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  He tried to slow his angry breathing.

  Any violence here would most certainly bring the unwanted attention of the guards at the bottom of the exit stairs. Controlling his anger, he glared at the Spaniard.

  ‘I will make you one offer, you oily little shit. Return my original stakes, and I will leave happy. You can keep the small return I am most certainly due from the three wins. Consider that a good solution for the day.’

  ‘You live in a dream world, Valerius. Piss off, and don’t bother coming to our stall for the horse racing in a couple of weeks.’

  The legionary frowned at the two big men waiting to take him on and scooped up the chits, fighting the almost all-encompassing urge to flatten the little shit.

  ‘This isn’t over. I’m going to see Carvilius. And I’ll be sure to make known how much of this is your fault.’

  It was pathetic as threats went, since Carvilius would look after his own slimy factotum. But the man had so many fingers in so many pies in Deva that Valerius’ stake was just a tiny portion of the man’s daily turnover. Perhaps he could be made to see the value in keeping on good terms with the men of the Twentieth. It was irksome that he, a veteran of two wars and a decorated hero, even granted immune status in his century, should be reduced to scraping around for coin. But then, even the most successful of warriors fell on hard times.

  The Spaniard simply sneered at him and Valerius turned away from that leering face before he was unable any longer to fight the urge to put a fist through it.

  Moments later he was stomping down the steps outside the arena, two legionaries nodding at him in recognition as he left. He nodded back at them and hurried off past the eastern ground-floor gate. Oddly, there appeared to be no guard on it, and the gate stood open. At other times, he might have taken more note, but not today. Today he had business to take care of...

  Momentarily, he wondered whether to call back at the barracks and collect his sword belt, but he quickly decided against it. Carvilius was always well-protected. If he went in to the criminal’s place with a bared blade, he would likely soon be in a fight for his life. Better to try persuasion, and if that failed, low threat before even considering direct violence.

  Hurrying through streets still bright despite the overcast, and largely empty due to the games, Valerius made for the outskirts. Carvilius lived – as was usual for his kind – in a fairly sumptuous peristyle house with its own landscaped garden almost a mile from the town, but he would be at his place of work now – a converted granary on the edge of town. The civil granaries had been moved closer to the docks for convenience a year ago and the old building had been bought cheap by Carvilius and turned into his office.

  Valerius’ eyes slipped longingly down a side-street as he scurried along, to the column-fronted caupona where Julia would be waiting. Damn it. He rounded a corner and strode towards the building, the streets empty of souls. The old granary had half a dozen windows with recently-added expensive glass panes, and consisted of courses of stone to waist height, topped by timber walls and a tile roof, all raised from the ground on stone pillars to allow air channels beneath. A loading block at the end had been converted to a fenced-in, stepped entrance with a desk manned by one of the big man’s lackeys and a couple of goons.

  Preparing himself for the indignity of what undoubtedly lay ahead, Valerius approached the steps. The man at the desk was a studious, hunched, hirsute figure, reminding the legionary in many respects of an owl. The ubiquitous pair of thugs standing behind him fiddled with the wooden clubs at their belts.

  ‘I want to see Carvilius.’

  The seated owl peered myopically up at Valerius.

  ‘Many people would like to see Carvilius. What’s your business with him?’

  ‘Trouble over a wager at the games.’

  The man shrugged. ‘That’s a matter to take up with the bookmaker at the amphitheatre. All such matters are dealt with on site.’

  ‘This goes above such levels. I need to speak to Carvilius himself.’

  ‘The master is busy. Leave your name with me and I will ask him if your matter is worthy of his personal attention.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ grunted Valerius, acutely aware that even though he was on two days’ leave, his mates would be eagerly awaiting his return.

  ‘Tomorrow. Perhaps the day after.’

  Valerius felt his temper rising again.

  ‘That’s not good enough. Let me see him now.’

