Macro and Cato, standing a pace back from the desk, adopted the required informal posture. They were rather shocked to see clear signs of exhaustion in their commander as he leaned back from the scrolls on his desk and the light from the overhead oil lamps fell on his heavily lined face.
Vespasian considered them for a moment, unsure how to proceed.
A few days ago the centurion, the optio and a small party of Macro’s hand-picked men had been sent on a secret mission. They had been tasked with retrieving a pay chest that Julius Caesar had been forced to abandon in a marsh close to the coast nearly a hundred years earlier. The Second Legion’s senior tribune, a smooth patrician named Vitellius, had decided to seize the pay chest for himself and, with a gang of horse archers he had bribed, had fallen on Macro’s men amid the mists of the marsh. Thanks to the fighting skills of the centurion, Vitellius had failed and fled the scene. But the fates seemed to favour the tribune; he had come across a column of Britons trying to outflank the Roman advance and had been able to warn the legions of the danger just in time. As a result of the subsequent victory, Vitellius was now something of a hero. Those who knew the truth about Vitellius’ treachery felt disgust at the praise that was showered on the senior tribune.
‘I’m afraid I can’t press any charges against Tribune Vitellius. I’ve only your word to go on, and that isn’t enough.’
Macro bristled with barely contained rage.
‘Centurion, I know the type of man he is. You say he tried to have you and your men killed when I sent you after the pay chest. That mission was secret, quite secret. I suspect that only you, me and the lad there knew about the chest’s contents. And Vitellius of course. Even now it is still sealed, and on its way back to Rome under heavy guard, and the fewer who know about the gold it contains the better. That’s the way the Emperor wants to keep things. No one will thank us for exposing this in court if charges are bought against Vitellius. In addition, you might not be aware that his father is a close friend of the Emperor. Do I need to say more?’
Macro pursed his lips and shook his head.
Vespasian let his words sink in, well understanding the expression of resignation settling on the faces of the centurion and his optio. It was too bad that Vitellius should be the one to emerge from the situation smelling of roses, but that was typical of the tribune’s luck. That man was destined for high office, and the fates would let nothing stand in his way. And there was far more behind his treachery than Vespasian could ever let these two men know. Besides his duties as a tribune, Vitellius was also an imperial spy in the service of Narcissus, the Emperor’s chief secretary. If Narcissus ever came to know he had been fooled by Vitellius, the tribune’s life would be forfeit. But Narcissus would never find out from the lips of Vespasian. Vitellius had seen to that. While gathering information on the loyalty of the officers and men of the Second Legion, Vitellius had uncovered the identity of a conspirator involved in a plot to overthrow the new Emperor.
Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian.
For the moment, then, a stand-off existed between Vitellius and Vespasian; both had information that could fatally wound the other if it ever came to the ears of Narcissus.
Aware that he must have been staring vacantly at his subordinates for some time, Vespasian quickly turned his mind to the other reason he had summoned Macro and Cato.
‘Centurion, there is something that should cheer you up.’ Vespasian reached to the side of the table and picked up a small bundle wrapped in silk. Carefully unfolding the silk, Vespasian revealed a gold torc which he gazed at momentarily before holding it up in the dim light of the oil lamps. ‘Recognise it, Centurion?’
Macro looked a moment, then shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘I’m not surprised. You probably had other things on your mind when you first saw this,’ Vespasian said with a wry smile. ‘It’s the torc of a chief of the Britons. It used to be the property of one Togodumnus, fortunately no longer with us.’
Macro laughed, suddenly recalling the torc as it had been, worn round the neck of the huge warrior he had killed in single combat a few days earlier.
‘Here!’ Vespasian tossed the torc and Macro, caught by surprise, fielded it awkwardly. ‘A small token of the legion’s gratitude. It comes out of my share of the spoils. You deserve that, Centurion. You won it, so wear it with honour.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Macro replied as he examined the torc. Plaited bands of gold gleamed in the wavering light, and each end curled back on itself round a large ruby that sparkled like a blood-soaked star. Strange swirling designs had been worked into the gold surrounding the rubies. Macro felt the weight of the torc and made a rough calculation of its value. His eyes widened as he registered the significance of the legate’s gesture.
