Procurator, p.20
Procurator, page 20
“Your centurion tells me you left yesterday afternoon. What took you so long to come this far?”
Uneasily, the men glared at one another.
“You hurt my feelings. . . .”
Someone giggled—mostly from the tension.
“I’ll keep it short, lads. There’s a mutiny in the works. And Poppaeus is the traitor behind it. Will you help me win back the Agri Dagi garrison for our Emperor?”
“Hail Fabius!” they boomed.
“Listen, I haven’t gone mad from the altitude, but I want everyone to fan out across the mountain. Kill a rabbit for me. Be careful not to bleed it.”
A few of the younger legionaries began to snigger.
“That’s it, go ahead, lads,” Germanicus said with a grin. “There’s nothing like a good laugh—especially when it’s on the likes of Poppaeus.”
The men whistled and hooted with glee.
“Don’t be afraid to use your pili on our little hunt. It’s all part of the plan. And we’ll do a lot more firing within the half hour. Now find me a rabbit!”
The century spread out over the slopes. The legionaries bawled to one another wherever they crossed small animal tracks, screaming advice to which no one listened—like schoolboys on an outing. Some chattered and squealed in what they insisted were perfect imitations of wounded does of the species. A corporal jiggled the muzzle of his pilum inside a burrow. “This does the trick each time,” he muttered. And—lo and behold—out popped a hare in winter coat. The burly man dived at his prey, missed it, and came up with a mouthful of snow.
This was enough for another legionary to bang away at the darting target. But all he accomplished was to crease the helmet of a soldier across from him, who growled, “Damn you, Licinius, be careful!”
Choking on their laughter, the men began hailing a fellow they affectionately called “the Hawk.”
“Here’s our deadliest sniper,” the centurion said to Germanicus.
One quick shot and it was over.
Germanicus accepted the game with flourish. “That’s worth a fortnight of wine and women in Ephesus—at my expense, Hawk.”
“I thank the procurator.”
“Now, lads, let’s make a battle that Poppaeus will hear from under his couch!”
The legionaries threw themselves into the stratagem with fervor. They discharged their pili into the air until the centurion had to caution them against wasting all their ammunition. As the uproar finally petered out, the centurion sent red flare after flare aloft, beseeching help he knew would never be sent.
Then there was silence. It was made deeper by the realization that, had Germanicus not come down the mountain, this feigned massacre would have been for real.
“Who are the six best hand-to-hand boys among you?”
When the men had shoved their choices forward, Germanicus slit the hare’s throat with his sword and doused these legionaries with the blood. They made a battered-looking crew. “Now, Romans, this is what we do . . .”
They waited on the heights above the garrison until the wind pressed the clouds down onto the pass. The scene became thick with chilly fog, as was all too common in the shadow of Agri Dagi on a winter afternoon.
Germanicus felt sure he had chosen the right man to crack the praetorian hunker. A natural ham with the features of a hound, he relished his role as a blood-splattered survivor, limping home with a tale of horror on his lips. Minutes after he was sent on his way, two more “wounded” were dispatched across the frozen pasture, and then one more, and finally the last pair, one riding on his comrade’s back—a credible string of beaten legionaries.
While these men held the attention of the sentries on the wall, a force of ten scouts crept through the mists, keeping to a broken spur of lava that flowed down half the distance to the targeted bunker.
“Halt!”
Germanicus bit his lips. The praetorian guard was challenging the first man to straggle up. The words of the legionary’s reply were too faint, but Germanicus could catch his tone of voice—which was piteous—and knew all was well when the praetorian laughed cruelly. The guard was about to unroll the ladder when his tribune came sauntering out of the bunker. The officer was either itching to give someone a hard time or had an inkling of trouble, for he apparently ordered the gathering group of legionaries to tie their pili to a rope, which was hoisted up in advance.
“I hope our lads like to use knives,” Germanicus said to the centurion beside him.
“They love steel.”
One by one the legionaries clambered up the ladder on what appeared to be their last strength. Then they followed the tribune into the bunker.
