‘Where in the smoky black arse of Hades did you spring from?’
The drillmaster stood with his fists planted on his hips, his seamed red face pulled into a disbelieving grimace. Castus was sitting on a folding stool outside the command tent of Legion II Britannica, packing his mouth with good army bread and washing it down with sour vinegar wine.
‘Rome,’ Castus said, chewing heavily. He swallowed, then gazed into his cup. ‘You’ll like it there. The wine’s decent.’
Only a few hours had passed since Castus and Felix had been caught by the party of exploratores in the valley three miles to the south of Spoletium. The exarch commanding the scouts had not believed Castus’s story, of course. Two men dressed in ragged civilian clothes, scrub-bearded, one with a plundered sword: they were either brigands, deserters or enemy spies, and the exarch had ordered them bound and escorted back to camp under guard. Castus had been grinning all the way.
‘Are you back to lead us, then, tribune?’ Macer said. He was staring at Castus as if he had just appeared from a crack in the earth.
‘Isn’t Vitalis still in command of the Second?’
Macer’s lips tightened and he glanced away. ‘Your friend Vitalis was wounded at Mutina,’ he said. ‘Javelin in the thigh. We left him behind at Ariminum, and I’ve been at the front ever since, more or less.’
The drillmaster looked old, Castus thought, more so than his years. Beneath his ruddy tan there was a greyness in his face, his single eye bleary and reddened. The campaign was taking it out of him. From what Castus had seen of the legion, it had taken it out of them all.
‘We’ve been losing men ever since Verona,’ Macer said. ‘A score went down with campaign fever and never recovered, then some more fell at Mutina before the place surrendered. There’s been skirmishing all the way through the mountains. Barely half the men that marched with us from Divodurum are still with the standards.’
‘What about the officers?’ Castus asked him.
Macer scrubbed at his white hair. ‘They’ve been hit worst,’ he said. ‘Half the centuries are led by optios now. Brocchus is still carrying the eagle, but most of the other standard-bearers are new men.’ He paused, clearing his throat quietly. ‘Attalus died,’ he said. ‘Cut up by enemy scouts on the road just short of Cales. And Gaetulicus, the last of your rapists from Mediolanum, he lost his guts to the sickness before we left Verona. Judgement of the gods, I reckon.’ He angled his head and spat.
Castus nodded, then sucked down a mouthful of wine. He was not sorry about Attalus, or Gaetulicus, but the loss of so many others was bitter news.
‘Tribune,’ Macer said, squatting down on the turf beside him. ‘I know we had our differences. Our disagreements, you could say.’ He sniffed, uncomfortable, and rubbed his head again. ‘But we need a commanding officer. I can’t do this on my own; I wasn’t made for it. I’ve seen you on the field – you’re a decent leader, and the men need somebody they recognise, somebody who knows them.’
‘I’m not your commander,’ Castus said. He was still just a tribunus vacans. An officer without a unit. And the judgement of the gods awaited him too.
When the scouts brought him to the camp he had been taken to the command tent and made to wait under guard. Not until Leontius arrived was he recognised and released from his bonds. It was to Leontius, and then to Evander, that Castus had made his report. While a secretary had scratched at a wax tablet, taking it all down in shorthand, Castus had narrated the essentials of the failed mission to Rome. He tried to connect the events in the right order, to remember everything. He told them the names of the senators they had spoken to, and the names of the legions in Maxentius’s army. He repeated what the Praetorians had told him at the baths: the strengths and weaknesses of the tyrant’s troops, the poor training of the recruits, the large number of Christians in their ranks. He told them of the betrayal of the mission, the death of Pudentianus, Nigrinus’s double dealings, and what had happened at the palace. He repeated what Sabina’s cousin had told him about Lepidus.
‘This is Claudianus Lepidus?’ Evander said, breaking in. ‘The Master of Dispositions?’
Castus nodded. He saw the two senior officers exchange a glance. The secretary had filled four tablets with notes, and Castus had a dry mouth and an aching head. He doubted he had ever spoken at such length in his life.
‘Do you have any further evidence against him?’ Evander asked.
‘No, dominus,’ Castus said. ‘But the notary Julius Nigrinus told me to deliver this to the emperor.’ He placed the twine-wrapped sheep-bone on the table beside the secretary’s tablets.
Evander leaned closer, peering at the object, then picked it up carefully between finger and thumb. ‘Very well, tribune,’ he said. ‘You’re dismissed. For now. Get something to eat, you look like a starved dog.’
Now, sitting outside the command tent in the legion lines, Castus looked to his left. The walled town of Spoletium climbed the slope from the valley where the army was camped towards the wooded summit of the hill. Somewhere within the town the emperor Constantine had established himself and his retinue; Evander was there now, with the tablets of notes and the mysterious coded message. Soon enough, Castus thought, he would discover what verdict had been passed upon him.
