A hatch opens above, spilling light, bright as stars, to wash the ancient walls which are black with old blood. There is a flutter of shadows in it and the thump, the sickening crunch of bodies falling through.
A huge striped cat flops lifelessly on a man, a half-charred fox bounces and lolls – they had set fire to their tails and let them loose to run, crazed, through the wolves and bears and archers to add spice to the morning show.
The light flickers again, the hatch grinds and a horse is levered through, a heavy thump and clatter; dung sprays and the surgeon curses. The boy, dull with the stun of the place and the fatigue of trying to pull dead lions with his ten-year-old muscle, does not like the surgeon, who is a Greek. No one likes Greeks, who are altogether too superior – but Gennadios is in charge of the boy and so the boy is the slave of a slave. Is there any lower to go, the boy wonders?
A man thuds down and the light disappears, leaving it darker still. The boy hefts a cleaver and starts heaving one leg of the striped beast, but it is the biggest cat he has ever seen, he can’t pull the weight away, so he will start chopping it up; the paw is as big as his head. The man under it groans.
‘This one is alive,’ the boy calls, and Gennadios moves to join him.
‘Always one,’ he says. The man is clearer to see in the Greek’s torch, his dark hair matted and knotted, body slathered in blood. One arm is missing at the elbow; the boy looks, but there is no sign of it.
‘Help…’
‘What do we do?’ asks the boy.
‘… me.’
Gennadios hands the boy the torch and bends. A door cracks open somewhere, bringing the red glow of a new torch, and a voice hails them both.
‘Ho – don’t chop up that beast. Skin it first – that’s a Hyrcanian tiger. You will find teeth on a hen before you find another – the pelts are valuable, even if they are a little damaged. The Flavian must help pay for itself.’
‘Help… me,’ groans the man, his voice a husk.
The newcomer is cloaked and masked as Dis, but when he pulls off the mask he is a sweat-gleaming old face, lined and weary, who clutches a hammer and peers at the man the Greek is fussing over.
‘Ah, fuck – did I miss one? He must have been out cold when I smacked him – see, you can see the hammer mark on his skull. Never moved. Tough bastard to have survived that as well as everything else.’
‘Can he be saved?’ asks the boy, thinking about his mother and whether the Greek has powers to bring back the dead. The Greek frowns, then shakes his head.
‘With expense and care,’ he says and looks at the wizened old man. ‘I doubt if anyone will bother if Hermes’s Psychopompos here is any benchmark.’
The man, who does not like being given the Greek name, hawks and spits.
‘Fucking truth, right there,’ he says. ‘That’s Justus Felix, the Frisian Fox. Well, he ran out of lairs when he met that tiger and the handlers are furious – he put two arrows in their cat and killed it dead as old mutton just as it chewed his arm off. They’re upset – they may never find another cat like it. They won’t be helping Justus anytime soon.’
The Greek straightens, wipes his hands and takes back the torch.
‘Well,’ the old man says and solemnly draws down his mask with leaden finality, ‘stand back and I will help him across the Styx.’
‘No,’ Gennadios says and the boy looks stricken. The Greek, who is no Greek but a Sardinian, sees the look and has sympathy with it – but he is put to the task and has to obey, same as everyone else. Servillius Structus has ordered this boy to be educated and so that’s what will happen. Lesson one – the heart in the throat and how to find it…
‘In the arena you may,’ he says pointedly to Dis, ‘but you missed this one.’
Dis Pater looks horned and blank, but the boy knows the old man is scowling beneath it.
‘He is already dead,’ Gennadios says to the boy. ‘It remains only for you to remind him of it.’
The boy takes his knife; the one-armed man’s eyes roll and he is aware of nothing much. The Greek nods to the boy and then at the groaning man whose chest labours to suck in life.
‘Get it right this time,’ he says. ‘And do it slowly – I want to see the moment when your knife crosses him over.’
The boy has done this before and is still not ready for it. He puts the knife in the place allotted, the one the Greek calls the heart in the throat. Pushes, feeling that moment of resistance, then the sudden, slick slide. Blood pours and the man gasps and gugs; the boy pulls the knife out.
The Greek surgeon grunts with disappointment.
‘Too little, yet again,’ he says, taking the knife. ‘You fear it too much, at the end. Be firm – here, like this.’
He guides the boy’s hand and they push and slice. The man coughs, his heels kick and then he is gone. The Greek blows out his cheeks with exasperation.
‘Missed it,’ he says, as if he had lost sight of some rare bird.
The hatch grinds, the light floods, the bodies fall.
