Gordian stepped back, pushing the dying man away. Another took his place, swinging a sword. Gordian blocked; once, twice, three times. The ringing of steel was loud in his ears. He gave ground. The soldiers around him likewise. Men were falling on both sides, but numbers were telling. Emboldened by his opponent’s passivity, the nomad lifted his arms high to deliver a mighty overhead chop. Gordian waited until the weapon was at its apex and neatly drove three inches of steel into his throat.
Again the line retreated and contracted. In the momentary respite, Gordian tried to take stock. Only three soldiers to his right now, Sabinianus and no more to his left. Nomads working around both flanks. The rear ranks of the guardsmen had turned to make a circle. The gateway was still full of massed humanity.
Like an ebbing tide, the enemy receded. Arrows from the wall plucked at their cloaks, thumped into their shields. One or two crumpled, hands clutching at the shafts. Before hope could rise, they charged again. The young chieftain at their head angled straight for Gordian. A flurry of blows, and Gordian’s back collided with that of the soldier behind. Hampered in his movements, he emptied his mind of everything except his opponent’s steel. Long training and the memory in his muscles guided him.
The briefest of pauses, and Gordian recognized him. With a curious precision and delicacy of footwork, Nuffuzi’s son feinted and lunged. Gordian took the strike high up near the pommel. This youth could fight. The sound of shouting from behind. No time for that. Gordian parried and riposted.
Sweat stinging in his eyes. Pain in his chest. Gordian was tiring, his movements slowing, growing clumsy. He had to finish this soon. He forced his feet to move, thrust to the face, and pulled back to buy himself some time. The shouting was louder. Some of the nomads were looking up over the knot of soldiers, others glancing over their shoulders. Nuffuzi’s son struck again. Gordian’s slight distraction almost killed him. A late, desperate block forced the blade down. It sliced open his left thigh. He staggered, fighting for balance. The youth readied the killing blow. Gordian brought his sword into a shaky guard. On either side the nomads were stepping back. Nuffuzi’s son shouted, glared at his warriors. Gordian stepped off his right foot, on to his left – a sickening surge of pain – and brought the edge of his blade down into his opponent’s right wrist. The youth screamed and dropped his sword. Before he could double up, Gordian got the point of his weapon up under his chin.
‘Surrender.’
Clutching his wounded arm, eyes wide, the young chief said nothing.
All the nomads were running. A drift wrack of bodies and abandoned weapons left behind across the shaded street. The shouting from the citadel redoubled.
‘Surrender.’
Despite the pain and the imminence of death, Nuffuzi’s son kept his dignity. ‘I surrender.’
Now Gordian could make sense of the shouting.
‘Menophilus! Menophilus!’
CHAPTER 6
The Northern Frontier
A Camp outside Mogontiacum,
The Kalends of April, AD235
Outside the imperial pavilions, Timesitheus stood with the governor of Germania Superior, Catius Priscillianus. Behind them, the others were growing restive. They were all waiting for admittance into the presence of the Emperor, and they had all been there some time. The morning was wearing on. The chill wind from across the river was plucking at the folds of carefully arranged togas, teasing neatly arranged hair into disorder. It was getting cold. Men were beginning to talk at more than a respectful murmur, and to shift about. Sanctus, the Master of Admissions of the court, darted here and there. The ab Admissionibus was relentless in his attempts at chivvying men back into the correct precedence and demeanour.
Timesitheus nodded in the direction of the busy imperial functionary. ‘If he had been this diligent in controlling who was let in during the last reign, Alexander would still be alive today.’
Catius Priscillianus laughed, not very loud, and not very long. That was perfunctory, Timesitheus thought. Far too perfunctory for a joke made by the acting governor of the neighbouring province of Germania Inferior, the man who was overseeing the finances in both their provinces and that of Belgica as well. Nowhere near enough for a joke by the man charged with the logistics of the whole northern campaign. And, questions of the elevation and propinquity of offices aside, Timesitheus was acknowledged to be one of the closest intimates of Priscillianus’ brother Catius Celer. Some greater show of hilarity would have been appropriate.
