Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust (11 page)

Outside, in the main avenue of the settlement, they scrummed together into a rough wall of shields about a dozen wide and three or four deep. Panicked inhabitants swirled around them like a river in spate around a boulder. In twos and threes,
speculatores
emerged from under the palms screening the innumerable side-alleys. Aemilius Severinus was leading one group.

‘They outflanked us. They were here before, and know this maze better than us. They were all around us, too many of them …’ The report trailed off. Aemilius stood, panting; shamefaced. There was a gash on his forearm, blood on his face.

Gordian gripped his shoulder. ‘Not your fault. Get your survivors together inside. When the enemy gets here, close the gate. Never mind about the civilians. Never mind if we are still outside.’

Aemilius Severinus nodded. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

Gordian waited in the front rank, shoulder to shoulder with his men. The civilians stumbled and jostled past, wailing like mourners. Behind, the horses trumpeted and screamed. Agonized yells and alien shouts echoed out from the alleyways in front. There was something unnerving in waiting silent and motionless at the centre of so much noise and movement. Here in the shade of the palms which lined the street it was cooler. The light was green, subaqueous.

Death is nothing to us
. Gordian repeated it to himself.
Death is nothing to us.

The press of refugees bumped and bored past. The guards waited. The din seemed to recede, as if it came from a great distance.

If at last all returns to rest and sleep …

A nomad ran out from a lane. The locals shrank away. He skidded to a halt, dumbstruck by the presence of the soldiers. Someone shot him. The arrow spun him around and dropped him in the dirt. The men around Gordian laughed.

‘And things were going so well for him,’ Sabinianus said.

From somewhere out of sight came a high call and response, the rhythmic stamping of feet, the beat of weapons on shields. The villagers hurled themselves past, sandals slapping on the compacted dirt. The street in front of Gordian emptied. He glanced back. A seething mass of bodies was stuck fast in the gateway. All sense gone, they clawed and struggled.

‘Steady!’ Sabinianus shouted.

A roar, and the barbarians came around the corner. A volley of arrows hissed over Gordian’s head. The foremost warriors twisted and fell. Those following leapt over them. More arrows, like spattering rain. Not enough to stop the charge. The nomads’ right arms went back, snapped forward. The air was full of barbed javelins. Gordian jerked his shield up. A jarring impact ran up his left arm. A splinter of wood narrowly missed his eye. The head of the javelin had penetrated the shield. He dropped the useless thing, got his sword up.

Braids flying, a nomad was on him, jabbing wicked steel down at his face. Gordian crouched, stepped forward. The javelin went over his left shoulder. He drove the tip of his blade into the guts. For a moment, they were together, face to face, in the hideous intimacy of an embrace. The stench of urine and blood. The breath of the warrior feral and hot on his face.

Gordian stepped back, pushing the dying man away. Another took his place, swinging a sword. Gordian blocked; once, twice, three times. The ringing of steel was loud in his ears. He gave ground. The soldiers around him likewise. Men were falling on both sides, but numbers were telling. Emboldened by his opponent’s passivity, the nomad lifted his arms high to deliver a mighty overhead chop. Gordian waited until the weapon was at its apex and neatly drove three inches of steel into his throat.

Again the line retreated and contracted. In the momentary respite, Gordian tried to take stock. Only three soldiers to his right now, Sabinianus and no more to his left. Nomads working around both flanks. The rear ranks of the guardsmen had turned to make a circle. The gateway was still full of massed humanity.

Like an ebbing tide, the enemy receded. Arrows from the wall plucked at their cloaks, thumped into their shields. One or two crumpled, hands clutching at the shafts. Before hope could rise, they charged again. The young chieftain at their head angled straight for Gordian. A flurry of blows, and Gordian’s back collided with that of the soldier behind. Hampered in his movements, he emptied his mind of everything except his opponent’s steel. Long training and the memory in his muscles guided him.

The briefest of pauses, and Gordian recognized him. With a curious precision and delicacy of footwork, Nuffuzi’s son feinted and lunged. Gordian took the strike high up near the pommel. This youth could fight. The sound of shouting from behind. No time for that. Gordian parried and riposted.

