The Emperor's Blood (e-novella)

by M. K. Hume

  ‘Perhaps! Where could we expect to find Gratian, given his swift movements up until a few days ago? That stolen meat will spoil unless it’s eaten fairly quickly.’

  ‘He’ll be beyond Cabillonum, which is half a day from here. The Roman road follows the Arar River. The fresh water available from there will allow the soldiers to rest their horses and Gratian’s lack of urgency will tempt him to set up an armed camp where his force can rest. I can’t imagine how you’d gain entry to such a defensive position, but the emperor is likely to rest along that strip of road before the last push that will take him to Lugdunum.’ Celsus looked hungry and haggard from his years of suffering and loss, but the Roman cavalrymen could recognise a thirst for revenge that was coming to life behind the grief lines on his face.

  ‘Then we’ll ride at speed to Cabillonum. Pray to the sweet Jesus, or to Fortuna, or whatever gods you favour that we’ll find these animals and our blades will strike home.’

  Andragathius rose to his feet and searched inside the leather pouch attached to his belt until he found several silver coins to pay the two informants, but both men stiffened with insult.

  ‘We thank you for your offer of payment, master, but we haven’t revealed our information to you for any reward. We want you to humble this emperor . . . we want you to kill him, if you can. If that were to occur, we would consider ourselves well paid,’ Albus added with a twisted smile on his dour, lugubrious face.

  ‘We’ll try to keep to our word,’ Andragathius responded, as he returned the coins to his pouch. ‘My men will search for your children as we travel, if they are still living. Give Conanus their names and we’ll try to find them, but I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘Then we’ll bid you farewell, my lords, and I hope that your luck proves strong,’ Albus said as the two cavalrymen rose and left the small room. ‘Pray God that you’ll kill the bastards and remove them from this earth.’

  While Conanus and four men scoured the markets for the light rations needed for the next stage of their pursuit, Andragathius was on a quest of his own, one that he kept secret from his men. However, as the troop was assembling outside the marketplace, Conanus noticed that the horse captain’s saddlebags were bulging with purchases. Conanus’s quick eyes noted the proof of his leader’s hunt through the crowded stalls . . . and wondered.

  Without pausing to eat, the troop passed through the southern gates of Bibracte before the sun had risen far above the town’s horizon. The horses were urged into a brisk trot and then into intermittent spurts of canter and gallop that devoured the miles, while Andragathius kept his face fixed on the road ahead. The noontide sun glinted on his armour and his blood-red cloak, exposing every line and mark of hard living on his determined features. A foolhardy plan was forming in his brain, one that was audacious and fraught with risk, but it was a plan which could ensure that Gratian would die, regardless of whatever fate lay in wait for the horse captain and his men.

  Under the afternoon sun, Gratian’s death seemed a fitting outcome, regardless of what resulted from the subterfuge he intended to put into action. As for his own skin, Andragathius swore to his god that if his wishes were granted, he would never complain about the bargain he was making with his creator, even if it cost him his life.

  CHAPTER IV

  A Dark Night and a Brighter Dawn

  Foolish common people do not understand that what is seen is merely their own mind.

  Lankavatara Sutra

  The eight-year-old Pig Boy stood before Theodosius Major with his hands bound tightly in front of him and with his face swollen and bleeding after a severe beating from the villa’s steward. The attack had been so vicious that the boy could barely see out of his right eye, an organ that was already purple and black from the effects of bruising. Despite his spurt of growth, he was still a young boy who had been forced to use his bound hands to wipe away from his streaming eyes the tears that trailed down his cheeks in large, fat drops. Pig Boy had tried to be brave and silent, but the pain, terror and apprehension had opened his emotional floodgates.

  ‘I take a dim view of murder among my servants, regardless of their age or their motivation. Although you are a child, you can expect to be executed as if you were a man, unless you have a valid excuse for your use of violence to solve your problems. Livius was a useful stable hand with a talent for horse-breaking, so your excuses had better be good. Do you understand me, boy? Or are you half-witted?’

