Then, only darkness.
XLIX
Gaius Valerius Verrens recognized the soot-stained walls of the burned-out villa on the hill and each detail of the defence and fall of the Temple of Claudius returned, as if it was carved on his brain by the point of a dagger. Falco and his militia dying where they stood so that the others could escape. Lunaris, like a hero of old, holding back Boudicca’s horde on the steps of the temple. And Messor, poor Messor, slipping into the dark tunnel that would have been better being his tomb. With a start, he realized he wasn’t alone. The cloaked figure who worked in the gloom by the shuttered window seemed familiar and his heart soared as he realized her identity.
‘Maeve?’
She turned and he reached out to her and it was only then he realized that his arms ended in ragged stumps. Both hands had been chopped off above the wrist. As the first shuddering scream escaped his tortured throat he looked up into a face from the gates of the Otherworld; not his Maeve, not the beautiful Trinovante who had loved and betrayed him, but Claudius Victor, and a Claudius Victor straight from the grave, eyes turned to puddles of white pus, a gaping crater for a nose and a yawning mouth filled with worms and nameless crawling things. Hands like skeletal claws reached for something at his neck. He screamed again. And again.
Rough hands shook his shoulders. ‘Valerius.’
No, they wouldn’t take him.
‘Valerius, open your eyes.’
Reluctantly, he obeyed a voice that had an authority that could not be ignored. Staring at him was another face from Hades; burning eyes glared out from features tanned to the colour of a house tile, the nose narrow with an edge like a woodsman’s well-used axe and below it a razor-lipped rat-trap mouth. Beyond this nightmare the world was the uniform pale blue of a song thrush’s egg.
‘Serpentius?’
The word emerged as a hoarse croak and the Spaniard put a cup to his lips. Valerius gulped down what he discovered was well-watered tavern wine. He choked and Serpentius removed the cup.
‘Don’t talk now. I’ve put your shoulder back in place, the fever’s gone and you’re getting stronger every day. Rest, and we’ll speak later.’
But there was one thing Valerius had to know, and he dared not look himself. ‘My hand?’ Serpentius smiled gently and raised the left arm, so Valerius could see his hand was intact. The Roman allowed his head to fall back and closed his eyes. ‘My worst nightmare,’ he whispered.
‘No,’ he heard the former gladiator say, ‘your worst nightmare is yet to come.’
‘Where are we?’ Valerius surveyed the rough stockade that enclosed the parade ground of beaten earth that was their prison, along with over a hundred other ragged, bearded men.
‘Somewhere outside Cremona. When Otho died …’ The Spaniard hesitated as he saw the question in Valerius’s eyes. Otho had been nowhere near the battle; there was no reason why he shouldn’t have escaped and joined the Eastern legions who had been marching to join him. Serpentius shrugged. ‘They say that the officers who were with him at Brixellum urged him to fight on. Said that when the Seventh and the Fourteenth arrived they’d outnumber Vitellius’s men. But Otho hadn’t just lost the battle, he’d lost his heart. He said he’d killed enough men and went into his tent … well, you can guess the rest.’
Valerius felt a pang of compassion for the man who had been, if not his friend, then at least a colourful and entertaining companion. A man who, against all odds, would have made a fine Emperor, given time. The gods had presented Marcus Salvius Otho with everything he had ever desired, and just as quickly taken it away.
‘Who are these they, so free with their information? Who’s to say it’s true?’
‘The guards.’ Serpentius waved a hand towards the men watching from the perimeter. ‘They’re not bad sorts. Now that the war is over they feel a bit sorry for us. We fought well, but we lost. They’re just glad it’s not them sitting here, so they make sure we’re well fed and let us do pretty much what we please, as long as we don’t cause any trouble.’
Valerius stared suspiciously. This wasn’t the Spaniard he remembered. Perhaps Otho wasn’t the only one who’d lost heart. For the first time he noticed that Serpentius was working on a block of wood with a small fruit knife.
