The Great Game (25 page)

‘What happens when we arrive?’ Rufinus asked
Snake
.

The man turned and smiled his oily smile. ‘You get signed in by the clerk, make your mark on the documents, get assigned a room and then, after the noon rest, you get shown around the grounds so you can get your bearings.’

Rufinus nodded, keeping his teeth clenched against the battering they were receiving from the bumps in the road and the insane speed of the servant driving the cart.

Without any warning or attempt at slowing, the driver hauled on the reins and the cart slewed to the left off the road and onto a drive, surprisingly of better quality. Metalled and constructed of flat flags, this access road to the former Imperial villa had been constructed a mere fifty or sixty years ago and had borne the brunt of only private traffic, as opposed to the centuries old and well-travelled main road behind them.

Rufinus glanced over the side of the cart at a small stream running alongside, followed its course ahead, and found himself looking up at a small city. His eyes widened.

‘Jupiter, Juno and Minerva!’

‘It’s a sizeable complex’ the
Snake man
replied over his shoulder. ‘I’m told that Hadrianus used to keep a full imperial court here permanently. It’s not the same these days, of course. The lady’s court only occupies maybe a third of the place. And even then that’s far more space than they really need.’

Rising from behind an arcade of decorative cypress trees, trimmed into perfect cones, Rufinus was surprised to see the high, fine and delicate arches of a theatre. The arcade of trees split not far from the structure, one branch running off out of sight along the hill
among beautiful white buildings and red roofs, the other striding off to intersect with the road along which they travelled.

‘The place has a theatre?’ he asked in astonishment.

The driver peered over his shoulder and snorted. ‘Two. One at each end of the complex, in case you desperately need to see a play and you can’t be arsed to walk far. And there’s a stadium and an amphitheatre.’

Snake
turned to him. ‘We use those for practice, though Hadrianus was a bit of a wet one and didn’t much like his gladiators. The theatres are both massive, like the gardens, but the amphitheatre’s about the size of a Roman’s dick.’

Rufinus blithely ignored the insult. The three hirelings and the slave were clearly all of non-Roman origin and Fastus, for all his Latin name, had been an auxiliary trooper and so was clearly no Roman. He was suddenly very aware of the eyes of Dis, the ‘hollow’ man, resting firmly upon him with an unmoving gaze. Turning away, he watched as the road descended a slope and passed beneath a massive structure with a gentle curve, cresting the hill above. The four-storey monstrosity was a series of arched and terraced vaults, supporting the delicate colonnade at the top. Each arch above the first level had a low fence and, from the clothing and blankets hanging over them, Rufinus guessed he was looking at the slave quarters. The lowest level was, of course, solidly blocked off to prevent occupants from wandering off.

The monumental entrance road to the villa seemed to hug that great structure and then disappear from view to the left, but the cart rattled past the place and turned two gentle corners off to the right, the driver slowing to a more sensible pace as the route led them beneath the huge three-storey structure and then right past a tall, curved building. On, they rattled until finally, the driver pulled on the reins and stopped the cart outside a squat structure with a double door.

‘All out’ the servant barked, and the mercenary guards clambered down from the wagon, Rufinus and Fastus shuffling along to drop from the back to the gravel beneath with a crunch.

‘Right’ said
Snake
, rubbing his hands together. ‘Follow me.’

Approaching the door, he knocked loud and paused for a moment. As the other four men fell into place behind him, the wooden portal swung open to reveal a short, unhappy looking man with a shaved head and pale yellow tunic.

‘Out of the way’ said
Snake
, grasping the slave’s shoulder and roughly pushing him aside as he strode in. The great monster with the needle teeth followed him, while Dis paused and gestured for the two new recruits to go next before bringing up the rear. The slave nervously hurried to close the door and lock it again.

Through two small, decorous but unfurnished rooms the mercenary captain led them, into a garden that had clearly once been a work of art. It had become heavily overgrown but showed signs of recent restoration. As they passed between the bulbous hedges that had once been topiary, the slave in the yellow tunic reappeared in a leather smock and began to prune bushes.

