The Sword and the Throne Read online

  The Sword and the Throne

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Tile Page

  Dedication

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Copyright

  To the treehouse, for your shelter and for keeping out all those pesky distractions

  Dramatis Personae

  ICOLA, GNAEUS JULIUS* Caecina Severus’s oldest friend

  AULUS Caecina Severus’s son

  ALPINUS, JULIUS* Alpine rebel

  BASSUS, LUCILIUS* Admiral of the fleet

  CERBERUS Prefect of the Silian cavalry

  DOMITIA* Julius Agricola’s wife

  GALBA, SERVIUS SULPICIUS* Emperor of Rome

  GALERIA* Vitellius’s wife

  GERMANICUS, AULUS VITELLIUS* Governor of Lower Germania and Emperor of Rome

  LACO, CORNELIUS* Galba’s praetorian prefect

  LUGUBRIX Grain merchant from Gaul

  MARTIANUS, ICELUS*Galba’s freedman

  OTHO, MARCUS SALVIUS* Emperor of Rome

  PANSA Legate of the XXI Rapax

  PAULINUS, SUETONIUS*

  Roman general, defeated Boudicca’s rebellion

  PRIMUS, ANTONIUS* Legate of VII Galbiana in Pannonia

  RUFUS, VERGINIUS* Previous governor of Lower Germania

  SABINUS, FLAVIUS* Brother of Vespasian

  SABINUS, PUBLILIUS* Prefect of an auxiliary cohort

  SALONINA* Caecina Severus’s wife

  SEVERUS, AULUS CAECINA (later AULUS CAECINA ALIENUS)*Legate of the IV Macedonica and Vitellian general

  TOTAVALAS Caecina Severus’s Hibernian freedman

  TUSCUS, GAIUS Camp Prefect of IV Macedonica

  VALENS, FABIUS* Legate of the I Germanica and Vitellian general

  VESPASIAN* General charged with putting down the Jewish Revolt

  VINDEX, JULIUS* Leader of the Vindex rebellion

  VINDEX, QUINTUS Julius Vindex’s son and Tribune of the IV Macedonica

  VINIUS, TITUS* Confidant of Galba

  VOCULA, DILLIUS* Legate of the XXII Primigenia

  *Historical character

  Prologue

  The dagger lies at the furthest edge of my desk. I can barely write more than a paragraph before my eyes flick towards it yet again. I have spent the last few weeks writing these memoirs of mine, but the looming presence of my old friend’s dagger has lent a lightning pace to my stylus. Will the praetorians reach me before I can finish? Will anybody read these pages when I’m gone? Only the gods know these things, and they have abandoned me these ten years. I am not an old man, but I feel it. I am forty, still in my prime. Perhaps that’s why it all went wrong for me.

  In the year of Nero’s suicide I was twenty-nine. I’d spent half my adult life in the army and the other half in politics, but none of that could have prepared me for what was to come. I’d been drawn into that bastard Galba’s conspiracy to overthrow Nero, left my comfortable post in Hispania to advise Vindex’s sham of a revolt in Gaul. At least it was meant to be a sham. Instead of the handful of farm boys we had counted on to frighten Nero into exile or even suicide, Vindex had taken it into his head to rouse all of Gaul in revolt. I’d spent weeks masquerading as a Celtic tribesman among Vindex’s followers, and had found myself, for the most part, with a band of brave and boisterous men. I’d even become a close friend of Vindex’s son, the young Quintus. But Vindex himself had tried to get rid of me, hoping to defeat the Rhine legions that his shambolic rebellion had roused. He was outclassed. The Gauls had been crushed, annihilated. Too late Vindex realized he had overreached himself and, with a little persuasion, took his own life to preserve his family’s honour.

  The general who had defeated us, a harmless, kindly man called Verginius Rufus, thought he was avoiding civil war by refusing the demands of his legions to declare himself emperor. Galba even appointed me commander of one of those Rhine legions so that I could help Rufus keep the peace. But everything changed when Rufus was summoned to Rome. The men had already lost one chance to have their own general as emperor, they were not about to let another opportunity slip through their fingers. It was a daily struggle to keep the men from mutiny, especially with the scheming General Valens urging the new governor, that humongous hedonist Vitellius, to take the purple.

