Saviour of Rome

VI

‘The hand is so much part of you it seems wrong when you remove it like that,’ Pliny said. Undressing in the apodyterium, Valerius had pulled off the stock and laid the wooden fist of his right hand aside. ‘Does it affect you at all?’

From anyone else such an enquiry would have been bad manners, but Valerius was perfectly accustomed to Pliny’s habit of questioning everything. Any experience that could broaden his knowledge would be of interest.

‘It was odd when I first had it fitted,’ Valerius admitted. ‘Each time I removed it I experienced the pain of the day it was taken from me. But use makes master. These days I take it off every night and replace it each morning almost without thinking.’

Pliny limped past the tepidarium to the caldarium and slipped into the steaming pool of clear water with a groan of ecstasy. ‘I also find a bath eases the pain of the gout. Now, where was I?’

‘You were talking about corruption in the goldfields.’ Valerius dropped into the pool beside his friend.

‘Ah, yes. Corruption. Bureaucracy is essential to the successful flow of gold, silver and lead from the mines of Hispania to the vaults of Rome. Yet in a system of supply and demand there is always room for a venal official to make a profit. Leases are auctioned to the highest bidder, but that bidder will undoubtedly also be the one who pays the largest bribe to the official in charge. Most of the mines are state-operated, but miners have to be fed. How simple for a mine operator to claim he paid out x sesterces a day to feed his workers when in fact he is paying out y and pocketing the difference? Fortunately, or unfortunately, the flow of gold was so immense that as long as the people responsible maintained it those in charge were happy for them to take their cut. Corruption became part of the system, therefore whatever else you discover you will find corruption.’

‘Then how will I know if I’ve discovered something significant?’

‘I’m afraid I cannot answer that,’ Pliny admitted. ‘But I’m confident you will know it when you see it, Valerius. What Petronius uncovered plainly went beyond mere corruption – gold production is two thirds the level before the civil war. Perhaps if you can find out what has happened to him you will have taken the first step to discovering what it was?’

Valerius frowned. It was like being asked to find a single turd in a cesspit. Whatever the outcome, he had a feeling his hands were going to get very dirty. ‘Do you have any suggestion how I go about this?’

‘I have an old comrade who lives in Asturica Augusta.’ Pliny’s voice dropped and his eyes flickered towards the doorway. Valerius suppressed a wry smile. If his friend believed his secrets weren’t safe in the very heart of his headquarters they were in deep trouble indeed. ‘His name is Marcus Atilius Melanius. He is one of the city’s leading citizens, but a man who lives quietly in retirement and has no links to the mining industry. Petronius was to contact him in time of need, but I don’t know if he ever did. At least he will be able to show you how the land lies. Do you intend to use the title Vespasian conferred upon you?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Valerius admitted. ‘On the one hand high rank conveys a certain level of power; on the other it makes me conspicuous and could prevent people from speaking. Better, I think, to enter the city as a simple traveller, perhaps with a letter of introduction to your old comrade. Whatever Petronius discovered is likely to be buried deep, but someone somewhere has knowledge of it.’ He paused for a moment, staring at a wall painting of a sea monster devouring a bireme galley, but his mind was already in the north. ‘The key is to find that person and put pressure on them. That might be the time to bring out the Emperor’s warrant.’

Pliny nodded thoughtfully. ‘You may be right. Perhaps we can discuss it further in the morning? I intend to stay immersed for another hour. I doubt you will want to stay that long …’

Valerius thanked him and pulled himself out of the pool. Normally an attendant would have been waiting to dry the governor and his guest, but the slave was nowhere in sight. Valerius had to search through cupboards to find oil for the stump of his arm. When he’d dressed he pulled the cowhide stock of the artificial hand over the mottled purple surface of his wrist and tightened the leather thongs with the ease of long practice. He was preparing to leave when an odd sound drew his attention: a soft gurgling as if someone had decided to empty the main bath.

