The Eagle's Vengeance

10

Rome, August, AD 184

‘Well now, if it isn’t Gaius Rutilius Scaurus! Well met once again, Tribune, even if not in quite the circumstances we might both have expected!’

Scaurus stepped forward to meet the big man standing in the road in front of the halted Tungrian column, his armour tinted orange by the late afternoon sun and the layer of dust that coated the sculpted bronze plate. Senator Albinus was standing at the head of a group of twenty or so muscular-looking followers who to Marcus had the look of veteran soldiers for the most part, men a few years past their prime whose scars and almost sleepily calm demeanour marked them out as having been hardened in battle. Their meeting point had clearly been carefully chosen, hidden from the straggling settlements that littered the roadside at frequent intervals by trees that arched over the road to form a green tunnel, and Marcus smiled to see Julius looking about him with a look of professional discomfort, his eyes searching the greenery for any sign of movement as he addressed the men of his leading century.

‘All the way from Britannia and not a sign of anyone trying to stop us? If it’s going to happen anywhere then it’s going to happen here, before we reach the city, so just keep your fucking wits about you, gentlemen …’

The tribune took Albinus’s outstretched arm and found himself engulfed in a powerful bear hug, as the senator greeted him with the same slightly disquieting enthusiasm with which they had parted in Dacia the previous year. The last time that Scaurus had seen the big man he’d been outfitted and groomed for his position as an imperial legion’s legatus, his hair and beard cut tight to his powerful head and bull neck, but a year in Rome following his triumphant return from Dacia had clearly encouraged him to follow the latest imperial fashion. His glossy and immaculately barbered beard trailed a good four inches from his jaw, and his hair had been allowed to grow out into a tangle of artfully coiffured curls. When Albinus released him from the grip the bemused tribune stepped back with a wry smile and nodded respectfully, wincing at the dust that had transferred itself from his travel-soiled uniform to the senator’s pristine toga.

‘Forgive me, Decimus Clodius Albinus, something of my experience from the road seems to have rubbed off on you …’

An admonishing finger silenced him, and Albinus held his arms wide, his voice raised to carry to his men.

‘I told you in Dacia, Tribune, and I’ll tell you again at the gates of Rome, you and I are beyond formalities after the terrible things we’ve seen and done together …’ Julius and Marcus exchanged glances in their places behind their tribune, the first spear raising a sardonic eyebrow. ‘… and so to you I will always simply be Decimus, your friend.’ He brushed at the soiled tunic ineffectually, raising a grubby hand with a laugh. ‘And besides, what’s a little dust when you’ve marched for three months from the edge of the world to make it possible for us to save the empire from the grasping hands of a usurper?’ Stepping closer to Scaurus, he lowered his voice. ‘I’ve arranged for your men to be accommodated in the city’s transit barracks, and I’d suggest that my men take the gold on into Rome from here. What do you say, eh?’

The tribune looked back at him levelly, lowering his voice to match the senator’s conspiratorial tone.

‘Well Decimus, I think if you were to push the question I’d say that I’ve not marched fifteen hundred miles to abandon my task at the gates of the city. I suggest that your men march into the city alongside enough of mine to carry the chests, to demonstrate the part you’ve taken in bringing this matter to the emperor’s attention?’

Senator Albinus stared back at him for a moment, his face devoid of any expression, and Marcus saw a predator’s calculation in his eyes. After a pause just long enough to show that he clearly considered the decision his to make, the big man’s face creased in a slow smile.

‘As you suggest, Gaius, as you suggest. We’re about to carry out an act that the historians will be talking about a thousand years from now, so I see no reason for us not to share the glory of this evening.’

Scaurus returned the stare for an equally deliberate moment before speaking.

‘And the risk, Senator? Presumably the praetorian prefect wouldn’t be delighted if he were to discover just how close to hand the proof of his duplicity has come. I’d imagine that we’ll end up hanging from our scrotums if his men take us before we get the chance to present that evidence. Indeed my first spear here has been as nervous as a good-looking boy on his own at the baths for weeks now.’

The big man inclined his head.

‘As you say. Whatever is to come this evening, we will take an equal share of what results.’

Scaurus nodded and then turned back to the centurions standing behind him.

‘Stand your men down, First Spear. The senator and I are going to have a good look at the emperor’s gold.’

He led Albinus down the line of weary-looking soldiers, saluting in reply as each century snapped to attention at their centurions’ shouted commands, and the senator played a discerning eye across both their threadbare equipment and worn boots.

‘Their kit may look a little tatty, but by the gods, Gaius, your troops look bloody good for men that have marched all the way across the northern empire.’

Scaurus acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

‘Indeed so. And all the way from Britannia to Dacia and back before that. A few weeks enjoying the greatest city in the world is going to do them more good than a year of quiet garrison duty.’

Albinus snorted.

‘That won’t be cheap. How will your boys get their fill of wine and whores on auxiliary pay?’

Scaurus waved a hand dismissively.

‘Money? That won’t be a problem.’

The tribune’s response was light in tone, although Marcus knew just as well as Scaurus the direction in which the senator’s seemingly careless question had been angled. An unspoken question hung in the air between the two men for a moment before Albinus’s patience with his protégée’s apparent unwillingness to elucidate on his pronouncement reached its breaking point. While his tone remained jocular, and he smiled as he asked the question, the expression completely failed to reach his eyes.

‘You’ve not had your fingers inside those gold chests, have you Gaius?’

The steel beneath his bonhomie was sufficiently apparent that Marcus found his fingers twitching reflexively, eager for the reassuring feel of his swords’ hilts. Scaurus turned to smile at the senator with an absence of humour to match that with which the question had been asked, his grey eyes as hard as flint and his tone suddenly harsh.

