by Ian Ross
‘Yes, dominus.’
‘Then… did you not think it was your duty to keep him alive, and not let him fall into the hands of the barbarians?’
Castus took a sharp breath, sitting up straight on the creaking chair: the boy had been schooled in what to say. He glanced quickly at Aristides, but the tutor looked away. Castus felt angry for a moment, but then remembered. Sulpicianus had lost his entire family. He had a right to judge poorly those who had survived. Say what you need to say, he told himself. Then get out.
‘Your father died by his own hand,’ he said slowly, feeling the clumsiness of his words, ‘and by his own will. If I could have saved him, I would have done it. I would have given my life for his if I’d had the chance. But we were betrayed, and your father chose the honourable way out. He charged me to bring word of his fate to you… and to return this.’
He reached into his belt pouch, fingers fumbling, and found the heavy gold signet ring. Leaning, he placed it on a side table.
‘Thank you,’ the boy said coldly.
‘Your father was a good man. A good soldier. He was thinking of you, at the end. His last words to me were to convey his love to you, and to your sister.’
The boy closed his eyes, and Castus saw his jaw tremble. He was close to tears now. Castus stood up.
‘I will give sacrifice to the gods for your health and the good fortune of your family,’ he said. ‘And please greet your sister for me.’
He caught the tutor’s wry nod as he left the room.
Outside in the cool light of the portico, Castus winged his shoulders and felt a cold shudder running up his spine. He exhaled, letting his anger subside. His shame was harder to be rid of. Surely there was more he could have said? Something noble, or meaningful? But he was a soldier, not a diplomat. He shook his head. There was nothing more he could do for this family now.
As the slave went to fetch his cloak, Castus glanced back across the garden. There was a window high in the far wall, giving light to one of the inner rooms, and Castus saw a movement there. Marcellina, gazing back at him from the darkened chamber. He held her eye for just a moment, and then she was gone.
16
‘Name?’
‘Julius Stipo, centurion.’
‘What was your profession?’
‘Fullery assistant, centurion.’
Stipo was a short lad, little more than a boy, but his shoulders were broad and he had an open, unintelligent face. Castus grunted and tapped him on the shoulder with his cane.
‘You’re in with Remigius. Cell six. Go.’
The laundry boy picked up his bag of possessions and crossed to the barrack portico, where his future comrades were already waiting. Remigius, an experienced soldier whom Castus had appointed leader of the eight-man section, looked coolly unimpressed with the newcomer.
Standing in the lane between the barrack blocks, this last batch of new recruits were still dressed in civilian clothes, although each already wore the lead disc at his neck that signified enlistment to the legion. Castus glanced down the line: a sorry set, the last scrapings of Eboracum’s conscriptable civilian population. But they would bring his century up to something near its old strength, at least.
‘Name?’ he said to the next man.
‘Claudius Acranius, centurion.’
Acranius was a former scenery-painter at the theatre, or so he claimed. Actually, he looked like a drunk, and had a nasty inflammation around one eye. Castus looked over at the barrack portico, crowded with idling men. After only a month, the new soldiers had formed their tight bonds, their networks of allegiance and distrust. He struggled to remember all their names. The pressure of keeping control of them all, keeping them knitted into a unit and not letting the bigger mouths and the fiercer tempers dominate the rest, was a burden.
‘You’re with Placidus. Cell eight. Go.’
Placidus was badly named. A squat and thickly muscled Gaul from a disbanded cohort of the Wall garrison, he had already stamped his mark on the men in his section. They were his gang now, and poor Acranius would have a hard time of it for the next few days, until he buckled under. It was not, Castus told himself, his concern. Anyone joining the legion would have to fight his space, until he had won some respect. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the way of things.
‘Name?’
‘Musius Diogenes.’
Castus cleared his throat, and leaned forward from the waist until the man flinched. ‘You address me as centurion,’ he said.
‘Sorry… centurion. No offence intended!’
‘What was your profession?’
