Spears first; men spitted like pigs as they cowered away from the charging horses and the screaming bodies flipped clear of the long iron-tipped lances with a trained lift of a powerful arm. Galba’s personal escort hustled the Emperor away to the rear of the column, leaving a gap for the following cavalry wing to form up. The prefect commanding the Batavians might have hesitated, but Galba howled at him to ride the agitators down. He formed his men into four ranks and gave the order. ‘Draw swords. Advance.’
This time there was no charge. Instead the cavalry pushed forward in a steady, relentless line, the heavy cavalry spathae chopping down on head and shoulder, splitting skulls in two and carving great chasms in flesh and bone. Blood spurted shoulder high, screams split the air and soon every sword dripped red. The cavalry horses were trained for this work and as they shouldered their way into the mass of terrified, unarmed sailors they snapped with yellowing teeth at faces and the hands raised to protect them. A man could take a sword cut and laugh about it five years later. A man whose face has been torn off by a horse must live in darkness for ever. The Batavians soon realized that their opponents were unarmed and the rhythm of the blows slackened, the strength going out of the cuts. But it is the nature of war that if one side weakens the other will take advantage. In the respite, powerful arms hauled one of the leading cavalrymen from his saddle. In seconds he was stripped of his weapons and uniform and his naked body battered by fists and feet until he was broken bone and bruised and bloody meat. His comrades saw, and resumed their carnage with renewed effort. There would be no more mercy. Not far away, the three centuries of the Praetorian Guard securing the bridge were caught in the midst of a thousand men fighting for their very survival. A few guards dropped their weapons and were ignored, but others were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of men. Somehow their commander managed to form the majority into a defensive circle round which the sailors surged and swirled as the cavalry compressed them from two sides. Those trapped on the road closest to the bridge made to escape the relentless carnage in a panic-stricken mob, but the span was only wide enough to take a single cart and dozens were crushed when one man fell, bringing down those behind.
Valerius felt as if he was drowning amid a sea of legs and his dazed mind told him that if he didn’t get up he would never rise again. He forced himself on to his stomach, but his arms seemed to have lost their strength and when a heavy foot crashed into his back he knew he was finished. A wave of bodies flowed over him as the defenceless seamen fell back to escape the swords and spears of the cavalry. From nowhere, heavy, dark-skinned legs appeared to plant themselves on either side of his body like a bulwark against the tide. He felt himself being lifted to his feet.
‘To the river. It is our only hope.’ Juva had to shout to make himself heard above the tumult. His voice was steady enough, but the wide eyes told their own story and Valerius could see the Nubian was on the verge of panic.
‘Wait.’ Valerius took a moment to allow his senses to clear. He knew what could happen when an infantry formation broke in front of cavalry and it was clear the sailors must break soon or be massacred to a man. To his front he could see the mounted Spanish spearmen. They had been slowed by the mass of bodies in front of them, but the long lances continued to do their work. To his right a pink haze marked the harvest of the Batavian swords. Milo, the marine who had negotiated with the Emperor, rushed up to join them, his face pale with shock.
Hoarse shouts of command alerted Valerius to the position of the Praetorians, still in their defensive circle on the edge of the road. The trapped sailors had identified them as the next threat, but they had come here to talk, not fight, and there was no concerted attempt to attack the guardsmen. In the midst of the formation, Valerius recognized the stocky figure of Helius. He saw a chance, just the slimmest chance, of avoiding a total massacre, and turned to Milo. ‘Can you still control these people?’
Milo looked at the chaos of desperate men around him. ‘I can try.’
‘Trying isn’t good enough,’ Valerius snarled. ‘You must succeed or you are all dead. We only have minutes, maybe less.’
The marine centurion glared at him. ‘I will succeed.’
In short, urgent sentences, Valerius explained what he needed. The marine swallowed and looked frantically from the line of cavalry towards the Praetorians. ‘I will do my part, but can you do yours?’
‘Juva?’
