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I’m sure you’ll be an effective and just ruler. But do tell, why you?”
    They walked on through the afternoon crowds. Ragnall told Cicero his life story, then found himself telling the former consul everything that people in Rome weren’t meant to know – about the great wave, about Felix’s rumoured dark legion, about Caesar’s necessary massacres and tortures of the Gauls. It couldn’t matter, Ragnall told himself. Cicero was such a decent man and, even if he’d sounded a little negative initially, surely he’d been playing Hades’ advocate? Of course he was on Caesar’s side. How could he not be?
    It was early evening when they came upon a gladiator battle, set up in a broad street as part of the holiday festivities. Two fighters were squaring up at the bottom of a wide set of marble steps crammed with spectators. One gladiator was dressed in the leather and metal armour of a legionary, including helmet, and armed with the standard short sword. He was little fellow, wiry with lean muscle, maybe thirty-five years old. The other was much larger and younger, but enormously fat, even for a Roman civilian, with a round, shining stomach and pendulous, hairless breasts. He was mocked up as a German Warrior, wearing the fur groin cloth and armed with a wooden club. Ragnall had seen more than his fair share of German soldiers and they’d got the outfit spot on, but he’d never seen one armed with a club. He guessed it was artistic licence on the part of the fight’s organisers to accentuate the Germans’ barbarism, which was fair enough. Ragnall had never met a more barbarian shower than King Ariovistus and his bone-headed tribes.
    Cicero asked a man who he knew about the combatants. They heard that the Roman was a real legionary, fighting for money. The young fat one was a minor aristocrat who’d crawled onto the wrong man’s wife at an orgy. Ragnall would have bet everything he owned on the legionary, but nobody would take the wager because all agreed it was going to be more of an execution than a battle. Ragnall thought it was pretty distasteful, and guessed that Cicero did too but, without saying anything, they not only stayed to watch, but climbed up a few steps to get a better view.
    The fight began. The soldier was infinitely quicker and fitter and his blade was wickedly sharp. He could have finished the faux German in seconds, but he played to the crowd, cutting slices into legs, arms and torso that made the spectators wince and the aristocrat yell, all the while ducking and sidestepping the flabby youth’s increasingly clumsy club swipes. The younger man bellowed and swore, then cried. The legionary gave him plenty of time and space to stare with disbelief at the depth of the cuts on his limbs and body, then nipped in and carved into his flesh again. With the fat young man woozy from blood loss, heaving and panting, the soldier dropped his sword, darted around his opponent and leapt onto his back. The youth staggered, trying to throw his limpet-like mount and prying uselessly at muscle-hard limbs with weakened fingers. The legionary pretended to ride him as if he were a horse, then thrust his index fingers into the young man’s eyes and gouged them out. Many of the spectators loved this, whooping as they clapped. The legionary jumped from his fat, blinded mount, removed his helmet, raised his arms and turned to bask in the citizens’ adoration. Behind him, the young man staggered, bleeding from empty eye sockets and a hundred cuts, lifted his club and flailed blindly with the last of his strength. The sweet spot of the club met the legionary’s head with a cracking thud.
    Both men fell and lay still.
    There was a pregnant pause of gaping disbelief, then many of the crowd howled with laughter. Ragnall and Cicero did not.
    “I hope that’s not an omen,” said Ragnall.
    “I shouldn’t think so,” said Cicero, “but it’s a useful lesson. Never underestimate your opponent, even when they seem