Defender of Rome

V

‘Is there any improvement?’

Julia, the russet-haired Celtic slave who was Olivia’s closest companion, shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

He read something in her voice. ‘You do not approve?’

‘I approve of anything that makes her well again, but these people

… they are so different. We should trust in our own gods.’

That word trust again. Valerius wanted to believe, but everything he saw with his own eyes made him doubt. They had given Olivia the Judaean’s potion an hour earlier, but so far there had been no effect. A thought sent a shudder through him. Perhaps the gods were punishing him for his lack of piety and he was the reason Olivia lay there helpless, a pale shadow of the cheerful young woman she had been a few months ago. But if he believed that he would go mad. ‘We must do everything we can, whatever it costs.’

She nodded, and as she left she allowed her hand to touch his. He knew it was an invitation, but that had been a long time ago, and his life had enough complications. He slept for a while on a couch beside his sister’s bed until some inner sense detected movement. Olivia’s eyes opened and she looked up at him. This time recognition was instant and he saw the wonder in her face. But it wasn’t only at his presence.

‘I feel strange.’ Her voice was hoarse from lack of use and he quickly fetched a cup of water from the jug in the corner of the room. He felt a moment of panic. Strange? Had the Judaean poisoned her? When he placed the cup to her lips he was surprised when she raised her head to meet it, something she hadn’t been able to do for a week.

She surprised him again by gently raising her arm, wondering at her own ability to achieve the simple task. And again, by smiling at him. The old Olivia.

‘Is Father here?’ she asked. ‘I thought I heard the sound of his voice.’

He shook his head. ‘He is busy with the estate. They’re getting ready for harvest.’

‘I wish I could help with the harvest the way I once did,’ she said, the simple statement breaking his heart.

‘You will be able to soon. When you are properly well.’

‘I feel well now,’ she insisted, and attempted to raise herself to a sitting position.

He pushed her gently back. ‘One thing at a time, baby sister.’ Olivia smiled at the old endearment. ‘First we have to build you up. You need to eat.’ She looked at him as if food was an entirely new notion. He backed off. ‘All right. A little broth then?’

‘No. Please. It’s just…’ She shook her head. ‘It seems such a long time since I ate proper food. I’m ravenous.’

He called for Julia, who burst into tears when she saw Olivia awake.

Valerius watched his sister eat — a little boiled chicken breast with a ripe peach from the garden — and studied her. The change astonished him. A few hours earlier she had been an invalid; now, she looked almost capable of dancing. His joy was tempered by Joshua’s warning: the effects will not be permanent. Even so, this was hope and hope was something he hadn’t felt for many weeks.

When she had eaten, she insisted Valerius help her sit up. ‘I will have a conversation like a human being,’ she said. ‘I have had enough of being a corpse.’ She studied him as he had been studying her. ‘You are unhappy, Valerius. I can see it in your eyes.’

He shrugged with a little half-smile, but couldn’t find the words to tell her what he felt.

‘Me?’ she said, reading his mind. ‘You must not mind, Brother. I know I am dying.’ He opened his mouth to protest, but she put a finger to his lips. ‘No, do not deny it. Even though you have worked this magic today, I still feel myself fading. But do not be sad. I suffer no pain, only weakness. The gods are calling me, and when the time comes I will go willingly. All I ask is that you remember me at the lemuria. I would like to see Father again, but… I understand. But it is not just your little sister. I have seen it since you came back from Britain.’ She stroked his wooden hand. ‘Something changed you there, and not just this.’

They had never talked of it before, but a hollow feeling inside told him this might be his last opportunity. ‘I met a girl, but she is

… gone. I made a new life as a soldier and I miss it.’

‘Then be a soldier again. You are still young. Still strong.’ She picked up his left hand and ran her finger over the calluses he’d earned from the long hours of training with the gladius. ‘You were a good soldier?’

‘Yes, I was a good soldier.’

‘Then they will find a place for you.’

‘There is Father. He wants to see me in the Senate.’

She laughed, and it was like the tinkle of a delicate silver bell. ‘You will never be a politician, Valerius. The first time some greasy aedile seeking promotion tries to bribe you, you will throw him in the Tiber.’ Her face became serious again. ‘You cannot live your life for Father. You must find your own way.’

She lay back and he placed his hand on hers. He remembered her as she had been on the day she turned down their father’s marriage candidate, her eyes flashing with fire and filling the air with scorn. No wonder the old man was afraid to see her.

‘Tell me about Britain,’ she said. The request prompted a moment’s hesitation. He had never revealed the truth about his experiences in Britain, not even to Fabia. But, like the good sister she was, Olivia eased the path for him. ‘But only speak of the happy times.’

