False God of Rome Read online

  ‘I think that it depends on who his patron is.’

  Capella nodded his approval. ‘Your man is very wise, Vespasian; it’s always best to keep out of imperial politics, if you can avoid it. My patron is – how should I put it? – almost at the top of the imperial tree.’

  Vespasian took the keys out of the locks.

  Dawn was breaking and Vespasian surveyed the camp; the townsmen and released captives had worked hard overnight. All trace of the burned tents and dead bodies had been buried; areas of damper sand marked the positions of the pits, but they would soon dry out.

  Everything salvageable had been loaded onto the camels and the hundred or so slaves had been roped into lines with their hands tied behind their backs. The freed captives and the townsfolk had formed up into a rough column; they were ready to move back to the town.

  ‘Lead off, Corvinus,’ Vespasian ordered.

  With a sharp word of command from their prefect the auxiliaries leading the column moved forward.

  ‘Let’s hope that the Marmaridae come to the conclusion that their caravan was buried by the sandstorm in the desert and not by those townspeople in this place,’ Vespasian said to Magnus as they watched the column shamble forward, ‘otherwise they’ll be in the shit.’

  Magnus shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’ll teach them to observe the laws of hospitality in future instead of getting their guests drunk and then selling them.’

  ‘Well, they’ll have all those slaves to sell next time the Marmaridae come calling; by rights I should try and reunite them with their owners but I think that would be virtually impossible, so I’ve given them to the townspeople in exchange for everything that we need to get back across the desert.’

  ‘I take it that you had a successful little chat with Capella, seeing as he seems to be coming with us.’

  ‘Yes, very successful, thank you.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he said that his patron would reimburse the loss to the province.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that he would let me have Flavia, if I asked her myself; and she so wished.’

  ‘As simple as that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Magnus started laughing.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Vespasian asked, annoyed.

  ‘He’s sharp, that one.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I’ll bet he said: take her if she wants to go, she costs me a fortune and I’m getting bored with her.’

  ‘Words along those lines, yes,’ Vespasian admitted, taken aback by the accuracy of Magnus’ guess.

  ‘You’ve been had.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You should have made him swear to repudiate her, then she wouldn’t have had much choice but to go with you or find herself alone in a strange province without anyone to protect her. Whereas what he’s done is say: go and ask her, I don’t care.’

  ‘And I will,’ Vespasian asserted through gritted teeth.

  ‘Come on, sir, don’t you get it? She’s going to take one look at you, a quaestor in one of the least prestigious provinces in the whole Empire, who’ll be lucky to finish his term with enough cash to keep a woman like her in jewellery and perfume for the next couple of years; and then she’ll look at her rich man who has the contract to supply wild animals to the circuses in Africa, probably owns his own ship and has contacts in high places. What is she going to decide?’

  ‘I am wealthy, I’ve got my estates.’

  ‘Yes, but that money is tied up in land, mules and slaves. She’s not going to want to go to the jewellers with you dragging a braying mule behind you to pay with, is she? Nor is she going to want to live on the estates surrounded by bumpkins; she’ll want a fine house on the Esquiline.’

  ‘I’ve got cash,’ Vespasian almost shouted; his voice had gone up in tone.

  ‘Not as much as Capella.’

  Vespasian opened his mouth and then realised that it was futile to argue; Magnus was right. He put a hand to his forehead, massaging it for a few moments. ‘He’s offered me the chance to have her, knowing that she’ll say no; his obligation to me is then discharged without costing him a copper coin. Brilliant!’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘The clever bastard; and I can’t now go back on the agreement we made.’ Trying but failing to hide the embarrassment that he felt for being so duped, he strode off, leaving Magnus with an amused look on his face.

  Walking briskly up the column as it entered the palm forest, Vespasian reflected upon his naïvety. He had been carried away by his own self-importance in everything that he had done since meeting Flavia, thinking that he was acting in his own interests; whereas he now realised that it had been Capella, a man older and cannier than he, who had played him all along. Now Capella was to deny him the prize that he had used to tempt him: Flavia.

