Biting back an answer, Castus slid his sword from its scabbard. He wished he had brought a shorter weapon. His broad-bladed infantry spatha was a formidable tool in a pitched battle, but awkward for the sort of work the night promised. He noticed that Flaccianus and the other agents had armed themselves with short ring-pommelled swords, which looked far handier.
‘Remember,’ he whispered harshly, ‘two whistles – right?’
‘That’s right,’ Flaccianus said. ‘And remember to come when I call!’ He ran forward at a crouch with the other agents and Glaucus behind him. Sallustius and Victor had already moved off to the right, towards the riverbank. Castus motioned to Brinno, and the two of them scrambled up the bank and jogged towards the left-hand corner of the villa.
He was tensed for the barking of dogs, but only the rhythmic pulsing sound of the insects disturbed the quiet of the night. Halting, he dropped to a crouch with his back against the wall of the villa. Brinno ran up and crouched beside him.
Senses alert, his body primed, Castus listened intently. He almost thought he could hear the sound of voices from somewhere inside the building: men speaking quietly. Tapping Brinno on the shoulder, he moved forward again, following the wall until he reached the corner of the building. To his left was what looked like a stable block; ahead of him, steps led up to the garden terrace at the front of the villa.
‘Somebody moving out there,’ Brinno whispered, and nodded towards the trees beyond the stables. ‘They see us, I think.’
Tensed, Castus tried not to imagine the whip of arrows from the darkness. He and Brinno would make easy targets against the whitewashed wall. His senses were screaming at him to pull back, get out of this. But he was committed to it now.
Two whistles from the far side of the building. Castus and Brinno were up and running immediately, doubling the corner and leaping up the steps to the terrace.
Trees and hedges in moonlight, the grey rectangle of a dry ornamental pool, and the ranked pillars of the front portico above them. A scream came from the darkness beyond, and suddenly the night was full of men running at them from both directions.
‘It’s a trap – get out!’ Victor’s voice cried out from the far side of the terrace. Men on the portico, spilling from the house; others closing in from the garden.
Brinno grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back, but Castus shook him off. In his mind’s eye he saw the villa mapped out, the terrace and the riverbank. He had no idea who was attacking them, but this was a battleground now. This was tactics.
‘Straight on,’ he shouted, ‘after me, though the middle of them!’
He ran, hoping Brinno was behind him: whoever their attackers were, they wanted to keep the four Protectores apart, cut them off individually. Castus needed to link up with Sallustius and Victor.
The men coming from the house had expected him to flee, expected to pursue him, but instead Castus charged straight at them. At them and through them… He wheeled his blade and slashed at the first man, who dodged too late. The blade slid across the man’s shoulder and bit the back of his neck, and he was down and screaming. No time to finish him; Castus knew he only needed to put his opponents out of the fight. Running, he sidestepped to slam against another figure coming from the shadows. The man flung up his arm, and Castus noticed his ring-pommelled sword before he chopped his legs from under him.
Brinno raced past, bellowing, and shouldered down one of the attackers coming from the garden. Castus saw his blade rise and then stab down. Then he was weaving between bodies, striking out. The darkness was on his side now; his attackers were confused, fearful. He slashed, and felt a brief shock up his blade.
‘My hand!’ a man screamed. ‘Fuck! He’s cut off my hand!’
They were falling away from him, and he was through. At the far wall of the terrace he paused and turned, looking for Brinno. The Frank was right behind him, bodies scattered on the dark turf in his wake, and above, in the flare of light across the portico, Flaccianus and his big bodyguard stared back at him, yelling to the others to press the attack.
No time to think. Castus scrambled up onto the wall and across in a single movement. A longer drop on the far side as the ground sloped down to the riverbank; he fell into tangled undergrowth and thick grass, lost his footing and rolled. His cloak caught on something and he ripped it free of his neck. A crash as Brinno came down beside him, but before the men on the terrace could reach the wall they were both on their feet, dragging each other as they stumbled along the riverbank in the direction of the aqueduct.
Victor almost collided with them. ‘Sallustius is down,’ he gasped, and there was panic in his voice. ‘The others – we were betrayed! That bastard Flaccianus and his men…’
‘I know,’ Castus said. ‘Save your breath and run.’
There was pursuit now; men dashing towards the higher ground at the edge of the river slope, aiming to cut them off. Castus could not guess their numbers; he had seen ten or more back in the garden, but there could be twice as many. Who were they? Just Flaccianus and his fellow agents, or were there others? It surely mattered, but Castus had no time to think about that. The deception was clear to him: the fake message in the scabbard, the interview with Nigrinus… all of it designed to draw them out here to this isolated place and pick them off one by one.
They were no fighters anyway, and there was fortune in that. Castus could hardly believe that he and Brinno had somehow woven their way out of the ambush apparently unharmed. The thought gave him a sense of unreality, as if he were running in a dream. Their pursuers had lost time getting back around the side of the villa, and the three Protectores had a good head start on them. Up the dry slope, stamping through the thorny brush, Castus saw the estate wall and the gate before him. His breath was coming in aching heaves – he had not had to run like this in many months.
The two slaves had bolted from the gateway. Castus and Brinno hurled themselves through, but Victor turned and raised his sword towards the pursuers.
‘You go,’ he shouted, his voice high and cracking, ‘I’ll hold them off here!’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Castus said, grabbing the young man by the shoulder. ‘We run…’
He pulled Victor after him, through the grass and bushes and onto the track beside the river. He was still holding his sword; without breaking step, he slammed it back into his scabbard and held it as he ran. Noise of breath, of boots stamping the dry grit of the trackway. Castus could feel his lungs burning, and a stitch was twisting into his flank, but the three of them were still together, still ahead of the pursuit.
Around the bend in the river, the aqueduct rose before them. Light flared beneath one of the great arches, throwing the shadows of men and horses over the stonework.
‘Heh! They’re ahead of us!’ Brinno cried. He turned as he ran, then halted on the track. Dust scuffed up pale in the moonlight. ‘Ahead and behind.’
Victor was doubled over, braced on his knees and drinking air. From the direction of the villa came the shouts of the pursuers as they ran, answered now by the echoing yells of the men beneath the arch. Castus heard one voice raised above the rest: Flaccianus.
‘Throw down your weapons! You’re cut off! Surrender!’
He could hear Victor sobbing as he retched. To his right, he could make out the thin grey scar of a path climbing the valley side between the trees.
‘There,’ he said, but Brinno had already seen it. Castus took Victor by the arm, pulling him upright and leading him after the Frank.
The path rose steeply almost at once, and they were stumbling upwards, grabbing at branches and spurs of rock. When the leaves closed over them they were fighting their way through total darkness, reaching blindly for handholds. Dry thorny scrub snatched and grabbed at them. Their boots scuffed and kicked at the dry stony soil; Castus half fell, the ground grating out from under him, and he ripped skin from his palms as he dragged himself to his feet. Above him, Brinno toiled upwards without pause, grunting as he breathed. The path turned, doubled back, and the trees broke in places to spill moonlight over them as they looped around outcrops of pitted grey rock jutting from the valley sides. Somewhere below them the pursuers were climbing too, calling out to each other, crashing and scrambling in the dark.