‘You come to my house to kill me in front of the death masks of my ancestors and the altar to my family’s gods and then expect mercy?’ Titus thundered, pushing his way through the surrounding men. In one fluid movement he swiped up a discarded sword and flashed it through the air at neck height, almost taking the first man’s head clean off. The body slumped forward, spraying Magnus and his brothers. The second man raised his head. His eyes showed no fear as they stared at Titus from beneath a mono-brow; he nodded and lowered his head to receive the killing blow in the manner of a Roman citizen.
‘Don’t!’ a voice shouted as Titus lifted his sword.
Titus jerked around to see who would prevent him from taking his just vengeance.
Clemens stepped forward.
‘Who are you, young man?’ Titus enquired, breathing heavily.
‘Marcus Arrecinus Clemens, sir,’ Clemens replied steadily. ‘Your son is to marry my sister.’
‘Well, Clemens, if you think that family ties will force me to grant mercy to this man, you are much mistaken.’
Sabinus stepped up to Clemens, outraged. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, coming between coming my father and his rightful justice? Every one of Livilla’s men must die,’ he shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at the kneeling man.
‘Calm, my friend, Livilla’s men are all dead,’ Clemens said pointing at the captive. ‘He’s not one of them.’
Sabinus looked carefully at the man whilst slowing his breathing. A memory flashed across his mind and he stared harder at the kneeling man’s face. ‘Clemens is right, father,’ he said, remembering the mono-browed guard in Macro’s room the previous year. ‘This one’s not Livilla’s man, he’s a Praetorian. That’s Satrius Secundus.’
CHAPTER XIII
‘I don’t care how useful you think he might be; I want him dead.’ Vespasia Polla was adamant. Outraged by the murder done in her home and still recovering from the mental exhaustion brought on by accepting that she was going to die, she wanted her revenge. ‘If none of you men have the balls to do it then I’ll do it myself. Titus, give me your dagger.’
‘My dear, if Sabinus and Vespasian say that Secundus should live for political reasons then I’m not about to gainsay them,’ Titus said as patiently as he could. Blood still oozed from his wound. ‘I would remind you that the last time you got involved in matters that neither you nor I understood, your impetuousness-’
‘Impetuousness!’ Vespasia snorted.
‘Yes, impetuousness, woman,’ Titus retorted sharply. ‘Your impetuousness caused us to be smuggled out of Rome like thieves in the night, and made me look like a foolish country bumpkin unable to control a wilful wife; a laughing stock in other words. Now enough of your opinions; go and organise whatever slaves we have left to clear up this mess.’
Vespasia looked for a moment as if she would explode. She glanced at Vespasian and Sabinus.
‘Mother,’ Vespasian said placidly, ‘trust us.’
Realising that she was not going to get the better of her menfolk in this argument, she acquiesced, but resolved to some day have her revenge for the time she had spent locked in Titus’ study, listening to the savage fighting outside and gazing at the knife that he had given her. One moment she had been peacefully asleep in her bedroom; the next, her husband was dragging her through the atrium. Flames were coming from under the front door and the door to the courtyard garden was being battered down. Titus had hauled her into his study — the only room off the atrium with a lock — and given her his knife with the order to kill herself should the door be broken down. She had been terrified, staring at her reflection in the blade distorted by the strange lettering engraved on it. When Titus and his sons had unlocked the door after the fighting had ended they had found her on her knees holding the knife to her breast ready to fall on it, in the expectation that the defenders were all dead and the attackers had found the key. It was only the quick reactions of her husband in catching her as she fell forward that saved her life.
The men breathed a sigh of relief as she walked, with as much dignity as she could muster, out of the body-strewn atrium.
Titus approached his two sons and put a hand round each of their necks. They were alone. Pallo and Clemens had taken Secundus to be locked up and Magnus and his brothers were helping the rest of the household extinguish the fires. The front door still smouldered but the fire was quenched; smoke drifted through the room.
‘Thank you, my sons, thank you,’ Titus said, pulling them to him and resting their foreheads on either side of his own.
Vespasian tried to place his left hand on his father’s shoulder but winced with pain.
‘We need to get that thing out, brother,’ Sabinus said surprisingly gently. ‘I’ll send for Chloe.’
‘And Father needs to get his ear sewn back on,’ Vespasian replied, trying to make light of Titus’ disfiguring wound.
‘That ear’s long gone, my boy.’ Titus gingerly felt the side of his face. ‘It was nearly the death of me; I slipped on it during the fight and almost lost my balance. Still, there’s one good thing to come out of it: I won’t be able to hear your mother’s sharp remarks nearly as well!’
The three of them burst out laughing — more in hysteria than amusement. The relief of still being alive, the relief at finding his parents still alive, the relief from the anxiety he had felt all the way up the Via Salaria flooded over Vespasian and he released the tension with a laugh so strong that his chest heaved uncontrollably, pushing at the arrowhead embedded in his shoulder; the pain and loss of blood suddenly overwhelmed him and he collapsed on to the floor in a faint.
Vespasian opened his eyes and recognised the ceiling of his old room. It was day.
‘And about time too!’
Vespasian turned his head to see Magnus sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, polishing his sword.
‘What time is it?’ Vespasian asked weakly.
‘Almost midday, I should think.’
Vespasian put his hand to his shoulder and felt a well-padded dressing tightly bandaged on.
‘You didn’t make a sound as that old Chloe was cutting it out, sir. Stayed unconscious all the way through you did, even when she cauterised the wound. Remarkable woman. I’ve never seen an arrow removed so quickly. I’ll bet she was quite a looker in her younger days.’
‘I’m sure that if you asked her nicely she’d be only too glad to revisit her youth for you. I know how partial you are to the older female form.’
‘I’m never going to hear the end of that, am I? Gods below, you fuck one goat and you’re branded a goat-fucker for life.’
‘At least you earned your reputation justly; I’ve never touched a mule but Sabinus still mocks me about them. Anyway, how are your lads?’
‘Lucio didn’t make it, but Chloe reckons that Cassandros may well pull through. The arrow went through the roof of his mouth and out through his cheek, just knocked a few teeth out; that’s the luck of the Greeks for you.’
‘I wouldn’t call that particularly lucky, given that he was shot by someone that he was trying to defend.’
Magnus grunted. ‘Well, if you look at it that way I suppose you’re right. And it’ll be some time before he can chew on a decent Roman sausage again; being Greek, he’s partial to sausage, if you take my meaning?’
Vespasian grinned. ‘I’m afraid I do. Help me up, Magnus.’
‘Is that wise, sir?’
‘Are you so enamoured now of Chloe that you think your medical opinion is worth something?’
‘No, it’s just that I know how weak I feel after every time I get spitted.’
Vespasian raised himself off the bed with an effort; his wound throbbed but stayed closed. ‘Well, I’ve got no choice in the matter; we’ve got to see to our dead and then leave.’