Battle For Rome: Twilight of Empire III

HISTORICAL NOTE

In AD 311 the Roman Empire stands on the brink of civil war. The unity established by the emperor Diocletian decades before has collapsed, and now four rivals contend for supreme power.

In the west, Constantine controls Gaul, Spain, Britain and the Rhine frontier. Licinius commands the central Danubian provinces, Greece and the Balkans, while Maximinus Daza rules the east and Egypt. Between them the usurper Maxentius, son of the former emperor Maximian, possesses the city of Rome itself, with Italy and North Africa.

The rival emperors prepare their troops and negotiate their alliances. All know that the coming war will decide the future of the Roman world.

PROLOGUE

Agri Decumates, Germania, December AD 311

The nine men were riding hard, bursting the silence of the winter forest. All trace of the road was gone, and they navigated only by the pale gleam of the sun through the weave of black branches overhead. Five hours the chase had lasted, and still they did not know who was pursuing them.

Up the slope between the trees, the riders crossed the bare summit of the ridge and plunged down the far side, into a narrower valley thick with dark pines. They had only ridden a short distance when the two remaining guides hauled on their reins and drew to a halt. One of them, the taller man with the red-dyed hair, raised himself in the saddle to peer between the trees, then called back. His breath plumed white in the frigid air.

‘They are ahead of us.’

‘How is that possible?’ the tribune, Ulpianus, said. He had been wounded in the morning attack, speared in the gut with a javelin, and his face was grey from loss of blood.

‘The valley goes like this,’ the guide told him, sketching a wide arc with his right arm. ‘They went around, I think.’

Ulpianus hissed between clenched teeth: ‘Find out who they are.’

The two tribesmen slipped from their saddles and began to edge down the hillside. The cries of the pursuit had fallen away now, and the slow silence of the forest was ominous. Pines groaned in the icy breeze.

‘Castus,’ the tribune said, wincing back over his shoulder. ‘To me.’ The rider behind him nudged his mount forward. He was a big man, with a thick neck and the ugly broken profile of a boxer. Like the others, he wore Germanic costume, and he had let his hair and beard grow out in a scrub of yellowish bristles. But the broadsword belted at his side and the gold torque at his collar marked him as a Roman soldier.

‘They have us surrounded,’ the tribune said. He sat hunched in the saddle, and the linen that bound his stomach was soaked through with blood. His strength was ebbing fast. ‘If we have to fight, take the package in my saddlebag and break through. Alone if necessary.’

Aurelius Castus twisted the reins between his fists, exhaled slowly. ‘I think we can make it if we stay together,’ he said. ‘I’m not leaving you, dominus.’

Ulpianus glanced at him. ‘As a Protector of the Sacred Bodyguard, you’re sworn to obey your commanding officer’s every order!’ He drew his lips back in a pained smile. ‘However, I expected you might say that We all have our duty.’

‘We will do what we are ordered…’ Castus replied, his throat tightening as he spoke the first words of the traditional soldier’s oath.

Turning in the saddle, leather creaking beneath him, he looked back at the surviving members of the group. The attackers had hit their camp in the hour before dawn, howling out of the darkness in a swift raid that had left three men dead and two more wounded. Castus knew that they could all have been slaughtered, half of them in their sleep, but the raiders had only wanted to determine their strength, their identity and their purpose. One of the guides had vanished too, captured or fled.

Two of those that remained – his friend Brinno and another man – were fellow members of the Corps of Protectores. Two more were mounted archers of the Equites Sagittarii: good soldiers, but close to exhaustion, and still shaken after the loss of their comrades. There was the single surviving slave, the tribune, and then the two guides up ahead. All them uncertain and confused.

Castus’s hands were numb as they gripped the reins, and his face felt flayed and raw from the cold. A web of aches ran from his thighs up his spine and across his shoulders. The wind breathed ice across the back of his neck, and he tried not to shudder.

Six days had passed since they had left the imperial court at Treveris. Their mission was simple enough: they were to carry a sealed package to the court of the emperor Licinius, who ruled on the Danube. Only the tribune knew what the package contained, but whatever it was must be valuable to warrant sending such a strong despatch party through barbarian country in the dead of winter. In times of peace, they could have travelled south, around the headwaters of the Rhine and up through the province of Raetia. But the governor of upper Raetia had declared his allegiance to the usurper Maxentius, controller of Italy; now Maxentian patrols ranged freely through that territory. Whatever the dangers of the barbarians, the risk of the package falling into the hands of the usurper’s men was far greater.

