The Emperor Page 6

  Rheinberg didn’t feel informed enough to bet his money, although in principle he had no objection to a little game. In addition, despite his escape from Ravenna, he had considerable fortunes accumulated over the past few months. Since he also lived mostly at government expense and found no reason to acquire land or slaves or other possessions, he had hardly spent any of his money. He assumed that sooner or later Aurelia would find ways and means to bring the coins to the people – at the latest once Rheinberg had established something like a home, a place he could actually call his own and where he at least felt as comfortable and safe as in his cabin on the Saarbrücken.

  It was hard to imagine this prospect at the moment.

  The signal for the start of the second run came.

  Again, the attention turned to the events on the racetrack.

  Rheinberg realized that this time the field was more balanced. Lucinius might be the favorite, but his rivals were almost as talented. The first turn saw fiercely jerking and jumping chariots, and although the favorite took the lead with a horse-length, it quickly became clear that the other charioteers had not yet lost the race. They shouted at their horses and made good use of the whip. Rheinberg squinted. Lucinius, too, had a long whip in his hand, but it seemed he was letting it clap on his horses back with much less enthusiasm. Rheinberg’s father, an old cavalry officer, had given his son some wisdom in dealing with horses. He had always thought that the use of pain was only justified in extreme situations and that a good animal was willing enough to give the utmost, if treated properly. Lucinius seemed to have heard of this wisdom. He yelled encouraging calls to his animals, steered with a sure hand, but the whip did nothing more than brush the backs of the animals rather caressingly. He didn’t hurt them, unlike his competitors, who beat their animals, as if the movement of their arms alone controlled the speed.

  Lucinius’ distance from his pursuers grew slowly, imperceptibly. In the second turn, he already had a head start, which allowed him to go into the curve without being attacked directly by his competitors. Rheinberg noticed that he didn’t even look around, concentrating entirely on making the race and his handling of the horses, an island of focused attention that blotted out everything and everyone else. Rheinberg understood why he was a favorite. Lucinius knew his craft in a way that was superior to that of other charioteers. Where they looked hectic, even wild, he was tense but calm. Where they turned around and drove wild and risky maneuvers, Lucinius pulled his tracks with almost mechanical precision, and his animals didn’t yield a single second in their constant, almost uncanny performance. Rheinberg witnessed a master. It would be exciting to see him in the final. The German felt how the fascination of this competition increasingly got a grip on him.

  He turned to Modestus. “Maybe I should bet at the last race. This Lucinius…”

  He froze.

  Two blades were aimed directly at his chest.

  Modestus had risen and taken a step back.

  Everywhere legionaries appeared: in the box, in the arena where his people had been placed. The crowd, focused on the events in the oval, hadn’t even noticed. Rheinberg stared in disbelief at the blades, which floated in front of him in the air, held by determined-looking men.

  Modestus looked at Rheinberg half regretfully, half resigned. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he said softly. “It was not quite my choice.”

  Rheinberg opened his mouth to say something when two things happened simultaneously.

  A whipping sound cracked in his ears. One of the two soldiers in front of him slumped in pain. Other men appeared, dressed like normal city dwellers, armed with short, thin blades.

  Aurelia drew her knife through the throat of a legionary with an elegant and cruel motion, and he sank to the ground, choking on his own blood.

  Rheinberg staggered back, stained by the blood of the dying.

  Hell broke loose.

  9

  Centurion Marcus Tullius Salius didn’t feel like it.

  That was not something a professional soldier would normally worry about too much. He was in the Roman army long enough to know when his own sensitivities played a role, and when not. Standing on the battlefield in the chill of the morning, as in the recent battle against Maximus, in that battle where the Gratian died, these thoughts were pushed aside by the thought about survival.

  Salius was good at survival, as was his entire squad. They had proved it when they had freed the Saravica from the mutineers, and while the battle in Belgica had been lost, the losses in Salius’ troop had been small. Then he had been subordinated to Theodosius by Renna, who himself had gone to Constantinople, like many other soldiers. Salius was to keep Maximus occupied in Italy until Rheinberg and the army of the East would make a pincer attack.

