Centurion

by Simon Scarrow

  Balthus paced towards the nobleman, his hand instinctively reaching to his hip before he recalled that his sword had been handed to the guards at the door. No man was permitted to carry arms in the king’s audience chamber except the king himself and his bodyguards. Krathos recoiled as Balthus fumed and stabbed a finger towards his face.

  ‘Truly, you are the son of a dog.’ He drew his head up. ‘I am loyal to my father, and I would fight and die for him at his merest word of command. Honour is my master. Gold is yours.’

  Krathos’ smug expression hardened. Cato saw his hands ball into fists, and feared the consequences of any division in the beleaguered ranks of those trapped in the citadel. Before either man could strike, the king rose to his feet and bellowed, ‘That is enough! Sit down, both of you! Now!’

  With a last glance of mutual hate, Krathos and Balthus reluctantly resumed their seats. The king glared at them for a moment before he continued, in a lower voice. Cato, who had seen him in a tired, despairing mood the night before, was surprised by the sudden power of his presence, and the firmness in his voice that spoke of the man he had been in better days.

  ‘There will be no negotiations with the rebels, let me make that clear for all of you. In any case, I know my son, Prince Artaxes. He would feel nothing but contempt for our offer to negotiate. He will not accept that Amethus is the rightful heir to my throne.’ The king’s voice wavered for a moment as he continued, ‘I had hoped that Artaxes would be his brother’s first minister, his general. He promised great things, once. Now? He is no more than a burden to torment an old man’s memory.’ The king paused and swallowed. ‘Amethus will be king, when the time comes.’

  ‘And what of me?’ asked Balthus.

  ‘You?’ The king seemed surprised. ‘When this siege is over, I am confident that you will be what you have always been: a drunken wastrel.’

  Balthus’ lips pressed together in a thin line as he gripped the arms of his chair.

  ‘That ain’t fair,’ Macro muttered softly. ‘He’s a damn good fighter.’

  ‘Quiet,’ Sempronius hissed. ‘Not another word.’

  Macro nodded, but tried to register his protest to Cato as they exchanged a glance.

  The king was still looking at his middle son. ‘If I am wrong in my judgement of you, my son, then you must prove it.’

  ‘I shall,’ Prince Balthus replied coldly. ‘Then you will eat your words.’

  Much of the audience gasped at the temerity of the prince’s remark, and the king stared at his son, brows knitted together in a deep frown. There was a tense silence, until Thermon cleared his throat and broke the spell.

  ‘Your Majesty, there is still much we have to discuss.’

  The king’s gaze flickered away from his son, and fixed irritably on his chamberlain.

  ‘The supply situation, Your Majesty?’ Thermon prompted. ‘We have to address that.’

  ‘Yes … yes, we must.’ The king eased himself back on to his chair. ‘Continue.’

  Thermon bowed his head and turned to address the others. ‘As Krathos has pointed out, our supplies will be exhausted. The garrison is already on half rations. The refugees inside the walls of the citadel are surviving, barely, on even less. Now we have more mouths to feed than ever. The question is, what can we do?’

  There was a pause as the king’s advisers considered the question. Then Balthus spoke. ‘Clear the refugees out of the citadel. Send them back into the city.’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ Thermon replied. ‘It is more than likely that they would be slaughtered by the rebels.’

  ‘My brother might spare them.’ Balthus shrugged. ‘If not, then they die either way. At least we could save their rations for the soldiers defending the citadel, and protecting the king. Unless anyone has a better idea?’ Balthus turned and looked round at his audience.

  ‘Kill the horses.’ Cato spoke out loudly.

  Balthus turned towards him and cocked his head to one side. ‘What?’

  ‘Kill the horses,’ Cato repeated. ‘They are consuming water we could put to better use, and the meat would feed the garrison and the civilians for a while yet. Maybe not until the governor arrives. But at least it would buy us some time.’

  The suggestion seemed reasonable enough to Cato, but he was suddenly aware that the Palmyran nobles were looking at him in horror. He leaned towards Sempronius. ‘What have I said?’

