The Sword and the Throne

by Henry Venmore-Rowland

  Then a sound as welcome as any I have heard in my life cut through the air: a series of rising staccato notes that we all recognized as the signal for the men to rally. But the call did not come from the men ahead, but from behind. My rival and I turned to see who had blown the tubae. The horizon shimmered gently in the day’s heat, but there on the road was a thin line of red tinted with silver. A small dust cloud rose up behind them, kicked up by striding sandals. The line of colour turned into individual figures. Men carrying the red shield with a sturdy boss in the centre, a resplendent eagle towering over them, and at their head marched a solitary man, a red plume mounted across his helmet, a gladius in one hand, a long vine staff in the other: Cornelius Nepos, First-Spear Centurion of the Fourth Legion. My men, the Macedonica.

  Jubilantly, I clapped Valens on the shoulder.

  ‘Men will be reading about this day for centuries to come, Valens.’

  He smiled, his face awash with relief. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘And they’ll read that Fabius Valens’s arse was saved by Aulus Caecina Severus, and the men he thought he could do without.’

  XVI

  The arrival of reinforcements broke the spirit of the enemy. When the praetorians began to run, the rest of Otho’s line rolled up like a carpet. After I left them, Publilius and Pansa had combined to trounce the auxiliaries waiting behind the legion of marines. They had not recaptured the lost eagle, but the men of the Twenty-First were so eager to blot out the shame that they fought like lions, tearing great bloody chunks out of anyone who stood in their way. Possibly the sight of the praetorians on the road struggling to contain the assault of fresh reinforcements panicked the men in the northern fields, for within an hour most of Otho’s army had fled. A rump of guardsmen remained on the causeway, stubbornly refusing to surrender. It was a hard and gory fight to remove the last remnants of the elite soldiers from the road.

  It was crucial for us to harry Otho’s forces as long and as hard as we could. We couldn’t risk the enemy regrouping; there were still thousands of men alive to fight another day. Despite my injury I insisted that I should be the one to take the freshest men in our army east towards Otho’s camp at Brixellum. The Fourth had only just joined the battle in time and Publilius’s cavalry squadron, despite their bloody drive into the mass of marines, were in much better shape than Valens’s own cavalry. There were also volunteers from the infantry who had held out against the praetorians for so long.

  ‘Where’s Quintus?’ I asked a man from the Twenty-Second. ‘Where’s the tribune who led you today?’

  ‘One of them praetorians nicked him in the shoulder, General. He was taken off to see the surgeon.’

  ‘How bad was it?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir, he’ll live I’m sure. I’ve had far worse wounds myself over the years.’

  Relieved, I set about co-ordinating my command. Any excess weight, unused pila, scabbards, anything that would slow us down was left behind. The remainder of the arm would round up the hundreds of prisoners, disarm them and keep a watchful eye on them. I had cobbled together perhaps 6,000 men, more than enough to deal with any stragglers fleeing the scene.

  Publilius rode on ahead, overtaking the last to flee and sending them back down the road towards us. If he encountered any resistance he was to ride back to my column for support. The legionaries advanced at a gentle jog. The sun had not yet begun to set, and the highly trained men still had plenty of life left in their legs for the pursuit. As we advanced eastwards we encountered sporadic groups of men, still in full armour but without their swords. Publilius had had them drop the weapons where they stood before sending them on their way. Their faces were tired and bitter, too weary even to sling insults at the rebels who had defeated them. Instead they stepped off the road and on to the grass verge to let us pass, watching sullenly as we ran to round up more of their comrades.

  Brixellum was still some way off when we caught up with Publilius and his men. I was puzzled. Surely if they had met resistance they would have ridden back as I had ordered. Why then were he and his men on the road, waiting for us? It was only when I saw the three men in brightly polished breastplates rather than the simple mail shirts of the German cavalry that I knew Publilius had captured some officers, and judging by the fact that they were on horseback, surrounded by their enemies and seemingly unperturbed, high-ranking officers at that. Then I saw the tawdry strip of white cloth tied to the shaft of a broken spear.

