Triumph in Dust

by Ian Ross

  All of them were there, waiting for him in the light of the lamps. Egnatius, Gunthia and Barbatio. Quintianus, Sabinus and Diogenes. The other unit commanders and the few remaining Protectores and staff tribunes. Even the plump accountant Metrophanes. Castus stood before them in his full uniform, jaw firm and brow lowered. He threw back his cloak and gripped the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Brothers,’ he declared in a voice of command. ‘All of you know what must happen now. Once a man’s been acclaimed emperor by his troops, there’s no way back.’

  Turning his head slowly, he scanned their faces. Sorrow and disbelief on some, resignation on others. Vallio was sniffing back tears. Quintianus just looked ashamed.

  ‘All of you,’ Castus said, ‘are soldiers of Rome. It’s been an honour to command you. But I will not have your names and reputations tainted by tonight’s madness. It was a mistake, and it must be forgotten. No soldier in this army will suffer for it.’

  Barbatio opened his mouth to speak, but Castus silenced him with a glance. He felt very calm now, very much in control. No questions remained. Only cold certainty.

  ‘I know what I have to do,’ he said. ‘And I require nothing more from you. When it’s done…’ His voice faltered, and he swallowed thickly. ‘When I’m dead, you must let everyone in the camp know it. Take my body… show it to the soldiers. Let Mucatra see it too. And tomorrow, at first light, you will go and present yourself to him, with oaths to Constantius Augustus. Tell him you did the deed yourselves, if you must. But honour my name in private, and tell my wife and family I died well. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Brother,’ Egnatius said quietly. ‘You don’t have to… You could slip away, the sentries would let you go…’

  ‘No!’ Castus said firmly. ‘My duty is clear, and so is yours. This is my last order to you – if you have any regard for me, you’ll follow it without question. Understood?’

  A pause, and then Barbatio drew himself up stiffly, raising his hand in salute. ‘We will do what we are ordered…’

  ‘… and at every command we will be ready,’ the others said in unison.

  Castus went to Egnatius and clasped him in an embrace, kissing him. Then he embraced each of the other men in turn. One by one they stepped back, eyes downcast. Then Castus gave them a last salute, and dismissed them all.

  ‘A moment with my son,’ he said gruffly. ‘In private, please.’

  When the tent was emptied he took Sabinus by the hand, then pulled him close and hugged him. His son was speechless, struggling to breathe. For six slow heartbeats they stood, clasped together. Then Castus whispered the words in his ear, and released him. He turned his back, and did not see Sabinus leave.

  Alone, he stood in the centre of the chamber, staring at the lamp flame. A sudden memory came to him: the old deposed emperor Maximian, sitting in his room in the palace at Massilia. Castus had been with him just before he died, and had found his hanging body afterwards. He shrugged, laughing to himself. The poles of this tent would hardly bear his weight.

  No, he thought. He had seen death many times. He knew how it was done. The tip of a sword between the ribs, just over the heart. Then a lunge forward, the pommel driving against the floor, the blade piercing the body…

  Now that the moment had arrived he felt strangely composed, almost relieved. Darkness clouded his mind, but then it was gone.

  He took off his cloak, drew his sword from its scabbard and felt the weight of it in his hand.

  Then he walked through into the curtained rear chamber and did what needed to be done.

  Part 5

  XXXIII

  Antioch, September AD 337

  Marcellina knelt on the marble floor. Leaning forward, she took a burning taper and lit the small clay lamp that stood on the step of the alcove. There were many other lamps placed around it – several of them by Marcellina herself on previous visits – with tallow candles, votive images and little heaps of ash. She took a pinch of incense and sprinkled it over the flame. As the scented smoke curled upwards she clambered to her feet. Her ash-coloured tunic hung loose around her as she raised her arms, palms outstretched, and tipped back her head.

  Silently she mouthed the words of the prayer. When she opened her eyes she saw the images painted on the walls of the alcove, lit by the wavering lamp flames. The Redeeming Christ, surrounded by an adoring crowd stretching their arms towards him. The miracle of the loaves and the fishes.

