The Great Game (55 page)

Rufinus’ smile widened as the man’s eyes bulged. ‘Where did you get that dog?’

‘He belonged to a friend. He’s a good lad really… unless you cross him.’

The cavalryman backed up to the wall and fumbled for his sword hilt. ‘Bastard thing should be dead! Get him away from me!’

Still smiling, Rufinus turned to the gate, stepped to the bar and lifted it, slowly and carefully, feeling the muscles in his arms burn with every flex, more cuts across his body hissing their agony at him. Concentrating on his task and trying to ignore the pain, he slid back two bolts and lifted others from the indentations in the threshold slab, trying not to listen too closely to the noises behind him, though the initial shriek that was cut short had been tough to ignore.

Finally, he swung open the gate just enough to step through and staggered out into the city. Behind him, Acheron hurried along, the hair of his head glistening wetly. That brief scream that had echoed around the vault of the gateway had turned into low moans of agony, and Rufinus could hear the shouts of other men on duty running across to the cavalryman.

But he and Acheron were now in the city and picking up speed to a fast walk as they made for the great amphitheatre of Vespasianus, with its crowds and delights, its victims and murderers. He would prefer to run, but was well aware of his limitations. Even the slowest jog would likely make him black out. A fast walk was all he could reasonably manage.

There was still time.

And his friends would be there at the western gates to help.

He could make a difference; for the emperor and for Pompeianus; for Saoterus and for… for Perennis. He wondered whether Acheron had killed or wounded the man at the gate but, either way, at least Rufinus wouldn’t be there to look in his eyes as he faded. Whatever the man got, he deserved, for taking part in the brutal murder of a loyal imperial agent.

One day Rufinus would find the other five cavalrymen and administer appropriate justice, as well as to the prefect who had sent them.

One day, but not today.

Today he had other duties…

XXVII – Commodus

THE great Vicus Patricius, that began near the Castra Praetoria and ran down to the very heart of the city, was strangely empty and quiet. Scores of times during his months in barracks, Rufinus had walked that street, fighting his way through the crowds and purchasing fruit or bread at the stalls of the street vendors.

Not so today. The street was almost devoid of life, barring the few sellers whose businesses were failing or slow enough that they could not afford to take time off for fear of missing a sale. They looked uniformly hopeless and bored.

Here and there a beggar remained; those who were too immobile to have moved themselves down toward the great amphitheatre and the richer pickings of the crowds gathered there. A few slaves hurried about their business and, once or twice, Rufinus spotted people who were obviously running late for the games, hurrying along their spouses with irritable words.

Yet the quietness, unusual as it was, was of no interest to the Praetorian guardsman staggering deliriously through it at the fastest pace he could safely manage with his myriad injuries, a black dog the size of a wolf at his heel. Rufinus could feel the seeping of a tiny trickle of blood into the linen wraps that bound him from several cuts. He could feel the crack of burned, blistered skin with the movement, the constant throb in his disfigured hand.

He ignored them all.

Because they were simply pain, and pain could be ignored.

Because there were so many things of far greater importance.

He felt panicked. More than ever, this was a race against time. The last surge of noise from the crowd had died away a hundred heartbeats ago and everything had settled. The animals and gladiators would be in position in the arena now, and that meant that everything was ready and awaiting the arrival of the Emperor. Even a moment’s drop in the pace could make him too late to stop the assassin’s blade. He could have been there by now if he could run. If he could even jog, rather than hurrying at an uncomfortable stagger,

He felt the weight of unfathomable responsibility. A million people and more lived and breathed in the city and of that astounding number only he and the conspirators themselves knew what was coming. No one else could possibly help. No one else could do
anything
. If he failed, there was no second chance, no reserve force of Gallic cavalry waiting in the treeline.

Just him.

He felt anger.

Anger at the audacity of people who believed they had the right to question the undisputed emperor of Rome and who planned to murder him for their own benefit. Lucilla particularly. After all, what true Roman could plot the death of their brother? Images of Lucius flashed momentarily through his seething mind.

