The Emperor Series Books 1-4

‘What is going on, Mother? I can hear fighting!’

Aurelia smiled at him sadly.

‘Shhh, my darling. You must not excite yourself. Your life is slipping away and I have come to make your last hours peaceful.’

Gaius blanched a little. No, he felt weak, but sound.

‘I am not dying. I am getting better. Now, what is happening in the yard? I should get out there!’

‘Shhh, shhh. I know they said you were getting better, but I also know they lie to me. Now be still and I will cool your brow for you.’

Gaius looked at her in disbelief. All his life, this shambling idiot had been coming to the fore, dragging away the lively, quick-witted woman he missed. He winced in anticipation of the screaming fit that would follow a wrong word from him.

‘I want to feel the night air on my skin, Mother. One last time. Please leave so that I may dress.’

‘Of course, my darling. I'll go back to my rooms now that I have said goodbye to you, my perfect son.’ She giggled for a moment and sighed as if she carried a great weight.

‘Your father is out there getting himself killed instead of looking after me. He has never looked after me properly. We have not made love in years now.’

Gaius didn't know what to say. He sat up and closed his eyes against the weakness. He couldn't even hold his hand in a fist, but he had to know what was going on. Gods, why wasn't there someone around? Were they all out there? Tubruk?

‘Please leave, Mother. I must dress. I want to sit outside in my last moments.’

‘I understand, my love. Goodbye.’ Her eyes filled with tears as she kissed his forehead and then the little room was empty again.

For a moment, he was tempted simply to fall back on the pillows. His head felt thick and heavy and he guessed the drug Cabera had given him would have kept him under till morning if his mother hadn't had one of her ideas. Slowly, he swung his legs out and pressed his feet against the floor. Weak. Clothes. One thing at a time.

Tubruk knew they couldn't hold much longer. He ran himself ragged trying to cover a gap where two other men had once stood beside him. Again and again, he spun barely in time to meet the attack of those who were creeping up on him as he killed those in front. His breath came in wheezing gasps and, for all his skill, he knew death was close.

Why would they not break? Damn all the gods to hell, they must break! He cursed himself for not arranging for some sort of fallback position, but there really was none. The walls were the only defence the estate had and these trembled on the brink of being completely overwhelmed.

He slipped in blood and went down badly, the air rushing out of him. A dagger punched into his side and a dirty bare foot tried to crush his face, pressing his head down. He bit it and distantly heard someone scream. He made it to one knee too late to stop two scrambling figures dropping down into the yard. He hoped the women could handle them. Gingerly he felt his side and winced at the trickle of blood, watching it for air bubbles. There were none and he could still breathe; though the air tasted like hot tin and blood.

For a few moments, no one came at him and he was able to look around the walls. Of the original twenty-nine, there were fewer than fifteen left. They had worked miracles up on the wall, but it wasn't going to be enough.

Julius fought on, despairing as his strength flowed from his wounds. He pulled the dagger out of his flesh with a groan and instantly lost it in the chest of the next man to face him. His breath was burning his throat and he looked into the yard, seeing his son come out. He smiled and the pride felt as if it would burst his chest. Another blade entered him, shoved down into the gap between his breastplate and his neck, deep into his lung. He spat blood and buried his gladius into the attacker without seeing or knowing his face.

His arms dropped away and the sword fell from his grasp, clattering on the stones of the courtyard below. He could only watch as the rest came on.

Tubruk saw Julius collapse under a mass of bodies that spilled past him over the narrow walkway and down into the dark. He cried out his grief and rage, knowing he couldn't reach him in time. Renius was still on his feet, but only Marcus' care kept the old warrior from death, and even that blinding whirl of blades was faltering as Marcus bled from wounds, his life dribbling away in a score of gashes.

Gaius climbed up beside Tubruk, his face white from the effort of dragging himself up the steps to the wall. His gladius was out and he swung it as he reached the top, cutting into a man levering himself up over the dark bodies. Tubruk slid his blade into the man's ribs as Gaius swayed, but still the slave wouldn't die. He flailed with a dagger and cut Gaius across the face. Gaius hammered another blow at his neck and then the life was gone. More faces appeared, shouting and cursing as they struggled onto the slippery stones.

‘Your father, Gaius.’