‘Or rather, have I had my fingers inside those chests without sharing the spoils with you, Decimus?’

The senator’s eyes widened slightly under his relentless gaze, the only sign of his disquiet the younger man’s refusal to be cowed.

‘You take my meaning perfectly, young man. Well?’

The tribune shook his head, gesturing to the heavy brass-bound wooden chests each of which had been carried south from Britannia on one of the cohorts’ equipment wagons.

‘Not likely, Senator. Take a look for yourself.’

He nodded to Dubnus, who was waiting alongside the first cart with his axe’s head resting on the road’s surface by his right foot, and the heavily built centurion barked an order to the hulking pioneers waiting in silence beside each of the carts. The three men stood and watched in silence as the chests were physically manhandled to the ground ready for their inspection. Taking a key from his belt pouch, Marcus squatted down to open the closest of the heavy wooden boxes, lifting the lid to reveal a sea of gold aureii coins that filled the container almost to its brim. Frowning, Albinus reached down and took a coin, staring for a moment at the finely detailed figure of Britannia on the obverse before turning it over to look at the emperor’s head.

‘Ah.’

Scaurus took out another coin and held it up before him.

‘Ah indeed. Every coin in the entire shipment is exactly the same.’

Albinus shrugged.

‘So? It may be unspendable, but it’ll melt down just as easily as any other gold.’

The tribune tossed his aureus back into the chest.

‘Why not keep that coin as a memento of what we’re about to do? One aureus won’t be missed, but it’s my opinion that we’ll be in deep trouble if we remove many more.’

The senator frowned.

‘Why?’

Scaurus pointed at the chest’s interior wall, and at a line scored deeply into the grain on all sides of the deep wooden box level with the top of the mass of coins.

‘The line marks the level that the gold in the chest should reach. If we skim any of it out it’ll be more than obvious, and we’ll all doubtless be interrogated until whoever did the skimming confesses, and then dies in a manner that won’t best please their ancestors. I think it best to play this one straight.’

Albinus grinned wolfishly, lowering his voice so that only Scaurus could hear.

‘Unlike the last time we laid hands on this gold, you mean?’

The tribune nodded solemnly.

‘Indeed. These coins are highly likely to have been minted from the very same metal that we rescued from Gerwulf last year, after he took control of the Alburnus Major mine and stripped it clean. Gold which I delivered to you, at your explicit orders as I recall it, leaving you with the sole responsibility for its safe delivery to the imperial treasury.’ He paused for a moment before speaking again. ‘And, as I noted at the time, the only official record of its quantity and value.’ Albinus nodded, having the good grace to look suitably embarrassed. ‘It must have been minted into these coins somewhere under the praetorian prefect’s control …’

He paused for a moment, waiting for the senator to speak. Albinus stared at the gold with undisguised avarice again before sighing and turning back to the tribune.

‘Illyricum, most likely. Perennis has managed to put his sons in command of the armies of both Pannonia and Dalmatia, and there are several cities with the right to mint coins in those two provinces.’ He paused, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip for a moment before speaking again. ‘So, he must have ordered the gold to be shipped from Dacia to one of his boys, who then oversaw it being minted into these rather interesting coins after which it was sent north to Britannia. I presume that Perennis had someone in place in Eboracum to make sure that it reached the right hands?’

Scaurus nodded.

‘A legion tribune. Perennis took advantage of a stupid little mutiny by the Twentieth Legion that was over almost before it began to sack every legatus in the country, and sent his own men to replace them. This man, Fulvius Sorex, was given orders to make sure that the gold was kept safe until the new men arrived. They were clearly going to use it to bribe the Britannia legions into rising up together, so that they could be marched south through Gaul to join up with the Illyricum legions north of Rome.’

‘I see. Three legions from Britannia, another four from Pannonia and Dalmatia, plus all of their supporting auxiliaries would make for an army of at least seventy or eighty thousand men, and that’s before we get into the army on the Rhenus. With that sort of military muscle to hand a man close to the throne could assassinate the emperor, take the purple and turn to face any challengers from the eastern end of the empire with his confidence high. I expect that the praetorian prefect was only waiting for word from Britannia that the legions had declared for him before striking at the imperial family, although he must have been informed of the gold’s mysterious disappearance by now. But why, I wonder, didn’t he simply send a decent-sized army north to intercept you before you reached Rome?’

Scaurus looked at his fingers in apparent disgust at the dirt ingrained beneath the nails.

‘That’s probably down to the fact that we made sure that Fulvius Sorex wasn’t in any condition to tell Perennis’s legati anything when they arrived. When we left Eboracum the Sixth Legion was under the command of their camp prefect, a man with no love for the praetorian prefect, and the story that Perennis’s men will have received from Prefect Castus is that Sorex secreted the gold away for safe keeping whilst keeping the location to himself. Worse than that, it seems that the century of men he used for the task of hiding it were apparently all killed in an ambush north of the Antonine Wall, which means that there’s nobody left alive who can identify the spot where a fortune in gold is supposed to lie hidden. And without that gold Perennis’s legati won’t dare to declare a mutiny, since its presence in the province was hardly kept secret. The soldiers of the Britannia legions will believe that the legati are keeping it for themselves, and they’re not likely to risk rebelling against the throne without getting their fair share of the spoils.’

Albinus nodded his head slowly, contemplating the gold coin in his hand.

‘So it seems that you’ve saved Commodus from an ignominious death, young man. Mind you, Perennis will doubtless be readying himself to strike anyway, and gambling on the Pannonian legions being strong enough to deal with any resistance, and given his position of power I’d say he’s got a decent enough chance of carrying it off. He’s got the praetorians, doubtless he also controls the Urban Watch, and he’ll not let us get within a mile of the palace with this gold if he gets so much as a sniff that we’re inside the city.’

