Rome’s Fallen Eagle Read online

  ‘You’re toying with us, Pallas,’ Vespasian accused as soon as the doors to Pallas’ suite of rooms, on the second floor, were shut against inquisitive ears roaming the corridor beyond. ‘That meeting was not set up to bargain for Sabinus’ life; it was all about your ambitions and my role in fulfilling them.’

  ‘Both of your roles in fulfilling them,’ Pallas pointed out, gesturing to his steward to bring wine. ‘I need both of you to go. This is my idea, so my reputation with the Emperor rests upon it. I can’t afford it to fail.’

  Vespasian was incensed. ‘So if you hadn’t had a use for Sabinus, you would have left him to his fate?’

  ‘Dear boy, calm yourself,’ Gaius advised, slumping down onto a couch placed haphazardly just beyond the doors. ‘It doesn’t matter how it was managed or what Pallas’ motives were, the end result is what counts; Sabinus has got a reprieve.’

  Sabinus sat down next to him and rested his head in his hands, breathing deeply as the relief flooded through him in a delayed reaction.

  ‘Yes, but only just. Nar—’

  ‘“Just” is good enough, Vespasian!’ Sabinus snapped, glaring up at his brother from beneath his eyebrows. ‘I can even take the humiliation of Corvinus being given my command because I know that I have a chance to survive and have my revenge.’

  Vespasian collected himself. ‘Yes, I know; but Narcissus seemed to be ahead of us. We didn’t surprise him by bringing you; instead he surprised us by knowing that you were coming.’

  ‘Oh, but we did surprise him,’ Pallas said, taking two cups of wine from the returning steward and proffering one to Vespasian.

  Vespasian took it and downed a good measure. ‘Did we? I saw a man in full control of the situation.’

  ‘Of course,’ Pallas replied smoothly, taking a sip of wine. ‘That’s because he likes to think that he always is. I purposely told my clerks to let his agent see Sabinus come in here so that he had time to get used to the surprise and regain, in his mind, the upper hand. I know Narcissus very well and I know that if Sabinus had just come through the door of his study unannounced, then, despite how well I’d covered up his part in the assassination, Narcissus would have executed him anyway because he would have felt outmanoeuvred. Narcissus only spared him because he thought that he’d outwitted me; he gave me Sabinus’ life as a sort of consolation prize.’

  Vespasian took another gulp of wine as he turned this over in his mind. ‘Why didn’t you tell us that that was what you were doing, instead of just having us sit there not knowing what was going on?’

  ‘Because, my friend, I needed Narcissus to see the confusion on your faces, otherwise he would have guessed what was happening. If he hadn’t believed that he had genuinely outwitted us, Sabinus would now be dead.’

  Vespasian sighed, exasperated by how Claudius’ freedmen played mind-games with one another from behind their neutral expressions. He looked around for a seat and realised how sparsely furnished the room was.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Pallas said, ‘I have just moved into this suite this morning; it’s still being refurbished to my taste. Please follow me, gentlemen.’

  Pallas led them through three high and spacious chambers looking out over the Circus Maximus to the Aventine Hill beyond, shrouded now in a damp mist. Slaves were busy arranging furniture, polishing ornaments and erecting a couple of statues of Greek, rather than Roman, origin. Vespasian could see that Pallas planned to make himself very comfortable. At the far end of the third room Pallas opened a door and ushered them into a study whose walls were lined with boxed, wooden shelving containing hundreds of cylindrical book cases.

  ‘Please,’ he said, bidding them to be seated, before going to the far right-hand corner and retrieving a case. He slipped out a scroll and spread it on the desk; it was a map.

  ‘This is Gaul and Germania,’ Pallas said, placing an inkpot on one side and a wax tablet on the other to keep the scroll from rolling up. ‘The two military provinces on the west bank of the Rhenus, Germania Inferior to the north and Germania Superior in the south, provide the buffer from the lost province of Germania Magna on the east bank.’

  Vespasian, Sabinus and Gaius peered at it; there was not a great deal of detail to take in.

