given an unprecedented two days without drill or training. The grateful satrap of Tigranocerta had sent two thousand amphorae of fine wine in thanks for his deliverance. Corbulo ordered a ration to be served to every man, but the legionaries and auxiliaries found the sweet Armenian brew less to their taste than the leaded tavern vinegar they were more accustomed to.
Valerius spent the evening with the general, but Corbulo was a disappointing companion compared to the man who had approached the battle with such mercurial energy. It was as if victory had stolen something from him, or diminished him in some way. Even the diabolical challenge of Caesar’s Tower couldn’t energize him and eventually he shook his head and with a tired smile suggested that Valerius should seek some better company. Valerius returned to his tent, but he found sleep difficult to come by. A chill wind from the north cut through the worn leather and made his missing hand ache. For a while he lay and endured the ghosts of the past, but when Domitia’s face reminded him that there were some things even courage and resolve could not make attainable, he rose and wrapped himself in a thick woollen cloak.
The moment he left the tent, Serpentius fell into step by his side. Valerius looked at him a certain way, but the Spaniard only shrugged.
‘Just because you’ve covered yourself in glory doesn’t mean your enemies will suddenly disappear. Everything’s too relaxed for my liking.’ He cocked an ear and Valerius made out the shouts of laughter from around the camp. Nearby, a legionary fashioned a melancholy tune on a whistle and someone crooned a love song. An argument flared and faded away in a few seconds. Normally the centurions and decurions would be moving among the men demanding silence, but clearly they had been lulled by the same post-battle euphoria as their troops. ‘I’ve seen it often enough in the arena. A fighter is celebrating victory over one opponent and forgets the man behind who’s about to put a spear through his backbone. It isn’t pretty.’
They walked through the lines of tents to where Khamsin was tethered among the officers’ mounts and the mare snickered with pleasure when she caught their scent. Serpentius scratched her forehead and grinned. The Spaniard was the least tender of men, but like everyone else he had been captivated by Khamsin’s moist dark eyes, her ready intelligence and her courage. Valerius untied her and led her by the rope, taking comfort in her presence and the bittersweet scent she gave off. He marvelled at the good fortune that had brought her through the battle unscathed when so many other horses had died. Four or five times she might have been hurt or killed and he suspected it was only the Parthian love of good horseflesh that had saved her from harm. Their way took them round the camp perimeter in the cleared space between the lines of eight-man tents and the walls of piled stone. Despite the darkness, Valerius’s footsteps never wavered. A legionary marching camp was as familiar to him as the forum in Rome, every one as identical as the contours of the landscape would allow and built in the few hours between finishing the march for the day and darkness. Every eight-man tent — ten of them to a century — occupied the same space its section, the contubernium, would inhabit in their permanent barracks. The fifty-acre area within the walls was cut widthways by the Via Principalis, which they were now approaching and which ran between gates set into the longer sides of the rectangle. Another road, the Via Praetoria, divided the southern portion of the camp, running north to south and forming a junction with the Principalis near Corbulo’s living quarters in the praetorium. As they turned into the wide street, Valerius could see the flames of the twin torches which burned throughout the night at the entrance of the general’s quarters. Everything seemed normal, but as they got closer he felt a warning tickle at the base of his neck and Serpentius stiffened at his side. They stopped thirty paces short of the cloth pavilion and the Spaniard sniffed the air as if it carried the scent of trouble.
Valerius kept his eyes on the entrance, waiting for a return to normality. What was missing was the reassuring twinkle of torchlight on polished armour. A member of Corbulo’s personal guard should have stood alert at each the side of the doorway, but there was none. Six more would usually be positioned in pairs on each side of the tent, guarding against illicit entry. He searched the darkness for any sign of them.
‘Buggers must be pissed somewhere,’ Serpentius muttered, but he had his hand on his sword.
‘Check out the rear of the pavilion. If they’re not there find them and fetch… Tiberius.’
