Carbo and the Thief Page 5

  Of course it came to nothing, and hope dashed, the slaves of the household continued their chores, and suffered their abuses.

  “Enough of your treason,” said her master, the laugh in his voice indicating he was at least partly jesting. “Let’s have some music. Elissa, sing for us.”

  Elissa stepped forward. She sang, without accompaniment, and her voice was firm, clear, and in perfect pitch.

  “O home of my fathers

  Destroyed by your enemies

  Your fields salted

  Your people gone

  O home of my people

  Once the greatest of all

  How humble are you now

  Naught remains for you

  But sorrow

  And hope for revenge”

  Her voice trailed away on the last note.

  “I told you she had a pure voice,” said her master.

  “And fine hips,” said Gnaeus, looking her up and down. “Turn around for me, girl.”

  She did as she was bid, turning a slow circle, feeling the man’s gaze on her.

  “Very nice,” said Gnaeus, licking his lips. “Perhaps after dinner, you would permit me to take her to my room…?”

  Elissa’s heart lurched. Had the time come? She had steeled herself that it would be soon, but had presumed it would be her master, who at least was not repulsive in looks, the way his friend was. Her master hesitated.

  “She is virgin, Gnaeus,” he said.

  “My, then you are being generous to your guest tonight, my old friend.”

  Her master sighed. “As you wish. Elissa, go to Gnaeus quarters and await him.”

  Elissa looked at her father, who held her gaze helplessly, tears welling in his eyes. She nodded to her master.

  “Yes, master,” and retreated to the guest room.

  She had no idea how much time had passed, as she sat on the feather bed, with its fine cloth sheets, and looked around at the wall paintings of scenes from mythology, and the beautiful carved furniture, all lit by fine brass oil lamps. The contrast with her own lowly accommodation was marked, and she wondered at the life the privileged of the Roman Empire lived.

  The door opened and she started. Gnaeus stood silhouetted in the doorway, swaying slightly and holding onto the door frame for support. He slipped his toga off, so it settled at his feet, and kicked the door closed. She looked at his naked body in disgust, warts protruding from fat that gathered in rolls down his breasts and belly, which sagged down over his groin. Then he tottered forward to the bed, and let himself slump on it face down.

  “A massage, girl” he said, voice slightly muffled by the soft pillow he was lying on. Elissa gathered herself and tentatively started to rub his shoulders.

  “Harder. I want a massage from a girl, not a mouse!” Elissa put more force into her fingertips, working on the muscles of his shoulders and back. Gnaeus started to moan in contentment, and she knew she was pleasing him. A thoughtful servant had put some scented oil by the bedside, and she poured some into her hands and massaged his back up and down.

  He turned over suddenly to lay on his back and she saw his rod had grown, so it was half erect, but flopped over to one side.

  “Now my front, girl.” She did as commanded, massaging the oil over his chest, but he grabbed her wrist and forced her hand lower to his shaft. She gripped it, and moved her hand up and down, as she had heard the other slave girls described. He groaned more. “Faster, girl. Harder.” She did as commanded, but her unpracticed technique was clumsy, and he yelped as she pressed too hard and bent his member painfully. He sat up and cuffed her hard across the side of the head, sending her flying to the floor. He moved to her and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to the bed, thrusting her forwards so she was kneeling on the floor, her torso on the bed, face buried in the blankets. Gnaeus lifted her dress up, while holding her head downwards by the hair, and she felt him trying to enter her. His rod was fully hard now, but she was unaroused and scared, and he found it hard to enter her. He cursed her, and pushed a finger inside her, and she cried in pain and arched forward. He held her still, spreading her, and thrust his cock inside her.

  The pain was indescribable. She screamed aloud, and he hit her again and again. She barely felt the blows though, the pain from between her legs blocking everything out, and she continued to scream as he thrust into her. He cursed her, swore at her to shut up, but she was beyond reason now, and she struggled and screamed and cried for help as he raped her.

