Master and God (24 page)

He was highly annoyed when discreet enquiries revealed that Flavia Lucilla had left Alba altogether.

Gaius was a man; he had no grasp of the turmoil he had imposed on her. He presumed, insofar as he faced up to it, that if he could accept being unfaithful to his wife, it was his quibble, not Lucilla’s. Her position was easy, or seemed so to him.

He had no idea whether their relationship would develop. He had not planned to make love to her last night. Now, he was not necessarily expecting more – but nor was he clear there would be
no
more. He simply had not thought about it.

She had left, left him without a word. He felt he had been used and dumped.

Of course it was irrational. Though annoyed with himself for feeling that way, he had enough humanity to imagine why Lucilla might have fled. Not necessary, girl! He would never have allowed any awkwardness afterwards. He would have let her down gently if needed; he felt she could have given him the same consideration.

He did not suppose she was really upset; the night had been too good for that. He would sort this out.

Vinius knew the theory that sex was best when accompanied by love. That did not rule out love developing from sex. Perhaps it was happening to him. He was guarded in his relationships, to the extent that wives had called him cold, but he was self-aware. He knew some affection coloured his attitude to Flavia Lucilla. He viewed his plight now with curiosity, as if he were watching an insect crawl up a window frame.

Just before leaving for Dacia, the Guards were in Rome so Gaius looked for Lucilla at Plum Street. There was no sign of her. She must be deliberately avoiding him. Duty called. There was nothing he could do.

He did take one action, however: something he should have tackled long before. He went to see his wife Verania and announced that their life together was over.

Verania was so surprised to hear he had finally bestirred himself to divorce her, she took it quietly. He gave her enough money to grease the process. She was amazed at how generous he was, given that throughout their marriage he had been obsessed with suspicions that she was relieving him of cash (which, indeed, she had progressively done, by giving shameless hand-massages to his banker).

Vinius also made his will. Soldiers could write a basic testament in the field prior to battle but the Praetorians had a headquarters staff, under an officer called the
cornicularius
, which included a clerk who kept their wills. This was his first real contact with the office of the cornicularius whose work, Vinius thought, looked interesting.

From Novae, all this seemed a long way away and lacking urgency. Still, thoughts of home kept him occupied in lazy moments, and thoughts of Flavia Lucilla provided a future goal, of sorts.

Spring arrived. Cornelius Fuscus took the initiative: he built a bridge of boats across the Danube then led detachments from all his five legions, with his Praetorian unit, to the Dacian side. Whether or not this manoeuvre had been discussed with Domitian, let alone approved by him, was never clear.

Diurpaneus patiently let the Romans come. In a classic bluff, he gave them free access across the plain on the north bank of the Danube, then into the Dacian heartland via one of the high passes. The legions invaded the mountain-cradled interior, and Vinius noticed that Decius Gracilis had stopped his usual complaining; he was not a man to depress morale when courage was required. His beneficarius could tell from the set of his face, however, that Gracilis believed they were going too far from secure bases, with inadequate supply lines and no backup.

Still, the Romans pressed forwards in their classic line of march. Auxiliary cavalry went first to reconnoitre, with a light backup of bowmen, followed by half the auxiliary infantry, some legionary cavalry, a group of heavier infantry, a colour party and the all-important engineers. At the head of his legions rode the army commander, Fuscus, with his own cavalry and infantry escort, then the artillery – battering rams and catapults – before flank guards for the legionary commanders and officers, who were followed by a marching body of standard bearers and trumpeters. The main army came next, one legion at a time, shoulder to shoulder, six men abreast. Finally, after servants and baggage, the second half of the auxiliaries and the last cavalry formed a rear-guard.

Diurpaneus watched them coming. They never saw him.

They kept a tight line of march, all the way protected by flurries of cavalry, but the scouts reported few enemy sightings. Encounters with Dacians were noticeably scarce, though when they ran into any cowherds these were dealt with briskly. Native peoples within the Empire were tolerated with little worse than contempt, but natives outside were there to learn what the Roman army was made of. There was occasional rape. There was modest pillage. No army passed through enemy territory without imposing itself on the women or putting old men and boys to the sword. Fuscus’ troops met no armed resistance and optimists could convince themselves Diurpaneus was unaware of their arrival.

