Emperor: The Death of Kings E#2 (23 page)

On the faded brown stone of the docks, women and children lay together, great wounds in their flesh filled with clouds of buzzing flies that rose humming at the approach of the soldiers. The smell was appalling, even with the chill breeze coming off the sea. Most of the bodies were Roman legionaries, their armor still bright over black tunics.

Julius walked past the clumps of them with the others, re-creating the action in his mind. He saw many bloodstains around each group of the dead, no doubt where the enemy had fallen and been dragged away for burial. To leave the Roman bodies where they lay was a deliberate insult, an act of contempt that began to kindle a rage in Julius that he saw reflected in the eyes of those around him. They walked with swords held ready, stalking the streets in growing anger and chasing rats and dogs away from the corpses. But there was no enemy to challenge. The port was deserted.

Julius stood breathing heavily through his mouth, looking at the broken body of a small girl in the arms of a soldier who had been stabbed in the back as he ran with her. Their skin had blackened from exposure, the hardening flesh creeping back to reveal their teeth and dark tongues.

“Gods, who could have done this?” Prax whispered to himself.

Julius turned to him with his face a bitter mask. “We’ll find out. These are my people. They cry out to us, Prax, and I will answer them.”

Prax glanced at him and felt the manic energy pouring off the younger man. When Julius turned to face him, he looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

“Form a burial crew. Gaditicus can say the prayers over them when they are in the ground.” Julius paused and looked at the horizon, where the sun burned a dull winter copper.

“And get the rest of them out cutting down trees. We’ll do the crucifixions here, along this coast. It will serve as a warning to whoever is responsible for this.”

Prax saluted and ran back to the mooring point, pleased to get away from the stench of death and the young officer whose words frightened him, for all he thought he’d known the man before.

*      *      *

Julius stood impassively while the first five men were nailed to the rough-cut trunks. Each cross was raised with ropes until the upright slid into the holes to hold them, made steady with hammered wooden wedges. The pirates screamed until their throats were raw and no more sound came but the whistle of air. From one of them, bloody sweat dribbled from his armpits and groin, thin crimson lines that wrote ugly patterns on his skin.

The third man spasmed in agony as the iron spike was thumped through his wrist into the soft wood of the crossbeam. He wept and pleaded like a child, pulling his other arm away with all his strength until it was gripped and held for the blows of the hammer and the nail that speared him through.

Before his men completed the brutal task with his shuddering legs, Julius walked forward as if in a daze, drawing his sword slowly. His men froze at his approach and he ignored them, seeming to speak his thoughts aloud.

“No more of this,” he muttered, thrusting his sword into the man’s throat. There was a look of relief in the eyes as they glazed, and Julius looked away as he wiped his sword, hating his own weakness, but unable to stand watching any longer.

“Kill the rest quickly,” he ordered, before walking alone back to the ship. His thoughts ran wildly as he strode across the dock stones, sheathing his sword without being aware of it. He’d promised to put them all on crosses, but the reality was an ugliness he could not bear. The screaming had cut through his nerves and made him ashamed. It had taken all his will to see the first few nailed after the horror of the first.

He grimaced in anger at himself. His father would not have weakened. Renius would have nailed them himself and not lost sleep. He felt his cheeks burn with shame and spat on the dock as he reached the edge. Still, he could not have stood with his men and watched any longer, and walking away from them alone would have damaged him in their eyes, after his own orders began the cruel deaths.

Cabera had refused to join the legionaries on the dock for the executions. He stood at the rail of the ship with his head on one side in unspoken question. Julius looked at him and shrugged. The old healer patted him on the arm and produced an amphora of wine in his other hand.

“Good idea,” Julius said distantly, his thoughts elsewhere. “Fetch a second, though, would you? I don’t want dreams tonight.”

