His wife understood that. She was weeping uncontrollably, but she nodded despite herself, trying to add weight to her husband’s words for the benefit of the three children who seemed to believe their father. How soon, then, before other soldiers came here to end those four lives? Rufinus prayed he would not be part of that duty. He knew it would have to be fast, for the wife would poison her sons at dinner that night or suffocate them in their sleep to save them the agony and indignity of a public execution.
Capito squeezed his wife one more time and then turned, head high, and stepped across the garden to the four Praetorians standing implacable therein.
‘You are truly Perennis’ men?’ he asked quietly.
Rufinus frowned. Who might he think they were? Mercator simply nodded, and the senator sighed as the four guardsmen reordered themselves to surround him.. ‘There is no truth to the charges, you realise? With your prefect all-but ruling Rome and continually wheedling power out from under the emperor’s control, we are heading for a new time of terror. You understand that?’
As Merc gave the command and the four men marched the senator back through his own house, Icarion addressed the prisoner. ‘We do not have the luxury of questioning the motives of those in power, senator. We are soldiers with oaths and duties. You must understand that since you commanded a legion under Antoninus if I remember correctly.’
Capito sighed. ‘And yet what price peace if good men do nothing? Perennis is a new Sejanus. A new Nymphidius Sabinus. He will plunge us into a new time of chaos and death, of proscriptions and tyranny. You can see how it has already begun.’
‘Duty,’ replied Icarion simply as they passed through the house, collecting the other four Praetorians and passing the impotent doorman, leaving to the sound of hopeless wailing in the garden behind them.
‘Mark my words,’ said Capito quietly as they emerged into the street. ‘Watch Perennis. Watch his growing army in Pannonia. You speak of duty, but you need to remember that your oath is to the emperor whom you serve, and not to your own prefect. Your duty is to protect the emperor, even if the danger comes from your own ranks.’
‘Thank you for your advice,’ Mercator said flatly. ‘Now kindly remain quiet as we travel, lest I be forced to gag you.’
The senator closed his mouth, but his words were already out and sinking into Rufinus like rain soaking through a woollen tunic. He couldn’t help but recall the threats his prefect had levelled at this nobleman in the Castra Praetoria a matter of weeks ago. The more he tried to cling to his memories of the rigid but honourable prefect who had stood tall by his emperor during the treachery of Lucilla and Paternus, the more he found himself picturing Perennis the usurper. Perennis the dictator?
Perennis the emperor?
The hairs rose on the back of his neck and he shivered.
The small, sullen party turned from the narrow street on the far side of the small square into the wider Alta Semita, the road that ran along the hill’s ridge and down past the temple of Serapis and the rear shops and facades of Trajan’s great market complex to arrive at the lower levels of the city behind the sprawling forum of Augustus. Passing through the tightly-packed and oddly-juxtapositioned fora of the great city, the party gradually drew a crowd of observers, interested citizens and beggars alike watching this display from doorways and then falling in behind the group in a mob that surged along the street like a tidal wave in the Praetorians’ wake.
With the gradual increase in numbers, the eight men shuffled their toga folds and placed their hands on sword hilts, partially as a precaution and partially as a deterrent. Under some of the most ancient laws in the city it was forbidden for a man to bear weapons of war within the pomerium – the old city boundary. Various amendments and dispensations had been added over time to allow such men as the emperor’s own guard to carry their swords in pursuit of their duty, but the irony did not escape Rufinus. Here they were breaking one of the oldest and most inviolable of the city’s laws in order to uphold another that had seemingly been misused and abused for personal gain.
Again, he felt that bile rise. What would it take to get himself released from the Guard back into the ranks of the ordinary legions? He’d never heard of it being done, but surely it was possible? If a man could go one way, why could he not go the other?
His unease at their task was compounded by the fact that anti-Praetorian sentiments were audible in the shouts of the crowd behind them, while Egnatius Capito strode manfully with his chin raised and a serene expression, the very picture of dignitas… of Romanitas.
Another piece of miscellaneous fruit or veg struck him in the side and fell away. The crowd was becoming fearless. It should be unthinkable to throw something at the emperor’s men.
Through Julius Caesar’s forum they moved, the crowd behind them growing in numbers almost exponentially as they passed through the heart of the city. Past the temple of Venus Genetrix and up the steps to the Arx – the ancient rise that formed the northern peak of the Capitoline hill. Above, the temple of Juno loomed threateningly, the building from whose steps Rufinus had watched their prisoner in deep conversation with Cleander during the festival a month ago. The men had looked conspiratorial, then.
The carcer – that dreadful prison that held enemies of the state awaiting their punishment – sat ahead now, and next to it the Gemonian Stair. If only they were here merely to deliver the senator to the carcer…
The crowd had grown beyond mob levels now. The word that leapt to Rufinus’ mind was ‘throng’. People filled the streets behind them, but word must have spread for, as they approached the top of the great staircase that descended from the capitol to the forum below, a sea of disgruntled, expectant faces looked up at them.
