Praetorian: The Great Game Read online

  An oil lamp guttered, the flame in its dying moments. Clearly it had been lit some time ago and left burning. Why, Rufinus had no idea, given that Glaucus was fast asleep, issuing his usual nightly stream of awfulness, and Fastus was absent, though his blankets were ruffled. The man must recently have gone out on his night shift.

  Trying to ignore the unpleasant noises and smells, Rufinus trod over to his bunk and, with a glance at the pasty white buttocks protruding from the blanket four feet above, sank into his bed with relief. The day had started dull but ended with far too much excitement for Rufinus’ liking.

  Sleep came instantly and overwhelmingly.

  Rufinus awoke with a slight snort, but his reflexes, honed by his years of military service, told him to stay quiet and still. He couldn’t quite figure what had woken him. A noise? A smell, or a rush of air? Possibly even just that uncomfortable prickle that occurs on the spine when a man knows he is being observed.

  Apart from that one, brief, involuntary snort, Rufinus lay absolutely still, carefully measuring his breathing to maintain the impression that he was fast asleep. A low, wet sounding rush of foul air seeped into the atmosphere a few feet above his head.

  With careful attention to detail, Rufinus made a sleepy groaning noise and rolled over, his arm flopping limply over the side of the cot, granting him just enough access to look over his arm towards the door. Keeping his eye to a narrow slit, he peered at the entrance.

  It was now deep in the night. The lamp in the room had burned out long ago. The room was pitch black but, as was always the case, the courtyard area outside was lit with guttering torches to aid men in their journey up and down the stairs for night duties or latrine trips.

  Most of the guard chambers were closed off with doors to keep out any chill and provide privacy for the occupants. The three men’s door remained open to provide the necessary fresh air for humans to survive a night with Glaucus, the portal wedged open with a brick.

  A black shape filled the lower part of the doorway.

  Rufinus’ heart began to beat extraordinarily fast.

  One of those damn hounds of Hades was sitting upright and alert in the doorway. Acheron or Cerberus? It was near impossible to tell the difference between the animals together in broad daylight. At night, as a simple silhouette? Somehow he knew it was Acheron, though. The bastard hound had been the one who threatened him earlier on at the slave quarters. He’d be willing to bet an arm that this was the same dog.

  Rufinus’ eye rolled upwards in the gloom and he opened the slit between his eyelids slightly wider to peer into the dark interior of the room, still keeping his head absolutely still. It took a moment to focus. Fastus’ cot remained empty and rumpled as it had when Rufinus had returned, what… hours ago?

  He suddenly became aware with a thrill of fear that the dog had begun to growl; a low rumble, protracted and wicked, issuing from deep in its chest. It was a sound of pure malice. Rufinus swallowed as quietly as he could. Somehow, the animal knew he was awake, though how, he couldn’t say.

  Aware that the sleeping guise he had maintained was now useless, he shuffled until he was propped up on his elbows. Had the dog taken a personal dislike to him for some unknown reason, or was Dis somehow setting his beasts to watch the new man. Clearly it wasn’t Fastus they were interested in, unless perhaps Acheron was here while Cerberus was busy watching Fastus somewhere?

  Rufinus rolled his eyes as he remembered that the other new man would be on duty, patrolling the grounds in the dark - an unenviable task. And to do that job while being stalked by Dis’ awful dogs… Rufinus shivered.

  ‘Go on. Scat!’ he hissed at the door, aware that he was starting to sweat with fear. He could stand against any man fist to fist and would face any foe of woman born with a sword and shield. But unarmed and facing these two hounds, he was pretty sure he would come off very badly indeed. No amount of legionary training or boxing practice taught a man how to fight off a savage, killer dog.

  Acheron moved not a muscle, the growl rising in pitch and volume as the menacing shadow watched him. Rufinus, his wits returning to him rapidly, was suddenly acutely aware that he was fully dressed in soggy clothes, his boots still on. He had collapsed with exhaustion and slept before even undressing. His eye strayed to the sword in its scabbard, still attached to his belt and discarded upon arrival at the room, a couple of feet from the cot.

