Swords Around the Throne

by Ian Ross

  16

  ‘Now this is more like living,’ Sallustius said, wiping his mouth and taking another draught of wine. ‘I feel like the rat who fell into the cooking pot: I have eaten, I have drunk, and now I am ready to die!’

  On the broad outdoor terrace of a tavern overlooking the river, the four Protectores lay reclining around a low stone table, shaded from the sun by a trellis hung with intertwining vines. On the table were earthenware dishes of thick beef and olive stew, hunks of fresh bread and a large jug of rich dark wine. It was, Castus had to admit, pretty close to the good life. But Sallustius could not help reminding them of it.

  ‘Look at that,’ he cried, flinging an arm towards the river. ‘That’s the Rhodanus, flowing south towards the Mediterranean. We’re out of the northern lands now, brothers. We’re heading into the heart of the civilised world!’

  ‘Will he continue like this all the way to Arelate?’ Brinno asked. The young Frank tipped back his head and let the sunlight bathe his face. If he missed the colder climes of his homeland, he was not showing it. Over the eighteen days of their journey southwards, the weather had changed only gradually. Only the day before, the skies had been grey, but here, at Lugdunum, they had emerged into the full glory of a southern summer.

  But the weather was not the main reason for Castus’s relief at leaving the north. Ever since that strange, violent scene at the garden house of the Villa Herculis, he had felt like a condemned man. Although he could barely believe it, there had been no repercussions. It was as if the night and the mist had eclipsed utterly what had happened. Even so, Castus had dreaded daily the summons to punishment. Surely he could not have escaped? He had killed men, probably Praetorians, and worse – so much worse that the thought woke him regularly in a cold, delirious sweat of terror – he had laid his hands upon the body of the emperor’s wife... more than that, in fact. However much he tried to erase the memory from his mind, he could not. Whoever had planned that encounter knew his name, knew how to find him and knew what he had done. Impossible that he should be allowed to go free.

  And yet here he was, still alive, accompanying the former emperor Maximian southwards to his new home at Arelate. Castus did not bother himself with the reasons behind the move – it was enough for him to be away from the villa, far away from Treveris, the emperor, and the emperor’s wife.

  The worst thing about that night, now, was the sourness that remained between himself and Brinno. He had given the young barbarian a suitable story, a suitable lie – an assignation with the wife of a palace official, killers hired by the cuckolded husband – and Brinno had pretended to believe him. But it was clear to Castus that his friend no longer entirely trusted him. Sometimes he caught Brinno watching him with the flicker of a frown, and that pained him even more than the lie.

  As he wiped a chunk of bread around the rim of his dish, mopping up the last of the rich meat sauce, Castus wondered if he should have told Brinno the truth from the first. But taking anyone into his secret could be dangerous. Besides, he had no wish to confess his own stupidity.

  He lay back on the cushioned couch. Victor was helping himself to more stew, while Sallustius rattled dice in his empty cup. Behind them, across the low wall of the tavern garden, the ground dropped towards the river. The city of Lugdunum spread along the slopes of the valley and across the hilltop, its grid of tile-roofed houses looking placid in the midday sunlight. But between those roofs the streets were in turmoil; Maximian’s household had been accompanied on their trek south by a field force made up of detachments from the Rhine army: four thousand legionaries and support troops under the command of the tribune Gaudentius, appointed dux to guard the western Alpine passes against any invasion from Italy. The troops would be leaving them at Vienne and marching south-east to Cularo; from Vienne onwards Maximian’s military retinue would consist only of the cohort of Praetorians detached to support him, and by the eight Protectores of his bodyguard.

  Castus’s gaze wandered, and a movement from the far side of the terrace caught his eye. A young man had entered through the gate from the street, a slave in a plain tunic, passing into the tavern. It took Castus only a moment for the memory to leap into focus: the broad, youthful face, the pug nose. Cinna, was he called, or Petrus? One of Sabina’s personal slaves.

