Saviour of Rome

XXII

When Valerius walked from the mine into the glare of the late morning sunlight it felt as if he was emerging from a tomb. He could only imagine the torment of the filthy, shackled men who staggered from the shaft in his wake, hampered by their ankle chains and whipped by overseers for the slightest stumble. When they reached the entrance the prisoners cried out at the searing brightness of the longed for sun and threw up their hands to protect eyes that had seen nothing more brilliant for six months than the flame of an oil lamp. They sucked in the air as if it was the sweetest nectar and some fell to their knees to kiss the earth. Whatever evils they’d committed Valerius felt only pity for these men. Before the day was out they would be consigned to the deepest levels of the next mine up the valley.

He looked around for Aurelio, but despite his promise neither the guide nor his mount was anywhere to be seen. But Valerius was given no opportunity to search for him.

‘Please, we must hurry.’ Nepos ushered him towards the horses. ‘There is not a moment to lose.’ As they wound their way up the mountainside the tunnel manager explained that the prefect in charge of the mine didn’t want to waste another minute of daylight. ‘We still have many hours of daylight left and the men standing around idle. It will not do.’

Up and up, until the mine entrance was just a speck on the landscape below, identifiable only by the spoil heaps dotting the ground nearby, and the deep channel that led arrow straight down the slope towards it. When they reached the sluice gates Valerius discovered they held back an astonishing volume of water in a reservoir cut from the rock. A dozen slaves stood by the winding mechanism waiting for word to release the deluge.

Even though he’d witnessed the results of ruina montium, Valerius couldn’t quite bring himself to believe this innocuous pool of inert liquid was capable of creating such incredible destruction.

Nepos dismounted and approached a tall, thin man with a long nose. He stood beside a priest holding a young goat that bleated and struggled in his arms. They had set up a small, portable stone altar nearby. After a short discussion the thin man nodded. The priest began a long chanted appeal to Pluto, god of the underworld, to accept this sacrifice and yield up the wealth of his realm to Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, through the medium of Gaius Ulpius Frontinus, district procurator. When he’d completed the call he drew a razor-edged knife across the goat’s throat, allowing the blood to pour over the altar. Gradually the animal’s struggles ceased and he placed the carcass on the ground and opened its belly. Nodding to himself, he prodded among its entrails until he found some piece of offal that pleased him immensely.

‘The omens are good,’ he announced with a look of satisfaction.

The thin man, presumably Frontinus, rapped out an order to a worker and the man waved a red flag twice above his head. Far below the flag was answered in similar fashion from the centre of a large group of workers who had gathered a distance to the west of the mine entrance.

‘Now!’ Frontinus cried.

Urged on by an overseer the men at the sluice launched themselves at the winding mechanism, a large circular block with wooden staves protruding from it. Within moments the gate creaked as pressure was brought to bear by a system of ropes and pulleys. At first it seemed even the efforts of twelve strong men couldn’t shift the massive gate, which consisted of seven or eight tree trunks, roughly shaped and covered in pitch. But they persevered, barking out a rhythmic chant as they heaved at the staves. Valerius noticed a tiny spray of water at the base, which multiplied until it formed a trickle, then a stream. As the gate slowly rose the stream turned into a torrent that tumbled down the channel, bubbling and frothing and picking up speed with every passing moment. Still higher and the torrent became a raging force of nature emerging in a single enormous fountain a dozen paces long that rumbled and thundered and was barely contained by the channel. By now the first of the waters had reached the entrance of the mine and Valerius could hear a muted roar above the rush of the flood.

‘Observe how the waters enter the mine shaft to be absorbed by the chambers.’ Valerius found Nepos at his side, his eyes bright with anticipation. ‘A certain amount will already be filtering into the lower levels, but the majority will fill the upper tunnels, sealing the air inside the mine. We call this method hydraulic, because of the canals and reservoirs, but in truth the air itself is our greatest weapon. As more and more water is forced into the shaft and fills the second level the pressure builds and the air is compressed. May I ask what you think will happen then?’

‘If I had not seen what I have seen, I would say that the waters would reach a point where the mine could accept no more,’ Valerius admitted.

‘Then you will certainly be surprised,’ Nepos smiled.

They waited. And waited. Nothing happened, but Valerius could almost feel the sense of anticipation growing. Nepos leaned forward, craning his neck.

‘What-?’

The climax was so unexpected Valerius was almost knocked off his feet. His eyes were fixed on the cave mouth when the hillside beyond it seemed to bulge outwards and upwards. The bulge grew like a goatskin filling with water and cracks began to appear on the surface like giant knife wounds to reveal the terracotta earth beneath the surface. The cataclysm was all the more surprising because it happened in silence. Yet in the next instant the quiet was broken by an unearthly roar that made the horses rear. Within a heartbeat of the terrible sound the ground below tore itself apart and leapt high into the air. Valerius felt the earth jump beneath his feet as if someone had kicked him on the soles of his sandals. The impact made him stagger, but his eyes remained fixed on the hill where water pulsed in a great red wave from the broken slope beyond the mine entrance, sweeping rocks and trees and the very ground with it. Without warning the roar took on a new ferocity and some part of Valerius’s stunned mind found time to marvel that a sound could be as terrifying as facing a Parthian battle line. He watched in awe as the entire lower portion of the hill crumbled and disintegrated, to leave the shattered unearthly landscape he had witnessed on the way to the mine. Gradually the roar faded and Valerius turned to find Nepos grinning at him like a young boy.

