Brigantia

IX

FEROX STOPPED, WRAPPED his cloak around his left arm and drew the gladius. Slowly, he began climbing the steps. He paused at the first corner, took a deep breath and then jumped around, sword back, ready to thrust. There was no one there. The stairs went up, turning again. He guessed this must be a small passageway used by staff rather than a route in and out for the audience. The timbers around him smelled damp and mouldy, and he guessed it was not cleaned too often. He stopped, listening, but could hear nothing apart from his own breath. After a moment he started walking up the stairs. The light was brighter now, which meant the cloud had broken and a moon close to full was bathing everything in silver.

Warily, his head emerged from the open trapdoor at the top of the stairs. Towering above him, he could see the dark outlines of the frames that carried the canopy raised over the top of the amphitheatre as shelter from sun and rain. There was no sign of anyone and he kept going until he was standing on the walkway used by the workers who operated the canopies and raised the flags and just kept an eye on the audience. The topmost tier of seats was just below, their backs against a four-foot-high solid fence.

The amphitheatre was silent, with no sign of life. Almost at the centre of the arena’s sand was a dark huddled shape. Ferox vaulted over the fence onto the seats. Still no one else moved. Whoever had tried to kill him outside must have known where he could go, so why were they waiting? He edged along past the bare seats, which always looked odd without the cushions the audience brought or hired for the day, and came to the wide stairs leading down towards the better seats and the edge of the arena itself. At least here he could move faster than he could in the narrow path in front of the seating. Slowly, crouching as a poor defence against any more arrows, he walked down towards the arena.

The clap echoed around the amphitheatre, unnaturally loud. Three times someone clapped, and only then did he see the darker shape in the shadows at the back of the box on the far side. On festival days, that was where the president of the games and his guests would watch the slaughter.

‘Who are you?’ a deep voice called out, the sound echoing even louder than the clapping. The words had a Gallic accent.

‘You call yourself Domitius Tullus,’ he shouted back.

‘Sometimes, but that was not the question. Who are you?’

Ferox glanced down. The arena was a good nine or ten feet below him. He could jump over the wall and drop onto the sand. Perhaps one of the gates onto the arena was open. Or he could take the same wide passageway that the audience would take to leave. Either way there would surely be someone waiting in ambush. He could not see a way to reach the box without giving Domitius plenty of time to escape.

‘Are you half-witted, boy? Who are you?’

‘Who is that?’ The dark shape down on the sand was obviously a corpse. For a moment the horrifying thought came that it was Sulpicia Lepidina, but then he dismissed it. She had not set this trap and he was a fool to have walked into it.

‘A man who was no longer of any use. Or just another sacrifice in this temple of blood.’ The echo was even louder down here. ‘But once again I must ask, who are you?’

‘Flavius Ferox, centurio regionarius.’ His voice broke as he spoke.

‘You do not sound sure.’

Something moved over to his right and behind. Ferox glanced back and saw someone emerge from the stairs over past the next cuneus of seating. The shape seemed odd, until the moon glinted off metal and he recognised the outline of one of the high helmets worn by some gladiators. A noise came from the other side and two more armed men were coming up the stairs over in that direction.

‘Whom do you serve, boy?’

‘The princeps,’ he shouted back. The arena seemed the best option as there was still no sign of anyone there. He wanted the three attackers closer, so that when he jumped down they would either follow as a group or have to spread out before they came down. ‘I have taken the sacramentum,’ he called, playing for time.

Domitius clapped again. ‘Well done. But which princeps? Does that really matter to you? Who is Trajan to you? Another lord could be a good deal more generous?’

‘I am listening.’ The men on his left were twenty paces away, both bearded and shaggy haired, wearing cloaks. One had a gladius and the other a short spear. The one over to his right was more cautious and his face was covered with the mesh mask of the high-topped gladiator’s helmet. He was a Thracian by the look of him, with curved sword and shield.

‘What do you most want?’ The question surprised Ferox and for a moment he hesitated. Then he put his cloak-wrapped left arm on the top of the fence between two of the decorative wooden pommels.

‘Don’t!’ yelled the Thracian, and it was a woman’s voice, but Ferox had already swung up and over. His hand held onto the top of the wall for just a moment, slowing his fall. The landing was harder that he would have liked, and his knees gave and he rolled onto the sand. His cloak had snagged on a pommel and been left behind. He pushed himself up and ran towards the box.

‘Kill him!’ Domitius’ voice boomed around the amphitheatre. With a painful grating of poorly oiled hinges, an iron barred gate opened. Ferox waited, but no rush of armed men appeared. He glanced behind him, but no one had followed him down. In the middle of the arena, he could see the corpse clearly and recognised Kopros, several great wounds to his chest and stomach, although most of the blood had soaked away into the sand.

