He turned and stomped off down the corridor toward the laundry and palace bathhouse area, grumbling about the young engineer as loudly and convincingly as he could. He left the corridor with the sound of the guards laughing at his misfortune ringing in his ears. Good. As long as they were concentrating on the humour, they wouldn’t think too hard.
Continuing to grumble about Salonius, but this time for real, he turned the corner and, once out of sight, ducked away into a side passage and headed toward the stables.
Varro glared at Salonius as the young engineer stumbled through the doorway into the stable. There was no one here yet, though in an hour the stable hands would be here feeding the horses. Salonius blinked.
“What’s up?”
Varro growled and pointed to the large collection of freshly-stolen saddle bags on a nice sleek grey horse near the door.
“How the hell do you carry all…” He stopped mid sentence. It sounded so foolish saying something like that to a person who was carrying two dead bodies at once.
“Never mind.”
He gestured around.
“The grey’s yours and all loaded up. Let’s get these two covered up and secured on that bay over there.”
A quiet, lyrical voice from the second doorway said “Don’t bother with that.”
They turned to Catilina, who strolled in as though they were going about everyday business.
“Good. I see you’ve got the horses ready. I take it the chestnut’s mine?”
Varro coughed.
“Yes. What’s all that?” He pointed at the bundle of clothing in her arms.
Catilina smiled like a mother indulging an errant child. When she spoke it was in a slightly condescending tone.
“Boys, did you really think this through? How are you expecting to get out of the fortress? Just ride at the gates and hope they let you through?”
Salonius turned and looked at Varro.
“I presumed you had a plan?”
Varro grinned at him.
“I was expecting that something would turn up. If we’re fated to do something, surely, it’s going to happen anyway?”
Salonius sighed.
“I’m not sure it works quite like that.”
Catilina smiled benignly.
“And that’s why you two need me. Here.”
She tossed articles of clothing at them one at a time.
Varro stared at the tunic in his hand.
“This is the tunic of a soldier in your father’s guard!”
“They both are.” Catilina kept throwing items at them. “Full uniforms, in fact. The way I look at it, if you just keep the hoods up, you should be able to move around without being questioned unless you happen to bump into a captain or sergeant, and that’s not likely between here and the gate.”
Salonius blinked. “That’s brilliant.”
“Why thank you.” Catilina fumbled in her deep pocket, withdrew all the goods she’d stolen from the office and began to write on the two official papers with the charcoal pen. As she wrote, she looked up at the other two.
“Well? Get changed, then!”
As the two of them hurriedly changed into the black uniforms, Catilina finished her writing, placed the two lead discs on the floor and brought the hammer down on them, creating official seals. A moment with her flint and tinder and she melted the wax blobs onto the papers and added the lead seals.
Extinguishing the flame, she blew on the wax and as soon as it was dry enough, passed the two papers to Varro. He examined them.
“How the hell did you get all this?”
“What are they? Enquired Salonius adjusting the black cloak and pulling his boots back on.
“They’re dishonourable burial orders. They give us permission to take those two out and bury them in an undisclosed location. Strange, as there’s probably one of these papers already floating around somewhere with Corda’s name on it. These are really rare. They…”
He stared at the papers and up at Catilina.
“Very clever. No one’s going to stop two soldiers escorting bodies for burial with all the appropriate paperwork.”
Salonius nodded and, unfastening his tool roll, removed a shovel and a pickaxe. With a grin he tossed the pick to Varro who caught it and examined it.
“You do know that it’s not normal for digging tools to gleam that much!”
The young man laughed.
“We’ve got the uniform, the tools and the paperwork. Varro, we’re now a burial detail.”
Varro turned to Catilina.
“What about you?”
She smiled.
“I’ll meet you at the ford about a mile east. I’ve got my own papers, and it’s a determined guard who questions the daughter of the marshal. Now get going and I’ll see you in about an hour.”
“At the ford, then.” Said Varro as he helped Salonius load their burned onto the spare horse. “Burial detaiclass="underline" forward!”
Chapter Thirteen
The sun was now well past its zenith. Varro clicked his tongue irritably and stared up into the sky trying to estimate the time. Salonius sat astride his horse, stoic as usual.
“No amount of getting irritated is going to bring her here any sooner.”
“Shut up.”
Varro shaded his eyes and stared off down the wide vale to the distant tortoise-shaped lump that was Vengen.
“Someone’s coming.”
Salonius shaded his own eyes and followed the captain’s gaze.
“Dust,” he agreed, “but that could be her or someone else; or even several someone elses. If she’s been stopped, the marshal’s likely to send some of his men after us. He’s going to be pissed at you. I think we should get out of sight.”
Varro made growling noises, but nodded and turned his horse.
The two men walked their mounts slowly and quietly between the trees that stood above the river bank. The sound of water rushing over the stones and cobbles of the ford would mask any inadvertent noises the horses or their riders might make. Once they were safely back among the foliage, they halted the two beasts and sat, breathing shallow breaths and waiting tensely for any sounds.
After a couple of minutes, Varro turned to Salonius and cupped his ear dramatically and held up one finger. Salonius strained to hear and then nodded.
“Varro?”
Catilina’s voice called out from the road, amid the pattering of hooves on compacted mud as her horse pranced impatiently. The two men looked at one another for a moment and then slowly walked their horses back out into the open.
“You took your bloody time!”
Catilina gave the captain an infuriatingly calm smile.
“Captain Iasus came to find me. He’d been asked by my father to check up on me. You know Iasus: he’s efficient and thorough. He followed me for half an hour while I tried to think of things to do. In the end I had to go to the baths to get rid of him.”
Salonius smiled.
“I can imagine he thought twice about following you in there…”
Varro gave him a sharp look and then the three of them walked their horses slowly down the slope and into the shallow water. Catilina heaved a satisfied sigh.
“So what’s the plan then?”
Varro frowned. He’d been thinking about this for some time and, though many conflicting ideas rattled around in his head about how he could handle this, there was a flaw in every plan he came up with.
“I’m not entirely sure. I need to get to Cristus, but there’s more than that. I need to face off against him in a fair and level situation, where I’m not at risk from his men and where there are reliable witnesses. That’s not going to be easy.”
Salonius furrowed his brow in thought.
“What ideas have you had?”
“Riding straight to the fort was my first thought. He can’t have the entire Fourth Army in his pocket. But the problems with that are: getting to Cristus past his personal guard and unreliable witnesses.”
Salonius nodded. ”Placing your head in the lion’s mouth. Always a little on the risky side.”
“Then there’s luring him out somewhere. We could probably manufacture a situation that would get Cristus to come out, say, to one of the local towns. Plenty of witnesses. No problem there. The problem there is that he’ll still be surrounded by his guard.”