The Peacekeeper

by Jess Steven Hughes

  *

  Leading women and children through the misting rain, we escaped by the unguarded north end of Capitoline Hill. Again, the Praetorian security had been lax. Deftly, the group snaked its way down the rocky slope to the home of one of Sabinus’s loyal clients, where I left them in safety. Had I more time, I would have gone to see Eleyne at our home on Vatican Hill, which so far, had been free of the turmoil found in the center of the city. I crept along Rome’s back streets, avoiding Praetorian patrols, until I reached Gallus’s home on Pincian Hill.

  In his trophy room, Gallus sat among unusual weapons displayed on eagle-clawed tables in bronze tripods and lining frescoed walls. Inserted among the Dacian battle axes and British Celtic and German long swords, rested a common, wooden club. Black and heavy, long and thick, it was the same I’d noticed years before when I pleaded for Eleyne’s freedom. Although studying the assorted weapons, my eyes kept returning to the blunt stave.

  Gallus no longer applied makeup to his face. Like a living death mask, a dark, gray pallor covered his drawn features. His breath reeked of strong wine. A jewel-encrusted, gold wine cup and a small amphora jug rested on the desk in front of him. Dressed in a yellow and purple, fringed tunic of silk, Gallus leaned back in a velvet-lined mahogany chair. He rested his leathery, wrinkled hands on the cushioned, wooden arms. We were the same age. But at forty-nine, I was still firm-muscled and vigorous, if a bit lined and graying around my ears.

  “I see you’re still interested in the club,” Gallus said as a grin cracked his dried face like a raisin.

  “It doesn’t fit with the rest of your weapons.”

  “You think not? It has special meaning for me, and . . . for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Obviously, you don’t remember.”

  Puzzled, I frowned.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t. You used it years ago.”

  A small shudder rippled through my body as the painful memory, blunted by many passing years, returned. “Aye, now I remember.”

  “You should. You used it to bash to death a poor, unfortunate soldier in the Fustuariam,” he said.

  Stunned by the visible reminder of the execution gauntlet and Avaro’s death, I didn’t ask the obvious question as to why he had kept the cudgel.

  “Did you know,” Gallus said, interrupting my thoughts, “one of the city cohorts was annihilated in Terracina?”

  “Yes, I heard,” I answered. I forced my mind to the present matter, realizing Gallus probably had revealed the weapon’s past to unnerve me. Did he think I was that vulnerable?

  “They disobeyed Sabinus’s orders,” I said.

  Reports said the butchered cohort fled Rome only to be slaughtered by the Praetorians commanded by Lucius the Younger, brother of Vitellius. Incredibly, they failed to post a guard after joining the populace in celebration of the winter solstice, Saturnalia. The Praetorians penetrated the coastal city south of Antium, during the early hours of morning, murdering troops still in their drunken slumber.

  “Were they not attempting to join Vespasian’s forces?” Gallus inquired. He grabbed a filled cup and gulped down its contents.

  “His forces were nowhere in the vicinity,” I replied. “There had to be another reason.”

  Gallus grinned, revealing his brown, wine-stained teeth. “How perceptive you are, Commander. Of course, you’re right.”

  “You mean, they were—”

  “Since the fools are all dead, there isn’t any reason I shouldn’t tell you. I solicited their tribune to look after my interests in Terracina where my holdings are vast. I needed his cohort for protection, but after their destruction, I thought of you. I heard you were marching to Rome.”

  “Go on,” I said, suspecting what would follow.

  Gallus refilled his cup and noisily gulped the dark-red wine. Finishing, he wiped his mouth with a hand and belched. “I’m well aware of the situation on the Capitoline and know you’re trapped. Trapped because the soon-to-be emperor’s brother is a proud but stubborn old man.”

  “It’s true, what am I doing here, when I could have escaped?”

  His bloodshot eyes narrowed into lizard-shaped slits as he jabbed a finger in my direction. “I know you. You’ll return to your men, because you won’t abandon them to their fate and allow them to die needlessly.”

  “What do you want from me?” I demanded, tiring of his game.

  “I have a plan to save your life and Sabinus’s.”

