Loe raamatut: «Fire and Sword»

PROLOGUE: AFRICA

Africa

The City of Carthage, Eight Days before the Kalends of April, AD238

‘Lay down your arms!’

As he spoke, Capelianus turned in the saddle, took in the enemy. On both flanks their levies were running, back under the aqueduct, pelting through the tombs towards the illusory safety of the walls of Carthage. His own auxiliaries, all discipline gone, were chasing them, hacking at their defenceless backs. Here in the centre, half of their regulars had put down their standards and weapons, and stretched out empty hands in supplication. Only a thousand still stood against him; the Urban Cohort, and the young men formed into the sham Praetorian Guard of the two usurpers. Win them over, disarm them, and victory was complete. Africa would be won back for Maximinus, the revolt of the Gordiani crushed. Not a battle, but a massacre.

‘Lay down your arms, fellow-soldiers. Your fight is done and over.’

Frightened eyes stared at him over the wall of shields a few paces ahead. They were outnumbered two to one. These locally raised Praetorians were not real soldiers. There was no sign of the younger Gordian.

‘Your pretend Emperor has fled. Those who led you astray have fled. No mounted officers remain under your standards.’

Still the enemy did not move.

‘Return to your military oath. You were misled. The clemency of your true Emperor Maximinus is boundless. I am merciful. There will be no retribution.’

A stirring in the ranks opposite. A tall, heavy man, pushing his way to the front. He was bareheaded.

Capelianus realized his mistake. His opponent had not fled.

Gordian the Younger stepped forth, like some terrible, martial epiphany.

The din of the killing was distant. Into the unnerving silence, here in the eye of the storm, Gordian shouted.

‘We will stand together to the end!’

Gordian drew his sword, levelled the blade at the man who had come to kill him.

‘The coward Capelianus has put himself at our mercy.’

Gordian was just a dozen paces away; big, powerful, clad in armour, exuding menace.

‘Some god has blinded him. Kill the cuckold, and the day is yet ours. With me, brothers.’

Capelianus felt his limbs clumsy with fear. Only four ranks of legionaries between him and those terrible man-killing hands.

‘Are you ready for war?’ Gordian called, the words booming through the lines.

Ready! Caught up in the intoxicating ritual of blood, the enemy shouted as one.

Ready!

On the third response, they charged, heedless of the odds against them.

At a run, Gordian crashed, shield to shield, into the foremost legionary. The man staggered back, fell to the ground, unbalancing those behind. Gordian was in their midst. Steel flashed in the sun. Men flailed and screamed. The tumult stunned the senses. Through it all, remorseless, heavy-shouldered, Gordian drove forward. An officer at his side cut down another legionary.

A mere three ranks shielded Capelianus. He felt his courage slipping away. Your heart shrank when you were past fifty, shrank until it was no bigger than that of a child.

Gordian chopped down a man to his right, took a blow, cut down the legionary in front.

Two ranks between Capelianus and Nemesis.

This was insane. Capelianus turned the head of his horse. The battlefield was his, except for here. No point in throwing his life away, not when victory was in his grasp. His cavalry had routed the opposing horse on the left. Only a handful of the enemy had broken through, and escaped to the south. Now his Numidian tribesmen were galloping wildly to the city in pursuit of plunder and rape, and the pleasures of killing the unresisting, but the regulars were rallying. Canter over there, watch from the safety of their formation, as the overwhelming numbers of his legionaries ground down Gordian and the last of the rebels.

As Capelianus hesitated, he saw Gordian take a blow to his unhelmeted head. Bloodied, but seemingly impervious, as if some deity inhabited him, Gordian thrust his blade through his assailant. Gods below, where had the degenerate acquired this energy? Was there no stopping him?

One rank remained. Prudence dictated withdrawal. Capelianus gathered his reins.

