Blood and Steel

Chapter 45

Africa

The Hills outside Carthage,

Nine Days after the Ides of March, AD238

It was late, but Capelianus did not expect to sleep. Tomorrow was the day.

The men would be tired. The march had been along good roads, but it had been gruelling. Capelianus had driven them hard; from Lambaesis east to Thamugadi and Theveste, then north-east through Ammaedara — where the 15th Cohort had just escaped him — and Thugga, before swinging further north to approach Carthage through the hills. As they camped, the lights of the city had been laid out below them. It would do the men good to see the scale of the plunder that awaited.

In the morning, the troops might be footsore, but Capelianus had no doubt that they would be victorious. Stripping Lambaesis had produced almost two thousand legionaries. The auxiliaries stationed in or near the base had been called in: the 1st Ala of Pannonians, and seven Cohorts, the 1st Flavian, 1st Syrian archers, 2nd Spanish, 2nd Moors, 2nd Thracians, 6th Commagenes, and 7th Lusitanians. In all he had raised six thousand infantry, and five hundred cavalry. To these he had added two thousand irregular Moorish horsemen. Admittedly more than one in ten had not completed the march. In a way Capelianus was pleased. The weak had been weeded out. Those that remained were tough, the Moorish cavalry savage, and the regulars veterans.

Those they would face were contemptible. A mob from the amphitheatre and circus. Used to sitting on soft cushions, watching others exert themselves or die, perhaps throwing the occasional stone when the spectacles did not amuse them. They were supported by a handful of auxiliaries, a few from the Urban Cohorts — men better at bullying stevedores than fighting — and a detachment from the 3rd Augusta itself. The latter had already mutinied once, and it was unlikely that they would stand against their comrades when it came to battle. When his men came close, the scant number of real soldiers who followed the Gordiani would not be able to stop the Carthaginian plebs pissing themselves, and running for the city.

The troops were only one reason to be confident. Capelianus was bred to command in war. For four years he had campaigned in the wilds of the desert and the harshest of mountains against the most bloodthirsty of tribes. There had been no defeats. The barbarians had learnt to fear his name. Tomorrow the Gordiani would learn that same hard lesson. The father was an old goat, so infirm he could no longer sit a horse or stand for more than half an hour. The son had massacred a couple of villages of peasants, and had the hubris to compare himself to Alexander and Hannibal. His mind addled and constitution ruined by drink, it was said he haunted the backstreets of the city, searching out magicians and other charlatans, anyone whose potions and strange rites might promise to restore his undermined virility.

Capelianus knew justice and the gods were on his side. He had kept to his sacramentum, and his men had returned to their military oath. The Gordiani, and all who followed them, had broken the most sacred of promises. Capelianus fought for the lawful Emperor, the Gordiani for their own vanity and advantage. Already the gods had shown their displeasure. At the outset of their revolt, when the old satyr was sacrificing the victim had given birth. A hideous prodigy, made all the worse by the blood that had splashed the old man’s toga. And the astrologers read disaster in their stars. The captive Arrian, well goaded by the pincers and the hooks, had admitted everything. The heavens foretold the Gordiani would die by drowning. It amused Capelianus to think how he would fulfil the will of the gods when the Gordiani were in his power.

Victory was assured. There was no need for elaborate plans, no need to fear some cunning stratagem. Line the troops up, and set them on the enemy. The soldiers and Moors would be eager to be unleashed. Capelianus had promised them three days of licence in Carthage, three days of unrestrained rape and pillage. Capelianus knew what motivated men; lust and greed.

Outside the tent, from somewhere in the camp, came the sounds of music and laughter. Discipline was not what it had been in the past. If the revelry did not soon cease, Capelianus would get up and have the perpetrators arrested. In the morning, one or two salutary executions might concentrate the minds of the men on the task in hand.

Capelianus shifted on his camp bed. Sleep would continue to elude him. The victory won, what rewards might he expect? It was true that Maximinus was less known for generosity than punishment. Every Roman Senator had read the Agricola of Tacitus. Its message was not hard to grasp. A suspicious Emperor mistrusted and feared too great a military triumph won by a subordinate, no matter how loyal that general. For all his virtue, old Agricola had been lucky to be sent into retirement, not to the block of the headsman.

