Authors: Douglas Jackson
Maturus had tried to dissuade him, suggesting instead that he travel immediately to Germania, where the loyalty of the legions was not in doubt. The suggestion was tempting, but Valens knew that he was too weak to undertake such a journey. There was too great a risk that he would be trapped in Germania by winter and in no state to dictate events in Italia. No, it must be Massilia.
‘The Stoichades.’ The captain pointed to a faint green blur towards the coast of Gaul. ‘We will be in Massilia before nightfall, general.’
The motion of the ship made Valens stagger, but he kept his balance and a wave of relief flowed through him. The game was not over yet, with Fortuna’s aid …
‘Two sails coming up fast in our wake, captain.’ The shout from the lookout sent a ripple of ice running down Valens’ spine.
‘Your orders, sir?’
Gaius Fabius Valens couldn’t meet the captain’s eyes. ‘You must do what you think best.’ He did not even trouble to look back.
A week later he lay in the damp chill of a half-autumn, half-winter morning and hugged the salt-stained cloak tight about his body. Alerted by the noise of approaching footsteps, he waited for the plate that would hold his daily meal of thin porridge. But when the cell door opened there was no plate. He looked up, his eyes straining against the low sun of a new dawn.
‘How glad I am to meet you at last,’ his visitor said. ‘There is a duty I must ask of you.’
Valerius sensed the eyes of his companion studying him as he looked out across the mist-shrouded peaks of the Apennine hills that still barred his way to Rome. He turned in the saddle to meet the gaze of Quintus Petilius Cerialis.
‘This is where we must part.’ The aristocrat reached across to touch the wooden hand. ‘I would ride south with you, but, good as they are, a few hundred worn-out old soldiers on horseback are no match for true cavalry. May the gods look favourably on your mission.’ He hesitated. ‘I also thank you for not bringing up our previous meeting. Yes,’ he smiled at the other man, ‘I recall it well, Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, but it is not a time I remember with any joy. If the gods will it, we will meet again in more auspicious circumstances, and perhaps I will have erased that particular stain. In Rome.’
Valerius couldn’t resist the man’s infectious enthusiasm. ‘In Rome,’ he agreed.
Serpentius rode to Valerius’s side as Cerialis and his escort took the western fork in the trail and began to wind their way down the mountain. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we’re putting our heads back between the lion’s jaws.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ The Spaniard grinned and put his heels to his mount’s ribs. ‘Hades is full of old friends who are looking forward to seeing us.’ Valerius followed down the winding path with the former gladiator’s laughter ringing in his ears.
They travelled in civilian clothes, as master and servant, their swords hidden but close to hand, and with everything they needed for the journey in cloth bags tied to their saddles. The road was familiar and Serpentius knew all its perils and advantages, but circumstances had changed since they’d ridden north to find Vitellius all those months ago. It seemed every farm and hamlet they passed had been devastated by the war. At first, the destruction puzzled Valerius. This was Vitellian territory and his supporters farmed these slopes: why burn them out? Serpentius supplied the answer an hour later when he drew the horses aside into the shelter of the trees and they watched from hiding as a little column of foot soldiers stumbled past weighed down with plunder.
‘Auxiliaries.’ Valerius identified the men by their chain vests and exotic headgear.
‘Not now.’ His companion sounded unusually thoughtful. ‘No officers and no discipline. They’re bandits and deserters. All they’re after is enough loot to see them home, wherever home is.’ He sniffed the air. ‘We’ll see the evidence soon, I reckon.’ A burned-out farmstead a mile up the track confirmed his prediction. It was one of many they’d passed, but Valerius turned his eyes away from the sight of the stillsmouldering, blackened corpses nailed to the doors. Would it never end?
They bypassed Iguvium without trouble, but just before darkness fell the Spaniard reined in at the top of a ridge and pointed to the valley below. Valerius looked though the branches and saw the black soil of new-dug ditches and piled earth banks that were the unmistakable signs of an encamped army. That night they stayed alert in their forest hide, but when the sun came up Serpentius announced the camp was empty and the threat past. Relieved, they broke their fast on bread and water before inspecting the temporary fortifications stretching across the valley mouth.
