Warrior of Rome III

by Harry Sidebottom

  Outside, a man was shouting, near the imperial tent.

  ‘Alternatively,’ said Ragonius Clarus, ‘we can break out. A night march to Serdica, then east. Byzantium is one of the best-fortified cities in the world. It would hold up Aureolus while we regroup further east.’

  Other voices had joined the man shouting.

  Macrianus was no soldier, but he knew a night march was a desperate venture, one that might destroy an army all unaided.

  One of the Equites Singulares burst into the tent. ‘Dominus!’ Ignoring the young emperor, he spoke directly to the father. ‘The Pannonians are mutinying. They are tearing the imperial portraits from the standards.’

  Age cast aside, barely using his stick, Macrianus burst from the tent. The trooper was right: there was an ugly crowd around the standards of Legio II Adiutrix. The images of the young emperors were in the dust. Macrianus walked boldly up and halted a few paces from the mutineers. The noise dropped to a low, menacing muttering. Macrianus was pleased when, unbidden, his son came to stand at his shoulder. The boy was no coward. The show of unity might help. If ever they had needed help, it was now. Macrianus would have offered a brief prayer, but there was no time.

  ‘Commilitiones.’ Macrianus’s voice carried well, betrayed no panic. ‘Commilitiones, this is not how the men of Legio II Adiutrix behave. Would the men who crushed the Batavians, ventured beyond the ocean to conquer Britain, drove the Dacian king from his throne, and sacked the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon have behaved like this? The legionaries of Legio II Adiutrix do not mutiny like a bunch of eastern auxiliaries or Arab tribesmen.’

  Macrianus was not sure if he was winning them over. At least they had not offered any violence so far.

  ‘You have taken the sacramentum to my sons. We have paid you the donative we promised. My son campaigns with you. He will lead you home to your base at Aquincum in triumph. Things look difficult today, but with the gods holding their hands over us, all will be well. Commilitiones, it is time to prove yourselves true to the title of your legio: Pia fidelis.’ He repeated, ‘Loyal and faithful,’ and stopped. He had no more words.

  A centurion stepped out of the crowd. He spoke deliberately, with an accent from the northern frontier. ‘You are not our commilitiones. You are not soldiers at all. It is true, you have not treated us badly. But you betrayed our brothers in the legions when you betrayed the old emperor Valerian. Treachery turns on itself. The gods move slow, but in the end their power is shown.’

  The echo of Euripides in the soldier’s Latin, the invocation of the gods, silenced Macrianus. No, he wanted to say, that is all wrong, you do not understand, the gods approved of what happened to Valerian, the gods want Gallienus overthrown. Until today, they have given manifest signs of their favour. But it was all too complicated. He knew then it was hopeless.

  Looking around, Macrianus saw that Ragonius Clarus had gone. Macrianus and his son were alone. It was hopeless.

  But still he had to try. ‘Do what you like with me, but have pity on my son. He is very young. None of this is his fault.’

  ‘What can we do?’ The centurion sounded genuinely apologetic. ‘The camp is surrounded. It is not down to us. Censorinus brought word that Aureolus wants you dead. He has put a price on your heads.’

  The treachery of Censorinus hardly made any impression on Macrianus. A price on their heads. It meant exactly that. Decapitation, their heads paraded before Gallienus, their bodies denied burial. Somehow he had to stop the mutilation of his beautiful son. He could not think of the boy’s soul wandering hopeless for eternity.

  The muttering was rising in volume. Macrianus had to act quickly.

  ‘You said yourself we had done you no harm. Let us take our own lives, die like the Romans of old. There is money hidden under the floor of the tent. Try to prevent them mutilating my son’s body.’

  The centurion nodded. He rapped out some orders. Some of his men went inside, others formed a ring around the big purple tent. Close by, the noise of revolution swelled.

  ‘I am afraid you must hurry,’ the centurion said.

  Macrianus turned to his son. There were tears on the boy’s face. He was making no noise, trying to be brave. Macrianus folded him in his arms. He pressed his lips to his neck, breathing in the smell of clean, fresh sweat, the smell of his son. He kissed him on the eyes, the cheeks, the lips.

