 
### Table of Contents

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE: A WALL OF SWORDS

CHAPTER TWO: THE POINT OF HONOR

CHAPTER THREE: THE EMPEROR'S GENERAL

CHAPTER FOUR: THE USURPER

CHAPTER FIVE: THE STERN HAND OF THE FATHER

CHAPTER SIX: THE RULE OF THE PACK

CHAPTER SEVEN: BY DIVINE SANCTION

CHAPTER EIGHT: FOR ONE EMPEROR TO RISE...
Prologue

It is the middle of the Third Century AD, and Rome is teetering on the edge of a full-blown crisis. Along its borders, bands of ruthless barbarians prey upon the empire's weakening provinces, while closer to home, Christianity, a radical new religion from the east, threatens to tear apart the unity of the people.

For years, Rome has ruled much of the known world in relative peace, and this has made both common citizens and Senators alike complacent, lulled by a false sense of security.

And yet all of that is about to change.

As the centuries have passed, the supremacy which the Romans always enjoyed has eroded, and it has become all too apparent, to an insightful few, that the balance of power is about to shift, away from civilization and order, and towards chaos and war.

Outside the range of the Imperial armies, the power of the barbarian tribes has been steadily growing, particularily that of the Ostrogoths, who reside just beyond the Danube River, and they are making ever more frequent and devastating raids.

But is this inevitable? And can the tide still be turned?

It will take an emperor of great skill and determination to both reinvigorate the army, and restore the people's faith in their own greatness, and their right to rule!

But will such a man arise, and could it already be too late?
CHAPTER ONE:

A WALL OF SWORDS

Moesia, 248 AD:

A Roman border province on the Istra, or Danube River

The sounds of battle preparation ring in the his ears: clinking armor, whinnying horses, orders shouted by officers with rough voices, brass horns blaring out the signalled commands, everything muffled in the thick fog of early morning.

The centurion knows the enemy is up there, hidden in the thicket of trees on the top of the hill; can't see them, or even smell them, though the bear fat they use to wash themselves reeks. But his instincts are good, honed to a sharp point after years of fighting under the harshest of conditions, and he trusts them.

The barbarians have found the high ground, probably think that they have outwitted the Roman cohorts that have been doggedly pursuing them for the last three days. But one thing is certain: they must be exhausted; he knows because his own men are very tired, and they are one of the toughest legions in the entire Imperial Army, the VII Claudia of Fort Viminacium.

'Legionaries on me!' First Spear Centurion Tiberius Marinus Pacatianus bellows, then grips his sword, draws it in one swift and practiced motion from its scabbard, and raises it high above his head so his men can see him. 'Form up! I want a solid defensive line. Lock shields... Look alive!'

He is not a large man, is rather short in fact, but his words carry great weight to the soldiers who know he is one of the toughest officers around, and they scurry to fulfill his orders as quickly as possible. The assembly line is shoulder to shoulder, jostling, fitting the edges of their shields tightly together, and gripping the shafts of their javelins, now ready to throw them at a second's notice.

A sense of urgency and fear runs through the ranks. Pacatianus can sense it palpably as he paces stiffly back and forth past the neat rows of troops. He issues commands, and tries to instill courage by example; his own rarely wavers, not anymore at least. But he understands. It is normal before a battle to get jittery; also knows they will do their duty when the time comes, as it will very soon; had trained them himself. These men are amongst the finest the empire can put into the field, are the guardians of the most savage part of the borderlands, where the feared Gothic warriors live, just beyond the mountains in the wild hinterlands, and it is here that they most often launch their looting raids.

These soldiers have seen it all before; are veterans of a hundred fights, and a hundred victories.

But when will the barbarians ever learn?

They are in position, are ordered to be silent, and to listen for the enemy. No sounds come. No movement. Only waves of slow fog that wash over them, and between. The wet smoke writhes and coils like the restless souls of malevolent snakes, and chills them to the bone. The tension is so thick it is like the air itself. The three cohorts of eighty men each have taken up the traditional rectangular formations, one cohort in front, and two behind.

Centurion Pacatianus again looks to the hilltop, straining his eyes. Not even the stirring of a leaf. He has little respect for the barbarians' strategic abilities when it comes to a pitched battle, all they think of is to smash and grab, but they are sneaky, and know how to mount deadly ambushes, as the Roman army has learnt many times before to its detriment.

If he were a less capable officer, he might be tempted to try to take the hill by force, but that would only play nicely its the Goths' plans. They would simply await his approach, and then sling rocks and arrows at him from on high. Much better to try to lure them down than to smoke them out with flaming arrows, as the trees are still wet from a light shower the night before.

He has thought ahead, has sent two units of sixty mounted auxiliary cavalry and archers to circle round either side of the forested hill, and then to ascend, at the signal, up the rear and sides, loosing rocks and arrows as they go, while meanwhile, his legionaries form a solid wall of swords in front.

It never ceases to amaze him that after all the centuries that Romans and barbarians had spent fighting each other, the enemy has only ever learnt to imitate the Romans' superior weapons and armor, but have not learned much about the planning and organization that goes into forming an effective battle line. They always seem obssessed with running pell-mell straight at their opponents, always trying to win individual glory, rather than working as a unit, which is why they most often fail.

Still, it never pays to underestimate them.

Pacatianus paces back and forth at the far right end of his forward-most cohort, the most dangerous spot to be because it is the most exposed position during an enemy onslaught. It is the only place he will allow himself to stand. He is proud of how still and silent his men are; they barely move, or breath, and for all their armor plating, no metal on metal scraping can be heard.

The sun is just beginning to come up over the back of the hill, and it hovers on the horizon, an orange disc seen through gauze.

He knows the enemy to be of inferior quality to his own highly disciplined legionaires, but they still outnumber the Romans. There are, by his best guess, about four hundred of the invaders left alive out of the original thousand they had started with. No doubt they are aware they have been surrounded after spotting his cavalry and archers, and this will only make them swear to fight with every last breath in their bodies, fearing the shame of being captured alive more than even than death itself.

From the trees on the hill, a Gothic war horn echoes. It makes a low, plaintive, and yet somehow aggressive sound as it travels through the fog. Its call is meant to strike fear into the Romans, as it signifies not only the barbarians' lurking presence, but also their intention to take no prisoners. And there is worse to come, for just as the horn's call dies out, it is soon followed by a shrill, blood-curdling shriek which comes from the hundreds of warriors, made all the more terrifying because they cannot be seen.

Pacatianus has heard this cry dozens of times before, and knows the fear it can strike into the heart of any man who wishes to preserve his life, or his head. Murmers break out amongst the legionaries, and they begin to shift uneasily, while beams of morning sunlight cut through the trees of the hill-top like a dozen sharp spears, and only add to the unearthly effect of the scene. The centurion knows well that panic can spread more rapidly than wildfire through the ranks if it is not quelled immediately, and that a terror-stricken army is about as useful as a bleating lamb ready only for slaughter.

'Quiet there. Stand fast!' he calls out.

Luckily, he has found a good position to make his stand, a flat clearing, and has assembled far enough away from the hill so that when the barbarians do attack, they will have to run for at least a hundred yards, thus dissipating their power. He has tried to think of everything, as a good commander should. The weather, the ground, the state of his troops' minds. And yet, in a battle, nothing ever goes according to plan -quite the opposite usually.

His men know they cannot afford to lose this battle, know without having to be told.

This particular war-band invaded Moesia Superior three days before; has looted and pillaged and raped their way through every village they come to, leaving nothing but smoking ashes in their wake, and the bodies of their many victims. If they are not killed, or at least driven back across the border, such a failure on the part of the military will only encourage other tribes to try to defy the might of Rome.

When he heard the report about the thousand-strong army of Goths, the superior officer in the region, Legate Aelius, ordered that five cohorts of legionaries, and five of auxiliaries were to deal with the problem. The Legate did not think the force of invaders sufficiently threatening either to warrent the use of more men, nor to justify his own personal involvement, and so entrusted the honor to his most experienced centurion, Pacatianus.

Or at least this is the official story, the one that will end up in the reports being sent to Rome.

The real truth, as Pacatianus knows, is that Legates are most often not professional soldiers, and only want to see out their mandatory terms of service on the border provinces as quietly and peacefully as possible. The harsh realities of protecting the borders are left to professionals like Pacitianus, men who started out poor and risen through the ranks based on merit of character and fighting ability alone.

This suits the centurion fine, he loves the life of a soldier, and wouldn't trade it for the most splendid of comforts that this life can provide. He is well-loved by his men, not just feared or respected, and drinks and whores with the best of them. He IS a common soldier in many ways, only better, and tougher at everything, and ambitious, always wanting more: more authority, more commands, more military glory. It makes him chafe to think that others with less ability are able to rise higher than he based merely on the fact that they have been born into wealth and privilege.

He has to brush such thoughts aside now though.

Behind the battle lines, in the clearing, crews are setting up Ballistas, large wooden crossbows on mounted supports, that can launch heavy iron bolts into enemy formations, thus breaking up the strength of frontal assaults. But the Centurion will not press his attack, and hopes the Goths will not press theirs, at least until his artillery can be made ready.

Within moments the winches are cranked, the bolts placed on their runners, and the Optio in charge of the Ballistas shouts that he is prepared to fire all six weapons.

On the right side of the hill, from amongst some tall grasses, Pacatianus suddenly catches a glimpse of a red banner being waved back and forth, the agreed-upon signal from his auxiliaries to be given when they are in position, and ready to strike.

So far his plan is working.

He turns to his second-in-command, a head centurion by the name of Agrippa, a man he trusts.

'Order the signal to be given!' he barks at the officer.

'Yes, Centurion,' says Agrippa, and motions at a flag signaller to his rear.

A legionary with a red banner steps forward, and begins waving it slowly back and forth so the auxiliaries on the hill can see him, and know the time has come.

Almost at once the archers in the tall grasses rise up, stretch their bows taut with a practiced motion, aim for the clouds, and let loose a swarm of arrows. The angle of the hill is awkward for them, and there are no visible targets anyway; better to fire high above the treetops, and let the shafts come down like barbed rain onto the sheltered enemy. Not many arrows or stones will find their marks this way, but enough will.

While the legionaries watch this scene unfold they do not cheer, not because they don't want to -on the contrary- but their training has taught them to supress all emotion till the time of battle, and such a display of willpower on the part of his men makes the First Spear Centurion extremely proud.

Now the only sound to be heard is that of the slicing of the air, as more and more arrows fall down onto the Goths below, and then the cries of those who have been hit! These shouts and wails are far different than the ones that had come only moments before, and have none of the earlier bravado or boldness.

Pacatianus calls a halt to the archer's attack.

The point has been made, and it will only be a waste of arrows to continue on in this way. If the barbarians had been unclear before as to the fact that they are effectively cut off and surrounded, there will be no doubt now, for if they try to descend the hill either to the left, or the right, or the rear, they will only expose themselves to far more accurate fire.

The only hope for them to escape is straight ahead.

Even now, in the stillness, Pacatianus hears battle commands being given, watches as the arrow-shredded leaves of the trees float down in fragments on the heavy air; listens to the sound of the enemies' rough foreign voices, as their leaders try desperately to form the harrassed warriors into some semblance of order.

'This is it!' Pacatianus calls out. 'Ready yourselves!... Hold the line or I'll have the lot of you decimated!'

The tension mounts, the legionaries lean forward, straining like hunting dogs at their leashes, as though willing the Goths forward, while also terrified at the same time. The sharp edges of their swords grate against the steel rims of their shields as they thrust their right elbows up as high and straight as they can.

Suddenly, from the trees, there comes a hideous shriek, something half-animal, as four hundred voices -less a couple of dozen men who have been lost to arrows- join in the chorus, far more intense this time than the last. Then came hundreds of seperate whoops, as all the Goths at once break into a sprint, and charge through the underbrush like frenzied wolves, their upheld curved swords and razor-sharp axes wielded above their heads, their eyes wild and glazed, and set in grim determination for either death or victory. They come down the slope in a rough rectangular formation, but quickly dissolve into an irregular horde, and think nothing of trampling over their own fallen comrades in their wild stampede.

'Hyyyyyeeeeee!!!' they scream.

'Here the come!' shouts Pacatianus. 'Prepare for impact!'

It is pointless to give orders now, he well knows, but does so anyway in order to distract himself from his own mounting terror! Everything now depends upon his and the legionarie's hard-won battle experience, and the years' long training they have all gone through. Only this will hold the line together now, and prevent them all being slaughtered en masse.

'Fire the ballistas!' he hears himself calls out, and waves his arm.

A second later, ear-splitting cracks sound, even above the din, as the artillery hurls its shiney spikes through the air. They flash for an instant like silver lightning, and then come down directly into the enemy ranks. Several shots only kick up dirt, but the other three find their marks, and impale the chests of howling barbarians, thus effectively scattering some of the others.

'Hurl javelins!' Pacatianus calls out next, and casts a quick sideways glance to his left to watch as the front line of his cohort, and then the second and third, launch their steel throwing spears as far as they can: first one wave, then another, and another, until many Goths' bodies and shields are left pinned to the ground.

All this momentarily slows the advance, but once they have recovered, the screaming survivors charge on as relentlessly as before, and there is a horrible pile up as at least twenty men slam with all their might against the defensive line of Roman shields. Three of the fiercest Goths, their faces bearded, and marked with ugly smears of war paint, drop their own shields and leap up onto the front line of legionaries. There they proceed to slash and thrash about with their long swords, hoping to cut a hole in the line that can be further exploited by the warriors who follow behind, and thus break-up the unity of the cohort.

This is not the first time this tactic had been used though, and the well-trained Roman troops know enough just to drag these men forward, further into their ranks, rather than to try to push them back, so that they can hack them at will from all sides at once.

The line holds.

Pacatianus has avoided the main brunt of the assault, though just, as he is off to the right of the cohort where the strength of the barrage has been concentrated. He does not stay still though, cannot, but runs forward into the fray of combat, and begins thrusting and stabbing at any parts of the enemy's bodies that look even slightly exposed. There are not many targets though, as these men are almost as well armoured as the Romans, donning high steel or leather helms, chainmail vests, arm and leg greaves, and thick oval shields.

The noise is deafening, enough to split the air; a second wave of Goths descends into the whirl of steel and the legionaries fight hard to hold their ground and to prevent the enemy from circling round to their backs; the two right cohorts protect the flank of the first, and fight off attacks coming from the left; the smell of blood is in the air, almost suffocating when mixed with the haze of mist still clinging to cloth and iron. An arm shoots forward out of nowhere; it holds a spear; Pacatianus hacks at it; a spray of crimson; shouts and curses in different languages; the rearing and terror of horses; the cries of the wounded. A grey-bearded warrior, a chieftain by the looks of him, aged but still obviously strong, singles out the centurion for single combat; obviously sees an opportunity to claim the Roman's helmet as a prize, or his head. His eyes are blue, hateful, set deep in bushy grey brows, he stalks forward like an animal, hunting, his curved sword raised. Pacatianus knows he must engage with this man or die, perhaps die anyway; his opponent ignores the chaos going on all about him, the men impaled on spears, or crying out in pain, and the fact that he himself is bleeding from several minor wounds.

He doesn't wait, but strikes first, lunging at the giant chief with his sword, and then quickly draws his right arm back behind the protection of his shield. He feels the Goth's blade slam with severe force down onto the boss of his shield, an unnerving, though essentially harmless counterpunch, and raises it again to defend against the next blow that is sure to come.

Both men are panting heavily, caught up in the fight, and sweating, despite the cool air. The centurion wonders, as have countless soldiers before him, whether or not he will be able to maintain his stamina. In almost all the ways of war, the Imperial Army is superior to its opponents, but the vast majority of men, no matter what army they fight for, tire at more or less the same rate. In the heat of battle, after the initial charge, even the strength of the very young doesn't last long, and the difference between life and death can very often hinge on nothing more than which fighter has one more gasp of energy.

It is only the fact that the centurion is in as good shape as he is that has kept him standing under the onslaught of the barbarian's repeated attacks. He has always made sure he can outrun, outthrow, and outwrestle even the toughest of his men, despite his smallish size, but it is all he can do now just to keep his balance, and to hold his shield upright.

The chief seemed to be enjoying himself, as if he assumes that his victory is a foregone conclusion, and he toys with the centurian, first feigning an attack, and then darting back quickly, laughing coursely all the while. Pacatianus is no fool though, and knows that the man is purposely trying to anger him so that he can be lured into making some kind of fatal blunder. Instead, he calculates his next move, and when the time is right, springs forward and jabs with his blade, the agility and swiftness of the move momentarily taking the Goth by surprise. The man snarls, showing his few remaining yellowed teeth, and then counters with a blow of his own to the centurion's shield.

Just at that moment, Pacatianus risks a quick glance to his left: the battle seems like it could still go either way, for the Romans or against them. The barbarians have launched another brutal attack on the front lines of the First Cohort, and a few of them have lept up over the Roman shields again and are slashing in a frenzy at the men below, who try without success this time to drag them forward. If this continues for much longer, the integrity of the whole First Cohort will be broken, and the survivors will be cut to pieces.

After thrusting with his sword at his opponent, the centurion quickly scans the battlefield, spotting a trumpeter legioniary who is busy defending himself, and calls to him: 'Sound out to the cavalry! Create a perimeter, but leave a gap!'

It is difficult for the man to hear him, and also to extract himself from the fighting long enough to do as he has been ordered, but he understands at once what is expected. He is resourceful, and after delivering a wounding blow to the man he is dueling with, manages to leap out of harm's way long enough to grasp the brass cornet which hangs from a strap around his shoulders, and blow out a high, clear note aimed towards the auxiliaries presently engaged in fighting at the bottom of the hill.

The signal tells the cavalrymen to form up at the rear and right flank of the enemy, but also to leave a gap in their line to the left, thus giving any fleeing barbarians the illusion they can escape. It is hoped this will make them drop their weapons and run. Being only a ruse of course, it is a strategy designed to lure the Goths away from the battle just at the moment when they might still very well be able to claim victory.

Luckily, the trick works, at least partially, and several dozen men, no doubt sensing death is near, decide to make a run for the break in the line, hoping no doubt to be able to reach the safety of the dark forests where the cavalry can't touch them. But they are chased down by the skilled horsemen, who ruthlessly spear them in the backs before they can get anywhere near the woods.

All this does little to help Pacatianus though, as the warrior he is fighting still seems bent upon his destruction, as if that is all that matters to him amidst this carnage.

Another slam on his shield! This time his knees buckle with the force of the blow. He thrusts again with his sword, but there is only the clang of metal as the Goth counters with his own blade.

The chief senses that his own side is not having an easy time of it, and yet does not relent in his onslaught at all, but perhaps draws strength from the knowlege that at least his men are making good progess against the First Cohort, if nowhere else, and is trying to tie up its commander for as long as possible in order to prevent the centurion from rallying his men.

For all of their efforts, the legionaries of the First haven't been able to hold out against the fierce tide that confronts them, and of the soldiers who are still alive, they too will soon be butchered mercilessly. Pacatianus is desperate to get back to his men, but cannot break away from this persistant fighter. He feels his strength waning, his sword becomes heavier with each blow given or received; the armor on his back more like lead than iron, and each breath is shorter and more constricted.

How long can this go on for?

It has only been a quarter of an hour since the Goths first charged, but it feels as though everything is moving in slow-motion... Amazingly, the fates of nations are often determined in such narrow spans of time as this.

But he will not relent: will do everything he can, calls upon Mars himself, the God of War, to give him strength. Then he leaps at the barbarian, who takes the surprise sword blow Pacatianus delivers full onto his leather breast armor. The point of the sword doesn't pierce very far, but it is enough, and the winded chief staggers back a bit, almost like a stag that has just realized it's been hit.

The centurion seizes his chance, and throws the full weight of his body and shield against the man, sending them both flying. The iron boss of his shield strikes his enemy square in the ribs, and even breaks a few on the way down. The Roman then struggles up onto his knees, leaving the Goth struggling under both of their shields, and then tries to stab at any vulnerable parts that present themselves. To his horror, he finds that his arms have almost no strength left in them, and his attempts to inflict severe wounds do not work. Meanwhile, the man is thrashing about furiously beneath him, and even manages to reach around with the blade he still clutches, to gash the centurion's wrist.

The wound makes Pacatianus cry out in pain, but also seems to have the effect of renewing at least some of his energy. He reaches down and throws aside the shields, which are more of a nuisance now than a protection, and forcefully thrusts his sword straight at the Goth's face. The point of the blade finds the exposed bit under the chin which is left unprotected by the chief's helmet, and slides in halfway up to the hilt with a sickening sound. The man continues to struggle though, and so Pacatianus takes the time to pin his right sword arm down with his own left hand, and then, putting all his shoulder weight into it, presses down as hard as he can in order to drive the blade fully home.

