The Emperor's Knives (20 page)

‘About the lads’ bonus?’

‘And yours for that matter?’

The standard bearer grinned shamelessly.

‘Well, now that you mention it …’

Cotta shook his head in feigned disbelief.

‘Every time I think I’ve met the most barefaced crook that could ever exist in the army, someone goes and proves me wrong. You can take the bonus out of the money you’re still holding back from the other fifteen heads that your lads cropped today.’

Morban gaped as the secure ground he thought he’d managed to put beneath his feet abruptly dropped away.

‘How …?’

Cotta stood.

‘How did I know how many haircuts your boys have got through today? That’s for me to know and for you to wonder, I’d say. You’ll work it out in your own time. When I see your lads I’ll tell them that you’ve got their share for the day, shall I?’

‘But that won’t cover it!’

Cotta grinned, bending to pinch the older man’s cheek.

‘No, it won’t, will it? Perhaps this old dog might just have learned a new trick tonight – not to lie to a man that’s forgotten more ways to make money vanish than you’ll ever know. Goodnight Morban!’

Excingus dropped wearily into the chair facing Gaius, waving a hand at the landlord who promptly sent one of his daughters over with a flask of wine. Having deposited flask and cups onto the table, she fixed the informer with a sultry pout, squeezing her breasts together to make them protrude alluringly. Excingus waved the hand again to dismiss her, shaking his head firmly as her pout went from allure to disgust.

‘On your way child. You’re too young for me, I’m too tired to do you justice, and my young friend here doesn’t have a fully functioning phallus yet. Come back in two or three years’ time.’

The child frowned at him.

‘How do you know my dick doesn’t work!? For all you know, I could be—’

‘Looking at your hairless sausage in puzzlement, I’d imagine. What did you find out for me?’

Gaius shrugged.

‘About the barber’s new cellar? Nothing.’

Excingus poured himself a cup of wine with an expression of profound disappointment at the child’s answer.

‘I give you one simple thing to find out, and all you can say is “nothing”?’

The boy regarded him steadily.

‘Exactly. Nothing. There’s nothing down there.’

‘What?’ The informer shook his head in fresh irritation. ‘So you did get a look at it! How did you manage that?’

Gaius shrugged.

‘You ain’t the only one with money that wants to know things. We was employed to watch the place and tell that centurion that’s playing at being the boss how many men went in and out.’

Excingus raised his eyes in disbelief.

‘You’re telling me that you were paid to count haircuts? Sometimes I wonder if the whole city has gone mad.’ He shrugged. ‘So, while you were counting heads, exactly how did you manage to get down the stairs?’

Gaius grinned.

‘Simple. I got a haircut.’

The informant smirked.

‘Yes, now you mention it, you do look a little more military than you did this morning.’

The boy ignored his comment.

‘And when I was done I took a quick peek down the stairs. They never even knew I’d done it. After all, nobody gives any mind to a little boy being a bit nosey, do they?’

‘And?’

‘I
told
you. Nothing!’

‘It is with the greatest of difficulty that I am restraining myself from taking a handful of what little hair you have left and banging your irritating fucking head on this table.’ Excingus was grating his words out in a mixture of fatigue and irritation. ‘What. Did. You.
See?
’

‘An empty cellar. Just rough rock walls and nothing else.’

Excingus sat back with a frown.

‘Why? Why go to all the trouble of building a cellar and then leaving it empty? I was sure there’d be weapons down there, but if it’s just a bare storeroom perhaps that’s all there is to it.’ He mused in silence for a moment. ‘Perhaps I’m reading too much into it after all. They
are
soldiers, and the army always likes to overdo anything it takes on …’

He shrugged.

‘No matter. And it’s time I was elsewhere.’ Taking his cup from the table, he downed its remaining contents and stood. ‘It’s time to go and meet your father, and encourage him to deliver young Aquila’s next victim. With a little luck Brutus’s thugs will catch the arrogant young bastard and carve his lungs out.’

