Rome’s Fallen Eagle

by Robert Fabbri

  Taking a key from his belt, the centurion unlocked a heavy, oaken door and pulled it open, noiselessly on goose-fatted hinges, to reveal a wide passageway. ‘To the right, sir,’ he said, stepping aside to allow Sabinus past. ‘We’ll stay here to prevent anyone following you down.’

  Sabinus nodded and passed through; sunlight washed in from regularly spaced windows on either side. He swept his sword from its scabbard beneath his cloak, pulled a dagger from his belt and strode forward; the hard slapping of his footsteps reverberated around him off the whitewashed plaster walls.

  After a few dozen paces he heard voices from around a bend to the left; he quickened his pace. From the theatre below came another burst of laughter followed by applause. Sabinus approached the corner; the voices were close. He raised his sword and readied himself to strike as soon as he made the turn. Swinging sharply left he pounced forward. He felt his heart leap in his chest as a shrill shriek greeted him and he stared into two terrified eyes set in a long, down-turned face; mucus oozed from a pronounced nose. Claudius’ cry died in his throat as he gaped at the sword pointing directly at him and then back at Sabinus. Herod Agrippa stood stock still, his face frozen in fear, next to him.

  Sabinus pulled himself back; he had given Clemens his word not to kill Claudius. ‘Get out of here, both of you!’ he shouted.

  After a moment’s dumbfounded delay Claudius lumbered off, twitching and muttering, leaving a pool of urine behind him. Herod Agrippa, breathing deeply, stooped and stared up, under the hood, at Sabinus’ concealed face. For a moment their eyes met; Herod’s widened slightly. Sabinus made a threatening gesture with his sword and the Judaean pelted off after Claudius.

  Sabinus cursed and prayed to Mithras that it was not recognition that he had seen in the King’s eyes. Voices from further down the corridor drove the worry from his mind; one of them was most definitely that of Caligula. He retreated around the corner and waited as the voices grew closer.

  ‘If those Aitolian boys are sweet-looking I might take a couple to the baths with me,’ Caligula was saying. ‘Would you like a couple, Clemens?’

  ‘If they’re sweet-looking, Divine Gaius.’

  ‘But if they’re not then we can always have Chaerea; I’d love to hear that sweet voice moan with ecstasy.’ Caligula giggled; his companions did not join in.

  Sabinus surged around the corner, sword raised.

  Caligula’s mirth faltered; his sunken eyes went wide with fright. He leapt backwards; Chaerea’s strong hands clamped onto his upper arms, pinioning him.

  Sabinus swept his sword through the air; it sliced into Caligula’s flesh at the base of his neck. Caligula shrieked; a gobbet of blood slopped onto Chaerea’s face. Sabinus’ sword arm jarred and he lost his grip as the blade wedged, abruptly, into the collarbone.

  There was a moment of shocked silence.

  Caligula stared down, eyes gaping, at the sword embedded in him and then suddenly burst into manic laughter. ‘You can’t kill me! I’m still alive; I am a g …’ He juddered violently; his mouth froze open, mid-laugh, and his eyes bulged.

  ‘This is the last time you’ll ever hear my sweet voice,’ Chaerea whispered into his ear. His left hand was still grasping Caligula but the other was now hidden. Chaerea jerked his body, forcing his right side forward, and the tip of a gladius burst through Caligula’s chest; his head jolted back and he exhaled violently, spraying a fine crimson mist into the air. Sabinus tugged his weapon free and pulled down his neckerchief; the false god would know who ended his life and why.

  ‘Sabinus!’ Caligula croaked, blood trickling down his chin. ‘You’re my friend!’

  ‘No, Caligula, I’m your sheep, remember?’ He thrust his weapon, sharply, low into Caligula’s groin as Clemens and Cornelius both drew their swords and plunged them into the stricken Emperor from either side.

  With the bitter joy of vengeance, Sabinus smiled as he rolled his wrist, twisting the blade left and right, shredding the lower intestines, and then forcing the point forward until he felt it break through the flesh between the base of the buttocks.

