Shadowlight (9 page)

“My employer came here to propose to his lady friend. I was to take the pictures, but traffic delayed me. If I do not go in right away, I will be fired.” He handed over his business card. “It will take two minutes, I swear to you, and then I will go.”

Thunder rumbled overhead, and dark clouds spread rapidly over them, casting heavy shadows as they blocked out the sun.

The younger man glanced up and scowled. “It was supposed to be sunny all day.” He barely looked at Matthias’s card before he handed it back to him. “I guess you can leave it there for a minute. Get back out here fast, though, buddy, or my boss’ll call to have it towed.”

“Thank you.” Matthias strode into the restaurant.

He had decided to modify Drew’s suggestion of the snatch-and-grab to something that would cause no disturbance. Rather than playing the part of a frantic husband coming to the aid of an injured wife, he was now a tardy photographer trying to keep his job. As soon as he saw the well-dressed man in the foyer, he took out another card.

“Mr. Bradford Lawson called for me,” he told the man. “He wishes to have some photographs taken of him and Ms. Bellamy.”

“I’m afraid we don’t allow photographs to be taken in the dining rooms without making arrangements in advance,” the man told him.

Outside the restaurant, the air flashed as lightning boomed nearby.

“The photographs I take will be of only Mr. Lawson and his companion, and they will appear in several of the city’s newspapers,” Matthias said. “Mr. Lawson is very fond of Cecile’s, which of course will be mentioned prominently in the accompanying article.”

The older man beamed. “Well, I think this once we can make an exception for Mr. Lawson. He and the lady are seated in the corner to your left.”

Matthias thanked him and walked into the dining room. Several of the patrons frowned at him as soon as they saw the camera hanging from the strap around his neck, but Matthias ignored them as he spotted his target.

Lawson had moved his chair out of place so that he could sit closer to Jessa, who was listening to him talk. Her expression seemed odd, almost slack, and her eyelids hung low over her eyes. Lawson put his arm around her shoulders and leaned close, speaking in a lower voice.

Matthias stopped in front of their table and lifted his camera. “Would you care for a picture of you and your lady?”

Lawson glared up at him, and then muttered an obscenity as Jessa’s head drooped and she slumped against his shoulder. “No, my friend isn’t feeling well. Too much wine, I think.”

A rushing sound distracted the patrons around Matthias, who looked at the rain drumming on the outside windows at the front of the restaurant.

A waiter standing nearby hurried forward. “Do you need help escorting the lady out, Mr. Lawson?” He bent over, his arms outstretched.

“No—”

That was the only word Lawson uttered before Jessa flung the steaming plate of seafood in front of her into his face. As he fell back, she produced a slim case and swung it, ramming one end into the waiter’s midsection. He doubled over, his head bouncing as it hit the edge of the table before it drove him to his knees.

Lawson swore and grabbed at Jessa, grasping the sleeve and yoke of her jacket, holding her down. Lightning struck so close to the restaurant that the wineglasses and porcelain dishes on the tables rattled. Several women and a few men uttered startled, fearful cries.

Matthias dragged the table out of the way and shoved Lawson off his chair. As he went down, GenHance’s director flung the wine in his hand, glass and all, into Matthias’s face. He turned his head at the last moment, and the glass burst against the side of his skull, dousing him with the chilled liquid.

As he shook the fragments of crystal from his face, Jessa stepped around the waiter to face him. Her eyes, like tide pools in moonlight, were wide and clear. She had been playacting.

“Go through the front,” he told her.

She didn’t move. “Who are you?”

“Run.” He gave her a push as Lawson got to his feet, a gun in his hand. Matthias stepped on the waiter, palming his second blade as he blocked her with his body.

“Fucking bitch,” Lawson swore as he changed his aim from her back to Matthias’s face.

Before he could fire, Matthias slashed his wrist with one dagger and hamstrung him with the other, the honed steel cutting so deep that Lawson screamed.

He turned and ran after Jessa, catching up with her just outside. She looked from one end of the street to the other, her eyes wild. The heavy downpour became furious, flattening her hair and saturating her clothes in the time it took for her to turn her head to see him.

He didn’t make the mistake of touching her, but he stepped close so she could hear his voice over the rain.

“Come with me,” he told her, and held out his hand, “or you will die.”

Special Report:

Inked on well-cured leather and preserved by not one but three different resin-sealed casings, the scroll offers a poignant account of Germanicus’s ceremonial visit to Kalkriese in Lower Saxony, where ten years past thousands of Roman soldiers were ambushed and massacred by a rebellious German chieftain and his army of Cherusci warriors. Dated in the year 14 CE, the scroll when authenticated may serve as proof that the Roman general visited the site a full year earlier than historians have always claimed.

