The Emperor's Exile (Eagles of the Empire 19) Read online

  They turned into the street where Cato’s house sat. There were small shops on either side, leased from the owners of the large properties that lay behind them. At the near end of the street were a few apartment blocks, which gave way to the houses of their wealthier neighbours. The entrances to the larger properties lay between the shops and presented large studded doors to the street. As they reached Cato’s home, halfway along, he saw that the ironmonger and the baker who rented their premises from him were still in business on either side of the modest run of steps that rose from the street to the front door. He paused briefly to admire the neatly maintained timbers and bronze studs and then climbed the steps and rapped the knocker sharply.

  An instant later, the narrow shutter snapped back and a pair of eyes inspected him briefly through the grille before a muffled voice demanded, ‘What is your business?’

  ‘Open the door,’ Cato ordered impatiently.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Tribune Quintus Licinius Cato; now open up.’

  The eyes narrowed before the doorman responded, ‘A moment.’

  The shutter rattled back into place and Cato turned to the others. ‘Must be a new doorman. Else I have changed more than I thought since we were last in Rome.’

  The shutter slid open again and an older man appeared at the grille. One glance was enough; the bolts on the far side were drawn back and the door swung open to reveal Croton, the steward of the household. He bowed quickly and smiled readily as he stepped to the side to allow Cato and the others to enter. ‘Master, it does my heart good to see you all return. We had no idea you were coming home.’

  ‘We only landed at Ostia yesterday. We’ve been on the road since first light.’

  Croton swiftly got over his surprise as he closed the door and shut out the noises from the street. In the quiet entrance hall the only sound was the light tinkle from the fountain in the atrium beyond.

  ‘I’ll have the sleeping chambers and living spaces prepared at once, master. And you’ll be needing food after your journey.’

  ‘Food can wait,’ Cato interrupted. ‘What we want is a bath and fresh clothes. Have the bathhouse fire lit and then see to the other matters.’

  Croton looked them over and cocked an eyebrow. ‘And your baggage, sir?’

  ‘Coming upriver from Ostia. Should reach the house tomorrow. It’ll be in the charge of a man called Apollonius. He’ll be staying in the house with us, so have a room ready for him too.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ Macro muttered. He had little affection for the spy who had acted as Cato’s guide during his recent mission to Parthia and had agreed to serve with the tribune when the Praetorian cohort returned to Rome. Not that there were many men left on the unit’s strength, he mused. No more than a hundred and fifty out of the original six hundred or so had survived the battles of the last two years. Even though their standard had won several decorations for valour, it would be some time before the cohort was built up to its former fighting strength and was ready for battle again. Not that Macro would be involved in that. He felt a moment of regret and longing for the career and the brothers in arms that he would be leaving behind when he departed for Britannia. Cato most of all.

  Macro had been there when Cato had first arrived at the Second Legion’s fortress on the Rhine, skinny, drenched and shivering. He had grudgingly become the young man’s mentor, only to realise the promise that Cato showed once he had got over his nerves and become a good soldier. Since then, Cato had served beneath Macro, then as his equal in rank, eventually being promoted above him. Over the last fifteen years they had been all but inseparable as they served on the Empire’s frontiers. Soon they would part company, and given the distance involved, it was likely they would never see each other again. That was a hard truth to bear.

  It was of little comfort to know that Apollonius would be at Cato’s side in any campaigns to come. Macro had not trusted the spy from the outset. Apollonius had been assigned by General Corbulo to guide Cato in his mission to Parthia. He was thin, the skin of his shaven head clinging to his skull so closely that he looked like some spirit of the departed. His deep-set eyes darted about and his keen intelligence missed nothing. Irritatingly, the same keen intelligence mocked those with lesser erudition and swiftness of thought. If ever the phrase ‘too clever by half’ was deserved, then surely Apollonius was first in line. Not that the Greek freedman was without redeeming features, Macro conceded. There were few other men who matched his skill with a blade, and he was a fine fighter to have at your side. By the same token, you’d never willingly turn your back on him. There was something about him that made Macro innately suspicious, and he had lived long enough and had sufficient hard-won experience to trust in such instincts.

