Flavius Vopiscus was holding forth. ‘More funds are needed. Much equipment was lost or damaged in Germany. Supplies have to be stockpiled for the new campaign. The levies are costing a great deal.’
Paulina had listened to them go over this many times. Solutions had to be found.
‘Raise taxes,’ Maximinus said. ‘Demand a one-off contribution from the provinces, from the rich. They live in luxury, sleep safely, because we march and fight on the frontiers.’
Vopiscus fingered the amulet he thought no one knew he wore under his clothes. ‘I have suggested before that such measures would cause widespread unrest, my Lord.’
Maximinus shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘What can a few civilians achieve?’
‘In the long run, nothing,’ Vopiscus agreed. ‘But, Imperator, a revolt – even the most doomed and ephemeral – has to be crushed. As you have wisely stressed, we must clear the barbarians out of Dacia this summer, and return to Germania the next campaigning season. A revolt might demand your presence.’
Maximinus frowned. He looked fearsome, but Paulina knew he was merely thinking deeply. ‘All the cities throughout the empire raise their own local taxes. What the town councillors do not steal, they fritter away building new baths or giving oil to the undeserving. We take the proceeds of these existing taxes for the military treasury.’
This was new. The idea was so radical, it made Vopiscus pause. Paulina wanted to smile. Her husband might lack a formal education and polish, but only a fool would deny his intelligence.
‘Again, my Lord, it would cause untold trouble. There would be endless riots. All the cities in the empire would follow any pretender who promised to rescind that ruling.’
‘What, then?’ Now Maximinus looked genuinely angry. He did not care for what he saw as obstruction, any more than he did for civilians or the rich. Paulina moved slightly, enough to catch her husband’s attention. His face relaxed a little; not as far as a smile, but into his – utterly adorable – half-barbarian scowl.
Paulina resumed her look of benign distance from the proceedings. Maximinus was too straightforward to be Emperor, too honourable to be surrounded by imperial councillors. Since the German campaign, the senatorial triumvirate, Vopiscus, Honoratus and Catius Clemens, and the equestrians Anullinus, Volo and Domitius had been joined by two more aspiring members of the latter order. As commander of 2nd Legion Parthica, Julius Capitolinus had done well in the final battle, and the Greek Timesitheus had made sure that the men had boots and no one starved. Despite his performance, the duties of Timesitheus had been handed to Domitius. Timesitheus would soon depart for the East to govern Bithynia-Pontus. Paulina was unsure if it was an advancement or a demotion. Whatever the opaque intricacies of court politics, however, there was no disguising the ambitions of the men in the room.
‘The regime of Alexander was weak and corrupt,’ Vopiscus said.
You did well enough out of it, Paulina thought. So did every other man in this room.
‘Mamaea was insatiable for money. On payment of a bribe, many who deserved death or at least confinement on an island of exile were merely relegated from Italy and their home province. Some escaped any penalty. Either way, the guilty retained their estates. Justice demands their cases be reopened.’
The whole consilium voiced its approval.
Maximinus nodded. ‘Volo, have your frumentarii round them up.’
Vopiscus hesitated. He massaged the concealed charm. ‘There are vast treasures gathering dust in the temples.’
‘No,’ Maximinus said. ‘If we take from the gods, they will turn against us, bring defeat on Rome.’
‘Not the gods.’ In his alacrity to deny any impiety, Vopiscus interrupted the Emperor. ‘Nothing of the sort, my Lord. There are many treasures which have not been dedicated to the deities but have been deposited in their temples for safekeeping. Many of these have remained unclaimed for generations. The families of those who placed them there have died out. The Taker of Petitions, Herennius Modestinus, confirmed to me that the estates of those who die intestate belong to the Emperor. The legal term is bona vacantia. You will be reclaiming what is your own.’
Paulina was far from sure the devout would see it in quite those terms.
