Nobody Loves a Centurion (28 page)

“Stop!” I bellowed. “Stop at once! These men are innocent!” A babble of astonishment erupted around the forum and the commands of the centurions did little to quiet it. I ran up to the platform, panting and gasping, and stopped before the odd stone pillar. I saw that it was the grave monument of Titus
Vinius. He was to witness the execution, if only in effigy.

“I see you retain your flair for the dramatic, Decius Caecilius,” Caesar said. “You had better explain yourself quickly if you do not wish to join your friends about to go under the vinestaffs.”

I was panting too hard to speak, so I reached into my tunic and took out the silver bracelet. I tossed it up to Caesar and he caught and examined it.

“This gets you a hearing. Come up here, Decius.”

I managed to stagger up the praetorium wall and thence to the platform. Someone shoved a skin into my hands and I choked down a mouthful of heavily watered wine. The next mouthful went down easier and the third easier yet.

“You had better talk before you drain that thing,” Caesar said. Then, to the others, “Gentlemen, give us leave.” The officers filed off the platform, eyeing me like a visitation from the underworld. When we were alone, I talked very swiftly, in a low voice. Caesar’s expression changed little during my recitation. He paled a little when I told him of Vinius’s treachery, but the terrible danger I had undergone seemed to cause him little distress. When I was finished, he stared at me for a while.

“Well done, Decius,” he said at last. “I want full particulars of your experience in the German camp later.” He called for his officers to rejoin us and he gave them, very succinctly, the basic facts of my discoveries. Their expressions were a marvel to behold.

“Well, I always said Titus Vinius was a bastard,” Paterculus remarked, an observation applicable to most centurions. “But, Proconsul, we’ve got the legion formed up here to witness an execution. If we don’t kill
somebody
, they’re going to feel that things aren’t quite right.”

Caesar smiled. “Oh, I think I can give them a pleasing show.” He leaned over the parapet and spoke to one of his lictors. “Go to the blacksmith’s and fetch me a hammer and chisel.” The man dashed off and Caesar raised his hands for silence, which descended instantly.

“Soldiers! The gods of Rome love the Tenth Legion and will not allow dishonor or injustice to befall it! They have furnished me with proof that the Druids murdered Titus Vinius as a barbaric human sacrifice, and that this fate befell him as a result of his own treachery. The First Cohort, and its First Century, are restored to full honors and their disgrace canceled!” The legion erupted in a tremendous roar and the morning sun flashed from the tips of waving spears. The other legions probably thought we were under barbarian attack. The soldiers began to shout Caesar’s name over and over again, as if he had just won a great victory.

“Wait here,” Caesar said. “I shall be back presently.” He left the platform and walked toward his tent.

Burrus and his friends were so numb with relief that the men who had been about to kill them had to help them on with their tunics. A few minutes later the First Cohort was intact again, standing in armor, crests fluttering in the breeze, shield covers off to flaunt their bright colors. Caesar was giving the gods all the credit, but I took a great personal satisfaction in the sight. It is not often that one gets to see the good results of one’s actions in so dramatic a fashion.

When Caesar came back, he was out of military uniform. Instead, he wore full pontifical regalia: a striped robe bordered with gold, a silver diadem around his balding brows, the crooktopped staff of an augur in his hand. The jubilant legion fell silent at this unusual spectacle.

He descended into the forum and stood before the grave marker of Titus Vinius. The stonecutters of Massilia, in anticipation of legionary casualties, kept a stock of these three-quarters finished, needing only to add the inscription and details when one was commissioned. For Vinius, the relief of a standing male figure had been furnished with the insignia of his rank: the transverse crest on his helmet, the greaves on his shins, the
phalerae
atop his scale shirt, the vinestaff in his hand, all painted in bright colors. The face bore only the vaguest resemblance to the man. Below the figure were inscribed his name, the posts he had held, and his battle honors.

Caesar stood before this monument with hands raised and pronounced a solemn execration, using the archaic language of ritual that nobody can really understand now. When he had finished the resounding curse, he turned to face the soldiers.

“Let the name of Titus Vinius be stricken from the rolls of the Tenth Legion! Let his name be forgotten, his honors stripped from him, his estate forfeit to the Rome he would have betrayed!”

