The Emperor's Knives (25 page)

‘
What the
…’

A second man came out of the gate’s shadows with a long spear held out before him, taking in the scene with a snarl of anger, and as he opened his mouth to call for help Marcus threw the handful of dust and gravel he’d scooped up a moment before. Half blinded and choking, the momentarily disoriented guard stabbed blindly out with the spear, but the young centurion dodged to his left as he lunged in with a flat palm that smashed his assailant’s nose, throwing him back against the gate with a heavy thud. The dazed guard staggered forwards only to meet his assailant’s half-knuckled fist with a crack of cartilage, his windpipe collapsing under the blow’s power, dropping to the gravel and choking noisily to death as his killer hauled the domus’s back gate open.

‘You took your time.’

Cotta stepped out of the gloom to his right, waving an arm in command, and his men rose from their crouching positions behind him. Each of the dozen veterans was equipped with a short infantry gladius and a small round shield, their faces rendered terrifyingly anonymous by the dark shadows cast by their helmets. In their wake Julius walked through the gate, pushing it shut and shooting the bolts while Cotta handed Marcus his belt and swords, looking about him at the villa’s garden as his former pupil armed himself.

‘Anything we need to know?’

Marcus shook his head at the veteran’s laconic question, smiling despite the gravity of the situation.

‘Nothing really troubles you, does it?’

Cotta shrugged.

‘Not really. You of all people ought to know by now that once a man’s faced thousands of screaming murderous bastards across a battlefield and come out of it sprayed with their blood and that of his mates, nothing ever really seems all that serious. So, Centurion, shall we do what we came here for?’

The younger man nodded.

‘There are ten or twelve guards inside, lightly armed, and thirty or so guests, most of whom will be carrying knives as well. The slaves they’ve brought here to slaughter are all wearing either white or black tunics.’

Cotta turned to his men.

‘If a man runs at you, put him down. If he’s running away but he’s not wearing a black or white tunic, put him down. And watch out for the women, they won’t be able to tell the difference between those bastards and us, and they may manage to arm themselves. We’ll be outnumbered three to one by the sound of it, so we’ll do this in the approved manner, in line and by the numbers. You two …’

A pair of his men stepped forward, hard-faced and dead-eyed.

‘You keep telling anyone that will listen how you could give Velox and Mortiferum a run for their money, here’s your chance to prove it. Once the fighting starts you shout the tribune’s name, you fight your way through to him and you keep him alive, right? There’s a gold piece each on top of what you’re already getting if you succeed.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘You’ll be throwing yourself about, I presume?’

Marcus nodded at the question.

‘It would be a shame to waste all that expensive education in fancy swordplay our mutual friend managed to drum into me, wouldn’t it?’

Cotta’s return stare was almost paternal in its concern.

‘Just remember that most men who throw themselves into crowds of unfriendly natives tend to pay for the extravagance of their gesture in blood. That rule holds as true here as it does anywhere else in the empire.’

The younger man held his stare for a moment before replying.

‘My mother and sisters were brought here, taunted, degraded, raped and murdered, Cotta. So you would do what in my place exactly?’

The veteran put a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.

‘Nothing different. Just make sure that you don’t join them before your time, eh?’

Inside the hall, Scaurus and Avenus watched, the former numb with horror while the other crowed exultantly as another piece was removed from the playing board, the woman dragged kicking and screaming away by two of the guards to where another of the guests waited in the shadows, his knife a pale line of grey in the darkness.

‘Marius Priscus. A disappointing individual, in more ways than one, given that his distant ancestor was consul no less than three times. Spends most of his time boasting about his achievements in the German War.’ Avenus turned to Marcus with a look of disgust. ‘Did you know that he even paid a noted scholar to write a book about the brilliance of his generalship? Not only is he the most ghastly individual, but he has no class whatsoever when it comes to these gatherings. He could have won Perennis’s wife just then and still all he’d want would be to open her throat and watch her die. I wonder what on earth it is that makes our host persist in inviting him. In fact, I think I’ll go and ask Asinius Pilinius myself. Come on, we’ll go and pay our respects!’

