The Art of War

Chapter 38

Rome, October, AD 69

Geminus

‘ One thing’s certain, then. Wherever I go, it will not be north to meet Antonius Primus!’

Lucius was in buoyant mood. He had spent the past four months torturing men to death for news of Pantera, but this was the day I realized that all the while he had had someone inside Pantera’s innermost circle who was feeding him information.

There must have been a point, surely, when this individual could have handed Pantera to Lucius on a plate with a ribbon tied round his mouth, but Lucius didn’t want that. Instead, he had let the spy continue with Pantera’s plans, had listened to them and learned from them, and now he had an opportunity to thwart them.

Which meant he had killed a dozen men slowly as a ruse to make Pantera believe he was being hunted by a man who had no chance of catching him, which was exactly the kind of soulless, ruthless, inescapable logic that left me slick with sweat.

But you couldn’t deny that it had all come to fruition when Trabo sent us a copy of Pantera’s latest letter to Antonius Primus, and Lucius, forewarned, knew enough to outwit his opponent.

Pantera was running a bluff, trying to trick Lucius into going north by saying he didn’t want him there. And so the last thing Lucius planned to do was to leave Rome. If he hadn’t been warned, that letter would have set him off like a hound after a running hind, I’m sure of it, but as it was he dug in his heels and began shaping plans for the defence of the city. And all because Pantera didn’t want him to do that.

I, who had delivered Trabo’s letter into Lucius’ hand, found myself the object of congratulations I didn’t deserve and rewards I didn’t want.

Twice now, Lucius had patted me on the shoulder, which was entirely disconcerting and could only bode ill for later when his mood wore off. I wished Juvens were there to share the accolades; he weathered Lucius’ rare moments of joy far better than I ever did.

‘We have to tell the emperor.’ Lucius was jittery, fizzing with uncontainable energy, pacing back and forth across the full breadth of his small office. ‘He refuses to believe that Caecina has defected and Valens has gone.’ We’d heard nothing of Valens for nearly a month by then; he could have been anywhere. ‘My brother thinks the war is already won and that I am simply making difficulties to embarrass him. This will make him believe otherwise, if anything can. Come on!’ He flung open the door. The dreg ends of October battered him with rain-sodden wind. Miserable Guards stood rigidly to attention, praying, if they were anything like me, not to catch Lucius’ eye. ‘Bring that letter! We’ll find him now.’

Vitellius’ favoured palace was on the Palatine, on the far side of the city from the barracks. Sixteen Guards flanked Lucius and me as we made our way across the city, the minimum that was needed to feel safe these days.

Nobody was popular any more; the toxic pall of war had reached Rome and death haunted the streets. Everyone wanted someone else to die; anybody but me.

I was no different. On Caecina’s defection, when men he had favoured were removed from their posts, I had been promoted to first centurion of the first cohort of the Guard and given permission to move out of the barracks and buy a house in the city, but I hadn’t so much as looked for one yet, for all that I would have been given preferential rates by men desperate to curry favour with Lucius. I preferred to sleep at the barracks and to travel, when I had to, with Guards about me. It occurred to me more than once that if Lucius could have done something to make Rome feel safe again, I would have reconsidered my assessment of him as a dangerous lunatic given too much power without any controls.

We reached the palace unassaulted. This was not Nero’s vast gilded pleasure palace, but a smaller, more functional house that had survived from the reign of Octavian, who became Augustus Caesar.

It was painted white, like the other houses around it, and only the full detachment of Guard on duty outside set it apart from its neighbours. That, and Vitellius’ crest of the four-horse chariot, newly wrought in gold and bronze, on the columns at either side of the entrance.

Lucius was one of the few men in Rome who could enter without the emperor’s permission. He did so, slamming the door open before the Guard on duty could get to it, sweeping through the marbled rooms, calling to slaves and freedmen alike, ‘My brother? Where is he? Where’s Aulus? Where’s the emperor of Rome when I need him?’

The emperor was in the baths; a small private suite set near the back of the house, with hot and cold pools big enough for perhaps half a dozen men, and a massage room adjacent.

Today, I had to stand inside the door, not to let the heat out, breathing in a fog of warm, damp steam, while Lucius laid out for his brother the reality of the armies that were ranged against him, the specifics of Pantera’s plotting, the cleverness of his own strategies.

