Casca 37: Roman Mercenary Read online

  This is a book of fiction. All the names, characters and events portrayed in this book are Fictional and any resemblance to real people and incidents are purely coincidental.

  CASCA: #37 Roman Mercenary

  Casca Ebooks are published by arrangement with the copyright holder

  Copyright © 2012 by Tony Roberts

  Cover design by Greg Brantley

  All Rights Reserved

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  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 38 The Continental

  THE CASCA SERIES IN EBOOKS

  TONY ROBERTS

  My mother was my unlikely route into becoming a Casca fan. On one shopping trip she bought me a copy of Casca 3: The Warlord. 3 was not a great place to start but I devoured it anyway, loved the character and the sense of history made real. Then followed 13 years while I collected the original series; without the help of the internet. Then what to do, the series was over. I started to write my own Casca novels, and set up my website www.casca.net, building a worldwide base for Casca fans and contacts.

  My first Casca novel, Halls of Montezuma, was published in 2006. The Roman Mercenary is my eleventh novel in the series.

  I live in Bristol, with my partner Jane and a mad cat called Nero, who does his best to help my writing by walking on my keyboard.

  Dear reader

  Since becoming the new ‘sounding board’ of the tales of the remarkable man known to us as Casca Rufio Longinus, I have been drawn into his life as surely as my uncle Jules, or as you know him, Dr. Julius Goldman, has been.

  Uncle Jules is still eager to receive news of Casca’s exploits, even though now he is mostly unable to endure the mental trauma of directly being sucked into them by Casca himself.

  Recently I had another meeting with this incredible man, and he told me a tale that I understand took place at the same time as a previously told story, The Damned. Part of his life at that time had earlier been skipped over, but a few months ago he wished to tell of his exploits that he undertook in more detail, and so here is one of those stories.

  Danny Landries

  New York City

  Spring 2012

  CHAPTER ONE

  Massilia, Southern Gaul, September 410 AD

  Fear was everywhere. In the streets, in the houses, at the market place. Fear was etched across the faces of the citizens as they tried to go about their normal everyday lives and forget what lay beyond the walls of their city. It could be felt in the air as one walked through the steeply sloping streets leading up from the harbor, and it was only made worse by the refugees tumbling off the laden ship that had struggled into Massilia that morning.

  But Casca Rufio Longinus felt no fear as he pushed his way off the ship, barging a couple of former patricians out of his way. One shot him a look that could have killed, while the other sighed and shook his head. A few weeks ago they could have had him whipped for such behavior, but since the fall of Rome to the barbarian Goths their whole world had been turned upside down.

  So had Casca’s, but fear wasn’t on his mind. Rage was. Rage and an all-consuming black cloud of depression that settled on him and choked almost every other emotion from him. A son of Rome, a man who had been born when Rome was the center of the world, now he was living in a world where Rome had fallen and the carcass was being picked over by the vultures, both from without and within.

  Had it been a mere few months since he’d been one of Honorius’s Guard? So much had happened since he had marched from Ravenna towards Rome in the vain hope they would stem the tide, and been caught up in the cataclysmic battle that had destroyed the Roman force.

  A prisoner of Alaric the Goth, he had stood helpless as the Goths had taken Rome and ransacked it. Something Casca had never thought possible, yet there it had been right in front of him. Alaric, sensing his prisoner’s pain, had taken pity on him and released him, giving him a sword, armor and pack. Very generous of him, but Casca could do nothing, not now as the legions had gone and the barbarians had free rein over the lands of the Empire.

  Or was it the former Empire? Casca didn’t know the fate of Gaul yet, although he had known that it had been subject to the rampaging tribes over the past few years and the emperor’s rule was extremely weak this side of the Alps these days. He stood for a moment looking at the narrow streets and the houses that lined them, then, on an impulse, headed for the door of a dockside tavern, intent on listening to gossip to catch up on the news, and to sink a welcome mug of ale or wine, or anything his few coins could purchase.

  That was another issue; he was virtually without money, and he’d need to earn some coins in order to get a room and food. He threw himself heavily into a corner chair and dragged a warped table closer, dumping his pack onto the floor with a loud crash of metal. He drew his sword and rested it across his lap, scowling blackly at the others in the tavern who were weighing him up, wondering whether he was worth the effort to see what worldly goods he had on him.

  One after the other they looked away and returned to their conversations, or to contemplate the depths of their mugs. Casca’s expression had made it clear that anyone who tried to take anything from him would probably lose their life.

  A serving wench came nervously up to him, hair greasy and lank, beer stains down her filthy dress. Casca ordered an ale and was shocked at the price. He could afford two or three drinks at the most. Hades, a man couldn’t get drunk on that! “Why the price?”

  “Supplies,” the wench shrugged. “Nothing comes from the countryside and we have to import everything from Spain or Africa. Prices have shot up.”