Drust follows the surgeon into the deep dark, trying to avoid the edges of the archways and failing – they smack him on the shoulder, time after time…
He woke at the slap on his shoulder, sat up so suddenly that his head spun and he had to blink a few times until the face coalesced into Praeclarum’s broad concern.
‘You were asleep,’ she said. There was wonder and accusation in equal measure as she handed him water in a clay bowl; it was warm as soup but balm to a mouth dry and thick with mucus. She had not been enough of a ring fighter, he thought, but would learn how easy it is to sleep in a charnel house buzzing with noises. He glanced after her, marvelling at how she had slotted in to them after only two months – or perhaps it was just him who felt that.
Drust moved slowly; he wore his dusty gear still and was crusted with a dried paste of sand and sweat. Around them whirled the noise and stink of the undercroft – not as great as the Flavian, Drust thought, but enough to release the latch of memory. The lunchtimers stumbled through the gate in their costumes – the horn-blowing chicken, the flute-playing bear; it was the same everywhere, it was noon and the mummers and caperers were out, sweating in the heat to try and entertain a garrison of mostly men and whores, who only wanted blood and naked death.
The others were there, sitting quietly, working at some small task or, in Ugo’s case, sitting with his hands on his knees, eyes closed, talking to his gods. They were all here, Drust saw, which is a blessing from that fickle cunt, Fortuna, blessings be upon her. Things had gone well and his own fight had been a decent enough dance, with just enough in it to make sure no one realised the rehearsals.
He was appalled at his own weakness, at how the heat and the exertion had made him nod off. The dream, he knew, was sent by Dis – the first time, the only one, he had seen a Hyrcanian tiger. The thought that it was a warning that he was too old for all of this came with a stab of fear; it was a thought he would never offer up to the others in any conversation.
Talk was muted and most of it was drowned by the babble of the venatores, who weren’t anything like those professional beast-killers. They were hunters and trappers and hauliers who had brought animals for the Games and been made up for the day. Smeared with the excitement and dazzle of something they had never done and would never do again if they were sensible, they were loud as a barnyard of cockerels. They’d survived and now it was lunchtime, when the novelty acts went out – if there were any.
‘Hares. More crucifixions,’ Kag muttered. ‘Attalus must be rounding up every suspect on a list. They only have crucifixions and hares and rustic farces from the local actors.’
‘Hares?’ demanded Ugo, frowning, and Drust recalled those animals had some meaning for the big man. Quintus squinted at the half-moon grill that let them look into the harena and jerked a thumb.
‘Take a look. Hares and hounds and bad acting – that won’t keep Army boots happy.’
The actors were aspirational Greeks who had expected to have the most of this new amphitheatre and put on the works of Terentius Afer or Plautus – if it had to be Roman – and Euripides, Philoctetes and the rest of the Greeks if they had their own way. If they had to sink to comedy, it would be Aristophanes or Susarion of Megara – not what they were now doing, which was running around the harena waving giant phalluses and pretending to fuck the arse of a fat Parthian in a turban.
Judging from the jeers and the red-faced, food-pelted Greeks who staggered into the undercroft, it was not going well; but the hares were worse and everyone jumped with surprise, then laughed, when a small brown shape scrabbled through the grill squares and ran around among them, before it subsided, panting and frozen. The hound chasing it smashed off the grill in a welter of bloody saliva and mournful howls.
‘Should have put Stercorinus out,’ Quintus said, picking up the hare, which was too petrified to move or resist. He grinned his big wide grin and looked at the man for a reaction but had none; the skinny brown sliver, naked save for a cloth round his hips, just leaned against a pillar and cradled his big sword, his eyes lurking somewhere beneath a matted shock of hair and beard.
‘At least look as if you are worried,’ Kag told him, scowling.
Stercorinus split his beard in a small smile. ‘Would it help?’
‘This would have been my time once,’ Praeclarum said. ‘Killing tiros and the condemned and blindfolded dwarves.’
Kag slapped her on one leather shoulder. ‘Would have been,’ he said, ‘but you are one of us now. And shush on that blindfold thing – don’t give anyone ideas.’
Praeclarum said nothing, but when the others made the ring and thrust their hands into it, palms down and knuckles up, she stood apart and shook her head when Drust looked expectantly at her.
Later he drew her aside and she knew he was concerned. He was patriarch of this family, she had long since recognised, and it puzzled her why it was important to him. She had half an idea it was a bewilderment to him too.
‘It has meaning to us,’ he said, and she nodded, had already seen that.
