Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7] Read online

  ‘You were right,’ he whispered to himself. He picked up one of the dull grey metal bars stacked inside and weighed it in his hand before returning it to its place. It took only moments to open a second chest, with similar results. Satisfied with what he’d discovered, he crawled across the remaining chests and looked past the edge of the leather wagon cover. He’d been informed the second to last wagon was also suspect and he’d planned to inspect the contents if he could. One look told him it was impossible. The driver was back at the head of his bullock with his stick raised ready to encourage the beast into movement.

  Enough. Serpentius crept to the rear of the cart, slipped over the sill and wriggled through the grass towards the nearest patch of scrub.

  He was halfway when he heard the shout and the thunder of hooves in the distance. The trooper had been returning to his rearguard position when he thought he’d caught a fleeting glimpse of something moving amongst the tussocks. Now the something became a man who rose to his feet and sprinted for the much too distant slope. The cavalryman, a bearded veteran, grinned and hefted the seven-foot spear in his right hand, already anticipating the kill. He’d been denied the opportunity of skewering one of the bandits who’d ventured too far into the river to taunt his comrades, but this one was as good as dead. He directed the leaf-shaped iron point at the centre of the cloth-covered back and kicked his mount into an easy canter.

  Serpentius glanced over his shoulder and gauged his lead over the approaching trooper. He knew he had no chance of reaching the slope, but he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the man’s comrades as possible. The Spaniard felt no fear, quite the opposite. In combat he’d always found an icy calm that channelled what other men called fear into a potent mix of speed and agility. The attribute had kept him alive against men who thought they were quicker and better. He’d already noted the way the auxiliary handled his spear and the fact he was in no hurry, which spoke of an expert cavalryman. He could almost read the man’s mind: an easy kill, simpler by far than spearing a hare on the run or a wild boar. But Serpentius had faced mounted killers many times and the trooper’s experience only made him predictable. Certain elements of the strike would be ingrained on his soul. Without warning the Spaniard changed his angle so he appeared to be running diagonally for the safety of the slope. He heard a triumphant shout as the cavalryman altered course to follow him.

  The more opponents Serpentius faced in the arena, the clearer it became to him that survival was more than a combination of physical attributes and mental awareness. He couldn’t fully explain it, but the most successful gladiators were those who found a way to block the emotions dictating their actions. Fear, anger or enthusiasm had no place on the bloody sands of an amphitheatre. More dangerous by far was an ice-cold detachment that took a man beyond emotion and handed control to some inner sense. He remembered the superstitious awe in the eyes of the Thracian who tried to describe it. ‘It takes a special kind of courage to give yourself up to something so ethereal and allow a power beyond understanding to rule heart and mind and body, but if you can find it you may live. You have everything else, but if you don’t take that final step you’ll eventually meet a man who has.’ His finger had sliced across his throat in a gesture that had sent a shiver of dread through the young Serpentius. A few months later the Thracian won his rudis, the wooden sword that proclaimed his freedom, but he was dead within a year, stabbed in the back over some trivial gambling debt.

  Now Serpentius drew back the scarf covering his face and sought the inner tranquillity that was the prelude to the cold place. His mind tuned itself to the rhythm of his feet across the dusty earth, the thunder of hooves in his ears, and the warmth of the air across his cheeks. Gradually all disappeared and he became nothing but a shadow, aware, but not part, of the world around him. In his mind he saw the horseman closing, felt the excitement building as fingers tightened on the ash shaft of the spear. Closer still. He maintained his pace, choosing not to speed up even though it would have delayed the moment. A slight adjustment in the spearhead and he knew the exact place where it would strike. The horse’s snorted breath was almost on his neck. Hardened muscles tensed for the thrust. The spear arm stiffened to take the impact. The shadow was falling. No, not falling, diving. Into a tight forward roll that took Serpentius below the spear point. A somersault that brought him back to his feet so that within two strides he was at the astonished cavalry trooper’s side. Two hands reached out, one high, one low, to grasp the spear shaft. The rider’s grip instinctively tightened. Serpentius allowed himself to fall, his weight plunging the spearhead into the earth so the rider’s own momentum catapulted him from the saddle to land on his shoulder with bone-crunching force. As the Parthian auxiliary lifted his head, gritting his teeth against the fiery pain in his left arm, the last thing he saw was the lanky whip thin figure striding out by the cantering horse’s flank before vaulting effortlessly into the saddle.

