The Emperor's Men 4: Uprising

by Dirk van den Boom

  Malobaudes looked up. “What will Maximus get from us?”

  Gratian features hardened. “Nothing for him and his officers, General. He is a traitor, an usurper. I was gracious with him, though I knew what he had done in Rheinberg’s time. But he had to hit even faster than planned. There is no mercy and no excuse for him. I want to give him the chance to judge himself, with his sword, honorably. The same option should be given to his generals and all other high-ranking conspirators. I want to readily spare them the shame of an execution. But I will not be able to assure my position if I’ll be too forgiving.”

  Gratian’s expression grew softer, tired, as he continued. “The soldiers and the allies, however, should enjoy my willingness to show some grace. They are professional troops, I cannot just let them go. They’ll receive the offer of pardon and may remain in the service of the Empire. I will transfer those legions far into the East, and exchange the officers. Fresh troops are to be relocated to Britain. The men have executed the commands of their superiors, and they have been promised great honors.”

  Gratian sighed. “I know I haven’t done enough in the past few years, especially in some remote provinces like Britain. There is still a lot to catch up. I won’t make those legionaries suffer for my own mistakes.”

  Malobaudes seemed to think about what he had said.

  “But Maximus’ attempt has a much deeper reason than that, Augustus,” he said. He nodded his head in Rheinberg’s direction. “Whether we like it or not, it has both a political and a religious component. Ambrosius is involved, as we now know. Is the Bishop to die?”

  Gratian shook his head. “No. I will force him to a more private life. It would be fatal, however, to make him a martyr. And of course you’re right, General, if you say that the cause for this uprising is to be found deeper. Nevertheless, I believe that both the economic and political reforms introduced, as well as the approach of tolerance in religious matters, are indispensable. It may destabilize the situation in the short term, but the long-term benefits will be enormous.”

  Malobaudes looked at Gratian. There was a sudden determination in his features. “Very well, sir,” he muttered. “If this is your will …”

  The sword leaped into his hand, so quickly had he pulled it. Malobaudes uttered a loud cry. It was no battle cry, it was a signal, Rheinberg was sure. He rushed forward, but the General’s blade, which was a few steps closer to Gratian, was already swinging from behind into the chest of the young Emperor.

  Gratian made a helpless, almost gentle defensive move.

  But any strength had already left his body. He looked at Malobaudes with the bewildered astonishment targeted toward a person who had enjoyed trust and then turned out to be a traitor.

  Gratian sank to the ground, glancing at the tip of the sword that protruded from his chest. A quick stab, right on target, powerful, by an experienced fighter, but the heart had probably just been missed. Not by much. Blood leaped from the wound, the heart artery was intersected.

  Gratian, Emperor of Rome, died without another word.

  Then the tarpaulins of the tent were cut up, and soldiers, recognizable as men of Gratian’s own cavalry, became visible. The betrayal went deep, Rheinberg realized. He had his pistol in his hand, aimed at the murderer, but he was already surrounded by his allies, who now pulled their swords.

  Legionaries from the bodyguard, who had remained at the tent, stormed in, saw the bleeding body of the dead emperor lying on the ground, saw the hated barbarians. Shouting arose. Blades were drawn.

  Somebody dragged Rheinberg by the arm. It was Arbogast, the old general, and like a child, Rheinberg stood aside.

  “You must go,” Arbogast said. “You are next!”

  Rheinberg’s arm went up, a shot cracked, then a second. Two enemy warriors fell to the ground screaming. More legionaries pushed forward.

  Arbogast pulled Rheinberg’s arm again. “Go. Here is nothing to gain for you!”

  How true, the young German thought. He heard the calls from outside the tent: “The Augustus is dead! Gratian is murdered!”

  Rheinberg stumbled back. He shot again, as if mechanically, fighting warriors, one, another one, one more, while he retreated, led by Arbogast. The General chopped up the tarp, peered through, waited a moment for Rheinberg to kill another attacker up close, heard the empty magazine’s click, a sound he could well understand, and dragged Rheinberg into the open.