So he told her about the fine land, the forests and the meadows with their endless unnameable shades of green, the bounteous hunting and the pride of the legions; about his beautiful Maeve and her unscrupulous father Lucullus, and Falco and the defenders of the Temple of Claudius, and of Cearan and the fearsome Iceni warriors he had led.

‘He sounds very handsome,’ she said. ‘For a barbarian.’

‘He was. And a good man.’

‘If you serve in the legions once more, where would it be? Britain again?’

He shook his head. ‘Britain has too many memories for me, so not there, at least for now. There is always trouble on the Rhenus frontier and a good officer would be welcomed, even with one arm. Or up beyond Illyricum fighting the barbarians on the Danuvius. But the most likely place would be Armenia, in the east, where General Corbulo is campaigning against the Parthians.’

‘So Armenia it is, my hero brother. Tomorrow you must petition Nero for a position on General Corbulo’s staff and’ — her voice took on a fair imitation of their father’s pompous tones — ‘do not return unless you add new laurels to the name of the Valerii.’

He would have replied, but she lay back and closed her eyes. Within a minute she was in a deep sleep. He arranged her as comfortably as he could and kissed her gently on the forehead. Her skin felt fever hot against his lips.

On the way to his room he met Julia in the corridor.

‘Is she…’

‘She’s asleep, but I think the medicine is wearing off.’

Tears welled up in the slave girl’s eyes. ‘Please ask the barbarian doctor to help my mistress. If…’

He touched her arm. ‘You can ask him yourself. He has promised to visit, but don’t call him a barbarian. He might turn us all into frogs.’ The old joke made her smile. ‘And Julia?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Mistress Olivia said she thought she heard a man’s voice today. Have there been visitors you haven’t told me about?’

‘No, master,’ she replied. But she took a long time to say it.

Valerius rose before sunrise the next morning, the twelfth day of June and the third of Vestalia. At this time of the day the streets were cool, and by the time he passed the Temple of Vesta a long line of women were already waiting with their sacrifices to the goddess of the hearth. The festival was the only time the temple was open to any except the virgins who maintained the sacred flame, and then only to women and the Pontifex Maximus, Nero himself. The scent of baking reminded him he hadn’t broken his fast, but he smiled at the thought of eating the tasteless salt cakes the priestesses produced as tributes to the goddess.

The gladiator school was on the flat ground known as the Tarentum, outside the city wall on the west side of the Campus Martius. He turned off the Nova Via on to the Clivus Victoriae and then across the open space of the Velabrum until he could follow the river round to the old voting grounds. The stench from the Tiber gagged in his throat, but he knew he would become used to it, just as he would become used to the sight of the bloated corpses of dead dogs and deformed newborns floating in its sulphur-yellow filth. The river flowed sluggishly on his left and to his right the fading grandeur of the Pantheon and Agrippa’s baths were highlighted by the early morning sunshine.

By the time he reached the ludus a score of men were already sweating as they faced each other on the hard-packed dirt under the critical gaze of the lanista, the trainer who would hire out his troop to the editores who staged games for the Emperor or for rich patrons who wanted to impress their friends. Mostly they fought for show, but occasionally, if enough money was on offer, these men who shared barrack rooms and meals, and sometimes beds, would fight each other to the death. Valerius had once been a staunch supporter of the games, with his own favourite fighters, but now he stayed away. In Britain he had seen enough blood spilled for a lifetime.

Most of the gladiators were slaves, former warriors swept up by the Empire’s wars and spared the living death of the mines and the quarries for the entertainment value they promised. A few were unblooded: troublesome farm slaves sold on by their owners because it was more profitable than killing them and bought by the lanista on the strength of their size and fighting potential. Fewer still were the freeborn who fought of their own free will: debtors, gambling their lives to release themselves from some financial millstone, or men addicted to the thrill of combat and seeking the eternal fame that was a gladiator’s greatest prize. The odds were against them. Most would never find it, only a painful death squirming in their own blood and guts on the sand.

He saw Marcus, his trainer, working with two fighters in the centre of the practice ground and walked through the gate and into the shade of the barrack building to do the loosening-up exercises the old gladiator insisted upon. Most of the gladiators trained naked, but Valerius preferred to cover his modesty with a short kilt. He removed his tunic and carefully folded it on a bench by the doorway. A few of the men glanced at him, but none acknowledged him. He would never be truly welcome here among the living dead. He felt the tension rising inside him. He was ready. First, short runs to simulate attack and retreat. Then stretches and muscle movements. More runs. More stretches. Only when a man had broken sweat and could feel his breath searing his lungs and his heart ramming against his ribs was he ready for the fight. As he took a drink from the fountain a shadow loomed over him.

