Legionary, page 38
Pavo and Maximus slowed then, both suddenly losing confidence in what was real and what shadowy game they were both tangled in. Pavo shot a look behind him, at the wall of flames rising up the stairs. Frugilo was down there somewhere. Was he Peregrinus the Stranger? Frugilo, the fellow he had grown to, in an odd way, love. Yet was that not the greatest form of manipulation?
‘A fine tale,’ Maximus scoffed, snapping out of his own moment of hesitancy and reaffirming his grip on his sword. ‘Regardless, what has happened has happened, and here we are. I was always going to make the West my own, when the time was right. Things have happened sooner, that is all.’
Pavo’s nose wrinkled. ‘You might have been fed false information by Peregrinus… but still, you always had a choice. You chose this: war, fire, death!’
‘I chose the path to power. Today’s victory will soon confirm me as Emperor of the West – and perhaps the East too. Your emperor appears to be in some trouble out there.’
Pavo glanced to the window, seeing Theodosius and his palace legions surrounded, swords milling, blood spraying. The Claudian banner was bobbing in the heart of it all. Carrion crows were circling in dense banks, sensing the imminent capitulation of the Eastern legions. Dark coils of smoke began to crawl along the corridor, blocking out the view momentarily, stinging Pavo’s eyes.
In that moment, Maximus lunged. His sword tip sliced Pavo’s bare shield arm, a deep cut. Pavo roared out and struck back in anger – a wild blow that Maximus easily avoided. Maximus lunged again and Pavo blocked, yet he could feel the strength in his opponent – who had suffered no real exertion in the battle yet today. Pavo feinted left then went for Maximus’ right. The Dark Eagle read the move and jerked clear.
The pair circled more quickly now. A breath of fire roared along the corridor, lighting the gold-fringed drapes that lined the passage. Flames curled down the walls around Pavo. The heat was searing to the skin.
‘The fire crawls up behind you, Pavo. You will have to fight me, or burn.’ Maximus stepped back into the cleaner, cooler air near the arched window at the corridor’s end. ‘Come, fight me, die on my sword and become part of my legend.’ He gestured over his shoulder at the window and down to the gardens around the manor. ‘I will have a smaller tomb made for you beside that of Theodosius. I will call it the garden of fools.’
‘Your legend?’ Pavo half-laughed, half-coughed. ‘You ran from Siscia. You ran from the battle out there. How long will your troops – numerous as they may be – stand with you?’
‘As long as I give them silver,’ Maximus grinned, showing two rows of perfect white teeth. ‘Victory brings plenty of that. Today, they will be rewarded well.’
Pavo halted where he stood, staring through the window, a strange thrill rising through him. ‘Will they?’ he said.
Maximus’ face darkened in confusion.
Pavo lifted his sword a little higher – this time to point through the window.
Maximus’ brow creased, seeing the look in Pavo’s eyes. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder.
Pavo watched his entire demeanour change. The great force approaching from the western ranges was clearly visible now, not just a flickering tide of silver. Different horns blew. Many, many trumpets. Legionary standards fluttered and this new mass raced towards the ongoing battle. At their head rode a gleaming golden warrior holding aloft a purple draco standard that swam through the sweltering summer air. Valentinian and the Egyptian legions… along with the garrison of Rome, a vast array of other Italian legions and auxiliary wings. At least ten thousand fresh soldiers, hurtling towards the fray.
‘How… how,’ Maximus said, the words sliding from his mouth like vomit.
‘Looks like The Bull of Britannia met his match at sea,’ Pavo said in a gravelly drawl.
The reinforcements swarmed into the battle, and changed the whole shape of things. Valentinian and his horse guard cut through it all like the prow of a mighty ship, breaking the strongest legions of Maximus. ‘One emperor of the West,’ he echoed the Dark Eagle’s statement back at him.
Maximus turned to face Pavo, his composure gone, his lips trembling in anger. ‘Enough talk – time to die!’
He danced confidently towards Pavo, feinting and ghost-stepping, sending Pavo staggering. He raised his sword and hammered it down once, twice, thrice. Pavo sank to one knee, knowing he had nothing left. All he could do was parry. Then Maximus cut for his neck. Pavo’s heart pounded. No time to dodge. Death beckoned.
