Rome's executioner

CHAPTER I

Vespasian eased his weight cautiously on to his left foot, trying not to rustle the dead leaves or crack any of the twigs that carpeted the snow-patched forest floor. He had covered the last few dozen paces with hardly a sound, his breath steaming in front of him as he tried to lower his heartbeat after a long chase. He was alone, having left his companions, two hunting slaves borrowed from the royal stables, a couple of miles back to follow on slowly with the horses as he stalked his wounded prey on foot. His quarry, a young stag, was close now; the trail of blood from the arrow wound to its neck he had inflicted earlier seemed fresher, a sign that he was gaining on the slowing animal, weakened by loss of blood. He pulled back the string of his hunting bow and brought the fletched end of the arrow to his cheek, ready to release. Hardly daring to breathe, he took another couple of steps forward and peered around, looking through gaps between the crowded trees for any sign of dun-coloured fur in amongst the umber and russet hues of a forest in winter.

A slight movement in the corner of his eye, off to the right, caused him to freeze momentarily. He held his breath as he slowly turned his stocky frame to face the source of the distraction. About twenty paces away, half-hidden in the tangled undergrowth, stood the stag, motionless, with blood-matted withers, staring dolefully at him. As Vespasian took aim it collapsed to the ground, making the shot unnecessary. Vespasian cursed, furious at being denied the excitement of the kill after such a long chase. It seemed to him to be a metaphor for the past three and a half years that he had spent in Thracia on garrison duty, since the quashing of the rebellion. Any promise of action would always fizzle out to nothing and he would return to camp, frustrated, with an unbloodied sword and sore feet from chasing a few brigands around the countryside. The harsh truth of the matter was that the Roman client kingdom of Thracia was at peace and he was bored.

He had not always been so; the first year had been reasonably interesting and fulfilling. After mopping up the remnants of the Thracian rebels, Pomponius Labeo had marched the V Macedonica, most of the IIII Scythica, the cavalry alae and the auxiliary cohorts back to their bases on the River Danuvius in Moesia, leaving Publius Junius Caesennius Paetus, the prefect of the one remaining auxiliary Illyrian cavalry ala, in command of the garrison. Vespasian had been left in nominal command of the two remaining legionary cohorts, the second and fifth, of the IIII Scythica; although in practice he deferred to the senior centurion Lucius Caelus, the acting prefect of the camp, who tolerated him but made it plain what he thought of young upstarts placed in positions of command solely because of their social rank.

However, Vespasian had learnt a lot from Caelus and his brother centurions as they kept their men busy with field manoeuvres, road- and bridge-building and maintenance of equipment and the camp; but these were peacetime duties and after a while he had grown weary of them and yearned for the excitement of war that he had experienced, only too briefly, in his first couple of months in Thracia. But war never came, just its pale reflection in the form of endless parades and drills.

For entertainment he had been subjected to more dinners than was good for his waistline at the palace with Queen Tryphaena and various local or visiting Roman dignitaries. His attempts to elicit news of Rome from either the Queen or her guests had yielded only vague and unopinionated information — even this far from Rome, people were reluctant to speak their minds, suggesting that the atmosphere in the city was tense. Sejanus was still Praetorian Prefect and very much in favour with Tiberius, who remained isolated on Capreae. How Antonia, his patron, was faring in her political struggle with Sejanus to preserve the legitimate government in Rome remained a mystery. Marooned for so long in this backwater, only nominally a part of the empire, Vespasian was feeling like a forgotten piece on the edge of the gaming board. He longed to return to Rome where perhaps he could once again be of service to Antonia and further his career through her patronage. He could do nothing here but stagnate.

His long sojourn in Thracia did have one inevitable consequence: his Greek, the lingua franca of the East, was now fluent. He had also mastered the local Thracian tongue well enough, but that had been a necessity rather than a pleasure. Hunting had been the only activity that had provided any satisfaction, exercise or excitement; but this morning that too had been an anti-climax.

