Harry Sidebottom - Fire and Sword

‘A traitor.’

‘No traitor, but a true friend.’ Mauricius looked again at Sabinianus, with hatred. ‘A friend loyal to death. We should have known from the start. The signs were there. We should have listened at Ad Palmam when you said you would sacrifice anyone for your safety.’

No emotion showed on the face of Sabinianus.

‘Coward! Oath-breaker with the heart of a deer!’

‘You realize you will die.’ Capelianus cut off the imprecations.

‘What is terrible is easy to endure.’ There was a smile on the face of Mauricius, its reason unknowable.

‘You will be tortured.’

‘You cannot hurt me.’

‘The claws will tear your flesh.’

‘They cannot touch my soul.’

A local festival, the Mamuralia, occurred to Capelianus. ‘You will be whipped through the streets of Carthage. Outside the Hadrumetum Gate, by the Mappalian Way, you will be crucified.’

‘I am a citizen of Rome.’ There was outrage in Mauricius’ tone, yet somehow his self-possession held.

‘No, you are an enemy of Rome. As a hostis , you will die. Take him away.’

Mauricius did not struggle, but he shouted as they dragged him from the room. ‘Death to the tyrant Maximinus! Death to his creatures! You are cursed! The Furies will turn your future to ashes and suffering!’

Capelianus turned to the Prefect. ‘What of the others close to the pretenders?’

‘All of rank dead on the battlefield, apart from Aemilius Severinus, the one they call Phillyrio. He was ordered south some days ago to gather the Frontier Scouts. Together with those speculatores , he was to rally the barbarians beyond the frontier.’

‘We will hunt him down. We will hunt down all their followers, high and low.’ Capelianus felt a stab of pleasure. He had always loved the chase; men or beasts, it made no difference.

‘Some of their household – Valens, the A Cubiculo , and some other freedmen and slaves – escaped. They had a fast ship waiting by the mole of the outer harbour.’

Capelianus rounded on Sabinianus. ‘You told me they had no ship ready.’

Sabinianus said nothing.

‘You brought us here. Were you trying to let him escape?’

‘No.’ Sabinianus’ downturned mouth twitched slightly. ‘Last night I gave proof of my change of heart.’

Had the tiny involuntary grimace betrayed the patrician? Capelianus could not be sure. Sabinianus the traitor needed watching, but for now Capelianus put him out of his mind.

The corpse was still there.

‘Get him down.’

The soldiers bustled about the task, teetering on chairs, holding the legs of the corpse.

Capelianus wondered what could have induced his old enemy and his wastrel son to have bid for the throne. Certainly not justice or duty. They were archaic concepts, suitable back in the days of the free Res Publica , but outmoded and unfitting in the debased age of the Caesars. Capelianus knew what motivated men under autocracy. Nothing but lust and greed. The latter was far the stronger; greed for power as well as for wealth. At his advanced age perhaps the father had considered there was little to lose, that it would be no small thing to die clad in the purple. As for the son, his thoughts had been addled by wine and debauchery, his reasoning unsound. Yet even so, they must have appreciated in moments of clarity that they would fail. No legion was stationed in the province of Africa Proconsularis. The secret had long been revealed that Emperors could be made outside Rome. But never without the backing of thousands of legionaries.

The corpse was down.

‘Cut off his head. It will go to Maximinus.’

A soldier set about the butchery.

But would the head reach Maximinus? Against all likelihood, the Senate in Rome had declared for the Gordiani. Italy had gone over to the rebels. The fleets at Misenum and Ravenna controlled its ports. The head would have to travel up the other shore of the Adriatic, go ashore in Dalmatia, then journey overland to seek out Maximinus on the Danube frontier.

Decapitation was never easy. Sawing away, the soldier was slipping in a welter of blood.

And what remained for the Senate now? Traitors to a man. Maximinus was born a Thracian, brought up as a common soldier. Forgiveness was not a virtue cultivated by either group. The Senate could expect no mercy. Executions and confiscations, a holocaust. Few would survive. Great houses would be extinguished. The proscriptions of Sulla or Severus would be as nothing.

The head was off. Blood pooled across the marble floor, soaked into the fine rugs.

‘Preserve it in a jar of honey. Maximinus will want to gaze on his face.’

The Senate could expect no mercy. All its accumulation of experience and expertise in subtle negotiation would do no good. The Senate would have to acclaim another Emperor. Thessalian persuasion; necessity disguised as choice. But who would it clothe in the purple? Surely a governor with troops at his disposal. Maximinus was with the Danubian army. Decius in Spain was his dedicated supporter. So would the Senate turn to a governor on the Rhine or one in Britain? Or would it send a laurelled despatch to one of the great commanders in the East? Or possibly, just possibly, might its gaze focus nearer to hand? To a man proven in the field, a man who had overthrown Emperors, a man who held all Africa in his hand?

‘Throw the rest of him out into the Forum for the dogs.’

Some considered ambition was a vice, others held it a virtue. Capelianus inclined to the latter view. Yet to be Emperor was to hold a wolf by the ears. Better by far to be the man who stood behind the throne of the Caesars. Capelianus looked over at Sabinianus. Traitors had their uses.

Rome

The Temple of Concordia Augusta, Six Days before the Kalends of April, AD238

‘Dead? Both of them? Are you certain?’

Standing before the Senate of Rome, the old freedman was unabashed by the Consul’s brusque questions.

‘Gordian the Younger died on the field of battle. When Gordian the Elder ordered me to convey what remained of his household to safety, his mind was set on suicide.’

Licinius Rufinus leant forward on the Consular tribunal. ‘Was his bodyguard with him?’

‘He was alone.’

‘You did not see him take his life?’

This was pointless. Pupienus sat back, let his gaze shift around the huge interior of the temple, run over the myriad sculptures and paintings, part obscured by the gloom. Valens had been A Cubiculo to Gordian the Elder forever, since before the flood. He had served well when his master was alive, and would do the same now his master was dead. There was no doubting his evidence. The Emperors that the Senate had acclaimed were dead. No amount of juristic interrogation could bring them back.

Opposite Pupienus a painting by Zeuxis hung over the heads of the Senators. Marsyas was bound to the tree hand and foot, naked, already twisted in agony. At his feet the Scythian slave was sharpening the knife, looking up at the man whose skin he would peel from his living body. With the Gordiani dead, every Senator in the temple could expect some similar fate when Maximinus came down from the North and took Rome. Maximinus was a Thracian, a barbarian. They were no different from Scythians; strangers to reason and pity. Clemency was not in their nature.

Valens was dismissed, and walked out. Pupienus envied the aged ex-slave. The very obscurity of his station might prove his salvation. There was no such hope for himself. No hope at all for the man appointed Prefect of the City to oversee Rome in the name of the Gordiani. None whatsoever for the man complicit in the killing of his predecessor, Sabinus, Maximinus’ appointee. Too late for a change of heart, and compromise was not an option. Some other, desperate course must be taken.