Fire and Sword

by Harry Sidebottom

  More and more people came up to the Capitol. The crowd hung back from the altar of Jupiter, but clustered thickly around the statue of Tiberius Gracchus. When the golden doors of the great temple were closed for the meeting of the Senate, the plebs murmured unhappily. There was a tension, an air of expectation. Individuals moved with purpose through the throng, talking insistently to groups here and there. Sometimes there were brief chants of Libertas, libertas.

  Caenis smiled at the die-cutter. ‘Stop looking so gloomy. You may not be the best-looking man that has ever visited my bed, and you are far from young, but you still have your vigour. Besides, you are lucky. The gods have favoured you with a skill. You make good money. Senators come to talk to you at the Mint. It must be interesting.’

  The die-cutter continued to peer, myopically at the shining doors of the temple.

  ‘As an artist, they must admire your work.’

  The die-cutter did not look at her. He shrugged. ‘The magistrates in charge of the Mint, the Tresviri Monetales, are not yet Senators. They are the children of great houses. They know nothing. They are pampered, ignorant fools.’

  ‘But Menophilus came to see you. He was a friend of the dead Emperors.’

  ‘He was better than most. He knew what he wanted on the coins. He did his duty to his friends.’

  Caenis put her hand on his thigh. ‘He is very handsome. As you have met him, you could attend for the morning salutatio, become one of his clients.’

  ‘He is away, defending Aquileia.’

  ‘When he returns. You could take me.’

  The die-cutter did not take his eyes off the entrance to the temple. ‘He might not welcome a man who works with his hands and a whore.’

  Caenis slid her hand up, near his crotch. ‘At times every man needs a whore. We will do the things a well-bred wife will not.’

  The die-cutter was frowning at the temple. ‘Is something moving?’

  The gilded doors had opened wide, and a procession of Senators was descending the steps. It was headed by old Pupienus and the grossly fat patrician Balbinus.

  Caenis and the die-cutter stood, the better to see and hear.

  The procession halted at the altar.

  Balbinus was making a speech. Only snatches of what he said carried. ‘Jupiter as fellow councillor … powers of an Emperor … bandits who march against us … care for your safety … elevated Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus as my colleague …’

  The young equestrians were chanting – What the Senate has given, take gladly! – a thin noise against the silence of the immense crowd.

  Caenis saw men worming through the throng. Four of them wore togas – broad purple stripes like blood on the gleaming white. Among these Senators was Gallicanus, the hairy fraud who pretended to a rough, manly virtue. He was speaking to a youth muffled in a hooded cloak. She knew that thin figure, knew him intimately.

  An innkeeper, distinctive in the leather apron of his trade, was bellowing something incomprehensible.

  Three of the equestrians went to grab him. A scuffle broke out. The first stone was hurled, then another.

  Jupiter is our only ruler! The crowd were chanting, like a well-drilled chorus.

  Caenis saw Balbinus reel, as a stone hit him.

  The mob surged forward, swallowing the equestrians and the innkeeper.

  Clutching up the folds of their togas, precious dignitas forgotten, the Senators turned and fled up the steps. A rain of stones clattered all around them. The mob jeered, and bayed for blood.

  Caenis was pushed in the back, as men rushed to join the riot. She would have fallen, been trampled on the hard marble, had the die-cutter not caught her. Shouldering against the flow of humanity, he dragged her back into the shelter of the shrine of Abundance, pushed her into a corner, shielded her with his body.

  When the noise died down, they came out of their refuge.

  The doors of the Temple of Jupiter were still open, but blocked by the young equestrians. They had swords in their hands. From the foot of the steps, the dense mass of plebeians watched them. An uneasy truce held.

  Their meal had been trodden underfoot. The wine flask was gone. Caenis busied herself packing the remnants into the battered basket. She was scared, and weary, very weary of always being afraid. The threat of brutality and casual violence was ever present in the slums of the Subura. She wanted more than anything to leave, escape from Rome, from squalor, leave her life of infamia behind. All she desired was to live a modest, respectable life on one of those peaceful, sun-drenched islands; Cephalonia or Corcyra.