Behind Pavo, the flames swirled, and Frugilo burst through the wall of fire, throwing himself between Pavo and the Dark Eagle’s sword. The blade sliced through the shoulder of the Protector’s leather vest and deep into his chest. Frugilo sighed, sinking to one knee.
‘No!’ Pavo cried, recognising instantly that the wound was grave.
Maximus tried – and failed – to pull his sword free. Pavo rose and booted him hard in the midriff, sending him staggering along the corridor towards the window. In the moment’s respite, he fell to his knees by Frugilo’s side in an effort to support him. There was no doubt: the wound was mortal. Pavo almost choked as he spoke, but the question had to be asked. ‘Tell me you’re not him? Tell me you’re not Peregrinus?’
Frugilo smiled, blood reddening his teeth. ‘I almost wondered for a… time if it was… you.’
Pavo’s head swirled. ‘Then please, tell me: who are you? Who are you really?’
Before Frugilo could answer, Maximus, swordless, tried to approach and make a grab for his weapon again.
Pavo shot to his feet, boiling with rage.
Maximus eyed Pavo – blade in hand, the wall of flames behind him – then glanced over his shoulder to the window and the battlefield out there – where his forces were being overrun – then looked down to the gardens, where his black stallion was picketed.
He took two steps towards Pavo, bringing the arcuballista from his back and holding it level. ‘Get out of my way!’ he snarled, eyeing the blaze to look for a way through to the stairs. His eyes flared with fright when the wall of fire behind Pavo bulged and crawled ever closer towards the dead end of this corridor.
‘Aye, shoot me then,’ Pavo drawled. ‘That will let you past me… but the flames will consume you.’
‘I have only one dart,’ Maximus said, flashing a smile. ‘And so it seems that the Gods shine on you today, Pavo. But only until we meet again.’
He turned on his heel and loosed the lone dart at the arched window. The thick glass exploded in a riot of noise and coloured shards. Maximus ran towards the jagged opening and leapt through, falling down to the ground outside. With a whinny, a snap of a whip and the sudden rapid patter of hooves, the Dark Eagle raced – alone – due west, skirting the battle that was about to be lost and speeding for the horizon.
Pavo stared after him, then – hearing a croak behind him, turned to see that Frugilo was on his back now. He crouched, taking Frugilo underarm and dragging him away from the encroaching wall of fire and towards the broken window, painting a dark stripe of blood on the polished floor.
‘What are… you doing, you… arsehole?’ Frugilo said in a wet whisper.
‘I can get you out. I can lift you and-’
‘-and… drop me two storeys? Great… plan. I’m done for. You… go.’
‘I can save you.’ He groaned and tried to hoist the Protector up, but the weight was too much.
‘I’m a bit of a fat bastard… eh? Must have been all that… free porridge I ate… at your farm.’ He grabbed Pavo’s forearm and squeezed with what little strength he had left. ‘Set me down.’
‘I’m not leaving you,’ Pavo said dropping to his knees and supporting Frugilo’s head on his thighs as the fire crawled closer. ‘I can save you!’
Frugilo clasped his hand and looked at him in a way that made his corpse-face boyish. ‘You already did.’
Pavo’s eyes darted across the dying man’s face in confusion.
‘Mithras knows… in these last two years you have given me purpose again. A reason to live.’ His gaze grew distant and he sighed once more, the breath rattling with blood.
Pavo felt his throat thickening with sorrow. Yet still, he was confused, and there remained that great unanswered question. ‘Please, please tell me. Who are you really? Who were you before you came to the East?’
‘Aye, the game’s up. I’m not Peregrinus, but I’m not… Frugilo either. Frugilo was our old… farm hound.’ He rumbled in a laugh that turned into a grimace of pain.
‘We? Then you do have family?’
‘Used to. A brother. A kind, gentle man. He lived for… his wife and his boy. And then they were killed, by Gratian. He was a broken man… from then on, a shell of iron. Travelled… to Thracia and became a legionary commander. Died on the battlefield at Adrianople. Think you… might have known him.’
Pavo looked into his blue eyes then, and saw what he had always seen but simply could not believe. The fleeting familiarity, the flintiness in that gaze. It could not be true. Not until Frugilo’s words made it so.
