Prophecy: Death of an Empire: Book Two (Prophecy Trilogy)

by M. K. Hume

  The gladiators began to spread out and take up their positions on the floor of the arena immediately below the audience.

  The Retiarii fought naked except for a loincloth and a belt, and were armed with tridents, nets and four-bladed daggers, while a long armguard of leather and plated metal extended up their left arm and over onto their breast. This manica had a metal shoulder shield that offered flimsy protection for the neck and lower face. Myrddion was amazed at the deftness of these gladiators as they threw the nets with the left arm and snared the weapons of the Secutores, seeking to draw their opponents close to their wicked tridents or one of the four-bladed knives.

  Equal in strength, the Secutores carried the rectangular shields of the legions and the gladius, or sword. Their helmets protected the whole head, including the face, so that only two small eyeholes permitted any vision. Greaves protected their legs and small manicas protected their arms. Disaster came speedily to any Retiarius who lost his net. The trident was a toy compared with the vicious power of the gladius, which was honed to razor sharpness by men who were dependent on that edge of iron for their next breath.

  The crowd began to cheer for their favourites, but it took some time for the healers to untangle who was who. Burus wore a yellow feather on the crest of his helmet; Barca favoured red, while Colchis was from Asia Minor and wore a blue scarf tied to his gladius. One by one, Myrddion put names to the twenty matched pairs who were fighting in the arena. Colchis was one of the Thraces, who wore heavy leg wrappings to protect themselves from the waist down. His shield was perfectly rounded and decorated with a griffin dedicated to the goddess Nemesis. Waiting, poised and deadly, for an opening, the falx, a curved Thracian sword, was held in the right hand and to the rear as the combatants circled each other.

  Against his better judgement, Myrddion felt a thrill of excitement as the superbly trained warriors fought each other in a ritual dance of death that was vile yet engrossing. Then, when Myrddion had almost succumbed to the seduction of the combat, a Retiarius was brought into danger by his net, yanked forward by a vicious grip on one end of the heavy, woven rope that his Secutore opponent had tangled in his shield. Caught off balance, the Retiarius was forced back with a sword at his throat. The swift manoeuvre was elegant and practised, and the healer would have admired it had a man’s life not hung on the end of its smooth delivery.

  The crowd screamed its approval or booed the loss of their champion. The successful Secutore looked around the arena, asking permission from the crowd to kill his prisoner – or spare his life. Myrddion watched aghast as some thumbs went up and others went down. Almost immediately, the crowd decided that a man’s life should end. A slash of the sword, a backward step and a fountain of blood arced out from the Retiarius’s neck, staining the sand around him with his life’s blood. Dido whispered that, normally, gladiators delivered the fastest possible death blow, but the first blooding of the day demanded a good dowsing in gore. The crowd was eager, and they howled as the Retiarius bled to death and perished with their screams of enjoyment ringing in his ears.

  Myrddion thought he was going to vomit, more at the reaction of the crowd than at the death of a single warrior. Children sucked their thumbs, played at cat’s cradle or chewed on bread or honeyed buns while devouring the bloodletting below them with wide, curious eyes.

  ‘What happens to children who grow up attending such displays?’ Myrddion appealed to Dido for an explanation of the effects of seeing so much death. ‘Are they more violent? More callous? I can’t believe that nothing changes in them!’

  ‘Shite, Colchis!’ Dido yelled. ‘What were you thinking?’

  The hairdresser’s champion had joined his dead companion on the sand, his torso streaked with blood and sweat. When Dido put his thumb down, relegating a man he had been cheering to a quick beheading, Myrddion turned his back on his neighbour in disgust.

  The tempo of the battlefield speeded up as the gladiators wearied and sensed the boredom building in the crowd. Driven to increased risk-taking and flashy feats of arms, the gladiators began to fall and, almost uniformly, were sentenced to death by the crowd. Eventually, only the final twenty survivors of the tournament remained alive. Panting as they stood or kneeled on the sand, the men saluted the crowd with their raised weapons. Finally, Myrddion understood the reason for the opening salutation to the emperor, and his blood ran cold at the thought of such institutionalised murder.

