The Sword and the Throne

by Henry Venmore-Rowland

  ‘It’s good to have you here again,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t stop long, I’m afraid. Shall we talk while we walk?’

  A slave brought the mulled wine that Salonina had insisted upon. It was little more than a five-minute walk to the fort, but it’s always good to have something warm inside you to keep the outside warm too.

  While we walked, Quintus reeled off a list of things that had happened since I’d gone north. The Vitellian messenger had arrived three days ago, and though we had known what was coming since New Year’s Day, there was still much to do.

  ‘How has Vocula reacted to all of this?’ I asked. Dillius Vocula had been the senior legate who commanded the Twenty-Second Primigenia, until Galba had betrayed me, forcing me to declare for Vitellius. Now I commanded all the troops in the province.

  ‘I think he’s resigned himself to it. He wasn’t exactly thrilled that you incited the rebellion without consulting him.’

  ‘I had no idea whether I could count on him or not.’

  ‘And you knew you could count on me?’ Quintus asked.

  ‘Of course I could, there’s no man in the world I trust more.’

  ‘I trust you, Caecina, but that doesn’t mean I like what you’re doing.’

  I was stunned.

  ‘But you joined your father when he rebelled against Nero,’ I began.

  ‘I was young…’

  ‘Only nine months younger than you are now.’

  ‘You think I’m not an older and wiser person after what happened at Vesontio? I watched hundreds of farm boys being slaughtered by an army, and lost a brother and a father.’

  There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound trite, so I let Quintus continue.

  ‘Things were so much simpler back then. Nero was a tyrant, but Galba was meant to be a proper guardian for Rome. My father lost his head when Galba promised him Gaul, and I thought you were the only man who believed in the cause we were fighting for.’

  ‘Thought?’ I asked.

  ‘Answer me truthfully, Caecina. Would you have thrown in your lot with Vitellius if Galba hadn’t summoned you to Rome?’

  ‘It’s not so simple as that. The legions wanted Vitellius, Salonina wanted me to support him, so did Valens…’

  ‘Valens! From what I’ve heard of the man, why would you use him to justify your decision?’

  I grabbed him by the arm. ‘Fine. You want the honest answer? Yes, I was tempted to join Vitellius. For Hades’ sake, he’s all but promised me the consulship now. There hasn’t been a consul in my family for generations. Even before Galba tried to prosecute me, he had made it clear that he would never raise me above the post of legate, after all the sacrifices I made for him. I could have sided with Valens right at the start. We could have made Verginius Rufus emperor the very day they beat your father and his rebels, when legion upon legion devoted to their conquering hero. But no, I stuck by Galba because I had given my word. And after all that, Galba decides to remove me from my post on a trumped-up charge. Vitellius may be a glutton, but I’d far rather serve a glutton than an ungrateful, miserly old man!’

  Quintus said nothing at first. He just looked down at the hand that still clutched his arm. I let it go at once.

  ‘I suppose I should be grateful that you’re not lying to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Quintus. You’re like a brother to me. I just thought that where I’d go…’

  ‘That I would blindly follow?’

  ‘No, not at all. Look, I can’t change what has happened, I can only say sorry.’

  He sighed. ‘You’ve made us all traitors now. Even if I didn’t want to follow, I have no choice.’

  We were almost within earshot of the gatehouse, I couldn’t say anything more.

  ‘Who goes there?’ a voice called.

  ‘Tribune Vindex and General Severus,’ Quintus replied.

  ‘Welcome back, General!’

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ I shouted up to the man.

  Quintus led me through the camp. Legionaries stopped to nudge each other and point at me. The murmur burbled from building to building: their general was back. In a matter of minutes I was back on that icy parade ground where I had started a mutiny, where Quintus had saved my life yet again by giving me the sword that put an end to Strontius’s troublemaking for good. And there was the principia, the headquarters of the legion, and what looked like a small welcoming party outside. There was Vocula, tall and dour, and next to him were my officers, Tuscus and Nepos. My officers saluted me, the legate remained motionless.