He turned around and faced the gravestone. The lictor placed the hammer and chisel in his hand and he shouted: “Thus do I, Caius Julius Caesar,
pontifex maximus
of Rome, strike from the memory of mankind the accursed name of Titus Vinius!” With deft blows of the hammer, he chiseled away the face of the figure. Then he obliterated the inscription in the same fashion. Then he dropped the tools and remounted the platform.

“It is done! Let no man speak that accursed name! Soldiers, you have witnessed justice. Return to your duties.” Instantly, the
tubas
and
cornicens
roared and the cohorts marched from the forum, smiling broadly. It was a happy army once
more. Gauls and Germans out there by the horde, and they were happy.

“Decius Caecilius,” Caesar said as we walked back toward the big tent, “you have one hour to bathe, shave, and get back in uniform. Then I want to hear your detailed report.” I suppose I should have been grateful that he allowed me even that long.

An hour later, shaved, barbered, dressed in my battle gear but still feeling somewhat ragged, I reported to the praetorium and went over the events since Caesar’s departure several times. Caesar asked frequent, pointed questions, his lawyer’s acuity ferreting out facts even I had overlooked. When he was satisfied with my report, we got out the infamous chest and, to my great sadness, Caesar made note of every deed and every bar of gold, and double-checked it all against my inventory. He was not a trusting man.

“Well,” he said finally, “that concludes this sorry business. My congratulations, Decius. Your performance exceeds even my best expectations.”

“What will you do with all this treasure?” I asked.

“I have condemned him as a traitor. Everything he owned is forfeit to the State.” He closed the chest and locked it. I made a mental vow to check the treasury records some day to see how much of it got turned in.

“This calls for a celebration,” Caesar said. “I shall hold a banquet this evening in your honor. Now go catch up on your sleep. Tonight, we banquet; tomorrow, it’s back to the war.”

I needed no encouragement. As I walked back to my tent, everyone I passed saluted me. There were smiles all around. I found Hermes already asleep, waiting in the tent door for me. I spread a cloak over him, stripped off my armor, and collapsed like a dead man.

That evening, we feasted on wild boar brought in by Gallic hunters and washed it down with excellent wine from Caesar’s personal store. Smiles and backslaps and congratulations were heaped upon me. Everyone was my friend. From being the most detested man in the legion, I was now its hero. I enjoyed it enormously, all the more so because I knew that it wasn’t going to last. Caesar even gave me a fine new sword to replace the one the Germans had taken from me.

Gradually the other officers wandered off to their beds or their night duties and I bade the Proconsul good night and went off in search of my own tent. Hermes, long experienced at this work, waited outside to make sure that I did not get lost. I handed him the napkin full of delicacies I had collected for him and we ambled slowly down the line of officers’ tents.

“It’s been a frantic few days, Hermes,” I told him, “but the worst is over now. Once the war gets going it will seem easy after all this.”

“If you say so.”

I thought about all that had happened since young Cotta had awakened me in the middle of the night, summoning me to the praetorium. The memory was like a blow to the head and I stumbled, almost falling.

“Did you trip on a tent rope?” Hermes asked.

“No, a revelation.”

He scanned the ground. “What’s it look like?”

“It looks like I’m a fool,” I said. “Druids, Germans! Nothing but distractions!”

“I think you’d better get to bed and sleep it off,” he said with a look of concern.

“Sleep is the last thing I need. You go on back to the tent. I’ll be along soon.”

“Are you sure about this?” he said.

“I am sober, if only from shock. Leave me now.”

He obeyed me and I was alone with my thoughts. Publius Aurelius Cotta had been the officer in charge of the Porta Praetoria the night Titus Vinius had died. What had Paterculus said?
No officer of the guard leaves his post unless properly relieved
. But Cotta had come to my tent to fetch me, and it was still dark at that hour.

He was preparing for bed when I stopped by his tent. “Decius Caecilius,” he said, surprised, “my congratulations once again. What brings you to my tent?”

“Just a small question concerning the night Vin . . . that man died.”

“Is it still bothering you?” He grinned. “You are the most single-minded man I ever met. What is your question?”

