Marius and Cassandros replaced the two wooden boards that ran between the substantial ceiling beams, leaving them unnailed for fear of making unnecessary noise.
Satisfied that the boards had been relaid and their temporary removal would go unnoticed from the warehouse below, Magnus moved on. Keeping low, he scuttled across the second attic and through the wall, then passed across a third attic to the hole in the floor at the far corner through which they had accessed the space beneath the roof. The head of the military-issue scaling ladder, used for their ascent, rested against the wall just below floor level.
‘Down you go, brother,’ he whispered as Sextus joined him, sack and sledgehammer grasped in one massive hand.
With surprising agility, Sextus descended into the dark. Magnus sent the other two brothers down before placing the two loose floorboards on their sides at the edge of the hole. Feeling for the ladder with his foot, he descended a few rungs until his head was just below the level of the floor. He pulled the two floorboards over and shifted them until one fell neatly into place with the other on top of it. Pulling the second board across the remaining gap, he descended another rung, then reached up and, with his fingertips, adjusted the lie of the board until it clicked snugly into the hole.
‘Bring the ladder, brothers,’ Magnus ordered as he hit the ground. Padding over to the door, he pulled the key from his belt and slipped it into the lock, turning it with a metallic clunk that resounded off the walls with increasing volume but then was drowned by the door’s squeak as it swung open a fraction. Magnus grimaced, then peered out towards the harbour just twenty paces away to his right. Even though it was the sixth hour of the night the dockside still teamed with people, silhouetted in the light of hundreds of blazing torches as they unloaded scores of merchant ships that bobbed placidly at wooden jetties. Day and night had no meaning in Ostia. Rome’s appetite was insatiable and so, to prevent her from crying out with hunger, the business of landing her sustenance never paused, not even for a moment. He stuck his head round the door and looked left, up the street away from the harbour; no one was too close. Opposite was another door in a brick wall; the mirror image end of another terrace of warehouses. After a further quick glance right, he threw the door wide open. ‘Quick, lads, but don’t run, it’ll draw attention to us.’ He stood back so that his brothers could file through and then stepped out into the street, closing and locking the door behind him.
Walking swiftly, Magnus followed his companions left and then right into the street running behind the warehouses. Parallel with the harbour, it was lit only by the dim light oozing from open-fronted taverns and peopled by shadows. Drunken cries and raucous singing echoed up the high walls and the aroma of grilled meat mingled with those of sweat, urine and rotting refuse. Halfway to its end Magnus paused; a group of eight men in silhouette had turned into the street and were marching in two columns up the raised pavement towards him. ‘Shit! We can’t turn round. It would be too obvious. We brazen it out if we’re stopped, all right, lads?’
The brothers mumbled their agreement and followed their leader towards the representatives of the only real law enforcement in Ostia.
Magnus came to a set of three stones set in the road, placed there so that pedestrians could cross to the other side without soiling their feet, and positioned so that carts could still pass between them. ‘Marius and Cassandros, drop the ladder and stay on this side. Sextus, follow me.’ He crossed the street with Sextus carrying the sack as the Vigiles’ optio noticed the ladder discarded by Marius and Cassandros. ‘Don’t look back, Sextus.’ Magnus increased his pace as he heard the optio order his brothers across the street to halt and explain just why they had abandoned a perfectly good military scaling ladder at the sight of him and his men.
Magnus barged through a group of carousing sailors who thought better of taking exception to his manners at the sight of Sextus bearing down on them with a sledgehammer in his hand.
Then there came the sudden shout that he was dreading: ‘Halt!’
Magnus walked even faster.
‘You! Big man with the sack and your mate, halt!’
Magnus glanced round to see four of the Vigiles break into a run, heading towards him across the stepping stones, pulling their heavy cudgels from their belts whilst their comrades chased after Cassandros and Marius, who had used the distraction to hare off in the opposite direction. ‘Run!’ He sprinted away with Sextus in train, barrelling down the pavement regardless of other users who, in the main, ended up sprawled in the filth on the road.
Racing down the street, Magnus felt his chest tighten with every urgent pace and became horribly aware of his forty-four years. Very few of his brothers were under forty, most having served their twenty-five years under the Eagles or, as in Marius’ case, in the navy. He threw another look over his shoulder and saw that the much younger Vigiles were gaining. ‘We’ll have to turn and fight them, Sextus.’ He looked up and saw the end of the street. ‘You go left and then turn straight back at them; I’ll go right.’
Sextus nodded, frowning, looking at the sack in one hand and the sledgehammer in the other as he pounded along.
‘That way,’ Magnus shouted, pointing to the left. He hurtled right, round the corner, then immediately turned and, putting his shoulder down, ran back to it as two of the Vigiles charged round. With a crack of ribs and a stunted grunt, Magnus’ shoulder rammed into one of his pursuers’ chests, catapulting him back and felling him like a sacrificed beast. The other man sprinted on a few more paces before realising what had happened; he stopped and turned. But Magnus was ready for him and snatched at his right wrist as the Vigile raised his club. Holding it in an iron grasp, he forced it down and round. The Vigile’s breath puffed warm on Magnus’ face, wine and onion clinging to it, as the man was slowly forced down. His left hand lashed out at Magnus, cracking a tight-fisted punch into his cheekbone that caused light to flash across his eyes and his grip to loosen just enough for the Vigile to raise his arm a fraction. Realising that in a protracted trial of strength the younger man would get the better of him, Magnus jerked his knee up into his genitals and felt the satisfying squash of a testicle. The wind fled from his opponent as his eyes popped and his mouth opened in a silent scream; his legs buckled and he collapsed to the ground, clutching his groin. Allowing himself one stout kick at the man’s face as he passed, Magnus picked up his cudgel and ran on to where Sextus was grappling with his second assailant; the first lay staring sightlessly at the night sky, his mouth and nose pulverised by a huge blow from the sledgehammer.
Without pausing in his stride, Magnus slammed the heavy club over the back of Sextus’ opponent’s head and felt the skull crack; the man went limp in Sextus’ arms.
‘Time to go, Sextus, my lad,’ Magnus shouted as he picked up the sack and pelted towards the crowded port.
‘Magnus!’ Gaius Vespasius Pollo boomed, looking up from the breakfast he was obviously enjoying, next to the log fire crackling in the hearth of his atrium. He did not rise but indicated with a chubby, beringed hand that Magnus should take the chair opposite. ‘You were successful, I trust?’ He placed half a hard-boiled egg into his mouth and chewed vigorously, causing his jowls and chins to wobble.
Magnus handed his cloak to the young, blond doorkeeper and crossed the dimly lit atrium; the first signs of dawn could be seen in the courtyard garden through the window. ‘We were, senator.’ He sat, accepting a cup of warm, watered wine from another very attractive Germanic-looking slave boy.
‘You’ve not brought it with you, have you?’
‘Of course not, sir.’ Magnus took a slug of his drink. ‘I left it at the Brotherhood tavern. I stopped there before coming over to you for a bit of er … refreshment, if you take my meaning?’