Defender of Rome

XLV

A woman’s scream split the doom-laden silence between a pair of shockwaves.

Poppaea!

Valerius struggled to his feet, picked up his sword and stumbled towards the death trap of the house. Flames poured from the ground floor, evidence that at least one oil lamp had been upended to set the villa on fire. Tumbled pillars and broken statues added to the Stygian confusion in the corridors.

He ran blindly through the choking, smoke-filled darkness until he reached the room where he’d found her praying. It was empty, but a second scream drew him to the open window and out into a blizzard of falling tiles. One of the clay missiles hit his shoulder a glancing blow, but his mind was too focused to register the pain. He followed a path that took him downwards, towards the ocean. He guessed that there would be access from the villa to the sea. An estate of this size must have a harbour where fishermen delivered the day’s catch or favoured guests could be landed by boat. There would be a road and it was the road Valerius was looking for.

When the earthquake struck, Poppaea would have been terrified. He had sensed an immense well of courage within her, but the tortured writhing of the earth created a spastic panic that even the strength of her faith would not have been able to overcome. She would instinctively have sought refuge outside the walls. Yet the safety of the open air was an illusion. This was where Torquatus’s men would come, driven by those very same fears.

He found a gateway, the door standing wide, and ran through it into the open. The narrow road ran parallel to the cliffs and he almost didn’t see the glint of reflected moonlight. It caught the corner of his eye and he turned without thinking, abandoning the cobbled pathway for the ankle-breaking tussock grass of the cliff top. The glint he had seen was silver — the silver of a Praetorian officer’s sculpted breastplate. A hundred yards ahead, close to the cliff edge, he could just make out the purple sheen of Poppaea’s dress as she struggled with a dark-clad figure. Torquatus.

The Praetorian had Poppaea by the shoulder and was attempting to drag her back towards the roadway as she spat and scratched, her dark hair flailing around her head. Valerius saw Torquatus draw back his hand and whip it across Poppaea’s face. As she sank to her knees, stunned by the blow, he felt the rage rising inside him like a storm ready to break. He remembered Fabia’s sapphire eyes and saw them go dull. Lucina, her nobility crushed and driven beyond the edge of madness. The dying flutter of Ruth’s final heartbeat. His anger gave him new strength and he charged through the grass and bushes.

Torquatus’s head came up at the sound of a nailed sandal on stone and his lips drew back in a snarl as he recognized his attacker. He lifted his sword to meet the assault.

Valerius crabbed to his left, forcing Torquatus to turn with him, his sword in his right hand and his left still gripping Poppaea’s dress. The refusal to release his prisoner left the Praetorian’s flank open and Valerius was confident he could take advantage of the mistake. But Torquatus was no innocent. He had served in the legions, and five years at the centre of Nero’s court had taught him how to use power. He brought the edge of his blade within a hair’s breadth of the pale skin at Poppaea’s throat. ‘Make one more move and she dies here and now.’

Valerius froze.

‘I am the Emperor’s representative here,’ the Praetorian rasped. ‘Tonight I will present the traitor Poppaea Sabina to my lord along with the evidence of her guilt. When she watches the man Petrus and his ragged crowd of renegades put to the question I have no doubt she will exhibit that pleasing Christian trait of sacrificing herself to ease their pain. It will be most instructive, for her, and for you. Because I intend you to be the first to feel the kiss of the glowing iron.’

The words were confident enough, but Torquatus’s eyes kept flicking towards the house and Valerius knew the Praetorian commander was only bolstering his own courage. He was also bluffing.

‘You won’t find any help there, Torquatus. Your friends will be halfway to Rome by now.’ Valerius took a step forward just as another shockwave rumbled through the earth. It threw him off balance and the movement was exaggerated by his weakness. In the same instant Torquatus noticed the blood dripping from his opponent’s right arm and saw his opportunity.

The point of the gladius snapped out in a perfectly executed lunge that should have pierced Valerius through the body. In his mind, Torquatus was already withdrawing the blade in the twisting gutting stroke that would leave a man screaming for a merciful end. He was quick but not quick enough. The years of training on the hot sands of the ludus had given Valerius a gladiator’s instinct for survival. At the last second he pivoted and allowed the sword to slide across his body, so close that the razor edge sliced through the cloth of his tunic. A right-handed fighter would have been forced on the defensive, but the movement positioned Valerius to counter-attack with a rising backhand cut designed to take Torquatus’s head from his shoulders. The Praetorian cried out as the sword sliced towards his exposed throat, but loss of blood had slowed Valerius’s reactions and that gave Torquatus the heartbeat he needed to step back out of the arc of the younger man’s sword.

