The Eagle's Vengeance (47 page)

‘Caesar?’

As Marcus watched, the same strange smile crept back onto the emperor’s face.

‘Call for the Knives. Have them come to me here.’

‘As you wish, Caesar.’

Commodus turned back to the disgraced prefect with a flourish of his improvised standard.

‘And so, Perennis, the wheel turns full circle. You recruited my Knives to do the dirty work necessary to maintain the empire, and now I will unleash them upon your family. Your line will be expunged from existence with the same thoroughness you ordered them to use with the Quintili clan, the Aquila brothers and—’

‘Aquila!’
Perennis’s eyes were locked on Marcus, wide with sudden recognition. ‘
It’s him! He’s Aquila! He’s the son, the only survivor. He’s different, older, but it’s him, I know it!’

In the depths of his terror at impending death he had latched on to the name of Marcus’s family and finally made the connection that had evaded him moments before, belatedly recognising the Tungrian centurion standing before him. Tearing an arm free from his captors he pointed an accusatory finger at Marcus, his voice close to hysteria.

‘He served in the Guard, before his father sent him to Britannia to save him from imperial justice, and he murdered the men I sent to arrest him and return him to Rome.
’

Commodus turned slowly to look at the young centurion, who stared rigidly at the wall behind Perennis.

‘
Really?
You’re trying to tell me that an equestrian officer serving in the army of Britannia is the son of a senatorial family you liquidated three years ago? Let’s put that claim to the test, shall we?’ The emperor addressed Marcus, who stiffened his body as a sign of respect. ‘So, Centurion, what is your name?’

Marcus spoke without hesitation, knowing that he could end up dying alongside the man who had ordered the deaths of his family if he failed to convince the emperor of his assumed identity.

‘
Caesar!
Marcus Tribulus Corvus, Caesar!’

‘And where were you born?’

‘Here in Rome, Caesar, in the Caelian!’

Commodus pondered.

‘I see. And how did you come to be serving in an auxiliary cohort? Wouldn’t the son of a member of the equestrian class be better off taking a position with one of the legions?’

Marcus creased his lips to simulate a gentle but uncontrollable amusement, lowering his voice from the harsh bark he had used to answer the emperor’s previous questions.

‘My father, Caesar, served with the same cohort when he was my age. It was his opinion that it would be more character forming for me to be exposed to the rougher elements of the army.’

Commodus smiled.

‘Did he, indeed? Fathers have a habit of wanting what they believe to be for the best for their sons, even if their opinion sometimes runs counter to what their sons might prefer. My own father, may the gods rest his departed spirit, insisted that I study with a succession of tutors when all I really wanted was to learn how best to wield a sword.’

Encouraged by his wistful smile, Marcus chanced one last comment.

‘Whereas for myself, Caesar, training with weapons always came before the classroom.’

The emperor nodded absently, turning away even before the young centurion’s sentence was complete, gesturing to Marcus with a hand.

‘Men like this are what have driven the empire to the successes it has achieved, sons of Rome happy to serve in the most arduous of conditions to secure our frontiers. And you, Perennis, have the temerity to traduce this man’s good name by comparison with that of a known traitor!’

Nostrils flaring as he involuntarily sucked in a lungful of air, Marcus fought his instinct to leap upon the emperor, as Commodus unknowingly repeated the false accusation that had seen his entire family slaughtered out of hand. Just as he was about to surrender to the overwhelming urge to snap out a hand and crush the emperor’s windpipe, the big man turned away, hefting the improvised legion standard in one hand as he strode back towards Perennis, the anger swelling in his voice as he neared the cringing prisoner.

‘I went with my father to Germania ten years ago or so, along with half a dozen legions, and I remember vividly the victory parade after we’d crushed the Marcomanni. There was an eagle bearer out in front of his legion, one arm in a sling, the other holding his eagle held proudly in the air, and my father walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, turning back to me with a proud smile. “This is my sort of soldier, Lucius,” he said, “a man who will fight to the death for his eagle even when the enemy swarm all round him.”’

He paused, turning a circle to show his improvised standard to everyone in the throne room.

