‘I bribed the guards to let me come,’ she said, quickly and quietly. ‘I gave them an argenteus each, and a flask of wine between them.’
‘Good to know how much I’m worth!’
‘No, listen,’ she said, pulling back from him slightly. ‘It wasn’t just wine in the flask…’
‘Poison?’
‘A sleeping draught, that’s all, but a powerful one. Serapion gave it to me. He’ll wait until the drug takes effect and then come and unlock the door from the outside.’
Castus stared at her, speechless for a moment, the last shreds of sleep whirling from his mind. This was no dream… Hope, sudden and powerful, rushed through him. Sabina gripped his arms, urging him towards the couch.
‘We have to wait,’ she said. ‘Don’t do anything to draw their attention…’
She was right, of course. Castus took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. But the thought of escape was a spur at his nerves. They sat together on the couch, silent for a moment as they listened to the rain slackening from a rush to a steady drip. Faint wet moonlight shone across the room.
‘Well,’ Sabina said. ‘We do meet in some unusual places.’
Castus was intensely aware of her presence beside him; for the first time in many months they were truly alone together. He remembered what Fausta had told him, and the bizarre offer of marriage she had made.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your loss,’ he said, feeling the clumsiness of his words as he spoke. ‘Your husband and father.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and drew a long shuddering breath. In the faint light Castus saw her shoulders rise. She let out a sigh, and it turned into a sob.
‘It was a shame about Flavianus,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘But I expected it, I confess. My father, though… I didn’t even know he’d been arrested.’ She covered her face with a shaking hand, and Castus sat beside her feeling heavy and awkward, not knowing what to say or do.
‘He was a senator of Rome,’ she said through her tears, ‘and the Praetorians just butchered him like an animal.’ She turned to Castus suddenly, clasping his shoulders, and in the faint rainy light her face was washed with anger and grief.
‘He’ll be avenged though, won’t he?’ she said. ‘Constantine will march on Rome and slaughter Maxentius and all his supporters… And you’ll help him! Promise me you’ll help him!’
‘I promise,’ Castus said, feeling the words like something thick on his tongue.
She threw herself forward again, embracing him fiercely. For a moment they clung together, and then fell back onto the couch. Distant thunder boomed across the city, and far-off lightning flickered through the window slot. Castus felt himself plunging down into her embrace, lost in the sensation of her body, the perfume that surrounded him, the taste of her mouth.
‘Wait,’ he said, breaking away from her and glancing towards the door. ‘Wait.’
His heart was beating quickly, his body felt full of blood and his mind glazed with desire, but he needed to stay ready for the moment of escape. He could not afford to lose himself now. Sabina was nodding, scrambling up to kneel on the couch and pulling her shawl back around her shoulders. They sat again, silent, both breathing hard.
‘Your hands are bleeding,’ she said.
‘I was trying to punch my way out of here earlier.’
He heard her laugh quietly, then she gently massaged the grazes on his knuckles and the roughened welts on his palms.
‘I’ve never known anyone with hands like yours,’ she said in a whisper. Her thumb traced circles on his skin, and he could tell that she was shivering, nervous. ‘I don’t have anything now,’ she went on, her words hesitant. ‘All my family property in Rome has been seized, and I…’ Her voice caught and she sniffed back tears. ‘I have some jewellery, some clothes I could sell…’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘But what I mean is… if you want me, I can be yours. I can love you and be your wife… I can’t offer much in return…’
‘Stop,’ Castus said. He raised his hand, lifted her head and ran his calloused thumb across her cheek. He wanted to believe her, wanted to believe in her offer of love, but he was not fooled. She wanted him for the protection he offered, for the chance of revenge against those who had attacked her family. He wanted her too, for herself. But he barely knew her, and he was all too aware that she knew nothing of him.
Sabina leaned forward again and kissed him slowly on the lips. She sat back, and he saw her smiling. It was almost enough to convince him that her words were genuine.
A noise came from the next room, through the thick wooden door. A choking gasp, a muffled cry. Castus was up off the couch at once.
‘Get back against the wall,’ he told Sabina.
He barely had time to cross the room before the lock shuddered and the door banged open. Light slashed the room, cut by the crooked shadow of a soldier holding a knife in one hand, a flask in the other.
‘What’s this, bitch?’ the soldier cried, and hurled the flask at Sabina. ‘Trying to poison us?’
Castus turned fast, snatching up one of the empty amphorae from the corner. The soldier took a step into the room, Sabina screamed, and Castus raised the heavy clay jug and then brought it smashing down across the back of the soldier’s head. The man dropped.
‘Stay there!’ Castus called to Sabina. Then he was out of the room.
He blinked, squinted: a white-walled chamber in lamplight, one man on his hand and knees, retching. Another slumped over a table. A third soldier rising from the table with a snarling cry, a naked sword in his hand.
A heartbeat to think about going back for the fallen knife. No time. The soldier was already lurching across the room, sword raised. Castus swept his arm down and seized a fallen stool, whirling it up into both hands. Somebody was hammering at a door, yelling. The man came on with the sword, but he was sick, weakened. He slashed wide, and Castus easily parried the blow with the stool.
Stepping in fast, he swung at the soldier; the stool cracked into the man’s head and sent him reeling back across the room. The sword dropped from his hand and clattered onto the floor, and Castus snatched it up before it stopped spinning. Two long strides and he was across the room; one short savage hack at the man’s neck and he buckled and fell.
The retching soldier was trying to get up, groping a sword from his scabbard. Castus stepped over him, dragged his head up by the hair and pulled the blade across his throat. The body jolted and then collapsed, blood spouting across the flagstone floor.
Stairs to the right, and the sound of footsteps descending. A barred door to the left, shuddering as someone threw themselves against it. Castus turned towards the stairs, dropping into a braced crouch, his blood-streaked blade held low. The lamplight throbbed with the rhythm of his breathing, and he felt the energy of killing racing through his body.
‘I see I’ve come too late,’ the eunuch said, stepping from the stairway into the light. His expression shifted only slightly as he took in the sprawled bodies, the spreading spill of blood.
‘The domina’s in there,’ Castus told him, flicking the sword towards the cell door. ‘Get her out of here. Get her to Fausta’s chambers and keep her there. Bar the doors and don’t let anyone in until this is over. Understand?’
He caught the eunuch’s curt nod as he turned to the door at the far side of the room. Another crash from the far side, and a muffled shout. Stepping across the bodies, Castus readied his sword and then kicked away the locking bar. At once the door burst open, and Brinno stood squinting in the lamplight.
‘Brother!’ Brinno grinned and threw his arms around Castus in a fierce embrace. He had a bruise on his forehead, dried blood on his tunic, and one of his teeth was missing: he had not been taken without resistance. ‘Heh!’ he said, and gave a low whistle as he gazed at the scene in the room. ‘Trust you to kill every bastard in the place…’