Emperor: The Death of Kings Read online

  Brutus shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably as he considered his choices. He cursed Renius under his breath, partly for sleeping during a crisis, but mainly for convincing him that a horse would eat through their savings by the time they reached the coast and found a berth for Rome. Renius had said that a legionary could march the distance without any trouble, but even a thin pony would have been handy for a quick escape.

  The angry beard vanished above, and while Brutus hesitated, Livia appeared at the window, her skin still flushed from their activities. It was a good healthy glow, Brutus noted idly, appreciating the way she rested her breasts on the sill.

  “Get away!” she called in a harsh whisper. “He’s coming down after you!”

  “Throw my sandals down, then. I can’t run like this,” he hissed back. After a moment, the articles came flying at him and he laced them in a frenzy, already able to hear the clump of her father’s tread as he came to the door.

  Brutus heard the man’s pleased exclamation to find him still in the yard. Without looking back, he sprinted away, skidding as the iron studs of his soles met the cobbles. Behind, Livia’s father shouted for the town to stop him, which seemed to cause a stir of excitement in the locals about their business. Brutus groaned as he ran. Already there were answering yells and he could hear a number of others had joined the pursuit.

  Feverishly, he tried to remember the streets he’d wandered through only hours before, thankful to find anything with cheap rooms and hot food. Livia’s father had seemed pleasant enough then, though he hadn’t been carrying the axe when he showed the tired men to his cheapest room.

  Brutus thumped into a wall as he turned a corner at full speed, dodging round a cart and knocking away the grasping hands of its owner. Which way to get out? The town seemed like a labyrinth. He took roads to the left and right without daring to look back, his breath rasping in his throat. So far, Livia had been worth his trouble, but if he was killed, she wasn’t his choice for the last woman in his life. He hoped the father would take his anger out on Renius and wished them both luck.

  The alleyway he ran down came to a dead end around a corner. A cat scrambled from him as he halted against the nearest stone wall and prepared to risk a glance back. There was nowhere to run, but perhaps he’d lost them for the moment. He strained his ears before inching toward the edge, hearing nothing more threatening than the cat’s complaints disappearing into the distance.

  He eased one eye around the wall and pulled back at once. The alley seemed filled with men, all heading his way. Brutus dropped down into a crouch and risked a second glance at them, hoping he wouldn’t be seen so low down.

  A voice called out in recognition and Brutus groaned again as he pulled back. He’d picked up a little Greek in his time with the Bronze Fist, but hardly enough to talk his way out of the situation.

  He made his decision and stood, firming his grip on the sword hilt, his other hand falling to the scabbard where he could fling it away. It was a fine blade that he’d won in a legion tournament, and he would have to show the farmers that he’d earned it. He hitched up his bracae one more time and took a deep breath before stepping out into the alley to face them.

  There were five of them, their faces filled with the enthusiasm of children as they rushed down the alley. Brutus pulled away the scabbard with a flourish, in case they were in any doubt about his intentions. With great solemnity, he lowered the point at the men, and they pulled up as one. The moment held and Brutus thought furiously. Livia’s father had yet to appear and there could be a chance to win free of the younger men before he arrived to encourage them. They might be open to persuasion and even bribery.

  The largest of them stepped forward, careful to remain outside the range of the unwavering sword in Brutus’s hands.

  “Livia is my wife,” the man said in clear Latin.

  Brutus blinked at him. “Does she know?” he asked.

  The man’s face colored in anger and he produced a dagger from his belt. The others followed his example, revealing clubs and blades that they waved at Brutus while beckoning him forward to meet them.

  Before they could rush him, Brutus spoke quickly, trying to sound calm and unruffled by the threat.

  “I could kill every one of you, but all I want is to be allowed to go on my way in peace. I’m a legion champion with this pretty blade, and not one of you will leave this alley alive if you make the wrong decision.”