  The final straw came when Galba himself summoned me to Rome on a charge of embezzlement. This dated from my days in Hispania, and while the accusation was true it was not something for which senators were ever prosecuted. Everyone knows that governors skim a little from each year’s taxes to fund their election campaigns back in Rome. Only one man in Rome’s history was hypocritical enough to prosecute his fellow senator for making the most of his time in the provinces, that parvenu Cicero. It could only mean that Galba no longer had any need of me. For better or for worse, I was shackled to an army that had just one goal: Rome.

  I

  The lion yawned widely, showing off his bloody fangs. He took no notice of the team of slaves trying to coax him out of the arena. One of them, the one who was brave enough to come within ten paces of the animal, was clearly the lion’s keeper. The rest were plainly terrified, clutching their spears tightly, attempting to follow the keeper’s directions in an effort to herd the lion through the right gate. The luckier slaves stood outside the arena, waiting to clear away what remained of the monster’s meal.

  One of the slaves found some courage, circled behind the lion and made a tentative jab. The brute snarled, but didn’t move. The slave took a step nearer and made to jab again. In a flash the lion pounced, its jaws sinking deep into the unfortunate wretch’s neck. The crowd cheered the animal’s second victory.

  ‘Talk about value for money, the beast has given us an encore!’ Valens joked. A few sycophants in the box laughed.

  Little Aulus tugged at my sleeve. ‘Father, why is there only one lion? In Rome they have lions, tigers, sometimes elephants…’

  I felt my face flush. These games were a celebration in Vitellius’s honour. Was it my fault that this wretched northern province had only the one lion?

  Vitellius neglected the dishes in front of him for a moment as he turned to address my son.

  ‘Don’t fret, little one, I am told the main act is still to come. Am I right, Valens?’

  ‘Indeed, Caesar.’

  Vitellius grimaced. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times, I don’t like it when you call me that. Call me Germanicus if you must, but I am not a Caesar.’

  ‘It’s for the men, Caesar,’ Valens protested.

  Vitellius said nothing, and returned to his refreshments, irritated but not protesting too much.

  By this time the slaves had managed to move the lion off his backside and towards the edge of the arena. The other team had come on from the far side, still well clear of the beast, and started to pick up the body parts that lay scattered in the sand.

  ‘Who were they?’ my wife asked.

  ‘They, Salonina?’ I said.

  ‘The men they threw to the lion.’

  ‘Oh, the usual, I suspect: thieves, murderers, slaves that nobody could sell. Isn’t
that right, Valens?’

  ‘Those sorts of people, yes. Normally it’s whoever we have in the cells at the time. Apparently one of them was a Christian.’

  ‘Really? So far north? I thought they kept themselves to Judaea and the East?’ my wife asked.

  ‘They’ve been in Rome for a few years now,’ I said. ‘Perhaps this one converted while he was in Rome.’

  ‘Not this one,’ Valens interrupted. ‘He claims he was a follower of this Christ man, and on a mission from his god to spread the word here in the north. It seems the magistrates caught him early, before he could do any preaching.’

  ‘Which god is this?’ Aulus asked.

  ‘These Christians have only one god,’ I explained. ‘That’s why they rebel so often, like the Jews. I don’t envy Vespasian.’

  ‘Who?’ my son asked.

  ‘The man Nero sent out to deal with the latest rebellion. Men who fight for land or plunder are one thing; you try fighting against an enemy who believe they are fighting for their god. It is madness, but a madness stoked by fervour. Rome’s better off without Christians and Jews.’

  ‘Come, Severus, we are meant to be celebrating your birthday, not discussing philosophy!’ Vitellius shook his finger at me in mock reproach.

