by Ian Ross
Castus remembered the strange object Nigrinus had given him; he had not wanted to examine it while he was held in the palace, and had not had a chance since. Shrugging the neck of tunic forward, he reached down inside it until his fingers closed around the small bundle he had carried safely stowed just above his waist belt. He drew it out, and held it up in the light of the fire.
‘He gave me this,’ he told Felix. ‘No idea what it is.’
The object resembled a small ball of twine, wrapped tightly around a lump of bone. ‘Maybe there’s a message on the inside,’ Castus said, pulling at the knot that secured the end of the twine in place.
‘Hssht!’ Felix hissed, raising a bloodied hand. Castus frowned at him across the fire.
‘Astragal,’ Felix said. ‘I’ve seen one of them before. There are holes drilled through the sheep-bone, see, and each stands for a letter. The twine goes through the holes to spell out the words, if you know the code. Unwrap it and it’s useless.’
‘Eternal gods!’ Castus placed the wrapped bone carefully on the ground beside him. He was unwilling to touch it now, in case it started unravelling.
‘What was it you did, exactly,’ he said, ‘before you joined the army?’
‘Bit of everything,’ Felix told him, and his crooked teeth shone in the light of the fire.
*
Advancing armies left devastation in their wake; they also, Castus soon discovered, created emptiness ahead of them, a zone of deserted villages and abandoned fields, like the bow wave of a ship moving through water. For three days he and Felix trekked northwards, and everywhere there was desolation; the population had vanished in fear of the scouts and foragers of one army or the other. Castus carried only a sword, Felix his sling and knife, and they had lost their mounts and the safe conduct that would take them through the Maxentian checkpoints. They camped at night, took food and water from the empty villages by day, and tried to keep in sight of the road.
On the first day they swam the Tiber; by the second they were hiking into the steep green valleys of the Apennines. The ides of October had come and gone, the date when they had originally planned to intercept Constantine’s advancing army at Spoletium. Castus considered finding a secure place and waiting until the vanguard of the army appeared. But they could have been waiting for days, and the army might never come. They moved on.
Several times, from high vantage points, they gazed down at the road and saw troops moving, squadrons of Numidian light cavalry or detachments of marching soldiers. They avoided the towns and the larger villages, the few huts that still showed the smoke of hearth fires.
And just after dawn on the fourth day, as they scrambled along the banks of a rushing mountain stream, they were captured.
Chapter XXV
‘Where in the smoky black arse of Hades did you spring from?’
The drillmaster stood with his fists planted on his hips, his seamed red face pulled into a disbelieving grimace. Castus was sitting on a folding stool outside the command tent of Legion II Britannica, packing his mouth with good army bread and washing it down with sour vinegar wine.
‘Rome,’ Castus said, chewing heavily. He swallowed, then gazed into his cup. ‘You’ll like it there. The wine’s decent.’
Only a few hours had passed since Castus and Felix had been caught by the party of exploratores in the valley three miles to the south of Spoletium. The exarch commanding the scouts had not believed Castus’s story, of course. Two men dressed in ragged civilian clothes, scrub-bearded, one with a plundered sword: they were either brigands, deserters or enemy spies, and the exarch had ordered them bound and escorted back to camp under guard. Castus had been grinning all the way.
‘Are you back to lead us, then, tribune?’ Macer said. He was staring at Castus as if he had just appeared from a crack in the earth.
‘Isn’t Vitalis still in command of the Second?’
Macer’s lips tightened and he glanced away. ‘Your friend Vitalis was wounded at Mutina,’ he said. ‘Javelin in the thigh. We left him behind at Ariminum, and I’ve been at the front ever since, more or less.’
The drillmaster looked old, Castus thought, more so than his years. Beneath his ruddy tan there was a greyness in his face, his single eye bleary and reddened. The campaign was taking it out of him. From what Castus had seen of the legion, it had taken it out of them all.
‘We’ve been losing men ever since Verona,’ Macer said. ‘A score went down with campaign fever and never recovered, then some more fell at Mutina before the place surrendered. There’s been skirmishing all the way through the mountains. Barely half the men that marched with us from Divodurum are still with the standards.’
