Legionary

Chapter 3

While Constantinople bustled with activity on a very ordinary late winter morning, a lean, tired faced man with receding, close-cropped chestnut hair ambled up to the Palace of the Holy See. He stopped at the side gate and eyed the urban guard furtively.

‘I’m here to see the bishop. He is expecting me,’ he muttered, pulling his rough hemp robe a little tighter.

The guard looked apprehensive. ‘Oh. And you are…?’

The robed man shuffled in discomfort. ‘You don’t need to know.’

The urban guard tilted his helmet back, scratching his forehead with a grin. ‘Thing is, I’m afraid I do. I’m under orders not to let anyone in, unless they have an appointment. And any troublemakers…’ the guard drummed his fingers on his scabbard.

‘Bosporus,’ the man hissed, eyes darting around the passing citizens.

The guard looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face dropped as he recognised the password. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, pushing the gate open.

Senator Peleus suppressed the urge to glare at the guard — lest he might be recognised. Instead, he kept his head down, made his way across the courtyard and over a bed of gravel directly to a rusting cellar door. The latch clicked as he heaved it open — unlocked as arranged — then he descended the steps into the gloom. He carefully paced along the candlelit corridor at the bottom, passing storeroom after storeroom, stacked with crates and bundles. Then he saw the ostentatious bulwark that was so clearly the treasure vault door. Going by its thickness, the Holy See was more than financially sound, he noted. Towards the end of the corridor, Peleus veered into the unused section of the vault network, distinguished by its darkness. He walked blind, feeling for each pillar, counting. Two, three, turn left, one, two, three, four. Claustrophobia clawed at his throat as all around him was silent and pitch-black. Only the chill air and cool damp of the floor tickled his senses. Only one more pillar, he repeated in his head, reaching out. At the same time as his fingers touched the cool pillar, a welcome halo of orange candlelight was revealed from the vault to his left. He shuffled into its paltry warmth and waited.

The location was unbecoming of men of such high station. Dank and musty, the dripping brickwork glistened all around him like the night sky. The life of a sewer rat, Senator Peleus shivered, pulling his robe a little tighter around his slender frame.

From above, the dull and distant clopping of palace slaves going about their business reverberated around the cellar vault. Yet, while they worked in the sunlit land of the living, their master was to conduct his business down here with a senator. How absurd!

Even more absurd was the fact that Peleus had never taken such a risk, indeed any risk, in his entire career. Until now. And this risk would be shared with every soul in the empire. The promise of wealth and power had seemed so much more glamorous when he had talked it over with the bishop at the festival, hubris and wine coursing through his veins. Now there was only the chill reality of what they had set in motion. It’s not too late, a voice screamed in his head. He tried to remember the count of pillars, and then turned to step away from the candlelight.

Behind him, a shadowy figure emerged from the gloom.

Outside the main gate of the Palace of the Holy See, a gangly, hook-nosed and shaven-headed young man stood in front of the two urban guards, looking to each one expectantly.

‘Yep, he’s legit,’ the first guard grunted to his colleague, ‘the bishop said to expect a slave from Senator Tarquitius. Search ‘im though.’

Pavo raised his arms with a sigh of resignation as the second guard began patting down his frayed brown tunic. Clearly, he carried only the wax tablet in his hand, but slaves will be slaves and the urban guard will be whoresons, he chuckled to himself. Then he winced as the guard ran fingers over the fresh scabs on his ribs. He gazed up at the main gate and then the ornate structure inside. This would be his first visit to the palace. Despite passing it almost every time he was sent on one of these errands, its magnificence never failed to captivate. Indeed, he considered, it rivalled even the Imperial Palace in sheer size.

‘He’s clear,’ the guard grunted, ‘smells like he’s been rolling in camel turds though.’

‘Funny you should say that. I have, just for you…’ Pavo beamed.

‘On your way, stinkin’ runt,’ the first guard shoved the gate open and the second bundled him forward.

