The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits by Mike Ashley (ed) Page B

had said that his mother had been a slave from one of the northern tribes, which maybe explained his pale complexion too, but I don’t know. He never spoke to me of his family. When we hunkered down around the fire at night, there were better things to discuss. Women, booze . . . you know the sort of stuff. I always reckoned he had a miserable time of it, because he seemed to have some breeding. Know what I mean? He was from a leading family, all right. That’s what I thought.
    And then there was As, named after the tiny coin. It takes sixteen copper “as” to make one
denarius
, so you can guess what he was like. Short, stunted, permanently sniffing as though he had a cold, always pot-bellied, with a pair of broken teeth in the front of his mouth when he smiled, breath reeking, he was the worst nightmare of a decent centurion, which was why our own averted his gaze whenever he caught sight of As. The little man was perpetually grinning. Oddly, he hardly looked a professional killing machine. Not many of us did. That meant keeping clean and weapons shining. None of us could manage that in a good summer, let alone at the grim beginning of a damp winter. At least with his clear grey eyes gazing out from his pox-scarred face he looked like a killer of sorts, especially when you saw the lunatic expression in his face. It wasn’t his fault, but he was dim to the point of real stupidity, and thatlook can scare the bravest. He had the
look
of a man who enjoyed killing for killing’s sake. It took a brave man to stand in front of him.
    Yet for all his apparent murderousness, he wasn’t really violent. The only fights he ever got into were the ones he was supposed to: protecting the legion’s honour, or saving his mates when they were drunk and legionnaires from another cohort started ripping into us.
    Mind you, then he was a demon.
    The boy was lying on his back when I first saw him. He’d been on his face before, I saw, because nearby was the starting point of all the blood. It lay in a vast puddle, soaking into the ground, and the little shack reeked of it.
    I never knew his name. All about him were the other hostages, and the one who squatted like an animal was Verc, eyeing me with unblinking rage. The others behind him were snivelling. As the gate shut, Verc rose to his feet, his tattooed face working with fury. He shouted at me, pointing at the boy, then shouted again, spittle flying. Even as I sighed and bellowed for a translator, I knew it was unnecessary. This big bastard with the mudstained shirt and britches was asking what value were my sureties now, since one of the lads had already started killing the hostages.
    He was a good-looking boy, too, the dead one. The sort a man would have been proud of. Wide mouth, broad forehead, strong chin, exactly the sort that the matrons would go for in the gladiators’ ring. His hair was a dusky brown, the still-open eyes dark and serious, but there was a bit of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
    “Some reckon that when a man dies, you can see the face of the last person he saw in his eyes,” As said.
    “Bollocks,” Consul said. “Do you see the slaughterman’s face in the boar’s head when it’s carried to your table?”
    “Never had a boar’s head,’ As said glumly, but then shot a vicious glance at his elegant companion. “Not being a fucking patrician like you.”
    “Shut it, both of you,” I snapped, but I studied the body. All I could see in his eyes was a certain calmness, as though he’d thought he was about to go to sleep. It meant nothing. Trouble was, I was depressed. The only men who could have done this were behind me. My own group. All the hostages were his family. I can remember thinking:
they
wouldn’t kill the king’s son, would they?
    In theory there were eighty men in our century when it was up to complement, but how often does a century have the luxury of a full complement while it’s on campaign? Never, in my experience. There are always