The Emperor Series: Books 1-5

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘Does you good, First Mate,’ Marcus replied through his spluttering.

  Crixus smiled. ‘I like you, lad. I really do,’ he said, refilling his own cup. ‘Mind you, that friend of yours, Renius, now he is a truly evil bastard.’

  They all nodded and peacefully went back to watching the sea and the sky.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Marcus viewed the busy port with mixed feelings as it grew before him. The Lucidae manoeuvred nimbly through the ancient stones that marked the edge of the wild sea and the calm lake of the harbour itself. A host of ships accompanied them and they had had to stand off from the harbour for most of the morning until a harassed pilot took a boat out to guide them in.

  At first, Marcus had thought nothing of the month at sea, considering it with as much interest as he might consider a walk from one town to another. Only the destination had been important in his mind. Now though, he knew the name of each one of the small crew and had felt their acceptance after that night spent drinking on the prow. Even the return of Firstmate to light duties hadn’t spoiled things with the men. Firstmate, it seemed, bore no grudges and even seemed proud of him, as if his acceptance by the crew was in some way his doing.

  Peppis had never stopped sleeping in corners on the decks at night, but he had filled out a little with the food Marcus saved for him and the beatings had stopped by some unseen signal amongst the men. The little boy had become a much more cheerful character and might one day be a sailor, as he hoped.

  To some extent, Marcus envied the boy; it was freedom of a kind. These men would see all the ports of the known world while he marched over foreign fields under the baking sun, carrying Rome always with him.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to sift apart all the strange scents on the sea breeze. Jasmine and olive oil were strong, but there was also the smell of a mass of people again – sweat and excrement. He sighed and jumped as a hand clapped onto his shoulders.

  ‘It will feel good to get land under our heels again,’ Renius said, staring with him into the harbour town. ‘We’ll hire horses to take us east to the legion and find your century to get you sworn in.’

  Marcus nodded in silence and Renius caught his mood. ‘Only memories stay the same, lad. Everything else changes. When you see Rome again, you’ll hardly know it and all the people you loved will be different. There’s no stopping it, it’s the most natural thing in the world.’

  Seeing Marcus wasn’t cheered, he went on.

  ‘This civilisation was ancient when Rome was young. It’s an alien place to a Roman and you’ll have to watch their ideas of soft living don’t spoil you. There are savage tribes that raid across the border in Illyria, though, so you’ll see your share of action. That got your interest, did it?’ He laughed, a short bark. ‘I suppose you thought it would be all drill and standing in the sun? Marius is a good judge, lad. He’s sent you to one of the hardest posts in the empire. Even the Greeks don’t bend the knee without a good deal of thought and Macedonia is where Alexander was born. This is just the place to put a bit of strength into your steel.’

  Together they watched as the Lucidae eased against the dockside and ropes were thrown and tied down. In a short while, the little trader was tethered securely and Marcus almost felt sorry for her sudden loss of freedom. Epides came out on deck dressed in a chiton, a traditional Greek tunic worn at knee length. He glittered with jewellery and his hair shone with oil in the sun. He saw the two passengers standing at the side waiting to disembark and walked over to them.

  ‘I have grave news, gentlemen. A Greek army has risen in the north and we could not put in at Dyrrhachium as planned. This is Oricum, about a hundred miles to the south.’

  Renius tensed. ‘What? You were paid to put us down in the north, so that we could join the lad’s legion, I …’

  ‘It was not a possibility, as I said,’ the captain replied, smiling. ‘The flag codes were quite clear as we neared Dyrrhachium. That is why we have been following the coast south. I could not risk the Lucidae with a rebel army drunk on broken Roman garrisons. The safety of the ship was at stake.’

  Renius grabbed Epides by his chiton, lifting him up to his toes.

  ‘Damn you, man. There’s a bloody great mountain between here and Macedonia, as you are well aware. That is another month of hard travel for us and great expense, which is your responsibility!’

  Epides struggled, his face purpling in rage.

