Serpentius had been assigned the place of honour to the right of Valuta, the clan chief, as they shared meat from the great bronze cauldron in the traditional fashion. They were surrounded by the castro’s elders, and Tito, who seemed to have some kind of special status in the clan. He sat directly opposite Serpentius and the dark eyes smouldered with hatred as he listened to the words of the man who claimed to be his father.
‘Look beyond my years,’ Serpentius urged the elders. ‘See the man who was, not the man who sits before you. How can he be other than my seed? He is swifter in thought and action than anyone in these mountains, as his father Barbaros was. His skill with weapons is bettered by none. His greatest weakness is that he allows his anger to rule him,’ he lowered his eyes, ‘like his father before him.’
A long pause as he stared into the flames of the fire.
‘That day lives in my memory more than any I suffered in Roman chains. That hour more than any hour I spent waiting to enter the arena knowing my life could be forfeit before it ended.’ He looked up and turned to the man next to him. ‘You were right, Valuta, I brought the Romans down upon Avala. In my pride I believed we were untouchable; that our remoteness was protection enough. I did not understand what they were capable of. That they believe themselves invincible. No cliff is too difficult to traverse, no river too wide to cross, or mountain too high to climb. Even if they came I believed I could protect us with my strength and my skills. I was a fool and I acknowledge my responsibility.’ He shook his head. ‘But I did not abandon you.’
Tito snorted his contempt for the words and leaned across the fire, but the elder on his left placed a hand on his arm and the young man withdrew.
‘You are angry.’ Serpentius spoke directly to the man who was his son. ‘I too would have been angry. I too would want to kill the father who made an orphan of me, even though I was not an orphan. But I did not abandon you, Tito.’
Tito turned away, but Serpentius was driven by an urge to unburden himself in a way he’d never felt before. He spoke in a detached, emotionless tone that placed a barrier between the man and the events he related.
‘The first we knew was the cry of a nightjar. I knew instantly that something was wrong, for it was not the nightjar of these mountains. Then came another cry. The cry of a man who knows he is dying. It was Pedrito, one of our bravest, and the sentry who stood watch at the valley entrance. I rose naked, armed only with a spear, and my wife Lyda begged me not to leave her alone with our son’ – again Tito let out a snort of rage but Serpentius ignored him – ‘but I did not listen. My responsibility was to the castro. I told Lyda to take Tito north to the hidden place where our clan always find sanctuary. So I went to meet them, calling out a warning and taking with me what men emerged from the huts as I went. The Romans had torches. I had never seen so many torches. They were like fireflies in the night, to the right, to the left and in front. It was here they were concentrated and here I counted on taking out their heart even if it cost my life. I screamed the war cry of my people and charged them.’ For a moment the barrier was breached and a groan escaped him at the memory. ‘How we fought them. Our warriors died one by one, their souls sent to the gods by sword and spear. Again and again we charged.’ Serpentius’s hand twitched on his sword as he fought the battle once more. ‘But they would not give a single pace. Instead, they pushed us back to the castro. In the end I was alone and surrounded. I fended off blade after blade, but a man’s arm must tire and his strength must fade. By now the castro was burning and the heat of the flames seared my skin.’ He felt a tear roll down his grizzled cheek and knew that his tone was a lie and the barrier an illusion. ‘I believed Lyda had fled to safety with my son. My last wish was to go to the gods with the blood of one more Roman on my spear point. Then I heard her scream. I looked round and the house was on fire. The doorway a curtain of flame. She screamed again and I forgot the fight and the Romans. My only thought was to save my family. Before I could move the world turned red, then black, and I believed I was dead.’
‘Yes, that is how it was,’ Valuta nodded. ‘And you are Barbaros the Proud. I see it now through the years and the suffering. I was guarding sheep with my son on the high pasture when they came,’ he continued in a flat voice. ‘We saw the torches streaming up the valley and the village burning. By the time we reached here it was already too late. All we could do was help those left alive to the Cave of Echoes. There we stayed for many days until the Romans left. When we returned, the Romans had stolen our animals, destroyed the crops and mutilated our dead.’
‘They placed me in a cage so small I could barely crouch,’ Serpentius continued his story. ‘When I regained consciousness I was covered in blood and filth. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t kill me. On the first day they laughed as they brought me the heads of my comrades, saying they thought I might enjoy their company. On the second two officers came to look at me. They didn’t know I understood their language and spoke quite freely. One wanted to have me crucified at the head of the pass as an example to anyone tempted to defy the Empire. The man in the red cloak said no. He planned to give a great games as a celebration of his victory and I would be part of the entertainment. A great champion had been summoned from Rome and on this day he would earn the rudis, the wooden sword that symbolized his freedom. I have never seen a colder smile as the officer detailed my end. The champion enjoyed cutting a man apart, one piece at a time, for the pleasure of the crowd, before castrating his bleeding torso, opening the chest and tearing out his heart so it was the last thing his dying eyes saw.’