‘Shit,’ muttered Mercator as he took in the scene.
‘Many a game bird flocks to the wounded crow,’ added Dexter mysteriously.
‘The tide of public opinion is against you and your corrupt master,’ Capito declared quietly. ‘See how you empower the wicked and the traitorous at the expense of the greater good?’
‘Try not to talk so much,’ Merc said with a sharp edge. ‘It’ll be bad enough facing the afterlife without a dry mouth to boot.’
Capito gave him a dark look and returned to his straight silence.
At the very top of the steps, they halted. Rufinus looked down them. He’d been up and down those steps a hundred times or more during his assignment to the Guard in Rome, but never before had they held this air of menace. The Gemonian Stairs had seen as much Roman blood as many a battlefield.
‘This man,’ Mercator shouted, bringing the watching crowd to silence, ‘stands accused and convicted of treason under the lex majestatis on four counts: conspiracy to falsify public documents, incitement to commit acts against the good of the emperor and the state, consorting with enemies of the state and intent to influence the assignment of governors and military commanders contrary to the benefit of the empire.’
Gods above, but that was smooth and oratorical. Merc must have memorized that scroll to the letter, Rufinus realised.
‘On the authority of Sextus Tigidius Perennis, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, servant of the emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, I am hereby ordered to carry out the execution of senator Marcus Egnatius Capito. Any interference in the prosecution of our duty constitutes an offence against the state and carries the harshest penalty.’ To illustrate his meaning, he placed his free hand on the pommel of the sword that jutted from the folds of his toga.
The silence was so heavy and leaden that the distant sound of a crow bellowing in a tree seemed horribly intrusive.
‘This is an unwarranted and ignominious death,’ Capito whispered. ‘I will become lemure, one of the restless dead. Pray I do not come seeking those who granted me that gift.’
Again, Rufinus shuddered.
Mercator stepped to one side, holding his scroll. He was the oldest veteran here, and the leader of their tent group. His duty was done
, for he had taken the brunt of the matter by claiming the authority of prefect and emperor. Icarion reached round and grasped the senator’s arm, bringing him forward to the edge of the steps, where he applied gentle pressure, gradually increasing until the man was forced to his knees.
‘Thus die all loyal servants of Rome,’ bellowed Capito, ‘under the tyrannical law of Perennis!’
Shit. The angry murmuring of the crowd began again at the shout, and Rufinus had images of the eight of them being mobbed by citizens and beaten to death before they could even leave the forum.
He suddenly became aware that Icarion was looking at him and waggling his eyebrows.
Shit, shit, shit.
He was next in the small group. Mercator had read the charges and condemned the man and Icarion had forced the senator to his knees and was holding him there. Oh gods, no. Gods, no. Rufinus felt his fingers tremble on the pommel of his sword. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? He’d be behind the man, so at least he wouldn’t witness that last moment…
As, shivering uncontrollably, he drew his blade a finger-width from the scabbard, Dexter stepped past him, ripping a blade from his own sheath and bringing it up. A flood of relief washed through Rufinus. He’d killed plenty of men in battle, and he’d killed conspirators against the throne. He’d even killed a murderer in the arena now. But he’d never executed a man. He’d never taken the life of someone he seriously thought might be entirely innocent. He wasn’t sure he could, even had he still been under the fuzzy influence of the poppy.
Mercator crouched, producing a coin from somewhere and Capito opened his mouth to accept it. Guilty or innocent, no one here had any intention of denying the man his crossing of the river so that he could carrying out his threat of haunting them. While that was happening, Dexter gave Rufinus an understanding nod.
‘Fourth time,’ the strange veteran muttered at him with a sour face as he stood over Capito and raised his blade, point down toward the victim.
Fourth? His fourth execution? Popular opinion said that the legions of Aegyptus had it cushy and that nothing ever really happened down there. Clearly something happened. Four?
Icarion placed his left hand on the senator’s head and eased it back, revealing the neck to the blade above. Without pause, efficient as a butcher, Dexter brought down his gladius, plunging it into the hollow between collar bone and neck, driving it in right to the hilt, neatly spearing the heart. Clearly he was a practised hand at this.
As the blood burst up from the wound, Icarion leaned back slightly. Dexter withdrew his blade with a revolting sucking sound and a foot-long fountain of blood followed. Still, they were not finished. Capito was dead, but not yet still, his body trembling with the shock of it, his mouth making hoarse, rasping noises. Mercator moved further to the side and Icarion grunted with the effort of holding up the body by the hair.
Dexter positioned himself by the side and pulled back his blade, edge-on. Rufinus started to close his eyes to the spectacle, but reminded himself that he had to maintain the poise of the Praetorian at all times. Especially now. The collective ire and hate of the crowd was an almost solid thing, reaching out through the cold air to exterminate them. The silence that had fallen again with the blade was horrible – so oppressive that he could actually hear the blood pumping from the dead senator.
And then Dexter struck.
A gladius was a weapon designed primarily for stabbing. It carried too little weight and was too thick at the centre to be a truly effective slashing weapon. But if a man were to hone the edge to razor levels…?