The praetorian sentry continued his tour along the wall.
Germanicus and the centurion traded anxious gazes.
“How many guards make up a ballista crew here?”
“Anywhere from five to eight, Procurator. It depends on how fat the duty roster is.”
“Why is a tribune instead of a corporal in charge?”
“These praetorians trust no one—least of all themselves.”
The sentry kept pacing back and forth. A patch of sunlight skimmed over him and down the valley like a bright scarf carried on the wind. He looked lost in daydreams as he marked time.
“It’s taking too long,” the centurion whispered.
“Men grapple to the last breath when it’s for their lives.”
Then the dog-faced legionary rushed out of the bunker and slit the praetorian’s throat. He dumped the body over the wall and waved for the ten scouts to scramble up.
Reaching the top, these men raced to the other bunkers to urge the legionary crews not to rake their comrades coming in off the slopes. Soon more ladders were flipped over the side, and Germanicus whistled with relief. He and the centurion got up and began walking toward the garrison.
CHAPTER XIX
IT DID NOT take much to turn the legionaries against the praetorians. The cause of the legionaries’ anger was more than the common rivalry between two different military units. The centurion told Germanicus that for months Poppaeus had been using the guards to bully the rank-and-file soldiers. And, unbeknownst to anyone outside the garrison, Poppaeus had gone so far as to decimate the cohort, killing one out of every ten men after he caught wind of a mutiny rumor he himself may have started. The executions were reported to Nova Antiochia as losses in action.
After the wall was surmounted the backlash against Poppaeus gathered more steam than Germanicus had expected. The hated guards unlucky enough to be caught outside the underground complex withdrew to the praetorium, which was an annex of the stockade. From the windows of this stout building they began laying down fields of fire. Germanicus was prepared to talk them into surrender, but the legionary sappers beat him to the punch. Using their familiarity with the grounds, a pair of these demolition specialists crept up on the barracks from a blind side, chucked a satchel through an open window, then bolted for safety with satisfied grins on their faces.
“Mars, I hope we don’t have to kill every last one of them—they are Fabius’ own,” Germanicus said, getting ready to plug his cars with his fingers.
“These bastards belong to Poppaeus,” the centurion answered.
The windows of the praetorium shattered and belched licks of orange flame. Tiles spun off the roof into the overcast sky as a roar bounced from mountain to mountain.
“Good work, nevertheless.” Germanicus began jogging for-ward. “Cut the wires, centurion. No messages are to go out until I know everyone who’s involved in this.”
The centurion noticed that Germanicus was veering off from him. “Where are you going. sir?”
“I’ll lead these men to the stockade. You gather others and seal off the entrance to Poppaeus’ headquarters.”
“That’ll trap the rat in his hole!”
Minutes later, taking sporadic rounds from the stockade, Germanicus and the five legionaries hunkered down behind a statue of the Emperor. “You in there!” Germanicus shouted. “We come in the name of Fabius!”
The pili fire stopped. Then Rolf’s hearty voice came through a barred window. “Procurator?”
“Rolf?”
“Aye, sir!”
“Who’s in there with you?”
“Praetorians what be loyal to the Emperor.”
“Tell them I am Fabius’ kinsman. Tell them I fight the traitor Poppaeus.” Germanicus waited for Rolf’s reply. He could hear fierce whispering inside the building. It was punctuated by hot-tempered cries that were stifled by protests in German. Then a pilum boomed within the walls. And an ugly calm followed. “Rolf, what gives in there?”
“All here be convinced now, sir!”
The praetorians on duty in the stockade were Germans to the man—all except the corporal who lay on the floor with a bloody divot in his forehead. “Hail Kaiser!” they blared.
“Hail Fabius!” Germanicus said.
Rolf smacked his fist into his palm as if to say that things were finally looking up. “There be damn funny happenings here, Germanicus.”
“I know. How’s your prisoner?”
“No trouble.”
