Sword of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘What else have you heard?’

  ‘It sounds as if our friend Otho is finished.’

  Valerius was startled enough to stop in the middle of the street. ‘What makes you say that?’

  The Spaniard shrugged. ‘Seems he’d been telling everyone who’ll listen that the Emperor would make him his heir and used the fact to borrow money. Lots of money. Now that Galba has named Piso they’re all calling in their loans. You’ve seen what he’s like. Never leaving his room. That panicky look in his eyes? And what about all the coming and going? They’re not all debt collectors.’

  ‘He still has friends.’

  ‘Not friends with that kind of money.’ Serpentius laughed. ‘No, he’s either planning to run or …’

  ‘Or?’

  Serpentius turned to meet his gaze. ‘Either you run or you fight.’

  ‘Then let’s hope he runs. You’re right, it is time we were out of the stink of the city.’

  When they reached the Palatine, Valerius was surprised to be escorted once more to the receiving room, where he found Galba and his three advisers huddled in discussion. As he waited for his presence to be acknowledged the voices became increasingly heated. He heard the name Onomastus and it froze him to the core. Onomastus was Otho’s freedman and the kind of slimy, double-dealing Greek who gave his compatriots a bad name.

  ‘You must act, before his influence is any more powerful.’ The speaker was Cornelius Laco and he was more agitated than Valerius had ever seen him.

  ‘I disagree,’ Vinius interrupted. ‘We do not have enough evidence. Give them more rope and they will strangle themselves with it.’

  ‘Evidence?’ the Praetorian commander demanded. ‘He is the Emperor, he does not need evidence, all he needs is suspicion. Just give the word and I will clear out that rat’s nest in—’

  ‘No.’ Galba’s grating voice stopped him in mid-sentence. ‘Titus is right. Justice and strength. We will wait, gather evidence, and when the time is right we will strike.’

  Laco turned away with a sigh that might have contained the sentiment ‘old fool’, but Valerius didn’t have time to dwell on the implications of what he’d heard, because finally Galba noticed him.

  The Emperor called him forward, but before he could speak Laco burst out: ‘Why don’t you ask him? He’s probably one of the bastards.’ In the frozen silence that followed, Valerius waited for the question that would either make him a liar or condemn Otho to the axe.

  Eventually, the Emperor shook his head, and when he spoke his voice was almost kindly. ‘This young man has enough burdens without adding another. I am afraid your mission must be delayed again, Verrens. There are suggestions of new developments on the Germania frontier. It has become more complex than I first envisaged. I must think on it for a while longer. See Laco after the sacrifice tomorrow and we will discuss it.’

  As Valerius turned his back the bickering resumed. Again, he heard the name Onomastus. What did they know that Gaius Valerius Verrens did not? And what kind of deadly game was Marcus Salvius Otho playing?

  XVIII

  Of all the glories of Rome, Valerius had long ago decided the Temple of Apollo was the most perfect. When Augustus dreamed of having a shrine on the Palatine to rival the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline he insisted on a construction on a similar scale. The result was a multi-columned masterpiece of creamy Etrurian marble flanked by an avenue of pillars and surrounded by a hundred statues depicting the fifty daughters of Danaus and their unfortunate husbands. In front of the temple stood an enormous statue of the god, the only one in Rome which rivalled the great colossus in Nero’s Golden House. On the roof a pair of gilded chariots of the sun were drawn by eight golden steeds. A magnificent arch, dedicated by the temple’s founder to his father, formed the gateway, and martial scenes carved from ivory and plated with precious metals decorated the double doors.

  Through this gate Servius Galba Caesar Augustus made his way eighteen days before the kalends of Februarius to preside over the traditional sacrifice and hear the auguries for the coming year. He took his place at the top of the steps overlooking the altar, where he was welcomed by Umbricius Scaurus, the high priest and haruspex. On his right stood Piso, his recently appointed heir, who Valerius had discovered was a pleasant, if not particularly bright young man with little interest in life beyond increasing his fortune and restoring his family’s reputation. To the left Galba’s fellow consul, Titus Vinius, and Cornelius Laco, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, looked uncomfortable alongside the Emperor’s most devoted and loyal servant Marcus Salvius Otho. Valerius, by special invitation of the Emperor, was part of the entourage waiting among the columns for the sacrifice to begin. Otho had greeted him with a dry smile and now he chatted amiably with Laco, who patently struggled to match his pleasantries.

