As the wind lessened and the snow thinned the wagon passed over the plain of Philippi and the walls of the city came into sight. Vespasian left his thoughts of power at the site of the battle that had decided so much and wondered, instead, how his brother would greet him after a three-year separation.
Before they reached the gates that granted access to the city of the living they passed through the city of the dead. Tombs lined the Via Egnatia for the last quarter of a mile or so; large and small and inscribed in both Latin and Greek attesting to the relative wealth and origin of the interred. But it was not just the dead in their cold and sombre dwellings that they passed; there were also the dying. Suspended between life and death, as they hung from crosses, a score or more of pain-wracked, newly crucified, naked men writhed above Vespasian and Magnus as they made their way. Groaning with agony, struggling for every breath, their flesh bluing in the bitter cold, some sobbed and some muttered what sounded to be prayers as their lives trickled away at a painfully sluggish pace.
‘Looks like Sabinus has been very busy,’ Magnus remarked as he cast a glance up at a youth who was staring in horror at the blood-crusted nail impaling his right wrist. Snow flurried around him.
Hormus flinched at the sight and lowered his head, keeping his eyes on the paved surface of the road as a wail of sheer agony rose from a man splayed out on a cross lying on the ground. The volume increased with every blow of the hammer, driving a nail through the base of his thumb, wielded by an auxiliary optio with the dexterity of one old in the way of crucifying men. The auxiliaries holding the victim down laughed at his torment and made jokes aimed at the last two shackled prisoners, eyes brimful of fear and tears, waiting their turn to be nailed to a cross, their breath misting from their mouths.
‘It must have been a serious incident if he’s been obliged to nail this many up,’ Vespasian observed, counting the crosses. ‘Twenty-two plus those last three.’ The executions did not surprise Vespasian: they had been told by the prefect of Thessalonike, on arrival in the capital of Macedonia, that the Governor had been called away the previous day to quell a disturbance in Philippi. This had not been an inconvenience as Philippi lay on their route, straddling, as it did, the main road to the East. ‘I’d guess that my brother has got the disorder in hand now; I can’t imagine that there are too many more who would wish to join them.’ He cast an eye over a bedraggled group of women, watching their menfolk’s execution in miserable impotence, flinching with every hammer-fall as the last nail was driven home and the screams intensified.
‘Well, whatever they’ve done they’re learning their lesson,’ Magnus said as he brought the wagon to a halt outside the city’s western gate.
The sight of eleven lictors and the flash of the seal on Vespasian’s imperial mandate were enough for the duty auxiliary centurion to allow the wagon through without searching it and to send a message on to Sabinus. Vespasian got down from his horse and, helped by Hormus, donned his senatorial toga before proceeding at a stately pace through the town, disdaining to notice its populace, to the Forum at the far end of which stood the residence used by the Governor. A crowd had gathered there, despite the snow, curious to see the high-status new arrival. With auxiliary soldiers smartly at attention lining the steps, Vespasian ascended with the dignity of a proconsul who would never for one moment question his authority or right to respect. Sabinus awaited him in front of the tall, bronze-plated double doors and took him into a formal embrace, to the cheers of the onlookers, before leading him into the building.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sabinus asked without much trace of fraternal affection.
‘And it’s lovely to see you too, Sabinus. Apart from finding out how you are and to bring news of our mother and your daughter and grandchildren, I’m here with Gaius to talk to you.’
Sabinus’ eyes flicked nervously sideways at his brother. ‘Are you here because of the Parthian embassy thing?’
‘The Parthian embassy fiasco, you mean?’ Vespasian enjoyed the pained look that shadowed Sabinus’ face. ‘Yes, but not to bring you any official reprimand. Despite the damage your failure did to our family, I’ve managed to strike a deal with Pallas to have you exonerated of all responsibility.’
‘How did you manage to do that?’
‘Say thank you and I’ll tell you.’
Sabinus pursed his lips. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘But I think that the explanation will have to wait for dinner. I suspended a trial when I got the message that you’d arrived; I really should complete it.’
‘It’ll keep until dinner.’ Vespasian broke from his Sabine country burr and assumed the clipped accent of the old aristocracy. ‘I assume that you have dinner at the normal hour, even this far from Rome.’
Sabinus was forced to concede a smile. He clapped his younger brother on his back. ‘Do you know, it really is quite good to see you, you little shit.’
Sabinus took his seat at the far end of the high-ceilinged audience chamber in the Governor’s residence; braziers were placed to either side of him to supplement the heat rising from the hypercaust beneath the floor, which failed to fully warm the cavernous room. Vespasian, Gaius and Magnus slipped in through the double doors as Sabinus signalled to a waiting centurion to bring the accused back before him; a couple of clerks, seated at desks to one side, waited to record the proceedings. A woman in her late forties was led in by two auxiliaries; their hobnailed footsteps echoed around an otherwise empty hall, for Sabinus had decided to hold the trial inside in private because of the temperature in the Forum. As the accused was neither a Roman citizen nor male there could be no appeal against the Governor’s decision.
‘Where had we got to?’ Sabinus asked one of the clerks.
The clerk consulted the tablet in front of him. ‘The widow, Lydia of Thyatira, had admitted to giving the agitator, Paulus of Tarsus, lodgings during his stay here in Philippi two years ago.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Sabinus contemplated the well-dressed and evidently wealthy woman standing before him. Her hair was demurely covered and she stood with her hands clasped and her eyes lowered — the image of a respectable lady. ‘Did you allow Paulus to spread his treasonous teachings under your roof?’
‘We had prayer meetings most evenings,’ Lydia replied in a quiet voice.
‘She must be a follower of that nasty bow-legged bastard Paulus,’ Vespasian whispered to Magnus.
‘Who’s he, dear boy?’ Gaius asked.
‘He’s a preacher who’s been travelling around the East stirring up trouble in the name of that Jew that Pontius Pilatus had Sabinus crucify when he was in Judaea.’
Magnus spat in disgust and then wiped it off the floor with his foot as he remembered where he was. ‘We last saw him in Alexandria when he was busy stirring up trouble between the Greeks and the Jews — not that they needed much help.’
Sabinus was carrying on his questioning. ‘And at these meetings did he tell his followers not to make sacrifices to the Emperor when they renew their oath to him and instead ordered them to claim that they have the right to make a sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor and not to him like the Jews do, even though most of his followers here are Macedonians?’