Enemy of Rome (48 page)

‘Vultures,’ Aprilis spat as they ran past looters ransacking a jeweller’s shop.

‘What happens if the enemy already hold the Castra Praetoria?’ Valerius gasped.

Aprilis turned to stare at him. ‘Then we die where we stand.’

The Castra had not been taken. They cleared the Porta Viminalis, lungs burning and legs shaking with the long run uphill, and there it stood: huge and impregnable, a massive red-brick square with walls three times the height of a man studded with towers at regular intervals. It had been the Praetorian barracks since the time of Augustus, but it was a fortress too, with the largest armoury in the city. Now the survivors of Vitellius’s Praetorian Guard streamed from the Viminal gate or down the Via Salaria to make their last stand here. No surrender for these men. They were the veterans of the German legions who proclaimed Aulus Vitellius Emperor and they had no illusions about their fate if they were captured. Aprilis summed it up for all of them. ‘If the bastards want to kill us it’s going to cost them dear.’

Valerius knew that if he refused to draw his sword against the Flavians he’d be condemned as a spy or a coward, and the outcome would be the same in either case. He had already seen one man, a civilian accused of signalling to the attackers, being executed, his head rolling in the dust of the parade ground.

He tried to put Domitia out of his mind, but her face kept forcing its way into his head. His inability to protect her tore him like an almost physical pain. If he climbed one of the towers he would be able to see the roof of the Golden House, but he might as well have been in Parthia for all the good he could do.

Aprilis found him a silver breastplate, and offered a
scutum
with the silver lightning bolts of the Guard on the face. Valerius shrugged back his sleeve to show the mottled stump of his arm. ‘All I need is a sword.’

Valerius had plenty of experience of sieges. Preparations for this one were more hurried and less ordered than they’d been at Placentia, where Valerius and Serpentius helped see off Caecina’s legions. There was no shortage of
pila
, which lay stacked in bundles at intervals along the wall. What was in short supply were archers and artillery. The first could be relied on to make life difficult for anyone attacking the walls or climbing the big siege ladders, the second for breaking up the attacks with boulders the size of a man’s head or the devastating five-foot ‘shield-splitters’. But the most pressing lack was in manpower.

The Vitellians had begun the day with three cohorts and about ten thousand militia, a force barely capable of hindering the Flavian legions, never mind stopping them. When the Praetorians had been forced to retreat the armed civilians had melted away like snow in summer. Aprilis and his comrades had fought bravely to hold the Milvian Bridge and the Salarian Way, but they had been relentlessly forced back, taking casualties along the way. The Castra was defended by barely half the three thousand who had marched out to defend Rome.

Valerius reckoned the walls of the fort at around four hundred and fifty paces by four hundred, which meant less than one man to defend every pace of wall. That didn’t take into account those needed to man the few
ballistae
and
onagri
in the towers. Nor did it leave any reserves, which, from his experience at Placentia, Valerius knew would be vital to respond to any breakthrough. There would be no care for the wounded, no rations brought to the walls. Every man would have to fend for himself. All Marcus Antonius Primus had to do was throw a legion at each wall, use his archers to keep the defenders’ heads down, and the fort would be swamped. ‘It is hopeless,’ he warned Aprilis. ‘We won’t last a day.’

‘Then what is your alternative?’ the centurion challenged.

‘You should surrender,’ Valerius said flatly. He knew it was unthinkable for the Praetorian, but the words had to be said.

Aprilis’s face reddened. ‘Use that word again and I will kill you myself,’ he said, and turned to walk away.

From their viewing point on one of the corner towers, Valerius watched the legions form up for the attack. He could see the symbols of at least five different units on the big shields that were visible from his position. Long lines of legionaries were waiting patiently in open order just out of range of the defenders’ non-existent archers, the heavy
ballistae
arrayed behind them. The distant rattle of hammers identified carpenters knocking together the covered siege ramps that would bring the attackers within reach of the wall without exposing them to spears or arrows. In addition, Primus would have ladders every five or ten paces and the besiegers would swarm over regardless. He almost laughed. Siege? They’d be fortunate to last till darkness fell.

‘We need to find somewhere to make a stand when they break through.’ Valerius was surprised to find Aprilis back at his side.