  The blast of horns announced the arrival of the sacrifice, a fine white bull led into the shrine by the victimarius, a bare-chested young man who had probably brought up the animal from birth. This familiarity hopefully ensured the bull would stay calm throughout the ritual, for any sign of nervousness from man or beast would be taken by Umbricius as a poor omen. In honour of the day, the animal’s coat had been brushed to an ivory sheen, its horns gilded and its back draped with embroidered cloth of gold and scarlet. Galba’s eyes never left the bull. Valerius noticed that Otho’s gaze never left the Emperor. As it was coaxed towards the altar, the sacrifice let out an enormous sputtering fart that made Umbricius frown and the handler’s eyes widen. The young man recovered enough to speak quietly in the bull’s ear and by some hidden pressure on the neck persuaded it to kneel. Aided by the haruspex, Galba made his way down the steps to sprinkle the ritual dust on the animal’s head and back. As he completed his task a second muscular youth appeared, armed with a large axe which he swiftly brought down on the bull’s forehead. The blow landed with the sound of a thunder clap. For a heartbeat the animal appeared more surprised than stunned, then its eyes rolled back in its head and it collapsed on its side. Before it could recover a knife was drawn quickly across its throat. The Emperor stepped back, careful not to allow his toga to be stained as blood spurted from the pink-lipped wound to be collected in a bronze bowl by the victimarius. Then the sacrifice’s body was opened from breastbone to tail and Umbricius stooped low as the steaming entrails flooded out on to the tiles. He flicked at the yards of blue-veined intestine with the lituus, his curved wand of office, until he found the gall bladder and the heart. As the seconds passed, Valerius realized he was holding his breath. The priest began muttering to himself. Galba stepped closer to hear what Umbricius was saying, and the blood drained from his face.

  ‘The omens are bad.’ The high priest’s voice echoed round the temple precinct, drawing a shudder from all who heard him – all except one. ‘The gall bladder is black and the heart is swollen. The sacrifice is declared null.’ He drew breath and every man there expected him to order forward the next bull. Instead, his eyes fixed on Marcus Salvius Otho. ‘There is an enemy at the heart of the Empire.’ Galba flinched at the words and a murmur of disbelief punctuated by shouts of ‘No’ ran through the assembly, but the sardonic smile Otho had worn throughout the ceremony remained in place. ‘Foul plots pollute the very air that surrounds us.’

  For a moment Valerius believed Galba would use the priest’s words as an excuse to have Otho arrested and dragged off to the carcer. Icelus and Laco had spent the last two days urging him to do just that. Now the gods had confirmed their suspicions. Someone – it must have been Icelus, because Laco had neither the energy nor the wit – had set this up. If ever there was a moment to act, it was now. But the aged Emperor just looked from Umbricius to the bloody mess at his feet and back again as if he wasn’t aware what was happening. Without the support of the governor of Lusitania he would never have had the nerve to make the great gamble that had brought him the Empire. Otho had been with him every step of the way and for all his faults he was a patrician of the noblest Roman stock. Galba trus
ted Vinius and Laco to do his bidding, but Otho’s backing had given him added legitimacy. He was so blinded by the need to be perceived as strong and just that it probably didn’t occur to him that Otho might believe he had been betrayed. All that mattered was that Servius Sulpicius Galba had done what was right. Eventually, he found his voice.

  ‘Continue with the sacrifice.’

  A second bull was brought forward and the ceremony resumed. From his place by the pillars Valerius saw a small olive-skinned man approach Otho and recognized the patrician’s freedman, Onomastus. The former slave did most of the talking and Otho nodded gravely. When they’d finished their discussion Otho approached Laco in a way that was almost submissive, bowing to the Praetorian prefect and shaking hands before drifting to the side of the temple and making his way to the gate.

  Valerius pushed his way towards Laco. ‘I see Marcus Salvius Otho has left. Is something troubling him?’

