The rain was easing as the legion marched into the town of Vidubia, but the road was churned clay and every man was muddied to the knees. They marched four abreast, dressed alike in hooded rain capes, with leather-covered shields and cloth-bound spears slung over their shoulders. Castus stood at the verge of the road and watched them as they passed him in the lowering light. He had marched beside them, on foot, setting the pace with his own mile-eating stride, and now he checked each unit, calling out to the centurions by name, judging the condition of the men. Eight days on the road, and they still looked strong. Only four soldiers so far had dropped out of the line, sprained or footsore, to ride in the baggage carts at the rear of the column.
Vidubia was barely a town, more a straggle of timber buildings bunched along the road, with an imperial posting station and an inn. The mensores had ridden ahead of the marching column, and already chalked their marks on the doorframes, allocating billets for the men. The luckier centuries were quartered in the stables of the inn yard, or in warehouses and dwelling huts; the others were left to put up their damp leather tents in the walled enclosure behind the posting station.
Castus had been given a pair of rooms on the upper floor of the station, large chambers with crude colourful paintings on the walls, probably the best accommodation in town. From the wooden balcony outside he gazed down at the lines of tents, the soldiers gathering around their smoking cook fires. He hear the curses and the corse laughter, breathed in the scents of smoke, damp wool and leather. He stretched his arms above his head, feeling the pleasant flex of weary muscles, the satisfying fatigue of a long day’s march. As he walked back inside he stripped off his sweat-stained tunic and threw it over a chair. His orderly, Eumolpius, was busy scraping the mud from his boots.
A rap at the door, and before Eumolpius could get to his feet it opened and Macer walked in. The drillmaster raised his stick in a brief salute.
‘Dominus. All the men are settled. They’re too tired to cause trouble tonight, I reckon.’
Castus nodded, pouring himself a cup of watered vinegar-wine and gulping it back. ‘They did well,’ he said. ‘If we keep up this pace we can break a day at Lugdunum. Then they can enjoy themselves.’
Macer gave a curt shrug. He had a new briskness to him since the legion had marched from Divodurum, although he seemed no more good-natured. The prospect of battle had clearly fired his spirits. Like Castus himself, Macer wore the gold torque around his neck, the reward of valour. He was a fighting man, but until a few months before all he had had to look forward to was a fat discharge bonus and retirement with the honorary rank of Protector. Now things were different. But he surely knew, Castus thought, that this campaign would be his last.
‘There’s still those four shirkers on the baggage carts,’ Macer said. ‘Can I suggest we sent Attalus and Blaesus to rouse a bit of life into them before tomorrow?’
‘No,’ Castus said. ‘Force them to march now and they’ll cripple themselves and be good for nothing.’
Macer’s ruddy face flushed even deeper as he inhaled. ‘If you say so… dominus. Sets a bad example, though, in my opinion. One of them’s a Christian, it turns out,’ he said, drawing his thin lips back tight against his teeth. ‘You know what I reckon to that sort. Just saying what I think. Dominus.’
Or not, Castus thought. He gave a nod of dismissal, and Macer saluted tightly and stamped out of the room. Eumolpius raised his eyebrow. ‘Back to work,’ Castus told him, then leaned back against the table, sighing deeply.
The last three months had been hard. Macer had his own following among a few of the centurions, men like Blaesus and Attalus, who admired his methods and sought to emulate them. Castus knew that these men would never fully trust him. The rigours of training at Divodurum, the route marches and weapons drills, all those days of hard physical exercise, had welded the legion together. But they could not heal the rifts among the officers of Castus’s command. He only hoped that the experience of battle would pull them together, and not drive them further apart.
There was another knock at the chamber door, and this time Eumolpius was quick enough to answer it. Diogenes came in, bearing his armful of tablets and scrolls, nodding a casual greeting.
‘Reports are all in, dominus,’ he said, spreading his documents on the table. ‘A despatch too, by the courier from Arelate. All centurions report their men fit and well. Aside from the four you already know about.’
