The Emperor Series: Books 1-5
Page 9
They circled in the shadows of the yard.
‘Your mother was clumsy in bed at first.’ Renius’ sword snaked out as he spoke and was snapped aside with a bell ring of metal. Marcus stepped in and pressed his blade against the leathery old skin of Renius’ throat. His expression was cold and unforgiving.
‘Predictable,’ Marcus muttered, glaring into the cold blue eyes, nettled nonetheless.
He felt a pressure and looked down to see a dagger held in Renius’ left hand, touching him lightly on the stomach. Renius grinned.
‘Many men will hate you enough to take you with them. They are the most dangerous of all. They can run right onto your sword and blind you with their thumbs. I’ve seen that done by a woman to one of my men.’
‘Why did she hate him so much?’ Marcus asked as he took a pace away, sword still ready to defend.
‘The victors will always be hated. It is the price we pay. If they love you, they will do what you want, but when they want to do it. If they fear you, they will do your will, but when you want them to. So, is it better to be loved or feared?’
‘Both,’ Gaius said, seriously.
Renius smiled. ‘You mean adored and respected, which is the impossible trick if you are occupying lands that are only yours by right of strength and blood. Life is never a simple problem from question to answer. There are always many answers.’
The two boys looked baffled and Renius snorted in irritation.
‘I will show you what discipline means. I will show you what you have already learned. Put your swords away and stand back to attention.’
The old gladiator looked the pair over with a critical eye. Without warning, the noon bell sounded and he frowned, his manner changing in an instant. His voice lost the snap of the tutor and, for once, was low and quiet.
‘There are food riots in the city, did you know that? Great gangs that destroy property and stream away like rats when someone is brave enough to draw a sword on them. I should be there, not playing games with children. I have taught you for two years longer than my original agreement. You are not ready, but I will not waste any more of my evening years on you. Today is your last lesson.’ He stepped over to Gaius, who stared resolutely ahead.
‘Your father should have met me here and heard my report. The fact that he is late for the first time in three years tells me what?’
Gaius cleared his dry throat. ‘The riots in Rome are worse than you believed.’
‘Yes. Your father will not be here to see this last lesson. A pity. If he is dead and I kill you, who will inherit the estate?’
Gaius blinked in confusion. The man’s words seemed to jar with his reasonable tone. It was as if he were ordering a new tunic.
‘My uncle Marius, although he is with the Primigenia legion – the First-Born. He will not be expecting –’
‘A good standard, the Primigenia, did well in Egypt. My bill will be sent to him. Now I will indulge you as the current master of the estate, in your father’s absence. When you are ready, you will face me for real, not a practice, not to first blood, but an attack such as you might face if you were walking the streets of Rome today, among the rioters.
‘I will fight fairly, and if you kill me you may consider yourself to have graduated from my tutelage.’
‘Why kill us after all the time you have –’ Marcus spluttered, breaking discipline to speak without permission.
‘You have to face death at some point. I cannot continue to train you and there is a last lesson to be learned about fear and anger.’
For a moment, Renius looked unsure of himself, but then his head straightened and the ‘snapping turtle’, as the slaves called him, was back, his intensity and energy overpowering.
‘You are my last pupils. My reputation as I go into retirement hangs on your sorry necks. I will not let you go improperly trained, so that my name is blackened by your deeds. My name is something I have spent my life protecting. It is too late to consider losing it now.’
‘We would not embarrass you,’ Marcus muttered, almost to himself.
Renius rounded on him. ‘Your every stroke embarrasses me. You hack like a butcher attacking a bull carcass in a rage. You cannot control your temper. You fall for the simplest trap as the blood drains from your head! And YOU!’ He turned to Gaius, who had begun to grin. ‘You cannot keep your thoughts from your groin long enough to make a Roman of you. Nobilitas? My blood runs cold at the thought of boys like you carrying on my heritage, my city, my people.’