  Her daughter stood beside her, dressed in the same ashen mourning clothes. Aeliana had assumed the same praying posture too, although her lips did not move, and she gazed at the paintings in the alcove with wide and wondering eyes. Marcellina lowered her arms, touched her fingers to her lips and raised them towards the image of Christ. Her daughter did the same.

  ‘Mama,’ Aeliana said in a whisper. ‘If Papa didn’t believe in God or Christ, how can Jesus help his soul get into Paradise?’

  Marcellina embraced the girl, stroking her hair. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Your father believed in other gods, it’s true… And maybe one day we can pray to them as well. But they can’t help him in the afterlife. So for now it’s important that we… do the correct thing.’

  And be seen to do the correct thing, she thought. She had been trying to hide herself from public view as much as possible, but she knew she was still being watched. At least now Dracilianus had removed the guards from her house, and she and Aeliana were free to go where they chose in the city. But their position was uncertain; Castus had died as an accused traitor, and only the emperor himself could rule on what would become of his family. News had come from Rome that the Senate had approved Constantius’s acclamation; now he and his two brothers, the sons of Constantine, would rule the empire between them as joint Augusti. But the new emperor was not expected to return to Antioch for another two weeks at least.

  The little Church of Saint Simeon was one of the smallest, and oldest, in the city, standing just across the bridge from the palace island. Few came here, when it was so close to the huge, if unfinished, Golden Church that stood beside the palace itself. But Marcellina had come here several times over this last week, since the official courier had reached Antioch with news of her husband’s death.

  The horror of that day would never leave her. Only the briefest and coldest of messages, from Dracilianus of all people, had informed her that Aurelius Castus had been killed by his own officers, his body dishonoured, and she was now a widow. Marcellina had felt those words striking through her, harrowing her heart. She had flung herself on the floor, ripped her clothing, and sobbed until she felt her throat would tear open. Were it not for Aeliana, she would have sought death herself, that day or in those following. Gladly she would have drowned herself in the river, or hurled herself from a high window. But her daughter needed her, now more than ever.

  Two days later, Sabinus and Diogenes had arrived from the east, slipping into the city by night and telling her what had really happened on the plain east of Nisibis. By that time she was too hollowed out by suffering to react. She had not told Aeliana; better for now if the girl believed only that her father had died fighting the Persians.

  Together they walked back through the scented darkness of the church. Gold glowed from the shadows, and the painted figures on the wall appeared almost like real people, hanging in strange suspension.

  ‘Mama,’ Aeliana said, taking her mother’s hand. She had spoken little since she heard the news. Even now she appeared pale and unwell. ‘Mama, I wasn’t praying for father’s soul to go to Paradise.’

  ‘But… why not?’

  ‘Because I was praying for God to send him back here to us.’

  Marcellina looked away quickly, choking back a sob. She tightened her throat, then laid her hand on her daughter’s head as they walked towards the spill of bright sunlight from the open doors.

  Blinking, Marcellina emerged into the daylight. She paused to hand a few coins to the beggars gathered in the shade of the portico, then saw Ho
rmisdas waiting a few paces away, leaning against a pillar. Aside from his beard and the pearl he wore in his ear, the Persian prince could have been a prosperous Syrian merchant. Two of his hulking Armenian bodyguards waited with him.

  ‘Domina,’ Hormisdas said with a respectful bow. ‘Matters, I think, are about to reach a critical stage.’

  Marcellina pulled the grey shawl tighter around her head and shoulders. She noticed Diogenes standing in the sunlight, beside the two litters that waited with their teams of bearers. With his ragged clothes, his bald head and face dark brown from the sun, and the scrawny crippled dog that lounged at his side, he resembled one of the beggars by the church door. But then, Marcellina thought, she hardly looked better herself. The events of the summer had turned her hair almost entirely grey, and her face was sallow and lined with anguish. She looked like an old woman now, dressed in her mourning drab.

  Diogenes was tugging at his tufty beard as she and Hormisdas went to join him.

