Pavo grunted. Then he burst out of the corridor and emerged to a wave of tumultuous cheers and applause. Adrenaline surged in his blood. He forgot about the nausea at the back of his throat and the fear in his bones. His muscles swelled and loosened. Riding a wave of euphoria, Pavo glanced up at the central portico on the west side of the arena. Above the ornamented balustrade stood the makeshift imperial box. The two Greek freedmen were positioned to the left of the Emperor. Pavo recognised the good-looking one as Pallas. The other had curly dark hair and slight features. Murena. Pallas looked anxious. Murena smiled thinly at Pavo, who felt the burning sensation in his throat boil up.

The next few moments passed in a blur. The master of ceremonies introduced the contenders to the crowd and reminded them that today would be a fight to the death. Trumpets blared. Drums beat an insistent rhythm. Another pair of servants entered the arena carrying the weapons. The servant on the left had a spear propped against his shoulder. The servant on the right carried a short sword sheathed in a scabbard which lay flat across his arms. The umpire – a stumpy man with a bald pate and a belly drooping over the belt of his tunic – ordered the servant to unsheathe the sword. He cursorily examined the tip of the blade to check its sharpness, then performed the same action with the spear. Pavo noted the spear’s wide iron head, with secondary tangs to inflict greater damage. An iron spike was attached to the base of the weathered ash shaft.

The umpire looked to Emperor Claudius and gave an approving nod to confirm the killing power of both weapons. The servants handed the spear to Britomaris and the sword to Pavo and hurried aside. Pavo gripped his double-edged short sword. He was still familiarising himself with the feel of his weapon when the Emperor gave the signal and the umpire shouted, ‘Engage!’

Pavo backtracked from Britomaris as soon as the words left the umpire’s mouth, just as Macro had instructed during those gruelling hours of training. The barbarian promptly charged at Pavo, again just as the optio had warned. Taking six swift steps back from the centre of the arena, Pavo raised his shield in a defensive posture as Britomaris stabbed angrily at thin air with his spear. Pavo caught sight of the tangs glinting six inches from his face. He retreated further. The plaza floor covered a sprawling rectangular space roughly twice the size of the amphitheatre at Paestum. Pavo quickly discovered that the enormous space was ideal for his evasive tactics, permitting him to continue to keep dropping away from Britomaris without the risk of being fatally cornered against a wall. Britomaris stormed after the recruit, his thickset legs bounding forward in big strides, his gargantuan torso already gleaming with sweat from his toil.