Scaurus gestured to Marcus to have the chest locked and replaced on the cart.

‘Which, I’ll admit, is what’s been troubling me all the way from Britannia. There’s not much point in our carrying it this far if any attempt to put it in front of the emperor is likely to end up with us all looking down the spears of unhelpful palace guards. So tell me, Decimus, exactly how is it that you think we’re going to be able to carry this gold into the imperial palace?’

The smile returned to Albinus’s face.

‘Ah, well that’s a secret that’ll have to stay mine and mine alone for just a little bit longer. Let’s just say that the praetorian prefect isn’t the only man in the emperor’s court with ambitions above his station. All will be revealed in good time.’

He turned back to look down the road towards Rome, the city’s walls glowing amber in the late afternoon sun’s soft glow.

‘And now I suggest that we get your boys here into their barracks, and give you and the men who’ll carry the gold into the city time to have a wash and a brush-up, and get them into some clean clothes. Armour, muscles and dirt may be good at keeping the bandits at bay, but they’re going to look a little out of place to the Watch, wouldn’t you say, not to mention Commodus himself?’

‘There’s another one having his blade confiscated. There are going to be a lot of happy muggers in the Subura later on tonight when all the men that have been disarmed at this gate try to make their way home!’

The leader of Albinus’s bodyguard, a bull-necked man with a decidedly military look called Cotta stood up from the crouching position in which he had been peering around the corner of the side street’s last house and shook his head in amazement as he looked back down the length of the column of men waiting behind him. The sixty Tungrian soldiers selected to carry the gold chests were flanked on either side by the twenty men of Albinus’s bodyguard, most of whom had adopted deceptively relaxed postures and were exchanging banter with the local children, who had quickly overcome their wariness and were swarming around them in the hope of begging small coins. Cotta saluted Albinus crisply, pointing back towards the gate.

‘There’s no way through there, Senator, unless we want to be relieved of our weapons and probably worse …’

Marcus nodded at the words, reflexively putting a hand to the dagger buried deep in the folds of his toga. Albinus and Scaurus were similarly armed, and every man in their twenty-strong bodyguard had at least one knife concealed about his person in addition to their heavy clubs, mostly strapped to upper arms and thighs beneath their tunics. The Watch standing guard at the Viminal Gate, one of the north-eastern entrances to the city inside the walls, were clearly taking their time processing the queue of humanity wishing to enter Rome, and searching every man, woman and child with equal thoroughness, and a lengthy queue was building up at the arched gateway. Even in the darkness, hours after the sun had set, the traffic into and out of the city via the gate’s opening was as busy as if it were midday, and Marcus was grateful for Albinus’s bodyguards both for the protection they provided the unarmed Tungrians and the light from their blazing torches. He looked up and down the queue’s shadowy length with an expression of irritation.

‘I still don’t understand why passage inside the walls is being restricted like this. When I left here the gates weren’t guarded, and hadn’t been in my memory. Who needs to guard the gates of a city that rules every scrap of inhabitable ground for a thousand miles in every direction, and where the city itself has long outgrown the walls that once surrounded it?’

Albinus laughed wryly, clapping a big hand on his shoulder.

‘Well now, Centurion, you sound just like a senator whose opinions I used to admire so greatly when he spoke on such matters, before he was murdered by the praetorian prefect, along with his entire family, simply to silence a potential dissenter and take his estate into the imperial treasury.’ He looked Marcus up and down in the torchlight as if sizing him up for the first time. ‘You may not look very much like him, but in mannerisms and inflection you could be Appius Valerius Aquila’s son for all I know.’

For a second Marcus wondered if he was going to make the obvious conclusion, and identify him as the dead senator’s only remaining descendant, but instead the big man waved a hand at the gate.

‘The answer to your peevish question is simple enough, Centurion, if you consider the politics of the day and our mission tonight. Perennis controls not only the praetorians, but also the Urban Cohorts and the City Watch. And if the former tend to spend most of their time sitting around in barracks waiting for a riot or a gang fight to give them a reason to break some heads, the Watch are more used to mixing with the people, which is why he’s using them to control what comes into the city, if you take my meaning.’

Scaurus leaned forward, his voice lowered to little more than a murmur.

‘You’re saying that he has them looking out for this …’

He rolled his eyes to look at the nearest of the gold chests, standing in the middle of the side street with a half-dozen brawny Tungrians waiting stoically around it, ready to heft its deceptively heavy weight back into the carrying position. Albinus nodded with a knowing grin.

‘Indeed I am. And were we to progress to the front of that most unpleasant-smelling queue we could most certainly expect to be ordered to open the chests. At which point, whilst we greatly outnumber the men on guard, we would quickly find ourselves outnumbered by their reinforcements, surrounded, arrested and dragged away to the local Watch station — ’ he lowered his voice and adopted a solemn expression ‘- never to be seen again, I expect.’

The tribune raised an eyebrow.

‘Unless …?’

Albinus’s grin returned.

‘Unless, of course, something were to happen to distract the Watch from their important duty. As it happens, one of the men who passed through the gate just now, having been thoroughly searched of course and found to be carrying nothing more threatening than his own cucumber, is even now acting to provide us with just such a distraction.’

He paused for a moment, staring up at the night sky above the looming city walls before speaking again.

‘The problem with owning property in the city, of course, is just how prone one’s buildings are to the risk of fire. It only takes the slightest hint of a spark in the wrong place to send an entire apartment block up in flames, a cooking stove overturned in a ground-floor tavern, or perhaps a candle catching at a piece of wind-blown fabric. And of course, once one of the blasted things is alight everything around it is at risk. It’s a good thing we have the Watch to deal with such emergencies, wouldn’t you agree?’

