[Gaius Valerius Verrens 05] - Enemy of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  He read on and the name Valens leapt out, sending a chill through him.

  By the gods, how he hated the man. All the glory of Bedriacum, the heroism and the blood and the victory, tainted by that malevolent, skeletal presence forever whispering in the Emperor’s ear. It had all seemed so simple with the fat man on the throne and the promise of a broad-striped consul’s toga. Then the whispers started to trickle down to him. Caecina couldn’t have won without Valens. He was in trouble until the old soldier pulled his eggs from the fire. Valens is a fighter, the true hero of Bedriacum. Caecina looked good, but he didn’t have the stomach for a real fight. He’d seen the way Valens looked at him. It was only a matter of time before one of them had to go. Caecina understood he was outmatched by the man who had personally cut the head from Gaius Fonteius Capito. When the news arrived that Vespasian had been hailed Emperor by the legions of the East it had come almost as a blessed relief. He had a choice. He could choose the perilous path that might lead to life, or certain death. He chose life.

  For the moment, though, Valens didn’t feature in his calculations. That would continue to be the case if he acted swiftly.

  ‘General Valens is still indisposed and will be unable to join us for another few weeks.’ The lie came easily and he accompanied it with his most charming smile. By the look on the tribune’s face the news would be around the whole camp within the hour. Caecina turned to Valerius. ‘This says that you also have an oral message for me?’

  Valerius bowed. ‘For your ears only, lord.’

  ‘You may leave us.’ Caecina directed the order at the other two men. ‘I must consider my reply. A one-handed man is no threat to me in my own camp.’ The tribune hesitated and the young general smiled. ‘Your concern for my well-being is admirable, Aurelius, but unnecessary. He is unarmed and your swords are only a shout away. Clear the area apart from my personal guard. I don’t want any slaves tittle-tattling about my business.’

  When they were alone, Caecina fixed Valerius with the unyielding stare of a python studying a trapped rabbit. The Roman had noticed him darting occasional glances towards the curtain that separated the main tent from his living quarters. Now the reason swayed into the room and her slanted, gold-flecked eyes never left Valerius. She stopped and tilted her head as if she needed to see him from a different angle.

  ‘I recognize you.’ Valerius heard Caecina’s intake of breath. ‘He was at Placentia,’ she continued. ‘The negotiations when that odious little general was so rude to you.’

  Salonina Julia was even more beautiful than Valerius remembered, with the face of an Egyptian queen and a body that moved with the natural fluidity of a cat. The last time they’d met those slanting eyes had been full of promise, despite the situation. Now all they held was suspicion.

  ‘The hand,’ Caecina exclaimed. ‘Now I remember. But why would I forget such a face?’ He smiled. ‘You have lost weight, I believe.’

  ‘Defeat does that to a man, as you may discover to your cost.’

  ‘You should cut his throat.’ Salonina said it as if she was telling a servant to snip the head from a wilting rose. ‘But first give him to me for an hour and we will see if that clever tongue has any more to offer.’

  The look that accompanied the words sent a shiver through Valerius, but Caecina rose from his seat and frowned. ‘You don’t think I was defeated at Placentia?’

  Valerius shrugged and tried to ignore Salonina’s stare. ‘You walked away from a fight you couldn’t win without unacceptable casualties. You won the battle you needed to win and with it you won the war.’

  The legate grinned at his wife. ‘A proper soldier. I like him.’

  ‘I still think you should cut his throat,’ she said sourly, taking a seat on one of the couches.

  ‘Why didn’t I take Placentia?’ Caecina asked. ‘I had enough men.’

  ‘General Spurinna’s defences were too strong for a direct attack on the walls. You might have had a chance if you’d battered the gates with your heavy catapults.’

  ‘But you burned them in the amphitheatre as I remember. That was very clever. And you destroyed my battering ram. I was annoyed.’

  ‘A soldier does what he must to win.’

  ‘And at Bedriacum I won.’ Caecina smiled at the memory. ‘You were at Bedriacum? I’m curious. Where were you in the battle line?’

  Salonina sniffed to let her husband know she was bored with this military talk. Caecina ignored her and Valerius gave him his answer. ‘I commanded the gladiator detachment in the second rank of the Adiutrix.’

