Praetorian: The Great Game

by S. J. A. Turney

  Each application of the brand, accompanied by the sizzle of burning flesh, had brought fresh waves of pain, and Rufinus had almost cracked twice during that time, only holding his tongue out of spite, because he knew wagging it would not save him even a moment of torment.

  And each application of the brand had brought Phaestor’s leering face, close enough to smell his fetid breath even over the odour of crackling flesh. Each time, he had asked the same simple question.

  ‘Who sent you?’

  After those half-dozen brandings, Rufinus had begun to make gagging sounds and convulse. The torturers had stepped back and allowed him time to rest, to prevent a repeat of the previous event and avoid his heart taking him from them. It had been a ruse to buy him breathing time, of course, and it had worked, but he couldn’t pull it off too often.

  Then the cuts had begun.

  Small narrow cuts, all carefully placed to be painful without nicking any major blood vessel and ending things too quickly. In his infinite attention to detail, Amardad had selected three different knives for the task. The razor sharp one was the easiest to bear, while the dulled, wide one was more painful. Neither compared to the jagged, saw-toothed monstrosity that the Persian favoured.

  That last hour had been the most humiliating, as the blades were taken to more private areas of his naked body. Fortunate he had been that after only quarter of an hour, he had blacked out again. Now, as his eye opened and he stared wildly around, his mind focusing quickly and reminding him of where he was, he tried not to move. Moving would just make them aware that he was awake once more and spur them into fresh torment.

  ‘Why does he keep doing this?’ Phaestor’s voice demanded from somewhere across the chamber.

  ‘The medicus said he was weak. I have caused him intense pain but nothing we have done is truly damaging or incapacitating. It is all just pain, and he seems to have a delicate system.’

  Rufinus frowned in his silent hell. It was odd. He didn’t black out like this. He’d never had a bad heart, and he could resist the pain of cuts. The first time it had happened, with the finger torture: yes, that had been too much; but the cuts were a different matter. He shouldn’t be falling unconscious over these? He tried to swallow, which was difficult with the wedge holding his swollen tongue flat. Actually, the tongue seemed to have gone down a little, and certainly it had stopped bleeding. No longer could he taste only the overpowering tin of blood.

  There was the clunk of a latch and a door out of sight swung open noisily.

  ‘Ah, Good. Check on him.’

  A moment later, footsteps closed on Rufinus and the face of Pompeianus’ servant appeared beneath him, looking up with concern. Disgust filled him as he tried to keep his eyes closed and feign unconsciousness. The medicus peered at his face, prising open the better of the eyes and squinting to see the contraction of the iris. The man drew a thoughtful breath through his teeth, tutting.

  ‘He’s out cold. He needs at least another quarter hour of rest. With any luck you’ll have a couple more hours with him, but I don’t hold out much hope of him lasting the night, so be prepared.’

  ‘Wonderful’ snapped Phaestor. ‘If we don’t get the information out of him, the empress will tear me a new arsehole. And I expect you don’t need me to tell you what that means for you, Persian?’

  In the background, Amardad muttered something about weak victims and inferior Roman specimens, earning another slap from Phaestor.

  Phaestor sighed. ‘He’d damn well better survive until we have what we need. Don’t go too far. If I send someone for you, I want you back here in a hundred heartbeats.’

  ‘Of course, captain.’

  Rufinus slumped again. He felt a thick fog enveloping his senses. Even if there was room, he’d no longer be able to lift his head. Sleep. That was what he needed now. Sleep.

  * * *

  Rufinus’ eyes opened wide. Even his battered, glued-shut eye widened fractionally. This was a new pain. A different pain. This was something unexpected. He felt himself shudder and jerk. He gasped.

  ‘What did you do?’ snapped Phaestor somewhere to his left.

  ‘Nothing!’ The Persian replied angrily. ‘I barely touched him. Just prodded him with the tip of the knife to see if he was awake yet!’

