The Emperor's Knives (29 page)

‘Come on then, Gladiator. Let’s see if you can succeed where ten thousand angry tribesmen failed.’

Hermes stared hard at him for a moment before stooping to collect his weapons, frowning in concentration as he stepped in to sword reach. For a brief moment the two men stared at each other over their shields and then, Hermes took a deep breath, blinked, and then threw himself forward at the Briton. Forewarned by his previous defeat that any attempt to bully the soldier with his shield was unlikely to bear fruit, the gladiator went to work with his sword instead, launching a flurry of blows clearly intended to find a gap in his opponent’s defences. Dubnus held his ground, parrying the attacks with sword and shield and watching the gladiator intently, waiting for an opportunity, but after a dozen fruitless attacks, Hermes stepped back, opening his sword hand enough to use his fingers to gesture the big man forward. Sannitus nodded in agreement.

‘He’s got a point, big man. No one goes to the arena to watch a fighter defend himself, they go for excitement! They want to see—’

With a sudden lunge forward, Dubnus covered the ground between himself and Hermes in a single big step, smashing his shield against his opponent’s hard enough to throw the gladiator backwards two paces. Once in motion the Briton’s attack was relentless, barging with his shield against his opponent’s board again, and a third time, before launching a furious series of sword strokes which took all of Hermes’s training and skill to deflect. With each desperate parry he stepped back again, unable to cope with the power of the soldier’s incessant sword strokes. Seeing his opportunity, Dubnus struck, swinging his sword high to force the gladiator to parry and then, while the other man’s sword was still raised in defence, stamping forward with two quick steps and hooking the ankle of his forward leg, smashing his shield hard against Hermes’s to send him sprawling onto his back. The gladiator tensed, ready to roll back onto his feet as he had a moment before, but froze at the hard touch of Dubnus’s sword at his throat.

Sannitus strolled forward, raising an amused eyebrow at seeing his man on the hall’s floor for a second time. A quiet chorus of sniggers and catcalls from the gladiator’s colleagues was silenced by a long stare and a blunt pronouncement from the trainer.

‘I’d like to have seen any of you cucumber munchers deal with that, so I suggest you all shut up until you’ve sparred with this monster …’ He turned to Dubnus, nodding approvingly. ‘Yes,
that’s
what the audience want to see! You’re in, now let him up.’

The gladiator stood, his face betraying the fact that the ground was clearly moving beneath his feet. Sannitus stepped close, whispering fiercely in his ear.

‘Disappointing, Hermes. Perhaps you’ll do better with the last of them. He sounds like an aristo, so I doubt he’ll have quite the same brutality as those two.’

The gladiator nodded, squaring his shoulders and turning to face Marcus, his teeth gritted in anger at his second defeat. Sannitus waved a hand, gesturing for the last of the triallists to join them.

‘Come on then, let’s see if you’ve got as much bastard in you as your mates.’

Marcus stopped just outside of the reach of Hermes’s sword and stood ready, both hands hanging easily at his sides and his eyes alert for any sign of an attack. Sannitus laughed, motioning his man Edius to give him a weapon.

‘You’re not stupid, are you?’

His answer was delivered in a deliberately dismissive tone, but the younger man’s gaze never wavered as he stared at Hermes.

‘Not stupid enough to let a man who’s already been humiliated twice by my brothers in arms have a free shot at me.’

Hermes sneered, but Sannitus nodded his appreciation.

‘You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that, Soldier. If you really
are
a soldier?’ He pursed his lips and looked the younger man up and down, shaking his head in apparent disbelief. ‘You really don’t look the type, do you? Sure you wouldn’t be happier up the hill with the praetorians?’

Marcus shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on the gladiator.

‘I’ll let you be the judge of that.’ He waved away the shield that Edius was offering him. ‘I’ll take another sword, if it’s all the same to you.’

Sannitus shook his head in amusement.

‘You can defend yourself with your stick of celery if you like. I’ve never had a man elect to fight for his place with two knives before, and it takes us years of hard work with the best swordsmen to produce a competent dimachaerus, but if you think you’re good enough to fight that way then you just go ahead.’ He nodded to Hermes. ‘Ready?’

