The Emperor's Knives (26 page)

Pilinius nodded.

‘We did. She took it bravely th—’

The sword’s point jabbed towards his face, stopping inches from his eyes.

‘Not we.
You.
You built this place specifically for the purpose of the torture, rape and murder of innocent women and children taken from the homes and families of the men Perennis set you to murder, didn’t you? These
men
…’ He swept the sword point up to gesture at the guests huddled against the far wall. ‘These
scum
are indeed culpable for those evil acts, but without you they would never have had power over so many innocents. Over my mother.’

Cotta coughed behind him, and Marcus turned to find him holding Perennis’s wife by the arm. She was crying, and holding her ripped tunic closed with one hand to cover her nakedness.

‘Might we afford the dignity of a cloak for this lady, do you think?’

Cotta nodded, walking across to the wall where the guests’ cloaks hung from pegs, selecting a good thick garment and carrying it back to drape over the woman’s shivering body. Marcus nodded his thanks and then spoke to the dead prefect’s wife in a firm voice.

‘Madam, your husband ordered the destruction of my family, the deaths of my father, my sisters and my brother. Doubtless many more members of our household died here, in ways that you can imagine only too clearly given the squalid scenes we have both witnessed here tonight, ways that you and your family would have been subjected to had we not intervened. I hated your husband for that crime, I participated in his downfall and my only regret, to be frank with you, is that he did not die at my hands. However …’

He shook his head at Pilinius in disgust.

‘I cannot condone such animal behaviour, even when directed at the family of my enemy. You will go free, Madam, although you would be wise to disappear into the depths of the city and never again use the name Perennis, unless you want to fall into the hands of another man like this one. Perhaps your former slaves will help you to survive, if you treated them decently before the end of your former life?’

She nodded helplessly, her face bleak as the terms under which she had been spared from Pilinius’s debauched games sank in.

‘But before we turn you loose, you have one more decision to make. How should this man die?’

The woman looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before realisation dawned.

‘You offer me the chance to visit upon him the indignity and agony he intended for me and my daughter.’ Marcus nodded. ‘Then just kill him. I have no use for the memory of his agony.’

Cotta ushered her away, and Marcus raised an eyebrow at Pilinius.

‘If you’re ready? You might want to go to meet your ancestors with some small shred of pride intact.’

The senator closed his eyes, screwing his face up against the expected agony, but when Marcus stepped in it was to chop at the kneeling man’s throat with the palm of his empty right hand. Pilinius fell choking to the floor, his body writhing as he fought for breath that could not pass his swollen and broken throat, his eyes bulging in horror as he stared up at his killer.

Marcus stepped over the dying man, gesturing to Cotta for the guest’s weapons to be collected as he addressed them.

‘I promised you men your freedom if you gave him up!’

Avenus stepped out of the throng.

‘So let us go! You have no right to—’

He gasped as the longer of Marcus’s swords whipped out and opened his throat, dropping to his knees with a horrible bubbling gurgle as his lifeblood ran down into his lungs, then fell forward onto the stone floor in a spreading pool.

‘Would anyone else like to debate my
rights
with you, now that we’ve restored some order?’

Silence reigned for a moment before he spoke again, the spatha’s bloodied blade levelled at his aghast audience.

‘You bastards have no more
right
to life than he did. How many of you took part that night my family was destroyed? How many of you “
deflowered
” my sisters? And what of my brother, for those of you with a “
taste for a shapely boy
”? Killing you all would remove a canker from this city’s heart, a cabal of perverted, sadistic monsters who should have been strangled at birth!’

Scaurus strolled across to join him, hefting his own sword.

‘And to strike a more practical note, gentlemen, how many of you will seek revenge for this indignity against your exalted personages, eh? You were quick enough to surrender Pilinius, a man whose friendship you held dear until a moment ago, so is that the measure of your honour? You’ll swear to a man to forget all that has happened tonight, I’m sure of that, and yet I expect that tomorrow morning the city will be hunted from end to end by your informants, all of them greedy for the huge rewards you’ll offer for the man that provides you with the information that will bring us to bay. You, Secretary!’

