Defender of Rome (18 page)

He almost shouted in relief as he realized he’d struck the treeline exactly where he’d planned. In the same instant he saw shadowy figures moving hurriedly among the trees and as he charged through into the deeper darkness his horse smashed into one, hurtling a Dacian warrior aside with the sickening crunch of broken bone and a shrill scream of pain. The impact knocked the mare off her stride, allowing the surviving cavalrymen to pass them. An agile, clawing savage with a knife between his teeth scrambled at Valerius’s legs and hauled himself half into the saddle behind him. Valerius knew he was dead the instant the warrior retrieved the knife, and using all his strength he smashed back with elbows and skull in an attempt to knock the Dacian clear, at the same time knowing that to lose control of the horse would be just as fatal. But nothing would shift his assailant. Valerius heard a cry of triumph as the man hooked an arm around his throat, and screamed in impotent fury as he anticipated the deadly sting of the knife point in his exposed back.

With a crack like a branch snapping, the grip on his neck weakened. He darted a glance back just as the Dacian tumbled clear with the shaft of an arrow buried deep in his skull. At the same time a welcome presence loomed out of the darkness and Serpentius appeared grinning at his side, the Thracian bow in his right hand, his horse matching stride with Valerius’s own.

They were clear.

XXV

‘THIS IS AN
unexpected honour.’

Aulus Vitellius might have been greeting a guest at his townhouse on the Esquiline Hill instead of in the heart of a rough frontier fortress. Valerius had to remind himself that this man had just tried to have him killed. When he burst into the legate’s headquarters still dressed in a tunic stained with Dacian blood he had fully intended to kill him if it became necessary, but Vitellius met him with a disarming smile and graciously proffered a cup of wine. It was difficult to stay angry in the face of such charm.

‘I came here on the Emperor’s authority to question Publius Sulla,’ Valerius said. ‘You deliberately put him out of the way.’

Vitellius shook his head regretfully. ‘He was a good officer, but I had my doubts about the boy. It seemed safer to isolate him.’

‘And you sold us to the Dacians.’

‘Of course.’ The smile never faltered. ‘It’s not what I would have chosen, but one does what one must.’

‘Why? Five of your soldiers are dead. Festus the decurion.’

‘Auxiliaries.’ Vitellius tutted dismissively, as if the butchered men were chickens from the quartermaster’s store. ‘If they had done their job properly they would still be alive and we would not be having this inconvenient conversation.’

‘Why?’ Valerius persisted. ‘You could have kept us in the fort for a week and sent us away without meeting Publius.’

Vitellius took a deep draught of wine, but Valerius knew the legate was only taking time to think. When the answer came it was a surprise for both its frankness and its tone. ‘I could tell you that I feared you would be persistent – they said: “Give him a challenge and he is like a hound with a bone; he won’t stop chewing until he reaches the marrow” – but that would not be entirely true. You have powerful enemies, young man, and the orders from those enemies were quite specific. They wanted you dead.’

Valerius felt cold fingers settle on his neck. ‘I am on a personal mission for the Emperor. Any man who raises a hand against me does so at his peril.’ Even as he said the words, he realized how impotent they sounded five hundred miles from Rome, at the mercy of a man who could have him killed with a single word.

The legate laughed at his innocence. ‘But which Emperor? There is the Emperor who sits upon his gilded throne, but, as I am sure you have noticed, my good friend Nero can be many Emperors. Perhaps the Emperor who sent you and the person who wished you to have an unhappy accident are one and the same? And there are those around him who wield an Emperor’s influence, and who wish, rightly or wrongly, to protect him from what the irritatingly persistent Gaius Valerius Verrens may find. Then there is the additional possibility that someone with access to the Emperor’s power is protecting not Nero, but himself.’

Valerius straightened. Was Vitellius confirming what Publius had said? ‘You must know who issued the order.’

