The Great Game (16 page)

A carriage rolled to a halt a few paces from the column and the door opened before the wheels were even stationary. Commodus took two steps down and then lightly dropped the last three feet to the turf and stretched.

His armour was almost laughable from a military point of view. The great, burnished, golden breastplate, embossed with a complex image of Hercules struggling with the Lernaean hydra, would hardly stop a sharp stick, let alone a sword. Still, the purpose of the armour was not to protect the emperor, but to impress the crowd, something it would do with gusto. The leather strips that hung in twin rows from shoulders and waist, were brilliant white, bordered with imperial purple and with fringes of the same colour. The emperor’s cloak was a deep Tyrian purple, embroidered in gold with designs of Hercules’ other eleven tasks. The cloak alone would cost five years’ wages for the average soldier.

As the young emperor flexed his stiff muscles, grinning like a boy with a new toy, the figure of Saoterus descended carefully, his tightly curled, oiled black hair glistening in the sunlight, his chin dark with carefully-trimmed stubble. The emperor’s young favourite wore a simple tunic and cloak of undyed linen, deliberately plain to help draw all eyes to his master. Pausing, Saoterus reached into the carriage and retrieved a gilded crown of laurels and a military sceptre of plain white and handed the sceptre to his master.

Commodus examined the baton for a moment and then clasped it in both hands behind his back, rocking on his heels.

‘Good morning, gentlemen. I trust everyone is well?’

He grinned as a ripple of good humour ran along the column.

‘As a commander, many times I’ve had to order a column of men to march. It’s always a tiring affair, I know, and usually with a scuffle at the end of it. I hope the same will not be true today!’

Another ripple of laughter.

‘Today is a triumph granted me by the senate, in their infinite wisdom. Would that my father were still alive to receive it, given that the campaign was his work. And so I would have you all remember, while I bask in the adulation of the crowd, that I accept all acclaim not only in my name, but in the name of Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, who will be watching today from his seat among the Gods.’

A roar of approval ran through the column and Commodus waited patiently, still rocking on his heels, for the clamour to die away.

‘There is more to today than imperial grandeur, though.
You
are the backbone of imperial power, you men who shed blood for the security of Rome. You are the arches upon which the empire is constructed. And so, today is as much about each of you as it is about my father and I.’

Thousands of burnished steel figures cheered once more and Commodus smiled indulgently. ‘Revel in the adoration of the crowd and, while it is not possible for each of you to receive personal blessings and honours, rest assured that I have arranged for a small gift for each of you that will be distributed by your officers this evening, when the triumph is over and the city revels.

Another cheer, louder than ever. Coin, no matter the quantity, was a guaranteed way to secure the love and loyalty of the army. The emperor’s name would be toasted in every bar, gambling den and whorehouse from the Capitol to the outskirts’ last building tonight.

Raising his free hand, the sceptre in his left, Commodus saluted the crowd as he bounced lightly across the grass and leapt up into the chariot. Saoterus strode across and climbed up behind him. Turning his head, Rufinus could just see the two men high in the chariot, beyond the crowd of slaves and the column of lictors. Saoterus already had his arm extended, holding the golden victory wreath above the emperor’s head. Then figures moved, obscuring the view of the great man.

Rufinus couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before the last ounce of strength left the man’s arm and the wreath fell to his side. Saoterus was hardly a strong man in the first place, and the procession would take hours.

Suddenly, horns were sounding, officers were barking out orders, animals were snorting, horses whinnying, slaves groaning and Armenians clambering into position.

The column began to move, haltingly at first as the various sections tried to fall into step, struggling in some cases with their animal charges. In a few moments though, the entire procession was on the move at a stately pace, slow enough to allow an adoring public plenty of time to marvel at the display and throw their affections at their master. By the time the carts full of trophies had rounded the corner of the great mausoleum, Rufinus, his companions
and slave charges behind them, the senators that led the column were already on the Pons Aelius, the great bridge constructed five decades ago and linking the emperor’s tomb to the city.

