Harry Sidebottom - Iron and Rust

The farrier arrived, and Maximinus talked to Borysthenes, calming the stallion as the man worked. Not long now, he said to the horse. Ten miles to the hills, twenty to the Danube, across the frozen river, then out on to the frozen plains to hunt down the Sarmatian Iazyges in their winter grazing. We will catch them as we caught their cousins the Roxolani in the autumn. After that, in the summer, one more campaign and Germania will be conquered. And then, when his duty was done, he could lay down his armour and return to Paulina.

Maximinus inspected the fit of the horse-sandal, its leather straps and their fittings. Satisfied, he told Maximus to give the man a coin. Scowling, his son threw it deliberately out of reach. The farrier picked it out of the snow piled by the nearest tomb.

Having been helped into the saddle by Javolenus, the Emperor looked around. Ice, snow, a bleak road flanked by houses of the dead. He regarded the pinched faces of his entourage. How many of them would be talking of an ill omen by tonight? His gaze fell on the new barbarian hostage. Maximinus could not remember the name of the youth, but his father, Isangrim, ruled in the far North by the Suebian Sea. Now he was a better omen. Favoured by the gods, the army of Maximinus Augustus would conquer as far as the distant northern Ocean.

Africa

The Town of Thysdrus,

Four Days before the Kalends of March, AD238

The pursuit of pleasure was the cause of everything. The majority would not understand. Fine wines, choice foods, sex with desirable women; there was no denying they were all pleasing. So was reading a well-written book, or owning a good hunting dog, a fast horse, a brave fighting cock. But the pleasure they brought was nothing without friendship, without the knowledge that one had done the right thing. As he watched the dawn, Gordian knew his motives would be misunderstood. Men of principal were always misunderstood.

The sky was streaked with purple and the wind had got up in the night. Down in the walled garden the dark poplars nodded and the leaves of the junipers shifted. The air, even the ground and the terrace on which he stood shone an extraordinary pink, both beautiful and somehow threatening in its unlikeliness.

He could have commiserated with Mauricius, paid some of the fine himself, secured him a temporary safety and appeared to have acted as a friend. But appearance was not the same as reality. He would have known he had not done enough. He would never have been free of the worry of being unmasked as a false friend. There would have been no ease of mind. There would always have been the fear that the same would happen again, to another friend, to himself, to his father. Men would say that he had acted from ambition, but it was not true. The things he would do were not only for himself, they were for others. No one could find pleasure in a life of fear.

The purple was gone from the sky. As the world returned to its normal colour, the wind dropped and the first of the rain hissed down. Until he came here, he had never thought it rained so much in Africa; but it was still February.

The coming things oppressed him. He was acting in the name of friendship but, apart from Mauricius, he had not told his friends. They would all be put in danger without their consent. Yet they would have tried to dissuade him. Valerian would have said it was foolhardy, and Arrian most likely pulled a face which implied the same. Sabinianus would have played the cautious Parmenion to his impulsive Alexander, and Menophilus cited Gordian’s own Epicurean precepts back to him: Live out of the public eye, live unnoticed .

There was no point in delay. Afterwards, they would all have to admit that a man should not stand aside when something intervenes to make life unlivable. If things went badly, perhaps they could disown him. If things went well, he was going to save them all: his friends and his father — especially his father. Gordian adjusted his toga and the bandage on his left arm, then turned, walked down the stairs and, all alone, without even a slave, went out of the house.

The streets were muddy. The olive season had ended, yet they were still busy for such an early hour, full of men from the country. The rustics wore big cloaks or bulky goatskins, which would be too hot when the sun came out.

Mauricius welcomed him into his house. After some hours of talk, a group of twenty upper-class young men arrived from the town. The Iuvenes wore heavy cloaks. The greetings were brief, unsurprisingly tense. Everything was ready. Mauricius told them that, once he had pleaded guilty, there had been no difficulty in getting the Procurator to agree to a postponement for the fine to be raised in full. The three days had sufficed to get all in place.

Thysdrus was not a big town. It took no time to walk past the foundations of the new amphitheatre Gordian Senior was building and reach the basilica where the court was sitting. There were many men outside. Eight guards at the door made Mauricius’ party wait at a distance with a crowd of countrymen. The Pegasus on the soldiers’ shields showed they were from 3rd Legion Augusta. When eventually they were admitted, they found another eight soldiers bearing the same insignia inside.

Paul the Chain was seated on a dais at the far end, flanked by a secretary and half a dozen scribes and backed by four of the legionaries. The other four were by the door. The Chain continued to read a document, studiously ignoring the arrivals.

Gordian, Mauricius and the Iuvenes stood waiting. The bandage was stiff and heavy on Gordian’s arm. He forced himself not to touch it.

‘Do you have the money and the deeds?’ Paul spoke without looking up.

‘Procurator, may I approach and speak in private?’

The Chain looked up at Mauricius. ‘Do you have the money or not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then hand it to my secretary.’ Paul waved one of his entourage forward and resumed his reading.

There was nothing to fear, Gordian thought. ‘Procurator, as his legate, the governor has asked me to deliver a message for your ears only.’

With no attempt to hide his irritation, Paul looked at Gordian. ‘Come.’ He spoke as if to an importuning petitioner or a slave.

Nothing to fear, Gordian thought.

He climbed the steps with care, holding the bandage with his right hand.

‘Well?’

Gordian nodded at the scribes and the soldiers. ‘It is a sensitive matter. It touches on the safety of the Emperor.’

Paul signalled them to move back.

Gordian moved closer, his fingers feeling under the bandage. Death was nothing.

‘Well?’ The Chain smiled. ‘Whom are you here to denounce?’

Better death than a life of fear. Gordian’s fingers closed on the warm leather.

‘Who is the traitor?’

‘You.’

Gordian drew the concealed dagger.

The Chain tried to ward off the blow with the papyrus roll. The blade cut off two of his fingers. Gordian pulled back to strike again. Paul threw himself sideways out of the chair. The dagger ripped his toga, slid across his ribs. Clutching his mangled hand, Paul started to scramble away on his elbows and knees.

The scribes were trying to run. In the uproar, they collided with each other, got in the way of the four soldiers at the back of the dais. On the floor of the basilica the Iuvenes had cast off their cloaks to get at their hidden swords.

Gordian hurled himself on to Paul’s back. Yanking his head back by the hair, he plunged the blade down into the side of his neck. The first blow scraped off his collarbone. Paul tried to get up, shake him off. They were thrashing and slipping in blood. The second time, the steel went in to the hilt, like a beast-fighter finishing a bull in the arena.