  Serpentius abandoned his mount near a hill village west of Asturica Augusta and took to rocky mountain paths where he would leave no tracks for any pursuer. He reached the city long after nightfall, but he knew the man he sought would still be at work. The town watch had barred the great double gates and he didn’t choose to draw the attention of the guards in the twin towers. Instead, he kept to the shadows beyond the city walls until he found the quadrant he was looking for. Asturica’s walls had originally been built for defence, but now their main function was to control the passing of those doing business in the district capital. Yet for a man with friends there were always ways to circumvent such obstacles. The small iron gate at the base of the stonework had once been used to access a well in the gully that ran below. The well had long dried up and the gate went out of use. Tonight, it would be open.

  When Serpentius pulled at the heavy iron door he tensed for the scream of rusted metal, but he had nothing to fear. Meticulous to the last detail, someone had oiled the ancient hinges. He waited until a cloud obscured the full moon and slipped through the feet-thick wall into an unlit street. A momentary hesitation to search his surroundings for any patrolling vigiles and he was on the move again.

  The house was on the north side of the city, part of an impressive block in a wealthy area frequented by lawyers who did the majority of their business at the nearby basilica. Serpentius became ever more watchful as he reached the street. Two lamps marked the entrance and he studied it for a count of a hundred to make sure it wasn’t under surveillance by anyone else. When he was certain he retraced his steps and darted into a stygian alley that flanked the side wall of the house. Without pausing he slipped across the wall with the help of a few handily positioned cracks in the masonry. His old friend had laughed at this excessive caution, but Serpentius reflected that it was obsession to detail that had kept him alive for so long. He crouched in the shadow of the wall for a few moments, noting that the shutters of one room were open a few inches allowing the dull glow of a small oil lamp to show. It was the signal that the man was alone and waiting to see him.

  The Spaniard crossed the garden in a dozen strides and walked confidently through an open door and along the familiar painted corridor. He paused on the threshold. It was a big room, part bureaucratic headquarters and part dining room, with a half partition across the centre to divide the two functions. To his left the dining area lay in darkness, but shadows flickered on the walls of the office with its wooden niches filled with scrolls. It was only when he stepped inside and his nostrils picked up the familiar metallic tang that he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. He should have run, but his feet carried him forward of their own volition. The slumped figure lay across the broad table and he might have been asleep if it hadn’t been for the great dark stain spread across the documents he’d been reading. Knowing it was pointless, Serpentius stepped forward and reached out for the shoulder of the man who’d been his friend.

  A bulky figure in the uniform of a senior Roman officer stepped from the shadows accompanied by two sol
diers. Serpentius could hear others pouring into the room behind him, but he didn’t resist as rough hands gripped his arms.

  ‘You are under arrest for the murder of a consular official and treason against the state.’

  II

  Rome

  This was worse than the hour before battle. Gaius Valerius Verrens clenched his left fist to keep his hand from shaking as he waited for his bride to appear. A lavish cloth pavilion had been created for the ceremony at the villa his sister Olivia shared with the father of her child on the family estate at Fidenae. His own neighbouring villa, on land Valerius had been granted by the Emperor Vespasian for his heroics during the campaign to take Jerusalem, lay unfinished despite the efforts of dozens of tradesmen he’d hired to complete the work in time for the ceremony. He looked up to the unblemished eggshell blue of a perfect summer sky. The movement must have been accompanied by a soft groan, because the man behind him laughed.

