Sword of Rome(109)
With a flare of hope, he found himself in the shattered foundations of what had once been streets, with Serpentius and Domitia just ahead. He looked up to see astonished faces lining the city walls. A collective howl of frustration and rage erupted from behind him and a spear, hurled at full range, clipped his shoulder to tumble harmlessly away. The gate – where was the gate? He flinched as a flurry of arrows rattled around them like a sudden summer shower. Of course, the defenders couldn’t know they were friends. ‘Otho!’ he roared. ‘Otho Augustus!’ Serpentius and Domitia took up the cry, and whether at Otho’s name or the shrill female voice, the arrows stopped coming. Domitia’s mount stumbled and might have gone down if Serpentius hadn’t grabbed its bridle and held its head up. Their horses were almost done, red-eyed, breath snorting through flared nostrils, flanks slick with sweat. Finally they passed under the shadow of the amphitheatre, and before them appeared a pair of twin towers flanking the great wooden gate of Placentia. They clattered to a halt in front of it and Valerius called up to the defenders studying him suspiciously from the walls.
‘Otho,’ he gasped. ‘I demand entry in the name of the Emperor Marcus Salvius Otho Augustus.’
‘You’ll stay where you are or I’ll fill you so full of holes we’ll be able to use you as a window,’ a voice answered from above.
Valerius’s reply was cut off by the sound of their pursuers drawing up just outside arrow range. He dismounted and slowly drew his sword, turning to face the Batavians as Serpentius helped Domitia from the saddle and manoeuvred the horses to shield her.
The Spaniard came to his side and they waited silently as Claudius Victor slid from the saddle, followed by half of his men. Victor advanced towards the little group in front of the gate with his sword sheathed, undaunted by the spears and arrows that threatened him from the wall. The other Batavian troopers were warier, but their spears of iron-tipped ash never wavered from Valerius and Serpentius. Valerius sensed a slight figure at his side. ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ he said through clenched teeth. Domitia carried a small dagger he recognized as one he’d given her on the Egyptian beach when the mutinous crew of the Golden Cygnet were lining up to kill them.
‘This is my fight as much as yours, tribune.’ There was no time for further conversation.
‘That’s far enough.’ The warning was aimed at Claudius Victor, but the auxiliary commander ignored the shout from the walls until it was reinforced by the arrow that ricocheted from the hard-packed earth at his feet. Behind him, his troopers shambled to an uncertain halt. ‘The next one will be in your gullet.’
The Batavian surveyed the gate towers with cold grey eyes. ‘These men are thieves and murderers, the woman too. Renegades who have the blood of innocents on their hands. I claim them in the name of the Emperor.’
‘Which Emperor would that be?’
Victor shrugged, as if it was of no consequence. ‘We have no quarrel with the people of Placentia. All we ask is justice for these scum.’
‘He’s lying.’ Valerius pitched his voice just loud enough to reach the wall. ‘I carry dispatches for Marcus Salvius Otho Augustus, the only true Emperor and proclaimed so by the Senate and people of Rome. This man serves the usurper Vitellius.’
‘You came from the west,’ the voice from the wall challenged. ‘The only troops between here and Augusta Taurinorum are with Vitellius. Why would you be carrying dispatches from them? Maybe you’re a spy and this is all a trick to get you inside.’
Valerius kept his eyes on Claudius Victor and the Batavian watched him as a snake watches a mouse. ‘I passed through here less than two months ago. You have an inn on the far side of the town, called the Fat Sturgeon. I made a promise, which has yet to be fulfilled, to buy a drink for your gatekeepers, who gave me a warmer welcome than I am getting now.’
The words brought a chortle of laughter from somewhere on the wall. He could feel Victor’s hatred reaching out to him in the long pause that followed, the silence only broken by the soft murmur of a debate being conducted in whispers. Eventually, the Batavian’s patience ran out. ‘Enough of this time-wasting.’
‘Take them, then.’ It was a new voice, heavy with the ring of command. Valerius felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He saw something flare in Claudius Victor’s eyes. Domitia moved a little closer to his side, her face grim with determination, and he vowed she would not be taken alive.
Victor waved his spearmen forward, but the voice cracked like a whip. ‘No. Not them. Just you. You and one other.’