  Capella had been right: he was here solely to impress her.

  He remembered his last conversations with his grandmother, Tertulla, and knew that she would be horrified at his recent behaviour. He had not been following an instinct in his heart that he deemed to be right but had been acting upon a base desire, using his power in an immature and rash way solely for his own ends, and all those men had died because of his arrogance. He had forgotten the ideals that he had espoused when he had beheld Rome for the first time – back when he had felt it wrong even to take a bribe – and he was heartily ashamed.

  ‘Quaestor!’ a voice from the heart of the column called, bringing Vespasian out of his damning introspection.

  Vespasian turned to see a man in his early thirties push his way towards him through the ex-captives. ‘What is it?’ he asked, pleased to turn his mind to other things.

  ‘Firstly I must thank you for saving us from a living death in the desert,’ the man said as he fell into step beside him.

  ‘You should thank the men who died in doing so; not me,’ Vespasian responded, looking side-on at the man; judging from his features and headdress Vespasian supposed him to be Jewish.

  ‘It is the mark of a compassionate man to give such an answer,’ the Jew replied. ‘However, you led them to our rescue when you could have just remained in Cyrene and left us to our fate.’

  ‘If only you knew the truth of the matter,’ Vespasian said, almost to himself.

  ‘Whatever the truth may be it cannot change the fact that you are responsible for our freedom, so all the people here are in your debt; I for one will never forget that.’

  Vespasian grunted his acknowledgement. ‘And secondly?’

  The Jew looked at him quizzically. ‘What?’

  ‘You said “firstly”, so I assume that there’ll be a “secondly”.’

  The Jew carried on staring at him for a few paces as they walked along. ‘Forgive me for asking, quaestor, but you look very much like a man I met in Judaea, a good man: Titus Flavius Sabinus.’

  ‘He’s my elder brother,’ Vespasian confirmed, wiping the sweat from his brow as the sun and the temperature both rose higher.

  ‘Then I am doubly in your debt because he hastened the death of a kinsman of mine on the cross; he had his centurion finish him cleanly with a spear rather than break his legs and let him die in agony. He then returned the body to us.’

  ‘Why was this kinsman crucified?’

  ‘That is something that no one has ever really understood.’

  ‘He must have been found guilty of some crime.’

  ‘The priests wanted him stoned for blasphemy because he preached that we Jews should put aside our ten commandments and follow just one new one: love your neighbour as you love yourself.’

  ‘But if he was crucified he must have been judged according to Roman law.’

  ‘Yes, and yet no reason for the sentence was ever read out. But what is done cannot be undone. His teachings live on among my people, beyond his death, through those who were closest to him and admired his compassion, although we are now persecuted for doing so.’

  ‘We?’
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  ‘Yes, I am one of those who preach his words.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you back in Judaea doing so?’

  ‘Because there’s no place in his vision of Judaism for the priests and they wish to hold onto their power, so they hound us relentlessly.’

  ‘And so you ran away.’

  ‘No, quaestor, I’m a merchant, I trade in tin; I have to earn a living as well as preach and so I preach to the Jewish communities in the ports that I pass through. I was on my way to the tin mines in southern Britannia, outside of the Empire, when the Marmaridae captured me and two companions as we filled our water caskets between Alexandria and Apollonia; which brings me to the “secondly”.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘After I was captured my ship must have sailed on to Apollonia to take on fresh supplies and to drop off a friend of mine who was returning to Cyrene; but after that I don’t know whether it carried on west or whether it turned back to Judaea because the crew were afraid of going on without me, as only I among them have made the voyage to Britannia before.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘I need a small favour from you, quaestor, although I’m aware that I’m already heavily in your debt.’

  Vespasian looked at the man; there was no guile in his eyes. ‘Name it.’

  ‘To know which way they went, so that I can follow them, I need you to look at the port aedile’s records; I assume that he sends you a copy every day.’

