Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust Read online

  Alexander cast around to get rid of the image. All types of cold food were presented to his gaze: watermelons, sardines, bread, biscuits. There was a mound of snowy-white imperial napkins. Alexander tossed one across. ‘Eat this.’

  The polyfagus caught it, but did not begin to eat.

  ‘Eat!’

  The man did not move.

  Alexander drew his sword. ‘Eat!’

  Mouth hanging open, the polyfagus was panting.

  Alexander flourished the blade at his face. ‘Eat!’

  A change in the light. A waft of air in the perfumed stillness. Alexander swung round.

  A barbarian warrior stood in the opening. He was young, clad in leather and fur, lank long hair to his shoulders. His sudden appearance defied all explanation. In his hand he carried a naked blade. Alexander became aware of the sword in his own hand. Then he remembered. He had long known this would happen. The astrologer Thrasybulus had told him. Somehow he found the courage to raise his blade. He knew it was hopeless. No one can fight what is ordained.

  When his eyes adjusted, the barbarian was visibly surprised. Somehow it was evident he had expected the chamber to be empty. He hesitated, then turned and left.

  Alexander laughed, the sound high and grating to his ears. He laughed and laughed. Thrasybulus was wrong. He was a fool. He had misread the stars. Alexander was not fated to die at the hands of a barbarian. Not now, not ever. Thrasybulus was no more than a charlatan. If he had been anything else, he would have seen his own fate, would have known what the next day now held for him. The stake and the faggots; let him burn slowly or suffocate in the smoke.

  This would all end well. The Emperor knew it. Alexander had faced death, and he had not been found wanting. He was no coward, no mean little girl. Their words could no longer hurt him. He was a man.

  Along with the barbarian, the last of the servants seemed to have vanished. Even the dwarf was gone. The pavilion was empty except for his mother on her throne, Granianus beside her, and Alexander himself with the polyfagus. Alexander did not care. Elated, he rounded again on the latter. ‘Eat!’

  There was a sheen of sweat on the man’s face. He did not eat, merely pointed.

  Three Roman officers now stood in the doorway, helmeted, cuirassed. The leading one was holding something in one hand. Like the barbarian, they waited until they could see in the gloom.

  ‘Felicianus has returned.’ The speaker threw the thing he carried. It landed heavily, half rolled.

  Alexander did not have to look to know it was the head of the senior Prefect.

  The officers drew their weapons as they moved into the tent.

  ‘You too, Anullinus?’ Mamaea’s voice was controlled.

  ‘Me too,’ Anullinus said.

  ‘You can have money, the Prefecture of the Guard.’

  ‘It is over,’ Anullinus said.

  ‘Alexander will adopt you, make you Caesar, make you his heir.’

  ‘It is over.’

  Alexander moved to his mother’s side. The sword was still in his hand. He was no coward. There were only three of them. He had been trained by the best swordsmen in the empire.

  The officers stopped a few paces from the thrones. They looked around, as if taking in the enormity of the actions they were about to commit. The raking sunlight glanced off the swords they carried. The steel seemed to shimmer and hum with menace.

  Alexander went to heft his own weapon. His palm was slick with sweat. He knew then his purchase on courage had been temporary. He let go of the hilt. The sword clattered to the ground.

  One of the officers snorted in derision.

  Sobbing, Alexander crumpled to his knees. He took hold of his mother’s skirts. ‘This is all your fault! Your fault!’

  ‘Silence!’ she snapped. ‘An Emperor should die on his feet. At least die like a man.’

  Alexander buried his head in the folds of material. How could she say such things? It was all her fault. He had never wanted to be Emperor; thirteen years of self-negation, boredom and fear. He had never wanted to harm anyone. What you do not wish that a man should do to you …

  The officers were moving forward.

  ‘Anullinus, if you do this, you break the oath you took before the standards.’

  At his mother’s voice they stopped again. Alexander peeped out.

  ‘In the sacramentum did you not swear to put the safety of the Emperor above everything? Did you not swear the same for his family?’

  His mother looked magnificent. Eyes flashing, face set, hair like a ridged helmet, she resembled an icon of an implacable deity, the sort that punished breakers of oaths.

