The attackers, who had loosed their arrows from behind the cover of a marquee's wall, had withdrawn back into the camp out of view. Whoever they were, they were nowhere evident.
'Are you alright, my dear?' the biographer asked his young Syri ward. She nodded her affirmation, if somewhat shaken by the experience.
'What was that all about?' Clarus demanded rhetorically. 'Who was targeting us? And why?'
'Somebody doesn't like us, I think,' Suetonius offered weakly.
He saw the nipped head of the arrow from Marcus's foot drop to the beaten earth under Damon's crisp shear with a flensing knife. Suetonius picked it up and surveyed it.
'It's not Roman, it's not a Legion arrow-head. The shape and style are wrong. Is it Scythian, Alexandrian, Egyptian, or Nubian?' the Special Inspector asked of all around him.
Only Damon responded.
'That's Europa barbarian, I'd say,' the horse doctor offered. 'It's German or maybe Gaulish. Yet it could be a re-used sharp from almost anywhere in the Empire. They're too precious to use only once.'
'Who has archers in the camp other than the Legion? The Scythians? The Praetorians? The Alexandrian mercenaries?' Suetonius enquired of the group. 'Are any among them German?'
'The Horse Guards are mainly from Germania,' Clarus reminded the group. 'Caesar holds the Germans high in his estimation for their warrior skills and reliability. As his personal bodyguard they are steadfastly loyal and fierce fighters to boot. But they're also very German.' Clarus, being a former Prefect of the Praetorian Guard a decade earlier, knew these things.
'Very German? Meaning?' enquired Julianus.
'They have a fixed mindset. They're stolid, they're not imaginative. One could say they're obsessive. Once they get their teeth into a matter they cling on like hyenas bringing down victims in the arena,' Clarus opined.
'But who were these archers trying to kill? Me? You, Clarus? Julianus?' Suetonius asked in a hurt voice.
'Perhaps each of us, my friends,' Julianus offered.
'Each? Why so?' Clarus queried with barely suppressed alarm.
'Well, I imagine each of us here could possess something or some knowledge which others would like to see eradicated?' the jurist speculated.
'Eradicated? You mean something someone wants silenced?' Clarus asked.
'Certainly. I'm sure each of us here, possibly even your scribe and female attendant too, is party to information someone at Court wants erased,' Julianus calmly proposed.
'They want it so badly they're willing to kill for it?' Clarus queried with unfettered dismay.
'Think about it, gentlemen,' Julianus continued. 'What have you learned in the past day which someone might wish you not to know? Have you uncovered something about Antinous's death that sniffs of foul play? Have you reason to suspect someone, somewhere, or some faction of a mischief?'
'I think to date we've uncovered about half a dozen possibilities, each of them contradictory to the others,' Suetonius contributed. 'But his death may also have been a simple accident. Until we find out how he spent his final day before his drowning, and with who he kept it, we're at a loss.'
'And your two day time limit expires tomorrow at dawn I'm told?'
'It does. This is why we wish to interview you promptly on what you may know of the lad's ways or movements,' the biographer intimated. 'You have shared his company over several years. You must surely have an opinion on the boy's fate, or know his mind, or know of his private companions and other relationships?'
'Well, as I said earlier, I have something to show you. Two somethings, actually,' the former Master of the Hunt clarified.
'Two of what, Quaestor?'
A clatter at the rear gateway to the horse compound diverted attention from the conversation. An equerry of the Companions approached the group circled around Marcus. He was followed by an officer of the Horse Guards with six troops of the Watch, all with swords drawn. Clarus moved to greet them.
'Decurion Scorilo! Welcome!' he called at the sight of the leading officer.
Scorilo was a mature hulk of a man dressed in the soft woolen tunic and russet mantle of the Germans of the Horse Guard. He bore the double-handed falx sword beloved of the northern barbarians. His hair was bound in the parted plaits of his race with an accompanying sheep-fat glistened moustache above a bushy beard. His ruddy skin displayed the faded remnants of old tribal tattoos typical of his race. These told of his skills in combat and hinted at his fierce possibilities.
Scorilo approached with a steady, confidant gait. He was followed by others of similar breeding and similar self-assurance. They scanned the lanes beyond the horse compound for signs of the attacking intruders or signs of movement. There were none.
'We were beset by archers who took cover behind the marquee below,' Clarus pointed. 'We didn't see them, they used the marquee as a blind, but one of their arrows struck a young equerry of the Companions.' He waved to Marcus as Damon was winding a tight bandage cloth around the foot wound.
Scorilo saluted perfunctorily. 'Was anyone else injured?!' he asked. The decurion was wielding his falx scimitar in threatening readiness. A strike from such a weapon would cleave a man in two or bring down a galloping horse in a legless collapse. Clarus shook his head.
'No, but if we hadn't been so close to these stables and their cover it might have been a different story,' he offered. 'We've no idea who they were or why they attacked. I'm told unidentified renegades have infiltrated the camp — '
Scorilo sharply gave an order to his troop.
'Check the marquee, inside and out. See who's around. Kill opposition only if necessary, but keep at least one alive to interrogate,' he ordered in thickly accented Latin. Four of his men scurried off towards the offending tent complex with their short-swords and bill-hooked blades glinting menacingly.
Suetonius looked the decurion up and down. Scorilo had been the officer who greeted him at Hadrian's tents the day before. Like so many older-generation professional soldiers from the northern climes, his face tattoos denoting tribal fealties, successes in war, or aristocratic status, were a grim sight calculated to strike fear into any adversary.
'We have one of their arrows here,' Clarus offered, taking the shaft which Damon had extracted from Marcus. Clarus passed the missile to Scorilo.
'Nubian,' the decurion stated with unreserved certainty. 'Or Egyptian. Crudely made. Primitive. Inferior bronze, feathered with water fowl quill, so it's local. Probably drifts far from its target. Useless thing.'
'We thought it might be from Europa?' Julianus hesitantly suggested. 'It seemed well enough made to my eye.'
The decurion was dismissive with a shake of his shaggy head.
'I'll try to find matches with any of our allies' weapons,' Scorilo growled. 'We'll also check the bona fides of Nubians or their captains servicing the camp. A household steward was murdered last eve defending his masters from attack. These attackers too were reported to be of Nubian stock.'
'Was it the steward of the household of Antinous of Bithynia?' Julianus asked. Scorilo nodded a gruff affirmation.
'But who told you the attackers were Nubian?'
'It was reported to us by a serving slave, the same one who found the steward's body,' the German said.
Julianus seemed diffident about this response Suetonius thought.
'The Bithynian favorite is dead, and his two closest companions too have disappeared,' Scorilo continued. 'We are commanded to locate the ephebe Lysias and the woman Thais of Cyrene by order of Praetorian Tribune Lucius Macedo.'
'Have you considered they may have departed the camp and found voyage on a Nile boat to Memphis or Thebes, Decurion Scorilo?' Julianus enquired with no little impatience.
Scorilo's face darkened. His eyes darted backwards and forwards between Clarus and the quaestor in a manner Suetonius could not interpret.
'My lords, this camp has been sealed against entry and exit,' the decurion rumbled in his Germanic accent. 'All boundaries are secured. This has been so for twenty-four hours, some hours before the last sighting of the pair. I believe they still remain within the camp, probably hiding in fear of their lives.'