Still, it might have been just the weather. Priscillianus had not been back up on the frontier all that long. No time to get used to its ghastliness all over again. Timesitheus’ thoughts ran to his own initial venture into this gods-forsaken region years before. Nothing in his previous travels had prepared him. Leaving Greece for the very first time, he had passed through Italy on his way to his inaugural military command in Spain. A year later, he had retraced his route and beyond to Arabia. Another year – his career had flourished from the beginning – and he was sent to the North. Now it was more than a decade ago, but he remembered his arrival clearly. It had been autumn, the sky grey, the air sharp like a knife. He had not thought it could get colder. He had been wrong. That winter the Rhine had frozen, not only the shallow, winding side-channels but the main stream itself. You could walk across, drive a carriage over. The locals and soldiers, muffled and indistinguishable, had cut holes in the ice to fish. It was said that the frozen waters had trapped terrible man-murdering monsters so huge that teams of oxen had to be used to pull them out. Apparently, they looked like enormous catfish, only blacker and stronger, although Timesitheus had not seen them himself.
Priscillianus produced a handkerchief. A fine, purple one, maybe from Sarepta in Phoenicia by the look of it. Very expensive, Timesitheus thought. Priscillianus dabbed his nose. Hypochondria also might have curtailed his appreciation of humour. All three of the Catii brothers spent a great deal of time judging their health, and usually they found it wanting. Twenty-four-hour-fevers and two-day chills, black humours and common colds, each brought on by exposure to the elements or being cooped up inside, their lives were measured by many, much deliberated ailments. Even writing from Rome, exulting at his appointment as one of the Praetors for this year, Timesitheus’ dearest Catius Celer – the youngest of the brood – had complained of a headache, a sprained wrist and finding a snake in his bed.
Trepidation might have to be included in a consideration of Priscillianus’ state of mind. A level of apprehension came with any invitation to the council of an Emperor. This could only be heightened when it was the first consilium of the reign. Rewards would be handed out: magistracies, commands, proximity to the throne and influence. But, to clear the way for supporters and other favoured recipients, existing men must fall. They were all bound to chance, like Ixion to the wheel.
So far, only the permanent board of sixteen Senators had been allowed beyond the purple hangings. Some time ago, the Master of Admissions had said the provincial governors would enter next. There were five governors with the field army. Yet just Timesitheus and Priscillianus stood waiting in the wind. Given the turn of events, Flavius Vopiscus of Panonnia Superior would no longer need to mark time with the rest of the gubernatorial herd. But what had happened to Faltonius Nicomachus of Noricum and Tacitus of Raetia? One possibility was promotion. They might be inside already, ushered in by a secret door. Now snug and close to the Emperor, they were whispering into his ear with Flavius Vopiscus. Or perhaps they were riding hard to some new and prestigious post, to Rome or one of the great and wealthy provinces of Africa or the East, their anticipation and exertions warming their blood. None of the other possibilities was so good. Forced retirement was the best; a life of dissembling, pretending to be grateful for an existence free of the heat and dust of politics. Beyond that lay only some terrible combination of arrest, torture, condemnation and confiscation, exile and execution.
Yes, Priscillianus might be feeling a certain trepidation. Yet h
e was a nobilis, an aristocrat with two influential brothers and many ancestral connections. Timesitheus lacked those possible sureties. He had risen high – some would say too high. He was an equestrian from a Greek backwater. His main patron was elderly, and his sole relative was his own dependant. Timesitheus had no protection except his intelligence and an acquired fortune, and both attracted envy. He was more than anxious.
It would not have been so bad if his wife has been with him. On his decision, Tranquillina had remained behind in Colonia Agrippinensis. She was to keep an eye on Axius, the Procurator he had placed in charge of the province. It had been a mistake. Axius really did not need watching, and Timesitheus needed his wife by his side. She had ways of calming him, of putting things in a better perspective. And she had foresight; better than his own, he now had to admit. If she had been here, the coup would not have caught him by surprise and left him unprepared. He hated being unprepared. He was frightened.
