Traitors of Rome (Eagles of the Empire 18) Page 15

  ‘Psst!’ he hissed. The agent paused and turned back as Cato approached him and spoke in an undertone. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Where all good men go when they need a shit – away from their comrades.’

  Cato was not sure he believed the man, but it seemed ridiculous to challenge him. ‘Don’t go far, and don’t be too long.’

  Apollonius’s lips parted to reveal the dull gleam of his teeth as he laughed softly. ‘That’s a matter to take up with my bowels, Tribune. But I’ll do my best, out of consideration for your concern about me.’

  Cato clenched his jaw. ‘Just get on with it.’

  He returned to his bedroll and sat down, pulling the folds of his cloak tightly around his shoulders. After some time, Apollonius returned and settled down, and very soon Cato could hear him snoring with a steady rhythm. Satisfied that the man was asleep, he took a last look round, making sure the two men on watch were standing to, then lay on his side and closed his eyes. At first he felt the cold keenly, but soon his body warmed beneath the cloak, and he drifted into an untroubled sleep.

  ‘Sir!’

  Cato felt himself being roughly shaken, and wondered how this could be happening when he was sitting in a steam bath perched on the edge of the cliff at the palace on Capreae . . .

  ‘Sir! Wake up!’

  He was shaken again, and this time woke instantly from his dream. He sat up, blinking. Optio Pelius stood over him. It was still night, but Cato could make out the anxious expression on the man’s face.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Flaminius, sir. He’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Cato stood up, rubbing his face to try and clear his mind. He looked towards the place where his slave had been sleeping earlier and then quickly around the shadows that surrounded his men, but there was no sign of Flaminius. ‘How in Hades did he get away without the sentries spotting him?’

  ‘It’s dark, sir. It’s possible,’ Pelius replied reasonably. ‘The lads weren’t asleep on the job. I checked ’em both just now, and when I got back here, I discovered he was gone.’

  Cato looked at him. ‘Just now? Then he must be close by.’

  ‘He might be. I don’t know if he was gone earlier on. I just noticed when I came back.’

  ‘Shit . . . There’s not much we can do now. If we try and find him, we’ll only blunder about in the dark without doing any good.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Cato thought a moment and shook his head. ‘Where does he think he’s going? If the Parthians catch him alone, it’s likely they’ll take him as a spy and execute him on the spot.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s heading for the river, sir. If he gets across and keeps going, he may make it back to Judaea.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Apollonius interrupted them. Cato turned and saw that the agent had stood up and was approaching them.

  ‘Flaminius has gone.’

  ‘Was he taken, or did he make off?’

  Pelius shook his head. ‘If there was anyone out there, the lads would have been aware of them and raised the alarm.’

  ‘Really?’ Cato muttered. ‘If they didn’t notice someone creeping out of the camp, it’s possible they might have missed someone creeping in.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Pelius conceded reluctantly.

  ‘Either way, he’s gone.’

  Apollonius cracked his knuckles. ‘What do you think he’s up to?’

  ‘How in Hades should I know?’ Cato replied.

  ‘He’s your slave.’

  ‘I only bought him from the slave market a couple of days before we left Tarsus.’

  ‘So you have no idea about where he’s from? Or know much about him? He could easily be a spy.’

  Cato thought about that. What if Apollonius was right? What if it was not a coincidence that Flaminius was there in the market when Cato passed by? After all, his sorry tale was bound to elicit the pity of another soldier. But it was hard to believe. How could anyone have known Cato would be there at that time? The idea that Flaminius had been planted to get the tribune to buy him was too far-fetched. Apollonius’s suggestion was unlikely. In any case, thought Cato, the agent was in no position to cast doubt on others.

  ‘Rather less easily than you could,’ he countered. ‘After all, I knew nothing about you until General Corbulo introduced us. I still don’t know anything of significance, and your evasiveness is not helping matters. I’m not sure I can trust you any more than I can trust Flaminius.’

