Swords Around the Throne

by Ian Ross

  Maximian was stamping heavily back up the steps to the dais, but a ripple ran through the room, an almost imperceptible shift of attention. Castus saw the old emperor pause, saw Constantine straighten in his chair. The men beside him shuffled, drawing themselves up more smartly.

  ‘The nobilissima femina Valeria Maxima Fausta,’ the slave at the door intoned.

  A scent in the air at first, rose-water and saffron. Then the hiss of silk on marble, and the emperor’s wife and her ladies approached the dais. Castus kept his eyes on the far wall, where a pair of painted peacocks stood beneath an arch of flowering trees.

  ‘Daughter!’ Maximian exclaimed, stepping down from the dais. From the corner of his eye Castus saw him embrace Fausta and kiss her heavily. Then Constantine descended to the floor, and she accepted his rather stiffer embrace. Angling his gaze, Castus saw the slave maids and the eunuchs, and behind them the women in their brightly patterned gowns. It took him a moment to pick Sabina out, and when he did he saw that she was looking right back at him. She blushed quickly and turned her face away.

  ‘These are the men whom your husband has ordered to protect me,’ Maximian said to his daughter. ‘And you as well, if your lord husband is obliged to leave you here while he attends to his duties abroad...’

  Castus tried not to react to the words. The trip to Britain was not a military expedition; ordinarily, there would be no reason for Fausta not to accompany her husband. Was he travelling with his concubine and her son instead?

  Wordlessly, Fausta moved along the line of Protectores just as her father had done. Each man kept his eyes fixed on the back wall, never daring to glance at her. When she reached Castus she seemed to linger for a moment. Gathering his nerves, he dropped his gaze to meet hers.

  The emperor’s wife was a short girl, almost plump, aged sixteen or seventeen. She wore a tunica and mantle of richest purple and blue, woven and embroidered with silver. Pearls were roped in her hair, thick necklaces of amber and gold around her neck. Her eyes were deeply lidded and protruded slightly, giving her a languid look, but her round face wore an expression of sour displeasure. Castus remembered feeling sorry for her. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps the girl was just spoilt, or even stupid. But he knew too well that appearances could deceive.

  A moment passed, two heartbeats, and then Fausta moved on, turning from the line of Protectores and briefly bowing to her husband. Then she moved towards the door, her entourage of ladies, eunuchs and slaves swirling in her wake. The tension seemed to flow from the room after her.

  ‘Women!’ Maximian exclaimed with hefty relief, then clapped his hands. A brief stir of amusement ran through the audience chamber.

  ‘Protectores,’ the Praetorian Prefect called. ‘You are dismissed!’

  * * *

  Three steps to the left, boots scuffing dust, and he dodged the sweeping blow.

  His opponent leaped in fast with a backhand cut, and Castus caught it on his shield and turned it. Two more wild blows; he parried the first and dodged the second, still circling. The sun moved around him; now it was hot on his bare back. He stepped quickly forward, shield raised, then swung a low cut beneath the rim. Weapons clashed and grated. The response came fast: two heavy hammering blows that he only just blocked with his shield. Wicker cracked, and he felt the jolt up his arm.

  Sweat ran into his eyes. He was thirty-two years old, and age was against him. His opponent was six years younger and a hand’s breadth taller; he had speed and he had a longer reach. But he had not been trained to use his shield as a weapon. Castus had: he waited, taking the blows, soaking up the attack until his opponent made too quick a lunge, then he struck. Throwing his weight into the hollow of his shield he surged forward, battering his opponent off balance. A swing to the right, and he hooked the rim of his shield around that of his opponent and twisted hard. A cry as the shield turned, opening his adversary’s unprotected left flank, then Castus jabbed hard and felt the blow meet flesh.

  ‘Ha!’ he said, leaping back. ‘Killed you!’

  Brinno let out a shout of frustration and flung his shield down. They were using wooden practice swords, but there was a bloody red graze on his side where the splintered tip of Castus’s weapon had jabbed into him. If it had been a real sword with some weight behind it, it would have stabbed deep into his bowels.