  It was my thirtieth birthday. A winter’s day in the bitter north, but the townspeople of Colonia and many from the legions had come to the amphitheatre to celebrate Vitellius’s taking of the name Germanicus. But unofficially this was my birthday celebration. I had a beautiful, pregnant wife, a clever son and the prospect of wealth and power. Even Valens, the grim man who was my rival for Vitellius’s patronage, was in an affable mood. We were putting our differences aside as we planned ahead, and it was his idea to have this double celebration.

  The horns trumpeted the arrival of the main event. The tunnel leading to the gladiator quarters was directly opposite our box, so we were the first to see the four men enter the arena. The master of ceremonies, who had been chatting to Vitellius, rose to speak. He drew himself up to his full height, breathing from his diaphragm so that his voice would project and echo around the amphitheatre.

  ‘Citizens and soldiers of Colonia, your emperor is proud to present a brutal contest, the likes of which has never been seen in Rome’s illustrious history. Step forward, Galba and the Three Pedagogues!’

  A fearsome chorus of booing and hissing erupted as the four men stepped on to the sandy floor of the arena. Three of them were big, burly men drawn from across the gladiator styles: the murmillo with fish-like scales of armour covering most of his torso and armed with a simple gladius, the retiarius, lightly armoured and wielding a net and a trident, and finally a huge man who carried a double-handed club like mighty Ajax, the Greek hero at Troy. The three men represented the Emperor Galba’s closest advisers in Rome, men Galba relied on so completely that the city mob had dubbed them ‘the Pedagogues’.

  Behind the three came a scrawny man, armed only with a small shield and dagger. He limped precariously, and took his place in between the two gladiators at the rear of the triangle they formed. The puny creature represented Galba himself, right down to the tell-tale limp.

  ‘And now, representing our beloved emperor, Aulus Vitellius Germanicus, we have the champion of champions, Clothar!’

  From beneath our box emerged a titan of a man, wearing the armour of a legionary, but that was the only bit of conventional kit he wore. For instead of a shield, Clothar carried a second gladius. And rather than a legionary’s helmet he wore one of the German style with cheek-pieces and a nose-guard, topped with a purple plume. He turned to face Vitellius, crossed the swords in front of his chest and bowed. Vitellius smiled and twirled his fingers in acknowledgement of the salute. Then the German turned to the crowd and basked in their cheers and appreciation.

  ‘I was trying to think how best to make a German look like a Roman emperor,’ Valens said.

  ‘So I see,’ I commented. ‘It doesn’t bother you then that a slave is wearing the imperial purple?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Valens, but he’s right. If I’m not wearing purple, then nobody else should be.’

  ‘But sir, I promise it’s necessary, for the men especially. Go on, tell them,’ he prompted the master of ceremonies. The man stood up to address the crowd for the final time.

  ‘This is a fight to the death. If the Pedagogues fail to protect Galba, they will be executed.’ There was a murmur of excitement from the crowd. ‘Or Clothar may kill each man in turn, and leave Galba defenceless. Now let the fight begin.’

  A nice touch from Valens. Brutal, but clever. Even here in the provinces people knew that Galba had abandoned his pretensions of ruling with the support of the Senate and retreated behind his three loyal companions. I had met two of them almost a year ago, on that fateful night in Hispania. Titus Vinius had commanded one legion and raised another for Galba and was now a consul. The slave Icelus Martianus was the other. He was rumoured to be Galba’s lover, and had been rewarded not only with his freedom but with elevation to the class of the knights, which had caused no small outrage in Rome. The third was Cornelius Laco, the praetorian prefect and the man responsible for the emperor’s safety. Galba made no decision without the approval of this gang of three, and was losing popularity by the day.

  All the gladiators made the customary salute to the emperor before taking up their positions for the fight. The three gladiators who represented Galba’s henchmen had no choice but to defend the limping slave if they wanted to save their lives, and they drew tightly around him as Clothar advanced.

  The German was a big man, towering over the others, but he wasn’t too bulky to take on three highly trained gladiators. He walked obliquely, angling away from the front of the triangle, as though he hoped he could just walk round them. The three men shuffled so that the foremost, the murmillo, still faced Clothar directly. With a couple of quick steps, Clothar made for the gap between the murmillo and the club-man.