Vespasian shot at the prone form of the stag in irritation; the arrow passed through its neck and skewered it to the forest floor. He immediately chided himself for acting out of pique and failing to show due respect for the creature that had so bravely tried to evade him for the last hour. He pushed his way through the undergrowth and, after muttering a perfunctory prayer of thanks to Diana, goddess of hunting, over the dead animal he took out his knife and began to eviscerate the still warm body. He consoled himself with the thought that his four years in the army were over; March was coming to an end and the sea lanes were reopening after winter, his replacement would arrive soon. Soon he would be going back to Rome with the prospect of advancement, a junior magistrate’s post, one of the Vigintiviri and also, as importantly, the prospect of seeing Caenis, Antonia’s secretary. She flickered before his eyes as he worked his blade in and out of the stag’s belly; her delicate, moist lips, her sparkling blue eyes so full of love and grief as she had said goodbye to him; her lithe body, naked before him in the dim light of a single oil lamp on the one and only night that they had slept together. He wanted to hold her again, to smell and taste her, to have her for his own; but how could that be? She was still a slave and, according to the law, could not be manumitted until she was at least thirty. He worked his blade harder and faster as he contemplated the futility of the situation. Even if she were freed he could never marry her as he had dreamed of doing with the naivety of a sixteen-year-old; someone of his position, with his ambition, could never take a freedwoman as a wife. He could, however, keep her as his mistress, but then how would that be for the woman whom he would take as his wife? She would just have to live with it, he decided as he pulled the last scrapings of offal from the carcass.

‘I could have put a dozen arrows in you in the time that I’ve been sitting here.’

Vespasian started and spun round, cutting his thumb on the knife in the process. Magnus sat on a horse, twenty paces away, grinning as he levelled his hunting bow at him.

‘Hades, you gave me a fright,’ Vespasian exclaimed, shaking his injured hand.

‘You’d have had more of a fright if I’d been a Thracian rebel and shot this arrow up your arse, sir.’

‘Yes, well, you’re not and you didn’t,’ Vespasian said, calming down slightly and sucking the mixture of his and the stag’s blood from his thumb. ‘Why were you creeping up on me anyway?’

‘I weren’t creeping sir, I rode and I was making as much noise as a century of new recruits saying goodbye to their mothers.’ Magnus lowered the bow. ‘You were just too lost in your own world to notice, and, if I may point out the obvious, sir, that’s how you get to be dead.’

‘Yes, I know, it was stupid of me, but I’ve got a lot on my mind, Magnus,’ Vespasian admitted, rising to his feet.

‘Well, you’re going to have a lot more on your mind very soon.’

‘How so?’

‘You’ve got a visitor: your brother arrived at the garrison late this morning.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘What’s Sabinus doing here?’

‘Now how would I know that? But I would hazard a guess that he ain’t come all this way just for a nice brotherly chat. He told me to come and find you as quickly as possible so let’s get going. Where’s your horse?’

By the time they had found Vespasian’s hunting slaves and strapped his kill on to his horse it was well into the afternoon. The thickly overcast sky had brought an early dusk to the forest floor and they were forced to lead their horses for fear of them stumbling in the fading light. Vespasian walked next to Magnus, contemplating what could have brought his brother hundreds of miles to talk to him, and started to assume the worst. His father had written to him two years earlier with the expected news of his beloved grandmother Tertulla’s death, and he still felt a pang of grief every time he thought of her drinking from her cherished silver cup.

‘One of our parents must have died,’ he mused, trying not to hope that it was not his father. ‘Did he seem upset to you, Magnus?’

‘Quite the opposite, sir, he was anxious to see you as soon as possible; if he had bad news he wouldn’t have been in such a rush to talk to you, in fact he seemed very disappointed when I told him that you weren’t there.’

‘Well, that’s a first.’ Vespasian smiled wryly; he and Sabinus had never got on as children and he had been subjected to years of brutality by his brother that had only stopped when Vespasian was eleven years old and Sabinus had joined the legions. Although the tension between them had eased since Sabinus’ return from the army, Vespasian could never imagine his brother being disappointed not to see him.

