Rome's executioner

CHAPTER VII

The small boat slid with the current and the help of a light, westerly breeze down the Danuvius; past the siege wall, past the main Roman camp just beyond that and headed towards the faint pre-dawn glow in the eastern sky. Lucius and Arruns rowed steadily with Varinus at the steering-oar keeping a course as close to the shore as possible so as to avoid the attentions of the Danuvius fleet, bobbing to the left of them, faint shadows in the gloom. Vespasian and his comrades were too tired to do anything but sit and stare at nothing.

The memory of Faustus, Bryzos and Ziles hung over them all.

Rhoteces, now gagged as well as bound, lay in a heap in the bilge. He had come round earlier but Magnus had knocked him unconscious again when his struggling and grunting had become too tiresome to tolerate. Water slopped around him.

After a while a small, yellowish point of light on the shoreline in the distance caught their attention.

‘That should be Faustus’ men with our horses,’ Vespasian said, rousing himself from semi-slumber. ‘Make directly for them, Varinus.’

‘Aye, aye, trierarchus!’

Vespasian rolled his eyes and, again, let the insubordination pass; Varinus had done more for their cause that night by his selfinitiated modification of his orders than he would, as a mere legionary mule, ever realise.

Faustus’ men had had the sense to wait by a length of riverbank that was low and clear of reeds. The boat glided towards them and gently came to rest tucked up against the bank. The first birds of the morning had started to sing in anticipation of a new day as the early rays from the sun, still buried beyond the horizon, struck the highermost clouds with dashes of soft crimson and indigo.

‘Optio Melitus reporting, sir, with your horses, on Primus Pilus Faustus’ orders.’ The smart young optio snapped a salute, blanching somewhat at the smell of the Getic clothes, as Vespasian disembarked first, followed by Sabinus and the others.

‘Thank you, optio,’ Vespasian said, returning the salute wearily. ‘You and your men have done well,’ he added, nodding to the two legionaries standing to attention behind Melitus. ‘I’m sorry to say that Faustus is dead, so be careful when you go back to the camp; there may be some, er… repercussions.’

‘Faustus is dead?’ Melitus exclaimed. ‘That is shit news; Centurion Viridio will be primus now and he’s a savage bastard, not just a bastard like Faustus was.’

Varinus and his mates offloaded the gear and the recumbent priest as the exhausted party stripped off their filthy disguises and took an icy bath in the river, rubbing each other down vigorously in an attempt to eradicate all vestiges of the Getic stench. They were only partially successful.

Eventually, dressed in their own clothes and feeling refreshed by the cold water and the bread, sausage and cheese that Melitus had brought for them, along with two skins of fairly decent wine, they strapped Rhoteces over a horse and their provisions on to the two that had been brought for Bryzos and Ziles and prepared to leave.

‘Cheers, lads,’ Magnus called to Varinus and his mates as they got back in the boat, ‘and I’ll see you in Rome, Lucius, and we’ll visit the Greens’ stables.’

Lucius grinned. ‘We’ve both got to get back there first,’ he called back whilst steadying the boat for Melitus and his two men to get in. ‘But if Fortuna smiles on us and we do, then she will surely smile on us and the Greens at the circus.’

They cast off and, spinning the boat around, began to pull upstream. The westerly breeze had stiffened but they were soon lost in the shadowy half-light.

Vespasian kicked his horse forward and they set off at a trot, east, along the river. Magnus rode next to him, leading the priest’s horse.

‘A decent bunch of lads, as I said, sir,’ he observed, after a time of companionable silence.

‘It depends on how you define decent,’ Vespasian replied, ‘but yes, they suited our purpose very well and if it were down to me I would make Varinus an optio for the initiative that he showed last night.’

‘Be a waste of time that, sir; he’s tried it twice and it didn’t suit him, if you take my meaning?’

‘You mean he didn’t suit it?’

‘Well, yeah, I suppose you could look at it that way; the army did, that’s for sure.’

