Having asked more questions than were strictly polite, the boy suddenly halted, biting his lip as if gearing himself up for something. ‘Titus Cornelius. I wish to ask you a favour.’
‘Then do so. If it’s in my power to grant it, I shall.’
‘Three years from now, I will be of age to undertake my military service. Nothing would please me more than that I should do so under your command.’
Titus smiled. ‘You might do better to attach yourself to someone who’s going to be a successful general.’
‘But you are destined to be just that,’ said Marcellus, genuinely surprised.
‘And pray, young man, how do you know that?’
Marcellus pulled himself up to his full height, which was still a head shorter than his hero. ‘My father told me it would be so.’
It was the older man’s turn to be surprised. ‘When did he tell you this?’
‘This morning, but I knew that it was true years ago.’
‘Why?’
Titus was almost the last to leave and Lucius looked at him closely before answering. ‘You do not feel that you deserve my good offices?’
‘Only you would know that, Lucius Falerius, but you strike me as a man who never does anything without a purpose. Even the ceremony today was put to good use.’
‘Can I plead sentiment?’
Lucius was playing with him, but Titus refused to be drawn into an angry response. ‘Please don’t mention childhood oaths.’
‘Perhaps if you knew the circumstances that brought about that oath between your father and me, you’d be less of a cynic.’
Titus smiled, not sure why. ‘There’s a degree of effrontery in that, coming from you.’ The older man bowed slightly to acknowledge the truth of his words, while the younger man dropped the smile. ‘I have a worry, Lucius Falerius.’
‘Which is?’
‘You have done me a service today. You will want something in return. I worry that I will not perform it, either through a disinclination to do so or perhaps because I’ve no idea what is required of me.’
The old man put a thin hand on Titus’s shoulder, adding an encouraging squeeze. ‘I trust that you are your father’s son. When the time comes, you will know precisely what to do.’
‘No explanation now?’
Lucius shook his head. ‘Never fear, Titus Cornelius. When you are called upon to respond, it will be a duty you are happy to perform. It won’t feel like doing me a service at all.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
They were now riding along a good road, a proper, paved Roman affair, straight as an arrow. Mount Etna was well behind them, rumbling and smoking in the distance, yet they could not see much ahead, with most of the town of Messana blocked out; in the warm southerly wind, occasionally gusting to the east, it was easier to see the mainland across the narrow straits. Smoke rose, thick and black, with the orange strip of flame just visible at the base, sometimes blocking out the sun and rolling out slowly over the bright blue strip of sea. The entire coastline had been sown with wheat; now they were burning the stubble after the harvest and behind the raging fires the fields lay blackened and barren, as though some great plague had struck the land.
‘Look at that boy,’ said Flaccus, pointing eagerly through the smoke to the grain ships loading in the harbour at Messana. ‘There’s a fortune before your eyes and a good part of it belongs to our lord and master.’ Aquila waited while another black cloud drifted out to sea, finally clearing enough to make the harbour visible. He could see the ships, their single square sails furled against the masts, with the long rows of ports for the oars. ‘Those are our proprietor’s own ships, too.’
Flaccus’s eyes gleamed; they always did when he contemplated the prospect of wealth, his or someone else’s. The horses shied away from the heat as they rode past yet another band of flame, slowly eating its way across the stalks. Once through that, they were in the clear with the town now visible. White-walled, the Greek city still looked like the fortress it had been before the Romans took over the island. Inside the battlements, low buildings alternated with the numerous temples, each red tiled roof a slightly different shade, and at diverse angles. Stark against the blue sky, the row of crucifixes by the roadside stood out clearly. Flaccus reined in his horse as they came abreast and looked up at the men roped to the wooden crosses, examining them to see if they were dead.
‘Fresh today,’ he remarked, without emotion.
‘Who are they?’ asked Aquila, his eyes still firmly fixed on the ground. He had not enjoyed the thought of crucifixions on the farms and he did not want to acknowledge them now.
‘Runaways, most likely. They’ve had more trouble with slaves here than elsewhere on the island. Stands to reason, they can see what they’re missing more easily in a town.’ He pulled the horse’s head round and made for the low gate in the town wall. Halfway between the crucifixes and the entrance a series of stakes had been driven into the ground, each one with a man lashed to it. ‘There’s tomorrow’s batch, that is, if those already strung up are properly dead.’
‘What do they do with them when they’re dead?’
‘Easy, boy.’ Flaccus laughed, then coughed as a last puff of smoke filled his lungs. ‘They just lay them in one of the fields they’re going to burn.’
It was the laugh, followed by the cough, that made one of the trussed-up men lift his head. The hair was shorn, slave fashion, so that it formed only a grey stubble on the grime-streaked head and his gaunt face was a mass of bruising from the beatings he had already suffered, his smock torn open to reveal the bloody weals that were caused by repeated whipping. Aquila opened his mouth to say something, then shut it quickly, kicking his horse in such a way that it moved Flaccus on as well.
The single eye of Gadoric followed him, his parched lips open in surprise, the great scar across his face, a stark white against the burnt skin of the face. The boy’s thoughts were in turmoil as they rode under the arch of the gate, the horse’s hooves echoing noisily in the confined space. He fought the temptation to look back, though he could almost feel that basilisk eye fixed on him, and his voice was slightly unsteady as called to Flaccus.
‘Those men at the stake will be crucified?’
The old centurion caught the tone, and as he replied, his voice echoed off the buildings that lined the narrow street. ‘You’re not squeamish, boy, are you? Don’t fret for a dead slave, lad. It makes the others work harder.’
The town was busier than any place Aquila had ever seen. As they approached the centre, an open space dominated by a large wattle and daub temple, the crowd increased so that forward movement became a struggle and Flaccus, to little effect, lashed out at those who blocked his path; they could not move out of his way because of the overall crush. Aquila could see the packed steps of the temple, full of people trading. In one shaded corner a teacher addressed a group of young men, his arms waving as he declaimed; in another moneylenders transacted their business, with a great deal of shouting and slapping of foreheads. Stalls lined the spaces between the tall columns, each with its own yelling vendor. Exceedingly colourful, little of what he saw really registered; he could not put aside the look of hate that had filled that single eye, the look of a man who feels betrayed.
Flaccus turned away from the temple and headed down the incline towards the harbour, still struggling to make any headway. Once out of the square the crush eased, though it was still difficult for a mounted man to move with any speed until they emerged onto the wharves, full of carts laden with grain, each one with a trail of exhausted-looking men filling their baskets at the tail. Flaccus asked one of the sutlers for directions; the man took in the freshly tended gash on the horse’s flank, before pointing to a large warehouse.
The front was clear of carts, the slaves, instead, trudging in and out of the open warehouse doors. Armed men lined their route, with the occasional crack of a bullwhip or a vine sapling striking on a bare back, accompanying the loud exhortations that they should move faster. Down by the edge of the wharf a group of
