The afternoon had begun with excitement. After a morning of lesser races, a fifth of a million people now watched as we bounced around in that uncomfortable, bone-shaking contraption to mark the start of the important afternoon races. Around the elongated track in the bloodied sands of the circus, where eight men and sixteen horses risked their lives for financial gain every few heartbeats, we raced.
It was Saturnalia, and as part of the festivities there were races in the circus. I had flat refused when my advisors had suggested it: a glorious ride around the sands in a racing biga , dressed in purple and gold, to the acclaim of the crowd. Good for public morale, apparently. Bad for the knees and the lungs was my personal opinion, only halfway through the lap, as my legs turned further to jelly with each bounce and my lungs sought air in the freezing, dust-laden atmosphere.
But at least I wasn’t driving. No. For Romulus had been so insistent that he take the reins. I had flat refused that too, but like all my arguments it was brushed aside with the force of the point raised by Volusianus and my son. I needed to be seen by the people and to be a figure of power and glory to them, and this was a huge opportunity for just that. And so there I was bouncing, lurching, feeling as though the soles of my feet were being pulled up through my body into my head, wondering how good for public morale it would be when I was sick over the side of the chariot.
Romulus was probably a good driver by racing standards. He seemed to know what he was doing, but he also equally cared little for comfort or stability as the wretched thing bounced and shook and once – unbelievably – actually touched the spina wall and careered off it. He would never make a coach driver for the rich, that much was certain. One look at the sheer joy on his face as he drove us, though, was enough to still my harsh words. Racing was his love. I had him. He had his chariots. How could I deny him what he gave me?
We rounded the last turn, lurching, jumping and scraping through the grit until we slewed to a halt and my son threw up his hands in victory as though he’d been racing against heroes. The crowd seemed pleased, breaking their gloomy demeanour and cheering the display. I can only assume they were lauding Romulus and not me, since I dropped from the vehicle like a lead weight, was a little bit sick on my own sandal, and then swayed and wobbled all the way to the exit, waving a hand expansively as I tried to remain upright.
I recovered my wits slowly as we made our way up to the pulvinar to watch the rest of the day’s entertainment. A day of races for the most beloved festival in the Roman year.
Saturnalia that winter had been a slightly more subdued affair than in previous years, prompting such lunacy as this publicity stunt from the mouth of Volusianus. Perhaps it was a sign of Rome’s weariness of war and uncertainty. Two years ago, the great festival had followed my raising to the purple and, despite the desperation of our collective situation, the mood had been one of hope reborn and of the overwhelming value of Rome, as befits such a celebration. And last year, against all expectations, we had fought off the great incursions by Severus and Galerius, leaving Rome triumphant and in a mood of great joy.
By this year, though, the abundant hope at the start of my reign seemed to have diminished somewhat and elation at our victories had been eroded by the inescapable recognition of the fact that we remained isolated and pressed from all sides by long-term enemies and dangerous former friends. The pressure was beginning to tell among the populace. Violence became a commonplace thing. And not the regular organised violence of the city’s criminal brotherhoods, nor the random sporadic violence of the opportunistic felon, nor even the surges of bloodshed that followed riots and civil disorder. This was more the sort of sullen background violence that nibbles at the edges of a city’s collective patience – a viciousness born of fatigue and doubt, like a lidded pot left to boil too long on a high flame.
Saturnalia saw an increase in spirits and mood as always, but now instead of taking a dour populace and making them content, it took a tense populace and made them dour.
Indeed, as I stood amid the purple and white drapes embroidered with slogans and eagles in the pulvinar of the city’s great race track, where generations of emperors had watched the games, I could almost feel the tautness of the spectators in the myriad subdued voices that thrummed across the circus. They had cheered my son, but little in the following display similarly caught their enthusiasm. Against the backdrop of thundering hooves from the track, six Praetorians held silent position at strategic points around the box as a deterrent against any poor idiot who might try and climb into this lofty eyrie of extravagance. Other than them, though, only Romulus shared this great state occasion with me, my invitation having been politely declined by my various acquaintances, each of whom was busy even at this celebration time. I had even extended the invitation to Valeria, though I’d known she would not come. Short of an imperial command, nothing seemed likely to draw her to my side.
Over recent months, my boy’s attention to the regular gladiatorial contests of the city had waned to be replaced by a growing fascination with the races. The young are ever wont to change their tastes with surprising regularity, though indeed the whole of Rome seemed to be shifting their favour from the bloodshed of the arena – perhaps an all too obvious simile for life as a Roman these days – to the breakneck excitement of the chariots.
