Ballista felt a movement at his side. Aurelian rose to his feet. Not you too, thought Ballista. Surely you cannot think that old fool is up to the task?
Aurelian stood for a few moments. His tough-looking head, with its close-trimmed hair and beard, turned to take in the whole room.
'I hear what Gaius Acilius Glabrio says. I have nothing but the greatest respect for Pomponius Bassus. But he is the wrong man.' Aurelian spoke quietly, his flat vowels, typical of those from the Danube, emphasizing the lack of traditional rhetoric, or subtly pointing to a rhetoric of plain speaking. Involuntarily, the councillors leant forward. 'Pomponius Bassus is not as young as he was. It is many years since he commanded troops in the field. No, what this command needs is a man in the prime of life with a track record of recent military success. Tacitus here is fifty-five and straight from the army of the Danube. He should command.'
The blunt brevity of Aurelian caught all by surprise. Once he was sure that his fellow Danubian was not going to say anything else, Tacitus said that, if commanded, he would serve. Support came in slowly; the professional military men from the north of the imperium were far from universally popular with members of the elite from more traditional backgrounds. The first to offer it, however, was an elderly member of the great Italian nobility, one Fabius Labeo. Even Ballista could work out that Labeo was acting out of pique that Acilius Glabrio had proposed Pomponius Bassus rather than himself. Next was a younger senator, one Valens. Ballista had no idea why, but Valens always opposed Macrianus. Quietly, almost apologetically, the officer in command of the imperial horse guards, the Equites Singulares Augusti, a young Italian tribune also named Aurelian, and universally known as 'the other Aurelian', added his voice. When it was obvious that no one else was going to offer their support, Ballista himself briefly announced that he thought Tacitus was the right man.
As he sat down, it occurred to Ballista that, so far, three of the great functionaries had not yet spoken. There had been not a word from Successianus the Praetorian Prefect, Cledonius the ab Admissionibus or Censorinus the Princeps Peregrinorum. As the northerner sought them out with his eyes, he thought he saw Successianus almost imperceptibly nod to Cledonius. Sure enough, in a moment the latter was rising to his feet.
'Dominus, imperial amici, we have been offered much good advice, all of it freely spoken in the highest tradition of the Res Publica of the Romans. Yet I think that the previous speakers have not explored absolutely all aspects of this case. Possibly there is more that we can draw out.' Cledonius' voice was sonorous, his tone one of helpful reasonableness.
'Both Pomponius Bassus and Tacitus are great men. It would be unfitting to send either into the field without an army large enough to suit their dignitas. Yet there may be reasons to suggest that such a course of action would not be a good thing. First, this is only a minor detachment of the Persian army, less than ten thousand men, and it is not led by the Sassanid king himself. Second, to equip a force befitting the dignitas of either of the proposed generals, it would be necessary to strip the imperial field army here in Antioch. No one would be so rash as to suggest that the dignitas of a subject, no matter how great, should outweigh that of the emperor himself.' Cledonius' face remained blank as he allowed a time for his audience to reflect.
'This incursion must indeed be dealt with, speedily and effectively, but by a small, highly mobile force led by a younger man. There is a man here with very recent experience of fighting the eastern foe. A man burning with a desire for revenge. A small force must be sent to the Euphrates, led by Marcus Clodius Ballista.'
As if on cue, first Successianus then Censorinus spoke in favour of this idea. The two previous candidates, Pomponius Bassus and Tacitus, wasted no time in affirming their loyalty to the emperor by renouncing any interest in the command and most wholeheartedly backing Ballista – now it was mentioned, he was far and away the obvious man for the post. With varying degrees of reluctance – a great deal in some cases – all the remaining members of the consilium fell into line.
The emperor Valerian inclined his head – his amici had spoken well. Marcus Clodius Ballista, the Dux Ripae, would keep his title and, with a force to be determined later, would set off as soon as possible to fight the Sassanids on the Euphrates.
As he rose to his feet and accepted the command, Ballista realized that, for all the years he had spent in the Roman empire, he could still be completely at sea in the ways of the imperial court. Hopefully, Julia would be able to explain the political manouverings to him. But he had what he wanted: he had an army, a chance to redeem his reputation. And yes, he wanted revenge – revenge on the Sassanids who had tortured and killed so many at Arete and, one day, revenge on the man who had ordered it: on Shapur, the King of Kings. Antioch was a big and confusing city. If you turned off the main street by the Pantheon into the street known as the Jawbone, the one where so many Christians were to be seen, and followed it down through, first, the potters' quarter then that of the tanners, eventually you would reach the Orontes. If you then turned left at the waterfront and, keeping the jetties and godowns on your right, walked south down Mariners' Street, after about a quarter of an hour you would come to the public baths named after a local woman called Livia. Just beyond the baths was the bar with the improbable name of Circe's Island.
The reputation of the bar for food and drink was not that good, but for girls it was excellent. It was a favourite haunt of Maximus. On the evening of 1 November, the kalends, he was sitting with another man out on the rickety terrace which overhung the water. The other man was older and strikingly ugly: he had a great dome of a skull and a weak chin with, between them, a thin, sour, shrewish mouth. The man's shoulders were shaking, and he was making an unpleasant grating sound. Calgacus, the body servant, or valet, of Ballista, was laughing. He asked, 'And are you being watched now?'
There was a pause. Maximus clearly mastered an urge to look round at the other few customers on the terrace before muttering, no, he probably wasn't.
'I have seen it before with men such as you,' the old Caledonian continued remorselessly. 'Cock of the walk for years, scared of nothing. Then one day it all goes. Scared of their shadows for the rest of their lives.'
'I wish I had never mentioned it,' said Maximus. 'The gods alone know how Ballista has put up with a miserable old Caledonian bastard like you for all these years.'
'Wiped his arse when he was the age his son is now, paid off the fathers of the girls he fucked back in Germania and fed and clothed the little bastard ever since we came into the imperium. Always made myself useful – unlike a bodyguard who thinks he is being stalked. It always follows the same course when it strikes men like you: first, they think about it now and then; after a time, it comes to dominate their thoughts, preys on their mind without cease, gives them no rest – and that is when it begins to affect everything, strips all their pleasures away. It is hard to get it up when you are always thinking that someone is creeping up behind you with a bloody great sword.' The nasty grating sound issued again from Calgacus as he poured himself more wine.
'I hope that Demetrius gets here all right. You know how easily he gets lost, and it is late,' said Maximus.
'Of course he'll get here all right. This is Antioch, the city that never sleeps – its streets are safer and better lit at night than at day. There is a civic police force armed with bloody great clubs, and the key job of its eighteen elected officers, the ones they call the Epimeletai ton Phylon, the Superintendants of the Tribes, is to knock up any shopkeeper who dares to let the lights outside his shop go out.'