A young, almond-skinned man with a pointed, hennaed beard got up from the table next to Magnus. ‘Our pleasure, Magnus. Come, Vahram, let’s show our Roman brothers how to extract the correct toll for travelling through our area.’ His cousin’s eyes glinted and white teeth showed under his beard; the two easterners walked off towards the travellers.
‘Keep an eye on them, Marius, back ’em up if negotiations don’t go smooth.’
‘Right you are, Magnus.’ Marius got to his feet, indicating to a couple of the brothers to follow him.
Magnus turned his attention back to Servius. ‘So what do you suggest?’
Servius rubbed the palm of his hand over the rough grey stubble on his chin and thought for a few moments. ‘If you’re determined to get at one, then Fabricius is your man.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of where his house is situated; go and have a look tonight.’
An abrupt scream followed by shouts and the clatter of hardened leather soles on stone cut through the background calls of shopkeepers, street-traders and haggling customers. Magnus swung round and immediately leapt to his feet, drawing a short, street-fighter’s knife from his belt. One of the two cousins lay writhing in the road whilst the other, Tigran, was fending off the swords of two of the travellers with only a knife as Marius and his two brothers weighed into the rest.
‘With me, lads!’ Magnus shouted at the rest of his brethren, who were jumping to their feet in a scraping of wooden tables pushed forward and benches falling back. Magnus powered into one of Tigran’s opponents, body-checking him to the ground and slashing his blade across the man’s forearm as the young easterner fell to his knees clutching at a bloody wound in his shoulder. Stamping on the downed man’s kneecap with brittle crunch, Magnus twisted and grabbed the flowing hair of Tigran’s second assailant; as the man raised his weapon for the killing blow to the wounded brother, Magnus jerked back his head and pressed a blood-slick blade to his exposed throat. ‘I’d drop that if I were you, bum-boy, it’s illegal to carry swords in our city.’ Ramming his knee up between the man’s buttocks to emphasise the point, Magnus slowly applied pressure to his knife; the easterner’s sword fell ringing to the ground and he went limp.
Magnus threw the man down on to the ground, spitting at him in disgust, and looked around; the fight had drawn a crowd. ‘Get rid of them, Marius.’
‘Right you are, Magnus.’ Marius headed off without sheathing his knife; the crowd began to disperse without needing to be told to mind their own business and not that of their local Crossroads Brotherhood.
The six travellers were all down and in various states of consciousness and pain; their slaves, carrying the baggage, hung back, looking with fearful eyes at their masters, unsure what to do. Tigran still clutched his wound, trying to stem the bleeding, his face contorted in agony and sorrow as he stared down at the glazed eyes of his cousin, Vahram.
‘What the fuck happened there?’ Magnus exploded. ‘It’s meant to be a generous offer to provide protection, for a small fee, through our territory; not a fucking declaration of war!’
Tigran tore his eyes from his cousin’s immobile face and stared up at Magnus. ‘It was all agreed: a denarius for each traveller and two for the slaves.’ He pointed to an easterner lying next to Vahram, moaning softly in a pool of blood that oozed from his abdomen. ‘He said he would pay the eight denarii and put his hand under his cloak; we thought he was getting out his purse, but instead out comes a sword and he plunges it into Vahram.’
From along the street came the staccato clatter of hobnailed sandals.
‘Fucking great!’ Magnus spat. ‘Now the Urban Cohorts are getting involved.’
*
‘The Urban Prefect will have to hear of this,’ the Urban Cohort centurion informed Magnus, staring down at the dead and wounded. ‘He’s issued orders for us to crack down on street violence, especially involving the brotherhoods.’
Magnus nodded, feigning a look of sympathetic understanding. ‘Rightly so, centurion, some of them are vicious; it’s getting to the stage that decent folk can’t walk about the city in safety. We, however, try and enforce the law in our area.’ With his foot he flicked back the cloak of one of the wounded easterners to reveal a scabbard. ‘See? Carrying swords in the city; only you lads and the Praetorians are allowed to do that. We were just trying to explain that to them, as they were obviously new to Rome and must have been unacquainted with that particular law. It cost one of my men his life.’
The centurion looked down at the evidence whilst his men continued to surround the area with their weapons drawn. ‘I’ll still need to make a report.’
‘Of course. I would have done the same when I was in the Cohorts.’
‘You were in one of the Urban Cohorts?’
‘I finished my time ten years ago. I believe my mate, Aelianus, is still the quartermaster down at the depot?’
The centurion grinned. ‘That old crook, yeah; he should have been discharged years ago but he seems to cling on.’
‘It’s a very lucrative business being in charge of all that gear.’
‘I’m sure it is; I’ve been trying to get new boots for my century for the last two months.’
‘What’s your name, centurion?’
‘Nonus Manilus Rufinus.’
‘Well, Rufinus, today is your lucky day; I’ll have a word with Aelianus and the next time you put in a request for boots mention my name, Marcus Salvius Magnus. I think you’ll find Aelianus very accommodating and I’d be surprised if your lads get their pay deducted for the new gear.’
‘That’s very good of you, Magnus.’
‘Not a problem, my friend. Now what are we going to do about these fucking easterners that killed one of my men with their illegal swords?’
Rufinus scratched the back of his head. ‘I’ll take them down to the cohort depot and lock them up until the Urban Prefect decides what to do with them.’ He looked closely at the belly-wound of Vahram’s killer. ‘If they survive, that is. Obviously I’ll have to make a report; we can’t allow people to flout the law like that. Naturally I’ll emphasise that it was self-defence on your part.’
‘Naturally. And there won’t be any mention of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood?’
‘Of course not; that will just get the Urban Prefect upset and we wouldn’t want to do that; he’s getting on.’
‘A wise precaution, Rufinus; I believe he’s going to be eighty this year.’ Magnus indicated the easterners’ slaves, who had been rounded up into a tight group. ‘Shall we just take the blood-money now, out of whatever they’ve got in their baggage?’
Rufinus shrugged. ‘I suppose that would make matters easier; if you’re happy with the blood-money then the murder could be forgotten about. Take what you like.’
‘It’ll be simpler if we just take everything; you will come round and pick up your share once you’re off duty this evening, won’t you?’
‘Of course. I’d better take the slaves though, just in case . . . you know.’ Rufinus waved his hand in a vague manner.
‘I do indeed,’ Magnus assured him. ‘You never know.’
‘Quite.’
‘Would you like some of my lads to help your boys carry the bastards to the depot?’
‘We’ll manage, Magnus. I’ll see you later when I come for my . . . er . . .’
‘It’ll be waiting for you, my friend.’
‘A third goes to Tigran, a third to Rufinus and a third to the Brotherhood,’ Servius said, clacking at an abacus. ‘Which means that, in coin, one share is one hundred and twenty-one aurei.’
Magnus whistled softly and stopped pacing around the small back room. ‘No wonder they were armed, walking around with over three thousand denarii on them. What were they going to do with all that money?’
‘I don’t know; but what is for sure is that they won’t like losing it. They’ll come looking for it if they’re freed.’