The Racing Factions Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘I suppose that would make matters easier; if you’re happy with the blood-money then the murder could be forgotten about. Take what you like.’
    ‘It’ll be simpler if we just take everything; you will come round and pick up your share once you’re off duty this evening, won’t you?’
    ‘Of course. I’d better take the slaves though, just in case . . . you know.’ Rufinus waved his hand in a vague manner.
    ‘I do indeed,’ Magnus assured him. ‘You never know.’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘Would you like some of my lads to help your boys carry the bastards to the depot?’
    ‘We’ll manage, Magnus. I’ll see you later when I come for my . . . er . . .’
    ‘It’ll be waiting for you, my friend.’
    ‘A third goes to Tigran, a third to Rufinus and a third to the Brotherhood,’ Servius said, clacking at an abacus. ‘Which means that, in coin, one share is one hundred and twenty-one aurei.’
    Magnus whistled softly and stopped pacing around the small back room. ‘No wonder they were armed, walking around with over three thousand denarii on them. What were they going to do with all that money?’
    ‘I don’t know; but what is for sure is that they won’t like losing it. They’ll come looking for it if they’re freed.’
    ‘They’ll be dead in a few days; they’re not citizens. Rufinus will make his report very damning once he’s seen how much he stands to gain by their execution. I wouldn’t worry about it, brother, and it’s no more than they deserve after killing Vahram. We need to concentrate on more important business: it’s time I took a gander at Fabricius’ house.’
    ‘You can see right into it!’ Magnus muttered in surprise as he looked down from the Servian Wall into the torch-lit courtyard garden of Fabricius’ house, just fifty paces away.
    Servius smiled and patted Magnus on the shoulder as they strolled along the walkway. ‘Only because Fabricius burned down the house between here and the wall a couple of months ago; they haven’t started rebuilding it yet.’
    Magnus glanced down at the burnt-out ruin below, just visible in the weak moonlight. ‘Silly man, he doesn’t realise just how much that bit of extra sun is going to cost him.’ He stopped and scrutinised the house. The courtyard garden, surrounded by a portico with a sloping, tiled roof, was a decent size for the tightly packed Caelian Hill, stretching forty paces by twenty; although the wall surrounding it was a good twelve feet high, from where he stood, thirty feet up, Magnus could see the door that led into the tablinum and on into the atrium of the house. ‘From here to the door must be almost a hundred paces; if Fabricius walked out of it, it wouldn’t be an impossible shot for a good archer. Tigran’s our man, he’s an easterner; they’re born to the bow.’
    ‘My thoughts entirely; but he’s not going to come out at night at this time of year and it would be too dangerous to try during the day; Tigran needs the dark to be able to escape cleanly.’
    ‘Then we’ll have to come up with something that’ll bring him out from under his fat slaves and into the garden. Have Marius and a couple of the lads watch the place for the next few days; we need to get an idea of the household’s routine. In the meantime we’ve got to work out how to prevent three Blue teams and three White teams finishing ahead of the Reds.’
    ‘What about our Greens?’
    ‘That’s the easy part, brother; I saw how to do that this afternoon.’
    Magnus’ face fell as he walked through the tavern door. A Greek in his late twenties, with a thick black beard and dark, expressionless eyes, sat at his table in the corner. ‘Does she want to see me, Pallas?’
    ‘She does, master,’ Pallas replied, getting up and bowing his head.
    ‘There’s no need to do that.’
    ‘I am a slave and you are freeborn.’
    ‘Maybe, but you’re also steward to the Lady Antonia.’
    ‘But still a slave.’
    ‘Which is what I’m going to be for