Vitellius reached to his desk and picked up a document with a wax imprint in its bottom right corner. ‘The imperial seal, very similar to the one you carry. One does not question the instructions which accompany it. You will note that I was also instructed to have Publius Sulla killed the moment he returned to Viminacium.’ Valerius looked down at the dark liquid swirling in his cup. The legate smiled at his edginess. ‘Don’t worry, it is not poisoned. That would be a terrible waste of a remarkably good wine.’

‘But you are still under orders to kill us.’ Valerius’s voice had a hard edge to it and his hand hovered beside the dagger he had smuggled past the guards.

Vitellius gave a delighted shiver. ‘Why, you almost frighten me. Young and hard and dangerous. If I had been the type of man you are, Valerius Verrens, I would not be ruling this dusty outpost, I would be ruling the Empire.’

Valerius stared at him. Those were dangerous words. Words that could very easily get a man killed. ‘And now?’

‘And now, I am afraid, indolence is ingrained too deep. If it was offered to me upon a silver platter I would refuse it. I find work of any kind tires me and it is such a large Empire these days.’

‘I meant what now for us?’

He saw Vitellius frown, genuinely disconcerted. ‘What now? Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, has lived up to his warlike reputation and defeated two attempts on the lives of himself and his associates. It would be remiss of me to allow a third attempt. Whoever ordered this can only expect so much cooperation. With Publius Sulla’s death your mission is completed and you should return to Rome to make your report. You may leave at your leisure or you may return with me, as part of my bodyguard.’ He noticed Valerius’s confusion. ‘I too am to return to Rome, but for a rather more pleasant interview. Nero has awarded me governorship of Africa, where the opportunities for a man of talent are suitably wide-ranging.’ The smile grew broader and Valerius understood he was imagining the huge profits to be made from manipulating Africa’s vast grain exports. But his next words came as a surprise. ‘I will be allowed to appoint a military aide of my choosing. It would not be surprising if I were to select a holder of the Corona Aurea; the gold crown would add lustre to any proconsular retinue. The truth is that I value your soldierly talents, and, as a student of Seneca, your conversation. Of course, this cannot happen until the Emperor dispenses with your services, but, as I’m sure you understand, Africa, for all its rustic provinciality, might be more conducive to your long-term health than Rome. In a way, it is a pity. I have had my legion for less than a year and my enemies will say I have not served because I never fought a battle. But still …’

Valerius studied him, searching for the lie, but he suspected that even if it existed he’d be unable to detect it. If the offer wasn’t a trap, it was remarkably generous. As the governor’s military adviser, he would share his power – and his profits – and, when his term was complete, return to Rome a wealthy man. In addition, and despite his double-dealing and readiness to see him killed, Valerius found he liked Vitellius; someone to be wary of certainly, but likeable none the less. He doubted he would ever be bored.

‘I appreciate your kindness,’ he said non-committally. ‘And it would be an honour to serve as your escort, but I would be neglecting my duty if I didn’t return to Rome at the first opportunity.’

‘Well spoken!’ Vitellius rapped his fist on his desk. ‘And you will return by the quickest route, I promise you. We leave by fast galley in three days, and reach Vindobona six days later. At Vindobona, I will release you from your duties and you can ride to the Emperor immediately. In the meantime, you will be able to update me on what is happening in Rome.’

Valerius bowed his agreement. It seemed there was no escape from Vitellius’s relentless pursuit.

Marcus, Serpentius and Heracles were waiting for him outside the headquarters. He could tell from their faces that they expected the news to be bad, but they brightened when he explained the general’s plans. Marcus nodded approval. ‘Better to be rowed halfway home than to be tied to a horse for two weeks.’

‘True,’ Valerius agreed. ‘But we leave Vitellius at the first opportunity. He might be entertaining, but he’s also dangerous to know, even when he isn’t trying to kill you.’

That feeling was reinforced on the long trip upriver, a journey punctuated by the occasional shout of command, the measured swish of the oars and mesmeric rush of the waters beneath the hull. Vitellius had been a member of the Emperor’s inner circle during the early years of his reign and he had an inexhaustible supply of scandalous, and almost certainly treasonable, gossip about Nero.

