The Eagle's Conquest

by Simon Scarrow

  ‘It’s me, sir,’ Cato panted. ‘Caught someone trying to get through the picket line. Horseman.’

  ‘Get a light there!’ Macro ordered and a sentry ran off to fetch a torch. ‘You unharmed, lad?’

  ‘Yes, sir . . . Scaurus pegged him with a javelin . . . before he could do a thing.’

  The sentry returned, the torch crackling brightly in his hand.

  ‘Now then, let’s see what you’ve caught.’ Macro took the torch and held it over the body on the ground. By the flickering glare they could make out neat leather boots, a bandage wound round the man’s left knee and thigh, a neat blue tunic. Cato looked at the rider’s face and gasped in astonishment.

  ‘Nisus!’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  _______________

  Vitellius was about to make another owl call when he heard the sentry’s challenge. Instantly he flattened himself into the grass, heart pounding as he tried to hear what was going on.

  ‘Don’t let him get away!’

  A sharp cry of pain splintered through the dark night, then came the sound of hooves pounding swiftly into the distance, until only low voices and moaning could be heard. More heartbeats passed before he risked raising his head above the grass for a quick glance. Swiftly scanning left and right he caught sight of the dark mass of two men bent over something they were carrying towards the nearest fort.

  There was no doubt about it then: Nisus had been caught trying to cross back over the Roman lines. Vitellius bit back on the oath that nearly sprang to his lips and thumped the ground angrily. Bloody fool! He cursed himself. Bloody stupid fool. He should never have used the Carthaginian; the man was a surgeon, not trained in the arts of espionage. But there had been no one else he could use, he reflected. He had had to make do with an amateur and tonight’s catastrophe was the result. It seemed that Nisus had fallen into Roman hands alive. What if the man could be interrogated before he died? And die he would, if not from his injuries then from the stoning he would receive for deserting his unit in the face of the enemy. If Nisus was made to talk then he, Vitellius, would surely be implicated.

  The situation was extremely dangerous. Best get back to the camp before he was missed. He desperately needed time to think, time to find a strategy to deal with this predicament.

  Crouching low, Vitellius turned down the slope towards the twinkling fires of the army. He had told that dull-witted optio of the Ninth on the gate that he was making an external inspection of the rampart. That would have taken plenty of time, more than enough for him to make his way to the ridge and meet Nisus at the point they had arranged several days earlier.

  Now there was no knowing how Caratacus had responded to his plan. No way of knowing at all, unless he could get to Nisus and speak to him before he died. It was rotten luck. No, he corrected himself, it was rotten planning. He had to blame himself. He should never have used Nisus, and he should never have picked this meeting point. Most officers didn’t place pickets between the forts during the night. Trust him to pick the section of the front line guarded by a thorough officer.

  Having given the password, Vitellius was re-admitted through the gate. He nodded his thanks to the watch optio and reassured him that the perimeter defences were in excellent order. Slinking back through the lines of tents, Vitellius made his way to his quarters and collapsed on his camp bed fully dressed. He might sleep later, but now he must give thought to the grim situation Nisus’ capture had placed him in. That the surgeon would have to be silenced was in no doubt. If the sentry hadn’t seen to it already, he himself would. Then he must recover Caratacus’ reply from Nisus before the body was searched too thoroughly. Even the best codes could be broken in a matter of days, and the simplicity of the code they had agreed on would be deciphered the moment anyone recognised what they were looking at. If that happened, he could only hope that the message did not include any detail that implicated him directly. If one whiff of his complicity reached the all-smelling nose of Narcissus, he would be quietly, and painfully, executed.

