The Emperor's Knives

5

‘Fuck me, look at that lot! Word must have got around!’

An older soldier among the volunteer barbers snorted at his comrade’s observation.

‘Of course word got a-fucking round, you daft bastard, that cock Morban’s only offered another day of cheap haircuts.’

A queue of men had already formed outside the shop, and as Morban unlocked the door he had to put out a beefy arm to hold back the throng as his men filed inside.

‘Just a moment, gentlemen, the lads’ll be ready to get cutting shortly!’ Holding up a hand to indicate that the man at the head of the queue should stay where he was, he ducked back into the shop, grinning at his men as they readied themselves for work. ‘Now can you see why I set the price low? There’s barbers all over the Aventine standing wondering where all their customers have gone, while we’ve got as much work as we can cope with and more. You boys are going to make a decent purse today, just as long as you can keep up with the demand, so no fucking about with the finer points, just get the punters neat and tidy, get them out of the door and put the next arse on your seat.’

He turned back to the door, gesturing to the first customer with a beaming smile.

‘Come along in, sir, come and get your hair barbered in the latest style for next to nothing!’

Once his men were hard at work, he wandered off to buy a small pie from the baker two doors down, but before he’d made half a dozen paces he found himself in the middle of a small knot of traders, all eager to make his acquaintance. The baker himself took the surprised soldier by the arm, clapping him on the back with a beaming smile of welcome.

‘It’s wonderful to have you here! My business has been excellent this morning, with all these men waiting for a haircut and fancying a bite to eat with the money they’re saving by coming to your shop!’

The other shopkeepers agreed noisily, and Morban enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling of basking in their approbation until, one by one, they drifted away with promises of friendship and offers to provide any help he might need in the future. At length only one man was left, the barbers shop’s next-door neighbour, a quiet man who introduced himself as Albanus and who sold pots made, he told Morban, by his wife and son in the back room. The potter fixed him with a knowing look.

‘I don’t sleep too well, and I sometimes sit in the window up there and watch the street.’ He pointed up at the room above the shop. ‘It’s not as if I have anything else to do. I saw your lads with the spades carrying in what looked suspiciously like weapons last night, when they were finished digging out that new cellar of yours. None of my business, mind you, and I won’t go blabbing, but you know there’s a death penalty for being caught in possession of anything longer than a kitchen knife in the city?’

Morban shrugged, warming to the man but unwilling to trust him just yet, and the potter laughed dryly.

‘Don’t blame you for keeping silent. No matter, you’re good for business and I ain’t the squealing kind. One more thing though, have you had a visit from One Eyed Maximus yet?’

He laughed at Morban’s mystified look.

‘You will soon enough then, now that you’ve got so many customers making so much noise. He’ll be along for his share right enough.’

‘His share?’

‘Aye, ten per cent if he likes you, more if not. I always give him a smile and make out how pleased I am to have someone watching over my business, even though I doubt he’d lift a finger if I was being robbed, and that way he just taxes me at the standard rate.’

Morban mused for a moment, rubbing his chin.

‘Best not to call him a thieving bastard then?’

Albanus laughed again, and winked at him.

‘Best not. Not unless you want to be bringing those swords up out of the cellar.’

‘You’ll have to make out that you’re Pilinius’s guests, and avoid going anywhere near the man himself for fear of being exposed. No doubt he’ll have other things on his mind …’

With predictable punctuality, Excingus had made his way to the Tungrian barracks on the Ostian road the next morning, arriving soon after the troops had been sent to their usual training session. He’d been less interested in the details of the gang leader’s demise, however, than in alerting them to the prospect of an opportunity to bring retribution to the third man on their death list. Reminding them of the senator’s grisly reputation for playing bloody and repulsive games with the survivors of the households destroyed by the Knives, he’d started to lay out the details only to find himself interrupted by Scaurus.

‘You told us before that it was going to be nigh on impossible for us to get into one of Pilinius’s parties, and now you’re talking about it as if we’re going to stroll in?’

The former grain officer smiled tightly, holding up a small leather pouch which Julius took from him and emptied onto a spade-like palm. A pair of square metal tokens fell from the bag, unremarkable silver plaques ornamented with a design too intricate to be discerned at first glance.

‘What are they?’

‘They are your tickets, Tribune, to enter the grounds and house of Senator Tiberius Asinius Pilinius. Tonight, for one night only, you have the opportunity to witness the sort of games that the senator and his friends like to get up to in private and, if you’re lucky, to deal out whatever justice to him you think fitting.’ He raised a warning finger. ‘Although you’ll have to be very good indeed to achieve that laudable aim and get out unharmed. The senator takes no risks with his safety, especially when his closest and most powerful friends come out to play, so you’ll be searched most comprehensively before being allowed to enter the grounds. Any weaponry you use will therefore have to be taken from the guards.’

‘I see.’

Scaurus took one of the tokens from Julius, initially frowning at it as he tried to work out exactly what the design that adorned the silver surface represented, then recoiling with a grimace as he worked it out. He tossed it to Marcus, who looked down and momentarily closed his eyes as he made the same realisation.

‘So exactly how did you come by these tickets to enter the senator’s night of debauchery?’

Excingus’s face took on the same obdurate look he’d assumed the last time they’d asked him to reveal his sources, but before he could speak, Scaurus unleashed Marcus with a twitch of his head towards the informant, and the young Roman was across the room and at his throat, pushing him back against the building’s wooden wall with a strength that Excingus had not suspected until it was too late. Scaurus and Julius stepped in close behind him, each of them regarding him dispassionately.

‘You’re not under Senator Sigilis’s protection now, Informant, and I’m closer than you might suspect to turning you over to the delicate mercies of this rather frustrated centurion. You’ll recall that he has a strong motivation to treat you with an equal lack of compassion to that you displayed towards his pregnant wife? So I suggest that you unlock that head full of secrets just a little, and be as frank as you can possibly be about what we’ll be walking into tonight, if we take up this last-minute invitation to put our heads into the lion’s mouth. It’s either that or …’

Marcus reached down to his belt and pulled a knife from its sheath, raising the curiously patterned iron so that Excingus could see it. His voice was cold, that of a man barely holding on to his temper.