‘I’m sure they did,’ Vespasian replied, laughing for the first time in what felt like ages as the sun crested the horizon, splashing fresh, warm light over his face. ‘Anyway, let’s hope your mate Lucius makes it home, then you can have a lovely day together talking fluent chariot or whatever the official language of the track is.’

Magnus frowned. ‘Now you’re taking the piss, sir. Your trouble is you’ll never understand how an insider like Lucius is worth cultivating over a period of time, worth doing favours for; keep him happy and he’ll keep the tips flowing.’ He looked back over his shoulder towards the boat conveying his potential goldmine of information away and turned back abruptly. ‘Shit! Sir, look behind us!’

Vespasian turned in his saddle; his face dropped. Less than a mile behind them eight biremes and two triremes of the river fleet were, under full oars and sail, heading towards them, benefiting greatly from the freshening breeze. With the golden rays of the morning sun adding lustre to their sleek wooden hulls and an amber sheen to their white sails they would have been a beautiful sight had they not been so threatening. The shrill whistles of the stroke-masters’ flutes keeping time could just be heard floating across the water.

‘Sabinus, look,’ Vespasian shouted.

His brother turned. ‘Shit! Poppaeus has sent a squadron after us; that bastard never gives up. All right, we won’t wait for the bend; we’ll head away from the river now.’

‘I don’t think that that’s an option,’ Sitalces piped up, pointing at a dust cloud three or four miles to the south.

‘Roman?’ Vespasian asked.

‘No, a legionary cavalry detachment would never make that amount of dust, there’s never more than a hundred and twenty of them,’ Sitalces replied. ‘There’s got to be at least five or six times that number under that cloud. They’re the ones that got away last night; they’re Getae.’

‘They can’t be after us, they’ve no idea that we’re here,’ Magnus pointed out.

‘Whether they have or haven’t, they’re heading this way, my friend,’ Sitalces replied, ‘and I don’t fancy our chances if they come across us.’

‘We’ll have to outrun them along the river,’ Vespasian shouted and urged his horse into a gallop.

The jolting and bumping of the rough ride brought Rhoteces back to consciousness and his struggling and muffled protestations could be heard over the hoofbeats.

In less than a third of a mile the country started to become rougher and the horses were forced to slow to a canter; even at that speed they were pulling away from the Roman squadron, but the Getic dust cloud was gaining on them. They crested a hill and the great Lysimachid fortress of Axiopolis came into view two miles away.

‘That’s where the river bends to the north,’ Vespasian called across to Sabinus as they sped down the slope. ‘I don’t fancy taking the priest in there; Poppaeus doesn’t know for certain that we’ve got him, but he’s bound to have agents within the garrison who’ll put him right. What do you think we should do?’

‘Skirt around it and carry on in a straight line,’ Sabinus called back, ‘that way we’ll lose the fleet and only have the Getae to worry about.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ Magnus said.

A dull thump and then whinny from Rhoteces’ horse as it reared up brought them all to a skidding halt. The priest had managed to undo the rope that bound his wrists to his ankles under the horse and was now hopping, feet still tied together, in the opposite direction.

‘The little sod,’ Magnus exclaimed, leaping off his horse. He raced back and jumped on Rhoteces, slamming him to the ground and dealing him a crashing right hook. The priest went limp, blood oozed out from under the gag and another bruised swelling appeared on his left cheek.

Sitalces ran back to help Magnus lift the unconscious prisoner back on to his horse, which refused to stand still and danced this way and that, snorting and shaking its head. They struggled to secure the rope under the beast’s belly.

‘Hurry up!’ Sabinus urged. ‘The squadron’s gaining on us.’

From across the water the flute whistles had quickened. In an effort to catch their quarry before the river took them away all ten ships had accelerated to ramming speed, which they could maintain for only a few hundred strokes before the rowers were blown. They were now under a half-mile away. Vespasian could see their ballistae crews loading their weapons, which would very soon be in range.

To the south the Getic horde was now visible under its dust cloud as a dark stain on the ground.