  CHAPTER
20
  

O
nly a few of the port buildings had roofs and walls secure enough to be used by Julius’s men. Too many of the others had been torched, with just their stone walls standing as empty shells. Alternating between the warehouses and the three ships, Julius sent his men scouring the local area for supplies. Though Celsus had laid in enough to last him most of a winter, it would hardly serve to feed so many active soldiers for long.

The legionaries walked warily as they searched, never alone and always with an eye for a surprise attack. Even with the bodies cleared and in the earth, the port was a silent, brooding place, and they lived with the thought that whoever had destroyed the peaceful Roman settlement could still be close, or coming back.

They found only one man alive. His leg had been gashed and infection had set in quickly. They found him when they heard him move to kill a rat that came too close to the smell of blood. He smashed its head with a stone and then yelled in terror as Julius’s men took him by the arms and brought him out into the light. After days in darkness, the man could hardly bear even the weak morning sun, and he babbled crazily at them as they dragged him back to the ships.

Julius summoned Cabera as soon as he saw the swollen leg, though he guessed it was useless. The man’s lips were rimed dry crusts and he wept without tears as they tipped a bowl of water into his mouth. Cabera probed the puffy flesh of the leg with his long fingers, finally shaking his head. He stood to one side with Julius.

“It has turned poisonous and reached right up to his groin. It’s too late to take it off. I can try to ease the pain of it, but he hasn’t much time left.”

“Can’t you . . . put your hands on him?” Julius asked the old man.

“He’s gone too far, Julius. He should be dead already.”

Julius nodded with bitter resignation, taking the bowl from his men and helping the man to hold it to his lips. The skeletal fingers shook too much to keep it still, and as Julius held one of them, he almost recoiled from the fever heat that burned through the taut skin.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

The man tried to nod as he sipped, and choked horribly, turning bright red with the efforts that tore at his remaining strength.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Julius pressed, willing the man to breathe. Finally the spasms died and the man let his head fall onto his chest, exhausted.

“They killed everyone. The whole country’s in flames,” he whispered.

“A rebellion?” Julius asked quickly. He had expected some foreign invader, rampaging through a few coastal towns and back to ships. It was a common enough tale in that part of the world. The man nodded, motioning with his quivering fingers for the water bowl. Julius passed it to him, watching as he emptied it.

“It was Mithridates,” the man said, his voice hoarse and raw. “When Sulla died, he called them . . .” He coughed again and Julius stood in shock, walking out onto the deck and away from the ripe smell of sickness that had filled the room.
Sulla was dead?
He gripped the rail of Celsus’s ship until his hands cramped. He hoped it had been a slow agony for the man who had taken Marius from him.

Some part of him had imagined scenes where he would return to Rome with his new men, rich and growing in power, to battle Sulla and revenge Marius. In his quieter moments he knew it for a child’s fantasy, but it had sustained him for a long time, a dream that made the months in the cell, the fits, all of it, bearable.

As the day wore on, Julius threw himself into the thousand tasks that needed to be organized as they secured the port area. The orders he gave and the men he spoke to seemed distant, as he tried to think his way through the news he had heard from the dying man. At least organizing the provisions and billets gave him something to occupy him. Sulla’s death left a hole in his future, an emptiness that mocked his efforts.

The merchant Durus found him clearing poison from a well with three of the legionaries. It was common enough for an invading force to sour local water with rotting animals, and Julius was working numbly with the others, pulling up slimy dead chickens and trying not to gag at the smell as they were thrown aside.

“I need to have a word with you, sir,” Durus said.

At first Julius didn’t seem to hear him, and he repeated it more loudly. Julius sighed and crossed over to him, leaving the other soldiers to drop the hooked ropes for another try. Julius wiped his stinking hands on his tunic as he walked, and Durus saw that he was exhausted, suddenly realizing how young the man was. With tiredness banking the fires in him, he looked almost lost. The merchant cleared his throat.

“I’d like to leave with my two triremes, sir. I’ve put my name to a letter saying you hired
Ventulus
to hunt pirates. It’s time for me to get back to my family and my life.”