Today was an exceptional circus day, too. The Greens and the Blues who dominated the races on every occasion, and who were recognised by high and low as the masters of the circus, had suffered several fatal calamities early in the morning races, losing a number of very famous and very popular racers. Consequently, their chances of securing any kind of victory this afternoon were slim at best, and the lesser racers of the Whites and Reds, familiar with collecting runner-up prizes, suddenly found themselves within sight of the wreath of victory.
It was recognised by those in the know as one of the best days of racing in living memory, and still the crowd languished in a dreary mood, even the roars at a fall or a surprise cut short, seeming somehow subdued and cheerless.
Perhaps, in retrospect, I was projecting my own fears upon the people. Perhaps they were not quite as miserable as they seemed, and I just saw them that way. The past is a nebulous thing, and the moods of others even more so.
Whatever the case, my beloved son seemed unaffected. He still wore the bulla that marked him as a boy, though I had agreed with him that he would take the toga virilis in the summer when the weather was better, and when, hopefully, the villa on the Via Appia was complete enough to host a celebration. I had held him under my wing as a boy too long, in truth – he should have been his own man by now. I am unapologetic for that, though. I had little in my life that I felt true love for: my boys, my sisters and my city. Young Aurelius would never be able to live a normal life, for all that I loved his sad, twisted little form.
My stepsister Theodora had taken herself off to a family holding in Campania following her brief time in Rome, her concern with court life having seemingly died along with her husband. The same villa, in fact, in which my father had drunk himself to sleep night after night, when the reins of power had been ripped from his hands. My mother was also there now, sent there by Father to keep her out of the way, and I had given thought to bringing her to Rome. But why would I launch her into this world, when in truth I rather envied her rustic peace? Fausta was married to my friend – my enemy? – Constantine, and remained at his court along with our treacherous father where they gathered barbarians to build a new army. And my city was a troublesome beast to ride these days, seemingly trying to buck and throw me at regular intervals.
All the things I loved seemed to twist and writhe and try to squirm from my grasp except Romulus, who went on bright and wonderful as always.
The bronze dolphin dipped on the rack, indicating the last lap, and the remaining three chariots hurtled around the end of the track, trying to stay as close to the spina as they could in dangerously tight turns, partially to improve their chances of victory, but mostly to avoid the deadly tangles of splintered timber and twisted equines where the less fortunate drivers had ended their race in disaster. Every lap, slaves had run out to clear as much wreckage as they could, and they had kept a wide enough channel unobstructed for those still racing, but there was simply too much to completely clear in time.
The remaining man of the Blues was one of their lesser drivers and was struggling to keep up with those leaders of Red and White who jostled for first place even now as they raced along the straight. The poor Blue failed to recover from his too-tight corner and his quadriga veered off sharply to the right. The four horses, clearly strong and well trained and alert even at this stage, leapt over a piece of abandoned chariot and continued to thunder on, but as the wheels of the vehicle hit the wreckage and bounced mightily into the air, the driver was wrenched back and somehow the leather rein wrapped around his wrist for security broke free. As the vehicle hit the sand hard and lurched this way and that at the horses’ whim, the rider sailed through the air with a shriek, arms flailing until he hit the ground, bounced twice and slid agonisingly to a halt in a twisted shape, convulsing rhythmically.
Even this, which would normally have the spectators on their feet roaring, elicited little more than a collective groan.
I sank into some sort of internal peace, trying not to think about the crowd or the city to which it belonged. Trying not to think about anything at all, if I am honest. I let the rest of the race – the last race of the day and of the festival – wash over me as I drifted in a mental fog. I registered in passing a win for the Whites and the shape of the Blues’ driver being carried away with the team’s official mourners in tow, wailing for appropriate remuneration. I watched the Priest of Saturn shower the victor with praise and grant him a wreath, along with other more tangible prizes. On other occasions such rewards might have come from my own imperial hand, but on this occasion it was the task of the priest of great Saturn, in line with the festival.
Respectfully, the crowd waited for my hand to be raised in benediction as I stood and exited the imperial box. Again it struck me that there was no roar from the throng in appreciation of the win and of my largesse, which had paid for the whole damned thing, but then neither was there a wave of violence and bloodshed that might be expected to follow the loss of the big team to their smaller cousin. A strange feeling in all.
