He turned to look over at Valens, who was staring impatiently about him with the air of a man who believed he ought to be elsewhere.
‘And now, I believe, it’s time for me to go and introduce the new legatus augusti to his equally new command. I’ll wish the pair of you a good day, and remind you, Marius, that I’m going to need replacements when I bring the legion home. A lot of replacements. And I want them to be fucking gleaming, First Spear. So don’t spend too long mooning after a battle you won’t have to fight, eh?’
He thrust his hand out, and Marius clasped it with a nod.
‘Go well, First Spear. Oh …’
Decimus stopped in the act of turning away from them.
‘Oh?’
His subordinate shrugged, a sly smile creeping onto his face.
‘I just meant to commend you on the smartness of your turn out, sir. I don’t know how you do it.’
Decimus took one of the gilded phalerae between finger and thumb.
‘These old things? I found them in the bottom of my campaign chest, which I’m sure you’ll agree was fortunate.’
‘More than fortunate, First Spear, that must have taken divine intervention.’
The senior centurion shrugged with a grin.
‘Any fool can do things the hard way, Marius. Try to remember that, while I’m away.’
He walked away, saluting the general and speaking with the great man for a moment before turning away to take command of the army’s preparations for the march.
‘Want to stay and watch them leave?’
Marius shook his head.
‘No. It’ll take them the best part of an hour to get off the parade ground, and that’s with all of their kit already loaded. I pity any decent-sized town on their route, because that lot are going to be the most unwelcome visitors anyone’s had in a decade or more. And that’s if they behave themselves. No, let’s go and round up the legion’s remaining centurions and start planning a recruiting drive. You heard the man, he expects to see shiny new cohorts of legionaries when he comes back.’ He rolled his eyes and rasped an imitation of Decimus’s harsh tones. ‘And I want them to be gleaming. Fucking gleaming, First Spear.’
Gaius stared over at the senior centurion as he barked an order at one of his officers, pointing with his vine stick for emphasis before stamping away to find a fresh victim for his enthusiasm to be on the road.
‘You think he’ll come back?’
His friend laughed softly.
‘Decimus? He’s the gristle you can’t be bothered to chew until your jaw aches to make it eatable. He’s the harpastum ball that’s been used too long, but which never gets thrown away because it’s not burst or worn through. Decimus is that last mouthful of the wine that’s just too disgusting to drink, even when you’re really hammered, because of all the crap that’s sunk to the bottom of the jar. He’ll come back all right, because that leathery, objectionable old bastard is indestructible. And besides, he’s right about the likelihood of there being casualties to replace. Neither our man or this Galba is very likely to step down and invite the other to take the throne, not while they’ve both got several legions of idiots like us champing at the bit. Look at that lot …’ he gestured at the waiting troops. ‘All of them desperate for the chance to take their iron to an enemy, and somewhere on the other side of the Alps there’s an army that’s probably just as eager. I can’t see this whole thing getting settled without a good-sized river of blood being shed. So let’s go and work out how to trick as many of the local idiots to join up as possible, shall we?’
Batavian encampment, Civitas Lingonum, Gallia Lugdunensis, January AD 69
‘Centurion Alcaeus!’
Banon and Alcaeus turned away from their consideration of one of their men’s armour to find a breathless soldier standing behind them.
‘Prefect’s compliments, Centurion, and will you join him in his office straight away.’
Alcaeus nodded, turning away with an aside to the soldier in question.
‘You can consider that a lucky escape. If that armour’s rust free by the time Scar’s done with me you’ll be only pulling one week of latrine duty. Banon, you’re in charge. Do whatever you want with them as long as they’re sweating like pigs on a spit when I get back, and make sure they know that “Rusty” here’s the reason for their labours.’
He walked briskly into the Batavi camp, acknowledging the salutes of the men on guard duty with a wave of his vine stick and heading for the headquarters building. Outside the imposing wooden structure a horse was being rubbed down by a pair of cavalrymen, its mud-spattered legs and hoofs telling their own story.
‘Ah, here he is …’
Scar gestured to a seat alongside the man already sitting facing him with a cup from which steam was rising, both hands wrapped around its surface.
‘Decurion, this is Alcaeus, my deputy and the Batavian cohorts’ chief priest. The decurion here, Centurion Alcaeus, is a messenger from the Winter Camp. He’s carrying orders from the emperor. The real emperor, that is. I’ve already assured him that we were delighted to hear of Legatus Augusti Vitellius’s acclamation as emperor by the German legions. Obviously no man in any of the Batavian cohorts was going to be anything other than happy to hear that the man who dismissed the German Bodyguard from Rome has been challenged by one of our own. But the decurion here is the bearer of more news in addition to those orders, and stranger tidings than I could have imagined.’
He gestured to the messenger to repeat the information he had already shared with the Batavi commander.
‘I was telling Prefect Germanicus that the pretender Galba has been assassinated.’
Alcaeus shook his head slowly.
‘Assassinated…?’
The decurion nodded, sipping at his drink.