  All four assassins wrenched back their swords simultaneously; Caligula stood unsupported for a moment before crumpling, without a sound, to the floor into Claudius’ pool of urine.

  Sabinus stared down at his erstwhile friend, hawked and spat a globule of phlegm at his face and then pulled his neckerchief back up. Chaerea aimed a shuddering kick at Caligula’s bloodseeping groin.

  ‘We must finish it,’ Clemens said quietly, turning to leave. ‘Hurry; the Germans will find the body soon, I told them to wait for a count of five hundred to stop anyone following us up the steps.’

  The four assassins walked briskly back up the corridor. The two centurions were waiting by the door.

  ‘Lupus, bring your century into the palace,’ Clemens ordered as he passed them. ‘Aetius, keep yours outside and don’t let anyone in. And get rid of those caterwauling Aitolians.’

  ‘Did Claudius and Herod Agrippa see you?’ Sabinus asked.

  ‘No, sir,’ Lupus answered, ‘we saw them coming and stepped back outside until they’d passed.’

  ‘Good; get going.’

  The two centurions snapped salutes and doubled off through the door towards their men. From back down the corridor came guttural shouting.

  ‘Shit!’ Clemens hissed. ‘Those bastard Germans can’t count. Run!’

  Sabinus burst into a sprint and flicked a look over his shoulder; eight silhouetted figures appeared from around the corner; their swords were drawn. One turned and ran back in the direction of the theatre. The remaining seven began to chase them.

  Clemens crashed through a door and led them on up a set of marble steps, through a high-ceilinged room full of lifelike painted statues of Caligula and his sisters and on into the palace. Turning left they reached the atrium as the first of Lupus’ men were coming through the door.

  ‘Form your lads up, centurion,’ Clemens shouted, ‘they may have to kill some Germans.’

  At a sharp order from Lupus a line was formed as the Germans raced into the atrium. ‘Swords!’ Lupus yelled.

  With the precision expected of Rome’s élite soldiery the eighty swords of the century were drawn in ringing unison.

  Hopelessly outnumbered but maddened by the murder of the Emperor to whom they owed absolute loyalty, the Germans screamed the war cries of their dark-forested homeland and charged. Sabinus, Clemens and the two tribunes slipped behind the Praetorian line as, with a resounding clash of metal on metal that echoed through the columns of the room, the Germans crashed into the Praetorians with their weight fully behind their shields. They slashed with long swords at the heads and torsos of the unshielded defenders. Four went down immediately under the ferocity of the attack but their comrades held the line, punching with their left arms in lieu of shields and stabbing with their shorter swords at the groins and thighs of their assailants, whose numbers quickly dwindled. Soon five of their companions were lying dead or dying on the floor, and the last two Germans disengaged and ran headlong back the way that they had come.

  A shrill female voice cut through the clamour. ‘Just what is going on here?’

  Sabinus turned to see a tall woman with a long, horse-like face and pronounced aristocratic nose; she held a child of about two years old in her arms. The girl’s young eyes stared greedily at the blood wetting the floor.

  ‘My husband will hear of this.’

  ‘Your husband will hear nothing, Milonia Caesonia,’ Clemens informed her coldly, ‘ever again.’

  For a moment she hesitated; then she drew herself up and looked Clemens in the eyes; defiance burned in hers. ‘If you mean to kill me too then my brother will avenge me.’

  ‘No he won’t. Your half-brother, Corbulo, thinks that you’ve brought shame and dishonour to his family. If he’s sensible he’ll get his legion, the Second Augusta, to swear loyalty to the new Emperor; then, when he’s served his term as legate, he’ll come back to Rome and hope that t
he stain on his character that you have left will be forgotten in time.’

  Milonia Caesonia closed her eyes, as if acknowledging to herself the truth of the statement.

  Clemens walked towards her with his sword drawn.

  She held up the child. ‘Will you spare Julia Drusilla?’

  ‘No.’

  Milonia Caesonia clutched her daughter tightly to her breast.

  ‘But as a favour to you I will kill you first so you don’t see her die.’

