The Emperor's Knives (6 page)

The guard centurion strolled up with the senator following slowly behind him, and the gladiator looked about him at the three of them.

‘I’ve been denied my fee from the other night because you three couldn’t keep your sticky fingers to yourselves. Dorso!’

He pointed at the praetorian, who returned his stare levelly.

‘You’re probably the least of it, but even you had your share. You and those two guardsmen who follow you round, you carried away enough of Perennis’s antiques to more than cover your fee, if you were to sell them on.’

The soldier nodded.

‘That’s true enough.’

The accusing finger turned to point at the senator, who pouted back at him with an expression of haughty disinterest.

‘And you, Pilinius. I counted thirty or more slaves being led away by your men, not to mention the prefect’s wife and children. I don’t care what perverted games you get up to with them, but that many bodies represent a lot of gold. More than your share, in fact.’

The patrician shrugged.

‘I think you’ll find that possession is the guiding principle here, my friend.’

The gladiator grinned savagely, reaching out and taking a handful of the other man’s toga to pull him close.

‘And I think you’ll find that the guiding principle is in fact a foot of sharp iron, if you’re not careful, Senator. Think on it.’

He pushed the suddenly white-faced Pilinius away from him with a grimace of disgust, spinning back to push his finger into Brutus’s face.

‘But you,
fool
, are the stupidest bastard of the three of you. Only you could have taken the simple task we’ve been given and turned it into an act of wholesale robbery!’

‘What—’

The gladiator poked him again, harder, looking round the three of them with a snarl of anger.

‘Do you think I’m truly stupid, just because I choose to live in a ludus cell, rather than buying out my contract and splashing my money on a big house and a dozen slaves? I’m the smartest of all of us, you pricks, because I keep my head down and don’t attract attention to myself, something you might do well to consider. You …’ He poked the guardsman. ‘With your antiques collection hidden in that private museum no one’s supposed to know about. You …’ He turned to the senator. ‘Slaughtering the families of the nobility for the fun of your gang of upper-class perverts! And you!’ He snapped down on the gang leader, his expression so fierce that the other man was unable to avoid recoiling. ‘
You
, you stupid bastard, slinking back once we’d all left and bribing the guards who’d been set to keep the Perennis house intact to look the other way. Since when were you interested in
art
?’

He looked around him in disgust.

‘Which is why, gentlemen, you’re all going to dig in your purses and come up with my share, or you’ll all live to regret it. Work it out any way you like between you, but make sure that gold’s in my hands before sunset tomorrow or there’ll be excitement. And trust me, you’d much rather life remained dull.’

He turned and stalked away, leaving the other three staring at each other with a combination of calculation and bemusement.

The informer smiled and bowed, opening his hands in welcome.

‘Tiberius Varius Excingus, to remind you of my full name, former centurion in that exalted corps of spies, blackmailers and murderers that masquerade under the title of “Grain Officers” – and now, given my rather abrupt and vigorously enforced resignation from my former employment as a result of failing to bring you to justice, Centurion, present-day informer. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?’

Scaurus stared at him for a moment before turning to their host with a look of polite disbelief.

‘I’m not sure you understand quite how dangerous this man is, Senator. The last time we crossed paths with him, he was in the company of a praetorian centurion, a remorseless murderer, and they were tracking down my centurion here on orders from Prefect Perennis. They abducted his wife with the intention of using her both as bait to ensure his compliance and distraction to make his murder easier. This man Excingus threatened my family here in Rome, and if he had not made his escape in the confusion of the resulting fight, one of us would undoubtedly have put a sword in his guts and left him to choke out his last breath in a puddle of his own blood.’

The former frumentari shrugged, nodding equably as Sigilis replied.

‘That’s more or less as he’s already related to me, as it happens.’ The senator fixed Scaurus with a penetrating stare. ‘I won’t make any excuses for his previous behaviour, Tribune, but neither will I apologise for using him to my own ends. Varius Excingus is without any shred of doubt quite the most amoral man I’ve ever met, but that complete lack of any decency provides me with information that has already saved lives.’