He held up his hands, knuckles towards her, and she saw the inked marks, only slightly faded – E.S.S.S, one letter on all four fingers. Knew what they stood for too – ego sum servus Servillius. Every slave had one somewhere, the mark of their status, the brand that told how they were someone else’s property. Even now that they were freedmen and citizens, it marked them as people apart from what was considered decent society.
‘I am not… of you,’ she said uneasily.
‘You have been here two months, long enough to know better. You are free,’ Drust said simply, ‘to come and go as you please.’
Praeclarum knew this in her head, but her heart hadn’t caught up with it yet and she could only nod.
‘The big one who smiles, Quintus,’ she said haltingly.
Drust knew Quintus was the one who had bought her for next to nothing and had brought her back, almost thrusting her into the midst of them and grinning as wide as a new-set trap.
‘Say greeting to this one,’ he had announced loudly. ‘Her name is Remarkable. I have bought her and now I free her. Drust – you make it official, the writing and all, can’t you?’
‘Why did he do that?’ she asked Drust, who spread his hands.
‘He won at dice and spent it how he pleased,’ he answered, then took pity on her. ‘Because we are the Brothers of the Sand,’ he added, ‘who have all been slaves. I think he liked your mark.’
Her hand went to the side of her neck instinctively; for a time she had worn a kerchief round the seared old scars that read TMFQ but lately had stopped that and let people stare. Tene me quia fugi – arrest me I have fled. She glared back at those who stared, daring them to act – yet she was hovering on the edge of things here.
‘I do not know anyone here,’ she said. ‘I am not part of you. Quintus made me free, but I owe him my price still.’
‘Quintus,’ Drust said, ‘has been free longer than any of us. He has been everywhere and seen everything, or so he will claim. He likes money but will give it away for a kiss – yet, as you can see, he forces no woman to it.’
Praeclarum dropped her eyes a little. It had been a belly-clench of fear when the long-legged, smiling Quintus had bought her for the price of a dog, and that feeling had taken a long time to leave – she had slept with a dagger for several nights until she realised no one was creeping up on her. She still did not quite understand it – these were not the crew of the Argo, or the heroes of Troy, and she had heard enough to know that they were dark with old blood and rotten secrets. Yet Quintus had not raped her – or tried to, she corrected. No one would ever rape her again.
‘Sib,’ Drust went on, ‘is no harena fighter. He is a mavro, a dark-skin, from south and west of Lepcis Magna. A desert dog who was a slave to the same Servillius who owned us all – and who freed us all, one by one, to serve him in different ways. Sib is a charioteer who raced for the Blues, or the Greens – whoever paid Servillius to have a good man at the reins. Won a few.’
Drust stopped and seemed to hesitate, then smiled. ‘He is ridden by old fears and tribal tales. Believes in strange creatures from the desert. Believes that Manius is one – you have heard of Manius?’
She nodded. ‘One of the two you seek. The other is called Dog.’
Drust’s face went grim for a moment. ‘Manius is a mavro also, but there is dark inside him too, as Sib will tell you. Sib once believed – perhaps still does – that Manius is a jnoun, which is some sort of desert horror from the depths of a sandy Dis. I think he tried to arrange for Manius to die once – now he is trying to atone for that.’
‘And Dog?’
Drust was silent for a moment, then sighed. ‘You will know Dog when you see him. His face is on inside out. Of us all, he is the true fighter, who fought in the Flavian and survived. He is… Dog.’
He sat for a moment, then stirred and grinned. ‘Then there is Ugo, our giant from the Germanies. He believes he can move the world if you give him a lever and a place to stand – Kag told me that one, from some old clever Greek. Kag knows a great deal and that’s what you should remember about him. He looks like shit that fell off someone’s shoe, but there is gold in the man and, for all he curses them, he is like me and will traipse to the edge of the world to look Dog and Manius in the eye and call them arseholes for having put him to it.’
He stopped, then frowned at the curve of the leaning Stercorinus. ‘That one is no slave. He was debt-bonded to a lanista we knew who wanted rid of him because he did not know what to do with the man. Stercorinus is not his name, nor is Palmyra his home, though he claims both. The sword, he says, belonged to a Christian, right hand of their crucified Jesus, but Kag says a man like that would carry a gladius, because it is shorter and more easy to conceal – you don’t walk about with a displayed blade like that in Rome. Kisa says it is one an executioner would use. Stercorinus worships strange gods – or one at least – and does everything because he or they whisper to him.’
‘He is debt-bonded to you now?’ Praeclarum asked and Drust shook his head.
‘We have no bonded fighters here. Some slaves among the paid men, for running things on a camel train – how else would the world turn? But not fighters. We are all Brothers of the Sand here. Even the sisters.’