  ‘Patience,’ counselled Titus Flavius Vespasian, resplendent in his consular robes. The son of the Emperor and heir to the purple would be one of ten guests to witness the wedding rites. ‘Anyone would think you were waiting to climb a siege ladder with the arrows whistling round your ears.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d rather be?’ Valerius answered wryly.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Valerius,’ Titus hissed. ‘Thank Fortuna for the day you met Tabitha.’ The words were accompanied by a smile, but a certain edge to his voice told Valerius he had picked at an old wound. Clearly he’d reminded his friend of his former lover Berenice of Cilicia – Queen Berenice. The Emperor had insisted Titus relinquish the beautiful Cilician ruler as part of the agreement to make him heir. Berenice, acutely attuned to the ways of great courts, had taken the decision with dignity, but it had left Titus scarred, and the quarrel with his father was still fresh in his memory.

  ‘I …’ Before he could apologize, Valerius’s attention was drawn by the gasps of the servants and slaves who craned their necks from every vantage point.

  He followed their gaze as a slim, veiled figure took her place on the villa steps with his sister at her side. A princess of the Syrian state of Emesa, Tabitha had been on a clandestine mission for Queen Berenice when Valerius saved her from a band of Judaean assassins. Together they’d fought their way into Jerusalem as Titus’s soldiers took their bloody revenge for the long and frustrating siege of the city. They’d also become lovers, and when Valerius returned to Rome it only seemed natural Tabitha should accompany him.

  She should have been dressed by her mother, but since that lady had died years before, the task was undertaken by Olivia. The tunica recta Tabitha had worn the previous night was fastened in place with a band of silken wool tied in the Knot of Hercules that only her new husband was privileged to unpick. Tabitha’s long dark hair had been divided into six strands and plaited with bright ribbons. Over it was placed the flame-coloured veil, the flammeum, that masked her beauty and identified her as a bride. Valerius sensed Tabitha’s eyes on him through the thin cloth of the veil and he shivered in anticipation. A fine fat sheep with brightly coloured ribbons tied in its wool was led, bleating piteously, to an adjacent part of the precinct where the priest waited. They watched as the victimarius cut its throat and opened it so the priest could study the entrails. A worried murmur went up from the slaves as he consulted the glistening coils and steaming organs for what seemed an inordinately long time. Valerius caught Olivia’s eye and saw a hint of amusement on her lips. She knew her brother well enough to be sure he’d arranged the proper outcome.

  The priest rose from his inspection shaking his head in amazement at what he’d discovered. ‘I have never seen such an auspicious day,’ he announced to an enormous cheer. ‘The name Verrens will live long in the annals of the Empire.’

  Valerius felt a nudge and Titus whispered, ‘Nicely done, brother, I couldn’t have arranged it better myself. By the way, my father asks you to attend an audience. Noon in three days.’

  Valerius stiffened. It could be anything. Vespasian had let it be known he valued his opinion, but in Valerius’s experience any visit to the Palatine, where the Emperor had taken up residence in preference to Nero’s more ostentatious Golden House, contained an element of risk.

  But he couldn’t think about that now. This was the moment. He took a deep breath and tried to swallow, but his throat was as dry as a Parthian salt pan. He should be blissfully happy; instead his mind was a turmoil of contradictions. Apart from occasional fleeting relationships he’d been alone for so long he wasn’t quite certain how to feel. What kind of husband would he make? Oh, he knew the ideal of the Roman husband. Stern and unyielding, the master of his house and all who dwelt in it. By marrying him, Tabitha became his property, to be taken or discarded at will. But he didn’t feel like that. Most Roman men married for position, or power or wealth, not love. But Valerius and Tabitha’s love had been forged in the heat of the Syrian desert and the flames of the Great Temple of Jerusalem. Just the sight of her made his heart swell to fill his chest. He felt sure it was a real love. A lasting love. And Tabitha was not the usual subservient Roman bride. She was a princess of Emesa. A follower of the Judaean faith who had agreed to accept her husband’s because her children would grow up, not just as Roman citizens, but of the patrician class.