  The door flew open, she heard a voice that a part of her recognised, and then the assault stopped. She pulled herself onto the bed, curling up with the blanket, and turned round. Her father was standing in the room, face more angry than she had ever seen. He held Gnaeus up against the wall by the throat, but he was looking at her. Something wet dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision, and she wiped the liquid away. Looking down at her hand she saw it was covered in blood.

  “Elissa,” said her father. He tried to say more, but the words seemed to halt in his throat.

  “I’m sorry, father,” she said, in a small voice.

  Gnaeus looked into Mago’s eyes.

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” he said. “I am going to make it my business to rape that slut of a daughter of yours every night till she begs to die, you pathetic little slave.”

  Mago gave his daughter one more anguished look. Elissa felt a thrill of fear go through her, as she realised what was about to happen. She opened her mouth to try to restrain her father, but she was too late. Before any words came from her mouth, Mago produced a knife from his tunic and thrust it straight into Gnaeus’ heart. Blood spurted around the wound, and Mago looked down in amazement. His mouth sagged open, and he slid down the wall to the ground.

  Mago stared at the dagger. Elissa was frozen in shock. Blood pooled around Gnaeus’ naked corpse.

  “Father,” whispered Elissa. He looked up at her, and then his features changed, set and hardened. He slid the dagger back under his tunic and grabbed her wrist, pulling her from the bed. His grip hurt, along with so many other parts of her, and she cried out, but he didn’t relent.

  “Come with me,” he hissed, and dragged her to his chamber. Rummaging under his mattress, he pulled out a small bag of coins and pressed them into her hand, then took the dagger from his tunic and gave it to her. “Take these, and run. Head for the docks. Buy yourself passage for Rome. You aren’t branded or collared, no one will know you are a slave. In Rome, there are a million people you can hide amongst. Go, and live your life as a free woman.”

  Elissa stared at him in total disbelief. “Father, why?”

  “What I’ve done, there is no going back now. It means destruction.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, and she felt his tears wetting her hair. “I love you, Elissa.”

  “I love you, too, father,” she sobbed, holding him tight. He paused just a moment, and then pried her off him.

  “You must go now, before the body is discovered, before dawn.” He led her through the house, through the atrium, and quietly passed the dozing door guard. Once out of his earshot, he embraced her again.

  “Father, I don’t know what to do. Come with me, we can go together.”

  “I can’t. I am known on the boats. The master sends me there regularly to barter for the delicacies arriving from Rome. They would report me the moment I asked for passage. Your best chance is alone.”

  “But what will they do to you?”

  “I don’t know.” He shivered. “But it won’t matter. They can do what they please, as long as I know you are safe. Now please, go.”

  “No, please, I can’t, not alone.”

  “You must. You will. It is death to stay. Goodbye Elissa. Go to Rome, but never forget you are a daughter of Carthage, and never forget what that Empire has done to your people. And don’t forget…” His voice caught a little. “Don’t forget me.”

  “Never, father.”

  He turned and walked back to the house. She w
aited for him to look back, but he disappeared inside without a backward glance. She stood, feeling paralysed with helplessness. But slowly, resolve worked its way into her body. She turned away from the house, and started to walk towards the docks.

  The ship rolled and pitched and yawed with the waves, and she clung to a side rail. The pain between her legs had so far only eased a little, on top of which she felt like emptying her stomach into the sea. They were less than a day out from Carthage, en route to Sicily first. The boat’s captain had been good to her, letting her use his quarters, and had made sure she was fed. The coins that had been her father’s life savings had helped of course.

  Two sailors leered at her, and she fingered the dagger under her tunic, wondering if she would need to use it, before the captain barked a command at them and they sauntered off. The captain came over to her, and asked how she was. She replied politely, but the misery in her expression and tone must have been obvious. He seemed about to say more, when his cook walked up.

  “Captain, there are maggots in the beef. We must have been conned. The food was good when I checked it, I swear it.”

  “You idiot,” growled the captain. “Surely you should know by now to check more than the first one they show you.”

  The cook cursed, and spat on the deck. “I did, I checked several. Those miserable Carthaginians must have swapped them when I was watching the executions.”

