Scourge of Rome

I

Roman Syria, one month later

A man would die in Antioch tonight. The assassin had stalked his victim for a week and knew his routine intimately enough to be certain of his destination. His target had taken lodgings in the cloth-making district where tight-packed, ramshackle houses lined the rat-infested Parmenian stream. It was a decision that spoke of an exceptionally tolerant sense of smell and a wish for privacy. The stench of fuller’s piss permeating the streets meant the vigiles kept their distance unless provoked. A perfect sanctuary for a fugitive, and his man certainly acted like a fugitive.

Normally, the assassin would have finished the job in a single night, leaving his victim just another corpse floating face down in the festering creek among the turds and the dead dogs. A long-nurtured instinct for survival told him that this one was different: a man with an equally well-honed sense of self-preservation. Instead, the murderer had watched and waited, his eyes never leaving the lodging house in the narrow alley the locals called, with supreme irony, the Street of Perfumed Gardens.

His target left the house twice each day, at noon and in the early evening, and though his route varied the destination was always the same, a tavern-brothel named the Vengeful Tenth after the legionaries who frequented it while on leave. There, he nursed a single drink and ignored the half-hearted ministrations of the whores until one of the merchants who organized the eastern caravans made his daily call. A short conversation ended with a shake of the head and a shrug that meant another day’s wait. Showing neither disappointment nor frustration the target would hand the trader a coin and re-arrange the rendezvous before making his way to the stables where the two horses he’d bought were being cared for. He would check their condition and question the groom before handing over another coin and returning to his accommodation.

The assassin had assessed the route and calculated the possibilities before making his decision where to strike. His favoured spot was reached not long after the man left the tavern, when he passed through a shadowed alley a few dozen paces long on the way to the stable. If someone happened to be around, another convenient place presented itself between the stable and his lodgings. The assassin was adept with either knife or strangling rope, but he’d chosen the former because the victim was a well-built man of above average height who had once been a soldier; a holder of the Corona Aurea, if his sources were to be believed. Despite his ragged clothing and broken-down appearance, the high military honour identified him as a formidable opponent. The assassin was a man who took no chances. Death must be instantaneous.

One other factor required consideration. His victim had a feature that made him instantly recognizable but also created, if not a problem, then at least an interesting dilemma. One hand, the right, was missing – an old battle injury, he’d been told – and had been replaced by a carved wooden fist. The question was: did that make the victim more vulnerable or less so? A less experienced killer would immediately have opted for the first, but the assassin was a thorough man. After some thought he’d decided that the fact that this man had survived with the mutilation for so long probably made him more dangerous. A left-handed victim was unusual and his reaction to an attack less predictable. Better to give him no time to react at all.

Tonight he didn’t follow the victim into the smoky, noisome interior of the Vengeful Tenth with its tawdry painted harridans and sour wine. Instead he wrapped his cloak tighter against the night cold and took up a position where he could watch the door. Patience was an exceptional virtue in his profession, and he was an exceptionally patient man.

As he waited, he watched the sky turn from dark blue to inky black. The hills looming over the ancient city transformed from grey to silver and finally a ghostly, insubstantial haze that was eventually consumed by the night. He saw the merchant arrive and leave in the time it took to sup a single drink. Any moment now. He took a deep breath. There. A tall man silhouetted in the light from the curtained doorway, the bleak grey eyes mere pits of darkness in a hard-edged face with a distinctive white scar that ran from eye to lip on the left side. The man hesitated a moment before trudging off in the direction of the stables, slightly favouring his right side as if to compensate for the missing extremity. The assassin gave his victim twenty paces of a start before following, not so much moving over the ground as flowing from one shadow to the next, deathly silent and oblivious of the nameless filth beneath his feet.

This close to the kill his senses, always well developed, heightened so that every sight, sound and scent was recognizable even in the murky depths of the alley. Wary and wound tight as a ballista rope, he nevertheless felt an almost brotherly affinity with the victim. For instance, this past two days the man had taken on a heavy-footed gait as if someone had placed a great weight on his shoulders. Was it caused by the knowledge that the assassin’s patron nursed a vengeful hatred that knew no bounds and each day was likely to be his last? Well, the weariness and the worry were about to end. When the job was done the killer would take ship at Seleucia Pieria and return to the reward that was his due and the wife and daughters on whom he doted.

