servant will see you safely home.’ Marcia just nodded, too awed by his presence to speak. She could see, as he could not, that the mother was fighting hard to hold back her tears. ‘But do not pry into matters which don’t concern you.’
His face still had the same smile but his black eyes bored into her, warning her of a fate that was certain should she disobey him. Then he spun on his heel and left. She busied herself, making her exhausted charge comfortable and the lady, who gave free rein to her sobs as soon as the husband departed, actually cried herself to sleep. The young midwife sat silently by her makeshift bed, her mind whirling with thoughts of what she had witnessed, and what the future might hold for her after the events of the night.
Cholon was already mounted, the sleeping child slung in a saddlebag by his side, when his master came out of the villa, leaping on to his horse with the agility of a long-serving soldier.
‘Where to?’ asked Cholon.
There was a half-mocking tone in the reply, for now that the child was born some of his master’s natural humour had resurfaced. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve no suggestions to make, Cholon? You usually do.’
‘There are several likely spots nearby, General, reasonably close to villages. If we lay him on a hillside they will find him as they go out to gather wood.’
The voice became hard. ‘We go south, Cholon. And I want a spot that’s miles from anywhere. I don’t want him found, ever!’
With that he kicked his horse and set off, leaving his servant behind. Cholon nudged his own mount and leant over its withers to follow. As soon as the horse moved the child awoke and the Greek found himself staring down into the steady gaze of a pair of bright blue eyes. He looked up quickly lest he be tempted to pity, and not for the first time uttered a soft curse aimed at his master, now some distance ahead.
CHAPTER TWO
Aulus rode hard, trying to block out the memories of the last two and a half years, a vain hope given the picture of that period never left him. A widower, he had decided to remarry, taking as a bride the daughter of an old army comrade, a girl twenty years younger than himself. As a frequent visitor to her father’s house, he had known Claudia as a pretty and precocious child; meeting her again aged sixteen it was very evident that she had blossomed into a beauty, surrounded by ardent admirers. Was it foolish for a man of his age and standing to fall in love with such a girl, even more imprudent to ask for her hand? His eldest son was older than she, the other not so very much younger, but he had consulted the augurs, made sacrifices aimed to ensure good fortune, and all, according to the priests, had been encouraging. The irreligious in the slums of Rome thought him a fool, a great warrior bewitched by a slip of a girl, which gave rise to much ribaldry and obscene graffiti between the day when the betrothal was announced and the ceremony by which Claudia became his wife.
What followed was as close to bliss as Aulus had ever experienced. At first in awe of him, his young wife melded within weeks into a companion of the kind he had only ever heard of but never experienced, even though he could claim his previous marriage to be a good one. Besides her beauty, Claudia had wit and charm and at no time did the difference in age seem to intrude in their relationship, especially in the bedchamber. She was passionate, willing as well as obliging as a wife, and a surprise delight when it came to dealing with the majority of his friends, who were naturally of his age. Aulus had never been so happy, and swore to anyone who would listen that he would trade his Macedonian victories rather than lose her.
The nuptials were less than six months past when news arrived of serious trouble in Spain. The Celtic tribes of the Iberian interior, hitherto kept at bay by the Roman ability, mixing bribery and flattery to keep them divided, had come together under a new and enterprising chieftain called Brennos. That was a name to strike fear into Roman hearts; they had faced a Celtic Brennos nearly three hundred years before, a barbarian leader who had sacked most of Greece and all of northern Italy before appearing before the very gates of Rome. One legend had it that a stoic Roman defence had forced him to withdraw; a less heroic tale maintained that he had been bribed with sacks of gold to depart after he had burnt most of the city. Now his namesake was terrorising Roman Spain and this time the fractious mountain tribes were not merely raiding the rich coastal plains in search of booty. Reports suggested that they were being organised into an army that threatened to conquer the whole country, which could not be allowed to pass. Too many senators, Aulus included, had possessions in Spain; farms, mining concessions and profitable monopolies, as well as the valuable slave labour that worked them.
No Roman nobleman worth his salt shirks his responsibilities, regardless of how rich and respected past campaigns have made him, nor was his recent marriage allowed to interfere. With the full backing of his new wife, who was inordinately proud of his military achievements, Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus immediately made it known that, as Rome’s foremost soldier, he was available if required. It was an offer that pleased a number of his contemporaries, yet troubled many others in a society that was far from stable — when the norms that had governed Roman life for centuries seemed under threat from some of the very people entrusted with upholding the state.
Factionalism was rife, so even some of those senators who stood to lose from the depredations of this new Brennos demurred when offered the services of such a man, frightened to entrust a campaign to one who had already garnered such glory. Would another success make Aulus too powerful, a man to be feared rather than admired? Certainly he was known for his personal probity, but men not themselves free from temptation found it hard to believe that there existed anyone untainted from the vice of ambition.
In the past, when the state faced a threat too difficult for the normal consular system to control, one man had been given supreme, temporary power, a crisis measure that lasted only as long as the emergency it was created to face. Such a thing had been brought about by the need to confront an external enemy but now it seemed to many that the enemy was within. A temporary Dictator would divide the factions even more, if that were possible. Senators like Tiberius Livonius were agitating for change; apart from tribal voting rights they wanted to extend Roman citizenship to the supplicant states of Italy, once Rome’s enemies, now her allies, a source of manpower in war and tax revenue in peace. To others the notion that such people should be given equal status with those who had defeated them was anathema. Roman citizenship was a prize worthy only of those born to it; to dilute such a privilege was nothing but a prelude to state disintegration.
If that had been all, it was enough, but Livonius and his supporters had other plans that struck at the very heart of the city-state. Rome had grown fat on the spoils of empire and in the process it had become the magnet for everyone seeking a fortune and in many cases those in search of no more than the food necessary to survive. The city was crowded, with huge wealth living cheek by jowl with acute poverty. In fear of riot it had been agreed that a dole of corn, enough to sustain life, should be issued to the poorest members of the population, but that was not enough for the reformers; they now wanted to give farms to the landless peasants who filled the slums as a way of clearing them out of the city, land that would have to come from those who owned it, the wealthy elite that governed the city and had made vast fortunes from Rome’s conquests. Egging on the mob, who had most to gain from his proposed reforms, Tiberius Livonius threatened to make Rome ungovernable.
Such ideas must be fought and defeated, but politically, not by some successful soldier at the head of fighting legions, who were barred from entry to the city. It was over four hundred years since the leading families had founded the Republic, expelling the Tarquin kings, yet the memory of their despotism still lived on, making men suspicious of success, lest too much fortune tempt anyone to seek supreme power; to overthrow the Senate, suborn the Republic and reinstate a royal tyranny. Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, attached as he was to the patrician cause, with one great campaign to his name, given another, might see personal rule as the best method of restoring order, and having done so, the best method of keeping it so by a continuation of that rule. Lucius Falerius, who knew the man in question better than anyone, had used his considerable oratory to ridicule such fears.
‘I fear I must remind you, my fellow senators, of how much this august body and the people of Rome owe to Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus. Is this some upstart seeking advantage? No. He is a man who has no need of further military success. Is he so poor that he needs to go on campaign to load the state with his living expenses? Hardly, given the treasure and slaves he brought back from Greece, he is one of the wealthiest men in Rome and I suspect many present have had occasions when they have needed to borrow from him. I fear that some of our members have transferred their own level of base thinking to a fellow senator whose principles are so elevated over theirs as to be incomprehensible.’
