comrades will smash the slaves apart.’
‘Course we will, sir!’ cried a short man with a gap-toothed grin. ‘For you and for Rome!’
The centurion glared at the soldier’s boldness, but Crassus smiled. ‘Good, soldier. That’s what I like to hear.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The centurion saluted with gusto. ‘Every one of us feels the same way.’
‘CRA-SSUS!’ shouted a voice. The chant echoed up and down the ditch.
Crassus accepted the acclamation with a nod. ‘If your work is done ahead of time, every man is to receive an extra ration of acetum this evening. As you were.’
Broad grins broke out everywhere. There was a rush to pick up trenching tools.
Crassus rode on. He traversed the entire length of the camp’s western perimeter, stopping here and there to interrogate officers, appraise their soldiers’ work, and to deliver short, rousing speeches. He grew more encouraged as he went. The legionaries’ zeal was palpable, not just here, but during the day when they were marching, and in the evenings, when they sat outside their tents, gossiping and drinking. He heard it in the tone of the bawdy songs they sang, and saw it in their sunburned faces. His men wanted a fight. Like him, they wanted to defeat Spartacus. Despite the fact that he felt as if he’d been in the caldarium all day, Crassus’ good mood returned. Victory would be his.
He had turned his horse’s head towards the open ground beyond the camp when something caught his attention. Crassus blinked in surprise. He looked again. An icy fury took him, and he glanced up and down the trench. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
There was no immediate answer, and Crassus’ temper exploded. ‘I SAID, WHO THE FUCK IS IN CHARGE HERE?’
‘T-that would be me, sir,’ replied a youngish centurion whose brown hair was spiked with sweat.
Crassus rode his horse right up to the officer, nearly knocking him over. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ He jabbed an arm to his right.
‘The meaning of what, sir?’
‘Look at that piece of shit there.’ He pointed at a legionary.
Alarmed, the man froze. Instinctively, his companions moved a step away from him.
‘I won’t call him a soldier, because he clearly isn’t,’ growled Crassus. ‘Had you not noticed that he had set down his sword?’
The centurion stared. The colour left his face as he saw the gladius lying on the earth behind the ditch. ‘No, sir.’
‘And you call yourself an officer?’ spat Crassus. He sat up straight on his horse’s back so that everyone could see him better. ‘Hear me, legionaries! Since time immemorial, Roman soldiers have worked to erect their camps while fully armed,’ he shouted. ‘They have done this so that should the need arise, they can fight at a moment’s notice. Men who disobey this simple order place their lives, and those of their comrades, at risk.’ He paused to let his words travel. ‘This dereliction of duty cannot, and will not, be tolerated in my army!’ He glared at the legionary, whose face had gone grey with fear. ‘Caepio!’
‘Sir!’ The veteran centurion was by his right foot.
‘Take that man out before his comrades, and execute him.’
For the first time, Crassus saw real respect in Caepio’s eyes. Good.
Gripping the hilt of his sword, the centurion stalked to the ditch and stood over the offending soldier. ‘Out!’ he bawled.
The man climbed out of the trench, stumbling as he did so. He pulled himself upright and threw a beseeching glance at Crassus. ‘I’m sorry, sir! I’ve never done such a thing before. I-’
Crassus’ lips thinned in disapproval.
Caepio was watching. ‘Shut your mouth, filth! Your general isn’t interested.’ He backhanded the soldier across the face. ‘Kneel!’
Sobbing, the man did as he was told.
Caepio’s gladius was already in his hand. ‘Chin up!’
Crassus took a quick look around. Every man within sight was riveted to what was going on, which was precisely what he had intended.
Swallowing, the soldier lifted his gaze to the sky, exposing his throat in the process.
‘Make your last request of the gods, dung rat,’ ordered Caepio, drawing back his right arm.
The man’s eyes closed, and his lips moved in silent prayer.
With incredible speed, Caepio’s blade flashed down. It entered via the hollow at the base of the soldier’s neck, slicing through the soft flesh with savage ease. Death was instantaneous. The gladius cut every major blood vessel over the heart into shreds, coming to rest in the victim’s backbone.
A horrible choking noise left the man’s lips, and he went as limp as a child’s doll.
Caepio tugged free his blade, and a scarlet tide of blood jetted up from the lipped wound. The centurion lifted his right foot and booted the corpse backwards so that it fell into the ditch, spraying the nearest soldiers in liquid gore.
‘Remember, you sheep-humping bastards, that any man caught in future without a weapon will receive the same punishment,’ Caepio roared, wiping his blade on the bottom of his tunic.
‘Or worse,’ added Crassus with a hint of spite.
A silence fell that no one dared to break — except a raven high overhead. Its derisive call seemed to mock the assembled soldiers.
‘You,’ said Crassus, pinning the young centurion with his eyes. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Lucius Varinius, sir.’
‘Not a relation of the disgraced praetor, surely?’ asked Crassus with glee.
‘He was a distant cousin, sir,’ came the stiff reply.
‘I see. There are two fools in the same family. That’s not surprising, I suppose. Give your vine cane to Caepio.’
Miserably, Varinius did as he was told.
‘Break it!’ ordered Crassus.
Caepio snapped the wooden cane over his knee and dropped the broken pieces to the ground.
‘You are demoted to the ranks with immediate effect,’ barked Crassus. ‘Consider yourself lucky to be alive. Expect to stand in the front line of every battle. There, perhaps, you might redeem some of your honour.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ Varinius mumbled.
‘Let this be a lesson to all of you.’ Crassus cast one more contemptuous look at the watching legionaries before he turned his horse and rode away, Caepio marching by his side.
‘That won’t happen ever again, sir,’ said the centurion approvingly.
‘You think so?’ asked Crassus, fishing.
‘That put the fear of Hades into every man who saw it, sir. Each of them will tell his mates, and they’ll tell theirs. The news will travel through the army quicker than shit through a man with cholera. Which, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, is a damn good thing.’
‘I don’t mind you saying that at all, centurion,’ replied Crassus.
Chapter XIII
Near the town of Croton, on the Ionian Sea
Carbo eyed the headland that jutted out into the sea about a mile away. Above the town’s tumbledown stone walls, he could just make out the impressive pillars of the sanctuary to Hera Licinia, the Greek goddess. Croton might be a ghost town compared to its heyday half a millennium before, but its remaining inhabitants were still civilised, he thought. The men in the cove he was spying on couldn’t have been more different.
After seven fruitless weeks of trawling up and down the coast, he had found some pirates.
Carbo didn’t know whether to feel relieved or alarmed: they looked even more cutthroat than the gladiators in the ludus. Black-, brownand fair-skinned, they were for the most part clad in ragged tunics or simple loincloths. The
