Praetorian: The Price of Treason Read online

  PART ONE: OF LOST SOULS AND FOUND PURPOSE

  I – Nemesis sated

  Rome. Late September 184AD

  The body hung on the tree, suspended above the damp grass, his head slumped down over his chest, hiding the deep rent across the neck and the gory mess it had disgorged. The word carved in his chest with a knife betrayed both who he was and who had caused this to happen.

  FRVMENTARIVS.

  Rufinus’ breath came in short, sharp bursts as he moved, ducking left and jabbing, jabbing, jabbing, all the time looking for the opening he knew would come. His feet moved lithe and light, his habitual clumsiness – and his self-inflicted handicap – seemingly banished from his person the moment he crossed that rope boundary. Even soporific Morpheus and Somnus had no grip upon him in the arena. His opponent sprung in with a hook from his left hand, but Rufinus had already seen the move coming from the man’s stance, and ducked to the left correspondingly. The man was good. Good enough that he arrested the momentum of his strike even as he realised Rufinus would no longer be in the way of it, and left no opening to allow an easy retaliation. The pair danced away again, circling like crows around carrion…

  Dis – or whatever his true name had been – a loyal servant of empire and emperor, working undercover to reveal plots and conspirators against the throne. A member of the frumentarii – the ‘grain men’ who worked as the eyes, ears, and occasionally hands, of the emperor himself, Spies and assassins, but with the very best of remits. A man who had saved Rufinus’ life twice – from the great Sarmatian cannibal at the villa of Hadrianus, and again from the guard captain by his silence. A man now dead, his throat hacked through with a cavalry sword, blood swathed across his torso and pooled in a sticky mass in the turf below as he hung there like a crucified criminal.

  Rufinus’ opponent came again. This time he moved quickly, with a succession of jabs from both hands almost mirroring Rufinus’ previous move, driving him into the corner of the roped square. The crowd around the periphery roared, some with approval – mostly cavalry men – some with anxiety, their hard earned coins at risk as the big man closed down Rufinus, seemingly irrevocably. Rufinus blinked away the gentle background fog of Morpheus’ delight which supressed the old pains and the new, and prepared himself.

  Cerberus, the great Sarmatian hound that had been one of the pair who had accompanied Dis everywhere, lying dead in the woods. Just a big, dark shape lying on its side, still and silent, red and grey loops of gut gathered in a pile beside it. Cut down by murderous Praetorians while trying to save its master. The other hound, Acheron – his brother – howling anguish at the loss of a sibling and a master as he ignored a bad gash in his own side.

  Rufinus sensed the corner post not more than a foot behind him. It did not require a glance to confirm. He’d fought in the boxing squares of the Tenth Legion so many times that he knew damn well where he was in any arena by instinct alone, even with his recent… impediment… in play. One more step back and he would be trapped. With fluid grace he ducked the next jab, pivoting on his right foot and cleanly slipping under the big man’s arm, out into the ring. He was still quick, even hindered as he was; still fully able even as he depended on that ethereal crutch. As he moved into the open space, he delivered an almost contemptuous jab to the man’s kidney. His opponent gasped and spun, almost falling before righting himself, a flash of fury bursting across his face at the attack. He roared and came on again.

  Six men by the side of the road in the torrential rain, chewing on half-ruined bread as they huddled in their cloaks, dressed in dulled mail and brown tunics as though they were some Gallic auxiliary unit and not the gleaming Praetorian horsemen he had seen as he left the camp on his return journey to the villa. White tunics and hexagonal scorpion shields discarded, dressed nondescript as was wholly appropriate for their clandestine mission of murder…

  Rufinus lifted both arms in front, noting with irritation how the wrappings that covered his left fist and wrist had come undone at the top and were starting to flap around and unwind. As he bent his elbows, presenting both forearms together as a guard, blocking the next sequence of jabs from the big opponent, he watched the man’s eyes. A tiny flick to the right was all the tell he needed, and his left arm dropped just in time to deflect the hook aimed at his side. He needed to finish it soon. If the wrappings came off completely the referee would stop the fight – this was no backstreet bareknuckle affair, after all. This was the first officially sanctioned inter-cohort boxing match the Guard had ever held, and it had to be done right or there would never be a second. Of course, there would never be a second anyway, but it would not be because of an unwrapped fist…