  Startled, Castus remained staring at the door of the tavern until the young slave emerged once more, carrying an amphora of wine. He had seen and heard nothing of Domitia Sabina since the incident at the Villa Herculis; he wanted nothing more to do with her. And yet the memory of her stalked him.

  ‘You’re leaving just when the game’s getting started?’ Sallustius said as Castus rolled to his feet. He shook the dice again and dashed them onto the stone table.

  ‘Doesn’t want to get beaten!’ Victor said.

  ‘Got to use the pot,’ Castus told them. The slave with the amphora had left again by the street gate, and Castus forced himself to walk slowly and casually back towards the tavern door. Only when he reached the shade of the portico did he glance back – Brinno was shaking the cup, engrossed in the game. Castus made a quick step to his left, then dodged out through the gate into the street.

  There was no sign of the slave, but the narrow lane to the right led uphill into a warren of packed houses. Castus moved quickly in the other direction, and when he reached the next turning he saw the young man walking downhill, towards the river, with the amphora cradled in his arms. Keeping him in sight, Castus unpinned the gold brooch at his shoulder and reversed his cloak, then pinned it again with the patches that identified his rank concealed on the inside. Head down, walking fast, he set off after the slave.

  He did not have far to go. Around the next corner the street opened into a small square, and Castus saw carriages drawn up in the shade of a temple wall opposite. The slave – Cinna, or Petrus – approached one of them. Castus only had time to step back into the open doorway of a shop before the carriage door opened and Sabina climbed down into the street.

  She appeared unchanged, and her travelling dress was almost identical to what she had been wearing that evening on the banks of the Rhine. Only now, as he stared at her, did Castus realise how much the thought of her had come to obsess him over these last months. He realised too what had drawn him here: anger, a fierce desire for the truth, but yearning too. Peering from the shop doorway, while the shopkeeper ducked and weaved at his elbow, Castus watched Sabina speaking briefly to the carriage driver. Then she set off along the street, stepping carefully across the worn cobbles with four slaves following after her, one carrying the amphora while another held a red linen parasol over her head.

  She would not be going far, Castus knew. He had learned enough about the ladies of the aristocracy to realise that they seldom gone any distance on foot, if they could help it. He shrugged off the shopkeeper and marched quickly across the square, past the carriages, after Sabina. A crowd filled the mouth of the street, and he shoved between them. He did not care about trying to conceal himself himself now.

  The street was narrow, running between the high walls of public buildings, and Sabina and her party had almost reached the far end before Castus outpaced them. He turned, confronting her. Immediately, all four of the slaves gathered close around their mistress.

  Light fell through the parasol, dyeing Sabina’s face, but Castus could see that she was blushing. A shawl of ivory silk draped her head, and she raised the hem to cover her mouth. For a few heartbeats they faced each other in silence while the traffic of the street moved around them.

  ‘Domina,’ Castus said, and took a step forward. One of the slaves, a thick-set older man, immediately moved to block him.

  ‘It’s quite all right, Phlegon,’ Sabina said calmly, dropping the shawl and looking at Castus. She had regained her composure now. ‘I do not believe the Protector wishes me harm.’

  There was an open gateway in the wall to their left, leading into a courtyard at the rear of one of the public buildings. Sabina made the slightest of
gestures towards it. Castus nodded curtly, and walked ahead of her. The slaves followed, and then gathered around the gateway after they had passed through.

  Sabina tugged the shawl back over her head; after that first challenging stare she would not look directly at him. Castus stood in the sunlight, pushing his cloak back and hooking his thumbs into his belt. The courtyard was small, deserted, with the curved brick wall of an apse filling half of it.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Castus said. His voice sounded rough, demanding, but he did not care.

  ‘We arrived this morning,’ Sabina said, nervously fingering the amber beads of her necklace. ‘Fausta and all her household. We’re to join Maximian at Arelate. He requested that his daughter keep him company, and the emperor had no complaint...’

  Castus felt a leaden weight plummet in his gut. Everything that he had been so glad to escape had somehow followed him... He stood with teeth clenched, saying nothing, waiting for her to speak.

