Sword of Rome

XXXVI

They arrived at Vesontio in the first light of dawn with the smoke from thousands of cooking fires rising to merge with the low grey cloud. The city had originally been contained by a narrow-necked bend in the river, made more impregnable by the fortified hill that filled the neck like a stopper in a wineskin. Now the familiar red-tiled roofs and stucco walls spilled over to the east bank and a sturdy wooden bridge linked the two sections.

Serpentius wanted to continue onwards to maintain their slender lead over Claudius Victor, but Valerius knew they were in a race they could never win. ‘We have to find another way,’ he said as they sat apart from the others in a grove outside the city.

‘How? You admitted we could never pass close inspection as Batavians.’

‘That’s true, but perhaps we don’t have to.’ The Emperor’s sealed warrant had survived the search of his bags by Batavians more interested in gold than parchment and now he drew it from the sleeve of his tunic. ‘This order requires every Roman citizen to lend all possible aid to Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, on pain of death. Vitellius probably thinks we’re already dead and he can forget about it, but the commandant of this city, or whoever we have to bully into providing us with a boat, doesn’t know that.’

‘But-’

‘We are on a secret mission,’ Valerius continued, anticipating the question. ‘So secret that it requires a Roman officer to dress in the uniform of a Batavian cavalry trooper. It is vital that we reach General Valens as soon as possible. We’ll leave the horses here and use the warrant to replace them somewhere downriver.’ He read the look on Serpentius’s face. ‘You’re not convinced?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. By the time we find out whether it’s going to work or not, Claudius Victor will have us bottled up like rats in a grain barrel.’

‘Then let’s make it work.’

Valerius left the legionaries with Metto and took Serpentius to the wharf downstream of the bridge, where he sought out the centurion in charge of shipping. Paladius Nepos was a small, officious martinet of a man, with a permanently angry scowl and a shock of mousy hair. The two rows of clerks under his command cringed away from the rod he carried and he was clearly unhappy at being disturbed by what he perceived as a mere barbarian.

‘I will have to consult the quaestor, who is away on official business for the next two days,’ he sniffed when he saw the seal. ‘I do not have the authority to deal with this.’ He turned away dismissively, but Valerius dropped the eagle-claw grip of his left hand on his shoulder.

‘Then find someone who does. I count three barges out there ready to sail. If I and my men are not on one of them in ten minutes the name Paladius Nepos will be on the Emperor Vitellius’s desk within a week. Perhaps you didn’t read the Imperial pass carefully enough?’ He pointed to the words on pain of death, and watched the conflicting emotions run across the other man’s face.

Like every Roman citizen, Nepos had been faced with a choice of Nero or Galba. Now it was Vitellius or Otho, and for the moment, by an accident of geography, Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus held his grubby little career and his life in his plump hands. And here was a tall, scar-faced Batavian officer who sounded like a properly educated Roman claiming to be on a vital mission from the Emperor and with the paperwork to prove it. His eyes darted to Serpentius, who stood at the door managing to look disinterested and dangerous at the same time. Beads of sweat appeared at Paladius Nepos’s hairline and gravitated together to produce tiny runnels that made their way slowly down each side of his narrow, weasel’s nose. The calculations going on behind the bulging eyes and the moment they reached a conclusion were as clear as a badly rigged chariot race. He picked up the pass.

‘The Pride of Sauconna leaves as soon as she has clearance …’

‘You mean now?’ Serpentius suggested helpfully.

‘There should be room aboard for eight men, if some of them sleep on the deck. She’s the galley out there on the downstream side. With this height of water behind her, you can be with the … the army within two days. The last we heard, General Valens was moving east from Valentia …’

‘We will only be with the ship as far as Lugdunum. One other thing.’ Nepos looked up with startled eyes. ‘You will tell no one about this.’ Valerius waved the Imperial pass under the other man’s nose. ‘On pain of death.’

‘You don’t expect him to keep quiet?’ Serpentius said as they headed back to Metto and his legionaries.

‘No, but I’m hoping it will make him think about it for an hour or two.’

As it turned out, his estimate was almost fatally optimistic.

The oarsmen of the Pride of Sauconna, a double-banked bireme of the Rhodanus fleet, had just got into their rhythm when Valerius heard a commotion behind them on the wharf. A rattle of hooves and a flurry of grey wolfskin told him that Claudius Victor had arrived earlier than anyone could have predicted. By the time they reached the downstream stretch of the bow in the river that encircled Vesontio, a Batavian cavalry patrol was already tracking them beyond the trees that lined the bank. Valerius could hear shouts and he turned to find the young prefect who captained the galley studying him with a question in his eyes.

