‘Keep your spirits up, love. The night’s not over yet.’ Susanna smiled and the moment of panic passed for Alexandria. She checked the yard with the others and barely winced when another defender fell, this time screaming as he hit the yard. Three men came through the gap he had left this time, with two more visible as they struggled up over the slippery bodies.
All the women drew their knives and the torchlight caught the blades, even down in the yard’s blackness. Before the men’s eyes could adjust to the gloom, the women were on them, gripping and stabbing.
Gaius came awake with a start. His mother Aurelia sat by the bed, holding a damp cloth. Its touch had awakened him and, as he looked at her, she pressed it to his forehead, crooning gently to herself. In the distance, he could hear screams and the clear sounds of battle. How had he remained asleep? Cabera had given him a warm drink as the evening darkened. There must have been something in it.
‘What is going on, Mother? I can hear fighting!’
Aurelia smiled at him sadly.
‘Shhh, my darling. You must not excite yourself. Your life is slipping away and I have come to make your last hours peaceful.’
Gaius blanched a little. No, he felt weak, but sound.
‘I am not dying. I am getting better. Now, what is happening in the yard? I should get out there!’
‘Shhh, shhh. I know they said you were getting better, but I also know they lie to me. Now be still and I will cool your brow for you.’
Gaius looked at her in disbelief. All his life, this shambling idiot had been coming to the fore, dragging away the lively, quick-witted woman he missed. He winced in anticipation of the screaming fit that would follow a wrong word from him.
‘I want to feel the night air on my skin, Mother. One last time. Please leave so that I may dress.’
‘Of course, my darling. I’ll go back to my rooms now that I have said goodbye to you, my perfect son.’ She giggled for a moment and sighed as if she carried a great weight.
‘Your father is out there getting himself killed instead of looking after me. He has never looked after me properly. We have not made love in years now.’
Gaius didn’t know what to say. He sat up and closed his eyes against the weakness. He couldn’t even hold his hand in a fist, but he had to know what was going on. Gods, why wasn’t there someone around? Were they all out there? Tubruk?
‘Please leave, Mother. I must dress. I want to sit outside in my last moments.’
‘I understand, my love. Goodbye.’ Her eyes filled with tears as she kissed his forehead and then the little room was empty again.
For a moment, he was tempted simply to fall back on the pillows. His head felt thick and heavy and he guessed the drug Cabera had given him would have kept him under till morning if his mother hadn’t had one of her ideas. Slowly, he swung his legs out and pressed his feet against the floor. Weak. Clothes. One thing at a time.
Tubruk knew they couldn’t hold much longer. He ran himself ragged trying to cover a gap where two other men had once stood beside him. Again and again, he spun barely in time to meet the attack of those who were creeping up on him as he killed those in front. His breath came in wheezing gasps and, for all his skill, he knew death was close.
Why would they not break? Damn all the gods to hell, they must break! He cursed himself for not arranging for some sort of fallback position, but there really was none. The walls were the only defence the estate had and these trembled on the brink of being completely overwhelmed.
He slipped in blood and went down badly, the air rushing out of him. A dagger punched into his side and a dirty bare foot tried to crush his face, pressing his head down. He bit it and distantly heard someone scream. He made it to one knee too late to stop two scrambling figures dropping down into the yard. He hoped the women could handle them. Gingerly he felt his side and winced at the trickle of blood, watching it for air bubbles. There were none and he could still breathe; though the air tasted like hot tin and blood.
For a few moments, no one came at him and he was able to look around the walls. Of the original twenty-nine, there were fewer than fifteen left. They had worked miracles up on the wall, but it wasn’t going to be enough.
Julius fought on, despairing as his strength flowed from his wounds. He pulled the dagger out of his flesh with a groan and instantly lost it in the chest of the next man to face him. His breath was burning his throat and he looked into the yard, seeing his son come out. He smiled and the pride felt as if it would burst his chest. Another blade entered him, shoved down into the gap between his breastplate and his neck, deep into his lung. He spat blood and buried his gladius into the attacker without seeing or knowing his face. His arms dropped away and the sword fell from his grasp, clattering on the stones of the courtyard below. He could only watch as the rest came on.