Marcus shook his head in incredulous disbelief.

‘And you
trust
him?’

The senator laughed, and pointed a finger at Excingus.

‘Trust?
Him?
Do you take me for a madman?’

The informer shrugged again and pursed his lips, nodding sagely.

‘I’ll answer that one, if you’ll allow me the liberty, Senator?’

Sigilis gestured for him to continue, and Excingus smiled at Marcus as broadly as if their previous encounter had ended in vows to meet again someday, rather than with a bloodbath of the men sent to find the younger man and kill him, with the grain officer only managing to escape with his life by the narrowest of margins.

‘No, Centurion, the senator would indeed be most unwise to repose any trust in a man with my singular lack of principles. But I’ll remind you of a discussion we had the last time we met, when you asked me how it was that I could live with the things I do. You may not recall my answer, since I’d imagine that you had bigger matters on your mind, but I know what my response was because it’s the same one I give every time I’m asked the question. My only guiding principle, Valerius Aquila, is to make the best of this life in any way that I can. And if that eventually means that my informal provision of information to Senator Sigilis comes to an end, then so be it. For now, however, the senator’s generous rates of payment are more than sufficient to ensure my complete discretion.’

Scaurus shook his head.

‘I wouldn’t trust you any further than I could see you, and even then I’d be keeping my sword to hand. But if the senator has chosen to employ your services I’ll go this far and no further: while you’re under his protection I will not seek to harm you in any way …’ He turned and played a hard stare across the men behind him. ‘And neither will any of my men. However …’ He stepped closer to the informer, until their noses were almost touching. ‘If I so much as suspect that you’re planning to sell us out, then I’ll personally see to it that you vanish without trace.’ He turned away to retake his seat with a disbelieving shake of his head. ‘I doubt you’d be missed.’

Excingus nodded equably.

‘Exactly as I would have expected. And perhaps I can lighten the moment a little?’ He fished in a pouch attached to his belt and held out an iron key to Marcus. ‘Here.’

The young centurion stared at it for a moment without making any move to accept the offering.

‘A key? To what?’

The informer smiled back at him, reaching for his hand and pressing the key into the palm.

‘Ask your wife. And now gentlemen, if you’ve come in search of information, perhaps we can get past the initial awkwardness and get down to business. Senator?’

He held out a hand, and the older man nodded, signalling to his butler once more. The slave reached down into a wooden box that had been concealed in the shrubbery, taking out what appeared to be a purse. Crossing the garden with the same impassivity he had displayed before, he placed it in his master’s hand with a bow. Sigilis acknowledged him with a grave inclination of his head.

‘Thank you. I expect you have pressing duties to attend to in the house? Please don’t allow this inconsequential matter to impede you in their completion.’

The butler bowed again, and to Marcus’s eye it seemed that a look of relief crossed his face as he turned to make his way back through the garden and into the domus. Excingus held out a hand.

‘Poor man. He’s more than intelligent enough to understand the heat of the fire you’re playing with by employing my rather dubious services, isn’t he?’

The senator dropped the purse onto his level palm with a resigned expression.

‘I suspect he looks askance at having to pay you to provide information to these men for which you’ve already received a substantial sum.’

Julius frowned at the informer, still far from happy with such an unexpected turn of events.

‘You make him pay simply to talk to us?’

‘I do. And so would you, in my place. Every additional person I share my knowledge with presents an additional risk of my being betrayed …’

The first spear barked out a laugh.

‘And wouldn’t that be ironic!’

Excingus simply continued speaking, ignoring the barb.

‘… tortured for as long as I could stand the pain without descending into insanity, no matter what truth and lies I babbled in extremis, then summarily executed and dropped into a deep pit to rot, unmourned and most certainly unlamented.’

Sigilis coughed as if clearing his throat.

‘And so, having been paid …?’

The informer nodded.

