Nick Brown: The Black Stone

‘You wish to send another message?’

‘I do.’

Gutha didn’t much like the sound of that either but they both knew he would do as he was bid. Ilaha did pay well. Unusually well.

‘I’m sure we can come up with something.’

Ilaha glanced at the door. ‘You came through the temple. How’s the eagle?’

‘Still alive.’

Ilaha grinned. ‘Not for long.’

Bostra, capital of the Roman province of Arabia, April AD 273

‘Damn you, Simo. Damn you, damn you, damn you.’

Cassius Quintius Corbulo sighed and shook his head. The helmet’s bronze was greasy and dull, the crest needed combing and there was a dead spider stuck to the cross-piece.

‘Sir?’ Muranda appeared in the doorway.

‘Didn’t I ask you to clean this?’

The chubby maid hurried forward and took it. ‘I thought I had, sir.’

‘By the gods, look at it, woman. You must polish it — I want to see my face in there.’

‘Yes, Master Cassius.’

The housekeeper waddled out of the bedroom, sandals slapping on the floor. Cassius was convinced that if she worked a bit harder she might lose some weight off her bottom half.

‘Just come back soon, Simo,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’

His Gaulish attendant had finally taken the leave long promised to him and journeyed to Antioch to visit his father. The Syrian capital was a week away so Cassius had allowed him three weeks in total. But twenty-four days had now passed. He knew Simo had arrived safely yet he had heard nothing since. Cassius felt as if his entire life were in utter disarray.

Seeing the state of the hourglass did nothing to improve his mood.

‘And why didn’t you wake me sooner?’ he shouted. ‘The meeting is in a quarter-hour!’

After only a couple of days without Simo, Cassius had grown tired of putting all his clothes and belongings away, so in order to find things he’d decided to leave them all out where he could see them. Muranda occasionally popped in to take some washing but she seemed to have a gift for missing the dirtiest items.

So far that morning, the only clean item Cassius had managed to locate was a long-sleeved scarlet tunic. He looked around for a cape but the only one in view had a stain down the front.

‘Tunic’ll do,’ he said to himself. ‘Now, er … sword belt, sword belt.’

This at least was easy to find: it was lying on a chair by the doorway. Cassius grabbed it and lowered the strap onto his right shoulder, more at ease with the weight of the weapon now. The regular lessons with Indavara were really starting to pay off and he was almost beginning to enjoy handling the blade, though the bodyguard continued to insist it was too big for him. Cassius inspected the ornate eagle head at the base of the hilt and tutted: it too was unclean. He grabbed a loincloth and gave it a quick rub.

‘Er … satchel, satchel.’

The deer-hide bag was hanging from a candelabra. Cassius undid the buckle and checked he had some paper and a stick of charcoal. He seldom made notes at these meetings with the governor but it always paid to appear conscientious. He slung the bag over his left shoulder and hurried out into the atrium.

The curtain to Indavara’s room was open; an empty plate left on the bed. Wondering where he’d got to, Cassius hurried into the kitchen, expecting to find Muranda there. But, apart from the mangy cat that had taken to wandering in, the room was empty.

‘Muranda!’

She came shuffling in from the courtyard. ‘Here, sir. Sorry. I needed the light.’

Cassius took the helmet from her. ‘Well, at least the spider’s gone.’

As Muranda stroked the cat — which had jumped onto the bench beside the kitchen table — Cassius did his best to straighten out the rough bristles of the crest. He couldn’t fault the maid’s manners but she really was a useless creature.

‘Shall I prepare a dinner for later, sir?’

The very mention of the word made Cassius long for the innumerable dishes Simo could conjure at speed, every one adapted to suit his palate. By contrast, Muranda seemed unable to invest any foodstuff with a pleasant taste.

‘No. I’ll eat out.’ He aimed a finger at the cat. ‘And keep that wretched thing out of here. Yesterday I found a hair in my dates.’

‘Yes, Master Cassius.’

He strode back across the atrium to the front door. Mounted on the wall close by was an oval, silver-framed mirror. After a few hurried adjustments to his hair, he looked at his nose. Simo kept telling him the break had reset perfectly and Cassius had almost believed him until Indavara cracked a joke about it one night. Now he could barely look at his face without fixating on the knob of bone. Apart from cosmetic considerations, he hated the fact that he’d been left with an inescapable reminder of his last assignment: a brutal confrontation with a rogue centurion.

Muttering curses, he stepped outside, only just resisting the temptation to slam the door.

The villa faced onto the Via Cappadocia, the wide street which — a stone’s throw to the left — led straight into Bostra’s legionary fortress. Beyond the marble arch of the gatehouse and the high wall lay the sprawling complex: headquarters of the Third Cyrenaican, Arabia’s only standing legion. Two sentries holding spears and in full armour flanked the gate. Above them a large red and gold standard hung limply from its pole.

‘Afternoon, sir,’ said one of the men as Cassius reached the pavement.

‘Afternoon.’

Given the villa’s location, Cassius had come to know the faces of the sentries and this fellow was unusually cheery. The second soldier just about managed a nod. Cassius imagined he — and most of the others — weren’t overly concerned about impressing an officer of the Imperial Security Service, long-standing rival of the regular army.

Setting off along the street in the opposite direction, Cassius realised he no longer worried as much about such things. The attitude of his compatriots, ranks and officers alike, was something he could do little about; and the benefits of a life free from the punishing grind of conventional soldiering still outweighed the disadvantages, for the time being anyway.

The morning was bright and windless, his light linen tunic ideal. This was Cassius’s third spring in the eastern provinces and it was a pleasant time: little rain and plenty of sun, but without the stifling heat of the summer.

He, Indavara and Simo had arrived in Bostra three months earlier. Though the city lacked the grandeur and history of Antioch, there was a fine theatre, several excellent baths and some decent inns. The occasional appearances of the desert folk — the Saracens — added something to the place, as did the myriad colours of the native clothing and the exotic smells of the spice market.

All in all a reasonable posting, except that much of the province’s army had been despatched to assist with fresh rebellions brewing in Syria and Egypt. The Third Cyrenaican was now down to just six cohorts; fewer than three thousand men. Worse still, the Tanukh — a confederation of Arabian tribesmen traditionally allied to Rome — could no longer be relied upon; rumours abounded of dissent in the south.

‘Officer Corbulo. Officer!’

Over the wall of the villa he was passing, Cassius spied a familiar figure bustling along the path. He stopped outside the gate just as Mistress Lepida opened it, already smiling.

Most of the residents on the Via Cappadocia had some connection to the army and Lepida was the wife of a tribune who’d been transferred to Egypt. According to Muranda, her husband had lost interest in her long ago and she freely sought her pleasures elsewhere. Even so, Cassius had resisted her advances. It was rarely advisable to indulge with the wives of fellow officers, and though she was in good shape for her age — which he reckoned was about thirty — the large mole on one side of her nose was singularly off-putting.