Gaius dropped the grin at the reference to the slave girl that Renius had whipped in front of them for distracting the boys. It still shamed him and a slow anger began to grow as the tirade continued.
‘Gaius, you may choose which of you will duel first. Your first tactical decision!’ Renius turned and strode away onto the fighting square laid out in mosaic on the training ground. He stretched his leg muscles behind them, seemingly oblivious to their dumbstruck gazes.
‘He has gone mad,’ Marcus whispered. ‘He’ll kill us both.’
‘He is still playing games,’ Gaius said grimly. ‘Like with the river. I’m going to take him. I think I can do it. I’m certainly not going to refuse the challenge. If this is how I show him that he has taught me well, then so be it. I will thank him in his own blood.’
Marcus looked at his friend and saw his resolution. He knew that, as much as he didn’t want either of them to fight Renius, it was he who had the better chance. Neither could win outright, but only Marcus had the speed to take the old man with him into the void.
‘Gaius,’ he murmured. ‘Let me go first.’
Gaius looked him in the eye, as if to gauge his thoughts.
‘Not this time. You are my friend. I do not want to see him kill you.’
‘Nor I you. Yet I am the fastest of us – I have a better chance.’
Gaius loosened his shoulders and smiled tightly. ‘He is only an old man, Marcus. I’ll be back in a moment.’
Alone, Gaius took up his position.
Renius watched him through eyes narrowed against the sun.
‘Why did you choose to fight first?’
Gaius shrugged. ‘All lives end. I chose to. That is enough.’
‘Aye, it is. Begin, boy. Let’s see if you have learned anything.’
Gently, smoothly, they began to move around each other, gladii held out and flat-bladed, catching the sun.
Renius feinted with a sudden shift of a shoulder. Gaius read the feint and forced the old man back a step, with a lunge. The blades clashed and the battle began. They struck and parried, came together in a twist of heaving muscle and the old warrior threw the young boy backwards, sprawling in the dust.
For once, Renius didn’t mock him, his face remaining impassive. Gaius rose slowly, balanced. He could not win with strength.
He took two quick steps forward and brought the blade up in a neat slice, breaking past the defence and cutting deeply into the mahogany skin of Renius’ chest.
The old man grunted in surprise as the boy pressed the attack without pause, cut after cut. Each was parried with tiny shifts of weight and movements of the blade. The boy would clearly tire himself in the sun, ready for the butcher’s knife.
Sweat poured into Gaius’ eyes. He felt desperate, unable to think of new moves that might work against this hard-eyed thing of wood that read and parried him so easily. He flailed and missed and, as he overbalanced, Renius extended his right arm, sinking the blade into the exposed lower abdomen.
Gaius felt his strength go. His legs seemed weak sticks and folded beyond his control under him, rubbery and painless. Blood spattered the dust, but the colours had gone from the courtyard, replaced by the thump of his heartbeat and flashes in his eyes.
Renius looked down and Gaius could see his eyes shine with moisture. Was the old man crying?
‘Not … good … enough,’ the old gladiator spat. Renius stepped forward, his eyes full of pain.
The brightness of the sun was blocked b
y a dark bar of shadow as Marcus slid his sword under the sagging throat skin of the old warrior. One step behind Renius, he could see the old man stiffen in surprise.
‘Forgotten me?’ It would be the work of a single thought to pull the blade back sharply and end the vicious old man, but Marcus had glanced at the body of his friend and knew the life was pouring out of him. He allowed the rage to build inside him for a moment and the chance for a quick death disappeared as Renius stepped smoothly away and brought up his bloody sword again. His face was stone, but his eyes shone.
Marcus began his attack, in past the guard and out before the old man had a chance to move. If he had been trying for a fatal blow, it would have landed, as the old man held immobile, his face rigid with tension. As it was, the blow was simply a loosener and the life in the old man came back with a rush.
‘Can’t you even kill me when I hold still for the strike?’ Renius snapped as he began to circle again, keeping his right side to Marcus.
