The Great Game (7 page)

Commodus had clearly noticed and understood. ‘This makes you uncomfortable?’

For the first time this evening, Rufinus’ voice presented itself correctly for the reply without hiding behind croaks and groans and he was extremely grateful. ‘I fear it is inappropriate, Caesar?’

‘Inappropriate?’

‘You should travel with your family, sire, with an escort of the guard. With…’ he suddenly connected the beautiful woman on the extra couch; ‘with your wife, Caesar.’

Commodus threw back his head and let out a genuine laugh. ‘I am not entirely sure Bruttia should attend the bath house of a legionary fortress. Certainly the event would raise eyebrows and suspicions, don’t you think?’

Rufinus felt irritation rise unbidden. The young emperor was playing with him. ‘With respect, Caesar, you know what I mean.’

Again the smile slid from Commodus’ face and Rufinus worried he’d stepped too far out of line. This was exactly the sort of thing that made situations like these so unbearable. It was impossible with no experience of court life to know where to draw the line. Besides, with Commodus, he suspected the line had a tendency to move from time to time. Finally, the golden-haired man smiled.

‘It does a leader good to speak with the people he purports to rule, don’t you think, Rufinus? Some say I am destined for the purple through my lineage and divine origins.’ He gestured to the bronze mounted statue of Marcus Aurelius in military garb. ‘I for one am sceptical about my family’s divine origins. And don’t forget that emperors have come from families that worked hard for Rome’s benefit rather than simply descending from a ‘divine’ line: Vespasian the farmer, Nerva the senator and Trajan the soldier, to name but three. To rule Rome one does not have to have fallen from the womb of Venus. One simply needs strength of arm, strength of will and the wisdom to temper the two.’

Despite everything, Rufinus found himself nodding. The notion that any man could be emperor if he had the simple ability to rule had been Nerva’s great new tenet for the purple and had ushered in an era of unsurpassed prosperity. There was a great deal of sense in what the man said.

‘What is to become of me, Caesar?’ he asked suddenly.

Commodus pursed his lips. ‘You are to be assigned to the guard, of course. Not the cavalry, though. There is always a waiting list for the Praetorian cavalry as it’s the clear step into the imperial horse guard. I have a mind to ask that you be assigned to my escort. I have a century of Praetorians that travel with me. It is possible that you would blossom among them.’

‘It would be an honour, Caesar.’

He had actually been wondering what would happen to him in terms of his masters and allegiance; his role in the great game that Commodus believed was soon to begin. The possibility of serving
the young man directly, however, answered such questions to an extent.

‘However,’ Commodus continued, ‘that is a matter I will have to discuss with Paternus, Perennis and my father. Sometimes even an emperor must defer to others.’

Rufinus looked up and realised they had reached the bath house already. His mind had been so centred on the conversation that he had barely noticed as they had left the headquarters and strode across the wide street.

The young co-emperor pushed the heavy wooden door inwards and strode inside, Rufinus following along behind. The dressing room within was a welcome sight for the tired legionary. It had been long months since he had set his eyes upon the blue walls with their painted dolphins, fish and various divine beings. The niches for the clothes were half-occupied, so there would still be room in the pools. His boots steamed as he stepped onto the heated floor, the icy water that clung to the hob nails evaporating immediately.

Though the chamber was empty, they could hear the shouts, laughs and splashes of the men in the numerous other rooms. Rufinus stopped near the entrance and waited patiently, his arms by his side in imitation of an attentive military stance. Commodus, having strode to the side of the room and located a free alcove, and already beginning to remove his military tunic and baldric, turned to him and laughed. Dropping his sword and tunic onto the stone plinth, he began to unfasten his enclosed, decorative leather boots.

‘A number of my friends still swear by caligae as the great military footwear. They say that the empire was forged with such sandals and what was good enough for men like Agricola should be good enough for a soldier in the modern age. Those same idiots spend their time in Rome wrapped in a toga and have no concept of the unpleasant reality of passing through snow and swamp in sandals.’

