Shaking his head in wry amusement he signalled Cotta to resume their march, and the party continued south with increasing caution as they approached the edge of the Subura’s cloak of anonymity. Albinus called a halt at a street corner, looking out over the first of the forums that they would have to traverse with an uneasy gaze.
‘And now for the time of maximum risk, gentlemen. If Perennis has warned his men on the streets to be on the watch for men carrying heavy burdens then we’re going to stand out like tits on a bull.’
He chewed at a fingernail as the scouts headed out into the wide and empty moonlit space, staying within the shadows wherever possible, but there was no sign of either praetorians or the Watch to be seen, and the party’s main body followed the scouts across the forum as quickly as the Tungrians carrying the gold could move under its crushing weight. Another few moments of nervous progress brought them within sight of the Senate House at the Forum’s western end, and Cotta waved them into the cover of a building a hundred paces or so distant from the official building.
‘There’ll be guards on the Senate House for certain. You wait here, and I’ll signal you when the way’s clear.’
He signalled to his men, and a pair of rugged-looking bruisers stepped out of the shadows with their arms linked like old friends holding each other upright after a heavy evening of drinking, one of them pulling the stopper from a leather wine flask and taking a gulp so large that a red stain blossomed across his tunic as the wine leaked from his overflowing mouth. He raised his voice in a drunken shout, the words ringing out across the Forum’s open space.
‘Come on Luca my old mate, let’s show these praetorian cunts how real soldiers march, eh?’
His companion grabbed the flask and upended it, wine flowing in equal quantities into his mouth and down the front of his tunic, then hurled it towards the Senate House with an apparently drunken flourish and a below of challenge.
‘Yeah, praetorian cunts! Come and have a look at some real soldiers, you fuckin’ toy-box tunic lifters!’
The pair staggered out into the Forum and broke into song, their words slurred as if from a long day’s drinking but still recognisable as a legion favourite from the days when imperial guard cohorts had campaigned alongside the regular army.
The men guarding the senate were the first to react, a pair of immaculately turned out soldiers stamping down the steps to confront the drunks who had the temerity to insult them so publicly. The older of the two stepped in close with one hand on the hilt of his sword, and even at fifty paces it was plain to Marcus that his face was dark with anger.
‘Get the fuck out of the Forum you pair of pissed-up mules, before my temper gets the better of me and I take the flat of my blade to you.’
The play-acting bodyguards swayed on their feet for a moment before reacting, then burst into peals of mocking laughter, one of them pointing at the guardsman while the other supported himself by leaning on his friend, apparently overcome with hysteria.
‘Ha … hahahah!’ The pointing man wiped at his eye as to remove a tear. ‘He’s going to take his sword to us!’
His companion shrieked with laughter, losing his grip on the other’s shoulder and falling backwards onto the flagstones, raising his voice in a camp falsetto squeal.
‘Ooooh! His pork sword!?’
The first man’s hysterical laughter redoubled as he sank to his knees and then slumped to the ground, and the praetorian shook his head in impotent anger as the two men rolled about at his feet. The other guard joined him, and they glared down at the apparently helpless drunks for a moment before the older man waved a hand at the guards standing duty on the Temple of Vespasian, raising his voice to call them over.
‘Here lads, there’s a lesson needs teaching to these two idiots!’
Suitably reinforced, the four men took an arm apiece and pulled the drunken soldiers to their feet, prompting a further volley of abuse from their captives.
‘Fuck off you arseholes, haven’t you got donkeys to be buggering?!’
A swift slap silenced the protest.
‘Shut the fuck up, soldier boy. You’re just about to find out what happens when you take the piss out of the praetorian guard in our own city!’
Moving swiftly the guardsmen dragged the seemingly helpless drunks into the Senate House’s shadows, and silence fell across the Forum. Cotta nodded to Albinus and gestured to the wide street’s far side.
‘All clear sir. Do you want to go now, or should we wait for our boys?’
Albinus raised an eyebrow.
‘That rather depends on how long you think they’re likely to be, doesn’t it?’
The bodyguards’ leader smiled wryly.
‘Two lads that were the bare knuckle champions of their cohorts for as long as I was a centurion? Not very long …’
As if on cue the two bodyguards walked out of the senate’s shadows, one of them waggling his fingers experimentally with a grimace as they re-joined the party.
‘That last one had a bloody hard chin. I think I’ve bust a knuckle.’
The party hurried across the Forum’s open expanse, Cotta glancing anxiously about for any sign of more praetorians.
‘Looks like we’ve got lucky. Here, this way, and stay close to the wall so that anyone on top can’t see us.’
On the southern side of the Forum the walls of the Palatine Hill loomed over them, defences surrounding the city within a city that was the complex of royal palaces which had been built up over the centuries atop the ancient hill, their sprawling grounds having long since coalesced to form a walled domicile for the imperial family. They rounded a corner at Cotta’s direction, and Marcus frowned as an apparently dead-end alley opened up before them, a high wall looming ahead. The retired centurion raised a hand in caution, turning to face his master.
‘This is the place, Patronus. Wait here please.’
He took a torch from one of his men and walked down the alley, allowing a heavy wooden club to drop from his sleeve into his right hand while the remaining bodyguards fanned out around the Tungrians carrying the three gold chests. In the torch’s flickering light Marcus watched as he reached the far end, an apparently flat wall of heavy stone blocks that rose fifty feet above the street. Stopping within touching distance of the seemingly impassable barrier, Cotta raised his club and tapped it against the stonework in a swift rhythm of three blows, paused for a moment and then repeated the sequence. For a moment silence reigned the night air, but then, with a sudden snap, a cascade of mortar fell to the ground, leaving a crack in the wall’s surface that followed the line of the stone blocks up to a height of six feet. With a scraping rasp the crack in the previously smooth surface abruptly sprang open, a wide section of the wall hinging smoothly outwards as a trio of heavily built men pushed it clear of the frame in which it was set. An imposing figure stepped through the doorway and into the sphere of light cast by Cotta’s torch, beckoning the party forward with evident urgency as a half-dozen men carrying torches and trowels filed past him into the night, one of them carrying a heavy bucket made of coiled rope painted with tar, full of wet mortar.