Simon Scarrow - Praetorian

‘Sure. Shrill, overkeen and making up with pickiness what you lacked in experience.’

‘I was like that?’

‘Near enough.’ Macro smiled. ‘But you came good, eventually. So will our boy, Fuscius, you’ll see.’

‘Maybe.’ Cato glanced at the optio and continued in a low voice. ‘If he’s smart enough to keep his nose out of any conspiracy.’

‘Do you think he’s involved?’

‘I don’t know.’ Cato thought a moment. ‘He was as unlikely a choice for preferment as Tigellinus, so I think I’ll reserve judgement for now.’

Macro shook his head. ‘You’re seeing conspirators everywhere, my lad. I wonder how long it’ll be before you start suspecting me.’

Cato smiled. ‘On that day, I think I’ll just go and quietly open my veins. If there’s one thing in this world that I know the true worth of, it’s our friendship. It’s seen us through-’

Macro smiled awkwardly and raised a hand to silence his friend. ‘Stick a boot in it, Cato, or you’ll make me fucking cry.’

During the night the slaves and servants of the imperial household arrived to prepare the pavilion for the imperial family and their guests. They worked by the light of braziers and lamps to ensure that all the furnishings and banqueting tables and couches were ready for the Emperor’s arrival the following noon. A steady trickle of torches advancing round the far side of the lake indicated the arrival of the slaves sent to find good vantage points for their wealthy masters still in bed back in Rome. The opposite shore was nearly half a mile away and ranged along its length the campfires and torches glowed against the dark hills, and their reflections glinted and glittered across the surface of the water. After the rest of the men in their section had retired to the tent to sleep, Cato and Macro shared a wineskin and watched the numbers swell on the far shore.

‘I doubt that there will ever be a spectacle on this scale again,’ mused Macro. ‘I’ve never seen or heard of the like.’

‘That’s because there’s never been such a need for one,’ Cato suggested. ‘Desperate times call for spectacular diversions. If anything goes wrong with the show, or the mob isn’t entertained sufficiently then Claudius’s days are numbered. Either the mob will tear him to pieces or the Liberators will stab him in the back, or the deed will be done by someone even closer to him.’ Cato was silent for a moment. He reached for another piece of wood to toss on to the dying campfire. ‘Shit …’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Hardly a great state of affairs, is it? We risk our lives and shed our blood keeping the barbarians back from the frontiers of Rome only for these fools to put it all in jeopardy.’

‘So? What do you think you can do about it?’

Cato was silent, then looked cautiously into his friend’s eyes. ‘Not much, I admit. But it seems to me that right now Claudius is the best hope for Rome. That’s why we must do all we can to keep him safe.’

‘Claudius?’ Macro shook his head. ‘I think you’ve had too much wine, my lad.’

Cato leant forward. ‘Listen, Macro, I’m not drunk … I’m serious. We’ve seen enough of the world to know that Rome, for all its faults, is not the worst of empires. Where Rome rules there is order and prosperity and – though I know you don’t place much store by it – culture. There are libraries, theatres and art. And there is a degree of religious tolerance. Unlike those nests of arrogance and bigotry in Britannia and Judaea.’ Cato shuddered as he recalled the Druids and Judaean fanatics he and Macro had faced in battle. ‘Rome is the best hope for mankind.’

‘I doubt that’s a view shared by those we have crushed on the battlefield and made into slaves.’ Macro stared into the small flames licking up from the charred wood and ash of the fire. ‘You’re an idealist, Cato. A romantic. There is no more to it than a test of strength. We conquer because that is what Rome does, and we are good at it.’

‘There is more to it than brute strength …’ Cato began, then he paused. ‘All right, there is that. But Rome has more, much more, to offer than simply the sword. Or it might have, but for some of the emperors. I’ve seen them at close hand. Tiberius and that monster, Gaius. Each of them has wielded power with carelessness and cruelty. Claudius, for all his faults, has tried to be better. The question is, do you think young Britannicus, or Nero, will continue his good work?’

‘I hadn’t even thought about it.’ Macro yawned. ‘As long as they can pay to maintain the legions and leave the campaigning up to the professionals, then that’s all that concerns me.’

Cato stared at him. ‘I don’t believe you. You think I don’t know what stirs your heart?’

Macro turned to face him. ‘Even if I felt some of what you do about all this, then I’m old enough to know that it is a waste of time to even think about it any more. Will you change the world? Will I? No. That’s not for us. It never was, never will be. Not for men of our class. Do you not think that I once felt as you do?’ Macro paused, and continued in a kindly tone, ‘It is like a sweet delirium and age is the cure. Now, I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. You should rest too.’

Macro eased himself up, half-empty wineskin in hand, and nodded to Cato before walking across to the flap of the section tent and disappearing inside. Cato drew up his knees and wrapped his arms round them as he stared into the wavering glow of the fire. Macro’s blunt outlook on life angered and frustrated in him equal measure, as ever. Cato’s heart was young enough to harbour boundless dreams and desires to shape his future, and he demanded that others should think as he did. If they did not then it was through lack of vision or inclination. Yet, even as he felt the heat of ambition in his heart, Cato’s mind coldly considered his friend’s point of view. There was wisdom in Macro’s words, but when wisdom is proffered from the position of greater age and experience it is seldom palatable.

The night air was chilly and Cato trembled as he hunched his body to try to stay warm. Beyond the fire he could make out the mass of the imperial pavilion, its white paint dimly luminous in the starlight. He wondered what preoccupied the minds of men like Claudius, and his heirs. Men not doomed to the obscurity that was the fate of the masses. For all his ambitions and dreams, Cato well knew that a hundred, a thousand, years hence men would still talk of Claudius, while the names of Macro and Cato, and countless others, would be buried and forgotten in the dust of history. He stared at the outline of the imperial pavilion with simmering resentment for a long time, as the last heat from the fire faded away.

‘Well,’ he muttered to himself at length, then stood up. ‘You’re a cheery bugger, aren’t you?’

As he made his way towards the tent, Cato saw a figure moving along the far side of the tent line. As he passed one of the braziers lit to warm the sentries, Cato recognised the features of Tigellinus. He exchanged a salute with one of the men on watch. So, Cato mused, there’s another man whose troubled mind was denying him sleep. He watched a moment longer as the centurion continued into the night, in the direction of the prisoner pens, and then Cato ducked inside the goatskin section tent, felt his way carefully to his bedroll and lay down to sleep.

Throughout the morning the people of Rome continued to stream down the Appian Way towards the lake. Most were families on foot, ragged and gaunt looking, with infants strapped to their mothers inside slings of soiled cloth. In among them were hawkers carrying bundles of goods or hauling handcarts laden with cushions, fans and wineskins. The usual sellers of snacks and round loaves of bread were conspicuously absent. There were only a handful of mules and ponies used to draw the carts and they were as starved as the people, ribs showing through their hides like silky cloth laid over iron bars. Most of Rome’s draught animals had already been butchered for food. Even their bones and skins had been boiled up to add to a watery broth. In among the stream of starving humanity came the better off, still adequately fed, and chatting animatedly among themselves as their slave escorts cleared a path for them with stout clubs and wooden staffs.