Next morning they rose before dawn and ate a swift breakfast of rough bread dipped in wine and a handful of olives. Serpentius ensured he made plenty of noise as he loaded the pack horse.
‘The likelihood is they’ve been watching us.’ He kept his voice low. ‘If they are what I think are, they won’t want to take a chance on losing us. They’ll give us a few minutes and then they’ll follow. I scouted the road ahead a little way yesterday. There’s a place where the trees close in and that’s where we’ll hit them.’
Valerius listened as he outlined his plan. In battle, it was he who would have led, but in an ambush no one was better than the Spaniard.
The two strangers rode side by side in the predawn gloom, slumped in their saddles and more asleep than awake after a night sharing watches. They were a mismatched pair. A heavy-set older man with lank grey hair, narrow eyes and a harelip, and a handsome, pink-cheeked youth in a hooded cloak of fine cloth, with eyes that despite his fatigue never left the road ahead. Felix, the older man, muttered a stream of curses beneath his breath. At their last camp he’d lost the copper phallus charm that never left his neck and he suspected his partner had stolen it. Young Julius, who wouldn’t have touched the cheap trinket with someone else’s hands, silently screamed at him to be quiet and wondered how he was going to last another week of this. Outwardly, Felix appeared the more dangerous of the pair, but looks were deceptive. Julius had a predator’s cunning and an infinite capacity for patience, matched by the cold, impersonal professionalism with which he disposed of his victims. Only one thing marked them as a team. Both right hands lay close to the blades hidden beneath their cloaks.
Serpentius waited until his targets were past before he angled his run at the nearer horse. Since he was as silent as he was quick, it was doubtful Julius could have saved himself even if he’d been looking directly at him. The young spy reacted at the sound of the final footfall, hauling at the sword on his left hip. Unfortunately for him, the long cloak hindered his stroke, and even if it had not Serpentius was already too close. His hands grabbed Julius’s boot and heaved upwards and forwards, throwing the boy from the saddle with a desperate cry. Felix snatched a startled look that confirmed his partner’s plight before putting heels to his mount. A spy and a backstabber, he didn’t intend risking his skin to help a snot-nosed, thieving pup without the sense to watch his right flank. Cursing the ill fortune that had lost him the charm, he galloped towards safety, unaware that his bad luck was only beginning. When he judged he was clear he threw a last glance over his shoulder, exulting at his escape, and in the same instant Valerius kicked his horse into the road ahead and caught him with a full swing of his still scabbarded spatha. The heavy sword took Felix in the mouth and the power of the blow and his momentum combined to flip him backwards over his mount’s rear to lie moaning and only half-conscious in the road.
Valerius dismounted and searched the fallen man for weapons. The blow had smeared Felix’s lips across his lower face and jagged fragments of enamel showed white amongst the red mess. When he was satisfied, he dragged Felix by the hood of his cloak to where Serpentius was hauling his partner to his feet. The Spaniard took one look at the older spy’s face and shook his head. ‘We won’t get much out of him. This one will have to do.’ He rammed his captive against a tree with enough force to make Julius cry out.
Valerius picked up the youth’s fallen sword and inspected it. ‘Why were you following us?’
Julius’s eyes darted between his two captors like those of a whipped dog anticipating the next blow. ‘Don’t know what you mean, master. We are just simple travellers, as you are.’ For the moment he was happy to play the fearful innocent. Experience told him his chance would come, and when it did … He kept his voice as plaintive as a child’s, and wrung his hands as if washing them clean. What he failed to understand was the mettle of the two men he faced. Valerius read something behind the scared eyes: an unlikely confidence, as if the inner man was mocking him.
‘Ask him again,’ he said.
Serpentius was facing the boy, a pace away and slightly to his right. Like a striking snake, his right hand came round in a short, vicious hook. Julius gasped wordlessly as the Spaniard’s fist hit him harder than he’d ever been hit before. The blow took the spy under the ribs and sank deep into his vitals, knocking the air from his lungs and leaving him bug-eyed with pain. He doubled up and would have collapsed if the Spaniard’s left hand hadn’t casually reached forward and seized his throat with fingers that felt like an eagle’s talons. Julius’s face turned a strange shade of pinkish blue and an odd cawing, like the cry of a hungry crow, squeezed from his throat. Valerius nodded and Serpentius relaxed his grip. The Roman waited until the choking subsided.