  The two thugs straightened threateningly, and the little owlish man shook his head. ‘That is not possible. Either take your issue back to the arena booth or leave your name and we will get back to you in due course. The master is in conference and cannot be disturbed.’

  ‘Listen, you old fool, this is a matter of extreme urgency. I know Carvilius likes to think he’s the most important man in Deva, but bear in mind that he thrives only because the Twentieth allows him to. I don’t know why the officers let him carry on like this, but bear in mind how difficult things could get for him if the legate were to hear of his less savoury practices.’

  The little man narrowed his bulbous, bloodshot eyes. ‘It is not wise to threaten the master, nor his people. Things like that tend to get a man a long swim with a lead necklace. Now leave.’

  Valerius’ calm finally snapped and he leaned forward, his arm shooting out and his hand grasping the old man’s tunic at the chest, bunching it and hauling him a foot from his seat with ease. The two thugs lunged forward, taken off-guard by Valerius’ unexpected speed.

  What had he done that for?

  His father had always told him he was too impetuous. A dangerous trait for a soldier.

  Too late now: when he’d lunged for the owl, he’d sealed his fate.

  The leftmost of the two thugs ripped his baton from his belt as he moved around the table to attack. The other was closer and wasted no time reaching for a weapon. Valerius felt his instincts take over, conscious thought clearly having failed him when he decided to threaten the factotum of a known criminal. His body moved to the right, closer to the unarmed but faster thug. As he did so, he twisted his hand and slammed it towards him, cracking the owl-man’s head on the wooden table hard enough to drive the wits from him. Having bought himself a little time from the armed brute on the far side of the table, he ducked a clumsy swing from the other. The big hireling tried to recover from the poor swing, but Valerius’ combat instincts had been honed on the battlefield against the Ordovices, against Brigantian rebels, and more recently against Caledonian barbarians, all of whom were better at it than these two bull-headed idiots.

  With practiced economy of movement Valerius allowed the brute to pull his arm back but as the man prepared for another swing, the legionary kicked him in the kneecap, hard enough to hear the crunch, let alone the ripping of boot-nails through flesh. The big man howled, his intended blow forgotten. Valerius glanced for half a heartbeat at the other goon and decided he had time to finish this one first. Reaching out to the agonised thug, he grabbed the man by the neck and smashed him face first into the wooden fence rail that ran around the edge of the former loading block. The man’s nose and teeth exploded on the timber and he was unconscious before he fell back to the ground.

  Valerius turned just in time to back-step and avoid the wooden baton that whistled past his nose.

  Over-extended. The idiot!

  As the wooden club whipped out harmlessly to the side, Valerius grasped the man’s straightened arm with both hands and brought it down on the knee that was simultaneously coming up, shattering the joint with a loud crack.

  The man fell, yelping, and Valerius kindly put him out of his misery with a hefty kick to the skull. He paused for only a moment to take stock.

  How had the day gone so badly wrong so quickly?

  An hour ago he was in fine spirits, standing to make a cart-load of cash on a sure thing.

  Now he was broke, indebted to his tent-mates, and to cap it all had started a one-man war against th
e most vicious of Deva’s criminal class. Had he accidentally knocked over a statue of Fortuna this morning or something?

  You’re always too impetuous for your own good, Lucius…

  Oh shut up, dad.

  Well there was nothing for it now. Although the street here appeared to be empty, he could guarantee that someone had seen him. It would not take much for them to identify the assailant, especially since he’d told the Spaniard that he was coming here. And Carvilius was not the sort to quietly accept such open opposition. If he simply walked away now, one morning he would wake up next to his own severed legs. That was Carvilius’ style,

  A muffled commotion inside the granary confirmed that the fight had not gone unnoticed by the occupants. Crouching, he swept up the club the broken-armed thug had dropped and ripped the other from his friend’s waist. As he rounded the table and moved towards the granary door, he tested their weight. Not dissimilar to good wooden military practice swords. Less well-balanced, but close enough.