Scaurus nodded equably, forcing what he fervently hoped was a cruel smile onto his face.

‘Why not? You go, and I’ll catch you up in a minute. I just want to see that bitch die.’

Avenus laughed, shaking his head.

‘Gods below, not another one! What is it with you soldiers? Very well, go and satisfy your need for blood, but just mind you don’t get too close to him while he’s holding a knife, he’s got a fearful temper!’

He slapped the tribune on the shoulder and advanced into the press of men, making a beeline for their host, while Scaurus walked quickly across to where the retired legatus had clearly won a brief and one-sided fight with his prize. Seeing the younger man approaching him, he froze with his knife ready to strike and barked out a question, his grip on the battered woman’s hair enough to hold her quiescent in her semi-conscious state.

‘What the
fuck
do you want?!’

Scaurus kept walking, his face set in an expression of respect and his empty palms spread wide.

‘Simply to express my respect for your achievements, Legatus. I read your book on the German Wars and was most taken with the brilliance of your tactics.’

Marius sneered and turned back to the woman, raising his knife to make the kill.

‘Well now you’ve expressed them you can fuck off, you brown-nosing little b—’

Without breaking stride, the tribune caught his raised knife hand, twisted his wrist and forced the blade down, ramming it into the gap between throat and collarbone.

‘What?! You …’

Marius’s eyes rolled upwards as the expertly placed cut severed the blood supply to his brain, sagging in Scaurus’s grip. The tribune put a foot into the battered woman’s chest and pushed her over, dropping the legatus’s dead weight on top of her and hissing a command that he hoped would penetrate her addled consciousness.

‘Lie there and keep him on top of you if you want to live. Scream and move about without throwing him off and they’ll think he’s raping you.’

She stared at him uncomprehendingly, but her rescuer was already in motion, walking quickly back towards the stairway down which he and Marcus had entered the hall.

Avenus reached Pilinius and clasped his arm, nodding his approval at the evening’s entertainment.

‘You’ve surpassed yourself my friend, this is an evening we’ll look back on for years to come. I would have come over to pay my respects earlier, but I’ve been babysitting the two new boys you invited tonight, Scaurus and Corvus. Mind you, I don’t think much of either of them, to be honest with you. One of them took umbrage at the nature of our activity …’ He bent closer and assumed a confidential tone, missing the look of bafflement on Pilinius’s face. ‘I had your men take him outside, with instructions to deal with him quickly and quietly. The other one just wants to watch people being killed, from the sound of it. A typical legion man, no sophistication at all …’

He fell silent, realising that Pilinius was staring at him with a perplexed expression.

‘New boys?
What
new boys? Do you really think I’m stupid enough to invite strangers to an evening where we’re dismembering the next best thing to the imperial family, you fool!’

Avenus raised his eyebrows in protest.

‘But he’s just over there watching Marius do his usual stab and stare! He’s a tribune from Britannia—’

He fell silent and recoiled a pace at the expression on Pilinius’s face.

‘Where is he?!’

The senator turned to follow Avenus’s pointing hand, but all either of them could see was the legatus’s body atop his writhing prize, her screams and cries of pain barely audible over the room’s din.

‘Well, he was there a moment ago.’ Avenus scanned the room. ‘Look,
there
he is!’

Pilinius turned and shouted at the men behind him.

‘
Guards! To me!
’

Scaurus ran for the stairway, pointing back at the crowd behind him and shouting to the single man standing guard on the exit from the hall.

‘There, look!’

His thrown knife served to do no more than distract the man, flying high and wide of its target, but he was on top of the guard too quickly for him to do any better than half draw his sword. Driving him back against the wall, he grabbed his opponent’s hair and battered his head against the cold stone and then, while he was still reeling from the concussion, ripped the weapon free from its scabbard and rammed it between the man’s ribs. Cries of consternation were filling the hall now, as the guests realised what was happening, and Pilinius stepped out of their press with a pair of his men on either side. A hush fell as he stepped forward, only the incessant cries and moans of those of Perennis’s slaves who were being vigorously raped breaking the silence. The senator pointed at Scaurus, his face contorted with anger.