Cotta led six of his men through the Viminal district’s darkened streets behind Excingus, with Marcus close at his heels, while the informant’s man Silus walked cautiously twenty paces ahead of the party to check each road junction for any presence of the city’s Watch before signalling that the path was clear. The veteran centurion had bluntly refused to consider Marcus’s attempts to leave him behind when they had set off from the barracks.

‘And besides, you’ll need some men at your back if you’re going to put this Brutus to the knife, or you’ll never get past his men. And you can’t take soldiers. Trailing Excingus around is one thing, but going up against a gang like the Silver Dagger will need men who know these streets, and how to fight in them, and that means my lads. And what about this
Silus
, eh? How likely is
he
to be trustworthy?’

The veteran soldier had predictably taken an instant dislike to their guide upon meeting him an hour or so before, when Excingus had beckoned him from the shadows of the Baths of Trajan to join their small, furtive party. To the veteran centurion’s experienced eye, the informer’s man had the look of a killer, the same dead look to his eyes that he saw in some of his own men.

‘But whereas I know my men well enough to trust them, this Silus is a stranger to me. He can be trusted not to lead us into a fucking great trap, I assume?’

He’d asked the question of Excingus bluntly, albeit having led the informant far enough from the group of soldiers for a degree of privacy.

‘No.’ The answer had been equally frank, in Excingus’s usual matter-of-fact tone. ‘I expect he would sell us out, given half a chance, but I have him by the balls, or at least I hope so. He knows that my sponsor in this matter is fully aware of his part in it, and where his family resides. I’d like to think that he’s tied to me by the fear of whatever retribution might be visited on him, and his enormous herd of children and blood relatives, but ultimately there’s no denying that we’re taking a risk in employing his services.’ His teeth had flashed in the moonlight, the familiar smile that made Cotta want to punch him with every ounce of his strength. ‘And if you have a better idea as to how we can make this happen, I am veritably all ears.’

The veteran centurion had simply shaken his head in the face of the smug smile and gestured for Excingus to carry on. Gathering the party around him, the informant’s briefing had been short and to the point.

‘Brutus and his men have moved into an insula not far from here. It has five floors. I can take you to it.’

Cotta had waited a moment, looking expectantly at Silus, then leaned forward to whisper a question with a disbelieving tone in his voice.

‘That’s it? That’s all we know? We’ve no idea how many of them there are? Or what defences they might have installed to fend off an attack by their rivals?’

The street thug had nodded dourly.

‘That’s all I know. I can tell you from experience that Brutus will have at least a dozen of his best men with him, although they won’t all be standing guard at the same time. And he usually puts a man on the roof to watch the surrounding streets, and another one or two at ground level to guard the entrance. After that?’ He shrugged disinterestedly. ‘After that it’s anyone’s guess. Perhaps half of them will be asleep … perhaps.’

Cotta had shaken his head in disgust.

‘And not your problem, eh? This is going to be bloody interesting …’

Now they were within a hundred paces or so of the building, and Silus’s progress had slowed to a cautious creep through the shadows of the insulae that towered over them on either side. The streets were quiet, and Cotta’s party were moving with the stealth of men who understood that their lives might well depend on remaining undiscovered until the very last moment. Without warning, Silus sank into the deeper shadows, raising a palm to warn them of approaching danger, and Cotta’s men followed his example and went to ground in the gloom.

A pair of men walked past at the street’s end, each of them carrying a heavy club.

‘City Watch?’

Excingus shrugged.

‘Impossible to say without asking them. And even if they are the Watch, they’ll be in Brutus’s pocket, most likely, so the end result would probably be much the same whether they were or not. If they catch sight of us creeping about in the darkness they’ll call for help, and that’ll be it.’

They waited until Silus got cautiously back to his feet, following in his footsteps as he peered around the corner in both directions and then slipped around it to the left. Twenty paces down the street he stopped, gesturing for Cotta to come forward.

‘The building you’re looking for is fifty paces down on your left. If we go any closer we’ll probably be spotted by the man on the roof … there, see?’ A smug tone crept into his voice. ‘Told you so …’

Squinting up at the line of buildings, Marcus saw a figure outlined against the stars, the watcher staring down into the street for a moment before stepping back from the building’s parapet. A framework of wooden poles had been erected around the building, the sort of scaffolding used by builders.