  “Crap,” Casca commented moodily and sniffed the contents of his mug. It smelled fine, so he began sipping it. At least it didn’t remove the coating of his tongue, so he assumed it was safe and began drinking properly. The wench drifted away to another customer.

  Casca leaned back and listened with one ear to the conversations at the nearby tables. Much of it was to do with the rampaging tribes of barbarians to the north, or to the bands of lawless bandits which had sprung up recently, preying on the helpless and unwary. Some spoke of the rival emperor reigning in nearby Arelate, and Casca’s ears pricked up at that. A rival emperor? That always spelled trouble and meant civil war. Something maybe he could hire himself for? After a few more minutes of passive eavesdropping, Casca learned that the pretender, a man called Constantine, had a few problems on his hands.

  It seemed that after declaring Britannia, Gaul and Spain independent from the empire, the legitimate emperor Honorius went along with him for a while, but was now looking to raise an army in Italy to deal with
the rebel, and Constantine had other issues to face, too. There were the barbarian tribes in the north and east who looked as if they were staying and not moving on, plundering the goods, property and wealth of the Roman ruling class and taking it for themselves. Constantine had been inundated with requests for help but seemed unable to raise an army to take them on. On top of that his general Gerontius had recently decided to rule Spain himself and had turned on his former ‘emperor’, and Constantine had sent his son, Constans (why are they so unoriginal, Casca thought), to suppress that rebellion.

  It was all backstab and each to their own, so it seemed to Casca. What a mess. He slapped a hand on the table in irritation and anger at the way the empire had been allowed to sink by those entrusted with its safekeeping. The wench came over, thinking he wanted something. “Yes?”

  Casca looked up. He realized she had mistaken his sign of frustration as being a call to attract her attention. “Ah, another drink.” He threw the last of his coins on the table.

  “That won’t buy you an ale,” the wench said.

  “Ah, for Jupiter’s sake, take pity on a soldier fallen on hard times.”

  “I’m sorry; my master would beat me if I allowed everyone to short change me.”

  The scar on Casca’s face seemed to tingle for a moment, then Casca growled and scooped up his coins and slid them back into his pouch, then heaved himself up, pulling his pack over his shoulder and sliding his sword back into its scabbard. “Looks like I’ll have to earn a few coins then. Keep that keg handy; I’ll be back.”

  He pushed his way through the dark room to the door and emerged out into the September sunshine, inhaling deeply. He wandered across the street and surveyed the traffic going up and down; carts, people, goods. They seemed to be unworried, or so it appeared to his eye, so trade appeared not to be too badly affected. He spat on the cobbles. Someone was making a profit and using the crisis as an excuse to hike up prices, but thus was it ever so.

  “Are you looking for a job, soldier?” a voice asked close to his side.

  Casca looked to his right and saw a wiry fellow with a mop of dark hair, a lean but tough looking face and from his stance, was used to combat. Casca’s attention was piqued. “I might be. Who’s asking?”

  The man smiled briefly. “I am looking for a few tough men for hire on behalf of my master, Decus Scarnio, a rich man and one of much influence here in the city.”

  Casca couldn’t give a damn about the influence bit; Rome’s influence seemed to be on the wane, and if things weren’t turned around fast then Decus Scarnio and all the other nobility would have to crawl to the new masters of the region, be that Goths, Vandals or whoever. What interested him was the rich bit. Hiring out men such as he required money and Casca had plenty of skill with a sword, more than most, in fact. “Alright, so where is this master of yours?”

  “A short distance away, up the hill in his villa.”

  Of course, it always had to be a villa, up away from the docks and the stench of fish, rotting meat and vomit. Down by the docks the poorest lived, and the further back you went the more opulent it became. “Let’s go, then. I don’t want to hang about here in the sun.”

  “Of course, good sir,” the other man smiled and led Casca up the stepped cobbled alley, under whitewashed arches, past tall, overhanging buildings and out onto a wider street where bigger houses stood, behind walls and screens. They went higher still, and the sweat dripped down Casca’s face and neck, and he turned at one point to look down at the glittering sea below before following his contact across a wide paved street and up a last road that climbed for a few yards before leveling out to a small plateau. Upon this sat a white painted stucco villa with red tiled roofs, arranged in a hollow square with the unmistakable annex of a bathhouse to the left, the semi-circular roof betraying what it was.

  The wall was the height of two men and clearly beyond it was a peristyle garden, for Casca caught sight of vegetation beyond. To one side he eyed the main entrance, easily accessible from the street. However they went down a side alley and here stood a solitary door in the side of the building. The contact rapped on it a couple of times and eventually a spyhole in the door opened, and after a brief examination by an eye, the door opened inwards, revealing a tall man dressed in a single one-piece outfit of grey. A slave, clearly. The contact spoke to the slave and Casca was shown in.

