Fire and Sword

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘What have you done to ensure Maecius Gordianus is so devoted to our cause?’ This difficult conversation had been long coming.

  Tranquillina stopped pacing.

  ‘What exactly have you done?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She looked very angry. ‘You may be ready to go back to herding goats on Corcyra, or some other dismal backwater. I am not prepared to be married to such a man.’

  She walked around him, and sat on the bed.

  ‘I would not let another man do what you do.’

  She hitched up the tunic, spread her legs.

  ‘Now come here,’ she said.

  Excited by his own degradation, he got down on his knees.

  ‘Do exactly what I tell you.’

  PART IX:

  THE PROVINCES

  CHAPTER 35

  Cappadocia

  The City of Samosata, Five Days before the Ides of June, AD238

  Over the river was Samosata. The walls of the sprawling lower city were dominated by the citadel on its long, unnatural-looking, flat-topped hill.

  Priscus rode with just Sporakes his bodyguard, and an escort of twenty troopers commanded by a tribune called Caerellius. He had not wanted to risk his brother Philip, or any of his friends. If there had not been the threat of bands of Persian stragglers in the high country, he would have ridden alone apart from Sporakes. If he was fated to die, he would not drag others to their ruin.

  After the victory over Hormizd, he had marched the army south to relieve the blockade of Edessa. The Persians had been long gone. Priscus had rested and refitted his men, before leaving them in the charge of Manu Bear-blinder, the heir to the abolished kingdom of Osrhoene. The wealth of Manu had underwritten much of the cost of the army. Before Priscus had left, Manu had revealed what he wanted in return. It was a huge thing to ask, but paled into insignificance beside the much more lethal questions that were the reason for this meeting in Samosata.

  They rode down to the water, and the guards from the 16th Legion waved them onto the bridge over the Euphrates. The hooves of their horses rattled on the wooden boards as they crossed out of Mesopotamia.

  Priscus loathed his province, the land between the two rivers. But he loathed all the East: its heat and dust, and stifling morality. The accident of birth did not mean you had to care for the place where you had drawn your first breath. Priscus was not burdened with the sentimentalism of his brother. Philip genuinely cared for their terrible old father, and the ghastly village of Shahba where they had been born. Priscus would be happy if he never saw parent or birthplace again.

  He did not ask for much. To be in Athens or Rome, somewhere civilized. To sit under the shade of a tree in the gentle heat of summer, with a book of poetry and a flask of wine, a boy beside him. He had always preferred the grapes when they were green.

  Might as well cry for the moon. He could not leave. For a governor to desert his province carried the death penalty. Even if it had not, his dignitas would not let him leave a task undone. When strongly garrisoned, Mesopotamia formed a bulwark protecting the empire from the Persians. When denuded of troops, as now, it offered the Sassanids easy plunder, and a route to the West. All his life, Priscus had done his duty, had served all over the empire. It was not the selfish hope of gain, or a womanish desire for leisure, that had led him to summon the governors of Cappadocia and Syria Coele to Samosata.

  The Edessa Gate stood open. In these unsettled times, there were few merchants or peasants bringing goods to market. Priscus announced himself, and again the legionaries let him pass.

  The streets were very quiet, until they came out into a square. They had to halt to let a religious procession pass. The barefooted worshippers drove asses, which were hung with loaves, and garlanded like themselves with violets. The ninth of June, the Festival of Vesta, the day the bakers honoured the hearth and the mistress of the hearth and the she-ass that turned the millstones of pumice. They would be celebrating the Vestalia in Rome. Priscus thought of the house he had bought on the Caelian, of his wife, and the son he had not seen in three years. The boy would be twelve now. Two years until he took the toga virilis. Priscus wondered if he would be alive to see that day.

  It was necessary to dismount to climb the steep path to the citadel. Leaving Caerellius to see to the horses and find quarters for the men, Priscus walked up with Sporakes. There was no need for a guide. He had been here before.

