Semper Fidelis: A Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  In response to Accius’s question he retorted that, yes, he had tried negotiation already. The only response had been a hail of insults and roof tiles. “How many of your barbarians are in there?”

  “I’ll talk to them. They’re my men.”

  “They’ve got my prefect. And the empress. It’s too late for talking.”

  Nobody seemed to notice when Ruso faded back into the darkness, leaving his tribune to a dispute that might be about saving lives, or about not being told what to do by a mere centurion, or about the Twentieth drawing all the fire so the Praetorians could perform the rescue. Whoever won the argument, it would do no good. He was not sure the recruits would believe anything Accius told them.

  They might not believe anything he said himself, but it was worth a try.

  The feeble lamps still burned on either side of the front doors, an odd reminder of normal business. As he approached he could hear some sort of native chanting going on inside. The sound brought back memories he would rather not think about.

  There was movement up on the roof, a hollow scraping sound, and then a crack, as if someone was shifting and then breaking up a heavy clay tile. He stopped and called out in British, “This is Ruso, the healer. Let me talk to Marcus.”

  Behind him he could hear the Praetorian centurion demanding to know who that idiot was, and Accius ordering him to come back as if he were a disobedient dog. With luck, the men on the roof would hear them too.

  “I’m coming forward!” he called, then ducked and made a quick sidestep.

  In answer, something flew over his head and thudded into the gravel. Broken roof tile was not the easiest of missiles to aim, and they would be throwing toward the sound of his voice in the dark, but Geminus had trained his men well. With no armor or helmet, he was a soft target for anything with sharp edges.

  “Marcus will talk to me!” he shouted, dodging again and wishing he had had the sense to borrow a shield. “Go and ask him!”

  There seemed to be more movement up there, but no reply came. Perhaps Marcus was not in charge after all. Perhaps he was dead. Perhaps Tilla …

  He could not think about Tilla. He needed to concentrate.

  More movement, and a voice shouting in Latin this time. “Bring the tribune. Just you two and nobody else. No weapons. We are watching.”

  To Accius’s credit, his footsteps were crunching forward over the gravel even before Ruso could turn and ask him. They walked forward slowly, far enough apart to make two small targets instead of one large one. The chanting grew louder. Ruso was conscious of being watched from behind and from above. This was very different from the last time he had seen a recruit up on a roof.

  He murmured, “The Praetorians aren’t going to try storming the place as we go in, are they, sir?”

  “Not unless they want to kill us,” observed Accius.

  They passed between the lamps. Ahead of them, one of the double doors swung back. Ruso led the way forward. The chant was pulsating through the darkness. It was like walking under an amphitheater with the crowd above roaring for blood. The heavy door slammed shut behind them. He heard the bar scrape across into the socket. Someone called, “Put down your weapons.”

  Ruso lowered his knife to the floor. He was aware of Accius bending down beside him. Hands moved over his body, checking for concealed blades. Then the voice that had spoken before said, “Welcome to Sports Night.”

  Chapter 78

  If she closed one eye, Tilla could see down into the stable yard through the gap in the glass. The chant was coming from the men crowded around the outside. One man knelt in the middle, head bowed. He wore only a plain tunic and boots. His hands were tied in front of him and there was rope around his chest. Above him stood Marcus, the tattoo twisting up his arm like a live snake in the flickering torchlight.

  “Silence!” Marcus bellowed in Latin to the crowd. Then when this had little effect, he added in British, “Shut up! We haven’t got long!”

  Finally the chanting died down. Turning to look round at his audience, he shouted, “Men, we are honoured by the presence of Tribune Accius and Medicus Gaius Petreius Ruso!”

  Tilla stared in horror as Marcus saluted two of the figures standing in the shadows. The rest of the men followed suit. “For your entertainment this evening, sirs, we present … Centurion Dexter!”

