Lions of Rome Read online

  ‘I must one day thank Cleander for making his loyal agents so easy to identify.’

  The man did not seem fazed by the accusation. Nor, even through the gag, did he try to deny it.

  ‘Your friends here will have been similarly dealt with, I’m afraid,’ Rufinus said through an unpleasant smile, ‘so if you’re looking forward to some sort of heroic rescue, think again. Your life is forfeit. You have put loyalty to a serpent in the guise of a freedman above your sworn duty to the emperor. I was a Praetorian, you see.’

  A flicker of surprise and uncertainty passed through the man’s eyes.

  ‘In fact, I still am, in a way. The real me, that is. I was a Praetorian, and by all the gods I was proud to be one. Lifted by the hand of the emperor himself to the ranks of the Guard, I was proud to be one of you, and I devoted myself to the emperor and his safety. It cost me brandings and burnings and woundings and all the nails of one hand, but I would give it all again because being Praetorian meant something to me.’

  He rolled the man onto his back.

  ‘But the Guard has changed. In putting Cleander above the emperor whose safety is the whole purpose of the unit, you have negated your own value. You have lost your honour and cannot regain it while you serve that man.’

  Slowly, making sure to take his time and be very, very clear with the doomed man, he drew his gladius.

  ‘There is a cleansing fire coming,’ he said quietly. ‘It is coming to Rome. It is coming to the Palatine, where it is needed most. And it is also coming to the Guard.’

  He rose, brandishing the sword, and the stricken guardsman’s eyes widened in panic, the muffled grunting behind the gag becoming urgent.

  ‘Try to live better in your next world.’

  He made the blow quick and clean – a soldier’s death despite everything.

  ‘Did you not want to ask him anything sir?’ the legionary murmured.

  Rufinus looked down at the shuddering body of the dying man as he withdrew his blade and wiped it on the nondescript tunic. ‘I don’t think so. Pretty sure I know everything I need to know already.’

  ‘What would you like me to do with the body?’

  ‘What do you normally do with the bodies?’ Rufinus asked slyly, half hoping to trip a frumentarius into revealing his position.

  The soldier gave him an earnest frown. ‘”Normally”, sir?’

  The two men looked at one another for a time, until Rufinus broke off his glance. ‘Leave him,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later, his presence will be reported to the authorities, who will find the scorpion necklace, put two and two together and trace him back to Rome and the Castra Praetoria. It won’t go anywhere, of course. Any investigation will be quickly quashed, but it might at least cause a little embarrassment and make Cleander a little more nervous about sending out Praetorians to do his dirty work.’

  The legionary nodded and Rufinus rose, checked the cleanliness of his sword, and then sheathed it. ‘Check the rest of the estate. Finish off his friends, since he won’t have been alone, and make sure there are no others on the premises. Then get yourself into quarters for the night. You can stay in any of the villa’s rooms but mine or Publius’s. The staff will all have gone. Then in the morning, the four of you are escorting my brother on board the Nicostrate. You will see him to Cemenelum and then return to Lugdunum and the governor’s house. Is that clear?’

  ‘Crystal, sir.’

  Rufinus nodded, with a last look down at the Praetorian in the dust, blood pooling beneath him. Killing Cleander’s lackeys was getting easier with every new corpse.

  Chapter Three – A New Command

  Rome, June 187 A.D.

  The Nemesis, a ship of the Misenum fleet, and without a doubt the largest and most impressive vessel upon which Rufinus had ever trod, plodded up the Tiber. She had been designated his flagship, and she was more about impressing those who saw her than comfort or manoeuvrability, as he’d come to understand since first boarding her. She slid past the emporium inside the city of Rome, where those merchants who were not already docked moved feverishly out of the way of the grand warship. She slid past the various riverfront markets and edifices and finally, as she reached the Campus Martius region, began to slow.