He didn’t think of himself as an evil man, not even a bad one. He was just a professional doing a job. Every man had to die some day, and few had the choice of the where, the how or the why.

At least for the former soldier it would be quick. He could visualize the gap between two ribs where the needle point of the long blue-tinged blade would enter the body. A moment of exquisite agony as it penetrated the frantically pumping heart. The muscle spasming to grip the bright iron until the knife twisted to break the hold, triggering a terrible long shudder that transmitted its way through the blade from victim to killer. A final breath and the familiar look of disbelief in the dying eyes.

Now! He increased his pace. His cloth-bound feet covered the ground in long soundless strides that brought him so close to the inviting, unsuspecting back that his nostrils twitched with the scent of the victim’s last cup of wine. The final rush was accompanied by a thrill of fear that the man would sense something and react, instantly replaced by the exhilaration of the faultlessly placed strike, the right arm punching forward, the aim and the angle exact. Perfection.

But why did the impact jar his arm? Why, instead of welcoming flesh, did the point meet something rigid and unforgiving? Even as the assassin’s mind made the link with the sensation of a blade being turned by metal, it was already too late. A warning scorched his brain like a bolt of forked lightning. That heartbeat’s hesitation gave Gaius Valerius Verrens his opportunity. He whirled in a single movement and his left hand came up to seize the attacker’s wrist. The would-be killer felt the bones grind together and the knife dropped from his nerveless fingers. He looked up into eyes that surprised him because they were filled with regret rather than hatred or vengeance. As he struggled to break free the oaken fist he’d forgotten existed came up and smashed into his jaw with a force that sucked the strength from his legs. But the assassin had not survived for so long without an inner strength that would have surprised anyone who looked upon his doleful, priestly face. As he fell to the cobbled street his mind still whirled with possibilities. Surely he would be questioned? The man would want to know who had sent him and why. The assassin decided he would lead him back to his lodging house. Offer him money. Perhaps even give up the next link in the chain that led back to Rome. So many opportunities for a man of enterprise to escape or turn the tables.

Even as he considered his next move his disbelieving brain registered the sting as the edge of his own blade sliced across his throat. So this was how it-

Valerius stood over the dying man until the soft gurgling faded, careful to stay clear of the spreading pool of darkness that threatened his feet. When all movement ceased he threw the knife into a nearby cesspit and searched the corpse. As he’d expected, the findings were of little interest: a purse containing a surprising number of gold coins, the usual phallic charm for luck – he looked into the dead eyes and shook his head at the irony of it – a second knife in a pouch strapped to the arm, and a braided rope that needed no explanation. He’d supposed the man might carry some token identifying his origin, but it didn’t really matter. Whether he was employed by one of the shadowy state-sponsored agencies in the Palatium or just another blade for hire, Valerius had no doubt who sent him.

He straightened with the weary grunt of a much older man and considered his options. The dead assassin was the latest of at least four killers who’d dogged his footsteps over the last two months. One of them had simply disappeared. He’d persuaded the second, a Moesian courtesan, that whatever she’d been offered wasn’t worth dying for. But in Athens there’d been a much too friendly merchant who’d surreptitiously poured powder into his wine cup, then taken so much interest in the establishment’s nubile entertainment that Valerius had managed to switch drinks with him. Such was his agony that the convulsions snapped his spine like an over-strained bow.

This one had been the best. It had taken Valerius two days to mark him and the assassin’s only mistake was not to strike earlier. The one-handed Roman thanked the gods for the whim that had led him to buy the rusting auxiliary chain armour he’d seen hanging at the back of an ironworker’s market stall. Without it, he would certainly be dead. Mars’ sacred arse, the bastard had been quick. One moment he’d been a dozen paces back and the next Valerius had the breath knocked out of him. It had been pure luck the point hadn’t punched through one of the armour’s many weak spots. As it was, he was certain the knife had still bitten deep into the heavy leather vest he wore under the chain. He stretched his lower back. He was getting too old for this. The thought made him laugh. He was thirty-four years old. At thirty-four, Augustus had conquered Egypt and ten years later he’d still had the strength of will to invade Parthia and recover the standards lost by Crassus at Carrhae.