  Rufinus felt a pain that easily rivalled Amardad’s ministrations, as if someone had opened up his chest, planted a boulder between his lungs and heart, and then snapped him shut again. He couldn’t breathe. His veins were on fire.

  The sound of Phaestor’s boots running across the room. ‘You drew blood.’

  ‘Only a trickle. In the name of Aditi, I barely touched him.’

  ‘That’s his spine… get the Medicus!’

  As the Persian slapped out of the door in his sandals to find the nearest slave for a messenger, Phaestor reached for Rufinus’ head. The boulder in his chest was too large. His lungs had no room to take in air. His heart had no room to beat. He couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t…

  * * *

  The medicus ran into the room ahead of Amardad.

  ‘You needn’t bother,’ Phaestor said flatly. ‘He’s dead. Died a few moments since. Pissed himself again; on my boot this time.’

  The medicus bent beneath the limp, swinging corpse, opening his good eye with two fingers and peering inside. He opened the dead man’s mouth and examined it. A last cursory glance across the back and he spotted a small fresh rivulet of blood.

  ‘Perhaps you touched the spine cord. There is an important cable that runs down the backbone. If you damage it the effects are extremely unpleasant.’

  The Persian spat angrily. ‘Preposterous. It was a pinprick. No one dies from that!’

  Phaestor took a deep breath, his lip wrinkling into a livid sneer. Before Amardad had time to react, Phaestor snatched the ‘KAL’ brand from the glowing brazier next to him, bringing it round in a wide arc until it smashed into Amardad’s face. The Persian shrieked in agony as the red-hot iron shaft broke his cheek, sizzling skin and blinding him in the right eye.

  ‘Persian piss-pot. Never trusted your lot.’

  Amardad managed to raise an arm in a pathetic attempt to ward off another blow, screaming as he covered his ruined face with his other hand.

  ‘Noooooo!’

  The second blow was a lunge, and the sizzling brand slammed into the torturer’s face, burning as he pushed it ever harder. Amardad fell back and collapsed to the floor, grasping at his bubbling face.

  Stepping over him, ignoring the screaming, Phaestor took out his anger and frustration on the Persian, repeatedly smashing the iron into his face. Again and again the blows struck, melting, smashing and ripping away bubbling, crisped skin. By the time he stopped and straightened, Amardad had been dead for a while, with little left to tell he was ever a man.

  On the far side of the room, unheard beneath the violence of the flurry of blows, the screaming and the snarling of the captain, the medicus bent to look up at the sightless, dead eyes of Rufinus.

  ‘And yet, life goes on…’

  XXV – Rebirth

  PHAESTOR paused at the door. He was not given to nervousness but this was a meeting he would have given an arm not to have to attend. Taking a deep breath, he knocked.

  ‘Come’ called the light voice of Menander, the empress’ chamberlain, a man for whom Phaestor privately maintained the most spiteful loathing.

  Another deep, heaving breath to steady himself and Phaestor pushed open the door and strode in with a purposeful gait. The room was well-lit, oil lamps and braziers adding a warm orange glow to the gilded room with its wall paintings of country scenes and white pavilions and its decorative marble floor.

  Lucilla stood, already bathed and dressed in her finest stola and shawl, poring over her jewellery collection with Senova, while her cosmeta slave mixed white lead for her cheeks in a small bronze bowl. Menander stood talking to another slave, a list in his hand.

  ‘Phaestor?’ the chamberlain said i
n surprise. ‘What brings you here at this time?’

  ‘There has been a … development’ he said in a strong voice.

  Lucilla stopped mid-task, ears pricking up at the words. Slowly she turned, and Phaestor wondered, not for the first time, why she bothered with the white lead paste, given the unhealthy pallor of her natural skin.

  ‘Problem, captain?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘After a fashion, ma’am. I beg to report that the traitor Rustius suffered with a weak heart.’ His voice tailed away and cracked a little towards the end, and he winced.

  ‘ Suffer-ed?’

  Phaestor flinched at the sudden rise of voice by an octave.