  The noise was growing. Macrianus somehow forced himself to let go of his son and step back. He drew his son’s eagle-headed ornamental sword.

  ‘Use mine. It will be sharper.’ The centurion handed it over.

  Macrianus took it. He looked at his son, and he knew he could not do this thing.

  ‘You want me to do it?’

  Macrianus gave the sword back to the centurion.

  ‘Who first?’

  Macrianus thought of watching his son die. He imagined his son watching him die, the boy left alone, terrified, waiting. ‘My son.’

  Macrianus stepped forward. He and his son kissed for the last time. Macrianus stepped back.

  In the imperial palace at Antioch, no one was sure if the consilium had started. Ballista was watching Quietus – not so as to attract attention – and so was everyone else. Titus Fulvius Iunius Quietus Augustus, Pius Felix, Pater Patriae, had ordered a large painting of Alexander the Great by Aetion hung in the audience hall. All his attention was on that.

  Quietus’s lips moved almost soundlessly. Everyone said he had been behaving oddly since the news had come about his father and brother. The following day Ballista had reached Antioch from Syria Palestina. When Ballista reported to Quietus, the emperor had given the impression that he was trying to look clean through him to see someone else. On their few meetings since, Quietus’s gaze had slid off Ballista like water off a waxed cloak. Indeed, anyone remotely connected to the court had been acting strangely since the news from the west.

  None had been acting more strangely than Julia. She had already shifted the familia out of the palace and back to the house in the Epiphania district before Ballista arrived. Her welcome had been reserved and, unexpectedly, physically reserved too. Afterwards she had made a comment about men marking their territory. She had said it on similar occasions before, as a joke, but this time it had a sharp edge. That side of things had improved a little since, but things generally were different, strained. Ballista wondered if someone had told her about the Persian girl Roxanne in Cilicia.

  Quietus stopped muttering. He cocked his head to one side, eyes still on the painting. Allfather, thought Ballista, does he think Alexander is talking to him? It was a good moment to look away. It was a reduced consilium. Quietus’s father and brother and their once-devoted supporter Piso were dead. Censorinus and Ragonius Clarus had deserted. The former had been appointed one of Gallienus’s Praetorian Prefects, the latter told to retire into private life. But others from the east were missing. Trebellianus had withdrawn into the mountains of Cilicia Tracheia. Similarly, safe behind the deserts of Arabia, another governor, Virius Lupus, had not replied to the summons. Mussius Aemilianus, prefect of Egypt, had had himself declared emperor. As he was commander of quite sizeable forces and in control of the majority of the grain supply of Rome, his was not a hopeless revolt, but he would need allies. Obviously, Quietus would not be among them.

  There were only two new faces on the dais. Quietus’s nonentity of a cousin Cornelius Macer had been hurriedly appointed not only Comes Sacrarum Largitionum et Praefectus Annonae but Princeps Peregrinorum as well. Presumably the loyalty that blood might bring had outweighed any considerations of ability. Much more competent, standing near Ballista, was the tall red-haired figure of Rutilus, the new Prefect of Cavalry.

  ‘Those who wear the likeness of Alexander in either gold or silver are aided in all they do,’ Quietus said suddenly. ‘My father often said that.’ He pointed at the governor of Syria Phoenice. ‘Cornicula, include that in your verse panegyric of them.’

  Annius Cornicula bowed.

  Now t
hat Quietus seemed to be to some extent with them, unbidden, the senior Praetorian Prefect Maeonius Astyanax started talking. ‘Dominus, there are reports, completely credible, that Odenathus is assembling his forces in Palmyra. Supplies have been stockpiled on the road west to Emesa. He is getting ready to march against us.’

  Quietus put his head in his hands. ‘What can be done?’ His tone suggested nothing.

  ‘Dominus,’ Maeonius Astyanax continued, ‘it can be prevented. I have met Odenathus. The two of us got on well. It is true he is avaricious. We have money. Let me go as an ambassador. With adequate funds, I can stop the Lion of the Sun, turn his bellicose attention back to the Sassanids. It would be a good time to attack them. Not only did the Persians suffer defeats last year, but Shapur faces revolts from subjects to the east near the Caspian Sea. If Odenathus attacks now, he may get as far as the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon almost unopposed.’

