The Emperor's Knives Read Online Free PDF Page A

centurion, but vanished only days before his father was arrested and was last seen heading for Ostia with orders to take ship on a courier mission – or at least that was the story that got him out of the praetorian fortress.’
    He locked gazes with the centurion.
    ‘Your name, young man?’
    The Roman rose from his seat and bowed.
    ‘I am known as Marcus Tribulus Corvus, Senator, Centurion, First Tungrian Cohort, but I am indeed the fugitive son of your friend Appius Valerius Aquila. You now hold my life, and that of my family, in your hands.’
    Sigilis smiled back at him with apparent genuine pleasure.
    ‘Rest assured that your secret is safe with me. It is indeed an honour to make your acquaintance, Marcus Valerius Aquila. The letters my son wrote before he died in Dacia made generous mention of you, although he was clever enough to do so in veiled terms that he knew only I would understand. And now you have returned to Rome with the fire of revenge bright in your eyes, even though you have no idea where to find the men upon whom you would visit your violence?’
    The young Roman’s tone hardened, no longer deferring to the status of the man to whom his words were directed.
    ‘I will find them, Senator, with or without the help your son told me you would be able to offer. And when I find them, I fully intend to subject them to the same indignities my father, my mother, my brother and my sisters suffered before they died.’
    Sigilis sat back and stared at him with grim amusement.
    ‘That’s more like the way I’d expect a man of your class to express himself, under the circumstances. So, a tribune with a propensity for righting old wrongs, and a centurion set on vengeance for his dead family. That would be a combination to strike fear into the men responsible for the destruction of your family, I’d say, if they were to find out that they were being hunted. And what sort of supporting cast do we have for this pair of furies?’
    He looked across the remaining members of the party with an expression turned bleak again, locking gazes with each man briefly before speaking.
    ‘Two more soldiers, officers to judge from their apparent confidence, both scarred and both with the look of killers.’ He smiled grimly at Julius and Dubnus. ‘Some men find themselves unable to kill, even when their lives are at risk in battle, and others kill but are for the most part unchanged by the experience, apart from the inevitable nightmares and regrets that will trouble them until they come to terms with the fact. And there is a third type of man, gentlemen, men whose eyes lose just a hint of what they were before once they have stood toe to toe with other men and taken their lives, while also gaining something else that’s impossible to define. I saw battle more than once with the Thirtieth, and I saw sleepy farm boys become executioners in the space of one swift engagement, once they’d undergone their blood initiation. Their eyes were just as yours are now, windows on souls with some small part torn away and replaced with something else, no more evil than they were before, just with a fraction of their humanity excised. They scared me more than the enemy we were fighting, if I’m honest with you …’ He smiled bleakly. ‘Which was the point at which I realised I probably wasn’t fitted to military service.’
    The senator laughed grimly, shaking his head and turning his attention to the remainder of the party.
    ‘And a trio of barbarians, each of you bigger and uglier than the last. Now that isn’t something a man sees every day, not without chains and collars at any rate. You, with your hair worn in a topknot, you are a German I presume?’
    The slave nodded.
    ‘I am Arminus, Senator. I was taken prisoner by the tribune in battle, and he saw fit to spare my life and bind me to his service. Now I guard his back when he is foolish enough to leave it uncovered … which is often.’
    Sigilis snorted a laugh.
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