Pavo inhaled the fresh medley of winter blooms lining the courtyard. If only he had time to dawdle, he mused. No, hand over the wax tablet, pick up the package, and head straight back by noon. Otherwise, as his ribs testified, Tarquitius’ animal bodyguard, Fronto, would use him as a whipping post yet again. So no time to sneak in a little reading session at the library either, he sighed. There was a tiny sliver of give in his schedule though, he mused, feeling the coiled wire concealed under his tongue.

He hopped up the steps, waving the wax tablet at the guards on the door.

‘Secretary’s office is straight through,’ the guard nodded to the door at the end of the hallway.

The air inside was pleasantly warm thanks to the underfloor heating, despite the cavernous ceilings. He noted the small and very ordinary oak door about half way along, touching his tongue to the concealed wire once more. Each of his footsteps sent a clattering echo around the vast space, quieting only as he entered the modestly sized office at the end. Between a tight spiral staircase and a window on the far side of the office, the secretary, a squat and puffy faced old man, sitting by a table covered with sealed papers and a stack of scrolls; his brow furrowed as he studied one.

‘Message from Senator Tarquitius?’ Pavo offered.

The secretary looked up, angered at the interruption. ‘Hmm?’ Then his face lightened. ‘Oh, yes.’ He ducked down under the table and rummaged before reappearing with a small canvas purse. He held his hands out for the tablet and dropped the sack into Pavo’s grip, then scribbled something on a piece of parchment, tore it free and handed it to Pavo and returned to his scroll without further comment. Pavo wondered at the metallic clunking from the weighty purse. Probably enough currency to buy his freedom a thousand times over, he mused. Then his mind turned to his other business.

Turning back into the corridor, he checked all around; no guards looking his way. He slipped off his sandals and tucked them into his belt; now his steps were silent on the floor and the guards at the main entrance oblivious to his presence. He rooted the wire from his mouth with a finger, uncoiled it into a two-pronged fork-shape, and then slipped it into the lock, placing his other hand on the handle. He twisted until something caught on the prongs and then turned, but the wire bent like a limp rag. Damn it! Even his thoughts seemed to echo along the hall and he shot another nervous glance at the door guards, but they were still turned. He reshaped the wire and tried again. This time, with an iron clunk, the lock moved and the handle turned. The door edged open in merciful silence. He held his breath and slipped into the darkness it concealed. With a muted clunk, the door was closed again, and he was on a shadowy staircase, punctuated only by an occasional candle. The cold stone grew damp underfoot as he descended, until it became decidedly wet as he reached the bottom. A network of cellar vaults disappeared off into darkness in front of him. He made his way carefully forward. The treasure room was just beyond this shadowy honeycomb. The treasure room and the golden idol of Jupiter. A shiver of fear and anticipation danced up his spine.

Only a week previously, Pavo had been sitting on the edge of the Augusteum resting against a palm, swigging from his water skin. Having run to the senate house and then to the walls to drop off packages, he had earned himself some precious time. He had resolved to catch his breath and then head for the library, but a hand had gripped his shoulder.

‘I have a job that needs taking care of, and I hear you’re always keen to earn a few extra coins?’ A jagged Greek voice asked.

Pavo had looked up to see a broad nose poking from a hooded cloak. ‘You must have mistaken me for someone else.’

‘I don’t think so,’ the Greek continued, unperturbed. ‘My client is unhappy that something which belongs to him is in the hands of the Holy See. The door to the treasure vault has a flaw in its lock. Take this wire…’

Forty folles were to be his for retrieving the idol. Probably a scant fraction of the value of the piece, but a slave could never hope to sell the idol. More importantly, those forty folles were another step towards buying his freedom. Well, if his money did not go missing again, as it had last year when he had almost accrued enough.

Pavo stumbled on a loose flagstone, yanking him back to the present in the dark, cold cellar vaults. How long had he been walking? Had he taken a wrong turn? He cursed his own absent-mindedness. Then his eyes settled on a dim orange glow up ahead. Then, as he stalked forward, something flickered in the light that halted the blood in his veins; some amorphous figure, as tall as a person, writhing in the gloom. He crouched as he approached, feeling his way around each pillar until he heard it — a soft gurgle.

