Gods of War E-Book

Jack Ludlow

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Republic
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 497

Beschreibung

Three fearless men are drawn into the endless battles of ancient Rome's Fiery War, fighting for power, for victory, for survival - and above all, for honour. Brennos, the barbarian leader of the Celtic tribes, faces bloody personal consequences when his enemies hatch a vicious assassination plot. Aquila, now fighting for Rome, carries with him his lucky talisman; a golden amulet shaped like an eagle in flight, the only clue to his true identity. And Marcellus, son of Rome's most powerful senator, must find within himself the ability to lead men into battle - and to win.

Leseprobe

REPUBLIC:THE GODSOF WAR

JACK LUDLOW

To Allison Lyddon, my son’s lovely partner, who will, one day, if she can break down his resistance, be my daughter-in-law.

Contents

Title PageDedicationPROLOGUECHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENCHAPTER SEVENTEENCHAPTER EIGHTEENCHAPTER NINETEENCHAPTER TWENTYCHAPTER TWENTY-ONECHAPTER TWENTY-TWOCHAPTER TWENTY-THREEAbout the AuthorBy Jack LudlowCopyright

PROLOGUE

Aquila Terentius left the mountain town of Beneventum the morning after he killed the four Greeks, descending from the high hills of central Italy to the coastal plain and a proper Roman road, which would take him north.

Forced by poverty to walk and hunt his food, he had much time to consider the recent events in his life. The experience of Sicily: arriving as a boy, leaving as a man; his own participation in the recent slave revolt: the dilemma of a Roman fighting against his own kind; the way his old friend and mentor had been sacrificed by the men upon whom he had taken his bloody revenge the previous night. They had betrayed the revolt they led and abandoned their slave army to Roman revenge, the beaten slaves – men, women and children – being herded and returned to the backbreaking work on the farms whence they had come. It was hard to see them as they had so recently been, a powerful army large enough to make Rome shiver.

The quartet of traitorous Greeks, once slaves themselves, had been relaxed in their luxurious hilltop villa, feeling secure under the protection of local guards, with slaves of their own now to fetch and carry. The long ladder he had fashioned to get in and out of the villa had been broken up, the bark strips used to bind the crosspieces to the long central staff had become kindling, the wooden slats he had fashioned from tree branches, firewood to keep him warm for the remainder of the night. No one had seen him enter or leave, and he had killed three of the turncoats quickly and in total silence – the leader first, his tongue cut out, because that had been his weapon of choice to both inspire and then betray. Two of the others had been nonentities, lapdog pets of their chief, but the fourth, called Pentheus, had merited special treatment.

He had been present at the death of Gadoric, the Celtic warrior Aquila had seen as a surrogate father, who died as he would have wished, charging his Roman enemies in a fight he could not win – a way to paradise for one of his religion. It was triple revenge; Pentheus had also murdered Didius Flaccus, the ex-centurion who had brought Aquila to Sicily in the first place and Phoebe, the girl with whom he had formed an attachment, she being consumed in the flames of Flaccus’s farmhouse.

Pentheus had died very slowly, his mouth stuffed with the rich garment he had been wearing when he was dragged from his bed. The boy’s knife had worked relentlessly on the body, revelling in what he saw in the pain-filled eyes. Finally, with the man still alive, Aquila had chopped off his hands and feet, doing to Pentheus what he had done to Flaccus. The broken body he had disposed of as he had the others, by taking them out to their high balconies and throwing them into the ravine and the fast-flowing river below. Prior to that, using their bright red blood, he had drawn the image that defined him on each of their walls, the same as the gold talisman he wore round his neck, shaped like an eagle in flight.

At times, as he walked, he wondered if he had a future, but taking that object in his hand, he would be overcome by a strange feeling. He had been told it was his destiny but were the predictions true? There was only one place to go now and perhaps the answer he sought would lie there: the centre of his world; the city of Rome.

It was impossible to pass by the only place he had ever called home, not that there was anything left to see, but this was where had stood his adoptive parents’ hut. The familiarity was tempered by a strange sensation that everything seemed smaller than he remembered: the stream in which he had learnt to swim which ran into the Liris River, the trees in the nearby woods, even the distance between the hut and the busy Via Appia half a league away. Only the mountains to the east looked the same, rising in tiers, covered in dense forests, with that strange-shaped extinct volcano, with a cap shaped like a votive cup, the tallest of them all.

Standing on the spot, Aquila could almost hear Fulmina’s voice, often berating her husband Clodius. It was she who had prophesied greatness for him, with a faith he had never been able to share; how could he, the child of peasants, do what she foretold? Only on the day she died did he hear the truth; he had been brought here as a newborn child, exposed in the nearby woods to die on the feast day of the Goddess Lupercalia.

Clodius, occasionally drunk, always on the sharp end of his wife’s tongue, had been sleeping off a drinking bout. Woken by a baby crying for food, he had fetched him back to his wife, knowing it would assuage her anger. On his ankle had been the charm he now wore round his neck, an indication that at least one of his true parents wanted him to live. Had they sold it they could have lived in some comfort and Clodius would have been spared the need for service, and ultimately death, in the legions; then they did not speak of the power Fulmina felt, and the dreams that merely touching the charm had brought on.

A wander round the district brought back other memories, like the day he had met Gadoric, a slave disguised as an addle-brained shepherd; of the dog Minca, huge and fierce to a stranger, as gentle as a lamb to a friend, long dead now. The shepherd hut was still there, occupied by another, sitting at the edge of the field where the Celt had taught him how to fight with a wooden sword, how to fire an untipped arrow and most of all how to use the spear he still carried, which Gadoric had stolen from the guards of his owner, the fat senator, Cassius Barbinus.