He slipped to the curtained doorway. Yes, it was definitely coming from the caldarium. He drew the thick curtain slowly to the side. At first his eyes struggled to interpret the scene in front of him. Two fully clothed men, stocky and bearded, were apparently working on something in the bath. A thrill of fear paralysed him for a moment, during which the anonymous something heaved up and thrashed, before the combined strength of the two men submerged it again. Pliny!

Valerius crossed the marble floor in four strides, his left thumb automatically seeking the little button on the back of his wooden fist. The man holding Pliny’s lower half must have noticed movement because he looked up with a cry that alerted his fellow assassin. Too late. The second man rose and half turned to meet the threat, but Valerius had already launched into a scything punch that took him on the upper cheek.

A blow from the wooden fist would stun any man. This blow was designed to kill. The button on the back of the fist released a four-inch blade that sprang from the centre knuckle. Now the needle point entered the assassin’s right eye and pierced his brain. Valerius hauled the knife clear with a twist and the dying man dropped into the pool, his life blood turning the waters red. The second assassin gaped at his companion and released Pliny’s legs, backing away across the pool. Valerius had a choice of going after him or helping his drowning friend. There could only be one decision. He plunged into the water and felt for the submerged Pliny. The groping fingers of his left hand quickly found a hank of thinning hair and he pulled the governor’s head to the surface. The killer continued to glare from the far side of the pool, caught between an urge to finish the job and the greater call of survival.

‘Guards!’ Valerius roared. ‘Guards to me.’

The surviving assassin spat an insult at Valerius before sprinting for the doorway. Pliny lay back with his eyes closed and his flabby chest chillingly still. Valerius hauled the inert body from the water on to the marble floor beside the pool. Drowning was nothing new to Valerius, but, by Fortuna’s favour, in his case it had never been permanent. He remembered looking up through a clear blue sea at the hull of a Roman merchant ship. How had they brought him back? Yes, that was it. His ribs had ached for a week. He heaved Pliny up, with the governor’s back against his chest, put both arms around him and squeezed with all his strength. Once, twice. Thrice. Jupiter’s wrinkled scrotum, was he too late? Finally, a long, rasping groan from Pliny’s throat followed by an enormous gout of water and the contents of his stomach. For a moment he lay in Valerius’s arms, his body shaking. His features were as pale as fresh milk and his eyes twitched open to peer up at his saviour. He was smiling.

‘Why, I do believe I was dead.’

By the time Valerius supported Pliny from the bath house the failed assassin had been pinned to the packed earth of the courtyard by four snarling guards. The governor shrugged himself free and straightened to his full height. His face was a mask of fury and the guard commander turned pale before his wrath.

‘We will discuss how he came to be here later. For now prepare him for the question.’ The guards dragged the man up and Pliny studied the swarthy bearded face. ‘You would do well to tell me what you know now, or it will be the worse for you.’ The assassin’s only reply was to spit at his feet. Pliny nodded slowly as if the gesture was what he’d expected. ‘Take him away.’

A new Pliny this, the grim, unyielding interrogator, watching in silence as his subordinates prepared the familiar instruments: the hot coals, the pincers and pliers, the shears, the hooks and the assorted glittering blades. The assassin watched too, from a position on the far wall of the stables where they’d strung him up by the arms from a pair of manacles. Stripped naked, his body gleamed with perspiration in the glow from the brazier, his manhood already shrivelled up seeking sanctuary in the hairy bush of his crotch. The building had been cleared for the occasion, but it still stank of horse shit, mouldy hay and the rank sweat of generations of its equine occupants.

Pliny, dressed in a formal toga, sat on a padded couch with his gouty foot raised, far enough away from his subject to avoid any spilled bodily fluids. A secretary appeared and stood by with a stylus and wax block to record the questions and the replies.

‘You do not have to stay, Valerius,’ Pliny said without taking his eyes off the man who’d tried to kill him.

‘Better if I do.’

‘Very well. What is your name?’

It took time and persuasion. While the knives were being heated to a fierce glowing crimson the torturers removed the large toe of his left foot with a cold chisel, a mere foretaste of what was to come. The almost casual amputation, carried out with brutal indifference, brought a gasp of agony and the man’s face turned pale beneath his deep tan.

