The boy’s story had however ended in disappointment. Titus had run into Caeso on the road to Rome where he’d seen him using the Scorpion. Then by sheer chance they’d met again at Milo’s house. The boy had a sharp mind. He’d compared the assassins description that Numerius had put out across the city with the man he’d run into and had figured out that the man was involved in the assassination attempt on Fabius. But then the trail had grown cold for Caeso had vanished.
“You and I shall make a good team,” Numerius had said with a smile. “Come here is what we shall do.”
Now Numerius glanced at his prisoner and smiled in satisfaction. He had often clashed with Milo when he had defended his clients against the boss of the Subura. They knew each other well and had learned to hate each other. Milo however had proved to be a resourceful opponent, with powerful friends and despite Numerius’ skill he had rarely been allowed to win against the boss. Milo had developed an untouchable reputation but Numerius had never given up trying and now Titus had given him the chance to nail his old enemy once and for all. Titus had done well, very well indeed. It was brave to stand up to the boss of the Subura.
Fabius and the Senate would be interested in what had occurred. Milo’s involvement with a Carthaginian spy would make it difficult for his supporters to defend him but they would still try he knew. There were powerful people with vested interests in keeping Milo in his position. He had seen them often enough at his trials. But the fact that the gangs of the Subura were openly colluding with the enemy would worry the Senate more. Milo’s involvement explained how Caeso had managed to remain hidden for so long and if Milo was preparing to change his allegiance, how many more people out there were thinking the same thing. It did not bode well. The Senate should have had the whole neighbourhood cleared out he thought but he knew they would never agree to such drastic action.
As for his next move, Numerius thought, it was time to get down to business. Titus had urged him to march straight into the Subura and arrest Milo but that plan would not have worked. Numerius knew the Subura. The neighbourhood always united in the face of an external threat. The moment that Numerius’ men set foot in the narrow alleys they would have been spotted and Milo would have been warned. It would have been impossible to find him if he’d chosen to hide. No, the only way to grab Milo had been to lure him out of his fortress and set a trap and it had worked.
Numerius beckoned Titus to his side as they swept down the street. The boy looked flush with excitement at what they had done.
“I shall have you educated Titus,” Numerius said laying a hand on the youth’s shoulder for support, “But it shall not be me who will be your teacher. Do you understand?”
Titus nodded. “You are ill Sir, I understand.”
“Yes,” Numerius nodded. “I am ill. What profession will you choose when your education is complete?”
Titus considered the question.
“An architect Sir, I shall raise buildings,” he replied with a smile.
“Why not choose the law as your profession?”
Titus shook his head. “I am a Samnite. A man with my background will never win anything.”
Numerius allowed himself a wry smile.
“Your mother and sister, are they in good health?”
“They are Sir, although my sister is rather wayward and my mother drinks too much.”
“They will be safe in the place that I have arranged for them,” Numerius replied. “Maybe when this is all over I shall meet them.”
“Thank you Sir,” Titus said, “We would be honoured.”
Numerius grunted unintelligibly.
“A true Roman will lay down what he is doing and leave everything behind when Rome requires him to. A true Roman will never despair of our city. Are you such a man, Titus?”
The question caught Titus by surprise. Numerius had stopped to look at him and there was something hopeful in the old man’s eyes.
“I am no deserter Sir. I saved a Tribune’s life at Cannae and I will fight to protect my family. This I know.”
The answer seemed to please Numerius and he started to walk again.
***
Milo was not a happy man. He swore and threatened the soldiers around him with the most terrible of fates but when he was dragged into the torture chamber of the Tullianum and saw the instruments of pain laid out on the table he became very quiet.
Numerius had Milo bound to a chair. Then he ordered
everyone to leave except for Nicomedes the doctor, Titus and
the three men who would do the torturing.
“Were going to talk,” Numerius said as he stood behind Milo’s
chair. “We are going to talk about what you have been up to. If
you cooperate there will be no need to inflict any pain but if you
don’t…”
Numerius left the sentence hanging in the air.
“I know half the Senate,” Milo hissed, “You wouldn’t dare touch
me.”
“Wrong answer,” Numerius cried. He nodded to one of the
gaolers who picked up a rod of white hot metal and pressed it
against Milo’s exposed shoulder. There was the hiss of burning
flesh and a sickening smell and then a terrifying high pitched
scream of agony that reverberated through the underground
room.
“Fuck the Senate,” Numerius said placing his mouth close to
Milo’s ear.
“Now do we understand each other?”