  His fingertips would just about reach the pommel. He doubted very much that he could grasp it, close his hand around the hilt, pull it back and draw the blade from the sheath before the dog had his elbow in its cruel jaws and was shaking him back and forth like a child’s rag toy.

  His fingertips reached out slowly, inching their way to the cold bronze of the pommel as the dog’s growl continued, white drool dripping to the floor.

  And suddenly, as if it had been summoned silently, the beast rose from its haunches and turned from Rufinus, padding away along the balcony.

  His heart still pounding and his nerves twanging, mind alert and body poised despite the exhaustion that still weighed upon him, Rufinus scrambled and grasped the sword, drawing it from the sheath and allowing the leather and belt to fall beneath the bed as he brought the plain soldier’s blade beneath the blankets with him, cold steel touching his bare leg and making him recoil.

  Settling, he kept the sword in the bed and in his hand as his eyes continued to stare at the open doorway. He fancied that he could hear big paws padding down the wooden staircase, but after a while he decided that it was simply the endless patter of the rain he could hear.

  Sleep entirely failed to come.

  For more than an hour, Rufinus lay in the darkness, unable to think of anything but Dis and his damn dogs, unable to do anything but watch the doorway intently while lying motionless in the bed, hand on the hilt of his sword.

  He heard a distant clang, very quiet and largely muffled by the waning rain and recognised in it the signal from the slave quarters to rouse the household’s multitude of workers to the coming day. It must be very late then, two hours from dawn at most. He’d slept in his wet clothes longer than he’d imagined.

  He was just beginning to wonder whether it was worth even trying to sleep any more, or whether he should simply get up, change his clothes and head out for an early bath and bite of food when he heard the quiet clatter of boots on the flags of the courtyard. The rain had temporarily receded to a light drizzle, allowing sounds to carry better, and Rufinus frowned. Someone was trying not to disturb the sleeping guards, walking in their military, hob-nailed boots, but with as light a step as they could.

  Frowning, Rufinus, sleep entirely forgotten, slipped silently from his bed, fist still wrapped around the hilt of his sword, and quickly undid his boot straps with his free hand, padding across the room to the doorway. Inching out, he realised the footsteps had ceased, and he moved to the balcony edge and peered down into the torchlit courtyard, trying not to exert too much pressure on the creaking wooden beams.

  A figure stood in the opposite corner beneath the shelter of the upper walkway, reading something by the light of one of the torches. Rufinus squinted at the floor below and realised it was Fastus. The man spent a moment reading and re-reading a scrap of what looked even at this distance like parchment and then held the note in the flickering flame of the torch until it caught, waiting for the bloom of flame to blossom, and then dropped the burning item to the flags in the dry area beneath the high roof.

  Rufinus ducked back from the balcony edge as the new recruit turned and looked up at the doorway before marching across the courtyard, and mounting the wooden stairs toward his room.

  Holding his breath and treading as lightly as possible, Rufinus backed across the landing and into the room, crossing it and sliding beneath his blankets, shovelling the belt and scabbard further out of sight beneath the bunk and hiding the weapon in the bed once more. Quickly, he returned to his sleeping guise and tried to breathe deeply and evenly.

  Moments later, Fa
stus entered the room, pausing for a moment and regarding the two occupied bunks carefully before padding over to his own, undressing and sinking into it. Rufinus allowed the narrow slit of his left eye to open a little further and watched his roommate with interest. Fastus was dry as a bone, yet his boots were muddy, clear indication that he had not been completing his assigned tour of the grounds in the rain, but had been somewhere outdoors yet sheltered. Rufinus’ mind raced. What was the man up to?

