Altar of Blood: Empire IX

Book 9: Empire series

by Anthony Riches

Genres: Historical Fiction; Action & Adventure

Synopsis

'A master of the genre' The Times

The ninth novel in the thrilling Empire sequence leads Centurion Marcus Aquila and the Tungrians to the battlefield that was one of Rome's most disastrous defeats.

The Tungrians have no sooner returned to Rome than they find themselves tasked with a very different mission to their desperate exploits in Parthia.

Ordered to cross the river Rhenus into barbarian Germany and capture a tribal priestess who may be the most dangerous person on the empire's northern border, they are soon subject to the machinations of an old enemy who will stop at nothing to sabotage their plans before they have even set foot on the river's eastern bank.

But after their Roman enemy is neutralised they face a challenge greater still.

With two of the Bructeri tribe's greatest treasures in their hands they must regain Roman territory by crossing the unforgiving wilderness that was the graveyard of Roman imperial strategy two hundred years before. And capture by the Bructeri's vengeful chieftain and his warband can only end in one way - a horrific sacrificial death on the tribe's altar of blood.

Release date: March 10, 2016

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

‘Bructeri warriors, your king is dead!’

The gathered warriors of the tribe, five hundred of the bravest and best men sent from all over the tribe’s lands raised their gazes to look reverently at the bearded man lying on the funeral pyre around which they were gathered in the torch-lit darkness. As one they chanted the words expected of them in response to each pronouncement by the dead man’s brother.

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘He ruled over us with a fair and strong hand!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘He made us stronger, to resist our enemies!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘His life was long and fruitful, and he fathered a strong son!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘His life is ended, and he goes to greet his ancestors with pride!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘Now is the time for him to leave us!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

The noble took a blazing torch from a waiting priest and put it to the pyre’s wooden base with a symbolic flourish, then handed it back to allow the holy man to ensure that the fire was properly lit.

‘Now is the time to anoint his successor!’

The encircling warriors’ chanting became more urgent, the responses pitched as if demanding an answer.

‘Wodanaz, name him!’

The dead king’s brother ushered forward a younger man dressed in the ceremonial armour of a prince of the Bructeri, his body clad in enough iron to equip a dozen men of the tribe for war.

‘The king’s son Amalric is his son and successor!’

‘Wodanaz, anoint him!’

He swiftly smeared holy oil across the younger man’s forehead, tracing an ancient rune of power over the pale skin.

‘We his warriors declare him our king!’

‘Wodanaz, crown him!’

Bowing solemnly to the prince, the noble held a simple gold crown, taken from the tribe’s treasury for the occasion, over his head, then lowered it into place and stepped back.

‘Will his warriors give their loyalty?’

A sudden hush fell, and the assembled men sank as one onto their knees, the iron helmets of the new king’s household companions gleaming in the firelight.

‘Swear the oath!’

The words were shouted proudly by every man present like an unstoppable force, a profession of their willingness to serve until death, at their king’s command in all things, for his glory, for the glory of the Bructeri people and in the name of their god Wodanaz. When it was done they turned to the blazing pyre and bowed three times, each time roaring out their approval of the dead king’s life, then repeated the homage for his son, their new ruler. The dead monarch’s brother held up his hands to command their silence, and after a moment all was quiet once more.

‘I, Gernot of the Bructeri, swear to serve this new king with all of the devotion that I gave to my brother, and to share what wisdom I have with him, to guide him on the path to equalling his father’s glory and that of his father before him. I will strain every muscle in my body to help him outdo them both, and make our tribe’s name echo in the halls of our neighbours, a name to inspire respect, and where needed, fear. In the halls of all our neighbours. In the halls of the Marsi!’ The warriors cheered. ‘The Chamavi!’ They cheered again. ‘The Angrivarii!’ Again. ‘And in the halls, my brothers …’ They knew what was coming, and five hundred men drew breath to shout ‘Of the Romans!’

When the tumult had died down he signalled to the priest, who nodded in turn to his acolytes. With great ceremony a wooden frame was carried into the gathering, a frame on which was suspended a man’s naked body. Bound to the wood, his arms and legs spread wide, he was gagged to prevent any foul word sullying the ceremony, the rolling of his eyes his only means of communicating his terror at what was about to happen to him. He had been denied both food and water for three days to prevent any loss of bodily control casting a bad omen on the new king’s succession. Gernot gestured to the prisoner, calling out to his warriors once more.

