Conn Iggulden - The Gates Of Rome

"The Fighting Monkey, they will call you!" Gaius declared in awe.

Marcus threw hay at his face and they grabbed each other with mock ferocity, rolling around for a second until Gaius ended up on top, sitting heavily on his friends chest.

"I will be the slightly better swordsman, too modest to embarrass you in front of the ladies."

He struck a proud pose and Marcus shoved him off into the straw again. They sat panting and lost in dreams for a moment.

At length, Marcus spoke: "In truth, you will run this estate, like your father. I have nothing and you know my mother is a whore… no, don't say anything. We both heard your father say it. I have no inheritance save my name, and that is stained. I can only see a bright future in the army, where at least my birth is noble enough to allow me high position. Having Renius as my trainer will help us both, but me most of all."

"You will always be my friend, you know. Nothing can come between us." Gaius spoke clearly, looking him in the eye.

"We will find our paths together."

They both nodded and gripped hands for a second in the pact. As they let go, Tubruk's familiar bulk appeared as he stuck his head into the hayloft.

"Get yourselves cleaned up. Once Renius has finished with your father, he'll want some sort of inspection."

They stood slowly, nervousness obvious in their movements.

"Is he cruel?" Gaius asked.

Tubruk didn't smile. "Yes, he is cruel. He is the hardest man I have ever known. He wins battles because the other men feel pain and are frightened of death and dismemberment. He is more like a sword than a man, and he will make you both as hard as himself. You will probably never thank him-you will hate him-but what he gives you will save your lives more than once."

Gaius looked at him questioningly. "Did you know him before?"

Tubruk laughed, a short bark with no humor. "I should say so. He trained me for the ring, when I was a slave."

His eyes flashed in the sun as he turned, and then he was gone.

Renius stood with his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands clasped behind his back. He frowned at the seated Julius.

"No. If anyone interferes, I will leave on that hour. You want your son and the whore's whelp to be made into soldiers. I know how to do that. I have been doing it, one way or another, all my life. Sometimes they only learn as the enemy charges, sometimes they never learn, and I have left a few of those in shallow foreign graves."

"Tubruk will want to discuss their progress with you. His judgment is usually first rate. He was, after all, trained by you," Julius said, still trying to regain the initiative he felt he had lost.

This man was an overwhelming force. From the moment he entered the room, he had dominated the conversation. Instead of setting out the manner of his son's teaching, as he had intended, Julius found himself on the defensive, answering questions about his estate and training facilities. He knew better now what he did not have than what he did.

"They are very young, and…"

"Any older would be too late. Oh, you can take a man of twenty and make him a competent soldier, fit and hard. A child, though, can be fashioned into a thing of metal, unbreakable. Some would say you have already left it too late, that proper training should commence at five years. I am of the opinion that ten is the optimum to ensure the proper development of muscle and lung capacity. Earlier can break their spirits; later and their spirits are too firmly in the wrong courses."

"I agree, to some ext-"

"Are you the real father of the whore's boy?" Renius spoke curtly but quietly, as if inquiring after the weather.

"What? Gods, no! I-"

"Good. That would have been a complication. I accept the year contract then. My word is given. Get the boys out into the stable yard for inspection in five minutes. They saw me arrive, so they should be ready. I will report to you quarterly in this room. If you cannot make the appointment, be so good as to let me know. Good day."

He turned on his heel and strode out. Behind him, Julius blew air out of puffed cheeks in a mixture of amazement and contentment.

"Could be just what I wanted," he said, and smiled for the first time that morning.

The first thing they were told was that they would get a good night's sleep. For eight hours, from before midnight to dawn, they were left alone. At all other times, they were being taught, or toughened, or cramming food into their mouths in hasty, snatched breaks of only minutes.

Marcus had had the excitement knocked out of him on that first day, when Renius took his chin in his leathery hand and peered at him.

"Weak spirited, like his mother was."

He'd said no more at the time, but Marcus burned with the humiliating thought that the old soldier he wanted so much to like him might have seen his mother in the city. From the first moment, his desire to please Renius became a source of shame to him. He knew he had to excel at the training, but not in such a way that the old bastard would approve.

Renius was easy to hate. From the first, he called Gaius by his name, while only referring to Marcus as "the boy" or "the whore's boy." Gaius could see it was deliberate, some attempt to use their hatred as a tool to improve them. Yet he could not help but feel annoyance as his friend was humbled over and over again.

A stream ran through the estate, carrying cold water down to the sea. One month after his arrival, they had been taken down to the water before noon. Renius had simply motioned to a dark pool.

"Get in," he said.

They'd looked at each other and shrugged.

The cold was numbing from the first moments.

"Stay there until I come back for you" was the command called over his shoulder as Renius walked back up to the house, where he ate a light lunch and bathed, before sleeping through the hot afternoon.

Marcus felt the cold much more than his friend. After only a couple of hours, he was blue around the face and unable to speak for shivering. As the afternoon wore on, his legs went numb and the muscles of his face and neck ached from shivering. They talked with difficulty, anything to take their minds off the cold. The shadows moved and the talk died. Gaius was nowhere near as uncomfortable as his friend. His limbs had gone numb long before, but breathing was still easy, whereas Marcus was sipping small breaths.

The afternoon cooled unnoticed outside the eternal chill of the shaded section of fast-flowing water. Marcus rested with his head leaning to one side or the other, with an eye half submerged and slowly blinking, seeing nothing. His mind could drift until his nose was covered, when he would splutter and raise himself straight again. Then he would dip once more as the pain worsened. They had not spoken for a long time. It had become a private battle, but not against each other. They would stay until they were called for, until Renius came back and ordered them to climb out.

As the day fled, they both knew that they could not climb out. Even if Renius appeared at that moment and congratulated them, he would have to drag them out himself, getting wet and muddy in the process if the gods were watching at all.

Marcus slipped in and out of waking, coming back with a sudden start and realizing he had somehow drifted away from the cold and the darkness. He wondered then if he would die in the river.

In one of those dreaming dozes, he felt warmth and heard the welcoming crackle of a good log fire. An old man prodded the burning wood with his toe, smiling at the sparks. He turned and seemed to notice the boy watching him, white and lost.

"Come closer to the warm, boy, I'll not hurt ye."

The old man's face carried the wrinkles and dirt of decades of labor and worry. It was scarred and seamed like a stitched purse. The hands were covered in rope veins that shifted under the skin as the swollen knuckles moved. He was dressed like a traveling man, with patched clothes and a dark red cloth wrapping his throat.