‘It is like this,’ Aulus said. ‘The boy’s uncle is no fool. He will have guessed where the lad had gone. But, if his nephew returns unharmed, there is a chance that he will not inform his Persian masters of his suspicions about the nature of our mission.’

‘Although,’ Iudex said, ‘there is no guarantee that he will not set the Persians on our trail.’

Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

Rome

IT WAS DARK IN THE CELL.

The man hung from a hook in the ceiling. He was naked. His feet did not touch the floor, and the heavy weight suspended from one ankle increased his suffering.

‘Tell me again the message Acilius Glabrio gave you to take to the pretender across the Alps,’ Volusianus said.

There was a pool of blood and urine under the dangling feet.

The terrible pressure on his chest made it hard for the man to speak.

Volusianus dragged the claws down the prisoner’s thigh. The skin peeled away, exposing the flesh like that of an overripe fruit.

As the fresh blood ran, the man gasped out a line of poetry. ‘Save me, unconquered hero, from evil.’

‘Eripe me his, invicte, malis,’ the Praetorian Prefect repeated. ‘Virgil, the words of the shade of Palinurus to Aeneas on the banks of the Styx.’

Murena admired the thoroughness of Volusianus. The Praetorian Prefect had sent away the torturers, and was conducting the investigation himself.

‘And the reply Postumus sent back?’

‘Please, I have told you all this. I am just a messenger.’

Volusianus raised the claw, and the prisoner desperately tried to twist away. The swaying motion this caused was enough to escalate his pain, so Volusianus lowered the claw again and waited.

When the prisoner’s body had ceased its agonising pendulum, the man spoke again. ‘I will not cross to those shores. Cease to hope that fate, once spoken by the gods, can be altered by prayer.’ His voice, little more than a harsh whisper, sank to nothing.

‘And the rest?’

‘You, set forth on your path, pull the blade from its scabbard.’

‘There was nothing else?’

‘No, by all the gods. Please, I don’t know what any of it means.’

Volusianus went to put down the claws, careful not to step in any of the foul liquids on the floor. ‘You should read poetry. It is improving, good for the soul.’

‘Please, cut me down.’

Volusianus ignored him, washed his hands, and turned to Murena. ‘Two separate passages, also from the descent to the underworld, both these are spoken by the Sibyl. The first has been altered to suit the circumstances.’

Murena’s respect for the Praetorian Prefect grew. Volusianus might have started life as a peasant, but he knew his Virgil.

‘It is odd,’ Volusianus said, ‘how some senators seem to believe that epic poetry is a code known only to themselves. But this all seems clear enough.’

It did not to Murena, but he kept quiet.