Saviour of Rome

XLI

They made their way down the long passage deeper and deeper into the hill. Without the men working the bellows the air was thick enough to cut with a sword and before they’d gone far they struggled to breathe. Valerius turned to Serpentius. ‘Nepos must have lost his mind to bring us here,’ he gasped.

The Spaniard shook his head. ‘Think on it from his point of view, Valerius. This is his world. He is like a mole, more suited to life burrowing beneath the earth than above it. Safer down here than at any house in Asturica.’

Down another level and into a gallery that must have been recently worked judging by the stench of fresh excrement.

‘It can’t be far,’ Valerius muttered. ‘We must be almost through to the far side of the hill.’ They reached a vertical shaft and Serpentius held the torch as Valerius climbed one-handed down the rickety ladder into the pit of darkness that was the lowest level of the mine. When Valerius reached the bottom the Spaniard threw the torch down to him and made the descent himself.

The one-handed Roman advanced down the tunnel at the centre of a circle of flickering light. Oddly, the air quality had improved and Serpentius pointed to a dark circle in the roof of the tunnel. ‘Air shaft, thank the gods. Strange to think we’ve travelled what seems like a mile underground, but we can’t be more than thirty feet from the surface. Not that it makes much difference.’

‘Hostilius,’ Valerius called softly. ‘Show yourself. Light a torch so we know where to find you.’

The only reply was the sound of his own voice echoing in the side chambers that had been dug to honeycomb the surrounding rock.

‘He’s frightened. Call again, but louder this time.’

Valerius did as Serpentius suggested. Still no reply.

‘Maybe he’s fallen asleep.’

‘Down here? Did you hear that?’

Valerius froze and stood listening. ‘What?’

‘I heard a scratching sound.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Listen!’

A sort of fevered scrabbling, accompanied by a low squeal.

‘Hostilius?’ Valerius shouted again.

‘Rats,’ Serpentius corrected him. ‘From the chamber ahead and to your left.’

The Spaniard sounded weary and resigned, and a shudder of dread ran through Valerius.

They advanced warily, not because they expected an ambush, but because of the implications of what they were about to see. Neither had any doubt of the outcome. Yet it had to be checked, Nepos deserved that. There was always the possibility, however unlikely, that he might have fainted for lack of breath, or had some sort of seizure. The incriminating evidence might be on his person. So many mights, but of course the reality was different.

First, they’d stripped Hostilius Nepos naked, then they’d flogged him with a weighted whip that had left his flesh criss-crossed with glaring red weals. Valerius guessed that alone would have been enough to make Hostilius give up what he knew, but it hadn’t been enough for his captors. Once they had their information he must be made to pay.

‘You should have run, Hostilius,’ Valerius whispered as he looked down on what remained of the mining engineer. ‘As soon as Petronius disappeared you should have run away from here and never looked back.’

After the whip had come the heated implements. Fingers removed one by one, the wounds cauterized by the red-hot blade even as they fell. They’d used some kind of clawed tongs to chew great lumps from his flesh, leaving his torso pitted with bloody hollows.

And when they’d inflicted enough pain they’d brought him here still alive, and hacked his arms and legs from his body. The only part of Nepos left unmarked was his plump face, lips drawn back, eyes bulging and teeth bared: a stark portrait of unbearable agony.

All this flashed through Valerius’s mind in less than a dozen racing heartbeats, but Serpentius, with the survival instincts of a feral beast, was already moving. ‘For all the gods’ sake, Valerius. We have to get out of here.’

They raced back along the passage, their legs driven by something not far short of terror, but barely halfway to the ladder Serpentius stumbled to a shaking halt. ‘Mars save us,’ he whispered.

Valerius stood beside him in the flickering light of the torch, his reeling senses trying to make sense of what was happening. What was about to happen. He didn’t have long to wait. They could hear the muffled roar, a kind of muted thunder. The very air around them seemed to change form, accompanied by a sudden pressure on the ears. At the same time the torch flame flared in a way that was beyond natural, something to do with the change in pressure.

Serpentius dropped to his knees, but Valerius hauled him to his feet.

‘If you want to live, think,’ he snarled. They’d faced death before, but never like this. Never so helpless. Valerius remembered the seething flood surging down the hill into the tunnel mouth with all nature’s visceral power behind it. The way the hill had bulged and then erupted as if the very earth was tearing itself to pieces. The gigantic roar and the feeling of being punched. Maybe they should just … No! Tabitha’s face appeared before him. The moment in the Conduit of Hezekiah when he thought he was drowning and she’d laughed at his fear. There had to be a way. Not forward. Not back. Think! ‘This way.’ He was already sprinting back down the tunnel and trusting Serpentius to follow. As he ran he kept his eyes on the roof. Where was it? Venus’ withered tits, please. There! A black shadow less than a pace across and only a foot above his head.

