Rome 4: The Art of War (51 page)

Wincing, the boy who had brought him said, ‘He’s fast, master. You asked for the fastest. I could get something quieter …’

‘No. It’s fine.
You did well.’ I tossed out a silver piece as I mounted; when you may not see tomorrow’s dawn, today’s generosity is easy.

The boy’s eyes shone. He threw up his hand in salute. I pointed the horse out of the gates and trusted its nerves to see me across the city.

I found Juvens in a sea of Guards, at the place where the Flaminian Way became Broad Street. He was organizing his cavalry across the road with his men behind.

Juvens’ men were mine, too: men who had marched with us from the Rhine to the Tiber in support of their emperor; men who defeated Otho, who sacked Cremona the first time.

They were dressed for valour; none of the subtlety of the Guard now. They wore their tunics with their weapon belts in full display; great discs of silver that spoke of heroism and success to anyone who knew how to read them. Their helmets came from their war chests, not the plumed and polished frippery of parade, and, today, they had liberated their shields from the armoury; truly, they were legionaries once again, not Guards, and happier for it. Every one wore an emerald silk band about his arm with a pride and defiance that augured ill for Antonius’ forces.

Juvens himself was on foot and helmetless, his flame-yellow hair visible across half the city. He looked dirty and tired and elated.

Nobody was proud of what had happened to Sabinus, but equally everyone was clear that the taking of the Capitol had been a tactical and strategic masterstroke and Juvens had organized it virtually single-handed. He basked in the glory, and his men – our men – basked with him.

It was noon. The Vestals had been back in the city for over an hour. Antonius’ army was armed and ready and keen for blood.

‘Where are they?’ I asked.

Juvens
nodded over my shoulder. ‘Just across the bridge. They can see us; we can see them. The Blues can’t cross the bridge yet: we’re too many for them, but I’d bet my pension that they’ll try a flanking move on one or other side. We have horn signals set in case they do.’ He caught my eye and grinned. ‘We didn’t ask for this, but, Hades, I’m glad it’s come.’

‘You’re not alone.’ It wasn’t just that our men were ready; the whole population had turned out for this.

All about, men, women and children sat in family groups on the balconies and rooftops, on the tenements and cottages and villas that clustered up to the river’s edge. They were dressed in their multicoloured festival best, eating apples and dates and drinking wine, even the children. A small girl saw me looking and threw up her hand.

‘Io Saturnalia!’

Her high, lark’s voice carried over the street to the far side and was picked up by other children, and then their parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends; last, by our men.

‘
Io Saturnalia!
’

‘Roman fighting Roman. We’re better entertainment than the circus, and in the right colours, too.’ I fiddled with my green scarf, tucking in the loose ends. ‘Where do you want me?’

‘Wherever you’d like to be. We’ll live or die where we stand. Nowhere is safer, or less safe, than anywhere else.’

‘Then I’ll stay with you, if you don’t mind.’

I wasn’t as well dressed as the men. My belt was plain leather, but that was all I needed; I had my gladius and someone handed me a helmet. It slid over my head, cool about my ears, and I felt whole again, almost.

Rome, 20 December
AD
69

YOU WILL KNOW
as much about our trip north across the river as I do: it was you who gave the order that we be taken across, was it not?

I didn’t know you then, behind your mask. It was only today, remembering, that I realized where I had seen you before. Your voice, of course, is instantly recognizable, although it has taken me until now to realize that it was you who spoke to the priests and told them to take us. I had heard of Hypatia of Alexandria, of course, but I had never met you.

Does Pantera know you were in Rome? I thought not. And I suppose we shall never know if he would have acted differently if he had believed he had your support. Perhaps it is better this way; we knew, in the end, the lengths to which he would go to get what he wanted. The gods work to their own design, but we are grateful to yours for her care of us, never think otherwise.

So, as you will have seen, we walked sedately across the river as part
of the column of Anubis-priests and our disguise could not have been more complete.

We paid for our safety; the dog’s-head masks stank of glue and sweat and paint. It was as hot inside as the steam room had ever been at the baths.