It was hard to know if the emperor Vitellius was interested in the parlous state of his empire. He lay face down on a slatted wooden massage table, pillowing his brow on his crossed forearms. When he spoke, his voice crawled out from under his armpit, wreathed in oils and petal scents.

The masseur who worked on him was vast, with biceps as big as my thighs and inked marks rippling there that spoke of unspeakable rites done in forests that very likely involved the eating of human flesh. His neck-breaking fingers worked delicately on his master’s calves as Lucius finished his narration.

Vitellius’ muffled voice said, ‘You told me you were going to kill this spy. Or at least render him safe.’

With strained patience, Lucius replied, ‘If we kill this one man, others will take his place and we don’t have time to find out who they are. Pantera was trusted by Vespasian to ensure the safety of his family in Rome. It is better by far to know what he plans, and thereby neutralize it, than to blunder around in the dark. This is what we are doing.’

‘Then why come to me?’

‘Because Antonius Primus is still marching on Rome. I may not go out to meet him, but someone must.’

‘No. Caecina will return to us. I know that man. I have dined with him. I trust him.’

Vitellius waved the masseur away, pushed himself upright. He was a tall man, once lean, but the months of high living had wreathed him in fat. It lay in folds about his belly, sagged on to his thighs and hung from his arms. His hair was straight and fine, the colour of grey sand, vanishing in a circle on the crown where he rubbed it, to help himself think.

His face had the look of a bust sculpted in wax that had been left too near a fire, so that everything above flowed down into everything below. When he smiled, the effort it took to lift everything upward was vast.

He made that effort now. ‘I sent a centurion, Julius Agrestis, to spy on the enemy lines. He returned this morning. I have word that he would speak to me. Let him be summoned now, and you can hear from his own mouth that you have been duped by this Pantera; things are not as dire as you have been led to believe.’

Julius Agrestis was a small, sturdy man with peg-like teeth and fuzzed brows. He was third centurion of the fifth cohort; not a particularly notable position, but one from which it was possible to climb. I remembered him as ambitious but untalented.

He was also terrified of Lucius, which was only common sense but didn’t help when it came to giving his report. Everyone knew what the emperor thought; almost everyone knew the truth was different, and to a man the Guard knew that Lucius would skin them alive if they told the emperor anything Lucius didn’t want him to hear.

The problem was in finding out precisely what Lucius didn’t want his brother to hear when there was nobody to ask and you were called to speak in front of them both. The risk of saying something unfortunate was large and real and terrifying.

So Agrestis gave his report from kneeling, with his gaze fixed on the blue-ocean floor tiles and his parade-ground voice reduced to a whisper.

‘Antonius Primus is three days’ hard ride away. He is a Roman and must be respected as such, so rather than scout in secrecy I entered his camp, introduced myself and told him I was there to assess his strengths on your behalf. He was polite and accommodating, showed me round his camp, introduced me to his centurions, and gave me dinner in the evening before setting me back on my way the following morning.’

‘And?’ Vitellius was draped in towels that hid his fat. He looked like a pink-skinned merchant, sly-eyed, thoughtful, striking the best deal he could to offload a troop of lame mules on to an unsuspecting buyer. ‘How is his camp? How many men has he? Where is Caecina?’

It was his tone that was so desperately depressing; the hidden supplication, the hints of weakness that any fighting man would despise. He wanted to hear that Caecina was held against his will and even now was making plans to escape and lead his men to glorious victory in Vitellius’ name.

Julius Agrestis was not stupid; he must have known this, but he had his own integrity and held to it.

He lifted his head and with a commendable courage said, ‘My lord, the traitor Caecina is in fine health. He dines nightly with Antonius. Together they consider the strategies that will defeat my lord’s Guards and his legions. His men, by contrast, are utterly loyal to you, their true emperor. They are in good heart and will fight for you if given the right command. It would be a pleasure to lead them.’

He dropped his gaze at the end, and so did not see Lucius catch the eye of the giant masseur and share a nod. I saw it, but did not understand it at first. I was too concerned with Vitellius, who was rocking back and forth, with his fingers jammed under his armpits, chewing on his bottom lip.