  Silently, playing the sleeping man, Rufinus watched as the other new guard slid beneath his blanket, cast one last look across the room and rolled over to sleep. Rufinus lay there frustrated and impotent, listening as the rain increased once more.

  Only when the blast from a horn announced the pre-dawn watch, an hour before sunrise, was Rufinus able to openly stir with the manufactured yawns and scratches of a man who hadn’t spent the last hour with clenched teeth, his mind racing through possibilities. Clambering out of bed, he quickly grasped his boots and belt from beneath and slid the blade into its scabbard, striding innocently from the room and pausing on the landing to stretch and fasten boots and belt.

  As the first few guardsmen left their rooms to go about their daily duties, Rufinus descended the stairs to the courtyard and continued to stretch and scratch until the rest had exited and he was alone. With a quick check to make sure he was not being watched, he crossed to the corner where Fastus had stood and crouched to adjust his boot straps, peering at the floor.

  The ash on the floor confirmed what he’d guessed. The note had been written on parchment, a commodity far too pricey to be found in the hands of a man so poor he had no worldly goods but the clothes on his back and had been forced to take service as a mercenary.

  His heart lurched as he noticed the fragment. One single piece of the parchment remained uncharred, It had fallen into a damp footprint and the muddy liquid had preserved the corner. Pulse pounding, Rufinus picked up the scrap and, fearful of being noticed, stepped out into the doorway, taking advantage of both the building’s shelter and the outside light.

  The contents of the note were almost impossible to make out due to the charring of the edge and the wet mud of the rest.

  He squinted and frowned, turning the fragment round and round and over and over, holding it up to the light and down for the best illumination.

  ‘ANDE’

  What could it mean? That was neither the beginning nor the end of the word, the rest being truly illegible. Rufinus ground his teeth and slid the item into his purse for later examination. It had continued to be an eventful day long after sundown, and now new strands of mystery were being woven into his time here.

  One thing was certain: Fastus was not what he appeared.

  XV – Accusations

  AUTUMN had given way abruptly to winter.

  Nine days previously the rains that had continued to batter the plains and hills of Latium had finally petered out with a last few abortive storms and a distant rumble like an unfinished argument. In their place had come bitterly cold winds blowing along the length of the Appenninus Mountains from the north and crisp clear skies that threatened worse inclement weather to come. The past two mornings had seen the water in the ornamental bird baths freeze and glittering icicles hanging in serrated rows from roofs.

  Rufinus twitched with impatience. His remit at the villa had been simple: seek out information that could prevent an attempt on the emperor’s life. Every new sunrise hammered home the possibility that today could be the day of the plot’s culmination and that he might have been too late in uncovering anything.

  Armed with his suspicions over Fastus, he had watched the man for the last days of autumn, noting things he considered odd or out of character. Finally, after a week, he had gathered his mental notes and visited Pompeianus to seek the counsel of the former general. Rufinus had expected the man to leap upon the revelations that the second new guard was something other than that which he seemed, and to direct him to a course of action with purpose and alacrity.

  Instead, the Syrian nobleman had simply shaken his head. ‘You’ve hints and suspicions, my boy. They’re odd and somewhat indicative of clandestine behaviour, certainly, but hardly enough to condemn a man. Unless you can come up with some solid proof, you will need a lot more circumstantial evidence to convince anyone of wrongdoing. Or you’ll have to manipulate them into believing you…’ he’d added thoughtfully.

  Rufinus, deflated, had been counselled to patience; to the gathering of more evidence to support his suspicions. Despite the fact that every passing day presented the possibility of being too late, Pompeianus was convinced that there was no immediate danger. The onset of winter would see the emperor out and about in the open considerably less and the chances of any attempt being made within the palace were negligible, in Pompeianus’ opinion.

  The news soon after that the tribes of Northern Britannia were causing havoc and besieging the forts and walls of that far-flung province only added to the general’s surety that time was far from an issue. Given the emperor’s need to pay attention to military matters, he was rarely seen now without a small crowd of officers around him. Besides, no would-be usurper would move to inherit a newly rebellious province when half a year’s patience could see a settled empire again.

