Iron and Rust

CHAPTER 35

The Northern Frontier

Sirmium,

the Ides of January, AD238

In the biting cold, Maximinus checked with numb fingers the girths of his warhorse. If it was important, something on which your life might depend, it was best to do it yourself. Javolenus grunted as he gave him a leg up. Maximinus waited until his bodyguard was also mounted, then gave the order to move out. The town gates squealed as they began to open in front of the column. Especially in this weather, they should have been oiled. No one could be relied on to do their duty these days.

In summer, it would be two years since she had died. Time had not cauterized the wound. Most of the time it was a dull pain, and he could bear it. But every so often the loss hit him with such force that he could neither act nor speak; in mid-speech or with food halfway to his mouth. He saw no need to try to hide those moments.

The gates opened on to an ice-bound world. The road ran straight to the north, bordered as far as the eye could see with tombs. The road and the tombs and the trees were very black against the fields of ice on either side. The wind had knocked the snow from the branches. Now it was very still, and the trees were a motionless black tracery linking earth and sky.

They had not gone two hundred yards, when Maximinus felt Borysthenes go lame. Leaning out, Maximinus saw he had shed the horse-sandal on his near fore. Officers quickly offered the Emperor their own horses — they would bring his mount on after. No, Maximinus said, he would ride Borysthenes at the head of the army. That was how he had seen it in his mind; that was what he had told Paulina. The army halted. Maximinus swung down. The imperial entourage did the same. As they waited for a farrier, Maximinus held the reins of his horse. Some fools would take all this for an omen.

Diis Manibus. ‘To the gods below.’ The tombs varied. Some were elaborate, like houses. They had sculptures, long inscriptions. Others were almost plain sarcophagi with only a few words; a name and ‘Diis Manibus’. Sometimes they bore just the two letters: ‘D. M.’ She should be buried. Everyone said so. Aspines, Vopiscus, Catius Clemens, Volo, Anullinus — all had joined the chorus. She had been an Empress, and she was a goddess. The correct rituals should be observed. She should be buried in Rome. A new mausoleum could be built for a new dynasty. Maximinus had dismissed the latter idea. All revenues had to go to the northern wars. Then, they had replied, let her join the illustrious occupants of the tombs of Augustus or Hadrian. The Emperor had not answered.

She should be buried at Ovile. He had bought most of his native village and the surrounding land, including that on which stood the communal tumulus. No man should bow to him, neither in life, nor in death. He still allowed the dead of the village to be interred there. That was where she should go. When his duty was done — and it would not be long now — he could join her. Together, their shades would ride the high hills, drink at the mountain springs, sleep in sheltered caves. Together, they would hunt at the side of the Rider God.

Yet, for now, he could not send her away. Her ashes, in an alabaster vase packed in straw, travelled in his baggage. At night he held the precious thing in his huge, man-killing hands, and talked to her. He had summoned the druid woman Ababa. She had performed strange rites and claimed to have spoken with Paulina’s shade. The words Ababa reported had not rung true. No one could be relied upon.

In a way, he was already with the Rider God. Perhaps he always had been. The Thracian god had fought and vanquished the serpent which had tried to crush the tree of life. Likewise, Maximinus had stamped underfoot those who had attempted to strangle the ResPublica. In the North, and far, far the worst of all, there had been Quartinus and Macedo. But before them had been Magnus and his fellow conspirators, and then so many others, from all over the empire: Antigonus in Moesia Inferior, Ostorius in Cilicia, Apellinus in Britain, Sollemnius in Arabia. They had all had been killed. Maximinus had entertained doubts about the guilt of some of the latter. The rich accused each other all the time from hope of gain or preferment, or out of malice. They were not to be trusted. Yet, although it may not have been treason, all the condemned had been guilty of something. Everyone was guilty of something: guilty of leading a shameful life, of not being open with their Emperor, of withholding funds from the war effort.

So many had been executed, and their estates gone into the war chest, and Maximinus knew that the empire was more secure for such severity. Decius, the ancestral patron of his family, still held the West from his base in Spain. He may have executed one of their relatives by marriage, but Africa would be quiet enough under the Gordiani. No revolt would come from an eighty-year-old or his wastrel drunk of a son. Anyway, Paul the Chain would watch them, and Capelianus held Numidia. The East was more of a concern. In the cellars, before he died, Junius Balbus had denounced Serenianus of Cappadocia. Under the claws, the latter had admitted plotting against the throne, but claimed he had acted alone. No amount of ingenuity or persistence had changed his story. But the fat Senator Balbus had implicated others, among them the governor of Mesopotamia. For now, Priscus was necessary to hold the Persians, but it was good that Volo had suborned one very close to him. In Rome itself the plebs might riot, but now Sabinus had replaced Pupienus as Prefect of the City, the Urban Cohorts would amicably join with the Praetorians of Vitalianus in sweeping them from the streets. Of course, there were always those who were suspect in the eternal city. It was a shame that Balbus had named Timesitheus. An Emperor had to learn patience and duplicity. Although Maximinus liked him, once the little Greek had the grain supply running smoothly, Timesitheus would have to be sacrificed.

The farrier arrived, and Maximinus talked to Borysthenes, calming the stallion as the man worked. Not long now, he said to the horse. Ten miles to the hills, twenty to the Danube, across the frozen river, then out on to the frozen plains to hunt down the Sarmatian Iazyges in their winter grazing. We will catch them as we caught their cousins the Roxolani in the autumn. After that, in the summer, one more campaign and Germania will be conquered. And then, when his duty was done, he could lay down his armour and return to Paulina.

Maximinus inspected the fit of the horse-sandal, its leather straps and their fittings. Satisfied, he told Maximus to give the man a coin. Scowling, his son threw it deliberately out of reach. The farrier picked it out of the snow piled by the nearest tomb.

Having been helped into the saddle by Javolenus, the Emperor looked around. Ice, snow, a bleak road flanked by houses of the dead. He regarded the pinched faces of his entourage. How many of them would be talking of an ill omen by tonight? His gaze fell on the new barbarian hostage. Maximinus could not remember the name of the youth, but his father, Isangrim, ruled in the far North by the Suebian Sea. Now he was a better omen. Favoured by the gods, the army of Maximinus Augustus would conquer as far as the distant northern Ocean.