Betrayal: The Centurions I Page 6

  Kivilaz put out a hand and the two men clasped.

  ‘And now, Gaius Julius Civilis, known to his countrymen as Kivilaz, join me in another cup of wine. Our mutual friend Cerialis is known for parties that do not end until the dawn, when he greets his clients and then goes about his day’s business with a cheery whistle while the rest of us crawl away to our beds. The man will be the death of me, and quite possibly you too, unless you truly do have the blood of a barbarian prince in your veins as it is rumoured!’

  Kivilaz grinned, taking a mouthful of his drink.

  ‘I believe that there’s more wine than blood in my body at this point in time, Plinius Secundus. So yes, perhaps our mutual friend will be the death of me, too. But then having served, you’ll know the old saying: What does not kill us only serves to make us stronger.’

  Germania Inferior, December AD 68

  ‘Batavodurum. That’s not a sight I expected to see this year.’

  The man riding alongside Hramn stared across the open landscape for a long moment before replying, his cloak’s hood raised against the east wind’s biting grip.

  ‘Nor I, Decurion.’

  Turning in his saddle the Bodyguard’s commander looked back down the long line of his men, raising a hand to signal a halt.

  ‘Officers, to me!’

  At his shouted command the other five decurions trotted their mounts up the column, dismounting to stand round their leader. Hramn tipped his head in the direction taken by the road’s arrow-straight path, directing their attention to the thin fingers of smoke that reached skywards from the huddled buildings that were visible on the horizon.

  ‘Batavodurum. Home. Your men have already seen it, and they’re delighted and terrified in the same measures. Delighted at the thought of seeing home, those of them who weren’t already effectively married to Roman widows …’

  He paused for the obligatory chuckles. It was an article of faith among his men that nothing loosened the morals of Roman ladies of a particular class like the sight of a well-built, six-foot-tall tribesman in full armour, and every man in the Bodyguard seemed to have a dubious tale or two to tell about his off-duty escapades.

  ‘And they’ll be terrified of what our people are going to say when they see us ride into the city with nothing more than a mule and the weight it can carry in equipment. So go back to your men and tell them that when we ride in past the cavalry fort I want them to carry themselves as if the Bodyguard had never been sent home. Tell them that I expect them to look like the biggest, the nastiest, the smartest and the deadliest men on this frontier, and that I demand that they carry themselves like heroes coming home from battle: eyes front, spears upright and no emotion. Tell them they’re on parade, and that the audience is a good deal more knowledgeable than the Romans ever were, so any man that makes my Bodyguard look bad will be having a short and unpleasant discussion with me before the sun’s beneath the horizon. Got that?’

  His officers nodded and dispersed back to their centuries, leaving him to stare up the road at the city of his birth with pursed lips.

  ‘What? You just warned your decurions not to let anyone pull the sad face when you ride in, and there’s you looking like a man who’s woken up to discover that his dream of a foot-long prick was ten inches more generous than the reality. You do know the elders will be out to greet us, don’t you? You of all people are going to need to be wearing your bravest face.’

  Hramn looked at the distant city for a moment longer before replying to his companion’s jibe.

  ‘I can tell my men to ride in there like they’ve got balls big enough to play harpastum with. I can put on a face so hard that you could break your knuckles on it, but I can’t give these men the future they were depending on …’

  ‘And so what?’

  The decurion shook his head in amazement.

  ‘And so what? Our tribe’s honoured place at the heart of Roman power is torn away from us, spat on by those praetorian arseholes and then trampled underfoot? We’re forced to endure the spectacle of a cohort of the bastards waiting to take over our fort while we ride out, all of them grinning and shouting insults after us. And you say “And so what?”?

  The other man shrugged, pulling his cloak about him a little more tightly.

  ‘Didn’t you take a good long shit on your bed before you led the cohort out that last morning? I know they all did …’ He gestured to the men of Hramn’s command, gathered around their officers to hear his commands. ‘Because they’ve told me so. And to be frank with you, I’m amazed that we lasted as long as we did in the role. The Bodyguard could have been disbanded after Arminius and his horde of maniacs ripped three legions to pieces back in the days of the first emperor. And what about the blood our idiots spilled after Caligula’s death, eh, taking out their rage at having failed to protect the lunatic by slaughtering anyone that got in their way with equal lunacy? Hardly our finest hour.’

  He looked at the decurion for a moment.

  ‘For everything, Hramn, there is a time. Nothing lasts for ever. Every man dies, no matter how good a life he leads, and everything comes to an end. Even empires fall, eventually. So, shall we get mounted, now that your men know you expect them to put on a show for the people of Batavodurum that could put a smile on the statue of Hercules in the forum? Not to mention giving Claudius Labeo something to gnash his teeth on, now that he’s no longer the only Batavi commanding a crack cavalry cohort.’

  Hramn looked round in surprise.

  ‘Labeo? He’s commanding the First Batavian Horse? How did that happen, I thought command of the Horse was usually given to the Julii?’

