[Gaius Valerius Verrens 05] - Enemy of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  It was a blatant lie, but Caecina rationalized that if he prevailed it would become truth and no longer matter. He shook his head. ‘None of this would signify if we were led by a Caesar, or an Augustus. But we are not. The man who calls himself your Emperor sits in Rome counting the money that you, the legions of Rome, won for him, and feasting on the plenty that you, the legions of Rome, cannot enjoy. It is with a heavy heart, my friends, that I now tell you that the Ravenna fleet, which controls the seas to our rear and the supply convoys that use them, has pledged its allegiance to Titus Flavius Vespasian.’ There had been rumours of the defection; now he watched the shock of their confirmation ripple through them like a summer breeze on ripe corn. ‘Who knows how long our dwindling supplies last before we go hungry? What will we do once our javelins are spent and our ballista bolts fired? The man who now marches against us …’

  ‘I thought he was still in Alexandria?’ It was the same voice from the back. Caecina smiled as three or four of his supporters closed in on the potential troublemaker.

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded regretfully as if a favourite uncle had stolen the last piece of duck at a family dinner, ‘but that is only because he has pledged not to shed the blood of one Roman in his name. He wishes only to further the cause of the Empire.’ He sought them out with his gaze, the dark soulful eyes roving across the hardened soldiers arrayed in front of him. ‘Because he does not believe the man we follow is worthy of the name Emperor. Because he feels that Aulus Vitellius has undermined his legions and betrayed his soldiers. I ask you a question. Does any man here believe that if his legion is under threat, Aulus Vitellius will come to his aid?’

  ‘Only if I can’t finish my rations.’

  Caecina waited until the laughter died down. ‘We have fought together and shed blood together. We have seen our friends die; or, worse, seen them live with wounds that no mortal man should be asked to bear. We have seen farms burned and families impoverished. Your homeland has been ravaged by civil war until it has nothing more to give. Who among you would ask it to suffer more if an alternative could be found?’

  One man, a centurion on the brink of retirement, stood up and asked a question that had been carefully rehearsed hours earlier. ‘But what is the alternative, legate? What must we do to avoid more bloodshed and sacrifice?’

  Caecina studied the speaker with a face lined by torment, while inside his heart soared at the perfectly choreographed opportunity he had created. He began softly, and like a true actor allowed his voice to rise with every word. ‘It grieves me to say, but I do it for my soldiers, and my people, and for the Empire which I hold so dear. Say it I must. We can ask ourselves who is more worthy of our trust. The man who has abandoned us, or the man who is coming to save Rome? The man who can barely hold a sword, or the man who carried his blade against the traitors of Britannia and Judaea? The man who has taken your money, or the man who has pledged to give fifteen thousand sesterces to every legionary who lays down his weapons in the cause of healing the wounds of the Empire?’ He saw instantly that he had them. ‘It is my sad duty, my friends, to tell you that Aulus Vitellius has proved unworthy of Rome. We must place our trust in Titus Flavius Vespasian to ensure that the Empire has a future.’

  The room erupted as he reached his climax and he heard a startled yelp as the dissenter at the back was pounced upon and dragged through the curtained doorway. Centurions from the Fourth, carefully salted through the crowd, shouted ‘Down with Vitellius! Down with the traitor to the Empire!’ and matched their words with action, toppling the statues and emblems of the Emperor that lined the walls of the tent.

  Caecina watched for a while, revelling in his power and wondering at the ease with which men could be manipulated, even strong men like these. Eventually, he raised his arms for silence. ‘Return to your legions, and relay my words and their import to your men. Supplies are low and the Ravenna fleet will no longer support us. Your commander believes it is in their best interests to pledge our oath to Vespasian and fifteen thousand sesterces to every man.’

  Accompanied by growls of assent the men filed out and Aulus Caecina Alienus retired to his private quarters. He was tempted to slump on one of the couches until the shaking in his legs died down, but he knew he must inform Primus of his success, so he took his place dutifully at the desk.

  Salonina glided through the curtained doorway to the sleeping area and their eyes met as she swayed towards him. He felt an overwhelming rush of desire that was multiplied as she approached and kissed him on the lips.

  ‘You were masterful, husband,’ she whispered, the front of her gown gaping to expose her breasts as she leaned towards him. He reached out to brush his hand against them. Tempted. She smiled, but her look said ‘Later’ and he returned to the letter. The sounds of the outer camp came to him, seemingly magnified by the blood rushing like lava through his veins. A moment of utter silence as if the man and woman in the tented room were the only people in the world, followed by a roar. He had won.

  In the hour before dawn, Caecina was still working on the letter and Salonina emerged from the curtain to greet her husband with a kiss. As their lips met a disturbance erupted outside the tent, followed by a sharp cry much closer. They stared at each other, both mirroring the other’s puzzlement. Caecina leapt to his feet and motioned his wife to leave. Before she could move, the door flaps were thrown back and the tent filled with fully armoured legionaries, their short swords bared and glinting in the light of the oil lamps. Aulus Caecina Alienus slowly subsided into his seat.

