Rome’s Fallen Eagle Read online

  ROME’S FALLEN EAGLE

  Robert Fabbri read Drama and Theatre at London University and worked in film and TV for 25 years. He was an assistant director and worked on productions such as Hornblower, Hellraiser, Patriot Games and Billy Elliot. His life-long passion for ancient history inspired him to write the Vespasian series. He lives in London and Berlin.

  Also by Robert Fabbri

  THE VESPASIAN SERIES

  TRIBUNE OF ROME

  ROME’S EXECUTIONER

  FALSE GOD OF ROME

  Coming soon…

  MASTERS OF ROME

  SHORT STORIES

  THE CROSSROADS BROTHERHOOD

  THE RACING FACTIONS

  First published in trade paperback in 2013 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Robert Fabbri, 2013

  The moral right of Robert Fabbri to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978 0 85789 744 2

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978 0 85789 745 9

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 033 6

  Printed in Great Britain

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  For my sister, Tanya Potter, and her husband, James, and their three lovely daughers, Alice, Clara and Lucy.

  P.S. For those who wondered what resulted from my dedication in the last book, you’ll be pleased to know that Anja said yes!

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART I ROME THE SAME DAY

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IIII

  PART II GERMANIA, SPRING AD 41

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER VIIII

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  PART III THE INVASION OF BRITANNIA, SPRING AD 43

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIIII

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XVIIII

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  ROME, 24TH JANUARY AD 41

  THE RIGID, WIDE-EYED grin of a gaudily painted, comicactor’s mask leered out at the audience; its wearer skipped a short jig, the back of his left hand pressed to his chin and his right arm outstretched. ‘The wicked deed that causes you all this distress was my doing; I confess it.’

  The audience roared with laughter at this well-delivered, purposely ambiguous line, slapping their knees and clapping their hands. The actor, playing the young lover, inclined his mask-obscured head in acknowledgement of the appreciation before turning to his partner on the stage, who wore the more grotesque, gurning mask of the villain of the piece.

  Before the players could continue the scene, Caligula jumped to his feet. ‘Wait!’

  The ten thousand-strong audience in the temporary theatre clinging to the northern slope of the Palatine Hill turned towards the imperial box, jutting out on supporting wooden columns at the exact centre of the new construction.

  Caligula copied the actor’s pose. ‘Plautus would have wanted the line delivered like this.’ He skipped the jig perfectly whilst imitating the mask’s broad grin, opening his sunken eyes wide so that the whites contrasted markedly with the dark, insomniac’s bags beneath them. ‘The wicked deed that causes you all this distress was my doing;I confess it.’ As he finished the last syllable he brought his left hand up from his chin to rest on his forehead and melodramatically threw back his head.

  The audience’s mirth was even more vigorous than at the first rendition, loud and raucous – but forced. The two actors held their bellies and doubled up in unrestrained hilarity. Caligula came out of the pose, a sneer on his face, and, throwing his arms wide, turned slowly to the left, then to the right to encompass the whole audience in the semi-circular construction, bathing in their adulation.

  Standing at the very rear of the theatre, within the shade of one of the many awnings rigged over the precipitous seating, Titus Flavius Sabinus looked down at his Emperor with disgust from beneath a deep hood.

  Caligula swept up an arm, palm towards the audience; they quietened almost instantaneously. He sat down. ‘Continue!’

  As the actors obeyed his command a middle-aged man wearing a senatorial toga, seated at Caligula’s feet, began to shower kisses on the young Emperor’s red slippers, caressing them as if they were the most beautiful objects that he had ever seen.

  Sabinus turned to his companion, a pale, thin-faced, auburnhaired man in his thirties. ‘Who’s the unashamed sycophant, Clemens?’

  ‘That, my dear brother-in-law, is Quintus Pomponius Secundus, this year’s Senior Consul, and that’s as close as he’ll come to expressing an independent opinion whilst he’s in office.’

  Sabinus spat and gripped the hilt of his sword, concealed beneath his cloak. The palm of his hand felt clammy. ‘This hasn’t come a moment too soon.’

  ‘On the contrary, this is long overdue. My sister has been living with the shame of being raped by Caligula for over two years now; far longer than honour dictates.’

  Down on the stage a hearty kick by the young lover up the backside of his newly arrived slave sent him tumbling to the ground and the audience into a fresh fit of laughter that grew as the players then proceeded to chase each other around, with many trips, turns and near misses. In the imperial box Caligula gave his own demonstration of comedy running, chasing his lame uncle, Claudius, up and down, this time to the genuine amusement of the crowd, who never failed to appreciate a cripple being mocked. Even the Emperor’s sixteen full-bearded German Bodyguards, lined up across the rear of the box, shared in the enjoyment of the hapless man’s degradation. The two Praetorian tribunes standing to either side of the enclosure made no effort to reprimand their subordinates.

  ‘Are you really going to make that buffoon emperor?’ Sabinus asked, raising his voice against the escalating mirth as Claudius’ weak legs gave out and he sprawled onto the floor.