‘I am Vibius Atius Amator. Brother of Manius Atius…’
‘Gallus,’ Pavo finished for him. Gallus. He closed his eyes and the approaching fire roared like a caged spirit bursting loose.
‘That wooden soldier toy,’ Frugilo hissed weakly, ‘used to belong to Gallus’ lad – my nephew. That first day… I arrived at your farm and saw your boy playing with it, and when I realised you had named him Marcus too… I nearly wept with happiness.’
As he spoke, a lone tear wriggled from the corner of one eye and painted a stripe on his cheek.
‘That’s why I came to the East, joined the Protectores… asked to be the one to approach you on your farm. It was for you, Pavo, and for your lad and wife.’ He clutched Pavo’s forearm even more tightly. ‘You see, Gallus… he had told me about you. You meant a lot to him. Said he saw… a lot of himself in you. Worried about you too. Saw… that you were… heading down the same road as him.’
His breathing was becoming a mere whisper.
‘And then I saw what was going on in the days after Gratian was toppled – that’s why the Moor guard recognised me, because… I was snooping around in Maximus’ early reign. I recognised the rise of a new… tyrant in place of the old. I knew you would be drawn into the matter. I… I had to be here, to see you right.’
Pavo felt his world turn under his feet, sensed the ghost of Gallus there with them. The flames roared.
‘Now get… out of here. Get after Maximus!’
Pavo nodded, tears blurring his vision. ‘But… but Peregrinus? I have to find him too. I was certain he was a member of the emperor’s council.’
‘No,’ Frugilo said weakly, coughing, ‘I thought… so too. I even shadowed them all. I saw nothing… from any of them.’
‘Then who could it be?’
Frugilo was shivering now, his face greying. ‘The only thing I… am certain of is that we’ve been deceived on… a level we can barely… comprehend.’
Pavo’s mind began to spin like a tornado.
Frugilo clutched weakly at his shoulder. ‘Forget about Peregrinus, whoever he is. Don’t… lose yourself as my brother did, chasing ghosts. The one real and true threat just leapt out of that window. Find him and bring this war to an end.’ With shaking hands, he pulled his white baldric from his shoulder and pressed it to Pavo’s chest. ‘Yours now… completely free as well,’ he said, managing something of a weak smile with bloodstained teeth. ‘Go. End this, Pavo. Find Maximus and end this.’
The flames roared to within arm’s reach and his eyes began to grow distant.
‘Then… back to that pretty wife and boy of yours. Give your lad his soldier toy back… give him his father back. Live the life Gallus… should have had. Please… Pavo. Live, while times are good. Gods know… they do not last.’
His body slackened and his death rattle echoed around the end of the fiery corridor.
Pavo sagged, weeping. Frugilo’s body slid to the floor.
Standing, numb, he stepped up onto the windowsill, and stepped off. The ground rushed up to meet him. The shock of landing was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
All across the nearby plains, the roar of battle turned into rising cheers of victory, as the Eastern legions and the reinforcements of Valentinian pumped their battle standards in the air.
Chapter 27
28th August 388 AD
Aquileia
The waters of the Mare Adriaticum and its coastal lagoon glittered like a jewel tray in the early evening light. A short way inland stood Aquileia. Famous, long-walled Aquileia. Bigger by far than Siscia. Built nearly five centuries ago to protect the heartland of Italia from invasion by the northeastern routes. Inside the defences rose an imperious array of domes and spires – the great palace, the baths and the grand amphitheatre. Nearly one hundred thousand people called this city their home.
‘And they’ll fight to the death to protect it,’ Maximus panted in the saddle of his stallion, galloping towards Aquileia’s western approaches. The citizens would be called to arms. They would stand on those mighty walls along with the seven reserve legions he had left stationed here. The cobbled remains of Theodosius’ army would chase him here, and meet their doom.
He pounded to the stone bridge that spanned the River Natiso and brought him to the gates, his black mount’s hooves battering on the flagstones. The wall guards – a cohort of the Secundani legion – stared at their galloping emperor, confused.
He slowed as he came through the Natiso Gate. ‘Seal the city. Rouse the legions. Man the battlements,’ he demanded of the troops standing by the gatehouse.