  Whatever the guests of honor might be saying was lost beneath the roars of approval. Marcus stepped back, raising his right arm. He held a spear. The point hovered just above his victim’s head. The audience cheered. Ignoring shouts of “Spike him!” Marcus eased the spear down behind Dexter’s back. Dexter glanced round in alarm and Tilla saw the fear on his face. For a moment she was puzzled. Then she realized.

  “Stand up for the tribune, Centurion!”

  Encouraged by a kick, he staggered to his feet.

  “How many turns before he tells the truth about Sports Night?” yelled Marcus. “Place your bets!”

  Men were shouting out numbers. One roared, “Kill the bugger!”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes!”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  Tilla realized the empress was calling to her from the corner of the room, asking what was happening. Without taking her eyes off the figures in the courtyard she said, “They are trying to get justice.”

  She wished they were not so very obviously enjoying it.

  Marcus bent sideways. He seized the spear by both ends and turned it upside down as if he were winding up a crank. Dexter jolted. The rope around his chest tightened. “One!” roared the audience, with several immediately adding, “Two!” and “Get on with it!”

  Marcus bent down to his victim. “Anything to say?” From the way he jerked his head away, Tilla guessed Dexter had spat in his face.

  “You must stop this!” cried a voice from the shadows.

  Accius was no coward. Even outnumbered by wild barbarians, he was doing his best to defend his man. “This is mutiny! Stop now, before—”

  “Before what, sir?” demanded Marcus, one hand on the spear and the other wiping his cheek. “Before he tells the truth?”

  “Men, this is Tribune Accius!” As if they would not recognize the cultured tones of his Roman education. “Listen to me. I order you to release that centurion and disband immediately!”

  “We would, sir,” Marcus told him calmly, “but this is Sports Night. Normal rules don’t apply. Do they, Dexter?”

  He upended the spear again.

  “Two!” roared the crowd.

  “This is outrageous!” cried Clarus from the safety of the corner in the upstairs room. “The empress can’t be expected to listen to this! Tell your men to stop immediately!”

  Tilla glanced back into the room. “They will stop when he confesses,” she said, wondering if they would.

  “I confess there was gambling, sir.” Dexter’s voice was clear, if not as strong as before. “Betting on fights. Harmless fun.”

  Several cries of “Ha!” and “Liar!” from the crowd almost drowned out Dexter’s next words: “Geminus took it too far.”

  “Only two turns!” Marcus called out. “Pathetic.” He looked around at his jeering comrades, though Tilla supposed he could barely see them in the darkness around the pools of torchlight. “I’m betting one more and he’ll tell the tribune all about Dannicus. What do you think?”

  Chapter 79

  The spear had turned five times now. Dexter could hardly stand. He had confessed about the betting on Dannicus and Sulio crossing the river. He had admitted that Geminus had forced Tadius and Victor to fight to the death and that he had done nothing to stop it. The crowd seemed to be growing restless.

  The men who had been holding Ruso back against the wall next to Accius (“for your own safety, sirs”) had slackened their grip and were looking round as if they were not sure what to do next. Accius had fallen silent as he listened to Dexter’s confession. For once he seemed to have nothing to s
ay.

  Ruso elbowed his way out of the men’s grasp and stepped forward into the torchlight. “Let him go, Marcus. He’s told you everything he knows. He had nothing to do with Geminus’s death.”

  “We know that, sir. He is a coward who left the killing to the Praetorians.” Marcus turned to address the tribune. “Sir, even now this man has not told the whole truth. Ask him about tonight.”

  Ruso lowered his voice. “Marcus, have some sense! This is suicide. You can’t get away from here, and the Praetorians are waiting outside. Do what the tribune tells you: Stop now and some of you might live.”

  “It is suicide to stop now,” Marcus retorted.

  “Let me pass!” Accius’s voice cut through the rising discontent of men whose entertainment had been interrupted. He appeared at Ruso’s side. “Centurion Dexter, I order you to tell me about tonight.”

  Dexter mumbled something.

  “What? The watch captain let you down?” Marcus shouted in his ear. “I don’t think so! Speak up so the tribune can hear!”

