Swords Around the Throne

by Ian Ross

  Castus heard the horns blowing from the far slope of the valley. It was the recall; the attack had failed. The shattered remnants of the assault columns were scattering back down the slope at the run, many of them dragging their injured comrades between them. For a few long moments there was a strange stillness and quiet. Leaning against the wall parapet, dry-mouthed and dazed, Castus stared into the sunlit dust cloud at Constantine’s retreating soldiers. His fists were clenched, knuckles grinding against the stone, and his heart was beating fast.

  Then the first cheers came from the defenders down at the Rome Gate, and in moments the ramparts were ringing with the cries of victory.

  23

  ‘Visitor for you, dominus,’ the slave said, and motioned towards the door of the bedchamber.

  Castus paused only briefly to frown and clear his throat. ‘Bring water,’ he told the slave. Whoever this visitor was, they could wait.

  Removing his belts, he ripped open the lacing of his armour and dragged the heavy scale cuirass from his body. His tunic was drenched with sweat and clinging to his torso. His skin and hair were caked with dust, and his throat was dry. He had eaten nothing since dawn, and drunk only a few cups of stale water.

  All day he had been on the ramparts, enduring the heat of the sun and the slaughterhouse stink of clotting blood from the mangled corpses piled at the base of the wall, waiting for a second assault that had never come. At noon Constantine’s troops had pulled back to their encampment on the hill, but still the defenders on the city wall had remained in their positions as their dead and wounded were removed, and the debris swept from the walkways. Only when the sun had begun to sink over the sea to the west had the order come to stand down.

  Castus wondered whether Brinno had returned yet from his position near the Valley Gate. That section of wall had not been attacked, as far as he knew. He had a strong desire to drink wine.

  The slave returned with a jug and basin. Stripping off his stinking tunic, Castus bent over the basin and plunged his face into the water. Then he tipped his head back and drank from the jug, swigging heavily. The feel of the water coursing down his body was blissful. Scrubbing a towel over his neck and shoulders, he picked up his scabbarded sword and went through into the bedchamber.

  His visitor stood in the centre of the room with his back turned, as if he were studying the blank plaster of the far wall. Hearing Castus enter, he turned.

  ‘What do you want, eunuch?’ Castus said.

  Serapion smiled, that same softly bland smile that Castus had come to distrust so much. Whose side was he on now?

  ‘I come with a summons, once again,’ Serapion said. ‘Although I promise you that there will be no unpleasant surprises this time, for either of us.’

  Castus flung the towel down on the narrow bed. He went to the trunk, found a clean tunic and put it on. ‘No surprises?’ he asked as he buckled his belt.

  ‘No unpleasant ones, I said. Have you lost your two Praetorian shadows?’

  ‘One of them got his face split open and the other caught an arrow through his wrist. So far nobody’s suggested I find replacements.’

  ‘Good. Then come.’

  The eunuch stepped past Castus, keeping his distance, and paced silently out of the room. Castus paused only to sling the sword baldric over his shoulder before following.

  The house that Maximian had commandeered as his palace had two wings on the upper storey, one above the kitchens and baths and the other, more spacious, above the private apartments. The two wings were connected only by a broad rear portico that looked out over the sea. Leading Castus from the anteroom outside the bedchamber, Serapion passed along a narrow corridor and out onto the portico. A cool salt breeze blew between the pillars, and the view was a wide expanse of perfect blue, sea and sky blending in the radiance of evening.

  ‘I will leave you here,’ the eunuch said, stepping aside and gesturing for Castus to continue along the portico. At the far end was a vestibule, with a marble bench set against the wall facing the sea. On the bench a woman sat with a deep blue shawl covering her head and shoulders.

  Castus advanced cautiously down the portico. The vestibule at the end had no other entrances; it was a quiet and private place. He halted a few paces from the woman. Without looking up, she gestured to the bench beside her.

  ‘Be seated,’ she said.

  He paused a moment, then took the last few steps and eased himself down beside her.

