walked. The shiny bronze greaves on his lower legs chafed slightly but he knew that in time he would cease to notice them. He brought himself to attention in front of his uncle, bronze helmet with its white horsehair plume in the crook of his left arm.

‘Well, Uncle, how do I look?’

‘Probably as you feel, a fine specimen of a man, but don’t let it go to your head – and take your sword off, you’re not allowed to carry it in the city.’

‘Oh, yes, of course, I forgot.’

Feeling slightly deflated he unbuckled the short two-foot gladius that hung at his right hip and stuffed it into a saddlebag waiting by the door next to his small kit-bag.

‘I’ve employed Magnus and two of his friends to see you safely to Genua,’ Gaius said, raising his hand and stopping Vespasian’s objection before it was even voiced. ‘Don’t be stupid, of course you need an escort, what were you planning? Two hundred miles up the Via Aurelia on your own?’

‘I’m going to stop at my grandmother’s estate at Cosa for a four or five days, I don’t need to be in Genua until the calends of February.’

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then, you’ll be safe for a few nights at least. Dear boy, we don’t want you running into trouble before you’ve even left Italia; and I’m sure your grandmother would love to meet Magnus.’

Vespasian winced at the thought, but Gaius was adamant.

‘Not another word, he’ll be back here shortly. Now, in the absence of your father, here’s some travelling money.’ He handed him over a small leather purse. ‘Don’t use the gold that Caligula gave you to pay at inns, you’ll soon attract some unpleasant company if you do.’

‘Thank you, Uncle.’

There was a loud knock and the ancient doorkeeper unfurled himself from his stool and with some difficulty opened the door. Magnus walked in with a thick, undyed woollen travelling cloak around his shoulders.

‘We should go, sir, we need to cross the Aemilian Bridge and be on the road before dark; we’ll be less likely to be questioned during the day.’

‘Of course; where’s my brother, Uncle?’

‘He’s here,’ Sabinus said, walking into the room. He looked at Vespasian and nodded his approval. ‘Well, little brother, I have to say you almost look the part, so let’s hope that you’ve got the balls to play it.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from you.’

‘Do, it’ll be the last one you’ll ever get.’

‘I hope not,’ Gaius said seriously. ‘Now, if that is the extent of your emotional fraternal farewell, you had best be off. Good luck, dear boy.’

He grabbed Vespasian by his shoulders and gave him a moist, rubbery kiss on each cheek. ‘Write when you get there, but nothing concerning our business, only your news.’

‘I will; goodbye, Uncle, and keep well. And you too, brother.’ He disengaged himself from Gaius, picked up his two bags and walked out of the door to find Marius and Sextus waiting with four horses. He attached the bags to his horse whilst Gaius had a quick word with Magnus, clapping him on the shoulder as he did.

Once all were ready they led their horses down the Quirinal Hill on the same route that they’d taken to the Circus Maximus on Vespasian’s first day in Rome.

Vespasian glanced back at Marius and Sextus and then leant close to Magnus. ‘I don’t mean to be funny, Magnus,’ he said quietly, ‘but what use is Marius on a horse?’

Magnus burst out laughing. ‘You hear that, Marius? The young gentleman is wondering how you are going to able to fight on horseback.’

Marius and Sextus joined in the laughter.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Well, the very idea of it,’ Magnus said through his mirth.

‘Of what?’

‘Of fighting on horseback like some trouser-wearing savage. No, sir, horses are for travelling on or escaping with; if there’s fighting to be done we do it on our feet; we’re foot soldiers, sir, and proud of it. You, sir, on the other hand, are a different class of Roman, an eques, an equestrian: if you do well in your first couple of years they might give you command of an auxiliary cavalry unit, and then you’ll have to fight on horseback, and may the gods help you.’

Vespasian remembered the fight with the runaway slaves barely four months ago and thought it no bad thing to fight mounted.

They carried on in silence, pushing through the crowds of people making their way to whatever they called home, until they came into the Forum Boarium. The cattle market held there on market days was being cleared up. The smell of manure invaded their nostrils, and the cries of the beasts being led off to the slaughterhouses filled the air. Small boys with sticks beat the docile creatures savagely to move them off in the right direction, whilst farmers and slaughterhouse agents did last moment deals and counted their money. At a table on a dais sat a togate aedile, the magistrate overseeing the market, taking complaints from buyers and sellers alike and adjudicating on them, then and there. As the stock was moved out hundreds of wretched public slaves began shovelling the manure into sacks, dismantling the temporary pens and piling them on to carts to be taken away and stored, ready for the next market in eight days’ time.

As they crossed the forum in the direction of the Tiber they passed by the small circular temple of Hercules Victor with its tiled roof supported by columns. It was almost as old as the city itself; next to it stood the massive altar to Hercules. Vespasian looked at these ancient sites and wished that he had had more time for sightseeing; he had hardly seen anything of Rome in his brief stay.

With the bridge in sight, a new, powerful smell assailed their senses. Upstream on either side of the river were many of Rome’s tanneries. There they had a plentiful supply of water and an outlet into which they pumped their effluent. The stench from the process of turning dried, stiff hides into leather, firstly by soaking them in human urine, to loosen the hair enough to scrap it off with a knife, then by pounding them with a mixture of animal brains and faeces to make them supple, produced a stench of such hideous intensity that Vespasian had to pull his cloak over his face as he crossed the bridge. He looked down at the river and to his amazement saw young boys playing and swimming amongst the filth.

Halfway across a loud shout stopped them in their tracks.

‘You lot there, leading the horses, stop where you are.’

Vespasian looked over in the direction of the shout. At the far end of the bridge by a guardhouse was stationed a unit of the Urban Cohort. A centurion had detached himself and was walking towards him, flanked by two soldiers.

‘Don’t give your real name,’ Magnus hissed at his side whilst motioning Marius and Sextus to fall back slightly.

‘What have you got to hide, then, covering your face like that?’ the centurion asked, coming up to them.

Vespasian immediately pulled his cloak away from his face. ‘Nothing, I was just trying to protect my nose from the terrible smell,’ he replied honestly.

‘Don’t give me that, son, everyone’s used to it. Can you see anyone else covering their faces like some sneaking villain? I don’t think so.’

Vespasian looked at the crowds of people passing, all seemingly oblivious to the reek of the tanneries. ‘I’m sorry, centurion, but I’m just not used to it.’

‘Bollocks, I’d say you were acting suspiciously and I’ve got orders to detain anyone acting suspiciously. What’s your name? And where are you going?’

‘Gaius Aemilius Rufus, I’m on my way to Pannonia to serve with the Ninth Hispana.’ Vespasian pulled back his cloak to reveal his uniform.

‘Are you now? Well, with that Sabine accent you don’t sound like one of the Aemilii to me and you’re going in the wrong direction for a start. Where’re your papers?’

‘I’m to be issued with them at Genua, that’s why I’m taking the Via Aurelia.’

‘A likely story, and who are these unpleasant-looking thugs with you?’

‘Tullius Priscus, sir, at your service, and these are my associates Crispus and Sallius,’ Magnus said, stepping forward to the centurion. ‘The young gentleman has hired us to escort him north.’

‘Well, you’re going nowhere until the Praetorians have had a look at you.’ The centurion turned to one of his

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