Читать книгу Fire and Sword - Harry Sidebottom - Страница 13

Northern Italy

The Julian Alps, The Day before the Kalends of April, AD238

Timesitheus stumbled on the uneven surface of the track. The long loop of chain dragged the heavy manacles down on his grazed, bloodied wrists, but that was as nothing to the pain in his damaged hand. It was eleven days since he had been captured and for the last three of them he had been herded along this mountain path towards Maximinus, like a beast or a runaway slave being returned to a vengeful master.

The mission should not have ended in this way. The Board of Twenty had instructed Timesitheus to report on the defensibility of the Alpine Passes, and attempt to win the locals over to the cause of the Gordiani. There had been no intention that he should expose himself to danger. The presence of an old enemy in these mountains had changed everything. It was an ancient enmity, its causes almost lost in time, but still strong, very strong. Timesitheus had let personal hatred override his rational mind. He prided himself on his rationality. His life should not have ended that way.

At first, after he had killed Domitius, the tyrant’s Prefect of Camp, he had thought he would get away. In the inn, he had not been dismayed; not when he had found the gladiator, his one follower, had disappeared into the night, deserting him, not even when he had been disarmed and shackled by the soldiers. He was a Hellene, trained in rhetoric. Next to no one could resist the powers of persuasion wielded by such a man, certainly not a handful of simple, leaderless soldiers. He had money and influence, and greed and vanity were strong passions among the ill-educated. For days, in the remote mansio, he had talked, low and earnest, to Maximinus’ four legionaries. He had mustered every conceivable argument and inducement. They should not be deceived by appearances. Of course, he was not alone. The roads through the mountains were held by troops loyal to the Gordiani. The soldiers were cut off. If, against all odds, they succeeded in reaching Maximinus, the cause of the Thracian was doomed anyway. Better to go south by easy stages. The Gordiani would welcome those who came over, reward handsomely the men who brought to safety a high-ranking official such as himself. The saviours of the Prefect of the Grain Supply would experience the full range of imperial benefaction; not just wealth, but rapid promotion and social advancement. They would all wear the gold rings of the equestrian order before a month had passed. And they should think of their families. The 2nd Legion’s base in the Alban Hills was but twelve miles from Rome. If they chose the wrong side in the civil war, what would happen to their wives and children? Who would protect them?

It would have worked – Timesitheus was convinced – but for one thick-set, bearded brute. The legionary had been intransigent and aggressive from the beginning. It was he who had chained Timesitheus. Swearing at his companions, he had urged them to ignore the poisonous treason of ‘the little Greek’. He had prated about the military oath, dwelling on the binding and sacred nature of the sacramentum. Loyalty was everything in the army. Maximinus had doubled their pay. The big Thracian was one of them, a soldier, nothing like this yapping, shifty Graeculus. Finally the legionary had won the argument by recourse to violence. Each time he heard Timesitheus trying to corrupt his tent-mates, the legionary would cut off one of the Greek’s fingers. Timesitheus had seen no option but to persevere, and the hirsute soldier had carried out his threat.

Taking a grip on his courage and every emotion, Timesitheus had battened them down. Somehow he had managed to place his left hand on the block. If he struggled, if they held him down, the damage might be worse. He had looked away, shut his eyes. He had heard the blade slicing through the air, the sickening sound as it chopped through bone and cartilage and flesh. The agony had come a moment later. To cauterize the wound, they had had to seize him, grapple him to the floor, pinion him tight. Stupid with pain, Timesitheus had watched the white-hot steel press into the severed stump of his little finger. Even as he screamed, he knew the dreadful smell would never leave him.

The mutilation had ended all hope of persuasion. It had bound the other soldiers to the bearded ogre. Even the stupidest of them now realized that if they went over, rather than hand out rewards, Timesitheus was honour-bound to have them all killed.

All his honeyed words and subtle threats, all his Odysseus-like cunning, had won Timesitheus nothing but a brief delay. The hairy savage – now the acknowledged leader of the soldiers – had believed the lies about the forces of the Gordiani holding the main passes. Stupid, but resourceful, he had found a local guide who, for the promise of a substantial sum of money, had agreed to lead them over the Alps to Maximinus. They would take a seldom-frequented shepherds’ path, one traversable only on foot.

