The Art of War

Chapter 78

Rome, 20 December AD 69

Geminus

So close!

We were yards from them. Feet, even. We nearly had our blades in their backs, but Hades they could run fast, and while we might have caught up with them on any normal day, on this day we were Greens-men in a ghetto that was solidly for the Blues and they had, as I’d thought, swapped their insults for stones, slates, vegetables, knives; anything they could lay their hands on that might slow us: and it did.

We ran through a hail of missiles, to which was soon added half a unit of blue-scarved men, drawn by the halloos of a bunch of youths who capered across the rooftops and drew them on to us. Amidst them, I spotted Felix, his near-albino colouring standing out like a beacon. I think it was then that I had the first inkling of how false was the path on which we had been led. There wasn’t time to think of it, though: in one moment, we were chasing our fugitives; in the next, we were fugitives ourselves, hurtling down alleys, trying to escape the increasing mass of blue-marked men on our tails.

‘Here!’ I grabbed Juvens, pulled him down another lane, this one lined with tanneries. Like everywhere else, the tanners had climbed up, out of reach of the fighting men and, like everywhere else, they were against us.

‘Here! Here!’ They danced and whistled like overgrown silver-boys. ‘Vitellius’ officers! Here!’