tent wall. By the time he struggled free the young assassin was gone and Corbulo was on his knees retching. Valerius left the general and staggered through the tent and into the open. When he reached the doorway Tiberius was already halfway along the Via Principalis running towards the east gate. No escape there. The gate would be guarded and he couldn’t leave the fort without a pass. But Valerius knew his man. Tiberius would not have made his attempt without planning his escape route. That meant a bolt hole and he was far enough ahead to lose himself among the tents and wait for his chance. But he had reckoned without Khamsin. Somehow Valerius made the leap on to the mare’s back at the first attempt and kicked her into motion. Belatedly, he realized his sword was still lying in Corbulo’s tent. But he had no choice. If he didn’t catch Tiberius now he would be gone for good. For a moment he almost checked. What was he thinking? He knew what would happen to the young tribune if he was taken. But he was Gaius Valerius Verrens and he was as trapped in the twin coils of duty and discipline as Tiberius himself. He had given his loyalty to Corbulo and that meant that if his killer could be taken, he would be taken.
Tiberius heard the sound of hooves behind him and swerved between two lines of tents. For a few vital moments Valerius thought he’d lost him, but Khamsin made the turn in a single smooth movement and he picked out the dark figure a hundred paces ahead. Sleepy, astonished soldiers appeared in the tent doorways demanding to know what was going on, but Valerius didn’t check as he closed with his target. He understood how dangerous Tiberius was. On foot or not the boy was quick enough and good enough to kill him. Would Khamsin run him down, or would she baulk? He couldn’t take the chance. He would have to take him from the saddle. Thirty paces. Twenty. Valerius poised to make the leap. Then the cloak whirled and his quarry was gone, darting into the space between two tents. Too late to follow, but there was a junction ahead and he urged Khamsin on until the mare could turn and run parallel with the fleeing assassin. A set of pilum targets stored between the tents loomed out of the darkness like a legionary shield wall. Another horse might have hesitated, but Khamsin made the jump without altering her stride. Her hind legs smashed into the wood and she landed awkwardly, but she never missed a step. Desperately, Valerius scanned the tent lines for Tiberius, almost missing the telltale movement as the dark-clad figure ran across their front. He shouted a challenge and Tiberius hesitated. Stumbled to a halt. Now he had him.
The young tribune stood, head bowed and chest heaving. Valerius slowed Khamsin to a walk, alert for any movement. Beneath the hood he sensed a prolonged sigh. An acceptance of the gods’ will. He was wrong. When it came it was faster than anything he had ever witnessed. Faster even than Serpentius. Tiberius’s hand reached out and the arm drew back with the fist gripped round the javelin from a rack that had been hidden by one of the tents. It whipped forward and the weighted spear sailed unerringly towards Valerius’s heart. His mind watched the spear come, but the invisible strings that controlled his reactions couldn’t keep pace with the gleaming metal point. He braced himself for the strike and Khamsin must have felt his unease because she reared up on her hind legs. He heard the wet slap of forged iron entering flesh, but surprisingly he felt no pain. It was only when Khamsin collapsed on her forelegs with a terrible scream, throwing him forward over her shoulder, that he realized what had happened. A rage as terrible as any he had ever experienced consumed him then, and he rolled to his feet and charged, screaming at his enemy.
‘Stop or I’ll have to kill you.’
The familiar voice touched the outer surface of his mind, but couldn’t penetrate the killing fury. Valerius had no thought that he was unarmed and Tiberius had a sword that could chop him down in an instant. No concern that he might not survive. He crashed into Tiberius’s chest and knocked him backwards, drawing back his wooden fist to smash it into the defenceless face. Then the mist that clouded his vision cleared and he found himself looking down into the steady grey eyes he knew so well. His hand dropped.
‘Tiberius, what have you done?’
‘My duty,’ the boy said. ‘Why did you not do yours? Better that you would have killed me.’
The sound of running footsteps forestalled any answer. ‘Shit,’ Serpentius whispered.
‘Take him away.’ A centurion’s voice cut the silence. ‘The general will wish to question him.’