‘Good,’ Castus said, shoving himself upright. ‘What does the despatch say?’
Diogenes glanced up briefly. Castus signalled his permission, and the secretary broke the seal on the tablet.
‘Orders from the office of Aurelius Evander, comes rei militaris, Commander of the Field Army of southern Gaul,’ Diogenes read. ‘All units proceeding to Cularo are to leave their heavy carts and wagons at Lugdunum or Arausio and transfer their loads to mules or other baggage animals.’
‘Other baggage animals?’
‘That’s what it says, dominus.’ Diogenes shrugged. ‘Can they mean oxen, do you think?’
‘Not without carts, surely. What do you make of it?’
‘Presumably,’ Diogenes said, setting the tablet aside, ‘they believe that wheeled transport would be unsuitable for the mountain crossing, and they don’t want a huge wagon park assembling at Cularo.’
Castus grunted. ‘Makes sense.’ He was still perplexed about the other baggage animals though. The army always used mules and ox carts.
‘Elephants, maybe?’ said Eumolpius, glancing up from his cleaning. For such a young man, he had a very deep and mournful voice. ‘Did Hannibal not cross the Alps with elephants?’
‘To strike fear into the Romans, I should think,’ Diogenes said in a dry tone. ‘Not to carry his baggage.’
‘I have always dearly wished to see an elephant,’ Eumolpius said wistfully.
Castus frowned at the orderly, who dropped his head and got on with his work.
‘There is, of course, the account by Livius of Hannibal’s crossing,’ Diogenes went on, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it would be instructive to read it again? I might find a copy at Lugdunum, perhaps…’
Castus slopped more wine into his cup. He had crossed mountains before. He had marched vast distances, seen and fought barbarians on three frontiers. But he had never been to Italy, never seen that great city at the heart of the empire, or expected he ever would. At least now there was no doubt about the final destination of their march.
‘How far is it?’ he asked. ‘To Rome?’
‘About a thousand miles.’ Diogenes was smiling to himself as he gathered up his reports. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the place for myself,’ he said. ‘Rome is the greatest city on earth. The eternal city, mistress of nations… Over a thousand years since the foundation, and there are one million inhabitants, so they say…’
Castus whistled through his teeth. The huge numbers loomed in his mind. A thousand miles, a thousand years. One million people… and how many of them had Maxentius conscripted into his new legions?
‘Funnily enough,’ Diogenes said, pausing by the door, ‘there’s a man in Rogatianus’s century who claims to come from Rome. His name is Valerius Felix.’
‘The one they call “Slops”?’
‘Yes. Although I don’t know if there’s any truth in it. He seems a rather low sort of Roman, if he really is one…’
Once Diogenes and Eumolpius had left him, Castus sat alone at the broad central table, cleaning and polishing his weapons, armour and equipment in the light of a single lamp. Certain tasks he made a habit of doing himself. There was a solitude in command that he had never experienced before, and it made him uneasy. Once again, he found himself thinking of Brinno, and of his old friend Valens who had died in Germania. Even of Sallustius, who had turned out to be a traitor. All those men he had called brothers; all of them dead now. He missed Sabina too, and thought often of his son.
Stifling a yawn, he set aside his kit and wearily unrolled the scroll that Diogenes had given him to read back in Divodurum. He had been working his way through it for months, but had made little progress, and squinting at the letters made his eyes smart. Caesars, it was called, by somebody called Marius Maximus, a collection of biographies of past emperors of Rome. Diogenes had called it ‘essentially frivolous’, whatever that meant, but Castus was finding it dense enough. Originally the secretary had presented him with a children’s book about talking farm animals, and Castus had stared at him until he removed it and fetched this one instead. So far he had battled his way halfway through the life of the emperor Commodus. Bizarre stuff, it seemed, and it felt somehow perverted, somehow treasonous, to be reading it – but Castus suspected that like most books it was almost entirely invented anyway. And he was getting faster at reading, more confident of picking up meaning from the squiggle of ink.