Rufinus tried to reel in his thoughts. The place was fascinating, and its occupants would likely be varied and interesting, but he couldn’t afford to allow his gaze to stray too far from the goal until he was much more familiar with the place.

On the far side of the garden they moved inside once more, to a short hallway with offices on both sides, each alcove separated from the hall by a wooden rail and desk. Only two of the offices showed any sign of use, and it was towards one of these that
Snake
led them.

‘Captain Phaestor. You were quicker than expected’ the thin, intense-looking man behind the desk announced as the small party approached. He put away whatever he was working on, his nose twitching, and cradled his hands on the desk, sharp, beady dark eyes following their movements. Rufinus was put in mind of a rodent not only by the man’s appearance, but also by his mannerisms and movements.

‘We had Pev driving us.’

‘Ah. Any injuries?’

‘Cut the banter. Sign these two in and let them make their mark. I want to get on.’

The clerk nodded and shuffled around his cubicle, finding records and preparing his stylus, the ink-coated pen held over the thin wood sheet.

‘Names?’

There was silence for a moment until
Snake
, or Phaestor as he was called, gestured for them to comply.

‘Gnaeus Marcius’ he replied steadily, noting once again the eyes of Dis falling suspiciously upon him.

The clerk scribbled the name, tutting at a blot of ink that formed.

‘Publius Fastus’ replied the other recruit, leaning forward. The clerk recoiled from the smell of vomit that surrounded the man. Rufinus hardly noticed it, having spent half an hour in the cart surrounded by the miasma.

‘Alright. You’re signed in. Any time you leave the villa, you need to sign out with me. You will not be permitted to leave the villa without a signed chit from either captain Phaestor or one of his adjutants, the villa’s major domo, or one of the nobles. The complex is extensive and has only a low perimeter wall. Passing that wall without a chit will result in disciplinary measures. You will be told what structures are open to you. There will be some that you are only allowed in during the course of your duties, some you have free access at all times, and some that you will never be permitted to enter. Needless-to-say, being found in a building that is outside your jurisdiction will result in disciplining. I daresay that Phaestor will relate his own rules to you, but those are some important ones that apply to all hired hands, regardless of role. Do you understand?’

Rufinus nodded, alongside Fastus. The clerk had rattled out the words by rote, a speech he had honed years before and repeated on a semi-regular basis.

‘Here is your agreement of service. If you wish to read it through, do so quickly, then make your mark at the bottom.’

Fastus peered myopically at the sheet for a moment, shrugged in complete incomprehension, and made a cross at the bottom. Rufinus picked his up and began to study it.

‘It says you belong to the mistress while you work here unless you piss it all up; then you belong to me.’

Rufinus ignored Phaestor’s urging, but quickened his pace as he scanned the salient points. The conditions were less than satisfactory for a man of intelligence or breeding, but precisely what he had expected, and perfect for the average applicant. Ridiculously, he almost signed his full name at the end and had to pull himself up short at his two-word pseudonym.

‘Alright then, mister ‘reads-and-writes’. Follow me.’

Leaving the rat-like clerk busying himself with his new records, the five mercenaries strode on back across the hall and out through another door.

‘You don’t get your first pay until the end of the month, so if there’s anything you need until then, tough shit unless you can persuade one of the others to lend you a few coins.’

Rufinus nodded sagely, conscious of the small purse of coins at his belt that would easily tide him over for a couple of months. His mercenary pay may be a month delayed, but he’d been given a month’s advance on his guardsman’s pay just in case. It struck him for a moment that few people would be in the position to receive two full wages simultaneously, let alone one from the coffers of the emperor and another from his sister.

The far door of the small office complex led out into another decorative garden, smaller but fully restored, its neat box-hedges and flower beds perfectly aligned to complement the curved wall at the rear, decorated with small, slender, white columns and hanging baskets of red and orange blooms.

Between the central two columns a corridor led off into the darkness, covered with a decorative coffered ceiling, and it was toward this strange tunnel the group headed. Rufinus peered into the dark passage as they neared it and realised the interior was illuminated periodically by small square skylights.