  The officers stood, seeming uncertain.

  Could she stop them? Somewhere Alexander had read of the like.

  ‘Murderers are paid in just measure by the sorrows the gods will upon their houses.’

  Alexander felt a surge of hope. It was Marius in Plutarch; the fire in his eyes driving back the assassins.

  ‘It is over.’ Anullinus said. ‘Go! Depart!’

  The spell was broken, the thing now irrevocable. Yet they did nothing precipitous. It was as if they were waiting for her last words, knowing they would receive no benediction, instead nothing but harm.

  ‘Zeus, protector of oaths, witness this abomination. Shame! Shame! Anullinus, Prefect of the Armenians, I curse you. And you, Quintus Valerius, Tribune of the Numeri Brittonum. And you, Ammonius of the Cataphracts. Dark Hades release the Erinyes, the terrible daughters of night, the furies who blind the reason of men and turn their future to ashes and suffering.’

  As her words ended, they moved. She stilled them with an imperious gesture.

  ‘And I curse the peasant you will place upon the throne, and I curse those who will follow him. Let not one of them know happiness, prosperity or ease. Let all of them sit in the shadow of the sword. Let them not gaze long upon the sun and earth. The throne of the Caesars is polluted. Those who ascend it will discover for themselves that they cannot evade punishment.’

  Anullinus raised his sword. ‘Go! Depart!’

  Mamaea did not flinch.

  ‘Exi! Recede!’ he repeated.

  Anullinus stepped forward. The blade fell. Mamaea moved then. She could not help raise her hand. But it was too late. Alexander looked at the severed stumps of her fingers, the unnatural suddenness of the wide red gash at his mother’s throat, the jetting blood.

  Someone was screaming, high and gasping, like a child. Anullinus was standing over him.

  ‘Exi! Recede!’

  CHAPTER 2

  The Northern Frontier

  A Camp outside Mogontiacum,

  Eight Days before the Ides of March, AD235

  A blustery spring day, as was to be expected in Germania Superior eight days before the ides of March. It had still been dark, spitting with rain, when they rode out of Mogontiacum. It was mid-morning and the sun was out when they reached the camp near the village of Sicilia. Soldiers moved through the lines with no pretence of discipline. Some saluted, some did not. Most were drunk, a number to the point of insensibility.

  The cavalcade dismounted. Maximinus Thrax stretched his large frame and handed his reins to a trooper. The Rhine rolled past, wide and glittering in the sun. The outer walls of the great complex of purple pavilions shifted and snapped in the wind.

  ‘This way.’

  Maximinus followed the Senators Flavius Vopiscus and Honoratus. There were naked corpses in the corridors. They were grey-white, waxy, with a sheen as if rubbed in oil.

  ‘Not all the familia Caesaris fled in time,’ Honoratus said.

  ‘Servants and some of the secretaries, easy to replace,’ Vopiscus said. ‘The Praetorian Prefects were the only men of any account to die.’

  A rack of bodies blocked their path. The heads of the dead lay close together in some final conclave.

  Maximinus thought of the squalor of blood and death. It did not upset him. He had seen many massacres. He had let none trouble him since the firs
t.

  They stepped carefully over the splayed limbs. Maximinus knew his face would be set in what Paulina called his half-barbarian scowl. He thought of his wife and smiled. There could still be beauty, trust and love, even in a debased age.

  It was gloomy in the throne chamber. The atmosphere was close, smelling of incense and blood, of urine and fear. Anullinus and the other two equestrian officers were waiting.

  ‘The mean little girl is dead.’ Anullinus held the head by its short hair.

  Maximinus took the severed head in both hands. As was always the case, it was surprisingly heavy. He brought it close, scrutinized the long face, the long nose, the weak and petulant mouth and chin.

  Was it true that this weakling had been Caracalla’s son? The mother had claimed so; the grandmother too. Both had boasted of the adultery. Morality had yielded to political advantage, as could be anticipated with easterners.

