Hannibal: Clouds of War (33 page)

‘There it is!’ cried Urceus. ‘Fancy a quick cup?’

‘We’re on duty.’

‘So what? I can’t see an officer, can you?’

Quintus walked past the sign.

Urceus grumbled a little, but he did the same.

Quintus had gone perhaps a dozen steps when a short cry – of pain – reached his ears. It was followed by a burst of laughter. He glanced at Urceus.

‘That came from the direction of the Harvest Moon,’ said Urceus.

The sound was repeated, and again the laughter rang out.

‘It might be some of our lads in trouble,’ Urceus began.

‘Come on,’ said Quintus. ‘If it’s just locals, we can always leave them to it.’

Even though it was the middle of the day, little light penetrated into the narrow alleyway, which lay between a pair of three-storey buildings. Broken pottery, animal bones and other refuse crunched beneath their sandals. ‘Gods, I don’t remember it being this filthy,’ said Quintus. He sniffed. ‘Or smelly.’

Urceus winked. ‘It’s amazing how a man’s thirst before he has a drink and the glow of happiness around him afterwards make him unaware of everything else around him.’

‘Please! Leave her alone!’

The anguished plea sent them pounding towards the entrance of the Harvest Moon. A group of locals, tradesmen from the look of their calloused hands and stained tunics, stood outside. They didn’t seem happy. ‘More fucking Romans,’ Quintus thought he heard one say.

‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded in Greek.

The locals were surprised to be addressed in their own language. ‘Some of your lot are getting fresh with the barmaid. We protested, so they told us to leave or they’d gut us,’ replied the man who’d muttered the insult. ‘No doubt you’ve come to join in.’

‘Watch your damn mouth!’ Quintus snapped. ‘How many of them are there?’

‘Five,’ came the answer.

Quickly, Quintus translated for Urceus. ‘Can they be our men, do you think?’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Urceus, as a scream reached them.

They barged in through the doorway, shields at the ready, Quintus in the lead. It was much as he’d remembered it. The room was rectangular, and poorly lit by small oil lamps set in alcoves. A mixture of sand and reeds covered the dirt floor. Simple tables and benches served as its furniture. A bar made of planks stood at the back; on the wall behind, the prices of various wines had been scrawled. There was no sign of the proprietor; Quintus decided he was probably hiding in the back.

Five legionaries were gathered around a table off to one side; their backs were to Quintus and Urceus. Laughs and lewd jokes passed to and fro between them; under the banter, a woman’s moaning could be heard. Quintus peered. Between the soldiers, he could make out the barmaid spreadeagled on the table. Her dress had been shredded from her body, and her arms and legs were tied with lengths of rope. One of the legionaries put a hand to her crotch and set her to fresh wailing. ‘Shut up, bitch!’ snapped another of her tormentors, cuffing her across the head.

‘They’re not from our maniple,’ Quintus whispered to Urceus. ‘Are they Pinarius’ or Pera’s men?’

‘They’ve got to be Pera’s. Pinarius’ soldiers wouldn’t ignore his orders so blatantly, would they?’

‘I don’t fucking know. Do we leave, or get involved?’ Quintus wanted to help the girl, but he didn’t want Pinarius on his back, nor to give Pera another reason to hate him.

The decision was taken from him by Urceus. ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted in a good imitation of Corax.

A stunned silence fell. The legionaries turned. Their shock didn’t last more than two heartbeats, however. ‘What does it look like, idiot?’ demanded one, a fat-lipped man with a deep tan. ‘We’re each going to take a turn with this whore.’

‘She’s no whore,’ snarled Urceus. ‘As you’d know if you had even asked her.’

Fat Lips glanced at his comrades. ‘Do you hear this prick? We should have
asked
this slut if she’d let us fuck her!’

They all laughed, but their eyes weren’t a bit friendly.

‘This is against orders. Your commanding officer will hear of this,’ said Quintus in a loud voice. He had already noticed that the legionaries’ shields and javelins were stacked together by the door – behind him and Urceus. That was a small blessing.

‘Centurion Pera told us to do as we wished, as long as no one complains,’ drawled another of the legionaries, a slight man with a cast in one eye. ‘We was planning to cut her throat afterwards. She won’t say a word then, will she?’

His companions chortled. The barmaid must have spoken some Latin, because she began to cry.