Milo was still screaming and his knees shook.
“You bastard, you burned me, you burned me,” he shrieked.
“Tell me how you knew the man had tried to kill Quintus Fabius
Maximus,” Numerius said as he started to pace up and down
behind Milo’s chair with his hand’s clasped behind his back.
“He told me, he told me that he had tried to kill Fabius,” Milo
screamed.
“Why would he tell you this?”
“I don’t know,” Milo howled, “But I believed him, he was that kind
of man who would do something like that.”
“Why did you hide him,” Numerius snapped, “the man had just
tried to kill the leader of the Senate? Why did you not hand him
over to the authorities?”
“No,” Milo muttered beginning to master his pain. Sweat had
Numerius raised his eyebrows and glanced at Nicomedes. The
doctor’s face looked like it was set in stone.
“What do you say doctor,” Numerius said, “Do you think he will
be strangled or thrown from the Tarpeian rock for aiding an
enemy spy in war time?”
“The Tarpeian rock,” Nicomedes replied weakly.
“For the final time, why did you hide him Milo, he was a
Carthaginian, an enemy of Rome? Did you somehow forget
about that?” Numerius raised his voice and smacked Milo over
the head with his hand.
But Milo refused to answer. Numerius was about to order the
torturers back to work when he was interrupted.
“Last night, how did the assassin manage to escape?” Titus
raised his voice and stepped out of the shadows. “You yourself
had made sure that all the doors were locked and guarded.”
“Fuck off you little shit,” Milo shook his head.
Numerius struck Milo over the head, “Answer the question.”
Milo coughed. “He jumped from the first floor window. He was
carrying someone. I think it was a woman.”
“A woman,” Numerius repeated. “Are you sure?”
Milo nodded.
A gleam of interest appeared on Numerius’ face. ”Now why
would a wanted man leave the nice safe place you had provided
for him, jump ou
t of a window and run off into the middle of the
night carrying a woman? Can you explain that?”
“No”, Milo muttered.
“Who was the woman?” Numerius said sharply. “What was she
doing at your house anyway? Women are forbidden from
leaving their homes by order of the Senate.”
“I don’t know who she was,” Milo sneered, “they come and go.
I have a large household.”
“There was an orgy,” Titus interrupted, “the women came for
that,” Titus pointed at Milo, “he organised it.”
“You little dirty rat” Milo snarled spitting at Titus.
“Bacchanalian rites in the Subura,” Numerius allowed himself a
smile, “not yet a crime but not something you would want to
boast about either. Tell me the name of this woman and where
she lives?”
Milo chuckled as if he’d heard something utterly absurd.
“Go fuck yourself,” he cried in a loud voice.
“The woman’s name, what is it?” Numerius persisted.
Milo chuckled again and there was incredibility in his voice as
he spoke.
“You want me to tell you who my clients are? Are you
completely mad? Have you lost it up here old man. I will tell you
nothing, nothing!”
Numerius grabbed the white hot poker from the torturer’s hand
and pressed the hot metal into the prisoner’s eye. There
followed a sizzling sound like meat cooking in a pan. Milo
screamed, a high pitched scream of utter agony as the poker
boiled away his eye. The scream made the hair on Titus’ neck
stand up. Numerius crouched at his prisoner’s side, his face
close to Milo’s.
“I don’t care whether you live or die,” he said in a quiet voice, “I
don’t care about your powerful friends. You see Milo, I am
afraid of nothing. I have sold my soul to the underworld. That’s
where I am going for eternity. Now tell me the name of that
woman and where she lives.”
Milo opened his mouth and screamed.
A few moments later the door to the chamber opened and a
guard poked his head nervously around the corner.
“Sir, there is a man outside claiming to be a lawyer and acting
for the Senate. He’s been told his client is here. He’s insisting
that we release the prisoner right away.”
Numerius glanced at his screaming prisoner and the gaping
hole where his eye had used to be.
“Fine, I don’t think he knows who she is anyway.”
Numerius turned to Nicomedes whose face was a pale shadow
of its usual colour. “Doctor, you will need to keep Milo in here
for a few more hours. Don’t release him until the last possible
moment and under no circumstances are you to let that lawyer
speak to him.”
“But how do you want me to do that?” Nicomedes protested. “I
am supposed to be your doctor Sir.”
“You are an educated man,” Numerius nodded confidently.
“Just find a way of stalling that lawyer.”
Numerius beckoned to Titus, “Come we have work to do.”
