Free The Emperor's Knives by Anthony Riches Page B

sarcastic.
    ‘Perhaps it’s because the beast fights tend to take place in the morning?’
    The Briton had shrugged back as he replied, clenching a massive fist.
    ‘And perhaps I’ll impose on the senator’s hospitality just a little. Don’t forget that I can still remember the stink of the shit running down your legs from the time I missed killing you by no more than a dozen heart beats.’
    Excingus had nodded, his smile suddenly dazzling.
    ‘A fair point, Centurion, and well made. Shall I continue?’
    He’d waited for a moment and then resumed his lecture.
    ‘Then there’s the Great School, which turns out all of the smaller fighting specialisms, spearmen, chariot drivers, net fighters and so on, and last of all, there’s the Dacian School. With a name like that their specialism’s rather obvious, I suppose: lightly armoured sword fighters, originally Dacian prisoners when Trajan set it up since he’d just conquered the province. And if the other three members of this very exclusive gang look hard to get to, just consider how hard it’ll be to get to a man who lives in a cell alongside another two hundred or so like him, all of them worshiping him as the deadliest fighter in the place …’
    Marcus nodded at Scaurus, taking another piece of bread from the breakfast table.
    ‘Excingus was probably correct yesterday when he said that getting to the gladiator’s going to be impossible. I think it’s probably for the best to concentrate on the others for the time being, and wait to see if Fortuna offers us any way to get to this “Death Bringer”.’
    Dubnus shifted in his seat.
    ‘And if you’re right, then the violent death of the first of them will alert the other three that someone’s coming after them.’
    Scaurus nodded.
    ‘It seems likely, Centurion. After all, it’s not as if there’s any shortage of men with a motive, even after their victims’ households have been torn apart. Distant relatives who weren’t actually quite so distant, friends determined to have revenge for the dead … there must be a fair few men in Rome who’d be more than happy to catch any one of these men off guard.’
    The bearded Tungrian stared at the map for a moment.
    ‘It seems like we’ll have to make sure that the first couple of deaths look like accident or incident then, won’t we …?’
    When Marcus had given his wife Excingus’s key earlier that morning, her first reaction had been stunned silence. After a moment, he realised that she was welling up with tears.
    ‘That’s the key to your father’s house in the city?’
    His wife’s reaction was wordless, a tear trickling down her cheek as she fought for composure, and Marcus spoke gently into the silence.
    ‘And now a calculating animal like Excingus hands it to me with a smile. What to make of that, I wonder?’
    Taking a deep breath Felicia managed to speak, her voice trembling with emotion.
    ‘I doubt it would stand much comparison with what you were used to when your father was still alive, but it’s a quiet enough little place, and I was so fond of it before we left Rome. I grew up in that house, and it’s my last link to my mother and father. When I married that bastard Bassus, he took the key off me and sent it to his brother. He said that we would live in it when he was posted back to Rome, but that we might as well get some use out of the place in the meantime. I’d all but forgotten it, with everything that’s happened since, until you put this key in my hand. But how did that awful man come by it, I wonder?’
    She fell silent again, lost for words at having the means of access to a house she had long since abandoned to the wreckage of her previous marriage. Marcus shook his head.
    ‘He wouldn’t tell me, but I doubt there was very much subtlety to his taking possession of the place. Where is the house?’
    ‘It’s up on the Aventine Hill.’
    He wiped her tears away and took her hands in his.
    ‘I’ll ask Cotta if a few of