The Sword and the Throne

by Henry Venmore-Rowland

  With a snap of the fingers Vitellius summoned a couple of slaves, who hoisted the unfortunate Valens on to his feet.

  ‘Take him to one of the guest rooms,’ he said. ‘Then bring me a bowl of water and a new pair of sandals.’

  ‘With your permission, sire, I’ll take one of the spare rooms as well.’

  ‘Of course, Severus. Looking for a bit of company, are we?’ Vitellius winked knowingly.

  ‘My dear, Consul Severus is a married man,’ Galeria sniffed.

  ‘Indeed I am,’ I slurred. ‘But I am also drunk, and would rather not walk across the city when there’s a perfectly good bed a few moments away.’

  ‘I’ll believe you, Severus. Get to bed; let the real men enjoy the party, eh?’

  ‘Thank you, sire. My lady,’ I bowed. Within a few minutes the sounds of eager girls and revelry were but a distant echo, as I wound my way through the palace to find myself a room. Someone had thoughtfully left an empty bucket by one of the doors, and I assumed Valens was inside. Not wishing to hear Valens’s supper returning, I took one of the rooms at the other end of the corridor, sending the pretty slave girl away to join the party so that I could have the double bed all to myself.

  By lunchtime the next day my head had stopped spinning, but the health of Vitellius’s other guest had if anything got a little worse. Valens was sweating, vomiting and had spent much of the night being carried between his room and the latrine.

  ‘It was the oysters, wasn’t it?’ I asked Totavalas when he came to see me.

  ‘No, not the oysters.’

  ‘But I saw him gag when he had one.’

  ‘Maybe he was just unlucky. Actually it was the cake.’

  ‘The cake? But I had some of it, so did lots of people and they must be fine, otherwise they’d be searching the kitchens for poison.’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it. I bought some information from one of Valens’s household slaves, and it seems that the consul can’t eat figs, ever since he was a boy. So when I took the proposed menu down to the kitchens a few days ago, I added a generous helping of figs to the cake recipe.’

  ‘Totavalas, you’re a genius.’

  ‘I know, but it’s nice to hear it from time to time.’

  I smiled wearily, used by now to the Hibernian’s sense of humour. ‘Has Vitellius heard yet?’

  ‘He has, but he knows he can’t delay sending the army north. Primus and his legions can’t be allowed to cross the Po unchallenged, so Valens has until tomorrow to recover.’

  ‘And what if he does?’

  ‘I doubt it. The slave told me that figs can lay the man low for almost a week.’

  ‘And if he makes a miraculous recovery?’

  ‘I have a reliable doctor on hand who will cut up fig skin into Valens’s medicine. He won’t taste the skin, but he’ll react just the same.’

  ‘Tell me again, why are you doing this? What’s stopping you from selling me out and winning Vitellius’s gratitude?’

  He snorted. ‘Do you really think Vitellius would be as good a master to me as you have been? I may not be a slave any more, but as your freedman I can work hard, put some money by and one day head home. If you fall, so do my chances of returning to my island as High King.’

  I smiled at the thought. ‘Totavalas, High King of Hibernia!’

  ‘Only I wouldn’t be Totavalas back home.’

  ‘Of course; what is your name again? Your real one, I mean.’

  ‘Tuathal,’ he said. The sounds of those Celtic syllables were alien to my Roman ears.

  ‘But here I’m Totavalas the freedman, right-hand man to a consul of Rome, and I’d like it to stay that way for at least a bit longer.’

  * * *

  Totavalas was right of course. He often was. Vitellius had no choice but to give me command of the army once it was clear that Valens’s recovery would take more than a day or two. The gift was given grudgingly, but still Vitellius had no reason to suspect my loyalty. Nor had I given him any cause to; I was still undecided as to what I would do once I had left Rome far behind me. And it wasn’t as though I was some young boy who’d been given a grown-up’s job. I was thirty years old and an accomplished general, with an excellent eye for terrain though I say it myself. And choosing the right battleground can be half the battle.

