Altar of Blood: Empire IX (6 page)

A tunic-clad slave crossed the chamber and stopped before them with a bow.

‘The Chamberlain will see you now, gentlemen. Please follow me.’

As he led them towards the door that led into Cleander’s office, he spoke softly over his shoulder, a hint of caution in his voice.

‘I gather you’ve been away for a year, Legatus, in which case I should advise you that the chamberlain has come to favour open shows of respect in his audiences with supplicants such as yourselves. A bow, perhaps, or—’

Scaurus nodded tersely.

‘The power does it to them all, given enough time. And I do not consider myself to be that man’s supplicant …’

Ignoring the slave’s raised eyebrow, he led Marcus into the audience chamber past a pair of armed Praetorians who closed the doors behind them. Seated before them, on the far side of a desk large enough to have served as a bed for two people given a mattress, the imperial chamberlain was writing on a sheet of paper, intent on the words he was inking onto the smooth, pale surface. He spoke without looking up, the quill tracking across the silky smooth surface without interruption.

‘One moment, gentlemen.’

Scaurus stared hard at him for a moment before snapping to attention, his example swiftly followed by Marcus, and waiting impassively while the man who effectively ran the empire completed his message, passing it to his letters slave for folding and sealing.

‘For immediate dispatch to the governor of Germania Inferior.’

The slave bowed respectfully.

‘And to be carried by a different messenger to the other letter, Chamberlain?’

Cleander smiled glacially, with very little humour evident.

‘I think so. Best not to risk the two being mixed up.’

He looked up at Scaurus, sitting back in his chair in silence for a moment.

‘It has become customary for the granting of an audience with the imperial chamberlain to be acknowledged by some small show of respect, Legatus.’

Scaurus nodded.

‘Your appointments secretary was good enough to suggest it to us, Chamberlain.’

‘And …?’

‘I chose to ignore his suggestion.’

Cleander grinned broadly, lounging back in his chair.

‘And that’s what I like about you, Rutilius Scaurus. No pretence, nothing but the most blunt of opinions stated in such a matter-of-fact way that only the most irascible of men could take offence. And trust me, a year of governing this empire on behalf of a man like Commodus has been
more
than enough to make me irascible.’

He opened his arms to highlight the fact that the three men were alone.

‘Under which circumstances I would have at least expected some appreciation of the fact that you have my undivided attention? No bodyguards, no Praetorians to stand between us …’

‘Nobody to overhear whatever it is that you want from us this time? Besides, we know you well enough. Were we to offer you violence your revenge would be spectacular in both reach and method.’

The chamberlain smiled again, shaking his head in an affectation of sadness.

‘Cynical, Legatus. But true enough. So, to business.’

He reached for a waiting sheet of paper covered in script, dipping his quill into a small gold pot of ink and signing it.

‘You are hereby discharged from the rank of legatus, with the heartfelt thanks of a grateful emperor for having managed to quell the threat from the Parthians and secured the status of our colony of Nisibis.’

Looking up from the paper for a moment, he nodded soberly.

‘A job genuinely well done, by the way. I read your report of the battle you fought with the King of Kings’ son and his allies, and it seems as if you provided the man with the most salutary of military lessons. I also noted that this young man’s diplomatic efforts seem to have resulted in a fresh lease of life for the current holder of the Parthian throne, one way or another, which is very much to the liking of the men who advise me on these matters, given his age and disinclination towards war. All in all, an excellent result.’

Scaurus nodded tersely.

‘However …?’

Cleander nodded.

‘Indeed …
however
. In the short time between your arrival in Antioch and your departure for the border with Parthia, you seem to have caused no small degree of upset among the men of the senatorial class with whom you interacted.’

He waited for Scaurus to comment, and when the soldier showed no signs of doing so a hint of irritation crept into his voice.

‘You managed to completely alienate the outgoing governor, for a start. And a man like Gaius Domitius Dexter isn’t going to take that sort of embarrassment sitting down. I spoke to him a week or so ago, and it’s safe to say that you’ve made yet another enemy to add to your long list. An influential enemy.’

