Sword of Rome (32 page)

‘I hand this eagle into your keeping; bear it with honour and guard it with your life. For Rome.’

Florus’s hands shook slightly as he accepted the wooden pole, but they stilled as his fingers grasped the polished wood. His eyes lifted
reverently to the eagle, its golden wings spread wide, the great hooked beak gaping and lightning rods grasped in its talons. With tears clouding his vision, he turned to face his comrades and his deep voice rang out across the square.

‘In the name of Jupiter Optimus Maximus I accept this eagle, this sacred symbol of my Emperor’s faith, into my keeping and that of Legio I Adiutrix, and I pledge on behalf of my comrades that we will defend it to our last spear and our last breath, or may the god strike us down. For Rome!’

Five thousand throats echoed those final roared words. In the hush that followed, Juva felt a prickle behind his eyes and he gritted his teeth so no man would see his weakness. He was a Roman legionary and tomorrow he would march to bring retribution on Rome’s enemies.

‘For Rome,’ he whispered.

‘Two men, well mounted and trailing a pack horse as you said they would, lord.’

Claudius Victor nodded absently and the tracker trotted off down the muddy path, his eyes scanning the ground for any deviation in the sign. It was almost eight months since the Batavian’s brother had died at the hands of Gaius Valerius Verrens but not a day had passed when he had not thought of the one-handed Roman and vengeance. Now, at last, the fates had brought his enemy almost within Victor’s grasp.

The men he sought had left the river road as soon as they were out of sight of Colonia’s smoke. In the empty coldness of his heart the Batavian felt the minutest stirring of the blood. Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus had made him aware of the quality of the man he hunted. Even with the fat Emperor’s sanction, Valerius Verrens was wary of the patrols he would meet on the road. But in the end it would not matter. Revenge would be his.

He remembered Vitellius’s final words. ‘It is a pity, he has been a good friend, but for the Empire’s sake he must die. Make it quick and make it clean; he deserves that, at least.’

But Vitellius had not searched for a body on a corpse-scattered field in Gaul all those months ago. Claudius Victor turned to the wolfskin-cloaked troopers of his cavalry detachment. ‘We will wait until they are
beyond Moguntiacum before we take them. The servant can die, but I want the man with only one hand alive or whoever kills him will go to the fire in his stead.’

He felt their fear as he kicked his horse into motion, and the thirty men followed in his wake as he contemplated the many horrors he would inflict on the man who had killed his brother.

‘We have Vitellius’s pass and a warrant to change the horses at his way stations,’ Serpentius pointed out. ‘I don’t understand why we’re creeping about in the bushes again when we could be making another six miles a day.’

Valerius didn’t answer immediately. The Spaniard was right. They could have travelled the well-maintained road that followed the Rhenus all the way to Augusta Raurica and into the Alps beyond. Instead, they had taken to the flat, marshy plain to the west, riding through brush and low scrub and avoiding the occasional patches of forest that studded the countryside. It had cost them time, but all he knew was that he could feel an itch on the back of his neck and that itch had never let him down.

‘I may consider Vitellius a friend.’ Valerius frowned as he tried to put his thoughts into words. ‘And perhaps he does likewise, but he’s a great man now. He rules half the Empire, and if Otho doesn’t get reinforcements soon it may not be long before he rules the rest. I’ve been around enough great men to know that they do not see the world as other men do.’ He glanced over his shoulder, remembering Nero, alone with his ghosts in the great palace he had built so the world would remember him for ever. ‘They see threats everywhere. They lash out in self-preservation and call it duty. They order a man’s death and call it necessity. If a friend stands in the way of their ambitions, he is a friend no more. Vitellius is a man who has a soothing way with words, but he wears his ambition like a legionary banner. It is his ambition I fear. A dagger in the back is no less deadly if it’s accompanied by whispered words of friendship.’

Serpentius murmured acknowledgement. ‘Aye.’ He grunted. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time he tried to feed us to the foxes. I was thinking
it was strange he didn’t just order a fast galley to take us upriver if he was so keen to get his message back to Otho. We could have reached Moguntiacum in two days in comfort instead of three sleeping in the mud.’

Valerius nodded. He’d had the same thought. Unless Vitellius was having them followed, which was more likely than not, he would expect them to head west and follow the Mosella south-west from Confluentes, where it joined the main river. Instead, Valerius had decided to stay with the Rhenus as far south as Cambete. Yet if Vitellius was playing them false there was no sign of it so far. Perhaps he was starting at shadows. He’d noticed that the older a man got, the more he understood of the perils of his existence and the more nervous he became. Still … ‘I’d rather sleep in the mud for a night or two than in a cold grave for all eternity, and until we’re past Vitellius’s legions and back in Italia I’ll be sleeping with my sword in my hand.’