  Of the group of us who had ridden south together, only Pansa, Cerberus and Totavalas rode at my side the day we left the city. As praetorian prefect, Publilius had to stay behind in Rome to defend the emperor, and to defend my interests. The gods alone knew what sort of tricks Valens would get up to with me out of Rome. The other man missing was Quintus. I thought back to the days we had spent together in Gaul, training his father’s army and forming the first bonds of comradeship. The other Gauls had been good men, coarse but proud men who loved their country. They lay buried on the slopes of Vesontio now, and Quintus in the rich fields of the north. They had fought for me, not for my cause. It made me uncomfortable to think where I might have ended up if it hadn’t been for men like them.

  We left to a fanfare of tubae, standards fluttering in the wind and Vitellius waving us off languidly from his imperial chariot, borrowed from his treasured Blues. His wife Galeria was there too with a chariot of her own. I heard a vicious rumour that the plan had been for them to share, but there wasn’t room for them both and a second had to be found quickly for the emperor’s wife.

  ‘Long time no see,’ Cerberus had said when he and Pansa found the Hibernian and me waiting at the head of the column.

  ‘I hope you two have been enjoying yourselves in the city,’ I said warmly.

  ‘Not as much as some,’ Pansa huffed. No change there then. ‘You’ll have to tell us what it was like to lord it over the nobles and gorge yourself at the emperor’s banquets. Apparently we weren’t important enough to be invited.’

  ‘I would have gladly swapped,’ I said. ‘I’ve had my fill of banquets.’

  ‘Oh, life is so tough,’ Pansa said.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Totavalas said courteously, ‘I think the army’s waiting for us to lead the way. If the emperor has to wave any more his biceps will get as big as a melon!’

  Ever the diplomat, I thought. If ever he did win back his father’s throne on that insignificant island of his, Hibernia would be too small for him.

  ‘Totavalas is right. We have a rebellion to crush.’ I twitched my heels against Achilles’s flanks and the warhorse trotted forward. The other three rode behind me, and behind them were 30,000 men: my army, and they would go where I led them.

  * * *

  Within a few days it was painfully obvious that the men were badly out of shape. Months of drinking and whoring across the taverns of Rome had softened them, gorged them, robbed them of the iron durability that had seen them through the perilous Alpine passes. I knew that, the officers knew that, but the men were convinced they were still the same legendary veterans who had defended Rome so ably from the barbarians beyond the Rhine. As for the auxiliaries, those who had survived our campaign in the north had faced the terror of plague in the Aventine. The Germans and Britons were the worst hit. We took every able-bodied man with us, but they amounted to little more than 2,000. Only 2,000 out of the original 20,000 had survived the last seven months! And we faced six legions, each 5,000 strong, as well as their own auxiliaries. The only comforting thought was that like us this man Primus would have to leave men behind to guard the Danube frontier, or risk hordes of barbarians crossing the river once they heard that Rome was once again embroiled in a civil war.

  It was frankly disgusting to see hardened veterans struggling after no more than a week on the march. Only when I saw one or two men collapse with exhaustion did I give the order to ease the pace. It was imperative that we reach the Po and cross it quickly if we wanted to meet the advance column of Vespasian’s army in a defensible place and beat them. I had hoped to reach at least Vicetia and wait at the base of the Julian Alps for the invading army, but at the rate we were travelling
we would be lucky if we beat them to the banks of the Po.

  Ironically, the frostiness between Cerberus, Pansa and me began to thaw as we marched from the baking heat of Rome in summer to the cooler northern provinces. Pansa resented my success too much ever to come close to anything that resembled a friendship, and Cerberus was a dour, inscrutable character who had never quite forgiven me for the loss of practically his whole squadron of cavalry, men who had served under him and his father before him. For company I sought out the detachment from my old legion, the Twentieth Valeria Victrix, at least those who had not been recruited to join the praetorian guard. Some of the more grizzled veterans remembered me, and I even managed to claw back a few names from the distant past. It was almost ten years since I had led them, in a manner of speaking, to victory over Boudicca, but even the younger men had heard of my reputation.

