Swords Around the Throne (11 page)

‘The emperor!' Castus yelled, shoving himself away from the tree. ‘Protect the emperor!'

Water lashed and sprayed around the horses, brilliant in the sunlight. One of the Protectores went down at once, straight over his horse's head as the animal stumbled and fell. Castus grabbed the standard-bearer and hauled him up beside him.

‘Wedge formation!' he shouted, the words tearing his throat. ‘Form on me!'

Shield high above the water, he began to force his way out into the stream. Behind him men stumbled and staggered, bunching into a tight knot of shields. The water felt thick as oil, the bed soft sucking mud grabbing at their boots, and all around them was the whip and whine of arrows and slingshot.

The second bodyguard was down, his horse rearing back with an arrow in its breast and spilling the rider from the saddle. The animal tumbled, thrashing its hooves, and the surface of the water shattered into fountains of spray.

Castus kept his head low, concentrating only on pushing forward into the stream. The light was hot around him, and the muddy water dragged at the links of his mail – he was thigh deep, now waist deep, half swimming as he drove himself onward. Beneath his breath he muttered a constant prayer. When he risked a glance above the shield rim he saw Constantine, his big white horse foaming, poised in midstream with his sword raised towards the enemy and his stretched face crying defiant rage.

Then the horse shuddered, tried to rear and collapsed upon its haunches in the flood. Its chest was streaming with blood where it had run against one of the submerged stakes. Castus could hear the wild rage in the voices of his men, the fear-dispelling anger. Something caught at his ankles and he toppled forward, plunging face first into the water; a fist gripped the back of his mail and hauled him to his feet, and he surged forward again.

Constantine was down, arrows flickering around him as he tried to roll from the saddle of the dying horse. Brown water seethed, turning dark red with blood. Two arrows struck Castus's shield in quick succession, and a slingstone cracked off his helmet, but he could feel the ground getting firmer beneath him, the slope of the bed rising.

Four more thrashing strides and he was beside the emperor, raising his shield above his head as the arrows lashed around them. Other men – his own men – slammed up around him.

‘
Testudo!
' he could hear himself shouting, and the word was almost lost in the noise of the water and the frantic screams of the dying horse. Two men were knocked down by a flailing hoof, but the rest stayed firm. Shields rattled together into a ragged screen above the fallen man.

‘Modestus, Firmus,' Castus ordered, ‘pull the emperor loose and carry him. We retreat to the bank.'

‘No, no,' Constantine shouted. ‘
Advance!
' His face was grey with pain and shock, his teeth clamped hard as the two soldiers dragged him from under the fallen horse.

‘Dominus! We need to pull back!' Castus glanced down at the emperor, but even as he spoke he knew there was no turning now. Constantine seized Castus by the belt, hauling on it to drag himself free of the horse. His gilded cuirass streamed with blood and muddy scum.

Castus lowered his shield and peered over the rim; the enemy barricade was only a score of paces away, the enemy beginning to scramble across it and spill down the bank towards the stricken emperor. But there was another sound now, a regular snap and hiss from the forest behind and the air above. As he stared, Castus saw a warrior on the barricade transfixed by a ballista bolt. Arrows were falling among the advancing Bructeri. Roman archers had moved up to support the attack, and artillery too.

Over to the left, beyond Rogatianus's men still trapped in midstream, Castus saw a solid wedge of legionaries forcing their way across the flood. At their head was Tribune Jovianus, his face a mask of blood as he screamed through broken teeth. With the defenders distracted by the emperor's charge, the men at the barricade had thinned at that point – Jovianus was already halfway to the far bank, and the men behind him moved with a fierce discipline.

Dragging Modestus close, Castus yelled into his ear. ‘Take two men and get the emperor to safety. Cover him with your shields – don't let him move forward again! Do it, whatever he says!'

Modestus nodded, slack-jawed but resolute, and Castus shoved him away.

‘Wedge!' he called, striding forward again through the shallows. ‘Wedge formation – follow behind me!'