Think. Think.

He dragged off his cloak. ‘Quickly! Wrap the cloaks round my legs.’ He saw the bewilderment and defeat in Serpentius’s eyes. Had terror driven Valerius mad? Valerius knocked the torch from his hands. ‘Just do it if you want to live.’

The Spaniard ripped off his own cloak and bent to do as Valerius ordered. The pressure on their ears was growing now and the thunder almost unbearably loud. They could actually hear the wall of water hammering down the passages above like a runaway chariot, smashing into the turns and rebounding to rush on. It felt as if the whole hill was shaking, but Valerius knew it was only his legs.

He bent and made a support with his left hand and the wooden fist. Serpentius looked up and at last he understood what Valerius intended. ‘Will it work?’

‘Have you any better ideas?’ Valerius snarled. ‘We’ll never know unless we try.’

The truth was he had no idea. Probably not. He only knew it was better to die trying than to await their fate in a trance, like sheep. Serpentius and Valerius had never been sheep, and this was no time to start.

‘Someone dug that out. They must have had some kind of footholds. Find a support and drop your belt and pull me up after you. But for the gods’ sake be quick about it.’

Serpentius nodded convulsively. At the last minute he drew his sword and threw it aside. He used Valerius to boost his way up into the blackened hole. Found a notch that had formed the support for a piece of timber. Squirmed his way further inside, his arms scraping against the crumbling rock.

‘Serpentius!’

He had never heard Valerius’s voice so close to panic. One foot on either side of the shaft, he unhooked his belt and dropped one end down the shaft, half crouching and stretching his arm to get the maximum extension. His body rebelled against the unnatural position, pains shooting through his back from the site of his old wound.

‘Another couple of inches.’

‘I’m not made-’ Serpentius forced himself down another inch, his face rammed hard against the rock face.

‘I have it.’ Valerius roughly tied the belt round the cowhide stock on his right arm. ‘Pull me up.’

Serpentius took the strain and with all his wiry strength hauled Valerius up inch by straining inch. His back felt as if it was breaking and something popped in his shoulder, but still he pulled, eventually managing to get a second hand to the leather strap. The torch below flickered and died and they were left in total darkness.

‘I’m level with your feet,’ came the grating voice from the void below. ‘You’ll have to move up. I can support myself for a few moments on my elbows.’

Serpentius began to squirm upwards, grunting with the pain of his injured arm. He was just getting settled on a new perch when an enormous blast of air rushed past him. A scream of fear from below as Valerius lost his hold and a jerk on the end of the belt almost pulled the arm from its socket. He braced against the shaft wall, ignoring the pain as he hauled Valerius upwards into the shaft. The rush of air was constant now and accompanied by a massive roar that made communication impossible. Valerius slapped him on the leg and he found a new handhold that allowed him to pull himself up another two or three feet, but the shaft narrowed sharply, the sides already jamming into his shoulders. It was impossible to go any further.

Valerius slapped his foot again, but Serpentius ignored him. There was nothing else they could do, but pray. He tilted his head upwards and saw a single twinkling star in the blackness. Jupiter’s wrinkled scrotum, what wouldn’t he give to be up there now. From what he knew of the process the miners would normally plug the air hole before they unleashed the flood. At least they could breathe. But would it have a positive or negative effect on their precarious grip on life in this claustrophobic rabbit hole of a sanctuary?

The airflow eased and he guessed the cloaks round Valerius’s legs had partially blocked the vent. But the pressure on his ears and from below had increased almost beyond endurance. At times it was so powerful it felt as if Valerius was pushing him upwards and the jagged rocks ground into his shoulders so he gasped with pain.

In the modestly wider gap below, Valerius cursed his friend for refusing to climb any higher. His sandals were two feet at most above the level of the bottom of the shaft, jammed into two tiny crevices. Would it be enough? Already the force of the air from below had almost dislodged him from his position and the roaring filled his mouth, ears and nose and compressed his chest so he found it difficult to breathe. And this was just the beginning. Another incredible noise pushed the roar into the background. A sort of gigantic hiss. It was the sound of the water careening by at enormous speed directly below him. In the time it took to register the fact an enormous crash recorded the moment the inundation reached the barrier of the mine wall. Water forced itself into every cavity of the mine. What had Nepos said about the air being his greatest weapon? As more and more water is forced into the shaft the pressure builds and the air is compressed. Valerius felt that compression now. In an instant the pressure increased a hundredfold so he thought his head was being crushed. He opened his mouth to scream and the force eased slightly so he kept doing it.