  ‘Except I’m still here at your side, and he isn’t,’ Apollonius said pointedly. ‘I don’t like it. I can’t believe he’s taken exception to being a slave and run off to find his freedom. Not here in the dark, in enemy territory. Even if he’s unhappy about being part of the embassy, he must know that he stands a better chance staying with us rather than trying to make his way back to Roman territory alone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it. He’s a veteran. He knows how to look after himself.’

  Apollonius looked out into the darkness briefly. ‘We have to find him.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Cato replied drily. ‘You can go after him if you wish, but I’ll not waste my time, nor that of my men. We’ll see if we can find him at first light. He hasn’t taken a horse, so he won’t be able to get very far. But if we can’t find him within the first hour of the day, we’ll abandon the search and continue on our way.’

  Apollonius looked like he might protest, but then forced himself to be still for a moment before he nodded. ‘Very well, Tribune. It’s a shame to lose a man, but I expect you are used to it. We’d better get back to sleep, then.’

  Cato nodded, not trusting himself to respond to yet another barbed comment. He turned to Pelius. ‘Tell the sentries to keep their bloody eyes and ears open before you turn in. I don’t want any more surprises tonight.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Cato lay still for a while, fretting over Flaminius’s apparent desertion. It troubled him that he had misjudged the man’s character. At the same time, he was human enough to empathise with Flaminius’s predicament and understand how a proud veteran would chafe at having to live as a slave. Nevertheless, the man had lived under the strict discipline of the legions, and understood the bond between soldiers and the duty to obey the orders of a superior officer. The Praetorians who formed Cato’s escort had had no choice in the matter once they were picked for the job, and none of them had deserted, so Cato could find no acceptable excuse for Flaminius’s action. Perhaps the man valued his freedom more than loyalty to his comrades, or perhaps he was merely a coward. Either way, he must be punished if he was caught. It was an unpleasant prospect, and some part of Cato hoped that Flaminius would make good his escape to save him giving the order to have the slave beaten.

  He turned over and tried to expel all such thoughts from his mind. He envied Macro’s ability to fall asleep almost at will. He forced himself to concentrate on counting each breath back from a hundred, and after a dozen slow, deep breaths he slipped into a dreamless sleep, untroubled by the cold.

  Pelius woke him just before dawn, when there was enough light to clearly see the surrounding landscape. The other men stirred and rose stiffly before they began to saddle the horses and load their kit onto the sturdy horns on either side of the saddles. In Flaminius’s absence, Cato was obliged to prepare his own mount, and assigned the slave’s horse to one of the praetorians. The air was still cold and the breath of the men and the horses curled in thin clouds of moisture that swiftly faded. As the light grew along the eastern horizon, the last of the escort contingent was ready.

  The mournful cry of a bird sounded some distance away, and Apollonius paused from adjusting his saddlebags to look in that direction. Cato saw the agent’s body freeze for a few heartbeats as his keen eyes swept across the surrounding landscape.

  He trod softly to the agent’s side. ‘What’
s the matter?’

  Apollonius did not reply at once, but kept staring, a slight frown creasing his brow.

  ‘I’m not sure, Tribune . . . I thought I heard something out there.’

  Cato felt a chill grip the base of his neck. ‘Where?’

  Apollonius raised his hand and pointed towards a clump of bushes, burnished by the rising sun, just over a hundred paces away.

  ‘Flaminius, maybe?’

  ‘It could be, but . . .’

  Suddenly Apollonius drew his sword and went into a crouch, tightening his grip on his reins with his left hand. He thrust the sword forward. ‘There!’

  Cato saw the swirl of dust from behind the bushes, and a moment later heard the unmistakable soft thudding of hoofs.

  ‘Praetorians!’ he shouted to the other men. ‘Mount up!’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Parthians!’ Apollonius cried out as he slung himself up into his saddle. Cato and his men followed suit. Grasping their reins, they looked anxiously about as horsemen burst from cover across and charged towards them.