  ‘As you can see, the Rhenus is clearly marked, as are the legions’ camps along its western bank.’ Pallas pointed to each one, from north to south, with a well-manicured finger and stopped at one halfway down the river. ‘And this is Argentoratum, where the Second Augusta is stationed.’ He then traced his finger a good way north and east. ‘And this is the site of Varus’ disaster, in the homelands of the Cherusci.’

  Vespasian looked more closely; there was no marking beneath Pallas’ finger. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I don’t exactly, but from the reports we have from twenty-five years ago when Germanicus and his general Caecina found the decayed bodies of our men strewn through twenty miles of forest, this is our best estimation.’

  ‘How are we meant to get all the way there?’ Sabinus asked. ‘Walk in with a whole legion and invite the bastards to have a repeat show?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be altogether sensible,’ Pallas observed with the merest hint of condescension in his voice.

  Sabinus bristled but refrained from a riposte.

  ‘The Eagle is not going to be there any more,’ Vespasian said, suspecting that he was stating the obvious but feeling that it should be said anyway.

  Pallas nodded. ‘In all probability not; but Narcissus is right, it’s the best place to start. It’s more than likely it’s in the homeland of one of the six tribes that took part in the battle under the leadership of Arminius, to give him his Latin name. The Eighteenth was found with the Marsi and the Nineteenth with the Bructeri. So that just leaves the Sicambri, the Chauci, the Chatti and Arminius’ own tribe, the Cherusci.’ As he named the tribes he pointed to their homelands marked with their names. ‘However, an Eagle is a potent and valuable trophy for these people and worth fortunes in trade, so there is no guarantee that it has stayed in one place.’

  Vespasian looked at the seemingly endless lands over the Rhenus that extended to the end of the map and wondered how much further east they went and who or what was out there. ‘So we go to the battle site – but what then, Pallas? This is your plan; you must have had an idea when you formulated it.’

  ‘Arminius was murdered by a kinsman who resented the power that he had accumulated. After his death the confederation of tribes that he had brought together disintegrated. He did, however, leave a son, Thumelicus, he must be twenty-four now; if anyone can tell you where to look it would be him.’

  ‘And he’s in the Teutoburg Forest?’

  ‘We don’t know. Germanicus captured his mother, Thusnelda, whilst she was heavily pregnant with him. After they had been paraded in Germanicus’ triumph, two years later, they were exiled to Ravenna. The boy was trained as a gladiator and fought bravely enough to win the wooden sword and his freedom. After that he disappeared; in all likelihood he went back to Germania and to his tribe, the Cherusci.’ Pallas pointed vaguely to the huge area east of the Rhenus. ‘If he’s still alive then he’s probably somewhere out there and that’s why the Teutoburg Forest is the best place to start.’

  ‘So if we find this man, who may be dead, he might tell us where his father, whom he never met, might have hidden the Seventeenth’s Eagle.’

  Pallas shrugged.

  The brothers looked at each other and immediately burst into incredulous laughter.

  ‘There must be more that you can tell them, Pallas,’ Gaius said, studying the sparse map and sharing his nephews’ unease.

  ‘I have told them all we know; if we knew any more, then the Eagle would have been found by now.’

  ‘They might as well have sent you to find Venus’ hymen,’ Magnus muttered as they walked back down the Palatine in the deepening dusk.

  ‘At least we’d know then where not to look,’ Vespasian observed gloomily. ‘As it is, it could be an
ywhere across the Rhenus.’

  ‘Kept by any one of those tribes,’ Sabinus added.

  His face was hidden by his hood but Vespasian could tell by the tone of his voice that he was scowling; and well he might. They had spent the rest of the daylight hours going through Pallas’ library reading anything that they could find on Germania and the tribes that inhabited it, as well as accounts of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest; none of it had made for very comforting reading: a land full of dark forests watched over by strange gods and inhabited by tribes who gloried in the masculine pursuits of battle and honour and yet held their women in highest regard. The one thing that united the tribes was their mutual antipathy and distrust for each other. It seemed that the Germanic code of honour would not countenance one tribe holding hegemony over another, so they were constantly fighting.