  Riding ahead of my column, I saw Publilius was talking to the officers. Then he shouted out an order. The men of his squadron turned as one to ride back down the road towards me, leaving the four men alone.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked one of the troopers.

  ‘No idea, General. The prefect didn’t want any of us to know what the officers had to say. He did ask that your column might halt, sir, and that you were to join him alone.’

  ‘All right, you pass those orders on to the legionaries, I’ll go on ahead.’

  When I was within earshot I called out: ‘You’d better have a good reason for not pursuing the enemy, Publilius. If we have to fight another battle because of this—’ I stopped abruptly. The officers one by one removed their helmets. Two of them were men I had not seen for a very long time. The first was Suetonius Paulinus, his hair a peppery colour all those years ago in Britannia now as white as snow, and age had carved yet more lines on his face. The second was Verginius Rufus, the man who had refused the throne. The third was Julius Agricola.

  ‘I’m sorry if we stopped your prefect here from carrying out his duties, Severus, but it was you that we wanted to see,’ said General Paulinus. ‘When your man told us that you were at the head of this column, he suggested we wait here for you to arrive.’

  ‘And now that you’ve found us, I think it would be best for you to rejoin your men, Publilius.’ This advice came from Rufus. Publilius tugged at the reins as he made to leave.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘What can be said to me can be said in front of Publilius, surely?’

  ‘I think these talks would proceed better with an element of discretion, Severus,’ Agricola said.

  ‘Forgive me, Praetor, but given what you did to my men at Ad Castores, you and discretion do not go together.’ I wasn’t about to call Agricola by his name, not for a long time yet. My old friend looked ready to argue, but Rufus intervened.

  ‘Let it go, Agricola. We’re all friends here, or we should be.’

  ‘Shall we get to the point? I suppose you want to discuss a truce?’ I said brusquely.

  ‘No truce. We’ve come to offer you a full surrender,’ Paulinus answered.

  ‘A surrender? Then why all this talk of discretion?’ I pointed at Publilius, who had remained where he was, horse facing back towards his men but his body awkwardly turned in the saddle to watch this deputation of men, two of whom I’d served under, the other I’d grown up and fought with.

  ‘The emperor,’ Rufus began.

  ‘You mean Otho. Vitellius is the emperor, yours and mine both,’ I interrupted.

  ‘As you wish. Otho has certain… requests.’

  ‘Namely: a total amnesty for his men,’ Paulinus said.

  ‘That can be arranged. What else?’

  ‘That Otho’s family and friends will not be persecuted.’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘We haven’t even discussed what’s going to happen to Otho himself. I know Valens will want to kill him outright, but there are other options. Exile is one, but then he’s still alive for men to rally behind. Personally, I think Otho should be put on trial for the murder of Galba.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Agricola said. ‘Otho’s fate has already been sealed.’

  ‘What do you mean, sealed?’

  Again old Paulinus looked uncomfortably at Publilius before answering.

  ‘Otho told the three of us, and his brother, that if he lost the battle comprehensively he would commit suicide.’

  ‘Suici
de!’ I scoffed. ‘That’s not Otho’s style, he’ll cling on to power like a limpet to a rock.’

  Rufus spoke up. ‘I think you’ll find Otho a changed man to the one you knew in Hispania. You forget that when he took the throne he had no idea that Vitellius had had men acclaim him emperor, or that you would be bringing some of the finest men in the empire into Italia. Last night he decided that he would rather die than let thousands of others die in a war that weakens Rome and gives hope to our enemies. You know the tribes in Germania, Severus. Now that you’ve abandoned the Rhine, we can only thank the gods that they haven’t yet invaded Gaul.’

  ‘We haven’t abandoned the Rhine, Rufus. Vitellius… I mean the emperor, recruited new legionaries and auxiliaries to replace the men we took south. Anyway, are you telling me that Otho is already dead?’

  ‘Not yet. When he heard the news of the battle he decided to give himself a few more hours to say his goodbyes. Then he sent Agricola and me to find you,’ Paulinus said.

