The running figure finally reached the Emperor and Rufus felt the first prick of tears as Aemilia took Caligula in a lover's embrace, reaching up to kiss him with her left hand behind his head bringing his lips down to hers.
They were spotlighted in the rays of one of the little square windows and it happened so fast that Rufus at first didn't recognize it for what it was. When Aemilia's right hand came up almost gently towards her lover's cheek there was a vivid flash of purple and green, as if a starling's wing had been caught in the sunlight. In the same instant the Emperor screamed and reared back with one hand to his throat.
Caligula's mind had been busy trying to solve the conundrum presented by the slave he had used so badly who was now declaring her love so publicly, while at the same time being diverted by the sensuous working of her tongue within his mouth. The bee sting at his neck came as a complete surprise.
An instant later he realized it was more than a bee sting and his bowels turned to liquid. It was a razor-edged, death-bringing, invasive thing powered by a strong hand that worked it deep into his flesh. His panic grew and the sting grew with it, turning into a red-hot spike that was being forced through his neck, filling his throat so that he found it difficult to breathe. Aemilia's lips left his and he found himself looking into the crazed light that filled her eyes. She stepped away from him with a smile of satisfaction on her lips.
He reached up with a shaking hand to inspect his neck and flinched as his fingers found the bejewelled hilt of Aemilia's little dagger. His head swam with the enormity of what was happening to him and he swayed and almost collapsed. He tried to speak but all that emerged was a strange gurgling sound. He willed his fingers to grip the knife and with a tug pulled the short blade from his neck, leaving a small-mouthed wound that leaked blood in jerky bursts that stained the shoulder of his toga. Dark, ruby red on pristine white.
'What have you done?' Cupido cried, dragging his sister away from the Emperor's side.
Caligula coughed and spat blood. It seemed to clear the obstruction in his throat. He found his voice.
'Done? The bitch has killed me. Do your duty and execute her.'
Cupido ignored him and turned to Aemilia. 'Go, now. Find Narcissus and tell him I will do his bidding if he saves you. Remember that.' He shook her by the shoulders. 'Cupido will do his bidding if he helps you escape.'
But his words had as little effect on Aemilia as a bird's singing. She seemed to be frozen to the spot.
'Help her,' Cupido pleaded with Rufus. 'Get her away from here. I will buy you time.'
Rufus's mind reeled in confusion. He looked incredulously from Aemilia to Caligula and back again. She had tried to kill the Emperor they had come to save. To save him was now to condemn her, but not to save him was to condemn the thousands of innocents Narcissus believed would die in the civil war which would inevitably follow.
'Hurry.' Cupido's strong hand gripped his shoulder. 'You must get her away from here. Find Narcissus.'
Rufus nodded, but as he did so he heard the sound of a sword singing clear of its scabbard. They had forgotten the Emperor. He had reached forward and taken Cupido's weapon by the hilt.
'If you won't kill the bitch, I will,' he raged, bringing the long sword up so its point was feet from Aemilia's chest, poised for the thrust that would send the blade through her.
She stared back at him contemptuously and Rufus was reminded of a statue he had once seen of a doomed Galatian princess protecting her children from the vengeance of the legions, her stance and her expression a mix of defiance, courage and despair that shamed her attackers.
'Strike like the serpent you are,' she spat.
Caligula's bulging eyes filled with fire at the insult. His face twisted into a snarl and he screamed his hate as he rammed the blade towards her unprotected body.
Rufus did not see Cupido move. For an instant the gladiator was back in the arena making one of the effortless transitions through space and time that had kept him alive for four years in the most dangerous place on earth. In less than a heartbeat he was a human barrier between Caligula's sword and his sister, one hand stretched out directly in front of him towards the Emperor.
It appeared so harmless. Cupido's chest was protected by the wolf breastplate he wore, but the sword found the gap beneath his armpit with all of Caligula's strength behind it and vanished into the gladiator's body with as little resistance as if his flesh had been satin.