‘See, I bring you a sacrifice to consecrate our new king’s reign! A Roman soldier, the symbol of our tribe’s oppression since the days of our forefathers! King Amalric, will you do us the honour as our chief priest of making the first cut?’

The younger man nodded graciously, taking the proffered knife from the priest the tribe called The Hand of Wodanaz, who would shortly be hard at work on the captive with his own tools – fierce, workmanlike knives, flenses for peeling away a man’s skin from the flesh below, and the terrible saw with which he would liberate the greatest prize of all. He held up the knife, its blade liquid orange in the pyre’s flickering light as the flames consumed his father’s body, and the encircling warriors bayed for the helpless Roman’s blood. Approaching the struggling captive, now writhing ineffectually against the ropes that held him tightly, he raised the blade theatrically before placing it against the sacrificial victim’s right index finger, taking the digit in his other hand as was the accepted practice, pulling it tight for the first cut that had to remove the finger with one cut if the omens were to be favourable.

He dragged the knife backwards, severing the finger with a single pull of its ragged edge, staring into the Roman’s eyes as they slitted with the pain, nodding slowly as the captive met his stare, then said two words in Latin that only the victim would ever hear.

‘Forgive me.’



‘Now then, here’s a rarity, eh lads?’

The figure who had strutted out of the night’s deeper shadows spoke with the confidence of a man who knew that he had the upper hand in whatever it was that was about to happen. Lean and hard muscled, he grinned in apparent amusement, the dagger in his right hand glinting in the glow of a crescent moon and countless stars. Insulae rose around them in rough-faced rows, lights extinguished and shutters firmly closed to keep out the sounds and smells of the Roman night, a time when robbers roamed the streets and the population’s rubbish and faeces littered the cobbles. There would be no help forthcoming for any man foolish enough to find himself alone in such a place after dark.

‘A man with money who chooses to walk through this part of the city at this time of night needs to have his wits about him, or better still a gladiator or two. He needs to have hired big men, friends, ugly men with scars and blades. Men he can depend on to scare bad people like us away, and bring him home safe.’

The robber strolled towards the lone pedestrian standing in the road before him with the easy gait of a man taking his leisure, grinning wolfishly at the tunic-clad man he and the men behind him had interrupted in his progress through the fetid streets of Rome’s Subura district, stopping a few paces from the subject of his wry monologue. More men coalesced out of the night to either side of him, stepping forward to reveal their ragged clothes and hard faces.

‘And yet here you are, unarmed and all on your own, without so much as a well-built slave to steer you clear of trouble. It’s not clever, not with you so clearly being a man with a lot to lose. Look at those shoes lads, that’s proper workmanship. Worth a gold aureus to the right man, they are. And that tunic? What sort of man walks the streets of Rome after dark on his own in a tunic with a purple stripe on it? Your purse must be weighing you down like a bull’s ball bag. And you’ll have a house somewhere a good deal nicer than this shithole, probably with a pretty little wife waiting for you to get home and see to her needs …’

A more alert man would have seen the look that momentarily contorted his would-be victim’s face, but the robber was too busy enjoying the opportunity for sport in front of his fellow gang members.

‘She’ll be expecting you home, once you’re done with whatever it is you’ve been doing down here in the slums. So it’s going to be quite a shock for her when we come through the door, isn’t it?’

He smiled into his victim’s flat expression.

‘Of course, you’re thinking that you won’t tell us where your house is …’

He gestured with the dagger, raising it to allow the other man a clear view of the weapon.

‘… but you will. Once we get to work on you you’ll tell us everything, give us anything, just to stop.’

He tapped the blade.

‘I favour the soft spot between the balls and the arsehole, personally. Half an inch of sharp iron inserted just so reduces most men to screaming agony in less time than it takes for a snuffed candle to stop smoking. You’ll tell us where your home is, you’ll shout for the doorman to let you in … you’ll do whatever it takes to stop the pain.’

Leaning forward, he grinned at the man standing before him.

