It was little surprise then that when at last we reached the Po we found the bridge to Cremona in enemy hands. But it wasn’t another Thermopylae that was waiting for us, but a single horseman. He was in full armour and wore the cloak of a junior tribune with the tell-tale purple stripe. He also carried an olive branch, waving it high above his head to show he came in peace.
‘I bring a message from General Primus,’ he hollered. ‘Is General Severus there?’
‘Here I am,’ I called back. The tribune caught sight of me and had his horse walk steadily forward. My legionaries blocked his path, but the tribune still advanced. He had a proper set of balls on him, this one, looking down at the soldiers and waiting for them to let him through. One man confronted by 30,000, and grudgingly the men gave way.
He clutched his olive branch tightly. ‘My message is for you and your senior officers, General,’ he said.
‘Very well,’ I said testily. Cerberus and Pansa were fetched at the double, and I led the messenger somewhere where we wouldn’t be overheard. While we waited, I studied the officer’s face closely. Though it was obscured by his helmet, the man looked a year or two younger than me, despite his delicately trimmed beard; young, but surely a bit old to be a junior tribune still?
‘You’re making a mistake, General,’ Cerberus said. ‘No good can come of hearing any message Primus has for us.’
‘Even if it means we could save thousands of lives?’ the messenger asked.
Pansa chuckled grimly. ‘That’s not the Primus I know. He’s only sent you to try and sow seeds of doubt in our minds. He’s a conniving little weasel.’
‘I may have a more slender figure than you, Pansa, but I object to the other two words.’ The tribune took off his helmet, and my second in command’s eyes bulged.
‘Primus?’
‘Got it in one, Pansa. You’ll forgive the deception, General, but somehow I doubt your men would have let me pass if they’d known I wasn’t just a humble tribune.’
I marvelled at the courage of the man, facing an enemy army alone and disguised just to meet me and my officers.
‘How do you know I’m not going to have my men put you in chains and send you to Rome on a charge of treason?’ I asked him.
‘Because I came here under a truce, and you’re an officer and a nobleman. I’m safer in the middle of your army than I would be on, say, the Parthian front. Besides, not so long ago you three were the rebels, and I was a loyal servant of Emperor Galba.’
‘He has a point,’ Cerberus said reluctantly.
‘And your message is that we should surrender and avoid unnecessary bloodshed?’ I guessed.
‘In a nutshell, yes. I wasn’t at Bedriacum, but I gather it was bloody. Even if you do beat me, Vespasian is no more than two months behind me with an even larger army. He asks that you join him, for the good of Rome.’
‘And suppose we decide that Rome is best served with our man as emperor?’ Cerberus asked.
‘Then I will have to fight you, and I shall win,’ he said matter-of-factly, as though only a madman would doubt the outcome of a battle.
‘Your army’s no larger than ours,’ Pansa said, ‘and we’ve got the veterans from Britannia and the Rhine. What have you got?’
‘Now that would telling, wouldn’t it?’
Pansa shrugged. ‘It was worth a try.’
‘Suppose I were to make you the same offer? Complete amnesty, you take your men back over the Alps and we go back to Rome.’ It was as generous an offer as he had made to me.
‘I’d say thank you, but I’ve already sworn my allegiance to Vespasian, and so have my men.’
‘Then we have nothing more to discuss,’ Cerberus said flatly.
‘You’re sure, General?’ Primus asked me. ‘I can’t force you, but I would ask you one last question.’
‘And that is?’
‘Vespasian is a decent general, and more importantly a decent man. What makes Vitellius so special that you’d risk your men’s lives for him?’
‘Pansa, escort Legate Primus back to the bridge. See that he gets across it unharmed.’
Primus was surprised, but nevertheless he saluted before heading back where he came from, Pansa accompanying him.
Cerberus watched too. ‘A brave man,’ he observed. ‘I think his message was more for the men than it was for us. If the rankers go into battle knowing they might be offered amnesty at the end of it, they won’t fight half as well.’
