The Art of War

Chapter 58

Rome, 18 December AD 69

Trabo

The night of the eighteenth was dark and wet and cold: a bad combination for any man standing sentry duty.

It was no surprise, therefore, that the ring of iron around the foot of the Capitol hill became more of a sieve as soon as night fell.

Pantera took us all through together, Domitian and the catamite and me, and brought us past the barrier Jocasta had made with all its upward pointing knives.

‘Hooks on ropes would pull those down,’ Domitian said, as we passed. ‘Germanicus used such things to overcome the enemy warriors in the forests of the Rhine. The Guard will know of them.’

So the boy had been reading military texts. His father would have been happy to hear it, which was probably the point.

We discussed tactics for a while, in the process of which we learned that, while Domitian and Sabinus were unable to leave the city, Pantera was sending a steady stream of men out with messages to Antonius. Their lot was harder, we gathered: the Guard around the hill might have been notably lax, but the sentry points at Rome’s gates were triply manned and everyone leaving was searched.

One man had left in a coffin, wrapped in shrouds and lying beneath the leaking, stiff, stinking body. Another had gone in a cart-load of rotten fruit. Only those things impossible to imagine were safe, and soon not even those.

If Domitian had any doubts about being here, that was enough to stop them. He participated more fully, after that, in the planning of tactics for when the Guard came upon us.

When, not if. We had no doubt they would attack, the only question was when — and how much we could rely on Sabinus and those around him to fight back.

The only time I saw Domitian in doubt was when Pantera mentioned that Jocasta was there, and that she had organized the barricades. Whatever it was that flashed across Domitian’s face then — fear? shame? shyness? — was gone too fast for me to read it, but there was no doubt that he hadn’t expected her to be here, and wasn’t pleased to hear of it. I thought he had been her lover, and was ashamed to have her see him in the company of the painted catamite from the House of the Lyre.

I hated both of them for that.

Domitian didn’t see my face, or if he did he didn’t care. He moved briskly on, as if her name had not come up, saying, ‘The temple is ahead. Will they open the doors to us or do we need a password?’

‘The password is Vespasian,’ Pantera said. ‘We’re not seeking prizes for originality. Speak it aloud and they’ll let you in.’

‘Are you not coming too?’

Pantera had already turned away, and was heading back down the hill.

‘I have to be sure that Felix is alive, and that he has been sent with his message to Lucius. If he hasn’t, we may have to change a number of things very fast. If I’m not back before dawn, Trabo will organize the defences. Take your orders from him as you would from me.’

That, as you can imagine, pleased nobody.