Julius started with surprise.
‘ Petrus? ’
She put a finger to his lips.
‘ Shhhh! There’s no guarantee that he doesn’t have a man outside this room with an ear to the door; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had me spied on. I’m his property, Julius, and he’s a jealous master. If he found out about the door to the street he’d have it sealed up the same day.’
‘But Petrus is the procurator’s man. How would he be…’
He stopped talking and thought for a moment, then shook his head at how obvious the truth was once it was in the open.
‘Petrus is the real power in the city. He’s the man that controls the gangs, and Albanus is so deep in bed with Petrus that when my master tells him to jump the only question he’s allowed to ask is how long he has to stay off the ground. I knew from the second I saw you that I still feel exactly the same way about you that I did fifteen years ago, but I didn’t dare to let you know it, because if you saw it so would they. And once Petrus knew, he’d have had you dealt with, quickly and quietly. And then he’d have told me all the details while he was grinding me into that bed, taking his pleasure from my despair. It was far safer for his musclemen to tell him that I was indignant and aloof. I’m sorry.’
The Tungrian put a protective arm around her.
‘It doesn’t have to be that way any longer. Come with me now; bring whatever you need and leave for good. You’ll never have to whore again, or suffer that arsehole’s attentions.’
He stopped talking, his eyes fixed on her shaking head.
‘If I walk away from here I have to leave the city now. You may think you could protect me, but I know that he’d have my life in a matter of days as a lesson to anyone else contemplating the same idea. I can only leave this place under one of two circumstances. Either you need to be marching away, and have the means to take me with you, or Petrus needs to be dead along with every man that might seek revenge for him in order to prove himself as Petrus’s successor. Unless you can make either of those two things happen tonight, then tomorrow I shall still be the mistress of the Blue Boar.’
The small party rode east at dawn the next morning, Marcus, Julius, Dubnus and Silus all mounted on cavalry horses while a mule laden with several days’ worth of food followed Silus’s mount. If his comrades found Julius’s demeanour even more dour than they were accustomed to, they made no mention of it.
‘He went into town again last night,’ Dubnus had confided to Marcus while they were waiting for Silus to arrive with the horses on which they were to carry out their mission. ‘He clearly thought he was keeping it to himself, but one of my lads was doing double guard duty as a punishment for that squabble with the legion, and he told me he saw the stupid bastard walk off towards the forum once everyone had turned in for the night.’
The two men had exchanged uneasy glances, knowing that by rights such behaviour ought to be reported to the first spear, and knowing also that neither of them would do any such thing.
‘He’ll tell us about it in his own time, and until he does we’ll just have to watch his back.’
Dubnus had nodded unhappily at his friend’s decision, and it was only Silus who had carried on with the usual banter once they were on the road. Even he had quickly sensed the reluctance of his comrades to indulge in the familiar routine of insult and rebuttal, and so it was a quiet party that found Prefect Caninus’s man waiting for them by the roadside once they were safely out of sight of the city walls. The scout joined the small group with no more ceremony than a sketchy salute to Julius, and the surrender of a small wax tablet signed by Caninus and marked with his seal as proof of the man’s identity.
The scout was slightly built, with a face that was deeply lined and seamed, giving him the weather-beaten appearance of a man who had spent his entire life working in the open. A hunting bow was slung across his shoulder, and a quiver of heavy iron-headed arrows hung from his belt, while the only sign of ornamentation he carried was an intricately tooled leather scabbard containing a long hunting knife nearly the length of an infantry sword. Introduced in the prefect’s tablet as Arabus, he quickly proved to be taciturn in the extreme, and Marcus’s attempts to engage with him were met with monosyllabic answers. No attempt at conversation would elicit anything more than a nod, a shake of the head or a terse, grunted answer where a simple yes or no would not be sufficient. Julius and Dubnus rode up alongside Marcus, Dubnus tipping his head to draw his friend away from the guide, keeping silent until the three centurions were out of earshot.
‘You’ll get nothing more from him. I’ve met the type before, men who have known nothing other than the forest since birth, and nothing you can do or say will get him to open up before he feels the time is right. Mind you, I’ll tell you one thing that makes me smile.’
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
‘Go on.’
‘His name.’
What, Arabus?’
His friend grinned, shooting a quick look at the guide.
‘In the Gaulish language I believe it means “witty”. And if he was the witty one in the family, I dread to think what his brothers and sisters must have been like!’
Julius nudged Marcus, having seemingly thrown off his reverie, and held out a hand.
‘Come on, then, let’s have a look at that pretty new blade you’ve bought.’
Marcus unsheathed the patterned sword and passed it to Julius. His horse’s ears pricked up at the sound of the blade’s gentle metallic rasp against its scabbard’s throat, and Marcus leaned forward, affectionately ruffling the close-trimmed hair on top of the beast’s head.
‘Not today, Bonehead. Today we’re just covering ground.’
Julius looked closely at the blade, then swept it down to his right in a practice cut that hummed past his own horse’s head.
‘As light as a feather. And what did Uncle Sextus say when you asked him for that large a withdrawal from your saved pay?’
Marcus smiled at the memory.
‘Let’s just say the first spear wasn’t exactly delighted to have fifty aurei taken out of the pay chest all in one go. And then when he saw the sword he spent so long looking at it I was convinced he was going to pull rank and buy it himself.’
He took the weapon back from Julius, who waited until the vicious blade was safely sheathed before speaking again.
‘You think Frontinius would pay that much for a sword, when he can get an issue weapon for a tiny fraction of the price? Mind you, there’ll be a bit of a rush if you should happen to stop a spear while that nice little toy’s strapped to your waist. One of us will be wearing it before you’re cold, you can be assured of that!’
Dubnus shook his head at the older man with a smile, a wry note in his voice.
‘You can put any such idea out of your mind, Julius! Our colleague has already agreed that I’m the right man to inherit such a weapon. In my hands it would be treated with the expertise it deserves, whereas to end up in the hands of an exponent of stab and punch like yourself would be a sad end for such a fine blade.’
Julius raised an eyebrow at Marcus, who shrugged equably, and the big centurion grinned triumphantly at their colleague.
‘It doesn’t look to me like you’ve got any such agreement, Dubnus. It looks to me like it’s first come, first served.’
Dubnus shrugged in turn, the smile creasing his face taking on a calculating aspect.