The Emperor's Knives (33 page)

‘
Hold!
’

Marcus started at the snapped order, realising that Horatius had advanced down the corridor half a step behind him, but before he had time to register any gratitude for the other man’s support, the gladiators gathered about them stirred angrily at the sight of their friend sprawled across the stone floor.

‘
Fuck
you! You’re not in the bloody legion now,
Centurion.
We’re going to kick the fucking shit out of all three of you, and then—’

‘No …’ Velox’s voice cut through the rapidly escalating anger with ease, silencing the rumble of threats with his first word. ‘You won’t.’

The gladiator stalked down the corridor, easing past Marcus and Horatius and planting himself in front of Dubnus with self-assurance oozing from every pore.

‘You won’t raise a finger against these men. Not just because I reckon they’d give half a dozen of you a good hiding and come looking for more. And not even because if you do, and trust me on this, I will personally kill, slowly and with the greatest pleasure I can squeeze from the act, the man who makes the first move. And you know how much I like to live up to my arena billing.’ He looked around him, his face hard, and Marcus saw more than one of the men around them flinch at the overt threat. ‘They don’t call me “The Master of Carnage” without good reason, do they? Be the first one to step forward against these men and tomorrow morning it’ll be just you and me, with sharp iron and no question of mercy.’

He looked about him with an expression of disgust.

‘It’s not even because I’m tired of you dirty bastards degrading these poor helpless bitches just because you
can.
No, the reason that you’re not going to touch these men is because, as I was just about to tell them, is that they’re fighting in the morning. So right now you can consider this as an instruction from Sannitus himself, since he asked me to give them the good news. And knowing Sannitus as well as I do, and the expectations he has of these three, I can assure you all that the first man to raise a fist will have an easy enough exit from this life at my hands, compared with what’ll happen to the others when I tell him who else participated.’

A moment’s silence stretched until first one, and then another of the men who had squared up to Dubnus looked down at their feet, and the tension ebbed from the situation like water from a split skin.

‘We keep the woman though.’

Velox smiled at the petulant mutter, shaking his head slowly from side to side as he went face-to-face with the man who had spoken.

‘No. You
don’t.
I really am sick to my guts of your depravity. Wait your time, earn your passes into the city, and then take out your need to fuck on the multitude of women who actually want you between their legs. And, let us be clear about this …’

He stepped forward, reaching out a hand to grasp the culprit by his ear, whispering something that was inaudible to the Tungrians, grinning as the subject of his attentions blanched at whatever it was that he’d said. He turned away with a last contemptuous stare at the surly group still gathered around him, an act which seemed to be the cue for the man to whom he’d just spoken to start herding his fellows back down the corridor to their cells.

‘You, on your way.’

The slave girl turned and fled at the command, leaving the buckets of food on the floor, and Velox nodded in satisfaction, raising his voice to ensure his words carried down the run of cells.

‘It’s a good thing I was here for all concerned, I’d say. Remember what I’ve told you, and don’t imagine that my threats won’t hold good if any stupidity starts once I’m round the corner!’

Turning to leave, he threw a final comment over his shoulder.

‘And you three had better make sure you get a belly full of food. You’ll probably not have any appetite in the morning.’

Later, with their bellies full of bread and meat, the three men went to their beds and lay in the barrack’s darkness. Listening to his comrades breathing, Dubnus heard first one and then the other fall asleep, the pattern of their respiration slowing and deepening. The big Briton smiled up at the cell’s invisible ceiling, quietly satisfied at having guessed his friend’s reaction to the tribune’s suspension of their attempts to kill Mortiferum.

‘I won’t let them kill you, brother, not unless they come through me f—’

A finger on his lips silenced him, and before he could react it was replaced by a mouth, the woman whispering into his lips as she crawled onto his body.

‘Be still. I thank you for save me.’

The Briton was still pondering a response when she put a hand on his phallus, the warm body atop his slithering down until he felt her moist sex press down against the suddenly erect organ. After a moment’s resistance his member slipped inside her as the woman pressed herself insistently against him.

‘
What …?
’

She kissed him hard, twitching her hips to widen his eyes at the sudden unexpected pleasure.

‘Told you, quiet. Only way I can thank. And better you than six men same time.’

