The Emperor Series: Books 1-5

by Conn Iggulden

  He was a typical product of the back alleys of Rome. Too cunning to be interested in the legions and too vicious for any sort of normal work. Alexandria realised she could smell him, an unwashed stale reek that made her want to take a step back. The man grinned at her, revealing dark yellow teeth in shrivelled gums. He didn’t have to go on for her to know he was one of the raptores who clustered under Clodius or Milo. The shop owners in the area told terrible tales of their threats and violence and Alexandria found herself hoping Teddus would not provoke them. The leering menace of the men made her face the truth that her guard was just too old for this sort of work.

  ‘We’re closed,’ Tabbic said behind her.

  Alexandria heard a faint clink as he picked up some sort of tool. She didn’t look round, but the eyes of the intruders fastened on him. The leader snorted contemptuously.

  ‘Not to us, old man. Unless you want to be closed to everyone else,’ he said.

  Alexandria hated him for his knowing arrogance. He built and made nothing, but still seemed to think he had the right to enter the shops and homes of hard-working people and make them afraid.

  ‘What do you want?’ Tabbic asked.

  The leader of the three scratched his neck and examined what he found there before cracking something dark between his nails.

  ‘I want your tithe, old man. This street isn’t safe unless you pay your tithe. Eighty sesterces a month and nothing will happen. No one will be beaten as they walk home. Nothing valuable will be burnt.’ He paused and winked at Alexandria. ‘No one will be dragged into an alleyway and raped. We’ll keep you safe.’

  ‘You filth!’ Tabbic shouted. ‘How dare you come into my shop with your threats? Get out now, or I will call the guards. Take your grinning friends with you!’

  The three men looked bored at the outburst.

  ‘Come on, old man,’ the first said, rolling his massive shoulders. ‘See what I’ll give you if you don’t put that hammer down. Or perhaps the lad? I’ll do him here in front of you, if you want. Either way, I’m not leaving until I have your first month’s payment. Clodius don’t like those who make a fuss and this street is his now. Better just to pay what you owe and be left in peace.’ He chuckled and the sound made Alexandria shudder. ‘The trick is not to think of it as your money. It’s just another city tax.’

  ‘I pay my taxes!’ Tabbic roared. He waved a heavy hammer in the man’s direction, making him flinch. The other two behind him shuffled in closer and Alexandria could see knives in their belts.

  Teddus drew his short gladius in one sweeping movement and the atmosphere in the shop changed. All three of the men produced their knives, but Teddus held the sword with a wrist stronger than his lame leg. Alexandria could see the irritation in the leader’s face. None of them looked round as Teddus’ son drew his own dagger and held it. The younger man was nothing like the threat of his father and the leader of the raptores knew it. More importantly, he knew he would either have to kill the swordsman or leave.

  ‘I won’t warn you, whoreson. Get out,’ Teddus said slowly, looking the leader in the eye.

  The leader of the raptores lunged his head forward and back in a sudden spasm like a fighting cock. Teddus moved, but the man guffawed, his coarse laughter filling the shop.

  ‘Bit slow, aren’t you? I could take you here, but why should I bother when it’s so much easier to wait for you in the dark?’ He ignored Teddus then and looked back at Tabbic, still standing with his hammer raised to one shoulder.

  ‘Eighty sesterces on the first of each month. First payment by the end of today. It’s just business, you old fool. Will I take it with me now, or shall I come back for you one at a time?’

  Once again, he winked at Alexandria and she recoiled from the knowledge in that glance.

  ‘No. I’ll pay you. Then when you’re gone, I’ll tell the guards and see you cut.’

  Tabbic reached into his cloak and the chink of coins made the three men smile. The leader tutted aloud.

  ‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘I have friends, me. Lots of friends who would be angry if I was taken out to the Campus and shown the butcher’s knife. Your wife and children would be very sorry if my friends were angry about something like that.’

  Deftly, he caught the thrown pouch of coins, counting them quickly before placing it inside his grubby tunic next to the skin. He chuckled at their expressions and spat a wad of dark phlegm onto the tiled floor.