The big Nubian nodded and used his huge bulk to carve a path through to where the circle of Praetorian shields protected their bearers from the fury of the sailors. Determined eyes glared out from below helmet rims and short swords were held ready to dart out at the nearest threat. Valerius positioned himself in front of Helius and walked forward with his arms raised and the distinctive wooden first clearly visible. He knew the terror of the shield line and the way the eye and hand worked outwith the brain’s control. As he came within gladius range his heart beat against his ribs. All it would take was a single jab from the snarling, wild-eyed figure behind the curved scutum and his guts would be spilled on the earth.
‘I greet you, Helius of Mutina.’ He kept his voice calm, but pitched loud enough to be heard above the chaos all around. ‘I am Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, honorary tribune of the Guard.’ The appointment had been made by Nero and was purely temporary, but as far as Valerius knew it had never been rescinded. What mattered was that Helius believed him. ‘This is a terrible mistake, Helius, but it is within our power to avoid an even greater disaster. We must talk, but it cannot be with a sword at my throat. Put aside your shield and allow me through.’
He saw the Praetorian blink, the moment recognition dawned, and the disbelief at what he was being asked to do. Helius’s eyes flicked to Valerius’s shoulder, where Juva’s commanding presence protected his back.
‘He will make sure I and I alone enter, Helius. You must trust me.’
Helius shook his head at his own foolishness, but he stepped back and allowed Valerius to pass. The sword point followed him all the way. ‘One sign of a trick and I’ll personally deliver your head to the Emperor.’
The centre of the Praetorian circle was an oasis of calm at the eye of the tempest. For the first time Valerius was able to lower his voice to less than a shout. ‘It is the Emperor who has caused this, Helius, and if we do not do something it will blacken his name throughout history. You heard these men. They are not traitors, or mutineers. They came here to show him their loyalty and this is how they are repaid.’
The Praetorian scanned the uproar around him, his eyes flickering between the immediate threat of the marines surrounding him and the area where the Batavian swords still rose and fell and stained the very air scarlet. ‘Why should I do anything? I have a responsibility to my men and we are safe enough here.’
‘You are safe enough as long as they don’t attack you, but unless you act soon they know the only way they can stay alive is by taking your shields and weapons. I have already told my Nubian friend here that.’ Helius’s gaze flicked to Juva, who waited outside the circle, and his hand tightened on his sword. Valerius shrugged. ‘Yes, you can kill me, but that won’t change anything. Do as I say and you can save thousands of lives.’
The certainty in Helius’s eyes faded. ‘What can I do that will change this?’
Valerius told him his plan.
‘You’re mad. Either you’ll get us all killed or I’ll end up in the carcer.’
‘I will take full responsibility, Helius, but we need to do it now.’
Helius closed his eyes and for a moment Valerius thought he had failed. Then: ‘Oh, shit. Disengage!’ he roared. ‘Form column on me. First century to the front.’
The near-suicidal command was greeted with confusion in the Praetorian ranks before the ingrained discipline of decades brought obedience. Juva’s shipmates from the Waverider had created enough space for the manoeuvre and in four quick movements the Guard were advancing unhindered through the sailors towards the narrowing gap between t
he Vascones and the Batavian cavalry. Valerius marched beside Helius and he thought he could see confusion in the cavalry ranks and a hint that perhaps their attack was being pressed less forcefully. Instinct told him that someone on the Emperor’s staff would be trying just as hard as he to stop this turning into a massacre. Still, he couldn’t take that chance. Helius roared out his orders. ‘Single rank. Form line. Third century oblique left.’ The Praetorians spread out in a thin defensive line across the Spanish front, with the third century angled to face the Germans.
Now puzzlement and consternation was clear on the faces of the cavalry. Killing a crowd of mutinous sailors on the Emperor’s orders was one thing. A full-scale battle against the Praetorian Guard was another. Milo took advantage of the hesitation to order his men back behind the Praetorian line and the cry went up to retreat to the river. The bloodied sailors and marines faded away, leaving their dead and dying behind, and their tormentors to face the wall of Praetorian shields. A few of the Vascones attempted to force their way through, and the order went up from Helius to act defensively. On the right flank, the Germans stood their ground, apart from a section beyond the end of the line who galloped among the fleeing seamen hitting out with the flat of their swords.
