Sword of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  And now this. Ten miles, the scout said. They would be almost at Placentia by the time the Batavians caught up with them. To ensure that they did, every man with him was leading a spare horse – it meant he could afford to ride at twice the Romans’ pace, but also that he had been forced to leave half his men behind. He fought the urge to push on even faster. Patience. If they killed the horses he would never lay hands on the crippled bastard who had murdered Glico. He had promised his brother’s shade the cripple would die the very worst of deaths, and now he vowed to himself that as Valerius Verrens wriggled on his spike, the others would be roasting in the slow fire. And what about the woman? Well, there was more than one kind of impalement.

  He cursed himself for the indulgence that had made him delay Valerius Verrens’ execution. It had led to the loss of more than twenty men and a long, frustrating ride south. Yet he had never lost faith that his Batavian hounds would run down the Roman fox. They had come within minutes of their quarry at Vesontio, and again in the passes, only to be frustrated at Dertona. This time he would finish it.

  Valerius had insisted they ride through the night, stopping only to water and feed the horses. By daylight he reckoned they could be no more than a few miles from their goal, and his belief was confirmed a few minutes later when Metto pointed to a smudge on the horizon that must be Placentia. Valerius turned back to join Serpentius. Domitia rode head down, asleep in the saddle. Exhaustion made her face the colour of whey. Should he wake her? He reached out, but she must have sensed his presence because her eyes opened and she blinked in surprise to see him so close.

  ‘Tribune?’ Her voice was wary.

  ‘Lady.’ He bowed in the saddle. ‘I thought you would like to know we are almost there.’ He pointed to the grey haze. ‘When we reach Placentia you will be able to bathe and rest while I try to discover what I can of the local situation. With Fortuna’s favour, we will have time to allow the horses to recover before we move on. When we do, it will be with a large enough escort to deter any enemy cavalry we come across.’

  She sighed with relief and the tired eyes slowly closed again. ‘I do not think I ever want to sit on another horse.’

  ‘If Otho is close perhaps we will be able to hire a wagon. But I may have to ask you to endure another day in the saddle.’

  Domitia smiled and his heart seemed to skip. ‘I am in your hands, tribune, and I will endure what I must. But I will be glad to see the inside of a bath house.’

  ‘Another hour and I promise you will have as much water as you please.’ But he had forgotten that they were the playthings of the gods.

  He had ordered the man at the tail of the column to hang back so they had warning of any threat from the rear, but it was Serpentius who sensed their presence. He shouted to Valerius to stop and sat for a moment with his ears cocked like a fox listening for a rustle in the grass.

  ‘Riders, coming up fast.’

  Valerius scanned the far horizon. At first he could see nothing, but then a grey mass appeared at the very periphery of his vision.

  ‘Do we fight them?’ Metto’s voice was close to panic.

  Valerius frantically searched the surroundings for some sort of defensive position, but the ground was flat as a gaming board. The river? He looked to his left. The tree-lined bank was about a mile from the road. As a last resort …? The nervous horse danced beneath him and he saw Domitia looking to him for some kind of reassurance. No, he couldn’t risk it. He tried to judge the distance between himself and the riders, himself and the city. Could they make Placentia before they were overtaken?

  ‘We run!’ As he shouted the order, he grabbed her reins and kicked his horse into motion, leading her towards the hazy smudge on the horizon. The others followed suit and soon even the worst-mounted legionary had passed him as he kept pace with Domitia and Serpentius, who would not leave her side. It was clear that riding side saddle she couldn’t keep pace with the other riders. She realized it as soon as Valerius did.

  ‘You must leave me,’ she cried.

  He found himself grinning. ‘Not as long as I have breath in my body.’

  Serpentius glanced over his shoulder. ‘They’re gaining and they’re very good.’

  Domitia’s mind raced. ‘Look away,’ she said. Valerius thought he’d misheard. ‘I said look away.’

  He did as she ordered and heard the sound of tearing cloth above the thunder of hooves. A cry of triumph and the roan surged ahead. When he looked again, he saw she was riding astride, with the torn material of her skirt flapping in the slipstream and barely covering her long legs. Truly she was her father’s daughter.