She smiled, showing her lack of teeth. ‘And you?’
There was pause, and for a moment the world teetered on the edge of revelation, so that Praeclarum, who had asked innocently, felt the coil of it and held her breath. Then, like a blast of hot fetid breath, Sib burst it.
‘Drust – we have a problem.’
He had a round-faced man hovering apologetically at his back. They all recognised him as a local magistrate called Vespillo, which was his occupation – he was responsible for burying people too poor to afford a funeral. It was, perhaps, a joke by Attalus to promote him to summa rudis, the adjudicator of the fights, but he had done well enough. Now, seeing his sweating, stricken face, Drust felt a cold knife sliding into his belly.
‘The Exhibitor has called for a special contest to start in the afternoon,’ he stammered. ‘A match between one of you and one of the garrison legionaries – for the honour of the Army.’
‘Bastard,’ Kag growled. ‘Tell him to fuck off. We have a contract and there is nothing about this in it.’
‘If you refuse,’ Vespillo whined and looked back over his shoulder at where the low growling roar was like some prowling animal. ‘Attalus suggests a retiarius,’ Vespillo went on. ‘Since the legionary will be in full kit.’
Of course he did, Drust thought dully. He knows Praeclarum fought as the retiarius. He thinks she will be untrained and weak and because she is a female infamis can be easily overcome, left begging for her life. Attalus sends us a message, Drust thought – but a ranker from the Army is no harena fighter, has no concept of the rules of it. He might make a mistake, or not wait to be told she had been let off.
‘What have you been instructed?’ he demanded, and Vespillo licked his lips, shame and desperation flowing from him like heat.
‘Not to stand as summa rudis. It is not an official contest…’
‘He means to humiliate us,’ Quintus growled, and Ugo made a boar-grunting noise in the back of his throat.
‘He will end up killing her,’ Kag added.
Praeclarum laughed and Drust looked at her admiringly, for it sounded good.
‘I have seen legionaries. Big men with small swords,’ she answered.
‘You might give him a shock at that,’ Kag said slowly, ‘but that will only make it worse. If you win, the Army lot will be appalled and hate you. Before that, your opponent will use every dirty trick to avoid being beaten by a woman, an infamis, a slave and a gladiator.’
‘Four against one does seem unfair,’ Quintus agreed, grinning; folk laughed. Quintus stopped stroking the hare long enough for it to finally stir, wriggle free from his loose grip and spring away, back through the grill into the harena.
‘If it is your day to die,’ Quintus said sadly, looking after it, ‘then Dis will claim you.’
Drust simply turned and looked at Praeclarum. ‘Strip,’ he said.
Drust had no idea what face Attalus had on him, for the sun was on his own and the man was higher up and further back; he had an idea that it would be like a slapped arse, all the same, a scowl like a scar. Most of Drust’s attention was taken with trying to squint sideways without moving his head, trying to see who he would face while both of them stood in the maelstrom of catcalls and howling, facing Attalus who had given up trying to be heard.
The legionary was young and well aware of all his mates. He was called, Drust had heard, Aurelios or Aurelio or somesuch, which was mainly Greek with a sauce of Syrian. He was from a vexallation of the 3rd Cyrenaica and was a big bastard, a long-termer about four years in, wearing full rig – bronze scale, helmet, a great curved rectangle of shield, and a spatha.
He was head-back bawling out his salute as if Attalus was the Emperor himself – this soldier swears that he will faithfully execute all that the Emperor commands and stands ready for any order. It would have been more impressive if apple cores hadn’t been bouncing all round him and the bellows of his comrades hadn’t drowned most of it out.
There was nothing left but to take a few steps back, turn and face one another, and when they did, the roaring increased so that it buzzed Drust’s head like a struck bell. There was a pause that lasted a thousand years, long enough for Drust to see the set face and the grin, the knuckles flex on the hilt of the long spatha, the slight hunch as Aurelios settled himself behind that giant shield.
Drust felt naked – he was naked, and Praeclarum’s padded harness, too tight in all the wrong places, did not hide much. He had a three-tined fuscina and a dagger, an arm guard and a tall shoulder piece attached to it, once ornate with dolphins and the head of Hercules and now battered. He had a weighted net and the feeling of an addled egg on a busy path.
‘You should have taken the offer,’ Aurelios said, and Drust realised he had been told to say that, a message from Attalus. Aurelios probably had no idea what was going on, but he had delivered the instruction and now there was only the bit he did understand; Drust saw him blow out his cheeks and make a little head movement to shake the sweat off his brow under the helmet.
Good, he thought viciously. Blind yourself, you cunt.
