legs stripped out his guts in a dozen frenzied sweeps as he howled in disbelief at the outrage done to his body. The wild beasts killed and killed again and the surviving prisoners clawed at the walls and the bars. All except one.
Cornelius’s girl.
The dark-haired figure hadn’t been visible among the huddle of prisoners, but now Valerius saw her running for her life, crying out for the laughing guards to take the cloth-wrapped bundle she held in her arms. A few paces away a lioness tracked her progress, the glowing yellow eyes never leaving her prey. The girl knew she was doomed, but she refused to give up. She ran on round the inner wall until some instinct brought her to the point where Valerius now stood hard against the balcony. Helplessly, she looked up at him, much too young, the face he recognized from the brothel turned ugly by fear. Among the cries of ecstasy and gasps of horror around him, he heard her shouted plea. ‘Please, sir, take my baby. If not me, at least save my child.’ Terror made her voice brittle and the words came out in a rush. With shaking hands she held the tiny bundle high, so Valerius could see the small dark eyes and pink, grizzling features. ‘Please!’
The big cat covered the ground in three enormous bounds, but the girl was driven by the speed of despair. In the very moment the lioness struck, she launched the baby upwards with every ounce of her remaining strength. Valerius saw it come, a featureless mass, the swaddling wrap fluttering loosely around it. The girl’s dying screams filled his ears as he stretched as far as he could reach with his left hand. He felt his fingers close on the coarse brown cloth and for a single heartbeat the baby’s weight was in his control. Relief washed through him as he drew the bundle towards the wall. But he had reckoned without the blood-hungry gods of the arena and they would not be denied. Slowly, the blanket began to unravel, uncoiling one relentless fold at a time from the doll-like figure it protected. Frantically he reached out with his other hand, but the lifeless wooden fist could find no grip on the child’s arm. A voice screamed inside his head as the soft thud of the child’s body on the sand was instantly followed by the snarls of two cats fighting over a morsel of prey.
For a few seconds his world went dark, but soon something nameless and terrible swelled inside him. He had never known such anger or such despair; a killing rage that was born in his lower body and rose up ready to erupt into suicidal violence. Still holding the blanket, he turned back towards Rodan. The Praetorian held the knife protectively in front of him, but fear marked his ruined face.
‘Harm me and your father dies,’ the centurion cried. ‘He dies.’
Valerius knew he could kill Rodan with a single blow, but what was the point when the man truly responsible was sitting a few paces away. ‘Your time will come, Rodan, and when it does, I hope it is my sword that sends you across the Styx.’
He turned towards where Nero sat, his jewelled fingers hooked on to the balcony as he leaned forward to savour every moment of the agony below. A dozen black guards separated Valerius from his target and every eye was on him. He knew that to take a single step in the Emperor’s direction was to commit suicide. The killing urge subsided, the fleeting moment gone. As he walked to the stairs his gaze met Poppaea’s. He expected to see contempt, even triumph, but instead she stared hard into his eyes and there seemed no mistaking the message she passed.
He hesitated, unsure whether he understood, before walking out of the circus into the clean air and the silence.
They stopped him in the long passageway to the entrance and took him to a room with bare walls which might have been a cell but for the scent of the hay that had been stored there. Valerius sat with his back to the cold stone and worked the coarse wool of the child’s blanket through his hands. He had promised Cornelius Sulla he would protect them, but the girl and her baby had died because of him. Nothing on earth would persuade him to deliver Cornelius or Lucina to Torquatus now, even if they killed him for it. The thought steadied him. He felt no fear, but the awfulness of what he had just witnessed had numbed his mind, so he had no control over the visions that flew through it. Savagery in war he could understand. Terror and self-preservation made soldiers kill without mercy and constant proximity to death often led to mindless cruelty. Two men fighting for their lives in the arena had a certain dignity, even honour, but to feed helpless men and women to wild animals and relish the spectacle seemed to him the lowest kind of barbarism, worse even than the druids who threw Roman prisoners into the blazing heart of the Wicker Man. They, at least, had the mitigation of hatred, the excuse of religion, however perverted. He saw again the frown of concentration on the girl’s face as she ignored her own fate in that last futile attempt to save her infant. Felt the cloth unwrap one fold at a time as the child fell away from him towards the sand.
