The Art of War

Chapter 14

Rome, 3–4 August AD 69

Trabo

So there you have it; I came to the inn to deliver a letter and what should I find but a man running from Vitellius’ Guards, which was, if you’ll forgive me, of more immediate interest.

I didn’t know they were following Pantera and his name wouldn’t have meant anything to me if I had heard it, but I knew this man had led Jocasta into that cottage and come out without her and that was interesting in itself, never mind the four Guards trying to catch him.

Jocasta? Yes, I knew her from the first moment in the inn. Even dressed like a whore, she shone like a peacock amongst sparrows. I’ve known her all my life: I grew up with her, played with her in my grandfather’s gardens on the heights of the Quirinal, me and her against our brothers, or the other way about.

She was turbulent even then, prone to scathing verbal attacks and wild, dangerous play. That day, seeing her play-acting the whore, I realized there was a level at which she was not playing at all, that I was seeing her as she really was: wildly dangerous.

And she’d been left inside the widow’s house while the fake centurion she had entered with was laying a trail away from it, in the way the hind lays a trail away from her fawn, leaving it safe in the long grass.

I did wrestle for a moment with my conscience, but Otho had said it was of utmost import that his letter be delivered discreetly and there was nothing discreet in walking up to a house the Guards were watching, so I stepped out of the courtyard and followed the stranger up the Quirinal towards the more prosperous residential area.

Here the streets were broader, and slave-carried litters drifted slowly up and down; white ships becalmed on the sea of dusk. With wider streets and no crowds to hide in, the Guards had to become more tactful, less bullish. They slid up the sides of walls, making the most of the shadows, and separated, so as not to move in bulk.

But it was the fake centurion who led the dance and I tell you, it was a masterclass in distraction. I watched that man weave round statues, duck into doorways, walk freely up the street and then pause and dive into side streets and out again before turning and retracing his steps while the odd, disjointed tail of men following him never quite caught up.

It was growing dark and each of them made the most of it. The Guard became shadows, hunting a ghost. Up ahead, halfway up the Quirinal, a brazier glowed red in the centre of a small walled courtyard set bang in the middle of the street; a shrine to the cult of Isis that stays active through the night, as you know.

The courtyard had gates at each of the four directions; Pantera could have cut straight across from the lower gate to the upper, but if he’d done that he’d have been caught in the fire’s glare while everyone else remained hidden in the dark. To avoid that, he had to go round one side or other; or so we all thought.

The Guards, seeing their chance, gathered into two pairs. One duo circled sunwise, the other counter-sun, or that was the plan. Pantera let them get halfway, and then ducked through the eastern gateway and doubled back at a dead run across the courtyard.

He was getting away. There was no chance they could circle back and catch him now. I gave a silent cheer. I still had no idea who he was, but at that point in the game, as far as I was concerned, any enemy of Vitellius’ Guards was a friend of mine.

Which is why I ducked down behind a crumbling wall as Pantera fled fast-footed past, and then dodged out and followed him. I took care not to be seen. I wanted to get close enough to him to ask him questions, to find out who he was and what he knew about Jocasta. I hadn’t thought of her in years; but now, having seen her, I could think of little else.

The broad street that leads down the Quirinal was too open for safety; Pantera could never stay there. Almost at once, I was led in a series of tight turns left and right and left, back into the stews where alleys were narrow and rarely straight and where the populace was less law-abiding than the senatorial worthies who live on the smart part of the hill. Here the streets were poorly lit; splashes of torchlight struggled against the night. The ground was uneven and dotted with unsavoury traps for the unwary. I could smell rancid horse, dog and pig dung laced with fresh human urine.

I stepped warily, hoping for solid ground under each foot, and tried to keep my eye on the man ahead. It was this straining into the night, the sifting of one shadow from others, that let me see the bandits just before they closed on him.

These weren’t Guards, quite the opposite: big fuckers with shaved heads who could have been gladiators, except they didn’t move with the grace of a gladiator but the short, sharp speed of the street thug.

There were seven or eight of them, maybe nine, and they knew whom they sought; someone, somehow, had been a step ahead of his shadow-dance down the street and made sure these men waited ahead of him. They hefted their cudgels and blades and came in slowly, all focused on Pantera.

They had no need to hurry: where could he go? They had him surrounded. In the half-light of a distant lamp, I saw him hug his arms to himself and was disappointed; after the display out on the street, I had expected more of this man.

Then a spinning knife shimmered in the muggy light and the nearest of the attackers was down before the others could react.

I’ve seen a lot of men throw a lot of knives, and this one was exceptional, but it wasn’t enough; the odds stood now at eight to one and that’s still bad numbers in anyone’s book.

I saw him stoop to pick something up from the ground, and in the time it took him to stand up again his enemies had closed in, swinging their cudgels.

I am not the kind to stand by while others have all the fun, and besides, it had been five months since I was last in a proper fight; my blood ached for action.

I had no weapon — a carter does not bear a blade, and I couldn’t risk being searched as I came into the city — but I had my belt, which was full of gold, heavy and solid as a brick. I had it undone and wrapped around my hand before the bandits reached their target, and then — Hades, but it was good to be fighting again! — I stepped in and swung hard at the biggest and ugliest of the attackers.

I felt his skull shatter under my fist like rotten winter ice. His knees buckled and he dropped like a rock. I sidestepped his falling body and swung again, less cleanly this time. I caught the next one on the side of his face; teeth flew free and I saw the shine die in the man’s eye as it split and leaked.

I pushed this one down, sending him into the path of a third, who had seen me by now, and was turning, swinging back his own arm, raising his cudgel high And had that cudgel removed at the top of its swing by the light-footed dancer who was my new friend.

He flashed me a grin, a man alive with the joy of battle. I saluted him, I think, certainly he returned it; we were like brothers in the field who have known each other half a lifetime, and then we were at it again, swinging our weapons, two against six, perhaps, and then five as Pantera used his newly acquired cudgel with devastating force, and then threw himself to the ground, rolling, to avoid the blows that rained down on his shoulders, his arms, seeking his head, not yet hitting it, and then not even really aiming because by then they had all realized they were fighting two, not one, and their attention was dangerously split.

I ducked a blow that would have swept my skull from my spine and, stepping in tight to the one I had chosen, slid my left hand up to his face, clawing for his eyes, driving him back to give my gold-heavy right hand a chance to jab short, hard punches at his groin, gut, face and neck until he doubled over and dropped.

My arm ached from the weight of the gold, and my hand was crushed inside my belt. I kicked the body at my feet and stamped on the side of the head as we did in the legions. I wasn’t wearing my nailed sandals, but I felt skull bones crack beneath my foot and spun away in time to hear a shout in guttural Greek and see the last three remaining bandits break off the engagement and back away.

‘No!’

I was beyond reason, in that place of red-veiled madness that takes me sometimes in battle, where to end a fight is almost as bad as to lose it. I was not going to stop now, not going to let them leave with the fight unfinished.

Jocasta was forgotten, Pantera an irrelevance; I was Trabo and I was back in Rome and if I needed an excuse it was that I had an oath to fulfil and a blood lust to satisfy and killing the agents of Vitellius was almost as good as killing the upstart himself.