‘Murdered, it seems. The news reached Legatus Augusti Caecina yesterday, just as I was preparing to ride south with your orders for the advance south. Galba was killed by the praetorians …’ Scar and Alcaeus shared a knowing glance. ‘But the murder was instigated by one of his followers, a man by the name of Otho. It seems that Galba decided that since he was an old man and unlikely to enjoy a long reign, he ought to choose someone to be his heir. And as it turned out, the man he chose wasn’t Otho, despite Otho himself having apparently harboured an expectation that it would be. Seems he then bribed a handful of praetorians to spontaneously rise up and attack the old man in the street. They murdered him and made sport with his severed head, then convinced enough of their fellow soldiers to stand behind Otho when he went to convince the Senate to do the sensible thing and elect him as consul that the Senate did exactly what they were being told. Apparently we should all now be grateful that the empire has been rescued from disaster by Otho’s selflessness in taking the throne in the face of such chaos and lawlessness.’
Scar shook his head and turned to his deputy, switching momentarily to their native language.
‘Gods below. When these Romans decide to make a mess of things they really do make a complete fucking mess of things, don’t they?’
The messenger frowned.
‘What?’
‘I was just telling my centurion that we can only hope to have the chance to avenge the old man. He might have been an idiot, whose legacy to Rome is a homicidal pretender to the throne rather than a real emperor, but that’s no reason not to show him the respect appropriate to a man who believed he was doing the best for the empire. And now, it seems to me, we clearly need the intervention of a man fit to carry the title caesar.’
The decurion nodded his fervent agreement.
‘You’ve got that right, Prefect. Here …’ He took a scroll wrapped in waxed paper from the message container that was secured to his belt. ‘Your orders, from the Emperor Vitellius himself.’
Scar spilt the wax seal that held the orders tightly rolled, opening the message and reading in silence for a moment.
‘We’re ordered to divide into two four-cohort commands and mar
ch to join the emperor’s army as it advances south along two routes, four cohorts to join the Fifth Alaudae marching via Lugdunum and then over the western Alps under Legatus Valens, and another four to join the Twenty-First Rapax and cross the northern Alps under Caecina.’ He nodded decisively. ‘You can tell the emperor and his legati that we will obey these orders with the appropriate urgency. We will do what is ordered and at every command we will be ready!’
The Old Camp, Germania Inferior, January AD 69
‘He has to die! My men won’t settle for anything less, and neither will any of yours!’
Marius looked across his quarter at Marcus, the most belligerent of the eleven other centurions who had gathered at his summons. He had called them to his personal rooms so that they could talk freely, unobserved by their men and without witnesses to whatever it was that they agreed to do in response to the news he had been given by Legatus Lupercus less than an hour before. Angered by the other man’s vehemence in the face of a superior officer, he suppressed the urge to get to his feet and take his colleague by the throat, his face red with frustration at being the target of his officers’ vehemence.
‘Legatus Lupercus gave it to me straight, Centurion, and was very clear that his instructions come directly from the emperor. Vitellius is going to pardon Civilis today, with no ifs or buts, and he expects us to keep our mouths shut! He reckons he needs to keep the Batavians quiet until this war against Otho is done with. After that we can deal with them any way local command sees fit, but until then it’s strictly hands off. Which means that if we’re caught trying to kill him we’ll be the ones facing execution for disobeying the decision of a fucking emperor!’
Marcus shrugged.
‘So we can’t get caught. Which means that none of us can do it: our boys will be watching us like hawks for any sign that we’re on their side. If they get as much as a hint that we moved on Civilis it’ll be all over the fortress in an hour.’
Marius nodded vehemently.
‘Too fucking right it will. And we’ll be locked up to make an example of what happens to men who disobey the throne.’
Gaius laughed softly from his place between the two men.
‘You’re a good man, Marius, a man I’d stand alongside to the death, but you have one weakness.’
His friend shook his head in exasperation.
‘Well, go on then. What’s my “one weakness”?’
‘Harpastum.’
‘Harpastum!’
His brother centurion nodded knowingly.
‘Harpastum. You’re rock hard, Marius, but you play to the rules. On the harpastum field and in life.’
‘The rules? In harpastum?’
‘Yes, I know. On the face of it there might as well not be any rules. Kicking, punching, yes, I’ve seen men carried off the pitch with the idiot grins that come with having their wits punched out of them. And yes, there are usually three or four broken limbs each year and the occasional death or broken spine. But that’s missing the point.’
Marius shook his head in disbelief.
‘Which is what, exactly?’
Gaius smiled apologetically.
‘Harpastum always stops short of really serious physical harm. The broken arms and legs are accidental, for the most part. You men batter the shit out of each other until the arbiter blows his whistle, then you go to the baths and get pissed together, swear undying brotherhood and walk away with the warm glow of having bonded with fellow men. Fuck, you even made friends with that man Hramn when we played the Batavians, and he’s one of Civilis’s officers.’
Seriously irritated, Marius raised a hand to point at his friend, but Gaius spoke quickly.
‘Real life isn’t like harpastum, Marius. Sometimes a man has to extend the hand of friendship with the other hand behind his back, ready to wield the blade he’s about to put into the other bastard’s guts. Do you see my point?’
