Douglas Jackson: Defender of Rome

‘No. Please. It’s just…’ She shook her head. ‘It seems such a long time since I ate proper food. I’m ravenous.’

He called for Julia, who burst into tears when she saw Olivia awake.

Valerius watched his sister eat — a little boiled chicken breast with a ripe peach from the garden — and studied her. The change astonished him. A few hours earlier she had been an invalid; now, she looked almost capable of dancing. His joy was tempered by Joshua’s warning: the effects will not be permanent. Even so, this was hope and hope was something he hadn’t felt for many weeks.

When she had eaten, she insisted Valerius help her sit up. ‘I will have a conversation like a human being,’ she said. ‘I have had enough of being a corpse.’ She studied him as he had been studying her. ‘You are unhappy, Valerius. I can see it in your eyes.’

He shrugged with a little half-smile, but couldn’t find the words to tell her what he felt.

‘Me?’ she said, reading his mind. ‘You must not mind, Brother. I know I am dying.’ He opened his mouth to protest, but she put a finger to his lips. ‘No, do not deny it. Even though you have worked this magic today, I still feel myself fading. But do not be sad. I suffer no pain, only weakness. The gods are calling me, and when the time comes I will go willingly. All I ask is that you remember me at the lemuria. I would like to see Father again, but… I understand. But it is not just your little sister. I have seen it since you came back from Britain.’ She stroked his wooden hand. ‘Something changed you there, and not just this.’

They had never talked of it before, but a hollow feeling inside told him this might be his last opportunity. ‘I met a girl, but she is

… gone. I made a new life as a soldier and I miss it.’

‘Then be a soldier again. You are still young. Still strong.’ She picked up his left hand and ran her finger over the calluses he’d earned from the long hours of training with the gladius. ‘You were a good soldier?’

‘Yes, I was a good soldier.’

‘Then they will find a place for you.’

‘There is Father. He wants to see me in the Senate.’

She laughed, and it was like the tinkle of a delicate silver bell. ‘You will never be a politician, Valerius. The first time some greasy aedile seeking promotion tries to bribe you, you will throw him in the Tiber.’ Her face became serious again. ‘You cannot live your life for Father. You must find your own way.’

She lay back and he placed his hand on hers. He remembered her as she had been on the day she turned down their father’s marriage candidate, her eyes flashing with fire and filling the air with scorn. No wonder the old man was afraid to see her.

‘Tell me about Britain,’ she said. The request prompted a moment’s hesitation. He had never revealed the truth about his experiences in Britain, not even to Fabia. But, like the good sister she was, Olivia eased the path for him. ‘But only speak of the happy times.’

So he told her about the fine land, the forests and the meadows with their endless unnameable shades of green, the bounteous hunting and the pride of the legions; about his beautiful Maeve and her unscrupulous father Lucullus, and Falco and the defenders of the Temple of Claudius, and of Cearan and the fearsome Iceni warriors he had led.

‘He sounds very handsome,’ she said. ‘For a barbarian.’

‘He was. And a good man.’

‘If you serve in the legions once more, where would it be? Britain again?’

He shook his head. ‘Britain has too many memories for me, so not there, at least for now. There is always trouble on the Rhenus frontier and a good officer would be welcomed, even with one arm. Or up beyond Illyricum fighting the barbarians on the Danuvius. But the most likely place would be Armenia, in the east, where General Corbulo is campaigning against the Parthians.’

‘So Armenia it is, my hero brother. Tomorrow you must petition Nero for a position on General Corbulo’s staff and’ — her voice took on a fair imitation of their father’s pompous tones — ‘do not return unless you add new laurels to the name of the Valerii.’

He would have replied, but she lay back and closed her eyes. Within a minute she was in a deep sleep. He arranged her as comfortably as he could and kissed her gently on the forehead. Her skin felt fever hot against his lips.

On the way to his room he met Julia in the corridor.

‘Is she…’

‘She’s asleep, but I think the medicine is wearing off.’

Tears welled up in the slave girl’s eyes. ‘Please ask the barbarian doctor to help my mistress. If…’

He touched her arm. ‘You can ask him yourself. He has promised to visit, but don’t call him a barbarian. He might turn us all into frogs.’ The old joke made her smile. ‘And Julia?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Mistress Olivia said she thought she heard a man’s voice today. Have there been visitors you haven’t told me about?’

‘No, master,’ she replied. But she took a long time to say it.

Valerius rose before sunrise the next morning, the twelfth day of June and the third of Vestalia. At this time of the day the streets were cool, and by the time he passed the Temple of Vesta a long line of women were already waiting with their sacrifices to the goddess of the hearth. The festival was the only time the temple was open to any except the virgins who maintained the sacred flame, and then only to women and the Pontifex Maximus, Nero himself. The scent of baking reminded him he hadn’t broken his fast, but he smiled at the thought of eating the tasteless salt cakes the priestesses produced as tributes to the goddess.

The gladiator school was on the flat ground known as the Tarentum, outside the city wall on the west side of the Campus Martius. He turned off the Nova Via on to the Clivus Victoriae and then across the open space of the Velabrum until he could follow the river round to the old voting grounds. The stench from the Tiber gagged in his throat, but he knew he would become used to it, just as he would become used to the sight of the bloated corpses of dead dogs and deformed newborns floating in its sulphur-yellow filth. The river flowed sluggishly on his left and to his right the fading grandeur of the Pantheon and Agrippa’s baths were highlighted by the early morning sunshine.

By the time he reached the ludus a score of men were already sweating as they faced each other on the hard-packed dirt under the critical gaze of the lanista, the trainer who would hire out his troop to the editores who staged games for the Emperor or for rich patrons who wanted to impress their friends. Mostly they fought for show, but occasionally, if enough money was on offer, these men who shared barrack rooms and meals, and sometimes beds, would fight each other to the death. Valerius had once been a staunch supporter of the games, with his own favourite fighters, but now he stayed away. In Britain he had seen enough blood spilled for a lifetime.

Most of the gladiators were slaves, former warriors swept up by the Empire’s wars and spared the living death of the mines and the quarries for the entertainment value they promised. A few were unblooded: troublesome farm slaves sold on by their owners because it was more profitable than killing them and bought by the lanista on the strength of their size and fighting potential. Fewer still were the freeborn who fought of their own free will: debtors, gambling their lives to release themselves from some financial millstone, or men addicted to the thrill of combat and seeking the eternal fame that was a gladiator’s greatest prize. The odds were against them. Most would never find it, only a painful death squirming in their own blood and guts on the sand.

He saw Marcus, his trainer, working with two fighters in the centre of the practice ground and walked through the gate and into the shade of the barrack building to do the loosening-up exercises the old gladiator insisted upon. Most of the gladiators trained naked, but Valerius preferred to cover his modesty with a short kilt. He removed his tunic and carefully folded it on a bench by the doorway. A few of the men glanced at him, but none acknowledged him. He would never be truly welcome here among the living dead. He felt the tension rising inside him. He was ready. First, short runs to simulate attack and retreat. Then stretches and muscle movements. More runs. More stretches. Only when a man had broken sweat and could feel his breath searing his lungs and his heart ramming against his ribs was he ready for the fight. As he took a drink from the fountain a shadow loomed over him.