Clearly Dexter knew what he was doing. The first blow jammed in the senator’s spine, but before the crowd could even boo him he’d pulled back the blade and delivered a second that severed the column and a third that hacked through the remaining matter to separate head from body.
Wordlessly, the big guard lifted the head and turned left and right, displaying it to the crowd before flinging it down the stairs, where it bounced and rolled with a succession of wooden-sounding clonks, leaving a trail of blood, hair and torn flesh in its descent before it hit the forum paving and rolled to a halt in front the crowd, where it stared back up accusingly at his killers. Icarion heaved the body over the edge so that it clattered and bumped after the head, though it came to a halt only half way down.
None of them seemed inclined to move it further and as Icarion stood, Merc filed away his parchment and Dexter cleaned and sheathed his blade, Rufinus watched the crowd below. Tradition held that a traitor hurled down the Gemonian Stair would be ruined and dishonoured by the Roman people below. Somehow, Rufinus couldn’t see that happening to Capito.
At Mercator’s command, the eight of them formed up once more with no further address to the crowd and began to move off, heading for the distant fortress, the crowd silently and sullenly moving aside as they passed. Here and there someone would spit at them from the throng.
Gods, what was happening to the Guard?
He’d thought Paternus insane for his irrational hatreds and abuse of power. But was Perennis any better? What was the prefect becoming?
Rufinus moved like a hollow man back through the city, wondering when he would be allowed to secure a little leave. The medicus seemed satisfied that he was no longer under the influence of the poppy, and could probably be persuaded now to remove his restrictions. And Rufinus must be due a few days leave soon?
Somehow, he felt in need of the comforting presence of Pompeianus… his brother… Senova…
VI – Rifts to be healed
December 184
Rufinus sat in the elaborate dining room, his couch pulled as close to the glowing brazier as he dare, listening to the general murmur of conversation and the delicate strains of the plucked and strummed lyre, given counterpoint by a high, pure, Cilician voice. He was as relaxed as he could remember being since before the Marcomannic Wars…
No, he was as relaxed as he could ever remember being.
Another four weeks had passed in drab, tense, unpleasant camp life before both the Praetorian medicus and his commander had seen fit to release Rufinus into the world. Finally it seemed he was free of the effects of the poppy – though just how hard he hit the wine jug each night remained his little secret – and the medicus had at last lifted the ban on Rufinus leaving the fortress. And Perennis’ attentions had been so riveted upon maintaining the viability of his position in the court that he now had little time to devote to the normal duties of the Praetorian commander, leaving much of the day-to-day running to the strange figure of The Ghost – Marcius Quartus, the Guard’s most senior tribune and a very distant relation from another branch of Rufinus’ family. The young guard had been to see the almost translucently-pale and apparently hairless Quartus and had been granted a week’s leave with hardly a glance up and with no questions.
Gathering his kit for a much-needed week out of the fortress, and with Acheron padding happily alongside, his tongue lolling, Rufinus had intended to find a nice inn somewhere out in the country where he would be unknown and could relax completely, but had first visited the villa of Gordianus to let his friends know that he was off-duty and to arrange a meet-up. Pompeianus had been absent at the time, but young Gordianus had grinned and invited Rufinus inside, insisting that he stay with them for the duration.
And so he had. The next day Pompeianus had returned from Ostia with young Publius in tow. It appeared that the old general had taken Rufinus’ brother under his wing and the pair were fast becoming friends. They had been overseeing the arrival of goods for a grand festival and feast to be held at the villa.
The festival of Sol Invictus.
A young slave approached demurely with a platter of expensive and almost inedible titbits. It had never failed to make Rufinus chuckle that the richest of Rome’s folk would stoop to eating the least edible things, labelling them ‘delicacies’, while the rank and file ate filling and healthy meat and vegetables. A snort of laughter caught his attention.
Over by the side
door, Publius was chortling with a young scion of the gens Fulvia, the pair already well in their cups as young men were wont to do when given free rein. And yet they were being well behaved, if a little discourteous about some of their elders. Rufinus returned his attention to the slave before him.
He examined the platter and, for the sake of politeness, chose something that had probably been feeding its own young in a nest until yesterday, nibbling at it before placing it on his own plate to be further ignored. Across the large triclinium with its statuary and flowing fountain, the large, impressive shape of Acheron padded up to a senator Rufinus didn’t recognise and closed his huge slavering jaws on the man’s handful of quail, liberating it from the senator’s grip with surprising delicacy before swallowing it whole. The senator began to react angrily but, turning, identified the thief and recoiled with muttered attempts to mollify the great hound.
Rufinus had intended to keep Acheron out in the grounds during the evening, but the huge dog had formed an unlikely friendship with Gordianus, who fed the beast as though he were an honoured guest, and both he and Pompeianus had happily insisted that Acheron stay for the festivities. After all, perhaps dogs worshiped the sun, too?
Praetorian: The Price of Treason Page 8