  ‘Thank you, Clemens.’ Milonia Caesonia kissed her child on the forehead and set her down; she immediately started to wail, holding her arms up to her mother and jumping up and down to be picked up again. After a few moments of being ignored she flew at her mother in a frenzy, tearing at her stola with sharp nails and teeth.

  Milonia Caesonia looked down with tired eyes at the screaming brat at her feet. ‘Do it now, Clemens.’

  Clemens grasped her shoulder with his left hand and punched his sword up under her ribs; her eyes bulged open and she exhaled softly. The child looked at the blood seeping from the wound and, after a moment’s incomprehension, started to laugh. Clemens gave one more thrust and Milonia Caesonia’s eyes closed. He wrenched his sword out and the child’s laughter died. With a squeal of fear she turned and scampered off.

  ‘Lupus! Get that monster,’ Clemens shouted, laying Milonia Caesonia’s body down.

  The centurion sprinted after the small figure and caught her within a few paces. She lashed out with her nails, drawing blood on his arm, as he lifted her, before sinking her teeth into his wrist. With a cry of pain, Lupus grabbed her ankle and held her, struggling and screeching, dangling upside-down at arm’s length.

  ‘For the sake of the gods, finish her!’ Clemens ordered.

  A shriek curtailed by a sickening crunch made Sabinus wince.

  After a quick look at his handiwork Lupus tossed the lifeless body aside to land in a crumpled, broken heap at the base of the bloodied column.

  ‘Good,’ Clemens said, sharing the relief that everyone in the room felt at the sudden quiet. ‘Now take half of your men and search the eastern side of the palace for Claudius.’ He pointed at a Praetorian optio. ‘Gratus, you take the other half into the western side.’

  With smart salutes Lupus and Gratus led their men off.

  Clemens turned to Sabinus. ‘I’m going to find where my drooling idiot of a patron has hidden himself. You should go now, my friend, it’s done; get out of the city before this becomes public.’

  ‘I think it already has,’ Sabinus replied. The good-humoured noise that had emanated from the theatre below had now turned into uproar.

  Sabinus squeezed his brother-in-law’s shoulder, turned and ran out of the palace. Screams and panicked cries filled the air as he raced down the Palatine.

  People had started to die.

  PART I

  ROME, THE SAME DAY

  CHAPTER I

  VESPASIAN HAD ENJOYED the play despite the Emperor’s constant interruptions; The Pot of Gold was not his favourite by Plautus but the dual-meaning dialogue, misunderstandings and slapstick chases as the miserly protagonist Euclio tries to hang onto his new-found wealth always made him laugh. The problem he had with the play was that he actually rather sympathised with Euclio’s desire to part with as little money as possible.

  The troupe of young male acrobats currently leaping about the stage did not enthral Vespasian in the way they did his uncle, Gaius Vespasius Pollo, seated next to him, so, as he waited for the next comedy to commence, he closed his eyes and dozed peacefully, thinking of his young son, Titus, now just over a year old.

  Vespasian woke with a start as a harsh, throaty cry cut through the half-hearted applause for the acrobats as their act reached a tumbling finale. He scanned his eyes over the heads of the audience for the source and cause of the yelling. Twenty paces to his left, a German Imperial Bodyguard came racing out of a covered staircase; his right hand was raised and covered in blood. He sprinted, shouting unintelligibly in his native tongue, towards eight of his colleagues guarding the entrance of the imperial box, recently vacated by the Emperor. The audience close by stared at the man in alarm as he brandished his blood-soaked hand in the bearded faces of his comrades.

  Vespasian turned to his uncle, still applauding the scantily clad youths leaving the stage, and stood, tugging at the sleeve of Gaius’ tunic. ‘I’ve a feeling that something bad is about to happen. We should leave immediately.’

  ‘What, dear boy?’ Gaius asked distractedly.

  ‘We need to go; right now!’

  The urgency in his nephew’s voice made Gaius heave his corpulent body to his feet, pulling a carefully tonged curl away from his eyes and casting one last look at the disappearing acrobats.

