Rome 4: The Art of War

by M C Scott

  Trabo was Jocasta’s in soul and sinew; however unhappy, he didn’t have the power to turn her down. He stepped away, half-formed oaths muddying the air about him.

  Felix didn’t move, but the look on his face was one Pantera could have modelled, just as the swift, clean disengage had been. Evidently, this boy was his master’s apprentice.

  ‘Did Pantera send you?’ Jocasta asked.

  ‘Vitellius sent me. I am sworn to find Domitian and make him safe.’

  ‘Safe?’ I gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Vitellius wants to take him into custody so he can use him to keep the throne.’

  ‘Still, he said he wanted him kept safe and I said I would.’ The boy smiled, angelically. ‘I didn’t say I’d take him back. He forgot to ask me that.’

  His uneven gaze roamed the benches, alighting briefly on each of our faces. He frowned. ‘Borros isn’t with you?’

  ‘Borros is with Pantera,’ Jocasta said. ‘Did you not see him as you came through the forum? He was just behind us.’

  ‘I didn’t come through the forum. There were too many people. I knew you must try to flee Rome, so I came straight to the bridge and waited for you there.’

  ‘And noticed us disguised amidst the group of priests.’ Jocasta favoured him with a smile that made Trabo’s bones melt. ‘That was well done.’

  She didn’t ask him how he had picked us out when we had believed ourselves to be invisible. Clearly, she thought to let his pride do that for her.

  But Felix was not like other men; he didn’t need her approval, and did not respond to her tacit invitation, just stood there, still frowning, chewing lightly on his lower lip.

  It took Domitian to get an answer from him. Vespasian’s son said, conversationally, as to a friend, ‘What did we do wrong? We thought we were invisible to anyone Vitellius might send.’

  ‘You will have been.’ Felix shrugged, loosely. ‘But my lady Jocasta wears boots made by Leontus on the Aventine and there are few other tall women in Rome who do that, and none at all who walk side by side with a man of Trabo’s stature who strides like a legionary on the march.’

  Jocasta maintained an admirable composure. Trabo was visibly upset. They had thought the boy stupid because he had a squint, and were only now realizing their mistake.

  ‘I’m sorry, my lord, lady …’ Felix offered a sad smile to their discomfort. ‘I don’t think Vitellius knows it. Certainly, he didn’t tell me how to pick you out when he sent me to look for you.’ His gaze cleared. ‘You will want to find Pantera? He was on the road north from the forum. I passed him.’

  ‘No!’ said Domitian.

  But ‘Yes!’ said Jocasta at the same time. ‘We would very much like it if you could help us find Pantera. Most likely, he will know where Borros is. Perhaps the lady Caenis and I could come with you? Trabo can remain here with Domitian, Matthias and Horus. We can bring Pantera back when we have found him.’

  Was I a hostage? It certainly seemed like that. In one stroke, Jocasta was separating me from Domitian, so that I could not know what was done with him. I looked at her and received only a bland smile, which I returned in kind, saying, ‘Certainly. That would be wise. Above all of us, Domitian must be kept safe.’

  I could have challenged her, perhaps, but one of the things I learned in Antonia’s court is that things gather a power of their own when they are spoken aloud. Let her think me compliant; let her underestimate me as she had done Felix; let her make just one mistake …

  The priests came to see us leave, and to swear that their god would protect Domitian as long as he remained in their care.

  The obvious corollary was that, in leaving the care of Isis, we three were putting ourselves in danger. We bowed and thanked them and promised gifts to the god on our return.

  As we left the sanctuary of Isis’ temple, Felix threw me a dazzling smile. I found him really rather charming, in his own strange way. Then we stepped out of the door and all we could hear was the battle for Rome, and the sounds of men dying.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Rome, 20 December AD 69

  Geminus

  ‘STEP UP! SHIELDS locked! One step forward! … Hold that line!’

  Days, months, years of training were tempered here, in the heat of battle. Men moved without thinking, their bodies responding long before their minds caught up, and the wall they made with their shields was flawless.

