by Ian Ross
There were men above him now, men on the wall, grasping for the top of the ladder and trying to shove it away. Fury propelled Castus upwards, and he stamped at the rungs and hauled himself hand over hand. As he neared the top the sunlight almost blinded him. A speartip came from the light and jarred against the back of his shield.
Castus flung his right hand downwards.
‘Spear!’ he managed to shout.
Felix stretched from below him, and the shaft of a spear slid into Castus’s palm.
His body pressed almost flat against the rungs, Castus struck overarm with the spear into the glaring haze of smoke and sun. He was striking blindly, but he felt the jarring impact as the blade bit. A few more rungs: he heaved himself up, trying to swing the shield off his back and get the grip into his left hand. For a moment he was wavering, balanced almost upright on the narrow rungs at the head of the ladder and feeling the world tilting around him. Then he wrestled the shield around his body and lashed with the spear, jabbing at the men packing the gap between the merlons.
Felix was right behind him, clambering up into the space below his raised shield. Others below him too, armoured bodies pressed tight at the head of the ladder. Castus jabbed again with his spear, roaring, and then flung himself forward at the edge of the wall.
His shin struck the stone, his shield banged against the merlons and the spear was wrenched from his grip, but then he was in over the battlements and onto the narrow walkway beyond. Hunched into the hollow of the shield, he got his legs beneath him and pressed his back against one of the merlons, warding off blows until he could free the sword from the scabbard. Felix was climbing over after him, empty-handed: he threw himself onto one of the defenders and they fell grappling to the stone walkway.
Castus shoved forward, driving two attackers back with his shield boss. A spearhead jarred off his armoured shoulder. Then the sword was free, the oiled steel blade and eagle hilt gleaming for a moment in the bright sun before a billow of black smoke blew down across the top of the wall. He slashed, the blade whining in the air, then stamped forward and swung the blade up backhanded, feeling it hack through a spearshaft and slice across the face of a shield.
The fight was boiling across the narrow walkway now, more men piling in over the wall behind Castus. Felix was on his knees, face set hard and grim, striking a fallen enemy with his fists. Castus saw an enemy soldier aiming a javelin; he lashed out, and his sword took the man’s hand off at the wrist. Everything seemed easy now; everything was happening very quickly. Bodies pressed in around him, and he barely had room to swing his blade. But the feel of solid stone beneath his feet was joyful: for a moment Castus felt the battle was already won.
When the wind parted the smoke, he saw flames rising from the buildings inside the wall. Over to his left, a party of the Bucinobantes had swarmed into one of the wall towers; they had already butchered the defenders, and were furiously hacking the ballista on the roof to pieces with axes. From the other direction, a knot of men were charging down the walkway towards Castus, helmeted soldiers with red shields. The Divitenses, he thought… but then one of them flung a javelin that passed so close he heard it whistle.
‘Shields up!’ he shouted, and his voice snarled and cracked. A man died beside him: friend or foe, he could not tell. The smoke eddied again as the shields rose around him and butted together, rim against rim, blocking the walkway.
Bright streamers of flame were coiling up from the burning town. The enemy troops had halted, spears levelled at Castus’s men advancing along the walkway towards them. Then the knot of red shields broke apart, the enemy turning to flee for the sanctuary of the nearest tower. With a bellow of triumph, the men of the Second Britannica charged after them. They kicked aside the bodies of fallen men, scrambling over the debris of stones, broken spears and discarded shields that clogged the walkway. Castus saw one soldier crouched back against the rampart wall, hands raised in surrender. He noticed the smuts on his tunic from the fire-bucket, and rammed his blade through the man’s neck.
Further along the wall he could see another band of his men scrambling across the rampart. The centurion leading them – it was Attalus – lifted his spear briefly in salute, then began forming up his men on the walkway. Everywhere the defenders were in retreat, piling back into the towers or rattling down the wooden stairways on the inner side of the wall into the swirl of smoke.