  Vespasian glanced nervously back over his shoulder as the German Bodyguards drew their long swords simultaneously. Their combined bellows of rage silenced the crowd nearest to them; a hush spread in a wave until it encompassed the entire audience.

  The Germans held their swords aloft, their faces contorted with rage, the roar dying in their throats. For an instant the hush, deep and tense, enveloped the whole theatre; all eyes fixed questioningly onto the nine barbarians. Then a sword flashed and a head spun through the air, spiralling blood that fell in heavy drops onto the people gawping up in open-mouthed bewilderment at the macabre missile spinning over them. The body of the decapitated spectator – a senator – spewed forth gore for two or three heart-pumps, sitting upright and motionless, drenching the horrified people surrounding it. It slumped forward onto a wideeyed, uncomprehending old man – also a senator – twisting round in the seat in front; a sword slammed into his gaping mouth, the point exploding through the back of his skull without his eyes changing expression.

  For another half-heartbeat there was complete stillness; then a single scream of a woman, as the head landed in her lap, shattered the moment and unleashed a cacophony of terror. The Germans swept forward in a blur of flickering iron, carving their way indiscriminately through the crowd, leaving in their wake the limbs and corpses of anyone too slow to join the immediate stampede away from them. In the imperial box the Senior Consul gazed stupefied at a snarling barbarian bearing down on him before leaping over the balustrade at the front and falling, arms and legs flailing, onto the backs of the panicking mob below.

  Vespasian thrust his uncle forward, pushing aside a screeching matron, and headed for the nearest gangway leading down between the aisles of seating, towards the stage. ‘Now’s not the time for good manners, Uncle.’ As he shoved his way down through the crush, using his uncle’s bulk as a battering ram, he caught glimpses of the mayhem all around. To his left, two senators went down under a hail of slashes. Behind him, three maddened Germans hacked their way through the surging mass, in a welter of blood, closing in on them. Vespasian caught the eye of the leading swordsman and felt his concentration fixed upon him. ‘Senators seem to be their main target, Uncle,’ he yelled pulling his toga from his right shoulder so that the broad, purple senatorial stripe would be less visible.

  ‘Why?’ Gaius shouted, treading over an unfortunate who had gone down in the crush.

  ‘I don’t know, just keep pushing.’

  With their combined body weight and downhill momentum they managed to heave their way away from the trailing Germans who had become entangled in the dead and dying. Bursting out into the relatively uncongested orchestra, between the seating and the stage, Vespasian risked another backwards glance and was shocked by the havoc just nine armed men could wreak amongst so many defenceless people. Bodies littered the seating and more than a few wore bloodied senatorial togas. He grabbed his uncle’s arm and broke into a run; he pushed his way up a short flight of steps, onto the stage and moved, as fast as Gaius could waddle, towards a bottlenecked arch in the scaenae frons on its far side, crammed with desperate people. Joining the scrum they jostled and sweated their way through, struggling to stay upright, feeling the soft flesh of those not
so fortunate beneath their feet, and eventually surged out of the theatre onto a street running along the base of the Palatine.

  The crowd streamed out to the right as, from the left, came the pounding, even steps of three centuries of an Urban Cohort advancing at the double. Vespasian and Gaius had no choice but to be swept along by the torrent whilst all the time easing themselves across to the edge. As he felt his left shoulder brush the wall, Vespasian looked out for a turning.

  ‘Ready, Uncle?’ he shouted as they approached the opening to an alley.

  Gaius huffed and wheezed; he nodded his head, beads of sweat flowing down his wobbling jowls. Vespasian yanked him left and they escaped the panic-driven flood.

  Vespasian almost tripped over the corpse of a German Imperial Bodyguard lying across the alley’s mud-splattered floor as they tore up its length. Just before the end they hurdled another German, bald but with a long blond beard, sitting leaning against the wall, grasping the stump of his right arm trying to stem the flow of blood; he stared down in horror at the severed hand, still clutching a sword, next to him. At the mouth of the alley Gaius caught his breath whilst Vespasian quickly looked around. To his right a man hobbled away, head down. Blood ran down his right leg from under his cloak; he held a sword slick with gore.