  ‘Nobilissima,’ he said quietly. She pushed the shawl back from her face and he saw the thick necklace of pearls at her throat, the hanging earrings of gold and lapis. Those deep-lidded eyes, giving nothing away. He was trying to breathe slowly, but his mind was whirling. He remembered the garden house of the Villa Herculis. Surely she did too – but did she remember him?

  ‘The domina Domitia Sabina believes that you are to be trusted,’ Fausta said.

  ‘I’m glad of that.’ His words sounded crude, almost a grunt.

  ‘So – are you?’ She turned her head to look at him for the first time, the earrings swinging. Her face was round and her lips full and petulant. Her eyes were cool, searching.

  ‘That depends, nobilissima.’ He had spoken more harshly than he intended, and saw her expression shift slightly as she registered the discourtesy.

  ‘My apologies,’ he said, but his voice still grated. ‘I’ve just spent the day watching hundreds of my brother-soldiers being smashed to pulp in front of my eyes. I’m in no mood for subtlety.’

  ‘I’m asking about your loyalties,’ she said.

  Castus sat back against the wall and stared out at the sea. Gulls wheeled and cried, dark against the evening sky. Why had he been brought here? It made no sense, unless... He decided to take the risk.

  ‘My loyalties are to Constantine Augustus, and always have been,’ he said. ‘He’s my emperor, for better or worse.’

  He noticed her slight nod. She had turned to look at the sea again. Such a peaceful scene in the soft autumn light, Castus thought; nobody would imagine that a hard and bloody battle had raged all day not a mile from this place. He could see the low rocky islands off the harbour mouth, dark silhouettes in the sea. There were ships moving between them, a pair of single-decked galleys and a merchant vessel.

  ‘Those are Constantine’s ships,’ Fausta said. ‘He captured the islands this morning – did you know that?’

  ‘No,’ Castus replied, startled. Maximian had been careful to clear anything larger than a rowing skiff from the harbours of the Rhodanus.

  ‘My husband sent riders east along the coast to Telo Martius and Forum Julii,’ Fausta said. ‘They returned with ships from those ports, and now they have the harbour blockaded.’

  So Maximian could not leave, Castus thought. And his son Maxentius – if he ever did send aid or reinforcements – would have to fight his way in.

  ‘I’ve had to play along with my father’s plans,’ Fausta went on. ‘Or the plans of his advisors, I should say. Even if the performance was repugnant to me.’

  ‘As have we all, nobilissima,’ Castus said grimly. He wondered if she was referring to the night in the garden house too. The implication was hardly flattering.

  ‘When I discovered what he intended, during our journey to Arelate, I immediately sent a message to my husband, warning him to march south as soon as possible.’

  ‘You did?’ So that was how Constantine had been able to move so quickly, Castus realised. Fausta had betrayed her own father.

  ‘I wanted to stop this before it grew into something monstrous,’ she said. ‘But I was too late. However, here we are.’

  ‘Here we are,’ Castus repeated quietly. For a short while they sat in silence, and he wondered if she was waiting for him to speak.

  ‘It seems we must choose sides,’ she said. ‘We wait for the gods to advise us, but they do not. So it’s up to us. I have chosen my husband over my father and brother. Perhaps a selfish choice, impious, but I leave it for others to condemn me.’
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  Castus gazed at her as she spoke, marvelling at the calm assurance in her voice and manner. She was not yet seventeen years old; her face was still plump with adolescence: where had she gained this sense of poise? Already she understood power. And many people, Castus thought, had underestimated her. Himself included.

  ‘I need your assistance,’ she said. ‘I have done all I can, but somehow this siege needs to end. You must find a way to surrender the city to my husband, as soon as possible.’

  Before the traitor in Constantine’s camp knifes him in his tent, Castus thought. Did Fausta know about that too?

  ‘Surrender the city,’ he said. ‘You think it’s that easy?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ she exclaimed, and for the first time he saw a crack in her cool façade. ‘But somebody must do something soon – start a mutiny, an uprising of the people, anything... You are the kind of man, I believe, that other men might follow...’

  ‘Not to their deaths, domina,’ Castus said.