The barbarian twitches and flinches a little, and then lays perfectly still, his blue eyes dimming and glazing over almost instantly.

The centurion falls exhausted onto the body.

Amidst the still-raging combat to his left, the Second and Third Cohorts have finally managed to drive off the Goths that were harrying them, and so rush to the relief of the First Cohort, or what is left of it. A second wave of javelins are launched, and these deadly spears come down on the remaining warriors. This deadly barrage at last seems to achieve the desired effect, and shatters any courage that the invaders have left. The survivors immediately take flight, though straight into the arms of the waiting cavalry.

After a brief moment spent catching his breath, centurion Pacatianus is at last stong enough to get up and take his positon to the right of his cohorts, where he directs the legionaries throughout the last of the mopping-up operations. The hopelessly dying enemies have to be finished off, and their own comrades put on stretchers to be attended by the Medicis. Auxiliaries are sent off to search the edges of any nearby woods, hoping to run down any stragglers, while the dozen or so remaining Goths are tightly bound up in ropes, and set aside to be sold as slaves, or to fight in the Flavian Amphitheater back in Rome.

As for the Imperial soldiers, almost the entire First Cohort, around seventy of the original eighty men, have been either killed or severely wounded.

It has been a victory, though it has come with a high price. For three days and nights these barbarians have plundered Roman towns and villages at will, and taken captives and loot. But now they are dead, almost to a man. The men of the VII Claudia have done their duty, and suffered a very high casualty rate, but their win has brought them much personal glory. They are rightly overjoyed to have lived through another day on the most dangerous border of the empire.

Still, the centurion, unlike his superior officers, and unlike even the Emperor of Rome himself, knows this triumph is but a momentary one. For all their forosity, this was just a small band that had attacked, nothing more than a scouting party, he guesses. Across the Danube, a river only one hundred metres across, there are literally hundreds of thousands of such warriors; men just like these, each one eager for booty, slaves gold, land. Even worse is that each one of them is raised from infanthood to hate Rome and all it stands for.

Ultimately, it will take more than a minor skirmish to deter such a vicious people.

Many times, he has tried to convince others that the Imperial forces in the area, as great as they are, are not at all adequate to deal with any large-scale attack launched by the Goths, and that an overall stategy is needed to deal with this problem: it is a problem which, as a talented tactician himself, he believes will become one of the greatest the empire has ever faced. These are the truths which the common rank and file soldier seem to fully understand, while the so-called Generals and Senators back in Rome are happy to ignore such unpleasant realities.

Or is it that they are more afraid of a powerful army so near to the Capital, he wonders, and not for the first time. Nothing so frightens the bureaucrats and civil servants as much as the fact that the day might come when a true Roman soldier, a man with enough charisma to lead an army based only on his own talent, and one who has the support of his men, might wield a little too much power for their liking.

But, he thinks, as he strides through the bodies of the dead and dying on the field of battle where just moments ago fierce fighting had raged, complacency will never secure the borders of the empire, nor will paying the barbarians huge amounts of gold to go away. Bribes and half measures are not anywhere near sufficient. What is needed is more like a wall of swords.

A reckoning is about due.

Enemy forces are growing stronger every day, even while the Romans higher in rank than the First Spear Centurion just shrug. The barbarians might very well have been defeated today, but they will be back, he knows, and sooner rather than later...
CHAPTER TWO:

THE POINT OF HONOR

ROME, 248 AD

'No, not like that... Like that! Just as I taught you... Parry, and then thrust... Yes, better. Much better!'

The voice is steady, sometimes stern, sometimes chiding, never contemptous: a fatherly tone. The clack and scrape of wooden swords colliding against one another nearly drowns out the powerful voice; resounds throughout the enclosed courtyard of the elegant Domus, the only other sound being that of softly trickeling water from a fountain in the center of the garden, and the harsh, ragged breaths of two men engaged in combat.

Above the scene hangs a blue sky, revealed through a large rectangular opening in the roof. The air is heavy, moist. The end of summer, or the cusp of autumn. They duel amidst the marble statuary, and on the grass, and between the pillars that line the peristyle walkway.

The home belongs to Quintus Decius Velerinus, a Senator and General of Rome, though he is known simply as Decius. A man of average height, he is slightly bald, and what hair he does have he brushes forward, as is the manner. His is the wrinkled brow of a thinker, and the compact, powerful build of a born fighter, added to which is an agility and quickness of movement which bely his forty-seven years.

It is the middle of the afternoon, and he has decided to take himself away from official duties for a brief moment or two in order to spar with his seventeen year old son, Herennius. The boy has, only one year before, joined the ranks of the military as a junior Tribune, and is always eager to train, even when on leave from the army, as he is now.

The young soldier thrusts his blade at his father. Decius blocks it with his shield.

He is proud of his son, of his gravitas and soldierly bearing, even if he is still a little insecure in his new role, a little arrogent; is proud to see him in his brightly plumed helmet and shining uniform when they stand side by side together at public functions. The two have always been close, the son sees his father as the man he wants to become, and the father sees in the son the young man he himself had once been.

Decius still clearly remembers the day, seventeen years ago, when he recieved word that his wife had given birth. He got the message while out on a military inspection tour of the local garrisons of Pannonia; cursed himself for having left his wife, even for a second; raced to her, his heart beating out of his chest, running his horse into a lather on twisting stone roads to reach the fortified camp where she was; lifted the wailing infant high in his hands, though not before kneeling by his wife's bedside to thank her for having delivered their boy safely.

Had dreamed, on the night before the birth, that he would have a son. A strange dream: Two lofty eagles came down from the sky, a male and a female, and a male eagle watched with glinting eyes as the she-eagle gave birth to two baby eagles: one was a weak newborn, and one was strong.

Which is my own son? he wondered, the stong or the weak?.. It didn't matter.

He had a son! Someone he can shape and mold into his own image, but also with whom he can be close, especially later in life. He will train him to be a soldier, and a statesman; will distill all of his own experiences and knowlege, and give them to his boy.

Decius now swings his wooden training blade, misses, hits the wall.

It had been hard for him to look down upon such a small, innocent face and tiny body, there in his arms, and be able to imagine that it would ever bear the weight of responsibility upon it, would one day carry a sword. And yet such a thought is not impossible now, seventeen years later, as he looks upon the sturdy youth, now taller than himself by two inches, and manages somehow to look authoratative, even in a simple tunic as he stalks towards his father, his small wooden shield held up to protect his handsome face.

They will work together, worship the old gods at their private alter -not these new eastern dieties that have taken over the public's imagination- but the real ones, the ones that first made Rome great. They will work to make it great again, as it had been in the days of Julius Caesar and Trajan. He believes it is their destiny.

But not yet. The preparation, the long years of training are not complete.

Watching from beneath the shade of the eaves, under the dappled light that filters through a large green plant, Decius's wife, Cupressenia, sits, looking regal in her long pale blue dress and carefully arranged hair, while his other son, Hostilian, slouches near to her in his own chair.

'You will never be able to scare a real barbarian with those tactics,' Decius says to Herennius as he corrects his son's fighting posture. 'The warriors of Germania do not fear even death itself. They welcome it. You must have patience, and learn not to rush. The best way to kill your enemy is to be efficient, both in your thinking and in your movements. Bold displays will only make you vulnerable... Let's try again.'

The two men begin to circle one another, sizing each other up, looking for any weakness in the defences. The war dance. In this case, a rite of passage: father fights son so that son will learn to live, to survive the brutality of combat.

Herennius grips the handle of his wooden sword tightly, tries to remember his father's advice, which he always respects: keeps his emotions in check, bends head low like a boxer, tucks his right sword hand close-in to his right side, thrusts his blade in the direction of the abdomen; wants to win, not to defeat, but to show he is a man too.

But his strikes are quickly countered and brushed-aside, that agile body of his father's ever-elusive, ever restless before the blade, hard to pin down. Decius manuevers himself into position so that when his killer blow comes it comes like lightning; catches the boy by surprise, and the wooden sword lands true, the point stopping just before it comes into contact with Herennius's neck.

Again. Try again.

Hostilian claps without much conviction. Cupressenia smiles diplomatically, not wanting to hurt her son's pride.

Herennius's expression flickers with anger, impotence and ire, though none of this malice is directed at his father, but only at himself. He percieves a lack within, and is weighted down with the feeling that he has failed some sort of test. All the lessons from the army are useless now; feels this way until Decius pretends to slit his throat, and then both of them are suddenly laughing. There is nothing to be mad about. This is just the inevitable outcome of every mock battle the two men have ever engaged in.

For his part, Decius knows that his son's skills are improving all the time. He is stronger, quicker, and even calmer than he was before. Soon he will be able to beat Decius without too much difficulty, as every day the man grows older, while the boy becomes more of a man. But until that day comes he will continue to fight for all he is worth; respects his son far too much to play games just for the sake of playing. It is only useful, real, and therefore good, if he fights hard to never let him have an easy victory. No use at all to get into the habit of showing mercy, when the barbarian warriors whom he will one day face don't even know the meaning of the word. The boy will have to be tested, like metal, and made strong.

Herennius is the strong one though, from the eagle dream, of that there can be no doubt.

He falls, trips, pretends to be finished, and then with a savage cry leaps up and is upon Decius with several lethal counterblows.

But there is also something daring, and wild in him that Decius can't pin down. This amuses, mystifies, and also frightens him a little. It is as though the boy is willing to risk everything on one role of the dice. He has seen this characteristic emerge several times before, both when they are sparring, and in other circumstances, and he worries that such a trait could be dangerous. He will have to watch him, and try to encourage Herennius to think more before acting.

His son will need every skillset he can give to him, every bit of training, for he senses, somewhere in the back of his mind, that all is not as well with the empire as it outwardly seems. The 'Roman Peace' has ensured relative calm for over a century, but there is no point in denying that the armies that guard the borders (excepting a few legions that see regular action) have been allowed to lose their fighting edge over time.

A dangerous development.

Sooner or later the enemies of Rome, of whom there are many, will spot this weakness, and learn to exploit it. There is no real basis in fact for his feelings, just a raw gut instinct that has been built up over years of serving in the higher ranks of both the military and government.

Rome will need well-trained and capable young men soon enough...

In the meantime, at least he has gotten Herennius off to a good start, the boy having been raised mostly in army barracks along the border provinces of Lower Germania and Hispania, where Decius was the Governor. More recently, he has been appointed as Prefect of Rome, and it has been good to settle into a more regular family life, but also to expose his sons to their own culture so that they will know just what it is they will be expected to defend.

He kicks Herennius in the leg; dirty tricks allowed, just as in war; the boy cries out, but does not relent.

A breath of wind, refreshing. Cupressenia is looking regal, even in the heat of summer it is always so; not a beautiful woman by any standard, but dignified and generous, having been born to the manners and bearing of her long and illustrious patrician line.

'Why don't you come into the shade, where it is cooler,' she asks her husband and son, 'and have some watered wine? Rest your swords, and more importantly, yourselves.'

Decius casts her a smile, but does not for a second lower his guard in the fight -he rarely smiles, except at his wife- she has given his career a boost on several occasions through her connections, as well as given him a well-run home and a beloved son. What more could a man ask for?

A second beloved son?

No. That would be too much. Hostilian is twelve years old, and his nose is always buried in a book, not a trait to endear him. He is an excellent scholar of Latin and Greek, but not a student of the sword, nor of the games of the circus, as most boys of his age are.

He is beginning to tire, a little, won't show it though, will never let Herennius see him falter.

Then again, hadn't emperor Marcus Aurelius himself been of a scholarly nature, frail and sickly, and yet rarely ever really sick?.. Just like Hostilian... Yet Aurelius had saved the empire, despite his nature.

Somehow Decius can't see any such physical energy in his own son.

What's to be done with a horse with a lame foot?

Sometimes he wonders how he has fathered two such different beings. He loves Herennius, and spends time with him, while his wife dotes on Hostilian; he worries for Hostilian, knowing just how ruthless the higher echalons of Roman society can be, how much is expected, how much self sacrifice, and ability to fight for one's place; despairs of the boy ever catching on, of taking a healthy interest in gladiators, or in anything to do with soldiery.

He turns his attention to Herennius, who is trying to deflect his sword.

'Have you had enough?' Decius asks playfully.

'Never!' the boy cries with a smile, then shoots his sword arm up into the air.

'That's my lad. Never surrender!'

He takes his son by the hair and effectionately pulls him over to the table and into the shade where the others are sitting. The two men take their seats and allow a slave to pour them a cup of watered-down wine. Decius takes a sip, the sweet liquid is especially delicious after such strenuous exersions.

The garden is well ordered: nature tamed, the hedges trimmed, and the soil weeded daily. The peristyle borders the garden, its perfectly precise pillars stand like sentries; a white gleaming marble fountain, and a large rectangle of sky -living outdoors and indoors at once- the light floods the whole Domus, candles and torches are only needed at night, and mostly to keeps the bugs at bay.

He marvels as he sips his wine, marvels that somehow, despite the open roof, most of the foul odours and noises of the busy streets outside never make it through the thick stone walls of the house, never intrude upon his peace when he is here. This is his favourite place in the world to be, like an estate in the country, only right in the heart of the capital, and near enough to both the Senate House and Imperial Palace on the Palantine hill that he can walk there every day.

Sometimes it seems his whole life has gone by in a blur of senatorial and military duties, that there has been no time to rest, soak it all in, and this is why these brief moments of respite with his family mean so much to him.

As usual though, it doesn't take long before his peace is shattered: this time by the sound of his sons arguing with one another. Herennius is chiding Hostilian for always reading, and for his general weakness and effeminacy. He tosses a pillow at his younger brother's head. The boy returns the favour, tossing it right back, and calls Herennius an empty-headed brute.

Decius does not take sides, but only for fear of offending his wife. Inwardly, he tends to agree with Herennius, and thinks there is no harm in trying to toughen up Hostilian. Still, at least the pup is willing to answer back when challanged, to bite when bitten. Decius knows that he hates living under the shadow of his older brother, as younger siblings often will, while at the same time cursing himself for his own inabilities.

'A good soldier, a good Roman, in fact,' Decius says in order to distract the boys from their querrelling, 'is made more through conditioning and training than through any instinctive courage. Many of the empire's worst enemies have bravery to spare, and yet still consistantly lose in battle to our legions... Why?'

His eyes dart to both boys, his expression saying that he expects an anwer.

'Because we are stronger!' blurts out Herennius.

Decius nods and then turns to Hostilian. 'And what say you?' he asks.

A non-commital shrug of infuriating complacency.

'Because we are well organized,' Decius answers for him, 'and well disciplined; because we have the will not only to win, but to fail until we finally win, and then to consolidate victory, again and again and again if necessary... The empire needs soldiers, and administrators too, men who will turn the fruits of military prowess into gold, and wheat, and other precious commodities that we need for our very survival. To be given a postion of responsibility by your emperor, and be trusted by him is the highest thing a Roman can ever hope to achieve.'

The boy soldier, Herennius, cannot except this argument, though he hangs on his father's words. Over his face flickers sincerity, repressed anger, even defiance. He cannot believe he will ever serve under a better man than his own father; owes loyalty and obedience to his commanders in the military, has companionship with his fellow tribunes, and yet sees them all as shadows next to the great man who sits before him. They are all but pigeons next to an eagle, and he does not understand why his father seems so bound to the current emperor, a man called Philip, an efficient enough administrator he has been told, but not a true Roman, not like his father...

'You must position yourself, sir,' he says to Decius, 'so that you do not accrue Imperial favour through subserviance to Philip, but instead gain the allegiance of the other senators, and the army.'

Here is where the boy and I differ, thinks Decius to himself. He is too clever by half for his own good. Never satisfied, and it could lead to his ruin if I don't try to curb his overly-active imagination.

But Herennius carries on, despite his father's dissaproving air.

'I can't think of whom I would rather serve under as my emperor, sir. You are ten times a better commander and senator than all the rest. None so deserves the throne as you. People speak of destiny, but Philip reached out and took the mantle, and now men say this is destiny.'

Now he has gone too far. 'Silence!' Decius shouts. 'What you speak is treason, and I will not allow it in my house. I have warned you about such talk before, and will not again. We serve our sovereign and that is the end of it.'

Still, inwardly, he is touched by the boy's blind loyalty. Always is. And is it really blind? It never ceases to amaze him the depths that Herennius's subjectivity can go. The two men are of two minds, though he will not tell him that. His son seems able to put into words things Decius cannot even articulate to himself.

He adopts a milder tone toward him. It is time to deflate the situation, and restore peace for the sake of his wife, who never likes to see them argue, even if such things are necessary every once in a while between men.

'I have always tried to live my life in the manner of the lowly but loyal centurion,' he lectures. 'The bravest of these take their place before a fight at a spot that is called 'The Point of Honour.' This is at the forefront of the right section of a battle formation of legionaries, as you know. It is also the place that can only be filled by the toughest of veterans, and oftentimes, the success, or failure of a fight hinges upon the ability of this one man to hold the line... I have always believed that to serve the emperor is to serve Rome itself... Besides, Philip is not a stranger to us. He has been a friend to this family, and we owe much of our good fortune to his generosity.'

Herennius tries to look duly chastined, though he is unrepentant and sulky inside. He knows better than to openly contradict his father though, knows that what Decius says is true, at least in spirit.

Hostilian shoots a glance at his brother. It's always pleasant to see a soldier that one resents get a dressing down from a superior officer. And yet he is also jealous of the straightforward manner in which the two men comunicate with one another; wishes to share in it as well, but doesn't know where to begin.

Cupressenia is silent. She always lets her husband deal with the discipline issues, though she does wonder how a man like Decius can be so tough on his soldiers on the one hand, and so leniant on his own son, who is an officer, and who ought to know better than to speak against the emperor. But she is also glad that she is married to someone who has at least some soft-heartedness, something she feels herself on the rare occasions when he has time to lay in her arms.

She, like Decius, marvels at the differences in the two sons they have created, the one, a reckless glory seeker, though loyal to a fault, and the other, a weak, frail boy, and yet the joy of her life. It is Hostilian who compensates her for all the days and the long nights she has to live without her husband; if she had been childless, it would have been unbearable, to sacrifice so much and receive nothing but a cold bed in return.

But she has chosen to make these sacrifices, has chosen to go traipsing around the provinces, from one end of the empire to the other, living in far-flung military outposts. She tells herself evey day that she has done it for his career, but knows the truth, and that is that she cannot live without him; his presence, his smell, his hand on her breast. She wonders why he chose her, such a homely woman, when he could have had one far prettier?

Then again, she could have allowed herself to be chosen by another suitor, someone less ambitious, less energetic, a man who could be content to live in the city, and to enjoy the comforts of life. But she did not. And would such a thing have made her happier anyway?.. She doesn't think so... She has borne everything gladly, has used her considerable influence and wealth to advance her husband on his path, though afraid within herself all the while because she knows all too well that the higher you rise, the more powerful enemies you acquire. Decius is the picture of noble strength of body and of mind, and is also decisive, and cunning, yet he is no less a mortal, despite his fervent belief in the protection of the gods whom he serves.

Is it possible that the very success they had all worked together to achieve could ultimately prove fatal, both for Decius and the whole family?..

Off to the left a slight disturbance.

Men's voices coming from within the atrium.

The sound of feet padding across smooth cool stones. A slave approaches. He bears a message, just delivered at the front door.

'This has just come for you, master, from the Imperial Palace.' The slave bows and hands Decius a scroll. It carries the emperor's personal wax seal. It is not uncommon to receive such a thing; one comes at least every other week.

The timing could be more convienient though.

Decius breaks the seal. It crackles as he unfurls the thick paper. It is a personal summons, written in the Imperial hand. His eyes narrow as he reads...
CHAPTER THREE:

THE EMPEROR'S GENERAL

Every word, every footfall echoes here. The Grand Reception Hallway of the Domus Flavius Palace is magnificent. There is not a single square inch of its walls and pillars that is not made of the finest marble, alabaster, gold. Every niche along its three-hundred foot length contains precious statues of the gods, or past emperors, made out of black basalt. Their varied features, some beloved characters idealized, other less beloved characters shown with all their faults, seem to pass judgement upon any passerby. The floors have an impossible shine, brought up like a mirror, hundreds of slaves polishing night and day. Sunlight beams in golden shafts through the wide corridor and lights the passage with almost otherwordly illumination.

