by R. W. Peake
Smiling thinly, Porcinus replied, “I don’t know; Augustus probably has a lot of money under his mattress. A lot.”
What Porcinus didn’t say, had never said, and had no plans to divulge to anyone, even to Corvinus, who he trusted more than almost any man he knew, was that Porcinus himself was a fabulously wealthy man. Even if he couldn’t spend it.
“I don’t care how much it is,” Corvinus responded adamantly, emphasizing his point with a shake of his head. “After what happened today, I don’t think any amount of money would be worth what’s going to happen to him.”
Although Porcinus wasn’t willing to go quite that far, he did agree with Corvinus’ overall point, and said as much.
“It was almost impossible to see in the fog,” the Pilus Prior continued, half-heartedly. “So it’s easy to understand how it happened.”
Corvinus supplied his answer, in sentiment at least, with a derisive snort.
“That didn’t stop us,” he pointed out. “We were in the same fog as Frontinus and his bunch.”
That was as indisputable as the presence of the fog, and Porcinus heaved a sigh. The fact was that he liked Frontinus well enough, but in the intervening time since the death of Vettus, the Pilus Posterior hadn’t given any sign that he was up for the job as Primus Pilus. Porcinus could only imagine how difficult it was to be thrust in that role, yet the truth, however harsh, was that every Primus Pilus Posterior in every Legion of Rome knew that what happened to Vettus was not just a possibility, it was a likelihood, and that for as long as there had been the advent of the organization of the Legions into Cohorts, it had been a tradition for the Pilus Posterior to be promoted to the Primus Pilus. This was no longer automatically the case, although as far as Porcinus knew, the Centurion supposedly selected by the clerks who operated out of a wing of Augustus’ villa at least came from the same Legion. Of course, Porcinus and every man marching under the standard knew the story of hard-working clerks poring over service records to make their selection was a fiction; one man, and one man only selected the Primus Pilus of each Legion. As Porcinus thought about it, he recalled he had heard mutterings about the last two or three times a Primi Pili was replaced. Two had been under circumstances similar to those of Vettus, having been killed in battle, but the third had been the talk of the army for weeks afterward. While the Pilus Prior never put much stock in this kind of gossip, there was one common thread in every version Porcinus heard, and that was the third Primus Pilus, supposedly of the 22nd Legion, had been implicated in a plot against the Princeps. This certainly wasn’t the case with Frontinus.
“Besides,” Corvinus pressed, “it wasn’t just getting lost. It was how long it took them to get into action. From everything I’ve heard, none of the First Cohort even got their swords wet.”
“I heard that too,” Porcinus granted, although that was as far as he was willing to go in criticizing Frontinus.
Seeing that his Pilus Prior wasn’t going to add anything more, Corvinus recognized when to stop with this line of conversation, and taking that as his cue to leave, the Centurion drained his cup, then left Porcinus to his thoughts. Corvinus was right, Porcinus mused as he watched his friend push the flap separating Porcinus’ private quarters from the Cohort office aside and exit. It was bad enough that Frontinus had lost his bearings in the fog, although Porcinus still wasn’t sure that the same thing wouldn’t have happened if their spots had been reversed. The First of the 8th had been the element farthest to the right of the assault, with nothing but the slope of the mountains that anchored the left side of the Rhaeti stronghold to their own right. However, the spot they were given to assault was a stretch of wall starting a bit more than a half-mile from where the dirt wall merged with an extremely rocky precipice that protected the Rhaeti from any flanking maneuver. Somehow, shortly after the command sounded to begin the assault, Frontinus had changed his angle of march, which originated directly across the expanse of open ground from the chosen spot. Without any way to get his bearings, Frontinus had somehow turned at an oblique angle from his original path, heading, as it turned out, directly toward the slope instead of the wall. From what Porcinus had gathered, Frontinus had gotten so turned around, he marched his Cohort parallel to the wall instead of perpendicular to it. Porcinus had also heard angry muttering that at least two other Centurions of the First, the acting Pilus Posterior, and the Princeps Prior, commander of the Third Century, had run from their spot to warn Frontinus of their suspicions that the Cohort was heading in the wrong direction. But Frontinus had refused to listen; Porcinus suspected that his intransigence was due as much to the identity of the two Centurions as what they were saying. They had been the pair who were the loudest and most insistent in their opinion that Frontinus wasn’t up to the task of being the permanent Primus Pilus. Well, he thought, they were right, although the gods only know if that was why they tried to get Frontinus turned around. Whatever the cause, the First only stopped when the ground in front of them began tilting upward, and Frontinus was forced to confront the fact that he had indeed led his men astray.
