M. Scott: The Art of War

‘A month’s wages, you said?’ And I was running again, driving myself as if I were in training, listening to Juvens’ constant commentary on the men following us.

‘Hades, they’ve brought up the cavalry. That means they’ve won at the Park of Sallust. Petilius Cerialis will have paid good gold to be allowed to go back there again and wipe out the shame of yesterday’s defeat… Don’t stop now, children, they’re putting a push on… Look out-’

Eight of them came at us in a wall from the side. Iron flashed in the winter sun. I hurled up my shield, struck out in a curving arc with my blade, felt the clash of iron — and recoiled as scalding blood sprayed across my face. I tasted it. It blinded me. I heard the scream of a stricken man and in all the carnage around, all the screams and the hollered oaths, I recognized that voice, and the finality with which it was cut off.

‘Juvens!’

I fought with my eyes shut, screaming; slashed out and felt the blade bite flesh, strike iron, heard it clang on a helmet, the impact so hard that it shocked me to the shoulder, but I felt my man go down and then Halotus was at my one side and Thrasyllus at the other… but no Juvens. He was lying to one side, sprawled in the filth.

I smeared my eyes clear, and, bending, saw the gash across his throat and the blood that foamed about it. He had clamped his mouth shut, but there was life still in his wide-stretched eyes.

‘Fend them off!’

I grabbed Juvens under the armpits and dragged him back, kicked a door open behind me, hauled him inside.

Two men could hold that doorway with ease and Halotus and Thrasyllus did so with the ferocity of grief. I heard them kill at least three men. The rest stepped back and considered their courage. I knew then that they’d either leave us to get help or just leave. In that moment, I didn’t care which.

I took a deep breath and choked on it, swearing; by bad chance, I had broken into a tanner’s, ripe with the foul stink of curing hides and vats of rotting urine.

Kicking aside chairs, stools, workbenches, I laid Juvens on the floor. He tried to speak; blood foamed from the gash in his neck. His wild, beautiful face twisted with the effort.

‘Don’t.’ I lifted his hand, squeezed it. ‘There’s nothing left to say.’

His eyes said there was. His fingers clawed tight around my wrist. His gaze hunted wildly round the room and came back to my face. He tried to speak without speaking.

‘I don’t understand. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I’ll meet you on the banks of the Styx before the day is out, which has to be worth more than a month’s wages. I’ll put silver on your eyes to pay the ferryman. It has been a good life.’

Juvens couldn’t tut, but it was there, on his face, the upward twitch up his brows. He had never believed in the tales told to the credulous and he wasn’t about to believe them now.

He still wanted to speak and had a moment’s inspiration. Lifting his free hand, he wet a finger with his own blood. On the pale and costly fabric of my court tunic, bought and paid for by Vitellius from the imperial coffers, he drew a bloody letter, and another, and another.

He hadn’t the strength to complete all he needed, but what he wrote was enough. FORGET OAT

‘Forget my oath? You mean the one to kill Pantera? Or the one to serve the emperor?’

BOTH LIVE

His hand reached up and stripped the scarf from my arm, or tried to. The knots were too tight, but the meaning was clear.

‘What of honour? What of courage? What of all the things that bind the legions together?’

He gave a shrug and a nod together, and a faint grin that was all the old Juvens; wild, erratic, carefree. His tilted palm said, ‘What of them? Life is too precious.’

His mouth framed the word Go. His eyes flicked to the door and back.

I tried to match his smile, and couldn’t; my throat was too tight, my chest too full of hurt. Because he was right. I wondered how long I had known it. And yet ‘We both gave an oath in the temple of Jupiter,’ I said, and my voice was dry as ash. ‘But the temple is gone now, and the oaths burned with it. They were given to a poisonous man, for poisonous ends. I will not pursue Trabo, or Pantera. But I will go to the barracks and die with our men. Honour requires it. And I will join you by evening. Is that enough?’

It had to be enough because the light had gone from Juvens’ eyes; no chance now for one last, mercurial thought, no smile, no wild idea.

The dying go so swiftly at the end. Always the speed of their leaving catches me unawares; so much left to say, to promise, to pray for.

I hadn’t asked what to put on his monument, or even if there was to be one, and now I couldn’t.

I smoothed his eyes shut with my hand, tipped coins from my belt-purse and laid them on the lids to hold them closed. I left silver; a fitting fare for a fitting man.

The freedom from my oath left me feeling unnaturally buoyant, as if someone had lifted leaden armour from my shoulders. I had no illusions about surviving the day, but I could die freed of petty vengeance; that much was good.

At the door, Halotus and Thrasyllus had killed two men each and the rest had run; the alley was clear.

I poked my head out, took a look round and up and got my bearings. We were perhaps three blocks south of the forum, with the Quirinal hill just behind and our barracks at the back of it.

At the door, I cleaned the grip of my sword on the hem of my tunic. The letters Juvens had drawn were clear across it. I had no time to wash them out, and didn’t want to.

‘To the barracks, then,’ I said. ‘A month’s wages, I believe, paid out by the last one there.’

Rome, 20 December AD 69

Marcus, leader of the silver-boys

The heights of Rome had been ours until this day, when every man and his son decided he owned them too.

Men, women and children were in places only silver-boys had been and so we had to get down to the ground where we were able to move about freely. The soldiers didn’t attack us, and as long as we kept clear of the worst fighting there was profit to be made from doors left ajar and market stalls abandoned.

Early in the day, Pantera had sent me to Drusus, to find out how the emperor was. He didn’t want him harmed, see, although he knew the risk. He said Vespasian wanted Vitellius kept safe and if he — Pantera — couldn’t give him his brother alive, at least he would deliver his enemy still breathing.

So, through the day, whenever I had time, I went back to the palace and Drusus let me in and I knew when the emperor went to hide in his house on the Aventine, thinking at least the enemy soldiers might not look for him there, and then, later, when he returned again to the palace, thinking it better to stay there. He knew they were going to kill him, I think: he didn’t want to die like a rat in a hole.

I took that information myself to Pantera; he was coming out of the House of the Lyre, where another Marcus was working as his runner.

He shook his head when he heard my news. ‘The man is mad. He has absolutely no sense of self-preservation. Geminus should never have left him.’

‘Geminus is near the forum,’ I said. ‘I saw him as I came to you.’

‘Did you? That was well done.’ Pantera’s smile grew wide at that. ‘Could you find him again? Take him a message?’

‘Of course. This is Rome. I can do anything.’

Rome, 20 December AD 69

Geminus

We ran covertly, keeping to side streets and back alleys, dodging into doorways to avoid the hunting packs of Antonius’ men and the rooftop vigilantes who were all howling for Blue now: the mob will always support the winning side and we were so clearly losing.