Decius walks, his ewe-white senatorial robes flowing; is guided by two Pretorian Guards, falling into step with them five paces behind. He has been summoned, is being taken to the emperor, to his private section of the palace, but must traverse the whole length of the hall first. It is a spectacle meant to inspire awe, and it works, even on him, after all these years. It is hard not to be amazed by this concentration of wealth, these foreign treasures: this gold from Judea, this ivory from north africa, and that silver from the mines in Brittania -all melted down or hammered or carved and made into something new, something unique, and Roman.

He passes through the peristyled courtyard; there is a fountain, pure marble, five times larger than Decius's own, then up a flight of steps; the scent of burning cinammon incense hangs in the air; a great library to his right and a private chapel to his left; everything open, everything refined, luxurious. He comes to the top of the stairs, an elevated room, a large reception area where the emperor receives guests and friends in a more informal setting than the throne room. His eyes widen to take in the space about him; cool air circulates freely, giant windows overlook the Circus Maximus below, an astounding view, birds careen over the city, white marble floors beneath him.

In the centre of the room, a table; around the table are six men, figures in draping senatorial robes, like his own; off to the side, within their own nucleus, are four more officials, colleagues of Decius; they stand, talking to one another in hushed tones. Amonst the men at the table is a largish figure, no taller than the others, but marked out by his slight rotundity and the royal purple of his satin robes: It is the emperor Philip, master of the world. His features are different than the others, they are lean and hawkish, and for the most part possessed only of sparse white hair, while he, by contrast, has a rounded facial structure, though his nose is aqualine, and a full head of thick, dark, curly hair. The men look down upon a scale wooden model of the city-centre of Rome. The six-inch high structure covers nearly the entire table, and the men are intent, though relaxed.

Decius approaches without hesitation, as one of the guards announces his arrival.

'Ah,' says Philip, as he looks up from the model and smiles. 'Senator Decius. Come and have a look... Our good colleagues are just showing me the route that the thousand year anniversary of Rome's founding parade will take. We are discussing the finer points, and since it is you who is the Prefect of Rome, I thought it would be essential to have your input in these matters.'

'Of course my Emperor.' Decius says and takes his place at the table.

The model is an excellent one: little painted blocks which represent each of the building structures in the center of the city. The route for the parade is marked with tiny red flags which have been planted on the streets the procession is to proceed along.

'As you know, your Magesty,' says Decius to Philip, his presence filling the room as he sweeps his hand over the scene, 'my staff has been working out the logistical details for some months now, and I am pleased with their progress. Much of the real credit though must go to Senator Decimus, who has borne the load of much of the real work.'

Decius nods toward Decimus, who is standing across the table from him, and the young man beams to hear his name so favourably mentioned in front of the emperor. Not every superior will give credit where it is due, but then he and Decius have been friends for a long time, and he knows the man to be honest, and one who will reward those who are loyal to him.

'Well done Decimus,' Philip says, and gives him an appreciative look. 'So then,' he turns to question Decius: 'you are satisfied as to how everything has been proceeding thus far?'

'Yes, my Emperor. I am. It is not every year that we get to celebrate the thousanth anniversary of our great city, and as you ordered, no effort has been witheld in the work to make this the greatest spectacle that has ever been witnessed before. The parade will of course consist of senators, lictors, a selection of priests and priestesses from each of the high temples, as well as standard bearers from every one of the legions -and room has even been made for a contingent of the most popular gladiators.'

The emperor and senators all laugh good naturedly at this.

'A good cross-section of Roman society I would say.' Decius continues. 'The procession will, of course, pass under each of the victory columns in the city, and end up at the steps of the Flavius Augustulus, where Romulus was nursed by the she wolf. Naturally, extra free bread and wine rations will be handed out for three days before, and three days after the event, in order to excite the populace to the highest degree possible.'

'Quite so, quite so. Excellent work my dear friend,' says the emperor. 'But I would also like to make one last minute addition to those who will march in the parade... if they can be accomodated that is...'

'Of course my Emperor, as you wish.'

'It has been brought to my attention by the good Senator Crispus here...' Philip gestures toward a man whom Decius despises, as Crispus, ever full of false humility, bows at the sound of his name and presses a hand to his chest in a crude display of sincerity, '...that as of yet, there is no representation of the Christian community in our great parade. Surely something must be done to rectify this situation. Perhaps even a prominant position equal to, or at least not too far behind, the priests of our own temples.'

Decius inwardly moans at the words, but knows this is not a request, and that he will have to comply. He resents the idea though, on the grounds that he hates Christianity and what it stands for, and hates even more the men who practice it. He purposely avoids seeing Crispus for this very reason, and leaves the man's letters unread on purpose. Obviously the senator has simply bypassed him, knowing full well that Decius will only put him off, and so has gone directly to Philip himself in order to get what he wants...

It amazes Decius that though the emperor knows how he feels about anything unroman, he always seems to be oblivious to the fact, or pretends to be at least. It is the man's inherent weakness, Decius thinks, his very open-mindedness that leads him to live more in the manner of an eastern potentate than like the humble First Man of Rome that the great Augustus had laid out the style of two and a half centuries before. He is far too easily influenced by lesser men than is good for him.

'My Lord,' he says to Philip. 'I can see no reason why Christian priests should have anything but a minor part in the event, since they have played almost no role in the creation of the Roman state. The empire was fashioned well before anyone had ever heard of that eastern cult, and Christians comprise but a small percentage of the overall population now. They should be given no more than a few representatives, or else our own gods might be angered by this slight.'

'We are a small, but very influential, and growing minority.' This from hawk-nosed Crispus, whose head bobs annoyingly back and forth as he speaks.

'Influential only because your emperor is kind, and indulges you and your sort,' Decius shoots back, his anger beginning to swell within him.

Those senators who support Crispus feign shock. There is a flurry amongst them, like birds who have been suddenly disturbed by a loud noise.

'You hear, my emperor, how I am maligned...' laments Crispus, as his bony hand once again makes its way to his chest. 'Always it is the same with honourable Decius... He despises we of the Christian faith; stands in our way whenever we try to exert even the smallest of influence upon events. You would think it was he, and he alone, who represents all of Rome, and its many varied citizens.'

Decius does not look to his emperor when he responds; will not resort to the kind of theatrics of Crispus, who is forever beating his breast and crying victimhood.

'I represent Rome, and the ancient values of Rome, those very values that first made her great to begin with, and not this foreign cult that seeks to insinuate itself into every strand of the fabric of our way of life, all the while protesting that it wants no more than its due... It is always the same with hypocritical Christians, always deriding earthly power and yet always trying to grasp at it with both hands; always this distain for anything but their spirits and their spirit-god, and yet always seeking the warm bodies of converts to their cause; always hating the senses, freedom, courage, strength, and pride, and hoping for the day when men will be but shadows of their former selves... I know you and your kind, and you would make a lamb of Rome, a bleating kid fit only for sacrifice...'

Crispus's face contorts into his best imitation of hurt pride, but his words are mocking: 'Are you quite finished yet?' he snickers, and turns to two of his cronies who are also laughing.

'No, not yet,' Decius says bluntly. 'What you and your Christian friends are is weak. You believe that the empire is less than it once was, and this loss of faith in Rome has made you ripe to turn to the worship of a god who promises you glory, not in this life, but in the next. In other words, you are cowards who are not prepared to fight for the only glory that counts, here and now. You just live off the achievements of your ancestors, who, by the way, honoured the old gods themselves, and who I can guess would be more than a little disappointed if they could see what you have become. Remember that to hate strength is to hate life itself.

'My Emperor,' says Decius, now turning to Philip, 'as you well Know, I love this city more than anyone, but wouldn't our gold be better spent on strengthening the border walls, and in making sacrifices to the old gods? I, for one, would rather help to ensure a further thousand years of empire, than to indulge in oversized parades... I vote against any new large-scale additions to the procession -meaning, no more Christians- as such a move will only add to the already more than considerable budget for this enterprise.'

A smile from Philip, indulgent, tolerant as always. 'I hear your concerns,' he coos in a soothing tone. But matters are well in hand. True, the cost of the parade will be considerable, but I have recently managed to find a way to secure funding that will more than cover the balance. You know of those yearly gifts of one hundred pounds of gold we were making to the barbarians on the Moesian border -well, they were draining us dry. You will be happy to hear that I have cancelled those gifts, and this has allowed us to keep more in the Imperial purse than is usual. Therefore, there shouldn't be undue concern.'

'A wise manuever if I may say so,' Crispus bows again to Philip, fawningly.

Decius is taken aback. He did not know of this, had not been consulted. If he had been, he would have urged caution. He has never agreed with the giving of gifts, or bribes, which is what they actually are, meant to keep the barbarians at bay, and he feels that they dishonor Rome. But he also has a realistic notion of just how unstable the borderlands of Moesia are, something that Philip has never been able to fully appreciate.

'My Lord,' says Decius, after thinking for a moment. 'As you know, I have never been favourable to such treaties with the Goths, or any other tribes for that matter, but to suddenly destabilize a province like Moesia without first strengthening the garrisons stationed there... Might that not be a mistake?'

'We are not worried,' says Philip cheerfully. 'There has not been any real unrest in that area for some time now, and besides a few light skirmishes, there is little trouble now - nothing the local troops can't handle anyway... I myself, as you know, supressed an incursion there not two years ago, and I can tell you from experience, hard won on the field of battle, that we expended no great effort in sending the curs packing... These Visigoths are not called 'barbarians' for nothing you know.'

Decius bites his lip, doesn't want to openly challenge his friend in front of others, but scoffs to himself at the way Philip has of exaggerating his own military prowess.

'But I return your attention, good senator,' continues Philip, 'to the matter at hand, and that is the placement of the Christians. I appreciate your concerns, but feel in this case that we will have to agree to disagree. Placing the Christian priests with our own, at the head of the procession, will be a wise political move, as it signals to our citizens that the days of the persecution are over... Remember that it was only a short time ago that Christian saints and even children were being fed to the lions in our own Amphitheater... I believe it is time to leave those days behind us.'

Decius disagrees; knows that it is only a matter of time before the Christians, men like Crispus here, will become so emboldened that they will be declaring themselves the masters of Rome. Those who believe in the 'One True God' and no other, cannot tolerate competition; they see themselves as the 'good,' and anyone who does not believe in their god are evil devils; they cry for tolerance now, but will call for the submission of others once they achieve power; it is they who will be doing the persecuting then, and it will be the believers in the old gods, men like Decius himself, who will become outlaws in their own homeland.

Decius cannot believe how simple Philip is; wonders how he can remain friends with a man who seems to have no understanding of human nature, nor of the workings of history; wonders how long he will be able to tolerate serving under someone who's outlook on life clashes so often with his own, even if it is done without any malice. He knows that to Philip he himself just appears as a stuffy old traditionalist, as someone who is stuck in a past that can never return; knows Philip believes it is he who represents the way forward, an emperor willing to listen to differing opinions, and willing to work with others, so long as they do not challenge his own power.

For Decius the matter is a very personal one, he loves the history and the glory of Rome's past; wants to see this glory carry on into the future; wants to bequeth the traditions he respects to his two sons so they will pass them on to thiers, but also knows he is engaged in a very difficult struggle; the people do not take as much joy in conquest now as they did before; do not wish to send their sons to fight in foreign lands; military duties are given out to auxiliaries instead, men without the same stake in Rome's future.

And now these new fads in religion; eastern gods of every stripe, most seductive of all to the people is this Christ figure, a religion for the poor; for slaves and for women; a gloomier religion Decius has never heard of before: teaching the dangerous idea that one day the servants will be the masters of the earth, and will overturn the rule of men like himself, men who have earned their place through sacrifice and duty to the state... What kind of god smiles upon the weak most of all, and is weak himself?

Crispus and his friends smile at Decius in a condescending way, gloating over their little victory.

'Gentlemen, let us not part in anger,' says the emperor graciously, for he senses the tension in the room, 'we are collegues here, and I value all of your opinions. There is not a man whom I would trust more than Decius, who has served me for many years now. His insights in everything pertaining to administrative and military matters are highly valued, as this can also be said of Senator Crispus, whom I will also praise. It is to him that we owe the peace that has held these many years between those of us who believe in the old gods, and the Christian community -no mean feat I can assure you... I'm sure that by working together we will be able to make this parade into the most spectacular sight ever beheld in this city's long and storied history. It will be a day for our grandchildren to remember... and now,' Philip says, as he snaps to a servant, 'I pray we have a cup of wine together, and then sort out the rest of the details concerning the festivities. Are we agreed, gentlemen?'

'Agreed,' says Decius. How can he do otherwise?

'Agreed,' says Crispus, though with a wry twinkle in his eye.

Decius has no intention of ever being true allies with Crispus, but knows he must bide his time. Christianity and weakened borders are the two greatest threats to the empire; Crispus is a thorn in his side and always will be, and he will deal with him when an opportunity presents itself... As for the borders though, he doesn't think he will have any choice in the timing; is most concerned with the revelation Philip has made about the gold he is refusing to pay. Decius has served in Moesia before, and knows that the Goths are a fierce tribe, and will not sit still for long if their ransom money is taken away from them.

It is not so much a question of If they will strike back, but only When...
CHAPTER FOUR:

THE USURPER

The light of a yellow sunrise streaks the morning sky; silhouttes the sentries who pace the ramparts of the forward camp. Their darkened shapes move back and forth along the edges of the temporary fortress, a structure made by their own labor; a couple of hundred well-trained and strong Roman men, and a few skilled engineers. The walls are made of large tree trunks, their ends shapened to points, and then lashed together with rope and formed into a palisade. Beneath this is an earthen moat, three feet deep and five feet wide, and filled with wooden stakes, their ends sharpened with an axe and then hardened in a fire.

The camp is an island, the surrounding landscape a roiling sea of green and brown, the rolling hills of grass twist and turn in the light wind like blankets heaved from underneath by a restless sleeper. Here and there, sparse patches of forest break up the monotony of the bare fields, and cutting through the centre of the scene, like a scar, is a wide ambling stream. This place has been their home for some time now, the fort has served them well, kept them safe against attack, but now it is almost time to leave.

Within the camp there is much excitment, and the hustle and bustle of activity as the legionaries prepare their gear for the long march ahead. The men of the VII Claudia are happy, overjoyed in fact, to have just received word that they can now return to the relative comfort of their legion's base of Viminacium. It has been far too long; months in fact, spent on campaign; plenty of barbarian incursions to drive back; plenty of casualties; months spent away from friends, wives, children, favourite whores; and far too long since they've slept in their own beds or had a decent bath and shave.

The word has finally come through though, and from the Legate himself, that their labours are now over, and it is time to pack up and get out of this hellhole.

And not a moment too soon.

They have been stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no towns nearby, and therefore none of the necessary distractions and diversions that help keep the men in line: no brothels or drinking dens, and most important of all, no public baths. Hygiene and morale have both suffered as a result, and discipline become lax, due to the strain of constant patrolling and fighting in unfamiliar territory, almost to the level of mutiny.

There is only one man that has been able to hold things together, and through the power of his personality alone, to keep some sort of order.

First Spear Centurion Tiberius Pacatianus walks, or rather strides, through the camp; a man in a hurry, as always, he waves greetings to his soldiers, pauses to chat with them for awhile here and there; never leaves these sorts of duties to his subordinate officers; likes to take care of these things himself, even helps a few of the legionaries to pack their gear into their bags. He is a commander like no other; speaks the men's language, treats them as equals, and is trusted and respected by them in turn. He passes by the tent of an Optio he knows well, a man called Avilius. The Optio is short, shorter even than Pacatianus, but tough to the core; is barely recognizable now under the scruff of his face, and the wear and tear of his tunic and armor. Pacatianus grips Avilius's shoulder in a friendly gesture as he passes, and the two men exchange a joke before he moves on.

Woodfire burning. The clouds of smoke waft over the centurion as he continues on past the neat rows of canvas tents, some of which are being disassembled by his men. He smiles at them; stops at the fire pit in the mess area where a dozen or so legionaries sit in a circle around the flames; something has been cooked, a rabbit that one of the men shot with an arrow and then skinned and threw into a pot along with a few herbs for seasoning. He asks if he can sit down with the men. They gladly consent and offer him a bowl of the stew, something to fortify himself before the first leg of the long journey back to base camp.

He has chosen to sit beside Germanus, a friend of his of many years; a common legionary, but still the two are close. They joined the army at the same time, nineteen years before: Pacatianus has risen though, while Germanus has not. The man always finds a way to get himself into trouble; would probably be kicked out of the army altogether if his old friend were not also his commanding officer, and thus able to shield him from consequences. He is a large man, has broad shoulders, is easy-going and even sensitive when not fighting, but rages in authoritarian splendour when well stuck in with a barbarian; is especially in his element when out-numbered four to one.

It is such men as these, Pacatianus thinks often, who are the true back-bone of the legions.

More than once they'd saved each other's lives, and this had formed an inseperable bond between them; Germanus is loyal to a fault, will knock anyone's head in if they even blink the wrong way at the centurion; he is an ally and someone who will lend his support to whatever cause Pacatianus takes up. The two men share a wine bladder between them, tipping their heads back and letting the bitter sweet liquid run down their throats.

'Good to be going home, eh lads?' the centrurion asks the men. 'And good to get some proper wine at last.'

'Aye sir, it is. I can almost taste it. Just another three more days now.' This from a legionary called Otho, an aging veteran, who for some reason still seems able to keep up with men half his age, both at drinking and at fighting. He is the arm wrestling champion of the camp, and has a wicked sense of humor.

'You've all fought well, and earned yourself a break,' Pacatianus encourages the men, and then with a mystevious smile, 'Now Otho, don't go spending all your money on whores in the first week back. Give the girls a break. If you have to satisfy your savage lusts, borrow one of the donkeys from the baggage train. Just be careful not to fall in love.'

The men all roar with laugher at this, and tease Otho, who pretends to be taken aback. 'Sir, I am of a mind to report you to the Legate himself, Sir. After all, he would never approve of one of his officers encouraging a soldier to steal one of his girlfriends for himself, now would he?'

More baying laughter and jeering at both men's expense. Pacatianus playfully throws a piece of bread at Otho, who picks it out of his tunic and then shoves it into his nearly toothless mouth.

The men are comfortable with their commanding officer; know they can speak freely, and even with a little insubordination, without fear of punishment; something unheard of in other regiments.

The men are exhausted, and need a good laugh.

Pacatianus slurps his stew, enjoys the companionship of the men, prefers it to that of women. It is all he has ever known: a smoking fire, well-made soup -soldiers are some of the best cooks- good weather, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing that home is just a few marches away; and this after having been successful in the field of battle. It seems unfair to him that men who are so hearty, and full of life, men who have sacrificed, and continue to sacrifice so much are given so little in return.

He understands that up until the orders had come for them all to return to base that the men had been getting more and more frustrated with each passing day that they remained across the Danube and this far into Dacia. They have been expected to fight off every incursion and to not just win, but win decisively every time; and all this without being given access to their letters from home, a right supposedly guaranteed them according to army regulations. And they have not yet received their pay, nor will they, at least until they get back to the legion.

Not that there would be anything to spend it on out here anyway, as there are no towns, or even villages nearby, places where they can blow off a little steam between duties and fights. Nothing to do except drink watered down and bitter wine, gamble away money they don't have, and quarrel over petty trifles. Worst of all though, is that there is not even the compensation of the chance at laying their hands on some booty, one of the principle reasons many of the men signed up in the first place. Barbarians don't carry anything of value before a successful raid, or even after they have been intercepted by the Romans, as they've usually stashed their loot in a secret hiding place that not even torture will make them reveal.

It is difficult, also, to capture any Gothic warriors in order to sell them into slavery and collect the profits, as most of them prefer to die by their own hand rather than be taken prisoner, and they don't usually travel with their wives or children. Even when they do manage to capture a few, the bulk of the profits usaully go to the senior officers, who claim them as their own. In the case of Pacatianus though, he never allows himself to take anything but the share equal to that which a common legionary receives, something which further endears him to his men.

Too much is expected of them, he thinks, and they are asked to perform miracles nearly every day, and only for the same amount of pay a soldier would get when stationed in a quiet province like Hispania, where not much ever really happens. And what if they do ever decide to mutiny? Returning home has forstalled such an incident for now, but that is no guarantee for the future. Eventually something will have to give, and when it does, he will have to be on the right side. If he joins the men against Rome he could be crucified for betrayal, and if he sides with Rome against the men he could very well have his throat slit as he sleeps. He hopes the men's respect for him will be enough to save him from their fury.

Nothing he can do about it now.

He finishes his stew by drinking directly from the bowl, then thanks the men for their hospitality, and continues on his way; returns to his tent, a small affair, no bigger than an optio's, just ten feet square, as opposed to the twenty foot job that is allowed even for a junior centurion. His orderly is packing his things; doesn't need much room to live because he owns little, just a few momentos collected on various campaings, though nothing from Rome; there is no family anymore, so no letters, or gifts, nothing. He is alone, and likes it that way.