  Four of them listened with blank faces until Livia’s husband translated the speech. Brutus waited patiently, hoping for a favorable response. Instead, they chuckled and began to edge closer to him. Brutus took a step back.

  “Livia is a healthy girl with normal appetites,” he said. “She seduced me, not the other way around. There is nothing worth killing for in this.”

  He waited with the others for the translation to begin, but the husband remained silent. Then the man said something in Greek, which Brutus barely followed. Part of it was certainly to try to keep him alive, which he approved, but the last part involved him being “given to the women,” which sounded distinctly unpleasant.

  Livia’s husband leered at Brutus. “Catching a criminal means a festival for us. You will be the middle . . . the heart of it?”

  As Brutus began to frame a reply, they rushed him with a flurry of blows, and though he pricked one of them with his gladius, a whistling club connected behind his ear and knocked him unconscious.

  * * *

  He woke to a slow creaking and a feeling of dizziness. For a moment, he kept his eyes closed, trying to sense his whereabouts without letting unseen watchers know he was alert. There was a breeze playing about a fair portion of his body, and he had a sudden suspicion that his clothes had been removed. There could be no reasonable explanation for this, and his eyes snapped open despite his intentions.

  He was hanging upside down, suspended by the feet from a wooden scaffold in the center of the town. A surreptitious glance upward confirmed the fact that he was naked. Everything hurt, and for a moment a memory of being hung from a tree when he was a boy came back to make him shudder.

  It was dark and somewhere nearby he could hear sounds of revelry. He swallowed painfully at the thought of being part of some pagan ritual and strained at the ropes that held him. Blood pounded in his head with the effort, but there was no give in the knots.

  His movement made him spin in a slow circle, and he was able to see the whole of the square at intervals. Every house was lit in a show of life far greater than the dull little place he had imagined on arrival. No doubt they were all boiling pig heads and blowing the dust off homemade wines, he thought dismally.

  For a moment, he despaired. His armor was back in the room with Renius, and his sword had vanished. He had no sandals and his savings would no doubt fund the very celebration that would be the end of him. Even if he could escape, he was naked and penniless in a strange land. He cursed Renius with some enthusiasm.

  “After a refreshing sleep, I have a good stretch and look out the window,” Renius said by his ear. Brutus had to wait for a moment until he swung round to face him.

  The old gladiator was shaved and clean and clearly enjoying himself.

  “‘Surely,’ I say to myself. ‘Surely that figure hanging by his feet can’t be the same popular young soldier I came in with?’ ”

  “Look, I’m sure you’ll tell a very amusing story to your cronies, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop rehearsing it and just cut me down before someone stops you.”

  The creaking ropes carried Brutus away again. Without a word of warning, Renius sliced the ropes and spilled Brutus onto the ground. Shouts sounded around them and Brutus struggled to rise, pulling himself upright against the scaffold.

  “My legs won’t take my weight!” he said, trying to rub at each one in turn with desperate energy. Renius sniffed, looking around.

  “They’d better. With one arm, I can hardly carry you and keep them off at the same time. Keep rubbing. We may h
ave to bluff it through.”

  “If we had a horse, you could tie me to the saddle,” Brutus retorted, rubbing furiously. Renius shrugged.

  “No time for that. Your armor’s in this bag. They brought your kit back to the rooming house, and I swiped it on my way out. Take your sword and brace yourself against the scaffold. Here they come.” He passed over the blade, and for all his nude helplessness, Brutus felt a little comfort from the familiar hilt.

  The crowd gathered quickly, Livia’s father at the head, carrying his axe in both hands. He tensed enormously powerful shoulders and jerked the blades in Renius’s direction.

  “You came in with the one who attacked my daughter. I’ll give you one chance to gather your things and move on. He stays here.”

  Renius stood still for a moment, then took a sharp pace forward, sinking his gladius into the man’s chest so that it stood out behind him. He pulled it out and the man fell facedown on the cobbles, the axe head clattering noisily.