  ‘We did everything we could. Even your husband’s pet medicus could not save him. We barely got started before he started having attacks.’ Again, he flinched at the empress’ eyes. ‘We did everything we could. Had Dis been alive…’

  ‘But he isn’t, Captain. Because of this very traitor. Tell me something I want to hear.’

  Another nervous swallow. ‘The Persian we hired from Tivoli appears to have made a mistake and pushed him too far for his heart to take. I dealt with the Persian appropriately. Fortunately, we hadn’t paid him in advance.’

  Suddenly, Lucilla was close enough to him that he could smell the salt and honey on her breath from her morning teeth-cleaning.

  ‘Pay? You think I care for petty coinage? I need to know who else might be aware of our plans, and I do not believe that there was any other source of such information but the miserable little runt that you just killed, no?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  Lucilla, her eyes blazing, stepped back. ‘We will have to be careful in the coming hours. It was always my intention to leave most of the staff here and travel with a small, appropriate entourage of personal slaves and the best of the guards. You were to accompany us in the stands, of course.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am.’

  ‘That is no longer the case. This place is unimportant now, while security will have to be stepped up in the city. You will leave a skeleton staff of half a dozen men. The rest will be posted around the amphitheatre, covering every possible entrance. Annianus’ guards will watch over us at our seats, while you and your men secure every foot of the arena and its stands and tunnels.’

  ‘Yes, my empress.’ Phaestor’s reply sounded deflated.

  ‘And if anything goes wrong today, for any reason, I will lay the culpability square upon your shoulders, just before I have you beaten, broken, and crucified. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Very, majesty.’

  Lucilla turned and walked away, back to Senova who, keeping a carefully neutral expression, reached up with the earring. ‘Ouch!’ Lucilla turned and slapped Senova across the face, leaving a beetroot coloured handprint on her cheek. ‘You clumsy barbarian cow. You’ve made my ear bleed!’

  Phaestor frowned at Senova. He’d known that she and Rustius had shared words, and possibly more. On occasion it was the cause of ribald jokes among the men. Clearly the news of his death had affected her.

  He wondered for a moment whether the curiously attractive British slave girl might have been in on it with Rustius? A momentary feeling, quickly dismissed. She had been at the villa long before Rustius and, even if she did know anything, she would be accompanying the empress all day with the guards and would have no opportunity to say or do anything that might prevent the day’s events from unfolding as planned.

  Moreover she had drawn blood from Lucilla and, given the way the empress was treating him at the moment, he felt more inclined to embrace the clumsy slave than chastise her.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Menander, his shrill voice rising with distaste.

  Phaestor frowned and turned to see the men who had accompanied him standing quietly in the doorway. In the face of Lucilla’s invective, he’d entirely forgotten about them. The four men bore aloft the messy remains of the former guard, crimson droplets falling to the marble floor.

  ‘I brought Rustius’ remains for confirmation of my report.’

  The chamberlain’s kohl-painted eyes widened and he spluttered. ‘Get that thing out of the empress’ sight, you utter barbarian.’

  The four men made to turn, but Lucilla held up one hand, the other dabbing her ear with a linen swatch. ‘Wait.’

  Her golden sandals slapping on the marble, she crossed the floor to the grisly corpse. Slowly she circled the body, her eyes drinking in every abrasion, welt, singe, and tear. When she had reached the head end again, she leaned over it and used a perfectly manicured hand to open first his mouth and then his eye, peering into them and nodding to some unheard thought.

  Finally, she raised his mangled left hand and examined it closely, ignoring the blood dripping from it onto the marble, except to take a half step back and keep her sandals from the droplets.

  ‘Your Persian seems to have known his business, whatever he might have done. His work was immaculate; painful but not damaging. It must have been excruciating for the young fool and, had he not been weakened by the Gods, he could have lasted for days. I have only once before seen such a work of beauty.’

  She sighed, almost happily, and ran a perfect finger along a particularly messy cut, raising it to examine the blood on her nail. With a smile, she wiped it on the linen swatch she carried.