  ‘Take your hands off me! How dare you accost me on my own ship? I’ll call the harbour guards and have you hanged, you arrogant –’

  Renius shifted his grip to a ruby on a heavy gold chain around Epides’ neck. With a savage jerk, he broke the links and tucked it away into his belt pouch. Epides began stuttering with incoherent anger and Renius shoved him away, turning to Marcus as the man fell sprawling onto the deck.

  ‘Right. Let’s get off. At least we can afford to buy supplies for the trip when I sell the chain.’

  When he saw Marcus’ gaze flick behind him, Renius spun and drew his sword in one motion. Epides was lunging with a jewelled dagger, his face contorted.

  Renius swayed inside the blow clumsily and ripped his gladius up into the man’s smooth-shaven chest. He withdrew the blade and ran it over the chiton in quick wipes as Epides fell to the deck, writhing.

  ‘Drunk on broken garrisons, was it?’ he muttered, struggling to sheathe the sword. ‘Damn this scabbard – won’t stay still …’

  Marcus stood stunned at the quick death and the nearby members of the crew gaped at the suddenly violent scene. Renius nodded to them as the gladius slid home.

  ‘Get the ramps down. We have a long journey ahead of us.’

  A section in the side was opened and plank gangways were put down to allow the cargo to be unloaded. Marcus shook his head in silent disbelief. He checked his belongings for the last time and patted his sides, feeling again the loss of the dagger he’d given to Firstmate the previous evening. He knew it was the right thing to do somehow, and the smiles of the crew as the man showed it around told him he had made the right choice. There were no smiles now and he wished he’d kept it.

  He pulled his pack onto his shoulders and helped Renius with his.

  ‘Let’s see what Greece has to offer,’ he said.

  Renius grinned at his sudden change in mood, walking past the twisted body of Epides without looking down. They left the Lucidae without a backward glance.

  The ground moved alarmingly under his feet and Marcus swayed uncertainly for a few moments before the habit of years re-established itself.

  ‘Wait!’ a voice called behind them. They turned to see Peppis coming down the ramp in a flurry of arms and legs. He pulled up breathlessly and they waited for him to calm enough to speak.

  ‘Take me with you, sir,’ he said, looking beseechingly at Marcus, who blinked in surprise.

  ‘I thought you wanted to grow up to be a sailor,’ he said.

  ‘Not any more. I want to be a fighter, a legionary like you and Renius,’ Peppis said, the words rushing out of him. ‘I want to defend the empire from savage hordes.’

  Marcus looked at Renius. ‘Have you been talking to the boy?’

  ‘I told him a few stories, yes. Many boys dream of being in the legions. It is a good life for a man,’ Renius replied without embarrassment.

  Peppis saw Marcus waver and pressed on. ‘You’ll need a servant, someone to carry your sword and look after your horse. Please don’t send me back.’

  Marcus shrugged his pack from his shoulders and handed it to the boy, who beamed at him.

  ‘Right. Carry this. Do you know how to look after a horse?’

  Peppis shook his head, still beaming.

  ‘Then you will learn.’

  ‘I will. I will be the best servant you ever had,’ the boy replied, his arms wrapped around the pack.

  ‘At least the captain can’t object,’ Marcus said.

  ‘No. I didn’t like the man,’ Renius replied gruffly.
‘Ask someone where the nearest stables are. We’ll move on before dark.’

  The stables, the travellers’ resting house, the people themselves were a peculiar mixture to Marcus. He could see Rome in a thousand small touches, not least the serious-faced legionaries who marched the streets in pairs, looking out for trouble. Yet at every step he would see something new and alien. A pretty girl walking with her guards would speak to them in a string of soft gibberish that they seemed to understand. A temple near the stables was built of pure white marble as at home, but the statues were odd, close to the ones he knew, but with different faces cut into the stone. Beards were much in evidence, perfumed with sweet oils and curled, but the strangest things he saw were on the walls of a temple devoted to healing the sick.

  Half- and full-size limbs, perfectly formed in plaster or stone, hung on the outer walls from hooks. A child’s leg, bent at the knee, shared the space with the model of a woman’s hand and nearby there was a miniature soldier made from reddish marble, beautiful in its detail.