Belenus stepped forward, his face an essay in hope, and the tribune hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘You’ll have your freedom, as the reward for betraying your master, but you’ll pay half of everything you own into a temple of Mithras as your grateful expression of thanks for Our Lord’s intercession on your behalf. Send word to me as to which temple you choose to take the money, and if you fail to do so within a week you can be assured that I’ll find you and kill you myself. Get out.’

The freedman hurried past the two soldiers with a look of gratitude, and Scaurus returned his gaze to the remaining captives, knowing that they were close to rampaging forward despite the swords’ threat.

‘Centurion Cotta!’

‘Tribune!’

‘What do you think?’

‘What do I think, Tribune?’

‘Indeed. You strike me as a man with the nerve to order these men’s deaths if you feel they deserve it, and the wit to have mercy on them if you feel it deserved. I leave it in your hands.’

Cotta was silent for a moment, as if reflecting on the question, sweeping a cold stare across the men before him. He raised his sword, pointing it at them and raising his voice to shout a command.

‘
No! Prisoners!
’

Albinus was waiting when they opened the villa’s rear gates, his bodyguards standing in a protective arc around him as the Tungrians walked out into the street. He stared in silence as Cotta’s men guided the first of the wagons through the gates, terrified women staring out from between its rear flaps. As the second wagon followed it away down the hill, and the gates were pulled to, he found his voice at last.

‘Rutilius Scaurus. I knew if I waited here for long enough you’d saunter out through those gates.’

The tribune gave him a tired glance.

‘Centurion Cotta, if that man or any of his party so much as twitch a hand for their weapons you have my express order to kill them all.’ He shook his head at the incensed senator, waving a hand as if to dismiss him. ‘You’re too late,
Decimus.
Centurion Aquila’s vengeance on Asinius Pilinius is complete, and all that’s left for you is to slip away into the darkness before what’s left of the senator and his guests are discovered and it all gets rather more exciting round here than we might like. And remember, my threat to expose you as having stolen a fortune in imperial gold still stands, in case you or anybody in your pay feel like informing on us.’

He turned to walk away and then, as another thought struck him, turned back.

‘Oh, and the next time you see our mutual informant Excingus, you might want to do two things – you can give him a message from me and then you can ask him a question for both of us.’

Albinus shook his head in apparent exasperation.

‘Still making demands are you? Go on then, what is it you want me to tell the informant?’

‘Only the obvious. Not to make the mistake of thinking that he’ll get away with this last act of treachery. As of this moment his charmed life is on borrowed time, and the next time I see him I’ll have his head!’

The senator nodded.

‘And the question?’

‘It’s the same question you’ll be asking him,
if
you get the chance. That greasy bastard contacted you
before
Dorso died in the fire, didn’t he? He could have tipped you off to the fact that we were coming for the praetorian that night, but he didn’t. Why? Then, when he led the centurion here to Brutus’s hiding place, the ideal opportunity for him to have delivered my man to you without our ever having known the truth, he didn’t. And lastly, when he tipped you off to the fact that we would be making our move on Pilinius tonight, he failed to mention the one thing you had to have if you were going to take advantage of the information …’

He raised a hand to display his invitation, the silver rectangle winking red in the torchlight.

‘After all, he knew all too well that you’d never get into one of Pilinius’s special parties without one of these. I’m keeping mine as a souvenir of the night when I cleansed this city of some of its worst men. So,
why
didn’t he procure an invitation for you, Senator? It wouldn’t have been that difficult, given that he had Pilinius’s secretary over a barrel.’ He turned away again, calling back over his shoulder. ‘I think I’ve worked it out …’

6

Marcus rose before sunrise, having slept fitfully. Sitting on the bed, he mused briefly on Scaurus’s final words in the officers’ meeting the previous evening.

