Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5)

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘I won’t remove the Senate,’ Octavian said, frowning. ‘Even Julius Caesar kept them on, with all his influence and power. The people won’t welcome us so readily if we set about dismantling the Republic in front of them. If I make myself a dictator, it will force them together to act against me.’

  ‘You should consider it even so,’ Maecenas said. ‘Take command of the legions one by one as they come in. You have the name and the right to do it.’ He refilled their cups and almost as one they all drank the sour wine. Maecenas saw the two legates exchange a worried glance and spoke again.

  ‘The Senate will know they only have to hold on for a few weeks before you are faced with loyal legions at the walls. If you don’t execute some of them, they will be deciding your fate before the end of the month. You said you wanted to see the Liberatores brought down? It may not be possible to lay hands on them within the law, not when the Senate have made those laws. Perhaps you could demand the least of them to be turned over into your custody. Hold a trial for them in the forum and let the Senate see that you understand dignity and tradition.’

  ‘There’s only Gaius Trebonius and Suetonius left in Rome, I think,’ Octavian said slowly. ‘Trebonius did not even wield a blade with the rest. I could take them both by force. But that will not bring me the others, especially those who have been given powerful posts. It will not bring me Cassius or Brutus. All I need is a renunciation of the amnesty and then they can all be brought to trial.’

  Maecenas shook his head. ‘Then you must be willing to cut a few throats, or at least threaten to do so without bluffing.’

  Octavian brought his knuckles up to his eyes, pressing out the weariness.

  ‘I will find a way, when I have slept.’

  He rose from the table, stifling another yawn that spread quickly around the table. Almost as an afterthought, Octavian looked towards the doorway where he had left Gracchus. It was empty. The lamplight lit only the gentle drizzle coming down through the air of the forum.

  Pompey’s theatre was at its best at night. The huge semicircles of stone seats were lit by hundreds of lamps swinging high above. Servants had climbed ladders to reach the larger bowls of oil that flickered above the stage itself, creating conflicting shadows that moved in gold and black.

  In the absence of Mark Antony, four men stood to face the others and direct the debate. Bibilus and Suetonius had the least right to do so, though Bibilus had been a consul years before. Senators Hirtius and Pansa were not due to take up their consular posts until the new year, but the emergency required the most senior men to put aside differences and they had the attention of the Senate that night. All four had discovered that the position facing the benches gave their voices a new power and resonance and they relished being able to quell discussion with just a sharp word.

  ‘Consul Mark Antony is not the issue,’ Hirtius said for the second time. ‘Fast messengers are on their way to him and there is nothing more we can do until he has returned. There is no point debating whether he will be successful in punishing the mutinous behaviour at Brundisium. If he has sense, he will have them marching without delay and leave their decimation as a condition of their success in relieving us here.’

  Several senators stood up and Hirtius picked a man that he knew would at least add something useful instead of raging pointlessly about factors they could not influence.

  ‘Senator Calvus has the floor,’ Hirtius said, gesturing to him. The others sat down on the curving benches, though many of them talked among themselves.

  ‘Thank you,’ Senator Calvus said, staring grimly at two men talking close to him until they broke off in embarrassment. ‘I wished only to remind the Senate that Ostia is closer than the legions at Brundisium. Are there forces there which can be brought in?’

  It was Bibilus who cleared his throat to reply. Senator Hirtius nodded to him out of courtesy.

  ‘In normal times there would be at least a full legion at Ostia. Until two months ago, that legion was the Eighth Gemina, one of the two currently infesting the forum. Caesar’s campaign against Parthia brought in legions from as far away as Macedonia, ready to join the fleet. Ostia has no more than a few hundred soldiers and administrators at the port, perhaps as many again in retired men. It is not enough to scrape these invaders out of the city, even if we could be certain they would remain loyal to us.’

  Angry voices answered him and Bibilus wiped sweat from his brow. He had not sat a single day in the Senate until Caesar’s death and he was still not accustomed to the sheer noise and energy of the debates.

  Senator Calvus had remained on his feet and Bibilus gave way to him, sitting down with a thump on a heavy bench dragged to the front for that purpose.

  ‘The question of loyalty lies at the heart of the problem facing us tonight,’ Calvus said. ‘Our main hopes rest with the legions of Brundisium. Yet the consul has gone not to forgive them, but to exact punishment. If he has not suppressed their treachery, we have no other way to bring them back to Rome. It is possible that this adopted son of Caesar knows full well that there will be no help coming from the east. His tactic has all the marks of a wild gamble, unless he knows the Brundisium legions will not come.’ The noise around him had risen and he spoke louder. ‘Please, gentlemen, point out the flaws in what I have said, if they are clearer to you than to me.’

  Three more senators rose immediately to reply and Calvus ignored them rather than be forced to sit through the interruptions.

  ‘It is my feeling that it would be unwise to rest all our hopes on consul Mark Antony. I propose we send messages to legions in Gaul to come south. Decimus Junius has a few thousand men close by the Alps …’

  From the stage, Suetonius broke in, speaking easily over Calvus.