‘Constantine!’ Castus yelled, sword raised. ‘Victory to Constantine!’
The men around him took up his cry at once, their cheers ringing along the wall. The slate and thatch roofs of the town were spread before them, the narrow streets and alleys boiling with smoke that rose black against the sun. Shreds of straw and wood whirled on the wind, sparking into flame as they flew, and when the smoke eddied and cleared it looked as though the whole town was burning.
PART TWO
Chapter VII
Arelate, Southern Gaul, June AD 312
Heat lightning split the sky to the south, flickering over the delta of the Rhodanus. Sabina stood at the open window and watched the flashes of illumination as the warm night breeze flowed over her skin and stirred the long drapes. Anxiety twisted in her stomach. The breeze carried the scent of the distant sea, and for a moment she imagined an escape: a fast ship from Massilia that would carry her to North Africa or to Spain. She had some coin, a little jewellery she could sell. Perhaps she could make a new life for herself, and avoid the mess she had made of this one. But no – there was no escape. She would have to confront the mistakes she had made. She would have to endure their consequences.
Already she could hear the voices from the courtyard downstairs, the tread of the men climbing to the upper portico. But she did not want to turn from the window yet; did not want to acknowledge what would surely happen next. Leaning slightly across the sill, she could see the rooftops of Arelate spreading beneath her, a tiled terrain greyish in the moonlight. She had arrived here only two days ago from Treveris, with the rest of Fausta’s household and attendants; in Arelate they were closer to the Alpine passes, and the messengers that would bring news of the war in Italy.
More than two years had passed since Sabina had last been in this city. She had become engaged to Aurelius Castus in a chamber of the imperial residence, only a few blocks away from the house she occupied now. The memory deepened her sense of shame; she had been happy then, the marriage had been all she wanted. A new life; the chance to become a new woman. A virtuous woman. She had been unfaithful to her first husband many times, but with Castus things would be different. For all his uncouth ways, his ugly Pannonian accent, his lack of social graces, she loved him. And he had loved her back, in his rough and awkward way. It had all seemed so perfect, at the time.
Gods, what have I done? How have I allowed this to happen?
It had been the pregnancy, and the difficult childbirth; in her pride she had pushed her husband away, just when she needed him most, and he, in his ignorance, had believed she wanted solitude rather than attention. She tried to tell herself this was the reason, but she feared it was more than that. It was in her blood somehow, in her heritage. She was born to duplicity.
And how easy it had been, how predictable. First the exchange of glances, the flirtatious words. Then came the gifts, the jewellery and the perfumes, so well suited to her tastes – she realised later that he had bribed her slaves to tell him what she liked. The man was handsome, cultured, educated and witty; everything her husband was not. A rising official in the imperial ministries. He was also from Rome, her birthplace, the city for which she hungered. She had fallen fast, and hard. She had desired him; she had even come to believe that she loved him. But then, back in the spring, she had suddenly found the affair too much to endure. Something in his attitude had changed, and she became suspicious of him. The trip south with Fausta and her retinue had been a merciful relief.
And now he was back, making demands upon her. The note he had sent was no lover’s plea either. It was a threat
, naked and plain.
Footsteps from the hallway outside, and the sound of muffled voices. Sabina stepped away from the window. The room was dim, lit only by a pair of lamps on tall stands. The flames barely moved in the still, close air. She crossed quickly to one of the pair of couches and sat down, trying to keep her manner neutral. At the last moment she realised that the bracelet she wore on her forearm had been one of his gifts – one of his bribes. With a gasp of revulsion she dragged it off over her wrist and thrust it beneath one of the couch cushions.
A glass wine cup stood on the low table beside her. She raised it, drained the wine in one long swallow and set it down again. The alcohol bloomed in her head, and she took a deep breath. Then the men appeared at the doorway.