‘You were always a fool – you have a fool’s pride,’ Marcus almost growled at him, forced to pay attention to this man as his friend died in the heat, alone.
He attacked again, his thought become deeds, no reflection or decision, simply blows and moves, unstoppable. Red mouths opened on the old body and Marcus could hear the spatter of blood on the dust like spring rain.
Renius had no time to speak again. He defended desperately, his face showing shock for a second before settling into his gladiatorial mask. Marcus moved with extraordinary grace and balance, too fast to counter, a warrior born.
Again and again, the old man only knew he had stopped a blow when he heard the clash of metal as his body moved and reacted without conscious thought. His mind seemed detached from the fight.
His thoughts spoke in a dry voice: ‘I am an old fool. This one may be the best I have trained, but I have killed the other – that was a mortal blow.’
His left arm hung, flapping obscene and loose, the shoulder muscle sliced. The pain was like a hammer and he felt sudden exhaustion slam into him, like the years catching up with him at last. The boy had never been this fast before, it was as if the sight of his friend dying had opened doors within him.
Renius felt his strength desert him in one despairing sigh. He had seen so many at this point where the spirit cannot take the flesh further. He warded off the battered blade of the gladius without energy, batting it away for what he knew would be the last time.
‘Cease, or I will drop you where you stand,’ came a new voice, quiet, but carrying somehow through the courtyard and house.
Marcus didn’t pause. He had been trained not to react to taunts and no one was taking this kill from him. He tensed his shoulders to drive in the iron blade.
‘This bow will kill you, boy. Put the sword down.’
Renius looked Marcus in the eyes, seeing madness there for a moment. He knew the lad would kill him and then the light was gone and control had come back.
Even with the heat of his own blood warming his limbs, the yard seemed cold to the old man as he watched Marcus glide backwards out of range and then turn to look at the newcomer. Renius had rarely been so certain of his own death to come.
There was a bow, with a glinting arrowhead. An old man, older than Renius, held the bow without a shiver of muscle, despite the obvious heft of the draw. He wore a rough brown robe and a smile that stretched over only a few teeth.
‘No one has to die here today. I would know. Put the weapon away and let me summon doctors and cool drinks for you.’
Reality came back to Marcus in a rush. The gladius dropped from his hand as he spoke.
‘Gaius, my friend, is injured. He may die. He needs help.’
Renius sank onto one knee, unable to stand. His sword fell from nerveless fingers and the red stain widened around him as his head bowed. Marcus walked past him without a downward glance, over to where Gaius lay.
‘His appendix has been ruptured, I see,’ the old man said over his shoulder.
‘Then he is dead. When the appendix swells, it is always fatal. Our doctors cannot remove the swollen thing.’
‘I have done it, once before. Summon the slaves of the house to bear this boy inside. Fetch me bandages and heated water.’
‘Are you a healer?’ Marcus asked, searching the man’s eyes for hope.
‘I have picked up a few things on my travels. It is not over yet.’ Their eyes met.
Marcus looked away, nodding to himself. He trusted the stranger, but could not have said why.
Renius slid onto his back, his chest barely moving. He looked like what he was, a frail old brown stick of a man, made hard but brittle in the Roman sun. As Marcus’ gaze fell on him, he tried to rise, shuddering with weakness.
Marcus felt a hand press down on his shoulder, interrupting his rage as it grew again. Tubruk stood beside him, his face black with anger. Marcus could feel the ex-gladiator’s hand shake slightly.
‘Relax, boy. There’ll be no more fighting. I have sent for Lucius and your mother’s doctor.’
‘You saw?’ Marcus stammered.
Tubruk tightened his grip.
‘The end of it. I hoped you would kill him,’ he said grimly, looking over to where Renius bled. Tubruk’s expression was hard as he turned back to the newcomer.
‘Who are you, ancient? A poacher? This is a private estate.’
The old man stood slowly and met Tubruk’s eyes.