‘Done,’ Magnus shouted eventually as he and Sitalces finally pulled the knot tight and headed back towards their horses.

Two plumes of water burst from the river, just five paces short of the bank, covering them all in a fine spray.

‘Fuck, we’re in range!’ Sabinus yelled, turning to go. Another stone whistled just over their heads causing Magnus to look up; he instantly jumped on Sitalces, pushing the huge Thracian over; a rock slammed into the ground that he had been standing on an instant before and went bouncing off, narrowly missing the provisions horse that Artebudz was leading.

‘I’d forgotten how easily you went down, my friend,’ Magnus quipped as he hauled himself to his feet.

‘I suppose you think that makes us even, Roman,’ Sitalces grinned, ‘but I’d say that’s two falls I owe you for.’

They raced for their mounts as the others began to pull away. As Magnus flung his leg over his horse’s back it let out a shrill cry and buckled underneath him. Its hindquarters were a mash of torn flesh and splintered bone. A bloodied rock, twice the size of a man’s fist, rolled on the ground.

‘Take this one,’ Artebudz called back, offering Magnus the lead of the provisions horse. Another plume of water burst from the river. Magnus did not need a second invitation; pulling the priest’s horse behind him, he sprinted forward and threw himself over the fresh mount, kicked it into action and accelerated after his comrades, leaving his wounded horse thrashing and screeching, helpless behind him.

Vespasian looked over his shoulder to make sure his friend was following; another two shots slammed into the ground, kicking up tufts of grass and showers of earth as Magnus wove between them. Spray from a series of eruptions close to the bank filled the air with a fine mist, soaking their hair and clothes and producing small rainbows that arched in front of them as they pressed their mounts forward at full gallop.

The shots started to fall short as the ships’ exhausted rowers, freemen with rights, not slaves to be whipped to the point of death, slowed their stroke, unable to sustain for a moment longer the relentless beat of ramming speed without fouling their oars. Vespasian eased his horse back into a canter, which they maintained for a further mile. The river had begun its turn northwards and they left its bank so as to pass to the south of Axiopolis. To their right the Getae were just over a mile away.

‘They’ve changed direction,’ Sitalces called out over the hoofbeats.

‘What?’ Vespasian shouted.

‘The Getae, they’ve changed direction; they’ve veered to their left,’ Sitalces called back. ‘They seem to be heading for the curve in the river, they’ll pass behind us.’

‘That’s the first good news I’ve heard today,’ Magnus said, trying to ease a particularly lumpy bag of salted pork out from under his bruised backside.

They had reached the apex of the curve. Looking north, up the river, Vespasian gasped as he understood the reason for the Getae’s change of course. The river, over five hundred paces wide at this point, was flecked with scores of coloured sails. The Getic fleet had left the safety of its home ports to the north of Scythia Minor, as yet unconquered by the legions of Rome, and had sailed south in an attempt to rescue the stranded raiding party.

‘Shit, our boys in the squadron can’t see them, they’re hidden by the bend,’ Vespasian exclaimed as they all slowed to take in the magnificent sight.

‘What do you mean, “our boys”?’ Magnus grumbled. ‘The bastards were shooting at us just now.’

‘There’s fuck-all that we can do about it,’ Sabinus said. ‘If we try to warn the squadron they’ll just start shooting at us again, so let the navy-boys sort out their own problems.’ Sabinus, like most Romans who had served in the legions, had nothing but contempt for the navy, which they considered a poor relation to the army.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Vespasian agreed. ‘Let’s get out of here whilst we still can.’

They passed to the south of Axiopolis, heading southeast, and started to climb the ridge of hills that forced the Danuvius north, away from its easterly route. At the summit they paused and looked back, with a bird’s-eye view, on the events unfolding below.