  Theodosius Major had celebrated being fifty years of age if his clean, grey hair was any indication. His clipped haircut, his upright stance and the tone of command in his gravelled voice indicated to any person with eyes to see that this man was a prominent officer in the highest echelons of the legions. Beside him, a younger version of himself stood negligently, leaning against the arm of his father’s chair, while ostentatiously cleaning his nails with a small knife. Theodosius and his son had not only returned from the frontier, but they had arrived in time to mete out Roman justice on Pig Boy, the servant accused of murdering Livius, who happened to be his immediate superior as well as one of his chief tormentors and the perpetrator of much of the pain and suffering endured by the boys.

  ‘I understand, my lord, and I’m not a halfwit. I killed Livius, sir, but I didn’t do it on purpose. I pushed him when he was trying to hurt me. He tripped and fell backwards into a stall and hit the back of his head. Someone had left a pitchfork on the ground near the feed trough and he fell on it. He screamed at me and I saw the . . . the tines . . . sticking out of his chest. I didn’t know what to do. I called for Balbus, who told me that Livius was dead. But I swear on my life that I never meant to kill him. He was twice my size, so I wouldn’t have thought of it.’

  Pig Boy blushed guiltily but, fortunately, the blood and the bruises disguised his flush of colour. Unfortunately, Pig Boy had often considered thumping Livius and Balbus as hard as he could when he was being beaten, just as Horse had advised him to do. This small fabrication was magnified in the lad’s mind, as if he really was guilty of some significant crime.

  The boy spoke very well, because he had taken care to adopt the voice and accent of Father Terentius as closely as he could. With the intelligence of a much older lad, he schooled himself to look as small and as pathetic as possible, realising that a lack of maturity might excuse any guilt that could be attributed to him. Although he was trying hard to be brave, a rush of tears filled his eyes, but he struggled to contain them. Pig Boy was fully aware that a military man such as Theodosius would not be impressed by childish weaknesses, so he must make sure that his master saw him as a person, rather than as something to be owned.

  ‘Does anyone speak against this boy?’ Theodosius demanded. The servants, assembled to watch the paterfamilias mete out his justice, looked at each other, shuffled their feet and were determined to maintain their silence. Like all servants across the Roman world, they knew what would happen to them if they drew the ire of Theodosius.

  Only one man pushed his belligerent way through the crowd. Balbus, the comrade of Livius and master of the stables, swaggered to the front of the audience and faced his master. He bowed deeply to his patron and then turned to face the boy who tried his best not to cower. Balbus sneered directly at the lad, leaving him in no doubt that his evidence would prove fatal to Pig Boy, if he had any say in the matter.

  ‘Speak, Balbus, and take care to tell the truth. I’ll soon know if you’re lying,’ Theodosius demanded, his fierce brows twitching as Balbus’s pungent smell of sweat, manure and dirt reached his nose. The strong contrast of the silver-streaked hair and his black eyebrows gave Theodosius a stern appearance that made Balbus clear his throat with a nervous gulp.

  ‘The Pig Boy has always had ideas above his station, my lord, for he thinks himself better than the rest of us. Livius often had to beat him to drag a full day’s work out of him.’

  ‘Perhaps he was too you
ng to understand his responsibilities and the demands that were made of him,’ Theodosius Minor suggested, without looking up from his nails. ‘If he’s been here for three years, he must have been little more than a babe when he arrived.’

  ‘He may have been young in years, but he was old in sin, my lord. Pig Boy and Horse, the youngest stableboy, were always skiving off to avoid work. I wouldn’t be surprised if this lad plotted with the stableboy to harm the friend of Mistress Tullia, who was attacked when he offered Horse a chance to become a personal body-servant. The stableboy tried to cause harm to your noble guest before he was caught and punished.’

