Free The Centurion's Empire by Sean McMullen Page B

thief? What understanding of the affairs of state would I have?"
    "Don't patronize me, I know about your background."
    "Then you know that one hundred thousand sesterces will not buy what I want. You can grant influence and favors: the return of my family villa, and the slaves and artisans to make it prosper."
    Fortunatus looked from him to the scroll.
    "What about the Relagatus faction that ruined your family? Do you want them punished?"
    "Oh no, they are to be left alone. I want the pleasure of dealing with their people myself."
    "Granted, granted. Now tell me how the Immortals govern."
    "They freeze themselves for, say, eight years, then appear again among mortals as if they have not aged at all."
    "Yes, yes, that makes sense. They seem to spend a lot of time away on their estates, or on long journeys."
    "Now ask yourself how the Emperor governs. Does he train his troops personally, or pave the roads himself? No, he has trusted minions of one rank or another to run off and see that his orders are carried out. The Immortals work the same way, with some differences. They work as a team, and they recruit only the most highly skilled administrators and leaders to their number. They set schemes in motion, long-term schemes that span decades, and they are unfrozen from time to time to supervise them. They act as if they were gods with lifespans and concerns well beyond those of mortals."
    "But the emperors do not disappear for years at a time."
    "As far as I can tell, the emperors are never Immortals, Fortunatus. They are their puppets, the same as you and I." Fortunatus hunched forward, wringing his hands and staring at the phial of oily liquid that Lars had given him.
    "This will make me neither young nor immortal," he said in a high, thin voice.
    "But you have their secret, and their philter too. Now I want my payment."
    "Payment? For something as useless to me as this?" He snatched up the phial and flung it against the wall where it shattered, leaving an oily, golden patch. "I want to know where that Frigidarium chamber is. If I can't share their immortality I can at least break their power. Find the Frigidarium and I'll pay you." Lars glowered, but seemed to have expected such a reaction.
    "That was not in our agreement, Fortunatus. Besides, I burned their villa-fortress to cover my escape. They will have ten times as many guards on everything now."
    "If you were stupid enough to start a fire, then that's your business. What you brought me is useless."
    "What I brought is what you asked for, even if it is not what you expected. My services don't come free, and I have given you the best of my services."
    Fortunatus slowly got to his feet, suddenly smiling and affable. "Lars, friend, we are of a kind. You brought no more than a taste of Venenum here, while I brought no more money than you brought Venenum—" A sign to Portulus sent him lunging at the nearest thief with a dagger in his hand. The point stopped in hidden mail, and Lars flung a pugio that plunged into his neck. Fortunatus raised his gladius as the second thief leaped at him, chopping it into the side of his head as Viventius' sword messily hacked into the thief pinned under Portulus. Fortunatus closed with Lars, sword in one hand and a stool in the other.
    Lars's blade dug into the stool, stuck and snapped. For all the pain in his leg, Lars still managed a heavy kick to Fortunatus' groin, just as Viventius' sword burst through the light mail under his tunic and slid a short way between his ribs. Lars rammed the stump of his blade into Viventius' face, and was rewarded with a scream of pain. The conspirator blundered into Fortunatus, blinded by his own blood, and hacked at him in panic. With quizzical detachment Lars stood watching them fight for a moment, then drew another heavy pugio and flung it. It buried itself up to the hilt in Fortunatus' back. Lars picked up a fallen gladius.
    "Fortunatus, is it over?" panted Viventius as the blade descended.
    With the room