  ‘What choice do we have? He’s the last of the adult Julio-Claudians. My men in the Praetorian Guard won’t accept the restoration of the Republic; they know that’ll lead to their disbandment. They’ll mutiny, kill me and any other of my officers who stand in their way; then they’ll make Claudius emperor anyway.’

  ‘Not if we assassinate him as well.’

  Clemens shook his head. ‘I can’t in honour order his death, I’m his client.’ He indicated the two Praetorian tribunes in the box and lowered his voice as Caligula, tired of humiliating his uncle, retook his seat and the audience settled back down to watching the scheduled entertainment. ‘Cassius Chaerea, Cornelius Sabinus and I have agreed that Claudius must become emperor: it’s our
best hope of surviving this. We’ve had discreet negotiations with his freedmen Narcissus and Pallas – as well as Caligula’s freedman, Callistus. He’s seen the way things are going and has thrown his lot in with the Claudius faction; they’ve promised to try and protect us from any vengeance that Claudius would be honour bound to exact for killing a member of his family, even though he’ll be the beneficiary – a very surprised one.’

  ‘Claudius doesn’t know yet?’

  Clemens raised an eyebrow. ‘Would you trust that garrulous idiot with such a secret?’

  ‘And yet you would trust him with the Empire?’

  Clemens shrugged.

  ‘I say he should die.’

  ‘No, Sabinus, and I demand your oath to Mithras on that. We could have done this a couple of months ago but we delayed so that you could get back to Rome to strike the blow and satisfy your honour. Jupiter’s tight sack, I’ve already exposed another conspiracy to the Emperor in order to ensure that it will be us who will have the pleasure of killing him.’

  Sabinus grunted his assent, well aware that he was in no position to argue. For the two years since the rape of his wife, Clementina, and his appointment as legate of the VIIII Hispana by the perpetrator of that outrage, he had been stationed with his legion on the northern frontier in the province of Pannonia, cut off from Rome. He had been forced to wait until Clementina’s brother, Clemens, one of the two prefects of the Praetorian Guard, had identified a group of his officers disaffected enough with Caligula’s deranged behaviour to risk their lives in an assassination attempt. This had proved to be a lengthy process – as Clemens’ coded letters had informed him – owing to his men’s understandable reluctance to share treasonable thoughts; if they misjudged their confidant they would have been immediately executed.

  The tipping point had come the previous year after Caligula had returned from a half-hearted punitive expedition to Germania and an aborted invasion of Britannia where the legions had refused to embark on the ships. He had humiliated them for their insubordination by making them collect seashells, which he paraded through the streets of Rome in a mock triumph. Having alienated the army he had then proceeded to do the same to the Senate and the Praetorian Guard, making himself absolutely friendless, by announcing his intention to move the Empire’s capital from Rome to Alexandria. This had caused consternation amongst both the officers and the nine thousand rank and file of the Guard: they feared that they would either be forced to relocate to the unpleasantly hot province of Egypt or, worse, be left behind to rot into irrelevancy so far from the Emperor who gave purpose to their existence.

  United in their fears for their future, the officers had hesitantly begun to share their unease with one another. Clemens had soon been able to recruit the tribune Cassius Chaerea, whom he had long suspected of harbouring murderous intent towards the Emperor who constantly mocked his high voice. Chaerea had brought his close friend and fellow tribune Cornelius Sabinus into the plot as well as two disaffected centurions. With the conspirators finally in place, Clemens had kept his promise to Sabinus that he would be the one to strike the first blow and had written informing him that all was ready and he should return to Rome in secret; Sabinus had arrived two days earlier. Since then he had remained hidden in Clemens’ house; not even his brother, Vespasian, nor his uncle, Senator Gaius Pollo, whom he could see seated next to each other near the imperial box, knew of his presence in the city. Once the deed was accomplished he would return to his posting. He was confident that he could leave unnoticed and that the alibi he had given the junior officers he had left in command of his legion in winter quarters was secure: that he had been visiting his wife and two children, who were staying, out of Caligula’s reach, with his parents in Aventicum in the south of Germania Superior. This way, Clemens had reasoned, if there were to be any vengeance meted out to the conspirators by the incoming regime, Clementina would just lose her brother and not her husband as well.

  On the stage below the plot had resolved to a happy conclusion and the characters were exiting to a wedding feast through a door in the scaenae frons, the two-storey scenery fronted with columns, windows, doors and arches. Sabinus pulled his hood further over his face as the final player turned to address the audience.

  ‘To all our friends here, we would gladly extend an invitation to join us; but though enough is as good as a feast, what is enough for six would be poor fare for so many thousands. So let us wish you good feasting at home and ask, in return, your thanks.’

  As the audience burst into applause the German Bodyguards parted to allow a tall man, shrouded in a purple robe and sporting a gold diadem around his head, into the imperial box. He bowed to Caligula in an eastern fashion, putting both hands to his chest.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Sabinus asked Clemens in surprise.

  ‘Herod Agrippa? He’s been here for the last three months, petitioning the Emperor to extend his kingdom. Caligula’s been toying with him, making him suffer for his greed. He treats him almost as badly as he does Claudius.’