‘I’ll know what it is soon enough, I suppose,’ Vespasian said, looking around and adjusting the hunting bow slung over his shoulder to ease the chafing of the string. ‘Come on, let’s ride, the trees have thinned out.’ He moved to mount up. ‘There’s enough light for-’ A brief hiss and a heavy thwack cut him off; two arrows appeared simultaneously in his horse’s jaw, just where his head had been an instant earlier. The animal reared up, whinnying piercingly, knocking Vespasian to the ground; another shaft slammed into its shoulder quickly followed by one into its exposed chest, felling it.

‘Juno’s crack, what the…’ Magnus flung himself in top of Vespasian as his own mount bolted. ‘Quick, the other side of your horse, jump.’

They leapt over the prostrate animal and crouched behind its back as two more arrows thumped into its belly; it raised its head and screeched, its hooves thrashing at the air as it tried but failed to get up. The two hunting slaves sprinted to join them behind the nearest available cover; with a sharp cry one spun like a top, his billowing cloak wrapping itself around his body as he twisted to the ground with an arrow protruding from a blood-spurting eye socket. His companion flung himself through the air and landed next to Vespasian and Magnus as another shot punched into the still writhing horse, causing it to spasm violently and then lie still.

‘What the fuck do we do now?’ Magnus hissed as two more shafts fizzed just over their cover to land quivering in the ground five paces behind them. No more came.

‘It appears to be me that they’re interested in,’ Vespasian whispered. ‘All the shots were aimed at me until I got behind cover; then they went for the slaves.’ He looked at his two companions, pulled out his knife and began sawing on the leather straps that secured his stag to his dead mount. ‘There only seems to be two of them, I suggest that I make a run for it in one direction and you two go the other way; with luck they’ll go for me and you’ll be able to get round behind them. What’s your name?’ he asked the hunting slave, a middle-aged man with curly jet-black hair and a Greek sigma branded on his forehead.

‘Artebudz, master,’ the slave replied.

‘Well, Artebudz, have you ever killed a man?’ The straps parted and the stag slithered to the ground. Another two arrows thumped into the horse.

‘In my youth, master; before I was enslaved.’

‘Kill one of the bastards out there today and you’ll be a slave no more, I’ll see to that.’

The slave nodded; a look of hope and determination crossed his face as he eased his hunting bow from its holder hanging from his belt. Vespasian patted him on the arm and then, grabbing the stag’s forelegs, slid the creature over his back.

‘On the count of three I’ll lift the stag; as soon as they hit it run whilst they reload, all right?’ His companions agreed. Vespasian tucked his right knee under his stomach ready to push off. ‘Let’s do it then — one, two, three!’

He raised the stag so that it emerged over the withers of the dead horse, immediately he felt the violent impact of two arrows striking the carcass almost simultaneously; he pushed down on his right leg heaving himself and the dead weight of the stag up and forward and, with a monumental effort, accelerated into a sprint towards a thick-trunked oak tree twenty paces away. Two fierce blows from behind made him stumble, but he kept his footing and felt no pain; the arrows had hit the stag that shielded his back. With cold air rasping at his throat from the intense exertion he reached the tree and dodged behind it to the vibrating report of two more shots burying themselves in its trunk.

Vespasian leaned his head back against the soft moss growing on the bark and sucked in lungfuls of winter air; the stag’s head lolled on his shoulder like a new-found, drunken acquaintance expressing eternal friendship. He cautiously peered round towards the dead horse and the trees beyond; there was no sign of Magnus or Artebudz. He held his breath and listened; nothing moved. Realising that he had to keep the attackers occupied as his two comrades worked their way around into a favourable position, he eased the stag down, unslung his bow and notched an arrow. He dropped to his knees whilst working out, from the trajectory of the previous shots, the direction in which to aim. Satisfied with his estimation he took a deep breath and swung his bow around the trunk releasing his shot a moment before a single arrow passed a hand’s breadth above his head. Vespasian smiled; they had split up, that would make matters a lot easier. Ten paces to his left was a fallen hulk of an oak, high enough to provide adequate cover. He notched another arrow; then, holding it securely across the bow grip with his left hand and lifting the stag with the right, he rose slowly to his feet keeping his back pressed against the tree.

A sharply curtailed cry came from the direction in which he had been aiming; then a shout.

‘One left!’