The centurion steps out of the tent, looks up to the sky. It is good, clear weather for marching. That is something. He rubs his stubbly chin, thinks about the hot soak and shave he will be having in the baths soon enough; perhaps he will even enjoy the company of one of the camp's whores? A steam and a bath and a woman. That's the ticket. He will be a new man in no time; knows that he is run down; the stress of command has both elated and weighed down heavily upon him these past few months; he has received only scant reinforcements, even after heavy losses, his other cohort is already gone, and he is left with only three. He's expected by his superiors to do without, and despite this, has managed to be successful in battle, but at what cost?

Just then he looks to the eastern rampart of the camp, spots a horse messenger being waved through the front gate by a sentry. He rides a fast looking chesnut mare, trots at a brisk pace down the path leading directly toward Pacantius, whose tent lies in the dead centre of the fort. The man's brown cape flutters behind him in the light wind that has picked up. The legionaries watch him warily; it's never certain whether these messengers carry good news or bad. The centurian looks up at him as he draws nearer, shields his eyes with his hand against the bright morning sun. The horse is lathered, it's been run pretty heavily. The man looks down at Pacatianus with uncertainty; has obviously never seen an officer so unkempt and shaggy looking before.

'Centurian.' he says -more a statement than a question.

'That's right,' Pacatianus replies with a wry smile. He is used to this kind of reaction by now, even takes some small amount of pride in it; values the glory of dirt more than medals, as they are proof of his hard work for the empire.

'A message from the legate, Sir. I am glad to have caught you before you left.'

'Oh, and why is that?' asks the centurion, as he reaches up for the sealed scroll which the man leans down to hand him, though he has a sinking feeling in his gut he already knows the answer.

The messenger just winces slightly, says, 'everything is laid out in the letter, Sir.'

'Oh, it's as bad as that is it?' answers Pacatianus, as he cracks the wax seal, and unfurls the brief note.

It is as bad as he fears:

Legate Aulius Saturna, Commander of the VII Claudia of

Viminacium, orders that the Fifth, Sixth and Eight Cohorts,

under the command of First Spear Centurion Tiberius Claudius

Pacatianus, are to proceed in a north-easterly direction toward

the Danubian frontier at the below-given coordinates. Once

there, they are to meet up with the Ninth and Tenth Cohorts, and

together with these forces will seek out and destroy a band of

brigands who have crossed the border there. You are to proceed

at once and in all haste. It goes without saying that leave for all

the men is cancelled until these orders have been carried out,

and the barbarians been brought to heel.

Before he has even finished reading the letter he is furious. How is he going to tell his men this kind of news? They are gathered off to the side; he tries to hide his emotions, but guesses they know him well enough that they can see that something is wrong. He will have to tell them, and soon, but needs time to think it out so that an all-out mutiny isn't sparked.

He tries to clear his head. Looks up at the rider, whose own expression is fearful. The man expects a dressing down, but the centurion knows that that is senseless, it is not the man's fault.

'I would invite you to join the men for something to eat, but under the conditions, I don't think that is such a good idea. If they find out what kind of news you bear, you will not exactly be the most welcome man in the camp... I suggest you ride away now. Tell the legate we will be marching at once... Now go!' he says, and slaps the rump of the horse once the rider has turned it around. The man gallops quickly past the crowd of soldiers that have gathered, and no doubt feels more than a little lucky to have escaped with his hide once he passes through the main gate.

Pacatianus is struggling to contain his own frustration, and the rage he feels on behalf of the men. All he can think to do for now is to turn and go into his tent. The orderly is still there. He orders him out; needs some privacy and wants to be left alone; sits down on the edge of the cot and thinks.

His men are on edge already. Anything can set them off, and this might just be the spark. He has talked to Germanus about the general mood of the soldiers, and has felt it himself: they are restless, and bloody-minded; only held in check by promise of relief, and pay. If he orders them to follow him into another battle they may well go, for his sake, but his popularity with them will be severely diminished, if not extinguished.

This is what comes, he thinks, of not being an authoritarian leader, nor a member of the upper classes. He has nothing to pay them from his own purse, or he would. Nor does he carry the infallible mystique of the aristocracy, which gives such men an added layer of prestige. He is respected, even beloved by the legionaries, and yet is only one of them, is not out of, and above this world. He is not a Caesar. Loyalties are so difficult to manage, to balance. He has sworn an oath to uphold the will of the emperor and his representatives, and yet has always felt the suffering of his men, who must pay again and again and again, only to receive little in the way of compensation.

And there are his own ambitions to consider as well: He is not content with his current rank, nor with the fact that he can do nothing without the say-so of men who are less than himself; in many ways he is powerless, but perhaps has not looked at things in a positive enough light? Afterall, it is he who has the respect, and leadership -however tenous- of the toughest men in the army. That is something no senator in Rome, no matter how wealthy, can boast. One can pay the men, but can one really lead, and give them the true motivation which they seek?

This is something he has that no one else does, not even the emperor himself, who sits upon a throne of gold and ivory, distant and remote, a thousand miles away, not deigning to step down and dirty his tunic in the mud, nor bloody his sword, with his soldiers.

He sits, his head is lowered into his hands. There is an ache just behind his eyes that won't go away. This is the moment: the time has finally come, when he must decide one way or the other whether he will side with the legate, and the emperor, or with his troops... He will call for Germanus, and Centurion Agrippa; will discuss it with them; will not do anything until the three of them are able to come up with a plan. They must come up with something...

*

The smell of an orange, light and sweet, the peel bitter and acidic; the musk of incense that had been burned hours before still hangs in the air. Is it juniper? Or cinnamon? Campfire smoke and the smell of grass, he inhales them all deeply; will these be the last things he ever experiences in this life before entering the darkness of the beyond, and steps into the caves of Hades? And will he still remember the day, after dying, that day so long ago, as a young child, when he ran through the sunlit trees, the falling pink petals floating down like rain onto him? The laughter of the boy he was slowly whirls in his head now. Will all this be lost when he dies, or will it live on, if not in his own memory than at least somewhere within the memory of the gods?

Just before stepping out of his tent he holds a small fruit in his hand, presses it up to his nose. 'Will these be my last actions before being dragged to a hastily made cross and there crucified before all of my men?' he wonders. Scenes of carnage flash before his mind, the strikes of a lash, blood, himself hanging on a cross and being mocked; the faint din of laughter fading a little more into the distance every minute as he slowly suffocates to death.

Is this what awaits him, or will he instead be hoisted onto the troops' shoulders, hailed as a hero, and carried around the length and width of the camp being hailed as a great hero all the while? He does not know, the decision must be made, has been made, but will he have the courage to carry out his plan; will he play safe or risk everything on one roll of the dice? Either way it can go badly for him, and either way it can go well...

The soldiers are assembled on the parade ground, a small field, three cohorts of eighty men each, plus officers; all the junior centurions are there, Agrippa, Manlius, Magnus, standing in a small group, while the decurians and optio's finish straightening the lines of legionaries. In the stillness of the morning the optio's voices rise over the sound of the troops, they shout orders for the men to be quite, to be still, but there is a restlessness that hovers in the air like never before; they are doing all they can to keep order, but have never seen the men so disobedient or defiant before. All of them are tired, anxious, and not a little worried about the news they will receive; it can't be good, or they'd be on the road marching home already.

Suddenly a hush passes over them as they see Pacatianus draw back the flap on his tent, and then stride purposely toward them. A quick word to the centurions, and then he approaches the cohorts. He is not one to make his speeches from an elevated platform, or even a wooden box, no, that is not his way at all. He comes near to the men, looks at them in their faces, even touches some of them on their shoulders -the common touch they call it.

A pause, he searches for words, and then finds them, holds his hands behind his back as he speaks: 'Men!' he calls out loudly, so that even those in the rear ranks can hear him, 'As you know, we have fought long and hard over these past months, and brought much glory both to our legion, and to the empire.' He is feeling them out, trying to read from their stony expressions just how far they are willing to go, testing the levels of their discontent. Murmers arise at the meaning of his words, a sense of general agreement, but some hostility as well.

'I would say that we have done our fair share, wouldn't you?'

Shouts of agreement, bolder now.

'And have you received any letters from home lately?'

'No!' the men shout, getting quiet agitated now.

Behind him, he senses that the centurions are stirring nervously, all except Agrippa that is, who knows what Pacatianus is doing. 'Why', the others are no doubt wondering, 'is their commander stirring up the men this way; opening old wounds and seemingly encouraging insubordination? Does he want an insurrection?' How can he tell them he is doing his very best to prevent one? Or at least to prevent one that would end up as fatal to himself, and to all the officers. They will find out soon enough.

'And have you had a woman lately, or a bath?'

A pause, as he glances over the rough looking lot. 'I can see that you have not.'

Laughter rises up, but dies quickly. The men are in a serious mood. It will take a great deal more than this to lighten things up.

'But you have shed blood, have you not?.. I can see you there, Jovian,' he points to an optio, 'you still walk with a limp... 'and you, Cyprian,' he points to a legionary, 'how is that wound in your neck coming along?' He is getting into his stride now, not only appealing to the men's sense of injustice, but also to their sense of personal injury, both inner and outer.

'All of you at one time or the other has received wounds, and scars, and broken bones; you have lost friends, comrades in arms, in battle. All this is of course expected in the life of an honorable soldier. But how much is too much? For it is YOUR blood which keeps the empire safe, and allows families to sleep without fear of our many enemies, those who hate and resent the power and might of our great people.

'But have you received any pay lately for your Herculean labors? Have you received anything that you are due from our Legate, Aelius? Or is he too busy, sitting on his backside in the safety of Viminacium to bother to give a toss about the likes of us?'

Now the big reveal, the news that he dreads giving, but he does hope that by this point he will have shed enough personal responsibility for the decision to stay in the fight to save his own skin and to prevent a meltdown of law and order here.

'And now,' he continues, 'to add insult to injury, you are being asked to forget about your leave, and to once again go into battle, to shed MORE blood, to receive MORE wounds, and to lose MORE friends to the swords of the enemy.'

He is burning with passion now, feels a rush of excitement as the men nearly break ranks in their rage; they raise their swords and begin to shout.

'And what of the emperor back in Rome?' Pacatianus shouts now, trying to be heard obove the roar. 'Does he take into consideration the many burdens which you carry upon your backs? And does he send us reinforcements?.. No, he does not! We are expected to guard this border by ourselves, while he neglects even to pay the barbarians their yearly stipend in gold. And does he have an overall plan for dealing with these incursions, other than to pack us off to battle every time it suits his fancy? No, he does not, nor does he ever bother to come out here, to this border, to live amongst you and to command you from the front!'

He is speaking sedition now, the punishment of which is crucifixion, but he cannot take his words back now, does not want to.

But it doesn't matter anyway, for the men are completely on his side by now. He has managed to put into words many of their various grievances, and has spoken approvingly of their justified anger. It is the first time they have ever heard a commander do so.

'Why is he not here? I ask you! We must be led from the front! We need someone to show us the way: the way to victory on the field of battle, and to slaves, and to booty. We need our share in the glory and the spoils of the empire we fight for, and defend, and we will not rest until we have it!'

He has touched a nerve with the men, and they cry out their approval en masse; and shake their swords above their heads.

Time to go in for the kill!

'I swear to you,' he says earnestly, and the men quiet down somewhat to listen. 'I swear to you men, that as long as I am your commander, you will NEVER be ignored, that your grievances will be listened to, and answered, and that I myself will pay the punishment on your behalf, should Rome ever try to stand in our way.'

He is careful at this point not to go too far, not to promise too much, or to appear to be a nothing but a common mutineer. It is important to be seen as a marytr for a just cause, and one who is willing to sacrifice his own career, and even his life, for the sake of improving the legionary's lot in life.

This does not satisfy Centurions' Manlius and Magnus though, and they stand ready with swords drawn. What they have heard is to them treason, and they expect any minute to be charged by the angry mob of soldiers. They know the score all too well though: Pacatianus has spoken brilliantly, and has the men in the palm of his hands; they must not say anything against him now, at least openly, or their own lives will be forfeit.

Centurion Agrippa has hinted as much by staring them down, and keeping his sword drawn and ready. He is obviously part of this plot.

The men's excitement is at a fever pitch; they will not have to endure any more time away from civilization, and the future looks bright in a vague sort of a way. They do not know how to achieve their ends, but at least they now have a commander who supports their ill-defined aims, and he will speak for them.

It is at this moment that legionary Germanus steps forward. He and Pacatianus and Agrippa have spoken privately within the centurion's tent only half an hour before, and together they elaborated a very simple strategy. It is time to put that plan into action, a plan which they will all benifit. Besides, he knows that he owes his centurion much, for all the times the man has bailed him out of trouble in the past.

He clears his throat and steps forward.

'Pacatianus for emperor!' he shouts at the top of his booming voice. 'Pacatianus for emperor!' Again and again he shouts as loud as he is able.

After only a few more times of this refrain being repeated, the other men join in as well, and they too begin to demand the elevation of their commander to become their emperor. On their own, they would not have thought of such a thing, but once the cry comes, all answer in a single chorus. In a way, it is absurd, as their chief is but a mid-level career officer, and one with not a drop of patrician blood at that.

The centurion had thought about this when the idea of his becoming emperor first occured to him. But is it really so absurd afterall? Royal blood doesn't count for what it did in the old days of the empire, and he would rather be a poor and lowly officer with the backing of a powerful army than a wealthy and landed senator who did not have that support.

The decision has been made, by the soldiers. They believe in him, and in his ability both as a soldier, and as a man with the kind of powerful will that will be necessary to get them what they need.

He raises his arms, marches amongst the ranks of men; they swell about him like a restless sea; pick him up and carry him about on their shoulders just as he had imagined; chant his name over and over; sweat, swear, sing with joy; it is not easy to win the enthusiasm of such hardened men, but he has, and it is just possible, he thinks, that if he wishes, he can become another Julius Caesar; can fight hard, reward his men well and earn their undying devotion and loyalty. With such a force at his back what can possibly stop him?

But then the old images creep back into his mind again, take hold of his daydreams; he, laying crucified upon two large slabs of wood: the price for usurping the throne; the price, that is, if he does not immediately set about toppeling all of his rivals, anyone who can challenge his claim to being the master of the world.

But he must strike quickly! Must march on Viminacium and win over the men there as well. If he can achieve this, than the other Danubian legions will fall over like dominoes to his cause, if only to prevent a civil war. They will join him or die. It is too late to go back now, he has taken sides, with the men, and against Emperor Philip. All that is left to do, after securing the legions of Moesia, will be to march on Rome itself, a place he has never even seen, and there to take the Imperial throne by force...
CHAPTER FIVE:

THE STERN HAND OF THE FATHER

Thousands of the greatest men in Rome's history have strode upon these floors. In fact, there is not a single great figure who at some time or other has not taken his place here in the Imperial Senate House, amomgst the company of his august peers. It is upon this grandoise stage that the lofty issues of the empire are weighed, contemplated, and argued over by the senators, and where the resolutions that are reached effect the lives of millions. It is a building of great splendor, befitting its status: the walls are of gleaming white marble, the floors of veined poryphery, the front doors are of bronze, pounded into shape by a thousand hammers, with everything framed by high coulumns of alabaster. There are dozens of sculptures too, contained in niches, and a large figure of winged victory in the form of a beautiful woman holding a sword, who gazes down benignly upon the three hundred mortals below. The structure has stood here, in the forum, for so long that it almost seems immortal, but was rebuilt by Julius Caesar himself, some three hundred years before.

The sound of murmering fills the air. Hundreds of voices swirl together and then rise up into the large cavernous ceiling. The space is meant to help the voices of the speakers resonate, so that not an important word will be lost. The session of the day has not yet started, so the men discuss various matters amongst themselves: dinner arrangements, invitations to parties, what happened at the chariot races the day before, or detials concerning the mistress they are currently seeing. The smell of a recent sacrifice is in the air but goes unnoticed, the daily ritual to open the House: burnt flesh, the charred carcass of a goat; the senators oversee the ritual carried out by priests, the heart of the beast lifted up and laid on a grill, sizzling as the flames take hold, a necessary act if all is to go well this day.

Only Senator Decius is quiet, only he is still; only he feels anxious these days whenever important decisions are made, or whenever the emperor is to address the House, as he soon is. Why has he felt that everything is of such consequence in these last months? Why is it that now there are no easy topics; that everything that happens is of such profound consequence to the future of the empire? He cannot help but speculate, without evidence, that even seemingly inconsequential and trivial things will eventually resonate like ripples on a pond into the future. He ruminates, but the other senators only go about their business; are unconcerned, or not more than usual anyway; they drink and they eat, and go to the games and see their mistresses.

But within his own mind bells are ringing, bells that tell him to be wary; that great dangers of unknown origin will have to be faced and overcome. Perhaps it is his insightful intuition that has led him to such a lofty position within the hierarchy of the government, and why many of the others choose either to support him or to fear him: they sense the power of his personality, his ability to remain one step ahead of events as they unfold. He has far more supporters than detractors, which is his good fortune; only Senator Crispus really stands in his way. He sees Crispus now, sitting on the opposite side of the chamber, surrounded by his fawning subservients.

This truly is a man who will always do everything he can to undermine Decius.

He knows he must inwardly prepare himself to face off with him today, that is what the Senate House is for, facing off, but he must keep his head and not lose his temper, which he usually does when debating. He finds it is necessary to loosen his grip on the arms of his wooden chair, to force himself to lean over and make a small joke to his loyal friend Senator Decimus, who sits beside him; must just await the arrival of emperor Philip, who is due any minute now; must not be distracted of thoughts of his wife, Cupressenia, with whom he was in bed just one short hour before. She had been especially generous to him this morning before he had arisen, and it would be all too easy to dwell upon such things...

Suddenly there is a hush; President Lucius, a heavy-set man, enters the chamber and takes his place at his podium. Behind him follow two Pretorian Guards, their armor resplendant, and their hands firmly gripping the hilts of their sheathed swords; they eye the room with an even gaze and then take up their positions upon the Imperial dias. Seconds later, the emperor himself follows, crosses to the center of the dias, and then, with some ceremony, swishes his purple robes to one side and sits down in his gilded chair.

The President takes a moment to recite the required platitudes of humility to the emperor, to which the senators all respond 'Aye!' in approval.

Philip is anxious, thinks Decius, though he tries to hide it, his eyes are distant and worried- looking. It must be bad news.

At a signal from the emperor -a snap with two gold-ringed fingers- two slaves enter the chamber from the entrance, which leads from the Imperial Palace through which the emperor has come. They carry a large wooden pole with platform, and upon it is hung a painted map of the whole empire. This they set down where all of the essembled men are able to see it, as the senators crane their necks.

A brief pause, a hesitation; the emperor remains seated, as though gathering his thoughts, before he stands to address the senators.

'Men of Rome!' he says with a quavery voice; a flash of gold and a rustle of his purple toga as he adjusts the folds of his robes, his face twisted into a grimace. 'I have been informed, through reliable sources, that two, possibly even three of our Danubian legions have fallen into the abyss of rebellion against the Imperial will, and against the will of the Senate!'

A gasp goes up from the senators as they turn to one another with looks of amazement.

The emperor makes his way over to the map, stands below it, and then points with his finger to one of the red-painted X's, which represent the military camps stationed along the Danube in Moesia Superior.

'The troops of the VII Claudia, and possibly others' he growls, 'previously known as legions of marked bravery and steadfastedness, have apparently elevated one of their own centurions to be their new emperor... I have not yet of course had time to correspond with these treacherous men, but can only assume that very soon now they will demand some sort of bribe for their continued loyalty... But they shall not get what they want!'

The emperor is pacing back and forth, his rage, held in check till now, and subdued by fear and nervousness, has finally broken forth.

'I refuse to consider this as a mere strike, or protest, but will have it treated as the worst kind of subversion against the crown, and against the soverianty of this house!.. This type of rebellion is the most dangerous kind, and must be dealt with swiftly and mercilessly, if it is to be held in check, and not be allowed to spread to the other legions!'

There is a hush amongst the senators, as they take in the full gravity of the situation. Can it possibly be that anyone would dare to challenge the authority of the emperor? Such things have happened many times before, in the past, but stability has been the norm for some decades now. No one likes to see the military authority divided, except for the dividers themselves, as such things always lead to civil war, and to chaos.

All of the men present understand the implications of a successful rebellion amongst the Danubian legions, for not only are they made up of the hardest and toughest men in the empire, but unlike other provinces, the men of Moesia do not need government sponsored ships to bring them the far distances necessary to threaten Rome itself. All the men of the VII Claudia have to do is simply march over relatively easy terrain, and could concievably be at the gates of the Capital itself within weeks.

