The Iron Hand of Mars (14 page)

“She's sensible.” Justinus thought a lot of his sister and was prepared to accept that. I cared about her too, and I was not. “Tribune, as far as I know your sister made no arrangements with her banker, and took no bodyguard. She never said goodbye to your father; she completely bamboozled your mother; she surprised mine, who is very fond of her; and she left no forwarding address. That,” I said, “worries me.”

We were both silent.

“What do you suggest, Falco?”

“Nothing. There's nothing we can do.” That worried me as well.

*   *   *

We changed the subject.

“I still don't know,” Justinus broached, “how you came to be here seeking a missing legate the minute we had a problem with Gracilis?”

“Coincidence. The one I'm chasing is Munius Lupercus.”

“Olympus! That's a forlorn hope!”

I grinned unhappily.

Several of his relatives were close to the Emperor, and I felt satisfied that Justinus had inherited their discretion. I spoke freely about my mission, though I shied off mentioning the XIV Gemina. This courtesy to them was probably pointless, but I do have some standards. “One or two challenges!” he commented.

“Yes. I've already discovered that the prophetess Veleda lives at the top of a tower, and can only be approached through her male friends. This must be to endow her with a sinister aura. Going across the Rhenus river unnerves me enough, without any theatricals!” Justinus laughed. He could. He didn't have to go. “You seem the type who keeps up to date, Justinus. Can you tell me anything about the rebel chief?”

“Civilis has disappeared—though there are plenty of stories about his horrible habits!”

“Thrill me!” I growled.

“Oh, the most lurid anecdote has him handing over Roman prisoners to his small son as targets for arrow practice.”

“True?”

“It could be.”

Wonderful. Just the sort I enjoy taking out to a wine bar so I can have a quiet word in his ear. “Before I try to buy a drink for this civilised parent, is there anything less colourful that I ought to know?”

I knew the general background. Before the revolt the Batavians had always had a special relationship with Rome: their lands were exempt from colonisation—and therefore from taxes—in return for them supplying us with auxiliary troops. It was not a bad bargain. They got excellent pay and conditions—a vast improvement on what they could achieve by the rough-and-ready Celtic tradition of raiding their neighbours when the grain pits ran low. We acquired their nautical skills (pilotage, rowing, and swimming). They were famous for being able to cross rivers in full kit, paddling alongside their horses.

Justinus plunged straight in, cogently, and without floundering: “You know Julius Civilis is a member of the Batavian royal family. He spent twenty years in Roman military camps, leading auxiliaries for us. When the recent upsets started, his brother Paulus was executed as a troublemaker by the then governor of Lower Germany, Fonteius Capito. Capito sent Civilis himself in chains to Nero.”

“
Were
they troublemakers at that stage?”

“The evidence suggests it was a trumped-up charge,” Justinus declared in his measured way. “Fonteius Capito was a highly dubious governor. You know he was court-martialled and killed by his own officers? He had a reputation for governing greedily, but I can't tell you whether that was justified. Galba omitted to investigate his execution, so perhaps it was.” Or perhaps Galba was a geriatric incompetent. “Anyway, Galba acquitted Civilis of treachery, but only lasted eight months as emperor, so then Civilis became vulnerable again.”

“How come?” I asked.

“When Vitellius seized power his armies called for various officers to be put to death, ostensibly for loyalty to Galba.” I remembered that nasty episode now. Quite blatantly, it had been about settling old grudges. Unpopular centurions were the main target, but I knew the troops had also clamoured for the Batavian leader's head. Vitellius ignored them and confirmed Galba's “pardon,” but it must all have left Civilis with a great bitterness against his so-called Roman allies. “Also in that period,” Justinus went on, “the Batavians were being sorely treated.”

“Example?”

“Well, for instance, during conscription for Vitellius, imperial agents were calling up the infirm and the old in order to extract bribes for their release from the levy. And young lads and lasses were dragged behind the tents for unpleasant purposes.”