  I was reminiscing about those hard but glorious days with those who remembered them when I heard my name being called.

  ‘General Severus? Where can I find General Severus?’

  Strangely enough it was the horse I recognized, not the rider. It was a chestnut gelding from my own stables at the estate in Vicetia. But how had this rider got hold of it? I waved to grab the man’s attention. The rider was red in the face; he must have been shouting my name since he reached the head of our column. But this was not a courier from Rome, but from the north.

  ‘I’m General Severus, who are you?’

  ‘Lucius Pollio, General. I’m one of the couriers from Vicetia.’

  ‘Vicetia? Have Primus and his army reached the town already?’

  The lad looked confused. ‘I don’t know about any army, sir. It’s been almost a fortnight since I left home.’

  ‘A fortnight? Changing horses it should have taken you days!’

  ‘But I’m not with the army, General. I can’t use the imperial horses for a private message.’

  Now I was confused. ‘But if you’re not an imperial courier, who is the message from?’

  ‘Your son, General. He lent me one of the horses from your stable, and I’m to ride it back now I’ve found you. Here’s the message.’

  He handed me a scroll from his satchel, sealed with wax but with no emblem stamped into it. The only family seal we had was the ring I wore on a chain around my neck, since my ring finger had been sliced off in Gaul.

  I snatched the scroll from him and broke the seal. My eyes sped over the childish writing, then my heart clenched, the breath catching short in my body. Aulus had written because there was no one else. Salonina had died in childbirth.

  XXVI

  I could feel my face beginning to flush, the tears welling up inside me, but I couldn’t cry, not in front of the men. Feverishly I kicked Achilles hard and dived off the road, heading for a small copse where I would be out of sight. The courier called after me but I ignored him. I had to get away from them all.

  Once safely in the cover of the trees I almost fell out of the saddle, crumpling in a heap on the ground. My breath came thick and fast as I tried to take in the news. Salonina dead, and the child with her. It had been a girl, a tiny baby girl, but she had died within hours of her mother. My hands clutched at the blades of grass and I began to howl, yanking out great handfuls of the stuff in my anger and despair. I was screaming so hard that I didn’t even hear the hoofbeats of the rider heading for my refuge.

  In between my cries there came a voice. ‘Severus, what’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Salonina,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Gods, she’s not…?’

  I couldn’t say the word, just nodded as the rest of my body shook uncontrollably.

  Totavalas jumped to the ground and crouched beside me. ‘Severus, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘And I should have been there,’ I moaned. ‘I promised her.’

  ‘You had to stay in the city,’ he told me.

  ‘No I didn’t. I could have left Valens everything and gone home. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.’

  ‘Now don’t you dare blame yourself for this. These things happen, they happen all the time.’

  ‘But why me? Why do the gods want to punish me by taking away my wife and daughter?’

  ‘The baby died as well? You poor bastard.’ The Hibernian took me in his arms and held me tight. ‘How’s Aulus?’

  ‘I don’t know. He wrote, but how can a boy write what he feels when his mother’s just died?’

  ‘At least he’s got you, he’s got his father. Both of us had to grow up without a father, remember? He’s a good boy, he’ll be all right.’

  ‘On his own? I should go to him, he needs his father with him.’ I broke free of Totavalas’s arms and wiped away my tears.

  ‘You’re needed here, Severus,’ Totavalas reminded me.

  ‘No I’m not. Pansa and Cerberus can manage the army while I’m gone.’

  ‘Just stop and think for a minute. Primus’s army will have passed Vicetia by the time you reach the Po. How do you think you’re going to sneak past a whole army?’

  I stubbornly walked over to Achilles and began to check my saddlebags and make the horse ready to leave.

  ‘You’re not thinking straight. Severus, I know you’re angry and upset, but you have responsibilities here. Vitellius and Vespasian, remember?’