  ‘At least you’ll have the chance to visit your parents on the way,’ Gaius suggested, trying to lift the mood. ‘And you’ll see your wife and children, Sabinus.’

  ‘If we have time.’ Sabinus’ mood was not to be lifted.

  ‘What are you going to do with Flavia and young Titus, sir?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘Leave them here,’ Vespasian said. ‘I can’t imagine Flavia wanting to come to Argentoratum; she won’t even visit Cosa. You can keep an eye on them for me, Magnus, and Caenis.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to do that when I’m a thousand miles away?’

  Vespasian frowned. ‘Where are you going, then?’

  ‘With you of course.’

  Vespasian looked at his friend as if he had lost his senses. ‘Why in the name of every god that you hold sacred would you want to do that?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got to have someone with you who knows the way and what to look for, if you take my meaning?’

  Vespasian was none the wiser. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’

  ‘Come on, sir, use your brain; I told you back in Thracia that before I was transferred to the Urban Cohorts I served with the Fifth Alaudae.’

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘We were stationed on the Rhenus. We were part of Caecina’s army when he and Germanicus went back into Germania after Arminius. I’ve been to the site of the Teutoburg massacre, I saw the remnants of our lads nailed to trees, strung up in the branches and scattered along the forest floor; we buried them, as many as we could find, that is. But more to the point, I was part of the force that found the Eighteenth’s Eagle. I’ve seen how they hide them, so I’ve got to come.’

  PART II

  GERMANIA, SPRING AD 41

  CHAPTER V

  ‘NOW I UNDERSTAND why our parents have chosen to stay here,’ Vespasian said to Sabinus as the brothers pulled up their horses. They gazed at a newly constructed country villa set on a gentle slope that ran down to the shore of Lake Murten, in the tribal lands of the Helvetii. ‘Father’s banking business must be doing very well to afford all this.’

  ‘He won’t be needing to buy wine again,’ Sabinus observed.

  Countless neat rows of vines surrounded the villa and trailed up the hill behind it, framing it with pleasing regular stripes. Even the gangs of slaves toiling between the lines seemed to be spaced at even intervals. The orderly agricultural arrangement of the estate contrasted markedly with the distant, irregular peaks of the snow-bound Alps, gleaming white and streaked with bluegrey. The strengthening spring sun had, as yet, had little impact on that soaring realm where winter still held sway; but here, down at the limits of the foothills of Italia’s northern shield, spring was advancing. The pasture beneath their mounts’ hooves was losing its brown tinge, gained from months beneath a crust of snow, and was now returning to its former lushness; the horses tugged gratefully at it.

  Magnus drew up next to them, slipping his mount’s reins so that it too could enjoy the grazing. He took a large gulp of the cool air and grinned at Ziri riding beside him, leading two packmules. ‘I can’t imagine anywhere more removed from that parched, flat wasteland that you used to call home.’

  Ziri looked around, evidently unimpressed. ‘The desert has nothing to constrict you; no barriers.’ He pointed to the brick wall running along the front of the estate and then indicated to the high mountains beyond. ‘How far can a man ride in a straight line in this land before he’s forced out of his way by somebody’s property or an impassable obstacle?’

  ‘A lot further than in Rome and it doesn’t stink.’

  ‘But still not as far as you can in the desert, master, and that doesn’t stink either.’ Ziri gave a wide, white-toothed smile that creased the three strange wavy lines carved into his brown cheeks.

  Magnus leant over and cuffed his slave good-humouredly around the head. ‘Slaves don’t win arguments, you curly-haired camel-botherer; in fact, slaves don’t argue.’

  Vespasian laughed and kicked his horse forward for the last few hundred paces of what had been a long and tedious journey. Having taken a ship to Massalia they had transferred to a river vessel and sailed up the Rhodanus to Lugudunum. Here they had requisitioned horses from the local garrison commander and made the hundred and fifty-mile journey across country to Aventicum in five days. Having found their father’s banking business in the forum of the fast-growing town, they had been told by a couple of harassed clerks that he had not been in for the previous four days because of illness. They had consequently travelled the last few miles from the town in a state of some concern, as Titus, their father, was now in his eighties.