  ‘We should go,’ the die-cutter said. ‘If the troops come, there will be a massacre.’

  ‘We would never get through the crush.’

  The die-cutter grunted. She was right.

  A lone figure emerged from the temple. He wore a tunic with a narrow purple stripe. His hands were empty, one of them bandaged. He walked down the steps. An unarmed equestrian; the mob would tear him limb from limb. Then Caenis recognized him: Timesitheus, the Praefectus Annonae. Under his management the grain supply had increased. He had been wounded fighting Maximinus. His popularity might save him.

  Timesitheus stopped in front of the crowd. Caenis could see him talking, but not hear what he said. After a few moments, a way opened up through the crush, and he was lost to view.

  ‘Before the stones, was that Castricius in that hood?’

  ‘No,’ Caenis said, ‘your eyesight is getting worse.’

  She did not want him to know that the knife-boy had returned to Rome. She did not want anyone to know. After his arrest, against all probability, Castricius had appeared at her door late one night. He had told a wild story of surviving some secret mission to the North. She had not believed a word of it. What she did know to be true was that Castricius had murdered a man in the Street of the Sandal-makers. The authorities would pay if she gave information which led to his capture, if she bore witness against him. The money would be useful, but, even with what she could make by denouncing the die-cutter, it would not be enough.

  Gallicanus the Senator was the answer. Gallicanus’ slave had been a customer in the bar. The slave had been drunk, but he had sworn it was true. He served in Gallicanus’ bed chamber. He should know the truth. What Caenis needed was to find a way to talk to one of Gallicanus’ political enemies. It was common knowledge that there were more than enough of them in the Senate. Any one of them would shower wealth on the person who gave them the means to bring down Gallicanus. No career could survive that revelation. Gallicanus was the oldest story: public professions of austerity and virtue, masking private vice and perversity.

  Yet the problem remained – how did a whore from the Subura gain admittance to the councils of a Senator?

  Caenis sat down. Her mind shied away from the practical difficulties, and wandered instead through a happy dream of the opulent results. She would buy more decent clothes. Musalia could have the tawdry costume of her profession. No longer Caenis, but once again Rhodope, she would take a ship to Corcyra, or one of the smaller islands. Letting it be known that a dream sent by the gods had guided her to her new domicile, she would say that her husband was dead, and that she was an orphan. She would buy a small house, purchase a respectable maid, and a doorkeeper. Doubtless there would be suitors for a young widow with her own property.

  Gordian! Gordian!

  The crowd at the top of the path up from the Forum was moving. Men were chanting at the top of their voices.

  Gordian! Gordian!

  What was happening? Why were the plebs shouting the name of the dead Emperors?

  CHAPTER 9

  Rome

  The Carinae, Eight Days before the Ides of April, AD238

  Never use a lie, unless it was necessary. Timesitheus had not lied to Gallicanus and his hired mob outside the Temple of Jupiter. He had not summoned troops. Instead he had called for gladiators, some tough slaves, and his wife. Timesitheus grinned to himself. If Gallicanus knew anything about women, he
would have known that Tranquillina was far more dangerous than any soldiers.

  Coming out into the Forum under the Arch of Septimius Severus, Timesitheus had given a street urchin his ring, promised him more money than he would see in a year if he fetched Tranquillina and the others. The boy had run off. Timesitheus had followed only a little more sedately; hurrying along the Argiletum between the Senate House and the Basilica Aemilia, down the length of the Forum Transitorium, across the Street of the Sandal-makers, and up the steep steps to the great houses of the Carinae. Now, breathing hard, he waited outside the Domus Rostrata, the mansion of the Gordiani.

  Time was pressing. There was no telling how long the mob would keep the Senate blockaded. The equilibrium on the Capitol was delicate. Timesitheus did not think that the plebs would assault the temple, or attempt to burn the Senators out. Yet, despite Gallicanus, the mob might drift away, or, once they got news, Pupienus’ Urban Cohorts, or other troops might intervene. Timesitheus had not lied to Pupienus either. He had not said he would fetch troops, just that he would save the two new Emperors and the Senators. And so he intended, although in a manner they would not expect, and certainly would not welcome.