  ‘They tend to place rather a high value on horseflesh in this part of the world,’ Sempronius explained. ‘Some even seem to have more affection for their horses than for their wives.’

  ‘Reminds me of my father,’ Macro mused unhelpfully.

  Cato was not dissuaded. He stood up and raised his hand to quell the angry muttering amongst the Palmyran nobles. ‘If I may?’

  The king’s chamberlain nodded and rapped his staff on the ground to silence his countrymen. Cato waited until all was still before he continued, ‘This is no time for misplaced priorities. Everything depends on the citadel’s holding out for as long as possible. The horses could make the difference between survival and defeat. If we keep the horses, and they consume our supplies, then they will only hasten our defeat. They must be killed,’ Cato insisted. ‘After all, they are only animals.’

  ‘Only animals?’ Balthus shook his head. ‘To you Romans, perhaps. After all, your horses are miserable creatures. If you must kill any beasts, then let it be your own. You shall not touch mine.’

  The other nobles muttered their support for Balthus, but Cato stood his ground. ‘So you would rather feed your horses than your people? Is that it?’ He shook his head. ‘How long do you think the people will stand for it? When their children go hungry and they feel starvation gnawing at their guts, do you think for a moment that they will share your passion for fine horses? They will tear you to pieces. Or at least they would try to. And you would be forced to kill them all, for the sake of your horses. And when Prince Artaxes hears of your folly he will be sure that every man, woman and child between Syria and the Euphrates knows of it. He won’t be seen as a rebel, but as a liberator.’

  Cato paused to let his words sink in and glanced round the room, briefly meeting Macro’s gaze as his friend winked at him and nodded his approval. Cato took a deep breath to still his rapidly beating heart and continued in a calmer tone.

  ‘You must sacrifice the horses, or you will lose everything. But there’s another reason why they must be killed. It will be a clear signal to everyone in the citadel that there will be no escape, no attempt to break out and ride to safety. We will fight on, together, until Cassius Longinus arrives, or we will die, together, defending the citadel.’

  Cato eased himself back down on to his chair and crossed his arms. Macro nudged him and muttered, ‘Nice job. Too nice, actually. You aren’t thinking of chucking in soldiering and taking up law when we get back to Rome, I hope.’

  ‘That was low, even for you, Macro.’

  Sempronius was surveying the response around the hall to Cato’s brief address, and he nodded with satisfaction before turning to the young officer. ‘I think you might have won them round, Prefect. A crude appeal to reason, and fear, and rather lacking in rhetorical flourishes. But it worked well enough.’ He looked closely at Cato for a moment, appraising him. ‘There’s more to you than I thought. If we survive this, you’ll go far.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ Cato muttered. ‘The further from here the better.’

  The king beckoned to his chamberlain and they conferred quietly for a moment and then Vabathus leaned back in his chair, grim-faced, as Thermon spread his arms to attract the nobles’ gaze.

  ‘My lords! The king commands your attention! Quiet there.’

  When the chamber had settled down once more, the king drew himself up and cleared his throat. ‘It is my will that every horse in the citadel is to be slaughtered at once. There are to be no exceptions in this. All of you will surrender your horses to the commander of the royal bodyguard. Even you, Balthus.’
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br />   ‘Really?’ Balthus smiled humourlessly. ‘And what of the mounts in your stable, Your Majesty?’

  ‘They will be the first to be killed.’ The king gestured towards Cato. ‘The Roman officer is right. We are all in this together. There is only one fate for every person in the citadel. And if Artaxes does get to hear of it then he will know that we are resolved to defeat him, or die in the attempt. That is my command. Now, the audience is over.’

  Thermon’s staff thudded down. ‘All rise for the king!’

  A handful of chairs scraped as the nobles and the Romans stood up and bowed their heads. King Vabathus rose and made his way across the chamber to a small doorway in one corner, and disappeared from sight. Thermon waited a moment longer, and then turned to the others and gave them permission to leave. The Palmyran nobles talked in hushed, bitter tones as they filed out of the hall, until only the three Romans and the supporters of Prince Amethus remained, standing behind the prince. Krathos glared at Cato.