No. Everything hinged on this moment, this fleeting, unstable encounter between what had been and what would be. If they saw him flee, the morale of the legionaries would break. Panic would spread like wildfire through his whole army. Gordian would be left with the last ordered infantry in the field. With that tiny, ragtag force, the unworthy sot of a pretender would have won the most improbable of victories, would have defeated the 3rd Legion Augusta, the only legion in Africa. Gordian would process into Carthage in triumph. They would throw flowers at his feet. Gordian and his odious father would continue to wear the purple.

Capelianus tugged his sword from its scabbard. The bone hilt was slippery in his palm, no comfort. He yelled at his men, his voice unsteady.

‘Kill him! Cut him down!’

There was still some fight left in the legionaries. A slashing blade near severed the neck of the rebel officer next to Gordian. A spray of blood, bright in the sunshine. The officer vanished under the stamping boots of the melee. And suddenly Gordian was alone, ringed with steel.

‘Kill him! Just one man, finish him!’

For a moment they hung back like dogs around a bear brought to bay in the arena.

Gordian shifted his sword and shield this way and that, covering himself, gathering his strength, searching for an opening, a way to Capelianus. Blood was running freely down Gordian’s face, getting in his eyes.

‘For the gods’ sake, it is just one man. He is wounded. End him!’ Capelianus was hollow with fear.

A movement behind Gordian. A legionary jabbed his sword hard between Gordian’s shoulder blades. Gordian stumbled forward. Another swung at his head. Gordian brought up his splintered shield. Too slow. The sharp, heavy steel cut into his jaw, snapping his head sideways.

‘Finish him!’

Gordian was on his knees. A blow to the back of his head dropped him to all fours, and then they were on him, like a pack of wild dogs breaking up their prey.

Capelianus howled in exultation. ‘Cut him to pieces. Dismember the drunken bastard.’

Gordian was dead! So much for comparing himself to Hannibal, to Alexander. He was dead! The posturing fool was dead!

‘Chop off his head. Trample his body.’

The unconsidered words were a spur to action. Yes, he would trample his enemy in the dirt. Vaunt over him like a hero of old, a hero from Homer. Capelianus sheathed his unused sword, went to climb off his horse.

A hand gripped his arm. Firmanus, the Primus Pilus of the 3rd Legion. How dare he put his hands on a superior officer? Capelianus would break him to the ranks, have the skin off his back. The old Centurion was saying something.

‘Gordian the Elder.’

All the Furies, how had the senile goat slipped his mind? Capelianus had waited half a lifetime and more for his revenge. It would not escape him now.

Festina lente. Capelianus mastered himself. Hurry slowly. First the field must be secured. The revenge of the gods grinds slow but certain.

With the death of the younger Gordian, his remaining men had begun to surrender. Already the seasoned legionaries of the 3rd were surrounding them. Capelianus gave Firmanus his orders, his voice low and confidential.

‘Disarm them. Separate the Praetorians from the men of the Urban Cohort. Execute all the former. Keep the latter for decimation. Have the four Cohorts who came over without fighting retake their oath to Maximinus. Keep your legionaries under the standards. They can join the looting tomorrow. They will have a donative to make good their losses.’

Firmanus saluted, and went off to enact the commands.

Capelianus was satisfied. The youths enlisted in the bogus Praetorians had instigated the revolt. It was right they should pay the penalty. The regular soldiers of the Urban Cohort had done no worse than choose the wrong side. Decimation was enough. Discipline would be restored when one in ten had been beaten to death by his tent-mates. Old-fashioned Roman morality. The spectacle would be edifying. Maximinus would approve.

Off to the left, Capelianus’ cavalrymen were rounding up their defeated opponents. The majority of these prisoners were civilians who had risen against their rightful Emperor. Implicated in treachery and sacrilege, they too must die. Their numbers demanded all of Capelianus’ horsemen as a guard.

Capelianus regarded his staff: Sabinianus the traitor, two tribunes, and four troopers. In the distance the gates of Carthage were still clogged with the slaughter. Further organized resistance was improbable. Seven mounted men should ensure his safety. Now for Gordian the Father.

‘With me.’

Capelianus set off towards the aqueduct and the city.