‘Elementary schoolteacher… centurion.’
Castus drew back, staring down his nose. Diogenes was probably his own age, but looked older. His hair was fuzzy and receding from a domed forehead, and his bulging eyes and weak chin gave him a startled look.
‘You make good money as a schoolteacher?’ he asked roughly.
‘Oh, yes, centurion! Fifty denarii a month for every pupil.’
‘So what happened?’ Anyone earning that amount could surely have bought his way out of the draft – many others had done just that.
‘I… have no pupils… centurion!’ the man said, shrugging.
Castus tightened his lips to hide his smile. The man was completely unsuited to the army, but at least he was amusing.
‘You can read and write then, and do arithmetic?’
‘Oh, most certainly, centurion! With a high degree of aptitude!’
Castus frowned heavily, alert for any sign of humour. But the man appeared earnest. He tapped him on the shoulder with his staff.
‘Cell six. Remigius. Go.’
He could already see Remigius shaking his head with a disgusted expression. The schoolteacher too would have a hard time ahead of him. But, well – sink or swim.
Standing braced, staff clasped behind his back, Castus watched the men filing back into the barrack cells. At the end of the portico was a small group of women sitting with their bags and bundles, a few with small children. Nearly half of the new recruits had brought wives with them – more trouble for the future, no doubt. No matter, Castus decided. He would let them jostle and squabble for now, and bawl them out later.
‘Modestus,’ he called. ‘Take over here.’
The optio nodded smartly and marched across to the portico, already shouldering his staff.
Six months, Castus thought, before the emperor would be ready to take the field. Would that be long enough to beat and bully these men into a soldierly shape? It seemed impossible. He stifled a long yawn, turned on his heel and marched towards the centurions’ messroom.
‘Brother,’ said Valens, coming up behind him. ‘Walk with me over to the drill field, will you?’ With all the confusion in the fortress, Castus had not seen his friend in days. The other centurion fell into step beside him and they strolled together down to the main street and turned right towards the gate leading to the drill field.
‘Have you heard the latest?’ Valens said, speaking from the corner of his mouth. Castus turned his head and pressed his chin into his shoulder – he had never been able to speak sideways.
‘What?’
‘Arpagius is gone. Sent off back to Numidia to add up his sums! Apparently the city council wanted to prosecute him for failing to protect their property adequately. And after the fiasco at Isurium he didn’t smell good to the bigger chiefs either. Tribune Rufinius has been promoted to prefect of the legion.’
Castus nodded. He was not sorry that he would never be seeing Arpagius again, and Rufinius seemed a competent officer at least. But that was not what Valens had wanted to discuss.
‘What else?’ he said.
‘There’s talk going round the centurions’ messes,’ Valens mumbled. ‘You saw the Augustus – up close, I mean. How did he look to you?’
‘I only really saw his shoes.’
‘But did he look… healthy?’ Valens was barely even moving his lips now, and Castus had to stoop to
wards the smaller man to catch his words.
‘Healthy?’ he said, and glanced around quickly. They were walking in the centre of the street. From their left came the thunderous clatter of the armoury workshop, working to produce weapons, shields and body armour for the new recruits. The air reeked of hot iron and forge smoke, and nobody could possibly hear them over the din of hammers and anvils. But still Castus felt a cold stir at the back of his neck. Discussing the health of emperors was treason. ‘Be careful what you’re suggesting,’ he said in a low rumble.
‘Don’t worry, brother! I’m just concerned. A sense of loyal regard for our domini.’
They fell silent for a few moments as they passed the tall portals of the headquarters building.
‘You saw his son, too? Constantine?’
‘I saw him,’ Castus said. His discomfort had not eased, and he wanted to step away from Valens, as if the mere suggestion of treasonous talk might be contagious.
‘There were a couple of Protectores down at the Blue House the other night. The new one, I mean, in the old Tenth Cohort barrack… They told me that Constantine had only joined them at Bononia on the Gallic coast, just before the crossing to Britain.’
