Saviour of Rome

XXIII

When Valerius mounted half an hour later his cloak covered the worn and patched mail vest he’d kept since it had saved his life in Antioch. A gladius hung in its scabbard on his right hip, ready to be cross drawn. It wasn’t that he felt any imminent sense of danger. What he planned carried an element of risk, a risk that must be accepted, but which he would take every care to offset.

The question had plagued him since Frontinus revealed Petronius’s interest in the canals and aqueducts that supplied the Red Hills mines. What was it that drew the engineer to those fearsome heights? The only answer was to go and discover for himself. He knew how dangerous it could be to travel alone, but what choice did he have? Aurelio wasn’t available. Allowing the Parthians to escort him would be worse than having no escort at all. One nudge in the wrong place and an unhappy accident would rid whoever controlled what was happening in Asturica of a niggling problem.

Valerius left the camp and took a route west that made it appear he was retracing his journey of earlier in the day. After an hour, and when he was sure no one trailed him, he turned on to a stony track leading into the mountains. Out of sight of the road he reined in and studied the map Marius had given him. It wasn’t detailed enough to show the track Valerius had followed, but it gave him an approximate idea of his position. He traced his finger northwards along the line of a stream until he reached a valley a few miles ahead. From what he could tell it rose to bring him close to a canal that fed the Red Hills mines. He had no idea of the terrain he’d face, but if he could get to the canal it would allow him to explore the area that had interested Petronius.

He let the mare pick her way upwards as the track wound through scree and boulders and stunted bushes into the mountains. The only sound was the even clip of the horse’s hooves on the stones and the buzz of insects that filled the air. Sweat ran down his back and the fiery sun roasted the top of his head. He stopped and drank from his waterskin and wished he’d thought to bring the broad-brimmed straw hat Aurelio had suggested he buy in Asturica. Was he being too cautious by wearing the chain armour that felt as if it was slowly cooking him? Turning in the saddle he studied the ground around him. Better cooked than dead. You could lose an army among the thicker patches of scrub.

The country was too steep and rocky for farming and he suspected the track must lead to some isolated spring pasture or popular hunting ground. A sharp cry split the silence and he looked up to see a pair of vultures spiralling above. The birds were a common enough sight in Hispania, but for some reason he was reminded of the aftermath of the siege of Jerusalem. Thousands of carrion birds – vultures, buzzards, eagles and crows – had turned the sky black as they waited patiently to feast on the countless dead.

He forced the image from his head and nudged the mare on, his thoughts turning again to Serpentius. The Spaniard had been Valerius’s trusty right arm for so long that losing him had felt like a new disfigurement. Not long after Valerius and Tabitha arrived in Rome word had come of the Spaniard’s decision to return to his native land. More worryingly the news was accompanied by hints of a man broken in spirit if not in body. Valerius had a vision of the quivering figure who could not make himself enter the Conduit of Hezekiah. No. Remember the man who stood by your side at First Bedriacum as a tidal wave of vengeful legionaries were advanced to engulf the little knot of survivors. The Serpentius who had risen wraith-like from the charnel pit after the night of confused terror on the Cremona road.

He studied the high peaks surrounding him. These were Serpentius’s mountains. If ever he had need of his old friend it was now. He froze as the little mare whinnied and danced beneath him. No imminent threat in sight, but his left hand instinctively dropped to the hilt of the gladius. Still wary, he allowed her to have her head, wandering off the track and sniffing the air. Her route took them around a shoulder of the hill they had been climbing and soon the ground began to drop away. Valerius looked to the north and saw daylight appear where there had been none. She’d led him to the valley.

He discovered what had attracted her when the trees thickened and they broke through to a shimmering stream of clear, bright water that tumbled and frothed over the rocks. Patting her on the shoulder he let her drop her head to drink and slid from the saddle. He dipped a cupped hand in the water a little upstream from the mare and drank the cool, clear liquid.

