Rome's Executioner (17 page)

The dazed legionaries gave a few ragged salutes and lifted their primus pilus on to their shoulders. Sabinus touched Faustus’ chest and muttered a few unintelligible words over him, and then, without a word, they walked slowly away.

As he watched his friend being borne away Vespasian’s eyes were drawn to the fortress walls. They were now clear of Getae. Small squads of legionaries sauntered along them with the nonchalance of soldiers who have survived the rigours of battle and have nothing now to fear. A small, solitary figure appeared and looked out towards the river; his high-plumed helmet and crimson cloak glowed in the firelight. Vespasian knew that it was Poppaeus; the general raised his gladius and shook it at them. Whether he could see them or not Vespasian did not know or care.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to nobody in particular, and started to trudge towards the river.

It took a while to find the place where they had left Varinus and his mates in the boat.

‘Varinus,’ Vespasian called softly.

The prow of the boat appeared out of the reeds with Lucius and Arruns rowing; Varinus steered it to the bank.

‘We might have what you’ve been looking for, sirs,’ Varinus said with a grin as Vespasian and Sabinus stepped aboard.

‘What?’ Sabinus asked absently.

‘Well, we was watching the keep and then after a while we saw fires in the windows. Then suddenly a rope came out of a window and two men climbed out, then one was hauled back in but the other one jumped; then you all came sliding down. So I decided to modify my orders slightly and Lucius and me, we crept ashore; it weren’t long before we caught him about to get into a little boat hidden just downstream.’

Vespasian was suddenly alert again. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘Well, I figured that if you’d gone to all that effort to find him I should leave that pleasure to you.’ Varinus replied, flicking back a piece of waxed material at his feet. Under it, bound hand and foot, eyes brimming with hatred, lay the priest, Rhoteces.

‘You!’ he spat when he recognised Vespasian. ‘You should be dead. I sent men to do the gods’ work and kill you,’ he snarled, baring his sharply filed front teeth.

Vespasian crashed his fist into the priest’s face. ‘That’s for all the lads that you managed to kill instead.’ He pulled back his arm and punched the stunned Rhoteces again. ‘And that’s for Decimus Falens.’

Vespasian felt a restraining hand clasp his wrist as he went for another blow.

‘I think that it would be a pity to beat him to death, sir,’ Magnus whispered in his ear, ‘especially after all the trouble we’ve been to.’

‘You’re right,’ Vespasian replied, taking a rapid series of shallow breaths. He jerked his arm free, looked down at the unconscious body of Rhoteces and spat in his bloodied face. ‘But I do loathe the little shit.’

T
HE SMALL BOAT
slid with the current and the help of a light, westerly breeze down the Danuvius; past the siege wall, past the main Roman camp just beyond that and headed towards the faint pre-dawn glow in the eastern sky. Lucius and Arruns rowed steadily with Varinus at the steering-oar keeping a course as close to the shore as possible so as to avoid the attentions of the Danuvius fleet, bobbing to the left of them, faint shadows in the gloom. Vespasian and his comrades were too tired to do anything but sit and stare at nothing.

The memory of Faustus, Bryzos and Ziles hung over them all.

Rhoteces, now gagged as well as bound, lay in a heap in the bilge. He had come round earlier but Magnus had knocked him unconscious again when his struggling and grunting had become too tiresome to tolerate. Water slopped around him.

After a while a small, yellowish point of light on the shoreline in the distance caught their attention.

‘That should be Faustus’ men with our horses,’ Vespasian said, rousing himself from semi-slumber. ‘Make directly for them, Varinus.’

‘Aye, aye, trierarchus!’

Vespasian rolled his eyes and, again, let the insubordination pass; Varinus had done more for their cause that night by his selfinitiated modification of his orders than he would, as a mere legionary mule, ever realise.

Faustus’ men had had the sense to wait by a length of riverbank that was low and clear of reeds. The boat glided towards them and gently came to rest tucked up against the bank. The first birds of the morning had started to sing in anticipation of a new day as the early rays from the sun, still buried beyond the horizon, struck the highermost clouds with dashes of soft crimson and indigo.

‘Optio Melitus reporting, sir, with your horses, on Primus Pilus Faustus’ orders.’ The smart young optio snapped a salute, blanching somewhat at the smell of the Getic clothes, as Vespasian disembarked first, followed by Sabinus and the others.

