The Centurion's Empire (10 page)

"Until?" prompted Doria.

He passed the fragment to Doria without saying any more.

"Ah, promising!" she exclaimed. "Part of an inventory of ingredients. That helps. Tallinian and Rhea know some of the
ingredients too, and the types of insects used. This could fill in the gaps."

"It may not be enough without the method of preparation," Regulus warned, but he wanted to be optimistic. "The
Venenum is a poison, even in its pure form, and if everything is just thrown together it could be really deadly. We must
set the slaves trapping live rats and mice to test our trial recipes. You must question all the women, too. Those who have
shared beds with the Masters of the Venenum may have heard them let clues slip."

Doria took the suggestion badly.

"Now that it's too late you finally try to involve us women!" she shouted angrily, flinging the charred fragments of scroll
to the snow. "You beg us for secrets that you would not give us in the first place!"

"That's hardly fair,". sighed Regulus, squatting in the snow to pick up the pieces of scroll.
Doria watched him for a moment, tears running along the wrinkles of her face. "I speak of the menfolk in general," she
conceded, kneeling beside him to help. "Take no affront, Regulus. At least we know how to make the antidote to be
taken with the Venenum Immortale."

"Small comfort, having the antidote for that which we cannot make. It may take decades to rediscover the Venenum by
just blindly mixing batches and feeding it to rats, mice, and pigs. Who would be willing to grow old while experimenting
for the sake of those who are lying frozen in the bloom of youth? Our ship has sunk and now we try to rebuild it out of
driftwood."

Some rubble collapsed where the slaves were digging, and there were shrieks of pain from a trapped man.

"I'm having a search made for a stranger, a fat guard who was seen during the fire," said Regulus, ignoring the
commotion. "He may be a companion to the thief that we know about, and he may be still here on the mountain. The
dead slave Sextus might have been in league with them."

"So if one of the Masters did write a scroll of instructions, you think this fat thief might have it?"

"Probably not, but we must try everything." He stood up, leaning heavily on his staff, then helped Doria to her feet.

"Our own rigid security keeps defeating us. The method for making the Venenum was never to be written down, under
pain of death: the Venenum was our greatest treasure, the base of all our power, so we guarded its secret more closely
than gold. Now it is gone, and we seem like such fools."

L i b a r n a , N o r t h e r n I t a l y : 7 J a n u a r y 7 2 , A n n o D o m i n i
Milos, a Greek physician, had looked upon the wounded man as a challenge to his skills. The sword wound in his chest
had been inflamed, yet he was strong and otherwise healthy. The gash in his arm might have been from a large cat,
perhaps the exotic pet of some villa's master. His leg had been badly scratched and the knee wrenched, as if from a fall.
Perhaps an adulterer caught in the act, who had barely escaped with his life? Perhaps a thief who had not been
sufficiently careful and silent?

Lars had arrived at the physician's house at night. He had dropped a small bag of coins into his hand, then collapsed. For
days he lay in the grip of a fever, rambling about immortals, a mountain fortress, and a huge white cat. Milos examined
the pack that he had brought, and found it to be filled with sachets of a golden, bitter oil. A cylinder of butt-leather
contained a tiny dog that frantically lapped water from his cup and was ravenously hungry. A scroll from the pack
described the use of a substance called Venenum Immortale, wfiich was used to freeze animals and people so that they
could be brought back to life later. It read like an instruction exercise for a student, and Milos wondered at the real
intent behind it.

The physician forced a rabbit to drink a prescribed mea-

sure of the oil. It died within two hours. He then repeated the experiment, but this time froze the rabbit after one hour. A
day later he revived it according to the instructions, and it lived another hour before it too died of the effects of the oil.
He fed its flesh to his neighbor's dog, which became violently ill but survived.

By then Lars's fever had subsided. He awoke from a quiet sleep, but had to be fed by hand, and it was several more days
before he could get up. Milos remained discreet with his patient.

