Battle for Rome

by Ian Ross

  He shared their feelings. Since his command had been taken from him he had felt all of those emotions. He was still an officer, but he had no fixed role in the army now; he was a tribunus vacans, a supernumerary, available for any duties that nobody else wanted.

  This was such a duty. His task was not difficult, but neither was it honourable. Many of the prisoners were wounded, and flies swarmed around them. Cooking fires sent grey smoke swirling between the huddled bodies, and the air stank of stale sweat, urine and excrement.

  Following the curve of seats around to the eastern gateway, Castus mounted the steps to the podium. He could see the mass of men shifting and stirring, many gathering on the open space below him, others keeping their distance. Most of them were from the garrison of the city, which had surrendered as soon as news had come of the battle, but some had been captured on the field and marched back here under heavy guard. Standing up before them, feet braced, he stuck his thumbs in his belt.

  ‘Soldiers,’ he called out in his best parade-ground voice. He saw with vague pleasure the flinch of pride that ran through them, the instinctive stiffening of posture, the vestiges of military discipline. Castus waited for them to settle, then addressed them.

  ‘You are defeated men. You have lost your honour. But you are still Romans, still soldiers.’ The words felt stiff and awkward in his mouth. Truly he hated this job. The mass of prisoners gazed up at him blankly.

  ‘You have the opportunity to redeem yourselves,’ he went on. ‘All you have to do is walk through this gate below me.’ He gestured downwards at the shadowed archway beside the podium, where a strong force of guards waited. ‘Walk through there, and declare your willingness to serve in the army of Constantine Augustus. Your service under the tyrant Maxentius will be forgiven, and you will be able to take up arms once more and stand proudly under the standards of our legions.’

  He paused, trying to make himself smile. The scar on his jaw gave him an unfriendly look, he knew.

  ‘Get to Hades, you lying Pannonian fuck,’ one of the prisoners called out. ‘And take your Constantine Augustus with you!’

  ‘Give us food!’ another shouted, and a chorus of agreement followed.

  Castus glowered down at them, setting his teeth and drawing up his heavy shoulders. The two soldiers behind him edged forward nervously, but Castus knew there was no real threat. The archers all around the parapets already had arrows nocked on their bowstrings; any prisoners attempting an attack would be shot down at once.

  ‘You will get all the provisions you want if you agree to serve,’ he called out. ‘Just take the oath of allegiance, and you will be restored to the dignity of soldiers and receive full pay and allowances.’

  Already he could see knots of men sloping forward, many looking ashamed of themselves, and vanishing into the archway beneath him. There were scuffles breaking out, some men trying to restrain their comrades from leaving.

  ‘Think on it!’ Castus cried. ‘I’ll be back here tomorrow to repeat the offer!’

  With a shudder of relief, he stepped down from the podium. How much longer, Castus wondered, would the last hard core be kept in this place? Several thousand had already gone over to Constantine’s side, but thousands remained. What would be done with them? He had already had more than enough of hectoring them like this; personally, he would rather die than betray his oath. Encouraging other men to do so sickened him.

  As he climbed back up towards the barred exit gate on the upper tiers, Castus saw a group of prisoners blocking the steps above him. Hard-looking men, most of them in bloodstained tunics. They stared coldly at him as he approached.

  ‘Clear the path,’ one of the guards behind him growled, raising the butt of his spear. One of the prisoners stood up, clearly the leader of this little group. He was thin and muscular, with a bald, sunburnt skull and a scrubby rust-coloured beard.

  ‘Name and rank, soldier,’ Castus said.

  The red-bearded man stuck out his chest, his hand going to a sword hilt that was not there. ‘Claudius Sergianus,’ he said. ‘Centurion, Ninth Praetorian Cohort.’

  Castus sniffed, nodded. ‘Got something to say to me?’ At the periphery of his vision he could make out the shapes of archers silhouetted on the parapet above him.

  Sergianus tipped his head back, giving Castus a lean and unblinking stare.

  ‘Me and my boys won’t turn traitor for you, or anybody,’ he said. ‘You can go and tell your emperor that.’ He made a kissing sound with his teeth, then spat on the stone steps.

