‘No.’ Vitellius stepped into my path. ‘Don’t go. Juvens can manage this one small incursion. We need you here, to organize the defences. You’re a commander now. You don’t need to be in the front line.’
He couldn’t have ordered me; we both knew where lay the balance of power, but he was my emperor, and, more important, he was right.
To Drusus, I said, ‘Make sure any messages are brought straight to me. And send water to mix with the wine. We need clear heads.’
I sat on the emperor’s couch and tried to picture the entirety of Rome, and what forces we could muster to defend her.
And so the day started.
Chapter 60
Rome, 19 December AD 69
Jocasta
Night plunged into the western sea and sucked the rain with it. The next day, the nineteenth of December, dawned fresh and clear and seemed as if it might be kind to those of us besieged on the Capitol hill.
Pantera came back before dawn, and seemed cheerful, and then Cornelius Martialis returned before the first watch was called with news that Vitellius had turned down the offer to abdicate — again — but that he believed his brother to be caught up in Misene and unlikely to return.
Pantera was responsible for that; I read it in the quiet confidence of the nods exchanged between Trabo and Horus. Pantera himself is too used to hiding the truth to let such things slip. But whoever had set it up, the truth was that Lucius was trapped well away from Rome and, barring miracles, there was no chance of his riding in to offer Vitellius a last-minute reprieve.
Mind you, on the morning of the nineteenth, there was no certainty that Vitellius was going to need that. We were stuck on the hill with a cordon of Guards around and no sign that Antonius Primus was close to rescuing us. We were like a family, four hundred strong, caught in close proximity when we were better apart. Trabo couldn’t look at me, and Domitian didn’t know where to look when he was in my presence, except that he must not, ever, glance at Horus, which of course told its own story.
Only Pantera was equally at ease with us all. We discovered that he could play dice with distressing skill and he taught us a board game common among the tribes of Britain where coloured pieces move from square to square across and must try to surround the king of the opposite side. He didn’t seem to be interested in trying to find an escape route from the hill. I had found cellars with an almost-hidden entrance below the clerks’ room which I thought might have caught his attention, but he just took his winnings and carried on playing.
Soon, noises of a skirmish reached us, of horses in anger, of iron smashed on iron, on stone, on wood, on flesh. I ushered my small force of men and women down the hill a short distance and stationed them along the barricades we had built in the night. We had brought whetstones to sharpen the knives that were set upright in the barricades and goose grease to ease the levers we had set in place to roll the larger lumps of masonry down on to the heads of those coming up, but none of us expected the line to hold for long.
Domitian came too, bringing the sons of senators, who numbered a rather larger force than mine, and they climbed up ladders on to the row of dwellings that lined the long, slow route to the temple. There was a festive atmosphere amongst the dozens on the rooftops, with food and drink passed up from below and many salutations, most of them scurrilous, as befitted the third day of Saturnalia. The sun shone. We waited.
Chapter 61
Rome, 19 December AD 69
Geminus
The desperate frustration of being stuck in the palace while men were dying in battle in the city was ameliorated only by the constant stream of reports that came to us through the morning.
They detailed, first, the battle between Juvens and Petilius Cerialis, and then what came after it. I can’t vouch for their accuracy, but they seemed plausible to me. I will tell you what we heard.
‘Push on! Kill the horses and push on!’
Juvens stood on the wall of a kitchen garden. On one side, winter beds stood empty, carefully weeded, cleared for the cleansing frost. On the other was mayhem: men fighting hand to hand, horses rearing, striking, kicking, falling, dying.
This was what he lived for, not the craven surrender of Narnia. Here, he could expunge the shame of that.
He swept off his helmet, ran his fingers through his hair and shouted again, ‘Vinius! Go left. Left, man! Left! Curve round behind!’
His voice was hoarse, had lost all its music. His hand described great arcs and at last Vinius, never the brightest of his centurions, understood and led his half-century out down the street to his left, which curved round and came out again on the main thoroughfare, the Barracks Road. This brought him in at Cerialis’ diminishing force from the rear.
With that manoeuvre complete, Juvens had him trapped. The rebels were few now, and fewer with every killing stroke.
Half of Cerialis’ men had been ours less than a month before and had defected at the battle’s start, while Juvens’ own men were solid, true and fired with the blood lust of battle. All they needed was an officer to direct them and Juvens was the right man in the right place.
‘Sextus! Right!’
Juvens leapt from the wall. His blade was wet with blood, the grip sweat-roiled and unsafe in his hand. He drove it hard into the throat of the man who had just threatened Sextus’ unshielded right side, grabbed his enemy’s weapon arm at the elbow, smashed it back into the wall and again and again until he felt the bones shatter.
‘He’s dead. Juvens, he’s dead.’
He dropped the still-warm body. Sextus, alive, was fighting forward. It was Gaius Publius, one of the junior centurions, who had Juvens’ shoulder, and was pulling him away.
‘They’re retreating. Cerialis has gone. Should we follow him?’
‘No. It might be a trap. Sound the gather. Hold the men where they are.’
There was time for a dozen more deaths before the horns sounded and both sides briskly disengaged. There are advantages to fighting men who have served in your own army: everyone understands the signals.
Here and now, Petilius and his handful of men glanced at each other in grateful amazement, and ran.
Vinius came back, grumbling. ‘We could have won.’
‘You did win,’ Juvens said. ‘And now we have bigger fish to catch.’
He jumped back up on the wall and raised his hands, bringing the men closer. He was a natural orator; his fine intelligence was brought to bear on his playboy wildness and the result was an intoxicating mix of leadership and showmanship.
‘Is there any man who thinks this was not an attempt to liberate Sabinus?’
‘No!’
‘Is there anybody here who wants Sabinus to remain safe on his hilltop for another day?’
‘No!’
‘Will anybody come with me to “liberate” him into death?’
‘ Yes! ’
The shout became a great, grating roar, a clashing of swords on helmets, on the walls behind.
Juvens stood there, letting the waves of it wash over him. The moment was god-touched, perfect. Just as I had done at the barracks the day before, he had found his destiny and it was not to stand idly by while Rome slipped away from his grasp.
He lifted his voice to carry to the outer fringes of the gathered men.
‘It’s time we hammered the heart out of this rebellion. Sabinus brought this on us and he has no complaint if we take the fight to him. We’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to kick that rebellious bastard down the steps!’
Chapter 62
Rome, 19 December AD 69
Jocasta
They came just after noon, a wave of silent, grim-faced Guards in dull-polished helms with their swords held tight to their sides; no histrionics, no waving of weapons, but a sense of duty and drive that coursed ahead of them and brought silence to the roofs of the priests’ houses, where Domitian was holding what seemed to be a raucous Saturnalia party where the rules were what you wanted them to be as long as they involved singing and throwing things.