  ‘Let it be so.’ Quietus looked up, brighter. ‘Should your mission fail, we will rout this decadent oriental anyway.’ He jabbed a finger at one of the governors standing in front of him. ‘Pomponius Bassus, you have four legions in Cappadocia, auxiliaries too. You will raise more men. Hire Albanians, Iberians, Cadusii, nomads, Alani or whatever, from beyond the Caucasus. Raise an army fifty thousand-strong. Lots of cavalry. Fast-moving. You will move with all speed down the Euphrates. You will make Arete your base, then strike at Palmyra from the east. Odenathus will have to scurry back to meet you. We will be hard on his heels. With Odenathus caught between our armies, we will win a famous victory in the desert. The so-called Lion of the Sun will grovel at our feet. It will do him no good. We will serve him as Aureolus served our family.’

  Quietus again relapsed into a preoccupied silence.

  His face very still, Pomponius Bassus intoned the ritual words. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

  No one else gave any indication of what they were thinking. There were just two legions in Cappadocia, both under strength; a handful of auxiliaries. As Ballista knew only too well, the king of Georgian Iberia had marched with Shapur to the capture of Valerian – would he ever forget the cell in Carrhae? The Alani crossing the Caucasus mountains had long been one of the keenest fears not only of the Roman imperium but of every people living to the south, even of the Sassanid Persians.

  Ballista followed Quietus’s gaze to Aetion’s painting. Alexander was standing in a bedchamber. His new bride, Roxanne, half reclined on the bed. Small erotes prepared her, tugging her clothes off. Others – lots of them – cavorted everywhere. Wings beating, they flew up to the ceiling, clambered over the top of the bed. On the floor they were playing with Alexander’s armour. Even in bed with a new, beautiful woman, Alexander kept his weapons to hand, thought Ballista. Allfather knew what Quietus was thinking.

  ‘Antioch on the Orontes,’ said Quietus. ‘Metropolis of Syria. We will turn her into an impregnable fortress. Let Odenathus come. Or Aureolus, or Gallienus himself. They will break their armies on the defences of Antioch the invulnerable.’ He seemed to have already forgotten the happy fantasy of victory over Odenathus at the gates of Palmyra.

  ‘Dominus,’ said Ballista, ‘Antioch is almost indefensible. The walls up on Mount Silpius are overlooked by natural rock. The city is not safe. Antioch has fallen to the Persians twice in a few years.’

  Quietus glowered at him. He started to say something then stopped. He looked away.

  ‘Dominus’ – the client king Sampsigeramus spoke good Latin, if with an effeminate lisp – ‘my city of Emesa is devoted to your cause – no city more so. No place in the east has better walls or other defences. We have supplies, money. Move the court and the army there. When Pomponius Bassus strikes from Arete, you will be on hand to ride out and defeat the upstart Odenathus.’

  Ballista had to admire the way Sampsigeramus both hid his own desperation and played up to Quietus’s fantasies.

  ‘Whatever, whatever.’ Quietus had lapsed into miserable introspection. ‘What does it matter? Why not Emesa? We will go there. We will go there straight away. Give the necessary orders.’ He looked up at the huge cedar beams of the roof. ‘They mutilated them, you know. Sent their heads to Gallienus. They can never know peace.’

  Quietus’s imperial court and army were moving down to Emesa. They were six days out of Antioch, strung out for miles along the road running through the Mere of Apamea. The scenery here was unusual for the east: lush water meadows and wild reed beds as far as the mountains on either side.

  Ballista called Maximus to him, leant close, kept his voice low. When he had finished, Maximus asked him to say it all again in case he had somehow misunderstood.

  ‘Yes, you are to desert, slip away through the wetlands to the east. There are only a couple of miles to cross, but take care. In a rare moment of clarity, Quietus has ordered a large number of mounted patrols to sweep the rear and both flanks for stragglers and deserters. There are villages in the hills, so there have to be reasonable paths across them. Apparently, the hills are only about fifteen miles wide here. On the other side, you will strike the Chalcis ad Bellum to Apamea road: take the turning south from a village called Telmenissos. This will bring you to the upland road, through places called Theleda and Occaraba, to Palmyra. When you get there, find Haddudad. It should not be difficult; by all accounts, the ex-mercenary has risen fast in his new patria.’