Julius looked steadily at him without replying. After a pause, Durus started again. “We did agree that when you found Celsus I would have my ship and the other trireme to make up for the lost cargo. I don’t have any complaints, but I need you to give the order to have your men leave my ships so I can sail home. They won’t take orders from me, sir.”

Julius felt torn and angry. He had never realized how hard it could be to keep some semblance of honor alive. He had promised Durus the two ships, but that was before he found the Greek port ravaged by a war. What did the man expect? Every martial instinct drummed into Julius said to refuse flatly. How could he think of giving up two of his most valuable assets with Mithridates cutting everything Roman from the flesh of Greece?

“Walk with me,” he said to Durus, striding past him so that the captain had to break into a trot to keep up. Julius walked quickly back to the docks where the three ships were moving gently in the swell. His guards saluted him as he approached, and Julius returned the gestures, halting suddenly at the edge, where the galleys loomed over them both.

“I don’t want you to go home,” he said curtly.

Durus colored with surprise. “You gave me your word I could leave when you had taken Celsus’s ship,” he snapped.

Julius turned to him and the captain gulped silently at his expression.

“I do not need to be reminded, Captain. I will not stop you leaving. However, Rome needs these ships.” He thought for a long time, his eyes dark as he watched the ships rise and settle in the dirty waters.

“I want you to take them round the coast as fast as you can and find whichever port Rome is using to land the legions in the west. Hand over the legion silver in my name . . . and in the name of Captain Gaditicus of
Accipiter
. They will put you on the run back to Rome for more soldiers, I should think. There’s no profit for you in that, but both ships are fast and they’ll need anything that can float.”

Durus shifted his weight from one foot to another, astonished. “I am months overdue. My family and creditors will think I’m dead as it is,” he said, playing for time.

“Romans
have
died, did you not see the bodies? Gods, I’m asking you for a service to the city that bore and raised you. You’ve never fought for her or bled for her. I’m giving you a chance to pay back a little of what you owe.”

Durus almost smiled at the words, but stopped himself as he realized the young man was completely serious. He wondered what his city friends would make of this soldier. He seemed to have a view of the city that had nothing to do with beggars and rats and disease. He realized that Julius saw the city as something greater than he did, and for a moment, he felt a touch of shame in the face of that belief.

“How do you know I won’t take the money and head straight for northern Italy and home?” he asked.

Julius frowned slightly, turning his cold eyes on the merchant. “Because if you do, I will be your enemy and you know well enough that I will find you eventually and destroy you.” The words were casually spoken, but after watching the executions and hearing how Celsus had been thrown over the side of his own ship, Durus wrapped his robe tightly around himself against the chill wind.

“Very well. I will do as you say, though I curse the day you first stepped onto
Ventulus,
” he replied through gritted teeth.

Julius called up to the guards at the prows of Durus’s ships. “My men to disembark!”

The soldiers in sight saluted and disappeared to fetch the others. Durus felt a wave of relief leave him giddy.

“Thank you,” he said.

Julius paused as he began to walk back to the storehouses. Behind him, where the stone docks faded into soil, five figures hung from crosses.

“Don’t forget,” he said, then turned his back on the captain and strode away.

Durus doubted that was possible.

*      *      *

As night fell, the men gathered in the best of the storehouses. One of the walls was scorched, but the fire hadn’t taken. Apart from the acrid smell in the air, it was warm and dry. Outside, it had begun to rain, a low drumming on the thin wooden roof.

The oil lamps came from Celsus’s ship, and once they were gone, the men would be reduced to finding private supplies in the abandoned houses of the port. As if to prepare the soldiers for that moment, the flames guttered low, barely lighting the empty space of the store. Corn kernels spilled by looters littered the floor, and the soldiers sat on torn sacking, making themselves comfortable as best they could.