  In Rufinus’ secret opinion, the addition of armed officers to the emperor’s regular group of hangers-on hardly decreased potential dangers, but there was little he could do about it. Certainly he could hardly send any information back to the Castra Praetoria with Constans the merchant until he had something a little more concrete than scattered suspicions which barely touched the theory of a plot. He could only imagine how much Paternus would be cursing the lack of contact, but it was hardly worth the risk with nothing to say.

  And so the weeks had come and gone with rain and then freezing winds as Rufinus watched, with gritted teeth, a second and then third month of service pass at the villa.

  And then, earlier in this bitterly cold week, the hollow-eyed Dis and his ever present dogs had set out from the villa on some task unknown to Rufinus, but which would apparently keep the man and his damn beasts away from the place for a week or more. With his right-hand man gone, captain Phaestor’s time and energy was stretched thin and he was too busy to keep his usual intimate eye on the villa’s running.

  Rufinus found himself with almost unprecedented levels of freedom. For almost a week he had been sure his ‘evidence’ against Fastus was as damning as it was ever likely to be, though whether that would be enough to convince anyone else remained to be seen.

  His deepening suspicion that the ‘ANDE’ on the burned parchment he now kept in his purse referred to the freedman and imperial advisor Cleander had left him in something of a quandary. If that was truly the case, it would make Fastus another agent put here by the authority of a man in the circles of imperial power, possibly on the same mission as Rufinus.

  His feeling, however, that Cleander was considerably less trustworthy than an angry snake made him less inclined to preserve Fastus’ secrets and made him feel better about possibly landing the man in trouble. Still, to make Fastus a traitor might well be signing the man’s death warrant and whoever his master, the man seemed to be innocent enough in himself. He had put the problem to Pompeianus who, as expected, had shrugged and told him to use every piece he was given in the great game. Somehow that had not helped with the ethical side of the problem.

  The fact remained that even with freedom to roam without the watchful dogs of Dis, the evidence he had gathered on Fastus was still circumstantial enough to be of little use. The more he’d thought about the matter, the more he became agitated at his inertness. Every day he did nothing but watch was a day closer to this large meeting of dignitaries - a day closer to Commodus’ death, and he might never have more to go on than Fastus’ dubious note. In the end, he made the choice, standing sheltering from the cold by the arches of the southern theatre. He would have to try and push himself up that rung, else all might
be for naught. He needed someone gullible and suspicious enough to latch onto his words and swallow them whole. Memories of the major domo - Vettius’ - reaction when he’d come across that meeting in the baths suggested that he was the man for the task.

  The next morning, Rufinus stepped purposefully out of the barracks and took a deep lungful of freezing morning air. Following directions he’d worked out from his own observations and discussions on the villa’s layout with Pompeianus, and aware that he was due on duty shortly and would be missed, he strode through the arch, across a small paved area; cut across a lawn and past a colourful flowerbed.

  In a particularly ironic moment, he was busy congratulating himself on two entire months without an accident when his foot encountered a particularly vicious sheet of ice on a slanted flagstone, sending him reeling toward the wall before him. Throwing his arms out to arrest his momentum, he slipped, his head connecting painfully with the stone with a ‘thunk’.

  Pulling himself upright and shaking his head to clear it, he reached up and touched a tender point on his forehead. At least his hand came away clean with no blood. Looking to the left, he spotted his goal and made for it.

  An almost invisibly nondescript door in the plain wall opened easily under his hand just as the general said it would, revealing a triangular garden surrounded by a delicate covered portico. Doors led off from here in several directions, two of them guarded by men he recognised by sight; the entrance to the palace itself on the right and the palace baths on the left were both under close guard. The doorway ahead, though, stood open and inviting and Rufinus crossed to it, trying to ignore the inquisitive gaze of the guards.