‘He was a fine young man,’ the general mused one warm afternoon as the oarsmen powered them towards Aquincum on the river’s broad bend. ‘With all the usual young man’s enthusiasms: drink, Syrian strumpets and vicious amusement. It was unfortunate that he came to the throne before he was fully formed. Power changed him, as it does any man. At first, he was happy to be advised by Seneca and Burrus and he surprised us all by his grasp of the complexities of Empire, but not even Seneca could compete with Agrippina’s meddling. She whipped up a whirlwind when she tried to play the palace aides and the senators off against each other. Eventually, it consumed her.’ He shook his head at the woman’s folly. ‘In the meantime, the Emperor’s passion had moved on from chariots to the overpaid, muscle-bound youths who drive them.’

Valerius learned more than he wanted about Nero’s carnal appetites. The boys, girls and women – of course, he had heard whispers, but Vitellius’s attention to detail when he was in his cups could be stomach-churning. ‘Three Sumerian giants, two virgins and his own aunt … you have never heard such a caterwauling. The rape of Rubria, of course; the debauch of a Vestal virgin was beyond even Caligula’s excesses. We tried to keep it quiet, but at the next inspection …’

When he wasn’t captivated by the sound of his own voice, the general had a voracious appetite for tales of the British rebellion and Suetonius’s reaction; the tactics he had used and why he’d used them, the deployment of auxiliaries and cavalry. Valerius, who was no storyteller, found it increasingly hard to satisfy. In the end he had to repeat the epic of the last stand of the Colonia militia and the final hours of the Temple of Claudius five or six times.

‘By the gods, what an end to make. You may think differently now, but you will learn in time that a hand is a small price to pay for having been present. Suetonius was wrong, though, to take such a terrible retribution. I am not too old to learn from his dispositions, but I know that a general, or a politician for that matter, cannot be motivated by anger or hatred. He should have made an example of the woman and her chieftains, enslaved a few hundred noblemen and kept the rest happy by parcelling out the confiscated lands among them. Now, tell me again about the last battle. The slope was where …’

By the time they reached Vindobona, Valerius had fought the last battle until he was ready to jump overboard and take his chances in the river. It was a hasty farewell, delayed only by the legate’s obvious reluctance to be abandoned.

‘Do not forget my offer, Valerius,’ he reminded him, offering his hand. ‘We would do very well together, you and I, and they tell me that Africa is not such a bad place. Rich, but quiet, and the women are willing and beautiful. By the end you might well have a legion. An African legion, but still a legion. Think on it.’

Valerius said he would, reflecting that a great many people seemed to be tempting him with a legionary command. They agreed to meet in Rome before Vitellius left for his province.

As they rode out of the city he felt Serpentius studying him. ‘What is it?’

The Spaniard shrugged. ‘I was just thinking you got on very well with the general considering he tried to get us killed.’

Valerius laughed. ‘Isn’t that what every general does? You can’t fight them all.’

Serpentius grinned and they kicked their horses on, towards the great wall of white-tipped peaks to the south. To Rome, and Nero – and a stark choice.

XXVI

IT WAS STRANGE
, this sensation of being one of the walking dead. He could almost feel the executioner’s breath on the back of his neck. Of course, nothing was certain in Nero’s world, but there was no denying he had failed, and in Nero’s world death would always be a potential consequence of failure.

On his return to Rome, Valerius had spent a few minutes with his sister before dropping into his bed, exhausted after four days in the saddle. Julia was nowhere to be seen, but he sensed an unease among his household staff that might have been prompted by Olivia’s condition. She had made little progress and it was clear that if he didn’t track down the Judaean healer soon it might be too late. When he woke next day he decided against going directly to the palace, but rather to test the political temperature with Fabia first. The beautiful courtesan welcomed him with an embrace that almost crushed his ribs and a kiss that didn’t seem respectable at that hour of the morning.