The emperor is trembling; his skin has blanched, and it is obvious to Decius that the man is full of self pity in this moment. He is trapped, is looking for a way out, wants a quick solution, or even a saviour. But Decius will not make things so easy for him; he is bothered by Philip's contemptably weak behaviour, which sickens him, and only adds to his overall fury. It is not easy for Decius to remain level-headed in this moment; he grips the arms of his chair tightly, wants to scream at Philip that he had told him so a dozen times; that something exactly like this was bound to happen if he withheld payments to the Goths, and did not reinforce the Danubian garrisons!

But he will not say this; will not make the emperor lose face; not out of kindness to a friend, but because it will do no good. It is too late.

Instead, he will try a different strategy.

'If I may be allowed to take the floor?' Decius rises from his chair as he addresses the president of the council.

'Of course,' says the President. 'The floor recognizes Senator Quintus Decius, Prefect of Rome.'

'Noble emperor,' he begins slowly, 'and noble senate... You know me to be the sort of man who is not afraid to fight... In fact, there are many of you who see me as an old war horse, and perhaps even as someone who has often, in the past, been guilty of war mongering. But, I tell you now, that I have only ever taken that line when there has been no other possible way of dealing with a problem... I do not believe...' a dramatic pause for good measure, 'that this is not the time to rush into provoking a fight, which could only do irreperable damage to the state, when all the avenues have not yet first been explored.'

Murmers of agreement arise from the seated senators.

'I, as much as any man here, understand how overstretched our legions are, and how important it is to practice harsh discipline, even on our own men. We are a small nation, and yet rule most of the world. This order we maintain only through hardness, not only towards those we have conquered, but towards ourselves. Nothing would please me more than to see these traitors crucified, but at the risk of appearing weak, I believe the best course open to us at this time is to do nothing... We have seen these kinds of things before, and know well that sooner or later rebellions and usurpations simply collapse under their own weight. Does not history teach us so? In other words, why go to all the trouble and expense of mounting a punitive expidition, when the leaders of this coup will probably have been assasinated by their own men within a month or two, and order been restored.'

He chooses not to mention the fact that the rebelling men had not been paid their salaries yet, nor anthing about his own desire to see the Danubian legions reinforced with men fresh from Rome, who would therefore be more loyal to the emperor. But he will hold off on mentioning these things, until Philip is in a more reasonable state of mind.

The emperor is agitated, pacing, listening respectfully to his most trusted advisor, but clearly of a different opinion.

'We cannot simply do nothing, Prefect!' He is almost shouting now, and strides back and forth across the marble floor as he speaks. 'What if you are wrong, and these desperate men only take our lack of inititive as a sign of encouragement? Such a thing could only embolden them in their plans, and make it harder still to negotiate with them when the time comes, for they will feel themselves to be arguing from a position of strength. At this time we are simply not in a position to buy them off, and I am not convinced that they will be satisfied with anything less than the Imperial throne for one of their own men... What I need is one thing and one thing only, and that is a loyal commander, someone who will take charge of a force that will be able to restore order up there, and punish the leaders of this betrayal... Who will carry out this task for me? Who will help me to rid the empire of these serpents?'

There are no immediate takers, and the room is awkwardly silent as the senators gaze at one another like sheep, hoping upon hope that someone else will stupidly volunteer. No one wants to be sadled with the job, for there will be no booty nor prospect of glory on such a campaign. Killing one's fellow Romans is sometimes necessary, but remains a distasteful prospect. And there is of course always the chance of getting killed oneself.

Decius is silent as well; he knows Philip will recieve no help from his senators; does not offer his own. Sometimes it is good to remind the emperor of just how much he needs his servants, and to let him think for a moment about just how wrong things can go when he chooses not to heed the words of his advisors.

Philip is despondent looking; he knows that this is not the kind of thing he can order a man to do without appearing a tyrant; knows he must deal with this matter sensibly, so it doesn't explode into something bigger than it already is, and yet is desperate to have the matter settled, at least so he will be able to sleep.

As though on que, Decius's old rival, hawk-nosed Senator Crispus rises from his chair, and asks the President to be allowed to take the floor.

'Alas, my emperor,' he says lamentingly, 'if I were but a younger man, and not so enfeebled by many ailments, I myself would gladly dust off the old armor and shield, and take up the sword in your service. But such is life, that just as we grow in experience and temperence, so we are relegated to viewing events not from the seat of action, but from the couch of observance, which becomes our only consolation...'

The other senators all sigh to themselves and settle in for a long boring speech.

'And our consolation is that through our observations of life, set aback a distance, and not being caught up ourselves in the swell and the fray of combat, we may learn to see enshrined, there, in the sunlight, the various qualities that make a man noble, and of fit character to lead... And sitting amongst us now, is a man whom I have had many occasions of studying, from near and from afar, and have never found him wanting in those qualities of dignity and energy so needed now for this particular campaign... This man has always served his state with efficiency and fidelity; a patrician who is as gifted at the art of war as he is in the art of diplomacy, and who has both the character and the iron will to crush this rebellion, and to do so in a way which reflects both glory unto himself, onto this august body, and onto the emperor himself. I say to you, that it is the very fact that we know this man is against the motion to use military force, that actually makes him the ideal candidate, as we can then be assured of his objectivity...'

'For the sake of the gods, Senator Crispus, of whom do you speak?!' shouts the emperor.

Crispus is taken aback momentarily, but then smiles as he gazes in the direction of Decius, who suddenly realizes to his great annoyance what the man is about to do.

'...And so I nominate Senator Decius.' Crispus says simply, and then sits down again.

A brilliant tactical move, Decius thinks, and a very aggressive one, especially from a man who claims to be enfeebled. Crispus has set him up beautifully; has made it appear to everyone else that old animosities have now been laid aside in the name of serving one's state, and even that the old man has always harbored a deep respect and even reverance for his foe.

And how can he refuse such a nomination without appearing the coward? How can he squirm out of it? Can he claim to be unsuitable because of his current title as Prefect of Rome? No, that will not do. The other men know him to be an experienced military man. Besides, the senators in Crispus's pay are already applauding the nomination, as though it is a done deal, and they make up a good third of all the officials present... A brilliant move indeed, it will keep Decius out of Crispus's way for at least a few months, half a year more likely, by which time the old hawk-nose can further consoldiate his hold on the senate, and on the emperor. Perhaps in that amount of time he will even be able to replace Decius as Philip's main advisor?

The other senators continue to clap, the sound is nearly deafening to Decius's ears. His own friends seem to support the idea too, but only because they don't want to go themselves, or because they are fool enough to think this will bring them all honor. They tell themselves this is the way it should be, because after all, is it not Decius who is always talking about the importance of border security? And wouldn't this be as good a chance as any for him to put his rhetoric into action, and show his detractors just how right he has been all along? Surely this usurpation incident itself reveals the man's insight.

He is angry with himself for having allowed Crispus to so easily manuever him; angry that the senator hadn't even bothered to try to be subtle in his methods. Does Crispus feel himself so powerful already that he can act against him openly? And what of the emperor? He is hardly springing to Decius's defence, hardly insisting that he is too valuable an asset to lose.

Decius has two choices, he can try to fight it out with his adversaries at court, or simply play along... For now at least.

The more he thinks about it though, the more an expedition to Moesia doesn't sound too bad. To be in command of troops again; something he remembers fondly; misses being in the saddle, and the spirit of campaigning soldiers; even the rough food and the discomfort of the journey. This could also be his chance to personally oversee the kinds of changes along the border he wants to see; can tighten the discipline of the legions; appoint men he personally trusts to command them, while reorganizing things so the maximum usage can be gotten out of the minimum of materials and men.

He sees the obvious advantages for his family of living in the city, but such a life has a tendancy to make one soft; can't have that; he will even borrow Herennius from his legion for awhile, under the pretext that he will be able to get some first-hand experience in the field. Life has not had the same spark since the boy left for his military training. As for the fact that there will be no money in this venture, this doesn't bother him in the least. What is more important now is political advantage, and with a little creative work on his part, he is sure he will be able to glean something, perhaps even be able to find some sort of diplomatic solution to the crisis; something the others have missed, which will surely raise his stock in the eyes of the emperor.

But of course the most important reason he will acquiesce without a fight is because he does not trust any of the other men in the room to do the job right, and therefore must go. If there is any actual danger to Rome in this defection, which he doubts, he knows these other senators will only make the situation worse.

With little hesitation, he rises from his chair, clears his throat, and holds his clenched fist to his chest. 'I declare before all present that should the emperor give me leave, I shall fulfill this, the will of the senate -if it is truly their will- and that if so, they may count this task as good as brought to a successful conclusion.'

The senators all cheer again, and raise their arms into the air, showering him with praises.

These men may look like their anscestors of old, Decius thinks, but over the centuries, Rome's leaders have become less and less virile, to the point where they have are nothing more than a bunch of sycophants. They cheer because they need someone to do their dirty work for them, someone to protect them from the barbarians, while they go on preaching about the brotherhood of man. They cheer for a general when bravery is needed, but will distain these same men as warmongers in times of peace. They show no courage for battle, but plenty in calling for it. They demand the peace that war brings in its wake, but look down-upon the men who bring it.

It will be my duty then to show them what a truly masculine man can do, one not infected by the mysticism of Christianity, or the decedance of city life.

Yes, the more he thinks about it, the more he knows that spending some time in the wilds of the empire will be good for him.

'It looks as though the senate approves of you, Senator Decius, as do I,' says the emperor. He is obviously relieved at not having to do the job himself, and his face shows it; knows full well that part of the reason for this rebellion in the first place is his own incompetance, and would rather not give his legions a chance to get their hands on him.

*

Not until later that day, as he sits in the peace of his garden, does the full magnitude of the task ahead suddenly occur to Decius. It had all seemed too easy only hours ago, but now he must ready himself mentally, for what could very well be the greatest and most momentous thing he has yet faced: He must travel over a thousand miles to a remote corner of the empire, and there, with a relatively small army, subdue by force, or wits, what could possibly be by now up to three unruly legions, and not just any legions, but the very best and most experienced.

He will have to use all his skill, and perhaps all his fighting prowess, not just to win, but to stay alive... 
CHAPTER SIX:

THE RULE OF THE PACK

Moesia, 249 AD

The Roman-built road stretches into the distance. It winds like a rough-scaled snake through the wide, hilly horizon. The sky above is an open expanse of clear blue, save for the few wisps of white cotton clouds that stretch from the craggy tops of far away mountain peaks. The fields of the valley are cultivated; crops of wheat vie with blankets of yellow flowers, which surround random islands of small verdant forests. To the right of the road, and far below, a placid blue lake sits like a filled-up bath, and nestled away in the landscape, like a small animal resting in the the nook of an arm, is a small primitive village.

The legion is marching. The sound of the soldiers' armor clattering together is rhythmic; and the crunch of five thousand feet coming down onto the stone road makes a highly distinctive sort of music, one that General Decius knows well and loves. It has been too long since he has last listened to such a pleasing cadence. He sits upon his horse, his legs feeling the muscled flanks of the beast beneath him; its energy raw, and the beating of its powerful heart. It seems to thump to the tune of the marching, though he knows this must just be his imagination. Herennius is on his own horse; rides next to his father, the two watch the procession of troops passing by; drink watered wine. Soon they will stop for the night, set up a temporary camp. The journey has been hard; Decius has pushed the legion as fast as it will go; doesn't want to give the VII Claudia time to mount an effective defence against him.

Dust rises from the marching column, as it always does for every army. It is not hot here, is cool even, and not dry either; but fine silt rises anyhow, and settles on nearby trees; leaves a fine film over everything, including the once-gleaming armor of the legionaries. Most of these men are new recruits, haven't seen a single battle yet, and Decius knows that waging a campaign with such men is not ideal. He hopes that it will prove to be enough of a threat to the rebelling legions that he has an army, enough so that they will begin to doubt their recent traitorous actions, and to tremble, at least a little, at the news of his approach.

He surveys the landscape about him; once this was wild land, and now it has been tamed. He has seen this transformation in his own lifetime; he has forgotten just how much he loves it here, how clear the air is, and how much history seems to rise up from the dark rich soil beneath his feet. One hundred and fifty years before, Emperor Trajan, his own personal hero, had himself campaigned in this area when he subdued the ferocious Dacians, a tribe that still live just byond the Danube. When he thinks of it, the lifespan of the empire truly amazes him, and he dreams of nothing else but that he too, like Trajan before him, may perform some great act which will further enhance the pride and prestige of his people, or at the very least ensure their survival.

It is wonderful to have Herennius by his side again, much like when the boy was younger, and they used to go out riding together. He can't explain it to himself, but for some reason whenever he is in the proximity of his son he begins to feel emotionally overwhelmed; there is a stabbing sensation in his heart; not a painful wound, but nevertheless something of great cutting intensity. It is as though there is a spiritual bond between the two men that goes beyond even the levels of intimacy he shares with his wife. He has never spoken of this with Herennius, and even tries to hide the depth of his feeling, lest either the boy himself, or others, begin to think that he is too indulgent a father. It is important to him that he never hurts his Herennius's pride, and feels anyhow that they understand one another, without having to say anything at all.

He loses himself in the study of the lines of marching troops, revels in the feeling of their power, and of his own, as they move past him like a never-ending stream. He takes another sip of wine from a leather wineskin, laughs out loud at some remembered joke, and passes the skin to Herennius.

'Look at that!' he nearly shouts in his excitement. 'These are not the best troops in the field... No... We will meet the best in a few days' time. But even the worst legionary is worth two or three of any other type of fighter in the world. When we speak of Rome, let us speak of the legions, for they are the true might and glory of the empire. I tell you Herennius, that for all the splendor of our Capital's many palaces and cultural achievements, give me a dirty, scruffy legion any time. Remember this: No matter how high you rise, and you will rise high, my boy, and no matter how many noble edicts you fulfill, nothing will ever compare to the thrill of commanding your very own legion... In other words, I am happy to be back!'

Herennius is overjoyed to see his father so filled with life; the old man has become weighed down under his many responsibilities over the last few years, and this has had the effect of muting him a little. Until today that is. And he is pleased himself to have been given this important commision as one of six Tribunes serving under Decius; still can't get used to the way a uniform feels, even though it's been over a year now since he first tried it on; loves the sense of importance it gives him. And finally, he will see some action, something he has looked forward to all of his young life. Now, at last, he will get to fight side by side with his father, a man he loves and admires more than any other.

Suddenly Decius's face takes on a more somber note, and he reflects aloud to Herennius: 'I am determined to resolve this current crisis without the shedding of too much blood. We need these men alive, to serve Rome, and there is nothing more abhorant to myself than a family fued. A soldier, as you know, especially a veteran, is the most tested man alive; is tested to his very depths in battle, time and time again, in loyalty, in honor, in comradeship, and in dire responsibility, and that is why he is also the best man to rule over others, and he knows it.

'Conflict is inevitable when there is a disconnect between the state, which relies heavily upon the military, and the military, which relies, to a lesser extent, on the state. Every now and then the military minds start to think that they can do without the state at all, or can create their own, one which is more sympathetic to the army than it is to the common citizen, who is seen as no more than a shirker by the average soldier. But this is more than a little dangerous, since the army is only there to protect the commom citizen in the first place... And thus, even at the best of times, conflict is only ever temporarily resolved, down through the ages.'

Herennius listens respectfully, shifts in his saddle as the two men begin to trot along again beside the file of toops. 'Tell me General,' he queries, always careful to refer to his father formally when others are within earshot, 'Why were you so ready to take on this assignment? In your position, you could have left it to someone more junior in rank, while you took up the Governorship of Egypt, or someplace like that, where you could spend your days growing fat, and rich?'

'Do you know me so poorly?' asks Decius with mock bemusment. 'You have a lot to learn about politics, young Tribune. First of all, the official answer, and that is that usurpations are a serious matter, and the Imperial presence must be felt in person by those who defy their masters. Junior commanders do not have enough authority. Besides, wide experience and a deft political touch is necessary in such matters, which can prove to be both delicate and brutal... But of course the real reason, or at least the personal one, is that it is the difficult task well achieved that is most pleasing to the emperor, and to the gods. How much better it is to take up the trying task, and to triumph, than merely to advance uneventfully up the chain of command. This is something that the likes of Senator Crispus will never understand, as he rises though his machinations, and not through true achievement.'

'How wise is it though, to let Crispus do as he pleases while you campaign?' asks Herennius. 'Would it not be better to deal with him directly?'

'Not necessarily,' Decius explains patiently, as the two men get back into the riding rhythm again. 'Most often, to take up the burden of greatness means to invite tragedy into your life, not like the Christians do of course, with their well-honed will to self-destruction, but rather to risk everything on one great role of the dice. Only then can you transcend yourself, and enter into the realm that lies beyond our own individual frailties. The level of greatness you can achieve is determined by the level of risk you are willing to take... There will always be men like Crispus, but the trick is not to become bogged down in their worlds, but to rise above them.'

'And how is that best accomplished, if opportunities for greatness do not readily present themselves?' It is a question that stems not so much from curiosity, but is an engagement of the boy to the man, the son to the father, always testing the limits of his idol, Decius.

'There is opportunity everywhere, and at all times. You must simply always try to accomplish the impossible, and in a way that is unique to you. Glory like that will never fade. The mission we are now on is a perfect example of what I mean. We are expected to restore order to two or three hardened Danubian legions using only one rather inexperienced legion. In such a situation we cannot rely on force alone, but must use any skills of cunning, logic, and diplomacy that we have. It will be necessary to conjure up the resources we store within, in order to overcome these impossible odds. And we must win. The stakes are too high not to... But we have the faith of the emperor that we will be victorious, and we must trust in the gods that this will be enough.'

'And why is it that you hate Christians so much? Are they not just another sect?'

'No, they are not. They are dangerous because at best they are hypocrites, and at worst they are a denial of everything that is strong, virtuous and assertive about Roman society. Without the will to constantly protect and renew ourselves at the very foundations of our existance, that is, through our army, and through victory in battle, the gods will no longer favor us, and our empire will enter into decline... Sometimes I fear that this time is already upon us.'

Herennius is always fascinated to talk to his father, and to learn, and he senses that these lessons will stay with him for a lifetime. 'And we have the right to rule over the world because we are the strongest?' he asks. It is hard for him to contain his youthful zeal, and Decius smiles at this.

'We rule because our gods are the strongest, and because we do the greatest honor to them, they make us strong too. Just look at Rome itself, the greatest city in the world. We have mastered the arts of architecture, engineering and war better than any other country. Even the once mighty Germans and the wise Greeks are now our slaves. We have laid low our enemies, and become an indespensible boon to all humanity. Those who accept this benefit we bring receive our protection, and those who resist invite only the sword and the lash as they have proven themselves unworthy of elevation.'

The two men are silent, as they ponder their own thoughts. In Decius's younger days, he had never been much of a philoshopher, but recently he has taken more time to reflect upon what drives him forward in life, and he wants to impart what he discovers to his son. Luckily, the boy is not without intelligence, and seems to understand on some level what it is he is saying to him.

The sun has long since crested its arc, and slowly descends over the far horizon. The distant snow peaked mountains breath a cool breath, which comes down into the valley, and stirs the glassy surface of a nearby lake. The sound of marching continues, unrelentingly, as with every step the soldiers draw nearer and nearer to the usurper's fortress of Viminacium. They march to fulfill the will of the emperor, to restore order, and a reckoning will have to be made, despite the fact that they may very well soon be ordered to fight against their cousins, or their brothers, or fathers.

But the wind pays no heed to their dilemma, and moves on as relentlessly as they themselves through the ranks of men, as the last dying embers of crimson sunlight glint on the sharpened points of their spears...

Viminacium, along the Danube Border

A fortress at night. Writhing torches cast eery shadows as guards patrol the high stone walls. The soldier's eyes scan the dark landscape beyond searchingly, ever watchful for looming threats, as below, in the courtyard of the fort tethered horses stamp their hoofs on the cobblestones, their breath steaming up from their nostrils.

Sentry duty along the stone battlement walls is always a chore, especially at this time of night, when the sun has been gone for hours, and the cold wind always manages to find its way through clothing and armor, and to chill one to the bone. Centurion Agrippa stomps his feet to keep warm, and moves as close as he dares to the glow of a torch, watching its yellow flames twist and writhe up the shaft of wood like frightened snakes. Above the torch, sparks fly up into the cool night air, so many thousands, and so bright, it is hard to tell them apart from the stars.

