The Emperor's Knives: Empire VII (Empire 7)

by Riches, Anthony

  Senator Albinus nodded grimly.

  ‘When they do, they’ll find me waiting for them at the head of twenty hand-picked men. Just pray to your gods that you’re right, Informer, or you’ll find that you’ve reached the end of my tolerance for your mistakes and misinformation. And don’t think you’re going anywhere in the meanwhile. You can join me for a refreshing cup of wine, and while we wait for my former friends to walk into the jaws of their fates, you can contemplate what I’m going to have these bloodthirsty individuals do to you should they fail to appear.’

  The informer looked around him at the men Albinus had recruited to replace Cotta’s veteran soldiers, finding their stares locked on him like cats gathered around a mouse. He shrugged, doing his best to project an air of indifference.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do whatever seems best to you, Senator. Although what my other client will think of my sudden disappearance might make for interesting conjecture.’

  He allowed the comment to hang in the air, knowing that Albinus would be unable to resist the bait.

  ‘Your other client? You told me that you had abandoned Senator Sigilis, as he will imminently be arrested for plotting against the throne.’

  Excingus allowed the ghost of a smile to creep onto his face, enough to establish some small edge of advantage without looking as if he was condescending to the senator.

  ‘Indeed he is. But it’s very rare for an informant to have a single client, especially a successful man such as myself.’ Albinus snorted his amusement, and the ring of men gathered around them smirked at Excingus’s irritated reaction. ‘In point of fact, I have two other clients.’

  ‘And if the doomed Sigilis is one of them, the other is …?’

  The informant was unable to resist a smirk of his own, fighting hard to control his urge to shake his head at the senator’s lack of insight.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to disclose the name, but I’m sure you’ll work it out in due course, Senator.’

  Albinus shrugged.

  ‘I don’t care who else you work for, Informant, just as long as the information I buy from you turns out to be a little more accurate than has been the case until now.’

  Marcus walked out of the spolarium ahead of the four men carrying Flamma’s body, Scaurus bringing up the rear with Cotta’s men. The gladiator’s corpse had been washed clean of blood, the wounds that marred his legs and trunk tightly bandaged to prevent the escape of any more blood, and a coin placed in his mouth to pay his passage across the river Styx. Then, once the dead man’s body had been dressed in the armour he had worn for his last fight, the Tungrians had rolled it into a tightly wrapped thick linen shroud, and Dubnus, Arminius, Cotta and Lugos hoisted it onto their shoulders in readiness for its final journey. At the building’s entrance the guards stood aside to make room for the impromptu funeral procession, but Marcus found his path blocked by half a dozen men with Sannitus at their head.

  ‘We came to provide Flamma with an honourable burial.’ The lanista looked at Marcus and the men behind him with a grimace of distaste. ‘And instead I find the man who killed one of the finest fighters the Dacian school has ever seen carrying our brother away. What do you think you’re playing at, Corvus?’

  Marcus stepped forward and went toe to toe with the lanista, his face hardening.

  ‘You heard what I told Mortiferum last night.’

  ‘I did. You mistakenly believed him to have been part of the murder of your family. What does that have to do with Flamma?’

  ‘Flamma was the man who taught me to fight. What you saw me do in the arena was pretty much all the result of his training, and in the process of teaching me those skills he became as close to me as my own father. Closer in some ways.’ He leaned in, his gaze locked on the lanista’s eyes. ‘You’re welcome to join me in providing him with a burial befitting his fame, but if you step into my path I will walk through you.’

  Sannitus looked back at him for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘I believe you would. Very well, you and I will lay our friend to rest together then.’ The gladiators formed up around the men carrying the corpse, while Sannitus looked at Marcus thoughtfully. ‘It seems that ours weren’t the only lives that Flamma touched. So where were you thinking of laying him down to sleep?’

  ‘In a quiet garden close to the top of the Aventine Hill. Any member of the Dacian school will be welcome to visit his grave for as long as my wife owns the house.’