‘Domine?’ one said, eyeing Maximus’ smoke-stained skin, ruffled, greasy hair and the dishevelled feather cloak.
‘Where is the army? What happened?’ asked another.
Maximus shot them a steely look. ‘Do not make me repeat myself.’
His tone was enough to spur both men into action. With a series of shouts, the gates groaned on their hinges, and a handful of messenger boys sprinted to the various legionary billets dotted around the vast city.
When the gates clunked shut behind Maximus, he slowed at last, reining his horse in to a walk through the metropolis, towards its heart. The flags mounted high on poles above the circus at the city’s coastal end fluttered majestically in the wind, and the sight breathed a sense of renewed belief into him. This war had cost him more than he had anticipated. Theodosius was supposed to founder at the Siscia ford. Then he was supposed to be defeated on the field near Poetovio. But this stout and famous bulwark of a city – the hub of all roads from Italia and the main routes north to Gaul – would be the end of his Eastern nemesis. In the empire entire, only Constantinople, Treverorum, Antioch and Carthage had defences as strong as this place. More, once he called his son, Victor, down from Treverorum with his five legions and the reserve German cavalry, Theodosius would once again find himself on the wrong side of the numbers. His luck could not last.
The roused garrison troops jogged past him in century-strong trains, double-taking at the sight of their emperor riding alone, looking decidedly shabby. As he passed through the market, where the stalls were heaped with amphorae of olive oil and hunks of gleaming amber, merchants’ cries faded as they too noticed the ragged state of their glorious emperor. They looked at his sweating, foaming horse and at the space around and behind him, where normally a squadron of bodyguards would be walking.
Riding into the imperial palace grounds to a few more bemused salutes, he clopped his horse right in through the palace door and across the tessellated floors. The throne room echoed with the horse’s exhausted whinny as he slid from the saddle and snatched a drink of watered wine from a slave too stunned to hand it to him.
Here stood some of his reserve troops. There were two Victores legionaries, posted to guard the throne. A quartet of Moors – a detachment from the main Moorish cavalry wing – sat in a guard room nearby too: dark, bearded and draped in heavy leathers. His sense of security rose further.
‘Bring me my scribe,’ he clapped his hands once.
‘Yes, Majesty,’ the slave scuttled off.
‘I want fresh armour, a new sword,’ he said. ‘And a helm – a bright helm. A golden one.’ As he said this, his eyes rolled to the nearest Victores legionary’s headwear, gilt and gleaming. ‘Give me yours.’
The legionary glanced at his guard comrade, then slid the helm off and handed it to Maximus. ‘Domine… where is the army?’
‘Here. It is right here. The seven legions billeted in the old town have been called to the walls,’ Maximus said, climbing the few steps of the throne dais. He slumped down upon the imperial chair and wagged a finger northwards. ‘My son will soon arrive here too with his legions.’
‘But the forces you took to Siscia, and those of General Marcellinus stationed on the coast road… and the rest of our Victores’ comrades. Where are they?’
Maximus’ eyes grew distant, and his mind drifted to those moments as he had galloped from the plains of Poetovio. He heard again the forlorn cry of his brother, locked in the fray. ‘Maximus? Brother? Come back, help us!’ The slightest twinge of an old, long-buried feeling began to snake out from under the rock that was his heart. Guilt.
He thought of Pavo, the things he had said.
You had a choice. You chose this: war, fire, death!
It rang starkly true now. But was this really his war? Had the agent, Peregrinus, manipulated him and everyone else in this whole affair as Pavo had claimed?
The Victores legionary spoke again, ripping him from his thoughts: ‘My brother, Rullus, was part of the Siscia contingent – an optio with the Primani.’
Maximus flashed a lop-sided and dismissive smile. ‘They are right now falling back, and will arrive soon,’ he lied.
The Victores legionary sighed. ‘So you… they were defeated?’
Maximus’ head swivelled round like a hawk’s to pin the soldier. ‘A tactical withdrawal. This war with the East was always about layers of defence; weakening them and luring them onto ever-more deadly killing grounds.’ He tapped a finger on the throne arm. ‘This place is the ultimate bastion upon which they will break.’
