‘Madness?’ the grey-bearded man yelled back. Veins were standing out in his neck, and he seized the front of his tunic as if he would tear it from his body. ‘Who are you, Trigetius, to speak of crime and madness? There is no madness for those who know the love of God! For those who have Christ there is no crime!’
The crowd around the cart was shoving back against the phalanx of Praetorians. Some of them pelted missiles: rotten vegetables and kicked-up cobblestones spattered and rattled off the shields. Castus saw men knocked to the ground, scuffles breaking out. Bodies were swirling around the platform of the crane as the mass of onlookers tried to back away from the confrontation. A scream from just below him, and Castus saw a gang of sailors in greasy smocks shoving a woman between them as she tried to carry her child clear of the riot.
Jumping down from the platform, he threw his arms out straight before him and forced the bodies aside. The first sailor he caught by the neck, then kicked his legs from under him. The second went down with a fist in the face; the third saw the way of things and made his escape. Castus took a moment to catch his breath, then scooped up the woman and her child and lifted them up onto the crane platform.
By the time he clambered up after them, it was over. The Christian priest had raised his arms and stepped off the cart, surrendering himself to the centurion of the Praetorian detachment. The shields closed around him, and he was led away.
‘With any luck,’ the youth on the crane said with lazy relish, ‘they’ll throw him to the lions!’
21
Out beyond the city walls, men were working in the late-afternoon sun. Thousands of them, slaves and conscripted civilians labouring alongside legionaries stripped to their tunics. In the lengthening shade of the wall itself they were clearing out the defensive ditch, digging up the mass of rubbish and debris that had filled it over centuries of peace. In the open ground on the far side of the ditch there were gangs tearing down the clusters of huts and low houses that had sprung up outside the fortifications. Far away, past the grey dust clouds rising from the demolished buildings, more men were hacking down the olive groves on the nearer slopes. An entire harvest ruined, only to deny the enemy wood and shade. But there was nothing the people of Massilia could do about the destruction: they were under military rule now, and Maximian had ordered that everything must be sacrificed to strengthen the city for a siege. The work had been going on for five days, but could not last much longer. Constantine had paused at Arelate, but was advancing once more.
‘All this,’ Brinno said, ‘for one man.’
Castus, standing beside him on the ramparts, nodded slowly. ‘Two men,’ he said.
They were both speaking quietly; following only a few paces behind them on the rampart walk were four soldiers of the Praetorian cohort. Officially they were supposed to be ‘military servants’ for the two Protectores, but their glowering watchful expressions showed plainly that they were intended as guards. Despite their lower rank, Castus did not doubt that the Praetorians had secret orders to report any treasonous words or actions to their superiors, and prevent any attempts to escape or sabotage the defensive works. He recognised at least two of them from the group that had surrounded him and Urbicus between the wagons at Lugdunum.
But the Praetorians could not stop Castus and Brinno from surveying the walls; as Protectores, they were supposed to be the emperor’s own loyal bodyguards, after all. Castus was no engineer, but he had a clear eye for the military possibilities of any location, and during his tour of the ramparts and gates with Brinno he had made sure to remember all that he saw. Now, standing on the walkway of the wall that descended towards the Rome Gate, he had a panoramic view over the whole sweep of the city as it curved around the northern shore of the harbour.
Massilia was built upon a wide hilly promontory, with the streets rising in tiers from the docks up to the temple-crowned summits. Artemis glowing in the afternoon sun. That, and the temple of Apollo on the next summit, formed the ancient acropolis of the city. Any troops breaking through the walls would have to battle their way up to those temples through a warren of streets; any defender keen on fighting to the last could hold either of them as a citadel. But that was a desperate thought. Castus had never experienced a true street battle, but he knew it was always a bloody business.
On the landward side of the promontory the old walls were strong, and even stronger now that Maximian had ordered them repaired. Massilia had only been assaulted once, hundreds of years before, but on that occasion it had held out against the great Julius Caesar. Or so Castus had learned in the imperial council that morning. Sallustius had told him later that the city had surrendered to Caesar in the end, but only after six months of siege. There were no catapults or other engines left in the city to fight off attackers, but with several thousand men to hold the ramparts, and plenty of archers among them, Massilia’s defences would be tough to break.
Only on the harbour side were the walls less formidable. Several gates had been knocked through them to give access to the docks, and the city merchants had built their warehouses and emporia higher than the wall tops, with overhanging attics and gantries to winch goods directly up from the wharfs. But anyone attacking on that side would have to cross the harbour itself, through the mass of anchored vessels, and Castus doubted that Constantine had either the boats or the manpower to attempt such an assault.
Surveying the scene, he frowned and shook his head.
Brinno leaned into the embrasure between the crenellations of the rampart, spitting noisily out into the cleared ditch twenty feet below. Castus had caught the twitch of his friend’s expression, and leaned into the embrasure beside him.
‘What do we do?’ Brinno hissed.
Castus had no answer.
‘We should have killed him on the boat!’ Behind them they could hear the scrape of the Praetorians’ boots on the paving of the walkway. ‘We could still do it…’
‘Couldn’t get close enough,’ Castus said under his breath. Both men were speaking through tightened lips, gazing out through the embrasure at the sun-drenched landscape beyond the walls. It was approaching late September now, but the heat of full summer still endured, and the air was humid with the scent of the sea.
‘Then what…? We start a riot, a revolt in the city? What?’
One of the Praetorians leaned heavily against the wall beside Castus, clearing his throat. Castus nudged Brinno with his elbow, and the pair of them straightened up.
‘Wait for a chance,’ Castus whispered as they moved on. ‘Hope we know it when we see it…’
He heard Brinno’s choke of frustration.
A warm breeze lifted over the ramparts, loaded with dust and the smell of smoke from the burning debris of buildings. On the other side of the wall, the city side, more smoke was rising from the workshops just inside the Rome Gate as the blacksmiths laboured to prepare their quotas of spear- and javelin heads, helmets and mail. From high on the wall, Castus could see the white placards set up in the street, the bold red letters proclaiming the penalty of death for anyone failing to do their duty to Maximian Augustus.
In truth, Castus knew that this was about more than just Maximian’s ambitions for rule. Maximian was like an actor, an old and worn-out actor, dragged back onto the stage to play his most famous role once more. He had been a capable military leader once, a ferocious and determined commander, a true emperor. Perhaps he could be again, but there were others around him who drove events now. Gorgonius, Scorpianus. Perhaps, behind them, Maxentius. It did not matter: men would die on both sides, and never know why.