Maximinus leant forward, hands on his knees. ‘To a soldier, that sounds the typical fiction of a jurist. I am reluctant to risk offending the traditional gods. We are not desperate yet. Crown gold is still coming in from cities after the German victories. They will have to send more when we have beaten the Sarmatians. We will keep the temple treasures in mind. Should it become necessary, who will take on this duty?’
‘My Lord, I would be happy to carry out your wishes,’ Anullinus said. Even without the rumours about his actions in the coup – surely not, not after Mamaea was dead – there was a sinister, even frightening air about the Praetorian Prefect. Perhaps, Paulina thought, it was his eyes. At first they seemed dull, but when you looked more closely they appeared to burn with an energy that had no moral purpose or restraint.
‘Make it so.’ Maximinus sat back, resting his forearms on the arms of the curule throne. There was something Paulina found attractive about a man’s forearms; that smooth curve of muscle a woman’s lacked. One thought began to lead to another.
‘Is there anything else that we need to discuss before we turn again to the question of remounts?’
Paulina’s spirit sank at her husband’s evident enthusiasm.
‘Emperor.’ With his high cheekbones and dark eyes, Honoratus was far too handsome. Paulina had never trusted men with such good looks. ‘May I talk about the future?’
Maximinus grunted an assent that sounded as if he hoped the discussion of military horseflesh would not be delayed for any great length of time.
‘My Lord, you and the Empress are blessed with a son.’ Honoratus gave Paulina a dazzling smile. He was beautiful and suave: Paulina would not be the only one to distrust him on sight. ‘Maximus took the toga of manhood some years ago; he is now eighteen. Last summer, he served with distinction under the standards.’
‘Well,’ Maximinus said, ‘he travelled with us.’ Paulina shot him a look which stopped him saying any more.
‘There is nothing your subjects desire more than security, and nothing gives them more security than living under an established dynasty. No matter how they love their Emperor, if he lacks an heir, the future worries them. Imperator, your courage and your virtue impel you to risk your life on behalf of Rome. Should anything happen to you, there is the terrible fear of civil war. Nothing harms the Res Publica more than when ambitious men lead her soldiers in fratricidal strife. My Lord, I speak for all your loyal friends when I urge you to name your son Caesar.’
Paulina had known it would happen, but not now, not like this, with her present in the consilium. People would talk. They would say she had connived to get into the council, that she had exerted her influence to have her son elevated. Was Maximus ready to be Caesar, let alone Emperor? His father was right: the boy was immature. There had been that terrible incident with the serving girl. Thank the gods, Paulina had managed to cover it all up. What Maximinus would have done had he found out did not bear thinking about.
Wrapped in her concerns, Paulina missed what Honoratus had said next.
‘… no imperial dynasty has ever been more loved than that of Marcus Aurelius. To join the two families would bring their many influential connections renewed influence. It would conciliate the nobility and link your regime to the age of silver. The girl is beautiful and amiable. As a widow, she is trained in the duties of a wife. Again, I speak for all when I urge you to betroth your son Maximus Caesar to the great-granddaughter of the divine Marcus, Iunia Fadilla.’
CHAPTER 18
Africa Proconsularis
Beyond the Frontier,
Two Days before the Ides of January, AD236
As the last outpost of civilization, Tisavar was unimpressive. Sited on a low rise, the irregular stones of its walls were the sa
me colour as the surrounding sand dunes. It was more a blockhouse than a fortress. As Gordian rode up, he judged it not bigger than forty paces by thirty. Nevertheless, the column would find the rest welcome.
Gordian had ridden down from Carthage with the Quaestor Menophilus and the legates Sabinianus and Arrian. Each had brought just the one servant. The hostage prince Mirzi was accompanied by six of his father’s warriors. At Tacape on the coast, Aemilius Severinus had been waiting with two hundred troopers of the speculatores. A day’s march south, they had rendezvoused with a hundred men of 3rd Legion Augusta under a centurion called Verittus at the small town of Martae. From there, for three days, they had followed a white track winding through the ochre mountains to the west. Descending, they had turned south-east across a flat, stony plain. Two days later, at Cententarium Tibubuci, a small outpost in the middle of nowhere, they had met two hundred auxiliaries from 2nd Cohort Flavia Afrorum. As instructed, their Prefect, Lydus, had brought provisions, grappling hooks and ropes, materials to make scaling ladders and light baggage carts to carry them. Two more days, bearing south then west, had brought them to Tisavar.