Castus eased back in his saddle, flexing his spine and his shoulders. He gazed at the forested hillsides around him. This wilderness between the Rhine and the Danube had once been part of the Roman Empire: the Agri Decumates, it was called. Fifty years ago there had been farms in these valleys, roads and towns, settled villas. For the last three days Castus and his party had been following the line of the old fortifications, the overgrown ditch and collapsing palisades that had once marked the edge of civilisation, now just a dead-straight scar across a wild landscape.

This was Alamannic country, but the Alamanni were bound by treaties with Rome. Either their attackers that morning had decided to ignore the treaties, Castus thought, or they too were intruders in this land, and had no treaties to break.

He looked down the slope and saw the two guides clambering back up between the trees, returning from their brief reconnaissance.

‘They wait for us, down in the valley,’ the red-haired one said. ‘They want to talk, looks like.’

‘Who are they?’ the tribune demanded.

‘Burgundii,’ said the other guide, and spat.

The guides were each from a different Alamannic tribe; the idea was, Castus supposed, that they distrusted each other more than they disliked Romans. With any luck, he thought, they hated the Burgundii even more.

‘Castus,’ Ulpianus said quietly. ‘You and Brinno go down there with the guides. Find out everything you can.’

And make sure the guides don’t betray us, Castus thought as he shook his reins.

They moved through the trees, leaning back in their saddles as the horses picked their way downhill into the valley. Castus was not a good horseman at the best of times; his mount was big, powerful, but it was also ill tempered and had a heavy gait. Ahead of him, Castus could see the two guides talking. They too seemed in a bad mood.

‘What are they saying?’ he asked Brinno, who rode just behind him. Brinno was a younger man than Castus, lean and sinewy; he was Frankish himself, a chieftain’s son born in the barbarian lands near the mouth of the Rhine, but had lived in Treveris these last twelve years. The language of the Franks and the Alamanni was similar enough.

‘The dark one wants to sell us to the Burgundii, I think,’ Brinno said.

‘And our red-haired friend?’

Brinno grinned, showing the gaps in his broken teeth. ‘He wants to wait. Maybe we meet somebody who will pay better!’

Castus felt a knot of tension slip in his chest. Brinno was a good man to have at his side. They had trained together, and stood side by side in battle before. He trusted the young Frank as much as he had ever trusted another man. As much as he had ever trusted anybody.

The slope levelled, and they rode slowly out from the cover of the trees onto the open valley floor. A shallow stream flowed wide over a shingle bed, the water glinting with ice between the rocks. The air was so cold down here it hurt to breathe. Almost too cold for fear; Castus just wanted this to be over, and soon. He could see the moon, a perfect white half-circle low above the treetops; only an hour or two of daylight remained.

On the level ground at the far side of the stream the Burgundii were waiting. Four of them, sitting with careful idleness on their shaggy little horses. Castus glanced quickly right and left. As many again on either side, just within the trees. Beyond them the valley narrowed, with high spurs of rock showing between the pines. A bottleneck. He realised that their pursuers had been herding them to this exact spot. Reaching beneath his cloak, he tugged at his sword hilt, freeing the blade from the cold lock of the scabbard mouth.

Leaning forward over his saddle horns, Castus surveyed the enemy riders. They wore capes of animal pelts, and each man had a wolf’s tail hanging from his shield. One had a red tunic, and his hair hung in neat braids – the chief, Castus guessed – but the others looked rough-edged and thick-bearded after many days of hard living. Their weapons were clean enough though, spears and broadswords, and the men had the look of fighters.

The two guides were talking, the Burgundii answering them in curt dismissive phrases. Castus heard Brinno sniff in disgust.

‘How many do you count?’ he said quietly, barely moving his lips.

‘Four right there, four more up the slopes on each side,’ Brinno replied.

Castus nodded. ‘Twelve, and nine of us. Not bad odds.’

‘You include the guides?’

‘All right, seven of us.’

‘One a wounded man who can hardly sit on a horse?’

‘Six, then.’

‘One a slave?’

‘So, five… What are you saying?’

Brinno gave a slow shrug and widened his eyes. ‘Nothing, brother. Only… if we go at them we have to go hard.’

Then he grinned again, and Castus found himself smiling back.