He really should have been expecting the sudden dart, fast even for a man with all that armour on him. It was a duel in the harena after all – what else would be happening? He was a trained fighter and had managed to make himself woefully unprepared – the blow struck the tines of the fuscina, a numbing force that almost ripped it from his sweat-greased fist. He went sideways, stumbling and flailing, the net trailing like a tail, and all thoughts of his first attack splintered away in the mad desire to get away, survive for one more eyeblink.
The noise of the crowd was thunder and Aurelios was made lightning by it. He bored in, swinging the long sword. Drust spun away, whipped the net round and heard the weights rattle off the shield before it slammed into his protected arm and sent him stumbling away yet again. Drust reeled and swung the fuscina like a scythe, a lucky blow that skimmed the rim of the shield and whicked dangerously close to Aurelios’s nose, making the man jerk back and stop.
They circled, Drust slick with cold terror, Aurelios seemingly raised up to be Mars Ultor by his initial success and the great rolling waves of bellows from the crowd. He moved with a practised grace, the sword swinging slightly loose, making no overtly fancy moves – at least he is still worried about me, Drust thought.
They were all worried, he recalled. Praeclarum had been scowling when she had stripped off the leather and padded rig, claiming that this was not her first dance on the sand and that she was the retiarius after all. Kag and Quintus and the others had all offered advice, some of it no doubt useful but all of it, Drust saw, out of concern. Stercorinus continued to lounge against the stone, cradling the sword.
‘At least try and look concerned for me,’ Drust had spat at him, and Stercorinus came off the wall and took a breath. His voice was a rasp, not wounded or angry, just the sound of someone who did not use it too often.
‘I will if it helps,’ he said, then paused and added, ‘he wears boots.’
Something flashed, making Drust blink, blinded – Aurelios had circled round so that the sun was now in Drust’s eyes – the blow when it came was a sliver of arcing light that slammed into his left shoulder, shrieking on the metal guard. His own squeal almost drowned it out as he was driven sideways again and he slid a little, righted himself and risked a quick look for blood on the sand. Or even the arm…
He spat, gritted his teeth and lunged – if you are not attacking you are losing was one of Kag’s many sage sayings, some of which were even true, like this one. He felt the fuscina slam the shield and grate off it, the momentum carrying him forward hard into the huge shield.
It was like shoulder-charging a wall. A husky, barley-fed legionary in a metal suit with a big shield? Aurelios did what he had been trained to do when he stood in the front rank, side by side with all his mates who were now howling him on. He shrugged and shoved Drust off, sending him backwards to land on his arse in a spray of grit.
Up, up, said a voice. Get up. Another whispered: Why? He will only knock you down again.
He rolled over and got up, pasted with a porridge of sweat and sand. Aurelios closed in, swinging left and right, and was surprised when Drust blocked and spun away and flicked out the net so that the weights thumped his leg just below the knee.
It made Aurelios pull up short, the thought of being wrapped in that coil and pulled off his feet. He had never fought like this, a man armed like this, but he had been warned and decided caution was best.
Everyone else had decided death was best and the chant got into rhythm, into cadence. That’s good, Drust admitted grudgingly. Your average crowd couldn’t manage to get that right in less than a thousand heartbeats – trust the Army to manage it quicker.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
Aurelios heard it and Drust saw his eyes. No deaths in this contract, he thought bitterly and felt the wash of iced fear sluice him. No humiliation here – a straight-up kill and it might have been designed for the woman, but Aurelios did not know that. He had his instruction, like the message…
The legionary came on – one foot, drag the other, one foot, drag the other – in proper style, as if he was ranked with an entire cohort, all advancing in step.
Drust backed off, started circling the net above his head in slow, hissing loops; he saw Aurelios pause, eyeing it suspiciously, and when it suddenly fanned out like a flower in bloom, his eyes went wide.
It failed, missed by a hair – Aurelios tried to stamp on the edge as Drust whipped it back and flicked it a few times, shaking it back into the whip-tail. Aurelios heard the catcalls and jeers, and frowned – then he made a sudden rush.
Drust spun away from it, one of the moves he had used with other partners – but they had been rehearsed. No one had decided, in the mad flail of rushing past, to lash out with the hilt of a spatha and slam Drust in the ribs.
Pain blew in like a massive explosion of light. He found himself rolling in the grit, his whole body burning and his mouth tasting of old sick.
He came up to his hands and knees, saw nail-studded Army boots and the huge looming figure. Beyond were pale blobs with red gashes in them – the faces of those leaning out over the amphitheatre wall to try and not miss the ending.
