Conn Iggulden - The Field Of Swords

The consul stopped dead at that, looking around. There was no one close.

“In my name, Julius? Catiline led them. Did his followers not murder your soldiers in the street?”

“Perhaps, but the house you showed me was a modest one, Crassus. Where would Catiline have gathered enough gold to pay ten thousand men? Very few in this city could have paid for such an army, don’t you think? I wonder what would happen if I sent men to investigate his accounts. Would I find a traitor with huge reserves of hidden wealth, or should I look for another, a paymaster?”

Crassus could know nothing of the burnt papers Brutus had found at the house, and the spark of worry Julius saw was all he needed to confirm his suspicions.

“It strikes me that such a large force of mercenaries, coupled with riots and fires in the city, could well have worked with only Pompey’s legion to guard Rome. It was not an empty offer they made you, Crassus, do you realize? The city could well have been yours. I am surprised you were not tempted. You would have been left standing on the heap of corpses, and Rome might have been ready for Dictatorship.”

As Crassus began to reply, Julius’s expression changed and his mocking tone became hard.

“But without warning, another legion is brought home from Spain and then…? Then you must have been in a very difficult position. The forces are set, the conspiracy is in place, but Rome is guarded by ten thousand and victory is no longer guaranteed. A gambling man might have risked it, but not you. You are a man who knows when the game is over. I wonder when you decided it was better to betray Catiline than see it through? Was it when you came to my home and planned my campaign with me?”

Crassus put a hand on Julius’s shoulder.

“I have said I am a friend to your house, Julius, and so I will ignore your words-for your own good, I will.” He paused for an instant. “The conspirators are dead and Rome is safe. An excellent outcome, in fact.

Let that be enough for you. There is nothing else that should trouble your thoughts. Let it go.”

Ducking his head against the rain, Crassus walked away, leaving Julius staring after him.

Cold gray clouds hung low in the sky over the vast crowd waiting in the Campus Martius. The ground was sodden underfoot, but thousands had left their houses and work to walk to the great field and witness the executions. Pompey’s soldiers waited in perfect, shining ranks, showing no sign of the labor that had gone into constructing the prisoners’ platform or laying out a host of wooden benches for the Senate. Even the ground had been covered with dry rushes that crackled underfoot.

Children were held aloft by their parents to get a glimpse of the four men waiting miserably on the wooden platform, and the crowd talked quietly amongst themselves, feeling something of the solemnity of the moment.

As noon had approached, the Senate had left their deliberations in the Curia and walked together to the Campus. Soldiers of the Tenth had joined Pompey’s men in closing the city, pressing wax seals against the gates and raising the flag on the Janiculum hill. With the Senate absent, the city was kept in a state of armed siege until their return. Many of the senators glanced idly at the distant flag on the hill to the west.

It would remain as long as the city was safe, and even the execution of traitors would be halted if the flag was pulled down to warn of an enemy approach.

Julius stood with the damp folds of his best cloak wrapped tightly around him. Even with the tunic and heavy toga underneath it, he shivered as he watched the miserable men his actions had brought to that place of death.

The prisoners had no protection from the biting wind. Only two could stand and they were hunched in pain, their chained hands pressed in mute misery against the wounds of the night. Perhaps because death was so close, those two gulped at the cold air, filling their lungs and ignoring the sting of their exposed skin.

The tallest of the pair had long dark hair that whipped and veiled his face. His eyes were swollen, but Julius could see a glint almost hidden by the bruised flesh, the feverish brightness of a trapped animal.

The one who had raved at Julius in the prison house was sobbing, his head wrapped in a cloth. A dark coin of blood had appeared in the material, marking the place his eye had been. Julius shuddered at the memory and took a tighter grip on his cloak, feeling the icy metal of one of Alexandria’s clasps touch his neck. He glanced at Pompey and Crassus, standing on the bed of rushes laid over the mud. The two consuls were talking quietly and the crowd waited for them, their eyes bright with anticipation.

Finally, the two men stood apart. Pompey caught the eye of a magistrate from the city, and the crowd shuffled and chattered as the man ascended the platform and faced them.

“These four have been found guilty of treason against the city. By order of consuls Crassus and Pompey and by order of the Senate, they will be executed. Their bodies will be cut apart and their flesh scattered for the fowls of the air. Their heads will be placed on four gates as a warning to those who threaten Rome. This is the will of our consuls, who speak as Rome.”

The executioner was a master butcher by trade, a powerfully built man with close-cropped gray hair.

He wore a toga of rough brown wool, belted to hold in his swelling waist. He did not rush, enjoying the gaze of the crowd as it focused on him. The silver coins he would receive for the work were nothing to the satisfaction he took from it.

Julius watched as the man made a show of checking his knife, running a stone down its length one last time. It was a vicious-looking blade, a narrow cleaver as long as his forearm with the tang set in a sturdy wooden handle. The spine was almost a finger wide. A child laughed nervously and was shushed by her parents. The long-haired prisoner began to pray aloud, his eyes glassy. Perhaps it was his noise, or just a sense of showmanship, but the butcher came to him first, laying the cleaver alongside his neck.

The man flinched and his voice grew sharper, the air hissing in and out of his lungs in sharp jerks. His hands shook and his pale skin was wax-white. The crowd watched fascinated as the butcher took a handful of his hair in his hand and bent the head slowly to one side, exposing the clean line of the neck.

The man’s voice was deep and low. “No, no… no,” he muttered, the crowd straining to hear his last words.

There was no fanfare or warning. The butcher adjusted his grip in the man’s hair and began to cut slowly into the flesh. Blood sprayed out, drenching them both, and the condemned man raised his hands to scrabble weakly at the blade as it ate at him, back and forth with terrible precision. He made a soft sound, an ugly cry that lasted only a moment. His legs collapsed, but the butcher was strong and held him up until his cleaver scraped against bone. He pulled it back then and with two quick chops he was through and the head tore clear, the body falling loose. Muscles still fluttered in the cheeks and the eyes remained open in a parody of life.

In the crowd, hands covered mouths in shuddering pleasure as the body slipped bonelessly from the platform onto the rushes below. They stood on tiptoes and jostled for a view as the butcher held the head to show them, blood running down his arm and staining his toga almost black. The jaw flopped open with the movement, revealing the teeth and tongue.

One of the other prisoners vomited over himself, then cried out. As if at a signal, the other two joined him, wailing and pleading. The crowd were roused by the noise, jeering them and laughing wildly with the break in tension. The butcher shoved the head into a cloth bag and turned slowly to reach down to the man nearest him. He closed his heavy fist on an ear and dragged the screaming figure to his feet.