Tubruk saw Julius collapse under a mass of bodies that spilled past him over the narrow walkway and down into the dark. He cried out his grief and rage, knowing he couldn’t reach him in time. Renius was still on his feet, but only Marcus’ care kept the old warrior from death, and even that blinding whirl of blades was faltering as Marcus bled from wounds, his life dribbling away in a score of gashes.
Gaius climbed up beside Tubruk, his face white from the effort of dragging himself up the steps to the wall. His gladius was out and he swung it as he reached the top, cutting into a man levering himself up over the dark bodies. Tubruk slid his blade into the man’s ribs as Gaius swayed, but still the slave wouldn’t die. He flailed with a dagger and cut Gaius across the face. Gaius hammered another blow at his neck and then the life was gone. More faces appeared, shouting and cursing as they struggled onto the slippery stones.
‘Your father, Gaius.’
‘I know.’ Gaius’ sword arm came up without a quiver to block a spear, relic of some old battle. He stepped inside its reach and took out the man’s throat in a spray of bloody wetness. Tubruk charged two more, making one drop over the edge, but falling to his knees in the sticky mess of the floor as he did so. Gaius cut the next down as he reversed his blade to plunge it into Tubruk. Then he staggered back a pace, his face white under the blood, his knees buckling. They waited together for the next one up to the edge.
The night suddenly became brighter as the feed barns were set alight and still no new attacker came to end it for him.
‘One more,’ Tubruk swore through bloody lips. ‘I can take one more with me. You should go down, you’re not fit to fight.’
Gaius ignored him, his mouth a grim line. They waited, but no one came. Tubruk edged closer to the outer wall and looked over, at the mangled limbs and broken carcasses that were piled beneath the ledge, sprawled in slippery gore and glassy expressions. There was no one there waiting for him with a dagger, no one at all.
The light from the burning barns silhouetted leaping figures as they capered around in the darkness. Tubruk began to chuckle to himself, wincing as his lips split again.
‘They’ve found the wine store,’ he said and the laughter could not be stopped, despite the wrenching pain it brought.
‘They are leaving!’ Marcus growled, amazed. He hawked and spat blood at the floor, wondering vaguely if it was his own. He turned and grinned at Renius, seeing how he sat slumped, propped against two carcasses. The old warrior just looked at him, and for a moment Marcus began to remember his acid dislike.
‘I …’ He paused and took two quick steps to the old man. He was dying, that was obvious. Marcus pressed a hand made black with blood and dirt onto Renius’ chest, feeling the heart flutter and miss. ‘Cabera! Over here, quickly,’ he shouted.
Renius closed his eyes against the noise and the pain.
Alexandria panted as if she was in labour. She was exhausted and covered in blood, which she had never imagined would be as sticky and foul as it actually was. They never mentioned this in the stories either. The stuff was slippery for a few moments, then gummed up your hands, making every surface tacky to the touch. She waited for th
e next one to drop into the yard, walking around almost drunkenly, her knife held in a stiff arm by her side.
She stumbled over a body and realised it was Susanna. She would never cut a goose again, or put fresh rushes down in the kitchens, or feed scraps to stray puppies on her shopping trips in Rome. This last thought brought clear-water tears that ran through the mud and stink. Alexandria kept walking, kept the patrol going, but no new enemies appeared, landing in the yard like crows. No one came, but still she staggered on, unable to stop. Two hours to dawn and she could still hear screaming in the fields.
‘Stay on the walls! No man leaves his post until dawn,’ Tubruk bellowed around the yard. ‘They could still be back.’
He didn’t think they would, though. The wine store held the best part of a thousand wax-sealed amphorae. Even if the slaves smashed a few, there should still be enough to keep them happy until sun-up.
