Arminius E-Book

Robert Fabbri

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

One man's greatest victory. Rome's greatest defeat. A.D. 9: In the depths of the Teutoburg Wald, in a landscape riven by ravines, darkened by ancient oak and bisected by fast-flowing streams, Arminius of the Cherusci led a confederation of six Germanic tribes in the annihilation of three Roman legions. Deep in the forest almost twenty thousand men were massacred without mercy; fewer than two hundred of them ever made it back across the Rhine. To Rome's shame, three sacred Eagles were lost that day. But Arminius wasn't brought up in Germania Magna - he had been raised as a Roman. This is the story of how Arminius came to turn his back on the people who raised him and went on to commit a betrayal so great and so deep, it echoed through the ages. ______________________________________________ Don't miss Robert Fabbri's epic new series Alexander's Legacy

Leseprobe

For Leo and Jodi Fabbri, wishing you a long and happy life together. Welcome to the family, Jodi – and, of course, that bean, Carl!

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IIII

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter VIIII

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIIII

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

PROLOGUE

RAVENNA, AD 37

‘TO FACE SYNATOS the retiarius, I give you the secutor, Licus of Germania!’

The crowd’s roar of approval drowned out the games-master’s voice; but to Thumelicatz it was a muffled drone that just penetrated the bronze helmet encasing his head. He strode into the arena, raising his short sword to the ten-thousand-strong crowd as they chanted ‘Licus! Licus!’, the shortened form of his Latinised name: Thumelicus. Pumping his sword in the air in time to the chant and holding his semi-cylindrical rectangular shield, emblazoned with a boar’s head, before him, he acknowledged all parts of the oval, sandstone arena.

Thumelicatz had learnt early on in his five years on the sand from his lanista, Orosius, his owner and trainer, to work the crowd, despite his feelings for them: a popular gladiator with the support of the mob had the edge in any fight and, if he was defeated, could expect their mercy. Orosius had a wealth of experience having been granted the wooden sword of freedom fifteen years previously, after fifty-three fights; today Thumelicatz would come to within one fight of that total, thanks mainly to his lanista’s teaching. Thumelicatz held his sword towards his mentor sitting in the crowd; Orosius, once an object of fear and loathing but now one of grudging respect, inclined his head in acknowledgement.

Finally, shouting the prescribed words of a gladiator about to do mortal combat, Thumelicatz saluted the games’ sponsor, seated beneath the only canopy around the arena. With a gracious gesture of one hand, the sponsor, the newly installed prefect of the small, provincial town of Ravenna, indicated his readiness to see blood spilt; he adjusted his white toga bordered by a thin purple stripe, indicating his equestrian rank, and held his palms out to accept the accolade of the crowd.

Sweat rolled down Thumelicatz’s face from under the felt cap beneath his helmet; he blinked and turned his head, searching through the two small eye-holes in the blank face-guard for his opponent, the helmetless, net and trident wielding retiarius, Synatos. Finding his foe he kept his eyes firmly fixed on him, knowing that the lighter and more agile fighter would try to use his speed to unsight him. Weighed down with helmet, shield and wide leather belt securing his loincloth, along with thick padded linen guards on his right arm and lower right leg as well as a greave of boiled leather on his left, the secutor was comparatively slow; Thumelicatz knew from long experience that it was crucial to finish this fight quickly before exhaustion claimed him.

He touched the hammer amulet hanging around his neck. ‘Donar, hone my blade, guide my hand and give me strength, Great Thunderer.’

The rudis, the wooden staff held by the referee, the summa rudis, flashed down between the two fighters; the crowd quietened. Thumelicatz’s sharp breaths, amplified in his helmet, came fast as he tried to extract as much oxygen as possible from the stifling atmosphere that surrounded him. He stamped his left leg forward, pulling his sword arm back overarm so that the blade was angled down, level with his eyes, and presented his shield, staring over its rim at Synatos. The retiarius stared back, eyes squinting against the loose dust that matted his black curls; he crouched, leading with the left of his sculpted, oiled body, flicking his weighted net in front of him with his right hand, and probing with his trident in the left, protruding from the thick linen that protected that arm – a chainmail shoulder-guard above it completed his meagre protection.

The rudis remained between them; Thumelicatz held Synatos’ gaze, trying to guess his first move; they had fought together many times in the ludus, the training school, and knew each other’s styles well; they had also met once before in the arena. On that occasion, five months before, Thumelicatz had won after a hard fight, eventually disarming Synatos and giving him the puckered scar that ran down his right forearm; the crowd had shown their appreciation by granting the loser his life. Thumelicatz had been relieved. Despite a retiarius being looked down upon by all sword-wielding gladiators as not being a gladiator at all in the strictest sense of the word, Synatos was as close a friend as Thumelicatz would allow himself in the enclosed ludus where men were trained to take life indiscriminately.

He'll jump to his left and thrust his trident at my unprotected right thigh, Thumelicatz thought as he noticed a slight movement of the eyes to that part of his anatomy. Then he’ll flick his net at my hand as I block the blow, trying to dislodge my sword.

With a barked command to fight, the summa rudis raised his staff; the crowd roared in anticipation of blood. Synatos leapt to his left and, with a lightning jab, powered his trident at Thumelicatz’s right thigh. Already expecting the blow, Thumelicatz thrust his sword down, at an angle, between two of the barbed points of the trident; with a spray of sparks and a metallic rasp, the trident grated up his blade, coming to a clanging halt on the oval guard. Punching his shield out, he deflected the net aiming to ensnare his right hand. Pushing forward, Thumelicatz tried to close with his adversary, the retiarius having nothing but a pugio, a short dagger, for closequarters work. Synatos saw the danger and jumped back leaving his net, like a circular shadow, on the ground in front of him to trip Thumelicatz should he try to follow up.

A trident jab to the throat forced Thumelicatz’s shield up and he stepped back as the three evilly sharp barbed points skewered into the leather-covered wood, cracking the rim back to crash into his face-guard; his ears rang as the clang resounded around the helmet. He yanked his shield away, hoping that the trident was firmly embedded and that he could haul it from Synatos’ grasp; it came free as the net landed over his head. Thumelicatz felt the draw-cord around the net’s perimeter instantly begin to tighten, threatening to entrap him. The secutors’ helmets, being completely smooth with no extraneous rims, fins or guards, were designed to avoid being caught in the retiarii’s nets. Thumelicatz pulled his head back, slipping it from under the net, and raised his sword so that the blade seared through the twine. Backwards he jumped, blocking repeated trident thrusts, rending the net in two until he severed the draw-cord, rendering the weapon next to useless.

