Abject Authority (Clay Warrior Stories Book 19) Read online

  The servant hesitated as if not aware of his surroundings. After pulling his eyes from the coin pieces, the Sabine replied, “The cheese is a tradition of the Rieti Valley, Master. And I’m proud to say my family has been cheesemakers for generations.”

  Alerio selected a piece and bit into the aromatic cheese.

  “Delicious,” he exclaimed.

  ***

  Alerio and the brothers ran gladius and shield drills. When their arms and legs stiffened, they went to the villa’s baths and cleaned up.

  “I haven’t had a workout with a weapon’s instructor for months,” Smalt recalled while rotating his shoulder to work out a stitch.

  “Father bought this land and the hills from a Sabine family who fell afoul of fate,” Lentul described. “Once he realized it was too big a job for one man, he called us back from the Legion.”

  “You aren’t third generation on this property?” Alerio inquired.

  “No, Colonel,” Smalt answered. “Unlike most farmers in the valley, we’re newcomers.”

  The Sabine servant brought clean towels and the men dried off. While the brothers slipped on tunics, Alerio dressed in his woolens, and tied the knee brace on his leg.

  “As much as I enjoyed the exercise, I apologize for the bad knee and not being a better opponent for you,” Alerio remarked as he tied the last strap.

  “Lictor, you inflicted enough pain,” Lentul assured him. “I feel for the Centuries you trained before your injury.”

  “They did not have sweet things to say behind my back.”

  “Of that, I’m sure,” Smalt offered. He took a mug of wine from the servant, took a sip, and saluted Alerio with the vessel. “Now Lictor, you wanted to speak with another victim.”

  “Yes. Is the villa close by?” Alerio inquired. He scanned the houses and fields in the valley. “I thought maybe a couple more today.”

  “That’s going to be difficult,” Lentul warned. “Their villas are out of the valley.”

  “West of here?” Alerio assumed. He turned and peered at the mountains west of the valley. “That’s towards Etruscan territory, right?”

  “No, Lictor,” Smalt corrected. “The other victims are to the east along the Via Salaria.”

  Alerio took a moment to ponder the order of incidents and to compare them with the Bronze Man’s comment, “all you Romans quake in fear of an Etruscan warrior.” If the bandit was bragging about his heritage, why not attack easily reached citizens. Why circumvent the valley to reach victims far from your safe harbor?

  “I better go,” Alerio said as he strolled to Phobos.

  “Last week, we sent a letter to the Proconsul demanding justice,” Smalt told Alerio as he mounted. “His return letter said he was planning just that.”

  “Then you arrived, and we feel better,” Lentul said. “He is doing something.”

  Alerio nudged the stallion into motion. His thoughts turned over what he knew. In the turmoil, he didn’t remember the ride down the hill or reaching the main road.

  “Let’s head for Rieti,” he told Phobos while guiding the beast to the south. “I believe it’s time we got a second opinion.”

  ***

  The town had been calm and almost empty when he passed through the day before. It wasn’t the case when Alerio rode in that afternoon.

  “Use the side streets,” an NCO instructed. “The main roads are for the movement of the Legion.”

  “What’s going on, Optio?” Alerio asked.

  “We’re going to seal the Etruscan border,” the NCO replied. “Let’s see that murderer try to cross over with our blades blocking the way.”

  An image of an undefended valley and an unrestrained band of ruthless killers flashed through Alerio’s mind.

  “What’s the best way to reach the government house?” he inquired.

  “Go over five streets, enter the city, and hook a left before the main road,” the Optio directed while indicating the way. “It’ll keep you off the Legion’s route and bring you in behind the offices of the Proconsul.”

  Alerio saluted the NCO, turned Phobos, and kneed him forward.

  “It appears, we’ll require more than a second opinion,” Alerio said to the stallion. “We need the ear of someone in authority.”

  ***

  The compound reflected the importance of a chief magistrate. Rather than rough stone, the walls were coated in clay and painted. It might have been a waste of resources, but with a Proconsul in residence, no one would question the expense.

