The Burning Stone Page 43

  Varrus shook his head slightly. “Not much at all. As you said, I’m disqualified.”

  “But surely you know something. You yourself said you come from a military family, so you must have picked up knowledge here and there throughout your life, even without being aware of it. So think about that now. What have you heard? Or what do you suspect? How many levels are there within the order, think you?”

  Varrus ran a hand over his close-cropped scalp. “That much I know,” he said. “There are three levels of initiation, all of which have to be earned, and qualification is necessarily difficult, requiring long hours of study and tuition from qualified sponsors who have already graduated. The demands of each level are more difficult and challenging than the one before it. Initiates spend months, sometimes years, absorbing and learning the ritual responses and liturgical requirements of each level before being rigorously examined and initiated into the fraternity.”

  “And the third level, what do you know of that?”

  “It is the final one and the most difficult to attain. Once achieved, membership is lifelong and can never be taken away for any reason. Even if a third-level initiate of Mithras is impeached by fellow initiates, it requires a minimum of five voices to prefer charges against him, after which he may be considered to be disgraced, but he will nonetheless retain his membership in the third level.”

  “There, you see? You thought you knew nothing of our brotherhood, but you know sufficient to talk about it with some accuracy. You have a question?”

  “Yes. What has this to do with the Ring? You said the military police were not capable of the kind of secrecy required to combat the corruption that was going on, so to what end were these Mithraic initiates being recruited? It makes no sense.”

  “It does, if you know what’s involved. If you are going to fight corruption on a massive scale, and you need to ensure the secrecy and security of your planning and operations, how would you go about achieving that?”

  “I…I have no idea.”

  Ajax blew his breath out forcefully and looked at his four friends. “This is difficult,” he said to them. “I would not have believed how difficult it would be.” He looked back then, hard, at Varrus. “Three levels,” he said. “Three levels of initiation. Correct?”

  “Correct,” Varrus said, quirking one eyebrow slightly.

  “Wrong. That is what the entire world believes, that there are three. In truth there are four levels. And the secrecy surrounding that fourth level and its membership is the most stringent possible. The brotherhood of the fourth level of the Mithraic Order is exceptional, sharing the highest ideals of citizenship, manhood, and loyalty imaginable, and an invitation to join its ranks is issued only after years of scrutiny by a panel of highly qualified brethren.” He stopped talking then and the silence in the room was palpable; even the normal din of the surrounding armouries stilled for a fleeting space.

  Varrus wanted to squirm in his seat but held himself still, betraying nothing. “I doubt you should be telling me this, Natius,” he said quietly.

  “I’m having great difficulty with it myself, but it is…necessary.”

  “I can’t see why.”

  “You will. The force that crushed the Ring was drawn exclusively from the initiates of the fourth level of the Mithraic Order. Their commitment to secrecy and to maintaining unbreachable security was—and still is—absolute, bound by oaths and personal dedication to the ideals by which the brotherhood all live.”

  “You are…talking about yourselves.”

  “We are. All of us.”

  “Very well.” Varrus looked from man to man, meeting each one’s eye. “But I still don’t see—”

  “It wasn’t always true,” Ajax said, cutting him short. “In the early days, soon after Diocletian put his system in place, no one saw a need for such a force. But then, as thieves began to work the flaws and realized they could raid at random without fear of reprisal, things went rapidly downhill.”

  “Wait! Are you saying there was no force in place to fight these thieves from the outset?”

  “No, there wasn’t. Everyone was so happy that the armies were being properly supplied again that it simply didn’t occur to anyone that thieves might steal from such a great achievement. We know now that such thinking was foolish, but after decades of abuse everyone was so glad to see the legions coming back to life that it was a natural error to expect that everyone would feel the same way about it. They didn’t, of course.”

  He grimaced. “No one knows when the thieving began—though it probably started with the earliest deliveries, and was spur-of-the-moment opportunity most of the time. But once started, it grew. And then the first reports started coming in that supply trains were being targeted and the stolen supplies sold openly, because no one ever suspected that they might be army supplies. As the thieving increased, though, and the authorities began to react, the risks increased, too. It became unsafe to peddle the goods anywhere close to where they had been stolen, and so the thieves, who were growing organized by then, changed their methods.

  “They started enlisting local chiefs and dignitaries to turn a blind eye to their thievery, paying them to let the stolen goods pass safely through their territories, and they were ruthless with anyone who wouldn’t do what they wanted. The word soon went out that to defy them meant death—sometimes on a large scale, and always while the army was too far away to stop the bloodshed. By that time, these animals were really organized, and they had grown so rich that they had started buying people—legates like our Pompey and quaestors and lesser officials. People with ways and means of making sure the army never arrived in time to stop the raids.

  “In the meantime, the organizers were raking in enormous quantities of wealth, and in doing so they had attracted some very powerful investors. The last thing those people wanted, though, was anarchy. So the organizers drew up a new set of ruthless rules, put them into place, and enforced them mercilessly. And after that, no one dared step out of line.