‘It is not easy to be a defender of Rome.’ The softly spoken words came from the darkness. ‘You think us cruel? You are mistaken. It is not a matter of cruelty, but of duty. We would betray the Empire if we did not do what was necessary to counter this threat to our people. A cruel man might have exterminated every Judaean in Rome, man, woman and child. But we did not. Instead, we tasked our loyal Hero of Rome, Gaius Valerius Verrens, to seek out the leaders and the followers. The job is part done and, for that, we are grateful to him.’
Valerius shook his head. Was he dreaming? ‘The child…?’
‘It was not our intention to harm the child. The person who failed in his duty has been dealt with. Your work is not finished. Come.’ Nero emerged into the light, accompanied by his guards. Valerius raised himself to his feet and automatically fell in by his side. As they walked, he marvelled at the change in the man. The Nero of a few minutes earlier might never have existed. Which was the actor, the Nero of the arena or the Nero of now? Or were there many Neros hidden behind that single mask? Here was no capricious despot, but a ruler reacting to a threat against his people. Reasoned words spoken in honeyed tones. Crime must be punished. Disobedience must be deterred. The greater the danger, the more extreme the example that must be made. Rome would accept the worship of alien gods, but not to the exclusion of Rome’s gods. When he spoke of the paradox of power, Valerius might have been speaking to Seneca. When he spoke of his hopes for Rome, he might have been speaking to himself.
It made what was to come all the more shocking.
They had just reached the path back to the bridge when the first fire was lit and the screaming began. The victim had been tethered to a wooden stake and coated with gleaming black pitch from head to foot. In seconds all that was visible was a writhing column of flame with a tortured spectre at its centre emitting a sound no human had been born to make. Valerius steeled himself against the horror, knowing this was merely another part of the Emperor’s sadistic game, but he could not prevent himself from flinching as the first pyre was joined by another, then another, until ten of the ghastly pillars lit the way. The flames burned red, then gold, then red again as the fire consumed the final remnants of the human form. Then they came to Cornelius.
Nero’s executioners had left Cornelius Sulla’s face and head clear of the pitch, so Valerius instantly recognized the handsome features and golden hair. Bruises marked his flesh and blood flowed scarlet on to the shining black tar on his chest where he had bitten through his lip in his terror. The slight, youthful body shook uncontrollably in its bonds and he kept his eyes tight shut. Valerius thought he saw the aristocrat’s lips move and he asked the gods he didn’t believe in to grant a merciful end to the young man he, and he only, had placed on this stake.
Nero moved closer so he could study the bound figure. ‘He was braver than he seemed. He uttered only a single name when put to the question and he must have understood that name was already known to us.’ He nodded to an unseen presence in the darkness and a torch flared close to Cornelius’s feet. For a moment nothing appeared to happen before, with a soft, sputtering roar, an inferno engulfed the tethered body. Valerius saw Cornelius’s face twist and contort in the heat and the long golden hair was transformed instantly into a halo of golden flame. At last, the clenched teeth parted and his dying screams tortured the night.
‘He makes a better candle than a friend, don’t you think?’ Nero said almost absently. He turned so Valerius could see the flames reflected in his eyes. ‘Cornelius Sulla has a brother, Publius. Torquatus will give you instructions where to find him. You will bring him to us.’
He nodded and was gone, leaving Valerius to stare at a blackened skull with startling white teeth and burning eyes that were still alive.
XIX
‘Forget Cornelius Sulla. He’s no longer our affair.’
Marcus looked up, startled, but the raw edge to Valerius’s voice barred any further questions.
