Robert Fabbi - The crossroads brotherhood

Magnus muttered his agreement as the Viminal Gate came into sight.

‘It’s just up here on the left before the junction with the lamp-makers street,’ Servius informed him. ‘We should get onto the right-hand side of the road.’

They crossed at the next set of raised stepping-stones, designed to keep pedestrians’ feet free from ordure but also to allow the passage of wheeled vehicles, and disappeared into the throng of people opening shops, buying bread, firing up braziers, visiting patrons, clearing drowsy beggars from doorways. Pushing through the crowd, Servius led Magnus to a tavern with an outside bar.

‘Two cups of hot wine,’ he ordered, placing a small denomination coin on the wooden counter.

Once they had been served, Servius turned and nodded to a large two-storey, brick-built house. ‘That’s the Albanians’ place. As you can see it has no windows opening onto the street, no shops in its facade, it’s just a blank wall and a door.’

Magnus looked at the two huge, bearded doormen in eastern garb, armed with cudgels and knives, guarding the entrance. ‘Is that door the only way in and out?’

‘Fortunately not.’ Servius pointed to a small street that led off from the Via Patricius two houses up from the Albanians’ establishment. ‘That’s the Lamp-makers’ street. There’s an alley that runs from it along the rear of all the buildings opposite; I sent Cassandros to have a look at it last night after the swap; he says that the wall is only ten-feet high and we could easily scale it and get up onto the roof.’

‘He’s making up for his mistake.’

‘I gave him a dangerous assignment and he understood why.’

Magnus grunted approvingly. ‘We need to teach the randy sod a lesson; but that can wait. Do they keep a guard in the alley?’

‘Cassandros said that there was no one there last night, we’ll walk past in a moment and see if there’s one during the day.’

‘So, we get in and out over the roof, but we’ve still got those two brutes on the door to deal with. When they hear noise inside at least one of them will come in — that’ll make it easier.’ Magnus took a sip of his wine. ‘So if we have a group of our lads close by they could deal with the remaining one and then take the door; that sounds like a job for me and Marius, he’s not much good at shinning up walls in a hurry with just one hand.’

‘Yes, but you’d have to be quick to get the door before it’s bolted again on the inside.’

‘Unless we can make them think that some of their own are in danger out here in the street and are running for safety.’

‘How?’

‘I met an easterner last night and he owes me a favour. His name’s Tigran, he lives in the shantytown on the Via Salaria; find him and see if he speaks Albanian or knows anyone who does.’ A well-dressed figure striding up the street with two bodyguards and a woman in a hooded, dark-brown cloak caught Magnus’ attention. ‘Well, well, our friend Sempronius is paying the whore-boys a visit; I wouldn’t have thought that that was his sort of thing.’

‘He’s probably just come to check that the exchange went alright last night. But what’s really interesting is who he’s got with him; I think I recognise that cloak.’

Sempronius’ party approached the two doormen, one of whom immediately knocked rhythmically on the door; it opened and the doormen stepped aside to allow Sempronius in. As the woman followed him in she pulled down her hood.

Magnus’ eyes widened. ‘Minerva’s wrinkled arse, that’s the new girl, Aquilina! I thought that there was something wrong about her when she offered to let me have her for nothing; nobody does something for nothing.’

Servius downed the last of his wine. ‘Evidently someone else paid her. It seems that Sempronius has put a little spy in our midst.’

Magnus slapped his counsellor on the shoulder. ‘I’d say that was a piece of good fortune. I think that’s just solved my last problem.’

‘You’re late!’

Magnus chuckled looking down at the shadow cast by the seventy-feet high Egyptian obelisk on the Campus Martius; it was a couple of inches short of the third-hour line. ‘I didn’t think that anyone had the brains to read the sundial since I left the Urban Cohort, Aelianus.’

‘True enough, mate, I’m probably the only one who can, which is why they made me quartermaster,’ Aelianus replied grasping Magnus’ proffered forearm.

‘A moment of madness on their part but one that’s proved extremely lucrative for us, eh my friend?’

Aelianus’ florid, round face creased into a gap-toothed grin and he passed his hand through his thinning copper-coloured hair. ‘And how are we going to exploit their moment of madness this time?’

Magnus put an arm around the Aelianus’ shoulders and led him away from the tourists admiring the hundred-feet long, curved hour-lines emanating from the base of the obelisk sundial — set up by Augustus a generation before — and on towards the first emperor’s mausoleum on the bank of the Tiber, as it curved back northwards after a brief foray east. ‘Get me twenty Urban Cohort uniforms, minus the armour and shields.’

‘What for?’

‘To pay a visit to an establishment that has caused me some grief. Oh, and I’ll also need you to set fire to your depot.’

Aelianus raised his eyebrows. ‘Just like that?’

‘Yes my friend, just like that.’

‘And what’s in it for me?’

‘Half of what we find in the place, but with a guarantee of at least 225 denarii.’

Aelianus whistled softly. ‘A year’s pay for a common legionary. Well, the tunics, belts, boots and cloaks will be no problem — I can have those for you by this evening. The helmets, swords and scabbards are slightly harder because I’ll have to wait until all my staff have left for the day — but I could bring them round to you personally by the third hour of the night. When do you plan to do this thing?’

‘The day after tomorrow, an hour before dawn when there shouldn’t be any clients in the house; so tonight will be fine, you can bring it all then.’

‘Good. But as to the fire, that’s a different matter: I need to think that through very carefully.’

‘Well, don’t take too long about it, my friend. I need that warehouse doing its best imitation of a beacon an hour before dawn in two day’s time.’

‘Oh it will be, Magnus, don’t you worry.’

‘That’s why I’m paying you so well, Aelianus, to take away my worries.’

The ginger quartermaster grinned again. ‘If only you had more worries, I’d be a very wealthy man. I’ll see you later with the gear; can you send a few of your lads to escort me?’

‘Sure, they’ll be at your depot by the second hour of the night.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ Aelianus said turning to leave.

‘Before you go, Aelianus,’ Magnus said, stopping him. ‘There’s one more thing that I’ll need you to do when you come over tonight.’

‘It’s included in the price I suppose?’

‘Yes and it’s not negotiable.’

‘Go on.’

‘I need you to fuck one of my girls.’

Aelianus sighed melodramatically and shook his head slowly. ‘Magnus, you’re a hard taskmaster.’

The Forum Romanum was packed — three treason trials were being conducted simultaneously, part of a recent upsurge in the legal hounding of enemies of the emperor or the rivals of his praetorian prefect. To Magnus, how the equestrian or senatorial classes treated each other meant nothing, provided it did not affect the daily running of the city’s institutions that were close to his heart: the games and the grain dole.

Pushing his way through the mass of spectators, food vendors, beggars and jurists Magnus eventually came to the steps of the Curia, the Senate House. The doors were open and the senate was in session. Magnus peered into the gloomy interior and, once his eyes had adjusted to the light, soon made out the corpulent figure of Gaius Vespasius Pollo. Knowing that he had no right to enter the building he descended the steps, bought a grilled sausage and a hunk of bread from a street vendor and settled down to wait.