Barbarian Page 9

  Murena chuckled weakly as he placed his hands behind his back. He kept his distance from Pavo, as if avoiding a rabid dog. ‘Our plan was simple,’ he said. ‘We needed to guarantee Rome victory. Even with someone as skilled with a sword as you, however, nothing in life is guaranteed. We poisoned the tips of both your weapons. That way Britomaris would perish in the arena, thus restoring the glory of Rome.’ Murena chuckled. ‘Why on earth do you think that our barbaric friend collapsed so easily at the end?’

  ‘But you were going to kill me too!’ Pavo roared, his face turning crimson with rage.

  Murena knitted his wispy brow. ‘Two birds, one stone. Both Pallas and I knew that your victory, whilst necessary for his imperial majesty, would also make you a hero in the eyes of the mob. Listen to them,’ he grumbled scathingly as the crowd continued to roar in the background, ecstatic at the outcome of the fight. ‘They think you’re a legend, young man! We took a calculated risk in getting you to fight Britomaris. But we hoped to avoid the celebration of your name by arranging your death in the arena. There would have been some applause from the crowd for your efforts, of course. A few tawdry poems written to celebrate your feat. The odd inscription. But dead gladiators don’t live long in memory. By the following month you would have been forgotten.’ Murena sighed. ‘If only that idiot Britomaris had done his job, and stabbed you.’

  Despite his ragged condition, Pavo mustered his precious last reserves of energy and lunged at Murena. The freedman took a frightened step back out of the doorway, his eyes widened with fear.

  ‘You tried to kill me, you bastard!’ Pavo roared.

  The Praetorians jerked into action. One kicked Pavo in the midriff and sent him flying backwards, landing on the ground with a thud while the other guard glared at Macro, who had balled his hands into tight fists. The guard began to unsheathe his sword. Macro got the message and reluctantly loosened his fists.

  ‘What about my son?’ Pavo seethed. ‘I was told he would be released after I won.’

  ‘Appius?’ Murena asked, wearing an expression of feigned ignorance. ‘You must be mistaken, young man. The Emperor was to release him upon your glorious death in the arena. Since you failed to stick to your side of the bargain and die, I’m afraid the deal is off. Appius will remain the possession of the imperial palace. Of course, he won’t be a freedman. He’ll grow up with the other slave children, and when he’s old enough he’ll fetch grapes and figs for those who control the empire. Men like Pallas and me. In future generations the name of Valerius will be synonymous with slaves, not military heroes and victorious gladiators.’

  Pavo fumed, his nostrils flaring with rage. ‘You can’t do this.’

  ‘Oh, but I can,’ Murena replied condescendingly. He began to turn away from the room. ‘I can do whatever I please. Your victory means that the Emperor is in debt to Pallas, and don’t forget that Pallas is my boss. It would’ve taken years for us to win the complete confidence of Claudius. You’ve helped us achieve it in a mere few months. Thank you, Pavo.’

  Pavo simmered with rage. The freedman paused and rubbed his hands together, as if warming them on a cold winter’s night. ‘I suppose it’s all worked out rather well in the end,’ Murena went on. ‘All that remains is for me to take care of loose ends.’ He cast his eyes over Macro and Pavo in turn. ‘As I promised Pallas.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Pavo snapped, narrowing his eyes at Murena.

  ‘The Emperor won’t tolerate the mob chanting the name of the son of a traitor. ‘Murena barked at the Praetorians as he clicked his fingers. ‘Take him away.’ Pavo hung his head low as the guards hauled him to his feet, grabbing a weary arm each. The fight had dimmed in him, Macro noticed. Despair had doused the flames of rage burning inside his belly.

  ‘Appius . . . my boy . . .’ the trainee muttered under his breath, his dry lips cracking as the guards manhandled him out of the room and dragged him down the corridor. Away from the arena. Away from the noise and buzz of the crowd chanting his name.

  ‘Pavo was right,’ Macro growled at the smug Greek when they were left alone. ‘You are a bastard.’

  Murena stroked his chin and smiled at Macro, as if he had just given him a compliment.