Outside his chamber the night had grown dark, and the noise from the encampment behind the posting station had stilled. Now there was only the distant cry of a sentry, the last hushed voices from the gate to the road. Castus sat back in his chair and rubbed at his brow. He pushed aside the scroll, letting it curl itself closed. No, he thought, the army was the life he had always known, the one he knew best. He picked up his sword, the long spatha he had been given by the emperor when he had been promoted to tribune. Drawing it from the scabbard, he admired the sheen of the lamplight on the patterned steel. The blade had twin fullers, and the gilded hilt was formed in the shape of an eagle’s head. Always before he had trusted to the standard weapons of the legion armoury; he had never owned such a magnificent weapon as this. The symbol of his command. Up near the hilt, set into the metal, were two facing figures in gold, each the size of a thumbprint.
Mars and Victory, Castus thought as he wiped and oiled the blade. He would need the aid of them both soon enough.
*
‘Other baggage animals!’ Diogenes said, with a bemused smile.
The line of beasts came swaying up the road towards the encampment, the heavy pads of their feet beating the dust, their curving necks shaggy with encrusted dirt. Once of them let out a roaring belch as they passed.
‘Camels?’ Castus said. ‘We’re crossing the mountains with camels?’
‘Our emperor intends to outdo the great Hannibal in taking exotic creatures across the Alps,’ Vitalis said. ‘Although, as you can see, they are exceptionally good at carrying heavy loads. Three or four times the burden of a mule.’
Aelius Vitalis was a pale-skinned man with a neat beard and the lean muscles of an athlete. He had been in the Protectores with Castus; now he was a tribunus vacans, a supernumerary officer attached to the army staff. Castus had been glad to meet him so soon after arriving in Cularo.
‘I have never seen one before,’ Diogenes said, watching with great interest. ‘They look quite ungainly. Are they capable of climbing mountains?’
‘These are,’ Vitalis told him. ‘They’ve been specially bred for it. They terrify horses too – we have to keep them away from the cavalry.’
They turned to watch the line of animals trekking on up the road. Castus was no stranger to camels – he had seen them in the east. These had clearly been brought across from Mauretania and up through Spain; the men leading them had the dark skin, short tunics and thickly braided hair of the Mauri.
Castus and his men had arrived at Cularo after eighteen days on the road from Divodurum, to find the army encamped in a broad green pasture set in a bowl of the mountains. The peaks were vivid in the sun, and all across the fields beyond the town were tents and palisades, troops and horses, a vast array glittering in the clear light.
The camel-handlers were not the only strangers in the camp. The field army contained men of all nations, or so it seemed. There were barbarian contingents from Germania, and auxiliaries from Spain and all across Gaul. New troops had come from Britain, and all the legions and cavalry squadrons of the Rhine army had sent their detachments. Even Legion VI Gemina, who had fought against Constantine at Massilia, had sent a pair of cohorts from Spain to join the force, many of the soldiers dressed in antique-looking segmented armour. More than twenty thousand men were encamped across the plain between the surrounding walls of the mountains.
‘Remember Hrocus, the Alamannic king?’ Vitalis asked, the trimmed beard giving his smile a leering quality.
‘The one who hung around the court in Treveris, getting drunk?’
‘That’s him. His son, Hrodomarus, is camped just over the river with eight thousand of his Bucinobantes.’
They walked together away from the road, to their tethered horses. Castus had acquired a strongly built grey mare, a reassuringly placid animal that went by the very unmilitary name of Dapple. Never before had he felt so secure in the saddle, but he still preferred to walk if he could. Mounting up, he sent Diogenes back to the Second Legion camp, then followed Vitalis down towards the river. They were due to attend a meeting of the army staff and officers.
