Ben Kane: Hunting the Eagles

A horse galloped past the front of the tent with a thunder of hooves, moving in the direction of the road north. The rider’s urgency was an unusual enough occurrence for heads to turn, and questions to be asked. An optio near the door flap went and poked his head outside. ‘Looks like an official messenger,’ he announced.

The clamour in the tent soon returned to its previous volume, although men were now debating the messenger’s reasons for travelling with such speed. Later, Tullus would decide that no one could have predicted the calamitous news that he bore.

Not long after the rider had gone by, shouts and cries on the avenue outside became audible. This time, a centurion went to see what was going on. Not everyone spotted him come back, twenty heartbeats later, but Tullus did. The man’s face was as white as a senator’s new toga. Tullus shushed Fenestela and jerked his head at the centurion, who took a deep breath and said, ‘Augustus is dead.’

Tullus felt a sudden lightheadedness. Fenestela’s expression was so shocked it verged on the comical. Few others had heard, however.

‘AUGUSTUS IS DEAD,’ bellowed the centurion. ‘THE EMPEROR, GODS REST HIS SOUL, HAS DIED.’

All conversation stopped. More than one cup of wine was dropped to the floor. The musician playing a double flute came to a stuttering, discordant halt.

‘How can you know this?’ called Tullus. His protest was echoed by a dozen voices.

‘The news has just come in from Rome, they say,’ replied the centurion. ‘Messengers have ridden from the capital night and day since it happened, sent to every part of the empire.’

Pandemonium broke out, replicating the disturbances already happening outside the tent. Officers collapsed into their seats and placed their heads in their hands. Some wept openly. Others had begun to pray. More still were downing cups of wine, offering up extravagant toasts to the dead emperor.

‘Fucking hell,’ said Tullus, feeling as weary as if he’d just finished a twenty-mile march. Augustus had banned him from ever entering Italy, but he had been a good ruler overall. ‘He was in power for forty-five years. Part of me thought he’d go on forever.’

‘Most of us had the same idea,’ said Fenestela.

Tullus glanced out of the tent. A group of legionaries stood just outside. No one had noticed, but the distress evident everywhere else was absent among them. Instead, the group had huddled together, with their heads almost touching.

Tendrils of unease snaked up Tullus’ back. Years as a centurion had given him an uncanny ability to sniff out trouble. ‘They’re up to something,’ he whispered to Fenestela.

It was worrying that instead of telling him that he was imagining it, Fenestela replied, ‘I think so too.’

Tullus’ enjoyment of what had been a pleasant evening vanished, like frost under a rising sun. There was trouble coming: he could feel it in his bones.

For the emperor was dead.

On the evening of the second day following the terrible news of Augustus’ death, legionary Marcus Piso was taking a rest in the tent he shared with seven other men. He was tired – his centurion Tullus had seen to that with his endless marching – but he wasn’t quite ready for sleep. That was what would take him, however, if he didn’t soon stir from his bed. The warmth of his woollen blanket beneath him, the flickering of the oil lamps on the floor, and the quiet muttering of his comrades combined in a familiar, eyelid-closing mixture.

The snores reaching Piso’s ears told him that at least one of the other soldiers was asleep. A quick glance confirmed that this was correct. The two nearest him were lying head to head, talking in quiet tones and sharing a skin of wine. He sat up a fraction, so that he could peer at the men in the far end of the tent. Vitellius, his closest friend, had his eyes closed. Two of the others were hunched over a latrunculi gaming board lying between them. The last soldier, another friend of Piso’s, wasn’t in his bed. He could be anywhere, thought Piso – the latrines, in another tent, or on the scrounge for wine or food. His best chance of recruiting other gamblers lay with Vitellius.

‘Anyone for a game of dice?’ asked Piso, ever the optimist.

There was no answer.

‘Who wants to play dice?’ he said, louder.

The snoring of the man opposite stopped. He grunted a couple of times and rolled over, presenting his back to Piso.

With a sigh, he eyed the drinking pair. ‘Interested?’

‘You know me. I’ve got no money,’ answered one.

‘Not a chance. You always win, maggot,’ said the other.

Piso studied the two playing latrunculi. ‘Either of you fancy it?’

‘This game’s just starting to get interesting,’ came the reply. ‘Maybe later.’

His frustration building, Piso stared at Vitellius. ‘Pssst! ’Tellius!’

‘Mmmmm …’

‘’Tellius, wake up!’

Vitellius’ thin face twisted, and he rubbed a hand over his eyes. He gave Piso an irritable look. ‘This better be good. I was in the middle of getting down to it with that redheaded whore in Bacchus’ Grove.’

‘You can’t afford her ,’ said Piso with a snort. Bacchus’ Grove was one of the better brothels in the tent village outside the camp, and the redhead was the one of the finest-looking whores in the place. Everyone in the legion wanted to lie with her, but few had the coin.

‘I can in a dream, you fool,’ retorted Vitellius. ‘But you’ve woken me now. What do you want?’

‘A game of dice.’ Piso made a dismissive gesture. ‘Not with this lot. With one of the other contubernia , or in another century’s tent lines.’

‘I remember a certain night when you started playing dice,’ said Vitellius with a nasty chuckle. ‘It didn’t end well.’

‘That was years ago,’ Piso shot back, remembering how he’d stripped another soldier of his money, fair and square, not long before Arminius’ ambush. The loser had been so angry that he and a gang of his friends had jumped Piso, Vitellius and another comrade soon after. If Tullus hadn’t come along, they might all have been beaten to death, instead of black and blue. ‘It’s never happened since, has it, you dog?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘You’ll come then?’ asserted Piso. ‘Imagine, you might do so well that you can afford the redhead. If your winnings aren’t quite enough, I’ll chip in with the difference – anything for a friend.’ He winked.

‘All right, all right.’ With a grunt, Vitellius sat up.

Piso eased his tall frame upright, stooping under the low roof and avoiding the latrunculi players on his way out. Holding his breath, he delved into the ripe-smelling heap of sandals by the tent’s entrance and found his pair. Once they were laced up, he checked his purse. His bone dice, made from the tailbones of a sheep and weighted just so , were in there, along with a handful of asses and smaller coins, and a few sestertii . Tiberius’ fleshy profile gazed up at him from a solitary silver denarius. That’s plenty, thought Piso, knowing it would have to be. The dice didn’t always give him sixes – throwing them was an inexact art – and the next payday wouldn’t come around for two months. ‘Ready?’

‘I have been since you woke me up,’ replied Vitellius dourly, joining him outside. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Along our tent lines first.’

‘Why not head straight to the Second Century’s tents?’ Vitellius lowered his voice. ‘There was talk of a meeting there.’

Piso gave Vitellius a warning look, and got back a shrug. Both knew as well as the next man that Augustus’ sudden death had brought the long-term simmering unrest about pay and conditions bubbling up to the surface. An illegal gathering wouldn’t be the best place to seek out fellow gamblers, but previous experience – Piso had stung men in every contubernium of their century for money – meant that there was little point looking close to home, and he wanted company. ‘We’re not hanging around if they’re talking about what I suspect they’ll be talking about. I don’t want the Second’s centurion knocking my head off a wall, let alone Tullus when he hears what we were up to.’