Infames

XI

The shade of the great civic buildings was a welcome relief from the midday sun. The Forum Romanum sprawled out around the mercenary, dense and busy with civilians, tradesmen, and the like. Carts tumbled across weary flagstones, while the white and yellowing tuff walls of the many surrounding structures were littered with graffiti, political or otherwise. The sky was clear and bright, bathing the forum in a particularly oppressive heat. Lay people ducked in and out of the temples and basilicas and curiae, moving past in a headache-inducing blur. Gaizaz's shoulders slumped as he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before stepping out into the street, leaving the shadow of the Basilica Julia behind him. After about two hours of asking around the market stalls and tabernae, not a single answer had surfaced. There had been the occasional mutter of "sounds familiar," but nothing substantial had arisen from the clamour around him.

Well, not entirely nothing.

"Try the Basilica Aemilia," one merchant had told him, not really paying too much attention as he fixed a client's sandal. "I think he does business somewhere around there."

It lay just across the way, the two basilicas facing one another like old friends, and Gaizaz prayed to every god and goddess he could think of in that half-a-minute walk. If this lead came up empty, there would be the entire stretch of Rome to search.

He would do it, though. There was no way he was giving up, not when he had come this far.

The Basilica Aemilia was much like its counterpart, towering above the street with its brick and tuff facade, which boasted two levels of columns and arches stacked upon one another. The upper level hosted statues that looked out onto the street with placid expressions, and it was all topped off with a wooden roof. Upon entering, he saw the worn green and flaxen hues of the frescoed walls and the slight chipping in some of the Corinthian capitals of the painted columns, but, as light poured in, it was still incredible, from the size of the place to the amount of people that could fit inside.

Gaizaz groaned inwardly. By the gods, where was he supposed to start in a place like this?!

He ambled between the endless stalls and manoeuvred himself through the sea of customers and merchants, conversing and haggling and yelling prices into the crowd, like fishermen casting out their bait. Passing by the food vendors, his stomach growled at the smell of warm bread and fresh vegetables. He had not eaten, he realised, since he had been at the popina with...

The mercenary quickly pulled himself together and moved on. This was not what he was looking for.

It was difficult, however, to maintain perseverance. Every time he asked someone about his target, they either just looked him up and down before moving on without a word; said they did not know; or pointed in some vague direction then disappeared before Gaizaz could ask them to clarify. Every time the thanks he gave grew more and more resigned.

If he had been anywhere else, he was sure he would have received an answer by now. He cast his mind back two years, to when he had been hunting a bounty in Dalmatia, tracking down a banker that had cheated several poor families out of their farmland. It had taken him to Salona, a city far smaller than Rome, but everyone had been nicer. Many had helpfully pointed him in the right direction, even though he had been on his way to eliminate the man in question (they had been oblivious to his true intentions, of course). He had even, surprisingly, had more luck in places such as Athens and Corinth than here.

Something glinted in the corner of his eye, and he turned to see two polished, crested helmets rise out of the crowd. Guards, he presumed, and elite ones at that. They would be on the lookout for trouble, and trouble, the mercenary knew, had a tendency to follow him wherever he went. Gaizaz kept moving.