Aurelios brought the edge of the shield down and it slammed the ground where Drust’s head had been – the crowd bawled out disapproval and spurred Aurelios on to slashing and slamming the shield while Drust scrabbled away. He put out the fuscina to block a blow and heard the ping and crack as the spatha sheared off the lower third of it; the crowd’s roars redoubled.
He crabbed backwards on his arse, trying to hold onto the fuscina and the net, but Aurelios’s nailed boot came down and pinned the latter. A stroke, almost casual, then another and another, and Drust rolled away holding a useless net, almost cut in two.
Should have pulled, he thought, weaving to his feet. Should have pulled his big Army boots out from under him…
He wears boots.
Drust looked round. They had filled the amphitheatre with sand, to make it harena, but hadn’t gone far for it – the desert was a spit away, so why would you import it? So what you had was grit, not the fine sand that the Flavian boasted, the silver-white stuff Drust and the others had brought in on grain wagons and ships as a priority. Fuck the grain dole – bring sand for the Flavian…
Here, they had skimped on it – all the contest would be in the centre, so that’s where they had made it thickest. Out here, practically under the wall, it was a light sprinkling over the amphitheatre flags.
He wears boots.
‘Aurelios.’
He had to yell it out to be heard above the crowd, but the man stopped, blinked at the sound of his name and stood uncertainly.
‘I know your mother.’
The legionary was confused, sensing a trick, watching for it. Drust laughed.
‘I was set to fuck her up the arse – but the donkey got in first and I couldn’t be bothered waiting.’
There was a pause. Drust turned and ran, feeling the grit faintly on his calloused bare soles; no harena fighter ever wore anything on his feet in a fight save the feel of the sand; he blessed Stercorinus – the lanky streak of spit never said much, Drust thought, but when he does…
The crowd howled jeers at him and Aurelios spat out a curse and took off in pursuit; he was trained for this, to move swiftly in full rig. He could keep it up as long as this piece of gladiator scum…
His big hobnails came down, slid on the grains of grit like it was a slick of oil. He crashed down, feeling the ankle break, slamming the amphitheatre wall; he lost his grip on the shield and heard it clattering free. Dazed for a moment, he tried to get up and the pain made him howl, though no one could hear it for the roaring.
Then he looked up and saw the gladiator.
Drust batted the spatha away with the remains of his fuscina, did it again and again until Aurelios realised he wasn’t getting anywhere. There was a sudden silence, even louder than the noise that had gone before, it seemed.
Aurelios climbed onto his one good foot and stood. His shield had skittered away, too far to recover. His spatha was still in one fist but he couldn’t move forward to attack.
Drust stood, watching. Someone yelled ‘missio’ and others took it up. Drust looked up and round at the crowd, then back at Aurelios, who had decided to forego a referee. He held the shattered fuscina just below the tines.
Then he stepped in suddenly, so close the long sword was useless, though Aurelios tried to flail a strike, rasping uselessly off the arm protector
The fuscina went up under Aurelios’s chin, the centre tine right up into his mouth, through his tongue, the force of the blow spearing it up behind his nose. The other two scored huge grooves in his cheeks – one, because it wasn’t a perfect strike, cracked through the jawbone and went in under the eye.
Aurelios screamed and gugged. Drust gripped the last of the ruined shaft and turned, hauling Aurelios like a man trying to shoulder a sack of grain; the legionary burbled out bloody screams and fought to hobble on his good leg, trying to take some of the tearing weight off his face.
Drust dragged him right into the middle of the sand and flung him away like a useless bag; Aurelios fell and choked and gurgled and died, noisily and painfully. The crowd bellows started to sound ugly as Drust turned to where Attalus was sitting and raised one arm in salute and message. Even so, he felt veiled from it, as if he walked alone in the middle of shadows – until something grabbed his arm and started pulling him.
‘Move yourself,’ Kag spat, ‘before they tear you to pieces.’
He didn’t move. There was a dust cloud round him and all voices seemed to come from underwater – but he felt Kag drag him and then call out Ugo’s name. The next second, Drust was floating until he vaguely realised he was being carried by the big German, grunting with the effort as if he hefted a bale of cloth.
There was a roaring and figures appeared – Drust saw Dis coming for him, but it was the harena one, who stopped and hesitantly looked round while his assistant, the one with the great cruel hook for dragging off the bodies, started to crouch and whimper. Shapes were dropping off the amphitheatre wall and Kag was screaming for Ugo to move his big fat arse…
They came in through the Gate of Life, crossing from blinding light to the balmed confusion of shadows and shapes running and shouting. Drust heard Quintus bawling for Sib to help him close the gates, and the heavy wooden batten slammed down a moment later.