Again the trident slammed into his shield as Synatos attempted to cover his discarding the net and grabbing the long shaft with two hands. With the extra strength of a double grip the trident became a fearsome attacking weapon; to the crowd’s raucous approval, Synatos thrust it down again and again towards Thumelicatz’s unprotected bare feet forcing him into a dance of necessity and to bring his shield ever lower, hacking with his sword at the metal head and thick shaft as he waited for the inevitable.

When it came he was ready.

The triple spikes abruptly raised and flashed over his lowered shield towards the base of his throat; he ducked and heard the trident scrape over the crown of his helm as he pushed forward, punching his shield before him into the chest of his opponent. With an explosive exhalation, the wind was knocked from Synatos’ lungs; he staggered but brought the shaft of his weapon cracking down onto Thumelicatz’s shoulders as he, in turn, thrust his sword towards the retiarius’s heart, jolting his aim so that the point punched harmlessly into Synatos’ shoulder-guard. Both gladiators crashed to the ground, sand immediately sticking to their sweat-lathered bodies. The clamour of the crowd rose even further as they contemplated a to-the-death scramble to savour between two men who quite evidently had each other’s demise in the forefronts of their minds.

With a bone-jarring crack, Synatos pulled the shaft of his trident, two-handed, down again across Thumelicatz’s shoulder blades; grunting in pain, he slammed his sword-weighted fist into the side of the retiarius’s unprotected head whilst pressing down with his shield on his already empty chest, denying him breath. He felt Synatos begin to change his grip on the trident behind him, bringing the points round to plunge into his spine; he exploded up onto his knees astride his prone opponent, knocking the weapon from his weakened grasp. A searing white light of agony flashed before Thumelicatz’s eyes as Synatos brought his shin crunching up between his legs; disobeying every urge of his body to double over to protect that precious part of his anatomy, he flung himself backwards as the pain seared up through his lower abdomen like the repeated manic stabbing of a stiletto blade. His chest heaved and vomit squirted from his mouth over the inside of his face-guard.

Grabbing his pugio from its sheath, Synatos pushed himself up, jumped to his feet and threw himself at Thumelicatz. Still hyperventilating with pain, Thumelicatz just had the presence of mind to punch his shield up, deflecting first the blade and then the body wielding it; he rolled away to his left and struggled to his knees as Synatos hit the sand and, with the agility of a lizard, flicked himself back round to face his opponent. Using his sword as a stick, Thumelicatz forced himself to his feet; he was too weak to prevent Synatos scrambling to regain his trident. Now, with his principal weapon in his right hand and the dagger in his left, the retiarius squared up to Thumelicatz. The crowd’s roar was deafening, penetrating even into Thumelicatz’s bronze-encased ears, as they cheered the prospect of renewed hostilities with both gladiators back on even terms; and then the chant of ‘Licus! Licus!’ broke out above the wave of sound.

Still in pain and more weighed down by his equipment than his opponent, Thumelicatz knew that he had to finish it soon before he tired beyond the point of effective attack. He let his shield sag, sword arm drop and knees buckle slightly as if he had already reached that stage of exhaustion; with a snarl of triumph the retiarius lunged forward, thrusting his trident at chest height. With a fleet, violent motion, Thumelicatz smashed his shield across the path of the weapon knocking it aside and hacked his sword up at the dagger following it, sending it, with a resounding metallic ring, flying skywards as he continued his right arm’s trajectory and slammed his fist, still gripping his sword, into Synatos’ face, flattening his nose with a wet crunch of cartilage. The retiarius arced back, blood tracing his path through the air, trident flying from his loosened grip, to land with a lungemptying jolt on the arena floor. Thumelicatz stood over his victim, who looked up at him and immediately raised his right index finger in submission; the summa rudis brought his staff across Thumelicatz’s chest bringing the fight to a close. He breathed deeply of vomit-reeking air, in ragged bursts; sweat stung his eyes as he looked down at the man, who was almost a friend, lying defeated at his feet.

It was now up to the sponsor of the games to judge the mood of the crowd and decide upon Synatos’ fate.

The chorus of ‘Licus! Licus!’ continued as he raised his sword to the sponsor in a gesture that all present understood to mean: life or death? The prefect got slowly to his feet, his right hand balled into a fist across his chest; he looked around the amphitheatre.

The tone of the mob changed; slowly at first but inexorably, the chant became: ‘Death! Death!’ Their memory was long and they were not prepared to spare a man defeated by the same opponent twice.

Synatos’ face registered the call for his cold-blooded despatch and he turned his head slowly to the sponsor; their eyes met. Holding the gaze for a few moments as the crowd hushed, the prefect of Ravenna thrust his right arm forward, fist still clenched with the thumb held tight against it, in imitation of an undrawn sword. Pausing for dramatic effect as silence fell around the oval he inhaled deeply, savouring the power of life and death; abruptly his thumb flicked out, horizontally, from the fist in imitation of a drawn sword: the sign of death.

Synatos gave a faint smile of resignation to Thumelicatz and got to one knee.

The crowd howled their delight, many visibly excited beneath their tunics, toying with themselves – some frantically, some with unhurried relish – as they contemplated another life extinguished for their pleasure.

Thumelicatz held his sword aloft and slowly turned on the spot; the disgust he felt played freely on his face obscured by his helmet as his eyes took in every member of the crowd: bakers, clerks, petty magistrates, professional sycophants, shopkeepers, whore-boys, merchants and more, all equally as unmartial as the women they ploughed. The useless fat of empire – whose only justification for existence was the physical fact of their birth – baying for the life of a man who could end most of their miserable existences in less than ten heartbeats. Was this what the Romans had forged their empire for, so that the timid and the flabby could live their martial fantasies vicariously, spilling their seed as the blood of better men was spilt upon the sand?

Thumelicatz approached Synatos and stood before him.

The condemned retiarius took a firm grip of his right thigh and raised his head, staring straight into his executioner’s eyes. ‘Make it clean, my friend.’

‘Do you not want a weapon in your hand?’

