Saviour of Rome

XLIII

Valerius and Serpentius made a weary and bedraggled sight as they rode in to Avala with their clothing still stained by the ochre mud of the Red Hills. They’d finally reached the horses after a nightmare trudge through the mud, followed by a two-day semicircular trek across broken country to keep them out of the way of the Parthians. On the second morning Serpentius found a stream where they were able to wash the worst of the clay off their bodies and clean and dry their clothing while they laid up until dark. They travelled in silence, any exhilaration at their unlikely survival long since replaced by a melancholy that both men knew well from the aftermath of battle.

Their demeanour that morning matched their mood. They’d failed and the hangdog attitude of the reception party who awaited them outside the castro suggested theirs was not the only failure. Tito stood at the head of a group of elders and young men, his face a picture of misery, but it was Julia who drew Valerius’s eyes. She wore bandages on both hands and his heart sank as he recognized the dark stola she wore and understood the reason behind it. It was finished. After a meal and a few hours’ sleep he’d do what Serpentius advised and ride south in search of Pliny. Caeleo, the hunter who had been sent to Legio to deliver Valerius’s report to Marius, the Imperial courier, was among the welcome party and Valerius called him over.

‘Were you able to find the young man, Caeleo?’

‘Yes, lord.’ A smile creased the goat hunter’s face. ‘It was like you said. He was a-cuddling with this lass in the tavern by the bridge. I took him aside, secret like, and handed him the message. All business he was after that. Lass wasn’t pleased to see him go, tears and wailing and trying to keep him from the saddle, but off he went eventually.’

‘When was this?’

‘The day before yesterday, lord. I came straight back.’ He leered. ‘That girl didn’t want no comforting from the likes of old Caeleo.’

Valerius went over the route from Legio to Tarraco in his head. If Marius used his Imperial warrant to change horses at every government mansio he should reach Pliny by tomorrow morning at the latest. Would Pliny see the urgency of the situation and march north immediately? Valerius had done what he could to highlight the dangers, but with little genuine evidence to back it up. Even if Pliny acted immediately he doubted he’d meet the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis till at least Esca, and perhaps further south.

He didn’t see Caeleo watching him, or the look of concern that had replaced the smiles. The hunter was a man who lived his life by a certain philosophy. If a shepherd’s flock showed signs of disease, but the shepherd was blind to it, Caeleo would allow him a further few days of cheerfulness rather than be the bearer of bad news. Thus he hadn’t mentioned that when Marius rode out from Legio, the courier had been followed minutes later by four Parthian cavalrymen. Whatever the outcome of this scene, nothing could be done about it now and Caeleo saw no reason to trouble Valerius with something that could only cause him distress. Suddenly he remembered that there was something else he’d been meant to communicate.

‘Would your honour be wanting to see your visitor now?’

‘Visitor?’ Valerius looked to where Tito and Serpentius were deep in conversation.

‘No, lord,’ the goatherd said. ‘He’ll be this way.’

Valerius followed him through the newly replaced gate of Avala to a house that had been one of the first to be renovated after the raid by Harpocration’s Parthians. His puzzlement grew when he noticed the armed guard outside the entrance. A leather curtain covered the doorway and he pulled it aside and ducked through. The smoke hole in the roof allowed in just enough light to make out a hunched figure sitting on a stone bench in the far corner.

The man looked up and Valerius looked into a face he recognized. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Why would you come here?’

‘You’re alive.’ The man ignored the question. ‘They said you were dead. Everyone was certain you were dead. A mine accident.’

‘Why are you here?’ Valerius persisted.

‘I was sent with a message.’

‘So?’

The man darted a glance at the doorway. ‘A certain person asks for a meeting tomorrow at the crossroads mansio south of Legio,’ he whispered. ‘You should have passed it on the way to Asturica …?’

‘I know it,’ Valerius said. ‘But why should I meet with this … person? Why should I trust them? After all, just because I survived one accident it doesn’t mean I’ll survive another.’

‘My … person understands this. They told me to say that it is in your interest to meet and they sent a token which they said you would recognize.’ He held out his hand and Valerius saw something glittering in the centre of his palm. He knew he was expected to pick it up, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it.

‘I will think on it.’ He turned away.

‘And you are to come alone,’ the man called. ‘My person is very jealous of their privacy.’

Valerius almost smiled at this invitation to place his head once more between the lion’s jaws. ‘I would have to be mad to do that.’

