The Eternal Empire (14 page)

Anton looked at the chief centurion. He
was seething with anger. A stone had caught his ear and the pain fed his fury.
He screamed at the centurion. "SHOOT AT THEM YOU IDIOT! KILL SOME OF THE
BASTARDS!"

The chief centurion gave him one more
look of disgust and turned back to his men. He ordered them to make their
weapons safe and stand at ease. Anton put his hand to his ear, blood was
trickling down the side of his face and his head was throbbing. He turned and
looked up at the gate house. Some bodyguards were still there, and they were
watching him. He pointed toward the retreating crowd, still making their way
out of the square.

"FIRE!" he screamed,
"SHOOT BEFORE THEY ALL GET AWAY."

The bodyguards did not need to be told
twice. Shooting unarmed civilians was something they were used to doing back in
Macedonia, and it had been a while since they had had so many targets. First it
was a few scattered shots and then a continuous hail of bullets spat from the
guns of the governors men to rip into the helpless mass of flesh struggling to
escape from the square. Men and women went down, the bullets inflicting
horrific wounds on their bodies. Some found cover by lying on the ground,
others by cowering in the entrances of shops around the square. One group ran
to the massive doors of the cathedral and hammered to be let in, but the
bodyguards spotted them and turned their fire towards them. A dozen or more men
and women fell to the guards bullets before the doors swung open to allow the
survivors to find sanctuary.

The auxiliaries stood and stared in
horror, muttering cry's of disbelief. Some crossed themselves whilst others
looked away, a few vomited as they saw the butchery that a bullet does to the
human body. Eventually the firing stopped as the last of the crowd fled from
the square into the surrounding streets or the safety of nearby buildings. The
only sounds were the sobs and moans of the wounded and the laughter of the men
in the gate house.

The chief centurion swallowed hard, and
the bile in his stomach made his mouth taste foul. He barked out an order.

"Medics and all first aid trained
men! Fall out and give aid to the wounded."

All along the line, men handed their
rifles to another and ran towards the bodies that lay scattered around the
square, whilst stretchers appeared from the cohorts’ medical section. The chief
centurion turned to look at the face of the new cohort commander, standing
facing the carnage in the square, nursing his bloody ear. Anton gave the centurion
a cold look and a cruel smile before walking back to the gate house.

The chief centurion gave the order for
the rest of the men to return to barracks. They formed up and marched away from
the governors’ mansion past the human wreckage in the square. The cohorts’
officers gathered around the chief centurion, who was watching the men march
off.

Their faces were cold and full of
suppressed anger. The chief centurion pre-empted their questions, telling them
to wait until they were back in barracks with the rest of the cohort. One of
the junior centurions nodded back to the gate house where the bodyguards were
watching the departing auxiliaries and jeering after them.

"Do you think they'll fire at
us?" he asked.

The chief centurion stared at the gate
house and the governors’ mansion. He stood there for a few moments, watching
the movement on the walls whilst listening to a woman crying on the cathedral
steps and the obscene laughter of the men who had caused her grief.

He turned back to answer the junior
centurions question.

"Not now they won't,” he said. His
expression changed, the anger and shock was replaced by a grim determination.
"But I reckon that they will before long."

19th
February 1920

Constantinople

Gregory Nicerites put down the report
he had been reading when a highly excited and flustered Georges Carbaros burst
into his office without knocking. Gregory looked up, startled by his personal
assistant's unannounced entrance. Georges was normally highly deferential to
his superior, so something dramatic must have happened to cause him to lose his
composure and to forget his manners. Gregory did not even get the chance to
demand an explanation.

"Tarraco has revolted!"
Carbaros announced in a shocked voice, waving a piece of paper in the air. He
started to expand on this statement but was too excited to make any sense.

Gregory looked at his agitated
assistant and decided that calming him down was the first thing that needed to
be done.

"Sit down Georges," he said,
trying to convey a cool and controlled expression that he hoped would settle
his assistants’ nerves, "and give me the full story."

Carbaros sat down and took a couple of
deep breaths, whilst Gregory maintained what he hoped was a serene air. It
seemed to work, and Carbaros proceeded to give a formal report.

"The news just came in from
Carthago Nova." Carbaros began, "The auxiliary cohort at Tarraco has
mutinied and murdered the Governor. The local Radical party leadership has
taken over all administrative posts with the support of the mutineers and
declared a self governing city state. Weapons have been distributed from the
local armoury to the citizens and the approaches to the city have been
blockaded."

"Diogenates, bloody Basil
Diogenates", Gregory spat out the name. He had warned the Emperor against
appointing him to a place such as Tarraco, but even he had not expected a fully
fledged revolt.

"What caused it?" he asked
his assistant.

Carbaros looked at his superior with a
blank expression. "Sorry sir, what do you mean, caused what? The
auxiliaries mutinied."

Gregory gave his assistant an
exasperated look. "Georges, five hundred auxiliaries do not just decide on
a whim that they want to shoot the city governor, no matter how much they may
dislike him. There is a reason for every action; I've been trying to drum that
into you for the last year! Now what happened!"

A subdued Carbaros quickly scanned the
report from Carthago Nova, the capital of Hispania.

"According to reports from
Tarraco, the governors’ personal guards opened fire on a rioting crowd after
arresting the leader of demonstration. The auxiliary commander was also placed
under arrest for insubordination."