  Now it was Domitia’s turn to overtake the least proficient horsemen among the legionaries and they found themselves in the middle of the charging pack. Placentia was plainly visible now as a dark hump on the horizon. How far? Three miles? Four? Could their mounts keep up this pace? Valerius dared a glance back. Mars’ beard, how could they have caught up so fast? He could see individual riders now, and Serpentius was right. He had served with cavalry long enough to know veterans when he saw them.

  ‘Their horses are fresher than ours,’ the Spaniard rasped.

  A gap had opened up between the main group and three of the legionaries, riding wide-eyed with fear and lashing at their mounts. Valerius looked again for somewhere to make a stand, but he could see nowhere that would give them even the ghost of a chance. Their pursuers outnumbered them by at least thirty. They rode hunched over their horses’ necks and he imagined the grim resolve on the barbarian faces. By now it was clear, if there had ever been doubt, that they were Claudius Victor’s Batavians. The relentless pursuit and disregard of their horses’ condition were proof enough that they were being driven on by a madman. Valerius’s three stragglers dropped back further and he winced at the thought of what would happen when the Batavians reached them. If they gained the outskirts of the town and could find a building or a yard, they might have a chance, but Placentia was still a good mile distant. He knew there was nothing anyone could do for them. Instead, he crouched low in the saddle and tried to coax another fraction of speed out of his mount.

  Closer. Closer. He recognized the bulk of Placentia’s amphitheatre and beyond it the city walls with their stone towers. Something was different and he realized that where the arena had been crowded by other buildings, it now stood alone. The defenders must have torn down every house outside the walls to give themselves a clear field of fire. The knowledge brought a new thrill of panic. What if the city was already under siege?

  The thunder of hooves rang louder. He didn’t risk a look back, but he knew it meant that the Batavians must be close to spear range. A prolonged shriek that died away on the breeze confirmed his suspicion, quickly followed by a second, and then a third. Domitia heard it too. He saw a flash of fear in her eyes, but she held her nerve and rode her horse like a cavalry trooper. Valerius moved his mount in behind the roan to shield her from the hunters, but he knew that if they got close enough to do her harm they were finished in any case. Gradually they drew ahead of Metto and the surviving legionary, and as they did so, the centurion drew his spatha and shouted an order. Valerius watched the two men haul up and turn to meet the charging Batavians. Serpentius would have gone with them, but Valerius snarled at him to stay with Domitia. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the centurion flick a spear point aside and run his attacker through with his sword. Metto’s cry of triumph split the air, only to turn into a shriek as the following Batavian spitted him with his lance, hurling him backwards from the saddle. The other legionary was already dead. Remembering the fallen soldiers were followers of Mithras, Valerius sent up a prayer to the bull-slayer to take them into his keeping.

  With a flare of hope, he found himself in the shattered foundations of what had once been streets, with Serpentius and Domitia just ahead. He looked up to see astonished faces lining the city walls. A collective howl of frustration and rage erupted from behind him and a spear, hurled at full range, clipped his
shoulder to tumble harmlessly away. The gate – where was the gate? He flinched as a flurry of arrows rattled around them like a sudden summer shower. Of course, the defenders couldn’t know they were friends. ‘Otho!’ he roared. ‘Otho Augustus!’ Serpentius and Domitia took up the cry, and whether at Otho’s name or the shrill female voice, the arrows stopped coming. Domitia’s mount stumbled and might have gone down if Serpentius hadn’t grabbed its bridle and held its head up. Their horses were almost done, red-eyed, breath snorting through flared nostrils, flanks slick with sweat. Finally they passed under the shadow of the amphitheatre, and before them appeared a pair of twin towers flanking the great wooden gate of Placentia. They clattered to a halt in front of it and Valerius called up to the defenders studying him suspiciously from the walls.

  ‘Otho,’ he gasped. ‘I demand entry in the name of the Emperor Marcus Salvius Otho Augustus.’

  ‘You’ll stay where you are or I’ll fill you so full of holes we’ll be able to use you as a window,’ a voice answered from above.

  Valerius’s reply was cut off by the sound of their pursuers drawing up just outside arrow range. He dismounted and slowly drew his sword, turning to face the Batavians as Serpentius helped Domitia from the saddle and manoeuvred the horses to shield her.