Leaving the crowd behind to their sombre revelry, I stalked through the corridors back up from the pulvinar and into the Palatine complex, through corridors painted to the tastes of dozens of emperors, filled with busts of the better among them. Beside me, Romulus chattered away about what the various racers had done right and wrong, sounding surprisingly knowledgeable. The six Praetorian guardsmen, joined by the two who had stood outside the pulvinar’s door, marched both ahead and behind, their eyes watchful, their ears alert. More than one ruler of Rome had come to an inglorious end in these corridors and despite three centuries of making and breaking emperors and being untrustworthy to a man, the Praetorian Guard and I were as closely linked as could be, both of us condemned by the ‘legitimate’ emperors, bound together in defiance. The world was full of enemies for me, but the Guard was not one of them.
I felt the men at the front tense even before they stopped and held up a silent hand in signal for me to wait. Then I also heard the approaching footsteps. In other parts of the palace, such a sound was perfectly normal. Here, though, in the private route from the palace’s residential area to the imperial box at the Circus Maximus, no one else should be expected. I stood, tense, Romulus at my side, as two of the four men behind us joined their fellows ahead, hands on sword hilts and blades drawn just a hand’s breadth in preparation.
There was a palpable sense of relaxation as the footsteps reached a crescendo and the figure of one of my senior freedmen appeared, unarmed and puffing, around the corner. The guards stood down, returning their blades to their scabbards and moving back into a four-four formation. The freedman – Callisto, who was the functionary in charge of my appointments – took a deep breath as he bowed low.
‘Domine, forgive my intrusion, but I have been sent to find you and deliver grave tidings.’
I felt the chill settle on me. Somehow, I think I’d felt bad news coming in the general grey sullenness of the world around me. I had expected something . Of course, woes are sociable things and rarely travel alone, and my day held more of them for me yet.
*
It was odd, I thought, that I had never once set foot inside this house in all the time I had known its owner, yet he had been in my house seemingly on a daily basis. The atrium was everything I would have expected it to be – austere, ascetic even. The single floor mosaic was monochrome and old-fashioned, not like the great coloured efforts prevalent these days. The fountain in the central pool was plain and simple, the walls decorated in a red and white pattern that had been scoffed at as out-of-date for generations. This was an old house, harkening back to the days of the great early emperors with few changes across the decades. Somehow it perfectly suited its owner.
Ahead, the member of the Urban Cohorts who had first come across the scene gestured for us to follow and my guards stepped through cautiously, blades drawn even within the pomerium – Rome’s sacred heart, where ancient law forbade weapons of war. We passed into a peristyle garden and the plain, light grey sky above was dominated by the vertiginous Palatine hill that rose beside the house on my right. I could just see the upper curve of the great Flavian amphitheatre above the opposite corner, for this house stood below the palace and across the square from the arena on some of the most expensive land in the city.
I was concentrating on minutiae, logging everything I saw and weighing it up, and I knew in my heart that this was just an attempt to keep my mind from the reason I was seeing it all.
We were led by a soldier, whose voice was thick with some southern accent reminiscent of Sicilian, into a small bath complex across the peristyle, where I could hear the sounds of others in quiet discussion. Oil lamps blazed in every niche, illuminating the building, and the time for deliberate distractions was over. I held my breath. Somehow, I had not quite believed the tidings brought to me in that access corridor or the scant details Callisto had to hand when questioned on our journey across the hill. But now that I was here, there would be no more doubt. There could be no more denial.
I waved the Praetorians aside, which made them frown with disapproval, but they were loyal veterans and did so neatly, keeping out of the way yet close, should I require them. With Romulus at my heel and the soldier ahead, I moved into the apodyterium – the changing room of the baths. The first thing that struck me was the quantity of blood. I had experienced battle and personal combat more than once in my time, and I had witnessed the spilling of lifeblood in the arena and the circus on plenty of occasions. And I was not squeamish, I might add. I had vowed more than once that if I ever again laid my hands upon my father I would kill him myself, with blade and spike and a vicious sense of retribution.
But was it possible that one human could contain so much blood? I felt a chill run through me at the sight and knowledge of what it meant.
The floor was deep with it, though it had been cooling for some time now and was tacky, making my sandals cling and lift with an unpleasant tearing sound as I stepped closer. My eyes darted around the room. The clothes niches were all empty, but not a single one had escaped the spray of blood that had also spattered over the painted fish designs on the walls. It looked like the scene of a massacre, and yet it had all come from just one man.