As the young tribune was hauled to his feet and dragged off, Valerius walked slowly to where Khamsin lay on her side, the wooden shaft of the pilum protruding from her pale breast and the metal point buried deep in her heart. She still lived, the breath snorting gently in her nostrils, but the dark, intelligent eyes were already growing dull and as he watched she gave one last shudder and was still.
‘Tiberius Claudius Crescens, you are found guilty of conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, neglecting your duty and failing to maintain a proper watch.’ The senior tribune of the Tenth announced the tribunal’s verdict in a voice devoid of emotion. ‘Have you anything to say before sentence is passed?’
Valerius forced himself to look at the man who had been his friend. They had not been gentle with Tiberius. He stood between two guards still in the torn, bloodstained tunic he had worn the night before and barely recognizable as the boyish tribune from the Golden Cygnet. He looked at his tormentors through eyes that were mere slits in a face swollen like an over-ripe melon and bruised to the point where there was barely an inch of unmarked skin. A mumble escaped his cracked lips.
‘Speak up, man.’
The young tribune spat in the dust on the floor of the tent. ‘Duty. I was doing my duty,’ he slurred. ‘This court has no authority over me. I am in the personal service of the Emperor.’
‘And what service would that be?’ The speaker was Traianus, legate of the Tenth, who headed the tribunal while Corbulo looked on with cold eyes from a seat to the side.
‘I am his agent in matters of imperial security.’
‘And you have proof of this position? Some letter? A seal, perhaps.’
Traianus didn’t hide the mockery in his voice, and Valerius knew that if a letter had ever existed it no longer did.
‘In my tent. Sewn into the lining of my cloak.’
The legate shook his head sadly. ‘Your tent was searched most thoroughly and no such letter was found.’
Tiberius began, ‘You have no right…’
‘Silence.’ In the hush that followed Valerius could hear the buzz of insects trapped under the tent roof. ‘You are sentenced to death by fustuarium.’ Tiberius’s face twisted as if a knife had been plunged into his back. Fustuarium was the most terrible of legionary punishments, when a man would be beaten to death by his tent- mates. ‘The sentence to be carried out by the men of the governor’s personal guard whose careers you have destroyed by your disloyalty. You are a disgrace to your legion, your uniform and your family. You have betrayed your legate, your comrades, your friends and your Emperor.’
‘Never my Emperor.’ Traianus flinched at the savagery of the words that escaped the condemned man’s lips. ‘Only one man here has betrayed his Emperor.’ The whole room gasped as Tiberius pointed an accusing finger at the man whose evidence had condemned him. ‘Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo overstepped his imperium. Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo disobeyed a direct order from his Caesar and set himself up as Emperor of the east. It is our duty,’ Valerius felt the wild eyes on him, but he could not meet them, ‘to execute the traitor Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo.’
Traianus glanced fearfully at Corbulo, but the general only shook his head.
‘The ramblings of a madman. Let the sentence be carried out.’
The eight guards Tiberius had tricked into deserting Corbulo lined up naked and shamefaced at the centre of an enormous open square made up of the massed ranks of the two legions that formed Corbulo’s army. Wiry and lean, their white torsos were a startling contrast to the dark brown of their faces, arms and legs. Each man’s eyes flicked nervously to where a horizontal bar had been fixed between two eight-foot wooden posts like a miniature gallows. Tiberius had convinced his men that Corbulo had sent them wine gifted by the Armenians and relieved them from duty for the night. They were hung-over, terrified and shivering, and they knew a single word from their general could condemn them.
Now they watched fearfully as Tiberius was stripped and dragged in chains to the bar, where his hands were manacled so that he hung with his toes just touching the ground.
Valerius had pleaded for the leniency of a quick death for the man who had been his friend, reminding Corbulo of Tiberius’s heroics in the battle. The general had stared at him with eyes as merciless as a hunting leopard’s. Only now did Valerius discover just how merciless.
Corbulo marched out into the square and stood before the shivering, naked men, the sun glittering on the polished metal of his sculpted breastplate and the golden decoration of his plumed helmet. Valerius took his place