  Sannitus nodded, pulling a roll of cloth from his belt, opening it up and draping it over his head, shrouding his face in shadow.

  ‘That sounds ideal. In truth I had little idea of where to take him. All that was in my head was to avoid his being dumped into a nameless grave along with all the other corpses from today’s fights. I will intercede with the goddess on Flamma’s behalf.’

  They headed south, past the great circus, and began the ascent of the hill’s shallow rise in silence. As they approached a tavern on the hill’s crest a familiar figure stepped out in front of them, Albinus’s face red with the effects of the afternoon sun and the wine he’d clearly been drinking. Excingus remained in his seat opposite the one the senator had vacated, his amused smile slowly fading as he took in the hard-faced and well-muscled men escorting the Tungrians.

  ‘This is becoming a little routine, isn’t it, Decimus?’ Scaurus had strolled past the corpse bearers with an amused smile, shaking his head at the look of anger on his former sponsor’s face. ‘Are you sure you want to delay a solemn funeral procession like this?’

  Albinus shook his head.

  ‘Not this time, Rutilius Scaurus. This time there’ll be no surprises, no unexpected rescue. This time you end up face down in a puddle of your own blood. With your lapdog centurion and that viper Cotta alongside you. Tonight, young man, I will open a jar of my very best wine and celebrate the removal of three particularly difficult thorns from my flesh.’

  He clicked his fingers, and a score of muscular men who had been lounging against the walls around them straightened their stances and closed in around the corpse bearers. Scaurus looked about him appreciatively, nodding at Albinus.

  ‘You’re a persistent man, Decimus, I’ll give you that. Thin-skinned, a little lacking in the perceptive skills, bad tempered, a venal opportunist and slow witted, but certainly persistent. But are you sure these men will do as you tell them?’

  Albinus grinned back at him in anticipation of his long-awaited revenge for the indignities the Tungrians had heaped upon him.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m more than certain. After all, they’re gladiators. They’ll do anything for money.’

  ‘Anything?’

  The senator swaggered forward, putting a finger on Scaurus’s chest.

  ‘Anything! Their profession has removed any scruples they might have, and any status they once possessed, and now all they have left is the pursuit of riches. Riches which I will bestow on them in such quantity that they will never have to fight in the arena again. This time, Rutilius Scaurus, I have you by—’

  Sannitus, his head bowed and his face invisible, lifted his gaze from the cobbles to reveal his identity, looking about him with a challenging stare.

  ‘Do you men know who I am?’

  The man closest to him performed a double take of almost comedic intensity, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘Sannitus?’

  The lanista turned slowly, looking at each man in turn.

  ‘I’m committing your faces to memory, brothers, so that I can have you hunted down and murdered. Those of you who do not know me should be aware that I am lanista of the Dacian Ludus and a priest in the worship of the goddess Nemesis, taking the body of our renowned brother Flamma for his inhumation. Those of you who are not delivered a swift and bloody justice by the members of my ludus for desecrating his memory will surely face judgement in the afterlife.’

  Scaurus raised an eyebrow at Albinus, who was staring at Sannitus with a horrified expression.

  ‘Undone once m
ore, eh Decimus? Or are you sure enough of the legitimacy of your quest for justice that you’ll risk ordering the death of a priest, especially one to a deity as unforgiving as Nemesis?’

  The gladiators’ apparent leader, a big man with one eye covered by a length of cloth wrapped around his head and knotted at the back, stepped forward and held his empty hands up before him.

  ‘No fear. We’re not about to incur the anger of the goddess and have her pursue us for the rest of our lives. Come on lads!’

  Albinus watched open mouthed as his escort melted away.

  ‘So, Decimus, once again you’ve come after me with murder in your heart, only to find yourself in my power. Is there any good reason why I shouldn’t order my barbarians to deal with you once and for all, here in the street? That big lad there might just be strong enough to rip your arms off, which would make for an interesting spectacle.’

