Praetorian: The Price of Treason Read online

  Someone was grasping at his shoulder and he turned to see what was happening. A man in white pulled back a fist to punch him, snarling accusations – well-founded ones as it happened – of murder. The blow never landed as two other Praetorians grabbed the man and dragged him off. As his would-be assailant was hauled back into the surging mob, he continued to shout imprecations at Rufinus.

  The crowd was divided. Some were howling their anger, others standing in shocked silence, and a third group – a smaller one, but infinitely more vocal – were callously cheering what they clearly saw as an exciting spectacle.

  Rufinus felt sick.

  One thing was certain: he’d made a few new enemies tonight. Not that that worried him these days.

  Stepping across the fallen rope that had been brought down in the surge of the crowd, he retreated to the folding wooden chair set aside for him, a bucket of water and towels awaiting use. Mercator and Icarion were there a heartbeat later, the latter mopping blood and sweat from him as the former looked deep into his eyes.

  ‘I thought so,’ Mercator rumbled.

  ‘What?’ Rufinus breathed quietly.

  ‘You did that on purpose. I wasn’t really sure until I looked in your eyes, though.’

  Rufinus couldn’t avoid the thrill of panic that shot through him, and Mercator narrowed his eyes. ‘No. No one else probably noticed. It was clearly just a tragic accident. Not to anyone who knows you, though, Rufinus. You were toying with him for ages, leading him on, riling him. We know you. We could see it. You never had any intention of just winning a bout against Pollius.’

  ‘You don’t know…’

  ‘Don’t even try that shit,’ Mercator cut him off. ‘He’s a cavalryman who used to be in Paternus’ top guard unit. Even I, daft as I am, can piece that two and two together without making seven.’

  ‘Two murderers down, four to go,’ Rufinus muttered in a flat, dead voice.

  ‘Stop it, Rufinus. You’re going to get yourself killed, either by one of them, or by the prefect if he finds out.’ Rufinus made to rise, but Mercator put a hand on each of his shoulders and pushed him back down into his seat. ‘This isn’t you. The darkness in your eyes goes deep, Rufinus. The young guardsman I remember escorting into the imperial presence four years ago was innocent and noble. Who is this man sitting here, I wonder?’

  ‘They deserved it.’

  ‘I won’t deny that. Those six men did the inexcusable, and they will pay for it in the end, but this one man crusade against them is not good. And look at the state of you.’

  Rufinus looked down in surprise. There was a lot more blood than he’d expected. He hadn’t remembered feeling anything much that could draw blood, but then that was one of the drawbacks. Or advantages – a lack of feeling…

  ‘Hmm…’ his friend murmured, reaching out. Rufinus’ head was pushed back as Mercator tilted his face slightly upwards and leaned close, peering into his eyes. ‘You’re on the poppy concoction again, aren’t you? Your eyes won’t adjust to the light properly. How in Hades do you manage to fight with precision while you’re under the influence of that?’

  Icarion sighed as he wiped off yet more blood. ‘You’d be surprised, Merc. I had a mate back in Ctesiphon who took an arrow to the knee. Nearly saw him pensioned out though the medicus saved him – had a limp forever, mind – but he couldn’t stop taking the poppy afterwards. Did it for four more years until his commanding officer found out and he was thrown out of the legion. They become so used to it that the effects are muted and they can work round it. Sometimes you can’t even tell they’re using it.’

  Rufinus nodded. Two years now he had been taking the poppy juice and mandragora mix. Following his injuries, the medicus had pronounced him fit after only four months, but had continued to supply him with the medicine for another two to be certain that he was past all danger. Initially all had been well, but as the days of apparently full health had worn on, then came the need, and the nightmares. He’d tried not to take any more. One hand on the altar of Aesculapius, he had promised the god to stop. But it had him. Not for the pain, though. The pain of his wounds and injuries from that dreadful plot had faded in time to scars and memories. But it was those very same memories themselves that now required suppression. And when it had become too much, he had secured a private source from that medic on the Caelian hill who had treated him for a knife wound three years ago. Sleeping without that gentle fog of poppy was now so difficult as to be almost impossible, and the medicine even killed the nightmares… most of the time.