  Two years had passed since that gathering: Priscus; his brother-in-law Otacilius, governor of Palestina; his friends Serenianus of Cappadocia and Timesitheus of Bithynia; the Princes Chosroes of Armenia and Ma’na of Hatra; the King-in-waiting, old Manu of Edessa. A pleasant early autumn day. They had taken food and drink. Together Priscus and Serenianus had led them to the edge of treason. The others had stepped back from the precipice. And later Serenianus had died under the hands of the imperial torturers, and had not betrayed any of them to Maximinus.

  At the door of the governor’s residence, Priscus gave his name, and a chamberlain asked him to wait.

  Idly, Priscus let his eyes run over the diamond pattern of the brickwork. Once this had been the Palace of the Kings of Cappadocia. They had lived and ruled and fought wars and were gone. Nothing lasts in this world. The cosmos itself was doomed to end in fiery destruction.

  Sporakes hawked and spat. A typical easterner. It was three years since Priscus had bought him out of a gladiatorial school. They had nothing in common, but they had fought side by side in a dozen desperate places: the ambush outside Singara, the bloody retreat from Nisibis, the flight from Carrhae. Priscus was glad that he had given Sporakes his freedom.

  ‘This way, please. The governor is expecting you.’

  The same south-facing garden as two years before. The same marble busts of philosophers. The stern, virtuous gaze of Aristotle to Zeno, still arranged alphabetically. As before, tables were spread with delicacies. Catius Clemens and Aradius reclined together on a couch.

  Yet this time there were armed guards. Twenty or more of the 16th, a Centurion in command. Priscus felt his heart shrink.

  ‘Health and great joy,’ Clemens said.

  ‘Health and great joy.’

  Clemens made a sign, and the legionaries leapt forward. Some of them seized Sporakes, and disarmed him. Others ringed Priscus.

  ‘Please, Priscus, do not draw your weapons,’ Clemens said.

  So this was how it ended. Priscus felt a resignation, almost like relief. Nothing could stop him killing himself before he was taken to Maximinus, even if he had to dash his brains out against the wall of a cell. With luck, his brother and friends could win a pardon by denouncing him. Even Maximinus would not risk alienating the rulers of Armenia and Hatra by executing their sons. Perhaps Philip and old Manu might make their escape to Persia. The Sassanid King was said to welcome Roman deserters.

  The soldiers were binding Sporakes’ arms.

  ‘I am afraid that you have been betrayed,’ Clemens said. ‘Aradius’ soldiers searched a man crossing the river at Zeugma. He was a frumentarius carrying a message to Volo.’

  Clemens began to read from a small papyrus roll.

  ‘The traitor Gaius Julius Priscus has called the governors of Syria Coele and Cappadocia to a meeting, intending to embroil them in a plot against our noble Augustus Maximinus. He hopes to induce Catius Clemens to make a bid for the throne.’

  Clemens looked at Priscus. ‘Who did you talk to on your staff or among your familia?’

  ‘No one.’ It was near the truth. No one except his brother. They had spoken in private, only one person could have overheard.

  ‘Do not be alarmed,’ Clemens said. ‘You misread the situation. The man who betrayed you was foolish enough to sign his name.’

  ‘Sporakes?’

  The bodyguard stared back at Priscus.

  ‘Why?’

  Sporakes said nothing.

  ‘You should not have put your trust in an ex-gladiator,’ Clemens said. ‘Such scum have no loyalty, a
nd will do anything for money.’

  ‘Yes, I took the money, but it was not that.’ Sporakes glared at Priscus. ‘You disgust me. All these years I have had to witness your revolting Greek practices. Corrupting children, using young boys to satisfy your perverse desires. Maximinus will know how to deal with you, and your sort.’

  Priscus was amazed. ‘All this over such a small thing?’

  ‘Only a small thing to those who are blind to righteousness. You are a traitor to the ways of your people.’

  ‘Take him away,’ Clemens said.

  ‘Maximinus will kill you all.’

  ‘Guard him carefully. He must be questioned to see what other informants he can reveal.’

  ‘The Thracian will crucify you, sew you alive in the carcasses of beasts, all of you.’

  Sporakes was still shouting threats as he was hauled out.