  Paternus. The former Praetorian prefect who had sanctioned the brutal and unjustifiable murder of an imperial agent merely to further facilitate his own investigation. The prefect who had killed the emperor’s favourite, Saoterus, merely to satisfy his prejudices. A man who had set a unit of half a dozen Praetorian cavalry to the unlawful killing of a good man. And Paternus had died for his crimes. As had the man he’d later learned was called Sentius – the first of the six guilty cavalrymen, who Rufinus had found back at the Praetorian barracks as he had hurried to the great amphitheatre to save the life of the emperor Commodus. Sentius had been mauled by Acheron twice, once at the murder scene, and a second and final time in the shadow of the fortress gatehouse. The great dog that had now become Rufinus’ own companion had severed an artery on the horseman’s leg so badly that not even the Praetorian medicus could save him. Two righteous deaths in response to the brutality of their crimes, though neither had been by Rufinus’ hand. Now it was his turn…

  Again, as though he had no innovation in him, the big man came at Rufinus with a flurry of high blows, attempting to break through his guard. Rufinus could see the focus in his opponent’s eyes, which he knew his own lacked, but he also knew that his mind behind them did not. There was no hook or cross or uppercut coming from the man now. He was set on breaking Rufinus’ face through sheer force, wearing him down through superior size and stamina. Well, he had the size, Rufinus would admit, but his own endurance these days surpassed anything a normal man could claim, and the repeated giving of ground on his behalf had nothing to do with flagging strength and everything to do with making the man over-confident.

  Finally, as the brute jabbed out a fraction too far, Rufinus dropped his arms and stepped forward instead of back, wrapping his arms around the man in a clinch that left his opponent no room to bring a blow to bear, and pushed him back toward the centre of the square once again. The big man tried to crack Rufinus in the forehead with his own, a move that should have had the match stopped and him disqualified immediately, but the brute was no fool and he’d been careful that the attempt not be visible from the referee’s angle. Rufinus was bright, though, and he’d known it would come, his own head dipping to the left and out of danger.

  A moment later the clinch was complete – as tight as any meeting of lovers reunited from a forced separation. Neither man could move his arms without releasing the hold, and each man’s head was across the other’s shoulder. Rufinus could hear over his opponent’s laboured breathing the referee shouting at them to break it up, but his arms remained locked. It had taken a year of investigation and six months of organisation, cajoling, bribes and pleas to reach this place and time, and he would not let an infraction of the rules of the sport end it here.

  He brought his head across a hand’s breadth until his mouth was close to his opponent’s ear. The big man tried to pull away, perhaps expecting a bite in the confines of the clinch, but Rufinus held tight and his voice came out low and gravelly, the volume controlled, but the menace in it rolling free.
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  ‘I know you, Aulus Pollius.’

  The man’s answer came as nothing more than a grunt, but Rufinus could sense the confusion in his opponent. What was this? A mind game to throw him off balance?

  ‘You’re not just a Praetorian cavalryman, are you, Aulus?’

  The referee was shouting angrily now, trying to tell them to break it up, but Rufinus wasn’t ready yet. His clinch held tight.

  ‘What?’ demanded Pollius.

  ‘A pet of Paternus. A killer of frumentarii. See, it took me a year to confirm your name from a list of fifteen hundred horsemen, and half a year to manoeuvre you into this square…’

  Now the big man was struggling to get out of the clinch and his confusion had slipped to disbelief. Rufinus held tight a single moment longer as he delivered his last line.

  ‘I still have the other dog, and he’ll be disappointed I got to you before him, Aulus.’