  ‘We could have negotiated with the rebels. We could have saved many lives.’ He smiled thinly. ‘We could even have spared the horses Prince Balthus cherishes so much. But now? Now you have persuaded the king to fight and we are all doomed. I hope you are satisfied, Roman.’

  Cato stood stiffly and did not respond. For a moment there was a tense silence, and then Krathos sniffed with derision and turned to Prince Amethus. ‘We should leave.’

  Amethus nodded vaguely and rose to his feet. Krathos gestured towards the door and the prince walked away, trailed by Krathos and the rest of his small retinue.

  ‘Don’t worry about Krathos,’ Sempronius said softly. ‘He has little influence over the king, or even within the court for that matter. But his power over Amethus is a different matter.’

  ‘I’m not worried about him,’ Cato replied calmly. ‘It’s his brother who poses the real danger to us.’

  ‘Prince Artaxes?’ Sempronius raised his eyebrows. ‘Of course.’

  ‘No, not him,’ Cato continued. ‘Prince Balthus. Come what may, he will never forgive me for coming between him and his father. I fear we have just made a new enemy.’

  ‘Really?’ Macro shrugged. ‘Right now, what’s one more or less? Besides,’ he licked his lips, ‘it seems that fresh meat is back on the menu.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The slaughter of the horses began shortly afterwards, beginning with those of the royal stable, just as King Vabathus had commanded. The animals were held in place by strong men holding stout leather traces. Then the butcher from the king’s kitchens cut the animals’ throats, collecting the blood in wide wooden tubs to be saved as a thickening agent for the gruel that was cooked each day for the civilian refugees. The carcasses were quickly gutted and the inedible organs were carted away to be dumped over the side of the wall, downwind of the bulk of the citadel. The bodies were efficiently flayed and then the meat was cut from the bones ready to be packed into the massive brine-filled jars that had been prepared in the cellars beneath the royal quarters. Anything else that could be boiled down for stock was carried off to the pots steaming over the cooking fires in the barracks of the royal bodyguard.

  Cato and Macro spent the day seeing to the accommodation of their men and drawing up duty rosters and inventories of their remaining equipment. All the time the air was thick with the whinnying of terrified horses, and the stench of cooking horsemeat filled their nostrils to such an extent that Macro had almost gone off the idea of fresh meat by the end of the day. Almost. When the duty orderly brought the two officers a tough piece of grilled horse meat and a jar of watered wine to share, Macro quickly forgot his complaints about the smell and tucked in eagerly, cutting a hunk off for Cato to eat. They shared one of the small tack rooms in the king’s stables. The scent of the previous occupants still lent a sharp tang to the air. The rest of the auxiliaries and legionaries occupied the stables and courtyard and most of the men were already asleep, after being pushed to the limit in the last few days.

  ‘Good idea of yours, this,’ Macro managed to say as he chewed on the meat. ‘I was getting a bit sick of hard bread and tack.’

  Cato had pulled out his dagger and was busy cutting small strips off his portion. ‘Maybe. But I doubt it has won me many friends amongst the nobles.’

  ‘Bollocks to ’em. You were right. If they can’t see beyond their bloody possessions to what’s really important then they don’t deserve them.’ Macro chuckled. ‘But the expression on their faces was priceless. What I wouldn’t give to see that again!’

  He continued chewing for a moment before he looked at Cato and spoke again. ‘That was quite a performance, by the way.’

  Cato shrugged. ‘I said what needed saying, that’s all.’