  He sat frozen as a tall man in the scarlet sash of a legionary legate pushed through the troops towards him. Caecina’s heart sank as he recognized Fabius Fabullus, the legate who had served him so well at Bedriacum and should have been with Fifth Alaudae at Cremona. Fabullus’s eyes bulged and his purple face was twisted into a grimace of almost apoplectic fury.

  ‘General.’ Caecina made to rise, but rough hands held him down. Fabullus stood two paces in front of the desk as if to advance any further would drive him to physical violence.

  ‘Aulus Caecina Alienus, you are hereby placed under arrest on charges of treason and inciting treason. When the time is right you will be taken before your Emperor to receive the justice you deserve. Think yourself fortunate that I do not stand back and allow my men to tear you apart as was their intention.’

  Caecina wondered that his heart didn’t explode in his chest. How could he possibly bear it? To have been so close and have it snatched away like this … Two men hustled forward and he closed his eyes as he heard the rattle of chains. The cold iron against his skin made him flinch and he had to force himself not to cry out as the fetters closed painfully on his flesh.

  ‘Were you really so deluded as to believe you could buy and sell your soldiers like slaves and present them to our enemy? Did you think the honour of the Rhenus legions had fallen as low as your own? These men,’ Fabullus indicated the soldiers who’d accompanied him, ‘fought and their comrades died at Bedriacum to place Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus on the throne of Rome. They will not abandon him without taking a wound. We have already defeated the legions the usurper Vespasian arrays against us. They know us and they fear us, which is why we will defeat them again when we meet. The sounds you hear are the sounds of the camp breaking. At first light we will march to Cremona to link up with Twenty-first Rapax and Fifth Alaudae. Then we will see whether that dog Primus has any fight in him.’ The jailers finished their work and stood back. ‘Take him away.’

  They pulled Aulus Caecina Alienus to his feet and as the former commander of the armies of Vitellius was hustled out his eyes met those of his wife. His last thought before she disappeared was that he had gone from glory to defeat and despair in the time it took to exchange a kiss.

  XIV

  The mood was sombre when Valerius gathered with the army’s legionary commanders in the headquarters tent hastily set up by the Via Postumia. Sweating in their thick cloaks and leather breastplates the officers stood
disconsolately around the general’s campaign table debating the consequences of the grave news from Hostilia. As the legates argued, their soldiers waited on the road in that resigned, wary, but thankful of the opportunity to rest way that soldiers do.

  ‘We should withdraw to Aquileia and form a defensive perimeter.’ Numisius Lupus, legate of the Eighth Augusta, spoke with a quiet intensity, and his words were greeted with a murmur of approval. ‘We cannot hope to prevail against a force of forty thousand and probably more.’

  ‘There is no disgrace in a tactical withdrawal.’ Agreement came from Vipstanus Messalla, the most experienced soldier among them. He looked to his commander for some reaction, but Primus continued to stare at the map spread across the scarred oak surface of the table. The tribune belatedly tried to remove the taint of defeat from his words. ‘Your original strategy was sound, but circumstances have changed. If the enemy combines then our whole enterprise is placed in jeopardy.’

  Valerius looked to his old friend Fulvus, who commanded Third Gallica, but the other man answered with a shrug. The dark-jawed features of Vedius Aquila, the legate who two months earlier had been so keen to execute Valerius, twisted into an expression of almost pained frustration. He opened his mouth to speak before clamping it shut again as if he believed his words might condemn him. As the tense silence in the tent lengthened the only sound was a loose flap fluttering in the wind and the faint buzz of insects making the most of a late-blooming oleander.

  Eventually, Primus looked up from the map. ‘This changes nothing.’

  ‘But …’ Lupus looked as if he’d been struck. Messalla stared at Primus as if he wasn’t certain what madness was coming next. Aquila’s only reaction was a tiny involuntary groan. Aurelius Fulvus met Valerius’s look of dismay with a grim smile.

  ‘It changes nothing,’ Primus repeated, his eyes roving from each man to the next and filled with challenge. ‘There are still only two legions at Cremona,’ he continued. ‘The legions at Hostilia are between three and four days’ march away, and that over poor roads or rough ground. We have the advantage by a day and a half and the Via Postumia provides good marching all the way. It is my intention to defeat the Twenty-first Rapax and Fifth Alaudae at Cremona and swing round to await the arrival of the Hostilia legions in a strong defensive position, here,’ he pointed to a spot on the map midway between Cremona and Hostilia, ‘at Ad Castores.’

  ‘Even so,’ Lupus persisted. ‘There is no guarantee we can reach Cremona first.’

  ‘Then let us ensure it,’ Primus growled. ‘Gentlemen, we will abandon our baggage train and our heavy weapons here, to follow us as they can. Issue your men with three days’ rations and tell them they will soon be feasting from the storehouses of Cremona. We will force the pace, use every minute of daylight and meet the enemy while his forces are still divided. You have your orders.’