  ‘Then you must find men who are not afraid of death!’

  She had half turned towards him on the bench as she spoke. Castus noticed that she was breathing quickly, and the colour had risen in her cheeks. Beneath her apparent calm she was in turmoil. He had a sudden vivid memory of the night in the garden house: the feel of her body naked beneath him, that drowning desire, and then the fear that had followed. His throat tightened, and without intending it he met her eye. Was she thinking of the same thing?

  ‘You know,’ she said quickly, turning back to stare at the sea, ‘that the domina Sabina is a widow now?’

  ‘I guessed she might be.’ Castus looked down at his hands. His right knuckle was grazed and spotted with dried blood.

  ‘Her husband was executed by my brother’s troops in Africa,’ Fausta went on, her tone deliberately light and airy, casual-sounding. ‘In fact, her father had been arrested earlier for his rebel sympathies, and apparently he too has been put to death. Her mother died years ago, so now she is alone in the world, and has nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Oh, she has some property in her own name, but it’s in Rome, of course. My husband is her legal guardian now, her paterfamilias.’ She paused for a moment, to let this information sink in. ‘If you assist him in his victory,’ she went on in that same lightly casual tone, ‘he would certainly consider giving her to you.’

  Castus stifled a snort of disbelief. ‘Giving her to me?’ he said. ‘For what?’

  ‘For whatever you please,’ Fausta said with a slight shrug. ‘Marry her, or keep her as a whore.’

  Staring away down the portico, Castus tried to remain still and not shift himself away from the girl beside him. How had she become such a strange and heartless creature? He waited for the shock of anger to pass.

  ‘You don’t care about people very much, do you?’ he said slowly.

  ‘People have never cared much about me.’ She had pulled the shawl back to cover her face. He reminded himself that she was only a girl, barely more than a child. And she was well out of her depth here.

  ‘I think a lot of people have cared about you, nobilissima,’ Castus said. Just not in a very positive way, he thought.

  She hunched forward, rounding her shoulders. A moment later he heard her sniff. Her shoulders were shaking slightly beneath the shawl.

  ‘All my life,’ she said, and he heard the tears in her voice, ‘I have been treated as livestock. By my family. By those around me. I forget, sometimes, what it is to speak to a human being.’

  Castus reached out, instinctively, then caught himself. This is the emperor’s wife. You have already dishonoured her. Then she too reached out, clasping his thick fingers in both her hands. When she looked back at him he saw the wetness on her cheeks.

  ‘That night at the villa,’ she said, her voice choked. ‘I knew it was you. Of course I remember... Just for a moment I pretended it was truly me that you wanted. Not her. I’d never been wanted like that, never. It was good to pretend. Shameful, but good. I forgive you for what you did. You must forgive me too.’

  ‘Nobilissima,’ Castus said, deeply uncomfortable, but moved. She tightened her grip on his hand. Her palms were soft and damp, her fingers stiff with rings.

  ‘Will you help me?’ she asked. ‘If you do, my husband will honour you, I’m sure. But I would be grateful to you always.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said.

  She released his hand, drawing a deep and shuddering breath. Castus stood up smartly, stepping away from her. The sky above the sea was glowing pink and gold now, the sun almost gone. He was about to make his salute and leave when a thought struck him.

  ‘Back in Treveris,’ he said. ‘I saw you in the necropolis one night. A magical ritual. Astrampsychus of Cunaxa.’

  She stared up at him, her eyes once more cool and deep-hooded. She smiled and shrugged. ‘Yes, I was there,’ she said. ‘I wanted to employ the sorcerer to place a curse upon my husband’s concubine.’ Her voice sounded childlike, almost playful.

  ‘On Minervina? How?’

  ‘They can do these things. They make a doll, about that big...’ Her jewelled fingers described a shape in the air. ‘And they stick it with pins and nails, and summon demons to enact the same injuries on their victim.’

  Castus fought down a shiver of unease. The thought of such things made his scalp creep. ‘And you did this?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, smiling slowly. ‘Although I don’t know if it ever had any effect. Perhaps he wasn’t a very good sorcerer?’