‘Sir, I don’t know how to thank you for this.’
Vespasian waved a hand. ‘Then don’t. As I said, you deserve it. As for you, Optio, I have nothing to give except my thanks.’
Cato coloured, his lips thinning into a bitter expression. The legate couldn’t help laughing at the young man.
‘It’s true I may not have anything of value to give you. But someone else has, or had, rather.’
‘Sir?’
‘You’re aware that Chief Centurion Bestia has died of his wounds?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Last night, before he lost consciousness, he made a verbal will in front of witnesses. He asked that I be his executor.’
‘A verbal will?’ Cato frowned.
‘As long as there are witnesses, any soldier can state verbally how his camp property is to be disposed of in the event of his death. It’s a custom rather than a rule enshrined in law. It seems that Bestia wanted you to have certain items of his property.’
‘Me!’ Cato exclaimed. ‘He wanted me to have something, sir?’
‘Apparently.’
‘But why on earth? He couldn’t stand the sight of me.’
‘Bestia said he’d seen you fight like a veteran, with no armour, just helmet and shield. Going at it just as he had taught you. He told me he had been wrong about you. He’d thought you a fool and a coward. He learned otherwise, and wanted you to know he was proud of the way you’d turned out.’
‘He said that, sir?’
‘Precisely that, son.’
Cato opened his mouth, but no words came. He could not believe this; it seemed impossible. To have misjudged someone so completely. To have assumed that they were irredeemably bad and incapable of positive sentiment.
‘What did he want me to have, sir?’
‘Find out for yourself, son,’ replied Vespasian. ‘Bestia’s body is still in the hospital tent, with his personal effects. The surgeon’s assistant knows what to give you. We’ll burn Bestia’s body at dawn. You’re dismissed.’
Chapter Four
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Outside, Cato whistled with astonishment at the prospect of Bestia’s bequest. But the centurion was paying little attention to his optio; he fingered the torc, relishing its considerable weight. They walked towards the hospital tent in silence until Macro looked up at the tall figure of the optio.
‘Well, well. Wonder what Bestia’s left for you.’
Cato coughed, clearing the tightness in his throat. ‘No idea, sir.’
‘I had no inkling the old boy had it in him to make that kind of gesture. Never heard of him doing anything like this the entire time I’ve served with the eagles. Guess you must have made quite an impression after all.’
‘I suppose so, sir. But I can hardly believe it.’
Macro thought about it a moment, and then shook his head. ‘Neither can I. No offence meant or anything but, well, you just weren’t his idea of a soldier. Must admit, it took me a while to work out there was more to you than a beanpole bookworm. You just don’t have the look of a soldier about you.’
‘No, sir,’ came the sullen reply. ‘I’ll try and look the part from now on.’
‘Don’t worry about
it, lad. I know you’re a killer, through and through, even if you don’t know it. Seen you in action, haven’t I?’
Cato winced at the word ‘killer’. That was the last thing he wanted to be known as. A soldier, yes, that word had some measure of civilised credibility. Obviously being a soldier entailed the possibility of killing but that, Cato told himself, was incidental to the essence of the profession. Killers, on the other hand, were just brutes with few, if any, values. Those barbarians who lived in the shadows of the great German forests were killers. They slaughtered for the sheer hell of it, as their endless, petty tribal conflicts illustrated all too well. Rome may have had civil wars in its past, Cato reminded himself, but under the order imposed by the emperors the threat of internal conflict had all but passed. The Roman army fought with a moral purpose: the extension of civilised values to the benighted savages who lived on the fringes of the empire.
What of these Britons? What kind of men were they? Killers, or soldiers after their fashion? The swordsman who had died in the legate’s games haunted his mind. The man had been a true warrior and had attacked with the ferocity of a born killer. His self-destruction was an act of sheer fanaticism, a trait in some men that deeply disturbed Cato, filling him with a sense of moral terror, and a conviction that only Rome offered a better way. For all its corrupt and cynical politicians, Rome ultimately stood for order and progress; a beacon to all those terrified huddled masses hiding in the shadows of dark barbarian lands.
‘Still regretting your bet?’ Macro nudged him out of his self-absorption.
‘No, sir. I was just thinking about that Briton.’