Breathing in deeply, he tipped his head back into the sunlight. All around him spread the regular rows of army tents, the camp ovens still smoking after baking the morning bread. He closed his eyes, and listened to the rough gnarled voices of the soldiers, the curses and the laughter. This was home, he thought. The relief of getting safely back here was enough for him. Let the gods decide what they would.
‘Tribune!’ a familiar voice cried. Castus opened his eyes and stood up quickly.
‘Centurion Modestus,’ he said, and almost laughed. He had the briefest memory of Modestus as he had once been, a drunkard and a shirker, back in the old legion fortress at Eboracum. Now he was a tanned veteran, a centurion’s staff in his hand and a vigorous spring in his step. Marching up to Castus, he seized him by the shoulders and pulled him into a firm embrace.
‘Thought you’d buggered off and died,’ Modestus said, and kissed him loudly on the cheek. Then he turned and whistled.
Two slaves were following Modestus, carrying a brass-bound chest between them. Eumolpius trailed along behind them. The slaves set the chest down, and the orderly unlocked it and threw back the lid.
‘It’s all here, dominus,’ Eumolpius said. ‘I kept it safe, just as you ordered.’
‘Reckoned we’d lug it along with us,’ Modestus added. ‘Else some sneaky bastard’d make off with it, no doubt.’
Castus knelt beside the open chest. Metal gleamed within. He reached down and took the gold torque, flexing the loop of it around his neck. His ring was in a leather pouch, and he slipped it back onto his finger. Then he saw the sword.
‘I had the armourer replace the blade,’ Eumolpius said. ‘It’s perhaps not as fine as the old one, and I haven’t sharpened it.’
‘You did well,’ Castus told him. He closed his hand around the gilded eagle hilt, then drew the long spatha from the scabbard, holding it up in the sunlight with a flush of true pleasure.
The chest also contained his armour, the muscled cuirass, manica and gilded helmet, and his folded clothes and military belts. Standing, Castus stripped off his ragged tunic and flung it aside. He pulled off the worn old boots he had been wearing, and the breeches too. Finally he shed his loincloth, and stood naked while Eumolpius and two slaves flung buckets of water over him, watched by a dozen grinning legionaries.
He rubbed himself down with a coarse towel, and was dressing in the musty clothes from the chest when Eumolpius handed him something else.
‘I almost forgot!’ the orderly said. ‘It came for you just after you left Verona. I kept it in case you… well, in case you ever came back.’
Castus looked at the narrow tablet, his own name inked across it. Breaking the seal with his thumbnail, he unfolded the leaves of it and stared at the flowing letters. In the bright sun they were almost illegible, and he retreated to the cool shade just inside the open flap of the tent. Frowning heavily, he stared again at the tablet, the chicken-scratched letters. Mouthing the words to himself, he began to read. And his pulse quickened.
Husband. Shame has made me flee from you, and now I struggle to write these words. If you cannot forgive me, then please try to judge me fairly, for the sake of our son if not for me. There is no excuse for what I have done but I regret it. Truly I regret it. I have betrayed not only you but our emperor. I would take an honourable way out but I am weak, I find. My cousin, Claudianus Lepidus, means to destroy you and those who travel with you. I cannot indict him without indicting myself, and others more exalted than me. Be on your guard, and trust no man. I have been blind but please know that you have my love. Remember that what we call duty is often only pride. May the gods protect you and guide you safely. SABINA.
Castus closed the tablet, then pressed it to his forehead for a moment. He was breathing very deeply, very slowly. He was still sitting there in the shadowed tent, unmoving, staring ahead of him into nothing, when the two Protectores arrived with the summons. He slipped the tablet beneath his belt, then stood up without a word and followed them.
*
The paved road climbed steeply up the hillside towards the arched gate of Spoletium. The Protectores led Castus at a rapid pace; Felix followed behind him, dressed in a clean tunic but still unshaven and wolfish. Castus too was bearded, his hair grown out, his face bruised and scratched, but he was dressed as a Roman officer, the torque gleaming at his neck and a sword belted at his side. He marched fast, and felt ready for whatever was coming.
In through the gates, they climbed the last slope and passed beneath an old arch, the reliefs and inscriptions worn to indistinction. Spoletium stood on a hillside, and the regular grid of streets appeared warped by the inclined ground, turning to steps in places. The Protectores did not pause, stamping along with their nailed boots clattering on the worn paving. They crossed the broad open space of the forum, then halted before the tall inlaid doors of a large townhouse. The doors swung open, and they gestured for Castus to enter.
A sentry took his sword, and silently motioned for Felix to remain in the vestibule while Castus moved on into the building. The sun was high, but cool shadow still suffused the central courtyard, a fountain trickling at the heart of the enclosed garden. At the far side, another set of doors opened, a purple drape shifted aside, and Castus entered the sacred presence of the emperor.