  “What executions?” said Elissa, cold gripping her heart suddenly.

  “Oh, some idiot Roman was crucifying his slaves. The whole cursed household can you believe. A guest had been murdered in the house apparently, and the Roman put the whole lot of them up on crosses on the hillside, to make an example of them. Must have more money than sense if he can afford to get rid of that much livestock without compensation.”

  “All of them?” asked Elissa, voice quavering.

  “Men, women and children, nearly a hundred of them. Some of them were still screaming when I left. Some of the little ones had died already. Most of them were just hanging there, waiting for the crows.”

  Elissa leaned over the rail and retched, and kept retching though her stomach had nothing left to give up. Her father’s words came back to her. “Never forget what that Empire has done to your people.” She vowed on her father’s shade that she never would.

  Vespillo and the Thracian Revolt

  In Watchmen of Rome, we meet Vespillo, the commander of one of the Watchmen’s stations. In this extract from an early draft of Watchmen, we find out why Vespillo left the army and ended up in the lowly vigiles.

  Carbo sat with Vespillo in the tavern that was becoming locally known as “Carbo’s place.” It was early evening and the place was packed. Carbo’s reputation for being able to keep order within his establishment had been good for business among those who wanted to be able to drink and talk and gamble without the threat of violence. Carbo made sure that his customers had no doubts about the consequences if they stepped out of line. Already this evening, two drunken members of the urban cohorts had fallen out over a game of Tali, one claiming he had thrown the Venus hand, the highest possible, while the other accused him of cheating. When they had started to come to uncoordinated blows, Carbo had cracked their heads together and tossed them both out, sprawling on the streets, to much laughter and applause. Vatius, drinking in his usual seat, had toasted Carbo with a full cup of wine, far from sober himself.

  “Not only an old man becomes a second child,” said Vatius. “But also a drunkard.”

  “Socrates?” hazarded Carbo.

  “Plato, actually. Good guess though.”

  A long sleep during the day had relieved Carbo and Vespillo of some of the tiredness that the previous night’s exertions had caused them, although they both still ached and stung from burns, cuts and bruises. Carbo rubbed the lump on the back of his head, where his skull had connected with the ground despite the thickness of the mattress. It throbbed, and he probed it despite the pain. He was lucky not to have cracked his head open, or to have suffered after effects of the injury. He had seen more than one man die some hours after obtaining a head wound in battle which appeared from the outside not to be serious.

  “Why did you do it?” asked Carbo.

  Vespillo drank deeply from a cup, and wiped his grey beard with the back of his hand. He belched.

  “Do what?”

  “Run into a burning building.”

  “It was my job.”

  “It was the job of every man there. You were the only one to do it.”

  “Not the only one. Some idiot civilian followed me in. Why was that?”

  Carbo shrugged. He wasn’t sure himself. He knew that he liked this man, and thought that he probably needed him too. Certainly he was the only friend he had in Rome right now.

  “I think it must be the military training. You follow your commander into battle, wherever he leads.”

  “I’m not your commander.”

  “I got caught up in the moment. I felt like one of your men. Anyway, I asked why you went in, first. I wouldn’t have done that.”

  “I wonder. I think you might. Especially if it was to rescue someone you cared about.”

  “That’s just it though. The deaths of that family would have been a tragedy, but they meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t have risked my life for them. I risked it for you. So why did you go in? What were you trying to prove?”

  Vespillo swirled the contents of his cup around, looking down into it, as if they would provide him with a simple answer. Then he looked up at Carbo.

  “Do you want to know my story? How I ended up a ranker in the vigiles?”

  Carbo regarded him steadily. “Do you want to tell me?”

  Vespillo paused then said, “Yes, I think I do.” He sighed.

  “Pannonia was bad,” he went on. “Do you remember it?”

  “I was in Germany at the time. I recall that old Biberius Caldius Mero had withdrawn a lot of troops from Dalmatia and Pannonia for a campaign on the Danube.” Carbo used Tiberius Claudius Nero’s old army nickname, meaning drinker of strong hot wine.