‘Once a man’s under that scaffolding he’ll be invisible from above.’

Cotta nodded at Excingus’s statement.

‘Exactly what I was thinking. I’ll just—’

Marcus interrupted.

‘No. This is my fight. I’ll make the approach and get the front door open, then
you
can bring your men up.’

He stepped around the crouching men and slid down the wall of the insula in whose shadow they had taken cover. Advancing gingerly towards the safe house, he heard a scrape of cloth on brick behind him, turning to find Cotta at his back. He pointed to where the rest of the veteran’s men waited.

‘Go back! I told you, this is
my
fight!’

The veteran centurion grinned fiercely at his savage whisper, shaking his head.

‘No one’s going to thank me if I come back without you. And you’re not the only one with a score to settle here.’

Marcus stared at him for a moment and then nodded, turning back to their target, then froze as he realised that the rooftop watcher had reappeared high above them, silhouetted once more against the blaze of stars. Cotta muttered quietly in his ear.

‘We’re close enough. When he moves again we go for the door.’

The younger man nodded, and when the lookout stepped back from the parapet once more they hurried forward, flattening themselves against the safe house’s wall under the cover of the scaffolding. The window shutters were closed, and so, to Marcus’s dismay, was the door itself. A hiss from the shadows made Marcus turn to look at where the rest of the party waited, to see Silus pointing back down the road. Cotta scowled at the realisation of what he was trying to tell them.

‘They must be coming back!’

He waved at his men, pointing to the right in an order for them to make their escape while they still could. They hesitated, clearly unwilling to leave their chief, but he repeated the gesture again with an angry emphasis. As the two men watched, their guide led Excingus and the rest of the party away down the side street and into the deeper shadows, leaving Marcus and Cotta alone.

‘What do we do now?’

The veteran grinned at his former pupil.

‘Well we can’t stay here, can we? We need to get into that insula, and quickly! The only thing I can think of …’ He reached under his tunic. ‘Is this!’

He directed the steaming stream of fluid at the bottom of the door, squatting to get a better angle and directing the urine into the narrow gap between door and lintel. For a moment the only sound in the still of the night was the splashing of his urine against the hard surfaces, and then Marcus’s keen ears heard a sudden outburst from inside the building.

‘What the fuck! Some dirty bastard’s having a piss on the fucking door!’

The veteran centurion cupped his hand, filling his palm with what was left of his urination and whispered harshly to Marcus.

‘
Ready!
’

With a sudden clatter, the first of the door’s bolts were pulled back, and Marcus drew his patterned dagger, raising the blade and drawing back his hand. As the door swung open to reveal an angry-faced bruiser, Cotta hurled the handful of urine into his face. Before the doorman had the chance to override his instinctive disgust at the warm liquid’s pungent aroma and the sudden sting in his eyes, Marcus pounced forward with the blade, stabbing the sharp iron into the doorman’s neck. Cotta hurried forward, pushing the dying man back into the building and beckoning Marcus in behind him.

‘
Shut the door!
’

He lowered the shaking sentry to the hallway’s floor and squatted next to him, shaking his head as the guard’s lips twitched in an effort to speak.

‘I know. One minute you’re bored to tears, the next some bastard’s chucked piss in your face and opened your throat. Seems a little unfair, doesn’t it?’ He watched while Marcus shot the heavy door’s bolts as quietly as he could, whispering to the younger man with a look of disbelief on his shadowed face. ‘Well then, we’re in. Although given there’s only two of us, I think I’ve finally worked out what my old man meant when he told me to be careful what I wished for, just in case I actually got it. We can either wait for the Watch to bugger off and then try to find the lads, although the Lightbringer only knows where Excingus and Silus will have led them in their haste to get away, or we can go and see how many more of them we’ll have to kill to get to their boss. You choose …’

Marcus raised his knife, the blade still dark with the dead sentry’s blood.

‘You know my choice.’

His friend nodded and stood up, pulling out his own dagger and tip toeing down the hall to the first doorway with the younger man at his back. Taking a quick peep around the door frame he shook his head.