The land he walked on belonged to Cassius Barbinus; Sosia, the slave girl, with whom he had enjoyed a tender childhood romance, had belonged to Barbinus. Didius Flaccus, the ex-centurion who had taken him to Sicily, had worked for Barbinus. Aquila had lived with Flaccus and his ruffian guards on the fat senator’s Sicilian farms, and so, unwittingly, he had visited cruelty on the slaves in the name of profit. The man loomed so large in his life and here he was, standing in the woods that sheltered the cistern that fed the fountains and baths of the Barbinus villa, close to tears as he contemplated life without all the people who filled his memories.

He was tempted to visit the Dabo farm, where he had gone to live after the death of Fulmina, but that was not a place of fond memories. He had hated Piscius Dabo for the way he had duped jolly but dim-witted Clodius into deputising for him when he was called up for a second stint in the legions, this so he could stay home and get rich. Was the old bugger Dabo still alive anyway, or was his farm now in the hands of his sons, Annius and Rufurius, boys he used to fight all the time?

Old neighbours, recognising him, told him, with no sign of grief, that Piscius was dead: Annius Dabo, the eldest son and a born bully, had the farm, now a ranch, while Rufurius, who had at least tried to be friendly to orphaned Aquila, had got nothing, and was no longer in the vicinity. They also told him there was a legacy waiting for him in Aprilium, a bequest made by a general called Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, who had died commanding a cohort of the 10th Legion at the Pass of Thralaxas in Illyricum, money for the support of the dependants of his fallen legionaries, Clodius being one of that number.

Having established his identity with the priests at the temple, and because there was nothing for him now in the place in which he had grown up, he made his way back on the Via Appia, and continued to head north.

Marcellus Falerius came back to a house on the Palatine Hill that seemed empty without his father. Ever since he could remember, the spacious atrium had been full of supplicants seeking favours from Rome’s most powerful politician, the leader of the optimates: now it had a hollow feel. The household slaves, normally so busy attending to those petitioners, were idle, in mourning, staying in their quarters, some no doubt praying to their own gods that they would be freed in their late master’s will. It was maddening that he had died at the very pinnacle of his career, having just put down a slave revolt in Sicily, not with fighting legions, as was the norm, but by sheer cunning.

Added to that, instead of lining the roads with crucified rebels, he had got them back to work on the farms from which they escaped, saving their owners, his fellow Roman senators, a fortune, as well as ensuring the city a harvest. Had he returned alive, he would have been hailed a victorious general for his defeat of an enemy, famine, that Rome feared more than any other. Instead he had died in a fountain of blood that seemed to come from every orifice in his body, his weeping son holding a hand that slowly gave up its strength.

The study in which he laboured had the same bare feel, and Marcellus sat in the curile chair wondering what he would do next. His father had been such a commanding presence in his life, as well as the lives of many others, that the lack of his aura was almost tangible. Everyone who counted for anything in Rome would attend the ceremonies to mark his passing, though there would be few who would come because they loved him. Indeed, some so-called mourners would no doubt turn up to ensure that his death was not some hoax to catch them out: Lucius Falerius Nerva had been a scourge to those of high station who fell below what he considered the proper standards of behaviour for the patrician class. He had been feared rather than loved, his only guiding principle being the needs of the Republic he served so selflessly; indeed his whole life had been dedicated to Rome and the preservation of its distant borders. The youngster could hear the echo of his voice now, castigating him.

‘Rome first and always, Marcellus! Swear to me that you will always put Rome before everything.’

‘Yes, Father,’ he said out loud, hoping that the parental spirit would hear him.

He picked up the piece of papyrus on which he had drawn an image from the walls of that villa in Beneventum, gifted to the four leaders of the Sicilian slave revolt, men Lucius had suborned and bribed to betray their people with the prospect of a life of ease and comfort. They had not lived to enjoy their deceit; someone had taken revenge and killed them all in the most bloodthirsty fashion, and had left on the walls of each room this outline, a drawing of an eagle in flight, only the red on the original had been blood, not ink.

Why had the mere sight of that image so terrified his father? On sight of it he had called for his litter in an obvious panic, and made an effort to get back to Rome, perhaps to seek the intercession of Jupiter Maximus. It had been in vain; Lucius Falerius, Rome’s senior senator, died like a nobody on the Via Appia, several leagues away from the city he revered, ignored, as was his tear-stained son, by those passing by, the citizens for whom he had laboured so long and so hard.

There was a powerful legacy. Not great wealth; Lucius had put too much time into the care of Rome and its empire to amass much money, though the boy was comfortably off and had the prospect of a marriage that would bring a massive dowry. The real inheritance was political; as the son of a man so influential – with a list of clients almost too long to recount – he could expect to inherit some of that authority. Not all, he was too young for that, but enough to make his mark in the world. It was now time to find out just how potent that was.

Before they left for that fateful journey to Sicily, Lucius had sealed many of his most secret scrolls in chests, to be placed in the cellar. In these wooden containers lay all Marcellus needed to take his place in the world. He took a lamp down the worn stone steps rather than fetch the trunks up to his father’s study. That stopped him: he had to remind himself that the study was his now; he was the head of the household. There had been an awkward moment at the Forum, where he had gone to announce his loss, when Appius Claudius, the richest man in Rome, had reminded him of his obligations towards his daughter.

That, more than anything, served to bring home to Marcellus that he was now the master of his own destiny. It also underlined his potential; Appius Claudius still saw the betrothal as desirable. Did he, given that his preferences lay elsewhere? Ever since he had donned his manly gown he had been in thrall to Valeria Trebonia, but the entire Trebonii family was out of Rome, so he had not yet put that to the test. Once he had suggested to his father that he should marry Valeria, only to have the notion ridiculed. To a Falerii, who could trace their family name back to before the Tarquin Kings, the Trebonii were parvenus, too recently elevated, not fit to merit the connection.