  ‘I never knew,’ Sabina said abruptly, stumbling on the words. ‘I never knew they would try and kill you... I’m sorry.’

  ‘Then what did you know, domina?’

  She stepped closer, and then leaned back against the wall of the apse. Castus could see that she was struggling to maintain an appearance of dignified calm, but her hands were shaking and she clasped them at her waist.

  ‘Do you realise the pressures that are placed upon us?’ she said. ‘Upon women, and women of the imperial household especially? We are not free, no matter how we might appear.’

  If you’re not free, he thought, I don’t know who is. But he said nothing.

  ‘There are people – people in the palace,’ she went on, ‘around the emperor and around Maximian – who will use anything, no matter how private, for their advantage. These people prey on tenderness, on human emotion. Certain of those people made demands on me. They knew that I had... feelings for you... I don’t know how. And they ordered me to obey their commands...’

  ‘What people? Don’t talk in riddles with me.’

  Sabina threw up her hands, exasperated. She glanced quickly around the courtyard. Castus became aware of that familiar scent, and it evoked powerful memories.

  ‘How can I explain?’ she said, dropping her voice. ‘Do you really not know what happened?’ There was anger in her voice now, genuine bitterness.

  ‘No, I don’t know. Explain it to me.’

  ‘Really? You don’t know that the emperor neglects his wife, and has done since their wedding? You don’t know that Constantine still loves his concubine Minervina – claims she is his true wife – and spends his nights with her? You don’t know that he barely ever goes to Fausta’s bed, and when he does he makes sure he’s so drunk he can hardly act? That even when he can, he’s careful never to spill his seed inside her...?’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Castus cried, strangling the words in his throat. He could feel his face burning with the shame of what he had heard. But Sabina was truly angry now, the furious words spilling from her.

  ‘Oh, of course you know! But you look away; you don’t see or recognise it. Like everyone! But me – I have to know. I hear what Fausta says. I have to listen to her tears and her miserable threats... And all the time they fear, she and her father, that Constantine will divorce her, send them both back to Rome to beg for mercy from Maxentius. And without a child, the divorce would be easy. Now do you see?’

  Castus did see. He had guessed something of it before, but it seemed too incredible, too obscene to believed.

  ‘They needed a man,’ Sabina went on, slow and deliberate now. ‘They needed somebody to... to impregnate her. The time was right; they’d checked that. Because if Fausta was pregnant Constantine would have to claim the child as his own – how could he not? And then Maximian’s place would be secure. Why, Constantine might even elevate him to joint Augustus!’

  ‘You’re telling me that Maximian planned it? Her own father?’

  ‘Oh, Maximian didn’t prostitute his daughter, or not knowingly... But there are those around him whose task it is to divine his unspoken desires, and act upon them. They approached me. I have family in Rome – you must understand. My father, all our ancestral property. They only needed to hint at how my fortunes might fall if I did not do as they ordered. But I tried to warn you – that morning at the villa, I tried. And if I’d known they planned your death as well...’

  ‘Then what?’ Castus asked. He did not truly want to know; he suspected she would have done the same. The guilty can always find excuses for such things.

  But Sabina gave him no answer. She dropped her head, pulling the edge of her shawl across her face once more. Was she actually crying? Castus could not tell.

  ‘And now what?’ he said. ‘These people just forget what happened, now their plan’s failed?’

  ‘We can hope so,’ she said quietly. ‘It would be too hard to explain if they acted against you, or against me. After all, neither of us is likely to confess our part in it. Their master Maximian would not have been told. And as for Fausta herself...’

  For a moment Castus remembered the girl in the bed. The fear in her eyes. Pity clasped his heart.

  ‘We’ve been used, all of us,’ Sabina said quietly.

  From the street outside came the raucous yells of a party of legionaries, swaggering towards one of the wine shops on the river quay. Castus envied them enormously. A desolate sense of despair ached through him.

  Sabina raised her head to look at him, and he saw the gleam of tears in her eyes. He was suddenly aware of her beauty, and he had the urge to reach out to her, take her in his arms. Was that what she expected?

