The Emperor's Knives (17 page)

The praetorian looked across the room at him with a grimace of anticipation.

‘I can only accept the challenge. Spread the fuel around liberally though. Once I’m alight I want this whole grisly showcase to burn with me.’

Marcus showered oil across the floor in splattering arcs, soaking the thick rugs and curtains with it, then carried the jar over to Dorso. The older man took it from him, swiftly upending the clay container over his head and soaking himself with the remaining fluid. Large drops ran down his face and dripped from his beard onto the mosaic floor, and the two Tungrians backed away as he nodded at them, reaching up to take a torch from its sconce and hold the flame out before him.

‘You see? I am ready to make amends for my sins, and I go to meet the Lightbringer! When next you pray to Our Lord, remind him of my sacrifice, and ask him to pardon my sins in recognition of my sacrifice in his name. And you, Valerius Aquila …’ Marcus watched in horrified fascination as Dorso put the torch’s blazing head to his tunic, the oil smoking furiously for an instant as it swiftly heated towards the point where it would burst into flame. ‘Please forgive me! Forgive—’ The praetorian’s last word was lost in the sudden roar as the oil took fire.

His body was abruptly consumed by a column of flame that momentarily licked at the ceiling high above them. With a hideous shriek of agony the dying man tottered forward into a rack of spears and knocked it over in a toppling clatter, sprawling headlong into the puddle of the oil which Marcus had spilled at his request. With another concussive ignition, the floor around his writhing body was alight, and Dorso’s screams strengthened from those of a man in agony to the pure, bestial howl of a creature from which any hint of humanity had been scoured by the flames.

Dubnus put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and dragged him away.

‘Come on! Before the whole place goes up, and we find ourselves having to explain to the urban cohorts why half the street’s on fire!’

They fled, Marcus looking back as Dubnus pulled him into the alley and started shouting that there was a fire, seeing the flames flickering brightly at the museum’s high windows. The glass popped and tinkled to the ground in a glittering shower, and Marcus realised, with a combination of gratitude and regret, that the praetorian’s screaming had stopped, replaced by the fire’s terrible, powerful roar.

4

‘And then he simply set
fire
to himself?’

Excingus’s voice, usually so carefully controlled in tone and inflection to give every impression of complete imperturbability, was as incredulous as the expression on his face. He’d appeared at the barracks’ gate that morning soon after dawn, unbidden but clearly eager to know what had happened with Dorso. Marcus looked across the table at him, painfully aware that there was only a feeling of emptiness where’d he’d expected some sense of triumph in the wake of the praetorian’s demise.

‘As strange as it sounds, yes. From what he said before he put the torch to himself, he was suffering from an attack of conscience.’

The informer put his head to one side as if trying to work out what the word meant.

‘And it sounds as if he was expecting you to make an appearance?’

The young centurion nodded.

‘Yes. He’d learned enough about the circumstances of Perennis’s death from the praetorians who were on duty when the prefect was murdered by Commodus to realise that I was back in the city.’ Marcus grimaced. ‘We were lucky. If he’d not had such a strong death wish then Dubnus and I would probably have been walking into a trap. As it was, I genuinely believe that he was marking himself for death.’

Excingus nodded slowly.

‘And now you’re not feeling
quite
as satisfied with the state of affairs as you thought you might, given his death, are you Centurion? You didn’t want contrition, did you? You wanted a fight, and the chance to carve Dorso into ribbons with one of his own swords.’

Scaurus frowned at the informant, but Marcus shook his head.

‘All I want is for the four men who murdered my family to suffer some measure of their misery and agony. And Dorso’s death wasn’t an easy one.’

Excingus laughed tersely.

‘Apparently so. His screams were heard half a dozen streets away, I’m told. So, honour is satisfied to some small degree, and as far as the authorities are concerned it’s a simple enough fire, which ought to stop the others taking fright. So, now that you’ve seen off one of them, are you sure you want to continue?
If,
of course, I could deliver another of them to the point of your sword?’