I couldn’t see except in a line straight ahead, and even then sweat filled my eyes and blurred the road ahead. I carried a basket that clunked with every stride and felt as if it were filled with apples made of solid gold; I was never allowed to look inside.

Walking blindly, I followed the vermilion robes ahead, the high white ears of Jocasta’s mask. She floated the way the Vestals had floated. I stumbled in her wake, but did not dare veer aside: I had no idea why she had done what she had done, but she had, in effect, taken custody of Domitian and I dared not let her out of my sight for fear of what she might do.

We passed through the lines of Vitellius’ men, across the bridge – it echoed hollowly under my feet and we had to break step, as the legions do, not to cause it to collapse – and then through the lines of Antonius Primus’ men on the far side. They were in high spirits, and desperate to fight, but we were priests of a god respected by both sides in this war, and no soldier was keen to incur divine anger in the hours before battle.

Guards stepped aside to let us pass and I saw the shimmer of iron, smelled the leather, felt the tense, dry-mouthed waiting.

We left the infantry behind, passed through the horse lines and then the cooks’ lines, and finally turned off the road down a small dirt track that led, several tight turns later, to a temple built in the Alexandrian style, of white stone, with narrow, fluted columns and white-painted double doors that looked thick enough to withstand a year’s violent siege.

Inside,
we were divested of the hateful masks, shed our robes and stood around feeling awkward while the priests set about hiding their treasures in hollowed spaces under the floor pavings.

I saw statues of the goddess carved in the likeness of a young woman, images of Anubis, of Osiris, of the warrior goddess Sekhmet, depicted in her guise as a lioness. Not all were solid gold, some were crystal, ivory, ebony and marble; all were exquisite.

The interior of the temple was high-roofed and airy, hung about with silk banners in the same midnight blue and vermilion as our robes.

The priests didn’t speak to us much. We had been offered sanctuary out of expediency, but now we were here, they didn’t know what to say to us or we to them. We were offered a place to sit on white marble benches opposite the carved marble altar and did so, primly, not speaking. What does one say in the presence of a foreign god? I thought that Jocasta was more at ease than any of us, but even she was quiet.

I heard the trumpets sound the advance at the bridge and knew the fighting had started. I twisted round in my seat, trying to see out of the door. It was closed, but opened as I looked, so that I heard the first shouts of command, the first roar of battle, the clash of weapons, and death.

And then I saw who had stepped in through the open door, and it was not a priest.

Trabo saw him too. He erupted off the bench beside me, blade already slicing forward for the exposed neck. The intruder took a fast, fluid step to the back, to the side, out and round, and was behind him. ‘Not me,’ Felix said, quietly. ‘I truly don’t think you want to try to hurt me.’

There was a moment’s shocked silence, then Jocasta said, ‘That’s true. We are your friends. Why would we hurt you? Trabo, if you please?’

Trabo
was Jocasta’s in soul and sinew; however unhappy, he didn’t have the power to turn her down. He stepped away, half-formed oaths muddying the air about him.

Felix didn’t move, but the look on his face was one Pantera could have modelled, just as the swift, clean disengage had been. Evidently, this boy was his master’s apprentice.

‘Did Pantera send you?’ Jocasta asked.

‘Vitellius sent me. I am sworn to find Domitian and make him safe.’

‘Safe?’ I gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Vitellius wants to take him into custody so he can use him to keep the throne.’

‘Still, he said he wanted him kept safe and I said I would.’ The boy smiled, angelically. ‘I didn’t say I’d take him back. He forgot to ask me that.’

His uneven gaze roamed the benches, alighting briefly on each of our faces. He frowned. ‘Borros isn’t with you?’

‘Borros is with Pantera,’ Jocasta said. ‘Did you not see him as you came through the forum? He was just behind us.’

‘I didn’t come through the forum. There were too many people. I knew you must try to flee Rome, so I came straight to the bridge and waited for you there.’

‘And noticed us disguised amidst the group of priests.’ Jocasta favoured him with a smile that made Trabo’s bones melt. ‘That was well done.’