‘You can either join us, or piss off and leave us to it,’ said Fat Lips. ‘The choice is yours.’

‘I see,’ said Quintus nonchalantly, although his heart was thumping so hard he wondered if the legionaries could hear it. ‘What shall we do, brother?’ he asked Urceus.

‘I’m not leaving her to be raped and murdered,’ muttered Urceus. ‘Are you?’

Trouble beckoned whatever they did, thought Quintus. But he couldn’t stand by and let an unfortunate woman be killed like this – especially as these were Pera’s men. ‘No.’

‘Javelins first?’

‘Aye. I’ll aim at Fat Lips. You take Squint Eye. We can deal with the others once they’re down.’

The ceiling was just high enough for the pair to raise their pila overarm as they would in battle. ‘Back away from the girl,’ ordered Quintus.

‘You want her all for yourselves? Greedy bastards!’ said Fat Lips, but his fingers were straying to his sword hilt.

‘I reckon we can take these whoresons,’ said Squint Eye, leering. Fat Lips sniggered; their companions began to sidle away from the table.

The tension in the room rose several notches, and Quintus readied himself to fight. ‘Take another step and my pilum will end up in your chest,’ he shouted at Fat Lips. ‘My comrade will take your cross-eyed friend, and we can sort out the rest with swords. It shouldn’t be too hard, given that none of you fools have shields.’

No one moved for a heartbeat. Two. Three. In the background, the barmaid sobbed. From outside came the murmur of angry voices – the customers who’d been evicted by the legionaries.

Fat Lips glowered, but moved his hand away from his gladius. His companions looked similarly pissed off, but none reached for their weapons, which relieved Quintus. It was one thing to threaten one’s own men and entirely another to injure or kill them.

‘You’re being sensible. Good. I want you to walk past us, one by one, nice and slow. Anyone who does something stupid will get a javelin point in the eye. When you’re in the alley, you can piss off.’

Fat Lips’ gaze flickered to Squint Eye. ‘What about our shields and pila?’

‘Do you think we’re stupid, you arse-humping
mollis
?’ retorted Urceus. ‘Come back and get them later.’

With filthy looks, the five legionaries shuffled past the friends. Quintus didn’t relax when they’d left the inn. Leaving Urceus to tend to the barmaid, he moved to the door and watched them walk up the alley, talking angrily between themselves and throwing frequent glances over their shoulders. The group of locals watched with evident surprise. Quintus hoped that they spread the news of what he and Urceus had done, that some good came of this.

‘Are they gone?’ called Urceus.

‘I think so. We’d best go too, in case they come back with some of their friends.’

Together they moved the legionaries’ shields and javelins. As he left with the last ones, Quintus saw the proprietor, a sallow-faced, middle-aged man, emerge from the shadows behind the bar. ‘Lock your door until tomorrow morning at the earliest,’ he said. ‘If those soldiers come back, I couldn’t vouch for your safety.’

The innkeeper nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. She’s my daughter.’

‘It’d be best if she didn’t show her face in here for a while. Male servers are less likely to be molested.’

‘I understand.’

Quintus turned to go.

‘Sir?’

He turned.

‘I can never repay you for what you just did, but should you and your comrade ever visit this inn again, the wine will flow all night.’

Urceus smacked his lips, and Quintus grinned. ‘One day, we hope to take you up on that.’ He beckoned to Urceus, and they ducked out of the door.

‘Gods, but her tits are fantastic,’ said Urceus the instant that they were outside. ‘And as for her—’

‘Hades below, do you think of nothing else?’ asked Quintus, laughing. ‘We could have ended up dead.’

‘What better thing to think of then than a body like hers? A man could die happy having seen that.’

‘Come on, Priapus! We’d best get back, or Corax will start wondering where we are.’ They kept their shields raised as they emerged on to the larger street, but there was no sign of the legionaries. ‘Do you think they’ll go to Pera?’

‘I doubt it. Rats like that go to ground when they’re exposed.’

‘All the same, it’d be wise to tell Corax,’ said Quintus, thinking of the dressing down he’d received after the horse race. ‘We want him on our side in case those pieces of shit
do
bend Pera’s ear.’

Urceus grimaced. ‘Aye, I suppose.’

For all that they had done as Pinarius had ordered, Quintus felt the same reluctance to confess their actions to Corax. Their centurion valued them as good soldiers, but that didn’t mean that he would refrain from punishing them if he deemed it appropriate. It was a shame that they hadn’t had a quick drink before leaving the inn, he thought. An extra bit of courage would have done no harm.