  ‘What are those?’ Marcus had asked Renius as they passed.

  ‘Just a custom,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘If the goddess heals you, you have a cast of the limb made and presented to her. It helps to bring in more people for the temple, I should think. They don’t heal anyone without a little gold first, so the models are like a sign for a shop. This isn’t Rome, lad. They are not like us when you get down to it.’

  ‘You don’t like them?’

  ‘I respect what they achieved, but they live too much in the glories of the past. They are a proud people, Marcus, but not proud enough to take our foot off their necks. They like to think of us as barbarians and the high-bred ones will pretend you don’t exist, but what good is thousands of years of art if you can’t defend yourself? The first thing men must learn is to be strong. Without strength, anything else you have or make can be taken from you. Remember that, lad.’

  At least the stables were like stables anywhere. The smell brought a sudden pang of homesickness to Marcus and he wondered how Tubruk fared on the estate, and how Gaius was handling the dangers of the capital.

  Renius patted the flank of a sturdy-looking stallion. He ran his hands down its legs and checked the mouth carefully. Peppis watched him and mimicked his action, patting legs and checking tendons with a serious frown on his face.

  ‘How much for this one?’ Renius asked the owner, who stood with two bodyguards. The man had none of the smell of horses about him. He looked clean and somehow polished, with hair and beard that shone darkly.

  ‘He is strong, yes?’ he replied, his Latin accented but clear. ‘His father won races in Pontus, but he is a little too heavy for speed, more suited for battle.’

  Renius shrugged. ‘I just want him to take me north, over the mountains. How much are you asking?’

  ‘His name is Apollo. I bought him when a rich man lost his wealth and was forced to sell. I paid a small fortune, but I know horses, I know what he is worth.’

  ‘I like him,’ Peppis said.

  Both men ignored the boy.

  ‘I will pay five aurei for him and sell him after the journey is over,’ Renius said firmly.

  ‘He is worth twenty and I have paid for his feed all winter,’ the trader replied.

  ‘I can buy a small house for twenty!’

  The trader shrugged and looked apologetic.

  ‘Not any more. Prices have gone up. It is the war in the north. All the best ones are being taken for Mithridates, an upstart who calls himself a king. Apollo is one of the last of the good stock.’

  ‘Ten is my final offer. We are buying two of yours today, so I want a price for both.’

  ‘Let us not argue. Let me show you another of lesser worth that will carry you north. I have two others I could sell together, brothers they are, and fast enough.’

  The man walked on down the row of horses and Marcus eyed Apollo, who watched him with interest as he chewed a mouthful of hay. He patted the soft nose as the continuing argument dwindled with distance. Apollo ignored him and reached back for another mouthful, pulled from a string sack nailed to the stable wall.

  After a while, Renius returned, looking a little pale.

  ‘We’ve got two, for tomorrow: Apollo and another one he called Lancer. I’m sure he makes the names up on the spot. Peppis will ride with you, his small weight won’t be any trouble. Gods, the prices these people ask for! If your uncle hadn’t provided so generously, we’d be walking tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s not my uncle,’ Marcus reminded. ‘How much did they cost us?’

  ‘Don’t ask and don’t expect to eat much on the journey. Come on, we’ll pick the horses up tomorrow at dawn. Let us hope that the prices for rooms haven’t risen as high, or we’ll be sneaking back in here when it gets dark.’

  Continuing to grumble, Renius strode out of the stables, with Marcus and Peppis following him, trying not to smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Marcus sat easily on his horse, occasionally reaching forward to scratch Lancer’s ears as they rode down the mountain path. Peppis was dozing behind him, lulled by the gentle rhythm of the horse’s walk. Marcus thought of waking him with an elbow to see the view, but decided to leave him alone.

  It seemed as if they could see all of Greece from the heights, spread out below in a rolling green and yellow landscape with groves of olive trees and isolated farms speckling the hills and valleys. The clean air smelled different, carrying the scent of unknown flowers.

