Lions of Rome

by S. J. A. Turney

  His pulse sped up. The building, nestled here between the old ruined gate and the temple of Ceres, goddess of the fields and the harvest, was the statio annonae. Here, until the recent grain troubles, had been the office of Papirius Dionysus and his grain men. They had moved to the horrea on the Aventine to assume direct control over the situation, and now their offices lay unused and dark.

  And now someone among that crowd had broken in.

  ‘Disperse now, in the name of the emperor and the chamberlain,’ he bellowed. ‘If this crowd does not disperse, I shall give the command to advance and all miscreants, agitators and trespassers will be arrested and dealt with. Go home, people.’

  Some had. In fairness, perhaps half the crowd melted away. Others slipped into the grain offices, and the rest bristled, preparing to face the Cohort. Damn it.

  Rufinus had been forced then to give a command he had hoped not to have to issue.

  His soldiers had advanced along the street, clubs up, shields forth. The crowd had continued to pelt them with missiles, though they now included cobbles, pieces of torn timber and anything else that came to hand. Two of Rufinus’ men were struck and disappeared with a cry, dropping out of the line and falling back to nurse horrible injuries while their compatriots closed up the gaps and marched on against the civilians before them.

  He’d continued to hope that the public would see sense, but no such luck was to come his way. He watched in dismay as the crowd met the advancing soldiers with gritted teeth and desperate, hopeless bravery. The Urban Cohorts, grim-faced, went to work with their stout clubs, swiping and smashing, breaking bones and forcing men back with their shields..

  Even at that critical juncture Rufinus thought perhaps the crowd might break, but then everything had descended to Tarterus in a heartbeat. Even as he drew breath to demand once more that they disperse, other noises erupted. Black smoke began to pour from the broken window of the grain office, leaking out from another half dozen apertures, too. Some men cried out in panic at the realisation that the building beside which they had gathered was alight. Others shouted in triumph that the symbol of that which had caused their anger was burning. Added to the roar of flames and the shouts of the crowd, above the struggle between civilian and soldier, came the desperate bellowed commands of the vigiles as they gathered water from the fountain around which they stood, bucket loads ready to tackle a building they couldn’t yet get to for the crowd. And finally came a further set of calls as another unit of Rufinus’ men, led by his tesserarius and presumably drawn by the commotion, suddenly appeared at the other side, near the circus, and began to wade into the far edge of the gathered crowd.

  Rufinus watched as the mob was squeezed between two groups of soldiers, pressured and beaten with sticks until those remaining surrendered, throwing up their hands. The men of the Urban Cohorts gathered them up and began to rope their wrists until Rufinus told them not to.

  ‘Go home and nurse your wounds,’ he bellowed at the gathered crowd above the din. ‘There will be no arrests today.’

  A show of such magnanimity might go some way to preventing similar riots in the coming days, and the population in the street had immediately dispersed, clutching at injuries and limping away, casting hateful, suspicious looks at the soldiers who stepped out of their way.

  Thus had the patrol finished. With the end of the demonstration the vigiles had got to work with their buckets. Fortunately, the grain offices had been empty and there was little inside to burn, so it did not take long for the vigiles to get it all under control, and there was little danger of any spread of the flames with the damp morning air.

  Rufinus’ mood had not improved as the units gathered once more and began to make their way back towards the Castra Praetoria, particularly given that it chose that moment to start raining.

  And so here Rufinus was in the fortress once more, his men dispersing to their barracks, rain running down his neck and gushing from the tip of his hood, heart heavy with the morning’s events and an appointment now to visit the prefect and report the near disaster. Pertinax would not be pleased, though he would at least realise that the blame was not Rufinus’ so he would not suffer for it.

  With a sigh – the latest in a series – he turned and strode off towards the headquarters.

  He was busy formulating his speech to the commander when he suddenly became aware that he was not alone. Startled, he glanced left and right and took in the two white-garbed Praetorians. He knew neither of them by face, both of which were ugly and scarred. They were not dressed in the toga required for duty in the city centre, but in full armour and bearing their swords at their sides, comfortably so this far from the Pomerium that forbade weapons of war.