It was strange how standing in the lee of the huge funerary monument had muted the sound of the urban sprawl. As soon as he rounded the corner, Rufinus’ ears caught the clamour of a city in the throes of celebration across the river. With a last look at the roped slaves behind him, Rufinus straightened, his head high, and fell into the steady pace of the processional march.

In front of him, as they descended the gentle slope to the bridge, the luckier guardsmen selected to man the trophy wagons held their heads proud. Just to add a further dimension of irritation to Rufinus’ day, the soldier little more than three feet in front of him had polished his segmented armour to such mirror brightness that every time one of the plates caught the sun, it blinded Rufinus, leaving dancing yellow and green squares in front of his eyes that slowly turned purple and obscured half his vision. Rufinus looked wistfully at the single, white fluffy cloud that hung on the western horizon, mocking him. A slightly overcast day would clearly have been too much to ask!

He blinked away a fresh green rectangle of sunlight and turned his head to see one of the other men on slave duty giving him a very odd look. Filing the face away on a list of people who needed to be watched, he tried to enjoy the day.

Slowly, grandiosely, the column passed across the beautiful marble bridge of Hadrianus and into the Campus Martius. Once upon a time, this had been the field where the army had camped when at Rome, forbidden by law to enter the city as a force under arms. Indeed, it was from this very place, when it was simple turf, that the triumphs of old in the days of Pompeius, Crassus and Caesar had begun.

Now, the entire area was solid city, packed with housing and shops, criss-crossed by narrow streets and sporting some of the grandest monuments of the city. Rufinus began to feel a little excitement returning as he thought about such things. He’d been so busy with preparations and settling in to life in the Castra Praetoria that he’d had no time to explore the city as he’d initially hoped. The only time he’d been able to leave the fortress had been that first full day, escorting the emperor to the senate and the temples, but even then he’d only seen the Palatine and Capitoline hills and the forum,
and only where Commodus had needed to be. And his whole body had ached all the long day as though he’d fallen from a wall, making it a fairly miserable experience.

Now, the route entered the streets, members of the urban cohorts who were not taking part in the procession lining the way at strategic intervals to maintain control. The people of Rome, from the very poor to the stinking rich, would line the streets today to shower praise upon their new emperor. Here, it was almost entirely the former. Beggars, poor workers and occasional merchants, along with their families, crowded the pavements and colonnades on each side of the route, packed into alleys and side streets, standing on crates and boxes for a better view.

The buildings to either side of the street, high three-storied insulae for the most part, hid the wonders of Domitianus’ great circus as the procession moved forward but, straining to look over the mess of carts, animals, cavorting acrobats and suchlike in front of him, Rufinus kept catching a tantalising glimpse of the great curved parapet of a theatre. Rufinus grinned despite himself. His father’s geography had been a little confusing for a boy who’d never seen the city, but that had to be either Domitianus’ Odeon or one of the theatres: that of Pompeius or of Balbus. Marvels he could hardly wait for were so close he would be almost able to touch them as he passed.

Slowly, the procession moved on. Rufinus had been struck by at least three thrown flowers before they reached the first of the great structures. He was still unable to get his bearings enough to identify the buildings, but in quick succession he passed a grand theatrical building of marble columns and great arches, followed by an even greater version, half as high again and large enough to house half the army, and yet another semi-circular structure, almost as grand, facing temples and shrines and decorative fountains across the road.

The column ahead turned and a huge open area of paving, surrounded by high structures and dotted with temples and fountains, opened up before them. Separating the marching column from the square was an arch unlike anything he’d seen before: the three grand triumphal arches of Tarraco, the commemorative one in Massilia, or even the ones in the forum of Rome itself. This arch was breathtaking. Elegantly constructed of columns and coffered arcs, the triple-arched gate rose delicate and slender, almost to the heights of
the huge buildings around it, bestriding the street as a statement of imperial glory.

The Porta Triumphalis.

