Read Online Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7] by Douglas Jackson - Free Book Online Page B

already shrivelled up seeking sanctuary in the hairy bush of his crotch. The building had been cleared for the occasion, but it still stank of horse shit, mouldy hay and the rank sweat of generations of its equine occupants.
    Pliny, dressed in a formal toga, sat on a padded couch with his gouty foot raised, far enough away from his subject to avoid any spilled bodily fluids. A secretary appeared and stood by with a stylus and wax block to record the questions and the replies.
    ‘You do not have to stay, Valerius,’ Pliny said without taking his eyes off the man who’d tried to kill him.
    ‘Better if I do.’
    ‘Very well. What is your name?’
    It took time and persuasion. While the knives were being heated to a fierce glowing crimson the torturers removed the large toe of his left foot with a cold chisel, a mere foretaste of what was to come. The almost casual amputation, carried out with brutal indifference, brought a gasp of agony and the man’s face turned pale beneath his deep tan.
    ‘Who sent you?’
    The assassin closed his eyes and blood ran down his chin where he’d bitten through his lip.
    ‘The right ear, I think.’
    The horrible prolonged shriek that followed the suggestion senta shiver down Valerius’s spine. A red-hot blade had the benefit of cauterizing the wound as it was created. One of the torturers held the wilted scrap of flesh before the assassin’s eyes then tossed it on to the brazier. It sizzled and cooked, filling the stable with the mouth-watering scent of frying meat, before curling up into an unrecognizable blackened crisp and disappearing in a flicker of blue flame.
    And so it went. They took him apart one piece at a time. No mindless pummelling brutality this, just a cold, clinical professionalism that told the victim the only way to save what was left was to tell everything he knew. When it came, it was like a dam bursting. The names tumbled out one after the other in a guttural dog Latin Valerius could barely decipher. First the man’s own. Brutus, a mere bandit, he pleaded, from west of Carthago Nova. He and his companion Venico had been recruited by … a mumbled name that clearly meant nothing to Pliny.
    ‘Ask him again. How did he gain entry to the palace? How did he know where to find me?’
    Brutus hesitated, which was a mistake. There went one eye, the right, courtesy of a glowing spike accompanied by a horrible bubbling scream that seemed to go on for ever.
    When they resumed, his voice was hoarse from the screaming. They’d been ordered to meet a man at an inn down by the port. The man informed them that the governor was a creature of habit. He would enter the bath at the seventh hour. Their informant would ensure a certain door was left open, the guards would be elsewhere. The attendant would be dealt with. An unfortunate accident would then occur.
    ‘Who?’ Pliny’s voice shook with emotion. ‘Who betrayed me?’
    The assassin could give no name, but he provided a description that made the governor go still.
    ‘Find him,’ he hissed to the guard. ‘Find him if you have to scour the whole province.’
    It wasn’t enough, of course. They had to be sure. When the assassin thought he’d given them everything, it turned out he was wrong.
    ‘I regret the necessity,’ Pliny explained later. ‘But if it is going to be done it must be done properly or there is no point.’
    ‘What will happen to him?’
    Pliny frowned. ‘A personal attack on the governor of a Roman province? He will be crucified, what is left of him.’
    ‘Who was it?’
    ‘A clerk.’ Pliny looked weary and old. ‘Acondus, who worked very closely with my secretary. Whoever paid him would know my intentions the moment they were written down. Of course, with the assassins discovered – and I have yet to thank you and your ingenious little knife for your services – his usefulness was at an end. The
vigiles
found him in an alley with his throat cut. He is no help to us now.’
    Valerius