  “Who else says he stays here?” Renius said, looking around the crowd. They had frozen at the sudden killing and there was no response. Renius nodded sternly at them, speaking slowly and clearly.

  “No one was attacked. From the noises I heard, the girl was as enthusiastic as my idiot friend.” Renius ignored Brutus’s sharp intake of breath at his back, keeping his sweeping gaze locked on the crowd. They barely heard him. The gladiator had killed without a thought and that held the people still.

  “Are you ready to go?” Renius murmured.

  Brutus tested his legs gingerly, wincing at the fire of returning circulation. He began to pull his garments on as quickly as possible, the armor clanking loudly as he searched the bag with one hand.

  “As soon as I’m dressed.”

  He knew the crowd’s stupor couldn’t last, but still jumped as Livia came shoving through the people, her voice shrill.

  “What are you doing standing there?” she screamed at the crowd. “Look at my father! Who will kill his murderers?”

  Behind her back, Brutus rose, his sword ready. The sweet smile he remembered from the afternoon had twisted into hatred as she screamed abuse at her own people. None of them met her eyes, their desire for vengeance cooled by the sprawled figure at her feet.

  At the edge of the crowd, her husband turned his back on her and stalked away into the darkness. As she saw who it was, Livia turned on Renius, raining blows on his face and body. His only arm held the sword and as Brutus saw the muscles tense, he reached forward and pulled her away.

  “Go home,” he snapped at her. Instead, her hands reached for his eyes and Brutus shoved her roughly. She fell to the ground near her father’s body and clung to it, weeping.

  Renius and Brutus looked at each other and the thinning crowd.

  “Leave her,” Renius said.

  Together, the two men crossed the square and made their way in silence through the town. It seemed hours before they reached the edge of the houses and looked out on a valley leading down to a river in the distance.

  “We should push on. By dawn they’ll be swearing blood feud and coming after us,” Renius said, finally sheathing his sword.

  “Did you really hear . . . ?” Brutus asked, looking away.

  “You woke me up with your grunting, yes,” Renius replied. “Your quick tumble could still kill us if they send out decent trackers. In her father’s house!”

  Brutus scowled at his companion. “You killed him, don’t forget,” he muttered.

  “And you’d still be there if I hadn’t. Now march. We need to cover as much ground as possible before daylight. And the next time a pretty girl looks twice at you, start running. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

  Silently disagreeing, the two men set off down the hill.

  CHAPTER 4

  Not wearing your wreath? I heard you slept with it,” Suetonius sneered as Julius came on watch.

  Julius ignored him, knowing that a response would lead to yet another exchange that would bring the two young officers closer to open hostility. For the moment, Suetonius at least made the pretense of courtesy when the other men were near enough to hear, but when they stood watch on their own, each second dawn, the bitterness in the man came to the surface. On the first day at sea after leaving the island, one of the men had tied a circlet of leaves to the tip of Accipiter’s mast, as if the whole ship had earned the honor. More than a few of the legionaries had waited around to see Julius catch sight of it, and his delighted grin brought a cheer out of them. Suetonius had smiled with the others, but the dislike in his eyes had deepened even further from that moment.

  Julius kept his eyes on the sea and the distant African coast, changing balance slightly with the movements of Accipiter as the galley moved in the swell. Despite Suetonius’s snide remark, he had not worn the circlet since leaving the town of Mytilene, except for trying it on once or twice in the privacy of his tiny bunk below the decks. The oak leaves had already begun to brown and curl, but that didn’t matter. He had been given the right to wear it and would have a fresh one bound when he next saw Rome.

  It was easy to ignore Suetonius with the daydream of striding into the Circus Maximus on a race day and seeing thousands of Romans stand, first only as they saw him, then in waves stretching further away until the whole crowd was on its feet. He smiled slightly to himself, and Suetonius snorted in irritation.