‘Ah, forget him. Stupid thing to do, and that’s all there is to it. I might have more respect for him if he’d used the sword on us and tried to make a break for it. But to kill himself? What a waste.’
‘If you say so, sir.’
They had reached the hospital tent, and waved away the insects crowding the oil lamps by the tent flaps, before ducking inside. An orderly was sitting at a desk to the side. He led them to the rear of the tent where the injured officers were quartered. Each centurion had been allotted a small sectioned area with a camp bed, side table and chamber pot. The orderly drew open a curtain and waved them in. Macro and Cato squeezed in either side of the narrow bed on which a linen shroud covered the chief centurion’s body.
They stood a moment in silence, before the orderly spoke to Cato. ‘The items he wanted you to have are under the bed. I’ll leave you two here a while.’
‘Thanks,’ Cato replied quietly.
The curtain fell back across the opening and the orderly returned to his desk. It was quiet, only a faint groaning came from somewhere else in the tent, and the more distant sounds of the camp beyond.
‘Well, are you going to look, or shall I?’ asked Macro in a hushed voice.
‘Pardon?’
Macro indicated the chief centurion with his thumb. ‘One last look on the face of the old man before he goes up in smoke. I owe him that.’
Cato swallowed nervously. ‘Go ahead.’
Macro reached down and gently pulled back the linen shroud, uncovering Bestia as far as his naked chest which bristled with grey hair. Neither of them had ever seen Bestia out of uniform and the mass of tightly curled body hair came as a surprise. Some kind soul had already covered the chief centurion’s eyes with coins to pay Charon his fare for the crossing of the River Styx into the underworld. The injury that had finally killed him had been cleaned, but even so the mangled teeth, bone and muscle sinew that was visible where the flesh had been hacked from the side of Bestia’s face was not a pretty sight.
Macro whistled. ‘It’s a wonder he managed to say anything to the legate in this state.’
Cato nodded.
‘Still, the old bugger made it to the top, which is more than most of us achieve. Let’s see what he’s left for you. Shall I look?’
‘If you want to, sir.’
‘Fair enough.’ Macro knelt down and rummaged about under the bed. ‘Ah! Here we go.’
Rising, he held up a sword in a scabbard and a small amphora. The sword he passed over to Cato. Then he pulled the stopper from the amphora and sniffed cautiously. A smile split his face.
‘Caecuban!’ Macro crooned. ‘My lad, whatever it is you did to impress Bestia, it must have been pretty damn miraculous. Do you mind if . . . ?’
‘Help yourself, sir,’ replied Cato. He examined the sword. The scabbard was black and inlaid with a striking silver geometric pattern. Here and there, the casing had been dented and marked with heavy use. A soldier’s weapon then, not some ornamental device reserved for ceremonies.
Centurion Macro licked his lips, raised the amphora and made his toast. ‘To Chief Centurion Lucius Batiacus Bestia, a hard bastard, but a fair one. A good soldier who did honour to his comrades, his legion, his family, his tribe and Rome.’ Macro took a healthy swig of vintage Caecuban wine, his Adam’s apple working furiously, before he lowered the amphora and smacked his lips. ‘Absolutely wonderful stuff. Try some.’
Cato took the amphora thrust towards him and raised it over the body of the dead chief centurion, feeling slightly self-conscious about the gesture. ‘To Bestia.’
Macro was right. The wine was uncommonly tasty, a rich fruitiness with just a hint of musk, and a dry aftertaste. Delicious. And intoxicating.
‘Let’s have a look at your sword.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Cato handed the sword over. After a cursory glance at the scabbard, Macro grasped the ivory handle with its ornately turned pommel of gold, and drew out the blade. It was well-tempered and polished, and glinted like a mirror. Macro raised his eyebrows in honest appreciation as he softly ran a finger down the cutting edge. It had been honed to unusual sharpness for what was essentially a thrusting sword. He felt the weight, and murmured approval at the fine balance between pommel and blade. This was a sword a man could wield with ease, never stressing the wrist the way that standard-issue short swords did. No Roman made this. The blade was surely the work of one of the great Gaulish forges which had been making the finest swords for generations. How had Bestia come by it?
Then he noticed an inscription, a small phrase near the guard, written in an alphabet he had come to recognise as Greek.