"Probably for trying to talk some
sense into that idiot Diogenates!" interrupted Gregory. "So what is happening
now?"

Carbaros turned to the last page.
"The Provincial Governor ordered auxiliary cohorts at Barcino, Saguntium
and Valentia to restore order, but the troops barricaded themselves into their
barracks and refused to move. There are reports of other demonstrations in
support of Tarraco throughout the province and even some in Gaul and
Britannia"

The situation in Hispania was fragile,
thought Gregory. It needed a strong and intelligent man to resolve it without
the entire province turning into a conflagration that could consume half the
Empire. Gregory knew the provincial governor of Hispania to be highly capable
and well thought of by the people of the province, but would it be enough to
avert a catastrophe?

20th
February 1920

Minden,
Saxony

Cornelius gathered up the papers that
he would need and left his office. Taronites had been away visiting some
important Saxon officials for the last week and the first thing he had done on
his return to the embassy was to schedule a meeting with Cornelius to bring him
up to date on the trade negotiations. The discussions had been going well and
the ambassador did not want to lose momentum by adjourning the meetings, so he
had allowed Cornelius to act as head of the negotiating team during his
absence.

The extra work meant that there was
little time for socialising and Cornelius had only been able to see Katherine
once their dinner together. They had met for lunch a week ago, and had spent
the time happily debating various contentious points of Romano-German history.
After the meal they had walked along the river, with Katherine pointing out all
the spots where they could come for picnics in the spring. Since then he had
only managed to speak to her on the telephone between sessions at the trade
talks. She was usually at the university library and so was rarely home when he
found the opportunity to call. As he walked down the corridor to see the
ambassador Cornelius hoped that his work load would become lighter with
Taronites return. He was keen to spend more time with Katherine.

Taronites signalled Cornelius to take a
seat as soon as he was shown into the ambassadors’ office. He had been reading
a report and from the frown on his face Cornelius could tell that he was not
happy with the news it contained. However as Cornelius sat down, the ambassador
put the report aside and replaced the frown with a diplomatic smile.

"Welcome back ambassador,"
greeted Cornelius, "I trust you had a good visit."

"It was very enjoyable,"
replied Taronites, "but I'm not sure how useful it was. Endless visits to
the estates of important Saxon nobles to be shown how advanced and civilised
they have become and tell them how important their friendship is to the
Empire." He patted his stomach with his hands. "Every night some kind
of banquet or reception. I must have doubled my weight in the last week!"

Cornelius smiled at the ambassadors’
exaggeration, and they got down to discussing the trade talks. When Taronites
had left, there had been deadlock over the question of timber sales from
Saxony. The Saxon grievance was that they sold the wood to the Empire, who mass
produced cheap furniture in their factories and then sold it back to the
Saxons. The restrictions that the Empire had placed on the sale of machine
tools and advanced equipment had held back mechanisation in the Germanic states
and the furniture industry was a typical case. The Saxons could produce high
quality hand crafted furniture which sold for a good price to the rich, but
they could not compete with the highly mechanised factories across the Rhine
and Danube in the mass market. The Saxons were threatening to put high tariffs
on Roman furniture unless the Empire promised a significant increase in the
volume of 'quality Saxon furniture' that they purchased.

Cornelius believed that he had a
solution, and handed a file across to Taronites.

"Many of the big companies in the
Empire have been complaining about industrial unrest in their factories for
some time," began Cornelius, "I'm sure that some of them will be only
too willing to set up factories in Saxony. The furniture will be made in Saxony
by Saxons with Saxon wood, which will keep them happy, but the profits will
remain with imperial companies."

The ambassador scanned through the
papers in the file and thought about the proposal for a few moments.

"What about the restrictions on
the sale of heavy equipment outside the Empire?" he asked.

"The factories can be equipped with
old machinery that has been superseded," countered Cornelius, "it
will still be more advanced than what the Saxons have at the moment."

"What about the loss of jobs when
the factories are relocated?" asked the ambassador. "The radicals
will riot - which is what they're already doing, according to this morning’s
news report."

"If the Saxons impose those
tariffs there would be even more jobs lost than if we adopted this
proposal," explained Cornelius before changing the subject to the rioting.

"I heard about the massacre in
Tarraco and the mutiny. Has the trouble spread?"

The ambassador picked up the report he
had been reading when Cornelius had entered and waved it in front of him. He
glanced at it and informed Cornelius of some of the more pertinent points.

"A number of auxiliary units in
Hispania refused to put down the mutiny and there were demonstrations
throughout the province," he turned the page, "and in Gaul there've
been sporadic outbreaks of industrial unrest but nothing too serious.
However," the ambassadors voice took on a more concerned tone, "in
Britannia, widespread rioting has broken out with some places following the
example of Tarraco and declaring a self governing state. So far only a few
small towns have done so and the local auxiliaries are remaining loyal, but I
don't like the trend. It bodes ill for the Empire."

Cornelius agreed with the ambassador,
but at that moment he was more worried about his brother. If the unrest was
that widespread, the provincial governor would call upon the legions and other
regular troops to support the auxiliaries. Riot control was not a pleasant
duty.

21st
February 1920

Abonae,
Britannia

Titus looked up the street from the
entrance to the docks where he could see crowds of youths looting the shops
which lined the main road into the town. Occasionally somebody, egged on by the
others, would break away from the crowd, run a few yards towards the entrance
to the docks and throw a stone at the double line of legionaries.