  ‘Looks as though he’s trying to take out Galba straight away and save himself a proper fight,’ I remarked.

  I was wrong. The murmillo and the club-man instinctively closed ranks to protect the scrawny slave behind them. And if you’re holding a double-handed club, the last thing you want is an enemy up close, which meant the club-man had no choice but to take a swing at Clothar. The gladiators were good. As Clothar swerved to avoid the spiked club the heavily armoured murmillo lunged forward, hoping to catch the German off balance. Quick as lightning Clothar parried the thrust with his left, the murmillo’s sword rasping along the gladius safely to the side. Clothar spun away, and as he spun he scythed with his right, gashing the club-man on his arm and across the chest. Out of range, Clothar returned to his crab-like scuttle around the four men.

  ‘A denarius says he kills the murmillo first. What do you say, Severus?’

  I snorted. ‘Stop being such a miser, Valens. Live a little; I’ll wager twenty denarii.’

  Valens grumbled, but didn’t want to lose face. ‘Done.’

  ‘You have been,’ I said quietly.

  Little Aulus tugged my sleeve. ‘What do you mean, Father?’

  ‘Clothar daren’t kill the murmillo first, otherwise he’ll face two warriors with a much bigger reach.’

  ‘But surely fighting two is easier than fighting three?’

  ‘Normally yes,’ I admitted, ‘but drawn up tightly around the slave playing Galba the other two are hampered, they can’t use the longer reach their weapons give them. With the murmillo dead the other two would have room to manoeuvre and pincer Clothar.’

  A gasp from the crowd made me look up. Clothar had been circling ever further away from the iron triangle, but now he was running full pelt, straight for the murmillo. I stole a glance at Valens. His clenched fists were raised, urging the German on. Suddenly there was a flash of silver that darted in front of Clothar. The club-man sank to the ground, a thrown gladius embedded in his chest. The German was still running straight for the murmillo, who was braci
ng himself for the charge. But just as the imposing gladiator aimed a blow that would cleave Clothar in two, the German, who symbolized the hopes and dreams of the northern legions, stumbled. The mob groaned as one. Clothar was on his back and they sensed the inevitable.

  Even the retiarius raised his trident in celebration, thankful that he had not been needed to defend the slave that stood for Galba. But the German was a spectacular fighter. To this day, I have never seen anything to match it: he hadn’t tumbled, but instead he slid along the sand feet first. The murmillo, encumbered with fish-like scales of armour, hardly had time to react. Too late he tried to turn his slashing cut into a downward thrust, but Clothar used his remaining sword to hack into the other man’s leg beneath the knee, cutting it clean off. The gladiator teetered, blood spurting from the stump, only to crash to the ground like a felled tree, his armour clattering. All this had happened in a matter of moments, and it took all of us in the amphitheatre a few seconds to comprehend what had taken place. Then the noise thundered like a storm.

  ‘Clothar! Clothar!’ they chanted. But the fight was not over yet.

  The murmillo had fallen on top of Clothar’s leg, trapping him. The retiarius was quick-witted enough to cast his net at the flailing pair, and there was an audible clang as one of the lead weights struck the German’s helmet. The gods know what the crowd would have done if Clothar had been caught in the net. The omens for Vitellius would have been too dreadful to contemplate. And what on earth was the retiarius doing? Instead of going in for the kill he merely circled the entrapped pair, as though he were toying with them.

  Ironically, it was the murmillo who saved Clothar. Writhing in pain, he lashed out, and cut away a part of the net. The German squirmed his way out and rolled towards the corpse of the club-man. There was nothing the retiarius could do, as the wounded gladiator lay between him and Clothar. The German plucked the gladius from the dead man’s chest, and the terrified slave cowered behind his last remaining champion. The scent of victory was in the air, we all felt it. So did the retiarius, but it was not his victory that we sensed. Two men were left standing. The classic gladiator fight was upon us: trident and net against the sword. And Clothar was a champion.