  “That’s right. It was a mistake. Pannonia had never accepted Roman rule, and there had already been several rebellions in the past few years. As soon as our troop numbers reduced, they rebelled in strength. They killed citizens, traders, wiped out a detachment of auxiliaries. The rebellion grew, and even threatened Italy. Tiberius and Germanicus brought troops from throughout the Empire, but even with their skills and all that manpower, the war dragged on for four years. I was at Raetinum.”

  Carbo’s eyebrows went up. “You were there at the fire? What happened?”

  Vespillo’s face clouded. “We made a breach in the town wall. We thought it was all over, just mopping up to do once we were inside the defences. But the rebels fired their own homes. We had already started to let our guard down. Many of the boys were in the houses, looting, pillaging, raping no doubt. You know the score. Hundreds of us were trapped in the flames. You never get used to the stench of cooking flesh, the screams of people burning to death. But that first time was the worst.”

  “So that’s why you joined the vigiles?”

  Vespillo shook his head. “I wish it was so noble. Truth is, the vigiles were the only ones that would have me. Even the urban cohorts wouldn’t touch me with a pilum.”

  Carbo was quiet, letting Vespillo collect himself.

  “When the war was over, we thought we would get our rewards. Land, discharge for those who had served their time. All our back pay. Then we heard about the Teutoberg disaster, and everything changed.”

  Vespillo noticed that Carbo had gone very still. “Were you there?” he asked.

  Carbo nodded. When he said nothing, Vespillo continued.

  “The immediate panic was understandable. We had lost a lot of manpower, so the cancelling of leave and of discharges was reasonable under the circumstances. But time went by. I was promoted to centurion. Kept my head down, did as I was told. The lads though
, they weren’t happy. Rations were short, pay was down and veterans were forced to remain with the colours even after their official discharge had been granted. Discontent was rife, so punishment became over harsh. Barely a day went by without one of the lads being lashed, or worse.

  “Then Augustus died. The boys saw it as a chance to petition the new emperor for better conditions. A legionary called Percennius stirred things up, giving voice to the complaints of the men, like veterans still under arms after forty years of service, low pay, too much punishment, and even when finally discharged being rewarded with land in a swamp or a mountain. It all fell on receptive ears. Soon the local villages were being looted, the centurions being assaulted. Riots spread and the whole situation spiralled out of control. The civilians suffered again. Robbery, rape murder.” He shook his head.

  “Were you part of the revolt?”

  Vespillo shook his head. “No, and I was beaten well as a result. Although later, after Drusus had talked the mutineers down, my loyalty was noted and I was promoted to leading centurion of the second cohort. I was posted to a border fort in Thrace. Life became simpler, and more comfortable. I met a local woman, Orphea, who lived in one of the villages near the fort. She became as near to my wife as it is possible for a soldier to have. I made her comfortable, made sure the locals knew she was under my protection, and to be left alone. She was resented, even ostracised for her fraternising with the occupiers, but she bore it well, and she loved me. Eventually, we had a son together.”

  Carbo looked up sharply. He had thought Vespillo was childless. Vespillo didn’t meet his gaze, and continued to stare down at the table. For a moment, he didn’t speak, and Carbo wondered if he had decided he had said enough. Then he went on, and this time his voice cracked as he spoke.

  “Two years ago, the Thracians revolted. The recruiting officers had been through their towns and villages, enthusiastically press-ganging anyone of military age into the legions. The Thracians probably had the right of it. They were certainly suffering, and at first they made peaceful representations. The governor, Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus, played for time until reinforcements arrived. A legion from Moesia, and some loyal Thracian auxiliaries answered his call, and he took the fight to the rebels. After his first victories, he moved his headquarters closer to the enemy camp, and he left the loyal Thracian auxiliaries behind to guard his previous headquarters. I was stationed with the governor, fortifying his camp. The Thracians were fortified in the hills, and it became something of a standoff. Then word got back to the camp of how the loyal Thracians were behaving. Apparently with the blessing of their superiors, they were allowed to plunder the local countryside, provided they were back at night to guard the camp. That included my Orphea’s village.”