Rome 4: The Art of War (45 page)

Pantera was responsible for that; I read it in the quiet confidence of the nods exchanged between Trabo and Horus. Pantera himself is too used to hiding the truth to let such things slip. But whoever had set it up, the truth was that Lucius was trapped well away from Rome and, barring miracles, there was no chance of his riding in to offer Vitellius a last-minute reprieve.

Mind you, on the morning of the nineteenth, there was no certainty
that Vitellius was going to need that. We were stuck on the hill with a cordon of Guards around and no sign that Antonius Primus was close to rescuing us. We were like a family, four hundred strong, caught in close proximity when we were better apart. Trabo couldn’t look at me, and Domitian didn’t know where to look when he was in my presence, except that he must not, ever, glance at Horus, which of course told its own story.

Only Pantera was equally at ease with us all. We discovered that he could play dice with distressing skill and he taught us a board game common among the tribes of Britain where coloured pieces move from square to square across and must try to surround the king of the opposite side. He didn’t seem to be interested in trying to find an escape route from the hill. I had found cellars with an almost-hidden entrance below the clerks’ room which I thought might have caught his attention, but he just took his winnings and carried on playing.

Soon, noises of a skirmish reached us, of horses in anger, of iron smashed on iron, on stone, on wood, on flesh. I ushered my small force of men and women down the hill a short distance and stationed them along the barricades we had built in the night. We had brought whetstones to sharpen the knives that were set upright in the barricades and goose grease to ease the levers we had set in place to roll the larger lumps of masonry down on to the heads of those coming up, but none of us expected the line to hold for long.

Domitian came too, bringing the sons of senators, who numbered a rather larger force than mine, and they climbed up ladders on to the row of dwellings that lined the long, slow route to the temple. There was a festive atmosphere amongst the dozens on the rooftops, with food and drink passed up from below and many salutations, most of them scurrilous, as befitted the third day of Saturnalia. The sun shone. We waited.

Rome, 19 December
AD
69

THE DESPERATE FRUSTRATION
of being stuck in the palace while men were dying in battle in the city was ameliorated only by the constant stream of reports that came to us through the morning.

They detailed, first, the battle between Juvens and Petilius Cerialis, and then what came after it. I can’t vouch for their accuracy, but they seemed plausible to me. I will tell you what we heard.

‘Push on! Kill the horses and push on!’

Juvens stood on the wall of a kitchen garden. On one side, winter beds stood empty, carefully weeded, cleared for the cleansing frost. On the other was mayhem: men fighting hand to hand, horses rearing, striking, kicking, falling, dying.

This
was what he lived for, not the craven surrender of Narnia. Here, he could expunge the shame of that.

He swept off his helmet, ran his fingers through his hair and
shouted again, ‘Vinius! Go left. Left, man!
Left!
Curve round behind!’

His voice was hoarse, had lost all its music. His hand described great arcs and at last Vinius, never the brightest of his centurions, understood and led his half-century out down the street to his left, which curved round and came out again on the main thoroughfare, the Barracks Road. This brought him in at Cerialis’ diminishing force from the rear.

With that manoeuvre complete, Juvens had him trapped. The rebels were few now, and fewer with every killing stroke.

Half of Cerialis’ men had been ours less than a month before and had defected at the battle’s start, while Juvens’ own men were solid, true and fired with the blood lust of battle. All they needed was an officer to direct them and Juvens was the right man in the right place.

‘Sextus! Right!’

Juvens leapt from the wall. His blade was wet with blood, the grip sweat-roiled and unsafe in his hand. He drove it hard into the throat of the man who had just threatened Sextus’ unshielded right side, grabbed his enemy’s weapon arm at the elbow, smashed it back into the wall and again and again until he felt the bones shatter.

‘He’s dead. Juvens, he’s dead.’

He dropped the still-warm body. Sextus, alive, was fighting forward. It was Gaius Publius, one of the junior centurions, who had Juvens’ shoulder, and was pulling him away.

‘They’re retreating. Cerialis has gone. Should we follow him?’

