‘It needs to be today.’
‘Then I suggest that you help matters by going to see Senator Pollo after you’ve met with your mate from The Cohort. He may know something about him.’
Magnus muttered his agreement as the Viminal Gate came into sight.
‘It’s just up here on the left before the junction with the lamp-makers street,’ Servius informed him. ‘We should get onto the right-hand side of the road.’
They crossed at the next set of raised stepping-stones, designed to keep pedestrians’ feet free from ordure but also to allow the passage of wheeled vehicles, and disappeared into the throng of people opening shops, buying bread, firing up braziers, visiting patrons, clearing drowsy beggars from doorways. Pushing through the crowd, Servius led Magnus to a tavern with an outside bar.
‘Two cups of hot wine,’ he ordered, placing a small denomination coin on the wooden counter.
Once they had been served, Servius turned and nodded to a large two-storey, brick-built house. ‘That’s the Albanians’ place. As you can see it has no windows opening onto the street, no shops in its facade, it’s just a blank wall and a door.’
Magnus looked at the two huge, bearded doormen in eastern garb, armed with cudgels and knives, guarding the entrance. ‘Is that door the only way in and out?’
‘Fortunately not.’ Servius pointed to a small street that led off from the Via Patricius two houses up from the Albanians’ establishment. ‘That’s the Lamp-makers’ street. There’s an alley that runs from it along the rear of all the buildings opposite; I sent Cassandros to have a look at it last night after the swap; he says that the wall is only ten-feet high and we could easily scale it and get up onto the roof.’
‘He’s making up for his mistake.’
‘I gave him a dangerous assignment and he understood why.’
Magnus grunted approvingly. ‘We need to teach the randy sod a lesson; but that can wait. Do they keep a guard in the alley?’
‘Cassandros said that there was no one there last night, we’ll walk past in a moment and see if there’s one during the day.’
‘So, we get in and out over the roof, but we’ve still got those two brutes on the door to deal with. When they hear noise inside at least one of them will come in – that’ll make it easier.’ Magnus took a sip of his wine. ‘So if we have a group of our lads close by they could deal with the remaining one and then take the door; that sounds like a job for me and Marius, he’s not much good at shinning up walls in a hurry with just one hand.’
‘Yes, but you’d have to be quick to get the door before it’s bolted again on the inside.’
‘Unless we can make them think that some of their own are in danger out here in the street and are running for safety.’
‘How?’
‘I met an easterner last night and he owes me a favour. His name’s Tigran, he lives in the shantytown on the Via Salaria; find him and see if he speaks Albanian or knows anyone who does.’ A well-dressed figure striding up the street with two bodyguards and a woman in a hooded, dark-brown cloak caught Magnus’ attention. ‘Well, well, our friend Sempronius is paying the whore-boys a visit; I wouldn’t have thought that that was his sort of thing.’
‘He’s probably just come to check that the exchange went alright last night. But what’s really interesting is who he’s got with him; I think I recognise that cloak.’
Sempronius’ party approached the two doormen, one of whom immediately knocked rhythmically on the door; it opened and the doormen stepped aside to allow Sempronius in. As the woman followed him in she pulled down her hood.
Magnus’ eyes widened. ‘Minerva’s wrinkled arse, that’s the new girl, Aquilina! I thought that there was something wrong about her when she offered to let me have her for nothing; nobody does something for nothing.’
Servius downed the last of his wine. ‘Evidently someone else paid her. It seems that Sempronius has put a little spy in our midst.’
Magnus slapped his counsellor on the shoulder. ‘I’d say that was a piece of good fortune. I think that’s just solved my last problem.’
‘YOU’RE LATE!’
Magnus chuckled looking down at the shadow cast by the seventy-feet high Egyptian obelisk on the Campus Martius; it was a couple of inches short of the third-hour line. ‘I didn’t think that anyone had the brains to read the sundial since I left the Urban Cohort, Aelianus.’
‘True enough, mate, I’m probably the only one who can, which is why they made me quartermaster,’ Aelianus replied grasping Magnus’ proffered forearm.