‘What about the officers?’ Castus asked him.
Macer scrubbed at his white hair. ‘They’ve been hit worst,’ he said. ‘Half the centuries are led by optios now. Brocchus is still carrying the eagle, but most of the other standard-bearers are new men.’ He paused, clearing his throat quietly. ‘Attalus died,’ he said. ‘Cut up by enemy scouts on the road just short of Cales. And Gaetulicus, the last of your rapists from Mediolanum, he lost his guts to the sickness before we left Verona. Judgement of the gods, I reckon.’ He angled his head and spat.
Castus nodded, then sucked down a mouthful of wine. He was not sorry about Attalus, or Gaetulicus, but the loss of so many others was bitter news.
‘Tribune,’ Macer said, squatting down on the turf beside him. ‘I know we had our differences. Our disagreements, you could say.’ He sniffed, uncomfortable, and rubbed his head again. ‘But we need a commanding officer. I can’t do this on my own; I wasn’t made for it. I’ve seen you on the field – you’re a decent leader, and the men need somebody they recognise, somebody who knows them.’
‘I’m not your commander,’ Castus said. He was still just a tribunus vacans. An officer without a unit. And the judgement of the gods awaited him too.
When the scouts brought him to the camp he had been taken to the command tent and made to wait under guard. Not until Leontius arrived was he recognised and released from his bonds. It was to Leontius, and then to Evander, that Castus had made his report. While a secretary had scratched at a wax tablet, taking it all down in shorthand, Castus had narrated the essentials of the failed mission to Rome. He tried to connect the events in the right order, to remember everything. He told them the names of the senators they had spoken to, and the names of the legions in Maxentius’s army. He repeated what the Praetorians had told him at the baths: the strengths and weaknesses of the tyrant’s troops, the poor training of the recruits, the large number of Christians in their ranks. He told them of the betrayal of the mission, the death of Pudentianus, Nigrinus’s double dealings, and what had happened at the palace. He repeated what Sabina’s cousin had told him about Lepidus.
‘This is Claudianus Lepidus?’ Evander said, breaking in. ‘The Master of Dispositions?’
Castus nodded. He saw the two senior officers exchange a glance. The secretary had filled four tablets with notes, and Castus had a dry mouth and an aching head. He doubted he had ever spoken at such length in his life.
‘Do you have any further evidence against him?’ Evander asked.
‘No, dominus,’ Castus said. ‘But the notary Julius Nigrinus told me to deliver this to the emperor.’ He placed the twine-wrapped sheep-bone on the table beside the secretary’s tablets.
Evander leaned closer, peering at the object, then picked it up carefully between finger and thumb. ‘Very well, tribune,’ he said. ‘You’re dismissed. For now. Get something to eat, you look like a starved dog.’
Now, sitting outside the command tent in the legion lines, Castus looked to his left. The walled town of Spoletium climbed the slope from the valley where the army was camped towards the wooded summit of the hill. Somewhere within the town the emperor Constantine had established himself and his retinue; Evander was there now, with the tablets of notes and the mysterious coded message. Soon enough, Castus thought, he would discover wha
t verdict had been passed upon him.
Breathing in deeply, he tipped his head back into the sunlight. All around him spread the regular rows of army tents, the camp ovens still smoking after baking the morning bread. He closed his eyes, and listened to the rough gnarled voices of the soldiers, the curses and the laughter. This was home, he thought. The relief of getting safely back here was enough for him. Let the gods decide what they would.
‘Tribune!’ a familiar voice cried. Castus opened his eyes and stood up quickly.
‘Centurion Modestus,’ he said, and almost laughed. He had the briefest memory of Modestus as he had once been, a drunkard and a shirker, back in the old legion fortress at Eboracum. Now he was a tanned veteran, a centurion’s staff in his hand and a vigorous spring in his step. Marching up to Castus, he seized him by the shoulders and pulled him into a firm embrace.
‘Thought you’d buggered off and died,’ Modestus said, and kissed him loudly on the cheek. Then he turned and whistled.
