The Eagle's Vengeance (45 page)

Cleander straightened up and stood to attention.

‘Hail Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus! I bring before you three men of the highest honour and dedication to your glorious imperial family, officers in your illustrious legions who have marched thousands of miles to bring you a gift of treasure captured in the war that has recently concluded in Britannia. With your permission, Caesar, allow me to introduce—’

The door through which they had entered burst open with a bang, as if it had been kicked from the other side, causing the three men to turn and stare, although Marcus noted from the corner of his eye that Cleander remained exactly as he was, with his eyes fixed on the startled emperor. As the doors flew open a grim-faced man in the uniform of a senior guard officer marched through them, a troop of a dozen determined-looking guardsmen at his back. With a shiver that was part exhilaration and part dread, the young centurion realised that the man stalking into the room at their head was the prefect in command of the praetorians, and he shivered at the shock of recognition, the prefect’s face and gait instantly recognisable from his own short term of service with the guard.

‘Hold!’

The statement was no more than a whisper from between Scaurus’s barely opened lips, but the tone was harsh in its urgency, the unmistakable command locking Marcus’s limbs even as he tensed himself to spring at the man who had ordered his father’s murder. Praetorian Prefect Perennis walked swiftly up to Cleander and went face-to-face with the freedman, gesturing for his guardsmen to surround the small party. Marcus stood stock still as a hard-faced soldier levelled a spear at him, guessing that the newcomers had orders to take advantage of the slightest excuse to cut them down where they stood. Turning his head slowly back to Cleander, he saw that the chamberlain had at last deigned to look at the prefect, smiling gently in the face of the older man’s bristling anger. When he spoke his voice was even softer than before, his words honeyed as he arched an eyebrow in question.

‘Prefect Perennis. I always knew you had a gift for the dramatic, but you appear to have surpassed even
your
most extravagant acts of theatre this evening.’

He returned his gaze to the emperor, who was now sitting up on his throne where previously he had been slumped, his expression quizzical. The praetorian commander shook his head angrily, moving to block the chamberlain’s view of Commodus as he barked a harsh challenge, spittle flying unnoticed from his lips.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Cleander? You’ve just lied to my praetorians and brought three complete strangers into the emperor’s presence! Explain yourself!’

11

Perennis flicked a glance across the trio arrayed behind the freedman, a moment of puzzlement crossing his face as his eyes met Marcus’s. Cleander raised his hands in a gesture of resignation, and the praetorian’s eyes returned to him before the split-second sensation of recognition had time to sink in.

‘Forgive me, noble Caesar, for my impetuous decision to bring these men into
your
throne room with me. Knowing of your deep love for the men of
your
imperial army, Senator Albinus and these two loyal officers begged me to allow them to offer you their deepest respects in addition to their quite stupendous gift of booty from distant Britannia. How was I to resist such a heartfelt plea for them to be allowed to prostrate themselves at your feet on behalf of the senate and the legions, especially as I knew that you would be modelling your toga picta this evening? What better sight could there be for devoted officers than their emperor dressed in the very garment that celebrates the martial prowess they exercise in your name?’

Perennis bridled, his face darkening as his anger waxed full.

‘You don’t talk to the emperor, Chamberlain, you talk to
me
! What
possible
justification could you have for compromising the safety of our beloved Caesar?! These men have no official permission to enter the imperial presence, no good reason for doing so, and any one of them could be an assassin bent on murder!’

Cleander shrugged, waving an arm at the thirty or so armed and armoured men positioned around the chamber. His voice softened slightly, a note of unalloyed praise licking at his listeners’ ears.

‘Surely not, Prefect? For a start, your guards on the door were most assiduous in their searches of Caesar’s guests, and I note that you had more than the regulation number of men on duty even before you burst in with this fresh contingent of guards. I feel safer here and now than I would in the middle of one of Senator Albinus’s legions, given the famed loyalty of you and your men to our beloved Caesar.’ He paused significantly, allowing Albinus’s name to sink in. ‘And surely you recall the senator, he was most warmly greeted by the emperor earlier this year on his return from Dacia, having not only put down a Sarmatae rebellion both cruelly and without any danger of it being repeated for a generation or more, but also having saved one of Caesar’s most profitable gold mines from an upstart German prefect and his cohort of deserters, if my memory serves me right.’

