‘Batavi!’
Smashing through the last resistance between themselves and the eagle, they parted to either side of the dumbfounded legatus, pushing through to the signifer and pulling him into the bloodied ranks of men pushing up behind them. The prefect ceded his place at the tip of the wedge to another man and staggered back to where Geta stood, resting his hands on his knees and fighting for breath.
‘This is … a young man’s … game … Legatus.’
‘First Spear Sextus?’
‘Dead … I saw … his body. We saved … your eagle … though.’
Geta nodded.
‘And you will have Rome’s eternal gratitude if I have any say in the matter. What now? Do we retreat?’
Draco straightened his body, dragging in a deep breath and shaking his head.
‘Retreat, Legatus? The Batavi have retreated once already in this battle, and that is already once more than we are accustomed to turning our backs on an enemy! No. The Britons have spent their champions in the hope of reaping your eagle, and they have not only failed but lost their swordsmen in that failure! Now their king stands less than a quarter of a mile from here, and with no more protection than the men of his bodyguard and this hapless army of farmers. I command the Batavi, and the Batavi are determined to either have his head or send him away in shame. Unless you command otherwise?’
The legatus shook his head.
‘My ancestors would never forgive me, Prefect, if I were to allow myself to be shown less courageous than even the empire’s boldest allies.’ He looked up the slope at the tribal banners clustered around a tight knot of men at its crest. ‘I’m with you all the way to the top of that hill!’
‘This man Draco was invalided out of the service as a result of the battle, if I remember correctly?’
Geta nodded, dragging his thoughts back to the emperor’s question.
‘I was fighting beside him when a spear blade pierced through his thigh, close to the top of that hill. He stood long enough to watch Caractacus leave the battlefield to save his own life, and to call insults after him in the manner of his people, then we had him carried back to the river to receive treatment. He was never able to run after that, and another man was voted into his place by the tribe’s centurions.’
‘He lives still?’
Geta looked at the emperor for a moment.
‘Draco? He does, I believe. And still takes a keen interest in his tribe’s politics, as an elder of the council, which in happier times provided the magistrate with guidance as to the tribe’s feelings on matters of note.’
‘You said there were two men leading their advance. The other was Civilis, of course.’
‘The same. Even then he was a headstrong throwback to the men who ruled the tribe before the Divine Julius upset their applecart, unused to being told what he could and couldn’t do.’
Vespasianus chuckled.
‘Evidently. And, as you’ve already guessed, it’s Civilis I wished to discuss with you.’ The younger man stared at him in silence, and the emperor nodded. ‘And there he is, the same old Hosidius Geta. You’re still the most dangerous knife in the drawer, razor sharp and quite untroubled by any risk that you might end up cutting yourself. You do know that Claudius put you on a list of men to be watched, after your participation in his triumph after the victory in Britannia?’
‘I did hear something to that effect some years afterwards.’
Vespasianus chewed on a spiced sweetbread.
‘Delicious. Yes, he saw something of his brother Germanicus in you, it seems, and wanted to be assured that such a prime candidate for the highest office in the empire wasn’t harbouring aspirations above his place in society.’
Geta shrugged.
‘It’s probably why my father made such a show of withdrawing me from public life. After all, what would be the point of climbing the cursus honorum if your reward for doing so was a knife in the back. Or worse.’
The emperor nodded.
‘And that’s why you will be serving my administration in whatever capacity I decide is best suited to your abilities. You are uncompromising in your intelligence, but always willing to be pragmatic when the occasion calls for it.’
‘And on this occasion you wish me to apply my intelligence and my pragmatism to the matter of what you should do with this man?’
The emperor nodded.
‘Who better? You know the rules we work by. The empire is all important. No insult to Rome can go unpunished, no matter who the perpetrator might be. And yet in this case …’
‘The perpetrator is a man who has given twenty-five years of loyal and unstinting service to the empire. A man who saved my life in Britannia, and won Rome a battle, and quite possibly a province, in the doing of it. Who gave an eye to the empire. Who lost his brother to the empire’s jealousies and insecurities. And who was asked to rise up in revolt by your own emissaries, as a means of weakening your enemy Vitellius.’
‘Yes. And who has now gone too far in that revolt, but who may yet still lay claim to legitimacy in doing so, given my encouragement, and who may also yet still swear loyalty to my rule.’
Silence fell between the two men.
‘So …’ Geta stood, walking away across the room’s wide expanse of marble. ‘You wish me to advise you as to what is to be done with our former comrade Civilis. And will you follow this advice, or do you simply want to hear it and then make up your own mind?’ He turned back to stare at Vespasianus. ‘I’m happy enough to provide it, but if my words are no more than a means of you reflecting upon your own thoughts then there are dozens of good men in Rome who can fulfil such a role.’
Vespasianus raised his hands.