‘This dagger has a curious history. It was originally part of a larger weapon, a sword made with an exotic iron from the east and forged under the hammer of a smith with incomparable skill. That sword would cut through armour like cleaving smoke, and when I took it from the man who was using it for evil purposes, I had it melted down and reformed as a series of knives, of which this is one. Do you see the parallel with yourself perhaps?’

Excingus snorted his disdain.

‘I tell you everything, or you’ll use it to cut me to pieces?’

‘Yes.’

The informant looked into his eyes, and realised with a start that, if anything, the centurion would probably rather he remained silent. He sighed.

‘Very well. You know all too well that I’m a pragmatist, especially with a blade at my throat. My man inside Pilinius’s domus is his secretary.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow at the informer.

‘You’ve suborned the man who has every tiny detail of the senator’s dirty little games in his head? That really is quite impressive, Excingus. I may not like you, but I’m forced to admit that as informants go you’re straight out of the top drawer. What did you do, pay him or threaten him?’

‘That’s not rel-’

Marcus leaned forward and glared at Excingus, his hard-eyed stare speaking volumes as to his desire to take his knife to the man, and Scaurus smiled grimly at the informant’s involuntary twitch of fear.

‘Oh, it is relevant, I’m afraid. What are we to do should your man’s resolve weaken at a critical moment, if he realises the inevitable consequences of his betrayal if we fail? It’ll be too late to ask questions once we’re at Pilinius’s mercy, won’t it? So I need to know what your leverage was, Informant, in order that I can use it to put him back in line if he shows any sign of turning on us. Without that we’ll have no choice but to turn down this opportunity, and with that your usefulness to us will be at an end.’

The informant looked at him, then back at Marcus.

‘I have no choice, I see. Very well.’ He sighed, raising his eyes to the room’s ceiling at being forced to disclose his secrets. ‘I discovered, by means of tailing the man when he left the senator’s estate on the private business that Pilinius allows him, that he has children by a slave in another senatorial household. It seems that their owner gave him to Pilinius in repayment of a debt when the senator decided that he needed a rather more capable secretary. They live with their mother, whose owner is a relatively soft man and has not yet sold them on. It seemed likely to me that this man would want to purchase not only his own freedom, but that of his woman and the children, and so I realised that I had two means of controlling him.’

‘Money and the risk of betrayal?’

Excingus smiled at Marcus, nodding his head.

‘You know, Centurion, I think you’d make a very capable grain officer. Yes, money to swell the funds with which he hopes to buy their freedom, and the threat that Pilinius might come by the information that his secretary has children. The senator’s more than clever enough to realise that his man is compromised by their existence, were he ever to discover them, and quite sadistic enough to claim them from his colleague as the secretary’s blood and therefore his property as the man’s master. And what he might do with them once he had power over them … well, that’s enough to give any man pause for thought.’

The tribune thought for a moment.

‘So these tokens …’ He shot a look of disgust at the metal square resting on his palm. ‘Will gain us entry to Pilinius’s villa?’

Excingus nodded.

‘Not just into the house, there’ll be plenty of people there who are only invited to attend the party that’s the front for the real event. After all, there are only a very few men who gain access to the senator’s real entertainment, the rest are just invited to provide the cover of an innocent night of debauchery for those select few.’

‘I see. That explains the rather explicit imagery on this …’

He held up the shining piece of silver, and Excingus shook his head.

‘Don’t let that rather simple picture fool you. The reality of what the senator and his friends get up to is a good deal worse.’

‘Worse?’

Excingus shook his head, his stare withering.

‘Either you’ve been away from Rome for too long or you’ve been lucky enough in the past to avoid the sort of people that Pilinius associates with. If you’re going to do this thing then you’d better be prepared to witness some sights that you might have preferred never to have seen.’

Marcus shook his head, his teeth bared.

‘I’ve walked battlefields after the fighting’s done with. I’ve disembowelled, decapitated, crippled and maimed. I’ve left barbarian warriors to die in agony, crying for their mothers. The men who killed my father not only destroyed my family’s honour, they condemned me to a life of marching from the scene of one massacre to the next, listening to my soldiers weeping and thrashing about in their sleep at the horrors they have seen and done to other men, and those inflicted on their comrades. Trust me, nothing you could show me in this city comes anywhere close to the spectacular displays of massed slaughter in which I’ve played my part.’

The informant shrugged equivocally.

‘We’ll see. And now gentlemen, perhaps I ought to talk you through the domus’s layout?’

The first gang members arrived an hour or so before dusk, strolling down the street with bemused stares at the queue outside the barber’s shop. They stood for a moment taking in the scene, then walked in past the queuing customers, none of whom, Morban noted, cared to protest about them jumping the line of waiting men.

‘There’s a queue I’m afraid, gentlemen, you’ll have to wait your turn with the men outside.’

The taller of the two bent to address Morban with a condescending smile, the happy expression somewhat marred by his empty left eye socket. Putting his heavily scarred knuckles on the desk behind the standard bearer’s desk, he sneered into his face.

‘If we wanted a haircut, Fatty, then we wouldn’t be queuing for it, and there ain’t one of your customers would have the balls to stand in our way. But, as it happens, we ain’t come for a haircut, we’re here to give you one.’ He looked around at his comrade with a smirk of pride at the joke. ‘Ten per cent of your day’s take, in return for our constant vigilance against any threat to your business. You’d be amazed what sorts of nastiness can happen when a shopkeeper chooses not to purchase our services.’

Morban nodded quickly.

‘Sounds fair to me.’ He reached into the desk’s drawer, dropping a generous handful of coins into the gangster’s outstretched hand. ‘We’ve done alright today, so here’s your share. Might I know who we’re doing business with, just in case anyone else comes round trying to extort the money from us that we’ll need to make payment to you?’