  “What about the rest?”

  He met my eyes and glanced away. “A few—perhaps even most, at least everyone of importance.”

  “What is your price?”

  Gallus nodded. “I knew you would see things my way. You’ll succeed where the other cohort commander failed. Protect my lands and interests until peace is restored.”

  “And in return, you’ll arrange an escape?”

  “And a generous reward for your services.”

  “How much?”

  “One thousand pieces of gold a month for life, and my best properties in Hispania will be transferred to your name.”

  It was all I could do to refrain from laughing in his rotting face. Once he had coveted my family’s estates. Now he proposed a different bargain. Greed. It was only his total motivation. Even when losing, his goal was to cling to whatever remnants of power he still possessed.

  “You’ve backed the wrong men,” I said, “and they’ve fallen. Do you honestly expect me to do your bidding now?”

  “I want you to save my fortune—what’s left of my estate,” Gallus answered in a desperate voice. “When Vespasian reestablishes stability, I’ll prosper again.”

  I leaned over his desk, enduring his overpowering alcoholic breath, and glared into his yellowing, bloodshot eyes. “Help you prosper? You, a bloodsucker and parasite on Rome for over twenty years? Do you take me for a fool? Once he’s in Rome, you’ll be at the head of Vespasian’s death list.”

  “Don’t you realize it is within my power to save Sabinus’s life?” Gallus said. “If I do, he’ll be forever in my debt. Vespasian won’t proscribe me. I admit Sabinus eluded me once before, but now I’m willing to save him if you’ll agree to my proposition.”

  His remark about Sabinus piqued my curiosity. “When did he elude you?”

  “At this point, it doesn’t matter.”

  When I started to leave, he sputtered, “Very well, there’s no sense fencing the details. The persecutions have passed. The night your wife was arrested, I was after bigger fish. She was caught in a net thrown for the senator.”

  I re-approached the desk as he poured another cup of wine. “Then my suspicions were right. The raid was your idea.”

  “Quite right, and only by accident did she fall prey. I was after Sabinus.”

  “Sabinus, a Christian?” I voiced, incredulous.

  “Didn’t you know?” Gallus seemed genuinely surprised. Then he grinned and erupted into laughter. “My good man, you are indeed naive. How could you fail to see all these years?”

  My gaze broke from his. Now I understood why Sabinus had been reluctant to offer help in obtaining Eleyne’s release. Because Nero would have arrested him as a sympathizer, he dared not reveal his concern for the Christians. It explained his horror at the appalling deaths suffered by the Christians at Nero’s gruesome garden party. Had he explained his predicament to me, I would have understood. But the longer I thought about his dilemma, the more I realized he had made the right decision. I might have attempted something irrational to free Eleyne and jeopardized all of us.

  I forced my attention back to Gallus. “That still doesn’t change things.”

  “Let’s not be stubborn about this, Commander,” Gallus snapped. “I considered arranging an accident for you, but deep down I believed you a reasonable man.”

  “Assassinations were always your favorite game,” I answered with a sneer.

  “Sometimes they don’t succeed,” he answered flatly. “For instance, take the Neapolitan cement-merch
ant, Apollonius, a few years ago. The assassins slit his throat, but he didn’t have the decency to die.” He shook his head. “The Greek screamed so loud that your inept guards arrived in short order, and they had to flee.”

  “So it was your men who attempted to murder the cement merchant?”

  “You’ll never prove it, of course. Your incompetent guards couldn’t catch my men even in a crowded market place.”

  Gallus’s revelation meant his murderous plotting had indirectly led to Eleyne’s injuries and the death of our baby. My long-suppressed hatred boiled to the surface. Acid poured into my stomach, and bile rose into my throat. A roar-like surf pounding the shoreline filled my ears. He confirmed every dark suspicion I had ever entertained about him. He had been the source of the misery Eleyne needlessly suffered. He had caused the loss of our unborn daughter. Eleyne still pined for her. Here sat the man responsible for more grief than I could endure.

  “Now, if you insist on being obstinate,” he threatened, “I can still arrange an accident to include Sabinus and your barbarian wife.”

