Roaring, he forced himself upright. His shield was heavy as lead in his left hand, his right hand a bright fist of agony as he gripped his sword. Ahead of him rose the enemy wall, but he spilled left, along the line of the timber barricade, running crablike to keep his shield partly covering his body.
Three men had grappled Jovianus’s corpse between them; one was still stabbing the fallen man in the face, plunging his knife as though he was breaking ice with a pick. The other two were trying to wrestle the body back over the barricade, but the armoured torso was caught between the meshed branches.
Castus took three more running strides, then hurled away his arrow-stuck shield and leaped. His reaching left hand grabbed at the spiked branches of the barricade and he hauled himself up. Timber groaned and shifted beneath his weight. Gods, if I slip and fall now I’m done… But he moved with the surety of a condemned man, all terror and pain gone and only fighting rage driving him. One slashing blow, and a yellow-bearded face burst red and vanished. Three more heaving lunges and he could stand upright, braced on the tangled mass of fallen trees.
The two men trying to drag the tribune’s body had already slithered back. The knifeman was still intent on his mutilation; Castus chopped down and his blade half severed the man’s head. He pulled, and for a moment terror gripped him as he felt the sword jammed tight in the dead man’s spine. An arrow punched into his shoulder, almost knocking him off his feet; his armour and the padding beneath stopped the impact, but the arrow remained stuck there, trapped in the links of his mail. A javelin cut the air beside his face. Then the sword came free, and Castus was crouching above the ripped corpse of Jovianus, staring down into a howling mass of enemy warriors.
Shouts behind him. An unearthly calm possessed him, an absolute sense of focus, slowing time. He had known this before in battle. The hollow at the heart of fear. He glanced back and saw Rogatianus powering up the slope at a run, his dark face open in a yell and his men formed up behind him.
‘Victrix! VIC-TRIX!’
Castus remembered Valens as he lay dying. Blood on his teeth as he tried to smile. What had happened to that rangy grey dog he had befriended? Had anyone even looked for it after the funeral? He glanced down at the ruined mess of Jovianus’s face.
Then the howl of combat was all around him, and he felt his legs shaking as the barricade shuddered beneath a rush of armoured men. A clean death, he thought. A fighting death. Without shame.
Grinning, he turned to face the enemy, then hurled himself down into the glittering array of their blades.
6
Scented quiet, the air moving slowly on cool marble, stirring the long drapes.
Before him were the tallest doors he had ever seen. Inlaid wood set with bronze, three or four times the height of a man. Without turning his head he lifted the sword from his scabbard and held it out. Unseen hands bore it away. Somewhere, very distant, he could hear a speaking voice, slow and sonorous, echoing slightly.
With the faintest squeal of oiled bronze the doors parted and opened. He stood still for a moment, braced. His leg still ached. Then he breathed in and marched slowly forward over the threshold.
An immensity of light above him. High arched windows spilled sun, but the lower depths of the vast chamber still appeared dim, the polychrome mosaics of the floor vague as the bottom of a deep pool through still water. A purple drape shifted gently in the low stir of air as he advanced with measured step, then halted again.
He was barely aware of the figures standing to either flank, the silent men in their heavily embroidered mantles, the guards with silvered spears.
‘Aurelius Castus, centurion of the Sixth Legion,’ a voice announced.
‘You may proceed,’ another said, more quietly.
The drapes parted as he approached, and he felt himself sinking in stature even as the space rose above him. Across the polished floor was the stepped dais, a tall apse rising behind it, blazing with light. Suspended between the glare and the deep shadow, a single seated figure in purple and gold. Castus dropped his eyes at once, concentrating on taking the right number of steps forward. When he came to a halt once more, the cry of acclamation went up from the assembly, and he joined his voice to theirs.
‘Constantine Augustus! The gods preserve you for us! Your salvation is our salvation! In truth we speak! On our oath we speak!’
For what seemed a long time there was only breathless silence. It had been months, maybe years, since Castus had felt so utterly alone. He thought of his men, of Diogenes and Modestus, Rogatianus and the other few survivors of that desperate foray across the river valley three months before. He had left them at Colonia Agrippina, only the day after he received the imperial summons. He remembered them cheering him, drinking with him before his departure. Would he ever see them again? He thought back to the days of the campaign against the Bructeri, the long marches after that battle in the valley, the burning towns and the columns of slaves. The enemy had put up no further fight, but it had been hard, wearying toil all the same, a tedium of sweat and blisters, dirt and badly healed wounds, of realising the loss of men he had not known had fallen. All that was behind him now. The life of the legion was behind him, perhaps for good. The simple life he had always known, and loved.
‘Aurelius Castus.’ The voice was high and lisping, as if it came from the dead air. ‘As it has come to our notice that you have performed with valour upon the field of battle, and upheld with great courage and loyalty your military vows, it is the desire of the Divine Wisdom that you be received into the body of the Protectores of the Sacred Bodyguard. Approach the altar and make sacrifice.’
Four steps, and the low altar was before him, the images of the gods lit by a twisting flame. A grave-faced attendant stood beside it with a gold platter; Castus kissed his fingers and touched them to his brow, then took a pinch of incense and sprinkled it onto the flame, trying not to cough as the fumes rose.
‘Now recite the oath.’
Tight-chested, he drew a long breath. For a moment he feared his voice was gone; to speak into that vast hush was surely an act of madness. The honour being conferred upon him seemed a vast weight – most men were not elevated to the Protectores until they had served twenty years or more. It was a distinguished position: the Protectores were an elite corps, the closest bodyguards of the emperor, all of them individually selected. Castus felt the pressure of an immense expectation upon him, but he found the words, the phrases of the terrible vow he had been taught. He raised his hand, and heard his voice reciting them.
‘I swear to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to Sol Invictus, to all the immortal gods and goddesses of Rome, and to the emperor himself, that I shall be loyal to the Emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus, his children, household, and descendants throughout my life, both in word, deed, and thought, holding as friends those they hold as friends and considering those as enemies whom they judge to be enemies.
‘I shall not be sparing of my body or my soul or my life, but as Protector of the Sacred Bodyguard I will face every peril in the emperor’s service in accordance with this vow. If I should recognise or hear spoken, plotted, or done anything contrary to this, I will report it and be an enemy of the person speaking, plotting, or doing harm to the emperor or his family. Whomsoever they judge to be enemies, or who imperils them or their safety by arms or by civil war, I shall not cease to hunt him down by land and by sea with iron in hand.