With a last regretful glance at the dead assassin he set off again in the direction of the stables. More imperative than ever to ensure the horses were being well cared for and the stable hands were following his instructions. He was fairly certain the killer worked alone, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others nearby ready to take on the job if he failed. Valerius’s enemy was a man who could not be underestimated. Valerius had done that once and almost paid the price. To do so a second time would be suicidal.

He pondered whether to search the assassin’s rooms, but decided he might alert an accomplice he’d missed. The killer must have some means of reporting his success and the man who had sent him was not known for his patience. Did that mean he’d already been told of Valerius’s plan to join one of the caravans heading east for the next leg of his journey?

‘Spare a few as for an old soldier down on his luck?’

The slurred words came from a doorway to his right. Valerius automatically checked his left side in case the approach had been designed to distract him. When he was certain there was no danger he turned back to the man who’d spoken. A single red-rimmed eye shone from a face destroyed by a sword blade. It had caught him high on the right cheek and removed the other eye, half his nose and several teeth. He might have been anywhere between thirty and fifty and sat on a bundle of straw with one leg tucked under him. The stump of the other, removed at the thigh, jutted out in front.

‘What legion?’

‘Tenth Fretensis, your honour, Corbulo’s finest. Honourable wounds taken against the Parthian King of Kings.’

A shiver ran through Valerius at the reminder of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, the most successful general ever to wield a sword for Rome and the man who’d been like a father to him. Corbulo had become so powerful that Nero had grown to fear him and, despite his professions of loyalty, ordered him to commit suicide. The Tenth Fretensis had held the Parthian charge at the Cepha Gap as arrows turned the sky black and King Vologases’ Invincibles crashed to their doom, but they’d suffered terrible casualties. Most of the badly wounded died in the unsprung carts carrying them back to the Euphrates crossing at Zeugma. This man must be tough to survive the ordeal – or he’d been graced with Fortuna’s favour. He weighed the assassin’s purse in his hands and threw it to the cripple.

‘Spend it wisely,’ he said.

Before he reached the stables he heard the cackle of laughter as the mutilated soldier discovered the value of the purse’s contents. A roar of ‘The drinks are on old Atticus tonight’ echoed down the street and told him his advice was unlikely to be taken.

The pure joy in the shout made him grin. In truth he could have used the money himself, but he had a feeling the gold was tainted and, in the long run, would bring him bad fortune. Another old memory stirred and he touched his throat where a silver wheel of Fortuna hung on a leather thong. It was his only physical link to Domitia Longina Corbulo, the general’s daughter, the woman he loved and the one who’d saved his life. She’d placed it round his neck on that last day in Rome. ‘You must forget me,’ she’d said. But her advice was easier to acknowledge than to put into practice.

In pursuing Domitia, Valerius had made a mortal enemy of Titus Flavius Domitian. That enmity had grown along with Domitian’s power until it became a homicidal obsession to rid himself of his love rival. When Valerius had knelt in the Forum, falsely accused of treason and with an executioner’s sword at his neck, Domitia had promised herself to his enemy to save him. Instead of death, Valerius had suffered permanent exile from the shores of Italia and been branded an enemy of the state.

Of course it wouldn’t end there. There’d never been any doubt that Domitian would send his assassins in Valerius’s wake. Even with Domitia’s support he wouldn’t have escaped Rome alive without the help of his former colleague Gaius Plinius Secundus. Pliny had loaned him money and supplied him with a list of contacts that allowed him to reach Antioch. Now he was on his own, and Valerius knew his only chance of long-term survival was to reach his friend Titus, Domitian’s brother, and somehow redeem his honour. It meant finding a way to Judaea, where Titus commanded his father Vespasian’s forces.

But Judaea was a province in revolt and a lone traveller’s chances of crossing its war-ravaged deserts and mountains alive were slim. Valerius had sought a place in a well-guarded mercantile caravan that would take him some of the way in relative safety. Thanks to the assassin he must now consider that route closed. He could return to the coast and take ship from Seleucia to Tyrus or Appolonia, but Domitian would undoubtedly have the ports watched.

Which left him with only one option.