Tribune and centurion watched as he walked away up the steps and disappeared back into the palace. After a long thoughtful pause Scaurus spoke, clapping a hand to Marcus’s shoulder.
‘Well now, Centurion, if you’re an attack dog then I’d say it’s time to get you back to your kennel. It seems we’ll be here a while longer, and after all that excitement you’re probably feeling as much in need of a bath and a quiet period of reflection in the Mithraeum as I am. Blood spilled in that fashion has a habit of seeping into the soul as well as the pores.’
Marcus nodded.
‘Indeed, Tribune. Although I’ll be praying to Our Father to grant me the opportunity to shed the blood of the other men I intend to see dead before I leave the city myself, rather than watch another man spill it for me.’
Scaurus shrugged, turning to walk down the steps to where their men were waiting.
‘I don’t know. It isn’t every man that can say they’ve had their vengeance delivered by an emperor.’
Marcus stared out over the Circus’s massive stadium before replying.
‘That’s true, sir. But if I’m to find peace from my father’s ghost I have to deal with his killers myself, not stand by while other men put them to the sword.’
The tribune turned back and looked quizzically back up the steps at him.
‘It’s not as if you even know whom you’re dealing with, beyond the name under which they do the throne’s dirty work.’
The young Roman shrugged.
‘I’ll know soon enough, Tribune. There are men in this city who know their names, and they’ll have one simple choice to make, to either aid me or obstruct me. And if they fear what the “Emperor’s Knives” will do to them if their betrayal is discovered, they’ll soon enough learn to fear the consequences of refusing me a good deal more. Tomorrow I’ll bathe, and make my peace with our god, but once that’s done I’ll be a servant of another god until this matter is dealt with and my family’s honour is avenged.’
He looked out over the sleeping city, clenching a fist and answering Scaurus’s questioning look with a single word, his voice harsh with his pent-up fury and eagerness to carve a bloody path through Rome, to hunt down and kill his father’s murderers.
‘Nemesis.’