‘He knew me from my time with the Guard.’
‘Yes. But fortunately for both of us, the two of you didn’t serve in the same cohort. He knew you as a face he’d seen around the fortress, if only he could have remembered, but he didn’t make the connection I did. But then he hadn’t listened as your former tribune suffered under the undivided attentions of the emperor’s torturers. Having taken money from your father to send you away on the false errand that saved your life, the fool sobbed and screamed and bellowed out the place to which your faked orders had sent you, even before they subjected him to the necessary amount of agony to verify his story. And that place was Britannia. Britannia was the key to the puzzle, Valerius Aquila. The tribune told the torturers that your father sent you to Britannia, to the Sixth Legion in the province’s north, and here was a centurion from Britannia bearing that legion’s lost eagle and the severed head of its commanding officer. Your father sent you to the Sixth because of some previous relationship he had with that legatus, am I right?’
Marcus nodded.
‘Legatus Sollemnis was my birth father. Appius Valerius Aquila took me on as a baby to save him the embarrassment and encumbrance of a child.’
Dorso nodded slowly.
‘And so the last pieces of the puzzle slide neatly into place. And when I saw you in the tavern with that rather distinctive scar across your nose, I knew that my time to meet with Our Lord Mithras was at hand.’
Marcus stared uncomprehendingly at the older man.
‘You recognised me, and yet you still chose to come here knowing that it would be your death sentence? Why?’
Dorso shook his head slowly, rubbing a hand across his face.
‘Why just walk into your trap? I’m tired, young man. Tired of committing murder in the name of a man who isn’t fit to be on the throne, tired of watching my fellow murderers indulging their sick fantasies with the innocent members of blameless families. I’m even tired of all this …’
He looked around at the room’s panoply of antique weapons with a sigh.
‘I used to come down here with a light heart, overjoyed to own such a fine collection of weapons from some of the most noteworthy periods of both the republic and the empire. See that?’ He pointed to a long sword on the wall to their left. ‘That’s the blade that killed the Dacian emperor, Decebalus. I purchased it last year with my share from the murder of a particularly rich senator. It is an antique of almost inestimable value, and when I bought it I was filled with pleasure, and pride that a man from my relatively humble origins might own such a thing …’ He paused, looking down at the floor and shaking his head. ‘But over the last few months that pride has turned into disgust. Call it religion, call it conscience, but I am no longer able to take any pleasure from treasures purchased with innocent blood. In truth, Valerius Aquila, I’m more than tired. I’m sick, sick at heart, disgusted with myself for the things I allowed to happen in front of me, without intervening to offer some shred of dignity in death for so many innocents. I deserve to die, and offer some small recompense for their suffering.’
Dorso closed his eyes for a moment, then snapped them open and shot a pleading stare at Marcus.
‘You will struggle to believe this, but I am at heart a decent man. My father taught me from my earliest days to do the right thing …’ He waved a hand at the weapons that festooned the walls about them. ‘But I allowed myself to be corrupted by my desire to own Rome’s history, something I could never have achieved on a centurion’s salary. Oh, I might have managed to buy one or two of the pieces you see before you, but I can assure you that this is the finest collection of weaponry you’ll find anywhere in the city. Anywhere in the empire!’ The praetorian’s face, momentarily lit by the pleasure of his private museum, abruptly fell back into despair. ‘And all of it tainted by the blood of those who had no need to die at all, or to undergo the suffering to which they were subjected.’
He shook his head, his lips twisted in disgust.
‘Having accepted the role of imperial murderer, I quickly realised that I had already done too much and seen too much to ever be allowed to end my participation in that evil. The only way for a man to stop being a member of the Knives is for the other three to raise their blades and make a victim of him in his turn, and thereby ensure his silence. And so I participated in crimes of the most despicable nature, in the company of one man who can only be described as insane, another whose urge to prey upon the helpless is as disgusting as any vice I’ve ever witnessed, and a third who is only truly alive when he’s in the act of killing. For all the evil that I have done, and for which I am truly disgusted with myself, I can assure you that what you will find when you track them down will be infinitely more base and revolting. I caution you, Valerius Aquila, to be careful that in dealing out the justice that you so badly desire, you do not find yourself taking on their worst character traits.’
He took a deep breath.
‘And now, if you will, all I ask is that you make my end swift. When I’m gone I suggest that you burn this place, and destroy these grisly instruments of slaughter. It used to be that their antiquity, and what I assumed would have been their honourable use in defence of the city and people of Rome, provided me with some small measure of relief from the nagging self-hatred that my role as an imperial executioner caused me to feel. Now all I can feel is revulsion at the potential atrocities that may well have been committed with them in Rome’s name with these weapons. Their destruction can only be for the good.’
Marcus walked away from Dorso, looking about him at the shadowed ranks of weapons that lined the walls around them.
‘I had intended for you to die slowly, in an apparent eternity of agony, but it seems to me as if you’ve undergone much of that suffering already.’ Marcus picked up the large jar of oil from which the lamps were refilled each night. ‘There is a quick way for you to die, and one which will give little clue to your comrades that their destiny is upon them. Do you believe that you could tolerate the pain?’
The praetorian looked across the room at him with a grimace of anticipation.
‘I can only accept the challenge. Spread the fuel around liberally though. Once I’m alight I want this whole grisly showcase to burn with me.’
Marcus showered oil across the floor in splattering arcs, soaking the thick rugs and curtains with it, then carried the jar over to Dorso. The older man took it from him, swiftly upending the clay container over his head and soaking himself with the remaining fluid. Large drops ran down his face and dripped from his beard onto the mosaic floor, and the two Tungrians backed away as he nodded at them, reaching up to take a torch from its sconce and hold the flame out before him.
‘You see? I am ready to make amends for my sins, and I go to meet the Lightbringer! When next you pray to Our Lord, remind him of my sacrifice, and ask him to pardon my sins in recognition of my sacrifice in his name. And you, Valerius Aquila …’ Marcus watched in horrified fascination as Dorso put the torch’s blazing head to his tunic, the oil smoking furiously for an instant as it swiftly heated towards the point where it would burst into flame. ‘Please forgive me! Forgive-’ The praetorian’s last word was lost in the sudden roar as the oil took fire.
His body was abruptly consumed by a column of flame that momentarily licked at the ceiling high above them. With a hideous shriek of agony the dying man tottered forward into a rack of spears and knocked it over in a toppling clatter, sprawling headlong into the puddle of the oil which Marcus had spilled at his request. With another concussive ignition, the floor around his writhing body was alight, and Dorso’s screams strengthened from those of a man in agony to the pure, bestial howl of a creature from which any hint of humanity had been scoured by the flames.