Swords Around the Throne (14 page)

Into the wood the horses plunged. Castus ducked his head to avoid a low branch thickly pelted with snow; ice showered over him and spilled down his back. Beneath the trees it was dim as twilight, and he stayed low and clung tight to the saddle, trusting the animal to forge its way through. There were other riders around him now, and men running on foot, shouldering their hunting crossbows – they shouted at first, but then fell silent as they approached the sounds of the conflict.

Dogs were howling, whining – runners, Castus saw as he drew nearer. They were hanging back from the boar and keeping it at bay, while the other dogs, the mastiffs, had closed in to attack. One already lay wounded, its rear leg ripped, while two more circled and pounced. The clearing was wide, carpeted with a black mulch of dead leaves dusted with snow. Nets hung from the trees all around; the boar was trapped as the hunters closed in.

Sallustius seized Castus's bridle, dragging the big horse to a halt. ‘Stay back,' he said. Castus pulled the reins tight and the horse circled, pawing the dirt. He could make out the others now: the emperor and the other mounted men surrounding the trapped boar, some dismounting, spears in hand. The huntsmen with the crossbows formed a loose cordon around them.

The boar was a monster, waist-high at the shoulder, with long ridged tusks and a thick black hide covered in welts and scars. It dashed in a tight circle, tossing the attack dogs away from it, letting out a low groaning bellow. Its flanks were streaked with gore: its own, or the dogs', Castus could not tell.

‘A beauty!' Sallustius said, dropping from his horse and dragging its head down. Castus remained in the saddle, his own horse blowing a fog of breath in the tight air. The footmen were whistling, trying to call back the mastiffs; one dog slunk back, wounded, but the other had fixed its jaws in the boar's hide and was clinging on, claws raking the scarred black flank of the beast. As Castus watched, the boar seemed to shrug and lunge, swinging one great tusk, and the mastiff was jolted loose. Another lunge, and the dog lay in the dirt with its throat pumping blood.

Now the hunters closed in, their big spears held low. All of them were dressed alike in brown mantles, and for a moment Castus could not make out which of them was the emperor. He saw Maximian to one side, his massive bulk and beard marking him out, then another man rode in close on horseback, raising a javelin. Castus recognised him too: Priscus, the emperor's young legal advisor.

The boar remained still, only lifting its snout as the rider approached. Priscus swung back in the saddle, then hurled the javelin; it was barely out of his hand when the boar charged. The javelin went wide, the horse reared, and Priscus was tumbling from the saddle, the rushing boar almost upon him. Crossbows snapped – one dart jabbed into the animal's shoulder. Priscus was on the ground, lying flat and face down with his arms across his head. The boar kicked at him, butted him with its snout, but could not get at him with its tusks.

Castus had been so diverted by the scene that he had not noticed the shouts around him, the men crying out to Priscus to stay on the ground, keep himself covered. Now the shouts changed to cheers: Constantine, the emperor himself, was closing in on foot to tackle the boar in person.

A clever bit of theatre perhaps, Castus thought. But Priscus could still be badly hurt. Constantine edged closer, gripping the levelled spear in both hands, his legs firmly braced like a wrestler in the ring. Castus saw the emperor's face, raw and red from the cold, his heavy jaw set hard, eyes fixed on his prey. The boar turned its head, snout twitching, then swung to face the new threat. All around the clearing, the shouts and cheers died to breathless silence. For a few long heartbeats hunter and animal faced each other, and then with a keening squeal the boar charged.

At that moment Castus's horse jinked and pulled at the reins, distracting him. As he glanced back up he saw movement away to his left, figures edging between the trees around the upper slope of the clearing. They were huntsmen, stubble-bearded and dressed in sheepskin mantles, but one of them had a crossbow raised and aimed directly at Constantine. Nobody else was looking; all eyes were on the emperor and the boar. Castus blinked, a cry caught in his throat, and then the man loosed his bolt.

It darted straight and true across the clearing, but at that instant Constantine lunged forward and planted the heavy point of his spear deep into the shoulder of the charging boar, the beast driving up onto the blade until its flesh met the twin lugs at the top of the spearshaft. The crossbow bolt flicked past, just behind the emperor's head, and buried itself in the flank of Priscus's horse.