  ‘They would take weeks to get to Rome. However this is resolved, Senator, it will be over long before they could arrive. Is there nothing closer? Given months, we could bring in legions from half the world, but who knows what will have happened by then?’

  ‘Thank you, Senator Suetonius,’ Hirtius said, his voice cold enough for Suetonius to glance at him and subside. ‘Senator Calvus has raised a valid point. Though there are no other legions within a day’s march of the city, there are two in Sicily, two more in Sardinia that could be ordered home by ship. If the Senate agree, I will send riders to Ostia to bring them in. In two or three weeks at most, there can be four legions here at full strength.’

  A rumble of agreement echoed around the theatre and the vote was passed quickly and without dissent. Senator Hirtius summoned a runner while the debate went on and pressed his ring to orders that would be carried west. When he was finished, he listened for a time and then addressed them all.

  ‘It is almost dawn, senators. I suggest you return to your homes and guards to get some sleep. We will meet again … at noon? Noon it is. No doubt by then we will have heard more from this new Caesar.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mark Antony was in a foul mood as his legions marched north, snapping at anyone foolish enough to address him. The Via Appia was a wonder: six paces wide and well drained for hundreds of miles. Only on such a smooth surface could the legions make twenty to thirty miles a day, the legionaries counting off each milestone as they reached it. The problem was that he had not intended to go anywhere near Rome. One dusty and exhausted messenger from the Senate had changed all his plans.

  Mark Antony stared into the distance, as if he could see the Senate waiting for his triumphant return. He felt them there, like a nest of spiders twitching threads that ran under his feet. He shook his head free of the image, still struggling with sheer disbelief. Octavian had to be insane to have attempted such a rash move! What was the boy thinking? The anger he had caused was there to be read in the Senate orders. Bibilus, Hirtius and Pansa had sealed it with the Senate symbol, the visible sign of their authority over all legions. Mark Antony was ordered back with all speed and one purpose – to destroy the upstart in the forum.

  The men ahead bega
n to cheer and Mark Antony dug in his heels and trotted forward to see what had pleased them. The road had been rising gently for most of the morning, cutting through chalk hills in great clefts that represented years of labour. He knew before he saw it, catching a hint of salt on the cool breeze. The Mare Tyrrhenum came into sight at the head of the column, a dark blue vastness on his left shoulder. It meant Rome was no more than a hundred miles further along the road and he would have to decide soon where to rest the men and let the camp followers catch up.

  The cheering rippled oddly down the lines of marching men, as each century caught the same view and hollered out for good luck, proud of the pace they had set. Mark Antony drew his mount aside for a time, watching them pass and nodding with stern satisfaction to anyone who sought out his gaze. He had not told them yet that they were going home.

  Mark Antony thought in frowning silence, weighing the problems before him. Two full legions had broken their oaths and mutinied for a boy who called himself Caesar. If the name had that sort of effect, he could not trust that the Senate would be able to contain him. All Mark Antony’s instincts told him to strike north, to continue with his original plans against Decimus Junius. The legions of Brundisium had refused to answer orders once already. They’d come close to cutting Mark Antony to pieces when they thought he was one of those who had sanctioned Caesar’s murder. What would they do when they discovered he had been ordered to attack the man’s heir? Gods, it was impossible! The far north under Decimus Junius was ripe for plucking and he had the forces to do it. Yet he dared not leave Octavian with two legions answering to him. The real Caesar had achieved much with fewer men.

  He looked back down the marching ranks, taking solace from the sight of thirty thousand soldiers. If they kept discipline, he knew he could force Octavian to surrender. Let the Senate worry about what to do with him after that, he thought. While men like Bibilus debated his fate, there would be no one watching Mark Antony. He could still take the legions north.

  The walls of Rome were not as high as many of the buildings they contained. Even at night, looking inward, the dark masses of tenement blocks rose above the three men standing on the stone walkway above a gate. The poorest families lived as high as six or even seven storeys up, without running water and in the unhappy knowledge that they could not possibly escape a fire. To Octavian, the gleam of oil lamps at their open windows seemed like low stars in the distance, too high to be part of the city at his feet.

  Agrippa and Maecenas leaned against the inner part of the wall. The city itself had not been threatened since the slave army of Spartacus, but the defences were still maintained, with an entire network of support buildings and access steps. In more normal times, it would be one of the duties of city guards to walk the walls, more often to remove gangs of children or pairs of young lovers than because of any threat to the city. Yet such mundane tasks had been ignored since the legions occupied the forum and the entire city waited in fear for the tension to break. The three friends were alone, with the empty walkway stretching in both directions. Even so, they kept their voices low, constantly aware that the Senate would love to overhear what they planned.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about Silva and Paulinius,’ Agrippa said. ‘They won’t change their loyalties again, no matter what the senators promise or threaten. It would cost them too much – the gods alone know what sort of punishment the Senate would impose. Execution of the senior ranks at the very least. Their lives are bound up with ours, as things stand.’

  Octavian looked at him, nodding. The moon was approaching full and the stars were bright enough to wash the city in pale light. He felt exposed on the wall, but he had to admit it was more private than anywhere else. Idly, he kicked a small stone off the sandy surface, watching it vanish into the darkness below.

