Arthur Britannicus (9 page)

X. Tigris

It was a few months since the new emperor Carus and his legions had crossed the River Tigris and Persia, for so long the traditional enemy of Rome, had lain at their feet, ripe for the taking. Carus was still savouring his role. Not so long ago, he had been the prefect of the now-dead emperor Probus’ Praetorian Guard. Then, like a miracle from the gods, he had been elected to the purple. It came about when his troops, who were alarmed that the emperor Probus, far away in Rome, was planning to disband their legion and much of the army, acclaimed Carus as the new imperator. Carus wasn’t inclined to resist, so assumed the purple.

Probus promptly declared him a rebel and went with a force to Sirmium to capture and execute him. He made a fatal mistake. After he’d arrived at Sirmium, the unpopular Caesar found a need to keep his troops busy, and ordered them to work, draining some foul swampland ‘to establish my authority.’  His officers protested, but he overruled them. As the officers stood haplessly by, much of Probus’ force simply walked away from the stinking mud lands and defected to Carus.  The remaining troops judged that now they were inferior in strength to Carus’ legions and were vulnerable, so promptly assassinated Probus to establish where their loyalties lay. The popular new emperor was now in full control. Heady with a sense of destiny and with military might in his hands, Carus shrugged aside any need to consult the Senate, and sent an icy letter to Rome announcing that from now on, he was the new ruler of the empire. Then he turned to his soldier’s business of extending it into Persia.

Carus secured his back by appointing his sons Carinus and Numerian as junior emperors.  “Carinus,” he told the young prince, “I’m giving you considerable power as Caesar. Keep your throne in Rome, take no nonsense from the Senate. You’re better off at the centre of things than up in Milan where you can’t keep a close eye on the politicos. You have the army at your back, so you are in control.  Just oversee the western empire and get those damned Gauls subdued. I’m going to seize the east, because there’s a great opportunity. The Persians are concerned with trouble on their Indian border, and they’ve got most of their forces in the wrong place, for them, anyway. The rest are in such disarray with their internal bickering I can settle them piecemeal. Within a couple of years, we should have both the east and the west under control, and we’ll act jointly as Augusti over the greatest-ever expansion of the empire.”  

Carus had cowed the Senate, made new appointments, including that of Carausius, and set about his plans. Within months, the general took his younger son Numerian and the legions east. He crushed the Sarmatians and their fellow Carpiani in a series of conflicts that ended with 20,000 of them in chains and 16,000 more dead on the battlefield, but Carus didn’t stop there. He ignored the usual rules of campaigning, pushed his victorious troops through winter conditions across Thrace and Asia Minor, plundered Mesopotamia and took the meek surrender of the wealthy cities of Ctesiphon and Seleucia without drawing his sword, all while the Persians shivered in winter quarters and watched in dismay.

Before long, the Great King of Persia sent five of his ministers as ambassadors to treat for peace. The bejewelled dignitaries entered the Roman camp and demanded to be taken to the conquering emperor. What they found astounded them; a travel-stained soldier was sitting on a horse blanket eating a meal of bacon and hard peas. The only clue to Carus’ status was the purple colour of his woollen robe. Unceremoniously and with open indifference, the still-seated Carus continued to chew his leathery bacon as he listened to the ambassadors’ flowery greetings and protestations of their desire for peace. Then he stood up, and pulled off his cap. Underneath it, his head was almost totally bald. “Unless your king Varanes pays proper tribute,” he told them bluntly, “I’ll leave Persia as denuded of trees as this head is of hair. Just tell him that. Now get out of my sight.” The ministers backed away, bowing. Persia, they knew, was about to be as humbled as they had been.

Three days later, the threat was ended. Carus lay sick, pallid and sweating on his camp cot. At his side was his son, Numerian and his guard captain Diocletian, a hardened soldier who had shared Carus’ service on the Danube and who had a close bond with the emperor. “I’m dying, Diocles,” said Carus, using the soldier’s family name. “Take care of my sons.”

“Yes, lord,” said Diocletian. “Trust me, I shall.” Outside the pavilion tent, a violent rainstorm was thrashing the canvas and the rumble of heavy thunder reverberated from time to time. “Going out with a bang, eh?” Carus grimaced weakly as he gripped his old comrade’s hand. It was his last jest.

The tent walls flickered in the lightning flashes and the guttering oil lamps were frequently extinguished by blasts of cold air that shook the pavilion. As a slave re-lit several of the lights, Diocletian saw his emperor had slipped away into his long sleep. “Be at peace, my friend,” he muttered, releasing his hand from the dead man’s and pushing the eyelids closed. Numerian, less accustomed to death, looked on in dismay at his father’s body. He backed away, stumbled on a rug and blundered into the slave who was re-lighting the lamps, knocking one to the floor. The oil pooled on the carpet, the flames caught, licked the fringe of
a silken hanging and in seconds the pavilion was afire. The emperor’s body was rescued, but the accident sparked more than a blaze. It ignited a disaster.