At night they made temporary camps, meticulously guarded by sentries who were under pain of death should they neglect their duties. Gaius Vinius watched Gracilis doing the rounds each evening, checking up on the men in his century, still saying nothing. He seemed to listen a lot. Gracilis was listening to the Dacian countryside, discounting the birdsong and animal cries, straining eyes and ears for suggestions of troop movement; the very soles of his feet were on the alert for reverberations in the ground that could indicate approaching cavalry. The further they went, the more grim his response to the absence of opposition.

They had come over sixty miles. Needing speed and any chance of surprise, they were using a paved Dacian road, unwillingly impressed by its high quality. As far as they knew, Sarmizegetusa lay up ahead.
All roads lead to Sarmizegetusa . . .
Much of Dacia was upland but they could see the rising heights where the citadel was thought to be. Thirty miles off, maybe? Forty at most. Two days.

Tapae. It was not much more than a village, a hamlet even, with a few pigs and chickens. The place appeared deserted, with signs of the locals’ hurried departure, although Vinius caught hints of wood smoke on the damp air.

Tapae. Roman armies were used to winning, used to the notion that unlike barbarians they were well-armed, well-drilled, an utterly formidable victory machine. Even when their battles were hard fought, those they won were often glorious. But they had always been beatable and when Rome lost, Rome lost on a big scale. Historic defeats still resonated. Every schoolboy learned the names of the battle of the Allia, the Caudine Forks, Carrhae, Cannae, Trasimene, the Varus disaster when Germanic tribesmen lured three legions into a trap and annihilated them . . . A trap deep in enemy territory.

Tapae. That was where Diurpaneus fell upon the army of Cornelius Fuscus in a well-planned ambush. From that time Diurpaneus would be known to his people as Decebalus, which meant a warrior ten times as great as others.

The Dacians appeared out of nowhere. There was a flash off a helmet, perhaps more glints of sunlight on metal; the first signs seemed unreal, almost passed unnoticed in the distance – then the enemy were upon the Romans. Most warriors were on horseback, shrieking and brandishing fearsome weapons. Fuscus and his men scrambled into well-practised action. The Romans had no battle plan; there was barely time to form up to face the hordes of warriors descending on them. After the long silence from the enemy, some men looked exhilarated at this chance for action but Vinius saw his centurion deplored their confidence. Gracilis had been waiting for this; he anticipated disaster.

A few frantic horn calls sounded, their meaning incomprehensible, then further down the line behind, sudden uproar announced that the fight had begun. Never having been in a pitched battle, Vinius was shocked by the chaos. They were fighting for hours, and for hours it was impossible to tell what was happening. He now understood why sometimes when a battle ended, exhausted participants were too confused even to know which side had won. At Tapae, eventually the outcome became bitterly clear. The Dacians with their long swords and sickles were carving up the Roman army, end to end. The Roman invasion force was being wiped out. They were all going to die, here in this godforsaken village, here on this bloody Dacian road.

The butchery horrified Vinius. He found himself trampling over dead and wounded, discarded shields and weapons; sliding on blood and guts and brains; stabbing and slashing, sometimes to good purpose yet sometimes aimlessly, while blinded by a mist of sweat and blood. The relentless noise appalled him. Not only the endlessly clashing weapons, but the terrible squealing of horses, the hideous screaming of men. The conflict just went on and on. He had never known such weariness, nor such spirit-sapping misery.

The Guards stuck solidly by their commander, knowing he would be a target. Diurpaneus habitually closed in on an enemy leader. The Praetorians therefore took the brunt of a deliberate Dacian onrush and suffered enormous casualties from the start. Heavily outnumbered, the remainder fought on even after they had seen Fuscus picked off; he was surrounded by intent warriors, dragged from his horse, and cut to pieces. With Fuscus killed, his men’s hopes for survival died too. The Praetorian battle standard had already disappeared, their trophy now a Dacian victory symbol. Screams and shouts intensified as the Dacians gloried in their success and the desperate Guards were systematically massacred.