  ‘I’m not worried about their loyalty. What worries me is what we are going to do when the consul comes back from Brundisium with six legions.’

  Agrippa looked away, reluctant to say what he had been thinking during the days of negotiation with the Senate. There had been a sense of progress before that afternoon, when the messenger to Mark Antony made it back to Rome. In just an hour, the Senate had regained some of their wavering confidence and the news of returning legions had spread across an already fearful city. Agrippa kicked irritably at a loose stone. The meeting on the wall was not to discuss how to turn the negotiations into a triumph, but how to prevent destruction and dishonour.

  Maecenas cleared his throat, leaning back against the wall as he regarded both men.

  ‘So, gentlemen, we are in a difficult spot. Tell me if I have it wrong, won’t you? If we do nothing, we have the Senate’s legions just a few days’ march away. We don’t have enough men to hold the walls, not for long. If we use the time left to execute Gaius Trebonius, Suetonius, perhaps Bibilus and a few others, we will only anger the consul further and make him even less willing to keep us alive. You will not abandon the legions here and run for the hills …?’

  ‘No,’ Octavian muttered.

  Maecenas blew out air, disappointed.

  ‘Then I think we are going to be killed in a few days and our heads put on this wall as a warning to others. At least, well, at least there is a view.’

  ‘There has to be a way out of this!’ Octavian said. ‘If I could make those whoreson senators grant me just one concession, I could withdraw the legions in something that would not be utter defeat.’

  ‘As soon as they understood you weren’t going to have them dragged out and slaughtered, they knew they had won,’ Maecenas went on. ‘There is still time for that, at least. You’ll get your concession – your Lex Curiata, say – then we can withdraw to somewhere Mark Antony won’t feel stung into attacking. Remaining in the forum is the problem. He has to respond to that!’

  Octavian shook his head without reply. They had discussed it many times, but it was a line he would not cross. In his desperation, he had considered a few judicious murders, but such an action would destroy how he was seen in the city. If he ever faced the Liberatores in the field, it would be very different, but his entire position rested on him being a champion for the old Republic and the rule of law. Even Caesar had kept the Senate benches filled and refused to call himself a king. Octavian hawked phlegm into his throat and spat out his irritation. The amnesty could be overturned, he was certain, but he had not yet found the lever he needed to do it.

  ‘You haven’t tried bribery yet,’ Agrippa said, making them both turn towards him. In the moonlight, he shrugged. ‘What? You said you’d listen to anything.’

  ‘They think they have only to wait to see us crumple and fail,’ Octavian said, bitterness flooding his voice. ‘There’s nothing I can offer them that they won’t think they can have anyway when I am dead.’

  Maecenas moved off the wall, looking up at the bright moon. After a time, he nodded.

  ‘Then we’re done. You can’t stay for a pointless gesture that will see us all killed and two legions destroyed. All you can do is march the men out of Rome and put this down to experience. It’s a loss, but you’ll learn from it if you survive.’

  Octavian opened his mouth, but despair stole away any words. He could not shake the feeling that Caesar would see a way through. It was partly an echo of that man that had pushed him into occupying the forum in the first place, but since that day, nothing had worked out the way he’d hoped.

  Agrippa saw the desolation in his friend and spoke, his deep voice rumbling.

  ‘You know, Caesar lost his first battle in the civil war. He was captured not too far from this gate and held for torture. He lost everything, his uncle, his position, his wealth, everything. It is not the end to fail and move on, is it? As long as you are alive, you can begin again.’

  ‘I have two legions in the centre of Rome and for the next few days, no one is close enough to stop me,’ Octavian snapped suddenly. ‘There must be some choices left. There must be!’

  ‘Only the ones you won’t consider,
’ Maecenas replied. ‘At least let me send a century to take Suetonius. I could do it tonight, Octavian, while the pompous little shit is asleep. What does it matter now to talk of trials and formal execution? You don’t have the power for such things, not today. But you can do that much.’

  Octavian looked south, to where the Via Appia stretched into the distance. It would not be too long before the consul’s legions came marching up that wide road. He could see them in his mind’s eye, bringing an end to all his hopes.

  ‘No,’ he said, his fists clenched. ‘I’ve told you. They are the ones who plotted and moved in secret. They are the murderers. If I am not the defender of the Republic, if I show so little respect for the law that I can butcher a senator in his house, I have no standing at all, no call on the people of Rome.’ He made a bitter decision, weighed down by impossible choices. ‘Get the legions ready to march. We have a few days still. Perhaps I can wring something from those theatre fools by then.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  On the Via Appia, entire villages had sprung up to service and care for travellers. All along its length, it was possible to purchase anything from glass, jewellery and woven cloth, to hot food and even horses.

  The Brundisium legions marched past all the usual stopping places, pushed to their best possible pace by the strange urgency that had obsessed Mark Antony. On a good road, they could manage thirty miles if the need was great, though he began to lose men to sprains and exhaustion. For once, those with obviously bloody feet or swollen knees and ankles were not punished further. One or two lucky members of their century remained to watch over groups of ten or a dozen at whichever roadhouse was closest. With Rome almost in sight, they would catch up quickly, or lose skin off their backs.