  ‘Can’t say I blame you,’ Castus said. He climbed another two steps, until he was level with the centurion. ‘Right. You’ve said your bit. Now get out of my way.’

  The centurion flicked his gaze between Castus and the spears of the men behind him. Castus knew what he was thinking. He saw the challenge die in Sergianus’s eyes, and the prisoner stepped back.

  Climbing the steps to the gate, the sun hot on his neck, Castus tried to appear calm and unconcerned. Only when the iron gate had swung closed again and he was in the cool darkness of the tunnel beneath the stalls did he allow the angry tension to shudder through him.

  *

  ‘It’s impossible, as I’ve told you before.’

  ‘Dominus – did you even pass on the message?’

  ‘Listen to me. He will not receive you. The Augustus isn’t even here at the moment – he’s gone to a villa on Lake Benacus. Leave it, Castus…’

  Leontius was reclining on a couch in his quarters, eating grapes. He appeared grander these days, Castus noticed. His valiant command of the left infantry flank during the battle had gained him a promise of promotion; now, with Evander leading half the army eastwards to besiege Aquileia, Leontius had been left in effective command of the troops at Verona.

  ‘Dominus,’ Castus said, uncomfortable with pleading, ‘if I could just be allowed to see the Augustus once… apologise to him…’

  ‘Apologise?’ Leontius said, incredulous. ‘Brother – what apology could ever be acceptable? You’re lucky you only lost your legion – you could have lost your head!’

  ‘So what was I supposed to do?’ Castus said angrily. He had refused the offer of a chair, and remained standing. ‘Leave him to die in the middle of the battle?’

  Leontius winced, scrubbing at his bristling eyebrows with a thumb. ‘Not only,’ he said, pained, ‘did you lay hands upon the sacred person of the emperor. You also screamed abuse at him, and refused his order to advance!’

  ‘The order of a madman, in the circumstances. I saved his life.’

  ‘Brother, please. You do not accuse the Invincible Augustus of being a madman, or a… what was it? Insane idiot!’

  Castus frowned. Had Constantine himself remembered that remark? It seemed incredible. Perhaps the emperor was just so unaccustomed to abuse it had stuck with him? His guts churned with acid heat.

  ‘Give it time,’ Leontius said, slumping back on the couch. ‘The emperor is tired. We’re all tired… This campaign’s taking its toll. Nobody’s even sure if we’re going to march against Rome this autumn or remain here in the north until next spring. We lost nearly four thousand dead or maimed in the battle – the enemy lost four times as many, but even so. Now the men are going down with campaign fever… They’re puking and shitting themselves to death.’

  Castus grunted. He had heard the rumours. ‘That bad, eh?’ he said.

  ‘Worse. There are stories going around that Maxentius has cursed the army. That the fever’s caused by a magic wind sent from Rome! As if we needed that…’ Leontius laughed grimly. ‘A man like you,’ he went on in a more placatory tone, ‘will always be needed, sooner or later. Just keep your head down and wait until the time’s right. Then I’ll do what I can for you.’

  Castus exhaled, letting his shoulders drop. ‘Just don’t send me back into that amphitheatre,’ he said, glancing towards the bar of hot light at the tent door. ‘Give me some other duty. Even supervising the latrines…’

  ‘Ah, t
he amphitheatre…’ Leontius shrugged. ‘Yes, you’ve probably done as much as you can there. The gods know what we’ll do with the rest of the prisoners. There’s talk of forging their swords into manacles – I don’t even know if that’s possible…’ He paused, popping another grape into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. ‘Why not go back to Mediolanum for a while?’ he said. ‘Your wife’s there, isn’t she? I can write you an order to, I don’t know, check the arsenals or something.’

  Sabina, thought Castus. And Lepidus too. But he nodded, mumbled his thanks.

  ‘Take some of these grapes before you go. They’ll be too ripe to eat soon. Everything’s going rotten in this heat…’

  *

  Castus made the journey in two days, riding in a fast two-horse carriage of the imperial despatch service. He stayed a night in Brixia, and reached Mediolanum early the next evening. All the way he had tried not to think what would happen when he saw Sabina again, tried not to imagine what he would say, or what her reply might be. Let it happen, he thought. Let the dice fall.