Juva had appeared at Valerius’s side, but now he turned to go.
‘You saved my life,’ Valerius reminded him. ‘Stay with me and I will guarantee your safety.’
The big man shook his head. ‘My place is with my shipmates.’ With a last dejected glance at the carnage around him, he walked away.
Valerius looked towards the river. Hundreds of sailors crowded the bank, but a thousand and more waited uncertainly in the space between. The killing had stopped. The shrill cry of a trumpet sounded amid the ranks of the Imperial column and the Vascones wheeled away to disappear up the Via Flaminia. A group of officers from Galba’s staff appeared and began talking animatedly with the prefect commanding the German cavalry wing. Helius stood in front of his men looking bewildered, and as Valerius watched one of the staff men trotted over to the Praetorian’s side and began barking questions at him.
The sound of hooves close behind announced the arrival of Serpentius leading Valerius’s horse. ‘I saw you were in trouble, but I couldn’t get to you,’ the Spaniard said apologetically. He looked at the dog-legged line of crumpled bodies and the sword-slashed wounded now walking or crawling to join their comrades in the space between the road and the river. He shook his head. ‘Idiots.’ It wasn’t clear whether he meant the victims or their killers. ‘What happens now?’
A reinforced cohort of legionaries – perhaps fifteen hundred men – approached. For a moment, Valerius feared they would draw swords and the killing would begin again. Instead they began to use their shields to herd the seamen into a smaller area. The bemused sailors showed no resistance.
‘What happens now?’ Serpentius repeated.
Valerius touched the side of his head where he’d been hit – he still wasn’t sure with what – and his fingers came away sticky with blood. ‘If the Emperor has any sense he’ll understand that this was nothing but a mistake and send the sailors back to their barracks in Misenum. Bad enough killing so many of his own people without stirring up any more bad feeling.’
But he knew that for Servius Sulpicius Galba it would not be a question of sense or otherwise. The Emperor had issued a direct order to the seamen to disperse and that order had not been obeyed. Deep in his gut, Valerius sensed there was more trouble on the way.
And it came sooner than he’d expected.
‘Gaius Valerius Verrens, I arrest you in the name of the Emperor.’
XIII
Two weeks after Galba’s bloody entry into Rome Valerius stood in the atrium of the luxurious villa Marcus Salvius Otho had allocated himself. Only his host’s intervention had saved him from facing the same charges as the marine legion. Now he listened in growing disbelief as Otho outlined the punishment Galba had devised for the survivors of the massacre at the Milvian Bridge.
‘Decimation.’
For a moment the word shocked Valerius into silence. Surely it wasn’t possible? ‘But no legion has suffered decimation since the time of Crassus, and none for two hundred years before that. In the name of Mars, even Caligula didn’t order decimation when the Rhenus legions threatened to rebel. The head of Gaetulicus was enough for him. The Emperor should know that, since he was the man Caligula sent to take it.’
‘Yet there is a certain logic.’ Silhouetted against the window with his back to his guest, Marcus Salvius Otho shrugged. ‘Our Emperor is an old-fashioned man and he has resolved upon an old-fashioned punishment for an old-fashioned crime. He wished to include you among the ringleaders of the mutiny. It took all my charm and diplomacy to persuade him otherwise.’
Valerius waited to discover the price for this unlikely munificence, but Otho continued to stare from the villa window out towards the marbled bulk of the Palatine. The injustice of it – no, it was more than injustice, it was madness – drove Valerius to impotent rage. Decimation meant that one man in every ten, regardless of service or worth, would be drawn by lot, taken out and slaughtered. ‘There was no mutiny. There were misunderstandings, there were mistakes, someone,’ the fury in his voice made the other man turn, ‘panicked. Those men went to the Milvian Bridge to give Servius Sulpicius Galba their oath of allegiance. To prove their loyalty. Now a hundred of them are dead, two hundred more are wounded and our Emperor wants to slaughter another five hundred. To make a point? It is beyond stupidity. It is insane.’