Two slaves were following Modestus, carrying a brass-bound chest between them. Eumolpius trailed along behind them. The slaves set the chest down, and the orderly unlocked it and threw back the lid.
‘It’s all here, dominus,’ Eumolpius said. ‘I kept it safe, just as you ordered.’
‘Reckoned we’d lug it along with us,’ Modestus added. ‘Else some sneaky bastard’d make off with it, no doubt.’
Castus knelt beside the open chest. Metal gleamed within. He reached down and took the gold torque, flexing the loop of it around his neck. His ring was in a leather pouch, and he slipped it back onto his finger. Then he saw the sword.
‘I had the armourer replace the blade,’ Eumolpius said. ‘It’s perhaps not as fine as the old one, and I haven’t sharpened it.’
‘You did well,’ Castus told him. He closed his hand around the gilded eagle hilt, then drew the long spatha from the scabbard, holding it up in the sunlight with a flush of true pleasure.
The chest also contained his armour, the muscled cuirass, manica and gilded helmet, and his folded clothes and military belts. Standing, Castus stripped off his ragged tunic and flung it aside. He pulled off the worn old boots he had been wearing, and the breeches too. Finally he shed his loincloth, and stood naked while Eumolpius and two slaves flung buckets of water over him, watched by a dozen grinning legionaries.
He rubbed himself down with a coarse towel, and was dressing in the musty clothes from the chest when Eumolpius handed him something else.
‘I almost forgot!’ the orderly said. ‘It came for you just after you left Verona. I kept it in case you… well, in case you ever came back.’
Castus looked at the narrow tablet, his own name inked across it. Breaking the seal with his thumbnail, he unfolded the leaves of it and stared at the flowing letters. In the bright sun they were almost illegible, and he retreated to the cool shade just inside the open flap of the tent. Frowning heavily, he stared again at the tablet, the chicken-scratched letters. Mouthing the words to himself, he began to read. And his pulse quickened.
Husband. Shame has made me flee from you, and now I struggle to write these words. If you cannot forgive me, then please try to judge me fairly, for the sake of our son if not for me. There is no excuse for what I have done but I regret it. Truly I regret it. I have betrayed not only you but our emperor. I would take an honourable way out but I am weak, I find. My cousin, Claudianus Lepidus, means to destroy you and those who travel with you. I cannot indict him without indicting myself, and others more exalted than me. Be on your guard, and trust no man. I have been blind but please know that you have my love. Remember that what we call duty is often only pride. May the gods protect you and guide you safely. SABINA.
Castus closed the tablet, then pressed it to his forehead for a moment. He was breathing very deeply, very slowly. He was still sitting there in the shadowed tent, unmoving, staring ahead of him into nothing, when the two Protectores arrived with the summons. He slipped the tablet beneath his belt, then stood up without a word and followed them.
*
The paved road climbed steeply up the hillside towards the arched gate of Spoletium. The Protectores led Castus at a rapid pace; Felix followed behind him, dressed in a clean tunic but still unshaven and wolfish. Castus too was bearded, his hair grown out, his face bruised and scratched, but he was dressed as a Roman officer, the torque gleaming at his neck and a sword belted at his side. He marched fast, and felt ready for whatever was coming.
In through the gates, they climbed the last slope and passed beneath an old arch, the reliefs and inscriptions worn to indistinction. Spoletium stood on a hillside, and the regular grid of streets appeared warped by the inclined ground, turning to steps in places. The Protectores did not pause, stamping along with their nailed boots clattering on the worn paving. They crossed the broad open space of the forum, then halted before the tall inlaid doors of a large townhouse. The doors swung open, and they gestured for Castus to enter.
A sentry took his sword, and silently motioned for Felix to remain in the vestibule while Castus moved on into the building. The sun was high, but cool shadow still suffused the central courtyard, a fountain trickling at the heart of the enclosed garden. At the far side, another set of doors opened, a purple drape shifted aside, and Castus entered the sacred presence of the emperor.
‘The most distinguished Aurelius Castus, tribunus vacans,’ a eunuch solemnly declaimed. Castus took four long paces, then sank to kneel on the tiled floor. The air carried the faint aroma of incense.