  ‘Which begs the question, what are you doing here, Rufus?’

  ‘I’m here in case you decide not to be reasonable, Severus. I’m sure your legions would like to rip the remnants of our army into small pieces. Hopefully they will remember that I was a good general to them, and hold back if I ask them to.’

  He was right. Many of my men, and those from Valens’s province for that matter, had offered Rufus the throne after they had crushed Vindex’s rebellion. I couldn’t risk Rufus going anywhere near my men, just in case they took it into their heads to offer him the throne once again, abandoning the portly Vitellius like a whore with the clap.

  ‘How do I know that you’re telling the truth? You could just be trying to stall me while Otho runs with his tail between his legs.’

  ‘That’s why he decided to send us,’ Agricola said. ‘Three of his most senior officers, alone and at your mercy. You could take us prisoner and parade us in front of your men, but if you want to end this war today, you can come with us and see for yourself.’

  ‘So that I’d be alone and at your mercy? Somehow I’m not tempted.’

  ‘Of course you can bring an escort. Bring your whole column if you like, but I’d ask that you leave the infantry out of sight of the camp and advance with this squadron. The praetorians in the camp don’t know what Otho’s about to do. If they did there’d be a riot. Two hundred riders won’t look half as suspicious as a legion,’ Paulinus suggested.

  ‘If it ends the war, General.’ Publilius looked at me expectantly.

  ‘All right, I’ll come.’

  * * *

  We left the infantry hidden in some woods about a mile and a half away from Otho’s camp. Their officers took some convincing not to follow us into the jaws of the possible trap, but at least I would have Publilius and his men as an escort. Rufus and Paulinus flanked me as I rode. Agricola was about ten lengths ahead of me; we had nothing to say to each other.

  ‘It’s a strange thing,’ Paulinus said, breaking the awkward silence since the negotiations, ‘to be defeated by a man you once commanded. I suspect that you knew far more about my strategy than I did yours. Though I must say I was surprised that you made such a rash beginning to the battle, fighting before all your troops had reached the battlefield.’

  ‘That was Valens’s work,’ I said. ‘I was guarding the bridge at Cremona when the fight began.’

  ‘Ah, that makes sense. Knowing your eye for land I had my reserves fill in the ditches and knock down vines so that my men could fight unimpeded while yours flapped about like a lot of wet hens.’

  ‘Meaning that you could concentrate your best troops in the centre and try to break through our line,’ I said appreciatively. ‘It almost worked, until I brought up the reinforcements.’

  ‘It would have worked if Otho hadn’t decided to keep back some of his praetorians in Brixellum for protection.’

  ‘How many?’ I asked.

  ‘Four thousand.’

  I shuddered. Valens had come within a hair’s breadth of wasting everything my men had fought for, from the bloodstained slopes of the Alps to the costly siege of Placentia.

  ‘And these four thousand men are still in camp?’

  ‘Ready to fight and die for their emperor,’ Rufus said dourly.

  I saw some of these men milling around outside the walls of the camp, looking limp and dejected. Many were grief-stricken, while others sat in grim silence around the evening fires. The camp gates were shut.

  ‘You don’t suppose Otho’s done it already?’ Publilius asked quietly.

  ‘There’s no way of knowing for certain without going in.’

  ‘And you’re sure you want to do that with four thousand angry praetorians waiting for you?’

  I said nothing. Paulinus and Rufus I knew were honourable men. I couldn’t say the same for Agricola.

  Someone on the walls must have recognized the generals, as the huge wooden gates began to open. As the stout doors parted, I could see something inside: a table, with a purple cloth covering it, its edges flapping in the breeze. On the table lay a body, dressed in a snow-white tunic. As we came closer I could make out the gash on his neck where the knife had plunged home, all the blood painstakingly washed away. Even before reaching the table I could see it was Otho, right down to his curly wig and the laurel wreath worn to hide the join. Vain to the end, that wasn’t a surprise; but a noble death? That was.