Castus hauled the reins and kicked at his own horse, and the animal's bound almost threw him out of the saddle. Up in the trees he could see the bowman struggling to reload. He swept the sword from his scabbard, crying out a warning to those behind him. Only a few onlookers had seen what had happened; the rest were still intent on the emperor as he forced the dying boar down at his feet.

Ice sprayed up as Castus urged his horse on through the bushes at the gallop. Frozen branches crackled and whipped, and plumes of snow cascaded from the trees. The second huntsman glanced back at him, then canted his arm with a javelin in his hand.

Stooping low, his thighs tight to the saddle leather, Castus saw the arc of the weapon as the man threw. He waited a heartbeat, then tugged the reins. The big horse jolted to one side, and the flung javelin darted past. Castus looked up and saw the huntsman reaching for his second javelin. Too late; the man's face emptied in fear, but in two long strides the horse had closed with him. Castus levelled his
spatha
downwards like a lance, and the tip of the blade drove into the man's chest. He dropped his arm with the weight of the body, then dragged the sword free and galloped on.

Trees all around him now. The man with the crossbow had his weapon loaded and raised. He loosed, and Castus had only a moment to crouch over the horse's neck before he felt the bolt cutting the air above his head.

The bowman threw his weapon aside and turned to run, making for a long snow-covered bank rising from the clearing.

‘Grab him!' somebody shouted. ‘Get him alive!' The men in the clearing had seen what was happening now. Another horse came crashing between the bushes on the far side of the slope: Brinno, sword in hand, galloping to cut off the huntsman's escape.

Castus shook his head as shards of ice flickered against his face. The fleeing man was just ahead of him, his sheepskin cape swinging behind him as he ran. More shouts from either side, other figures closing in, but Castus was closest and gaining fast on the fugitive.

The running man reached the snow and hurled himself up the slope, but the heavy horse came ploughing through the frozen undergrowth behind him. Castus dropped his sword and dragged back hard on the reins; leaning from the saddle, he seized the fugitive's trailing cape with one outstretched arm. The man screamed as Castus dragged him off his feet. Then blood sprayed up against the horse's flank.

A black bolt jutted from the side of the man's neck. His body fell limp, almost dragging Castus from the saddle. Castus released his grip on the cape and the man dropped. When he looked up, he saw one of the hunting party, a fleshy bald-headed man in a blue tunic and brown mantle, quickly handing the crossbow back to the huntsman beside him.

‘I had him!' Castus yelled, breathing hard. ‘I had him – alive!'

‘He threatened our emperor, and I... acted on instinct,' the man in blue said. His voice was unbroken – a eunuch.

Castus twisted the reins and backed the horse away. Behind him in the clearing the last saga of the hunt was being played out, the boar blowing bloody spume as it died, the victorious emperor raising his killing spear to the applause of his retinue.

Observed by only a few, the corpse of the fallen man lay twisted beneath the sheepskin cape. The snow around the body was spattered pink, then reddened and soaked into black as the blood welled from the body.

Night had fallen by the time the hunting party returned to Treveris. Nothing had been said about the attempt to murder the emperor – the matter was best forgotten, it seemed. An unfortunate accident, and at worst the act of a madman. But Castus could not forget the look on the man's face as he threw aside the crossbow and turned to run; neither could he forget the speed with which the eunuch in the blue tunic had shot the fugitive down. If the man's bolt had not struck the horse, nobody but Castus himself would have seen it. If it had struck the emperor, or even passed close enough to distract him, the boar would have knocked him down with ease. And if the emperor fell, who would step into his place? Even to think like that ran ice through Castus's veins.

Tired after their labours, the emperor and his guests soon departed to their beds, but Castus and Brinno were on sentry duty that night and it was nearly midnight by the time they returned to their quarters in the precinct of the Protectores. Castus was climbing the steps to his room when he heard the slave in the atrium below asking for him.

‘You want me in particular?' he called over the balcony.

‘Aurelius Castus and Flavius Brinno,' the slave replied.

‘What's it about?'

‘I cannot say, dominus. I was just ordered to find you and bring you...'

