Arena Read Free

array of smells fanned over the officer. Although the markets had closed a few hours earlier, the potent aroma of cinnamon and pepper, cheap perfume and rotten fish lingered in the air, mixing with the smell of the sewers and conspiring to churn Macro’s guts. He hated being in Rome. Too much noise, too much dirt, too many people. And too many bloody Praetorians, he thought. Acrid billows of dull grey smoke wafted up from forges and blanketed the sky, rendering the air muggy and leaden. It was like walking through a giant kiln. Fires glowered dimly in the dark. Apartment blocks tapered along the distant hills and valleys, their blackened upper storeys barely visible against the night sky.
    ‘All the lads in the camp are talking about your award,’ the guard said, his voice carrying a hint of jealousy. ‘It’s not every day that his imperial majesty personally decorates a lowly officer, you know. You’re the toast of Rome.’ He narrowed his eyes to slits. ‘You must have some friends in high places, I suppose.’
    ‘Afraid not,’ Macro replied drily. ‘My boys and I were part of a punitive expedition against a tribe from across the Rhine. We got caught in the thick of it. Killed three hundred of the wildest-looking Germans you could imagine. I led the men back after our centurion copped it. All in a day’s work for the Second. Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’
    The Praetorian swapped an impressed look with the second guard. Macro felt a sudden hankering to be back on the Rhine Frontier. Rome disagreed with him, even though he had lived there in his childhood. He’d left the city under a cloud some thirteen years ago, after avenging the death of his uncle Sextus by slaying a violent gang leader. He had journeyed north to Gaul and enlisted for twenty-five years at the fortress of the Second Legion. He’d not expected to ever return to the city, and being back felt strange.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, patting his stomach. ‘It’s tough being a hero. Everyone buying you drinks. Tarts fawning over you, of course. The ladies love a man with a shiny set of medals.’ The guard glanced back enviously across his shoulder. ‘Especially the posh ones. They can’t resist a bit of rough.’
    Macro struggled to match pace with the guards as they weaved their way through a wave of exotic faces – Syrians and Gauls, Nubians and Jews. Synagogues and a variety of temples he hadn’t seen before loomed between the tenements along the main thoroughfare.
    ‘A word to the wise,’ said the guard. ‘From one soldier to another. Things aren’t like they used to be around here. A lot’s changed.’
    ‘Oh?’ Macro asked, his interest piqued. ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Claudius may be emperor, but his accession hasn’t exactly been smooth. That unfortunate business of Caligula getting the chop a few months back caused a bit of a mess.’
    ‘As I recall,’ said Macro frostily, ‘it was one of your own who stuck his blade into Caligula.’
    News of the assassination of the previous emperor in January had been greeted with a mixture of dismay and relief by the men of the Second. Dismay that there was a chance they might return to the days of the Republic, but relief that Caligula’s reign had ended. The Emperor had been dogged by scandal. It was common knowledge that he’d committed incest with his sisters and turned the imperial palace into a brothel, and an attempt on his life from the offended aristocracy and Senate had been all too predictable. In the end, a trio of officers from the Praetorian Guard, led by Cassius Chaerea, had taken matters into their own hands. The conspirators had stabbed Caligula thirty times, slain his wife and smashed his young daughter’s head against a wall to end the bloodline. For a short while, a new Roman republic had seemed on the cards. Until the Praetorians turned to Claudius.
    The guard stopped in his tracks and, turning to face Macro, lowered his voice. ‘Look, between