Chapter Twentytwo – The rotten system
The men of the Triumviri Nocturni rose to their feet as
Numerius accompanied by Titus strode into the Tullianum’s
small courtyard. At the gates to the jail a small hawk nosed man
with keen eyes stood watching them, his hands gripping the iron
bars.
“The lawyer,” Titus gestured.
“It didn’t take Milo very long to call his friends for help did it,”
Numerius replied. Then he glanced thoughtfully at the troop of
soldiers who had assisted his firemen in arresting Milo. “We had
better take them along with us,” he said.
“There is going to be trouble.”
“Where are we going Sir?”
“I need to know the name of that woman,” Numerius replied,
“She will know something about where our man is hiding.”
“But Milo didn’t know her name.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” Numerius nodded, “but Milo is a
businessman, Titus. Remember what he said about knowing
half the Senate? Information on these families will be very
useful to him. If my hunch is correct he will have kept records
on everyone attending his parties. If what he said about that
woman is true, her name will be listed somewhere.”
“Were going to raid his house?”
“Yes,” Numerius replied, “but we don’t have much time.”
The procession of firemen and soldiers led by Numerius and
Titus swept through the forum and into the Argiletum, the street
of the book sellers. The crunch of the men’s hobnailed sandals
on the paving stones was loud and menacing and yet Titus had
grown nervous. They were going back into the Subura. Milo’s
men would have raised the alarm by now. That was how Milo’s
lawyer had managed to appear so quickly and if they’d had time
to organise that, then who knew what else was waiting for them
in the alleys up ahead.
Numerius was right, there was going to be trouble.
“Show us the way to his house, Titus,” Numerius said calmly.
As they entered the narrow alleys the people seemed to flee
before them. Titus could see the doors being closed and bolted
and heard the crash of shutters being drawn across windows.
Mothers called urgently to their children and street vendors
hastily packed up their goods and vanished.
Titus recognised people he knew but they all blanked him and
he knew then that he had become an outsider, a traitor. The
people of the Subura only had respect for their own. Whatever
happened he would not be able to go back to the Subura after
this was over. It was an intensely uncomfortable feeling but it
was Milo who was the real traitor he reminded himself.
As they approached Milo’s house a gang of armed men came
out and formed into a group, blocking the doorway. Their
leader,a huge, fat man wearing nothing but a belt and a loin
cloth, folded his arms across his chest. In one hand he held a
club. “Stand aside citizen,” Numerius snapped, “I have the
authority to search this house.”
But the big man shook his head and refused to move.
“You have no authority in this neighbourhood,” he replied.
Numerius took the spear from the hands of a nearby soldier and
with a speed and strength that surprised everyone he rammed
the weapon into his opponent’s stomach. The fat man blocking
his way doubled up and the club fell from his fingers. There was
a look of surprise on his face.
“But you are just a fucking lawyer…” he muttered in confusion.
Then his eyes rolled in their sockets and without making another
sound he tipped over sideway’s onto the ground like some
falling elephant.
“Does anyone else want to die today?” Numerius bellowed.
The rest of the gang blocking the doorway muttered angrily but
the mass of spears, shields and swords behind Numerius was
enough to deter them. “Get out of here.” Numerius roared.
They did as they were told, stumbling away down an alley.
“Break the door down,” Nume
rius ordered, “Were looking for a
book or any kind of written account. The first man to find what
we are looking for will be rewarded with ten silver coins.”
It took a few minutes to break down the door but once they
were in the fire men and soldiers started to fan out through the
building. Titus hung around the entrance to the apartment block.
He could hear the noise of the firemen upstairs as they
smashed their way through the various rooms. What they were
doing now would make them an enemy of Milo for life but if
the men were aware of it they didn’t show it. Once they would
be done, everything of value in Milo’s house would have been
stripped and stolen but that couldn’t be helped.
Titus glanced casually at Numerius. When he’d first gone to
see Numerius he had expected to meet a scholarly and gentle
teacher but the man he had come to know was utterly ruthless
and efficient. The man had not flinched from torture and
breaking into people’s homes and if it wasn’t for the man’s
friendliness towards him Titus would have been scared of him.
The fire crew at any rate were scared of their boss. He had
noticed it in the way they approached him. Some of the men
had even talked about their boss having offered his soul to the
gods of the underworld in return for the capture of the fugitive.
Titus moved further into the house and watched as several
men broke into a strong box. Clothes were flung onto the
ground and a bag of coins they found disappeared quickly into
one of the men’s pockets.