  ‘Cadoc?’ Myrddion turned to his apprentice as servants scurried into the arena to sling bodies into a cart and spread fresh sand over the bloodstains. ‘How can such a spectacle be entertaining? Don’t the crowds see those men as real?’

  ‘They seem to be enjoying themselves, master. They gamble on their favourites, scrawl their names on walls or send them love letters . . . or more.’

  ‘How can you sentence someone to death if you know him – or even of him? I don’t like this entertainment, Cadoc, I really don’t.’

  ‘It’s no worse than battle, master,’ Finn added, always ready to acknowledge both sides of the world. ‘And we accept battlefield wounded without any qualms.’

  ‘But can’t you see that we don’t take enjoyment from their injuries and death? Cadoc? Finn? There is a difference.’

  ‘Aye, master, I suppose there is. I was driven almost to madness when I watched Katigern die, and yet this display doesn’t affect me as much. Perhaps Rome is a . . .’ Finn groped for words. ‘Perhaps Rome is a moral stain that inhibits something in our souls?’

  Myrddion lasted another two hours in the Amphitheatum Flavium.

  He found himself watching mounted bowmen, called Sagittarii, as they fought bulls with iron spikes used to extend and sharpen their horns. Sometimes the bulls won. They watched convicted felons, the Noxii, struggle to the death, some blindfolded and armed with swords pitted against unarmed opponents who could see. Somehow, Myrddion’s tangled and compromised sense of right and wrong was less offended by this punishment. That night, he would consider how far Finn’s description of moral stains had infected him, that he should damn felons to an agonising and often extended death – as if the manner of their death were less important than that of other citizens.

  Bestiarii fought a collection of exotic animals such as lions, spotted cats, long-horned buffalo and creatures stranger still, some with elongated necks. Myrddion’s sympathies were with the beasts, which were so beautiful in their strange, vivid pelts. Whether armed with claws, teeth or horns, they invariably perished, although occasionally a bestiarius was wounded. Of greater interest to Myrddion were the Venatores, trained to create a spectacle by using a dangerous beast to perform amazing tricks. As neither man nor beast was hurt by this entertainment, Myrddion could bear to watch. He had watched several hundred men die while a band played jolly music and street sellers plied a brisk trade up and down the benches.

  Eventually, he could stand the proceedings no longer. Although noon had not long passed, and the heat wasn’t extreme, he surrendered his place on the bench and fled downwards towards the exits. He wanted to cover his ears so he was deaf to the noise of trumpets, lyres, horns and flutes played by capering musicians dressed in manic, highly coloured animal costumes.

  Music and the brassy scent of blood followed him along the wide streets and back into the subura, where he stopped at a public bathhouse and scraped his flesh with a blunt strigil until it was red. Then, when the pain of his self-abuse shook him back to himself, he wept salty tears as he stood waist deep in water, so that even the curious procurers who gathered at the baths refrained from accosting such a madman. When the cold water finally cleared his head, he began the long journey home. Hours had passed, and his apprentices looked up from a simple meal with eyes that were both sympathetic and guilty.

  With a sense of profound shame, Myrddion suddenly realised that he was very hungry, so he devoured the stew that Bridie pressed on him. Then, without another word to anyone, he rolled himself into a blanket on his pallet and fell into a deep sleep. />
  CHAPTER XV

  THE MORAL STAIN

  Half a world away, a sacrifice of a different kind was being enacted, as ugly as the games in Rome, although smaller in scale. Instead of a sun-drenched circus, this place of blood was a cavern exposed by the waves at low tide, yet set deeply into a cliff protruding out into the wild ocean. To the north was the fortress of Tintagel, and to the south were the turbulent coves where the small fishing villages of the west clung precariously to the beetling cliffs.

  The pebbles and crushed shells beneath the participants’ feet were cold and wet, like the air in this dank, Styx-dark place buried deep in the heart of the hill. Fourteen cloaked figures had entered the cavern as darkness came, but only thirteen would leave when the rising tide began to lap the entrance to this natural temple.