  The German acted like in trance. He heard trumpets bleed to mark the retreat. Rheinberg reared up. “I have to lead the army,” he hissed to Arbogast. “The battle …”

  “The battle is lost,” the old man returned. “The death of the Emperor will break the soldiers. This day belongs to Maximus now. But the war is not over yet. We’ll regroup at Ravenna!”

  Rheinberg didn’t know whether he should rely on that so easily. “The infantry …”

  “Have their orders for this, right?” Arbogast asked. “If Tribune von Geeren is clever, he will already let his men fall back. Verilius will take care of it. Maximus’ legionaries will let go of their attacks when they realize that they have won the battle. The bloodbath ensuing if they would attack the escaping infantry would be too great. The Comes cannot give that order now, and he knows that too. The battle is won, that is enough for him.”

  “But …”

  Arbogast cursed. Impatience was clearly visible in his face. “No more. We need to regroup. We must appoint a successor to Gratian. And as soon as possible. The Senate is in Treveri. He must declare Theodosius emperor.”

  Rheinberg was dizzy. Where does all of this lead to? He had been so anxious to change the course of time, he had been so confident as to be able to avert the greatest catastrophes … but fate had proved to be persevering, not wanting to be avoided by him. It had pushed Maximus into insurrection, had killed Gratian, and now would make Theodosius emperor?

  It was all pointless?

  Rheinberg shook his head, let Arbogast lead him, whose iron will and energy were now enough for two.

  There was turmoil in the camp. Everywhere soldiers ran around. Rheinberg saw that the General was right with his speculation. The army dissolved. Officers had probably managed the situation so far that it became an orderly retreat. With a little luck, the part of the army that didn’t go over to the victorious Maximus, would be able to retreat to Ravenna.

  “Here, on horseback,” Arbogast said.

  “I cannot leave now,” Rheinberg said, breaking from the old General’s grip. “That would make me a coward. I am the Magister Militium.”

  “Maximus’ people will be hunting you.”

  “That’s the way it is.”

  Rheinberg exchanged the magazine in his gun, loaded it, and put it in the belt. “We’re collecting the troops that still want to follow us,” he decided. “We’ll move back to Treveri. You there!”

  Rheinberg called for a man who had passed by. It was one of the soldiers from the messengers unit. “Sir? The troops …”

  “I know. Ride back to Treveri. The court is to set off for Ravenna immediately. They should send a message to Richomer, so he knows what happened. Get on your way!”

  “Yes!”

  Rheinberg stopped Arbogast, strutting toward the camp.

  A moment later, the General was with him, the blade shining in his hand.

  The tent was now almost empty. The traitors had helped Malobaudes to escape. Legionaries stood helplessly around the body of the Emperor, apparently under the command of a decurion, who also didn’t know what was to be done. When Rheinberg and Arbogast entered, all faces turned toward them.

  “Cover the body!” Rheinberg ordered. “Take him to one of the carts. Then escort him directly to Ravenna. Wrap him in a cloth. We have no time for a major effort in preserving the corpse. Hurry up. We shall later bury him as it befits. He mustn’t fall into the hands of Maximus!”

  Grateful to receive clear instructions, the legionaries immediately set to work. Other men appeared. Arbogast began to iss
ue orders to retreat.

  Then von Geeren rushed in. He was unharmed, as Rheinberg was pleased to see.

  “The men of Maximus are approaching the camp! We must get away!”

  “How is your unit?” Rheinberg asked.

  “I’ve lost 17 men. We’ve been carrying weapons and ammunition. When we left, the attacks subsided.”

  “Your men are ready for the march?”

  “Any time.”

  “We’re still waiting. The legionaries who want to leave with us need cover.”

  “Maximus doesn’t seem to want to enact a massacre among the fugitives,” von Geeren contradicted.

  “No, he’s hoping for deserters. But once it is clear which units don’t want to follow him, he will pick up the pressure. He should be encouraged to think twice about any attempt.”

  Von Geeren nodded and turned away. He didn’t need more specific orders. They had prepared for this probability in their planning. The escape route was known. The Captain would position his men along the military road and ward off attacks by Maximus’ legionaries, most likely cavalry. Rifle bullets and horses were unequal opponents. It was to be hoped that the Comes, who had hitherto proven to be a very sensible opponent, would also see this.

