Rome 4: The Art of War by M. C. Scott Read Free Book Online

predecessor, the emperor Galba.
    Vitellius – or at least his brother Lucius – would happily have cut Galba’s throat with his own knife, if someone else had held him still. But it had been done by the Guards, whose duty was and is to defend any emperor’s life with their own, and no emperor was going to feel safe in the company of men who had already been suborned into killing one of their charges and might equally do so again. Which is why they had all been dismissed and the new Guard raised from those of us whose loyalty had been demonstrated on the field.
    Thus itwas that on that day, the day of our investiture, each of us hundred and sixty new centurions had been given the name of one of the transgressors – there were plenty to go round beyond the hundred and twenty of the old Guard – with orders to kill on sight.
    If it were only that, I might have been happy, or tranquil at least. But it was not. The emperor’s brother, Lucius, had called me into his office the night before and that was when my life had changed for the worse.
    It was the last hour of the dusk watch and I had been walking past Caecina’s quarters in the barracks above the Quirinal hill when I heard him call my name.
    Turning, I had found the general standing in the doorway, beckoning me. I followed him into the legate’s office, and there, seated behind a small table next to the only brazier, was Lucius Vitellius. Even then, he was considered the most dangerous man in Rome. The emperor, as we have said, was pot-bellied, lame and prone to drinking through the night. Darker and more saturnine, his brother Lucius was abstemious, fast as a snake and twice as vicious.
    I knelt so fast I cracked my knees on the marble floor. I had no idea if I was actually required to kneel before the emperor’s brother, but you’d have to think it wise at least to begin there.
    A moment’s silence followed, and then a sigh. ‘Get up, centurion!’
    The voice was soft, rolling, almost friendly. I have heard inquisitors speak like that before they break a man. Rising, I kept my eyes on the floor.
    Lucius said, ‘You were in Rome on the night of the fire five years ago, is that correct?’
    ‘It is, lord. I was sent back from my legion by—’
    ‘Thank you, we don’t need details. We need someone who can identify the spy, Pantera, also known as the Leopard. He was withNero on the night of the fire. I am told he controlled much of the defences?’
    I was about to deny any knowledge of who did what – that night was a flame-filled horror of which I remember mercifully little, although my dreams since have been plagued by the stench of burned flesh, and the sound of children screaming – but there was a moment after, in the strange calm of the morning …
    ‘Lord, does he bear a scar on his face above one eye, and is he stiff in the left ankle?’
    Lucius glanced at Caecina, who nodded.
    They both stared at me, so I went on with what I knew. ‘I was with Nero in his flower garden at dawn the following morning. I was on duty there. He and this man – Pantera – had a … discussion …’ Do you say to the emperor’s brother that a man argued with an emperor and did not die for it? Nero was different then; there were still people who were not required to kneel in his presence.
    I took a glance at Lucius and decided these were details he didn’t need. In fact, now that I studied him properly, he looked like a man who’d had little sleep with no promise of more to come.
    His hair hung black to his brow and there were dark circles under his eyes. If he’d been shaved, it was not in the past day. It was said that the emperor planned to leave Rome soon, to escape the stench of a city in summer, the press of an empire’s attention, the constant clamour of those who craved his smile, his word, his law.
    In his place, it was said, he planned to leave his brother to carry the weight of the empire, and what man can say that wasn’t the worst of burdens?
    Not