Douglas Jackson - Enemy of Rome

Valerius drew his sword when the ground began to rise beneath his feet and they turned from the Sacra Via on to the Clivus Capitolinus. Ahead, the first rocks and spears began to clatter against the upturned shields of the leading centuries as they trotted up the slope. Serpentius raised the curved scutum to cover both their heads. For the first time Valerius longed for the comforting protection of a testudo and the familiar weight of plate armour on his shoulders and chest. Serpentius had been right, this was madness. He wouldn’t do Domitia any good by getting killed.

‘Glad you came?’ chuckled a voice from amongst the shields in front.

‘This is like picking ripe peaches compared to Bedriacum,’ Serpentius spat back, still holding the heavy scutum at shoulder height.

‘You were at Bedriacum?’ The voice gained a new respect. ‘I was with the Twenty-first then. Optio , third century Second cohort. Who were you with?’

‘The First Adiutrix and we kicked your arses for a while. Found your eagle yet?’

A centurion’s bark ended the exchange as the column stuttered to a halt.

‘That’ll be the leading century up to their necks in the shit,’ Serpentius predicted. Valerius realized the Spaniard was right. Up ahead men were bleeding and dying as the centuries of the First cohort fought off a shower of spears and arrows and hammered at the gates where the road met the saddle between the two summits. Meanwhile, the rest of the column would have to endure.

Serpentius cursed as a rock clattered off his raised shield. To their right a series of columned porticoes flanked the road and from the roofs Flavian supporters and red-tunicked soldiers of the urban cohorts hurled spears, rocks and roof tiles on to the attackers who could only protect themselves as best they could. A growl of frustration escaped Valerius’s throat. He knew what would happen if the leading centuries finally broke through the gates. One thing was certain: he was doing Domitia no good back here.

He shouted to Serpentius. ‘We need to get closer to the front.’

‘You mean where the spears are thickest?’ the Spaniard said sourly. But he was already moving. They edged their way between the tight-packed column and the stonework of the porticoes. It took them directly beneath the defenders’ missiles, but Valerius knew anyone trying to drop a boulder on them would have to expose themselves to a degree that would probably be fatal. The stalled attackers suffered the spears and stones with resignation apart from the odd howl when a point found its mark between the shields.

By the time they reached the lead century the gate to the Capitoline summit was already well splintered by their battering ram. It looked to Valerius as if a few more blows would see it split apart and he cursed as the testudo protecting the ram began to edge backwards. When it was clear of the worst of the missiles the unit’s centurion darted out of the armoured tortoise and took shelter by the wall beside the two men in civilian clothing.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the centurion demanded.

‘Gaius Valerius Verrens, adviser to the Emperor, observing your attack.’ The soldier’s face twisted into a grimace as if he’d just bitten into an unripe lemon. Clearly the last thing he needed was any hint of Imperial interference. Still, he could hardly ignore the Emperor’s representative.

‘You can tell him that we would already have taken the place if those heathen bastards hadn’t torn down every statue and column and used them to barricade the gate.’ He licked his lips and spat. ‘Defeated by gods and long dead fucking generals. Wood we can deal with, but we can’t break stone, and there’s no way round the gates, so we have to try something different.’ He leaned against the wall and removed his helmet and head cloth to dash the sweat from his eyes. ‘Give them their due,’ he said with a grin, ‘they’re going to be hard to shift, but we’ll winkle them out eventually. A few policeman and night watchmen are no match for my lads, even behind those walls.’

‘What’s the plan once you get inside?’ Valerius asked, hoping for some detail that might help him get to Domitia Longina Corbulo before the Praetorian swords.

A shadow crept over the centurion’s eyes. ‘The only plan is to clean them out and kill everything that gets in our way.’ He glanced at Valerius’s missing hand and the old scars that marked both men as soldiers. ‘You’ve been around. You know what happens when legionaries break a siege. We’ll make it quick out of respect for their courage, but that’s as good as it gets for those men up there.’

‘They have a woman with them,’ Valerius said. The centurion shook his head as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘I need to be with the first century into the complex.’

‘Then you’re likely to be dead. If I have anything to do with it, this will be the first century over the walls, but there’ll be a price to pay. Honour and duty. The men they killed were from my front rank and there’s a blood bill for that. Still, you look a handy pair and if you’re prepared to take the chance for some floozy, who am I to stop you? Aprilis, centurion second century First cohort,’ he belatedly introduced himself.

‘How do you plan to do it?’

‘That you’ll have to wait and see,’ he said as he set off after his men.

They followed, dodging the spears and boulders as the second century filtered back to re-form as the fourth in the column of attacking units. Valerius was curious how this fitted with Aprilis’s boast that his men would be first into the temple complex. Perhaps the answer lay in the ladders that had appeared among the waiting soldiers. Not siege ladders by any means, builders’ ladders, but long enough to scale a single storey. A roar from the far side of the Capitoline beyond the Tarpeian Rock announced the launch of a new attack and the centurion nodded grimly. ‘The Third cohort are going up the Hundred Steps. Won’t be long now.’

‘Ready,’ the shout came from the head of the column. ‘At the double, advance.’

They retraced their steps up the paved roadway, forming testudo as they came under fire from the portico roofs. The first three centuries went ahead to resume the attack on the all but impregnable gate, but Aprilis halted his men in front of the most accessible of the pillared buildings. The roofs of these porticos backed on to the asylum, the area that dipped between the two Capitoline summits. Up here the building work never ceased and the defenders had easy access to piles of stone, the soldiers and civilians taking turns to hurl their missiles. But this time Aprilis had an answer to them. He roared an order and five ranks at the rear of the preceding century turned to launch a hail of spears that swept the defenders off the roof. Even as the pila were in the air the men with ladders ran to place them against the porticos and others rushed to mount them. Simultaneously, eight-man sections of legionaries formed scuta platforms and their comrades leapt on the swaying floor of shields to swarm the positions vacated by the defenders.

‘After you, lord,’ Serpentius invited. Valerius leapt on to the undulating surface and they supported each other across the painted scuta until they reached the wall of the portico. The roof was still beyond their reach, but the Spaniard formed a basket with his hands to boost Valerius up. Another hand clamped over his left wrist and he was able to haul himself on to the sloping roof. Half a dozen bodies littered the tiles, a few still groaning, but Aprilis’s men ignored them to hunt the survivors who were fleeing towards the far side of the hill. Valerius scrambled over the peak of the roof and leapt on to the ground of the asylum a few feet below. A moment later Serpentius joined him.