‘Not bad sorts? Fools, surely, to give a man like you a blade. I’ve seen the day you’d have slit half a dozen throats and been halfway to Rome by now, and taken the others with you.’
The Spaniard chewed his lip. ‘Maybe so, but it’s different now. For one thing, as far as they’re concerned every man here is a gladiator, and he’ll be treated as an escaped slave if he runs. You know what that means?’
‘The cross.’
‘That would be the best of it.’
‘And the other reason?’
Serpentius shrugged. ‘They knew I had reasons for staying.’
Valerius snorted and shook his head. ‘Fool. That still doesn’t explain why we’re here.’ Something occurred to him. ‘Gladiators?’
‘It’s the only reason we’re still alive. We were with what was left of the gladiators when you got your second knock. They were about to butcher the lot of us when Caecina rode up and called off his dogs. Turns out he had a better use for us.’
‘What kind of use?’ Valerius didn’t hide his suspicion.
The Spaniard stared at him, the dark eyes deadly serious. ‘We do what gladiators do best. We fight. To the death.’ Valerius’s brain fought against the reality of the final three words. Execution he had expected, exile or imprisonment at best. But not that. Never that. Serpentius explained that Caecina, ever eager to stay one step ahead of his rival Valens, had ordered a great games for the Emperor and the climax would be a hundred and fifty captured gladiators fighting to the death. ‘What do you expect? As far as Vitellius is concerned we’re slaves who rose up against him. No better than Spartacus and his lads.’
They had a month.
‘In a month we’ll get you fit enough to fight.’ He saw the stricken look in Valerius’s eyes. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.’
L
May, AD 69
‘Ready?’
Valerius nodded, but he had a lump in his throat the size of a goose egg and his feet seemed to be encased in lead. They sat in the stifling heat of the arming room below the arena outside Cremona and all around them were the sounds of men praying, or sobbing. Somewhere close was the thick, bitter scent of fresh vomit.
Serpentius kept his voice low. ‘We’ll fight together and if the gods will it, we’ll be the last men standing.’
‘What happens then?’
The Spaniard shrugged. ‘Maybe we’ll have been so good they’ll let us both live.’
Valerius nodded slowly, knowing it was unlikely, no matter how well they fought. ‘And if not?’
He saw a glint in the dark eyes. ‘I’ll make it quick and clean.’
Valerius swallowed as he imagined the coldness of bright iron piercing his heart, but he managed a smile. ‘What if it’s the other way round?’
Serpentius stared at him. They both knew that was not going to happen. ‘Do not concern yourself. If you die, you will die with a sword in your hand and a friend by your side.’ He reached down to retrieve a bag from between his feet. ‘Here, take this.’
Valerius opened the bag and the contents took his breath away. Inside was a rough replica of the wooden hand he had watched burn all those months ago on the Rhenus. It had a laced cowhide stock and without a word he pulled it over his right forearm and deftly tied the laces with the fingers of his left hand. He turned it slowly as if he might be imagining its existence.
‘I told them you’d fight better with a shield,’ Serpentius said gruffly. ‘It should fit this.’ He produced a round shield, in the Thracian style, but Valerius only had eyes for the crude oak fist his friend had carved. For a moment, the world seemed to spin around him. No words could ever express what he felt and all he could think of was to reach across with his good hand a
nd touch the Spaniard’s arm.
If he was going to die, he would die a whole man. A whole man with a sword in his hand and a friend by his side.
It was enough.
‘Prepare yourselves.’
Valerius’s left hand rose to touch the golden boar amulet at his neck.
Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus frowned as the guards brought them out in batches of ten. Caecina hadn’t even thought to create a better spectacle by arming them properly. They looked like a bunch of bearded peasant farmers with spears and swords. At first they stood around, frightened and bewildered, but the lanistae ran between them pushing them into match-ups and pointing out the hundreds of archers who ringed the packed dirt and had orders to kill any man who refused to fight. Soon the arena rang to the roars of the spectators, the clash of swords and the screams of the dying.
