The Emperor's Knives: Empire VII (Empire 7) Read online

  Table of Contents

  By the same author in the Empire series

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Maps

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Afterword

  The Roman Army in 182 AD

  By the same author in the EMPIRE series

  Wounds of Honour

  Arrows of Fury

  Fortress of Spears

  The Leopard Sword

  The Eagle’s Vengeance

  About the author

  Anthony Riches holds a degree in Military Studies from Manchester University. He began writing the story that would become the first novel in the Empire series, Wounds of Honour, after visiting Housesteads Roman fort in 1996. He lives in Hertfordshire with wife and three children.

  Find out more about his books at www.anthonyriches.com.

  THE EMPEROR’S KNIVES

  Anthony Riches

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2014 Anthony Riches

  The right of Anthony Riches to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 444 73194 1

  Hardback ISBN 978 1 444 73195 8

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Jennifer and David

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  When I first began to contemplate actually writing the story that has become The Emperor’s Knives – as opposed to the previous musing on how fascinating it would be to get Marcus back on his home turf and turn him lose to seek bloody revenge – it quickly became very clear to me that I had a major disadvantage in any attempt to set a novel on the streets of Rome. I had no real knowledge of the streets of Rome. I knew the Forum, the Colosseum and the Palatine, at least as much as is possible from their remains, and I still get goosebumps from my memory of first touching the stone on which Julius Caesar was cremated, but the ancient city beyond that tiny portion was a mystery to me. Finding the internet less helpful than is usually the case, I was fortunate to enjoy one of those serendipitous moments of discovery that we tend to put down to luck, and perhaps ought to credit to the power of a focused mind instead. Seeing a review of Dans La Rome Des Cesars (translation: In The Rome Of The Caesars) I made a swift purchase, waited impatiently for its arrival, then settled down to pore over the most amazing book on the city I’ve ever read. I can’t understand much of its text, being far from fluent in written French (there is no translation), but I can assure you that the pictures and maps are enough to make up for that lack of fluency.

  Gilles Chaillet has written a labour of love, a gorgeously illustrated map book of the fourth-century city apparently based on the plaster model built by his countryman Paul Bigot – Le Plan De Rome – which now resides in the University of Caen. The French Amazon blurb calls the author ‘Stakhanovite’ (a 1930’s Soviet Russian term for overachievement), and I can see their point, given the 5,000 hours of work that went into writing it (and the 3,000 hours of artwork by his collaborators Chantal Defachelle and Isabelle Brune). Trust me, if you have one iota of interest in the eternal city, you owe it to yourself to purchase this magnificent book. And if you can read French, so much the better!

  With Rome’s street map at my fingertips, the second subject I needed to understand better was the brutal, ignoble, but occasionally dazzling spectacle of gladiatorial combat that was a staple of Roman entertainment for a good five hundred years. While it would be fair to say that I have consulted at least a dozen works on the subject, from the mildly sensationalist to the deeply academic, the book that I found to be of the most value was Philip Matyszak’s marvellous Gladiator – The Roman Fighter’s Unofficial Manual. As with his other short, pithy but detailed packed works, Philip has excelled in bringing crisp understanding to a sprawling subject, a book both learned and yet wearing its erudition lightly enough for the reader who just wants to be informed. If there’s a fact worth knowing about the arena’s bloody trade, some of it amusing, some of it truly horrifying, then it’s in this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. As usual, should you find any factual errors you can rest assured that they are all my own work. Oh, and there’s a signed first edition waiting for the diligent reader who can find the quip I’ve reproduced from Maty’s book in connection with entry to the gladiatorial life – but only one. The first person to contact me on Facebook gets the prize if they have the right answer.

  With those two recommendations made, it only remains for me to say my thank you’s. To my wife Helen, my agent Robin, and to my editor Carolyn and her assistant Francine go my gratitude for your continued support, tolerance and gentle chivvying. To my beta readers, David, John and Viv, thanks for pointing out plot errors and inconsistencies. And to you, reader, goes the biggest thank you, simply for getting Marcus and the Tungrians this far. This is the book I had in mind when my young protagonist was following Dubnus up the road to the north from York, long before Wounds of Honour was complete, so thanks for helping me to realise that ambition. And stay with it, if you’re of a mind for more – we’ve a long way to go, you, me and the Tungrians.

  Prologue

  Rome, September AD 184

  ‘Excuse me for bothering you sir. Do I have the honour of addressing Sextus Dexter Bassus?’

  The man in the doorway nodded, playing a forbidding look over the two men standing before him in the small but neat front garden of his house, rendered private from the main road that climbed the Aventine Hill by a substantial wall that ran all the way around the property’s modest grounds. His look of irritation was due in no small part to the fact that the unexpected callers had summarily dismissed the slave who had opened the door to them, peremptorily telling him to fetch his master on the apparent grounds of the matter at hand’s ‘sensitivity’.