That was something to consider later; time now to examine his inheritance. A whole glass of sand later, he sat, surrounded by scrolls, wondering how he had lived with his father all these years without really knowing him. Every scroll made him cringe; they contained personal details, none of them flattering, of all the people Lucius had called friends and clients. Details of financial and sexual scandals: wives who had indulged in adulterous relations, naming the men involved, often more than one; senators and knights who had blatantly stolen from the public purse, hoarded scarce commodities or indulged in impeachable rapacity as they governed the provinces of the empire.

One contained a poem, and scratched in the corner were the names Sibyl and Aulus, which must refer to an oracle and Aulus Cornelius, his father’s childhood friend, while the remainder had lots of scribbled notes. The reading of it made no sense.

One shall tame a mighty foe,

The other strike to save Rome’s fame.

Neither will achieve their aim.

Look aloft if you dare, though what you fear cannot fly,

Both will face it before you die.

There were a surprising number of scrolls relating to the Cornelii family, which Marcellus opened reluctantly. He could not believe that, locked away, they contained praise of his father’s lifelong friend. Aulus Cornelius had been, to him, the very embodiment of Roman virtue, a successful general not once but twice; a soldier’s soldier revered by the men he led; tall, handsome, with a noble brow, the very embodiment of the Roman imperium. Bound to his father by a youthful blood oath, Aulus and Lucius had been like two peas in a pod until something happened to ruin their mutual attachment. Marcellus now learnt how and when that deep companionship had become fractured.

It could not be just that Aulus had failed to attend Marcellus’s birth – certainly a deep breach of his obligations – but enough to threaten a lifelong friendship? Reading on, the reason for that absence shocked him. Campaigning in Spain, fighting a rebel leader called Brennos, Aulus’s second wife, twenty years his junior, had been taken prisoner by the Celt-Iberians. It took two seasons of hard fighting to get her back, and when discovered, she was found to be with child. Aulus had failed to attend his birth because he was attending that of his wife’s bastard, a fact unearthed by a Nubian spy, a slave that Lucius had placed in his old friend’s house.

There were good grounds to believe the child had been exposed, a perfectly natural thing to do, though there were patrician husbands who would have killed their own wife rather than risk the disgrace. More interesting was the information the slave had supplied, which indicated that the Lady Claudia was tormented by the location of that exposure, that she had in fact searched as though expecting to find the child alive, strange behaviour when any sensible person would do whatever they could to put such a damning event behind them.

Marcellus hardly knew the Lady Claudia Cornelia and at first he wondered how her disgrace fitted into these chests, these records of misdemeanour. Then it dawned on him; it would have been a weapon to hold over Aulus, and even though Claudia was only Quintus Cornelius’s stepmother, it would also serve as a means to embarrass the oldest son of the Cornelii house, a man Lucius was grooming to a position of power, designated to hold that together till Marcellus could come into his own. Any deviation from that obligation would see the scroll on public display, which would ruin the family name in a world where nothing was held to be more important.

His father had said he would not be pleased by what he found and, as usual, Lucius had been right, but what to do? He could call people in to see him, one by one, and give them the scrolls pertaining to them, but they would then know they had been read. It would only be a matter of time before the city was full of gossip, damaging his father’s reputation and, by association, his own. The best thing to do would be to burn the lot, a notion he considered long and hard, knowing haste was a mistake. Clearly some of the crimes listed in these scrolls deserved punishment. If he could not burn them all, which should he keep?

Carefully, Marcellus put the scrolls back. The last bundle in his hand related to the recently returned Governor of Illyricum, Vegetius Flaminus, with a list of the evidence that Aulus Cornelius, heading a senatorial commission, had mustered against him in the recent rebellion. There was also a true account of the campaign: the number of dead, not all enemy combatants, which negated the Flamian triumph; his venal rapacity as governor; and finally a report from a retired centurion called Didius Flaccus, which told how Vegetius, knowing they were isolated, had deliberately left Aulus and the men he led to die at the Pass of Thralaxas. There was enough here not only to impeach the man, but to see him stripped and thrown off the Tarpeian Rock.

He dropped in the last bundle and relocked the wooden chest, before making his way back to the study to find his father’s steward waiting with the latest despatches from the frontiers, asking what he should do with them now that Lucius was dead. This correspondence was not for his young eyes; in reality consular communications, they had come to his father because he was powerful enough to make or break the people who wrote them. Despite that, Marcellus went through them, only half taking in the news that there was more trouble on the border shared with the empire of Parthia.

There was something from each province and potential trouble spot, and Marcellus knew that in the scroll racks that lined the study walls lay years of correspondence relating to every matter of import to the empire. Fratricidal strife in Africa, the bribes necessary to keep at bay various tribes north of Cisalpine Gaul and a positive report from Illyricum, so recently the seat of revolt. He stopped when he came to a despatch from the senior consul, Servius Caepio, in Spain. Having read it, Marcellus decided he disliked the contents. Like the chest in the cellar, it contained written proof that his father would not only condone but actively encourage murder. Never mind that it was a barbarian called Brennos who was marked for assassination. Rome, to his mind, should fight such people, not try to engage renegade Celts to murder them.

There had been scrolls relating to this Brennos in the chests below, old reports from Aulus Cornelius, the man who had fought him first, as well as from Aulus’s youngest son Titus, made many years later. They described a man of tall stature and golden hair, a Druid shaman from the misty lands of the north, simple of dress but with a commanding personality. There was only one thing that really marked him out, a device he wore at his neck, gold, shaped like an eagle in flight. For a moment Marcellus’s mind went to that image which had so terrified his father, had been, to him, some kind of harbinger of doom. The notion of a connection was too fanciful; the owner of that gewgaw was in Spain, his father had been near Neapolis. Apowerful shaman they said about Brennos; no one had power over that distance.

