Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7] (40 page)

‘We will take Tarraco and hold it.’ Melanius skilfully regathered the reins of the meeting. ‘The timing will give Vespasian no opportunity to react before winter sets in. Once the Tenth and the Sixth have hailed Calpurnius Piso, descendant of Divine Caesar, as Emperor, the legions of Germania will do likewise. In the spring, we will combine and march on Rome before Vespasian can summon help from Syria.’

‘What about the legions of Pannonia and Illyricum, and those on the Danuvius?’

‘The Danuvius was where Marcus Antonius Primus sent the legions he shattered at Cremona,’ Melanius said dismissively. ‘They have no reason to love the Flavians. He cannot afford to move the others because of the threat from the tribes beyond the river who will take advantage of any weakness. No, we will reach Rome before any force can be gathered to stop us and the Senate will open the gates to us and anoint Lucius Calpurnius Piso to the purple.’ He looked each man in the eye with a confident smile. ‘And when that happens there will be estates and honours for all those who stood by him.’

He looked to Piso for support. The young man returned the smile, but with a twist to his lips that said that once he took his rightful place he’d rather be dragged through the Cloaca Maxima by his heels than have anything to do with these provincial rustics. But that was for later. Enough for now that he acknowledged Melanius with a nod and that Severus and Ferox were too blind to question his sincerity. Though Melanius did face one further hurdle, which he had expected and was prepared for.

‘But surely,’ Severus demanded, ‘you cannot expect us to fight in the front rank like common soldiers? Naturally, we are happy to ride at our young prince’s shoulder when the time comes, but experience tells me that in battle or siege it is much better to leave military matters to the professionals.’

‘Of course,’ Melanius conceded Severus’s point with grace, ‘but the officers and men of the Sixth need something to follow. They believe they fight under the orders of the government of Asturica Augusta to help put down an insurrection Plinius Secundus does not have the
power to defeat. They will require to see their leaders in the vanguard of the column, and that is where we will ride, you and I.’ Melanius smiled at the other man’s discomfort. ‘Ferox will remain in Asturica to ensure production from the mines continues uninterrupted.’

He turned to the two soldiers. ‘We will muster here in Asturica. Gather your men and supplies and be ready in one week from today. All Hispania will be ours in a month.’

Valerius and Serpentius made a weary and bedraggled sight as they rode in to Avala with their clothing still stained by the ochre mud of the Red Hills. They’d finally reached the horses after a nightmare trudge through the mud, followed by a two-day semicircular trek across broken country to keep them out of the way of the Parthians. On the second morning Serpentius found a stream where they were able to wash the worst of the clay off their bodies and clean and dry their clothing while they laid up until dark. They travelled in silence, any exhilaration at their unlikely survival long since replaced by a melancholy that both men knew well from the aftermath of battle.

Their demeanour that morning matched their mood. They’d failed and the hangdog attitude of the reception party who awaited them outside the
castro
suggested theirs was not the only failure. Tito stood at the head of a group of elders and young men, his face a picture of misery, but it was Julia who drew Valerius’s eyes. She wore bandages on both hands and his heart sank as he recognized the dark
stola
she wore and understood the reason behind it. It was finished. After a meal and a few hours’ sleep he’d do what Serpentius advised and ride south in search of Pliny. Caeleo, the hunter who had been sent to Legio to deliver Valerius’s report to Marius, the
Imperial courier, was among the welcome party and Valerius called him over.

‘Were you able to find the young man, Caeleo?’

‘Yes, lord.’ A smile creased the goat hunter’s face. ‘It was like you said. He was a-cuddling with this lass in the tavern by the bridge. I took him aside, secret like, and handed him the message. All business he was after that. Lass wasn’t pleased to see him go, tears and wailing and trying to keep him from the saddle, but off he went eventually.’

‘When was this?’

‘The day before yesterday, lord. I came straight back.’ He leered. ‘That girl didn’t want no comforting from the likes of old Caeleo.’

Valerius went over the route from Legio to Tarraco in his head. If Marius used his Imperial warrant to change horses at every government
mansio
he should reach Pliny by tomorrow morning at the latest. Would Pliny see the urgency of the situation and march north immediately? Valerius had done what he could to highlight the dangers, but with little genuine evidence to back it up. Even if Pliny acted immediately he doubted he’d meet the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis till at least Esca, and perhaps further south.

