Marcellus lifted the scroll and waved it. ‘Which is just what this is, a few hundred slaves got into the hills, and they must steal grain and livestock to survive. It’s banditry. I think he’ll find he has quite enough men for this sweep through the mountains he’s planned.’
Lucius smiled and nodded his agreement. ‘I would have had serious doubts about putting the idea up to the Senate anyway. They’re never keen on spending public money, so the idea of sending soldiers to Sicily would not be well received.’
Marcellus put the scroll down on Lucius’s desk. ‘Am I free to go now?’
‘Yes, but take the scroll to my steward. This is the second despatch Silvanus has sent us on the same topic. I want it taken round to the house of Quintus Cornelius. Let us see what opinion he has.’
‘Would it not be easier just to tell him what you think?’
Lucius gave his son a sharp shake of the head. ‘This was sent to the consuls, so it will require a debate and he will be proposing the response to the house. Let him make up his own mind.’
Marcellus made his way through the house, for even after this session with his father, he was still smarting from the way Valeria had humiliated him. The look he had received on making his delayed entrance, washed and dressed, was full of hauteur. Gnaeus Calvinus, still in his dirt-streaked smock, had benefited, though there was some doubt as to his level of appreciation. From what Marcellus knew, he did not even like girls, yet she had treated him like a heroic suitor and all for the purpose of annoying him. It rankled even more that Gnaeus had entered into the spirit of things, playing up to Valeria and even surpassing her in his flights of poetic hyperbole. All his friend’s gentility had evaporated as they challenged each other, in rhyming couplets, to ever increasing degrees of bloodthirstiness. He vowed that he was finished with her games; never again would he allow her actions to make him jealous.
The room was dark, which was the way he liked it; he did not want to see Sosia at all. She was there, of course, as usual and the cot creaked as he knelt over her. The cool skin he touched was, in his mind, Roman skin, the hair the same as he pulled her head off the bed. The lips, even the resistance was the repugnance of a high-born lady, but she succumbed as he thrust his hips forward, and, in his mind, the insistent teasing voice was still.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The runaway slaves might know the mountains that provided their refuge, but seemed sadly lacking in the skills necessary to evade a pursuit. The trail they were leaving, given their number, was so obvious it bordered on the ridiculous and the few tentative suggestions their prisoner made were cut off by the sallow-complexioned Pentheus with the butt of his spear. Aquila, trying to find out as much about his captors as he could, probed guardedly, aware that any direct question addressed to the leader, Tyrtaeus, would not be answered. But as they stumbled along the rocky mountain trails, he had time for an oblique approach, so he quickly established that this trio had nothing to do with the recent attack on him and Flaccus. From that, and other hints, he deduced that the slaves were in fragmented groups; they were not the organised bandit force that Barbinus imagined.
The party stopped as the sun went down and, permitted to rest alongside Gadoric, he was able to explain all that had happened since they had last met. He also enlisted his support, knowing that he had to persuade his captors that, if they continued in a like manner, Flaccus would catch them the next day and they would all die, so Gadoric called Tyrtaeus over and Pentheus followed. The moon made the latter’s hair look silver, like the head of some benign old man, an impression quickly erased by the harsh voice.
‘He stays tied. I don’t care what anyone says!’ These words were accompanied by a glare aimed at Tyrtaeus.
It was Gadoric who replied. ‘He doesn’t need to be untied. All I ask is that you follow the advice he and I give you.’
Tyrtaeus scratched thoughtfully at his hooked nose. He must have guessed that Gadoric, in his weak state, would leave everything to Aquila. Pentheus certainly seemed to, being quick to shake his head in disapproval. The leader examined the boy closely, struck by the maturity and assurance so evident in one so young.
‘May I be allowed a question?’ said Aquila. Pentheus shook his head again, but Tyrtaeus nodded. ‘I would guess that, normally, soldiers never bother to pursue you very far into the mountains.’ Another sharp nod. ‘I mean no disrespect when I say that they don’t think you’re worth it. What are a few slaves, scratching an existence in the hills, to men who have so many?’
‘One day we’ll show them,’ snapped Pentheus, jabbing the spear.
‘Some have already. They’ve started attacking the outlying farms and either stealing or destroying crops. The governor and the owners are preparing a sweep through the mountains, in strength, to catch them.’
‘We have done none of these things!’ said the Greek. Aquila indicated the sacks of grain they had been carrying and Tyrtaeus answered the implied question. ‘A pittance and always taken far from our base.’
Aquila smiled. ‘That won’t save you. Not that it will make any difference. At this pace, Flaccus will catch us all tomorrow.’
‘He’ll give up,’ said Pentheus.
‘He’s not chasing you, idiot. He’s chasing me.’
It was Pentheus’s turn to smile. ‘Then why don’t we just tie you to a tree so that he can find you?’
‘No!’
Gadoric pulled himself upright with some difficulty, his single eye flashing in anger. Tyrtaeus looked long and hard at both Gadoric and Aquila. He could leave them all, given it was the progress of these sick men that slowed them down, but no runaway slave could do other than help a fellow-escapee and in a clear recognition of Aquila’s altered status he addressed his question to him.
‘What do you suggest?’
The boy did not hesitate; for all his lack of years he knew exactly what he thought they should do. ‘First, we can’t afford to stop for the night. We must carry on.’
‘Your friends aren’t up to it.’
Aquila shrugged. ‘They’ll just have to be. None of us will survive if we don’t.’
Tyrtaeus did not reply for quite some time, while everyone stood still waiting on his decision. ‘Untie him, Pentheus.’ The younger man opened his mouth to protest but he did not get the chance to speak. ‘Do it!’
The night seemed endless as they slid and slithered through the mountains, partly in clear moonlight, but more often in pitch darkness. Aquila used all the skills that Gadoric had taught him, laying false trails to frustrate Flaccus and his soldiers, while obscuring their real destination by the use of a leafy branch, tied to the rear horse, when they took to the paths. They kept moving throughout the whole of the next day, with Tyrtaeus giving Aquila general hints of the direction they needed to go. The boy was not fooled, knowing that his guide was taking them in a wide arc, avoiding their true destination until he was more sure of his companions.
To the south, now that they were high enough, the smoking volcano of Mount Etna acted as a fulcrum for their route, appearing every time they entered an area clear of trees. There were constant diversions into the forests as they cut through from one trail to the next and every stretch of water and every rock or scree-covered slope was put to use. After two days, Aquila and Tyrtaeus, dropping back to check the progress of the pursuit while the others rested, could report that Flaccus had given up and turned back towards Messana.
Tyrtaeus finally set them on a straight course and Aquila, using the most prominent peaks and the position of the sun to fix his location, knew that after a slight trek to the west, they had turned north into the range of hills that abutted Flaccus’s inland farm. He also knew, since he was told so often, that Pentheus had escaped from there, the place where he had toiled with his family, before the arrival of Flaccus and his murderous new regime. Revenge for what had happened then consumed the man as he harped on about the fate of his loved ones. The words made Aquila think of Phoebe, so gentle and kind, and of the rest of Flaccus’s mercenaries, who were anything but. He missed her more than he did them, yet he had lived with those men for nearly two years, eaten with them, drunk with them and been trained to fight by them. They were cruel but so was the world and for all Pentheus’s litany of the abuses visited upon the slaves, Aquila could not bring himself to condemn them.