Rome's Sacred Flame Read online

  The Numidian howled like a harpy as with a couple of flicks of the wrist Bolanus cut through the loincloth and sliced away the genitals.

  ‘You’ll have time to contemplate your lack of gratitude as you bleed out, Mezian.’ Leaving the castrated man screaming on the ground, writhing and clutching his wound, Bolanus leapt back into the saddle and grinned at Vespasian. ‘That feels much better; hopefully the vultures will begin their banquet whilst the arsehole is still alive.’

  Vespasian looked down at Mezian. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, no more than the sun moving the breadth of two fingers in the sky, less than half an hour. If there wasn’t a heat haze we’d be able to see their dust by now, I would guess; but it will be tight beating them to the dump.’

  ‘We’d better get going then.’

  And it was tight; very tight. Despite knowing that they had almost caught up with their quarry and were therefore able to exert their horses more than perhaps was prudent, the marker-hill was very close by the time the mutineers could be discerned through the shimmer.

  ‘They’re not mounted!’ Vespasian shouted over to Bolanus. ‘They must be at the dump.’

  The realisation that, even now, the stock might be in the process of being destroyed made Vespasian urge his flagging horse on as fast as it could go for the final few hundred paces. The Numidians surged after him, ululating cries rising from them along with the dust they kicked up. On Vespasian galloped as the mutineers became aware that they had been caught and began scrambling for their horses. But the urgency in the hearts of the Numidians seemingly transferred itself into the equine minds of their mounts, for they too appeared to realise that life depended on this final charge; they swelled their great chests and forced their aching muscles to work through the pain as they vied with one another to be the swiftest. No sweat did they secrete for their fluids were low, but their speed they maintained and even increased and, as they thundered past the water dump, Vespasian could see that it had been dug up and had a brief glimpse of fractured earthenware, wet and steaming.

  ‘I want Nepos alive!’ he shouted, wrenching his sword from its scabbard and praying to his guardian god, Mars, that his horse would hold out for the final few hundred paces. And Mars heard the prayer, for within a hundred beats of the beast’s great heart Vespasian’s blade sliced into the skull of the rearmost mutineer, whipping off the crown to spin high in the air, flecking gore, as the rider carried on, open-headed, for a few moments before collapsing and falling from his racing horse in a flurry of spilt brains. And Bolanus with his Numidians swarmed through their former comrades’ small formation, hacking at them from behind and bringing them down one by one. Vespasian pulled up his exhausted horse to let other, younger men do the killing and it did not take them long to dispose of fifty or so lives. To the shrieks of the dying and the pounding of hoofs, they dealt death to the men who would have consigned them to becoming dried husks on the desert floor with no hope of a burial, no dignified transfer to the afterlife; a real death, an ultimate death. And it was with the rage of men who had been threatened with such a death by former comrades, traitors to their brotherhood, that the Numidians slew and Vespasian watched with joy in his heart and relief in his belly.

  But that sense of relief soon disappeared as he recalled the state of the water dump as he had flashed past it; he turned his horse and walked the weary beast back to where Magnus, Hormus and the lictors were standing next to a pit dug in the sand.

  ‘It ain’t looking too bad,’ Magnus said, wiping dust from his face with the back of his hand. ‘But it’s not brilliant either; the bastards did some damage all right.’

  Vespasian dismounted and walked to the edge of the pit; planks were discarded to either side having originally provided a roof for the dump that had been covered by just a thin layer of sand. Within were scores of amphorae, some whole and some shattered; precious water soaked into the sand into which the sharp ends of the amphorae were buried to keep them upright.

  Vespasian counted them: twenty-five across and twenty up. ‘I’d say that of the five hundred there must be about three hundred left.’

  ‘Three hundred; then it’s just as well that the mutineers and the rebel slaves did some thinning out of our numbers, I should say. Five hundred wouldn’t have been enough for all of us and the caravan. Perhaps Nepos had a point.’

  Vespasian slumped down on the ground suddenly feeling the exhaustion. ‘I’m getting too old for this.’

  ‘You’re getting too old; what about me? It’s got to the stage where every day I have to make a choice between fighting or fucking because I can’t do both.’ Magnus joined him sitting on the ground, looking at the depleted dump and shaking his head. ‘Will it be enough?’