  ‘You spoke to the man?’ Marcellina asked him, holding the hem of her shawl to hide her mouth. Was she still being watched now? Did it matter?

  ‘I did,’ Diogenes said, smiling. ‘A very interesting person indeed. He agreed to do what we suggested. By now all the racing factions and the city collegia will know, the actors’ guilds too. Most of the city, I expect.’

  ‘May I suggest, domina,’ Hormisdas said with a casual gesture, ‘that the little girl ought not to witness what happens next? It won’t be pretty for young eyes.’

  Marcellina agreed. She crouched beside Aeliana, taking her hands. ‘You must go with Diogenes, my darling,’ she said. ‘He’ll take you in his litter, back to the house by a longer route. I’ll see you back there very soon, understand?’

  Aeliana glanced warily at the ragged old man beside her. She did not know Diogenes well, but she knew he had been a friend of her father’s. She nodded quickly, and Marcellina kissed her on the brow.

  Seated in Hormisdas’s litter, the curtains drawn and the bodyguards pacing on either side, Marcellina felt herself borne back across the Orontes bridge to the island. They were moving along the broad colonnaded way that led to the palace now.

  ‘I hear that our old friend Ablabius has reached the end of his days,’ Hormisdas said. He was smiling slightly, and seemed to be enjoying himself, though his eyes were hard. ‘He was summoned from his estates to Constantinople to meet the Augustus Constantius. The meeting never happened. Ablabius was greeted on the steps of his house by a pair of Scholae guardsmen. They dragged him into the street and cut off his head, before a jeering crowd, so they say.’

  Marcellina tensed, feeling cold inside.

  ‘And also news comes from the east. That odious man Mucatra is dead too, it seems. Murdered by his own officers in the praetorium at Edessa. They must already have heard the rumours about him. He took quite a while to die, I hear.’

  Exhaling slowly, Marcellina rubbed the rough cloth of her shawl between finger and thumb. She pictured the litter as a tiny boat, washed along on a tide of blood. So much killing – when would it end? Not yet, she thought. Not just yet.

  ‘Look,’ Hormisdas told her, flicking aside the curtain of the litter and pointing. Marcellina leaned forward, staring out through the crowd that filled the street. Many of the people were gathered around one of the pillars at the corner of the colonnade, reading a notice pasted there.

  ‘Those appeared all over the city, in the early hours,’ Hormisdas told her. ‘Your man has done his work well!’

  Marcellina knew what the notice said, and all the others like it. Passages translated from the Persian documents that Sabinus and Diogenes had brought back from Nisibis. Hormisdas had confirmed that they were genuine, and that they proved the guilt of Domitius Dracilianus. He had suggested that they wait for Constantius to arrive, but that would take too long. Dracilianus was sure to find out before then, and he would either flee or concoct some plausible explanation, some counter-charge.

  Better to do it this way, she told herself, although she could feel the fluttering of panic in her stomach, the fear in her heart. Justice is its own reward; that was what the actor Europas had told her when she last spoke to him. With her husband’s death, she owed the man nothing, it seemed. Justice, yes – but still she was half-sick with terror and remorse.

  Already she could feel the hot breath of riot stirring in the street. The crowds were thickening as the litter moved towards the palace, and she heard shouts and chants, the voice of the swelling mob.

  ‘I think we could descend here,’ Hormisdas said, tapping the litter roof. ‘Any further and we could get caught up in the proceedings!’

  They climbed out, and the Armenians shoved a path through the crowd. Hormisdas led Marcellina through a wide doorway and up some steps, which brought them out onto a raised portico overlooking the street. This was one of his own houses, she supposed – the prince had several in Antioch.

  Looking down from the portico, she saw the colonnaded avenue stretching to her right, and the gates of the palace at the far end. A short distance away was the central crossroads of the island. A tetrapylon monument stood in the centre, where the avenues met, a four-sided arch set with pillars, with a bronze statue of three elephants pulling a chariot standing on the pediment. A figure in the crowd around the monument caught her eye, and for a moment she saw Europas looking up at her. He raised his hand; then he was gone.

