Thunder of the Gods (20 page)

‘But your written orders from the governor—’

‘Say that I am permitted to march for Nisibis with half of the legion’s strength. There are ten cohorts in the legion, First Spear, and I’m marching from here on my way to Nisibis with four of them. It seems like a fairly basic piece of arithmetic. I’d say I’m exceeding the governor’s instructions. I expect he’ll be appropriately appreciative.’

Quintinus shook his head.

‘But—’

‘
No
.’

The legatus’s voice cut him off with an abrupt force of personality that he’d chosen not to display since arriving in the city.

‘The trick with orders, First Spear, lies in the way that they are written and the way in which they can therefore be
interpreted
. I am ordered to march from here with, in terms I have committed to memory, “No more than half of the legion’s strength”. And so I shall, taking four full-strength cohorts to make up less than half of the legion’s theoretical manpower. After all, my orders made no mention of the words
actual strength
, did they? And I’m leaving you to defend the city with the Second, Fourth, Fifth and the Seventh cohorts. With the transfers I’ve just effected, you’ll be left with eight hundred men or thereabouts, more than enough to keep order in a civilised city like Antioch, I would have thought?’

Quintinus shook his head, unsure how he should present his objections to the orders scratched into the tablets’ waxy brown surfaces.

‘Legatus?’

Scaurus waved a dismissive hand at his broad stripe tribune.

‘A moment, Gabinus Umbrius. The first spear and I will conclude this discussion very shortly.’

Quintinus shook his head unhappily.

‘Legatus, with all due respect, this will leave me with only the youngest recruits and the oldest veterans to defend Antioch. That hardly seems fair to—’

‘To the people of the city? Or to you, First Spear? What precisely was it that you expected? That I’d be stupid enough to obey the orders of a vindictive and corrupt fool like Domitius Dexter? That I would happily march out of here with just enough men to raise a decent dust trail once I’m across the Euphrates, and bring the enemy down on me? After all, half of the legion’s actual spear count is barely fifteen hundred men.’

The senior attempted to interject a second time, his voice beginning to sound as much petulant as concerned.

‘Legatus?’

Scaurus waved his hand again without turning to look at the tribune, a smile twitching at his lips.

‘Indulge me a little longer, Gabinus Umbrius.’

Quintinus shook his head, his face a picture of bafflement.

‘But what if the Parthians get around you, cross the Euphrates and attack the city? Surely you can’t simply ignore the governor’s orders?’

‘Legatus!’

Scaurus turned to look at his deputy, his face suddenly dark with anger at the attempted note of command in his subordinate’s voice.

‘My patience with you, Tribune Umbrius, is at an end. First Spear Julius!’

Julius stepped forward with a grim face.

‘Legatus?’

‘Draw your sword. And if this young
gentleman
speaks just one more time without being invited to open his mouth, use it to behead him, here and now. The charge on which he will have been executed will become clear soon enough.’

Julius swept his sword from its scabbard with a hiss of oiled metal, raising the brightly polished iron to show the tribune the weapon’s edge, and Umbrius took a step backwards when he saw the absolute certainty in the first spear’s eyes that he would obey his legatus’s command. Scaurus turned back to Quintinus with a questioning look.

‘Now, you were saying? Ah yes, what if the Parthians get around my admittedly small force and attack the city? Surely the answer to that one is clear enough?’

He laughed hollowly.

‘All you have to do is order your men back from leave. Pull your detached units back into the city. And call back the soldiers you’ve set to making the countryside safe by hunting wild animals. That will more than double your manpower.’

He fell silent, staring implacably at Quintinus while the older man struggled for words. When he spoke again his voice was deceptively soft.

‘Except you can’t, can you? Because, First Spear, as we both know all too well, not very many of those men actually
exist
, do they?’

Silenced reigned for a long moment before he continued in the face of the first spear’s dumbstruck silence.