  “By that time, our brotherhood had become involved and we were actively fighting them. And I suppose it was because of us that they became known as the Ring, because that’s what we started calling them.” He smiled, a bitter little rictus. “Ironic, that,” he said. “That we should be the ones to name them. But that is the truth of it. Our organization was formed to fight theirs, and Diocletian entrusted the entire matter of the war against the Ring to a man he had trusted all his life.”

  He looked Varrus straight in the eye, holding his gaze. “That man was his closest and most loyal friend—your grandfather, Titanius Tertius Varrus.”

  Varrus found himself counting in the silence that followed those words. He hugged that silence to himself and counted, consciously, marking the pulse that thudded inside his head. He had reached fifteen before the man called Leon spoke into the stillness.

  “None of us—the five of us here, I mean—ever met your grandfather, Magister Varrus, but we all knew who he was and we were in awe of his achievements, because all of us worked for him and admired him greatly. Titanius Tertius Varrus was the eminence to which, and to whom, we all looked up. He was the embodiment of all that we, and our brotherhood, stand for: integrity, probity, justice, honour, and the sanctity of goodwill, good faith, and openness in human dealings.

  “Soon after we learned of the murder of him and his family—and by ‘we’ I mean our brotherhood—we launched an investigation that was intense and far-reaching, but we failed to discover who was responsible. And believe me, we tried. Hundreds of us tried, singly and in concert, and our search continued for a full year and for half of the one that followed. One of us, our friend Rufus, spent almost three years in Italia, leading a team of investigators who turned over everything looking for a culprit or a nest of culprits.

  “We knew that Titanius Varrus had made powerful enemies throughout his life. How could he not, for he had held the reins of power over military law for almost forty years, and no man of his integrity c
ould do such a thing without attracting enmity, and often open hatred, from people capable of harbouring great malice and undying lust for revenge. And so we examined every one of those whom we could identify. But our investigations turned up nothing. And so the brotherhood was forced to suspend our investigation because we could go no further.”

  He took a swig from his cup before resuming. “And then today, Natius told us about you, about how you were here and had knocked him on his arse by telling him your real name and your story. And once we heard that, we wanted to know more. You have made a favourable impression on our Natius, Quintus Varrus, and that means that you also impressed the four of us, because we all know, to our cost, what a stubborn, unappeasable, miserable whoreson he is. So if you can please him, we know we’ll have no trouble with you.

  “We understand that you are now a fugitive, believing yourself in danger because you and your uncle Marius are Titanius Tertius’s last surviving relatives. When we heard that, we resolved to make sure of your safety from this time on.”

  He glanced around him, the gesture taking in his three companions, all of whom sat quietly, looking calmly at Varrus. “These three don’t say much,” he added. “But they have been known to speak from time to time. And as soldiers and brethren of the order, they leave nothing to be desired. So no matter what you might need from now on, you come to us and we’ll make sure you get it. We’ll be in Camulodunum for a while.”

  Varrus’s throat had closed up while Leon was speaking, as he came to appreciate how genuinely these men had revered his grandfather.

  He himself had always feared the old man; had seen him as a hectoring bully, constantly at odds with his two sons and contemptuous of any opinion that did not conform to his own. Now, though, with new and niggling awareness, he began to recognize that his early perspectives might have been flawed.

  Titanius’s quarrel with his younger son had been exactly what it appeared to be—a dispute between a headstrong son and a father who disapproved of that son’s choice of career. Titanius had been legion born and bred, as had his family for centuries. He had no respect for, or tolerance of, the imperial navy, and he deplored Marius’s commitment to it.

  The eldest son, Marcus, had been another matter altogether. Marcus had joined the legions and had served his time in command roles, but as a career soldier, not a fighting one. His talents lay in other fields, and he had attached himself, early in his career, to the staff of the ambitious Constantine, the son of an equally ambitious father, Constantius Chlorus. When Constantius Chlorus became Augustus in the western empire, Constantine returned to join his father in Britain and took Marcus Varrus with him, promoting him to military tribune, and from that time onward, Marcus had become one of Constantine’s close and trusted confidants, entrusted with diplomatic affairs that no plainspoken fighting soldier could have handled. And therein, Varrus now saw, had lain the seeds of the constant confrontations between father and son: Titanius Varrus would have loathed politicians, with their glib, equivocatory compromises and self-serving ambiguities, and it must have galled him deeply to know that he had fathered one.

  “I fear we’ve given our new friend too much to think about,” the man called Stratus said. “Reminded him, perhaps, of painful matters…”

  Varrus looked at the big man quickly and shook his head. “No, not so.” He looked back at Leon. “You said none of you five ever met my grandsire. But someone must have—someone you knew and whose word you trusted. Were that not so, none of you would hold the esteem you have for him. Titanius Varrus lived most of his life in Italy and Dalmatia. He never came within a thousand miles of Britain, so how could you know him well enough to admire him as you do? Someone else must have told you about him.”

  “Well, that’s true, someone did,” Stratus said. “But it’s not true, at the same time. Titanius did come here, about fifteen years ago, I think, and mayhap longer ago than that. Around the time Diocletian started talking about retiring. But it was Rufus who knew him. Rufus worked for him directly, for about a year, and came to know him well enough over that time to remain loyal to him for the rest of the old man’s life.”