There was a pinch on one cheek, a bee sting that made Drust raise a hand whose fingers seemed to belong to someone else. A second sting was sharper. The third was a clear slap that made him jerk away, and before the fourth arrived, he had caught Kag’s wrist.
‘You have sense now?’
Drust nodded. Now there were people running back and forth in the dim undercroft and Sib, his eyes white as eggs, thrust his face close.
‘You fucking killed him – what did you do that for?’
It was the harena, you Stupidus, Drust tried to say. That’s what we do… but his mouth wouldn’t work and it was Quintus who slapped the back of Sib’s head and told him exactly that. Kag gave a sour grunt.
‘You might have poked him a bit, made him squeal or beg. His mates would have hated him for it almost as much as they hate you. But you stuck that fucking big fish-fork up his nose – do you hear how they feel about it?’
There was a mad hammering on the door and the thin threnody of a voice gone past fear into mad panic, demanding to be let in. It was Dis, or the one with the hook. The voices drowned in the hammering and howling.
‘A missio was not an option,’ Drust finally managed and no one argued with the look on his face.
‘They will be in through the Gate of Death,’ Stercorinus pointed out, looking warily at the dark that led in the inevitable circle back to where they were.
‘We cannot stay here,’ Praeclarum added and had a scathing look from Sib at this statement of the obvious.
‘I have a way,’ Kisa said.
‘Of course you have, little man,’ Quintus declared and slapped him hard on the shoulder, grinning that big white grin. ‘Lead on.’
‘You must remove all your gladiator armours,’ Kisa warned, ‘and wrap weapons in cloaks or tunics.’
They saw the sense in it, even though Kag cursed the loss of decent fighting gear, bawling out what he would do to any fuck who stole it while they were gone. Drust did not think anyone would be waiting around to do that – but these were trouser-wearing Persians, so anything was possible.
They followed Kisa, throwing aside panicked animal handlers and slaves until they reached a door, already flung open – a man dressed as the Atellan Manducus was forcing his way through the rest of his fellow actors, beating at them with his painted sword.
‘The Actors’ Gate,’ Kisa explained, and Ugo grabbed Manducus by his tin armour and hauled him back out of the way like a terrier with a rat; they piled through.
Outside, people were scattering, others frantically gathering up the contents of shops and stalls and moving them to somewhere with a lock.
‘This is the Street of Baths,’ Ugo yelled out.
‘You are correct,’ Kisa replied, ‘though it remains a mystery how you know. Keep close, do not linger.’
He led and they followed, dodging fleeing people, seeing the produce-laden dye seller and the spice merchant collide in a massive explosion of colours and then, astoundingly, simply get up and run off without argument or spilled goods. A speeding donkey, an ever-present threat in the streets of Dura, came rippling along at a fast trot, the rider swaying precariously. From somewhere close came the sound of shouts and breaking pottery.
‘A riot,’ Quintus said and grinned at Drust. ‘You have started a riot in the city…’
They followed Kisa up a narrow alley between high, mud-wall houses to where an even taller wall loomed, with a single door in it. Kisa rapped loudly and the small grill in the centre flicked open, then closed; there was the sound of a locking bar sliding and the door opened for them to spill through.
They stopped short after two or three steps, gaping like yokels at what they saw – a square atrium with painted colonnades, open to the sky and with a tessellated floor, at the centre of which was a column statue of someone – something – with many breasts.
‘Jupiter’s hairy cock,’ Kag swore, turning in circles.
‘Jupiter never put it anywhere near here,’ Quintus declared, not smiling for once. ‘This is Artemis, whose priests are self-inflicted eunuchs.’
As if summoned, figures appeared, slippering softly over the tiled mosaic – a representation of Diana, Drust saw, hunting with bow and arrow. The figures were in white and saffron silks and linens, turbans and heavy eye make-up – priests, they all thought, though they were not sure if there were women among them.
‘Are they all cut slaves?’ Ugo wanted to know in a too-loud voice. Kisa opened and closed his mouth once or twice, caught between his innate desire to show his knowledge and not wanting to offend the saffron-robed figures.
‘Some are,’ said a voice. ‘All are slaves, women and men – the young men petition to join the rite of the Goddess once a year and most are granted. There they remove their own testicles with sharp knives.’
Uranius stepped from the shadows of the colonnade and crossed the tiles to them, while everyone looked at the priests with a new sense of awe and disgust; Sib hissed and made warding signs.