  The background exhaustion that had been with him all that time, and the few aches that remained, had changed him, but it was the shame that had truly got in the way. The shame of knowing that he was helplessly bound to the drug had led to him drawing away from his friends, even Merc and Icarion as far as possible. It had changed him, made him… dark. It had certainly kept him from visiting Pompeianus as he’d promised. From seeing Senova, too. Because she may be a slave to a good master, but he was now the slave of a wicked one. How could he possibly look her in her enchanting eyes?

  And he’d almost gone back to Tarraco, to confront his family and his past, but how could he do so like this? He had barely been able countenance doing so when he’d been whole, and even when he’d been innocent and heroic, his father had loathed him. Now, with ignominy coursing through his veins atop the drug?

  And so he had become inured to the numbness and the shame, to the evil that suffused him, allowing him to function. He had identified its ups as well as its downs. He may spend nights on occasion shuddering and cold, even crying when he knew he was truly alone, and he knew he had become sour and dark with it, but he had also found where it made him strong, for it kept pain at bay and allowed him to endure where he was sure he could not otherwise have done.

  As his friends fussed over him, Rufinus watched the last of his left hand binding unwrap and fall away, sweat-and-blood sodden, to the ground. Who was he? This wasn’t the hand of Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus, new recruit of the Tenth Legion and son of a disgraced senator. Young, innocent Gnaeus had had fingernails, for a start. He tried to remember what that hand had looked like before those fingernails had been removed. Before the raised, shiny ridge on the back of the hand which was the only remaining mark of where a white-hot brand had been applied by the Syrian torturer.

  He became aware that his friends were addressing him directly now while he sat in maudlin silence reliving his misery.

  ‘Sorry? What?’

  ‘Last chance, Rufinus. You quit that poppy extract, or I will report you to Perennis myself.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I have to. The old Rufinus saved a prefect and an emperor. The least we can do is save that old one from the new.’

  Rufinus slumped. ‘You have no idea what it’s like, Merc. When the light fades and the dark closes in and I’m back in that room having my fingernails torn out. Or I’m in the woods looking at the body of a noble, righteous Roman who died by Praetorian swords, indirectly because of me. Possibly even directly. You don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘And yet you can devote plenty of attention and energy to hunting down those cavalrymen.’ Mercator hauled him up and looked him in the eyes for so long that the shame surfaced again and Rufinus had to look away. ‘One week. Next market day you’re coming with me and Icarion to the medicus and I’m going to get him to check you out. If you’re showing any signs of the poppy, I’ll hand you straight over to Perennis. You have my word on it.’

  Rufinus sagged and slumped back down to the chair.

  ‘You realise I might not survive without it. I don’t sleep.’

  ‘Sleep is easy. If that’s what’s stopping you quitting, we’ll just knock you out every night.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Rufinus muttered drily.

  The capsarius was wandering across now, wiping bloody hands on a damp towel.

  ‘Is he alright?’

  Mercator nodded. ‘He’s fine. A little shaken and
shocked by what happened. I take it the horseman didn’t make it, though?’

  The medic shook his head. ‘Crushed throat. Couldn’t breathe and nothing I could do would help. Even if he did breathe, he’d never eat anything more solid than broth again. Dreadful blow. If this young man hadn’t caught the chin first and taken some of the force out of it, he’d probably have crushed the whole neck and maybe even broken the spine. I’m used to seeing this sort of thing in tavern punch ups, but not for sport. Based on this, I have to say I shall be making my recommendation to the prefect that the sport be discontinued.’

  Mercator nodded. ‘A good thing.’

  As the crowd surged around the large room, the few authorities present trying to keep control, Icarion stood back with Mercator, and Rufinus rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet.

  ‘Can you walk straight?’

  ‘Of course,’ snapped Rufinus, instantly regretting the harshness of his response. ‘I’m fine. Thank you both.’