The conference was over, the two guides turning their horses and cantering back across the stream. Their expressions gave nothing away, but Castus already knew what they had to report. As they climbed slowly up the slope he told himself not to look back.

‘They say we can pass, but we have to surrender our weapons and horses,’ he informed Ulpianus and the others waiting below the ridge. ‘And the gold or valuables we’re carrying too.’

‘Valuables?’ said the other Protector.

‘The guide they captured this morning must have told them that,’ the tribune said. ‘Probably hoping to save his skin.’ He drew himself up in the saddle, his face tightening with the strain. ‘Listen,’ he told them. ‘We ride down there slowly, keeping close together, guides on the flanks. We get to within fifty paces of them, then at my signal we charge… every man for himself, cut your way through them and keep riding until we’re past. Understood?’

Nods all round. No words were necessary. Castus caught the tribune’s glance, and his eye went to the saddlebag.

Wind whipped at the treetops as they made their last preparations. Each man dismounted, checking his horse tack and equipment. Those who had wine or water drank and passed the canteens. Then they swung back into their saddles, loosening swords, the archers flexing their bows. Castus raised his arms above his head, warming his muscles, and felt the burn of blood flowing to his numbed hands. He retied the leather grip of his hunting spear, jabbed the weapon right and left, then propped it across his saddle bow and pulled the cloak back around him. Then they began the descent into the valley.

The Burgundii were still waiting on the far side of the stream, but their brothers had closed in from either side, watching as the Roman column moved out from the pines and forded the shallow icy water. Castus was riding in the lead, with Brinno to his right and Ulpianus just behind to his left. They were out of the water now, the horses shivering and blowing steam as they climbed the bank onto the level ground. Sixty paces. The Burgundii were shifting, spreading out ahead of them.

Fifty paces. No word from Ulpianus.

Forty. The Burgundii were lifting their spears, backing their horses. They had to attack now, Castus thought. Either that or halt.

He risked a glance back at Ulpianus. The tribune was swaying in his saddle, eyes closed, one arm clasped to his belly.

Gods below. Castus swept the spear free of his cloak and kicked his heels. ‘Go!’ he yelled, and the word rang in the frozen air.

His horse heaved, then surged forward into a headlong charge that almost threw him from the saddle. Behind him he could hear Brinno’s scream of rage, then the noise of the wind erased all sound and for three heartbeats he felt airborne, flung forward with the spear whirling out and the bright blade flashing in the sunlight.

Two men ahead of him urged their horses together to trap him. Castus was almost on them when he hauled the reins sharply; his big horse jinked, forelegs off the ground, then slammed into the rider to the left. Castus swung forward with the impact, punching down with the spear as his horse kicked out at the other animal. The spear went wide; he pulled back his arm to strike again but the rider was already falling from the saddle, tumbling beneath the hooves.

A sword lashed in from his right, and Castus swayed backwards as the blade cut the air before his chest. He turned his spear clumsily and got the shaft of it up with both hands to block the next attack. The other rider was close, the two horses shoving together; the sword came down and chopped into the spearshaft, and when the Burgundian dragged his blade free the shaft broke. Castus hurled the stump of the broken spear at the man’s head, then reached beneath his cloak for his sword.

His hand found only bunched wool; his belts had twisted and the weapon was out of reach. The Burgundian’s face was alight with triumph as he raised his sword for the killing blow. A jolt went through him; Castus’s horse had lashed its head round and bitten the other animal on the neck. Castus leaned quickly from the saddle, ramming his arm across the Burgundian’s shoulder and grappling his neck. Before the man could regain control of his panicking horse Castus had dragged him half out of the saddle. He punched his fist into the side of the man’s head, once, twice, very fast; then the other horse bolted clear. Castus heard the crunch of the Burgundian’s neck as he let him drop.

Sun was in his eyes, everything dazzling, and the air seemed too thin to breathe. Twisting, he looked back and saw Ulpianus slouched in the saddle as his horse circled and pawed the ground. Three enemy riders were closing in from the valley slope, whooping as they came; an arrow struck one of them and he flung up his legs and tumbled back over the haunches of his mount.

Cursing, Castus wrestled his own horse around and then seized the tribune’s reins. Groping through the folds of his cloak he found the hilt of his sword and with a sharp tug he drew the weapon free. To his right, Brinno was in combat with another rider, the two of them circling as they traded grimly precise blows. The Burgundian chief, the man with the braids, had got behind Brinno and was raising his spear to strike. Castus urged his horse into a swift canter that closed the distance between them fast; the Burgundian chief was still watching Brinno as Castus yelled and slashed his sword down. The blade sheared off the back of the man’s skull. Blood sprayed pink in the clean air, and Castus felt the heat of it spattering his face and chest. A moment later Brinno’s adversary was down too.