‘A true Zoelan would have chewed through his own veins on the first day and bled to death,’ Tito spat his disdain.
Serpentius shook his head. ‘A true Zoelan would suffer any humiliation and bide his time, waiting for the moment he could have his revenge on the man in the red cloak, my son.’
‘Do not call me that.’
‘Do you deny the evidence of your own eyes?’
‘I have no father.’
Serpentius speared him with a look that made the young warrior shiver. ‘They kept the man who was your father in the cage for sixty days and treated him like a wild beast. By the time he reached Tarraco, where the great games were to be held, he looked like an animal, and after his long, cramped confinement he could barely walk. It was fortunate the great champion had been delayed and that being part of the planned entertainment meant being kept in conditions where I was able to recover my strength. Still, every day of my captivity I imagined the end the man in the red cloak had decided for me. I resolved to take my own life, but only if I could take his first.’
‘Yet you lived. So you did neither.’
Serpentius met his son’s eyes. ‘I lived. The champion’s exhibition was to be the main event of the games. I was the last of three prisoners he would kill. They held me beneath the arena at Tarraco and I could hear the ecstasy of the mob as the other two men died. When the time came they handed me a sword and men in armour shepherded me out with the points of their spears. I remember understanding that these were my last moments and the smell of the sea and the warmth of the sun on my face almost unmanned me. They marched me through a blood-spattered avenue strewn with the arms and legs of my predecessors. The arena wall was too high to climb and the man in the red cloak beyond my reach. This was the moment I should plunge the point of the sword into my own body. But I hesitated.’ He turned to Valuta. ‘You called me Barbaros the Proud. It is a name I had long forgotten, but it fitted the man well enough. My opponent waited for me at the end of the avenue. A huge man, his face hidden by a masked helmet and his body protected in armour. A god of war. He held an axe in his right hand and a long sword in his left and both dripped with the blood of his previous victims. I looked upon him and my pride would not let me die before I had tested myself against him. Yes, Barbaros the Proud. Death is death, but for a proud man the manner of it counts more than the pain …’
As he told his story, Serpentius refought the battle that saved his life. Naked but for a loin cloth, they’d given him a sword because the legate whose soldiers captured him had heard of his prowess with a spear. He’d killed six legionaries and wounded a dozen more before they managed to bring him down. The sword should have been unfamiliar and put him at a disadvantage, but Barbaros – how strange the name sounded – had been chosen for warrior training at the age of twelve. This sword, a heavy type the Roman auxiliary cavalry carried, was similar in style to the one he exercised with and it felt comfortable in his hand.
The great champion, Asiaticus, wore the full-face helmet of a Thracian, with mesh eyeholes, a broad brim and a griffon crest. Of course, Serpentius had known nothing of these things then. Later he would discover that a Thraex, as this type of gladiator was known, normally wore only light armour protecting the shoulder. Asiaticus preferred a decorated metal breastplate and wore greaves to protect his lower legs.
Was his younger self truly as calm as he remembered? Did he truly consider sacrificing an arm to make the opening for a killer blow? Ten years later it would have been the work of a moment to slaughter this colossus. Then, they had studied each other for a moment that seemed to last a lifetime. Asiaticus ostentatiously swung his axe to draw his victim’s attention, but Serpentius’s eyes never left that iron mask. Finally, the giant danced forward with the axe raised, but when it came it was the sword that swept in for the killer blow.
Serpentius parried the thrust … just as Asiaticus intended. As the Spaniard’s blade swept along the gladiator’s sword the axe came down in an overhand blow that would have taken Serpentius’s arm off at the elbow. Instead, he somehow managed to spin clear and the axe blade hissed through fresh air.
Serpentius had believed speed would be his greatest weapon, but now Asiaticus had seen what his enemy was capable of he matched it and his skill with weapons was far greater. Time after time the Spaniard would escape serious injury by the breadth of a sword edge. Twice he felt the sting as the razor edge sliced his skin. Blood dripped from his right forearm and left wrist.
Only the fact that Asiaticus had a reputation to defend saved Serpentius. The veteran gladiator was an entertainer who killed in a certain, very precise fashion. He’d chopped his previous opponents to bloody rags and his audience expected more of the same. When it didn’t happen quickly they hooted and booed. Always the axe sought out the right arm or the left and Serpentius discovered he could more or less ignore the sword point. It was a distraction, nothing more, to open the way for the axe. Not once in the early moments did he come close to touching his opponent, but he danced and wove, pirouetted and jinked, making Asiaticus follow every move. Not speed, then. Endurance. If he could stay alive long enough he had a chance.
Serpentius began to use every inch of the arena floor, always managing to stay just out of range of the great axe, and he sensed the bigger man’s growing bewilderment.