Sweat stinging in his eyes. Pain in his chest. Gordian was tiring, his movements slowing, growing clumsy. He had to finish this soon. He forced his feet to move, thrust to the face, and pulled back to buy himself some time. The shouting was louder. Some of the nomads were looking up over the knot of soldiers, others glancing over their shoulders. Nuffuzi’s son struck again. Gordian’s slight distraction almost killed him. A late, desperate block forced the blade down. It sliced open his left thigh. He staggered, fighting for balance. The youth readied the killing blow. Gordian brought his sword into a shaky guard. On either side the nomads were stepping back. Nuffuzi’s son shouted, glared at his warriors. Gordian stepped off his right foot, on to his left – a sickening surge of pain – and brought the edge of his blade down into his opponent’s right wrist. The youth screamed and dropped his sword. Before he could double up, Gordian got the point of his weapon up under his chin.

‘Surrender.’

Clutching his wounded arm, eyes wide, the young chief said nothing.

All the nomads were running. A drift wrack of bodies and abandoned weapons left behind across the shaded street. The shouting from the citadel redoubled.

‘Surrender.’

Despite the pain and the imminence of death, Nuffuzi’s son kept his dignity. ‘I surrender.’

Now Gordian could make sense of the shouting.

‘
Menophilus! Menophilus!
’

CHAPTER 6

The Northern Frontier
A Camp outside Mogontiacum,
The Kalends of April, AD235

Outside the imperial pavilions, Timesitheus stood with the governor of Germania Superior, Catius Priscillianus. Behind them, the others were growing restive. They were all waiting for admittance into the presence of the Emperor, and they had all been there some time. The morning was wearing on. The chill wind from across the river was plucking at the folds of carefully arranged togas, teasing neatly arranged hair into disorder. It was getting cold. Men were beginning to talk at more than a respectful murmur, and to shift about. Sanctus, the Master of Admissions of the court, darted here and there. The
ab Admissionibus
was relentless in his attempts at chivvying men back into the correct precedence and demeanour.

Timesitheus nodded in the direction of the busy imperial functionary. ‘If he had been this diligent in controlling who was let in during the last reign, Alexander would still be alive today.’

Catius Priscillianus laughed, not very loud, and not very long. That was perfunctory, Timesitheus thought. Far too perfunctory for a joke made by the acting governor of the neighbouring province of Germania Inferior, the man who was overseeing the finances in both their provinces and that of Belgica as well. Nowhere near enough for a joke by the man charged with the logistics of the whole northern campaign. And, questions of the elevation and propinquity of offices aside, Timesitheus was acknowledged to be one of the closest intimates of Priscillianus’ brother Catius Celer. Some greater show of hilarity would have been appropriate.

Still, it might have been just the weather. Priscillianus had not been back up on the frontier all that long. No time to get used to its ghastliness all over again. Timesitheus’ thoughts ran to his own initial venture into this gods-forsaken region years before. Nothing in his previous travels had prepared him. Leaving Greece for the very first time, he had passed through Italy on his way to his inaugural military command in Spain. A year later, he had retraced his route and beyond to Arabia. Another year – his career had flourished from the beginning – and he was sent to the North. Now it was more than a decade ago, but he remembered his arrival clearly. It had been autumn, the sky grey, the air sharp like a knife. He had not thought it could get colder. He had been wrong. That winter the Rhine had frozen, not only the shallow, winding side-channels but the main stream itself. You could walk across, drive a carriage over. The locals and soldiers, muffled and indistinguishable, had cut holes in the ice to fish. It was said that the frozen waters had trapped terrible man-murdering monsters so huge that teams of oxen had to be used to pull them out. Apparently, they looked like enormous catfish, only blacker and stronger, although Timesitheus had not seen them himself.

