The Sword of Revenge (2 page)

At other times he would go to where the hut in which he had been raised once stood. Standing before that spot he would touch the leather amulet that had been Fulmina’s last gift to him, something she had kept hidden all his life. Well-tanned leather and shining with beeswax, it bore on it a raised device of an eagle in flight, wings outstretched. He never took it off his arm, because Fulmina had told him that what it contained, stitched inside, was the harbinger of his destiny. She had also made him
swear not to unpick that stitching until he was old enough to fear no man, a vow he had made before the turf altar of their tiny abode, an oath which he would never break.

There was guilt too when he stood and remembered, given how little time he had spent here in the last year of Fulmina’s life; in Gadoric he had found someone who had been like the soldier father he so missed. Every waking hour, as well as many a nocturnal one, had been spent in his company. Pretending to be witless and older than his years, Gadoric walked with a stoop, his face hidden by a wide straw hat, as he tended the Cassius Barbinus flock of sheep. He had certainly fooled Aquila the day they met; an intended shock to an old shepherd had turned full circle into surprise for the boy, that made doubly so by the dog he had neither seen nor anticipated. Minca would have taken out his throat if the one-eyed shepherd had not intervened.

Intrigued by the boy’s strange colouring, Gadoric had taken Aquila into his confidence, revealing the truth – that he desired only one thing, a chance to return to his own homeland. He had also taken to a boy who was keen to learn and had the time to do so, until, as a trio, which included Minca, they became inseparable. The Celt had taught Aquila to use a spear he had stolen, how to fire a flint-tipped arrow and how to use a wooden sword, to stab, parry, cut and stun with the pommel. He had taught
Aquila some of his barbarous tongue, in exchange for an improvement from the boy’s rustic Latin, which the Celt would need if he were to escape. By the light of a tallow wad he had told him long Celtic sagas, which the lad struggled to fully understand, yet knowing that they were tales of the kind of courage and fortitude of which he dreamt.

He was taught that birds’ eggs in nests were to be left to hatch, the chickens would provide such food; care should be taken not to kill a cub, be it bear, wolf, fox, stoat or ferret, for these animals lived in concert with the trees, the sky and the rivers which were part of Gadoric’s religion. He was encouraged to eat only fully grown fish and when hunting bird or beast to take only what was necessary so that the land would continue to flourish and produce until eternity.

With the sun lighting the nearby Via Appia, Aquila left the forest behind, heading for the place where he now lived, the half-built house of Piscius Dabo. He would not call Dabo’s place home, for it could never be that. It was a roof under which he could lay his head till the day his adopted father Clodius came home. Then together they could rebuild the hut, which had formed the funeral pyre of Fulmina, and life could go back to some semblance of what it had once been.

CHAPTER ONE

Those gathered for the dedication of the tomb were the relatives and closest friends of the deceased, men of station. Naturally this included Aulus’s childhood companion, Lucius Falerius Nerva, one of the two reigning censors and at present the most powerful senator in Rome. While most stood around, heads bowed, he looked about him with an air that bordered on the impious, as if examining each attendee to measure the depth and honesty of their respect, by his actions implying to Titus Cornelius, even if he did not intend it, that he was, himself, lacking in that attribute.

A thin man, with narrow features and thinning hair, the ex-consul was feared as much as he was respected. He had been Aulus’s friend since the time both learnt to talk and on the rare occasions when Titus’s father had mentioned the man it had always been with admiration for his abilities as an
administrator, with reservations regarding his use of the power he wielded in the Senate. As the hazel eyes swung onto the widow, the Falerii face took on an expression of mild disdain. Claudia Cornelia, unable to see out of the side of her cowl, did not observe the look, but Titus did. Lucius had never quite accepted the second marriage of Aulus Cornelius, seeing it as a piece of gross foolishness that a man nearing forty, and as famous and wealthy as Macedonicus, should wed a slip of a girl who, at the nuptials, was a mere sixteen.

Titus had been twelve at the time of the marriage, but you could not move in a Roman street without seeing the lubricious graffiti, or hearing the ribald comments of the lower classes regarding the match; the views of his father’s peers were passed on as jokes to Titus by his gleeful contemporaries as they practised martial arts in the Campus Martius. Observing Lucius now, Titus saw a dry stick of a man who looked and acted as though sensual passion was something alien to his nature – hard to believe he had fathered a son of his own. Yet he had not been alone; Quintus had been dead set against the betrothal, and had let his younger brother know just how much he resented the replacement of his late mother by a girl younger than he, who he saw as a nonentity looking to bask in his father’s fame and fortune.

Lucius eventually looked from Claudia to Titus,
the expression turning to a thin smile, tempered with a hint of curiosity, as if the older man was saying, ‘I know who you are, but what are you like?’ The stare was returned in a direct way that had the censor dropping his head into a reverential pose, this as Quintus began the prayers to
Jupiter
and
Juno
, the premier God and Goddess of the Roman pantheon. Titus, with a silent plea to
Honos
, God of chivalry, honour and military justice, looked up at the death-masks of his ancestors, lit from below by flickering oil lamps, with his father’s the most prominent in a line that stretched back hundreds of years. He felt a surge of pride, for in his world the family was everything – the means by which a man achieved immortality – and he prayed next to the Goddess of the Future,
Antevorte
, that one day his own deeds would elevate the Cornelii name and that when his descendants said prayers at this very altar before the mask of his own likeness, they would do so in the same spirit that he did so now.

