The Oath Keeper

by Alaric Longward

  “Can you,” I said, ice in my veins, “go back to what you just said?”

  “He tried to use Ulrich, rather than you,” he said. “Ulrich failed utterly. He was just a gladiator and Pollio owned him but did nothing with him. So, he used you. Half my idea, I admit. It was lucky, for you had failed him several times in the north, and he did not like the way you took your family to safety in the Germani lands. Made him suspicious. It was agony for him to wait until Germanicus was beaten and Armin dead. And then, both still lived. He told Flavus to kill you that last time he met you, unless you planned on coming to Rome.” He tapped his finger on the table. “He planned on killing you here anyway. You are lucky Ulrich failed.”

  I stared at him.

  He lied. Surely.

  He smiled sadly, confirming he had not. “Look at that long, sad face. We did not need you anymore. He let you kill Germanicus, but only because it would terrify Germanicus. He held onto you like a priced, if slow, horse, and let Ulrich try. He was already there. Oh, Hraban. He never intended to let you see Livia die. He is not letting her rule for him, but he is guarding her, listens to her, and loves her well. He lied to you.”

  I snarled and felt such rage I had rarely felt. Lok was laughing in my head.

  He smirked at me. “Sit there.”

  I stared at him with fury. “Why would I sit here?”

  “There is more to Tiberius, Hraban,” he said. “Things you need not understand. Look behind you.”

  There stood Cassius, looking at Sejanus with an odd, calm face. Two men stood there, both holding spears on my back.

  Sejanus shook his head. “A man so pretty, Cassius. I miss Macro’s bearded, ugly face. Ennia, his wife, is the only one who could call him handsome, and even she lies. Alas, that he hoped to marry one of Agrippina’s girls. Reaching high and falling low. Hope he likes putting out fires with the vigiles.” He laughed hugely and slapped his thigh. “And now, I shall tell you how we shall go forth. Apart from the burnings and killing I need to start this very night, I shall play a priestess of Set and dazzle you with a fantastic tale.”

  I was silent. I watched the sword on my belt, and he nodded at the doorway.

  “You shit,” I snarled.

  He clucked with his tongue. “Brennus and his temper. Listen. I shall take the vast information of Pompeia. I shall hide her and milk her until she is dry. Imagine, how patient she was! I shall be that as well. Patient. I will be her. I will do favors to those who she once helped. They will support me in and out of Senate. I shall find ways to destroy those who challenge Tiberius. I shall strip them away, one by one. I will find a way.”

  He was thinking aloud now.

  “Perhaps I marry one of Agrippina’s girls. Perhaps I will kill the lot. I will marry to the family, and eventually…I shall guard their heirs. Tiberius Gemellus, Drusus the Younger’s son; I will guard him, guide him. Agrippina’s heirs, if she ever marries them off. Then, one day, if I have done my work well, I should…or…perhaps I should be making the heirs…no. I could get rid of every one of the degenerate scum.”

  He was thinking so big, he was afraid of himself. He looked like he was with a woman and getting the ultimate pleasure.

  “I will work on the plans,” he said, panting and sweating. “But the thing is, Hraban, that I shall have an opportunity to mix my blood to that of Augustus, one way or the other, and one day, I might sit in the middle seat of Senate. Perhaps on all of them.”

  “You are mad,” I said, feeling desperate fear. “You will sit in the Mamertine Prison, waiting to be strangled.”

  He snapped his eyes on Cassius. “His brother?”

  “He was gone,” he said. “He simply disappeared. We shall look.”

  “His half-brother?”

  “Not seen,” he answered.

  “Very well,” he said. “I shall have to start planning. Alas, Hraban, my friend. The road ends here. You have a battle to fight in, tomorrow? Yes, you do. It will not end well. We will close the ludus and give that one Agamemnon a chance to win his freedom. I hear he hates you. We shall kill the rest as we burn all Pompeia’s people this very night.”

  I heard movement, saw a man lifting a club, and little else.

  CHAPTER 12 (ROME, A.D. 21, March 19st)

  The festival of Quinquatrus was nothing like Saturnalia.

