Swords Around the Throne (2 page)

‘
...O great and heaven-sent Augustus, on this day that we celebrate the birth of Rome, the Eternal City, Mistress of Nations, we praise you for restoring to us the divine peace and prosperity of our lands!
'

Nigrinus snatched a quick glance back at the imperial podium: Constantine still sat stiff and motionless, staring forward. What was he thinking? Was he even listening? Around him his advisors and eunuchs lolled, some of them whispering together.

‘
For is it not so that in the days of your father, the deified Constantius, the Kings of the Franks gave oaths that their people would never again trouble the serenity of our empire?'

A stir ran through the crowd: at the centre of the arena floor a dark opening had appeared. Sand sifted down into the void below. The noise in the stalls died away once more into an expectant hush, broken by a vast collective hiss and yell as the platform was winched up from the arena cellars.

‘
And is it not so, most Divine Intelligence, that as soon as the dire news of your father's illness and demise crossed the narrow seas, these same savage men, these men ungovernable by honour, broke their promises of peace and once again bared their savage jaws against our kin?
'

Between twenty or thirty prisoners stood huddled on the platform, Nigrinus guessed; all that remained of the Frankish war parties that had crossed the Rhine the previous winter. They were naked, their bodies pale, starved-looking and covered in bloody welts and bruises. For the last three months they had been kept in the darkness of a dungeon, only to be flung into this blaze of light and noise, this roaring oval of thousands of hateful eyes and mouths.

The voice of the orator was almost drowned by the yelling.

‘
O greatest of emperors, then you came to our aid, falling like a comet from the western sky and destroying their warlike bands! And now, O great one, allow us to see and admire the terror of justice falling upon those same barbarians!
'

From the dark gates in the wall, snarling wolves were being herded out onto the sand by men with whips and tridents, scores of them loping and ranging around the margins of the arena like grey smoke. The prisoners were still clustered on the platform at the centre of the oval: a couple were kneeling, awaiting their fate, while others stood locked in terror, cupping their genitals; Nigrinus noticed that they had been chained together in pairs by the neck.

A cry went up from the crowd: one shackled pair of prisoners had made a stumbling bolt for the wooden barriers that ringed the arena. The nearest wolf, attracted by the movement, leaped towards them. Others followed at once; then the whole pack was in motion. Nigrinus made a sound between his teeth.

As soon as the first two men went down the rest scattered, fleeing clumsily in all directions, hampered by their neck-chains. The wolves loped in amongst them, yelping and frenzied, and the killing became rapid and bloody. Nigrinus saw one beast tear out a man's throat with a single flying lunge; another pair brought a running fugitive to the ground, clawing at his arms and chest. Blood sprayed and spattered on the sand.

Nigrinus could clearly make out the sound of cracking bones and rending flesh. He could smell the hot blood, the reek of offal and faeces, the sickening taint of death in the air. He felt his guts tighten, and glanced away. He had no qualms about the idea of death, mutilation and extreme violence, but still felt an instinctive squeamishness about having to watch it. It was childish, he knew, quite unmanly. He forced himself to raise his eyes and watch, dispassionately, as the men died on the sand. The arena is a stern teacher, he told himself.

There was a presence at his side; he thought it was Flaccianus returning, but instead another man was leaning from the row behind him. A hefty, bearded man in red clothing, wearing many gold ornaments.

‘What is the purpose of this, can you tell me?' the man asked in a thick Germanic accent, flinging out a fat hand towards the slaughter.

‘King,' Nigrinus said in greeting, making the barest of salutes. Hrocus, King of the Alamannic Bucinobantes, had been hanging around the court of Constantine, and his father before him, for nearly a decade, but was still entitled to a shadow of courtesy. He had, after all, been one of the first to acclaim Constantine as emperor, back in Eboracum.

‘These men are warriors!' Hrocus exclaimed, sounding genuinely pained. ‘They surrendered in good faith, so I believe. Why does the emperor waste them like this? They would make good soldiers, loyal to him. Instead they are just used as sport – this I do not understand! It is
ridiculous...
'

‘How many warriors are there in Germania?' Nigrinus asked, leaning back and speaking over his shoulder. ‘How many among the Franks, and your own people, and all the other nations beyond? A multitude. And nearly all of them tied by treaty to keep the peace with Rome.'

‘Yes? What of it?'

‘Making an exhibition of a few prisoners,' Nigrinus went on, summoning a smile, ‘not only reassures the citizens of the provinces that the emperor can enforce his demands. It also reminds the barbarians across the river that Rome takes promises very seriously. And that reminder is worth a legion of men.'

Hrocus grunted, clearly not convinced. It must be hard, Nigrinus thought; those men dying down there were very similar to his own people, and spoke almost the same language. But it was true: displays like this worked. Now all the tribes of the Franks had presented their submission; only the Bructeri remained, and they too would be subdued soon enough, this year or the next.

Down on the sand, most of the prisoners were already dead. The last few cowered in a knot to one side. Some were screaming for mercy, but their voices were lost in the vast noise of the baying crowd that surrounded them. The wolves, however, were slinking off to the other side of the arena, apparently tired of their work. One, its muzzle bloodied to its ears, was intently trying to eat the body of its victim; two of the guards tried to drive it away as a wave of boos and angry yells echoed around the stalls.