Publius Anullinus lay at the heart of that lake of dark red, his plain white tunic little more than strips of rag wound around his waxy, grey flesh, though both white tunic and grey flesh were more crimson than anything else, so soaked were they in blood. My Praetorian Prefect had been killed in the most brutal fashion. In fact, the way he lay there on his side, bloodied and rent, with an outstretched, imploring arm, reminded me so much of the reports of the death of Julius Caesar that it was difficult not to see him that same way and to feel appropriately aggrieved for the state.
So many wounds …
‘Tell me,’ I said, my voice as level as I could manage while I addressed the three members of the Urban Cohorts in the room. I did not look up at them, could not tear my eyes from that horrifying sight. Anullinus, a man who had made me in many ways. More of a father, perhaps, than that bloated villain who now sat at Constantine’s right hand. Even as the soldier began to answer, already my mind was working. What would I do without him?
‘I was on patrol, Domine,’ said the man who had ushered me in. ‘My route takes me around Titus’ arch and the temple of Venus and Rome, and this building, of course, falls in my path. I noted that the door to the house was open, and with this being such a generally busy area, that struck me as odd. I hadn’t realised who lived here, Domine, but it was clearly a man of note, since there are no shopfronts built into the walls. I took it upon myself to enquire, so I knocked at the door. Receiving no answer, I stepped inside and searched the house, finding no servants or slaves. The whole place was deserted. I was all but ready to send for someone in higher authority when I came to the baths and found this.’
‘You did well to check. Many of your peers in older days would have shrugged and walked on.’ Would that whoever was responsible for the thing on the floor had done so .
The man nodded professionally. The Urban Cohorts were good men these days under Zenas’ control, not the dissolute waste they had previously been. I peered at the body. I felt that I should be angry. I should be shaking and demanding heads to roll and the like. Yet despite a chill that encompassed me and a vague sense of incomprehensible loss, I could not quite feel much, other than numbness. It was like waking to find you were missing an arm. Too big to take in right now. The enormity of it and the grief it would bring would hit me later, and I knew that on some level, but at the time I simply examined my old friend, the man who had brought me to power and protected me as best he could.
It occurred to me that despite all the recent friction between Anullinus and Volusianus and the almost childish way they bickered, my reign would have been cut short long ago without either of them to support me.
‘What can you tell me of the attack?’ So much blood…
‘We have discounted the possibility of numerous assailants, Domine,’ another soldier said quietly, busily marking things down on a wax tablet. ‘The wounds are consistent with overhand blows from the same blade, which was a pugio of standard military shape and size. The medicus who just left was convinced that the blows had all been struck by the same man – same hand used, same amount of weight behind them, and all struck within a matter of heartbeats. It was a quick, brutal, frenzied attack.’
‘And the killer?’ Killer. Killer of my friend…
‘Someone crazed I’d say, Domine. This was not the work of thieves or random attackers. This was a concerted effort to destroy the prefect carried out by one assailant. The medicus was of the opinion that the killer was probably a military man. Quite apart from the dagger used, the medicus thought he’d identified the initial blow, which was up between the ribs in the back and straight into the heart. The victim was dying from the first strike. We believe that the additional repeated stabbings were a work of frenzy.’
‘Or an attempt to make it look like the work of a madman, or more than one killer,’ I added quietly, a suspicion forming in my mind, and seizing upon it in a new attempt to drag myself from stupefied numbness.
‘That is possible, Domine, yes.’
I took in the shape of Anullinus in that lake and clasped my hands behind my back to stop them shaking.
Volusianus had not been at the games either. Anullinus had cried off, claiming he had too much to occupy his time, but Volusianus had also declined my invitation, muttering about work. It was appalling to think of it, but I could find no other potential culprit in my mind than my remaining staunch advisor. Surely he was above this sort of thing? The pair had been at one another’s throats almost since they’d met, but neither had ever shown any hint of violence towards the other, for all their verbal attacks.
‘Do you think it was agents of Galerius, Father?’
I had almost forgotten that Romulus was with me and as I turned to him I bit my cheek at the madness of having brought him here. He was pale and clearly worried. And trying to find a simple solution where there was none. If the enemies of my realm were to go to the Herculean efforts of sending assassins, I’m sure that they would have been a lot more subtle than this, and they would probably have come for me, and not my prefect.
No. This was something closer to home.
The soldier was speaking again. ‘I have to advise you, sadly, Domine, that there is next to no chance of us identifying the killer unless he happens to wander into one of our barracks covered in blood.’
