The Mask of Command

by Ian Ross

  Castus grunted. His impression of Tribune Gaudiosus had improved since he reached the fort. The officer had presented himself at once, surrendering his sword and submitting to any punishment that Castus decreed. He had already heard of the governor’s death, and the change of command in the city. The languorous, haughty pride he had once exhibited was gone now; he was a loyal soldier, he said, and had been following orders. Castus had been inclined to have the man punished, even executed. He had crossed the bridge with murder in his heart. But he was short of officers, and Gaudiosus had clearly led the defence of his position well. He had pardoned the man, for now. Hopefully Gaudiosus would come to earn his mercy.

  ‘What’s your total strength, here and in the city garrison?’

  ‘Nearly three thousand, dominus,’ Gaudiosus said. ‘The detachment of the First Minervia, a few of the Thirtieth, the Fifth Valeria Thracum, and a small unit of Dalmatian cavalry who rode in from Bonna just before the barbarians came.’

  Staring out over the wasteland of burnt ground, Castus could make out the figures of the barbarians beginning to emerge from the woodland. Were they massing for a fresh assault? It seemed unlikely – their dead still lay heaped around the walls, and they must have realised by now that they lacked the numbers or the skill to storm the Roman fortifications. A deadlock, then. The resolution he had considered as he crossed the river became firmer in his mind.

  ‘Find me a green branch, if you can,’ Castus said, and turned towards the stairs.

  ‘You’re going to talk to them, excellency?’ Gaudiosus widened his eyes.

  ‘Would you rather fight them, tribune?’

  At least, Castus thought as he descended the wooden flights of stairs, he was able to make a better impression now. His private quarters in the Praetorium had been ransacked by the governor’s men, of course, but Eumolpius had managed to locate a chest of clothing and the armour and equipment that Castus had left behind when he departed on his mission down the river. Now he was dressed in a fresh white tunic and breeches, clean dry boots and a white wool cloak. He wore his gilded muscled cuirass, and his burnished helmet with its tall black feather plumes. His imperial brooch and eagle-headed spatha had been lost in the wreck of the Bellona, but he had found temporary replacements. He was still achingly tired, beyond sleep, but he was dressed for command.

  Castus’s mounted escort was waiting just inside the gateway. His familiar old grey mare was there, too; Eumolpius had found Dapple in the Praetorium stables, under the care of the drillmaster Tagmatius. Castus rubbed the horse’s nose and patted her neck, then swung himself up into the saddle. The stocky youth mounted behind him was the draconarius of the First Minervia, newly appointed as Castus’s personal standard-bearer, the banner that trailed behind the gilded dragon’s head now replaced with imperial purple silk.

  Turning in the saddle, Castus made out the figure of Bonitus in the shadows beneath the gatehouse. The Frankish chief was gazing upwards at the portcullis mechanism and the iron-bound gates. He had a look of intense appreciation; probably, Castus realised, he had never studied the interior of a Roman fort before. The circuit of powerful walls had clearly made an impression on him. He noticed Castus and his party mounted in the roadway, and with a last upward glance strolled over to join them.

  ‘Will you ride out with me?’ Castus asked. ‘I’ll need a translator.’

  Bonitus gave him a cold smile. ‘And it looks good, heh, to have me there too?’

  ‘It might help, yes.’

  ‘Well...’ Bonitus said, nodding briskly. He adjusted his gold-buckled belt and the array of weapons he was carrying: knife, axe and sword. Then he vaulted up onto a spare Roman cavalry horse, settling himself in the saddle with the ease of a skilled rider. ‘Maybe we see!’

  Trumpets sounded from the battlement walkway above them, then the portcullis shuddered upwards and the gates began to creak open. Nudging the horse’s flanks, Castus led his men out through the dark tunnel and into the morning sun.

  They rode only a short way from the walls, along the paved road that ran due eastwards towards the hill country, the very limit of Roman control. Then Castus raised his hand and signalled a halt. One of the men behind him was carrying the green branch, the symbol of parley. Now they had to see whether the barbarians would respect it.

