string you up to the nearest tree.’
The ex-centurion’s knee drove hard into Dabo’s groin just as he let him go and the farmer slid down the wall, doubled over in pain, to be kicked as he rolled over onto his side and finally he was spat on. After a final curse Flaccus walked out into the cool sunlit morning, where his ruffians, having saddled the horses, stood waiting for him, with Aquila watching them in silence. The ex-centurion mounted up, hauled round the animal’s head and walked it over.
‘Does the turd that owns this place have a horse?’ Aquila nodded. ‘Then saddle it up, boy. You’ve got no future here. Your guardian just offered to sell you to me. I won’t buy you, even to sell on. Clodius wasn’t the best soldier in the world, but he did his duty and so shall I. I’m heading south on the Via Appia. You can come with me if you can catch us.’
Flaccus hauled round his horse’s head and cantered out of the courtyard. Aquila wasn’t looking; he was in the byre saddling Dabo’s ploughing mare.
Drisia, an old soothsayer hated by Clodius, stood by the roadway. She had been a confidant of Fulmina and many’s the time she had cast her bones or spat some concoction onto the dry earth floor of the hut to read the signs that she insisted only she could interpret. Flaccus and his men came by and she had a more frightening effect on the horses than Minca. They all shied and had to be forced past her and when Flaccus caught a whiff of her stink, he understood why. She opened her mouth and let out an unholy cackle, then threw a handful of fresh corn over him. He looked back to see her still laughing, rattling one hand around in a bag at her waist, the other pointed straight at him. Flaccus brushed the corn husks off his saddle and kicked his horse hard to get it moving.
The boy, now with a spear strapped to his back, rode by Drisia a few moments later, hurrying to catch up with the men ahead. The old crone hissed at him with a toothless wheeze, and uttered that one word she used, after the death of Fulmina, whenever he had been unfortunate enough to cross her path.
‘Rome!’
CHAPTER SIX
Marcellus rose before cockcrow, knowing the entire household was in for a busy day. He had barely finished dressing when the summons came, so he hurried to the study, not in the least surprised to find his father already surrounded by scribes and up to his elbows in work. He waited patiently while the business was concluded and once the men who attended on him had gone, he was invited to sit opposite, preparatory to another of their talks on the state of Rome and the nature of politics.
‘It has been my wish that you should be privy to my thinking, Marcellus.’
The boy composed his face in an attitude of seeming attentiveness that he had learnt early in life. From the moment when Lucius had considered him capable of reasoning, he had included his son in some aspects of his ideas, and as time had passed that had become more complex. He was now treated as a trusted ear, perhaps the only person in Rome with whom his father was truly open. Lucius insisted that if Marcellus was to come upon his inheritance and the power he now wielded, then he must know both how it had been acquired as well as the methods by which it was exercised.
These sessions had once been something to look forward to, a time when such talks had been used as a means of teaching Marcellus Roman history, occasionally talking about the ancient books of prophecies sold to Tarquinus Superbus by the Sybil at Cumae, incomplete, because the Sybil had offered them to the Roman king for a fortune in gold. When he declined to pay she burnt half the books and offered him the remainder at the same price. Another refusal led to another burning and finally Tarquinus paid the price demanded for a quarter of what he could have had in the beginning. Lucius had seen them, and even copied some out, so father and son had spent many a happy hour trying to make sense of the riddles the remaining books contained, as well as speculating on what was missing. That all seemed distant now; Lucius had long given up both on that and his history lectures in favour of dissertations on the day-to-day state of Roman politics, while his son had long since given up saying thank you for what he considered a burden.
‘I have told you before this of how I wasted my youth.’ Lucius leant forward, a thin smile on his face. ‘Not entirely wasted, since I served as a soldier in four campaigns. I know that my good fortune stems from my appointment as praefectus fabrum. I withstood the jibes of my fellows, brave idiots, who could not comprehend that a good quartermaster is as vital to an army as a good commanding general. Any fool can wave a sword, but it takes more than a muscular arm to feed a legion on the march.’
Marcellus stifled a yawn; he had heard all this before, what his father called his awakening. In the hope of a slight change of tale he posed a question. ‘Did Aulus Cornelius rib you?’
Lucius blinked at the interruption, his mind trapped in those far off days, forty years before, when, not much older than his son, he had dreamt of a different kind of glory, the sort of accolade that Vegetius Flaminus was to be granted this very day. The name Aulus Cornelius coloured that memory, tinting his thoughts with envy coupled with regret for the loss of the simplicity of their early friendship. He could not decide whether to be pleased or irritated by the way Marcellus so openly admired the man with whom he had entered upon a military career.
‘No, Marcellus, he did not. Quite the reverse. Alone among those I served with, he encouraged me to accept the post. We were close in those days, and I for one would have had it stay that way. But it was not to be.’
Marcellus opened his mouth to speak, to ask how such an honourable man could cease to be a close friend and how such a villain as Vegetius Flaminus, who had plainly left the same man to die, could be voted a triumph, but his father removed the opportunity.
‘You will oblige me by not interrupting me again!’
‘My apologies, father, but I wish you’d talk more of your days in the army.’
If Lucius noticed the implied hint that he talk less of politics, it didn’t show. ‘You will experience your own time as a soldier, Marcellus, so you don’t need me to tell you about my time in the legions. And beware of old soldiers’ tales, for they’re much exaggerated.’ Lucius’s brow furrowed. ‘We have a more important matter to discuss.’
Marcellus dropped his head slightly in acknowledgement.
‘Today we have to witness the crowning with oak leaves of a man who most certainly doesn’t deserve it. I laid out the facts before you yesterday for your consideration and I noted a distinct lack of enthusiasm for what I said, acceptable when suddenly confronted with an unpleasant idea, but you have had time to reflect. Now I want you to explain to me why, in acting as I have, I have pursued the appropriate course.’
Marcellus sat silent, his head still bowed. He knew the answer, or thought he did, but he was reluctant to oblige by stating it, when in his heart he knew it to be wrong. Rebellion in the Falerii household tended to be a painful experience, yet Marcellus felt the absolute necessity to do so well up in his breast.
‘Well?’ snapped Lucius.
Marcellus lifted his head sharply. ‘I cannot fathom why you have acted as you have, Father. I believe that what you have done disgraces Rome, the Senate and this house.’
He stared hard at Lucius, whose face was frozen into an angry mask. His son had never dared address him so and evidence of the shock was apparent in his eyes. No shout would emerge; that was not his father’s way. Lucius would fight to control his voice and the command to punish his son would be given in an icy, emotionless tone. The boy could not know that, much as his father disliked the idea of being checked, he also recognised that his son was growing to a point where automatic acceptance of the parental line was difficult. All sons disagreed with their parents, it was in the nature of things, and Marcellus’s youthful sense of the value of principle was not surprising; had he not been like that himself at that age? So he sat back in his chair, making an arch of his long fingers.
‘Explain.’
The words, pent up, came tumbling out, disordered and passionate. ‘Vegetius is a corrupt slug. You told me in this very room that you sent Aulus Cornelius to Illyricum to put a stop to the man’s blatant thieving. You know, acknowledge without reservation, that Vegetius left Aulus Cornelius in the lurch, left him to die like a dog so that he could come upon his triumph. Common gossip in the market-place has it that’s something he doesn’t deserve in any case, since a goodly number of the bones on his battlefield were innocent provincials, neither rebels nor invaders. How can you stand up and plead Vegetius’s cause in the Forum when you should be demanding his