She didn’t ask him how he had picked us out when we had believed ourselves to be invisible. Clearly, she thought to let his pride do that for her.

But Felix was not like other men; he didn’t need her approval, and did not respond to her tacit invitation, just stood there, still frowning, chewing lightly on his lower lip.

It took Domitian to get an answer from him. Vespasian’s son said, conversationally, as to a friend, ‘What did we do wrong? We thought we were invisible to anyone Vitellius might send.’

‘You will
have been.’ Felix shrugged, loosely. ‘But my lady Jocasta wears boots made by Leontus on the Aventine and there are few other tall women in Rome who do that, and none at all who walk side by side with a man of Trabo’s stature who strides like a legionary on the march.’

Jocasta maintained an admirable composure. Trabo was visibly upset. They had thought the boy stupid because he had a squint, and were only now realizing their mistake.

‘I’m sorry, my lord, lady …’ Felix offered a sad smile to their discomfort. ‘I don’t think Vitellius knows it. Certainly, he didn’t tell me how to pick you out when he sent me to look for you.’ His gaze cleared. ‘You will want to find Pantera? He was on the road north from the forum. I passed him.’

‘No!’ said Domitian.

But ‘Yes!’ said Jocasta at the same time. ‘We would very much like it if you could help us find Pantera. Most likely, he will know where Borros is. Perhaps the lady Caenis and I could come with you? Trabo can remain here with Domitian, Matthias and Horus. We can bring Pantera back when we have found him.’

Was I a hostage? It certainly seemed like that. In one stroke, Jocasta was separating me from Domitian, so that I could not know what was done with him. I looked at her and received only a bland smile, which I returned in kind, saying, ‘Certainly. That would be wise. Above all of us, Domitian must be kept safe.’

I could have challenged her, perhaps, but one of the things I learned in Antonia’s court is that things gather a power of their own when they are spoken aloud. Let her think me compliant; let her underestimate me as she had done Felix; let her make just one mistake …

The priests came to see us leave, and to swear that their god would protect Domitian as long as he remained in their care.

The obvious corollary was that, in leaving the care of Isis, we three
were putting ourselves in danger. We bowed and thanked them and promised gifts to the god on our return.

As we left the sanctuary of Isis’ temple, Felix threw me a dazzling smile. I found him really rather charming, in his own strange way. Then we stepped out of the door and all we could hear was the battle for Rome, and the sounds of men dying.

Rome, 20 December
AD
69

‘
STEP UP! SHIELDS
locked! One step forward! … Hold that line!’

Days, months, years of training were tempered here, in the heat of battle. Men moved without thinking, their bodies responding long before their minds caught up, and the wall they made with their shields was flawless.

Against other legionaries, we would have been unassailable, but Antonius’ blue-scarved cavalrymen brought their long spears when they came at us from the side – Juvens had been right about their flanking manoeuvre – and they drove them over the tops of our shields as if we were barbarian warriors, not fellow Romans.

I felt iron hiss past my right ear and jerked to my left, cracking my helmet hard against Juvens’ – he had mirrored my move.

We bounced upright again, and ducked back down as the spears twisted and stabbed. Left and right, green-marked men
were falling. Others stepped in to take their place, but there was only one way this could go if we stayed as we were.

‘We need to move back!’

It was hard to be heard over the din of battle; iron clashed on mail, on iron, on flesh. The air flowed hot with lifeblood, the ground was a smear of ordure and spilled intestines.

I shouted it again, to my right this time, where the signallers stood. ‘Sound the turn! We need to move back up the street. Form a square, wheel right, shields to the outside, back up the street. Can you do that?’

Even as I shouted, a spear thrust caught the signaller in the throat and he went down like a felled tree. The nearest legionary caught his horn almost as a reflex – it doesn’t do to lose the signals in battle – but he was looking at it as if he had never played one in his life.

‘Give me that!’

I grabbed the horn, put tight lips to a mouthpiece still warm from the man just dead, and prayed for help in remembering how to play.

The help came. I was rusty, but adequate, and the notes were a ripple of silver rising over the black mess of battle.