He pinned the young man sitting next to him, the architect of this farce, with a smile, muttered some unintelligible words of praise and turned away. By the gods he was bored.
After the victory at Bedriacum he had been feted from Moguntiacum to Mediolanum and Lugdunum to Rome. He had eaten and drunk until he had been surprised to discover that even his gargantuan appetites had limits. Not four days earlier, Valens had held his own little spectacle, and in truth it was infinitely more cultured than anything this upstart youth had provided thus far.
His mind returned to the day when he had finally visited the battlefield between Cremona and Bedriacum, forty days after the fighting had ended. A charnel house. A slaughterer’s yard two miles long and a mile and a half wide. Tens of thousands of putrefying corpses piled as high as temple walls and hanging from the trees. Legs, arms and severed heads littering each yard of blood-soaked earth, every inch blanketed by the flies that swarmed insatiable to the feast. His court had gagged at the stink of rotting flesh, the yards of blackened, festering intestines torn from gas-filled bodies by the feral dogs which still roamed that awful field of death, and the black clouds of crows who fought for the softest parts – the best of it, the eyes, the lips, had long gone, but there were still opportunities for the determined – but to Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus the stink of a rotting corpse was the sweet smell of victory.
A cry of appreciation from the crowd brought him back to the ‘entertainment’. A pair of gladiators had been clever enough to fight together for a time, but the taller of the men, a well-muscled bruiser, had taken the opportunity to stab his comrade in the back the instant that particular contest had been won. It appeared the victim had some special skill his murderer had feared. Perhaps the spectacle was not going to be as dull as he’d believed.
A second pair had also decided to fight as a team and he admired their skills until his attention was drawn to two equally matched men armed with terrible, curved knives. The blades darted and threatened, sang in great scything arcs that would have removed a head if they’d been successful, until the sublime moment when, with a scream that rent the air, they simultaneously ripped each other’s guts out and fell, spilling viscera on to ground already pooled with blood and gore. The numbers were down to twenty or thirty now, with the rest dead … or, like one of the gutted men who was entertainingly trying to crawl somewhere with his insides trailing behind him, certainly dying.
His gaze drifted back to the double team. By the gods, they weren’t bad. A tall spare bullwhip of a fighter with a long sword that seemed to have a life of its own, and a stockier man – no, not stocky, just not as tall as the other – who fought with a short sword and shield. So quick and coordinated that at times it seemed they fought as one man, entertaining the crowd with spectacular executions and imaginative ends, quite literally carving their way through their opponents. Vitellius thought he recognized something in the taller man. He had seen him fight before, he was certain.
Amusing. What would happen when …?
Valerius seemed to see the world through a red veil and a mist of scarlet droplets coated every inch of his skin and clothing. How many men had he killed? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was to kill the next one, and the next. Make it look good, but make it quick. They deserved that at least. He was glad Serpentius had insisted they stay away from the other prisoners and that he had never learned their names, otherwise … well, otherwise didn’t mean anything now. He fought on, always conscious of Serpentius’s immense presence at his side, not immense in mass, but in speed and style and efficiency. With a thrill of fear he realized the red mist had cleared and only one man faced them. The big man who had fought beside his friend, right until the moment he’d stabbed him in the back.
‘Come on, Lucius, let’s get it over,’ Serpentius coaxed. Valerius saw a moment of recognition in the other man’s face, and then he ran. The crowd shrieked their disgust and within five paces a dozen arrows from the archers on the walls had pierced his body.
Valerius stood, head down and panting, until he realized the attention of the entire crowd was focused on him. A wall of sound pounded him from every quarter. He turned to find the Spaniard four paces away, with his sword at the ready.
‘Remember,’ Serpentius said quietly. ‘Fight hard and die well.’