  ‘A filthy trick!’ Brinno said, grinning against the pain.

  ‘A Roman trick,’ Castus told him. He dropped his own battered wicker shield onto the packed dirt of the training courtyard, then flipped his wooden sword up and caught it by the blade. He gave a nod to the boy waiting in the portico, who ran over with a skin of water.

  Both men were stripped to boots and breeches, and in the close summer heat their scarred bodies poured with sweat. Castus raised the waterskin, tipping back his head and filling his mouth with the cool liquid. He let the water pour over his shoulders and chest, then tossed the skin to Brinno.

  The young Frank took two long swallows, then swilled his mouth and spat in the dust. ‘This time,’ he said, throwing the waterskin back to the slave boy, ‘we fight without shields, yes? And I think I will beat you!’

  Castus rolled his shoulders, smiling, then the two men faced off, both dropping instinctively into a fighting crouch. They circled, their shadows pooled beneath them. Castus knew his disadvantage now: Brinno had grown up duelling like this, back in his own county, but the legions fought only with shield in hand. The younger man had a wiry agility too, and this sort of fighting suited him well. With the wooden sword held level, he kept his left hand low as he circled, curled into a fist against his thigh, as if he were still gripping a shield. Brinno’s left arm was up and reaching wide, a counterbalance to the wild swinging attacks he favoured.

  Slowly they shuffled, scuffing dust, each waiting for the moment to strike. Over Brinno’s shoulder, Castus saw a figure watching him from in the shade at the end of the wooden portico. Silver winked from the figure’s throat, and Castus recognised the eunuch, Serapion. A flicker of apprehension crossed his mind.

  Brinno leaped, swinging a fast overarm strike, and Castus blocked it at the last moment. The clash of the wooden swords was loud, and for a few heartbeats the two men were locked together, pushing against each other, the wooden blades grating in their fists. Brinno tried to reach out with his free hand and grab Castus by the neck, and Castus punched his arm away and then spun on his heel to break the contact. Brinno’s lashing blow clipped his shoulder as he turned, but then he was circling again. Pain bloomed up his arm; both of them would wear bruises tomorrow.

  Sparring with Brinno was often a dangerous activity; the young Frank was keen to win, and tended to work himself into a fighting frenzy heedless of restraint. Now he made another wild cut, which Castus only just parried before it cracked his skull. He swiped his blade down, catching another blow before it met his shin, and managed a lunging stab that sent Brinno dancing back out of his reach. Breath hammered at the back of his throat.

  But along with his ferocity, the young barbarian was also very easy to read. There was no economy to his movement, and after a few moments Castus found he could judge the direction of his next blow quite easily. Brinno’s narrow face contorted, his eyes bulged, and he let out high shouts and grunts. Castus kept to his fighting stance, stayed silent and moved only when necessary.

  Two more blows, then Castus cut high and his blade clipped Brinno’s shoulder. Enraged, the Frank leaped forward behind a swinging overhand strike; Castus blocked him, then punched his left arm up and under Brinno’s reaching right. With his cupped hand he grasped the bunched muscle of the young warrior’s neck, shoving him backwards. A sweeping kick, and he knocked Brinno’s legs from under him. The Frank went down hard on his back, and Castus dropped to one knee, straddling his body, sword angled at his throat.

  ‘Roman bastard!’ Brinno yelled. ‘You fight like some common gladiator!’ But he was laughing again as he scrambled to his feet. ‘In my father’s country, these tricks wo
uld not be allowed!’

  ‘Then I’m glad we’re in a civilised part of the world,’ Castus said, breathing hard. With his wooden sword under his arm, he walked heavily to the wooden railing of the portico. Stooping, he dashed his face and torso with water from the trough.

  ‘We fight again?’ Brinno said, stalking up and down swinging his sword.

  ‘That’s enough for today,’ Castus said. He grabbed a rough tunic from the railing and used it to swab his face. ‘I’m for the baths. I need a cold plunge and rub down.’

  ‘You just know I’d win in the end, old man!’ Brinno declared as he tossed his sword to the slave boy. ‘Youth beats age, every time.’

