Rome 4: The Art of War

by M C Scott

  ‘The knife, then,’ Otho said, and there was a moment, standing in the burst of sunlight, when we were both alive, and had all the hopes of the world between us.

  And then Otho moved, one single inward stroke that drove the blade into his heart, and all hope was gone.

  I held him as he died, felt the wild, erratic rhythm of his heart leap and buck and patter to silence.

  I closed his eyes against the cruel day and lowered him to the floor and then, before I went out to speak to the officers, freedmen and slaves waiting outside the tent, I reached under the pillow, still warm from his head, and transferred the letter that lay there into the breast of my tunic.

  In Caenis’ atrium, I opened my eyes. I saw her first; a small, bright sparrow of a woman, with a fine mind and moist eyes.

  She had known Otho, and cared for him. Jocasta had known him too, she who was not small or sparrow-like at all, but burned bright as a furnace, her wild intelligence unshielded; vital.

  And behind me was Pantera, who had not yet let his blade drop. I turned my head, slowly, and felt it score round my neck. I stopped when the tip was digging into my larynx.

  ‘I am yours,’ I said. ‘Accept me now, to help you in any way I can, to promote your mission, whatever it is, to expend my last tear, my last drop of blood, in the defeat of Vitellius – or kill me. The choice must be yours. I have said all I can.’

  There was a time when I would have laughed at any such grand, noble gestures, but then Otho had made his one grand, noble gesture and changed my world. I laughed at different things now; dead Guards, mostly.

  I thought Pantera might laugh, and, laughing, kill me. I was strangely at peace with the thought.

  The tip of the knife was a focal point of pain; just enough to notice. Blood pooled in the hollow of my throat. I counted a dozen heartbeats before the pressure slackened off.

  Something had gone on over my head, a silent exchange between Pantera, Jocasta and Caenis that I wish I had seen; Jocasta was like a lamp burning in my soul by then, and I couldn’t think why I had ever left her in Rome, unwed.

  It was Caenis, with her innate compassion, who spoke first.

  ‘Will you renew your Guard’s oath,’ she asked, gravely, ‘in the name of the emperor Vespasian, accepting myself and Pantera as his agents, to be obeyed in all things?’

  After Otho’s death, I had not expected to find joy again, certainly not so soon. But it was with joy that I turned, and knelt and placed my hands in hers and spoke again the words of my legionary oath that had been inscribed on my heart since my first day in the legions.

  ‘I swear in the name of Jupiter, Best and Greatest, that the emperor Vespasian is my lord and master in all things, that unto death will I serve him and his and at his command. I offer my life in the protection of his demesne. And’ – this was not in the oath – ‘I will undertake personally to reach the men on this list, as many as I may, and tell them of our lord’s endeavours, and bring them, heart and soul, to his support.’

  They allowed me a small silence, a moment of dignity, and then Jocasta said from behind my right shoulder, ‘You may do that, but someone has got in ahead of you. This is the news I came to bring. Lucius heard it this morning and told me: Antonius Primus, the legate of the Seventh Galbania, has brought together the five Balkan legions and sworn them to Vespasian. He is marching at the head of thirty thousand men, straight for Rome. If nobody stops him, he’ll be at the gates by Saturnalia. So now the only way to prevent all-out civil war is to identify those men who will support Vespasian and push them into doing it openly. If enough legions can be brought to his side, Vitellius’ generals might abandon their cause.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rome, 4 August AD 69

  Jocasta

  I’M NOT SURE what I expected after I told them about Antonius Primus and his blatant opportunism, but it wasn’t that we’d be up all night talking through strategies to turn him to our best advantage.

  By dawn, when we’d run out of words, my eyes felt as if they’d been rubbed with goose grease and sand; each blink was slow and gritty. Thinking was hard.

  ‘We should leave.’ I stood, slowly, rolling my shoulders. ‘The Guards will come back with the sun and they must find the lady Caenis and lord Domitian here alone. The rest of us must leave while it’s still dark.’