‘Yes.’ The man shook his head wryly. ‘Almost as mad as someone who agreed to come here with a message and offered to stay as a hostage for your safe return.’

Valerius looked at him with new regard. ‘Truly?’

The man nodded glumly. ‘I have discovered that loyalty is a dangerous quality.’

‘So it is.’ Valerius grinned. ‘Will your person be alone?’

He shook his head. ‘They will be in a carriage pulled by two bays. There is a driver, but he knows nothing of this. The carriage will wait there for two hours after noon.’

‘Very well, I will think on it,’ Valerius repeated. But they both knew he’d made up his mind.

‘Try to stay alive, lord – if only for my sake.’

Valerius laughed. ‘You may trust me for that, but I have found it is not so easy in this Asturia of yours.’

Serpentius, naturally, tried to dissuade him. ‘Of course it’s a trap,’ he said with surly relish. ‘How could it be anything else after all that’s happened? They’ll be waiting for you. If it’s not the thieves who kill you it’ll be someone else. You’d be a fool to go.’

‘It’s one last chance to do what I came here for. To win some proper justice for Petronius.’

‘Then at least let me come with you.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘If it’s who I think it is they’ll just walk away and we’ll be back where we started. There’s a reason they want to speak to me alone. Just supply me with a guide to take me as far as the Legio road.’

The next day, after a few hours’ sleep and another gruelling ride, Valerius approached the crossroads mansio an hour after noon. A four-wheeled wagon – more or less a small room on wheels – stood in the dusty courtyard while the driver watered a pair of fine horses at a stone trough by the mansio entrance. He looked up as Valerius entered and hurried to the carriage.

A slim hand appeared through the curtained doorway and beckoned Valerius forward. He tied his horse to a rail and approached the wagon, eyes searching the surroundings for any signs of the potential ambush that was so likely. He had no reason to trust the woman who had summoned him here and many reasons not to. His heart thundered in his chest, but it was anticipation as much as fear that drove it. He pulled back the curtain.

‘So you did come.’ Calpurnia Severa greeted him with a cold smile. ‘I feared I had overestimated you.’ She reached out and offered her hand to help him into the carriage.

‘Did I have any other choice?’ Valerius ignored the searching fingers and pushed inside. Calpurnia sat on a cushioned bench to one side. He took the seat opposite, so close they could touch heads if they leaned forward at the same time. ‘How did you know I wasn’t dead? Everyone else seems to think so.’

‘Severus was positively crowing when he announced it,’ she said scornfully. ‘A little cockerel strutting around on his dungheap. You frightened him, you see.’ She shook her head. ‘A lot of things frighten him. I told him I was pleased you were dead. The truth is that I couldn’t conceive of a pair of crooks like Melanius and Ferox killing a man like Gaius Valerius Verrens. So I sent Zeno on the off chance I was right. Severus believes he has his loyalty, but the reality is very different. Zeno is devoted to me. He would do anything I ask.’

‘He said it would be in my interest to meet you. That suggests you have something to offer.’

‘Or,’ her eyes hardened, ‘I have a dozen of Harpocration’s Parthian killers secreted away in the mansio in case Ferox and Melanius had failed at the mine. All I have to do is call out.’

Valerius went very still. A certain twist to her lips told him she was enjoying his confusion. On the other hand, that long slim neck was easily within reach and all he had to do was reach out and the fingers of his left hand would squeeze the life out of her. He could see she knew it, too. ‘Why would you do that when you despise the men who want me dead?’

‘You men are all alike.’ She stared at him, shaking her head. ‘So terribly predictable. You refused my … attentions. I find that insulting. Why would I not want my revenge?’ Valerius considered the question for a long, anxious moment. Had he misjudged her so badly? Before he came up with an answer, she continued. ‘But that would be a meagre reason to have a man killed. No.’ Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head in a certain way. ‘There would have to be a better motivation. Let us call it power. Yes, I despise Melanius and the rest. But it would be so easy to supplant them. Calpurnius Piso is a young man and not insensible to my charms. A word in his ear and Severus, Melanius and Ferox would be no more. All that gold hidden where they think no one can find it. It would all be mine. And Piso has ambitions …’

‘Calpurnia Augusta.’

She answered his mockery with a perfectly curved raised eyebrow. ‘You do not think I am worthy, Valerius? A clothmaker’s daughter from Carthago Nova who rose to become queen of Asturica Augusta in all but name?’