  Lugos grinned savagely down at the senator, who visibly blanched.

  ‘I …’

  The tribune leaned close to his former legatus, casting a glance at Excingus who, still seated at the tavern’s table, was doing his best to appear inconspicuous.

  ‘I won’t sully this solemn occasion with your blood, but the next time I see you one of us will die, you can be assured of that. And given that you’ve been stupid enough to let yourself be led around the city by that snake of an informer, I’d say the odds are on my being the one to step out of the shadows unexpectedly.’

  Excingus stirred, getting to his feet and dropping a coin on the table.

  ‘Led round the city? Isn’t that a little harsh, Tribune?’

  ‘Is it? Is it really? Decimus here may not be bright enough to have seen through your game, but I’ve worked it out.’ Scaurus raised his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘I’ll admit that I’m somewhat later to the realisation than might have been ideal, but I can see it now.’

  ‘See what?’

  He turned back to Albinus, shaking his head.

  ‘You’ve had Excingus in your pay for what, a fortnight? Ostensibly working for your senatorial colleague Sigilis, whereas in reality he’s been your creature, passing you information about our doings and helping you to plot your revenge on me for having the temerity to threaten you with the proof that you embezzled a fortune in gold from the throne in Dacia.’ He paused, raising an interrogatory eyebrow. ‘So would you say that’s gone well, Decimus? Your first attempt ended up with your would-be murderers siding with us, and since then you’ve either been too late to the party or not even been aware of the opportunity until it’s been too late. Has it ever occurred to you that your informer here might just be in the pay of someone else? Someone too big for him to refuse, even if the payment on offer hadn’t been quite so tempting? How much is Cleander paying you, Excingus?’

  Albinus blanched, his ruddy face losing its colour in an instant.

  ‘Cleander?’

  ‘Cleander. I told you Decimus, that night outside Pilinius’s domus, that I’d worked it out. Too late to have been anything other than the chamberlain’s puppet, with this devious bastard pulling the strings on his behalf, but at least I do understand what’s been happening.’

  The informant shook his head with a half-smile.

  ‘You give me too much credit, Tribune.’

  ‘On the contrary, I think you’ve played a masterful game. Allowing my rather slow-witted colleague here to believe himself to be your master, while all the time you were doing the chamberlain’s bidding and feeding us the information we needed to kill the Knives on his behalf.’ Scaurus shook his head in amusement. ‘And I was taken in by your act, I’ll admit it. I genuinely believed you were working for Sigilis, motivated by his apparently bottomless pockets to betray the emperor’s team of assassins to us one at a time. Even when I realised that you were working for this oaf on the side – and you can close your mouth and keep it shut, Decimus, unless you want me to have a change of heart as to the desirability of shedding your blood here and now – I still failed to perceive what should have been as plain as the nose on both of your faces.’

  Excingus’s eyes narrowed theatrically.

  ‘Well done, Rutilius Scaurus. But tell me, what was it that led you to realise I was working for the senator here? What mistake did I make?’

  Scaurus laughed, gesturing to the red-faced Albinus.

  ‘You know very well that you made sure I knew about your employment by Decimus here, as a smokescreen for your rather more influential employer. And I note you’re not denying your link to Cleander.’

  The informant shrugged.

  ‘Given it’s probably the only thing that’s keeping me alive, I’m happy enough to admit the truth of your assumption. Cleander was never going to tolerate the Knives, once he’d replaced the praetorian prefect as the man behind Commodus’s throne. They had outlived their usefulness, and what was worse, they were getting greedy and, of course, they knew too much. Killing them would have been simple enough, but he needed his hands to be clean in the matter.’

  Scaurus nodded.

  ‘Indeed he did. Imagine the excitement that would have ensued if the emperor had caught even a hint of his complicity in their deaths. Not to mention the fact that he needs their replacements, his own men, to trust him absolutely, right up to the moment that he has them killed in their turn to ensure their silence. So he used you to point us at them, one at a time, and sat back with a quiet smile while Centurion Aquila did his dirty work for him.’

