Legionary, page 5
He stepped up onto the dais and sank onto the throne. The bishop’s threat still smarted. The fledgling lord of Italia and Africa, Valentinian, remained a stone in his boot. Not only because he commanded those two vast and vital Western dioceses, but because his continuing to do so trumpeted the superiority of Theodosius, the man who had put the young fellow on such a pedestal. Even people in this very city spoke of Valentinian as “Caesar of the West”, some even as “Co-Augustus”. He rubbed angrily at the arms of the throne. ‘Did Diocletian, one hundred years ago, not formalise the principle that an emperor must be both a capable military commander and able to lead their armies in person?’
Silence, a few awkward looks, then: ‘He did, Father,’ Victor confirmed.
‘And is Valentinian either of these things?’
‘No, my lord,’ said Marcellinus.
‘Exactly. He is barely out of boyhood!’ Maximus snapped. ‘He only took the toga virilis last summer.’
Dragathius stepped forward. ‘Things are fragile in his realm, Domine. His and his mother’s Arian ways, and their troop of Gothic guardsmen, do not please the people of Italia. More, plenty of his subjects see the balance of power for what it truly is: you are the Augustus of the West, after all, and he is but a jumped-up governor, puppeteered by his mother.’
Maximus made a claw with one hand and curled it into a fist. ‘It has been three years, Dragathius. Three years since I overthrew Gratian and took this throne – a throne that should bring with it the West entire, not just a portion of it. Three years that I have been biding my time. Tell me…should I do it? Should I make my move?’
Dragathius’ face twisted at one side in something like a smile. ‘Your armies are certainly strong enough to do so, Domine. I have brought many Germanic bands to your recruiting grounds. Our armies begin to swell. Valentinian’s are unprepared.’
Maximus nodded away to himself, thinking.
The last gloomy vestiges of day faded, and from the palace building adjacent, a howl of protest sounded, followed by a ragged scream of distress… then silence. Maximus wondered how he might dispose of the bishop’s body. Throw it to the dogs, hang it from the city walls? For all anyone cared he could flay it and wear the skin as a suit, he mused with an inner chuckle, for it would be in the name of Orthodoxy. Anything done in that vein of the Christian faith bought him immense amounts of respect and support from the bishops and like-minded Roman aristocrats. It allowed him license to do anything. Almost anything. Except march upon Valentinian and sweep him from the board.
For if he was to make that move then Theodosius, the laughably pious and gallingly powerful Emperor of the East, would come for him – with all the veteran legions of that realm, and with the multitudes of recently-settled Goths of the six Haims.
Thus, he had no option but to bide his time in this uncomfortable equilibrium.
There was but one hope of changing the balance, of wrecking Theodosius’ position of strength.
‘Tell me,’ he rumbled. ‘Tell me of… Peregrinus.’
Dragathius’ eyes grew hooded. ‘He has done as you asked, Majesty. The Silver Stag right now moves south, towards the River Danubius. Chaos, you asked for. Chaos… you will have.’
Maximus smiled, thinking of the Silver Stag – a legendary Gothic warlord feared for his battlefield rampages, in which he would tear men asunder with his sword and the sharpened antlers on his helm. Shadows and light from the hearth danced across his face. ‘Chaos in the East. And, perhaps, a window of opportunity here in the West…’
A cool wind prowled across the heights of the Alpes, moaning as it passed through the groove of the Poeninus Pass – one of the few arterial routes allowing passage over the mountains from Gaul to Italia and vice versa. Hemmed on both sides by towering slopes of rock, and overlooked by soaring, snow-coated peaks, the pass was a lonely place, and the crumbling grey wall erected across the route generations ago by long-dead builders now had the look of a dilapidated tombstone.
A vital young man walked along the crumbling walltop, alone, the sunlight glinting on his white circlet and the golden gorgon head on the centre of his leather cuirass. The wind sent his dark brown curls beating on his chiselled face as he gingerly side-stepped across collapsed sections, his dark eyes wide and trained on the death plummet below. The ruination of this place was far greater than even the most pessimistic of his advisors had claimed. He reached the turret house at one end of the wall, stepping into the shelter within, the weatherbeaten floorboards creaking under his weight. The floor was strewn with the rotted remains of the clothing and supplies. ‘Must have been left here by the last garrison,’ he muttered to himself. He took from his belt a small knife, and carved his name in the stone.
