‘If we turn off here,’ Seneca said, ‘we can find a route through the fields. There will be fewer people to see us, or slow our progress.’
Ajax glanced at him sharply. ‘Do you know a path, or do we simply cut across country?’
‘I think that if we turn right at the stone in the shape of a boar, there should be a farm path down through the groves of nut trees. At the gap at the foot of the hill, we turn left at the twisted olive that turns against the wind. From there the track should take us up to the Via Tiburtina. If it’s still there. I heard of it more than thirty years ago from a man who used to spy for Julius Caesar. I’ve never walked it myself.’
‘What better time than now?’ Ajax favoured him with a brief, dry smile; the first of the thirty miles. ‘Can you run nine and walk nine again, do you think?’
He showed no signs of tiring, or of pain: Seneca had passed beyond surprise at that twenty miles ago. ‘If I have to,’ he said, and set off, to prove it.
Beyond the nut trees, the track was old and barely used. Thick with weeds and olives, it wound through irrigated farmland, and ended abruptly at a wooden stile, beyond which was an alley serving the slave quarters between two large villas at the side of the Via Tiburtina.
‘We should walk now,’ Ajax said. ‘And not speak unless we have to.’
Subdued, Seneca took second place going over the stile and walked as he was told. He was too tired to think clearly, but he missed the conversation of earlier.
For the duration of the thirty miles, whether he was running or walking or riding, the two of them had talked. Their dialogue had been fragmented, but always interesting, shifting from the experience of Alexander in the far distant lands where he had met the ascetic priests of outlandish gods to the warriors of Britain to the politics of Rome. Here, in the city, that easy rapport had ended without warning. Here, Ajax was hunting.
Silent as a shadow, he never stayed long on the path, but regularly stepped off sideways into silent buildings, or loped ahead to check the way was clear, leaving Seneca feeling unusually ineffectual. Once, he thought he saw blood on Ajax’s hands, but wasn’t sure. An hour before, he could have enquired as to its origin. Now, he walked on, accepting an object lesson in stealth.
‘Did I hear someone sound the watch hours?’ he asked presently.
‘The tenth hour just sounded,’ Ajax said, his voice slotting beneath the sounds of the city. ‘Dawn comes in two hours. Night is our friend; we shouldn’t waste it.’
They were moving as fast as any sane man could do, given the dark and the debris and the need for secrecy. Even as the brazen notes of the watch trumpet melted into the fire, empty villas gave way to merchants’ booths and those in turn became by degrees the slums of the suburra.
‘Look.’ Seneca pointed, and then, feeling foolish, let his arm fall; only a blind man could have failed to see the barricade of flame ahead, and even the blind would have felt the wall of heat. There, the fire was a true inferno, sucking in air to make its own wind, roaring fit to match the gods.
Between them and it, like a demon’s playground, lay a hu nd red feet of broken buildings , demolished by the Guard to create a firebreak.
‘We can’t cross that,’ Ajax said.
‘Follow me,’ Seneca said, seeing a way to be useful again. ‘I can find us a path past the breaks.’
The next half hour was a hell to haunt dreams for a lifetime as Seneca turned back and then left, navigating a twisting death-walk through the smoke-hazed huddle of huts and shops and three- or four-storey tenements, all empty as if visited by plague, with the pall of death chokingly thick; the fire had not reached here yet.
Then, at one alley’s end, they came to the places it had reached, where the stench of raw smoke made Seneca sneeze, and all around was the greater horror of burned and burning buildings, decked about with burned and burning bodies, some of them still living.
Out of mercy, Ajax killed those he could reach, climbing two storeys up once on to charred and smouldering beams to reach a woman who stretched out a charred arm to them as they passed. She couldn’t speak. Seneca was glad. The stench of burned hair and flesh made him retch.
After that, they kept moving uphill towards the parts the fire had not yet reached. There, in a back alley, they came upon the Watch cutting firebreaks and Ajax hid as Seneca played the part of a grieving father soliciting news of the fire and the welfare of those caught in the city centre.
‘Nero’s thrown open the imperial gardens and is offering safety and food while “his boy” – I trust that’s Math – is marshalling the orphaned children in there. The adults with children are going up to the Field of Mars. Calpurnius is dead. Tonight, the emperor’s spy is prefect of the Watch.’