  The Spaniard came to his side and they waited silently as Claudius Victor slid from the saddle, followed by half of his men. Victor advanced towards the little group in front of the gate with his sword sheathed, undaunted by the spears and arrows that threatened him from the wall. The other Batavian troopers were warier, but their spears of iron-tipped ash never wavered from Valerius and Serpentius. Valerius sensed a slight figure at his side. ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ he said through clenched teeth. Domitia carried a small dagger he recognized as one he’d given her on the Egyptian beach when the mutinous crew of the Golden Cygnet were lining up to kill them.

  ‘This is my fight as much as yours, tribune.’ There was no time for further conversation.

  ‘That’s far enough.’ The warning was aimed at Claudius Victor, but the auxiliary commander ignored the shout from the walls until it was reinforced by the arrow that ricocheted from the hard-packed earth at his feet. Behind him, his troopers shambled to an uncertain halt. ‘The next one will be in your gullet.’

  The Batavian surveyed the gate towers with cold grey eyes. ‘These men are thieves and murderers, the woman too. Renegades who have the blood of innocents on their hands. I claim them in the name of the Emperor.’

  ‘Which Emperor would that be?’

  Victor shrugged, as if it was of no consequence. ‘We have no quarrel with the people of Placentia. All we ask is justice for these scum.’

  ‘He’s lying.’ Valerius pitched his voice just loud enough to reach the wall. ‘I carry dispatches for Marcus Salvius Otho Augustus, the only true Emperor and proclaimed so by the Senate and people of Rome. This man serves the usurper Vitellius.’

  ‘You came from the west,’ the voice from the wall challenged. ‘The only troops between here and Augusta Taurinorum are with Vitellius. Why would you be carrying dispatches from them? Maybe you’re a spy and this is all a trick to get you inside.’

  Valerius kept his eyes on Claudius Victor and the Batavian watched him as a snake watches a mouse. ‘I passed through here less than two months ago. You have an inn on the far side of the town, called the Fat Sturgeon. I made a promise, which has yet to be fulfilled, to buy a drink for your gatekeepers, who gave me a warmer welcome than I am getting now.’

  The words brought a chortle of laughter from somewhere on the wall. He could feel Victor’s hatred reaching out to him in the long pause that followed, the silence only broken by the soft murmur of a debate being conducted in whispers. Eventually, the Batavian’s patience ran out. ‘Enough of this time-wasting.’

  ‘Take them, then.’ It was a new voice, heavy with the ring of command. Valerius felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He saw something flare in Claudius Victor’s eyes. Domitia moved a little closer to his side, her face grim with determination, and he vowed she would not be taken alive.

  Victor waved his spearmen forward, but the voice cracked like a whip. ‘No. Not them. Just you. You and one other.’

  The Batavian froze as the impact of the words struck. Ten paces away, Valerius heard them too and felt something swelling up inside him: a snarling beast with an appetite for only one thing. Blood. For a month this man had dogged his footsteps and his dreams with his promises of pain and death. One step forward and he would finish it one way or another.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ he spat. ‘Perhaps you aren’t so brave without your wolf pack?’

  Claudius Victor’s face twisted with revulsion, but he remained where he was. He had formed an image of the man he hunted and that image was of a victim to be humiliated and destroyed. The man he faced across the dusty ground was a new Valerius Verrens, and the savage certainty on the scarred face made the odds less than favourable. Cripple or not, the sword the Roman held in his left hand was killing sharp and rock steady and the Batavian felt an unfamiliar thrill of fear as he imagined the blade slicing at his throat. He glanced at Serpentius and the Spaniard met the look with a barking laugh that sent a shudder through the cavalrymen facing him. Relaxed and loose, he stood with a sword in his right hand and one of the deadly little Scythian throwing axes in his left. The message in his eyes was that Claudius Victor wouldn’t get within a sword swing of Valerius before he felt the bite of the axe. Victor looked up at the walls, judging the threat from the arrows and spears, still tempted to launch his men in an attack that would sweep away the three upstarts whose continued existence was an insult to his brother’s shade. Even as he made his decision, the gate opened and fifty armoured men trotted out to form a line in front of Valerius, Serpentius and Domitia.

  ‘You had your chance,’ the voice from the wall shouted. ‘Now leave or I will see you and your men dead.’