  Gathering his tunic from the floor, he threw it on with a few groans from bruising and torn muscles, and then limped toward the door. It was only as he slipped out into the early autumn air with its evening chill that he realised Mercator and Icarion were still with him.

  ‘It’s alright. I can find my way back.’

  The two men shared a look and Mercator shook his head. ‘If you think we’re leaving you alone even for a moment this week, you’ll be sadly disappointed. You’ll need friends to ride this out.’

  Somewhere deep, that small dead part of him began to pulse with warmth, and he managed a nervous smile. ‘Thanks.’

  II – The past comes knocking

  Rufinus lay back on his bunk and looked around the room. It was tidy and clean to the point of ridiculousness. Despite being the living space of two grown soldiers in the Praetorian Guard and filled with their spare kit, their armour and marching packs and various excess junk, Rufinus’ bunkmate was obsessive over their room, shifting any fragment of wool that might fall from a tunic almost before it touched the floor, wiping oily fingerprints from the whitewashed wall before they’d even dried. Icarion was a good friend and a good roommate, but some days Rufinus would have liked the comforting sight of clutter, or at least something out of place.

  The sound of Mercator’s roommate drifted from the open doorway across the hall – the scrat scrat scrat of a man polishing marks out of his armour. Other than that the loudest sound was of two men out in the garden behind the house busily abusing their livers as they ridiculed the sexual capabilities of some optio called Bargilius. Peace.

  And an opportunity.

  He reached down into the bag that leaned against the wall by his bed. It was his only truly inviolable space. Icarion had been known to mess with Rufinus’ kit – in the nicest possible way, tidying it and putting things away neatly – but he’d long-since learned not to enter Rufinus’ used sock bag. The container had remained untouched since the ‘incident’. His fingers twitched among the probably-mouldering socks until they closed on the narrow neck of a glass bottle with a thin, delicate stopper.

  Damn it.

  It was upside down and the stopper was loose. He’d always tried to put it back carefully upright, and now some of the precious, rather expensive, contents had leaked into his used socks. As soon as the bottle was empty, he’d have to take the opportunity to do a massive sock wash. And it would be empty very soon.

  He pulled the vial from the bag.

  Very soon. Dammit. How much had leaked out into the bag?

  But this would have to be the last anyway. Mercator surely knew he kept his supply in there and would start to check up. Icarion probably didn’t. He might even have braved a repeat of the ‘incident’ in order to destroy Rufinus’ supply if he knew.

  Dropping his head back to the soft downy pillow – a little private luxury he’d spent half a month’s wage on – he unstoppered the vial, noting with irritation the clear oily sheen on the outside of the glass around his fingers where the liquid had leaked. He opened his mouth wide and tilted the container, almost vertical – damn it! Tapping the bottom of the small bottle with a finger he urged the last of the contents out, dripping down into his waiting mouth.

  Replacing the stopper, he held the vial for a while, letting his arms dangle over either side of the bed and closing his eyes. Was it truly the effect of the poppy and mandragora that already dulled the edge to the pains from the fight? Or was it just the anticipation of the glow to come? He should not have taken another so soon. He was still riding Pegasus from the last shot, but the emotional battering he’d taken as he watched that bastard cavalryman die in the arena had just pushed him over the line and he needed to calm – to relax. To sleep, really.

  Across the hallway he heard a whetstone drop and roll across the floor under a bunk. A thick eastern accent rolled out through the corridor, full of curious invective.

  ‘Hairy tit turnips!’

  Rufinus shook his head. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand Dexter.

  The familiar wash of warm pleasure rolled softly across him, flowing out to touch every last part, soothing the cuts and bruises, soothing the torn muscles and his wounded ankle. Even soothing the old pains and fears – a job made easier when his eyes were shut and he couldn’t see the marks the Syrian had left upon his flesh with those knives and brands.

  Soon.

  Mercator had said ‘a week’ but he wouldn’t mean exactly a week, would he? Maybe there would be time to get another, smaller vial from the doctor on the Caelian hill? Just to keep him going that last week or so?