‘Apologies, Senator, I was on the verge of becoming maudlin. As you say, to business.’ He turned to address the Tungrians. ‘I suggest that you abandon your prejudices, gentlemen, and pay especially close attention to what I am about to tell you, for I doubt that anyone else in Rome has either sufficient knowledge or courage to provide you with this information. There are four men who form the heart of the emperor’s policy of propping his treasury up through “confiscatory justice” …’

He paused, waiting for any of them to comment, but none of the men sitting around him responded.

‘These four men bring a particular combination of skills and experience to the services they perform, not to mention their shared disregard for the humanity of their victims. They are, in different ways, intelligent, driven and successful men in their own fields, positively charming in one case, and none of them displays any overt signs of mania, and yet they are all, in their own ways, just about the most dangerous men in the entire city. Perennis gathered them to him when it became clear that the throne would not survive without financial assistance, reasoning that his own praetorian guard might be likely to draw the line at being ordered to slaughter a man and then either kill or enslave his entire familia. He gave them whatever it was that he believed would motivate them, but we can simplify that down to two things. Firstly he offered them money. A lot of money, for a relatively small amount of effort. And secondly, he extended to them the opportunity to do exactly as they pleased with some of the most respected families in Rome. Think about that for a moment, and then ask yourself how many men in the city would jump at the chance to have free licence with the women of a household like this one. Never mind the novelty of taking the mistress of the house by force while her husband’s corpse is still cooling on floor, think of the possibilities for a man with that inclination. Daughters, female slaves … more than enough helpless female flesh for everyone, eh?’

He met Marcus’s stare of hatred with an equally frank gaze.

‘I won’t ask for your forgiveness for pointing out the obvious, Centurion, since I know that your own family was one of the first to suffer such a catastrophic end, but I
will
point out that I’m simply explaining these men’s motivation. Hate me for doing so if you like, but at least recognise the realities of what you’re dealing with. You might find that understanding of some value, once you’ve mastered your repugnance at the knowledge.’

He shrugged in the face of the young centurion’s obdurate stare.

‘Anyway, as I was saying, there are four of them. So, where shall we start?’ He mused for a moment. ‘Perhaps with the most dangerous of them, a gladiator who fights under the name of Mortiferum …’

The Tungrian party left the senator’s house in the late afternoon, Excingus having departed via a well-disguised and heavily built door in the garden wall that opened into the storeroom of a shop on the other side of the wall. Senator Sigilis had stared at the departing informer’s back with the expression of a man who urgently needed to wash his hands.

‘I rent the shopkeeper his premises for next to nothing, on the condition that the occasional person comes and goes in a rather more discreet manner than knocking at my front door. Of course, using it to admit a man like that means that I can’t rely on it for a discreet exit myself, should the need arise, but then it’s not the only secret way out of the property, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

The Tungrians had taken their leave of him with much to consider, and even Dubnus was uncharacteristically quiet as they made their way back towards the Ostian Gate. Less than a hundred paces from the gate’s massive archway, a pair of men stepped out onto the cobbles before them, one of them instantly recognisable as Senator Albinus, Scaurus’s former commander in Dacia and, since the confrontation in the emperor’s throne room that had ended in the praetorian prefect’s death, his sworn enemy. The other was Cotta, a muscular man with a weather-beaten face and the leader of Albinus’s personal bodyguard. A former legion centurion, he had established a small but effective team of bodyguards composed of the pick of the soldiers retiring from his legion and had been bankrolled by Albinus, to whom he therefore owed a considerable debt in both money and gratitude. The tribune stepped forward to meet them, holding up a hand to halt his men.

‘Senator Albinus. Centurion. To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?’

The big man stared back at him in silence for a moment before waving a hand and calling out a command that rang out down the suddenly empty street.

‘Bring them.’

As he strode off down a side street, ten or so men emerged from the shops to either side and behind the Tungrians, another half-dozen strolling out into the street behind Cotta and blocking the road to the gate. Each of them was carrying a tight role of cloth, and Julius raised a hand waist-high, waving it downwards in a clear signal to his men to refrain from reaching for their knives. Cotta smiled easily at Scaurus, gesturing to the side street.