Last Seen in Massilia by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online Page B

had brought me to such a moment? But there was no backing out. Trebonius was watching. Davus jostled me from behind.
    “Take it!” said the same voice that had ordered us to fall in. I held out my hand and a lighted taper was pressed into it. “Remember your training,” said the officer. “Don’t let it go out!”
    I moved forward, lowering my head and holding the taper as steadily as I could; my hand shook. I entered the mouth of the tunnel. Behind me I heard a clank and a grunt—the noise of Davus’s helmet striking the lintel.
    We proceeded at a steady pace. The tunnel was level at first, then began gradually to descend. A framework of timbers supported the walls and the roof. In most places the tunnel was barely wide enough for two men to pass each other. At a few points, where it threaded a course between two rock faces, it constricted even more. The roof was never quite high enough for me to stand fully upright. I had to walk slightly stooped. Poor Davus practically had to bend himself in two.
    The tunnel stopped descending and became level again. The pace slackened. Occasionally we came to an abrupt standstill. Men bumped into each other. Tapers were dropped or blown out, then quickly relit from another. Without them the darkness would have been absolute.
    We stopped, then shuffled forward; stopped again, then shuffled forward. The atmosphere was humid and stale. Smoke from the tapers burned my eyes. A cold clamminess settled over me. I breathed dank air into my lungs.
    The tunnel began almost imperceptibly to ascend. We came to another standstill. Time passed. No one spoke.
    At last, in the absence of orders or movement, some of the men began to whisper. The sound was like hissing heard through a trumpet. Occasionally, from the vaguely lit stretches before me or behind, I heard grim laughter. What sort of gruesome banter were the men passing back and forth? Meto’s sense of humor had changed much in the years since he became a soldier; it had grown more vulgar and cruel, more mocking of god and man alike. Laughing in the face of Mars, he called it; whistling past Hades. Sometimes, Meto said, with certain death looming ahead—his own death or his enemy’s—a man had nochoice but to scream or laugh. What would happen if a single man in the tunnel began to scream and panic? I thought about that and was thankful for the release of an occasional burst of harsh laughter.
    A chain of whispers came from the head of the line. The young soldier in front of me turned and said, “This is where we wait while the sappers dig out the last bit of earth. Pass it on.” I relayed the message to Davus. When I turned back, the young soldier ahead was still looking at me. His voice had been familiar; I suddenly realized that he was the one who had been talking about me behind my back out in the hollow. By the flickering light of his taper, he looked hardly older than a child.
    His scrutiny was intense, but not unfriendly. His eyes were unnaturally wide. He looked nervous.
    I smiled. “Since you were wondering, I happen to be sixty-one years old.”
    “What?”
    “I overheard you ask your friend before we entered the tunnel. ‘How old is that one?’ you said.”
    “Did I?” He looked chagrined. “Well, you could be my grandfather. Or even my great—”
    “Enough of that, young man!”
    He grinned lopsidedly. “Maybe Fortune put me next to you. Marcus said the gods must like you, if you’ve managed to grow—as old as you have—making your living with a sword. What do you think? Maybe a bit of your good luck will rub off on me today.”
    I smiled. “I’m not sure I have much luck left to spare right now.”
    Suddenly a deep, muffled boom! ran through the tunnel, as if lightning had struck the earth nearby. I felt it in my ears and toes and teeth. Another boom! sounded, and another.
    “What—what’s that?” The young soldier’s voice broke. He rolled his eyes up. “Where’s it coming from?”
    “It’s the