  Excingus shrugged.

  ‘Men like Cleander don’t reach the top of the dunghill without treading on a few faces on the way. It was made crystal clear to me that any failure to cooperate in his scheme would result in a protracted and distinctly unpleasant exit from this life for me, so of course I did as he told me.’ He bowed to Scaurus, and then to Marcus. ‘And now, gentlemen, with my thanks for your assistance, I really must be away. I have one last small task to perform, and then I shall slide away into the shadows. I suspect that Rome will shortly become inhospitable to a man with my twisted loyalties. And for you I have only one piece of advice …’

  Scaurus cocked his head and waited, watching as Excingus turned away and spoke his parting words over his shoulder.

  ‘Beware the Knives, gentlemen. All of your efforts have only served to make way for a deadlier collection of murderers than the men you killed ever were …’

  He walked swiftly away down the hill with the purposeful stride of a man with things to do.

  12

  ‘And you swear not to seek vengeance on this man Velox?’

  Marcus looked down into his wife’s eyes and nodded.

  ‘I swear it. My thirst for revenge has been slaked, and with every mouthful the taste became more bitter than the last. Although I cannot say what will happen when Velox recovers from the beating that Flamma gave him.’

  Felicia had examined the veteran gladiator’s body before Marcus and Cotta had dug a deep grave in the walled garden and carefully lowered the corpse into place.

  ‘That poor man was in agony, I can tell you that much just from the size of that part of his growth that was protruding from his body. It must already have consumed most of his lungs, and how he was able to fight a bout in that condition is a mystery to me.’

  Marcus smiled sadly.

  ‘You should have known him ten years ago. And thank you for giving your permission to bury him here.’

  She smiled, stroking his cheek.

  ‘Nobody will ever know, so the prohibition on burials within the city walls will never be a problem. And besides, how could I refuse you when it was clearly his intervention that saved your life. The altar looks nice …’

  Sannitus had sent his men out to purchase a suitably ornate memorial, and with several hefty gladiators standing round him, the stonemason had been inspired to take up his chisel and carve the required words into the white marble without delay. Each of the fighters had vowed to return and make the appropriate sacrifice before heading back down into
the city, and Julius had half persuaded and half dragged Dubnus away to the barracks, leaving Calistra in the care of the two ladies of the house. Felicia had spent an hour speaking quietly with the Dacian girl who, it transpired, had been captured in the same campaign the Tungrians had fought in the previous year.

  ‘That poor girl seems to have been through a lot, but I sense iron in her. She’ll need some time to get over her hardships though, she’s been raped enough times to have driven a gentler spirit to suicide. Your friend will have to demonstrate more patience than he’s known for.’

  Marcus nodded, gesturing to the little dog Centurion as he gambolled around their feet.

  ‘And now, I think, it’s time for you to get ready. Julius and the tribune will be back soon, and you’ll have to go down to the barracks for a while.’

  ‘You think?’

  Her husband smiled.

  ‘I don’t think, I know. Excingus had the look of a man with unfinished business when we last saw him, and I think that business has to do with you and I.’

  The streets of the Aventine were quiet, the taverns and brothels having mostly closed for the night. The informant made his way carefully up the hill with the wine jar cradled in the crook of one arm, stepping round dark puddles of human waste poured from the higher floors of the insulae on either side, half a dozen protective figures skulking through the shadows at his back. He had purchased the container several hours before at a cut price, its contents having spoiled as the consequence of an imperfect seal between jar and plug. Pouring its contents away down the nearest drain to the highly animated disgust of half a dozen beggars, he carried the empty jar away to replace its previous contents with a different liquid altogether.

  ‘Here!’

  The informant stiffened at the challenge, relaxing again as he realised it was the child Gaius, hidden in the shade of a doorway. The informant slid into the shadow alongside him, his whispered greeting edged with the usual sardonic tone.