Despite the best efforts of Numerian, who assumed his father’s crown, rumours ran rife that Carus had been struck by lightning. The superstitious soldiery believed this was a bolt from gods angered by Carus’ campaign and they boiled into a state of near-mutiny. A delegation led by the legion’s First Spear met the new emperor to tell him they all were in danger. The Tigris should never have been
crossed, the gods would smite them all if they continued. “This, Caesar, is the final limit of Rome’s boundaries,” they told Numerian, who was suddenly uncertain about his hold on power. Under pressure, the young man nervously capitulated to the legions’ demands. To the astonishment of the Persian cavalry scouts who watched, the victorious Roman army turned in retreat, marching away from an empire that was helplessly waiting to be claimed.

The long, slow trudge back to the west took eight months before Numerian and his disheartened troops crossed the Bosphorus into Europe and the young emperor spent most of the march in a closed litter or in the semi-darkness of his tent, as his eyes had been badly burned by sunlight. Diocletian still acted as his guard captain, but Numerian’s father-in-law Lucius Flavius Aper had taken over as his prefect and mouthpiece, bringing from the guarded, off-limits tent the edicts he claimed came from the young emperor. Diocletian viewed him with suspicion, especially when the prefect unexpectedly declared that the emperor was ailing and must not be disturbed by anybody.

Matters came to a head soon after the army reached the European continent. Diocletian turned to his centurion friend Galba. “The Boar,” he said, referring to Aper by his nickname, “is hiding something. I’m going into that tent to see just how sick the emperor really is.” With a file of legionaries behind him, the guard captain pushed aside the sentry and entered the pavilion. Numerian lay on his cot, dead. Diocletian thought fast. The emperor may have died of natural causes, but he seemed to have been dead for hours. Aper must be bidding for the throne. “Follow me,” he ordered his soldiers. “You two stay here. Let nobody in.”  The file of soldiers jogged through the way camp and found Aper near the horse lines. “Seize him,” Diocletian ordered. “Take him and chain him, keep him away from everybody. Wait for my next orders. Sound assembly.”

Within a half hour, the legions were in formation, and Diocletian stepped up onto the parade podium. He upturned his face to the sun and swore an oath in ringing tones that could be heard across the whole parade ground. “In the view of Sol, I swear that I make a true and honest testimony. In no way and at no time have I ever plotted against my emperor, and what
I am about to tell you truthfully happened, as Sol is my witness of this. May he blind me if I lie.”  He looked to his left, and in stern judicial tones, commanded his praetorians: “Bring me that murderer.”

They paraded Aper, bewildered and clumsy in his chains. “This man,” Diocletian declared loudly, “murdered our beloved emperor Numerian and tried to conceal his crime while he plotted to steal the grass crown. He must die.”  A whisper ran through the rear ranks as his message was conveyed, then a hush fell. Not one person in the watching thousands moved or made noise.  Before Aper could speak any word of defence or explanation, Diocletian unsheathed his stabbing sword and in a single, swift motion thrust it up under the condemned man’s ribcage. The chained prisoner dropped to his knees, and looked in wide-eyed surprise at his stooping killer, who had not released his sword and whose face was brought close as a lover’s to his.

Diocletian pushed Aper sideways, still not releasing the sword’s hilt, and the dying man’s eyes closed as if in tired resignation. He vomited a gush of oxygen-bright blood and fell away from his murderer, who lowered the man, still impaled. Aper died in moments. Diocletian straddled the body, put a foot onto the bloodied tunic and jerked his gladius free.

The assembly maintained its utter stillness as the self-appointed judge and executioner wiped his blade on the dead man’s shoulder. He turned to the assembly, opened his arms wide,
then turned to point as he shouted: “Numerian is dead in that tent, at this man’s hand, but I have now avenged him. I have killed the boar!” He was punning on ‘aper’ which means ‘boar,’ and on Aper’s nickname, but was also dramatizing a well-known prophecy made years before, that he would kill a boar and become emperor.

A centurion standing at the side of his cohort did as he’d been prompted earlier, and bellowed: “Diocletian for emperor!”  The chant rumbled through the ranks, rising louder. Diocletian let the shouting continue for more than a minute,
then raised his hand for silence. “If it is the will of the gods and of you, my comrades, I will accept,” he said.  He looked up again at the sun. “It seems we have the blessing of Sol. The gods are with us. I shall lead you to more glory.” As swiftly and easily as that, a new emperor was created.