‘So, friend, shall we be going? We’ve got a nice dark place where we can all get better acquainted. Some of the boys here, well, they like men like you, all clean and soft, and they’ve not had the sort of fun that I’m thinking about for so long that I think they’ll be taking turns with you for half the night before we even get round to working out where you live.’

He waited for the inevitable reaction, for the lone aristocrat to make a break for freedom, knowing that more members of his band were waiting behind their victim, but his eyes widened slightly as the man stepped forward instead, close enough for the robber to see his face in the moonlight. The stranger’s expression was set hard enough to send a shiver up the gang leader’s spine, and when he spoke, his voice, though clearly cultured, grated out a single word with a chilling intensity that raised the hairs on his assailant’s arms with a sudden jolt of fear.

‘Yes!’

He struck, the move so fast that the footpad was nose to nose with his intended prey before he had time to react, finding his knife hand captured in an iron grip, while his assailant snatched a handful of hair and then snapped his head forward to deliver a head butt that took the life from the robber’s legs. While he was still staggering at the unexpected attack’s ferocity, his intended victim stripped the dagger from his unresisting grip and whipped the blade up into his throat, arteries and windpipe opened by a single wrenching thrust to release a sudden splatter of blood down both men’s tunics. His assailant pushed the dying man at the nearest of his gang and turned away to confront the men closing in on him from all sides, raising the knife in a hand already slick with his victim’s life blood. A heavyset thug rushed in with his arms spread to grapple the stranger, only to grasp at thin air as his intended victim danced sideways out of his reach, striking expertly to slit his tunic and the wall of his gut with the blade’s viciously sharp edge. Staggering away from the fight with both hands clasping at the slippery coils of his intestines, the wounded thug obstructed the men behind him as they recoiled away from the stench and horror, and their would-be victim spun away from him in search of fresh blood. Two robbers ran at him, while a third loomed from behind their leader where he lay convulsing on the street’s cobbles as his life ebbed away, advancing on the bloodied aristocrat with his fists bunched.

Hurling the dagger at the closer of the two runners to bury its blade deep in his chest, he turned without waiting to see the result, sidestepping the advancing pugilist’s first punch and gripping his tunic, throwing his attacker off balance and counter-punching into the hapless thug’s face, breaking his front teeth. While the man was staggering backwards, his assailant took another step forward, putting him down with a trip and following through with a half-fisted punch to his throat that left him straining fruitlessly for breath through a ruptured windpipe.

‘We’ve fucking got you now!’

He straightened his body to find himself ringed by half a dozen more of the gang, eyes hard with hate as they closed around him with shuffling feet, eyes darting glances at each other as they readied themselves to attack, momentarily deterred by the stranger’s blood-soaked rage and the bodies of their comrades littered around him.

‘We’re going to fuck you up, you cunt, and then we’re going to open your guts and leave you to die here while we go and have our fun with wherever it is that you call home.’

‘Tell me how it happened again.’

Annia tensed in her husband’s arms in the bedroom’s darkness, her body turned away from his and snuggled back against his chest. Her response was no louder than a whisper, but the distress in her voice was as evident as if she’d shouted at him.

‘I’ve already—’

Julius’s interruption was gentle but insistent.

‘I know. You had to tell the Legatus the whole sorry story, and worse than that, you had to tell Marcus.’

Legatus Scaurus and his officers had been delayed in their arrival at Marcus’s house on the Viminal hill until well after dark, caught up in the myriad tasks occasioned by getting two cohorts settled into the city’s transit barracks after their long journey back from the empire’s eastern frontier. Surprised to be greeted by the First Spear’s wife rather than the lady of the house, their bemusement had turned to horror as Annia had haltingly related the story of what had happened while the Tungrians had been away from Rome. After the first initial stunning blow, literally staggering Marcus with its stark horror, his recovery had been as swift as it had seemed complete, on the surface. Taking a seat in the house’s atrium he had composed himself, taken a deep breath and then looked up at his wife’s friend, his face a stone-like mask, asking only one question.

‘How?’

Julius clasped her tighter, stroking her tear-stained cheeks.

‘I need to hear it again. I need to know every detail, because I need to know what he’s going to do, once he’s thinking straight again.’

Marcus had listened to Annia recount the events of the previous year in grim silence and, when her tale was done, had stood without speaking, walking out into the Roman night.

She was silent for a moment.