As if on cue, a faint chorus of frenzied shouts sounded over the queue’s grumbling murmur and Albinus nodded smugly. After a short wait, during which the shouting from beyond the walls grew steadily louder, a glow became visible above the wall’s rampart, and dirty grey smoke started to rise into view, illuminated from below by the fire’s flames. The initial signs of the fire quickly strengthened, the grey stain that obscured the stars rapidly thickening as the fire took hold of whatever it was that was burning fiercely beyond the wall.

‘Any time about now, I’d say, or at least I bloody well hope so …’ Just as Albinus spoke, the half-dozen men standing guard at the city gate were summoned by a panting runner, and the senator nodded his head sagely, pointing to a mongrel in the act of emptying its bowels in the shadow of the gate. ‘Ah, it seems that the fire is stronger than first believed. At a guess the next-door building has gone up in flames too, and I’d bet a gold aureus to the turd that dog’s so busily curling out that it’ll be another one of my properties. When the gods decide to punish a man they certainly do so thoroughly, don’t they?’

With shouts to the queuing citizens to stay where they were, the Watch ran for the fire, leaving the waiting queue looking at each other in bemusement.

‘And there’s the only real problem with combining the duties of policemen and fire fighters. When fire strikes, who’s to watch the city, or in this case, the city’s gates? Come along then, let’s not keep our date waiting. He’s uncommonly bad tempered when he believes he’s not getting the respect that he’s due!’

The senator led them through the unguarded gate in the wake of the other members of the queue who had been similarly swift to take advantage of the Watch’s absence.

‘This way, gentlemen, turn right here and we’ll head on down the Viminal Hill until we have no choice but to dive into the slums. You’ll be earning your corn soon enough, eh Cotta?’

The streets of Rome were still warm three hours after the sun had dropped below the horizon, and Marcus could feel the heat that had been baked into the stones through the leather soles of the sandals that Albinus had procured for them. Like the rest of the clothing he’d been given the shoes were of the best quality, made with buttery-soft leather that moulded to his feet like a second skin. The three officers were all wearing heavy woollen togas, the hems of both Tungrians’ garments decorated with the thin purple stripe of the equestrian class, and the once crisp linen tunic beneath Marcus’s weighty garment had quickly become damp with his sweat. Scaurus had laughed quietly at his centurion as the younger man had awkwardly donned the toga, unfamiliar with its folds after so long a gap since the last time he’d worn the garment, pointing to the thin equestrian stripe with a sympathetic grimace.

‘Not what you were brought up to expect, eh Centurion, not when you were groomed for the thick stripe?’

Marcus had looked down at the dye that marked the garment’s pristine white wool with the symbol of his supposed membership of the equestrian class with a shrug.

‘Imperial law says I’m an impostor if I wear a stripe of any thickness, given my father’s alleged crimes. And besides, Tribune, I’d sacrifice a stripe of any thickness for the chance to get my family out from under the constant threat of death.’

Albinus’s men formed a protective cordon around the party as they made their way along the High Road that ran arrow-straight down the Viminal Hill’s spine, and as the senator led them down into the tight, filthy streets of the Subura, his men drew in closer, hefting their heavy clubs with meaningful glances at anyone taking an interest in the column of chests. Each apartment block’s ground floor was occupied by taverns that ranged in aspect from simply seedy to openly licentious, prostitutes and their pimps prowling between them in competition for paying clients with money-hungry bar staff of both sexes. At Cotta’s command a half-dozen men detached themselves from the group as it progressed through the notorious district, moving ahead of the party and checking the streets to either side of their route with a disciplined competence that hinted that they had worked together before. Seeing the young centurion’s eyes upon his men, Albinus dropped back to walk alongside him.

‘They’re all former soldiers, Centurion, men from one of the Pannonian legions. They hire themselves out as a unit, and their main selling point is that they have never yet suffered the loss of a client. I employ them pretty much full-time at the moment.’ He waved a hand at the man walking alongside him. ‘Cotta here was the man who came up with the bright idea for them to go into business together.’

Marcus inclined his head in recognition of Albinus’s explanation, meeting the eyes of the man indicated by the senator’s hand and finding them coolly alert as the bodyguards’ leader ran his eyes over the soldiers sweating beneath their heavy loads.

‘They must come highly recommended for you to trust them to escort us through the poorest and most dangerous suburb of the city with such a portable fortune.’

Albinus nodded at Marcus’s question with an amused smirk.

‘I don’t think there’s any danger of them betraying us. I served as the legatus of First Italica with Senior Centurion Cotta, and when he got bored with retirement and decided to pull some of his retiring soldiers together to form this nice little business two years ago, he came to me to ask for the money they needed. And of course I agreed.’ He bent closer to the young centurion’s ear. ‘A man in my position needs to ensure that he has the appropriate protection on the streets of Rome these days.’

Scaurus frowned, having overheard their discussion.

‘Your position, Senator?’

The big man snorted a laugh.

‘You really have been away from Rome too long, Gaius. By “a man in my position” I mean a man who might be perceived as presenting a risk to the emperor, a man around whom opposition to Commodus’s rule might, shall we say, coalesce? After all, I am something of a war hero, with a recent and crushing victory over the Sarmatae in Dacia to my credit, quite apart from my excellent record in command of an auxiliary cavalry wing and two legions in the German Wars under the last emperor. I come from an ancient and noble family and I am, as you well know, more than rich enough for the men that manage the imperial finances to have their beady eyes well and truly open for any opportunity to cast my loyalty in doubt, order my execution and sequester my estate and fortune.’ He shook his head at the tribune with a grim smile. ‘An opportunity which I will never allow them, of course, given that I never make any comment either public or private that is in any way critical of Commodus. Quite the opposite, in fact, but there is still always the risk of a politically motivated assassination. And these men are my protection against such an attempt to take my life. Hello, who’s this coming up the road? Someone’s got balls walking into this cesspit without anyone to back him up.’

