Betrayal: The Centurions I

by Riches, Anthony

  Centurions’ Mess, Legio IV Macedonica, The Winter Camp, Mogontiacum, Germania Superior, December AD 68

  ‘Well, you can all swear allegiance to the bastard if you want, but I’m not fucking having any of it!’

  The speaker swallowed his wine down with a swift tip of his wrist, smashing the cup down on the scarred wooden table in front of him, belched loudly and clenched a big fist, looking unsteadily round at his comrades in search of any dissenting opinion.

  ‘This new fucking Legatus Caecina can kiss my arse if he tries to make me promise to serve that cocksucker Galba, and that’s the end of it! It was us soldiers who put down the rebel Vindex, under the command of Verginius Rufus, a proper Roman general, to protect the emperor from his fucking sedition, but the next thing you know, Vindex’s mate Galba’s on the throne, and throwing his weight around like a bull with its fucking tail on fire.’

  The man sitting next to him raised a hand to indicate that he was speaking too loudly, but the drunken officer wasn’t willing to be calmed.

  ‘Don’t tell me to be quiet, I couldn’t give a fuck who hears me! Make no mistake about it, we’re the ones being screwed here! This fucking Galba has our general, the best man in the whole fucking empire, replaced with that fat gouty cunt Flaccus, and then he has Legatus Augusti Capito, the only other proper gentleman on the length of the frontier, killed just so he can’t pose any threat to his grip on the throne!’ He pointed to a steward, lurking uneasily in the corner with a jug of wine as instructed, then stabbed the finger down at his cup. ‘You, more wine!’

  He stared sweaty-faced as the man rushed forward to refill his cup, allowing a gap in his stream of invective for one of his drinking companions to interject.

  ‘But is it for the likes of us to challenge them, Quintus? They’re the gentlemen, we’re just the bulls who make what they want to happen come about.’

  Several of the men around the table shook their heads, dark-faced with disagreement.

  ‘Bullshit!’ The drunk was on his feet, waving an angry hand to dismiss his colleague’s opinion, swaying unsteadily. ‘If it weren’t for us, the sixty proud centurions who give this legion leadership, there wouldn’t be no fucking legion, no fucking frontier and no fucking empire! All those toga-wearing pricks would be no better than the rest of us, instead of which they float around like a bunch of faggots thinking they can be telling us what to do, when the truth is they don’t have a fucking clue! “Indeed, Centurion”. “Quite so, Centurion”. “As you suggest, Centurion”. All code for “I haven’t got a fucking clue, Centurion”!’

  He subsided back into his chair, his eyes starting to roll up as the effect of the copious quantities of wine he’d thrown down his neck since coming off duty hit him with the force of a lead-weighted cosh, but even as he stared around the table, his eyes struggling to focus, he continued to spout the hatred that the long drinking session had freed from any restraint.

  ‘Mark my fucking words boys, because you’ll find I’m right when this has all played out. When this legion goes on parade on New Year’s Day, there won’t be a man in the Fourth willing to swear allegiance to Galba, and that’s the truth of it. I know what my lads are saying, and I know what your lads are saying, and there ain’t one of them that thinks that wrinkled old prick Galba should have been allowed to drive poor old Nero to kill himself. And if the scum that inhabit that cesspit Rome didn’t have the sense to stand up against the bastard, we do! He can replace a proper general with a fat useless slug if he wants, and murder another good man to make sure he’s got no rivals, but it ain’t the generals that command the German legions, and it ain’t the gentlemen legati and tribunes either. It’s. Fucking. Us.’ He belched and stared around the table, his eyes unfocused. ‘Think on …’

  Looking around the table one last time, he put a hand on the wooden surface and pushed himself upright, waved a dismissive hand at the men staring at him and staggered away. The oldest man at the table, the legion’s seam-faced veteran senior centurion, a man who should by rights have retired three years before but whose appetite for soldiering was a strong as ever, pointed to another man and then at the shambling drunk.

