Saviour of Rome

XL

A shout from one of the lookouts alerted Valerius to the horse picking its way down the rocky slope towards Avala in the soft vermilion light of the new dawn. The animal carried a slumped figure bent forward in the saddle as if the rider was injured or barely conscious. Valerius threw aside the bowl of honeyed oats he’d been eating and ran towards the horse. Before he was halfway he heard a shout and slowed as Serpentius appeared at his side, a sword in his hand.

The Spaniard’s wary eyes scanned the horizon. ‘Didn’t it occur to you it might be a trap, idiot? All it would take was half a dozen Parthians up there waiting until you’d got far enough away from the village and they’d have run you down like a fox taking a rabbit.’

‘I was relying on you to cover my back.’ Valerius sucked in a breath.

‘You’ll do that once too often.’

‘What do you think?’ They slowed as they approached the horse which walked head down and its flanks were lathered with sweat.

‘I think that’s the beast Allius took to Asturica.’

Their noisy approach provoked no response from the cloaked and hooded rider. Serpentius reached out to touch his shoulder.

‘What!’ A hand swooped for the dagger at the rider’s belt and he cried in agony as Serpentius’s bony fingers closed on his wrist. The hood fell back to reveal a pair of narrow, angry eyes and a long twitching nose. ‘Nabia’s withered tits, don’t you know better than to startle a man when he’s having a think?’

‘Think?’ Serpentius snorted. ‘It looked to me as if you were dreaming you were under the blanket with some strumpet. If the hook-noses had caught you they’d have laughed themselves sick before they cut your throat, but at least you’d have died smiling.’

‘I only closed my eyes when I saw I was home,’ Allius said defensively. He reached under his cloak and brought out a scrap of papyrus. ‘This was under the brick when I looked last night. Be grateful that I’ve been in the saddle ever since. I had to take to the hills to avoid the hook-nose patrols. The bastards are everywhere.’

Serpentius studied the parchment and Valerius could swear his tanned features turned pale. With a shake of his head the Spaniard handed the message to Valerius, and turned to lead Allius’s mount down the hill.

‘Nepos has the documents and he wants a meeting in two nights’ time.’ Valerius couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice as he trotted to catch the Spaniard.

‘Yes.’ Serpentius’s voice was unexpectedly grave. ‘But have you seen where he wants to meet?’

Valerius read on and a chill seized his heart. ‘In the deepest level of the Red Hills IV mine. He says he’ll arrange it so all the guards will have been withdrawn by the time we get there. Do you know it?’

‘It’s the furthest south they’ve excavated so far. One way in and one way out, with half of Hispania waiting to fall on your head.’

Valerius remembered the haunted look in Serpentius’s eyes as he’d recounted the horrors he’d suffered in the bowels of the earth after he’d been condemned. The Spaniard had vowed never to go underground again. It made the decision easier.

‘It only takes one to pick up the papers from Nepos. If you can get me to the mine I’ll go in alone.’

‘No.’ The Spaniard’s voice took on new determination. ‘Anything could be waiting down there. You said yourself you need someone to cover your back.’

‘My trusty right hand.’ Valerius shot him a wry smile, relieved, but not surprised. ‘You think this may be a trap?’

‘Does it make any difference if it is?’ Serpentius shrugged. ‘We don’t have any choice if we want those papers and that’s why you’re here. Why Petronius was here. That’s another reason why I’ll go with you. I owe him a debt.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘In a way it makes sense for Nepos to choose a mine. You told him to pick somewhere he felt safe. He knows those tunnels the way you know every olive grove on your estate. Even the simplest mine is like the labyrinth that fellow Theseus got himself lost in before he killed his bull. Maybe Nepos has planned in extra galleries and shafts only he and the miners know about? If anything goes wrong he could just disappear and find his way back to the entrance while we’re stumbling around in the dark.’

‘You make it sound like my worst nightmare.’

The Spaniard studied him seriously. ‘If things go wrong down there it’ll make that night fight outside Cremona seem like a cosy Saturnalia feast, but if we want to make the meeting we should leave now.’

They took time over their preparations. ‘You’ll need a thick cloak because it can be cold in the mines at night,’ Serpentius warned, ‘especially when you’re down in the deepest sections. It’ll keep the rats off, too. Make sure you don’t get bitten. They survive on rotting food and dying men’s shit and their bite is as fatal as a cobra’s.’ Torches, spare flints and iron, food enough for three days and swords concealed in the packs rolled behind their saddles. They would travel as master and servant as they’d done so often before, but they had to accept their identities would have been circulated. Valerius would wear his cloak at all times to conceal his distinctive wooden fist.