‘They won’t tell us much. The emperor’s still up on the Rhine, in theory at least,’ Vitalis said as they rode. ‘Although we all know he’ll be arriving here any day. Just a ruse to fool the enemy spies, like leaving it so late in the year before starting the invasion. By now Maxentius’ll have decided that Constantine’s campaigning on the Rhine this summer, and he’ll move his forces east to Aquileia, against the feint from Licinius. But that would be thanks to you, heh!’
Castus smiled tightly. He did not like to be reminded of that nightmarish winter journey through the Agri Decumates and across the Danube. Maybe it had aided the emperor’s strategies, but as far as he could see the expedition had not been worth the sacrifice of so many good men.
They rode down to the river and waded across. Just upstream, a party of soldiers were bathing in the shallows, laughing and splashing the cold water into glittering fountains.
‘I saw the emperor, up in Treveris at the beginning of the month,’ Vitalis said. Castus caught the uneasy shift in his voice.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘Nothing really,’ Vitalis said quickly. ‘It’s just…’ He dropped his voice. ‘They say he spends too much time with the Christian priests these days. There are so many of them at court, they fill the corridors like flocks of geese… It was Floralia when I was there, and I heard a rumour that the emperor refused to sacrifice to the goddess during the festival. I can’t be sure – I saw nothing unusual myself. But people are worried, brother.’
Castus nodded, frowning. He had been so willing to deny the rumours when he had first heard them from Sabina. Perhaps, he thought, there was some other explanation?
‘We’ll see soon enough,’ he said. ‘There’ll have to be a sacrifice before we march, to purify the army and ask the blessing of the gods. That and the divination by the haruspices. The emperor couldn’t refuse that…’
Briefly he thought of the stories he had heard, stories told in military camps around smoking cook fires, of generals cursed by the heavens, signs of divine displeasure ignored, defeat and death preordained. Anyone refusing the gods their due came to a bad end, it was clear.
‘I saw your wife at Treveris too,’ Vitalis said, ‘during the festival.’
Castus noticed that the ominous tone had not left his friend’s voice.
‘She was with the emperor’s wife and her retinue, I suppose?’
‘No,’ Vitalis said, peering away towards the distant mountains. ‘Actually she was with a man – a friend, I assume. I didn’t recognise him, but he looked like one of officials of the palace—’
‘Describe this man,’ Castus cut in. It was absurd, he knew, but his heart felt clenched in his chest. Vitalis gazed across at him warily.
‘A little younger than us, well dressed,’ he said. ‘They got into his litter together after the games. All his slaves were wearing the same light blue livery, I noticed. A wealthy man, I’d say.’
Castus turned his head, fighting to keep the look of consternation from his face. His mouth was dry, and there was sweat on his palms as he gripped the reins. He knew that Sabina had her own life in Treveris, of course he knew that – but his friend’s words hinted at more. They hinted at a suspicion that Vitalis dared not express.
*
Two more days passed, and the force assembled at Cularo grew larger still. The men trained at arms, swam in the river, quarrelled and gambled away their donative money, while clouds gathered to wreath the mountains and the temperature dropped. Then, at dawn on the third day, the word passed rapidly though the camp: the emperor had arrived.
Constantine had ridden in under cover of darkness, having travelled by horse relays from the Rhine. All that day the soldiers waited, as if they would get the signal to march at any moment, but the emperor was secreted with his senior officers and army commanders. Another night went by, the talk around the fires in the encampment alternately loud and bragging, then subdued by anxious thoughts. Finally, on a damp grey dawn with a feel of thunder in the air, the trumpets sounded the assembly.
Castus led his men out in their finest array, fully armoured in gleaming metal, best parade tunics and uncovered shields. Marching in regular step, the legion followed the road across the plain towards the assembly field with their standards proudly displayed before them. The eagle was carried by a massive young man called Antoninus, one of the tallest and broadest soldiers in the army. Walking beside him, Castus felt almost puny by comparison.
