Saviour of Rome

XIV

The light of a full moon turned the river into a ribbon of molten silver and confirmed Serpentius was on course. Fourteen men had escaped the tunnel; now they were only nine. They’d barely travelled three miles before the weakest had pleaded to stop and rest. Serpentius ignored them and carried on without a backward glance, his loping leopard’s stride covering the ground with relentless stamina. The others had hesitated, but they knew their pursuers couldn’t be far behind and soon the desperate cries faded.

Nine, but the best of them. Clitus and Thaumasto, a grinning thief called Placido, and five others who were just names to him: Elius, Floro, Felix, Gentilis and Celer. They wasted precious moments before they found a crossing point a little way upstream from a triple-arched Roman bridge. Serpentius knew they’d have made faster progress using the road, but three times already they’d been forced into cover as single riders passed at the gallop. Without hesitation he plunged into the water and forced his way thigh deep through the powerful flow. The others followed readily enough, but as they climbed the far bank Serpentius winced at a sharp cry. He looked back to see Thaumasto bent over and holding his ankle, teeth gritted against the pain.

Clitus went back to check on his friend. ‘It’s just a sprain,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll help him until it eases.’

‘No you won’t. He can manage on his own.’ Serpentius met Thaumasto’s eyes and hardened his heart against the plea he saw there. ‘We’re wasting time.’

Serpentius carried on, but Clitus stood his ground. ‘We wouldn’t have got out of the mine without him,’ he persisted. ‘He fought while others lay there and did nothing. Have you no compassion?’

Serpentius stopped and let out a long breath. He turned and strode back to where Clitus stood by the injured man. ‘Do you hear that?’ He put his face to Clitus’s. At first the only sound Clitus could hear was the rush of the river, but gradually he made out a faint baying that froze his blood. ‘They’ll be here soon,’ Serpentius continued. ‘If we cross the river two or three more times we can delay them long enough to give ourselves a chance. What do you think will happen if we carry Thaumasto?’ He drew the dagger from his belt and placed it in Thaumasto’s hand. ‘You were brave at the mine,’ he said quietly. ‘Now you must be braver still.’

He turned and led the men through the scrub that lined the river bank. After a few moments he sensed Clitus by his side. The river snaked its way through the valley, sometimes hemmed in close by the hills on one bank, and sometimes the other. Twice more in the next hour they crossed. The dogs would lose the scent where they entered, but the hunters would carry on in case they were being tricked before they finally decided to cross. The ruse cost precious time, but for what Serpentius had in mind it was vital to put confusion in the minds of his pursuers.

The sight of the Roman bridge had brought back a memory. He knew exactly where they were. And that meant they still had a chance.

A mile ahead he recognized the place he was looking for. ‘We cross here,’ he said. ‘But we only go a hundred paces before we cross back.’ The others looked at him in puzzlement. ‘You must trust me.’

They crossed and recrossed. At the point where they returned to the bank a large rock jutted out from the hillside.

‘Wait here,’ Serpentius ordered, as the men gathered in the shadow of the boulder.

They watched bemused as he continued north for forty or fifty paces before retracing his steps.

‘Now …’ He chewed his lip and stared at the flat rock face that rose ten feet above them before it angled to meet the near sheer hillside. ‘Clitus? Placido? Stand here and join hands, like this.’ He made his fingers into a cradle and the two men did as he asked despite their bewilderment. They stood facing each other about two feet from the rock. Serpentius took three steps back. ‘When I shout, you heave upwards with all your strength. Do you understand? Wait for my shout.’

Clitus and Placido nodded. The other men stood watching, their faces a mask of suspicion. Serpentius knew what they were thinking. Was he going to abandon them? But that wasn’t his problem. He launched himself forward. One, two. On the third stride he lifted his right foot into the cradle created by the four hands and pushed himself upwards. ‘Now!’ He used the lift to propel him high enough so his hands hooked over the edge of the boulder, hung for a moment with bolts of fire shooting down his arms, then, with an acrobatic flip, twisted his whole body on to the top surface. He lay with his back to the cold stone breathing heavily for a few seconds. The sound of barking could be heard clearly now. It would be so easy just to get up and leave them to their fate.

Shrugging off the thought, he raised himself on one knee and untied the leather sword belt he’d taken from the dead guard. The scabbard was attached by two loops and he pulled the belt from them and lay on his stomach on the lip of the boulder. ‘Clitus? Get someone to lift you and grab hold of this.’