It was Magnus. He knew that he could not now risk another wild shot for fear of hitting his friend. As their positions were known he had nothing to lose by shouting. ‘Are they Romans or Thracians?’

‘Neither, I’ve never seen one of these savages before; he’s wearing fucking trousers,’ Magnus replied.

‘Let’s hope they don’t speak Latin then. Can you see the dead horse?’

‘Just, it’s about fifty paces ahead of me; you sound like you’re to the left of it.’

‘Careful then, you must be close to the other one. I’ll make a move, he might show himself; keep down, I’ll shoot at head height. Artebudz, watch out for any movement.’

Vespasian steeled himself for another quick burst of energy. He pushed the stag to his right, heard the sharp hiss and thud of another hit to the carcass, then leapt left towards the fallen tree, drawing and releasing his shot in one swift movement. He rolled head over heels through the undergrowth and made cover as an arrow embedded itself, juddering, in the trunk. An instant later came the faint but unmistakable sound of sudden and violent exhalation; someone had been hit.

‘I got him, masters,’ Artebudz shouted, his voice raised an octave in his excitement.

‘Is he dead?’ Magnus called.

There was a slight pause.

‘He is now.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’

Vespasian found Magnus and Artebudz standing over one of the bowmen’s corpses.

Magnus wrinkled his nose as he approached. ‘I can’t believe we didn’t smell them before they saw us, I’ve never smelt a savage as strong; they must have kept downwind of us.’

It was indeed a pungent aroma: a heady cocktail of all the major human male excretions, secretions and discharges that had been allowed to fester for years within clothes of semi-cured animal hide, which had probably never been removed since they were first donned; it was crowned with the acid stench of very old and ingrained horse sweat.

‘What is he?’ Vespasian asked recoiling, unable to believe his nose.

‘No idea. Artebudz, have you ever seen one of these?’

‘No master; but his beard’s ginger and his cap seems to be Thracian in style.’

Vespasian studied the man’s clothing; his cap was definitely Thracian in appearance, a leather skull-cap with long cheek flaps and neck protection, similar to those of the northern tribes in Moesia, as opposed the fox-fur hats of the southern tribes in Thracia itself. But this had crude depictions of horses embroidered in it with dyed twine and the cheek straps were tied under the chin. Apart from knee-length boots, the rest of his attire was definitely not Thracian: hide trousers, well worn on the inside thighs, suggesting a long time spent in the saddle, and a thigh-length leather top-coat worn over an undyed woollen tunic.

‘Scythian perhaps,’ Magnus ventured, picking up and examining the dead man’s composite horn and wood bow.

‘No, we’ve got one of them at home, they’re darker and they’ve got strange eyes; this man looks normal. Well, we can’t worry about it now, I need to get back to see my brother; we’ll send Artebudz back with some slaves to pick them and our dead hunting slave up tomorrow.’

Artebudz grinned, enjoying the implication that he would soon be free.

Vespasian turned away. ‘Let’s find the horses.’

It was dark by the time they reached the permanent garrison camp just outside the gates of Philippopolis. Vespasian dismissed Artebudz back to the royal stables with a warning to say nothing of the day’s events until he had spoken to the Queen, whose property he was. Returning the centurion of the watch’s salute at the Praetorian Gate, he and Magnus rode as quickly as possible, without causing alarm, down the Via Praetoria, between the low brick-built barrack huts towards his more comfortable residence on the junction with Via Principalis. Such was his anxiety that he barely noticed the ill feeling and restlessness with which over a thousand soldiers were taking their evening meal washed down with the generous garrison wine ration that was supplemented with stronger stuff that they had bought locally. His thoughts were alternating between the reason for his brother’s journey, how he would react to seeing him again after four years and why two outlandish-looking men had tried to kill him that afternoon.

‘The lads seem tense this evening.’ Magnus broke into his train of thought.

‘What?’

‘I’ve seen it before, sir, it can happen quite quickly; after a long time farting about doing a lot of bugger all on regular basis with nothing to show for it, the lads start to get edgy, and wonder what the fuck they’re doing here and how much longer they’re going to be stuck in this arsehole of a place. They’re legionaries and they haven’t had a decent fight for over three years, whereas the boys that went back to Moesia are getting plenty of action if half the rumours are true.’

