by M C Scott
‘And Pantera?’ I asked. All eyes turned to the head of the table. The man was not a soldier, but none the less … ‘What will you do?’
Pantera laid down his unused quill. He stretched out, languid as a cat on a bough. Only his eyes betrayed him, for they were not languid at all.
‘I will come with you to Alexandria and introduce you there to those who can help your cause. The fellowship of Isis, I think, will support you, and others whose loyalty is unshakable. After that, I will travel to Rome and work towards your ascent to the throne. To that end, I will bring to you the services of Seneca’s spy network. We will need spies local to Rome; men and women who are so embedded in the fabric of society that their presence is taken for granted. We need freedmen, tradesmen, whores, taverners, ostlers, equestrians, senators and their women, all pulling in the same direction, all united by trust. Seneca created such a network and there is nothing in the empire to match it.’
I ran my tongue around my teeth, found a fragment of fish, and chewed on it until the salt burst on my tongue.
‘Seneca is dead,’ I said. ‘He set himself against Nero and paid with his life.’
‘His legacy lives on.’
‘Under your command?’
‘Under his successor, the new spymaster, known as the Poet. We have discussed your cause and the network will support it.’
‘Really? And you only thought to tell me now?’ I chose temporarily to forget that he had only arrived in the night, and had found himself in the middle of an assassination attempt.
I paced the floor; it helps me think. ‘Why? Why are you doing this? You’ve been pushing me towards outright treason since you first brought back the Eagle of the Twelfth. Why?’
‘Seneca’s final request, his order, if you like, to those of us who served him, was that we find a man worthy of the empire and set him on the throne. In our opinion, you are that man.’
‘The only worthwhile man in the entire empire?’ Disbelief must have shown on my face. ‘You can’t be that desperate!’
Pantera said nothing, only blinked in a way that, beyond all reason, reminded me of my dream, and so of Caenis.
I turned on my heel. ‘Come with me.’
Titus and Mucianus rose, but I waved them back, and poked Pantera with the heel of one hand. ‘Only you.’
I needed to be alone and we couldn’t go out the front; half the army was waiting there. So I pushed through the back flap of the tent into the small space outside where the night guards squatted to relieve themselves.
Pantera followed me and, with care, he and I negotiated a path to the centre, holding our breaths against the stink.
Above, a solitary hawk rode the winds, or perhaps it was a carrion bird, come to feed on the two dead men; at sixty, my sight is not what it once was.
I watched it a moment, seeking calm, and then looked again at the waiting spy. I had no idea, really, who this man was. I didn’t even know if he was a Roman citizen. But I knew what he could do. I learned a long time ago that men are best judged by their actions.
‘What did we lose?’ I asked. ‘What was the assassin about to reveal that was so dangerous to our enemies that Albinius had to expose himself to kill him? What did he say that made you heat the irons?’
‘He said, “They hate you. They will see everything you care for destroyed.”’
‘Everything you care for? You? Not me?’ That made the hair stand proud on my neck, I can tell you. I said, ‘I thought you were secret? I mean, obviously people know you exist, but I was given to understand that nobody outside a select few knew you were a spy.’
Pantera’s gaze was lost on some distant horizon. ‘It’s possible that Nero kept notes and they have been found.’
‘Nero?’ No one shed tears when that one died; maybe we should have done, seeing the mess it left us with. ‘What did he know?’
‘Too much. He was one of Seneca’s protégés; he always knew more than was safe. I’ll learn how much more when I get back to Rome.’
‘You still plan to return?’
‘If I stay away, Lucius and Vitellius have won before we start.’ Pantera’s smile was dry, no humour in it, no sudden vivacity. ‘With or without me, the legions will put you on the throne. You don’t need me, but I may be able to smooth the way. With your permission, I would like to try.’
He talked as if it were a given that we would launch this war. His eyes came to rest on my face, full of surmise.
I said, ‘I have one condition.’
‘Name it.’
I dragged the ring from my finger, the only one I ever wore. I have it back now. It looks cheap, it is cheap; gold and silver mixed, with the emblem of the oak branch on it. It looks like nothing, but everyone who knows me, knows it.
I held it out to him. ‘See my family safe. I cannot bring them out of Rome: to endeavour to do so would make them immediate targets. And in any case, they won’t leave.’
That was true. I have never had the authority over my family that I have over my men. Pantera knew that, I think.
‘So do this for me. Go straight to Rome and act in my stead to see them safe. Sabinus, my brother, is prefect of the city. We have never had an easy relationship; he’s a politician and I am a soldier and he will hate this, whatever he says, but he is my brother, and I would not have him hurt by my recklessness. Domitian, my second son, is only eighteen and a quiet boy, not made for war. He lives with Caenis, freedwoman of Antonia, and she is … if you know anything about me, you know what she is.’
Softly, ‘I know.’
‘Then know this: Lucius must not be allowed to kill these three out of hatred of me, for if I am emperor and any one of them has come to harm, all the power in the world will not repair their loss. Do you understand?’
He looked me squarely in the eye. ‘I do.’
‘Do you accept?’