The big man grinned.

‘We’re the Hilltop Boys, old man, and there’s no bastard going to dare put their feet on our turf. My turf! One Eyed Maximus rules this part of the Aventine, and everyone round here knows it!’ He leaned closer, bending down to whisper in Morban’s ear. ‘I like to cut things, Fatty. More particularly I like to cut people. And when anyone … anyone … denies me something I want, well, I cut them, don’t I? I give them a simple choice, see, I tell ’em that I can either blind ’em, or cut out their tongues, or just make the unkindest cut of them all.’

He grinned at Morban, challenging the other man to ask the question.

‘You don’t mean …?’

‘Oh yes. If they want to keep on seeing and talking then I just take the end off their cock. Just an inch or so, unless they really upset me, in which case I leave ’em just enough to piss with. Something to remember me by, and to make sure they never deny me anything ever again. So, want to stay on the right side of me, do you, Fatty?’

The standard bearer nodded slowly.

‘Seems I do.’

‘Once again it appears that an opportunity for my revenge has passed me by, Informant.’

Excingus looked impassively across the gardens, ignoring the senator’s bodyguards.

‘I take it, Senator, that you’re referring to the news of the death of a certain well-known gang leader?’

Albinus slapped the arm of his seat, drawing glances from the nearest of the people walking through the gardens. Excingus shifted uneasily, lowering his head in apparent close examination of the tablet in his hand.

‘Of course I’m referring to the murder of yet another of the Knives! Brutus was found dead in the river this morning, his death having apparently been caused by a wooden pole rammed right through his body! Are you telling me that wasn’t Aquila’s work!?’

The informant shook his head.

‘I can’t tell you anything of the kind, although I’ll point out to you that Brutus is reputed to have been at war with another gang leader, some nasty piece of work who seems to be more than capable of such an act. I should also tell you that Brutus had a reputation, I’ve since discovered, for going into hiding whenever that sort of inevitable turf war started, and not coming out until the matter was resolved. Since none of my contacts had the faintest idea where he might have taken refuge, it does cross my mind that he might simply have been discovered by his rival? Sometimes the most obvious answer is the most obvious for a reason …’

He sat in silence and waited for Albinus to think it through.

‘Coincidence? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

The informant wrinkled his brow.

‘I’m not trying to tell you anything, Senator, I am simply explaining that I knew as little as you did about Brutus’s whereabouts as everyone else in the city, with the apparent exception of the man who leads the Dog Eaters’ assorted thugs and murderers. I’d imagine that Scaurus and Aquila are equally frustrated!’

Albinus opened his mouth to speak again, his expression that of an unhappy man.

‘But …’ The informant neatly forestalled his employer’s next complaint. ‘Given that you pay me for information, I do have news of an event which, I suspect, will bring your former colleagues in the military to the scene like flies on shit, and provide you with the perfect opportunity. You’ll be aware, no doubt, of Senator Tiberius Asinius Pilinius?’

Marcus and the tribune made their way into the city in the early evening with a discreet escort of Cotta’s men, their formal clothing immaculate and their skins ruddy with health after a long session in the barrack’s bathhouse. At the domus’s front gate they parted company with their bodyguards, showing the tokens that Excingus had procured for them to the men controlling admission to the house’s grounds. A heavy-set bruiser with a missing eye looked hard at the metal squares, nodding at them with a knowing look.

‘Two for the inner hall!’

One of his comrades gestured to the house.

‘This way sirs.’

The party was clearly already in full swing, noisy revellers having spilled out onto the wide terrace that fronted the house, and as the bouncer led them round to the left side of building a couple ran across their path and into the garden, the female looking over her shoulder at her partner with a lustful expression. The sounds of laughter and the grunts and moans of sexual activity could be heard from the gloom of the house’s grounds, clearly left unlit to facilitate privacy in these encounters, and Scaurus muttered a quiet aside to Marcus.

‘It’s a clever tactic, to hold parties where anyone can pair off with anyone else in complete privacy, and I’d imagine Pilinius buys up half the city’s most expensive prostitutes for the occasion. Any allegations about whatever it is that he gets up to will instantly be suppressed by the more powerful guests, even if they’re not involved in his perversions, for fear of their own little indiscretions coming to light.’

They entered the house through a side door, finding themselves confronted by another half-dozen doormen. Knowing what to expect, they stood still and allowed the senator’s men to run expert hands through their clothing and across their torsos and limbs.

‘They’re clean. Take ’em through.’

The man who stepped out to escort them into the house was at odds with the muscular and hard-faced doormen, with the look of someone more accustomed to giving orders than taking them, but lacking the physique to impose his will upon others. He took their tokens and examined them both carefully before exchanging a knowing glance with Scaurus, and Marcus guessed that this must be the senator’s duplicitous secretary. Having led them down a narrow corridor, with the sounds of merriment leaking through the doors on their right, he paused at a flight of stairs, speaking to them in an urgent whisper.

‘I wasn’t sure if the tokens I gave to Excingus were going to come back tonight, but it seems that you’re intent on whatever it is that you’ve come for. Are you thieves?’

Scaurus nodded, and Marcus kept his mouth shut as the tribune spun out the story they had agreed with the informant earlier in the day.

‘We know that your master keeps his greatest treasures out of public view, the items that he picks up when he’s working for the emperor?’

The secretary’s eyes widened.

‘You know about …?’

‘We know everything about it, friend. Everything.’

The other man frowned his incomprehension.

‘But if you know everything, then you’ll know that all Senator Pilinius takes from their houses are-’

‘There you are, Belenus, I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ A bulky, toga-clad figure with a shaved head was coming up the stairs with grunts of exertion. Asinius Pilinius sent me to find you, and to tell you that his guests are ready for the show to begin.’

The secretary bowed respectfully.