Gaditicus rose to speak to the huddled men. Most had been working all day either repairing the roof or shifting supplies to and from the ships that would leave on the dawn tide.

“It is time to consider the future, gentlemen. I’d wanted to rest for a while in a solid Roman port before contacting home. Instead, a Greek king has butchered our soldiers. It must not go unpunished.”

A mutter ran through the men, though whether in agreement or frustration it was difficult to tell. Julius looked over them as he sat by Gaditicus. They were his men. He had spent so long with the simple goal of finding and killing Celsus that he had never given much thought to what would come afterward, barring the distant dream of one day confronting the Dictator of Rome. If he brought a new century into a legion, the Senate would have to recognize his authority with an official post.

He grimaced silently in the shadows. Or they might not, putting Gaditicus in charge and reducing Julius back to commanding only twenty of them. The Senate were not the sort to recognize the unusual authority he possessed over the motley group, though his new wealth could give him influence if he used it wisely. He wondered if he could be satisfied with such a position and smiled to himself, unnoticed by the men watching Gaditicus. There was a simple answer. He’d learned there was nothing finer than leading and nothing more of a challenge than having no one to ask for help. At the worst times, they had looked to him to know the way forward, to see the next step. The gods knew it was far easier to follow, without thought, but not half so satisfying. Part of him longed for the security, the simple pleasure in being part of a unit. But in his heart he wanted the heady mixture of fear and danger that came only with command.

How could Sulla be dead? The thought returned again and again to nag at him. The wounded man on board Celsus’s ship had known nothing of it, just that the soldiers had been told to wear black for a whole year. When the man had fallen unconscious, Julius had left him in Cabera’s hands, and as the sun sank, the man died, his heart failing at last. Julius had ordered him buried with the other Roman corpses, and it shamed him when he thought he had never even asked the man’s name.

“Julius? Do you want to speak to them?” Gaditicus said, breaking into his thoughts and making him jump. Guiltily, he realized he hadn’t heard anything the older officer had said. He stood slowly, marshaling his thoughts.

“I know most of you hoped to see Rome, and you will. My city is a strange place: marble and dreams, borne up with the strength of the legions. Every legionary is bound by oath to protect our people anywhere you find them. All a Roman has to do is say ‘I am a Roman citizen’ and be guaranteed our shelter and authority.” He paused and every eye in the storehouse was on him.

“But you have not taken that oath and I cannot compel you to fight for a city you have never seen. You have more wealth than most soldiers would see in ten years. You must make a free choice—to serve under oath, or to leave. If you leave us, you will go as friends. We have fought together and some have not made it this far. For others of you, it may be far enough. If you stay, I will give Celsus’s treasure into the care of Captain Durus, who will meet us on the west coast when Mithridates is beaten.”

Another low rumble of voices filled the room as he paused again.

“Can you trust Durus?” Gaditicus asked him. Julius thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Not with so much gold. I will leave Prax to keep him honest.” He searched out his old optio and was pleased to see him signal consent. With that settled, Julius took a deep breath as he looked over the seated men. He could name them all.

“Will you take the legion oath and be sworn to my command?”

They roared their agreement at him. Gaditicus whispered harshly, leaning close to Julius’s ear.

“Gods, man. The Senate will have my balls if I do!”

“You should leave, then, Gadi, join Suetonius back at the ship while I give them the oath,” Julius replied.

Gaditicus looked at him coolly, weighing him up. “I wondered why you left him there,” he said. “Have you thought where you will lead them?”

“I have. I’m going to raise an army and lead them straight down Mithridates’ throat.”

He held out his hand and Gaditicus hesitated, then took it in a brief grip that was almost painful.

“Then our path is the same,” he said, and Julius nodded his understanding.

Julius raised his arms for quiet, smiling as it came. His voice carried clearly in the sudden silence. “I never doubted you,” he said to the men. “Not for a moment. Now stand and repeat these words.”