‘Thank you, optio,’ Vespasian said, returning the salute wearily. ‘You and your men have done well,’ he added, nodding to the two legionaries standing to attention behind Melitus. ‘I’m sorry to say that Faustus is dead, so be careful when you go back to the camp; there may be some, er … repercussions.’

‘Faustus is dead?’ Melitus exclaimed. ‘That is shit news; Centurion Viridio will be primus now and he’s a savage bastard, not just a bastard like Faustus was.’

Varinus and his mates offloaded the gear and the recumbent priest as the exhausted party stripped off their filthy disguises and took an icy bath in the river, rubbing each other down vigorously in an attempt to eradicate all vestiges of the Getic stench. They were only partially successful.

Eventually, dressed in their own clothes and feeling refreshed by the cold water and the bread, sausage and cheese that Melitus had brought for them, along with two skins of fairly decent wine, they strapped Rhoteces over a horse and their provisions on to the two that had been brought for Bryzos and Ziles and prepared to leave.

‘Cheers, lads,’ Magnus called to Varinus and his mates as they got back in the boat, ‘and I’ll see you in Rome, Lucius, and we’ll visit the Greens’ stables.’

Lucius grinned. ‘We’ve both got to get back there first,’ he called back whilst steadying the boat for Melitus and his two men to get in. ‘But if Fortuna smiles on us and we do, then she will surely smile on us and the Greens at the circus.’

They cast off and, spinning the boat around, began to pull upstream. The westerly breeze had stiffened but they were soon lost in the shadowy half-light.

Vespasian kicked his horse forward and they set off at a trot, east, along the river. Magnus rode next to him, leading the priest’s horse.

‘A decent bunch of lads, as I said, sir,’ he observed, after a time of companionable silence.

‘It depends on how you define decent,’ Vespasian replied, ‘but yes, they suited our purpose very well and if it were down to me I would make Varinus an optio for the initiative that he showed last night.’

‘Be a waste of time that, sir; he’s tried it twice and it didn’t suit him, if you take my meaning?’

‘You mean he didn’t suit it?’

‘Well, yeah, I suppose you could look at it that way; the army did, that’s for sure.’

‘I’m sure they did,’ Vespasian replied, laughing for the first time in what felt like ages as the sun crested the horizon, splashing fresh, warm light over his face. ‘Anyway, let’s hope your mate Lucius makes it home, then you can have a lovely day together talking fluent chariot or whatever the official language of the track is.’

Magnus frowned. ‘Now you’re taking the piss, sir. Your trouble is you’ll never understand how an insider like Lucius is worth cultivating over a period of time, worth doing favours for; keep him happy and he’ll keep the tips flowing.’ He looked back over his shoulder towards the boat conveying his potential goldmine of information away and turned back abruptly. ‘Shit! Sir, look behind us!’

Vespasian turned in his saddle; his face dropped. Less than a mile behind them eight biremes and two triremes of the river fleet were, under full oars and sail, heading towards them, benefiting greatly from the freshening breeze. With the golden rays of the morning sun adding lustre to their sleek wooden hulls and an amber sheen to their white sails they would have been a beautiful sight had they not been so threatening. The shrill whistles of the stroke-masters’ flutes keeping time could just be heard floating across the water.

‘Sabinus, look,’ Vespasian shouted.

His brother turned. ‘Shit! Poppaeus has sent a squadron after us; that bastard never gives up. All right, we won’t wait for the bend; we’ll head away from the river now.’

‘I don’t think that that’s an option,’ Sitalces piped up, pointing at a dust cloud three or four miles to the south.

‘Roman?’ Vespasian asked.

‘No, a legionary cavalry detachment would never make that amount of dust, there’s never more than a hundred and twenty of them,’ Sitalces replied. ‘There’s got to be at least five or six times that number under that cloud. They’re the ones that got away last night; they’re Getae.’

‘They can’t be after us, they’ve no idea that we’re here,’ Magnus pointed out.

‘Whether they have or haven’t, they’re heading this way, my friend,’ Sitalces replied, ‘and I don’t fancy our chances if they come across us.’

‘We’ll have to outrun them along the river,’ Vespasian shouted and urged his horse into a gallop.