I sighed. Not because of Cerberus’s words but because I recognized something of my old self in Primus. Young, ambitious, a man who’d chanced his arm and was on the point of taking the purple with his sword. Would Primus feel as old and tired in two years’ time, I asked myself.
‘Have the men cross the bridge and make camp. I want to speak to them this evening.’
‘Of course, General.’
‘You’re going to do it then?’ Totavalas asked while the men were cooking their suppers.
‘I think so.’
‘You think so? If it was me going out in front of thousands of bloodthirsty soldiers I’d want to be pretty damn sure I knew what I was doing. You’re either for Vitellius or you’re for Vespasian.’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘Gods, but it is! You’ve got to make a choice, and you can’t do it half-arsed, otherwise you’ll piss off both of them and help neither.’
‘Thank you, Totavalas, your cheery confidence is exactly what I need right now.’
The freedman said nothing for a while, just tut-tutting over the state I’d let my armour get into. There had been a flash storm the day before, and I hadn’t bothered to dry the joints in my helmet properly, so I had to be careful of rust.
‘What does your gut tell you then?’
‘My gut tells me I should hate Vespasian for starting all this. We’ve had three emperors since Nero, three for Hades’ sake, and now some low-born upstart decides to plunge us all into this madness again. Just as everything was turning out well for me.’
‘And Vitellius? You’ve known all along there were better men for the purple. And they say this Vespasian is a competent administrator. He would be a better choice for you and for Rome.’
‘And which of the two is more important to me, do you think?’ I said in what I thought was a sarcastic tone.
Totavalas reddened slightly. ‘Well, you do have a talent for coming out on top.’
I was taken aback. I had only been pretending that I wanted an answer, but Totavalas had as good as told me that I was an opportunist vulture who put himself before his city. The Hibernian realized his mistake.
‘Severus, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…’
‘Get out,’ I said, quietly and coldly.
‘But…’
‘Out, out, out, OUT!’ I screamed, raising my hand as if to strike. Totavalas fled, leaving me alone in my tent. Dejectedly, I collapsed on to my cot. Totavalas’s words still echoed in my head. If that’s what my own loyal freedman thought of me, how did everyone else see me? Salonina would have comforted me, she would have said that I had always acted for the good of Rome. Betraying Nero for Galba was no crime, it had been a duty to spare Rome from the tyrant. And Galba had been no revelation either once he reached the throne. I’d had such hopes for life under Vitellius, keeping the snake Valens at bay and helping the glutton to rule his empire. But I had managed to drive away nearly everyone who had loved or cared for me. I had deceived myself into thinking that I was ambitious for Rome, rather than for myself. Salonina knew this, I think. Had I deceived others? There was only one way to find out.
I put on my helmet, stiff cheek-pieces and all, brushed the last traces of mud from my cloak, put my shoulders back and drew myself up to my full height. I had to look at my impressive best. From all over the camp the men were filing out of their tents and cookhouses. There was already a crowd packed around the makeshift platform on the parade square. Fingers pointed as the men saw me coming, others murmuring excitedly.<
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With two quick steps I was on the platform, surrounded on all sides by my army. There were too many men really, so that I had to turn round from time to time to let my voice carry to all corners of the crowd.
‘Soldiers of Rome,’ I called out, ‘a few miles away stands the army of Vespasian. The first army, the advance guard.’
Cries of ‘rebels’ and ‘traitors’ were quashed as I raised my hands for silence.
‘Do not call them traitors. They are ordinary men like you and me. Two seasons ago the Senate and the armies of Galba and Otho would have branded us the same. And look at you now, the favoured soldiers of Emperor Vitellius Germanicus.’
‘Germanicus, Germanicus,’ they chanted.
