‘Hey!’ cried one of the spectators. ‘I hadn’t had my turn.’
‘You can fuck her now. She’s still warm!’ With a dirty chuckle, the soldier wiped his dagger on the girl’s dress and sheathed it. He got to his feet, oblivious to Quintus’ presence behind him.
‘It wouldn’t be for the first time,’ added another hastatus.
Everyone except the thwarted man laughed.
Quintus fought back the bile that had rushed up his gullet. Part of him wondered about falling on the hastati with his blade, but he discounted the notion. Not only would he die here — there were at least ten soldiers in the inn — but it would not bring back Thersites or his unfortunate daughters. Lowering his sword arm, he called out, ‘Ho, brothers! What have we here?’
The group turned as one, and their hard faces relaxed a little when they saw one of their own. ‘You’re not one of Pera’s lads, are you?’ demanded the hastatus with the dagger.
‘No. I’m with Corax.’
‘If you’ve come for pussy, you’re too late, comrade.’ A snicker. ‘But there’s plenty of wine in the storeroom yonder. I’d wager that we can spare you a drop, even if you aren’t one of ours. What do you say, brothers?’
The other hastati whooped their agreement. ‘Wine! Wine!’ they shouted. Quintus caught a glimpse of a pathetic, bloody bundle of limbs before he was led away, and his heart wrenched. He could not let his emotions show, however. He stayed for a short time to avoid suspicion, swilling down wine with his new comrades and hoping the memories of what he’d seen that day would be wiped away. More than once, he let some wine spill on to the floor. It looked like an accident, but each time Quintus was pouring a libation to the gods revered by Greek-speakers such as Thersites and his family. Accept their souls into the afterlife, he asked silently, for they were innocent of any crime.
With toasts of eternal friendship that were feigned on his part at least, he left the hastati to their celebration.
New scenes of horror greeted him on the streets, and he was stricken with remorse for what he had done in the agora. Not initially, when the hastati had been attacked, but after that, when the fighting had turned to slaughtering. The situation could have been — should have been — averted. A new purpose gripped Quintus. Corax had to know that it was Pera’s action that had pushed the crowd into violence. If it hadn’t been for him, he thought with a mixture of fury and sadness, Mattheus, Thersites and his family would not have died. Nor would many hundreds of the town’s inhabitants.
He went hunting for his centurion. Corax would have some chance of convincing Pinarius that one of their own was responsible for the rivers of blood that had been shed in Enna that day. What would happen after that, Quintus didn’t know, but he wasn’t prepared to stand by and do nothing.
His search ended before it had started, in the corpse-filled agora. Corax was on the steps of Demeter’s temple, deep in conversation with Pinarius and all of the other centurions. Approaching him in front of both Pera and Pinarius was out of the question, so Quintus first set himself the miserable task of trying to find Thersites. He had only a vague memory of where he’d seen the innkeeper. Other soldiers were pilfering the dead, so he didn’t look out of place.
His job was stomach-wrenchingly awful. Some of the men Quintus rolled over were still alive. Drenched in blood, maimed or with loops of shiny gut hanging out, they moaned and wept and begged him for help, or for an end to their suffering. This was something that soldiers did for fallen comrades when necessary, but Quintus could not bring himself to do it here. The savagery of what he and his comrades had done weighed too heavily on his conscience. To send yet more innocents to the afterlife was beyond him. He averted his gaze and moved on.
When he found Thersites, Quintus was relieved that he was already dead. The innkeeper had taken a thrust to the chest, which would have killed him instantly. It was a small blessing, Quintus decided sadly, in that he had not known what had happened to his daughters. He wanted to apologise to Thersites, but the words died in his mouth. It was futile. Thersites was gone.
Preoccupied, he did not see the figure behind him rise from the piles of dead.
‘Murdering Roman filth!’
Quintus felt someone grab him by the right shoulder. At the same time, he felt a punching sensation in his lower back. There was a squeal of metal as the rings of his mail were put to the test, and then a blinding pain shot through his entire body. Crying out, Quintus lurched away a step and grabbed the hilt of his sword, tried to turn and face his attacker. A punch to his chin sent him sprawling on to his back, however. Quintus lay helpless as a slightly built man with a flesh wound to his face loomed over him, knife in hand. ‘I’ll take one of you to Hades with me at least!’ He stooped and came up with a gladius. ‘Slain by one of your own weapons. That seems fitting.’
Quintus kicked out with his sandals, but the bodies underfoot gave him no purchase. He closed his eyes, resigned himself to death. This was it.
But the killing blow did not fall.
Quintus opened his eyes and was amazed to see his assailant toppling from sight with a pilum buried deep in his chest. He scrambled to his feet and was shocked to find Pera watching him from about twenty paces away.
‘I’d imagined that a veteran of your standing would watch his back better,’ mocked Pera.
He was right, and Quintus flushed scarlet.
‘Are you hurt?’
Quintus put a hand to his lower back and felt beneath his armour. Ignoring the darts of pain, he probed the area with his fingertips. His hand came away a little bloody, but the wound couldn’t be that bad. The hole in his mail was too small, so only the tip of the knife had gone through. ‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’ His brush with death had wiped out his deference to Pera’s rank, for a moment anyway. ‘I thought you would have been pleased to see me dead, sir.’
‘For all that you’re a piece of shit, you’re still a Roman. That’s more than can be said for the sewer rat who tried to kill you.’ With a look that said things might have been different if it had been he who’d wielded the blade, Pera walked away.
Bewildered by what had happened, Quintus hobbled over to the colonnaded market. There he was pleased to find Urceus, swigging from a skin of wine. His friend helped him to take off his mail shirt. ‘Pah!’ Urceus exclaimed. ‘It’s only a scratch. A wash with some acetum and a light dressing will see you right. The blade must have been blunt, or the man wielding it a weakling.’
‘He was skinny, that’s for sure,’ said Quintus, relieved.
‘Fortuna smiled on you twice just now,’ Urceus pronounced. ‘If the knife had gone in there, you’d have bled to death inside or I’m no judge. Then for that cocksucker Pera to save your life too! Well-’
‘Here, give me some of that.’ Quintus reached out, suddenly very thirsty indeed.
They drank in companionable silence, oblivious to the scene of carnage that lay so close by. The pair were still there some time later when Corax came striding along, with Vitruvius in tow. He slowed up; a tiny grin creased his lips. ‘I should have known you two would find some wine without having to stray far! Is it any good?’
‘Not too bad, sir,’ replied Urceus. Both of them struggled to their feet and tried to salute at the same time. ‘Would you like some, sir?’ asked Urceus. He glanced at Vitruvius. ‘And you, sir?’
Corax held out a hand. ‘I’ll have a drop. I’m parched.’ He and Vitruvius shared what was left in the skin. ‘You’re right, Jug, it was tasty. Best find yourself some more, eh?’
‘There’ll still be plenty to be had,’ said Vitruvius with a wink.
Quintus knew that a better time for him to say something wouldn’t present itself. ‘Sir?’
‘Yes?’
‘About what happened here today.’
Corax’s brow furrowed. ‘It’s clear what went on, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not so sure, sir. Pinarius wanted a decision on whether to send the embassy or not. Most of the men were voting in favour of that, sir. They were being compliant, not aggressive. A fool threw a fig at Centurion Pera, it’s true, but the situation was far from lost at that stage.’