Placido was the last man and they retrieved him by tying three sword belts together and lowering them down to him. Ten minutes later they were two hundred feet up an almost invisible track that zig-zagged its way across the mountainside. Serpentius would never have found it, but for the fact he’d passed this way once on the return from a plunder raid on one of the valley settlements. The ‘path’ was a mere inches-wide ledge of dust and pebbles that sometimes disappeared completely, and even the Spaniard was forced to watch where he put his feet. His companions clung to the rock wall and edged their way forward as best they could, always conscious of the long slope below. It wasn’t a sheer drop, but anyone who slipped wouldn’t stop tumbling until they hit the river bank.

As he climbed, Serpentius was constantly aware of the rising volume of the hounds’ cries. He knew the type of dogs the mine overseers used to hunt down escapers: big rangy beasts, long of leg and deep of chest, bred to bring down deer and boar and see off wolves. They’d been trained to hate men in rags and to follow the scent of fear. If their handlers were slow to reach them they could tear a man apart. He registered the moment they lost the scent downstream, soon confirmed by the shouts of the hunters.

‘Stay,’ he hissed to Placido, the man behind him. He dropped to a crouch and the others followed suit. The moment the hunters recrossed the river would be the most dangerous, when they were looking directly towards the mountain and had time to allow their eyes to drift upwards. Better to stay still and avoid the chance of making a noise that would attract attention. A single rolling pebble would be the death of them all.

They waited, frozen in place while the hunters and their dogs climbed the near bank in the shadow of the big boulder, followed by a half century of what looked like auxiliary infantry. The dogs found the scent again almost instantly and set off on the false trail Serpentius had created, only to lose it just as quickly. He heard the hunters curse and risked a glance as they huddled together to discuss whether to carry on or cross the river again. The officer in charge of the soldiers harangued the men for a decision and soon they were climbing down the bank and recrossing the rushing waters. Serpentius could almost feel the relief in the men around him, but he knew this was only a temporary reprieve. Eventually the hunters would work out what they’d done and they’d soon discover the path. He waited until the sound of the hounds faded before rising and setting off again, shoulders hunched against the slope.

Serpentius allowed them a short rest when they reached the top and shared out the food they’d found on the bodies of the guards. As he chewed on the hard bread he felt a rare moment of uncertainty. He knew where he wanted to go but not what he’d do when he arrived.

The other problem was getting there.

The full moon provided a certain amount of visibility and confirmed his memories of the place. From here the mountain rose in a series of boulder- and scree-strewn slopes and false crests, broken ground carpeted in scrubby trees. Treacherous terrain even in daylight. These were Serpentius’s mountains, but he knew the dangers of travelling by night.

Should he risk waiting for dawn and the certainty of reaching his destination, or forge ahead and risk losing more men?

He let his eyes drift over them. Clitus he could depend on up to a point, and Placido and possibly one or two others. The rest were too weak or too beaten by their captivity to be of help in a fight. He could survive alone in these hills, so it was obvious: wait till they fell asleep then slip away and let them live or die on their wits. Wasn’t that the way it had always been? The strong survived and the weak perished.

The old Serpentius would have abandoned them without a thought and with a sneer at their weakness. But he wasn’t the old Serpentius. When he’d whispered his plans in the eternal darkness of the deep mine they’d placed their faith in him. True, some hadn’t acted when they should have, but in battle it was always that way. Valerius would never have considered leaving them. Responsibility, that was it. Valerius had always taken responsibility for the men under his command, whether they deserved it or not. It had been like that at Bedriacum, where he could have left the First Adiutrix to their fate, and at Cremona the year after when he’d led the suicidal charge that had saved the Seventh Galbiana.

‘We’ll rest here for the night and continue at dawn,’ he whispered to Clitus. He saw the exhausted man’s eyes roll in relief. ‘I’ll take the first watch, you take the second. I’ll wake you when the moon is above the highest tree.’

‘Yes, lord,’ the other man whispered, his eyes already closing.

In the moonlit gloom Serpentius smiled. Slave, freedman and now lord. If he lived it couldn’t be too long before he became Emperor. If he lived.

As he sat with his back to a stunted tree his nostrils detected a scent of pine that took him back to his youth. A girl. What had her name been? His hand went to the depression on the back of his skull. He’d had difficulty remembering things since it happened, but at least the ghost moments when he wasn’t certain whether he was dead or alive had stopped. A girl. With hair the colour of a raven’s wing and eyes that flashed like fire. Hard breasts that pressed into him when he kissed her under the pines and that glistened with droplets when they swam naked in the river. She’d been a year older and she’d taken him as her own, flaunting him like a trophy of her womanhood. It couldn’t last, of course. They’d been too strong-willed. Like iron and flint striking together they’d created sparks. She’d come at him with a knife one day and that had been that. He grinned, but the grin quickly faded at the sound of the dogs returning below.