The Getic war band had arrived at the river’s edge and had opened fire on the surprised Roman squadron. Patches of river were obscured by fast-moving clouds — volleys of Getic arrows — which swarmed on to the decks of the Roman ships, felling artillerymen and marines as well as causing havoc amongst the unprotected rowers in the biremes. Despite their losses they returned fire, still oblivious to the presence of the Getic fleet half a mile from them around the bend in the river. Vespasian watched as scores of horsemen were felled by the lethal ballista shots; but they kept pumping volley after volley of arrows into the three closest ships, which were now unable to manoeuvre owing to severe casualties amongst the rowers. Disembodied shouts and screams floated up on the wind that was gradually gaining in strength. The two triremes and the five remaining biremes turned to face the Getae cavalry on the shore and, firing as they went, rowed to the rescue of the stricken ships, leaving them broadside on to the leading triremes of the Getic fleet as they rounded the bend. On sighting the Romans they accelerated to attack-speed, their whistled beats cutting through the air. The ballistae on the walls of Axiopolis opened fire at them as they passed beneath it; white explosions peppered the water around the fleet but they came on undeterred at the Romans who, caught between manoeuvres, failed to turn to face them.

The flutes’ whistles accelerated into the almost constant screech of ramming speed and the lead Getic ships surged forward into the Roman squadron. Two caught a trireme broadside, crashing into it fore and aft, whilst another shipped its larboard oars as it skimmed up the side of a bireme, breaking its oars like twigs and catapulting rowers out of their seats, their backs broken and the skulls smashed. The sounds of cracking wood drowned the flutes as the two Getic vessels reversed stroke in order to wrench themselves free of the crippled Roman ship. The second wave of the Getic fleet crunched into the hapless squadron and Vespasian turned his horse.

‘I think I’ve seen enough of that to know I wouldn’t want to be involved in a sea battle,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘There’ll be some good lads crossing the Styx today,’ Magnus muttered as he followed, pulling the priest’s horse after him, ‘and all because Poppaeus wants to silence one man.’

‘Or, conversely, because we want to keep him alive,’ Sabinus pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it though, the timing of a man’s death is down to the will of Mithras and there’s bugger all to do about it.’

Not wanting to get into a theological debate with his brother, Vespasian kicked his horse into a canter and started to make his way down the hill to the plain that rolled all the way to the Euxine Sea and the port of Tomi.

Vespasian and his comrades were chilled to the bone by the time they reached the town gates, two hours after dusk. The wind had strengthened to gale force, dispersing the clouds, and the temperature had plummeted under the clear, starry sky. The sight of a military tribune’s uniform was enough to persuade the surly gatekeepers to open up after curfew and they passed through into a wide thoroughfare, dimly lit by the moon, which led directly to the port, the town’s main reason for its existence. The buildings on either side were mean and shabby and the whole town had an air of neglect about it; it had seen better days.

‘What a miserable shit-hole,’ Magnus opined as a few ragged beggars peered at them out of a gloomy side street.

‘That’s why it’s used as a place of exile,’ Sabinus said. ‘The poet Publius Ovidius Naso lived out the last years of his life here, the poor bastard.’

‘It once was a great Odrysian port,’ Sitalces said mournfully, ‘until you Romans conquered the northern part of Thracia and turned it into the province of Moesia; then it went into decline as you have no need for a port here and we now use the ports in what’s left of our kingdom.’

‘How do the inhabitants survive then?’ Artebudz asked.

‘They still do some trade with the Bosporan kingdom in the north and the kingdom of Colchis in the east, but that’s about it; so it’s mainly fishing and piracy, not that they’d admit to the last, of course.’

‘I thought that Pompey Magnus cleared the seas of pirates,’ Vespasian pointed out. ‘Not the Euxine,’ Drenis said, spitting on the ground. ‘He only cared about protecting your precious trade and grain routes in your sea. A lot of the pirate crews just moved north to the Euxine.’