‘As you say, sir. I’ll just escort these two gentlemen to the lower level and then-’

‘No need! You go and get it all started, and I’ll take them downstairs!’

Without any choice in the matter, Belenus bowed respectfully, turning away to his duty.

‘Yes, Senator, as you wish.’

He made his exit, leaving the two men to the newcomer. Marcus watched him as he hurried away, returning his fearful backward glance with an impassive stare. Climbing the remaining stairs, the newcomer stuck out a hand, clasping both men in turn with a firm if slightly moist grip.

‘Now, gentlemen, on behalf of Asinius Pilinius, welcome to this entertaining little event! I’m Titus Pomponius Avenus, one of his closest friends and, I should add, one of the original members of this select group of men. You’re new to this, I presume? I don’t recognise your faces from any of the previous times we’ve gathered to celebrate!’

Scaurus inclined his head with just the right degree of respect.

‘Indeed, Senator, this is the first time that we’ve been invited to join in the fun.’ Avenus raised an eyebrow and, knowing that any failure to convince the man as to their bona fides might lead to suspicions that would unravel their cover story, the tribune took on a confiding look. ‘In truth, Senator Pilinius took pity on the pair of us when I expressed an interest in his events, having heard of them from a mutual friend. He issued us both with an invitation, accompanied by clear instructions to keep ourselves to ourselves on this occasion.’

Avenus nodded knowingly.

‘And that’s sagacious advice, I’d say. He won’t want you bothering his more distinguished guests, not until you’ve proven yourselves as worthy members of our rather exclusive group. What is it that you both do with yourselves?’

Scaurus smiled modestly, bowing again.

‘Allow me to introduce myself and my colleague. I’m Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, and this is Marcus Tribulus Corvus. We both have the honour to serve the empire as legion tribunes. Having recently returned to Rome from Britannia, where shows such as the one the Senator is hosting tonight are by no means a rarity, I was musing to him only last week how much I missed a little, shall we say, unusual entertainment?’

The stout patrician guffawed.

‘So you’re not such new boys to our little games after all! I’ll wager that you get a good deal more variety than we do though, what with all those exotic barbarian women, eh?’ Marcus grinned, showing his teeth in an expression that was perilously close to becoming a snarl, but the other man was too far gone in his own fantasies to notice such a subtlety. ‘I’m not sure that we’ve got anything quite as exciting as the entertainment you’ll have seen in Britannia, but tonight’s entertainment promises to be quite special. The Senator procured a large number of performers only a week or so ago, enough for everyone here to participate. And since I’m a staunch supporter of the army, I feel it my duty to take you both under my wing, so to speak. Tonight, gentlemen, you will be my companions. Come along then!’

He turned and made his way back down the stairs with the two men following behind, and after twenty or so steps, led them into a large, torchlit room.

‘Quite an ingenious little play room, wouldn’t you say? There’s no way into it other than the staircase we just came down and a door that leads into the grounds at the rear of the house, and the wall between this and the rest of the house is so thick that I doubt you could hear a trumpeter on the other side if he were blowing fit to burst!’

Marcus looked back at the entrance to the staircase, noting that a massive iron gate stood ready to swing into the opening, with a heavy wooden bar leaning on the wall beside it. He looked about him, frowning as he recognised a pattern in the tiled floor.

‘Is that a robbers board?’

Avenus grinned.

‘I should have expected a military man such as yourself to have recognised it. Yes, we don’t always use it, but tonight it seems we have enough participants to provide all of the pieces for a game. Isn’t that exciting? Ah, and there’s our host!’

They followed his pointing hand to find Pilinius deep in discussion with a pair of men who looked vaguely familiar to Marcus. Scaurus nodded, looking about him with the air of a man keen not to attract attention to himself.

‘Well that’s been very kind of you, Pomponius Avenus. We’ll just take up a position here and watch from the sidelines, as it were. I don’t want to transgress on the terms under which we were granted our very kind invitation.’

Avenus bridled.

‘Nonsense! I’m sure that Asinius Pilinius simply meant for you not to interrupt any conversations whose participants don’t actually know you. He may be busy now, but he’ll find the time to greet you soon enough, I’ll make sure of that! After all, what sort of host would fail to grant some recognition to his guests, however brief. In the meantime, let’s get into a good place for the show, shall we? You can repay the favour by telling me all about these “entertainments” of yours in Britannia!’

Julius nudged Cotta, pointing at a wagon coming towards them down the street. They were in the doorway of a shop whose owner had long since closed up for the evening.

‘What do you reckon?’

The former centurion peered around the doorway’s stone arch.

‘Could be. I’d have expected more than one wagon though, if they’re going to have enough slaves for a decent …’

He stopped talking as a second vehicle rounded the same corner and followed the first one up the shallow hill, watching as it ground along the considerable length of the wall that separated Pilinius’s domus from the street. At a prearranged signal, the gate for which they were heading opened, and the first cart rolled inside while a pair of armed guards strolled out into the street, looking up and down the hill with the bored look of men doing a job which had never once given them a reason to draw their weapons.

‘It’s definitely tonight then.’

Julius nodded, watching as the second wagon pulled into the domus’s grounds and was lost to view.

‘Looks that way. You’d better warm your lads up.’

‘Distinguished guests, your attention please!’

Pilinius stepped into the middle of the hall’s floor, his beaming smile playing on the men gathered about him as he raised his hands and turned slowly in a full circle, in the manner of a showman about to unveil his latest exotic beast from beyond the empire’s edge. Scaurus edged to one side, putting another man between himself and the senator, grateful for the interruption to Avenus’s incessant and increasingly pointed questions.

‘Gentlemen, it is a delight to see you all gathered here again, ready to celebrate what I think you’re going to find is a quite unparalleled collection of subjects for tonight’s entertainment. Tonight, my friends, we will not be sampling the usual assortment of criminals, runaway slaves and failed gladiators that is our usual fare. No!’

He looked about him with a triumphant expression, raising his arms to encompass the men gathered before him.