Vespasian glanced around at the men sitting around braziers and saw more than a few of them glaring at him with resentful, sullen eyes over the top of their wine-filled cups. One or two of them even held his look, a minor act of insubordination that he would normally have dealt with then and there had he not been so preoccupied.

‘I’ll speak to Centurion Caelus in the morning and find out what’s going on,’ he said wearily, knowing full well that it was Caelus’ duty to come to him and report any bad feeling amongst the two cohorts that he commanded. It was just another example of how Caelus sought to subtly undermine his authority.

Vespasian dismounted outside his quarters; it was the same construction as that of the men’s but slightly larger and he was not obliged to share the two rooms inside with seven others.

‘I’ll get the horses stabled,’ Magnus offered, taking the reins from him.

‘Thank you, I’ll see you later.’ Vespasian took a deep breath and walked through the door.

‘So, little brother, you’re back from skulking about in the woods,’ drawled the familiar voice with no trace of affection or even friendship. Sabinus was sprawled out on the dining couch; he had evidently made use of the officers’ bath house as there was no sign of the dust and grime of travel about his appearance, and he was wearing a crisp, white, Equestrian toga over a clean tunic.

‘I may be your younger brother but I ceased to be little when I joined the Eagles,’ Vespasian snapped. ‘And, furthermore, I do not, and never did, skulk.’

Sabinus raised himself to his feet; his dark eyes glinted in the dim light of a couple of oil lamps as they glared mockingly at his brother. ‘Playing the big soldier are we? Next you’ll be telling me that you don’t fuck mules any more.’

‘Look Sabinus, if you’ve come all this way to have a fight let’s have it right now and then you can piss off back home again, otherwise try to remain civil and tell me what you’ve got to say.’ Vespasian squared up to his brother, his fists clenched by his side. Sabinus smiled thinly at him. Vespasian noticed that he had put on a bit of weight — four years out of the army and living the good life in Rome had left its mark.

‘Fair enough, little brother,’ Sabinus said, sitting down on a camp stool, ‘but old habits die hard. I’m not here to fight; I’m here on the Lady Antonia’s business. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’

‘If you’ve finished insulting me, then yes.’ Vespasian crossed to the far end of the room and took a pitcher from a cheaply constructed wooden chest standing next to the door leading through to the bedroom. He mixed a couple of cups of the rough, local wine with water and handed one to his brother. ‘How are our parents?’

‘They’re both well, I have letters for you from them.’

‘Letters?’ Vespasian’s eyes lit up.

‘Yes. I’ve got one from Caenis too, you can read it later; but first you should clean up and get changed, we have to deliver a letter from Antonia to Queen Tryphaena. We’ve got a job to do and we need her help.’

‘What sort of job?’

‘One that will make rescuing Caenis seem like a pleasant stroll through the Gardens of Lucullus. Do you know a Thracian tribe called the Getae?’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘Well, I don’t know much about them either except that they live outside the Empire across the Danuvius. They generally keep themselves busy fighting the tribes to their north but recently they’ve taken to crossing the river and raiding Moesia. The raids have been getting larger and more frequent in the last year or so and the Fifth Macedonica and the Fourth Scythica have been struggling to repel them; the Emperor has become concerned enough about the situation to reinstate Poppaeus Sabinus as Governor.’

‘What are we supposed to do about it?’ Vespasian asked, not liking the idea of going anywhere near Poppaeus again, knowing, as he did, that he was an ally of Sejanus.

‘Antonia doesn’t want us to do anything about the raids, they’re no concern of hers; but what does interest her is a piece of intelligence that one of her agents in Moesia sent a few months back.’

‘She’s got agents in Moesia?’

‘She’s got agents everywhere. Anyway, this one reported the presence in the last three or four of the raids of someone with whom the good lady is keen to have a nice little chat with back in Rome.’

‘And we’ve been asked to go and fetch him for her.’

Sabinus grinned. ‘How did you guess?’

Vespasian had a sinking feeling in the pit of his belly. ‘Who?’ he asked, already suspecting the answer.

‘Sejanus’ go-between; the Thracian chief priest, Rhoteces.’