  The crowd hushed to listen. But all anyone could hear was the centurion gasping to Marcus, “Should have—run when—you had the chance. You’re a—dead man.”

  Marcus leaned down and hissed to the sagging head, “And so are you!” He looked up at Accius. “We are not as stupid as he thinks, sir. He is afraid of what we will say about him to the officers at Deva. He tried to frighten us about what will happen if we go there and then arranged to have the gates unguarded so we could desert.”

  It sounded ridiculous, but suddenly several things made sense. The sight of Dexter sitting calmly by the fire, eating bacon, while the watch was nowhere to be seen. The amazing ability of the Britons to overpower half a dozen guards in complete silence. The curious lack of any serious injuries amongst the guards, none of whom had managed to wriggle out from under the hedge until they were found.

  Ruso took hold of the spear and prized Marcus’s fingers away from it. Dexter, wheezing, slumped sideways as the rope slackened around him. Several hands caught him and lowered him to the ground.

  “We are tired of being afraid, sir,” Marcus was saying above him. “We will go to the next world as men rather than live in this one as cowards.”

  Crouched beside Dexter, concerned about broken ribs and internal injury, Ruso heard the centurion mutter a feeble, “Fools.”

  “Does it hurt when you breathe?”

  “They’ll be sorry—they were born.”

  “They had reasons. What happens when you cough?”

  “Half-wits!” Dexter gave an experimental cough, took another gulp of breath, and carried on talking. “They’ll be—nailed up. Threatening—the empress.” He rolled over and swore. “Hercules’s balls, that hurts.”

  But clearly it didn’t hurt as much as broken ribs would. Ruso left him to recover. The recruits were milling about in the faltering torchlight, not sure what to do now that their complaints had been heard. The smell of beer wafted across the courtyard and a scuffle broke out in a dark corner. There were a few halfhearted cries of protest, but nobody seemed interested in imposing order. There was a crash and cheering as something was knocked over and shattered. Somewhere deep in the stables, a girl screamed. Accius, busy listening to some earnest discourse from Marcus, paid no attention.

  Having realized he was not about to be butchered, the tribune had evidently decided the safest course was to concede whatever the men wanted. And Marcus, who seemed to have forgotten that the Praetorians must have the place surrounded, was falling for it. Ruso glanced around, wondering what to do. When the Britons realized they were trapped, this shambles was going to turn very nasty indeed, and the place was packed with civilians who would make ideal hostages for men with nothing to lose.

  Dexter was back on his feet now. “Did you let these men out?” Ruso demanded.

  “Me?”

  “Stay out of sight or they’ll kill you.”

  “I’m not afraid of—”

  “Or I will.” Ruso pushed his way forward. “Marcus! Get these men under control. Quickly.”

  Marcus ignored him and carried on berating Accius. Ruso gripped his earlobe and twisted, digging in his thumbnail. Marcus let out a yell of pain.

  “You started this!” Ruso shouted. “Get them under control or we’ll have a bloodbath!”

  For a man who was ready to face the next world, Marcus suddenly looked very frightened. He turned to Accius. “Sir?”

  Accius raised both hands in surrender. “They won’t listen to me!”

  To their left, a couple of drunken recruits had clambered onto the mounting block and were attempting a dance. Somewhere in the darkness, the girl screamed again.

  “One of us,” said Ruso grimly, “had better think of something.”

  Marcus stood on tiptoe and shouted in the direction of the stable, “Lads! Oi! Leave the girl alone, lads!”

  Someone shouted, “Wait your turn, mate!”

  The dancers stumbled off the edge of the mounting block and crashed into the crowd.

  Ruso shouted in Marcus’s ear, “Is the empress safe? And my wife?”

  Marcus yelled back, “Upstairs. The lads were told not to touch them.”

  Ruso glanced at the row of upstairs windows. Was that a blond head behind one of them? He could not tell. He reached out and seized Marcus with one hand and Accius with the other, dragging them round the fallen dancers toward the vacant mounting block.

  “Tell them they must listen to the tribune,” he urged, pushing Marcus up the narrow steps.