When the mare had drunk her fill he pushed on, staying as close to the line of the stream as he could in the broken ground. By now he was familiar enough with the terrain to know there was little chance of the horse being able to make the ascent. Eventually the narrow, rocky divide became so constricted he decided there was no point in pushing her any further.

He turned the mare and rode back to a shaded glade they’d passed earlier. Even in the thin soil a stand of oaks thrived on the moisture from the stream and the grass grew thick and lush along the banks. He dismounted, removed her saddle and tethered her to a nearby branch with enough freedom of movement to drink when she chose. She’d be safe enough here while he made the climb and he’d be back well before nightfall. If they had to spend the night in the open it was no hardship with good grazing and water and firewood in plentiful supply.

Before he set out he contemplated the slope again. Steeper than he’d bargained for, with some tricky scrambles and a few out and out climbs close to the top. A difficult proposition for a man with one hand, but doubly so for one burdened by a mail shirt. Reluctantly, he unbuckled his sword belt and undid the hooks on the shoulders and chest of the mail. Using his left hand he hauled the heavy metal armour over his head with an awkward wriggle of his upper body. He replaced the sword belt over the padded leather jerkin he wore to make the mail more comfortable and concealed the saddle and mail beneath a gorse bush.

He started through the trees towards the slope.

The rocks glowed a bright ochre in the afternoon sun and when he used them as handholds they were almost too hot to touch. Fortunately there were also firmly rooted bushes and scrubby, head-high pines he could use for support and he made good time on the lower part of the hill. Above him loomed a great red cliff, but his objective was a lower ridge to the right, which should hide the line of the Red Hills canal. Valerius crabbed in that direction, sometimes forced to retreat as the broken ground crumbled beneath his feet or he slid back on the loose scree. Within minutes his legs felt as if they were on fire, sweat poured from his hairline and a cloud of black flies circled waiting to sip the salty liquid. As the discomfort increased he cursed the whim that led him this way. Why hadn’t he just gone back to the mine where he could have ridden most of the way to the canal?

The answer lay in the fear he’d seen in Nepos’s eyes when Valerius had asked about the decline in gold production, and the way the tunnel manager looked at Frontinus. That, and something indefinable about the procurator’s manner, had placed him on a list of suspects growing longer by the day. Severus, head of the ordo, and his voluptuous and much too inquisitive wife. Ferox, the praefectus metallorum, either involved in the conspiracy or the most incompetent bureaucrat in the Empire. And the mysterious Cornelius Aurelius Saco, avaricious and ruthless, and much too interested in Valerius’s movements. It occurred to him that another he couldn’t discount was Proculus, camp prefect at Legio. In Valerius’s experience very little happened in a legion’s area of operations of which the commander’s spies weren’t aware. And if the conspiracy involved Proculus, why not his faithful prefect of the First ala Parthorum, Claudius Harpocration?

Yet, apart from Petronius’s disappearance and his own instinct he didn’t have a shred of evidence they’d stolen one single talent of gold. If he was right, the thieves included army officers, bureaucrats and the local aristocracy. Vespasian would not be gentle with the guilty. Their lives, and possibly those of their families, were at stake. They would do anything in their power to avoid the plot being uncovered.

He stopped to rest his legs and looked down. The glade where he’d left the mare seemed very far below. Movement off to the west caught his eye and he noticed a faint dust cloud. Hunters on the track? A herd of the big-horned mountain sheep they stalked? Or something more sinister? No matter, he was committed now. He set his shoulders, gritted his teeth and attacked the slope once more.

Another hundred paces brought him to a little plateau where he rested again. Here the foliage of the scrubby trees hid his direct line of sight down the slope. Something about the dust cloud made him uneasy. He crouched by a narrow pine and pulled back a branch. The gap allowed him to scan the base of the hill and the valley where he’d left the mare. A flash of turquoise and white zipped through the trees and his mind rather than his eyes registered it as a jay. He waited. And allowed himself to breathe as two fallow deer skipped effortlessly across the scrubby ground before disappearing into the trees lining the little stream. Smiling at his own foolishness, he was turning away to resume his climb when he saw him.

