the Spaniard’s grunt of surprise. ‘That was the plan all along. Tiberius has always been Nero’s man, Nero or Tigellinus. All this, the command and the investigation I was supposed to carry out into Corbulo’s headquarters, was nothing but a cover. My job was to bring Tiberius here and place him in a position where he could get within a sword swing of Corbulo. You and I were decoys to divert attention from him as he did his work and to be sacrificed when we were no longer needed. If he had succeeded in smothering the general last night no one would have been looking for Tiberius Claudius Crescens, the lowly tribune. They would have come for us.’
‘He was a good soldier.’
‘He was a professional assassin, so he should be. Growing up with that bastard of a father would have been the perfect training. His whole life was lived as a lie. The only thing I don’t understand is why he didn’t kill me.’
Serpentius turned to him, surprised that he didn’t know. ‘Because you were his friend.’
It was still three hours until sundown. Valerius stayed another hour. He was about to leave when Tiberius began calling out to his father in a tortured, almost indiscernible whimper. He listened to the young man appeal for love, beg not to be beaten and promise not to fail again. Then it changed.
‘Mother?’
He winced. He had never before heard Tiberius mention his mother.
‘Mother, please don’t leave me.’
‘Why don’t you die?’ Valerius whispered.
‘Mother. I’m thirsty. Water.’
He came to a decision. ‘Get me some water and a cloth.’
When Serpentius returned Valerius was still staring at the hanging figure between the two guards Corbulo had set. He took the cloth and with his left hand stuffed it into the fist of his right. Then he picked up the pitcher and approached the frame.
‘No one is allowed near him, tribune. General’s orders,’ warned the senior of the guards, a veteran centurion of the Tenth.
Valerius shrugged. ‘Rather you than me when you try to explain to the general how you let him die of thirst before the deadline.’
He turned to walk away, but he knew he had planted a seed of indecision.
‘Wait.’
He stopped.
‘All right, give him some water.’
Valerius had the pitcher in his left hand and he poured it over the cloth in the walnut fist, saturating it with water. When he was satisfied he used the damp cloth to moisten Tiberius’s lips.
Through his pain, Tiberius somehow sensed the human contact. The feel of the liquid on his smashed lips took him back to the desert where he had suffered and almost died for his friends. For a moment he was back there, and out of the glare walked the long dead woman who had provided the only warmth of his childhood. She had come to take him home.
‘Thank you, Mother.’
Valerius brought his left hand to the younger man’s cheek in what appeared to be a caress. Neither of the guards saw the narrow, needle-pointed knife that he pushed up into the hollow below the younger man’s right ear and into his brain. Valerius felt Tiberius stiffen and blood flowed warm over his hand to drip on to the already gore- stained sand below. At last, the life force left Tiberius Claudius Crescens, tribune of the Tenth, and, freed of his pain, his body sagged into the arms of the man who had been his friend.
XLVII
‘Mmmmhh!’ Valerius’s eyes snapped open as a callused hand clamped over his mouth. Others pinned his arms and hauled him to his knees. As he grew accustomed to the darkness he realized that the tent was filled with legionaries in full armour including the centurion who had been guarding Tiberius who now stood over him with his sword drawn and a look of unfettered savagery on his face. There was a moment when he knew the man wanted to kill him, but it passed and he was hauled into the open and dragged through the camp towards the praetorium. The slim figure of Serpentius appeared from between two tents by the side of the roadway. Their eyes met and Valerius knew that all it needed was a signal. But that would mean death. Death for at least some of these men and certain death for the two men who opposed them when the centurion called up the reinforcements he undoubtedly had close by. Valerius had seen enough death for one night. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and the Spaniard stepped back into the shadows.
The legionaries hustled him through the flaps and into the big tent where Corbulo sat behind his campaign desk with Traianus to his right and Celsus to his left. The three generals were in full uniform and Valerius suppressed a shiver as he stood before them, naked apart from a loincloth. This was the same tribunal which had sentenced Tiberius to his terrible end. Corbulo’s narrowed eyes were the colour of the leaden seas which lapped Britain in winter, and just as cold. The room felt too small to contain the power of his anger. When he spoke, the words emerged through clenched teeth.
‘You gave the traitor a merciful death against my express orders?’
Valerius saw no point in denying the obvious. ‘The manner of his death shamed you. He was a soldier who fought for you and fought well.’
‘An assassin.’
‘A Roman officer doing his duty as he saw it.’
‘A betrayer. Of his general, his legion and his comrades. A betrayer of his friends.’
Valerius bit his tongue at this incontestable truth. Hadn’t it been he who had unleashed Tiberius at Corbulo like a launched pilum with his pompous exhortations to mindless duty? If you are given an order, don’t think about it. Only obey. If he had listened more closely, perhaps he could have persuaded the boy from his fateful path. Perhaps Tiberius would still have been alive. But he knew it wasn’t true. Even if Tiberius had turned his back on Nero and pledged his loyalty to Corbulo, how could the Emperor’s most faithful general leave him alive without himself being guilty of disloyalty?
‘And now we have a new betrayer,’ Corbulo continued. ‘I took Gaius Valerius Verrens into my trust. I gave him command and gave him my hand in friendship, yet he has deliberately flouted my authority.’
‘Prolonging his agony achieved nothing,’ Valerius met the cold stare without flinching, ‘except to sully your reputation. It was not discipline you displayed, it was wanton cruelty. Tiberius saved your daughter when she was dying of thirst. You owed him a life, just as you owed me a life.’
With a snarl the general rose from his seat, almost overturning the desk. ‘You dare preach at me? Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo is proconsul of Asia, conqueror of Armenia and three times holder of the triumphal regalia; more important, he is your general. I said once you were too soft. I was wrong. You are weak. A general cannot afford to have weakness at the heart of his command. A general cannot be seen to condone indiscipline, just as he cannot afford to ignore disloyalty. You leave me no choice. You say I owe you a life? Then I give you the life of your friend Tiberius Crescens, to whom you granted an undeserved mercy. But by disobeying my direct order you forfeit your own.’ Traianus gasped and Valerius felt as if he’d been doused in ice water. He had known what he was risking when he helped Tiberius into the afterlife, but in his mind it had never come to this.
He listened to Corbulo continue. ‘You will be taken from here at dawn to be beheaded before the assembled army. I give you a soldier’s death. Be grateful.’
‘I am a Roman citizen.’
Corbulo flinched as if he had been struck.
‘I am a Roman citizen,’ Valerius repeated. ‘I demand the rights accorded by my status and my class.’
‘You are a Roman soldier and subject to military justice,’ the general said with finality.
‘My orders came direct from the Emperor. Only the Emperor can pass judgement on me.’
Corbulo’s face reddened and Valerius waited for the order for his immediate execution, but Traianus whispered something in the general’s ear and he subsided into his seat.
‘Very well, but you would have been wiser to accept my mercy, because when the Emperor confirms my sentence there will be none. Gaius Valerius Verrens, you are hereby declared incorrigible. You will be fed and