XI
. Massalia

By imperial order, the legate Carausius was to leave Rome, and make his way to Gaul and his new command, but the gods had more in store for him before he exited the city.  He had considered going by road; it could be a swifter journey. Hadn’t the emperor Titus once covered an astonishing 500 miles in 24 hours to get to the bedside of his dying brother?  That wasn’t likely for Carausius; it would be a sore trial for his battered body, as even the best raeda carriages, with their three horses and padded leather interiors, provided at best a jolting, jarring experience even on the paved military roads. A sea voyage would be longer, somewhat more dangerous, but easier. He was mulling the decision as he limped along the Via Nova to meet an administrator who had been recommended to him as a good choice for intelligence gathering and internal security.

He’d just decided to take the sea voyage option and had turned his mind to what he’d need when a cry from the pedestrian behind caused him to turn. The man jumped sideways. Carausius began to do the same, not knowing what to expect, but his injured foot made him clumsy. With a rumble and roar, the tenement building alongside him collapsed.  A cascade of falling brick blasted a dust cloud but tumbled away from him, although a few timbers fell in the Briton’s direction. One, turning end over end, struck him on the hip and flattened him, pinning him against the limestone pavement. Rats scuttled for safety, and even dazed as he was, Carausius registered the movement, spotting the flash of one white rodent among the dark ones in the billowing dust.

The big soldier lay trapped by the heavy baulk of timber, although most of its weight was fortunately propped on brick rubble. He dazedly realized he’d have to wait for help. Then the screaming started. Oil lamps inside the building had ignited a blaze and the pinned Briton was hidden in choking smoke. He began to bellow for help before the flames could reach him or the building fell in.

Out of the smoke appeared an incongruously-cheerful face. The man was not tall, but was heavily muscled. He was carrying a hook and an axe, equipment that signified he was one of the vigiles who patrolled Rome looking for business.  Fire fighting crews managed by the immensely-rich Marcus Licinus Crassus, the vigiles turned up to fires and haggled with the building’s owner until a deal was struck, or they watched the building burn.

“This your house?” the apparition asked Carausius.

“No, it damned well isn’t,” the soldier said, gritting his teeth. “Get me out from under here.”

“Not sure about that, lord,” grinned the vigilis, “I’m Stevig, by the way. My mates call me Stupid. I love the smell of the smoke. Got any coin?” 

Carausius nodded. “I have gold,” he said shortly. “Right, let’s get you out of there, it’s dangerous,” said Stevig chidingly.

“I didn’t bloody choose to be under here,” said the legate.

“Right,” said Stevig, levering up the bulk of timber so the soldier could inch clear.
“One gold aureus, please.”  Carausius shook his head, but paid up just as a second vigilis arrived, a tall, dark-haired man with an accent from the south. “My mate, Murrus Antipodes,” Stevig said cheerily. “He was thrown out of eunuch school because he still has a giant hairy nut sack. He claimed it was an apparition, but his master’s wife admitted it wasn’t.” Carausius nodded, swore at the pain in his hip and damaged foot and began to limp away. Antipodes called after him: “I would have helped in the rescue. A tip would be nice.”

A week later, scudding across Our Sea in a blue-sailed naval galley headed for southern Gaul, Carausius grinned at the memory. He ached a bit, but it could have been worse, and alongside him, smiling as the wind blew her hair across her eyes, was Sucia. “Being a legate has unexpected privileges,” he grinned at her. “No pirate will come near this warship, all we need watch for is the weather, and we’ll be in Gaul faster than any trading vessel. Now, tell me about the merchants’ road from Cathay.”

So Sucia talked of the Silk Routes, a network of rough tracks that linked remote oases across the east, and how caravans of traders moved between them. Few, she told him, covered the entire distance, because it was too long. Instead, most traders repeatedly travelled the same parts of the routes, making arduous journeys over deserts and mountains. “My trader travels between Samarkand and Damascus,” she told him, “and he brings me some of the world’s most precious fabrics. I send back amber from the Baltic, sun stones from Iceland that show sailors the way, even in fog; the finest wool garments from Britain, and precious black jet from the coast near Eboracum, not far from your birthplace.”

What, Carausius wanted to know, was the mysterious dark blue crystal she had showed him, from her workings in Britain’s limestone peaks?  “It is just the one cavern, formed by an underground river and discovered by the ancients. It contains a band of rare crystal called Blue John that is found nowhere else in the whole world.  I have sent beautiful bowls made from it as far as Pompeii and Herculaneum, gifts of imperial purple fit for the emperor. But I will have a gift for you that is just as precious, when we reach Britain. I will give you one the world’s most prized hunting dogs.” Carausius grinned again.  Since he was a boy, he’d loved dogs. As an apprentice to the river pilot Cenhud and as a foot soldier of the legion, he had not been able to have a dog. Now, a legate of Rome, a man who commanded thousands of troops, he could do anything he wanted. And he wanted a big war dog.  One day soon, he thought.

