flourished the blade at his face. ‘Eat!’
A change in the light. A waft of air in the perfumed stillness. Alexander swung round.
A barbarian warrior stood in the opening. He was young, clad in leather and fur, lank long hair to his shoulders. His sudden appearance defied all explanation. In his hand he carried a naked blade. Alexander became aware of the sword in his own hand. Then he remembered. He had long known this would happen. The astrologer Thrasybulus had told him. Somehow he found the courage to raise his blade. He knew it was hopeless. No one can fight what is ordained.
When his eyes adjusted, the barbarian was visibly surprised. Somehow it was evident he had expected the chamber to be empty. He hesitated, then turned and left.
Alexander laughed, the sound high and grating to his ears. He laughed and laughed. Thrasybulus was wrong. He was a fool. He had misread the stars. Alexander was not fated to die at the hands of a barbarian. Not now, not ever. Thrasybulus was no more than a charlatan. If he had been anything else, he would have seen his own fate, would have known what the next day now held for him. The stake and the faggots; let him burn slowly or suffocate in the smoke.
This would all end well. The Emperor knew it. Alexander had faced death, and he had not been found wanting. He was no coward, no mean little girl. Their words could no longer hurt him. He was a man.
Along with the barbarian, the last of the servants seemed to have vanished. Even the dwarf was gone. The pavilion was empty except for his mother on her throne, Granianus beside her, and Alexander himself with the polyfagus. Alexander did not care. Elated, he rounded again on the latter. ‘Eat!’
There was a sheen of sweat on the man’s face. He did not eat, merely pointed.
Three Roman officers now stood in the doorway, helmeted, cuirassed. The leading one was holding something in one hand. Like the barbarian, they waited until they could see in the gloom.
‘Felicianus has returned.’ The speaker threw the thing he carried. It landed heavily, half rolled.
Alexander did not have to look to know it was the head of the senior Prefect.
The officers drew their weapons as they moved into the tent.
‘You too, Anullinus?’ Mamaea’s voice was controlled.
‘Me too,’ Anullinus said.
‘You can have money, the Prefecture of the Guard.’
‘It is over,’ Anullinus said.
‘Alexander will adopt you, make you Caesar, make you his heir.’
‘It is over.’
Alexander moved to his mother’s side. The sword was still in his hand. He was no coward. There were only three of them. He had been trained by the best swordsmen in the empire.
The officers stopped a few paces from the thrones. They looked around, as if taking in the enormity of the actions they were about to commit. The raking sunlight glanced off the swords they carried. The steel seemed to shimmer and hum with menace.
Alexander went to heft his own weapon. His palm was slick with sweat. He knew then his purchase on courage had been temporary. He let go of the hilt. The sword clattered to the ground.
One of the officers snorted in derision.
Sobbing, Alexander crumpled to his knees. He took hold of his mother’s skirts. ‘This is all your fault! Your fault!’
‘Silence!’ she snapped. ‘An Emperor should die on his feet. At least die like a man.’
Alexander buried his head in the folds of material. How could she say such things? It was all her fault. He had never wanted to be Emperor; thirteen years of self-negation, boredom and fear. He had never wanted to harm anyone. What you do not wish that a man should do to you …
The officers were moving forward.
‘Anullinus, if you do this, you break the oath you took before the standards.’
At his mother’s voice they stopped again. Alexander peeped out.
‘In the sacramentum did you not swear to put the safety of the Emperor above everything? Did you not swear the same for his family?’
His mother looked magnificent. Eyes flashing, face set, hair like a ridged helmet, she resembled an icon of an implacable deity, the sort that punished breakers of oaths.
The officers stood, seeming uncertain.
Could she stop them? Somewhere Alexander had read of the like.
‘Murderers are paid in just measure by the sorrows the gods will upon their houses.’
Alexander felt a surge of hope. It was Marius in Plutarch; the fire in his eyes driving back the assassins.
‘It is over.’ Anullinus said. ‘Go! Depart!’
The spell was broken, the thing now irrevocable. Yet they did nothing precipitous. It was as if they were waiting for her last words, knowing they would receive no benediction, instead nothing but harm.
‘Zeus, protector of oaths, witness this abomination. Shame! Shame! Anullinus, Prefect of the Armenians, I curse you. And you, Quintus Valerius, Tribune of the Numeri Brittonum. And you, Ammonius of the Cataphracts. Dark Hades release the Erinyes, the terrible daughters of night, the furies who blind the reason of men and turn their future to ashes and suffering.’
As her words ended, they moved. She stilled them with an imperious gesture.
‘And I curse the peasant you will place upon the throne, and I curse those who will follow him. Let not one of them know happiness, prosperity or ease. Let all of them sit in the shadow of the sword. Let them not gaze long upon the sun and earth. The throne of the Caesars is polluted. Those who ascend it will discover for themselves that they cannot evade punishment.’
Anullinus raised his sword. ‘Go! Depart!’
Mamaea did not flinch.
‘Exi! Recede!’ he repeated.
Anullinus stepped forward. The blade fell. Mamaea moved then. She could not help raise her hand. But it was too late. Alexander looked at the severed stumps of her fingers, the unnatural suddenness of the wide red gash at his mother’s throat, the jetting blood.
Someone was screaming, high and gasping, like a child. Anullinus was standing over him.
‘Exi! Recede!’
The Northern Frontier A Camp outside
