The Dreams of Morpheus Read Online Free PDF Page A

her penchant for a private round with the after-dinner-spectacle winner once her guests had departed. But that had been ten years or more ago when he had made his living that way after completing his time first in Rome’s legions, and then getting a lucky transfer to the Urban Cohorts which meant he only had to serve sixteen years and not the full twenty-five. Once he had fought his way to the position of patronus of his Brotherhood, using the substantial prize money that he had earned in his two years of gruelling, iron-fisted bouts, he had left the profession and the lady behind. Until, that was, their paths had crossed again after his patron, Senator Pollo, and his nephews, Sabinus and Vespasian, had risen in her favour. Now she summoned him as the fancy took her and because of her status he would be a fool to refuse; he grimaced to himself at the thought of a new summons as she was not getting any younger. He wondered how and to whom she would sell the tablets, and when Senator Pollo would require him to pick them up from Terentius and … At the thought of Terentius he turned the whore over, putting him to the back of his mind.
    *
    â€˜Magnus! you get prettier by the year.’
    And you get slimmer by the year, Aetius.’ Magnus grasped his old comrade’s forearm and felt giving flesh where there once had been taut muscle. ‘Standards are really dropping in the Urban Cohorts if they allow figures like yours to parade under their banners.’
    Aetius threw his bald head back and laughed, placing one hand on his ample belly. ‘I haven’t stood underneath a banner since they stopped making mail tunics that fitted me which, as quartermaster for the cohorts, was easy to organise.’ He swept his arm round his large, well-appointed office complete with mobile braziers, clerks and an oak desk of vulgar proportions. ‘When I re-enlisted for a further sixteen years I did so with a nice cosy and lucrative time in the stores in mind and none of that running up and down that the centurions seem so keen on.’
    â€˜Quite right, old friend; all that running prevents a man from cultivating a decent paunch.’
    Aetius gave Magnus a playful punch to the stomach. ‘Still firm; you must be doing a lot of running.’
    â€˜Horizontally, Aetius, horizontally.’
    â€˜I’m sure. But what can I do for you? I can’t recall being in your debt.’
    â€˜You’re not; but how would you like me to be in yours?’
    â€˜That, Magnus, would help me to sleep much easier at nights.’
    Magnus pointed to his ear and indicated that Aetius should follow him outside away from eavesdroppers.
    They walked out into the bright sunshine of an early autumnal day and crossed the courtyard of the Urban Cohorts’ newly constructed stores warehouse near the Tiber; the previous one having burnt down eight years before with, unfortunately, Aetius’ inventories and everything within. The fire had been a useful diversion for Magnus and his brothers who had business on the other side of the city and preferred to transact it without the interference of the Vigiles, whose main duty was firefighting. Convenient though it was for the Brotherhood it was a sad loss for the Urban Cohorts. However, having had plenty of warning of the blaze, in that it was Aetius himself who had set it at Magnus’ request,Magnus was very confident that not much of value had remained for the flames – apart from the precious inventories, that was.
    They turned left out of the gate in order to avoid the reek of the tanneries along the riverbank; Sextus and Marius, who had been waiting outside, followed at a discreet distance.
    As they entered the open space of the Forum Boarium in the shadow of the Circus Maximus, Magnus put an arm round his old comrade’s shoulders. ‘What’s the difference between a civil modius measure and a military one?’
    â€˜Not much; both are bronze and both