Scarrow Simon - Brothers in Blood

Rome, February AD 52

The streets of the capital were filled with people enjoying the unseasonal warm sunshine. It was shortly after midday and the sun shone from a clear sky. Musa sensed that he was being followed even before he first caught sight of his pursuer. That was the instinct that had first drawn the attention of his master: the innate ability to sniff out danger. A priceless quality in his line of work. The small fortune that had been spent on training him since he had been plucked from the streets off the Aventine had honed his quick wits and swift reflexes.

He was as skilled as any agent working out of the imperial palace. He knew how to stalk and kill in silence. How to disfigure and dispose of a body so that there would be very little danger of any of his victims being found, let alone identified. He knew how to code and decode messages, which poisons worked most effectively and left no telltale traces. Musa knew how to tail a man through crowds and down almost deserted alleys without ever giving away his presence.

He had also been taught to spot when he in turn was being stalked. A moment earlier when he had stopped at a baker’s stall on the edge of the Forum, appearing to all about him as just another customer eyeing up the arrangements of small loaves and pastries covering the stall, he had picked out the man: thin, dark-haired, in a plain brown tunic, who had also stopped, at a fruit stall fifteen paces back, and casually picked up a pear to scrutinise.

Musa kept him in view out of the corner of his eye, taking in every detail of his carefully anonymous appearance. After a moment he recalled seeing him in the street outside the house he had been sent to by his master earlier that morning, to convey a message. One that was too important to commit to paper, and that he had been required to memorise before setting out. His tail had been part of a group of men huddled round a dice game and he had stood up, stretched and sauntered down the street in the same direction as Musa, threading himself through the crowd. It was a detail he had observed and discounted at the time. But not any more. It was too much of a coincidence.

He smiled grimly to himself. Well then, the game was on. There were plenty of tricks he knew to lose the man. If he was any good he would see through most of them quickly enough. But Musa possessed one advantage that would give him the edge in the coming battle of wits: he had been born in these streets, had grown up in the gutter and spent most of his youth as a ragged orphan running with the street gangs. He knew every twist and turn of the streets and alleys of the vast city that sprawled across the seven hills crowding upon the fast currents of the River Tiber.

From the dark features of the man in the brown tunic Musa guessed that he was not a native of the city, but from somewhere in the eastern empire, or beyond. He could not hope to follow Musa through the maze of dark, stinking alleys of the Subura, the slum that stretched out beyond the Forum. He would lose his tail in there, and the gods help the man if he got lost while trying to follow his prey. The inhabitants of the Subura were a close-knit bunch and could smell an outsider a mile off, if only because they did not stink as much. He would be easy pickings for the first gang that decided to fall on him.

A flicker of pity crossed Musa’s mind, and he banished it at once. There was no room for sentiment in this game. The other man’s master was doubtless as ruthless as his own and he would just as willingly cut Musa’s throat for no better reason than he had been ordered to. Musa’s hand slipped down to his belt and his fingertips gently caressed the slight bulge of the knife concealed beneath the broad band of leather. He felt reassured and abruptly turned away from the baker’s stall and made off at a swift pace towards the arch leading out of the Forum. He did not have to glance back to know that the man was following him. He had turned to look the moment Musa began to move.

As he pressed through the crowd, drawing sharp comments and vicious looks from some of those he brushed past, Musa felt his heart begin to beat more quickly. A queer mixture of excitement, fear and exhilaration filled his stomach. He passed under the arch, its curved ceiling echoing back the shuffle of sandals and brief exchanges of those beneath more distinctly than the hubbub of the city on either side. He turned to his left and trotted across to the opening of an alley leading towards the Subura. A short distance ahead of him a boy in a grubby tunic and a worn pair of sandals tied together with rags was squatting against a grimy wall festooned with crude graffiti, watching those passing by. A thief, Musa decided. He knew the type well enough and he reached into his purse for a bronze coin.

‘Lad, there’s a man in a brown tunic following me. If he comes this way tell him I took a different route, that alley over there.’ Musa pointed across towards a steep lane heading in a different direction. He flipped the coin towards the boy who snatched it out of the air and nodded. Then Musa ducked into the alley leading towards the Subura. The gloomy thoroughfare was narrow and rubbish lay in small heaps along each side. There were far fewer people here and he broke into a run, keen to put as much distance between himself and his pursuer as soon as possible.

With luck he would have lost him at the arch. If his opponent was any good then he would suspect that Musa would try and escape him in the winding alleys of the Subura, and might well question the boy who had been watching those passing by. He might believe the lad’s lie, and even if he didn’t the moment’s hesitation would delay his pursuit long enough for the trail to grow cold by the time he reached the slum district. Musa ran on for several hundred paces, turning to the right and left as he entered the crumbling tenement blocks that stretched high above, almost seeming intent on crushing the narrow sliver of sky that ran unevenly above the dark alleyways. Then he slowed to a walk and breathed deeply, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the foul odour of rotting food, shit, piss and sweat that he had once taken for granted.

Musa wondered how he could ever have stomached the squalor amid which he had grown up. Since then he had become used to the scented worlds of the rich and powerful, even if he only lived on its periphery, working in the shadows. Still, he remembered these narrow streets and alleys well enough to know exactly where he was and how he could work his way round the slum before resuming his way to the house on the Quirinal hill where his master was waiting for him. Here, in the Subura, there were other dangers to be aware of and Musa proceeded cautiously, watching each man, or group of men, who approached him along a street, weighing up any threat they might pose to him. But aside from a few hostile glances, they left him alone and he eventually reached the small square in the heart of the Subura where a large fountain supplied the locals with water from a spur leading off the Julian aqueduct.

As usual the square was crowded with women and children burdened with heavy jars sent to collect water for their families. Many had stopped to gossip. Among them were small groups of youths and men, sharing wineskins as they talked or played dice. Musa was wearing a plain black tunic and, aside from the neat trim of his hair and beard, did not stand out from the rest. He felt some of the tension ease from his body and approached the fountain. He leaned over the edge of the stonework and cupped his hands in the water and drank enough to slake the thirst he had worked up eluding his pursuer. Then he splashed some water over his face and stood up and stretched his shoulders with a sense of satisfaction that his skills had served him well again.