Cupido felt his head explode as the needle point ripped through his body. Strangely there was no pain, only the heart-stopping shock that froze a man when he dived into an ice-bound river. So this was it, he thought. This was what it had been like for all those other men he had faced, and fought, and killed. How many times had he woken sweating in the night, wondering? And now it was here. In the moments before his consciousness faded he realized with surprise that it was almost welcome. Strange that he should meet it so . . . objectively. Without fear. He listed the organs the long sword had pierced: lung, then heart, then lung again. Death.
Rufus saw his friend shudder as that terrible iron blade entered his body. Heard Aemilia's scream. For a second there was no Emperor before him, no ruler of Rome – only the enemy. He howled, a mindless wolf 's howl that filled the corridor with hate and fury and a lust for revenge. The sword in his hand sliced upward as if it had a life of its own, chopping Caligula's lower jaw almost in two and cutting through his cheek. The Emperor staggered back, a hand to his ruined face, but the other still held the long sword and in one movement he drew its bloody length from Cupido's body and the gladiator slumped to the floor as if it had taken his life force with it.
Rufus lunged forward, but a sideswiping slash of the long sword made him leap aside and the cut that should have disembowelled Caligula merely found the thick cloth of his toga. A horrible grunting noise, like a pig rooting for acorns, emerged from the Emperor's mouth, but the dreadful wound, even coupled with the one Aemilia had inflicted, didn't appear to have slowed him.
Caligula's sword flailed in a lethal half-circle but Rufus always managed to evade the edge, even if it was only by the width of a piece of parchment. Time and again he found himself in position for a killing stroke only for that vicious razor-streak of bright silver-blue to arc from the limit of his vision and force him to leap back as the blade that would have gutted him hissed inches from his belly.
He knew that the longer he fought, the more likely Caligula was to defeat him, but it was as if an army of ghosts stood at his back willing him onwards. Varro, Fronto, Quintillia and the countless other victims of this monstrous man whispered in his ear for justice and demanded vengeance. Vengeance. Cupido's face appeared before him and he heard a calm voice inside his head. In the next seconds his movements became more controlled, more subtle, the tip of his sword dancing in lightning strokes that dismayed and deceived his opponent. Suddenly it was the Emperor who was forced backwards and when he stumbled Rufus was on him, sword slashing for his exposed neck. Somehow, Caligula parried the blow and a muscular arm shot out like a cobra's strike and a hand with fingers of double-forged iron closed upon Rufus's throat. Now it was he who croaked and gurgled.
Frantically, he stabbed with his sword at any part of the Emperor he could reach, sometimes feeling the point pierce flesh, but never quite enough to inflict a serious wound. The iron grip tightened and his vision first blurred, then faded.
He was dying.
Caligula's arm, muscles bunched with the effort of killing him, was directly in front of Rufus's face. He had all but given up the fight. His mind was blank, but it seemed his body still contained some deepburied instinct for survival. The short sword stopped its hopeless stabbing and, seemingly of its own volition, very slowly and deliberately began to saw at the taut tendons of the Emperor's forearm. Caligula grunted at this new and unexpected assault and the insane light in his eyes was replaced by doubt.
Suddenly his grip slackened and the arm flopped and Rufus could breathe again. He felt his opponen
t's weight shift as Caligula reared back. The Emperor still had Cupido's long sword in his right hand and now he lifted it for one final killing blow. Rufus knew he would never be able to react quickly enough to parry the heavy blade, understood it must cleave his skull in two. Then a slight hand appeared from nowhere to grasp Caligula's wrist, making the Emperor half turn in surprise. Rufus saw his opportunity and with every ounce of his remaining strength he plunged the gladius under the Emperor's ribs and forced the point upwards and into his heart.
The ruler of a million Romans screamed in mortal agony and his face was etched with a look of horror. Rufus felt the moment his spirit fled from his body like water escaping a breached dam. The Emperor flopped down alongside him, twisting as he fell so that his lifeless eyes stared at the roof. Caligula was dead. He had lived twenty-eight years and ruled Rome for three years, ten months and eight days.
