Douglas Jackson - Saviour of Rome

‘The right ear, I think.’

The horrible prolonged shriek that followed the suggestion sent a shiver down Valerius’s spine. A red-hot blade had the benefit of cauterizing the wound as it was created. One of the torturers held the wilted scrap of flesh before the assassin’s eyes then tossed it on to the brazier. It sizzled and cooked, filling the stable with the mouth-watering scent of frying meat, before curling up into an unrecognizable blackened crisp and disappearing in a flicker of blue flame.

And so it went. They took him apart one piece at a time. No mindless pummelling brutality this, just a cold, clinical professionalism that told the victim the only way to save what was left was to tell everything he knew. When it came, it was like a dam bursting. The names tumbled out one after the other in a guttural dog Latin Valerius could barely decipher. First the man’s own. Brutus, a mere bandit, he pleaded, from west of Carthago Nova. He and his companion Venico had been recruited by … a mumbled name that clearly meant nothing to Pliny.

‘Ask him again. How did he gain entry to the palace? How did he know where to find me?’

Brutus hesitated, which was a mistake. There went one eye, the right, courtesy of a glowing spike accompanied by a horrible bubbling scream that seemed to go on for ever.

When they resumed, his voice was hoarse from the screaming. They’d been ordered to meet a man at an inn down by the port. The man informed them that the governor was a creature of habit. He would enter the bath at the seventh hour. Their informant would ensure a certain door was left open, the guards would be elsewhere. The attendant would be dealt with. An unfortunate accident would then occur.

‘Who?’ Pliny’s voice shook with emotion. ‘Who betrayed me?’

The assassin could give no name, but he provided a description that made the governor go still.

‘Find him,’ he hissed to the guard. ‘Find him if you have to scour the whole province.’

It wasn’t enough, of course. They had to be sure. When the assassin thought he’d given them everything, it turned out he was wrong.

‘I regret the necessity,’ Pliny explained later. ‘But if it is going to be done it must be done properly or there is no point.’

‘What will happen to him?’

Pliny frowned. ‘A personal attack on the governor of a Roman province? He will be crucified, what is left of him.’

‘Who was it?’

‘A clerk.’ Pliny looked weary and old. ‘Acondus, who worked very closely with my secretary. Whoever paid him would know my intentions the moment they were written down. Of course, with the assassins discovered – and I have yet to thank you and your ingenious little knife for your services – his usefulness was at an end. The vigiles found him in an alley with his throat cut. He is no help to us now.’

Valerius considered for a moment. ‘Could the attempt on your life have anything to do with my mission?’

Pliny winced at the possibility, but shook his head. ‘Not directly, I think.’ He met Valerius’s eyes. ‘I believe I may have suspected something of this nature, deep down, because I ensured all correspondence involving you was directly between myself and the Emperor or Titus. Asturica Augusta? Yes, it is possible, but why now?’

‘Because they fear you are getting too close.’

‘Poor Petronius,’ Pliny sighed. ‘I sent him to his doom. Perhaps you should reconsider, Valerius? The Emperor would not want you to share his fate.’

‘No.’ There was iron in Valerius’s voice. ‘I gave him my vow and too much is at stake to turn back now.’

Pliny smiled and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘I thought as much. Then, given the change in circumstances, I believe you should follow your original instinct and make a low-key entry to Asturica Augusta. A soldier on his way to visit old comrades. I could send you with a supply convoy – they come and go all the time – but they take an age. Better I think to accompany the courier who leaves tomorrow carrying my reply to the officer in charge of the fort at Legio. He’s to have an escort of troopers from my guard squadron, so you should be safe enough on the journey. The courier is based at the fort so it’s possible you may find out how things lie there.’

Pliny had called Asturica a hornets’ nest, but from where Valerius sat it seemed more like a den of vipers. He had a feeling the only way to get the information Vespasian sought would be to place himself amongst them.

The five men sat deep in the shadows of a shabby, dilapidated room illuminated solely by moonlight that filtered through the open shutters. Their faces were mere pools of darkness marked by the icy glint of eyes that reflected either inquisitive anticipation of what was to come or fearful apprehension. Each had his own thoughts about the current situation, but only one man’s views mattered. This house was one of several that man owned in Asturica Augusta: a dusty, half derelict building on a back street where their comings and goings would go unnoticed. For more than three years, since Servius Sulpicius Galba had marched in triumph from Tarraco’s gates escorted by the Seventh legion, they’d profited from the chaos of the civil war. Now their world was changing.

‘Our lives will be forfeit if Vespasian discovers what has been happening here.’ The man they had come to hear, a grim presence in the corner, announced the painful truth of which they were all aware in a soothing voice designed to steady fraying nerves.

Each could have pointed out that he would not be here but for this man’s encouragement and the temptation of the gold he had quite literally poured before their eyes. One of them wanted to say it, but he knew that in the end it would make no difference. He had taken his share along with the rest. Nothing could change that.

It was another man who spoke. ‘Then we must stop. Now.’

‘Do you really believe that will solve anything?’ The leader laughed. The man had always been weak. ‘All it will do is harden their suspicions when the gold yields suddenly rise again after three years. On the contrary, we should continue what we’re doing. In fact, we must increase it.’

‘What?’ Four mouths gaped.

‘Why do you think I always insisted we should build up such a large reserve? Not because you were already rich beyond other men’s wildest imaginings. No,’ he shook his head, ‘I did so because gold is power.’

‘You said Asturica deserved to be the richest place in Hispania,’ another man dared to speak out. The leader recognized the voice of the sceptic, always questioning, but kept loyal by his greed. ‘This should be its greatest city, because this is where the greatest natural resources are. Strong men make strong decisions, you said. We would use the gold to create a new Rome in the west that would be the equal of the capital.’

‘That was before the old fool Galba got himself killed. Before a new man like Vespasian could take the throne against all the traditions of the Empire. A former muleteer and the son of a tax farmer, with not an ounce of true patrician blood in his veins.’

‘He won the war,’ the weakling pointed out. ‘He has been hailed Emperor by the Senate and people of Rome.’

‘And the Senate is already plotting against the muleteer and his brood.’ The leader’s gravelly voice was dismissive now. ‘They saw what happened to Vitellius and they panicked because they believed they would be served the same way after Vespasian’s brother Sabinus was butchered on the Gemonian Stairs. Now they see what an enormous mistake they have made. A man like Vespasian does not have the bloodline to rule the Empire. Why does he keep so many legions on the Rhenus?’