  Mist and smoke curled through the wreck of charred timber and burnt tree stumps beside the road. From the forest at the far side of the cleared land, Castus could hear the calls of the Bructeri warriors, the braying of their horns summoning their chiefs. He sat firmly in the saddle, kept his back straight, and waited.

  The shapes of men seemed to form out of the mist, thronging along the margin of the forest. As Castus watched, a band of them moved forward along the road towards him. They were mounted on horses and ponies, five or six well-armed, powerful-looking warriors, either chiefs or war leaders. The others following on foot appeared to be members of their household retinues, with their slaves or spear-carriers. The mounted band came to a halt only fifty paces away. In silence the warriors stared at him. Castus thought of the campaign he had fought against these same savage people ten years before. The dying men writhing as the poisoned arrows bit their flesh. He was surely mad to extend trust to them now.

  ‘Tell them that the governor, Tiberianus, the man who executed the Chamavi hostages and started this war, is dead,’ Castus told Bonitus. He waited while the Salian chief translated his words in a rather casual-sounding tone.

  ‘Tell them that I am Aurelius Castus, Commander of the Germanic Frontier, and I have taken charge of this city in the name of the emperor. The emperor’s son, Caesar Flavius Julius Crispus, will arrive in one or two days with a powerful army to destroy those of our enemies who remain in the field.’

  Bonitus gave him a glance, a raised eyebrow and a quick smile. Then he called out the translation. It seemed to go on for longer than Castus had expected.

  ‘What are you telling them?’

  ‘I also add that I myself lead a powerful force of Salii, thousands strong, in the service of the Roman emperor!’

  ‘Don’t overdo it.’

  ‘Heh, sorry!’

  ‘Tell them that we know they cannot take our fort or city. They waste the lives of their men in this assault. Instead I offer them a truce: if they withdraw their raiding parties, collect their dead and go back to their homeland there will be no reprisals against them. They have satisfied the demands of honour. Now let them return to the treaties they agreed with Rome.’

  Bonitus took his time over the translation; Castus hoped he was adding no more boastful flourishes of his own. A silence followed his words; then the Bructeri leaders began to talk among themselves in low urgent voices.

  ‘Can you make out what they’re saying?’ Castus asked from the corner of his mouth. Bonitus shook his head.

  The Bructeri group parted a little, and a boy on a pony rode up between them. Aged about twelve, he carried a light javelin across his shoulder. At the first sight of the boy, Castus felt a jolt of recognition pass through him. It could not be possible, he thought, but still he leaned forward over the saddle horns, studying the boy. Just a close resemblance, perhaps – understandable within a single tribe. Then the boy raised his hand to brush the blond hair from his face, and Castus caught the wink of a blue bead on his wrist. The same amulet that Ganna had given him, and that he had returned to her only last winter. The boy was her son: he was sure of it.

  And now one of the leading warriors was leaning from his horse to speak to the boy. Together they glanced towards Castus, and the boy nodded. Frowning, still half disbelieving, Castus remembered Ganna’s words: My brother has taken him into his household. He is a great man, now, my brother. The high chief’s bodyguard.

  Dapple stamped at the ground and shook her mane, the stink of smoke and charred timber beginning to unnerve her. Castus tightened his grip on the reins, still gazing at the group of Bructeri, and at the boy he knew must be Ganna’s child. The child was staring
back at him, and Castus tried to read his expression. How would he feel, he wondered, in this boy’s place? He had no idea – his own mother had died when he was born, and he had hated and feared his father. But this boy must know that the Romans had slain his father, taken his mother as a slave and held her for nearly ten long years. How did he feel, knowing that the enemy commander who had kept his mother in servitude for so long now confronted him?

  The warrior who had spoken to the boy – Ganna’s brother, Castus assumed – now urged his own horse forward. Three other men followed him. As he drew closer, Castus saw the resemblance despite the blond beard combed out over his chest, the fierce warrior garb and posture: the man had the same clear blue eyes, the same proud bearing that he remembered in Ganna herself. He halted, and for several long moments he fixed Castus with his gaze.