  For the moment there was nothing for it but to wait. Fear fed on inactivity. Timesitheus could hear the black rat feasting in the dark, could sense its sharp teeth. To occupy his mind, he retied the bandages on his hand. The missing finger throbbed, and the stench of burnt flesh was still there.

  They came around the corner: Tranquillina, the two gladiators – Narcissus and Iaculator – and six strong-armed slaves. Her gown hauled up, Tranquillina marched at their head. Most women went out in a litter, attended by a custos and a maid. Not his wife. Tranquillina had the heart and soul of a lioness.

  The urchin scampered up, and Timesitheus retrieved his ring and handed over the contents of his wallet. Coins would not be an issue after today; one way or another. The boy went and sat on the opposite pavement, wanting to see what happened.

  In as few words as possible, Timesitheus described events on the Capitol, and what he planned.

  ‘Once undertaken, there can be no drawing back. Everything we have ventured before by comparison was mere child’s play.’

  Tranquillina’s eyes were dancing, torchlight on black water. ‘You are a man. Do everything that becomes a man.’

  ‘If we should fail?’

  ‘We fail? The moment is auspicious. No time for delay.’

  The doors of the Domus Rostrata were open. Timesitheus walked into the spacious vestibule. It was decorated with the beaks of warships that gave the house its name.

  ‘Maecia Faustina is not receiving people.’ It was Montanus the freedman.

  ‘We have come to see her son, Marcus Junius Balbus.’

  ‘The child is resting.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘That is no concern of yours.’ Montanus had all the haughtiness of an ex-slave with a position in a noble household.

  ‘It is very much my concern.’

  ‘I must ask you to leave.’

  Timesitheus stepped very close to Montanus. The freedman recoiled. With his undamaged hand, Timesitheus pulled him back.

  ‘You remember me.’

  Montanus said nothing.

  ‘I remember you; an insolent slave, scars on his back, arse like a cistern.’

  Timesitheus drew his bandaged hand softly down Montanus’ cheek. ‘I have found out all about you. In the Palace cellars, they treat your sort worse than a murderer: the rack, the claws and the pincers. Soon enough burning like a human torch, half-choked, half-grilled to death. One of those calcined corpses they drag with hooks from the arena, a broad, black trail left behind in the sand.’

  The freedman was pale with terror.

  ‘Where is the boy?’

  ‘In the painted colonnade.’

  Timesitheus spoke to one of the gladiators. ‘Iaculator, watch him. If he shouts or tries to run, kill him.’

  They went into the house, across the wide atrium, with its part-worked white sarcophagus. Servants flitted away like disturbed bats. On the walls of the colonnade innumerable animals – stags, elks, Cyprian bulls, chamois, Moorish ostriches – met grisly deaths.

  The boy looked up from his play.

  ‘Misitheus,’ he lisped.

  ‘Marcus.’ A broad, guileless smile on his face, Timesitheus extended his good hand.

  ‘What happened to your other hand?’

  ‘Nothing; an accident of war. Marcus, you must come with me.’

  ‘But my mother.’

  ‘This is not women’s work. Today you must be a man.’

  ‘But Mother said I would not take the toga virilis until next year.’

  ‘You will take it today.’ The boy’s delicate, triangular little face lit with pleasure.

  Timesitheus turned to one of his slaves. ‘Gather his toy soldiers, carry them carefully.’

  Holding Timesitheus’ hand, the boy crossed the atrium, past the part-finished tomb of his father.

  ‘Where are you taking my son?’

  Maecia Faustina stood in the doorway, tall and severe, flanked by two more freedmen.

  ‘To claim his inheritance.’

  ‘Marcus is a child. His place is at home with his mother.’

  ‘He is thirteen. Today he will wear the toga of manhood. Marcus no longer, he will be Gordian.’

  ‘His grandfather and uncle are dead.’

  ‘And he is their heir. The people of Rome demand a ruler of their blood.’

  ‘Never!’ Maecia Faustina blazed like some stern, martial goddess. ‘I will not have him killed too!’

  ‘Stand aside, domina.’

