False God of Rome (12 page)

‘Relax, quaestor,’ Corvinus’ voice shouted in his ear; Vespasian froze. ‘Someone should warn you about losing control in combat.’

‘I already have,’ Magnus said, getting up off his freshly dead, bulging-eyed opponent. ‘It seems that he’s forgotten that that’s how you end up dead.’

‘Let go of me, prefect,’ Vespasian ordered, coming back to his senses and shaking Corvinus off.

‘I could have slit your throat, which I was very tempted to do,’ Corvinus snarled as he dropped his sword, ‘had it not been for him.’

Vespasian turned round to see Ziri holding his blood-drenched spear to Corvinus’ neck. ‘It’s all right, Ziri,’ he said, gesturing slowly for him to lower his weapon.

Ziri nodded and pulled away.

Vespasian got to his feet and looked around; tents still blazed, up-lighting the surrounding palms that stood motionless in the windless night with a soft amber hue, but the sound of fighting
had died down. Groups of townsmen and auxiliaries walked through the carnage; every now and then one would raise a weapon and bring it down to despatch a wounded tribesman.

‘Did any escape?’ he asked no one in particular as he picked up his spatha.

‘I don’t know but I doubt it,’ Corvinus replied. ‘The slave corral is secured; some of my men are guarding it.’

‘Good, let’s go and have a look at them.’

‘Time to see if Capella will give you his woman in grateful thanks for all your effort,’ Magnus commented. He did not see Corvinus frown at his remark.

As Vespasian and Magnus turned to go they noticed Ziri looking down at the still burning bodies; he speared them both in the heart.

‘Come on, Ziri,’ Magnus said, tugging at his sleeve.

Ziri shook his head. ‘They Ziri brothers,’ he said matter-of-factly.

Vespasian looked aghast at the young Marmarides and, with a sense of foreboding, pointed down at Grey-beard. ‘And him, the man you killed to save my life,’ he asked, recalling
Aghilas’ words:
especially against the Marmaridae
.

Ziri looked at him with no emotion in his eyes. ‘He Ziri father.’

‘S
TATILIUS
C
APELLA
! S
TATILIUS
Capella!’ Magnus shouted over the
wailing of the terrified female captives and the crying of their children as he, Vespasian and Corvinus wove their way through the tightly packed slave corral, carrying torches.

‘Over here,’ a voice eventually called out as they approached the centre.

‘Corvinus, release the freeborn and freed,’ Vespasian ordered, ‘but keep bound all those who were slaves before the Marmaridae caught them. And get some of your men to round up
the camels; I’m going to have a little chat with the idiot who dragged us all the way out here.’

‘Does that mean you’re going to talk to yourself for a while, then?’ Magnus asked with a grin as Corvinus walked off.

‘Very funny. If you want to do something useful, make sure the townspeople are burying the dead and getting the corpses out of the lake; we should leave no trace of this camp. And then go
and search what’s left of the chief’s tent; I imagine that there will be quite a bit of money stashed away there, Capella’s purse for a start.’

Magnus nodded to his slave standing a little way off in quiet thought; his face registered no emotion. ‘I won’t ask Ziri to help, considering the circumstances.’

‘How is he?’

‘He seems to be fine; as I’m sure we all would be having committed a double fratricide followed by a patricide.’

‘Well, there’s no doubting his loyalty to you and me after that.’

‘Yes, that’s true, but what a way to prove it. I don’t know what gods the Marmaridae have but it’s going to take a lot to appease them if he doesn’t want to live
the rest of his life under a curse.’

Vespasian glanced at Ziri, taking in his youth. ‘Do you think that he’ll know how to do that?’

‘I don’t know; but he’ll have to find a way. What he did ain’t natural and nothing good can come out of something that ain’t natural.’

‘Apart from saving our lives, you mean?’

Magnus grunted and stalked off.

Vespasian made his way towards Capella, wondering just what sort of death Ziri would have suffered at the hands of his father and brothers, had they captured him, for him to have been able to
kill them so easily and apparently without feeling.

‘I am Titus Flavius Vespasianus, quaestor of this province, and you, Statilius Capella, are an imbecile,’ Vespasian informed Capella upon finding him.

