Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

I looked up in some confusion. "What is? What's peculiar?"

He was standing motionless, staring towards the villa in an attitude that immediately set my nerves on edge. I hadn't seen that look in years, but I responded to it immediately.

"What's wrong?"

He nodded towards the portico. "You tell me!"

I could sense him withdrawing into his inimical, soldierly persona and I followed the direction of his look. Eight horses stood outside the main doors of the villa. Eight horses, all riderless. No guards. No one left outside. No one left waiting. All eight men had gone into the house. I felt goose-flesh stirring the small hairs on the nape of my neck at the wrongness of the sight before my eyes picked up another signal that was wholly out of place: a patch of black and white on the ground. It was Picus's great black and white standard! The one he had said was meant to be recognized from a great distance. It had been discarded casually, thrown aside on the ground as though its bearer had no further use for it. All my defensive instincts were now aroused, alarm-signals jangling. I heard Plautus say, "Shit and corruption! I haven't got a sword!"

His mind was far ahead of mine, but those words galvanized me. I rounded on him, a thousand thoughts jamming into my mind all at once.

"The smithy," I told him. "Against the left wall, where the mould was — there are two long-swords leaning there, and daggers and gladia on the table-top. I'll wait for you." He was gone almost before I had finished speaking. I dug my fingers into Andros's arm. "Andros, can you ride a horse?"

"If I have to, I can."

"You have to! Get back to the smithy and get your arse up onto my horse." I looked along the valley floor towards the bottom of the new road. Something was badly wrong, but I did not yet know what it was.

"Look, Andros," I said urgently, "something stinks here. I don't know what it is, but I want you to get up to the fort as fast as you can, by the back way, up the rear of the hill, out of sight of the plain, to the postern door. Do you hear me?"

He nodded. He had not read the same signs Plautus and I had, but he had read our reactions to them accurately. "Then what?" he asked.

"Find Tribune Bassus. Tell him I sent you, and where we are. Tell him I smell something rotten. If there are any of Picus's troops in the valley below the gates, I want them contained. In any event, I want a squadron of cavalry down here at the villa as fast as he can get them here. Have you got that?"

He nodded again. "What's happening, Publius?"

"I don't know, Andros," I said. "But something stinks. Get up there fast, and make sure nobody sees you. I don't care if you have to tie yourself to the horse, just get there as fast as you can. Will you do that?"

"I'm on my way, Publius." He was as good as his word, disappearing backwards towards the smithy just as Plautus showed up again, one of the new long-swords in one hand and a wicked-looking dagger in the other.

"Right," he said. "What's the plan?"

I stood there, hesitating for a second, staring towards the deserted portico, vainly hoping I was mistaken. "You really think there is something wrong, Plautus?"

"Horse turds, Varrus. Does shit stink? What now?"

That was enough. I sucked a deep breath. "What else? We have to go in. But carefully."

He threw me a look eloquent with unstated scorn. "You think I want to get my arse in a grinder for fun? At my age?"

Side by side, we ran across the empty space separating us from the main wall of the villa and flattened ourselves against the stone facade. We were about ten paces from the main entrance. He looked at me.

"What if they've left a guard inside the doors? We're dead. There's eight of the whoresons."

I grimaced. "Let's hope they haven't. If they'd meant to leave a guard, they would have left him outside to guard their horses, at least."

He nodded to me, formally. "You know, I've been wondering for years why Britannicus promoted you all those years ago. Now I know. You think. I suppose that's the final difference between an officer and a grunt like me." He was talking purely for effect, attempting to bring us both to the correct frame of mind, but as he said the words Enid screamed, loud and long, from inside the house. The sound made my blood curdle.

"Oh, shit!" he said. "That proves it. Now!"

Together we launched ourselves towards the entrance, diving through the open doors and separating just inside, throwing ourselves one to each side of the hallway. The place was deserted. Another scream rang out, agonized and harrowing, undistorted by distance and walls this time, from the back of the building.

Plautus waved me forward and we ran together again through the main atrium of the villa towards the living quarters at the rear, trying to make our sandals slide silently over the marble flooring of the hallways. In spite of my limp, I was slightly ahead of him as we reached the double doorway leading into the small, tessellated courtyard in front of Caius's day-room. I knew this was where they were and I waved him frantically to the side before he could charge through the doorway and betray our presence. We ended up staring at each other, holding our breath, one on each side of the open doors. He wiggled an index finger at me, indicating that I should take a peek. I inched my head forward, straining to hear and see without making myself visible, and heard an indistinct babble of sound coming from the room. The small courtyard beyond the doors where we stood seemed to be empty. I gritted my teeth and leaned out to look. It was. The doors of Caius's day-room were partially open. I bit my lip. But they were also partially closed — enough, I hoped, to cover our next move.

Plautus was watching me intently. I held up my open hand towards him, fingers extended, and mouthed, "In five!" He nodded, and I began to count, flexing my fingers with every beat. "Five — four — three — two — go!" Together, we eased ourselves around the doors in front of us and slipped sideways, each against the wall on his side, moving swiftly and silently, sidling towards the partly open doors that screened us from the people inside the room. As I came to rest with my back against the wall, my eyes fixed on Plautus's own, the voice of the speaker came clearly to my ears and I recognized it with a chill of horror. Plautus knew it too; I could tell from the way his eyebrows shot upwards. Caesarius Claudius Seneca was speaking.

"... would want me to look after his poor old father and his only son, knowing that he had been so badly wounded. I wish I could tell you how distraught I felt when I heard the news. Claudius, I said to myself, your duty is clear. You must attend to the family, the poor afflicted kin of the Legate Britannicus. He is the son of a senator, after all is said and done. Under these tragic circumstances, his family should be cared for. How will his noble father feel, I asked myself? And his beloved wife? And, I said to myself, if it should happen that the unfortunate Legate should be recalled by Heaven from this place of earthly sorrows before he has the chance to repay his debts to you, Claudius Seneca, it should be your right, your pleasure and your honour to ensure that his much-lauded first-born son, his only heir, should be absolved of all his father's debts and should earn his father's honours and his rewards from your hands. So here I am, come at all speed to remind all of you that the ways of God are great and strange."

My stomach was heaving with disgust and revulsion but I could not move, and Caius answered him. His voice sounded placid and normal, almost relaxed, although disgusted.

"I once heard Publius Varrus call you a sorry pederast, among other things, Seneca. You disgusted me then and you disgust me now, although I believe you are now degenerating even beyond description. Your voice grates on my nerves. It reeks of that unmistakable femininity that marks the true degenerate. It sickens me to know you are a senator of Rome. Let's get this over with and have done with it. I am no play-actor. You came here for me, to be revenged on me for the defeat you suffered at my hands in front of Flavius Stilicho. So be it. But let the woman and the child go free. They have not harmed you and they do not even know who you are."