Emperor of Rome

by Robert Fabbri

  ‘It ain’t looking so good,’ Magnus said, walking up to stand next to Vespasian’s mount as his dogs inspected a selection of the beast’s recently released turds.

  ‘That’s not a helpful observation.’ Vespasian did not take his concentration from the walls. ‘But no, it’s not looking like we’re going to get over this time.’

  As he spoke, piercing shrieks rose above the cacophonous din of battle, clear and brim-full of anguish, so that for a moment all seemed to pause in wonder that such pain could be expressed by the human voice.

  ‘Fucking savages!’ Magnus growled. ‘What is it, oil or sand?’

  Vespasian strained his eyes to see what was being poured from the iron cauldrons being emptied over the legionaries directly in front of the gate. ‘I can’t tell from here; but it’s doing the trick.’

  And it was: around the gate at least a dozen of the first cohort writhed in supra-heated agony, struggling to rip their segmented armour off, as their comrades retreated in the face of such a destructive weapon.

  Vespasian could see Titus as he leapt from his horse and ran to the aid of the stricken men, calling on others to follow. ‘Idiot!’ he muttered under his breath, thinking that it was exactly this sort of action that would endear his son to his men and knowing that he too would have done the same. ‘Hurry, Titus, hurry!’

  As if in slow motion, Titus and a small band of legionaries braved the broiling rain and pulled the scalded men back towards the relative safety of the first cohort’s front line now retreated, in a concave bulge, twenty paces from the gate. To either side, the fifth and sixth cohorts were making a second attempt at getting their ladders secure. Again, despite already suffering a reverse, the pioneers of the two flanking cohorts flung themselves up towards the summit, with shields over their heads, deflecting the missiles pummelling down on them. A bestial cry cut through the chaos; Titus’ abandoned horse bucked and reared, shaking its head and bellowing shrill and long, before charging, with smoke issuing from charring flesh on its rump, towards its master.

  Vespasian felt himself dodging to one side in his saddle in sympathy with his son as he jumped out of the way of the maddened beast thundering into the front rank of the first cohort. Cracking men aside and trampling under hoof those in its direct path, it continued its madness until a desperate thrust of a sword put it, rearing, out of its misery, crushing the wielder of the blade as it crashed to earth.

  It was then that the gates opened, quicker than would have been thought possible for such a weight of wood and iron, and it was a plague of Furies that emerged. With nothing to lose, for it was all already lost should the sortie not drive the enemy off, the men of Jotapata stormed from their stronghold. At their head was a man Vespasian recognised: with oiled hair and long black beard, equally as well kept, and swathed in a black and white embroidered mantel, Yosef ben Matthias charged his already disordered enemy with all the wrath his jealous god reserved for those who threatened his people.

  Out they swarmed, naturally forming a wedge with Yosef at the head, chainmailed and shielded and brandishing the spathae preferred by Rome’s auxiliaries, both horse and foot. Down came his blade, slicing into the mob of legionaries still reeling from the rampant horse; blood sprayed from the neck of a hoary veteran just in front of Titus as more of the Jewish onslaught thundered into the disintegrating Roman formation, all intent on bloody slaughter whilst the main advantage of the invaders, cohesion, was absent.

  ‘Get out of there, Titus, get out!’ Vespasian found himself shouting and looked about in surprise. He turned to the cornicern awaiting orders behind him. ‘Sound the withdrawal! Now!’

  The instrument growled three repeated deep notes; its call was taken up by others in the XV Apollinaris.

  Vespasian felt he was waiting far too long to see the result of his orders but eventually the fifth and sixth cohorts began to pull back from the walls and they and the flanks of the first cohort drew level with the embattled centre, thus straightening the frontage.

  And now it was a fighting retreat, leaving the dead and the wounded behind for there was no energy left to be expended upon aiding one’s comrades, so desperate was the situation. Step by step, Vespasian willed his men away from what had turned out to be a disastrous assault, all the while cursing himself for so blatantly tempting the caprice of the gods.