His men meshed behind him, pressing forward for the bank. Every step dragged a weight of soaked clothing and armour, the mud trawling off them as they moved. But they were together, shields locked and spears levelled, every man screaming his own hoarse cry as they stumbled up out of the water onto the bank.

Castus looked to his right, and saw Flaccus fall with an arrow in his face. He saw Diogenes snatch the standard from the bloodied water and raise it high.

He looked to his left and saw Jovianus and his men hurling themselves at the barricade, the bristle of spears raised against them, bare-chested men pelting slingshot and loosing arrows from a sword's length away.

Up the slope, skidding and sliding on the wet earth and bloody grass. Something nicked his thigh, and pain lanced up into his hips as he saw the flung javelin skittering away. A body fell against him – Aelianus, dead eyes turned skywards – and he shoved it aside with his sword arm. Stumbling, he dropped to one knee and saw that his shield was fletched with half a dozen arrows; two of the vicious barbed heads had punched through the wood.

Over to the left the attack was faltering, men falling, others spilling back down towards the water. Through a fog of pain Castus watched the last of the soldiers scrambling up onto the barricade. He watched Jovianus shouldering his way between two Bructeri warriors, cutting and stabbing low on the brink of the fortification. He watched the spears dart out and cut at the tribune's legs, a swinging club knock him down. Then they were on him, dragging him across the mesh of timber, stabbing him in the face and body with savage triumph.

Move, got to move...
Castus dared not look back to see how many of his own men still lived. The pain rushed in waves through his whole body, and his right leg was streaming red. When he raised his hand an arrow skimmed across the back of it, slicing the skin, and for a moment he saw his own blood misting the air.

Roaring, he forced himself upright. His shield was heavy as lead in his left hand, his right hand a bright fist of agony as he gripped his sword. Ahead of him rose the enemy wall, but he spilled left, along the line of the timber barricade, running crablike to keep his shield partly covering his body.

Three men had grappled Jovianus's corpse between them; one was still stabbing the fallen man in the face, plunging his knife as though he was breaking ice with a pick. The other two were trying to wrestle the body back over the barricade, but the armoured torso was caught between the meshed branches.

Castus took three more running strides, then hurled away his arrow-stuck shield and leaped. His reaching left hand grabbed at the spiked branches of the barricade and he hauled himself up. Timber groaned and shifted beneath his weight.
Gods, if I slip and fall now I'm done...
But he moved with the surety of a condemned man, all terror and pain gone and only fighting rage driving him. One slashing blow, and a yellow-bearded face burst red and vanished. Three more heaving lunges and he could stand upright, braced on the tangled mass of fallen trees.

The two men trying to drag the tribune's body had already slithered back. The knifeman was still intent on his mutilation; Castus chopped down and his blade half severed the man's head. He pulled, and for a moment terror gripped him as he felt the sword jammed tight in the dead man's spine. An arrow punched into his shoulder, almost knocking him off his feet; his armour and the padding beneath stopped the impact, but the arrow remained stuck there, trapped in the links of his mail. A javelin cut the air beside his face. Then the sword came free, and Castus was crouching above the ripped corpse of Jovianus, staring down into a howling mass of enemy warriors.

Shouts behind him. An unearthly calm possessed him, an absolute sense of focus, slowing time. He had known this before in battle. The hollow at the heart of fear. He glanced back and saw Rogatianus powering up the slope at a run, his dark face open in a yell and his men formed up behind him.

‘Victrix! VIC
-
TRIX!'

Castus remembered Valens as he lay dying. Blood on his teeth as he tried to smile. What had happened to that rangy grey dog he had befriended? Had anyone even looked for it after the funeral? He glanced down at the ruined mess of Jovianus's face.

Then the howl of combat was all around him, and he felt his legs shaking as the barricade shuddered beneath a rush of armoured men.
A clean death
, he thought.
A fighting death. Without shame.

Grinning, he turned to face the enemy, then hurled himself down into the glittering array of their blades.

Scented quiet, the air moving slowly on cool marble, stirring the long drapes.