  ‘You,’ the warrior called in thickly accented Latin. ‘You – Aurelius Castus.’

  ‘I am,’ Castus told him.

  Another long pause, then the warrior glanced back towards the group behind him, nodded, and looked at Castus again.

  ‘My king say. We accept.’

  The warrior raised his spear, then turned his horse and rode back with the others towards the distant trees. Castus let out a long-held breath. He heard Bonitus doing the same.

  A low cry went up from the barbarian host, building to a roar that resonated between the trees. A single horn sounded a long braying note. Then, as Castus watched, every man turned and raised his shield, moving back into the forest’s darkness, until the drifting smoke and the last haze of mist obscured them entirely.

  Was Ganna herself out there somewhere? Castus had no way of telling. But as he sat in the stillness, the early sun warming his face, he could almost sense her looking back at him from the trees. He raised his hand, palm outwards. Then he gave the signal to return to the fort.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  So much delay, and so much still to lose.

  The sun was setting once more by the time the assembled troops marched out through the west gate of the city on the long straight highway towards Juliacum. To have lost a day now was almost more than Castus could endure, but it had been necessary. He had given orders to the city councillors and his own commanders, and toured the defences; only then had his last reserves of energy given out, plunging him into deathlike dreamless sleep on the couch in his quarters. Six hours later Diogenes had woken him with the report the scouts had brought in: the Bructeri had withdrawn completely. The city was safe, but Castus’s son was still in danger, still a virtual hostage in the hands of Magnius Rufus. Marcellina and her daughters too. He knew he could not lose any more time.

  Along the highway the troops marched through the warm summer night, spreading out into a long column. Each man was fully armed and equipped, with eight days’ rations in his pack. Castus had withdrawn men from the garrison of Colonia and added them to his own force; now he had just short of two thousand under his command, but only a handful of them were mounted. Strong enough to smash any raiding bands they met on the road, but a meagre force if they had to confront King Ragnachar and his main Chamavi host. Castus had ordered his men to bring every trumpet and horn in Colonia, even those sacred instruments kept in the temples. He hoped the gods would not be angered by the sacrilege. But the men were rested and eager, and marched with a purpose now. The flat arable lands around them appeared empty in the darkness, only the flicker of distant fires along the horizon showing the presence of war.

  An hour after midnight they reached a crossroads with an inn, a posting station and a clutch of houses, and Castus ordered a halt. Tiberiacum, the place was called. The similarity with the name of the dead governor seemed ominous. He was moving back down the column, checking the situation of the troops and their officers, when a scout brought news of cavalry on the road ahead. The Sixth Equites Stablesiani, riding in from the west.

  ‘Tell their tribune to station his men with my vanguard,’ Castus told the scout, ‘and then report to me.’ As the man rode away he clenched his back teeth and stared into the darkness. He had not expected to meet Ulpius Dexter again so soon.

  In the rear chamber of the posting station he sat at a rough plank table and waited, tapping his fingers. The lamp on the table gave a feeble sputtering light, casting slanted shadows around the graffiti-scarred whitewashed walls. Diogenes stood beside the door, with Felix and two dependable soldiers of the Second Legion. Voices came from the lobby outside, then the door opened and Dexter entered, stooping under the low lintel. He was still dressed in his cloak and scale cuirass, his helmet clasped under his arm, the road’s dust clinging to him. He grinned as he saluted, the muscles of his tanned face tightening.

  ‘Good to see you alive, excellency! We heard rumours otherwise...’

  Castus nodded. The man had no idea, clearly. He gestured for the tribune to continue.

  ‘I’ve got two hundred of my riders with me,’ Dexter said. ‘We came in from the Tungris direction, fighting running battles all the way to Juliacum, but the town was surrounded by the enemy – too many of them to break through. Most of the ones we met were slaves, freed from the fields and armed against their masters. I was aiming to reach Colonia by dawn and join the garrison there. We’ve taken losses, but I can turn the men around at once if you’ll lead them.’

