He and the other gawped at one another.
‘Pavo?’ Sura croaked.
Pavo stepped forward gingerly, as if wary of dispelling this mirage. But this was no illusion. His heart ached as he beheld his friend; joyous that he was alive and sickened at his gaunt form. Sura’s eyes were sunken and black-ringed. His cheekbone had been broken, no doubt at the hands of the guards. His ankles were caked in salt, barely masking the raw flesh where he had been chained and marched through the desert. His ribs and shoulders jutted just like Khaled’s.
‘Well don’t look at me like that – you look like a beggar’s breakfast too you know,’ Sura frowned.
It was all Pavo could do not to burst out in laughter and embrace his friend. He snatched a glance to either side, seeing Gorzam making his way over. ‘I don’t have long – where are you being kept?’
‘We’re in the chamber below. I’ve been sent up here for some rope – the pulley’s broken. I’m supposed to collect the baskets that come down from the chambers above.’
‘We?’ Pavo snatched on the word.
‘Zosimus, Quadratus and Felix are down there too. I’d be mining alongside them at the salt face but . . . I tried telling them I’m the best salt miner in Adrianople . . . even I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean.’ He offered with a wheezing cough and a weak grin. ‘Habitus and Noster are in the chamber below us. There were others, but . . . ’ he shook his head.
Pavo’s eyes darted. ‘Gallus . . . what about Gallus?’
Sura’s face fell and he shook his head.
‘They slew him? Out in the desert?’ Pavo heard his words as if they were spoken by another.
‘No,’ Sura replied, ‘he was with us all the way here – through the rest of the desert, across the Persian Gulf and out to this living nightmare. He and I carried you, you know. The Savaran seemed amused that we would want to add to our burden and they let us; we kept you watered and fed you honey when they gave it to us. Then, when we reached the entrance to the mines,’ he jabbed a finger upwards to the disc of light, ‘Tamur took Gallus and Carbo away. To stand them before his master in Bishapur. Archimagus . . . ’ Sura started, frowning as he tried to remember the name.
‘Archimagus Ramak,’ Pavo finished for him, bitterly.
‘Aye,’ Sura frowned in confusion. ‘They were to be executed, Pavo. And that was weeks ago.’
Pavo’s gaze fell away. His joy at seeing Sura faded. The iron tribunus of the XI Claudia had fallen at last. He felt numbness creep over his heart. It was a sensation he had not experienced since he was a boy. That day when the dead-eyed legionary brought father’s funeral payout to him. To Pavo, Gallus had been aloof, cold, never a friend like Sura. Never a friend . . . no, he had been so much more.
‘Pavo . . . ’ Sura grasped him by the shoulder, shaking him from his thoughts. ‘Pavo!’
Pavo looked up, seeing the alarm in his friend’s face. Sura’s gaze was fixed over his shoulder. Footsteps thundered up behind him. Pavo spun just in time to see Gorzam’s twisted scowl. The whip lashed down upon him and tore at his arm.
‘Get back to your post!’ he roared, the brief effects of the poppy extract clearly wearing off.
Pavo scrambled back, panting in agony, seeing Sura being bundled back down the ladder by another guard. He hobbled away from Gorzam’s follow-up lash, cupping his bicep, torn by the barbs. He crouched and hurried back through the tunnel, his breath coming and going in rasps through gritted teeth. Anger like never before boiled in his veins.
Chapter 13
Gallus crouched by Olivia and held her hand as she slept. She squeezed his fingers and then turned over with a sleepy, contented sigh, wrapping one arm around little Marcus. Gallus smiled at this, pulling the blanket up to cover their shoulders. For a blessed moment, his troubles were absent. Then a log snapped in the campfire and he jolted, swinging round to scour the darkness. A chill autumnal breeze searched under his robe and brought the cypress trees to life, but this clearing by the roadside in Northern Italy was deserted. The road itself was utterly empty too, Mediolanum but a distant glow to the west and the port city of Aquileia lost in the blackness off to the east. So they were alone, he thought. Regardless, his eyes fell upon the axe and sharpened pole resting against the wagon.
He stood, picked up the axe and strode around the wagon to make sure. The vehicle was heaped with barley and leeks as always. Working another man’s land and taking the crop surplus to market had been the extent of his troubles until just a few weeks ago – troubles he would gladly take in exchange for those he endured now.