halo of blurred movement, Valerius experienced everything as if the two men were fighting under water. It was as though he could read his opponent’s every thought and intention, prepare for each attack and have the time to choose the exact manoeuvre that would nullify it. He wasn’t aware of effort or tiredness or pain. He was what he was. Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome.
A blade’s length away, Tiberius barely noted his opponent’s existence. He recognized the sweat-slick, muscled figure with the sword-scarred face only as a machine that countered his every move. Make one attack and three came back in reply. Find an opening and the body that had invited the sword was gone before the point could reach it. At times it was as if he was fighting two men. By now he understood they were equal in strength and speed and stamina. Their ability with the weapons matched as if they had emerged from the same womb. Still he knew that he would win, because this was what he had been born for.
The rattle of oak upon oak was a never-ending roll of thunder. The speed, which for ordinary men would have been impossible to maintain for a few minutes, had been kept up for more than fifteen. And still the swords flew and the noise grew to a climax. It could not last. Surely one of them had to give? No man was capable of sustaining such a tempo.
A snapping crash. A fracture in the rhythm. A scream of victory.
‘No!’
Valerius felt an iron grip on his sword arm. His eyes focused on Serpentius standing beside him. Tiberius lay on his back with the splintered remains of his sword in his hand and the point of Valerius’s wooden gladius an inch from his right eye. He was still smiling.
‘I think we’ve given the ladies enough entertainment for today.’ Serpentius nodded over Valerius’s left shoulder and he turned his head to look towards the curtained pavilion ten feet away. The scene resembled a marble tableau he had once seen in Nero’s private quarters in the Domus Transitoria: three young women in almost identical poses, but wearing different expressions. Domitia Longina’s two slave girls had their hands to their mouths, one in horror and the other in delight. The general’s daughter stood slightly behind them, tall, imperious and obviously fully recovered from her seasickness, wearing a red dress and a look of puzzled amusement. It was the first time Valerius had seen her face properly and something lurched inside him as he realized whom she resembled. Before the older woman emerged from the tent to shoo her charges inside he felt an almost physical pain as he remembered another momentous meeting, in the courtyard of the Temple of Claudius. A meeting that had changed his life and almost cost him it.
‘I hope I didn’t tire you, sir?’ Tiberius stood at his shoulder, his eyes on the group disappearing behind the curtains.
‘No. A pity it ended so quickly — I was just getting into my rhythm.’
Tiberius grinned at the lie. ‘Do you have any suggestions for an honest journeyman?’
Now it was Valerius’s turn to smile. It took him a few moments to remember the words of Marcus, the arena veteran who trained the gladiators, on the day he had met Serpentius. ‘An old gladiator once told me: don’t fight like a one-handed man, or a two-handed man. Fight like a killer.’ The younger man nodded solemnly. ‘But I think you already know that, Tiberius.’
The tribune’s grin deepened and he turned to walk away.
‘And Tiberius?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Never underestimate your opponent.’
V
The Golden Cygnet passed through the Strait of Messana on the morning of the fourth day, with the vast dusty bulk of Sicilia a mile to their right and, to their left, the province of Lucania, the most southern point of mainland Italia. Valerius stood beside the steering platform with captain Aurelius as they left the mainland behind.
‘Make course due east,’ the sailor ordered. The steersmen grunted as they hauled the massive oars against the force of the waters rushing below the hull and the sailmaster, a tall Nubian, trimmed the sails to make the best speed on their new course. Valerius watched as the two naval galleys kept station, sleek and narrow as a pair of dolphins, three ship-lengths off the bow. Aurelius reached up to touch the tutela, the carved talisman of Poseidon that protected the ship. ‘If the wind gods favour us we’ll make landfall on the Achaean coast two hours before dark. I have a mind to anchor up early today. The lady Domitia has graciously invited us to join her for dinner.’
Aurelius misinterpreted Valerius’s look of alarm. ‘Yes, it is unusual, but she is an unusual young woman. Her father’s daughter, I would say. Her mother died in Antioch two months ago, after a long illness, and the Emperor offered the use of this ship as soon as he heard. She bears her grief like a soldier. Your companion the young tribune is also invited to attend, as well as the commanders of the two classis galleys.’
The master’s entreaty to Poseidon must have been successful because the Cygnet and her two outriders cut an arrow-straight furrow across the cobalt waters of the Aegean and they anchored in a sheltered bay with the mountains of central Achaea a brown haze in the distance when the sun was still well above the western horizon. Valerius could make out a settlement on the far side of the bay. After consulting with their host’s freedwoman, a widow called Tulia whose every disappointment was written in her curled lip and small, suspicious eyes, Aurelius sent a swimmer to organize fresh fruit and vegetables and anything else that would enhance the meal, while a rough table built by the ship’s carpenter was set up in front of the lady Domitia’s curtained tent. The arrival of an imperial ship had caused a sensation in the village, and within an hour small boats were ferrying back and forth with the produce of the land. Others, filled with spectators, simply anchored while the occupants stared in awe at the great gold-painted hull.
‘Keep them away unless they have something to sell,’ Aurelius roared as one boat came too close to his paintwork. ‘I don’t want any thieving Greek getting on board this ship.’
Valerius washed on deck in a bucket of sea water, and Serpentius erected a curtain to allow him to dress in privacy. Over his best tunic with the broad stripe of a senior tribune on the hem and sleeves he wore a moulded leather breastplate embossed with silver and the white cloak which differentiated him from any other officer in the legion. No sword or crested helmet, for this was a purely social occasion. He ran his hand through his hair and exchanged a glance with the Spaniard.
‘You look like a scarred old tom leopard in a dress, but you’ll do,’ was Serpentius’s opinion. ‘I’ve seen you looking less nervous before a fight. Mind you, that Tulia’s face is enough to scare a Scythian sword-swallower into an early grave. Or is there someone else who frightens you?’
Valerius decided not to hear the final sentence. Tiberius, scrubbed, polished and wearing armour buffed to a mirror shine, was waiting just the right distance from the table to be polite. Beside him stood the two captains of the escort galleys, who if anything appeared even younger than their companion. They saluted Valerius, warily eyeing the wooden hand and the vivid red line that scarred his face from below his left eye to the corner of his mouth, but Tiberius noticed his smile.
‘I apologize if we have amused you, sir.’
‘Never apologize for amusing someone, Tiberius; there is not enough amusement in the world. And never mistake jest for insult, or you may find that winning a battle costs more than you are willing to pay. I was just thinking that you fight as if you were born with a sword in your hand.’
The young man nodded, accepting the compliment as his due. ‘Thank you, sir. And it’s almost true. My father was legate of the Fifteenth Primigenia and later the Eighth Augusta, so my brother and I grew up in military headquarters on the Rhenus and in Moesia. We loved him, of course, but he was a man of little imagination and our education was limited to basics such as grammar and rhetoric. He was very insistent that we should be self- sufficient in every way, so we trained and exercised with the soldiers each day. The armourer first fashioned me a small sword when I was four years old, I believe, and apart from the occasional childhood illness I have held one every day from that to this.’
He was interrupted as the curtains of the tent fell back and the lady Domitia Longina Corbulo took her place at the head of the table. She had exchanged red for blue, a long flowing gown that bared the unblemished flesh of her shoulders and was low enough to give a hint of shadow between her bound breasts. Dark, piercing eyes took in