  There could be no doubt of his determination, but Valerius sensed the hesitation before the legionary commanders saluted and saw that Primus felt it too. After a moment’s thought, the tension faded from the general’s face as he decided this was a time for explanation not confrontation. ‘The men are fractious and starting at shadows,’ he said quietly. ‘You saw what happened at Verona when the picket guards of the Seventh Galbiana mistook our own cavalry for the enemy’s. Cries of betrayal and a near mutiny. The Moesian legions would have torn Governor Saturninus apart if I had not ordered him back to Naissus, and all because he was slow to join them. They are up for a fight and they need a fight. If I turn back now what message would that send? That their commander is cautious? That he fears the enemy?’ Once more he met each eye in turn. ‘The sacrifice was good. The gods have spoken. We will fight and we will win.’

  Valerius remembered Titus Vespasian’s entreaty to rein in Primus’s rashness, but as he opened his mouth to speak he felt a hand on his arm and a voice whispered in his ear. ‘You would be wasting your breath. He will not be moved on this.’

  Aurelius Fulvus pulled Valerius aside as they left the tent with the general’s headquarters staff already dismantling the table and rolling up his maps. They walked to where the horses waited. ‘Our commander is very decisive.’ The legate of Third Gallica smiled. ‘Some might say impetuous. We may go a little hungry, but with the gods’ will we could yet win a great victory.’

  ‘I remember another general who was in a hurry to meet the enemy,’ Valerius pointed out as he heaved himself into the saddle. ‘And it didn’t end well.’

  Fulvus frowned at the reminder of Otho’s defeat at Bedriacum. ‘Well, we must hope that whoever has taken command of Caecina’s legions is less prone to impulse than the general. He appears to have forgotten that the enemy is just as able to abandon his baggage and heavy artillery as we are. All it would take is two days of forced marches and Valens to appear …’

  Valerius had a vision of air misted with blood, and his mind’s ears filled with the sound of clashing swords and screaming men. If what Fulvus spoke of happened, the five legions of Marcus Antonius Primus would be walking into an ambush by troops who outnumbered them two to one and were commanded by a general who had learned his business on the Rhenus frontier. It would be a disaster.

  The question was: where was Valens?

  Gaius Fabius Valens hunched low in the saddle and cursed the bastard pain eating into his guts, the bastard Emperor who’d roused him from his sickbed in a fit of panic, and above all the fornicating whoreson bastard Aulus Caecina Alienus who had caused that panic. Of course, it would take a one-eyed halfwit offspring of a donkey and a sheep to have ever trusted the whoreson in the first instance, but Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus had done just that. He’d given Caecina his legions – the legions Valens had led all the way down the Sauconna and the Rhodanus; the legions whose might ensured that the people of Gaul would have no doubt who their true Emperor was; the legions he’d led to overwhelming victory at Bedriacum. All his legions, even his beloved First Germanica, of which he was, and let no man deny it, still legate. Aulus Vitellius had trusted the whoreson Caecina with every fighting man east of Hispania and west of Pannonia, and the whoreson Caecina had faithfully promised not to move from Narnia until Gaius Fabius Valens rose from his sickbed and travelled north to take joint command.

  But here Valens was in Narnia and the legionary camps outside the garrison town on the Via Flaminia north-west of Rome were empty. The best information he could get said the whoreson was already two hundred miles away, either at Cremona or Hostilia.

  Another gripe of searing pain tore through his lower stomach and he suddenly felt very old. What to do? The only force available was the three cohorts of auxiliaries and a cavalry squadron Vitellius had reluctantly agreed to give him as escort. As an attacking force it was worse than useless. Too large to hide and too small to fight, even if their morale was any good. Yet what choice did he have? Vitellius, for all his failings – and he had many – had placed his trust in him.

  ‘We go on,’ he told the senior prefect of auxiliaries. ‘Perhaps there will be more intelligence of our comrades when we reach Fanum Fortunae.’

  It took three days to cross the spine of the Apennine mountains and wind their way through the foothills to the flatlands by the coast. By the time they reached the busy port of Fanum, Fabius Valens was exhausted to the point of delirium. As if his words had been prophetic, there was indeed intelligence. But not the kind he wanted.

  ‘Word came yesterday that the Ravenna fleet has declared for Vespasian.’ The young tribune commanding the city sounded wary as he briefed Valens while he recovered from the journey. ‘The prefect, Lucilius Bassus, can field at least one full legion of marines, possibly more. It is likely that he has already cut the Via Aemilia to the north.’

  ‘What word of Caecina?’ Valens demanded.

  ‘The last we heard he was still at Hostilia, but that was a week ago. Since then, nothing.’

  Valens released an audible groan. He needed up-to-date information, not rumours.

 
‘There is more.’ The tribune saw the general wince but continued remorselessly. ‘A cargo ship arrived this morning claiming to have escaped from Aquileia. The captain told anyone who’d listen that Primus passed through with his legions a week ago and would even now be crossing the Padus.’

  ‘The man is clearly spreading sedition,’ Valens snapped, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I was of a similar opinion, legate. I had him arrested. An Illyrian trader out of Spalatum, a man long suspected of being a pirate. We executed him as a spy and his crew is on the way to the slave pens at Ariminium.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to have silenced them all permanently?’

  ‘I am responsible for the security of this city, sir, but I am not a murderer …’

  ‘You are a soft fool.’