They camped in a damp, gloomy wood three miles west of Moguntiacum and Serpentius erected a low palisade of brush to shield the glow of the tiny fire Valerius built in the centre of the clearing. When they’d eaten the Spaniard insisted on taking the first watch. Valerius wrapped himself in his blanket and, after a long day in the saddle, instantly slipped into a blessed sleep and dreamed of warm days on his father’s estate, acting as a scarecrow among the vines. The tranquil idyll ended abruptly in an explosion of fear. He woke in darkness with a hand covering his mouth and a sandal-shod foot pinning the blade of his sword.

‘Wolves,’ Serpentius whispered. He removed his foot from the blade. ‘But not the four-legged kind. I can smell them. They’re all around us, maybe twenty or thirty.’

‘Bandits?’

Valerius sensed the Spaniard shake his head and cursed inwardly. Even with two against many, he would have backed them to cause enough casualties to deter a gang of bandits and give themselves a chance to escape. If this was a military unit they’d be well armed and reasonably disciplined; that made a difference. But if it was one of Vitellius’s patrols, why hadn’t they approached the camp instead of
skulking about in the darkness like assassins? He grabbed the Spaniard’s arm and drew him close. ‘We have to find a way out,’ he hissed.

Serpentius stared at him, the whites of his eyes gleaming like fireflies in the soft glow of the dying embers. Without a sound, he dropped to the damp earth and slithered into the darkness. Meanwhile, Valerius backed away from the entrance to the makeshift enclosure to prepare the horses. He worked silently to untie the pack with his left hand and distribute what supplies he could between the two cavalry mounts. No question of taking the lead animal. It would be a quick prayer and a mad neck-or-nothing dash into the darkness with swords flying. The tactic had worked before when Valerius and his patrol had been trapped beyond the Danuvius by a horde of Dacian warriors. If Serpentius could find a weak spot in the enemy perimeter they had a chance; if not … well, the gods would decide.

As he worked at the leather straps the slightest movement caught the corner of his eye. A shadow that wasn’t quite a shadow. He froze, not daring to breathe. Serpentius? But when his eyes probed deeper he realized the ground beyond the fence was a living carpet. He wrapped the reins of the Spaniard’s mount round the wooden fist and vaulted into his saddle, simultaneously drawing his sword and kicking the beast’s ribs. Too late. They were on him before the animal reacted, swarming across the fence in a howling rush that matched the wolf cloaks they wore. Hands clawed at his legs and he hacked at a snarling face that fell away in a screaming welter of blood. Another took its place and received the same treatment, but they were all around Valerius and no matter how often the blade connected, a new threat always appeared. With every second he expected to feel the agonizing bite of spear or sword, but it never came. The horse shied and he felt himself being hauled from the saddle and pinned to the damp earth, kicks and punches raining down on him, accompanied by animal grunts and howls. Rough hands pinned his sword arm and prised the blade from his fist. Now, he thought. It will end now. Instead, a guttural command cut short the assault and he was dragged to his feet in a circle of snarling faces that demanded blood vengeance for the four men who lay groaning in pools of darkness.

A tall figure marched out of the shadows, his face hidden by the wolf’s mask that covered his head. The soldier bent towards the fire and stirred the glowing ashes until the brand he held caught light. He raised it to illuminate the prisoner’s face and the glow caught the expressionless features beneath the hood. Valerius’s breath died in his chest when he recognized his captor.

Twenty paces away, hidden in the trees, Serpentius froze as the torch flared and he saw the face from the blood-soaked field by the Rhodanus. He had already killed four of the Germans, but they swarmed in the woods all around and he knew his time was running out. His first instinct was a red-eyed impulse to rush his enemies and free Valerius or die in the attempt. But that would not help his friend. He had to find another way. He slid backwards and disappeared further into the brush as his hunters closed in.

Claudius Victor fixed Valerius with his pale eyes and the Roman flinched at the malignant spark of triumph he saw in their otherwise lifeless depths. The Batavian studied him for more than a minute, as if he was trying to work out what lay beneath the skin of the scarred face. He reached out and his fingers gently caressed the carved walnut fist. Valerius automatically flinched away and felt the skin crawl on a hand that had been buried in the ash of a Celtic hovel for eight years. Fear formed a squirming ball in his guts and he fought it as it rose to fill his chest and throat. He had never needed his wits more, and if he allowed fear to overwhelm his mind all would be lost. Somehow he had to talk his way out of this.

‘I carry dispatches from Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus to Marcus Salvius Otho and any man who stands in my way risks the wrath of the one or the other.’ He spoke the words with all the authority and arrogance he could muster, but the Batavian barely acknowledged them. His thin lips twitched, not quite a smile, more an acknowledgement that the situation was not without a certain humour. Without warning, the hand that had been touching the wooden fist came up in a backhanded sweep that took Valerius on the right cheek, making him stagger back and filling his mouth with the metallic taste of blood.