If that had been all that happened, it would have been bad enough, but then Frontinus compounded his error, and this was what Porcinus had the hardest time understanding, or forgiving. Instead of just acknowledging that he had made a mistake, Frontinus had then, at the very least, misled, if not outright lied to the other Centurions, telling them that just before the assault, he had been given new orders by Drusus. Supposedly, these new orders called for the First to ascend the slope a couple hundred paces before turning to move across the slope, in the direction of the lake. Once at a point where they were behind the wall, they were to descend the slope and attack the Rhaeti from behind. Even without fog, this would have been a dangerous plan; they had all seen that the lower slopes of the mountains were bare of any real cover, so there would be no hiding this attempt. With the fog, while their movement was covered, it also made already treacherous footing decidedly dangerous, and they hadn’t gone more than a hundred paces before several men lost their balance and went tumbling down the slope. Several had been injured, and two men were killed even before the assault had properly begun. Still, Frontinus refused the entreaties of his Centurions to descend the slope, insisting that he was following orders. Piecing it all together later, once the men who had taken part in the assault were back in camp, at about the same time Porcinus and the Fourth reached the wall, Frontinus was just beginning his ascent of the slope. By the time the Fourth had taken the wall in their area, and Porcinus sent Urso along the parapet seeking to link up with Frontinus, the First Cohort was struggling across the slope, at least heading towards the lake. The truth was that Urso had never found the First, but as much as Porcinus didn’t trust his second in command, or like him, he couldn’t fault the action that Urso had taken. Coming down off the wall, he had slowly marched his Century back in the general direction of where the rest of the Cohort was then fighting the enemy formation that had gathered a short distance from the wall. Urso and his men ran into resistance, but it was poorly organized and led, and they inflicted a number of casualties without suffering many themselves. Meanwhile, Frontinus and his men struggled across the slope, until they came to where the wall met the precipice. This was when Frontinus discovered there was a steep ravine, where a small rivulet had cut a deep groove in the side of the mountain that had been hidden from the eyes of the engineers. Not especially wide, it was nevertheless an obstacle that had to be traversed in order for Frontinus’ supposed plan of descending behind the wall to work. Seeing that as a sign, even if not from the gods, Frontinus’ Centurions, all five, had urged him to give the order to descend the slope and throw their ladders against the wall, and start the assault. Still he refused, instead ordering that the ladders his men were carrying for the assault be lashed together to be used as makeshift bridges across the chasm. The results of this haphazard attempt were nothing short of disastrous, as a half-dozen Legionaries from the First Cohort fell to their deaths whil
e trying to cross the shaky contraptions. As bad as this was, matters were destined to get worse for the hapless Frontinus, who discovered, to his horror, that the sheer face of the precipice extended around the curve of the slope, preventing them from descending. And for Porcinus, the fact that Frontinus, even then, refused to turn back, was perhaps the greatest of his errors, yet he insisted on continuing to push on. It wasn’t until Frontinus and his men were close enough to the lake that they could hear the lapping of the waves hitting the shore that the angle of the slope lessened to a degree that allowed them to descend. While it was true they were now well behind whatever Rhaeti line there might have been, they also had arrived too late to be of any use whatsoever. By the time the First Cohort was arranged in a single line of Centuries and were prepared to sweep parallel to the shore, Tiberius’ Legions had landed, and the fighting was essentially over. And while Porcinus hadn’t come out and openly agreed with his friend, his opinion was much the same as that of Corvinus; Frontinus’ career was over.