He told the slave to send the scrolls on to the Forum and, alone again, he considered going to the family altar to say prayers for the soul of his father, which reminded him he must order a death mask to place with those of all his other ancestors. But he felt lonely; he wanted comfort, so before going to pray, Marcellus went to visit the chamber of the best gift he had ever had from his father, the slave girl Sosia, who looked so like Valeria Trebonia they could be twins.

And unlike Valeria, Sosia was his property, to do with whatever he wished.

CHAPTER ONE

The return to Rome of Cholon Pyliades served as a sharp reminder to Claudia Cornelia of the limitations placed on her by her situation as the widow of a patrician noble. A freed Greek, the former body slave to her late husband, Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, he could travel as freely as he wished; she could not. Claudia had missed his company while he had been in Neapolis and Sicily, so she did her best to welcome him warmly, suppressing any feelings of resentment. Not that such a thing precluded the odd barbed comment, especially when she heard of his intention to attend the funeral rites of Lucius Falerius Nerva.

‘I never thought that you, of all people, would attend such an event.’

The Greek smiled, knowing there was no real malice in the words. ‘I think your late husband must have understood Lucius Falerius better than you or I. After all, he held him in high esteem, despite the fact that they disagreed on so many things. Perhaps the bonds of childhood friendship were stronger than we knew.’

Claudia replied with mock gravity, her dislike of Lucius being well known. ‘You’re right, Cholon, Aulus would have attended the old goat’s funeral, in spite of the way the swine treated him. He forgave too easily.’

‘Then I am absolved?’

Claudia had not quite finished baiting him. ‘There was a time you would have gone just to ensure the old vulture was dead.’

‘True, but I met him in Neapolis only to discover he was an interesting man, and the irony is that when I got to know him, I found his ideas were more Greek than Roman.’

Cholon did not say that Lucius had used him as an intermediary; it had been he who had taken the Roman terms to the leaders of the slave revolt and persuaded them to accept them. Right now, he was amused by the shocked reaction of his host.

‘Lucius Falerius saw himself as the complete Roman. He would not be pleased to hear you say that!’

‘Not the words, perhaps, but I think the sentiment would please him. He was far from as stiff-necked as he appeared and I did discover that he was remarkably free from the cant you normally suffer from Roman senators. I think Lucius understood his world and knew what he wanted to preserve. Perhaps he was illiberal with the means he needed to employ to gain his ends, but he was clever. Certainly what he did in Sicily was positively Alexandrian in its subtlety. Not Roman at all!’

‘What would a Roman have done?’ asked Claudia.

‘Put the entire island to the sword or lined the roads with crucifixions, then strutted like a peacock, full of virtue because of his actions.’

‘I doubt my late husband would have done that.’

The Greek suddenly looked grave, partly because she had referred to the nature of his late master, but more for the wistful look on Claudia’s face. To Cholon, there had never been anyone like Aulus Cornelius, the conqueror of Macedonia, the man who had humbled the heirs of Alexander the Great, yet never lost that quality of modesty which defined him. It had not been for his military prowess that his Greek slave had loved him, but for his very nature. Sitting here with Claudia, he was reminded of how she had hurt him, and how he had withstood that for year after year with a stoicism that made him even more of a paragon. He knew the reason and had to compose himself then; too much deliberation on the life and death of his late master was inclined to induce copious tears.

‘No, Lady, he would have freed them all, and then dared the Senate to override him.’

They sat silently for a while, each with their own recollections of a man who had stood alone, not aloof, but one who refused to support any faction, yet was there when the call came if Rome needed him. It was Cholon who finally spoke. ‘I am about to commit a shocking breach of manners.’

‘You?’

He ignored the irony, given he was always accusing Romans of being barbarians.

‘It is not often polite to allude to a friend’s private situation, to the lack of pleasure, the emptiness in their lives.’

Claudia wanted to say that he alone had the power to change that, he who had helped her husband, but she had promised never to ask again the only question that mattered to her, the one that haunted her dreams – where had Cholon and Aulus exposed her newborn son that night of the Feast of Lupercalia – so she bit her tongue.

‘I wonder that you do not take another husband.’ Her eyes shot up in surprise as he continued. ‘There, I’ve said it. I have wondered for some time and now it is finally out in the open.’

‘I’m shocked.’

‘Please forgive me, Lady.’

Claudia laughed again. ‘What is there to forgive? I am happy to know that you care so much for my welfare.’

‘Truly?’

She smiled at the Greek, in a way that made her utterly believable. ‘Truly.’

‘It’s just that you spend too much time alone and, if I may say so, too much time in Rome. There are some wonderful places on the coast around Neapolis…’

His voice trailed off; he had said something to wipe the smile off her face, yet whatever it was had not made her sad or angry. No, whatever it was had rendered her thoughtful.

He could not comprehend the sheer size of Rome, nor the quantity of people, rich and poor, who thronged its busy thoroughfares. Here he was, in the capital of the empire, ready to admit that the place scared him more than the idea of facing a herd of elephants armed with a catapult, not that he had ever seen one, let alone a herd.

They were rude, these city folk, treating Aquila’s polite enquiries with either a shrug or ill-disguised contempt, eager to be about their business and with no time to give directions to someone who, by his accent, was a country bumpkin and, by his appearance, no true Roman anyway. So Aquila saw more of the city than he should, saw that Rome was full of temples, some to gods he had never heard of, while the sheer wealth of the place was as astounding as its size. Numerous carts fought for the right of way with those walking, everyone pushed aside for the occasional litter, as the rough servants of some wealthy individual demanded passage.

The marketplace was bursting with produce of every kind while behind the stalls, and in the streets that led off the square, little shops abounded. They sold goods of silver and gold, leather and wood, made statues of men whose brows all seemed noble. Aquila, with his height, his distinctive red-gold hair, now down to his shoulders, plus his battered sweat-stained armour, stood out from the jostling crowd. Many a suspicious glance was thrown in his direction, looks which tended to linger on that valuable charm he wore round his neck, with eye contact being broken as soon as he turned to face these curious people. They were wary of a man who

had a spear, used by the look of it, wore a sword at his side, and carried a bow, with a quiver full of arrows slung across his back.

