Rufus shook his head in despair. They had failed.
'Come, we will find another way,' he said, although he knew there was none. He put a hand on Cupido's shoulder, but the gladiator shrugged it off.
'No. This is the only way. Something has blocked the flow. If I can find what it is, I may be able to unblock it. Take this.' He shrugged off his cloak and unbuckled the long sword, then untied his tunic and removed it. 'Keep them dry. I will need them when we continue.'
Naked, he walked forward until the waters reached his shoulders, then began to swim through the noxious brown flood.
As he approached the far wall, he felt his hair touch the roof. For the first time he noticed more rats, swimming back and forth between a heap of white rubble jutting above the surface and the nearest dry land. Whatever the white thing was, it must be part of the blockage.
He was at the very edge of the torch's range and the sight that met him was so outrageous that at first his mind would not believe what he was seeing. But it was real. The white globe that first drew his attention was revealed as a grinning skull. Around it were other remains he recognized as vaguely human, and working steadily to strip them bare of flesh were the rats who had shared his swim.
This was Varrus's river of the dead. Caligula's army of victims. They had dammed the Cloaca Palatina solid.
Treading water, he turned to where Rufus stood up to his waist with the bundle of clothes and weapons over his shoulder.
'It is the way of these things that there is a keystone,' he shouted. 'If I can find it, the whole thing should collapse.'
Rufus heard his friend's words, but only had a vague understanding of their meaning. He looked on aghast as Cupido took a deep breath and dived.
Cupido knew it would be impossible to see and he feared the effect of the filth on his eyes, so he kept them closed and felt his way cautiously towards the dam until he touched cold flesh. He was thankful the bodies beneath the water were at least whole, and fortunately had not been there for long or they would have come apart in his hands. There also did not seem to be as many as he had feared. The layer at the top was wider than that at the bottom, probably due to the buoyancy of the bodies and the action of the water.
He tugged at a cold arm, struggling to contain his disgust at the feel of the wrinkled, water-worn dead flesh, but whatever it was attached to was stuck fast. He felt his chest tighten as his air began to run out and he kicked himself to the surface, where he gasped in two or three breaths before diving straight under again.
This time he had some idea where he was going and soon he had a good grip on a clammy leg. At first it seemed as firmly wedged as the first body, but as he worked at it he felt it move, and as it did so he felt the others move around it. He hauled at it for another twenty seconds, levering the leg back and forward and feeling the movement become easier. His air was almost up. Noting his position as well as he could with his eyes shut, he resurfaced, gasped in the air he needed, and immediately dived back.
Now, where was the leg? His fingers touched a face. It was a woman's face and he recoiled in disgust. He thought of Quintillia and her ravaged beauty. Why was it so much worse when it was a woman? Not there. To the left. Yes. The leg. He took it and, bracing his feet against the other submerged bodies, hauled as hard as he could. At first, nothing happened, so he heaved again. With a bubbling sound of trapped air being loosed the leg and the body attached to it came free, and the dam of death collapsed in upon itself.
For the merest heartbeat Cupido experienced a surge of elation. Then he felt the power of the flood and realized that in freeing the dam he had doomed himself.
Fool! Why had he not foreseen this — prepared for it? The incredible force as tens of thousands of gallons of backed-up waters found release gripped him tight and sucked him in among the bodies. It was as if the dead were clinging to him, were determined to keep him with them until he was as dead as they. His chest tightened and the pressure to breathe became overwhelming. He was drowning. With the strength of despair, he pushed himself free and attempted to swim to the surface, but he was too weak. The current would not release him. He raised an arm and felt it break clear, but by then it was too late. He was propelled into a whirling vortex of flailing limbs and empty-eyed faces, just another powerless piece of flesh among the human flotsam.
XLII
Rufus was too far away to see what had caused the blockage, but he knew his friend would never give up. Not in this life. While Cupido was submerged, he held his breath as if it would somehow help the gladiator. When he had to gasp for the next breath before Cupido resurfaced, he feared he would never see the young German again, but then there was a splash and the golden hair broke into view for a few precious seconds.
After what seemed an incredibly long interval, Cupido surfaced again, only to disappear as quickly as he had appeared. When the water suddenly swirled in the centre of the pool he knew Cupido had defeated the odds. It was only when he realized what was happening below the surface that the elation turned to fascinated horror. He screamed out his friend's name and a moment later a despairing arm broke the surface as if reaching for an invisible handhold. Then the entire pool vanished through the tunnel in a single almighty rush.
Rufus saw what happened, but his mind wouldn't accept it. What had been six or eight feet of water was now a small stream bubbling between the two walls of the culvert. And he was alone.
He dropped the torch and slumped against the wall, staring at the empty space where the pool had been. The road ahead was open, but he couldn't move. He could think, but not act. He told himself to get up, but his legs would not accept the order from his brain.
The reality of what had happened was too awful to take in. Cupido gone? It did not seem possible. Cupido couldn't die — he was bigger than death. But his own eyes had seen a man he loved — yes, he understood now that what he felt for Cupido had gone beyond friendship and respect to something that could only be called love — swept away in that unstoppable wall of water.
The torch spluttered and went out, leaving him in darkness, but he made no attempt to locate the second.
So this was despair, a physical force that crushed him into the earth and robbed him of will. The courage that had sustained him in the long walk through this underground nightmare had drained away. He could barely find the strength to breathe. He resigned himself to death.
But deep within him the unquenchable thing that was his spirit wouldn't allow it. It chewed at his brain with a message. Time. There was something he had to do and time was important. His head was filled with coloured images, but none of them meant anything to him. Then the colours merged and from their centre a face appeared. Aemilia. He had to find Aemilia.
But what was the point? Without Cupido he was nothing.
With that thought he felt failure wrap itself around him once more like a shroud. He giggled hysterically. If he didn't move the rats would feast on his flesh. The thought galvanized him, but still he could not find the strength to move.
Then the voice whispered in his ear. It whispered of honour and of duty, of loyalty and of courage. And when he still did not move it flayed him with scorn and mocked him for his weakness. He willed it to go away, but it was relentless. He was disappointed it was not Aemilia's, but he knew in his heart she could never have shamed him into movement. Only Livia could do that.
Gradually, his mind repaired itself and he raised himself on shaking legs. He located the second torch and lit it, and as it flared in his hand it reminded him of the time he had wasted. He set off downstream towards the Maxima.