As Carausius and Sucia were passing Corsica on their way to the great Gallic port of Massalia, the twins Mael and Domnal were already there, employed in carrying their master’s baggage down the gangplank onto the stone quay built by the Greeks and up into the sun washed town of handsome houses with their red terracotta roofs.  Southern Gaul, where the high limestone ramparts of the mountains behind the port gleamed in the bright sunlight, was a wonderful place, a world away from the gloomy fogs and rain of their master’s Belgic home in the north.  “I don’t want to go back,” Mael whispered to his brother. “We could lose ourselves in a place this big if we could just slip away.” Domnal nodded. He didn’t care for their master Gracilis, because although the man treated them reasonably well, he was a perverted pederast and sometimes forced the handsome slaves to participate in his performances with catamites. His demands had lessened as they got older because Gracilis’ tastes ran to quite young children and the twins were rarely participants these days, but they still wanted their freedom.

“If we’re caught, we’re dead,” Mael told his brother. Domnal nodded. A runaway slave faced crippling punishments, or death, but after more than a decade as Gracilis’ body slaves, they were treated with considerable liberty, and escaping shouldn’t be difficult. The hard part would be to stay away, and they could do that easier in the Mediterranean seaport than in Belgica.  Their chance came that same evening. The amber trader wanted to sample a Gallic whorehouse that a friend had excitedly told him about, and he left the twins under a solitary guard in the tavern where the travellers were staying.

The duo acted decisively. While their guard sat in the public room below, sipping wine and flirting with a whore whom he had no intention of paying, they uncovered Gracilis’ strongbox under the floorboards, prized off the hinge with a knife and took the linen-wrapped roll of coin they knew was inside. They had no difficulty in slipping unseen out of an upstairs window, over the red-tiled roofs of the tavern and the next building and dropping into a stable yard where a carpet of horse dung muffled their footsteps.

“Get rid of our slave clothes, be less conspicuous, then we’ll pay our way out of here,” Domnal said, gesturing at the drab tunics that marked them as belonging to the lowest class of society. “We’ll have to steal some. We can’t buy clothes dressed like this, people will question how slaves got money. Then we’ll find another town and we’ll be free. Maybe we can even get back to Britain.” The pair made their way out of the harbour area and headed for the upper reaches of the old town, intending to find a bath house. “Romans bathe nudus,” Domnal explained to his twin, “so they leave their tunics, togas and sandals with a bath slave. We should have no trouble sneaking through the steam and lifting some new kit.” 

At first, the gods favoured them. They quickly found a bath house on the Via Lacydon and slipped inside, past a drowsing attendant. The other guardian of the door was inside, doing his rounds and shouting out the time. The changing room was empty, and a dozen or more of the cubicles held vestments of various kinds. Mael scooped up a fine linen tunic, grinning as he whispered to his brother, “Very intelligent: one size fits all, no tailoring needed!” Domnal didn’t answer; he’d stripped off his tunic and was reaching for a bather’s discarded clothes when a footfall sounded.

Two burly mariners walked into the steamy room, followed by the sleepy slave, who was carrying linens for them.  “They’re stealing clothes!” the attendant squeaked as he took in the scene. Mael stood paralyzed, and one sailor grabbed his arm. Domnal ran naked, forcing past the attendant and fleeing into the street. His escape ended as quickly as it began.  Two watchmen on fire patrol blocked his way. A naked man running from a bath house slave didn’t look innocent. Domnal was seized and bound.  By morning the twins were standing before a furious Gracilis.

“You ungrateful bastards ran, and you took my gold. I will have one of you flogged to death while the other watches, then I’ll sell the survivor to the Moors for their galleys. You,” he pointed at Mael, “are to die.”  Domnal went to his knees to plead for his brother’s life, but Gracilis was obdurate. Then Domnal had inspiration. “We have a treasure,” he told the trader. “That is, we know of something hidden by the Romans in Britain. It’s an old treasure, and we can lead you to it.” He was lying, he didn’t know what the ancient map told, but it was their best chance to buy time, and perhaps to escape again. 

Gracilis took the little metal map and pored over it. He questioned Domnal again and again, but the slave was adamant. He’d lead his master to the loot, but he wouldn’t tell where it was, except that it was in Britain. Gracilis shrugged. The slave could die once the treasure was in his hands. Let him do the leading, give him time to reflect. When he got them back to Hadriani, he’d keep them under close guard until he took them to Britain. Two days later, the chained twins, in riveted metal collars that read: ’I have escaped. Send me back to my master Gracilis Turpilanus for a reward,’ were escorted onto the Rhone river barge that would take them halfway across Gaul on their way back to Forum Hadriani.  Gracilis, with the little lead map firmly in his possession, thought he would plan a trip to Britain in the near future. He had more pressing matters for now, and he also needed to consult someone he could trust about the map, and go through the business of deciphering the clues.