‘Who sent you?’

The assassin closed his eyes and blood ran down his chin where he’d bitten through his lip.

‘The right ear, I think.’

The horrible prolonged shriek that followed the suggestion sent a shiver down Valerius’s spine. A red-hot blade had the benefit of cauterizing the wound as it was created. One of the torturers held the wilted scrap of flesh before the assassin’s eyes then tossed it on to the brazier. It sizzled and cooked, filling the stable with the mouth-watering scent of frying meat, before curling up into an unrecognizable blackened crisp and disappearing in a flicker of blue flame.

And so it went. They took him apart one piece at a time. No mindless pummelling brutality this, just a cold, clinical professionalism that told the victim the only way to save what was left was to tell everything he knew. When it came, it was like a dam bursting. The names tumbled out one after the other in a guttural dog Latin Valerius could barely decipher. First the man’s own. Brutus, a mere bandit, he pleaded, from west of Carthago Nova. He and his companion Venico had been recruited by … a mumbled name that clearly meant nothing to Pliny.

‘Ask him again. How did he gain entry to the palace? How did he know where to find me?’

Brutus hesitated, which was a mistake. There went one eye, the right, courtesy of a glowing spike accompanied by a horrible bubbling scream that seemed to go on for ever.

When they resumed, his voice was hoarse from the screaming. They’d been ordered to meet a man at an inn down by the port. The man informed them that the governor was a creature of habit. He would enter the bath at the seventh hour. Their informant would ensure a certain door was left open, the guards would be elsewhere. The attendant would be dealt with. An unfortunate accident would then occur.

‘Who?’ Pliny’s voice shook with emotion. ‘Who betrayed me?’

The assassin could give no name, but he provided a description that made the governor go still.

‘Find him,’ he hissed to the guard. ‘Find him if you have to scour the whole province.’

It wasn’t enough, of course. They had to be sure. When the assassin thought he’d given them everything, it turned out he was wrong.

‘I regret the necessity,’ Pliny explained later. ‘But if it is going to be done it must be done properly or there is no point.’

‘What will happen to him?’

Pliny frowned. ‘A personal attack on the governor of a Roman province? He will be crucified, what is left of him.’

‘Who was it?’

‘A clerk.’ Pliny looked weary and old. ‘Acondus, who worked very closely with my secretary. Whoever paid him would know my intentions the moment they were written down. Of course, with the assassins discovered – and I have yet to thank you and your ingenious little knife for your services – his usefulness was at an end. The vigiles found him in an alley with his throat cut. He is no help to us now.’

Valerius considered for a moment. ‘Could the attempt on your life have anything to do with my mission?’

Pliny winced at the possibility, but shook his head. ‘Not directly, I think.’ He met Valerius’s eyes. ‘I believe I may have suspected something of this nature, deep down, because I ensured all correspondence involving you was directly between myself and the Emperor or Titus. Asturica Augusta? Yes, it is possible, but why now?’

‘Because they fear you are getting too close.’

‘Poor Petronius,’ Pliny sighed. ‘I sent him to his doom. Perhaps you should reconsider, Valerius? The Emperor would not want you to share his fate.’

‘No.’ There was iron in Valerius’s voice. ‘I gave him my vow and too much is at stake to turn back now.’

Pliny smiled and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘I thought as much. Then, given the change in circumstances, I believe you should follow your original instinct and make a low-key entry to Asturica Augusta. A soldier on his way to visit old comrades. I could send you with a supply convoy – they come and go all the time – but they take an age. Better I think to accompany the courier who leaves tomorrow carrying my reply to the officer in charge of the fort at Legio. He’s to have an escort of troopers from my guard squadron, so you should be safe enough on the journey. The courier is based at the fort so it’s possible you may find out how things lie there.’

Pliny had called Asturica a hornets’ nest, but from where Valerius sat it seemed more like a den of vipers. He had a feeling the only way to get the information Vespasian sought would be to place himself amongst them.