  ‘What’s going to happen to him?’ the optio asked.

  ‘There’s a wagon waiting outside. He’s to return to the ludus in Paestum,’ Murena replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he gazed down the corridor. ‘We’ll find another opponent for him to fight locally, in the more modest surroundings of Paestum’s amphitheatre. Someone with a poor reputation.’

  Macro scoffed and folded his arms. ‘What for? Pavo’s a great fighter. Pair him with a low-ranking gladiator and he’ll carve up his opponent in a heartbeat. If you ask me, I say the lad’s been through enough.’

  ‘Pavo’s survival is an embarrassment to Claudius. He must die,’ Murena said icily. ‘He must die in disgrace, in a way that leaves his reputation in tatters. And you are going to help me achieve that.’

  The optio shifted on the balls of his feet and felt his pulse quicken with fear. ‘Why the bloody hell would I do that? I’ve already honoured my end of the deal. I trained Pavo. He won. Now I’m due my promotion, as promised.’

  Murena looked back at Macro.

  ‘It’s not that simple, optio. You know our dirty little secret. And if the mob discover that Claudius tried to poison the new hero of arena, well,’ Murena frowned at his feet, as if a snake was crawling up his leg, ‘Let’s just say they wouldn’t be too happy. Our problem is, can we trust you? You see, the Emperor doesn’t trust people easily. Neither do Pallas or I. Under normal circumstances we’d simply kill you off in a back street and be done with it. But we can’t bump off every hero of the empire. Luckily for you, Rome does need the odd one or two to inspire the mob. So Pallas and I are giving you a chance to prove your loyalty to Claudius.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Macro asked, his voice low and uncertain.

  Murena grinned as the sound of the crowd slowly died away and the heavy drum-roll of footsteps echoed through the plaza as people made their way to the exits and flooded out into the streets. The freedman said, ‘Since you appear to be a rather effective gladiator trainer, you’re going to train Pavo’s next opponent, optio. You know the young man’s weaknesses. You will train your man to exploit them, so that the mob will see Pavo humiliated, his victory over Britomaris remembered as nothing more than a fluke. You can do that, or you can join Titus in an unmarked grave. The choice is yours . . .’

  GLOSSARY

  Denarius – A silver coin worth four sestertii.

  Doctore – A gladiator trainer in the ludus. Often an ex-gladiator himself.

  Editor – The sponsor of a games.

  Lanista – The owner of a troupe of gladiators, responsible for the recruitment of trainees and renting them out to editors for public games. The lanista was compensated for each gladiator killed in the arena.

  Ludus – The gladiator school, where the veterans and recruits trained, ate and slept.

  Murmillo – A type of gladiator nicknamed the ‘fish man’. Typically only heavily built men would be selected to train as murmillos. They fought with a short sword and a large wooden shield and wore fin-like helmets.

  Optio – The second in command of a century of men in a legion, reporting to the centurion.

  Palus – A wooden training post used by trainees to practise their sword skills.

  Sestertius – A large brass coin, the standard unit of price in ancient Rome. The average legionary pay was nine hundred sestertii per annum and a loaf of bread cost half a sestertius.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Rome had an uneasy relationship with its gladiators. Admired and loathed in equal measure, they often played a crucial role in keeping the mob content, and creating a wellspring of support for the Emperor. Julius Caesar set the trend by establishing his own school of gladiators and laying on great spectacles, free of charge, to the delight of the mob – who idolised him in return. L
ater on, emperors, high priests and dignitaries competed to hold increasingly elaborate spectacles in order to win popular support. But these same aristocrats also held a scathing view of the gladiators themselves, believing them to be degenerates on a par with slaves.

  Becoming a gladiator placed a man in a permanent state of infamy, and stories of high-born sons of senators and equestrians enrolling in gladiator schools – to pay off debts or to seek out a new thrill – scandalised the establishment. How such men signed up to the schools isn’t known. Most of the surviving inscriptions on gladiator gravestones are thought to have belonged to freedmen, but they were likely to have been paid for by friends and family. The more numerous slaves, prisoners of war and criminals who populated gladiator schools would not have been so fortunate. The fact that the aristocrats who became gladiators were written about at the time suggests it was a rarer occurrence. Certainly for Pavo, the disgrace of a military tribune being thrown into a ludus would have given rise to heated gossip in bathhouses and inns throughout Rome.

