His anger abruptly burned out, he reached out with his left-hand sword and tapped hard at the prisoner’s weapon, jerking his own blade to one side to indicate that the other man should discard it. For a moment the Dacian was confused, but then a look of understanding crept onto his face, his eyebrows rising in puzzlement as he looked back at Marcus. Before he could comply with the Roman’s silent instruction, the hapless prisoner staggered forward a pace, his face contorting in agony as Horatius dropped him to the ground with the blade of his spear buried in the prisoner’s lower back. He stared at the Roman for a moment before speaking, his words almost inaudible over the crowd’s roar.
‘Hasn’t anyone told you it’s not right to play with a man you’re about to kill?’
Marcus looked back at him with an expression of mystification, but before he could reply the crowd’s tumult coalesced into a one-word chant that had them staring at each other in surprise.
‘Corvus! Corvus! Corvus!’
Horatius raised an eyebrow, looking up at the mob of humanity bellowing out Marcus’s name.
‘I was wrong, it seems. Apparently playing with the man you’re about to kill is exactly what these bastards want from us.’
The three centurions turned as they were hailed by the referee, who was careful to stay outside the reach of their weapons.
‘Sheathe your swords and drop your spears!’
They did as they were bidden, arena slaves hurrying past them with buckets of white sand and scattering it across the blood that had been spilled during the fight. Other men were dragging the dead Dacians away towards the Gate of Death, each of the corpses receiving a shattering blow to the head from Charun’s hammer before they were carried away towards the tunnel that led to the spolarium. Relaxing a little, the man in white stepped closer, pointing with his hand to direct their steps.
‘Now go and make your bow to the imperial box. And don’t be fooled by the archers. They may look bored, but they’ll turn you into pin cushions if you give them the slightest excuse.’ He pointed up to the spot where Commodus stood, having risen from his seat to applaud when the last of the barbarians had fallen to Horatius’s spear thrust. ‘Bow nice and deep and wait for him to signal for you to leave, then walk to the Gate of Life. You’ll be disarmed by the guards and then someone from your school will take you back there. Move.’
Obeying the commanding note in his voice, the three men walked across the sand until they were close enough to the imperial box to make their bows, seeing the threat implicit in the archers who were staring at them from openings in the arena wall below the box with arrows nocked to their half-drawn bows. Bowing deeply, they waited until Commodus raised a hand in recognition, turning to speak to the man at his side who Marcus instantly recognised as his chamberlain Cleander, before raising their heads. The chamberlain looked down with a knowing smile, and Marcus knew immediately that the man who guided the emperor’s every decision had without any shadow of doubt identified him despite the heavy iron helmet’s partial disguise.
Turning away as bidden, they marched in step towards the Gate of Life, allowing themselves to be disarmed by the arena guards who, clearly used to men still seething with the potent emotions stirred by combat and bloodshed, kept their spears to hand as they accepted the three men’s bloodied swords and battered shields.
‘Well then, it seems that I had no need to worry on your behalf.’
Velox was waiting for them beyond the guards’ cordon. He gestured to the man in charge of the gate.
‘I’ll take them from here, if your men can just see us through to the tunnel.’
They waited while a party of guards was mustered to get them from the gate to the tunnel’s mouth, and, looking out through the tall, arched opening, Marcus realised that it was going to take more than the half-dozen who had seen them across the gap between amphitheatre and tunnel an hour before. Where there had been no more than twenty fans waiting in the open space previously, there were now more than two hundred, all chanting the same chorus that had greeted the fall of the last prisoner.
‘Corvus! Corvus! Corvus!’
The champion gladiator shook his head at Marcus.
‘They’re strange creatures, the sheep that flock to watch us wolves tear at each other. They’ll pick a man that takes their fancy and turn him into the next best thing to a god. And you Corvus, well you’ve taken their fancy in a big way. They think you were toying with those poor bloody Dacians, when you maimed and then killed one of them, and held the other at sword point so that he could take a spear in the back. They think you’re the next big thing, a man blessed with all the skill and brutality needed to become a hero of the arena. And perhaps you are, except …’
He looked at the three men for a moment, then pointed at Horatius.
‘You, you were born for this. You’re quick, ruthless, skilful … I can see a great future for you, my friend. And you …’ He looked at Dubnus with a smile. ‘What you lack in sophistication you make up for in brute force, and the will to apply it without hesitation.’
He turned back to Marcus with a quizzical expression.
‘But you? You’re something else, Corvus. Fast, blindingly fast, and as good with two swords as my brother, if not quite up to my standard, and yet …’ He shook his head. ‘You’re just not a killer, are you?’
Marcus looked back at him without answering, and Dubnus guffawed quietly.
‘Not a killer? Our boy here’s killed more men in the last three years than you’ll ever fight.’
The gladiator shook his head, holding Marcus’s stare.
‘Not the type of killer that makes for a top-class fighter. You can kill alright, but you can’t do it in cold blood, can you? You have to be angry, or threatened, and if you’re not then the fire that drives you dies out like that.’
He clicked his fingers, raising an eyebrow to elicit some response from the Roman.
‘I saw you with that last Dacian, I was watching your face while you were fighting, and right up until you killed the poor bastard whose arm you’d hacked off, you were terrifying, relentless. Even I’d have been nervous if I’d been facing you. But when the last man pissed himself, you stopped fighting, just like that.’
He pursed his lips and stared at Marcus for a moment.
‘And here’s the thing. Right now, Julianus is up there on the senatorial balcony with the other procurators slapping him on the shoulder and telling him what a find you three are. He’ll be misty-eyed at the thought of a couple of dozen fights from you, with all the opportunities to make a profit every time you set foot on the sand. I just hope that you can deliver on that promise.’
‘Well then, what a show!’
Cleander had crossed the imperial box again, breezing past the guards to plant himself firmly in the middle of the small crowd congratulating Julianus on his men’s seemingly effortless victory. The pleasure of watching his colleague Novius’s face as the tiros had ripped through their hapless opponents was wiped away in an instant by a sinking feeling as the imperial chamberlain inclined his head in a deep bow of respect, his mouth twisted in a half-smile.
‘Quite stunning, Julianus, even by the redoubtable standards your school has set down the years. And the breathtaking cruelty displayed by that man Corvus! The emperor is more than impressed, and you know that’s not something that happens every day, given his titanic prowess with any weapon you care to name.’ He leaned close to Julianus, raising a hand to whisper confidentially in his ear. ‘He’s asked me to convey my congratulations on a superb performance, and to assure you that it hasn’t gone unnoticed.’
Julianus allowed his breath to hiss slowly and almost inaudibly from between his teeth, the tension slowly ebbing from his body as he realised that Cleander was doing no more than passing on the thanks of a delighted patron. But as he tilted his head ready to bow in return, the chamberlain spoke again, his voice edged with the iron that he’d been expecting.