The Art of War

Chapter 26

Rome, 4 August AD 69

Trabo

It had been dawn on the sixteenth of April. Otho was in his tent. We had not yet had news of the defeat at Bedriacum, but we had had no notice of victory either, so we knew it wasn’t good. He — the emperor, my emperor — abhorred civil war. He would not risk men’s lives to save his own.

He had truly believed that Vitellius would surrender his claim on the throne when he saw that the Guard supported him. He had not understood, however often we told him, that Vitellius was only the mask, that the men whose faces hid behind it did not care whom the Guard followed; they wanted victory for their man, whatever the cost in lives and blood.

That morning, the sixteenth, Otho at last understood, and would not let any other man pay the blood-price but himself.

Standing in Caenis’ atrium, with Pantera’s knife still at my throat, I closed my eyes, and shut away those watching me. Without effort, I was in another world, a sunlit morning, with birdsong, and the sour aftertaste of a failed battle. The past was far more alive to me than the present.

Otho was dressed in his emperor’s battle armour, polished and peaceful, as a man is who knows that his end has come and he controls every moment of it.

Around him lay the scattered ashes of his correspondence, burned by his own hand so that none might be called to account for aiding him. The lead lottery was not his fault; the list of those who had helped to assassinate Galba had been given to his steward after he left Rome, and was supposed to await his return. None of us had imagined he might not come back.

Thinking always of others, Otho had arranged carriages and safe conduct for all who could leave: his generals, his brother, his loyal followers. He had kissed them goodbye, one by one, and ushered them, weeping, from the tent, until only I was left.

By design, he was standing in the cut of dawn sun as it slanted through the part-open tent flap. His hair was tousled; no amount of grooming would control it. His skin was clear, his gaze steady. He held out his knife to me, hilt first.

‘Lord, I cannot, will not-’ My throat tore apart with grief. My hands tied themselves behind my back.

Otho flashed the quick, easy smile that had won me and all his men long before Galba named his unfortunate heir and so precipitated his own death. He said, ‘I want you to sharpen it for me. I would trust no one else. Unless you’d rather I called back Plotius with his weeping and promises of easy victory?’

That was unthinkable. I dragged my hands from behind my back. ‘You honour me, lord.’

Otho had the stone, and, although it was impossible to put a better edge on the knife, the rhythmic sound of iron stroked against the grit was a balm of sorts to my grieving soul. Also, it covered the sound of Otho’s careful whisper.

‘You will remain with me while I do this. You will be my witness. And before you step out to call the others in, you will take from beneath my pillow the letter that is there. When today is over, you will deliver it to Vespasian’s mistress, Caenis, at her home in the Street of the Bay Trees on the Quirinal. Don’t rush. Don’t go into Rome too early; Vitellius’ forces will not welcome you. Caution matters more than speed in this and you will be hunted, whatever Lucius and Caecina may say to the contrary.’

‘Yes, lord.’ I didn’t know it at the time, but he saw the future more clearly than any living man should have been able to do; standing on the edge of death gave him clear sight.

‘The knife, then,’ Otho said, and there was a moment, standing in the burst of sunlight, when we were both alive, and had all the hopes of the world between us.

And then Otho moved, one single inward stroke that drove the blade into his heart, and all hope was gone.

I held him as he died, felt the wild, erratic rhythm of his heart leap and buck and patter to silence.

I closed his eyes against the cruel day and lowered him to the floor and then, before I went out to speak to the officers, freedmen and slaves waiting outside the tent, I reached under the pillow, still warm from his head, and transferred the letter that lay there into the breast of my tunic.

In Caenis’ atrium, I opened my eyes. I saw her first; a small, bright sparrow of a woman, with a fine mind and moist eyes.

She had known Otho, and cared for him. Jocasta had known him too, she who was not small or sparrow-like at all, but burned bright as a furnace, her wild intelligence unshielded; vital.

And behind me was Pantera, who had not yet let his blade drop. I turned my head, slowly, and felt it score round my neck. I stopped when the tip was digging into my larynx.

‘I am yours,’ I said. ‘Accept me now, to help you in any way I can, to promote your mission, whatever it is, to expend my last tear, my last drop of blood, in the defeat of Vitellius — or kill me. The choice must be yours. I have said all I can.’

There was a time when I would have laughed at any such grand, noble gestures, but then Otho had made his one grand, noble gesture and changed my world. I laughed at different things now; dead Guards, mostly.

I thought Pantera might laugh, and, laughing, kill me. I was strangely at peace with the thought.

The tip of the knife was a focal point of pain; just enough to notice. Blood pooled in the hollow of my throat. I counted a dozen heartbeats before the pressure slackened off.

Something had gone on over my head, a silent exchange between Pantera, Jocasta and Caenis that I wish I had seen; Jocasta was like a lamp burning in my soul by then, and I couldn’t think why I had ever left her in Rome, unwed.

It was Caenis, with her innate compassion, who spoke first.

‘Will you renew your Guard’s oath,’ she asked, gravely, ‘in the name of the emperor Vespasian, accepting myself and Pantera as his agents, to be obeyed in all things?’

After Otho’s death, I had not expected to find joy again, certainly not so soon. But it was with joy that I turned, and knelt and placed my hands in hers and spoke again the words of my legionary oath that had been inscribed on my heart since my first day in the legions.

‘I swear in the name of Jupiter, Best and Greatest, that the emperor Vespasian is my lord and master in all things, that unto death will I serve him and his and at his command. I offer my life in the protection of his demesne. And’ — this was not in the oath — ‘I will undertake personally to reach the men on this list, as many as I may, and tell them of our lord’s endeavours, and bring them, heart and soul, to his support.’

They allowed me a small silence, a moment of dignity, and then Jocasta said from behind my right shoulder, ‘You may do that, but someone has got in ahead of you. This is the news I came to bring. Lucius heard it this morning and told me: Antonius Primus, the legate of the Seventh Galbania, has brought together the five Balkan legions and sworn them to Vespasian. He is marching at the head of thirty thousand men, straight for Rome. If nobody stops him, he’ll be at the gates by Saturnalia. So now the only way to prevent all-out civil war is to identify those men who will support Vespasian and push them into doing it openly. If enough legions can be brought to his side, Vitellius’ generals might abandon their cause.’