‘Looks like them,’ Marius announced as the first rays of dawn sun hit a high altitude cloudbank, accentuating ripples on its grey surface with highlights of deep red. ‘I’d say there are at least a dozen round that cart.’
Magnus watched the group cross the Fabricium Bridge from the Campus Martius, then turn off the main street bisecting the island and pull into the forecourt of the Temple of Asclepius.
‘My good friend!’ Menes exclaimed, walking towards Magnus with open arms as if it were a reunion of acquaintances of many years’ standing after an unreasonably long period of absence; the expression of joy on his face, however, registered as a rictus contort.
Not wishing to cause offence, Magnus subjected himself to the embrace which was nothing more than a clumsy attempt to frisk him for hidden weapons, which he returned; Menes was unarmed.
‘You have tablets, my friend?’
‘Naturally.’
Magnus indicated the cart. ‘Four thousand, eight hundred aurii?’
Menes inclined his head. ‘In twenty-four bags of two hundred.’
‘Take one of them away; my patron is only selling twenty-three of the tablets.’
Menes attempted to transform his expression into one of shock and deep disappointment, but succeeded only in gurning like a tragic actor’s mask. ‘My friend, we had a deal.’
‘For two hundred aurii a tablet; my patron has just decided to keep one for himself. Now, let’s do this. Sextus!’ The brother lumbered forward, holding a bulging sack. ‘Put them down here. Menes, have the money stacked next to them and then all our men will withdraw twenty paces whilst you and I check the contents.’
Menes eyed the bag as Sextus placed it down, his smile returning, before shouting in his own language. The tarpaulin was pulled back from the cart and half a dozen of his men began unloading the weighty bags concealed within. When twenty-three were piled next to the tablets, Magnus and Menes nodded to one another and gave the order for their guards to withdraw back into the tangle of sick slaves who were too ill to pay attention to events around them. Once they were alone in the centre of the forecourt, Magnus pulled a square piece of leather from his belt, spread it on the ground and, choosing a bag at random, poured the contents out.
With practised fingers, the contents were soon counted and, after three more random selections revealed totals of two hundred aurii for each bag, Magnus felt satisfied that Menes was not trying to cheat by underpaying. Magnus eyed the Egyptian in the growing light as he finished examining the last couple of tablets. He found it hard to believe that the man’s blatant greed would not tempt him into a double-cross.
‘Very good, my friend,’ Menes announced, rewrapping the final tablet. ‘Now we go, yes?’
Magnus nodded and called his brothers back. ‘Marius, have the lads take the sacks down to the boat.’
Standing opposite Menes, who was grinning furiously as if to convey a feeling of calm and normality, Magnus kept his eye on the Egyptian’s men as they turned their cart round and loaded the tablets under the tarpaulin.
It was no more than an anxious twitch of Menes’ eyes towards the cart, followed by an almost imperceptible tensing of his leg muscles in preparation for a quick sprint, which alerted Magnus; he dived to the left, putting Menes between him and the cart as a fletched shaft hissed through the air where his head had been. ‘Down!’ he bellowed as three more bows just grabbed from beneath the tarpaulin thrummed arrows towards his lads, felling two.
More sleek missiles spat through the dawn air, thumping one brother to the ground, the bag he carried bursting open in an explosion of dull gold.
Menes’ men, now all armed, ran forward, arrows nocked and bows drawn as they aimed at the chests of Magnus’ brethren.
‘Put the bags down, lads, and step back,’ Magnus ordered, edging towards Marius but keeping his eyes on Menes.
The Egyptian’s grin had morphed into a triumphant gloat. ‘Now we go, yes? But we take the money as well, no?’
Magnus looked round at the twelve bow-armed men covering his surviving brothers. ‘You can try, but I warn you: if you leave now without the money, you can keep the resin; if you don’t leave the money with us, you’ll all die.’
Menes croaked a cackling laugh. ‘Oh, you funny man, my friend. You hand over the money or you all die.’
Magnus shrugged and pointed to the last few bags on the ground by Marius’ feet. ‘There’s a few, my lads have got the rest.’
Menes shouted in his own language and his men moved forward cautiously, stepping over recumbent slaves to retrieve the sacks.
‘Stay calm, lads,’ Magnus called. ‘Put the sacks on the ground and let them take the lot; it’s not our money so it’s not worth dying for.’
‘Very sensible, my friend,’ Menes said, hefting up a bag from the ground.
All but three of Menes’ men were obliged to shoulder their bows in order to pick up the coinage. Magnus’ brothers watched in silence as they carried the heavy bags away, taking care not to trip over the recumbent forms that lay moaning in the thin light.
And then a hand grabbed an ankle and a dull, shimmer of a blade was forced up into an unprotected groin, severing a testicle and releasing a cascade of blood on to a man who had hitherto been overlooked as too sick to be of consequence. More blades flashed up from the ground, more blood flowed, and Magnus’ brothers who had lain amongst the dying rose to life. Two went back down immediately as arrows thwacked into them, before the three remaining bowmen were despatched in a flurry of blades and blood.
Menes reacted instantly and fled for the cart, abandoning his men to be slaughtered in vengeance for brothers lost. Magnus smiled to himself and, indicating to Marius and Sextus to follow him, walked after the fleeing Egyptian as the cart driver urged his horse into action, clattering out of the forecourt and then turning right towards the Fabrician Bridge. Magnus did not rush; he knew there was no need to. As he stepped on to the main street the cart began to traverse the bridge. Midway it stopped.
‘Thank you, Cassandros,’ Magnus muttered, prowling forward as the cart attempted to turn a hundred and eighty degrees; behind it a line of silhouettes blocked the bridge.
The driver whipped the horse without mercy, trying to reverse it in order to complete the turn, but to no avail. The beast reared in the harness as its chest scraped against the brick parapet and sharp whip-inflicted pain seared along its back.
Menes leapt from the vehicle, grasping the sack of tablets, his head jerking left then right, like some demented bird, as if the situation might change at any moment and a way off the bridge would miraculously present itself.
‘Where were you going, my friend?’ Magnus called.
Menes froze and then cranked his mouth into the widest of grins. ‘No problems, no problems, my friend, no problems.’
Magnus stopped five paces from the Egyptian. ‘You see, that’s the funny thing; there is a problem. You killed a few of my lads and took a lot of money.’
Menes laughed as if it was a matter of small import that could easily be cleared up over a cup of wine.
‘I’m going to kill you slowly for that, Menes, and then there’ll be no problem.’ Magnus lunged forward; the Egyptian stepped back, turned and leapt on to the bridge’s parapet, hurling himself into the river below, the sack clutched in his hand.
‘Shit!’ Magnus exclaimed, rushing to look over the edge. Menes was struggling with one hand to keep himself afloat, whilst still holding the sack with the other, as the river swept him away. He looked back up at Magnus, laughing, as he shouted in his own tongue. But in his triumph at escape he failed to see the danger that whistled in from the river steps. His face contorted into a grin more pronounced and rigid than he had ever concocted before as an arrowhead burst out of his right eye-socket, the eyeball skewered on the bodkin. The feathered shaft vibrated, embedded in his crown, and a few paces away Pallas, his expression passive, set down his bow and sent his oarsmen diving into the river as the dead Menes finally gave up his hold of the tablets.