‘I do. I will protect these three with my life. And I will make sure that Seneca’s network of local spies in Rome and its immediate provinces smooths your path to the—’
‘No! Listen to me! Do you know what it means to love?’
It was the dream that drove me, and the sense of things sliding out of control. I gripped Pantera’s arms, high, by the shoulders.
We were face to face, an arm’s length apart. I could see the detail in his face, lose myself in the turbulent oceans of his eyes.
The emperor Tiberius once famously said that taking rule of the empire was like grasping a wolf by its ears; dangerous beyond comprehension, but impossible safely to let go.
Here, now, in the foul latrine space behind my own command tent, I found that I had grasped a leopard by the shoulders and I was not at all sure of the consequences.
I waited, and in his face I saw a wall brought down, a closed door opened. Where had been a mirror was now a glass, and what I saw through it was my own fear made barren. I saw who I would be if Caenis were to die, or Domitian; if I were betrayed by those I loved. The vision left me colder than the assassin’s touch.
‘I had a wife once,’ Pantera said, and his voice was a husk. ‘And a daughter.’
Had. I didn’t want to ask, and must. ‘What happened?’
‘I killed them both, that the enemy who had defeated us might not take them as slaves. My daughter was three years old. I cut her throat while she lay in her mother’s arms. And then I killed the woman I loved.’
What could I say? I stood silent, and after a while Pantera took my two hands in his own and lowered them from his shoulders.
Formally, he said, ‘I have no brother, but know what it is to love a man as if he were that close. I might have killed my own daughter, but I have another still alive. I have never seen her, and she is raised as another man’s child, but even so, I understand some of what you mean when you say Caenis, Domitian and Sabinus are dear to you.
‘I swear to you now that I will protect the lives of these three with my own, or I will answer to you when you are emperor.’ He shifted a little, listening. �
��And now, my lord, I think you must dress, and go out to meet your legions.’
This once, he was late, for I had already heard it: the susurration of a thousand sandalled feet scuffing over sand, the hush of men trained in silent assault.
I was not under assault any more, but I had heard this sound so often in the pre-dawn dark of a raid on a village, or a town, or a cluster of caves in the desert, that it raised battle blood in my veins.
An unexpected flap of tent skin made me jump: Demalion was there, and Hades take him but the lad was smiling. Not broadly, not with Titus’ ripe humour or Pantera’s scarred irony, but the sweep of his mouth was unquestionably up instead of down, and it was this small miracle, with its promise of a flask of Falerian, that told me I had crossed my own Rubicon; that there was, in truth, no going back.
Demalion carried my tunic over his arm, and my armour pack, and my silvered greaves and the enamelled belt, worn through to the bronze beneath with three decades’ wear. With his help, I dressed as fast as I have ever done, and then I lifted the tent flap with my own hand.
I looked left and right, to Titus and Mucianus who had come to join me. Behind were Pantera and Demalion.
‘Shall we go to meet our destiny?’
Outside, the day felt newly minted; sharp, fresh, not yet too hot. My men were standing in parade order, line upon line, in their hundreds, their thousands, in their shining, dazzling tens of thousands: the IIIrd, the Xth, the XVth, that were my own, plus the IVth Scythians, the VIth Ferrata, and the ill-fated XIIth Fulminata commanded by Mucianus.
There was a moment’s lingering stillness as each man took a breath and the suck of it rippled soundlessly back from the front lines to the rearmost.
It held one last, long heartbeat, and then the morning split asunder, rent by a wall of sound as, with one voice, thirty thousand men hailed me in the word that made me their ruler.
‘Imperator!’
PART II
INTERNAL SPIES
CHAPTER FIVE
Rome, 1 August AD 69
Sextus Geminus, centurion, the Praetorian Guard
IT WAS RAINING on the morning of the lead lottery that was my first true introduction to Pantera; the kind of torrential rain that felt as if the gods had upended the Tiber and were pouring the result on to our heads; the kind of rain where you were drenched to the skin as soon as you stepped out of the door; the kind of rain that everyone said was a bad omen.
But still, it was only rain; nobody was dying, and in any case, we were legionaries: if we were ordered out of barracks, we went.
Vitellius had given the order. He didn’t believe in the power of omens and he wasn’t going to cancel his precious ceremony just because the sky was weeping, so we were called to parade in the forum at the second watch after dawn and had to stand in our cohorts, listening to him read his speech.
We should have known it was bad then. I mean, really … we’d just marched the length of Italy, and risked our lives half a dozen times to put him on the throne. We’d fought other legions, just as good as us, when the men in them were our brothers, our fathers, cousins, friends and lovers. We’d killed men we admired and marched over their bleeding bodies in his name. Was it so hard to say thank you?
I’ve done it without notes, he could have done the same. But no, he had to read from his sodden scroll and we had to stand and watch it disintegrate in his hands. When he was done, we had to about-face and slow-march to the top of the Capitol.
