Then he straightened and shook his head and prepared.
People were screaming and yelling, Agamemnon was walking out of the gates of champions, and then I felt a huge swing of a mallet strike me.
Or close to me.
Close enough to seem authentic.
It was a skillful strike, powerful enough to break any skull, man or ox, but struck sand instead. It did strike my helmet softly, and I felt my neck straining.
I saw the Mercury bastard with a red-hot poker, and I remembered what Agamemnon had said.
The poker touched my thigh.
I lost all sense of time and bit my tongue hard and pissed myself.
Then, slaves came, and grasped me by my feet, and began pulling me off the field. I watched Sejanus in my sick, pain-mixed state, and hated him, wondering what was going on.
Soon, the coolness of stone conquered my senses, and the pain and nausea lessened as I was lifted on a cold stone. I tried to turn around, but was unable to, and realized I was laying in my own blood.
I saw the horned demon, Dis Pater, hovering nearby and putting down the great mallet, and then it sat down next to me. He took away the helmet, and I saw Red.
He was looking at me with something akin to anger, and then determination.
“They think you died,” he said. “But are you dying?”
I shrugged, weakly. “I am dying. I think so.”
“You might be,” he agreed. “But you must tell us a tale, and you owe us that much before you do. They came and killed most everyone. I escaped. Pig did. Few others. What you did, and what Varro did, and how they used the school and the butchery? Our honor is smeared. All those boys…I will take you out, and Agamemnon, a free man now, will come too.”
“He killed Ajax, and—”
“He had to, for his freedom,” he said sadly. “They died well.”
“They were drugged,” I hissed. “I was too.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I know. He is angry too. He wants to find Julia. We wish to know how we were betrayed, then we shall make them pay for it. And I suppose you are the only one who can tell us. And there is the fact you did not leave Pig behind, that one time. It makes you a brother.”
The Pig removed the servant’s mask, and Egg Eater the Mercury one.
I nodded, feeling sick.
Gernot would be a fugitive now.
But I knew where he was. He had found a perfect, one armed man to take his place. That one would be dead now. “Thank you,” I said weakly, holding my face.
Everything had been a lie.
“You are a bit of rancid gristle, old man,” Red said affectionally. “But at least you didn’t betray our oaths. They betrayed you, all of them.”
I smiled. “You wish to know who did this?”
He nodded.
“Sejanus,” I said. “And his men, at least. And it was never Pollio, but a woman Sejanus now holds prisoner. Neither did you any favors.”
They looked at each other.
Then Red shrugged. “I am a gladiator, friend. I fear nothing, certainly not shit-footed cowards, no matter how high up the ladder they are. Didn’t I just pretend to kill you in front of the lot, eh? Now. Brace yourself. We must go. They might decide it was not enough to kill you. They might want your head for the gates.”
They went to prepare, and I lay there, in the dark, blood dripping, and sick.
I do not know if it was the drug, or the wounds, and the fact most men would die from the pain I endured, but I was not alone.
I was with dark thoughts, black and evil.
That dark, evil part had always been in me. It had been in father. Of Woden and Lok equally, our family lived with a curse. Either we conquered and endured and built, lived our lives as best men could, or we walked a path of death, often leading others to theirs.
“Why not lead Rome to its?” I heard a soft, hissing voice, and looking at the darkness, I thought I saw a shadow darker than others. “Why not? It deserves it, and who better to administer the poison to the dying?”
I closed my eyes, and then opened them, and Lok was gone.
He was never there, likely.
But the thought stuck.
The old Romans had built a nation of honor. Gods had loved it, it was clear. Then, gold and greed changed the hearts of men, and then finally, Octavian had killed enough to make it something else. Still a Republic in name, but suddenly not in heart. Pompeia had seen it. She thought it could be healed.
But what if it, the devouring bastard shit filled with degenerate murderers and liars could be poisoned, and killed.
And how would one do it?
And more; could I?
“You can, and none else,” I heard the whisper again, and didn’t look at the shadows.
It was true. I had all the reasons to save world from Rome.
And like Pompeia, I also had personal reasons.
I would murder Rome.
And suddenly, using parts of the plans I had made previously, I made another.
***
Later, in a field outside of Neapolis, in the south, I was seated on a rock.
Gernot was there too.
He gave me a long look, and I knew I looked like I had dropped out of a horse’s arse. I had shat blood for day and week and was barely coherent. I stared over the sea to the islands, and at the coast.
“Herculaneum,” Gernot said. “I have some business there.”
I grunted.
“Capri,” he said, and pointed a finger to the sea. There, far away, the island of Capri could be seen. I wondered at its long, rocky shores, and the fact Tiberius was building a palace there.
“A new Rhodes for him to run into,” I murmured. “You did well.”
“I prepared,” Gernot said. “I had a man with a wooden arm make a show of himself. Paid his bills, fed his child, and kept him drunk for months in the Red Sail. We knew they might look for me, if they found your records. I was in the Guard for a few days. We knew they would want something to keep you honest.” He shook his head. “He died happy and drunk when Sejanus came to sack the domus they held him in. Pollio died of poison, Brutus too, and the house was burned to crisp with the statues. I lost one tavern and my competitor’s Red Sail was razed. And do not worry. It was due time to get out of Rome. And now? We are done. I sent Gochan to Ravenna today. He is gone. And I shall be too.”