He found the bakery eventually, only because, once he realised that he was being ignored, his enquiries ceased to be polite. The people of the city seemed more helpful if you towered over them with a threatening look, and eased your sword in your belt if they showed signs of trying to hurry by. He was directed to the street, but it was the smell that took him to the premises he sought, a whiff of fresh baking that somehow managed to overbear the odour of filth and packed humanity. The shop, with a small crowd outside, was a dark cavern at the bottom of a towering tenement in a street called the Via Tiburtina.

Aquila looked up at the narrow band of light between the two buildings on either side of the street, which seemed to be leaning towards each other the higher they went. Drying clothes hung from every balcony, women screeched at each other across the divide, their voices raised so they could be heard above the din from below, while naked children played in the doorways of walls covered in drawings and messages, some rude, others complaints. Beggars, blind or with missing limbs, sat against those walls, their knees raised to avoid the open sewer that ran down the middle of the roadway.

He called over the heads of those waiting to be served. ‘Is this the bakery of Demetrius Terentius?’

There were two women behind a table, one of middle years, bent, with a face ravaged by pain, the other much younger, both coated in flour, with hair stuck to their faces by perspiration. The bent woman, who seemed to be toothless, ignored him; it was the younger one who answered. The older woman spoke sharply and the young girl went back to serving her customers.

‘I wish to speak with Demetrius.’

‘Round the back, if you can stand the heat.’

Aquila was not welcome, and not because the owner was working. He was done for the day, busy replacing all the sweat he had lost by consuming copious quantities of well-watered wine, none of which was offered to his surprise guest. Demetrius was his adoptive parents’ eldest son, long gone from the place when he had been found, no more than a name and an occupation, yet someone to connect him to his past.

‘You can’t stay here!’

Demetrius was gross, looking as though he consumed more bread than he sold, with his great belly hanging out over a thick leather belt and the fat, round face, still bright red from his ovens, was scowling. Aquila could hardly blame him for his reserve. After all, he had only heard of this young man, now standing before him, from the odd passer-by who had come in from the countryside around Aprilium. He had never seen him, nor had his wife. They knew he had been found in the woods, which was a pretty tenuous way to claim kinship.

‘I don’t remember asking,’ the young man replied, ‘but I’m a stranger in Rome. If you can help me to find lodgings, I can pay.’

‘What with?’

‘I have money.’

His fat, adopted stepbrother sat forward, resting one podgy hand, and half his stomach, on a huge thigh. ‘How much money?’

‘Enough,’ replied Aquila coldly.

Demetrius let his eyes fall very obviously to the golden eagle, which seemed to reassure him. ‘If you can pay, I’ll put you up and get your name on the voting roll, provided you’re content to share with Fabius.’

‘Who’s Fabius?’

Demetrius laughed, without humour, but with enough effort to make his gut wobble. ‘Why, I suppose he’s like your nephew, though I dare say he’s older than you. How did you get on with my father?’

Aquila hesitated. He did not want to tell fat Demetrius that he had loved Clodius, as any small boy would love someone he thought was his Papa, so he kept all emotion out of his voice. ‘I got on very well with Clodius, from what I can remember. He left home in my fourth summer.’

Demetrius heaved himself to his feet, his fat, red face wreathed in a grim smile. ‘Then you’ll get on with Fabius. He’s the laziest, drunken bastard it’s ever been my misfortune to meet. Siring him has given me no pleasure at all.’

Fabius was a shock, so like his grandfather that it was uncanny; as he and his new roommate talked, Aquila had to keep reminding himself that this was not Clodius and it was far from just a physical likeness. His laugh was the same and the way he scowled, when his mother scolded him for coming home smelling of drink, was the spitting image of the way Clodius had looked when Fulmina chastised him for the same offence. He was hearty, amusing company, and when he had enough drink liked nothing better, he said, than to sit with his feet in the Tiber and sing.

‘Your grandfather used to go the woods. That’s why he found me.’

‘Would I have liked him?’

‘I did. I loved him, but he went off to the legions when I was small.’

The story of how Clodius had deputised for Piscius Dabo was not long in the telling and no one knew if Fabius’s grandfather had signed up because Dabo got him drunk, or he just wanted to get away from being a landless day labourer. It was supposed to be for a year or two, but it had gone on for ten and ended in Clodius’s death at Thralaxas.

‘Bit of a bugger being exposed,’ said Fabius. ‘Mind, they left you with that thing round your neck, so one of the parents wanted you back.’

‘I’d trade it to know who they are.’

‘You’re mad. Who cares about parents?’

‘Easy to say when you’ve got them.’

‘You can keep mine, and you watch out, that fat old sod of mine will milk you for every penny you’ve got.’ Fabius followed up his words with a deep swig from his tankard, while Aquila wondered if his ‘nephew’ was being cheeky, given that he had been sitting in this tavern happily spending Aquila’s money for several hours. ‘And don’t leave that charm round your neck lying about, or the miserable old bugger will pinch it.’

‘Your father speaks highly of you too,’ said Aquila.

That produced a deep growl, and he said for the hundredth time, ‘Imagine you being my uncle.’

It was hard; Fabius was ten years older than Aquila and looked twenty. The younger man, still well short of twenty summers, had spent all his life in the open air, eaten when he was hungry and drunk little. Fabius liked smoky, dark taverns, day and night. His complexion was puffy, his eyes bleary and, though nothing like his father, he was rapidly running to fat.

‘I’ll have to find some kind of work.’