‘That’s a very quick judgement to come to about someone whom you’ve only just met, young man,’ Capella replied; he had his hands and neck bound to the post that he was
sitting against. He was much older than Vespasian had expected, early- to mid-forties, but still with a good head of curly, black hair, a lined but handsome face and a trim physique. He was
surrounded by a strong smell of faeces; he had been obliged to defecate where he sat.

‘Who else but an imbecile would go off into the desert with a small escort in search of a tribe of slavers in order to buy camels off them?’

Capella smiled. ‘Ah, you’ve been talking to Flavia. Well, release me then, seeing as she must have sent you all this way to rescue me; she’s very persuasive, I know.’

‘All in good time; first of all we have to discuss the terms of your release.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that over a hundred men, expensively trained Roman auxiliaries, have lost their lives in finding you; not to mention the loss of over a hundred and twenty horses and another
thirty mules and all the equipment that they were carrying. That amounts to a good few thousand denarii, which, seeing as you are the cause of all that financial loss, it would seem only right that
you should reimburse.’

‘And you no doubt think that I’m also obliged to you personally?’

‘Naturally.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then the whole enterprise would be a tragic and colossal waste of time and money. We came all this way and couldn’t find you.’

Capella burst into laughter despite the rope constricting his throat. ‘You’d leave me here?’

‘I wouldn’t leave you tied to that post, no; but yes, I would leave you in Siwa to make your own way back and more than likely fall into the hands of the Marmaridae again. What would
give you the right to enjoy my protection on the journey back to Cyrene if you refuse to pay Rome for the damage that your reckless actions have caused?’

‘I see your point, quaestor, if you look at it that way and assume that my actions were reckless; which indeed they would have been had I really been trying to buy camels from
slavers.’

‘You weren’t, then?’

‘Young man, if I’d wanted to do that, do you really think that I would have come all the way out here when I could have sailed a hundred miles along the coast from Apollonia to the
Marmaridae’s grazing grounds and bought camels from them there, negotiating from the safety of a ship as I have done many times before? Of course not, that would be imbecilic.’

‘Then why did you tell Flavia that?’

‘Cut me loose and you may get an answer.’

Vespasian had little choice; feeling slightly stupid, he took his sword to the ropes. All around, the wails of the captives were turning to shouts of joy as Corvinus’ auxiliaries moved
through the corral cutting the bonds of the free and freed; only the slaves were left sitting glumly against their posts to await their fate.

‘That’s better,’ Capella said, rubbing his sore wrists and walking back towards the corral’s entrance. ‘Now I’m going to wash my arse in the lake and then I
would appreciate a clean tunic, a loincloth and something to eat.’

Vespasian followed him. ‘You said that you’d answer my question.’

‘I said that I might, but fair enough; I told Flavia that I was buying camels because I couldn’t tell her what I was really doing. I told her that I would be back in forty days
because I knew that if I wasn’t she would persuade someone like you to come and find me. And I was right because here you are; she is very hard to refuse, as you’ve evidently found
out.’

‘I’m here because I was told that a Roman citizen had probably been taken as a slave,’ Vespasian replied airily.

‘Bollocks; you’re here because you wanted to impress Flavia.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, it was my duty,’ Vespasian blustered.

Capella smiled at him. ‘Don’t feel ashamed about it, I don’t blame you one bit and, who knows, if you impress her enough she might even leave me for you, and I wouldn’t
blame her either.’

‘She struck me as being very loyal to you.’

‘Oh she is, and will continue to be so until someone else can command her loyalty. She likes to make sure that her loyalty is well rewarded, shall we say. Anyway, she’s done her job
and saved me from a very unpleasant end to my life.’

‘Which you must pay for; as well as recompensing me for my efforts.’

‘Quaestor, I’m sure that my patron for this trip will be only too delighted to pay out a measly few thousand denarii, if you bring me back to Cyrene with what I’m carrying for
him. As to what
you
want, you’ll have to ask her yourself.’

Vespasian frowned and glanced at Capella, wondering if he really had made his desire for Flavia so obvious. ‘You’d give Flavia to me; why?’

‘Because I’m tiring of her; she’s a big drain on my income and very demanding – although her charms go some way to making up for that. If you’re rash enough to take
on the expense then you’re welcome to her, but I couldn’t give her to you; it would have to be Flavia’s decision. So let’s take that as agreed, then, and get going once your
men have retrieved my possessions.’ Capella stopped by the corral’s entrance and proffered his forearm, smiling genially.