Priscillianus produced a handkerchief. A fine, purple one, maybe from Sarepta in Phoenicia by the look of it. Very expensive, Timesitheus thought. Priscillianus dabbed his nose. Hypochondria also might have curtailed his appreciation of humour. All three of the Catii brothers spent a great deal of time judging their health, and usually they found it wanting. Twenty-four-hour-fevers and two-day chills, black humours and common colds, each brought on by exposure to the elements or being cooped up inside, their lives were measured by many, much deliberated ailments. Even writing from Rome, exulting at his appointment as one of the Praetors for this year, Timesitheus’ dearest Catius Celer – the youngest of the brood – had complained of a headache, a sprained wrist and finding a snake in his bed.

Trepidation might have to be included in a consideration of Priscillianus’ state of mind. A level of apprehension came with any invitation to the council of an Emperor. This could only be heightened when it was the first
consilium
of the reign. Rewards would be handed out: magistracies, commands, proximity to the throne and influence. But, to clear the way for supporters and other favoured recipients, existing men must fall. They were all bound to chance, like Ixion to the wheel.

So far, only the permanent board of sixteen Senators had been allowed beyond the purple hangings. Some time ago, the Master of Admissions had said the provincial governors would enter next. There were five governors with the field army. Yet just Timesitheus and Priscillianus stood waiting in the wind. Given the turn of events, Flavius Vopiscus of Panonnia Superior would no longer need to mark time with the rest of the gubernatorial herd. But what had happened to Faltonius Nicomachus of Noricum and Tacitus of Raetia? One possibility was promotion. They might be inside already, ushered in by a secret door. Now snug and close to the Emperor, they were whispering into his ear with Flavius Vopiscus. Or perhaps they were riding hard to some new and prestigious post, to Rome or one of the great and wealthy provinces of Africa or the East, their anticipation and exertions warming their blood. None of the other possibilities was so good. Forced retirement was the best; a life of dissembling, pretending to be grateful for an existence free of the heat and dust of politics. Beyond that lay only some terrible combination of arrest, torture, condemnation and confiscation, exile and execution.

Yes, Priscillianus might be feeling a certain trepidation. Yet he was a
nobilis
, an aristocrat with two influential brothers and many ancestral connections. Timesitheus lacked those possible sureties. He had risen high – some would say too high. He was an equestrian from a Greek backwater. His main patron was elderly, and his sole relative was his own dependant. Timesitheus had no protection except his intelligence and an acquired fortune, and both attracted envy. He was more than anxious.

It would not have been so bad if his wife has been with him. On his decision, Tranquillina had remained behind in Colonia Agrippinensis. She was to keep an eye on Axius, the Procurator he had placed in charge of the province. It had been a mistake. Axius really did not need watching, and Timesitheus needed his wife by his side. She had ways of calming him, of putting things in a better perspective. And she had foresight; better than his own, he now had to admit. If she had been here, the coup would not have caught him by surprise and left him unprepared. He hated being unprepared. He was frightened.

Fear feeds on inactivity, like a sleek rat in an unfrequented feed shed. Timesitheus knew all about fear, although so far, somehow, he had never given way. The trick was to occupy your thoughts with something else. Now, he summoned up the outlines of the great commission laid upon him. But would it still be his task by the end of the day? He stowed the doubt deep down in the hold of his mind, battened the hatches. The image came naturally to a Greek from his island. Over the years it had served him well.

The logistics of a full-scale imperial campaign into free Germania were daunting. Vast numbers of soldiers and animals, huge amounts of food and fodder, mountains of ancillary items – tents, replacement weapons, boots and uniforms, prefabricated defences, dismantled siege weapons and bridging equipment, miscellaneous ropes and straps, ink and papyrus, sutlers, servants and whores – had to be assembled here at Mogontiacum and then moved into what remained largely terra incognita. Despite nearly three centuries of intermittent campaigning, the Romans were still remarkably ignorant about the geography of northern
barbaricum
. Before setting out from Rome he and some of the other advisers of the previous Emperor had used detailed itineraries to plan the stages of each day’s march to the frontier. All had been published in advance: which roads which units would use, where the supplies were to be gathered, when the Emperor would arrive in each town. Beyond the Rhine there were no maps, and all was vague.