The gladiator growled his answer, his gaze locked on Marcus in a way that was clearly supposed to be intimidatory.

‘Let me at him.’

Horatius leaned closer to Dubnus, muttering a question in his ear.

‘
Is
he good enough?’

The Briton laughed softly.

‘Just watch.’

Sannitus turned to Marcus, who was weighing the two practice swords in his hands, still watching Hermes intently.

‘Ready?’

As he opened his mouth to answer, the gladiator took a deep breath, and, in that instant for which the young centurion had been waiting, he closed his eyes momentarily. Marcus stamped forward with his left leg and lifted his right, bent at the knee, snapping his foot forward and twisting his body to plant it squarely in the gladiator’s chest. The kick catapulted Hermes backwards to land hard on his backside, while Marcus stalked forwards with his swords levelled. His opponent scrabbled backwards, frantically retreating in the face of the weapons’ twin threats, staggering untidily to his feet with a scowl of fury.

‘
Bastard!
’

Marcus grinned for the first time, showing his teeth and smirking at the gladiator.

‘You need to do something about that blink. I doubt it pays for a professional fighting man to have quite such an obvious tell, do you?’ He flicked a glance at Sannitus. ‘If you really
are
a gladiator? After all, you don’t really look the type at the moment, do you?’

The trainer nodded wryly, realising that all he had achieved through his crude attempt to worry the young centurion a moment before had been to sharpen the man’s edge, but Hermes had clearly missed the point.

‘You cheeky young cunt! I’ll have your
fucking
liver out!’

Sannitus stepped forward, raising a hand.

‘Enough! We’ll—’

Hermes pushed past him with a snarl of rage.

‘Fuck off, Sannitus! This turd’s
mine
!’ He stormed forward, punching with his shield to take advantage of Marcus’s apparent lack of any means of defence, and forcing the younger man to dance backwards, away from his lunges. ‘Not so fucking clever now, are you boy?’ He attacked again, and this time Marcus feinted right before sidestepping left and steering away the gladiator’s blade with almost contemptuous ease, looking pointedly down at the gladiator’s exposed right leg as he did so. Sannitus shook his head in dismay, turning to look at Dubnus.

‘Am I right in thinking this isn’t going to end well?’

The Briton shrugged.

‘That depends on your man.’

Marcus backed away as Hermes bore down on him again, raising his swords wide.

‘It’s honours even at this point, Hermes. You’ve been on your backside, and you’ve chased me around for a while. We could just drop the weapons and call it a draw?’

The gladiator sneered over the top of his shield.

‘
Fuck
you!
Offering me a draw when I’ve got you running scared? I can smell the sh—’

He jerked to his right as Marcus leapt forward, realising even as he did so that the attack was only a feint, twisting desperately to counter the changing threat as his opponent sprang off his left foot and struck at his shielded side, realising too late that this too was bluff as the weak sword stroke merely touched the shield. Far too late, the gladiator realised that his abrupt switch of defence had left the entire right side of his body undefended, his sword nothing better than a forgotten and useless piece of wood in his right hand. The other sword hit his right knee with enough force to buckle his leg, and Hermes found himself lying on his back clutching his leg while his opponent turned away, dropping his swords to the sandy floor.

‘
Bastaaaard!
I’ll fucking kill you for—’

He fell silent as Marcus turned back and stooped quickly to take his throat in a hard-fingered grip. When the younger man spoke his voice was cold and matter of fact.

‘I’ll remember that. And if we ever,
ever
, meet in the arena with iron in our hands, you’d be as well to cut your own throat before I get to you, or you’ll spend a long time dying.’

‘
Enough!
’

Sannitus stepped in between the two men, pushing Marcus away.

‘I can usually spot the real animals before they ever pick up a sword, but every now and then I miss one. Like you, you
monster.
’ Marcus stared back at him for a moment before realising from the man’s tone that the term was intended as a compliment. ‘What’s your name?’

Resisting the urge to declare his true identity, Marcus replied with the assumed name under which he served in the Tungrian cohort.

‘Marcus. Marcus Tribulus Corvus.’

Sannitus nodded slowly.