Valerius knew he had to finish the fight quickly. Every second left him weaker; each moment of delay made the outcome more certain. His legs felt as if they were moving through deep sand. Torquatus shimmered in his vision as if he was seeing him through a haze, now a giant, now a midget, but never clear enough or close enough to find with the point.

Poppaea stirred in the grass at the Praetorian’s feet and Torquatus laughed as he sidestepped another pathetic lunge of Valerius’s sword. ‘Not so heroic now, my friend.’ He circled away so that Valerius had his back to the crumbling cliff edge. ‘Just a wounded beast with nowhere to run.’

Without warning, he darted forward and forced Valerius to meet blade with blade, the clash of iron singing in the night. Torquatus was the stronger and faster now, and the younger man was forced to take another step back as the Praetorian hacked at his weakening guard. He felt the ground falling away beneath his feet and knew the cliff could only be paces away. A smashing blow numbed his fingers and the gladius dropped from his hand. Torquatus’s face twisted into that familiar mocking smile. One more attack and it was finished. Valerius might have succumbed to despair, but instead cold fury sharpened his mind. Death had no fears for him, but victory for Torquatus would mean death for those he loved. He would not allow that. He saw Torquatus’s eyes narrow the way a hunting lion’s do the instant before the charge. When he came, it was with a savage swing at his victim’s defenceless head, but in his eagerness the Praetorian had overlooked the young Roman’s artificial fist. The block was too feeble to stop the blade entirely and Valerius felt a line of fire slice across his cheekbone. But it gave him the opportunity he needed. He grabbed Torquatus’s tunic with the fingers of his left hand, and threw himself backwards. The Praetorian commander flailed desperately as their combined momentum vaulted him over Valerius’s falling body and the weight of his armour carried him beyond the cliff edge. Valerius watched the shrieking figure disappear into the darkness. His cry of triumph was as short-lived as it was pointless. For in killing his enemy he had also killed himself. The impetus he’d used to throw Torquatus was unstoppable, and now it combined with gravity to somersault him too towards the void. He felt the instant the world vanished beneath him and a moment of weightlessness which was the prelude to death. But his fall was short, sharp and ended with an agonizing tug that ripped through his wounded arm and tore the tendons of his right shoulder. He opened his eyes, surprised to be alive. The dusty earth of the crumbling cliff face stared back at him from a foot away. He twisted his head and looked upwards. The bindings for the leather socket had tangled among the roots of a small bush to halt his plunge. But for how long? His saviour was a very insignificant clump of leafless twigs and a single unwise movement or another shockwave would pull it free. Blood dribbled down his arm in a warm stream from beneath the cowhide socket. He could feel the life draining from him.

He allowed his head to drop and closed his eyes. The passage of time had no meaning, only the dreadful fire in his arm and shoulder. He couldn’t be sure how long he had been hanging when he felt the light brush of a hand clutching at his arm. He looked up into a pale face with wide, frightened eyes, half hidden by the dark hair that cascaded over them.

‘Leave me,’ he whispered. ‘Save yourself.’

‘No.’ The word was fierce, almost a snarl. Poppaea squirmed further over the edge, determined to get a better hold. ‘If I sacrifice you to save myself what does that make me in the eyes of my God?’

Valerius let out a groan. ‘Alive,’ he said. ‘And alive you can save the others.’

‘Petrus?’

He hesitated, but he couldn’t lie. ‘Not Petrus. Petrus must die to save the Judaeans, but you must live to save my father and Olivia.’ He felt the bush shift. ‘Please. All you will do is kill us both and you will die for nothing. Listen. There was a plot against you. Rodan led it. He came to the villa and threatened you. Tell the Emperor… tell him Torquatus heard of the plot and died a hero protecting you. Do you understand?’

‘But the soldiers will know the truth.’

He shook his head and another bolt of pain shot up his arm. ‘No. Rodan will have given them their orders. They were duped. They are leaderless now. Act like an Empress and they will say anything that will save their necks.’