  Against other legionaries, we would have been unassailable, but Antonius’ blue-scarved cavalrymen brought their long spears when they came at us from the side – Juvens had been right about their flanking manoeuvre – and they drove them over the tops of our shields as if we were barbarian warriors, not fellow Romans.

  I felt iron hiss past my right ear and jerked to my left, cracking my helmet hard against Juvens’ – he had mirrored my move.

  We bounced upright again, and ducked back down as the spears twisted and stabbed. Left and right, green-marked men were falling. Others stepped in to take their place, but there was only one way this could go if we stayed as we were.

  ‘We need to move back!’

  It was hard to be heard over the din of battle; iron clashed on mail, on iron, on flesh. The air flowed hot with lifeblood, the ground was a smear of ordure and spilled intestines.

  I shouted it again, to my right this time, where the signallers stood. ‘Sound the turn! We need to move back up the street. Form a square, wheel right, shields to the outside, back up the street. Can you do that?’

  Even as I shouted, a spear thrust caught the signaller in the throat and he went down like a felled tree. The nearest legionary caught his horn almost as a reflex – it doesn’t do to lose the signals in battle – but he was looking at it as if he had never played one in his life.

  ‘Give me that!’

  I grabbed the horn, put tight lips to a mouthpiece still warm from the man just dead, and prayed for help in remembering how to play.

  The help came. I was rusty, but adequate, and the notes were a ripple of silver rising over the black mess of battle.

  As before, decades of training paid off and our men spun and wheeled to my direction, but the enemy knew the signals just as well as we did and at every turn or counter-turn the blue cavalry was already waiting, and, soon, mass upon mass of infantry, as Antonius Primus loosed his reserve cohorts into the fray.

  ‘Back! Back!’

  Fighting, we fell back into the city. The enemy forces came at us like a flood. Every street was a butchery, every open square an ambush. The people were up out of harm’s way, but we were left on the ground, caught in an orgy of killing.

  I fitted my shoulder to Juvens’ and hacked and hacked and—

  ‘Shit! Disengage. Left in a hundred paces! Now!’

  With me and Juvens were Halotus, Lentulus and Thrasyllus, whose father had disowned him for following Vitellius; good men, all of them; friends.

  On my command, they disengaged and sprinted for the dark mouth of an alley ahead and to our left. The Blues-men we had been fighting saw the open street we had just abandoned and preferred it to a black, stinking alley that might have held a hundred of us. They forged on past, leaving us standing in the dark.

  We watched their retreating backs. Juvens was half bent, with his hands propped on his knees. He peered up at me from below the flop of his hair.

  ‘Why this way?’

  ‘Because I just saw Jocasta come down here with Caenis, Vespasian’s woman, and the boy who sold himself to us as a messenger.’

  ‘Jocasta? You mean Lucius’ lover?’

  ‘Lucius’ lover who also seduced Caecina before he marched north and defected,’ I said, flatly. I had a very bad feeling about this, but that didn’t matter compared to the prospect of catching Caenis. ‘If we can take these three alive, we can secure the throne for Vitellius and his line for the next hundred years. They can’t be far ahead of us.’

  Juvens pushed himself upright. He straightened the flowing green scarf at his arm, re-tied the knot. ‘That
’s easy then. We get into pairs and search every house in the row. If we can’t catch two women and a youth barely shaving, we deserve to lose Rome.’ He threw me a grin. ‘Half a year’s pay says that if Jocasta’s here, then Trabo’s not far behind. If he turns up, leave him to me. I have an oath to Jupiter, and after last night’s fire now would be a good time to keep it.’

  It was the closest I had heard him get to accepting responsibility for what happened at the temple, and by then it didn’t matter.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Rome, 20 December AD 69

  Borros

  THE ROOFTOPS OF Rome were the only safe space that day. The entire population, those who weren’t fighting, were up there in their festival finery, making the most of the novelty Saturnalia had brought.