‘Last night we did a great service to Rome, gentlemen. We removed a dozen of the most depraved men in the Senate, and with a little luck we will have knocked a large enough hole in their ranks for a little fresh air to get in. And, let us not forget, we have also dealt out justice to the third of the men who slaughtered our colleague’s family. However …’ Marcus had already known what was coming next. ‘I can see no way that we’ll be able to bring that justice to the fourth of them. For one thing we no longer have the dubious services of the informant Excingus on our side.’

‘And for another, the bastard lives in a gladiatorial ludus among hundreds of men who revere him as their unofficial leader.’

The tribune took a sip of the wine he’d broached to celebrate their victory of the previous evening, nodding at Julius’s comment.

‘Quite so, First Spear. And so it is with regret that I am forced to concede that, for the time being, we will have to wait for an opportunity to arise. I hope you can understand my caution in this matter, Centurion?’

Marcus had nodded.

‘I can only profess my gratitude at the support you’ve given me so far, Tribune. To do anything else would be churlish.’

For a moment he was convinced that Scaurus had not fully believed his show of acceptance, but at length the tribune had nodded, raising his cup again.

‘Very well then, gentlemen! To victories gained, and one last victory to come!’

The officers had raised their cups, echoing the chorus, and Marcus had done the same despite his utter clarity as to what he had to do the next morning. He dressed in the darkness, having laid out the tunic and boots he intended to wear the previous night, and silently made his way to the bedroom’s door.

‘You’re leaving without saying goodbye?’

He froze at the door, realising that his stealthy exit had failed, then turned back and sat on the bed beside his wife.

‘I thought we said it all last night?’

Felicia sat up and knotted her fingers in his hair.

‘Not everything.’ She kissed him hard on the lips, her eyes wet with barely restrained tears. ‘You know you won’t come back this time. You know that once you’ve killed this man, his followers will tear you limb from limb. You know all this, and still you go to take your revenge no matter what the cost will be, despite the fact that this man Pilinius’s death has left you just as empty as the two you killed before him.’

He shrugged helplessly.

‘I still have no choice. Any day now we’ll be posted away, either back to Britannia or to whichever of the empire’s borders is creaking the loudest, and I’ll never see this city again, or finish the act of vengeance that I’ve begun.’

‘I know …’ She sighed. ‘I could have stopped you. I could have told Julius what you’re planning and he would have confined you to your quarters under guard, but the wall of resentment that would have been erected between us would have been too much for me to bear. So go.’ She turned her face to the wall, angrily wiping away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. ‘Go and take your revenge. I hope it brings you some measure of satisfaction before you die …’

Marcus shook his head.

‘There’s no pleasure for me in this. But neither is there any choice …’

He stood up, stroking her hair one last time and left the darkened room, pacing silently through the house with his boots held in one hand. The little dog scampered across the tiled floor, eager to play, and he squatted down, submitting to the creature’s excited licks and nibbles at his fingers before making his way to the front door with the animal at his heels. Opening the door, he stood in the darkness for a moment before sitting down to pull on his boots.

‘You really
are
stupid enough to do this then?’

Marcus started, his hand reflexively reaching for a weapon that wasn’t fastened to his belt before relaxing again, as he realised who it was that had spoken.

‘Have you been waiting out there all night?’

Dubnus paced out before him, his face all but invisible in the starlight.

‘I was hardly going to risk walking up here from the barracks in the dark, was I? If I hadn’t been waylaid by thieves, I’d more than likely have slipped in the contents of some dirty bastard’s toilet and broken my back.’

The Roman stood, shaking his head at his friend.

‘Well you’ve wasted your time, unless you’ve got half a dozen men waiting in the shadows, because nothing less is going to stop me from doing this.’

The big Briton laughed quietly, his guffaw rich with dark humour.

‘Stop you? I know better than that! I’m not here to
stop
you, you idiot, I’m here to come along with you and watch your back. I’ve heard what happens to the new boys in these training schools, and—’