  “Where are we going?” Casca asked, his eyes taking time to adjust to the relative gloom after being out in the bright Mediterranean sun. It was also much cooler indoors, thankfully, and he could hear the trickling of water from somewhere. He thought he could detect the aroma of incense, and sniffed the air a couple of times.

  “You are hungry?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” Casca hadn’t realized he was hungry until the man had mentioned it. He was shown into a room which had a low table and benches, and asked to sit. Casca’s pack clanged to the tiled floor and he placed himself on one of the benches and looked about. Murals depicting scenes from Greek tales of the old gods and heroic poems filled the walls, and Casca wondered how the owners hadn’t had their villa burned down by the radical followers of the Christian God; they seemed to burn everything they didn’t agree with; books, buildings, people. All suffered the same fate. Burning. Casca shivered and examined the floor. An immense mosaic of the four seasons with twisted rope borders covered the entire floor space which spoke of wealth.

  Footsteps heralded the return of the slave with the contact. The slave was carrying a platter of meats and olives, and olive oil. There was also a flask of watered down wine, which Casca appreciated. The contact advised Casca that his master would speak to him shortly, and in the meantime he could enjoy the food and drink.

  Left alone, but with the contact standing out in the passageway on the other side of the door just to make sure Casca didn’t leave the room, he tried to relax, but couldn’t. The depressing situation with the empire was too much to ignore, and he really needed to be doing something to take his mind off things, so after eating some of the food and washing it down with a flask of wine, he unclipped his sword belt and began to do some of the exercises Shiu Lao Tze had showed him nearly four centuries ago.

  It helped knock out some of the kinks from the sea voyage, and he felt a little better at the end of it, and he’d sat back down for a few minutes when the door opened and a man with short grey hair, a typically big Roman nose, piercing brown eyes and a simple but expensive looking tunic entered.

  Casca stood and faced him, giving him a quick but thorough looking over. This was a confident man, used to giving orders and expecting them to be carried out. He was perhaps fifty, or fifty-five. Still healthy, and fit. The messenger who’d brought him to the villa stood by the door, arms folded. Clearly there to intervene if things went wrong, but Casca reckoned that he’d be helpless if Casca wanted to cause some grief.

  “I’m Decus Scarnio,” the villa owner introduced himself, “thank you for coming to my home. I have need of the services of a man such as yourself.”

  Casca introduced himself too, and then got down to business. “What sort of services, and what makes you think I’d be the right man for the job?”

  Scarnio sat down at right angles to Casca and took an olive. “It’s my business to know people,” he said, “and I know you to be a man of action from your looks and build, and from your possessions. Are you of the legions?”

  “I have been,” Casca said warily. He didn’t want to give too much away right now; he didn’t know in which direction this meeting would go.

  “Under whom? My information is you came from Ostia with the refugees from Rome. Was it as bad as they said?”

  “I was a prisoner of the Goths,” Casca admitted, “but I escaped in the confusion. Before that I served with Honorius in Ravenna.”

  Scarnio looked surprised, and sat back. “You’re Honorius’s man?”

  Casca laughed briefly, without humor. “Not really. I was just doing a job. I don’t think he’s a
scratch on the proper Caesars of the past.”

  “At least we agree on that,” Scarnio said. “So you’re a soldier with no employment and no money.” It was a statement, not a question, and Casca remained silent, waiting. Scarnio sighed, and continued. “What do you know of the current situation in Gaul?”

  Casca told him the little he’d learned in the tavern, and Scarnio nodded slowly.

  “So much is true, and Honorius is looking to build an army to cross over the Alps into Gaul to remove Constantine, but with the Goths in the south he cannot make such a move. Gaul is under siege, Longinus, and we have no idea from where the next move will come. The east from Italy, the west from Gerontius or the Vandals, or the north from the other barbarians. We can only hope they stay where they are and allow Constantine to build up the region so we can defend ourselves.”

  “I don’t think you’d have much hope against the Goths,” Casca commented.

  “Neither do I. Soldiers are thin on the ground and so I’m having to look to private means for the job I have in mind.”

  “Which is?”

  Scarnio looked worried for a moment, then faced Casca squarely. “My family has been in Gaul for many generations and has built up a sizeable fortune in property and land. Much of this is now under threat from the invaders, and it may well be that I will have to make peace with whoever it is to try to save my family’s future. It is in connection with this that I need your help. As I have said, my family has got many properties and plenty of land, and this includes some land to the east, close to the Germania border.

  “A short while ago I sent my family away from here because of the fears the Goths were going to come this way. As it turned out this was a false rumor so I recalled them from Argentoratum. Then fate took a turn for the worse. The barbarians in the region across the Rhine took the city and my daughter was taken captive by the Alemanni and is, according to my agents in Argentoratum, likely to be taken as a wife by the local chieftain.”

  Casca scratched a bristly chin. This sounded a risky enterprise, though no doubt the money would be good. “So I’m to go and get her out before she becomes a barbarian’s play thing?”