‘The stupid bastards have tried to go before we’re all there,’ Magnus hissed as they ran towards the sound.
An instant later they burst into a storeroom, the width of the building; a dozen or so of the brothers were struggling to heave shut a door leading out to the Vicus Longus. A honed-muscled giant with scars on his forearms stood in the narrow opening, one foot on the body blocking the door from closing, lashing out with a bloody sword at all who fell upon him, his movements a blur of fluid motion.
‘Fucking ex-gladiator,’ Magnus cursed as he too threw his weight against the door. ‘Pull that body clear!’
As Tigran and another brother took it in turns to trade blows with the fighting machine trying to gain ingress, Vespasian bent down between the two brothers and caught hold of one of the dead man’s wrists. He pulled, using all his strength, and the dead weight slowly shifted. A ringing clash above his head made him instinctively jump back; Tigran had blocked a downward blow meant for his neck. The easterner parried again and Vespasian held his breath and grabbed the arm once more. This time he pulled with the desperation of a doomed man; the corpse slid, lubricated by its own blood. As the impediment cleared the opening, Magnus’ brethren slowly forced the door closed, compelling the ex-gladiator to retreat or risk losing an arm in the narrowing gap.
‘Who the fuck gave the word, Tigran?’ Magnus snarled as the door finally shut and the brothers slammed the bar across it.
‘He did, brother,’ Tigran shouted, pointing at the corner. ‘He and his freedman opened the door.’
Narcissus stood, cowering, looking down at the dead man at Vespasian’s feet. ‘I have to get out! I can’t die in a hole like this.’
‘You could have killed us all!’ Tigran shouted, lunging at Narcissus with his blade aimed at his throat.
Narcissus howled.
Vespasian grabbed Tigran’s wrist and arrested the stroke a thumb’s breadth from the Greek’s quivering flesh. ‘He stays alive!’
Tigran tried to force his arm forward but Vespasian held firm; with a nod and a shrug the easterner pulled back.
Narcissus spouted tears of relief.
Vespasian looked at the Greek who had ordered so many deaths; in disgust he kicked the corpse at his feet. Its head lolled into the light: Agarpetus.
Magnus wasted no time on recriminations. ‘Tigran, stay here with a couple of lads and keep an eye on the door. The rest of you, come with me.’ He ran to the other side of the room, but there was no exit to the Alta Semita, only a small window; he turned left up a further corridor.
Vespasian grabbed the sobbing Narcissus by the sleeve and hauled him away after Magnus.
At the far end of the corridor they came into a final room; there was one door to the Alta Semita but no other exit. It was crammed with at least a score of men.
‘I thought I’d be safer down here,’ Gaius told Vespasian as he pushed his way through to him. ‘I could see that Narcissus ordering Agarpetus to open the door before we were ready was a bad idea.’
‘What if they’ve blocked this exit too, Uncle?’
‘The prognosis wouldn’t look too favourable. There’s no other way out except for going back.’
‘I have to get out!’ Narcissus bleated.
But it was not the door that Magnus headed to; it was the blank wall on the opposite side. ‘We won’t risk the obvious way. Cassandros, you got the hammers?’
The scarred Greek nodded and indicated to a brother who lifted two weighty tools and handed one to Cassandros.
‘Get on with it then, lads.’
Magnus moved back and the brothers took their places next to the wall facing each other and hefted their hammers over their shoulders. In the dim light Vespasian could see a faint line, door-shaped, drawn upon it.
‘We keep this for special occasions,’ Magnus informed Vespasian and Gaius. ‘Never had to use it so let’s hope the bastards don’t know about it.’
The first blow hit with a resounding crack; on the other side of the room the tell-tale glow of flame flickered in the narrow gap between the ground and the door.
‘Soon as you like, boys,’ Magnus said as Tigran and his two lads came pelting up the corridor. ‘Don’t even say it, Tigran, I can guess. Just bolt that door.’
Tension in the room escalated as smoke began to creep under the door to the street and the flames on the other side grew. The hammers worked with fast alternate blows, soon knocking away all the thick plaster.
Vespasian’s heart sank as a solid wall of thin bricks was exposed; he looked over his shoulder to see that the fire was quickly gaining.
‘All right, lads, a few good blows each at the very base should do it.’
Vespasian watched, ever mindful of the danger eating its way through the wooden door, as the hammers beat at the lower bricks. To his great surprise the blows sent them shooting out; they had not been mortared. After three or four strikes there was a foot-high gap; an instant later two of the lower bricks fell to the ground and then the rest followed, tumbling, chinking down in a cloud of dust.
‘Clear it, lads,’ Magnus ordered.
Half a dozen brothers stepped forward and began heaving and hurling the bricks out of the way. After less than fifty heartbeats the mound was low enough to scramble over and the brothers streamed out. Vespasian found himself in the corner of a delta-shaped courtyard, stinking of rotting refuse and faeces, sandwiched behind the last tenements on both the Alta Semita and the Vicus Longus; to his left flames from the tavern at the apex of the junction could be seen rising to the sky, to his right were the backs of another couple of tenements divided by a narrow alley.
‘Quickly through there, lads, then split up and slow down; lose yourselves in the alleys on the other side.’
As the South Quirinal Brotherhood dispersed silently, Magnus had a quick word with Tigran and the brothers carrying the strongbox and then looked at Vespasian and Gaius. ‘I’d say that I’m going to have to rely on one of you for hospitality tonight.’
‘And maybe a few nights to come, my friend,’ Gaius observed.
‘I don’t think so, sir. If that was organised by who I think it was, then I’m a dead man if I stay. I’m out of Rome as soon as I can.’
‘What about me?’ Narcissus asked, some of his haughty dignity returning to his voice. ‘I can’t risk going to find my carriage. You must protect me; this was meant to be a safe place for a meeting.’
Magnus frowned at that statement and then led the way across the courtyard.
Vespasian looked at the Greek and wondered whether he would feel gratitude for saving his life or the opposite because his latent cowardice had been exposed.
He decided he had nothing to lose and would probably have more to gain by aiding him. ‘You’d better come with us.’
Speed was the issue, or, rather, lack of it, as Magnus guided Vespasian, Gaius and Narcissus through the unlit alleys and yards that separated the insalubrious dwellings, built with little thought of civic planning, between the two diverging major roads of the Quirinal. It was not Gaius’ girth nor was it Narcissus’ inability to run more than ten paces without gasping for breath that impaired their progress; it was the refuse, both solid and slimy, scattered on the dirt ground already laced with unseen potholes. Magnus cursed as he led them, single-file, stumbling forward, arms outstretched and feet taking unsure steps, through gloom that was only occasionally alleviated by guttering light from a candle burning in a window or a torch sputtering in a holder next to a door. From all around came shouts and cries, not the sounds of escape and pursuit but the noise of the inhabitants of this underbelly of the city arguing and fighting amongst themselves in an environment where contentment is a far-off dream.