‘No, I travel a different path to yours; mine leads to the Ferryman not Walhalla.’

Thumelicatz inclined his head, took his sword and placed it vertically between the base of Synatos’ neck and collar-bone, just next to his shoulder-guard; his left hand clasped the top of the hilt over his right.

The noise of the crowd had reached almost impossible heights.

Synatos swallowed, looked briefly at the sun burning in a blue, cloudless sky and then nodded.

Using all the power in his shoulders, Thumelicatz drove the blade down through skin, flesh and lung until the point punched through the muscled wall of the organ now pumping at thrice its normal rate. Synatos’ eyes rounded with pain, his chest heaved, exhaling a deep grunt that was violently curtailed by blood exploding into his gorge. Thumelicatz felt the dying man’s grip on his thigh tighten, his fingernails breaking the skin; he took no notice, it always happened. With a twist of his wrists left then right he shredded the heart and then, gripping Synatos’ right shoulder with his left hand, yanked the blade free with the liquid slurp of lessening suction.

Synatos remained upright for a few moments, blood seeping from his open mouth and nostrils, trailing in long strings down from his chin, eyes sightless, expression rigid: dead. The crowd let out a satiated moan, bestial in its rawness; the corpse collapsed back onto the sand.

Thumelicatz raised his sword in the air, saluting the objects of his contempt, wishing for death to visit every life deemed to be inadequate; which was most of them. Without a glance down to his victim he turned towards the gates; they began to open. Eight auxiliary archers filed in, four left and four right, arrows nocked but bows undrawn.

Thumelicatz stopped and threw down his sword.

Two silhouetted figures, one draped in a toga, followed the archers in.

Thumelicatz recognised the bulked-muscled outline of his lanista, Orosius; a quick glance up to where the sponsor of the games had been sitting confirmed the identity of the second. The prefect of Ravenna raised his arms as he strode out to the centre of the arena; Orosius remained in the gateway, watching.

The crowd cheered their prefect with the reserve of people lauding a man more known for his power than his popularity; if the prefect realised that, he gave no sign of it on his face. He approached Thumelicatz and gestured for quiet; the crowd was happy to oblige.

Although it shocked him, Thumelicatz could guess what was about to happen but could feel no excitement, no pride, no relief after five years of having to fight for his life on a regular basis. He had one thought and that was of his homeland, the land that he had never seen; the land he never thought he would see. It was a land he knew only from the tales his mother, betrayed to Rome whilst she had been pregnant with him, had told him in the brief years that he had lived with her before he had been taken away, at the age of eight, to train for a life in the arena, where, because of whose son he was, he had expected to die.

The prefect had begun to address the crowd but Thumelicatz could only hear his words, not concentrate on them. The mental image of the father he had never met burnt in his mind as he contemplated returning to the land that his father had liberated from Rome six years before Thumelicatz’s birth: the land of Germania Magna. Over four days his father, Erminatz, known to the Romans by his Latinised name, Arminius, had destroyed Publius Quinctilius Varus’ army of three legions and their auxiliaries in a series of running battles in the Teutoburg Wald; his mother had told him great stories of the massacre. Three Eagles had been captured and Rome had retreated across the Rhenus. Thumelicatz would go back to a land of free men; a land where a man’s worth was judged by his prowess and where smallhearted men were of no account, no matter how much silver they held.

He felt a hand pulling at his elbow and his thoughts were jerked back to the present; he heard the prefect speak in a tone as if he were repeating himself. ‘Remove your helmet, Licus of Germania.’

Thumelicatz slid his thumbs under the rim and pushed up; the bronze helmet slipped off and the air became easier to breathe. With pale blue eyes, squinting in deep sockets beneath thick, black eyebrows, he looked down at the prefect who winced. Thumelicatz wiped the back of his hand over his clean-shaven face, removing as much of the half-congealed vomit sticking to it as possible before pressing a finger to his long, sleek nose and clearing each nostril of acidic fluid.

The prefect looked at him in distaste. Thumelicatz wondered if he would go back on what he had planned but then realised that the prefect would lose face should he decide not to grant freedom to a gladiator just because he found his appearance after combat unsavoury; he hawked and spat a mixture of blood and phlegm on the sand.

The prefect rummaged in the fold of his toga; he brought out a wooden training sword, the type that Thumelicatz had used for years, day after day for hours on end, practising every prescribed move in every combination until they were as natural as breathing.

With a theatrical flourish the prefect held it aloft. ‘I, Marcus Vibius Vibianus, prefect of the city of Ravenna, award the gladiator, Licus of Germania, his freedom after five years in the arena.’ He presented the sword in both hands to Thumelicatz who took it without thanks.

Knowing that he could not afford to insult the mob, Thumelicatz punched the symbol of gladiatorial manumission in the air and rotated once, accepting the accolade of the citizens of Ravenna for what he hoped was the last time.

‘You may become my client and bear my name,’ Vibianus said with an air of self-importance.

Thumelicatz looked at the prefect as if he could not believe what he had just heard. ‘I’d sooner become your bitch and bear your runtish whelps, Roman.’ He barged past the prefect and walked towards the gates, ostentatiously peeling off the accoutrements of a secutor and discarding them to cheers, working the crowd in the knowledge that Vibianus would not be able to do anything against him while he enjoyed their support.

Vibianus followed him, trying to make the best out of the situation, head held high, the very picture of a haughty magistrate.

‘I take it you and our esteemed prefect won’t become regular dining companions,’ Orosius commented, falling in step with Thumelicatz as he passed through the gates. He handed him a papyrus scroll. ‘This is your certificate of manumission.’

Thumelicatz took it without reading it. ‘Thank you, Orosius. How did this come about? I thought that I was destined to die in the arena.’

‘You were but that’s a fact that no one had bothered to acquaint our new prefect with before he took office. When he told me that he wished to buy the favour of the mob by freeing you, who was I, a mere lanista, to gainsay him?’

Thumelicatz’s pace slowed as they negotiated their way through the torch-lit, fume-filled bowels of the amphitheatre, clogged with terrified, shackled prisoners awaiting the jaws of the wild beasts whose famished roars echoed around smoke-stained, brick-built arches. Water dripped from the ceiling into puddles, edged by green slime, on the worn paved floor. ‘Why did you do this for me? You owe me nothing. Quite the opposite actually, I owe you everything for the personal training you gave me.’