He has been here for some time; nothing new in that; it is every centurion's duty to take a turn on the fortress wall, to oversee the legionaries of the watch. Still, this night has seemed to drag out especially long, perhaps because he is worried, and on edge. Up here, on the parapet, there are few things to distract one from troublesome thoughts, and the darkness and stillness has a way of magnifying and preying upon one's fears and doubts, just as happens when one cannot sleep.

For the last month or so he has felt this way, but has not told anyone yet; has not been ready to confide his insecurities to fellow officers, partly because he is not sure what he thinks, and partly because of the very real danger that even expressing such ideas can get him killed. At first, only two months before, he had been overjoyed when his friend and commander Pacatianus had seized power for himself, and it had been obvious to Agrippa then that the VII Claudia had been on the right course, and that the gods were with them. But after having returned to base camp, and seizing control of this camp, things had begun to go wrong almost right away. It was only small things at first, but had gotten to the point where he wonders how many of his fellow soldiers are just as fed up as he is.

The first major setback to their plans came when they had only been able to convince one other legion, the Felix, to join them. Originally, he and Pacatianus had hoped that all of the Danubian garrisons would join together as one united front, but this had most certainly not happened, and he wondered now at his own niavite. The other legions had not tried to stand against them of course, because that would be to no one's benefit, but neither had they offered any practical assistance. Obviously, the camp Prefects of the other legions were waiting, and biding their time before deciding which side to take.

A cynical move, he thinks, but then, understandable. Few men are willing to gamble with their very lives in such a high stakes game.

But this has had the effect of leaving the VII Claudia and Felix legions alone and isolated, and the only outcome he can see for the future is that his rebellion will wither and die on the vine, as all such things do if they do not continually grow. But what had happened? Everything had seemed so assured in the beginning.

Firstly, he knows that failure has come due to the lack of support from the rest of the army, and secondly, it has become apparent that while Pacatianus is an inspiring military leader and tactician, he is no overall strategist, and seems to understand very little about administration.

This has begun to show within the morale of the men, for they have not been asked to give their maximum efforts at anything in the last weeks, and so, inevitably, things have begun to slide within the camp: men show up late for shifts, they don't bother to shave, take longer breaks, and are more likely to be found in the drinking dens and whorehouses than within their barracks. In short, they have become lazy and undisciplined, and it doesn't seem as though their new emperor has any plans to keep them on form and in fighting trim.

Agrippa and the other leaders are in a quandry: It is too late in the season to march on Rome, and besides, they have far too few men. Nor can they concentrate their efforts on driving out any of the recurrant Gothic incursions, as they cannot leave the security of their base, for fear that it will be occupied by their fellow Romans should they leave. None of them doubt that there are many of their fellow officers in the other camps who would love to say that it had been they who had beaten the rebellion. The truth is, the VII Claudia cannot affort to fight against their own army, not without starting a civil war, which no one wants.

Perhaps, Agrippa thinks to himself, it would be better for everyone if Pacatianus were to act more like a typical emperor, but he knows the man won't change his ways. He seems to believe that what worked for him as a centurion will work for him now, and that nothing is really different, which is staggeringly blind. He continues to walk about, even outside the fortress walls, with only one bodyguard, his friend the legionary Germanus, and believes that all he needs to do is to win the men's hearts, but does not take as seriously the task of fulfilling his many promises to them. It's not as though he is lazy, but just that he thinks that popularity alone will carry the day for him in the end.

Agrippa pulls his cloak around himself a little tighter to block out the cold gusts of wind that funnel along the walkway of the stone rampart. The isolation of the VII Claudia, being cut off from the rest of the army, will soon lead them all to despair, he knows. Even the mail has been stopped, at the order of Emperor Philip, and will continue to be, until the soldiers promise to come back into line.

The irony of that, of course, is that it was one of the main issues driving the revolt in the first place, and if they had all simply kept the peace, they would be reading their letters at this very moment.

We have all been fools, he ruminates, fools for not seeing the obvious outcome to our fit of violence against our own army, against our own emperor, and now we are paying the price. And of course the price will only grow much steeper the longer they hold out. Everything was supposed to work out so brilliantly once they threw off their shackles, at this very moment they were supposed to have been in Rome, dictating terms, but now they find themselves more tighly shackled than they had ever been.

As Agrippa stands contemplating, another officer of the watch, Centurion Magnus, strides up the stairs of the battlement, and gives the night's password to a guard. He comes and stands beside his friend in order to warm his hands, or at least pretends that that is his purpose. He too had played his part in the usurpation, though only reluctantly, knowing that if he had not his own men would have killed him, but his heart had never really been in it. He knows well though that Agrippa had also not been fully convinced, and has watched him silently for the last month, sensing the man's inner struggle, knowing that his fellow centurion is at last beginning to realize that they have all bitten off more than they can chew...

'A cold night,' says Magnus, 'and the half moon doesn't give us much light.'

'That's true,' says Agrippa, noticing the other man for the first time.

They both stand silent, staring down at a legionary below in front of the main gate, who paces back and forth in the blue light, trying to keep warm.

'I thought you should know that General Decius is marching this way; should be here in about three days.'

Magnus tries to say this quietly, almost matter of factly, as though simply discussing a duty roster or some other trivial matter, but his voice is as rough and knarly as his battle-scarred face, and his tone betrays his true concern.

The words hit Agrippa like a thunderbolt, the blow not softened at all by Magnus's consideration, and for the first time since this whole thing began, he feels the grip of real fear take hold of him which causes him suddenly to sweat, despite the cold night air.

'General Decius!' he exclaims. 'But how... How did he get this close without us knowing it?!'

'Apparently, he is marching a full legion at double time, covering a great distance each day. We knew that this would happen sooner or later, though we never guessed Philip would be able to mobilize a force that quickly, or that they would dare to head out so late in the campaigning season. Still, they have, and if we don't want a panic on our hands, we must keep this information just between ourselves.'

Agrippa is reeling, he is acquinted with Decius; knows him to be a more than capable commander, and very tough; he had never expected Philip to entrust this task to such an important man as this; the emperor obviousy takes their rebellion very seriously, having sent perhaps the second-most powerful man in Rome to deal with them.

What a nightmare! It will be almost impossible to convince any of the local legions to fight against such a man, let alone any of the men of the VII Claudia. Decius is not only a hardened and ruthless fighter, but he was born in this region, has commanded many of the Danubian legions at one time or another, and will have the support of many of the local native leaders. The truth is, is that despite the fact that he brings only one legion, he will have won before he has even had to draw his sword, and within the week Agrippa and the others can expect to be hanging from crosses.

'What can we do?' Agrippa asks in a harsh whisper, trying not to be overheard by any of the guards.

'We have one of two choices,' says Magnus bluntly, as he leans in closer. 'We can fight it out, thus perhaps sparking a civil war, which we will no doubt lose, or we can capitulate completely, and hope to be spared.'

'You're mad!' exclaims Agrippa, 'Decius will never take mercy on usurpers. We will be fed to the dogs, and you know it. The very best thing we can hope for is decimation for the men, and complete annhilation for ourselves. Our names will be erased from history, and our families back home will pay the price, as happens to anyone who defies the will of the emperor... It is a hopeless situation, and I only wish I had never heard of Pacatianus now!'

'The cause we followed was just though,' argues Magnus, 'if not the methods. The ideals of the rebellion were not the problem, but simply the way we went about it. The men may not say anything openly of course, just as we do not, but they still believe that they deserve what they rose up for, and I don't believe that their discontent will just go away, decimation or no decimation.'

Agrippa can see the sense of what Magnus is saying, and yet can still not understand the man's seeming optimism. He himself is filled with despair. 'What does all that matter now though, if we are dead?' he asks quietly.

'We are not food for dogs yet!' says Magnus slyly. 'First, we must think about how we will plead our case to Decius, and how we will make him understand the justifiable disenchantment of the common soldiers... He is a ruthless General, yes, but is also a politician, and will listen to reason if we put things to him persuasively enough. Besides, he doesn't want a civil war any more than we do, and must have some love for these legions, which he himself used to command... All we need is a delaying tactic, something that will hold him back from slaughtering us at once, before we have had a chance to make our case. We need something, a symbol of our goodwill, that will convince him of our loyalty to him... We must do this to save some of the honor of the legion, that is, if we have any honor left ourselves...'

'What kind of a symbol of goodwill do you mean?' Agrippa asks, now as curious as he is frightened. He is more than willing to allow himself to be pulled into the plot, no matter how outlandish, as it has become the only hope he has to save his own skin, and he listens with fierce intensity to all that Magnus has to say...

* * *

It is late. Dark. A lone figure weaves his way back from the drinking dens of the local village, next to the camp of Viminacium. He has drunk and coroused so much he can hardly see straight, and yet this is not unusual, for when he is not fighting he can usually be found drinking. First Spear Centurion, or rather, Emperor Pacatianus, is alone because his bodyguard, ever-loyal Germanus, who always remains sober and watches over him like a hawk, has been detained by his fellow legionaries who want him to settle a bet for them. But it is no matter to Pacatianus, as he feels safe wherever he goes, even outside the walls of the camp, for he has always believed that none of his men bears him any ill will. After all, how could they, when they've followed him this far, and have even named him emperor!

He closes his eyes as he shuffles along the dirt path. The sound of distant cheering fills his head. It has been the same waking dream for weeks now: In his mind's eye he imagines a long row of carved marble statues, busts of the great emperors of the past. He sees Augustus Caesar, with the rounded head and the wise look in his eye which the artist has somehow managed to capture; he sees Commodus, dressed as Herculese, a stone lion's meign draped over his broad head and shoulders, while standing next to him is the bust of his father, great Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wears a sleepy expression on his frozen and philosophical features.

But finally, he sees himself, Pacatianus the Good, his rather blunt features chisled for all eternity into stone. He approves of the way the artist has captured him; the many scars on his face tastefully left out, and carrying the expression of a brave, ambitious man, though still fundementally humble at heart. Then the cheering starts anew, a deafening roar now, such as one would hear at the gladatorial games in Rome -not that he has ever been- but he soon will be, and not just as yet another spectator, but as the emperor himself, who presides over the day's glorious events. This is his fate.

He must admit to himself, especially when he is sober, and when self-delusion is harder to sustain, that things have not exactly been going to plan. In fact, if he is brutally honest, everything he had hoped for has now backfired. Emperor Philip has proven to be entirely ruthless, and has even cut the soldier's pay, something he had not counted on. But then, doesn't that just prove that the revolt had been a necessity in the first place? It is only the men's deep loyalty to him that holds them together now, and he can barely wait to repay them for their trust, can hardly wait for the bad weather to end, so that he can march on Rome itself, win easy victories along the way, and draw others to his cause. Surely dissatisfaction is rampant throughout the whole empire, though it remains long suppressed, and all it will take will be a single spark to set the whole thing ablaze.

So amazing that it is he himself who is that spark!

He comes to the front gate of the fortress, calls out the password of the night to the sentry, and is let inside. He greets the soldiers on duty by name, but takes no notice of the absence of the duty centurions, Agrippa and Magnus, who should also be on the wall at this hour. As he stumbles through the camp he praises Jupiter that the engineers have been thoughtful enough to lay out every Roman fortification to the exact same specifications, thus making it much easier to get around in the dark, especially for a drunken man.

How can anyone argue that the empire does not bring true civilization in its wake?

'I'll bet the barbarians would never think of that, for the convienience of their drunks,' he says to himself, and laughs out loud at the thought.

Out of the shadows cast by the many barracks, a figure emerges. It is Agrippa, Pacatianus's old battle companion, come to help him back to his quarters.

'Agrippa! Am I glad to see you. I am not lost, I swear it, but was beginning to despair of ever making the last few steps to my bed. The wine flowed with more excess this evening than usual, and as you know I am partial to the grape. All the men of the Sixth Cohort raised a toast to me, and insisted I drain my glass. If I had not known better, I'd have sworn they were trying to get me wrecked. Alas, everyone likes to see the mighty fall... ah...' his voice trials off in a drunken slur.

'You cannot retire yet, Sire,' Agrippa admonishes. 'The night is still young. Myself and a few of the others have been at the dice in my quarters, and so far I have pocketed over one-hundred sestercii! Centurion Magnus does not seem to be on his luck this night, but I happen to know...' Agrippa winks and touches his nose, 'that he still has at least another hundred sestercii to lose.'

'Where did that old squirrel get that kind of money, now that our pay has been cut off?' Pacatianus asks incredulously, as he lets his friend prop him up and guide him on.

'Oh, you know old Magnus. Probably hid it away somewhere, the cheap bastard. He won't spend one sestercii on drink or women, but just saves it up.'

'Ha ha ha,' laughs Pacatianus. 'The old squirrel,' he says again, and laughs at his own joke.

'So, my noble Emperor... Shall we relieve that sly old dog from his over-full purse? I have not the heart to risk this evening's winnings myself, but I told Magnus I would fetch you instead, to keep the game going, though he only laughed at that.'

'Laughed, did he?!' Pacatianus exclaims with mock outrage.

'Yes, Sire. Centurion Magnus may think very highly of you as his commander and master, but he doesn't seem to think very highly of you as a man of luck.'

'Oh, he doesn't, does he... Well, I'll show him! Take him to me now!.. Onward soldier, before my legs give out.'

'Yes, my Emperor.'

Somehow the two men make it to the centurion's barracks without falling down, and Agrippa kicks the front door open. His lodgings are sparse, in the true Roman fashion; there is a lit brazier in the middle of the room, something to help keep the dampness of the chill night air out. There are three other men already in the small room, Magnus and two decurions. The decurions are grumbling about having lost the last of their savings to Magnus, who sits smugly on a low stool in front of the upturned crate they are playing on. He greets his emperor jovially as the two men enter the room.

'My Emperor!' he calls out, and throws his arms wide. 'An honor to see you. Have you come to lose everything to this poor old soldier? My luck has been turning, and sweet Goddess Fortuna now smiles down upon me with her warmest beams.'

'I'll show you, you upstart!' Pacatianus growls, though he is smiling as he takes the stool offered to him by the decurions, who respectfully give up their seats for him so that he will have more elbow room. They step back into the shadows of a dark corner of the quarters, where they can get a good vantage-point on the game.

'I happen to have fifty sestercii here that says that smile of yours will be a thing of the past within a few rolls of the dice. Dare you try to hex the luck of your master, my son?'

'Never, Sire. I am content to leave things to the gods to decide, especially as they have been so good to me this night.'

Pacatianus is feeling good as he presses the dice in his closed fist. He is drunk, drunk enough that he fails to notice the strained atmosphere in the room, and the forced nature of his friend's conviviality, but not too far gone not to be able to focus his attention on something he is really good at, and that is the calculating of odds. He estimates in seconds just how long, and how many throws it will take him to turn a tidy profit. Ah, the thrill of the game has him in his grip, and always manages to perk him up. No night is complete without at least a few rolls...

He releases the dice, and waits tensely for a half second.

'Six!' he calls out proudly.

Magnus takes the dice up into his big hairy hand and shuffles them in his palm, then tosses them onto the crate. A second's pause. Held breath. 'Five...' says Magnus, and runs his fingers over his scruffy chin. 'Damn the luck to Hades!'

'Ha ha!' scoffs Pacatianus. 'I never waste time on the small bets, and within the hour I will have even the shirt off your back. Now hand me my coins you scoundrel!'

Magnus hangs his head low, in mock despair, and reaches for the satchel that hangs from his belt. From it he slowly counts out numerous coins, and as he does so, the Decurions draw themselves closer, out of the shadows, as if to get a better view.

Pacatianus holds out his wavering right hand to recieve the payment, the light of greed shining in his eyes. Greed is something he has never been able to control within himself, nor the desire to gamble away things he doesn't even possess, and he knows it, as do the other men in the room. They have been counting on it.

Now Magnus begins to place the coins, many of which bear the likeness of Emperor Philip, into Pacatianus's outstretched palm, but then suddenly he grips his master's wrists, almost as though in a friendly sort of greeting, though the grip is hard, and he doesn't let go.

'Now!!!' Magnus shouts, and all at once everything is chaos as Agrippa also now leaps forward, and grips Pacatianus's left arm.

The emperor is confused. What is going on! He struggles, but is without his usual strength; is dull and sluggish because of the copious amounts of wine he has consumed. Suddenly he feels something tight twisting around his neck. He tries to fight it, but can't! The two decurians are right behind him now, have drawn a rope around his throat; one of them strains and struggles with the effort, trying to cut the cord ever more deeply into the flesh of the throat, while the other decurian dashes around to the front and grabs hold of the struggling victim's legs, which at are kicking and thrashing about.

Even drunk, the man is a bull, and the men must use all their combined power to keep him from breaking free. Little does Pacatinus know though that back in the drinking den, not three hundred yards away, his old friend Germanus is also being garroted to death by his fellow legionaires, payment for his deep loyalty to his master. But he can think of nothing in this moment, no articulate thoughts, only sounds and images that flash before his eyes as vivid hallucinations: he smells the arena of Rome, the animals, the people and the sweat; hears the roaring cheer of twenty thousand voices rise up in a chorus something like the cry of drowning men in a sea storm; feels a sudden surge of power as he stands before the masses, his arms upraised in greeting, and the Imperial sceptre, a symbol of his authority as emperor, clutched in his right hand. Then he sees his own his face, carved into polished white stone, but then the face starts to move away, to get smaller, and smaller, until it is gone, and everything is blacker than it was before he had been born...

After the spasms of the dying body have stopped, the four officers keep their grip tight anyway, just to be sure, despite the numbness in their hands. It is another half minute before they at last begin to relax their grips, and to let the body slowly sink to the floor. They fall to the ground too, panting heavily. Then Magnus, still struggling to catch his breath, remembers his coins, and begins to pick them up from where they have fallen. As he does so he notices that Pacatianus's right hand is still gripped tightly, and so works for several minutes to pry open the stiff fingers in order to retrieve the few coins that the corpse is still clutching.

*

Within an hour of the killing, the body of Pacatianus, once usurping Emperor of the Danubian legions, and now just another corpse, has been washed, anointed with oils, and dressed in his finest armor. Agrippa and Magnus have overseen every detail of the care of the body of their former commander, and both try to keep busy so that thoughts of the recent murder won't haunt their minds. The two men are no strangers to death, having personally dispatched hundreds of their enemies to the underworld, but this is different. This man had been their leader, companion, and friend, and though Pacatianus had never borne either of them any ill will, far from it, they had been forced to betray him.

Still, they are able to justify the act in their minds, even if they feel badly about it. The man had been greedy for power, and yet was far underqualified for the august office he so presumptively took for himself. If he had been able to deliver on any of his promises, that might have been different, but he had not, and none of the men present wanted him to drag them down with him any further than he already had. The rebellion had been a brief, rash attempt to right the wrongs they had endured, but Pacatianus had not seemed to understand that it had failed, and so he had to go.

It is regrettable, but this is the only way that they can show their loyalty to Emperor Philip, and to General Decius. They can only hope to expunge their own compliance in the revolt by showing where their true loyalties lie, and they hope this single act will be enough to restore order.

Once the dressing of the corpse is done, it is laid onto a wide wooden plank, and the two decurions and centurions heft the weight of it up onto their shoulders, then proceed out into the common yard of the fortress.

On the horizon, the sun is just beginning to come up, and red gashes of dawn light cut across the sky, illuminating the faces of the men. They wear grim expressions, and do not speak as they carry their commander toward the entrance gate of the fortress. They reach a slight dip in the grass, about sixty metres from the gate, and there lay the plank down so that it tilts slightly upward, thus making it more visible to passersby. They have closed Pacatianus's eyes, and crossed his arms on his stomach, and it looks as though he is just sleeping, for the color has not yet completely drained from his face.

Many of the legionaries have been up for awhile, tending to their morning chores, and they begin to gather before the body. Few of them are surprised, as most knew about the plan to take the life of their commander, and many of them actively participated in the plot. But none of them looks pleased, and all are quiet. They know what Pacatianus had tried to do for them, how well he had led them in battle over the years, and it is hard to believe they will never again see him raise his sword and call to them to advance into danger.

Yes, perhaps they have gained their own survival, or not, but they know that in this battle, all they fought for has been lost, while the Emperor Philip has won, decisively, for now at least. And they are insecure, and not able to guess what their own fates will be: whether the lash, for being traitors, or the horrors of decimation, or even crucifixion!

They will not know until General Decius arrives to decide their fates, which will be any day now... 
CHAPTER SEVEN:

BY DIVINE SANCTION

A heavy mist has descended during the long night, leaving the fortress of Viminacium shrouded in a veil of white. Just one hour before, the sun rose, and it has still not been able to burn off the thick moist air, making it all but impossible for the guards who line the camp's ramparts to see more than a hundred yards in any direction. Sounds come to them in a distorted way, making things that are near seem far off, and things that are far away seem near. But there is no mistaking the familiar notes of a dozen or more bucina horns, which blare some miles off on the main road leading to the fort. This is the first indication the men within Viminacium have had of Decius's imminant arrival, and they literally tremble with fear at the sound.