  Some minutes passed, during which Rheinberg and Arbogast gave orders and gathered an overview of the situation. Gratian’s corpse had now been removed. They actually managed to conduct an orderly retreat.

  Finally, the reports became more and more urgent indicating that Maximus’ army approached. Rheinberg saw that he couldn’t do much more. The first of his own units were already marching along the military road toward Trier. All the officers were informed.

  “It’s about time for us to go, too,” Rheinberg decided, nodding to the General. They didn’t dismantle the tent but ensured that every information contained on the map and important documents was either burned or taken along.

  Then Rheinberg and Arbogast sat on the back of their horses and accompanied the stream of the refugees. They also received the reports of messengers, officers and clerks. A picture of the defeat was slowly emerging.

  “We lost a good 8,000 men in the battle,” Rheinberg summed up after receiving the last reports. “And as it seems, more than 10,000 legionaries, but above all auxiliary units, have deserted to Maximus’ side. No one of the very high officers – apart from Malobaudes – but many from the middle hierarchy, especially those who are at the same time tribal princes or nobles. Maximus seems to have developed good communication to these people.”

  Arbogast didn’t flinch at Rheinberg’s somewhat clumsy way to express himself in Latin. He had learned to correctly interpret the strange allusions of the time-wanderer from context.

  “If Richomer did his job well, then we have the foundation for a second line of defense to work with,” Arbogast concluded. “It all depends on what Maximus will do next.”

  “He will go to Treveri and hope that the Senate will confirm him there, directly after Gratian’s death, as the new emperor. Even if the Senate wouldn’t succumb to his wishes, he will surely be appointed by his troops, and by so many provincial politicians and leaders of the military administration as he can scrape together in order to assert the legitimacy of his claim.”

  Arbogast nodded. “We must appoint our own successor as quickly as possible. It must be someone who is capable of acting decisively and is able to bundle the different forces of the Empire. Someone with legitimacy. I remain with Theodosius as the appropriate candidate.”

  Rheinberg said nothing. Perhaps the idea wasn’t so stupid in the end. Perhaps the present Theodosius wouldn’t commit many of the errors of his alter ego in Rheinberg’s past, now that he knew what had happened there. Perhaps one would be able to work with the Spanish nobleman, to focus on his qualities. Theodosius was no enemy of Gratian. He wouldn’t approve of the murder by a traitor. Maximus would find in him an opponent who was just as exasperated as the Theodosius of Rheinberg’s time.

  He took a deep breath and watched the long column of disciplined and exhausted legionaries. The struggle wasn’t lost yet.

  It had only become much, much more difficult.

  42

  It was a beautiful child.

  Everything had happened as the two midwives had said.

  “The first child,” they had told Julia, “needs the longest. From the second, it is faster, then the body knows what all of this is about. But the first will strain your patience, noble Julia.”

  After the first eight hours of labor, Julia had felt anything but noble. At the end of the second eight hours, when the new human had finally appeared, she could no longer express her own feelings. She had been at the very end of her strength and had done nothing but what the midwives advised her, with one objective in mind, that this merciless torture might finally come to an end.

  When the shrieking bundle had been laid upon her arm, she had been completely exhausted, but the feeling of happiness left the torment forgotten, at least for the moment. A midwife had happily assured her that the baby was complete and healthy. It was true that the old practice of placing maligned children immediately after birth in front of the city walls had been officially banned for some time, but above all, elderly women were still – often unspoken – of the opinion that it was for the best to immediately surrender such children to death.

  The question didn’t arise here. To check the completeness, it was also necessary to determine the gender of the child. The real problem began here: Julia had repeatedly told Martinus Caius, the alleged father, her conviction that she would give him a heir, a son. The warm bundle in her arm, however, was a beautiful and active daughter.

  Now, a few days after her birth, with Julia a little bit recovered, the young mother’s husband had also been able to take a look at “his” offspring. When it was revealed to him that it was a girl, a most unfavorable expression had been visible on his face.