  As Croton led the way to the living quarters, Macro fell into step alongside his friend and spoke in a low voice. ‘I’m not sure I’d be so willing to have Apollonius around if I were in your place, brother. He’s cut from the same cloth as the likes of Pallas and Narcissus and all those other back-stabbing Greek freedmen.’

  Cato smiled thinly. Like many Romans, Macro was inclined to look down on the Greeks as being a race predisposed towards fancy intellectualism and scheming. It was a lazy perception that did little more than flatter the Roman belief in their own plain speaking and superior integrity. In all their years together, Cato had not managed to shift his friend’s position, and there was little point in any fresh attempt at this late stage.

  ‘Apollonius proved his worth in Parthia. I would not be alive now if it was not for him.’

  ‘He was out to save his own skin. That he saved yours as well was an afterthought.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it . . . Anyway, my mind is made up. I’m signing him onto the cohort to take charge of the headquarters staff. We’ll see what happens then. But I think you are wrong about him.’

  ‘We’ll see. I’d hate to be the one to say I told you so.’

  Cato glanced at him and smiled. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  They passed through the atrium with its small pool open to the skies and then continued along a passage to the living quarters overlooking the walled garden at the rear of the property. Senator Sempronius had taken pride in his neat designs of hedges and flower beds, and Cato smiled as he saw that Croton and his small staff had tended them well during his absence.

  ‘It’s good to be home,’ he mused. ‘It really is. Perhaps I’ll be able to enjoy raising Lucius while I tend to my duties at the Praetorian camp.’

  ‘You’ll have plenty of time on your hands,’ said Macro. ‘Just leave the spit and polish to the centurions and enjoy dressing up for the imperial ceremonies.’ He looked at Cato thoughtfully. ‘Though I dare say you’ll be hankering to return to active duty within a year.’

  Cato shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve had enough of that for a while. I want to have some peace and spend time with Lucius.’

  He turned and rested his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘How about that, my boy? There’s plenty to keep the both of us happy. Theatre, books, hunting in the country. The arena, chariot races.’

  ‘Chariot races!’ Lucius’s expression lit up. ‘Let’s do that! I want to see the chariots.’

  ‘All right then,’ Cato responded. ‘We’ll go as soon as we can. All four of us. But right now, let’s get bathed and into some clean clothes!’

  ‘Do I have to have a bath, Father?’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Petronella clucked as she took his hand. ‘Come along, Master Lucius. You and me can help Croton start the bathhouse fire.’

  As the pair headed across the garden, Cato and Macro stared after them.

  ‘She’s going to miss the boy,’ said Macro. ‘We both will.’ He felt a melancholic mood closing in around them and wrinkled his nose in distaste. A change of subject was needed, he decided. He slapped his friend on the back. ‘Wine! There has to be some good wine in the house. We’ll track a jar down and sit and drink by the fountain while we wa
it. Come, brother. Let’s get hunting!’

  Chapter Three

  The following day, at noon, Cato was sitting on a bench outside the office of Prefect Burrus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard. He had been greeted briefly and submitted his report before being ordered to wait outside while Burrus perused the document. It was not going to make for good reading, he thought. His cohort had been sent east to act as the personal bodyguard of General Corbulo. As such, there had been no expectation that they would be involved in any fighting; they would return to Rome intact when they were recalled. But due to the lack of troops available to Corbulo, Cato and his men had been tasked with spearheading a mission to install a Roman candidate on the throne of Armenia. The strategic importance of the minor kingdom was such that it had been contested territory for over a hundred years, swaying between Roman and Parthian control. This time the Romans were defeated and the king they had attempted to impose on the Armenians had been captured and executed before Cato and his men were sent back to Corbulo in humiliation.