  I said nothing, struggling to contain my growing rage, suppressing the shaking of my body.

  “What’s it going to be?” Gallus demanded. “Speak up.”

  Silence.

  “Can it be you’re not in agreement? Do you misunderstand the gravity of such a decision?” He smiled and took another drink of wine. “I assure you not all accidents dispose of their victims neatly or with anything resembling dispatch.”

  Blind rage boiled upon me. No longer would I allow this incredible monster to exist.

  Gallus stood and started toward the door to summon his guards. I grabbed for the nearest weapon, scarcely aware which, and lunged at Gallus.

  Too startled to scream, he reached for the dagger inside his tunic, raising his arms and weapon to ward me off.

  The force of my blow brushed them aside and smashed into his face. Stunned, he hurtled into the frescoed wall, bouncing off with a crumpling thud. Bejeweled swords fell and clattered around him on the tiled floor.

  Maddened, I struck him again and again. Blood spattered his silk evening tunic, my hands, and face. Still he lived. He began crawling, trying to dodge my blows. Beyond mercy or reason, I dragged him by the folds of his tunic to the nearby atrium’s fountain. I pushed him backwards over the edge of the marble fountain, into its foaming waters. Eels slithered away in fright as I grabbed him by the neck. Squeezing my hands tighter and tighter around his throat, I forced his head beneath the water. Sharp fingernails dug into my wrists in desperation. Bubbles flowed from his mouth, his bulging eyes glared at me. In a sudden burst of strength, he convulsed and nearly overpowered me. But no power on Earth or the Heavens could dislodge me.

  At last I dropped his limp form into the blood-stained water. He was dead. I slumped to the edge of the fountain, done. I felt strangely hollow, drained of all my rage. It was murder. Not in the heat of battle, but in one unendurable insane moment. Then my glance fell on the weapon I had grasped even as I dragged Gallus from the fountain. The black club. The instrument Gallus had forced me to use so long ago on a fellow soldier.

  Why had I used it instead of my sword? Somehow in some part of my mind, had instinct dictated Gallus was not worthy of dying by an honorable weapon? I had dealt him the death of a common criminal. Doubling on the curved edge of the found, I placed my face in my hands and wept.

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 29

  In spite of all the noise and scuffling, Gallus’s dour guards never entered the room. This puzzled me, but only for a moment. No doubt they knew that Gallus would be on Vespasian’s proscription list, and their fates were tied to his. They must have heard the commotion, but discreetly ignored it in hopes I would kill Gallus. Once I left, they would sack his home and flee.

  Quietly, I slipped over Gallus’s balcony unseen and disappeared into the cold, early morning mist. Encountering few pickets along the way, I safely returned to the Temple of Jupiter.

  As dawn approached, Sabinus dispatched Cornelius Martialis with a message to Vitellius, demanding he order the Praetorians to withdraw immediately. A couple of hours later, Cornelius returned with Vitellius’s reply. He no longer possessed the power to order their recall.

  “They went on a rampage and destroyed the northern end of the Forum earlier today,” Sabinus said.

  By midmorning, three Praetorian cohorts had reinforced those surrounding the Capitoline.

  “Look,” Casperius Niger said, pointing in the direction between the Temple of Concord and Temple of Saturn.

  “They’re heading straight for the outer gateway,” I said. The opening led to the sacred enclosure by the east side of the hill. Instead of keeping the tight formation normally expected of Roman troops, the Praetorians noisily ran in a spread-out, jumbled formation. Years of discipline kept them banded together, but without direction, their headless main body meandered around the contours of streets and terrain towards us.

  “Casperius, post the troops on the roof above the portico and along the Temple of Jupiter’s front,” I ordered. The area paralleled the ascending steps near the main gateway.

  The enemy charged up the steps in a ragged, undisciplined manner. We easily repelled the Praetorians with a hail of stones and tiles hastily pulled from the temple floor. Fleeing before the deluge, they left behind a trail of bloodied and broken bodies.

  “Good work, men,” I said, walking among the regrouping defenders afterward. “I’m proud of you.”

