Sword of Rome(92)

Claudius Victor’s eyes narrowed. ‘I remember a boy dying, a son and a brother, a young man in the first flower of his manhood, his body torn by the blades of mercenaries and left lifeless on the field by his murderers. I know this, because I buried him with my own hands.’

‘An unblooded auxiliary officer who died in a fight he should never have been part of. If you had led the attack instead of cowering among the trees, perhaps he would be here in your place.’ Valerius risked the defiance, thinking nothing could make his situation worse. He was wrong.

Victor reached up to hook his fingers into Valerius’s cheek, forcing his mouth open. ‘Your mouth is like a latrine. Utter another word that is not an answer to my question and I will have you held down and my men will fill it before we gag you.’

He issued an order and Valerius’s throat heaved at the thought of what might be to come. But his captors dragged him to a tree where they tore his clothes away before binding him naked to the trunk. Some of the Batavians rushed into the wood and he heard the sound of axes before they reappeared in the clearing, carrying two long stakes and several cuts of green wood. Meanwhile, others dug two pits ten paces apart on either side of the fire, which now burned fiercely, fed by branches from the makeshift palisade. Valerius watched in growing horror as the stakes were placed in the pits and the earth filled in around them and tramped home to create a firm base. The first was about four feet tall and three inches in diameter and the tip had been sharpened to a horrible, jagged point. The second stood twice the height and more than twice the thickness of the other and the Batavians stacked the green wood beside it. His mind rebelled against what it was witnessing and something exploded in his stomach before erupting in a white-hot stream from his throat.

‘I see you understand their purpose.’ Claudius Victor nodded. ‘Good. For the moment, I will leave you to contemplate which end you would prefer. We will begin when I return at first light. Perhaps I will even allow you to make the choice. The impaling stake or the fire.’ He pulled a wicked-looking curved knife from his belt and Valerius flinched from the glittering blade. ‘But there are certain things you should know first. You have a single hand and that must be precious to you, as my brother was to me, which is why I will personally cut it from you with a blunt axe. You are a proud man, Gaius Valerius Verrens, knight of Rome; that is plain for all to see, and why we will first remove the things that are the source of your pride. Naturally, we will do this with skill, ensuring you live long enough to enjoy their loss.’ The import of the words made their targets shrivel, encouraging a roar of laughter from the Batavians, but Claudius Victor only continued in his cold voice, his face so close that Valerius gagged from the rank stench of his breath. ‘If you choose the stake, we will first flay the flesh from your body an inch at a time and burn it before your eyes. It is difficult to imagine the pain and the horror of it. Even to think of it must drive a man to the brink of madness.’ Valerius closed his eyes and tried not to see the auxiliary decurion who had led the patrol across the Danuvius two years earlier and been captured by the Dacians. He had ended up a whimpering mass of raw, bleeding flesh, squirming on a stake exactly like the one in front of him. ‘I have known a flayed man to live for three days on the stake,’ Claudius continued. ‘Perhaps you would prefer the fire? Yet the fire can be just as entertaining and the agonies last just as long. We will leave you your skin, for which you will at first be grateful, but when that skin begins to shrivel and melt away in the heat, and the flesh beneath it starts to roast, you will perhaps feel you should have chosen the stake. There will be no flame, which would ensure a quick, if painful, end, and no smoke with which to choke yourself. No escape. For this is the slow fire. Fire that begins at the feet and moves up the body an inch at a time, tended by men who know how to make it last. Of course, you will go mad as you feel the flesh fall from your body and your inner parts begin to cook, but you will still be conscious when your heart explodes and finally ends your suffering.’ He took Valerius’s face in his right hand and looked directly into his eyes. The Roman felt as if he was staring into a furnace. ‘If it was in my power, you would die a hundred such deaths.’ The Batavian noticed the glint of gold at the Roman’s neck and his fingers closed on the boar amulet Valerius’s sister had given him. ‘You will not require this any further,’ he said, and brought his knife up to cut the thin leather strip holding it.

For a moment fear was replaced by fury, but as Valerius raged Victor called for his horse. ‘I go now to bring my father, who will wish to enjoy your end, and my sisters and my brother’s wife, who may add further refinements to your agony.’ He hesitated and his eyes flicked to the wooden hand on Valerius’s right arm. ‘Perhaps we should start now?’ He sawed at the thongs holding the leather stock in place and hauled it clear. As it was taken from him, the Roman wrestled at his bonds, and Claudius Victor came as close as he ever would to a smile. His eyes never leaving Valerius’s, he took the walnut fist to the fire and thrust it into the flames, where the leather scorched and charred before igniting and the wood turned black as the fiery golden heart devoured it. Valerius heard the long cry of anguish that was torn from his own throat and felt a sense of violation that went deeper than the loss of his hand.