  He was already in a state of barely subdued anger as he arrived at the house. The evening light was warm, and the street stank of hot drains. He banged on the door, then announced himself to the startled porter. Slaves conducted him into the vestibule and fussed around him, bringing water to wash the dust of the road from his face and slippers for his feet. He was glowering as he marched through the doors into the pillared central courtyard.

  ‘Dominus!’ cried the procurator, Metrodorus, raising his hands. ‘You grace us with an unexpected visit!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Castus said, ‘I won’t be needing much, Just have some food prepared and the water heated – I need a proper wash.’ He had seen the fear in the procurator’s eyes at once; the man was almost trembling with nerves.

  ‘At once, dominus, at once…’

  Castus seated himself on the low wall between the courtyard pillars. He unpinned his cloak and tossed it aside. Metrodorus was still bobbing about nervously, with a look of unctuous concern on his face. His fingers were greasy and he had food on his tunic; clearly he had been disturbed over his evening meal. Castus did not care. He found that he disliked the man more than ever.

  ‘Bring wine for the dominus!’ Metrodorus snapped at the two slaves standing slack-jawed by the entranceway. ‘And have the furnace and the oven lit! Summon the cook!’

  Glancing around while the slaves dashed to their duties, Castus quickly judged that his wife was not at home. Through the open doors he could see furniture in some of the rooms; Sabina had clearly closed up the house in Treveris and moved everything down here. How much, Castus wondered vaguely, would that have cost? There was a gilded cage hanging in one corner of the courtyard, between the pillars. Inside, a silent and disconsolate-looking songbird. Had Sabina perhaps intended that as a hint?

  ‘Come with me,’ Castus told the procurator as he stood up. He strode towards the main reception chamber, with Metrodorus bobbing behind him. The sense of angry urgency that had propelled him all the way from Verona had shifted now; he felt unnaturally calm. He knew the mood was deceptive; it was similar to the intensely charged stillness he sometimes felt before a fight.

  There was still a faint smudge of blood on the plastered wall of the reception chamber, where Castus had smashed the nose of the soldier accused of rape. He wondered whether Sabina had ever noticed it there. It looked brown now, unidentifiable. Walking to the recessed apse at the back of the room, Castus ordered Metrodorus to dismiss the slave attendants and close the doors. The light retreated at the creak of the hinges, and shadow filled the chamber.

  ‘Where is my wife?’ Castus said, turning to confront the procurator.

  Metrodorus swallowed hard, but stood his ground. ‘She left five days ago, or perhaps six,’ he said. ‘She disliked the heat in the city, and said she was going to a villa in the hills, or perhaps somewhere near Comum – she was not clear…’

  ‘She went with the emperor’s wife? Or was she alone?’

  ‘Ah, no, dominus… that is, I believe…’

  Castus closed the distance between them in three strides and seized the procurator by the front of his tunic, bunching the cloth into his fist and hauling the man up onto his toes. ‘Tell me the truth,’ he said through bared teeth. ‘All of it.’

  ‘With a man!’ Metrodorus stammered. ‘She went with a man, forgive me!’ Sweat beaded his face, glimmering in the faint light.

  ‘Which man? His name?’

  ‘I do not know! He… sent his slaves here with a litter. I have never seen him… But he is a man of wealth, a powerful minister, I believe…’

  ‘These slaves wore livery? Light blue tunics?’

  Metrodorus nodded quickly. ‘Dominus, I… I thought you knew!’

  It took a moment for the man’s suggestion to register. Then Castus roared, hurling the procurator away from him. Metrodorus staggered sideways, collided with the wall and slid to the floor, raising his hands before him.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘For many months…’ Metrodorus said, struggling to speak. ‘Since we were in Treveris, perhaps even since the winter…’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Castus was advancing on the man with clenched fists. Metrodorus quailed back against the wall. From somewhere inside him he summoned a vestige of courage.