‘No, my friends! Tonight we shall be feasting upon the very best that the empire has to offer our very particular tastes! For tonight, for one night only, we will enjoy the fruits of …’ He paused dramatically, milking his audience. ‘The fall of the house of Perennis!’

His audience looked on in what Marcus could only construe as unabashed delight, men whispering to their fellows with huge grins plastered across their faces.

‘Oh yes, we’ve enjoyed the leavings of other great houses in our time. Few of us that were present will ever forget the sport that we had from the disgrace and execution of Senator Appius Valerius Aquila!’ Marcus froze at the words, willing himself not to leap forward and attack the man as Pilinius continued his speech. ‘But tonight, gentlemen, we have a feast to surpass even that epic Bacchanalia! Behold, our stars of the evening!’

A dozen men clad and armed in the same manner as the doorman on the floor above hustled a large group of women forward and into the circle of torchlight in which the senator was standing. Half of them were dressed in white, the others in black, and the purpose of the chequered robbers board worked into the hall’s floor became all too obvious.

‘Here you see before you Sextus Tigidius Perennis’s wife …’ A weeping woman was led forward by a pair of his men, forced to her knees and presented to them, the men gathered around her muttering their approval as Pilinius ripped open her thin tunic to reveal her breasts. He cupped one of them, squeezing the dark-skinned nipple between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Who among you doesn’t want to sample this lady’s charms, especially given her rather exotic birthplace?’

‘She’s a Dacian, you know.’ Avenus was whispering to the man next to him. ‘Perennis always used to boast that she was a wild animal in bed …’

‘And here!’ A girl was led forward, barely out of her childhood. ‘The Praetorian Prefect’s daughter by his previous marriage, young and unsullied! One of you will be taking her virginity tonight! And here, the lady’s handmaid, her hairdresser, her seamstress, and a large number of female household slaves …’ Pilinius paused for a wave of approving comments to die away. ‘Yes, gentlemen, enough women for nearly every one of us to get his prick wet before the night’s done! And for the rest …’ He grinned around him evilly. ‘I have a smaller number of the younger and more attractive male slaves from the Perennis household.’ He tapped the blade of the dagger sheathed at his waist. ‘And if you’re not inclined to a shapely boy, then you’ll know what to do with them!’

The men gathered about him laughed, exchanging excited glances that spoke volumes to Marcus as to their intentions towards the captives.

‘So, honoured guests, who wants to play robbers!’

A roar of approval greeted the question, and the guards started hustling their captives into position on the game board.

‘And now, young man, tell me more about these shows of yours in Britannia. Making captured warriors fight each other in the legion arenas is all very well, but it’s not the most intimate of entertainments, is it? What about the women, the female members of the aristocracy, eh? What about the tribal kings’ daughters? You must have had some fine sport with them?’

Marcus stepped forward, inclining his head deferentially and asking their escort the only question he could think of to distract the senator’s gimlet-like attention from Scaurus.

‘Forgive me, Pomponius Avenus, but I’m a keen robbers player. Which rules will we be using tonight?’

Avenus frowned.

‘Rules? Who the fuck cares about rules? It’ll be the usual, I expect, pieces removed by being bracketed to either side by the enemy, the king captured by being surrounded …’

The younger man flicked a glance at the massive playing board, seeing that the guards had positioned Perennis’s wife on the square usually taken by the white king, one man mockingly placing a rough wooden crown on to her head. The man playing the white side then stepped onto the board and pointed to one of the terrified slaves, indicating for her to be moved two spaces forward. A pair of the senator’s men took an arm apiece and forced her to move to the appointed square, and Avenus barked a harsh laugh.

‘Look at the stupid bitch, she clearly doesn’t have a clue about the game! The most fun comes when you get a decent player as one of the pieces on the board, as you can imagine. Once one or two of them have been dragged away, then we find out which of the remaining pieces can actually play the game! They’re the ones looking about them, working out who’s likely to be next to be taken, and we even once had a man who started shouting advice at the player controlling his side of the board!’ He laughed uproariously. ‘As you can imagine, our man immediately started playing to lose, which caused the idiot to become ever more hysterical! It was too, too funny for words!’

Marcus leaned in closer to the senator.

‘And when the pieces are taken?’

The patrician smiled at him approvingly, raising his own token and leering at its depiction of a woman being sodomised by a toga-clad attacker at knifepoint.

‘Ah, so you see the point of the game! When a piece is taken, young man, a lot is pulled from that bag Pilinius’s secretary is holding, lots corresponding to the numbers on the tokens that gain us entry. If your number is called then you are free to enjoy the piece that’s been taken from the board in any way you like. Any way at all!’ He smirked at the younger man. ‘I don’t know how you did it in Britannia, but here in Rome the custom is to screw the backside off her, or him, in any way you like. And after that …’

He drew a finger across his throat.

‘Of course, it doesn’t have to be a quick death, that’s all down to individual choice.’ He slid a slim dagger from his toga with a sly smile, displaying the evilly sharp blade before putting it back in the sheath concealed in his sleeve. ‘My preference is to open them up and take wagers on how long it’ll take them to die.’

Marcus stared at him, evidently aghast.

‘You murder them?’

Avenus frowned, his expression between disapproval and surprise.

‘Well of course we murder them! Why else would Asinius Pilinius take such great care to ensure that there are no witnesses to these exclusive gatherings of Rome’s most influential men?’

The younger man leaned forward and gagged, dry retching and clinging to Avenus’s toga. The senator pushed him away with a horrified expression.

‘You’re not really man enough for this, are you? You, come here!’ He beckoned to one of the guards, who walked across to the three men with a well-practised look of inscrutability. ‘Take this young fool outside for a breath of air, before he pukes all over someone. Take special care of him, you understand? Very special care.’ He turned to regard Scaurus with a jaundiced eye. ‘And you, tribune, are you in the wrong place, too?’