  ‘My friend was murdered!’ Pig Boy wailed, straining futilely against his bonds as his tears finally spilled over his lower eyelids to run unchecked down his flushed cheeks. Desperate, he looked around at the other servants and his eyes pleaded with them for support. ‘You know that what I say is true.’ Then Pig Boy paused and looked at Balbus with hatred in his eyes. ‘It was you who forced my friend to wash and be prepared so he could be raped by that bastard. Horse was trying to protect himself and—’

  Balbus raised his meaty hand and would have struck out at Pig Boy to shut him up, but Theodosius Major raised one hand and one of the guardsmen intervened immediately.

  ‘I’ve been given details of the lad’s death and a coloured version of the circumstances leading up to it. I’ve also been informed that his remains were found inside the sows’ pen where he had been trampled by the beasts and partly devoured. I find it surprising that no one heard his screams for help or offered him any assistance.’

  A shiver passed through the men in the crowded room, as if a strong wind had stirred their hair. A low murmur followed, but an admonitory glance from Theodosius silenced them immediately.

  ‘I was asleep in the stables on the far side of the villa, but I heard later that some of the servants and guests heard his screams, including Balbus and Livius,’ Pig Boy cried out, his face distorted by the memory of the morning he discovered the corpse of his friend. Horse had been barely recognisable under the blood, the gross wounds and the mauling that he had received. Only that remarkable mane of black hair had retained any of Horse’s true self.

  ‘You killed Livius, your master, out of revenge. I saw you strike his head with a piece of broken wood,’ Balbus crowed, exultation mastering his fear of Theodosius, who was his lord and master. ‘You murdered him by shoving that pitchfork through him when he fell.’

  The clamour of unintelligible comments stirred though the crowd like a coming storm.

  ‘You’re lying! I pushed him and he fell backwards,’ Pig Boy wailed. ‘Even if I had chosen to kill him, I wouldn’t have had the strength to defeat a grown man. How could I have pushed that pitchfork through him?’

  Theodosius examined the boy closely. Only a fool could fail to see the scars that criss-crossed the boy’s body. His left hand, his back and the skin that was tautly stretched over his ribs and belly were evidence of brutality while his thin, immature shoulders demonstrated that this lad had not received the care needed to maintain an acceptable standard of health. The fingermarks of abusive men stood out in the older bruises that covered his body and the marks from a whip that had been used to strip flesh from bone. Theodosius’s face remained impassive, but his forefinger began to tap against the arm of his chair and his back became decidedly straighter.

  Again, the crowd of servants and slaves moaned softly, but their master’s eyes remained focused on Pig Boy’s face. Used to gauging the value of men and their honesty, the master saw no guile in the burning, old-man’s eyes that stared back at him.

  ‘Balbus is careless with the truth, Uncle.’ A soft voice came out of the crowd and caused another ripple of comment. The servants moved aside hurriedly, so that Magnus Maximus could stand directly before the general. The young man was nervous, but he remained steadfast. Maximus was fourteen and close to adulthood, so he would soon complete his duties at the villa and enter the legions. However, while he was a distant kinsman of the great man, his blood lines were not as close to those of Theodosius as the term uncle might suggest.

  ‘Forgive me for my interference, sir. I had thought I could remain silent about these matters in the best interests of your reputation and the good management of your estates. The words of Balbus are patently untrue and this assertion can be proved. I saw parts of these incidents, and I was not the only one. It’s unfortunate, but Balbus enforces silence with his fists and a casual use of violence.’

  ‘He would have dared to threaten you?’ Theodosius had immediately grasped the most important parts of Maximus’s revelations, so his black brows drew together menacingly.

  ‘No, sir! He simply accepted that I would keep silent, just as I did when the stableboy, Horse, was murdered. I turned a blind eye to the rape and torture of the boy, for I expected that he would survive his rape, just as so many other lads have survived such a fate in the past. But when I discovered that he had been ignobly killed during that long night of shame, I also became aware that many other people in the villa had heard his cries of pain and outrage.’

  ‘Go on!’ the paterfamilias ordered.