  And then the referee was there, pulling at them, demanding they separate, threatening to end the match there and then. Rufinus let the big man go. The bout couldn’t end now, and it clearly wouldn’t. As they retreated across the roped square at the insistence of the referee, he took careful note of the big man’s face. No fear showed there. Instead, there was a mixture – a vile mixture – of anger, hunger, cruelty and desire. Had Rufinus had less confidence in his own skill, even now, he would be quailing. That was the face of a man determined to be the victor at any cost. Rufinus had lifted the sluice gate on the channel of a killer’s fury and now that stream of tightly-controlled fighting skill had become a torrent of battle-lust.

  Good. Just as he had hoped.

  The referee barely made it out of the way before Pollius came for him.

  The man slung two crosses in quick succession, slipped into half a dozen jabs, ducked left and then swung an uppercut that narrowly missed Rufinus’ chin. The younger guardsman let him come, blocking, ducking, bobbing, weaving, turning and occasionally jabbing, letting his opponent have supremacy, giving ground in a loose spiral so as not to be cornered.

  ‘You want to kill me?’ he murmured as Pollius narrowly missed connecting again, and the spittle flecking the man’s lips and the burning coals of his eyes were answer enough. In a move that was guaranteed to get him disqualified, Pollius slipped to the side and jabbed his elbow hard into Rufinus’ back as he passed, the two dancing away again as Rufinus drew in several sharp, painful breaths from the blow. Unexpected, but that only worked in his favour, and the pain was easily suppressed and ignored these days.

  Now the referee was coming again, shouting angrily and blowing his ivory centurion’s whistle, trying to stop the fight for this latest inexcusable infraction while also trying not to get in the middle of things, where Pollius was clearly losing his control and descending unstoppably into blood lust. Nothing short of Jove’s own lightning bolt could end the fight now. Without granting Rufinus the chance to recover, the brute was attacking again, his fists swinging and swiping, lunging and digging. As Rufinus let him come, allowing his breathing to steady as he did so, Pollius came close enough to attempt another head butt, and Rufinus ducked out of the way only just in time.

  The referee was incensed, bellowing at them to stop and shrieking with his whistle. Rufinus continued to move away, allowing his brutish opponent ample opportunity to swipe and lunge and exhaust himself in a spirited attempt to kill his accuser. And that was clearly his goal. If the big man had had a blade, he’d be using it. Pollius kicked out, catching Rufinus a glancing blow on the ankle and not quite dropping him to the dust.

  Rufinus ducked to the side and back, limping on his hurt ankle. It was dangerous allowing the man to deliver strikes like that. Oh, he could easily have been out of the way of that questing foot if he’d tried, but he had to let the big man have his moment, just for the look of things. One more illegal move should do it. And what was pain to Rufinus anyway? Pain was as much a part of life as breathing, and easily controlled, easily curbed…

  A short dance and they closed again.

  The brute’s head came in once more and this time Rufinus let it strike. He turned into the strike so that their foreheads met with an audible crack, rather than Pollius delivering him a dangerous blow to the temple as he’d intended. A roar of disapproval washed over them as the majority of the crowd expressed their disgust at the big man’s repeated attempts to cause real damage with no regard for the rules of the match.

  Good.

  Staggering back, reeling from the blow, Rufinus’ brain flashed with painful shocks. His opponent was doing much the same, but Rufinus had an advantage pounding around in his blood. He was insulated from pain and shock, and he recovered quickly. Pollius swung wildly, his wits still scattered, the blow hopelessly misplaced and mistimed, but bringing him closer.

  Rufinus concentrated on his own move. It was the most important strike of the match – probably the most important blow he’d ever throw in a boxing arena.

  Despite the difficulty of doing so through the tight bindings around his hands, he shifted the shape of his right fist as he threw a cross with the accuracy of a man who had gained acclaim and even fame for his fighting in legionary bouts. His hand unfolded as far as the wrapping would allow, his top knuckles flattening slightly, the middle knuckles sharpening, forming a more pointed shape with less power rather than a flattened blow. He needed accuracy, not force.