  Salius didn’t like the great strategic plans of the generals. They tended not to work. If they didn’t work, it was people like him who had live with the consequences. It has always been that way, and it always would be like that.

  Here, by the warmth of a tavern in Ravenna, with a cup of wine in hand and the remains of a meal in front of him, the Centurion looked dreamily at the troupe of actors, showing the guests a satirical play on the time-wanderers. Whoever wrote it, the verses were so good that their effect understood to mask the performers’ lower-than-average acting abilities. Unfortunately, they were not so good that they could please a relatively educated man like Salius. The rather simple-minded crowd seemed to enjoy the play, often laughed, and ordered wine and spirits, which meant that the host’s investment in the troop had paid off.

  One of the actors stepped forward. Dressed in the parody of a time-wanderer uniform, he spoke his over-the-top verses with exaggerated gestures and a slightly quacking voice, which, however, could be intentional:

  “So he stepped forward, Rheinberg his name,

  a slave with a sword plays his dame,

  and said to Maximus, called the Great:

  ‘Why didn’t you duly talk and wait?’

  But Maximus, tired of toil and travel,

  put his idea in words to unravel:

  ‘Your way to Rome, to power and fame,

  it is ending here, now you are lame.

  Your life was long, over a thousand years,

  your end is the greatest of your fears.

  I am with God – and Ambrosius agrees –

  that the purple is shining rightly on my sleeves.’”

  Salius grimaced slightly. Quite awful. While the increasingly enthusiastic audience cheered and clapped, though the performance lacked any punchline, the applause showed quite clearly that all those who were still on the side of Theodosius and Rheinberg should remain shut up. Maximus had not gone as far as many of his predecessors, such as sticking lists of supporters of the other side on the city walls, so that they could be persecuted and killed. But everyone knew that, despite the victorious battle of the usurper, the real conflict had not yet ended. Salius’ presence was a good example of this fact.

  His eyes sought out Clodius, his deputy, who sat at another table in the tavern. He wandered over seven other legionaries of his unit, all in plain civilian clothes, pretending to drink. Salius’s orders had been clear, he could afford no mistakes from drunkenness. Then he looked up the stairs at the row of room doors behind which whores offered their services. In the second room from the right, almost at the end of the hallway, at this moment Lucius Vestasius resided, the deputy of Maximus’ General Andragathius, with a lady of his choice. Now that Andragathius had left for Rome with Maximus, Vestasius was the Lord of Ravenna, and a reckless one. His two guards sat down in the taproom, throwing dice. They also didn’t drink, at least.

  That would not help them much.

  It was time.

  Salius pushed the cup away from him, grinning contentedly and belched.

  His men stretched, yawned, peeled off their chairs and stools, like so many other guests in the crowded tavern. One hit a scurrying tavern-wrench on the butt and laughed aloud. Another wavered, as if he h
ad too much of the strong brandy. A third scratched at a nasty stain on his already worn tunic.

  Then two blades jerked up and sank in the breasts of Vestasius’ guardsmen. Gurgling, they fell to the ground, without even raised a hand to defend themselves. Salius’ men, who had sneaked up from behind, jerked their swords out of their enemies ribs and looked at the crowd.

  Silence descended on the guests.

  The acting troupe was frozen in its performance.

  One man of the Centurion’s troop, a monster of a German barbarian, stood with legs slightly apart in front of the tavern’s only entrance door and frowned. No one started to move.

  Salius hurried up the stairs. Clodius would keep the situation in the taproom under control. The Centurion was accompanied by Ianus, a new addition to his unit. The lanky young man wanted to prove himself, and now he got the opportunity.