He felt anger at the emperor himself for allowing his freedmen so much control over the state, while he played editor for the games and enjoyed his luxuries and for permitting the world to reach this desperate situation. Rufinus felt he knew Commodus enough to know that the man was capable of so much more.

Anger at Pompeianus for having the ability to have done something about all this, and yet sitting back and letting it happen while he moved his imagined pieces on an imagined board.

Anger at five guards of whose faces he had only a memory and who had tracked down a loyal Roman agent and slit his throat in the name of ‘duty’.

Most of all, he felt anger at prefect Paternus, who had taken him under his wing and raised him from the legions only to set him on a path of espionage, murder and bloodshed that had stained both their hands and tarred their souls; a man whose path had strayed from the honourable duty of the Praetorian Guard into chaos and crime; a man whose very abuse of his position made him the worst kind of villain.

Rufinus ground his teeth as he stumbled hurriedly along, Acheron plodding easily at his side, heads turning at the sight of a white-clad Praetorian staggering like a drunken madman accompanied by a giant hound. A quick swig from the vial of painkiller, with no thought as to what dosage it was. He could not spend the time measuring.

He barely noticed as the wide thoroughfare that descended from the Viminalis hill gave way to the narrower streets of the subura. This area of the city was the most thriving and busy, permanently full of life (mostly of the ‘low’ variety) and teeming with the poor, beggars, soldiers on furlough, whores and thieves, hawkers and drunkards and spies. That the subura seemed to be as deserted as the higher regions was telling of just how many people
had converged on the great amphitheatre at the eastern end of the forum to attend the games, to see the arrival of the Golden Emperor Commodus, or simply to sell their wares to the crowds, peddle their flesh, or cut a few purse strings.

The noise was increasing again with the closeness of the masses. The sound of a quarter of a million excited, expectant people arose ahead. Rufinus rounded a curve in the street and caught sight of the upper arcades of the great amphitheatre. Even now, with everything that was at stake, it was hard not to marvel and just drink in the sight of that great wonder of construction. The top level, with its solid façade, punctured with square windows, supporting the dozens of poles that held the great retractable sunshade aloft. The third level, below that, with its encircling arcade of decorative arches, each containing a statue of a God, a hero of Rome, or an emperor of the past. And below that, out of sight behind the buildings, a second level mirroring the third, all above a final, lowest arcade of entrance arches.

Breath-taking. Or it would be, had Rufinus spare breath to take.

Wheezing and panting, clutching his side where a particularly bad burn had begun to rub painfully on the bindings, he rounded two more corners, descending to the lowest level of the city, and turned out into the wide paved area that surrounded the arena, where he was confronted by a wall of people, shoulder to shoulder, crowding the square. Children sat on their father’s shoulders. Youths climbed the colossal, hundred foot statue of the god Sol, using his pedestal and feet to gain an improved view. All but the lowest storey of the amphitheatre were visible above the seething mass of people and from this close it could be seen that hundreds of people filled the dark arches of the building, leaning around the decorative statues to wave to friends and beckon family.

And at regular intervals, all around the arches, glittering armoured figures in white tunics stood, scrutinising the crowd as they remained stolid and impassive. Rufinus stopped and shook his head. How was he supposed to get there?

‘Make way!’ he bellowed. ‘Praetorian Guardsman!’ Even at the top of his voice, the command was almost lost in the drone of thousands of excited people. A few of those nearby, at the periphery, glanced round in surprise and jostled to move out of the way. Even
with the best of intentions, there was not enough room in the mass for them to adequately shift and allow him passage.

‘Make way!’ he bellowed again, voice cracking with the effort. Beside him, Acheron snapped out a loud bark, startling more of the nearby folk and causing them to open a tiny gap – not much, but all they could manage.