  To find out what happens to Pavo next, read CHALLENGER,

  the second action-packed instalment in the ARENA series,

  coming in December 2012 and available to pre-order . . .

  Now read on for the first chapter of PRAETORIAN, Simon

  Scarrow’s eleventh gripping Cato and Macro novel, on

  sale in paperback and ebook.

  PRAETORIAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  The small convoy of covered wagons had been on the road for ten days when it crossed the frontier into the province of Cisalpine Gaul. The first snows had already fallen in the mountains to the north that towered above the route, their peaks gleaming brilliantly against the blue sky. The early winter had been kind to the men marching with the convoy and though the air was cold and crisp, there had been no rain since they had left the imperial mint in Narbonesis. A bitter frost had left the ground hard and easy going for the wheels of the heavily laden wagons.

  The Praetorian tribune in command of the convoy was riding a short distance ahead and as the route crested a hill he turned his horse aside and reined in. Ahead the road stretched out in a long straight line, rippling over the landscape. The tribune had a clear view of the town of Picenum a few miles away where he was due to meet the mounted escort sent from the Praetorian Guard in Rome – the elite body of soldiers tasked with protecting Emperor Claudius and his family. The century of auxiliary troops that had escorted the four wagons on the road from Narbonensis would then march back to their barracks at the mint, leaving the Praetorians, under the command of the tribune, to protect the small convoy for the rest of the journey to the capital.

  Tribune Balbus turned in his saddle to survey the convoy marching up the slope behind him. The auxiliaries were Germans, recruited from the tribe of the Cherusci, large, fierce-looking warriors with unkempt beards thrusting out between the cheekguards of their helmets. Balbus had ordered them to keep their helmets on as they passed through the hills, as a precaution against any ambushes from the bands of brigands that preyed on unwary travellers. There was little chance that the brigands would risk an attack on the convoy, Balbus knew well enough. The real reason for his order was to cover up as much of the auxiliaries’ barbaric hair as possible to avoid alarming any civilians they passed. Much as he appreciated that the German auxiliaries could be trusted with guarding the mint, owing their loyalty directly to the Emperor, Balbus felt a very Roman contempt for these men recruited from the wild tribes beyond the Rhine.

  ‘Barbarians,’ he muttered to himself, with a shake of his head. He was used to the spit and polish of the Praetorian cohorts and had resented being ordered to Gaul to take charge of the latest shipment of silver coin from the imperial mint. After so many years of service as a guardsman, Balbus had very fixed ideas of how a soldier should appear and if he had been posted to a cohort of German auxiliaries, the very first thing he would have done would be to order them to shave off those wretched beards and look like proper soldiers.

  Besides, he was missing the comforts of Rome.

  Tribune Balbus was typical of his rank. He had joined the Praetorians and served in Rome, working his way up through the ranks, before taking a transfer to the Thirteenth Legion on the Danube and serving as a centurion for several more years and then applying to return to the Praetorian Guard. A few more years of steady service had led to his present appointment as tribune, in command of one of the nine cohorts of the Emperor’s personal bodyguard. In a few more years Balbus would retire with a handsome gratuity and take up an administrative post in some town in Italia. He had already set his sights on Pompeii where his younger brother owned a private bathhouse and gymnasium. The town was on the coast with fine views of the bay of Neapolis and had a decent set of theatres as well as a fine arena, surrounded by taverns selling cheap wine. There was even the prospect of an occasional brawl with men from the neighbouring town of Nuceria, he mused wistfully.

  Behind the first five sections of auxiliaries came the four wagons, heavy vehicles drawn by ten mules each. A soldier sat on the bench beside each of the drivers and behind them stretched the goatskin covers, tightly tied over the locked chests resting on the beds of the wagons. There were five chests in each wagon, each containing one hundred thousand freshly minted denarii – two million in all, enough to pay an entire legion for a year.