The heavily built man nodded impassively and put a hand on Marcus’s sleeve. Allowing himself to be drawn along in the guard’s wake, he shot a glance back at Scaurus as the tribune shook his head in disgust, replying to Avenus’s question in a disappointed tone of voice.

‘It shows how much you can get to know a man and still be surprised by his reactions to the simplest things. To think, an officer who I saw stand firm in the face of a massed barbarian charge only six months ago, reduced to a useless choking wretch by the simple prospect of killing a slave. You did the right thing in telling that man to kill him, of course, I doubt he’d have kept his mouth shut about what he saw here.’

The patrician nodded approvingly, looking across the room with the evident hope of catching their host’s eye. Scaurus pulled gently at his guide’s toga, lowering his voice to a level that forced the older man to bend closer.

‘We’ll have to go and tell Pilinius what happened of course, but first let me restore a little military pride by explaining to you how we actually did things in Britannia. There was one particular tribal nobleman who I had beheaded in front of his wife and daughters, after which I deflowered each of the girls in turn while she watched. And when I was done with that, I went one better with their mother …’

The senator, his interest piqued, fastened his attention on the tribune only to have it distracted by the first piece to be captured on the robbers board. With a scream of terror the handmaiden, her eyes rolling with fear, was manhandled out from between the two black-clad pieces sweating to either side of her, and was carried away from the game. One of Pilinius’s household slaves dipped his hand into a leather bag, his face impassive as he read the number carved into the wooden ball he had selected at random.

‘Number seven!’

One of the guests raised his token in the air, the glint of its polished silver winking in the torchlight as he stepped forward to claim his prize, dragging the woman away by her hair.

Avenus grinned approvingly.

‘Now there’s a man who knows how to give us a spectacle. That one’s exit from this life won’t be a swift one, I can guarantee that!’

Senator Albinus presented himself at the Pilinius domus’s front gate with an imperious lack of regard for the guards’ demand for his invitation.

‘A token? Of course I don’t have a bloody token! Do I look like the sort of pervert who attends your master’s debauchery? I need to see the senator urgently, as I have news of the greatest import to him!’

He folded his arms, daring any of the guards to raise a finger against him, and his bodyguards planted themselves around him with equal obduracy. The leader of the group of men minding the gate beckoned one of his men.

‘Go and fetch the senator’s secretary, you’ll find him at the inner gate. Tell him we’ve got a guest without an invitation by the name of Senator …?’

‘Albinus. Decimus Clodius Albinus. And hurry! Senator Pilinius has unwanted guests on his property, men who mean to do him harm!’

The guard walked swiftly away through the villa’s garden, leaving Albinus to listen with a grim face to the music, laughter and occasional shriek that was emanating from the far side of the wall. He paced up and down while he waited, his anger and impatience growing as the time stretched out, and he was on the verge of approaching the gate guards again when a slightly built man with high temples and a bookish look to him emerged from between the closest of them. He bowed to Albinus with the proper degree of deference, extending a hand to indicate the garden beyond the guards.

‘Senator Albinus. Senator Pilinius has asked me to extend warm and convivial greetings to you, and to assure you that you’re more than welcome to attend the main party in the house, and to avail yourself of any and all entertainments that take your fancy. The Senator’s parties are well known for the promise that nobody ever leaves without having taken their fill of food, wine and the very finest female company.’

Albinus shook his head impatiently.

‘That’s not what I came for man! If I want to be debauched I’ll do it somewhere a damned sight more private than this bloody garden orgy! I came to warn Pilinius that he has imposters attending his private party! I think you know what I mean, the gathering within a gathering where he slaughters slaves for his closest friends’ decadent enjoyment?’

The secretary sniffed.

‘I really can’t comment on the senator’s private affairs, sir, but if you tell me these men’s names I’ll ensure that they don’t gain access to the grounds.’

‘I’m telling you they’re already here! Two men, both close-shaved with military haircuts!’ The secretary started, and Albinus jabbed a finger into his chest. ‘You’ve seen them, haven’t you?!’

The secretary turned and ran, bursting through the surprised gate guards and heading for the house, leaving Albinus open-mouthed in his wake. He made to follow, only to find a wall of muscle blocking his way.

‘Here, I’ve got to-’

One of the pair of men blocking his path shook his head forbiddingly.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I can’t allow you in unless either the senator or his man there give you permission to enter, unless you have an invitation? The lads at the back entrance will tell you just the same.’

Albinus fumed, raising his voice to shout at the hard-faced guard.

‘Of course I don’t have a fucking invit-’ He stopped in mid-sentence. ‘Back entrance?’

Marcus sucked in a lungful of the cool night air as he was ushered through the door, looking about him at the house’s torchlit rear garden as the guard half turned to close the door behind him. Where the front of the domus had been adorned with groups of trees and bushes, the rear was little more than a well-ordered open space. Its lawns were edged with white stone, and the drive that led to the gate was surfaced with gravel that made a pale grey ribbon in the moonlight. There would be no chance of stealth, he realised, pivoting to grasp the guard’s hair and smash his temple brutally forward into the door he had just closed, jerking the head back and knuckle-punching the stunned man in the throat before he could recover his wits to call for help. Allowing his choking victim to slump to the ground, he stamped down hard on the man’s exposed neck with his boot’s edge, feeling the spine snap beneath his heel. Swiftly stripping off his toga, he manhandled the corpse out of its belt and tunic, dressing himself in the dead guard’s uniform before turning to head for the gate with a purposeful stride. The gravel crunched noisily beneath his booted feet, and as he came within a dozen paces of the gate another guard stepped forward from the wall’s shadow, his voice thick with the accent of the slums.

‘Stop for a wank, did you? I suppose they’ve started fucking and cutting up the-’

The knife he’d taken from the dead guard’s sheath was rammed up into the oncoming bodyguard’s throat before he even saw the threat, the point lodging deep in the base of the hapless man’s skull, and he sagged bonelessly onto the gravel.

