was designed to exactly match the length of the original. Satisfied, he wrapped a short kilt round his waist and set out along the deck towards the small group of men gathered just behind the bow.
As he approached, Serpentius, tall and leopard lean, walked past and whispered: ‘Beware of the puppy.’
Valerius raised an eyebrow and the Spaniard grinned, taking his seat on a coiled pile of rope. Tiberius looked relaxed as he stood among his men, dressed in a short white tunic.
‘My apologies for keeping you and your men waiting, tribune.’ Valerius took in the glances at the carved walnut fist, which, as always, ranged between amusement and contempt, either of which was better than pity.
‘No apologies required, sir.’ Tiberius smiled. ‘We were eager to get started, and put on an exhibition of basic swordplay for your slave. He seemed most interested. Perhaps you should have him trained? He has the build for it and a slave who can fight might save your life one day.’
Valerius somehow kept his face straight. ‘I will think on it, Tiberius, but a slave with a blade seems quite wrong. The Spanish rogue is as likely to slit my throat as protect me.’
A big, curve-edged shield of raw wood lay against the bowsprit and Valerius pushed his arm through the leather strap and fitted the walnut fist, which had been carved specifically to take a standard scutum, to the grip. One of the cavalrymen handed him a practice sword cut from seasoned oak and he weighed it in his left hand. It was the same length and design as the basic legionary gladius, but almost twice as heavy. It had no edge and a blunt point, but in the right hands it could still be dangerous. ‘All right, who’s first?’
The German cavalrymen eyed him warily, taking in the hard eyes and sharp-edged, angular features of a face that wore its trials like a badge of honour. One-handed or not, the scars he bore were evidence they faced a veteran fighter. Valerius had always been powerfully built, but daily practice with Serpentius had broadened his shoulders and toughened his arms and legs. The former gladiator had taught him the merits of speed and footwork as well as a useful assortment of dirty tricks from the arena. He looked confident because he was. He chose the most likely of the four. ‘You.’
‘Sir!’ The man saluted and faced up to him three paces away on the wooden deck, crouching with his shield in his left hand and the sword in his right. His first moves were tentative because he had never faced a left-handed man. Valerius allowed him to take the initiative, meeting each attack as it came and leaving it until late to counter. Gradually, the cavalryman gained confidence and his attacks were launched with more venom. Valerius let him work up a sweat before calling a halt and ordering the next man forward. There was nothing to be gained by humiliating the soldier; bad feeling in the cramped confines of a ship, even one the size of the Golden Cygnet, would only fester and spread.
The bouts proved what he had expected. The gladius was an infantry-man’s weapon, designed to be used in a shield line. Double-edged, and with a needle-sharp triangular point, it was a highly efficient, deadly weapon in the hands of a man who knew how to use it. In battle, each legionary braced his shield against the man on his right and, once they were in contact with the enemy, rammed the shield forward to create a narrow gap through which the point of his gladius could dart into an opponent’s abdomen. They were taught never to inflict a wound more than three inches deep, but when combined with the classic ripping, twisting withdrawal such injuries were invariably fatal. Valerius had seen a legionary cohort cut down a force of attacking tribesmen twice their number, like farmers harvesting a field of corn.
These men were cavalry troopers, more used to wielding the longer and heavier spatha from the saddle. The spatha was a fearsome killer in the hands of a man who knew how to use it, but the technique, basically hacking and bludgeoning an opponent’s head and neck, was entirely different from the gladius — wielder’s. It meant the men were slow and awkward on their feet, lacked any feel for the sword and held the shield as if it was an encumbrance and not a weapon of both attack and defence. He resolved to repeat the exercise every morning, so that when they left the ship they were better equipped for battle than when they boarded. He felt an unaccustomed surge of joy overwhelm the melancholy that had settled over him since he’d left Fidenae. He was a soldier again.
‘I suppose I must be next?’ Tiberius smiled absently as he untied his tunic and pulled it over his head.
For some reason Valerius felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. It was exactly the feeling he’d had when he’d led patrols among the innocent woods and harmless rolling hills of southern Britain, right up to the moment the innocent woods had turned out not to be so innocent and the rolling hills had spewed out fifty blood-crazed Celtic champions.
IV
Beware of the puppy. Tiberius Crescens might have the face of a benign cherub and the bumbling awkwardness of a fledgling philosopher, but when he stripped to his loincloth Valerius immediately recognized what Serpentius had known by sheer instinct. He was facing a warrior. The young tribune had the stocky, muscular physique of a professional athlete and short, solid legs, but he balanced on his feet like a dancer. The boyish features were like the velvet glove that covered a boxer’s brass knuckles: the disguise that made you underestimate the danger beneath. There was something else, too, a fierce concentration in the eyes and a tension in the body that reminded Valerius of a bear trap ready to snap shut. The last time he’d seen the combination was at the gladiator school in Rome where he’d found the Spaniard. All that was missing was hate.
Tiberius picked up a shield and moved into position, the wooden gladius steady in his right hand. At first Valerius wondered why the boy had revealed his true self. Why not maintain the disguise and take his opponent by surprise? A hint of a smile flickered on the younger man’s face and gave Valerius his answer. It wasn’t, as he’d half suspected, arrogance or conceit: quite the opposite. Tiberius wanted him to know, because, above all, Tiberius wanted his respect. A fair contest between the unblooded boy and the seasoned Hero of Rome. No subterfuge. No tricks. Just warrior against warrior. Valerius felt a rush of energy as he realized he could be in the fight of his life.
Battle madness they called it, but there were different kinds of battle madness. He had seen British warriors drunk on blood charge into a wall of shields and try to tear out Roman throats with their teeth. He had felt it himself, in the final moments in the Temple of Claudius when the great double doors had smashed open in an explosion of fire and smoke. And there was the mechanical madness of the fighting machine that was the Roman legion, as it killed and killed again until there was nothing left to kill on the slope where Boudicca had fought her last battle. This was the white heat of war, when a man lost his mind and rose above the field of blood on a red-eyed wave of Elysian rapture.
Then there was the kind of madness Valerius needed now. The cold, detached madness of the true killer. A man had to seek this madness within. It took a different kind of courage to allow some inner power to rule heart and mind and body. To let speed and power and instinct be dictated by a force beyond understanding or design. Valerius never took his eyes off his opponent’s and he saw the moment Tiberius found what he sought. He allowed his mind to clear and his body to empty of emotion. It was like being inside a flawless diamond. The coldness started at the centre before expanding to fill him from head to toe.
‘Fight.’
To the watchers, the early movements were less a battle than a courtship. A gentle collision of sword and shield. A ritual coming and going of bare feet on boards now hot from the morning sun. A seeking without finding. Probe and counter probe. Stroke and counter stroke.
In the cold core of his mind Valerius understood that Tiberius had watched and analysed every action of the earlier bouts, and from that briefest of scrutinies had formed a greater understanding of a left-handed fighter’s strengths and weaknesses than any other man he had faced. But Valerius was a left-handed fighter and he knew what Tiberius had only seen. Each attack came from the angle he expected. When the young tribune’s deft feet carried him to an impossible position of strength, Valerius was there to meet the blow before it began to fall. A moment of comedy, with each man so attuned to the other’s movement that they appeared to be dancing.
Slowly, the tempo increased as they found each other’s measure. Sword against sword, shield against shield. Feinting right and left, up and down, always seeking that elusive opening. The cavalrymen gasped at the speed of the attacks and even Serpentius’s face wore a puzzled frown. By now the sweat was coursing over Valerius’s eyes, but his unconscious mind saw beyond it. Tiberius was like a wraith in the distance. Where the spectators saw a