  “And where is Rufus now?”

  It was one of the Twins, Thomas, who answered. “We think he’s up north, either in Eboracum or Deva.”

  “But those are two legionary fortresses, are they not?”

  “Aye. Deva’s the Twentieth and Eboracum’s the Sixth.”

  “Well surely he can’t be in both legions.”

  “Ah,” the Twin said. “I see what you mean. Rufus, you see, is one of us—or he was. That means he could go anywhere, belong to any unit, and show documents to prove it.”

  Didymus, the other Twin, spoke up. “That’s one of the best parts o’ belongin’ to the brotherhood,” he said. “We go where our work is, wherever we’re needed. Always been that way, since your gramfer set things up. We go where we’re needed and we go when we’re sent, and there’s always paperwork in place when we get there. Your gramfer was a clever man.”

  “So who’s in charge now that he’s dead?”

  “He had a man set up to follow him. Trained him hisself, for years. He’s in charge now and we’ve no complaints. Name’s Numenicus.”

  “I know Numenicus. I met him”—he paused, remembering—“twice. He came to visit us in Dalmatia, in the year before the murders. I liked him.”

  “So did your gramfer.”

  “So what happened to your friend Rufus?”

  “It’s a long story,” Ajax interrupted, “and we all tend to grow angry when we talk about it, so we’d better talk about something different for a while and calm down while we drink some wine in peace. Otherwise, we’ll waste a lot of time in fretting over things that might have been, and none of us has time for that. Give me your cup.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ajax meant what he said about changing the topic of their talk, and for the next half-hour the conversation ranged over a number of subjects. One of them was the merits of the new garrison legate, Gaius Cornelius Britannicus, where he had come from and how he had ended up in Camulodunum, and Varrus found himself listening closely, remembering how impressed he had been that the officer had ordered his men to draw aside, at great inconvenience to themselves, to permit a common funeral procession to pass by undisturbed. He had chosen to set privilege aside and had waited, patiently, even saluting the corpse as it passed by him. That, in Varrus’s opinion, had set the man head and shoulders above his colleagues.

  “Someone said—did I hear this correctly?—that he is a member of your brotherhood?”

  “He is,” Ajax answered. “Of long standing and senior rank.”

  “Forgive my curiosity, then, but then why is he here in Camulodunum? I mean, I understand that this is a strategically important fort, but it is second-level compared with Deva and the other two legionary fortresses. Why would your brotherhood send a senior officer to such a bywater?”

  “Because it is a bywater,” Leon answered, “and so it’s seen as being less important than the legionary fortresses. On the other hand, it’s also seen as involving less risk for people involved in thievery.”

  “You mean the Ring? But not an hour ago you were saying the Ring had been smashed.”

  “It was, Quintus,” Ajax said. “But it hasn’t yet been stamped out of existence. Not entirely. Not yet. Endor was a cunning, devious operator, and the structure he built is still standing in some places. Teetering on the edge of total collapse, but still standing. We believe this area was his home base—or at least an important centre of business for him, a kind of clearing house area—and so we’re watching things around here very carefully. That’s why Britannicus is here, and why he has cavalry with him. It will give him the ability to move far and fast when he needs to.”

  Quintus held up a hand to stop him. “Wait, slow down a little, please. Who is Endor?”

  “Who was Endor. The son of a whore has been dead for a year now and the world is well rid of him.”
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br />   “Then who was he?”

  “He was the Ring’s chief operative, the keystone of it all and the brains, we believed, that held it all together. Every part of it relied upon his influence and abilities, and both of those attributes were frightening. As long as he was alive, we could never inflict sufficient damage on the Ring to stop them, or even to make them falter. And Endor was absolutely evil. Easily the most evil man I’ve ever had to deal with. It’s an easy term to use, but you don’t often meet a truly evil person. It was a turning point when he was killed.”

  “And who killed him?”

  “We like to think it was Rufus who got the bastard,” Thomas said. “We can’t know for certain, the way things worked out. But we like to think it was Rufus.”

  “I see,” Varrus said, looking slowly from one to the other of the men surrounding him. “Rufus killed Endor, and brought about his own destruction by doing so. Is that what you are saying?”

  “No.” Didymus almost spat the word. “That’s what Castor Lepodos tried to say, the stinking shit.”

  “Another name I have not heard before.”

  “And you’ll never hear it again,” Leon said quietly. “Unless we speak it here among ourselves. The name was never important. The function the whoreson fulfilled, on the other hand, was critical. Former commanding centurion, or pilus prior, of the Second Cohort, Second Legion Augusta. Dead now, of a serious accident last year. Apparently walked directly into the path of a flying arrow that hit him square in the temple and dashed his brains out. A shame. He was a by-the-book soldier. Killed a lot of people, they say…Mainly his own.”

  “That’s enough,” Ajax said. “We’re back to the crux of things now, so let’s get it out of the way once and for all. Leon, bring the jugs over here and top up our cups.” He looked directly at Varrus. “I’ll tell it, as I remember it, but I’m only going to give you the bare-bones version, so listen closely. This is the truth as far as I know it, after more than a few years of investigations and inquiries.