‘What the …’

A second man came out of the gate’s shadows with a long spear held out before him, taking in the scene with a snarl of anger, and as he opened his mouth to call for help Marcus threw the handful of dust and gravel he’d scooped up a moment before. Half blinded and choking, the momentarily disoriented guard stabbed blindly out with the spear, but the young centurion dodged to his left as he lunged in with a flat palm that smashed his assailant’s nose, throwing him back against the gate with a heavy thud. The dazed guard staggered forwards only to meet his assailant’s half-knuckled fist with a crack of cartilage, his windpipe collapsing under the blow’s power, dropping to the gravel and choking noisily to death as his killer hauled the domus’s back gate open.

‘You took your time.’

Cotta stepped out of the gloom to his right, waving an arm in command, and his men rose from their crouching positions behind him. Each of the dozen veterans was equipped with a short infantry gladius and a small round shield, their faces rendered terrifyingly anonymous by the dark shadows cast by their helmets. In their wake Julius walked through the gate, pushing it shut and shooting the bolts while Cotta handed Marcus his belt and swords, looking about him at the villa’s garden as his former pupil armed himself.

‘Anything we need to know?’

Marcus shook his head at the veteran’s laconic question, smiling despite the gravity of the situation.

‘Nothing really troubles you, does it?’

Cotta shrugged.

‘Not really. You of all people ought to know by now that once a man’s faced thousands of screaming murderous bastards across a battlefield and come out of it sprayed with their blood and that of his mates, nothing ever really seems all that serious. So, Centurion, shall we do what we came here for?’

The younger man nodded.

‘There are ten or twelve guards inside, lightly armed, and thirty or so guests, most of whom will be carrying knives as well. The slaves they’ve brought here to slaughter are all wearing either white or black tunics.’

Cotta turned to his men.

‘If a man runs at you, put him down. If he’s running away but he’s not wearing a black or white tunic, put him down. And watch out for the women, they won’t be able to tell the difference between those bastards and us, and they may manage to arm themselves. We’ll be outnumbered three to one by the sound of it, so we’ll do this in the approved manner, in line and by the numbers. You two …’

A pair of his men stepped forward, hard-faced and dead-eyed.

‘You keep telling anyone that will listen how you could give Velox and Mortiferum a run for their money, here’s your chance to prove it. Once the fighting starts you shout the tribune’s name, you fight your way through to him and you keep him alive, right? There’s a gold piece each on top of what you’re already getting if you succeed.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘You’ll be throwing yourself about, I presume?’

Marcus nodded at the question.

‘It would be a shame to waste all that expensive education in fancy swordplay our mutual friend managed to drum into me, wouldn’t it?’

Cotta’s return stare was almost paternal in its concern.

‘Just remember that most men who throw themselves into crowds of unfriendly natives tend to pay for the extravagance of their gesture in blood. That rule holds as true here as it does anywhere else in the empire.’

The younger man held his stare for a moment before replying.

‘My mother and sisters were brought here, taunted, degraded, raped and murdered, Cotta. So you would do what in my place exactly?’

The veteran put a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.

‘Nothing different. Just make sure that you don’t join them before your time, eh?’

Inside the hall, Scaurus and Avenus watched, the former numb with horror while the other crowed exultantly as another piece was removed from the playing board, the woman dragged kicking and screaming away by two of the guards to where another of the guests waited in the shadows, his knife a pale line of grey in the darkness.

‘Marius Priscus. A disappointing individual, in more ways than one, given that his distant ancestor was consul no less than three times. Spends most of his time boasting about his achievements in the German War.’ Avenus turned to Marcus with a look of disgust. ‘Did you know that he even paid a noted scholar to write a book about the brilliance of his generalship? Not only is he the most ghastly individual, but he has no class whatsoever when it comes to these gatherings. He could have won Perennis’s wife just then and still all he’d want would be to open her throat and watch her die. I wonder what on earth it is that makes our host persist in inviting him. In fact, I think I’ll go and ask Asinius Pilinius myself. Come on, we’ll go and pay our respects!’

Scaurus nodded equably, forcing what he fervently hoped was a cruel smile onto his face.

‘Why not? You go, and I’ll catch you up in a minute. I just want to see that bitch die.’

Avenus laughed, shaking his head.

‘Gods below, not another one! What is it with you soldiers? Very well, go and satisfy your need for blood, but just mind you don’t get too close to him while he’s holding a knife, he’s got a fearful temper!’

He slapped the tribune on the shoulder and advanced into the press of men, making a beeline for their host, while Scaurus walked quickly across to where the retired legatus had clearly won a brief and one-sided fight with his prize. Seeing the younger man approaching him, he froze with his knife ready to strike and barked out a question, his grip on the battered woman’s hair enough to hold her quiescent in her semi-conscious state.

‘What the fuck do you want?!’

Scaurus kept walking, his face set in an expression of respect and his empty palms spread wide.

‘Simply to express my respect for your achievements, Legatus. I read your book on the German Wars and was most taken with the brilliance of your tactics.’

Marius sneered and turned back to the woman, raising his knife to make the kill.

‘Well now you’ve expressed them you can fuck off, you brown-nosing little b-’

Without breaking stride, the tribune caught his raised knife hand, twisted his wrist and forced the blade down, ramming it into the gap between throat and collarbone.

‘What?! You …’

Marius’s eyes rolled upwards as the expertly placed cut severed the blood supply to his brain, sagging in Scaurus’s grip. The tribune put a foot into the battered woman’s chest and pushed her over, dropping the legatus’s dead weight on top of her and hissing a command that he hoped would penetrate her addled consciousness.

‘Lie there and keep him on top of you if you want to live. Scream and move about without throwing him off and they’ll think he’s raping you.’

She stared at him uncomprehendingly, but her rescuer was already in motion, walking quickly back towards the stairway down which he and Marcus had entered the hall.

Avenus reached Pilinius and clasped his arm, nodding his approval at the evening’s entertainment.