‘Go!’ Brinno was shouting. ‘We’re clear – go!’

A rapid glance back to check that Ulpianus was still gripping tight to his saddle, then Castus was spurring on after Brinno, the tribune’s reins burning as they dug into his fist. There were two more Burgundians up ahead, cantering down from the trees. One look at the bloodied, screaming riders galloping towards them and they turned and retreated.

Wind roared, hooves battered at stones and frozen turf, then the muffled darkness of the wooded valley rose on either side, and Castus knew, through the haze of violent energy, that they had survived.

They reached the dead town as dusk deepened into night. They had been following an old road that ran straight through the wilderness, and saw nothing at first but the trees and the undergrowth around them. Then the broken walls appeared from the gathering darkness, and the riders saw the pillars among the clumps of frosted ivy, the shattered hulks of buildings lost in tangled scrub.

‘We should be safe here, for a time,’ said the red-haired guide. His comrade had not made it through the fight; whether dead, fled or surrendered, nobody knew or cared. ‘Burgundii don’t come to these old places. Like tombs, they say. Too many ghosts.’

‘What sort of ghosts?’ asked the young slave from the rear of their little column. Besides Castus and Brinno, and the wounded tribune, only he and one of the archers remained of the despatch party.

‘Ghosts of Romans!’ the guide declared with a note of wry pride. ‘Killed by my ancestors, maybe, hmm?’

They rode in silence, the town taking form around them even as the dark increased. The wide expanse of weeds and tangled scrub ahead would have been the forum once, Castus guessed. On the far side stood a large building, an old basilica perhaps, with a stepped entrance and part of the roof still remaining.

‘In there,’ he said.

Dismounting, they led the horses through the wide portal and tethered them at the back of the hall, amidst a wrack of fallen roof timbers and rubble overgrown with ferns and long grass. They lifted Ulpianus down from his horse; the tribune was feverish and mumbling, and they wrapped him in his fur-lined cloak and laid him in the far corner on a bed of ferns with the slave to watch over him. The shell of the old building protected them from the breeze at least, but outside it the night stood around them like a black wall of ice.

Castus took the first watch, with the guide. He pulled a fur hat down over his ears and crouched beside the open doorway, trying to suppress the shivers that ran through his body. As he stared into the darkness he began to make out the shapes of the ruins in the faint moonlight. Ghosts out there, he thought. The unquiet dead. He remembered something he had been told once, far away in the north of Britain. One day all our works will be like this. Nothing more than hummocks in the turf, for savages to wonder over… He remembered that the man who said those words was long dead too.

‘River is south of here,’ the guide said, mumbling through the fur edging his cloak. ‘Two hours’ good riding. Bridge is there somewhere. Far side – Roman territory.’

‘Whose?’ Castus asked. ‘Licinius’s or Maxentius’s?’

He saw the man shrug, the slightest shift of the bunched furs, as if the affairs of Romans were of little interest to him. ‘Licinius? But maybe best to ask first, hmm?’

Castus nodded. ‘And the Burgundii? Will they come after us tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ the guide said. ‘They out there now.’ His chin jutted towards the dark edge of the ruined town. ‘They waiting.’

The hours passed, silent and fiercely cold, then Brinno came to relieve him and Castus crept back to the roll of blankets his friend had left still warm. He stretched out, his sword laid ready beside him, and pulled the blankets over his ears, but sleep did not come. For a long while he felt himself lying suspended in darkness, the cold pressing on him from all sides. Castus thought of his wife, Valeria Domitia Sabina; for six days, since leaving Treveris, he had tried to avoid thinking about her. Tried, and failed of course. Her image came to him now, keen and clear, warming his senses. He felt the blood stir in his body. He thought of Sabina, and of their son, only four months old when this mission had summoned him away from them. Every night they had filled his mind, and every morning he had banished them. It was too painful to imagine he might never see either of them again.

Memory eased him from wakefulness, and in moments he had plunged down into sleep.

‘Dominus? Dominus!’ The slave was shaking his shoulder. Castus woke quickly, one hand grabbing for the sword beside him. The cold flared against his skin as he pulled the blankets from his head. Still dark, deep night; the tribune was calling for him, the slave said.