‘Not too much,’ Marcus warned. ‘I have a treat for you today.’

Valerius eyed him suspiciously. Every time he’d heard those words they had been followed by pain and humiliation. The trainer grinned, turning the scar that split his right cheek into a crevasse. Stocky and darkly handsome, despite the missing left ear which was a permanent memento of his career, he was the fastest man Valerius had ever met, with hands that could blind you with their speed.

He introduced the figure who walked up to join them. ‘Serpentius of Amaya.’ Valerius looked into eyes that hated you in an instant and a face that said its owner liked to hurt people. The narrow white seams that marked the shaven skull told of past battles won and lost. The man was thin and dark as a stockman’s whip and looked just as tough.

‘Serpentius,’ Valerius acknowledged, but the other only stared at him.

‘We call him Serpentius because he’s so fast. The snake, right?’ Marcus explained cheerfully. ‘A Spaniard. Even faster than me.’

Valerius picked up his wooden practice sword. ‘I might as well go home then.’ He spun round to bring his blade down on Serpentius’s upper arm, only to feel the point of the Spaniard’s own sword touching his throat.

Marcus howled with laughter. ‘Quick, eh?’

Valerius nodded, his eyes never leaving his opponent’s. ‘Quick.’

It looked like being a very long two hours.

The men around him practised with sword against net and trident, sword against sword and sword against spear. Valerius only ever used the short legionary gladius or the spatha, the longer cavalry blade. With the gladius, a man killed with the point; quick, brutally effective jabbing strokes and a twisting withdrawal that tore a hole in an opponent’s guts the size of a shield boss. With the spatha it was a combination of the razor edge and brute strength that could bludgeon a man to death or chop him to pieces. But today wasn’t about killing. They would use wooden practice swords and it was about speed and endurance, building strength and discovering weaknesses, his opponent’s and his own. Unless, of course, Serpentius decided differently.

They took their places in the centre of the training ground and Valerius shuffled his feet into the dusty earth to get a feel for its grip. His opponent carried only a sword, in his right hand. Valerius always trained with sword and shield; sword in the left, shield attached firmly to the carved wooden fist that served for his right. No point in strengthening his left arm by constant practice if he allowed his right to wither away. He would not be a cripple.

He felt Serpentius’s eyes on him. When he looked up the Spaniard was staring at him with the same expression he’d seen on the face of a half-starved leopard in the circus.

‘Ready?’ Marcus demanded.

Valerius nodded.

‘A legionary, eh?’ Serpentius spoke so quietly that only his opponent could hear. ‘Legionaries killed my family.’

‘ Fight.’

The practice sword was twice the weight of a normal gladius, but for all the trouble it gave Serpentius it might have been a goose feather. Somehow, the point was instantly past Valerius’s guard and only a desperate lunge with the shield knocked it aside and saved him from a bone-crunching thrust to the heart. Before he could recover, the point was back, jabbing past the shield at his eyes, his belly and his groin. He managed to parry the first thrust and block the second with the shield, but the third caught him a glancing blow on the inner thigh that would have unmanned him if it had landed square. Already the sweat was in his eyes blurring his vision, and he struggled to keep pace with the dancing figure beyond the shield. For the first five minutes it was all he could do to survive. He took hits to the shoulder and a strike that might have cracked a rib. But he fought on, spurred by pain and pride, never touching Serpentius, until gradually his senses came to terms with the speed of his opponent. His brain began to match the thrusts as they were launched, and the sword and the shield anticipated the Spaniard’s attacks.

Serpentius felt the change, and altered his tactics. Now he used his speed to wear Valerius down, always keeping him turning to the right so that the Roman’s sword could never reach him. Constantly changing the line of attack. Now high, now low. A painful crack on the ankle left Valerius hobbling for a few seconds, but the stroke was only a feint. Serpentius’s real target was the eyes. A practice sword might have an edge that wouldn’t cut a loaf of bread and a point barely worth the name, but it could still take your eye out, and Valerius saw more of the tip of Serpentius’s sword than he cared for. By the time Marcus called the first break he knew every splinter and notch intimately, and it was only good fortune that had saved him from being blinded.

He crouched down, his chest on fire, the breath tearing his throat. Marcus knelt beside him as the Spaniard stood a few yards away drinking from a goatskin and barely sweating.

‘You’ve got your sword in your left hand, but you still think like a right-handed fighter,’ the older man said. ‘You’re allowing him to dictate every move and you’re a yard slower than he is. If you keep going like this he’s going to kill you.’