‘Perfect. Every man needs a name for the arena, something that the crowd can shout out when you stand before them with your sword red with blood. Names like Velox, or Flamma, short names that the crowd can punch out in a chorus.’

He pointed to Horatius.

‘You’ll be “Centurion”. And you, Dubnus is it? Yes, “Dubnus”, that’s a good name for a crowd, short and simple. But you, my lad, since I predict you’re going to give my two best men something new to think about, we’re going to need something powerful for the fans to get hold of. And I think “Corvus” will do very nicely.’

‘It looks as if the young fool’s actually decided to go into the ludus after Mortiferum then?’

Scaurus spread his arms wide with a helpless shrug at his glowering first spear. A messenger sent into the city soon after first light, when Dubnus had failed to make an appearance at the routine dawn officer’s meeting, had confirmed what the first spear had strongly suspected.

‘And in his place you’d have done what, exactly?’

The fuming first spear shook his head in exasperation.

‘And in his place, would you have left your wife and baby son to fend for themselves in the almost certain outcome of your death? Would you have taken your best friend into the bloody ludus to die with you?’

His tribune sat back in his chair, contemplating the ceiling for a moment.

‘I doubt he had any choice in the matter. You of all people know just how stubborn Dubnus can be – after all, he put up with you as a centurion for several years, I believe? And in any case, you may be slightly premature in your certainty that they won’t—’

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a soldier sent with a message from Otho, the day’s duty centurion. Saluting as smartly as he knew how to, mindful of his senior centurion’s ever judgemental eye, he stamped to attention and delivered his message in a breathless gabble.

‘Centurion’s respects, sir, and he has a man at the main gate asking to see you, sir! Man from the city, sir!’

Scaurus shot a glance at Julius to confirm that his subordinate was as bemused as he felt, nodding his assent. The first spear stood, directing an order to the waiting soldier.

‘Very well, Soldier, ask Centurion Otho to escort him here please. Dismissed.’

Once the enlisted man had repeated the stamping and saluting expected of him and left the room, Scaurus sat back in his chair with a thoughtful look on his face, while the first spear paced across the room to look out of its window.

‘That’s even quicker than I would have expected.’

Scaurus nodded thoughtfully.

‘Quite so. Let’s hope that this infers good news, shall we?’

Otho himself showed their visitor into the office, his battered face set in a concerned expression. He saluted and withdrew, his hard stare at the back of the man’s head speaking volumes for the worry that had spread across the camp once the two centurions’ absence had become apparent. Scaurus rose gravely from his chair and paced around the desk, offering the visitor his hand. The newcomer was smartly dressed in a formal toga, his boots shining from the frequent application of wax, and his thinning hair was cut short in apparent defiance of the current fashion. A slave waited behind him with the look of a man who was used to keeping his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open, and he watched in respectful silence as his master bowed to Scaurus and spoke in a confident tone that gave Julius the feeling that he was a man well accustomed to getting what he wanted.

‘Greetings, Tribune Scaurus. I can only apologise for making such an unexpected visit, and for not sending a message in advance to request a meeting. I am Lucius Tettius Julianus, procurator of the Imperial Dacian Ludus.’

Scaurus bowed in turn, his disarming smile inviting his guest to share his amusement at the unexpected nature of the visit.

‘Greetings, Procurator, and welcome to what is for the time being a small part of Britannia transplanted to Rome, at least until we receive orders to march north again.’ They clasped arms. ‘This is my first spear, Julius.’

The other man bowed to Julius, and the big centurion gravely lowered his own head in reply. Scaurus gestured to the spare seat and walked back around the desk to his own chair.

‘Please do take a seat. Might I pour you a cup of this rather acceptable wine? It’s diluted, of course, in due deference to the earliness of the hour.’

Julianus tipped his head in grateful acceptance of the offer, sipping at the drink and nodding his approval. Scaurus tasted his own cup, barely sipping the watered-down wine before raising questioning eyes to his guest.

‘So, Procurator, how might we be of assistance to you?’

The visitor took a ring from his finger, passing it to the tribune.

‘As I say, I hold the rank of procurator, reporting directly to the imperial chamberlain, and I am responsible for the management of the Dacian Ludus.’