Orosius smiled and looked sidelong at his companion. ‘Would you believe that it was to stop you exceeding my tally and becoming the most renowned gladiator ever in Ravenna?’

‘Bollocks; no one gives a fuck about being anything in this shithole.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong; the prefect does. He wants to gain favour with the new Emperor, Gaius Caligula, by increasing the flow of tax from this city into the imperial coffers. He plans to do it by firstly buying the goodwill of the citizens and then making cuts, one of which was how much he pays me for my goods and services; the amount that he offered me in compensation for freeing you was derisory. I think when the Emperor finds out that Marcus Vibius Vibianus, in an effort to make himself popular, has freed the son of Arminius he’ll be called back to Rome to explain this rather novel way of containing our enemies; at the very least he would be advised to forget any senatorial ambitions.’

‘And things here will get back to normal for you?’

‘That’s all I ask; so you had better leave right now before someone tells him he’s made rather a foolish mistake.’

‘I need to go somewhere first.’

‘No you don’t, I’ve had your prize money brought from the ludus; you’re a rich man, you could almost afford to buy yourself.’

‘Keep it, it’ll make up the shortfall in your compensation.’

‘It’ll do more than that.’ Orosius signalled to two guards on the gates to the outside world to open them. ‘What else is so important that it’s going to delay your departure?’

Thumelicatz stepped out into the street, free for the first time to go wherever he wished. He nodded at the sheathed sword hanging from Orosius’ belt. ‘May I?’

Orosius unclipped the scabbard from his belt and handed it to Thumelicatz.

‘Thank you, Orosius. I need to get my mother; she’s a slave in the house of my uncle.’

Thumelicatz pounded on the door of a substantial villa on the wide and busy thoroughfare that linked Ravenna’s forum with its citadel. After a few moments a viewing slot at head-height opened to reveal a dark, questioning eye.

‘I have come to see Tiberius Claudius Flavus,’ Thumelicatz announced, trying to suppress the tension in his voice.

‘What name shall I give, master?’

‘Tell him that it’s his brother’s son.’

The slot snapped shut.

Thumelicatz waited with growing impatience wondering if his uncle, Flavus, whom he knew as Chlodochar, would dare open the door to him after such a long absence.

The answer came with the grating of a bolt and the clack of a key.

The door swung back.

Placing his hand on the pommel of his sword hilt, Thumelicatz walked through the vestibule and on into the atrium of his uncle’s house for the first time in fourteen years.

The atrium was that of a Roman, not of a Germanic warrior from the Cherusci tribe to which both Thumelicatz and his uncle belonged. A fine mosaic floor, depicting scenes from the Aeneid, surrounded the impluvium at the rectangular room’s centre; the fountain within it was of Salacia, consort to Neptune, portrayed as a nymph crowned with seaweed. There were no weapons or other tools of war hanging on the walls, no boar tusks, no antlers, nothing that Thumelicatz’s mother had told him decorated the walls of a nobleman’s longhouse; there were no long wooden boards and benches at which his followers would feast and sing, just low, polished marble tables on ornate legs, littered with glass bowls and bronze statuettes of Roman gods. To Thumelicatz it looked like every other Roman house that he had been forced into to perform displays of swordsmanship for Ravenna’s wealthy at their luxuriant and wasteful dinner parties; he spat on the floor.

‘That’s exactly the sort of behaviour I would expect from a slave and a gladiator,’ came a voice from the far end of the room, oozing contempt. ‘Why aren’t you dead yet and how did you get permission to visit?’

Thumelicatz looked up to see a tall, portly man, wearing an equestrian toga, entering the room. His hair was short and greying blond; a livid scar where his right eye should have been disfigured a round and flabby, florid face.

Thumelicatz spat again, this time in contempt for the man he saw rather than the culture that he surrounded himself with. ‘I’m not dead because I have the protection of Donar, a warrior’s god; and I am here because I don’t need permission to go anywhere being neither a slave nor a gladiator any more, Uncle.’

Flavus stopped; his expression changed from sneering aloofness to shocked concern almost before Thumelicatz had finished speaking. ‘You’re lying. Guards!’

Thumelicatz pulled the wooden sword from his belt and walked up the room as four substantial bodyguards entered behind Flavus; their swords were drawn. Thumelicatz paused to the left of the impluvium.

Flavus gestured to his men to stay back. ‘Who gave you that?’

‘Your prefect, not one hour ago.’

‘Then I shall tell him to take it back.’

‘He couldn’t if he tried; my certificate of manumission makes me a freed citizen of Rome. I could appeal to the new Caesar and he would have to uphold my case.’

‘Or he could just have you killed as Tiberius should have done years ago.’

It was now Thumelicatz’s turn to sneer. ‘You know perfectly well why Tiberius didn’t have me killed. It was for the same reason that he refused the king of the Chatti, Adgandestrius’, offer to poison my father; because he had some honour – a concept that you forgot about years ago. Now give me my mother and I will leave you to rot in the rancid fruits of your

‘She is not mine to give, she belongs to Rome; I just mind her.’

‘She is your brother’s wife; now that he is dead you have the right to dispose of her as you wish. Give her to me and I will leave thinking slightly better of you; I will forgo my father’s vengeance that is now mine by right and you will never hear from me again.’

‘And if I choose not to?’

‘Then I will choose to take her; and my father’s vengeance on you will be that of a man murdered by his brother.’

Flavus laughed, hollow and mirthless; he pointed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘And you think that they will let you?’

Thumelicatz looked along the line of bodyguards, Germanic auxiliaries who had completed their service and had stayed in the employ of their commander, he supposed. ‘If I was to think about them, I would think about them one at a time.’ In his mind Thumelicatz marked the dark-haired man on their extreme right and the older man with a full blond beard next to him.

There was something in the casual tone of his nephew’s reply that caused Flavus to hesitate for a moment before his one remaining eye hardened. He stepped aside. ‘Kill him!’