‘Will you let him?’

Marcus let out a bellow of laughter. ‘He’s a gladiator. He could die in the ring tomorrow or the next day. He’s a slave and you are a fucking overfed, underworked lawyer. He wants to kill you, and what are they going to do to him if he does? It’s not a question of will I let him. Will you let him?’

Valerius nodded. ‘You’re right.’ He started to get up, but Marcus put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Don’t fight like a one-handed man, or a two-handed man. Fight like a killer.’

Serpentius heard Valerius laugh out loud, and wondered what the joke was. The Roman wouldn’t be laughing in another few minutes. He was tired of waiting. It was time to finish it.

Valerius waited for the command. Think like a killer. Don’t think like a cripple. Think like the man who stood before the bridge at Colonia and dared Boudicca’s hordes to come to him. Think like the man who slaughtered the bastards by the dozen. He remembered the tattooed champions, tall and proud, who’d fallen before his sword. He remembered a man with burning eyes who ran a hundred paces to kill him, but had died under his shield. Think like a killer.

‘Ready.’

Before Serpentius could move he smashed the shield towards the Spaniard’s body with all his weight behind it and felt the satisfying crunch as the layers of seasoned ash hit solid flesh. If the shield had been equipped with a metal boss he might have disabled his opponent, and as Serpentius retired he kept up the onslaught, always following and never allowing him to set his feet for an attack. He knew he couldn’t maintain this pace for long, but it was enough for now to keep him on the run and make an occasional touch with point or edge. Batter forward with the shield to pull in Serpentius’s sword, then twist to attack from his undefended side. Always moving. Dictate. Cripple the bastard if you get the chance. No. Kill him if you get the chance.

Serpentius was surprised by his opponent’s recovery, but not concerned. His feet would keep him out of serious trouble and he knew he was still going to win. A man carrying a shield had to tire before a man who didn’t. All he had to do was bide his time. He’d make the Roman pay for the bruises.

But the Roman was turning out to be tougher than he’d thought. Valerius was still moving when Marcus called the next break, even though he could barely speak when the former gladiator came to stand at his side and he didn’t dare crouch in case he couldn’t get up again. Instead, he leaned on his shield like a drunkard.

‘Better,’ Marcus said. ‘You’re wearing him down.’

Valerius smiled at the joke, but it hurt his eyes. Dried sweat caked them as if he was staring out of a salt mask. Above, the sun beat down from a cloudless sky and his flesh felt as if it was on fire. ‘If I don’t finish it soon he’s going to kill me.’

‘Then finish it.’

From the word of command, Valerius attempted the same tactic as he had in the second session, but this time it was obvious to everyone watching that he was too slow. The other fights had come to a halt as the gladiators were drawn to the epic, mismatched contest between the crippled former tribune and the born killer who hated every Roman. They whispered bets to each other and no man put his money on Valerius except old Marcus, who accepted the odds with the distracted air of a gambler who knew he had already lost. You could almost feel sorry for him.

Each time Valerius attempted to use the shield to pin Serpentius back, the Spaniard was able to skip clear and launch an attack from another angle. Time and again it appeared he had made the decisive strike, but somehow Valerius always managed to get sword or shield in the way, just enough to avoid what would have been a broken bone or gouged eye. But it couldn’t last. Serpentius was laughing now, mocking his opponent as a coward and a cripple, mimicking the staggering steps as Valerius attempted to stay on his feet. Then he saw his opening. It was the shield. Valerius had held it shoulder-high all the heat-blasted morning, his arm a single bar of agony and the pain in his stump long since transformed into a silent scream. Now the shield wavered and fell to one side and Serpentius swept past it with a snarl of pent-up frustration, the point of the heavy gladius aimed not for the eyes but in a killing blow at the throat that would leave Valerius choking on his own blood. At least the Spaniard’s mind told him he was past it. The Roman could barely hold the shield, never mind move it. So how could the upper edge be slicing towards Serpentius’s jaw, and his head be jolted backwards with a force that made the sky fall in and darkness come several hours early? When he regained consciousness he found he couldn’t raise his head and his throat felt as if it had someone’s boot on it. He opened his eyes and far above him at the end of the long pale slope of the shield was a red-eyed vision of Hades.

‘What is it you do with a snake, Marcus? Cut off its head?’

Serpentius heard Marcus laugh. The pressure on his throat increased and he said a choked prayer to Mars, at the same time cursing the fickle god for deserting him.

Valerius stared down at the pinned man. He only had to shift his weight to break Serpentius’s neck. But the killing rage was gone. With a grunt of effort, he lifted the shield from the Spaniard’s throat.

‘Die in your own time.’