Fire and Sword. Harry SidebottomЧитать онлайн книгу.
and tribesmen promiscuously went to and fro among the pillars of the governor’s palace.
A Prefect, the commander of one of the auxiliary Cohorts, came down the steps.
‘Gordian the Elder is in a small dining room, the one they call the Delphix.’
‘Alive or dead?’
‘Dead.’
Before dismounting, Capelianus addressed the Prefect. ‘Your Cohort broke ranks, disobeyed orders, chased the rebels. After the three days of licence, there will be punishments.’
The officer saluted. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’
The chastened Prefect led them into the corridors of the palace. From deeper in the labyrinth, muffled by inlaid doors and heavy curtains, came the sounds of bestial revelry. Capelianus half-remembered a passage of Polybius from his schooldays. The Greek historian had been much impressed by the order with which the Romans sacked a town. No soldier turned to looting until he was given the command. All the plunder was heaped in one place to be distributed according to rank and merit. No man kept anything back for himself. But that was long ago. Things were different now. Discipline and virtue were only words. The way of the ancestors, the mos maiorum, all forgotten, no more than an expression.
In the Delphix a semi-circle of troops stood like a tragic chorus around the hanged man. An overturned chair and a pool of liquid beneath the dangling feet of the corpse. The front of Gordian’s tunic was wet. It was said a hanged man ejaculated. By the smell, it was just urine.
Capelianus studied the bulging eyes and protruding tongue. A coward’s death. Not the steel, but the rope. A woman’s way of suicide. The dissatisfaction habitual to Capelianus consumed his thoughts. There had been a prophecy that the Gordiani would die by drowning. Capelianus had looked forward to making that come true. A butt of wine would have been fitting. Father and son had both cheated him.
‘We have captured one of their friends.’ The young Prefect was eager to make amends.
The man was pushed forward. He was battered, his clothes torn, his arms and legs laden with chains.
‘Name? Race? Free or slave?’ Capelianus intoned the traditional beginning to an inquisition.
The prisoner did not answer. He was staring at Sabinianus.
‘Name?’
Now the man gave his attention to Capelianus.
‘Mauricius, son of Mauricius, town councillor of Thysdrus and Hadrumetum.’
Capelianus knew of him. ‘The catalyst of this evil revolt. An arch-conspirator.’
Mauricius drew himself up in his chains. ‘Friend of the late Emperors, Prefect of the Horse Guards of Marcus Antonius Gordianus Romanus Africanus Augustus, Father and Son.’
‘A traitor.’
‘No traitor, but a true friend.’ Mauricius looked again at Sabinianus, with hatred. ‘A friend loyal to death. We should have known from the start. The signs were there. We should have listened at Ad Palmam when you said you would sacrifice anyone for your safety.’
No emotion showed on the face of Sabinianus.
‘Coward! Oath-breaker with the heart of a deer!’
‘You realize you will die.’ Capelianus cut off the imprecations.
‘What is terrible is easy to endure.’ There was a smile on the face of Mauricius, its reason unknowable.
‘You will be tortured.’
‘You cannot hurt me.’
‘The claws will tear your flesh.’
‘They cannot touch my soul.’
A local festival, the Mamuralia, occurred to Capelianus. ‘You will be whipped through the streets of Carthage. Outside the Hadrumetum Gate, by the Mappalian Way, you will be crucified.’
‘I am a citizen of Rome.’ There was outrage in Mauricius’ tone, yet somehow his self-possession held.
‘No, you are an enemy of Rome. As a hostis, you will die. Take him away.’
Mauricius did not struggle, but he shouted as they dragged him from the room. ‘Death to the tyrant Maximinus! Death to his creatures! You are cursed! The Furies will turn your future to ashes and suffering!’
Capelianus turned to the Prefect. ‘What of the others close to the pretenders?’
‘All of rank dead on the battlefield, apart from Aemilius Severinus, the one they call Phillyrio. He was ordered south some days ago to gather the Frontier Scouts. Together with those speculatores, he was to rally the barbarians beyond the frontier.’
‘We will hunt him down. We will hunt down all their followers, high and low.’ Capelianus felt a stab of pleasure. He had always loved the chase; men or beasts, it made no difference.
‘Some of their household – Valens, the A Cubiculo, and some other freedmen and slaves – escaped. They had a fast ship waiting by the mole of the outer harbour.’
Capelianus rounded on Sabinianus. ‘You told me they had no ship ready.’
Sabinianus said nothing.
‘You brought us here. Were you trying to let him escape?’
‘No.’ Sabinianus’ downturned mouth twitched slightly. ‘Last night I gave proof of my change of heart.’
Had the tiny involuntary grimace betrayed the patrician? Capelianus could not be sure. Sabinianus the traitor needed watching, but for now Capelianus put him out of his mind.
The corpse was still there.
‘Get him down.’
The soldiers bustled about the task, teetering on chairs, holding the legs of the corpse.
Capelianus wondered what could have induced his old enemy and his wastrel son to have bid for the throne. Certainly not justice or duty. They were archaic concepts, suitable back in the days of the free Res Publica, but outmoded and unfitting in the debased age of the Caesars. Capelianus knew what motivated men under autocracy. Nothing but lust and greed. The latter was far the stronger; greed for power as well as for wealth. At his advanced age perhaps the father had considered there was little to lose, that it would be no small thing to die clad in the purple. As for the son, his thoughts had been addled by wine and debauchery, his reasoning unsound. Yet even so, they must have appreciated in moments of clarity that they would fail. No legion was stationed in the province of Africa Proconsularis. The secret had long been revealed that Emperors could be made outside Rome. But never without the backing of thousands of legionaries.
The corpse was down.
‘Cut off his head. It will go to Maximinus.’
A soldier set about the butchery.
But would the head reach Maximinus? Against all likelihood, the Senate in Rome had declared for the Gordiani. Italy had gone over to the rebels. The fleets at Misenum and Ravenna controlled its ports. The head would have to travel up the other shore of the Adriatic, go ashore in Dalmatia, then journey overland to seek out Maximinus on the Danube frontier.
Decapitation was never easy. Sawing away, the soldier was slipping in a welter of blood.
And what remained for the Senate now? Traitors to a man. Maximinus was born a Thracian, brought up as a common soldier. Forgiveness was not a virtue cultivated by either group. The Senate could expect no mercy. Executions and confiscations, a holocaust. Few would survive. Great houses would be extinguished. The proscriptions of Sulla or Severus would be as nothing.
The head was off. Blood pooled across the marble floor, soaked into the fine rugs.
‘Preserve it in a jar of honey. Maximinus will want to gaze on his face.’
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