‘It has been evident to me from the first day of my command, First Spear, that something was deeply wrong with a legion that had so many men recorded as absent, especially as Quintus Magius Lateranus was careful enough to take his secretary with him when he left so suddenly, along with the set of legion records that would have exposed your fraud, leaving only the official version of the records for me to examine. It didn’t take me long to work out what was going on, of course, but I saw no value in accusing you of being responsible for the scheme since I was also pretty much convinced that it probably wasn’t directly of your making. To be brutally honest with you, First Spear, you’re neither brave enough nor stupid enough to have been the man responsible. You were clearly involved, but more by way of tolerating what was being done to your legion than an active participant. There had to be bigger men than you behind the whole thing.’

He turned and stared pitilessly at the tribune, nodding grimly as the man’s face went red.

‘Men like you, Gabinus Umbrius. Well-connected men with that sense of entitlement that seems to permeate so many of your class.’

He turned back to Quintinus.

‘But now it’s time for the truth. If I catch you lying to me one more time, First Spear, I’ll have you flogged to ribbons and executed on the parade ground this morning, with your legion watching you. You will die as a disgraced private soldier, your savings and property will be sequestered by the state in compensation for your theft, and your family, who you will never see again, will be thrown out onto the street.’

The first spear started, and Scaurus shrugged wearily.

‘Did you imagine that nobody knew about your little secret? Since it was clear to me that Lateranus and his cronies must have had some hold over you, I set a couple of my men to follow you on the day that I gave the legion a half-day’s holiday. They tracked you into the city, as a result of which I know enough about your illegal wife and child to understand how it was that you were forced to remain silent as your legion was bled dry. After all, Lateranus could have seen you dismissed in disgrace, with your property confiscated in its entirety, down to the last coin in your purse. You knew only too well what would happen to your family if you were suddenly rendered destitute, here in Antioch of all places. But now, of course, your loved ones pose you a different problem, not one of keeping silent, but rather one of speaking the truth, here and now. Because if you continue to keep the truth from me, I will have no option but to exact the punishment I’ve already described. I won’t take any pleasure in doing so, First Spear, but trust me, I
will
do what I have to.’

Quintinus had gone deathly pale, and could do no more than stare mutely at Scaurus, as the legatus rammed home his advantage.

‘So, First Spear, you have just one chance to tell the truth. Were you involved in the fraud I have uncovered?’

Quintinus straightened his back.

‘Yes, Legatus.’

‘How wise of you to admit it. So, how many men are genuinely absent with permission?’

‘No more than five hundred.’

Scaurus stared at him in disgust.

‘And how does this fraud work exactly?’

‘Two hundred men or so leave the legion every year, as they take their retirement. And Legatus Lateranus was a strict officer, dishonourably dismissing men from imperial service at any opportunity. And with every man’s retirement or dismissal, new names have been entered into the legion records as fresh recruits.’

‘False names?’

‘Yes, Legatus.’

The legatus looked across at Umbrius, who was now staring at the floor.

‘And their pay, the cost of equipping them and their rations goes straight into a few select purses. Did neither of you really think this would never come to light? You may speak, Tribune.’

The patrician’s voice had utterly lost its former superiority.

‘It was Legatus Lateranus’s idea. He believed that the Parthians are a broken enemy, commanded by a king so old and lacking in power that all of his attention will be given to simply holding onto his throne. He believed that we would get so much notice of any threat that recruiting and replacing the fictitious men with new recruits would be easy enough.’

Scaurus bellowed an order at the patrician, his voice snapping out with unaccustomed ferocity.

‘Stand to attention, Tribune!’

After a moment’s hesitation, Umbrius drew himself up into the brace position, and Scaurus walked across to stand behind his deputy, speaking quietly in his ear with an edge of menace whose barely controlled ferocity chilled even the men who knew him.

‘It was all Quintus Magius Lateranus’s idea? He’s to be the sacrifice on this particular altar is he? When my formal report goes to Rome, it’s to place the blame on Lateranus, is it? With you and the first spear here as his victims, unable to resist his authority, and no mention of Domitius Dexter.’