  Ah well… in for a sestertius, in for an aureus, as they said.

  Taking a deep breath, he stepped to the door. He could hear the creak of floorboards close behind the door, almost masked by the thick wooden portal. He tried to remember the layout of the place. He’d only been here once before, half a year ago, to arrange a temporary loan – another bad idea, and a story for another time. The old granary had been subdivided with flimsy partition walls. Now, the centre of the granary was a long corridor, two doors leading off either side into rooms – he couldn’t remember what they were. And a single door at the passage’s end opened into Carvilius’ spacious office.

  With a last momentary prayer to Mars – Minerva’s wise personage hardly seemed appropriate, given the circumstances – Valerius reached out and grasped the latch of the door. Two sets of creaking noises issued from beyond: one to the left and one to the right.

  Bracing himself, he lifted the latch and allowed the door to creak open half an inch. Then he lunged, hitting the door with his shoulder and carrying all the force of his battle-hardened body against it. As the portal burst inwards, slamming into the man lurking behind it, he lashed out with his twin clubs to the left and was rewarded with the thud of a direct hit against the other man in the dim interior.

  The momentum took him forward into the corridor, but Valerius knew what he was doing, his instincts well honed. As he fell, he tucked into a roll and came up quickly half a dozen paces inside, turning to face the two men who’d thought to stop him. One was reeling from the blow with the door, dazed and off-balance. The other was clutching his wrist, which had taken a blow from the wooden baton. Neither constituted much immediate danger.

  As quickly as he could, yet with the casual brutality of the trained fighter, Valerius brought his length of timber round and hit the side of the latter one’s head with a deep clonk. The man folded up and collapsed to the floor unconscious. The other was still staggering and clutching his face as the legionary drove his wits from him with twin baton blows.

  He was running out of time. The commotion must now have been noted in Carvilius’ office and the man had a veritable army of low-grade oafs to call on. It was quite surprising really that no one had yet emerged from the side rooms. Why was the place so quiet? Individually, Valerius felt certain he could take on any of Carvilius’ men, but en masse, he would be in trouble. He had to sort this out quickly.

  Ignoring the exits to either side, he made straight for the end and flung open the door to the head man's office. The room was brighter than the corridor, lit by several oil lamps, a brazier, and two of the new glass-paned windows. It took a moment for Valerius’ eyes to adjust to the change, and he blinked in surprise. Carvilius was rarely to be seen without half a dozen tough men around him. Valerius had expected to find a hard fight awaiting him.

  Instead, the room was almost empty.

  Carvilius sat at a desk, tearing up parchments and dropping the pieces into the flames of the brazier that provided warmth as well as light. No assistants. No helpers. No goons.

  Valerius’ roving gaze caught movement in the corner, and he saw the room’s other occupant for only a momentary flash before he disappeared through the rear door and out into the town. Valerius felt the shock wash over him. What was he doing consorting with this criminal scum? No wonder they were alone in the room! That visitor wouldn’t want any witnesses to their dealings.

  Carvilius blinked in surprise, his disposing of documents temporarily forgotten.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Lucius Valerius Aurelius. I came to see you about a wager.’

  Deva’s own self-appointed criminal lord frowned in apparent confusion.

  ‘You’re alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And here about some bet?’

  ‘Yes. Your man at the amphitheatre refused to return my stake despite the fact that the final fight was inconclusive.’

  ‘And you came here and assaulted my men for a… to recover a stake in a wager?’ The man sounded incredulous… and oddly a little relieved. Suspicion stole across Valerius. Who had Carvilius and his visitor thought was causing the commotion? Someone dangerous or important enough to flee the scene and burn evidence, at the very least…

  ‘I won’t waste your time, Carvilius,’ he said quickly, fishing his chits from his purse and dropping them onto the man’s desk. ‘You’re a busy man. Give me my hundred and fifty denarii and I’m out of your hair.’