‘A place this size would have accommodated two legions,’ Valerius estimated. Every legionary marching camp was built to a standard design and he could read the signs as easily as any piece of parchment. ‘I wonder why they left? This would have been a perfect place to stop Primus.’ He pointed to the narrow cut where the Via Flaminia emerged from the hills. ‘They could have bottled him up in the pass for a month and given him the option of retreating or freezing to death when the snows came.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t understand why they’re not still here.’ A discarded piece of horse brass caught his eye and he chewed his lip as he studied the distinctive emblem of the Praetorian cavalry. ‘Only a fool would abandon a position like this.’
‘Or a traitor,’ Serpentius suggested. ‘Maybe Vitellius doesn’t have as many friends as he thinks.’
Still puzzled by the conundrum they rode on, warily following the muddy trail left by thousands of marching soldiers and always on the lookout for cavalry patrols. Bypassing Spoletium, they climbed into the hills through a narrow, winding passage in the tree-lined slopes. Around mid-afternoon Serpentius left the road without warning and led the way into a grove of trees beside it. He signalled Valerius to dismount and beckoned him to a raised outcrop.
‘See?’ Serpentius nodded to the other side of the valley, but Valerius could see nothing but trees. ‘There, under the big oak halfway up the slope.’ Slowly the image came into focus. The glint of a spear point. Two men on horseback – no, three … ‘And more in the trees behind them,’ the Spaniard forestalled his question.
‘We can’t kill them all.’ Valerius waited for Serpentius to respond. In a straight fight it was always the one-handed tribune who led, but in a situation like this he would be a fool not to defer to the Spaniard’s experience.
‘I’ll go ahead on foot. See what we’re up against,’ Serpentius said. ‘We might be able to find a way past without troubling them.’
Two hours later he returned, sweat staining his tunic and mud on his face. They crouched in the lee of the outcrop where he’d left Valerius. The Roman handed his friend a water skin and Serpentius drank deeply. When he’d had his fill he belched and reported what he’d seen in a harsh whisper. ‘We’re here.’ He drew two lines to indicate the valley and planted a twig in their approximate position. ‘Where the valley opens out there’s a town – I presume it must be Narnia – perched on a hilltop on the far side of the plain. You can see from the cooking fires that there’s a big military encampment in front of it and the ground between is crawling with auxiliary cavalry.’
‘Our friends from yesterday?’
‘At least a full legion,’ the Spaniard acknowledged. ‘And this time it looks as if they’re here to stay.’
‘We could try to trick our way through. It worked before,’ Valerius suggested, but his voice lacked conviction.
Serpentius shook his head. ‘They’re alert as cats. There’s an outpost by the road with an officer questioning everybody going in or out of the valley.’ He hesitated. ‘If we wait till dark I think I might be able to get us past.’
They rested until the sun went down, but kept the horses saddled in case a patrol stumbled on their hideout. Both mounts were cavalry trained to stay silent, but Serpentius wrapped a cloth around their jaws just to be sure. The Spaniard took off his hobnailed sandals and Valerius followed suit, stuffing them into the bag tied to his saddle. When they were ready, Serpentius set off, leading his horse by the reins. Valerius took hold of the front horse’s tail and followed suit.
The darkness was unnerving to man and beast alike, but Serpentius kept up a constant whispered monologue that calmed his mount and her mood transmitted itself to Valerius’s horse. Somehow, he seemed to have memorized every rut and pothole. At one point they heard the murmur of voices and Valerius held his breath, as if the act would make him invisible as they passed the resting cavalry scouts. After what seemed like an eternity the looming blackness of the tree canopy faded and they emerged thankfully into a less oppressive darkness. Valerius sensed the horse in front angle to the left and, after a few steps, the compact firmness of the paved road changed to mud. ‘You can put your shoes on now,’ a voice whispered from the gloom.
A little later Valerius noticed the dull glow away to their right that must be the encampment the Spaniard had pinpointed earlier. He remembered the horse brass with the Praetorian symbol. Not a legion, but enough Praetorian cohorts to form a force of a similar size. Normally, the Guard seldom left Rome, and then only to protect the Emperor on campaign, but the times were not normal. Vitellius had replaced Otho’s supporters with his own officers and men from the German legions. They would be veteran soldiers, not the posing peacocks who once strutted around Rome in their black and silver finery.