‘Are you impressed?’ Valerius could barely hear him for the ringing in his ears.

It took a few moments before he was able to find his voice. ‘Astonished.’

The workers below swarmed over the broken ground even before the waters fully subsided.

‘Some of them will search the site for visible pieces of gold,’ Nepos explained. ‘Or other elements on the surface. Most will carry the disturbed earth to be sifted through what we call leads, a set of conduit steps floored with gorse branches. Since the gold is heavier than the silt, it is caught in the gorse and drops to the bottom of the lead. And any gold-bearing rock that has been revealed will be mined and sent for smelting.’

‘Your entire operation seems remarkably efficient,’ Valerius congratulated him. ‘So much so that it makes it difficult to understand the rumours I’ve heard about the amount of gold reaching Rome.’

Nepos’s face instantly went blank. ‘Sir, I do not know why you are here, or who sent you, but I am a lowly tunnel manager who knows nothing of these things. Perhaps the praefectus metallorum …? No.’ His voice quivered and he darted a frightened glance towards Frontinus. ‘I did not mean that. Please say nothing.’

‘Very well,’ Valerius assured him. ‘If that is your wish. But tell me, Nepos, have you ever been approached by a man called Marcus Florus Petronius? An engineer like yourself, who would be most interested in the workings of the mines. He is a friend and I’m concerned for his welfare.’

‘Petronius?’ Valerius hadn’t heard Frontinus approaching. ‘A man of that name came here a few weeks ago.’ The long nose twitched disdainfully. ‘An inquisitive fellow who asked all sorts of impertinent questions. Are you one of the same stamp?’

‘As I was telling Hostilius, he is a friend. He hasn’t been seen at his lodgings for some days. I’m concerned for his welfare.’

‘Well I sent him on his way. The workings of this mine are my affair and mine alone. As I would have done with you, but for the warrant you carry from the prefect. For some reason your friend took a great interest in the water supply. The last time I saw him he was following the line of the canal on that hill yonder,’ he pointed to a structure high up on a neighbouring mountain. ‘It is dangerous country, and not just because of the terrain. He would not be the first fool to fall from a height or walk into an ambush up there.’

Valerius studied Frontinus. Frontinus stared back at him, aloof and full of his own importance. This is my domain, he was saying, and no scrap of parchment with Ferox’s name on it is going to change that. Valerius realized he would get no more out of the procurator.

‘I thank you for your kindness.’ A thin smile flickered on Frontinus’s lips at the obvious sarcasm. ‘And for Nepos’s tour of your mine.’ He bowed to the plump tunnel manager. ‘It was most illuminating. A marvel of engineering skill and the effect was truly awe-inspiring. When I return to Rome I will be able to tell my friends that I quite literally saw man move a mountain.’

Frontinus’s expression softened at the unexpected compliment.

‘In that case I wish you a safe and speedy homecoming. Now, forgive me, but I must return to work.’

Valerius and Nepos reclaimed their horses and rode back down the hill. There was still no sign of Aurelio and Nepos could find no one who had seen him since they’d entered the mine. ‘It is most unusual,’ he frowned. ‘I will find a man to guide you back to the camp. Perhaps there will be news of your friend there.’

No news, as such, but a stolid Parthian who handed Valerius a note etched with a stylus on a birchwood shaving. If Valerius read it correctly, Aurelio had received an urgent summons from his master to return to Asturica Augusta. He hoped Valerius had a successful visit to the mine and would call on him on his return.

The Parthian escort had gathered at the stables and Valerius felt a twinge of concern under the gaze of the dispassionate bearded faces. With Aurelio by his side he’d felt secure enough in their presence. Now that he faced seventy miles in the saddle alone with them he saw the matter differently. They wouldn’t make Asturica by nightfall, which meant a night camp by the roadside unless they could find a mansio. His travels with Serpentius had given Valerius ample experience of what could happen on a dark night by a lonely road.

‘You will return to Asturica Augusta immediately,’ he told the leader, a man with a scar running from his forehead to his cheek. ‘I have further business that will keep me here for another day, possibly two.’

‘Our orders are to escort you to the Red Hills and back to Asturica,’ the man growled.

‘It is not a request, soldier,’ Valerius snapped back. The Parthian’s dark eyes glittered rebellion and Valerius decided to make the order more palatable. ‘I will return with the next gold train. I’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll also be happy to put the order in writing and explain to your master that you protested against its contents. Will that suffice?’

The Parthian glowered for a moment, but eventually nodded his consent and held out his hand. Valerius rummaged in his pack until he found stylus and waxed pad on which to scribble out the order. He handed it to the Parthian. With a last glare the man snapped a command to his comrades. They vaulted into the saddle and Valerius watched them ride out of the camp gates. When they were out of sight he ordered the stable hand to ready a fresh horse. He had work to do.