Rufinus peered into the passage through the crowd. It was barely wide enough for a man to move through, let alone an armoured one with a huge dog, but it was clearly the widest he was likely to get. Wincing at the multitude of aches and pains the action brought, he began to push through the crowd, shouldering his way and clamping his teeth down on the cries he issued with the pain of every jolt and jostle.

His steel-plated segmented armour battered members of the public, causing bruises and drawing blood as he forced his way ever deeper into the crowd, constantly demanding that they make way and announcing his status, the great dark shape of Acheron padding along close behind him. Here and there, despite everything, a man or woman would complain or curse at him as he trod on feet, cut cheek bones with his shoulder plates, pushed people physically out of the way with his own yelp of pain joining their cry of irritation.

No one complained at Acheron.

It was a hot, painful and interminable journey but gradually he fought his way closer and closer to the looming edifice. He struggled to make his way through the mass, but Perennis and Paternus would have a path cleared for the emperor. Likely his route would take him around the far side, looping the whole building before he entered, so that the whole crowd could see and cheer him.

He was so close now that he could see the inner arches and radiating passages echoing back from the entrances into the heart of the amphitheatre. A few of those interior vaults would hold food stalls but many seemed unoccupied and dark.

‘
Rufinus
?’

He missed it the first time, and it was only as the man shouted again and waved an arm that Rufinus recognised his name and his head snapped back and forth, trying to identify the source of the call. Mercator stood on the second level, next to a statue of one of the Flavian generals, waving his free arm, javelin leaning against the stonework. In the next arch along, Icarion was looking across at his friend in confusion, and then turned at a pointed finger and traced its
path to see their friend pushing through the crowd toward the arena. Icarion had brought both his javelins. Perhaps he was expecting trouble?

‘Mercator! Icarion! Come down!’

With redoubled effort, he heaved his way through the crowd, crying out with every stab of pain and not caring who heard, pushing people roughly aside and causing shouts of consternation and threats to rise up around him. Acheron stayed at his heel as he moved.

Suddenly, at last, his good hand touched stone, and he grasped the amphitheatre as though it might be pulled away again by the undertow in the sea of people, the cold blocks gritty in his hand. The crowds did not stop at the outer circumference, though. The entrance corridors were packed with people, and Rufinus had to pull himself along the wall and heave through people into the passageway.

A moment more of struggling, and Rufinus found elbow room. Within the inner passageways the crowds cleared. Those who had managed to secure a seat in the stands would already now be there and watching the arena and the imperial box eagerly. The rest had gathered to see the emperor’s arrival, and would have no chance of doing so while hidden within the arcades of the structure.

Indeed, few people had any business in the tunnels of the amphitheatre, just the food and wine and trinket stalls that had set up in a few of the dead-end radiating passages, and the people rushing to buy last moment snacks before the main event. Torches burning in sconces lit the routes from seating access passages to the stall areas, whole sections remaining dark between them.

Panting wildly and wincing at the pain lacing around his body, Rufinus shook his head at the organised chaos of it all.

‘Hey, captain! You’re not going to believe this!’

Rufinus turned at the voice to see two men in drab grey tunics moving toward him. At first glance, they were no different from any other spectator, but to the trained eye, the bulk of daggers beneath the tunics was unmistakable. Rufinus stared and realised he knew one of them from the Villa of Hadrianus.

His sword was already halfway from its scabbard before the two men ran at him, knives whipped out from their hiding places. Weapons were forbidden in the public places of the city centre, with the exception of the urban cohorts and the Praetorians, but with everything that was happening today, Rufinus could imagine just how easy it would be to sneak a knife into the amphitheatre.

As he levelled his drawn blade, Rufinus realised what they had said.

‘Captain’!

He turned, unsteadily, just in time to see Phaestor’s gladius come lunging out of the darkness of an unlit radial passage. Desperately knocking the blow aside with his own blade, he turned on his heel and ducked a slash from a dagger, crying out as pain tore through him from his many extant wounds. The two men spread out to make themselves harder to target.