Thrasyllus nodded. “I am.”
The rat-faced man sniffed. “You’ll be screaming the names of many a god if you’re wrong about this boat. And they won’t help you.” He looked over to the much larger man beside him. “The brute here will see to that, won’t you?”
It had been painful for the big man to crouch down beside them on the sunken path. Whatever injuries he’d sustained during his life, they clearly ran far deeper than the scars visible across his face. But there was something else about him that Thrasyllus had noticed. More than once he had shown signs of a kind of inner pain, as if he was tormented by memories of the things he had done. When Seker spoke of his threats, the brute’s broad shoulders hunched up almost as if he’d been struck. “I’ll do what I need to do,” he said.
“That you will,” Seker said. Turning back to Thrasyllus, he said, “I recognized his talent right away. He’s hard as a wall and strong as any three other men put together. Surprising since he’s a Roman.”
“Was,” the big man growled.
Seker’s smile was full of a kind of sneering delight. “That’s right. He doesn’t like his own kind anymore. So tonight should be fun, as long as he doesn’t have to run.” The rat-faced man chuckled quietly in the dim light, but the big man didn’t react. He just stared out at the water.
Thrasyllus tried to smile, but he was anything but amused or even remotely calm. Men were going to die soon. Many men. He prayed that he’d get over the guilt. And he prayed, too, that he wouldn’t be among the dead.
For many minutes they waited in silence. The darkness rising behind them brought the first stars into view. The light of the high moon was beginning to take over from the dying sun, and the last birds of the day were chittering toward their nests.
Ahead of him, the brute shifted uncomfortably. Without turning his head, he spoke quietly back to the astrologer. “You’re certain the barge didn’t already pass?”
Thrasyllus shook his head, even though the big man wasn’t looking. By his calculations they should have been well ahead of the barge. “Impossible,” he said, praying that it was true. He didn’t want to even try to imagine what might await him if it had. He didn’t doubt the big man’s efficiency at causing pain. Not to mention the disappointed bowmen. If the barge didn’t show, Thrasyllus was sure he’d be lucky to leave this bank alive.
The big man sighed. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “Best to get the killing done.”
Thrasyllus nodded, as if he had any notion of what it took to kill a man. The satchel at his side seemed to grow heavier with each passing heartbeat. Could he really take a man’s life? Could he really bury the blade and feel the blood? Could he stand to look even this vile pimp in the eyes as he did it?
No. He couldn’t face even so loathsome a creature as Seker. He would have to do it in the back.
If he could do it at all.
Please, he thought, let them go with my plan.
“Is that it?” Seker said quietly.
Thrasyllus looked out. Backlit by the last light of the dying sun, a barge was coming up the canal. It was laden with textiles, piles of rugs and cloth. Two men on board had been speaking, the murmur of their voices sweeping across the still water, but it was too low to hear what they said, and they stopped before he could recognize whether one was Lucius Vorenus.
But it had to be, Thrasyllus thought. The timing was right, and with night falling any barge still on the canal must be hurrying from something.
“Well?” Seker whispered.
“It should be,” Thrasyllus said. “But we need to know which one is the Roman. You can kill everyone else. But don’t kill him.”
“Easier to kill them all,” the big man rasped.
“You can’t kill him.” If they killed Vorenus, what would he do? He hadn’t even thought about that. “We agreed,” he whispered urgently.
The brute seemed to shrug, and Thrasyllus saw that there was a gladius in his thick hand. He was tensing, as if the prospect of killing made him feel young again. As if it made him feel alive.
By the gods, Thrasyllus thought, he likes this. They all do.
Though he could make out no details against the sunset, he could see that the two men who had been talking were lounged amid the piles at the front of the vessel. They seemed relaxed, unaware of the bows being drawn in the tall reeds along shore.
“Home,” one of the men said.
It was a single word, but it was enough. The man was a Roman. It was him.
The big brute gasped or grunted, Thrasyllus couldn’t tell.
The barge was coming abreast of them. So close. Seker looked deadly in his expectation.
Thrasyllus nodded vigorously, and Seker immediately turned toward the bowmen below them and gave a soft whistle.
“He’s in front. On the left,” Thrasyllus said, his whisper rising in his urgency. “Leave Vorenus alive.”
The big man lurched as if he’d been struck, and he actually half turned around to look at Thrasyllus. “Vorenus?”
Thrasyllus simply nodded dumbly, shocked at the thought of what he’d just done. He could see the man at the tiller now, too, a perfect target of black against the crimson sky.
The brute’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly stood, rising up from the shadows. Seker tried to reach for him, but it was too late. The big man had already turned toward the barge that was sliding up before them. The next moment, when he shouted the word, it seemed to be ripped from his throat, from the very center of his soul. “Vorenus!”
Below, as if in response, the first arrows sang out.
9
CLAIMING THE REWARD
CANTABRIA, 26 BCE
The last place that Juba wanted to be was in the command tent. Something had happened to Selene while he was away at the meadow, and he was desperate to find out what it was. She insisted that she was fine, but the look in her eyes when she had come forward to embrace him was unmistakably fearful. She was scared, and he wanted to know why.
But rather than have the opportunity to discover the truth, he was here with the others in the tent. Octavian had called them back as the sun set, and he had told them that in the morning he planned to engage in a full assault on Vellica, the Cantabrian hillfort across the valley that stubbornly refused to surrender to their siege.
So now Juba was listening to another of the long-toothed Roman commanders give another long-winded excuse about why he didn’t think the time was right for such an attack. The opinion was nearly unanimous. It seemed that every man in the tent but himself, Tiberius, and Carisius had voiced disapproval. The Cantabri were still too strong, they all insisted. More time would weaken their resolve, their strength, their walls.
It didn’t matter. Juba knew his stepbrother’s own stubbornness was a match for any fortification, much less the minds of the men in this room. And Caesar’s mind was made up. He wanted a full assault, and a full assault he would get. All this discussion was merely for show.
And a show it was. Octavian sat upright in his seat, his face set with determined focus as he listened to the complaint. Though Juba could well imagine the disgust that was churning through his stepbrother’s head, not a bit of it was shown on his face.
At last the commander stopped talking.
“Thank you,” Octavian said. His voice was calm and collected, almost paternal despite the other man’s greater age. He nodded thoughtfully, and then he turned to Carisius, the highest ranking field commander, who’d sat in a kind of brooding silence staring at the crude map of Vellica that had been placed before them at the center of the table. “And you, Carisius? What is your wisdom in this matter?”
The older man’s eyes narrowed at the map. Tracing his gaze, Juba could see that he was staring at the outline of the gates of the Cantabrian fort. Vellica filled the top of the kidney bean–shaped hill completely, and it had but three gates—each of which presented a substantial problem for the Roman forces.