He fought hard, because Serpentius made him fight for his life. He only lived because Serpentius made it so. This was a different Serpentius from the man he had faced on the training ground so many times. An implacable, stone-cold killer who could have finished it at any time of his choosing. Valerius looked good because Serpentius made him look good. A dozen times he was able to avoid a killer stroke by the merest whisker, because of the Spaniard’s whispered instructions. A dozen times he stepped back, amazed to be alive, with the cheers of the crowd ringing in his ears. But it couldn’t last. There had to be an end.
Gradually, he realized that Serpentius was manoeuvring him to the precise spot he had chosen for the kill. As he fought for his life, he wondered how many other men had experienced this despairing hopelessness. This feeling of being a fish in a tank chosen as someone’s horribly eviscerated supper.
‘Now!’
The long sword came down in an arc that chopped the shield from his right hand. He heard a shout from somewhere in the distance, but already the Spaniard’s wrist had twisted to deliver the counter-stroke and Valerius’s short sword was an age too slow to parry it. Lightning seemed to flash in his brain and he experienced a terrible pain. As he fell, he felt an odd relief that it was over.
Aulus Vitellius had seen the shield drop to reveal the wooden hand. For the first time he realized the identities of the two men and instinctively he heaved himself to his feet shouting: ‘No!’
Too late. The sword flashed a second time and the stockier man’s head exploded in a cloud of bright scarlet. He went down like a stone, but such was the bloodlust of his opponent that he hacked at the fallen body with his sword and reached down to tear the viscera from the corpse, raising it high to the ecstatic roars of the crowd.
When the cheering subsided, the fighter trudged wearily through the carnage to where Vitellius sat beside Aulus Caecina Alienus in the Imperial box.
‘You fought well,’ the Emperor congratulated him – was there a hint of regret in his voice? – ‘as did your … friend.’
The gladiator, his skin streaked with the blood of his last victim, fell to his knees in supplication. ‘I would ask a favour of the Emperor.’ The harsh voice was respectful, but not pleading. Aulus Vitellius doubted this was a man who would ever plead.
Beside him, Caecina growled and started to rise, but Vitellius placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Ask it.’
‘I beg the right to bury my comrade with the honour he deserves.’
It was too much. ‘You have your life, traitor,’ Caecina snapped. ‘Be satisfied with that or it will be taken from you. Do not try your Emperor’s patience.’
But Vitellius only sighed. His eyes roamed the arena, testing the mood of the crowd. Finally, he nodded.
‘I grant you that right, gladiator.’ He reached up to his neck and th
ere was a collective gasp as he unclipped the golden brooch holding his cloak. Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Imperator raised his voice so his words echoed around the walls. ‘He was a nobleman, I think, and a Hero of Rome. Let him be buried in the purple.’ He threw the heavy cloak to Serpentius. The Spaniard gave a curt nod and stalked back to where Valerius lay. Taking the utmost care, he wrapped his friend in Imperial purple and, with a last baleful look around the arena, picked up the body and carried it to the doors with the cheers of the crowd ringing unwanted in his ears.
Epilogue
Valerius opened his eyes, but the darkness was as total as the grave. So, not Elysium, then, but the inside of a tomb.
‘How does it feel to be dead?’
He started at the unexpected voice in his right ear. ‘Better than the alternative, but my head hurts. Did you have to hit me so hard?’
‘Another scar to add to your collection.’ Serpentius rose and went to the door, drawing back a ragged curtain to allow a shaft of moonlight into the hut. ‘I made it look real, that’s all that matters. Everything went as we planned. I turned the blade at the last moment, but they needed to see blood. It helped that we were fighting on top of two who’d gutted each other – one man’s guts looks exactly the same as another’s.’
Valerius lay back and closed his eyes. His throbbing head cleared for a moment and he felt as if a spear had pierced his chest. She was lost to him for ever. ‘So it’s exile then,’ he said wearily. ‘A new life. I have always wanted to see the mountains of your home and you have always wanted a servant.’
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