Rufus lay back, chest heaving, for what seemed an age, his eyes drawn to the clouds passing above the little window in the roof of the passageway that proved the unlikely truth: he was still alive. He tried to work out what he should do now, but it was as if his mind had been overwhelmed by the enormity of what had gone before. Each thought simply melted away before it formed any substance, like water draining through the fingers of a cupped hand.
'Rufus!' Aemilia's disembodied voice was urgent in his ear and somehow his sanity returned. He stared vacantly at her. 'Rufus, they're coming. If they find us here they will kill us.'
He heard the shouting voices and the clatter of armour. He was too tired think, but Aemilia was thinking for both of them.
'Help me,' she hissed. Cupido. Now he remembered. Cupido had been hurt. She was trying to drag her brother towards one of the curtained alcoves. He stood to help her, but his foot slipped and he looked down. The corridor was like a slaughterhouse. He realized his clothing was soaked in blood, and his arms and face, even his hair, were coated in it.
The voices were closer, but this wasn't right.
'Your sandals,' he said, removing his own. 'You're leaving a trail a child could follow.'
She looked down at her bloody footprints, and did the same. Together they wrestled Cupido up and laid his body gently against one wall of the alcove. There was barely room for the three of them crammed in beside the statue, but fortunately the velvet curtain was long enough to reach the mosaic floor.
They sat in silence, each holding one of Cupido's hands.
Footsteps approached cautiously and there was a shout as one of the approaching men recognized the torn body. It was followed a second later by a voice Rufus recognized, high and lisping and crackling with urgency.
'Someone's done our work for us, and by Marius's arse they've done it well,' Cassius Chaerea cried. 'Those bastard Wolves, I knew they were up to something. They've got their own plan, and their own Emperor.'
'Who?'
'It doesn't matter who, Sabinus. All that matters is that we have to kill them, kill them all. It just means we'll have to do it more quickly. Take the west side of the hill as we agreed. Hunt down Milonia and the brat. I want none left of his line. His sisters too, if you can find them. You have the lists, you know what to do.'
'And Claudius? I did not see his name on any list.'
'Leave Claudius to me. I have plans for him and that Greek snake of his. Hurry. We must act quickly.'
Rufus held his breath as a dozen men clattered past only feet from the curtain. He knew they had to find a safer refuge, but waited a few moments pondering whether to make a move. Narcissus was their only option, but would the Greek risk giving them aid? There was only one way to find out. He was reaching slowly for the curtain when a solitary voice stopped his hand and almost his heart.
Chaerea must have delayed, gloating over his tormentor's body, while his men went on their murderous mission.
'Not so brave now, my young lion?' The Praetorian's sneering tone was sharp and clear in the empty passageway. 'A pity the Wolves got to you first. A quick death was much more than you deserved and I've long dreamed of killing you myself. Have so many insults ever gone unavenged? Still, a man must do what he can.' There was a short pause before the unmistakable sound of splashing liquid echoed in the silence.
Once Chaerea was done with defiling the Emperor's body, a single set of nailed sandals marched steadily towards the hiding place. Rufus untangled his hand from Cupido's to grip the short sword and his eyes locked on Aemilia's, willing her to stay still.
The measured tramp halted immediately outside the alcove. Rufus realized Chaerea was studying the blood pattern on the gorethick floor. He tried to remember if there had been a trail of blood from Cupido's wound. He didn't think so, but if there were it would be as good as a signpost.
The silence seemed to last for an eternity before the ringing footsteps continued on their rhythmic way. When they were out of earshot, he let out a long breath and slumped beside Cupido. The gladiator's face was a waxy grey, but he was barely bleeding at all. Rufus checked him and found a little ragged wound under his left armpit. It seemed almost insignificant.
'Why?' he asked.
'You would not understand,' Aemilia said. 'You are a man.'
'I need to understand.'
'He was a foul thing. Fouler than you will ever know. He deserved to die a dozen deaths. I would kill him again if I could.'
What might have been a soft chuckle came from between them.
'You have been cheated, sister. What is death to a god? I am but a man and I have seen death in a thousand guises. I do not fear it.'
Rufus gripped Cupido's hand tight. It was as cold as when he held him in the sewer. Corpse-cold.