‘And if I tell you? If I scoop all that … shit up and pour it over myself one more time?’

‘We’ll never speak of it again. Not that we’ll need to.’

Annia sighed.

‘No. The little one will remind us every time we look at him.’

‘So …?’

She sighed again, and then began to tell the story that had shattered their friend’s life once again.

The circle of men tightened, the biggest of them spitting imprecations at their intended prey.

‘I’m going to cut off your prick and stuff it into your fucking mouth!’

‘No, you’re not.’

All eyes turned towards a heavyset, bearded man walking up the street, his voice grating harshly in the night air despite the matter-of-fact tone of his roughly accented Latin.

‘All you’re going to cut are your losses. Now get out of my sight before this all gets much worse for those of you who are left alive.’

The big man turned to face him, reckoning the odds as the newcomer stopped six feet from him, flexing muscular arms and clenching his fists. In the background the choking sounds from the robber frantically struggling for breath through his ruined throat ran to their natural conclusion, and he fell silent. A series of sobs and groans from the darkness of an insula’s deeper shadow, into which the gutted member of the gang had staggered after incurring his horrific wound, told their wordless story of his plight.

‘Or what?’

‘Or we take your ears.’

The robbers spun to face a new threat from behind them, a pair of men with daggers and the look of knowing how to use them. The older of the two grinned at them and waggled his knife at the nearest of the robbers with a smirk.

‘My mate here’s from Dacia, see, and everyone knows those barbarian bastards are cannibals. He’s got a fondness for ears, see, and you’ve all got ears, which means he’s got a hard-on like a donkey’s meat stick at the thought of it.’

The gang’s new leader shook his head in amazement.

‘What the fuck …?’

His incredulity was cut off by a third voice, so hoarse from a lifetime of shouting at soldiers that it was little better than a harsh whisper. Its owner stepped up alongside the bearded man, the moonlight revealing a spectacularly battered face, as he raised a massive, scarred fist and grinned happily at them.

‘First we’ll beat you dumb fuckers senseless, then we’ll cut you up badly enough that none of you will ever get a woman to look at you again without showing her the weight of his coin first. Or you can fuck off. Now.’

He watched impassively as the robbers vanished into the street’s shadows, stepping forward to look at the blood-spattered aristocrat with a slowly shaking head.

‘Sorry to have spoilt the fun, little brother, but you looked to have bitten off more than you could get in your mouth. And now you’ve spilled some blood let’s have you away home, shall we?’

Marcus nodded silently and turned away, looking down at the dead man whose throat he’d punched in before nodding and lifting a hand in recognition of the fact that his friends had saved him from the gang’s violent revenge. The man with the battered face impassively watched him head back down the street the way he’d come, speaking to the bearded soldier next to him without taking his eyes off their friend.

‘What are we to do with him, Dubnus? I know he’s always been reckless, but this?’

His comrade nodded slowly.

‘He’s out of his mind with it, Otho. Your saw his eyes, not a flicker of emotion. Come on, and bring those idiot watch officers of yours with you. Knowing our luck he’ll find another gang round the corner and we’ll have to do the whole bloody thing again before we get him home.’

They followed the lone figure at a sufficiently close distance to deter any further attack, Dubnus watching his friend walking through the darkened streets with a troubled expression.

‘Look at it through his eyes. His family murdered, him forced to run as far as the Wall and find his feet as an officer in the biggest tribal rebellion for decades while the emperor’s men hunted him like a dog, fighting in Germania, Dacia, Parthia, and now …’ He shook his head in evident disbelief. ‘And now this. You have to wonder how much more he can take without losing his mind completely.’

Otho laughed mirthlessly.

‘You think this looks like he’s sane? You’re his closest friend, but even you can’t believe he’s got a firm grip on himself.’

Dubnus grimaced.

‘Since the first day I met him he’s always been as taut as a loaded bolt thrower. I hoped he’d find some peace once we’d settled accounts with the men who slaughtered his family, but this …’

His comrade nodded.

‘He’ll keep on finding ways to provoke men to attack him, so he can put them down and take their lives to no good purpose. And soon enough he’ll go too far, and find himself in shit too deep for you and me to pull him out of. Are you willing to die alongside him?’

The big Briton shrugged.

