Douglas Jackson - Defender of Rome

Inside the villa, Marcus and Serpentius fought back to back in the doorway of the room where the Christians cowered, their swords creating a whirling arc of iron that was the only thing keeping them alive. Marcus felt his strength draining and the veteran gladiator had already resigned himself to death. He was only being kept alive by Serpentius’s speed, but even that could not last much longer.

The earthquake saved them.

When the first tremor shook the villa like a rat in a terrier’s mouth the Praetorians around them froze. Serpentius took advantage of the moment’s indecision with a savage lunge that sliced into his assailant’s windpipe. As the man fell backwards, the wooden stairway began to fall apart and his comrades retreated past his body the way they’d come. The injured decurion was the last to go, shaking his head at the folly that had brought him here.

At the base of the stairs Torquatus roared in frustration, but the ground beneath his feet tossed like a choppy sea and he felt the whole building creaking around him. As the stairway collapsed he took to his heels with the rest and rushed for the safety of the open air.

A woman’s scream split the doom-laden silence between a pair of shockwaves.

Poppaea!

Valerius struggled to his feet, picked up his sword and stumbled towards the death trap of the house. Flames poured from the ground floor, evidence that at least one oil lamp had been upended to set the villa on fire. Tumbled pillars and broken statues added to the Stygian confusion in the corridors.

He ran blindly through the choking, smoke-filled darkness until he reached the room where he’d found her praying. It was empty, but a second scream drew him to the open window and out into a blizzard of falling tiles. One of the clay missiles hit his shoulder a glancing blow, but his mind was too focused to register the pain. He followed a path that took him downwards, towards the ocean. He guessed that there would be access from the villa to the sea. An estate of this size must have a harbour where fishermen delivered the day’s catch or favoured guests could be landed by boat. There would be a road and it was the road Valerius was looking for.

When the earthquake struck, Poppaea would have been terrified. He had sensed an immense well of courage within her, but the tortured writhing of the earth created a spastic panic that even the strength of her faith would not have been able to overcome. She would instinctively have sought refuge outside the walls. Yet the safety of the open air was an illusion. This was where Torquatus’s men would come, driven by those very same fears.

He found a gateway, the door standing wide, and ran through it into the open. The narrow road ran parallel to the cliffs and he almost didn’t see the glint of reflected moonlight. It caught the corner of his eye and he turned without thinking, abandoning the cobbled pathway for the ankle-breaking tussock grass of the cliff top. The glint he had seen was silver — the silver of a Praetorian officer’s sculpted breastplate. A hundred yards ahead, close to the cliff edge, he could just make out the purple sheen of Poppaea’s dress as she struggled with a dark-clad figure. Torquatus.

The Praetorian had Poppaea by the shoulder and was attempting to drag her back towards the roadway as she spat and scratched, her dark hair flailing around her head. Valerius saw Torquatus draw back his hand and whip it across Poppaea’s face. As she sank to her knees, stunned by the blow, he felt the rage rising inside him like a storm ready to break. He remembered Fabia’s sapphire eyes and saw them go dull. Lucina, her nobility crushed and driven beyond the edge of madness. The dying flutter of Ruth’s final heartbeat. His anger gave him new strength and he charged through the grass and bushes.

Torquatus’s head came up at the sound of a nailed sandal on stone and his lips drew back in a snarl as he recognized his attacker. He lifted his sword to meet the assault.

Valerius crabbed to his left, forcing Torquatus to turn with him, his sword in his right hand and his left still gripping Poppaea’s dress. The refusal to release his prisoner left the Praetorian’s flank open and Valerius was confident he could take advantage of the mistake. But Torquatus was no innocent. He had served in the legions, and five years at the centre of Nero’s court had taught him how to use power. He brought the edge of his blade within a hair’s breadth of the pale skin at Poppaea’s throat. ‘Make one more move and she dies here and now.’

Valerius froze.

‘I am the Emperor’s representative here,’ the Praetorian rasped. ‘Tonight I will present the traitor Poppaea Sabina to my lord along with the evidence of her guilt. When she watches the man Petrus and his ragged crowd of renegades put to the question I have no doubt she will exhibit that pleasing Christian trait of sacrificing herself to ease their pain. It will be most instructive, for her, and for you. Because I intend you to be the first to feel the kiss of the glowing iron.’