  ‘Can I help you, soldiers?’ he said, trying to keep his voice level. Given his superior rank, but the Praetorians’ innate sense of superiority, it was a careful balance between maintaining the commanding tone of a centurion and yet not provoking trouble with the Guard, whose fortress they shared.

  ‘Come with us, Centurion,’ one of the soldiers replied, his tone equally carefully nestled between the respect due an officer and the disdain reserved for the Urban Cohorts.

  ‘Impossible, I’m afraid, soldier,’ he replied. ‘I have to visit the prefect.’

  ‘After this,’ the man said, now on the border of insolence. His hand dropped to the pommel of his sword, Rufinus noted. A threat, and not a particularly subtle one at that.

  ‘I do not bow to your authority,’ Rufinus said in measured, careful tones. ‘My prefect will be waiting for my debrief.’

  ‘I’m afraid we must insist,’ hissed the other soldier, his own hand now hovering close to his weapon.

  For a moment, Rufinus considered testing out the theory that they might back down if pressed. Despite the permanent tension between the two units, few incidents had ever been reported. Those that did happen were usually at the lowest levels and kept between those in the know, unreported to the officers. Rufinus, though, was a centurion. A tussle between him and two Praetorians would not go unnoticed and would inevitably be reported. And the outcome of any fight would be far from certain anyway. On a level field, Rufinus was content that he could best them both. But here they were armoured and bore sharp swords, while he carried only his vine stick and a small utility knife. Far from even.

  ‘This is most irregular and will be reported to Prefect Pertinax,’ he said in warning, then nodded. ‘Lead on.’

  The two Praetorians took him by the shortest route out of the orbit of the Cohort’s barracks and into the heart of the Praetorian areas of the fortress. A suspicion began to settle on Rufinus and seemed clear to be borne out as they angled towards the elegant, individual houses that belonged to the tribunes.

  A sense of foreboding washed over him. They reached a door and stopped there.

  ‘Your vitis,’ one of the guardsmen said, pointing to Rufinus’ vine stick of office. He shook his head. ‘This stays with me.’

  ‘You cannot enter the presence of the tribune armed.’

  ‘Piss off,’ snapped Rufinus, and turned to leave. He was surprised, though not unprepared, when the soldier reached for his shoulder. He spun, vitis still firmly jammed under his arm, and his right hand, already bunched into a fist, smashed into the man’s face.

  As the guardsman fell against the wall, crying out in pain at his broken nose, so Rufinus also yelped at the twin cuts he received on his knuckles from the cheek guards of the man’s helmet. The punch had been well-placed, but Rufinus’ fist had been larger than the gap between the bronze plates.

  The other guardsman’s hand went to his sword, but Rufinus levelled a blood-smeared warning finger at him.

  ‘That would not be a clever move, soldier. Your friend got what he deserved for manhandling an officer, and my prefect will stand by me on it. Draw that thing and I’ll have to sheathe it again for you. And you won’t like where I sheathe it, neither.’

  The soldier faltered, stepping back. His friend was still clu
tching his face and howling, blood flowing out between his fingers as he leaned against the wall. They were drawing attention now from every figure in view. Though he initially wondered about the wisdom of that, he now thought that perhaps it was a good thing. Witnesses to his arrival at the place might not be bad to have.

  ‘Now step away and I shall visit your tribune, with my vitus where it should be: under my arm. You might want to help your friend to a medicus. I can find my own way back.’

  Ignoring the man any further, he rapped smartly on the door and pushed it open, not bothering to wait for an instruction from within.

  A tribune was a man of senior rank, of course, and with a house of his own within the fortress he was attended by a good level of staff as he would be at home in private life. Consequently, as Rufinus pushed open the door, he almost broke another nose – that of the doorman coming to answer the knock. As the man reeled back from the door and Rufinus strode in, he recovered himself and hurried to intercept, but the centurion was already marching on. Rufinus had been in enough houses like this in his time to know where he was going.