  ‘I could escort …’ Domitian had been half asleep. His cheek held the scarlet imprint of his fist where he had leaned on it for the past hours. He pushed himself upright now, scrubbing away the memories of dreams with the heel of his hand.

  I smiled for him; he was a good boy. Strange, yes, solitary, inward, scarred by a life lived in the shade of his perfect brother, the soldier and seducer of queens, but good all the same. Whatever else happened later, you must believe me when I say that I did not want to see him hurt.

  That August morning in Caenis’ atrium, with the early sun shining silver on the flat sheen of the pond, I said simply, ‘Thank you. It would be good to have your company, but you must stay here with the lady Caenis. You must seem to wake if the Guards come. You must be ready to lie for your life and ours. Can you do that?’

  You see? I was good to him. His smile was radiant. I squeezed his shoulder as friends do to each other. Trabo glowered, which was ridiculous, but he was as exhausted as the rest of us … one has to make excuses. Caenis, on the other hand, looked as if her heart might break on Domitian’s behalf, which was unfortunate, but there was nothing I could do about it just then. He was the son of the man who might become emperor and I wished to remain on the right side of him, but I had no intention of relieving him of his virginity, which was what he so clearly wanted.

  What did Pantera do?

  Nothing. That is, I don’t remember him doing anything particular, except that he grasped Caenis in a brotherly embrace and kissed her cheek and it looked to me as if he whispered something. So yes, all right, he did do something, and very probably it had a bearing on what came next.

  A last moment’s brisk leave-taking gripped us all and then we three who were leaving stepped out into the remains of the night, each heading in a different direction.

  Trabo went along the road to the Inn of the Crossed Spears, Pantera turned uphill and I headed west, towards the Aventine, and home.

  I had gone maybe three streets when a low whistle ahead and to the right made me spin away into the shelter of a doorway, reaching for my knife.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Pantera? Are you trying to die?’ If I had been less tired, or more tired … but he was hardly fresh himself. The strain of being constantly hunted was taking its toll. He was leaning back against a wall, as if brick and mortar were holding him up as much as willpower.

  He said, ‘How much of what happened tonight will you have to tell Lucius?’

  ‘I’ll tell him I went to visit Caenis. He’ll flog the men for not seeing me, but that’s fine. I’ll tell him she is concerned for Vespasian’s safety but there is remarkably little she can do besides offer succour to such men of his faction as come to Rome.’

  ‘Trabo?’

  ‘I won’t tell him about Trabo, no. And I won’t tell him you were there. I won’t tell him what we planned. Particularly, I won’t tell him what I must do to Valens and Caecina.’

  This last was the heart and soul of our night’s plan so I may as well tell it to you now.

  From the start, it had been clear that it was far too late to turn around the legate Antonius Primus and his five legions. To be honest, I don’t think even a direct order from Vespasian would have got him to stop; he’d just have killed the messenger and then denied the order ever reached him.

  I knew him, you see, from his time in Rome. He’s one of those men who is a nightmare in peacetime but you want him on your side when war starts if only to keep him from going over to the enemy. Lucius had made a big mistake in not wooing him, but the man was a legionary legate of a minor legion stationed in Pannonia; if he’d tried to woo every single com
mander who might have decided to win glory for himself he’d have drained the imperial coffers within days.

  So; Antonius Primus was an ambitious idiot who had risked everything in a pre-emptive move, but he was moving, and he had to be supported. If he were beaten, many of the men who would otherwise have sided with Vespasian would turn their backs on him when he needed them most.

  Vitellius’ men knew this equally well, so they were bound to send some or all of their legions to try to stop him in his tracks. Pantera thought it would be useful, therefore, if only one of Lucius’ two generals was able to take to the field. Furthermore, it would be doubly useful if the active general was inclined to Vespasian’s cause.

  That’s where I came in. I offered to make sure that either Caecina or Valens was incapacitated and the other was inclined to defect. Nobody had asked me how I planned to achieve this but I thought that Pantera, who knew most about me, might have guessed.