The jolting and bumping of the rough ride brought Rhoteces back to consciousness and his struggling and muffled protestations could be heard over the hoofbeats.

In less than a third of a mile the country started to become rougher and the horses were forced to slow to a canter; even at that speed they were pulling away from the Roman squadron, but the Getic dust cloud was gaining on them. They crested a hill and the great Lysimachid fortress of Axiopolis came into view two miles away.

‘That’s where the river bends to the north,’ Vespasian called across to Sabinus as they sped down the slope. ‘I don’t fancy taking the priest in there; Poppaeus doesn’t know for certain that we’ve got him, but he’s bound to have agents within the garrison who’ll put him right. What do you think we should do?’

‘Skirt around it and carry on in a straight line,’ Sabinus called back, ‘that way we’ll lose the fleet and only have the Getae to worry about.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ Magnus said.

A dull thump and then whinny from Rhoteces’ horse as it reared up brought them all to a skidding halt. The priest had managed to undo the rope that bound his wrists to his ankles under the horse and was now hopping, feet still tied together, in the opposite direction.

‘The little sod,’ Magnus exclaimed, leaping off his horse. He raced back and jumped on Rhoteces, slamming him to the ground and dealing him a crashing right hook. The priest went limp, blood oozed out from under the gag and another bruised swelling appeared on his left cheek.

Sitalces ran back to help Magnus lift the unconscious prisoner back on to his horse, which refused to stand still and danced this way and that, snorting and shaking its head. They struggled to secure the rope under the beast’s belly.

‘Hurry up!’ Sabinus urged. ‘The squadron’s gaining on us.’

From across the water the flute whistles had quickened. In an effort to catch their quarry before the river took them away all ten ships had accelerated to ramming speed, which they could maintain for only a few hundred strokes before the rowers were blown. They were now under a half-mile away. Vespasian could see their ballistae crews loading their weapons, which would very soon be in range.

To the south the Getic horde was now visible under its dust cloud as a dark stain on the ground.

‘Done,’ Magnus shouted eventually as he and Sitalces finally pulled the knot tight and headed back towards their horses.

Two plumes of water burst from the river, just five paces short of the bank, covering them all in a fine spray.

‘Fuck, we’re in range!’ Sabinus yelled, turning to go. Another stone whistled just over their heads causing Magnus to look up; he instantly jumped on Sitalces, pushing the huge Thracian over; a rock slammed into the ground that he had been standing on an instant before and went bouncing off, narrowly missing the provisions horse that Artebudz was leading.

‘I’d forgotten how easily you went down, my friend,’ Magnus quipped as he hauled himself to his feet.

‘I suppose you think that makes us even, Roman,’ Sitalces grinned, ‘but I’d say that’s two falls I owe you for.’

They raced for their mounts as the others began to pull away. As Magnus flung his leg over his horse’s back it let out a shrill cry and buckled underneath him. Its hindquarters were a mash of torn flesh and splintered bone. A bloodied rock, twice the size of a man’s fist, rolled on the ground.

‘Take this one,’ Artebudz called back, offering Magnus the lead of the provisions horse. Another plume of water burst from the river. Magnus did not need a second invitation; pulling the priest’s horse behind him, he sprinted forward and threw himself over the fresh mount, kicked it into action and accelerated after his comrades, leaving his wounded horse thrashing and screeching, helpless behind him.

Vespasian looked over his shoulder to make sure his friend was following; another two shots slammed into the ground, kicking up tufts of grass and showers of earth as Magnus wove between them. Spray from a series of eruptions close to the bank filled the air with a fine mist, soaking their hair and clothes and producing small rainbows that arched in front of them as they pressed their mounts forward at full gallop.

The shots started to fall short as the ships’ exhausted rowers, freemen with rights, not slaves to be whipped to the point of death, slowed their stroke, unable to sustain for a moment longer the relentless beat of ramming speed without fouling their oars. Vespasian eased his horse back into a canter, which they maintained for a further mile. The river had begun its turn northwards and they left its bank so as to pass to the south of Axiopolis. To their right the Getae were just over a mile away.

‘They’ve changed direction,’ Sitalces called out over the hoofbeats.

‘What?’ Vespasian shouted.

‘The Getae, they’ve changed direction; they’ve veered to their left,’ Sitalces called back. ‘They seem to be heading for the curve in the river, they’ll pass behind us.’