‘You must never leave me for so long again,’ she scolded, making him feel guilty the way only a woman can. Vitellius’s suggestion intrigued her. ‘He has powerful friends and it is a good offer. You could be a combination of general, administrator and politician, thus satisfying your own ambitions and your father’s.’

Valerius nodded. ‘But before I give him his answer I have to survive, and that seems less likely with every passing day.’ She turned pale as he told her about the mountain ambush in Moesia and the trap the legate had set for him.

‘You must be careful, Valerius. If you have truly made an enemy of Nero you will never be safe.’

‘If it is Nero then I am already dead, and there is little point in worrying about it. I will put my affairs in order and act as if every day is my last. But if it is not, then I need to find out who it is and why. I don’t trust Torquatus, but I can’t see why he would want me killed. If Cornelius Sulla had still been alive I might have suspected him, but …’

‘Rome still whispers of Cornelius’s execution,’ Fabia said. ‘The Emperor went too far. The rest were slaves and criminals but Cornelius was born a Roman citizen and a patrician. To put him to death without trial, and in such a fashion, went against everything the Empire stands for. If it can happen to Cornelius then no one can feel safe.’

‘Publius Sulla hinted that Nero had a Christus follower at the very heart of his court. These people operate in the shadows, but they are not solitary. Their worship is a communal affair. Whoever it is must have the freedom to come and go from the palace – unless they used Cornelius as a channel to Petrus. It’s possible that is why he took the risk of meeting Lucina. I need to find out who of the inner circle was most friendly with Cornelius.’

‘And you want me to help you? Of course I will try, but it sounds so unlikely. You have experience of palace occasions, but you cannot imagine how suffocating it is to be part of Nero’s inner circle.’

‘You were part of it,’ he pointed out.

A shadow fell over the sapphire eyes. ‘Oh, Valerius, you can be so naive. The reality is that I was nothing more than an object to be used and discarded. I neither listened nor spoke, because to do so would have put my life at risk. I played my part in their little games and left.’

‘But you know who they are?’

Fabia nodded. ‘Too many to make your task simple. Cornelius made himself accommodating to many. Torquatus for one. Epaphradotus, the Emperor’s secretary, for another. Poppaea’s ladies in waiting. Menecrates, the harper, and Spicillus, who is the new darling of the arena, are the latest targets of Nero’s affections. Cornelius was close to both. Any one of them could be a candidate for your Christus follower, but after what happened to Cornelius they are even less likely to stand on the rostrum and shout about it. If you are right and it was one of them who tried to engineer your death they would have to feel very secure.’

‘Someone like Torquatus?’

Fabia laughed bitterly. ‘I cannot think of anyone less likely to be seduced by the rantings of some obscure Judaean mystic than Decimus Torquatus.’

‘I would never have suspected Cornelius,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘Not Torquatus.’

He studied her. She seemed very certain and he wondered why. Fabia had always been well informed about what happened on the Palatine. When he’d occasionally asked where she’d heard some of the things she told him she’d passed it off as malicious pillow talk, but, when he thought back, there had been times when he’d wondered how she could know quite so much. Still, every detail could help him understand the nature of the threat against him. ‘I can’t delay reporting to the Emperor any longer. Tell me what has been happening at the palace while I’ve been gone.’

When she sulked she looked like a little girl. ‘Always business these days, Valerius. You must come for a little relaxation soon. Galba is still out of favour …’

He left twenty minutes later and made his way through the Forum to the Palatine. The day had started bright, but while he was with Fabia grey thunderclouds had gathered low above the city, piled up like untidy pyramids over the rumpled expanse of ochre, white and gold that was Rome. The gloom cast by the clouds suited his mood. Here in the monster’s shadow his Stoic acceptance of his fate was exposed for the sham it was.