Castus crossed the hall, groping in the blackness between the heaps of rubble, timbers and brambles. Ulpianus still lay where they had left him, but he was awake now, his eyes catching the faintest hint of moonlight through the broken roof. As Castus eased himself down beside him, the tribune reached out and seized his arm in a strong grip.

‘Can’t feel the pain now,’ he said, and his voice was thin and strained but clear. ‘Too cold… a mercy, at least. You must take the package. Do it tonight, before dawn. I am consigning it to you. Take it and complete the mission. Deliver it to the emperor Licinius.’

‘I understand, dominus,’ Castus said. ‘I’ll do it.’ There was no point in denying it now. Both of them knew that the tribune would not be leaving that place alive.

The horses stirred in the darkness. Castus went to move away but Ulpianus still held him, using the last of his strength. ‘Don’t you want to know what the package contains?’ the tribune said. His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

‘No,’ Castus said. He glanced up, and noticed that the slave had crept back into the deeper shadows, out of hearing.

‘You don’t want to know what your life’s worth?’

He could hear the smile in the tribune’s words. No, he thought, I do not. Then he thought of Sabina, of his son. Of all that he could lose.

‘Tell me.’

The grip on his arm slackened, as if the tribune was discharging something that had weighed him down for a long time. ‘The package contains a letter,’ he said. ‘A formal offer of alliance between our emperor Constantine and his brother emperor Licinius… against the usurper Maxentius.’

Castus said nothing. He could have guessed as much.

‘Also,’ Ulpianus went on, halting, ‘the letter requests that in the coming spring Licinius deploy his forces south towards the Alps… as if he intends to invade Italy from the north-east. This will cause the usurper to move his own troops towards Aquileia… to guard the eastern approaches. His western flank will be left open…’

‘And Constantine will invade from the west,’ Castus breathed. He sensed the tribune’s nod.

‘So you see,’ Ulpianus said, ‘the success of our armies is in your hands now. If the package is intercepted by Maxentius’s agents… the plan will fail utterly.’

‘It won’t,’ Castus said. But he was already feeling the weight of the burden.

‘There’s something else,’ the tribune went on. ‘An offer of marriage… with Constantine’s sister. The package contains a portrait of her, an enamelled miniature. I’ve seen it – it hardly looks like her at all. She’s… not glamorous. But Licinius… has no taste for women anyway…’

The words seemed to pain him now, and Castus could hear the gasp and lock of his breathing. Even in the cold air he could smell death.

‘Castus,’ the tribune cried, grabbing him again.

‘What, dominus?’ He hunched over the prone figure, leaning closer.

‘Don’t…’ the tribune said, and his voice wavered and cracked. ‘Don’t let the dogs eat my flesh. Pile stones on me – promise…’

Castus gripped the man’s shoulder, a reassuring pressure. He could feel the feverish heat of Ulpianus’s body even through his thick clothing. ‘And be careful,’ the tribune said. ‘Be careful in Treveris… you must… It’s dangerous, brother. Your wife…’

‘Yes…?’ Castus said. Cold dread pushed suddenly at his heart.

He could hear the dying man struggling to breathe, struggling to form words. Something wet choked in his throat. The hand clasping his arm tightened, and then fell slack. Castus reached for the man’s face in the darkness, holding his palm over the open mouth. He felt nothing, no slight warm stir of breath.

‘Why did you say that?’ he asked the dead man. Doubt clawed at his back, and he shuddered. Then he pulled the fur cape over the tribune’s body.

* * *

They left the dead town in the first pale seep of dawn. The hooves of the horses were bound with rags, the men’s weapons muffled, and they moved on foot, leading the animals behind them. It seemed even colder, the air itself frozen, and the world was almost eclipsed by white fog. Frost lay so thick on the trees and the overgrown ruins that the town seemed carved from brittle ice, and the ground creaked beneath their feet as they walked.

The guide had vanished in the night, and none of them were surprised by that. Now Brinno took the lead, with Castus and the slave following and the sole remaining archer bringing up the rear. Inside his tunic, Castus carried the package he had taken from the tribune’s saddlebag. It was hardly larger than a man’s hand, and sewn tightly into waxed linen. Such a small thing, he thought, to risk so many lives for.