‘You see, this eagle bearer, despite the fact that his right arm had been broken, fought on and flattened half a dozen of the barbarians with his standard, swinging it to dash their brains one at a time. But that wasn’t all he did, was it Perennis? I’m sure you can recall the story?’

The prefect’s voice quavered as he answered.

‘Caesar?’

‘I think you know exactly what I’m referring to, don’t you Perennis? That noble standard bearer also made full and savage use of
this
!’

The emperor flipped the standard over, showing them the shaft’s shining metal butt-spike, a polished iron cone designed to both prevent the weapon’s wooden shaft from splintering and to provide some threat if its bladed head was lost.

‘Of course the spike’s normally not much use for anything when compared with the blade. The Greeks used to call it a
sauroter
, a lizard sticker, but as that standard bearer proved, you can kill a man with a lizard sticker, if you’re sufficiently
brutal
—’

He pivoted and stamped forward with a loud grunt, forcing every last ounce of his strength into the standard’s shaft as the iron spike punched into Perennis’s lower gut with a wet thump, blood spraying to either side of the praetorian as the spear tore out through his back to transfix him. Perennis gasped reflexively, looking down in horror at the wooden shaft protruding from his body, and his eyes rolled up as he slumped forward. Commodus released his grasp on the standard with a theatrical wave of his bloodied hands, turning away as his disgraced adviser staggered forward a few steps and sprawled full length across a mosaic representation of a secutor’s armoured body, in a slowly spreading puddle of his own blood, his voice rising in a high-pitched whimper of distress.

‘You’ve ordered the deaths of enough people, Tigidius Perennis, so the least you can do is meet your own end like a man.’ The emperor barked out his last command as he headed for a small door to his private quarters on the far side of the chamber. ‘He stays there until he dies. And any man who decides to end his suffering prematurely is to die in exactly the same manner.’

The men left in the chamber stared at each other, their eyes drawn to the praetorian prefect as he lay panting on the tiled floor, his hands fretting at the spear shaft that was skewered through his groin.

‘Well now, who could have predicted that this would have gone quite as well as it did?’ Cleander turned back to his companions with a broad smile. ‘My only serious rival dying with a spear though his guts and me with a hundred million sesterces in gold to play with. That and having had the pleasure of witnessing
you
, Tribune, risking your life quite recklessly in order to restore the honour of a man you never knew. Quite amazing …’

He turned back to Perennis, smiling sadly down at the dying man.

‘As for you, Tigidius Perennis, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to honour Commodus’s orders with regard to your eventual death. Praetorians, clear the chamber!’

The guardsmen standing around the room barely hesitated before their discipline overrode their astonishment, and at a barked command from the centurion commanding the detachment they stamped to attention and filed from the room, leaving the four men standing around the writhing body of the dying Perennis. Cleander tipped his head to the door through which they had entered.

‘You too, gentlemen, and you can take your soldiers with you. The gold obviously remains here.’

Scaurus and Albinus exchanged glances, the senator shrugging and turning for the door with a gesture to his companions to follow him. They walked back through the palace in silence behind a praetorian who had been detailed to guide them to the gate, and emerged from the Palatine’s vastness onto the steps overlooking the Great Circus, the race track’s sand gleaming palely in the moonlight. Cotta and his men were waiting patiently at the foot of the wide marble stairway, and the retired centurion took the steps two at a time as he hurried to join his patron. The guardsman turned away and walked back up the last half-dozen steps, leaving the party standing in momentary silence.

Albinus addressed Scaurus.

‘I’ve a bone to pick with you, Tribune, and I neither require nor appreciate an audience of goggling soldiers.’

Scaurus nodded at the senator’s barely restrained fury, then turned to the troops standing around them.

‘You, Chosen Man. Take these men to the bottom of the steps and form them up to march. We’ll have to make our way back to the barracks the way we came in, and the Subura will be no less lively than it was before.’