  ‘Go and keep an eye on him, young Marcus, and make sure he gets to his own bed without getting himself into trouble shouting his mouth off in the camp. You can wake up his optio too, and tell him to watch our brother in the night and make sure he doesn’t choke on his own puke. Junior man’s duty, there’ll be a new boy doing the same for you one day. We’ll have a cup of the good stuff waiting for you when you get back, eh?’

  The youngest centurion at the table nodded solemnly and followed the drunk out of the mess, leaving his audience to exchange variously bemused and amused glances. The veteran looked about him with a hard face, having hardly sipped at his wine all evening.

  ‘Well then, he said what we’re all thinking. He might be pissed up, but he has the right of it, more or less. The German legions are the best in the empire, stands to reason given we stand between Rome and a horde of envious tribesmen who’d be across the river to burn everything that doesn’t move and fuck everything that does in a heartbeat, if we weren’t here to scare the shit out of them.’

  The men around the table nodded at the truth of his words.

  ‘And Galba might be a former soldier, and a hard man too for all that he’s an old bastard.’ He looked around the table with a wry smile, recognising his own advancing years. ‘But it’s just not right. It was our man Verginius Rufus who put Vindex down, and for his loyalty to the throne he gets promoted to where he can’t be any danger to Galba and replaced by Hordeonius Flaccus, a man unfit to command, with no value other than the fact he also poses no threat to our new emperor. And now he’s had Fonteius Capito murdered in Germania Inferior, to remove another competitor, and replaced him with this man Vitellius. He thinks he can control the German legions by putting his own men in to command the armies on the Rhenus, but he’s forgetting one thing. If he can make himself emperor with just one soft legion from Hispania, think what a better man could do with seven bone-hard legions from the northern frontier.’

  He looked around the table.

  ‘Think about it, boys. Seven legions. Better than that, seven battle-ready veteran legions, and all their auxiliaries. Fifth Alaudae and Fifteenth Primigenia at the Old Camp. Sixteenth Gallica at Novaesium. First Germanica at Bonna. Then there’s us, Fourth Macedonica and our comrades of the Twenty-Second Primigenia here in the Winter Camp, and nastiest of all, those evil-minded pricks of the Twenty-First Rapax at Vindonissa. Seven veteran legions, boys, enough fighting power to tear the guts out of any other army in the empire. And the three legions in Britannia would be on our side too, and them with the most battle experience of all of us, if we had the right man in command. The right emperor. And if one legion can give a man the title caesar, why can’t seven legions take it off him and put their own man on the throne, eh?’

  The officers around the table were nodding at the justness of his argument, looking at each other with sober expressions as they realised the weight of what he was proposing. The veteran leaned in, speaking quietly, and they all listened, keenly interested in what Secundus had to say now that he had decided to state a view.

  ‘And nothing we’ve discussed tonight is anything more or less than our legionaries are saying, so even if we weren’t minded to do something about this state of affairs, it’d soon be out of our hands. But for the time being this hard-on needs to stay out of sight under the blankets. Not a word to the tribunes, not even the one or two we’ve got some time for. And get a grip of your men, let’s have no soldiers shouting out comments on parade that’ll get us into hot water for not being in control of our centuries before the time comes. Crack down hard on the loud mouths, but quietly let your boys know we’re not going to stand for this. Tell them that Secundus wants the word to go round that we’re the German legions, and we’re not going to tolerate being punished for our loyalty to Nero. If Rome wants a new emperor, then Ro
me can have a new emperor. Just not the one they’ve think they’ve chosen.’

  The Old Camp, Germania Inferior, December AD 68

  ‘Io Saturnalia!’

  The men of Legio Fifth Alaudae didn’t need telling twice, opening their throats to bellow a reply to senior centurion Decimus’s shouted challenge.

  ‘IO SATURNALIA!’

  Drawing another deep breath, he filled the silence that followed their first response with another salutation that was louder than the first.