  In the early dawn light, he was a shadow leaning on a wall, radiating exhaustion.

  He said, ‘You don’t have to do this.’

  I laughed. ‘You would rather Caenis tried? I’m sure she’d do her best, but do you truly think she knows how to poison a man so that he falls sick three days after the meal, and only him of a table of twenty?’

  There was a silence. Presently, Pantera said, ‘There are very few who know how to do that.’

  I pressed my advantage. ‘And could she catch Caecina’s eye and hold it, and perhaps talk him into committing treason against the man he has fought so hard to bring to the throne? Caenis spends her afternoon gatherings making loud noises in Vitellius’ favour, but everyone knows she is Vespasian’s to the end. They tolerate her because she used to be a slave and they believe her to be powerless.’

  ‘And you they think quite safe?’

  ‘We have to hope so.’

  ‘It won’t be easy.’

  ‘That’s what Seneca said. He was right.’

  Pantera laughed a little, and looked down at his feet. When he looked up, there was a compassion in him I had not expected. Softly, he said, ‘When you need to stop, send me word. You know how.’

  I wanted to say something brave – I won’t stop until we have what we want – but he wouldn’t have believed that and, just then, neither did I.

  I said, ‘You’ll hear from the silver-boys when Valens is ill. I’ll do what I can with Caecina. You have enough to worry about if you’re going to bring the Ravenna and Misene fleets to our side, and manage Antonius Primus so he doesn’t do anything else reckless. Go now.’ I found his shoulder in the half-dark, leaned in, and kissed his cheek, drily, as he had kissed Caenis’. ‘Get some sleep.’

  He didn’t. Neither did I. Because I’d seen him kiss Caenis, and watched his lips move, and I knew he was going back there.

  If you have spoken to Caenis, you know what went on. Nevertheless, I must tell you that I followed him back, and when he went indoors I climbed up on to the roof and lay with my head by the opening to the atrium. I heard every word.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rome, 4–5 August AD 69

  Caenis

  ‘LADY!’

  It was not Matthias who broke my dreams this time, but young Toma, who rises early every morning to bake the day’s bread, and whose twin sister Dino cooks the rest of my meals.

  ‘A man is here. He says you will see him. It is about the matter of Antony’s horse.’

  Toma, bless him, has no clue about my past, no knowledge of history, no curiosity, unless it concerns the better resting of bread dough.

  I prised my eyes open, dragged myself back from the waters of Lethe. ‘Show him into the atrium. I’ll be with you presently.’

  ‘Lady, he is already there.’

  And so he was, but all the same, I had to look to find him. Pantera was sitting on my unswept floor with his back to the fountain, his knees drawn to his chin, his skin slick with tiredness, veins marbling his dye-darkened temples.

  Without opening his eyes, he said, ‘Caenis?’

  ‘What?’ I crouched beside him, and smelled from myself the staleness of sleep and late middle age. ‘You’ll kill yourself if you don’t stop.’

  ‘Soon. I’ll sleep soon. But you and I must have … ways of talking that are not overheard. The other three men who carried your litter tonight, the big Briton, the boss-eyed Gaul, the gelded priest; you can trust them. And the silver-boys; the tongues, the skins, the hands. They will be true to us.’

  I had thought they were only true to me. In a moment’s clear sight, I said, ‘You were one of them?’

  ‘A long time ago, but they recognize their own.’

  ‘And their loyalty is absolute.’

  ‘When you have nothing else of value, loyalty is the greatest coin. They won’t betray us. Anybody else might: Domitian, Sabinus, Jocasta, Trabo – particularly Trabo. He plays the innocent too well.’

  ‘You really think that Domitian or Sabinus might betray us?’

  ‘I know that they might. What I don’t know is whether they will.’

  He was so tired. His voice dragged with the need to sleep. I said, ‘What is it you want to talk about?’

  ‘Antony’s messenger service, the Antonine Horse. We spoke of it earlier.’

