The Dreams of Morpheus(23)

More sleek missiles spat through the dawn air, thumping one brother to the ground, the bag he carried bursting open in an explosion of dull gold.

Menes’ men, now all armed, ran forward, arrows nocked and bows drawn as they aimed at the chests of Magnus’ brethren.

‘Put the bags down, lads, and step back,’ Magnus ordered, edging towards Marius but keeping his eyes on Menes.

The Egyptian’s grin had morphed into a triumphant gloat. ‘Now we go, yes? But we take the money as well, no?’

Magnus looked round at the twelve bow-armed men covering his surviving brothers. ‘You can try, but I warn you: if you leave now without the money, you can keep the resin; if you don’t leave the money with us, you’ll all die.’

Menes croaked a cackling laugh. ‘Oh, you funny man, my friend. You hand over the money or you all die.’

Magnus shrugged and pointed to the last few bags on the ground by Marius’ feet. ‘There’s a few, my lads have got the rest.’

Menes shouted in his own language and his men moved forward cautiously, stepping over recumbent slaves to retrieve the sacks.

‘Stay calm, lads,’ Magnus called. ‘Put the sacks on the ground and let them take the lot; it’s not our money so it’s not worth dying for.’

‘Very sensible, my friend,’ Menes said, hefting up a bag from the ground.

All but three of Menes’ men were obliged to shoulder their bows in order to pick up the coinage. Magnus’ brothers watched in silence as they carried the heavy bags away, taking care not to trip over the recumbent forms that lay moaning in the thin light.

And then a hand grabbed an ankle and a dull, shimmer of a blade was forced up into an unprotected groin, severing a testicle and releasing a cascade of blood on to a man who had hitherto been overlooked as too sick to be of consequence. More blades flashed up from the ground, more blood flowed, and Magnus’ brothers who had lain amongst the dying rose to life. Two went back down immediately as arrows thwacked into them, before the three remaining bowmen were despatched in a flurry of blades and blood.

Menes reacted instantly and fled for the cart, abandoning his men to be slaughtered in vengeance for brothers lost. Magnus smiled to himself and, indicating to Marius and Sextus to follow him, walked after the fleeing Egyptian as the cart driver urged his horse into action, clattering out of the forecourt and then turning right towards the Fabrician Bridge. Magnus did not rush; he knew there was no need to. As he stepped on to the main street the cart began to traverse the bridge. Midway it stopped.

‘Thank you, Cassandros,’ Magnus muttered, prowling forward as the cart attempted to turn a hundred and eighty degrees; behind it a line of silhouettes blocked the bridge.

The driver whipped the horse without mercy, trying to reverse it in order to complete the turn, but to no avail. The beast reared in the harness as its chest scraped against the brick parapet and sharp whip-inflicted pain seared along its back.

Menes leapt from the vehicle, grasping the sack of tablets, his head jerking left then right, like some demented bird, as if the situation might change at any moment and a way off the bridge would miraculously present itself.

‘Where were you going, my friend?’ Magnus called.

Menes froze and then cranked his mouth into the widest of grins. ‘No problems, no problems, my friend, no problems.’

Magnus stopped five paces from the Egyptian. ‘You see, that’s the funny thing; there is a problem. You killed a few of my lads and took a lot of money.’

Menes laughed as if it was a matter of small import that could easily be cleared up over a cup of wine.

‘I’m going to kill you slowly for that, Menes, and then there’ll be no problem.’ Magnus lunged forward; the Egyptian stepped back, turned and leapt on to the bridge’s parapet, hurling himself into the river below, the sack clutched in his hand.

‘Shit!’ Magnus exclaimed, rushing to look over the edge. Menes was struggling with one hand to keep himself afloat, whilst still holding the sack with the other, as the river swept him away. He looked back up at Magnus, laughing, as he shouted in his own tongue. But in his triumph at escape he failed to see the danger that whistled in from the river steps. His face contorted into a grin more pronounced and rigid than he had ever concocted before as an arrowhead burst out of his right eye-socket, the eyeball skewered on the bodkin. The feathered shaft vibrated, embedded in his crown, and a few paces away Pallas, his expression passive, set down his bow and sent his oarsmen diving into the river as the dead Menes finally gave up his hold of the tablets.

‘It would seem that you’ve had a very successful morning, Pallas; keeping the tablets was an unexpected bonus,’ Antonia conceded, looking at the pile of moneybags and the wet sack of tablets on the mosaic floor of her private office at her residence on the Palatine. She looked at Magnus, her green eyes showing life in them that belied her seventy years but matched her highcheekboned, fading beauty that still needed little cosmetic augmentation. ‘And I have much to thank you for too, Magnus. I will pay the blood money for your men. Pallas.’ She indicated to the bags.