  ‘Io Saturnalia!’

  His men, knowing the game that he was playing, and keen to enter into the spirit of the feast, hurled the words back at him with sufficient volume to cause his lips to twitch in a slight smile.

  ‘IO SATURNALIA!’

  ‘Io Saturnalia!’

  The third time was different, as it always was, pitched an octave higher than the first two in that gravel-throated roar that was an imprecation in and of itself, its tone a deliberate affront to his men’s manhood and their right to wear the military belt so precious to legionaries, reminding them that they were soldiers of the finest legion in the empire that ruled the known world and challenging them to shout themselves hoarse in reply.

  ‘IO SATURNALIA!’

  Nodding in satisfaction he raised his vine stick to signal to his centurions.

  ‘Light the torches!’

  Within the ranks of the waiting centuries, single flames swiftly multiplied to become dozens of points of light, as each legionary lit his torch from the man to his left and then turned to the man on his right. The previously dimly lit parade ground swiftly transformed into a blaze of light, until every one of the five thousand soldiers held a burning brand, their flames flickering in the slight evening breeze. Stalking across the flat expanse, Decimus saluted his legatus, who bowed gravely in return and then signalled to the local magistrate that he might begin the ceremony, sharing a grimace with his most senior soldier at the civilian’s usual long-winded approach to the ritual that, while important religiously, was the only thing standing between them and an evening’s debauchery whose prospect already had half the legion shuffling its feet with impatience to be away. After a good deal longer than was strictly necessary, the ceremonial bonds tied about the effigy of Saturn’s ankles were cut away and the festival declared to be in effect, and with an undisguised sigh of relief, the legatus turned and saluted Decimus, a reversal of military etiquette entirely in the spirit of the feast. The older man returned his superior’s salute with the grave seriousness of a veteran, acutely aware that, while all things might be permissible at Saturnalia, when masters could enjoy the novelty of serving meals already cooked by their servants, who in turn faced the distinctly unnerving experience of becoming masters for a day, the essential truth was that a master slighted was a dangerous man, no matter what the circumstances. Wise servants made sure that the festival’s drunken merry making did not become a domestic casus belli for an unwinnable war, and wise centurions simply ignored all but the unavoidable formalities of the feast when dealing with Roman gentlemen, whose skins were notoriously thin when it came to slights both real and imagined. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned and bellowed the order for his first cohort to lead the legion off the parade ground, and thereby to commence the twenty-four hours of eating, drinking and whoring that was the deeper meaning of the festival for the average legionary, smiling at the thought of his nice warm quarters, a jug of rather good wine and an accommodating woman of quite prodigious sexual appetite to whom he’d taken the precaution of offering his money months before. His centurions could spend the next day watching their men walk the fine line between festive abandon that could safely be forgotten by all involved and behaviour requiring a violent encounter with a vine stick the day after; he would be keeping himself to himself for the next day or so.

  Well back down the column’s length, in a cohort whose place in the legion’s order of battle traditionally reflected poorly on the readiness for war of its members, centurion Marius, deliberately named after one of Rome’s greatest men by a father determined to see his son follow him into the service, and who therefore went by the nickname of ‘the mule’ whenever his men thought he wasn’t listening, marched alongside his century with the look of a man resigned to taking his part in the festivities.

  ‘Cheer up, Centurion! We don’t want no sour faces while you’re pouring our beer!’