Once they reached what looked like the town boundary they mounted up and began to ride, slowly at first. The fog swirled around them, and the sound of the padded hooves was a dull thudding on the old mossy paving of the road. The world around them seemed utterly deserted, devoid of life. But they had travelled only a mile from the town when the fog began to lift and they realised they were not alone.

‘Left flank,’ Brinno said under his breath. ‘Three, maybe four.’

‘Same on the right,’ Castus said. ‘They’re shadowing us.’ He kicked his heels and his mount broke into a fast trot. From the fog to either side came the sound of voices, calling and responding.

Cresting a rise, the riders saw the hills dropping away before them onto a wide flat plain, billowing with low mist. On the far horizon was a grey smudge, like a line drawn with a man’s thumb on frosted metal. The Danube.

‘Last ride!’ Brinno said, grinning. The four of them had slowed, grouping together. Without another word they leaned from their saddles and clasped hands, the differences between them forgotten. From either side they could hear the wild cries as the Burgundian horsemen closed in around them. Then, as one, they whipped their reins and began to gallop.

Castus was in the lead now, hunched low over the saddle with the cold breeze rushing around his head and tugging at his cloak. The motion of the horse sent shocks up his spine; he tried to lift himself in the saddle but he was weary and his limbs were heavy. The world raced by in a blur of dirty whiteness.

A scream from behind him; Castus glanced back and saw the archer tumble from his saddle, the slim black shaft of a javelin jutting from his side. He knew he could not urge his horse to any greater speed: there were still miles to go before the river, and the animal was tiring fast. The young slave went galloping past him, flogging his lighter pony into a headlong charge. Another figure loomed from the mist; Castus thought it was Brinno, but then he saw the raised spear. He tried to shout but the wind punched the breath from his mouth. The spear flew, striking the slave between the shoulders and knocking him from the pony.

Brinno had a javelin stuck through the folds of his cloak. As Castus turned to look back at him, his friend plucked the weapon free and hurled it. One of the barbarians went down. There was another of them ahead, urging his horse up onto the road; Castus swept out his sword, levelling the long blade like a lance. The Burgundian barely had time to rein in his mount before Castus was onto him, driving the sword at his face. The man reeled, toppling from the saddle, and Castus rode on.

For a few long moments he was conscious of nothing but speed and the cutting rush of the frozen air. The sun had risen, and lit the fog with an unearthly grey-white radiance, and Castus had the strange conviction that he passed from the world of the living into some cold hazy afterlife.

He realised that he was alone on the road. Only the noise of his own horse’s hooves battering at the hard ground, his own heaving breath. Hauling at the reins, he looked back and saw Brinno some distance behind him, his horse lamed and limping. Around him dark shapes were moving through the grey murk. Without thinking, Castus wrenched at the reins and turned his horse towards his friend.

‘Get up behind me!’ Castus called to him. He was already shunting forward on the saddle. He saw Brinno shake his head.

‘No time,’ the younger man called. He raised his sword in salute, and grinned. ‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll hold them – go! Make this worthwhile, brother!’

The first of the Burgundians was already galloping towards him.

With a hiss of anguish Castus watched as the enemy riders closed in around his friend. He knew there was nothing he could do – except die at Brinno’s side. And then all of their deaths would have been in vain.

We all have our duty… He dragged at the reins again; his horse reared, then spun on its rear legs and dropped into a heavy gallop towards the river. Castus closed his eyes, closed his throat against the wrenching cry trapped in his chest.

Ten heartbeats, and he risked a glance back. Brinno was still there, still fighting against the whirl of men that surrounded him. Then, at that very moment, Castus saw the spear darting in to strike his friend in the side. He saw Brinno crumple and fall from the saddle. Then he turned away, howling through clenched teeth into the steady snarl of the wind.

The road curved ahead of him; with a rush of choking horror Castus saw more of the riders appearing, coming from the flat misty plain to the right to cut him off. He sawed at the reins, swaying in the saddle as the horse crashed off the road and through the tangle of bushes onto the frost-crusted meadowland to the left. The river was there, clearer now, achingly close. It looked very wide, and there was no sign of a bridge. The horse was labouring over the broken ground, blowing hard, its neck and quarters steaming, and Castus could barely keep himself in the saddle.

As he neared the river he saw the ice, a pale grey sheet of it stretching from the bank to the ribbon of open black water in midstream. There was an island about fifty paces out, low and thickly grown with scrub, and the ice had filled the channel between it and the nearer bank.