  ‘Ask the others to come in.’ Clemens got up, walked over, and embraced Priscus. ‘We have no need to ask for proofs of your loyalty to the cause.’

  ‘You had already decided to take the purple?’

  ‘Heavens forbid, not me. I have no wish to hold the wolf by the ears.’ Clemens stepped back, indicated the newcomers. ‘You know the Senators Latronianus and Cuspidius Flaminius.’

  ‘Health and great joy.’

  ‘And to you,’ they said.

  Clemens smiled. ‘Aradius and I have sworn allegiance to the Emperors Pupienus and Balbinus and the Caesar Gordian. With you, and your brother-in-law, we hold four of the armed provinces in the East. Domitius Valerianus in Arabia has no love of Maximinus. Egypt and Syria Phoenice will have no choice but to join us.’

  Priscus stood bewildered.

  ‘Did you not know that the Gordiani were dead?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am afraid they have crossed the Styx.’

  Priscus was trying to make sense of it all. He was not the monkey, but the cat’s paw.

  Clemens was still talking. ‘Cuspidius will take command of Cappadocia, while I go ahead to order the defence of Rome. Aradius will organize an expeditionary force to march West.’

  ‘But the Persians? The East is stripped of troops already. The reason Maximinus must be deposed …’

  ‘When Maximinus is dead, we have the word of Cuspidius that an imperial army will campaign on the Euphrates, restore the frontiers, bring vengeance against the Sassanids.’

  Priscus stood irresolute.

  ‘What is troubling you?’

  ‘To defend Mesopotamia, I have borrowed heavily from Manu of Edessa. As the price of his aid, I have promised him restoration to his father’s kingdom of Osrhoene.’

  ‘A request to which I am sure our noble rulers will agree. His love of Rome must be rewarded, as should yours. What do you want?’

  ‘To leave Mesopotamia.’

  ‘For now you are needed here. No one has your experience of fighting the Persians. Perhaps in the future.’

  CHAPTER 36

  Moesia Inferior

  South of the town of Durostorum, The Day before the Ides of June, AD238

  ‘The enemy are doing something, sir.’

  ‘What?’ The pain in Honoratus’ head did not improve his patience.

  ‘Dancing.’

  ‘They often do that. We have some time. I will be there in a moment.’

  Honoratus sat and rested his eyes in the gloom of the tent.

  He was still suffering headaches from having been struck on the head by the boathook. They came and went, but even when the blinding pain made every slight noise agony, when he had to shut his eyes and lie down, he considered himself blessed. If the sailors had not hauled his unconscious form aboard the Providentia, no doubt he would have drowned in the harbour of Istria.

  Honoratus had come round as the trireme pulled into the port of Tomis. The smells of tar and mutton fat and bilge water had made him throw up. The convulsions had made the excruciating pain in his head yet worse, robbed him of the ability to think with any clarity, made him wonder if he would die.

  Tomis of all places – Ovid’s wretched place of exile. Like the poet, he really had not wanted to die in Tomis.

  Four days later the news from Istria had forced him from his bed. After a night and a day of looting, Cniva and the Goths had stowed their plunder in native boats, and melted back into the marshes of the Danube estuary. Their allies, the Carpi, had remained. Perhaps their chiefs had been unable to drag them from the wealth of a civilized town, from the pleasures of rape and murder. Within three days Roman warships patrolled off Istria. With retreat across the river impossible, the Carpi had marched south towards Tomis.

  Honoratus got to his feet. The tent reeled around him. He leant on a stick – a Centurion’s vine staff – until the dizziness passed. He was in a bit better shape than that day in Tomis.

  The initial stories brought by refugees had put the number of the Carpi at three hundred thousand. A military patrol had downgraded them to six thousand in the main horde, with smaller bands spreading out across the country. Even so it was a major threat to Moesia Inferior.