The senior centurion nodded slowly.
‘You think I’m conditioned by the game, too soft to make the hard decisions.’
His friend was silent for a moment before he spoke again.
‘I think you’re the best centurion I’ve ever served with.’ The men gathered around the room nodded and muttered their agreement. ‘You’re certainly the best of us. But you’re not the man to deal with this traitor Civilis. Not yet. So all we’re asking is that you turn your back while we do what has to be done. I know a centurion in one of the Tungrian cohorts that have been moved into the fortress to keep up the appearance of numbers, a man who’ll do any amount of dirty work for the right amount of gold, so I took the opportunity to drop him a heavy enough purse to buy his loyalty and his silence when the deed’s done. They marched from their camp this morning, which means that they’ll be waiting on the road between the Batavians sent to fetch the treacherous bastard after his acquittal and their dungheap village. The traitor Civilis and his friends will be found dead, a robbery that went wrong when they tried to fight back, but there’ll clearly have been too many bandits for them to fight off. It’ll make for a few days of excitement and extra patrols, but we’ll be clean-handed and the traitor will be ash on the wind, and soon forgotten. That’ll work for everyone, I would have thought.’
The Old Camp, Germania Inferior, January AD 69
‘We are expected, legionary, and this is a pass from Tribune Cassius authorising us to enter your principia and attend the hearing of a legal case against one of our tribesmen, Gaius Julius Civilis.’
Hramn showed the soldier standing guard on the fortress’s headquarters building the wax tablet he had been given at the fortress’s eastern gate upon presenting himself and Draco to the tribune of the guard. The two men had been selected to attend Civilis’s trial by the tribe’s council of elders, Hramn for his recent experience of Roman politics and the fact that he was Kivilaz’s deputy, Draco for his excellent standing with Rome as a former commander of the Batavi cohorts during the war in Britannia and subsequent command of the guard in the later stages of Claudius’s reign.
The soldier looked at the words scribed neatly into the flat wax surface with the blank eyes of a man without letters, but at the mention of Kivilaz’s name he nodded.
‘The trial of the traitor. Wait here.’
He ducked in through the door, leaving his comrade who, if it were possible, was even less prepossessing than himself, to watch the two men while he went to fetch an officer. Hramn shared a meaningful look with Draco and speaking quietly so as to avoid being overheard by the remaining sentry.
‘The trial of the traitor. No bias there then. I wonder what odds one of our inveterate gamblers would give us on Kivilaz walking out from under this falling tree. After all, it’s not the first time these legion bastards have tried to have him killed.’
Draco nodded, a smile pasted onto his face for the benefit of the remaining legionary.
‘That’s true, and that’s why the elders wanted us here. In the event this new emperor finds our brother innocent, he’s more than likely to end up in a ditch somewhere on the road back to Batavodurum with a centurion’s dagger in his back. Now that most of the legions of Germania Inferior have gone south under Vitellius’s legatus Valens, the roads are empty, and a man who has escaped their idea of Roman justice for a second time would make a tempting target for his accusers.’
‘And if they find him guilty, where will that leave us?’
The older man grinned at him, chuckling gently.
‘Smile, Hramn. Everyone dies, and in the event that these cocksuckers try to send me to join Kivilaz in Hades I’ll take an honour guard of them with me to serve at table when I feast with my ancestors. And if you couldn’t take a joke …’
‘I shouldn’t have joined? Is that your answer to everything?’
The soldier reappeared, closely followed by a blue-chinned centurion whose whole demeanour seemed to be one of disdain for everyone and everything.
‘Come to watch the traitor Civilis being sentenced, have you?’
Hramn bowed his head fractionally.
‘Greetings Centurion. Yes, we are indeed here to witness the proceedings of the imperial court, and to report back to our people the verdict that is reached by the emperor, may the gods reward his impartial justice with long life and fruitfulness.’
‘Hmmm.’ The officer looked them up and down. ‘And you are?’
Hramn put a hand to his own chest.
‘I, Centurion, am Hramn, formerly decurion in command of the emperor Nero’s German Bodyguard in Rome, now relieved of my duties by Galba and sent north to serve with this army. And this man is Draco, former commander of the eight Batavi cohorts that serve with this army, and also a past commander of the emperor Claudius’s Bodyguard. We have been selected to attend this trial as loyal subjects of Rome come to see Roman justice delivered in the case of our brother officer.’
The legion officer looked them both up and down, then held out a hand.
‘Give me the pass.’
Hramn shook his head firmly.
‘I cannot. The tribune who gave it to me was very specific that it was to be passed to no other man, for fear that an imposter might gain access to the presence of the emperor. He was insistent on this.’
The centurion stared at him in frustration for a moment and then stepped back, waving a hand for them both to enter the principia. Hramn waited until they were safely out of earshot before speaking again, a murmur that reflected his discomfort at finding himself in the very heart of the fortress’s overt display of military power.
‘Bastard. He would have taken the tablet, pushed us into a waiting room and left us there until after the trial.’
Draco snorted quiet laughter.
Betrayal: The Centurions I Page 17