  It was a dangerous game that he played. Roman politics had always been dangerous, and the higher one rose, the greater the risks one had to take. That excited Vitellius. Not to the point where he might be careless. He had far too much respect for the intelligence of the other players to ever underestimate them. Fortunately many of his rivals did not return the compliment; they were the kind of people whose intelligence was fatally blighted by their arrogance. Like Cicero, they required regular acknowledgement of their powerful intellects, and it was in those incremental moments of weakness that their ultimate fall was assured. Vitellius had broken this rule just once and then only to persuade Vespasian that the consequences of exposing him would be far more calamitous for the legate than for him. Even so, he still felt he had said too much and vowed never again to say one word more than was necessary.

  Vitellius took pride in the fact that he had quickly learned never to subscribe to someone else’s cause. The very notion of a ‘secret organisation’ was an oxymoron; there was an almost exponential increase in the possibility of betrayal or exposure every time such an organisation recruited a new member. No, it was far safer to work alone; towards a specific end, with no obligations to causes or comrades. Isolation from such groups was his strength and their weakness, as his present scheme proved.

  It was now a common assumption amongst the senior officers that the Roman weapons they had discovered in the hands of the Britons must have been supplied by the Liberators. Clearly these traitors had assumed that the Britons would hurl the invaders back into the sea and that such a military catastrophe must lead to the fall of Claudius. In the ensuing chaos the Liberators saw themselves emerging as the champions of a new republic. Had the invasion failed, no one would have been more delighted than Vitellius. If the political system could be kept unstable for long enough, he would have time to develop his political position. One day, when he was quite sure the moment was ripe, he would seize power for himself.

  Now the Liberators’ latest perceived treachery meant that their name would be blackened back in Rome. From the lowliest squat in the slums of the Subura to the wealthiest dinner tables of the Janiculan, the Liberators would be cursed in the harshest possible terms. Vitellius was working to add to their damnation with the plot to kill Claudius. It would have been impossible to carry it through alone, but the careful cultivation of Nisus’ deep-rooted resentment of Rome had borne fruit. Caratacus had proved to be an enthusiastic ally when the possibility was broached via the message carried by the prisoner Vitellius had helped to escape. Any political disorder in Rome that caused the invaders to withdraw from Britain was worth the stigma of being involved in an assassination.

  Vitellius found himself warming to Caratacus. He had never met the British leader in person, but the quality of the man’s mind was evident in his arrangements for the plot. Despite having the terrible disadvantage of coming from a warrior culture which valued a man’s honour above all else, Caratacus was admirably pragmatic. He would be making a stand against Claudius before Camulodunum. That was a certainty. To allow the capital to fall without a single sword being raised in its defence would demoralise any will to resist in the other tribes of the island. The defiant posture would have to be maintained, even at the cost of yet another defeat. There was always the possibility, however unlikely, that the battle could be won, or at least a Roman victory could be made so Pyrrhic that it held up the invasion.

  If the coming battle ended in another defeat for the Britons, then the assassination could be attempted at the subsequent surrender of the tribes taken by the Emperor in person. Caratacus had managed to persuade one of his followers to accept the suicidal duty of wielding the blade. It only remained for Vitellius to see to it that the man was provided with a knife after being searched prior to his presentation to the Emperor. But without the message Nisus had been carrying, Vitellius would not know the identity of the assassin. Without that knowledge, there could be no attempt on the Emperor’s
life.

  Whether the assassination of Claudius succeeded or not, the blame would be attached to the Liberators. It might well be a British knife that plunged into the Emperor’s heart but those investigating the plot would be sure to find some way of implicating the Liberators, particularly if they were encouraged to do so.

  Vitellius suddenly sat upright on his camp bed, angry with himself. There was no point in thinking about the pleasures the future had to offer when at any moment his complicity in the plot could be revealed by Nisus. Equally, there was little he could do about it until Nisus, or news of Nisus, was brought into the main camp. Then he could justify his attendance on the man by acting the concerned friend. In the meantime, he admonished himself, he must be calm. He must not give the appearance of being fretful lest anyone who saw him remembered it when giving evidence to any investigation that might take place if the worst happened. Better to think about something more pleasing.