‘Today I have to make a choice,’ I told them. ‘A choice between you and the emperor. Valens and I led fifty thousand men from Germania to this very spot, to Cremona. You all fought like lions to win Vitellius his throne, and now the emperor is asking you to fight again. Now we are thirty thousand, softened from the pleasures of Rome. And to the east Primus and his army are waiting. They have chosen the battlefield, no doubt they’ve filled in the ditches on their side and dug traps on ours. They have the artillery, we had no time to bring our own. This is my choice, men. If I lead you into battle tomorrow, I am not sure we can win.’
The men’s faces turned from puzzlement to dismay. No general in all Rome’s history had spoken to his army this way, and maybe no general ever will again.
‘I have seen many good men die over the years, from our battles against Boudicca,’ I gestured at the men from Britannia to make my point, ‘in the fields of Gaul against Vindex, in the Alps and here in Italia itself. And for what? To put noble after noble on the throne, that is all. Has Vitellius made your lives better? Ask yourselves, why did Vitellius not put you in the Praetorian Guard? Why do those chosen few get the rewards that you all fought for?’
‘Vitellius made you consul!’ a voice shouted accusingly. Many of the men muttered their agreement.
‘It’s true, I am a consul. Valens and I deserved nothing less for the sacrifices we made to give him his throne. But Valens is not here, he doesn’t see what I see: a rebel army that has the advantages of numbers, fresh legs, artillery and open ground. It’s because I care more for your lives than Vitellius’s crown that I believe we should take matters into our own hands. Today we can save Rome from the horrors of another civil war, we can make peace with our comrades from the east and let Vitellius fight for the throne himself. What do you say?’
I looked at the men, my arms spread wide appealingly. I searched the crowd for friendly faces, but there were none. This was Valens’s army, not mine. Most of the men I had led over the Alps were now praetorians in Rome with Publilius. A thousand were left from my own legion, the Fourth, and the men from Britannia knew me by reputation at least. But they were a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of the army. Pansa, at the head of his men, stepped forward. He at least knew I talked sense. He clambered on to the platform and stood beside me.
‘Legionaries,’ he cried, ‘I think we’ve heard enough from this traitor. What say we send him back to Rome in chains?’
Before I could react, Pansa had punched me square in the jaw. I staggered, the world spinning round me. My vision was blurred but I still heard the roars of approval from the men, some of whom bounded up to join in assaulting their general. I felt the nailheads on their sandals punch into my body. Pansa stood above me. I saw the pommel of a sword scything down and I fell into darkness.
* * *
The next thing I was aware of was the sound of artillery, the roar and crackle as huge fireballs crashed into their targets. Groggily, I tried to open my eyes. One was sealed shut, dried blood caked around my eyelid, and the other was badly swollen. Then I felt the pain from my temple where someone had struck me and knocked me out. I tried to raise my hand and check the damage, but my arm wouldn’t move. Instead I became aware of the cold links of iron around my body and a crushing pressure on my chest and shoulders. The chains chinked as I struggled, and my whole body began to sway. I looked down and screamed. The ground was far, far below me, more than thirty feet. I was swinging like a pendulum, suspended by a solitary chain from the walls of the camp!
I tried shouting for help, though it hurt my damaged ribs. But no one came. It was pitch dark, but flashes of orange streaked my vision. Was it dawn? Then the sound of another explosion carried across the fields. The fool Pansa must have led the army to battle as soon as I had been beaten unconscious and left to dangle so I could watch the fight.
Only the battle wasn’t going well. Far away I could make out an orderly line of red, occasionally illuminated by fireballs arcing into the sky, and another line, ragged and chaotic, dashing itself like a wave upon a rock. I drifted in and out of consciousness. The pressure on my shoulders woke me sporadically, and it hurt just to move my legs in their tight chains. Pins and needles that felt more like searing hot daggers being plunged into my calves and thighs.
After a while I noticed that the onagers had ceased firing, the crashes replaced by the clattering and jangling of armour. My army was in full retreat. My one eye could just make out groups of men in the fields, scattering in all directions as Primus’s army marched ominously and relentlessly forward. Some of my men were heading for the relative safety of the far bank of the river, while others ran towards Cremona. Only one small group headed back to camp, everyone else thinking that it was the first place the victors would look for survivors, and that the artillery would make short work of the wooden walls.
