‘Well, it’s done now; mind you, I think Hormus had his more selfish reasons. As everyone knows, the best bum-boys come from Mesopotamia; they’re renowned for being very accommodating, in more ways than one, if you take my meaning?’
Vespasian did, only too well, especially having witnessed Caligula’s public usage of one such youth. ‘So you think he’s planning on testing the truth of that assertion?’
‘I’d have thought so; definitely. I’ve been with him almost all the time these last couple of years and I have to say that I really like the lad. However, he’s got one weakness: he does love a boy or two; mad for them he is. It’ll get him into trouble one day.’
Hormus disentangled himself from his latest passion and joined Vespasian and Magnus by the temporary bridge. The youth, with tears glinting in his eyes from the speckled light of the thousands of fires out on the plain, held the ladder firm as Hormus crossed first, with care, balancing a sack on his shoulders. Magnus followed and then Vespasian, trying his hardest not to look down into the dark void of the street below. Once they were all over, the youth withdrew the ladder and watched his lover disappear along the wall. Vespasian noticed that Hormus did not look back once.
They scuttled along, keeping low for about twenty paces before Hormus stopped next to an iron ring set in the wall and rummaged in the bag. Bringing out a long length of rope, he quickly knotted it around the ring and threw the end over the wall. Vespasian was finding it hard to believe that this was the same timid man who was rarely able to look anyone in the eye. With a testing pull on the knot he stepped back and indicated to Vespasian to go first.
As he heaved himself over the parapet, clinging onto the rope, voices came from further along the wall, near the south gate.
‘Fast as you like, sir,’ Magnus hissed, ‘that’s the next patrol on the way; they’re early.’
With a muttered profanity, Vespasian braced his feet against the outside of the wall and pushed, throwing his body out while letting the rope slip through his hands so that he descended the fifty feet in a series of jumps with his cloak flapping up and down behind him like a bird’s broken wing. Hormus was already on the rope when Vespasian landed at the base of the wall, jolting his knees, but thankful that he had built his body up to reasonable fitness during the last stretch of his incarceration. He was standing on a narrow ridge looking down the exceedingly steep slope of the hill that the city sat upon, one hundred feet down to the plain.
Shouts from above rang out and, looking up, Vespasian saw Magnus fling himself over the wall while Hormus was still only halfway down. The rope swung alarmingly from the extra weight on it and Hormus was having difficulty clinging on as Magnus came tearing down; but suddenly clinging on was academic: the rope was no longer attached. Hormus fell the last ten feet, managing to land upright and then roll with the impact; but Magnus had further to fall, much further.
Vespasian positioned himself directly underneath him; as Magnus hurtled to the ground he stretched out his arms, not in an attempt to catch him but to break his fall. The impact sent him crunching down onto his buttocks as Magnus bounced off him, hitting the ground with a lung-emptying thump before disappearing over the edge. Down he rolled, sending up clouds of dust and obscenities. With a quick check to see if Hormus was in one piece, Vespasian leapt after him as the first javelin quivered in the ground, just to his right.
The slope was loose scree and Vespasian found himself once again grateful for the trousers as his legs were spared much of the grazing and tearing from the sharp stones; his momentum increased. He could hear Hormus just behind him but could see very little, enveloped as he was in a cloud of dust on a moonless night. The slope gradually levelled out towards its base and his speed decreased until he stopped, jolting as he thudded into an object that groaned in pain as he hit it. Hormus then tumbled on top of him in a flurry of gravel.
‘Jupiter’s cock,’ Magnus grumbled, his teeth clenched as he gingerly touched his left arm, ‘you’ve got the whole fucking hillside to break your fall with and you both choose to do it on me instead.’
An arrow slamming into the ground next to them caused Magnus to cut short his complaint and in an instant they were on their feet sprinting towards the Parthian lines, two hundred paces away. Arrows whipped about them and shouts followed them. Vespasian glanced over his left shoulder and saw that the south gate remained shut; perhaps there would be no pursuit.
Magnus groaned with effort and pain as he ran, cradling his left arm and limping badly on the same foot. Vespasian slowed and put his arm around Magnus’ shoulders, taking some of the weight as they ploughed on through the darkness. The arrows trailed off as the gloom swallowed them and soon they felt safe enough to stop and assess the damage. Magnus slumped down on the ground and Hormus examined his arm.