  It was then that he recalled having seen Flavia amongst the imperial entourage. Behind Vespasian’s wife had stood that terribly attractive slave girl he had once had a fling with when the Second had been stationed in Germania. Even that lecherous old dotard Claudius had noticed her. As he recalled her features, Vitellius smiled at the prospect of renewing their relationship.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  _______________

  ‘Get him under the lamps!’ the senior surgeon shouted as two legionaries carried the stretcher into the treatment tent. ‘Take care, you fools!’

  Cato walked beside them, pressing a blood-drenched rag to the wound. The senior surgeon, dark skinned like Nisus, helped them ease the stretcher up onto the wooden top of the examination table and then slackened off the cord that lowered the pulley lamps. By their dim light he removed the compress to inspect the javelin’s entry point, but the entire front and sides of the torso were covered in a sticky red slick. The surgeon grabbed a sponge from a highly polished copper bowl and swabbed the blood away. He uncovered a dark hole the diameter of a man’s finger which instantly welled up with blood. He clapped the compress back on.

  ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘He was trying to get through our picket lines,’ Cato replied. ‘One of my men stopped him.’

  ‘I’ll say.’ The senior surgeon lifted the compress again to examine the wound, and grimaced at the unstaunched flow of blood.

  Nisus’ head came up as he suddenly screamed, then dropped back with a jarring thud on the examination table, muttering and moaning.

  ‘We must stop the bleeding. It looks like he’s lost too much already.’ The senior surgeon looked up. ‘How long ago did you say you found him?’

  Cato calculated from the watch signals. ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘And he’s been bleeding like this all the time?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then he’s had it. Nothing I can do.’

  ‘There must be something, sir,’ Cato said desperately.

  ‘Friend of yours?’

  Cato paused a moment before he nodded.

  ‘Well, Optio, I’m really sorry about your friend Nisus, but there really is nothing we can do for him. This kind of injury is always fatal.’

  Nisus was trembling now, and his moaning had a keening note. His eyes flickered and were suddenly wide open, glancing around in a dazed panic before they rested on Cato.

  ‘Cato . . .’ Nisus reached out a hand.

  ‘Lie still, Nisus,’ Cato ordered. ‘You need to rest. Lie back.’

  ‘No.’ Nisus smiled weakly, then his lips twisted as an agonising spasm gripped him. ‘I’m dying. I’m dying, Cato.’

  ‘Nonsense! You won’t die!’

  ‘I’m the bloody surgeon! I know what’s happening to me!’ His eyes blazed fiercely, then clamped tightly shut as the next spasm shot through him. ‘Ahhh! It hurts!’

  ‘All right, Nisus.’ The senior surgeon patted his shoulder. ‘It’ll be over quite soon. Want me to make it easier for you?’

  ‘No! No drugs.’ He was panting now, in shallow rasping breaths. His hand still grasped Cato’s and the powerful grip was almost painful as he struggled to keep a hold on the living world even as death gradually drew him away. With a supreme effort, and driven by what spark of consciousness remained, he seized Cato with his other hand and pulled the optio close to his mouth.

  ‘Tell the tribune, tell him . . .’ The voice tailed off into a whisper and Cato was not even sure whether he was hearing words or the last wheezing breaths of a dying man. Slowly the Carthaginian’s grip slackened, his breathing faded into silence. Nisus’ head lolled back and his lifeless eyes glazed over, mouth hanging slightly open.

  For a moment there was silence, then the senior surgeon felt for a pulse. He found nothing.

  ‘That’s it. He’s gone.’

  Cato was still holding Nisus’ hand, conscious that it was only lumpen flesh and no spark of life moved within it any more. He felt rage at his powerlessness to save the man’s life. There had been so much blood; he had tried to stem the flow but it just kept pumping out.

  ‘Where the hell has he been the last few days?’ asked the senior surgeon.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘What did he say to you at the end?’

  Cato shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’ the senior surgeon pressed him. ‘Did he say his death rites?’

  ‘Death rites?’