The words were confident enough, but Torquatus’s eyes kept flicking towards the house and Valerius knew the Praetorian commander was only bolstering his own courage. He was also bluffing.

‘You won’t find any help there, Torquatus. Your friends will be halfway to Rome by now.’ Valerius took a step forward just as another shockwave rumbled through the earth. It threw him off balance and the movement was exaggerated by his weakness. In the same instant Torquatus noticed the blood dripping from his opponent’s right arm and saw his opportunity.

The point of the gladius snapped out in a perfectly executed lunge that should have pierced Valerius through the body. In his mind, Torquatus was already withdrawing the blade in the twisting gutting stroke that would leave a man screaming for a merciful end. He was quick but not quick enough. The years of training on the hot sands of the ludus had given Valerius a gladiator’s instinct for survival. At the last second he pivoted and allowed the sword to slide across his body, so close that the razor edge sliced through the cloth of his tunic. A right-handed fighter would have been forced on the defensive, but the movement positioned Valerius to counter-attack with a rising backhand cut designed to take Torquatus’s head from his shoulders. The Praetorian cried out as the sword sliced towards his exposed throat, but loss of blood had slowed Valerius’s reactions and that gave Torquatus the heartbeat he needed to step back out of the arc of the younger man’s sword.

Valerius knew he had to finish the fight quickly. Every second left him weaker; each moment of delay made the outcome more certain. His legs felt as if they were moving through deep sand. Torquatus shimmered in his vision as if he was seeing him through a haze, now a giant, now a midget, but never clear enough or close enough to find with the point.

Poppaea stirred in the grass at the Praetorian’s feet and Torquatus laughed as he sidestepped another pathetic lunge of Valerius’s sword. ‘Not so heroic now, my friend.’ He circled away so that Valerius had his back to the crumbling cliff edge. ‘Just a wounded beast with nowhere to run.’

Without warning, he darted forward and forced Valerius to meet blade with blade, the clash of iron singing in the night. Torquatus was the stronger and faster now, and the younger man was forced to take another step back as the Praetorian hacked at his weakening guard. He felt the ground falling away beneath his feet and knew the cliff could only be paces away. A smashing blow numbed his fingers and the gladius dropped from his hand. Torquatus’s face twisted into that familiar mocking smile. One more attack and it was finished. Valerius might have succumbed to despair, but instead cold fury sharpened his mind. Death had no fears for him, but victory for Torquatus would mean death for those he loved. He would not allow that. He saw Torquatus’s eyes narrow the way a hunting lion’s do the instant before the charge. When he came, it was with a savage swing at his victim’s defenceless head, but in his eagerness the Praetorian had overlooked the young Roman’s artificial fist. The block was too feeble to stop the blade entirely and Valerius felt a line of fire slice across his cheekbone. But it gave him the opportunity he needed. He grabbed Torquatus’s tunic with the fingers of his left hand, and threw himself backwards. The Praetorian commander flailed desperately as their combined momentum vaulted him over Valerius’s falling body and the weight of his armour carried him beyond the cliff edge. Valerius watched the shrieking figure disappear into the darkness. His cry of triumph was as short-lived as it was pointless. For in killing his enemy he had also killed himself. The impetus he’d used to throw Torquatus was unstoppable, and now it combined with gravity to somersault him too towards the void. He felt the instant the world vanished beneath him and a moment of weightlessness which was the prelude to death. But his fall was short, sharp and ended with an agonizing tug that ripped through his wounded arm and tore the tendons of his right shoulder. He opened his eyes, surprised to be alive. The dusty earth of the crumbling cliff face stared back at him from a foot away. He twisted his head and looked upwards. The bindings for the leather socket had tangled among the roots of a small bush to halt his plunge. But for how long? His saviour was a very insignificant clump of leafless twigs and a single unwise movement or another shockwave would pull it free. Blood dribbled down his arm in a warm stream from beneath the cowhide socket. He could feel the life draining from him.