Soon, the rest of the camp has been alerted; sleeping men are awakened, and armor is hastily put on. Both common soldiers and centurions alike feel themselves gripped with anticipation, and downright fear, as they know this is the day their fates will be determined. Those who have played a prominant role in the usurpation have the most to worry about, but even the lowest auxiliary does not feel safe. All they can do is to wait for the arrival of the legion, and then submit themselves to whatever sort of punishment will be meted out to them. There is no point in trying to resist, as that will only ensure that all of them will be put to the sword, rather than just the ringleaders.

The bucinas blast out their insistant notes yet again, and their sharp wailing cry cuts through to the sinews and veins of these hardened men, making them feel no braver than the raw recruits they had once been when facing their first battle. The suspense is unnerving, and each man handles the stress in his own way, some by pacing back and forth, others by drinking themselves into oblivion, while others just stare blankly off into the white mists.

General Decius knows exactly what he is doing. He has drawn his army up short, just before Viminacium, and now gives the men within time to think, time to contemplate their fates. He made sure to march the last leg of the journey though the night, so that he would arrive early, when the men of the VII Claudia are still groggy from sleep and unprepared. He knows it is important to spring up, to catch them by surprise, and the mist has helped with that, the gods be praised!

He does not feel that his fellow Romans will put up a fight, but then one can never be sure what desperate men will do once they have been pushed into a corner. He hopes they do not fight back, for although he has every assurance it would be more than possible to win a siege battle, even against a well fortified and experienced legion, it would not be easy, and would cost many casualties on both sides -casualties they cannot afford. So much better to accomplish his mission without having to shed any blood at all, as the thought of having to go to war against fellow Romans sickens him.

As always, Herennius is by his side, sitting atop his mount, and Decius feels the boy's anticipation growing, and yet the lad has not flinched once, nor shown any other outward sign of fear or dread. It seems as though he is possessed of nothing more than the usual sort of healthy energy that naturally builds up in any man just before he is put to the ultimate test of his life thus far. He has never had the privilege of seeing Herennius outside of the training ground, and is happy to note that things bode well so far.

Decius turns suddenly to the group of centurions who follow closely behind him, signals to them that he wishes to hear the trumpeters again. It is necessary to warn the camp of his approach, for although he has every intention of halting his men well short of the fortress, there is no need to take too aggressive a posture, and thereby unintentionally provoke a fight.

The fog shifts momentarily, and he is able to catch a glimpse of the stone structure for a few seconds. It is still about a mile away. Everything seems still, and quiet, but it is impossible to tell for sure. He will order the column to stop for now; they will know what is what soon enough, as he will send an envoy to speak on his behalf to the camp's Prefect, that is, if they do not send an envoy of their own first.

The air has a chill in it, and that, combined with the moisture, causes Decius to cough. He has been shivering for hours, despite his long thick cloak, but he hides it well; doesn't want to seem weak in front of the men. He had forgotten the extreme weather here, extreme when compared to Rome's mild climate anyway, and a warm fire and a hot bowl of soup would be most welcome. But first, to business...

The sound of one of his officers shouting disturbs his revery.

'Someone is approaching, General!' the decurion calls out.

He looks, sees nothing, but then, slowly begins to be able to make out a dim, dark shape moving though the mists and coming at a gallop. The man's cape flutters behind him, despite the heavy air, and as the figure draws nearer, Decius can see that it is a centurion. The officer draws his horse up before the head of the column, but both Decius and Herennius make no move to ride forward to meet him. It is a matter of honor, and they will not put themselves out even in this small way for the sake of a traitor, though Decius does signal that the man should be brought before them.

A moment later, after passing by the cold hard stares of the lead cohort of the column, a rather bedraggled and tired looking centurion draws forward on his steaming, champing mount, and introduces himself.

'Ave, General! Centurion Giaus Flavius Agrippa of the Second Cohort of the VII CLaudia reporting...' but before he can finish his sentence Decius has cut him off.

'Centurion! Do you call that a proper way to greet a superior officer? Your demeanour is miserable. Why is your face unshaven, and your uniform so unkempt?!... Well, answer me, or are you a mute?!'

'No, Sire. No, but under the circumstances...' Agrippa is taken aback. The last thing he expects is to be balled-out over his uniform like a common legionary, not when so many greater things are at stake. But then he has underestimated Decius, who will not allow the conversation to degenerate into a negiotiation over the terms of the VII Claudia's peaceful surrender, which is what Agrippa has come to discuss. Decius will not even allow for a moment the idea that there is anyone who has any authority even close to his own.

'There are no circumstances, except those that have brought me almost two thousand miles from Rome! It is very possible,' warns Decius in a barking tone, 'that I will bust you down to decurion for your insubordination. No one shows up in front of the emperor's representative looking like that. And do you call this a welcoming delegation? Pathetic!..' He lowers the tone of his voice, making it all the more threatening. 'I have every intention of undertaking a camp-wide inspection tour. Tell your Prefect that I want all of his men ready... Now turn about and ride for all you are worth back to the fort and have the men assembled. You have thirty minutes. Go!'

At once, and without any questions, Agrippa turns his mount around and gallops off at a feverish pace towards the fort. Decius breaks into a smile as he watches him go.

'I am teaching you the art of diplomacy, Tribune,' he says to Herennius. 'Watch and learn.'

'That exchange did not seem very diplomatic to me, General,' says Herennius quizically.

'To all outward appearances, no, you are right. But one must use subtlety, and nuance. The soldiers opposing us in that fortress are nervous as Hades right now. They don't know which of them is headed for the chopping block, and more than a few of them are no doubt toying with the idea of resisting such a fate.

'Being forced to assemble for an inspection will at the very least reassure them that we are not going to charge in there and massacre everyone. It will also give them something to do, to think about, and will make it harder for any of the hotheads to stir the others up. It also has the duel advantage of getting most of the guards down off of the battlements, from where they could do the most damage to us if they tried.

'Most importantly though, it gives the men a way to save face with us. No one in the legion is eager to confront the fact that he is a traitor, and this will give them all the chance to feel like soldiers again, which is what is needed right now, more than anything. It is my intention to take this place intact, and without a fight, and we can worry about weeding out the bad eggs later...'

*

Everything in the camp is chaotic, as men rush to assemble on the parade ground. Some of them are still sleeping when they recieve the call, while others come down from their posts on the walls, leaving only a skeleton crew behind. Each legionary rushes to find his cohort and to take his position. It has been some time since they last assembled on the parade ground, and are a little rusty, their lines are uneven and many of them have not had the time to put on all their body armor.

Outside, about a mile down the road, Decius waits impatiently. He has been riding all night, and is worried that he'll get another case of saddle sores if he doesn't have a respite soon. He's been away from all of this for too long; is in his glory again, in a way, but is also starting to feel his age. Is he too old to be campaigning still, sleeping on a miserable cot and dealing with all sorts of weather? This is a younger man's game, he thinks, but is happy to see that Herennius seems to be thriving off the lifestyle, and has never looked more alive.

The soldiers of his legion are restless too though, as are the horses: they no doubt sense the tension in the air, and in protest beat the hoofs into the dry hard-packed dirt of the road and tug at their reins. A light breeze picks up, and begins at last to blow the fog away; it begins to dissipate as though it was never there, and everyone is relieved about that, as there is no need to remain cloaked anymore, and it is better anyway to be able to clearly see what is going on.

At last the signal comes that they may proceed forward; a flag waved from one of the highest battlements just to the right of the main front gate. Decius calls out to his men without hesitation that he and three of the front-line cohorts may proceed onward, while the rest of the legion must remain where they are, and begin setting up camp for the night once the coast is all clear. Of course he does not even think of staying behind himself, of sending someone into the lion's den in his place, although such a precaution might not be unwarranted. He must be an example of courage to his men, no matter what lies ahead; does not suspect a trap, but then one can never be sure, and he will have to remain wary.

The gate is already open when the first officers and trudging legionaries reach the fortress, kicking up a cloud of dust. Decius sees that the VII Claudia has assembled on the parade ground, just as he has ordered them to, and he breaths a sigh of relief that at least some discipline remains here. Standing at the front of the legion are a group of head centurions, their hands placed on the hilts of their swords and their expressions grim. Decius suspects that one of them must be this Pacatianus man he has heard so much about, the pretender to the throne. There has been alot of time to think about how he will react once he meets him, and believes that the best method will be to keep his temper as he orders the man's arrest. First though, it will be necessary to make sure the fortress is fully secured by his own men. Such a duty as this, punishing a fellow officer, will be difficult in the extreme, and yet it must be done, for emperor Philip will not tolerate letting a usurper go unpunished.

Decius draws his horse up to the grouping of centurions, looks down on them with a firm, hard-set expression, demands to know which one of them is Pacatianus. The men do not answer, but part themselves like a wave, and he sees that behind them they have been shielding something from his view, a corpse by the looks of it, someone wrapped in a scarlett cloak and laid out on the ground.

Agrippa, who has become the self-appointed spokesperson for the VII CLaudia, speaks first, and he does so in a grand tone, if only to hide his own fear. 'I give you First Spear Centurion Tiberius Claudius Marinus Pacatianus, formerly Prefect of Viminacium, and hero of many fights in Dacia and Moesia, but NEVER emperor of this legion!'

'What is this?' shouts Decius. 'Am I supposed to believe that this man died of natural causes, and if so, what convienient timing for you all.'

'No, General -we will not try to deceive you.' It is Magnus who speaks now, his voice full of resolution. 'He died by the hands of those who wish to reafirm their loyalty to the Emperor Philip, the one and only true Emperor of Rome!'

'Fine words,' Decius replies contemptously, 'but I see that you do not hesitate to kill your own commander. What kind of a lot are you? Do you presume to call yourselves soldiers?' He is fuming now, his sense of honor is attacked from all sides at once; he never expected this double betrayal, and can hardly believe the depths of this legion's treachery, and is tempted to raze the whole place to the ground.

'We did not mean to offend, General,' It is Agrippa speaking again, 'but we felt that Pacatianus had gone too far, much farther that we ever intended, and we had to redress the balance, so that order might be restored. Let the death of the usurper be a symbol of our acknowlegement of any wrong-doing on our parts.'

'The more likely cause of this action is that you heard I was coming, and you sought to cover your own treachery by placing all of the blame onto one man, one who just happens to be dead, and therefore beyond any punishment in this world. You seek to alievate my justified anger do you? And to spare yourselves the fate of an errant slave: to be crucified in front of everyone, here, in the sight of your own men... Well, as to that, I have not decided what is to become of you...'

Decius gets off his horse and strides over to the body that lays on the grass. He kneels down beside it, and paces his hand upon the still chest, and then for a few seconds onto the cold forehead of Pacatianus. He senses that everyone is watching him closely, measuring his every movement, are pleasantly surprised at his respectful manners with their formerly beloved commander. He has a sense for the drama of the moment, leaves his hand there a moment, his eyes closed, as though he is communing with the soul of the dead man. The assembled centurions and legionaries are amazed at the level of respect being shown to Pacatianus; everything in the world is silent, and for the first time they begin to wonder about this new general, this mighty senator who has come all the way from Rome; they have never met an aristocrat who had such a capacity to handle these types of situations in such a unique way.

Again, Decius knows exactly what he is doing; knows that while these men might have been forced to kill their own man, and might even bow down and except disrespect to the body, they will certainly not thank him for it, making his task of winning them back into the fold all the harder in the long run. No, to insult the man who embodied all their frustrated aspirations would be unforgivable; he must forge a bond with them, and quickly; must not casually cast aside all the grievances which drove them into revolt in the first place, but must show them that he hears their voices, while also being firm. This situation reminds him of the never ending struggle with the many barbarian tribes that the empire has had to contend with over the centuries: Every now and then they must be reminded that Rome is the center of power in this world, and that to cut oneself off from it is to be cast into the darkness, but always with the possibility of coming back.

After a moment he stands up again, motions towards the centurions, who rush to be by his side, to hear his commands. Suddenly Decius's presence is huge, as though he is a new man, with a sense of purpose, no longer the irritable and weary travellor, but a true leader of men. He dominates everyone around him without even trying to, and his vigor and manly energy seems to radiate like waves out of his being.

'I want this body to be cremated this very night, with full honors, and the ashes scattered into the river. But it will be done quietly, with only officers to witness -I will not help to create this usurper into a legend...'

'Yes, Sire,' the Centurions say, almost in perfect unison, though they can hardly believe it. Surely anyone but Decius would have ordered that the body's head be cut off, and stuck on a pole as a warning to anyone else contemplating defiance of the emperor.

'I will now inspect the cohorts,' Decius says, and walks purposely over to the gathered legion, with Herennius by his side. He has decided, as of this moment, he will no longer be so forgiving, or kind; will unleash the full wrath of his temper upon the assembled soldiers, and to Hades with the consequences.

'This legion is a disgrace!' he barks at the troops as they try to remain impassive in front of him. 'Nothing but an ill-formed, unshaven bunch of barbarians. You all look as though you've spent more time in a drinking den or a bordello than you have in your kit. I ought to have the lot of you decimated, but I am a soft-hearted man, and will give you lot one last chance to save your sorry carcasses. By this time tomorrow I will inspect you again, and if every man is not perfectly turned out each one of you will feel the sting of the lash upon your backs, that I can promise you!'

He turns to the centurions behind him, warns them they had better get busy restoring order, and will answer to him if they fail. Then he tells Herennius that he is responsible for inspecting the granaries, storehouses and soldier's barracks to make sure everything is put in order. He wants there to be no excuses for the men's hygiene and kit not to be perfect, and gives his own commanders authority to hand out punishment chits to any man of the VII Claudia who resists the rightful authorities.

Privately though, he takes Herennius aside, and wonders aloud to his son what he will do about the chief officers of the camp. 'They are proving themselves to be compliant now, but they are certainly not to be trusted again. I suppose they must be put to death, even if this does create ill feeling,' he pauses to reflect for a moment, 'but we will not do anything drastic until I have everything here in the kind of order I want.'

Herennius has never openly disagreed with his father before, and so he hesitates to express the idea which has just occured to him, 'General,' he says reluctantly, using the formal means of address even though they are out of earshot of the others as they stride across the assembly field, 'instead of viewing this situation as a negative, or as a mess that must be cleaned up, might we not be better off if we try to see it as an opportunity?'

'An opportunity for what?' Decius asks, surprised at his son, who is usually keen to carry out his orders without question.

'Well,' says Herennius, warming to his idea, the ordinary thing would just be to execute a few dozen men and have done with it. That would solve the issue for now, but how long would the peace last... What if instead of punishing them, you simply bypassed their recent actions altogether, and instead, rewarded the bravest fighters amongst them for past acts of heroism in service of the empire.'

'You mean to reward usurpers? I'm afraid that would send a terrible message. Besides, what you talk of sounds a little too much like the Christian concept of forgiveness for my liking.'

'No, not forgiveness at all,' protests Herennius, 'just simple Roman leniency, like when emperor Claudius pardoned the terrible Celt Caratacus, and let him live out his days, despite all the trouble he caused. 'It might be clever to choose some of the less educated legionaries and officers, and give them a reward or promotion based on military merit, rather than on their family connections. That would show them that what matters most to you is fighting prowess... Such men will gladly die for you in future battles, and when we leave this place we will be able to rest assured that our borders are safe and in good hands.'

Decius does not fully agree with his son, but does not dismiss his ideas out of hand, as he like to encourage his son to think, and he can see that he is rapidly developing a mind that is as razor sharp as it is subtle. Perhaps he will spare some of the men, but one thing is certain is that the masterminds behind the plot must die, especially that pair Agrippa and Magnus, whom he senses have not one scrap of honor between them. If he can find a way to convince everyone that it is they who must carry the entire burden themselves, then the other men may very well be grateful for their lives, and may fight all the harder in the future to prove themselves... He will think on it...

In the meantime, he continues with his inspection of the camp, dressing down officers and legionaries alike, and setting the fortress back in order. He never ceases to be amazed at how slovenly the soldiers have become, and how neglectful of their duties. This, he thinks to himself, is what happens to men who lose thier sense of purpose and hope, and who no longer respect rightful authority. It will be his difficult task to see that they get some of their military pride back, one man at a time if necessary.

*

The next morning, just as the dawn light stretches across the horizon, the parade ground is once again the scene of much activity, as the entire legion once again assembles. Only this time, just twenty-four hours after the last such inspection, the mood is a much different one, and the men are lined up just as they should be, in neat rows, as their armor gleams in the light of the morning sun. Drums thump and boom to set the pace, and bucinas call out the assembly orders as the legionaries adjust their positions. Every man is ready: each one freshly shaved, and bathed, and with his kit cleaned. They have spent most of the night preparing for this, and Decius, with a more contented air, strides briskly back and forth along the neat ranks of men.

'This is how a legion is supposed to look,' he comments to the retinue of centurions who follow in his wake. He has tried to find fault with something, anything, but is pleased to realize that he is having great difficulty in doing so; is pleased to see too that he has not lost his natural touch with soldiers.

The transformation is nothing short of a miracle, and yet in a way he is not really too surprised. Men like this losing themselves in drink and carousing for awhile are not like ordinary men. Ordinary men most often have few inner resouces within to fall back on when they go astry, but with a veteran legionary, all one has to do is to blow the dust of idleness off of them, and underneath they shine up with all their former glory.

'As soon as this legion is reconstituted,' he says in an aside to Herennius, 'we will deal with the Felix legion. Hopefully, things will continue to go smoothly here... I want messengers sent from here to their fortress, so that they can find out what has happened since our arrival. That should both dampen their revolutionary fire a bit, but should also reassure them that if they behave they will not be treated too harshly, as has happened here. It will make our job a lot easier.'

He addresses the head centurions confidentially: 'I trust that both Agrippa and Magnus have been confined to their quarters. I have decided upon their fates: They are to be offered the chance to redeem themselves by taking their lives with their own swords, as punishment for their presumption. I have opted against crucifixion only because of their past services, but by sundown I want both of them dead.'

'Yes, Sire!' says one of the officers.

Then suddenly something very strange happens, and without any warning. The legionaries of the First Cohort, who fully approve of Decius's way of handeling them, can withhold their feelings no longer, and begin to chant out in unison over and over again, 'Decius! Decius! Decius!' just as they had done months before with Pacatianus, only now their shouts are twice as loud, and twice as heartfelt.

The sound of hundreds of men's voices rolls through the air like a wave, and the chorus is soon joined by more and more cohorts, until it is the entire legion of over five thousand strong who are pumping their fists into the air and chanting the name of their new commander over and over again.

Decius has whirled about, and his eyes are like fire as he tries to understand what is happening.

'What is going on?!' he shouts at no one in particular, 'Decurion!' he motions to the nearest officer. 'Silence those men, at once!'

'Y... yes, General!' the hapless man stammers, as he rushes to his cohort.

'Decius! Decius! Decius!' The rythmic thud of the voices continues unabated.

The General is furious. What has caused this sudden outburst? He orders his centurions to get control of their men, and they scurry off to fulfill his orders. Herennius is smiling to himself; is amazed and delighted at the scene, though he tries to hide these feelings. He understands that the men before him, every single one of them by the looks of it, understand the true worth and power of the man before them; they see what he has seen for his whole life, that his father is the only man truly worth following, and they have accepted such a fact whole-heartedly by the looks of it.

Decius doesn't notice his boy's reaction, doesn't feel the same way as Herennius at all; is burning with anger at the reality that he cannot control these men. He had thought, up until a moment ago, that he had them under control, but now sees there is still a rebellious streak there. He doesn't care that they are shouting his name, or honoring him, but only knows they are not following orders, which is unforgivable.

Unfortunately, the centurions don't seem to have any better luck than the decurions with the men, and the chanting continues unnabated.

Decius quickly realizes that there is nothing that can be done with this mob for now, and decides the only course of action left for him is to retreat to his rooms for awhile until they cool down. He must be alone to rethink his strategy; might even have to resort to using his own legion to enforce his will on these men. This will obviously not be as easy a task as he had origionally ussumed; such soldiers as this, who will not even obey their own General, will be useless in combat. It might even be necessary to do the unthinkable, and resort to decimation, where one in ten men is beaten to death with sticks by his fellow legionaries. In his mind, the way he is feeling, he is even willing to contemplate simply disbanding this legion entirely, and stationing his own troops here instead.