He didn’t see Caeleo watching him, or the look of concern that had replaced the smiles. The hunter was a man who lived his life by a certain philosophy. If a shepherd’s flock showed signs of disease, but the shepherd was blind to it, Caeleo would allow him a further few days of cheerfulness rather than be the bearer of bad news. Thus he hadn’t mentioned that when Marius rode out from Legio, the courier had been followed minutes later by four Parthian cavalrymen. Whatever the outcome of this scene, nothing could be done about it now and Caeleo saw no reason to trouble Valerius with something that could only cause him distress. Suddenly he remembered that there
was
something else he’d been meant to communicate.

‘Would your honour be wanting to see your visitor now?’

‘Visitor?’ Valerius looked to where Tito and Serpentius were deep in conversation.

‘No, lord,’ the goatherd said. ‘He’ll be this way.’

Valerius followed him through the newly replaced gate of Avala to a house that had been one of the first to be renovated after the raid by Harpocration’s Parthians. His puzzlement grew when he noticed the armed guard outside the entrance. A leather curtain covered the doorway and he pulled it aside and ducked through. The smoke hole in the roof allowed in just enough light to make out a hunched figure sitting on a stone bench in the far corner.

The man looked up and Valerius looked into a face he recognized. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Why would you come here?’

‘You’re alive.’ The man ignored the question. ‘They said you were dead. Everyone was certain you were dead. A mine accident.’

‘Why are you here?’ Valerius persisted.

‘I was sent with a message.’

‘So?’

The man darted a glance at the doorway. ‘A certain person asks for a meeting tomorrow at the crossroads
mansio
south of Legio,’ he whispered. ‘You should have passed it on the way to Asturica …?’

‘I know it,’ Valerius said. ‘But why should I meet with this … person? Why should I trust them? After all, just because I survived one
accident
it doesn’t mean I’ll survive another.’

‘My … person understands this. They told me to say that it is in your interest to meet and they sent a token which they said you would recognize.’ He held out his hand and Valerius saw something glittering in the centre of his palm. He knew he was expected to pick it up, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it.

‘I will think on it.’ He turned away.

‘And you are to come alone,’ the man called. ‘My person is very jealous of their privacy.’

Valerius almost smiled at this invitation to place his head once more between the lion’s jaws. ‘I would have to be mad to do that.’

‘Yes.’ The man shook his head wryly. ‘Almost as mad as someone who agreed to come here with a message and offered to stay as a hostage for your safe return.’

Valerius looked at him with new regard. ‘Truly?’

The man nodded glumly. ‘I have discovered that loyalty is a dangerous quality.’

‘So it is.’ Valerius grinned. ‘Will your person be alone?’

He shook his head. ‘They will be in a carriage pulled by two bays. There is a driver, but he knows nothing of this. The carriage will wait there for two hours after noon.’

‘Very well, I will think on it,’ Valerius repeated. But they both knew he’d made up his mind.

‘Try to stay alive, lord – if only for my sake.’

Valerius laughed. ‘You may trust me for that, but I have found it is not so easy in this Asturia of yours.’

Serpentius, naturally, tried to dissuade him. ‘Of course it’s a trap,’ he said with surly relish. ‘How could it be anything else after all that’s happened? They’ll be waiting for you. If it’s not the thieves who kill you it’ll be someone else. You’d be a fool to go.’

‘It’s one last chance to do what I came here for. To win some proper justice for Petronius.’

‘Then at least let me come with you.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘If it’s who I think it is they’ll just walk away and we’ll be back where we started. There’s a reason they want to speak to me alone. Just supply me with a guide to take me as far as the Legio road.’

The next day, after a few hours’ sleep and another gruelling ride, Valerius approached the crossroads
mansio
an hour after noon. A four-wheeled wagon – more or less a small room on wheels – stood in the dusty courtyard while the driver watered a pair of fine horses at a stone trough by the
mansio
entrance. He looked up as Valerius entered and hurried to the carriage.

A slim hand appeared through the curtained doorway and beckoned Valerius forward. He tied his horse to a rail and approached the wagon, eyes searching the surroundings for any signs of the potential ambush that was so likely. He had no reason to trust the woman who had
summoned him here and many reasons not to. His heart thundered in his chest, but it was anticipation as much as fear that drove it. He pulled back the curtain.