  They cantered through the estate’s gates, set in a tall, brickbuilt gatehouse, and on up a straight track bordered by freshly dug vegetable patches alternating with small orchards of apple and pear trees, in front of long, low outbuildings. The track ended at a neatly laid-out formal garden, centred on a fishpond and fountain; it was bordered on three sides by their parents’ two-storey country villa. A waist-high wooden balustrade ran around the outside of the house enclosing an area of decking, four paces wide; this was sheltered by a slanting, tiled roof jutting out from just below the level of the first floor’s uniformly square windows and supported on wooden columns. Climbing plants had been trained up the columns; their first green shoots of the season waved gently in the light breeze. Doors and windows punctuated the two protruding sides of the villa with exact symmetry. As Vespasian and his party dismounted, one of the doors, to their left, opened and a familiar figure stepped out onto the shaded decking.

  ‘Minerva’s mangy minge,’ Magnus exclaimed, ‘Artebudz! What are you doing here?’

  Vespasian was as surprised as Magnus to see the ex-hunting slave whose freedom he had procured from the Thracian Queen, Tryphaena, while he had been a military tribune serving in that client kingdom. Vespasian had last seen him ten years previously, when Artebudz had accompanied his parents north out of Italia after the raid on their estate at Aquae Cutillae by agents of Livilla and her lover Sejanus.

  Artebudz smiled in recognition. ‘Magnus, my friend; Vespasian and Sabinus, it’s good to see you, sirs.’ He walked around the decking towards the double doors at the front of the house. Leaving their mounts with Ziri and a stable-lad who had come scuttling from an outbuilding, Vespasian, Sabinus and Magnus joined him there.

  ‘I’ve been here for three years now,’ Artebudz told them, taking Magnus’ proffered forearm and bowing his head to Vespasian and Sabinus; his curly hair, once jet black, was now streaked with grey. ‘After I arrived at Aventicum with your parents I returned to my home province of Noricum; I found my father, Brogduos, still alive but very old. When he died I buried him, with an inscription with both our names on it marking his grave, and then came back here to repay the debt that I owe your family for my freedom.’ He looked with concern at the brothers, creasing the Greek sigma branded on his forehead with a frown. ‘But you have come in time, sirs; your father’s been ill for some while now; he took to his bed a few days ago. The doctors think that he has the wasting disease; he’s been steadily getting worse.’

  Vespasia Polla’s pleasure at seeing her two sons afte
r so long was tempered by her worry about her husband. After no more than a perfunctory embrace in the spacious atrium, whose vaulted, lofty ceiling was fully enclosed in defence against the northern climate, she led them along a corridor and up a set of wooden stairs. Her once proud, slender face was now careworn and she wore her greying hair haphazardly pinned atop her head, taking no pride in her appearance. There was no sparkle in her dark eyes and the thin flesh beneath them hung in slack bags, telling of tears and sleepless nights.

  ‘These doctors here know nothing,’ she complained as she led the brothers along a first-floor corridor with views over the vineyards and on to the distant Alps beyond. ‘I’ve tried to persuade Titus to return to Rome since he first started feeling weak a few months ago, but he won’t go. He says that whatever the Fates have decreed for him is not going to be altered by changing from Greek quacks in Germania Superior to other Greek quacks who charge twice as much just because they live in Rome.’

  Vespasian could see the logic of the argument but refrained from saying so.

  Vespasia paused by a plain wooden door. ‘He says that the time that Morta chooses to cut the thread of a man’s life is determined solely by her whim and has nothing to do with your geographical whereabouts.’ With a disparaging scowl she opened the door.

  The brothers followed her in and were surprised, but delighted, to see their father sitting up in bed; he raised his eyes from the scroll that he was perusing and a smile cracked his pallid, hollow-cheeked face. ‘Well, well, my sons; either the messengers got to Rome and Pannonia in record time and you beat that again travelling here, or I wasted my money writing to you both, four days ago, asking you to come.’ He held out both hands and Vespasian and Sabinus took one each. ‘But seeing as you’re both here and that I’m feeling a little better today, despite the doctors’ best endeavours to finish me off, I’ll get up for dinner.’