  Marcus remembered gentle Vepax, the tutor, and wondered if he had walked these hills. Or perhaps Alexander himself had taken armies through to the plains on his way to battle distant Persia. He imagined the grim Cretan archers and the Macedonian phalanx as they followed the boy king, and his back straightened in the saddle.

  Renius rode ahead, his eyes swinging from the narrow trail to the surrounding scrub foliage and back in a monotonous pattern of alertness. He had withdrawn into himself more and more over the previous week of travel and whole days had passed without more than a few words spoken between them. Only Peppis broke the long silences with exclamations of wonder at birds or lizards on the rocks. Marcus hadn’t pushed for conversation, sensing that the gladiator was happier with silence. He smiled wryly at the man’s back as they rode, mulling over how he felt about him.

  He had hated him once, at that moment in the courtyard of the estate, with Gaius lying wounded in the dust. Yet a grudging respect had existed even before Marcus had raised his sword against him. Renius had a solidity to him that made other men seem insubstantial in comparison. He could be brutal and had a great capacity for callous violence, oblivious to pain or fear. Others followed his lead without a thought, as if they somehow knew this man would see them through. Marcus had seen it on the estate and on the ship and it was difficult not to feel a touch of awe himself. Even age couldn’t hold him. Marcus remembered the moment as Cabera closed the old man’s wounds, and his surprise at the way the healing took so quickly. They had both watched in astonishment as life swelled in the broken figure and the skin flushed with suddenly rushing blood.

  ‘He walks a greater path than most,’ Cabera had said later, when Renius had been laid out on a cool bed in the house to finish his healing. ‘His feet are strong in the earth.’

  Marcus had wondered at Cabera’s tone as he tried to make the young man understand the importance of what he had seen.

  ‘Never have I seen death take its grip off a man as it did with Renius. The gods were whispering in my mind when I touched him.’

  The path twisted and turned and they slowed to let the horses pick their way through the broken surface stones, unwilling to risk a sprain or a fall on the steep slope.

  ‘What does the future hold for you, I wonder?’ Marcus thought to himself in the comfortable silence. ‘Father.’

  The word came to him and he realised the idea had been there for some time. He had never known a man to call father and the word unlocked a door in his mind as he exp
lored his feelings further without pain. Renius was not his blood, but a part of him wished he was travelling these lands with his father, protecting each other from dangers. It was a grand daydream and he pictured men’s faces as they heard he was the son of Renius. They would look at him with a little awe of their own perhaps and he would simply smile.

  Renius broke wind noisily, shifting his weight to the left without looking back. Marcus laughed suddenly at this interruption to his thoughts and continued chuckling to himself at intervals for some time after. The gladiator rode on, his thoughts on the descent and his future once he had delivered Marcus to his legion.

  As they approached a narrow part of the trail, boulders rose on both sides as if the thin path had been cut through them. Renius laid his hand on his sword and loosened the blade.

  ‘We’re being watched. Be ready,’ he called back in a low voice.

  Almost as he finished speaking, a dark figure rose from the undergrowth nearby.

  ‘Stop.’

  The word was spoken with casual confidence and in good, clear Latin, but Renius ignored it. Marcus part drew his sword and kept the horse walking with pressure from his knees. From the sudden stiffness in the arms around his waist, he knew Peppis was awake and alert, but for once staying silent.

  The man looked like a Greek, with the distinctive curled beard, but, unlike the merchants of the town they’d seen, he had the air of a warrior about him. He smiled and called out again.

  ‘Stop, or you will be killed. Last chance.’

  ‘Renius?’ Marcus muttered nervously.

  The old man scowled, but kept going, digging his heels into Apollo’s flanks to urge him into a trot.

  An arrow cut the air, taking the horse high in the shoulder with a dull thumping sound. Apollo screamed and fell, pitching Renius to the ground in a crash of metal and swearing. Peppis cried out in fear and Marcus reined in, scanning the undergrowth for the archer. Was there only one, or were there more out there? These men were obviously brigands; they would be lucky to escape alive if they submitted meekly.