Shouts from the right: the pursuers had left the road and ridden across country to meet the riverbank. More of them were coming up behind, their ululating cries carrying strangely in the mist. Castus let his horse slow as it neared the riverbank. He urged it on the last distance, through the crackling reeds and scrub to the edge of the frozen water. Birds burst up from the undergrowth and flapped wildly away across the ice.

The riders sounded exultant now, seeing him trapped against the river. Castus reached beneath his cloak and checked that the package was still safely secured inside his tunic. Then he slipped from the saddle, feeling pain burst through the muscles of his thighs and back. He looked again at the ice. It might carry the weight of a man, but not a horse. If he could get across to the island, would his pursuers dare to follow? He drew his sword, took a last glance back at the approaching riders, then slapped the horse across the haunches with the flat of his blade.

The animal flinched, then staggered up from the back, too exhausted to run. Castus was already scrambling down onto the ice, wrapping his cloak tight around his body, his sword held clear. He had thought to use it to probe ahead of him, but as soon as his boots were on the ice he was skating, flinging his arms out for balance. He could hear the approaching riders; from the corner of his eye he saw a flung javelin dart black against the sky.

Ice groaned beneath his weight, but he forced himself onward, legs spread wide for grip and balance. Too slow – he pitched forward onto his hands, feeling the cold striking into his arms; then he began dragging himself. Deep cracking noises came from beneath him. He could feel the water moving below the ice. For the first time he realised that he was about to die. He would lose his life in a frozen barbarian wasteland, and nobody would know. A gasp of laughter burst from his pit of his chest; then all he felt was a furious rage. He was scrambling on all fours, hands and knees sliding on the ice.

Get up, he thought. Get up and run. Another spear hit the ice to his left. He was shuddering, feverish, grinding his teeth as he tried to stand. With a heave he got his feet under him, hobnailed boots gritting into the ice. Three staggering strides and he felt the surface of the river beginning to break into a web of fractures. The island was only ten paces away now – he could make it.

With a noise like a heavy beam breaking, the ice beneath him gave and Castus felt himself pitching sideways. One snatched gulp of air, then the water burst around him and he was in the river, the weight of his heavy cloak and boots dragging him down. For a moment he was aware only of darkness; then the cold seized him like an iron fist closing around his chest, and he blew out air in a foaming torrent. Blood hammered in his skull; he could not tell where the surface was. He felt himself drowning, fighting, dying.

Then one hand struck the ice; he grabbed and gripped, hauling his head up above the surface. Cold burned him, and he was screaming as he tried to suck air. The ice broke up even as he tried to pull himself onto it. He was facing back towards the riverbank. Two horses, riderless, cantering in the distance. As he stared, everything looked very clear and bright. Something split the air above his head and he heard a cry. A man fell from a third horse.

Rolling, Castus managed to get one arm up onto the chunk of ice and look behind him. Heat flared in his chest, and he shouted incoherently. Out in the open stream of the river, moving from behind the island, was a slim twenty-oared patrol galley trailing a Roman pennant. Oval shields along the rail, and a pair of ballistae mounted fore and aft. As Castus stared he saw the catapult arms jerk, sending another bolt skimming across the frozen water at the Burgundians on the bank. A smaller boat was nosing through the shattered ice into the island channel, oarsmen pulling hard.

He tried to shout again, but the cold locked his throat, then a wave of violent shudders ripped through him and he lost his grip on the ice. Water closed over his head, and he knew only blackness.

Moments might have passed; maybe hours. He was aware of being dragged from the water, the sodden weight of his clothing hauling at his limbs. When he opened his eyes he was hunched on the narrow deck boards of the galley, and all around him were raised shields and levelled spears. A soldier’s face, reddened by the cold, shouting at him.

‘Who are you? Speak Latin? Identify yourself!’

He tried to speak, but he was shivering uncontrollably and gasping for breath. Pulling his shoulders up, he forced himself to meet the soldier’s stare.

‘Aurelius Castus…’ he said, grinding out the words. ‘Protector of the Sacred Bodyguard… of the Emperor Constantine…’ He gritted his teeth, held his head up.

The soldier turned to somebody behind him. His red face twisted into a smile, and when he leaned forward again there was a leather mug in his hand.

‘We’re with the Fifth Cohort Valeria Phrygum,’ he said. ‘Loyal to Licinius.’

Castus took the mug in both hands, breathing in the scent of warmed wine.

‘Drink deep, brother,’ the soldier said.

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

January AD 312

In a