  ‘He does; come and see me when we get back to Cyrene.’

  ‘Thank you, quaestor,’ the man said, visibly pleased. ‘My name is Yosef; I’ll ask for you at the Governor’s Residence.’

  ‘I’ll make sure that you are expected, Yosef.’

  The column arrived at the town shortly after midday and Vespasian slept for the remainder of the day and right through the night. It was his first decent period of sleep since arriving in Siwa and not even the constant hammering and sawing of carpenters constructing the sixty sleds that he had ordered could disturb his slumber.

  ‘You should wake up now, sir,’ Magnus said, shaking Vespasian’s shoulder. ‘It’s almost dawn and the column is forming up.’

  Vespasian roused himself, feeling much rejuvenated and as ready as he would ever be to face the arduous three-hundred-mile return journey to Cyrene.

  He tied on his army sandals, belted his tunic and then followed Magnus out into the torch-lit agora. The camels stood in three rows of twenty; each had a sled attached to it, piled high with full water-skins. These, Vespasian hoped, together with the skins loaded onto the camels’ backs, would provide them with sufficient water to make the crossing without having to rely on the Marmaridae’s wells. He planned to give these a wide berth, if at all possible, for fear of his ill-protected column falling prey to the slavers. The sleds would also carry the weak, whose numbers would grow during the long trek as the skins were emptied and discarded. Forty or so of the freed captives of Egyptian origin had elected to stay in Siwa to await the next caravan to Alexandria; the rest, just over eighty, were bound for Cyrene, knowing only too well the hazards of the journey.

  With a harsh word to the headman of the town reminding him that those staying behind were his companions and therefore under Amun’s protection, Vespasian mounted one of the twelve horses that they had been able to exchange, in addition to the water-skins, food and sleds, for all the slaves and a few camels, and gave the order to move out. The first rays of the sun, now cresting the eastern horizon, cast long shadows before them as Vespasian led the slow-moving column from the town and ventured out once more into the unforgiving desert.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE PLATEAU OF Cyrene had been growing larger for the past three days. Vespasian estimated that the foothills were now less than ten miles away and they would be camping among the sparse vegetation that clung to their lower reaches that evening.

  It was the morning of the sixteenth day since leaving Siwa and he knew now that they would make it back. There had been many times on the painfully slow journey across the baking, featureless wilderness that he had doubted it. The auxiliaries without horses, and those few of the ex-captives who were able to, had ridden on camels but the rest had been obliged to walk. Starting before dawn and carrying on until well after sundown, with a halt for a few hours during the day in order to avoid the worst ravages of the midday heat, they had managed to average about twenty miles a day. As the water was used up, more space had become available on the sleds for the women and children and the weaker of the men; they spent the journey being dragged over the rough ground, semi-delirious in the scalding heat. The first death from sunstroke had been on the fourth day and not a day had passed since without at least one more body being abandoned on the desert floor to mark the progress of the column.

  Vespasian had noticed Yosef tending to the sick as they lay on the sleds, trying to keep their heads covered and helping them to cups of water during the few instances in the day when he, Vespasian, allowed the precious skins to be broached.

  Sitting at ease upon a camel, Ziri had guided them; keeping to the south of the Marmaridae’s wells and then veering back to the northwest, he had avoided the routes frequented by the slavers at the cost of extending the journey by a couple of days. Seemingly impervious to the heat, swathed in his woollen robe and headdress, he had maintained Vespasian’s, Magnus’ and Capella’s morale by his attempts to speak Latin – his proficiency was growing by the day – and his throaty renditions of Marmaridae songs. On a few occasions, as a more poignant ballad came to an end, Vespasian caught him looking mournfully towards his people’s grazing lands to the north as if saying farewell to the life that he could never know again.