  ‘He’s Carthaginian, like me. What did he say, just before he died? He whispered something to you.’

  ‘Yes. But I couldn’t make it out . . . Something about a bell, I think.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to do the death rites for him.’

  The senior surgeon prised Cato’s hand free and gently pushed him away from the body. ‘Won’t be a moment, but it has to be said, otherwise he’ll be forced to linger on the earth, like your Roman lemures.’

  The thought of the uneasy spirit of Nisus walking the shadows of the earth filled Cato with horror, and he backed away from the examination table. The senior surgeon pressed his right hand down over the dead man’s heart and began quietly chanting an ancient Punic ritual. It was over quickly, and he turned back to Cato. ‘You want to give him Roman rites as well?’

  Cato shook his head.

  ‘Want to stay with him a moment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The senior surgeon ushered the legionaries out and Cato was alone with Nisus’ body. He was not sure how he felt. There was grief at having lost a friend, and bitterness that he should die so wastefully on the point of a Roman javelin. There was anger too. Nisus had betrayed his friendship, firstly by forsaking him in favour of Tribune Vitellius and secondly by deserting – or whatever it was he had been involved with when he had disappeared from the camp. The very last words Nisus had uttered had been for Vitellius, and that galled Cato more than anything else. Whatever had caused Nisus to disappear, Cato suspected it had something to do with Vitellius. The contrasting emotions turned over and over inside him as he stared at the body.

  ‘You’ve made your peace, Optio,’ the senior surgeon said quietly as he re-entered the tent a while later. ‘Now I’m afraid we must take over. In this heat we have to see that bodies are dealt with as quickly as possible.’

  Cato nodded and moved off to one side of the tent as the senior surgeon waved in a pair of medical orderlies. With an efficiency born of regular grim practice, the medics straightened the body out and began removing all the clothes and personal effects.

  ‘You don’t have to stay and watch if you don’t want to,’ said the senior surgeon.

  ‘I’m all right, sir. Really.’

  ‘As you wish. I’m afraid I have to go. I’ve other duties to see to. I’m sorry I couldn’t save your friend,’ the senior surgeon added gently.

  ‘You did your best, sir.’

  The orderlies were busy stripping away the clothes, separating out those that were free of blood and could be re-used. The rest were placed aside for disp
osal. The wound had stopped bleeding now that the heart beat no more. The smear of blood on the surrounding skin was quickly sluiced away with a bucket of water. One of the orderlies began to unravel the bandage wound round Nisus’ left knee. Suddenly he stopped, craning his head forward to look more closely.

  ‘Hello. That’s odd,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’s odd?’ replied his companion as he removed the boots.

  ‘There’s nothing under this bandage. No injury, not even a scratch.’

  ‘Course there is, people don’t just wear bandages for fun.’

  ‘No, I’m telling you there’s nothing here. Just these strange marks.’

  Curiosity got the better of Cato’s grief and he came over to see what was causing the mild commotion.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Here, Optio. Look at this.’ The orderly handed him the bandages. ‘Not a scratch on his leg but some strange black marks on that bandage.’

  Cato went over to the side of the tent where a rough bench had been erected and slowly sat down, gazing at the curious lines and curves on one side of the cloth. He could make no sense of them. He tucked the bandage inside his tunic, deciding that it needed closer inspection by daylight.

  He looked up at the body on the table. Nisus’ face was serene and restful now that the strain of dying was over. What had he been up to these last few days?

  Cato became aware of a new presence in the tent. Tribune Vitellius had entered so quietly that no one had noticed. He stood in the shadows by the tent flap and gazed at the body. For a moment he did not notice Cato and the optio could see anxiety and frustration playing across the tribune’s face. Anxiety and frustration – but not grief. Then Vitellius saw him and frowned.

  ‘What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on duty.’

  ‘I brought Nisus in, sir.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘One of my sentries caught him trying to cross our lines. He didn’t answer the challenge, and when he made a run for it the sentry took him down with a javelin.’