Stealthy, oh so stealthy. Spear held in two hands at the ready. No tell-tale glint from the needle-tipped iron point. The man who wielded the weapon had deliberately dulled the tip to lessen the risk of detection. A second man came into view, similarly armed. Every footstep deliberately planted to ensure silence as he advanced towards his prey. Yes, prey. For these were certainly the hunters whose dust he had seen. But they weren’t hunting deer. They were hunting a man. And Valerius had no doubt who that man was.

The pot helmets and green tunics identified them, but even without their uniforms Valerius would have recognized these hard-eyed, bearded men for what they were. Parthians. His eyes caught movement beyond them and two more moved into view, separated like the first by about ten paces. One of them bent and studied something on the ground and Valerius saw him signal with his hand. An order must have been given because they changed direction, angling towards the point where he’d joined the stream. He shivered as he realized they were tracking him over that impossible broken ground. Soon they’d find the mare. Then their attention would be drawn upwards. He’d made no attempt to conceal his progress up the hillside even if it had been possible. It was only a matter of time.

Valerius looked desperately around the hillside seeking some avenue of escape. Plenty of concealment at this level, but the higher he went the more patchy the cover became. He turned to his left and for a moment his brain refused to believe what his eyes were telling him. Less than twenty paces away in the shadow of another pine tree a savage, bearded face was staring at him. He blinked and the image vanished. Had he imagined it? No. He’d seen what he’d seen. But what to do? He swept his surroundings. The way the man had disappeared, so suddenly and without the slightest sound, meant he could be anywhere. Valerius felt an imaginary knife point pricking his spine. Another Parthian? Surely he would have been calling to his comrades to join him for the slaughter. But if not, who? And were his targets the Parthians or Valerius?

He risked another look at the men below. They were approaching the stream bed. It had to be now. Keeping low he moved through the trees to his right, away from the man who’d been watching him. There were gaps in the trees and bushes, but he gambled the Parthians would be blinded by the oaks that thrived by the stream and he made good progress over the rough ground. If he could push far enough ahead they wouldn’t be able to get close to him before nightfall. Sunrise would bring its own problems, but he’d worry about that when it came.

When he crossed the shoulder of the hill he was beyond the view of his hunters, but now he faced a decision. Should he climb to the level of the canal and continue his quest to discover what had attracted Petronius? Or find his way back to the road and look for somewhere to go to ground until nightfall? Hunger wasn’t a factor; he’d packed a day’s rations of bread and olives in his pouch. The stream or the canal would provide him with enough water to reach either the mining camp or the mine itself.

The canal then? But Valerius had been plagued by a growing certainty that this potentially deadly encounter with the Parthians was no coincidence. Frontinus had presented him with Petronius’s interest in the canals like a gift. Valerius doubted the mine prefect was a man who offered gifts lightly. Where better for someone to disappear than in these remote heights? And he’d leapt at the bait like a trout at a dragonfly.

He began making his way carefully downwards using the bushes as anchor points. When he was halfway, the roots of one of the plants gave beneath his grip. He teetered for a moment before losing his balance and tumbling down the hillside. It wasn’t a long fall and he only suffered a few scratches, but when Valerius regained his balance he saw to his horror that he’d created a small dust cloud. He pushed himself to his feet and resumed his descent more swiftly now. And with good reason.

A shout rang out from somewhere to his left.

Valerius’s heart stuttered at the confirmation someone had seen the dust, but he sent up a prayer of thanks to the gods. Whoever had called out had saved his life – at least for the moment. If they’d stayed silent they could have surrounded him and pinned him with their spears. At least now he had a chance.