Slipping off the boots, he carefully stood them with his clothes and whipped off his breeches, standing in only his subligaculum, bronzed and muscular.

‘I am even considering adopting the full-length trousers of the Celts, despite the connotations. Good Roman breeches leave too much flesh exposed in these harsh climes.’

He glanced at Rufinus, who was still standing to attention and fully dressed, and rolled his eyes. ‘For the love of Venus, Rufinus, will you relax and disrobe. In the baths all men are equal, after all.’

With a grin and a flourish, he let his underwear drop to the floor. ‘
Almost
all men, anyway!’

Rufinus tried not to look at the naked, grinning form of Commodus as he hobbled over to the nearest free alcove and began to remove his armour and clothing. His muscles screamed at him as he stretched to reach his feet, and an overwhelming desire to sink into warm water overcame the desires to eat and sleep, both of which were starting to infect his thoughts.

By the time he had shoved his armour and clothes into the alcove, which was not quite large enough to accommodate such bulky kit, Commodus was wrapped in a towel at the waist and held out another for him. With a nod of thanks, Rufinus took the proffered towel and wrapped it around his waist.

‘I have to admit that I’ve been looking forward to a shave and a haircut for a number of weeks, Caesar.’

Commodus’ mouth turned up into a humorous sneer. ‘Only babies and women have clear faces, Rufinus. Your beard and hair are perfectly suitable. They remind me of me!’

Rufinus swallowed nervously. He
hated
beards. They were itchy and uncomfortable. They made it hard to eat broth without saving half a pint for a future day. When your hair became wet it was like wearing an extra helmet and took more than an hour to dry. And at times he was beginning to worry that things were living in his hair and beard.

‘I prefer to be shaved and shorn after the fashion of the old days, Caesar.’

‘Well the matter is moot for now, Rufinus. The barber only works the baths until sundown. You will have to remain hirsute and Godlike for at least another night. Come.’

With a powerful stride, Commodus stepped through the door and into the cold room with its large pool in the centre and two small half-moon plunge-pools at the edge. Doors led off to the steam rooms and the hot pools, the exercise yard and the outdoor pool. Shouts and laughter echoed from every aperture.

Two soldiers who were ducked beneath the cold water in the central pool burst through the surface, laughing at one another and looked up to see the new arrivals.

It took only a moment for the two men to fall silent and bow their heads in deference. Rufinus frowned. If
he
had been them and a blond, bearded man in a towel had entered, he would never have guessed the man was the young emperor of Rome. It seemed that Commodus’ visit to the fortress baths was far from his first.

‘Behold! Commodus intoned in an oratorical fashion, striking a flashy pose. ‘Thus enters Hercules in all his golden glory to brighten the dull evenings of the men of the First legion!’

Still grinning like a lunatic, the emperor swung his hips in an expert move that allowed his towel to drop to the floor without changing his heroic pose. The two legionaries cheered and Commodus took a single step and leapt into the water, flailing his arms and landing heavily with a splash.

Rufinus watched with a mixture of awed pride in the man whom he served, and a niggling worry at what he perceived to be a changeable personality. Commodus was clearly a great man, but would likely be quick to anger.

With a sigh, aware that he was now sliding down a career slope to an uncertain fate but also that there was no point in worrying about things over which he had no control, Rufinus also dropped his towel and walked over to the table where the oil and strigils lay. Commodus may be clean enough to jump straight in but, without a good scrape first, Rufinus would likely leave a grey slick in the water.

The world had turned upside down for him for the second time in a few days.

His hand reached for the strigil.

IV – The giving and taking of great things

RUFINUS fastened the bronze-plated belt around his waist. It was far fancier than his old one and had cost enough that he really didn’t want to calculate how many weeks of slogging he would have to endure to pay for it. Add to that the replacement helmet and shield and the five sesterces that he owed Acastus for hammering out and smoothing the major marks on his armour, and it started to look like a small fortune. He’d even paid out a disturbing sum for a new cloak, given the state of his old one.

