XLIII
Domitia Longina Corbulo looked out from the walls of Placentia with the flames of the city’s blazing amphitheatre dancing in her eyes.
‘You are not safe here.’
She had sensed his presence, so Valerius’s voice came as no surprise, but his words made her lips purse. Who was safe amid all this butchery? She had spent the day helping care for the wounded, tying bandages and trying to staunch wounds that would not be staunched. She had seen things that no human being had a right to see and held men as they died. When she had tried to wash the blood from her hands there always seemed to be traces left. Perhaps it would never leave her. Domitia turned to meet his gaze, hastily concealing her unease at the change a few hours had wrought. His eyes held the shadows of fresh sorrow, and exhaustion and strain had deepened the lines around them. The wound on his left cheek would leave a new scar on a face that might have been fashioned for war. ‘Were you safe today, Valerius?’
Today? Surely the moon said it had been yesterday, and the stink of blood and torn bowels answered her better than he ever could. ‘I am a soldier,’ he said simply.
The crackle of sparks drew them back to the arena. A moment passed as they watched the flames leap higher before she spoke again. ‘Will we be together?’
The change of direction momentarily confused him. Did she mean tonight, or tomorrow, or for the rest of their lives? ‘I think that is for the gods to decide.’
The angry hiss of her breath told him it was the wrong answer. ‘I have watched you, Valerius. I have seen you preserve life and I have seen you kill. You stood on these walls today like a god of old, yet you would allow them to dictate to you, to us?’
He wanted to argue, to be the man he had been when the sword was in his hand, but before he could reply Spurinna appeared with a shadowy figure at his elbow. Valerius took a step away from Domitia.
‘Lady.’ The general bowed. Domitia nodded gravely and directed a smile at the dark spectre, who turned out be Serpentius. She walked by Valerius on the way to the stairs. He watched her go and wished more than anything in this world that he could follow.
‘By the gods, if you had but been a Roman you would have had the Gold Crown today.’ Spurinna’s eyes held a glint of triumph as he commended the Spaniard. ‘It was a good plan, but it took a special man to turn it into reality. You have done the Emperor a great service and you may be assured he will hear of it.’
Serpentius spat into the darkness. He knew all too well that the gratitude of Emperors could be unreliable and short-lived. In the torchlight the gleam of his grim smile was a stark contrast to his soot-stained face, and he no longer had any eyebrows. He glared at Spurinna. ‘You said it would burn well,’ the general frowned, uncertain whether he was hearing a compliment or an accusation, ‘but you didn’t say how well. I was lucky to get out with only a singed arse …’ The gaunt Spaniard was interrupted by a great, grumbling roar from the amphitheatre. A flurry of sparks and flame shot hundreds of feet in the air as the floor of the burning arena collapsed beneath the weight of the giant siege catapults. ‘But at least they won’t be throwing rocks at us tomorrow.’
‘No.’ Valerius’s voice was deadly serious. ‘But they’ll be throwing everything else.’
‘Then we’d better be ready for them.’
The attack that began at daylight took on a new dimension. Valerius had been right. Caecina did throw everything he had at the south wall. While his auxiliaries hammered at the rampart in a repeat of the previous day’s tactics and with as much success, the men of the three legions, protected by portable wooden huts and screens they’d worked through the night to produce and hardened by years of digging forts and roads, worked to undermine the walls. Valerius tried to use fire arrows to destroy the thatched huts, but he discovered his countermeasure had been anticipated. The reeds the legionaries had used to roof the structures had been dampened and the burning shafts simply smouldered and died. Anyone who attempted to improvise an angle to loose an arrow or throw a spear at the occupants became the target of the dozens of archers placed to protect the diggers and enthusiasm for the tactic soon waned. The only victories were achieved where the piles of big stones happened to be stockpiled above the point where the legionaries were digging. A single small boulder would make little impact, but an avalanche of them smashed the shelters to splinters and crushed those inside. Juva witnessed one successful strike and later he came to Valerius during a lull in the fighting. ‘I have an idea, tribune.’