The four bodyguards surged forward without hesitation and together, in one line. Thumelicatz knew they had made a serious mistake; he jumped right, onto the raised side of the impluvium, as the dark-haired man’s sword slashed down where he had been an instant earlier. Sweeping his sword out of its scabbard, Thumelicatz continued the weapon’s upwards motion into the man’s jaw, severing it to sway loose – attached only by the thin skin of his cheeks – as the blond guard sliced a horizontal cut towards his thigh. With a rapid downwards jab of his left hand, Thumelicatz caught the blow with the practice sword, slowing and deflecting it, as it cleaved through the hardened wood, to slice into his calf with little momentum; riding the pain he flashed the wooden sword’s splintered rump up, forcing it into the blond man’s eye, sending him sprawling back with a desperate shriek. Jerking his dripping blade out of his first victim – who buckled, gurgling to the floor – Thumelicatz pointed it at the remaining two guards. They stopped, unsure of how to deal with a man who had just felled their two comrades in less than five heartbeats. Thumelicatz did not wait for them to come up with a plan; tossing the weapon from his right hand to his left, he accelerated the blade, backhand, towards the nearest man, in a blurred arc that terminated in the hollow, wet thud of a butcher’s cleaver rending a joint of pork. The guard’s head twisted with the velocity of the blow to slew to its right; anchored by a few unsevered ligaments, it perched on the shoulder, staring in horror at his comrade next to him as his heart gave two final, mighty beats, exploding blood into the air. The head toppled forward, pulling the body down behind it, as Thumelicatz’s blade slammed into the open, incredulous mouth of the fourth bodyguard; its tip burst out of his neck. Before the surprise had even begun to register in the man’s eyes, Thumelicatz turned and surveyed the room; his uncle was gone.

A woman’s scream from the courtyard garden, at the rear of the house, rang around the atrium. Thumelicatz let gravity do the work of removing his sword from his final victim as the body crumpled to the blood-slick mosaic floor. With a quick glance around the room to check for other retainers intent upon defending their master, Thumelicatz ran towards the tablinum, at the far end of the atrium, and passed through it and on into the garden.

‘Put down your sword and your mother will live!’ Flavus stood between two of the columns supporting the portico at the far end of the garden; a woman in her sixties, tall with wild grey hair and pendulous breasts swaying beneath a thin knee-length tunic, struggled in his grip with a knife at her throat.

Her blue eyes widened in recognition. ‘Thumelicatz!’

Thumelicatz raised a hand. ‘Stay calm, Mother.’

Behind Flavus, another woman of similar age, but of squatter build, lurked in an open doorway; a dagger flashed in her hand, hate ate into her face. ‘Kill the bitch anyway, Husband; and then we’ll settle with her whelp over her corpse.’

‘Silence, Gunda! Thumelicatz, drop your weapon.’

‘And what happens if I don’t?’

‘I slit Thusnelda’s throat.’

Thumelicatz carried on walking forward past a large fig tree that dominated the garden. ‘And what happens then?’

‘Then it will be your turn.’

Thumelicatz scoffed. ‘You’re an old man, Uncle; and you won’t get to be one day older if my mother is harmed.’ He stopped two paces from Flavus and Thusnelda; with ostentation he lowered his sword but kept a firm grip of it. ‘So what’s it to be, Uncle, death for you both or life?’

Flavus looked at his nephew from over Thusnelda’s shoulder; uncertainty and fear played in his eyes.

Thumelicatz held his gaze; a flicker of amusement passed over his face. ‘You were always too keen on life, Uncle; that’s why you chose it over honour and murdered my father.’

‘Erminatz would have had me killed; only one of us could live.’

‘My husband loved you, Flavus!’ Thusnelda shouted. ‘You were his younger brother; he would have forgiven you had you returned to Germania and renounced Rome. That’s why he met you and my father alone that night, he believed your lie that you were coming home to him and bringing me and my son with you; but you betrayed his trust and the bonds of blood, treacherously murdering him.’

‘I did what was best for—’

A shrill scream accompanied by a flurry of skirts and hair brought Gunda diving out of the shadows, teeth bared, dagger raised over-arm, aimed above her husband’s shoulder at the side of Thusnelda’s neck.

Flavus spun round, exposing more of Thusnelda’s body to the attack as a flash of burnished iron flicked up from below; Thumelicatz’s sword parted the knife-wielding fist from Gunda’s right arm. The look of horror on Flavus’ face as he watched his wife’s hand spin through the air, spiralling blood, was suddenly replaced by agonised surprise as Thusnelda’s sharp teeth sank into the base of his thumb; with two savage shakes of her head she ripped the flesh and muscle from the bone, exposing the joint as the point of her elbow rammed into her brother-in-law’s solar plexus. The dagger at her throat clattered to the ground, the noise drowned by Gunda’s uncontrolled shrieks as her eyes swivelled constantly between her severed hand on the floor and the newly carved stump resting in her left hand, pumping bloody spurts.

Thusnelda kicked Flavus’ knife away as she broke from his grasp and, stooping to sweep up Gunda’s hand from the ground as she passed, stepped into the safe embrace of her son’s left arm. She turned and looked down at her erstwhile gaolers now both sunk to their knees; working her jaw, she chewed hard before spitting a semi-masticated ball of flesh into Flavus’ upturned face. ‘Now it’s my turn, Chlodochar; now you and that bitch-wife of yours will find out what I’ve been dreaming of for the last twenty-two years.’ She smiled coldly at Gunda who whimpered softly, squeezing her wrist to stem the flow of blood. ‘And don’t worry, my dear, after you’re gone you will always be remembered.’ She held out the severed hand. ‘Your finger bones will look charming woven into my hair.’

Thumelicatz hauled on a rope and then secured it to a lower branch of the fig tree; Flavus was suspended by his wrists, his feet just above the ground.

Thusnelda raised her head. ‘Donar, hold your hands over me and my son as we travel through strange lands and grant that we return to Germania. Accept this gift of blood, the most precious gift that I can give you other than my own son: the blood of a kinswoman who has given birth.’ Thusnelda lowered her eyes from the heavens and met those of Gunda, bound to the tree’s trunk. ‘The Great Thunderer will take you, bitch; you should thank me that I’ve given some worth to your miserable existence.’

Gunda spat in Thusnelda’s face. ‘Our son, Italicus, will avenge us.’

‘Italicus! What sort of name is that for a son of Donar?’ Thusnelda raised her knife and placed it to Gunda’s throat. ‘You’ve lost everything that you were born with; you even lost the ability to choose an honourable name for a son.’ She jerked her arm; honed iron sliced through flesh.

Gunda’s eyes widened, liquid bubbled in her throat and her body juddered against its restraints.