Scaurus shrugged.

‘A venal man, Chamberlain. A man whose theft from the imperium was breathtaking not only in its monetary value but the degree to which it weakened a strategic frontier. He deserved every embarrassment I could heap on him.’

Cleander shrugged equably.

‘Indeed he did. Just be warned, Rutilius Scaurus. And that’s before we come to discussing the apparent murder, at least if Domitius Dexter is to be credited with having the truth of it, of a young broad stripe tribune by the name of …’ He looked down at a tablet. ‘Ah yes, Lucius Quinctius Flamininus. You’d be more than a little perturbed, Rutilius Scaurus, had you been present in any of the interviews I’ve been forced to endure with that young man’s father, given the depth of his righteous anger towards yourself and your tribune here.’

Nodding to himself as if he’d just recalled an important detail, he turned his attention back to the paper before him.

‘Which reminds me, Tribulus Corvus, or whatever it is that you’re calling yourself these days, you too are discharged from your position as a military tribune, thanks from a grateful throne, etcetera, etcetera. I commend you for your role in the Parthian matter, and I recommend that you never allow Flamininus the elder’s men to corner you on a dark street.’

Putting the quill down he looked at the two men before him with an expectant expression.

‘Nothing to say, Rutilius Scaurus? No protest at having your rank stripped away after having done such a fine job in the east?’

Scaurus shook his head, his features impassive.

‘It wasn’t my rank, Chamberlain. It belonged to the empire.’

The chamberlain raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘Oh how
very
noble. And these Britons you’ve dragged halfway across the empire and back again? How sanguine will your reaction be if I reassign them to a new tribune? Some ambitious young man with a career to build and somewhat less concern with how he might do so than you when it comes to the preservation of his men? After all, there’s always a war brewing somewhere, an opportunity for such a man to make his name at the expenses of a few thousand soldiers’ lives …’

He looked at Scaurus for a moment.

‘Does that prospect not concern you, Rutilius Scaurus?’

The subject of his scrutiny shook his head.

‘Nothing lasts forever, Chamberlain. If you’ve chosen to retire me then I shall simply have to make the best of it. If …’

‘
If
indeed. You’re a perceptive man, Scaurus, I’ve never denied that, even whilst cursing your gift of causing upset among the richest and most influential men in Rome. I do have
something
in mind for you both, and for the men who follow you, although you might find yourself wishing I’d decided to let you idle away the rest of your life.’

‘Germania? Again?’

Scaurus smiled at the most outspoken of his centurions in the transit barracks’ lamplight. He’d decided to decamp from the house on the Viminal Hill in order to ensure that no hint of the Tungrians’ latest mission, or even their immediate destination, could reach prying ears. A former prince of the Brigantes, the tribe through whose lands the Roman defence of northern Britannia ran from sea to sea, Dubnus had long since given up any pretence at moderating his forthright manner.

‘Yes, Centurion, it’s Germania Inferior. Again. But this isn’t the Germania Inferior you know. What you saw was the civilised edge of the province where it abuts Gallia Belgica, farmland for the most part with the occasional vineyard. Whereas in reality Germania Inferior isn’t really much more than a military buffer zone, a strip of land no more than thirty miles deep protected by legions and auxiliary cohorts camped along the length of the river between the sea in the north-west and Fortress Bonna two hundred miles to the south-east. The governor of the province has two simple tasks to perform, the most important of which is to ensure that the barbarian tribes who inhabit the land on the other side of the river don’t get any ideas about crossing the Rhenus and settling in the Gaulish provinces to the west. And while the mission that the chamberlain has set out for us will initially take us to Germania Inferior, we won’t be staying there for long.’