Before him were the tallest doors he had ever seen. Inlaid wood set with bronze, three or four times the height of a man. Without turning his head he lifted the sword from his scabbard and held it out. Unseen hands bore it away. Somewhere, very distant, he could hear a speaking voice, slow and sonorous, echoing slightly.

With the faintest squeal of oiled bronze the doors parted and opened. He stood still for a moment, braced. His leg still ached. Then he breathed in and marched slowly forward over the threshold.

An immensity of light above him. High arched windows spilled sun, but the lower depths of the vast chamber still appeared dim, the polychrome mosaics of the floor vague as the bottom of a deep pool through still water. A purple drape shifted gently in the low stir of air as he advanced with measured step, then halted again.

He was barely aware of the figures standing to either flank, the silent men in their heavily embroidered mantles, the guards with silvered spears.

‘Aurelius Castus, centurion of the Sixth Legion,' a voice announced.

‘You may proceed,' another said, more quietly.

The drapes parted as he approached, and he felt himself sinking in stature even as the space rose above him. Across the polished floor was the stepped dais, a tall apse rising behind it, blazing with light. Suspended between the glare and the deep shadow, a single seated figure in purple and gold. Castus dropped his eyes at once, concentrating on taking the right number of steps forward. When he came to a halt once more, the cry of acclamation went up from the assembly, and he joined his voice to theirs.

‘Constantine Augustus! The gods preserve you for us! Your salvation is our salvation! In truth we speak! On our oath we speak!'

For what seemed a long time there was only breathless silence. It had been months, maybe years, since Castus had felt so utterly alone. He thought of his men, of Diogenes and Modestus, Rogatianus and the other few survivors of that desperate foray across the river valley three months before. He had left them at Colonia Agrippina, only the day after he received the imperial summons. He remembered them cheering him, drinking with him before his departure. Would he ever see them again? He thought back to the days of the campaign against the Bructeri, the long marches after that battle in the valley, the burning towns and the columns of slaves. The enemy had put up no further fight, but it had been hard, wearying toil all the same, a tedium of sweat and blisters, dirt and badly healed wounds, of realising the loss of men he had not known had fallen. All that was behind him now. The life of the legion was behind him, perhaps for good. The simple life he had always known, and loved.

‘Aurelius Castus.' The voice was high and lisping, as if it came from the dead air. ‘As it has come to our notice that you have performed with valour upon the field of battle, and upheld with great courage and loyalty your military vows, it is the desire of the Divine Wisdom that you be received into the body of the Protectores of the Sacred Bodyguard. Approach the altar and make sacrifice.'

Four steps, and the low altar was before him, the images of the gods lit by a twisting flame. A grave-faced attendant stood beside it with a gold platter; Castus kissed his fingers and touched them to his brow, then took a pinch of incense and sprinkled it onto the flame, trying not to cough as the fumes rose.

‘Now recite the oath.'

Tight-chested, he drew a long breath. For a moment he feared his voice was gone; to speak into that vast hush was surely an act of madness. The honour being conferred upon him seemed a vast weight – most men were not elevated to the Protectores until they had served twenty years or more. It was a distinguished position: the Protectores were an elite corps, the closest bodyguards of the emperor, all of them individually selected. Castus felt the pressure of an immense expectation upon him, but he found the words, the phrases of the terrible vow he had been taught. He raised his hand, and heard his voice reciting them.

‘I swear to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to Sol Invictus, to all the immortal gods and goddesses of Rome, and to the emperor himself, that I shall be loyal to the Emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus, his children, household, and descendants throughout my life, both in word, deed, and thought, holding as friends those they hold as friends and considering those as enemies whom they judge to be enemies.

‘I shall not be sparing of my body or my soul or my life, but as Protector of the Sacred Bodyguard I will face every peril in the emperor's service in accordance with this vow. If I should recognise or hear spoken, plotted, or done anything contrary to this, I will report it and be an enemy of the person speaking, plotting, or doing harm to the emperor or his family. Whomsoever they judge to be enemies, or who imperils them or their safety by arms or by civil war, I shall not cease to hunt him down by land and by sea with iron in hand.