I nodded, fairly certain that such a thing would not happen, for the killer was closer to home than that. Who else hated Anullinus enough for this? Who else would have such ease of access? The man was built like a soldier too, and would know how to use such a knife and where to drive it for a kill. It had to be Volusianus.
I still hoped it wasn’t, and that one of these men would suddenly rise from searching a corner with some evidence that shifted the blame, but in truth I could picture no other suspect. I would have to watch him carefully in the coming days and see if I could trip him up and…
And what?
What would I do if I discovered beyond doubt that my Dux Militum had murdered my Praetorian Prefect? Hardly could I have him tried and punished. I was now missing one of my closest advisors. To lose the other to the executioner’s blade in retribution for the first would be idiocy.
Closing my eyes and biting my lip, I sighed, my clasped hands white with the pressure of my grip.
‘Learn what you can, and then tidy up the body and prepare it. I will arrange the appropriate rites and the funeral at the city’s expense, since he has served it so faithfully. And have someone clean up the house and locate the servants and slaves. He has no close kin, so the palace will administer his property. Anullinus must have been alone, else there would be other bodies, so you’ll likely find that the staff are all dead and heaped in an alley somewhere close by, but we still cannot discount the possibility that this was the work of one furious slave.’
It wasn’t. The military man who had performed the deed had cleared the house of servants somehow and I knew they would all be found dead, if they were found at all. But the loose threads needed tying up anyway.
‘Come, Romulus. You will join my circle of advisors soon, when you take the man’s toga and before you disappear on some prefect’s posting, and it will do you good to sit in on our meetings before then to prepare you for such times. I have an appointment with my council this afternoon. Anullinus may be absent but the rest will still attend and you can fill the spare place.’
*
I was ready for Volusianus. In the hours before the meeting I had disappeared into a small room deep in the bowels of the palace, where I had allowed all that I had dammed up inside at the bathhouse to break free. I had railed against fate and the gods, had shed tears and punched the wall until my knuckles were black. And then I had taken a deep breath, cleaned myself up and returned to the world, ready for what was to come next. I had taken great pains to carefully prepare the room. My chair was higher and more comfortable than the others – something I generally abhorred as vainglorious, but right now I wanted to remind Volusianus of our relative positions. Romulus sat at my left, while the empty chair that was habitually taken by Anullinus lay to my right hand. All very meaningful. Volusianus’ usual chair, decorated with his exotic African animal pelts, sat directly opposite, where I could bolt him to the seat with my gaze.
It had been a matter of hours since I had stood in that claustrophobic room in the blood of my right-hand man and I was sure of Volusianus’ guilt. Though I could ill afford to do anything about it, I wanted to be certain. And once I was, I wanted him to know it.
I was prepared.
Perhaps Volusianus was too, for he was late to the meeting, which was unprecedented. For a heart-stopping moment, I considered the possibility that someone had done away with both my closest aides in one swoop, but I quickly shoved away that idea.
Aurelius Zenas, my urban prefect, had arrived and taken his seat along with Ruricius Pompeianus, the imperial Horse Guard commander, Sempronius Clemens of the frumentarii and two men of the senate I had come to consider worthy of at least seeking their opinion – Ovinius Gallicanus and Antonius Caecinius Sabinus. I’d greeted each as they entered and sat, either with a nod or a word or two. And each one had visibly noted and understood the arrangement of seating, for news of Anullinus’ death would have spread across the city like wild fire in a summer grass.
I was starting to become irritated at my Dux Militum. Not only was I fairly sure he had brutally murdered his opposite number among the Praetorians, but now he was late for a meeting and was making me wait. I would tear a strip off him for all of this. As soon as I looked into those eyes and confirmed his guilt, I would make him sweat. For no man who had committed such a crime and still clung to any kind of conscience would be able to avoid guilt filling his gaze.
I was actually rapping a beringed finger on the arm of my chair and about to call the meeting off when the door opened and Volusianus entered with a quick nod of the head in greeting. His eyes were down, hooded beneath beetled brows as he scurried across the room with an armful of scroll cases and slumped into the chair, apparently not even noticing my careful placing of everyone.
I felt suddenly unsure. Volusianus did not have the bearing of a guilt-ridden man.
Then he glanced up.
And I went cold.
The look in his eyes swept away everything, for his expression was dark with foreboding. He bore news, and his demeanour alone told me that Anullinus was a subject that would have to wait.
‘You’re late,’ I said flatly.
‘I warned you,’ Volusianus said quietly, not smug, but rather with a hint of nerves.
‘What?’