Thumelicatz walked forward, raising his sword to Flavus, dangling from the tree watching, with horror, the death-throes of his wife. ‘Donar, bring us home and strike me down from above with thunder and lightning if I ever have anything to do with Rome or her people ever again. I want nothing from her, I am done with her; see that I keep my oath.’ The tip of his blade slid into Flavus’ lower belly, a gasp exploded from the suspended man. Bringing his left hand to reinforce his right, Thumelicatz pulled the blade upwards, sawing. Up it sliced, cleaving through muscle and gut, releasing noisome gases and fluids and causing pain that Flavus’ screams could not do justice to. As the blade reached the ribcage, Thumelicatz withdrew it and walked behind his uncle. Putting his arms around the writhing body, he stuck his fingers into the wound and yanked it open. Grey steaming coils of slick innards flopped out, tumbling down Flavus’ legs and piling up at his feet. His shrieks warmed Thumelicatz and Thusnelda’s hearts.

They looked at each other and smiled.

‘I’ve missed you, my son.’

‘I know, Mother. Let’s go home.’

CHAPTER 1

GERMANIA MAGNA, SPRING AD 41

THUMELICATZ WATCHED THREE mounted warriors approaching from the west, half a mile away across the valley. Picking their way along the edge of a ploughed and sown field, a rode cleared out of the surrounding forest by the sweated labour of generations gone by, the horsemen descended the hill and skirted an area of marshland fed by a river flowing into the reed-lined lake beyond. A gentle breeze rippled its surface; it glistered silver and gold in the westering sun in stark contrast to the conifer-swathed hills encircling it. The sweet scent of so many trees’ resinous sap infused the warm air and gave the name to this high range of hills in the heart of Germania Magna: Harzland in the language of the Cherusci tribe – the Land of Sap.

The approach of armed men caused no consternation for Thumelicatz and his kin, as tied to the tips of their spears were branches of beech with freshly sprouted leaves, the sign of peaceful intent. Nonetheless, the dozen men living within the compound had retrieved their weapons from the longhouse at its centre and now stood on the walkway that ran the length of the palisade surrounding the small settlement. Only Thumelicatz remained unarmed, standing in the open gateway. Yet he was not unprotected; to either side of him stood two huge, shorthaired brindle hunting dogs; they growled deep in their throats, as the three horsemen drew nearer.

Thumelicatz tapped the muzzles of both dogs. ‘Beisser, Reisser, stumm!’ The dogs immediately ceased their noise and looked up to their master, ready to follow his lead in however he chose to react to the new arrivals.

Thumelicatz’s eyes squinted in deep sockets against the lowering sun; he rubbed his beard, now grown so full that it climbed almost to his high cheekbones, and then ran a finger along thin, pale lips as he scrutinised the three warriors, now less than a hundred paces away. Looking up to the man nearest to him on the left-hand side of the palisade, he frowned. ‘Chatti?’

The man grunted and then nodded his head. ‘Yes, lord, they’re all wearing iron collars; front rank infantry, the bravest of their warriors.’

‘How long is it since Chatti have ventured into our lands, Aldhard?’

‘Five years ago; the year before you returned, my lord. But they came with their swords unsheathed and the points of their spears bared; we stopped them as they tried to cross the Visurgis River. It was a hard fight and we lost a good few men that day; their blood-price has yet to be repaid.’

Thumelicatz nodded; he had heard the songs about the last Chatti raid into Cheruscian territory in the year before he had won the wooden sword. The year before he and his mother had endured the harsh crossing of the mountains, fleeing Italia for Germania.

The three warriors cantered the last part of the way across open ground and pulled up their mounts twenty paces short of Thumelicatz. They each presented their leaf-adorned spears, holding them high in the air so there could be no mistaking their intent.

Thumelicatz studied the men; all had long, flaxen hair, tied in a top-knot, and flowing, well-kept beards that partially obscured the iron collars, three fingers thick, around their necks. Two were his age, mid-twenties, but the blond of the central rider’s beard was flecked with silver and his ice-blue eyes had weathered wrinkles in their corners; Thumelicatz addressed himself to him. ‘What brings you so far from your homeland?’

‘My name is Warinhari and I come from the Hall of Adgandestrius, the king of the Chatti; I am his son. My father sends his greetings to Thumelicatz, son of Erminatz; do I have the honour of addressing him?’

‘I am who you seek.’

‘It is a privilege to meet the son of Germania’s greatest warrior; thirty-two years ago this autumn, when I had but sixteen summers, I fought with your father in the Teutoburg Wald.’

Thumelicatz smiled to himself; there was not one warrior in the north of Germania Magna over the age of forty-five who would not claim to having been present at the battle that stopped Rome’s march eastwards and showed her the limits of empire. ‘I’m told that the Chatti fought bravely – once they had charged.’

Warinhari inclined his head at the backhanded compliment, refusing to acknowledge the jibe: the Chatti had stood back for the first two days and had not committed their forces until the outcome was almost assured. ‘The Chatti always fight bravely.’

‘What does Adgandestrius want with me? The last time he wanted anything from my family it was my father’s death.’

‘That was a generation ago; he was protecting his position after the breakup of the alliance that your father had built. Now things are different and my father has a proposition for you concerning the safety of all the tribes of Germania; it is something that must be considered by the hearth, not in the open. I must discuss it with you soon for a decision needs to be made by tomorrow, two days before the full moon.’

Thumelicatz looked up to Aldhard who had listened to the whole conversation; with a discreet nod of his head he showed his agreement. Thumelicatz turned back to the visitors. ‘Very well, I accept the tokens of peace, you may enter. Bear your weapons with honour and cause no harm to any person within.’

Although the day was warm a fire burned in the round hearth in the exact centre of the longhouse; its fumes partially obscured the gabled, thatched roof as they struggled to get out through a hole in its apex. Hams and fish hung from the rafters, curing in the smoke. Apart from a scattering of tables and benches on its rush-strewn floor, the longhouse was bare. Thumelicatz led Warinhari to a plain wooden table next to the fire and bid him to be seated on a bench on one side. Sitting opposite him he clapped his hands; an old slave appeared from behind a leather curtain at the far end of the room; his thin grey hair was cut short, Roman style, but his beard was long and ragged.

The slave bowed. ‘Yes, master.’