  ‘That’s the way. I hope business is good, old man. I’ll see you next month.’

  The three of them opened the door, leaning into the wind that came rushing into the shop. They left it open behind them and disappeared into the dark streets. Teddus walked over and shoved it closed, pulling down the locking bar. Tabbic did indeed look like an old man as he turned away from Alexandria, unable to meet her gaze. He was pale and shaking as he laid the hammer down on the bench and picked up his long brush. He began to sweep the clean floor in slow strokes.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Alexandria demanded.

  For a long time, Tabbic remained silent until she wanted to shout the question at him and break the stillness.

  ‘What can we do?’ he said at last. ‘I won’t risk my family for anything.’

  ‘We can shut the shop until the new place is ready. It’s halfway across the city, Tabbic. In a better area. It will be different there.’

  Despair and weariness showed in Tabbic’s face.

  ‘No. That bastard didn’t say anything about whether the shop was open or closed. He’ll still want his money if we don’t sell a single piece.’

  ‘Just for a month, then. Until we close up and get out,’ she said, wanting to see some spark of life break his stunned misery.

  Tabbic hated thieves. Handing over coins he had worked days for hurt him more deeply than a physical pain. His hands shook with reaction as he changed his grip on the broom. Then he looked up at her.

  ‘There is nowhere else, girl. Don’t you know that? I’m just surprised they haven’t been to us earlier. You remember little Geranas?’

  Alexandria nodded. The man had been a jeweller longer even than Tabbic and produced beautiful work in gold.

  ‘They used a hammer on his right hand when he wouldn’t pay. Can you believe that? He can’t earn with the mess they made of him, but they don’t care about that. They just want the story to spread, so men like me will just meekly give up what we worked so hard for.’ He stopped then, tightening his grip on the broom until it snapped loudly.

  ‘Better lay out your tools, Alexandria. We have three pieces to finish today.’

  His voice was hard and flat and Tabbic made no move to continue the morning routine as the shop was readied for customers.

  ‘I have friends, Tabbic,’ Alexandria said. ‘Julius and Brutus may be away, but Crassus knows me. I can try to bring pressure on them. It must be better than doing nothing.’

  Tabbic’s grim expression didn’t change. ‘You do that. It can’t hurt,’ he said.

  Teddus sighed, sheathing his sword at last.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.

  Tabbic heard him. ‘Don’t be. That cocky bastard didn’t like the look of you, for all his words.’

  ‘Why did you pay him then?’ Alexandria asked him.

  Tabbic snorted. ‘Because your man would have killed him and they’d have come back to burn us out. They can’t let even one of us win, girl, or the rest stop paying.’

  He turned to Teddus and clapped his big hand on the man’s shoulder, ignoring his embarrassment.

  ‘You did well enough, though I’d find a man to replace your son, you understand me? You need a killer for your kind of work. Now I’ll give you a hot drink against the cold and a bite to eat before you go on your way, but I want you here in plenty of time tonight, understand?’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Teddus promised, glancing at his son’s flushed face.

  Tabbic looked him in the eye and nodded, satisfied.

  ‘You’re a
good man,’ he said. ‘I just wish courage was all it took.’

  Brutus examined the cracked glass of the water clock. Even with fur gloves, his fingers were numb with cold. All he wanted was to go back to his barracks and wrap himself up like a hibernating bear. Yet the routines of the legions had to continue. Though the cold ate into the men worse than anything they had ever known, the legion watches had to be marked by the three-hour trickle of water from one glass bowl into another. Brutus swore softly to himself as his touch removed a piece of the glass, which fell with a thud into the snow. He rubbed the growth of beard that covered his face. Julius had seen the benefit of suspending shaving in the cold months, but Brutus found the moisture of his breath would crust into ice after only an hour outside.

  ‘The shelters aren’t working. We’ll have to light fires under them. Just enough to keep the water from freezing. You have my permission to take a few billets of wood from the supply for each one. The sentries can keep it going during their watch. They’ll be glad of the heat, I should think. Have the smiths make you an iron sheath to protect the glass and wood from the flames, or you’ll boil half of it away.’