‘Yes, you are assuredly still the same Hosidius Geta, bold enough to tell an emperor where he stands. And that’s exactly what I need. So tell me, advisor, what should I do? What options are there for an emperor when the man he has asked to revolt on his behalf takes that revolt a step too far?’
Geta thought for a moment.
‘By rights, Caesar …’ He raised a hand to forestall Vespasianus’s protest. ‘You ask as Caesar, I’ll answer you in the same vein. By rights, Caesar, you have every right to order him to be subjected to a felon’s death. He has stepped outside the protection of his citizenship in taking his tribe to war against Rome, and in throwing a spear at Rome’s fortress. He could justifiably be beaten, scourged and crucified, and no man could declare that to be anything other than reasonable punishment. However …’
The emperor nodded.
‘His service?’
‘More than that. More than just the time he has spent in Rome’s service. Consider his bravery on Rome’s behalf. It wasn’t me that should have walked in triumph with Claudius all those years ago, it was Civilis and his countryman Draco. They won the battle of the Medui, firstly by destroying the Britons’ chariot horses and then by pulling glory from the ashes of my defeat. That bravery, his fearsome reputation earned on a dozen battlefields across Britannia, that alone should act to at least partially excuse his more recent acts of betrayal. Especially given the way that Rome has single-mindedly undermined our relationship with both Civilis and the Batavi, and driven them to the insanity of confronting us in a war that they can never realistically hope to win. All of these facts demand that we exercise some degree of mitigation as to the punishment that Civilis must receive, once his revolt has been crushed.’
‘I see.’ Vespasianus took another pastry and bit into it, chewing the mouthful slowly as he thought. ‘And your suggested mitigation? If our former ally has earned something more honourable than a felon’s death for his insult against Rome, what form should that softening of Rome’s traditional vengeance on a defeated enemy take? What punishment is just when an ally with otherwise unblemished service rises up and sinks his teeth into Rome’s throat? I surely cannot afford to ignore such an act of betrayal?’
Geta looked at him in silence for a moment.
‘I find myself very
much in two minds, Caesar. I am clear as to the necessary punishment required to deter others from the same course of action, and the threat it raises to Rome’s empire, but troubled by my personal attachment to both the tribe and the man. If I might have an hour in which to reflect?’
Vespasianus rose.
‘It’s time for my afternoon sleep in any case. I find an hour at this time of the day allows me to work a long way into the evening, and trust me, dinner with your senatorial colleagues will be quite the hardest work I can imagine. I will return here when I wake to hear your verdict on the matter. And welcome to my world of intractable decisions, Hosidius Geta. I have no doubt you’ll make an excellent addition to my consilium.’
He left the room and Geta strolled slowly across to the couches. Taking the last of the pastries he bit into it, once more savouring the aroma of blood, and once more staring sightlessly across the room as his thoughts returned to the moment on a faraway hillside when the man whose fate he had been asked to determine had saved his life.
‘So, what are we to do with you, Gaius Julius Civilis, or rather what are we to do with Kivilaz, now that you have reverted to your tribal identity? What are we to do with you …’
Novaesium, Germania Inferior, January AD 70
‘The worst of it appears to be over, Legatus.’
Legion commander Dillius Vocula turned from his introspective contemplation of his sword’s mirror-bright blade to find his first spear standing in the doorway of his command tent. He was dressed in his muscled bronze cuirass and magnificently plumed helmet, as he had been all night, waiting for the mutiny whose violence he had escaped by the narrowest of margins the previous evening only by the ruse of posing as his senior centurion’s slave, to either wash over his headquarters or come to an exhausted end, as the mutinous army’s alcohol-fuelled rage dissipated in the dawn’s cold light.
‘Thank you, Antonius. Our legionaries have all finally returned to their barracks?’
His senior centurion nodded, his face shadowed with exhaustion from a day and a night spent bringing the mass insubordination of two legions under control.
‘Now that the drink has worn off, and they’ve squandered every last sestertius of the donative that Flaccus awarded them, yes, they’ve given it up and gone to their beds. I’ve given orders for this morning’s parade to be cancelled, not that I had very much choice in the matter.’
‘I see.’ Vocula put the weapon down on his desk and rubbed a hand across his similarly fatigued features. ‘What’s the damage?’
The senior centurion took a tablet from his belt pouch.
‘Thirty-three dead that we know about. To which we can probably add another ten or fifteen we haven’t found yet. Disturbances on this scale are usually an opportunity for the settling of old scores.’
‘So half a century of casualties and what, another hundred or so in the infirmary?’
‘More like half that again. The chief medicus tells me that most of them will live, but their injuries span the whole range from cuts and bruises to severely broken limbs. More score settling.’
Vocula nodded.
‘And then there’s Hordeonius Flaccus himself. Has his body been recovered?’