  The other man’s dark eyes widened a fraction. ‘Where the Twenty-first lost its eagle.’

  Valerius nodded, not caring to elaborate on the memory of that glorious but ultimately futile action.

  ‘And I ordered that all the gladiators should die. And they did.’ Caecina’s gaze drifted away as he sought some lost memory. ‘All but one, a dangerous savage who slaughtered everyone who faced him. I remember it now. A man with a wooden hand butchered on the bloody sands in the arena at Cremona. The Emperor was most put out. In his cups he would bemoan the death of a friend. What was the name he used? A martial name, I think. Yes. Valerius.’ The general fixed the one-handed Roman with that same python’s stare. ‘I saw you die.’

  ‘Not every gladiator who bleeds on the sands of the arena is a dead gladiator.’ Valerius quoted his friend, the deadly fighter Serpentius.

  ‘So,’ Caecina’s face broke into an unexpected grin, ‘the man I could not kill.’

  Salonina laughed. ‘There is still time.’

  But Valerius understood that a decision had been taken and control had shifted. He turned to meet her dark eyes and for the first time she saw something in the scarred soldier that sent a thrill of fear through her breast. ‘The question is can your husband deliver what he has offered?’

  XII

  ‘His message is that if you give him three days he will convince every man at Hostilia to join Vespasian’s cause.’

  Valerius saw Marcus Antonius Primus’s dark eyes gleam as the general listened to the report of his meeting with Caecina. After two days in the saddle Valerius had trouble staying upright. His face was a mask of shadows and stubble, dust caked his clothing and he stank of the acrid reek of hard-ridden horse. But exhilaration blinded Primus to the weariness of his messenger. Clearly, all he saw was a vision of himself riding into Rome at the head of ten legions and the craven Vitellius kneeling before him in supplication.

  Valerius closed his eyes and continued in a voice that rose and fell with the waves of exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him. ‘He can make no such promises for the two legions at Cremona, but his gift to you is the information that they are lacking replacements and short on artillery. With your forces combined he believes the commanders have no alternative but to surrender Placentia and Cremona to you. The road to Rome will be open.’

  ‘Does this upstart provincial truly believe he can betray an Emperor and then ride beside me at the head of my troops?’ Primus shook his great head in disbelief. ‘He’s fortunate to be given his life and the promise that I will ask Vespasian to consider allowing him to keep his estates. How did his mood seem to you?’

  Valerius struggled with the interview’s sudden change of direction. It all seemed so long ago. ‘Nervous.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps even excited.’

  ‘No shame or remorse?’ Primus laughed. ‘Not that it makes him any less of a man. He did not tell you about the Ravenna fleet?’

  ‘No.’

  Primus realized for the first time how tired his messenger was. ‘Sit, man, before you fall down.’ He waited until Valerius slumped on to a couch. ‘They declared for Vespasian four days ago. If he’d marched against us he would have had to leave behind a sizeable force to guard against an attack on his supply lines. That must have focused his mind if nothing else did.’

  ‘It would explain why his guards reacted the way they did when I said I’d handed over a message at Ravenna,’ Valerius
admitted. ‘They thought someone had sent me to assassinate Caecina. It may have made him nervous, but I think the information is known only to his personal staff.’ He remembered the confident certainty in Salonina’s face as he had left the tent at Hostilia. ‘Experience tells him Vitellius hasn’t the strength or the will to defeat Vespasian, but, more important, he fears Valens, and perhaps that’s why Valens isn’t here.’

  Primus nodded thoughtfully. ‘In either case we can’t afford to trust him. If he wanted to desert Vitellius all he needed was to gather a few personal guards, ride out from the camp and head east. Why put his neck on the line by trying to bring his legions with him? Mars’ arse, even I know he would probably have given us a whipping if he could combine his forces. I’d hoped to surprise him, but now …’

  ‘Now he is our ally.’ Valerius unconsciously echoed the army commander’s thoughts. ‘But do we think he’ll keep his word?’