Chapter 3
It took almost a month for Gaius Porcinus’ family to travel to Arelate, and for young Titus Porcinianus Pullus, a name that he still was trying to settle into, it had been the most exciting, but agonizing period of time in his young life. As excited as he was to make this journey, it was only a shade compared to his anticipation at being reunited with the big gray horse that had belonged to his adoptive grandfather. Seemingly with every mile that passed, as he and his family, accompanied by the two bodyguards, Gallus and Libo, plodded along, first to Emona (Ljubljana), then to Tergeste (Trieste), the boy’s excitement grew. So too, did his pestering of his mother, who he was sure was determined to move as slowly as it was possible to go. His little brother Sextus, just a shade more than five years old, looked up to his older brother and could be counted on to adopt Titus’ attitude and actions, in every detail. Naturally, this didn’t make Iras’ life any easier, who was still nursing the fourth child of Porcinus’ family, the second daughter. Valeria, who was seven, was as attached to Titus as her little brother was, a fact that Titus found to be unsettling in the extreme. As far as Titus was concerned, he was practically a man; the fact that even if his chronological age didn’t attest to this, his size caused people constantly to misjudge his age, only served to support this belief. While he didn’t know it, he was almost identical in size at ten as his granduncle had been at the same age. Titus’ father was much taller than the average Roman, but in one of those quirks of nature, young Titus was much brawnier than his father, who was slim and wiry in build. It had always been this way, and young Titus vividly remembered the times the man he thought of as his grandfather had taken him aside after he had used his size to his advantage with one of his friends. Even now, several years later, Titus’ ears burned at the memory of how ashamed he had felt as his grandfather quietly talked to him about what it meant to be blessed by the gods to have his size. That hadn’t been the way Titus Pullus had put it to him; by the time the younger Titus was old enough to understand, his grandfather had severed all ties with all gods, Roman and otherwise. It was something that the young boy had only heard snatches of whispered conversations between his parents, but like all children, what Titus knew and what his mother and father thought he knew were vastly different. Titus had never met Miriam; his only knowledge of her came from his mother, who spoke of her with obvious love and regard. Only once had he brought Miriam up with his grandfather, but while the elder Titus’ answer was gentle, the boy had instantly understood that just the mention of Miriam brought his grandfather a great deal of pain. It wouldn’t be until many years later, when the younger Titus was an adult, that he would learn the full story. All he knew during the time he was chafing to get to Arelate was that Miriam had been important to his Avus, and for reasons he didn’t understand, something to do with Miriam had caused his Avus to sever ties to the gods. So, without invoking the gods, what his grandfather had told him was that just because he had been born to be larger than other boys, that didn’t give young Titus the right to use that size to intimidate or terrorize other children. His Avus didn’t yell; Pullus had never raised his voice to his grandson, his quiet tone and gentle admonishment was in many ways worse, because what young Titus had felt in that moment wasn’t embarrassment, or even anger. What he had felt was shame, and it was a feeling that even now, a few years later, still stuck with the boy. Since that talk, young Titus had been careful not to literally throw his weight around, and, in fact, had backed down on more than one occasion when he had been sure he was right. However, despite his size, Titus was still a boy, and experienced all the vicissitudes that childhood brings. And although the first couple of days on the road were exciting, very quickly, the novelty of the journey and the new sights wore off for him, particularly as every mile traveled brought him closer to what, even then, he was thinking of as his horse.
The only break in the jolting monotony of riding in the wagon driven by Libo, who somehow had been appointed as the permanent driver, which he handled with skill despite the missing hand, was when Gallus spent time helping him hone his riding skills. While Libo spent his day in the wagon, he still had his own mount, tied to the back, plodding along at the same pace as the mules in the traces up ahead. Titus was curious about this, but when Gallus succinctly explained that it was in the event that the party ran into some sort of trouble, the boy felt a jolt of equal parts fear and excitement. This had been on the second day of the journey and, since that point, Titus spent a good part of the time daydreaming of what it would be like to be set upon by bandits.
