‘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.
‘Indeed. The son of an old friend you may be, but an enemy of my emperor is an enemy of mine. I have no choice but to send you back to Rome to beg for the mercy of the throne. Do you have anything to say?’
‘Yes, sir. Sir, I am a praetorian officer on detached courier duty, bearing a private dispatch for you from the emperor himself. I have been instructed to travel incognito, in order to ensure that the message remains confidential. My saddlebag contains a message container bearing the imperial seal, to be opened only by you. I know nothing of the events you describe, and have been following the direct orders of my superior officer in making this journey.’
The tribune leaning against the office wall spoke for the first time, his voice heavy with irony.
‘Correction, citizen, you were a praetorian. The praetorian prefect rescinded your commission as soon as your absence without leave was linked to your father’s crime. Your tribune was interrogated, and admitted taking money from your father in return for sending you away from Rome on a false errand. A very large amount of money, as it happens. He has already paid the appropriate penalty for consorting with enemies of the throne. The seal on your message container is nothing more than a good fake, and the container itself holds nothing more than a last letter from your father…’
‘Thank you, Tigidius Perennis…’
The legatus fixed the tribune with a dark-eyed silencing stare. He held the stare until the younger man looked down at his boots, clearly intending to win the brief clash of wills with his junior.
‘Perhaps your father expected that I would be in a position to protect you… but if he did it was a misguided expectation. In the light of his crime, you must return to Rome immediately to face trial in connection with his offence. You will be escorted to the main gate, where your horse will be waiting for you. You are instructed to return to Rome by the most direct route, deviating from that road for no reason. Failure to present yourself at the praetorian camp by a date no more than six weeks from now will result in your immediate loss of senatorial rank, and the declaration of your entire family as proletarians, to the most distant cousin, with confiscation of all assets. I’ll send a message back by fast courier warning the praetorians of your return, and when they should expect your arrival. That is all.’
The centurion, sensing the numbness of shock in the young man’s hesitation, grasped Marcus firmly by the upper arm, leading him out of the office and back to the waiting escort. They marched back out to the main gate, where the watch was being changed with all the usual noise and disturbance. The centurion looked around him at the ordered chaos, and then pulled Marcus into a small guardroom, dismissing the legionaries inside with the order to go off duty with their fellows. In the meagre yellow light of the oil lamps that lit the stone-walled room he seemed larger than he had in the brightly lit commander’s residence, squat and menacing in the bulk of his armour. Marcus found his voice at last, slowly starting to recover from the initial shock and finding anger where there had initially been only fear.
‘Is this where I get the beating you promised me earlier? Don’t you need your men with you to make it completely one sided?’
The other man swept his helmet off, dropping it on to the table with a clatter, running a hand nervously across his balding scalp.
‘Button it. We’ve got less than five minutes before your horse is ready, and I’ve had to bribe the stable master to get that much time.’
The sudden change in his tone put Marcus, who had been readying himself for a fight, off balance once more.
‘What…’