Valentinian, Protector of Rome.
A crow cawed from above. He looked up, sighing at the sight of the caved-in roof, and the eagle soaring in the vault of blue high, high above the snow-peaked mountains. ‘May God see it that this grim old place is not needed.’
Just then, a cry sounded. ‘Argh! By All the Gods!’
Valentinian’s heart leapt. He rushed from the turret and back onto the windswept walltop. The shout had come from the turret at the other end of the wall.
‘It is the worst of all horrors!’ the voice cried again.
Valentinian’s blood turned to fire. ‘Bauto? Old Sword? I am coming,’ he cried, this time sprinting the length of the wall and leaping like an acrobat across the death gaps. He skidded inside that dilapidated tower, sword part-drawn.
A short, stocky and bald man in leather armour was there – alone, holding a hand over his fork-bearded mouth. ‘No need for swords, Domine,’ said Bauto shakily, gesturing to a door he had apparently just opened.
Valentinian glanced into the old storeroom, and at the enormous spider dangling just inside. He tried to disguise his amusement as he closed the storeroom door again, shutting the eight-legged monster away. ‘It sounded like you were being assailed by a band of Frankish raiders.’
‘Would’ve been less unpleasant,’ Bauto muttered, the colour returning to his face.
Valentinian stepped back out onto the wall top and Bauto followed. The young warden of Italia planted his hands on the crumbled parapet and gazed northwards. Out there near the horizon stretched the green hills and plains of Gaul.
‘The situation is worse than we imagined, Domine,’ Bauto admitted. ‘The Alpes are supposed to be the natural rampart that shields Italia. Yet the forts and bulwarks at every pass lie in ruin like this.’
‘That was my brother’s doing, Old Sword. Gratian wanted no barriers between me and him.’
‘He is gone now, Domine,’ said Bauto.
‘Yet the danger is not.’ Valentinian’s eyes grew glassy. ‘Once, before you were my guardian, there was another. Merobaudes was his name. He walked through fire to save me, and I mean that: he actually walked through flames to rescue me from my burning childhood home. He saved my skin many times afterwards. And Gratian’s reckoning would not have come about had Merobaudes not been there for me, to turn matters in my favour.’
‘You speak to me as if I am a stranger, Domine. I – like every soul in the empire – know of mighty Merobaudes. A heroic life, a tragic end.’
Valentinian turned to him, his look grey. ‘Maximus murdered him.’
Bauto looked up and around, along the lonely pass. It was deserted apart from the small group of their escort party, a good mile from here on the pass floor. One of them held Valentinian’s purple draco standard – the hollow dragon head moaning gently in the breeze. ‘There was no clarity on how he died, Domine. We must be careful of what we say – even when we are alone, like this.’
‘He fell from a roof, Bauto, that’s what they claim,’ a female voice snapped across the wall top.
Valentinian and Bauto almost jumped from their skins as Justina, Valentinian’s mother and regent, came across to join them, holding her flapping robes up from the pooled water and deadly gaps here and there.
‘Mother, you should be with the escort party,’ Valentinian hissed.
She wasn’t interested. ‘They say he fell from the gatehouse roof of Augusta Treverorum? Horseshit! It was Maximus’ doing. In the three years since, he has been sharpening his swords, filling his armies with chaplains who call him God’s chosen one, bribing Germans to conscript in his armies.’ She cast her hand to the south, whence they had come. ‘He has been sowing seeds of sedition all through Italia and Africa. His Arcani spies spread lies that our Arian beliefs make us heretics, and that his Nicene Orthodoxy makes him almost divine. In our very home at Mediolanum that sycophantic mutt, Bishop Ambrosius, is poised like a viper, just waiting to rouse the populace against us once more.’
Bauto gritted his teeth, remembering the shambolic episode at Easter last year, when Ambrosius and an Orthodox mob had stormed and captured the Portian Basilica so that Justina and Valentinian could not use the great hall to celebrate the occasion. At one point, it had seemed destined to end in drawn swords. ‘The hearts and minds of the people are almost impossible to control, my lady,’ he said.