Metrodorus was first, smiling and smug as he introduced the visitor. The procurator had been bribed early, and lavishly. He stepped aside, with an obsequious bow, and the man entered the room.
‘Leave us,’ Sabina said over her shoulder to the two slaves waiting beside the couch. The women bobbed and departed, following Metrodorus out. Then she was alone with him.
He paced towards her, with that smooth prowling step she had once admired. She could tell that he had just come from the baths; he still carried the scent of perfumed oil. Smiling, he seated himself on the other couch and faced her.
‘You should not have come here,’ she said, the words catching in her throat. Her breath was tight, and she could feel the sweat gathering at her hairline.
‘How could I keep away?’ he replied with a casual gesture of his hand. ‘I was travelling to join the army in Italy, and it was only natural that I should pause here to pay my respects to the nobilissima femina Fausta. And to see you, of course…’
Being so close to this man was harder than Sabina had anticipated. She wanted to move along the couch, away from him, keep her distance. But at the same time the memory of what they had shared was shamefully vivid in her mind. Did she really still want him? The sense of danger that he carried with him repulsed and excited her at the same time.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ she said. ‘You’ve used me, all along. Whatever you’re doing, I want no part of it.’
‘Oh, but you seemed so eager to be used…’
She raised her hand, wanting to slap him, but his quick smile told her that he expected it, perhaps wanted it. She let her hand drop.
‘And, yes,’ he went on, ‘you have been quite convenient. Wife of a noted military commander, close to the emperor’s wife. Very useful. But you see, you’re already a part of what I’m doing. Those messages you sent for me, to our friends in Rome – who would have suspected you of passing treasonable correspondence? And the information about Fausta, and the things your husband told you…’
Sabina’s heart was beating wildly now, and for a few moments she could not speak. But she had known – known and not wanted to admit it to herself. In those first days of their affair she had told this man so much. How stupid she had been, how guileless. And how easily he had snared her. She had even told him of Castus’s mission to the court of Licinius – the realisation of her mistake burned in her mind.
‘But there’s no reason that I alone should benefit,’ he went on, still in that artful sardonic drawl. ‘We can do great things together, you and I. Everything you desire, I can give you.’
‘You think I’d do anything to aid Maxentius?’ she said, choking. ‘I wish only destruction upon him! He murdered my father and my first husband—’
‘They were traitors,’ he broke in. ‘They were plotting against him. Of course he had to kill them – any emperor would do the same. Constantine, certainly, would not hesitate.’
She caught the suggestion in his words. It was true – already she was implicated in this man’s treachery. A cold flush passed through her. If she informed on him, she would be denouncing herself too. She would be questioned, tortured – nobody would believe that she had acted in ignorance. The thought of pain, of indignity, filled her with a sick terror.
‘Do you really think,’ he said, settling himself a little further forward on the couch, ‘that Constantine can take Rome? Already two imperial expeditions have failed. You know the power of the eternal city, the strength of the walls. Maxentius has an army of one hundred thousand men, many of them veterans from the Danube legions. If Constantine fails – as he surely will – then you will be left with precisely nothing. I offer you an alternative.’
He was twisting the heavy gold ring on his middle finger as he spoke. Twin leopards, clasping a pearl. ‘Assist me, and I can see that all your family wealth and property is restored to you. To you, and to your son. I know you, Valeria Domitia Sabina – I know what you are. You are more than just some soldier’s wife. You are a daughter of the Roman aristocracy. Let me return your birthright to you…’
He was edging closer now, dropping his voice to a purr.
‘My husband would kill you,’ she said.
‘He would kill you too. Or try to, if he found out. We must hope that no word of this reaches him, eh? But perhaps, if we’re lucky, he will not be around for much longer…’
‘What’s happened?’ she said, suddenly afraid. ‘What’s happened to him?’
‘Nothing – yet… But the war will be fierce, and the fighting hard. And who knows what accidents may befall a soldier so noted for his reckless courage?’