Germanicus smiled at the boy and said in Anatolian, “Your father is well, Khalid.”
He turned away without replying. “Where is Crispa, Rolf?”
“Last I hear—underground.”
“And Marcellus?”
The centurion frowned. “The same.” He looked as if he wanted to say something but was afraid to come out with it.
“Where are my staff officers?”
“I hear they be prisoners on your rail-galley.”
“Very well, stay here with Khalid.”
“I want to mix it up, sir.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that.”
Dutifully Rolf nodded yes, although he was clearly miserable. “I return this to you now.” He handed over the Minerva pendant.
“Thank you.” Germanicus slipped it around his neck. “I’ll send for you shortly.”
Outside, the legionaries had just launched an assault on the mouth of the tunnel. But Poppaeus’ praetorians beat them back with thick, rapid fire, and the bodies of at least a dozen men were left in a heap before the portal.
Germanicus kept the German praetorians close to him so they would not be slain by the now furious legionaries. These guards began calling to their comrades inside the tunnel—but with no effect.
“Shall we try another entry, Procurator?”
“No, we’ll need every man we’ve got when the barbarians come down off Agri Dagi.” Germanicus took a moment to quiet a legionary and one of the German guards, who had started quarreling, then shouted. “Praetorians!”
“Who speaks there?” came an uncertain reply from the black opening.
Good, Germanicus thought, at least the surviving guards are confused by the turn of events. “I am Germanicus Agricola! And I fight to preserve the honor of the Emperor Fabius.”
“As we do, Germanicus.”
“No, you serve his enemy without knowing it. Poppaeus is a traitor to the Emperor. That makes him your foe as well, for are you not sworn before the gods to defend the first citizen of Rome?”
“We are.”
Nothing more was said for several moments. Germanicus tried not to think of Crispa. His heart sank as soon as he did—and he needed all the vigor he could muster. “What is your answer in there? Do you want to die serving the cause of treason?”
“What guarantees do we have, Germanicus?”
“My word.”
Silence.
“Throw down your weapons and come out. Renew your vow to Fabius. Then take up arms again in the service of Rome and the gods.”
“What of Poppaeus?”
“He must answer for his crimes. There is no alternative.”
The wind howled in advance of another bank of frozen fog. “We are coming out, Procurator.”
As a disciplined unit—and Germanicus admired them for that much—thirty praetorians came marching out of the darkness. They were led by a rawboned centurion who had done their bidding. He saluted Germanicus. “Hail Fabius! I surrender to your—”
Suddenly a legionary plunged his sword into the centurion’s chest. This ignited a fray in which praetorians tried to wrest pili from the legionaries encircling them.
“Stop!” Germanicus screamed.
Miraculously, with the urging of a few level-headed salts on both sides, the scuffling came to a halt, replaced by a truce as thin as an eggshell. The praetorian down on the ice squirmed to a final stillness, the sword still jutting from his rib cage.
“You two,” Germanicus ordered the guards restraining the murderer, who had a defiant air of fatalism about him. “He has forfeited his life for compromising my honor! Kill him!”
The sword was yanked out of the dead centurion and planted in the legionary before Germanicus could draw another breath.
“This,” Germanicus said, trembling with rage. “will be the fate of those who break my word!” But then he had another concern.
Marcellus stood blinking in the stronger light outside the portal. “Procurator,” he said with a voice full of tension, “what kind of madness is going on?”
“You tell me, Colonel.” Germanicus’ face was emotionless.
“The last I knew we were awaiting a positive result to your rescue mission.”
“You have one.”
“Thank the gods.” Despite the blast of cold air that met him outside, Marcellus’ skin was pearled with sweat. His grin was as mirthless as a skeleton’s. “Hail . . . Hail Germanicus!”
“Hail Germanicus!” the combined legionaries and praetorians roared.
“Where is Poppaeus?” Germanicus demanded.
“I don’t know. I was dining in private when I heard pili and—”
“Where is Crispa?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
Germanicus gritted his teeth. He did not break off his glaring at Marcellus. The Parthian, in turn, watched the procurator with the fearful concentration of a hamstrung antelope awaiting the approach of a lion.