The growl was low, but rumbled in a way that suggested size and strength. A lion was standing in the open gateway. He could hear it sniffing, no doubt smelling the corpse. It came padding forward, head searching from side to side and shoulders swaying. Steel clashed on steel somewhere up above and there were grunts of effort and pain, but Ferox kept his eyes on the great beast. He stepped back, slowly, wanting the dead Kopros between him and the cat in the hope it might choose the easiest meal.

The lion twisted its head back and growled, louder and even more menacingly this time, and another cat, without a mane appeared beside it. As they came into the arena they spread out, prowling across the sand, one either side.

‘Die, pig!’ The woman’s voice was gruff as she yelled the insult, and for a moment he turned, saw the spear as it flew through the air, going wild and slithering across the sand to stop seven or eight paces short of him. Gladiatrix or not, she could not throw a spear.

Ferox stepped to his right, towards the spear. The lioness roared. She was on that side, closer to the spear than he was, and he had no doubt that she was faster. He was not fond of the games and gladiators, but in his youth he had had a brief passion for the venatores and the beast fights. He had seen animals like this in the Flavian amphitheatre in Rome and elsewhere. The Silures called themselves the wolf people, but he was alone, without a pack around him, and lions were far greater killers than wolves.

The lion reached the corpse, sniffed for a while and then reached down and began to tear at his flesh. Before the games, animals like this were all but starved for days and had weeks or months of training to kill humans. Maybe these were new and the next festival some time away, for the lion seemed happy for the moment with this meal. The lioness showed no interest and simply watched him.

Ferox wished that he could reach the spear. Instead he crouched down on one knee, moving slowly in the hope that this would not provoke the beast.

The attack came without warning, as the lioness bounded forward, and he would never know whether he had provoked it or not. Ferox leaned into it, head bowed and left hand folded protectively in front, gladius held out as firmly as he could, the pommel hard against his stomach.

In an instant the animal leaped, and the sheer force and weight was far greater even than he had feared. He was knocked over and back, breath driven from him as the wooden pommel was slammed into his stomach. There was hot blood everywhere, soaking onto his hands, and a burning pain on his face and one shoulder, but his right hand still grasped his sword and he forced it as hard as he could, feeling it tear through muscle. The lioness hissed and then slumped onto him.

With effort, Ferox rolled the animal’s dead weight off and staggered to his feet. His tunic was badly torn and not all of the blood came from the cat. The gladius was buried up to the hilt in the carcase, stuck too hard to come free.

The lion paused in its meal to glare at him, but otherwise seemed unmoved. Moving slowly, head still reeling, he edged towards the spear. There was a crack, then another and a man in tunic and boots appeared in the arena, wielding a whip. Two more men came behind him, murmillones in big face-covering helmets, and each with a gladius and scutum like a legionary. The whip was swung again, snapping not far from the lion, which turned to roar angrily. Another crack and it grudgingly left its meal. Ferox reached the spear, bent over, almost fainted, and managed to pluck it up and ready it in both hands.

Outside a bell started to ring insistently. The lion remained surly and uncooperative.

‘Finish him!’ The man with the whip shouted, snapping the whip once more, but failing to make the animal attack.

‘Come on then!’ Ferox called back, hoping to hurry the gladiators. They ignored his taunting and came on slowly, one cautious step after another, moving apart to take him from two directions just like the lions. He flicked the spearhead to face each man in turn.

There were shouts now from outside. Ferox went back, guessing he had about twelve or fifteen paces before he would be up against the wall with nowhere left to go. His chest hurt with each breath, and he knew he did not have the strength left to rush one of them and kill the man before his comrade could intervene.

Back, still back, the gladiators following cautiously. Neither was as tall as him, but their shoulders were broad and their arms and legs thick like all professionals’. The ornate bronze helmets shone in the moonlight, their faces covered. Behind them the man with the whip watched, while the lion returned to its feast.

‘Come on, you bastards!’ he yelled, hoping to break their calm. They ignored him.

There was a distant banging followed by a crash. Then there were shouts, which sounded as if they came from another direction although it was hard to be sure down in the arena. Ferox guessed he was a couple of paces from the wall. He sprang forward, pelting at the gladiator on his left. The man stopped, shield up ready, and he skidded and nearly fell as he changed to head for the other man, trying to get on his unshielded right side.

With all his strength he stamped forward and jabbed with the spear, aiming for the man’s armpit, but he was moving and instead the spear caught him lower down, grazing his stomach, drawing blood from the bare skin. Then the gladiator had recovered, stepped back and was facing him, body covered by the shield. Ferox started to spin around to face the other one, who was coming on, then with a crack something grabbed his left arm. The man with the whip had him and jerked him off balance, and the one he had wounded punched with his shield, the dome-like boss smacking the centurion in the face and flinging him back. Ferox staggered, falling to his knees, and the other gladiator pounded him on the side of the head and he dropped, face down, on the sand.