Sabina glanced at his hands, those well-manicured fingers. She remembered Castus’s hands, how different they were, rough and calloused. A warrior’s hands. She felt a sudden need for her husband. A desire for him to return with all his justified rage. But what if that meant her own death? He had offered her security, and she had betrayed him. She had betrayed everything, poured it out like water onto the ground, and now only this other man, this sly and deceptive creature, offered her any chance of avoiding her fate.
He shifted once more, smooth and subtle, and came to sit beside her on the couch. Sabina did not move. She kept her back straight and tried not to flinch as he raised his hand and caressed the nape of her neck. For a moment she imagined herself seizing the glass cup from the table and smashing it into his face, slashing that smile to bloody shreds. The image shocked her with its intensity.
‘If this thing happens as it must,’ he said, breathing the words, ‘then those who have acted well will be rewarded. Think about that. Think about what you desire, and how to get it.’
The grip of his hand tightened, pulling her towards him, and he leaned and kissed the bare skin of her shoulder. Panic beat in Sabina’s chest; she felt entirely powerless, as if she lay in the coils of a snake that might strike her at any moment. Be calm, she told herself. Be calm and endure, for now. And pray that some chance of freedom comes.
But even as she thought this, she felt the echo of his words deep within her, his suggestion finding an answer from her hidden core, that dark part of herself she had tried to deny.
‘What do you want from me?’ she said quietly.
Chapter VIII
‘Feathers?’ Castus asked, shoving himself back from the table. The folding stool creaked beneath him.
‘That’s what it says, dominus,’ Diogenes replied. He was reading out the latest field orders from the army commanders. ‘All soldiers of the Gallic army are to fix a plume of feathers at the front of their helmet, to aid identification.’
‘Hmm. Makes sense, I suppose.’ With the troops on both sides armed and equipped the same, and so many of the shield designs similar, it was proving difficult to tell friend from foe. During the storming of Segusio, some men of the Divitenses had been killed by Prince Hrodomarus’s Bucinobantes, who mistook them for the enemy. Whether a plume of feathers would make a difference in the heat of battle Castus could not say, but perhaps it would make the troops feel more secure.
‘What sort of feathers?’
‘The order doesn’t specify, dominus. I should think goose feathers would serve… or the tail feathers of a cockerel?’
‘First camels, now cockere
ls…’ muttered Modestus from the tent door. ‘The barnyards of Italy must be quaking already.’
Castus turned to address his orderly. ‘Eumolpius, rip the feathers out of my crest and fix a couple to the front of my helmet. Better set an example… Right – next,’ he said to Diogenes, ‘how are the new men shaping up?’
‘Well enough, dominus. They’re Roman soldiers, after all. They’ve made their sacred vow…’
Legion II Britannica had taken losses in the assault: eighteen dead and over thirty disabled by wounds. Castus had listened as Diogenes read out the names of the fallen: some of them were men he had known for years, since the old days in Eboracum; others were completely unknown to him. He tried not to consider that he might be responsible for their deaths, but every name had jarred in his mind.
Now the gaps in the ranks were filled by volunteers from among the prisoners taken when the town had fallen, scattered between the different centuries. They were conscripts from Carthage and Sicily for the most part, with a few Dalmatians, and even a Syrian. The growing diversity of his command did not bother Castus: as Diogenes said, the new men had sworn an oath to the standards. Swapping one emperor for another could not be that difficult. But he was struck by the odd fate that had brought these men to the legion, to serve alongside other men who had been trying to kill them not long before. At the time, as he had scaled the ladder and stormed in over the parapet, Castus had thought nothing of the men he was fighting. They had been the enemy, that was all. But they had been Romans too, and the memory of that fight troubled him. He remembered the soldier he had slain on the parapet as he had tried to surrender. It was war, he told himself. He had done his duty to his emperor and his men, and that was all that mattered now.