After that final command was given, he wanted to climb down himself to cross quickly to where Julius lay among the dead, but someone had to hold the place.
‘Go to your father, lad.’
Gaius nodded once and descended, bracing himself against the wall for support. The pain was agonising. He could feel that the operation incision had ripped open, and touching the area left his fingers red and glistening. As he dragged himself back up the stone steps to the defenders’ positions, his wounds tore at his will, but he held on.
‘Are you dead, Father?’ he whispered as he looked down at the body. There could be no answer.
‘Hold your positions, lads. It’s over for now,’ Tubruk’s voice snapped across the yard.
Alexandria heard the news and dropped the knife onto the cobbles. Her wrists were being held by another slave girl from the kitchens, saying something to her. She could not make out the words over the screaming of the wounded, suddenly breaking into what she had thought was silence.
‘I have been in silence and darkness for ever,’ she thought. ‘I have seen hell.’
Who was she again? The lines had blurred somewhere in the evening, as she killed slaves who wanted freedom as much as she did. The weight of it all bore her down to the ground and she began to sob.
Tubruk could not resist any longer. He limped down from his place on the wall and up again to where Julius lay. He and Gaius looked down at the body without words.
Gaius tried to feel the reality of the man’s death. He could not. What lay on the floor was a broken thing, torn and gashed, in spreading pools of a liquid that looked more like oil than blood in the torchlight. His father’s presence was gone.
He spun round suddenly, his hand coming up to ward something off.
‘There was someone next to me. I could feel someone standing there, looking down with me,’ he began to babble.
‘That would be him, all right. This is a night for ghosts.’
The feeling had gone, though, and Gaius shivered, his mouth set tight against a grief that would drown him.
‘Leave me, Tubruk. And thank you.’
Tubruk nodded, his eyes dark shadows as he limped down the steps into the yard. Wearily, he climbed back up to his old place on the wall and looked over each body he’d cut down, trying to remember the details of each death. He could recognise only a few and he soon gave that up and sat against a post, with his sword between his legs, watching the waning flicker of fire from the fields and waiting for the dawn.
Cabera placed his own palms over Renius’ heart.
‘This is his time, I think. The walls inside him are thin and old. Some are leaking blood where there should be none.’
‘You healed Gaius. You can heal him.’
‘He is an old man, lad. He was already weak and I …’ Cabera paused as he felt a hot blade touch his back. Slowly and carefully, he turned his head to look at Marcus. There was nothing to reassure him in the grim expression.
‘He lives. Do your work, or I’ll kill just one more today.’
At the words, Cabera could feel a shift and different futures came into play, like gambling chips slotting into position with a silent click. His eyes widened, but he said nothing as he began to summon his energies for the healing. What a strange young man who had the power to bend the futures around him! Surely he had come to the right place in history. This was indeed a time of flux and change, without the usual order and safe progression.
He pulled an iron needle from the hem of his robe and threaded it neatly and quickly. He worked with care, sewing the bloody lips of slashed flesh together, remembering what it was to be young, when anything seemed possible. As Marcus watched, Cabera pressed his brown hands against Renius’ chest and massaged the heart. He felt it quicken and stifled an exclamation as life came flooding back into the old body. He held his position for a long time, until the etched pain eased from Renius’ expression and he looked as if he were merely asleep. As Cabera rose to his feet, swaying with exhaustion, he nodded to himself as if a point had been confirmed.
‘The gods are strange players, Marcus. They never tell us all their plans. You were right. He will see a few more dawns and sunsets before the end.’
CHAPTER TEN
The fields were deserted by the time the sun came over the horizon. Those who had broken into the wine store were no doubt lying amongst the corn, still in the deep slumber of drunkenness. Gaius looked out over the wall to see sluggish smoke rising from the blackened ground. Scorched trees stood stark and bare, and the winter grain still smouldered in the skeletal wrecks of the feed barns.