‘What of it?’
‘Well – do you know where he’d been? Apparently the son of the Augustus has been in Nicomedia these last eight years, at the court of the other Augustus, the senior one, Galerius. In a sort of gilded captivity, so they implied. When the news arrived of the uprising here – by express messenger, as you’d imagine – Constantine petitioned Galerius for permission to go and join his father on the expedition. Galerius could hardly refuse, but he’d barely given his nod – while he was drinking over dinner, so they say – before our Constantine was off. He rode all the way from Nicomedia to Bononia by post relays in just over ten days, mutilating the horses as he went so he couldn’t be followed by a countermanding order!’
‘Is that even possible?’ Castus had travelled most of that route himself when he had come to join the Sixth, and it had taken him nearly three months.
‘Seems so. He’s here now, anyway. And you know that quite a few in the army think that Constantine should have been made Caesar after the abdications? Apparently the mint in Alexandria had already started turning out Constantinus Caesar coins when they heard the news – they had to recall them and break the dies. These two Caesars we have now, what are they? Flavius Severus is a drunk and a gambler who can’t control himself, let alone the empire. Maximinus Daza’s a common soldier with no more experience of commanding armies than… well, than you!’
This time Castus really did step back, and gave his friend a hard appraising glare. Valens looked away, as if conscious that he had said too much.
‘Don’t tell me these things,’ Castus said, cold and level.
‘You’d hear the same in any officers’ mess, brother. Here, in Gaul – all across the empire, probably. If you weren’t too thickheaded to listen when you’re off duty you’d have heard much the same.’
‘But I don’t want to hear it!’
Politics, Castus thought, was a stinking mire. Nothing to do with him. The emperors were to be revered, whatever their personal failings. They were beyond mere men; the purple robe elevated them to stand beside the gods. It pained him – quite literally burned in his guts – that the circles of supreme power were just as foul with intrigue and suspicion as the mortal world far below. Because if the emperors could not be trusted, could not be wholeheartedly admired and obeyed, where was loyalty? Where was honour?
In his mind he heard the voice of the notary, Nigrinus, and his subtle threats and insinuations. We make our own gods too, here on earth. Then the panicked stammer of the renegade Decentius, just before Castus had killed him. Both men had been sucked into the intrigue: one prospered by it; one had died of it. The muck of politics was corrosive. It rotted morals; it made men weak and terrified, or turned them into monsters. Castus shuddered, hunched his shoulders, tried to ignore Valens’s disapproving stare.
They were passing beneath the north-west gate now. The sentries gave their salutes, and Castus remembered, with sudden startling clarity, the early dawn when he had ridden in through those gloomy arches with Marcellina. Barely three months ago, but it seemed like years. Valens was marching on, head down, and Castus took three long paces to catch up with him. They emerged from the dark tunnel beneath the gate into the sunlight, and turned left into the drill field.
‘There he is,’ Valens said, nodding away into the middle distance.
A crowd was gathered around the margins of the field, most of them soldiers and centurions. In the centre of the field straw bales had been set up for cavalry practice, and a troop of the Equites Mauri, light horsemen from North Africa, were wheeling and darting their javelins at the gallop. It was an impressive display, but the crowd was not watching the Mauri. Constantine, the emperor’s son, was riding with them. Mounted on a powerful grey mare, and dressed only in a quilted white linen corselet, he rode hard at the bales, flinging his javelins with great grunts of effort. Each one flew straight to the target, punching into the bale and hanging slack as Constantine spurred his horse away.
‘You brought me here to see this?’ Castus asked.
‘He comes down every afternoon. Sometimes with the Mauri, sometimes the Dalmatae or the Scutarii. Joins in their practice, at all arms. Quite a performer.’
‘Just for show, you think?’
‘Could be. Letting the army see who’s going to be leading them.’
They had dropped their voices again, as if by instinct.