  Ballista smiled. ‘The two of us saved Haddudad’s life at the fall of Arete: call in the debt. Get Haddudad to arrange a private audience with Odenathus. It has to be done in secret, otherwise news will get to Quietus, and that will be the end of me and the familia. When you see Odenathus, give him this sealed message.’ Ballista passed over a small package. ‘Hide it in your scabbard. It is well wrapped in oilcloth, so should not come to any harm, not even if it gets wet.’

  Maximus made to interject. Ballista held his hand up. ‘No, it is better if you do not know what it says. If you are captured, you can play the simple messenger. Quietus will still kill you, but possibly not torture you for quite as long first. Apart from handing over the letter, the vital thing that you have to do is to make absolutely certain Odenathus knows which of the towers of Emesa is the so-called Tower of Desolation. You remember it? It is the tall, thin one at the extreme south-east of the defences. If Odenathus does not already know it, Haddudad will.’

  Maximus nodded, thinking it over. ‘Sure, if I can get away, we all could.’

  Ballista looked tempted but shook his head. ‘No, Dernhelm is too young, and Julia is a woman. I have heard of too many would-be fugitives from the imperium who have been caught because they were slowed down by women or children. Anyway, there is still something I have to do.’

  It was mid-afternoon when Maximus rode away. It was a good time to choose, in any army, no matter how disciplined – and this one was not particularly disciplined – there is always confusion when it comes to pitching camp. There was nothing furtive about him as he set off. He rode purposefully east, away from the army. The very set of his shoulders suggested a scout or suchlike on official duty.

  When he had gone a short distance he reined in and dismounted. Having hobbled his horse, he went behind a low clump of marsh plants, pulled his trousers down and squatted. As he pretended to relieve himself, he scanned everything. No sign of pursuit, and no sign of men up ahead. After a time he set off again.

  Not far along the way, it happened. A problem with travelling wet lowlands was always the finite number of paths passable to men on horseback. Those that existed were often elevated and exposed. No chance of slinking along; you had to go where the track took you. Maximus rode through one of the infrequent stands of trees and came out on to a raised, open grassy area. There, scattered, taking their ease, were the men and horses of a whole turma of cavalry.

  Maximus wondered if he should try and talk his way through. He was good at talking. Back home, he had not been known as Muirtagh of the Long Road for his travelling. Maximus kicked his
heels into his horse’s flanks. He thundered across the clearing. A standing trooper tried to block his way. Of its own volition, the horse skittered around him. The thirty-man patrol was dismounted. Maximus was in the saddle. It gave him a few moments’ headstart.

  Maximus bent low over his mount’s neck, urging it on. Great clods of mud cartwheeled up behind as they fled. The path ran straight; it had to be manmade. It was raised high above the marsh. The tall, tall reeds only reached to the horse’s belly. They had to be visible for miles. Behind, the roar of the chase was loud. Maximus had thrown away his shield. Crooning into his animal’s ears, he raced on.

  At last the track dipped down almost to the surface of the fen. It turned gently, first right then left. The feathery heads of the reeds soared high above them. Maximus hauled the horse to a standstill. Leaping down, he feverishly untied his kit bag. He parted the reeds to the left with his arm, then threw the bag out of sight. Quickly, he fastened the reins over one of the front horns of the saddle. He drew his sword and brought the flat of the blade across the horse’s rump. Startled, it squealed and leapt forward down the path. Again with the flat of the sword, he parted the reeds a pace or two from where the kit bag had disappeared. He took a step in. The ground gave a little under his boots. The reeds closed behind him. Another sweep of the sword and another step. The trick was not to break or flatten any more reeds than absolutely necessary.

  Just four careful steps, and the thunder of pursuit was almost on him. He was still too close to the track, but there was no time to get away. Maximus sheathed his sword and dropped down full length in the mud. He rolled on to his back, then on to his front again. He checked that his now muddied cloak covered his armour, and pulled off his helmet and pushed it, crest down, into a pool of dark water. Smearing mud across his forehead, cheekbones and nose, he waited.