It was a strangely peaceful scene, with even the morning birds silent. The violence and emotions of the night before were somehow distant when you were able to look out across the fields. Gaius rubbed his face for a moment, then turned to walk down the steps into the courtyard.
Brown stains spattered every white wall and surface. Pools of blood congealed in corners and obscene smears showed where the bodies had already been shifted, dragged outside the gates to be taken to pits when carts could be arranged. The defenders were laid out on clean cloths in cool rooms, their limbs arranged for dignity. The others were simply thrown onto a growing pile where arms and legs stuck out at angles. Gaius watched the work, and in the background heard the screams of the wounded as they were stitched or made ready for amputation.
He burned with anger and had nowhere to unleash it. He had been locked away for safety while everyone he loved risked their lives and while his father had given his in defence of his family and the estate. True, he had still been weak from the operation, his scabs barely healed, but to be denied the chance to help his father! There were no words, and when Cabera had come to him to offer sympathy Gaius ignored him until he went away. He sat exhausted and trickled dust through his fingers, remembering Tubruk’s words years before and understanding them at last. His land.
A slave approached, one whose name Gaius did not know, but who bore wounds that showed he had been part of the defence.
‘The dead are all outside the gates, master. Shall we find carts for them?’
It was the first time any man had addressed him as anything but his own name. Gaius hardened his expression so as not to reveal his surprise. His mind was full of pain and his voice sounded as if from a deep pit.
‘Bring lamp oil. I’ll burn them where they lie.’
The slave ducked his head in acknowledgement and ran for the oil. Gaius walked outside the gates and looked on the ungainly mass of death. It was a grisly sight, but he could find no sympathy in him. Each one there had chosen this end when they had attacked the estate.
He doused the pile in oil, sloshing it over the flesh and faces, into open mouths and unblinking eyes. Then he lit it and found he couldn’t watch the corpses burn after all. The smoke brought back a memory of the raven he and Marcus had caught and he called a slave over to him.
‘Fetch barrels from the stores and keep it burning until they are ash,’ he said grimly. He went back inside as the heat built and the smell followed him like an accusing finger.
H
e found Tubruk lying on his side and biting onto a piece of leather as Cabera probed a dagger wound in his stomach in the great kitchen. Gaius watched for a while, but no words were exchanged. He moved on, finding the cook sitting on a step with a bloody cleaver still in his hand. Gaius knew his father would have had words of encouragement for the man, who looked desolate and lost. He himself could not summon up anything except cold anger and stepped over the figure, who stared off into space as if Gaius wasn’t there. Then he stopped. If his father would have done it, then so would he.
‘I saw you fight on the wall,’ he said to the cook, his voice strong and firm at last.
The man nodded and seemed to gather himself. He struggled to stand.
‘I did, master. I killed a great number, but I lost count after a while.’
‘Well, I’ve just burned one hundred and forty-nine bodies, so it must have been many,’ Gaius said, trying to smile.
‘Yes. No one got past me. I have never known such luck. I was touched by the gods, I think. We all were.’
‘Did you see my father die?’
The cook stood and raised an arm as if to put it on the boy’s shoulder. At the last moment, he thought better of it and turned the gesture into a wave of regret.
‘I did. He took a great many with him and many before. There were piles around him at the end. He was a brave man and a good one.’
Gaius felt his calm waver at the kind thought and his jaw clenched. When he had overcome his surge of sorrow, he spoke graciously: ‘He would be proud of you, I know. You were singing when I caught a glimpse of you.’
To his surprise, the man blushed deeply.
‘Yes. I enjoyed the fight. I know there was blood and death all around, but everything was simple, you see. Anyone I could see was to be killed. I like things to be clear.’
‘I understand,’ Gaius said, forcing a bleak smile. ‘Rest now. The kitchens are open and soup will be brought around soon.’
The Emperor Series: Books 1-5 Page 12