‘And by that, we sincerely hope they mean Pantera.’ They stood at a street corner. Ajax surveyed the surroundings. ‘If memory serves, the Field of Mars is due north of here. Am I right?’
He had already set off. Seneca followed him at a trot; they were in a hurry again, evidently. Catching up, he said, ‘May I ask how you come to know the geography of Rome?’
‘I was here in Claudius’ time. With my father.’
‘I see,’ said Seneca, who did not see at all for at least the next two blocks and then suddenly saw too much.
‘My dear boy …’ They were nearly at the gardens. Ajax had become a hunter again, merging with the shadows. Striving for a matching skill, Seneca slid into an alcove behind him and, reaching out, caught the crook of Ajax’s elbow, holding him still. Stray firelight reached them. Thus lit, the halo of gold hair was clearly visible on Ajax’s unshaved head. ‘Are you quite mad?’ Seneca whispered. ‘If Nero discovers who you are …’
‘Then being skinned alive will seem like a blessing. I know. So if you can manage not to shout it from the rooftops, I would be grateful.’
He edged forward, drawing Seneca with him, ducking them both down behind a broken water trough. ‘Nero’s ahead , I can hear him, so we need to keep hidden, although I think the more pressing need is to keep hidden from Saulos, who would appear to be watching Pantera, who in turn is talking, I think, to Math. You see?’ Ajax smiled. ‘The gods are good if we give them our all.’
P
antera stopped near the top of the hill in a place where the light of the fire did not meet the light from Nero’s gardens and the road passed through a dozen paces of darkness and peace in which he could assess his condition.
Eight times already in the night, he had paused in this place. Each time, he had come to the same conclusion: that he was still alive, and so capable of going on, but had no idea how much longer that might continue. His body answered him after a fashion; nothing was broken that had not been broken before, but the places that had been broken a long time ago in Britain were white hot and screaming. His left ankle felt as if the tendon had split again while his right shoulder burned as if Saulos had branded it in the fight. He knew neither of these to be true, but he knew also the finite limits to his own stamina.
He was not there yet, and he had two good reasons to keep moving. For them, he levered himself away from the wall against which he was leaning, and set his mind on things other than pain. Specifically, because he was nearest and most vulnerable, he went looking for Math.
He found him by the horse trough where he had been all night, still tending burned children who had lost their hair to the fire and breathed in too much smoke. He turned before Pantera reached him, and offered a wan smile.
‘Libo’s daughter—’
‘Is in the care of her brother. I know. The worst is over here, although not in the Aventine. I have to go there.’
‘Now? You’re not … Can’t someone else go?’
‘Not this time; it has to be me. Dawn’s two hours away. I’m fitter than you think.’ That was a lie, and they both knew it.
Math’s face crumpled. ‘Please …’ He beckoned and, when Pantera came close, pulled him into a tight embrace. Into his ear, he whispered, ‘Saulos is—’
‘Somewhere nearby. I know. I’ve seen him once, just not close enough to kill him, and when I got there, he’d gone.’ Pantera kissed the top of Math’s head. ‘That’s why I have to go. He’ll follow me. He’s trying to find Hannah.’
‘Is she—’
‘She’s with Shimon. He’ll keep her safe, but we think the century of the Watch that’s loyal to Saulos knows where she is.’ Two men of the second century, the second cohort had been found, injured by falling debris. Each of them had told the same tale before he died.
Math grabbed Pantera’s arm. ‘Then they’ll—’
‘Try to find her. I know. I’m going there now, and I’m going to draw Saulos away. You can help me.’ Pantera eased himself out of Math’s clinging grip and stood holding him at arm’s length. In a whisper pitched to carry, he said, ‘I’m going to find Hannah. After that, we’re going to get you all out of Rome.’
‘You can’t. You’re …’ Math ran out of words. A single tear rolled down his cheek, leaving a shining snail’s track in the mask of soot and filth.
With his own throat tight, Pantera took his hand. ‘I’ll come back, I promise. Stay safe.’
* * *
At the garden’s edge, Pantera signalled Mergus, and they worked their way down the hill, seeking a route to the Aventine that went behind the worst of the fire, in the lanes soaked by the water engines of the Watch.
