was hot, crumbly and dry under his palm – far too dry. He walked around the stack. There was a circular depression about a foot across in its side. Inside, some of the charcoal must have slumped down, taking its covering of the earth crust with it. So far, the cave-in was still black, but invisible cracks must have opened, for the smoke issuing from the nearest vent was no longer white but blue. The air had got into the stack and, inside, the wood was burning.
A man walked into the clearing. He was carrying an axe slightly awkwardly over his shoulder. 'Welcome to my home, Kyrios,' he said. His tunic had a damp stain on the front but, otherwise, was clean. His hands were also clean. On the back of the right one was a jagged scar.
'Good day, woodsman, how are things?' Ballista asked politely. The man looked round the terrace, he studied the stack, and said that, the gods be thanked, things could be worse. Ballista said that he had some wine – would the charcoal burner care to share some? The man said he would.
Ballista turned away. He paused for a moment then turned back. The broad blade of the axe glittered wickedly as it arced through the air. It was coming down vertically, straight at the northerner's head. Ballista hurled himself backwards, losing his balance. The heavy axe hummed just past him and embedded itself in the hard-packed soil. Ballista landed on his arse. His boots skidding wildly on the loose topsoil, he scrabbled backwards to his feet. As he tugged his sword from its scabbard, the other retrieved his axe from the ground.
'The young eupatrid sends you this.' The man laughed. He swung the axe horizontally, low, at ankle level. Ballista leapt back. He felt the wind of the heavy blade's passing.
Now, while his opponent was off balance momentarily, was Ballista's chance. He lunged forward, weight coming down through his bent right knee, left leg straight behind him, blade flashing out towards his enemy's guts. Now it was the axeman's turn to scramble backwards.
The initial flurry over, the two circled each other, knees slightly bent, moving on the balls of their feet. Ballista's eyes never left his assailant's blade. The northerner had the hilt of his own weapon in a two-handed grip, the long, shimmering line of the blade pointing up at the man's throat. Ballista's eyes never left the blade of the axe. They moved slowly, intent on their work. The laughter had died out of the man.
Ballista stamped his right foot, as if advancing. The man flinched. Stepping forward on his left foot, Ballista made a one-handed cut from left to right to the head. As the axe came up to block, Ballista pulled the blow, let his arm swing through and out to the right, then chopped diagonally back in, down towards the man's left thigh. Just in time, the man shifted his grip, sliding his right hand along the haft, and got the axe down in the way. Ballista's blade bit a chunk of wood out of the handle between where the man's hands now clasped it, at the base and below the head.
Without warning, the man rammed the blunt top of the axehead into Ballista's shoulder as if it were a spear. The northerner staggered back. The axeman followed, gripping his weapon by the base, raising it over his head to strike. Still off balance, Ballista twisted his body and thrust wildly. The very tip of his blade caught the man's right shoulder. The man howled and took a couple of paces back.
They resumed their cautious circling. Though the wound could not be deep, blood was seeping down the axeman's tunic.
Ballista was taken completely by surprise when the man suddenly threw the axe. Stumbling back, he awkwardly fended the heavy thing away from his face, the handle catching him a painful blow on the forearm.
The man was running now. He had gained a few paces' headstart. Ballista set off after him. The man was unencumbered by a sword and fear lent wings to his feet. Already, as they plunged into a path from the clearing, he was drawing away. They ran on. Branches whipped at their faces. The man disappeared around a bend. The path here was very overgrown. Ballista could not remember if the man had been wearing a blade on his belt. The northerner skidded to a halt. Cautiously, ready for ambush, he edged round the bend. The path stretched away into the distance. The man was nowhere in sight. Blade at the ready, Ballista turned slowly, scanning the trees. Birds sang. Then, from above, came the sound of a horse's hooves. Ballista caught a glimpse of the man's tunic through the foliage. Then he was gone. The drumming of the hooves was receding.
Ballista turned back and found the charcoal burner. He was just off the path. Neatly chopped staves of wood were scattered all around him. He lay on his back, his tunic deeply stained, his sightless eyes to the sky, his blackened hands clutching a ghastly wound to his neck. Ballista cleaned and sheathed his sword. He was out of breath. He leant forward, hands on knees, panting. The sweat was cooling on his back. Someone had just tried to kill him. Who? 'The young eupatrid sends you this.' What young nobleman would pay to see him dead? Ballista stood up, went over and closed the charcoal burner's eyes. He put a small coin in the man's mouth to pay the ferryman.
VI
Ballista walked between the marble columns that flanked the door of his house. It was late. He was tired. It had been a long, long day. He glanced down at the grotesque mosaic of the improbably endowed hunchback. Possibly it had done its job, had averted the evil eye. The axeman in the charcoal burner's clearing had failed. Ballista was still alive. It had only been that morning, but it seemed half a lifetime away.
Coming into the courtyard, he paused beside the pool. Its waters were green in the lamplight. With his left hand, Ballista scooped up some water and bathed his eyes. His right shoulder hurt like hell. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he went on into the house.
Julia was waiting for him. Her face, mask-like, gave nothing away as she spoke the formal words of welcome then told her maid to get the dominus a drink and prepare him a bath and food. She stood very straight and still as her maid served the drink. She did not speak again until the servant had left the room.
'It is very late.' Her voice was tight, angry.
'I thought I should report the attempt to Censorinus and the frumentarii straight away. Otherwise it might look suspicious, as if I had something to hide, as if I were fighting a private war or something. Then Censorinus suggested I go on to the headquarters of the Epimeletai ton Phylon in the agora. The earlier the local police came to hear of it, the more chance of them catching him.' Ballista stemmed his defensive flow of words. 'I asked Aurelian to tell you I was all right.'
'Oh yes,' Julia snapped. 'Your friend turned up eventually. Some time after lunch. He was so drunk it was a miracle he did not fall off his horse and kill himself. The Danubian peasant said your shoulder was wounded.'
'It's nothing, just bruised.' It always irritated Ballista that she did not like his friend, let alone that she despised his origins.
'Well, I have not been idle while you have been out.' To avoid replying, Ballista took a drink. Julia continued. 'Someone wants to kill you. They may want to harm your family. I will not let anything happen to my son.' She had never liked the barbarian name that Ballista had insisted their son carried. At times like this, Isangrim always became my son.
'I have hired three ex-gladiators. They will guard the house. One of them will accompany my son whenever he goes out. I suggest you keep Maximus with you.'
Julia spoke with the icy self-possession that came with two hundred years of senatorial birth. The Julii of Nemausus in Gallia Narbonensis had been given that exalted rank by the emperor Claudius. Roman citizenship had come one hundred years earlier still, from Julius Caesar. By contrast, Ballista was very aware that his own entry into the citizen body of Rome had been just eighteen years ago. Although the reason was not made public, the emperor Marcus Clodius Pupienus had given it to the young northerner as a reward for killing Maximinus Thrax. Pupienus had been one of the very few who knew Ballista's role in the desperate coup before the walls of Aquileia. Less than a month after enrolling Ballista in the ranks of the Quirites, Pupienus had taken the secret to his grave.
'That is good,' Ballista said, 'if they are reliable.'
Julia made a sharp, dismissive gesture. 'They are the best. My family has never been mean.'
To hide his annoyance, Ballista turned away, on the pretence of putting his drink down. Money was a delicate subject between them. When in his twenties, on his return from Hibernia, Ballista had been given equestrian status, the emperor Gordian III had included a gift of 400,000 sesterces, the property qualification for that order.