  ‘It will have to be. Let’s see what we can save.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Magnus said, breaking into a grim smile. ‘I think there’s a higher priority.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I think you might like first to ask Nepos some searching questions, if you take my meaning?’

  Vespasian turned to where a couple of Bolanus’ men were leading Nepos, bloodied and bruised having fallen from his horse, back for justice. ‘I do, Magnus, I do; but what would I learn that I don’t already know?’

  ‘What!’ The answer to that question took Vespasian by surprise. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Nepos, on his knees, stared up at Vespasian with unyielding eyes. ‘Count the bodies then and you’ll see that I’m telling the truth.’

  Vespasian turned to Bolanus. ‘Have your men counted the dead?’

  The decurion nodded. ‘We did as we stripped them of all their food; fifty-four. With the two we’ve already caught that means there are four missing.’

  Nepos’ smile was mirthless. ‘Do you think I’d have been so foolish as not to give myself some insurance? Four troopers, with a good supply of water, went straight onto the well with orders to foul it if they don’t see me and their comrades approaching. I told them I would come in daylight so there can be no mistaking me; they’ll take any attempt to approach the well by night as hostile and foul it immediately. So you see, you do need me alive.’

  ‘What have they got to foul it with?’

  ‘A couple of sacks of decomposing body parts; not very nice to transport, I grant you, but even nastier in a fresh-water well.’

  ‘We’ll catch them before they get there; they can’t be more than a couple of hours ahead.’

  ‘Look at the state of your horses, they’re exhausted; you won’t be able to leave for at least a few hours, by which time my men will be well away.’

  ‘Their horses are just as exhausted as ours; they’ll have to rest up too.’

  ‘Can you afford to take that gamble? They haven’t just fought a skirmish in the heat. You need me, Vespasian; face it.’

  Vespasian cursed, knowing that the treacherous slave-keeper was right; he sheathed his sword. ‘Very well; you live. But I only need you as far as the well; once we’re there your usefulness will be over.’

  ‘We’ll see, Governor,’ Nepos said, heaving himself to his feet. ‘We shall see.’

  Vespasian wanted to dismiss that remark as mere bluster but Nepos was cannier than he had given him credit for. ‘Get this bastard one of the dead troopers’ horses, Bolanus; and have four of your lads around him all the time. We’re going onto the well with fifty-four men in total; the others can stay here and rest whilst they wait for the citizens. Have six more of the captured horses loaded with reserve water. Feed and water the men and horses who are coming with us first; we’ll move out soon after dark. What time does the moon rise?’

  ‘The third hour of the night, sir.’

  ‘We’ll leave then; we can all get a couple of hours’ sleep.’

  Two hours was not nearly enough and Vespasian felt even more tired when he was woken than he had done as his head hit the pillow of his rolled-up cloak; but he was well aware that the lack of sleep that they all suffered from now was a sm
all price to pay to stand a chance of avoiding a parched death in the very near future.

  And so it was with dour determination, and a couple of open-palmed slaps on his cheeks to ward off the tiredness, that he led the reduced column north, as fast as they could travel by the light of the newly risen half-moon.

  ‘I’m starting to get the impression that this is becoming even more complicated than it was originally meant to be,’ Magnus observed, riding next to him.

  Vespasian massaged his temples with the thumb and ring-finger of one hand. ‘Yes, and I think I’ve worked out how Nepos plans to make it even more so.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he seems to think that I will have another reason not to kill him when we get to the well.’

  ‘He might just be planning on making a run for it.’

  ‘Where to? There’s nowhere to hide and he wouldn’t be able to outrun us, and besides, he hasn’t got any water himself, I made sure of that; he has to rely on the water carried by the six pack-horses.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s planning on stealing one of them.’

  ‘No, he didn’t know we were going to be taking pack-horses with us when he implied that I wouldn’t kill him at the well. No, he had this planned out already and it’s all about what he told his men to do. He said that they would poison the well if they didn’t see him and their comrades approaching; in other words if they saw us approaching.’

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘And then what would they do? Wait for us to come and kill them?’

  ‘No, obviously they would ride north as fast as they could and hope to get to the next dump before we catch them.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what would their orders be if they did see Nepos and their comrades arriving?’

