Monstrorum Misericordia

World of Darkness -- Pax Romana

The Knight

As night fell over the city of Rome on this, the second day of September
the citizenry of Rome mourned the death of its greatest leader Augustus.
The imperator had died only a fortnight before and his body had been
carried from the southern municipality of Nuvlana all the way to Rome. Along
the way the body of Augustus was displayed to a grieving mass of citizens
some hundred thousand of which had escorted the departed Augustus back to the
capital for a state viewing and a public cremation. While the public mourned
their hero's death with wine in the streets, the Senate squared off against
the heir apparent Tiberius, and the equestrian families began selling their
allegiances to whichever side would advance their position the most.
The death of the man who had restored stability to Rome after its last civil war
might well be the cause of another savage struggle for power among Rome's elite at
a time when Rome was especially vulnerable to enemies both foreign and domestic.

With these issues in mind Junius Secundus Cato made his way down the dark and
filthy alley that lay in the nameless warren of streets between the old
Temple of Luna and the Temple of Diana in the lower Aventine. Regularly
he glanced over his shoulder in concern over the possibility of being
followed. A concern that had only grown since he had slipped out of his villa
in the Piscina Publica the low-lying district east of the Aventine Hill and
begun the long walk west along the Via Nova. That street was the lesser of two
roads in Piscina Publica and was less often used after the fall of night.

Secundus had chosen the Via Nova for that very reason hoping to avoid prying eyes
as he made his way towards the Porta Ardeatina a secondary postern or lesser gate
that primarily served cart traffic during the day and which was often closed by night.
The other larger gate, the Porta Appia, was highly fortified and heavily staffed by the
fourth cohort of Vigiles and Secundus had no desire to be stopped at the greater gate that
serviced the heavy traffic of the Via Appia which paralleled the Via Nova, but whose width
and wealth of business made it the most popular road for both wagons and pedestrians headed
into the heart of Rome. Secundus being of the rank of equestrian, a knight, would be recognized
by any of the seasoned watchman and recognition was what the aging knight most wanted to avoid
this particular evening.

To aid in avoiding notice Secundus had dressed in the clothes of one of his man-servants and
and had left behind both his armor and bodyguards. At just over fifty years old Secundus was
still fit for combat if not quite so spry. The gullies along either side of the sloping road
that led up to the Porta Ardeatina were heavy with brush and a well known place for highwaymen
to waylay the unwary or unprepared. Strangely, the old knight had seen no sign of bandits and
had passed through the postern at the cost of only a modest bribe. Still he had felt an uneasy
sense of being followed since passing through the Servian Walls and had taken special effort to
throw off any pursuit rather than lead a tail to this evening's meeting.

Secundus' backward glance revealed the narrow entrance to the secluded alley that separated the
backside of a butchers shop and cheese sellers on one side and a wine shop and brothel along the
opposing wall. The alleyway was no wider than a man's outstretched arms, fifty paces deep and it
formed a narrow canyon on both sides two stories high which only revealed a narrow strip of night
sky if one cared to look up.

The old knight had only glanced upwards once to verify the absence of watchers, there had been none,
rather he chose to concentrate on his footing instead as the floor of the passageway was slick with
refuse. A narrow channel had been dug in the hard-packed earth of the lane which served to bleed away
a steady rush of unidentifiable fluids to the sewer entrance in the crowded street beyond. A powerful
melange wafted from the little ditch rank from a recently emptied chamber-pot, and strong with the
stench of sour wine and curdled milk. Such squalid alleys were commonplace in Rome and occasioned no
surprise for Secundus, rather what triggered his mild curiosity was the absence of both rats who were
Rome's most abundant pest and the mangy cats who primarily fed upon them. But being of single-minded
purpose the old knight dismissed such minutia as irrelevant to his mission this evening and made his
way to the end of the lane where he knew the rear door to the brothel lay.

There a bloody glow from a ruby-tinted lampshade above revealed the outline of a iron-bound door in a
shallow recess of the brick wall of the brothel appropriately named the Fortified Fornix. Opposite the
ironclad door was another doorway that led into the butcher-shop and between the two doors lay a large
pile of offal. Before the mound of fleshy remains sat a large black dog. So utterly still was the beast
and so dark was it's coat that Secundus' eyes passed over it once without registering it before he did a
double-take. Immediately the old knight realized the dog was not a run-of-the-mill mongrel so common to
the streets of Rome, rather it was a noble looking beast, if sinister in coloration and demeanor.

Secundus was not sure what it was about the creature that left him uneasy. It was of course large, as
large as a man if it were to stand on it's hind legs, but here it sat at ease upon its haunches with
front legs splayed and it's tail curled about itself. Perhaps thought the old warrior, it was the ruby
glow reflected so brightly from the dog's eyes that had chilled his blood and left him hypnotized with
an uncharacteristic fascination. Being a rational man and something of a stoic philosopher, Secundus like
his namesake Cato knew that the stories of hell-hounds and chthonian deities were the superstitions of
the ignorant and had no place in the mind of a rational Roman. As the ebony beast had offered no
hostility towards him the old knight turned his back on the creature and rapped upon the brothel door
five times twice and then four more times. The numbers and combination signified the number fourteen,
the number of Secundus' old legion and that commanded by Tiberius during the Pannonian War.