  As the big man continued to recover from the meeting of heads, his swings wild, Rufinus’ single blow caught him on the lowest point of the chin, for all the world’s eyes a misplaced hit intended for the nose but sent awry by scattered wits.

  But there was more to Rufinus’ strike than a simple failed blow. The crowd watched in horror as the punch connected only with the bony spur of the man’s chin for half a heartbeat before sliding underneath and ramming into his neck just above the throat-apple. It would be far too fast for any observer to note the shape of the fist.

  Rufinus heard the crunch of the cartilage as the pointed blow, even shorn of some of its power, crushed the man’s windpipe and gullet, smashing the throat-apple downwards.

  He allowed himself to fall past the stricken man as though his own brain were still clouded from the mutual blow. It was, of course, though not as much as he’d made out, for, after all, he lived with that cloud every day. He staggered and spun, reshaping his hand into a more familiar and permitted fist as he did so, his arms coming up in the traditional mutual guard as if expecting Pollius to turn and come again. The fighting was over, but the performance must go on. This, now – as the adrenaline receded – was the dangerous time.

  His opponent was making gagging, hacking noises and had stopped throwing his fists around. He turned, his hands clawing desperately at his throat, and Rufinus registered panic in his eyes. And terror. And disbelief. The anger and hunger had gone now, driven out by the blow.

  Rufinus allowed himself to be swept up in the flood of emotion that flowed from the crowd. He blinked as if in surprise, keeping up his guard as though he felt this might be some kind of trick.

  Pollius was thrashing about in panic.

  Watching Pollius slowly choke to death, Rufinus felt a tiny piece of himself die too.

  Killing was not something to be undertaken lightly, even in war. This…

  But Nemesis, the goddess of righteous vengeance, demanded blood, and over the last two years Rufinus had felt himself slipping ever closer to her comforting embrace. For only vengeance was strong enough to override the darkness that had overcome him.

  He watched as if in a dream as the referee hurried over to Pollius to try and ascertain precisely what had happened. Rufinus let it all go on around him as he stood there and the truth of what he’d just done sank in.

  Was it murder when the man himself was a murderer, or was it execution?

  Another of the guilty six was now dying – the first by his own hand, though.

  Prefect Perennis had refused time and again to release to him the names of the six Praetorian c
avalrymen who had murdered Dis, maintaining that he could not have the Guard torn apart by internal strife. After the divisions following Paternus’ slip into corruption and subsequent death, Perennis would not let the Guard fragment further. He would, he said, return it to its glorious wholeness and was willing, apparently, to look the other way and let corrupt murderers remain in the ranks rather than hunt them out and risk dividing the cohorts.

  It had taken a year of clandestine enquiries and a great deal of money exchanged in dark alleyways to confirm even one name of the remaining five guilty horsemen.

  And amid the seemingly endless sleepless nights, those few where he had finally succumbed to slumber with the aid of his ever-present nurse had brought always the dreams of Dis hanging from that tree or of Cerberus lying in a pile of his own guts. Or of that room… The dark tiredness and the harrowing night-time images had fuelled a vow to Nemesis – given freely and willingly – that the frumentarius’ killers would not go unpunished. He had promised the goddess an altar once all the murderers had been executed, and he was not about to renege on a promise to a goddess, particularly one associated with vengeance…

  But for all his vows and plans and his certainty that the six killers had to die for their crimes, he would much rather that they had been named, shamed, tried and executed by the authorities. To take their lives himself made him feel soiled, as though he were sinking to their level, even in his blacker moods.

  How many small pieces of his soul could he afford to lose before he became just like them?

  Behind him, Pollius sank to his knees with a thud, gasping and clawing at his throat as the duty capsarius tried to do something to him in a flurry of activity. Rufinus turned away. Watching the life leave a man was still an unsettling and intensely shocking experience – worse by far than delivering the killing blow, which was a mere mechanical thing to a soldier.