A massed wave of charging infantry and cavalry swept across the plain towards them. ‘If I’m to die, I will die like a man.’ Still clutching the eagle of the Twenty-first, Juva of the Waverider, centurion of the first century, Fifth cohort of Legio I Adiutrix, gave a final nod to his two friends and was gone before Valerius could stop him. His last memory of the Nubian was of Juva standing like a colossus at the heart of the full cohort sent to squash the insolent slaves who had tarnished the honour of a legion, before he was consumed by a whirling maelstrom of bright iron.
As he waited with Serpentius at his side, his strong right hand for one final time, Valerius felt the same mix of pride, loss and anger he had experienced in the final moments of the siege of the Temple of Claudius. There was no glory in defeat, but what did that matter when a man had known warriors like these and had a friend such as this. He planted his feet more firmly in the rich, dark soil and held the gladius at the ready as a squadron of cavalry charged the two defiant figures who stood firm among the dead and the wounded. Valerius managed to sidestep the first spear, but moved too late to avoid the bulk of the galloping horse. He felt something break in his left shoulder and the moment the sword dropped from his nerveless fingers.
Then, only darkness.
XLIX
Gaius Valerius Verrens recognized the soot-stained walls of the burned-out villa on the hill and each detail of the defence and fall of the Temple of Claudius returned, as if it was carved on his brain by the point of a dagger. Falco and his militia dying where they stood so that the others could escape. Lunaris, like a hero of old, holding back Boudicca’s horde on the steps of the temple. And Messor, poor Messor, slipping into the dark tunnel that would have been better being his tomb. With a start, he realized he wasn’t alone. The cloaked figure who worked in the gloom by the shuttered window seemed familiar and his heart soared as he realized her identity.
‘Maeve?’
She turned and he reached out to her and it was only then he realized that his arms ended in ragged stumps. Both hands had been chopped off above the wrist. As the first shuddering scream escaped his tortured throat he looked up into a face from the gates of the Otherworld; not his Maeve, not the beautiful Trinovante who had loved and betrayed him, but Claudius Victor, and a Claudius Victor straight from the grave, eyes turned to puddles of white pus, a gaping crater for a nose and a yawning mouth filled with worms and nameless crawling things. Hands like skeletal claws reached for something at his neck. He screamed again. And again.
Rough hands shook his shoulders. ‘Valerius.’
No, they wouldn’t take him.
‘Valerius, open your eyes.’
Reluctantly, he obeyed a voice that had an authority that could not be ignored. Staring at him was another face from Hades; burning eyes glared out from features tanned to the colour of a house tile, the nose narrow with an edge like a woodsman’s well-used axe and below it a razor-lipped rat-trap mouth. Beyond this nightmare the world was the uniform pale blue of a song thrush’s egg.
‘Serpentius?’
The word emerged as a hoarse croak and the Spaniard put a cup to his lips. Valerius gulped down what he discovered was well-watered tavern wine. He choked and Serpentius removed the cup.
‘Don’t talk now. I’ve put your shoulder back in place, the fever’s gone and you’re getting stronger every day. Rest, and we’ll speak later.’
But there was one thing Valerius had to know, and he dared not look himself. ‘My hand?’ Serpentius smiled gently and raised the left arm, so Valerius could see his hand was intact. The Roman allowed his head to fall back and closed his eyes. ‘My worst nightmare,’ he whispered.
‘No,’ he heard the former gladiator say, ‘your worst nightmare is yet to come.’
‘Where are we?’ Valerius surveyed the rough stockade that enclosed the parade ground of beaten earth that was their prison, along with over a hundred other ragged, bearded men.
‘Somewhere outside Cremona. When Otho died …’ The Spaniard hesitated as he saw the question in Valerius’s eyes. Otho had been nowhere near the battle; there was no reason why he shouldn’t have escaped and joined the Eastern legions who had been marching to join him. Serpentius shrugged. ‘They say that the officers who were with him at Brixellum urged him to fight on. Said that when the Seventh and the Fourteenth arrived they’d outnumber Vitellius’s men. But Otho hadn’t just lost the battle, he’d lost his heart. He said he’d killed enough men and went into his tent … well, you can guess the rest.’
Valerius felt a pang of compassion for the man who had been, if not his friend, then at least a colourful and entertaining companion. A man who, against all odds, would have made a fine Emperor, given time. The gods had presented Marcus Salvius Otho with everything he had ever desired, and just as quickly taken it away.