Scaurus’s eyes narrowed.

‘
If?
Share what you have, Informant.’

Excingus tipped his head to one side again, considering the tribune’s demand.

‘Really? I ask a question of the man seeking vengeance and you answer for him? I could wonder which of you feels the most strongly motivated …’

Scaurus turned to Marcus.

‘He’s right, loathe though I am to admit to it. This is first and foremost your concern. So, do you wish to continue?’

His centurion stared blankly at the table for a moment.

‘I have no other choice. What do you have for us, Varius Excingus?’

The informant raised an eyebrow at the use of his name, but spoke quickly nonetheless.

‘The gang leader Brutus has taken to the streets. It seems that there’s another group of thugs who go by the name of the “Dog Eaters” encroaching on his territory, stripping away whole city blocks from his control and attacking his main business in each neighbouring block in turn.’

Julius spoke, having sat quietly throughout the previous discussion.

‘And his main business is …?’

‘The same as every other gang you’ve ever run across, taking a piece of anything and everything he can muscle his way into. Protection money, prostitution, theft … As their name suggests, it’s a dog-eat-dog life at that level of society, and it seems that an even bigger dog has decided to eat dear old Brutus’s dinner.’

‘And what do you mean by “taken to the streets”?’

Excingus turned back to Scaurus.

‘Exactly what it sounds like. He’s fighting a war for survival, and in a war the last thing the general wants is for the enemy to find and overrun his headquarters. He’s gone underground – possibly quite literally so – and is directing his army from a place that should be safe from attack since nobody knows where it is.’

‘And in reality?’

The informant grinned savagely.

‘I have an … associate, shall we say, although associating with him is a little like making a pet of a viper. He lives and practises what I will euphemistically call his trade in the Aventine district, with a loose affiliation to one of the smaller gangs that supports Brutus. It seems that they have been contracted, secretly and under threat of a slow and nasty death, to secure a secret hideout for Brutus and his senior men, somewhere from which they can direct the fight for their ground without the risk of being disturbed by unfriendly strangers. My man Silus, expensively purchased I can assure you, not only knows the location of this place, but has agreed to take a small party of men to it, when the time is right. And word has reached them that Brutus intends taking occupation of this clandestine headquarters for a day or two from tonight. He only stays in each safe house for a short time, choosing the next location at random, but with every change he has to give his men a few hours to make sure that his networks of runners and soldiers can be realigned to keep him informed and protected. So, gentlemen, tomorrow night would appear to be your best opportunity,
if
you want to put your heads into the lion’s mouth?’

Later that morning, Julius looked around the shop that Cotta had rented, pulling a disgusted face at the state of the space in which he stood. The shop’s floor was little more than a selection of warped and mismatched boards laid over the rough dirt beneath them, while the coating of plaster that had originally adorned the walls had long since been reduced to a few patches that clung stubbornly to the bricks, fragments of paint giving some hint as to their original bright decoration.

‘What a fucking dump! This place can’t have seen a copper coin’s worth of maintenance since Hadrian was on the throne. And we paid
how
much for this shithole?’

The veteran centurion standing beside him grinned at their surroundings.

‘Your expectations are a little out of alignment with the reality of Rome, First Spear. What we’re paying per month for this place wouldn’t normally cover the cost of a shop like this for a week, but then it’s not really in the best spot and, as you say, it is a little basic …’ He waved a hand at the shop’s dilapidated state. ‘But then we’ve got an asset that’ll make short work of even this mess.’

The other man looked round at him with a snort of incredulity.

‘You think my soldiers can sort this out? We’re fighting men, not the assorted collection of plumbers and plasterers that you were chasing around in your legion cohort.’

Cotta smiled, tapping his purse.

‘In which case I’ll have a wager with you that we can have this place tidied, painted and ready for business inside a day, once the groundwork’s out of the way. I’ve got just the men lined up, since your Centurion Dubnus was kind enough to find me some volunteers who are the least likely to leave a customer looking as if he’s had his hair cut by a butcher. You leave me to it and I’ll have the first customer in here and on his arse being asked how he’d like his hair cut before sunset tomorrow, if your ditch diggers don’t hold the whole thing up. Shall we call it ten sestertii?’