They followed his gaze to find a single man sauntering towards them, passing the first of Cotta’s men with a nod. To Marcus’s surprise their reaction was incongruous, the soldiers nudging each other and pointing at the lone walker’s back with grins, and he looked with curiosity at the powerful figure as he passed, receiving a momentary direct gaze in return. Tall and heavily muscled, the man’s face was marked by a pair of scars that combined to form a lopsided cross on his right cheekbone, his hair cut close to his skull.

‘Damn me, it’s Velox!’

Albinus had stopped walking, and was looking at the receding figure with a stare of amazement.

‘Who?’

Albinus shook his head.

‘Gentlemen, we have stood in the presence of true greatness. That was one half of a gladiatorial pairing the like of which this city has not seen in my lifetime. Velox is the younger of a pair of twins who have ruled supreme in the arena for over a year now. He and his brother Mortiferum are from the land north of the city that used to be ruled by the Etruscans, and they are without doubt the fastest men I’ve ever seen with a sword, either of them the match of any other three men you could choose from Rome’s gladiators. When they fight, which isn’t very often these days given just how special they are, they usually take to the sand as a pair, matched against half a dozen opponents at a time. And because they’ve never lost a fight, either together or fighting solo, they’re worshipped by the plebs. Which explains why he’s not afraid to walk alone — there’s not a man in the Subura that would dare to touch him for fear of being beaten to death by his peers.’

As they watched, the lone gladiator turned off the road and walked into the garden of a mansion that Marcus had noted a moment before, its grounds wedged tightly between a pair of apartment blocks. Albinus laughed quietly, shaking his head in amusement.

‘Well now, I wonder if the man of the house is at home. That young man has a well-justified reputation for taking advantage of his exalted status, I hear. Indeed I believe he’s cut a swathe through the otherwise respectable female population of the rich and well-to-do like a hot knife through butter. Women and gladiators, eh? What is it, I wonder, that draws them to men who have so degraded themselves by adopting the status of infamia? Mind you, it’s rumoured that his twin swings in the other direction, if you take my meaning, so perhaps he’s just doing his best to compensate …’

Shaking his head in wry amusement he signalled Cotta to resume their march, and the party continued south with increasing caution as they approached the edge of the Subura’s cloak of anonymity. Albinus called a halt at a street corner, looking out over the first of the forums that they would have to traverse with an uneasy gaze.

‘And now for the time of maximum risk, gentlemen. If Perennis has warned his men on the streets to be on the watch for men carrying heavy burdens then we’re going to stand out like tits on a bull.’

He chewed at a fingernail as the scouts headed out into the wide and empty moonlit space, staying within the shadows wherever possible, but there was no sign of either praetorians or the Watch to be seen, and the party’s main body followed the scouts across the forum as quickly as the Tungrians carrying the gold could move under its crushing weight. Another few moments of nervous progress brought them within sight of the Senate House at the Forum’s western end, and Cotta waved them into the cover of a building a hundred paces or so distant from the official building.

‘There’ll be guards on the Senate House for certain. You wait here, and I’ll signal you when the way’s clear.’

He signalled to his men, and a pair of rugged-looking bruisers stepped out of the shadows with their arms linked like old friends holding each other upright after a heavy evening of drinking, one of them pulling the stopper from a leather wine flask and taking a gulp so large that a red stain blossomed across his tunic as the wine leaked from his overflowing mouth. He raised his voice in a drunken shout, the words ringing out across the Forum’s open space.

‘Come on Luca my old mate, let’s show these praetorian cunts how real soldiers march, eh?’

His companion grabbed the flask and upended it, wine flowing in equal quantities into his mouth and down the front of his tunic, then hurled it towards the Senate House with an apparently drunken flourish and a below of challenge.

‘Yeah, praetorian cunts! Come and have a look at some real soldiers, you fuckin’ toy-box tunic lifters!’

The pair staggered out into the Forum and broke into song, their words slurred as if from a long day’s drinking but still recognisable as a legion favourite from the days when imperial guard cohorts had campaigned alongside the regular army.

The men guarding the senate were the first to react, a pair of immaculately turned out soldiers stamping down the steps to confront the drunks who had the temerity to insult them so publicly. The older of the two stepped in close with one hand on the hilt of his sword, and even at fifty paces it was plain to Marcus that his face was dark with anger.

‘Get the fuck out of the Forum you pair of pissed-up mules, before my temper gets the better of me and I take the flat of my blade to you.’

The play-acting bodyguards swayed on their feet for a moment before reacting, then burst into peals of mocking laughter, one of them pointing at the guardsman while the other supported himself by leaning on his friend, apparently overcome with hysteria.

‘Ha … hahahah!’ The pointing man wiped at his eye as to remove a tear. ‘He’s going to take his sword to us!’

His companion shrieked with laughter, losing his grip on the other’s shoulder and falling backwards onto the flagstones, raising his voice in a camp falsetto squeal.

‘Ooooh! His pork sword!?’

The first man’s hysterical laughter redoubled as he sank to his knees and then slumped to the ground, and the praetorian shook his head in impotent anger as the two men rolled about at his feet. The other guard joined him, and they glared down at the apparently helpless drunks for a moment before the older man waved a hand at the guards standing duty on the Temple of Vespasian, raising his voice to call them over.

‘Here lads, there’s a lesson needs teaching to these two idiots!’

