The last of the men ahead of them staggered away, shouting slurred words of contempt, one of them hurtling a half-full flagon of wine that smashed and left a red smear across the road. Already the glow from the huge fires on the Field of Mars could be seen, the signal that the evening’s bloodletting was well underway.
Fabius turned to Scipio, who was still staring ahead. He remembered when they had fought alongside each other in the backstreets of Rome almost ten years before, beating off the gang that had been pursing them, and afterwards Fabius had lifted him up and dusted him off. Scipio had laughed with pleasure at finding a new friend and sparring partner, at the freedom he had discovered on the streets outside the stifling conventions of his aristocratic background, conventions that had now taken Julia from him. But Fabius also remembered the hardness he had seen in those eyes, a hardness that others around him saw and feared, a fear that led the boys who were now those drunken young men to deride him for not being one of them. Fabius would have to see to it that the hardness remained, that Scipio would ride out this storm as he had ridden out the derision of others, that he did not fall into bitterness and self-destruction. He knew what they had to do.
He turned to Scipio. ‘Do you remember that stag you took above Falernium last summer?’
Scipio was silent, still staring. After a few moments he dropped his head, and nodded. ‘It was early summer; I remember it well,’ he replied quietly. ‘The snow still lay in patches on the upper reaches of the mountains.’ He squinted up at Fabius. ‘Don’t try to console me, Fabius. I don’t need it.’
‘I’m just thinking of the hunting equipment we’ll need for Macedonia. It’ll not just be stags we’re after there, but boar. Polybius said the place offers the best boar hunting he’s ever experienced. We’ll need spears, as well as bows. And I have a new puppy to train as a hunting dog. It’s always best to train a dog in the place where you want to use it, and the Macedonian Royal Forest can be his home. I’ll train him to stalk boar.’
Scipio gave a tired smile. ‘A dog. What’s his name?’
‘Rufius. It’s after the sound he makes. I can’t stop him barking. Eudoxia gave him to me.’
Scipio took a deep breath. ‘Then Rufius shall be our companion. We’ll need to collect our things tonight. And don’t get too close to that slave girl. We might be gone for a long time.’
There was a sudden commotion in the street ahead, and someone burst through the throng and ran up to them. It was Ennius, holding his helmet and drenched in sweat. ‘It’s the old centurion Petraeus,’ he panted. ‘We’ve got to get to him, now. They’re going to try to kill him.’
Scipio held him by the shoulders. ‘Calm yourself, man. What’s happened?’
Ennius bowed his head, took a few deep breaths, and then looked at Scipio, the sweat dripping off his face. ‘After the pyrotechnics display in the Forum I sent my fabri off for a well-earned drink. The nearest tavern to the Sacred Way is that one beside the Gladiator School, you remember, run by that rogue Petronius? Some of us used to sneak in there between classes. One of my centurions came running back to say they’d had an altercation with Brasis, the former gladiator from Thrace who used to fight with Brutus. I never did trust him, even though he was the best sword fighter in the school. He was drunk and slashed one of my fabri across the legs with his Thracian sica dagger, and then smashed his way out, bellowing that he was going to kill someone that night. Earlier on he’d been seen huddled in a corner of the tavern with a man in a hooded cloak that Petronius told my men he recognized as a senator, Gaius Sextius Calvinus. He gave Brasis a few denarii from a money pouch. It was after Sextius Calvinus left that Brasis began drinking heavily and brawling.’
‘Sextius Calvinus,’ Scipio said grimly. ‘One of my adoptive grandfather Scipio Africanus’ worst enemies. He tried to bring him to trial on false charges of misappropriating public funds, and he violently opposed the formation of the academy.’
‘My fabri saw Sextius Calvinus pass someone in the street on the way out and hand him the money pouch, and then that person went into the tavern. All of my men recognized him. It was Porcus Entestius Supinus.’
Fabius let out a low whistle. ‘Why does that not surprise me.’
‘He runs errands for Metellus, doesn’t he?’ Scipio said.
‘More than that,’ Fabius said grimly. ‘He’s become Metellus’ right-hand man. It’s sometimes hard to tell who pulls the strings.’
‘You have a history with him?’
‘We both do. Remember that night when you and I first met years ago, when you thought you’d see what it was like in the streets at night by the Tiber? Porcus and his gang were chasing me, and you got caught up in it.’
‘So that was Porcus,’ Scipio exclaimed. ‘You’ve never mentioned him by name.’
‘He was a few years older than me, and bullied me relentlessly. He drove my mother to the illness that killed her. He and his gang picked on my father when he was at his lowest ebb, I was too young to defend him, and the bullying led him to an early grave too. One day I will get my vengeance, but I will do it alone.’
‘Why should he want Petraeus dead?’ Scipio said.
‘Because Metellus is under the influence of Sextius Calvinus and their faction in the Senate. Metellus sees his future glory in Greece, not in Carthage, and sees Petraeus as a malign influence. The riches of Greece and power in the east are the future that Porcus sees for himself, too. But there’s also a personal reason. Porcus tried to join the legions for the war in Macedonia, after we’d gone to Pydna, but Petraeus had been dragged out of retirement and put in charge of recruitment as his last job after the academy, and he rejected Porcus. He said that his reputation preceded him, and that he was a coward.’
‘But Porcus was a street boy from the Tiber districts, your own home,’ Scipio said. ‘The breeding ground of the best legionaries.’
Fabius shook his head. ‘Not always. Do you remember how he stood back gloating while his gang laid into us? He gets others to do his dirty work for him. That’s what he’ll be doing now, getting Brasis drunk and then paying him to go after Petraeus.’
‘Well, he stoked up Brasis, well and truly,’ Ennius said. ‘My fabri overheard everything. Porcus told Brasis that the Thracian mercenaries captured at Pydna have been scheduled for execution tomorrow afternoon, which is true enough. But it turns out that one of them is his brother. Porcus also reminded Brasis of a story that the old centurion Petraeus used to tell us, of how when he was a young legionary an inexperienced tribune surrendered his cohort to a group of Thracian mercenaries and the Romans were promptly put to the sword, including Petraeus’ own brother. Petraeus never told it out of any antagonism towards Thracians, but just to show us that we should never surrender to mercenaries. But Porcus let Brasis get it into his head that Petraeus put in a word to Aemilianus to have the Thracians singled out for special attention tomorrow, as revenge for what the Thracians did to his brother all those years ago.’