“True.” Salonius sighed. “I’m not sure that Cristus is going to be the type of man who will subject himself to danger without his guards, though.”
“So…” Varro growled, as they reached the far side and climbed out of the water onto the dry, dusty road. “That leaves me with the best option of the three: find a way to sneak into his personal quarters and do away with him there. Won’t be easy though.”
Salonius shook his head.
“Not just that, but also there’d be no witnesses. No one would see him confess and beg, which I presume is your intention.”
Varro nodded.
“Perhaps we just can’t have everything, eh?” the captain grumbled.
Salonius glanced past him at Catilina. The two of them stared at each other for a moment and then nodded.
“We’ll find a way. Let’s just concentrate on getting there with you in one piece. How are your wounds now?”
Varro glared at him.
“I’m fine, thank you, mother.”
Catilina laughed out loud.
Daylight was beginning to wane as the three riders crested a low hill. Ahead the sky had already turned a deep mauve and only the tops of the trees before them reflected the quickly diminishing rays of the sun.
“We should find somewhere comfortable to camp,” Salonius noted, “or perhaps an inn for the lady?”
Varro shook his head.
“Two villages and one town on this road before we get to Crow Hill, but it’ll be long after midnight before we reach the nearest one. We’ll definitely have to camp.”
Salonius frowned.
“There are Imperial courier stations? We’ve only passed one quite a way back, so there must be another close ahead.”
Varro shook his head.
“There are, but at courier stations, all guests must log in and out and non-military or administrative personnel have to provide proof of identity. Sabian would hear about it long before we were safely out of the way, I can assure you of that!”
Catilina sighed and pointed off some way to their left.
“How about there?”
Salonius looked across at Varro and shrugged. Varro pursed his lips.
“That place has been ruined since the civil wars. I used to ride past it on my way to and from Vengen. It’s got twenty years of decay about it. Could fall down on our heads.”
Salonius nodded.
“True, but it’s also got walls for warmth and protection.”
Varro continued to look unsure, but Catilina clicked her tongue irritably.
“You two are worse than a pair of old women.”
Shaking her reins she turned her horse and rode off toward the dark shell that rose eerily from its bed of scrub and bramble. Varro glared at her retreating form for a moment and then gave a sigh and followed her. Salonius smiled as he left the track himself.
As the ruined shell of the manor loomed closer, more details became apparent. It had been more than a manor house in its time; more even than a great villa. This place had been a fortress of considerable strength, protecting a sumptuous, palatial residence within. This place must have belonged to a strong lord, or perhaps even an Imperial councillor.
Catilina admired the shattered remnants of architectural grandeur as they approached, her eye picking out elegant curls and delicate tracery. The lord of this place must have belonged to a wealthy line. The decoration was old; not four or five decades old, from just before the civil wars, but centuries old, from the early days of Imperial settlement in these cold, northern provinces.
Varro and Salonius cast their own eyes over the ruins, though their assessment was more military in nature. The place had indeed been heavily fortified. The original early palace had been surrounded by stone walls with two gates at an early stage, presumably when the owner had realised how newly settled this area was, and had seen acts of barbarism perpetrated nearby. These defensive walls had been given towers and what Varro liked to call ‘decorative defence’ some time around a century ago, as was the fashion at the time. But the last defences had been added perhaps forty years ago, early in the civil wars, and these defences were far from decorative. The walls had risen by a further ten feet; the line of the original parapet was clearly visible three quarters of the way up. The bottom half of the towers had been given great, square encasements of tufa for extra strength. One of the double arches of the gate had been blocked to narrow down a point of attack. Finally, as they began to close on the crumbling walls, they could see that the walls had been revetted with a great bank of earth. The lord of this manor had been expecting attacks and had been prepared for them.
Not prepared enough.
The stone facing that remained on the shattered towers and extant stretches of wall showed shattered blocks and great cracks and rents where the defences had been pounded relentlessly by siege engines. Plainly the stretch of wall closest to the gate had been the first area to fall. Salonius shook his head sadly at clear oversights that had been made by the military architect; a wide stretch of wall with no buttressing and no support from towers. No amount of earth embankment was going to help there though. The thoughtful architect had added a ditch that was far to close to the wall to allow for the wall’s footings. The first half dozen blows on that wall had probably brought the stonework crashing out into the ditch, handily filling one obstacle whilst collapsing the other and leaving a sloping earth embankment as the only defence. Once inside that wall, the siege would be over in minutes.
Varro’s fears of the decayed condition of the building were only partially founded. The military defences of the place were thick and heavy and, though they had fallen to a clever enemy, were withstanding the ravages of time surprisingly intact. The palatial building within, however, had fared less well. Constructed for form rather than for function, the weak and delicate architecture had rotted and crumbled, leaving a mass of sad stone that was now largely held together by ivy and brambles.
“Best stay away from that central building” he called ahead to the others.
Varro turned in his saddle and nodded. As Salonius caught up with them, the three riders dismounted and led their horses to the great gatehouse that retained its strong walls and towers, though the portal itself had long since gone.
Salonius tethered the three horses on the grass nearby and padded off quietly among the ruins with his sling, while Varro began gathering dry sticks and building a fire and Catilina set about excavating food and various necessary items from the kit bags.
Within half an hour they had a pleasant little camp site formed beneath the massive, protective, arched roof of the gatehouse just as the last light of day faded over the horizon, leaving the scene in the shattered ruin dark and eerie. Various timbers that Varro had located had created a screen across both sides of the gatehouse, shielding them from the mounting evening wind and hiding their small fire from view for any passersby on the road. Salonius had returned with two rabbits and was currently turning them on a spit above the flames, watching hungrily as the juices dripped down with a hiss into the fire. A thought occurred to him and he looked up at the captain across the dancing flames.
“You need to take your medicine.”
Varro grumbled once more, but nodded. As he wandered off toward the horses, where his medicine bag was still hooked, Salonius turned to Catilina, who was staring off into the dark ruins.
“We need to find a way to get Varro to Cristus without the prefect’s guards. And in front of witnesses.”
Catilina nodded.
“We need to find a way to get my father there.”
“That’s a problem,” Salonius sighed. “Varro wants to send Cristus to the Gods personally. Your father wants it all done according to military law, with a trial and an execution, if necessary. He’s never going to let Varro have Cristus, and Varro’s never going to let your father have him.”