  I opened my mouth to say … I would like to think I was going to say all the things that are obvious now, but I didn’t. Only: ‘Speak, then, or ask what you need to know.’ All the things we didn’t talk about in Sabinus’ company.

  He was awake then, animated; impossible not to join in his enthusiasm.

  ‘This must be between us only, you and me, but if we can revive the messenger service, if we can bring together the men whose grandfathers swore fealty to Antony, whose fathers gave their oaths to Antonia, who are now sworn to you, we will have a network that crosses the empire that Lucius doesn’t know about and so cannot suborn. We need to be able to send messages swiftly and safely. This is our means to do it.’

  He spoke crisply, with a clarity that had been missing in the small hours of the morning. Of course, I know now that Domitian was listening. And Jocasta too? Did he know that? I suppose we must assume he did. How much it cost him to speak with such clarity I will never know. A lot, I am sure.

  At the time, I was still wrestling with what he was saying, and the implications for my family.

  I said, ‘Sabinus knows of this. We discussed it in his house up the hill.’ Less than half a day before, though it felt like an age.

  Pantera nodded. ‘And so if Lucius finds out, it will be because Sabinus has told him.’

  His eyes were still and cool and his gaze held mine and because of that I did not look towards the blue silk curtain and Domitian’s room on the other side.

  I said, ‘You would sacrifice something so precious, to test his loyalty?’

  Pantera said, ‘Vespasian may be in open contest against Vitellius, but Lucius and I are engaged in our own, more private war. Each of us is trying to outwit the other, acting second hand through proxies who are themselves not always reliable. Men can be bought, and bought back and bought back again, owned by both sides or neither.

  ‘The Antonine Horse is a pearl of highest value. For something this big even Lucius may become careless, and in this war whoever makes the first mistake will lose not only his life, but all he has fought for.

  ‘Sabinus knows the theory, but only you know the detail. Will you write it for me now, please, the step by which I may set the roads alight once again with men who owe their absolute loyalty to you – and, through you, to Vespasian?’

  PART III

  DOUBLE AGENTS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Rome, the ides of September AD 69

  Borros

  SEPTEMBER BROUGHT AN end to August’s stifling heat and the beginning of cooler air. It wasn’t cold yet, but the early leaves were turning and the clouds were thin as silk, and lofty.

  By then, Pantera’s little Berber cripple had gone; the Guards had got wind of
that disguise and it was no longer safe. Gudrun had cleaned the tattoos from his face early in September and the wound on his head had healed enough to be invisible. He had set aside the sackcloth tunic and taken on white robes, and become younger, taller, darker, with a long, lean spring to his step.

  On the ides of that month, he was a Mauretanian merchant and his three personal slaves followed him: that’s to say, me, squint-eyed Felix, who was the fastest man with a cudgel I had ever met provided you let him use his left hand, and the scrawny gelding Amoricus, who had once been a priest of Isis.

  I don’t know how Pantera found him, I never asked, but if Felix was a natural born killer, Amoricus was, as we swiftly discovered, as skilled a picker of locks.

  You might think that we who had once been enslaved would have hated to be made slaves again, even only as a disguise, but in our month of freedom we’d found exactly how much easier it was to remain a slave for a while longer than to learn how to be a freedman in a city where the slaves envied us and the freeborn inevitably continued to despise us as mere freedmen, with no real standing.

  And so we were slaves again, if only in name, and Pantera led us in a train through the markets towards the Circus Maximus. We had dressed with care: scruffy enough to look impoverished, not obviously muscled enough to look dangerous.

  We made a line astern as he swept downhill to the corner tavern known as the White Hare where my old master, Cavernus, held sway over his clientele. Pantera stooped under the lintel; truly, he was not so tall that he needed to, but he was thinking taller, and so we all thought him taller too. He found a seat in a corner and we trailed after him and sat on the floor.

  Cavernus served us himself, making much of his new client’s evident wealth and showing no sign of recognizing either him or me. As he bent over the wine, Pantera murmured, ‘Your man: is he here?’