Suitably reinforced, the four men took an arm apiece and pulled the drunken soldiers to their feet, prompting a further volley of abuse from their captives.

‘Fuck off you arseholes, haven’t you got donkeys to be buggering?!’

A swift slap silenced the protest.

‘Shut the fuck up, soldier boy. You’re just about to find out what happens when you take the piss out of the praetorian guard in our own city!’

Moving swiftly the guardsmen dragged the seemingly helpless drunks into the Senate House’s shadows, and silence fell across the Forum. Cotta nodded to Albinus and gestured to the wide street’s far side.

‘All clear sir. Do you want to go now, or should we wait for our boys?’

Albinus raised an eyebrow.

‘That rather depends on how long you think they’re likely to be, doesn’t it?’

The bodyguards’ leader smiled wryly.

‘Two lads that were the bare knuckle champions of their cohorts for as long as I was a centurion? Not very long …’

As if on cue the two bodyguards walked out of the senate’s shadows, one of them waggling his fingers experimentally with a grimace as they re-joined the party.

‘That last one had a bloody hard chin. I think I’ve bust a knuckle.’

The party hurried across the Forum’s open expanse, Cotta glancing anxiously about for any sign of more praetorians.

‘Looks like we’ve got lucky. Here, this way, and stay close to the wall so that anyone on top can’t see us.’

On the southern side of the Forum the walls of the Palatine Hill loomed over them, defences surrounding the city within a city that was the complex of royal palaces which had been built up over the centuries atop the ancient hill, their sprawling grounds having long since coalesced to form a walled domicile for the imperial family. They rounded a corner at Cotta’s direction, and Marcus frowned as an apparently dead-end alley opened up before them, a high wall looming ahead. The retired centurion raised a hand in caution, turning to face his master.

‘This is the place, Patronus. Wait here please.’

He took a torch from one of his men and walked down the alley, allowing a heavy wooden club to drop from his sleeve into his right hand while the remaining bodyguards fanned out around the Tungrians carrying the three gold chests. In the torch’s flickering light Marcus watched as he reached the far end, an apparently flat wall of heavy stone blocks that rose fifty feet above the street. Stopping within touching distance of the seemingly impassable barrier, Cotta raised his club and tapped it against the stonework in a swift rhythm of three blows, paused for a moment and then repeated the sequence. For a moment silence reigned the night air, but then, with a sudden snap, a cascade of mortar fell to the ground, leaving a crack in the wall’s surface that followed the line of the stone blocks up to a height of six feet. With a scraping rasp the crack in the previously smooth surface abruptly sprang open, a wide section of the wall hinging smoothly outwards as a trio of heavily built men pushed it clear of the frame in which it was set. An imposing figure stepped through the doorway and into the sphere of light cast by Cotta’s torch, beckoning the party forward with evident urgency as a half-dozen men carrying torches and trowels filed past him into the night, one of them carrying a heavy bucket made of coiled rope painted with tar, full of wet mortar.

‘Come on then, let’s not keep the second most influential man in the palace waiting.’

Albinus strode forward, the grin on his face telling Marcus that he was enjoying being in control of the situation. At the concealed door he greeted the waiting man with a bow before taking his hand in a firm clasp.

‘Aurelius Cleander, how very good it is of you to open this hitherto undisclosed entrance to the palace for us. You are clearly a man for whom the pursuit of justice and the protection of our beloved emperor come above any other consideration.’

Cleander inclined his head in turn, although to Marcus’s eye the gesture appeared little more than perfunctory, as if it were expected but hardly heartfelt. He spoke, and his voice was rich in timbre, mellifluous and persuasive, as much a weapon of persuasion as a means of communication.

‘Greetings, Clodius Albinus. You are indeed most timely in your arrival, for I fear that our mutual adversary is close to issuing his assassins with the order to strike against our beloved emperor. There is not a moment to be lost.’

He gestured to the passage behind him, the tunnel-like walls lit by lamps placed every few feet in sconces built into the walls.

‘Follow my men into the palace with your chests, and I will join you shortly. I must ensure that the workmen who will renew the mortar that conceals this door understand the importance of their task, and what unpleasant fate will befall them if I am able to discern any hint of its presence in the morning.’

Albinus bowed again, dismissing his bodyguard with a nod and a wave of his hand. Cotta bowed in turn to his master and took his men away into the darkness while the senator led the Tungrians into the tunnel behind the man Cleander had set to be their guide. He looked at the staircase that climbed up into the wall and shook his head in evident awe.

‘We are privileged, gentlemen, to witness one of the imperial palace’s greatest and most closely guarded secrets. This is one of the escape routes built into the palace walls to be used in the event of insurrection, and its presence is completely unsuspected by anyone who is not privy to the secret. For Cleander to be willing to reveal its existence to so many men is a mark of just how seriously he regards the evidence presented by these coins. Not to mention the risk he believes we’re running in attempting to put that evidence before the emperor. Come on then, let’s go and see what fate awaits us.’

He led them up the stairs, stepping lightly as he climbed, while from behind him Marcus could hear the heavy breathing and muffled curses of the soldiers as they muscled the heavy chests up the steep stone staircase. Reaching the top of the stairs he turned back to find the first of the chests close behind, the faces of the soldiers contorted with the pain of their climb but still set determinedly. Albinus and Scaurus followed them onto the flat stone landing at the stairs’ top, stepping round the gasping Tungrians to join Marcus.

‘You called him Aurelius Cleander?’ Marcus could barely hear Scaurus’s whispered question to Albinus. ‘He’s a freedman?’