“These are your orders,” Germanicus said at last.
“Sir!”
“Take this message to Poppaeus—”
“Directly.”
“He is doomed whatever the case. His conduct out here has been an outrage. But this choice is his—does he want the notoriety of a public trial or will he commit suicide and save the reputation of his famous family?”
“Is that all?” Marcellus stammered slightly.
“Yes.”
“Sir, he still may have praetorian fanatics guarding his person.” Now Germanicus knew that Marcellus had just left Poppaeus’ company and had not been “dining in private,” which—in the first place—was unthinkable for a man of any sociability. It was the colonel’s use of the word “still” that tipped Germanicus off. “Carry a message to Poppaeus—not a sword. He’ll hear you out—believe me.”
“Of course, sir.” Marcellus backed into the tunnel, saluting Germanicus all the way. Then his hollow-sounding footfalls slapped down the vestibulum tiles.
“Centurion,” Germanicus said to the officer of the mission Poppaeus would have destroyed, “where are the people of my staff?”
“Held prisoner aboard your rail-galley—I just heard from a decurion. Their guard is light and prepared to surrender.”
“Go win their freedom. Then send my physician, Epizelus, to me.”
“Aye, sir.”
Snow began falling again. Germanicus borrowed a cloak from a legionary. As time dragged on his shoulders slouched, and he looked older than his years. He presented such a figure of inconsolable sadness to the throng of soldiers that no one dared speak to him.
Staring down the black tunnel, he bitterly rued the fact that there was so little time to learn what he had to know. Poppaeus would never open a vein. He would opt for a trial and hope Pamphile’s influence would save him—as it had once before. And what crime had he done? Could it not be construed to be a reverent act to order the Emperor’s likeness displayed in conspicuous places? Likewise, he had no doubt that Marcellus would be utterly ruthless if backed into a corner. Germanicus had decided to let the two vipers tangle with each other first, then he would deal with the survivor. He was betting on Marcellus, perhaps with his own life.
“No!” Poppaeus screeched pathetically, protecting his throat with his pudgy hands. “Don’t be a fool! Germanicus has exceeded his authority, can’t you see?” He staggered backward, upsetting a brazier. “We have him! The self-righteous bastard will be forced to take a red bath!”
He overturned a couch in a feeble attempt to block Marcellus’ deadly advance. “Please! Think of what you do!”
“I have thought too much. And acted too little.” the Parthian said in a monotone.
Yes, Germanicus said to himself, this test was for Marcellus as well, who—like many a barbarian now in service—had gone from Roman hostage to Roman officer.
Finally the Parthian could be heard racing back toward the wan daylight. He burst out, drenched with blood. It took him a long moment before he could speak to Germanicus. “Poppaeus killed himself. Then his guards . . . they attacked me.”
“And you won?”
“I slew them . . . both of them.”
“Did Poppaeus make any confession?”
“Confession’?”
“Did he name any other conspirators?”
“No . . . no, he listened to your message in silence, sir, then cut his own throat.”
“You did well, Colonel.”
“Aye, sir. Thank you.”
“A barbarian attack could hit us at any moment. See to it these troops are deployed along the wall. Put all the ballistae in readiness. When this is done, report hack to me.”
“At once, sir.”
Then Germanicus dashed into the tunnel at the head of a detachment twenty strong.
He discovered Poppaeus’ most loyal praetorians slaughtered, one atop the other, at the entrance to their commander’s unholy atrium. Their faces wore insipid expressions—as if they found something agreeable in the odor of composting roses and acrid incense that seeped from the darkened hall. The hilts of their swords lay across their open palms, but there was nothing to indicate that the men had been clenching them at the instant of their deaths. No—Germanicus decided, tapping his lip with his forefinger, these praetorians had been butchered out of the blue, Someone they trusted had strolled up and chopped them down as if they were cornstalks. “Leave them where they lie,” Germanicus commanded. “Touch nothing you find.”