  ‘Aha,’ said Hormisdas. ‘Now the action begins!’

  He sounded, Marcellina thought, like an idle spectator at some public event. Following his gesture, squinting in the bright sunlight, she saw that the great doors of the palace had been swung wide. A column of horsemen issued forth, mounted guards of the Schola Armaturae, led by a tribune in a plumed helmet. They were forming a cordon along the street that led to the Tetrapylon of the Elephants, Marcellina noticed. Already the jeers of the crowd were growing louder, the mass of people seeming to converge from all directions, gathering with frightening speed.

  ‘He has a boat by the river dock, I think,’ Hormisdas said, sitting casually on the rail of the balustrade. ‘But he’s a fool – he should have had himself lowered from the river frontage of the palace, or just walled himself up in there somewhere and waited for help.’

  It was fitting, Marcellina thought, that Dracilianus’s arrogance and hubris should be his downfall. For all her hatred of the man, some part of her was praying for his safety in that thronging mob. But another part, bitter and vengeful, was praying for the very worst.

  And the worst was happening. The purple-decked litter bearing the insignia of the Praetorian Prefect had emerged from the palace gateway, surrounded by guards and court eunuchs. The cordon of mounted men was struggling to hold back the tide of angry people, but missiles were already flying, bricks and stones and chunks of wood, rotting fruit, old shoes. The litter-bearers staggered under the barrage, and the purple drapes swung wildly. A solid wave of noise rose from the crowd, a steady hiss cut through with screams of abuse.

  By the time the litter had reached the tetrapylon and started to turn towards the docks, the press of people in the street had grown enormous. The cavalry troopers were trying to drive them back with their lances and the hooves of their horses, the foot guards trying to forge a path for the litter, but the procession was slowing to a halt.

  Marcellina noticed the Scholae tribune gazing up towards her and Hormisdas. With a jolt of surprise she saw the Persian signal to the officer with a wave. The next moment, the cordon of mounted guards parted, and the crowd flooded between them.

  She could barely breathe. Clutching the hem of her shawl to her neck, she watched, transfixed, as the mob surged around the litter, driving away the bearers and the eunuchs. She saw the purple drapes ripped aside, the figure of a man dragged from within. Some of the people in the crowd had clubs and sticks; some carried knives and butcher’s cleavers.

  It all happened so quickly. The yells of the crowd turned to a deafening roar, then a maddened screa
m. Marcellina wanted to look away, to hide her eyes, but she could not. She told herself that she loathed Dracilianus; he had threatened her, threatened her daughter with torture. He had hounded her husband to the very end. For all his wealth and his cultured urbanity, he was a rabid animal and he deserved to die.

  But to die like this, she thought. It was horrible.

  She saw the body tossed by the crowd, Dracilianus still struggling, still screaming as the clubs rained down and the knives began to stab and rip. There were women among the throng, Marcellina noticed, even small children. Blood sprayed, spattering the pillars of the tetrapylon monument, and the crowd let out a cheer.

  A few rapid heartbeats later, she saw the mangled body carried along by the mob. They were streaming towards the bridge over the river, carrying their bloody trophy along with them, and they passed directly below the portico where Marcellina stood watching. She glanced down and saw torn white flesh, gashed and bloody. The crowd had stripped the prefect naked, and now they were dragging him between them. As the seething throng passed below her, she leaned out across the balustrade and glimpsed Dracilianus’s mangled face staring up at her. He almost seemed alive, and she thought she saw his lips move, as if he were crying out to her for help, or for forgiveness.

  Then the crowd rushed onwards, towards the bridge and the flowing waters of the Orontes, and Dracilianus was gone.

  XXXIV

  The dead man awoke before dawn. Throwing off his shroud, he climbed from the tomb to greet the rising sun. Outside the cave mouth, he sat on the cool stone and waited patiently for the first chink of glowing light above the eastern horizon, away across the drab Mesopotamian plain. He felt the slowness in his bones. There was no hurry now.