  Maximinus carried the object back to the opening. In the better light, he turned it this way and that. Of course, he had seen Alexander many times before, but now he could really study him. He needed to be sure. The nose was not dissimilar. The hair and beard were cut in the same style. But, although he had begun to go bald, there had been more curl in Caracalla’s hair. Certainly his beard had been fuller than this wispy affair. Maximinus was no physiognomist, but the shape of the head was wrong. Caracalla’s had been squarer, like a bull’s or a block of stone. And his face had been strong, even harsh. Nothing like this delicate, inadequate youth.

  Maximinus felt in some measure reassured. Little could have been worse than being party to the killing of the son of his old commander, the grandson of his great patron. Maximinus acknowledged he owed everything to Caracalla’s father, Septimius Severus. That Emperor had picked him out of backwoods obscurity, placed his trust in him. In return, Maximinus had given his devotion. Without thought, Maximinus put a hand to his throat and touched the gold torque his Emperor had awarded him.

  ‘Bury it,’ Maximinus said, ‘with the rest of him.’

  Anullinus took the repulsive thing. He turned towards the opening. The other two bloodstained equestrians moved deeper into the dark chamber, presumably to collect the cadaver. They all stopped at a sign from Vopiscus.

  ‘Emperor, your magnanimity to your enemy does you credit, but it might be better to exhibit the head to the army, let the soldiery be sure that he is dead.’

  Maximinus considered the Senator’s words. Except in battle, it was not his habit to act on the spur of the moment. At length, he addressed Anullinus. ‘Do as the Senator Vopiscus suggests, then bury it.’

  Before anyone moved, Honoratus spoke. ‘Emperor, possibly it would be good to send the head to Rome afterwards, have it burnt in the Forum or cast in the sewers. Such is usually the way with a usurper.’

  For an instant Maximinus thought the usurper referred to was himself. His anger flared, then he realized. He could still be astounded at the creative ways in which Senators and the rest of the traditional elite habitually rewrote history, both their own and that of the Res Publica. Soon it would be almost as if they had never hailed Alexander Emperor, never sworn oaths for his safety or held office under him. Thirteen years of rule would be reduced to a fleeting revolt, a momentary aberration when Rome was dominated by an ineffectual Syrian boy and his scheming, avaricious mother. Their own part in that ephemeral regime would be buried in deepest obscurity. Perhaps they had spent the time quietly, out of public affairs, on their estates. An expensive education could smooth away the rough edges of inconvenient truths.

  ‘No,’ Maximinus said.

  ‘Whatever pleases you, Emperor,’ answered Honoratus.

  ‘He was no Nero. The plebs did not love him. There will be no false Alexanders. No runaway slave will gather a following, masquerading as him miraculously saved and come again; not in Rome, not even in the East. As for the Senate …’ Maximinus paused, scowling as he sought the right words. ‘… the Senate are men of culture. They do not need the thing flourished in their faces to believe. There is no need to paint them a picture.’

  ‘Quantum libet, Imperator,’ Honoratus repeated.

  ‘Anullinus, when you have shown the head to the troops, bury him. All of him. Come back for the rest.’

  The officer shifted his loathsome burden into his left hand and saluted. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ The other two equestrians followed him out.

  ‘To deny a man Hades is to deny your own humanitas.’ Maximinus spoke out loud, yet to no one but himself. He moved deeper into the chamber. Something turned under his boot. It was a finger, cleanly severed, the nail perfect. The place was a slaughterhouse. There was blood everywhere, livid across the white carpets, darker on the purple hangings. The remains of the young Emperor lay, mutilated and decapitated, by his throne. His mother, also naked and hacked about, next to hers. There was blood on the ivory thrones.

  How had it come to this? Maximinus had not wanted it. He had known Alexander was unpopular. Everyone in the army had known that. Perhaps in his cups he had voiced unguarded criticisms. But he had no idea the recruits he was training would mutiny. Once they had thrown a purple cloak over his shoulders in Mogontiacum, there had been no way back. If he had tried to step down, either the recruits would have killed him there and then or Mamaea would have done so later.