  Laco glared at him. ‘If there was, I’m sure you would know better than I. Some foolishness about a new house and meeting the builders. A new slight to the Emperor that I will be sure to report. The man never did have any manners.’

  Valerius thanked him equally tersely and considered what he’d been told. If Otho had bought a new house it was the first he’d heard of it, and given his precarious financial position it seemed an unlikely tale. On the other hand, it could be something perfectly innocent that Otho didn’t want to air in public. Yet every instinct told him something wasn’t right. Careful not to be noticed, he slipped away from the temple to the guardhouse at the top of the Clivus Palatinus where he had arranged to meet Serpentius. He found the Spaniard sitting in the shade of a cypress tree talking to Juva, the big Nubian from the naval militia. His quarry was about to be swallowed by the crowd on the Via Sacra; there was no time for pleasantries. ‘I want you to follow Otho. I need to know who he meets and where he goes.’

  Serpentius was on his way before Valerius had finished speaking. Juva started after him, then called out as Valerius turned to go back up the hill. ‘There is something you should know. The militia has been summoned to the Praetorian barracks. Someone came this morning with an order releasing us from arrest.’

  Juva disappeared after the Spaniard, leaving Valerius with another puzzle. Galba had rescinded his order to send the sailors and marines directly back to their base at Misenum and agreed to reconsider their case. But why would he order them to the Praetorian barracks, where a single word could reignite the violence of the Milvian Bridge? The only way he would find out was by asking Vinius or Laco, and that would have to wait until after the ceremony.

  He started back towards the Temple of Jupiter with a growing feeling that his world was about to fall apart.

  XIX

  Serpentius slipped so easily through the crowds awaiting the outcome of the divination that Juva had trouble staying with him. Only the Nubian’s great height allowed him to keep the Spaniard in sight till he caught up. Otho remained fifty paces ahead with Onomastus and two of his lictors as they passed the House of the Vestals and the Regia.

  ‘If we end up in the open, drop back,’ the gladiator muttered from the side of his mouth. ‘You’re a bit too conspicuous for this kind of work. Following people is an art.’

  Juva shrugged. ‘I thought I might be some help if you got into trouble, old man.’

  ‘If I wasn’t on business, I’d cut your balls off and make you eat them for saying that. Maybe later.’

  ‘You could try,’ Juva growled. The big man continued to watch Otho’s progress. ‘He’s turned left. Do you think he’s going to the rostrum?’

  Serpentius glanced up at the black man. ‘Maybe you are good for something after all.’

  He increased his pace. They were in the very heart of the Forum, in the shadow of the Capitoline Hill, with the great bulk of the tabularium off to their right and the Rostrum Julium with its captured ships’ beaks to their left. Serpentius expected Otho to carry on towards the law courts in the Basilica Julia, which would be crowded with lawyers, prosecutors, jurors, the guilty and the not quite guilty, but the former governor of Lusitania stopped by the ‘golden milestone’ in front of the Temple of Saturn. Serpentius noticed immediately what another man would not. A group of around twenty men dressed in cloaks stood by the temple steps and their wary, tense faces and the way they carried themselves marked them immediately as soldiers. As he drew closer he recognized Mevius Pudens, a tribune of the Guard, at their forefront.

  ‘Trouble,’ he whispered to Juva. ‘You watch our backs.’

  He edged nearer as Pudens and another of the waiting men approached Otho and began a short, animated conversation. He heard the words ‘late’ and ‘hurry’. But Otho seemed paralysed. He waved an incredulous hand at the group by the steps as if he couldn’t believe how few they were.

  ‘There is no turning back now,’ Pudens declared, and to prove it he swept back his cloak and drew his sword. ‘Hail Caesar.’ The shout was clearly a signal, because more swords appeared and the cry was taken up in twenty throats. Someone brought forward a sella and Otho was bundled into the chair before it was picked up by four stout Praetorians and carried off past the astonished faces of senators who had emerged from the Curia to discover what the commotion was.

