Noise of horses behind him, hooves clattering on the paved street, and Castus looked back as a troop of armoured cavalrymen from the Schola Scutariorum came riding down from the Sea Gate. But the battle here was done. Everywhere the enemy soldiers were casting aside their weapons, fleeing into the alleys or surrendering. Castus saw the men of the Spanish legions ripping the images of Maximian from their standards and throwing them down. They were dropping their shields, emblazoned with his name, and stamping and spitting on them. He noticed with surprise that it was growing light. The faces of the soldiers were distinct now, and the blood pooled in the street looked violently red.
‘We have to get to the palace,’ he said, taking Brinno by the arm.
‘The emperor’s wife is there.’ Even as he spoke Castus saw the terrible images appearing to him. Not only was Fausta in the palace, but Sabina too. If Maximian decided to fight – worse, if he chose to die – he could take both of them to Hades with him. Castus pictured the halls painted with blood, a slaughterhouse. He broke into a run, and Brinno came after him.
Down the street towards the agora they shoved through the last of the civilian mob and the surrendering soldiers, and then they were on their own. The fight seemed to have swirled through this district and then ebbed away eastwards, leaving a wrack of fallen weapons, and occasionally fallen men too. Most of the dead were soldiers; clearly the citizens of Massilia had been taking their revenge. Castus drew his sword as he ran.
A section of cavalry came cantering past as they entered the agora, then a scattered unit of soldiers moving at the jog. Whether they were Constantine’s men or Maximian’s it was impossible to tell. But at the far end of the agora Castus could make out the shields of the Praetorians in the gathering daylight, and they were holding a steady line as they retreated towards the quays below the theatre.
He halted, gasping, and clung to a pillar. The wound in his side was like a burning coal lodged in his flesh, and clammy sweat was running down his face. A tide of pain rose through his body, and for a moment he thought he would vomit. Then it passed. Brinno gave him a questioning look, and Castus nodded and heaved himself away from the pillar again.
There were more soldiers advancing around them now, legionaries of I Minervia and XXII Primigenia, with a horde of Germanic auxilia in support. They moved steadily across the agora in a skirmishing line, but the Praetorians were falling back fast and were not about to make a stand. Castus snatched up a fallen shield and shoved himself forward between the skirmishers, Brinno at his shoulder. They had reached the far end of the agora, moving through the colonnades and into the wide area of open ground between the theatre and the sea, and now they could make out the little column of troops and fugitives descending the slope from Maximian’s palace towards the gateway of the western docks. The sun was just up to the east, and the scene was flooded with a golden morning light.
‘There he is!’ Brinno cried, pointing. Castus stared, and picked out the figure in the purple robe, hedged by soldiers on all sides as he paced quickly towards the dock gateway. In the sunlight everything appeared very clear, very bright. A moment later Castus saw a red parasol raised above the hurrying column, an open litter being carried beneath it by four slaves. In the litter was Fausta, and behind it, on foot, was Sabina.
The soldiers raised a great snarling cheer as they too caught sight of the usurper. They surged forward, but the Praetorians had formed into a solid wall, shields locked, protecting an open avenue between Maximian and the dock gateway. Some of Constantine’s men still had their javelins and darts; they hurled them at the enemy formation, but most fell short. There seemed to be no officers among them, nobody to give the order.
‘For Constantine!’ Castus yelled, raising his sword so all along the line could see him. ‘For Constantine! After me!’
He kicked himself forward into a charge, directly across the open ground towards the Praetorian line. Bellowing as he ran, he felt agony filling his torso and feared he would stumble and fall. But the Constantinian troops were surging forward after him, raising their own ragged cheer, and even before he had covered half the distance Castus could see the Praetorians beginning to fall back. Then their line collapsed, men fleeing to either side, and he was through.
Maximian had already passed the gateway into the docks. Fausta’s litter followed behind him, and then the usurper’s bodyguard peeled aside and re-formed to block the gate behind their master and ensure his escape.
Castus slowed as he drew closer. The men in the gateway formed a solid barrier. A soldier ran up beside him and hurled his javelin, and Castus saw one of the defenders fall. Brinno shot one arrow, then shot a second. Within moments all the advancing troops had begun to add their own missiles to the barrage, and the men packed in the gateway could only crouch behind their battered shields and wait to die.
Their resistance did not last long. Once half of them had fallen wounded or dead the rest broke and scattered away along the quayside behind them. Castus drew breath, ready to charge forward again. Then he saw the last defender, still standing in the open gateway.
‘Sallustius!’ he cried. ‘Surrender! It’s over…’
But Sallustius, sword in hand, clad in his silvered scale cuirass, just shook his head and raised his shield. Something flickered past Castus’s ear; Sallustius took one staggering step back, then dropped his shield and grasped at the arrow jutting from his neck. He staggered again, then fell.
‘He was a traitor,’ Brinno said, shrugging grimly.
Castus paused only briefly to gaze down at the dying body of his former comrade; two soldiers pushed past him, and then he was running after them through the gateway onto the quay.
The sunlight was dazzling off the calm water of the harbour, gulls wheeled and screamed overhead, and a light twelve-oared galley was moving away from the quayside with Maximian’s purple-clad bulk seated at the stern. From the far end of the quay came the clash of sudden combat, screams of pain; the last men of the usurper’s bodyguard were gathered in a tight knot around the landing steps, still holding their positions even as their emperor was deserting them. The two soldiers that had passed Castus only moments before were already down, dying on the worn stones of the quay.
Slowing to a walk, Castus approached the group of men around the steps. He held his sword low, but kept his shield up. Behind him he could hear the mass of other soldiers gathering at his back. He kept walking, drawing closer.
‘Throw down your weapons!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘Your emperor has fled!’
The knot of bodyguards drew tighter, closing their shields. Then a gap opened between them and a single figure stepped forth into the glare of sunlight. His scarred face looked like creased leather, and his mouth was twisted into a mirthless smile.
‘So we meet on the battlefield at last!’ Urbicus said, raising his sword.
Castus halted, only a few long strides between them. For over a year he had waited for this confrontation, but his body was flowing with pain, his limbs were heavy with fatigue. Urbicus was no callow soldier; he was a true warrior, a veteran of twenty years and more in the legions. In his eyes was the cold fury of certain death.
‘We don’t need to do this,’ Castus heard himself say. ‘It’s over.’
‘Over for him maybe,’ Urbicus replied, making the slightest gesture towards the departing boat. ‘For us? I don’t think so. I’m bound for Hades, it seems. But I’m sending you down there before me.’