Authors: Kate Thompson
Most Wanted
MOST
WANTED
â Kate Thompson â
For my big brothers, Ben and Mark
Â
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I
t was early afternoon on a cold February day. I had just finished my deliveries and was making my way home across the city with my handcart. The streets were quiet, as they usually were at that time of day, so I had no trouble hearing the horse when it came trotting up behind me, and I moved aside with my cart to let it pass.
But it didn't. The young man who was leading it stopped beside me, and when I turned to look at him, I was astonished by what I saw.
He was a slave, and I might have been struck by how well dressed he was if I hadn't noticed that the horse was dressed even better. It wore a blanket of royal purple and its head collar was decorated with precious stones that sparkled in rainbow colors. Its lead rope was a chain of solid gold. I stood with my mouth open, astonished. I ought to have known immediately what horse this was, for everyone in the city knew about Incitatus, but sometimes my mind doesn't work very quickly, especially when it comes up against the impossible.
“There is a rumor going around,” the slave boy said. “Terrible news.”
He was panting hard and gasping out the words, and he had a strong English accent as well, so it wasn't easy for me to understand what he was saying.
“News?” I said.
“But it can't be true,” he said. “I have to go and find out.”
“Find out what?” I said.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the golden chain into my hand. “Take care of him. I'll find out the truth and come straight back.”
And before I could object, he was gone, running down the street the way he had come. The nerve of him! A slave telling me what to do! I couldn't hold his horse for him, no matter how smartly it was dressed. I called out after him, but if he heard me, he paid no attention. At the end of the street he hesitated and looked up and down. Then he slipped around the corner and was gone.
My brother needed the handcart to collect flour from the mill, and I had to get home. If I was late, I would be in serious trouble. I had been out on my round since before dawn, and I needed to get something to eat and go to bed for a few hours because my whole family had to work through the night to have fresh bread ready for the morning. On a good day I got about five hours' sleep in the evening. On a good day my mother and father got three.
It hadn't always been like that. Life was a whole lot easier for all of us before the emperor, Gaius, took our horses and the best of our slaves. They say he sold the slaves and used the horses to transport Rome's treasures to Gaul, so he could sell them, because he never had enough money for all his mad and extravagant projects.
I don't know if it's true, and I don't really care. The end result was the same for us. Our lives became a long, hard, circular grind of baking and loading and delivering and sleeping and getting up and baking again. And I didn't have time to be standing around holding horses, no matter how glamorous they were.
And he really was glamorous. A racing horse, I was sure, from the look of his light bones and his fine, shiny coat. He tossed his head and looked around him with wild, fiery eyes, and he sniffed warily at my empty cart as though he expected it to jump up and bite him. You'd have guessed by now, I'm sure, because everyoneâeven people from out of town like yourselfâhad heard about Emperor Gaius and the things his madness caused him to do, but I still hadn't worked out whose horse it was that I was taking care of.
While I was trying to decide what to do, a man came along the street: a wealthy man, from the shape of his belly and the cut of his toga. He stopped in front of the horse and, to my amazement, gave a bow.
“How nice to see you out and about, Consul Incitatus,” he said. “Taking a little exercise, are you? Getting to know your citizens?”
My knees went so weak that they would barely support me. This was absurd, it had to be a nightmare. It couldn't be happening.
“And you must be the consul's companion,” said the man, looking me up and down and making a clear effort to disguise his surprise and contempt. I'm a baker, after all. We have a tendency to be more than a little dusty.
I was rooted to the spot, my mind in turmoil. You see, the horse I was holding was a lot more than just a horse. After the emperor the two consuls are Rome's most powerful officials, as I'm sure you know. If I were holding a dragon, it couldn't have been more dangerous.
“Yes, sir,” I stammered. “His companion. Indeed. For today, that is.”
Our consuls are elected by the people, but this one was an exception. Emperor Gaius had flouted the senate and made the decision himself. I found myself stroking the horse's neck, realized that this was no way to behave toward a consul, and stood to a kind of trembling attention. The rich man's eyes darkened.
“That is,” I spluttered, “the consul is taking a stroll and I am accompanying him.”
I could tell that the man didn't believe a word I said, but what could he do? I saw a slim possibility of escape and leaped at it.
“Perhaps you would care to accompany him back to the palace yourself, sir?” I said, offering him the golden chain.
He backed away as though he had just noticed that I was a leper and simpered something about very urgent business. He bowed again to the horse, reversed a few steps in that position, then turned and scuttled away down the street as fast as his plump legs would carry him.
U
nder other circumstances I might have found it funny to see that man's undignified retreat. But I was in far too much danger to laugh. If I was caught, I was done for.