‘Just a traveller, a wanderer,’ he said.
‘Will he die?’ Marcus interrupted.
‘Not today, I think,’ the old man replied. ‘It would not be right after I have arrived – am I not a guest of the house now?’
Marcus blinked in confusion, trying to weigh the reasonable sound of the words with the still swirling pain and rage inside him.
‘I don’t even know your name,’ he said.
‘I am Cabera,’ the old man said, softly. ‘Peace now. I will help you.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gaius lifted into consciousness, woken by angry voices in the room. His head pounded and he felt weak in every bone. Pain from below his waist heaved in great waves, with answering throbs at pulse points on his body. His mouth was dry and he could not speak or keep his eyes open. The darkness was soft and red and he tried to go back under, not yet willing to join the conscious struggle again.
‘I have removed the perforated appendix, and tied off the severed vessels. He has lost a great deal of blood, which will take time to be replenished, but he is young and strong.’ A stranger’s voice – one of the estate doctors? Gaius didn’t know or care. As long as he wasn’t going to die, they should just leave him alone to get well.
‘My wife’s doctor says you are a charlatan.’ His father’s voice, no give in it.
‘He would not operate on such a wound – so you have lost nothing, yes? I have removed the appendix once before, it is not a fatal operation. The only problem is the onset of fever, which he must fight on his own.’
‘I was taught that it was always fatal. The appendix swells and bursts. It cannot be removed as you might cut off a finger.’ His father sounded tired, Gaius thought.
‘Nevertheless, I have done so. I have also bandaged the older man. He too will recover, although he will never fight again, with the damage to his left shoulder. All will live here. You should sleep.’
Gaius heard footsteps cross his room and felt the warm, dry skin of his father’s palm on his damp forehead.
‘He is my only child; how can I sleep, Cabera? Would you sleep if it was your child?’
‘I would sleep like a baby. We have done all that we can. I will continue to watch over him, but you must get your rest.’ The other voice seemed kind, but not the rounded tones of the physicians that tended his mother. There was a trace of a strange accent, a mellifluous rhythm as he spoke.
Gaius sank into sleep again as if he held a dark weight on his chest. The voices continued on the edge of hearing, slipping in and out of fever dreams.
‘This is why the Greek dislikes my methods. The wound must have a drain for the pus that will fill it as the fever strengthens. If I closed it tight, the pus would have nowhere to go and poison his flesh. Then he would surely die, as most do. This could save him.’
‘If he dies, I will cut your own appendix out myself.’
There was a cackle and a few words in a strange language that echoed in Gaius’ dreams.
‘You would have a job finding it. Here is the scar from when my father removed mine many years ago – with the drain.’
Gaius’ father spoke with finality: ‘I will trust your judgement then. You have my thanks and more if he lives.’
Gaius woke as a cool hand touched his forehead. He looked into blue eyes, bright in skin the colour of walnut wood.
‘My name is Cabera, Gaius. It is good to meet you at last and at such a moment in your life. I have been travelling for thousands of your miles. It is enough to make me believe in the gods to have arrived here when I was needed. No?’
Gaius couldn’t respond. His tongue was thick and solid in his mouth. As if reading his thoughts, the old man reached over and brought a shallow bowl of water to his lips.
‘Drink a little. The fever is burning the moisture from your body.’
The few drops slid into his mouth and loosened the gummy saliva that had gathered there. Gaius coughed and his eyes closed again. Cabera looked down at the boy and sighed for a moment. He checked that there was no one around and then placed his bony old hands over the wound, around the thin wood tube that still dribbled sluggish fluid.
A warmth came from his hands that Gaius could feel even in his dreams. He felt tendrils of heat spread up into his chest and settle into his lungs, clearing away fluid.
The heat built until it was almost painful and then Cabera took his hands away and sat still, his breathing suddenly harsh and broken.
Gaius opened his eyes again. He still felt too weak to move, but the feeling of liquid moving inside him had gone. He could breathe again.