  Castus splayed his hands on the table. He felt a low pain in his chest at the thought of what he had to do. He had trusted this man once, considered him the best of his officers. But the guilty are often not the worst of men. Standing up, he circled the table until he stood before Dexter.

  ‘Surrender your sword, tribune.’

  Dexter blinked, and then grinned, as if at some joke. But when he saw Castus’s grave expression, a look of hunted fear flickered in his eyes.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I don’t... What...?’

  The slightest nod from Castus, and the two soldiers stepped forward and seized the tribune’s arms. Felix reached in nimbly from behind and took Dexter’s sword, slipping it from the scabbard. Dexter’s smile died.

  ‘Last year,’ Castus said, ‘my friend Valerius Leontius, Commander of the Frontier, was murdered at Castra Herculis. You were there. What happened?’

  The tribune’s expression shifted between feigned outrage and guilty fear. ‘Leontius was killed by the barbarians!’ he said.

  With one sweeping movement Castus drew his sword and swung it up against the tribune’s neck. Dexter flinched as the honed steel touched him, the muscles of his throat pulled tight.

  ‘Your interpreter already told us everything,’ Castus said, conscious of the lie. It had been a hunch, an intuition, and he had prayed that he was not mistaken. But Dexter’s look of panic told him all he needed to know.

  ‘Bappo? He’s a liar...! Where is he now?’

  ‘Bappo’s dead. As is Governor Tiberianus. And you won’t leave this room alive unless you talk.’

  ‘I...’ Dexter began, and then swallowed heavily. He looked sick, trying for a defiant tone but failing. Resignation was stealing his resolve. This was his fate, and he knew it. ‘They gave me money,’ he gasped. ‘Leontius was never popular – he was harsh, unforgiving... Tiberianus and Magnius Rufus promised me money, and I needed it. I had debts.’

  ‘Any decent officer can live on his pay. What was it? Gambling?’

  ‘Yes, and... other things. They threatened me – said they could have me dismissed from the army, even seized and tortured. Of course I went along with it...’

  ‘Of course. And you murdered Leontius yourself?’

  Dexter closed his eyes as he nodded. Castus felt a hot rush of satisfaction rise through him. For the first time, he held justice in his hands. But he knew that it was not that easy: Dexter was the sole witness to the treachery, and Castus needed both him and his troops.

  ‘And then you stood by and did nothing when Rufus tried to have me killed. That night at the villa, when I was attacked in my room – you knew what was going to happen...’

/>   ‘No!’ Dexter cried. ‘I was as shocked as you. I never expected him to go that far...’

  ‘But you did nothing. You said nothing.’

  He lowered his sword. Dexter’s eyes were wet, and he blinked away the tears with an expression of disgust. ‘I’m sorry,’ the tribune said. ‘I’ve lived with this crime for over a year. I deserve your punishment, but my men were only following orders.’

  Following orders, Castus thought. How many times had he heard those words? How many times had he used them himself?

  ‘We have a battle ahead of us,’ he said quietly, leaning back against the table. ‘If any shred of honour remains to you, you’ll do your duty. Perhaps you’ll find a soldier’s death, and all this can be forgotten. For now, I return your sword on trust. See to your men. We rest here for two hours, then we move.’

  Dexter’s face reddened, and he stammered as he tried to speak, and then fell silent. Drawing himself up straight, he gave a military salute. ‘We will do what we are ordered, and at every command we will be ready!’

  When the tribune was gone Castus seated himself once more at the table. There was a flask of watered wine beside him, and he poured himself a cup. A tap at the door, the sentry’s voice, and then Luxorius entered the room.

  ‘Forgive me. I overheard your conversation,’ the eunuch said in a conciliatory tone. ‘A startling disclosure! My master the Praetorian Prefect will, of course, wish to learn more about it. If you don’t mind, I will accompany the tribune myself, and ensure that he does not, ah, attempt to escape.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Castus said. He felt dirty inside, all the satisfaction of Dexter’s confession washed out of him. Death in battle was the best the tribune could hope for now. ‘But go with him if you want, I can’t stop you. Just try not to get killed, eh?’