  At ground level, it was a different matter. Here, the green of Vitellius battled grimly with the oncoming tides of Antonius Primus’ blue-marked men, cavalry at first, and then legionaries. The streets were a chaos of men stabbing, gouging, kicking, killing anyone whose colour differed from their own.

  So the rooftops were the only safe place to be, which is why finding a route through wasn’t easy.

  ‘Excuse me … Thank you … May we pass … ? Thank you …’

  Pantera was the soul of tact, but still, it was like fighting through mud and not helped by the fact that we weren’t entirely sure where we were going.

  The silver-boys were up here too. It must have felt odd for them to have their domain so entirely taken over by people who normally didn’t venture higher than the steps up to the local Dionysian temple, but their whistles pierced the constant din of war. No doubt we weren’t following them as well as we could have done, but we ended up in more or less the right place.

  The first thing I knew of it was when Pantera grabbed my shoulder and forced me down on to the cold tiles of the roof.

  ‘There!’

  ‘What?’

  Looking over the edge, I saw Guards fighting other Guards, which wasn’t news by then.

  ‘In that alley. There: at the far end. Geminus and Juvens are searching that street.’ It took me a while to see where Pantera was pointing, to the dingy alley where yet more armoured men were flashing their swords at each other, except they weren’t, they were opening doors and checking inside and not killing anybody. Yet.

  ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Pantera threw me a fleeting grin. ‘And they’re not hunting us, so the next most likely quarry is Caenis and Domitian. We need to help them.’ He was up, spinning on his heel. ‘This way!’

  Swift as a squirrel, he led me on to another rooftop, behind the fighting Guards, across the open street and up on to the rooftops on the far side. Here was as packed with people as everywhere else and we made the same slow progress until we came to the row of houses that backed on to those being searched.

  ‘Excuse me … ? I’m sorry … Thank you … Are you for Vespasian or Vitellius?’ And at the blank stare: ‘Are you for the Blues or the Greens?’

  ‘We’re Blues-men!’ This from a couple of youths no more than thirteen, making like men, but their elders nodded and I saw a woman nursing a child at her breast, who grinned and pointed to the blue riband holding her hair. ‘Blues all the way.’

  ‘We may need your help shortly,’ Pantera said. ‘There are some Greens trying to get away from the Blues-men and they may be down in the alley. We’ll send word if we find them.’

  He spun a coin at the youngest of the boys and dropped down from the roof before they could start asking questions. I followed, fast.

  A narrow alley separated the two rows of single-storey houses and we landed in it just in front of a battered door that yielded to two hard kicks from Pantera. Barging through, we found ourselves in a neatly kept small room with whitewashed walls that smelled faintly of mother’s milk and baby-sick. In each back corner was a curtain. Pantera pushed one aside and I saw through into another room, the opposite of tidy, that smelled of old men.

  ‘The whole street connects,’ he said. ‘If they’re not in this side, we’ll have to cross over and try the row opposite. If you have gods that you trust, start praying!’

  We had gone through three rooms, all empty, when the Guards came in behind us.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  Rome, 20 December AD 69

  Geminus

  WE WORKED IN pairs, swiftly, with one man always in the open street.

  This was what we were good at. There’s a routine to it that we followed here: kick in the doors and follow in fast and hard, shields up, blades to the front. Keep it sharp and loud and violent and anyone inside is already defeated before they even see you.

  Except there was nobody inside: the entire fucking population was on the rooftops chanting the circus songs that went with the chariot races – and we’d been identified as Greens-men in a solidly Blue neighbourhood. Before long half of them were leaning over hurling insults, and I knew from experience that stones followed fast after the words.

  I’d been the one keeping watch outside in case our quarry bolted, but now I barrelled after Juvens and Lentulus into a single-roomed dwelling, fastidiously neat, with whitewashed walls and the mellow-sweet-sticky smell of a nursing newborn. We were leaving when a flash of colour in the far corner caught my eye. In three paces, I’d found a blue pale curtain, lifted it and stepped into the next house along.