He shook Clitus by the shoulder. ‘Change of plan. Wake the others.’

One of them wouldn’t wake. Celer, an older man who’d been in the mine longer than most. Serpentius had been surprised he’d lasted this long. Clitus shook the sleeping man, but he didn’t move. ‘I think he’s dead.’

Closer inspection proved Clitus was right. Celer hadn’t been ill or any more exhausted than the rest of them. He’d just given up. The life force that sustained him had faded and died. There was no way to bury him in the rocky ground. And no time.

Because they were coming.

Serpentius struggled to maintain a straight course as they stumbled through the darkness, but it was near impossible among the rocks and the brush and the scrub pine. The best he could do was work his way in the general direction with low branches whipping his face and viciously hooked brambles tearing at his bare legs. His injured feet burned like balls of fire and had started bleeding again. The moonlight created random patches of dark and light beneath the trees that made it difficult to read the ground. He stepped into one dark area and felt himself pitch forward, nothing but air beneath his foot. A bolt of terror shot through him as he realized what it was. Careless fool. One mistake and it is your last. He was already greeting the gods when a hand grabbed the rear of his tunic and hauled him back to the brink, where he stood for a long moment on shaking legs.

‘Vertical mine,’ Clitus said. ‘Probably worked out before the Romans came, or maybe it was just a test pit.’

‘Either way it was almost my tomb,’ Serpentius said breathlessly. ‘You have my thanks, Clitus, and some day I will repay this debt if I can.’

‘There is no debt,’ the other man said solemnly. ‘But for you we would still have been down the mine. At least if we die here, we do so in the clean air and not lying in our own filth in that choking pit. Wherever you lead I will follow. The others feel the same.’

Serpentius felt a moment of shame that he’d considered abandoning these men. ‘Warn the rest about the pit,’ he said gruffly. ‘And tell them to watch their feet. It may not be the only one.’

Dawn found them on a ridge line and when he studied the shapes of the mountains around them Serpentius discovered to his relief he was less than a mile off course. As he pushed on through the dense scrub a flare of excitement rose in him. They were going to do it.

As he pulled aside a branch to enter a sunlit clearing he became instantly aware of another presence. A bearded soldier leaned on his spear less than four feet away. An auxiliary caught half asleep, but already bringing his spear up to meet the unexpected threat. Serpentius, the former gladiator, drew his sword in a single lightning movement and swung it backhanded across the man’s throat, cutting through beard, flesh and sinew until the edge grated off the bone of his spine. A spray of blood misted the air and the auxiliary’s head flopped forward as he dropped like a stone.

Serpentius spun at the sound of a new threat from behind, the bloody sword raised and ready to strike. The blade froze an inch from Clitus’s neck. ‘Get back,’ Serpentius hissed. ‘He was a sentry and his friends will find him soon enough.’

How had they managed to work their way in front of him? How many were there? Whatever the answers he cursed himself for allowing his companions to stop and rest. The soldiers must have found another track into the hills. That didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that they were here. He led his ragged comrades in a wide arc away from the auxiliary encampment. When they were well clear he increased his pace to a trot and called Clitus up beside him.

‘We’ll soon reach a narrow gorge with a single bridge. It’s a rickety thing, just planks and rope, but it’ll get us across. Once we’re over we’ll cut the ropes.’

‘What if they’re already across?’

‘Always the cheerful one, Clitus,’ Serpentius grinned. ‘In that case the gods have forsaken us and we’re already dead.’

‘Back there,’ Clitus wheezed. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. He saw you and he was dead. I wasn’t even certain you’d moved until I saw the blood. How …?’

‘I’ve spent a lifetime killing people, my friend. I know a thousand different ways and if we get out of this alive I might even teach you a few.’

Soon they broke out of the trees into the open and a barren area of flat, dusty ground. Serpentius could see the dark line of the gorge a quarter of a mile ahead. A pair of upright posts marked the position of the bridge. The Spaniard angled his run towards them with the others staggering behind, their weakened frames already blown by the short run.

Something wasn’t right. He could see the posts on the near side of the gorge, but not on the far one. His blood went cold as they reached the ravine and he understood why.

The bridge was gone.