But soon enough the guards with their whips and jabbing tridents had forced both prisoners and wolves back into motion, and the animals despatched their last few victims with sullen efficiency. One of the final prisoners, dragging himself free from the corpse of his chained partner, made a dash for the arena wall. Nigrinus watched the man approach, then vanish beneath the wooden palings that ringed the oval of sand; the man hurled himself upwards and managed to grasp the top of the fence, but the wolves were already upon him. Then he fell back, out of sight, and a mist of blood sprayed up to spatter over the clean white tunics of the closest spectators.

‘Why do they laugh?' Hrocus asked, baffled. The cheers and jeers rang out from the stalls around them.

‘Fools will laugh at anything,' Nigrinus told him. Shock will do that too, he thought. He had heard of men laughing in battle as their friends died around them. Some of the spectators were giggling, or cackling like the mad. Relief, perhaps, that it was the barbarians being torn apart by wolves, and not them.

Now the drone and warble of the water organ filled the bowl of the amphitheatre once more. Already the guards were herding the wolves back though the gates, while slaves dragged away the mangled corpses of the dead Franks and shovelled more sand over the trampled morass of blood and viscera that remained. It was time for a new spectacle, before the attention of the crowd wandered.

‘Ah!' Hrocus declared, slapping his meaty hands together. ‘Now I hope for naked tarts, dancing on platforms!'

But the king was to be disappointed.

Two smaller trapdoors opened in the arena floor, and to another blare of trumpets the platforms rose from the darkness below. Each was mounted with a tall wooden post, and to each post a man was chained by the neck. Twisting in his seat, Nigrinus read the placards fixed to the tops of the posts: ‘MEROGAISVS – KING OF THE CHAMAVI', ‘ASCARICVS – KING OF THE CHERVSCI'.

The spectators began yelling again, standing in their seats, the men in the lower stalls screaming abuse at the bound captives.

‘Now
they
are fools,' Hrocus said, shaking his head sadly. ‘I could have told them! I could have said:
Don't attack Rome...
Now look at them!'

But the two Frankish chiefs appeared defiant still. One, Ascaricus, hung his head so his hair covered his face, but his lean muscles were hard as he gripped the post behind him. The other Frank, Merogaisus, was a huge man, his yellow hair and beard dirty and matted but his eyes glaring. His body was striped with blood from a recent whipping. As he felt the hatred of the crowd he began shouting back at them, straining at his chains.

‘What's he saying?' Nigrinus asked Hrocus.

‘He's saying,' the king replied, ‘that he wants to be armed.
Give me a weapon, Roman dogs. Let me fight and die like a man...
'

Abruptly the noise from the crowd shifted to a cheer and a growing chant. Nigrinus glanced away from the bound captives, and saw two bears emerging from the gates at either end of the arena. They were monstrous beasts, scarred veterans of the Treveris arena, and the crowd knew them well.

‘
UL-TOR! UL-TOR!
' the crowd near the southern gate chanted.

‘
OMI-CI-DA! OMI-CI-DA!
' those in the northern stalls chanted back.

So it was a contest, Nigrinus realised – which bear would kill his victim first? Already he could see some of the spectators making bets, gauging the odds – was the man-slaying Omicida the fittest champion, or the avenging Ultor?

The first kill came quickly, and those betting on Omicida lost out. The other bear, Ultor, dropped into a loping run; with unnerving speed it closed with the bound victim. Before Ascaricus of the Cherusci could even scream, the bear had reared up, bellowing, and smashed one paw across his chest. The victim was punched back against the post; then the bear lunged forward, throwing its full weight against him. The post gave way, toppling over and dragging the bound man with it – he was dead before he hit the sand, with the bear's massive gouging jaws clamped around his face.

‘
UL-TOR! UL-TOR!
' the crowd in the southern stands chanted.

Nigrinus looked back at Hrocus. The king sat with a woeful grimace, his beard in his fist. Another throw of the dice, Nigrinus thought, and it could easily have been Hrocus down there, chained to a post, getting his skull crushed by Ultor the bear.

How strange the turns of fate, Nigrinus thought as he stared in queasy fascination at the scene in the arena. Hrocus was born a king, his father was a king before him. Nigrinus's own father had been born a slave. Now Nigrinus himself was climbing the ladder of imperial offices, his power growing with every passing year, while Hrocus declined and did not even know it. Was it just fate? No, Nigrinus thought. It was more than that. He knew how the game was played, and men like Hrocus did not.

A sudden movement caught his eye – the crowd saw it too, and a gasp and a yell came from the stalls. Merogaisus, the second Frankish chief, had managed to break the fastening of the chain that secured him to the post. Roaring, he was heaving and dragging at the post itself, trying to wrench it from the ground. The bear Omicida idled closer, head swinging, drool glistening around its jaws.

With a straining heave, the Frankish chief ripped the heavy post up out of the ground. He lashed the chain around it, then lifted it above his head and brandished it at the packed tiers of seats all around him.

‘And now things become interesting,' Nigrinus said quietly.

The bear Omicida was already closing in. Merogaisus cried out in defiance, hefting the ten-foot baulk of wood and chain like an ironbound club. He swung, and the chain came loose and flailed at the bear's head. The crowd in the stalls was hushed, expectant, many of them on their feet. Nigrinus could see the flicker of bets being laid. Man against beast.

Swinging his lump of wood and iron, Merogaisus had driven the first bear back. But now Ultor had picked up his scent, and come 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.

‘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.

‘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.