‘Centurion!’ A shout up the stairs, then a hammering of studded boots on boards, and a soldier pushed past the slaves and into the room. He was one of Castus’s century, legionary Aelianus.
‘No enlisted men!’ Valens called, flourishing a chicken leg at the soldier. ‘This drinking and dining club is officers only!’
‘Centurion,’ Aelianus gasped, breathing hard, ‘message from optio Modestus – there’s trouble; you have to come quickly.’
‘What’s happened?’ Castus said, sobering at once. He pushed aside his bowl and picked up his centurion’s stick.
‘Men from the Second Legion,’ the soldier said, already halfway back down the stairs with Castus at his heels. ‘They pushed their way into a bar over in our part of town – there’s a lot of them… some of ours are down already…’
Behind him, Castus heard Valens and Rogatianus jumping up to follow him. Their steps thundered on the stairs, then they were all spilling out into the street and marching quickly towards the forum. By the time they reached the corner they could hear the sounds of fighting. Bellows of rage, screams, the thud and crash of breaking wood, the grating clatter of studded boots on stone paving.
Castus held himself back from running. Already he could feel the energy of combat rising in him, the heavy beat of his blood. He tried to slow himself, calm himself: he needed a clear head. It was his duty to stifle the trouble, whatever it might be, but his sympathies were with his men. Five days of forced marching had put a lot of strain on them, and the presence of the rival legionaries of the Second only stoked the tension higher.
Up the street there were running figures, some of them his own men. Others formed a gang around a gate in the wall; as Castus approached, two men shoved their way out and into the street, throwing punches at anyone who tried to bar their way.
‘Let them through,’ Castus said, in his drill-field bark. A few of the men at the gateway noticed him and straightened up, saluting. One of them was Modestus, the optio, and Castus caught him by the shoulder and dragged him close, fixing him with a level stare. Modestus had been a drunk and a shirker once, but if he had over-indulged earlier tonight, the fighting and riotous confusion had cleared his head. Castus nodded curtly at him.
‘Hold this gate,’ he said. ‘Don’t allow anybody else in. Anybody wants to leave, let them.’
‘Yes, centurion!’ he heard Modestus say as he strode through the gateway. Valens and Rogatianus were somewhere behind him, with a knot of other men from the Sixth, but he didn’t have time to check now. He could only hope there were enough of them to back him up.
A narrow paved yard, wooden balconies on two sides, rooms above and below. For a moment it looked as though blood was pooled on the cobbles – then Castus saw the shards of broken pottery sprayed across the yard and realised it was wine from a shattered amphora. There were men on the ground, others gathered around them, and at the far end of the yard, indistinct in the dusk shadow, a brawling melee.
Castus noticed the graffiti scratched on the wall by the steps. He squinted, deciphering it: ‘EPPIA SUCKS THE BEST’, ‘ANTHIOCA HAS A FINE ARSE’, ‘I SHAT HERE’. The place was a brothel, amongst other things.
Lowering his brow, jutting his jaw, he marched on across the yard, crushing broken pottery underfoot. Movement from above him, and he stepped aside smartly as another heavy amphora came toppling over the balcony and exploded across the cobbles. Screams of laughter, quickly cut short – Rogatianus was already storming up the stairs with three men behind him. Was this really a fight, Castus wondered, or were they just destroying the place?
‘Centurions!’ men were shouting – his own or theirs he could not tell – ‘Centurions, get out!’ Bodies collided with him and he shoved them aside.
He grabbed a man by the tunic, hauled him off his feet and flung him back towards the gate. A figure barged against him, bloody-mouthed, shouting. Not one of his own.
‘Cocksucker!’ the man screamed, and swung a wild punch. Castus leaned out of the man’s reach, then jabbed the heel of his palm against his breastbone, knocking him back. The man reeled; one swift blow to the jaw and he dropped cold.
Castus strode on across the yard into the surge of bodies around the far door. Diogenes was at his side, and Flaccus the standard-bearer.
‘Stay close at my flank,’ he said. ‘The rest of you keep in behind.’
He glanced back and saw Valens casually headbutt a soldier of the Second Legion. The man fell sprawling, and Valens grinned and shrugged.
There was another man on the ground near the door, ringed by bodies. In the spill of firelight Castus recognised one of his own soldiers. Unconscious, blood all over his face. One of his tent-mates kneeling beside him, screaming.
‘They’ve killed him, centurion! The bastards have murdered him!’
Castus leaned over the fallen man. Cut scalp, shallow but bleeding heavily.
‘He’s not dead. You three, get him back to his billet. Go!’
Flaccus and Diogenes had cleared the other men from the entrance to the lower room. The heavy door was half-shut, with something wedged behind it, a bench or table. Castus took a step back, drew up his shoulders and then kicked at the boards. Sound of shattering wood from inside.
‘After me!’ he said. ‘If anyone resists, drop them.’
Over the wreck of splintered timber he pushed his way inside, four men at his back. A single glance took in the scene: the low brick-vaulted room fogged with smoke, bodies wrestling in the glow of the fire, other men cheering, yelling; a woman standing on a table in a ripped gown, shrieking with laughter. Stink of burnt food, sour wine, vomit and blood.
With his stick thrust forward Castus forged his way into the mass of men. He grabbed at them, heaving them back towards the door as he pushed between them. The noise of the fight rang under the low ceiling – his own shouts were lost in it. He reached up, seized the shrieking woman around the waist and hoisted her to the floor, then leaped onto the table where she had been standing, bending his head beneath the low brick arch.
‘Enough!’ he shouted into the clamour. ‘That’s enough!’
But now he could see over the heads of the mob into the depths of the room. He saw the man pinned to the floor between benches – another of his own men, a young recruit named Speratus – with three or four soldiers grouped around him, kicking him and stamping on his body. He saw, at the rear of the chamber, another table with men seated on it, watching the fight with expressions of drunken glee, like spectators at a gladiator bout.
His own men were hanging back now, falling away towards the door, and only the gang of Second Legion men were left, with their prisoner, Speratus, trapped between them. Looking at the fallen man, Castus remembered how his father would beat him that way, stamping on him as he lay prone.
Something crashed beside his head: a flung jug shattering against the bricks. Shards sprayed his ear. Down off the table in one bound, he shoved two men aside and grappled a third, dragging them away from Speratus. Somewhere behind him were Valens and Flaccus, but just for a moment he was surrounded by hostile bodies. Someone swung a fist and he blocked it; from the corner of his eye he saw the flash of a drawn blade. He was standing astride the fallen man, shielding him with his body.