M. Scott: The Art of War

We turned a corner and saw a flow of townspeople crossing our path; a sea of ardent faces. ‘Come on!’ I found a last burst of speed and turned tightly, to cut behind them. Behind me, Halotus was breathing like a narwhal. Thrasyllus trailed us, too far back to be heard.

A burst of whistles rose over the street, a brief chorus of songbirds in the afternoon, which was odd, but there wasn’t time to contemplate its meaning because a small street boy with dirty blond hair had swooped down from a wall to stand in my way, and then three others.

They formed a line across the road.

‘Get out of the way! Clear the road!’ I was not so desperate yet that I would have killed a child to reach my goal, but I wasn’t far off.

The boy didn’t move. He was small; you could have crushed his hand in your own, easy as a fistful of spring walnuts. ‘You are Geminus,’ he said. ‘I am Marcus. Pantera sent me with a message for you.’

‘Pantera?’ I stopped, hard, in front of the boy. ‘What message?’

He closed his eyes, reciting from memory. ‘I am to tell you that your emperor was taken safely to his house on the Aventine, but that he saw the condition of the warring cohorts and believed that they would soon engulf his house, and that his presence was a danger to his wife and children. Accordingly, he has returned to the palace, which is commendable, but not safe. If you turn back now, I can show you a way that will get you to him ahead of the people. If they take him, they will kill him, but if he comes out the back way we may yet keep him safe for you.’

‘ You will keep him safe for me?’ I laughed, hoarsely. Halotus had joined me, and Thrasyllus. Either one of them was likely to bring his sword out shortly and use it. The boy was nine years old at most, and fearless. ‘Why should we trust you? Or Pantera?’

‘He said when you asked that, I was to show you this.’ The boy held out one dirty paw. On his hand lay Lucius’ ring. The shining emerald was a feral eye, fixed on me.

He went on, ‘I am to tell you that help is not coming, but you must know this by now. I am also to say that the lord Domitian, in the name of his father, wishes you and Vitellius no harm. There is still time for your lord to walk free as he was promised, but only if you move swiftly. If the crowd reaches him first, neither you nor Pantera has the power to turn them.’

‘We don’t, do we?’ I could have stood there for the rest of the day, mesmerized by that ring. I had still hoped; against all evidence, against sanity, I had still nurtured a hope that Lucius and his cohorts might come to our aid. And now the ring.

‘Is Lucius dead?’

The boy shrugged. In the alleyways, where the silver-boys reigned and he so evidently their king, they neither knew nor cared what happened in the palaces of power.

I reached into my purse and found one of Vitellius’ new denarii, the same coin that I had laid on Juvens’ eyes. I flipped it to Marcus who caught it on a flat palm and held it there; he had no need to make it vanish as the other boys did.

I said, ‘We’ll bring our emperor out of the palace by the slaves’ door. Tell Pantera that if he spares Vitellius, I will spare him.’

‘You’ll need to wear this.’ The boy held out a blue scarf, free of bloodstains; I would bet a year’s pay that it had not yet been worn.

‘No. Not now.’ Not yet. I looked left to Halotus and right to Thrasyllus.

‘Go,’ I said to them. ‘Go to the barracks. I’ll catch you up when I’ve seen the emperor safe.’

That was a lie, but they wanted to be there. We could hear the beginnings of battle and any man not inside when the gates closed faced the prospect of being cut to pieces by the clear-up teams afterwards.

We made our farewells and, free of the other two, I followed Marcus and his boys down alleys so dark they felt like tunnels, twisting and swerving, and always overhead the high, fierce whistles guiding us as the horn guides the legion: left, here, up the hill, left again, second right; no, stop and turn back, take another right, sprint fast along here and out…

And stopped.

‘We’re too late.’

The palace was ahead, but between it and us the broad swathe of the Aventine Way was packed, from side to heaving side, by the people of Rome, come down off the rooftops and into the streets again.

‘Hades!’ I heard shock in my own voice. ‘Are they all here? Has every single Roman come to see him brought down? It’s worse than the circus.’

It wasn’t really any worse; just that while the emperor — any emperor — provided his population with bloody entertainment, none had ever before taken the starring role himself, and the promise of exactly this had brought everyone out to watch.

Vitellius was taller than any of those around him; it was easy to keep track of him in the centre of the sea of jeering humanity. His captors were Guards all marked with blue. They had tied his hands and put a cord round his neck and were leading him towards the forum like an ox to sacrifice.

A dozen armed men circled him, of whom I recognized only Marcus Claudius Placidus, a junior officer prone to pandering to the masses.

‘Where’s Drusus?’ I asked aloud. ‘Did they kill him?’

Marcus was with me still; glued like a bur to my leg. ‘Vitellius sent him away,’ he said. ‘He sent everyone away. He would have sent you away too. His wife and children have been sent south to Lucius.’

I snorted. ‘Lucius, whose ring you have?’

‘She’s safe. Pantera did not intend this.’ The boy’s face was grave. ‘You are too late to help, but you can watch if you want, from the rooftops. Nobody’s up there now. Everyone’s in the street, wanting to touch him as he passes.’

He was right; the rooftops were almost bare. And so, like the citizens who had so recently taunted us, we climbed on to a pig sty and from there on to a thatched roof and crawled along, keeping our heads low, as the mob descended the hill to the forum.

A statue crashed from its plinth below us; an image of Vitellius that flattered him in all aspects. It broke on the ground and a child tried to pick up the head, cut her fingers, and started to wail. Others picked it up for her, and used it as a missile to topple other statues, until ‘collecting the heads’ became a game much as it had done with Nero’s effigies eighteen months before.

Vitellius wouldn’t look; he stared solidly at the ground, his jaw working, but half the citizens around him were armed with the blades that the emperor had himself issued from his armoury to help in the defence of Rome. Oh, the irony… Those nearest leaned in, leering, and jabbed him under the chin.

‘Look! See how the mighty fall!’

It was shameful and that idiot Placidus was doing nothing to stop it. I began to slither back down the roof. ‘Someone needs to put a stop to this.’

‘You can’t rescue him.’ The boy, Marcus, caught my sleeve. ‘There’s no point in dying for- What’s Drusus doing there?’

The crowd parted, as before a stampeding horse, and Drusus was there, piling through them, big as a bear, and as terrifying. Men and women flung themselves out of his path and he had a clear route all the way to the emperor.

‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! He’s trying to rescue him. Drusus, you fool! You can’t save him single-handed.’

‘He isn’t trying to save him,’ Marcus said, in a thin, tight voice. ‘He hates Vitellius for ordering his brother crucified. I think he’s trying to kill him.’

‘Drusus hates- But…’

Marcus was right. Whether it was out of mercy, or an act of personal vengeance, Drusus aimed himself like a bull at the emperor, with a massive blade held high in his hand.

Nearly. So very nearly. But Placidus was an idiot, not a complete incompetent, and Drusus was only one man. The emperor’s head swung up and he faced his death bravely, but there was a fence of iron around him and three blades countered Drusus’ one.