Uneasily, the men glared at one another.
“You hurt my feelings. . . .”
Someone giggled—mostly from the tension.
“I’ll keep it short, lads. There’s a mutiny in the works. And Poppaeus is the traitor behind it. Will you help me win back the Agri Dagi garrison for our Emperor?”
“Hail Fabius!” they boomed.
“Listen, I haven’t gone mad from the altitude, but I want everyone to fan out across the mountain. Kill a rabbit for me. Be careful not to bleed it.”
A few of the younger legionaries began to snigger.
“That’s it, go ahead, lads,” Germanicus said with a grin. “There’s nothing like a good laugh—especially when it’s on the likes of Poppaeus.”
The men whistled and hooted with glee.
“Don’t be afraid to use your pili on our little hunt. It’s all part of the plan. And we’ll do a lot more firing within the half hour. Now find me a rabbit!”
The century spread out over the slopes. The legionaries bawled to one another wherever they crossed small animal tracks, screaming advice to which no one listened—like schoolboys on an outing. Some chattered and squealed in what they insisted were perfect imitations of wounded does of the species. A corporal jiggled the muzzle of his pilum inside a burrow. “This does the trick each time,” he muttered. And—lo and behold—out popped a hare in winter coat. The burly man dived at his prey, missed it, and came up with a mouthful of snow.
This was enough for another legionary to bang away at the darting target. But all he accomplished was to crease the helmet of a soldier across from him, who growled, “Damn you, Licinius, be careful!”
Choking on their laughter, the men began hailing a fellow they affectionately called “the Hawk.”
“Here’s our deadliest sniper,” the centurion said to Germanicus.
One quick shot and it was over.
Germanicus accepted the game with flourish. “That’s worth a fortnight of wine and women in Ephesus—at my expense, Hawk.”
“I thank the procurator.”
“Now, lads, let’s make a battle that Poppaeus will hear from under his couch!”
The legionaries threw themselves into the stratagem with fervor. They discharged their pili into the air until the centurion had to caution them against wasting all their ammunition. As the uproar finally petered out, the centurion sent red flare after flare aloft, beseeching help he knew would never be sent.
Then there was silence. It was made deeper by the realization that, had Germanicus not come down the mountain, this feigned massacre would have been for real.
“Who are the six best hand-to-hand boys among you?”
When the men had shoved their choices forward, Germanicus slit the hare’s throat with his sword and doused these legionaries with the blood. They made a battered-looking crew. “Now, Romans, this is what we do . . .”
They waited on the heights above the garrison until the wind pressed the clouds down onto the pass. The scene became thick with chilly fog, as was all too common in the shadow of Agri Dagi on a winter afternoon.
Germanicus felt sure he had chosen the right man to crack the praetorian hunker. A natural ham with the features of a hound, he relished his role as a blood-splattered survivor, limping home with a tale of horror on his lips. Minutes after he was sent on his way, two more “wounded” were dispatched across the frozen pasture, and then one more, and finally the last pair, one riding on his comrade’s back—a credible string of beaten legionaries.
While these men held the attention of the sentries on the wall, a force of ten scouts crept through the mists, keeping to a broken spur of lava that flowed down half the distance to the targeted bunker.
“Halt!”
Germanicus bit his lips. The praetorian guard was challenging the first man to straggle up. The words of the legionary’s reply were too faint, but Germanicus could catch his tone of voice—which was piteous—and knew all was well when the praetorian laughed cruelly. The guard was about to unroll the ladder when his tribune came sauntering out of the bunker. The officer was either itching to give someone a hard time or had an inkling of trouble, for he apparently ordered the gathering group of legionaries to tie their pili to a rope, which was hoisted up in advance.
“I hope our lads like to use knives,” Germanicus said to the centurion beside him.
“They love steel.”
One by one the legionaries clambered up the ladder on what appeared to be their last strength. Then they followed the tribune into the bunker.