A moment later a jet of water forced its way past the bundled cloaks. His battered mind fought for some sort of hold on reality. Do something. He moved his feet to try to close the gaps, but it only made it worse. Water surged up to his knees, but the increase in the saturated cloaks’ weight made them settle and the flow was stemmed bar a few tiny jets. If it hadn’t been for the cloaks they could well have drowned, but within moments Valerius realized drowning might be a mercy. The entire shaft – the entire hill – began to shake like a rat in a terrier’s mouth. Pieces of stone crumbled and broke away so he was showered from above and struggled to maintain the position of his feet on the two niches below.

A little voice in his head told him to let go, just drop into the crashing maelstrom and end it all. But Serpentius, whether by accident or design, kicked him in the head with an iron-shod sandal and suddenly his mind cleared.

Endure.

Survive.

The intensity of the shaking increased, accompanied by a new roar. Did he imagine it or was the pressure of the shaft walls on his shoulders increasing? The forces being imposed inside the hill were beginning to change its shape. He remembered the bulging slopes again and the moment the entire hill had erupted like a pullet’s egg hit by a sling shot.

He could almost hear the grinding as the stones moved together. So much power was being exerted that soon the shaft must collapse. He and Serpentius would be mere bloody smears and bone fragments lost in the fabric of the earth.

On and on it went until with a clap like thunder his blind world altered fundamentally. The stone support fell away beneath his feet and Valerius’s heart stopped as he fell with it. A savage jerk on his wrist halted his plunge. By some miracle Serpentius had retained his hold on the belt. He hung there like a half-drowned rat as water surged up the shaft unconstrained by the cloaks and for a moment he was drowning, his nose and mouth filled and struggling for breath. But with a second, much louder thunderous roar the water dropped away as fast as it had risen and his legs were dangling in clear air. Below him the torrent continued to rush by for another few moments before he heard it fade away. They waited in the disbelieving silence until their battered minds convinced them they had truly survived.

‘You can drop me now,’ Valerius croaked to Serpentius.

A moment later his heart was in his mouth as he plunged to land with a splash in the shallow stream below. As Serpentius climbed down after him, Valerius untied the thin strip of leather that had undoubtedly saved his life. They walked slowly in the direction the water was flowing. Fifty paces ahead where there had been a solid wall of rock they could see the far side of a broad valley bathed in soft moonlight and the blur of distant hills. A boulder the height of a tall man and broad as a two-wheeled cart lay where it had been thrown against one wall. Valerius was certain it hadn’t been there earlier and marvelled again at the immense power of ruina montium. Of Hostilius Nepos there was no sign. He might never have existed.

‘Why are we still alive?’ Serpentius whispered in awe as they looked down upon the swath of destruction below the opening. The hill had been eviscerated by the hydraulic mining process and now its entrails were scattered in a mile-long trail of mud and boulders that glittered silver and black beneath the moon. By a freak of nature two or three areas of hill survived to stand out as jagged mounds against the night sky behind them.

‘I don’t know.’ Valerius’s voice echoed the Spaniard’s wonder. ‘Maybe the air shaft was designed to be another fracture point. Because we kept the water out, that section of hill survived. Maybe Fortuna was watching over us.’

‘Then let’s hope she stays with us for a while longer.’ Serpentius studied the drop for a few moments before coming to a decision. He levered himself over the ragged edge, grunted as his injured shoulder took his weight and lowered himself on to the mud slope.

He looked up. ‘We need to get out of here and back to Avala.’

He waited for Valerius to join him, ankle-deep in the mire. They started off down the incline, their sandalled feet making a loud sucking sound with every step. There were muttered low curses as they stumbled over hidden boulders. Serpentius picked one up. ‘If there was any justice one of these would be a great big lump of gold.’

‘If there was any justice we’d be dead.’

‘The important thing,’ Serpentius continued, ‘is that they think we’re dead. They must have had someone watching the entrance, so they know there’s no chance we could have survived this. I’d much prefer it stayed that way. With Fortuna’s favour the horses will still be where we left them. If we can reach them before daylight I can get us back without meeting any hook-noses.’

‘What then?’

‘It depends whether Tito and Julia succeeded in persuading her father to change sides. If they did, we need to know what he knows. If not, and we both think that’s more likely, you should ride directly for Tarraco, and hand over what little evidence you have to Pliny. Convince him that he’s needed here. Melanius is the key. If you can persuade the governor his old friend should be arrested I don’t think any of the others will put up much of a fight.’

‘You’re forgetting about Harpocration and his hook-noses,’ Valerius reminded him. ‘If he’s taken he’ll end up hanging from a cross and his men will spend the rest of their lives down the mines. No, the Parthians will either fight or run.’

‘I hope they run in our direction,’ Serpentius said. ‘I have debts to pay.’