‘I know.’ Gaius' sword arm came up without a quiver to block a spear, relic of some old battle. He stepped inside its reach and took out the man's throat in a spray of bloody wetness. Tubruk charged two more, making one drop over the edge, but falling to his knees in the sticky mess of the floor as he did so. Gaius cut the next down as he reversed his blade to plunge it into Tubruk. Then he staggered back a pace, his face white under the blood, his knees buckling. They waited together for the next one up to the edge.

The night suddenly became brighter as the feed barns were set alight and still no new attacker came to end it for him.

‘One more,’ Tubruk swore through bloody lips. ‘I can take one more with me. You should go down, you're not fit to fight.’

Gaius ignored him, his mouth a grim line. They waited, but no one came. Tubruk edged closer to the outer wall and looked over, at the mangled limbs and broken carcasses that were piled beneath the ledge, sprawled in slippery gore and glassy expressions. There was no one there waiting for him with a dagger, no one at all.

The light from the burning barns silhouetted leaping figures as they capered around in the darkness. Tubruk began to chuckle to himself, wincing as his lips split again.

‘They've found the wine store,’ he said and the laughter could not be stopped, despite the wrenching pain it brought.

* * *

‘They are leaving!’ Marcus growled, amazed. He hawked and spat blood at the floor, wondering vaguely if it was his own. He turned and grinned at Renius, seeing how he sat slumped, propped against two carcasses. The old warrior just looked at him, and for a moment Marcus began to remember his acid dislike.

‘I …’ He paused and took two quick steps to the old man. He was dying, that was obvious. Marcus pressed a hand made black with blood and dirt onto Renius' chest, feeling the heart flutter and miss. ‘Cabera! Over here, quickly,’ he shouted.

Renius closed his eyes against the noise and the pain.

Alexandria panted as if she was in labour. She was exhausted and covered in blood, which she had never imagined would be as sticky and foul as it actually was. They never mentioned this in the stories either. The stuff was slippery for a few moments, then gummed up your hands, making every surface tacky to the touch. She waited for the next one to drop into the yard, walking around almost drunkenly, her knife held in a stiff arm by her side.

She stumbled over a body and realised it was Susanna. She would never cut a goose again, or put fresh rushes down in the kitchens, or feed scraps to stray puppies on her shopping trips in Rome. This last thought brought clear-water tears that ran through the mud and stink. Alexandria kept walking, kept the patrol going, but no new enemies appeared, landing in the yard like crows. No one came, but still she staggered on, unable to stop. Two hours to dawn and she could still hear screaming in the fields.

‘Stay on the walls! No man leaves his post until dawn,’ Tubruk bellowed around the yard. ‘They could still be back.’

He didn't think they would, though. The wine store held the best part of a thousand wax-sealed amphorae. Even if the slaves smashed a few, there should still be enough to keep them happy until sun-up.

After that final command was given, he wanted to climb down himself to cross quickly to where Julius lay among the dead, but someone had to hold the place.

‘Go to your father, lad.’

Gaius nodded once and descended, bracing himself against the wall for support. The pain was agonising. He could feel that the operation incision had ripped open, and touching the area left his fingers red and glistening. As he dragged himself back up the stone steps to the defenders' positions, his wounds tore at his will, but he held on.

‘Are you dead, Father?’ he whispered as he looked down at the body. There could be no answer.

‘Hold your positions, lads. It's over for now,’ Tubruk's voice snapped across the yard.

Alexandria heard the news and dropped the knife onto the cobbles. Her wrists were being held by another slave girl from the kitchens, saying something to her. She could not make out the words over the screaming of the wounded, suddenly breaking into what she had thought was silence.

‘I have been in silence and darkness for ever,’ she thought. ‘I have seen hell.’

Who was she again? The lines had blurred somewhere in the evening, as she killed slaves who wanted freedom as much as she did. The weight of it all bore her down to the ground and she began to sob.

Tubruk could not resist any longer. He limped down from his place on the wall and up again to where Julius lay. He and Gaius looked down at the body without words.

Gaius tried to feel the reality of the man's death. He could not. What lay on the floor was a broken thing, torn and gashed, in spreading pools of a liquid that looked more like oil than blood in the torchlight. His father's presence was gone.

He spun round suddenly, his hand coming up to ward something off.

‘There was someone next to me. I could feel someone standing there, looking down with me,’ he began to babble.

‘That would be him, all right. This is a night for ghosts.’