On the night after reaching Emona, where they spent the night at an inn, Titus and his mother had quarreled when he had decided that it was time to unveil the secret gift his father had given him the night before they had departed. That gift, which his father had told him was an early birthday present, since Titus would turn ten while they were on the journey to Arelate, was the most precious thing in Titus’ possession, at least until he and Ocelus were reunited. It was a perfectly crafted Roman sword, of the type that men still referred to as the Spanish sword. Titus’ sword was the same in every detail except its proportions; it was about three-quarters of the size, and while he had no appreciation of such things, the boy was dimly aware that it must have cost his father dearly to have it crafted for him. But unlike the toy swords his friends carried, almost all of them made of wood, although some of the boys whose fathers were Centurions like his had ones made of metal, this one actually had an edge.
“When we’re together again, I’ll teach you how to put a really good edge on it,” Porcinus had told Titus. “But it’s still very sharp as it is, so you be careful with it!” His father had become very serious then, using the same tone of voice that Titus only heard on those occasions when he had sneaked into the camp to spy on his father as he did his job. It was what Titus thought of as his father’s Centurion voice. “Titus, this is a tool, just like a hammer, or a chisel, or an axe. But this tool’s primary purpose is to kill another man. You must always keep that in mind whenever you handle it, because a sword doesn’t have a conscience; it can bite its master just as easily as it can bite its master’s enemy. Do you understand?”
Titus, his manner matching the solemnity and gravity of his father’s, assured Porcinus that he did, swearing that he would always treat it with respect.
“Good.” Porcinus nodded. Then, he added, “And this is something your mother doesn’t need to know about it. It’s just between us men, right?”
Although his father had given him a grin and a wink as he said this, Titus knew perfectly well his father was serious, and that Porcinus’ admonishment was at least partly based in a healthy dose of fear of his wife, and her temper. This was something that Titus not only understood, but shared with his paterfamilias. In many ways, his mother, despite the fact that he was now as tall as she, was more fearsome than his father, so it wasn’t hard for him to agree that it was, in fact, a very good idea not to bother his mother with such triflin
g details as a sword.
However, that had been before the talk of bandits, after a few days on the road where Titus’ imagination was given free rein. Although they were traveling on a good Roman road, and there was a fair bit of traffic going both ways, including small detachments of mostly auxiliary troops marching to and from various outposts, Titus became convinced that every bend and every section of road surrounded by forest was a perfect spot for an ambush. It was well known in Siscia that the native tribes that occupied the area were always seething with unrest, still chafing under Roman rule, despite the obvious improvements to their overall living conditions. Now these barbarians were lurking, just waiting for the chance to fall upon a vulnerable traveler, and Titus was sure that his party made a tempting target. The fact that there were three grown men; Diocles, who was riding his own horse Thunder, a roan gelding whose name was far more fearsome than the horse itself, Gallus, who always ranged ahead, looking out for the same thing that Titus did, and Libo driving the wagon, didn’t mean anything to Titus. In his imagination, they would be beset at any moment by a huge band of bloodthirsty barbarians. And while he didn’t need any help in his fantasy, the night they spent in Emona, the first night under a roof of the trip to that point, only fueled his conviction. Choosing an inn that, although it wasn’t of the quality where one would find a traveling patrician, was nonetheless of a clientele and cost far above what a drover, wagon driver, or average trader could afford, the party took two rooms, one for the family and one for Diocles and the bodyguards. Regardless of the quality of the other guests, the type of gossip and conversation was much the same in every inn, and the topic was almost exclusively about the rebellion that was occurring up north with the Rhaeti. Although separated by a good distance, the men and few women gathered in the common room that served as both dining room and tavern made it sound as if these rebellious, bloodthirsty warriors were just outside the outskirts of Emona. There was much talk of how dangerous it was traveling at this point in time, and Titus was too young to understand that the people who made such statements did so to add spice to the mundane reality of their particular journey. From his limited experience, grownups were the authority, and everything they said was taken without any skepticism or questioning of motive. To Titus, that meant the danger he had spent the previous days imagining was, in fact, very real. That night, he tossed and turned, disturbing Sextus and Valeria, both of them mumbling in protest at their own disturbed slumber, wrestling with the dilemma posed by his promise to his father. Finally, he dropped off to sleep, but only after coming to a decision.