‘Caecina? Dining with Antonius Primus? He must plan some strategy, surely? He must be going to bring all of the enemy’s men to our side. He cannot have sold himself to Vespasian. What coin would purchase such a man when he fought so hard to make us emperor?’

Nobody answered. Lucius was lost in a rage that threatened to break the walls of his skull, or at the very least to rupture a blood vessel.

I was silent because only a particularly stupid man — or an elder brother — would have dared to speak when the veins were knotted purple on Lucius’ temples.

Being his brother, Vitellius spoke.

‘I could resign. Sabinus is our friend. He will take our abdication. He will smooth-’

‘ No! Brother, forgive me, but this war is far from over. Centurion Agrestis is a loyal man, but he tells us nothing we do not already know. Antonius Primus is not yet at the gates of Rome. Let one of your loyal, stalwart, competent — always competent — commanders lead the bulk of the Praetorian Guard out to block the routes to Rome.

‘We have fifteen thousand men who will march in your name: they can reach the Apennines in days and hold their passes for the rest of the winter if they have to; and we can provision them from Rome while Antonius Primus is forced to rely on the marines at Ravenna to ferry him supplies.

‘And meanwhile let me lead the remainder of the Guard south to secure the western port at Misene, where Vespasian imagines he will land with his Egyptian legions in the spring. Let these things be put in place and you shall come into the spring ruler of an empire once again at peace with itself.’

‘Do you think so?’

Vitellius’ hand had risen to his bald spot and he was rubbing it, round and round and round, stirring up the hair at its edges. He stopped in mid-circuit, and brought the hand back to his lap, staring at it, puzzled, as if it defied his control. ‘What if Antonius were to win? What then, if you have taken all the Guards out of Rome?’

‘Lord, you underrate your Guards.’ I spoke before my good sense could stop me. ‘We will fight to the last blood of the last man for you. We can hold those passes for years if we need to, and if your brother can hold the western port, then we can supply Rome and the men indefinitely from our loyal provinces.

‘Other loyal legions can be brought in, too, from Gaul or Britain or Hibernia. They can attack the Flavian forces from the rear or sail into the port at Misene and strengthen Rome. None of this is impossible. Let us only do it and you shall see how you are loved.’

The silence ached. The big masseur was looking at me thoughtfully; I knew that look, and that blood followed it. In that moment, I realized that Julius Agrestis was as good as dead and there was every chance I was going to follow him to the underworld. Even together, I don’t think we could have overpowered the giant German.

I didn’t care any more. I was sick of the plotting and the double speaking. I wanted to get out into the fresh air and fight.

I said, ‘Let me lead the men north to face Antonius. I guarantee you they will not yield while I remain alive.’

‘No.’ Lucius answered before Vitellius could draw breath to speak. ‘Juvens will lead them; he has the same vitality as you do, he can hold a line with the same skill, he is as loved by his men. And you are needed in Rome. In my absence, you will organize the defence of the city, the provisioning of the troops, the control of the streets. We need a man we can depend on.’ He turned to the centurion. ‘Julius Agrestis, you are dismissed. Drusus will escort you out. Geminus, you will accompany me back to the barracks and we shall set in train the means by which you will provision two armies and keep Rome fed.’

So I wasn’t about to die. I could have said something to win a reprieve for Agrestis, I suppose. Perhaps I should have done, but Lucius was never inclined to revoke his commands for execution and so I stepped back and let the condemned man walk out past me.

He looked relieved, as if the threat had passed; he barely noticed that the giant masseur had followed him. I counted thirteen slow heartbeats before I heard the crack of bone and flesh and the sudden exhalation that comes with a death. I have never been one to see the spirits of men as they depart, but I felt the iced fingers of a ghost passing down my back as Agrestis died.

‘Why?’ I asked, as Lucius and I left. ‘He told the truth.’

‘There is truth, and there is too much truth. He crossed that line. It will be put about that in his desperate desire to prove to my brother the nature of the danger we face he threw himself on his own sword, saying that if my brother did not believe his tale of being ready to die in his imperial cause, then he was of no further use in this life. A fitting epitaph, I think?’

I didn’t answer; Lucius was prone to rhetorical questions and could presume agreement where he chose.

The sad thing is, there are men who will believe what they are told. And then those same men will be inclined to repeat what they believe to be a noble act. Thus does insanity infect the legions.