Gordian the Elder would not escape. For three decades Capelianus had nurtured his hatred. He had been a young Senator of promise, tipped for great things. Until his whore of a first wife had cuckolded him with Gordian. Against all justice, the priapic old man had been acquitted of adultery. In the Senate, among the imperial courtiers, Capelianus had become a figure of mockery. The inadequate who could not control or satisfy his wife. His career had stalled. Eventually he had mortgaged his estates to raise the money to buy the Consulship. Then he had re-mortgaged them to obtain the governorship of a province. Rather than Asia or Africa Proconsularis, wealthy provinces where he could have made good all the bribes and recouped his fortune, he had received Numidia. Flyblown deserts and barren mountains, intractable natives and savage tribes, scorching in summer and freezing in winter; a host of mundane duties, scarcely rewarded; an office for junior Senators who would climb no higher. The bitterest draught was swallowed when old Gordian had been installed in Carthage: an aged Silenus lording it over the second city of the empire, reaping the riches of neighbouring Africa Proconsularis.

They rode under the aqueduct, and through the necropolis. Fresh corpses were strewn among the resting places of their forebears, like blood offerings in some barbaric religion. The small cavalcade passed a pretentious, half-finished tomb in white marble. Capelianus had given Carthage over to the soldiery. For three days they could do as they pleased. It gave Capelianus a grim satisfaction that the bereaved family might never again have the means to finish the tomb. If any lived to attempt the task.

The Hadrumetum Gate was blocked with the dead and dying. They reined in. Some auxiliaries were energetically stripping bodies. The corpses were pallid things, all humanity gone. Capelianus shouted at the soldiers to clear a path. Reluctantly they turned to the unwanted and unremunerative task, heaving and shoving as they handled the recalcitrant sides of meat.

‘Faster, you dogs, unless you want to feel the lash.’

Gordian the Elder must not escape. Capelianus turned to Sabinianus.

‘Will he try and get away by the harbour?’

Sabinianus took his time answering. ‘I do not think so. They trusted to their numbers. There was no provision for flight. No ship was readied.’

Nothing appeared to ruffle the patrician assurance of Sabinianus. Late last night, he had crept out of the city, deserted the Gordiani. In the camp of Capelianus, to prove his change of heart, Sabinianus had cut a prisoner’s throat. The prisoner had been his closest friend. It was said Sabinianus had loved Arrian like a brother.

No one could trust such a man. Sabinianus had revealed the ambush set by the Gordiani: the five hundred horsemen hidden among the warehouses and walls of the Fish Ponds beyond Capelianus’ left wing, poised to take his army in the flank, to roll up the line. Without the intervention of Sabinianus the battle might have had a very different outcome. Capelianus looked at him with loathing and contempt. Love the treachery, detest the traitor.

‘What will the old man do?’

‘Make a stand in the palace.’

‘A stand?’ Capelianus failed to keep the anxiety out of his voice. ‘They kept troops in reserve?’

‘A handful.’ Sabinianus smiled. ‘Nothing to bother the conqueror of Carthage, the new Scipio.’

Capelianus had granted Sabinianus his life. Yet the decision could be revoked.

The way clear, they clattered into the town.

It was a vision of the underworld, Tartarus, where the wicked endure their eternal punishments. Bodies, slumped and naked. Old women and young children wailing. Smashed heirlooms, desecrated homes. A smell of spilt wine and burning, a reek of vomit and excrement.

They rode up the Street of Saturn, between the Temples of Venus and Salus. As if to mock the divine assurances of Love and Safety, a young matron ran pell-mell from an alley. Hot in pursuit, a dozen or so Numidians.

Despite himself, despite the urgency of his mission, Capelianus stopped to watch.

The Numidians caught her on the steps of the Temple of Salus. As they stripped her, there was something arousing about her sharp, desperate screams. Her body was very white, even her legs and arms; a well-brought-up young wife, sheltered from the sun, modest and chaste.