  ‘No.’ He felt Primus’s eyes on him. ‘And that is why we will not wait to join forces with Caecina’s army. I will march on Cremona at first light and either my legions will force the surrender of Twenty-first Rapax and Fifth Alaudae or we will destroy them. Then let the bastard change his mind. Glico!’ An aide appeared in the doorway. ‘Send word for my legionary commanders.’ The man disappeared and Primus stared at the map of northern Italia that dominated one wall of the room. His tone changed to one almost of concerned comradeship. ‘Get some rest, Valerius. I need you close and sharp in the morning.’ He hesitated, his eyes homing in on the ground between Bedriacum and Cremona. ‘It was the gods’ will that I did not have you killed, Gaius Valerius Verrens, and it is fate that has brought you to my side. You will guide me over the ground that consumed Otho and together we will share in the fruits of victory. Whatever happened between us is in the past, do you understand? All debts are paid.’ He turned, but Valerius was already fast asleep on the couch, his eyes closed, his scarred face relaxed and almost boyish. For a moment, Marcus Antonius Primus felt an unlikely affection for the man who had ruined his career and sent him into exile, but he quickly pushed it aside. He was a soldier. A commander. In the days ahead he might have to sacrifice Gaius Valerius Verrens and a thousand more in the name of victory and he could not afford to hesitate. If he succeeded, Vespasian would award him the triumphal regalia, if not more. He would be the governor of somewhere that would make him a fortune, not the dusty little shithole up on the Danuvius that Galba had handed him. Later, perhaps quite soon, he would wear a consul’s toga.

  He shuffled through the papers on his desk until he found the one he’d been reading before Valerius had returned from his encounter with Caecina. Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus greets his loyal friend and comrade Marcus Antonius Primus … Primus smiled at the method of address which, for all its fulsomeness, contained a none too gentle reminder of the Emperor-elect’s authority and his own subservience. Several lines of outright flattery followed, hanging like ribbons on a thorn tree; pretty decorations, but they didn’t take away the sting. He read down to the passage that was the letter’s true purpose.

  ‘Your Emperor exhorts you to hold the strategic outpost at Aquileia and there maintain your position until the arrival of the legions commanded by our faithful friend and comrade Gaius Licinius Mucianus. This disposition and the steadfast defence of the city will deny our enemies the opportunity to meet our Pannonian and Moesian legions from a position of strength. Our command of the Egyptian corn reserves and the wealth of the East places the armies of Vitellius at a grave disadvantage. In time, his troops must be forced to capitulate for want of pay and provisions and in the face of the overwhelming combined forces at our disposal. Your Emperor understands that, in war, it is sometimes sweeter to advance in pursuit of glory than to take the road of prudence, but he is certain that you will accept his advice that the latter is the more fitting, and the most sensible, strategic option. In paying heed to this advice you will help bring about a great victory, one shorn of the usual accompaniment of blood, tears and penury, and you will have the thanks of Rome, its people and the Empire, and, of course, your Emperor, Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus.

  Advice? Primus almost laughed aloud. He was soldier enough to know an order when he read one. But he was already beyond Aquileia and the agreement with Caecina had placed him in a position of paramount strength. One more effort and he would win the war before Vespasian was even aware it had been fought. Something wriggled its way across the inside of his skull and his euphoria faded. Were the gods reminding him of the price of defeat? But he would not be defeated. Before they marched he would sacrifice a white bull to Mars and ensure that the omens for victory were favourable in the extreme. He glanced at the map fixed to the wall. Three days’ easy marching and he would reach Cremona with a force of five legions against the city’s defence of two. When they heard that their commander had pledged his oath to Vespasian, the legates of Twenty-first Rapax and Fifth Alaudae would have no option but to surrender.

  The rugged plebeian features of the Emperor swam into his vision; the face of a provincial butcher, but for the rather handsome aquiline nose. A quick victory and all would be forgiven. Defeat was unthinkable. Primus smiled. He had nothing to fear.

  Because Aulus Caecina Alienus had placed victory in his hands as if it were ordained by the gods.

  ‘Wake up.’ Valerius felt a hand on his shoulder, but he decided he’d sleep for another hour. He deserved it after all those hours in the saddle. It was only when the hand shook harder that he sensed the motion beneath him and realized he was back on a horse. He opened his eyes and squinted into a low sun that shone from his left flank. ‘The general’s called a conference,’ Serpentius said quietly. ‘And you’re wanted.’