  Cato craned his neck and saw a small hillock a mile away to the south.

  ‘Praetorians! On me!’

  Pulling on his reins, he turned his horse and spurred the beast into a gallop, followed by the rest of his men, racing over the even ground as they made their desperate bid to escape the trap. Whatever Apollonius might have said about the Parthians respecting an embassy, Cato’s instincts and experience had taught him to treat the approach of any enemy as a threat until proven otherwise. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the nearest Parthians through a cloud of dust, bent forward as they urged their mounts after their prey. There were two groups of the enemy, one directly behind them, the other a quarter of a mile to the east. Cato could just make out their dark figures against the glare of the sun as the rearmost riders threw flickering shadows on the whirling dust. With the river and more broken ground to their right, there was only one direction left to Cato and his men, and they raced towards the crest of the rise Cato had spotted a moment earlier.

  He felt his heart pounding in his chest as the horse’s hoofs drummed the dry ground beneath him. The keen thrill of excitement and terror coursed through his veins, and he gritted his teeth and clamped his calves against the coarse material of the saddle cloth. Another glance revealed that the Parthians to his left numbered at least fifty men, but the dust kicked up by his own men now obscured the enemy riders closest to them. There was no prospect of winning against such odds. Their only hope, however slender, was to outpace their pursuers. But already Cato could see that the leading riders of the party to his left were drawing ahead of them. He felt his spirits sink at the thought that the mission into Parthian territory was over almost as soon as it had begun.

  Cato and his men were close to the hillock now, and he resolved that if it came to a fight, they would take what little advantage they could from the high ground. He pulled firmly on the reins to steer his mount towards the crest, and a moment later reached the foot of the slope. His pace slowed as the gradient quickly increased. The sides of the hillock were steeper than he had thought. He smiled grimly to himself. So much the better.

  ‘Keep up, lads!’ he called out as he urged his horse up the rock-strewn ground. His ears filled with the snorts and strained breaths of the other mounts and the grunts of his men driving them on.

  When he reached the crest, he saw that there was a patch of even ground perhaps thirty feet across with several large boulders and some scrub rising from the gritty soil.

  ‘Dismount!’ he ordered as he swung his left leg over the saddle horns and braced himself to drop lightly. At once he unslung his shield and drew his sword, stepping back from his horse as the other men followed suit. Optio Pelius ordered two of the men to hold the horses while the rest formed a loose cordon around the crest. Apollonius was standing behind one of the boulders, shield resting against his thigh as he jammed on his helmet.

  ‘Just as well I made sure you had some kit,’ Cato observed wryly.

  He stood by the rock and looked back at their pursuers. The party that had been behind them had drawn up a short distance from the foot of the hillock, and their horses stamped and tossed their heads as the leader surveyed the position the Romans had taken. There were no more than thirty of them, Cato estimated. The other party had now swung in towards the rising ground, dividing into two bands to cut them off from the east and south, closing the trap. In the distance, he could see the rear of the caravan moving along the road, seemingly oblivious to the action taking place barely a mile distant. He was briefly amused by the notion that even if politics and war enveloped the soldiers of kingdoms and empires, many aspects of everyday life continued heedless of such life-and-death struggles as he and his men now found themselves in. He wondered what the merchants and camel drovers made of the horsemen dashing across the red-hued landscape. Then his mind dismissed these thoughts and he focused on the nearest of the enemy as their leader turned and bellowed orders to his men.

  Apollonius cursed as his fingers fumbled at the ties of the helmet beneath his chin.

  ‘Here,’ Cato growled. He set his shield down, sheathed his blade and quickly did the job for the agent, then adjusted the helmet so that it sat firmly on the other man’s head.

  ‘Thanks.’ Apollonius picked up his shield and readied his sword. ‘I’ve never had to fight in soldier’s kit before.’

  ‘Then let’s hope your first experience of it won’t be your last.’

  ‘I’d rather we didn’t have to fight at all.’ Apollonius looked down at the Parthians as they formed up into two lines, the first drawing their swords while the second opened their richly patterned bow cases and began to string their weapons.