  This was the man who had cautioned me over a year ago not to get my hopes up that Galba would choose me as his protégé, and maybe even his heir. As a close friend of Nero’s and a popular man with the mob and the common soldiery, he had sought that position for himself, even bribing the praetorians to murder Galba and free his path to the purple. But for all that, Otho had left the world with dignity, taking the path of honour. Suicide would wash away his less than glorious deeds, and he would be remembered as a man who knew when he was beaten, a man who had ended the civil war with a short, sharp stab of his dagger. His men were watching me closely as I looked upon the body. I reached out my hand and some of them grasped the hilts of their swords. I raised my other hand innocently, then lowered it. All I did was to adjust the wig that was resting slightly askew. Let him lie like a nobleman, I thought.

  I retreated a few steps, then turned on my heel. The three emissaries were waiting for my answer.

  ‘Give him his funeral tonight. Then come to us tomorrow and we will discuss the peace.’

  ‘Thank you, Severus,’ old Paulinus said.

  ‘Come, Publilius,’ I said tiredly. ‘We had better give Valens the news.’

  * * *

  The men were jubilant as we marched back. I had seen what I needed to see, but I couldn’t share their joy. It seemed as though everyone I’d touched in those chaotic months had turned to dust. From that meeting in a merchant’s house in Hispania, nearly all had died. Galba, his freedman Icelus Martianus, his general Titus Vinius; and now Otho lay on a cheap wooden table with a purple tablecloth trying to lend him some majesty. Then there was Vindex, another suicide after a calamitous defeat, not to mention the thousands of brave but doomed Gauls who had thought they were fighting for a cause but had had their lives extinguished by the very legions that I had led south. And these men too had limped from one horror to the next. I thanked the gods that my friends and family had survived, now that the war was over.

  Valens was waiting for me, an angry expression blotching his face so that it matched his military cloak.

  ‘Where by all the gods have you been? You were meant to be harassing Otho’s army, not going off for an afternoon stroll!’

  ‘Save your bile, Valens. The war is over.’

  ‘Over? What do you mean, over?’

  ‘Tell him, Publilius.’ I was too tired to explain myself to the odious man.

  ‘We were met by a deputation of officers from Otho who had come to offer their surrender.’

  ‘It’s not the officers I want. I want Otho,’ Valens said impatiently.

 
‘I don’t mean they were surrendering, they had come to surrender the whole army. Otho killed himself less than two hours ago.’

  ‘You’re sure they weren’t trying to trick you?’

  ‘We saw the body, Valens. Believe me, Otho’s dead. You can talk it over with Publilius if you like, but I want to check on Quintus. Where is he?’

  ‘He’s in the field hospital. I had the surgeons come up and set up shop as soon as the battle was over. You’ll find it half a mile back down the road, where the well is.’

  Most of the wounded were being ferried back along the road to Cremona, where surgeries and doctors in the town were waiting for them. The field hospital was for those who could not endure the length of the journey. Quintus’s wound had been slight, so I assumed that as an officer he had his shoulder stitched up at the nearest hospital rather than join the queue of men heading back down the road, on foot or in carts.

  Graves were being dug in the field for those who hadn’t made it, while surviving patients lay under a canvas shade, the doctors keeping them under close observation. I stopped one of the orderlies, asking where I could find my friend.

  ‘I don’t know each man by name, General. We’ve had hundreds coming through here.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be difficult to remember. Senior Tribune Vindex, came here with a shoulder wound, I heard.’

  ‘Oh him? Yes, sir, he’s two tents along. And there’s a man with him, a Hibernian he said.’

  ‘Thank you. And if you can spare someone can you send a man to take a look at my arm?’

  ‘Of course, General.’

  I must have taken a wrong turn. Two tents beyond was where they were storing the dead before putting them into the ground. I called out for Totavalas. The man had told me he was with Quintus, so he must be nearby.

  ‘I’m here, General,’ a voice answered from inside a small tent. I lifted the flap, and there was the Hibernian, crouched down by Quintus. The Gaul’s armour had been removed and the top of his tunic ripped open. His flesh was morbidly pale. Even the skin around the wound looked cold and grey.