  Salius pulled the door open. For a brief moment, they stared at the scene. The whore, a slightly worn-out woman in her late twenties, had the best piece of Vestasius in her mouth and worked so hard on it that she didn’t even notice the door was open. Vestasius also needed a moment to get his bearings. Then his face lost the transfigured expression that it had just worn. He jerked his cock out of the mouth of the woman, who recoiled in surprise. With a fluid motion, the officer leaned down, holding a sword in his hand.

  Salius felt respect. The man might be careless, naive maybe, but he was quick and not completely unprepared. That’s what the Centurion preferred. It made the assassination clean and honorable. Vestasius could defend himself. That was acceptable.

  The officer opened his mouth, no doubt, to call for help. A moment later, a throwing dagger stuck in his chest, penetrating to the hilt, masterfully thrown by Ianus, who looked critically at his own work for a moment as Vestasius slipped silently onto the bed and died.

  “That was neat, centurion. Fast enough too?” he asked.

  Salius nodded. “I’m satisfied, Ianus. Clean work and no sound.”

  The woman stared at the body in front of her. She didn’t scream.

  Salius was sure she had already seen a lot in her life much, and he raised his hand. “We do no harm to you. Here.”

  He tossed her a large coin, about the amount Vestasius would have had to pay if his endeavor would’ve come to a happy conclusion. The woman cleverly caught the money. She didn’t seem very appalled by this specific form of coitus interruptus. Payment was payment.

  She hurried out of the room.

  Salius leaned over the corpse, searched the man’s clothes, found his purse, and pocketed it. Otherwise, he had nothing of importance. The Centurion nodded.

  “We leave!”

  Ianus, who had stood guard at the door, opened the way for him.

  The tavern was quiet. Numerous pairs of eyes focused on the Centurion’s men, as he summoned them and marched toward the entrance. Before departing, Salius turned around and shouted: “Long live Theodosius, Emperor and Augustus! Long live Rome!”

  Without waiting for a response, he turned away and disappeared with his men in the streets of nocturnal Ravenna, along previously determined routes and into three different, safe houses.

  They had done what they had come for. And they had left their signature.

  Salius discounted the dead body from his mental list.

  The list was still long. He had just started his work.

  10

  “I don’t like this situation.”

  The man who said those words had every reason to be ill-tempered. He stared at the flickering fire, which didn’t quite warm him. There was a lot of room everywhere, and though tapestries had been hung to preserve the warmth inside, it was quite chilly.

  His two interlocutors didn’t seem to bother. One was an older man with a dignified attitude and a narrow, ascetic-looking face. It was Siricius, the Bishop of Rome, who considered himself the first of all bishops and was respected by many for his work for the unity of the Church. He was the host of the other two men, Maximus Magnus, Emperor of Rome, and his oldest companion Andragathius, officially appointed Magister Militium.

  The emperor’s bad mood was not just a result of the bad weather – and the fact that this room, which Siricius evidently preferred for his interview, was poorly protected against the cold –, but, above all, the fact that not everything was progressing currently as he had imagined. “Damn, Andragathius, where is Theodosius?”

  The old General didn’t flinch under the lashing tone of his master. He knew Maximus for many years and knew how to take him.

  “I don’t know exactly. South of Potentia.”

  Maximus’ face twisted as Andragathius mentioned the name of the city. The news of the attack by Imperial troops under the command of the counter-emperor had reached him only this morning. He understood now what the Spaniard was up to. He didn’t seek the open battle, and he didn’t let himself been drawn into one, encircled or besieged. He danced over Italian soil like a drunken actor, striking hooks, surprisingly breaking a seemingly permanent winter camp to confuse his scouts. And he sent out smaller units to cause additional confusion, performing pinpricks, assassinations, and looting supplies. None of this was likely to seriously endanger the power of Maximus, but it cost attention and resources, and it was a constant sting in the flesh of the new Emperor struggling for his legitimacy. All of his supporters, especially the new ones – the Senate, the nobles, knights, rich merchants, dignitaries –, they all waited for him to finish Theodosius, as he had put Gratian aside, and for him to rule over the East, not just by name.