  For a moment, Valerius thought that Claudius Victor would attack the legionary shield line single-handed. His whole body shook as if he was having some kind of seizure, his eyes bulged and his jaw was clenched so tight that spittle drooled from between his lips. When one of his men tried to pull him towards the horses, he backhanded him across the face so that the auxiliary fell away with blood streaming from smashed lips. Eventually, Victor recovered his reason. When he spoke his voice was thick with loathing and the words were aimed directly at Valerius.

  ‘Do not think you can hide from me for ever, Roman. This little place will soon be squashed flat and when it is I will come for you. The death I promised earlier will seem merciful compared to the torment you will meet then. I will geld you and blind you, cut the tongue from your head and remove your fingers and toes with a blunt axe. My men will use you as a woman and my women as a slave. Every moment of every day you will pray for the release of the impaling spike or the slow fire.’

  He marched back to the horses and tugged at something attached to the saddle of the latest arrival. A round object flew through the air and rolled through a gap in the line of defenders to Valerius’s feet. With a last look of pure hatred Claudius Victor leapt into the saddle and rode away at the head of his men. It was only when he was out of sight that Valerius looked down and found himself looking into the startled eyes of Cornelius Metto.

  XL

  ‘In these unhappy times it is sometimes difficult to tell one’s friends from one’s enemies.’ The grey-haired general pursed his lips and studied the man in front of him with a mixture of puzzlement and distaste. Tall and well set, but with a month’s growth of beard and dark hair that hung low over hard, unyielding eyes, Gaius Valerius Verrens looked more brigand than soldier in his ill-fitting tunic and mail. ‘You say you have dispatches for the Emperor?’

  ‘Information, rather than formal dispatches. I have come from the north.’

  Titus Vitricius Spurinna’s lips pursed and Valerius allowed himself a smile at the patrician’s reaction.
The north meant enemy territory and Vitellius, and the manner of their coming had been mysterious enough to confirm what that hinted at. No one liked a spy, at least not until they needed the intelligence he’d risked his neck for. They were talking in the principia at the centre of Placentia’s fort. Valerius had sent Serpentius to find them fresh horses, while Domitia had been welcomed by the wife of the town’s leading magistrate and would even now be enjoying the bath she’d craved.

  ‘You were fortunate the guard commander vouched for you.’ Spurinna gave a sniff, followed by what might almost have been a resigned sigh. ‘And as it happens, I have heard the name Gaius Valerius Verrens. News of your exploits in Britannia spread even as far as the German frontier, and, of course, your missing hand confirms your identity more certainly than any papers.’ Valerius bowed his head in acknowledgement of the compliment, but he found himself disliking this pompous little man with his narrow, heavy-browed eyes. Still, Spurinna’s dispositions and the way he had dealt with Claudius Victor and his Batavians marked him as a soldier. As did his next words. ‘An officer who has experience of a siege may be an asset in the days ahead.’

  ‘My information …’

  Spurinna waved the protest aside and called to his aide to fetch wine. ‘I fear you have left it too late. Caecina’s cavalry have been probing south of the river for two days. I am only surprised you did not meet them. The road is cut. I do not intend that to continue, but, for the moment, I have other priorities.’ He stood up and took a long scroll from a wooden rack attached to the wall. A servant poured the wine and handed Valerius a cup while Spurinna unrolled the map on the table and pinned it flat.

  ‘You know about Valens, of course. He proceeds cautiously.’ He looked up and met Valerius’s eye. ‘Strange given his reputation, but fortunate for us. One of our patrols picked up a deserter yesterday, and he talked of a possible mutiny, but … Any detail of his troops and their numbers would be helpful, but that can wait for now. For the moment, my main concern is Caecina Alienus. His main body, which we estimate at something approaching twenty-five thousand men, including the elements of at least three legions, reached Cremona yesterday and is encamped outside the town between the Via Postumia and the Brixia road. You see?’ He placed his finger on the map where Cremona and Placentia nestled just twenty miles apart, the one north of the river, the other south. ‘Together the two cities make up the lock that holds the entire north, but whoever wishes to open it must have both keys. If Caecina wants to march south, he must first take Placentia, or he knows I will sally out to cut his supply lines and use my forces to harass his flanks and rear. Likewise, the Emperor must take Cremona if he is to hold the north until his Balkan legions arrive and give him overwhelming strength.’