  An Etruscan feast originally, it was now a celebration to goddess Minerva. Her temple in Aventine was cleaned, decorated, blessed, and purified, and while her birthday was only on the first day, Caesar had extended it to last for four days to please the people.

  It meant games and theatre.

  We were sitting in the sand.

  There, we sat, in the amphitheater of Statilius Taurus, near the Temple of Pompey in the campus Martius. All that morning, we had been looking on as the bestiarii killed lions and bulls, and even some odd, long necked creatures that did not put up much of a fight but did run like the wind. One had crashed into the spectators, killing one to the great amusement of Rome.

  Prisoners had been killed in dozens. Noxii had been rounded up in their hundreds, and two gladiator schools had staged a butcher of the lot.

  Many veteran gladiators were fighting now. It would be our turn soon.

  The Dead Mars had only one fighter in the games.

  That was not true.

  There was Ajax, and there was Goliath, and neither were no longer gladiators, but were to die with me. Apparently, the rest had been killed, rounded up, or sent to the mines.

  In Rome, Sejanus had razed and attacked many a house, and Pompeia had, no doubt, disappeared. I had no news of Gernot, or the others, or even Pollio and the idiot fake priestess, whose sights had probably not saved her. I wondered if Julia had survived.

  I also wondered why I thought about any of that, when Agamemnon would kill me.

  Him, they had spared. He would be free, if I died.

  I gazed up to the high seat of the small theatre.

  Tiberius sat there.

  He was on his seat, under a draped silken canvas. Gold and silver gleamed in the poles that kept the canvas taut, and while I could not see it, I was sure his eyes were hard, cold, and his jaw was set in a terrible grimace.

  What Sejanus had told him about the night, was easy to guess.

  He had blamed Vipsania on me. He hardly needed anything else. Then he would have blamed Agrippina, though subtly, of hiring the killer.

  He would tell him Pompeia is dead. Or nothing of her at all.

  Livia was there near him, looking on, deep in her thoughts. So was Sejanus. There, too, Drusus the Younger.

  I felt tired and desperate, trying to gather my strength to fight.

  In truth, I did not want to fight Agamemnon.

  It had been a long day of murder already, and the veteranii and ordinarii would still fight their personal bouts.

  The doorway behind us opened.

  Varro, tied up, was pushed to kneel next to us. “Take him with you,” said a guard, “when it is time to go.”

  “I’ll take him with me,” I said softly. “Varro. Late for the execution?”

  He wept.

  “Shut your hole,” Ajax snarled. “Is Red alive?”

  He shrugged, weeping. “I know not. Some might have escaped. I didn’t!”

  “You bastard,” Goliath snarled. “Utter shit. We will fight well. But you just keep your mouth shut. I don’t want to hear your voice before we die.”

  I wore my helmet, and the other two had been outfitted in barbaric finery, masking them as the Pig and Blaesus. We had shields and swords, and I decided we would fight badly.

  I had been drugged, and my wounds bled.

  I stared ahead, my hand on the sword’s hilt, and waited for my turn.

  I prayed for gods for forgiveness and begged my son would live well. I could not survive this. I was too weak. Too…old. Woden’s anger would not come to me. The poison or a drug made me sick. I begged I would not throw up in my helmet.

  There, in the
field, a murmillo stabbed at a hoplomachus, and the latter danced away, skillfully, tired but not too, and perhaps not as tired as he seemed. He stumbled. His leg was dragging behind, like he had twisted it, and he was hopping away. The murmillo, young, if somewhat famous, roared as he saw an opening, and charged the man.

  Fool.

  The hoplomachus, speedy as a viper, rammed his small shield forward, pushed the huge shield of the murmillo up, and then slashed low. The blade cut to the murmillo’s knee, and the man howled, as the blade ripped just over the knee and tore out flesh and skin.

  The judges, hopping around, were waving their hands, and the crowd was roaring: “Habet! Hoc habet!”

  “He’s had it, indeed,” Ajax snarled. “Bastards. They killed most in their bunks. They’ll be unburied.”

  I said nothing. The man on the ground did not ask for mercy.

  He was howling and begging, and his blood was pumping out in an alarming rate.

  And soon, he stiffened, slowed, and died. The judges, holding a long rudes, pointed the man a victor.