  ‘With all respect, dominus… it was not my job! I am your procurator. I oversee the affairs of your household…’ He winced at the unfortunate phrase. ‘The financial matters, the… domestic economy. I am not here to report on your wife’s behaviour!’

  ‘Report now,’ Castus said, grinding out the words. ‘How would you describe my wife’s behaviour?’ He wanted to hear it all. The bitter truth, which he could no longer pretend to ignore.

  ‘The domina Sabina…’ Metrodorus got to his feet and straightened his tunic. There was a hard look in his eyes now, the pouched flesh of his cheeks tightening. ‘She has disgraced you. She has abused your household and acted like a courtesan. It is my opinion that she is no better than a common whore.’

  Castus stood in the centre of the room, clenching and relaxing his fists. He wanted to destroy something. The procurator’s words hung in the air, and he knew he could kill the man without thinking. But pain was flashing through his mind, and he felt a black gulf opening inside him, a sinking sense of weakness and futility. Violence had been his answer to so much, but it would solve nothing now.

  ‘Get out,’ he told the procurator. ‘ I don’t want to see you again.’

  *

  As he moved through the house Castus noticed everyone shrinking away from him. Slaves turned quickly as he approached, vanishing through doorways or just pressing themselves up against walls. Nobody wanted to look at him. They were afraid, he knew. Dull with anger and grief, he recalled stories of slave-owners flogging their entire households for some supposed failing.

  In the dining room there was a simple meal laid out, and he ate standing, hardly conscious of what he was doing, tasting nothing. Fantasies of vengeance flickered through his mind as he dipped bread into olive oil: he could find this villa in the hills, or near Comum, or wherever it was. He could kill them, kill them both… But he knew it was hopeless. He had lost everything. His legion, his honour, and now his wife too.

  A faint cry came from outside. My son, he thought suddenly, pausing as he raised a piece of bread. How could I have forgotten my son?

  Cursing to himself, he threw down the bread and stalked quickly from the room. Of course Sabina would not have taken the child with her; he should have known that at once, but his mind had been fogged with other concerns. The courtyard outside was suffused with warm evening light, and Castus stood for a moment glancing around – he still felt like a stranger here – before he heard the cry again. It had come from the small garden court at the side of the house.

  Stepping through the gateway into the coolness beneath the brick colonnade, he saw the figure of a woman in a plain green dr
ess, walking slowly as she clasped a large bundle to her shoulder. The blonde woman, he realised, the barbarian nursemaid, carrying his son. She was whispering to the child, soothing him with words in her own language. As she turned the corner of the colonnade she noticed Castus and tensed, cupping the back of the child’s head as if to protect it.

  ‘Don’t speak loudly,’ she whispered, in her accented Latin.

  Castus moved a little further into the garden court, feeling the sense of slow shadowed tranquillity easing his mind slightly. Leaning against one of the brick pillars, he waited for the woman to draw nearer.

  ‘Sabbi was sleeping, but the noise woke him,’ the slave said, sitting down carefully on a bench against the far wall, the baby cradled in her lap. The child was quiet now; he lifted a hand from inside the shawl that wrapped him, and Castus saw the woman put the tip of her finger into his mouth. Sabinus, he thought. The male form of his wife’s name seemed all the more inappropriate for the boy now. He must be almost exactly a year old, Castus realised. Hardly a baby at all, although he still looked so small and fragile cradled in the woman’s lap. Leaning forward, Castus saw the dark silky hair covering the child’s head, the soft pink eyelids.

  ‘You want to hold him?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘No!’ Castus said quickly. He folded his arms. He felt calmer, strangely at ease now, but he knew the desolate rage was still inside him. He had the terrible sensation that he would injure his son somehow if he touched him.

  ‘I remember you, I think,’ he said. The woman raised her head, and her eyes appeared to gain focus. She was perhaps a year or two younger than Sabina, with blonde hair pinned up loosely, a broad forehead and a deeply dimpled chin. She did not smile, and there was a sharp clarity in her blue eyes that Castus found slightly unnerving. He had never been comfortable in female company. But this woman, at least, was not afraid to look at him.