  ‘I will, sir. Thank you,’ the tesserarius replied, relieved he was not to be criticised. Privately, Brutus thought the man was an idiot not to have thought of it and the result was the destruction of the only way the Tenth had to fix the length of a watch.

  The soldiers of Rome had finally understood why the tribes did not go to war in winter. The first snow had fallen heavily enough to break the roof of the barracks, turning the snug bunks into a chaos of wind and ice. The following day had seen the drifts made deeper and after a month Brutus could barely remember what it felt like to be warm. Though they lit huge fires below the walls each night, the heat reached only a few feet, blown away on the endless wind. He had seen ice floes the size of carts on the Rhine and sometimes the snow fell so heavily as to make a shifting crust from one bank to the other. He wondered if the river would freeze solid before spring.

  They seemed to spend their entire day in darkness. Julius had kept the men working as long as he could, but frozen hands slipped and a rash of injuries forced Julius to suspend the building as he came to terms with the winter at last.

  Brutus passed on through the camp, his feet skidding painfully on the iced ruts left by the baggage trains. Denied grazing, they had been forced to slaughter most of the oxen, unable to afford the grain from the legion supplies. At least the meat stayed fresh, Brutus thought grimly. His glance strayed to the pile of carcasses under a dusting of snow. The meat was as hard as stone, like everything else in the country.

  Brutus climbed the earthen wall of the camp and peered out into the greyness. Soft flakes touched him on the cheek and did not melt against his cold skin. He could see nothing out there but the stumps of the first trees they had felled and dragged back to be burnt for warmth.

  The forest had at least protected them from the wind while it lasted. They knew now that they should have kept the closest trees to be cut last, but nothing the Romans had ever seen could have prepared them for the ferocity of that first winter. It was a killing cold.

  Brutus knew many of the men were not well supplied with warm clothing. Those who had been given oxhides greased them daily, but they still became like iron. The going rate for a pair of fur gloves was more than a month’s pay and that was rising as every hare and fox for a hundred miles was killed and brought in by the trappers.

  At least the legions had been paid at last. Julius had captured enough silver and gold from Ariovistus to issue three months of back salary to each man. In Rome, it would have run through their fingers on whores and wine, but here there was little to do with it but gamble and many of the men had been returned to poverty only a few days after their share had been handed out. The more responsible ones sent part of their pay back to relatives and dependants in Rome.

  Brutus envied those who had been sent back across the Alps to Ariminum before the passes had closed. It was a gesture that had pleased the men, though Brutus had known it was made out of necessity. In such a harsh winter, just staying alive was difficult enough. The warriors of the Suebi who had survived the battle could not be guarded for so many dark months. Better to sell them as gladiators and house guards, splitting them apart and retraining them. With the tradition that the proceeds of fighting slaves went to the legionaries, the Suebi would bring at least a gold coin to each man who had fought them.

  The wind gusted harder along the wall and Brutus began to count to five hundred in his head, forcing himself to stay at least that long. Those who had to stand a watch up there were in a world of grey misery and they needed to see him bear it with them.

  He pulled his cloak closer around his chest, wincing with each breath that bit at his throat until he wished it was as numb as the rest of him. Cabera had warned him about the danger and he wore two pairs of woollen socks under his sandals, though they seemed to make no difference at all. Eighteen men had lost toes or fingers since the first snow and without Cabera it would have been more. All those had been in the first few weeks, before the men learned to respect the cold. Brutus had seen one of the shrivelled black lumps clipped off with a hoof tool and the strangest thing had been the passive look on the legionary’s face. Even with jaws of iron snipping through his bone, he had felt no pain.

  The closest legionary was like a statue and as Brutus shuffled closer to him, he saw that the man’s eyes were closed, his face pale and bruised-looking under a straggling beard. The penalty for falling asleep on watch was death, but Brutus clapped the man on his back in a greeting, pretending not to notice the spasm of fear as the eyes snapped open, immediately narrowing against the wind.

  ‘Where are your gloves, lad?’ Brutus asked, seeing the cramped blue fingers as the soldier pulled them out from his tunic and stood to attention.