  ‘There’s only one way to remedy this, sir,’ Magnus said as the trail of casualties thickened in the wake of the retreating cohorts.

  ‘Yes, I know!’ Vespasian snapped despite knowing that his friend was only proffering good advice.

  ‘Then the sooner it’s done the better.’

  ‘Yes, I know!’ Vespasian tried to calm himself as he still could see no sign of Titus; he consoled himself with the fact that there was no body on the ground with bronze cuirass and an extravagantly plumed helmet. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  ‘It was sand, almost red-hot,’ Titus said through gritted teeth as the surgeon stitched up a deep slice across the top of his right arm. He held out his left hand to Vespasian. ‘Look!’ The back of it was entirely covered with small round blisters. ‘I was lucky that’s the only place it caught me and then it just brushed my skin. Others got it down their necks and under their armour; one grain of it in the eye can blind; I know, I saw it happen and you should have heard the screams the men made.’

  ‘I did,’ Vespasian said, his voice subdued. ‘All the way up here I heard them. So what happened the first time? They didn’t start tipping the sand over you until you had already been repulsed once.’

  Titus grimaced again with pain as the needle was pushed through raw flesh. ‘There are more fighters in there than we thought. My sources must have severely underestimated the number of men Yosef brought with him. On top of that, each one is a fanatic and fights like two men. I’ll tell you what, Father: we’re not going to capture a single one of them alive. They’ve come here to keep the town or to die. There will be a lot of our blood spilt before this is over. I lost forty-three men today and some of them weren’t dead when we were forced to abandon them.’

  ‘What about your primus pilus?’

  ‘It takes more than a little tumble from a ladder, a slash across the forehead and a close encounter with a maddened horse to stop Urbicus being ready to kick arse and kill; I got the impression from him that he thoroughly enjoyed his day. I lost two other centurions today, both from the first cohort; Urbicus is busy deciding which of the optios in the legion are unpleasant enough to get promotion. In the meantime, Father, what are we going to do? This is going to be tougher than we thought.’

  ‘I know; so we’re going to have to try even harder.’

  ‘Harder! How much fucking harder do you think I could have tried today? Ow!’ He jerked his arm away from the surgeon. ‘Medusa’s rancid arse, man; do you have to enjoy it so much?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the surgeon muttered, retrieving his needle and taking a firm grip back on the arm. ‘I’m almost done; or I could stop now and wait for the wound to become infected and then take the whole arm off, if you would prefer?’

  ‘Just get on with it.’ Titus winced as the surgeon plunged the needle back in. ‘So how are we going to try harder, Father?’

  ‘We attack again tomorrow and I shall lead it in person.’

  Titus looked at his father, unable to keep the incredulity from his expression.

  ‘It’s called leadership, Titus! You showed a great deal of it today, and tomorrow it will be my turn. I shall be first over the wall.’

  CHAPTER III

  ‘SOMEHOW NEWS OF our setback today will get about,’ Vespasian said without any preamble as he strode into the evening gathering of his legates, prefects and other senior officers. ‘And that sort of news will only incite more of the vermin into rebellion.’ He paused whilst the assembled company grunted and mumbled their agreement with the assessment. ‘Therefore, gentlemen, we need to bring this to a speedy conclusion. Legate Titus Flavius Vespasianus,’ he said, addres
sing his son formally, ‘I want you to march south out of the camp with your legion at dawn tomorrow in proper order of march, auxiliaries in the vanguard, trumpets blaring and all that sort of thing so that it looks like the army is on the move. Understood?’

  Titus snapped to attention. ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Good. Now, it is vital that you’re leaving at dawn: I want Yosef to see you marching away and I want you to pass within a hundred paces from the town’s gate as you head south. I want him to think that we’re all leaving so have your baggage loaded, your men with all their kit packed in their yokes, tents packed onto mules, everything that says the legion is going away. Is that clear?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Vettulenus, I’ll be with you and your legion; we’ll be following the Fifteenth out and then, hopefully, we’ll have a little surprise for our Jewish friends. Your legion will be ready for an assault and, all being well, by the time Yosef notices the difference in appearance between the two legions it’ll be too late. Have the three cohorts best suited for the assault in the lead and then have all of your pioneer centuries interspersed throughout those cohorts and ready with ladders; but they’re to keep them concealed. Carry them low. I want all your artillery pieces loaded onto carts, ready for action; cover them with sacking to disguise what they are.

