‘Perhaps I should have chosen freedom over revenge,’ he said softly. ‘When the Emperor gave me the chance.’
Macro was about to reply when a faint roar erupted from the arena east of the imperial ludus. He knew what the roar signified: the day’s schedule of beast fights had begun. The optio shivered in his bones and looked sharply away from the direction of the arena.
‘Pull yourself together, lad. You’ve come too far to piss it all away now. Besides, you don’t want that showboating tosser stealing the glory, do you?’
‘No,’ Pavo said coolly. ‘But how in the name of the gods am I supposed to beat him?’
Macro paused for a moment and mulled it over. He was interrupted by a voice shouting at them from the opposite end of the training ground.
‘Macro! Pavo!’
Turning in the direction of the voice, Pavo squinted and saw a tall, lean man marching towards them from the administrative building to the left of the gates. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Cornicen … the bastard.’
‘The imperial lanista?’ Macro raised an eyebrow. ‘He’s got it in for you, eh?’
Pavo nodded grimly. ‘He’s close to Hermes and Cursor. Too close for my liking.’
Since Pavo had been housed at the imperial ludus at the start of the games, Gnaeus Sentius Cornicen had done everything within his paltry powers to make the young gladiator’s life a misery, giving him two rank meals a day and the coldest, dampest and filthiest cell to sleep in. It was a cheap tactic, thought Pavo, and characteristic of the officious lanista. Cornicen seemed especially eager to pander to the wishes of those who wielded real power and influence while he oversaw the Emperor’s prized collection of gladiators.
Macro grunted. ‘Probably trying to please those slimy freedmen of Claudius.’
Cornicen drew near to the optio and his charge.
‘Put down your weapons and stop training, Pavo,’ he snapped.
Macro glowered at the lanista with barely disguised contempt. ‘You’re interrupting our training session.’
Cornicen stared at him for a moment. ‘I don’t answer to you, Optio. And I’ll interrupt you when I damn well please. Especially when a member of the imperial household requests your presence. The aide to the imperial secretary, no less.’
Murena, Pavo thought, shivering at the memory of the aide.
‘And I’d like a Syrian tart and a jug of good Falernian, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?’ Macro responded smartly, dismissing Cornicen with a wave of his hand. ‘Whatever Murena wants, it’ll have to wait until we break for a rest.’
The lanista cleared his throat. ‘Training is over for today, Optio. Report to the imperial palace immediately.’
‘But we have to train!’ Pavo protested.
‘Not my problem,’ Cornicen said with a sneer. ‘Frankly, the sooner Hermes gives you the chop, the better. You’ve been nothing but trouble since you set foot in the ludus. This is a place for true champions, like Hermes. Not argumentative brats who can’t keep their damn mouths shut.’
Pavo stared at him for a moment before Macro grabbed him by the arm and led him after the lanista, who was marching hastily towards the gates at the opposite end of the ludus. They swept past the other gladiators training at the two dozen paluses arranged further to the north. Hermes briefly stopped attacking his palus and glanced darkly in their direction. Cornicen had ordered Hermes and Pavo to train separately, clearly fearful of a repeat of the brawl outside the Circus Maximus. Keeping them apart was at least manageable, since Hermes was a freedman gladiator and he was not required to be billeted at the imperial ludus. Pavo had learned from one of the other fighters at the ludus that Hermes had been loaned the use of a lavish villa beyond the city walls. The villa belonged to a senior magistrate apparently seeking favour with the Emperor by tending to the needs of his prized gladiator.
Cornicen ordered the guards to open the gates of the ludus, and Macro and Pavo stepped out on to the Flaminian Way. The gates slammed shut behind them. The guard towers on either side cast long shadows over the flagstones as the sun fully rose. Shafts of sunlight cut through the thick cloud, casting golden bars of light over the ornate facades of the temples arranged on the slopes of the Capitoline Hill to the south.
‘What does Murena want with us now?’ Pavo seethed.
Macro shot Pavo a look. ‘How the fuck should I know? Whatever it is, I can promise you one thing, lad. It won’t be good news.’
Pavo bit back on his anxiety as they proceeded down the Flaminian Way. The ludus had been constructed in the shadow of the arena. Presumably, thought Pavo, so that the organisers in charge of the games could conveniently usher gladiators and condemned men from their cells to the arena with less risk of them escaping. Flies buzzed around the two men as a handful of attendants slung the mutilated corpse of a wild boar on to the side of the street. Several animal carcasses lay in a heap next to the boar, their flanks stripped clean by starving Roman citizens desperate for a scrap of meat. As the two men headed towards the imperial palace, Pavo’s mind kept returning to the scene of his presentation at the imperial box
You will pay for this, Murena had warned Pavo. I’ll make sure of it.
His neck muscles stiffened as it occurred to him that the aide had summoned them to the palace in order to exact his revenge. He and Macro would not be the first Roman citizens to disappear in the reign of Emperor Claudius, and Pavo dimly understood that Murena would do anything to prevent his fight against Hermes from going ahead. For a moment he wished that he had the chance to fight Murena and Pallas in the arena instead. Their deaths would give him almost as much pleasure as revenge over Hermes.
He followed Macro down one of the many alleys leading from the main streets. Ahead of them stood the wrought-iron gates at the front of the palace, the impressive marble steps visible beyond. Guards stood on duty outside the entrance. Macro approached the gates ahead of Pavo and gave his name; the guards promptly nodded and waved both men through. A household servant escorted them up the marble steps. They climbed four more flights of stairs before heading down a wide corridor with an intricate mosaic on the floor. In one corner a clerk sat at a desk, writing with a stylus on a wax tablet. At the sound of their footsteps he glanced up from the tablet and nodded to a door at the far end of the corridor.
‘He’s waiting for you,’ he said brusquely.
The servant opened the door and ushered Macro and Pavo inside. Then he turned and departed down the corridor, leaving the optio and the gladiator to consider the splendour of the office. A high window overlooked the Forum. Animal skins trapped the heat rising from the hypocaust floor, warming Pavo’s numbed feet. In the middle of the room stood a large oak desk overflowing with scrolls and wax tablets. Murena stood up from the chair behind the desk and greeted his guests with a smile, his teeth gleaming like marble in the sunlight streaming through the window.
‘Greetings, Macro,’ he announced grandly. ‘You haven’t been in the office of the imperial secretary before, have you?’
‘The gods have spared me that particular delight until now.’ The optio cast his eyes over the furnishings and grunted. ‘This is where you and Pallas scheme and plot against your enemies, is it?’
Murena laughed weakly and flicked his gaze towards Pavo, his thin lips curling at the corners. There was a gleam in his eyes as he studied the gladiator. ‘You’re looking well, young man.’
‘What the hell do you want?’ Macro spat, his chest swelling with fury.