Tales of Ancient Rome (4 page)

Genialis’ lip curled. It galled him in the extreme to be laying his life on the line for such a man but, regardless of what anyone said about the praetorian guard, he had only been prefect for a month and was damned if he would be remembered for turning on his rightful emperor in a time of trouble. When it was over and Severus came, he would decide whether Genialis should live or die, but for now the rightful emperor of Rome should stand proud as the office he held demanded.

“
Nero fled his palace in disguise. It gave him little extra time, and think how eternity remembers him. Come, Caesar.”

The praetorian commander ducked around the corner and ran lightly down the beautiful mosaic floor, his white cloak billowing behind him.

The ruler of the world’s greatest Empire peered nervously around the corner, reluctant to follow this man who claimed to be leading him to his end, but equally sure of the fatal nature of cowering alone in these corridors. Severus’ supporters were already in the Palatine complex somewhere and could be here at any moment.

He felt an embarrassing warm trickle and cursed his nerves.

More than thirty million sesterces he had paid the guard to secure this throne and here he was, after little more than two months under the purple, fleeing through his own palace from the rabble of a barely-literate African thug. Where had the majesty and glory of the Empire gone? Where had justice gone?

Ignoring the warm yellow pool gathering in his boot, he waved his son-in-law on with him and rounded the corner to see his praetorian prefect ahead, holding open the door to the great chamber that overlooked the circus maximus.

Running breathlessly, he pounded down the corridor in his soft, stinking leather shoes and hurtled through the door, throwing himself onto the low couch by a table covered in fruit and dining accoutrements.

“
Perhaps I can appeal to them again? Severus might want to exile me? I could go and be governor of Hispania? I think I’d like Hispania. They make a lot of fish sauce there, and I like garum. Maybe I could build an estate and retire? Just grow olives or something? I could…”

He stopped rambling in shock as his guard commander gave him a stinging slap across the face.

“
You are the emperor of Rome for however long you have left. Have the grace to act like it!”

Julianus stared. He hadn’t paid this man’s unit more than thirty million sesterces just to be treated like this: like a schoolboy.

“
Don’t shout at me!” he burbled petulantly.

Genialis shook his head in disgust.

“
I took your money and the vow to protect you. If it weren’t for that, Caesar, I would see nothing worth protecting!”

The prefect tossed his gladius into the air and caught it deftly by the blade, proffering the hilt to his master. The emperor stared at the weapon.

“
No!”

“
Do the honourable thing, Caesar, and I shall do what I can to protect your daughter and son-in-law. If they renounce their titles, Severus and the senate may let them live.”

Repentinus, the only recently married son-in-law of Julianus, nodded vigorously.

“
Caesar, you must save your daughter!”

Again, Genialis’ lip curled in revulsion at the constant displays of cowardice and fear this family exhibited. Despite his oath to serve and protect them, he was rapidly becoming convinced that Severus, the ‘Lion of Leptis’, might just be exactly what Rome needed: a strong leader, unafraid and severe.

Marcus Didius Julianus, master of the world, hugged the couch and wept like a little girl, his nose running, mucus matting his moustache.

“
Get up!” Genialis snapped at him.

The heap of toga, shuddering and whining, remained exactly where it was, the cowardly Repentinus gingerly embracing his father-in-law, ostensibly begging him to save the young princess. Genialis was in no doubt as to whose skin the young man was really interested in saving.

“
Get up!” he barked again.

Reaching down, he grasped the emperor by the throat, bunching the folds of the toga in his fist and hauling the man to his feet with a grunt. The waxy, pale Julianus, tears in his red-rimmed eyes and mucus in his beard, staggered, his knees quaking, the stink of urine about him.

Genialis thrust the gladius into his unwilling hands and folded the emperor’s fingers around the hilt. Julianus stared down at the weapon and raised it hesitantly, gesturing at the prefect. Genialis sneered and simply batted it aside.

“
Killing me would hardly help you, Caesar.”

“
Perhaps I can appeal to the masses? To the army? I still have a fortune. They’re gathered in the circus maximus, you say? I could shower them with sesterces from here! They will hear me and they will love me and I’ll be safe and they’ll kill Severus and I’ll rule Rome and I’ll be safe forever and…”

Another ringing slap stopped him chattering. He pulled away, the sword in his hand, and started toward the balcony before stopping dead again. His son-in-law was standing on the hem of his partially-undone toga, shivering, while the praetorian prefect glared at him with barely concealed loathing, his arms folded.

“
Repentinus!” he barked, but the young man remained where he was, reached toward him, gripping the blade of the gladius in the emperor’s hand and gently pulled it from his grasp.

“
Yes, yes” Julianus nodded. “I won’t need that, you’re right. I can buy them off. I will buy their love.”

Repentinus nodded and turned.

Genialis’ eyes widened as the young, cowering son-in-law drove the blade deep into the praetorian officer’s side, above the cuirass and below his folded arms, pushing the hilt with a grunt and listening to the grating as the blade slid between bones and vital organs. It was a masterly blow, worthy of a soldier; an almost instant kill.

Silenced first by shock and then simply by the journey to Elysium, Titus Flavius Genialis, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, collapsed in a heap, his legs buckling beneath him as blood rushed from the mortal wound in his side. A single gasp escaped his lips. Repentinus let go of the sword hilt and helped lower the dead man to the floor with a surprising show of respect. Fumbling with his toga, the young man stood.