In the event, Corax did not really punish them. He called them fools: busybodies who couldn’t ignore business that wasn’t theirs. He also banned the entire maniple from visiting drinking establishments of any kind for the foreseeable future, but he left it at that.

To the friends’ relief, Pera did not make an appearance in the two days that followed. Tensions in Enna remained high. Rotten fruit and vegetables were hurled at patrols by assailants hidden on the rooftops. The sewers serving the houses requisitioned for the garrison mysteriously blocked. Much of the grain that had been set aside for the legionaries had to be replaced after unidentified individuals broke into the warehouse where it was stored and spoiled it with a mixture of cheap wine and rancid olive oil. Each morning, building after building had fresh graffiti cursing the Romans, or depicting them being defeated by the Carthaginians. Deputations of the town’s rulers went daily to Pinarius’ quarters to make complaints about his men’s heavy-handed behaviour and his continued refusal to hand over the keys to the city gates, which they had requested.

Corax told his men that Pinarius had had enough of trying to please Enna’s rulers. ‘We’re not to do anything stupid, like smashing up taverns or killing without reason, but neither are we to take any shit from the inhabitants. Anyone who is caught engaging in criminal acts against the garrison is to be dragged before Pinarius. Suitable punishments will include flogging, amputations and, if necessary, crucifixion.’

Despite this tough stance, the legionaries’ morale was affected by the hostile atmosphere. It was hard to live in a place where the normal rules of war did not fully apply, and where everyone wanted them gone. Gossip ran riot between the maniples that Himilco and his army were about to arrive at the gates, that the priests of the Palikoi, twin local gods, had been preaching against them, that the strong winds and heavy rain one night was a sign from Jupiter that they were to be punished.

By the time that he and Urceus came off duty the day after the storm, Quintus was feeling thirsty. The stock of wine he’d had was gone – donated to his comrades to placate them for Corax’s ban on visiting taverns. He paced up and down the small room that had been allocated to his contubernium, part of an apartment in a
cenacula
-like building close to Pinarius’ headquarters and the agora.

‘Sit down, will you?’ growled Marius. ‘The noise of your damn hobs is giving me a headache.’

Quintus ignored him, and kept walking back and forth. The evening meal was over; they’d washed it down with water from the public fountain. The locals used that themselves, so no one had fouled it, but it wasn’t wine. The day had been long and hot, and the inhabitants even more surly than usual. Gods, but what he’d give for a drink!

‘What’s got into you?’ asked Urceus from his bed. Carpenters had been given the task of building bunks and now every contubernium had a set in their room. After months of living in tents, it felt properly luxurious.

‘My tongue is hanging out for some wine.’

‘Not for some pussy?’ asked Mattheus. ‘That’s what I’d like!’

‘I’d like both!’ said Marius, and everyone laughed.

‘Have some of mine.’ Mattheus tapped the small amphora that protruded from beneath his bunk. ‘There’s still a drop left.’

‘Thanks, but I can’t,’ said Quintus. ‘That stuff’s like liquid gold, what with the ban.’

‘Stop whingeing, then,’ advised Marius with a shrug. In some ways, he had taken Wolf’s place as the one who wasn’t afraid to say what he thought. He was friendlier than Wolf had been, but more dangerous, Quintus had decided. His skill with sword and shield was impressive; Quintus was glad that they were on the same side.

‘I’m not whingeing.’ Quintus aimed a half-kick at Marius, who had to roll to the far side of his bunk to avoid being hit. ‘I’m planning something.’

Marius rolled right back to the near edge, his eyes agleam. ‘What kind of something?’

Quintus glanced around and saw that he had the attention of every man in the room. ‘It involves wine, as you might have guessed. And an inn – one where we will be welcomed.’

‘The only place you’ll find a place like that is back in Italy,’ declared Mattheus scornfully.

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Quintus, deciding that he
was
going to defy Corax’s order. He could almost hear the wine at the Harvest Moon calling him.

‘Bullshit!’ said Mattheus. ‘Who in this armpit of a town is going to give us free wine?’

Disbelief radiated from everyone else apart from Urceus, who was grinning. ‘The other day …’ and Quintus launched into a quick explanation of what had happened. There was a uniform rumble of approval when he was done.