'Candidus did not even give you the opportunity to take him prisoner, then?'

'I did not give him the opportunity to ask it.'

'I see.' Talmis stroked his heavy jaw for a moment as he regarded the man standing before him. Ajax returned his gaze with unwavering eyes, without displaying any sign of nervousness or uncertainty. At length the Prince stopped stroking his chin and opened his hand. 'Before I make any alliance with another man, I make a point of understanding precisely what it is that impels them to seek an alliance in the first place.'

'A wise precaution, Highness.'

'Just so.' Talmis nodded. 'The question I ask you is why you so evidently hate the Romans with every fibre of your being?'

'Is it not enough that I do hate them?'

'No. I must know all.' Talmis smiled thinly. 'Indulge me.'

Ajax was silent for a moment before he replied. 'I was forced into slavery and sold to a gladiator school. I was treated as a common brute, and trained to kill men at the behest of my master, for the entertainment of the mob. It is not a condition with which I was comfortable, Highness. I was born free and I will die free and I will never again be a slave.'

'So, you would make slavery your enemy? Then you would make an enemy of me, for I have slaves by the thousand.'

'My enemy is not slavery,' Ajax countered. 'My enemy is Rome.'

'Then you are an ambitious man indeed.' Talmis smiled. 'Your ambitions exceed your means, gladiator. You cannot afford such an enemy as Rome. That is the privilege of kings and princes – not slaves, gladiators or common free men.'

'Yet I choose to make Rome my enemy, Highness. If a man is not free to choose his enemies then he is not free at all.'

Talmis raised his eyebrows. 'That is a peculiarly extreme definition of liberty… I suspect that there is a less abstract motive for your hatred of Rome, or perhaps your hatred for specific Romans. Am I not right?'

Ajax was still for a moment and then nodded.

'Then tell me what really drives your hatred.'

'I would rather not, Highness,' Ajax replied quietly. 'The wounds are deep. Is it not sufficient that I swear to serve you loyally, whatever the ultimate reason?'

'It is not sufficient for me,' the Prince replied firmly. 'In exchange for accepting you into my service I demand that you keep no secrets from me, and if you ever deceive me I will have your heart cut out.' He paused briefly to let the threat sink in. 'So tell me, gladiator, what has driven you to offer your services?'

Ajax drew a deep breath and sighed. 'Very well. Then know that before I was a slave, I was a pirate. An ignoble and parasitical pursuit, some might argue.'

'And well they might.'

Ajax pursed his lips and continued. 'The truth is that we were a brotherhood, loyal to each other and motivated by lust for booty. Many of us had women and children. We were bound to each other in the same way that other people are. Life was good. We took what we needed and perhaps more than we needed on occasion. Then came the day when the Romans decided to hunt us down and exterminate us, like vermin.'

'As I would have done, if you had preyed on my kingdom.'

Ajax looked pained. 'I know that, and accept it. But whatever you may make of me and my brothers, it is still the case that they were family and friends and they were all that I had ever had. The Romans destroyed it all. They burned our ships, sacked our settlement, massacred our men, women and children.' Ajax swallowed bitterly. 'My own father they nailed to a cross and left to die. They enslaved me and the other survivors.'

'And you blame Rome for this?'

'Rome in general, and those Roman officers who killed my father in particular – Macro and Cato. I had years to nurse my grievance, and then fate thrust us together during the recent slave rebellion on Crete.' Ajax clenched his teeth. 'Again they frustrated me. They broke the rebellion and since then they have been hunting for me and the handful of men who are all that remain of the army of slaves that I led against Rome.'

'And this is why you come here? You wish me to provide you with a haven, safe from those who hunt you?' Prince Talmis's lips rose in a faint sneer. 'Far from offering me the benefit of your service, it is my protection that you seek.'

'No, Highness. All I seek is revenge. I do not care how I attain that, only that I live to see it happen, or die a free man in the pursuit of revenge.'

'Then it seems to me that you are better off hunting down those two Roman officers of yours rather than supporting my cause. I need soldiers, not grudge bearers who use my army for shelter.'

'I do not seek shelter, Highness. I will serve you and do all that I can to further your cause. For now, I ask that you give me a column of your men to command and I will visit death and destruction upon our common enemy. I know how to fight and I know how to lead men. Trust me, and I will prove my words. Besides, I have more to offer you than myself and my men here in your camp. Something that may well provide you with an advantage in the war with Rome.'

'And what would that be?' Talmis asked with an amused smile. He leaned forward. 'What advantage could a fugitive slave offer me?'

Ajax resisted the urge to smile. He had a most useful bargaining counter and once Prince Talmis knew of it, Ajax was certain the Prince would accept the alliance.

'I have a spy in the Roman army. I have infiltrated one of my men, and he will tell us all that we need to know about the strength of the Roman army, and its dispositions.'

Prince Talmis nodded slowly. 'That is good. Very good. Well then, Ajax, it seems that we might be of use to each other after all. I will appoint you as one of my officers and give you men to command. I already had it in mind to teach the Romans an early lesson, and you will be the man to deliver it.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

'Hmmm.' Macro shook his head. 'Not the prettiest of sights.' The headless bodies of the legate and two of the tribunes lay in the back of the cart. A cloud of insects buzzed over the bloated corpses and gorged on the blackened tendrils of gristle and bone on the stumps of their necks, and the right wrist of Candidus. A decurion held back the goatskin cover and stood to one side as his superiors gazed into the back of the cart. Cato and Macro had been discussing their appointments with Aurelius when a clerk had intervened to tell them that the patrol sent to look for the legate had found his body, and those of his escort.

Cato clenched his nostrils tightly and edged away from the back of the cart. 'Where did they find them?'

The decurion nodded vaguely towards the south. 'A ravine, some thirty miles up the road towards Ombos, sir. The men of the escort were all dead, save one, but they hadn't been mutilated. Just the senior officers. The survivor's been taken to the surgeon. He's in a bad way. Hamstrings cut and been with almost no water for three days.'

'Did he say who carried out the attack?' asked Macro.

The decurion shook his head. 'He was babbling like a baby, sir. Hardly a coherent word. But it is likely that the attackers were Arabs. They raid from the desert from time to time. Make the most of it while we gather together a column to drive them off. That said, it's unlike them to choose a target like the legate and his escort. Not much in the way of rich pickings after a hard fight.'

'I take it that you didn't find any bodies besides those of our men?'

'No, sir. But then the Arabs never leave their dead behind if they can help it. Makes the natives nervous if they think the Arabs are like some kind of evil spirits who can strike and disappear at will.'

'Then could it be the Nubians?' asked Cato.

'It's possible, sir. But the last report I heard was that they were still camped close to the cataract. But they could have stolen a march on us, or sent a raiding column forward to gather intelligence and harass our outposts. I still think the Arabs are the most likely culprits.' He paused a moment. 'They might have taken the heads and the ring hand to the Nubians to prove their deed and gain some reward. Or it's possible that Prince Talmis has recruited Arab mercenaries to serve in his army.'