Sword of Rome(147)
Valerius stood, head down and panting, until he realized the attention of the entire crowd was focused on him. A wall of sound pounded him from every quarter. He turned to find the Spaniard four paces away, with his sword at the ready.
‘Remember,’ Serpentius said quietly. ‘Fight hard and die well.’
He fought hard, because Serpentius made him fight for his life. He only lived because Serpentius made it so. This was a different Serpentius from the man he had faced on the training ground so many times. An implacable, stone-cold killer who could have finished it at any time of his choosing. Valerius looked good because Serpentius made him look good. A dozen times he was able to avoid a killer stroke by the merest whisker, because of the Spaniard’s whispered instructions. A dozen times he stepped back, amazed to be alive, with the cheers of the crowd ringing in his ears. But it couldn’t last. There had to be an end.
Gradually, he realized that Serpentius was manoeuvring him to the precise spot he had chosen for the kill. As he fought for his life, he wondered how many other men had experienced this despairing hopelessness. This feeling of being a fish in a tank chosen as someone’s horribly eviscerated supper.
‘Now!’
The long sword came down in an arc that chopped the shield from his right hand. He heard a shout from somewhere in the distance, but already the Spaniard’s wrist had twisted to deliver the counter-stroke and Valerius’s short sword was an age too slow to parry it. Lightning seemed to flash in his brain and he experienced a terrible pain. As he fell, he felt an odd relief that it was over.
Aulus Vitellius had seen the shield drop to reveal the wooden hand. For the first time he realized the identities of the two men and instinctively he heaved himself to his feet shouting: ‘No!’
Too late. The sword flashed a second time and the stockier man’s head exploded in a cloud of bright scarlet. He went down like a stone, but such was the bloodlust of his opponent that he hacked at the fallen body with his sword and reached down to tear the viscera from the corpse, raising it high to the ecstatic roars of the crowd.
When the cheering subsided, the fighter trudged wearily through the carnage to where Vitellius sat beside Aulus Caecina Alienus in the Imperial box.
‘You fought well,’ the Emperor congratulated him – was there a hint of regret in his voice? – ‘as did your … friend.’
The gladiator, his skin streaked with the blood of his last victim, fell to his knees in supplication. ‘I would ask a favour of the Emperor.’ The harsh voice was respectful, but not pleading. Aulus Vitellius doubted this was a man who would ever plead.
Beside him, Caecina growled and started to rise, but Vitellius placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Ask it.’
‘I beg the right to bury my comrade with the honour he deserves.’
It was too much. ‘You have your life, traitor,’ Caecina snapped. ‘Be satisfied with that or it will be taken from you. Do not try your Emperor’s patience.’
But Vitellius only sighed. His eyes roamed the arena, testing the mood of the crowd. Finally, he nodded.
‘I grant you that right, gladiator.’ He reached up to his neck and there was a collective gasp as he unclipped the golden brooch holding his cloak. Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Imperator raised his voice so his words echoed around the walls. ‘He was a nobleman, I think, and a Hero of Rome. Let him be buried in the purple.’ He threw the heavy cloak to Serpentius. The Spaniard gave a curt nod and stalked back to where Valerius lay. Taking the utmost care, he wrapped his friend in Imperial purple and, with a last baleful look around the arena, picked up the body and carried it to the doors with the cheers of the crowd ringing unwanted in his ears.