‘Work!’ Fabius spat, then he looked around the dark tavern, full of people who shared his tastes and his appearance. ‘That’s only for idiots.’

‘You don’t work?’

‘I do the odd day here and there, down at the Tiber warehouses, but there are other ways of making a crust.’ Fabius threw back his head and laughed. ‘Even for the son of a baker.’

Aquila soon found out how Fabius made a ‘crust’. There was no malice in his thieving: it was petty, opportunistic and harmless, relying on a quick eye and even faster reflexes. Walking down a street with his ‘nephew’ was quite an experience. Fabius’s eyes, never resting, looked for something, anything, to filch as if it was some kind of game in which his wits were pitted against the whole world. He would take things that had no use or value to him, just so he could laugh about it later in the tavern, selling the stuff on if he could get the price of a drink.

His ‘nephew’ had undertaken to show him Rome, marching up and down the seven hills, pointing out all the places of interest: the Capitoline, the Forum and the Temple of Janus. They were on the Palatine Hill, among the large houses of the very rich, when Fabius spotted the red shoes on a first floor windowsill, freshly cleaned and drying in the sun.

‘Cup your hands, quick.’

Aquila obeyed without thinking, taking the weight easily as Fabius stretched up and grabbed at the shoes. He knocked one into the room behind, but came down triumphantly with the other.

‘There,’ he said holding it up. ‘A victory for the bare-arsed peasants.’

‘One shoe?’

Fabius waved it gaily. ‘A senator’s shoe, a trophy, Aquila. The bastards usually put these on our necks to grind us down.’

The shout behind them alerted Fabius to danger and he looked back to see a servant hanging out of the window, the other shoe in his hand, yelling for them to stop.

‘Time to extend your tour, “Uncle”,’ said Fabius with a wink.

He dodged down an alleyway, Aquila following, their feet echoing off the walls as they raced away, emerging into another street running parallel. Fabius dived across that and into a second alley, this one going steeply downhill until they emerged into the marketplace near the Forum. Fabius stopped running and began walking at a normal pace, weaving his way through the stalls, eyes and hands ranging all over the place. By the time they had reached the other side he was able to offer Aquila fruit, vegetables and an iron poker.

‘Just the thing for a chilly night, eh, “Uncle”?’

Aquila laughed; it was the middle of summer, the hottest time of year. ‘You’re probably the only customer he’s had all day.’

The eyes shot up in genuine alarm. ‘You’re right. The poor sod is probably starvin’.’ Fabius turned round and retraced his steps. He gave the bewildered stallholder his poker back, plus all the fruit and vegetables he had snatched from the other stalls.

‘Eat hearty, brother,’ he said fulsomely, patting the ironmonger on the back. ‘Winter will be here soon, and you can rest easy. If I ever need any irons for my fire, you’ll be the first man I’ll come to, and I’ll recommend you to my friends.’

They were walking out of the marketplace, leaving the perplexed trader scratching his head, when Fabius spoke again. ‘One thing, “Uncle”. If you don’t mind me saying so, you should get your hair shorn. It’s bad enough you being head and shoulders tall and still growin’, but your hair, bein’ the colour it is, and the length you wear it, makes you stick out like a sore thumb.’

CHAPTER TWO

Servius Caepio had the good grace to admit that he was no soldier, which earned him nothing but gratitude from those junior officers he had inherited on taking command in Spain. Many a serving consul, fresh from Rome, shared the fault but was blind to it; with only twelve months in office they were impatient to lead their troops into action and, since senior officers, quaestors and legates were that same consul’s appointees, it was rare that anyone sought to check their ambitions. This had in the past, inevitably, cost a number of lives – Roman, auxiliaries and native levies – sacrificed to no other purpose than a senatorial reputation. With his small frame and foxy features, Servius was what he looked, a natural intriguer, a man who had climbed to prominence by his slavish adherence to the cause of senatorial pre-eminence, as expounded by Lucius Falerius Nerva.

Warrior or not, his cohorts were forced to fight many a skirmish, since the frontier was never really at peace, though he did everything he could to keep the conflict in a low key. This sensible approach had nothing to do with modesty. Servius Caepio yearned for military success with as much passion as any of his peers; it was what he faced, allied to what he had at his disposal, which induced caution; that and the instructions he had brought with him from Lucius Falerius.

His mentor had been mistaken in his estimation of the main Celt-Iberian leader. Lucius saw Brennos as a pest certainly, but one that could be contained as he had been in the original campaign fought by Aulus Cornelius. Let him skulk in the interior, with his fantasies about the destruction of Rome, with himself at the head of some great Celtic confederacy. It might have happened before, but Lucius Falerius insisted Rome was too strong now for such nonsense, quite apart from the fractious nature of the beast Brennos was trying to assemble. No two Celts ever agreed about anything; millions there might be, but Rome was homogenous, they were splintered.

Yet faced with the actual physical presence of Brennos, he seemed more dangerous than he had been in Lucius’s study. Defeated many years before by Aulus Cornelius, he had retired to lick his wounds, but he had come back with a vengeance in his takeover of the tribe of the Duncani and their hill fort of Numantia. His usurpation had been bloody; having married Cara, the favourite daughter of the elderly chief, Brennos, a one-time Druid bound to celibacy, broke that vow. But he also broke by threat, sword and secret murder the resistance of anyone who stood in his way. He had then attacked the neighbouring tribes, taking back from them lands stolen over the years from an elderly chieftain more interested in wine and fornication than the defence of his patrimony.

His next success was to turn a natural fortress blessed by terrain – high bluffs, natural escarpments, a fertile plateau and a constant supply of water – a place in which the added walls had once been allowed to fall into a near-ruin, into the most daunting stronghold in the whole Iberian Peninsula. Numantia provided security in a troubled land, so the itinerant had flocked to the place, turning it from a hill fort into a bustling town; it had become not only a place to defend, but a base from which to attack Rome. Year on year Brennos was getting stronger, with more men to do his bidding and fewer neighbours able to stand against his wishes. When the chieftains tried, Brennos suborned their younger warriors, holding out his vision, encouraging them to attack the Roman coastal provinces, his aim to keep the border alight.