His heart thundered as the shape took form in the candlelight: two heads, one facing Pavo, eyes bulging, mouth retching, blood sputtering from its lips; the other, white haired, faced away from Pavo, hugging the first and jerking violently once, twice and again, each time another jet of blood would lurch from the first head’s mouth. Pavo covered his lips and stumbled back in disgust, the purse thudding onto the ground.

At once, the shape split into two. The first part was a bleeding head with staring eyes on top of a tall, lean body, pockmarked with stab wounds. The second part was a white-haired old man in equally white, pristine robes, his hand and the dagger in it coated in a starkly contrasting crimson. The tall figure crumpled to the ground with a last rattle of breath. The old man stared at Pavo. Then he stalked forward. Pavo mouthed silent syllables, scrabbling back on the heels of his hands. The old man emitted a howl and rushed for him, dagger raised. Pavo grabbed the purse, scrambled to his feet, and hurtled into the darkness of the vaults.

The blackness offered nothing as he bounced from pillar to pillar, while the rapping footfall of the old man seemed to be always only a dagger swipe behind. Pavo tossed the purse to one side, the contents clunking down and spraying across the cellar floor. At last, the old man’s footsteps slowed at the distraction. Pavo would die for the loss of the purse. Nevertheless, it was that or dying on a dagger tip here and now.

He scrambled on until a chink of light beckoned him in one particular direction, a candlelit corridor. Running onward, he barely noticed the treasure vault as he sped past it, on through an array of storerooms, then up a flight of stairs before bursting through a rusted door and out into the stark daylight of the palace grounds. He skidded and fell onto a bed of gravel, blinking.

Birds sang over the steady hum of the crowd outside, and the bored guards stood by the gates and doors, ignorant of Pavo’s nightmarish encounter. As his breath stilled, disbelief swirled inside him. Had that all really happened? Surely he had to go back for the purse — otherwise, execution was a certainty. The crisp normality of the late winter morning persuaded him, and he stood to go back to the cellar door. But the door burst open at that very moment, and the snow-white haired and white robed old man stood, panting, face creased in fury, with a golden Christian Chi-Rho cross dangling around his neck. He extended a bony finger at Pavo.

‘Stop the thief!’ The man roared.

At once, the guards were jolted to life, haring in on Pavo, spathas sliding from their scabbards. For barely the blink of an eye, Pavo considered reasoning with them, then turned on his heel and sprinted for the main gate. From that direction, two guards came at him and they jostled as he tried to barge past. Then one of them chopped their spatha down, slitting a fine red line on Pavo’s shoulder. He leapt back and spun; swords came at him from every direction — apart from the palace door. He thundered across the courtyard and in through the cavernous corridor. He burst into the secretary’s office, hurdled the table, leaving a screaming secretary and a blizzard of scrolls and papers tumbling through the air in his wake, before launching himself up the staircase.

It was narrow and spiralling, and his limbs leadened as quickly as his breath grew fiery. However, the clatter of urban guards right behind him spurred him on until he stuttered to a halt as the staircase ended on a rooftop balcony. A red-tiled roof sloped up behind him and a three-story drop onto flagstones yawned in front of him.

‘You’re dead, thief!’ One guard cried as he rounded the last spiral of stairs.

Encouraged by that and similar comments, Pavo hurdled over the balcony edge and slapped prone onto the roof, only to feel the tiles slip under him. He clawed at the tiles above as his legs began to slide from the edge, kicking into thin air. A swarm of guards buzzed on the courtyard below, sensing a reward for catching the intruder.

The crack of a breaking tile pulled his eyes back towards the balcony. One guard had ventured carefully across the tiles and stood over him, grinning like a shark, and holding out a hand. ‘You’ve got two choices, thief. You take my hand and I’ll give you a quick death. Or, you can let go,’ he flicked his eyebrows up and nodded down to the courtyard.

Pavo gritted his teeth and let go.

He thrust an arm out at the wall in a dead man's desperation. Swathes of ice-smooth marble mocked him as it glided past. He screwed his eyes shut and waited on the shattering impact of the flagstones. Then, with a crunch of bone and gristle, his arm was nearly jolted from its socket, and his world became still again.