  Sabinus watched the Judean King take a seat next to Claudius and exchange a few words with him.

  ‘Caligula will leave to take his bath soon,’ Clemens said as the applause started to die down. ‘On the way there he wants to hear a rehearsal of a group of Aitolian youths who are due to perform tomorrow. Callistus has had them wait above us in front of Augustus’ House just by the entrance to the passage that leads directly to those steps by the imperial box. You can get to there through that exit.’ He pointed to the extreme left of the gates that ran along the rear of the theatre; it was shut. ‘Knock on it three times, then wait a beat and repeat the signal. It’s guarded by two of my men, both centurions; they’re expecting you and will let you through. The password is “liberty”. Put your neckerchief over your face; the fewer people who can identify you the better if the worst comes to the worst. Chaerea, Cornelius and I will escort Caligula out of the box and then up the steps. As soon as you see us leave, make for the passage and walk down it; we should meet about halfway. I’ll delay his German Bodyguards by ordering them to prevent anyone following us up, so we’ll have a little time but not much; strike him as soon as you can.’ Clemens held out his right arm.

  ‘I will, my friend,’ Sabinus replied grasping it. ‘It’ll be a blow straight to the neck.’

  They held each other’s gaze for a moment – the grips on one another’s forearms firmer than they had ever been – then nodded and parted without another word, both aware that this day may be their last.

  Sabinus watched Clemens enter the imperial box and felt calm spread through him. He cared not whether he lived or had died by the close of the day; his one concern was to avenge the brutal and repeated rape of Clementina by the man who had set himself up as an immortal god over all men. Today that false god would taste the limits of his immortality. Clementina’s face, as she pleaded with him to save her from her fate, burned in his mind. He had failed her then; he would not do so now. He gripped his sword hilt again; this time his hand was dry. He breathed deeply and felt his heart beating slowly and steadily.

  A troupe of acrobats took to the stage and began hurling themselves around, spinning, tumbling and cartwheeling, only to be met by a disinterested rumble of conversation from the audience, no matter how high or far they leapt. All eyes were on the Emperor as he prepared to leave.

  Sabinus saw the Germans salute Clemens as he barked an order at them. Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus moved from their positions and came to stand behind the Emperor’s chair. The Senior Consul showered one last passionate fall of kisses on the beautiful red slippers, only to be kicked aside by the objects of his adoration as Caligula stood up.

  The crowd cheered, hailing Caligula as their god and Emperor; but their god and Emperor did not acknowledge them. Instead, he looked down at Claudius and lifted his chin to examine his throat, passing his finger across it like a knife; terrified, Claudius twitched and drooled over his nephew’s hand. With a look
of disgust, Caligula wiped off the saliva on Claudius’ grey hair and shouted something, unheard over the din, into his uncle’s face. Claudius immediately got to his feet and lurched out of the box; the Germans parted for him, and he disappeared as fast as his weak legs could take him. Sabinus stayed focused on Caligula, who then turned his attention to Herod Agrippa and with a couple of bellows sent him, bowing obsequiously, from the box. Caligula threw back his head, laughing, and then mimicked Herod Agrippa’s fawning exit, much to the amusement of the crowd. Having milked the comedy value from the situation he swept from the box, slapping Chaerea’s arse on the way. Sabinus watched the tribune tense and his hand begin to go for his sword; it stopped mid-movement when Clemens caught his eye, and fell back to his side with fingers flexing as he and Cornelius followed Caligula to the steps. Just before Clemens left the box his eyes flicked up to Sabinus and widened slightly; he strode past the German Bodyguards, half of whom followed him to block the steps to the public whilst the imperial party climbed them, leaving the Consul, nursing his bruised face, watched over by the eight remaining Germans left guarding the imperial box.

  All was set.

  Sabinus turned and made his way along the rear of the last row of seating to the gate that Clemens had indicated. Pulling up his neckerchief, he put his knuckles to the wood and gave the signal; within an instant a bolt slid back, the gate opened a fraction and he was staring into the dark, hard eyes of a Praetorian centurion.

  ‘Liberty,’ Sabinus whispered.

  With a slight inclination of the head the centurion stepped back, opening the gate; Sabinus walked through.

  ‘This way, sir,’ a second centurion, his back already turned, said as the first closed and bolted the gate.

  Sabinus followed the man along a paved path climbing gently up the last few feet of the Palatine; from above a close-harmony dirge drifted down. Behind him he heard the rhythmic clacking of the first centurion’s hobnailed sandals as he followed.

  After thirty paces they came to the summit. To his left Sabinus could see two Praetorian centuries, clad in tunics and togas, standing at ease next to the Aitolian youths rehearsing their melancholy hymn in front of what remained of the imposing facade of Augustus’ House. Once an architectural study in elegance combined with power, it was now disfigured by the series of extensions that Caligula had added. They snaked their way forward, each more vulgar and ill-conceived than the one before, and cascaded down the hill to the Temple of Castor and Pollux at the foot of the Palatine, which now – sacrilegiously in the secret part of many people’s minds – served as a vestibule to the whole palace complex. It was to the closest of these extensions, just ahead of him, that the centurion led Sabinus.