She lashed out, but they forced her down, bent her over a low balustrade. Her buttocks were pale as marble, her sex dark and desirable. The heat of the climate inclined Numidians to rape, their loose, unbelted tunics facilitated the act. When their leader mounted her, she called some appeal to the men on horseback.

Capelianus smiled. ‘Health and great joy to you.’

The men laughed.

This would not do. Capelianus had an infinitely more pressing desire. Not lust, but vengeance.

They entered the Forum, passed the white altar of Peace and the bronze tablets inscribed with the ancient laws of Rome. At the far end soldiers and tribesmen promiscuously went to and fro among the pillars of the governor’s palace.

A Prefect, the commander of one of the auxiliary Cohorts, came down the steps.

‘Gordian the Elder is in a small dining room, the one they call the Delphix.’

‘Alive or dead?’

‘Dead.’

Before dismounting, Capelianus addressed the Prefect. ‘Your Cohort broke ranks, disobeyed orders, chased the rebels. After the three days of licence, there will be punishments.’

The officer saluted. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

The chastened Prefect led them into the corridors of the palace. From deeper in the labyrinth, muffled by inlaid doors and heavy curtains, came the sounds of bestial revelry. Capelianus half-remembered a passage of Polybius from his schooldays. The Greek historian had been much impressed by the order with which the Romans sacked a town. No soldier turned to looting until he was given the command. All the plunder was heaped in one place to be distributed according to rank and merit. No man kept anything back for himself. But that was long ago. Things were different now. Discipline and virtue were only words. The way of the ancestors, the mos maiorum, all forgotten, no more than an expression.

In the Delphix a semi-circle of troops stood like a tragic chorus around the hanged man. An overturned chair and a pool of liquid beneath the dangling feet of the corpse. The front of Gordian’s tunic was wet. It was said a hanged man ejaculated. By the smell, it was just urine.

Capelianus studied the bulging eyes and protruding tongue. A coward’s death. Not the steel, but the rope. A woman’s way of suicide. The dissatisfaction habitual to Capelianus consumed his thoughts. There had been a prophecy that the Gordiani would die by drowning. Capelianus had looked forward to making that come true. A butt of wine would have been fitting. Father and son had both cheated him.

‘We have captured one of their friends.’ The young Prefect was eager to make amends.

The man was pushed forward. He was battered, his clothes torn, his arms and legs laden with chains.

‘Name? Race? Free or slave?’ Capelianus intoned the traditional beginning to an inquisition.

The prisoner did not answer. He was staring at Sabinianus.

‘Name?’

Now the man gave his attention to Capelianus.

‘Mauricius, son of Mauricius, town councillor of Thysdrus and Hadrumetum.’

Capelianus knew of him. ‘The catalyst of this evil revolt. An arch-conspirator.’

Mauricius drew himself up in his chains. ‘Friend of the late Emperors, Prefect of the Horse Guards of Marcus Antonius Gordianus Romanus Africanus Augustus, Father and Son.’

‘A traitor.’

‘No traitor, but a true friend.’ Mauricius looked again at Sabinianus, with hatred. ‘A friend loyal to death. We should have known from the start. The signs were there. We should have listened at Ad Palmam when you said you would sacrifice anyone for your safety.’

No emotion showed on the face of Sabinianus.

‘Coward! Oath-breaker with the heart of a deer!’

‘You realize you will die.’ Capelianus cut off the imprecations.

‘What is terrible is easy to endure.’ There was a smile on the face of Mauricius, its reason unknowable.

‘You will be tortured.’

‘You cannot hurt me.’

‘The claws will tear your flesh.’

‘They cannot touch my soul.’

A local festival, the Mamuralia, occurred to Capelianus. ‘You will be whipped through the streets of Carthage. Outside the Hadrumetum Gate, by the Mappalian Way, you will be crucified.’

‘I am a citizen of Rome.’ There was outrage in Mauricius’ tone, yet somehow his self-possession held.

‘No, you are an enemy of Rome. As a hostis, you will die. Take him away.’