Julianus, his eyes still wide with shock, started to nod madly, grinning like an idiot.

“
Of course. Good boy. He had to go. He would never have let me live. Now we can buy them off and I can…”

His voice tailed off as Repentinus stood again. The respectful lowering of the body and strange toga-fumbling had simply been the boy removing the prefect’s dagger from his belt. Now he brandished the leaf-shaped blade with a sad, resigned look.

“
What is it, Repentinus?” the emperor squeaked.

“
You see, Caesar, there is a problem. Genialis would never manage to save us. Severus will kill him for simply being in your guard, and Didia and I will follow quickly. But he was right that you simply have to die. No amount of generosity and coin will save you now. But there is still time for me to secure my future.”

Reaching out with his free hand, he grasped the emperor’s toga and bunched it in his fist in the same fashion as Genialis had done.

The emperor stared in shock and panic.

“
But you’re my family!” he wailed.

“
Sadly you’re no longer in mine, Caesar.”

Julianus tried to say something. His last words may have been profound and noble, though they probably weren’t. Whatever they may have been, they were inaudible as Repentinus drew the knife across his throat, watching as the blood began to gush and spray, soaking his own toga.

Letting go of his father-in-law as he fell, Repentinus ignored the thrashing as the emperor tried to hold his throat closed, making hissing, rattling sounds. Reaching down with the knife, he began the onerous task of sawing through the prefect’s neck with the razor-sharp dagger and removing the head. Moments later, treading through the blood-slick, he repeated the process on the now-expired emperor.

Letting the knife fall and grasping the heads by the hair, he walked, one in each hand, toward the balcony.

Quintus Aemilius Saturninus, loyal soldier of Septimius Severus and future prefect of the Praetorian Guard looked up. The crowds of soldiers in the circus maximus continued to shout momentarily, but the noise gradually died away as they took note of the small figure, high up in the palace window perhaps sixty or eighty feet above them, past the stands of the circus and the Imperial box.

The man was clearly wearing a toga, though it could be seen even at this distance that it was stained heavily red.

“
Behold the heads” the figure repeated for the third time, now finally sure of attention in the silence, “of the traitorous renegade Marcus Didius Julianus and his chief enforcer Genialis!”

With masterly theatrics, the man hurled first one head and then the other out into the air, watching along with the gathered crowd of legionaries as the heads of the emperor and praetorian prefect struck the seating area below the window and bounced, clunked and rolled down the stands until they fell, bloody and battered, to the sand of the circus.

The guards stared down at the grisly prizes as the killer in the window bellowed once again.

“
Hail and long life to the Emperor Septimius Severus, Lion of Leptis!”

A roar rose from the crowd.

And so passed Marcus Didius Julianus: the man who bought Rome.

Sold by his own kin in return for a future.

Trackside seats

Lentullus leaned to his left, closing on Citus’ ear to be heard over the general hubbub.

“
Should be a good one today. Prudens is up for the greens, and you know what he’s like.”

Citus’ voice came back, deep and hoarse as always.

“
He’ll have a hard race against Sura, make no mistake.”

Lentullus let out a low chuckle. According to his sources, which were, after all, quality ones, Prudens stood little chance of a loss today. His team had been carefully selected from the best steeds bred by Sarmatian trainers who knew their horses better than any man. Certainly his sources damn well should be correct, given the amount he paid them. Even if Prudens walked away with a clear victory today, Lentullus’ profits would be heavily eaten into by what he owed to various people ‘in the know’. Of course the profit he cleared would still buy him the nice new estate down near Antium he had his eye on… figuratively speaking, of course.

“
Andros? Are you there?”

The slave turned to his master, grateful that the latter’s long-term total blindness prevented him from seeing the expression on the young, long-suffering Greek’s face.

“
I am, master.”

“
What’s happening?”

Lentullus lounged back, his hand tapping along the marble of the seat toward Citus until it closed on the cheese and grapes that rested between them on a bronze plate.

“
Master… the quadriga aren’t out yet, but I can see movement in the carceres. Should be any moment now.”

“
Don’t miss a thing, boy. You hear? If this goes well, I’ll perhaps take you with me to Antium for the weekend.”

Andros nodded, frowning, trying to keep the ennui and sarcasm from his voice while speaking. Lentullus was sharp enough, but his equally blind friend Citus could almost hear an eyebrow rising.

“
Thank you, sir.”

“
Good. Now pay attention.”

Citus leaned to his friend.

“
You say the boy is good?”

“
Excellent. It’s almost as good as actually seeing it, though I have to admit it’s been so long I can barely remember.”

Andros leaned forward onto the rail, looking along to his left toward the starting gates. The crowd thronged the circus maximus, every stand full to capacity. He shouldn’t complain, really. How many slaves got to have trackside seats at one of the most important chariot races of the year? Glancing directly across, past the spina that ran along the centre of the circus, he could just make out the purple robe of the Emperor Domitian, himself leaning on a railing, the Praetorian Guard surrounding him and glinting in the sunlight.

No. He really shouldn’t complain. When his family had sold him eight years ago in order to have the money to keep his brothers and sisters alive after his father’s business failure and their subsequent eviction, he’d been sure the world was going to end for him. He would end up chipping marble in a quarry or fighting gladiators for the right to live another day. His father had smiled and told him he really landed on his feet with service to the ageing blind senator, while his mother cried in a corner.