The scroll itself consists of one hundred two lines of script, divided into two columns. The text is written in the first person, apparently by the general’s own hand, and contains references to several personages of the time, including a popular senator who was also a protégé of the emperor’s wife.

Written only a matter of weeks before Augustus died, the scroll offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the great Roman general as he recovered the remains of his fallen comrades from the battlefield. Even more tantalizing, however, are the hints regarding the mysterious fate of Germanicus’s childhood friend, Tanicus, whom historians have always included among the casualties at Kalkriese.

Roman Relics has obtained for our readers a complete translation of the text, provided by Professor Angelo Calabrese of the University of Rome:

I have brought the legions north, as you commanded, and three days past we came upon Kalkriese. I came so the men would see it and know what it is to be a soldier of Rome, and so that I might in your name offer prayers and pay homage. My second task was to search for the remains of Varus, as asked of me by his wife and daughters when last I visited them.

We followed that pathway though the wood between the great bog and the high hill. Remnants of the rampart in the turf at the base of the hill can yet be seen, and it chilled my heart to think that Arminius and his horde concealed themselves there to await the first column. A hundred paces across from it, one can still pluck from the ground the broken shafts of the spears they threw in vain, but they were close and there are not many.

Two days we rode on through the open country and reached that place where the final three legions sought refuge so they might stand the last against the horde. As we made our way there we saw signs of how they pushed through, ever under attack. The bodies of those who fell from the outside ranks marked the way for us, and my horse could go no more than a hundred paces before I saw another of our dead, slain and left to rot.

You cannot know what it is to see fourteen thousand dead. In your darkest imaginings there is no equal. Weather-bleached bones cover the open ground, scant few where men fleeing the ambush were brought down by their pursuers, but here and there again piled where the ranks stood their ground back-to-back.

As we entered the woods, we saw skulls pegged to the trunks of every tree within our sight, a thousand and more, their hollow eye sockets staring at us in empty reproach. Others who had come here before me claimed that Arminius hanged them as a warning to us, that Rome may never again invade Germania. It proves useless on me; I can feel only rage that Romans were used for such a thing, and that no one thought to remove them and consign them to the flames.

My aide worried me with how we might know which belonged to Varus, and then the scout returned and called us to follow into the groves ahead. So we rode on, and now I must tell you: the years I have spent on the frontier have accustomed my eyes to sights of such barbarism that I should not have blinked. But who among us could have expected to see still standing the altars where the captives were made sacrifice?

The tribesman fashioned the altars from the armor hacked from the remains of the fallen. They did not concern themselves with removing the arms and legs and chests still within; they stacked and bound them together as they were taken, and used whole bodies roped together to serve as platforms. The flesh of these poor brothers has long gone, but their bones remain to give testimony. Upon these obscene mounds of flesh and iron, Arminius and his wretches laid out the finest soldiers ever to serve the Republic, and butchered them in more ways than I may tell you, and so they piled others atop them, again and again, until no more could fit, and another altar was made to be built.

I felt no peace, Grandfather, until we discovered in a hollow well hidden from the groves the untouched bodies of Varus and his staff. The reports brought out of Germania by those few who escaped were true. In the end the sons of Rome came together as brothers, united by their determination to die as they had lived, with courage and honor. The bones of their hands still clasp the hilt of each sword; their bodies still cradle the blade upon which each ended his life. Glad I am that they did not fall to the Cherusci, but had the heart and spine to do what every man dreads.

In shame I wept as I sent my men to collect the bones of our valiant fellows. We give them a funeral pyre this night, and I have sworn to return after the campaign to recover and send all of our dead to their rest. For now my priests consecrate the ground and entreat the gods to richly reward our noble dead. It pains me that I cannot remain here long enough to attend properly to all of them.

My only other regret is that I have found no proof of Septus Janus Genarius’s claim that my friend and blade brother Tanicus accompanied Varus or died with him here. I know it possible that he was taken prisoner with the thousand sold into slavery, but my heart insists that, like Varus, he would have fallen on his blade before accepting the yoke. I never believed the tale that he remained in Germania in secret so that he might spy upon the barbarians, not for thirteen years with no word to us or his family. I will have council when I return from the frontier, and perhaps then the senator may be persuaded to speak more on the matter. He has always claimed that he himself escaped the barbarians when they killed Varus and his commanders. Now that we have proof that they took the only honorable course, the senator must explain why he did not do the same.

If we are to erase the memory of what was done here, we must push on beyond the boundaries of the great river. These rebels must be shown what Rome is. I implore you in the names of Mars and Varus to speak to the senate and make this clear to them, especially Genarius, who continues to press you to recall our legions marching north so that Rome might not anger the tribes.

We cannot allow this massacre to go unanswered, Grandfather. If we do, then Rome will fall.