  The man behind the desk narrowed his eyes further as he dropped several more pieces of parchment into the embers. A slow, friendly smile spread across his face. ‘By all means, legionary. In fact, there is a pay chest right there to the side of my desk. Feel free to collect your money. It is bagged into twenty denarii units. Don’t take too much, though. My accounts have to balance.’

  It was Valerius’ turn to frown now. That was far too easy. His gaze slipped down to the indicated chest and he was hardly surprised to note that the container bore all the hallmarks of a legionary pay chest.

  ‘Damn it.’

  Carvilius shuffled uneasily as Valerius shook his head in irritation. ‘I see the problem now. Whatever you’re up to, I’ve seen who it was with, and I know you have legion money, too. If I take the money and walk out, I’ll disappear not long after – probably even before I get back to barracks. I know too much and that places me in a difficult position. If I leave here, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, unless I put in for a transfer to Syria or some such shithole.’

  The crime lord began to shuffle his seat back.

  ‘And that means that I have to remove you from the problem. In fact, it’s become a matter of you or me. And that means, I’m afraid, it’s you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare touch me,’ Carvilius snorted. ‘You couldn’t even guess how many powerful friends I have.’

  ‘I know one, ‘cause I saw him slip back out just now.’

  Carvilius was rising from his chair now, but Valerius was quick. His hand snapped out with the timber baton extended, and the tip of it caught the criminal on the side of the jaw, sending him reeling off to the side. His foot caught the brazier as he staggered and the tripod overbalanced, spilling its contents onto the floor. A couple of them hit the man’s tunic and one touched his bare leg, causing him to yelp in pain.

  He managed to drag himself upright, but Valerius was there instantly, batons raised.

  ‘You should have stuck to petty crime, Carvilius. You don’t mess with the legion.’

  The man opened his mouth to plead, but the legionary silenced him with a hefty blow to the cheek that cracked bone. Carvilius fell back with a thud and Valerius stepped over the prone man. In thirty years of service he’d never once killed an unarmed civilian. Hurt a few, of course, but never killed. He set his jaw firm. It was simple: this man was scum – the worst type of criminal, who fed off the misery of ordinary folk. But more than that, they found themselves in a situation where, if Carvilius lived, Valerius would nev
er be safe.

  With a last apology to his long-dead father, who would have shaken his head in dismay at the impulsiveness of his son, he reached down and grasped the stunned criminal’s head. With a deep breath, he gave a sharp twist, was rewarded with numerous cracks, and then straightened and stepped back. The body beneath him kicked out spasmodically as a smell of freshly-expelled urine and faeces rose from it. With a gasp, the man’s spirit left his body. Valerius stepped to the desk, found a coin among the clutter of documents and bags and, crouching, pushed it into the man’s mouth. It was all well and good killing the man in order to be free of him, but it would be no good allowing his restless spirit to wander around seeking vengeance. Let him stay safely on the far side of the dead river.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  The Spaniard at the amphitheatre would not trouble him. Possibly he might even be grateful for the chance to take over some of his former employer’s business. Certainly, he would not pit himself against the legion without Carvilius’ backing.

  But the man who he’d seen slip out of the back door might well have seen him, and that man would not think twice about dealing with a potential enemy.

  Taking a quick look around, Valerius used the metal shovel and tongs for the brazier to scoop the sizzling coals back into the bronze dish from where they were already beginning to char the wooden floor. A conflagration here might well spread to take the whole town, after all. Once he was certain the coals were contained again and the building was safe, he started towards the rear door.

  Time to pay a visit to the other apparent conspirator and come to some sort of agreement, even if it involved spilled blood.

  He paused on the way and, with a warm smile, grabbed one of the leather satchels from the desk and dipped into the pay chest, gathering what he estimated to be perhaps seven or eight hundred denarii into the bag and then slinging it over his shoulder and making for the door.