It was not my most heroic moment.
But the worst was yet to come. My frenzied stamping had taken me away from the friendly comfort of the wall, and when I had at last managed to regain command of myself — my fingers damp and gritty with what felt like a thousand tiny arachnid corpses — I found that I had completely lost my sense of direction. I reached out my hands again, tentatively this time, but they met nothing but blackness. Mercifully the floor seemed rather clearer here.
I took a step forward, and stumbled over something at my feet. Something large and heavy: soft but stiff, and very, very cold. It appeared to be lying in a pool of moisture. I bent down to investigate. Something, when I explored it further, that seemed to be man-shaped. Something that was not breathing. Something. . dead.
I was fumbling desperately by this stage. ‘Junio?’
I traced the feet. Sandals — just like the ones my slave had worn. The body was lying on its front and there seemed to be loose rope around the ankles. My hands moved up. A servant’s tunic and a leather belt. Wrists, cruelly bound together with a length of rope. I could hardly bear to go on, but I had to know. My fingers reached the neck, and found the chain and name disc that every slave must wear. Short, wet, matted curly hair. Sickened, I turned the body over and reached out for the face — dreading that my hands would trace the boyish features I knew so well.
What I found was a soft and shattered mess. I leapt back as though stung by a million spiders. I could almost see the hideous mosaic of splintered flesh and bone. This time I did not shout or sob. I opened my mouth, but I could make no sound at all.
Some emotions are too terrible, even for grief.
Chapter Eighteen
I do not know how long I remained there in the dark beside the body. It might have been an hour or two, perhaps less, but to me, shivering with shock, despair and grief, it seemed a lifetime. My desolation at least spared me one misery. After the discovery of the corpse all sense of thirst and hunger left me. I simply squatted there beside the lifeless form, as incapable of action as if I had been drugged by one of Lydia’s potions.
I was roused at last by a noise from the street above. Faint at first — so faint that I half thought I had imagined it. Then it came again, more loudly now, and this time there could be no mistake. I got to my feet, listening intently. Footsteps and muted voices in that unfrequented alley. I was debating whether whistling or shouting was more likely to penetrate the outer walls and so attract attention to my plight when suddenly the noises stopped again and another sound, even more unexpected, reached my ears.
Someone was sliding the bolt.
For a moment a wild irrational hope possessed me and I was ready to shout ‘Here!’ and throw myself on my deliverers, but then whatever intelligence I possessed reasserted itself. Of course, this was not likely to be rescue. Quite the contrary — anyone who had come to this place on purpose was much more likely to be my executioner.
The door upstairs flew open, and although when I had first come in the light from the aperture had hardly seemed enough to grope my way down the steps by, after the long period of captivity in total darkness the sudden daylight almost dazzled me. I closed my eyes for a moment against the light, and when I opened them once more I realised that the outer door had been pushed to again, and someone was standing at the top of the stairs lighting a taper from the embers in one of those portable braziers.
My brain seemed to stir into life again, with my eyes, and I realised that for a moment I had the advantage. The incomers — and there were clearly several of them — would find themselves in darkness, even with the taper, whereas I had unaccustomed light. I could already see the dark outline of the steps — to my surprise I was only a few feet from them — the black circles in the floor which marked the tops of the sunken pots and the sinister dark outline of the corpse. The room was smaller than I imagined: it had seemed endless in the groping dark. I could see the wooden door set in the further corner, and behind the steps there seemed to be some kind of darker space, a sort of alcove probably used for storage once. All this I took in at a single glance, and I looked around for something sensible to do.
There was no method of escape, that much was obvious, but I reasoned that if I could reach the alcove I would have, at least, the advantage of surprise. What use that was to me, I was not sure. Perhaps it is merely an instinct with captives. I had no hope of overpowering them; I am no longer a young man and I was only one against several. I think I had some dim idea of slipping past the men as they came down the steps, though realistically there was never the slightest hope of that.
The taper was well alight by now, and I could distinguish the outline of at least four men in the sudden light of its flames, and then the gentler glow of embers dimmed, as someone put the lid on to the pot of coals. Another taper was lit, and then another — three in all. To me it seemed as if the sun had risen. I had to remind myself again that, to the men accustomed to daylight, those brilliant flames offered only a minimum of illumination.
Someone lifted his torch aloft and held it over the stairwell, illuminating the uneven stone of the steps. That served my purpose, however, since it meant that the darkness beyond would seem denser than ever. Now that I knew where I was going, I scuttled as silently as I could in the direction of the alcove. It was a kind of doorless cupboard — one or two high shelves still remained in it — but there was just room for me to huddle there and listen to the approaching slap of leather sandals on the steps beside me. I heard the clunk as the brazier was set down against the wall.
‘Where is he?’ a dry, sharp voice enquired. ‘You told me he was here. If you’ve let him escape I’ll have you flayed.’ They were all four down the stairs by now, and the speaker moved into the ring of light. I was appalled — though not surprised — to see the face and recognise the man. It was Glaucus, the Grey, his crooked nose and pitiless mouth looking crueller than ever in the flickering shadows.
He looked towards the dark heap on the floor, and his expression hardened. ‘Great Mithras! You haven’t killed him, have you? You useless son of a sow, I told you that I wanted him questioned first.’ One casual but savage backhand blow, and one of the other figures was grovelling on his knees, dropping his taper as he fell. By its light I could make out his face — it was the old slave who had lured me here.
I should perhaps have revelled in his fall, but Glaucus had signalled for the fallen taper, seized the man by the hair, and was now holding the flame viciously close to the man’s neck. ‘Well, what have you to say for yourself?’
‘Most merciful one,’ the slave was stammering with fear and pain, ‘that is not the man. That’s just the slave we captured earlier. I told you about him, Mightiness — he was asking too many questions.’
So that poor battered shape was ‘just’ a slave, and therefore of no importance. It made me more furious than ever — although the gibbering speaker was ‘just’ a slave himself.
Glaucus sent him sprawling to the floor. ‘Fool! You bring him here, and then you let him die.’
The old man grovelled. ‘It was an accident, Mightiness.’
Glaucus aimed a kick at him. ‘So you say. So where is this other fellow now? That infernal spy of the government? I suppose he is here somewhere? The door into the rest of the building is still blocked? If he has got away I’ll have you fed to the dogs.’ He seized the taper and began to peer around the room.
The fate of my poor slave made me despair, but the instinct for self-preservation is strong. It was only a matter of time before they reached me, and I had no doubt of their intentions. I could see their shadows, larger than life-size, flickering on the wall, and hear the scuffling of their sandals on the stones.