Broken Chariots Read online

  Broken Chariots

  The Order of Chaos, Volume 1

  J.G. Willem

  Published by J.G. Willem, 2021.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  BROKEN CHARIOTS

  First edition. April 30, 2021.

  Copyright © 2021 J.G. Willem.

  Written by J.G. Willem.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Broken Chariots (The Order of Chaos, #1)

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  Part I - When in Rome

  Part II - Et tu, Leontius?

  Part III - Dying in the Desert

  Part IV - Babysitting the Hostage

  Part V - The Spiky Thing With Flowers

  Part VI - One Girl For Another

  Part VII - Before the Twelve Tables

  Part VIII - In the Belly of the Beast

  Part IX - All That Glitters...

  Epilogue

  The Order of Chaos will return

  About the Author

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  BROKEN CHARIOTS—When a bookie in Ancient Rome tries to rig an upcoming chariot race to secure his freedom, he is forced to put everything on the line for one last roll of the dice.

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  Part I - When in Rome

  Belbus and Ursa ascended the steps to Pistrus’ villa and met the old centurion standing guard at the entrance.

  The guard was short. Stocky. Had a wide, silver-stubbled jaw. Looked as if he could crumple Belbus into a ball like parchment and still have one hand left for Ursa. For her, though, he might need two.

  Threaded onto a length of twine around the centurion’s neck were eight Germanic ears that had been preserved in some ungodly brine.

  Belbus knew they were Germanic ears - and that the man was a centurion - because this wasn’t the first time he had been here. The nature of his work required him to have dealings with Pistrus from time to time - although, thank Jove, not often - and dealings with Pistrus meant dealings with Auribus.

  Hence the frown.

  The fact that the ears were a shade paler than the average Roman lobe proved nothing. To judge based on pigment alone could have led him to suspect they were Celts or Scythians or, gasp, even Britons.

  “Morning, Auribus,” said Belbus, his tone chipper as he limped to a stop before the thick stone walls and the gate and the stone-faced man guarding it.

  Auribus did not reply. He chewed the inside of his lip and looked behind the newcomers at the vista of Rome that Belbus, regrettably, could not see and had interrupted.

  It must have been a pleasant morning up here before Belbus arrived. The air cool and crisp, reefs of blood-red clouds unspooled across the yellow sky, now giving way to pink, now to blue. The dawning sunlight soft upon the red terracotta roof tiles and the white marble stucco. The very city seeming to glow with the promise of a new day.

  Then Belbus showed up.

  He often got that feeling. The sudden absence of something he realised was everybody else’s good time.

  Auribus passed his spear from one hand to the other and set his free hand on the pommel of his gladius. His short sword.

  Finally, he let out a sigh. “Don’t do that.”

  Belbus exchanged a frown with Ursa. “Do what? Talk?”

  “Take that familiar tone with me. I’m a decorated war hero, for Jove’s sake.”

  “And some mighty fine decorations they are too.”

  Belbus did his best to seem impressed by the severed pieces of meat hanging from the man like he was a walking, talking butcher shop.

  He looked to Ursa, who quickly joined in, nodding with her eyes wide and giving an enthusiastic, “Mmm.”

  Auribus’ expression did not change. He neither needed their approval nor wanted it.

  “How, um... how did you get them?” Ursa asked, more to fill the silence than anything.

  “Oh, sweet child...” Belbus said, hanging his head.

  She threw a glare in his direction.

  “This one...” Auribus pointed to the leftmost ear without hesitating. “I took from a barbarian chief after battle. This one, I carved off a barbarian wench while she was sleeping. This one, I parted from a little shepherd boy who wandered too far from his village.”

  “Brave,” said Ursa, unable to hold her tongue.

  “Easy...” said Belbus, out of the side of his mouth.

  “What would you know about bravery?” Auribus snarled. “Maybe someone should take one of your ears. Teach you a lesson like I taught those Germanics.”

  He lowered the spear so its shiny metal head brushed her lobe. She swallowed, but didn’t move.

  “I think I might mess up your colour palette,” she said, jerking her chin at the lily-white lobes.

  Auribus knit his brows together. Looked down.

  Belbus leaned in. “Can’t be going around with Roman ears on your neck, Auribus. It’s not a good look.”

  There was a flash of movement as Auribus drew his sword. Before Belbus could blink, let alone react, the blade was resting gingerly against his throat. He knew that the gladius was a stabbing weapon - built for thrusting, not slashing - but, strangely, in that moment, it didn’t console him.

  Auribus glared, one eye squinted, that silver-stubbled chin jutting out like an ape Belbus had seen once at the Colosseum. He still held his spear to Ursa’s ear. She hadn’t budged.

  “Are we going to have a problem, fella? The bookie and his partner come to cause trouble where they aren’t welcome? Where they don’t belong?”

  “Nope. No problem at all.” Belbus swallowed, feeling the edge of the sword rub against his Adam’s apple. “Is Pistrus home?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to speak with him.”