  ‘Prefect Petro, your archers are to come between the leading three cohorts and the rest of the Fifth. When the order to attack comes they will, once again, form a screen for Vettulenus’ advance, keeping the walls clear along with the artillery mounted on the carts. And then, gentlemen, we go over the wall but this time I hope there will be less resistance because we shall have a diversion.’

  Vespasian turned his attention to an older man swathed in black robes, sitting towards the rear of the gathering. ‘King Malichus, are your Nabatean Arabs ready to play their part?’

  Malichus smiled, betraying a set of gloss-white teeth in amongst a bush of a beard. ‘I await your orders, general. I am much in your debt for your procuring me citizenship when I wished to appeal to Caesar to have the tax revenue of Damascus returned to my jurisdiction; the chance to repay that is welcome.’

  ‘If you do what I require of you tomorrow then it will be me who shall be in your debt.’

  Malichus rose and bowed, appreciating the courtesy.

  ‘Your thousand horse shall lead the whole column out of the camp, riding south, as if all the Furies were after them; my hope is that this will make Yosef think that we are trying to catch a town by surprise and add credence to the fact that we seem to be leaving. You and your five thousand foot archers will follow them out at the trot and stay at the head of the column until you receive my signal; upon that you will peel off and take position at the southern side of the town. From there I want you to pump as many arrows over the walls as you have, as if you are covering an attempt to scale the cliffs.’

  ‘Do you want my men to attempt to scale them? I have some excellent climbers amongst them.’

  ‘No, the impression is all I need to create a diversion; but thank you for the offer, Malichus.’

  The Nabatean king bowed again at the courtesy.

  ‘Is that clear to everyone?’

  Prefect Decius raised a hand.

  ‘Yes, prefect?’

  ‘What about the units that you haven’t mentioned, sir?’

  ‘I’ve no need of them tomorrow morning, so they may stay in the camp on make and mend until the assault is over and the town is ours. Then I’ll probably leave an auxiliary cohort here to garrison the ruins as we move on to Tiberias.’ He looked at Titus. ‘Is there any news from Traianus on how he’s doing at Japhra?’

  ‘Nothing further than we had yesterday evening: the town has closed its gates and he’s preparing an assault.’

  Vespasian nodded. ‘Very well, gentlemen; you have your orders. Reveille will be at the start of the eleventh hour of the night, two hours before dawn. I want everything ready to move the moment the sun breaks the eastern horizon.’

  Vespasian dipped his face into the bowl of fresh water on a chest in his sleeping quarters, at the rear of the praetorium, spluttering as he did so and splashing the reviving liquid over the back of his neck. He opened his eyes and threw his head back, arcing droplets, glistening in the lamplight, behind him, before grabbing the towel laid next to the bowl and rubbing his face, wishing the tiredness away.

  ‘You’re as bad as one of Magnus’ dogs, shaking water all over the place like that,’ Caenis said, wiping drips from her arm. She was sitting in their campaign bed with her knees up and her arms clasped around them.

  Vespasian turned to face her. ‘I’m sorry, my love, I forgot you were there.’

  ‘Thank you; it’s nice to know just how important I am in your life.’

  Vespasian did not react to the jibe but carried on drying himself.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’ Caenis asked after a few more moments of silence. ‘You hardly said anything over dinner; in fact you’ve barely spoken a word to me since the attack faltered. Are you blaming yourself or someone else? Because either way you should stop acting like a child and sulking just because things didn’t go right for you.’

  Vespasian threw down the towel. ‘Of course it’s not that, Caenis; I’ve stormed enough strongholds in my time to know that they don’t just roll over like a bitch on heat. This one is going to take some cracking.’