They used what was left of the day to make their way out of the mountains along the vertiginous hidden tracks Serpentius knew so well. The Spaniard stayed on the alert for Parthian patrols, but they saw few signs of the auxiliary cavalry Allius said caused him so much trouble. When dusk fell they set up camp overlooking the road that connected Asturica Augusta to the Red Hills mines. Two hours later they were back in the saddle and heading west.

‘I know a sheltered gully where we can rest up for the day,’ Serpentius told Valerius as they rode through the darkness. ‘It’s about an hour from the mine. We’ll time our arrival for just before dusk. That should allow us to find a place to take a look at the entrance without being seen.’

Valerius heard unease in his voice that matched his own. ‘The closer we get, the less I like this. It would have been much easier to set up a meeting closer to Asturica.’

‘Not for Nepos, if he is working at the Red Hills mine,’ Serpentius pointed out. ‘The one thing that puzzles me is how he’ll get rid of the guards – the mine where I was held was guarded day and night – and what we’re supposed to do if he can’t do what he claims.’

Valerius tried to recall the details of his visit to the mine with the rotund engineer. ‘They withdraw the tunnellers when the mine is ready for the final stage. If Nepos delays announcing the completion until too late in the day to carry out the flooding, he can justify pulling everyone out overnight.’

‘Did it occur to you that all this might be unnecessary if Julia Fronton can persuade her father to betray his friends?’

‘Yes,’ Valerius said. ‘I’d thought of that. But we can’t take the chance.’

They crept into position as the light began to fade, leaving their horses in a dried-up river bed concealed by trees. The location, in a tumble of grey rocks, gave them an uninterrupted view down to the mouth of the tunnel. Away to their left lay a huddle of wooden barracks which housed the miners and the guards, but they saw no activity in the area of the mine itself.

‘It looks as if Nepos is as good as his word,’ Valerius said.

‘Do you think he’s in there already?’

‘I doubt it. He’ll have supervised the evacuation and followed his workers to the temporary camp. Probably made arrangements for tomorrow. Everything is in place for the final stage of the ruina montium. More likely he’ll wait until it’s full dark.’ Valerius looked to where the crescent moon hung in a sky that had faded from blue to the silver-grey of new ashes. ‘We’ll give him an hour.’

By the time they set off the sky was black as pitch, but the moon’s dull glow allowed Serpentius to follow the route he had marked earlier. Valerius dogged his footsteps a few paces behind, his eyes scanning the gloom around them and his left hand on the hilt of his sword. They hadn’t discussed the possibility of a trap since leaving Avala, but it was never far from his mind. He knew he could rely on Serpentius to provide the vital seconds he needed to be able to react, but experience and speed would count for nothing against overwhelming numbers. The simple truth was that if Nepos had betrayed them they were walking to their deaths. Nothing would change that, but Valerius vowed that he wouldn’t be taken alive. If he crossed the Styx tonight he would not be alone.

They reached the mine entrance without incident, negotiating piles of rocky spoil, and timbers that had been stockpiled to be carried away to the next project. Valerius hesitated in front of the stygian void, but Serpentius drew a great breath and plunged inside. What else could Valerius do but follow him? Inside, they lit one of the torches and their eyes met in the flickering light. Valerius saw rivulets of sweat running down Serpentius’s face and the Spaniard’s gaze held a hint of something close to panic.

‘I’ll lead,’ Valerius said.

‘Just this time,’ Serpentius said with a sickly smile. ‘I’ll cover your back.’

Valerius slipped past and started off down the slope with the torch held out in front of him.

Unseen, outside the mine entrance another torch burst into life with a sudden flare of light.

On the hillside above, a stout figure felt an answering glow of satisfaction as he watched the torch make two short arcs. ‘Both of them.’ Marcus Atilius Melanius smiled. ‘So it worked. You were right, Ferox,’ he said to a cloaked shadow nearby. ‘I was certain Verrens would smell a trap and stay away. But he was too greedy. This time we’ll be rid of them for good. Open the sluice.’

‘Wait,’ Ferox ordered the men around him in the darkness. ‘Give them time to reach the deepest level. Less chance of them being identified if they are down there when the mine goes.’

‘Very well. You know best.’

Ferox waited for the count of five hundred before he gave the order.

‘Now.’

The winding mechanism creaked and soon they could hear water pouring from the gates into the sluice that would carry it with twice the speed of a racing chariot directly into the mouth of the mine.

Where Gaius Valerius Verrens and Serpentius of Avala waited unaware of the fate Melanius had planned for them.