Mauricius did not struggle, but he shouted as they dragged him from the room. ‘Death to the tyrant Maximinus! Death to his creatures! You are cursed! The Furies will turn your future to ashes and suffering!’

Capelianus turned to the Prefect. ‘What of the others close to the pretenders?’

‘All of rank dead on the battlefield, apart from Aemilius Severinus, the one they call Phillyrio. He was ordered south some days ago to gather the Frontier Scouts. Together with those speculatores, he was to rally the barbarians beyond the frontier.’

‘We will hunt him down. We will hunt down all their followers, high and low.’ Capelianus felt a stab of pleasure. He had always loved the chase; men or beasts, it made no difference.

‘Some of their household – Valens, the A Cubiculo, and some other freedmen and slaves – escaped. They had a fast ship waiting by the mole of the outer harbour.’

Capelianus rounded on Sabinianus. ‘You told me they had no ship ready.’

Sabinianus said nothing.

‘You brought us here. Were you trying to let him escape?’

‘No.’ Sabinianus’ downturned mouth twitched slightly. ‘Last night I gave proof of my change of heart.’

Had the tiny involuntary grimace betrayed the patrician? Capelianus could not be sure. Sabinianus the traitor needed watching, but for now Capelianus put him out of his mind.

The corpse was still there.

‘Get him down.’

The soldiers bustled about the task, teetering on chairs, holding the legs of the corpse.

Capelianus wondered what could have induced his old enemy and his wastrel son to have bid for the throne. Certainly not justice or duty. They were archaic concepts, suitable back in the days of the free Res Publica, but outmoded and unfitting in the debased age of the Caesars. Capelianus knew what motivated men under autocracy. Nothing but lust and greed. The latter was far the stronger; greed for power as well as for wealth. At his advanced age perhaps the father had considered there was little to lose, that it would be no small thing to die clad in the purple. As for the son, his thoughts had been addled by wine and debauchery, his reasoning unsound. Yet even so, they must have appreciated in moments of clarity that they would fail. No legion was stationed in the province of Africa Proconsularis. The secret had long been revealed that Emperors could be made outside Rome. But never without the backing of thousands of legionaries.

The corpse was down.

‘Cut off his head. It will go to Maximinus.’

A soldier set about the butchery.

But would the head reach Maximinus? Against all likelihood, the Senate in Rome had declared for the Gordiani. Italy had gone over to the rebels. The fleets at Misenum and Ravenna controlled its ports. The head would have to travel up the other shore of the Adriatic, go ashore in Dalmatia, then journey overland to seek out Maximinus on the Danube frontier.

Decapitation was never easy. Sawing away, the soldier was slipping in a welter of blood.

And what remained for the Senate now? Traitors to a man. Maximinus was born a Thracian, brought up as a common soldier. Forgiveness was not a virtue cultivated by either group. The Senate could expect no mercy. Executions and confiscations, a holocaust. Few would survive. Great houses would be extinguished. The proscriptions of Sulla or Severus would be as nothing.

The head was off. Blood pooled across the marble floor, soaked into the fine rugs.

‘Preserve it in a jar of honey. Maximinus will want to gaze on his face.’

The Senate could expect no mercy. All its accumulation of experience and expertise in subtle negotiation would do no good. The Senate would have to acclaim another Emperor. Thessalian persuasion; necessity disguised as choice. But who would it clothe in the purple? Surely a governor with troops at his disposal. Maximinus was with the Danubian army. Decius in Spain was his dedicated supporter. So would the Senate turn to a governor on the Rhine or one in Britain? Or would it send a laurelled despatch to one of the great commanders in the East? Or possibly, just possibly, might its gaze focus nearer to hand? To a man proven in the field, a man who had overthrown Emperors, a man who held all Africa in his hand?

‘Throw the rest of him out into the Forum for the dogs.’

Some considered ambition was a vice, others held it a virtue. Capelianus inclined to the latter view. Yet to be Emperor was to hold a wolf by the ears. Better by far to be the man who stood behind the throne of the Caesars. Capelianus looked over at Sabinianus. Traitors had their uses.