  He ignored the two slaves who hurried out to intercept the visitor, marched through the atrium into the courtyard and looked left and right, working out which side contained the tribune’s private office. It was not hard to spot, for the door was open and the tribune himself was visible behind a small desk, eating fresh bread and butter and drinking from a pewter goblet. Something nagged at Rufinus’ senses, though he couldn’t work out what, particularly with all the rain pounding down.

  ‘Ah, good,’ the man said, rising at the sight of the bedraggled centurion in the courtyard. Appius Fulvius looked just as sneeringly superior as he had the day Rufinus had first entered this fortress as a centurion a few months ago and bumped into him. Rufinus steadied himself. He was on Fulvius’ turf right now. He had to be careful.

  The tribune beckoned for him to enter the office and Rufinus did so, standing just close enough to attention not to be disobedient, but still with a fair level of insolence. Fulvius’ lip twitched a little.

  ‘How odd,’ the man said in his hoarse voice. ‘Here you are, just an ordinary Praetorian infantryman. Little more, really, than a legionary dragged out of place. And yet you seem to have acquired a centurionate in the Urban Cohorts, along with your perfectly fictitious name.’

  Rufinus felt a pit open beneath him. He’d already panicked long ago that the tribune had identified him when they first met but somehow, since plenty of time had passed and nothing had happened, that worry had been consigned to his rather heavy bag labelled ‘things to worry about when I have time’. He’d all-but forgotten about it, but now that worry came flooding back in and it was all Rufinus could do to keep a stoic expression and try not to show weakness. He remained silent. Some people were all about showing off, and he was comfortable that Appius Fulvius was just such a man. If he’d been a man of action and purpose he’d have already struck, and would likely have had him dragged here in chains in the first place anyway. Instead he clearly wanted Rufinus to see how clever he’d been in uncovering it all.

  ‘Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus,’ the man said, steepling his fingers as he sank back into his seat. ‘Decorated hero of the Marcomannic wars. A man who saved the emperor’s life, so I am told. A friend and supporter of the traitor Perennis, though. A man sent to Dacia to stop causing trouble and who supposedly died there. I wonder who in Dacia might be fascinated to hear that the reports were so wrong.’

  ‘Very clever,’ Rufinus nodded. ‘You must be pleased with yourself.’

  ‘I am impressed, upon making certain enquiries and digging deep, to discover that you rose to the rank of Prefect of the Misenum fleet recently.’

  That, he hadn’t expected. How could he have known that? Again that unknown something nagged at him. A feeling like being watched.

  ‘A close ally of the consul Septimius Severus,’ Fulvius went on, ‘and with a beautiful wife by all accounts, now living somewhere in Sicilia.’

  Rufinus shivered. Senova, at least, was a distinct weak spot for him. He would not let anything happen to her. Yes, she supposedly had Severus’ protection, but if Fulvius knew this much, then how much more did he know? Still, Rufinus stood silent.

  ‘I have asked myself time and again why such a man should feel the need to create fictional personalities and follow such a peculiar career path. Something underhanded clearly lay at the root of it all. I know that you hate the chamberlain. That much is clear from your dealings with him before Dacia. For a time, I actually thought you were moving against him, despite your ties to consul Severus, who remains steadfast and loyal.’

  Rufinus felt a strange wash of panic and hope intertwined. Fulvius had sailed so close to the truth there, and yet seemed to have discarded it, oddly.

  ‘But I learned something from my sources, which led me in new and very unexpected directions, guardsman Rufinus. I learned that you served undercover at the empress’ villa a decade ago. The same year, in fact, that I and my tent mates went to that very same place on a mission for our prefect.’

  Rufinus shivered again. That, then, was why Fulvius had discarded the truth: because he had latched onto another truth.