  ‘You do. And you are?’

  The taller of the two men, who seemed to be doing the talking for them both, smiled in a self-deprecating manner.

  ‘Me? A man of no great importance, although this may help to establish my bona fides in the matter I am desirous of discussing with you.’ The caller lifted the end of his belt to display a stylised tri-form spearhead decoration in polished silver. ‘This, Dexter Bassus, is the badge of a beneficiarius, a man chosen to give trusted service to one of his military superiors. In my own humble case I am just such a man, in the service of an extremely high-ranking military officer. His absolute need to stay nameless in this matter means that I am in turn required to nurture a s
imilar desire for anonymity. I’m afraid that all I can tell you here, on your doorstep, is that my visit concerns events that occurred in the province of Britannia a little over two years ago.’

  Bassus leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘If this is about my brother—’

  A raised hand stopped him in mid-sentence, the self-assured nature of the unnamed messenger’s gesture making him start backwards a fraction despite himself.

  ‘There’s nothing more to be said out here, I’m afraid, Dexter Bassus. If I might just come inside for a moment, I’m sure that everything will become clear …’

  Bassus looked past the beneficiarius at the man waiting patiently behind him who was, if not completely ragged in his state of dress, demonstrating a robust attitude towards the requirements of both fashion and the regard of his fellow citizens. His eyes were roaming the modest garden with a faraway look, as if he’d never seen such a thing in all of his life.

  ‘And who’s this? Another one of your “high-ranking officer’s” men?’

  The other man laughed, evidently amused with the idea.

  ‘Silus? Not likely! Silus is a man of the streets, and not accustomed to the workings of the Palatine, if you take my meaning?’

  Bassus’s eyebrows raised at the mention of the hill upon which the imperial palaces and the throne’s sprawling bureaucracy had taken root.

  ‘The Palatine?’

  The caller smiled thinly.

  ‘I can say no more. As to my companion here, I keep him handy whenever I travel through the city alone, especially at this time of the evening. And there are risks connected with my visit to your house that go well beyond the simple danger of robbery with violence. I can make it no plainer for you, I’m afraid – either we discuss this matter in a more private place, such as your study, or both Silus and I will simply vanish from your door, never to trouble you again. I will tell my sponsor that you chose to be uncooperative, and he in turn will resign himself to your never knowing the truth about what happened in Britannia. It really is very much up to you.’

  Bassus thought for a moment, clearly torn between caution and curiosity.

  ‘You can come in, but that man has a look to him that I don’t care for. He can wait in the garden.’

  Silus smiled, a disquieting vision given the state of his teeth, and his employer mirrored his expression with a nod of agreement that was almost a bow.

  ‘How delightful for him! Silus is enormously fond of gardens, given his rather plain accommodation in the Subura district. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to enjoy the fruits of your gardener’s labour in this pleasant evening’s warmth, while you and I discuss our business with a little more privacy than can be achieved on your doorstep.’

  Bassus waited until the bodyguard had strolled away to sit on one of his stone benches before ushering the mystery visitor through the doorway and into the cool of the house. The man took two steps and stopped, looking about him with evident approval.

  ‘Very nice, Dexter Bassus, very nice indeed! Someone in your household clearly has the most exquisite taste in interior decoration … The lady of the house, perhaps, or possibly a particularly talented slave? Whoever it is, you’re a lucky man!’

  Bassus grunted a perfunctory agreement and ushered the visitor into his private office, scowling at the room’s door as it creaked loudly on its hinges. He indicated a chair facing his desk, behind which he installed himself while the other man lowered himself into a sitting position with a slight grimace.

  ‘My back isn’t all that it used to be, I’m afraid. All those years on horseback criss-crossing the empire at the emperor’s behest have quite taken the spring out of me, as you can see …’

  He waited a moment, as if inviting Bassus into his conversation, but the other man only stared at him in bemusement.

  ‘I know, not the subject you invited me in to discuss, and I apologise. A man who has previously enjoyed robust good health does have the irritating habit of sharing the smallest aches and pains with all and sundry when they eventually catch up with him.’ He smiled into his host’s darkening frown. ‘Yes indeed, to business! You are, Sextus Dexter Bassus, the brother of one Quintus Dexter Bassus, are you not?’

  Bassus shook his head, his voice laced with irritation.

  ‘We’ve already established that!’

  The visitor leaned back in his chair with a smile, steepling his fingers.