‘The emperor leads the army,’ Castus said quietly. ‘Nobody else. This man’s just a tribune of the Protectores.’
‘The emperor is sick…’ Valens said, almost under his breath. ‘If we’re going to war in the spring we ought to know the facts, do you agree?’
‘I don’t care. All that matters is that we go. We have reason enough.’
‘Well, as to that,’ Valens said in a brisker tone, ‘it’s not exactly certain if we go or not… There are new detachments arriving from the German legions. The Eighth and the Twenty-Second. And two cohorts of the Second Augusta from the southern province are camped just south of the city, did you know that? The Sixth might just be left here in the spring after all, holding the fort.’
Castus frowned. Surely that could not happen? He remembered the emperor’s words, in the audience hall. We need skilled men like you – was that it? Not, surely not, just to work at training recruits at Eboracum either.
They walked back to barracks in silence.
Saturnalia, and the dark wintry streets of the fortress were loud with the noise of riotous celebration. Released for the period of the festival from the bounds of military discipline, the soldiers roared and laughed from the taverns and the baths’ porticos, rampaged around the colonnades, climbed onto pedestals naked, oblivious of the freezing drizzle, to yell bawdy songs at the moon.
Leaving the centurions’ messroom, where most of his fellow officers had barricaded themselves in for the night, Castus flung a common soldier’s cloak over his head and paced warily back towards the barracks. He had drunk a few cups of beer, and he was still alert but tired. Parties of men gathered on the street corners, fighting and singing. Now and again one of them recognised him – the cloak did little to hide his bulk – and flung a half-mocking salute. Castus stepped aside as a naked man wearing an ivy wreath came charging down the main street, riding bareback on a terrified cavalry horse, screaming, ‘Io Saturnalia…!’
Another few days and the celebrations would be done. Then it would be the Day of Sol Invictus, the birthday of the sun – by then the men would be sobered up, kit cleaned and polished, all of them dressed in their best clothes for the dawn parade to salute the rising sun. After more than two months of training, Castus was beginning to have a little more regard for the men of his century. Countless days on the drill field had battered the inert matter of their civilian selves into shape, at l
east to some small degree. Perhaps, he thought, by the spring they might be fit to call themselves soldiers.
Some of them were still causing problems, Castus thought as he turned into the barrack lines. Placidus, the burly Gaul from the Wall garrison, was one of them. A braggart and a borderline insubordinate. The scenery-painter Acranius had lived up to expectations, and contrived to get himself admitted to hospital three times already. But, despite his appearance, the schoolteacher Diogenes had proved surprisingly able. He stuck up for himself, had a tenacious sort of stamina, and gave a fearless performance on the drill field. His eccentricities were accepted now, even respected, by his comrades – but Castus still found him bafflingly peculiar…
As he moved towards his own quarters at the end of the block, Castus caught a movement in the darkness: two figures, heavily cloaked, standing in the doorway of his rooms. At once the lingering effects of the alcohol were gone. His hand went to his belt, but he had left his sword back in his quarters and had only his staff.
‘Who’s there?’ he said, clear and loud.
‘Centurion Castus,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘I’m sorry – I know it’s late. I hoped to find you at home.’
Castus recognised the voice at once, but could scarcely believe it. The second figure, a tall man, drew a lantern from under his cloak and uncovered the light.
‘Domina Marcellina,’ Castus said. ‘Why are you here? You shouldn’t have come – it’s Saturnalia. This is no place for you.’ He was pacing closer as he spoke. The man in the cloak was the big slave from the house.
‘I know… As I say, I’m sorry. But I wanted to see you.’
Castus unlocked the door and ushered them both inside. He lit the lamp in the vestibule as the two of them shed their cloaks, and the big slave squatted down at once just inside the door, with a heavy club across his knees.
‘I’m here without permission, you see,’ Marcellina was saying. ‘My brother and his tutor have forbidden me to leave the house, but they gave the slaves the night off duty, and I was able to persuade Buccus here to accompany me.’