  ‘If they’re out for our blood, then we’ll not give up without a fight,’ Cato responded. ‘I’ll be damned if we just throw down our weapons and beg for mercy.’

  ‘We’re on an embassy,’ Apollonius said patiently. ‘We’re not supposed to be offering them a fight.’

  ‘Try telling them that.’

  ‘That’s just what I had in mind, as it happens.’ Apollonius looked down at the Parthians. The leading rank were edging forward towards the slope, as their comrades drew the first of their arrows and nocked them. ‘If they will only give me the chance.’

  He sheathed his sword and stepped into the open, raising his hand and calling out to the Parthians in their own tongue. But before he had spoken more than a handful of words, the enemy leader shouted an order and his men swiftly raised their bows and loosed a volley of arrows up towards the crest of the hillock.

  ‘Arrows!’ Cato shouted at once. ‘Take cover!’

  The agent hesitated, a look of shock on his face as he followed the path of the arrows.

  ‘You too!’ Cato grabbed his arm and hauled him back behind the rock.

  There was a whirring in the air and then the clatter of arrows striking rock while others pierced the soil. A screeching whinny sounded, and Cato looked round to see a shaft protruding from the neck of one of the horses, its feathered flights shimmering. The beast reared up and kicked out with its front legs. The Praetorian holding the reins tried to reach up with his spare hand, but the horse recoiled in terror and then swerved to one side, snatching the reins from his grasp. With no restraint on its movement, it bolted forward and down the slope straight towards the Parthians, tossing its head from side to side, red froth flicking from its muzzle. The enemy hurriedly opened ranks to let the maddened animal through, and then surged up the slope roaring their war cry, a shrill ululation of triumph.

  ‘Here they come, lads!’ Cato called out, then, more calmly, ‘Stand by to receive cavalry!’

  There was another volley of arrows, finely calculated to strike home a few heartbeats ahead of the horsemen. Another of the horses was hit in the rump and an arrow tore through the bicep of one of the
Praetorians holding the reins. Before anyone could come to his aid, the Parthian horsemen reached the crest and surged in amongst the rocks and shrubs. Their raised swords glinted in the light of the rising sun, and dust and grit erupted into the cool dawn air.

  ‘Up and at ’em!’ Cato roared, raising his shield and sword. A rider reined in just beyond the rock where he and Apollonius were sheltering, and Cato sprang forward. The Parthian saw him out of the corner of his eye and began to twist in his saddle to strike out with his sword, but he was too slow. Cato thrust up, the point of his sword catching his opponent just under the ribcage, tearing through the loose cloth of his robe, then flesh and muscle, before ripping into his organs. The edge of Cato’s shield struck the flank of the horse, and the animal gave a muscular flinch to the side, yanking the rider free of the blade. He let out a grunt, then clamped his knees and turned the horse, slashing wildly at his Roman attacker. The blade gave a fiery glint as it swept down, and Cato just had time to turn it aside with the flat of his own sword. For an instant the Parthian was on the cusp of losing his balance, then he steadied. But before he could recover his seat, Apollonius darted forward, grabbed at the sleeve of his sword arm and wrenched him to the side. With a shocked cry, the man released his sword and tumbled from his saddle, landing heavily at Cato’s feet. Instinctively Cato raised his sword to strike at the Parthian’s exposed neck, but Apollonius thrust his shield out, and the blade rang as it struck the boss before glancing aside.

  ‘Leave him to me,’ said Apollonius.

  There was no time for anger at the intervention, and Cato turned aside and ran several paces towards another rider, who was engaged by Optio Pelius on his other side. One of his comrades shouted a warning, and the rider glanced round in time to see Cato charging towards him. He feinted at the optio’s helmet, forcing Pelius to throw his shield up, and then pulled hard on his reins, turning his mount to face Cato. As he did so, the horse’s flank crashed into the optio, knocking him down.