  ‘No, I will not! I have lost my husband, my father, my brother. My son shall not leave this house.’

  ‘Let us pass.’ Timesitheus remembered her freedmen: Reverendus and Gaudianus, two more Christians, two more in fear of the arena. They were easy to deal with; their mistress was more of a problem.

  ‘Ha!’ Maecia Faustina exclaimed, relieved and triumphant. ‘Our cousin is here. He will put an end to this.’

  Maecius Gordianus, the Prefect of the Watch approached. ‘I am afraid, domina, Timesitheus is right. The boy must follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and uncle. The safety of the Res Publica must come before maternal affection.’

  ‘Traitor!’ Maecia Faustina spat. ‘How much did it cost to buy you?’

  ‘You insult me, domina.’ The Prefect looked over at Tranquillina, and smiled. ‘No money changed hands.’ Timesitheus did not like that smile, did not like it at all.

  ‘No matter.’ Maecia Faustina was implacable. ‘I will not move. None of you, not even a creature like you, or that stinking little Greek informer, would dare to manhandle the daughter and sister of the late Emperors.’

  Tranquillina stepped past her husband.

  ‘Get away from me.’

  Tranquillina punched the older woman, full in the mouth.

  Maecia Faustina reeled back, clutching her face.

  The freedmen were bundled out of the doorway.

  ‘You little whore!’ Maecia Faustina’s face was bloodied. ‘Bring back my son!’

  Outside, Timesitheus dried the boy’s tears, spoke gently to him. ‘Your mother will understand in time. This is not a thing for women. You must be a man. Think of your uncle. You must be brave, like him.’

  ‘Time for that later,’ Tranquillina said. ‘We must move quickly.’

  They halted briefly in the Forum Transitorium. Narcissus went into the Temple of Minerva, and came out with a purple cloak. Timesitheus put it on Marcus. He told Narcissus to hoist the boy on his shoulders.

  As they passed the Senate House, Timesitheus started the acclamation: ‘Gordian Caesar. Gordian Caesar.’

  After a moment or two, the plebs milling about took it up.

  Gordian Caesar! Gordian Caesar!

  The noise rolled under the Arch of Septimius Severus, all the way up to the Capitol.

  Gordian Caes
ar! Gordian Caesar!

  SWORD, PART III:

  THE PROVINCES

  CHAPTER 10

  Dalmatia

  The Town of Bistua Nova in the Mountains, Eight Days before the Ides of April, AD238

  She had had to run. Despite the gnawing uncertainty and danger, despite the hideous discomforts, Iunia Fadilla knew she had made the right decision. Huddled in the rustic cart, as it descended towards the out-of-the-way town, she had few regrets.

  Verus Maximus had beaten her on their wedding night. If I have to marry a whore, I will treat her like one. At first he had hit her thighs, buttocks and breasts; places covered by her clothes. Recently it had got worse. At New Year she had had to wear a veil. Maximus had claimed he could smell wine on her breath. When a woman drinks without her husband, she closes the door on all virtues, opens her legs for all comers.

  When he was away with the army on the Steppe, she had prayed that a barbarian arrow would find him; not a clean kill, but something slow and lingering. The gods had not answered her prayers. It seemed Gordian had been right; the gods were far away, had no care for mankind. On his return, she had determined to kill Maximus herself. She had a knife, he was unconscious with drink, yet she could not steel herself to commit the act. To run had been her only resort.

  She had never wanted to be Empress, surrounded by ceremony, her every move circumscribed. She wanted her old life back. A rich, young widow, her life in Rome now had the nostalgia of a golden age; her beautiful house on the Carinae, her friends, a round of recitals, dinner parties, the spectacles and the baths. If Gordian had proposed when her first husband, old Nummius, had died, if he had taken her with him to Africa, none of this might have happened. She might have been spared Maximus. But even that was uncertain. As a great-granddaughter of the divine Emperor Marcus Aurelius, she had a value in dynastic politics. Maximinus Augustus had chosen her as a bride for his worthless son to give some legitimacy to his upstart regime. The marriage had been an attempt to reconcile the nobility of the Senate. As far as she could see, it had failed.