Legionary

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Constantinople stewed in the midsummer sun. The Augusteum writhed with squinting faces, basted in sweat and seasoned with dust; a thick tang of roasting garlic and the fuggy stench of drying horse dung permeated the air. Raised market stalls clad in vibrant fabrics pierced the throng, sucking the hungry shoppers in like swirling currents. Hemmed in by the towering grandeur of the Hippodrome, the Imperial Palace and the Baths of Zeuxippus, the market square was a surefire hotpot for moneymaking.

Dead centre, with no respite from the midday inferno, one craggy-faced trader grinned as he scanned the eyes of his rapacious clientele; nobles, senators, businessmen and almost certainly all of them crooks. He could feel the weight of their purses — eager to be lightened. The trader’s gold teeth glinted in the sunlight.

‘Bring ‘em out!’ He bawled over the hubbub.

Two incongruous figures dressed only in loincloths were pushed up onto the rickety timber platform; a towering Nubian, scarred on every inch of his charcoal flesh and a stumpy, pale Germanian. The crowd broke into a keen rabble.

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