‘Serve us beer, smoked meat and bread and send word to my mother to join us.’

‘Yes, master.’ The old slave turned to go, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

‘And Aius.’

The slave stopped and turned to face his master.

‘Take food and drink to this man’s companions waiting outside and tell Tiburtius to rub down my guests’ horses.’

‘Yes, master.’

As Aius left, Thumelicatz turned to Warinhari. ‘That slave and his comrade Tiburtius both served my father.’

‘Roman?’

‘Of course, part of Varus’ army captured at Teutoburg.’

Warinhari furrowed his brow, quizzically.

‘They swore by all their gods never to try to escape so my father spared them from the fires of our gods; they served him faithfully even after his death. When I returned I found them still at my father’s longhouse, looking after his horses and hunting dogs, polishing his weapons and armour, cutting and spreading fresh rushes on the floor and keeping his hearth-fire burning. It was as if he hadn’t been dead for fifteen years.’

‘They must have loved him.’

‘Loved him? I doubt it; you should know well that men didn’t love my father. But all who knew him feared him for there was nothing that he would not dare do; no boundaries he would not break; no limits he would not exceed.’

Warinhari nodded, his eyes distant with reflection. ‘He was a dangerous man – both for his friends as well as his enemies.’

‘And for his kin,’ a silhouetted woman said from the doorway; her hair fell wild about her, bones woven into its midst chinked as she moved.

Thumelicatz stood. ‘Mother, this man’s name is Warinhari; he comes under a branch of truce with a proposition from his father, King Adgandestrius. I wish you to listen to him with me.’

Thusnelda stared at Warinhari as he rose from the bench and bowed; her deep blue eyes became slits and her face creased into an age-lined scowl. ‘Why should I listen to the messenger of the man who offered the Emperor Tiberius to kill my husband?’

‘Because we are living in different times, Mother; and besides, Tiberius refused the offer.’

Thusnelda spat into the rushes. ‘Because he had more honour, despite being a Roman, than that weasel of a Chatti king.’

‘Mother, that is all in the past. Adgandestrius would not have sent his son here unless he wanted the proposition to be taken very seriously; we should listen to him.’

Thusnelda dipped her hand into a leather bag hanging from her belt and fiddled with something within; it seemed to calm her. ‘Very well,’ she conceded as Aius shuffled back in with a tray, ‘but I warn you, Thumelicatz, this man will tempt you to break an oath – the bones have spoken.’

Thusnelda sat next to her son, glaring at the visitor while Aius poured them each a horn of beer and then left them with a plate of bread and cold meat between them on the table next to a sputtering tallow candle.

Thumelicatz took a deep draught of his ale and set down the horn. ‘Well, Warinhari, what is your father’s proposition that he feels is so important that he would risk a son to bring it to me?’

‘It has to do with Rome.’

‘Then you’re wasting your time; Rome has torn my family apart.’ Thumelicatz pulled out a hammer amulet, hanging around his neck under his tunic. ‘I swore to Donar the Thunderer never to have anything to do with that ravenous beast of an empire again. I sealed the oath with the sacrifice of my treacherous uncle and his wife; and then, when the Thunderer had fulfilled his part of the bargain and brought my mother and me home, I confirmed it with three Roman merchants burned in wicker men in the same sacred grove that my grandfather, Siegimeri, was forced to hand over his two sons to the Roman general, Drusus, as a hostage.’

‘The story is well known: at the age of nine your father and his younger brother were taken to Rome.’

Thusnelda leant forward, putting her arm around Thumelicatz. ‘And I too was taken and Erminatz never saw his son; my disloyal father, Segestes, delivered me up to Germanicus, whilst I was with child. I was taken to Rome and gave birth there. Two years later my father watched as an honoured guest of the Emperor as I and my son and brother were paraded through the streets in Germanicus’ Triumph. His loyalty was more to Rome’s riches and the power they could bring him rather than to his kin; to prove it finally he helped murder my husband with his own younger brother. We want nothing of Rome ever again; now go!’

Warinhari stared over the table at the mother and son, their faces set rigid; he drained his horn. ‘I understand the strength of your feeling and believe me when I say that I and my father feel the same hatred of Rome. However, Rome is a reality; even here in Germania Magna we still feel her power. Which tribe between the Rhenus and the Albis rivers does not have treaties with Rome that force them to provide young men for her auxiliaries and pay tribute into her coffers? Every one; the Chatti, the Frisii, the Chauci, the Angrivarii, all of them, even you, the Cherusci.’

Thumelicatz slammed his palm down on the table causing the candle to gutter and spit. ‘That proves nothing!’

‘It proves that the arm of Rome is long and the tribes of Germania are too weak to resist it.’

‘But we are still free, Warinhari, there is no Roman governor here; the towns Rome built before my father defeated her have crumbled and returned to the forest, and we enjoy our own laws. How much more freedom can we expect?’

‘The freedom that comes from not living in fear every year of a fresh invasion.’

‘Rome’s expansion east has halted, my father saw to that.’

‘Halted or faltered? Has it really stopped? Can you look into your heart and know for certain that Rome will not try again?’

Thumelicatz rubbed his beard with both hands, his elbows resting on the table, staring at the thin stream of smoke spiralling up from the freshly extinguished candle. ‘No,’ he said after a short while. ‘No, I cannot; as Rome expands she makes more citizens who are eligible to serve in her legions. Unless there is a plague her manpower is always going to grow; soon the three legions that my father destroyed will be replaced and then Rome may well come again.’

‘Exactly; so we must ensure that Rome is too busy elsewhere to be able to come.’

Thumelicatz raised his eyes and met Warinhari’s gaze. ‘How?’

‘Two days ago some Romans arrived at my father’s hall in Mattium; they were looking for you. They have a knife that belonged to your father which they hope to give you in return for you meeting with them.’

‘My father’s knife? How can they be sure?’

‘It has “Erminatz” engraved in runic figures down the blade; I have seen it and it looks to be genuine.’

‘How did they come to possess it?’

‘Two of them claim to be the sons of the centurion who escorted your father from his people to the Rhenus and then on to Rome when he was taken hostage.’

‘Erminatz gave the centurion his knife,’ Thusnelda confirmed. ‘He told me that he asked him to give it to his mother when he returned; he never did, though, the dishonest Roman pig. What makes you think that the sons of a thief are to be trusted?’