The gladiator's mind drifted between past and present, between reality and illusion, until he wasn't certain which was which. He knew he was dying. Accepted it almost gratefully, and with acceptance came a strange euphoria that suffused his body with an imagined warmth. He felt his father's strong grip on his waist as he was lifted on to his first pony. Tasted the strawberry sweetness of the first lips he kissed. Finally understood the desolation in his mother's eyes on the day he picked up his first sword. He reached out to her, to ask her forgiveness, but before their hands touched a lance of pain seared his chest and he was back in the alcove with Aemilia and Rufus looking down at him, their faces filled with concern.
He coughed and tasted blood. 'Don't grieve for me, Rufus. A legion of the dead awaits me in the halls of the Otherworld. We will feast there and boast about our great battles. I . . .' he faltered and gave a child's laugh, 'I will be great among them.'
'Why, Cupido, why will you be great among the champions of the Otherworld?'
The gladiator's fingers tightened on his. 'What greater honour than to die by an Emperor's own hand?'
Rufus blinked away tears as he watched the life light fading in his friend's eyes. He felt the grip relax and for a moment he thought it was over. But Cupido used the last of his strength to choke out one final request. 'Remember,' he gasped. 'A sword in my hand and a friend by my side.'
Rufus bent to kiss the cold flesh of the gladiator's forehead and at the same time placed the hilt of the gladius in his open palm, closing the lifeless fingers around it. Cupido's expression relaxed, making him seem quite boyish, and he gave a prolonged, almost wistful sigh. The greatest gladiator of his age was gone.
Aemilia stroked her brother's golden hair and whispered to him. Curiously, she shed no tears. Rufus wondered why. Had her time in Caligula's palace so inured her to death that even Cupido's passing did not move her?
She read his face. 'He was marked for death. This was his fate. I saw it when I threw the sticks for him on the eve of Drusilla's procession and I did my grieving then. He saw it too. He said that if it came he would welcome it. There was a stain on his soul that could never be removed in this life. Only by being reborn would he truly be free. Be glad for him.'
Rufus remembered Cupido's face the night he had come to the little room behind the elephant house. Trials, he had said; tr
ials and a victory.
'There is more.' He stared at her. What more could there be? 'I am with child.' Rufus closed his eyes. He felt as if Caligula's sword had pierced his heart. He didn't ask the question, but she answered it in any case. 'Yes, it is his child. Caligula's child. If he had lived he would have murdered both me and the baby. He has done such a thing before. Now do you understand why he had to die?'
He choked back tears and nodded, but the truth was he didn't understand anything any more. She was carrying Caligula's child. How much stored-up sorrow was there in that simple five-word sentence? What awful horrors did the future hold? It was the child of a monster. Maybe it would have been better to have killed it.
But he didn't say that. 'No one must ever know. The child must have a father, but it must never learn its true lineage. It will be the offspring of a simple palace servant.'
She stared at him. She understood that his statement contained an offer, but why did the offer feel like a trap?
He waited for her answer, but none came. Eventually he knew they could wait no longer. 'We have to move. If we stay here they'll find us.' He shrugged. They both knew what would happen then. 'We have to leave Cupido.'
She protested, as he knew she would, but he persuaded her that the only way to stay alive was to remain together. He stepped out of the alcove, meaning to start in the direction of the palace, but he was drawn to the still figure on the bloody mosaic floor.
Caligula lay with his head in a ring of sunlight, in that boneless pose adopted only by the dead. Rufus stood over him wondering at his lack of feeling. There were so many questions he could have asked that would never be answered. Or perhaps only one question. The question he had asked Aemilia. Why?
They both heard the running footsteps, but a night and a day of fear and tension had sapped any will he had to react.
'There! The assassin.'
There were four of them, burly Praetorians with the battle madness in their blood. They had spent the last hours chasing shadows and not knowing who was friend and who enemy. Three wanted to cut him down where he stood, but their leader ordered them to put up their swords. They disarmed him and two of them bound him, while the others took Aemilia by the arms.
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