  ‘I looked back over the records of my former companions, though I have to admit that we were never all that close. I’d lost touch with most, and so had been completely aware of how death seems to have followed my unit around, claiming us with alarming regularity.’

  Rufinus managed to fight down his panic and hate, and settled into an unpleasantly predatory smile. Fulvius seemed startled for a moment, and then straightened.

  ‘Vedius, killed by your hound. Pollius, victim of a sporting “accident”. Glabrio, disappeared one night, never to be seen again. Curtius suicided recently, rather out of character too. Hostilius killed in a tavern latrine by an unknown thug. And then there is me. Very much alive and hearty.’

  ‘And every bit as out of place as me,’ Rufinus said quietly. ‘I may be a Praetorian infantryman in a centurion’s kit, but you are just a Praetorian cavalry trooper who’s wheedled his way into command through selling out his oath and throwing in his lot with the chamberlain.’

  For a moment, Fulvius shook, and Rufinus could see he was struggling to remain calm. Good. Keep him off-balance.

  ‘You and your friends murdered one of the emperor’s frumentarii,’ Rufinus went on. ‘That sort of thing comes back to haunt you.

  ‘We performed an execution for our commander’’

  ‘A corrupt and base commander.’

  Fulvius suddenly shot to his feet. ‘Do not try me, Rufinus. The only reason you go on as you do is because I have been undecided as to what to do with you.’

  And that was when it struck Rufinus, and he smiled wide. ‘Of course you are. Because you’d love nothing more than to kill me. But you also know that I’m friends with Severus, and Severus is consul with the emperor, in a prime position to make like difficult for both you and Cleander.’

  Gods, but that was a tenuous line to rely upon.

  Fulvius nodded, though. He’d hit the nail upon the head. The tribune dare not deal with him without being certain there would be no comeback.

  ‘And so, guardsman Rufinus, I have come to a decision. While your very existence vexes me, we shall have status quo. You shall go about your tedious, dirty little life, and I shall go about mine.’

  Rufinus frowned.

  ‘I see you are unsure,’ the tribune said. ‘Very well. Let me lay it out for you like a military map. I shall not arrest you or unveil your secret, for I would rather not answer to the chamberlain for any difficulty it might bring in terms of the consul and his friends. But equally, you will remove yourself from my life. You shall put in for a transfer if you wish, or simply disappear as you have before. And in return I shall not seek to identify the location of your woman, and I shall let your father blunder on in Rome as though he were some sort of nobleman. Yes, I know of your father, and his disappearance would r
aise no alarms in the city. So be a good boy. Go away.’

  Rufinus felt slightly sick. Not over his father, who had signed his life over to a villain and deserved everything he got. But Senova? He could not risk pushing Fulvius into going after her. That undetermined something troubled him once more, and he felt the hairs on his neck rise. What was it? But Fulvius was watching him, and he had no time to ponder. He nodded.

  ‘Agreed. Though I cannot simply disappear right now. Pertinax appointed me personally because he needs me to keep the city under control. It does none of us any good if the population riots.’

  There was a long pause as Fulvius’ eyes narrowed, but he also nodded.

  ‘Get out of my sight.’

  Rufinus did so, marching away through the house, feeling like a goat that had just walked into a lion’s den, circled the beast a few times and left without a scratch. It was not quite feeling good about it all, though. The background worry of Senova remained. As the slaves let him out, he pondered whether he could get a message to her to move. Perhaps back to Cemenelum to hide. But now, with Fulvius having uncovered this much, he would have to be exceedingly careful about everything he did. One wrong move and he could undo everything they’d worked towards.

  Senova… but not his father. That uncertain something he’d felt now returned, and finally he knew what it was, and it made some sort of sense. That presence he’d felt like a lurking watcher. It had been his father. His father had been there. And his father was one of few men who knew all those things about Rufinus that Fulvius had uncovered. The sour old man had threatened to reveal him more than once, and he’d finally done it. At least for some reason the information had only reached Fulvius and not Cleander. Thank the gods for small mercies.