For two days, they had trudged north, through the foothills, passing between oak, beech and juniper. This morning, they had turned east, climbing a switchback route into the mountains. Staggering along, cradling his left hand against the tug of the chains, Timesitheus had seen the deciduous trees give way to pines. The resinous smell mingled with the stench of his own charred flesh.

These wild mountains were the haunt of a rich landowner turned brigand called Corvinus. Promising him the earth, only days before, Timesitheus had induced him to pledge his support to the Gordiani. It counted for nothing. Before he died, Domitius would have extracted from Corvinus the same promises to the other side. Safe in his fastness, the bandit chief would sit out the conflict, then emerge to claim his undeserved recompenses from the victors. To hope for rescue by Corvinus was to set to sea on a mat.

Weak with pain and fatigue, his left hand useless, unarmed and his wrists chained, Timesitheus could see no way to effect his own escape. He should summon a Stoic fatalism. No point in railing against things which could not be changed. What did not affect the inner man was irrelevant. The torment of his hand undermined such attempts. Philosophy was not his way. Better to stare into the black eyes of fear, to force that rodent to scuttle back into the darkness. Meet his death like a man, take comfort from the things he had achieved. From relatively humble origins, he had risen high; governed provinces, advised Emperors. ‘The little Greek’ had become a potent man, feared by his enemies. He regretted being caught, but he did not regret killing Domitius. Theirs had been a considered and mature hatred, nurtured over time. Often the Prefect had expressed the desire to eat Timesitheus’ liver raw.

‘We will spend the night here.’ The guide pointed ahead.

By the track was a rustic, dilapidated inn. A stopping place intended for shepherds, it had no stables, instead an empty pen for their flocks stood next to a solitary, large hut. Built out of logs, with a steep-pitched roof against the snows of winter, it promised no privacy, and little comfort.

Inside there was just a single, smoky room, the kitchen occupying one end. The landlord, in the high-belted leather apron of his profession, showed them to the middle of the communal table. His demeanour evinced no surprise at the arrival of four soldiers escorting a chained prisoner in this remoteness. He and the guide spoke in some unintelligible dialect.

Interrupting in loud army Latin, the heavily bearded legionary demanded wine and food: the best on offer, or the old man would regret it. Let him have no thoughts of holding anything back, or cheating them. With a strange look on his face – it might have been avarice – the landlord moved to do their bidding, grunting instructions at two slatternly slave girls by the fire.

The four soldiers eyed the girls. As the slaves moved to prepare the food, it was obvious they wore nothing under their stained tunics. The drink would provoke the lechery of the soldiers, and later, all bedded down together like animals, sleep would be hard to find.

Tired and disgusted, Timesitheus looked away. Six shepherds sat at the far end of the table from the fire. When the newcomers had arrived, they had stopped talking. Now they resumed, a low murmur in the uncouth tongue employed by the innkeeper. Like all of their wandering kind, they were armed, and exhibited an air of suspicious watchfulness. By the one door, a lone traveller, a bulky man wrapped in a cloak, and with a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his face, was asleep on a mattress of straw. The room was bare of all ornaments, with the odd exception of a single large red boot placed on the ledge over the fire.

Lacking any distraction, Timesitheus found his gaze resting on one of the slave girls. As she stirred the pot, her buttocks shifted under the thin stuff of her tunic. An image of Tranquillina came into Timesitheus’ mind. She was naked, laughing, in the private baths at Ephesus. Her hair and eyes so very black; her skin marble white. The lamps were all lit. After her wedding night, no respectable Roman wife would allow such a thing. Tranquillina was ever bold, untroubled by convention, in the intimacies of the bedroom, as in the round of public life. It was something Timesitheus loved, yet almost feared, about her.

How would she hear of his arrest? Who would break the news to her? Would she learn nothing until after his execution? She would take the news bravely. The thought brought him no comfort. He had never deceived himself that she had married him for love. The daughter of a decayed senatorial house, she had wed a rising equestrian officer for advantage, plain and simple. Yet they had enjoyed each other’s company. He hoped that over the years he had inspired more than an iota of affection.

Timesitheus thought of their daughter. Sabinia would be eleven in the autumn. A beautiful, trusting girl, she showed no signs yet of her mother’s wilful independence. What would she do without a father? But, of course, Tranquillina would marry again. She was still young, still in her twenties. Her aspirations would not die with him. The prescribed months of mourning, and another man would enjoy the pleasures of her company, of her bed, be driven by the spur of her ambition. Timesitheus hoped – he would have prayed, had there been gods to hear – that Sabinia’s stepfather would treat her with kindness.

