Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

‘Where’d you get the money from?’

Liam looked guiltily at Bob. ‘We, uh… well, we kind of mugged someone.’

‘Kind of… or did?’

‘Did.’

Maddy shrugged. ‘ Needs must and all that.’

‘I better go and speak to the landlord. See about getting our room back.’

‘Those babel-buds work OK?’

Liam shrugged. ‘Aye. You get some gibberish out of them sometimes.’ He turned to Bob. ‘Better bring them ponies in quick.’

‘Affirmative.’

He turned to the others. ‘We used to have four of them… but people are eating horseflesh now. You’re best not to leave ’em unattended.’

Bob began to unhitch the animals from the cart, Sal helping while Liam led Maddy down the narrow rat run into the courtyard.

As she emerged from the narrow passageway, she looked up. All around the courtyard, on all four sides, she could see balconies and walkways hugging the walls, stacked one on top of the other and propped up on wooden support stilts; she could see the curious faces of children and women looking down at them, a dozen different conversations shouted out from one side to the other. Chickens down in the courtyard, chickens wandering freely along the walkways and balconies. And at the very top an overhanging lip of terracotta roof tiles framed a square of daylight.

Liam approached a thickset, bearded man wearing a leather apron, hacking with a cleaver at the skinned carcass of what looked like a greyhound. She heard Liam mutter something to himself, and remembered that’s how the buds worked: they translated what they heard. Liam cocked his head slightly, listening to the almost immediate translation being whispered into his ear, then repeated it to the man.

‘ Salve. Rediimus. Passimus priotem concavem iterum locare? ’

The man stopped hacking at the carcass then eventually shrugged. ‘ Si vis. ’ He held out a bloody hand. ‘ Quiniue sestertii.’

Liam nodded. A barely discernible delay as he listened for the translation. He dug into his pouch and handed over several coins to the man.

Maddy smiled, impressed at how effectively, almost seamlessly, the babel-bud appeared to work. She made a note to give it a try herself.

Liam nodded a thank-you to the man and was about to lead her across the straw and dung-carpeted courtyard towards an external wooden stairway that would take them up to the building’s third floor when they both heard a commotion coming from the rat run.

AD 54, Subura District, Rome

With the sound of raised voices, Liam turned to see Sal dragging one of the ponies by its reins into the courtyard. It was snorting frantically, distressed and wide-eyed, hooves clattering and skidding in the dirt as she tried to manhandle it in. ‘They tried to take our ponies off us!’

‘Who did?’

A moment later, Bob emerged from the rat run dragging the other animal after him. He let the pony’s reins go and smacked its flank so that it darted across the courtyard towards the other one. A dozen chickens squawked, flapped at the disturbance.

‘Caution!’ Bob barked out.

Almost immediately, a dozen men spilled into the courtyard, all of them thickset and muscular. All of them armed with short swords or daggers, drawn ready to use.

Liam heard the landlord’s voice, his bud translating almost as instantly as an echo.

‹ Watch out! Collegia ‘strong-arms’!›

One of the men stepped forward. ‘ Titus Varelius adsumet unam vestrarum bestiarum! ’

‹ Titus Varelius will have one of your beasts!› the bud whispered quietly in his ear.

The landlord snapped an angry reply and thumbed his nose at them defiantly.

The collegia leader smiled, a broad, gap-toothed grin. His gaze settled on Bob.

‹ Titus is owed this month’s payment. The pony will do.›

‹ Titus can go and kiss my arse› said the landlord.

Liam was no longer aware that he was actually listening to the bud in his ear.

‘This animal is ours,’ said Bob in passable Latin. ‘I recommend you leave immediately!’

The collegia leader’s smile broadened. ‘I hoped you’d say that.’ He pulled a short sword from his belt. ‘Then we shall have some sport with you. Mamercus! Mettius! Vel! This big brute’s yours!’

Three of his men stepped forward, grinning like naughty schoolboys as they angled the tips of their blades towards Bob and sized him up.

‘Are you an ox or a man?’ one of them laughed.

Bob scowled. ‘Neither.’ He lunged. A whiplash of movement that concluded with the tips of his fingers lodged firmly beneath the jawline of one of the men; the jab had crushed his windpipe. As the man’s legs began to buckle beneath him, and he choked, gasping for breath, Bob caught his short sword in mid-air as it began to tumble from a limp hand. With a deft flick, he was suddenly holding it by the handle instead of the blade. He lunged forward, swinging it at the throat of the second collegia man. But this one was a little more prepared. He thrust out his blade, managing to parry the heavy sweep barely inches from his neck. The ring of metal echoed round the courtyard and all of a sudden, Liam noticed, every creaking wooden balcony above them seemed to be lined with curious onlookers. It reminded him of a crowded penny theatre.

The gap-toothed leader decided the ‘sport’ was already over with and barked an order to the rest of his men to attack Bob. They fanned out either side of him.

Liam pulled Sal back into a corner of the courtyard, beside the old landlord who was already quickly packing away his joints of meat and muttering to himself. ‘Those scum think they own the place!’

‘Maddy!’ Liam called out to her. She was still standing pretty much in the middle of the courtyard. ‘Back up! Give Bob some room!’

Three of them closed in on Bob at the same time, one of them swinging his sword at his neck, the other two thrusting at his torso. He ducked the swing at his neck deftly enough, but one of the other blades lodged deep into the side of his ribcage.

A groan erupted from the balconies above. They recognized the wound as a fatal one. That the fight wasn’t going to last much longer.

The landlord grimaced and shook his head. ‘Pity.’

But Bob casually twisted his body, yanking the handle of the sword protruding from his ribs out of the hands of the man who’d thrust it into him. He grasped the handle and wrenched the blade out of his side. One sword in each hand now, all the collegia thugs had successfully managed to do was arm him with two swords… and, of course, annoy him.

Bob swept the sword in his left hand down low, a round, scythe-like sweep that hamstrung one of them and lopped the foot off another.

In his other hand he flipped the short sword blade-over-hilt, catching it by its tip then throwing it end over end at the third man who’d swung his heavy sword carelessly for Bob’s neck. It thudded into his stomach, the man doubling over with a grunt and dropping to his knees in the dirt, beside the other two men clutching their legs, spurting arcs of dark crimson on to the ground.

Above the courtyard voices cheered out from the balconies. Liam glanced up at them.

They’re cheering for Bob.

Bob picked up another discarded weapon and again had a sword in each hand. His beefy hands were spinning the blades like marching batons; shimmering blurs of glinting metal, like rotary saw blades; a whusk-whusk-whusk of sharp edges slicing through the air.

‘Who’s next?’ Bob announced calmly in heavily accented Latin.

He’s a one-man army. Liam shook his head in amazement. Isn’t he always?

The collegia thugs were certainly now looking less sure of themselves. Liam guessed reputation was at stake here. He could see the gang leader weighing things up, wondering whether to withdraw from the courtyard with all these people still openly braying their support for Bob, or try and finish the ox-of-a-man off. A lesson to everyone watching that no one — no one, not even this extraordinary brute — was going to walk away after thumbing his nose at their collegia.