The first ceremony was over quickly and the party, led by Quintus, moved out into the atrium. Gathered there were those who had come to pay their respects, but who were not of the Cornelii blood, or close enough for inclusion in the private family prayers. Cholon Pyliades stood off to one side in the line of the family slaves. He had been close to Aulus, even closer than Claudia, having
served him as a body slave in Greece, Spain, here in Rome and in Illyricum. The Greek had been sent away from the debacle at Thralaxas by his master, given a codicil to the Cornelii will that would be read out that evening, a duty that had saved his life. Given how bound he had been to the man whose death they were commemorating, it was disappointing that Quintus had not seen fit to allow Cholon to attend the private ceremony at the family altar. That would have been fitting for such a loyal servant, but knowing his brother as he did, Titus suspected that such a thing, an act of pure nobility that would have been second nature to their father, would never occur to him.

Senators, magistrates and soldiers of legate, tribunate and centurion rank were assembled, all with their heads covered and all quick to bow to Quintus. There were members of the class of
Equites
present too, as well as representatives of the allied Italian provinces. Aulus Cornelius had never actually championed the cause of the knights and the allies as they sought a share of Roman power, yet he had been inclined to listen to their grievances without dismissing them out of hand. Other men were there for less respectful reasons; as the richest man in Rome, Aulus had lent money to support many a speculative venture. Those in his debt would now be wondering if his son and heir would call in such high interest loans.

As a younger son Titus received the odd sympathetic look, following on from those given to his stepmother. His brother was now head of the Cornelii household, and as such he was accorded the respect due to a man of huge wealth, great lineage and one who would in time surely rise to be a power in the land.

The funeral party emerged into the street to the odd shout, but mostly to a reverential murmur from those who lined the streets, and that continued as they descended from the Palatine Hill, their route taking them along the Sacred Way to the Porta Querquetulana. Outside that gate in the Servian Walls a sarcophagus had been erected which marked, in sculpted marble bas-relief and written text, the deeds of the great Macedonicus – only fitting as that was the gate that a triumphant general would use, having been given permission to lead his victorious legions into the city. Behind Quintus two priests from the Temple of
Apollo
carried a second death-mask and a small casket on a cushion.

The mask was the same as that above the altar, a very good likeness taken from one of the many statues that had been sculpted of the hero. The casket should have contained Aulus’s ashes, but they had been trampled into the dust at Thralaxas, as the victorious legions led by Vegetius Flaminus
had chased the remnants of the rebel forces south through that same defile after the defeat of their main army. Instead it held earth from that place, brought back by Cholon, which would be placed in the sarcophagus, for somewhere in that would be a particle of the crushed bones of Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, mixed in with the ash from the wooden palisade which he had set on fire just before he died, as well as traces of the men he had led.

Beside that sarcophagus lay a smaller, square memorial, topped by a pointed column, which listed the names of the legionaries who had died with him. Commissioned and paid for by Claudia, it was, she knew, something of which her late husband would have approved; he was a man who was fond of pointing out that however competent he was as a commander, he was only as good as the men he led into battle. Titus and Cholon stopped by that to read the names of the men listed, each of whose families would find, when the will was read, that the general who had led them to their deaths had not forgotten their dependants.

The mourners gathered by the sarcophagus, a rectangle topped by a heavy flat stone, with a panel on each side denoting some facet of Aulus’s life, set on the roadside between the city walls and the Via Tusculana, so that every traveller passing in and out of Rome could marvel at his deeds. His service as a
consul and magistrate was shown on one of the smaller panels, the extent of his wealth, represented by abundant corn and toiling slaves, on the opposite. The two larger panels were reserved for his martial deeds, with that facing the Via Tusculana given over to his greatest accomplishment, the defeat of Perseus, the Macedonian king. It showed that monarch being led in chains behind the chariot of the victorious Aulus, as well as the huge amount of spoils that had come with the triumph, the last part of the panel with Perseus on his knees, Aulus behind him pulling hard on the rope with which he strangled his royal captive.

Lucius Falerius Nerva stood slightly aloof at the beginning, again watching not the ceremony but those attending: Cholon, the Greek body slave, with his smooth skin, carefully tended hair and effeminate looks; Quintus, all
gravitas
and pomposity, a coming man that Lucius knew he would now have to cultivate; Titus, so physically and morally like his father, which might prove a blessing or a problem; that he would have to wait and see. Then there was the Lady Claudia, now a widow in her late twenties, still strikingly beautiful. If Aulus had been a fool to wed her, Lucius suspected he would not be the last, for the added years and her position had given her presence as well as looks. He smiled, though not at Claudia but
at the knowledge he had about her and her late husband.

Years before, as boys, he and Aulus Cornelius had sworn a blood oath which bound each to attend upon the other in time of need and to aid each other in pursuit of their careers, but Aulus had failed to support Lucius at a time when he should have been present, that being the birth of Lucius’s son Marcellus, on the night of the Feast of Lupercalia. Worse, with the whole edifice of empire in peril, an impious act, the bloody removal of a Plebeian Tribune, had been required to protect that
imperium
. Lucius looked to Aulus, of all people, for backing; his childhood friend had not met his obligations and neither had he offered an explanation for that failure, thus creating a suspicion that far from being a partisan of the faction that Lucius led, the
Optimates
, he had joined the ranks of his enemies, the
Populares
. Bad as that was, it was not as troubling at that which followed; Aulus, in front of the whole Senate, having defended Lucius against an accusation of murder, had gone on to declare himself independent of all factions. He had deserted Lucius and the Patrician cause at the very time when his support was vital to success.