The Blood of a Princess

Chapter 13: Fortune, the Greatest Deception

Autumn, 35 AD.

Rural Italia

Sunset.

He watched the golden orb sinking lower, it's rim seeming to touch the horizon, and it tossed a million bright banners of light into the heavens, gilding the clouds in a final blaze of glory as the light yielded to darkness in the east. In another lifetime he would have remained to watch the darkness gather, but not this time. Not tonight. He was being hunted. 

Marcus scanned the landscape once more, his eyes roving across the ripe fields of grain, searching. Behind him was the pine forest that seemed to follow the stream, and growing gloom, but he kept his eyes trained on the fields, and on the road. From where he stood on a small hillock, he had a clear view of the world, and could watch the passing travelers. Had his eyes decieved him? He was sure that he had seen a man clad in dark robes disappear into the standing grain, from the corner of his eye. It would not do to have someone, even a single person know of the whereabouts of the emperor's daughter. Why was he protecting her?

Even he couldn't answer the question. Duty? No, he owed nothing to the Romans, none of them. They had taken everything he had, everything he was, and turned him into a child of hell. Then why? Was it the fact that he knew what it felt like to have distance between himself and one he loved? Maybe. Either way, he was better off without her and Marcellus tagging along, slowing him down and standing against every decision he had made. Like his decision to scout the rear while they entered the village. Even now, he fumed thinking about it. She had no right to question him, royalty or not, especially since he had been the one that got her off the ship in the first place. A foolhardy choice on his part, he thought, feeling the muscles in his leg slowly tightening. He had betrayed his own, the men that had fought and bled alongside him in the arena and the ships, even killing Mars in the process.

He shook his head, deciding to ignore the dark figure he had seen. Maybe it had just been his eyes playing tricks in the final rays of sunlight.

But Mars.

He had grieved for the man, quietly, in his own way. Sure, he had been a criminal, an excellent pickpocket, before the magistrate sentenced him to three years in the arena; but somewhere along the line they had become close, as brothers. And when Callidora had arranged for one of the guards at the ludus to be bribed to leave the gates unlocked for him to escape, Mars had joined him, and the handful of others that had capitalized on the situation, driven by the promise of pillage and plunder and bloodshed on the Mediterranean. He still remembered the final moments before they had charged the warship, grasping the rail of Neptune's Wrath and jesting. Mars had laughingly said that if he died the whores of Aleria would starve, and now, it seemed as if the world had become just a bit darker.

As he entered the forest, he remembered. 

"Marcus, no prisoners!"

He turned, saw the gladiator leaping towards Callidora with a spear, armour gleaming in the sun.

"I promise, I'll never let you down, my Lady."

He had hesitated. He had had to war with himself and a promise he had made to a renegade princess. And his decision had been painful.

"I'm sorry, Mars," he whispered.

The force of his attack knocked the man nine feet laterally, with twin wounds in his chest spurting crimson blood. He was dead before he hit the deck.

He could still feel his heart become ice every time he thought on it. Not one, but both of his blades had been driven into the breast of the one man he called friend. No last words, no honourable death for the man that had fought beside him on the sands. No, just two swords and a blood soaked deck had ushered him to the afterlife. He had taken the life of a brother in an instant.