  ‘You don’t have the stamina for it,’ Castus growled. He threw the tunic aside and walked along the portico. Serapion was still there, apparently waiting for him.

  ‘You play hard in the Protectores,’ the eunuch said.

  ‘It’s no game,’ Castus told him. ‘You can lose your edge, standing around in a palace all day.’ He extended the wooden sword, hilt first, towards Serapion. ‘You want to try?’

  ‘Hmm, thank you, but I think not,’ the eunuch said with a tense smile.

  ‘Let me know if you change your mind. I’ve trained softer-looking men than you.’

  Castus put the sword down, placed his hands on the portico railing and leaned forward, feeling the burn in his bunched shoulder muscles. The ache of combat lingered these days as it never had in his youth. Brinno’s jibes about his age had not been far off the mark.

  ‘In fact,’ Serapion said, ‘I’m here with a request.’

  Castus straightened up. He waited for the eunuch to go on. From the corner of his eye he could see Brinno still pacing in the courtyard, pretending not to notice the conversation at the portico railing.

  ‘The request comes from the domina Valeria Domitia Sabina,’ Serapion said. ‘She wishes to make an... excursion tonight, a rather particular excursion, and has asked that you accompany her.’

  ‘A what?’ Castus said. He wiped a forearm across his brow.

  ‘I... cannot say anything more now,’ the eunuch went on. He was clearly embarrassed, or nervous. ‘But the domina Sabina asks that you meet her outside the stable gate of the palace, at the beginning of the second watch tonight. Dress plainly, she said, and come alone.’

  Castus stared at him for a few moments, feeling the doubt massing in his mind. The promise too, and the impossibility. ‘Why don’t you go with her?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s nothing that would suit me,’ Serapion replied, looking far from comfortable. ‘Besides... the domina rather suggested that she might need... protecting?’

  Castus grunted, then rubbed a knuckle across his scalp. ‘How do I know this isn’t some ruse of yours?’

  Serapion widened his eyes. ‘I assure you it’s not,’ he said. ‘But the domina told me, if you asked, that I was to give you this.’ He reached into the sleeve of his tunic and drew out a slip of white muslin, passing it to Castus.

  Even as he took the cloth, Castus could smell her scent upon it. Rich and dark: he recognised it at once. Quickly he balled the cloth into his fist and thrust it under his belt.

  ‘You may return it to her tonight,’ Serapion said, then turned and walked swiftly back into the shadows of the building behind him.

  ‘What was that?’ Brinno asked as Castus returned along the portico.

  ‘Nothing,’ Castus said. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Several times that afternoon and evening Castus resolved to forget the whole thing; it was some trick to mock him, or a mistake. But the goad of curiosity drove him. With the emperor and most of his court away on the expedition to Britain, the chambers of the palace felt unnaturally quiet and empty. Only the occasional slave appeared, sweeping the summer dust from the porticos and mopping the mosaic pavements in the great echoing audience halls.

  Castus was on duty for the first watch that night, but it was an easy matter to slip away from the precincts of the Protectores after the sentries changed. The two men standing at the courtyard gate just gave him a knowing smile and a nod when he called out the watchword, assuming he was making a private visit to one of the city brothels. He wore his old buff-brown military cloak, with a plain red tunic and round cap; his baldric he had shortened so that his sword hung high on his left, where it would be concealed by the cloak; Serapion’s instructions had not specified that he was to come to the meeting armed, but he felt unprepared without a weapon. As he paced down the paved alleyway that led to the stable gate, Castus fought down a rising wave of apprehension. He was not sure what he expected of the night ahead, and felt uncomfortably as if he had slipped into a dream from which he might awake suddenly, disorientated.

  13

  The night was warm, the air clammy on his skin. Just outside the arched portal of the stable gate, a covered two-wheeled carriage stood in the shadow of the palace wall. Light flared as he approached, and Castus saw the carriage driver lift a burning torch above his head. His hand moved beneath his cloak, fingers closing around the hilt of his sword.

  ‘I thought you’d abandoned me,’ she said, drawing the curtain aside from the carriage door.