Fear feeds on inactivity, like a sleek rat in an unfrequented feed shed. Timesitheus knew all about fear, although so far, somehow, he had never given way. The trick was to occupy your thoughts with something else. Now, he summoned up the outlines of the great commission laid upon him. But would it still be his task by the end of the day? He stowed the doubt deep down in the hold of his mind, battened the hatches. The image came naturally to a Greek from his island. Over the years it had served him well.
The logistics of a full-scale imperial campaign into free Germania were daunting. Vast numbers of soldiers and animals, huge amounts of food and fodder, mountains of ancillary items – tents, replacement weapons, boots and uniforms, prefabricated defences, dismantled siege weapons and bridging equipment, miscellaneous ropes and straps, ink and papyrus, sutlers, servants and whores – had to be assembled here at Mogontiacum and then moved into what remained largely terra incognita. Despite nearly three centuries of intermittent campaigning, the Romans were still remarkably ignorant about the geography of northern barbaricum. Before setting out from Rome he and some of the other advisers of the previous Emperor had used detailed itineraries to plan the stages of each day’s march to the frontier. All had been published in advance: which roads which units would use, where the supplies were to be gathered, when the Emperor would arrive in each town. Beyond the Rhine there were no maps, and all was vague.
In the East, the Euphrates and the Tigris helped. The great rivers ran away from Roman territory into that of the Persians. They made it harder to get lost. Supplies could accompany your forces downriver on boats. Movement of bulk goods was always infinitely easier and cheaper by water. The rivers of the North were not so amenable. Somewhere beyond the Rhine was the Ems, beyond that the Weser, and beyond them the Elbe. Timesitheus was diligent and had learnt of the yet more distant Oder and Vistula. All these rivers ran across the line of advance. If anything, they were likely to prove barriers.
And in the East there were roads and cities; proper roads which had been used for millennia, some of them paved, and Hellenic cities founded by Alexander and his successors. Both were lacking in the North. Nothing to march down, and no tempting target at which to aim. Nothing but tracks and woods, wilderness and marsh.
The absence of roads exercised Timesitheus. Almost all Roman units moved at least a part of their equipment by wagon and cart. These would all have to be replaced by pack animals. It would be expensive and resented. But it had to be done. What Timesitheus needed were accurate figures for existing transport animals and the numbers of men serving with the standards. The latter would prove particularly hard to get at, given the prevailing corruption of the previous regime. Under-strength units still drew the pay due their numbers on papyrus; the differences found their way into various private coffers.
‘Come,’ Sanctus said.
Timesitheus had not noticed the approach, but now followed the ab Admissionibus.
They passed through the heavy hangings into the purple-tinted labyrinth. At least it was good to be out of the wind. Sanctus led them left and right, this way and that, along silent corridors and through empty halls where unseen voices whispered. They went through shade and deeper darkness, seemingly turning back on themselves. At last, like initiates at Eleusis or some other mystery cult, they emerged into the throne room.
A shaft of light was arranged to fall from directly above on to the seated Emperor. The ivory of the throne gleamed. Maximinus sat robed and immobile, like a gigantic statue of porphyry and white marble.
On the right hand of the Emperor stood Anullinus. No surprise there, Timesitheus thought. Everyone knew there had been three of them, but Anullinus was the only one whose identity was certain. It was the Prefect of the Armenians who had beheaded the young Emperor and his mother. Camp gossip held he had stripped the old woman naked, outraged her headless corpse. Anullinus was wearing armour and a sword on his hip. Was it the one with which he had killed them? Had it been in this room? Motionless in the half-light, Anullinus’ eyes exuded brutality and menace.