‘So we should simply let Maximus’ spies, agents and sympathisers continue to spread lies and sow discontent?’
‘By all means we should guard against this,’ Bauto replied. ‘Yet let it not distract us from that which we can firmly control.’ He pushed at a worn crenel, the mortar puffing away easily and the brick toppling into the chasm below. It seemed like an age passed before the sound of it clattering onto the pass floor echoed through the Poeninus gorge. ‘We must demolish this ruin, then rebuild it anew – stronger than ever before. The routes through the mountains are our gates, and those gates must be firmly closed to Maximus.’
‘Then at least we agree on something,’ Justina muttered.
‘Bring the troops, and the idle citizens, I say,’ said Bauto. ‘If they are busy here then they will have less time to circulate idle gossip. Once we have returned to Mediolanum, we can despatch the first teams here.’
‘No,’ Valentinian countered. ‘We stay here. We and the escort men shall lay the first bricks. I will be an emperor who lives by his word, and protects his people with his own sweat and toil.’
High above, the cry of the soaring eagle echoed across the skies.
Chapter 4
September 386 AD
Thracia
Bleating and laughter echoed around the farm as Marcus frolicked with a goat in the meadow’s long grass. Nearby, Izodora sat cross-legged, chewing on strawberries, in turn doting on her boy then resting her weight on her palms and tilting her head back and gazing up into the perfect morning sky.
Pavo, lazily carving a piece of wood with a knife, could not take his eyes from her, and the way her light peplos robe hung from her, exposing her bare shoulders to the sun, and how her face was a picture of contentment. When they had met in the Persian desert, she had been a warrior, leader of the Maratocupreni riders along with her brother, Darik. Even encased in metal and leather, and even with that flinty scowl she always wore in those times, she had looked smooth and perfect to his eye. Those days seemed so far away now, and her beauty only grew with every new dawn.
He peeled off another shaving of wood and wondered if ever he might find the happiness she had. Still his nights were fraught, and frustration plagued his days. Oh, to be able to run as he had once before. To even lift a heavy load without assistance.
He had sworn to overcome his injuries, even vowing to do so in his wedding oath to Izodora. The thought conjured an explosion of bright and wonderful memories of their joining day, right here on the farm. The vision of her in her long, yellow joining gown was mesmerising, her curves like gentle waves, her kohl-shaded eyes like traps that he would gladly fall into.
Libo, who had ascended to the rank of Pater within the Claudia legion’s Mithraic cult, had presided over the ceremony. He had even gone as far as to comb his usual porcupine-like mess of hair, and managed not to scratch or poke around in his ears throughout the entire ceremony. All the old guard from the legion had been present. Sura had actually sobbed. Pulcher, the big gruff bear, had fainted with the emotion of it all. Through it all, Darik, cradling baby Marcus, lovingly sang an ancient desert song of his and Izodora’s past.
When a goat kid was brought to the wedding altar for ritual slaughter, Pavo had kissed the animal’s head, made a gesture of passing one finger across its throat, then slapped its rump to send it bounding on back to its mother. Izodora had then carried a torch into the farmhouse for the ceremonial lighting of the hearth. Finally, she and Pavo had brought out the sacred honey cake and placed it on the long table by the River Tonsus, this centrepiece surrounded by loaves, baked fish, berries, urns of wine, cheeses and more. The feasting became singing and the singing became dancing. It had been a day he never wanted to end. Everything about it had been light and love, the essence of Mithras.
Lost in this reverie, a sudden flash of movement caught him by surprise.
‘Izodora?’ he gasped as his wife leapt to her feet in one graceful movement, snatching a hoe resting by the fence at the meadow’s edge. She held the farming tool level, her body poised – a warrior once more.
‘You were told once. Only a fool would ignore a warning from my husband or me,’ she snarled.
Pavo stiffly got to his feet, using the fence as support, then twisted to see the subject of her wrath. ‘Frugilo?’
