Swords Around the Throne Read Free Page A

bellowing across the sand to join the attack. Both animals circled the man, keeping back from the lash of the chain and the sweeping reach of the wooden club. Merogaisus was chanting something, or singing; he was holding the beasts off, but his strength would give out before long.
    Now the crowd was beginning to shout, some of them urging on the bears, others – unbelievably, it seemed to Nigrinus – switching their support to Merogaisus. Only moments before they had been screaming for his death; now they chanted his name, punching the air in unison. Hrocus was on his feet too, joining in the chant.
    Something had to be done, Nigrinus thought. The message of this display was being lost. He could see many in the crowd stretching out their arms towards the imperial podium, begging the emperor’s mercy for the man in the arena. Nigrinus smiled grimly: how the fickle populace loved an underdog!
    One of the bears – Omicida – reared up suddenly and made a lunge, smashing the club from the Frank’s grasp. The crowd let out a vast groan. The other bear, its muzzle still clotted with gore, lurched closer. Merogaisus snatched up the chain and managed to haul the club after him as he backed away. He swung at one bear and caught it across the jaws with the chain; then he jabbed the baulk of wood at the other, driving it back. Cheers and a rhythmic stamping rose from the stalls.
    â€˜The emperor!’ somebody was shouting. ‘The emperor!’ Nigrinus turned to the podium. There was Constantine, standing stiffly, his golden robe blazing in the sun, one hand raised. Nigrinus stood up, instinctively raising his hand in salute.
    â€˜He will grant him freedom?’ Hrocus was asking. ‘Constantine will allow the Frank to go free?’
    Down on the bloody sand, Merogaisus too had seen the emperor. For a moment he stood motionless, the heavy club raised, the two beasts prowling just beyond his reach. Then, with a shout of rage, he tossed the club aside. Head back, fists raised to the crowd and the emperor alike, he cried out in his own language, a single phrase repeated. Then he ran at the nearest bear with his arms outstretched.
    â€˜What did he say?’ Nigrinus demanded.
    â€˜He said,’ Hrocus replied, then raised his voice: ‘ Roman slaves! Watch how a free man dies! ’
    Omicida made one savage bellowing swipe, and the man was down.
    Shocked silence filled the amphitheatre, and in that unnatural hush, before the great eruption of angry noise, Nigrinus was sure he could make out the last cries of the dying man as the bears tore into him.
    They sounded, he thought, like mocking laughter.

1
    May AD 308
    The sea was grey as old meat, veined with dirty white foam.
    Three hours out from harbour, the round-bellied Gallic merchantman Pegasus butted across the choppy swell, her deck crowded with legionaries huddled under their rain capes. On the western horizon, the coast of Britain was vanishing into the haze, while three more vessels followed in the wake of the Pegasus , carrying the rest of the Third Cohort, Legion VI Victrix across the sea to Gaul.
    On deck, beneath the bulge of the leather sail, the briny sting of the sea breeze could not erase the reek of bilge water, vomit and urine rising from the hold. Two of the legionaries stumbled up from their crouch in the scuppers to lean into the breeze, bracing themselves expectantly against the rail.
    â€˜Other side!’ a heavy voice said. ‘Downwind. Unless you want it in your faces!’
    One of the soldiers glanced back, too sick to speak; before either could move their centurion had seized them by their capes and hauled them back across the pitch of the deck. Staggering, they plunged against the leeward rail, just in time to blow the meagre contents of their stomachs out over the waves.
    A fresh whip of wind spattered rain across the deck – it had been raining constantly, on and off, since the ship had left Rutupiae.