  The Spaniard handed his friend a water skin. Valerius splashed a handful of the lukewarm liquid on his face and wheeled the mare back down the column to where Primus’s staff were setting up his command tent. Gradually, the details of the morning came back to him. The legions had worked through the night to be ready for a dawn departure. Their supplies and heavy weapons were part of a precisely structured train that crammed thirty miles of the Via Postumia. It had taken a gargantuan effort and the troops didn’t hide their bewilderment when a cohort from each legion was told to gather for the sacrifice of a white bull that would cost at least another hour. Primus, on the other hand, counted it time well spent when the wonderful omens for the coming battle filtered back to their parent units.

  From the position of the sun Valerius estimated they must have been on the march for less than four hours. What would make Primus call a halt so soon, after all the urgency to get started?

  He had his answer the moment he entered the tent, when Primus’s senior aide drew him to one side.

  ‘One of our patrols captured a courier on the way from Hostilia to Rome. At dawn this morning Aulus Caecina Alienus was arrested for treason. The legions at Hostilia are breaking camp and marching for Cremona. If they link up with Twenty-first Rapax and Fifth Alaudae they’ll outnumber us more than two to one.’

  XIII

  Hostilia, the previous night

  ‘You are the backbone of my legions. The sword blade that runs through the cohorts and centuries of this great army.’ Aulus Caecina Alienus addressed the hundred senior centurions he had invited to gather in the principia of the Fourth Macedonica’s temporary camp. They were mainly men from the Rhenus legions he had led from Germania to win the Empire for Vitellius; men he had rewarded personally with crowns of grass and gold, torcs, phalerae, and other honours. They were also the greatest recipients of plunder from Placentia, when it had eventually fallen into Vitellian hands, and the other towns they had won along the way. Yet despite their allegiance to the man who now sat in the Golden House in Rome, they too had their grievances, for anything they won had been lost when Vitellius had announced his reforms to the army. Now the honorariums from selling leave tickets and dispensations from work details they had counted on to augment their pay were
no more. Many of them had expected these extras to pay for the houses and land they planned to buy for their retirement, and were relying on another campaign to recoup their losses. Unfortunately, they had discovered that a civil war was a sad disappointment for a soldier when he fought on the side of the state. He’d plied them with substantial amounts of unwatered wine from his best vintages and they were ready to listen to anything he had to say.

  ‘We officers give commands,’ Caecina continued with his flattery, ‘but you are the guarantee that those commands are obeyed. You have fought well, given more than any man can be expected to give, and now I expect you to give more.’ He heard the muffled groans, interspersed with demands for silence, and took strength from them. ‘The legions of Germania are rightly hailed as the elite of the Empire’ – in the theatrical pause that followed the words were greeted with broad grins and shouts of hurrah – ‘and soon you must prove it again. The legions we will face in the coming days – Roman legions – are the Pannonian and Moesian legions who have held the line of the Danuvius for a generation. Only six months ago they destroyed the might of the Roxolani, leaving not one man alive to return to his homeland. For a generation they held back the Dacians and the Quadi, the Cotini and the Marcomanni. They too believe they are the elite of the Empire.’

  ‘Only five legions,’ a voice came from somewhere in the pack, ‘and some of them have marched six hundred miles.’

  ‘Who won at Bedriacum?’ another demanded.

  Caecina raised a hand for silence.

  ‘You won at Bedriacum, and deserved your triumph,’ he paused again to let them bask in the glory of their victory, ‘but we fought only two legions. And yes, now we face only five legions when we number many more. But think on it, comrades: how many of your legions are at full strength? How many of you have been asking for replacements for months, but not received them? How many of your best soldiers now serve with the Praetorian Guard, your centuries and your cohorts weakened at the behest of the Emperor who now demands victory of you?’ He allowed the self-evident truths to make their mark and sensed the rumblings of discontent running through them. ‘Can that be right? Of course, we will win, but how many more must die because of the failings and jealousies of others? And when we defeat the five legions of Pannonia and Moesia, when the battle is over and we count our wounded and our dead comrades in the thousands and the tens of thousands, what then? Will your Emperor send you on leave to enjoy the fruits of victory or into retirement to reap the rewards of your long service? No. He will keep you in arms, because Titus Flavius Vespasian has already dispatched more legions to oppose us, the legions of Syria and Egypt and Cappadocia, the legions of Corbulo. Even that will not be the end, for Hispania and Lusitania and Gaul also stand against us.’