‘So you did come.’ Calpurnia Severa greeted him with a cold smile. ‘I feared I had overestimated you.’ She reached out and offered her hand to help him into the carriage.

‘Did I have any other choice?’ Valerius ignored the searching fingers and pushed inside. Calpurnia sat on a cushioned bench to one side. He took the seat opposite, so close they could touch heads if they leaned forward at the same time. ‘How did you know I wasn’t dead? Everyone else seems to think so.’

‘Severus was positively crowing when he announced it,’ she said scornfully. ‘A little cockerel strutting around on his dungheap. You frightened him, you see.’ She shook her head. ‘A lot of things frighten him. I told him I was pleased you were dead. The truth is that I couldn’t conceive of a pair of crooks like Melanius and Ferox killing a man like Gaius Valerius Verrens. So I sent Zeno on the off chance I was right. Severus believes he has his loyalty, but the reality is very different. Zeno is devoted to me. He would do anything I ask.’

‘He said it would be in my interest to meet you. That suggests you have something to offer.’

‘Or,’ her eyes hardened, ‘I have a dozen of Harpocration’s Parthian killers secreted away in the
mansio
in case Ferox and Melanius had failed at the mine. All I have to do is call out.’

Valerius went very still. A certain twist to her lips told him she was enjoying his confusion. On the other hand, that long slim neck was easily within reach and all he had to do was reach out and the fingers of his left hand would squeeze the life out of her. He could see she knew it, too. ‘Why would you do that when you despise the men who want me dead?’

‘You men are all alike.’ She stared at him, shaking her head. ‘So terribly predictable. You refused my … attentions. I find that insulting. Why would I not want my revenge?’ Valerius considered the question for a long, anxious moment. Had he misjudged her so badly? Before he
came up with an answer, she continued. ‘But that would be a meagre reason to have a man killed. No.’ Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head in a certain way. ‘There would have to be a better motivation. Let us call it power. Yes, I despise Melanius and the rest. But it would be so easy to supplant them. Calpurnius Piso is a young man and not insensible to my charms. A word in his ear and Severus, Melanius and Ferox would be no more. All that gold hidden where they think no one can find it. It would all be mine. And Piso has ambitions …’

‘Calpurnia Augusta.’

She answered his mockery with a perfectly curved raised eyebrow. ‘You do not think I am worthy, Valerius? A clothmaker’s daughter from Carthago Nova who rose to become queen of Asturica Augusta in all but name?’

‘I think your neck is much too pretty to put under the executioner’s axe, where it would certainly end up if you were foolish enough to follow Piso. But then you’re not, are you?’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I am not.’

‘Which brings us back to why you brought me here.’

She reached beneath the seat, drew out a leather satchel and handed it to him. ‘This is the information that fat fool Nepos would have provided if he hadn’t got himself killed. Everything you need to destroy Melanius and his crew. Names, numbers. How it was carried out. All the people who were paid to look the other way. The key to the cypher is there too.’

Valerius weighed the pouch in his hand, barely able to believe what he’d just been given. ‘So you were Petronius’s other source?’

‘I convinced him to recruit Nepos to protect me. If they suspected they were being betrayed, everything they discovered would have led them to him.’ She sounded very pleased with herself. When he remembered the shattered body on the tunnel floor, Valerius reflected that it would be very easy to despise her.

‘What I don’t understand is why?’ he said. ‘If I can get this material to Plinius Secundus it won’t just destroy Melanius and Ferox, it will destroy your husband too.’

Calpurnia took time to consider before she replied. ‘When I first
approached Petronius one of the conditions I set was that Severus should be exempted from punishment when the conspirators were taken. I urged him to distance himself from these people, but Severus was too greedy and too frightened of Melanius and that barbarian savage of his. If he had kept faith with me, Severus could have had everything he has now, but without the risk. It all changed when he fell under Melanius’s spell. A fool and a coward, and worse, an old fool. He betrayed me as a wife, and worse, he is no longer capable of treating me the way a woman needs to be treated. All I ask now is that after he is executed his wealth passes to his widow. Can you guarantee this?’