‘What do you want?’ my old friend said tersely, looking down at me through the large peephole. Through it I could see most of my friend’s face; he had hardly aged a day.
‘Five minutes of your time, nothing more. What I have to say can’t be said in the street.’
‘All right, five minutes,’ he said. The door was opened, and I was ushered into a spartan-looking atrium.
‘How’s Domitia?’ I asked politely, once I was sure we were alone.
‘Alienus,’ he said, relishing the use of my new name, ‘you didn’t come here to talk about my wife.’
I smiled. Even now I wanted to tell him, but I controlled myself.
‘I know what you must think of me, Agricola, I know what all Rome thinks of me. But I have a son. He’s the last of his line and he’s wasting the best years of his life alone on the estate.’
‘What do you want me to do about it?’
‘You could take him with you to Britannia.’
He snorted. ‘And why would I want to do that?’
‘He’s a good boy. Aulus is honest, intelligent, he could be so much more than a simple farmer. No one will take him because of who his father is.’
‘And you thought I might take him for old times’ sake?’ Agricola said sceptically.
‘He was good enough to be your son-in-law once,’ I reminded him.
‘Not any more he isn’t.’
‘But it’s me you don’t want to be associated with, not Aulus.’ I paused, convincing myself to make this one last plea. ‘If you take Aulus as a tribune, I can guarantee that Vespasian will be in your debt for ever.’
‘How?’
‘There’s a plot to assassinate him tonight. You promise to take Aulus, and I’ll give you all the information I have. Names, numbers, where and when, everything.’
‘And how did you get this information?’
‘I’m one of the conspirators, Agricola.’
The enormity of what I was saying finally dawned upon my old friend. If he accepted and the plot was foiled, I would be executed as a traitor.
‘My son is all I’ve got left. I want him to carve out a future for himself, away from Rome. Britannia can give him a fresh start.’
I was hastily shown out of the house, told to expect a package if he agreed.
The sun is beginning to set. The conspirators are moving into position. Agricola’s present lies here on the desk next to these memoirs of mine: a plain, old-fashioned dagger from a plain, old-fashioned general. I have reached the final page of these memoirs, dear reader. I hope there is someone to read these memories of a lonely soldier. Totavalas will take them with him for safe keeping. Within a few months he’ll be that much closer to his dream of returning to Hibernia. But my story ends here. I go to meet my friends in Hades now. I hope they’ll forgive me.
Historical Note
Aulus Caecina Alienus, as I can finally call him, has taken me by the hand and guided me through one of the most fascinating and crucial periods in Rome’s imperial history. Mention Rome and, for many, the first word that springs to mind is Caesar. Others may think of Romulus and Remus, Hannibal (interestingly, the names of the men who took on Carthage and won, like Fabius Maximus Cunctator and Scipio Africanus, don’t have quite the same enduring appeal), mighty Cicero and the fall of the republic. However, most people’s knowledge of Roman history seems to end with the death of Nero.
Much like the war fought between Julius Caesar and Pompey, or between Octavian and Mark Anthony, the civil war of AD 69 had huge repercussions on the way in which Rome was ruled. At the fall of the republic, the House of Caesar was triumphant; but at the fall of Nero, no one knew what would follow. Nero’s reign had suffocated the talents of the imperial aristocracy – those families whose stars had risen while the mighty dynasties of previous centuries had crumbled – leaving little room for the ambition of men like Caecina.
But the ascendance to the throne of four men within one year, none of whom had any blood connection to the ruling family, changed the very essence of what it meant to be a Caesar. Over the centuries, new dynasties would come and go as emperors tried to cement their families’ power, but AD 69 destroyed the concept that an emperor had to be of imperial blood and set a dangerous precedent in centuries to come: able generals could try to take the throne by force.
Unlike the setting for The Last Caesar – the events of AD 68 – the documented evidence becomes much more detailed and wide-ranging for The Year of the Four Emperors itself, and it is these events which have driven the narrative of The Sword and the Throne. The inner historian in me is satisfied, but the storyteller less so. While the vast majority of characters in this novel are real historical figures, there is one liberty that I have had to take for reasons of plot. It is true that Gnaeus Julius Agricola’s mother was killed in a raid by Otho’s navy, but I have given him far more influence over events than is supported by the facts. As a friend of Caecina and a one-time comrade of General Paulinus, Agricola seemed to be the ideal candidate to dupe Caecina into the false ambush at Ad Castores. It is more likely, though, that Agricola stayed with the Senate in Rome, before eventually siding with Vespasian and coming to prominence through his exploits in Britain.
As for the march through the Alps, Salonina’s purple dress, the use of gladiators at Placentia, Otho’s defeat at Bedriacum and subsequent suicide: these are all true. The only thing we cannot know is the real motivation of Caecina to turn serial traitor. Tacitus, writing in the Flavian period, paints him as a man with ‘boundless ambition’, as a man with few scruples and eyes only for power. Placed as he is at the centre of the events of AD 68–9, I thought him the ideal narrator. I had no doubt, too, that by the time Vespasian’s forces were nearing Italy he was a heartless, power-driven man. It was his journey I wanted to follow, watching how an intelligent, brave young warrior and aspiring politician could be corrupted. Corrupted not by others, but by the constant opportunities he was given to gain or maintain power. Aulus Caecina Severus had an extraordinary knack of being able to pick the winning side in the political and military contests of AD 68–69, but, as Tacitus remarks, in the end ‘he could be loyal to no one’. He was executed when his plot to assassinate Vespasian failed in AD 79. The memoirs are safe with his fictional son Aulus and with Totavalas, who is based on the mythological prince Tuathal Techtmar. Maybe one day we shall hear their story…
First published in the United Kingdom in 2013 by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Henry Venmore-Rowland, 2013
The moral right of Henry Venmore-Rowland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788632515
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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