  Maximus felt restricted. And he had to pay tribute to Theodosius. Whether the Spaniard had come up with this idea or one of his advisers, perhaps even the leader of the time-wanderers himself, didn’t really matter. The strategy was smart, it caused pain, and it kept a delicate situation alive that left many who had sworn allegiance to Maximus untrustworthy. The people were waiting. They did not openly oppose the new Emperor, but they were cautious, witted by the history of the Empire and the way rulers at its head used to alternate. But Maximus needed more support, more loyal followers, men who were willing to take risks for their Augustus. And at the moment, he only found those among the men who had been with him from the beginning.

  His eyes fell on Siricius. He also could not trust the Pope. He would wait like everyone else. And unlike slinking senators and courtiers, the Bishop of Rome knew that he had a position of authority and of his own legitimacy, and was therefore not half as submissive as most of his other Roman dignitaries.

  That was almost soothing, Maximus thought. So at least he knew the man’s attitude and didn’t have to worry about ambiguity, charades and hypocrisy. From such things he only got a headache.

  “We cannot operate too well in the winter,” Andragathius continued. “Nevertheless, we want to exert pressure on Theodosius. I’ll be heading south with the legions later this week. We have sufficient provisions and winter clothes. We have to drive the rebels before us like Crassus did with Spartacus back then, until they have no room to move anymore. Then it will come to battle, or they will surrender.”

  “You want to give them the chance to surrender, Augustus?” Siricius asked softly. Magnus lowered his head. He had wanted to think about it for a long time, but then quickly came to the conclusion that the time-wanderers had been right in a few key points – especially in terms of the permanent weakening of the Empire through long-lasting and merciless civil wars. “Those are Roman soldiers we’re fighting against,” he said finally. “I really need these men to secure the borders. It would be an incredible waste of people and material if I would willingly sacrifice that potential. No, I will call on the rebels to capitulate, with a general amnesty for all soldiers and officers, to join the Imperial forces as before. I’m even ready to extend this amnesty to Theodosius and his closest circle of leaders. I will offer them exile, an honorable retreat, leaving their families undisturbed. If there is a chance to end this dispute taking this path, then I will take it.”


  Maximus exchanged a quick glance with his General. Malobaudes had told them that shortly before his death, Gratian had had a similar conversation, with similar questions and remarkably comparable answers – but without an amnesty for the rebellious leaders, for Maximus and his senior officers. It was ironic, the Emperor thought, that they had both been basically ready for moderation. Nor would Theodosius be inclined to excessive cruelty in the event of victory, especially as the time-wanderers would oppose it. They all knew what was to come. The threat caused by the Huns had only just begun.

  Siricius seemed to like Maximus’ answer. “Then we come to the major purpose of your visit today, Emperor. Shall we commence?”

  Maximus rose, bowed to the Bishop of Rome, and together they left the churchman’s quarters. Maximus’ bodyguard was already waiting for them outside, and together they marched toward the place they had in mind. They moved measuredly across the Roman Forum, secured by more troops, which had to keep the ever-increasing number of onlookers under control. Maximus had no fears about the people’s violence. What he was trying to do would scarcely upset anyone, except for a few educated traditionalists. But everyone was aware that they were witnessing a historic process, and since there were no games scheduled to pass the time, it was just as fun to watch this.

  The column passed the forum and entered the Curia Julia, the official residence of the Senate. It was no longer the venerable original house, but the version rebuilt in 303 by Emperor Diocletian, a large, square building. In it sat the Roman senators, as far as they were present in Rome. Just as rule of the Empire was divided, civil war also cut through the Senate. A number of senators were with Theodosius, a few were with Rheinberg, others had withdrawn in emphatic rejection of the whole affair to their estates. Nevertheless, more than 200 of the men dressed in uniform togas were present when Maximus entered the Curia with his entourage and paused in the middle of the assembly hall.

  His eyes fell on the head of the hall.