The Briton lay in silence as the slave moved over his body, her suddenly urgent rhythm and questing tongue bringing him to his climax with unsurprising ease, given his months of abstinence. She lay on his body for a moment longer, kissing him one last time, then lifted herself off his rapidly shrinking manhood and touched his lips again, drawing a knife from inside her clothing as she stood, preparing to return to her quarters through the sleeping ludus.

‘Wait!’

The slave shook her head.

‘I go. I catch here, I be flog.’

‘But … what’s your name. At least tell me that much.’

Her smile was a line of white in the darkness.

‘My name Calistra. Go now.’

‘I will free you, Calistra …’

His words fell on empty air, the woman having slid round the cell’s door and darted silently away down the corridor.

‘Good evening, Gaius.’

‘Senator.’

Scaurus bowed deeply, holding the position as his host stepped forward and embraced him warmly, waving a hand to his butler to dismiss him. He’d been summoned earlier that evening and had attended to the invitation immediately, taking only Arminius and a pair of Cotta’s men with him across the city.

‘There’s no call for you to bow to me young man. While I’ve been kicking my heels here in Rome for the last three years, you, I hear, have been making a name for yourself in the north of the empire?’

Scaurus inclined his head to accept the older man’s praise.

‘I have enjoyed a fair degree of good fortune.’

The senator rubbed at his heavily bearded chin with a look of polite disbelief.

‘Good fortune? A man makes his own luck in this world, as well you know! Your “good fortune” has seen you win more than one victory in Britannia, capture a notorious bandit chieftain in Germania and rescue an emperor’s ransom from a gold mine in Dacia. Not to mention restoring the honour of the lost standard of my old legion, Sixth Victorious, or so I hear. I would sacrifice to Fortuna every day for the rest of my life if I could be assured of that degree of success. Wine?’

The two men retired to the senator’s private office, and Scaurus accepted a cup of excellent falernian from the man who, in the absence of his dead father, was the closest thing he had to an authority figure.

‘You’ve excelled yourself, Gaius, and about time too! I was starting to wonder if you were going to dedicate the rest of your service to taking ever more ridiculous risks out beyond the empire’s boundaries. I can only thank the gods that Ulpius Marcellus took some notice of what I’d told him about your abilities and put you in command of an auxiliary cohort.’ The senator paused to sip his own wine. ‘My only concern now is whether you’ll live beyond the end of next week.’ He stared levelly at his protégé, waiting for the younger man to reply.

‘I was wondering why you sent for me. I presume you’re referring to my recent visit to the palace?’

‘
Yes.
’ The tribune looked up, surprised by the sudden vehemence in his sponsor’s voice. ‘I am indeed referring to your most
recent
attempt to commit suicide.’

‘
Suicide?
’

‘You heard me, young man. You may lack the necessary degree of self-awareness to know what game it is that you’re playing, but I’m more than astute enough to compensate for your wilful refusal to confront your demons. I know all too well why you spent as long as you did
scouting
the northern tribes, with only that big German slave of yours for company’. Your reputation is that of a danger seeker, a man driven to take risks for the thrill of it, but we both know better, don’t we? And now here you are doing just the same thing, and in Rome of all places.’

Scaurus raised a hand, but the senator waved away his nascent protest.

‘I’m more than a little disappointed in you, Gaius. Were you actually planning to visit me at any point while you’re in Rome? I’ve waited patiently for you to come and present yourself, and yet you’ve shown no sign of doing so, forcing me to summon you as if you were a wilfully disobedient nephew.’

‘Instead of which I am …?’

The older man grimaced.

‘A brilliant, brave and occasionally wayward young man who, given the right guidance, might yet still aspire to the empire’s highest ranks.’

‘Really?’

‘Indeed. If I can rise from teaching Latin grammar to the position of provincial governor then there’s clearly hope for you!’

The younger man shook his head.

‘But my father …’

‘Indeed, let’s get to the root of it, shall we? Your father’s disgrace in Germania, and his honourable suicide.’ He shook his head. ‘In case you’d forgotten, young man, I served with your father. Indeed, if it wasn’t for my promise to watch over you, made to him before an altar to Mars before he took his own life, I might have despaired of you years ago.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘The German War. Triumph and disaster all rolled up into one dirty little package. Your father, Gaius, didn’t have to fall on his sword, as I told him even as he was binding me to my oath to act as your sponsor after his death. His over-developed sense of honour led him to do so in the face of utter indifference from those above him. And you show all the signs of having the same instinct towards self-destruction. Don’t you?’ He waited, but Scaurus made no response. ‘Did you
really
interrupt Commodus when he was in a state of some agitation, and in his own throne room?’