Albinus bowed slightly to the prefect, his face a study in passivity, and the freedman pressed on, clearly calculating that he could not afford to allow the praetorian back into the conversation.

‘And so I entreat you to forgive me this small indulgence, Caesar. The senator and his colleagues, both men who fought alongside him with great distinction and took part in the rescue of the gold mine, represent no more threat to you than the most loyal of your guardsmen. And besides, when I saw the magnificence of the gift they have brought to you from the empire’s distant north frontier as a mark of the legions’ loyalty and love for their emperor, I knew at once that you would have me struck down as a disloyal cur were I to deny them an audience.’

Perennis opened his mouth to speak, his eyes narrowing as he began to wonder as to the exact nature of Cleander’s game, but the emperor spoke first, his voice eager as it cut the prefect off before he had a chance to speak.

‘A gift? What is it, Cleander?’

‘Gold, my Caesar. A quite
startling
quantity of gold.’

The freedman smiled into Perennis’s sudden consternation, smirking as the prefect’s face turned an ashen grey. Commodus nodded, although to Marcus he looked a little put out.

‘Gold, you say? I suppose an emperor can never have too much gold, although recent confiscations have swelled the imperial coffers quite nicely, eh Prefect? I was hoping for some captured barbarian weapons, and perhaps a few dozen captured slave girls.’

Cleander spoke quickly, recognising the danger in his emperor’s lukewarm response.

‘Yes, my Caesar, the prefect and his men have indeed made you richer than you might ever have expected through their pursuit and prosecution of those among us whose loyalty has not been to the empire and your pre-eminent position as its ruler. But this gift of which I speak is a
fortune
, Caesar, enough wealth to allow you to indulge yourself in whatever way you choose. Enough money to build you your own gladiatorial arena here within the walls of the Palatine, and to recruit the cream of the empire’s gladiators for your private entertainment. Enough to recruit a harem of beauties from every province so that you can take your pleasure with a pair of different women every night for the rest of your life …’ He paused to allow Commodus’s imagination to work on the images he was suggesting before delivering the killer punch. ‘Given the apparent weight of the consignment, I estimate that they may have brought you as much as one hundred million sesterces worth of gold.’

The emperor’s eyes narrowed as his servant’s words sank in, and Perennis stared at the chamberlain in barely disguised horror as Commodus leaned forward and gestured his chamberlain closer.

‘
That
much gold? And these men have marched all the way from Britannia to bring me this fortune?’

Cleander smiled slightly, calculating that he had sufficient control of the conversation to allow Albinus to speak.

‘Senator? This was after all
your
idea …’

Remaining rigidly at attention, the senator spoke quickly, knowing that Perennis was seething with poorly disguised fury at the sudden uncontrollable turn of events.

‘Hail Caesar! May it please you Caesar, Tribune Scaurus here was the officer who liberated this prize from the barbarians north of the wall built by the divine Antoninus Pius, utterly destroying our last remaining enemy on the frontier in the process. He brought his discovery to the attention of the imperial Sixth Legion’s acting commander …’ He paused, as if searching his memory for the name. ‘Ah yes, Camp Prefect Castus.’

Perennis started again, his eyes betraying his surprise at not hearing Sorex’s name.

‘But I gave orders for there to be no operations north of the wall! All units were to hold in place until—’

‘Yes, Prefect Perennis.’ Albinus and Scaurus had considered their story with the greatest of care before leaving the transit barracks, and the senator was swift to cut Perennis off before he could take control of the situation, the urgency of his interjection spurred by the knowledge of what the praetorians would do to him if he failed to get his story out. ‘Having taken advantage of a brief opportunity to kill five thousand barbarians, and liberate this startling quantity of gold from them, that most experienced officer Prefect Castus quite correctly deemed it best if Tribune Scaurus marched it south under the guard of his two auxiliary cohorts, rather than have it fall under the control of any single senior officer. The prefect deemed it best to remove the temptation presented by so much wealth, so to speak, enough gold to buy the loyalty of the Britannia legions, and in doing so take the chance to pay homage to your imperial glory, Caesar. Tribune Scaurus and I were colleagues in Dacia, and so he thought it best to bring the gold here to Rome, into my safekeeping. At my suggestion his fifteen hundred spearmen have brought the spoils of war to your palace, Caesar, every man sworn to die in defence of their emperor, every man the veteran of a dozen battles fought in your name to bring you triumph!’