‘There’re still some in the Mare Aegeum,’ Sabinus informed them. ‘There’re plenty of places to hide amongst all those islands. On the way here my ship was chased by pirates as we sailed around the southern tip of Achaea; if it hadn’t been for some fine archery they’d have got us, but they lost their enthusiasm after we brought ten or twelve of them down including the captain, a nasty-looking, ginger-haired brute; he could have been one of your lot, Sitalces. Mind you, not all pirates are bad; the Cilician pirates brought the Lord Mithras to the Empire about the time of the Spartacus slave revolt.’

‘Who’d have thought it, Mithraic pirates.’ Vespasian laughed. ‘I suppose they make light of heavy weather.’

‘Don’t laugh, little brother,’ Sabinus cut in seriously. ‘The Lord Mithras shines his light on all men equally, good or bad, believers or not; he makes no judgement because he died to redeem us and was resurrected after three days to show us that death can be beaten.’

‘I didn’t notice Faustus beating it,’ Magnus observed.

Sabinus glared at Magnus. ‘Death is not just physical.’

Vespasian stopped short of making a flippant remark as he saw the depth of conviction on his brother’s face.

‘That looks to be our ship,’ Sitalces said, defusing the tension. The Thracian royal standard flapped in the wind on the mast of a huge, bulky, moon-lit quinquireme, rocking at its mooring on a swell that was substantial, even within the harbour.

Relieved that the theological discussion had been curtailed, they hastened along the deserted quay to the quinquireme’s guarded gangway.

‘Sitalces, you big old bugger,’ the guard captain called as they approached, ‘we didn’t expect you to be on time; not that we’re going anywhere in this weather.’

‘I’d have thought that the trierarchus would be the best judge of that, Gaidres,’ Sitalces replied, dismounting and slapping the guard on the shoulder. ‘What makes a foot-slogger like you think you’re qualified to make such a nautical judgement?’

‘I’m not a foot-slogger any more, I’m a marine and well qualified to make nautical judgements; I base them upon the amount of praying the old man’s doing, which is a lot since this wind got up,’ Gaidres said with a grin. ‘Come on board and hear it for yourselves. Tie the horses up, I’ll have someone feed them; we can see to them in the morning.’

‘This weather will deteriorate,’ Trierarchus Rhaskos said, looking up past the mast to the night sky that had started to fill with scudding clouds. ‘This wind is forewarning us of Zbelthurdos’ wrath. He is coming; he rides to hurl his lightning-bolts at us and soon we’ll hear the thunder of his great horse’s hooves and the howling of his faithful hound.’

‘Do you mean there’s going to be a storm?’ Vespasian asked testily. How much talk of gods did a man have to endure in one evening?

‘Yes, when Zbelthurdos is angry a storm usually follows,’ Rhaskos replied, scratching his woolly grey beard, which, set under his short-cropped, grey hair, gave Vespasian the curious impression that his head was on upside down. ‘We must placate him. I shall prepare a sacrifice; one of your horses should do the trick.’

‘You are not sacrificing our horses to your gods,’ Sabinus stated categorically. ‘They-’

‘They’re army property,’ Vespasian put in quickly before his brother offended anyone by denouncing the Thracian gods in favour of Mithras.

‘Mine is the property of the Queen,’ Sitalces said. ‘I’m sure that she would be pleased to offer it for sacrifice.’

Vespasian was not so sure but knew enough about the consequences of insulting the Thracian gods to keep his doubts to himself. Rhaskos looked pleased. ‘Good, that’s settled then. You have a prisoner, I believe?’ He turned to where Rhoteces lay struggling on the deck between Magnus and Artebudz. ‘The Queen asked me to construct a special cell for him; you’ll find it on the oar-deck. Gaidres will show you down, he’s been assigned with ten of his men to guard the prisoner.’

‘Drenis and I will, er… sort out the horse,’ Sitalces said to Vespasian as he turned to follow Gaidres. He nodded his assent; Sabinus snorted.

They followed Gaidres the fifty paces down the length of the huge ship, Magnus and Artebudz dragging the bound priest between them by his arms. The deck creaked and heaved below their feet and the wind whistled past the vibrating stays supporting the mast. The two brothers were already starting to feel the ill effects of the sea by the time they reached a hatch at the bow of the vessel. A waft of human excrement and urine hit them as they made their way down a ladder on to the oar-deck.