‘Ignore them. They could be rebels,’ he said.

‘You’re the man with the Imperial pass.’ The sailor shrugged. ‘In any case, I don’t take orders from landsmen. I have a schedule to keep and I’m buggered if I’m going to row against this current to get back to Vesontio.’

The Batavians stayed with them for another mile, dropping behind all the time. Valerius watched them disappear into the distance, and when a bend in the river carried the galley out of sight he relaxed for the first time in many days. Barring accidents, they had gained at least one day on their pursuers, perhaps two. He knew Claudius Victor couldn’t afford to abandon his horses and follow by boat, because that would mean splitting his forces again and the Batavians had already seen how deadly Valerius and his men could be against superior odds. He would follow the river road at least as far as Lugdunum, and stop there to make enquiries, because that was where Valerius had told Nepos he was going, and Nepos would not stay mute for long in the face of someone like Victor. But Valerius didn’t intend to leave the ship at Lugdunum. They would stay with the river until Valentia and then he would make his decision. That night they slept on deck wrapped in their wolfskin cloaks and listened to the rush of water beneath the ship’s hull. During the day, the ship’s company, always busy in any case, kept a discreet distance from the eight soldiers. There was something about the hard, unblinking eyes and the way their hands never strayed far from their swords that didn’t invite pleasantries or questions, and that was the way Valerius wanted it. Marcellus, the captain, was obviously curious about his passengers, but it wasn’t until they reached the point where the river they were on met the larger Sauconna that Valerius joined the young man at his place by the stern post.

‘How long to Lugdunum?’

‘Another day’s sailing. The smoke you see is from Cabillonum. Lugdunum is fifty miles downstream, where the Sauconna joins the Rhodanus. The Sauconna is wider and deeper than the Doubus we’ve just left, but still tricky to navigate in places. Normally, I would berth here and transfer you to another galley, but my orders are to take you as far as you wish to go. The little scorpion seemed happy to be rid of you on any terms.’

Valerius smiled at the nickname, so appropriate for the touchy bureaucrat at Vesontio. ‘In that case you will not mind if I ask you to take us as far south as Vienne, or even Valentia?’ The sailor’s eyes widened a fraction, but he hid his surprise well. ‘It depends where we can most easily replace our horses,’ Valerius went on. ‘And on the best way to catch up with General Valens.’

‘In that case, Valentia,’ Marcellus said decisively. ‘Our transports have been carrying remounts there for weeks.’ A shadow fell over the cheerful, pink-cheeked features. ‘Even now the general must be preparing to cross into Italia.’

Valerius allowed a sympathetic smile to touch his lips. ‘These are troubled times,’ he said evenly. ‘But a man cannot serve two masters.’ It was a statement, but a statement that contained a question and Marcellus eyed him warily.

‘My only master is the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis … but I have no wish to see Roman fighting Roman.’

Valerius clapped him on the shoulder. ‘A good answer, Marcellus. You may even keep your head until this madness is over.’

As he moved away, Valerius’s cloak slipped aside and he saw the young man dart a glance at his right arm. The mottled stump identified him as surely as any slave brand and he had been careful to keep it hidden during the voyage. Annoyed with himself, he turned back so his face was close to the younger man’s and he kept his voice low and filled with menace.

‘Best to forget you ever saw that, boy. There’s nothing but grief for you there.’

Valens’ main force had used the right bank of the river as their line of march and from time to time the Pride of Sauconna would pass piles of charred timbers that had once been a town or a village, often with figures rooting among the ashes for the burned remnants of their lives. All too often there would be a mound of newly dug earth that spoke eloquently of whatever minor tragedy had been enacted there. Once they reached the Rhodanus at Lugdunum that changed. Marcellus explained that the elders of the city had been the first to recognize Vitellius and had welcomed Valens like a conquering hero.

‘He entered the city to a triumph worthy of an Emperor,’ the sailor said. ‘They opened up the storerooms and the treasury and bade him take what he wished. It may be different when we reach Vienne, where people are less enthusiastic about our new Emperor, but possibly not. Two weeks ago bloated corpses were a more common sight on this river than ducks. The Viennese will be aware of the price they would pay if they attempted to delay the army of Vitellius.’