Such thoughts lead to depression, to the sapping of strength, and he sits down on the edge of his cot as he contemplates what might be a complete failure on his part to fulfill the task he has been entrusted with. Such a defeat will mean the end of his career, and he will be lucky to remain a senator and general at all after this. His hands are cold, he tries to warm them at the bruning brazier, wants to just remain alone until he can think this thing though, but just then Herennius, along with five centurions, enter his quarters, the same rooms that had just shortly before been occupied by Pacatianus.

'What is it?' Decius asks brusquely.

'Father... I mean General,' says Herennius, 'the men will not stop calling for you, no matter what we threaten them with. I have talked with some of them, and they say they will not cease until you consent to be their emperor!'

'What?!' yells Decius. 'Again! Will these fools never learn? Haven't they had enough usurpations for a lifetime? I can barely believe it!'

'It is true, Sire,' says one of the centurions, a man with a nasty battle scar across his neck. 'The troops believe that you are the man to lead them. Fools or not, it is not lost on them that you have managed single-handidly to turn them around in one day. They now realize that Pacatianus had neither the rank nor the ability to lead them properly, and that they put their faith in one who could not deliver for them; but they now believe that if there is one man in the empire they can take seriously, it is you.'

'And do you personally share that sentiment, centurion?' Decius asks, still glaring.

'Yes, Sire. I do,' the man responds with gruff sincerity.

'You are no doubt aware that what you speak is treason. Are you willing to risk a dishonorable death for your beliefs?'

'I am, Sire.' the man responds, all the while staring into the eyes of Decius.

'And the rest of you?' the general's eyes twinkle hotly in the darting light of the flaming brazier.

'We all do,' the other centurions respond in almost perfect unison.

Decius looks up at them for a moment, doesn't know what to say, catches the eye of Herennius, who seems to want to speak to him alone.

'You are dismissed for now,' Decius waves his hand at the officers. 'Wait outside my quarters until I call for you.'

The men turn and swish out the door one by one.

'And what of you, my son? What do you think of this?' Decius asks Herennius, once the others have left. His voice is gentler now, though it is also tinged with just a hint of despair as he waits for an answer.

'I know what you think of this, father, but try to see it from another angle if you can. These men clearly worship and idolize you. You are the anwer to their prayers, and they will fight, I am sure of it.'

'But don't you realize what all this means? Don't you realize that this very day, this very hour, your father has been condemned to death?'

'But why should that be so?'

'I have tried to teach you the ways of politics, the ways of life, but I can see there is still much to learn, and I pray you live long enough to learn it. Don't you realize that even if I punish this legion now, and harshly, and even if I declare my everlasting loyalty to Philip a thousand times over again, within a week he will have heard of this little incident, of my having been declared emperor, and he will never trust me again. He will realize that it is I, and not he, who commands the army's loyalty, and so even if I show myself to be his friend, he will only think I am biding my time until I can strike at him... Do you think he will hesitate for one instant to remove such a threat?'

'But what if you were to accept the soldier's offer?'

'Ha! You have seen how things have gone here! This whole fiasco was never anything but a joke. This legion never stood a chance against the might of the entire empire. If I rise against my true emperor, I will become a traitor to Rome. No one else will support us, and we will die just as Pacatianus did, by the hands of our own men, these same men who are cheering now.'

'This time it will be different, father. Don't you see? You are not a mere centurion, as Pacatianus was. You are the second-most powerful man in Rome, a mighty senator and general! Other legions are also rife with disatisfaction, and they too will surely join the cause if you but command them. But we must act quickly and decisively, must gather an army and march on Rome itself!'

'You make it all seem so easy. I always knew that you were the type to roll everything on one toss of the dice, but I never imagined you would be so eager to play for such high stakes. What you omit to mention though is that this would be also the deepest of betrayals.'

'But who is betraying who? Herennius counters. 'Have you not said a hundred times that it is Philip who is betraying the spirit of Rome, by supporting the Christians, and the Jews, and who spends more money on himself than he ever has on the temples of the true gods, or the legions. It is HIS corruption which has led to this state of affairs in the first place. The men of this legion call out for justice, and the gods of old cry out too, and now they have offered you this opportunity to serve them, and to serve Rome.'

'And what of you, Herennius? Are you so eager not only to see men killed, and yourself as well, because there is a very good chance we won't survive long, once we start down this path.'

'You once told me that the valiant die but once, while other, lesser men, die a thousand times within themselves. If Philip will be forced to take your life, then you have nothing to lose... Besides, I am convinced that we have been chosen by divine sanction, by the gods themselves. What other man in the empire is powerful enough to purify it from the influence of the Christians, and to reinvigorate the army... Just listen! Listen to how the men cheer for you!'

'I can hear them clearly. But they also cheered for another, a man whom you will recall is dead, and now turned to ashes... No, Herennius, it is not that I am faint of heart, it is just that I am not used to talking to you this way, man to man. I feel right now that you are the father, and I the son for some reason. Perhaps it really is bravery that speaks from your heart, and not just the impulsiveness of youth as I originally thought, but... I am very tired now. You have given me much to think on, and it would be better if I were alone for a moment. Just leave me now...'

Herennius turns, reluctantly, and leaves the room, then takes up his place with the centurions who are also waiting outside. They stand silently watching the legionaries, who are still chanting Decius's name as enthusiastically as before, and each man wonders to himself what his future will hold.

Decius is alone, has never felt so alone before, as though the whole weight of the world is crushing down on him, making it difficult to breath. He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the situation he has suddenly and unexpectedly been thrown into. Part of him understands what Herennius and the others are saying; knows that this is indeed his greatest chance of putting his long held beliefs about the future course of the empire into action; knows besides that if he refuses to become an usurper he will be as good as dead at the hands of the men of the VII Claudia; knows they will not let him leave alive if he refuses. It would be all too easy to simply accept, but will it be possible to live with himself if he betrays Philip?.. The thought is abhorrent to him... Even if he succeeds beyond his wildest dreams he will go down in history as a backstabber... And if he tries and fails, than his entire family will be put to the sword, or worse.

But then, as he himself admits, that could happen anyway.

It all comes down to loyalty, which he believes is the most important virtue a man can cultivate. But then, if that is so, who deserves more loyalty? Philip? or the more abstract concept of Rome itself? Are Rome and Philip the same thing, or are they divided? Can even a philosopher answer such questions as these?

He sits for an age, he does not know how long. Whenever he feels that he must rise, must say something to end his inward torment, an invisible hand seems to stay him in his place. It will be necessary not to speak until he is sure of his decision; must not be indecisive and send out a mixed messages; must either allow himself to die now, today, at the hands of these desperate men, or later, by an assassin's blade.

He rises, slowly, and moves as if in a trance toward the door; opens it, and steps over the threshold; beams of morning sun shine in upon him suddenly, a blinding light full of intensity and fire.

'The will of the gods be done,' he says to himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT:

FOR ONE EMPEROR TO RISE...

This is the best part of Emperor Philip's day, when he gets to retire briefly from the many cares and stresses of his office, by retreating for an hour or two into his private chambers.

His routine is always the same: At twelve noon, when mighty Zeus has reached his zenith in the sky, he raises his hand for silence, and then leaves the attendants and senators behind, no matter what kind of business they are in the middle of, then makes his way alone through the open peristyle of the Domus Flavius to his dining Triclinium. Once there, he reclines in comfort on the Imperial divan, and allows his beautiful slaves to bring him food, and wine, or anything else he likes. This is the only place in the palace where he can truly relax, and he has ensured this by forbidding any officials to disturb him during these hours.

The room itself is of gleaming white marble, and the atmosphere is truly relaxing, as two large fountains, which occupy central positions through the north and west foyers send endless spouts of white frothy foam cascading up through the air, and splashing again into the blue-mirrored pools below. The rhythmic playful sounds soothe weary nerves, as does the soft music which comes from a musical troupe who play unseen behind a veil. The view, meanwhile, from the wide south windows, is magnificent, giving a stunning panorama of the Circus Maximus arena below, while the breezes which blow through are a balm to the spirit. On race days the sound of the cheering mob is almost deafening, while on off days there is no quiter place in the world, except perhaps a grave.

Best of all though is that when he is here, Philip is able to spend precious time alone with Valeria, his mistress, who in return for her loyal services has been rewarded with the title of Chief Slave of this wing of the palace. Over the past year or so, ever since purchasing her in the marketplace, this woman has become the true joy and delight of his life, and he has never known another like her, not even his wife, whom he also has a very high regard for. The fact that Valeria was born in Brittania, that her real name is Senovara, and that she has only learned latin in the last twleve months does not bother him in the least. She speaks as softly as his favoured music, and beautifully, and when he draws her near to him he can barely contain his excitement. It has been a pleasure to see to it that she has the finest silks to wear, and the headiest perfume, and yet it is obvious that even without these things she is still be the most stunning woman in all of Rome.

But today not even her ministrations can calm his troubled mind, and his thoughts are far away as she rubs at his temples, and sings songs she learned as a girl in her far away homeland. Over the past weeks he has been anxiously awaiting news from General Decius, who by now should certainly have sent word that he has quashed the rebellious legions of Moesia. There is no doubt in Philip's mind that everything will have gone smoothly, and that the general will have restored order with his usual efficiency, but nevertheless, it will be difficult to rest until such things have been put into writing, and made official. It is hard to trust his other senators, however much he may rely upon them, and certainly there is no military commander that is so trustworthy as his old friend. It is Decius whom he values above all others, both for his strength, and his sense of purpose, and all it will take will be a single word from him, for all to be well again.

If only ruling were easier, he muses to himself as he sips at a cup of wine. Wasn't it Emperor Tiberius, who more than two hundred years before had said that holding onto power is like trying to ride a wolf while holding onto its ears -you never know when it's going to turn around and devour you!.. How true, these are the insecurities that plague a ruler, always half certain that others are plotting to take one's divine rights away. All he wants is for life to return to normal, to stabilize again so that he can go back to doing what he does best, and enjoys most: putting on impressive spectacles for the city's populus. Is that so wrong? Is that not a worthy attribute for a ruler, that he cares to awe his subjects, and to make them marvel at the glory of their empire?

But he has not learned nothing from this usurpation debacle; has learned not to take the loyalty of the legions for granted; must remind himself to award them a cash stipend once an acceptable amount of time has passed away from their treachery. They must not be allowed to think they are being rewarded for their bad behaviour, and yet they do deserve something. Not too much, mind, as much coin must be kept back in the treasury for the entertainment bill for the palace, which is always huge. But then, it is better to pay his own troops something, however small, than to dole out an allowance to the enemy Goths, a policy he has always been against. If he is forced to cough up, it is better that his own men get it than dirty barbarians, who will only get greedy for more anyway.

Hopefully the promise of money will keep the legionaries quiet...

Valeria ceases to rub at his temples, instead hands Philip his cup of wine, and a plate of sweet grapes, but he refuses, having retreated into a heavy sulk.

'You are not hungry today my Lord, or thirsty?'

'Not today... And I have told you not to call me 'my Lord', he mockingly admonishes her, 'at least not while we are alone.'

'But we are not alone... My Lord,' Valeria teasingly replies, her long auburn hair spilling like waves over her smooth pale shoulders.

'Then send the musicians away. We do not need them. We will make some music of our own this day.'

He is teasing Valeria in turn, his mood suddenly uplifted as he takes her about the waist and pulls her close. She always smells as good as she looks, and her long blue silk dress hugs her lithe form, revealing the tempting curves beneath. Suddenly he finds his own clothing restricting, the day is far too hot for such a heavy toga, and he shifts to remove it. Now Philip has forgotten all about Decius, all about the border, and its troubles, and the Imperial treasury with its ever-dwindling amount of sestercii. All of that can wait a while...

Suddenly there is a muffled cough from behind the entwined pair; Philip stops what he is doing and turns around to see his Nubian body slave standing there with a scroll in his hand.

'A thousand pardons, my Lord, but you said that you wished to receive word immediately should any news from Moesia arrive, even if you were... taking your leisure.'

'Ah, yes! That will be word from General Decius, no doubt. Bring it here!'

At once Philip is no longer the lover, but the emperor again, and the frolicking of a moment before is all but forgotten. Valeria moves to one side, only too aware that her feelings are not even to be considered now that her master is engaged in lofty matters of state.

Philip eagerly takes the letter, barely able to contain his excitement, but is disappointed to see, as he breaks the seal, that it is not from Decius after all. Instead, it is from his chief spy, a man wholly loyal to Philip, and who is stationed in Moesia Major. Unfortunate, though at least this is still news, and he will at last be able to find out what is going on.

But as he reads, his face begins to drop, until he wears the stupefied expression of a man who does not know what to think.

Valeria watches with alarm the sudden change in Philip's mood, knows him well enough to understand that something very serious has happened. 'What is it, my dearest?' she asks desperately, fearfully, for she has never seen his eyes so full of disbelief or shock. He seems dumbfounded; cannot speak at all; just slumps onto the divan as though he has suddenly gone weak, as though all of the life has drained out of him. But then, just as quickly, his face begins to redden and he leaps to his feet and throws the letter to the marble floor with a violent motion.

Both Valeria and the Nubian slave shrink back out of harm's way. The emperor gropes for words out of a chocking throat a full moment before finally finding them: 'Betrayed!!!' he shouts at the top of his lungs. 'I have been betrayed... Again!!!' He becomes almost incoherant; begins to beat his left arm with his right fist.

Valeria is alarmed, doesn't know what to do. She has never seen her master so angry before.

'Send for Senator Crispus, at once!' she yells to the Nubian.

'A... At once!' the slave stammers, and then turns and runs out the door.

'What has happened, my love?' asks Valeria again, and though she doesn't realize it, she has inadvertantly slipped back into her native tongue. She does not know what to do, but feels she must do something to calm the emperor before he hurts himself.

All at once the energy goes out of Philip again, he stops hitting himself and falls back onto the divan, only now he is sobbing, and cannot even speak. She takes him by the shoulders, tries to soothe him, the way one does with a frantic child.

This state of affairs continues on for the next ten minutes, until at last Senator Crispus, with two of his junior senators in tow, storms into the Triclinium.

'My Lord, you have had news from Moesia!' says an out-of-breath Crispus, though it is more of a statement of fact than a question. He is as well informed of everything that happens in the palace as usual, including which letters come in and go out, and it was he who sent the Nubian with the letter in the first place. He glances down to the floor, where the paper lays, and motions toward it. 'With your permission, my Emperor, I will read the contents of the dispatch.'

Philip is still inconsolable in his tears, but motions with a wave of his hand that he grants his permission. One of the junior senators stoops to pick it up and hands it to Crispus, who reads it quickly, but to himself, in order to spare Philip the pain of having to hear it over again. His eyes dart back and forth like a hawks as he reads, and his sharp nose bobs up and down, only adding to the general impression that he is more bird than man.

'As I have been saying to you all along, my Lord,' Crispus says gravely when he is finished, 'my suspicions have now unfortunately been proven correct, if you don't mind me saying so. 'This General Decius' -he spits the name with bitter contempt- 'has at last shown us that beneath all of his talk of Roman morality, and Roman character, he has proven himself to be nothing more than an overly ambitious usurper, and not a true Roman at all! But the greatest blow of all is to you, my Emperor, for this is a man who took advantage of his friendship with you to gain higher office, and now repays his dept with ultimate betrayal!

'In brief, gentlemen,' Crispus now talks over his shoulder to the other Senators, briefly summerizing the dispatch for them, 'this report, and from a most reliable source, I know, states that General Decius -or should I say ex-General Decius, now outlaw of the empire- has allowed himself to be declared emperor by that same band of hooligans who only months ago raised up a lowly centurion as their ruler. He is even now agitating the other legions of Moesia, to help him in his bid for power, and plans, once the campaigning season has begun, to march on Rome itself, to overthrow his divine and august majesty, the only true Emperor, Philip!'

There is silence in the room, and even Valeria, not the most politically aware person even at the best of times, fully understands the implications of what is being said.

'But what am I to doooo?' moans Philip, who at last is able to get a few words out.

The low murmering follows, as the Senators converse amongst themselves for a moment.

It is Crispus who speaks for them, as he always does: 'There is only one thing to do, my Emperor, and that is to crush this usurper using military force! No disrespect intended, but you cannot afford to make the mistake of entrusting this most important task to a subordinate officer again, but must yourself take up the post of Commander-in-Chief. A swift victory, of which you are assured, will do much to restore confidence not only in the might of Rome, but in your own divine right to rule, which you carry within... And rest assured, that I, as your humble servant, will see to it that the duties of state are not neglected while you are thus engaged in trampeling on this upstart. All the members of your loyal senate will await your victorious return, at the head of your troops, and with the head of the usurper Decius speared upon a pike.'

'But it is all so unfair!' wails Philip, who is hardly listening. All he knows is that he has been betrayed by someone he thought was his friend, and is not self aware enough at this moment to recognize Crispus's plotting, even as the man swears loyalty to him. 'I have tried to be a good emperor, have I not? I... have given the people what they want: games, parades... And spectacles such as they have never seen before!'

'That you have, my Lord,' Crispus is talking slowly and softly now, is indulging his master's childish nature, which emerges in times of stress. 'Never has there been a finer emperor, not since mighty Augustus himself. You have been a great friend to your people, especially to we Christians, and for that you will receive more than ample reward. But my Lord, you speak as though your reign has come to an end, when really this is but the mere beginning of your long and glorious emperorship, that I assure you.'

Crispus speaks with such assurance and confidence that Philip almost begins to believe him. 'Perhaps,' he says weakly, 'all is not lost, and Decius may be persuaded to return to the fold. If we give him enough money...' He knows it to be a vain hope though; knows that Decius has cast his lot in with the troops, and will not be turned again.

'No! No!' interjects Crispus at once, but still trying to hide his alarm. This is not at all what he wants to see. For the first time ever, he has Decius right where he wants him, and is not about to let this golden opportunity slip away on foolish schemes. But then he knows Philip is just thinking out loud, and that there is absolutely no chance that Decius will ever allow himself to be bought off, which is so much the better for him.

'There is only one way forward at this time,' he sternly warns, 'and that is to crush this power-hungry tyrant as soon as possible, before he is allowed to do any more damage than he has already done. The people of Rome, and our many allies abroad, will accept nothing less than the death of this man. To try to buy him off would be seen, you'll forgive me, as a most cowardly act' (what he does not say, but what Philip knows without having to be told, is that he will be assasinated by his own supporters if he does not act decisively) 'Decius must be dealt with on the field of battle, and any waverers must be brought back into line, even here in the Senate House... But then you must leave his supporters here to me, my liege...'

Philip knows that what Crispus says is true, that it must lead to a fight, and yet the thought of going to war with his old companion is almost unbearable. He is still having trouble believing that it is all not just some terrible mistake, and that perhaps his spy was misinformed.

Then he remembers a nightmare that he had had the night before. The unpleasantness of the vision has been following him around all day like a creeping shadow, but it is only now that the details of the dream come back to him: He had been walking through a long tunnel... no... a cave. On his face was a strange mask of some kind, which he could not remove, and as he clawed his way though the darkness, he met other souls there as well, and knew them to be minor gods, dieties who had been condemned to scratching out an existance here in the darkest corners of the land of death.

Then there appeared before him two bright eyes from the gloom, and he knew they belonged to a god, to Dis Pater himself. The eyes drew near, slowly became a figure, about as tall as himself. Two hands reached up, not un-gently, and took a bag of coins out of Philip's right hand, though he hadn't been aware until now that he had been carrying anything. Then the hands reached up to his face and placed two stones over his eyes, blocking out his vision. The darkness was now complete, except that he could somehow see himself, as though he were someone else, and this figure was kneeling beside an inky black pool, and observing his own reflection, as the reeds stirred ever so gently in the breeze...

That is when he had wakened with a start, with a phrase ringing over and over in his mind, 'Liken unto the gods, all that belongs to a dog.'

He does not know what any of this means, has never understood such things, but will surely consult with an oracle or a priest as soon as possible. In the meantime, he will bury himself in Valeria's warm arms, and will allow her to rock him to sleep. Hopefully he will not have that same dream again, for it fills him with unease to think of it. In the morning, if he is able to summon the courage, he will take his own life, will shed the troubles of this world once and for all, and will take sweet Valeria with him if she will consent to go... And if he cannot do it, then he will take the advice of his senators, and allow himself to be dressed in a suit of armor, and ride out to the Campus Martius where the troops will be waiting.

'Call my generals then,' he says weakly to the senators. 'But I will not see them until I have had at least three cups of wine.... This Decius,' he now speaks for the first time with real venom in his voice, 'this Decius I will kill myself, as well as every man who swears fealty to him.'

Crispus and the others bow deeply, then turn to exit the room. They are all too eager to do their master's bidding...

Stay tuned for the exciting climax to this novel! Volume 2 of 2 of

'By The Sword' will be coming soon!