The centurion Gracilis was last glimpsed by his beneficarius taking out opponents to the last, still showing his exasperation at the sheer bloody stupidity of this ill-planned operation imposed on good soldiers by an impetuous leader. Decius Gracilis, who would obey orders even when they were suicidal, died in that field of gore. Vinius saw him go down, bucking in agony yet wielding his sword valiantly even as life left him. His own heart burst with grief as he himself went on fighting – because that was what they were there for and there was no escape now – until a Dacian came up on his blind side. His helmet barely withstood the mighty blow that finished him, adrenalin carried him forwards momentarily, but he felt his sight blur and his legs give way. Vinius was finished. He knew it as, bitterly struggling against the darkness, he dropped to his knees then fell headlong among the dead and dying, helplessly submerged in carnage.

C
ertain moments would never be the same again. A garden at dusk in late summer would always remind Lucilla of her tryst with Vinius, and now mid-mornings when street-life was going on outside the shutters would sometimes catch her out too, making her weep. That was the time when Paulina had come to tell her what had happened. Instead of her usual cheery appearance, carrying little Titus, with the two girls scampering ahead and squealing for their aunt, Paulina was alone and solemn. She and Lucilla sat down together with hot beakers of flavoured borage tea, and then Paulina broke the news.

Reports of the tragic rout at Tapae had reached Rome. Felix and Fortunatus had gone to the Praetorian Camp, pleading for word of their younger brother. They learned that when Decebalus chased the remnants of Fuscus’ troops back through the mountains, so few soldiers scrambled back to the Danube that the cormorants on the riverbank scarcely bothered to lift off at their coming. None of the Praetorian contingent made it back. Their battle standard had been captured, which told its own story.

The Guards at the Camp had been sympathetic, until the brothers’ persistence became a menace; then the Guards’ own dismay at the loss of colleagues made them rougher. They shouted at Felix and Fortunatus to give up. There was no point repeatedly beseeching answers. Gaps in the Praetorian cohorts were to be filled immediately; any Guard who had stayed in Moesia with Fuscus was presumed missing in action. Fuscus, the Prefect, was definitely dead. A great many good men had died with him. Decius Gracilis and his century had been wiped out. The beneficarius was lost with his centurion. Felix and Fortunatus must stop causing trouble and accept it. Gaius Vinius was dead.

Dead. He was dead.

‘We all thought,’ said Paulina, with delicacy, ‘Gaius had a soft spot for you, Lucilla.’ Silence. ‘He never said anything?’

‘No.’

Paulina was not easily deflected. ‘Did you know that he divorced his wife? Just before he went away . . . She was very surprised. We all were.’

‘I am too,’ replied Lucilla honestly.

Not half as surprised as when the Praetorians supplied Felix and Fortunatus with their brother’s will. Gaius had made them his heirs and executors, not unexpectedly. He left them everything, with one surprising exception. A bequest ‘to Flavia Lucilla, well-deserving of me’ gave her all the contents of his rooms at Plum Street. ‘Well-deserving’ was a phrase used on tombstones for a spouse or lover, though presumably he intended simply to deter legal quibbles. Felix and Fortunatus added Gaius to their father’s memorial tablet near the Camp, but Lucilla was not invited to appear on it.

Everyone found it convenient to make out that Lucilla’s odd inheritance was just a few sticks of furniture and old keepsakes.

The furniture was better than her own, and Lucilla would take care of it for his sake. The keepsakes turned up when she unlocked the great chest in his bedroom. She made sure she was alone when she explored it.

Inside were his birth certificate and proof of Roman citizenship; army papers; two phalerae, which were his medals for army service in Britain and for saving a priest’s life in the vigiles. A flat gilded box that she remembered him bringing contained the gold oak wreath he won in action when he was a young soldier. She visualised him carrying that box into the apartment, clamped under one arm as if nothing special; he never said what it was.

Some items were everyday: a draughtsboard with two sets of glass counters, a toy ceramic chariot Gaius must have had in his childhood, favourite belts and a scabbard, the bronze multiple tool she remembered him buying, with its ingenious fold-up spoon, fork, cutting blade, toothpick, spatula and spike.