Douglas Jackson - Sword of Rome

‘Not a spy’s.’ He lowered his voice. ‘A question from one with a family and friends who fear for the future. You spoke of garrisoning Rome while others fight, but I fear that is not to be. The reason the naval legion exists is because the Emperor’s generals have deserted him. You are all he has left.’

‘There is the Guard,’ Juva said defensively. ‘They are oath-sworn to their Emperor.’

Yes,’ Valerius agreed, wincing internally at having to deceive an honest man. ‘There is the Guard.’

Juva stood up, knocking the table back, his great bulk cutting out the light from the doorway. ‘Whatever happens, we will fight and if necessary we will die for the man who has given us our hope and our pride. Perhaps you are a concerned family man, perhaps not, but it is time to go.’

The other men fell silent as the mood in the bar changed. Valerius and Serpentius rose slowly and backed away, Serpentius stumbling with a curse as they reached the doorway. As they emerged into the sunshine, Valerius reflected that he’d got at least part of the information he came for: Juva and his shipmates would back Nero to the last. But he had a feeling it might come at a price.

That feeling was confirmed as the two men set off in the direction of the Vicus Longus. When they’d walked a hundred paces over the baking cobbles Serpentius hissed a warning. Valerius glanced back to see four of the sailors following in their wake. It seemed Juva regretted his impulse in letting them go so easily.

The men were still with them when they reached the Vicus. Valerius’s first instinct had been to lose them, but Serpentius purposely held back and he waited to see what the Spaniard had in mind. By the time they reached the narrow streets of the Subura, the sailors were only a dozen paces behind. This was Rome’s poorest district, a tight-packed haven for gangsters, thieves and pimps where a life wasn’t worth a shaved sestertius and no sensible man would come to another’s aid.

‘Is this wise?’ Valerius muttered.

‘If we lose them, they’ll just keep looking. We need to convince them we’re not worth the pain. Where better than this?’ He lifted his sleeve to reveal a gnarled wooden cudgel he’d picked up from a pile of weapons at the door of the tavern.

Valerius grinned. ‘I think I know just the place.’ He stepped up his pace, increasing the distance between the two men and their tail. When they had gone another fifty paces he turned to his left on to the Via Subura, a road that would eventually take them out towards the Esquiline Gate. As they walked, he explained his plan to Serpentius and the Spaniard nodded agreement. They took another turn, into a warren of alleyways hemmed in by apartment blocks, which eventually brought them to a crowded square with a fountain in the shape of a fish at its centre. Serpentius darted to the left and lost himself in a crowd in front of a tavern called the Silver Mullet, before disappearing up a street which ran parallel to the alley they had just left. Valerius continued onwards. He knew the sailors would be suspicious that they’d lost Serpentius, but that couldn’t be helped. He kept his pace steady; there was no hurry now. Eventually he saw the dark shadow of a narrow passage that cut off at right angles ahead and to his right. Now he slowed, allowing his pursuers to catch up. The locals here had an unerring sense for impending trouble and he felt them drifting away like smoke until he was alone in the narrow street with the four sailors. He passed the darkened entrance to the smaller alley without a glance and carried on a few steps before swinging round to face the enemy, a short sword miraculously appearing in his left hand. The first two exchanged glances at the sight of the bright iron, but they didn’t break stride. The one to the left was armed with a sword and the other hefted a nailed club. They knew they were facing a fighter, but with odds of four to one in their favour they were confident their opponent was already a dead man.

The second pair of sailors were big and tough and alert, but they had never faced someone with Serpentius’s speed and skill. The Spaniard darted from the Alley of the Poxed Tart already swinging the stolen club to take the nearest man on the bridge of the nose, smashing bone and cartilage and leaving him momentarily paralysed. As the sailor’s companion turned to face the threat, Serpentius rammed the head of the club into the V formed by his ribs below the breastbone, driving every ounce of air from his lungs. If he wished, either could have been a killer blow, but Serpentius had weighted them to disable. For good measure he swung the club right and left, rattling each of the sailors on the skull just above the ear, buckling their knees and dropping them heavily to the festering rubbish that littered the cobbles.

The two men facing Valerius’s sword heard the cries of their oarmates and froze, not even daring to turn and check the new threat.

‘We have no quarrel with you,’ Valerius said carefully, ‘and we mean you no harm.’ Given the circumstances it seemed an unlikely claim and he saw suspicion and fear harden their faces. ‘You’re not dead, are you? And neither are your shipmates. All you have to do is pick them up and take them back the way you came. You first.’ He gestured to the man on the left, the big Danuvian from the tavern. The sailor hesitated, but Valerius nodded encouragingly. ‘Believe me, this is not worth dying for.’ The man exchanged a whispered word with his friend. His eyes never left Valerius’s blade, but he nodded agreement and went back to help the two men who lay groaning under Serpentius’s watchful eye.

‘Tell Juva I wish him well and that he doesn’t have to concern himself with us,’ Valerius said.

The last man nodded slowly before turning to help his shipmate. They took a man each and shouldered them down the street, edging their way past the Spaniard as he whirled the cudgel like a child’s toy.

They watched the sailors go. ‘Will they fight, do you think?’ Serpentius asked.

‘They don’t lack courage,’ Valerius said. ‘And Nero has been clever enough to offer them something to fight for. But they won’t stop Galba.’

The Spaniard snorted derisively. ‘Maybe they won’t have to. We’ll all have died of old age before Old Slowcoach gets here.’

9 June

By early summer Rome was a whirling sea of rumour and gossip, each tale twisted and chewed over as a dog gnaws an old bone, and less likely than the one that preceded it. Nero had called on his old friend King Tiridates of Artaxata and an army of Armenians and Parthians was already marching to his aid. He had filled a ship with the contents of Queen Dido’s treasury and set off to found a new Empire in Africa. He had laid down the reins of power and pledged to make his career on the stage. He was already dead. Other stories were closer to the truth. Two more legions in Moesia had deserted his cause. Vespasian, who had yet to openly declare for Galba, had guaranteed Nero’s safety and offered a place of exile in Alexandria. This last scenario, Valerius knew, the Emperor’s opponents wanted to be true, and his new friend Nymphidius Sabinus, joint prefect of the Praetorian Guard, did what he could to make it seem so, sending loyalist elements among his cohorts to Ostia to await Nero’s coming. Within hours of their departure their more avaricious comrades accepted an offer from Nymphidius on behalf of the Lieutenant to the Senate and People of Rome of thirty thousand sesterces a man, ten years’ pay by Valerius’s calculation. Where Galba would find the money was another matter. The old man might be rich as Croesus, but Valerius doubted that Rome’s most notorious skinflint would be pleased to hear he had paid twice as much for his Empire as Claudius two and a half decades earlier.