  Rufinus stood next to the great ship’s trierarch as the man bellowed orders to his crew, and tried to look as important and naval as possible. His uniform was impressive, but heavy and uncomfortable. He’d never had to wear a muscled cuirass before and it seemed that even this, which had been made specifically for him, was ill-fitting and uncomfortable. With the heavy, salt-water-logged cloak, the helmet with the ridiculous crimson plumes that hung down like wilted flowers in the wet air, and the extra few pounds of rust he was required to lug around, not to mention the constantly wet boots that threatened some kind of foot infection, he was beginning to wonder why Prefect of the Fleet was a position to which men aspired.

  He had begun to grow into the role a little on the crossing from Tarraco, though. He’d seen Publius onto the sleek courier bound for Gaul, and the Nemesis had then put to sea and made for Insula Minor, crossing to Marianum on the southern tip of Corsica, through the strait between there and Sardinia and on to Antium on the Italian coast, and from there to the enormous Port of Misenum, home of the fleet.

  Rufinus had seem ports in his time, from the great complex of Ostia to the riverine docks of the Danuvius to the ancient port of Tarraco, but nothing had prepared him for the home of the Praetorian fleet. Rounding the great rocky headland, Nemesis spun around with grace and powered north and then back a little west, making for the narrow entrance in an enormous breakwater. They had passed inside, from the open sea into gentle glassy waters of the harbour with ease and consummate skill. With the official structures drifting by on the mole to their right they had passed the town of Misenum on the left and made for the military jetties ahead, each occupied by an impressive warship. Rufinus, a man with little experience of the sea, had found himself unexpectedly fascinated and dying to find out more about this whole new world he had inherited. He had imagined himself presenting his person at the command building, being introduced to his officers and clerks, being shown around the complex and then spending a few days exploring and learning everything there was to learn about his new role and his new home.

  He had been sadly mistaken.

  Rufinus had waited until the Nemesis docked, and then stepped confidently down the boarding ramp only to be met by a soldier who looked harassed, desperately shouting for his new prefect.

  The man was a weird combination of deathly pale and sunburned florid pink, with a shock of bright red hair and freckles that made Rufinus stare in the unsolicited belief that they might somehow mark out a pattern or image. The man bowed his head, clutching a pile of wax tablets, and as he did so a neck-chain slipped out from his collar. Recent encounters with scorpion necklaces had left Rufinus particularly alert to such things. What he wasn’t prepared for was the chi-rho symbol worn by the weird sect of Christian pacifists dangling from the chain. The soldier opened his mouth to further address his prefect and Rufinus was just wondering how to deal with this clearly delicate and anxious man from the weird love cult when one of the passing marines trod on the clerk’s foot.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you are doing?’ demanded the red headed soldier, rounding on the burly marine. His demeanour shifted from nervous clerk to drill-centurion in a rage in the blink of an eye, and Rufinus reeled.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ the marine trembled, stepping back.

  ‘Fucking right you are. Sorriest piece of dog scrotum I ever saw.’

  The soldier hurried off and Rufinus adjusted his viewpoint rapidly.

  ‘Prefect Rufinus?’ the redhaired soldier asked, his whole manner shifting back to servile underling. ‘I’m Philip, your personal secretary.’

  ‘I… yes. That soldier…’

  ‘A clumsy oaf. And I never forget a face.’

  Rufinus realised oddly that the man had a centurion’s vitus
cane under his arm, and he was forced to shift his ideas once more.

  ‘Centurion Philip?’

  ‘Quite so, prefect. And all things being equal, I would love nothing more than to get acquainted with you, but sadly, you have other things to do.’

  ‘I do?’ Rufinus felt oddly at the mercy of this strange man.

  ‘You do. Two missives arrived three days ago, one for you and one for me. This is yours.’ He handed a sealed scroll case over and Rufinus took it, noting with interest the seal of Severus, governor of Gaul. ‘Mine informed me that you would be leaving for the capital as soon as you set foot in Misenum. I have had a fast ship prepared at the Nola Tertia wharf. There is still time to depart and make it to Antium by nightfall.’