‘Indeed I am, Rutilius Scaurus.’ Cleander had approached them silently up the stairs, his footsteps muffled by soft slippers. He shot Scaurus a sardonic smile, his eyes and teeth gleaming white in the darkness. ‘And there’s really no need to look so surprised, a man doesn’t rise to the heights I’ve reached without being very sure to understand every situation into which he chooses to place himself. My full name, as you’ve clearly guessed, is Marcus Aurelius Cleander. I was freed by the last emperor, may the gods grant rest to his departed spirit, and since taking his name in gratitude for my freedom I have continued to give service to his family since his death. I am fortunate to have gained some small measure of responsibility for the running of our divine emperor’s household.’

He signalled to his man to open the door ahead of them and put a cautious head around its frame, looking about him intently for a moment before nodding in apparent satisfaction.

‘There are no praetorians to be seen, so now seems as good a time as any. Follow me as quickly as you can.’

He led them through the wide doorway and strode swiftly away from the shadow of the wall behind them, making for an imposing building a good hundred paces distant. The Tungrians followed as quickly as the men shuffling under the weight of the gold chests could carry their heavy burdens, Marcus and Scaurus looking about them for any sign that the guardsmen standing sentry on the palace had detected the incongruous sight of their procession, while Albinus hurried ahead of them in the freedman’s wake. Reaching the building Cleander knocked on the door to which he had led them, speaking briefly to the doorman before waving the party inside.

‘Let’s get that door closed … good. We’re safe from prying eyes here; the praetorians never come to this part of the palace.’

With a sudden jolt Marcus realised where they must be.

‘This is the Augustana Palace?’

Cleander fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare.

‘Yes. But how would you know that, Centurion, unless you’ve been here before?’

The young officer shrugged.

‘I’ve heard that the emperor spends most of his time in this building, so it was a natural enough deduction.’

The stare lingered for a moment longer.

‘Deduction. I see …’

He turned away from Marcus, his momentary bafflement seemingly forgotten as he addressed Albinus.

‘And there, Senator, is the most difficult part of this thing done, other than the moment when we confront Prefect Perennis with the evidence of his planned treachery. I’ve sent my man to check that our route to the throne room is clear of anyone that might take exception to our carrying those chests to the door. While we wait for his return perhaps I ought to tell you what to expect once we’re in front of Commodus?’

Albinus nodded his head gravely, and the freedman paused for a moment before speaking again.

‘The emperor is a young man, and is in consequence … how shall I put this … a little impulsive in his manner. On top of that, he likes to devote his energies to pursuits other than the running of the empire, which has created something of an opportunity for a man like Prefect Perennis to take a good deal more control of imperial matters than might ordinarily be deemed healthy. Within a short space of time the prefect has grown in power to the point where it is he, and not the emperor, who controls both Rome and the wider empire. Be under no illusion gentlemen, when we step into the throne room for our audience with the emperor we are choosing a fight which we must win, for if we fail to open Commodus’s eyes to the truth we will find Perennis an implacable and merciless enemy. You told me that you had incontrovertible proof of his plan to usurp the throne and install himself as emperor?’

Albinus gestured to the nearest chest, pulling a gold aureus from his belt pouch.

‘Each of these boxes is full to the brim with gold coins just like this one.’

Cleander regarded the coin for a moment before his eyebrows raised in amazement as he realised just what it was that he was looking at.

‘Show me.’

Scaurus gestured to Marcus, who unlocked the nearest chest and opened the lid. The freedman pushed his hand deep into the box before pulling out a handful of aureii, looking at them one at a time to confirm what had surprised him so much.

‘By Jupiter, but that’s brazen even by Perennis’s standards! You, the deductive centurion, unlock the other chests. I sense the opportunity for a little theatre …’

The slave who had been sent to check that their route to the throne room was clear returned and nodded respectfully to Cleander in confirmation. The freedman took a deep breath with his eyes closed, then turned to the waiting officers with a faint smile.

‘The next hour will either see us all dead or basking in the glory of having saved the emperor himself from an ignominious demise. Shall we go and meet with that fate?’ He turned away without waiting for them to reply. ‘Follow me.’

The freedman led them through the palace by a route calculated to avoid the praetorians set to guard the approaches to the emperor, down ill-lit corridors and through rooms which were clearly not in regular use, lit sparingly by single lamps whose light struggled to penetrate their corners. Halting at length before a closed door, he took a deep breath.

‘Beyond this door lies the main access corridor to the emperor’s throne room. If any of you are carrying knives, then you must leave them here. We will be searched before being allowed into the imperial presence, and the detection of a weapon of any sort will not end well for any of us.’ He waited while they pulled out the daggers they had hidden in their togas and placed them in a neat pile. ‘Good. Now, the gold must stay here for the time being. What I have in mind will not work unless we are completely innocent of its presence when the guards search us. Senator, you and your companions will accompany me into the throne room while your porters will stay here with my man.’ He turned to the household slave. ‘Listen carefully, and when you hear me call for the gold don’t hesitate, but bring it into the emperor’s presence at once.’

He opened the door and beckoned them through into a broad, well-lit corridor whose walls were richly decorated with embroidered hangings and with an exquisitely rendered mosaic underfoot. The passageway broadened out into an anteroom at its far end, and Marcus could see a pair of guards in full ceremonial uniform standing sentry duty in the royal palace, each man armed with spears whose blades and butt-spikes shone like polished silver. Cleander gestured to the door behind the guards with a smile, his words muttered so quietly as to be almost inaudible.

‘Follow me, and look confident. These men are trained to look for the signs of fear and nervousness.’

He strode up the corridor and into the anteroom, greeting the guards with the weary patience of a man for whom the approach to the throne was simply a dull routine.