  “I’m here to see the Chief Lictor,” Alerio told the Legionary at the gate.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the unarmed sentry asked.

  Alerio didn’t respond. He sat glaring down at the infantryman.

  “Maybe you didn’t understand me,” the gate guard insisted, “is the Chief Lictor expecting you?”

  Putting a hand over his forehead as if experiencing a shooting pain, Alerio pointed with the other hand.

  “Get your spear and your shield out of the guardhouse,” he ordered. “Stand properly to make your challenge. And it would be wise in the future, when someone comes to visit the head enforcer, that you be more respectful.”

  “More respectful of who?” the sentry demanded.

  “Call your Centurion,” Alerio told him. “Get him now before the medic arrives.”

  “What medic?”

  “What’s going on here,” an NCO asked.

  The Sergeant studied the man on the horse. The wide brimmed hat, the woolen shirt and pants, and the thick soled sandals told him nothing about the visitor.

  “Optio, he was threatening me,” the gate guard whined. “At least, I think he was.”

  “And who is he?” the Sergeant of the Guard inquired.

  “I don’t know?”

  “Well then, what does he want?”

  “The last thing was for me to get the Centurion.”

  “The last thing? What was the first?” the Sergeant inquired.

  “The very first was to see the Chief Lictor, Optio.”

  “There were other requests?” the NCO questioned.

  “Just one,” the gate sentry reported. “He told me to get my spear and shield from the guardhouse. Oh, and to be respectful.”

  The last two comments sounded like those of a senior Legion officer. In response, the Optio saluted Alerio.

  “Sir, how can I help you?”

  “For reasons I can’t go into, I will not give you my name or my rank,” Alerio informed the NCO. “However, I do need to speak with the Chief Lictor in private.”

  “Sir, he’s been known to sneak into the cookhouse for a snack on occasion.”

  “Can you pass the word that he needs to get a snack?”

  “I can do that, sir,” the Sergeant of the Guard assured Alerio.

  Before he left, he had words with the sentry. As Alerio rode across the compound to the cookhouse, the Legionary retrieved his shield and spear from the gatehouse.

  ***

  The man carried heavy muscles on his frame and a gladius on one hip and a long knife on the other. He came into the cook shed quickly. So smoothly and fast, no assassin could have been prepared for those moves from a big man. He spotted Alerio chewing the meat off a bone and the Sabine cook calmly stirring a pot.

  “How’s the pork?” he asked while gliding away from the doorframe.

  “It’s delicious, but could use some salt,” Alerio stated. “Where’s your fasces?

  “It’s a long story,” the man responded. “Where’s yours?”

  “I’m Alerio Sisera and I don’t rate a fasces. The Senate only authorizes me to carry a double-bladed ax.”

  “Cerialis, Chief Lictor for Proconsul Crassus,” the big man reported. “You’re the scarred Lictor from Pescara. Why the nickname?”

  “Praetor Blasio walked into the baths one day as I was climbing out of a soak,” Alerio told him. “He saw my war wounds and started calling me his scarred Lictor.”

  The head enforcer for the District went to the spit and yanked a meaty rib from the roasting boar.

  “What can I do for you, Sisera?” he inquired. After gnawing off a mouthful of pork, he agreed. “It does need salt.”

  “You’ve mobilized the garrisons in the valley to block the border,” Alerio said. “I believe that’s exactly what the Bronze Man wants.”

  “To be trapped in his own district?”

  “I don’t think he’s an Etruscan warrior, or even a bandit,” Alerio summed up. “His victims are too far from the border to be optimum for an Etruscan outlaw. And he kills almost pointlessly. Almost as if he’s looking to provoke a response.”

  “What kind of response?” Cerialis questioned.

  “Maybe the removal of Legion Centuries from Rieti Valley,” Alerio suggested. “Leaving the farmers unprotected.”

  “That would be a raid, an act of war,” the District’s Chief Lictor stated. “And who wants war with the Republic?”

  “If I knew that, I’d have his motivation and from that I’d have a path to bringing the Bronze Man to justice.”