The first spear shook his head hurriedly.

‘No, we fucking well won’t call it ten sestertii. If you’re that sure you can get my lads grafting that hard then you must have some secret weapon up your sleeve. On you go then, I’ve got military matters to be discussing, and no time to bandy words with a man who clearly missed his way in life. A shopkeeper is what you should have been …’

Cotta grinned, calling out into the street for his volunteers. The soldiers filed into the shop with a barrel-chested soldier at their head, the veteran looking about him with eyes that were as alert to the possibilities of the situation as always, and his first spear raised a knowing eyebrow.

‘Morban. I should have known you’d manage to find a way to get out of having to work up a sweat with the rest of your century, rather than just strutting about and pretending to be a soldier. Let’s hope our new colleague here knows what he’s getting into if he’s going to trust this new enterprise of his to your tender care!’

The standard bearer saluted and snapped to attention with a precision that widened the eyes of the men at his back before they caught the look on Julius’s face and hastily followed his example as he stalked past them and out into the street, calling to Avidus who was staring intently at the local architecture with a look of bemusement.

‘Well then, Centurion, that’s not a look I wanted to see on your face.’

The engineer scratched his head, waving a hand at the apartment block at whose base the shop stood.

‘I’m just trying to work out whether what you want is possible. The good news is that this block looks reasonably sturdy, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for us to do the work without bringing it down on top of us.’ He looked up at the building with a professional’s disdain. ‘Although it wouldn’t take much to have the whole block fall in on itself, since it’s not exactly built to last. The bad news however …’ He looked about him again, shaking his head. ‘Is that I have absolutely no idea what we’ll find once we get the floor up, and if it’s rock we’re going to make a right bloody racket.’

Julius pointed at the main road up the hill, less than fifty paces distant from Felicia’s house on the far side.

‘See that street? It’s quiet enough now, but once it’s dark it’s a non-stop procession of carts, with all of the banging and crashing you could ever want to cover up any noise you’ll be making, not to mention the cursing and shouting when a horse or a mule isn’t pulling its weight or just drops dead from overwork. You could probably quarry out enough rock to build a bath house without anyone being any the wiser. Are your boys ready?’

Avidus grinned and then whistled sharply, and a dozen men lounging against the shop front got to their feet, their tools held ready to work.

‘They’re as eager as shithouse dogs with the smell of a sausage. A night in the brothel of their choice after a month of nothing better than changing hands at ninety-nine, that’s enough to get my lads working up a sweat any time you like!’

Julius nodded, raising his eyebrows in silent comment.

‘And it’s a promise I’ll keep once I’ve got a nice big storeroom underneath the shop, ready to fill with shields and weapons.’

‘You’re sure that’s wise? If the Watch find out …’

The engineer left his statement unfinished, but both men knew the risk involved in what Scaurus and Julius were planning.

‘You can leave me to worry about that. Just concentrate on getting my hole dug, eh?’

Avidus saluted ironically.

‘Same old fuckin’ army. Only difference is I won’t have to fill this hole in once it’s dug.’

The first spear turned away, his face creased by an evil smile.

‘Who says you won’t be filling it in again?’

Excingus met his spies at the Ostian gate, looking about him with his customary caution before squatting down to join the ragged group of children. A grizzled and filthy man wearing the remnants of a military tunic was dozing in the morning sun twenty paces away, but otherwise the scene around the gate was one of busy normality. The children’s leader, a boy so worldly wise before his time that the informant was still uncertain whether to be repelled or fascinated by the urchin, looked up at him with apparent disinterest.

‘We was wondering when you was going to turn up. Or
if
you was going to turn up, given what you told us to do yesterday got us caught by them bastards in the fort.’

Excingus raised an eyebrow.

‘Somebody’s brighter than I gave them credit for. What did they do to you?’