Douglas Jackson: Sword of Rome

Valerius noticed the aristocrat didn’t refer to Galba by the grandiose title the governor had awarded himself — Lieutenant to the Senate and People of Rome — and wondered what that signified. They had stopped to rest near the burned-out ruins of an estate on the west bank of the Rhodanus, the great river that linked Lugdunum with the port of Massilia. He walked to the pebble shore and looked out across the glittering waters, east, towards home.

‘You heard what the Batavian said. Every pass to Italia is guarded. By now he will have reported back to his headquarters and the place will be swarming with patrols, every one of them looking for a party of twenty-five men, led by a well-dressed aristocrat on a fine horse. You cannot change what you are and I cannot hide twenty-five men. We must go back. It is for …’ Valerius knew it wasn’t worth appealing to the man’s instinct for self-preservation, which lagged many leagues behind his political aspirations, ‘the good of the Empire. If you die, who will Galba be able to rely on? Titus Vinius, whose only loyalty is to himself? Cornelius Laco, a drunkard too lazy even to harbour ambition?’

The other man frowned. It was the same question Otho had been asking himself since Galba had tasked him with this mission. And the closer he came to the sword points of the enemy, the more he doubted his patron’s motives. A few years earlier Marcus Salvius Otho had been as close to Nero as anyone in the young Emperor’s increasingly debauched court: close enough to offer him the sexual favours of his wife, Poppaea. But Poppaea had captivated the Emperor and Otho had been ordered to divorce her. He had become an embarrassment and a liability. It said much for his powers of persuasion that he had been sent into virtual exile as governor of far-away Lusitania, Rome’s most westerly province and a rural backwater, rather than quietly executed. Galba’s bid for power had given Marcus Salvius Otho an opportunity to return to Rome with honour and the promise of advancement, but the opportunity came at a price and with a high risk. To claim it Otho would have to march into the very heart of Nero’s Rome and just one slip would bring torture and death. But the governor of Lusitania did not lack courage. He shook his head. ‘My mission is too important.’

Valerius took a deep breath. ‘There is another possibility. Two men might get through where many cannot.’

‘Who?’

The one-handed Roman glanced to where the cavalrymen were walking their horses. ‘Serpentius has a leopard’s instinct for survival. He lived through four years and a hundred fights in the arena and he has saved my life more times than I care to remember. If anyone can reach Rome, he can.’

Otho nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then he can guide me.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘You are too conspicuous and too important to risk. I don’t know the details of your mission, but I understand why you were chosen. Senator Galba believes you have access to men on the Palatine and in the Senate who can persuade Nero to give up the purple and declare Galba his successor. That may be true, but it is also possible that Marcus Salvius Otho is being asked to place his head in the lion’s jaws.’ He hesitated, waiting for a reaction, but Otho remained silent, barely breathing and tense as a full-drawn bowstring. ‘What if there was another man, with similar access? A simple soldier, but one who once wore the Gold Crown of Valour? A bauble, and an undeserved one, but a bauble which impressed the impressionable. Even the Emperor was dazzled by its glitter. And there were others.’

Otho’s eyes turned calculating. ‘Perhaps my mission would be beyond the wit of a simple soldier?’

‘It is true that I am no politician.’ Valerius shrugged. ‘But Nero chose me to hunt down Petrus and I won Corbulo’s trust even when he thought me a spy.’ And, he thought, you know I brought secret messages of support to Galba from Vespasian in Alexandria, even if you don’t know the price he asked. ‘How can I make a decision until I have more details of Galba’s plan?’

Otho made him wait, pacing the river bank while he turned the proposition over in his mind before beginning to speak. ‘Nero is finished. He has lost the Senate, the people and, more important, most of the army. He clings to power in Rome only with the aid of the Praetorian Guard. His is a fortress made of straw and it only needs the slightest push to topple it. My mission is to persuade the Guard to provide that push.

‘Nymphidius Sabinus, who holds the Praetorian prefectship with Tigellinus, is the key. He will convince the Guard to abandon the Emperor and support Servius Sulpicius Galba. However, he is understandably nervous and seeks assurances that Galba will meet his price. You will visit him at his house on the Esquiline Hill, behind the Fountain of Orpheus, and hand over this seal. It is the token which will prove your identity. Tell him that Galba will pay whatever it takes to buy the loyalty of the Guard.’

‘Whatever it takes?’

Otho nodded. ‘Senator Galba was reluctant; he is not a generous man. But he was persuaded when I pointed out that every Emperor since Augustus has had to pay his dues to the Guard. Claudius handed over fifteen thousand sesterces a man and counted it a bargain for an Empire.’

Valerius stifled the questions that Otho’s statement raised in his head. All but one. ‘And you are certain Nymphidius has the power to do what he claims? Tigellinus has kept a tight rein on the Guard for five years. It would not be like him to lose control now when he needs them to keep his own head.’

‘Forget Tigellinus.’ Otho spat the name and Valerius belatedly remembered the part Nero’s favourite had played in separating Poppaea from her first husband. ‘He is finished. They say he wanders the palace like a spectre, afraid of his own shadow, or, worse, the Emperor’s. As for personal terms, you may offer Nymphidius everything short of the succession.’ His eyes glittered and for the first time Valerius realized the true extent of his ambition. ‘That prize belongs to only one Roman and it is not some rustic nearly man from Etruria.’

Valerius nodded, but his mind was already elsewhere. He’d come to understand that Otho’s arrogance was like a tribune’s sculpted breastplate: a protection against those who would question his authority rather than those who sought to harm him. The governor of Lusitania was a much more complex personality than he first appeared, a fact confirmed by Otho’s next words.

‘Be careful, Valerius.’ He laid a hand on the younger man’s arm. ‘Your peril does not only lie on the road. Galba’s freedman Icelus has languished in the carcer this past month, and two others who set out on our mission have not been heard of since they reached Rome. Nero is weak, but even a cornered pig can be dangerous.’

Valerius nodded his thanks. So, he thought, the game begins again. He remembered the many nights in Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo’s tent on campaign in Armenia and the mind-twisting game of strategy and nerve the general had played so skilfully. Caesar’s Tower: four levels, a thousand combinations, but only one winner. Nero had feared Corbulo, his greatest general, and had ordered his death. Valerius himself had only just escaped with his life, with the general’s daughter Domitia. His hand strayed to his pouch, feeling for the Caesar stone he had taken on the day Corbulo died, before he remembered that he had given it to Domitia in Alexandria. Where would she be now? The likelihood was Rome, and that was one of the reasons why he had volunteered to continue Otho’s suicidal mission to the city. The other reason was darker, cast a shadow over his mind, and was one he would share with no man, not even Serpentius.