‘He may be blinded by his rage, but he’s still my brother. And yours. Uncle Sextus may be a long time gone, but I still live by the rules he gave us. If one of us is threatened then it’s a threat to all of us. So if my brother Marcus chooses to throw himself up the palace steps with a sword in his hand I’ll be there to fight and die alongside him.’

Walking behind them, the older of the two soldiers leaned closer to his comrade, muttering in his ear.

‘Well, I fucking won’t.’

The Dacian Saratos looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

‘Is cow’s shit you talk. You make promise to soldier called Scarface, before he die. You promise to guard he life with you life.’

When Sanga remained silent he opened his mouth to renew the discussion, only to close it again as Otho growled at them over his shoulder.

‘You two belong to me, you pricks. The Prince here,’ he gestured to Dubnus, ‘gave you both to me, which means I own the pair of you. And if I say we’re going to take on every stinking guardsman in the city for the sake of that man, you’d better not be stupid enough to question my order. When he comes back to us from the dark place his mind has gone to, he’s going to find me, and Dubnus, and you two, guarding his back. And that’s all there is to it.’

‘We made the mistake of thinking that because you’d been ordered to the east by the emperor’s chamberlain, then we were under the throne’s protection. And it all seemed safe enough, for a few weeks. There were always one or two of Cotta’s men around the place, just keeping an eye out for us, and the local gang knew to keep their distance for fear of what he’d do to them if they didn’t.’

Annia stopped speaking, and after a moment Julius prompted her.

‘And then?’

‘It was on the day of the Agonalia holiday to Janus, in Januarius. I was cutting up onions in the kitchen and looking out of the window when the gate banged opened and Cotta’s man came staggering back through it as if he’d been thrown. For a moment I thought it was the gang that used to control this street, come for revenge after the way Morban and his men treated them last year, but then a Praetorian walked through the gate and I knew that it was something worse than that.’

She was silent again for a moment.

‘I hurried out into the garden to find half a dozen of them, armed and armoured and led by a centurion. At first I couldn’t work out why the Guard would have taken any interest in us, unless they’d come for revenge on Marcus for what he did to their prefect, but then I saw him.’

One of the guardsmen had nodded to the centurion, looking pointedly at the house, and the officer had promptly barked out an order, pointing at two of his men and telling them to search the building.

‘He was dressed and armed like the other praetorians, but he wasn’t one of them, that was obvious from the way that the men around him were careful not to get in his way, or even touch him. He might have been wearing their uniform, but he was clearly their master. He stepped forward and looked me up and down with those dead eyes, drinking in every detail of my body with a single long glance in a way I used to see occasionally in the brothel when a particularly depraved client came looking for enjoyment. He was like a racehorse trainer assessing a potential purchase in the sales ring, calculating whether the beast would repay his investment. I met his eye for a moment …’

She shivered in her husband’s arms.

‘I knew exactly what he was looking for. Something to spoil. Something pure and untouched, that he could ravish and leave soiled. It would have been better if he’d found what he was looking for with me, the gods know I’ve been used often enough for one more not to have made any difference, but perhaps something in my face put him off. I knew only too well the sort of man he was, and my disgust must have been obvious. And then he saw Felicia, and that was that.’

In her mind’s eye Annia conjured up an image of her friend as the younger woman had emerged from the house with the ghost of a quizzical smile, clearly shaken by the soldiers’ unexpected appearance.

‘Can I help you … Centurion?’

The detachment’s officer had deferred to the man in the midst of their armoured throng, instantly confirming Annia’s suspicions as to his identity. Stepping forward with a grin, he’d pulled off his helmet to reveal his true identity, nodding to the mistress of the house as his gaze devoured her body in one long sweep from head to feet.

‘Your forgiveness for this intrusion, madam. My chamberlain told me that a famous gladiator was recently buried here, and as Rome’s most devoted follower of the sport, I was naturally drawn to pay homage to his memory.’

Felicia had bowed deeply.

‘No apology is needed when so eminent a man honours my home with his presence. And you have me on the horns of a dilemma, Majesty. On the one hand your desire to pay your respects to a great man is not one that I can in conscience obstruct, even without consideration of your exalted status, but—’

The emperor had laughed in a conspiratorial manner, leaning closer to her.

‘That nonsense about not burying the dead within the walls of the city?’