  The town councillors of Tomis had not seen the need for the governor to leave to organize the defence of the province as a whole. They had stopped short of accusing him of cowardice, but their complaints and entreaties had been interminable. Honoratus had sat, head splitting and feeling sick, listening to their barbarous Greek for as long as he was able. When he could take no more, he had issued brusque instructions. The walls of Tomis were in good repair. They would be manned by the auxiliary cavalry stationed in the town and the militia. The Carpi had no siege engines, and they could not feed such numbers if they remained in one place. They could neither besiege nor blockade the town. Surprise was not an option, so the only threat to Tomis was treachery. No one in the town could be such a fool as to open the gates to the barbarians. If the chieftains asked for a ransom to move on, the town councillors should pay. Honoratus would do his best to recoup their money when he had defeated the Carpi. The local worthies had not seemed much pleased.

  Unable to ride, Honoratus had taken a light two-horse carriage, and an escort of thirty cavalry; the latter much begrudged by the citizens of Tomi. He had been driven west, past Tropaeum Traiani, to Durostorum. The jolting and lurching had made him continuously sick. Sometimes he had had to call a halt. The journey had taken two days.

  At Durostorum he had been nursed by his wife. She would not lose a husband as well as a son to this accursed place. From his bed, he had issued orders to gather his forces, and sifted the news of the barbarians. Amid the garbled reports of atrocities – villages, villas and farms burnt, men, women and children outraged and enslaved – the progress of the main barbarian horde could be reconstructed. Bribed to leave Tomis, they had gone south-west to Marcianopolis. Likewise impotent before the walls of that place, and again paid to move on, they had set off north towards Durostorum and the Danube.

  Honoratus had known they would come. There was nothing else they could do. It was hard to see what they had ever hoped to achieve. Barbarians were irrational. They were incapable of foresight or strategy. Now they must fight on ground of his choosing.

  Taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders, Honoratus left the tent.

  ‘A lovely day, general.’ Celsinus was in offensively good health. ‘Those barbarians must be as apprehensive as a debtor on the Kalends of January when the rent is due as well as the interest.’

  Estates mortgaged for twice their value, the ex-Praetor should know all about debt, Honoratus thought sourly. ‘Are the omens good?’

  ‘Could not be better. Not so much as a shadow on any of the organs.’

  In his weakened, queasy state, Honoratus had known he would be unable to handle the bloody, slippery entrails.

  ‘Our dispositions are as we decided last night?’

  ‘We have extended our line to match the barbarians. The men are just five deep – the 11th Legion in the centre, the 4th Cohort of Gauls on the left, the 1st Lusitanians on the
right. The cavalry are in reserve, out of sight with Egnatius Marinianus. Everyone is itching to get at them.’

  That was good. The infantry were outnumbered two to one, and the Carpi would fight with the ferocity of their nature, and the desperation of their situation.

  ‘Well done, Celsinus. You had best get to your post with the Lusitanians. The watchword is Revenge.’

  ‘Ultio, it is.’

  A legionary gave Honoratus a leg up. Even on the quiet hack, Honoratus felt vertiginous and unsteady. He walked his mount to the rear of the legion, close by the trumpeters and standard bearers.

  Over the helmets of the legionaries, Honoratus could see the enemy some two hundred paces away. The mass of the Carpi stretched across the flat plain. Here and there individual warriors danced in front of the shieldwall. They lunged and twisted, tossed their spears in the air, howled and bayed like savage beasts. Behind them, the rest stamped their feet in time, clashed their weapons on their shields.

  Every people had their rites to help men face the storm of steel. It was time for the Roman ritual.

  ‘Soldiers of the 11th Legion, Claudian, Pius and Faithful, remember your heritage. The 11th was raised by the divine Julius Caesar himself. You were the victors at Bedriacum. You crushed Civilis. Then you conquered real soldiers. Today you fight barbarians who you have beaten a hundred times. Remember how they ran at the Hierasos river. You know their nature. You have the measure of them. Hold their first rush, and they become despondent, their huge bodies tire. Unarmoured, they have no protection against our swords.’

  All this shouting was making Honoratus feel worse.

  ‘Think of those they have slain, and those they have enslaved. We will avenge the dead, and free the captives of their chains. The gods support our just cause. Revenge is our watchword. Are you ready for war?’

  Ready!

  Three times the men roared the traditional response. Celsinus was right. They seemed in good heart.