Every mile south brought a small, but welcome, warming of the air and the mood among Valerius’s men became almost festive as they realized how close they were to home and relative safety. A few miles downriver from Vienne, with Valentia less than half a day away, he drew Metto aside.

‘We are still in hostile territory and the closer we get to the Vitellian army the more hostile it will get. In a few days it will be different, but for the moment the only way we’ll all stay alive is to act like surly, incommunicative Batavian barbarians. Make sure your men know that. I don’t intend to get killed because some idiot from the fifth rank thinks he’s on furlough, and the first one who forgets that will find the point of Serpentius’s dagger in his ear.’

‘I’ll make sure the men understand,’ the big centurion growled. ‘My arse is as valuable to me as yours is to you, tribune, and you won’t need your Spanish assassin to put the fear of death into them. I’ll take care of that myself.’

The next morning they woke to find Valentia looming over the river from a hillside on the east bank and Marcellus brought them into the quay with barely a bump. Valerius thanked the young sailor and wished he had some kind of compensation for the crew.

‘I will buy them a flagon of wine in the nearest tavern and they will be happy enough,’ Marcellus said soberly. He looked out over the river. ‘A strange journey for strange times, but at least the chill is seeping from my bones. Edging your way up and down the Doubus day after day can be wearing, and the cold wind from the east gives a man aches that make him old before his time. I will not shake your hand, but you need not fear I will broadcast its lack. Though I do not know your name, I sense an honest man behind that fierce mask you wear and I wish you well in your mission, whatever it is.’ The last was said with a twinkle that told Valerius his subterfuge was not as subtle as he thought it had been. Marcellus grinned at the look of consternation and saluted farewell.

Valerius, Serpentius and Metto installed the legionaries in a secluded square behind the market with instructions to keep their mouths shut and set off to find the cavalry headquarters. Valerius had no illusions that it would be easy. This would be no bored functionary like Nepos who could be bullied into doing what he wanted. They were in a war zone now, and in a war zone men tended to be wary and suspicious. As it turned out, though, he was wrong. The prefect in charge of remounts was a harassed fat man fit only for garrison duty. His red face and hoarse breathing hinted at an early seizure and he was having to deal with twenty similar requests an hour. With a single glance at Valerius’s warrant, he gasped an order to an equally stressed clerk, and Valerius walked out with a docket for saddlery and cavalry horses for eight men. He sent Metto off to search out supplies for the journey, while he and Serpentius located the horses.

‘Have you noticed that we’re as popular around here as a turd in a fruit bowl?’ Serpentius asked quietly as they walked across the town forum.

Valerius didn’t reply immediately. He too had noticed the angry stares and muttered insults from the off-duty soldiers they passed. At first he’d feared that Claudius Victor had somehow got word to Valentia, but gradually he realized the loathing wasn’t aimed at them in particular, but Batavian auxiliaries in general. He studied his companion and laughed as he realized they probably looked more dangerous than the troopers whose disguise they’d taken on. Serpentius’s cloak looked as if the wolf it had come from had been dead for a month before he skinned it, and smelled as bad. The plaid bracae he wore were ripped at the knees and the arse. His helmet was ill-fitting and rusty and beneath it the menace of the savage eyes and rat-trap mouth was magnified by a week’s growth of stubbled beard that covered his upper lip and lower jaw. ‘It seems Vitellius’s legions and their provincial allies aren’t on friendly terms. Remember what Metto said about the auxiliaries at Moguntiacum? Give the Batavians a battle to fight and they’re happy, but they’re proud and arrogant and they’ve never been that fond of us. They’ve come back from Britannia to find legionaries having their way with their women and robbing their villages blind. If they didn’t like each other at the start of the march, who’s to say what the relationship is like now? A civil war isn’t like a war against barbarians. For most of his march, Valens has been in the lands of tribes who support Vitellius, or at least won’t oppose him. That means little fighting and less loot. The Batavians won’t have liked that. Maybe they’ve been doing a little raiding on their own. That could help us. The more chaos the better. Claudius Victor is a day or so behind. That should be enough of a breathing space to get through to Otho’s lines.’

‘Maybe so,’ the Spaniard spat. ‘But I don’t like the feel of this place. The sooner we’re out of here, the happier I’ll be.’

Valerius agreed, and when they’d gathered up the men and horses they left Valentia by the east gate, towards a land that would soon be filled with the stink of blood and death and war.