  Marius nodded at the men marching beside him, acknowledging their grins with a hard smile while at the same time looking hard for any sign of malice behind their cheeriness. Saturnalia was always a difficult time for any legion’s less confident officers, among whose number he secretly considered himself, even though any such public admission would have ended his career in a heartbeat. The Fifth was not a legion that tolerated any sign of weakness in any man, with the long cherished belief among its centurionate that even one step backwards was tantamount to a defeat. Men settled their differences with their fists for the most part, and officers were expected to show no mercy to any man who offered them even the slightest challenge, and so, certain as he was that he would never master the apparently effortless swagger that he so envied in those of his colleagues who seemed born to lead men, he had long since learned to mask his insecurities with a show of stone-faced confidence that seemed to convince the men under his command that while fair minded, he was not to be trifled with. In truth, he mused, once a man was carrying the vine stick, blessed with a brutally efficient chosen man and a well-chosen watch officer to dispense his discipline and make sure that the century’s unofficial spine of leaders, the eight men who ruled its tent parties, followed the rules and presented their comrades in good order and ready to fight, the show of brazen self-confidence that he had needed to present to the world on his way up through the ranks was no longer quite so necessary. He was a centurion, and therefore the voice of the vengeful and jealous spirit that resided in the legion’s eagle as far as the eighty men who sweated and suffered at his command, and who might one day live or die with him on the battlefield in the unlikely event of the legion being commanded to take to the field against an enemy worthy of the name, were concerned.

  Breaking off the line of march, the legion headed for their section of the huge camp that housed both the Fifth and their sister legion the Fifteenth Primigenia, with Decimus at their head barking out the marching pace and looking for any sign of deviation from the discipline that was still expected of every man until they were formally dismissed, Marius stalked alongside his eighty men with his vine stick held ready to chastise any man who was unwise enough to break step while they were still on such public display.

  ‘Smile, Centurion! You know the rules! Io Saturnalia!’

  He favoured the man in question with a hard grin as the entire century roared out an echoing cry, knowing full well that from the moment the priest had cut Saturn’s bonds a different code had applied to the carefully regulated discipline that ruled the century’s collective life for the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.

  ‘Just make sure you’ve got a full gut before you start pouring beer into it, eh Legionary Julius? It’d be a shame to waste all that anticipation by being as pissed as a rat before the fun starts.’

  He slowed, dropping down his century’s length while the soldier reassured him that the centurion wasn’t to worry about his ability to consume beer just as fast as his officers could bring it to him. It was an assertion Marius had both reason and experience to suspect would be correct until, with depressing rapidity, the man in question went from happy drunk to incoherent incontinent, and had to be laid out on the grass outside his barrack to lie in his own filth until the effects of drink wore off to leave him sore-headed and rueful.

  ‘It’ll be a long night.’

  He grinned at his colleague in command of the cohort’s fourth century, a man with whom he had joined the legion on the same day seventeen years before. Having sweated, cursed, eaten, drunk, fought and whored in each other’s c
ompany as members of the same tent party for several years, before both had been selected for promotion to watch officer, Gaius knew him as well as any man could, even to the point of keeping his friend’s insecurities as closely guarded a secret as if they were his own. He grinned at the observation, falling into step with his brother officer.

  ‘It’s always a long night at Saturnalia. First they all need to be fed, but at least they’re not staggering about threatening to puke while they’re eating. Then they get pissed up and the whores start earning their coin, and for a few hours all we’ll hear is songs about where the centurion can put his vine stick and the occasional scream as they commit some indignity or other on the ladies …’

  Gaius laughed.

  ‘Remember that lad of yours last year? The one who chased one of the girls three times round the barrack block, naked and sporting a stick of red celery that a mule would have been proud to claim ownership of, while she kept on shouting he was coming nowhere near her with that thing.’

  Marius nodded, rubbing his chin at the memory.

  ‘I remember having to tickle him with the night officer’s best friend to calm him down a little. And I remember what he said when he woke up …’

  Gaius smirked.

  ‘So do I! He rubbed the back of his head and muttered “What the fuck was I drinking last night?”’ He looked at his friend for a moment before speaking again. ‘It’s only a few hours. Every year they swear they’ll greet the sun together, and every year sunrise finds them unconscious, covered in vomit and with their purses empty and their pricks worn to the bone. So grin at them the way you always do, all jutting chin and hard eyes, and they’ll know not to get on your wrong side. And besides, you can always threaten them with being picked for the usual harpastum game with the Batavians.’