‘You’ve surpassed yourself my friend, this is an evening we’ll look back on for years to come. I would have come over to pay my respects earlier, but I’ve been babysitting the two new boys you invited tonight, Scaurus and Corvus. Mind you, I don’t think much of either of them, to be honest with you. One of them took umbrage at the nature of our activity …’ He bent closer and assumed a confidential tone, missing the look of bafflement on Pilinius’s face. ‘I had your men take him outside, with instructions to deal with him quickly and quietly. The other one just wants to watch people being killed, from the sound of it. A typical legion man, no sophistication at all …’

He fell silent, realising that Pilinius was staring at him with a perplexed expression.

‘New boys? What new boys? Do you really think I’m stupid enough to invite strangers to an evening where we’re dismembering the next best thing to the imperial family, you fool!’

Avenus raised his eyebrows in protest.

‘But he’s just over there watching Marius do his usual stab and stare! He’s a tribune from Britannia-’

He fell silent and recoiled a pace at the expression on Pilinius’s face.

‘Where is he?!’

The senator turned to follow Avenus’s pointing hand, but all either of them could see was the legatus’s body atop his writhing prize, her screams and cries of pain barely audible over the room’s din.

‘Well, he was there a moment ago.’ Avenus scanned the room. ‘Look, there he is!’

Pilinius turned and shouted at the men behind him.

‘Guards! To me!’

Scaurus ran for the stairway, pointing back at the crowd behind him and shouting to the single man standing guard on the exit from the hall.

‘There, look!’

His thrown knife served to do no more than distract the man, flying high and wide of its target, but he was on top of the guard too quickly for him to do any better than half draw his sword. Driving him back against the wall, he grabbed his opponent’s hair and battered his head against the cold stone and then, while he was still reeling from the concussion, ripped the weapon free from its scabbard and rammed it between the man’s ribs. Cries of consternation were filling the hall now, as the guests realised what was happening, and Pilinius stepped out of their press with a pair of his men on either side. A hush fell as he stepped forward, only the incessant cries and moans of those of Perennis’s slaves who were being vigorously raped breaking the silence. The senator pointed at Scaurus, his face contorted with anger.

‘I don’t know who you are, stranger, but I know what I’m going to do to you.’

The tribune grinned back at him, lifting the dead guard’s sword to forestall any attempt to rush him.

‘Oh, but you do know who I am. Your friend Avenus has already told you, I’m a tribune recently returned from Britannia. And I didn’t come back alone, Pilinius, I brought a friend with me. A man called Marcus.’

The senator laughed at him, shaking his head.

‘Marcus? Is the name supposed to hold some significance for me? And where is this “Marcus” now? Avenus here had my guards take him outside with orders to deal with him.’

Scaurus shook his head, tutting.

‘There’s me failing to make proper introductions yet again. My apologies, Senator. My name is Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, tribune commanding the First and Second Tungrian cohorts. And my friend? His full name is Marcus …’ He paused for a moment. ‘Valerius.’ A smile crept across his face at the sudden widening of Pilinius’s eyes. ‘But you know his last name, don’t you?’ He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. ‘And as to where he is …?’

Pilinius leaned forward slightly in spite of himself.

‘He’s behind you.’

The men facing him turned to find that in the short time that their attention had been fixed on Scaurus, a dozen armed men had filed quietly through the door in the far wall, their shields set in an unbroken line in front of which stood a single man with a sword in each hand. He walked forward, ignoring the three guards advancing on him with their swords drawn.

‘Tiberius Asinius Pilinius!’

The first man sprang in to attack with an incoherent scream, but the newcomer barely broke his stride as he pushed the sword wide with the long-bladed spatha in his right hand before punching the shorter gladius in his left deep into his attacker’s belly. He shouldered the stricken guard off his blade and continued his advance, staring grimly at the other two men before him.

‘Tiberius Asinius Pilinius! My name is Marcus Valerius Aquila! In the name of Nemesis I have come for you!’

The two remaining guards attacked together, but their attacks were poorly coordinated and the lone swordsman parried both blades with ease before spinning low and hacking the nearest man’s leg off at the knee. The remaining guard backed away with a look of terror, and Marcus called out to his quarry again.

‘Surrender yourself, Pilinius! Surrender to me now and these other men can go free!’

The senator turned and ran for the stairs, but in the distraction of Marcus’s fight with his guards Scaurus had quietly stepped into the stairway and swung the massive iron gate closed behind him. He slid the heavy bolts home and grinned at Pilinius as he pulled uselessly at the metal grille, shaking his head sympathetically.

‘I’m afraid not, Senator. It seems that the time has come for you to face the reality of what happens when monstrous crimes like these catch up with you. And here come your friends …’

Half a dozen of Pilinius’s guests descended upon him, clearly intent upon taking Marcus up on his offer of clemency. Their host managed to cling on to the gate’s iron bars for a moment, but the strength of the men dragging him away was not to be denied. Taking a limb apiece they hauled him kicking and shouting in front of the waiting centurion, one of his guards stepping in to snap a powerful punch into his temple to quieten his protests. Marcus walked slowly forward with his swords raised, scanning the crowd of men before him with disgust.

‘Drop your weapons and get back against the far wall. Any man found with a knife will die alongside this animal!’

Guests and guards backed away slowly, their swords and knives clattering to the stone floor, and Marcus looked across the room at the slaves still standing in their places on the robbers board.

‘Cotta, get these people out into the garden. All except for Perennis’s wife. Bring her to me.’

He returned his gaze to his intended victim, squatting to look into the senator’s face.

‘You killed my father.’

Pilinius looked back at him with a hint of defiance in his stare, as his wits returned.

‘We took your father alive and gave him to the praetorians. Whatever happened to him is on their hands, not mine. I can tell you who else-’

‘Save your breath for the screaming. I know who else was involved.’ Marcus raised his gladius to silence the senator’s attempt to buy his way out of what was coming with information the centurion already possessed. ‘You killed my mother.’

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 …’