  He heard the familiar light padding of Acheron coming in. The big hound slept on a pallet in the corner – the room’s only other space inviolable to Icarion. Even his fearless Praetorian roommate would blanch at the thought of messing with Acheron’s comfort. He listened to the padding and the shuffle and thud of the great dog settling himself in the bed. He tried to speak, to say good evening to the animal, but he was simply too comfortable to bother. Acheron smelled of wet grass and … something else. He tried not to think what the dog might have been rolling in outside. Acheron tended to spend an hour at a time wandering the garden of the block, and occasionally mooched over to the gardens of other barrack blocks to leave them a little gift. Unsurprisingly, no one had ever complained about the behemoth visiting them for a quiet shit. In his first few months in camp, people had quickly learned to be as respectful to Acheron as to any officer in the camp. Even Rufinus’ centurion took a wide berth around him. He was the only dog in camp, given the prefect’s personal dispensation for residence, and while many of the more reasonable guards had come to like the animal and even feed him or open doors for him at times, no one attempted to pat or stroke him. He was Rufinus’ beast, and his alone.

  Rufinus thought about the dog’s pallet and wondered whether it might make a better place to store the poppy juice?

  Oh, yes. Of course. There wasn’t going to be any more poppy juice…

  Damn it.

  Something sour entered his system at that thought. At going back to those early drug-less days, after the medicus had signed him clear, when he’d gone for weeks on an hour or two’s sleep at best, snatched whenever he could and even then fitful and disturbed with sweat-drenched terrors.

  ‘Festering cock bats!’ came another thickly-accented shout from across the corridor, accompanied by the sound of half a dozen spare armour rivets bouncing on timber and rolling around.

  He smiled.

  ‘Sit up, Diagoras!’

  Icarion’s voice came from the doorway and almost stopped Rufinus’ heart. Despite the pleasant fug that engulfed him, he reacted instantly, his mind coming back to clarity, forcing the drug back to do its intended job of suppressing the pain. His fingers had opened at the second of the three words and the vial had slipped from them back into the sock bag below. He opened his eyes, blinking deliberately as though he’d been asleep. The faked grogginess of a rude awakening masked that moment where he
had to reel in his wits and gain full charge of himself. Slowly, he sat up.

  His Greek bunkmate stood in the doorway. He’d known it was Icarion who’d addressed him from the name alone. Diagoras – a famous boxer from Rhodos in ancient days, and one of Icarion’s pet names for him. He’d accepted that nickname willingly. Better than the Argentulum – little silver – which had clung to him until he’d unravelled the empress’ plot two years ago.

  Behind Icarion stood Mercator, both of them wearing strange expressions. He couldn’t quite work out whether they were amused? Concerned? Fascinated? A thudding of hob-nailed feet announced the arrival of Dexter from across the hall, too.

  ‘Wha…?’

  ‘Come on, sleepyhead,’ grinned Mercator, slipping past Icarion and into the room to take a seat at the small shared table and help himself to a cup from Icarion’s watered wine jug.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Rufinus blinked.

  Dexter slid past now as well – six feet tall and built like a bull, with skin the colour of old oak and black hair and beard that gleamed in the lamp light. The big man went and sat on the corner of Icarion’s bed, letting his hand drift toward Acheron, who lay curled in a ball, nose tucked into his belly. A low, menacing growl emerged from the black heap and Dexter withdrew his hand with an uncertain smile.

  ‘Like a bear eating an owl, eh?’

  Rufinus turned a baffled face to the big man, but Dexter merely grinned openly back at him, so he shook his head and turned to the others.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he asked quietly, making sure to enunciate each syllable clearly and neatly, clipping the words with practised ease to disguise the fact that his mouth felt faintly numb and his tongue seemed to have a life of its own. He had a sudden horrible feeling that there was some sort of friendly mediation coming about the poppy juice and wondered if they’d now even told Dexter too? But Mercator’s face suggested otherwise as he spoke.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor, but we wanted to check you were awake and not sat in a pool of your own blood drooling like an idiot before we brought him in.’