There are three routes up that particular hill. If you’re feeling fit, there’s the Hundred Steps on the north face that take you straight up to the north gate, but it’s a stiff and savage rise. If you want something slightly less vicious, there’s the Gemonian steps on the southwestern aspect. That’s the place where the bodies of executed criminals are exposed before they’re tipped into the Tiber.
And then there’s the long, slow, winding path that takes you up the south slope on to the Arx and then across the saddle of the Asylum before you reach the Capitol proper and the temple of the three gods.
This was the new emperor’s opportunity to display his victorious troops to his city, which meant we had to take the slow route so that the masses could line the streets and cheer. They did, of course; to do anything else risked being arrested for sedition.
He’d already banned the astrologers, which did nothing much beyond ensuring that every street corner was decorated with graffiti telling in detail how the stars predicted his death. Everyone read it and half believed it, but nobody wanted to be next in line for exile, so the plebs turned up in force and stood in the driving rain to cheer us as we marched out of the forum.
I hadn’t been back in Rome for long and it was interesting to see what had changed. Nero’s giant statue was still there; Galba had taken it down and Otho had put it back up again. I think Vitellius couldn’t decide whether he wanted to make friends with the senate, who hated Nero, which meant he’d have to take it down, or with the people, who’d loved him, and wanted it to stay. I don’t think the fact that it was still there meant he sided with the people, more that he was just really bad at making decisions.
So we passed Nero, and remembered not to salute as we’d done when we were last in Rome, and on we marched up the hill, past the statue of Juno Moneta and on towards the mint, where you could feel the blast from the furnaces even through the rain.
The coiners had been working night and day since we came back to Rome, melting down coins of the other emperors ready for reminting. Vitellius had only just got round to sitting for the celators so it was only the newest coins that had his image on.
It wasn’t a bad likeness. If you only look at his face, he’s a good-looking man, taller than any of us by half a head, with a strong nose and a bald circle on his pate that can look quite stately at times.
He was lame, though, which is less than ideal in a general, and it wasn’t as if it was an injury gained in the field; he’d broken his thigh bone in a chariot accident, which is about as stupid as it gets, really.
So we passed the mint and the coins in my pouch jingled in sympathy with those being put to the fire, and my guts griped, and if I could have walked off down the path I would have done.
Why? Because the whole thing was a mistake. If you’re going to follow someone all the way to Rome, you have to make sure it’s the right man, and Vitellius was never that.
I said so in January when the whole thing started about not renewing our oath to Galba and swearing to Vitellius instead. I argued as long as I could, but there’s a point when loyalty to the old regime becomes treachery to the new and I had my men to think of.
So I swore with the rest of them and after that … when it comes to the edge, a man’s word is his only coin. If you can’t keep an oath, you’re no better than the barbarians.
On we trudged, past the row of dilapidated priests’ dwellings, each leaning on the next like an old man in want of a stick, and on, shuffling in through the vast and ancient gates of the temple, which has been home to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva since the time when Rome was too poor to build them a temple each and had to house all three under the one roof. Later, when there was gold enough and more to spare, nobody was about to offend two out of the three most revered deities in the city by rehoming them elsewhere.
So we were left that day to wait under the combined gaze of the three, each one cast in bronze, three times life-sized, standing amongst the columns in mute tolerance of us mortals who milled around their feet.
It was cold, then. We had stopped marching and the rain sank into our bones. I was a stinking mass of fulled wool and wet linen; a drenched dog would have smelled better.
The priests had lit extra braziers against the cold, and were burning incense on them by the fistful. I breathed in feathers of blue smoke that tickled my nose to the edge of a sneeze until, eventually, we officers were summoned forward into the central sanctum. In there, I didn’t sneeze at all.
Since I was a boy, I have been struck sile
nt by this place, by the weight of empire bearing down on the roof beams. Built by the good king Tarquin at the founding of Rome, dedicated by the hero Horatius, a shrine of some sort has stood on this site since the city was no more than a spark in one man’s imagination.
Legend said that if the temple were to fall, Rome would fall with it: everyone knew this. Nobody, of course, expected it to happen.
‘Sextus Geminus! Formerly of the Fourth Macedonica!’
My head snapped up; it does when you hear your own name. I looked to the altar and there, staring at me, was Aulus Caecina, legionary legate of that very IVth Macedonica, the general who had driven us through the Alps at a time when everyone else said winter had made the routes impassable. If any one man made Vitellius emperor, it was him. I have never quite known how to be in his company, and knew now least of all.
At least he was alone. There were priests on either side of him, of course, but no other officers. I had been afraid that Lucius might have been there; seeing Caecina alone was the first good thing that happened that day.
I did what eighty-three men before me had done, and seventy-six did after. I took eight good paces forward, knelt before the bright, hot fire, and stretched out my left hand.
A priest standing at Caecina’s right side thrashed the air about my head with a laurel branch, sign of victory. Another priest, smaller and broader in the beam, glanced down at his notes, filled his lungs and bellowed, ‘Sextus Geminus! First centurion, fifth cohort, the new Praetorian Guards!’
So that was my new rank. It was the same as the old one, except that the Guard was … the Guard. Better paid, kept in Rome, responsible for guarding the emperor’s life with our own.