The girls brought over the food and drink. Sure enough, as they served, the soldiers pawed them, made crude comments. The girls exhibited a resignation, and a contempt for externals, that would have been envied by a Stoic sage.

Timesitheus tried to cut some mutton. It was difficult with one hand. He had no appetite anyway. His hand throbbed. It was strange that he could still feel the severed finger. It hurt terribly. He felt light-headed and sick.

The boot over the fire caught his eye. It stirred some deep memory, but, exhausted and in pain, he could not bring it into focus.

How long before they reached Maximinus? The Thracian had condemned him to death even before he killed Domitius. What would Maximinus do to him now? There were awful rumours of the Palace cellars. The rack, the pincers, the claws, wielded by men with ghastly expertise, men lacking any compassion. As there was no likelihood of escape, Timesitheus should seek to take his own life before they arrived. It would not be easy, but what was it the philosophers said? The road to freedom could be found in any vein in your body.

The door opened, and a well-built man in a hooded cloak entered. The garment was expensive, pinned by a gold brooch in the shape of a raven. Garnets were set in the gold. The man’s face was obscured by the hood.

The soldiers regarded the newcomer with hostility. He ignored them, walked to the fire, said something in dialect to the room at large.

The landlord picked up a poker. He took a couple of steps to the middle of the table, and brought it down on the nearest soldier’s head.

Schooled in violence, the remaining three soldiers reacted fast, scrambling to their feet, drawing their weapons.

The stranger was by the innkeeper, a blade in his hand. At the far end of the table, the shepherds were up, swords out. The big man who had been sleeping was blocking the doorway, dropped into a crouch learnt in the arena.

‘Put down your weapons.’ The stranger’s tone was calm, educated.

‘Fuck you!’ Obdurate to the end, the bearded legionary glared around, searching for any improbable line of escape.

‘Death comes to us all,’ the stranger said.

The legionary spun around towards Timesitheus. ‘One step, and the Graeculus dies.’

Timesitheus threw himself backwards off the bench. He rolled, landed on his feet. The legionary surged at him. Timesitheus swung the chain that held his wrists. A rasp of steel and the thrust was deflected. The stranger stepped forward, and drove his blade into the soldier’s back. The legionary looked uncomprehending at the tip of the sword emerging from his chest. He crumpled, and fell.

The last two soldiers were on the floor, the shepherds finishing them off.

The room was splattered in blood. It reeked like a slaughterhouse.

The stranger pushed back his hood.

Timesitheus recognized Corvinus.

‘You look surprised.’ Corvinus smiled. ‘I thought Maximinus’ boot would have given you warning.’

Timesitheus could think of nothing to say.

‘I am sorry you lost your finger,’ Corvinus said.

‘It is of little consequence. It was not my wife’s favourite.’ Timesitheus had always recovered fast. ‘How?’

‘No one travels the mountains without me knowing. Your gladiator found me.’

The hat discarded in the doorway, Narcissus approached, grinning, like a big, dangerous dog expecting a reward.

Timesitheus told the gladiator to find something to remove his manacles, then addressed Corvinus.

‘You kept your word. Your loyalty to the Gordiani will be rewarded.’

‘They are both dead.’

Now Timesitheus was adrift. If the Gordiani were dead, everything was changed. ‘Then why?’

Corvinus was cleaning his blade. ‘You promised me a wife from the imperial house. I intend to marry Iunia Fadilla.’

‘Maximus’ wife? The daughter-in-law of Maximinus? All for love?’ Timesitheus’ laughter sounded high and unhinged to his own ears.

‘Living in a wilderness does not rob a man of all finer feelings.’

Blood was seeping through the bandages wrapped around Timesitheus’ hand. The pain returning. He was shaking.

‘Although there are more prosaic reasons.’ Corvinus was composed, as if on the hunting field, or at a symposium. ‘The Senate is to elect a new Emperor from among the members of the Board of Twenty. In the name of the Gordiani, as well as an imperial bride, you offered me Consular status, a million sesterces, tax exemption for me and my descendants in perpetuity, and houses in Rome, on the Bay of Naples, and an estate in Sicily. The wealth of Croesus is not to be thrown aside. I need you to go to Rome, and ensure that the promises are kept by whoever next wears the purple.’