  Castus shaded his eyes from the torchlight. ‘I came as soon as I could.’ He passed her the slip of perfumed cloth that Serapion had given him, then clambered in beside her. He had not travelled in a carriage before; the chassis rocked beneath his weight and he was thrown immediately off balance, almost falling onto Sabina. He caught himself on the doorpost and lowered himself down to sit beside her on the bench seat. It was narrow; their bodies were pressed close together. Sabina too was plainly dressed tonight, Castus noticed, in a simple dark stola and shawl.

  She called to the driver and pulled the curtain across, and at once the vehicle lurched into motion. Castus twisted to glance back through the latticed rear window, and saw the arch of the stable gate vanish into the night.

  ‘Now maybe you can tell me where we’re going?’ Castus said. He was crushed into the corner of the seat, trying to preserve at least some distance from the woman beside him, although she appeared not to mind the proximity.

  ‘Not just yet,’ she said quietly, and he sensed her smile in the dark. The carriage wheels jolted over the paving of the street. ‘This is one advantage of living in the provinces,’ Sabina said. ‘In Rome only Vestal Virgins are allowed to travel by carriage. Everyone else must use a litter... But for our purposes this is far more convenient.’

  Castus was not sure. The carriage swung from side to side as it moved, pitching him against Sabina, and his sword was digging into his side. He lifted the swinging curtain and saw the dark porticos that lined the streets of the city flashing past. The carriage swung around a corner, passing a fountain carved in the shape of a lion’s head.

  ‘Are you easily scared?” Sabina asked, almost whispering. Castus had to lean closer to hear her above the noise of the wheels.

  ‘Depends. Of what?’

  ‘Oh, of the dark. Of spirits, perhaps. The world of the dead.’

  ‘Isn’t everyone scared of that?’

  ‘Maybe. You seem to me less easily frightened than most men. Serapion, for example, would not accompany me tonight.’

  ‘Serapion’s a eunuch.’

  ‘Indeed,’ she said. The carriage made another turn, and Castus saw that they were passing the big grain warehouses down by the river. ‘We’re taking a rather circuitous route,’ Sabina told him.

  They slowed as they approached the small gate that led out through the wall to the river meadows. Torchlight on the cobbles outside, and the voices of soldiers. Castus kept quiet, barely breathing; wherever this strange journey was leading, he did not want anyone identifying him. But the driver spoke only briefly to the soldiers at the gate, then Castus heard the flick of his goad and the jingle of the horse trappings, and the carriage was moving again, down the slope through the gate and out of the city. A damp warm breeze swept in beneath the curtain, and the scent of the river mi
ngled with Sabina’s perfume.

  Another wide turn, but the darkness outside was total and Castus had lost his bearings. Close beside him he could feel Sabina tensing, her body drawing tight with nerves. They were moving along a narrow dirt track now.

  ‘Whatever happens tonight,’ she said, ‘you must promise to do exactly what I say. Will you do that?’

  ‘Domina, how can I promise when I don’t know what we’re doing?’

  ‘Are you afraid of doing things that are wrong? Things that are illegal?’

  Castus shoved himself back from her. ‘What sort of things?’ he said warily. ‘I would do nothing dishonourable... not through choice anyway.’

  The carriage slowed suddenly, then came to a halt.

  ‘Quiet now,’ Sabina said. ‘I’ll tell you everything soon enough.’

  After the cool breeze of motion the night seemed even warmer. Castus helped Sabina down from the carriage, then he turned and drew a sharp breath. All around him in the moonlight, stretching away into darkness, broken shapes rose up from the tangled grass. Some were the size of houses, others mere slabs of masonry.

  ‘This is the old necropolis,’ he said. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he could make out gaping empty doorways, the shapes of mouldings, statues and portrait busts mossy and weathered into indistinction.

  Sabina was already leading him away from the carriage, along a path roughly traced between the tombs. There were torches moving in the near distance, little points of weaving light, and Sabina seemed to be heading in their direction. Castus paced after her, feeling the dread crawling up his spine. The vast tangled necropolis seemed to breathe a foul black air. He could almost taste it in his mouth, and feel the cold touch of the dead upon his skin.