  Rufinus stared and then, remembering himself and aware of his marine guard queuing respectably behind him waiting for orders, cracked the seal on the scroll case and opened it. The parchment within contained a short and business-like note, telling Rufinus that his presence was required in the capital and that he should make for his headquarters there at haste. Nothing more.

  He had journeyed for days from Tarraco and had spent less than a hundred heartbeats in his new port command before being escorted onto a second ship, this one narrow and sleek and named Celeritas. Then he put to sea once more. This new ship was built purely for speed and apart from the few crewmen and the burly oarsmen there was barely enough space to accommodate Rufinus, Philip and the dozen men of the navy who Rufinus couldn’t help mentally calling his ‘wet guard’. They looked, in fairness, like ordinary legionaries, apart from the blue tunics and the tendency towards extreme tattoos. The Celeritas tore up the coastline like a dolphin atop the waves, with such speed that even Rufinus, who was never seasick, started to feel a little wobbly.

  And so this morning they had arrived at Ostia and forged on up the Tiber for Rome. Now, the Navalia approached, that complex of buildings and jetties that served as the military’s anchorage in the city. Rufinus felt a new level of tension and uncertainty slip through him. He had been in Rome before, but not since Cleander had reached his apex. Not since Rufinus was officially dead. And not in such a position of authority.

  It was not until he was descending the boarding ramp to the cobbled dockside that it occurred to him he had absolutely no idea where his headquarters in the city was. He stopped in the middle of the port, his guardsmen shuffling and clinking to a halt behind him, and waited until the strange and incongruous figure of Philip appeared beside him.

  ‘Where is…?’ he began.

  ‘Close to the Flavian amphitheatre sir,’ the secretary butted in, anticipating the question impressively. ‘Just below the Trajanic baths and opposite the Ludus Magnus.’

  Rufinus nodded with a frown. At least he knew where to go, though he’d expected the naval headquarters in the city to be near the Navalia, or at least within sight of the river.

  ‘I shall have a litter brought,’ the secretary said.

  ‘No, thank you Philip. A horse will do if there is one available.’

  He waited in the midst of the organised chaos of which he was nominally in command, while the secretary hurried off to some building on the edge of the open square and returned a few moments later followed by a slave who took a side trip to a stable and reappeared impressively quickly with two horses. Thanking them, Rufinus hauled himself into the saddle, the weird secretary doing likewise. Moments later they were making their way through the city, the marines of his personal guard jingling along rhythmically behind them, though in accordance with ancient law they had left their blades on board and carried only clubs. It occurred oddly to Rufinus that he never seemed to enter Rome in a normal fashion. He was always either in a grand triumph or sneaking along aqueducts or as part of some military column.

  The small party left the Navalia along the Via Triumphalis and then turned left, passing the theatres of Pompey and Balbus, riding in the shadow of the Arx and the Capitol with their triad of ancient temples, and descending into the forum. As they moved through the ancient streets, two things insisted themselves upon Rufinus as his gaze took in this great city at the centre of the world.

  Firstly was the plague. The dreadful disease was nothing new, of course. It had been around as long as Rufinus could remember, a parting gift of the Parthian empire after Verus hammered them into submission. In Rufinus’ lifetime the plague had come in waves, often subsiding into a background worry for years at a time between outbreaks, but this was the first time he’d been in the city when one of the epidemics had become serious. Bodies were being collected on low carts and half the population of Rome – those who weren’t wailing and clawing at lesions and boils, anyway – moved about like ghosts, trying to distance themselves from the world with garlands of pungent flowers slung at their throats to ward off the ill humors.

  It was appalling, but Rufinus would have handled that stoically had it not been for the overlying sense of disaffection and misery. The whole of Rome seemed to fester like one of the plague’s overripe boils, on the very verge of eruption. It was a startling realisation and not at all a pleasant sensation. Rufinus was, for the first time, glad of his marine escort, for though he had nothing against the populace he recoiled when the infected people came almost within reach.