  For a moment, Serpentius couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but in a crisis the Spaniard’s mind was as swift as his actions. He turned to Juva. ‘Find master Valerius and tell him exactly what has happened. They’re heading for the Castra Praetoria and he should meet me there when he can.’

  Without looking back, he hurried off after the cheering Praetorians and their burden. Otho had recovered sufficient poise to wave and smile fixedly at the mystified bystanders as the little procession passed. Within minutes Serpentius noticed a curious phenomenon. The incident had begun with fewer than thirty men – barely enough to start a riot, never mind a rebellion – but by the time they crossed the Vicus Longus that number had doubled, and more were joining all the time. A few brandished swords, but more followed with quiet determination, out of curiosity and self-preservation; what was happening here could affect them and their families and the more they knew the safer they would be. They emerged from the Subura to be joined by a new influx, among whom Serpentius recognized a few with the broad shoulders and blue tunics that marked the sailors and marines of the disgraced naval militia.

  As they stumbled through the streets after the raised chair, rumours danced through the crowd like mini-wildfires; stories and half-truths bouncing from man to man, adding to the confusion and changing shape and meaning as they went. Serpentius could hear the voices around him.

  ‘What’s happening?’ someone demanded.

  A big man in a smith’s leather apron replied. ‘They say there’s a new Emperor.’

  ‘What happened to the last one, the old man?’

  The smith shrugged. ‘He must be dead.’

  ‘The Emperor’s dead?’ The lawyer marching to Serpentius’s right sounded sceptical, but the cry was taken up by the man next to him and the reverberations rippled out like rings from a stone thrown into a pool.

  ‘The Emperor’s dead.’

  ‘Hail Caesar!’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘The new Emperor.’

  ‘But who?’

  ‘Must be the boy he adopted,’ the smith said. ‘The rich one. Maybe he’s going to hand out some of his cash.’

  The man next to him grinned. ‘In that case I don’t care who he is. Hail Caesar.’

  As they approached the Castra Praetoria, Serpentius pushed and snarled his way forward until he was marching to the left of the chair. When he looked up he saw a curious mixture of terror and elation on Otho’s face. The patrician’s skin was the colour of a long-dead fish’s belly and sweat ran down his cheeks, but his eyes glowed with an almost mystical light, as if the creature inside was experiencing a different event from the vessel that held it.

  ‘Hail Caesar!’ The refrain was taken up by a crow
d now several hundred strong and they swept through the gates into the barracks as the tribune on duty watched helplessly. Serpentius could only look on in admiration. Otho had taken Rome’s most powerful citadel without the loss of a man or a drop of blood. The question was: could he keep it?

  The sacrifice of the second bull had just been completed. This time Umbricius declared the omens favourable, as well he might. One attempt to shape Imperial policy was permissible; a second could be fatal. In any case, the Emperor was paying for the bulls. The unfortunate animal had been cut up into small portions, for the gods, and larger parts which would be cooked and eaten later at the sacrificial feast, with the best cuts naturally going to Galba and his favourites. Valerius experienced his usual reaction to the scent of roasting meat: an unlikely mix of hunger and nausea occasioned by the memory of Messor, the young legionary who had been nailed to the door of the Temple of Claudius and burned to death within feet of those trapped inside. He was thinking about how to take his leave when he noticed the tall figure arguing with the guards at the temple gate.

  ‘Juva,’ he called. The two guards recognized the one-handed man in the formal toga and moved aside. Valerius stepped close to the Nubian, so their conversation couldn’t be overheard. ‘What’s going on?’

  Juva explained what he had seen, making no attempt to interpret it, but stressing Serpentius’s plea for urgency. Valerius felt the blood drain from his face. It was starting. He glanced across to where Galba was completing the final rituals of the sacrifice. Was he aware of what was happening? No, of course not. He could see from the complacent faces of Vinius and Laco that nothing was amiss. A moment’s hesitation, almost of pain, but there could be only one decision. Otho was a friend, but Corbulo had taught Valerius that honour and duty were obligations that must always rise above friendship. He nodded to Juva to stay where he was and made his way towards the consul and the Praetorian prefect, forcing himself not to hurry and trying to work out what to say without starting a panic. The fate of Rome might depend on the next few moments.