‘I will have to consult the quaestor, who is away on official business for the next two days,’ he sniffed when he saw the seal. ‘I do not have the authority to deal with this.’ He turned away dismissively, but Valerius dropped the eagle-claw grip of his left hand on his shoulder.
‘Then find someone who does. I count three barges out there ready to sail. If I and my men are not on one of them in ten minutes the name Paladius Nepos will be on the Emperor Vitellius’s desk within a week. Perhaps you didn’t read the Imperial pass carefully enough?’ He pointed to the words on pain of death, and watched the conflicting emotions run across the other man’s face.
Like every Roman citizen, Nepos had been faced with a choice of Nero or Galba. Now it was Vitellius or Otho, and for the moment, by an accident of geography, Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus held his grubby little career and his life in his plump hands. And here was a tall, scar-faced Batavian officer who sounded like a properly educated Roman claiming to be on a vital mission from the Emperor and with the paperwork to prove it. His eyes darted to Serpentius, who stood at the door managing to look disinterested and dangerous at the same time. Beads of sweat appeared at Paladius Nepos’s hairline and gravitated together to produce tiny runnels that made their way slowly down each side of his narrow, weasel’s nose. The calculations going on behind the bulging eyes and the moment they reached a conclusion were as clear as a badly rigged chariot race. He picked up the pass.
‘The Pride of Sauconna leaves as soon as she has clearance …’
‘You mean now?’ Serpentius suggested helpfully.
‘There should be room aboard for eight men, if some of them sleep on the deck. She’s the galley out there on the downstream side. With this height of water behind her, you can be with the … the army within two days. The last we heard, General Valens was moving east from Valentia …’
‘We will only be with the ship as far as Lugdunum. One other thing.’ Nepos looked up with startled eyes. ‘You will tell no one about this.’ Valerius waved the Imperial pass under the other man’s nose. ‘On pain of death.’
‘You don’t expect him to keep quiet?’ Serpentius said as they headed back to Metto and his legionaries.
‘No, but I’m hoping it will make him think about it for an hour or two.’
As it turned out, his estimate was almost fatally optimistic.
The oarsmen of the Pride of Sauconna, a double-banked bireme of the Rhodanus fleet, had just got into their rhythm when Valerius heard a commotion behind them on the wharf. A rattle of hooves and a flurry of grey wolfskin told him that Claudius Victor had arrived earlier than anyone could have predicted. By the time they reached the downstream stretch of the bow in the river that encircled Vesontio, a Batavian cavalry patrol was already tracking them beyond the trees that lined the bank. Valerius could hear shouts and he turned to find the young prefect who captained the galley studying him with a question in his eyes.
‘Ignore them. They could be rebels,’ he said.
‘You’re the man with the Imperial pass.’ The sailor shrugged. ‘In any case, I don’t take orders from landsmen. I have a schedule to keep and I’m buggered if I’m going to row against this current to get back to Vesontio.’
The Batavians stayed with them for another mile, dropping behind all the time. Valerius watched them disappear into the distance, and when a bend in the river carried the galley out of sight he relaxed for the first time in many days. Barring accidents, they had gained at least one day on their pursuers, perhaps two. He knew Claudius Victor couldn’t afford to abandon his horses and follow by boat, because that would mean splitting his forces again and the Batavians had already seen how deadly Valerius and his men could be against superior odds. He would follow the river road at least as far as Lugdunum, and stop there to make enquiries, because that was where Valerius had told Nepos he was going, and Nepos would not stay mute for long in the face of someone like Victor. But Valerius didn’t intend to leave the ship at Lugdunum. They would stay with the river until Valentia and then he would make his decision. That night they slept on deck wrapped in their wolfskin cloaks and listened to the rush of water beneath the ship’s hull. During the day, the ship’s company, always busy in any case, kept a discreet distance from the eight soldiers. There was something about the hard, unblinking eyes and the way their hands never strayed far from their swords that didn’t invite pleasantries or questions, and that was the way Valerius wanted it. Marcellus, the captain, was obviously curious about his passengers, but it wasn’t until they reached the point where the river they were on met the larger Sauconna that Valerius joined the young man at his place by the stern post.