He’d waved a dismissive hand.

‘He won’t be the first great man to have been honoured with interment inside the city, and I see no reason why this shouldn’t be an exception to the rule. The man buried in your garden was the champion gladiator when I was a younger man, and I took great inspiration from his exploits.’

A wistful tone had crept into his voice.

‘Someday I hope to emulate his achievements …’

He’d turned away from the amazed women, pointing to the mound of earth under which the gladiator had been buried, after his last, climactic fight in the Flavian Arena.

‘Is that his last resting place?’

Not waiting for the answer he’d walked across the garden to stand in silence before the grave, the Praetorians casting knowing glances at his back and eyeing up the two women while they waited in silence for him to rouse himself from his reverie. At length he’d turned back to face them, wiping a tear from his cheek.

‘Truly inspiring. For such a master of his art to be buried here, so close to the palace, is quite inspiring. And so convenient.’

The emperor’s gaze had returned to Felicia, and Annia’s heart had sunk as she saw that same cold-eyed appraisal play across her friend’s face and body once again as he stepped closer to her.

‘So handy for me to come and pay my respects whenever I feel minded. And whenever I feel the need to honour you, my dear, with my presence in your bed.’

Felicia’s eyes had widened in shock, but before she’d been able to speak, Commodus had continued in the same light, conversational tone.

‘Oh I know, I’ve heard all the half-hearted objections so many times. You’re a respectable married woman, but your husband is away doing my bidding, a very long way away, and here you are, with your own needs. And besides, what woman could fail to be honoured by the prospect of coupling with Rome’s first citizen? And in case that fails to persuade you, consider this …’

He’d leaned closer, speaking quietly in her ear, though not so softly that Annia hadn’t heard every word, just as she had little doubt he had fully intended.

‘There is, of course, the inevitable consequence of rejection to be considered. Your emperor, it has to be said, is not a man for whom the word “no” is acceptable. Having been somewhat overindulged from an early age, it would be fair to say that my ill-temper can be quite prodigious upon being faced with a refusal.’

He’d turned to look at Annia as he spoke, his expression as empty as before although a bestial look had crept over his face, as if in reality he hoped for nothing more than to see through the threats he was muttering in her friend’s ear.

‘Your companion here looks a little … used … for my tastes, but I’m sure she would make an entertaining diversion for my bodyguard. If you provoke me to it, I’ll have them fuck her until she bleeds, here, where her cries of protest and pain can be heard by your neighbours. And then there are your children to consider. It was a boy for you, my dear, and a girl for your friend here, if I’m correctly informed?’

Felicia had nodded, a look of horrified resignation starting to settle on her pale features.

‘It would be a shame for their young lives to be snuffed out in the brutal manner that might be required to cool one of my rages. Now, what else did Cleander tell me …?’

A pair of guardsmen had emerged from the house, one pushing the boy Lupus before him at the end of a stiffened arm, the other shepherding the German scout Arabus, left behind by Marcus to protect his wife and child, at the point of his sword.

‘Ah yes, that’s it. The German and the boy from Britannia. I’ll prove just how serious I am, Madam, by the simple expedient of allowing you to choose which of these two shall live to see the sun set tonight.’

‘Surely you can’t be serious—’

He’d nodded solemnly, his blank-eyed certainty silencing her in mid-sentence.

‘Serious? Oh but I can. Deadly serious. Long experience of these matters has proven to me that a practical demonstration is so much more effective than any number of threats, no matter how serious they might be in nature.’

He’d nodded to the centurion who, without any change in expression, had drawn his dagger and walked across to the pair of captives.

‘So, Madam, choose which of these two should die and which should live.’

Felicia had looked over at Annia with an anguished expression, shaking her head slowly.

‘I can’t.’

‘But you can. And you will. Because if you don’t I’ll just have them both put to the sword and then, just to reinforce the lesson, I’ll make you choose between your own child and your friend’s daughter in just the same way.’

Annia had looked across the garden at the pair of captives to find Arabus staring back at her with a weary, knowing look, nodding at her in acceptance of his fate. Knowing that a choice had to be made, before Commodus followed through with his threat to their children, she had spoken out loudly, staring hard at Felicia in an attempt to persuade her to see the only way out of the situation.

‘Arabus.’