  It was an easy matter to slip out of the palace once darkness had fallen. Less than an hour had passed since his conversation with Fausta on the portico, and Castus felt the fatigue in his limbs, the hunger eating at his strength. But the energy of action was propelling him. What he had in mind seemed desperate, and the plan only partially formed, but he knew he needed to act. He could no longer wait for whatever devious schemes Nigrinus was hatching to bear fruit. To act: he fixed his mind on that, and forced himself to block out any further considerations. He wished he had been able to find Brinno before setting out. Then again, the young Frank might too easily have seen the absurd flaws in what he intended. Perhaps it was better just to fling himself out into the night alone.

  Slipping through the side door from the kitchen court, Castus dashed across the darkened portico and dropped down into the bushes on the far side. He pushed through them, emerging into the grove of tall pines above the theatre. The city was spread below him, the rooftops merging into a smoky grey terrain. Fires still burned outside the temples on the hilltops, but the towers along the city perimeter were in darkness. Castus waited for a moment, crouched in the trees, watching and listening. The resin smell of the pines was strong around him, mingling with the briny scent of the sea; he heard the gentle creak of the trees, the rasp of crickets, the roll and hiss of the waves from the shoreline to his left. He moved off again.

  Scrambling down the slope, he reached the stepped path that led from the front portico of the palace around the upper curve of the theatre to the rear of the curia building and the agora below. There were no sentries on watch here; since the siege had commenced, all the guards had been placed on the walls or in the palace itself.

  With his army cloak wrapped around him, the hood pulled up to cover his face and the hem concealing his sword, Castus hoped he could pass for an ordinary soldier returning to his billet. The sound of his boots was loud as he jogged down the steps, kicking at loose stones. A dog barked from the houses just below him, and he tensed for the cry of challenge. None came, and he moved on.

  He was trying to remember the exact time that he had passed this way before. Surely the hour was about right? So much now rested on chance, or on the will of the gods. Castus fought the temptation to pray: later for that. He would need plenty more divine assistance yet, if his half-made plan were to succeed.

  Dropping down around the curve of the theatre wall, he descended the last few steps and turned the cor
ner into the narrow paved alley that ran along the side of the curia. His pulse jumped as he looked along the alley, but there were no figures crouching at the low barred grille of the prison cell. He forced himself to move slowly, walking casually through the deep shadow and past the cell window. When he glanced down, he saw nothing in the darkness behind the bars. At the end of the alley he paused beside the entrance to the forum colonnade. Drawing back into the corner between a pillar and the wall, he pulled his cloak around him and sank down onto his haunches.

  And now, he told himself, I wait. He had brought a chunk of sausage and a flask of watered wine with him, expecting that the night would be long. Squatting against the wall, staring into the darkness at the cell window, he ate and drank and tried not to think about what he was doing.

  Fausta’s words came back to him. You must find men who are not afraid of death. It occurred to him that he had no idea whether the Christian priest was still imprisoned beneath the curia. Perhaps he had been moved to a different cell? Perhaps he had already been executed, or even released? Castus knew almost nothing about the Christian cult either; he had always found the idea of it distasteful. The only Christian he had ever known was the imperial agent, Strabo, who had been murdered by the Picts in Britain. Strabo at least had been a brave man. But there had been plenty of them in the palace at Treveris, and they seemed to spend most of their time muttering prayers and gazing at the ceilings. From what Castus had heard, they denied the existence of the gods, and believed the world was ruled by the ghost of a dead Jew. Surely an insane concept. Until a few years ago the cult had been outlawed; Constantine and Maxentius had recently legalised it, but Maximian had persecuted it savagely in his day. Who could say what the loyalties of these Christians of Massilia might be...?

  A pair of soldiers came down the street, swaggering and unsteady, passing a heavy wine jug between them. Their hobnailed boots crunched and grated on the cobbles. One slipped, and the other caught him, barking a laugh. How easy it would be to join them, Castus thought. How easy it would be to forget all this, surrender to fate and let things happen as they would. Let the gods decide.