  The victorious gladiator lifted his sword high up to the air, and still, he was mostly ignored. Tiberius was showing his approval for him, and Drusus was clapping, and he would get his reward and a palm leaf, but the rest of the people were doing something else.

  The crowd began chanting.

  It was soft, slow at first.

  Then I knew what the words were.

  “Brennus! Brennus!” said Goliath. “May Minerva piss on the lot.”

  I chuckled tiredly, and I knew it was our turn.

  Ajax grinned at me, as did Goliath. They were as poisoned and dazed as I was, and all three on their knees.

  “Do you think we can get up?” Ajax wondered. “Might have to crawl out there.”

  I laughed, and Goliath quaffed. Varro looked at us like we were madmen.

  Then, a man next to Tiberius got up. It was Sejanus.

  He lifted his hands, and the crowd very reluctantly, finally went quiet. He turned around, and his dark armor covered by toga, whitest of the white, he stood high.

  I did not see more than few Germani Guards in the stands. I saw Sejanus’s men aplenty.

  He waved his hands towards us, elegantly like he was an actor of a bad Greek drama. I wondered if he had picked it up from Pompeia.

  He spoke so loudly, so powerfully, everyone heard him.

  “Look upon the famed Brennus, my lords, my people,” he said, and I thought him very daring, or very clever to call them his. “Look you upon scum of the earth. A talented fighter, no doubt, the man is still unworthy of your adulation.”

  Calls of nay echoed, some disagreeing.

  Sejanus lifted his hands to silence the lot and spoke on. “There is Varro, a lanista of Dead Mars ludus. Look at him, the murdering scum, who used his charges to rob homes of honest men and women. For decades, they robbed and terrorized Rome in shadows. Our Brennus, he joined the man, and is responsible for the death of Vipsania Agrippina, a woman of great honesty and virtue. She was loved!”

  Varro moaned and pissed on the sand and his tunic.

  Sejanus spoke on. “Look upon men who would have cut your throats. They have set fires these past nights,” he yelled, and the crowd was growling with a threatening noise. “They have burned down crops. They have been swords for hire, for scoundrels who would kill even the lowest of you. Alas, they have gotten away with plenty. And others, some remarkably high, have conspired with them. We shall see, perhaps, who has hired them, but not today!”

  Agrippina the Elder looked pale and held her children, sitting near Sejanus.

  Livia did not so much as twitch, but she watched Sejanus carefully.

  “They are innocent, you shit,” I growled.

  “One by one, they must all fall,” he wailed, “and we start with the traitors here. Let one of the ones they could not corrupt kill them. For his honor. You know him. Agamemnon the Greek!” He gestured to the side, and at a garlanded gate, the one of guards opened it up.

  From there, strode Agamemnon alone.

  “Let it be the best of Varro, the famed First Pole, the Greek Death who shall put them to justice. Aye let them fight! But to survive? They shall not. The mallet awaits.”

  I watched the two men in gods’ garb and masks. The death god, Dis Pater, held his dark mallet. His face was covered and robes dark. The masked Mercury was followed by another masked man, carrying a small brazier with the hot irons. The mask had a dark pig’s snout.

  The death gate was opened, the sand before it adorned with black petals. Sejanus screamed his words for all to hear, pointing a finger at the death gate. “There, they will go. Get up, Brennus, and you lot. Fight!”

  Trumpets blared. Then they went silent.

  Agamemnon pushed past the judges and spoke to them.

  They argued, and the Dis Pater whistled and nodded them away.

  Apparently, no judges were needed. The men, cursing, walked off the field.

  And we got up.

  Unsteadily, terrified, still finding the whole scene oddly funny, we got up. We were staggering, a fact not lost to the crowd, like drunken fools, as Agamemnon’s eyes gleamed behind his silvery grill. His sword was making lazy motions in the air, and his fish head, gilded on his helmet, was bobbling up and down, as he was nodding. The huge shield was bright as stars, and his greaves polished.

  The man’s muscles gleamed as he stared at us.

  He would be a free man after.

  He never dreamed of it before. Perhaps he would hire into another school, a rudiarius.

  And then, to the yells of the crowd, he walked for us.

