Thunder of the Gods Read Free Page B

let’s say, just for the sake of the discussion, that I was.’
    ‘Then the man who replaced the Praetorian Prefect must owe you a huge debt.’
    ‘And you think that’s it? The gift of a legion as the reward for the chance to take ultimate power?’
    ‘Wasn’t it?’
    The legatus shook his head.
    ‘Who could be more dangerous than a man ruthless enough to engineer the death of the man he seeks to supplant? Why would he leave anyone who was part of the act alive to tell the story?’
    Ravilla nodded slowly.
    ‘I take your point. Unless he wanted more from the men in question?’
    ‘Indeed. It seems that our particular capabilities were too valuable to be discarded, once we’d served our initial purposes. See my tribune there?’
    The procurator frowned at the change in conversational focus, glancing down the ship’s length at the tall, well-muscled figure of a military tribune clad in a shining bronze breast plate and bearing his usual two swords, one an infantry gladius with a magnificent eagle’s head pommel. Alongside him stood an older soldier wearing the scaled armour and cross-crested helmet of a legion centurion; the two officers engaged in the routine inspection of the centurion’s men.
    ‘Yes. He seems a good enough man, if a little … taciturn. The centurion with him though, now
there’s
a dangerous man.’
    ‘Cotta? He’s sudden death with any weapon you could mention, but the tribune?’
    Scaurus grinned at Ravilla.
    ‘Tribune Corvus could take Cotta to pieces, literally, in the span of a dozen heartbeats. His men call him
“Two Knives”
, because he fights in the style of an old-fashioned dimachaerus. He was taught by a champion gladiator of some fame, a big man who, like Corvus there, always fought with two swords. You might have seen the man’s recent and rather spectacular comeback appearance in the Flavian arena?’
    ‘You don’t mean …’
    Ravilla whispered the gladiator’s name in an awed tone, and when Scaurus nodded in reply, his face took on a fresh expression of amazement. The legatus smiled at his colleague’s genuine astonishment.
    ‘Indeed. And while his pupil may lack the big man’s sheer brute power, he has a speed with the blade that you might call divine, were you to believe that the gods occasionally bestow their gifts on us mere mortals. He wears a quiet enough demeanour for the most part, but when he’s roused …’
    The procurator mused for a moment.
    ‘So the new man behind the throne must have wanted something more from you? Something that involved your tribune?’
    ‘He did, and in a roundabout sort of way he got exactly what he wanted from us.’
    ‘And then?’
    Scaurus raised his hands and gestured about him.
    ‘And then … here we are. Apparently we’re too valuable to be quietly murdered and forgotten about, and so instead we find ourselves sent east to deal with a problem on the empire’s frontier instead. And that feeling of envy you were expressing before?’
    Ravilla looked at him for a moment.
    ‘Has somewhat diminished, I’ll wager, and has been replaced by one rather large question.’
    The legatus smiled knowingly.
    ‘Which, I would imagine, is that given the rather dangerous nature of the information I’ve just shared with you, why in the name of Mithras didn’t I just fabricate some rather more anodyne story to tell you?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘And you’re right to be concerned.’
    He passed the procurator a scroll, the paper still sealed into a tight tube with wax bearing the imperial mark. Ravilla took it from his hand, grimaced at the seal and then snapped it, opening the message and reading swiftly. After a moment he handed it back to the legatus with a single word.
    ‘Shit.’
    ‘Indeed.’
     
    Word spread quickly through the port city of Seleucia, as the flagship and the fleet of warships that followed in her wake appeared over the western horizon in swift and efficient succession, each fresh sighting whipping up the