All across the plain he could see the dispersed units of the field army converging. It was a bold sight, enough to stir the blood. Twenty-five thousand of the best fighting men in the world, primed for a campaign that would rival anything from history; or so the soldiers had been telling each other. Troops of cavalry cantered along the road, passing the marching infantrymen. Castus identified the Equites Dalmatae and Mauri, the Scutarii and Sagittarii, plus other units he had not seen before. The barbarian contingents were roaring out their warrior ballads, waving their spears as they sang. Some of them already appeared to be drunk.
At the far side of the field, in front of the imperial encampment, a high tribunal had been raised, built of stacked turf in the traditional way. Behind it the mountains were a towering rampart of gloomy stone, their peaks lost in the low cloud. Castus marched his men into position, then left Macer in command as he strode forward to the base of the tribunal to stand with the other officers. Turning, he looked back at the formations of troops that seemed to fill the plain between the rivers and the mountains.
Trumpets rang out, incense swirled in the damp heavy air, and a ripple went through the massed ranks as the emperor ascended the tribunal. Castus snatched a glance back over his shoulder. The platform above him was ringed with standards, the golden eagles of the legions and the banners of the cavalry mingled with the dracos and flags of the other contingents. In front of the standards stood the chiefs of the civilian staff and the senior army officers. All the military men were dressed in burnished gold cuirasses and white cloaks, the civilians in heavily embroidered capes and tunics. But his eye was drawn to the figure standing alone at the front of the tribunal, dressed in a simple purple cloak. Constantine looked gaunt, his face raw and his eyes rimmed with red. He stood stiffly, glaring out over the ranks of his army. Then he raised his hand.
‘Fellow soldiers!’ the emperor cried, and his voice was hard and abrasive in the morning haze. ‘Fellow soldiers… I see before me an invincible army! I see before me an army that has conquered the wild tribes of Germania and Britain, which has crushed rebellion here in Gaul, which has restored security to our frontiers and peace to our provinces!’
His shout echoed slightly as he paused, a faint boom from the mountains.
‘I see men conscious of so many glories, so many victories, and yet eager for more. I tell you now, the hour has come for you to surpass yourselves!’
A stir went through the ranks, like the low sigh of wind between the high peaks.
‘Brothers, Italy is oppressed by a cruel tyranny! Rome herself, the mistress of nations, mother of our empire and centre of our world, is held captive by a monster who calls himself emperor! This man, this weak and impious man, has tried to blacken the name of Rome with his crimes. He has tried to extinguish the light of the world!
‘Just as his father rose up in treacherous revolt against me, so has this man – whose name is too shameful to mention – committed treason against us all with his villainous reign… My friends, I cannot allow these crimes to go unpunished! Today, by the divine will and the sacred command of heaven, we begin a just war, a war of righteous liberation!’
Cheers burst from the assembled troops, the drumming rattle of spears against shields, the rising chant of Constantine, Constantine… Castus felt his heart swell in his chest, but already the centurions were calling for silence. The emperor had thrown back his cape to reveal the armour beneath, and raised his hand once more.
‘Let no man say,’ he shouted, his voice sounding ragged now, the words cracking, ‘that I wished for this fight, or sought it! Instead, as the heavens are my witness, I have tried for months and for years to reason with this man, to persuade him from his evil course. But one cannot reason with insanity. So, enough false promises! Enough worthless pacts! No longer can I regard with indifference the mutilation of Italy. The honour of Rome imposes this war upon us… Our frontiers are secured behind us, the Rhine strongly guarded by your fellow troops. The enemy has a great army, but his soldiers are raw conscripts, weak and demoralised. Let the mountains ahead of us be the gateway to victory! Follow me, and the thunderbolt of your valour shall strike the foe and scatter him, and the road to Rome shall be open to our glory!’
‘Constantine! Constantine! Constantine...!’
This time the cries of acclamation were universal: the whole army setting up the chant, the clashing of weapons almost overwhelming. Through it, Castus could make out the chilling war cries of the barbarians, and even the roaring of the camels. Trumpets brayed, horns blared and cymbals clashed, and in a reeking cloud of incense the priests began to lead the sacrificial animals in the ritual procession around the perimeter of the assembly.