  “Look, I’m sure your logic is well considered,” Cerialis complimented Alerio. “But the farmers have been hounding the Proconsul for action. I can’t walk into his office and say the scarred Lictor said you mustn’t mobilize the Legion. I need solid reasons to stop the repositioning of the Centuries.”

  Alerio set the bone on the edge of the butcher block table, pulled out a pouch, and dumped the pieces of coin on the surface.

  “The only other thing I have are these,” Alerio told the Chief Lictor while positioning the three wedges.

  Cerialis rested his bone next to Alerio’s. Then with his finger, he pushed each piece over.

  “Those are familiar,” he said.

/>   The Chief Lictor extracted a pouch from inside his tunic, opened it, and pulled out two more tiny wedges. He added them to Alerio’s three. One of the new pieces was the missing quarter to Alerio’s puzzle.

  Fitting them together produced two figures carrying objects. When Alerio flipped the four pieces over, they created a bust of a man. The curves of the cucumbers became his wavy locks, and the bunches of grapes the man’s curly beard.

  “Who is he?” Alerio questioned.

  The Sabine cook swung the pot off the fire, strolled over, and peered down at the completed coin.

  “Is that?” he asked before flipping the four pieces over. “Oh, dear me, just as I feared.”

  “What is it, chef?” Cerialis demanded.

  “The man on the reverse side is Sabine King Titus Tatius,” the cook explained.

  “So, it’s an historic coin memorializing a King,” Alerio guessed.

  “Stamped on the coin is the depiction of men toting off women,” the chef explained. With the description as a guide, Alerio could make out the details. But he still couldn’t grasp the significance of the coin. Then the cook helped. “It’s more than a coin honoring a dead King.”

  “What does the coin mean?” Alerio asked.

  “The coin recalls the Abduction of Sabine Women by you Latians. It’s a symbol of Sabine resistance.”

  Chapter 5 – Acquisition by Force

  “There was once a single Sabine nation,” the cook described. “But a band of criminals, led by a Latian warlord, broke the bonds and divided my people.”

  “Stop right there, chef,” Cerialis barked. “You will not slander King Romulus.”

  “Romulus? As in the first King of Rome?” Alerio questioned. Picking his bone off the butcher’s table, he pointed it at the pieces of coin. “These go back to the founding of the Capital?”

  “They symbolize actions from back then,” the cook confirmed. “All the way to when your Rome was no more than seven hills, a swamp, and a flood plain. A brutal landscape conquered by a gang of merciless young thugs.”

  “Don’t make me warn you again, chef. Those are my ancestors you’re denigrating,” Cerialis growled. He snatched up his pork rib and waved it in the air. “King Romulus took a group of downtrodden Latins, pulled them together, and founded a home for them. But you were correct about one thing. Most of them were young men.”

  “Then you tell the story, your way, Chief Lictor,” the cook snapped. “I’ve got soup that needs tending.”

  The chef moved to the fireplace, swung the pot back over the flames, and returned to stirring the contents.

  “Other disassociated men flocked to King Romulus and the Latin tribe swelled,” Cerialis stated. “They cleared farmland, planted, and built homes and constructed businesses. But the King had a fear.”

  “What fear?” Alerio asked.

  “While the city’s strength protected it from attack, Romulus knew that in a single generation Rome would fall,” Cerialis replied. “There weren’t enough children to replace the men as they aged. To produce heirs, the Latin tribe needed women. The King send out emissaries to neighboring tribes to barter for women of childbearing age.”

  “Barter? Is that would you call the abduction of the Sabine women?” the chef mumbled.

  “If you weren’t a superb cook, I would put you on the spit and roast you,” the Chief Lictor threatened.

  “Didn’t mean anything, just commenting about the soup,” the cook lied. “Don’t mind me.”

  The District’s head enforcer bit off, chewed, and swallowed a piece of pork before continuing.