‘Smells like we’re in the shit again, sir,’ Magnus remarked from the top of the ladder as he passed the unwilling Rhoteces down to Artebudz and Sabinus.

Vespasian’s eyes adjusted to the dim light of a few weak oil lamps and his mouth dropped open in shock as he made out the forms of scores of rowers asleep over the oars that they were chained to. The Thracians, unlike the Romans, used slaves to power their ships.

‘How do you maintain discipline down here?’ he asked Gaidres, astounded.

Gaidres shrugged. ‘They’re all chained hand and foot and can’t go anywhere. Besides, they all know that if they make trouble they just go over the side and we replace them with one of the spares we keep down in the bilge.’

‘Yes, but if a slave has so little to live for then he has nothing to lose. That’s why we use freemen; you can trust them to all pull together and not try and sabotage the ship, because if they stay alive they get citizenship after twenty-six years’ service.’

‘Look, don’t ask me, I’m just a marine; I don’t know the whys and wherefores of it all. And don’t go feeling sorry for the bastards either, a lot of them are captured pirates getting a taste of what they’ve meted out to others.’

‘I don’t,’ Vespasian muttered, looking around incredulously. ‘I just worry about my safety on a ship powered by slaves who don’t care if they live or die.’

‘It’s no wonder you never became a sea power,’ Sabinus observed. ‘You must have been too busy worrying about what’s going on down with the slaves to be able to concentrate properly on winning a battle.’

‘Well, that’s how it’s always been done and I don’t ask questions. Come on, the cell’s this way.’ Gaidres opened a small door, ducked and stepped through.

Vespasian and Sabinus followed him into a small, danksmelling cabin. By the faint light of the moon, streaming down through a grating in the deck above, Vespasian could see an iron cage, five feet high, wide and deep.

‘Bring him in here, Magnus; Artebudz, get one of those oil lamps,’ he said as Gaidres started fumbling with a key.

With the help of the small amount of light provided by the lamp, Gaidres managed to get the key in the lock and the cage door swung open. Inside were a set of manacles and leg-irons attached to the cage by heavy chains.

‘I’m going to take the gag off,’ Vespasian warned Magnus and Artebudz, who both had a firm grip on the priest. ‘Watch out for his teeth, they’re nastily sharp.’

As the gag came off a gobbet of phlegm flew into Vespasian’s face. He punched Rhoteces in the stomach, causing his head to fall forward; Magnus and Artebudz’s firm grip preventing him from doubling up.

‘Now listen, you little shit,’ Vespasian growled, ‘we can do this the easy way and you don’t struggle as we chain you up; or the hard way, which will involve you waking up with another crack in your skull.’

Gasping for breath Rhoteces lifted his head, his vicious eyes glaring with hatred; he contorted his weasel face into a snarl, baring his filed, yellow front teeth. His mouth was uneven, unhealed from where Asinius had slit it nearly four years previously.

‘It doesn’t matter which way we do it, Roman,’ he hissed. ‘This is futile, none of us will get to Rome; you because you will all die on this voyage, and me because my gods will bring me back alive to Thracia without ever setting foot in that accursed city of yours. This I predict by the will of Zbelthurdos whose anger you have incurred by seizing me. I curse this voyage in his name; this ship will never reach Rome. ’

A shrill whinny pierced the air and then was suddenly cut off, followed almost instantaneously by the sound of a heavy body collapsing to the ground.

Rhoteces’ snarl turned into a lopsided leer. ‘Zbelthurdos has heard the curse. But it’ll take a lot more than a horse to expiate the insult to my gods; Roman blood is what will be needed.’

Vespasian slammed his fist into the priest’s face, flattening his nose. He slumped, unconscious, between Magnus and Artebudz.

‘The hard way it is then,’ Vespasian said, walking past Sabinus and out of the cabin.