‘You may stand,’ Evander said. He was sitting at a table to one side of the chamber, and Castus could see the sheep-bone before him, the twine that had bound it unravelled now. At the far end of the chamber, wrapped in a plain military cloak, the emperor stood with his back turned, apparently lost in thought.
Castus assumed a parade stance. The two Protectores had followed him into the room, and there were several eunuchs and a secretary around him too. He recognised the other officer with Evander as well: Agrippinus, the chief of the agentes in rebus. The emperor did not move.
‘I have informed the Augustus of everything you told me in your report,’ Evander said. ‘We have also deciphered the message you brought from Julius Nigrinus, Tribune of Notaries.’
He turned to Agrippinus, who picked up the sheep-bone and turned it lightly between his fingers. ‘The message was only two words,’ Agrippinus said. ‘The first was a password, proving that the message was genuine. The second was a name.’
‘Lepidus,’ Evander said. ‘It appears that the notary wishes to confirm the accuracy of what you have told us.’
Castus blinked, his mind blank for a moment. Had Nigrinus known all along? Speechless, he merely nodded.
‘It seems the notary has done well,’ Evander went on, ‘although we can only guess at his methods. It’s a shame that Flavius Ummidius, the chief of his department, could not be with us to congratulate him.’
Castus remembered the old man with the papery smile who had presided over the meeting at the villa beside the lake. ‘Flavius Ummidius is not here?’ he asked.
‘Flavius Ummidius is dead,’ Agrippinus said. ‘He died, it seems, of fright. Only a day or two after your departure, he discovered something in his bedchamber, a figurine of some sort, marked with his name and stuck with nails. It was too much for his heart, sadly… Of course, we suspect the dark designs of the tyrant.’
Castus frowned, nodding. It seemed a very unlikely thing for Maxentius to have ordered, or Lepidus. He barely noticed that Constantine had turned to face him.
‘Tribune Aurelius Castus,’ the emperor declared in a cold and ringing voice. ‘We are satisfied that you have conducted yourself with honour and determination. The information you have gathered in the camp of the enemy is of great worth. Therefore, I order that you be reinstated as commander of the Second Legion Britannica.’
Throwing his cloak back from his shoulder, Constantine paced slowly across the floor. Castus recalled that the
last time he had seen this man had been on the moon-drenched battlefield outside Verona, in the mesh of the fighting. The memory of what he had said and done that night brought the blood rushing to his face.
‘I misjudged your loyalty,’ the emperor said stiffly. ‘I make apology for that.’ Before Castus could reply, he stepped forward and gripped him in an embrace. ‘It’s good to see you back with us again, brother,’ Constantine said.
Then he turned on his heel and paced back to the far end of the room.
‘There is one thing you must do before taking up your command,’ Evander said. ‘His excellency Domitius Claudianus Lepidus, Master of Dispositions, is currently residing in a house just outside the northern gate. You are to take a party of men, go to the house, and summon him.’
‘Summon him, dominus?’
‘Of course. Summon him here so he can be questioned. He must answer to a charge of treason.’
‘Yes, dominus!’ Castus said, straightening up and saluting. The emperor remained in his attitude of deep thought, his back turned once more.
‘Make sure no harm comes to the man, won’t you?’ Agrippinus added.
*
Dropping quickly down the sloping streets and stepped alleys from the centre of town, Castus marched out through the northern gate of Spoletium with Felix at his side and six dismounted troopers of the Schola Scutariorum at his back. The troopers had been part of the sentry detachment at the emperor’s residence, and all wore helmets and carried spears and shields. They crossed a bridge over the shallow river beyond the walls, then climbed the dusty tree-lined track on the far side to the gates of the house.
In through the gateway, shoving aside a pair of startled slaves, Castus marched up to the main doors while a pair of troopers moved around either side of the house to seal off any rear exits. Raising his fist, Castus hammered on the wood panels of the door. Silence followed. He could hear a bird singing in the trees back along the road. The door looked solid enough; he hoped he would not have to find a ram and break it down.