The Senate had declared against Maximinus. What would the Senators do when the Gordiani were dead? The vengeance of the Thracian would be terrible. To have any hopes beyond ruin, exile and death, beyond the destruction of their families, the Senators must find another candidate. Decius in Spain was wedded to Maximinus, the governors along the Rhine and Danube said to be equally committed. The Senate must look to the East then, or, just possibly to Africa? Ambition flickered in Capelianus’ thoughts. He had been born to win great victories, to humble the powerful, perhaps spare the weak, to sit in judgement on the fate of peoples, cities and continents: Imperator Capelianus Augustus Pius Felix.

Yet to ascend the throne of the Caesars was to share the fate of Damocles, to sit under a sword suspended by a thread. Better someone else wore the purple. Capelianus’ grandfather had been one friend among many of Antoninus Pius. Better by far to be the one man on whom the Emperor relied, to be the power behind the throne. A malleable man of noble ancestry would have to be found. If things did not go well, his confidant could change sides, but an Emperor must die. Such things might lie in the future, but now Capelianus needed to rest. Tomorrow was the day.

He must have slept. One of the guards was calling from behind the hangings. Gods below, it was early, not yet cock crow, but early. Capelianus swung his legs off the bed, sat up.

‘Enter.’

The guard put his head around the curtain. ‘A deserter, Sir, high ranking.’

‘Have you searched him?’

‘Yes Sir, we have taken his weapons.’

‘Bring him in, but watch him.’

The deserter was a tall man, wearing a tunic and travelling cloak. He had an oddly supercilious air, for a man in custody. He looked vaguely familiar.

‘Name?’

‘Health and great joy.’

‘Do not try my patience.’

‘I had hoped for a warmer welcome.’

‘Name?’

‘Sabinianus, Legate to the Proconsul of Africa.’

Capelianus could not help himself jumping up from the bed, peering into the face of the man. There was no doubt, it was him; the other of the Cercopes, here in his tent.

‘A drink would be hospitable.’

Capelianus backed away, picked up his sword. The bone hilt was reassuring in his fist.

‘What are you doing here?’

Sabinianus smiled. ‘Have no fear, I am not an assassin. I have never desired to die in a doomed cause. So I have come to renew my oath to our sacred Emperor Maximinus.’

Capelianus felt a surge of disgust. The world had fallen so low.

‘And you think I will welcome you?’

‘Perhaps not, but as the saying goes, love the treachery, hate the traitor.’

‘What proof can you offer of your change of heart?’

‘What proof do you want?’

Capelianus considered.

The guards watched the deserter.

Sabinianus yawned. If anything he looked bored.

‘Come with me,’ Capelianus said.

It was still dark.

The big game cart was parked near the general’s pavilion. The feral reek grew stronger as they approached.

‘Unbar the gate.’

When they did so, there was the stench of excrement.

‘Bring the torches closer.’ Capelianus was beginning to enjoy this, delighting in his own ingenuity. ‘Take a good look.’

The guttering light revealed a man loaded with chains, lying in his own filth.

‘Say Health and great joy to your friend Arrian.’

The figure in the cart struggled into a sitting position. His fingernails were gone, his eye sockets empty. His blind, crusted face turned towards the men.

Sabinianus betrayed no emotion.

‘You have a choice,’ Capelianus said. ‘You can be reunited with your brother Cercopes in there, share his punishments, or you can give evidence of your redemption.’

Capelianus stepped away. ‘Give him a knife.’

Sabinianus took the weapon that the guard held out.

Capelianus and the guards covered Sabinianus with their swords.

‘Make your decision,’ Capelianus said, ‘or I will make it for you.’

Sabinianus climbed into the wagon.

Arrian reached up, ran a ruined hand over the face of his friend. Sabinianus bent close over him. Arrian said something too low for Capelianus to catch.

‘Of course, brother,’ Sabinianus said. ‘The end is to the beginning, as the beginning is to the end.’

With great tenderness, Sabinianus cut his friend’s throat.