You might think that appointing a horse as your second-in-command was a clever kind of joke, but I can assure you there was nothing funny about Emperor Gaius and his madness. We had all celebrated when he took over as our emperor. Anything had to be better than Tiberius. That's what we thought, anyway. It just goes to show how wrong you can be.
Little Boots, we called him, because he used to wear miniature versions of soldiers' boots when he was a child. Sounds so innocent and affectionate, doesn't it? And it was to begin with. But by the time that golden chain was put into my hand, the mention of the name was enough to make my blood run cold. He had become a monster, a tyrant of the worst imaginable kind.
I had to get out of there, and as soon as I could persuade my legs to move, I tried to make a run for it. I dropped the chain, picked up the handles of my cart, and set out for home.
But the consul Incitatus had other ideas. He had his own house next to the palace, where important people went to have dinner with him, and a retinue of servants who looked after him night and day. He wasn't used to being alone. So when I went off down the street, he followed me, dragging the end of his golden chain along the cobbles.
Alarmed as I was, I couldn't bring myself to shout and wave my arms at one of Rome's consuls, so there wasn't much I could do to stop him. I put down the handles of the handcart again, and I was still trying to work out what to do when I heard running footsteps and turned to see a boy of about my own age racing up behind me. There was something about his urgency that made me realize he wasn't on any ordinary errand, and I remembered what the slave had said about “terrible news.”
“What's going on?” I called to the boy.
He glanced at me as he raced past, but he didn't reply.
I looked back the way he had come. There was activity at the crossroads back there. I could see soldiers heading toward the palace and a flurry of people moving rapidly in the opposite direction. My innards began to churn in panic. I knew the city well, and I could read the signs. Something big was happening. And if Little Boots was behind it, as he was behind everything that happened in Rome, it meant that no one was safe.
My instinct was to bolt, but if I returned to the bakery without the cart, I was going to find myself in a different kind of trouble. So I grabbed the handles again and started trundling the stupid, clumsy thing along the street.
And still the consul Incitatus followed me.
There was a shout from behind. I turned and saw the English slave who had left me holding the horse. He was running down the street toward me, but my initial sense of relief didn't last longer than a heartbeat. He was being pursued by a soldier, and the soldier was winning.
“Save him!” the boy yelled at me, and they were the last words he ever said, because at that moment the soldier caught him and ran him through with his sword.
There were other soldiers in the street and they had seen me. It was impossible to miss me, in fact, with the horse's big purple blanket blazing out like a flag. There was only one way now for me to save my life, and I have to admit that I didn't stop to think about the consequences. They could be no worse than staying where I was. So I jumped from the ground to the handcart and from the handcart onto Incitatus's purple-coated back, and I dug my heels into the consul's sides as hard as I possibly could.
E
verything had been fine at first. Little Boots did some great things for Rome when he first came to power. But then he became ill.
I was young at the time, but I still remember it well. My parents and grandparents paced the floor with worry. They joined the crowds at the temples, spending huge sums of money on sacrifices to the gods, pleading with them to spare the life of our young Caesar.
Be careful what you ask of the gods, because they might grant your wishes. In this case they did, and many's the person who has lived to regret the prayers and sacrifices he or she made at that time.
Little Boots survived his illness, but most people will tell you that he never recovered from it. It changed him entirely. He began to say that he was a god, and he had the heads removed from all the statues of Zeus and replaced with his own likeness. He spent all the money that was left in the treasury on crazy things like floating palaces, and then he came up with ways to take everyone else's money so he could keep on indulging himself.
My grandfather was one of his first victims. He was a respected figure in Rome, and our bakery was the biggest and the best. So when Little Boots closed the granaries one day and wouldn't let out any grain for making bread, my grandfather went to see him to ask why. It wasn't only our business that would suffer. Without bread the people of Rome would be hungry.
Later that day my father and mother received an invitation to go to the palace for dinner. They always refused to tell me what happened, but my brother, Lucius, found out and he told me. My parents were made to watch my grandfather being executed, and afterward they had to sit and have dinner with Little Boots and pretend to make small talk and laugh at his jokes. And they had, because if they hadn't there was a good chance that their heads would have rolled like my grandfather's, and what would have become of us children then?
If there is one thing to be thankful for, it is that my grandfather's death was relatively quick and painless. Since those days Little Boots has become ingenious at finding new ways to kill people. The longer it takes and the more painful it is, the better he likes it. And that's why when I got up on that horse's back, it wasn't for a lark. I was more frightened than I had ever been before. I was relying on the consul Incitatus to save my life.