His own devious nature allowed Servius to see clearly the temptations the man offered, the most obvious conclusion being that patience, as a policy, might prove unworkable. Brennos was clever, a man who dangled opportunity before greedy Roman eyes, the enticing prospect of a victory large enough to earn the winner a triumph to match any that had gone before. His hill fort, Numantia, might be near-impregnable, but there were others less formidable, and therefore more tempting – Pallentia, halfway to Numantia between the coastal plain and the deep interior, being one such. Brennos let it be known that an attack on that hill fort would draw him to its defence, creating the prospect that, out in the open, he could be defeated by superior Roman discipline. There was an obvious flaw to this dream of glory; it might be Brennos who won, which would leave the whole of Spain at his mercy. What could he achieve then?

Not prepared to risk defeat, possible death, and at the very least certain disgrace, Servius Caepio had come round to Lucius’s view that, other methods failing, Brennos should be assassinated, preferably by someone who could not command the succession. This would lead to the break-up of the confederation of tribes Brennos already dominated, and that in turn would get them back to warring with each other rather than Rome, bringing peace to the border. Let them fight for their mountains and valleys as much as they liked.

One of the assets vital to a good intriguer is the ability to listen, because only by doing this can he find his opponent’s weakness. Servius listened to the centurions who had been stationed in Spain for years, just as he did to those Celts who sought protection and peace with Rome. The governor was patient with these client chieftains, garnering nuggets of information from the midst of their endemic Celtic boasting, but most of all he courted the Greeks, who, being in trade, of necessity needed to take a long view. The two who sat with him now had plenty to relate.

As a race, the Romans had a sharp and immediate sense of their own history; to them, Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who had annihilated two Roman armies and ravaged the whole of Italy, was no distant memory, he was yesterday. The sack of Rome by the Celtic tribes, under another Brennos, over two hundred years before Hannibal’s invasion, seemed like last week. The Greeks’ protectors knew this, and took some delight in ensuring that the threat Brennos represented seemed real.

Servius Caepio heard, behind their doom-laden words, the hint of the greed he sought. He needed the knowledge of these men who passed regularly back and forth between Emphorae and Numantia, men who could provide a picture of life in the fortress; who could detail the habits and hopes of those with some prominence, warriors perhaps, who at present stood in the shadow of Brennos. But they would not speak for nothing, while he was reluctant to offer an outright bribe, because for gold they might tell him what he wanted to hear. He needed to tempt them to speak, and if possible to do so without paying them so much as a copper ass.

‘No Roman could go near Numantia and hope to keep his head,’ he said, ‘yet we desire an end to this constant upheaval so I must find a way of approaching Brennos. If I can open up a dialogue, who knows what may flow from it.’

‘Peace,’ replied one of the Greeks, sententiously, ‘and from the blessings of that flows prosperity.’

Servius looked him straight in the eye. ‘Those who achieved such a thing could command their own reward.’

‘As you say, Excellency, not a Roman, yet neither, I fear, could the task be entrusted to a Celt.’

‘Brennos is suspicious of his own race,’ said the second Greek trader. ‘A man with such power must be suspicious of everybody.’

‘Naturally.’

At this acknowledgement the two traders brightened; Brennos had treated them well and they had good reason to feel they would be welcome in Numantia again, and said so. Without a blush they put themselves forward as envoys, not forgetting to add that they lacked the funds to make such a journey, in pursuit of such a mission, on their own.

‘No envoy of mine could travel in a fashion that demeans the Republic,’ said Servius expansively, his heart warming at the glow of avarice this produced. ‘Yet I wonder if it’s money well spent. Everything you’ve told me makes me doubt he would welcome my overtures.’ The result of this douche of cold water and reality nearly produced a laugh, so dramatically did the two faces fall; he had allowed them to glimpse considerable wealth then smartly withdrawn it. ‘What troubles me is this: that through no fault of anyone, words will be used that will kill off any hope of dialogue before it can be started.’

‘Truly it requires skill, Excellency.’

‘It also requires knowledge. Perhaps there are others in Numantia, people whom you could approach initially, who hold the key to his thinking. People close to Brennos who could perhaps persuade him to listen.’

They talked eagerly, unaware that in seeking to impress this Roman consul they had missed his true purpose. Servius knew well that, in any situation where power exists, there would always be someone who wished to usurp it and the first act of such people is to talk to others, hinting at those small areas where they disagree with their leader. By the time he dismissed them he had the names of at least ten warriors, some members of Brennos’s own bodyguard, others cousins to his wife, who fitted that category. One of them might be prepared to betray him for the chance to enhance his own prospects of ruling the Duncani.

Not inclined to entrust all his eggs to one basket, Servius read avidly, absorbing the mass of intelligence already gathered, going all the way back to Aulus’s old despatches and the more recent reports of Titus Cornelius. He knew more of Brennos than any living Roman, so the man, from being a mere name, began to take on a proper shape. Running like a thread though marble was his obsession with the destruction of the Roman Empire, no doubt to be replaced with a Celtic one with him at the head, and physically he seemed to have the stature for such an ambition.

Brennos had, it seemed, aged well these last seventeen years. He stood head and shoulders above most of his fellow Celts, his hair, worn long, was now silver, with the odd hint of gold at the very tips. For all his power and prestige he dressed simply; the outward trappings of his elevated status meant nothing to him, though no report failed to mention his one piece of decoration, a gold talisman he wore at his neck, shaped like an eagle in flight. Many addressed him as if he were a king and there was much to underscore that assumption, not least the size of his family. Too powerful to be constrained by convention, he had taken several concubines, while still acknowledging Cara as his wife. Given his own potency, and that of his women, his immediate family had increased, till he numbered twenty-six in his own household. To an outside observer he could scarcely ask for more, but it appeared that anyone who got remotely close to Brennos soon found him to be a deeply frustrated man. The grip of his obsession had grown, not diminished, with both time and success, till the very name ‘Rome’ was, apparently, enough to throw him into a towering rage.

