‘I’m sure you’ll do whatever seems best to you, Senator. Although what my other client will think of my sudden disappearance might make for interesting conjecture.’
He allowed the comment to hang in the air, knowing that Albinus would be unable to resist the bait.
‘Your other client? You told me that you had abandoned Senator Sigilis, as he will imminently be arrested for plotting against the throne.’
Excingus allowed the ghost of a smile to creep onto his face, enough to establish some small edge of advantage without looking as if he was condescending to the senator.
‘Indeed he is. But it’s very rare for an informant to have a single client, especially a successful man such as myself.’ Albinus snorted his amusement, and the ring of men gathered around them smirked at Excingus’s irritated reaction. ‘In point of fact, I have two other clients.’
‘And if the doomed Sigilis is one of them, the other is …?’
The informant was unable to resist a smirk of his own, fighting hard to control his urge to shake his head at the senator’s lack of insight.
‘I’m not at liberty to disclose the name, but I’m sure you’ll work it out in due course, Senator.’
Albinus shrugged.
‘I don’t care who else you work for, Informant, just as long as the information I buy from you turns out to be a little more accurate than has been the case until now.’
Marcus walked out of the spolarium ahead of the four men carrying Flamma’s body, Scaurus bringing up the rear with Cotta’s men. The gladiator’s corpse had been washed clean of blood, the wounds that marred his legs and trunk tightly bandaged to prevent the escape of any more blood, and a coin placed in his mouth to pay his passage across the river Styx. Then, once the dead man’s body had been dressed in the armour he had worn for his last fight, the Tungrians had rolled it into a tightly wrapped thick linen shroud, and Dubnus, Arminius, Cotta and Lugos hoisted it onto their shoulders in readiness for its final journey. At the building’s entrance the guards stood aside to make room for the impromptu funeral procession, but Marcus found his path blocked by half a dozen men with Sannitus at their head.
‘We came to provide Flamma with an honourable burial.’ The lanista looked at Marcus and the men behind him with a grimace of distaste. ‘And instead I find the man who killed one of the finest fighters the Dacian school has ever seen carrying our brother away. What do you think you’re playing at, Corvus?’
Marcus stepped forward and went toe to toe with the lanista, his face hardening.
‘You heard what I told Mortiferum last night.’
‘I did. You mistakenly believed him to have been part of the murder of your family. What does that have to do with Flamma?’
‘Flamma was the man who taught me to fight. What you saw me do in the arena was pretty much all the result of his training, and in the process of teaching me those skills he became as close to me as my own father. Closer in some ways.’ He leaned in, his gaze locked on the lanista’s eyes. ‘You’re welcome to join me in providing him with a burial befitting his fame, but if you step into my path I will walk through you.’
Sannitus looked back at him for a moment, then nodded.
‘I believe you would. Very well, you and I will lay our friend to rest together then.’ The gladiators formed up around the men carrying the corpse, while Sannitus looked at Marcus thoughtfully. ‘It seems that ours weren’t the only lives that Flamma touched. So where were you thinking of laying him down to sleep?’
‘In a quiet garden close to the top of the Aventine Hill. Any member of the Dacian school will be welcome to visit his grave for as long as my wife owns the house.’
Sannitus nodded, pulling a roll of cloth from his belt, opening it up and draping it over his head, shrouding his face in shadow.
‘That sounds ideal. In truth I had little idea of where to take him. All that was in my head was to avoid his being dumped into a nameless grave along with all the other corpses from today’s fights. I will intercede with the goddess on Flamma’s behalf.’
They headed south, past the great circus, and began the ascent of the hill’s shallow rise in silence. As they approached a tavern on the hill’s crest a familiar figure stepped out in front of them, Albinus’s face red with the effects of the afternoon sun and the wine he’d clearly been drinking. Excingus remained in his seat opposite the one the senator had vacated, his amused smile slowly fading as he took in the hard-faced and well-muscled men escorting the Tungrians.
‘This is becoming a little routine, isn’t it, Decimus?’ Scaurus had strolled past the corpse bearers with an amused smile, shaking his head at the look of anger on his former sponsor’s face. ‘Are you sure you want to delay a solemn funeral procession like this?’
Albinus shook his head.
‘Not this time, Rutilius Scaurus. This time there’ll be no surprises, no unexpected rescue. This time you end up face down in a puddle of your own blood. With your lapdog centurion and that viper Cotta alongside you. Tonight, young man, I will open a jar of my very best wine and celebrate the removal of three particularly difficult thorns from my flesh.’
He clicked his fingers, and a score of muscular men who had been lounging against the walls around them straightened their stances and closed in around the corpse bearers. Scaurus looked about him appreciatively, nodding at Albinus.
‘You’re a persistent man, Decimus, I’ll give you that. Thin-skinned, a little lacking in the perceptive skills, bad tempered, a venal opportunist and slow witted, but certainly persistent. But are you sure these men will do as you tell them?’
Albinus grinned back at him in anticipation of his long-awaited revenge for the indignities the Tungrians had heaped upon him.
‘Oh yes, I’m more than certain. After all, they’re gladiators. They’ll do anything for money.’
‘Anything?’
The senator swaggered forward, putting a finger on Scaurus’s chest.
‘Anything! Their profession has removed any scruples they might have, and any status they once possessed, and now all they have left is the pursuit of riches. Riches which I will bestow on them in such quantity that they will never have to fight in the arena again. This time, Rutilius Scaurus, I have you by-’
Sannitus, his head bowed and his face invisible, lifted his gaze from the cobbles to reveal his identity, looking about him with a challenging stare.
‘Do you men know who I am?’
The man closest to him performed a double take of almost comedic intensity, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘Sannitus?’
The lanista turned slowly, looking at each man in turn.
‘I’m committing your faces to memory, brothers, so that I can have you hunted down and murdered. Those of you who do not know me should be aware that I am lanista of the Dacian Ludus and a priest in the worship of the goddess Nemesis, taking the body of our renowned brother Flamma for his inhumation. Those of you who are not delivered a swift and bloody justice by the members of my ludus for desecrating his memory will surely face judgement in the afterlife.’
Scaurus raised an eyebrow at Albinus, who was staring at Sannitus with a horrified expression.
‘Undone once more, eh Decimus? Or are you sure enough of the legitimacy of your quest for justice that you’ll risk ordering the death of a priest, especially one to a deity as unforgiving as Nemesis?’
The gladiators’ apparent leader, a big man with one eye covered by a length of cloth wrapped around his head and knotted at the back, stepped forward and held his empty hands up before him.
‘No fear. We’re not about to incur the anger of the goddess and have her pursue us for the rest of our lives. Come on lads!’
Albinus watched open mouthed as his escort melted away.