'One, two, three, pull!' Together, the guide and Calgacus managed to haul Demetrius up a little.
'One, two, three, pull!' Demetrius's chest was over the lip of the roof. He clawed himself fully over. His saviours yanked him further up. Calgacus was doubled up, holding his injured arm. Maximus landed like a cat behind them.
'This way, quick!' The guide was off again.
Below, the streets and alleys echoed with shouts and the ringing of bells. Here and there shutters were thrown back, light spilling out.
They raced around the opening of an atrium and across an unbroken span of roofs. Temporarily, they were out of sight from the ground.
'Down there.' The guide pointed. 'Stay there until I come back.'
One by one, they dropped into a dark space formed by four converging slopes. The guide's face appeared above them. 'Do not move,' he said. Then he was gone.
A few moments later, there was a cacophony of yells. Demetrius could not resist peeping out. The guide had gone back the way they had come and was now standing over an alley, gazing this way and that, a picture of uncertainty. Then, as if spurred by the shouts from below, he set off. Moving fast, he passed the hiding place and ran off to the south. The sounds of pursuit followed him. With one hand, he swung up over a wall and was gone from sight.
Slumping back down, Demetrius saw that Maximus was tearing strips from the sleeve of his tunic and binding Calgacus's arm. The old Caledonian's eyes were screwed shut. Dark blood was running from his wound.
'Thank you,' Demetrius whispered.
Calgacus opened his eyes. 'Think nothing of it.'
They waited. The sounds of the chase faded. Immobile, they grew cold.
Demetrius wondered what they would do if the guide did not return. Was the underworld like this? Cold, powerless, an eternity of unfulfilled waiting? One thing was certain: they could not stay here for long. They had to eat soon or else become too weak to flee. Demetrius could not stop shivering.
There was a slight scraping sound and the guide was back. 'Good exercise, yes?' His thick eastern accent had returned. 'Now, you follow. Is easy now.'
True to his word, the rest of the rooftop journey consisted of straightforward stages. Only one passage gave Demetrius concern. A beam jutting out from beneath the eaves held two leaning buildings apart. As he wriggled across, Demetrius looked down. An intricate pattern of washing lines ran across the alley. They would do nothing to slow a falling man. The young Greek kept his eyes on the wood in front of him.
At long last, they reached the lowest level of houses. Via an outhouse, they dropped to the ground. Across the street was the inner side of the main city wall. At no great interval, the torches of sentries could be seen up on the walkway. The guide pressed them back into the shadow of the outbuilding. He hissed for them to wait. Calmly, he walked out into the open and around the corner.
This time, the guide returned more quickly. Wasting no words, he indicated that they should follow. He took them towards one of the towers. On the battlements, the torches illuminated a standard bearing the eagle, lion and Capricorn of Legio IIII Scythica. Fortunately, the sentries were all on the other side. Under the tower, low in the wall, was a small postern gate. It was unlocked. The guide led them through and pulled it shut behind them.
Keeping close to the wall, they moved south. Every time a sentry paced above their heads, they froze. Out in the night, a fox barked. They followed the wall as it curved round to the east. Before long, the low, gloomy structures that indicated a necropolis emerged from the darkness on their right. With a wave of his hand, the guide led them away from the wall into the city of the dead. Like ghosts, they flitted between the tombs. He stopped before one that had been cut into the living rock. The door opened easily. Once inside, he closed the door and pulled a curtain across its frame.
Sparks flashed as the guide worked a flint on a steel. He lit a small clay lamp. Their shadows danced grotesquely on the walls. Demetrius looked around. A table and three couches stood in the centre of a large room cut from the rock itself. On the wall opposite the door were relief sculptures of eagles, wicker baskets, swags of flowers. In the other two walls were arched recesses; inside them long, low piles of broken roof tiles. The air was still, with a strong odour of mould and decay.
'You wait here. Your friend will come.' The guide's eastern tones were now thick to the point of parody. 'I go now. You wait.' He indicated for Maximus to shield the lamp and slipped behind the curtain. They heard the door open and close again. They were alone in the house of the dead.
Exhausted, Demetrius sat on one of the couches. With a wince, Calgacus sat beside him. Maximus put the lamp on the table and busied himself. First, he checked for any food that may have been left behind from a funeral feast. There was none. Then he started sorting through one of the mounds of tiles in one of the recesses. He came across with three shards, handily shaped and razor-sharp.
Demetrius gazed at the recess from which Maximus had emerged. In rooting about, he had disturbed the tiles. A hand stuck out from the wall now, yellow-black with decomposition. How could people use these places for sexual assignations, thought Demetrius. He could understand a low-class prostitute maybe, with no place of her own to go. You often saw them hanging around the tombs outside city walls. But others — free men and women? It was unthinkable. No wonder that, in the famous story, the shade of Philinnion left her tomb to visit her lover in her old house.
Maximus pointed to the curtain and the door behind it. In his most serious tone, he said, 'Sure, but you have to ask, just who the fuck was he?'
'No idea,' said Calgacus. 'But he could climb the shite out of a wall, just like a monkey.'
'Do you remember,' said Maximus, 'when we were in Arete, there was a woman that fucked a monkey?'
Demetrius found himself laughing with the others. 'I think you will find,' he said, 'it was just a woman who gave birth to a child that looked like a monkey.'
'And how did that happen?' Maximus sounded indignant, before adding thoughtfully, 'Unless of course she happened to look at a monkey just at the moment love reached its true, destined end.'
A sound from outside stopped their laughter. Men with horses. Several of them, reining in by the door; dismounting.
Quick as lightning, Maximus and Calgacus were either side of the curtain, the shards of tile to the ready. Maximus blew out the lamp. Unsure what to do, Demetrius rose from the couch. Feeling foolish, he adopted an approximation of the fighting crouch of the others.
There was the sound of the door being opened. The curtain moved slightly as the night air caught it. Demetrius held his breath.
'I am a friend.' The voice from beyond the curtain was pitched low, the Latin words muffled. 'I am coming in alone. Do not attack.'
The curtain was drawn back. Pale moonlight flooded into the tomb. In the opening was the black silhouette of a man. He stepped over the threshold and stopped, his eyes taking their time to adjust. He did not flinch as Maximus noiselessly put the shard to his throat.
'Welcome back from the dead, boys.' As he spoke, the man turned to look at Maximus and the moonlight fell on his face — a strange-looking face, all lines and points.
'Castricius, you little bastard!' Maximus hugged him. Calgacus slapped him on the back. Demetrius shook his hand. The centurion's palm was gritty.
'Shite, I hoped our saviour would turn out to be the eupatrid whose son we rescued.' Calgacus shook his head in what seemed genuine sorrow. 'He would have given us a fine reward.'
'And if it had to be you, Castricius,' Maximus joined in, 'there was no need to leave us there so long.'
'And it's lovely to see you too,' said Castricius. 'You are lucky I'm here at all. I only got back tonight from a tour overseeing the quarries up the road at Arulis. Nasty, dirty, dangerous work — by Silvanus, the legionaries hate it — very tiring. I thought about getting a good night's sleep, maybe rescuing you tomorrow.'
'Certain, I imagine the new governor thinks your life history fits you for the quarries.' Maximus was grinning.
'Quite possibly — Piso is a cunt.' The centurion's voice changed. 'I was very sorry to hear Ballista was taken.'
'He will get back,' said Calgacus. 'Always does.'
'I do not doubt it.' Centurion Castricius became businesslike. 'The last watch of the night is almost over.
