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himself up to his full height. ‘It is a soldier’s privilege to volunteer to commit suicide, tribune, and I ask to be first over the side.’
    Valerius shook his head. ‘There is someone better qualified, Tiberius. You are young; you will have other opportunities for glory.’
    ‘You’re right.’ Tiberius grinned. ‘Where you lead, I will follow. In any case, I doubt any of us will get back alive, even if we succeed.’ His grey eyes turned serious. ‘I underestimated you, tribune. For all your laurels, I thought you had gone soft, but I was wrong. You’re as hard as the iron in that
gladius
you wear. Are you sure they all have to die?’
    ‘All we can reach. We will have one chance. If we can’t sink the galley we have to disable it.’
    The sailor returned with a pair of heavy metal rasps. Valerius handed one to Tiberius. ‘Here. You know what to do.’ He took the other rasp to where Serpentius sat near the stern, calmly running a whetstone up and down the edge of a sword. The Spaniard nodded as Valerius took his place beside him.
    ‘So we fight?’
    ‘Fight or die. Maybe both.’
    ‘Isn’t it always so?’
    ‘I have a job for you. A special job.’
    Serpentius gave a bitter laugh. ‘Isn’t it always so.’ He handed Valerius the sword, which was the one with the silver pommel. Valerius took it and nodded gravely before he bent and removed his sandals. The Spaniard’s eyes widened as he started working on the leather sole with his knife to further expose the metal studs in the base.
    ‘Why would you be ruining a perfectly good pair of marching boots?’
    So Valerius told him.

IX
    ‘I NEED FIVE of your strongest and steadiest men. Have them issued with axes and tell them to report to me for their instructions. You know what to do when they reach us?’
    Aurelius nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. His eyes never left the pirate galley three hundred paces away, powering its way towards them through rising, white-capped waves whipped up by a wind that strengthened with every passing minute. The two larger pirates, hampered by their low freeboard in the heavy seas, had fallen back, but were still less than a mile away. Valerius studied their motion and reckoned that he had five minutes at most to do what he needed to do.
    He replayed the plan in his mind and thought about the decision he’d taken. Was there any other way? The answer, as it had been every time he’d considered it, was no. But it didn’t make him feel any better. It was murder, pure and simple. Not war. Not self-defence. Murder.
    Tiberius waited by the side with his cavalrymen. They had expected nothing more than an uneventful cruise nursemaiding the general’s daughter and it showed on the drawn, tense faces. Would they follow him? Only the gods knew, and Valerius had never placed much faith in the gods. He gripped his sword tight and it seemed to shrink in his hand as he lived the next few minutes in his mind. It was a sword that had been forged in the fires of victory. A sword of honour. The gold crown Nero had placed upon his brow might have given him fame, but the sword Suetonius Paulinus had placed in his hand had given him freedom. Freedom from the guilt of survival. Freedom to live again. Was he about to sully it?
    He looked round and found Serpentius’s shrewd eyes on him. The Spaniard knew. Without a word he took the blade and returned a few minutes later with another from the
Cygnet
’s armoury. Valerius nodded his thanks, but Serpentius had already turned away to focus his attention on the pirate, judging the effect of every wave and every stroke of the oar with the fierce intensity of a man who knew his life depended on it. The sword he held was a long cavalry
spatha
, a double-edged bludgeon of a weapon that only someone exceptionally strong could wield with any finesse. Serpentius could use it, though. Valerius had exercised with him most mornings since they had met and outmatched him only once, and that by