  The worshippers were swathed in dark cloaks that disguised their bodies and masked their respective sexes. Their faces were disguised by crude masks made of wood, plaster and coarse wool to mimic natural hair. The blank eye-holes of the disguises were edged with shell or polished stone, so that even in this preternatural gloom the glow of the single oil lamp caught their glitter, with its pretence of a baleful pair of eyes.

  A gourd was shaken, and the dried seeds in its interior rattled eerily like tiny bones clicking together. The single light source, the grisly blank faces and the heavy shadows combined with this jarring sound to create a miasma of superstition and unseen, unclean gloom. The smell of rotting seaweed, tossed by the tide into the invisible corners of the womb-like space, was partially disguised by the heavy perfume of the oil being burned, a costly, oppressive muskiness that was female in suggestion, but too intrusive and powerful to be pleasant. A faint suggestion of dead fish permeated everything, as if this women’s place was corrupted by unspeakable sins.

  The cavern possessed only two items that suggested the hand of man. A single rock, smooth, black and roughly the length of a man, lay prone within the deepest part of the cavern beyond a shelf of stone that had been tumbled by the action of the sea. At some unimaginable time in the past, human hands had chipped this rock to trace curves and channels upon its obsidian surface. In shapes that were older than Celtic interlace, yet stronger and more vigorous than the carvings of more sophisticated artisans, the unknown artist had formed crude depictions of serpents, owls, strange birds with women’s faces and a long worm with grotesque, over-sized wings. In the fitful lamplight the creatures seemed to move, although the carvings were raw and unpolished. The perfumed oil caused the brain to play tricks on the eyes, so that the shadows of the celebrants dancing on the walls mimicked the monsters carved into the stone.

  One of the fourteen present was dragged to the stone by two large figures and stripped by indifferent, muscular hands. A naked girl was revealed in the yellow-green light, her hands bound together in front of her as she tried to conceal the triangular red fur that protected her genitals.

  She was young and fair, no more than twelve, to judge by the mere buds of breasts that broke the clean lines of her boyish chest. Her hair was carrot red and tangled because her curls hadn’t been brushed for some time, to judge by the cobwebs and dust trapped among her disordered locks. She had been stolen seven days earlier and had been locked in an underground room until the search for her body had been abandoned by her kin. Her captivity had been hard, as was evident by her gaunt, hollowed cheeks and the pinched look of hunger around her mouth.

  Why waste precious food on a gift to the Goddess? Water kept her body alive, but the darkness, the persistent cold and the terror had crushed her spirit.

  Twelve figures encircled the rock on which she was laid. She tried to rise, but one of her captors put a finger against the mouth of his mask in the age-old sign for silence. Then the same hand slapped her hard across her naked cheek, splitting her tender lips. The child curled on the unforgiving rock as she tried to make her gangling body as small as possible. Although blood filled her mouth, she was too terrified to make a single sound in protest.

  Twelve of her captors began to chant softly, although the words were lost in the distant boom of the sea that reverberated through the tomb-like walls of the cavern. Presently, as the sound rose, the child heard the name of the Mother and she began to pray herself, muttering a childish invocation to Don, the protector of all children. A tall figure left the other twelve celebrants to approach the child and pushed a scrap of rag into her mouth to quieten her small defiance.

  The chant grew louder in intensity, rising as the celebrants gradually surrendered to the mounting exultation of the ceremony. The growing gloom seemed more absolute, as if a dark force heaved the ancient body of the Goddess out from the substance of the cliff to bathe her feet in the salty waters as she drank the blood of an innocent. Perhaps her devotees would see her sacred flesh when she had accepted their gift? Perhaps she would deign to give them what they most earnestly desired in recompense for their faithful service, even though the practice of feeding the Goddess was forbidden. So here they had come, to her sacred place, where they could abase themselves before her naked breasts.

  The chief worshipper approached the girl, who cowered away from him. He nodded and four more of the twelve worshippers left the circle and gripped her ankles and wrists, pinning her so she was exposed and helpless. Then the cowled figure brought his hand out of his robe and exposed a flint knife that had been knapped thousands of years earlier by a master craftsman. So fine was the construction of the weapon that the light seemed to pass through the stone blade.

