Saviour of Rome

XXXV

‘I was wondering …?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why would you be getting our fat little friend to risk his neck for some pieces of papyrus we won’t even be able to read?’

They were heading north from Asturica through a maze of deep valleys and Valerius took his time before he answered. ‘You mean apart from the fact that he’s a dishonest little weasel who’d sell his sister if he thought it would save his neck?’

‘Apart from that.’

‘Because even if we can’t read the cypher I’m gambling that a man as clever as Pliny will be able to find a way. We might only have one chance. Besides, who knows what else he might bring us?’

‘You’re harder than I remember, Valerius.’

Valerius reined in his mount and sighed. ‘I just want to finish this and go home, Serpentius. Get back to Tabitha. Complete the villa and settle down to a normal life. I seem to have been fighting battles or chasing shadows most of my life. I’m sick of it.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Serpentius sounded almost wistful. ‘Sometimes a man just wants to sit back and watch the crops he’s planted grow and ripen. When you’re younger you think you’ll live for ever, but since Jerusalem I’ve felt as if death was riding on my shoulder and counting down the days.’

Valerius contemplated his friend. ‘That’s just the hole in your head talking.’

‘Makes a change from talking out of the hole in my arse.’ The Spaniard urged his horse into movement and Valerius followed. Moments later Serpentius returned at the trot and grabbed Valerius’s reins, hauling his horse off the track and up a tree-filled gully. ‘Hook-nose cavalry,’ he hissed. ‘Two sections and heading this way.’

Valerius held his breath and prayed his horse wouldn’t make any sudden movement. He drew his sword from its scabbard. Not that it would help much against sixteen or seventeen auxiliaries, but it made him feel better. He saw Serpentius had done the same, clenching and unclenching his fingers on the leather-wrapped hilt as he stared at the road. His teeth were gritted and he was breathing hard. If Valerius hadn’t known him better he would have believed he was seeing signs of fear. But this was Serpentius.

The sound of hooves on loose stone and a glimpse of movement between the trees. Valerius’s unfamiliar mount began to dance under him and he almost lost his sword as he used the reins to curb the animal’s antics. Below, he watched the two sections of Parthians pass at a walk in their familiar green tunics and chain armour, seven-foot spears held upright with the ash shafts rammed down the legs of their leather boots.

It was the Parthian way to carry three days’ supplies in bags hung from the saddle, but these men seemed particularly heavily laden. Valerius felt Serpentius tense beside him and he twisted in the saddle to see his friend with a look of impotent fury on the savage features. When he studied the passing riders more closely he understood why. The round bundles tied to the Parthian saddles weren’t supplies, they were heads. Bearded males with wide, gaping mouths, women, young and old, bound to the pommel by their long hair, and fair-headed children staring blank-eyed in fours from hay nets.

Valerius had seen severed heads before. Auxiliary units in Britannia took them to prove they’d dealt with bandit gangs or village chiefs who hadn’t paid their taxes. But this was different. These were innocents whose only crime was to want to be left alone.

They didn’t have to die; the dozens of families who stumbled after the horses in roped bunches were proof of that. Someone, likely Claudius Harpocration, had allowed the Parthians to slake their bloodlust before fulfilling his primary mission of gathering labour for the mines. The rest of the Parthian squadron followed the prisoners with Harpocration at their head, a long whip in his hand to encourage any dawdlers. As he passed the trees where Valerius and Serpentius waited on their horses he seemed to sense something because his head swivelled. For a moment he appeared to be looking directly at them. Valerius’s fingers tensed convulsively on his sword hilt, but the moment passed and Harpocration kicked his horse forward and flicked the whip at a limping straggler.

Serpentius waited till the last of the Parthians had disappeared out of sight. ‘I will kill that man. I swear it on the head of my son.’

Valerius let out a long breath. ‘The only way to return your people to their lands is by stopping Melanius and his gang and bringing this place under direct Roman rule again. I pledge Vespasian’s word that they will be sent back to rebuild their communities.’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ Serpentius conceded. ‘But either way he’s a dead man.’

As they travelled deeper into the mountains they discovered that the Parthians had left a blackened corridor through the Asturian settlements. Stone would not burn, and the individual houses still stood, but their contents and anything flammable that lay to hand had been piled inside and set alight.

‘It is as if it is not enough to remove us from the land,’ Serpentius said as they watered their horses in a stream outside one burned settlement. ‘All evidence of our existence must be destroyed, too.’

Valerius surveyed the headless corpses scattered around them. ‘The blood is on Harpocration’s blade, but Melanius is responsible for this. It suits his purpose that men should fear the Parthians and know there will be no mercy for their families if they make trouble.’

‘If he’s going to move, he must act soon.’ The Spaniard stared at the blackened stones that had once been someone’s home.

Valerius nodded. ‘It’s getting late in the season.’

‘You understand I have no choice in this?’ Serpentius said moodily. ‘I do not have the authority or the right to ask my people to stand in their way.’ He looked up to meet Valerius’s eyes. ‘They are many. They are well trained and well armed. We have a few true warriors and some farmers. If it comes to a fight there will be only one outcome.’

‘I understand, Serpentius. A man can only do so much.’

‘I have chewed on the matter like a dog with a bone, but it always comes out the same way.’

‘I understand,’ Valerius repeated. ‘We need Nepos to steal the documents. Afterwards you and I will ride south and hope we reach Pliny in time to pull together some kind of force capable of stopping Melanius.’

‘If the Sixth-’

‘We’ve done what we can. Now it is up to the gods. You trust your man in Asturica? He understands the urgency of the situation?’

‘Allius is a good man and he is not known in the city. He will check the loose brick before noon and after dusk every day. If he finds a message he will bring it directly to us.’

He looked to Valerius for some response, but the one-handed Roman was staring into the distance.

‘I’ve been a fool. I think we must give Pliny a chance to act even without the evidence from Nepos.’ He shook his head. ‘Too much the lawyer, Valerius. Too scrupulous about the process.’ He turned to Serpentius. ‘We have the names, we have their methods and we can provide reasonable grounds for suspicion that Melanius is prepared to act against Rome to save his neck. Once Pliny has the information it will be up to him what to do, but he must have it. Is there any chance of laying our hands on some writing materials?’

‘Tito insisted we carry stylus, ink and parchment from Fronton’s estate. He had some notion of young Julia writing a plea to her father to give up the information he has in exchange for her life.’

‘Her life?’

Serpentius gave him a wry grin. ‘He follows her around like a moonstruck calf and she’s no better. If anyone goes near her his hand twitches for his sword. He reminds me of me, but,’ his tone turned sober once more, ‘it is all very well committing the details to parchment. How do we get it to Pliny? I couldn’t guarantee any of my men bar Tito would ever find their way to Tarraco, and he won’t go unless the girl goes with him.’

‘I have a way of getting information to the governor.’ Valerius struggled not to sound embarrassed.

Serpentius raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t trust me.’

‘Of course I trust you.’ Valerius tugged on his horse’s reins and directed him north. ‘It just didn’t come up.’

‘And what if something happened to you? Not that it is likely, of course, what with all the friends you’ve made in Asturica.’

Valerius grinned at him and shook his head. ‘There’s a tavern by the bridge as you enter Legio. A young Imperial courier called Marius is sweet on one of the barmaids …’