  “About what?”

  Belbus gave a half-scoff, half-laugh. “About what?”

  He turned to look at Ursa with a “Can you believe this guy?” kind of look, and the blade cut his throat. Not deep. Just enough that he felt a warm bead running down his neck.

  Belbus froze. Closed his eyes. Cursed himself inwardly.

  “About the Equirria,” he said, with a little more humility. “The big race. The show.”

  “I know what the Equirria is,” growled the centurion.

  “Then you know it’s the kind of event people like to bet on.”

  “And you collect their earnings when they lose.” Auribus looked down his nose at what amounted to little more than a cockroach in his sight.

  “...and distribute it fairly to the winners,” Belbus said, finishing off what he presumed was the end of Auribus’ sentence. “As in, how gambling works.”

  “I don’t like you.”

  “I don’t like him either,” said Ursa with a shrug.

  “You don’t have to like me.” A quick glance at his partner. “Either of you. But I provide a service people want. That’s another thing you don’t have to like. A lot of people do like it. They like the rush. The juice. I take it you’re not one of those people.”

  “No,” said the aging centurion, “I’m not.”

  “Probably all juiced-out on mutilating women and children, hey?” Ursa said.

  Auribus shot daggers at her, then redirected his ocular kniv
es to Belbus.

  “I have an urgent matter to discuss with Pistrus as it pertains to odds on the upcoming race.” Belbus held up his open palms to show the man he posed no threat. “I’m just trying to do my job here.”

  “And I mine.”

  “You think Pistrus is going to be happy when he realises you’re screwing with his business interests? You think he’s not getting people to lay money down in his name?”

  “What he does is none of my business.”

  “Yet somehow what I do is your business? Tell me how that makes sense. Tell me how the guy who pays you to stand here and frown and threaten visitors - his affairs are somehow none of your business - and yet me, a total stranger, somehow you can’t drag your nose out of my business.”

  “He pays me not to stick my nose in his business.”

  Belbus squinted. “You want a bribe? Is that what this is?”

  He began patting down his cloak and the tunic underneath it.

  “I don’t have much...” Belbus looked at Ursa. “How are you sorted, partner?”

  She rolled her eyes and began patting herself down.

  “I’m not asking for a bribe, you morons!” snapped Auribus. “I’m saying: he pays me to stick my nose in other people’s business. Other people trying to stick their nose in his.”

  Belbus and Ursa looked at each other, struggling to follow.

  The bookie said, “Well, consider our respective businesses - mine and my partner’s - well and truly proboscistically penetrated. I promise to be more gentle with your master’s.”

  Now it was Auribus’ turn to knit his brow in confusion.

  Ursa was still frozen in the act of searching her body for money. “So, we’re not bribing him?”

  Auribus eyed her up and down and Belbus saw him taking a lascivious inventory. Her skin olive, but not too dark. Her curves ample, but not overly so. Blue eyes. Strawberry blond hair. A few strands of it blowing across her round face in the breeze. She was bigger and broader than Belbus, which was no feat in itself. She might have even had a few pounds on the centurion. Maybe that was a mark against her in his book. The way the guard was eyeing her, maybe the opposite.

  She was a beautiful woman, no question, even if Belbus had never looked at her that way. He saw Auribus ogling her and Ursa shrinking into herself.

  The guard’s lips curled and parted in a toothy, yellow smile. “That’s alright, love. It’s not your coin I’d be interested in anyway.”

  Ursa turned her nose up. Straightened.

  Auribus continued to leer. “Now you’re getting the hang of it, sweetheart.”

  “Why don’t you get the hang of this, Auribus?” Belbus said, growing heated. “Your master is in there, reclined on a couch, being fed grapes, or berating a slave, or whatever it is people who own villas do in their villas. I am asking to see him. Your job, in this situation, is to go fetch your master like a good little dog, and tell him who’s come a-knocking. If he doesn’t want to see me, I’ll happily go on my merry way. If he does want to see me, you let me in. It’s that fucking simple, Auribus. That’s why they let dogs do it.”

  The centurion’s smile was gone now. He was looking at Belbus with blood in his eyes, and Belbus was thinking maybe he’d gone too far. He was thinking maybe Auribus was about to add another ear to his collection, even at the risk of messing up the colour palette.

  “Is that you, Belbus?” came a voice from behind the guard.

  Auribus didn’t turn, but closed his eyes. He’d lost this one. The necklace, alas, would not be growing any heavier this morning.

  Belbus and Ursa leaned away from each other, and from the weapons, to look around the guard at his master, Pistrus.

  Pistrus was standing in the vast entranceway to the villa, at the end of a marble path winged by green gardens behind the wall. He seemed to have been walking past when he noticed them out of the corner of his eye and turned on his heel to face the gate.

  “Quit your growling, Auribus,” said Pistrus. “Let them in. Excuse him, he’s an ornery old bastard.”

  Then Pistrus was gone.

  Auribus went silent. Hung his head a little. Didn’t look up.