  Almost certainly the revolt would have been crushed, and crushed swiftly – Maximinus’ head would have been on a pike by the end of the day – if Vopiscus and Honoratus had not ridden into the camp of the recruits. Vopiscus was governor of Pannonia Superior. He commanded the legionary detachments to the field army from both his own province and that of neighbouring Pannonia Inferior. Honoratus was legate of 11th Legion Claudia Pia Fidelis. He had led the detachments from the two provinces of Moesia up the Ister. Between them they had pledged the swords of some eight thousand legionaries, the majority veterans.

  Even so, it had been up in the air until Iotapianus had brought them the head of the Praetorian Prefect Cornelianus. Iotapianus was a kinsman of Alexander and Mamaea. The archers he commanded were from their hometown of Emesa. With their desertion, there had been no hope for the Emperor and his mother.

  Once you have taken a wolf by the ears, you can never let go. No, Maximinus had not desired the throne, but now there was no going back. At least his son would revel in their new station. Which might be far from a good thing. Maximus was eighteen, more than pampered and spoilt enough already. And Paulina, what would she think? She had always wanted her husband to better himself, to rise in society. But to the highest eminence of mankind? From her senatorial background, she knew all too well how others despised his low origins.

  The red gashes on Mamaea’s body were painful to look at. Something about the old woman reminded Maximinus of the day long ago when he had walked into a hut and for the first time been confronted with the remains of a family who had been put to the sword: the old woman, the old man, the children.

  He turned away. There was a table spread with food, a vast, fat man dead at its foot. Inexplicably, tiny birds hopped through the plates. The food was cold anyway. Maximinus had never cared for cold food. In the corner of the tent, a dog sat with a human head between its paws, contentedly gnawing.

  ‘Imperator.’

  Vopiscus and Honoratus were at Maximinus’ elbow.

  ‘It is time to address the troops, Emperor.’

  Maximinus drew a deep breath. He was just a soldier. Either of the two Senators would make a better speech. Either of them would make a better Emperor. But once you have taken a wolf by the ears …

  Maximinus was just a soldier. The men out there were just soldiers. They demanded nothing elaborate. He would speak to them as their fellow-soldier, as one comilitio to another. It would take only simple words. He would march with them, share their rations, fight alongside them, share their danger. Together they must conquer the Germans as far as the Ocean. It was that or Rome would die. He would quote the last
words of his old commander Septimius Severus: ‘Enrich the soldiers, ignore everyone else.’

  CHAPTER 3

  Rome

  The Senate House,

  Four Days after the Ides of March, AD235

  It was still dark when Pupienus walked down from his house on the Caelian Hill. Not a star showed, not even the Kite or the Lycaonian Bear. The torches of his link-boys sawed in the gusting breeze. The pavements were dry, but the air smelt of rain.

  Pupienus was in the habit of leaving his home at this hour. Normally, unless it was the day of some festival and piety demanded leisure, he would bear off to the right towards the Temple of Peace and the well-appointed offices of his high magistracy. Today was far from a normal day.

  He walked under the Arch of Augustus and out into the Roman Forum. Off to the right, above the great façade of the Basilica Aemilia, the sky was beginning to lighten. Tattered black clouds could be distinguished, pressing down from the north. To most they would bring no more cheer than had the news from that direction the previous afternoon.

  Down in the gloom, torches guttered across the Forum, each followed by an indistinct figure in shimmering white. All were converging on one point, like moths to a flame or ghosts to blood. The Senators of Rome were meeting in extraordinary session.

  Pupienus was one of their number. Even after all this time, nearly thirty years now, it both thrilled him and seemed somehow unlikely. He had attained membership of the same order that had included Cato the Censor, Marius and Cicero. And he was not just anyone, not just a foot-soldier. Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus, Vir Clarissimus, twice Consul, was Prefect of the City of Rome, responsible for law and order in the eternal city, and up to one hundred miles beyond. To enforce his will, he commanded the six thousand men of the Urban Cohorts. He had come a long way since his youth in Tibur, let alone his childhood in Volaterrae. Pupienus stamped down the unwelcome thought of Volaterrae. The gods knew all too soon he would have to make another clandestine trip there and face the past he had taken so much trouble to hide.