  ‘I know, but it’s the way you said it that counted. I could never have managed it,’ Macro said quietly. He felt a stab of pain at the recognition of this fragment of inferiority. He did not have the same facility with language as his young friend, and never would have, he realised. Despite being a good soldier, Macro doubted that he would ever be promoted to a senior command. In his heart, like most men of the region, he harboured the ambition of one day becoming a chief centurion – the primus pilus. Very few men ever attained that rank. Most had been killed or injured and discharged long before they became eligible for the position. Even then, only those men with spotless records and a chestful of bravery awards would be considered. Macro reflected sourly on the last two years which he and Cato had spent performing special duties for Narcissus. The secret nature of the work meant that they would never be rewarded publicly for the dangers they had faced in the service of Rome. Vital though the missions had been, they would count for nothing when he and Cato returned to service in the legions.

  Until then, Macro would have to make the most of his temporary command and hope that his good service would be entered on his record. That was his only path to preferment, he reflected. Cato, on the other hand, with his brains, was bound to be plucked from the ranks of the centurionate and appointed to permanent command of one of the more prestigious auxiliary cohorts. That would mean entry into the ranks of the equites, Rome’s second tier of aristocracy, and Cato’s heirs, if he lived long enough to have any, would be eligible for the senate. A giddy prospect indeed, Macro acknowledged as he watched Cato guardedly. It occurred to him that one day his friend would outrank him. The thought startled him, and for a moment he was pricked by resentment. Then he shook the feeling off, angry at himself for letting such an unworthy sentiment enter his head.

  ‘Anyway,’ Cato picked up a small piece of the meat and popped it in his mouth, ‘it’s not important now. What matters is making sure that we hold out until Longinus reaches Palmyra. If he takes longer than we expect then killing the horses won’t be enough. We’ll have to do what Balthus suggested.’

  Macro paused a moment to recollect, then raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah, you mean pitch the civilians out of the citadel.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s harsh, coming from you, lad.’

  ‘What else can we do?’ Cato sighed wearily. ‘If we let them stay in the citadel and are starved into surrender then Palmyra will fall under the control of Parthia. The Emperor won’t allow that, so there’ll be a war, in which case tens of thousands will die. If we have to sacrifice the civilians here, then it may be justified in the long run.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Macro responded. ‘But there’s a more immediate issue you might consider.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Let’s not forget what Prince Artaxes has in store for us, if he takes the citadel.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

  Macro shrugged. ‘If it comes down to a choice between the civilians and us, well, there’s no choice in my book.’

  Cato did not reply. He was still thinking about the threat to massacre all the Romans found inside the citadel. That would include the ambassador’s daughter, Julia – though not before she was handed over to Artaxes’ soldiers to use as they wished. He fe
lt anger rise up in him at the prospect, and there it was again, that thrill of affection, like a warm ache in his heart. Cato reached for the jug and took several mouthfuls. Macro watched him in amusement.

  ‘You drink as if you’ve only just discovered wine.’

  Cato lowered the jug. ‘I needed that. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘And then some.’ Macro laughed. ‘Ever the one for understatement, aren’t you?’

  Cato joined in the laughter and for a moment the strain of recent days lifted from his shoulders and he was glad that he would be at Macro’s side in the struggle to come. Whatever the odds, whatever the likelihood of defeat and death, somehow Macro had always managed to make Cato feel that they would come through the ordeal alive.

  He rose up and stretched his shoulders with a weary grunt.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ Macro asked.

  Cato nodded. ‘One last walk round the sentry posts before I turn in. That’s all.’

  ‘Make sure it is. You need the rest, lad. We all do.’

  ‘Who are you, my mother?’

  ‘No. Just your commanding officer. And I order you to get a good night’s sleep.’

  Cato smiled and made an exaggerated salute. ‘Yes, sir!’

  He left the stables and climbed up on to the battlements. Tonight it was the turn of the Second Illyrian to provide the watch and Cato went from post to post to make sure that his men were awake and keeping a close eye on the enemy. The sentries were as tired as the rest of the men, but they well knew the penalty for sleeping on duty – death by stoning – and kept moving, steadily marching up and down the stretch of wall that had been allocated to them. When he had checked the last of his men and was happy that the duty centurion had properly prepared the passwords and changes of the watch, Cato climbed up into the beacon tower to have a last look out over the city before he made his way to his bed and a desperately needed sleep.