Once all were ready they led their horses down the Quirinal Hill on the same route that they’d taken to the Circus Maximus on Vespasian’s first day in Rome.
Vespasian glanced back at Marius and Sextus and then leant close to Magnus. ‘I don’t mean to be funny, Magnus,’ he said quietly, ‘but what use is Marius on a horse?’
Magnus burst out laughing. ‘You hear that, Marius? The young gentleman is wondering how you are going to able to fight on horseback.’
Marius and Sextus joined in the laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Well, the very idea of it,’ Magnus said through his mirth.
‘Of what?’
‘Of fighting on horseback like some trouser-wearing savage. No, sir, horses are for travelling on or escaping with; if there’s fighting to be done we do it on our feet; we’re foot soldiers, sir, and proud of it. You, sir, on the other hand, are a different class of Roman, an eques, an equestrian: if you do well in your first couple of years they might give you command of an auxiliary cavalry unit, and then you’ll have to fight on horseback, and may the gods help you.’
Vespasian remembered the fight with the runaway slaves barely four months ago and thought it no bad thing to fight mounted.
They carried on in silence, pushing through the crowds of people making their way to whatever they called home, until they came into the Forum Boarium. The cattle market held there on market days was being cleared up. The smell of manure invaded their nostrils, and the cries of the beasts being led off to the slaughterhouses filled the air. Small boys with sticks beat the docile creatures savagely to move them off in the right direction, whilst farmers and slaughterhouse agents did last moment deals and counted their money. At a table on a dais sat a togate aedile, the magistrate overseeing the market, taking complaints from buyers and sellers alike and adjudicating on them, then and there. As the stock was moved out hundreds of wretched public slaves began shovelling the manure into sacks, dismantling the temporary pens and piling them on to carts to be taken away and stored, ready for the next market in eight days’ time.
As they crossed the forum in the direction of the Tiber they passed by the small circular temple of Hercules Victor with its tiled roof supported by columns. It was almost as old as the city itself; next to it stood the massive altar to Hercules. Vespasian looked at these ancient sites and wished that he had had more time for sightseeing; he had hardly seen anything of Rome in his brief stay.
With the bridge in sight, a new, powerful smell assailed their senses. Upstream on either side of the river were many of Rome’s tanneries. There they had a plentiful supply of water and an outlet into which they pumped their effluent. The stench from the process of turning dried, stiff hides into leather, firstly by soaking them in human urine, to loosen the hair enough to scrap it off with a knife, then by pounding them with a mixture of animal brains and faeces to make them supple, produced a stench of such hideous intensity that Vespasian had to pull his cloak over his face as he crossed the bridge. He looked down at the river and to his amazement saw young boys playing and swimming amongst the filth.
Halfway across a loud shout stopped them in their tracks.
‘You lot there, leading the horses, stop where you are.’
Vespasian looked over in the direction of the shout. At the far end of the bridge by a guardhouse was stationed a unit of the Urban Cohort. A centurion had detached himself and was walking towards him, flanked by two soldiers.
‘Don’t give your real name,’ Magnus hissed at his side whilst motioning Marius and Sextus to fall back slightly.
‘What have you got to hide, then, covering your face like that?’ the centurion asked, coming up to them.
Vespasian immediately pulled his cloak away from his face. ‘Nothing, I was just trying to protect my nose from the terrible smell,’ he replied honestly.
‘Don’t give me that, son, everyone’s used to it. Can you see anyone else covering their faces like some sneaking villain? I don’t think so.’
Vespasian looked at the crowds of people passing, all seemingly oblivious to the reek of the tanneries. ‘I’m sorry, centurion, but I’m just not used to it.’
‘Bollocks, I’d say you were acting suspiciously and I’ve got orders to detain anyone acting suspiciously. What’s your name? And where are you going?’
‘Gaius Aemilius Rufus, I’m on my way to Pannonia to serve with the Ninth Hispana.’ Vespasian pulled back his cloak to reveal his uniform.
‘Are you now? Well, with that Sabine accent you don’t sound like one of the Aemilii to me and you’re going in the wrong direction for a start. Where’re your papers?’
‘I’m to be issued with them at Genua, that’s why I’m taking the Via Aurelia.’
‘A likely story, and who are these unpleasant-looking thugs with you?’
‘Tullius Priscus, sir, at your service, and these are my associates Crispus and Sallius,’ Magnus said, stepping forward to the centurion. ‘The young gentleman has hired us to escort him north.’
‘Well, you’re going nowhere until the Praetorians have had a look at you.’ The centurion turned to one of his soldiers. ‘Go to the guardhouse and get the tribune up here immediately.’
The soldier saluted and ran back towards his comrades. Magnus gave a quick gesture to Sextus and Marius and then, stepping forward and bending down in one swift motion, head-butted the centurion in the groin. He doubled up in pain. With a monumental effort Magnus straightened himself up with the centurion over his shoulder and hurled him over the parapet and down into the river where he sank like a stone. Sextus and Marius leapt at the remaining soldier who, before he had time to react, found himself following his superior into the brown water below.
‘Mount up and ride,’ Magnus shouted, leaping on to his horse and kicking it into action. Vespasian jumped into the saddle and urged his mount forward through the panicking crowd towards the rest of the Urban Cohort soldiers who, alerted to the trouble, were forming up in a line at the far side of the bridge. The crowd parted as his horse gained momentum. He could see Magnus ahead and hear the brothers behind him urging their horses on. The soldiers, shieldless and armed only with swords because they were serving within the city, took one look at the four horses only ten paces away charging towards them, and broke, scrambling over each other in their haste to avoid the trampling hooves.
‘Stop!’ A Praetorian tribune stepped out of the guardhouse into the road; his sword was raised, aiming at Magnus’ chest. With one swift movement Magnus unsheathed his own sword and brought it crashing down, backhand, on to the tribune’s blade. The force of the blow jarred the sword from the man’s hand and forced him to his knees.
Reacting quickly to being disarmed the tribune whipped his pugio, a long dagger, from his belt and confronted Vespasian. Seeing that he had no alternative other than to charge him down, Vespasian reached into his saddlebag and pulled out his sword. He swung it wildly, sending the scabbard flying through the air, and bore down on the tribune. At the last moment before contact he pulled his horse to the left and aimed a cut at the tribune’s neck. The tribune ducked and, as Vespasian sped by, thrust his dagger towards the horse’s belly, hitting instead Vespasian’s leg; the blade pierced the greave, embedding itself in muscle and bronze. Vespasian’s momentum pulled it clean from the tribune’s grasp and sent him rolling in the dirt. Pain seared up Vespasian’s leg but he knew he had to keep going. He put his head down and drove his horse forward, the dagger wedged firmly in his leg as it gripped his mount’s heaving flank.
Magnus looked over his shoulder and saw his three companions riding hell for leather behind him. ‘Just keep going for as long as you can,’ he called to Vespasian.
Vespasian gritted his teeth and concentrated on riding his horse, trying to block out the pain from his wounded calf, but every jolt caused the dagger to vibrate and seemed to force the razor-sharp point further in. He tried to reach down to extract it.