Asiaticus had always killed quickly. A combination of skill, strength and speed had made him the greatest gladiator of his age. He was on the threshold of receiving the rudis and his freedom. His opponents knew they were going to die and either cowered before him or did their best to meet their end with honour. He’d never faced anyone like this lean, lightning quick, bearded savage. It felt like fighting a wisp of smoke. He tried to concentrate and ignore the growing jeers of the crowd, but anger and frustration grew inside him like a wildfire.
The more Serpentius dodged, the harder Asiaticus chased, and the Spaniard ensured he always held out the tantalizing prospect of a killing blow. He couldn’t afford to be careless, Asiaticus was much too good for that, but neither could he allow his opponent to realize he was being toyed with. Another feinted attack and the axe sliced past his right side almost taking the hairs off his arm. Was it his imagination, or was the gladiator showing signs of slowing? Yes! And his breathing was becoming ragged. Soon.
But Asiaticus too had his tricks. From somewhere he found a new burst of energy and forced Serpentius to back away from the scything sweep of the axe. The champion had forgotten his carefully laid plans for dismemberment. He would settle for Serpentius’s death. The crowd sensed it and roared for blood, the crescendo of sound rising in waves over the arena. As Serpentius backed away he felt something soft under his foot and stumbled over the remains of one of the gladiator’s previous victims. Suddenly he was down and the axe was plunging towards his face. He twisted his head and felt the blade shear through his tangle of dark hair, the sharp sting as it nicked his ear.
The crowd gasped, but even as the axe fell Serpentius’s sword hand had been moving almost of its own volition. This was the risk he’d needed to take to create an opening. Asiaticus had to stand over his victim to make the strike. Now Serpentius rammed the sword point up and into the giant gladiator’s unprotected groin. A savage cry of exultation erupted from him as he felt the moment it pierced flesh and muscle, the momentary resistance as it grated on bone. With a twist of the wrist he ripped the edge upwards tearing a great gaping wound in Asiaticus’s flesh and almost emasculating him. Warm blood sheeted his sword arm and his victory cry mingled with his opponent’s shriek of mortal agony and the crowd’s howl of consternation. The weapons fell from Asiaticus’s nerveless hands and he stood shuddering for a moment before he toppled face down in the sand.
Serpentius pushed himself to his feet. He turned to stare at the soldier in the red cloak who sat with other notables beneath a silken canopy. The man’s face was a mask of fury.
With great deliberation Serpentius laid down his sword and picked up the axe. He kicked the Thracian helmet from the dying gladiator’s head and with a single blow severed the neck. He picked up the bloody token by the hair and as the crowd roared their acclamation he hurled it high over the wall towards the soldier.
He was smiling.
The elders muttered their approval at the gladiator’s fitting end. ‘I would gladly have died then,’ Serpentius remembered. ‘A troop of legionaries surrounded me with their spears. But one of the men who watched the fight was a senator with an interest in a gladiator school in Rome. He bought me from the legate and I began my journey to the city in chains.’
Tito had listened spellbound with the rest, but now his expression changed to anger. ‘You should have killed yourself rather than serve the Romans.’
‘But I did not,’ Serpentius rasped. ‘Instead, I nursed my anger and waited for my opportunity.’
‘And did you take it, Barbaros?’ Valuta asked.
‘The Roman who ordered our village burned was the legate of the Sixth legion, a man called Julius Pompeius Gracilis.’ He’d been given the name by the guards who’d taunted him during the terrible, agonizing journey from Asturica to Tarraco and had never forgotten it. ‘I cut his throat and burned his house as he lay dying.’
It was the first time he’d revealed the truth to anyone. Gracilis had been an old man by the time Serpentius tracked him down to a villa on the Quirinal Hill. It had been when Valerius had first hired him, along with Marcus, the lanista of the gladiator school. They’d been tasked with hunting a man called Petrus and his Christus followers. Serpentius had simply slipped away one night to the house he’d been told about. It was long before he called Valerius friend, and he had no regrets about deceiving him, or killing Gracilis. The old man had destroyed his life. Only now after twenty years did he have an opportunity to resume it. The only question was, would the Romans let him?
‘Why have you come here?’ Tito, of course.
‘This is my home. I have dreamed of these mountains for twenty years. And because the Romans will not leave you alone.’
It had been one of the things Petronius discovered before his untimely death. The mines had an insatiable greed for labour. A great sweep was planned using every available auxiliary and legionary. They would round up the impudent pockets of isolated tribespeople who still believed themselves beyond Roman rule.
‘You are on one of their lists, but you do not work and you do not pay taxes. That is unacceptable to an Empire whose wealth is based on taxing every egg and bushel of corn. They will come for you and they will come soon. If you want to avoid that fate you must flee or you must fight. I am here to help you do either.’
‘Then we’ll fight,’ Tito said.
The elders looked at him with dismay, but Serpentius smiled at his son. ‘It occurs to me that there may be another option. One way to stop them coming here is to cause them problems somewhere else.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘I will think on it.’