It was all doubly irritating given that, not long after the ceremony was over, he would be transferred to the Praetorian Guard and much of his equipment, including his fresh replacements, would be inappropriate and sold back to the legion’s quartermaster. He may well have paid a princely sum for a cloak that he would wear only once.

Still, it was not every day a man was awarded a decoration by the hand of the emperor himself, and being arrayed in the finest kit available seemed the least he should do, regardless of cost and inconvenience.

The organisation and upgrading of kit had given him something to do this past five days, though, and for that he was extremely grateful.

Those events that had taken place on his return to Vindobona with the guardsmen almost a week ago seemed now like a dream that had flitted away upon waking with the first tendrils of a new dawn. One evening of near panic-inducing nerves upon being introduced to the most powerful people in the world, a burst of most unseemly familiarity from the man who would soon rule the empire, and then it had evaporated like mist and left a mundane normality that had rendered Rufinus flat and slightly confused.

Only six days ago, Commodus had escorted him to the bathhouse and treated him with deference and respect for a short time before turning his capricious attentions elsewhere. As soon as the young co-emperor had spotted a pair of tribunes he knew well floundering in the water, an instant clique had formed and, once again, Rufinus had found himself alone.

In a way, he’d been grateful. To be singled out by men of such power was a thing both wonderful and terrifying, and the chance to
relax a little, lower his guard and enjoy the simple acts of cleansing and recuperating had been well-received.

It had mattered little to him that he had no clean kit with him at the baths. With Commodus’ attentions suitably diverted he had slunk away quietly, borrowing one of the bath-house’s robes and carrying his kit in weary arms to the Praetorian barracks. A few eyebrows had risen at the manner of his arrival but, once Mercator’s name was given and the friendly guardsman came strolling out to meet him, all had settled again.

His escort had arranged for freshly-laundered russet tunic and breeches to be set out for him, along with dry boots and even fresh undergarments. Shown to the room that had been put aside for him, he had not even bothered disrobing before sinking gratefully into the relative softness and comfort of a fortress bunk.

He’d spent two days occupying that room on his own, a bunk-filled space designed for eight, his only company being the guardsmen who had been his escort, and even then only on the rare occasions that their duties had allowed. The oak-beamed room with its four double bunks, armour racks, table and chairs and small hearth for warmth was surprisingly dingy even at the height of the day’s sun, and the room depressed him.

With the Tenth legion still out in the field, Rufinus had no duties and no compatriots in Vindobona and the next morning had brought with it a level of boredom and ennui hitherto unknown to him, kicking his heels in the bright coldness of early Martius. By now, spring would be making herself felt on the shores of the Mare Nostrum, in Hispania and Italia; flowers bursting into bloom and animals gambolling on the hillsides. Here in the barbarian north, blankets of fresh snow still covered much of the landscape and the cold, crisp, white sky with peripheral cloud promised further blizzards.

He made a point of visiting the baths again several times, partially through the sheer bliss of being able to remain clean, but mostly in the continued hope of a haircut and shave. In an almost farcical turn of events, though, every visit seemed to coincide with the resident barber being out on some ‘important business’ or other and so he remained hirsute and itchy, despite his best efforts.

The second afternoon, as he’d sat alone in the room, humming a little ditty from his childhood while polishing out a rust spot on one of his back plates, Mercator had dropped by with the first news from
higher up in two days: The legions had decamped in Marcomannic lands and were returning to base, leaving their small occupying garrisons to control the freshly conquered territory. In response, the First Adiutrix were moving out of the fortress and constructing a temporary camp on the far bank.

Rufinus could only imagine how popular they all were among the First at the moment, having to vacate their comfortable barracks of the past few months for life under leather tents in snow and mud. Still, the war was over. Soon most of the legions drawn in for the campaign would be returning to their home fortresses in Pannonia and Noricum and as far distant as Germania and Thracia. The inconvenience of sharing one fortress would soon have passed. The Tenth could settle back into garrison life at Vindobona… he, of course, could be anywhere if the Praetorian Guard were taking him into their ranks; most likely back to the great thriving heart of the empire.