Two togate figures on Maximinus’ left. Nearest to Maximinus was Flavius Vopiscus. It was common knowledge that the Senator from Syracuse, together with Honoratus, had orchestrated the change of regime. The latter was not yet returned from Rome. So Flavius Vopiscus stood closest to the Emperor they had created. The consummation of his designs did not seem to have lightened the demeanour of the Sicilian. As ever, he looked haunted. Pious to a fault or just riddled with superstition, it was said he dared not embark on the simplest endeavour – getting dressed or going to the baths – until he had consulted the sortes Virgilianae. How many times had he had to unroll the Aeneid and stab his finger on a random line before he considered the gods had guided him to one that read propitiously for the breaking of sacred oaths, for treason and murder?
The other toga-clad figure was less expected. Caius Catius Clemens – the middle of the three brothers – commander of the 8th Augustan legion and legate to his eldest sibling, the governor of Germania Superior. So Priscillianus had been more cold than apprehensive when they were waiting. A terrible thought caught Timesitheus. He could feel the teeth of the rat gnawing, hear the scrabble of its paws. His brother would have told Priscillianus everything that was about to happen. Perhaps, outside the pavilion, in front of dozens of witnesses, Priscillianus had not wished to be too closely associated with a man bound to the wheel on its downward turn. Again, Timesitheus hurriedly forced his fear down deep.
As was proper, the ex-Consul Priscillianus approached the Emperor first. Priscillianus came close and waited for a hand to be extended so that he could kiss the ring bearing the imperial seal. Instead Maximinus raised one of his great hands palm out.
‘While I reign, no man will bow his head to me.’ Maximinus’ voice was deep, grating like a mill wheel.
Timesitheus gave a manly, Roman salute; nothing of the Hellene about it at all. He could have been an officer of the old, free Republic before Cannae. That was an ill-omened thought. He altered the image to before the gates of Carthage or Corinth, or some other wealthy city through whose streets the Romans had killed and raped in their heyday.
Behind Anullinus there were two men: Domitius, the Prefect of the Camp, and Volo, the head of the frumentarii. The latter commanded the imperial spies and assassins and was feared throughout the empire. The former dealt with latrines, horse lines and bundles of hay. Yet it was the presence of Domitius that worried Timesitheus more. He had heard that Domitius had survived the coup, but he had not known that he had remained in his post. Timesitheus very much hoped Domitius had not been a part of the plot.
It had started some years earlier in the East. Three men – all equestrians – had been charged with securing the supplies for the Persian war of Alexander Severus. One had been Timesitheus, another Domitius. Timesitheus had taken no more than was customary; if anything, rather less: just the usual presents, certainly no more than one part in ten. His wife had chided him with his restraint; but then Tranquillina was ever boldness itself. The spouse of Domitius
would have had no grounds for complaint. His peculation had been egregious. Units had marched hungry and with no boots, the money having vanished into the ledgers of Domitius. Each man had threatened to denounce the other. No charge had been lodged, but by the time the campaign limped to an inglorious close, the enmity was deeply rooted.
The third man who had dealt with the logistics now sat on the throne of the Caesars. In the East, Timesitheus had met Maximinus only once, and they had exchanged no words in a crowded council. But what he had learnt of the Thracian’s actions spoke of reasonable efficiency and complete, even priggish probity. Yet when, back in Rome, this campaign against the Germans became an inevitability, Alexander’s mother and senatorial councillors had decided that Timesitheus alone would handle all issues of supply. The role of Domitius had been cut back to digging ditches and mucking out stables. Maximinus had been assigned the role of training recruits. Timesitheus had interpreted that as a demotion. Now, he hoped the big Thracian had not seen it the same way.
The Senators of the standing inner council were grouped to the left of the throne. Seeing them in a group was never pleasing. They appeared to have been selected on grounds of advanced age and evident venality. Also, Timesitheus thought, they shared ill-favoured looks as a common possession. Petronius Magnus had the bulging eyes of some crustacean adapted to dim light. With his long, artful hair, Catilius Severus resembled an eastern priest, one of the scum who dance along the roads begging for coppers, clashing their cymbals and shaking their arses. The enormously fat Claudius Venacus seemed to have been dipped in something viscous. The other thirteen were hardly more aesthetic.
‘Let in the rest,’ Maximinus said.
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