  Ursa leaned toward Belbus and said, loudly enough for Auribus to hear, “Is his tail tucked firmly between his legs or does it just look that way?”

  Couldn’t help herself.

  Auribus closed his eyes again. This time, it seemed to communicate that if either one was still there when he opened them, their own eyes would be closing shortly thereafter and would stay that way.

  They didn’t dally.

  Stepping lightly around the statuesque guard with his weapons still brandished, Belbus and Ursa passed beneath the stone archway and went along the path between gardens to the villa.

  Belbus touched his throat. The blood that had been drawn was already drying. No fresh blood. A nick. A flesh wound. Nothing more. He licked his fingertips and rubbed the cut.

  “I get it?” he said, lifting his chin to show his neck.

  Ursa squinted. “Yeah. You got it.” She snorted a laugh. “Can’t believe he cut your throat.”

  “Yeah, well... just lucky it wasn’t deeper.”

  “You know it’s your own stupid bloody fault. I mean, who turns their head when they have a blade to their windpipe?”

  Belbus grumbled and went quiet.

  As he limped along, the bookie turned to see Auribus straightening. Sheathing his sword. Passing the spear back to his original hand.

  “Oh, sweet child,” said Belbus, shaking his head. “My dear, sweet, naive child...”

  “Stop doing that!” Ursa said.

  “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “What was with that guy and ears?”

  Belbus shrugged. “I told you.” A thought occurred to him that made him smile. “You reckon he uses his ears like those Christians use their rosary beads?”

  “Like, to pray to Jove, you mean?” She snorted again. “Probably. Sicko.”

  Off to the side, a few slaves were clipping bushes in the gardens.

  Belbus nodded to them, and gave what he thought was a friendly smile. “Morning.”

  They just stared back at him, then at each other, then they watched him pass.

  Belbus kept limping forward, only now he did it with a frown on his face. “I’m off this morning.”

  “You think?”

  “People aren’t responding well to me.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Let’s hope the third time’s a charm, hey?”

  “It better be. Otherwise, it’s our asses.”

  “Our?”

  “If you want to back out, now’s the time. Otherwise, you’re in this to the hilt. We’re about to cross the threshold. Well, soon...”

  They were only halfway across the marble path to the entrance.

  “Man, this is a long walkway.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “It feels a little superfluous.”

  “There’s something about a villa that feels superfluous to you? Shocking.”

  “When I get my villa, it’s going to be elegant. Minimalist. Not gaudy, like this one.”

  She said, “I’m sure it’ll be a class act all the way.”

  But Belbus wasn’t listening. “I mean, look, over there... You see that? That’s an outdoor pool.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “No, that’s an outdoor pool.”

  “Maybe that’s his only pool.”

  “Please...” Belbus scoffed. “That’s a summer pool. You think he doesn’t have a pool inside? You’re crazy if you think he doesn’t have a pool the size of the goddamn Forum in there.”

  “I’m crazy?”

  “Heated floors...” Belbus muttered. He snapped out of it. “Anyway, what I was saying was... when we step inside that villa, all bets are off. Figuratively speaking. The bets won’t actually...”

  Ursa rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know the
bets aren’t actually on yet.”

  “Correct. But they will be. It’s the point of no return, is what I’m saying. If you want this life, I mean really want it... every once and a while, you’ll have to throw your chips on the table and let it ride.”

  Her eyes climbed the cavernous doorway looming ahead like the mouth of a Titan. She steeled herself.

  “What am I going to do?” she said. “Go back to studying rhetoric and oratory? Try and barge my way into the legal profession with these old things?”

  She juggled her breasts beneath her cloak.

  He laughed. “Fair enough.”

  Just inside the doorway, a slave in a plain, ankle-length dress was waiting for them. She bowed.

  “Please,” she said. “This way. My master is awaiting you in the pool room.”

  The woman turned to the left and began guiding them through an airy hallway of the villa.

  Belbus gave his partner a look. “Pool room?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Opposite the entrance, bathed in morning light, was a larger-than-life statue of Pistrus crossing the finish line at the Circus Maximus.

  The four horses in front of him, gorgeously rendered in marble, were rearing up on their hind legs. Enormous. Godlike. Pistrus stood behind them like a conquering general, reins bunched in one mighty fist, the other extended proudly into the air, mouth wide with a cry of triumph. Face straining, wrinkles branching from the corners of his eyes, blood surging with the thrill of victory.

  It was easy to imagine the throng of thousands - of tens of thousands - cheering and chanting his name, while the other contenders wheeled away quietly in defeat.

  Belbus could see it all clearly in his mind’s eye. The crowd. The defeated. The invisible multitude anchored to the present by this most garish of foyer dressings.

  “He wouldn’t have had the olive wreath yet,” Belbus noted, careful to keep his voice low.

  “What?” Ursa said, not following.

  “That’s supposed to be him crossing the finish line. The olive wreath wouldn’t have been awarded him until later.”