  Magnus thought for a few moments. ‘Ah!’

  ‘Ah, indeed. They’d do the same: keep one stage ahead just in case we were right on Nepos’ tail or we had already got him; as we have now. And Nepos is not going to signal to them to poison the well because he needs it fresh just as much as we do.’

  ‘That could go on all the way to Leptis Magna.’

  Vespasian glanced back down the column to where Nepos was riding surrounded by his four guards. ‘Which gives Nepos reason to believe that I won’t kill him for quite some while.’

  ‘And the closer we are to Leptis Magna the more chance he has of making a break for it and being able to make it to some sort of habitation.’

  ‘Exactly. So we’ve got to put an end to his clever little scheme as we reach the well.’

  ‘And how do you plan to do that?’

  ‘As I said, he didn’t count on us taking pack-horses.’

  For the remainder of the night and the first few, cooler hours of the following morning they rode north as fast as they dared, hoping that their fresher horses would gain on those of the four surviving mutineers who not only had had little or no rest but also had to bear the weight of their own water.

  It was with this in mind that Vespasian ordered the water on the pack-horses to be consumed first when they halted for a rest during the burning hours of the day. By the time they struck camp, in the cooling afternoon of the second day, the pack-horses did not live up to their name as they had nothing at all loaded on them other than their saddles.

  ‘No, Bolanus,’ Vespasian said when questioned upon the subject by the decurion, ‘we leave them as they are.’

  ‘But they could take a lot of the weight off the other horses and keep them from tiring quite so quickly.’

  ‘Marginally; whereas those six stay much fresher and they’ll be more use to us like that, believe me. Just make sure they have their saddles on securely and there is a full holster of javelins on each one.’

  The decurion shrugged but did not pursue the matter any further.

  Vespasian retreated into his own thoughts for the next couple of hours until the sky glowed red in the west as the sun slipped behind distant mountains and a warm breeze sprung up out of nothing.

  ‘How much further to the well, would you say, Bolanus?’ Vespasian asked, pulling up the cloth that covered his mouth and nose.

  ‘We should be there by morning.’

  ‘Then we need to slow down.’

  ‘But the mutineers are ahead.’

  ‘And we won’t catch them before they reach the well; in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re already there. What we cannot afford to do is to arrive there at night, otherwise they’ll foul it. They have to be able to see Nepos in daylight so we’ll go slower, conserve the horses’ energy; we’ll stop for the last three or so hours of the night and then press on at dawn.’

  And so it was, as the east took its turn to burn golden with the rays of a new sun, that Vespasian found himself staring ahead with Bolanus, straining his eyes and just making out the small group of men and horses in the far distance that was as yet unobscured by the heat rising from baking ground. ‘Have Nepos and his guards lead the column, Bolanus,’ Vespasian ordered. ‘We’ll approach slowly; we don’t want to startle them into thinking that we’ve got people in close pursuit.’

  ‘Better to be going at some speed, surely?’ Magnus said as Bolanus issued the orders and Nepos was brought up by his guards.

  Vespasian shook his head. ‘If they’re going to do what I think they will then it’s just possible that they’ll be a little slower if they see we’re in absolutely no rush. They think we’re their comrades, after all.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘You stay with the column and deal with Nepos.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To get a nice fresh pack-horse. Bolanus, I need you and four of your best men.’

  Keeping back from Nepos, Vespasian, Bolanus and their men edged out to the side of the column. Ahead, one of the mutineers had mounted his horse and was coming forward whilst the other three remained by the well. At a mile distant the scout stopped and raised both his hands in the air. Nepos raised both of his in reply and the scout turned and cantered back to his colleagues.

  ‘Ready,’ Vespasian said, more to himself than his companions. He watched the scout approach the well and caught the faint sound of a shout. The three other mutineers mounted their horses and, as the scout passed them, joined him heading north at speed. Vespasian turned to Bolanus. ‘I knew it; Nepos has organised it so that they are always ahead of us in case he was captured. He thinks we need him to approach every water dump or well.’

  He waited a hundred heartbeats for the mutineers to be far enough from the well to be past the point of no return. ‘Now!’ he cried, pushing his fresh horse into action; the beast almost reared, shocked by the suddenness of the command, but responded to his will nonetheless. Bolanus and his men followed, accelerating away, drawing a look of fearful surprise from Nepos as they passed him and raced after the fleeing mutineers.