Cotta and Marcus eyed each other for a moment, the veteran looking his younger counterpart up and down with a slight smile, as if he were calculating the odds, while Marcus simply spread his arms slightly and opened his hands, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows. Albinus, missing the exchange in his self-righteous anger, put a finger in Scaurus’s face and launched into a furious tirade.

‘You’ve betrayed my trust, Rutilius Scaurus! You provoked the anger of an emperor which could have all too easily spilled over and seen me dead alongside you, and as for that fool’s trick with the eagle …’

The tribune stared back at him with eyes suddenly as hard as flint, and Marcus realised that Albinus was about to get another unpleasant shock.

‘Words failing you, Senator? You’re speechless with wonder that I might take a risk to rescue the honour of a dead man?’ He took a pace closer to the bigger man, his face set in lines of anger equally as hard as those on Albinus’s face. ‘Take a good look at yourself,
Decimus
, or are you back to being Clodius Albinus now that I’ve offended your dignity? A man of your class died in Britannia at the start of the rebellion, betrayed and left to take the blame for the loss of his legion’s eagle, and if you can’t see the honour to be gained in restoring his reputation then I can only pity you.’

Albinus sneered at him, shaking his head in angry bemusement.

‘You can just call me
Senator
when we meet in the street, Tribune, and make sure you pay me the appropriate respect if you don’t want me to set Cotta and his men on you and pay you out for this disrespect with a good beating. Not that you’ll be walking the streets of Rome for long, once the emperor’s favourite freedman realises just how much gold you took from those chests to make room for the eagle and Gaius Sollemnis’s head.’

Scaurus smiled coldly back at him.

‘Is your indignation the product of your loyalty to the throne, or simply piqued pride that I took more gold than you managed to slide into your purse back in Dacia when we recovered the Albinus Major mine from Gerwulf and his Germans?’

Albinus shook his head, a superior smile playing across his lips.

‘You’ve no way of proving that accusation, Tribune!’

The smile faded as Scaurus raised an eyebrow at him.

‘Don’t I, Senator? Are you sufficiently sure of that to gamble your life on it? When you ordered me to surrender the records of exactly how much gold we’d recovered, did you ever stop to wonder if I might not have guessed what your reaction to that much gold would be?’ Albinus stared at him in silence. ‘Yes, I kept a copy. In fact what I gave
you
was actually the copy, while the original stayed nice and secure in my campaign chest. It’s very proper, marked with the mine’s official marks, which I’m sure a man as intelligent as Cleander will have authenticated in next to no time, while what I gave you had some small but import-ant imperfections incorporated. I’ve a most resourceful standard bearer in my First Cohort, a man with an avarice that’s the match of your own, if not quite so highly born, and he has a deft touch when it comes to doctoring the records, whether they be those of his century’s burial club or the official documentation of an imperial gold mine.’

He grinned at the senator, nodding his head at the other man’s sudden consternation.

‘I made sure that the little clues he left were subtle, nothing that would stand out to a cursory inspection, of course, but enough to see you condemned as a thief on a grand scale if ever a hint of your sordid little embezzlement were to reach the wrong ears and prompt a proper review of the paperwork. I’d imagine that it wouldn’t take very much to work out how much gold you kept back for yourself by comparison with the original documentation I can provide to the Chamberlain if the need arises. Speaking of whom …’

Cleander had appeared at the head of the stone stairs, and stood looking at them quizzically for a moment before stepping lightly down to join them, leaving a pair of spear-armed praetorians staring down at them disapprovingly.

‘You seem a little perturbed, Senator? Have the events of the evening not played out to your expectations? I have to say that I’m
very
content with life now that my only rival for control of the palace has been dealt with so harshly. I know this emperor well enough to be sure that he’ll be turning to me for guidance in Perennis’s absence, guidance I’ll be more than happy to turn into the exercise of imperial power once our new relationship has settled down. He does so love to spend his energies on the seduction of maidens and practice with his sword, fondly imagining himself as a notorious gladiator rather than the ruler of the civilised world. By simply being reluctantly willing to shoulder my Caesar’s unbearable burden I’ll achieve just as much control of the empire as that fool Perennis expected to achieve with all of his manoeuvring and plotting.’