‘The governor had nothing—’

‘I grow weary of your lies, Tribune. The governor, as we both know only too well, had everything to do with it.’

The tribune’s eyes widened, and Scaurus shook his head in amused contempt.

‘You fool. You see a thin stripe on a man and immediately jump to the conclusion that he won’t understand your cosy little closed world, or comprehend you people and the less than endearing habit of a small proportion of you who always find a way to skim the cream off the top of whatever you’re given to manage, no matter how wealthy you might already be. Well here’s the shock news, Tribune – my family was senatorial until a century ago, and I can assure you that even in the depths of disgrace we never quite lost those links. My sponsor was the governor of this province before Gaius Domitius Dexter replaced him, and he knows
all
about your family. He told me how your appointment to the Third Gallic so soon after Domitius Dexter took over the province might have been mildly surprising were it not for the fact that your father also happens to be his best friend. So if the governor was here now, I’d be threatening him with exactly the fate that hangs over you.’

The tribune swallowed, suddenly pale.

‘You mean …’

‘I mean that you have two choices.’

Scaurus smiled thinly.

‘Two choices which are really only one, of course. You can of course return to Rome. I could try, convict and execute you myself, but I find the prospect of leaving you to take a ship back to the capital rather more amusing. You see, by the time you get there, you’ll find that the man who stands behind the throne will already have received my report on the matter of the legion’s woeful undermanning. I had Tribune Corvus dispatch it while he was on his way to Hama. The imperial chamberlain will in all probability already have started uprooting your family, and in a rather vigorous manner, if his track record is any indication. After all, and as I warned you, it is the chamberlain’s job to hate treason and love gold in equal proportions, so what better opportunity to exercise both of those responsibilities than to take the throne’s revenge for your crimes, and those of your uncle?’

‘And my other choice?’

‘I think you already know the answer. You have a sword, so fall on it. Or if you can’t raise the nerve to use a blade, buy yourself some poison or a venomous snake. This is, after all, Antioch, so I doubt the means of a more elegant suicide are in short supply. And now, Umbrius, you can get out of my sight. You’ll remain under arrest until after I’ve marched from this barracks, just to make sure you don’t go running to Domitius Dexter. After that, it really is up to you, although if I ever see you again I’ll take my own sword to you. Get out of my sight.’

He waited until the tribune had left the parade ground under the guard of a tent party of Tungrians led by Otho.

‘Let’s hope for his sake that he doesn’t try to use his authority on Otho, given that I’ve told the centurion that he’s to consider any such idiocy as an attempt to resist arrest. As for you, Quintinus, you’ve falsified the existence of over a thousand men. You do realise that the imperial authorities reserve some very special punishments for men who perpetrate fraud on this scale?’

The first spear hung his head.

‘I inherited the whole thing from my predecessor. Legatus Lateranus told me that I’d be very sorry indeed if I were to be foolish enough to cause any problems.’

‘I see.’

He stared at the senior centurion with a scowl.

‘You’ve been complicit with a fraud that has endangered the security of Rome’s frontier with the Parthians, and quite possibly condemned to death the men who have to march out tomorrow to confront the enemy. Since that includes both myself and First Spear Julius, I’d say that the idea of your treatment for this crime being a lenient one is not one that’s very much in favour with either of us.’

He turned and walked away a few paces, looking at the mountain that towered over the city.

‘I do, however, owe some small duty to the people of Antioch. You will continue in your role for the time being. You will commence a recruitment and training drive aimed at bringing your remaining four cohorts up to full strength, and raising at least one more with which to replace the Sixth. If I’m satisfied by your efforts on my return, I will consider some degree of extenuating circumstances for your crime. After all, it’s not as if you were the ring leader, or even given much of a choice in your complicity. Let me down in this and it’ll be the last mistake you make. Now go and muster your men, First Spear, you’ve got a job to do.’

The final change that Scaurus had ordered to the four cohorts’ organisation was enacted swiftly and without ceremony. Julius strode out before his new command and barked out a swift address.