  By the time they passed from the eastern end of the forum and opened out into the space before the great Flavian amphitheatre, Rufinus had become thoroughly disheartened with the state of the city and its people. Though he couldn’t precisely come up with any solution to the plague that once more stalked Rome, he felt certain that the emperor and his court, especially with great physicians like Galen who was reputedly in the city these days, could at least do something to alleviate the trouble. And if that was beyond their capability, at least they could solve the underlying discontent. Cleander had to be removed. It was bad enough the gods visiting misery on Rome, without Rome doing it to itself as well.

  They swiftly arrived at the Castrum Misenatum, a grand arcaded building on the lower slopes of the Oppian hill below the great baths and in sight of the amphitheatre. Two men in blue tunics and full uniform guarded the entrance arch, but with only wooden batons at their belts in keeping with the age-old laws against being armed for war within the sacred boundary of the city. Rufinus did not know whether to feel irritated at a delay considering who he clearly was, or to be proud of the level of security his men afforded their base, but either way the guards would not admit them until the proper documentation had been produced. Fortunately, it seemed that despite the various oddities that surrounded Philip, he was blisteringly efficient at his job, and the papers were produced in the blink of an eye.

  Rufinus’ confusion at the thoroughly landlocked location of the naval base was cleared up as he strode through the entrance hall with its statues of the great naval minds of Rome – Brutus, Augustus, Pompey, Agrippa, Pliny and many more that Rufinus did not immediately recognise. His gaze passed over these great luminaries to fall upon the open courtyard ahead, surrounded by the three-storey square arcade. At the centre a score of men in blue tunics were practicing hauling ropes which ran through pulleys and raised great heavy weights into the air, purely to build up their strength.

  That was why the base was here. The men of the Misenum fleet, of course, also serviced all the theatres odeons and amphitheatres in the city, manning the ropes and pulleys that drew the sunshades across the top of the great venues. They were the only men who served Rome with a sufficient knowledge of ropes and pulleys, and probably the strongest men available to do so. It seemed that Rufinus would be in charge of more than just the disposition of the fleet.

  The men of his guard peeled off now, saluting him, and moved off to their barracks, while his secretary pottered along beside him. ‘Now, sir, there will need to be a briefing this afternoon. I did not bother you on board ship with details, but you need to know a number of things and will need a tour of the complex. I presume you are familiar with the city?’

  ‘Yes. Some parts of
it more than others.’

  ‘Good, good, good. I will call upon you at your office in an hour to go through everything once I have caught up with the correspondence awaiting me. Your rooms are directly opposite the gate. Though it is assumed that you will have your own house in the city, of course, former prefects have found it expedient to have a small apartment available in the headquarters, so you will find half a dozen rooms there set up for your use, as well as the office itself, which is the first chamber you will come to. There are two keys to the door. One I keep for access to the office in your absence and the other is yours, of course.’ He handed Rufinus a key. ‘Please feel free to ignore any work that has built up on the office desk since the departure of Prefect Abullius. I will attend to it all in due course and then walk you through anything that you need to see. Naturally it will take some days before you are familiar enough with the work to handle it without my aid, but that it what I am here for. There will probably be a few missives addressed specifically to you, and needless to say these are for you, and you may pass onto me anything you wish me to deal with, but leave anything unaddressed and I will handle it. There is a large mess hall and we have our own kitchens and bakery, though it is unusual for the senior staff to eat on the premises apart from perhaps breaking their fast in their rooms, and usually they prefer to socialise in the city with acquaintances and members of the senate. Work in the castrum starts before dawn and rarely finishes before the end of the waking day, as the men will often be late back from servicing some event in the city. Each day you will receive a list of troop rotations from Ostia and Misenum to Rome and back, and each day you will receive a list of what ships are expected to arrive and depart each base, and the reason for their journeys. Again, I can deal with all of this for you, but if you are a man who requires silence and peace to sleep, then the rooms here probably will not suffice due to the noise and busyness. Prefect Abullius preferred to sleep in his house on the Caelian.’