Prying one eye open, he looked down. The guards gawked up at him, dangling from a snarling carved lion head, barely a story up. Bless Emperor Valens and his embellishment program. At the palace gates, a crowd had gathered to take in the excitement. Seemingly, it was better to watch a slave being beaten to death than to spend the day earning an honest crust. Then they began to cheer as the guards silently grinned and drew their bows.

The twang of bowstrings harmonised with a stony crunch as the carving shuddered loose from the wall under his weight. One arrow ripped his earlobe; the rest whacking against the marble, while Pavo pivoted round and straight through the sectioned glass of a window directly below. Shards pierced his skin as he slid across the floor inside, but fright had him on his feet and racing, he was on an inner balcony, one floor up, and the corridor below was clear. Sensing an unlikely escape, he hopped over the balcony and fell onto the floor below with a grunt, then bounded for the main door of the palace. Unguarded! They’re all looking for me back there!

As he burst through the doorway, sunshine bathed him — never had it felt so warm. Then, by his side, a glint of metal flashed. Urban guard armour. A dull crunch tore through his head.

‘…that’ll teach ‘im,’ a voice chuckled.

Hitting the ground like a sack of rubble, his mind swam in ever-blackening circles. Then he heard footsteps approaching.

‘He’s barely a grown man?’ a frail voice spoke. ‘And he’s built like a gazelle, you fools — what does the Holy See pay you for?’

Pavo pried open an eye just enough to see the blurry figure of the old man with the snow-white hair.

‘It won’t happen again, Bishop Evagrius,’ a shamed guard replied. ‘It’s the slave from that senator.’

‘Senator Tarquitius,’ the bishop spat.

‘Shall we slit his throat?’ The guard offered enthusiastically, grinning at Pavo as if he was a cut of raw meat.

The bishop hesitated, looked around at the gathering crowd of administrators, guards and slaves, and then sighed. He leaned in closer to the guard and spoke in a hushed voice. ‘Unfortunately the situation is delicate. This slave must die, but he’s not my property. Take him to Tarquitius’ villa. See that the senator opens his throat by sunset.’

A gold Chi-Rho cross was swinging from a chain around the bishop’s neck. Pavo’s vision turned tunnel-like, fixed on the Christian symbol. His mind sank deeper into a muddy haze. Pavo lifted his head groggily and opened his mouth to speak, when a sword hilt smashed into his face.

All was black.

The mild breeze of the afternoon swirled around the villa from the open shutters. Pavo’s legs wobbled as another screaming wave of pain washed from the lump above his left eye, crowned with dried blood caked into his bristled scalp. Yet he stood firm, for today, he was to face his fate.

His master’s pristine villa contrasted absurdly with the slave quarters in the cellar. The filthy packed dirt floor, pooled with stagnant water, was his to call home — his and three other slaves, packed into the tiny space. Brackish water, hard cheese and fouling meat scraps were brought to them once a day. Toil in the wildly ostentatious gardens and around the villa was the diet at all other times. A bleak life, but one that he could almost tolerate, were it not for the beatings. His only grace was that, so far, Tarquitius and his senatorial cronies had not turned their sexual attentions on him, but almost every other male slave had been left bleeding and haunted after being dragged away for a night. Every morning he had run his chapped fingertips over his only possession; the legionary phalera — tracing it lightly for fear of rubbing away the precious engraving. He wore it around his neck on a leather thong. Despite everything, and in his father’s memory, the fight had never left him.

That he was living his final moments was not so much of a surprise. What puzzled him more was that he had survived so many of the illicit ‘jobs’. It had begun five years ago, when he was just fifteen, after a chance meeting with a shadowy character outside the Hippodrome. He had started taking on sorties for the Blues and the Greens — the pseudo-political gang rabbles who held sway on the streets of the capital. Once before, while on a job for the Greens, the Blues had caught him, then proceeded to beat him into unconsciousness, leaving him for dead in the gutter. He remembered that sensation; the numbness, the feeling of darkness creeping slowly through his flesh. He had lain there all night, and only when the morning sun touched his skin was he able to move, to crawl back to Tarquitius' villa. He shuddered at the memory and prayed that if he was to die today, that it would be a quick death.