Phaestor led them into the passage and they climbed the stair within, emerging, blinking, into the light. They were now on a higher level, structures both around and below them and even higher up along a slope to the south.

Rufinus looked back across the passage they had followed, invisible from above, and the small complex with the gardens and offices, the road beyond. Huge structures to either side of the curved garden where they had entered the tunnel sported numerous domes and chimneys, high large windows and aqueduct channels leading into them, both clearly immense bath houses. The one to the north, slightly smaller, belched out smoke, evidencing its continued use, while the other appeared now to be abandoned.

‘Baths,’ Phaestor announced, then pointed to other structures as he labelled them: ‘The Canopus garden. Not in current use. The Praetorium - former barracks for Hadrianus’ Praetorians and now my quarters and that of my adjutant, Dis. Don’t find yourself anywhere near there unless you’re sent for, and pray you’re
not
sent for.’

He turned again, gesturing up a slope dotted with laden olive trees, almost overripe now for the harvest. Likely such duties were no longer observed. As Phaestor opened his mouth to say something,
a dog’s bark interjected, then another - deep, powerful barks, suggestive of large animals.

Rufinus peered among the olive trees and spotted two black shapes moving between them. The barks came again. Not happy barks; not playful. These were the barks of dogs on the hunt.

Rufinus found himself shrinking back behind the needle-toothed giant as the two creatures bounded into view between the gnarled trunks, snarling and snapping as they slowed from a run to a hunter’s stalk.

‘Acheron! Cerberus! Sit!’ said Dis, surprisingly quietly.

The dogs almost injured themselves attempting to halt their forward momentum and sit straight, bolt upright, eyes locked on the newcomers, white drool dripping from their jaws as they panted. Though they acted like dogs, they were far more reminiscent of wolves to Rufinus’ mind, reminding him of the ones he used to find while hunting in the woods of Hispania, though with more of a blue-grey look than the Hispanic brown.

Phaestor turned with a smile. ‘Dis keeps his Sarmatian beasts free to roam. So long as you have no reason to fear Dis, you’ve no reason to fear these two charming little puppies.’

The huge needle-toothed man leaned down to pat one of them and the dog turned its head slowly toward the approaching hand and issued a low growl of warning, lips drawing back from its fangs. Even the giant who had accompanied them from town quickly pulled his hand back from the dogs.

Phaestor’s finger fell upon a sprawling complex that covered the slope down to the bath house. ‘That’s the other wing of the main residence.
That
’ he added with a sly grin, ‘is where master Pompeianus lives in virtual seclusion.’ The guard captain lowered his voice and the smile disappeared from his face. ‘Remember this, and remember well. You are hired, and paid, by the Empress Lucilla; not the master. Offer aid and all due deference to the master, but always remember where your loyalties lie.’

Rufinus narrowed his eyes at the pleasant-looking villa and made a mental note that, given its owner and his obvious ‘second-class’ nature at the palace, it would be a good place to disappear for a while if the need arose. His memories of Pompeianus from Vindobona were of a quiet, intelligent man; a man of courage and strength playing the role of a virtual prisoner to his high-profile wife. He became aware suddenly that Phaestor was speaking again.

‘…where you will both be quartered.’

Rufinus followed his finger and took in the square structure he had recently omitted.

‘Now come on.’

Rufinus and Fastus fell in with the three regulars, aware of the noise of eight, large, padding feet behind them and the heavy breathing of the clearly-dangerous beasts.

The building they were approaching was considerably less grand than most of the structures of the huge complex, constructed of basic brick and concrete, with no decoration and only small windows in the exterior walls at first and second level. A recently-repaired tile roof covered the structure, which sat at an awkward angle in the space that opened up between the main bulk of the Imperial residence and the separate wing that the
Empress’
consort currently occupied. Rounding the outer walls of the structure, they passed through a low arch into a porch. Here, corridors and passageways led off to the more important parts of the palace, while a wider arch gave access to the barracks.