S.J.A. Turney - The Great Game

Just him.

He felt anger.

Anger at the audacity of people who believed they had the right to question the undisputed emperor of Rome and who planned to murder him for their own benefit. Lucilla particularly. After all, what true Roman could plot the death of their brother? Images of Lucius flashed momentarily through his seething mind.

He felt anger at the emperor himself for allowing his freedmen so much control over the state, while he played editor for the games and enjoyed his luxuries and for permitting the world to reach this desperate situation. Rufinus felt he knew Commodus enough to know that the man was capable of so much more.

Anger at Pompeianus for having the ability to have done something about all this, and yet sitting back and letting it happen while he moved his imagined pieces on an imagined board.

Anger at five guards of whose faces he had only a memory and who had tracked down a loyal Roman agent and slit his throat in the name of ‘duty’.

Most of all, he felt anger at prefect Paternus, who had taken him under his wing and raised him from the legions only to set him on a path of espionage, murder and bloodshed that had stained both their hands and tarred their souls; a man whose path had strayed from the honourable duty of the Praetorian Guard into chaos and crime; a man whose very abuse of his position made him the worst kind of villain.

Rufinus ground his teeth as he stumbled hurriedly along, Acheron plodding easily at his side, heads turning at the sight of a white-clad Praetorian staggering like a drunken madman accompanied by a giant hound. A quick swig from the vial of painkiller, with no thought as to what dosage it was. He could not spend the time measuring.

He barely noticed as the wide thoroughfare that descended from the Viminalis hill gave way to the narrower streets of the subura. This area of the city was the most thriving and busy, permanently full of life (mostly of the ‘low’ variety) and teeming with the poor, beggars, soldiers on furlough, whores and thieves, hawkers and drunkards and spies. That the subura seemed to be as deserted as the higher regions was telling of just how many people had converged on the great amphitheatre at the eastern end of the forum to attend the games, to see the arrival of the Golden Emperor Commodus, or simply to sell their wares to the crowds, peddle their flesh, or cut a few purse strings.

The noise was increasing again with the closeness of the masses. The sound of a quarter of a million excited, expectant people arose ahead. Rufinus rounded a curve in the street and caught sight of the upper arcades of the great amphitheatre. Even now, with everything that was at stake, it was hard not to marvel and just drink in the sight of that great wonder of construction. The top level, with its solid facade, punctured with square windows, supporting the dozens of poles that held the great retractable sunshade aloft. The third level, below that, with its encircling arcade of decorative arches, each containing a statue of a God, a hero of Rome, or an emperor of the past. And below that, out of sight behind the buildings, a second level mirroring the third, all above a final, lowest arcade of entrance arches.

Breath-taking. Or it would be, had Rufinus spare breath to take.

Wheezing and panting, clutching his side where a particularly bad burn had begun to rub painfully on the bindings, he rounded two more corners, descending to the lowest level of the city, and turned out into the wide paved area that surrounded the arena, where he was confronted by a wall of people, shoulder to shoulder, crowding the square. Children sat on their father’s shoulders. Youths climbed the colossal, hundred foot statue of the god Sol, using his pedestal and feet to gain an improved view. All but the lowest storey of the amphitheatre were visible above the seething mass of people and from this close it could be seen that hundreds of people filled the dark arches of the building, leaning around the decorative statues to wave to friends and beckon family.

And at regular intervals, all around the arches, glittering armoured figures in white tunics stood, scrutinising the crowd as they remained stolid and impassive. Rufinus stopped and shook his head. How was he supposed to get there?

‘Make way!’ he bellowed. ‘Praetorian Guardsman!’ Even at the top of his voice, the command was almost lost in the drone of thousands of excited people. A few of those nearby, at the periphery, glanced round in surprise and jostled to move out of the way. Even with the best of intentions, there was not enough room in the mass for them to adequately shift and allow him passage.

‘Make way!’ he bellowed again, voice cracking with the effort. Beside him, Acheron snapped out a loud bark, startling more of the nearby folk and causing them to open a tiny gap – not much, but all they could manage.

Rufinus peered into the passage through the crowd. It was barely wide enough for a man to move through, let alone an armoured one with a huge dog, but it was clearly the widest he was likely to get. Wincing at the multitude of aches and pains the action brought, he began to push through the crowd, shouldering his way and clamping his teeth down on the cries he issued with the pain of every jolt and jostle.

His steel-plated segmented armour battered members of the public, causing bruises and drawing blood as he forced his way ever deeper into the crowd, constantly demanding that they make way and announcing his status, the great dark shape of Acheron padding along close behind him. Here and there, despite everything, a man or woman would complain or curse at him as he trod on feet, cut cheek bones with his shoulder plates, pushed people physically out of the way with his own yelp of pain joining their cry of irritation.

No one complained at Acheron.

It was a hot, painful and interminable journey but gradually he fought his way closer and closer to the looming edifice. He struggled to make his way through the mass, but Perennis and Paternus would have a path cleared for the emperor. Likely his route would take him around the far side, looping the whole building before he entered, so that the whole crowd could see and cheer him.

He was so close now that he could see the inner arches and radiating passages echoing back from the entrances into the heart of the amphitheatre. A few of those interior vaults would hold food stalls but many seemed unoccupied and dark.

‘ Rufinus ?’

He missed it the first time, and it was only as the man shouted again and waved an arm that Rufinus recognised his name and his head snapped back and forth, trying to identify the source of the call. Mercator stood on the second level, next to a statue of one of the Flavian generals, waving his free arm, javelin leaning against the stonework. In the next arch along, Icarion was looking across at his friend in confusion, and then turned at a pointed finger and traced its path to see their friend pushing through the crowd toward the arena. Icarion had brought both his javelins. Perhaps he was expecting trouble?

‘Mercator! Icarion! Come down!’

With redoubled effort, he heaved his way through the crowd, crying out with every stab of pain and not caring who heard, pushing people roughly aside and causing shouts of consternation and threats to rise up around him. Acheron stayed at his heel as he moved.

Suddenly, at last, his good hand touched stone, and he grasped the amphitheatre as though it might be pulled away again by the undertow in the sea of people, the cold blocks gritty in his hand. The crowds did not stop at the outer circumference, though. The entrance corridors were packed with people, and Rufinus had to pull himself along the wall and heave through people into the passageway.

A moment more of struggling, and Rufinus found elbow room. Within the inner passageways the crowds cleared. Those who had managed to secure a seat in the stands would already now be there and watching the arena and the imperial box eagerly. The rest had gathered to see the emperor’s arrival, and would have no chance of doing so while hidden within the arcades of the structure.