  “When all the trade delegations returned, they had the same story,” Cerialis reported. “The neighboring tribes feared that adding to Rome’s population would endanger their independence. Romulus was at his wits end with no idea how to solve his population problem. Deep in thought, he walked the fields brushing his hands against the green plants, oblivious to the storm clouds gathering overhead. When it started to rain, a servant ran to him with a cape. But King Romulus pushed the servant away and stood uncloaked watching the rain as it fell and nourished the soil. From that experience, a bold solution formed in his mind.”

  A loud clang came from a corner of the cookhouse. Both Alerio and Cerialis snapped their heads around to see what made the noise. An iron top for a pot rolled on the floor before spinning down to the floor.

  “It slipped out of my hand,” the cook said from the far side of the building.

  In a huff, Cerialis started towards the doorway.

  “What was the bold plan?” Alerio begged. “Please Chief Lictor, finish the story.”

  Cerialis spun around and glared at the chef. He stood with his fingers balled into fists for several moments. Then, he relaxed his hands and smiled.

  “You’re right, Sisera. It’s a tale you need to know,” he stated while staring at the chef. “To honor Neptune for delivering the idea with the water falling from the sky, Romulus declared an extravagant festival. He sent the emissaries back to the neighboring towns and invited prominent men from the tribes and their wives and daughters to come and enjoy feasting and drinking.”

  “I take it one of the tribes was the Sabine,” Alerio ventured.

  “Our ancestors in the lowlands,” the cook confirmed. “Ill-fated, they took their families to Neptune’s Festival.”

  “Sabines, Caeninenses, Crustumini, and Antemnates arrived to see the new city and to partake of its bounty and King Romulus’ generosity,” Cerialis told them. “Without a cloak, Romulus sacrificed to the God Neptune then encouraged his guests to eat their fill and to drink to their hearts’ content while betting on the chariot races. All day the guests did just that. Deep into the night, Romulus stood sipping his vino and shivering in the evening air. Finally, when half filled mugs listed in limp hands and heads lulled to the side in drunken stupors, the King called for his cloak. He folded the material, then snapped it open, throwing it around his back, before making a grand gesture of settling it on his shoulders. At the signal, the Latin men moved through the Sabine encampment taking the daughters before fleeing with them into the dark.”

  Cerialis indicated the coin and the images of men carrying the women.

  “Only the Sabine women?” Alerio questioned. “What of the other tribes?”

  “Our women have wide hips for birthing children and pretty faces to lure men home from the fields at night,” the chef bragged. “If nothing else, you Latians have good taste in females.”

  “I imagine they didn’t abduct from tribes adjacent to Rome,” Cerialis offered while ignoring the cook’s observation. “The Caeninenses and Crustumini were close neighbors while the Sabines and Antemnates were farther away. In fact, Romulus took Hersilia, a woman abducted from the Antemnates, as his wife.”

  “Chief Lictor, how is it that you know so much about the history?” Alerio inquired.

  “After the women were taken, the tribes attacked Rome,” Cerialis went on as if disregarding Alerio’s question. “Romulus and his Latin warriors were victorious after each battle. The first tribe to test the Romans was the Caeninenses. Their King fell in the fight and Romulus took their major city. Upon returning to Rome, he used the spoils to build a temple to Jupiter on Capitoline Hill. It was the first temple built in the new city. My family has been honored to supply priests to Jupiter for hundreds of years. I was raised on the story of King Romulus and the temple.”

  Alerio flinched at the mention of Jupiter’s temple. Although he had issues with the priests of the Sky Father, he remained mute on the subject.

  ***

  “I’m surprised, Lictor Sisera, that you aren’t curious about the Sabine’s response,” Cerialis remarked after noticing Alerio’s silence.

  “Sorry Chief Lictor,” Alerio apologized, “I was recalling my last visit to the Temple of Jupiter. Please tell me about their response.”

  “It is a breath-taking temple,” Cerialis confirmed. Then with a pained frown, he continued. “The Sabines were the last to go against the Latin Tribe. Their King Tatius marched a huge army into the city, and they fought all the way to the citadel on Capitoline Hill. Stopped before the walls, his advance seemed stalled. The goal of taking back their daughters and punishing the Latins a lost cause.”

  “I didn’t know that we captured Rome,” the cook exclaimed.