  I didn’t have to speak. Juvens ran outside and found Thrasyllus.

  ‘They all connect. Take Halotus and go down the line as fast as you can. We’ll take this side. Keep your head down any time you’re outside. It’s getting ugly out here.’

  Juvens, Lentulus and I ran together, the rise and fall of the chariot songs over our heads not quite drowning out the sound of our nailed feet on the packed earth ground.

  It didn’t quite drown out the whisper of feet that started up ahead of us, either.

  ‘There!’

  You’d be amazed by how fast we ran, then.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Rome, 20 December AD 69

  Caenis

  ‘BORROS!’

  ‘Felix!’

  You’d think they were brothers, separated for years, the way they lit up when they saw each other.

  With the Guards on our tails, there wasn’t time to explain to either boy that Jocasta and Pantera were no longer on the same side, and even if one of us had tried I don’t think Felix and Borros would have listened.

  There was a brief, sharp moment, when both Jocasta and Pantera reached that same conclusion, and then Pantera said, ‘Geminus and Juvens are three rooms behind us. We have to get out. Felix, climb up on to the rooftops and tell the Blues’ supporters up there that Greens-men are in their houses trying to hide from the Blues. Tell them to whistle the Blues-men this way. ‘Borros—’ Pantera swung towards the big Briton. ‘We’re going to take a right turn out of the door, down to the end of the street, right again and up towards the forum. Can you carry the lady Caenis? We will have to move fast and you may have to shield her with your body.’

  ‘Of course. My lady?’

  He was huge. I couldn’t have argued if I had wanted to; and I didn’t want to.

  He swept me up and carried me cradled in his arms as a child carries a wooden doll, and with as little effort.

  In two sentences I was safe, and Felix, if he had been a danger, was neutralized. I saw sheer horror flash across Jocasta’s face, saw her eyes narrow on a thought, saw her hand move to her girdle – and fall away again as Geminus and Juvens, two men I knew only in passing, burst into the other side of what was a very tiny room.

  The only good thing was that they didn’t carry spears.

  We ran, just as Pantera had said we must, out of the door, right and right again at the end of the street.

  By the time we turned right the second time, there were five green-marked men on our heels, howling.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Rome, 20 December AD 69

  Geminus
<
br />   SO CLOSE!

  We were yards from them. Feet, even. We nearly had our blades in their backs, but Hades they could run fast, and while we might have caught up with them on any normal day, on this day we were Greens-men in a ghetto that was solidly for the Blues and they had, as I’d thought, swapped their insults for stones, slates, vegetables, knives; anything they could lay their hands on that might slow us: and it did.

  We ran through a hail of missiles, to which was soon added half a unit of blue-scarved men, drawn by the halloos of a bunch of youths who capered across the rooftops and drew them on to us. Amidst them, I spotted Felix, his near-albino colouring standing out like a beacon. I think it was then that I had the first inkling of how false was the path on which we had been led. There wasn’t time to think of it, though: in one moment, we were chasing our fugitives; in the next, we were fugitives ourselves, hurtling down alleys, trying to escape the increasing mass of blue-marked men on our tails.

  ‘Here!’ I grabbed Juvens, pulled him down another lane, this one lined with tanneries. Like everywhere else, the tanners had climbed up, out of reach of the fighting men and, like everywhere else, they were against us.

  ‘Here! Here!’ They danced and whistled like overgrown silver-boys. ‘Vitellius’ officers! Here!’

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Rome, 20 December AD 69

  Borros

  ‘WHERE’S DOMITIAN?’ PANTERA asked.

  We had slowed to a walk. I lowered the lady Caenis to the ground. She was bird light, and not hard to carry at all, but she thanked me kindly and did not seem overly flustered.

  ‘Where’s Domitian?’ Pantera asked her again, trying not to seem impatient with her rearranging of her hair, her tugging down of her sleeves.

  ‘With Trabo and Horus in the temple of Isis on the far side of the river.’ She looked around. ‘Where’s Jocasta?’