‘Here, what’s this say?’
Cato took the sword and mentally translated: ‘From Germanicus to L. Batiacus, his Patroclus.’ A shiver of wonder went down Cato’s spine. He looked down on the hideously disfigured face of the chief centurion. Had this man once been an attractive youth? Attractive enough to win the affection of the great General Germanicus? It was hard to believe. Cato had only known Bestia as a harsh, cruel disciplinarian. But who knows what secrets a man holds when he dies? Some he takes with him to the underworld, some are revealed.
‘Well?’ Macro said impatiently. ‘What’s it say?’
Knowing his centurion’s intolerances, Cato thought quickly. ‘It’s a gift from Germanicus, for his services.’
‘Germanicus? The Germanicus?’
‘I suppose so, sir. There’s no more detail than that.’
‘I had no idea the old boy was so well-connected. That deserves another toast.’
Cato reluctantly handed him the amphora, and winced as Macro guzzled more of the vintage wine. The amphora felt disappointingly light when he got it back. Rather than lose the balance of his bequest to the belly of his centurion, Cato toasted Bestia again and gulped down as much as he could handle in one go.
Macro belched. ‘W-well, Bestia must have performed a pretty heroic deed to win that little beauty. A sword from Germanicus! That’s quite something, quite something.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Cato agreed quietly. ‘It must have been.’
‘Look after that blade, lad. It’s priceless.’
‘I will, sir.’ Cato was beginning to feel the effects of the wine in the hot, close confines of the tent, and suddenly craved fresh air. ‘I think we should leave him now, sir. Let him rest in peace.’
‘He’s dead, Cato. He’s not asleep.’
‘Figure of speech. Anyway, I need to get out of here, sir. I need to be outside.’
‘Me too.’ Macro flipped the linen shroud back over Bestia and followed the optio outside. The rain had stopped and, as the clouds were clearing away, the stars flickered dully in the humid atmosphere. Cato drew in deep lungfuls of air. He was feeling the wine more than ever and wondered if he would suffer the indignity of being sick.
‘Let’s get back to our tent and finish the amphora,’ Macro said cheerily. ‘We owe the old boy that at least.’
‘Do we?’ Cato replied bleakly.
‘Of course we do. Old army tradition. That’s how we mourn our dead.’
‘A tradition?’
‘Well, it is now.’ Macro smiled woozily. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
Holding tightly to his new sword in its scabbard, Cato relinquished control of the amphora and the pair of them steered an uncertain course back through the neat lines of tents to those of their own century.
At dawn the next morning, when Bestia’s pyre was ignited, the centurion and optio of the Sixth Century in the Fourth Cohort gazed on with bleary eyes. The entire Second Legion was formed up to witness the event, and faced the pyre on three sides while the legate, the camp prefect, tribunes and other senior officers stood at attention on the fourth side. Vespasian had chosen his position well, upwind from the pyre in the light airs wafting across the British landscape. Directly opposite, the first tendrils of thick oily smoke, laden with the odour of burning fat, wafted across the legionaries standing at attention. A chorus of coughing broke out around Macro and his optio, and a moment later Cato’s rather too delicate stomach clenched like a fist, and he doubled over and vomited the disturbed contents of his guts all over the grass at his feet.
Macro sighed. Even from beyond the shadows of death Bestia had the capacity to make his men suffer.
Chapter Five
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‘The problem, gentlemen, is that hillock over there.’ The general pointed across the river with his baton, and the eyes of his senior officers followed the direction indicated. In addition to the commanders of the four legions, amongst the cluster of scarlet cloaks were Plautius’ staff officers. Vespasian was finding it hard not to be amused by the amount of dazzling gilt that was adorning the burnished breastplate of his brother Sabinus, who was enjoying the honorific rank of prefect of horse. Almost as garish was the amount of gold being worn by the British exile accompanying Plautius. Adminius had been forced to flee his kingdom by his brother, Caratacus, and had joined the Roman army to act as a guide and negotiator. If Rome triumphed, his title and lands would be restored to him, although he would rule as a client king of Rome, with all the obligations that entailed: a poor reward for betraying his people. Vespasian shifted his scornful gaze from the Briton back to the river.
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