‘We might hold them for a while from the armoury.’ Valerius left unsaid that the end would be the same in any case.

The Praetorian caught his tone. ‘A man must fight to his last breath and his last heartbeat,’ he said. ‘What other way is there?’

Valerius didn’t reply. The armoury was in the centre of the fort, part of a sprawling complex of buildings close to the
principia
. What did it matter anyway? Their chances of reaching it with the Flavian legionaries crawling over the walls were more or less non-existent. It was only a matter of time. And time was running out. By now it was dusk, but whoever commanded the siege was in a hurry. With an enormous rush the first catapult missile tore the air above them, the sound instantly followed by an echoing crash. It had begun.

Valerius adjusted his breastplate as the legionaries of the Third Gallica began their slow, inexorable march towards the west wall where he stood. Line after line of brightly coloured shields. The first of the smaller artillery pieces loosed their missiles and he heard a crash and screaming away to his left. It was going to be Placentia all over again, but at least at Placentia the defenders had reason for hope and optimism. Here there was only a grim resolve. Despair, fortified by a measure of truculent defiance.

He thought of the men who would climb the ladders. Men he had fought beside on the road to Cremona.
I won’t kill unless I have to.
He must have spoken the words aloud because Aprilis laughed. ‘Then you will certainly die here.’

‘Come, child, this is no time for delay.’

Galeria Fundana’s urgent tones dragged Domitia Longina Corbulo from the cocoon of her thoughts. The Augusta stood in the doorway, with an arm around Lucius. The boy’s eyes were filled with a mixture of fear and excitement, as if this were some mildly perilous game rather than a matter of life and death. The massive bulk of Aulus Vitellius hovered protectively over them, his face pale as an alabaster statue. Vitellius hadn’t shaved for a week and his cheeks were dark with stubble as if he was in mourning. In the distance Domitia could hear a muted buzz, occasionally punctuated by a shout and the frightening sound of the clash of arms.

‘She is right, my dear. You will be safer in our villa on the Aventine than in the Golden House,’ the Emperor said.

‘But Valerius …’ She shook her head. It was unthinkable that she leave without seeing him. He’d promised he would come for her and she must have the faith to wait.

‘He would have been here if he could, my lady.’ She turned in surprise to see Serpentius in the doorway, a look of weary resignation on his scarred features.

‘Where is—’

‘Safe. As safe as any of us are,’ the Spaniard assured her as gently as his nature allowed. ‘That must be enough for you.’

‘He will have been delayed by the confusion on the streets,’ Vitellius suggested. ‘If the gods will it, he will find you before this is over.’ She stared at him. Did he believe it was possible? She thought of the scarred features, and the eyes that had seen too much war. Gaius Valerius Verrens had survived the Temple of Claudius, the defeat at Bedriacum and the victory at Cremona. If any man could live through this it would be Valerius. The shouts grew more insistent and Vitellius paused as a guard appeared at his shoulder and whispered something his ear. Domitia saw a flinch of anguish, but he kept his features composed. ‘Please,’ he insisted. ‘It is your duty to look after Lucius. We must not delay.’

Duty. The word had followed her since she was eight years old, prodding and insisting. ‘A Corbulo does not have the luxury of choice,’ her father had said. ‘Only duty.’

‘Very well,’ she nodded. ‘Come, Lucius,’ she forced a smile as she took the boy’s hand, ‘we will count the sparrows on the way.’

