Free Vengeance by Jack Ludlow

bodies had disappeared in the hours of darkness, no one knowing who had removed them or where they had been taken. Were they just casual robbers taking advantage of the empty villa to seek to rob the place of valuables? Or had they been sent to the house knowing that it would be empty?
    Once that thought had taken hold there was no need to wonder why the imperial cohort had been left unsupported. Senuthius had taken a golden opportunity to rid himself of a long-time adversary who might well have found the means to be his nemesis. Such contemplation made it hard to keep going, but Flavius knew he must reply, it being even more vital now that he do so in the same manner and tone that he had struggled hard to maintain. He must give no hint of his thinking!
    ‘There are matters to clear up here and it will not surprise you that is a task for which I am, at my age, unprepared.’
    ‘Of course, I merely wondered if you might wish to join your dear mother quickly and persuade her that such a journey is unnecessary. The travelling is arduous enough, ten times more so bearing such a burden.’
    ‘That is a decision I must leave to her.’
    ‘Young as you are, Flavius, you now stand at the head of your house. Perhaps it is a duty you should assume and act to spare your dear mother any more unhappiness. I would tell her to remain where she is and draw comfort from your presence. I feel I must, as spiritual adviser to you both, strongly counsel that such a course is the one you should adopt.’
    They want her and me out of the way! Why? In case my father confided in us? His mother probably knew, for they were very close,a fact of which Blastos, having observed them from the advantage of his office, could not but be aware. He is also uncertain about me; much safer that neither she nor I are still in Dorostorum when …
    ‘Nevertheless,’ Flavius insisted, ‘you know my mother well enough to be aware that even with the unwanted elevation of myself to which you have referred, she will do as she wishes and not what I tell her.’
    ‘A pity,’ Gregory Blastos responded, in a sour tone. Then, taking a deep and what was intended to be a meaningful breath, he turned suddenly brisk. ‘Now, a second duty intrudes and we have other matters to discuss. It devolves upon me, on behalf of the
magister
Conatus, to oversee some of the duties undertaken by your late father until a replacement arrives.’
    Was that true? When it came to defence, untrustworthy as he was and without any official position, Senuthius seemed a more fitting candidate, added to which the bishop would not make such a claim without his consent. The whys and wherefores of what arrangement they had come to would remain a mystery so there was little point in dwelling upon it, though Flavius could not avoid letting loose a pointed dart.
    ‘Even if you are not a soldier?’
    ‘I am assured I will not want for support in that area,’ came the testy reply. ‘What it means, of course, is that I am required to take into my possession the treasury your father held on behalf of the empire as well as any correspondence in which he might have been engaged.’
    Correspondence! The time had come to prevaricate, to say the great coffer that held such things was bolted to the floor of the room Decimus Belisarius had set aside as his place of work, with theaddendum that anything pertaining to his family he had to retain, given his father’s personal papers had been kept within the same chest and – the lie came easily – he had yet to go through them anything like methodically. He held his breath till he was sure that Blastos had swallowed the falsehood.
    ‘Of course, and I am happy to allow you to separate anything private but I must insist you do so in my presence, for it may be that you will not know one from the other.’
    ‘Perhaps in a day or two, Your Eminence, when my grief has receded somewhat.’
    The fleshy hands spread once more, as if in an expression of deep regret.