As the priests made their way along the far side of the field, Castus let his eye wander over the groups of officers and officials gathered at the base of the tribunal. He gave a brief nod of greeting to those he recognised, but there were a great many he did not. Then he saw one face in particular, and a flush of anger rose through him. The ugly bowl-cut hair and thin, colourless features would ordinarily be forgettable, but Castus knew them only too well; Julius Nigrinus, tribune of the Schola Notariorum, had crossed his path too many times. Clamping his jaw tight, Castus forced himself to look away. With any luck, he thought, the man had not noticed him, and would not be accompanying the army into Italy. As far as Castus was concerned, he was quite welcome to go and work at his sordid intrigues elsewhere.
The procession of priests had circled the assembly, and they were leading their animals up the ramp onto the tribunal, where an altar was already smoking in readiness for the sacrifice. There were three animals, as tradition decreed: a pig, a sheep and a bull. The bull plodded along placidly enough, tossing the flower garlands that decked its horns. The pig too appeared unmoved by the noise and activity, but the sheep was terrified and stubborn, and the priests had to haul it along by force. Already a bad omen, Castus thought, then hastily tried to reverse the observation. Even thinking about bad omens was a bad omen – these things were sent by the gods. He struggled to clear his mind.
Up on the tribunal the emperor stood ready, freshly dressed in his ceremonial robe. The priests gathered around him in the smoke from the altar, and one by one the animals were herded forward. From where he was standing Castus could not make out what was happening, but he heard the thud of the axe and smelled the rich iron scent of the fresh blood. As each victim died a grunting sigh came from the assembled troops.
Now the haruspices moved in, their white robes stirring around them. They would be removing the internal organs of the animals for inspection, Castus knew. He had seen it done many times before. Next they would pronounce the message they had read in the bloodied chunks of flesh. Castus felt no worry there – he had never known them say anything negative. It was impious, but he had always assumed they were paid not to. The only true omens came from the sky, Castus had always believed.
There was a lengthy pause. Smoke eddied across the raised tribunal, and Castus could hear the troops beginning to shift and mutter. Here and there a centurion hissed for silence.
‘What’s happening?’ Castus asked from the side of his mouth. He dared not turn and look, not now. Whispers were passing between the men gathered beside him.
‘The omens are bad!’ Vitalis said under his breath. His face looked bone white. ‘The diviners say the army must not cross the mountains!’
This time Castus did look back, craning his neck to see the emperor stalking down the ramp from the tribunal, a streak of blood on his white robe. Behind him, the priests were still gathered in the smoke from the altar around the carcasses of the sacrificial animals, several of them bloodied to the elbows. The mutterings from the troops were gathering to a low roar of suppressed sound.
‘Look at them!’ Vitalis said in a harsh whisper, his mouth twisting. Castus followed his glance, and saw a group of civilians gathered at the far side of the field. They looked like priests, most them with grey beards.
‘Christians,’ Vitalis hissed. ‘They must be behind this – them or agents of the enemy…’
But now there was motion up on the tribunal. Aurelius Evander, Commander of the Field Army of Gaul, strode to the front and raised his arms for silence. Down in the ranks the centurions were yelling, the tumult of voices dying away, every man eager to know what would happen now.
‘Soldiers of Rome!’ Evander cried in a high and carrying voice. ‘In the name of our lord and emperor, Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, Unconquered Augustus, I declare these omens to be void! Officers – prepare your men. The army will march, and we shall be victorious! Our mandate is granted by the Divine Will, and the command of heaven!’
The blood from the sacrificial victims was flowing across the tribunal now, running down the ramp in a red torrent as Evander turned and stretched his arms out to the skies, to the faint morning glow from the west. But the sun was hidden by cloud, and just for a moment it appeared that the commander was raising his arms in supplication towards Italy, towards the enemy.
Thunder rolled among the peaks, and it started to rain.