They had both been in Britain; they knew what it was to fight in hostile territory, where every tree and bush hid a spear waiting for blood. Tonight, they treated Rome as if it were an enemy encampment, taking care at each junction, finding cover in the shadows, the demolished buildings, the smoke.
Partway down a broken alleyway, Mergus touched Pantera’s sleeve. ‘We’re being followed by more than just Saulos.’
‘I know. There are two others behind him.’
A beam blocked their path, a smouldering mess of charred, wet wood. Mergus ducked under it neatly and, for a moment, was lost in the dark. Four paces on, behind a stack of burned-out barrels, he joined Pantera again. ‘I still see only one: old and lame in his hips.’
They edged over a fallen pigsty, replete with dead, part-roasted piglets, picked their way through the rubble of a house. On the flat ground beyond, Pantera said, ‘That’s Seneca. The other one’s a bear warrior of the Eceni.’
‘Here?’ Mergus cast a disbelieving glance over his shoulder. At the next flat piece of ground, he turned round and walked backwards.
‘Don’t.’ Pantera caught his arm, turning him forward again. ‘You won’t see him unless he wants you to and if he does you may take it as a compliment; they show themselves to adversaries they consider worthy before they kill them. The unworthy simply die.’
‘Does Saulos know they’re there?’
‘He’ll know about Seneca. My sincere hope is that he doesn’t know about Ajax.’
A broken cistern blocked their path. The water had long since become steam. Pantera climbed over it stiffly. On the far side, two men lay side by side. Mergus knelt to be sure they were dead. Catching up, he said, ‘We should kill Saulos now.’
‘We could try. And in the meantime, the men of the second cohort will take Hannah. Given the choice between the satisfaction of killing Saulos and saving Hannah, I choose the latter. Can you run up the hill if you have to?’
‘I can.’ Mergus huffed a derisory laugh. ‘Can you?’
They were in the corner of the cattle market. Nothing was left of it. Stepping over the bodies of an old woman and a dog, Pantera flexed his left ankle. The pain transcended anything he could remember. He thought it probably wasn’t as bad as it had been in Britain, only that his body, out of mercy, had forgotten.
He said, ‘If I can’t, don’t wait for me. There are two women and a man in the goose-keeper’s house. Escort them to safety in the emperor’s name.’
‘I can’t do that if they’re already taken,’ Mergus said. ‘Centurion Appollonius is the son of a consul. I don’t have the authority to arrest him, or even obstruct him in the prosecution of his duties.’
‘You do now. Here—’
Pantera pulled open the pouch at his belt, retrieved earlier from Augustus’ forum. Nero’s gold and sapphire ring danced in a fading bloom of firelight.
Mergus gazed at it, unimpressed. ‘Tonight,’ he said drily, ‘it may be that the emperor’s authority is not what it was. And I wouldn’t trust him to take my word over Appollonius’ if it comes to an argument.’
Pantera was coming to like Mergus a great deal. ‘Take it anyway.’ He placed the ring in the other man’s hand, closing his fingers over it. ‘It may keep you from being crucified in the morning.’
‘Maybe.’ Mergus hid the gold beneath his leather jerkin. ‘And if it can’t, then—
Mithras!
Is the entire Aventine on fire?’
They had just turned a corner. Aghast, Mergus looked up the hill. ‘They’ve set a new blaze,’ he said, in horror. ‘The wind’s blowing in our faces; it would never have driven the fire up here. The bastards are ahead of us, setting fire to the streets behind them as they go.’
Smoke swirled around them, sucked this way and that by the fire. They could see nothing but burned and burning buildings, and, ahead, a wall of savage flame. And then from high up at the fire’s leading edge, they heard the voices of men raised in anger – and a woman scream.
Pantera put his hand on Mergus’ shoulder and pushed him up the hill. ‘That’s Hannah!
Go!
’
O
n the Aventine hill, the gander, his geese and their sacred goslings slept safely in a stone goose-house that stood on a tiny island in the centre of the pond at the meadow’s far end, accessed by a wooden causeway. The goose-keeper’s cottage seemed similarly secure, encircled by water and far away from any of the neighbouring buildings from which burning debris might fall.
‘This place has withstood seventeen fires since it was first built,’ Hypatia had said when Shimon and Hannah had first knocked on the oak gate at the night’s beginning. ‘An eighteenth won’t touch it. Come in. You’ll be safe from the fire here.’