Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 39

AD 54, Subura District, Rome

With the sound of raised voices, Liam turned to see Sal dragging one of the ponies by its reins into the courtyard. It was snorting frantically, distressed and wide-eyed, hooves clattering and skidding in the dirt as she tried to manhandle it in. ‘They tried to take our ponies off us!’

‘Who did?’

A moment later, Bob emerged from the rat run dragging the other animal after him. He let the pony’s reins go and smacked its flank so that it darted across the courtyard towards the other one. A dozen chickens squawked, flapped at the disturbance.

‘Caution!’ Bob barked out.

Almost immediately, a dozen men spilled into the courtyard, all of them thickset and muscular. All of them armed with short swords or daggers, drawn ready to use.

Liam heard the landlord’s voice, his bud translating almost as instantly as an echo.

‹ Watch out! Collegia ‘strong-arms’!›

One of the men stepped forward. ‘ Titus Varelius adsumet unam vestrarum bestiarum! ’

‹ Titus Varelius will have one of your beasts!› the bud whispered quietly in his ear.

The landlord snapped an angry reply and thumbed his nose at them defiantly.

The collegia leader smiled, a broad, gap-toothed grin. His gaze settled on Bob.

‹ Titus is owed this month’s payment. The pony will do.›

‹ Titus can go and kiss my arse› said the landlord.

Liam was no longer aware that he was actually listening to the bud in his ear.

‘This animal is ours,’ said Bob in passable Latin. ‘I recommend you leave immediately!’

The collegia leader’s smile broadened. ‘I hoped you’d say that.’ He pulled a short sword from his belt. ‘Then we shall have some sport with you. Mamercus! Mettius! Vel! This big brute’s yours!’

Three of his men stepped forward, grinning like naughty schoolboys as they angled the tips of their blades towards Bob and sized him up.

‘Are you an ox or a man?’ one of them laughed.

Bob scowled. ‘Neither.’ He lunged. A whiplash of movement that concluded with the tips of his fingers lodged firmly beneath the jawline of one of the men; the jab had crushed his windpipe. As the man’s legs began to buckle beneath him, and he choked, gasping for breath, Bob caught his short sword in mid-air as it began to tumble from a limp hand. With a deft flick, he was suddenly holding it by the handle instead of the blade. He lunged forward, swinging it at the throat of the second collegia man. But this one was a little more prepared. He thrust out his blade, managing to parry the heavy sweep barely inches from his neck. The ring of metal echoed round the courtyard and all of a sudden, Liam noticed, every creaking wooden balcony above them seemed to be lined with curious onlookers. It reminded him of a crowded penny theatre.

The gap-toothed leader decided the ‘sport’ was already over with and barked an order to the rest of his men to attack Bob. They fanned out either side of him.

Liam pulled Sal back into a corner of the courtyard, beside the old landlord who was already quickly packing away his joints of meat and muttering to himself. ‘Those scum think they own the place!’

‘Maddy!’ Liam called out to her. She was still standing pretty much in the middle of the courtyard. ‘Back up! Give Bob some room!’

Three of them closed in on Bob at the same time, one of them swinging his sword at his neck, the other two thrusting at his torso. He ducked the swing at his neck deftly enough, but one of the other blades lodged deep into the side of his ribcage.

A groan erupted from the balconies above. They recognized the wound as a fatal one. That the fight wasn’t going to last much longer.

The landlord grimaced and shook his head. ‘Pity.’

But Bob casually twisted his body, yanking the handle of the sword protruding from his ribs out of the hands of the man who’d thrust it into him. He grasped the handle and wrenched the blade out of his side. One sword in each hand now, all the collegia thugs had successfully managed to do was arm him with two swords… and, of course, annoy him.

Bob swept the sword in his left hand down low, a round, scythe-like sweep that hamstrung one of them and lopped the foot off another.

In his other hand he flipped the short sword blade-over-hilt, catching it by its tip then throwing it end over end at the third man who’d swung his heavy sword carelessly for Bob’s neck. It thudded into his stomach, the man doubling over with a grunt and dropping to his knees in the dirt, beside the other two men clutching their legs, spurting arcs of dark crimson on to the ground.

Above the courtyard voices cheered out from the balconies. Liam glanced up at them.

They’re cheering for Bob.

Bob picked up another discarded weapon and again had a sword in each hand. His beefy hands were spinning the blades like marching batons; shimmering blurs of glinting metal, like rotary saw blades; a whusk-whusk-whusk of sharp edges slicing through the air.

‘Who’s next?’ Bob announced calmly in heavily accented Latin.

He’s a one-man army. Liam shook his head in amazement. Isn’t he always?

The collegia thugs were certainly now looking less sure of themselves. Liam guessed reputation was at stake here. He could see the gang leader weighing things up, wondering whether to withdraw from the courtyard with all these people still openly braying their support for Bob, or try and finish the ox-of-a-man off. A lesson to everyone watching that no one — no one, not even this extraordinary brute — was going to walk away after thumbing his nose at their collegia.

He barked at the rest of his men. ‘Enough of the play! Now finish him!’

All six began to close in, their eyes warily on the spinning blades and the mischievous grin spreading across Bob’s face.

Liam glanced at Sal. ‘Big mistake.’

She wasn’t listening, or didn’t hear him over the caterwauling from above. Instead, she closed her eyes and turned away, just as the first wet thunk of a blade slicing through muscle and cracking bone filled the air.

Liam watched the blur of Bob leaping forward — the grace of a woodland deer married to the rippling, muscular bulk of a giant bear. He was no longer spinning his blades like a manic circus performer; instead, with flashes of metal and bright droplets of blood, he deployed a sequence of fast and precise thrusts and slices that dropped all six men in rapid succession; each wet thud accompanied by an increasingly raucous cheer of delight from above.

A hand severed at the wrist hit the dirt a yard away from Liam, clenching and unclenching the hilt of a short sword reflexively.

In less than half a minute all six men lay dying, clutching bloody stumps or cradling puckering stomach wounds, desperately holding their insides in.

The courtyard echoed with a hundred or more spectators cheering gleefully as those collegia men still alive withdrew back down the rat run. The voices of the apartment block’s tenants echoed off the clay brick walls. Someone even tossed a basketful of sunflower petals from the third balcony into the air; they spun like confetti all the way down, finally settling on Bob’s sweating head.

The landlord stared wide-eyed at Bob, muttering some oath under his breath.