  Corbulo had made as little of it as possible, rightly fearing that such a setback might lead to his replacement as commander of the eastern armies. He had refused to let Cato and his men return to Rome, and then disregarded a message ordering the cohort to rejoin the rest of the guard in their camp outside the walls of the capital. Anything to delay the emperor and his advisers grasping the true scale of Rome’s humiliation. It had been a challenge to describe the short campaign without casting a shadow on the reputation of Corbulo and Cato himself, even though he had done the best he could with the meagre forces at his disposal. Nor was Burrus going to be pleased by the subsequent uprising of the town of Thapsis, in the mountains close to Corbulo’s headquarters at Tarsus. The Roman soldiers had had to endure a bitter winter and a mutiny, which had been put down with considerable difficulty and loss of life. None of which was going to endear Corbulo and those who served him to the emperor. The only aspect of the report that might gratify Nero and his advisers was the intelligence Cato had gathered on the terrain and political situation inside Parthia while conducting an embassy to the Parthians on Corbulo’s orders.

  Rising from the bench and stretching his shoulders, Cato adjusted the medal harness that hung over his polished breastplate. He had turned out in his best uniform to present himself at headquarters, and now carefully arranged his wine-red cloak so that it hung from his shoulders in neat folds. The clerk sitting at the desk to one side of the door leading into Burrus’s office looked up, and they exchanged a glance before the man cleared his throat.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you some refreshments, sir? It’s a warm day.’

  It was indeed. Unseasonally hot even for July. Perspiration was already pricking out beneath the fringe of Cato’s hair and down his spine. He shook his head. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  The clerk lowered his head and continued working through the figures on his waxed tablets as Cato crossed to the window and looked over the courtyard of the headquarters building. He had a clear view across the tiled roof of the colonnaded rooms surrounding an open space large enough to parade a thousand men. Beyond lay the barrack blocks, the wall of the camp and then the sprawl of temples, palaces, forums, tenement blocks packed with the poorest inhabitants of the city and the larger homes of the wealthy. The vast bulk of the imperial palace complex that covered the Palatine Hill dominated the skyline. The sounds of the city were muted to a faint hubbub as they carried over the walls of the camp, and closer to him he could hear a centurion bawling insults at his men as he inspected them. Down in the courtyard, clerks and officers paced from office to office along the colonnades; only the sentries on duty stood in the glare of the sun, their foreshortened shadows clearly delineated against the paving slabs. Every one of them was immaculately dressed and equipped, and Cato was struck by the calm sense of order and decorum, a world far from his recent experiences of bloodshed, hunger, mud and filth, biting cold and ever-present danger on the frontier beyond which stretched the lands of Parthia, Rome’s most formidable enemy.

  His thoughts turned back to the man reading his report in the next room. How would Burrus react to the words Cato had carefully chosen to describe conditions on the eastern frontier? Would he accept that Corbulo was dealing with the difficulties confronting him as best he could and that Cato’s role in events had been without blame? Or would he seek to censure a cohort commander who had returned to Rome with less than a third of his men fit for duty? What happened next was critical to Cato’s future career. There would be a chance to defend his performance once Burrus summoned him; it was vital that the prefect was convinced to support his version of events when the report was passed on to the emperor and his advisers at the palace. He was aware that Burrus had held him in high regard following the part he had played in putting down a plot to unseat Nero in the early days of his reign and place the previous emperor’s natural son on the throne instead. The plot had failed; the usurper, Britannicus, and the rest of the ringleaders were dead. But Cato knew that gratitude was a fleeting quality in the fervid world of Roman politics. Burrus might have followers he wanted to promote in Cato’s place.

  There was a click from the door as the handle turned and it opened to reveal Burrus. He was a stocky man with oiled dark hair arranged carefully to conceal as much of his premature balding as possible. He wore a silk tunic embroidered with silver threads that made up a pattern of oak leaves running up the sleeves and around the collar. Knee-high closed-toe boots of red leather graced his feet. As they had already exchanged terse greetings, he did not speak but gestured to Cato to join him inside his office before turning and disappearing from view.