The praetorian sentry continued his tour along the wall.
Germanicus and the centurion traded anxious gazes.
“How many guards make up a ballista crew here?”
“Anywhere from five to eight, Procurator. It depends on how fat the duty roster is.”
“Why is a tribune instead of a corporal in charge?”
“These praetorians trust no one—least of all themselves.”
The sentry kept pacing back and forth. A patch of sunlight skimmed over him and down the valley like a bright scarf carried on the wind. He looked lost in daydreams as he marked time.
“It’s taking too long,” the centurion whispered.
“Men grapple to the last breath when it’s for their lives.”
Then the dog-faced legionary rushed out of the bunker and slit the praetorian’s throat. He dumped the body over the wall and waved for the ten scouts to scramble up.
Reaching the top, these men raced to the other bunkers to urge the legionary crews not to rake their comrades coming in off the slopes. Soon more ladders were flipped over the side, and Germanicus whistled with relief. He and the centurion got up and began walking toward the garrison.
CHAPTER XIX
IT DID NOT take much to turn the legionaries against the praetorians. The cause of the legionaries’ anger was more than the common rivalry between two different military units. The centurion told Germanicus that for months Poppaeus had been using the guards to bully the rank-and-file soldiers. And, unbeknownst to anyone outside the garrison, Poppaeus had gone so far as to decimate the cohort, killing one out of every ten men after he caught wind of a mutiny rumor he himself may have started. The executions were reported to Nova Antiochia as losses in action.
After the wall was surmounted the backlash against Poppaeus gathered more steam than Germanicus had expected. The hated guards unlucky enough to be caught outside the underground complex withdrew to the praetorium, which was an annex of the stockade. From the windows of this stout building they began laying down fields of fire. Germanicus was prepared to talk them into surrender, but the legionary sappers beat him to the punch. Using their familiarity with the grounds, a pair of these demolition specialists crept up on the barracks from a blind side, chucked a satchel through an open window, then bolted for safety with satisfied grins on their faces.
“Mars, I hope we don’t have to kill every last one of them—they are Fabius’ own,” Germanicus said, getting ready to plug his cars with his fingers.
“These bastards belong to Poppaeus,” the centurion answered.
The windows of the praetorium shattered and belched licks of orange flame. Tiles spun off the roof into the overcast sky as a roar bounced from mountain to mountain.
“Good work, nevertheless.” Germanicus began jogging for-ward. “Cut the wires, centurion. No messages are to go out until I know everyone who’s involved in this.”
The centurion noticed that Germanicus was veering off from him. “Where are you going. sir?”
“I’ll lead these men to the stockade. You gather others and seal off the entrance to Poppaeus’ headquarters.”
“That’ll trap the rat in his hole!”
Minutes later, taking sporadic rounds from the stockade, Germanicus and the five legionaries hunkered down behind a statue of the Emperor. “You in there!” Germanicus shouted. “We come in the name of Fabius!”
The pili fire stopped. Then Rolf’s hearty voice came through a barred window. “Procurator?”
“Rolf?”
“Aye, sir!”
“Who’s in there with you?”
“Praetorians what be loyal to the Emperor.”
“Tell them I am Fabius’ kinsman. Tell them I fight the traitor Poppaeus.” Germanicus waited for Rolf’s reply. He could hear fierce whispering inside the building. It was punctuated by hot-tempered cries that were stifled by protests in German. Then a pilum boomed within the walls. And an ugly calm followed. “Rolf, what gives in there?”
“All here be convinced now, sir!”
The praetorians on duty in the stockade were Germans to the man—all except the corporal who lay on the floor with a bloody divot in his forehead. “Hail Kaiser!” they blared.
“Hail Fabius!” Germanicus said.
Rolf smacked his fist into his palm as if to say that things were finally looking up. “There be damn funny happenings here, Germanicus.”
“I know. How’s your prisoner?”
“No trouble.”
Germanicus smiled at the boy and said in Anatolian, “Your father is well, Khalid.”