  ‘I had felt a sense of guilt for my refusal to intervene in such unacceptable behaviour but I was reluctant to act against the interests of Mistress Tullia or her honoured guests over matters that were not my concern. I now accept that I was guilty of cowardice, sir, but I refuse to take the responsibility for any more foul deeds that might have followed. You can punish me for speaking out if you will, my lord, but I can only relate the truth about incidents that I saw and heard.’

  ‘What were you doing in the stables at that time?’ Theodosius Minor asked, his face reflecting his long-held dislike for his younger kinsman.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a ride to settle myself. After I returned to the stables, I cleaned down my horse and leathers and was filling his water trough when I heard Livius blunder into one of the back rooms. I didn’t want to be obliged to that man or to give him an explanation for my presence in the stables, so I waited quietly in the shadows until such time as he left.’

  Theodosius said nothing, but his thunderous face was far more expressive than any words.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Maximus lurched back into speech.

  ‘With regard to the matter under discussion, Livius beat Pig Boy for a trifle, a punishment that the lad took manfully. In fact, Livius had to wake the lad to punish him for his perceived misdemeanours. But then Livius warned Pig Boy to be careful or he’d join his friend in the pigsties. I don’t think the boy intended to react, but Livius couldn’t control his filthy tongue. I can say that I’d have clouted him myself, if I had been in that young boy’s shoes.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Theodosius Major asked in a calm, controlled voice.

  ‘This young man is a liar and a bastard,’ Balbus interrupted in his most aggressive tone. ‘I’ve heard this Magnus Maximus referred to in this very same way at your own table when you were absent, master, so you cannot believe his lies.’

  Balbus was screaming at the general with such panic and vitriol in his voice that Theodosius Minor stepped forward and cuffed the stable master to his knees.

  ‘Be quiet! You have no business discussing the virtues or vices of your superiors. If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, my father will have it removed. Go on, Maximus! You’ve roused my curiosity.’

  ‘Livius was imitating the squeals of a pig, or so I was thinking when I first heard him. But the man laughed then, and he sneered that the stableboy had sounded just so when the sows had trampled on him. He said that Horse should have had his name changed to Pig Slop after the things that the sows did to his corpse. I formed the opinion from the words he spoke that Livius had been present when Horse was meeting his fate in the pigsties.’

  ‘Hmmmmn!’ The general’s face scarcely moved.

&
nbsp; ‘Pig Boy rushed at Livius after hearing the stable hand’s descriptions, although the boy didn’t have the weight to push the man over. In his frustration, he was punching at the stable hand’s chest with his inadequate fists. Livius was surprised and fell backwards until his head hit the side of the stall. He staggered and fell on to the pitchfork. The boy didn’t touch the fork at any time. When Balbus saw what had happened, he broke away a loose board to improve on his fabrication. I swear to the truth of what I have said, on the honour of all my ancestors.’

  ‘It seems I will be forced to judge the truth that lies between you,’ Theodosius mused in a soft voice, words that Maximus found insulting from someone who was a kinsman. The young man stood rigid with affront.

  ‘Others saw this incident. Perhaps they might be encouraged to speak out, but I’m reluctant to name them for they are afraid of Balbus and his lash,’ Maximus explained through stiff lips. Even in his pain, shame and fear, Pig Boy understood what the quiet, reasonable explanation was costing the older lad, who could lose everything if he continued to plead the case for Pig Boy’s innocence.

  ‘This charge is far too serious a matter to dwell on ceremony, so you’ll give me their names,’ the general demanded. ‘Immediately!’

  ‘He can’t give you any names because they don’t exist,’ Balbus snapped, then turned towards the other servants with a threatening stance. The message to his peers, and his body language, was perfectly clear.

  The crowd remained silent, so Pig Boy dropped his head in resignation. He found no fault with the inaction of people who lived under the heavy hand of Balbus when, suddenly, an elderly man shuffled to the front of the group of servants.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ the old man croaked. ‘Master Maximus is speaking the truth.’

  ‘You can hardly see, you old bastard,’ Balbus sneered. The triumphant smile that had further disfigured his pock-scarred face began to waver. Even his red quiff drooped. ‘The master should put you old bastards down when you’re no longer useful.’