‘Ah!’ Hrocus declared, slapping his meaty hands together. ‘Now I hope for naked tarts, dancing on platforms!’
But the king was to be disappointed.
Two smaller trapdoors opened in the arena floor, and to another blare of trumpets the platforms rose from the darkness below. Each was mounted with a tall wooden post, and to each post a man was chained by the neck. Twisting in his seat, Nigrinus read the placards fixed to the tops of the posts: ‘MEROGAISVS – KING OF THE CHAMAVI’, ‘ASCARICVS – KING OF THE CHERVSCI’.
The spectators began yelling again, standing in their seats, the men in the lower stalls screaming abuse at the bound captives.
‘Now they are fools,’ Hrocus said, shaking his head sadly. ‘I could have told them! I could have said: Don’t attack Rome… Now look at them!’
But the two Frankish chiefs appeared defiant still. One, Ascaricus, hung his head so his hair covered his face, but his lean muscles were hard as he gripped the post behind him. The other Frank, Merogaisus, was a huge man, his yellow hair and beard dirty and matted but his eyes glaring. His body was striped with blood from a recent whipping. As he felt the hatred of the crowd he began shouting back at them, straining at his chains.
‘What’s he saying?’ Nigrinus asked Hrocus.
‘He’s saying,’ the king replied, ‘that he wants to be armed. Give me a weapon, Roman dogs. Let me fight and die like a man…’
Abruptly the noise from the crowd shifted to a cheer and a growing chant. Nigrinus glanced away from the bound captives, and saw two bears emerging from the gates at either end of the arena. They were monstrous beasts, scarred veterans of the Treveris arena, and the crowd knew them well.
‘UL-TOR! UL-TOR!’ the crowd near the southern gate chanted.
‘OMI-CI-DA! OMI-CI-DA!’ those in the northern stalls chanted back.
So it was a contest, Nigrinus realised – which bear would kill his victim first? Already he could see some of the spectators making bets, gauging the odds – was the man-slaying Omicida the fittest champion, or the avenging Ultor?
The first kill came quickly, and those betting on Omicida lost out. The other bear, Ultor, dropped into a loping run; with unnerving speed it closed with the bound victim. Before Ascaricus of the Cherusci could even scream, the bear had reared up, bellowing, and smashed one paw across his chest. The victim was punched back against the post; then the bear lunged forward, throwing its full weight against him. The post gave way, toppling over and dragging the bound man with it – he was dead before he hit the sand, with the bear’s massive gouging jaws clamped around his face.
‘UL-TOR! UL-TOR!’ the crowd in the southern stands chanted.
Nigrinus looked back at Hrocus. The king sat with a woeful grimace, his beard in his fist. Another throw of the dice, Nigrinus thought, and it could easily have been Hrocus down there, chained to a post, getting his skull crushed by Ultor the bear.
How strange the turns of fate, Nigrinus thought as he stared in queasy fascination at the scene in the arena. Hrocus was born a king, his father was a king before him. Nigrinus’s own father had been born a slave. Now Nigrinus himself was climbing the ladder of imperial offices, his power growing with every passing year, while Hrocus declined and did not even know it. Was it just fate? No, Nigrinus thought. It was more than that. He knew how the game was played, and men like Hrocus did not.
A sudden movement caught his eye – the crowd saw it too, and a gasp and a yell came from the stalls. Merogaisus, the second Frankish chief, had managed to break the fastening of the chain that secured him to the post. Roaring, he was heaving and dragging at the post itself, trying to wrench it from the ground. The bear Omicida idled closer, head swinging, drool glistening around its jaws.
With a straining heave, the Frankish chief ripped the heavy post up out of the ground. He lashed the chain around it, then lifted it above his head and brandished it at the packed tiers of seats all around him.
‘And now things become interesting,’ Nigrinus said quietly.
The bear Omicida was already closing in. Merogaisus cried out in defiance, hefting the ten-foot baulk of wood and chain like an ironbound club. He swung, and the chain came loose and flailed at the bear’s head. The crowd in the stalls was hushed, expectant, many of them on their feet. Nigrinus could see the flicker of bets being laid. Man against beast.
Swinging his lump of wood and iron, Merogaisus had driven the first bear back. But now Ultor had picked up his scent, and come bellowing across the sand to join the attack. Both animals circled the man, keeping back from the lash of the chain and the sweeping reach of the wooden club. Merogaisus was chanting something, or singing; he was holding the beasts off, but his strength would give out before long.
Now the crowd was beginning to shout, some of them urging on the bears, others – unbelievably, it seemed to Nigrinus – switching their support to Merogaisus. Only moments before they had been screaming for his death; now they chanted his name, punching the air in unison. Hrocus was on his feet too, joining in the chant.
Something had to be done, Nigrinus thought. The message of this display was being lost. He could see many in the crowd stretching out their arms towards the imperial podium, begging the emperor’s mercy for the man in the arena. Nigrinus smiled grimly: how the fickle populace loved an underdog!
One of the bears – Omicida – reared up suddenly and made a lunge, smashing the club from the Frank’s grasp. The crowd let out a vast groan. The other bear, its muzzle still clotted with gore, lurched closer. Merogaisus snatched up the chain and managed to haul the club after him as he backed away. He swung at one bear and caught it across the jaws with the chain; then he jabbed the baulk of wood at the other, driving it back. Cheers and a rhythmic stamping rose from the stalls.
‘The emperor!’ somebody was shouting. ‘The emperor!’ Nigrinus turned to the podium. There was Constantine, standing stiffly, his golden robe blazing in the sun, one hand raised. Nigrinus stood up, instinctively raising his hand in salute.
‘He will grant him freedom?’ Hrocus was asking. ‘Constantine will allow the Frank to go free?’
Down on the bloody sand, Merogaisus too had seen the emperor. For a moment he stood motionless, the heavy club raised, the two beasts prowling just beyond his reach. Then, with a shout of rage, he tossed the club aside. Head back, fists raised to the crowd and the emperor alike, he cried out in his own language, a single phrase repeated. Then he ran at the nearest bear with his arms outstretched.
‘What did he say?’ Nigrinus demanded.
‘He said,’ Hrocus replied, then raised his voice: ‘Roman slaves! Watch how a free man dies!’
Omicida made one savage bellowing swipe, and the man was down.
Shocked silence filled the amphitheatre, and in that unnatural hush, before the great eruption of angry noise, Nigrinus was sure he could make out the last cries of the dying man as the bears tore into him.
They sounded, he thought, like mocking laughter.
Part One
One Year Later
1
May AD 308
The sea was grey as old meat, veined with dirty white foam.
Three hours out from harbour, the round-bellied Gallic merchantman Pegasus butted across the choppy swell, her deck crowded with legionaries huddled under their rain capes. On the western horizon, the coast of Britain was vanishing into the haze, while three more vessels followed in the wake of the Pegasus, carrying the rest of the Third Cohort, Legion VI Victrix across the sea to Gaul.