‘You carry nothing, Roman, and you are nothing. Better for you to
think yourself already dead, for you will soon wish you were. I see you remember me. What else do you remember of that day?’ The voice was soft and low, almost seductive, but there was an unhinged quality to it, as if the speaker was teetering on the edge of terrible violence or screaming madness. ‘Answer me.’ The hand came up again, and Valerius reeled from the power of it.

‘I remember a fight. Men died when there was no need, as there is no need for this. If my message gets through, war may be avoided. Do you want to be responsible for thousands of deaths?’ The question was aimed not at the man who faced him, who he guessed would slaughter thousands at a whim and think no more of it than of sacrificing a chicken, but at the ring of pale faces whose dark eyes gleamed like shards of quartz in the torchlight.

Claudius Victor’s eyes narrowed. ‘I remember a boy dying, a son and a brother, a young man in the first flower of his manhood, his body torn by the blades of mercenaries and left lifeless on the field by his murderers. I know this, because I buried him with my own hands.’

‘An unblooded auxiliary officer who died in a fight he should never have been part of. If you had led the attack instead of cowering among the trees, perhaps he would be here in your place.’ Valerius risked the defiance, thinking nothing could make his situation worse. He was wrong.

Victor reached up to hook his fingers into Valerius’s cheek, forcing his mouth open. ‘Your mouth is like a latrine. Utter another word that is not an answer to my question and I will have you held down and my men will fill it before we gag you.’

He issued an order and Valerius’s throat heaved at the thought of what might be to come. But his captors dragged him to a tree where they tore his clothes away before binding him naked to the trunk. Some of the Batavians rushed into the wood and he heard the sound of axes before they reappeared in the clearing, carrying two long stakes and several cuts of green wood. Meanwhile, others dug two pits ten paces apart on either side of the fire, which now burned fiercely, fed by branches from the makeshift palisade. Valerius watched in growing horror as the stakes were placed in the pits and the earth filled in around
them and tramped home to create a firm base. The first was about four feet tall and three inches in diameter and the tip had been sharpened to a horrible, jagged point. The second stood twice the height and more than twice the thickness of the other and the Batavians stacked the green wood beside it. His mind rebelled against what it was witnessing and something exploded in his stomach before erupting in a white-hot stream from his throat.

‘I see you understand their purpose.’ Claudius Victor nodded. ‘Good. For the moment, I will leave you to contemplate which end you would prefer. We will begin when I return at first light. Perhaps I will even allow you to make the choice. The impaling stake or the fire.’ He pulled a wicked-looking curved knife from his belt and Valerius flinched from the glittering blade. ‘But there are certain things you should know first. You have a single hand and that must be precious to you, as my brother was to me, which is why I will personally cut it from you with a blunt axe. You are a proud man, Gaius Valerius Verrens, knight of Rome; that is plain for all to see, and why we will first remove the things that are the source of your pride. Naturally, we will do this with skill, ensuring you live long enough to enjoy their loss.’ The import of the words made their targets shrivel, encouraging a roar of laughter from the Batavians, but Claudius Victor only continued in his cold voice, his face so close that Valerius gagged from the rank stench of his breath. ‘If you choose the stake, we will first flay the flesh from your body an inch at a time and burn it before your eyes. It is difficult to imagine the pain and the horror of it. Even to think of it must drive a man to the brink of madness.’ Valerius closed his eyes and tried not to see the auxiliary decurion who had led the patrol across the Danuvius two years earlier and been captured by the Dacians. He had ended up a whimpering mass of raw, bleeding flesh, squirming on a stake exactly like the one in front of him. ‘I have known a flayed man to live for three days on the stake,’ Claudius continued. ‘Perhaps you would prefer the fire? Yet the fire can be just as entertaining and the agonies last just as long. We will leave you your skin, for which you will at first be grateful, but when that skin begins to shrivel and melt away in the heat, and the flesh beneath it starts to roast, you will perhaps feel you should have
chosen the stake. There will be no flame, which would ensure a quick, if painful, end, and no smoke with which to choke yourself. No escape. For this is the slow fire. Fire that begins at the feet and moves up the body an inch at a time, tended by men who know how to make it last. Of course, you will go mad as you feel the flesh fall from your body and your inner parts begin to cook, but you will still be conscious when your heart explodes and finally ends your suffering.’ He took Valerius’s face in his right hand and looked directly into his eyes. The Roman felt as if he was staring into a furnace. ‘If it was in my power, you would die a hundred such deaths.’ The Batavian noticed the glint of gold at the Roman’s neck and his fingers closed on the boar amulet Valerius’s sister had given him. ‘You will not require this any further,’ he said, and brought his knife up to cut the thin leather strip holding it.