‘The most distinguished Aurelius Castus, tribunus vacans,’ a eunuch solemnly declaimed. Castus took four long paces, then sank to kneel on the tiled floor. The air carried the faint aroma of incense.
‘You may stand,’ Evander said. He was sitting at a table to one side of the chamber, and Castus could see the sheep-bone before him, the twine that had bound it unravelled now. At the far end of the chamber, wrapped in a plain military cloak, the emperor stood with his back turned, apparently lost in thought.
Castus assumed a parade stance. The two Protectores had followed him into the room, and there were several eunuchs and a secretary around him too. He recognised the other officer with Evander as well: Agrippinus, the chief of the agentes in rebus. The emperor did not move.
‘I have informed the Augustus of everything you told me in your report,’ Evander said. ‘We have also deciphered the message you brought from Julius Nigrinus, Tribune of Notaries.’
He turned to Agrippinus, who picked up the sheep-bone and turned it lightly between his fingers. ‘The message was only two words,’ Agrippinus said. ‘The first was a password, proving that the message was genuine. The second was a name.’
‘Lepidus,’ Evander said. ‘It appears that the notary wishes to confirm the accuracy of what you have told us.’
Castus blinked, his mind blank for a moment. Had Nigrinus known all along? Speechless, he merely nodded.
‘It seems the notary has done well,’ Evander went on, ‘although we can only guess at his methods. It’s a shame that Flavius Ummidius, the chief of his department, could not be with us to congratulate him.’
Castus remembered the old man with the papery smile who had presided over the meeting at the villa beside the lake. ‘Flavius Ummidius is not here?’ he asked.
‘Flavius Ummidius is dead,’ Agrippinus said. ‘He died, it seems, of fright. Only a day or two after your departure, he discovered something in his bedchamber, a figurine of some sort, marked with his name and stuck with nails. It was too much for his heart, sadly… Of course, we suspect the dark designs of the tyrant.’
Castus frowned, nodding. It seemed a very unlikely thing for Maxentius to have ordered, or Lepidus. He barely noticed that Constantine had turned to face him.
‘Tribune Aurelius Castus,’ the emperor declared in a cold and ringing voice. ‘We are satisfied that you have conducted yourself with honour and determination. The information you have gathered in the camp of the enemy is of great worth. Therefore, I order that you be reinstated as commander of the Second Legion Britannica.’
Throwing his cloak back from his shoulder, Constantine paced slowly across the floor. Castus recalled that the last time he had seen this man had been on the moon-drenched battlefield outside Verona, in the mesh of the fighting. The memory of what he had said and done that night brought the blood rushing to his face.
‘I misjudged your loyalty,’ the emperor said stiffly. ‘I make apology for that.’ Before Castus could reply, he stepped forward and gripped him in an embrace. ‘It’s good to see you back with us again, brother,’ Constantine said.
Then he turned on his heel and paced back to the far end of the room.
‘There is one thing you must do before taking up your command,’ Evander said. ‘His excellency Domitius Claudianus Lepidus, Master of Dispositions, is currently residing in a house just outside the northern gate. You are to take a party of men, go to the house, and summon him.’
‘Summon him, dominus?’
‘Of course. Summon him here so he can be questioned. He must answer to a charge of treason.’
‘Yes, dominus!’ Castus said, straightening up and saluting. The emperor remained in his attitude of deep thought, his back turned once more.
‘Make sure no harm comes to the man, won’t you?’ Agrippinus added.
*
Dropping quickly down the sloping streets and stepped alleys from the centre of town, Castus marched out through the northern gate of Spoletium with Felix at his side and six dismounted troopers of the Schola Scutariorum at his back. The troopers had been part of the sentry detachment at the emperor’s residence, and all wore helmets and carried spears and shields. They crossed a bridge over the shallow river beyond the walls, then climbed the dusty tree-lined track on the far side to the gates of the house.
In through the gateway, shoving aside a pair of startled slaves, Castus marched up to the main doors while a pair of troopers moved around either side of the house to seal off any rear exits. Raising his fist, Castus hammered on the wood panels of the door. Silence followed. He could hear a bird singing in the trees back along the road. The door looked solid enough; he hoped he would not have to find a ram and break it down.
A bolt rattled, hinges squealed and the door edged open slightly. A flat-faced man peered through the gap.
‘We want to talk to your master,’ Castus said.
The man peered at him, his jaw working. Castus could see the calculation in his features, the spark of fear in his eyes. Then the door swung closed again.
Before the slave could slip the bolt into place Castus hurled himself against the door, flinging it open. He felt the heavy wood crash against the man’s body, then he was over the threshold and striding in through the vestibule, with Felix and the two troopers crowding behind him.