So, a powerful thane who troubled his neighbours; who stood at the head of a large and diverse family group? Growing more powerful by the year, who might become uncontrollable; a threat to the Republic every bit as dangerous as his ideas suggested. Servius had at present neither the strength nor the inclination to attack him, and since he had clear instructions as to the proper course to follow, nothing would tempt him to send to Rome, pointing out the dangers and demanding extra legions. When news arrived of the death of Lucius Falerius it changed nothing; an attempt must be made to neutralise this barbarian enemy.

The information he had extracted from the Greek traders provided one strong possibility, a Celt called Luekon who had hinted at a jealousy of Brennos by some of those around him and an ambition to match. Distantly related to Cara, Luekon was a man who could move freely inside the orbit dominated by Brennos, but he would first require his services to act as a messenger, because there was a second possibility. Luekon’s first task would be to make contact with Masugori, the chieftain nearest Brennos. He led the Bregones and had great promise, having signed a proper treaty with Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus and held to it all these years, neither siding with Brennos nor taking arms against Rome. Yet he had to be vulnerable to the constantly increasing power of his neighbour; did Masugori realise that the time must come when failure to stand against Brennos could mean annihilation for him? Perhaps he could be persuaded to act out of pure self-interest.

What Servius did not know was that Brennos had called a tribal gathering, something he did often in order to overawe his fellow chieftains. None of the chiefs would stay away for fear of offending him, and that led Luekon to Numantia with the hope that the circumstances necessary for what he had to encourage were most propitious.

‘Hannibal could never have invaded Italy without the Celts! In this I speak the truth, on the soul of the great God Dagda.’

Masugori nodded as if he were hearing the words for the first time, instead of the hundredth, but he knew better than to interrupt. Viathros, paramount chief of the Lusitani, the numerous tribe of the western shore, was too drunk to hear, let alone respond – not that he needed to be sober, for he had himself been subjected to this speech a dozen times. Brennos, who had also been drinking copiously, slammed the table with his hand, causing the platters and goblets to jump in the air as he addressed the men assembled, chieftains all. As usual, the subject was how to beat the Romans.

‘Carthaginians they called themselves. Do you know how many of the men in his army were actually from Africa?’

One word must have penetrated Viathros’s stupor. ‘The elephants were from Africa.’

If it was intended as a joke, he should have known better; Brennos had never had much of a sense of humour, and unbridled authority had done nothing to improve it.

‘That’s about all. His cavalry were all Celts and so were most of his infantry. He would never have got near the Alps if the tribes on the shores of the Middle Sea had opposed him, nor would he have got through the mountains without the Boii to guide him.’

Masugori decided on a bit of mischief, being well aware of the weak spots in Brennos’s personality. ‘The Volcae Tectoganes sided with the Romans, did they not?’

The resounding shout, as the Duncani chieftain responded, could be heard at the outer walls, and so could half the rant that followed. It was the same old litany, of Latin duplicity, with their tactics of divide and conquer which would reduce the Celts to slavery if they allowed it to keep happening.

The chieftain of the Bregones looked away, lest Brennos see evidence of duplicity in his eyes. The man had trained as a Druid and might still have the power to see into men’s minds. Luekon, the messenger from the governor of the province of Hispania Citerior, Servius Caepio, had hinted that matters would be eased for the Bregones by the death of Brennos. Masugori was not blind to the danger, yet he had survived by remaining aloof. Perhaps the time would come when he would have to take sides, but not yet. So, tempting as it was, he had sent Caepio’s messenger packing after the most perfunctory show of hospitality. That made little difference; if Brennos ever heard of the purpose of Luekon’s mission, he would see betrayal in the mere act of receiving him.

Right now he had little to fear, Brennos being too busy diminishing the reputation of Hannibal. Seventeen years the Carthaginian had stayed in Italy. He had beaten the Romans at Lake Trasimene and Cannae, then wandered the peninsula instead of assaulting the city, only to see his brother Hasdrabul, who had come to his aid, crushed at Metaurus. The Celts who helped him died in their thousands for his failure to take decisive action, or found themselves evacuated to North Africa, only to perish in an unfamiliar land at the battle of Zama. And, of course, the implication was clear. Masugori knew what was coming; at this point Brennos would always clasp that damned eagle on his neck, as though he was making a prophecy. History proved it; only a Celtic leader, with greater numbers behind him, could do better than Hannibal and actually succeed in destroying Rome.

The expected words did not emerge, for at that moment Galina entered and a mere look from her was sufficient to stem his flow. Masugori watched her move, quickly lifting his eyes from the allure of her swaying hips to observe the look of amused tolerance that filled her eyes, and he wondered, not for the first time, if such a woman might temper his neighbour’s ambitions, and absolve him of the need to either succumb to Brennos, or go to war with him.

Brennos found it harder to deal with Galina than his other women and it was not just because of her youth or beauty, though she had both those attributes in abundance. Her colouring was unusual, for it suggested that she had a different strain of blood in her veins: with her olive skin, dark eyes and black hair, she reminded Brennos of the Lady Claudia, the Roman woman he had captured after his first battle against Aulus, the first person to make him break his vow of celibacy. Cara, plump, matronly and fecund, had turned a blind eye, not to mention a regal back, on all his other concubines, but she hated this latest acquisition with a passion, never losing an opportunity to spit at her, calling Galina a changeling, a Roman-born bastard and a sorceress.