I watched the group of people, not far.
There was a villa, and they stood before it, speaking. Gernot was talking. “I have set you up with a place or two in Rome, if you insist on going back.”
He knew me too well. “I am sorry this was costly for you.”
He sighed. “I have my wealth, and almost all I used to own. Others run the many taverns and shops for me, and I own them. Don’t worry about any of that.” He looked me in the eyes. “You have gone too far. Tiberius does not want you now. You are dead. Go home. At least you know the truth now.”
“Tiberius,” I said softly, “loves his rancid mother, and that mother is thriving; they made all my sacrifices empty, and they all lied to me. I expected them to. But for now, I am not going home. I will travel the land and make my plans. Little will be asked of you.”
“Little,” he snorted. “Will you do this alone?”
I shook my head. “Red will go to Rome. Into one of your houses. They will seek Pompeia. And others. I have been thinking. I have actually been thinking about it for a while.”
“What are you thinking about?” he asked. “You are not going home, are you?”
I shook my head. “I had an idea, while I lay in that cell, dying. The bitch Pompeia wanted to eradicate the poison in Roman blood,” I said. “She wanted to heal Rome of the blood that had made it so extremely sick. Livia is the parasite, and so was Octavianus, and their spawn will keep eating Roman glory.” I smiled. “Pompeia is stopped. Tiberius remains. Sejanus. The others. They are an interesting puzzle. What I will do, brother, is that I shall pick the worst of them. I will pick
them, lift them high, and make sure none of them are happy. I will let them rip the heart out of the best remaining Roman families, and I will prod them against each other. I will kill Rome, brother.”
“You are mad,” he whispered.
“No.”
He pushed me, and I looked into his eyes. “You will kill many innocents. Women, children. Is that what you are now?”
I said nothing.
He was silent for a while. Then he smiled sadly. “Perhaps I should move to Alexandria.”
“Perhaps you should,” I told him.
“I want to hear no more,” he said. “You stay in the villa for a time, heal, plot, and tell me later if I should move my business to Egypt.”
I smiled wryly. “Not to Egypt. Perhaps Hispania? They have a good climate there. Aye.”
He watched me. “Do you know, Hraban, that while you are no doubt right this moment making plans how to kill all the great families and to drain the best Roman blood, many of them are still good people. What of Antonia?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“I will be sad,” I said.
“I wonder if you can go all the way through it,” he said, “for it will be unjust.”
“A Rome of dictators will corrupt the world,” I said softly. “Let it be poisoned fast, to spare blood of others.”
He started to walk away. “I feel sorry for you, Hraban. But thank you for trusting me with all this. Try to spare my family.”
“I haven’t even met them,” I said, and then realized there was a reason for that.
I was cursed.
“Gernot?”
He turned.
“Thank you for ruining Macro,” I said. “And did you ever reach out to Maximus, and the Guard?”
He nodded. “Maximus says he has been left with nothing. He is willing to listen.”
I was nodding. “Can we make it worth it for them?”
He grinned. “Probably. You will do it. I won’t. The house in Rome has servants who can do your bidding, but I won’t take part. You will have coin, so you have ways to get to them.”
“They will help?”
He shrugged. “They have nothing. They are scum of Rome now. They are interested. What will you need of them?”
“Everything,” I told him. “Thank you. For everything.”
“I have paid both, plenty of gold. They are ours, perhaps.” He hesitated. “You will find me here, brother, when you are done with this madness,” he said.
He walked away, and I watched Red and Agamemnon speaking with the Pig, and they were already making their plans.
They fit mine.
We needed Pompeia.
But first, I would strike a blow against Rome, one so hard, it would change everything. It would embolden and trick Sejanus. It would make Livia weep. It would frighten Agrippina the Elder. It would seem like a blast of lightning from the sky to the mad little Gaius Julius, our Caligula. And most of all, it would break Tiberius’s mind like thin ice.
It was a terrible plan, a plan made to stain your soul, and I would still do it.
I would start my vengeance on Rome with the son of Tiberius.
For I had to push the man over into a realm of mad gods, and that would do it.
I would kill Drusus. Then, the others, unless they contributed to the downfall of Rome.
I nodded, my decision made.
I walked to the group of men near the villa. I held my side, which was bleeding, and stopped to look at them with some wonder.
Red grunted. “Don’t weep. Cannot abide old men weeping.”
The Pig grunted. “Red cannot abide he had to miss with that mallet. It haunts him in his dreams. Says it would have been a perfect strike.”
“What happened to the Dis Pater, and the Mercury?” I asked them.
Red made a throat slitting motion.
I frowned. “So, it is possible they might think I am alive?”
He shrugged. “The vermin who act the part are just that. Vermin. Vermin are under their nose, and they flinch away. You know it. I cannot promise they won’t figure it out, but here we are.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t weep. But thank you.”