  The warm desert wind whipped dust into Vespasian’s eyes and pulled at his hat, eventually dislodging it so that it flapped behind him, its leather strap about his throat; he leant forward, low, so that his head almost rested on his mount’s neck. Sure-footed, the beast thundered across the wasteland, some deep equine sense planting its hoofs on flat ground and avoiding leg-breaking loose rocks or cavities. The pounding of his and the other five horses behind him and the clatter and rattle of the javelins in the holster hanging from his saddle filled Vespasian’s head and determination to rid himself of the threat to his life steeled him, driving him on in fleet pursuit of the mutineers, no more than half a mile ahead. Hard he pressed his horse, knowing that he had only one chance to take the fleeing enemy whilst the animal was still fresh and that would not last for long. Another couple of hundred paces and the distance between the two groups had begun to narrow. Vespasian urged his mount to even greater effort and he felt a slight acceleration as if the beast, its ears flat, understood the potential life-and-death urgency of the situation. On it galloped, its great heart booming beneath Vespasian,
its mane flying in his face; flecks of foaming saliva issued from its mouth. Ahead, Vespasian was aware that the four mutineers had now started to glance back, intermittently, over their shoulders; their horses’ exertions seemingly laboured as the distance covered did not appear to equate to the effort involved.

  ‘They’re tiring already!’ Vespasian shouted over his shoulder; his companions were right on his tail.

  Another two hundred paces and Vespasian felt no fatigue as yet in his horse as they were now visibly gaining with every stretched-muscled stride. The glances back from their prey became more frequent. Vespasian reached behind him and pulled a javelin from its holster. Keeping his body’s movement fluid, so that it blended with that of the horse, he fiddled for the leather loop halfway down the shaft and inserted his forefinger in it. A quick look back showed him that Bolanus and his men were now similarly armed. He now concentrated on gauging the distance between them and the mutineers; and down the distance came, even as he felt his mount begin to tire, but the horses ahead were tiring at a greater pace. He could now hear the shouts of the chased; he guessed what was to happen. ‘Bolanus! They’re going to split up! You go left with two of the lads; I’ll take the others to the right.’

  As he finished the order the mutineers suddenly diverged as he had predicted; swerving his horse he chased the two who were now heading just east of north. The manoeuvre had caused a slight loss of rhythm and momentum for the mutineers and they were now less than a hundred paces ahead; Vespasian could see the tiredness in the horses’ limbs as they tried to regain their former pace. One of the beasts gave out an equine bellow as its right front leg buckled beneath it, fractured on an unstable, loose rock; down it crashed, its chest and then its head ploughing into jagged ground, gouging flesh and clouding dust above, as its rider, leaning back against the horns of his saddle, struggled to get a leg over the animal’s neck in order to jump clear. With hide ripping and bones cracking the beast hit a small boulder, snapping its neck into an unnatural angle and bouncing onto its side, throwing its rider clear to sprawl on the ground, his face a grated mess. After signalling to both his men to ignore the casualty and follow him, Vespasian made ready to cast his javelin; gripping the flanks of his mount with his thighs, he pulled his right arm back and mentally measured the distance, sixty, fifty, forty. With a mighty heave of his arm and a flick of the loop with his forefinger he loosed the weapon at thirty paces out; away it soared, its trajectory true, flying through the air to pass just over the rider’s shoulder and slam, vibrating, into the parched earth. Two javelins from behind fizzed over his head, one falling short of the mark and the second just wide as the mutineer swerved his mount at the last moment. Another missile in hand, Vespasian steadied himself; hurling it forward he watched it fly past the rider and narrowly miss the horse’s head, as again it shifted its course, to punch into the ground just before it. With no time to react, the animal rammed into the juddering end of the javelin, taking it full on the chest, crushing bone as the shaft snapped into pieces. Up flew the beast’s hind legs, catapulting the rider to send him somersaulting through the air as the horse crashed down vertically, its legs thrashing and its eyes rolling. One look at the mutineer as he pulled his horse up next to him told Vespasian that the man was dead from a broken neck.