An iron door swung back to open with a bang and there were shouts echoing around the arena. Ferox tried to push himself up, but his head was swimming and the best he could do was roll. A sword thrust into the sand an instant after he had moved, and then the gladiator was being forced back, massive blows from a sword taking lumps out of his shield. Gannascus followed, and for a big man his speed and balance were amazing. When the gladiator feinted and jabbed, the German was simply not there, and laughed as he beat the other man’s guard and slashed a deep gouge across his chest. Ferox almost felt sorry for the gladiator. He had fought the big man once, when they had first met, and only survived that because help had arrived and Gannascus had decided to leave. Two more blows and the gladiator was on the sand, desperately trying to hold in his bowels.

The other one was already dead, finished by Vindex and one of the Batavians, while Longinus had almost beheaded the man with the whip.

‘What in Hercules’ name is going on? Who are you?’ A stocky man, with a big belly but plenty of muscle, led half a dozen others armed with clubs and spears into the arena. They came from the same tunnel the lions had used. Already angry, he became incandescent when he saw the dead lioness. ‘My breeders. Which mongrel got them out of their pen?’

Ferox tried to get up, but was struggling until the grinning German lifted him to his feet. If these were animals kept for breeding rather than fighting, then it helped to explain their reluctance to kill.

‘I am a centurion,’ he said. ‘Acting on the orders of the legatus Augusti himself.’

‘Are you? Well, I’m not under your damned orders and you can go and shag yourself blind outside. I’ll have you in court.’

It took a moment before he began to calm, helped by the realisation that he was faced with five armed men, one of them huge and the rest big and handy enough. Ferox tried to explain that he was lured here by a guide, then ambushed.

‘We got one,’ Vindex said at that point. ‘The other got away, but I gave a good enough cut to the arm to stop him shooting a bow anytime soon.’

Ferox went on, telling how he came inside and found the murdered Kopros.

‘Knew him,’ the thickset man said. ‘Bit too fancy, but played his part when the statues of the emperors were paraded. Poor bugger.’

When he spoke about Domitius there was also recognition. ‘That old sod. He’s been sniffing about a few times in the last weeks. First he said he wanted to hire some of my boys, then buy some animals. Nothing came of it.’

‘Three gladiators attacked me.’ He pointed at the corpses. ‘Those two and I guess the one with the whip. The other one was a woman.’

‘Woman? What sort of ludus do you think I run? No women, no freaks, nothing but the real art of fighting. That’s what you get from Sempronius. Only the best.’

‘Are these men yours?’

‘If they’d been mine, lad, you wouldn’t be talking now. No, never seen ’em before. Probably someone’s bodyguards or from out of town.’

‘Anyone see the woman?’ Ferox turned to look at the others, but was greeted by shaking heads. ‘Any sign?’ he called up to Sepenestus, who with his bow had climbed up among the seats.

‘No. Couple of dead men and that’s it.’ Ferox wondered about that. By the sound of it they were dead before the archer arrived, which meant maybe the woman had killed them. If so, then she really was dangerous, but it would seem she was not working for Domitius.

‘What did she look like?’ Vindex asked. Even in the moonlight his leer was obvious.

‘Like she wanted to kill me. Who knows about her face? She had a Thracian’s helmet on.’

‘Sounds a good woman.’ Gannascus slapped him hard on the back and he almost fell over.

‘No women fighters,’ Sempronius repeated. ‘Not here, not ever. Go to the east if you want that sort of skin show. Or Rome in the old days, but not in Londinium.’

The sky to the south was glowing. ‘That’s a fire,’ Sempronius said without any obvious emotion. ‘Well, we can leave my formal complaint at turning the amphitheatre into a private battleground until tomorrow. You clear off, and we’ll clear up. I can think about that formal complaint in the morning.’

‘My name is Flavius Ferox of Legio II Augusta.’

‘I heard the name the first time, and the legion don’t matter. This is still a small town, sonny boy. If I want to find you, I’ll find you.’

‘Do you need a surgeon?’ Longinus asked as they left, having waited for the archer to come down and join them in the same tunnel Ferox had used to enter the place. It was hard to tell how long ago that was.

‘No, Philo can fix me up.’

‘He was the one who sent us,’ Vindex explained. ‘Said I was to follow if you slipped away. There was no sign of us, so he followed on his own, saw you were coming here, and by the time he got back we were just coming in. By the way, we may need some more money.’

‘Dice were crooked,’ Gannascus said, as if pained by the evil in the world. ‘Still, fight was good. I like it here,’ he added with an air of finality.

As they came outside and went past the buildings they could see the glow of at least three fires in different parts of the town.

‘That doesn’t look like an accident,’ Longinus said. ‘You sure you will be all right?’

‘Yes. Help me back to the billet. And thank you all. You saved me,’ he said, and meant it.

‘We all make mistakes,’ Vindex said, and the German roared with laughter.