Slowly a terrible realization began to take shape in Valerius’s mind. One at a time the pieces dropped into place. Tiberius was commander of Corbulo’s personal guard, at Valerius’s bidding. He remembered the ready smile, the interest in every detail of his past, the almost desperate desire to impress. Perhaps you might commend me to General Corbulo and I have volunteered to take charge of those on guard duty. The odd reaction when he discovered they were marching, not to Judaea’s aid, but into Armenia. Just before the attempt to kill Corbulo. And that last anguished interrogation about duty and loyalty. He dropped Khamsin’s halter and started running.
He slowed as he approached the pool of dancing torchlight outside the tent. Logic told him there must be a harmless explanation for the missing guard, but the instinct that had kept him alive so often on the battlefield screamed at him to act. He kept his hand on his sword hilt. He wouldn’t draw it yet. To walk into the general’s quarters with a naked blade might invite the same accusations his racing mind was levelling at Tiberius.
The earlier laughter had died away to be replaced by the low mutter that was the normal background noise of the camp at night as five thousand men talked softly in the darkness before sleep. But Corbulo’s tent was utterly silent apart from the soft flutter of the torches in the light breeze.
With infinite care, he reached for the tent flap and drew it back an inch. Corbulo’s command tent was divided into four compartments by internal cloth partitions and the first was the general’s office. A dull orange glow painted the sparsely furnished space. Here was Corbulo’s campaign desk, light and portable, where he issued his orders and read the constant flow of status reports from the two legions and their attached auxiliary units. Behind it a collapsible chair. To one side a couch where the great man could ease the aching bones which were so obvious to Valerius, but he would mention to no one, not even his physician. Satisfied, he moved softly across the carpeted floor and checked the second room, where the remains of a meal of bread and olives and a flask of wine lay on a table and Caesar’s Tower stood as they’d left it two hours earlier. He became aware of a sort of grunting snore, like a pig shuffling in mud, and his heart slowed as he smiled to himself. Fool that he was to start at shadows. He would give those guards such a roasting tomorrow that they would think their arses were on fire. And Tiberius. How could the little bastard have let this happen?
Valerius turned to leave. He’d wait outside until the guard reappeared. But something made him hesitate. No point in being here if he wasn’t going to check. He only hoped that Corbulo wouldn’t wake from his noisy slumbers to find him sneaking about his sleeping quarters.
Very gently, he pulled back the curtain that divided the two rooms. The snuffling sound was louder now, but the room was so dark it took time for his eyes to adjust. This was a small sleeping space, with the general’s personal latrine curtained off at one end and his bed in the centre. Gradually, Valerius made out a dark hump where Corbulo’s head should be and his tired mind worked out that the hump appeared to be squirming.
His sword was out of the scabbard before he had taken his first step, but the hooded man crouched over Corbulo had been alerted by the song of the blade and was already turning. Valerius went in low and fast, determined to drive his enemy away from the general. For all he knew Corbulo was already dead, or dying, his throat cut or a dagger through his heart, but he couldn’t take that chance. Yet nothing could have prepared him for his enemy’s astonishing speed of reaction. From nowhere, a heavy flour-filled sack slammed into his chest and slowed his attack. Tiberius. Only Tiberius was that quick. Even as his racing mind confirmed the assassin’s identity the sack was followed by the general’s gold-embossed helmet. The world went black and his skull seemed to explode as the heavy iron helm took him directly in the face. He was vaguely aware that his nose was broken as his legs gave way beneath him. Blinded by tears and with his head reeling he swung aimlessly with his sword until someone kicked it from his hand, leaving him helpless. He was dead. Tiberius would kill him and then finish what he had started. But if he was going to die he would die trying. With a snarl, Valerius shook his head and attempted to struggle back to his feet only to feel the sting of a sword point against the notch at the base of his throat. One push was all it would take. One push and the iron blade would pierce his windpipe and he would choke on his own blood until the moment the point was forced down to cut through his still beating heart. He raised his head to look into the face of his killer: Tiberius, wide-eyed and twitching, one hand on the grip and the other on the pommel, and both of them shaking.
‘Bastard,’ Valerius spat. ‘Traitor.’
He sensed the moment of decision. The slightest shift in weight that preceded the thrust. It didn’t come. Tiberius opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything Corbulo staggered to his feet with a roar.
‘Guards! Call out the guard.’
Tiberius brought his knee into Valerius’s face and smashed him backwards to be engulfed by the cloth of the
