“Absolutely right. I’ll keep you company while you eat.”
The wicked little knowing smile on Faleria’s face was not lost on him as she turned and left the room. Fronto sagged and closed his eyes.
Priscus nudged Milo and nodded to Galronus. The three men ducked back behind the temple of the Penates and Priscus glanced around himself once more. Dusk had descended less than an hour ago and now the last of the light was threatening to vanish, oil lamps, braziers and torches springing to life all around the forum behind them and up on the Palatine hill to their right. The temple was closed now and no lights flickered in the window.
The dozen men they had brought with them as protection lurked between the buildings back down the slope, ready to rush out and engage if needed, but conveniently out of sight otherwise. The occasional passing figure gave them all a curious glance, but no more; too much interest in gangs of thugs in Rome was an unhealthy thing to have.
“What do you think?”
Milo turned to Priscus and shrugged.
“They appear to be alone. It’s too easy. Everything about this tells me to stay away.”
Priscus nodded.
“It
The three men, shadowed by their hired help, had located Clodius in the early afternoon outside the entrance to the theatre, a great timber structure in the Velabrum so tall that it almost matched the heights of the Capitol. The man had spent the next few hours visiting a number of houses, spending no longer than twenty minutes in each, most of his large bodyguard remaining outside on each occasion.
His shadowing pursuers had almost given up following him when, beside the house of the Vestals, Clodius and his guards had met up with Philopater and a second gang. Priscus had strained his eyes trying to get a good look at the Egyptian’s face. He’d have loved to have seen that smashed nose, but the light was too low and the distance too great.
Just as the three men were about to gather their own hirelings and leave, there had been a brief altercation between Clodius and his chief enforcer. The nobleman had sent most of his men with Philopater, who had taken the large force and left toward the Subura, heading back to the Clodian residence. The half dozen men that remained with him were the biggest and most disciplined-looking of the bunch, and the group headed off past the slopes of the Velian ridge and away from the forum.
“I’d give good money to know where he’s going. Either Philopater disagreed with him going there, or he doesn’t want that Egyptian scum with him. Either way, it’s an interesting development.”
Milo nodded.
“Then we just follow and observe. No attack.”
Galronus rumbled behind them.
“Fronto wants him dead. There’s seven of them. The
Again, Milo shrugged.
“Something feels uncomfortable about the situation.”
“Shit!”
The pair turned back to Priscus, who had peered around the corner of the temple at their quarry but had just ducked sharply back.
“What?”
“He’s looking directly up here. How could he have seen us?”
Galronus’ jaw firmed.
“He couldn’t. He must have known we were here already.”
“Oh, shit.”
They became aware that moment of a cacophony of bangs, thuds and shouts back among the buildings on the lower slope of the Velian. Cries of dismay marked the location of Priscus and Milo’s gang as Philopater’s much larger force fell on them from the rear, clearly intent on murder.
“He’s attacking us?” Milo queried in astonishment. “Now, in the centre of the city? But there are witnesses?”
He gestured to the figures moving along the Via Sacra below, but Priscus snarled.
“As if any passing grocer is going to get in the way of this lot!”
Galronus flexed his knuckles and turned back, but Milo put a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you
Galronus growled angrily, but a voice cut through the early evening air from down by the edge of the marsh beyond the Via Sacra and distracted them.
“Little boys intent on mischief should not be out so late. Your mothers will be worried.”
Priscus sighed.
“Looks like we’re in the shit now, lads. Fight or run?”
Milo shook his head. “Run if we can.”
The situation was worsened with the sound of the brief struggle among the buildings behind them coming to a close. The dozen men they had brought along had hardly bought them enough time to argue their course, let alone pursue it.
Galronus nodded to them.
“I will distract them. You run back.”
Priscus stared at him.
“The only way you have to distract that lot is to let them beat you to a pulp. Come on.”
Without waiting for conversation or argument, Priscus ducked out around the temple and ran down the slope, his lame leg giving him a peculiar and ungainly gait, across the white paving of the Via Sacra, where he disappeared into the shadows around the shrine of Jupiter on the far side.
He stopped, catching his breath, heaving in air, as Galronus and Milo followed suit, pelting down the hill at breakneck speed and across the open ground in between. Priscus looked up, to the left and right, trying to decide what to do, as he rubbed his hip vigorously. His leg felt as though it were on fire. He couldn’t keep this up for long. He couldn’t tell the other two, but there was no hope of him getting back as far as the house of the Falerii.
Philopater’s men were emerging between the buildings on the Velian hill, looking down the slope, trying to spot their prey. Other small groups of men, almost certainly another part of the Egyptian’s force, were slowly stalking down the Via Sacra from the forum, converging on their current location. To the other side, Clodius and his half dozen burly thugs were closing the net. The members of the general public had, to a man, vanished, making themselves conveniently absent in the face of such danger.
“We’re hemmed in on three sides.”
The shrine in whose shadows they lurked unseen was small, nothing more than an ancient altar surrounded by a brick wall as high as a tall man and with an iron gate; hardly a place to hide or defend against a large force.
“We’re going to have to make a break for it and head up the Palatine.”
The others nodded their agreement and, taking a deep breath, Priscus sprang out of the darkness, the other two men hot on his heels, and, ignoring the screaming pain in his hip and thigh, loped in his strange manner as fast as he could up the cobbled street that led up to the heights of the Palatine, closed shops lining it as it ascended into the gloom. Here and there, at the top, lights flickered among the houses of those wealthy enough to afford land on the hill that was the very heart of Rome.
Panting with the ascent, they passed the shattered pylons to either side of the street that marked the ruins of one of the city’s most ancient gates, disused for centuries, and finally crested the top. The road led to a wide open space with an ornamental fountain at the centre, ornate decoration around the edges. From here half a dozen smaller roads led off among the wealthy villas, but Priscus focused on the one straight ahead that would take them across the plateau and which opened into the great stairway that led down toward the end of the Circus and the Porta Capena.
“That way!”
The three men took a desperate breath, becoming aware in the sudden quiet of the noises of close pursuit
