‘We can’t, my son.’
‘Only because of the oath you all swore,’ Vespasian almost shouted, exasperated.
‘I was right to make people swear never to reveal what was predicted for you, Vespasian,’ his mother asserted. ‘It was done to protect you. However, your father was also right to give Sabinus a way to do so if he deems that you should be told.’
Vespasian, bursting with curiosity, struggled to control himself. ‘But when will that be?’
Titus shrugged. ‘Who can say? But what I do know is this: should you not recover the Eagle and Sabinus’ life is forfeit, then he will tell you what he knows before he dies. I spoke to him yesterday and have convinced him that he won’t be breaking the first oath if he does so. You will need his help at some point and this way he can give it from beyond the grave.’
‘Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that,’ Vespasian muttered, although his curiosity was almost forcing him to think the exact opposite.
‘Yes, let’s hope so,’ Titus said, struggling to his feet with Vespasia’s help. He looked around the estate and smiled approvingly. ‘This has been a good place to live out my last years and the people of Aventicum have provided me with a good income.’ Vespasia handed him his walking stick and he began to hobble towards the door. He looked over his shoulder at Vespasian. ‘The family should reward this town sometime for all it’s done for Vespasia and me. Perhaps one day you’ll see to it that it’s granted the rights of a colonia.’
Vespasian stared at his father’s slowly retreating back, wondering if the thought that had been growing in the back of his mind, a ludicrous thought that he had tried to suppress, was true. Could it really be possible? Would he really be in a position one day to grant his father’s wish?
CHAPTER VI
‘As familiar as your mother’s tits,’ Magnus announced, staring down at the permanent camp of the II Augusta constructed on flat ground half a mile back from the Rhenus, two miles distant.
Vespasian was forced to agree with his friend’s sentiment if not his simile. ‘I would say your mother’s eyes, but I take your meaning.’ He admired the tall, rectangular stone ramparts, punctuated by watchtowers, encompassing the rows of exactly spaced barrack huts, each the regulation distance from the next. Between the huts and the ramparts was a ribbon of open ground more than two hundred paces across — an arrow’s flight — in which centuries of legionaries were being drilled. Two wide roads cut through the camp, quartering it. At their junction, just shy of the exact middle, the regulation brick barrack huts were replaced by the more substantial command and administration buildings. Taller and built of stone, rather than brick, they provided a grand focus at the centre of the camp that was otherwise very drab and uniform. It looked like any other legionary camp anywhere.
What did surprise Vespasian, however, was the landscape on the other side of the river. He had expected shadowy, brooding forest untouched by the civilising effect of Roman law; instead the eastern bank was speckled with neat farmsteads surrounded by cultivated fields or pasture upon which grazed herds of cattle. This was not the wild lands of Germania as spun in veterans’ tales, where a man could wander for days on end without a glimpse of the sky, although a few miles distant the smooth farmland broke up into dark, conifer-covered hills that fitted far better the stereotypical view of Germania Magna. Trade with the lands outside the Empire was evidently brisk as the river, three hundred paces wide, was busy with craft crossing to and from the east and the substantial town, with a small port in its midst, on the western bank, close to the camp.
‘The only thing that ever changes is the size of the settlement that has grown up next to it,’ Sabinus observed, urging his horse forward down the hill.
‘And the price of the whores living in it,’ Magnus commented sagely and then thought for a moment before adding: ‘And, of course, the pomposity of the arsehole in command.’
Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo grasped Vespasian’s arm. ‘So you’re here to replace me, Vespasian? I can’t say that I’m displeased; Caligula gave me the Second to humiliate me after I told my halfsister that just because she was the Emperor’s wife was no reason to shame our family by allowing him to parade her naked at dinner parties. As an ex-consul I should have been given a province not a legion, but this should suit you very well.’ He indicated with his other hand the grand interior of the praetorium, the legion’s headquarters. At the far end, the legion’s Eagle stood in its shrine surrounded by flaming sconces and guarded by eight legionaries.
‘Thank you, Corbulo,’ Vespasian replied, while trying to keep a straight face. ‘I consider it an honour.’
‘And so you should, so you should,’ Corbulo agreed, looking approvingly down his long nose at Vespasian. He studiously ignored Magnus standing next to him and took Sabinus’ arm. ‘What I don’t understand is why they seem to have sent two people to replace me.’ He made an extraordinary sound, rather like a ram in pain. Vespasian realised it indicated that he had made a rare but valiant attempt at humour.
‘Perhaps they felt that one replacement wouldn’t produce a sufficient amount of hot air,’ Magnus muttered, not altogether to himself.
Corbulo bristled slightly but could not bring himself to acknowledge that someone as lowly as Magnus was even in the room, let alone had insulted him. ‘But no doubt that will become clear soon enough, Sabinus. I’ll be inviting all my officers to meet their new legate.’
‘That will be an ideal time to discuss it, Corbulo,’ Sabinus replied.
‘I’m afraid that I have to give you this, Corbulo.’ Vespasian proffered the scroll that Narcissus had sent. ‘It’s your official orders, signed by the Emperor.’
‘I see,’ Corbulo murmured, looking at the scroll and frowning. He then looked Vespasian in the eye.
Vespasian understood Corbulo’s unease. ‘No, I don’t know what it says.’
Corbulo considered the scroll for a few moments before taking it. ‘I wouldn’t be the first person to receive a letter ordering them to commit suicide.’ He weighed the scroll in his hand as if he could thereby judge its contents. ‘I wouldn’t blame Claudius; he must think that I will want a blood-price for my slut of a half-sister. Well, he’s right, I do, and it’s no more than what you could squeeze out of a pin-prick.’ He gave another imitation of a distressed ram, which shocked Vespasian as he had never before witnessed Corbulo essay humour twice in one day. Corbulo broke the seal. ‘Do you know that I had the legion swear loyalty to Claudius as soon as the news arrived? I’m loyal to him, however ungainly and unstatesmanlike he may look.’ He perused the contents and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘It seems that I don’t have to fall on my sword after all; I just have to return to Rome and remain under house arrest until it’s decided whether or not I can continue my career. Minerva’s tits, I’ll never get a province to govern. Thank the gods that bastard half-sister of mine has gone! Her inability to keep her legs together brought nothing but disgrace to the family and now it’s hindering my prospects.’
‘I think that your prospects would have been permanently hindered if Narcissus hadn’t been in your debt,’ Vespasian pointed out. ‘Our killing Poppaeus left his patron very well off.’
Corbulo wrinkled his nose as if an unpleasant odour had wafted into the room. ‘That’s not a deed that I like to be reminded of, Vespasian, but if something good has come out of that shameful murder then so much the better. However, I’ll thank you not to speak of it again. Now you may wish to take a bath and change into uniform; I shall have the officers assembled here in an hour to meet you. I believe you will be particularly impressed by my senior tribune, Gaius Licinius Mucianus.’