Warm, salt tears dropped on to his face and he knew he had convinced her. The fluttering hands left his arm and he waited to die. When the new hand closed on his arm like an eagle’s talons he was already halfway to Elysium. He had a vision of Apollo reaching down from his chariot to pull him into the heavens, but when he looked up the savage, weathered face staring back at him was far from godlike.

‘You didn’t think you’d get away that easily,’ Serpentius growled as he hauled Valerius effortlessly to safety. ‘There’s still the matter of my outstanding wages.’

The last rumblings of the earthquake had subsided. Marcus and Serpentius used twisted sheets to lower their charges from the wreckage of the upper floor. The living and the dead.

‘Why?’

‘He died fighting to save your sister.’

Valerius stared down at the shrunken figure and felt a curious mixture of guilt and disbelief. Grief would come later, he knew, but for now an empty void occupied the space his soul normally inhabited. He pulled back the sheet that covered his father’s body. The old man’s face was set in an expression that mirrored the moment of his death: a frown of indignation, a grimace of pain. A single stroke directly to the heart, Serpentius said, from a soldier who knew his business, and had himself been cut down a moment later. The other casualties, including Heracles, Isaac and the dead Praetorians, were lined up alongside Lucius. Outside, Valerius could hear Poppaea coldly informing the surviving Praetorian cavalrymen that her word was the only thing that stood between them and a painful death at the hands of the Emperor’s torturers.

‘We couldn’t stop him. One minute he was as meek as a lamb and praying with the rest of them, the next he had a sword in his hand,’ Marcus explained. ‘He was a hero. You should be proud of him.’

‘He was just a harmless old man.’

‘Your father sacrificed his life for those he loved. What greater gift can a man give?’

Valerius stared at Petrus. At that moment he hated the Christian leader more than he had hated Torquatus.

‘My father died because he was foolish enough to follow you.’

Petrus studied him. The day had taken a toll on Valerius that even his father’s death didn’t explain. Did he realize how fearsome he appeared, this young fighter with the mark of his suffering stamped on the sharp planes of his face and the fresh scar still bloody on his cheek?

‘He came here for a reason,’ the Judaean pointed out gently. ‘He wanted to save your sister. Would you deny him in death something he risked everything for in life?’

Olivia lay deathly pale on the bed Marcus and Serpentius had placed by an open window. For answer, Valerius gently picked up his sister’s body and, despite the lancing pain of his injured arm, carried her towards the garden pool.

‘Who will be her sponsor?’ Petrus looked to the Christians, but a voice from the doorway answered him.

‘I will.’

Valerius turned to meet Poppaea’s steady gaze and Petrus smiled at her. ‘You understand what this means, my child?’

She nodded and took her place by Valerius’s side. As they walked, she said quietly, ‘Do you understand what this means, Valerius?’

He nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘We are linked, in life and in death, by faith.’

‘I am not a Christian.’

‘But you will always support Olivia?’

‘As long as she lives.’

‘Then that is enough.’

The water had drained away through a wide crack in the pool bottom, but the aqueduct had survived and a steady stream still poured over the artificial waterfall. Petrus went first and Valerius waited while Poppaea whispered the sacred words in his sister’s ear. When she pronounced Olivia ready, he took his place beside the Judaean. Belatedly, he remembered the questions Poppaea had faced.

‘She cannot answer for herself,’ he muttered. ‘And I cannot answer for her.’

Petrus the healer smiled his gentle smile. ‘Your father has already answered for her.’ He placed his hands on Olivia’s brow and Valerius felt his sister twitch in his arms as if some force had surged through her. He looked into Petrus’s face and saw fierce concentration there; the face of a man fighting with some troubled spirit, or perhaps with himself.

Eventually the Judaean was satisfied and Valerius carried his sister into the foaming cascade where the waters surged over them, sharp and cold from the mountain above. He heard Petrus repeat the words that had been spoken earlier for Poppaea. This time there was a subtle difference.

‘In the name of Jesus Christus cleanse these unworthy souls of their sins and take them into your house, in keeping with your Covenant. Write your law upon their hearts, place your almighty spirit within them and take their immortal souls into your keeping.’

His life had changed for ever.