The men he’d gathered for the briefing seemed to collectively lean closer to their newly reinstated tribune. In addition to Dubnus, who had acted as the
1
st Tungrian cohort’s first spear while Julius had been temporarily ranked as the Third legion’s senior centurion during their time in the east, he had summoned Qadir, a centurion who hailed from the city of Hama in Syria, a man he valued highly both for his imperturbable steadiness and his men’s skill with their bows, and Cotta, simply for the veteran’s experience and forthright opinions. His German slave Arminius stood behind him, having long since become more companion than bondsman, the first member of the small group of men Scaurus had come to consider as his familia. Ignoring Julius’s disgust at being left behind, Scaurus had swiftly decided that since only a small portion of his two cohorts’ strength would be marching north he would leave a strong leader to ensure that those men left behind were kept fit and ready to fight, and since Marcus already knew the detail of their mission he’d sent the younger man home with the first spear to spend a little time with his son before the time came to leave. Taking a sip of the wine that he traditionally served at such gatherings of his officers, he pointed to the map that lay unfurled on the desk before him.

‘I’ll be taking a small party of men north to the provincial capital, and leaving the rest of both cohorts here, a distance of a thousand miles that I expect will take twenty-five days or so on horseback. From there we’ll cross the river by whatever means is deemed to be the most likely to get us onto the far bank without being discovered.’

Cotta looked up at him in surprise.

‘We’re going to
cross
the Rhenus?’

Scaurus’s lips twitched into a wry smile.

‘It’ll be fairly difficult to carry out the task I’ve been handed by the emperor’s chamberlain if we don’t.’

The veteran centurion shook his head with a stubborn expression.

‘But … everyone knows that barbarian Germania’s just a mess of forests and bogs, Tribune. How are we going to make any progress through
that
?’

He fell silent as he realised that both Scaurus and Arminius were looking at him with expressions of amusement.

‘You shouldn’t believe everything that you’re told, Centurion Cotta. The lands across the Rhenus are no better and no worse than those on the western bank, they just haven’t been subjected to Roman influence. There’s some fertile farmland, some deep forests and yes, even some mountains and bogs, but very little of it is completely impassable. The biggest challenge won’t be the terrain, it’ll be making sure that we’re not detected by the tribesmen who inhabit the land we’ll be crossing to reach our objective. Because if they find out what it is that we’re hoping to take away from them then both cohorts wouldn’t be enough to protect us. Not nearly enough.’

Dubnus stared at him in open disbelief.

‘What is it that’s so important to these tribesmen that we have to take it away? Gold?’

Scaurus shook his head.

‘It isn’t a what, Centurion, it’s a who. We’re ordered to effect an abduction, gentlemen, a kidnapping of the most dangerous person in the whole of Germania.’

‘Since you’re here you can hold this young man while I sort out their dinner.’

Marcus took his son from Annia, placing the squirming infant onto his knee and jigging the child up and down to both their delight, his misery forgotten momentarily at the sight of his son’s innocent enjoyment.

‘And you, infamous daughter-namer, can have this wriggling bundle of delight.’

Depositing her daughter Victoria into her husband’s lap she turned on her heel and stalked into the kitchen, noisily rattling pots as she prepared the two children’s evening meal. Julius and Marcus exchanged knowing glances, the heavily bearded first spear grimacing at his friend.

‘Best not to say anything when she’s in this mood. She only brings up the fact that I chose the girl’s name without consulting her when she’s raging about something or other.’

The retort from the kitchen was instant.

‘I heard that. And you needn’t pull that face either.’

Silence reigned for a while, broken only by the children’s giggles, Julius’s eyes narrowing as his daughter first found his beard and then discovered the fun to be had from pulling at it.

‘So it’s Germania?’

His question went unanswered for a moment, while the Roman watched his son’s face beam with delight at their game.

‘So it seems. A simple enough task, as long as we don’t let the Bructeri get scent of us.’

‘Bructeri?’

‘A German tribe who live on the land across the river from the provincial capital.’

He moved the child to his other knee, repeating the jigging trick to provoke another giggling shout of delight, and Julius stared at him for a moment before speaking.

‘Marcus …’ The Roman looked up at him, eyebrows rising at the troubled look on his friend’s face. ‘Are you sure that you’re ready for this?’

‘Which means you’re sure I’m not.’

Julius shrugged helplessly.

‘You’re your own man. But …’