the wet paving, like demented farmworkers harvesting some inedible crop. They straightened, bright things in their hands.

The oldest of ruses. Throw a purse in the air, and watch the plebs scramble for coins. They could not be blamed. Like dogs, they had been well trained in such tricks at the spectacles. It was their nature.

Armenius had got away. The rain beating on his back, Timesitheus wondered how to win something from this defeat. The antique bronze statue would go well in his house. No, with Armenius alive, it would be too easy to trace. This had been about principle, not short term gain. Another day.

Timesitheus would take a clean cloak from one of the gladiators, remove his mask in the shade of its hood, and slip away. Only three men knew he had been here, and Castricius and the gladiators had been well paid for their silence. Armenius could wait until another day.