Page 58 of Brother at Arms

Cautiously, I drew my knife and moved toward Herminius’s tablinium, from where the noises emanated.

By the light of one tiny oil lamp, I saw Arsakes fighting for his life. Another man lay on the floor, blood on the front of his tunic. I recognized Gotarz, the man I’d shoved into the frigidarium and who’d stood by while I questioned Arsakes in this very room. Whether he was dead or alive, I didn’t know.

Arsakes fought a cloaked man whose back was to me. The two slammed into the small table with the oil lamp, which smashed to the floor, extinguishing the light.

I’d pinpointed the two before darkness erased them and grabbed for Arsakes’s attacker. My knife pricked him between the shoulder blades before the man swung around and started battering me.

Fists came at me rapidly, one catching me in the jaw. I wasn’t used to being struck on my bare face, but I moved with the punch so it wouldn’t send me to the ground. My hand went slack, however, and my knife clattered to the floor, lost in the darkness.

I regained my balance and smashed blows into the fighter’s gut.

He elbowed me in the neck, which made me stagger, but again, I used all the skills Aemil had hammered into me to stay on my feet.

Arsakes grunted again, and I realized the attacker had returned to him. I seized the unknown man by his cloak, pulling him from Arsakes, but he easily twisted from me. A professional fighter, I decided, though not a gladiator. He didn’t have bulk, but he had plenty of strength and skill.

I heard a body hit the floor—Arsakes. The attacker turned on me, that distraction gone.

Abruptly we were joined by a new combatant. There was a rush of footsteps, a yell, and the squishing thunk of a knife in flesh. My attacker let out a short sigh, the only sign he’d been hurt.

I used that diversion to get my arm around the attacker’s throat and squeeze.

He threw me off once more with unnerving strength. He shoved aside whoever had come to my aid and moved rapidly toward the entrance.

I ran after him. I could see nothing, the arches of the portico outlining only faint starlight and distant torchlight. Clouds blotted out the moon, and the shadow of my attacker blended into the gloom and vanished.

I growled in frustration and headed back inside to aid Arsakes and Gotarz.

I entered the office to find a dark figure bending over Arsakes. I only saw him because a chance beam through the high window caught on a knife blade.

I tackled the man, tangling myself and the assailant in a cloak made of course wool. It smelled of rain and the goat the wool originally came from.

The man fought me, and we grappled, banging into Arsakes and Gotarz, who might both already be dead. We rolled from the office to the central atrium, where there was marginally more light.

I heaved the man off me, got my hand around his throat, and lifted him up against a marble pillar.

And found myself looking up into the face of Xerxes, in the form of his brother, Lucius.

Chapter 19

My hold slipped a moment in the shock of seeing Xerxes’s face, tight with fear, above my gripping hand.

Then rage ripped through me and I pinned Lucius against the pillar.

“What in Hades are you doing here?”

Lucius gasped and wheezed, my hold cutting off his air. I eased up slightly, but only enough for him to speak.

“I was worried,” he managed. “About my cloak.” He attempted a grin.

I squeezed his throat again. “You followed me from the Porticus tonight. Why?”

“You ask many questions,” Lucius croaked. “Shouldn’t we look after the others?”

I dropped him. One moment, he was hanging from my hand, then next, Lucius landed in a heap on the marble floor. The old cloak I recognized as one Xerxes wore on the farm nearly smothered him in its folds.

I stepped over Lucius’s inert body and strode into the street, growling at a passing carter to give me his lamp, which he did without argument. I shielded the flame in the small clay pot with my hand, nearly burning the skin off my palm as I carried it to Herminius’s office.

From the tiny light, I saw Arsakes on the floor, his back against a gilded table leg, hand on his stomach. Blood seeped around his fingers, black against his pale tunic.