The night was achingly cold, and both men wrapped themselves in their cloaks again before following the slave. Outside, across courtyards empty in stark moonlight, they were led down darkened passages, deeper into the labyrinths of the palace.

In a side chamber of the hall of notaries, gloomy and thick with the smoke of oil lamps, the slave left them. There were two men waiting there. The first, lounging on the corner couch with a smirk on his face, Castus did not recognise. The second, perched stiffly on a folding stool, was a thin man with reddened eyes and a clump of ugly bowl-cut hair, dressed all in grey. Castus did not try to hide his disdain.

‘Forgive us for summoning you at this unusual hour,' the thin man said. His voice was sharp and bitter as a knife blade. ‘Some business is best conducted while others sleep. I am Julius Nigrinus, Tribune of Notaries, and my associate Flaccianus here is an officer of the agentes in rebus. I believe I know one of you already.'

‘We've met,' Castus said. His jaw cracked as he yawned.

‘I shan't keep you long. Earlier today, as you know, an attempt was made on the life of our beloved Augustus Constantine.' Nigrinus paused, and Castus noticed him wetting his lips with his tongue. ‘I have been ordered to conduct an inquiry into the matter, and discover who was responsible for this treasonous act.'

‘The men who tried it are already dead,' Brinno said, his Germanic accent giving the words a harsh clip.

‘Indeed. Your comrade here saw to one of them, and as for the other... Very convenient, would you not say, that both died before they could be questioned? Convenient for those who paid them, and planned this outrage...'

‘I killed the first man because he was trying to kill me,' Castus said. ‘I had the second one – if that eunuch hadn't shot him he'd be alive now.' He was trying to guard his anger, but the memory of all that this notary had done in Britain four years before felt fresh in his mind. The men who had died for his schemes.

‘Ah, yes, the eunuch,' Nigrinus said quietly. ‘His name is Gorgonius. He is the steward of the former emperor Maximian's household. Have you met him before, perhaps?'

‘Never.' Castus could see the man at the back of the room, Flaccianus, smirking to himself again. Remain calm, he told himself.

‘Because it's strange, is it not, that the two of you were so quick to go in pursuit of the men? Perhaps with the second you were merely holding him, so this eunuch Gorgonius could get a clear shot?'

‘What are you suggesting?' Brinno said, raising his voice. He looked as though he wanted to leap across the room and attack the notary.

Nigrinus spread his palms in a placatory gesture, but his eyes remained cold, filled with subtle menace. How much power, Castus wondered, did this man really have?

‘It has come to my attention,' Nigrinus went on, apparently unmoved by Brinno's display of anger, ‘that there may be a traitor within the Corps of Protectores.'

‘Not possible!' Brinno hissed. Castus remained silent. He remembered all too well this game of insinuations, of crafty threats and bargains.

‘Shocking, but true. This person is apparently working in collaboration with agents of a rival power. Perhaps of Maxentius in Rome. Perhaps... somebody else.'

‘And you think one of us is this traitor?' Brinno's eyes were wide with fury.

Nigrinus merely smiled. ‘Let us say, some might have reason to suspect so. However, I know that you, Flavius Brinno, are the son of a Frankish chieftain. You owe everything to the emperor Constantine, you are formidably devoted to him, so I hear. As for you...' He turned to Castus. ‘We have, as you remind me, had dealings with each other before. You seem to me a very...
dependable
person.'

Expendable, he means
, Castus thought. His back teeth were clamped tight.

‘You saved the life of the emperor back in Germania, and he selected you personally for his guard. You seem unlikely to forget such a thing. There are many duplicitous people around us. However, I rather think you... lack the guile for duplicity, shall we say.'

Castus knew very well what he was saying. Let him think that. Many others had thought the same way. The idea that these two men, and perhaps others like them, had been observing him for all these months, studying and assessing how he might be used, made his skin crawl and his scalp contract. But he managed to smile. He refused to be outmanoeuvred by this man again.

‘Loyalty can never be taken for granted,' Nigrinus went on. ‘It must be demonstrated. Conspicuously demonstrated. So if you wish to be considered loyal, you would do well to be vigilant. Watch your comrades carefully, pay attention to anything they may say or do. I would remind you that in cases of potential treason, all immunity from questioning is withdrawn. That includes questioning by torture...'