The other man dropped his hands to his hips in a confident stance.
‘Tiberius Rufius. Well, don’t you always manage to turn up when things get interesting? Doubtless merely coincidence, just as always seems to be the case. And yet we never see you out in the countryside, no matter how carefully we look.’
Rufius smiled gently, keeping his face neutral.
‘Yes, Tribune, well, I like to move around with a degree of caution. You can never be sure just who’s waiting to jump out on you in these troubled times. Only today I heard a man with a surprisingly German accent exhorting a bunch of drunken Brits to carve out my liver.’
The officer laughed quietly, with a faint smile that failed to touch his eyes.
‘German, eh? How very interesting. Well, never fear, senior centurion, my Asturians will take care to look out for you on the road. Our paths will cross one day soon, of that I’m quite certain. Goodnight.’
Rufius watched him walk away with hard bright eyes, muttering so quietly under his breath that even the sentries’ straining ears were frustrated.
‘Not if I see you coming first, you cocky young bastard.’
*
A beaker of water in the face served well enough to wake Marcus from a seemingly endless nightmare of roads and hills. Rough hands pulled him from the bed, still dressed in the tunic and leggings he’d worn the previous night, putting him on his feet and holding him upright while his head swam. A disgusted voice cut through his daze.
‘Pissed! Throw some more of that water over him.’
The sudden cold sting shocked him into a degree of consciousness. A pair of armoured and armed legionaries were holding an arm apiece to keep him vertical, while a centurion watched impatiently from the doorway, an oil lamp in one hand throwing unsteady shadows against the walls. He considered vomiting, but fought the impulse down after a moment of awful physical indecision.
‘Waking up, are you, you little shit? Good, you’ve got two minutes to pack. After that, anything you haven’t stowed gets left behind. You, take that sword and make sure he doesn’t get a chance to grab it off you, he’s dangerous behind a blade from what I’ve heard.’
The marble-hard face left no room for argument. Stuffing his travel clothes, left dirty on the room’s chair for washing in the morning, into his saddlebag, Marcus checked that his purse was still in place at his belt.
‘Ready? Right…’
His voice returned, hoarse from the wine’s bite.
‘Wait… where are you taking me?’
The centurion stepped across the tiny room to put his face close to Marcus’s, close enough for his sour breath to register, and for grey whiskers to stand out of the black of his beard. He reached out a hand and, with cold, hard fingers, took the younger man’s jaw in a firm grip.
‘For a short and painful interview with the legatus, cumstain. After which I’d be happy to go a round or two with you in a closed room, you fucking traitor!’
‘What!?’
‘Shut your face! Bring him!’
The innkeeper was waiting grim faced outside the room. The centurion nodded to him.
‘Pay your bill.’
Marcus numbly dropped coins into the outstretched palm.
‘Petronius Ennius… my friend Rufius…?’
Ennius shot him a hard stare, his mouth set in a grim line.
‘Left straight after dinner. And well away from you, from the looks of things.’
The soldiers hustled him from the inn, moving briskly through the town’s dark streets. Across the river bridge, through the main gate’s man-sized wicket gate and into the fortress they marched, past sentries waiting at the parade rest for their dawn relief. A building loomed out of the torchlit gloom, the door watched by another pair of legionaries. Inside there was warmth and light, a mosaic floor and painted walls, pleasant enough to take the chill away from Marcus’s skin in the few moments that he waited, still under close guard, in the house’s hallway. Waiting for the officer’s return, he spent several moments examining the quality of a wall painting representing the goddess Diana hunting with two dogs, but all the while he stared at the artist’s handiwork, trying to affect an indifferent air, his mind raced frantically, trying to account for the sudden turn of events that saw him under armed guard where he should have been greeted as an equal. It was a circumstance for which he was completely unprepared, and he was sure that his disquiet was showing beneath the attempted veneer of confidence. Resolving to remain silent as to his mission for the time being, although the desire to end the charade pressed heavily on him, he awaited the officer’s return, concentrating on a studied ignorance of the guards’ curious stares. The centurion eventually returned, motioning the soldiers to stay where they were.
‘Keep his belongings here and don’t touch them, they might contain evidence against him. You, come with me.’
He followed the officer past yet another guard into a large office, hearing the door shut behind him. The centurion pointed to a spot on the room’s floor, sliding his sword from its scabbard.
‘Stand there and don’t move. If you do move, I’ll put my iron through your fucking spine. And don’t speak unless you’re asked to!’
Seated at the heavy wooden desk was a tired-looking man in his mid-thirties, his white tunic edged with the thick senatorial stripe, his black hair cut somewhat longer than was the formal military style. Marcus found his face strangely familiar for some reason, and wondered distractedly whether they had met before. Another, younger man, whose tunic bore the thinner equestrian stripe, lounged against the room’s far wall, casting a calculating gaze over Marcus. Blond hair and piercing blue eyes hinted at northern European ancestry somewhere in his not too distant past. The seated man sat in silence for a moment, then spoke with a swift and practised formality.
‘Marcus Valerius Aquila, I am Legatus Gaius Calidius Sollemnis of the Sixth Imperial Legion. This is Titus Tigidius Perennis, my senior tribune, who I’ve asked to attend this interview to act as a witness to my decisions. I’ve had you brought to my residence since I didn’t want to do this in the headquarters building — too many eyes and ears, I’m afraid. Before we go any farther in this matter, I will declare an interest in your case — I was at one time a close friend of your father’s, although we haven’t spoken for some five or six years now. You look very much as your father did at your age…’
He raised a hand in pre-emption of any question.
‘No, you’re here to listen. Marcus Valerius Aquila, do you know why I ordered you to be brought here at this time?’
The opportunity was irresistible to a young man in desperate need of reassurance.
‘No! Sir, I…’
The flat of the centurion’s sword slapped his arm hard in admonishment.
‘Answer the legatus’s questions with a simple yes or no!’
‘No.’
‘So you have no idea of events in Rome of the past weeks?’
The urge to be sick returned, held in check only by the sudden return of the concerns he had managed to put to the back of his mind over the weeks of travel.
‘No.’
‘I see. Then I must inform you that your father was arrested three weeks ago, for the crime of plotting to assassinate the emperor. When did you leave Rome?’
Marcus’s skin crawled with the revelation, and with the equally sudden realisation that he was in desperate danger. It was time to shed the deception that had accompanied him from Rome, to reclaim his identity before this went any further.
‘The fifteenth day of the month of Januarius. Sir, I have…’
The blow fell again, harder this time.
‘Silence!’
‘I see. You arrived here only a day after the courier bearing the news of your father’s crime. Good timing for the legion, though, to have the opportunity to arrest a traitor…’
‘Arrest…?’
Marcus thought he saw a brief narrowing of the legatus’s eyes, but the man’s face itself was set hard against him.