The Gods of War (22 page)

The birth of the first child changed Marcellus. Always assiduous in duties pertaining to his office, he became more so, determined that his area of Gallia Cisaplina would be the best administered in the region. Originally reluctant to explore the furthest reaches of his responsibilities, he now instituted a mobile court, taking justice to the very edge of Roman power. He met and spoke with the Celtic chieftains,
restating his predecessor’s vow that overzealous rustling would not go unpunished and while he traversed the land they controlled, he studied the terrain, which so benefited the inhabitants that conquest appeared impossible. To those who worked alongside the praetor, it was obvious that his whole attitude to his position had changed. They nodded sagely, casting favourable opinions on the effects of fatherhood.

On the night of the birth, when Marcellus walked under a star-filled sky, he felt, for the first time, that sense of immortality, which is a child’s gift to any new parent. It was a defining moment, one at which he felt some understanding for his own father. There and then he cast off the torpor that had affected him since he came north; he was young, he had time, just as he now had responsibility. Quintus Cornelius would not succeed; somehow Marcellus would get back to the centre of things, to take his rightful place in the City of Rome, and to gain and hold a power that he was determined would one day fall to his son.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They came year after year, new proconsuls sent by the Senate to fight what had become known as ‘The Fiery War’, all with the same aim; Aquila watched them come and go, despising each one a little more than the last, because Roman legionaries would die for the careers of these avaricious politicians. They arrived mouthing words of noble purpose and, naturally, the soldiers hoped this new man would be different from the last; they were usually disappointed and their discipline suffered for it.

The legions they brought did nothing to increase the strength of the army; with conflict now permanent, these new levies were needed just to replace the losses. The Roman base camp on the frontier had been in existence so long it was now like a small town. Nearly every soldier had a local ‘wife’, an attachment that did little to keep them out of the wine shops and brothels,
which had been set up outside the camp walls. Most cared only for the spoils of war, so that they could sustain their drinking and whoring, as well as satisfy the raucous demands from their local women that they provide for their bastards. They killed without thinking, marched wherever their commander sent them, and ceased to moan about their use as fodder for another’s ambition, as long as they received their share of the spoils.

Aquila, alone in the
princeps
of the 18th, avoided permanent attachments, enduring the good-natured ribbing he got from Fabius, who enjoyed a complicated series of liaisons. He consolidated the position of senior centurion in his legion and had become, without trying, someone to be reckoned with, even impressing the local levies of axillaries by learning the language. It was only after he had returned to Rome that Pomponius realised that the tribunes he dismissed for electing Aquila Terentius had all been appointees of Quintus Cornelius; that, and the whispering campaign they mounted against him, cost him his triumph. The message, to avoid interfering in legionary elections, was not lost on his successors. Aquila was always voted in, and by so comprehensive a margin that he held the post no matter who he offended.

He tried to keep his men up to the mark by
personal example, and garnered decorations, as well as scars, for his personal bravery on every operation. After the first few years, a succession of young tribunes, usually clients of the serving general, arrived from Rome to take command, replacing more experienced men. Most found, after an initial attempt to overawe him, that it was better to work through, as well as learn from, the formidable
primus pilus
. He took as much care of them as he did the rankers, well aware that their birth and background sometimes caused them to be foolishly brave. Whilst their attitude to personal danger was something he admired, it did nothing to alter his feelings for a system that elevated such novices over soldiers with long experience.

He was cherished by the men for the care he took for their safety, while being heaped in an equal measure of verbal ordure for his uncompromising methods. His training, in an army remarkable for that attribute, was exhausting. He commanded troops who, once they had been separated from women and the wine gourd, could run five miles and still fight. Given their efficiency, they were always in the thick of the battle, often, as in the case of Pomponius, engaged in snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, yet, thanks to his iron
discipline and tactical common sense, the 18th’s casualties remained relatively low.

The senior commanders generally loathed him; first for the way he questioned their orders, but more seriously for the annoying habit he had of being right. Time and again he informed them that they were fighting a war which required lightly armed, mobile forces, backed by a powerful cavalry arm, or one with high-built towers and ballistae to destroy and overcome fortifications. And he gave each new senator the same message; there was only one way to actually stop the war, and that was to go beyond the pastoral tribes who inhabited the frontier and attack the hill forts of the interior, starting with Pallentia.

The determined ones, already aware of this, would nod sagely, before they looked at the problem. Certainly, they would lay plans and make arrangements, but, with only a year to make their mark, the idea evaporated as the weeks of preparation slipped into months. Aquila watched the process with a jaundiced eye, until the day came when he and the men under his command were ordered to attack a softer target. No senator wanted to go home with nothing, and that led to a great deal of hard, brutal fighting; it also made a bad situation worse.

With a really lazy general it sufficed to accuse some innocent tribe of revolt, sack their camps, steal their wealth and sell the people into slavery. The idea that the system was corrupt had first occurred to Aquila before he ever set foot in Spain. Little of what he had observed since did anything to change his opinion: that the Republic was a rich man’s pasture, from which the mass of citizens were excluded.

The day she found out that her son might have survived, Claudia could not contain herself. All her normal reserves deserted her. Sextius, full of concern, found her weeping, not aware that these were tears of joy, mixed with the fear that this was yet another false trail, but, as ever, he was concerned with appearances. What would his host, Cassius Barbinus, say if he emerged from his bedchamber with his wife red-eyed from crying? Then, remembering the reputation of his fellow-senator, he smirked; the old satyr would probably approve, assuming that Sextius had ill-used Claudia. Doubtless, with such a gossip the story of his marital debauchery would be all over Rome in a flash.