He squeezed my hand. “Will you tell us what happened?”
I nodded. Then I spoke, told them all I knew and all I was going to do. They listened with their mouths hanging open, save for Agamemnon, who was inspecting a wooden sword in his hand, a symbol of his freedom.
When I was done, Red scratched his neck. “That is darker than—”
“Varro’s arse,” I finished for him.
He spat and looked around. Agamemnon spoke. “We don’t know your past, Raven. Ours is much simpler. What you are planning?” He shook his head. “We will take part in the death of Varro, and we will want to see Pompeia dead. After that, you are on your own.”
Red agreed.
Pig smiled. “I will work with your brother, I think, when and if we make it out of this alive. I got no home to go to. Red will find himself a ludus. Agamemnon will train for him. But do you think there is much sense making these plans, if you burn Rome down?”
Agamemnon sighed. “It is home.”
Red shrugged. “He is right.”
“No,” I said. “The ludus was. The Romans are dogs yapping at your feet. Home? So, make a home elsewhere,” I told them. “Find Pompeia for me and pay her back later for what she did to your home. Then—”
“Julia,” Agamemnon said. “She will be alive.”
We said nothing. We were looking around, silent.
“And she must be found too,” he told me.
I nodded. “I understand that. And if she is alive, and you find Pompeia, you make a home with her. You and Red build a ludus of your own. Somewhere else. You owe me nothing. I owe you plenty. A ludus is a small price to pay for your help. I think Gernot set me up with coin.”
Red grunted and nodded.
BOOK 3: SEJANUS
CHAPTER 13 (NORTHERN MOESIA, A.D. 23, June 15th)
In that land where Rome and Dacia met, the filth of Rome seemed like a dream.
A distant dream, or perhaps a nightmare.
And that land, so far removed from the hills of Rome, seemed to welcome me.
I had spent months healing, and many more seeking answers, setting up new hide-outs in Rome, and helping Gernot. I had smelled the filth of Rome, and also the sudden fear that seemed to run like a molten river through the city, as Sejanus began his slow assimilation into the vacuum that had been Pompeia’s mysterious world. Somewhere, hidden from all eyes, he learnt the secrets crimes of Rome, and Tiberius, grateful Tiberius, concentrated on brooding, and on his son Drusus the Younger and Tiberius Gemellus, and tried his best to ignore the insistent demands from the people that he adopt Agrippina’s boys.
It had taken time to set up many plans, and counterplans.
It had not taken a long time to figure out that Tiberius, while strange and dangerous, was not careless while guarding his family.
Pompeia’s plot had scared him.
Twenty men guarded his people. His family. At all times.
And while Sejanus was likely subtly hinting to him that Agrippina was the one who had tried to kill him, somehow Tiberius was not willing to move on her.
And I thought it was all Livia’s doing.
The snake was moderating Sejanus’s greed, and Tiberius’s fears.
I had little hope of killing Drusus the Younger in Rome.
It had been a depressing realization.
Also, Red and Agamemnon had not been able to find Pompeia.
We had sat around our house in the filthy part of Rome and pondered our failures. We had seen Drusus the Younger find honors and glory in Rome, and Sejanus basking in the light of Sunna, growing powerful, and we had been able to do nothing.
And then, Decubalus of Dacia had gone to war with Rome, and Drusus was to push him back, and I knew gods were finally on my side. Perhaps only one.
And
I had used one of the people that now hated Rome almost as much as I did, and they had agreed to help me, and themselves.
Drusus left Rome with a thousand praetorians and a hundred Germani Guards and would meet two legions in Moesia, and then go and push Dacia back over River Danubius.
So, with plans for Rome made, I had traveled north alone.
I had hired men, scouted, and waited, living in small villages, or brazenly in Roman army camp suburbs, until Drusus had marched north.
And I knew what the plans were. I did, for I had an ally.
The wind that was ruffling the treetops across River Danubius made me smile.
The eternal woods of the north, the rolling hills and sharp mountain ranges gave me some of my strength back. I had been lacking it, in Rome.
I had missed the open ranges of Pannonia, the fields of wheat around Danubius, and the mysterious north, the Black Woods, and even darker forests, the thousand rivers and all the promise of freedom of the north.
Aye, there had been war there for months.
Across the horizon, on the far side of the river to the northwest, one could usually see the many fires of the quarrelsome Marcomanni; to the north, the lights that burned in the towns of the Dacians.
Now those fires were burning on this side of the great river.
Together, these tribes had crossed the land and attacked the Pannonian villages and rich, Roman built towns. At times, the situation had seemed dire, for there had been unrest with the Pannonian Breuci, a tribe well-known for rebelling before.
I had followed Drusus.
He had camped, and I had just met with men who told me of the plans of Drusus.
The bastard would try to march his praetorians that very night to the back of Decubalus, and attempt to trap him between the river, the legion, and another legion that was marching from Moesia the coming morning.
It was a good plan.
The Dacians, though terrible enemies, were not there for an open fight.
They liked to keep the fords to their back.
It was no war. It was a raiding expedition, and in their thousands, they just wanted to steal cattle, barley, wheat, and horses.
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