Rome’s Fallen Eagle Read Free Page A

air. Sabinus tugged his weapon free and pulled down his neckerchief; the false god would know who ended his life and why.
    ‘Sabinus!’ Caligula croaked, blood trickling down his chin. ‘You’re my friend!’
    ‘No, Caligula, I’m your sheep, remember?’ He thrust his weapon, sharply, low into Caligula’s groin as Clemens and Cornelius both drew their swords and plunged them into the stricken Emperor from either side.
    With the bitter joy of vengeance, Sabinus smiled as he rolled his wrist, twisting the blade left and right, shredding the lower intestines, and then forcing the point forward until he felt it break through the flesh between the base of the buttocks.
    All four assassins wrenched back their swords simultaneously; Caligula stood unsupported for a moment before crumpling, without a sound, to the floor into Claudius’ pool of urine.
    Sabinus stared down at his erstwhile friend, hawked and spat a globule of phlegm at his face and then pulled his neckerchief back up. Chaerea aimed a shuddering kick at Caligula’s bloodseeping groin.
    ‘We must finish it,’ Clemens said quietly, turning to leave. ‘Hurry; the Germans will find the body soon, I told them to wait for a count of five hundred to stop anyone following us up the steps.’
    The four assassins walked briskly back up the corridor. The two centurions were waiting by the door.
    ‘Lupus, bring your century into the palace,’ Clemens ordered as he passed them. ‘Aetius, keep yours outside and don’t let anyone in. And get rid of those caterwauling Aitolians.’
    ‘Did Claudius and Herod Agrippa see you?’ Sabinus asked.
    ‘No, sir,’ Lupus answered, ‘we saw them coming and stepped back outside until they’d passed.’
    ‘Good; get going.’
    The two centurions snapped salutes and doubled off through the door towards their men. From back down the corridor came guttural shouting.
    ‘Shit!’ Clemens hissed. ‘Those bastard Germans can’t count. Run!’
    Sabinus burst into a sprint and flicked a look over his shoulder; eight silhouetted figures appeared from around the corner; their swords were drawn. One turned and ran back in the direction of the theatre. The remaining seven began to chase them.
    Clemens crashed through a door and led them on up a set of marble steps, through a high-ceilinged room full of lifelike painted statues of Caligula and his sisters and on into the palace. Turning left they reached the atrium as the first of Lupus’ men were coming through the door.
    ‘Form your lads up, centurion,’ Clemens shouted, ‘they may have to kill some Germans.’
    At a sharp order from Lupus a line was formed as the Germans raced into the atrium. ‘Swords!’ Lupus yelled.
    With the precision expected of Rome’s élite soldiery the eighty swords of the century were drawn in ringing unison.
    Hopelessly outnumbered but maddened by the murder of the Emperor to whom they owed absolute loyalty, the Germans screamed the war cries of their dark-forested homeland and charged. Sabinus, Clemens and the two tribunes slipped behind the Praetorian line as, with a resounding clash of metal on metal that echoed through the columns of the room, the Germans crashed into the Praetorians with their weight fully behind their shields. They slashed with long swords at the heads and torsos of the unshielded defenders. Four went down immediately under the ferocity of the attack but their comrades held the line,punching with their left arms in lieu of shields and stabbing with their shorter swords at the groins and thighs of their assailants, whose numbers quickly dwindled. Soon five of their companions were lying dead or dying on the floor, and the last two Germans disengaged and ran headlong back the way that they had come.
    A shrill female voice cut through the clamour. ‘Just what is going on here?’
    Sabinus turned to see a tall woman with a long, horse-like face and pronounced aristocratic nose; she held a child of about two years old in her arms.