Simon Scarrow: The Eagles Prophecy

Macro nodded. 'Vespasian's given me permission to stay here for a few days. I'll follow you to Rome when she's settled. When are you leaving?'

'The moment the prefect has handed over his command. He's just leaving orders for Decimus to hunt down Rufius Pollo and our friend Anobarbus.'

'Anobarbus?'

'Seems he and Pollo have been working for the Liberators. Anobarbus was trying to cut a deal with the pirates for the scrolls. I left orders for their arrest when I came back for the rest of the fleet. Guess they must have been warned in time to run for it. Anyway, once Vespasian has finished, we're off. The horses are already saddled.'

'And the scrolls?'

Cato smiled. 'Vespasian is carrying those himself. Seems he won't trust anyone else with them.'

'Can't blame him. Just hope he never turns his back towards Vitellius.'

'Don't worry about Vitellius,' Cato replied. 'I'll watch him closely.'

'Do that.'

They stood in silence for a moment, staring as Ajax and the others were herded towards the warehouse. Then Cato turned and thrust out his arm. 'I'll see you back in Rome. Come to the house of Vespasian. He says he'll put us up until we get a new posting.'

Macro clasped his friend's forearm. 'Has to be a better billet than that rat's nest we rented in Rome.'

They both smiled at the memory of their appalling digs.

'Good luck, Macro.'

'Safe journey, Cato.'

The young officer nodded, and then turned away, marching quickly across the parade ground towards the headquarters building. Macro stared after him for a moment and then turned towards the barracks. There were many duties he still had to carry out before he could permit himself to leave the base and make his way into Ravenna and break the news to his mother. The unpleasant task weighed on his heart like a great lead weight and he would sooner spend a year on fatigues than face his mother and tell her of Minucius' death.

It was after dark before Macro felt he had discharged his duties to the point where he could justify quitting the base for the rest of the evening. At least that was what he told himself. As he became engrossed with evermore mundane tasks, the junior officers had started giving him funny looks and even Macro had begun to realise that his apparent dedication to work looked most unusual. So he handed over the few remaining jobs to an optio, fetched his cloak, belt-purse and haversack, and set off for the port. Slipping through the small door beside the main gates he emerged into a large crowd that was straining to get close to the slates that hung from the main gates on which were recorded the names of the dead and injured. Frantic eyes searched the lists, found no name and searched again to make sure before they slipped away and gave thanks for a loved one's preservation. Others read the list with a sick feeling of inevitability before they found what they most dreaded to see and fell back in grief, sobbing and howling, or just too numbed to believe the evidence of their own eyes.

Macro gently eased a path through the crowd, desperate to get away from these distraught people, yet too overwhelmed by the sense of guilt in his own survival to affect any brusque fatalism. At length he was free of them and headed along the wharf, walking slowly as he tried to think of the best way to tell Portia that Minucius was dead. But there was no easy way. How could there be? More distressing still was the nature of Minucius' death. Macro wanted to spare her that detail at least, but he knew that such grand treachery would not be a secret for long. Even if only a handful of men in the fleet knew the full story, there were others who possessed fragments of the tale who would swap stories and so it would leak out and reach his mother's ears and add immeasurably to the burden of her grief.

He turned up the thoroughfare that led into the seedy part of Ravenna, and passed a drunken crowd of merchant sailors celebrating the defeat of the pirates. For a moment he was tempted to stop and tell them how it really was. How their freedom to renew their trade had been bought with the lives of hundreds of good men. But it was to be expected, he realised. The flip side of victory was the price it had exacted on the victors. Moreover, he smiled grimly, to stop would be yet another delay in carrying out his task.

Too soon, Macro found himself standing on the opposite side of the street to the Dancing Dolphin. He stopped and stared. He wasn't yet prepared for it. Then Macro clenched his fists irritably and strode across the stepping stones that ran across the grime and filth of the street. He drew a deep breath and stepped into the bar.

There was only a handful of customers sitting about the room, and he saw Portia at once. She stood at an angle to him, setting up the cups for the evening's customers, unaware of his entrance. Macro swallowed and crossed the room as quietly as he could, but a loose board betrayed him before he could reach the counter, and she turned to look.

Their eyes met, and each stood still and speechless for a moment. Then her face wrinkled up and she leaned on the counter for support.

'No… no… no…' Her fingers pressed into the wooden surface and the knuckles went white. Macro strode the last few paces and gently took her shoulders.

'Mother, I'm so sorry.'

Her head drooped and Macro felt her thin frame shudder in his hands. He looked up and saw that the customers were watching curiously.

'Mother, come with me. Back there.'

He shuffled awkwardly round the counter, put his arm across her shoulders and helped her through the doorway to the small storeroom at the back of the bar. There, he eased her down on to the stool at the small desk where she did her accounts. For a while Portia clasped her hands to her face as her body was racked with sobs. Macro remained silent, holding her with one arm. He hesitantly raised his spare hand and then gently stroked the wispy grey hair.

After a while the crying subsided, and then a little later Portia suddenly lowered her hands, stiffened her back and pulled out a bar cloth to dab around her eyes.

'What happened?'

'He was killed in the final assault.'

'He didn't suffer?'

'No. It was quick. He wouldn't have felt anything.'

'I see.' She nodded, as if that somehow made it more acceptable.'That's good. I wouldn't have liked him to suffer. I wouldn't…' Her face screwed up again and more tears were wrenched from her old frame before she managed to recover a measure of composure. 'He was a good man.'

Macro was silent, and she immediately sensed something wrong in his mood.

'What's the matter, Macro?'

'It's nothing. Shall I get you a drink?'

'A drink?' Portia eyed him shrewdly. 'That's what men say when they want to avoid a subject.'

Macro looked at her helplessly.

'What happened?' she asked quietly, but firmly. 'Tell me.'

'This isn't the time.'

'Tell me!'

Macro swallowed, tried to meet her intent gaze, and wavered. He looked down and spoke softly.'Minucius was a traitor. He was selling information to the pirates. He'd been doing it for months.'

'No.'

'Yes. How else do you think he had come by the money for all those retirement plans of his?'

'He said he'd inherited it.' She looked confused. 'He couldn't have been a traitor. How could he be? I'd have known.'

'Are you saying you never suspected him?'

Portia glared back and slapped him hard.'How dare you!'

Macro reached up and rubbed his cheek. His mother shook her head, trembling with rage and grief, and despair. 'Macro… what's to become of me?'

'I've taken care of it, Mother.' He lifted his haversack on to the desk, unfastened the ties and, reaching inside, he drew out the leather bag Minucius had carried up to the roof. 'This was his. I think you should have it now.'