Purposeful footsteps hammered towards the door behind him. Pavo jolted as the doors shot apart, crashing against the walls. The footsteps rapped up behind him and then stopped dead. Silence curled its fingers around his neck, but he resisted the urge to turn around.

‘Pavo! You treacherous little runt! I keep you, feed you…have you any idea what you’ve done? Have you?’

The broad, toga-clad figure of Tarquitius strode into view to seethe in front of him. Thirteen years had done little to improve the senator’s sickly appearance. More than matched for height these days, he struggled to avoid Tarquitius’ bloodshot, bulging eyes.

‘A senator’s name is not to be sullied!’ Tarquitius barked in a tone so high pitched that his voice crackled off towards the end of the sentence. ‘A slave will not shame his master! A thief is disgrace enough — but to insult my name by stealing from the bishop?’

Pavo tried to suppress the small itch in his throat, but it grew into words that tumbled from his lips. ‘I stole nothing. A man was murdered…’

‘Silence!’ Tarquitius’ cry reverberated around the room and his hand whipped up — the stumpy knuckles hovered in a fist, inches from Pavo’s face. The two stared at each other.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Pavo spoke, his voice trembling. Every other slave had suffered terrible wounds from the same hand. Some had been battered into total paralysis and some to death. Fronto the slave master had broken nearly every bone in Pavo’s body over the years, but Tarquitius had never hit him. Not once. He thought of that day in the slave market and the crone. See that the boy comes to no harm from your hand.

Tarquitius’ eyes narrowed and he lowered his hand. ‘You play a dangerous game, boy. The bishop expects your throat to be cut. No, he demands your blood!’ He hissed, his breath reeking of garlic. ‘I cannot let this go unpunished. The bishop wants you gone from this world, and that is what must happen.’

Pavo’s skin crawled.

‘Fronto!’ He snarled, the name bouncing around the villa, searching the corridors for the slave master.

So there would be one last bout of pain. Just like the beatings. The physical agony was nothing to him now — just a routine, really. Yet the darkness of death crept on his skin as it hared in on him.

‘My name will be sullied if the senate house finds out about this,’ Tarquitius grumbled.

Pavo blinked, eyeing the senator, something was different about his tone.

‘But…you are to be…freed,’ Tarquitius spat the words like a sinew of troublesome meat. ‘Freed and exiled.’

Pavo’s stomach fell away. Freedom? That distant memory.

‘Don’t get too excited, boy,’ Tarquitius’ mouth curled up into a grin. ‘Exiled to the edge of the empire. Invasion territory. Your days will be spent with the limitanei.’

‘The border legions?’

A posting to the border legions was thought little more than a delayed death sentence, with the limits of the empire awash with rampant barbarian hordes. However, his heart tasted only sweet liberation, spiced with fear of the unknown. He lifted his hand to touch the bronze disc through his tunic.

‘When you fall at the end of a sword, then my hands are clean,’ Tarquitius warbled, his chin quivering in stubborn belief.

The crone, Pavo realised. His life was being spared — no, probably just prolonged for a short period. All because of the crone. His head echoed with a thousand questions, but one roared the loudest.

‘What did she say to you?’ He probed. ‘That day — what did she say to you?’

Tarquitius’ face whitened and his eyes bulged. His tongue jabbed out to moisten his trembling lips. But before anything could come out, Fronto bowled into the room behind him, a stench of sweat announcing his arrival.

‘Master?’

Tarquitius continued to stare wide-eyed at Pavo, but addressed his slave master. ‘Get this boy out of my villa and down to the docks. Wear hoods and be sure you go unrecognised. Purchase a berth for him to travel on the next ferry to Tomis. The border garrison at Durostorum will be glad of another piece of barbarian spear-fodder.’ He turned to Pavo. ‘I have sent a messenger to tell them to expect you, so turn up, or there’ll be a slave-hunt on top of you within days, and they will show you no mercy, boy.’

He turned away, but then spun back, drawing eye to eye with Pavo, grinning terribly. ‘You will be dead within the year, boy, I can assure you. But should you show your face in this city again…’ he began, wide-eyed.

Then his face dropped.

‘…and you will die horribly.’