  ‘So you think that getting yourself killed tomorrow will help?’

  ‘I’m not going to get myself killed tomorrow! I’m going to lead my soldiers over a wall, that’s all.’

  ‘A wall that they failed to get over today; a wall that Titus almost got himself killed whilst attempting to take.’

  ‘He was behaving like a reckless young fool! I was feeling sick just watching.’

  ‘Ahh, so that’s it, is it?’ Caenis pointed at Vespasian. ‘You’ve never watched your son in combat before and you didn’t like it, did you? And what made it worse was that it was your orders that sent him to risk his life; so, to make up for that, you’re going to risk yours even though you are thirty years older than him and half as fit.’

  ‘I’m still fit; I thought I proved that to you last night. And yes! That is the problem: my judgement was swayed this afternoon because my boy was in danger and I don’t like how that feels. I gave him the assault because I want him to win fame and glory without thinking about what the reality of that is. This is right at the beginning of the campaign, so does this mean that I will feel constricted, fearing to send my son into danger, or is it something that I’ll just get used to and then never stop blaming myself for if my orders get him killed as they could have done today?’

  Caenis patted the bed beside her, inviting him to sit next to her.

  He paused and then sighed and complied.

  Caenis took his hand. ‘You have to do your duty to Rome just as Titus has to; and if that involves getting killed, then so be it. But what is not going to make things any easier for you or him during this campaign is if you make military decisions for personal reasons. So you just have to forget that Titus is your son when you issue orders because he won’t thank you if he thinks that you are protecting him; that’s not the way to win fame and glory. And then trying to get yourself killed as a way of saying sorry is just pathetic.’

  ‘That’s different, my love. I have to lead the assault tomorrow because the men must see that having failed to take the town once I’m not just going to sit behind the army and send more and more of them to their deaths against that wall, but I’m prepared to lead them over it myself. It’s my responsibility to the men.’

  Caenis’ eyes glinted. ‘And men who see you lead are more prepared to support you in other ventures?’

  Vespasian shook his head in mock exasperation. ‘Do you do nothing but plot and scheme?’

  ‘Plenty of other things, as I think I proved last night; or were you too busy proving to me just how fit you still are to notice?’

  It
was the high-pitched warning notes of a bucina, the horn used for signals in the camp and on the march, which prevented Vespasian from essaying a repeat performance of his proof of fitness. He jumped from the bed and grabbed his tunic, threading his arms into the sleeves.

  ‘What is it?’ Caenis asked, seeing his urgency.

  ‘We’re under attack,’ he replied as Hormus came rushing in with two body slaves bringing his armour.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  Vespasian held a foot up for Hormus to lace on his sandals whilst holding his arms out wide so that his breast- and backplates could be attached. ‘Nevertheless, that is what the call means and an attack doesn’t have to be noisy. It’s the quiet ones I fear most.’

  ‘All of them, Petro?’ Vespasian asked as they walked through the dead of the century of Syrian archers that had been excluded from the safety of the camp for allowing one of their own to shoot their centurion. Legionaries with torches guided their way whilst auxiliary horse and foot formed a perimeter to discourage a further sneak attack.

  ‘I think so, sir,’ the prefect replied, ‘although we haven’t conducted a full tally yet.’

  Vespasian looked around the collection of ten eight-man tents, pitched as close to the camp as possible; there were no defences around them. ‘What happened?’

  Petro shrugged. ‘I suppose the Jews must have crept up on the sentries, slit their throats and then set upon the men as they slept.’

  ‘Well, that’s the risk you run if you allow something to happen that disbars you from the security of the camp. I’m sorry for the loss of the men, Petro; but I can’t help feeling that this is a good lesson to the whole army right at the beginning of the campaign. I will not tolerate indiscipline. Nevertheless, I’m sure the men will be only too willing to avenge their comrades in the morning.’

  ‘I’m sure they will, sir. I for one will be looking for my share of Jewish blood. It’s just a shame that there’re seventy archers fewer to claim their shares.’