  ‘Thank you, Prefect Tuscus, Centurion Nepos. I hope you’ve been busy in my absence?’

  ‘Following your orders to the letter, General,’ the older man, Tuscus, replied.

  ‘Good man.’

  ‘Shall we go inside then?’ Quintus asked.

  ‘No, this won’t take long. I just want to finalize the details. As you know, I will be taking just over half the legionaries and all the auxiliaries south with me. How has the recruiting for replacements been going?’

  Tuscus looked to Nepos. ‘Very well, sir. We’ve ordered recruiting parties into all the major towns and sent word throughout the countryside for citizen recruits. Two of the auxiliary cohorts have been dispatched across the Rhine to send word to the German tribesmen.’

  ‘Excellent. What I wanted to settle is who is to come with me to Rome and who will guard the province while I’m gone. Legate Vocula?’

  The legate shifted uncomfortably. ‘General?’

  ‘I realize that I was wrong not to include you in our plans to join Vitellius, but I couldn’t be sure where your loyalties lie. Whether you support Galba or Vitellius, would you defend this province against Rome’s enemies?’

  ‘I will, General.’

  ‘Thank you, Vocula. I would like your senior tribune to command the detachment that goes south. I will leave you, Tuscus, to command the part of the Fourth Legion that remains here. Nepos and Tribune Vindex, I take it you have no objections against coming with me to Rome?’

  Nepos grinned. ‘None at all, sir.’

  I looked at Quintus. ‘You command and I shall follow, General,’ he said.

  * * *

  ‘But I don’t understand why you have to leave us again,’ Salonina protested.

  ‘It’ll be ten days at the most,’ I said, while double-checking I had everything I needed in my saddlebags.

  ‘I thought you said that the safest place would be with you?’

  ‘When I command the army, yes. But most of the army is still here. I need to ride to the other legion at Vindonissa and make sure everything is prepared before we cross the Alps. Quintus will look after you and Aulus while I’m gone, and as soon as the men here are ready to march, you’ll march with them. Or rather ride; I can’t see you marching over two hundred miles!’

  ‘Promise me you’ll be all right,’ she insisted.

  ‘Salonina, I’m just going down to make sure everything’s organized. Galba will have heard of the rebellion by now, but none of his troops will be anywhere near the Alps yet.’

  ‘Caecina, promise me.’

  I still remember how she looked on that bleak day, now more than a decade ago. She wore a simple, pale blue stola, which elegantly disguised the bump of three months’ pregnancy, as well as a warm fur cloak that reached to the ground. I even remember her bracelet. It was a wide band of silver that covered all of her wrist, embedded with lapis lazuli from Africa. I had given it to her when I came home from Britannia, when I had found not the girl I had married but a young woman, and the mother of my son. I looked into those entrancing blue eyes of hers, and in that moment I gently put my hands either side of her face and kissed her passionately.

  ‘I promise,’ I said, finally. ‘Now will you let me go? I’ve got a hard ride ahead of me.’

  Salonina smiled, and nodded her assent. The stable boy gave me a leg-up into the saddle.

  ‘We’ll be together again before you know it. Besides, what’s t
he worst that could happen to me in Raetia?’

  I had no way of knowing what havoc would unfold in the peaceful mountain pastures to the south.

  V

  I rode hard for hours upon end, in daytime stopping only for food and water. In two days of travelling, I slept about eight hours altogether, staying in ramshackle inns that served the road to Raetia. The monotony was broken only by halting every twenty miles at the way stations to commandeer a fresh horse. The Rhine became narrower and narrower, the floodplain began to shrink. Soon I was back in the Alpine foothills that streaked westwards for miles, even as far as Vesontio. I often found myself in little valleys that reminded me of that bloody battlefield.

  It was only when I came nearer to Vindonissa that it struck me something was wrong. Granted it was the depths of winter, but there were never more than a handful of people outdoors. The road was practically empty too. On the main road from Italia to the north of the empire you would expect to find travellers and tradesmen, and yet sometimes I went for hours at a time without seeing a soul. Even the men at the way stations, normally the arteries that carried the empire’s gossip just as much as they did the official correspondence, couldn’t help me much.