The cadaver-faced man was back. He stood, one elbow on the fencepost, a sprig of thyme in his mouth, scratching under the rim of his felt cap with the fingers of his other hand. ‘Got to admit, I can see why you like this place so much,’ he mused, looking around lazily. Nearby, the chickens in the coop erupted in a fit of clucking, agitated by the sudden heated exchange.
A wagon stood at the top of a nearby hill. How had he drawn so close without being spotted or heard? ‘What part of my final two words to you on your previous visit did you not understand?’ said Pavo. ‘Was it off? Or was it fu-’
‘Forgive me,’ another cut in. Small, slight and with a cat-like grace, Saturninus emerged from Frugilo’s wagon. ‘I should have come the first time instead of sending Frugilo.’
Pavo gawped at the man. With his delicate, almost feminine features, shyly hiding behind greying curtains of collar-length hair, Saturninus was impossible to rage at. Instead, Pavo could only think of the brave, noble things this man had done during the Gothic War. Indeed, it had been he who had struck peace terms with the tribal nobles back at that blood-stained clifftop near Dionysopolis. Back then, he had been a battle commander. Now, he was a statesman – one of the few Romans left by Emperor Theodosius’ side.
‘Well both of you can turn right around,’ Izodora seethed.
Pavo looked to her. ‘I will see them off. Tend to the chickens.’
‘If they’re not gone by the time I’m done…’
‘Trust me,’ Pavo said, gently wrapping a hand around her wrist and coaxing her to set down the hoe.
‘I trust you with my life. Them? I wouldn’t bet a snake’s life on their lies.’
She left, and Pavo turned to the two visitors. Frugilo – again silent as a wraith – had drifted back up the hill to stand by the wagon, where he gazed out to the north. Saturninus remained before him.
‘The wounds – they remain tender?’ the statesman asked.
Pavo rubbed at his left shoulder. ‘This throbs in the cold.’ He patted his right thigh. ‘This burns in the heat. A perfect system of torment,’ he smirked wryly.
Marcus, playing in the grass, gurgled behind him.
‘Your boy,’ Saturninus smiled, leaning to one side to admire the lad. It was a true smile. ‘I always wanted a boy.’ A slight notch of distress appeared between his eyebrows. Pain inside, Pavo knew. Saturninus and his wife had prayed for children of their own for years, to no avail. ‘The last time I saw Izodora was when she had just found out that she had fallen pregnant. Now, a new life has emerged. Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘It truly, truly is,’ said Pavo, the words spilling from his heart. Yet it made him think: how many years of age difference were there between his son and that other lad… in that dark place, so long ago.
My mother is waiting for me. Can… can I go home?
His left eye twitched, and he felt a surging tremor passing through his right hand as if there were lightning in his veins. He gripped it with his left hand to disguise it.
‘Pavo, what’s wrong?’
He shook his head, the moment passing. ‘Why are you here?’ he spoke firmly, on his guard again. ‘Why did you send Frugilo that time before?’
Saturninus nodded coyly. ‘I apologize for his bluntness.’
‘And his love of a free meal,’ Pavo added. ‘He ate two massive bowls of porridge, simply because they were free. Took my stinking old boots as well.’
Saturninus smiled. ‘Aye, some say he’s so mean that he wrote himself into his own will.’
Pavo glanced up at the wagon and Frugilo, who was now hitching and scratching himself. ‘He looks like he’s crawled from his own grave, but there’s something else. He reminds me of someone. The maddening thing is I can’t quite work out who.’
Saturninus cocked his head to one side. ‘You know, I sometimes have that same feeling. Yet I can’t put my finger on it, I really can’t.’
‘Where does he hail from?’
Saturninus blew air through his lips. ‘The Gates of Hades, some say. When the emperor recruited him, he was a campidoctor, drilling recruits. Indeed, he is a fanatical trainer.
Pavo cocked his head a little to one side. ‘Hold on. The emperor recruited him?’
Saturninus nodded. ‘See that white baldric of his?’
Pavo could just make it out, hanging at Frugilo’s side. ‘It caught my eye before. It’s not a normal sword case.’
‘That’s because it was given to him by Emperor Theodosius, from his personal suit of armour. An indoctrination gift.’