  ‘It was. But the times are changing, Hramn, and the days when the men of the Julii and the Augustii clans ruled the tribe are slipping away from us. The families that gained the citizenship under Claudius and Nero are flexing their muscles and demanding their share of the tribe’s honour, and Labeo took command of the Horse last year after my cousin Ansugaizas left the service. Shall we go? Your men are looking suitably bad tempered.’

  Hramn led his men up the road towards the city four horses abreast, looking back to find their formation immaculate and their faces locked into immobility. Ignoring the smirks of his companion, he stared hard at the walls of the First Batavian Horse’s wooden palisade, but beyond the fort’s expected sentries there was no sign of the Bodyguard’s sister unit’s presence. Another half-mile brought them to Batavodurum’s massive east gate, where a gathering of the tribe’s elders effectively barred their way into the city. Raising a hand he halted the column and dismounted, waiting in grave silence as a single man stepped forward, supporting his weight on a thick staff of polished wood.

  ‘Travellers from the south, what is your purpose in seeking to enter the Oppidum Batavorum?’

  Hramn took a pace forward, raising his hand in a crisp salute.

  ‘The men of the Emperor’s Bodyguard humbly request our elders’ permission to enter our tribe’s city, and to travel onward from here to our homes, many and various, both within our tribe’s lands and that of our allies.’

  The elderly man smiled and extended a hand to direct them in through the gate.

  ‘The city’s elders have considered this request in advance, being forewarned of your arrival, and naturally we welcome the men of the Bodyguard back to their homeland.’

  Unable to contain himself any longer, former Prefect Draco strode forward and embraced Hramn warmly.

  ‘Decurion, you and your men are welcome in your home whenever you wish to visit.’ He waited for the other man to take the hand. ‘Although as we are both painfully aware, this is not a visit. When all five hundred of the Emperor’s German Bodyguard come home, every man with his horse and a mule for his possessions, then it seems that the evil tidings from the south were correct. It’s true that the Bodyguard has been dismissed from the emperor’s service?’

  Hramn nodded, flicking a stray lock of his fair hair away from his face, his piercing blue eyes still staring hard
at the veteran’s lined face.

  ‘It is true. I will speak more of it when my men are billeted and their horses stabled, but until then a leader of the Bodyguard still has duties to perform. But the news I bring is not all bad. Here is the man the emperor has appointed to command the Bodyguard, now that we will serve in the army of Germania Inferior. Prefect?’

  He gestured to the man who had ridden to the city’s gates beside him, and the rider dismounted and flicked his cloak’s hood back to reveal the familiar shock of black hair, now shot through with grey, his disconcerting one-eyed stare for once creased into a grin.

  ‘Kivilaz!’

  The newcomer strode to meet the veteran, taking the proffered hand and grasping it with both of his own.

  ‘Well met, Draco! Not a greeting I ever dared to hope I would make again in this life, but strange times sometimes throw up fortunate outcomes.’

  ‘How is it that you return to us without any forewarning? You were freed by the new emperor, I presume?’

  His former centurion nodded dourly.

  ‘After making me wait four months for a judgement, it took the man less time than you or I could use to peel and eat an apple to free me without further charge or censure. The emperor regretted the illegal execution of my brother, and noted that the man responsible for his death had been murdered, apparently by a disaffected centurion, which would perhaps give me some small cause for satisfaction, although I was careful to hide my joy at the bastard’s death and my regret that I wasn’t the man to send him across the river. I was pardoned, and further to that given command of the “Bodyguard” cavalry wing, with, as Hramn correctly stated, the rank of prefect. And with that I was ushered away, a free citizen of Rome and no longer invited to stay within the palace walls, but fortunately I was already in receipt of an invitation to enjoy the hospitality of a Roman we last met at the end of the war with the Iceni. An unlucky former legatus by the name of Cerialis. Remember him?’

  Draco nodded.

  ‘I recall the stories that circulated during my last days in Rome, before I passed command of the Guard to our brother Furistaz. Your host was indeed an unfortunate man in that he ran head on into several times his own strength of wild-eyed Britons on the march, but lucky enough to get away with his skin, even if his reputation was shredded beyond repair. But what made him take any interest in the doings of a Batavi prince, even one so infamously mistreated?’

  Kivilaz smiled knowingly.

  ‘The man might have been unlucky ten years ago, but he’s no fool. It seems his father-in-law is a legatus augusti by the name of Vespasianus, currently battering the Jews back into submission in Judea. You’ll remember him, it was his Second Augusta that forced the crossing of the Medui after we’d hamstrung the Britons’ chariot horses, and then helped us rescue that young idiot Geta from the trap he’d driven his legion into. And this man Vespasianus is well thought of, it seems, a proper soldier with little time for the niceties of the court and apparently barely tolerated by Nero despite having been highly successful during the invasion of Britannia.’

  Draco stared at him for a moment.

  ‘Have you been playing at politics again, Kivilaz?’

  The prince looked back at him with an amused expression.