The group looked about the size of a century. Many of them were wounded and the unscathed men helped prop up or drag those unable to run. As they neared the camp, I heard one of the men shout:
‘Look, it’s the rat who wanted to sell us out!’
‘Let’s see how he likes a spear in the guts,’ another suggested.
‘Leave off, a spear won’t do much against those chains.’
‘I could aim for his head?’ The others laughed appreciatively.
‘OK, smart-arse, five sestercii says you miss.’
‘You’re on,’ the man said. He took careful aim with his pilum. I was petrified; there was nothing I could do if his throw was straight and true.
There was an almighty thwack, and the soldier crumpled to his feet. Behind him, clutching his hefty vine rod, stood a centurion. ‘You don’t kill an officer,’ he spat at his men, ‘even if you think he’s a traitor. Now get inside and find what you can. I want to be the other side of the river in ten minutes.’
The centurion kicked at the man he had felled, and the soldier slowly got to his feet.
I tried to thank the centurion for saving my life. The man looked up at me.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
I muttered something about my eye, and it being too dark to see.
‘Centurion Gaius Tadius of the Twentieth Valeria Victrix, that’s me. We fought together in Britannia.’ It all came flooding back: an army about to break, my horse taking fright and carrying me to the heart of the battle, my legion forming up behind me in a wedge as we counter-attacked, scything through the Britons, and a young legionary who had fought at my side. We had been heroes, he and I.
‘You don’t deserve to die. I hope you live a long life, so you can see what you’ve become.’ The centurion spat distastefully on to the road, then went into the camp to make sure his men were all right.
Epilogue
They’re all dead now, almost everyone except me. Pansa and Cerberus died that night. Valens recovered from his daily dose of figs and led the praetorians and the remnants of my army against Primus to try to save Vitellius’s throne. He was captured and had his head cut off to prove to our men that their general was dead and that resistance was futile. Rome descended into chaos and the mob turned on Vitellius, Publilius and the rest, but not before the emperor had Vespasian’s brother Sabinus killed in an act of petty vengeance.
Me? Primus had
his men lower me down and release me from my chains. I was treated with mock honours for making a present of my army to Vespasian, and congratulated for finding the best vantage point for the battle. Vespasian has been emperor for ten years now, ten long years of being spat at in the street and being called a traitor to my face. Vespasian revelled in being seen as a man of mercy. With his brother dead there was no one to vouch for the fact that I had changed sides long before the battle at Cremona. Nonetheless I was allowed to remain a senator, on the condition that I was given a new name: Aulus Caecina Alienus. Caecina the stranger, the outcast, the man without a friend in the world.
Totavalas lived with me in Rome. My son Aulus wanted nothing to do with me, preferring instead to stay in Vicetia and run the estate. He would visit me once a year, reciting the annual profits and losses, and that was it. I spent my days mostly whoring and drinking, a political career forever closed to me. When sober, I nursed thoughts of revenge against Vespasian for shattering my golden dreams of ruling Rome under Vitellius. I even let others in on my plotting, other malcontents with grudges against Vespasian and his court.
Agricola, on the other hand, flourished under the new emperor. I often thought of telling him that I had slept with his wife, just to see the look on his face, but I could never bring myself to do it. He married his daughter to the son of old Tacitus, the fusty man who had ridden with me across Hispania to hear Galba’s plots and stratagems, over a decade ago now. Vespasian even gave Agricola the governorship of Britannia, with a full mandate to conquer the whole island. Totavalas wistfully said he would have liked to go with my old friend. After all, as the freedman of the most loathed man in Rome there were precious few opportunities for him in the city.
This afternoon I did something I haven’t done in years: I paid a social call. Hooded and cloaked, I went to Agricola’s house and asked the janitor to let me in. On hearing the name the slave bolted the door shut, but I pleaded with him to at least bring Agricola to the door.
The Sword and the Throne Page 32