  As the day wore on and the foothills got ever closer, the speed of the column seemed to increase as the desire for relief from the torment that they had endured put energy into the legs of all those still obliged to walk. Before long they started the ascent to the plateau, weaving through the huge boulders and wiry scrub that littered the ground. A pair of jackals – the first signs of life that they had seen since leaving Siwa – darted across their path, startling Vespasian’s horse.

  ‘How do you get the slaves to Garama, Ziri?’ Vespasian wondered, having calmed his mount. He looked back and pointed at the bedraggled column as it trailed up the gentle incline. ‘They’re almost dead after three hundred miles; Garama’s seven hundred.’

  ‘Garama, very slow, two moons full,’ Ziri replied, flashing his white teeth. ‘One well three days, slaves live. One well four days, slaves die.’

  ‘It’s worth the effort, though,’ Capella said, ‘the Garamantes pay handsomely for slaves and can afford to; it’s a surprisingly rich kingdom.’

  ‘Have you been there?’ Vespasian asked as he kicked his horse forward again.

  ‘Once, to trade slaves for wild beasts; I can get a lion there for just two slaves. It’s an amazing place; there are six or seven towns built upon a range of hills that just rise up out of the desert. The Garamantes have dug wells and found a seemingly endless supply of water, which they channel through irrigation canals.’

  ‘Much water,’ Ziri agreed, nodding his head.

  ‘They have fountains and running water in the streets, in the middle of the desert – it’s incredible. They grow wheat and barley and figs as well as vegetables; they even grow grass and graze cattle on it. They’re completely self-sufficient apart from wine and olive oil and of course the one commodity that they need most: slaves to work the land. There are thousands of them, more slaves, in fact, than Garamantes.’

  ‘When the slaves realise that, the Garamantes will be in for a nasty shock,’ Magnus put in.

  ‘Oh, they’re well guarded, in fact—’ Capella was cut short as his horse shied as a couple more jackals raced across its path. As he got it back under control a gazelle sprinted past following the jackals. ‘Shit, I’ve never seen that before: jackals chased by a gazelle.’

  Vespasian laughed and turned to Cap
ella; the laughter froze on his face as he realised the true cause of the animals’ flight. A massive shape leapt up onto a boulder and, without pausing, descended, with a bellowing, guttural roar, upon the wild-beast master.

  ‘Lion!’ Vespasian yelled, pulling on his mount’s reins as the lion crashed onto Capella, sinking its razor-like claws into his shoulders and hurling him, screaming, to the ground.

  The roar of the beast mauling its prey drowned out the neighing of the horses as they bucked and reared, throwing their riders; Ziri’s camel bolted. Vespasian landed with a bone-jarring thud next to Magnus, three paces away from the now limp Capella. They froze rigid, staring at the huge male lion; it raised its mane-crowned head and snarled at them, baring its bloodied teeth while pawing Capella’s chest, shredding his tunic and ripping his flesh.

  ‘Where’s my fucking hunting spear when I need it?’ Magnus muttered, slowly drawing his spatha.

  ‘Propping up a camel,’ Vespasian replied, reaching carefully for his sword.

  ‘We’re going to have to kill this bastard, sir; if we run it’ll have us as sure as a vestal plays with herself.’

  The lion gave another heart-stopping roar as Corvinus came running up with a dozen auxiliaries.

  ‘Stay back, Corvinus,’ Vespasian ordered while keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the lion. ‘Any sudden movement and it will have one of us.’

  The lion’s tail flicked menacingly from side to side.

  ‘One of us is going to have to face its charge,’ Magnus said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘while the other takes it from the side.’

  ‘Well, you were the one who was so keen to go lion hunting; I’ll take it from the side.’

  ‘I was hoping that you would’ve forgotten about that.’

  Vespasian started to edge to his left. The lion tossed its head and gave out another mighty roar as it spotted the movement; Vespasian froze.

  ‘Here puss, here puss,’ Magnus called out.

  With a low growl, the lion turned its attention back to Magnus, and Vespasian carried on moving cautiously a couple more paces to the left.

  ‘Ready, sir?’