  ‘Straight to the point as ever, Prefect. And politics? Me? How is it political to accept the hospitality of a man whose family feel some connection to our tribe? I stayed at Cerialis’s house for a few days, until the Guard were ready to leave, then quietly joined them as an anonymous horseman, identically equipped, and rode out of the city completely unremarked. It was my opinion that the less visible I could be in returning to the Island the better, given that there are still men of the legions at the Old Camp who still very much want my head on a spike above their main gate. And besides, surely today is about our brothers-in-arms here, and how badly they’ve been treated by the empire?’

  Draco nodded slowly, then turned back to his fellow elders.

  ‘It is. Elders of the tribe, I suggest that we allow these men some time to attend to their horses and bathe away the dust and grime of the road. We will gather again later to discuss the events that have led them here.’

  The Bodyguard’s officers congregated in the city’s meeting hall after dark, once their horses had been stabled, and those of their eight hundred men whose families lived in the city’s environs had been reunited with parents and siblings. Those men whose homes were too far from Batavodurum to make the remainder of their journey home in daylight, and their Ubii comrades whose homeland was several days’ march upriver, had been housed overnight in a temporary barracks in the city’s forum. The tribe’s elders took their seats to hear Hramn’s version of the events that had led to his command being relieved of their role as the emperor’s most intimate guard, while the other five centurions sat in stone-faced silence behind him. Hramn noted the presence of Claudius Labeo, the Batavian cavalry wing’s prefect, among the elders, his right as the commander of the tribe’s most prestigious unit.

  ‘So there was no warning? No obvious cause?’

  The younger man shook his head dourly at Draco’s question.

  ‘None at all. But you have to understand events in the capital to see how it came about.’

  Kivilaz leaned back in his chair, seated among the elders as was his right as a prince of the tribe.

  ‘I might have a view on that.’

  Hramn looked at him in surprise.

  ‘A view from a prison cell? How much could you see from there?’

  ‘More than you might think, Decurion. Cerialis was happy enough to share the gossip of the day when he came to visit me, more as an equal than a barbarian prisoner. It might amuse you to know that he and his friends considered me something of a gentleman.’

  Hramn smiled despite himself.

  ‘It might take you a while to shrug that off. As to why we’ve been dismissed by the new emperor, that’s simple enough, he made it very clear to me through the praetorian prefect. Galba doesn’t trust anyone who was loyal to Nero, and we men of the guard were scrupulously loyal him until he committed suicide. Of course, we offered Galba our service when he entered Rome, but the praetorians had already been in his ear, telling him that our sympathies were still with Nero, and that we might well look to take revenge for his suicide. Throwing them the bone of their men replacing us in the palace must have seemed like a good idea to him.’

  Draco shook his head.

  ‘The man’s a fool. Since the days of Augustus the emperors have kept faith with the idea that they need their Germans to keep them safe from the potential plots involving the praetorians, and if Galba thinks that coming to power on the back of Vindex’s revolt makes him secure enough to do away with our men’s services, then I suspect he’ll soon enough realise that he might as well have invited a viper into his bed. But that will be a painful lesson that he’ll doubtless learn in his own time. So you were disbanded without any proper warning?’

  Hramn nodded grimly.

  ‘We were told to parade for a briefing from the praetorian prefect, without any hint as to what it might be. Fortunately, we have enough friends in the palace to have known what was planned for us, but it was still done without any regard for our pride, or, more importantly, that of the Batavi people. We’re to join the army of Germania Inferior and act as ordinary cavalrymen, even if we are to retain the name of the Bodyguard.’

  ‘And the emperor’s traditional end of service donative, the gift bestowed for years of service in a foreign land? Surely—’

  ‘Not a word. Men with twenty years and more of service have been tossed aside, their years of commitment to Rome rewarded with a fist to the balls and a cheery wave goodbye.’

  ‘And these were the emperor’s orders?’

  ‘Not as such. One of his freedmen came to us discreetly, and told me that his master would seek to make restitution for the way we had been treated by the praetorian prefect, given time to stabilise his rule, but that he would be unable
to do so for some months, to avoid further irritating the praetorians. He’d already decided not to pay them the donative that they were promised by his representatives in Rome, when they were busy convincing the city that he was the right man to succeed Nero, and they weren’t all that happy with the retraction.’

  Draco shrugged.

  ‘You’ll never see a bronze coin of that promise, and Galba won’t last until the end of the year if he goes breaking promises made to the praetorians. Your men will have to be happy with the pay of regular cavalrymen, I suspect. Your new prefect can sort it out with the legatus augusti in Colonia Agrippina when he goes to present his respects.’ He glanced at Kivilaz. ‘You do plan to visit the new man in command of the army on the lower Rhenus, I presume?’

  The prince nodded.

  ‘My command of the Bodyguard formally takes effect on the first day of next year. In the meantime, I plan to write to him and make sure he knows that he’s got a new cavalry wing as of that date. Doubtless he’ll summon me to let me know what his plans for us are once we’ve got Saturnalia out of the way.’

  He looked at Draco questioningly.

  ‘Speaking of which, I’d be grateful for any news of our cohorts. I had the impression from my friends in Rome that they’ve been regarded as something of an oddity since they were split away from the Fourteenth Legion to stop our boys and theirs from fighting like rats in a barrel whenever they’re in the same place. Do we have any idea where the poor bastards are now?’