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Now I’ve explained myself. I don’t expect you to forgive me my part in this. But it’s a shame... I did genuinely like you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Can’t you tell? I exist in a cage. It’s made of gold, but the locks are real. Family, duty, constraint. All my class live like this, the women especially. I look at you and I see a free man. Do you even understand how attractive that is?’

  Castus had no answer for her. She tugged the shawl back over her face, and by the time she glanced up again the courtyard was empty and he was gone.

  All along the riverside, barges were moored at the stone wharfs, and slaves laboured at the ropes of tall wooden cranes. Sacks of grain, barrels and stacked amphorae covered the dockside. Between the wharfs and the wooden porticos of the shops and taverns, the street was crowded, soldiers and citizens mingled together as they watched the slaves at their work.

  Castus had walked down to the river without thinking, and now he moved through the throng barely aware of any of it. With his reversed cloak covering his tunic and belt and hiding the torque he wore at his neck there was nothing to identify his rank. Nobody moved aside for him; nobody saluted. A party of soldiers shoved against him as they reeled from a wine shop, but he did not notice. Sabina’s words, and the full realisation of his danger and his shame, had driven everything else from his mind.

  He would have given anything to be allowed to join the legions again. To forget all this, all the dignity of his rank and position, and to become a common soldier once more. But he was not free, whatever Sabina might imagine. His commission had come from the emperor, and could not be surrendered. The oath he had taken when he had joined the Protectores bound him for life. But where was his duty now? His nerves were deadened, his senses dulled. Even revenge was denied to him; he knew very well that the first attempt to track down the men who had conspired against him would result in his immediate death. He was no better than a slave, and far closer to an unearned punishment.

  He turned into a wide street running down from the hilltop to the river, intending to make his way back to the house that had been allotted as his billet. Stone colonnades ran along both sides, but the street was lined with stationary wagons. Heavy vehicles, Castus noticed, with solid wooden wheels, for transporting military supplies. He would have passed them without interest, but someth
ing else caught his eye and roused him from his numbed trance.

  There were soldiers all around the wagons, watching the street carefully, but these were not men of the legions. Beneath their plain ochre-brown cloaks Castus could make out the glint of silvered scale armour: they were Praetorians, fully armed with spears and shields, swords by their sides. As he watched, Castus saw slaves carrying hefty ironbound chests from the gateway of a large building and heaving them onto the wagons. There were six of the vehicles, most of them almost fully loaded.

  ‘What’s in the boxes?’ he asked one of the guards as he stepped between the nearest two wagons.

  The Praetorian turned to him and blinked with slow contempt. ‘Not yours to know, brother,’ he said.

  Castus squared his shoulders, contemplating whether to throw aside his cloak and reveal the insignia of his rank. As he did so, a figure moved up behind him and he turned quickly, his hand instinctively going to his sword hilt.

  ‘Easy now,’ the man said. ‘There’s nothing for you to see here... dominus.’ Urbicus’s scarred mouth twisted as he smiled. ‘This is business for the Praetorians,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you run off and find that high-born female of yours, eh? I hear she’s in town...’

  Anger flared in Castus’s head, and his neck tightened. He eased his hand away from his sword, his fists clenching; he could see that Urbicus was trying to provoke him, and several of his men were watching now. Step away, he told himself. Just turn and walk away.

  But already the other Praetorians were closing in, trapping Castus between the two stationary wagons. Surely, he thought, they would not try anything here, in broad daylight in a public street? The look of cold determination in Urbicus’s eyes told him otherwise.

  ‘Those were some of my men you put down,’ the centurion said, ‘back there at the villa. Reckon that’s three deaths you owe me now.’

  Urbicus was only two steps away, rolling his shoulders beneath his cloak. Castus felt the energy of violence roaring through his blood. The other man was shorter, but stocky and heavily muscled. And he was wearing armour... Castus watched him, breathing slowly, waiting for him to move. Some of the men between the carts had turned their backs, raising their shields to screen the confrontation from the crowd passing in the street only a few paces away.