From this point on, the route was sacred, unchanged since the time of the first generals, dragging the leaders of once-great powers such as Carthage through the streets to the jeers and missiles of the crowd.

Rufinus found that he was holding his breath as they passed beneath the beautiful construction and out into the open space. For just a moment, the shadow of the gate as they passed beneath fell on the soldier in front, his burnished armour taking a tiny, momentary breather from its efforts to blind him.

Rufinus blinked gratefully.

He blinked again.

In that perfectly polished steel plate, he could see his own awestruck face, framed by the helmet and with proud white crest. He could also see the hairy, shabby slave leaping for him, glinting knife in hand. With a desperate squawk he ducked to the left and the blade stabbed through the empty space where his neck had been a moment earlier.

Chaos should, by all rights, have broken out at that moment, but the men in front, their hearing muffled by their helmets and further stifled by the din of the screaming crowd, marched on, unaware of what was unfolding behind them. The lictors and the imperial party behind were far enough back beyond the group of slaves and the accompanying guards that they could hardly be expected to notice this.

But what struck Rufinus, as he ducked and turned, was the fact that not one of the seven guards sharing his duty even moved, watching intently as the action took place before them. He shouted for them to help as he recovered his balance and turned, watching the slave in shock. The man was no longer roped to his fellows and had now turned with a Roman, military-issue dagger in hand, to sever the ropes restraining the man next to him.

Rufinus stared down in horror at his belt, from which the slave must have somehow managed to draw his dagger, but his own pugio was still there and sheathed!

Now
two
slaves, one of them armed, were leaping at him, and still the other seven Praetorians did nothing! They simply kept pace
as though this were some childish diversion, their disapproving gazes locked on him.

‘Scopius!’ he snarled to no one in particular, snatching the hilt of his gladius and drawing it with a rasp. The two men were on him now, though, and he failed to pull the blade free as one slave’s grip went to his own hands and forced the hilt back down. Desperately, Rufinus swung up his free arm and blocked the blow of the pugio as it came down. It was desperate, though; a poor block driven by urgent need and without the time or room for planning.

The pugio failed to connect with his face as intended, but left a long score of angry red across his forearm and the blood ran free.

Rufinus felt panic begin to rise as the two barbarians were on him, grappling and punching, grasping and ripping. He felt his helmet wrenched back, the vertebrae in his neck crunching worryingly at the pressure.

His sword arm was pinned to his side by one man while the other, the dagger drawn back for another blow, moved in with more care and accuracy this time, making for the gap between his helmet and the collar of his armour. One blow there would end it all.

Two things made Rufinus successful as a boxer.

Firstly: his skill. He knew exactly how to make his plays, how to react to almost any move the opposition might try, even how to plan a bout so that he could see ten moves ahead how to finish the man off. A great ability to have, for sure, though of very little use when faced with a sudden and brutal surprise attack that left him no time to plan.

Secondly: the fact that, despite his family’s lofty origins, Rufinus had grown up one of three brothers in a provincial town, had developed on his own merits, largely due to a father’s declining interest in him that followed swiftly upon the death of Lucius, and had joined the army as a low-ranker. All these things had conspired to make Rufinus a dirty fighter with an easily-salved conscience.

His left foot stamped down hard, the hob-nails breaking most of the bones in the slave’s foot. The barbarian screamed and released his grip on Rufinus’ arm and, in that tiniest sliver of time, Rufinus’ hand grasped the man’s groin and used it as a handle to haul him round and use him to block the pugio strike.

The military knife, so accurately on line for his windpipe, now plunged deep into the other slave’s back between the shoulder
blades: a killing blow which would likely now be a mercy for the dirty man with the smashed foot and the ruined groin.

Rufinus the boxer had control again.

But just as he let the screaming, dying barbarian, who was convulsing in agony, fall away in order to face the second, knife-wielding slave, the other guardsmen on slave duty were finally pitching in, two of them grabbing the knifeman and snapping his neck back, killing him instantly.