after several futile casts to find his bearings amidst a mane of hedge-lined walkways, he was about to seek out a gardener to ask directions, when there was an outburst of squawking nearby. Curious, he turned a corner — and witnessed a bizarrely repulsive sight.
In a low-walled enclosure caged off at one end, a boy of about six was engaged in plucking the feathers from a struggling chicken. Cackling in distress, terrified birds, some of them naked of plumage, rushed distractedly about the feather-strewn yard, or flapped against the walls in a vain attempt to scale them. Such was the child’s concentration that he failed to notice the stranger vaulting into the enclosure.
‘You vicious little brute!’ shouted Titus. In two long strides he reached the boy. Tearing the tortured fowl from his grip, Titus upended the infant and delivered a ringing slap to his bottom.
The boy wriggled free and whirled to face his chastiser. His face, white with astonished fury, worked silently for a few seconds. Then he screamed in outrage, ‘How-dare-you-how-dare-youhow-
After that, things happened very quickly.
Like actors responding to cues in a Terence farce, palace guards appeared from behind hedges and pavilions, and raced towards the chicken-yard.
‘Kill him! Kill him!’ shrieked the child as two of the guards leapt into the enclosure. ‘He attacked me.’
A spear whirred past Titus’ head and clanged against the cage. The near miss had a steadying effect on the young man; his mind clicked into focus and began to function fast and clearly. Unlike the frontier units or the mobile field armies, palace guards were recruited more for their fanatical loyalty than for their fighting abilities. Titus was sure that, man for man, he was more than a match for any of them.
After Titus’ riding accident, his father had purchased an exgladiator to instruct the lad in self-defence. (The closing of the gladiatorial schools a few years previously had flooded the market with slave fighters, so Gaius was able to pick from the best.) Titus proved an apt pupil; hours of daily practice with a wooden sword against a post, or fighting with staves, or using only hands and feet as weapons, had honed his skills to a level which more than compensated for his disability. ‘You’re a dead man walking,’ his instructor used to intone during these sessions, repeating a catch-phrase of his own
As the guard drew his sword and rushed forward, Titus grabbed the fallen spear with his right hand and feinted. The guard parried; flicking the spear to his left hand, Titus swept it in a scything blow across the other’s shins. The man collapsed, his shield and helmet flying. Titus reversed the spear and whacked the butt against his opponent’s skull, stunning him. Then, whirling the weapon round his head, he charged two guards closing on him and drove them back against the enclosure wall. A savage kick between the legs sent one man rolling on the ground in agony; a split second later the spear-shaft slammed into the other’s sword-arm, snapping it with a brittle crack. With a howl of pain, the guard clutched the injured limb, his weapon thudding to the ground.
Three down. Titus looked around — and knew despair. From every direction guards were racing towards him. He was indeed a dead man walking. Retrieving his first opponent’s shield, Titus backed against the cage, determined to sell his life as dearly as possible.
‘Stop!’
The command came from a tall and beautiful woman in her early thirties. Everyone froze, except for the child, who with a yell of ‘Mother!’ rushed through a gate in the wall to be scooped up by her.
‘Valentinian, tell us what this is about.’ Concern showed through the regal tones.
Valentinian? Titus went hot then cold, as the enormity of his predicament dawned on him. He had assaulted the Emperor.
‘I was convinced my last hour had come, sir,’ said Titus, when he was safely back at Aetius’ headquarters. ‘When they bound my hands I thought I was about to be marched off for summary execution. Then, when I told Galla Placidia you’d sent me, she ordered me to be released, although it was obvious she was longing to have me put to a horrible death for daring to smack her son. I was escorted down this long peristyle and through a portico to the imperial apartments, where I was given an audience in the reception chamber.’ He looked at Aetius with admiration. ‘You must have huge influence where she’s concerned, sir. When I told her your demands I could see she hated them and felt deeply humiliated, yet she agreed to everything — in writing.’ Titus handed the general a scroll. ‘I witnessed this myself. The whole thing was bizarre. There was Valentinian, all decked out in a purple robe and diadem, with me having to put your points through him to his mother. I actually had to place my finger against the little monster’s forehead — to make the procedure binding, I suppose.
‘Well, sir, I seem to have failed spectacularly as your emissary,’ Titus went on bitterly. ‘I’ve embarrassed you, and made a fool of myself. You can have my resignation now, sir, if you like.’
For a few seconds Aetius regarded him inscrutably. Then, to Titus’ astonishment, he burst out laughing. ‘My dear Titus,’ he chuckled when his mirth had subsided, ‘you’re so refreshingly unsophisticated. Far from wanting your resignation, I wouldn’t part with you for all the corn in Africa. You’ve done me the best service you could possibly imagine. Remember what I told you about animal politics? Well, by smacking the royal arse
In other words, a dead man walking, thought Titus grimly.
THREE
A large head, small deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square body — powerful but ill-proportioned
The first the bear knew of something being wrong, was when a chamois — a creature not normally found this far down the mountain — trotted across the glade he was resting in. The wind changed; snuffing the air, he caught a whiff of the hated man-scent. Instinct prompted him to retreat downhill, but intelligence combined with experience told him that that way lay death. To survive, he must take cover and let the hunters pass him, or break through them to the safety of the higher slopes.
He was a huge animal; at twenty, past his prime, but still extremely powerful and with his cunning unimpaired. These traits he owed to his inheritance. He was perhaps the great-great-grandson of a pair whose strength and intelligence alone had ensured survival from the Roman
Moving with surprising agility, the bear began to climb, looking for a suitable spot where his great bulk could be concealed.
‘Get back, Roman dog.’
‘All right, I can hear you, Hun savage.’ Using the most insulting gesture he knew, Carpilio extended the index and little fingers of his left hand at Barsich, the beater immediately to his right. Nevertheless, he obediently backed his horse until the other’s signal told him he was once more in line with the other beaters.
He and Barsich, a Hun lad of his own age, had become firm friends during the hunt, now in its final day. Sitting among the adult hunters round the evening camp fires, the two boys had shared their food, chunks of mutton roasted on sticks over the embers, and swapped lies about boyhood exploits. During the day, when unobserved by their seniors they had shown off to each other, making their horses caracole and dance near cliff-edges, or swinging under their bellies then remounting at full gallop.