‘My father, Adgandestrius, always speaks the truth and so can tell a lie; these men are genuine.’

‘Why do they want to meet with me?’ Thumelicatz asked, picking up the jug and filling Warinhari’s horn.

‘They want to know where the lost Eagle of the Seventeenth legion that your father took at Teutoburg can be found.’

Thumelicatz thumped the jug back down, beer slopping over its rim, as he broke into a mirthless laugh. ‘They would exchange a knife for an Eagle? Even Erminatz would not put such a price upon his blade.’

Warinhari did not share the laughter. ‘Whilst that Eagle remains on Germanic soil, Rome will always come looking for it. Germanicus came back five years after Teutoburg and again the following year and defeated your father three times. He came back not just for revenge but also to restore Roman pride; he came back to retrieve the three Eagles lost at Teutoburg. Do you think that he would have come back if it wasn’t for the Eagles? However, he had only found those of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth legions before Tiberius, jealous and fearful of his accomplishments, recalled him to Rome.’

‘And no one’s been back since.’

‘Until now.’

‘A few Romans with a knife?’

‘It’s the start. Only your father knew which of the six tribes that took part in the battle received the Eagles. Germanicus found the Marsi’s and the Bructeri’s and we received the Capricorn emblem of the Nineteenth Legion; so that just leaves your tribe and the Chauci or the Sugambri. Do you know where this Eagle is?’

Thumelicatz hesitated and then nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Will you help these Romans to retrieve it?’

Thumelicatz grasped the hammer pendant around his neck. ‘If I did, Donar would strike me with a bolt from above for breaking my oath.’

‘Even if your actions secured his people’s freedom for generations to come?’

‘How would the return of one Eagle stop Rome ever trying to spread her empire across the Rhenus again?’

Warinhari smiled and leant his face closer. ‘Rome has a new Emperor, Claudius; a fool who drools, we are told. The men who benefit from his being in power naturally want to keep him there; to do this they need the army to love Claudius so that they’ll gain a victory for him so large that it will secure his position with the people.’

‘And this Eagle will gain Claudius the army’s love?’

‘Yes, Rome still feels shame at its loss. If Claudius is seen as being responsible for its retrieval then his legions may do what they didn’t do for his predecessor, Caligula: they will embark on ships and invade Britannia.’

A smile of comprehension gradually spread over Thumelicatz’s face. ‘Four, maybe even five, legions and their auxiliaries.’ Warinhari nodded.

‘Exactly; and every one drawn from either the Rhenus garrison or the Danuvius to our south. With that number of troops tied down across the Northern Sea we—’

‘Will be safe from invasion for generations,’ Thumelicatz said, finishing the sentence.

‘Yes; safe for a hundred or two hundred years, by which time, perhaps, we will be stronger than Rome and can threaten her western provinces.’

‘And beat her back to ensure a Germanic future for the west.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Where are these Romans?’

Thusnelda grabbed her son’s arm. ‘What of your oath, my son?’

‘Mother, the Thunderer will understand why I do this and forgive me this once; I will show these Romans to the Eagle and keep his people safe from conquest whilst they grow stronger.’

‘You do the right thing, Thumelicatz,’ Warinhari said. ‘In three days’ time at the full moon, the Romans will be at the Chalk Giant in the northern reaches of the Teutoburg Wald where, in its shadow in the Teutoburg Pass, Varus made his last stand on the fourth day of the battle.’

Thumelicatz held Warinhari’s gaze for a few moments as the decision hardened within him. Slowly he nodded. ‘I will be there, Warinhari, I swear. I will hear what the Romans have to say and then, if I deem them honourable, I will, whatever the cost, help them get their Eagle back.’

A strong breeze blew from the south, filling the leather sails of four fat-bellied longboats sailing with the current down the Visurgis River. That morning, Thumelicatz and his kin had loaded their baggage and horses into the boats, housed in a crumbling Roman river port, and sailed north. They had ridden down from the Harzland the day after Warinhari’s arrival and crossed the lowlands to its west, arriving at the river by evening to camp on its banks. Aldhard had been sent on ahead the day before with four men, travelling at night, to prepare the meeting place in accordance with their lord’s wishes.

Thumelicatz stood with his mother on the fighting platform at the bow of the lead boat; he inhaled deeply of the crisp, morning air as he watched water-fowl diving in the shallows. ‘The air is getting cooler, the Ice Gods are close; no more than two or three days away, I should think.’

Thusnelda cursed under her breath.

‘What is it, Mother?’

‘The time of the Ice Gods is not auspicious for us. It was during the three days that they roam the earth, bringing frost in May, that your father was given up to Rome as a hostage. At the same time of year I was betrayed to Germanicus by my own father; and he and Chlodochar also killed Erminatz while there was ice on the lakes during the spring mornings.’

‘That’s just coincidence.’

‘There is no such thing. The three Norns sit and weave the threads of fate of every man’s life; all is set out in advance.’ Her hand delved into the leather bag at her waist and brought out five straight, carved, thin bones covered on all four sides in runes. ‘If it were not so, how could the Rune Bones predict the future?’

‘When you cast them last night and this morning, what did they say?’

Thusnelda looked at the bones in her hand and shook her head slowly. ‘I didn’t cast them either last night or this morning, nor will I cast them tonight.’

Thumelicatz frowned. ‘Why not, Mother? You’ve always read the bones at the rise of the sun and at its setting.’

‘I’m afraid to see what I know in my heart they will say.’

‘You think that Donar won’t release me from my oath?’

‘I know the Thunderer won’t; an oath to him is binding for all time.’

‘Mother, if he does see fit to strike me down for helping to secure the freedom of all his people then I will go to Walhalla willingly. This act will reduce Rome’s legions on our frontiers. We can go back to fighting amongst ourselves and posing no threat to Rome. A balance will be drawn along the Rhenus and Danuvius; Rome won’t have the legions to invade us because they’d be busy in Britannia, but nor would they feel they needed to do so because we would be disunited and pose no threat to Gaul. And then we wait – maybe for generations – until disease, soft living and years of peace take their toll on Rome, and then we will pour across the Rhenus.’

‘But you will be dead.’

‘Of course I’ll be dead, the wait will be long.’

‘No, I mean you’ll be dead if you do this thing.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I’m sure of it.’