Dinner was a trial; Claudia wanted nothing to do with food, she wanted to go back to see Annius Dabo on his farm, to ask him more about
Piscius, his father, a man whose ashes had long since been scattered in the wind. Not that the son was very forthcoming; he had given her a name, a bit of a description; an age, younger than Annius, that placed this Aquila near the right year. She knew that this boy had left the farm with some soldiers many years before, heading for Sicily, but there was little else; no mention of that golden charm she had wound round his ankle on the night of his birth, the eagle that would positively identify him.

‘The name,’ she said, not aware that she had spoken out loud.

‘Sorry, my dear?’ said Sextius, while Cassius Barbinus and the other guests looked at her strangely.

‘It’s nothing.’

Claudia forced herself to smile, but in her heart she was thinking that Aquila was an unusual name for a child. Yet you might choose that name if something about the infant led you to do so.

Mancinus dragged his eyes away from the gold eagle round the senior centurion’s neck. For reasons he could not understand, this object unnerved him; come to that, the owner got under his skin merely for the way he looked at his commanding general.

‘I want you to take a small force and reconnoitre this fort. I intend to invest it and I want up-to-date intelligence. And I will move the army to a forward area to be ready, away from the camp and its comforts.’

Mancinus pointed to Pallentia, clearly marked on the map before him. Aquila leant forward, the decorations that adorned his tunic flashing in the light from the lamp. His charm swung free, so he took it in his hand to hold it out of the way. Mancinus, now that he could not see it, felt relieved, but that did little to dent his curiosity. It was very Celtic in appearance, very likely the property of some rich Iberian chieftain. That was what he wanted, a cartload of similar trophies to take back to Rome.

‘Even a small force should be a tribune’s command,’ said Aquila.

The senator was annoyed, and not for the first time. Terentius seemed to be totally unaware of the respect due to a man of his rank. He sought to put him in his place, quite unaware of the pit he was digging for himself.

‘None of the men I brought out with me have the necessary experience.’

Aquila looked at him without speaking, but the glare said it all; the wisdom of arriving in Spain, every year, with a whole new batch of
tribunes, was the question in his eyes. Mancinus was thinking that those same tribunes were fools; they should never have elected this man as
primus pilus
. He was unaware that he would have faced a mutiny from his soldiers if they had dared appoint anyone else. Aquila Terentius might wear the golden eagle on his neck, but to the rankers of the 18th it was just as much their talisman as his. The legionaries had seen him kiss it just before a fight, watched him go into situations where no man had the right to survive and emerge with barely a scratch; take cohort after cohort through the enemy lines without loss, and damn tribunes, legates, quaestors and generals openly for their stupidity.

He kept them fed and warm where the means allowed, and never left a comrade to die if there was any chance of rescue. And then, to temper his power, there was Fabius, who debunked his ‘uncle’ at every turn, and acted as a conduit for any man with a grievance. Little flogging occurred in Aquila’s legion unless it involved the theft of another man’s goods and no one could remember anyone being broken at the wheel. Discipline was tight, and all the more effective for being, in the main, self-imposed. He was a paragon, and all the more unwelcome in the tent of a poltroon because of it.

Mancinus struggled to hold the stare, then coughed and turned away, silently cursing the horns of his personal dilemma. He had come here, like the others, anticipating easy conquests and personal gain, and on the way it had looked simple. Break an alliance with a tribe that had already submitted to Rome, kill their warrior menfolk and enslave the rest; demand a triumph to display your booty and retire to a life of ease, interspersed with a little politics. Quintus Cornelius had done it, as had practically every commander in the ten years since, and the Senate, for all the huffing and puffing of some members, had usually left well alone. The majority howled down the cries of the few with honour that these men should be impeached, and used procedural motions to nullify the machinations of the new juries manned by the knights.

But that was the problem; the war had dragged on too long. The siren voices were growing louder, demanding results from a conflict that drained the resources of the state while it enriched the generals. His predecessors had swept things pretty clean, so that all the tribes with anything worth taking now occupied heavily fortified positions and refused to deal with Roman proconsuls. Mancinus had to satisfy the Senate, as well as make his own mark; if there
was no other way to achieve his aim, he would have to attack this fortress.

‘Might I suggest that I take a pair of the new tribunes along? It will be good for them.’

The consul turned back to look as the other man stood upright. Aquila was a foot taller than him with closely cropped hair, red-gold against his tanned face. He had as many scars as decorations, but it was the eyes that commanded attention. They pinned you like an unlucky fly, demanding that you pay heed to any words he uttered. It was as though Aquila were the general and noble Mancinus a mere ranker.

The senator sniffed loudly. ‘How can I ask a tribune to take orders from you?’

‘Just ask them if they want to stay alive, General.’

He had already thought of a pair he wanted to take; the pick of a pretty poor bunch, twin brothers, and he had a definite suspicion that one of them was a pederast. But Gnaeus Calvinus kept his hands to himself, and showed proper care for the troops he commanded, never putting his comfort before theirs. His brother Publius also had all the makings of a proper soldier, being physically tough, and he led from the front during training. As a new tribune, he had quietly stopped the habitual ribbing that anyone in his
position was subjected to by choosing the toughest man in his unit, taking him to a quiet spot, and beating the living daylights out of him.