‘Good evening, gentlemen, here I am again! I have with me a noble Roman senator and two illustrious officers from one of Caesar’s foremost cohorts, distinguished men to whom Caesar has most graciously granted an audience in light of their devoted service in Britannia, Germania and Dacia! Search us please, and allow us admittance so that these officers can receive the thanks of their grateful emperor!’

The older of the two guards frowned.

‘We’ve had no instructions to admit any senators or soldiers, Chamberlain, only yourself.’

The freedman frowned.

‘No instructions? This audience has been planned for weeks! Are you telling me that I must turn away one of Rome’s most exalted senators, a hero of the Dacian war, simply because your superiors have managed to mislay the detail of the evening’s proceedings?’ Shaking his head, he gestured to the men standing behind him. ‘And how many men does Prefect Perennis have inside the throne room, all armed with spear, sword and dagger? A dozen? Twenty? What possible threat can three unarmed men, whose loyalty to the emperor has been proven on the field of battle time after time, present in the face of such an overwhelming strength of the finest soldiers in the empire? Shall I tell the emperor that you refused to permit his honoured guests admittance?’

The guardsman pondered for a moment before reluctantly nodding his acquiescence.

‘We’ll let your guests in, Chamberlain, and I’ll send my colleague here to tell my centurion of the change to what’s on the roster.’

He signalled to the other praetorian, who set off down the corridor at a brisk pace, and Cleander bowed graciously, gesturing for his companions to step forward and surrender to the praetorian’s brisk but thorough search. Once all four men had been cleared to access the throne room Cleander led them through the door and into a large round chamber whose domed roof towered a full thirty feet above them at its peak. The walls were decorated in the same manner as the anteroom, and the floor was patterned with a mosaic of dazzling quality and meticulous detail depicting a circle of gladiators of all types in combat. In the middle of the chamber stood a single heavily decorated chair on a wide, one-foot-high dais, and eight spear-armed praetorians in full armour stood around the wall’s circular sweep. Cleander pointed to a spot midway between door and dais.

‘Stand here, one pace forward for you, Senator Albinus, you are the senior man in your party. When the emperor enters you must stand to attention and keep your gaze fixed on the wall before you. Commodus does not like to be challenged by any man, and that includes meeting his gaze unless he has invited you to speak.’ He smiled wryly at some memory or other. ‘And even then I advise you to meet his eyes only when you speak, and to avert your gaze at all other times. Trust me on this, you do not want to provoke Caesar, or like others before you, you may find that he is swift to anger and has very little forgiveness in him.’

The soldier closest to the door barked an order for the guards to come to attention, and a small door on the chamber’s far side opened to admit a man in his mid-twenties. Despite the chamberlain’s warning Marcus found himself unable to turn his gaze away from the emperor, watching through narrowed eyes as Commodus walked across the room and stepped up onto the dais. Where the young centurion was wiry and muscled from years of military conditioning, the emperor was more heavily set, with a wrestler’s powerful shoulders. His beard and hair were styled in the same fashion that Albinus sported, and he was dressed in a purple toga of the highest-quality wool, intricate gold embroidery stitched around the hem to complete the traditional garment usually worn by a victorious general. Cleander strode forward across the chamber and bowed deeply to Commodus, holding the position in silence as the emperor sat down on the throne and arranged his ornate garment about him.

‘Stand up, Chamberlain, and detail our business this evening. And it would be to your advantage were this meeting a brief one. I have unfinished business elsewhere in the palace, and a damned sight more fragrant than this collection of guardsmen and …’ He looked at the three soldiers properly for the first time, a frown creasing his brow. ‘And whatever it is that we have here. What do we have here, Chamberlain?’

Cleander straightened up and stood to attention.

‘Hail Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus! I bring before you three men of the highest honour and dedication to your glorious imperial family, officers in your illustrious legions who have marched thousands of miles to bring you a gift of treasure captured in the war that has recently concluded in Britannia. With your permission, Caesar, allow me to introduce-’

The door through which they had entered burst open with a bang, as if it had been kicked from the other side, causing the three men to turn and stare, although Marcus noted from the corner of his eye that Cleander remained exactly as he was, with his eyes fixed on the startled emperor. As the doors flew open a grim-faced man in the uniform of a senior guard officer marched through them, a troop of a dozen determined-looking guardsmen at his back. With a shiver that was part exhilaration and part dread, the young centurion realised that the man stalking into the room at their head was the prefect in command of the praetorians, and he shivered at the shock of recognition, the prefect’s face and gait instantly recognisable from his own short term of service with the guard.

‘Hold!’

The statement was no more than a whisper from between Scaurus’s barely opened lips, but the tone was harsh in its urgency, the unmistakable command locking Marcus’s limbs even as he tensed himself to spring at the man who had ordered his father’s murder. Praetorian Prefect Perennis walked swiftly up to Cleander and went face-to-face with the freedman, gesturing for his guardsmen to surround the small party. Marcus stood stock still as a hard-faced soldier levelled a spear at him, guessing that the newcomers had orders to take advantage of the slightest excuse to cut them down where they stood. Turning his head slowly back to Cleander, he saw that the chamberlain had at last deigned to look at the prefect, smiling gently in the face of the older man’s bristling anger. When he spoke his voice was even softer than before, his words honeyed as he arched an eyebrow in question.

‘Prefect Perennis. I always knew you had a gift for the dramatic, but you appear to have surpassed even your most extravagant acts of theatre this evening.’

He returned his gaze to the emperor, who was now sitting up on his throne where previously he had been slumped, his expression quizzical. The praetorian commander shook his head angrily, moving to block the chamberlain’s view of Commodus as he barked a harsh challenge, spittle flying unnoticed from his lips.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Cleander? You’ve just lied to my praetorians and brought three complete strangers into the emperor’s presence! Explain yourself!’