There were two more slaves at the far end of the vestibule, bodyguards in sky-blue tunics, but they carried only staves. One glance at the armed men advancing on them and they threw down their weapons and backed away. Castus pushed past them.
‘Where is he?’ he demanded, seeing a man in a patterned robe emerging from a side chamber of the courtyard. Lepidus’s procurator, or one of his clerks, he guessed.
‘The master is dining!’ the man exclaimed. ‘If you would care to wait a moment...?’
‘We would not.’
The dining chamber was easy to find. Castus could smell the aroma of spiced food even from the courtyard. His stomach roiled. He still could not admit to himself what he was about to do.
‘Give me your dagger,’ he said quietly to Felix. The small man slipped the weapon from the sheath on his belt and passed it, underhand, to Castus. The two troopers had taken up positions flanking the doorway. ‘Wait here,’ Castus told them.
Throwing open the doors, he marched into the chamber. A quick glance took in the panelled wall paintings, the mosaic floor, and a young slave boy in a very short tunic attending his master. Lepidus was dining alone, reclining on a single couch. There was a stack of tablets and rolled documents on the low table beside him; the man was working while he ate. Lepidus wiped his mouth with a napkin as Castus approached, and dropped the tablet he had been reading, but did not rise.
‘If you’ve come looking for your wife,’ he said, ‘she’s not here. I got tired of her moods and left her at Ariminum.’
Castus stood in the centre of the room, one hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘You,’ he told the boy. ‘Get out. Close the door behind you.’
The boy obeyed promptly.
‘Stand up,’ Castus told the man on the couch. Lepidus was screwing the napkin between his fingers, a nervous smile twitching across his mouth. Castus noticed that his left forearm was bandaged, a thick wad of dressing tied against it.
‘You know there was never a chance that Sabina would be faithful to you,’ Lepidus said. ‘Why should she? A dumb brute, she called you. You know that? She laughed at you, she—’
‘Stand up,’ Castus repeated. His hand itched on the hilt of his sword, but he knew the man was goading him.
‘Now you want to take me before the emperor,’ Lepidus said, the nervous smile still on his face. ‘They’ll torture me, I suppose. But the things I could tell them… Your own dear wife would be next. And the emperor’s wife too. Fausta – I know you’re fond of her. Sabina told me all about it. Maybe you too, then, eh?’
Exactly, Castus thought. He had known at once why the emperor’s men had sent him after Lepidus. They could have chosen anyone, any of the Protectores or the other tribunes, somebody unconcerned. They had chosen Castus because they knew that for him it was personal. And if Lepidus died, the plot died with him.
‘I have plenty of money here in the house,’ Lepidus was saying. He touched his face, and his hand was shaking. ‘It’s yours – all you have to do is call your men off and look in the other direction…’
Castus drew the dagger from his belt and tossed it to the floor, the iron ringing as it struck the tiles.
‘You sent slaves to kill me and the rest of my party,’ he said. ‘They failed. Instead they killed a sailor called Fish-hook and a Christian priest called Stephanus. Now I’m giving you the chance to do the job yourself.’
Lepidus stared at the dagger on the floor. He tried to speak, but his jaw was trembling too much. He wiped his fingers through his hair, then rubbed at his bandaged arm.
Castus raised his hands, keeping them clear of his own weapon. ‘Pick it up,’ he said. ‘Either that or you’re coming with me.’
The man on the couch swallowed thickly. He let out a brief laugh. Then he threw himself at the dagger. His reaching fingers missed the hilt and knocked it away from him, and Castus stepped back. Scrabbling, Lepidus managed to grab the dagger and straighten up. A look of wild ferocity lit his face, and he lunged with the blade.
Castus took another step back, dodging the man’s clumsy stroke, then with one swift motion he seized the grip of his sword and slid it from the scabbard. He drew his arm back, then stabbed Lepidus through the body.
Lepidus lurched against him, clawing at his neck and shoulders.
‘I guessed you’d be no good at this,’ Castus said, and gave the sword a wrenching twist. Then he shoved the man away from him, dragging the blade free as he fell.
He was wiping his sword on the dead man’s tunic as Felix and the two troopers pushed in through the doors.
‘His excellency attempted to attack me,’ Castus said, and shrugged as he kicked the dagger away across the floor. He gestured to the pile of documents on the table. ‘Burn all these,’ he said, and pretended not to notice the quick glance the soldiers exchanged. ‘Burn any other letters or lists you can find as well.’
Lepidus’s treason, his negotiations with the commander at Ravenna and the others, with Sabina and with Fausta: all of it would go up in the flames. If the emperor’s men wanted him to do their dirty work, he would do it properly, in his own way. Let them accept the consequences. The guilty would be tortured only by their own consciences.
A brief swell of nausea as he stared down at the body, a fluttering sense of shame in his chest. What we call duty is often only pride.
A pool of blood was spreading across the mosaic floor, rich crimson against the bright tiles.