  I pulled Varro up and pushed him before us. He turned, shaking his head, weeping, and I looked at his eyes. I rammed my sword to Varro’s belly, to the shrieks of the people around us. Ajax grinned and pushed his to his chest, and Goliath to his back. I twisted the blade and kicked Varro off, and the others readied their bloodied swords.

  Agamemnon kept coming, and now he began running.

  I stumbled forward and slammed my shield at him, and Agamemnon took it, dodged right, then left and stabbed at me; all the while, Ajax and Goliath tried to push him between them. He was too fast and strong, and Goliath fell on his knee, as the shield slammed into his.

  I stabbed at him, but his shield took my sword, lightning fast.

  He stabbed to the right, and the sword, scratching Ajax’s shield’s rim, tore to his throat.

  He fell on his back, blood squirting in an arch.

  The crowd howled like animals.

  I panted and was so sick, I nearly curled up in two. I surged forward with Goliath, who was again on his feet, but crashed on my face at Agamemnon’s feet.

  I got up to see Goliath running for Agamemnon, who was now bashing his shield at the man’s shield and the sword over the shields at the helmet. Goliath gathered his strength for a huge swing and bashed his sword down.

  Agamemnon slipped under it, and then he stabbed up from below to his belly. The blade did not go in deep. In fact, only a few finger widths. It went in deep enough, in vital enough an area, to make the Goliath stiffen, breath stolen, and then he fell to his face, trying to hold his belly in.

  I rushed to attack Agamemnon, while the field of Mars was echoing with the screams of the crowd.

  I stabbed at him, and Agamemnon stepped away from Goliath, and his blade flashed as it struck my helmet so awfully hard. I stepped back and stabbed down, and actually slashed a wound to his thigh.

  I heard the call, the dance of savagery, Woden’s anger. It was there, but far, too far, and I was weak, so weak.

  I kept my shield up. He ground his on mine. His blade was looking for an opportunity. I was sweating so much, it ran in rivulets down my back and legs. Gathering all my power, all I had left, I rolled with his shield. I pushed so hard, he actually fell out of balance. I aimed a savage hit for his shoulder.

  It struck his helmet instead and threw him down.

  I staggered forward, determ
ined to die well.

  I wept for my pain, for my failures, and begged Sejanus would die of plague, but right then, I wanted to give Woden a finest show of a warrior, a death he would honor.

  I stabbed down.

  The man kicked himself around and rolled aside, and I stabbed at sand.

  I rushed after him, and he rolled back and around, kicking up to his feet, and I fell over his leg on my face, toppling him too.

  We both got up, slowly, and then were circling each other. I spared no look to bastard Sejanus, nor to anyone else.

  Only to Agamemnon.

  I was staggering and could not stand straight.

  He began stabbing at me from behind his shield.

  He began pushing at me from sides, at my shield and my helmet, and my sword could not keep up. The shield was there, guarding me, but he was now seemingly coming from everywhere. I hopped back and back, but only barely managed to keep my footing. Sweat was pouring to my eyes, and then, it all blurred for a moment.

  When things cleared, I saw him close and then felt his curved blade cutting into my thigh, and then there was a huge blow of shield to my helmet.

  I was on my back, and he stood over me. I saw the sword’s tip over my face.

  “Do not move,” he hissed, and I could only barely hear him. “Do not move after this. Do not move, no matter how painful things get.”

  I felt blade cutting to my side, and the crowds Rome were howling their approval. The familiar calls of no mercy echoed, and I realized I was still alive. I felt the blade had cut to my side, but more to flesh than organs, and Agamemnon pulled back.

  Surely, he must have seen…

  “Stay down, you shit footed idiot,” he snarled, “even when they come to make sure you died. Keep still. We’ll deal with this later. Our rivalry. We have to find Julia.”

  “Child soldier, that’s you,” I murmured, and he looked infuriated.

  Then he walked away, as Dis Pater and Mercury came near. Both walked around Ajax, and I watched as the mallet crushed the man’s helmet. The red-hot poker did the rest.

  Then, they did the same to Goliath.

  The masked servant seemed to grunt like a pig as they turned my way. The God of Underworld was holding his mallet up, and then he placed a foot on my throat. He stood there, looking on through his mask, and he seemed familiar.