He turned away without replying. “Where is Crispa, Rolf?”
“Last I hear—underground.”
“And Marcellus?”
The centurion frowned. “The same.” He looked as if he wanted to say something but was afraid to come out with it.
“Where are my staff officers?”
“I hear they be prisoners on your rail-galley.”
“Very well, stay here with Khalid.”
“I want to mix it up, sir.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that.”
Dutifully Rolf nodded yes, although he was clearly miserable. “I return this to you now.” He handed over the Minerva pendant.
“Thank you.” Germanicus slipped it around his neck. “I’ll send for you shortly.”
Outside, the legionaries had just launched an assault on the mouth of the tunnel. But Poppaeus’ praetorians beat them back with thick, rapid fire, and the bodies of at least a dozen men were left in a heap before the portal.
Germanicus kept the German praetorians close to him so they would not be slain by the now furious legionaries. These guards began calling to their comrades inside the tunnel—but with no effect.
“Shall we try another entry, Procurator?”
“No, we’ll need every man we’ve got when the barbarians come down off Agri Dagi.” Germanicus took a moment to quiet a legionary and one of the German guards, who had started quarreling, then shouted. “Praetorians!”
“Who speaks there?” came an uncertain reply from the black opening.
Good, Germanicus thought, at least the surviving guards are confused by the turn of events. “I am Germanicus Agricola! And I fight to preserve the honor of the Emperor Fabius.”
“As we do, Germanicus.”
“No, you serve his enemy without knowing it. Poppaeus is a traitor to the Emperor. That makes him your foe as well, for are you not sworn before the gods to defend the first citizen of Rome?”
“We are.”
Nothing more was said for several moments. Germanicus tried not to think of Crispa. His heart sank as soon as he did—and he needed all the vigor he could muster. “What is your answer in there? Do you want to die serving the cause of treason?”
“What guarantees do we have, Germanicus?”
“My word.”
Silence.
“Throw down your weapons and come out. Renew your vow to Fabius. Then take up arms again in the service of Rome and the gods.”
“What of Poppaeus?”
“He must answer for his crimes. There is no alternative.”
The wind howled in advance of another bank of frozen fog. “We are coming out, Procurator.”
As a disciplined unit—and Germanicus admired them for that much—thirty praetorians came marching out of the darkness. They were led by a rawboned centurion who had done their bidding. He saluted Germanicus. “Hail Fabius! I surrender to your—”
Suddenly a legionary plunged his sword into the centurion’s chest. This ignited a fray in which praetorians tried to wrest pili from the legionaries encircling them.
“Stop!” Germanicus screamed.
Miraculously, with the urging of a few level-headed salts on both sides, the scuffling came to a halt, replaced by a truce as thin as an eggshell. The praetorian down on the ice squirmed to a final stillness, the sword still jutting from his rib cage.
“You two,” Germanicus ordered the guards restraining the murderer, who had a defiant air of fatalism about him. “He has forfeited his life for compromising my honor! Kill him!”
The sword was yanked out of the dead centurion and planted in the legionary before Germanicus could draw another breath.
“This,” Germanicus said, trembling with rage. “will be the fate of those who break my word!” But then he had another concern.
Marcellus stood blinking in the stronger light outside the portal. “Procurator,” he said with a voice full of tension, “what kind of madness is going on?”
“You tell me, Colonel.” Germanicus’ face was emotionless.
“The last I knew we were awaiting a positive result to your rescue mission.”
“You have one.”
“Thank the gods.” Despite the blast of cold air that met him outside, Marcellus’ skin was pearled with sweat. His grin was as mirthless as a skeleton’s. “Hail . . . Hail Germanicus!”
“Hail Germanicus!” the combined legionaries and praetorians roared.
“Where is Poppaeus?” Germanicus demanded.
“I don’t know. I was dining in private when I heard pili and—”
“Where is Crispa?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
Germanicus gritted his teeth. He did not break off his glaring at Marcellus. The Parthian, in turn, watched the procurator with the fearful concentration of a hamstrung antelope awaiting the approach of a lion.