‘I suggest you guard your tongue, Valerius,’ Otho said lightly. ‘It is fortunate you are among friends.’ Valerius shot him the look this vacuity deserved and the other man acknowledged it with a wry smile. Having Otho for a friend would be like having a cobra for a house guest; always interesting, but ultimately fatal. ‘In any case, why should you care for a few thousand of Poseidon’s playmates who could just as easily be killed in a freak storm the next time they sail? They were foolish to volunteer to fight for a madman like Nero and more foolish still to risk the wrath of a man well known to have a spatha for a spine.’
Indeed, why did he care? Juva had saved his life, but it was more than that. ‘Because they are men who volunteered to fight for Rome.’ He stared at the patterned marble floor, which with its depiction of gods and monsters and frolicking centaurs reminded him of the absurdity of what had happened by the Tiber. ‘They may not look much, but they have spirit and they have courage. Haven’t they suffered enough, seeing their comrades butchered and maimed? More to the point, Rome has suffered enough. Ever since Seneca’s fall the Empire has lived in shadow. It needs a chance to draw breath; peace and stability, not more blood spilled on the streets.’
‘Spoken like a politician rather than a soldier. Perhaps it is time you took your place in the Senate?’ A dangerous edge to Otho’s voice made Valerius look up. No softness in the eyes now. They bored into him like glittering arrowheads. ‘Sometimes wise words are enough, but … You are still a soldier, Valerius? Well, soldier or politician, let me set you a puzzle. Tomorrow the Emperor will slaughter five hundred of your faithful mariners to prove his strength of will. To execute them, he will use the loyal soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, in order to test that loyalty. In one week’s time he will go before the Senate and repudiate the thirty thousand sesterces per man offered to the Guard by Nymphidius Sabinus, whom he will condemn as a traitor acting entirely in his own interests.’ He paused to allow the significance of his words to register and in the intense silence Valerius imagined the reaction of hard-eyed soldiers like Helius to being cheated. Eventually, Otho continued. ‘Not content with this, he intends to replenish the Empire’s coffers by a series of punitive taxes on anyone enriched by Nero, which will impoverish half the men he is addressing in the Curia. As a simple soldier, or a politician, what is your opinion of the combined results of these policies?’
For the second time in a few moments Valerius fought for the right w
ord to describe the indescribable. ‘Anarchy.’ Otho nodded for him to continue. ‘By killing the sailors who volunteered to protect Rome, he risks losing the support of the people. By disowning Nymphidius’s bounty he guarantees losing the support of the Guard who placed him in power. By taxing those who have thrived under Nero – not just his favourites – he places himself in grave danger of losing the Senate. Why?’
Otho turned back to the window, staring hard as if he could somehow reach into the mind of the man who inhabited the palace that filled his view. Galba had taken up residence on the Palatine in preference to the Domus Aurea because Nero’s great Golden House was a symbol of everything he despised about his predecessor. ‘Because he is Servius Sulpicius Galba. He believes – knows – that his bloodline makes him the noblest Roman alive. That his fortune makes him infallible. That the gods had always intended he should be Emperor. And that an Emperor’s duty is to rule, not to be advised or directed. Every one of these decisions is patently wrong, yet he sees them as a symbol of his strength.’ Otho’s voice turned weary. ‘We chose him because he was old and because of his lineage. Now it seems that the very age which made him an ideal candidate befuddles him and the glory of his ancestors blinds him to reality. We were wrong, Valerius.’
A chill like a damp fog settled over Valerius as he understood why Otho had saved him. He shook his head. ‘I conspired in the end of one Emperor, Marcus; do not expect me to help bring down another. For the gods’ sake, if not mine.’ Even as the words were spoken, he realized that somewhere in the house men were hidden waiting for this moment. All it would take was one word. In Rome’s eyes he was already condemned. Otho would not even need to justify it. But deep in the labyrinthine maze of Marcus Salvius Otho’s mind a contest had been taking place and a slight upturn in the thin lips signalled an unlikely victor.
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