Keeping close to the foot of the mountains, the two men skirted a substantial town before returning to the saddle. Twice the Spaniard halted where a soft flicker in the darkness marked a campfire not quite damped and twice he led them unerringly away from danger. ‘One more pass,’ he whispered. One more pass. Valerius knew what he meant. One more pass and they were clear.
At dawn they re-joined the road, happy that the worst was behind them and protected by their guise of merchant and servant. They passed military units marching north while yellow-cloaked Imperial messengers galloped back and forth with dispatches. But the countryside around was peaceful, as yet untouched by war. A few miles ahead Valerius paused at a crossroads where he recognized the silhouette of a familiar whaleback hill. He nodded to himself and, despite Serpentius’s objections, insisted on turning off. They crossed the Tiber at one of the few fords and soon joined the Via Salaria, the old salt route that approached Rome from the east.
‘Perhaps the fates have given me this one last opportunity to make my peace with Olivia.’ Valerius tried to explain his decision. ‘Just because we get into Rome doesn’t mean we will get back out again.’ Serpentius let him ride a little way ahead so his friend couldn’t see him cross his fingers to make the sign against evil.
Another few hours brought them to the gates of a large estate where twin pillars of golden sandstone were topped by a pair of Mycenaean lions. Valerius wondered idly who occupied the grand villa now. It had once belonged to his old mentor, the philosopher Seneca, but on Seneca’s death Nero had given the estate to Offonius Tigellinus, his torturer in chief. Tigellinus, in turn, had reaped a less welcome reward, forced to commit suicide on the orders of Marcus Salvius Otho. An unlucky place. They continued down the salt road to a much less imposing gateway. In fact, Valerius barely recognized the entrance to the family estate at Fidenae. Someone had put up a brush fence along the boundary of the Verrens’ land and a rough barrier blocked the space beneath the crumbling stone arch.
‘It seems we are in for a warm welcome.’ Serpentius’s curled lip said it all.
But the precautions stirred a memory and Valerius laughed as he dismounted to haul back the flimsy barrier. He noted a flash of movement in the olive grove to the left of the gate and nodded appreciatively. ‘Tell me what you see,’ he asked the Spaniard as they rode on. ‘But for the gods’ sake keep your hand away from your sword.’
Serpentius grunted what might have been agreement or a mortal insult, but his eyes surreptitiously scanned the tree-lined hills beside the worn track. ‘Four or five men with bows in a camouflaged earth redoubt amongst the trees to our right,’ he murmured. ‘Another to the left twenty paces ahead. An ambush. They must have known we were coming long before the first runner we saw.’
Valerius nodded. He didn’t have the Spaniard’s unfailing eye for a potential threat, but he’d hoped they would be there. He guessed a third position would be sited somewhere close that even Serpentius hadn’t been able to detect, and he grinned at the thought.
‘What’s so funny?’ the former gladiator growled.
Valerius slapped him on the shoulder. ‘It’s good to be home.’
As they turned the corner he felt the breath catch in his throat as he recognized the long, low outline of the villa, a sprawling singlestorey range around a central courtyard. The emotion had its roots in childhood days spent among the dusty vines and olive trees, chasing sparrows and pulling weeds; a contentment linked not only to the land, but the living things in it, and on it. It was the familiar sensation of the warm air against his cheeks and the soft eternal buzz of insects in his ears.
This was home.
But home, it seemed, was not as he remembered it.
When they entered the courtyard a stocky man in a brown homespun tunic stepped out from the shadows holding a spear. Serpentius automatically went for his sword, but Valerius laid his hand on the Spaniard’s arm. In the same moment perhaps twenty more men appeared, armed with whatever weapons they’d been able to find: short sickles, knives, a few spears, even one or two swords that had seen better days. Valerius studied them, seemingly unconcerned. Slaves and servants for the most part, with a few contracted labourers and the estate’s craftsmen. Their faces wore a uniform look of determination, but one or two shifted uneasily in the silence.
‘We had thought to impress you,’ a female voice said lightly.
Laughing with delight, Valerius turned to the villa doorway. ‘And I am impressed,’ he lied. His sister Olivia looked more beautiful than ever. A few years ago she’d been struck down by some wasting disease and for months her life had hung in the balance. Now she was pink-cheeked and cheerful, with an aura of rustic good health. She’d put on weight, beneath the
stola
… His eyes widened a little and she tilted her head and smiled.