  Balbus could not help a moment of brief speculation about what he could do with such a fortune. Then he dismissed the whimsy. He was a soldier. He had given his oath to protect and obey the Emperor. His duty was to see that the wagons reached the treasury in Rome. Balbus’s lips tightened as he recalled that some of his fellow Praetorians had a somewhat more flexible understanding of the concept of duty.

  It was less than ten years ago that members of the Praetorian Guard had murdered the previous Emperor and his family. True, Gaius Caligula had been a raving madman and tyrant, but an oath was as solemn a commitment as Balbus could think of. He still disapproved of the removal of Caligula, even though the new Emperor chosen by the Praetorians had proved to be a rather better ruler. The accession of Claudius had been a confused affair, Balbus recalled. Those officers who had murdered his predecessor had intended to return power to the Roman senate. However, once the rest of their comrades realised that no emperor meant no Praetorian Guard, with all the privileges that went with the job, they swiftly cast around for a successor to the throne, and came up with Claudius. Infirm and stammering, he was hardly the ideal figurehead for the greatest empire in the known world, but he had proved himself a generally fair and effective ruler, Balbus conceded.

  His gaze shifted to the last five sections of the German auxiliaries marching behind the wagons. While they might not look like proper soldiers, Balbus knew that they were good in a fight, and their reputation was such that only the most foolhardy of brigands would dare to attack the convoy. Anyway, the danger, such as it was, had passed as the convoy descended on to the broad flat valley of the River Po.

  He clicked his tongue and pressed his boots into the flanks of his mount. With a brief snort the horse lurched forward into a walk and Balbus steered it back on to the road, passing the leading ranks of auxiliaries and their commander, Centurion Arminius, until he had resumed his position at the head of the convoy. They had made good time. It was not yet noon and they would reach Picenum within the hour, there to await the Praetorian escort if it had not already reached the town.

  They were still some two miles from Picenum when Balbus heard the sound of approaching horses. The convoy was passing through a small forest of pine trees whose sharp scent filled the cold air. An outcrop of rock a short distance ahead obscured the road beyond. Balbus instinctively recalled his days on the Danube where the enemy’s favourite trick was to trap Roman columns in similar confined settings. He reined in and threw his hand up.

  ‘Halt! Down packs!’

  As the wagons rumbled to a standstill, the German auxiliaries hurriedly set down their marching yokes, laden w
ith kit, on to the side of the road and closed ranks at the head and tail of the convoy. Balbus passed the reins into his left hand, ready to draw his sword, and glanced round into the shadows beneath the trees on either side. Nothing moved. The sound of hoofbeats grew louder, echoing off the hard surface of the paved road and the rocks. Then the first of the riders came into view round the bend, wearing the red cloak of an officer. His crested helmet hung from one of the saddle horns. Behind him rode another twenty men in the mud-spattered white cloaks of Praetorian Guard rankers.

  Balbus puffed his cheeks and let out a sharp sigh of relief. ‘At ease!’

  The auxiliaries lowered their shields and the shafts of their spears, and Balbus waited for the riders to approach. Their leader slowed his horse to a trot and then to a walk for the last fifty paces.

  ‘Tribune Balbus, sir?’

  Balbus looked closely at the other officer. The face was familiar.

  ‘What is the correct challenge, Centurion?’ he demanded.

  ‘The grapes of Campania are ripe to pick, sir,’ the other man replied formally.

  Balbus nodded at the phrase he was expecting to hear. ‘Very well. You were supposed to wait for us at Picenum, Centurion . . .’

  ‘Gaius Sinius, sir. Centurion of the Second Century, Eighth Cohort.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Balbus vaguely recalled the name. ‘So, what are you doing out on the road?’

  ‘We reached Picenum yesterday, sir. Place was like a ghost town. Most of the people had gone to a nearby shrine for some local festival. I thought we would ride out and meet you, and your boys there.’ He gestured towards the German auxiliaries.

  ‘They’re not mine,’ Balbus growled.

  ‘Anyway, we saw you approaching the town, sir, and, well, here we are. Ready to escort the wagons back to Rome.’