Keeping low, he drew his sword and trotted in the opposite direction. He hadn’t gone twenty paces when a bearded figure rose out of the ground in front of him. The sword came up – and froze.

The bearded tribesman from the mountain stared at Valerius and, with a quick sweeping motion of his hand, encouraged the Roman to follow him. A dozen questions ran through Valerius’s head, but this was no time for hesitation. Instinctively, he followed the retreating back through the bushes. Younger than Valerius had first thought, the stranger wore a striped tunic, cloth braccae and leather sandals. He set a diagonal course to take them across the front of the advancing Parthians. Already Valerius could hear his pursuers charging through the undergrowth. He was becoming convinced his ‘saviour’ was going to get him killed when the man disappeared.

When he reached the same spot he saw his mysterious companion had dropped on to his belly in a barely perceptible piece of dead ground. Without hesitation he followed the tribesman’s example. They squirmed for perhaps thirty paces along what must have been some kind of ancient water course before the stranger raised a hand to halt. The sound of the advancing Parthians came closer. Valerius sensed the hunters’ progress was more painstaking now. A search rather than a chase.

He froze with his left hand clutching the hilt of his gladius. Ten paces separated him from his companion and their hiding place was cloaked by the low scrub. Without warning a pair of legs appeared before Valerius, hesitated, then moved stealthily onwards to vanish in the foliage. Behind him he heard a shuffling as another of the Parthians crossed the depression where he hid.

He tensed for the moment the spear pierced his back and pinned him to the earth, but he hadn’t been seen. The man in the striped tunic waited for the count of ten before moving off again and Valerius followed in his wake. When he reached the cover of the trees Valerius’s saviour rose to his feet and disappeared silently downstream. By the time Valerius reached the same point the man was almost out of sight, trotting over the stream bed as easily if he were walking down a cobbled street.

Within a few minutes they reached the glade where Valerius had left the mare. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw she was still where he’d tethered her. The bearded man went to the mare and scratched her head, nodding appreciatively as he ran a hand over her shoulder and chest.

‘A fine horse.’ It was the first time he’d spoken and Valerius struggled with the curious sing-song Latin. Valerius went to the bush where he’d hidden the saddle and mail as the other man continued, ‘Just follow the line of the stream and you’ll eventually reach the road. There’s a deer track. You’ll have to walk in places, but the cover is good. Eh?’ He stared with astonishment at Valerius’s wooden right hand.

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll be taking care of the hook-noses.’

‘But they are four and you are just one.’

The saturnine face broke into a savage grin that sent a shiver through Valerius. ‘They are the sheep to my wolf. The mountain hare to my lynx. Their horses are close to the road. I will cut their tethers and scatter them.’ Valerius threw the saddle over the mare’s back and worked at the girth with his left hand until the other man appeared to help. ‘Here, let me.’

‘They would have killed me. Why did you save me from them? I mean nothing to you.’

The native frowned, as if he wasn’t certain himself. Eventually, he said: ‘The hook-noses are my enemy. Their enemy is my ally.’

‘Then I thank you.’ Valerius tried to think of some way to show his gratitude, but there was nothing, unless … He picked up the mail shirt and offered it. ‘Would this be of value to you?’

The tribesman took the mail and weighed it in his hands. That unnerving grin again. ‘Good iron. Yes, I can make use of it. It will turn a hook-nose spear and that is all that matters.’

Valerius had his doubts about that, but he didn’t voice them.

‘What do they call you?’

The young man stared at him. ‘What they call me does not matter, Roman. Just because you are my ally today does not mean you won’t be my enemy tomorrow. Best we leave it at that. Be on your way.’ He offered his cupped hands and Valerius accepted a boost into the saddle. ‘Remember. Stay by the stream.’

‘Again, you have my thanks.’ Valerius nudged the horse into motion. ‘If ever I can repay you.’

When he reached the edge of the trees he looked over his shoulder, but the glade was empty.

That face. What was it about that face?’