The Praetorian Guard was his shield, his sword, and the serpent coiled around his heart.
Marcus stood in the cold, silent tomb of Augustus, holding the intercepted coded tablet. The weight of the small, wax-filled piece of wood was heavier than any crown. It was proof of a poison flowing through the very veins of his power.
Marcia stood beside him, her hand resting on his arm, a silent anchor in the storm. "What do we do? The courier Crixus captured will talk, but he is just a foot soldier."
"Exactly," Marcus said, his voice low and hard. "I can't just torture him for a name. The real traitor, the man at the top, will hear of it, cut his losses, and disappear deeper into the shadows. He'll become a ghost."
He couldn't fight a ghost. He needed a name. He needed a face to put on this betrayal.
He turned to the one oracle he could trust. The laptop glowed in the darkness, its screen a portal to another world.
"JARVIS," he commanded, his voice echoing in the chamber. "Analyze the cipher on this tablet. Cross-reference it with every known Praetorian communication protocol in your database."
PROCESSING, the AI's voice whispered in his mind. Lines of text scrolled across the screen, a digital manhunt unfolding in milliseconds. CIPHER IDENTIFIED. IT IS A VARIATION OF THE 'CAESAR SHIFT' BUT WITH A NUMERICAL KEY KNOWN ONLY TO OFFICERS OF CENTURION RANK AND HIGHER.
"Narrow the search," Marcus pressed. "Cross-reference the dispatch times of all three intercepted messages with the official guard rotation logs from the palace for the past week. I'm looking for an anomaly. Someone who was there every time."
The screen flickered, processing thousands of data points. After a long, tense silence, a single name glowed on the screen, highlighted in red.
ONE OFFICER WAS PRESENT AT THE PALACE DURING THE DISPATCH OF ALL THREE MESSAGES, DESPITE NOT BEING OFFICIALLY LISTED ON THE DUTY ROSTER: PRAETORIAN PREFECT TITUS SAOTERUS.
Saoterus. The bull-necked Prefect he had tried to exile with a promotion. The man Lucilla had tried to turn weeks ago. He hadn't been a pawn in her game. He had been playing his own all along, selling information to both sides, waiting to see who would win.
And now, he was a viper nestled in Marcus's own bed.
Marcus couldn't just arrest him. Saoterus was more than just an officer; he was a beloved commander. The Praetorians were a brotherhood, fiercely loyal to their own. A direct accusation without ironclad, public proof would split the Guard. It would start a civil war, not on the frontier, but inside the very walls of the Imperial Palace.
He needed to catch the man in the act. He needed to bait the trap.
The next day, Marcus convened a small, urgent meeting in his private study. He summoned two of his most loyal generals, men who had served his father. And he invited a third man, a talkative Tribune named Lento, a known sycophant and one of Saoterus's drinking companions.
Marcus unrolled a map of Rome on the table, a look of grave concern on his face.
"Gentlemen," he announced, his voice low and conspiratorial. "With the crisis in Germania, I fear for the security of the Imperial treasury. The city is unstable. Therefore, I have decided to move the emergency gold reserve. It will be transported to the vaults beneath the Temple of Saturn for safekeeping."
He let that sink in. He saw the flicker of interest in Lento's eyes.
"The move must be made in absolute secrecy," Marcus continued, leaning over the map. "A small convoy will move the gold tonight, after the moon has set. It will travel via the old Appian Way, to avoid the main city patrols." He looked up, meeting each of their gazes. "It will be lightly guarded. A large escort would draw too much attention."
It was a perfect lie. A fat, juicy piece of bait. Marcus watched Tribune Lento's eyes widen as he heard the words "lightly guarded gold." He could practically see the man's mind racing, already composing the message he would deliver to his true master.
That evening, Marcus met with his real weapon.
Narcissus, the giant gladiator, stood before him in the shadows of the palace gardens. He had assembled his team. Behind him stood a dozen of the most dangerous-looking men Marcus had ever seen. They were a collection of scarred, grim-faced killers, ex-legionaries discharged for excessive violence, and former gladiators who had survived the arena. They looked more like a pack of wolves than a military unit.
"They are loyal to the coin I gave them," Narcissus reported, his voice a low rumble. "And to the man who spared my life."
"Good," Marcus said, his face hard in the moonlight. "Tonight, you are not gladiators. You are bandits."
He explained the decoy, the fake gold transport that would be making its way down the Appian Way. "Saoterus's men will come for the gold. They will not be wearing their Praetorian colors. They will be disguised as common highwaymen."
He looked at each of the grim-faced killers. "Your orders are simple. You will ambush them. Do not kill them unless you must. I need one of them alive. Preferably their leader."
Crixus, who stood beside Marcus, shifted his weight, his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Caesar, this is a huge risk," he murmured. "If this goes wrong, Saoterus will claim you tried to steal the gold and frame him. He could turn the entire Guard against you in an hour."
Marcus just nodded. He knew. "That's why it cannot fail."
The night was moonless, the darkness on the old Appian Way absolute. The ancient road was lined with the crumbling, shadowed tombs of long-dead Roman families. It was the perfect place for an ambush.
A single, heavy wagon, its wheels creaking ominously, rumbled down the road. It was guarded by four of Crixus's most trusted Vigiles, disguised in nondescript armor. The wagon was filled with nothing but lead bars.
Hidden in the deep shadows of the tombs, Narcissus and his wolves lay in wait, their blades dark and silent.
As the wagon passed a large, crumbling mausoleum, the trap was sprung.
Twenty men, their faces wrapped in dark cloth, burst from the darkness, swords drawn. They moved with the discipline of soldiers, not the chaos of bandits.
"For the gold!" their leader shouted.
The fight was short, brutal, and precise. Narcissus's gladiators were a whirlwind of savage efficiency. They fought with the dirty, close-quarters lethality of the arena, a style the soldiers were not prepared for.
Narcissus himself ignored the lesser fighters and moved like an avalanche toward their leader. The officer, a skilled swordsman, parried the giant's first blow, but the sheer force of it nearly shattered his arm. Narcissus didn't swing again. He simply lunged forward, using his massive body like a battering ram, and slammed the officer's head against the side of the heavy wagon. The man collapsed, stunned.
Narcissus ripped the rough, common tunic from the officer's chest. Underneath, just as Marcus had predicted, he wore the unmistakable studded leather sub-armor of a Praetorian Centurion.
They had their proof.
Marcus didn't wait. He didn't deliberate. The moment the captured, bleeding centurion was dragged into the palace, he acted.
He strode from his chambers, flanked by Crixus and a dozen of the largest, most battle-hardened Vigiles. They moved with a grim purpose, their boots echoing on the marble floors. They marched directly to the Praetorian barracks.
The main dining hall was full. Hundreds of Saoterus's soldiers were drinking, laughing, and feasting. Their commander, Prefect Titus Saoterus, sat at the head table, a cup of wine in his hand, a smug look on his face.
Marcus kicked the heavy doors open with a thunderous crash.
He strode into the center of the hall. He shoved the bleeding, bound centurion forward, and the man collapsed in a heap at Saoterus's feet.
The hall fell into a dead, shocked silence.
"Care to explain this, Prefect?" Marcus asked, his voice dangerously quiet, cutting through the silence like a blade.