  Even in the dawn quiet, the oars rose and fell rhythmically below them as Accipiter wallowed through the waves. Julius knew by now that she was not a nimble ship, having seen two pirates disappear over the horizon with apparent ease in the months since Mytilene. The shallow draught had little bite in the water, and even with the twin steering oars, Accipiter lumbered through changes in direction. Her one strength was sudden acceleration under the oars, but even with two hundred slaves their best speed was no more than a brisk stroll on land. Gaditicus seemed untroubled by their inability to close with the enemy. It was enough to chase them away from the coastal towns and major trade lanes, but it was not what Julius had hoped for when he joined the ship. He’d had visions of swift and merciless hunting, and it was galling to realize that the Roman skill for land war did not extend to the seas.

  Julius looked over the side to where the double oars lifted high and dipped in unison, carving their way through the still waters. He wondered how they could work the massive blades so steadily for hour after hour without exhaustion, even with three slaves to each one. He had been down to the oar deck a few times in the course of his duties, but it was crowded and foul. The bilges stank of wastes that were washed through twice a day with buckets of seawater, and the smell had made his stomach heave. The slaves were fed more than the legionaries, it was said, but watching the rise and fall of the beams in the water, he could see why it was needed.

  On the great deck, the blistering heat of the African coast was cut by a stiff breeze as Accipiter fought through a westerly wind. At least from that vantage point, Julius could feel Accipiter was a ship designed for battle, if not speed. The open deck was clear of any obstruction, a wide expanse of wood that had been whitened by the beating sun over decades. Only the far end housed a raised structure, with cabins for Gaditicus and Prax. The rest of the century slept in cramped quarters below, their equipment stored in the armory where it quickly could be snatched up. Regular drills meant they could go from sleep to battle-readiness in less than one turn of the sandglass. It was a well-disciplined crew, Julius mused to himself. If they could ever catch another ship, they would be deadly.

  “Officer on deck!” Suetonius barked suddenly by his ear and Julius came to attention with a start. Gaditicus had chosen a much older man as his optio, and Julius guessed Prax couldn’t have more than a year or two before retirement. He had the beginnings of a soft belly that had to be belted tightly each morning, but he was a decent enough officer and had noted the tension between Suetonius and Julius in the first few weeks on board. It was Prax who had arranged that they stand dawn watch together,
for some reason he chose not to share with them.

  He nodded to the two of them amiably as he walked the long deck, making his morning inspection. He checked every rope that ran to the flapping square sail above them and went down on one knee to make sure the deck catapults were solidly bound and unmoving. Only after the careful inspection was finished did he approach the young officers, returning their salutes without ceremony. He scanned the horizon and smiled to himself, rubbing his freshly shaved chin in satisfaction.

  “Four . . . no, five sails,” he said cheerfully. “The trade of nations. Not much of a wind to stir those who rely on it alone, though.”

  Over the months, Julius had come to realize that the genial outlook hid a mind that knew everything that went on in Accipiter, above and below decks, and his advice was usually valuable after you had waited through the casual openings. Suetonius thought he was a fool but appeared to be listening with avid interest, a manner he adopted for all the senior officers.

  Prax continued, nodding to himself, “We’ll need the oars to get to Thapsus, but it’s a clear run up the coast then. After dropping off the pay-chests, we should make Sicily in a few weeks if we don’t have to chase the raiders off our waters in the meantime. A beautiful place, Sicily.”

  Julius nodded, comfortable with Prax in a way that would have been impossible with the captain, despite the moment of familiarity after Mytilene. Prax had not been present at the storming of the fort, but he seemed not to have minded. Julius supposed he was happy enough with the light duties on Accipiter as he waited to retire and be dropped off at a legion near Rome to collect his outstanding pay. That was one benefit of hunting pirates with Gaditicus. The seventy-five denarii the legionaries were paid each month mounted up without much opportunity to spend it. Even after expenses for equipment and the tithe to the widows and burials fund, there would be a tidy sum available for most men when their time was up. If they hadn’t gambled it all away by then, of course.