  ‘We sent on one of your couriers, General, not more than four days ago. A letter for the governor in Pannonia, wasn’t it? But then we haven’t had a messenger come north for over a week now. I know it’s winter, but we’ve had worse here in Raetia.’

  ‘Worse?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t been so cold since I left Britannia.’

  ‘I take it you’ve never been up the Alps before, General?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘It may be snowing now, but this’ll do little more than lay down a fresh white carpet. Now three winters back, that was a winter and a half, I can tell you. Snow so thick you could barely wade through it. The passes through to Italia couldn’t be crossed until late spring. Not that we minded the holiday, eh lads?’ The stable boys nodded as they blew on their hands to keep warm.

  As I plunged deeper into Raetia the hills were turning into mountains. The remounts struggled with the altitude, and I had to rein them in for fear of blowing them. It was growing dark on the second day and snow had begun to fall when I came within sight of Vindonissa. From a crossroads on the hillside I could see over the fortress walls and into the camp itself. The place was practically deserted. I could just make out a few idle figures standing guard on the walls, but the bulk of the legion wasn’t anywhere to be seen. It was then that I noticed a column of smoke away to the east. With the ever-darkening sky it was lucky that I had spotted it, but there it was, black and foreboding. I sat there, shivering, wondering which way to go. Down the mountainside and to the shelter of the camp, or a long gallop into the cold night eastwards, following the smoke? I tugged at the reins. The horse was having none of it. He had probably ridden this road before and was looking forward to the warm, cosy stables in the town. A sharp yank to the left and a kick of my heels reminded him who was master.

  It wasn’t long before I lost sight of the smoke against the night sky, but the smell was unmistakable. It reminded me of the stench when we set fire to Boudicca’s village after we had crushed her rebellion. In the flat lands of the Iceni, the orange glow of the flames could be seen for many miles. Here in the Alps I had the merest of tinges on the eastern horizon to guide me; I had to follow my nose. But what would I find when I reached the source of the smell? The plume of smoke had been too concentrated for a freak forest fire, or the camp fires of a legion on the march. And then, after an hour ploughing through the snowstorm, I saw it.

  There, guarding a high mountain pass, a wooden fortress was blazing brightly. The flames had consumed most of the walls and were licking at the high watchtowers at every corner. The base of the mountain was surrounded by what I had to assume was the Vindonissa legion, the Twenty-First Rapax. I rode hard, reaching the outer line of sentries in a matter of minutes.

  ‘Where’s the legate?’ I demanded.

  ‘I’ll need the password first,’ the sentry stated.

  ‘I don’t know the bloody password. I’m General Severus, your commanding officer. Tell me where the legate is now or I’ll have you digging latrines for the rest of your career!’

  The sentry hesitated for a moment then pointed me in the direction of the front line.

  I passed through rank after rank of legionaries, their ring of iron stretching over a mile round the mountain. By the light of the fire I could just make out the legion’s eagle, its shaft planted in the ground. Beneath it was a group of horsemen. Some wore the thin purple stripe of the junior tribune on their cloaks, but at their centre was an older man. A plume of horsehair dyed red arced from the front of his helmet back towards his neck.

  ‘Legate Pansa?’ I shouted. The legate turned to see who had called out to him.

  ‘Yes, and you are…?’

  I flicked back my cloak, revealing the silver breastplate that Totavalas had painstakingly polished. ‘General Severus. I take it you knew I was coming?’

  The legate looked confused. ‘I knew a general was coming, but I didn’t expect you to be quite so—’

  ‘Young?’ I cut him off. ‘That’s hardly important, Legate. What in Hades is going on here is what I want to know.’

  ‘We’re burning the fort, General,’ one of the tribunes said.

  I shot him a withering look. ‘He’s a clever one, isn’t he? Legate, would you mind telling me why you are burning your own fort?’

  ‘It’s a long story, sir.’

  ‘Well, at least we have a nice fire to sit around while you tell it,’ I jibed. ‘Pansa, stop bloody prevaricating and tell me what is going on.’