  ‘Forgive my unavoidable disagreement, but in point of fact, Dexter Bassus, we have not. When I mentioned Britannia out there on your doorstep, you promptly asked if your brother was involved, but you didn’t ever actually mention his name. Precision is a quality for which I am known, and I cannot afford to allow that reputation to be sullied by a moment’s inattention. So—’

  ‘Yes!’ Bassus sat forward, slapping the desk and fixing his guest with a hard stare, his patience clearly at its limits. ‘I am the youngest brother of Quintus Dexter Bassus, who was, before you spend another lifetime working your way around to the question, the tribune and commanding officer of the Second Tungrian Cohort in northern Britannia. He died two years ago in the uprising that overran the frontier wall built by the Emperor Hadrian, and he left me, his only surviving sibling, as the owner of this house. Does that cover all of your questions?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  Bassus sat back again with an expression of dismay that was bordering on something more than irritation.

  ‘I think I should have you thrown—’

  The messenger spoke over him without any change in his expression.

  ‘Yes, I think you probably should, Dexter Bassus, but you’re not going to show me the door, not yet. For one thing, you don’t know to which of the empire’s esteemed military men, a well-regarded senator by the way, you might be giving offence, and for another …’ He smiled faintly at the big man. ‘The circumstances of your brother’s death were never made clear to you, were they? Or, indeed what happened to his wife, your sister-in-law. You’ll remember her quite well, I’d imagine, given that this was her house?’

  Bassus looked at him with a different expression, his anger of a moment before replaced by something approaching horror.

  ‘No …’

  The visitor pursed his lips and shrugged without any discernible sympathy for the man sitting opposite as his bad news sank in.

  ‘Well, as it happens, very much yes, I’m afraid. The lady in question survived the barbarian attack quite neatly, and as you would expect, eventually remarried. Her new husband is an officer in the First Tungrian Cohort, a nice young man, indeed in point of fact, more of a gentleman really, the son of a senator. He’s almost supernaturally skilled with just about any weapon you can name; the result, I am reliably informed, of his having trained with both a soldier and a gladiator throughout his youth. Recently, however, he’s fallen on hard times …’ The beneficiarius leaned forward to confide in his host, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. ‘His father was unfortunate enough to get himself executed for treason, you see. You might recall the excitement in the city at the time, when Appius Valerius Aquila was accused of plotting against the emperor? There was no truth in it, but since when did that ever stop an emperor like Commodus when he takes a fancy to a man’s estate? I believe the Aquila villa was even possessed of a small private arena, which I would imagine made it impossible for the young emperor to resist, given his known predilection for a gladiator.’

  He sat back again with a smile that was bordering on the beatific.

  ‘So, to sum up, your brother dies, by his own men’s swords I should add – he seems to have been a little too keen on the stricter aspects of military discipline from the sound of it – and leaves his young wife, the legal owner of this house, a widow. She then marries a rather dangerous young man who seems to go through anyone and anything that gets in his way, like a spearpoint through tunic wool, and they manage to survive the rest of the war with the tribes. Not to mention at least one attempt by the imperial
authorities to bring him to justice. And now they’re here.’

  Bassus jerked bolt upright in his chair.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Well not here, as such, but they are less than a mile away, living in the military transit barracks on the Ostian road. And yes, I can only imagine what must be going through your mind …’

  A loud crash echoed through the house followed by the sound of a woman’s voice raised in protest from the room above them. The beneficiarius raised his eyebrows, tipping his head to the study door.

  ‘Trouble in the kitchen, from the sound of it! Mind you, I expect your wife will be on top of the problem. Probably better if we leave her to it?’

  The sound of footsteps sounded on the floorboards above them, and then down the stairs as the woman of the house evidently came from whatever she had been doing to investigate. Silence fell, and the beneficiarius leaned forwards again with his eyebrows raised in question.

  ‘So, Sextus Dexter Bassus, the question is this: what do you think we should do about this change in your circumstances? After all, it probably isn’t going to be very long before this rather excitable young man appears at your door with his wife and demands that you vacate her property …’

  Bassus looked down at his hands for a moment.

  ‘I’m not like my brother … he was always the forceful one. Do you think …’

  ‘Do I think what, Dexter Bassus? Do I think I could help? Possibly. You want this whole problem to go away, I presume? It wouldn’t be cheap.’

  The answer was instant.

  ‘I have money! Not enough to buy a house like this, but enough to reward you generously for any help that you could provide in … relieving me of this problem. Would five … no, ten thousand sestertii be enough?’

  The beneficiarius shook his head with a hint of sadness.

  ‘More than enough to employ a man like Silus, much more, but then a man like Silus isn’t going to be capable of dealing with this problem. This will require a team of men, and one in particular with the cunning to lure this young man into a carefully designed trap. A man like me, to be precise.’ He inspected his fingernails for a moment. ‘And I have a sum more of the order of twenty-five thousand in mind.’