  ‘I lost them, sir,’ he replied.

  Brutus nodded. No doubt the man was as good a gambler as he was a sentry.

  ‘You’ll lose your hands too if you don’t keep warm. Take mine. I have another pair.’ Brutus watched as the young legionary tried to pull them on. He couldn’t do it and after a brief struggle, one of them fell. Brutus picked it up and worked them over the man’s frozen fingers. He hoped it was not too late. On impulse, he undid the clasp of his fur-lined cloak and wrapped it around the young soldier, trying not to wince as the wind seemed to bite every part of his exposed body, despite the under-layers. His teeth began to chatter and Brutus bit down hard to quieten them.

  ‘Please, sir, I can’t take your cloak,’ the sentry said.

  ‘It’ll keep you warm enough to finish your watch, lad. Then you might choose to give it to the next one up in your place. I’ll leave that to you.’

  ‘I will, sir. Thank you.’

  Brutus watched as the first tinges of colour began to return to the soldier’s cheeks before he was satisfied. For some reason, he felt surprisingly cheerful as he made his way down. The fact that he had completed his tour of the camp was part of it, of course. A hot beef stew and a bed warmed with heated bricks would help him bear the loss of his only cloak and gloves. He hoped he would be as cheerful the next night when he had to walk the camp without them.

  Julius pulled an iron poker from the fire and plunged it into two cups of wine. Shredded cloves sizzled on the surface and steam curled upwards as he placed the iron back into the flames and offered a cup to Mhorbaine.

  Looking around him, Julius could almost believe in the permanence of the new buildings. Even in the short time before the first snows of winter, his legions had extended the road from the Roman province in the south to within almost five miles of the new camps. The trees they had felled became the structures of new barracks and Julius had been pleased with their progress until the winter struck in a single night and the following morning a sentry had been found frozen to death on the wall. Their quarry work had been abandoned and the pace of their lives had changed as all attempts to make a permanent link to
the south were turned into a more basic struggle for survival.

  Even in the midst of it, Julius had used the time. The Aedui were old hands at dealing with the bitter winters and he employed them as messengers to as many tribes as they knew. At the last count, Julius had made alliances with nine of them and claimed the lands of three more in easy reach of the country vacated by Ariovistus. How much of it would hold when the winter finally ended, he did not know. If they fulfilled their promises, he would have enough volunteers to form two new legions in the spring. No doubt many of the smaller tribes had agreed only to learn the skills that had destroyed the Helvetii and the Suebi, but Julius had planned with Mark Antony how to seed the legions with his most trusted men. He had done it with those Cato sent to protect his son. He had even made legionaries out of the mercenaries under Catiline. Whether they knew it or not, the Gauls who came to him would become as solidly of Rome as Ciro or Julius himself.

  He worried more about those tribes who would not respond to his summons. The Belgae had blinded the Aedui messenger and then led his horse within a short distance of the Roman camps, letting the animal find its own way back to food and warmth. The Nervii had refused to meet his man and three other tribes had followed their lead.

  Julius could hardly wait for the spring. The moment of exultation he had experienced as Ariovistus was struck down did not repeat itself, but still he felt a confidence that could hardly be explained. Gaul would be his.

  ‘The tribes you mention have never fought together, Julius. It is easier to imagine the Aedui standing back to back with the Arverni than any of those becoming brothers.’ Mhorbaine sipped at his hot wine and leaned closer to the fire, relaxing.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Julius admitted, ‘but my men have barely made a mark on most of Gaul. There are still tribes who haven’t even heard of us and how can they accept the rule of those they have never seen?’

  ‘You cannot fight them all, Julius. Even your legions could not do that,’ Mhorbaine replied.

  Julius snorted. ‘Do not be so sure, my friend. My legions could murder Alexander himself if he stood against them, but with this winter I cannot see where I should take them next. Further to the north? The west? Should I seek out the more powerful tribes and beat them one by one? I almost hope they will fight together, Mhorbaine. If I can break the strongest of them, the others will accept our right to the land.’