  For Julia, it was ultimately no matter what Caius thought about her daughter, which was not his. She knew that Thomas never expressed an immediate and single-minded interest in a son. She also knew that daughters built a special relationship with their fathers, if the latter were only sufficiently interested. After all, she had been able to successfully manipulate the feelings of such a bond with her own father for ten years. So she didn’t worry much about Thomas.

  Martinus Caius, also under pressure from his own parents, wouldn’t wait very long to take action to secure the desired offspring for his own family. That wouldn’t have mattered to Julia, if these actions wouldn’t involve her. But they did, unfortunately.

  Until now, she had been able to reject such advances. It helped that her mother, Lucia, who watched over her granddaughter like a guard, and the two nursemaids jumped to her side, and made – in the absence of the Caius – blasphemous commentaries on his “amusing manners.” The common female bulwark against all too early desires of a frustrated husband held the – so far – rather clumsy attempts to overcome them at bay. But the more days turned into weeks, the weaker the line of defense. Julia had changed her tactics. Suddenly, sufficient and even generous supplies of wine and German liquor had appeared in the house, and eager, almost imposing slaves almost forced the alcoholic beverages on her husband. Caius, without any aversion, yielded to drunkenness. This usually led to the fact that he had had to break off any attempt at an approach because he simply lacked the strength.

  But that too wouldn’t work forever.

  So it was almost a gift from the Lord, when the news of the battle in Belgica came to Ravenna, and General Richomer placed the whole province under direct imperial administration to organize the defense.

  This lead to a number of consequences. Martinus Caius’ father decided that the young mother and her daughter, who had received the name Lucilla, had to leave Ravenna. Since the family of Caius had extensive possessions throughout the Empire, they decided to evacuate the women and the children of the family to the east, which had been very quiet for almost a y
ear. A large latifundium on an island in Greece was considered her new place of residence. There were also many servants at her disposal. They wouldn’t miss anything.

  The good thing about this arrangement was the exclusion of all adult male members of the household. On the contrary, the patriarch of the family said that all men had to work for the defense of the town and the possessions of their relatives. Private militias were organized by the city’s well-to-do families to guard special buildings and warehouses. Last but not least, the fear of a possible attack were increased by the prospect of plundering or arson. It wouldn’t be the first time a competitor would use a military situation to settle old bills. And Caius the Elder had buried a lot of corpses in his cellar. That his son was now recruited to participate in an effort to ensure that these bodies remained hidden, was very favorable for Julia. For months, she was sure, Martinus wouldn’t be able to touch her.

  And with a bit of luck, he would be fighting for Ravenna’s defense. And die in the effort.

  Deep in her heart, Julia bore the gracelessness and hardness of Rome, which had led to growth of the Empire and its continued existence. Asked, she would not even want to deny it. She was not the only one with this attitude. Her own mother, Lucia, was proof enough for the thesis that behind every Roman leader there could be a more ruthless Roman wife.

  Apart from this fortunate coincidence, the impending attack of Maximus, however, filled her with concern. Especially since she absolutely didn’t know where Thomas Volkert was in this confusion. Was he still in the East in search of the Huns? Had he, like so many other troops, been summoned to Ravenna to risk a new battle against the usurper? Nor did the occasional letter from her slave Claudia’s brother in Noricum tell much. At last she had heard some of the troops sent to the East had returned. But was Thomas among them? It was this kind of uncertainty that filled her with great inner unrest. That made her very irritable, together with the lack of sleep due to her daughter’s needs. Everyone kept himself as far away from her as they could. Even Mother Lucia seemed to have developed more respect. Of course, she could have given Lucilla away, like many rich women, to a nurse-maid, a slave girl who had just given birth to a baby and was able to breast-feed both. On the one hand, Julia had developed a different attitude to slavery with time, surely under the impression of very clear words from Thomas. And on the other hand, Lucilla was her living, breathing connection with the man who was her “real” husband. So she didn’t want to cut that connection with Thomas even for a moment. When, together with a few other female family members, she entered the transport galley en route to Greece along the coast, she was very, very tired.