“These are your orders,” Germanicus said at last.
“Sir!”
“Take this message to Poppaeus—”
“Directly.”
“He is doomed whatever the case. His conduct out here has been an outrage. But this choice is his—does he want the notoriety of a public trial or will he commit suicide and save the reputation of his famous family?”
“Is that all?” Marcellus stammered slightly.
“Yes.”
“Sir, he still may have praetorian fanatics guarding his person.” Now Germanicus knew that Marcellus had just left Poppaeus’ company and had not been “dining in private,” which—in the first place—was unthinkable for a man of any sociability. It was the colonel’s use of the word “still” that tipped Germanicus off. “Carry a message to Poppaeus—not a sword. He’ll hear you out—believe me.”
“Of course, sir.” Marcellus backed into the tunnel, saluting Germanicus all the way. Then his hollow-sounding footfalls slapped down the vestibulum tiles.
“Centurion,” Germanicus said to the officer of the mission Poppaeus would have destroyed, “where are the people of my staff?”
“Held prisoner aboard your rail-galley—I just heard from a decurion. Their guard is light and prepared to surrender.”
“Go win their freedom. Then send my physician, Epizelus, to me.”
“Aye, sir.”
Snow began falling again. Germanicus borrowed a cloak from a legionary. As time dragged on his shoulders slouched, and he looked older than his years. He presented such a figure of inconsolable sadness to the throng of soldiers that no one dared speak to him.
Staring down the black tunnel, he bitterly rued the fact that there was so little time to learn what he had to know. Poppaeus would never open a vein. He would opt for a trial and hope Pamphile’s influence would save him—as it had once before. And what crime had he done? Could it not be construed to be a reverent act to order the Emperor’s likeness displayed in conspicuous places? Likewise, he had no doubt that Marcellus would be utterly ruthless if backed into a corner. Germanicus had decided to let the two vipers tangle with each other first, then he would deal with the survivor. He was betting on Marcellus, perhaps with his own life.
“No!” Poppaeus screeched pathetically, protecting his throat with his pudgy hands. “Don’t be a fool! Germanicus has exceeded his authority, can’t you see?” He staggered backward, upsetting a brazier. “We have him! The self-righteous bastard will be forced to take a red bath!”
He overturned a couch in a feeble attempt to block Marcellus’ deadly advance. “Please! Think of what you do!”
“I have thought too much. And acted too little.” the Parthian said in a monotone.
Yes, Germanicus said to himself, this test was for Marcellus as well, who—like many a barbarian now in service—had gone from Roman hostage to Roman officer.
Finally the Parthian could be heard racing back toward the wan daylight. He burst out, drenched with blood. It took him a long moment before he could speak to Germanicus. “Poppaeus killed himself. Then his guards . . . they attacked me.”
“And you won?”
“I slew them . . . both of them.”
“Did Poppaeus make any confession?”
“Confession’?”
“Did he name any other conspirators?”
“No . . . no, he listened to your message in silence, sir, then cut his own throat.”
“You did well, Colonel.”
“Aye, sir. Thank you.”
“A barbarian attack could hit us at any moment. See to it these troops are deployed along the wall. Put all the ballistae in readiness. When this is done, report hack to me.”
“At once, sir.”
Then Germanicus dashed into the tunnel at the head of a detachment twenty strong.
He discovered Poppaeus’ most loyal praetorians slaughtered, one atop the other, at the entrance to their commander’s unholy atrium. Their faces wore insipid expressions—as if they found something agreeable in the odor of composting roses and acrid incense that seeped from the darkened hall. The hilts of their swords lay across their open palms, but there was nothing to indicate that the men had been clenching them at the instant of their deaths. No—Germanicus decided, tapping his lip with his forefinger, these praetorians had been butchered out of the blue, Someone they trusted had strolled up and chopped them down as if they were cornstalks. “Leave them where they lie,” Germanicus commanded. “Touch nothing you find.”