  But this reality of fighting and killing fellow Romans disgusted me, especially when I heard the agonizing cries of the wounded and dying.

  “They’re coming again,” a dusty and blood-spattered Casperius Niger shouted a few minutes later. “Man your posts.”

  The palace troops returned in a tighter formation, shields raised overhead.

  “They’ve set fire to the portico,” a centurion reported. The portico was supported by wooden timbers below and could not stand if the timbers began to buckle.

  A cursing optio led the mob of Praetorians, bullying them into a loose-order charge with tribunes and centurions mixed with the soldiers.

  “Our men are retreating.” Casperius motioned with his head.

  Flames roared up the dry, old timbers, protected earlier from the rain by a sturdy, tiled roof. Driven from the roof, the Praetorians pursued our troops uphill. Smashing down the charred gates, the palace troops would have succeeded in entering, had it not been for Sabinus’s foresight. Earlier he had ordered the uprooting of hundreds of statues adorning the temple grounds, to be used by the troops as improvised barricades.

  But the Praetorians persisted. “They’re attacking us from three directions, sir,” Casperius Niger reported. “One group is climbing the Gemonian Steps between the Records House and the prison to the east.” Another detail approached from the southern side by way of the Clivus Capitolinus. But the most critical assault came from the tenements on the north side near the Grove of Refuge.

  The dry, wooden buildings had sprung up after the Great Fire five years earlier. Climbing story after story, enemy emerged at the tops of the buildings overlooking the temple grounds and its surrounding portico.

  At that moment, Sabinus returned from surveying the battle. “The situation is very grave,” he said. “I have ordered Quintus Atticus to set the apartments on fire.”

  “That’s madness,” I said. “The winds are continually changing direction. They could shift without warning and bring the flames back towards us and the temple.” The rear of the Great Temple was adjacent to the area.

  “No, we must burn the buildings now,” he urged, “or we will be overwhelmed.”

  As he spoke, I saw his friend, Quintus Atticus, Consul of Rome, hurl five or six torches from the temple portico to the roofs of the apartments.

  “You’ve made a grave mistake,” I said.

  Within minutes the winds veered towards us again, and the fire quickly leapt up the portico fringing the northern se
ction of the Temple of Jupiter. Beneath the bleak cover of low, dark clouds, and despite a sprinkling of light rain on the city, the Great Temple caught fire. Patches of red and orange flames licked at ever-larger parts of the dried, wooden roof and gorged on its supporting rafters, like a beast devouring freshly killed prey.

  I glared at Sabinus and shook my head before I shouted, “The fire will drive us right into the arms of the enemy!”

  The command staff and guards fled the temple. The only escape route left open to us forced us into the midst of the attacking Praetorians. But our counterattack was so furious, they withdrew like a disorderly mob after losing so many men.

  Steaming in the rain, fire engulfing the Great Temple grew until patches broke into a raging wall of flames enveloping the entire temple. In the intense heat, marble pillars supporting the roof and building disintegrated. Rain added its hissing voice to the carnage. Like a disgorging volcano, the great edifice collapsed in an explosion of billowing flames and smoke. An irreplaceable loss. Three thousand bronze tablets, texts of senatorial decrees and laws dating back to the early days of the Republic, stored in the temple for hundreds of years, gone. Rome’s history wantonly destroyed.

  The destruction of the Great Temple shattered Sabinus’s will to resist. After our retreat to the Grove of Refuge and its smaller Temple of Juno on the second peak, he stood dazed and glassy-eyed. “All the sacred documents are lost,” he said slowly.

  The temple had represented Rome’s strength and power in the world.

  “Prefect Sabinus,” I said, “we’ve got to get you away from here.”

  “No, we must carry on the fight.” Sabinus gave a series of commands and counter-commands, jeopardizing our remaining defenses.

  Disregarding his disjointed orders, I quickly established a perimeter defense around the smaller temple. To buy time as we strengthened our position, I left behind the remnants of a century of troops in the Grove of Refuge. I ordered troops, along with civilians, who had been Sabinus’s supporters and refused to leave, to barricade from more fallen statues, iron tripods, old war trophies, and broken bricks.