Six stony-faced palace guards who collected him at the summit of the Clivus Palatinus appeared to confirm his intuition. The soldiers escorted him down a set of steep steps to a marble-lined tunnel that cut beneath the palaces and the gardens. It was long and curved and floored with beautiful mosaics, with curtained alcoves set at intervals along its length. The alcoves contained the usual gilded collection of emperors, generals and gods, and it wasn’t until he noticed the long neck and soft, boyish features of one of these figures that he realized this must be the passageway where Caligula had been assassinated by men just like his escort. The thought sent a shiver through him. It seemed an unlikely place for such an act of savagery, but it would take only a single word of command and he would follow the former Emperor to the otherworld in a blizzard of swords. He was sweating by the time a second set of steps took them back into the open at the southern edge of the hill. Once, ordinary men had lived here, if you could call men whose names rang down through the ages, like Cicero and Catulus, Marcus Antonius and Quintus Hortensius, ordinary. Their mansions had originally lined the hilltop, but they had been driven out by money and power and by death. Every man had to die, but of all the men he had named only one had died in his bed.

A lone figure in white stood silhouetted against a sky which grew darker by the minute. Valerius flinched as a bolt of lightning ripped the far horizon and its flash lit the sky. A few seconds later a crash of thunder shook the air and the Emperor turned to him with a smile that was belied by the unnatural light in his eyes.

‘Even an Emperor cannot command the elements,’ he said regretfully. ‘The augurs say it means the gods are angry. Do you believe that?’

Valerius hesitated before deciding it would do no harm to tell the truth. ‘No, Caesar, I think wars are the way the gods show their anger.’

Nero nodded. ‘It seems to me that we blame the gods for the things we fear. You are a warrior; do you fear war?’

‘I do not fear war, but no sane man welcomes it … just as no man welcomes death.’

The Emperor frowned, as if the thought had never occurred to him. ‘Yes, death … you allowed Publius Sulla to kill himself before you could question him?’

Valerius heard the Praetorians moving in behind him and he saw Nero’s eyes flick towards them. It seemed someone was a step ahead of him again. He had rehearsed this moment in his mind a dozen times, determined to show no weakness. But reality was different. The words stuck in his throat and he felt shame at the fear he could hear in his voice. ‘Yes, Caesar.’

‘Then you have failed me. Failure requires punishment. Do you agree?’ The last three words were snapped out like nails hammered into a cross.

Valerius raised his head and looked directly into the pale eyes. He would not plead.

A faint rattle of metal told him the men behind him were preparing to strike and he knew –
knew
– that the other man was imagining the swords rising and falling, the haze of scarlet as the blades hacked into his body. He closed his eyes and waited for the first blow.

An eternity passed before the Emperor finally spoke. Valerius winced as another clap of thunder shattered the silence. When he looked up he found Nero studying him.

‘I said you have ten days to hunt down this Petrus.’ Valerius opened his mouth to protest. But there was worse to come. ‘At noon on the tenth day I will have every Judaean subject in Rome driven to the circus,’ Nero waved a hand at the great arena a hundred and fifty feet below, ‘and put to the sword. And you with them.’

He walked away, leaving Valerius to stare down at the oval of sand that would be stained with the blood of twenty thousand innocents if he failed.

Valerius’s feet took him back through the Forum, but the real world only existed inside his head, where his mind wrestled with the terrible implications of what he had just been told. Surely not even Nero …? But yes, he could. Valerius saw again Cornelius’s screaming, flame-filled mouth. The girl’s pleading face. The merciless glow in a leopard’s eyes. It was the same glow he had seen when Nero turned to greet him. But twenty thousand people? Somewhere to his left were the Gemonian stairs where executed criminals were left to rot. Soon his body could be lying among them.

He stumbled blindly through the crowds, bumping into hurrying figures who cursed him or thrust him aside.

‘Valerius!’

He blinked and the scene about him came into sharp focus, including the concerned features of Marcus. What now?

‘Lucina Graecina is taken.’