“You were officer in charge of the Porta Praetoria that night. You let the Provincial party through when they displayed their pass. But you came to summon me to the praetorium later that night. How did that happen?”

“A little past midnight I was relieved and told to report to the praetorium as officer on call. Some of Caesar’s lictors were there and they told me he’d turned in. There’s a spare cot in the lictor’s tent where the duty officer can sleep when there’s no excitement. He’s got a runner who has to stay awake at all times. Mine was a Gaul who barely knew ten words of Latin.”

“Were you told why you were relieved and your duty changed?”

“Do they need to give you a reason?” he asked.

“Usually they don’t bother,” I agreed. “Who took your place at the gate?”

“It was your cousin, Lucius Caecilius Metellus.”

“Thank you, Publius. You’ve cleared something up for me.”

“Happy to be of service,” he said, looking utterly mystified.

I didn’t bother to announce myself when I barged into Lumpy’s tent. He sat up in his cot, consternation on his face, then disgust.

“Decius! Look, if it’s about that hundred . . .”

“Nothing that easy, Lumpy,” I said jovially. I sat on his cot and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Dear cousin, I want to know who you passed through the Porta Praetoria and then readmitted on the night the centurion whose name must not be mentioned was murdered.”

“Decius,” he hissed. “Let it go! It’s over. You proved your client and his friends didn’t do it. Everyone is pleased with you. You’re Caesar’s favorite. Don’t ruin it, I warn you.”

I pushed him back on the cot, drew my pretty new sword, and placed its point just beneath his chin. “Who went out, Lumpy?”

“Easy, there! Put that thing away, you lunatic!”

“Talk, Lumpy.”

He sighed and it was as if all the stuffing went out of him. “I was on night officer duty at the praetorium. Paterculus told me to go relieve Cotta on the gate. He said later on there’d be a party leaving and they’d have a pass from him. I was to let them out and back in and say nothing to anybody about it.”

“And did he tell you why he was doing this?” I asked, knowing the futility of it.

“Why would he do that? It was some business of his own or Caesar’s and I wasn’t about to ask.” No, Lumpy wouldn’t ask. That was why they had sent him. They wanted an experienced
political bootlicker on that gate, not an inexperienced boy who didn’t know enough to watch out for his own future. I got up and resheathed my sword.

“Lumpy, I am ashamed to share the same name with you.”

He rubbed his neck, which was bleeding from a tiny nick. “That won’t be the case much longer if you keep this up.” But I was already out through the tent flap.

The guards at the praetorium entrance saluted me and smiled. Everyone was smiling at me lately, except for Lumpy.

“Good evening, sir,” said one of them.

“I forgot something earlier this evening,” I said. “I’ll just go in and fetch it.”

They turned and looked at the tent. Light poured from its entrance. “Looks like the Proconsul’s still up. Go on in, sir. He says all his officers are to have access during his waking hours.”

Caesar was sitting at a table with a line of lamps burning behind him. Before him on the table was the silver bracelet. He looked up as I came in.

“Yes, Decius?”

“The Druids didn’t kill Titus Vinius,” I said. “You did.”

He glared at me for a few moments, then he smiled and nodded.

“Very,
very
good, Decius. Really, you are the most amazing man! Most men, having settled a problem to their satisfaction, will never reconsider it to see if they overlooked something.”

“You’d have gotten away with it if you hadn’t sent Cotta to fetch me. I knew he’d been assigned to the gate that evening, not to the praetorium.”

“Ah, I see. Upon such minutiae do great matters balance. By the way, I did not ‘get away’ with anything. I am Proconsul of this Province, with complete
imperium
. I am empowered to
carry out executions without trial where I see need, and no one may hinder me in this or call me to account, even if his name is Caecilius Metellus.”

“How did you do it?” I asked. “Did Paterculus throttle him while you stabbed him?” I suppose I sounded truly bitter. I never liked being someone’s dupe, and I had been feeling particularly good that evening.

“Don’t be impertinent! The
pontifex maximus
of Rome does not befoul his hands with the blood of traitors. The execution was carried out in accordance with my instructions by my lictors, in constitutional fashion.”