Aulus Vitellius accompanied his family to the carriage that would carry them to safety and watched them ride away. Galeria stared rigidly ahead and little Lucius was already fascinated by the game Domitia Longina Corbulo had invented. Valerius’s Spanish comrade trotted by their side and he was glad the former gladiator would be there to protect them. He should have sent them earlier, he knew, but the truth was he couldn’t bear to be parted from them. Galeria Fundana was his strength, the rock that anchored him to his duty when the call of decadence became too loud to resist. Lucius was his reason for existing. He felt a fat tear trickle down his cheek. He had failed them. Utterly. He had promised to protect them, but now he had sent them out on to the perilous streets of a city under siege. Why? Because when the soldiers came the danger on the street would be infinitely less than here in this great glittering mausoleum. Alone at last – he’d sent all his guards and courtiers with Galeria – he wandered the echoing marble corridors, with their busts and their artworks, his legs shaking with fear and anticipation of what was to come. What did they matter now, all these shining baubles and this overwhelming sumptuousness that threatened to entomb him? When he’d been in debt he dreamed of a palace like this, but like the man who built it he’d been a fool. Vespasian was welcome to it – all of it. Better to have lived on bread and olives than come to an end such as this. He found himself in the entrance hall, with the enormous golden statue of Nero towering over him. He’d never replaced the head, but … His hand went to his neck. Would they? The Praetorians had sent him the head of Titus Flavius Sabinus and he had cringed from its accusing, glassy-eyed stare. The image triggered a new wave of panic. Vitellius staggered through to his private quarters, almost running now and with his heart thundering in his chest. The doors were locked, but he flung his weight at them, bursting them open. There, on the table, Caesar’s sword. He reached for it with shaking fingers and heard the acclamation of the legions as they proclaimed him Emperor at Moguntiacum. CAESAR! CAESAR! CAESAR!

He’d never called himself Caesar, though other men had, but he’d carried Caesar’s sword. Now he pulled it from its scabbard with that soft, familiar hiss. And almost dropped it. He had never seen it like this before, that gleaming, dangerous edge and the needle point. No longer an ornament, but a weapon of war. A killing weapon. How he wished Valerius were here. Valerius would know. Valerius would help him make the final decision. Tentatively, he raised his head and brought the point up to touch the folds of flesh at his throat. One thrust was all it would take. One thrust and it was over. But what if he botched it? Men took hours to die, sometimes days, with a wound like that. Could he bear it? No, there must be another way. He heard a childish mewing and felt a rush of revulsion when he realized it was from his own lips.
You are still the Emperor of Rome
, the rebuke was a silent scream,
for your family’s sake and your ancestors’, act like one.
He raised the point again, closing his eyes as the cold metal brushed the pulsing artery in his neck.
One thrust.
Shouts and the clatter of running hobnailed feet, skidding at the doorway.
Do it now.

‘You don’t get away that easily.’ Rough hands tore the hilt of Caesar’s sword from his fingers, nicking his skin in the process. He willed himself to open his eyes and witness his bane, but the lids wouldn’t obey his mind.

‘Look at that,’ someone else laughed. ‘Caesar’s pissed himself.’

‘Don’t bother about that, search him, and do it properly. There’s enough of him – who knows what he’s got hidden away under all that blubber?’

More laughter as they tore at his clothing, dragging his toga back and tearing at his tunic. Vitellius felt a wave of revulsion and humiliation as the toga dropped away and fingers probed at him. Finally, one of his captors grabbed his hands and wrenched them behind his back, the rope cutting deep into his wrists and making him cry out in pain. Another tied a second length of rope in a loose noose around his neck. Vitellius had an image of a bull being led to the sacrifice and his eyes snapped open in terror. Not even in his most terrible nightmares had he imagined it would be like this.

Ten or twelve soldiers were in the room. Most of them stared in bewildered amusement at the corpulent figure who had been their Emperor, while the others tore at cabinets and moved furniture in search of loot. Their leader, a blood-spattered centurion with a horror of a face, held Caesar’s sword in one hand and the end of the noose rope in the other. The Emperor flinched as he jerked it sharply forward.

‘Where’s the treasure?’ he demanded in a guttural southern accent.

Aulus Vitellius raised his chins and looked down his nose at his captors, and attempted to regain some kind of dignity. ‘There is treasure all around you in this house. Take what you will; I have no further use for it.’

‘Statues, paintings,’ the man spat. ‘An idol the size of an
insula
that isn’t even made of proper gold. I mean portable treasure: money, ornaments, jewellery. The Golden House is supposed to be full of the stuff, chests of golden
aurei
and rubies as big as my fist.’

‘A myth,’ Vitellius lied. ‘What little money and jewels were in the house went with the Praetorians when they withdrew to the Castra Praetoria. Perhaps you should look for it there?’ The truth was that the wagon carrying Galeria had been fitted with a false bottom. Hopefully, his loyal guards would be burying the chests it held in the garden of the Aventine house. He had no time to enjoy this minor triumph before the centurion delivered a back-handed slap to his cheek that made his eyes water and the tears run again.