Batavian children tend to be tall and good-looking. All Germanic tribes have a strong sense of family, so this treatment must have festered sordidly. That was why the next imperial claimant, Vespasian, had felt he could call on Civilis to help him oppose Vitellius. But far away in Judaea, Vespasian had misread the situation. Civilis co-operated at first, in alliance with a tribe called the Cannenefates. They made a joint attack on the Rhenus fleet, thereby capturing all the arms and ships they needed and cutting Roman supply lines. Vespasian was then proclaimed Emperor.

“That forced Civilis to come out in his true colours,” Justinus explained. “He summoned all the chiefs of the Gallic and German tribes to a meeting in a sacred grove in the forest, let the wine flow freely, then fired them with powerful speeches about shaking off the Roman yoke and establishing a free Gallic empire.”

“Stirring stuff!”

“Oh, highly dramatic! Civilis himself even dyed his hair and beard bright red, then swore never to cut them until he had driven out every Roman.”

This colourful detail gave my own mission a picturesque quality I hated. “Just the sort of ethnic madman I love trying to outwit! Did he ever shave?”

“After Vetera.”

We were silent for a moment, thinking of the siege.

“A fort like that should have held out.”

Justinus shook his head. “I haven't been there, Falco, but by all accounts Vetera was neglected and understaffed.”

We buried ourselves in the tribune's gruesome wine, while I reflected sourly on what I had heard about Vetera.

It had been a double fort, though nowhere up to strength after Vitellius had drawn off large vexillations for his march on Rome. The remnant of the garrison put up the best show they could. Plenty of initiative. But Civilis was Roman-trained in siege warfare. He made his prisoners build battering-rams and catapults. Not that the defending legions lacked invention: they had devised an articulated grab that could scoop up attackers and toss them into the fort. But by the time they surrendered, they really had eaten all the mules and rats and were down to chewing roots and grass torn from the rampart walls. Besides, with the civil war raging in Italy, they must have felt completely cut off. Vetera was one of the most northerly forts in Europe, and Rome had other preoccupations.

A relief force
was
sent, under Dillius Vocula, but he bungled it. Civilis stopped him fairly decisively, then paraded the Roman standards he had captured around the fort at Vetera, just to add to the occupants' despair. Later Vocula did break through and raise the siege, but he found the garrison sullen. His own men mutinied, and he himself was murdered at Vetera by the troops.

The fort surrendered. The soldiers, having despatched their commander, swore allegiance to the Gallic Empire. They were disarmed by the rebels, ordered to march out of camp—and were then ambushed and cut down.

“Justinus, did Civilis have a reputation that should have led our men to expect to be betrayed?”

“I think not,” replied Justinus slowly, not wanting to prejudge the Batavian. “I believe they assumed that an ex-Roman auxiliary commander would honour their parole. It's said that Civilis did protest to his allies about it.”

We were silent again for a moment.

“What kind of man is he?” I asked.

“Highly intelligent. Massive charisma. Intensely dangerous! At one time most of Gaul plus several tribes from Germania Libera were supporting him, and he achieved a completely free run of Lower Germany. He regards himself as a second Hannibal—or Hasdrubal, in fact, since he too has only one eye.”

I groaned. “So I'm searching for a tall, one-eyed prince with flowing bright red hair, who hates Rome bitterly. At least he ought to stand out in the marketplace … Did he also,” I wondered, “make an objection when Munius Lupercus was captured in the ambush and bundled off as Veleda's gift?”

“I doubt that. Civilis encouraged her prophetic authority. They were regarded as partners. When Civilis seized the flagship of Petilius Cerialis, he sent that to her, too.”

“I'm too far gone to ask you how that disaster came about!” I had heard that our general Cerialis had his faults. He was impetuous and kept poor discipline, which led to losses he could have avoided. “So Veleda received her personal state barge—in addition to a high-ranking Roman trussed up and delivered to her tower to use as a sex slave, or whatever! What do
you
think she did with Lupercus?”

Camillus Justinus shuddered, and would not try to guess.

*   *   *

My head was spinning. This seemed a good point to yawn a lot like a tired traveller and depart for bed.

The notes of the twisted trumpet sounding out the night watch upset me, and I dreamed I was a young recruit again.