  The legate squirmed in the saddle. ‘It’s the Helvetii; they’re rebelling. As the emperor ordered, we gave an escort of twenty men to your messenger for the governor in Pannonia. The men in the fort captured the group and are holding them hostage in the fort. I was hoping to have this mess sorted out before the general – I mean, before you – arrived, so I laid siege to the fort and had my archers loose a few volleys of fire arrows.’ Pansa gestured at the blaze.

  ‘But it’s not quite as simple as that, is it, Legate?’ said a voice.

  ‘You hold your tongue, Prefect.’

  ‘As I see it, the general is the senior officer here, and I think he’d like to know all the facts.’

  A burly man approached. Like me, he wore a pair of trousers to ward off the winter chill.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A Helvetian, General. Gaius Torquatus, prefect of the Alpine infantry cohort. Those men up in the fort have every right to rebel. Up here in the mountains they hadn’t heard that Vitellius had declared himself emperor. The legate here had given orders to collect gold from the province, and a century decided to hijack a wagon of gold that pays the salary of the auxiliaries up in the fort and for the upkeep of the fort itself.’

  ‘I had orders to levy all provisions necessary for the campaign,’ Pansa protested.

  ‘But the gold was paid for by the local tribes, wasn’t it, sir? We pay our own troops to defend Rome’s borders. Can you blame those poor bastards when the army steals from them?’

  Before Pansa could protest, a chorus of shouts echoed on the hillside. An army of fingers pointed up at the fort. The gates were opening.

  ‘I knew it! They’d have to come out sooner or later,’ Pansa exulted.

  A group of men came running out of the gates. Something was wrong though. ‘Prefect,’ I called, ‘how many men are stationed at the fort?’

  ‘About two hundred, sir. Why?’

  ‘Does that look like two hundred men to you?’

  Everyone squinted to count the figures emerging from the fiery fortress.

  ‘Looks like about twenty,’ someone said.

  The men were running now, running so fast from the fire that some of them lost their footing on the hillside and were sent sprawling into the snow. Soon we could hear cries of pain over the crackli
ng of the great inferno up above us. Such was the noise of the fire that it was a few minutes before the men were within earshot.

  ‘Who are you?’ Pansa called out.

  ‘The escort for the imperial messenger,’ a man replied.

  ‘Address me as legate, man. Don’t you know how to address an officer?’

  ‘Do you think I give a fuck about that right this second?’ The man had his arms drawn tightly across his chest, as though defending himself from the cold.

  ‘How dare you? Guards, arrest that man.’

  ‘Ignore that order,’ I shouted. ‘Fetch the surgeons, now.’

  ‘But you heard the man,’ Pansa protested.

  ‘Look at him, you fool,’ I hissed. As he stepped nearer I could make out the trails of blood down his forearms. Both his hands had been cut off.

  ‘By all the gods,’ Pansa murmured, stunned.

  ‘They said they were cutting them off so that we could never steal from them again.’

  ‘They? Where are they?’ the legate asked.

  There was no need to say anything. I nudged Pansa and pointed upwards. There on the skyline was a trail of flickering lights. The Helvetii had left the fort a long time since and were climbing further up the mountain, beyond the reach of our heavily armoured infantry.

  ‘So much for your siege, Legate.’

  The surgeon did what he could for the poor men who had been held hostage. We learned later that night that the rebels had escaped by a secret tunnel, leaving the main gate barred. The prisoners had managed to remove the hefty wooden bar by lifting it with their forearms while the building burned around them.

  ‘Julius Alpinus, that’s the man who ordered our hands to be cut off,’ one of the men told us.

  The auxiliary prefect nodded wearily. ‘He’s just the sort of man to pull a stunt like this. Hot-headed and completely lacking common sense; a dangerous mix.’

  ‘I suppose you’re the man to thank for keeping your cohort loyal,’ I said.

  Gaius Torquatus grimaced. ‘Maybe. The fact that we knew about Vitellius and the need for gold and those bastards up on the hill didn’t is probably a better reason.’