"I'll not ask too many questions," he said when Lars was at last strong enough to walk, "but I must warn you that
soldiers have been asking about strangers in this village. They are particularly interested in wounded strangers."

"And you did not betray me?"

"I considered it... but we are of a kind."

Lars said nothing, but tensed himself. The physician noticed.

"Don't consider killing me," said Milos. "It's not worth it. I'm a fugitive too, fleeing a crime of my own in Thessa-lonica.
A stupid, futile conspiracy against Roman rule."

"So, you choose to hide here in Libarna, closer to Rome?" said Lars doubtfully.

"Not for much longer. My contacts tell me that it would be wise to move on soon. You were lucky that I was here to treat
you. You were luckier still that I was in no position to go to the authorities about your wounds. What was your crime?"
Lars's face remained blank and he shook his head. "Whatever I might have done, my name is attached to no crime. I'll be
returning to Rome whenever you say I'm fit to travel."

"And I to Genua, to be a rigger aboard a merchantman bound for, well, it's no concern of yours. Not a very likely sailor,
am I?"

Lars pushed a shutter open and looked down the street. It was covered in muddy snow-slush, but people were walking
about without great effort.

"I should return to Rome," he said again, gingerly feeling his partly healed wound. "Does what I've paid already cover
your fee?"

"I'm willing to be reasonable. Believe it or not, I have enough money for my needs. A skilled physician is never short of
customers. First tell me, though, what is the nature of that oil, that poisonous oil that you brought with you? Is it
something you stole?"

Lars pulled the shutter closed and turned fluidly to face Milos. "What do you know of it? Have people been asking
questions?"

"No, but by following the instructions in the scroll that was in your pack I managed to freeze a rabbit solid, then bring it
back to life again. The trouble was that some antidote appears to be required, otherwise the animals die within a few
days, and their flesh is too poisonous to eat. I could build up their tolerance to the oil by feeding it to them a little at a
time, but the antidote would be quicker."

Lars began to relax as he realized that the physician had not betrayed him. The rush of alarm had drained his weakened
body and now he had to sit down, his head spinning.

"It . . . should be obvious, as to its use," said Lars, too weary to think, longing to sleep again.
Milos remained bright-eyed and eager. "I think that a pig could be thus frozen for the whole of winter, removing the
need to feed it from expensive stores. I think that such a process could be worth a fortune to the farmers of Rome, and
perhaps even more could be done too. Remote garrisons could be manned cheaply with perhaps a dozen men over winter,
while four or five hundred more lie frozen yet alive. A secret worth more than gold could buy, eh?"
Lars nodded gravely at the entirely plausible yet false explanation as he thought out a reply.

"As you say, the process is flawed. The animals die quickly without the antidote and their flesh is poisonous. I stole what
I brought here before I realized that the process has not yet been perfected. It brought me no profit for all my injuries.
The antidote that they speak of is yet to be perfected."

"How much would you ask for all of your oil and the scroll of instructions? Five hundred sesterces?"

"More like five thousand. What use have you for it?"

"I have some small skill with mixtures. Perhaps I could

detoxify the oil, so that no antidote is needed. Do you have the directions for making it?"

"No. All that I have is in that pack."

"In that case, four hundred sesterces."

"Six hundred or nothing."

Milos smiled at last. "Agreed, but only if you tell me of the man who devised the mixture. Give me his name and tell me
where to find him. If I can perfect the antidote while I hide in exile, why, it may buy me a pardon when I return."
Lars gave him a fictitious name, but provided accurate directions for finding the villa in the Alps where the Temporians
were waging their long war against death. Milos paid the money for the oil and scroll, then set off for the port of Genua
that same day. Lars stayed on in the physician's house, as the rent had been paid in advance. He recovered his strength
and got to know the area, and with the money he had looted from Fortunatus' room he bought a nearby farm in the name
of his wife and five children. He sent letters and money to them under a false name, instructing them to join him. The
farm was less than he had hoped for, but with all his other hoarded wealth it would be just enough to begin rebuilding
his family's status and fortune.

