Conn Iggulden - The Emperor Series Books 1-5

He dressed quickly and set out after Gaius as the sun cleared the valley rim, lighting the estates even as the field slaves bent to work in the first session.

What mist there was burned off rapidly, even in the cooler woods. Marcus found Gaius on the border of the two estates. He was unarmed.

As Marcus came up behind him, Gaius turned, a look of horror on his face. When he saw it was his friend he relaxed and smiled.

‘Glad you came, Marcus. I didn’t know what time he’d arrive, so I’ve been here a while. I thought you were him for a moment.’

‘I’d have waited with you, you know. I’m your friend, remember. Also, I owe him a beating as well.’

‘Your hand is broken, Marcus. Anyway, I owe him two beatings to your one.’

‘True, but I could have jumped on him from a tree, or tripped him as he ran in.’

‘Tricks don’t win battles. I will beat him with my strength.’

For a moment, Marcus was silenced. There was something cold and unforgiving in the usually sunny boy he faced.

The sun rose slowly, shadows changed. Marcus sat down, at first in a crouch and then with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He would not speak first. Gaius had made it a contest of seriousness. He could not stand for hours, as Gaius seemed willing to do. The shadows moved. Marcus marked their positions with sticks and estimated that they had waited three hours when Suetonius appeared silently, walking along the path. He smiled a slow smile when he saw them and paused.

‘I am beginning to like you, little wolf. I think I will kill you today, or perhaps break your leg. What do you think would be fair?’

Gaius smiled and stood as tall and as straight as he could. ‘I would kill me. If you don’t, I will keep fighting you until I am big and strong enough to kill you. And then I will have your woman, after I have given her to my friend.’

Marcus looked in horror as he heard what Gaius was saying. Maybe they should just run. Suetonius squinted at the boys and pulled a short, vicious little blade from his belt.

‘Little wolf, mudfish – you are too stupid to get angry at, but you yap like puppies. I will make you quiet again.’

He ran at them. Just before he reached the pair, the ground gave way with a crack and he disappeared from sight in a rush of air and an explosion of dust and leaves.

‘Built you a wolf trap, Suetonius,’ Gaius shouted cheerfully.

The fourteen-year-old jumped for the sides and Gaius and Marcus spent a hilarious few minutes stamping on his fingers as he tried to gain a purchase in the dry earth. He screamed abuse at them and they slapped each other on the back and jeered at him.

‘I thought of dropping a big rock in on you, like they do with wolves in the north,’ Gaius said quietly when Suetonius had been reduced to sullen anger. ‘But you didn’t kill me, so I won’t kill you. I might not even tell anyone how we dropped Suetonius into a wolf trap. Good luck in getting out.’

Suddenly, he let rip with a war whoop, quickly followed by Marcus, their cries and ecstatic yells disappearing into the woods as they pelted away, on top of the world.

As they pounded along the paths, Marcus called over his shoulder, ‘I thought you said you’d beat him with your strength!’

‘I did. I was up all night digging that hole.’

The sun shone through the trees and they felt as if they could run all day.

Left alone, Suetonius scrabbled up the sides, caught an edge and heaved himself over and out. For a while, he sat there and contemplated his muddy praetexta and breeches. He frowned for most of the way home, but, as he cleared the trees and came out into the sunshine, he began to laugh.

Gaius and Marcus walked behind Tubruk as he paced out a new field for ploughing. Every five paces, he would stretch out a hand and Gaius would pass him a peg from a heavy basket. Tubruk himself carried twine wrapped in a great ball around a wooden spindle. Ever patient, he would tie the twine around a peg and then hand it to Marcus to hold while he hammered it into the hard ground. Occasionally, Tubruk would sight back along the lengthening line at the landmarks he had noted and grunt in satisfaction before carrying on.

It was dull work and both boys wanted to escape down to the Campus Martius, the huge field just outside the city where they could ride and join in the sports.

‘Hold it steady,’ Tubruk snapped at Marcus as the boy’s attention wandered.

‘How much longer, Tubruk?’ Gaius asked.

‘As long as it takes to finish the job properly. The fields must be marked out for the ploughman, then the posts hammered in to set the boundary. Your father wants to increase the estate revenues and these fields have good soil for figs, which we can sell in the city markets.’

Gaius looked around him at the green and golden hills that made up his father’s land.

‘Is this a rich estate then?’

Tubruk chuckled. ‘It serves to feed and clothe you, but we don’t have enough land to plant much barley or wheat for bread. Our crops have to be small and that means we have to concentrate on the things the city wants to buy. The flower gardens produce seeds that are crushed to make face oils for high-born city ladies and your father has purchased a dozen hives to house new swarms of bees. You boys will have honey at every meal in a few months and that brings in a good price as well.’

‘Can we help with the hives when the bees come?’ Marcus spoke up, showing a sudden interest.

‘Perhaps, though they take careful handling. Old Tadius used to keep bees before he became a slave. I hope to use him to collect the honey. Bees don’t like to have their winter stores stolen away from them and it needs a practised hand. Hold that peg steady now – that’s a stade, six hundred and twenty-five feet. We’ll turn a corner here.’

‘Will you need us for much longer, Tubruk? We were hoping to take ponies into the city and see if we can listen to the Senate debate.’

Tubruk snorted. ‘You were going to ride into the Campus, you mean, and race your ponies against the other boys. Hmm? There’s only this last side to mark out today. I can have the men set the posts tomorrow. Another hour or two should see us finished.’

The two boys looked at each other glumly. Tubruk put down his spindle and mallet and stretched his back with a sigh. He tapped Gaius on the shoulder gently.

‘This is your land we’re working on, remember. It belonged to your father’s father and when you have children, it will belong to them. Look at this.’

Tubruk crouched down on one knee and broke the hard ground with the peg and mallet, tapping until the churned, black soil was visible. He pressed his hand into the earth and gripped a handful of the dark substance, holding it up for their inspection.

Gaius and Marcus looked bemused as he crumbled the dirt between his fingers.

‘There have been Romans standing where we are standing for hundreds of years. This dirt is more than just earth. It is us , the dust of the men and women who have gone before us. You came from this and you will go back to it. Others will walk over you and never know you were once there and as alive as they themselves.’

‘The family tomb is on the road to the city,’ Gaius muttered, nervous in the face of Tubruk’s sudden intensity.

The old gladiator shrugged. ‘In recent years, but our people have been here for longer than there was ever a city there. We have bled and died in these fields in long-forgotten wars.We will again perhaps, in wars in years to come. Put your hand into the ground.’