‘No. It might be a trap. Sound the gather. Hold the men where they are.’

There was time for a dozen more deaths before the horns sounded and both sides briskly disengaged. There are advantages to fighting men who have served in your own army: everyone understands the signals.

Here and
now, Petilius and his handful of men glanced at each other in grateful amazement, and ran.

Vinius came back, grumbling. ‘We could have won.’

‘You did win,’ Juvens said. ‘And now we have bigger fish to catch.’

He jumped back up on the wall and raised his hands, bringing the men closer. He was a natural orator; his fine intelligence was brought to bear on his playboy wildness and the result was an intoxicating mix of leadership and showmanship.

‘Is there any man who thinks this was not an attempt to liberate Sabinus?’

‘No!’

‘Is there anybody here who wants Sabinus to remain safe on his hilltop for another day?’

‘No!’

‘Will anybody come with me to “liberate” him into death?’

‘
Yes!
’

The shout became a great, grating roar, a clashing of swords on helmets, on the walls behind.

Juvens stood there, letting the waves of it wash over him. The moment was god-touched, perfect. Just as I had done at the barracks the day before, he had found his destiny and it was not to stand idly by while Rome slipped away from his grasp.

He lifted his voice to carry to the outer fringes of the gathered men.

‘It’s time we hammered the heart out of this rebellion. Sabinus brought this on us and he has no complaint if we take the fight to him. We’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to kick that rebellious bastard down the steps!’

Rome, 19 December
AD
69

THEY CAME JUST
after noon, a wave of silent, grim-faced Guards in dull-polished helms with their swords held tight to their sides; no histrionics, no waving of weapons, but a sense of duty and drive that coursed ahead of them and brought silence to the roofs of the priests’ houses, where Domitian was holding what seemed to be a raucous Saturnalia party where the rules were what you wanted them to be as long as they involved singing and throwing things.

Pantera was up there with them, at the highest point, a hundred yards in front of the temple. He leapt down, landed in dirt, skidded, made his way down through muddy slurry to the barricades where I was rallying my small band of defenders.

I was filthy, I am sure. My hair was stiff with grime; I could feel it sticking up from my head in hedgehog spines, falling away at the back in tumbling, rat-knotted tails. My shift was in rags, my nails were torn.

I was
enjoying myself more than any time I can remember.

‘Did Felix make it safely out of the city?’ I asked.

Pantera raised a brow. He hadn’t told me about Felix; I had overheard Trabo talking about it to Sabinus. ‘We can only hope so.’

The Guards came on up the hill. The first of Domitian’s missiles rained down on them and they slowed. We pulled on our levers and sent our rocks tumbling down at them and they slowed more. It was tremendously satisfying when we hit a man and rolled him over, but it wasn’t stopping the rest from coming on.

‘Is Antonius Primus likely to rescue us?’ I asked.

‘I have sent a message in Sabinus’ name requesting that he does exactly that. If we’re lucky he may choose to make a hero of himself.’

‘Or he may choose to be just too late.’ Someone had to say aloud what was so plainly coursing through his mind. ‘He may find it easier to let us fight the Guard until we or they are dead, possibly both, then he can overrun their positions and claim victory for himself.’ I raised my voice. ‘To the levers. Second wave:
now!
’

Pantera looked at me queerly for a moment. ‘There was a woman in Britain,’ he said, after a while, ‘named Aerthen. Translated, her name meant “at the battle’s end”. Just then, you looked exactly as she did when the fighting was about to start. You were born to be a warrior. Did you know that?’

Ahh, what could I have said? He had that power to strike where it hurt and I don’t think he knew it, or meant it; it was just that he cut through to what mattered so much more keenly than anyone else.

I studied his face, seeking the weak points; found none. But I knew
some things from Seneca’s notes, enough to ask, ‘What happened to Aerthen when the battle ended?’

‘All times but the last one, we found somewhere apart from the rest and made love.’

‘And the last battle? What happened after that?’