  Lupergos, Olivia’s partner, had decorated the pavilion as a woodland bower with tree branches, blossoms and colourful tapestries. Now Olivia led Tabitha to Valerius’s left side and he felt slim fingers entwine with his. There was a current fashion for longer ceremonies with various innovations, but together they’d decided they would marry in the old style, in a way Valerius’s father would have approved. They spoke only the traditional words, and Valerius felt his heart thunder in his ears as Tabitha’s nervous, husky voice whispered: ‘Quando tu Gaius, ego Gaia.’ In as much as you are Gaius I am Gaia.

  Valerius lifted the veil of the flammeum and for the first time that day looked into the enormous, sapphire blue eyes that had captivated him since the first moment they’d met.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered. She smiled and her honeyed flesh seemed to glow, but a small tear rolled down her cheek. He lifted his fingers to brush it away, but before he could reach it Olivia took them both by the hand and led them to a fleece-covered stool to make the sacrifice to Jupiter. The traditional spelt cake tasted like ashes in Valerius’s mouth and suddenly all he wanted was for the ceremony to be over. To be alone with Tabitha.

  But first they must endure the feast, a lavish affair because it was expected and Valerius was now a rich man. The cellars of the Great Temple of Jerusalem had proved to be filled with gold, and even a Judaean merchant’s most innovative hiding place was no proof against a legionary with the scent of treasure in his nostrils and a crowbar in his hand. The line of wagons carrying plunder from the city had stretched to the far horizon. Thanks to Titus, Valerius’s service merited a senior tribune’s share, enough, and more, to allow him to take his seat in the Senate. Vespasian’s gift of half the neighbouring estate that had previously belonged to the philosopher Seneca doubled the family holdings. Only two years earlier Valerius had been a penniless exile wandering in the desert. Now he sat at a table set with gold, an Imperial favourite and a valued counsellor with the resources to live a life of ease if he chose.

  Tabitha sat demurely by his side as a stream of richly clad men approached to offer their congratulations, but he knew that, like him, she was thinking of what was to come. They’d lived together in a town house on the Esquiline since returning from Jerusalem, but Olivia insisted they spend the last month apart and to his surprise Tabitha had readily agreed. She moved in with his sister at Fidenae while Valerius spent the longest month of his life poring over the estate accounts or working on the occasional legal case to keep him from dying of boredom. The men who stooped to whisper their regards were Valerius’s clients: merchants, lawyers and ambitious minor politicians. Valerius was their patron, just as he was client to Titus. They expected him to use his
influence to help them advance, and they in turn were obliged to provide support when he requested it. As the familiar faces passed by Valerius sipped his wine and ate a little of the sumptuous food, always conscious of Tabitha’s presence.

  After the dinner came the ordeal of the wedding procession through the dusk to Valerius’s new villa, two miles to the north, where rooms had been prepared. They were accompanied by a small army of slaves and servants who shouted ribald and often lewd comments about the groom’s romantic prowess and the bride’s fertility. The singing was loud, out of tune and boisterous, and more than one guest or couple went missing in the dark on the way. Still, the proper rites were performed: the placing of one of three coins with the god of the crossroads, the next handed to the groom by Titus as a token of Tabitha’s dowry, and the third retained for the god of the house. At one point Olivia appeared from the darkness at Valerius’s side.

  ‘You are fortunate among men, brother, to have made such a match,’ she whispered. ‘I was not certain at first when you returned from the east with your exotic mistress. If I had thought you would listen I would have advised you to keep her that way and find yourself a Roman maiden of status.’

  ‘And now?’ He kept his voice equally low with Tabitha on his opposite side talking with a servant’s awestruck daughter about her faraway homeland.

  ‘Now I have come to know Tabitha and see her true worth.’ Olivia locked eyes with her brother. ‘In many ways she is a remarkable woman, clever, well read and insightful. Without fear, or she would not have given up everything she knows to follow you to what, for her, is an alien place. She loves you, but does not worship you. She is strong where it matters, in her heart, which you will discover if you ever stray from the path of right and justice. She will bring you joy and she will test you. She is the right woman for you, Gaius Valerius Verrens. We have become friends.’