It had been a hard march over unmade roads, but possibly nothing compared with what lay ahead. There were no roads where they were going. Gordian liaised with the centurion in charge of Tisavar. He wanted to make the men as comfortable as possible. There were twenty-eight small rooms backing on to the walls of the fort. These were crammed with soldiers, as was the diminutive headquarters building in the courtyard. The officers would bed down together in the shrine. The stables that stood outside the defences were emptied of animals, mucked out, and more men billeted there. Even so, more than half the expedition would have to camp in the open.
They brought out food, wine and firewood. Gordian made sure the troops had a hot meal and ordered a double ration of wine. Of course, the men would drink more than the official allowance – they always had their own supplies – but they would sweat out any ill-effects the following day.
To get some privacy, Gordian and his officers walked out into the desert night. It was very cold, the stars very bright.
‘The men of 2nd Cohort are grumbling.’ Menophilus’ breath plumed in the frigid air. ‘They do not like turning out of their winter quarters, not to march nine days in a huge circle. They say the village is only two days, three at most, from their base at Tillibari.’
‘I explained it would have alerted the enemy,’ Lydus said. ‘The brigands would never expect an attack from out of the desert from the west. And winter is when we will catch all of them in their lair with their plunder.’
‘Soldiers grumble,’ Gordian said. ‘It means nothing. It is their way.’
They were silent for a time. A fox barked somewhere in the desert.
‘A Persian army once went into the desert,’ Menophilus said. ‘The sands covered them while they slept. Not one of them was seen again.’
Gordian smiled. ‘Words of ill omen, if ever I heard them.’
‘An Epicurean such as yourself should not care,’ Sabinianus said.
‘We make allowances for those still mired in superstition, especially gloomy Stoics like Menophilus.’
They laughed, passing a flask of wine around.
‘Mind you—’ Sabinianus spoke to Gordian, ‘—we have more than drifting sand to worry about. We are going into the desert led by a young tribesman you maimed. If it were me, I would bear a grudge. This youth’s father recently murdered his way across the province. You are far too trusting. It is asking to be betrayed. A small force, lost in the unknown, surrounded by barbarians … when the water runs out, we will have to do each other the final kindness.’
‘That,’ Gordian said, ‘was almost poetry.’
‘You may well laugh,’ Sabinianus said, ‘but I have a lot to live for. It would be a tragedy if talents such as mine were cut off before their time. I want to live. Do not expect me to sacrifice myself in a doomed cause.’
‘Young Mirzi will not betray us,’ Gordian said. ‘He has been treated well as a hostage. His father has sworn friendship.’
‘Your philosophy claims the gods do not listen to such oaths,’ Menophilus said.
‘On the whole, I find it unlikely that Nuffuzi chief of the Cinithii is a follower of Epicurus. Besides, we have promised him a share of the plunder.’
They moved out before first light. When the sun came up it revealed the great rocky plain they traversed. Off to the right were the first sands of the true desert; to the left the foothills of the grey uplands. The day grew warmer. Even in this wilderness there were signs of life. Lizards scuttled out of their way with surprising speed. Gordian saw larks, wheatears and shrikes in the sky.
Mirzi told them about the men they had come to kill. ‘Canartha is a man of much evil. No stranger who has entered his lair at Esuba has ever left. The fortunate he asks to join him; the rest die. When he raids, he tortures his captives not to discover their hidden wealth but for his own enjoyment. He ruins the looks of attractive women and boys. Afterwards, they are no good for pleasure, and are worth little.’ The young tribesman shook his head at such profligacy. ‘Those who follow him are little better. Most are from the Augilae tribe. They worship only the infernal gods. Like the Garamantes, they hold their women in common. They are very dirty, the women foully soiled.’
