M. Scott: The Art of War

‘No!’ said Domitian.

But ‘Yes!’ said Jocasta at the same time. ‘We would very much like it if you could help us find Pantera. Most likely, he will know where Borros is. Perhaps the lady Caenis and I could come with you? Trabo can remain here with Domitian, Matthias and Horus. We can bring Pantera back when we have found him.’

Was I a hostage? It certainly seemed like that. In one stroke, Jocasta was separating me from Domitian, so that I could not know what was done with him. I looked at her and received only a bland smile, which I returned in kind, saying, ‘Certainly. That would be wise. Above all of us, Domitian must be kept safe.’

I could have challenged her, perhaps, but one of the things I learned in Antonia’s court is that things gather a power of their own when they are spoken aloud. Let her think me compliant; let her underestimate me as she had done Felix; let her make just one mistake

…

The priests came to see us leave, and to swear that their god would protect Domitian as long as he remained in their care.

The obvious corollary was that, in leaving the care of Isis, we three were putting ourselves in danger. We bowed and thanked them and promised gifts to the god on our return.

As we left the sanctuary of Isis’ temple, Felix threw me a dazzling smile. I found him really rather charming, in his own strange way. Then we stepped out of the door and all we could hear was the battle for Rome, and the sounds of men dying.

Rome, 20 December AD 69

Geminus

‘ Step up! Shields locked! One step forward!.. Hold that line!’

Days, months, years of training were tempered here, in the heat of battle. Men moved without thinking, their bodies responding long before their minds caught up, and the wall they made with their shields was flawless.

Against other legionaries, we would have been unassailable, but Antonius’ blue-scarved cavalrymen brought their long spears when they came at us from the side — Juvens had been right about their flanking manoeuvre — and they drove them over the tops of our shields as if we were barbarian warriors, not fellow Romans.

I felt iron hiss past my right ear and jerked to my left, cracking my helmet hard against Juvens’ — he had mirrored my move.

We bounced upright again, and ducked back down as the spears twisted and stabbed. Left and right, green-marked men were falling. Others stepped in to take their place, but there was only one way this could go if we stayed as we were.

‘We need to move back!’

It was hard to be heard over the din of battle; iron clashed on mail, on iron, on flesh. The air flowed hot with lifeblood, the ground was a smear of ordure and spilled intestines.

I shouted it again, to my right this time, where the signallers stood. ‘Sound the turn! We need to move back up the street. Form a square, wheel right, shields to the outside, back up the street. Can you do that?’

Even as I shouted, a spear thrust caught the signaller in the throat and he went down like a felled tree. The nearest legionary caught his horn almost as a reflex — it doesn’t do to lose the signals in battle — but he was looking at it as if he had never played one in his life.

‘Give me that!’

I grabbed the horn, put tight lips to a mouthpiece still warm from the man just dead, and prayed for help in remembering how to play.

The help came. I was rusty, but adequate, and the notes were a ripple of silver rising over the black mess of battle.

As before, decades of training paid off and our men spun and wheeled to my direction, but the enemy knew the signals just as well as we did and at every turn or counter-turn the blue cavalry was already waiting, and, soon, mass upon mass of infantry, as Antonius Primus loosed his reserve cohorts into the fray.

‘Back! Back! ’

Fighting, we fell back into the city. The enemy forces came at us like a flood. Every street was a butchery, every open square an ambush. The people were up out of harm’s way, but we were left on the ground, caught in an orgy of killing.

I fitted my shoulder to Juvens’ and hacked and hacked and ‘Shit! Disengage. Left in a hundred paces! Now! ’

With me and Juvens were Halotus, Lentulus and Thrasyllus, whose father had disowned him for following Vitellius; good men, all of them; friends.

On my command, they disengaged and sprinted for the dark mouth of an alley ahead and to our left. The Blues-men we had been fighting saw the open street we had just abandoned and preferred it to a black, stinking alley that might have held a hundred of us. They forged on past, leaving us standing in the dark.

We watched their retreating backs. Juvens was half bent, with his hands propped on his knees. He peered up at me from below the flop of his hair.

‘Why this way?’

‘Because I just saw Jocasta come down here with Caenis, Vespasian’s woman, and the boy who sold himself to us as a messenger.’

‘Jocasta? You mean Lucius’ lover?’

‘Lucius’ lover who also seduced Caecina before he marched north and defected,’ I said, flatly. I had a very bad feeling about this, but that didn’t matter compared to the prospect of catching Caenis. ‘If we can take these three alive, we can secure the throne for Vitellius and his line for the next hundred years. They can’t be far ahead of us.’

Juvens pushed himself upright. He straightened the flowing green scarf at his arm, re-tied the knot. ‘That’s easy then. We get into pairs and search every house in the row. If we can’t catch two women and a youth barely shaving, we deserve to lose Rome.’ He threw me a grin. ‘Half a year’s pay says that if Jocasta’s here, then Trabo’s not far behind. If he turns up, leave him to me. I have an oath to Jupiter, and after last night’s fire now would be a good time to keep it.’

It was the closest I had heard him get to accepting responsibility for what happened at the temple, and by then it didn’t matter.

Rome, 20 December AD 69

Borros

The rooftops of Rome were the only safe space that day. The entire population, those who weren’t fighting, were up there in their festival finery, making the most of the novelty Saturnalia had brought.

At ground level, it was a different matter. Here, the green of Vitellius battled grimly with the oncoming tides of Antonius Primus’ blue-marked men, cavalry at first, and then legionaries. The streets were a chaos of men stabbing, gouging, kicking, killing anyone whose colour differed from their own.

So the rooftops were the only safe place to be, which is why finding a route through wasn’t easy.

‘Excuse me… Thank you… May we pass…? Thank you…’

Pantera was the soul of tact, but still, it was like fighting through mud and not helped by the fact that we weren’t entirely sure where we were going.

The silver- boys were up here too. It must have felt odd for them to have their domain so entirely taken over by people who normally didn’t venture higher than the steps up to the local Dionysian temple, but their whistles pierced the constant din of war. No doubt we weren’t following them as well as we could have done, but we ended up in more or less the right place.

The first thing I knew of it was when Pantera grabbed my shoulder and forced me down on to the cold tiles of the roof.

‘ There! ’

‘What?’

Looking over the edge, I saw Guards fighting other Guards, which wasn’t news by then.

‘In that alley. There: at the far end. Geminus and Juvens are searching that street.’ It took me a while to see where Pantera was pointing, to the dingy alley where yet more armoured men were flashing their swords at each other, except they weren’t, they were opening doors and checking inside and not killing anybody. Yet.