 

XXI

Next day I pondered fitfully on the brainteasers Vespasian had commissioned me to pursue. It was hard to raise any enthusiasm for this crazy selection, so I looked instead into the one problem where no one had asked me to interfere: I went to see the missing legate's wife. As I crossed to the XIV's side of the fort, I must say I felt fairly confident that the eminent Florius Gracilis would turn out not to be missing at all.

The legate's house was everything you would expect. Given that Julius Caesar, even when campaigning in hostile territory with all his resources stretched to the limit, carted panels of floor mosaic to lay in his tent in order to demonstrate Roman splendour to the tribes, there was no chance that a full-scale diplomatic residence inside a permanent fort would lack any convenience. It was as large as possible, and decorated in spectacular materials. Why not? Each succeeding occupant, his noble wife full of design ideas, would call for improvements. Every three years the house would be stripped out and refurbished to a different taste. And every extravagance they ordered came at State expense.

The residence was based around a series of courtyard gardens with long pools and exquisite fountains that filled the air with a fine, luxurious mist. In summer there must have been strident flowers; in October the impeccable topiary assumed a lonelier grandeur. But there were peacocks. There were turtles. In the morning, when I turned up with my hopeful grin, leaf-sweepers and twig-pruners were crawling over the scenery like aphids. Real aphids stood no chance. Neither did I, probably.

Indoors was a parade of frescoed reception rooms. The brilliant-white stuccoed ceilings were astounding. The floors comprised geometric mosaics with fascinating three-dimensional effects. The lamps were gilded (and screwed to the walls). The urns were immense (too heavy to run off with). Discreet wardens patrolled the colonnades, or were stationed unobtrusively among the Hellenic statuary. The salon furniture would have made my auctioneer father gnaw his nails and ask for a quiet word behind a pillar with the household steward.

The steward knew his stuff. Florius Gracilis had long ago made a smooth transition from the casual bachelor disorder in which Camillus Justinus lived to a world of constant public entertainment on the grandest scale. His residence was organised by troops of purposeful flunkeys, many of whom would have been with him for nearly two decades of hectic senatorial social life. Since high officials travel out to their provinces all expenses paid, the legate had not only brought his tortoiseshell bedheads and gold Cupid lampstands, but while he was packing he also made space for the wife. But I knew even before I met her that adding a young bride to this slick regime had almost certainly been superfluous.

My research in Rome had told me Gracilis was the normal age for a legionary commander. He was in his late thirties—still free of arthritis, but mature enough to strut impressively in the circular purple cloak. His wife was twenty years younger. In patrician circles they tend to marry schoolgirls. When alliances are being made for blunt political reasons there is a premium on the untouched and biddable. Not for men of this status the haphazard attractions that mess up life for the rest of us. Florius Gracilis had first married in his twenties, when he was aiming for the Senate. He had shed the woman as soon as it seemed convenient, then equipped himself adroitly with a new wife—this time from an even older, even richer family—about eighteen months ago. That must have been when he started looking for his legionary command and wanted to appear a man of public probity.

Maenia Priscilla interviewed me in a gold and black salon, the kind of highly lacquered room that always makes me notice where a flea bit me the previous day. Half a dozen maids escorted her, broad-browed, slightly hirsute wenches who looked as though they had been bought at the slave market as a matched set. They seemed remote from their mistress, sitting quietly in two groups and getting on with rather dull embroidery.

Priscilla ignored them. She was small. A sweeter nature might have given her a dainty air. Time and money had been spent on her, though without disguising her inbuilt surliness. She favoured a languid, catlike expression, which grew harder when she forgot to cultivate it. She was probably the daughter of some offhand praetor who only perked up when his female offspring were old enough for flashy dynastic marriages. Now she was married to Gracilis. Not much fun either, probably.

She took several minutes settling herself in a shimmer of violet flounces. She wore pearl ear-drops, amethyst-studded bracelets and at least three plaited gold necklaces, though more may have lurked in the lustrous folds that swathed her. This was her Thursday-morning set, completed by the usual battery of finger-rings. Somewhere among the tinsel was a half-inch wedding band; it failed to make its presence felt.