  With a flick of his other hand, the priest stripped off his robe and stood naked in the dim light. His body was spare, gaunt and hairy, while his sex was tumescent with the dizzying potency of the narcotic oil, the naked child and the web of power that they wove. The tall figure joined him and, once naked, revealed a woman’s body. Her flesh was white-skinned, lush and seductive in the flowering of youth, and she bore a rudimentary cup carved from horn.

  The chanting built in volume, louder and louder, until the walls were full of the sound. As the intensity of the ceremony swelled to fever pitch, the priest’s arm rose until the invocation was cut off as if the Goddess had sliced out their tongues.

  The stone blade descended and split the flesh that formed the child’s breast. Because the flint blade was cumbersome and blunt-edged, the priest was forced to saw through the girl’s flesh as she writhed under him, and he used all his body weight to drive the crude weapon through bone and muscle until it lacerated her racing heart. Even then her death was long, terrifying and bloody, but the ancient rite was merciless.

  Once the blade was removed from the gross wound, the naked woman collected the dying pump of blood in her horn cup, and when it was full she raised it high and carried it to the furthest and darkest part of the cavern. There, in a natural niche, the second man-made artefact waited. A small female figure was crouched, grossly portrayed with swollen breasts, vastly pregnant belly and vestigial arms and legs, but the small sculpture had a malignancy far more powerful that its crude workmanship would suggest. After abasing herself before it, the woman poured the fresh blood over the figure so that the malevolent pottery object was soon stained glossy red. Excess blood ran from the niche to colour the rock walls where sanguine and brown marks showed that old gore had soaked into the porous stone. Then, with her fellow worshippers stripped naked around her, the woman returned to the corpse to smear her own body with arcane patterns using the blood that still oozed from the grisly wound.

  Behind her avian mask, Morgan’s dark eyes glowed with satisfaction.

  To Myrddion Emrys of Segontium, Healer and Physician.

  Hail, friend. The last six months since we returned from Mantua have been busy with much change, now that I am living in Ravenna where Emperor Valentinian has arrived for the summer months.

  Ravenna lacks the beauty and age of Rome, while the land around the city was once a swamp. I fear that mosquitoes and insects must have been a severe trial for the population in past centuries, bef
ore the marshes were drained.

  I trust that this missive finds you well and healthy. For reasons that will become obvious, please destroy this letter when you have read it. Normally, I would not waste so much writing material when a courier could learn my message quickly and deliver it personally.

  I attended the bridal festivities of Flavius’s youngest daughter, Flavia, when she was wed to Thraustila, a Hun nobleman. During the feasts, I saw your Gwylym and I agree that he has a sullen, dangerous look about him.

  While I was present, I heard a whisper from various knowledgeable sources pertaining to our discussions at Mantua. Aetius has brokered a marriage between his son Gaudientius and Emperor Valentinian’s daughter, Placidia. By the time you hear this news, the marriage will be in effect. Aetius has now placed himself, through this marriage, within reach of the throne.

  As well, be informed that a rumour is spreading that Flavius Aetius stopped Attila, with very few troops, from advancing into southern Italia. After all our efforts, Aetius now stands so close to the throne that he is, effectively, the ruler of the Western Empire in all but name.

  Valentinian fears him and believes that Aetius plots against him. Worse still, the people are coming to believe that Pope Leo would have achieved nothing had Aetius not stopped Attila at the Padus river. He is the latest hero, if you can believe it. You should be aware, my friend, that Aetius aims high through the use of his family tree. Flavia’s marriage cements the pro-Roman Hun camp, while the marriage of Gaudientius presents a claim to the emperor’s crown through his blood ties with Aetius. All that stands in the general’s way is Valentinian, who is very much alive. I fear for the future, my friend, so be safe and watch your back. I am recalled to Constantinople, and will be unable to protect you if Aetius bothers to move against you. Avoid Ravenna, if you can.