  “But, sir—”

  “Do it!”

  He did it. Either the men were eager for leadership or a powerful god was with him. Ruso neither knew nor cared which. The confusion died down for a moment while the crowd waited for the next part of the show. Pushing Marcus toward the stables with “Go and help that girl,” Ruso urged a reluctant Accius up the steps of the mounting block. “You’re good at making speeches. Tell them you understand why they’re angry. Tell them you respect their loyalty in not deserting. Tell them—oh, tell them any old bollocks. Then tell them you’re supporting their appeal to the empress.”

  “But the emp—”

  “Now, Accius! This is what all that training was for!”

  Chapter 80

  “Sa-bi-na!” roared the men down in the courtyard, stamping and banging anything within reach in time with the rhythm of the name. “Sa-bi-na! Sa-bi-na!”

  In the upstairs room, a grim-faced Clarus had joined the line of men guarding the corner. He was clutching a metal jug in one hand and what looked like a woman’s hairpin in the other. If it had not been so desperate, it would have been funny.

  Behind them, some of the huddled women were weeping. Then Sabina cried, “Do not let them take me, Clarus! Kill me now, I beg you! I know what they did to those poor women in Londinium!”

  “Madam, I cannot—”

  “Then somebody give me a knife!”

  “Madam!” Tilla abandoned the window. “They do not want to hurt you. The tribune has made his speech, and the men have listened. Now they want to present a delegation.”

  Sabina’s squeak of “A delegation?” left Tilla wondering if she had chosen the wrong word.

  “They want to ask for justice.”

  “But the emperor is not here!”

  Clarus said, “The empress cannot grant petitions.”

  “Madam,” said Tilla, ignoring him, “these men are Britons. They do not know who can grant what.” In truth they probably did, but Sabina did not need to know that. “What they know is that you are the wife of a great leader. You have traveled all over the world with him, and between you, you have won many victories. They believe you are a noble warrior-queen like the ones they honor amongst their own people.”

  There was a pause while Sabina and Clarus thought about that. The chant of “Sa-bi-na!” still rose in the yard, embellished with whoops and whistles.

  The empress said, “Can their officers not get them under
control?”

  “They are loyal to the emperor, madam,” Tilla reminded her. “But they have been badly mistreated.”

  “That has already been dealt with! What is the matter with these people? The man is dead: What more do they want? I shall tell Paulina about this when we get to Deva and her husband will have them all flogged.”

  “Sa-bi-na!”

  “We are not in Deva tonight. You do not need anyone’s husband. Not even your own. Tonight everyone here is depending on you.”

  “Stay here, madam!” urged Clarus, glancing over his shoulder. “My men cannot defend you out there. Stay here and wait for rescue.”

  “Sa-bi-na!” The chant was beginning to sound ragged. The men would not wait much longer. Some of them would be drunk, and Clarus was right: Any minute now, the troops outside would find a way into the building and there would be an end to this, but neither a quick nor a happy one.

  Tilla said, “Madam, they are calling for you. If you listen to them you can save us.”

  “Do not believe her, Madam!” It was Minna’s voice. “She’s one of them: You can’t trust her!”

  “Very well.” A figure rose from the corner. “I will do it.”

  Several voices began to object.

  “Thank you, but I have made my decision.”

  Clarus said, “Then I shall come with you, madam.”

  A voice from the door said in British, “We was told not to let nobody—”

  “Have some sense!” Tilla snapped. “How can Marcus present anything to her if you do not let her out?”

  “Just you and her, then.”

  None of the Romans liked that very much, but the Britons were the ones with the swords. Sabina’s hand was trembling as Tilla led her along the dark corridor and down the stairs toward the barbarians.

  Down in the courtyard, the chant of “Sa-bi-na!” gave way to cheering and shouts of “Make way!” as the two women appeared and were hustled across to the mounting block. Tilla felt a hand on her arm and turned to see her husband mouthing something she could not catch. Marcus was standing next to him with the snake arm around—was that Virana?