‘I think your neck is much too pretty to put under the executioner’s axe, where it would certainly end up if you were foolish enough to follow Piso. But then you’re not, are you?’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I am not.’

‘Which brings us back to why you brought me here.’

She reached beneath the seat, drew out a leather satchel and handed it to him. ‘This is the information that fat fool Nepos would have provided if he hadn’t got himself killed. Everything you need to destroy Melanius and his crew. Names, numbers. How it was carried out. All the people who were paid to look the other way. The key to the cypher is there too.’

Valerius weighed the pouch in his hand, barely able to believe what he’d just been given. ‘So you were Petronius’s other source?’

‘I convinced him to recruit Nepos to protect me. If they suspected they were being betrayed, everything they discovered would have led them to him.’ She sounded very pleased with herself. When he remembered the shattered body on the tunnel floor, Valerius reflected that it would be very easy to despise her.

‘What I don’t understand is why?’ he said. ‘If I can get this material to Plinius Secundus it won’t just destroy Melanius and Ferox, it will destroy your husband too.’

Calpurnia took time to consider before she replied. ‘When I first approached Petronius one of the conditions I set was that Severus should be exempted from punishment when the conspirators were taken. I urged him to distance himself from these people, but Severus was too greedy and too frightened of Melanius and that barbarian savage of his. If he had kept faith with me, Severus could have had everything he has now, but without the risk. It all changed when he fell under Melanius’s spell. A fool and a coward, and worse, an old fool. He betrayed me as a wife, and worse, he is no longer capable of treating me the way a woman needs to be treated. All I ask now is that after he is executed his wealth passes to his widow. Can you guarantee this?’

Valerius hesitated. Calpurnia had all but confessed that she’d been the driving force behind what went on in Asturica Augusta before Melanius intervened. Clearly, the only reason she agreed to cooperate with Petronius was because she feared Melanius’s ambitions would get her killed. What else wasn’t she telling him? Still … ‘If it is within my power.’

A bitter laugh. ‘I need more than that. I need assurances. Petronius-’

‘I am not Petronius.’

She reached for the case. ‘I will not lose all I have worked for. You were sent for this information by the governor. Perhaps if I deliver it myself he will give me what I need.’

‘I was sent here by the Emperor.’ He saw a flicker of alarm in her eyes and she withdrew her hand. ‘I have the Emperor’s authority,’ he continued. ‘And the Emperor rewards those who are loyal to him.’

‘Then I must trust you to do what is right.’ The words were said lightly enough, but her tone had an edge that told him what she expected.

‘What will you do now?’

‘Melanius is already suspicious of me. I cannot return to Asturica Augusta unless I want to go the way of Saco and Petronius. My sister has a house in Toletum. I mean to stay there until this is over. Afterwards, Rome, I think, where Severus’s money will secure me a place in society. Perhaps we will meet again, Gaius Valerius Verrens? You are an interesting man, I-’

The blast of a trumpet interrupted her. Valerius frowned and pulled back the curtain in the doorway. ‘That’s the call to close up. Someone’s on the move.’

‘That is what I was about to tell you,’ Calpurnia said. ‘Melanius has ordered a move against Tarraco within the week. Elements of the garrison at Legio have been called to Asturica to provide a proper escort for Melanius and the others.’

Soon they heard the sound of metal clinking against metal, shouted orders and hundreds of iron-soled feet on hard-packed earth. Calpurnia craned her head for a better view as the front ranks of a legionary column marched into sight in full armour, four abreast and led by a signifer carrying a cohort standard.

Valerius counted them as they went past. ‘At least four hundred men.’

‘My fool of a husband has been having the servants polish the armour he last wore as a young tribune. He talks as if the battles have already been won. They have all been bewitched by Melanius to believe they cannot fail. Calpurnius Piso? A boy who thinks his bloodline entitles him to command and to rule. And Proculus, a mere caretaker who could have stopped all this three years ago if he’d been man enough to stand up to Melanius.’

‘Nepos mentioned that Melanius had some sort of hold over him?’

Her long nose twitched as if something putrid had been placed under it. ‘Severus said there were whispers about young girls – very young girls – who went missing wherever Proculus was posted. Nothing of the sort has happened in Legio, or I would have heard. Melanius must have warned him to contain his urges, or he has outgrown them, as old men do.’ Her laugh was as bitter as a winter frost. ‘Old men, an ambitious boy and a barbarian savage and they think they can take Hispania for their own. Every one will be hanging from a cross before Saturnalia.’

‘Only if Pliny can stop them.’