‘I don’t know who you are, stranger, but I know what I’m going to do to you.’

The tribune grinned back at him, lifting the dead guard’s sword to forestall any attempt to rush him.

‘Oh, but you do know who I am. Your friend Avenus has already told you, I’m a tribune recently returned from Britannia. And I didn’t come back alone, Pilinius, I brought a friend with me. A man called
Marcus.
’

The senator laughed at him, shaking his head.

‘Marcus? Is the name supposed to hold some significance for me? And where is this “Marcus” now? Avenus here had my guards take him outside with orders to deal with him.’

Scaurus shook his head, tutting.

‘There’s me failing to make proper introductions yet again. My apologies, Senator. My name is Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, tribune commanding the First and Second Tungrian cohorts. And my friend? His full name is Marcus …’ He paused for a moment. ‘Valerius.’ A smile crept across his face at the sudden widening of Pilinius’s eyes. ‘But you know his last name, don’t you?’ He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. ‘
And as to where he is …?
’

Pilinius leaned forward slightly in spite of himself.

‘
He’s behind you.
’

The men facing him turned to find that in the short time that their attention had been fixed on Scaurus, a dozen armed men had filed quietly through the door in the far wall, their shields set in an unbroken line in front of which stood a single man with a sword in each hand. He walked forward, ignoring the three guards advancing on him with their swords drawn.

‘Tiberius Asinius Pilinius!’

The first man sprang in to attack with an incoherent scream, but the newcomer barely broke his stride as he pushed the sword wide with the long-bladed spatha in his right hand before punching the shorter gladius in his left deep into his attacker’s belly. He shouldered the stricken guard off his blade and continued his advance, staring grimly at the other two men before him.

‘Tiberius Asinius Pilinius! My name is Marcus Valerius Aquila! In the name of Nemesis I have come for
you!
’

The two remaining guards attacked together, but their attacks were poorly coordinated and the lone swordsman parried both blades with ease before spinning low and hacking the nearest man’s leg off at the knee. The remaining guard backed away with a look of terror, and Marcus called out to his quarry again.

‘Surrender yourself, Pilinius! Surrender to me now and these other men can go free!’

The senator turned and ran for the stairs, but in the distraction of Marcus’s fight with his guards Scaurus had quietly stepped into the stairway and swung the massive iron gate closed behind him. He slid the heavy bolts home and grinned at Pilinius as he pulled uselessly at the metal grille, shaking his head sympathetically.

‘I’m afraid not, Senator. It seems that the time has come for you to face the reality of what happens when monstrous crimes like these catch up with you. And here come your friends …’

Half a dozen of Pilinius’s guests descended upon him, clearly intent upon taking Marcus up on his offer of clemency. Their host managed to cling on to the gate’s iron bars for a moment, but the strength of the men dragging him away was not to be denied. Taking a limb apiece they hauled him kicking and shouting in front of the waiting centurion, one of his guards stepping in to snap a powerful punch into his temple to quieten his protests. Marcus walked slowly forward with his swords raised, scanning the crowd of men before him with disgust.

‘Drop your weapons and get back against the far wall. Any man found with a knife will die alongside this animal!’

Guests and guards backed away slowly, their swords and knives clattering to the stone floor, and Marcus looked across the room at the slaves still standing in their places on the robbers board.

‘Cotta, get these people out into the garden. All except for Perennis’s wife. Bring her to me.’

He returned his gaze to his intended victim, squatting to look into the senator’s face.

‘You killed my father.’

Pilinius looked back at him with a hint of defiance in his stare, as his wits returned.

‘We took your father alive and gave him to the praetorians. Whatever happened to him is on their hands, not mine. I can tell you who else—’

‘Save your breath for the screaming. I know who else was involved.’ Marcus raised his gladius to silence the senator’s attempt to buy his way out of what was coming with information the centurion already possessed. ‘You killed my mother.’