Perennis stared at him for a long moment in the silence that followed, then turned to face the emperor, either rage or a mortal fear for his own life making his right eye quiver minutely.

‘Caesar, with your permission, I feel that it would be unwise for us to indulge these fantasies any longer … I’ll have these men …’

‘
Us
, Prefect?’ Cleander’s voice was still soft, but it cut across the praetorian commander with more than sufficient authority to silence him. ‘You feel it unwise for
us
to indulge these
fantasies
? Surely it is
Caesar’s
place to determine if this gift is a fantasy. Caesar’s place, Prefect, and not
yours
. After all, a million aureii should prove difficult to conjure out of thin air, wouldn’t you say? It is of course
your
decision, my Caesar …’

Commodus spoke quickly, waving aside Perennis’s horrified protests, his eyes gleaming with the excitement of the moment.

‘Bring in this gift, Cleander, and prove that what you say is true. Prefect Perennis, order your men back to their places.’

The freedman strode back to the doors, ignoring the praetorians who had frozen where they stood at the emperor’s command, and flung them open again to reveal the startled guardsmen they had passed moments before. He called out a command in a loud, clear voice at odds with the previous softness of his tone.

‘Bring in the gold!’

The door to the room where the Tungrians waited opened in response to his shouted command, and one by one the chests were carried through it and up the wide corridor into the anteroom. Cleander stepped closer to the door guards, and Marcus barely heard his softly spoken words as he muttered a dire warning.

‘These chests contain the proof of your prefect’s treachery. Make any attempt to block their entry to the throne room and I promise you that you’ll die with him. Just not as quickly …’

Stepping back into the room, he raised a hand to point to the gold bearers’ slow procession as the first of the chests approached the doorway.

‘These boxes full of gold are carried by loyal auxiliary soldiers of the First and Second Tungrian Cohorts, Caesar, the men who captured this magnificent prize for you. And note, Perennis, they are unarmed, and represent no threat to our beloved emperor.’

Marcus, his gaze fixed on Perennis, saw the prefect’s eyes narrow again at the mention of the Tungrians, his face taking on the slightly puzzled expression of a man who knew that the word should mean more to him than it did, as Cleander continued his address to the emperor.

‘These men have proven their loyalty to you on a dozen battlefields across the northern empire, as you can see from their faces, and now they bring you the spoils of their struggles as homage to your pre-eminence among all Romans.’

As the first chest was carried into the throne room Marcus realised the brutal logic that had underlain Albinus’s selection of men to carry the gold through the city. Not only were the soldiers he had chosen among the biggest and strongest men in the two cohorts, but to a man their faces were disfigured by scars inflicted on them by their enemies in the succession of battles that the Tungrians had fought since the beginning of Calgus’s rebellion two years before.

‘That’s close enough!’

Perennis had regained something of his composure in the face of looming disaster, and stepped forward to stop the procession, drawing his sword in a rasp of iron on scabbard fittings. Cleander smiled crookedly at him, shaking his head slightly as the Tungrians lowered their burdens carefully to the throne room’s intricate mosaic floor.

‘I always thought that being the only member of the imperial court to carry a sword was a purely ceremonial privilege. After all, the days when the emperor Trajan told his prefect to use his
for
him as long as he ruled well, but
against
him if he ruled badly, are long gone, are they not? But to draw your sword in the presence of the emperor, Prefect? Who presents Caesar with the greater threat, I wonder, his loyal servants who have risked their lives to win him a fortune, or any man who dares to unsheathe a blade in his presence, no matter how elevated his position? But no matter, I’m sure Caesar knows best …’