He closed his eyes. How many more obstacles could the gods place before him? ‘When?’ he demanded. ‘Where is she?’

‘Two weeks ago. In the prison.’ Marcus pointed across the Forum towards the base of the Capitoline Hill. ‘In the Carcer.’

May the gods help her. People who went into the Carcer seldom came out. But he had no choice, he had to find a way to free Lucina. Standing in the shadow of the great men who dominated the Forum – Caesar, Pompey and Augustus – he suddenly felt very small and wearied to the bone. He was a soldier. He was not equipped for plotting and conspiracy. But what else could he do? Too many lives depended on him to give up now.

It was unlikely any acquaintance would have recognized Valerius when he returned to the Forum the next morning. Now he wore the sculpted silver breastplate of a tribune of the Guard, with the black cloak covering his shoulders and his helmet low over his brow to hide a face which wore an expression of grim resolve. Behind him, equally stern, marched his escort; one tall and swarthy, his face set in a sneer as if everything and everyone around him stank, and an older guardsman, patently nearing the end of his sixteen-year commission, with the scars of his campaigns etched deep on his face.

‘Keep your backs straight and try to look like soldiers,’ Valerius warned them.

Serpentius set his shoulders and glared defiance at anyone who looked like getting in his way. Marcus muttered something about strutting peacocks and did his level best to stay in step. They were approaching the doorway of the imperial prison on the east side of the Capitoline Hill. Valerius, like all his countrymen, had heard the tales of what happened inside those walls. Now he was going to bluff his way into the most feared building in Rome.

He walked up the steps and hammered on the door of the prison. ‘Open in the name of the Emperor! Tribune Verrens to question the prisoner Lucina Graecina.’

With a clatter, a small shutter opened in the doorway to reveal a pinched, suspicious face with the features of a cornered rat.

‘Tribune Verrens to question the prisoner Lucina Graecina,’ Valerius repeated.

The rat yawned. ‘I’ll need to see your orders.’

Valerius leaned close to the opening and almost gagged on the stink of the jailer’s breath. ‘Nothing written down for this one,’ he said confidentially. ‘The orders came direct from prefect Torquatus himself. That’s right, soldier?’ He nodded to Marcus.

‘Nothing on paper. Tribune Verrens to question the prisoner about crimes against the Roman people,’ Marcus confirmed. ‘Results to be communicated direct to the Praetorian prefect without delay.’

‘Without delay,’ Valerius echoed.

The jailer sniffed noisily and sighed. Suspicion was replaced by a look of pained confusion. His job wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was meant to be simple. No one got in without orders, unless they made him a decent offer, and even then he wouldn’t take a bribe if he smelled trouble. But the tribune’s obvious authority and the Praetorian uniforms made it complicated. What made it more complicated were the special instructions he’d been given for the care of the prisoner.

‘A moment, sir,’ he whined. He disappeared, only to return a minute later with an expression of resigned failure. The shutter slammed shut and they heard the rattle of bolts before the door swung open, bringing with it a waft of stale sweat, dried urine and sour wine.

‘Stay here,’ Valerius ordered the two men.

‘Our pleasure.’ Marcus grinned.

Valerius removed his helmet and stooped to enter the doorway. Inside, the heat was stifling and the stagnant air thick enough to chew. His stomach rebelled at a combination of filth and suffering and despair that reminded him of the last day in the Temple of Claudius. The jailer proved to be taller than he had appeared, but he walked with a permanent crouch as a result of his long service in the low-ceilinged chamber. For a place with such a terrible reputation, the Carcer was surprisingly small, and made more so by the wooden partition which hid the rear of the chamber. In the centre of the floor a dark, noxious hole had been sunk, and for a moment Valerius’s spirits quailed at the thought that Lucina was being held in the notorious
tullianum
. Below him was the pit of horrors where the Catiline conspirators had met their end, the African king Jugurtha had been starved to death and the executioners had strangled Vercingetorix, the rebel Gaul who had defied Caesar.