‘Africa. I warned you about Domitius Alexander. I told you to replace him, but Anullinus counselled you to caution.’
My mind flapped about like a loose sail. Alexander? What had he done?
‘The governor has refused to send his son to Rome. His cronies in Carthage have proclaimed him emperor and several of the military units still based over there have thrown their support behind him. My deputation were stripped of their weapons and uniforms and put on a ship straight back here, bearing the head of their commander in an oiled-skin bag as a token of their resistance. I brought you Africa, Domine, and Anullinus’ recommendations have lost it again for you.’
I felt my senses reeling.
Africa.
The source of so much of my army, my money, my grain. I could not afford to lose Africa. If I let Africa rebel, I would not be able to support the enormous army I had amassed in Italia in defence against the other claimants. To lose Africa was, in effect, to lose the whole game. I felt lost and directionless. Damn it, but now I needed Anullinus more than ever. I noticed Volusianus looking at my bruised knuckles and swiftly hid the hand from view. Something in his expression shifted at the sight, and peering through his eyes into his soul I saw the guilt swimming in him. I was right. It had been him. And as his gaze leapt away from me, I felt certain that he was now aware that I knew. Allowing my lip to curl very slightly in subtle disgust, I addressed the gathering while still looking directly at Volusianus.
‘What do we do?’
‘Invade,’ said Clemens quickly, unaware of what had just passed between the Dux Militum and I. ‘We have a massive army in Italia. Send a sizeable part of it to Africa and conquer the place.’
Volusianus shook his head, turning to Clemens and avoiding my gaze as he focused on the matter at hand. ‘To diminish the Italian army so much is to invite invasion by Galerius or Constantine. Anyway, this is a task for a careful strike aimed at the heart of the trouble – like an arrow shot – not flattening a mostly loyal province with a blunt hammer.’ A careful strike to the heart, eh? He still would not look me in the eye. ‘Had we removed Alexander from position at the start, there would be no revolt. This needs to be done carefully but quickly. And I should be the one to do it. I know Africa. I know those people in power who are supporting Alexander, and I know how to turn them. Africa was my province, and I can bring it back to you. I will take four cohorts. That should be enough.’
I suddenly realised I was shaking my head, though I had been fully intending to nod. How odd, for it all made sense. Volusianus could do the job, I was certain – there was surely no better choice in all of Rome for the task. Yet I was shaking my head, and the reason quickly rose to my conscious thought.
‘Domine?’ Finally Volusianus met my gaze again, and this time he flinched very slightly.
‘No,’ I commanded. ‘Anullinus is gone, and he was ever my close advisor and counsel. You have also played that role since you first arrived in the city, and I cannot afford to lose both of you. I cannot do without you here. And your job as Dux Militum is to control this vast force we have assembled. You cannot be spared for a job that another able commander and diplomat can do. We will send someone else.’
‘Domine,’ Volusianus cautioned, ‘no one else here knows the place like me.’
‘I do,’ said a quiet voice. The assembled faces turned to young Zenas, who was sitting forward.
‘What?’
‘I know Africa. I grew up in Uthina, not far from Carthage. I know the big families, and what needs doing, and I am an able commander as you know. I have rebuilt your Urban Cohorts into a fearsome force, but now I sit idle commanding them. I can be of greater use in Africa, and you know that.’
And now I was nodding. I had come to trust Zenas as one of the highest members of my council. Only one thing niggled at me.
‘Can you do that?’
He looked at me in incomprehension and I tapped my temple thoughtfully.
‘You are one of the Nazarenes, yes? A follower of the Christ God?’
Zenas was still frowning his lack of understanding. ‘Yes, Domine?’
‘Well aren’t you supposed to abhor violence? You will have to not only command in battle, but also condemn a man to death and see that he meets Elysium swiftly. I remember men of your sect standing peacefully in Nicomedia while they were beheaded and burned, with no hint of fight in them. Can you execute a man?’
It was perhaps harsher than I had intended, my suppressed anger at Volusianus being displaced to my trusted friend, but I need not have worried. Zenas gave a strange smirk and raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘I’m a Christian, Domine, not an idiot.’
I looked deep into his eyes and saw no doubt. Just resolution. I had long held that the sheer willpower of which these Christians seemed possessed could be a powerful resource, but never before had I considered wagering my future on one. Could Zenas bring me Africa again?
‘Go. Take a legion – a veteran one, and one from the south that is used to warmer conditions. Bring me Africa and bring me Alexander’s head.’