‘Hecate,’ Stercorinus growled, though it was hard to say whether it was approval or not. Uranius smiled and stretched his arms to encompass the place; for the first time Drust and the others saw a second statue, built into the wall under the columns, a great arch with a carving of a serene woman with long, rippling locks, surrounded by images of people offering her tribute. There was a pond of fat fish in front and somewhere a cote of doves fluted.
‘The temple of Artemis Azzanathkona,’ Uranius declared, as if he had personally built it. He wore bronzed lappet armour over a white tunic and the red cloak was flung over one shoulder. He wore breeks, padded on the inside thigh for riding.
‘There is a wall cutting it off from the main barracks – the amphitheatre and the buildings beyond belong to the 20th Palmyran Cohort.’
‘Wait – what?’ Kag demanded and turned angrily to Kisa. ‘You brought us into the legionary camp? Home of those who want to tear us to bits?’
‘He brought you, at my bidding, into the headquarters of the 20th Palmyran,’ Uranius answered levelly. ‘The garrison of Dura-Europos. Every other Army clod here is a vexallation from somewhere else – the only garrison is us. We are auxiliaries. Worse than that, militia. You have nothing to fear from the 20th – they hate the Roman Army incomers more than they hate Persians.’
He turned, expecting them to follow and they did, whispering a way across the tiles on their calloused soles.
‘My tribune has taken most of the 20th out into the streets to effect some order. You know we are all archers, a mixed unit of horse and foot?’
‘And twenty camels,’ Praeclarum added, which made Uranius smile as he reached another small door set in a wall.
‘A turma, so there should be thirty-two. Illness, losses – no unit is ever full.’
He rapped on the door and it opened instantly – by someone waiting behind it for just such a task, Drust thought.
‘The temple is cut off from the camp but open to the city. There are many worshippers here,’ Uranius explained. ‘The 20th are mostly Syrian and Azzanathkona is a huntress – the Greeks say she is Artemis in another guise. The Romans claim her as Diana the Huntress. Archers, you see – so the 20th venerate her.’
‘We are safe here?’ Drust asked and Uranius nodded.
‘For now – but we must get you out of the city. There are provisions waiting at a spot beyond the Palmyra Gate.’
‘Provisions?’
‘Water and food enough for your journey.’
‘Wait,’ Kag growled. ‘We have camels and herders for them. We have just thrown away all our fighting gear…’
‘We will rescue all once the 20th has restored order,’ Uranius declared, then looked grim. ‘That will hopefully be before some drunken arsehole finds a slather of purple cloth and throws it over the head of Attalus or someone else.’
He looked round them all. ‘That is what I am sent here to watch for. The garrisons here are sloppy and degraded, ripe for any foolishness, including declaring one of their own as a new Emperor.’
‘Is Attalus a Stupidus then?’ Praeclarum demanded. ‘Enough to accept such a thing?’
‘It is an honour few can refuse,’ Uranius answered. ‘If you accept, you are a traitor to Rome, and you all know how that ends. If you refuse, then the ones who offered it will be offended, and you all know how that ends.’
‘I can hear it,’ muttered Ugo, looking towards the faint sound of breaking. Uranius nodded.
‘Attalus must be rescued before such a choice is offered – my tribune and the bulk of the 20th are doing just that.’
‘Authentēs,’ Kisa said warningly. ‘Time.’
Uranius nodded; Drust realised, with a sudden shock, that Kisa was not working for the Shayk, but for Uranius.
‘Kisa will take you to where you can find tunics and cloaks and helmets. You will each take a camel and ride out as men of the 20th. At the meeting point there will be camels provided by the Shayk. After that, you are on your own.’
He paused. ‘When you return, contact me. No one else – the Shayk cannot be trusted and he offers this caravan with motives of his own. Also, do not trust the Praeses Mesopotamiae, who is no true friend to the Emperor.’
Drust had no idea who the assistant governor of Mesopotamia even was, and said so as he cautiously took Uranius’s proffered arm in a wrist grip of farewell.
‘Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus,’ Uranius said as they filtered off, one by one, following Kisa. ‘They call him Thrax because he was born there, a barbarian from Moesia. You will not miss him when you see him…’
The last slithered after Drust like an echo and was lost in the soft babble of the others arguing over too-short tunics and too-large helmets, while patient men of the 20th watched impassively, saying nothing, but listening to the sound of riot and wondering whether the world was indeed falling.
By the time they were out of the Palmyran Gate, urging dirty-white camels towards a distant, vague meeting, Drust’s look back at the city only confirmed what appeared to be everyone’s worst fears. Threads of smoke feathered the sky from where the rioters had started burning and the gate was choked with people fleeing with the detritus of their lives.
The world was falling.