‘I killed her. I cut her throat so that no man of Rome might make her a slave.’ He could not meet my eyes. His gaze stretched over the barricade to where Domitian’s rooftop army was in full swing, raining rocks on the Guards.

He said, thoughtfully, ‘It’s the real difficulty of being a spy. You come to believe that you are what you say you are. I said I was the enemy of Rome, and I became it.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I want to see Vespasian on the throne as much as I have ever wanted anything.’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘The same could not necessarily be said for everyone on this side of the barrier. Remember that, when the fighting starts. There is at least one un-friend here who wants to see our downfall.’

There was no time to ask him what he meant, for, although the silent mass of Guards had slowed to a standstill, the smell of new fire spiked the air, sharply.

‘
Fuck.
’

‘Fuck,’ I said, in agreement. ‘The Guards have set fire the priests’ houses. Are you all right?’

I wasn’t in Rome when the fire took it; my memories of that night don’t run so deep, nor with such horror. But Pantera had been there, and from the look on his face I’d say his ears were ringing with old memories, the snap and bustle of fire, the screams of burning women, growing higher, harder, more desperate, more impossible to forget.

He wrenched his eyes away to look at me. I said, ‘Shouldn’t we …’

‘Run?
Yes. Swiftly. The barricades won’t hold against fire. Get back into the temple and tell Sabinus he needs to block the gates. After that, find Caenis and make sure she is safe.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Up on to the rooftops, where else? Domitian is up there and it won’t be easy to talk him down.’

Rome, 19 December
AD
69

DOMITIAN WAS ON
the roof and I was there with him, babysitting after a fashion, or at least keeping an eye on him to be sure he wasn’t captured.

Losing Domitian now would have meant the end; everyone knew that Vespasian adored his children and the boy would have been a bargaining counter beyond price, with or without the woman Caenis.

So I watched him, and while he may have spent a night with a catamite, in daylight he had courage, of a kind; he was certainly fit to be a Caesar’s son.

With flames playing over his face and crisping his hair, he was a dancing, leaping, manic satyr with a startlingly accurate aim for one who had spent the greater part of his life studying insects and collecting coins.

Bending, he ripped tile after tile from the roof beneath his feet, and flung them after the manner of a discus thrower so that they spun blade-wise through the air and sliced edge-
first into the men below. Around him, a band of senators’ sons were throwing their missiles likewise into the faces, raised arms, hands and chests of the under-defended Guards.

By tradition, the Guard never carry shields; honour says that these men need only a blade to defend the emperor, and while this might be accurate after a fashion there are times – now – when a shield wall would have made all the difference between success and ignominious defeat.

Domitian had been winning. Supported by the youth of Rome, he had been at least holding the Guard at bay for longer than they would have wanted; they were men bent on a mission and didn’t want to be stopped by a boy.

Which is, presumably, why they lit the fire. It was a clever move; everyone knows that fire is the opposite of water and runs up hills, and besides, the wind was behind the Guards; they could safely torch the priests’ houses and perhaps burn the temple and run no risk that the rest of Rome would fall to ash around them.

The flames were small and faltering at first, but they grew quickly into a roaring wall that fed fast on the old, old houses with their oak beams and wattle walls. Soon there was a level of heat that even the son of an emperor could not withstand. Already Domitian’s face was scarlet, sweat swimming off him. His brows had been scorched away, leaving his face naked of hair.

Pantera came up round about then.

He reached us just as Domitian staggered back from the fire’s leading edge. The Guards were level with Jocasta’s abandoned barricades by now. With nobody left there to man them, the planks and sacrifice-knives were of little more than nuisance value; just enough to slow the oncoming men for the time it took to lift the knives away without slicing their fingers.

‘My lord.’ Pantera
heaved himself up beside Domitian as he wrenched a fresh tile from the disintegrating roof. ‘Please, you’ve done all a man could do. The women are safe in the temple. But if you remain out here, you will be caught between the fire and the Guard and the one will eat you while the other will hold you to ransom against your father’s claim to the throne.’