‘Well now you’ve expressed them you can fuck off, you brown-nosing little b-’
Without breaking stride, the tribune caught his raised knife hand, twisted his wrist and forced the blade down, ramming it into the gap between throat and collarbone.
‘What?! You …’
Marius’s eyes rolled upwards as the expertly placed cut severed the blood supply to his brain, sagging in Scaurus’s grip. The tribune put a foot into the battered woman’s chest and pushed her over, dropping the legatus’s dead weight on top of her and hissing a command that he hoped would penetrate her addled consciousness.
‘Lie there and keep him on top of you if you want to live. Scream and move about without throwing him off and they’ll think he’s raping you.’
She stared at him uncomprehendingly, but her rescuer was already in motion, walking quickly back towards the stairway down which he and Marcus had entered the hall.
Avenus reached Pilinius and clasped his arm, nodding his approval at the evening’s entertainment.
‘You’ve surpassed yourself my friend, this is an evening we’ll look back on for years to come. I would have come over to pay my respects earlier, but I’ve been babysitting the two new boys you invited tonight, Scaurus and Corvus. Mind you, I don’t think much of either of them, to be honest with you. One of them took umbrage at the nature of our activity …’ He bent closer and assumed a confidential tone, missing the look of bafflement on Pilinius’s face. ‘I had your men take him outside, with instructions to deal with him quickly and quietly. The other one just wants to watch people being killed, from the sound of it. A typical legion man, no sophistication at all …’
He fell silent, realising that Pilinius was staring at him with a perplexed expression.
‘New boys? What new boys? Do you really think I’m stupid enough to invite strangers to an evening where we’re dismembering the next best thing to the imperial family, you fool!’
Avenus raised his eyebrows in protest.
‘But he’s just over there watching Marius do his usual stab and stare! He’s a tribune from Britannia-’
He fell silent and recoiled a pace at the expression on Pilinius’s face.
‘Where is he?!’
The senator turned to follow Avenus’s pointing hand, but all either of them could see was the legatus’s body atop his writhing prize, her screams and cries of pain barely audible over the room’s din.
‘Well, he was there a moment ago.’ Avenus scanned the room. ‘Look, there he is!’
Pilinius turned and shouted at the men behind him.
‘Guards! To me!’
Scaurus ran for the stairway, pointing back at the crowd behind him and shouting to the single man standing guard on the exit from the hall.
‘There, look!’
His thrown knife served to do no more than distract the man, flying high and wide of its target, but he was on top of the guard too quickly for him to do any better than half draw his sword. Driving him back against the wall, he grabbed his opponent’s hair and battered his head against the cold stone and then, while he was still reeling from the concussion, ripped the weapon free from its scabbard and rammed it between the man’s ribs. Cries of consternation were filling the hall now, as the guests realised what was happening, and Pilinius stepped out of their press with a pair of his men on either side. A hush fell as he stepped forward, only the incessant cries and moans of those of Perennis’s slaves who were being vigorously raped breaking the silence. The senator pointed at Scaurus, his face contorted with anger.
‘I don’t know who you are, stranger, but I know what I’m going to do to you.’
The tribune grinned back at him, lifting the dead guard’s sword to forestall any attempt to rush him.
‘Oh, but you do know who I am. Your friend Avenus has already told you, I’m a tribune recently returned from Britannia. And I didn’t come back alone, Pilinius, I brought a friend with me. A man called Marcus.’
The senator laughed at him, shaking his head.
‘Marcus? Is the name supposed to hold some significance for me? And where is this “Marcus” now? Avenus here had my guards take him outside with orders to deal with him.’
Scaurus shook his head, tutting.
‘There’s me failing to make proper introductions yet again. My apologies, Senator. My name is Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, tribune commanding the First and Second Tungrian cohorts. And my friend? His full name is Marcus …’ He paused for a moment. ‘Valerius.’ A smile crept across his face at the sudden widening of Pilinius’s eyes. ‘But you know his last name, don’t you?’ He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. ‘And as to where he is …?’
Pilinius leaned forward slightly in spite of himself.
‘He’s behind you.’
The men facing him turned to find that in the short time that their attention had been fixed on Scaurus, a dozen armed men had filed quietly through the door in the far wall, their shields set in an unbroken line in front of which stood a single man with a sword in each hand. He walked forward, ignoring the three guards advancing on him with their swords drawn.
‘Tiberius Asinius Pilinius!’
The first man sprang in to attack with an incoherent scream, but the newcomer barely broke his stride as he pushed the sword wide with the long-bladed spatha in his right hand before punching the shorter gladius in his left deep into his attacker’s belly. He shouldered the stricken guard off his blade and continued his advance, staring grimly at the other two men before him.
‘Tiberius Asinius Pilinius! My name is Marcus Valerius Aquila! In the name of Nemesis I have come for you!’
The two remaining guards attacked together, but their attacks were poorly coordinated and the lone swordsman parried both blades with ease before spinning low and hacking the nearest man’s leg off at the knee. The remaining guard backed away with a look of terror, and Marcus called out to his quarry again.
‘Surrender yourself, Pilinius! Surrender to me now and these other men can go free!’
The senator turned and ran for the stairs, but in the distraction of Marcus’s fight with his guards Scaurus had quietly stepped into the stairway and swung the massive iron gate closed behind him. He slid the heavy bolts home and grinned at Pilinius as he pulled uselessly at the metal grille, shaking his head sympathetically.
‘I’m afraid not, Senator. It seems that the time has come for you to face the reality of what happens when monstrous crimes like these catch up with you. And here come your friends …’
Half a dozen of Pilinius’s guests descended upon him, clearly intent upon taking Marcus up on his offer of clemency. Their host managed to cling on to the gate’s iron bars for a moment, but the strength of the men dragging him away was not to be denied. Taking a limb apiece they hauled him kicking and shouting in front of the waiting centurion, one of his guards stepping in to snap a powerful punch into his temple to quieten his protests. Marcus walked slowly forward with his swords raised, scanning the crowd of men before him with disgust.
‘Drop your weapons and get back against the far wall. Any man found with a knife will die alongside this animal!’
Guests and guards backed away slowly, their swords and knives clattering to the stone floor, and Marcus looked across the room at the slaves still standing in their places on the robbers board.
‘Cotta, get these people out into the garden. All except for Perennis’s wife. Bring her to me.’
He returned his gaze to his intended victim, squatting to look into the senator’s face.
‘You killed my father.’
Pilinius looked back at him with a hint of defiance in his stare, as his wits returned.
‘We took your father alive and gave him to the praetorians. Whatever happened to him is on their hands, not mine. I can tell you who else-’