  Hurrying over to the door, Cato stepped through and closed it behind him. The room beyond took up the entire width of the end of the administration block and was lined with benches and stools for when the prefect needed to brief his officers. There was an open space in front of the walnut desk behind which Burrus settled onto a cushioned seat, his back to the two open windows on the far wall. The report, written on a scroll, weighted by a pot of ink and a dagger, lay before him. He did not invite Cato to be seated, and folded his hands together as he stared fixedly at his subordinate. There was a tense silence before he cleared his throat.

  ‘I have to say, I find it hard to square what is written here with the rather more upbeat reports that Corbulo has been sending from Tarsus. That said, it is closer in spirit to the intelligence fed back to us from the imperial spies serving with the general. They confirm what you say about our would-be king of Armenia. It seems that Rhadamistus is – was – a dangerous hothead. It’s possible that he might have caused us more problems if he had succeeded in retaking the throne, so his loss might be the lesser setback. But we shall never know.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Which brings us on to your conduct of the mission. You seem reluctant to take Corbulo to task for supplying you with insufficient men to carry out the job.’

  Burrus paused long enough to indicate that he required a reply. It was tempting to agree with him that a few thousand men was rather fewer than Cato thought necessary to guarantee success, but he was not prepared to undermine Corbulo. The general was a good soldier and it was hardly his fault that the forces placed at his disposal were inadequate to defend the eastern frontier, let alone invade and conquer Parthia. He deserved Cato’s loyalty.

  ‘The general assigned as many men to my command as he thought prudent, sir.’

  ‘Prudent?’ Burrus smiled coldly. ‘But what would your estimate of prudence be?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How many men did you think were necessary to secure Rhadamistus’s throne?’

  Cato nodded towards his report. ‘As you will have read, we had enough men to take his capital and make him king.’

  ‘Only for your joint forces to be beaten by rebels in battle barely a month later. It was a good thing the enemy spared what was left of your column as a peace offering to Rome so that we might accept their
neutrality.’ Burrus sighed. ‘Believe me, Tribune, I understand how limited Corbulo’s resources are. But the situation was not so dire that he had to send you and your Praetorians on a do-or-die mission. You have lost over three hundred of the emperor’s finest. That will not please Nero, I can assure you. Especially as you were only supposed to be acting as bodyguards and giving Corbulo some weight to his authority. It was not intended that you should be sent into battle.’

  ‘That is the purpose of soldiers, sir,’ Cato ventured.

  ‘Do not presume to lecture me, Tribune!’ Burrus snapped. ‘Ordinary soldiers, yes. But Praetorians are held back as a weapon of last resort. They may be the best soldiers in the army, but that is precisely why they are not to be frittered away in sideshows like Armenia, or putting down uprisings in obscure hill towns that hardly any civilised person has ever heard of. I never even knew that Thapsis existed until I wished it didn’t. Corbulo exceeded his authority in deploying your cohort as he did. That I can do nothing about; it is up to Nero to deal with the general as he sees fit. However, you also had your orders. You should have protested when Corbulo said he was sending you to Armenia. As your commanding officer, that is a matter I can do something about.’

  He unfolded his hands and laid the palms on the report as he leaned forward to address Cato in a formal tone.

  ‘Tribune Cato, it is my decision that you be relieved of your command pending a full investigation into your conduct while serving on the eastern frontier.’

  There it was, Cato thought bitterly. The reward for his long years of service to Rome. It should come as no surprise, he told himself, yet Burrus’s words wounded him painfully.

  ‘Your senior centurion, Macro, is to assume command as of now,’ Burrus continued.

  ‘I should tell you that Centurion Macro intends to apply for his immediate discharge, sir. I have countersigned his request. He will be submitting it to you in the next few days.’