False God of Rome

‘My mind was on other things,’ he responded as he pushed away the weapon.

Magnus leant down to help him up. ‘Well, she spoilt your concentration. Anyway, if you don’t go she could make trouble for you back in Rome.’

Vespasian scoffed and brushed some dirt from his arm. ‘No, she couldn’t; everyone would understand why I did nothing. Who’s going to sympathise with an idiot who goes off into the desert with hardly any escort in search of a tribe of slavers?’

Magnus looked disappointed. ‘So you ain’t going to go?’

Vespasian walked over to the pomegranate tree and sat down on the bench beneath it. ‘I didn’t say that; I just said that I wouldn’t go just because Flavia was threatening me. If I go it’ll be for different reasons.’

‘Because it might be fun?’

‘Did you see her?’ Vespasian asked, ignoring the question. He picked a jug up from the table and poured two cups of wine.

Magnus joined him on the bench taking a proffered cup. ‘Yes, briefly; she looked expensive.’

‘That’s true, but it was a good look: pure woman. And she showed spirit and loyalty; imagine what sort of sons a feisty woman like that would bear.’

Magnus looked at his friend, astonished. ‘You’re not serious, are you? What about Caenis?’

The words of love in Caenis’ letter flashed though Vespasian’s mind and he shook his head regretfully. ‘As much as I’d want to, I could no more have children with Caenis than I could do with you. You because, no matter how hard and often I tried, you’d be barren; and Caenis because the children wouldn’t be recognised as citizens, being the product of an illegal union between a senator and a freedwoman.’

‘Yes, I suppose so; I’d never really thought about it like that before,’ Magnus said nodding and quaffing his drink. ‘So you’ll have to look elsewhere for your brood-mare?’

‘And Flavia seems to be perfect and to cap it all she’s a Flavian.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘It means that her dowry will be staying within the clan and therefore her father is likely to make a larger settlement on her.’

‘Well, you’ll need it if you’re going to keep her in all that finery; she ain’t going to be cheap. So I suppose it’s pointless going to try and rescue her lover; much better to let him disappear out of the way.’

‘On the contrary, I’m going to take four turmae of cavalry and go and find him; if I don’t, then Flavia will never consider marrying me because she’s a loyal woman.’

‘If you don’t find him that will be fine, but if you bring him back then she’ll stay with him.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Vespasian grinned slyly at his friend. ‘If I do find him, I’ll give him the option of staying out in the desert and not having to pay the costs for his own rescue or returning with us to civilisation and a large invoice.’

‘What? The cost of keeping the cavalry supplied for however long it takes us to find him?’

‘Yes. Plus, of course, my own private expenses.’

‘Which will be how much?’

‘Oh, no more than Capella can afford to pay; say, one woman?’

CHAPTER II

‘How much further, Aghilas?’ Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus, the young, patrician prefect of the province’s Libu light cavalry snapped, wiping away the sweat that flowed freely from beneath his broad-brimmed straw hat.

The dark-skinned Libu scout pointed towards a small, rocky outcrop shimmering in the heat haze, some two miles distant. ‘Not far, master; it’s in among those rocks.’

‘And not a moment too soon,’ Magnus muttered, easing his hot and sore behind in the saddle. ‘It’s only three days since we came down off the plateau and I’ve already had enough of the desert.’

‘You didn’t have to come,’ Vespasian reminded his friend. ‘You could have stayed in the foothills and gone hunting; I’m sure Corvinus would have left you a couple of guides.’

Corvinus glanced at Vespasian in a way that assured him that he was completely mistaken on that point.

Magnus looked ruefully at the stout hunting-spear jiggling upright in a long, hardened-leather holster attached to his saddle and shook his head. ‘No, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the fun; I just didn’t realise that there was so much desert.’

There was indeed a lot of desert.

Since descending from Cyrene’s plateau, two days after leaving the city, they had headed southeast, over a hard, dun-brown, rock-strewn wilderness that stretched to beyond the province’s vague southern border and then as far as the imagination; it provided a natural defence against whomever or whatever lived beyond this wasted land. Despite it being November the sun burned down during the day with a ferocity that belied the season; winter, however, caught up at night when the temperature plummeted and ice would form in the necks of their water- skins.

The hundred and twenty men of the four turmae detachment of Libu light cavalry, armed with light javelins, a cavalry spatha — a sword slightly longer than the infantry gladius — and curved knives and protected by small, round, leather-clad shields, took the conditions in their stride. Wide-brimmed straw hats shaded their faces and long, thick, undyed lambswool cloaks, worn over similar woollen tunics, protected them from the sun’s intense rays during the day and kept them warm in the freezing night air — fires were impossible as there was nothing to burn. Their Roman decurions had followed their men’s example for this expedition, since metal cuirasses and helmets were impractical in the scorching heat.

Each man carried a water-skin that held just enough for him and his mount to last for two days; that, together with the extra water, as well as grain for the horses and spare rations for the troopers, carried by the trail of pack-mules following the column, meant they could last for three days without resupplying. Navigation through the almost featureless landscape was therefore crucial as they were obliged to travel via two wells, part of a network of ancient wells dug throughout the desert by the Marmaridae, generations ago, to enable them to make the crossing from their grazing lands in the north, near the coast over a hundred miles east of Cyrene, to the oasis at Siwa and beyond.

‘How the fuck does Aghilas find his way out here?’ Magnus asked Corvinus as they approached the outcrop where, their guide had assured them, they would find the first well of their journey. ‘There’s nothing to navigate by.’

Corvinus looked haughtily at Magnus before deigning to reply. ‘He was taken as a slave by the Marmaridae when he was a boy and lived with them for ten years before escaping. He’s made countless trips across the desert; I’ve used him before and he’s never let me down.’

‘When was the last time you were out here?’ Vespasian enquired, trying to be friendly to this aloof patrician; he had not had much contact with Corvinus, who spent most of his time at Barca, southwest of Cyrene, where the auxiliary cavalry were based.

‘Just before you arrived, quaestor.’ There was almost a tone of mockery in his voice as he used Vespasian’s official title. ‘We chased a raiding party for a couple of days; didn’t catch them, though. Their camels aren’t as fast as horses in a gallop but they can do eighty or ninety miles in ten hours without stopping for water; at that speed and in this heat our horses just collapse.’

‘Have you ever caught any?’

‘No, not once in the seven months that I’ve had the misfortune to be stationed here. And I don’t know what makes you think that it’ll be any different this time; you’d have to surprise-’

A sharp cry from Aghilas as he fell from his horse cut Corvinus short; an instant later his own mount reared up, tipping him onto the ground. Vespasian heard the hiss of an arrow passing just over his head followed immediately by the cry of a trooper behind him.

‘Form line by turma,’ Corvinus shouted, jumping to his feet as his horse crashed, screeching, to the ground next to him; a blood-soaked arrow protruded from its chest.