  Phaestor rolled his eyes, grateful that he couldn’t be seen from this angle, as all eyes were on the empress. He turned to face her.

  ‘A careless prod to the spine with a knife seems to have done for him, ma’am.’

  She nodded slowly and patted the corpse on the head. ‘A shame you achieved nothing other than pain. But at least we know he can no longer do any harm. Have him nailed up, but assign it to the six men you’re leaving behind. I want you and the rest of the guards packed for three nights’ stay and ready to leave for Rome within the hour. When we arrive, I have a number of engagements to take care of before we head for the amphitheatre.’

  Phaestor bowed.

  ‘Now get out and take this thing with you.’

  Another bow and the captain gestured to his men, who turned with difficulty in the doorway and bore their burden out into the corridor. As the door closed behind them with a click, Phaestor gave a deep sigh. ‘Harpy! If she wasn’t the most powerful woman in the empire, I’d be on my way to find new employment.’

  There was a chorus of concurring murmurs and nods from the other four.

  ‘Hhhhhhuuuuaaaaaarrrrrrr!’

  Rufinus awoke with a start, his heart on fire and veins burning. He heaved in a deep breath and his eye snapped open.

  ‘Shitting shit!’ shouted someone less than a foot in front of him.

  ‘What?’ snapped another off to his right.

  ‘He’s alive! He’s shitting alive!’

  Rufinus jerked and struggled, heaving in deep breaths. His body felt as though it was burning from the inside out, and every tense of muscle felt like his skin was tearing from his body. He issued a loud cry of agony. Behind him, a grizzled gladiator fainted.

  ‘Stick him!’ someone yelled.

  ‘Fuck that! This one’s of the other world. Even Hades spat him back!’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  Finally, Rufinus’ brain lurched into life and his head turned, with screaming pain, to take in the scene. He was lying on a wooden cross. His left wrist was tied to the horizontal beam, and the man who had first spoken held a length of rope, presumably for his other arm.

  He was being crucified!

  Another man - the one who had demanded they attack - was holding a mallet and a bag of something heavy. He knew damn well what that contained! A third man stood behind him, grasping a spear handle and changing his grip as if for battle. There was a fourth lying unconscious.

  Four in all, though only three standing.

  Rufinus writhed. His body screamed in agony though everything seemed to work, despite the pain. The man with the rope grasped his hand and pushed it back against the beam, desperately trying t
o tie the rope.

  ‘We nail him up, live or dead. Makes no difference.’

  ‘Dead’ stated the one with the spear flatly, pushing the man with the hammer and nails out of the way and striding forward, pulling his arm back ready to thrust. Rufinus, struggling with feeble strength to fight off the hands of the man tying his arm to the bar, watched with horror as the spear was pulled back. He didn’t have enough strength to fight off one man, let alone three, and his left arm would have been less than useful even if he managed to free it, given the damage to his hand.

  ‘Wait!’ he yelled.

  The man with the rope ignored him, pulling the cord tight and slamming his wrist back against the wood. ‘Bring the nails.’

  But the nail-and-hammer bearer was now behind the spear-man, who had manoeuvred closer to the right to gain a clear thrust at Rufinus’ bare chest. The man’s eyes met with his good one and the two stared at each other for a moment. Then the spear-man frowned in suspicion as he saw Rufinus’ eyes slip away from his, looking past him; past his shoulder. He half turned, spear still poised.

  Acheron flew through the air like a ballista bolt of black hair, gleaming teeth and flaring eyes, a trail of saliva catching the dawn light behind him. The spear-man’s eyes widened in the moment before one hundred and fifty pounds of snarling muscle hit him square in the back, knocking him flat, the spear falling from his grip. The man struggled beneath that immense weight for a moment before Acheron’s teeth closed on his windpipe and ripped it away in a spray of gore.

  The struggling guard in front of Rufinus left off pulling the rope and sat back on his haunches, drawing his curved blade ready to fight off the huge, black beast that was busy tearing pieces off his friend’s shuddering corpse. He straightened.

  ‘Tuccius! Drop the nails and help me!’