L i b a r n a , N o r t h e r n I t a l y : 2 5 M a r c h 7 2 , A n n o D o m i n i
Publius Varlexus had decided upon a squad of two dozen legionaries to capture the Greek physician. The extra men were
more to prevent him from escaping than because of any danger.

The house was shabby and nondescript, neither squalid nor respectable. Varlexus' men surrounded it silently, and more
men crawled onto the roof from adjoining buildings. Abruptly a dog began to bark, a high-pitched squeak in the gloom.
After a moment the barking stopped, replaced by the clatter of hobnails on flagstones and shouted orders. Varlexus heard
wood begin to splinter beneath the blade of an axe. A fire blazed up behind the windows, then came the clang of weapons
and screams of pain.

His troops on the roof hastily jumped clear of the spreading flames, then amid the dancing shadows a figure leaped
from the tiles across the narrow street. He caught the edge of a roof, hung by his hands for a moment then hooked a leg
over the edge. Five bowstrings twanged and three arrows hit the mark. The man fell, crashing down onto a cartload of
wicker baskets. A tiny dog scrambled clear and vanished into the shadows of the narrow street.
The fugitive was dying as they laid him out on the roadway. The price of capturing him had been high. Three troops
killed in a fight in the house, two others injured, and six people trapped and burned in the buildings to either side.
Varlexus put his face near that of his dying quarry and said, "The justice of Rome has a very long reach, Milos."
The dying man blinked, then frowned and whispered, "Imbecile."

Lars's family prospered on their new farm near Libarna, slowly accumulating a fortune from wine, honey, and sheep.
Within three decades his son's wealth had even grown to exceed that of Lars's disgraced grandfather. He used it to build a
villa that the family lived in until the barbarian invasions of centuries later.

Primus Fort: 5 May 72, Anno Domini

The government official who arrived at the Primus Fort to see Vitellan was of indeterminate age, and seemed distant and
preoccupied. Vitellan somehow fancied that he might have been a sad, defeated pagan god out of some tragic legend,
setting his affairs in order before his enemies arrived to vanquish him forever. He handed the young legionary a scroll.
Vitellan read it, then looked up at the official who would give no name.

"First I am ordered to Egypt, then I am ordered here to the to serve in a legion that does not officially exist, then this
arrives telling me that I am to be reassigned to Gaul. What is going on?"

"Young men and women with your skills and talents are no longer required by my masters," the man replied simply.

"May I ask who your masters are, and what skills and talents I am thought to have?"

"No. Remember, too, that if you ever mention the Furtivus Legion once you leave this fort you will be killed."

"Of course, I learned that the day I arrived. So, I am to have no other chance to do ... whatever else I was to do?"

"That I cannot say, but you have served well in the Furtivus Legion and it has been noted. Important, powerful people
have noticed you, and you have been given special advancement within die army, Centurion Vitellan Bavalius."

"Centurion!" Vitellan exclaimed.

The newest centurion in the Roman Empire could do no more than stand with his mouth open while the enigmatic
messenger smiled, gave an odd, curt bow, then walked away. Vitellan stared after him, noting that Centurion Namatinus
gave him a great deal of deference. Whoever he was, he appeared to have a lot of authority.

"Perhaps he's not joking," Vitellan said to himself in wonder. "Perhaps I really am a centurion."
The Temporians never recovered from the loss of the recipe for making their Venenum Immortale. Stores of the
Venenum were adequate but finite, and although Regulus and Doria spent the remainder of their lives together
experimenting with the Venenum's known ingredients, they achieved little more than breakthroughs in the preparation
of poisons. The Temporians began to keep some of their number frozen for longer periods, while others were kept awake
longer to administer the Empire's affairs. These aged and died before the eyes of those whom they ruled, and this eroded
Temporian authority. Legends arose that a group of Christian fanatics was killing them, while the barbarians to the
north and east became harder to control. When Rome fell to Alaric's Visigoths early in the fifth Christian century, the
last of the Temporians fled their faltering empire on an immense, desperate voyage.