‘Or what?’
‘Or we take your ears.’
The robbers spun to face a new threat from behind them, a pair of men with daggers and the look of knowing how to use them. The older of the two grinned at them and waggled his knife at the nearest of the robbers with a smirk.
‘My mate here’s from Dacia, see, and everyone knows those barbarian bastards are cannibals. He’s got a fondness for ears, see, and you’ve all got ears, which means he’s got a hard-on like a donkey’s meat stick at the thought of it.’
The gang’s new leader shook his head in amazement.
‘What the fuck …?’
His incredulity was cut off by a third voice, so hoarse from a lifetime of shouting at soldiers that it was little better than a harsh whisper. Its owner stepped up alongside the bearded man, the moonlight revealing a spectacularly battered face, as he raised a massive, scarred fist and grinned happily at them.
‘First we’ll beat you dumb fuckers senseless, then we’ll cut you up badly enough that none of you will ever get a woman to look at you again without showing her the weight of his coin first. Or you can fuck off. Now.’
He watched impassively as the robbers vanished into the street’s shadows, stepping forward to look at the blood-spattered aristocrat with a slowly shaking head.
‘Sorry to have spoilt the fun, little brother, but you looked to have bitten off more than you could get in your mouth. And now you’ve spilled some blood let’s have you away home, shall we?’
Marcus nodded silently and turned away, looking down at the dead man whose throat he’d punched in before nodding and lifting a hand in recognition of the fact that his friends had saved him from the gang’s violent revenge. The man with the battered face impassively watched him head back down the street the way he’d come, speaking to the bearded soldier next to him without taking his eyes off their friend.
‘What are we to do with him, Dubnus? I know he’s always been reckless, but this?’
His comrade nodded slowly.
‘He’s out of his mind with it, Otho. Your saw his eyes, not a flicker of emotion. Come on, and bring those idiot watch officers of yours with you. Knowing our luck he’ll find another gang round the corner and we’ll have to do the whole bloody thing again before we get him home.’
They followed the lone figure at a sufficiently close distance to deter any further attack, Dubnus watching his friend walking through the darkened streets with a troubled expression.
‘Look at it through his eyes. His family murdered, him forced to run as far as the Wall and find his feet as an officer in the biggest tribal rebellion for decades while the emperor’s men hunted him like a dog, fighting in Germania, Dacia, Parthia, and now …’ He shook his head in evident disbelief. ‘And now this. You have to wonder how much more he can take without losing his mind completely.’
Otho laughed mirthlessly.
‘You think this looks like he’s sane? You’re his closest friend, but even you can’t believe he’s got a firm grip on himself.’
Dubnus grimaced.
‘Since the first day I met him he’s always been as taut as a loaded bolt thrower. I hoped he’d find some peace once we’d settled accounts with the men who slaughtered his family, but this …’
His comrade nodded.
‘He’ll keep on finding ways to provoke men to attack him, so he can put them down and take their lives to no good purpose. And soon enough he’ll go too far, and find himself in shit too deep for you and me to pull him out of. Are you willing to die alongside him?’
The big Briton shrugged.
‘He may be blinded by his rage, but he’s still my brother. And yours. Uncle Sextus may be a long time gone, but I still live by the rules he gave us. If one of us is threatened then it’s a threat to all of us. So if my brother Marcus chooses to throw himself up the palace steps with a sword in his hand I’ll be there to fight and die alongside him.’
Walking behind them, the older of the two soldiers leaned closer to his comrade, muttering in his ear.
‘Well, I fucking won’t.’
The Dacian Saratos looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
‘Is cow’s shit you talk. You make promise to soldier called Scarface, before he die. You promise to guard he life with you life.’
When Sanga remained silent he opened his mouth to renew the discussion, only to close it again as Otho growled at them over his shoulder.
‘You two belong to me, you pricks. The Prince here,’ he gestured to Dubnus, ‘gave you both to me, which means I own the pair of you. And if I say we’re going to take on every stinking guardsman in the city for the sake of that man, you’d better not be stupid enough to question my order. When he comes back to us from the dark place his mind has gone to, he’s going to find me, and Dubnus, and you two, guarding his back. And that’s all there is to it.’
‘We made the mistake of thinking that because you’d been ordered to the east by the emperor’s chamberlain, then we were under the throne’s protection. And it all seemed safe enough, for a few weeks. There were always one or two of Cotta’s men around the place, just keeping an eye out for us, and the local gang knew to keep their distance for fear of what he’d do to them if they didn’t.’
Annia stopped speaking, and after a moment Julius prompted her.
‘And then?’
‘It was on the day of the Agonalia holiday to Janus, in Januarius. I was cutting up onions in the kitchen and looking out of the window when the gate banged opened and Cotta’s man came staggering back through it as if he’d been thrown. For a moment I thought it was the gang that used to control this street, come for revenge after the way Morban and his men treated them last year, but then a Praetorian walked through the gate and I knew that it was something worse than that.’
She was silent again for a moment.
‘I hurried out into the garden to find half a dozen of them, armed and armoured and led by a centurion. At first I couldn’t work out why the Guard would have taken any interest in us, unless they’d come for revenge on Marcus for what he did to their prefect, but then I saw him.’
One of the guardsmen had nodded to the centurion, looking pointedly at the house, and the officer had promptly barked out an order, pointing at two of his men and telling them to search the building.
‘He was dressed and armed like the other praetorians, but he wasn’t one of them, that was obvious from the way that the men around him were careful not to get in his way, or even touch him. He might have been wearing their uniform, but he was clearly their master. He stepped forward and looked me up and down with those dead eyes, drinking in every detail of my body with a single long glance in a way I used to see occasionally in the brothel when a particularly depraved client came looking for enjoyment. He was like a racehorse trainer assessing a potential purchase in the sales ring, calculating whether the beast would repay his investment. I met his eye for a moment …’
She shivered in her husband’s arms.
‘I knew exactly what he was looking for. Something to spoil. Something pure and untouched, that he could ravish and leave soiled. It would have been better if he’d found what he was looking for with me, the gods know I’ve been used often enough for one more not to have made any difference, but perhaps something in my face put him off. I knew only too well the sort of man he was, and my disgust must have been obvious. And then he saw Felicia, and that was that.’
In her mind’s eye Annia conjured up an image of her friend as the younger woman had emerged from the house with the ghost of a quizzical smile, clearly shaken by the soldiers’ unexpected appearance.
‘Can I help you … Centurion?’
The detachment’s officer had deferred to the man in the midst of their armoured throng, instantly confirming Annia’s suspicions as to his identity. Stepping forward with a grin, he’d pulled off his helmet to reveal his true identity, nodding to the mistress of the house as his gaze devoured her body in one long sweep from head to feet.