‘Yes, Legatus …’
The first spear paused for an instant too long.
‘But?’
The first spear sighed.
‘Legatus Augusti Flaccus’s body has been mutilated beyond recognition. His own family wouldn’t know him other than by his stature.’
Vocula stared at him numbly.
‘Nothing can surprise me, Antonius, not where these men are concerned. The men of the First Germanica and Sixteenth Gallica have a reckoning coming their way when the war against the Germans is over and done with.’
Antonius put the tablet back in his pouch.
‘Are you sure that you want to pursue such a path, Legatus? After all …’
‘After all what, Antonius? Should we excuse their crime? Forgive them for murdering a Roman senator on the grounds that they were provoked by the belief that he had been collaborating with the enemy by colluding in the defeats that resulted in the Germans laying siege to the Old Camp? Or because they held him responsible for abandoning the Fifth and Fifteenth Legions to their fate in that fortress, rescued from their siege by our advance north and then told to stay put in that death trap, and allow the noose to close around their necks again?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Which is ironic given it was my decision and not his!’
The other man nodded, his face an imperturbable mask.
‘That’s almost certainly the reason why the soldiers we drafted from the Fifth and Fifteenth Legions joined the mutiny. The guilt of men that have survived, expressing their anger for their comrades’ likely fate the only way they know how.’
Vocula shook his head.
‘That only explains their actions, First Spear. It doesn’t excuse them. I will have justice for Hordeonius Flaccus, and for the rampage that those bastards have visited upon the camp. If it hadn’t been for your men then I suspect we would have shared his fate, and that they would have run wild in the streets of Novaesium to boot.’
‘I can’t disagree with you, Legatus. We’re fortunate to have had the time to build a legion worthy of the name before this all started. The Twenty-second has proven loyal, for the most part, and those few men who managed to join the mutiny are being put straight by their officers even as we speak. I—’
A centurion opened the tent’s flap and looked in apologetically with another man evidently hovering close by.
‘Your pardon, Legatus, First Spear. I wouldn’t have disturbed you except that the messenger insisted on it.’
The other man pushed forward, a young tribune Vocula dimly remembered from his time in the Winter Camp, far to the south.
‘I have urgent news from the Fourth Legion, Legatus.’
Vocula held out a hand for the message container, the tribune’s evident exhaustion as much of a clue to the news contained within it as his tone.
‘And I presume it’s not good?’
The younger man shook his head.
‘No, sir. The Chatti, Usipii and Mattiaci have crossed the river in strength and are pillaging the land around the fortress. The Treveri are holding them on the borders of their own lands for the most part, but our own forces are too weak to do anything more constructive than hold the fortress. The camp prefect told me to assure you that he can hold until their food supplies run out, but that he’s powerless to intervene with only three cohorts.’
The legatus turned back to Antonius with a grim expression.
‘Perhaps a good long march is just what these mutinous bastards need to take their minds off the gold they’ll never see, now that Vespasianus and not Vitellius has the throne. And with Julius Classicus’s Nervian cavalry wing and infantry cohorts to join us, we will at least have the strength we need to deal with the problem, even if they bring complications of their own.’
They shared a moment of mutual understanding as Vocula nodded slowly.
‘It’ll have to be all three legions, of course. If we leave either the First or the Sixteenth here alone they’ll mutiny again before we’re halfway to the Winter Camp. Have my fellow legates summoned to a command meeting in one hour, enough time for me to consider our best approach to dealing with the invasion. And have the men of your first cohort ready to defend us, you and me, and the other legates too. If what we’re being told about their real intentions by our man in the Batavian camp is true, then with the Nervians back in the fold the risk to us may have increased, not lessened.’
Military encampment near Bonna, Germania Inferior, January AD 70
‘Julius Kivilaz. You’re clearly not a man who’s shy of risk, to travel so far into Roman territory to meet with us?’ Julius Classicus, prince of the Nervii tribe and prefect of the First Nervian cavalry cohort, stepped forward from the ranks of his fellow nobles and extended a hand in welcome. ‘Greetings, brother, and our welcome is e
xtended to your noble cousin.’
The Batavi prince took his hand, inclining his head in acceptance of the greeting, casting his one-eyed gaze around the fire-lit grove at the men gathered to meet him.
‘Nor are you a man to shrink from opportunity, no matter how uncertain it might be, Julius Classicus, and nor is any man here, if I am any judge of men. Evidently your appetite for danger surpasses my own, and your disdain for the risks you also run is clear, risks which, as you say, I know only too well. Risks my people have flouted in our struggle against the tyranny of Rome, bringing us to the verge of triumph – a triumph I invite you to share! Our mutual enemy’s grip on its territory north of the mountains is tenuous at best, with a scattering of desperately undermanned legions, most of whose men are disaffected by the defeat of their chosen emperor, Vitellius.’
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