Vespasian took it, stunned that Capella would so easily give up such a woman. ‘You’re very generous, Capella.’

‘Am I?’

‘Quaestor, you’d better come and look at this,’ Corvinus called from over by the tents, interrupting them.

Vespasian turned and walked towards him. ‘What is it?’

‘Magnus has uncovered a chest buried beneath the chief’s tent.’

‘Ah good,’ Capella exclaimed, following, ‘that’ll be mine.’

They found Corvinus watching Magnus and Ziri heaving a small wooden chest out of a shallow hole in the sand.

Vespasian pointed at Ziri. ‘What’s he doing helping?’

‘He insisted; showed me where to look, as a matter of fact,’ Magnus replied as they put the chest down next to a pile of valuables retrieved from the tent; two keys were tied to a
handle.

‘Yes, that is mine,’ Capella confirmed.

‘How can you prove it?’ Corvinus asked him, as Vespasian bent down and untied the keys.

‘That’s simple. I could tell you what’s in there and then let you open it, but I don’t think you’ll thank me if I did.’

Vespasian slipped the keys into the locks at either end of the chest. ‘Why not?’

‘Because the chest may be mine but the contents belong to my patron. I’d completed his business here in Siwa and was on my way back to Cyrene when the Marmaridae caught me. If my
patron were to find out that you’d seen what I’m carrying for him, he would be obliged to kill you.’

Vespasian looked at Magnus. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think that it depends on who his patron is.’

Capella nodded his approval. ‘Your man is very wise, Vespasian; it’s always best to keep out of imperial politics, if you can avoid it. My patron is – how should I put it?
– almost at the top of the imperial tree.’

Vespasian took the keys out of the locks.

Dawn was breaking and Vespasian surveyed the camp; the townsmen and released captives had worked hard overnight. All trace of the burned tents and dead bodies had been buried;
areas of damper sand marked the positions of the pits, but they would soon dry out.

Everything salvageable had been loaded onto the camels and the hundred or so slaves had been roped into lines with their hands tied behind their backs. The freed captives and the townsfolk had
formed up into a rough column; they were ready to move back to the town.

‘Lead off, Corvinus,’ Vespasian ordered.

With a sharp word of command from their prefect the auxiliaries leading the column moved forward.

‘Let’s hope that the Marmaridae come to the conclusion that their caravan was buried by the sandstorm in the desert and not by those townspeople in this place,’ Vespasian said
to Magnus as they watched the column shamble forward, ‘otherwise they’ll be in the shit.’

Magnus shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’ll teach them to observe the laws of hospitality in future instead of getting their guests drunk and then selling them.’

‘Well, they’ll have all those slaves to sell next time the Marmaridae come calling; by rights I should try and reunite them with their owners but I think that would be virtually
impossible, so I’ve given them to the townspeople in exchange for everything that we need to get back across the desert.’

‘I take it that you had a successful little chat with Capella, seeing as he seems to be coming with us.’

‘Yes, very successful, thank you.’

‘And?’

‘And he said that his patron would reimburse the loss to the province.’

‘And?’

‘And that he would let me have Flavia, if I asked her myself; and she so wished.’

‘As simple as that?’

‘Yes.’

Magnus started laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’ Vespasian asked, annoyed.

‘He’s sharp, that one.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I’ll bet he said: take her if she wants to go, she costs me a fortune and I’m getting bored with her.’

‘Words along those lines, yes,’ Vespasian admitted, taken aback by the accuracy of Magnus’ guess.

‘You’ve been had.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You should have made him swear to repudiate her, then she wouldn’t have had much choice but to go with you or find herself alone in a strange province without anyone to protect her.
Whereas what he’s done is say: go and ask her, I don’t care.’

‘And I will,’ Vespasian asserted through gritted teeth.

‘Come on, sir, don’t you get it? She’s going to take one look at you, a quaestor in one of the least prestigious provinces in the whole Empire, who’ll be lucky to finish
his term with enough cash to keep a woman like her in jewellery and perfume for the next couple of years; and then she’ll look at her rich man who has the contract to supply wild animals to
the circuses in Africa, probably owns his own ship and has contacts in high places. What is she going to decide?’