  ‘What have they ever done for me?’ I asked, looking straight ahead at the saddle rather than the Hibernian’s eyes.

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s what you can do for them. You leave the army now and Vitellius will have Valens hunt you down. And you’ll have nothing to show Vespasian for your efforts either. Then where will you be?’

  I stood there mutely, not wanting to agree with him.

  ‘Aulus is a strong boy, stronger than you think. He’s got his father’s stubbornness.’

  I smiled weakly. That was true. He had his mother’s eyes though, eyes that would haunt me every time I looked at them. My shoulders slumped in resignation. ‘You’re right, Totavalas.’

  ‘Come on, Severus, the men will be waiting for you.’

  Cerberus and Pansa were all sympathy and understanding when they heard the news. Of course they offered to look after the army for the time being if I wanted to go home, but when I told them home was Vicetia they realized that riding through enemy lines would be impossible.

  If I had felt lonely before, I was even more so for the rest of that torturous march. Condolences from my fellow officers did not mean that they thought any better of me, they just treated me more carefully. I had Totavalas to confide in, but there was little more that could be said. I spent day after day riding alone at the head of the army, with no more than memories for company, and the memory that haunted me the most was that night with Domitia. I hadn’t thought to ask the courier when Salonina had died, so I didn’t even know if that lecherous night in Rome was before or after I had lost my wife. Not that sleeping with my friend’s wife after Salonina had died would have made me feel any better about myself, but not knowing was even worse.

  Every night I read and reread the letter from Aulus. Understandably he hadn’t gone into any detail, only that the doctor had tried his best but had lost both the mother and the child. I didn’t even know if a better doctor would have been able to prevent either of their deaths. All I knew was that my son was alone on the estate, with nobody but slaves for company.

  After a few days with my thoughts, since not even Totavalas dared spend too much time with me in my black mood, my despair turned into rage. We had made a north-west turn and were heading towards the stronghold of Cremona once again, and each night Pansa had approached me with a skin bulging with wine.

  ‘This’ll help you, General. A few slugs of wine and you’ll forget everything.’

  I had the skinful the first night, drowning my sorrows so to speak, and regretted it in the morning. When the legate appeared outside my tent every evening for the next three days, each time with enough alcohol to make an elephant go weak at the knees, I thought of Quintus,
of how he had turned to drink in an effort to numb the pain of losing his family and eventually my friendship. I had seen what the drink did to him, and I saw through Pansa’s feigned friendship.

  ‘No thank you, Pansa. I have an army to lead and I can’t do that if you’re pouring wine down my throat.’ He wasn’t going to get me out of the way that easily, however much I wanted the bloody campaign to be over so I could go home and be with my son.

  The towns came and went as we marched slowly and ponderously northwards. It was only when we reached Mutina that we heard the first reports of Primus and his army. I had half expected to meet them south of the Po, but according to our information Primus had taken longer than anticipated crossing the Alps, even though it was by now late summer and the passes were clear. He had decided to bring the bolt-firing ballistae and a pair of onagers with him, and they had slowed the rebel army’s progress through the narrow, twisting mountain roads. They had reached Verona, less than forty miles from Bedriacum, the place where I had seen the body of Otho with its pale skin and gash across the neck. If we marched hard we had a chance of reaching Cremona first and choosing the battleground.

  Cerberus and Pansa understood their orders and had the men pick up the pace, but it was no use. The easy living in Rome had taken its toll on the army. The only thought I had to console me was the harder I marched the men, the quicker they would toughen up. On the other hand the army had to be able to fight once we found the enemy. What little loyalty I had left for Vitellius was ebbing away, but I couldn’t let the men see it, or Cerberus and Pansa. The African no doubt hoped he would be rewarded with the command of a legion if we triumphed in the north, while Pansa made no attempt to hide the fact that he wanted to command the army. After all, he was a deal older and more experienced than me, and it galled him to take orders from a jumped-up young senator, even if I had earned my position and more besides.