The younger man shrugged.

‘I can’t deny it. But I had good reason.’

‘Good enough reason to risk having your tongue cut out?’

A long silence settled upon the two men. At length the older man spoke again.

‘And now?’

Scaurus looked at his mentor with a hint of the defiance which had been the hallmark of his boyhood years.

‘And now I’m assisting a man who has been ill-used by the empire to regain his lost honour.’

‘This would be the Aquila boy, if the whispers I hear are to be trusted?’

‘Yes.’

The Senator was silent for a moment.

‘You do realise that his father was executed for treason?’

Scaurus laughed without any hint of humour.

‘And you do realise that his accusation was false?’

‘Gaius, the ice upon which you’re standing couldn’t be any thinner. And if you fall through it I will have no power to save you.’

‘I know. Nor would I expect you to do so.’

‘It might be worse than that. This new man Cleander, egotistical power monger though he is, has one redeeming feature. He seems to see some value in restoring me to favour, apparently on the grounds that if Perennis distrusted me enough to force me out of public life, I must in reality be of some value to the empire. There’s talk of Britannia.’

The younger man raised an eyebrow.

‘As governor?’

‘Apparently so. Although any revelation as to your involvement with this Aquila might well see us both condemned, given that my role in your life as a guardian isn’t exactly a secret. It won’t be Britannia for me, but rather a place in the Palatine dungeons alongside you.’ Scaurus nodded slowly. ‘But you can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I already knew as much. Very well, we’ll face the risk together, you on the streets of Rome and myself here in my gilded cage, while Cleander decides whether to use me for my abilities or put me down as the mentor of quite the most dangerous man in the city. But there is some small compensation you might offer me for this risk.’

‘Senator? Whatever I can do for you, if it is in my power, I will.’

The older man smiled.

‘I know. There is a colleague of mine, an old friend who has fallen from favour. I can do nothing overt to assist him, as he is, I hear, already marked for betrayal and death, when the time is right. But a man like you, a man with the right resources and lacking in conventional scruples – not to mention any sense of self-preservation – might just be able to spirit him out of Rome?’

Scaurus bowed again.

‘I will do everything in my power. His name?’

The senator smiled knowingly.

‘You’ve already made his acquaintance, I believe. His name is Gaius Carius Sigilis. Save him from the executioner for me, young Gaius. Extend just a hint of your improbable daring and outrageous good fortune to my friend, before he becomes another victim of this regime’s thirst for blood, will you?’

The ludus woke before dawn, its inhabitants summoned from their beds in the usual manner, the volunteers encouraged by the jibes and sarcasm of their trainers while the ranks of condemned men were escorted out into the torchlight by guards armed with clubs. The ranks of yawning, farting fighters were unusually quiet, collectively digesting the fact that the coming week would see most of them fighting for their lives in the arena. Sannitus walked onto the parade square, looked up and down their ranks and nodded to himself.

‘You apes look shit scared! Which is good!’

He strolled up the front rank, meeting each man’s eyes in turn.

‘Today is the first day of the Roman Games! The
Great
Games! Two whole weeks of chariot racing, boxing, athletics, acrobatics and, of course, enough blood on the arena sand to keep our discerning public happy! So, during these next few days we will be sending more than two hundred fighters over there …’ He waved a hand at the Flavian Arena’s top tiers, visible over the ludus’s walls. ‘You’ll be fighting men from the other schools, all of whom will be looking to put one over on us by winning more of their fights than we do!’ He lowered his voice to a growl, forcing them to strain for the words. ‘In all the years that I’ve been the lanista of this school that hasn’t happened, and gentlemen, trust me …’ He looked up and down the lines of men again with a grimace that made his feelings on the subject crystal clear. ‘That will
not
change this year. Whatever you find yourself facing: fish men, net men, hoplites …’ He shrugged, pulling a face that neatly summed up his contempt for the other gladiatorial disciplines. ‘You
will
win. You’ll win to bring glory to the ludus. You’ll win to bask in the adulation of sixty thousand screaming plebs, and to get the women vying for your straining pricks. And you’ll win because you know that I’ll be waiting for you if you lose and manage to escape with your life. So, pairings …’