‘In the West,’ Sabinianus said, ‘the Atlantes curse the rising and setting sun. Alone among men, they have no names, no dreams.’
Mirzi looked at him, puzzled.
‘Take no notice,’ Gordian said. ‘It is from a book. For us, the desert is a mysterious place.’
Gordian was tracking a flight of sandgrouse when Aemelius Severinus motioned him to pull his horse aside.
‘We are being watched.’
‘Where?’
‘My men have seen movement in the hills to the left.’
‘Not goatherds?’
‘They are following us.’
‘How many?’
‘Not many.’
‘Your men should not tell the others.’
Aemilius Severinus wheeled his horse and cantered away.
Gordian rejoined the head of the column.
‘What was that?’ Arrian asked.
‘Nothing.’
Gordian had faith in the report of the speculatores. Aemilius Severus’ Frontier Wolves knew the desert. He would tell Arrian and the other officers in camp that night, when they could not be overheard. He had trusted Mirzi. Now, he was not so sure. Perhaps the cynicism of Sabinianus was not misplaced.
It rained that night. A cold, hard rain. Mirzi was delighted. It showed their expedition was blessed by one of his seven gods. Neither the Roman officers nor the men were convinced. They ate cold rations. Gordian had ordered no fires – although, by now, everyone knew they were observed.
In the morning, they turned east and entered the hills by what should have been the dry bed of a watercourse. The rain had turned its surface to mud. Men and horses sunk to their knees. The going was particularly bad for those towards the rear. The carts got stuck. Soldiers cursed as they laboured to free them. After an hour, progress was so slow Gordian decided to leave the carts. The water and food were strapped on to the baggage animals. The infantry would have to carry the timber to make the siege ladders.
By midday, those following them had abandoned all pretence of secrecy. Small groups of horsemen sat on the heights and regarded the column’s laboured advance.
Gordian moved up and down the line, assuring the men that it made no difference. ‘They know we are coming. They will be all the more afraid. A rabble of barbarians cannot stand against us.’
They sighted the village late in the afternoon. It was built on a spur of rock jutting out from the hills like the ram of a warship. Mirzi led them around up into the hills behind, where they camped. As the bare rock prevented entrenching, they made the best perimeter they could with thorn bushes. The men gathering and arranging these took many nicks and cuts. It did nothing to i
mprove their mood.
The only blessing was that the natives did not intervene. In fact, their scouts had disappeared.
The sun was arcing down towards the horizon when Gordian and his officers rode forward with Mirzi to inspect the enemy position. Not tempting fate, they were screened by a party of speculatores.
There was only one approach, along the causeway from the hills. It was flat and wide enough for twenty men abreast in close order. Some time long ago much effort had been expended to dig a ditch in front of the village. Although its banks did not look too sheer, it was about six feet deep. A pace or two behind it was a wall of unmortared stones, perhaps twelve feet high, with rough battlements. There was one solid-looking gate. There were no other fortifications. On all other sides the slopes were as precipitous as if they had been deliberately cut to make them so. The settlement itself consisted of close-packed, flat-roofed stone huts. There was no citadel, but if the dwellings were defended, it would be hard to fight through the narrow alleys between them.
The Romans had no siege engines. Artillery would have been useful, playing on the wall and the village from the higher slopes of the range. But the trouble of getting them to this place would be prohibitive. As for rams and towers, even if you hauled them all the way here, a sally by the defenders might easily topple them over the edge of the causeway. Mining was out of the question. It would have to be the ladders and a frontal assault, with all the heavy casualties that entailed. Send in the auxiliaries first. If they did not take the place, their attack would kill some barbarians, tire the others, and then the legionaries would have to storm the wall. The Frontier Wolves could provide some support by shooting over their heads. This was going to be a bloody business.
‘There is another way,’ Mirzi said.
‘You have waited until now to tell us.’ Gordian tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice.
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