Thus it was that on that day, the day of our investiture, each of us hundred and sixty new centurions had been given the name of one of the transgressors — there were plenty to go round beyond the hundred and twenty of the old Guard — with orders to kill on sight.
If it were only that, I might have been happy, or tranquil at least. But it was not. The emperor’s brother, Lucius, had called me into his office the night before and that was when my life had changed for the worse.
It was the last hour of the dusk watch and I had been walking past Caecina’s quarters in the barracks above the Quirinal hill when I heard him call my name.
Turning, I had found the general standing in the doorway, beckoning me. I followed him into the legate’s office, and there, seated behind a small table next to the only brazier, was Lucius Vitellius. Even then, he was considered the most dangerous man in Rome. The emperor, as we have said, was pot-bellied, lame and prone to drinking through the night. Darker and more saturnine, his brother Lucius was abstemious, fast as a snake and twice as vicious.
I knelt so fast I cracked my knees on the marble floor. I had no idea if I was actually required to kneel before the emperor’s brother, but you’d have to think it wise at least to begin there.
A moment’s silence followed, and then a sigh. ‘Get up, centurion!’
The voice was soft, rolling, almost friendly. I have heard inquisitors speak like that before they break a man. Rising, I kept my eyes on the floor.
Lucius said, ‘You were in Rome on the night of the fire five years ago, is that correct?’
‘It is, lord. I was sent back from my legion by-’
‘Thank you, we don’t need details. We need someone who can identify the spy, Pantera, also known as the Leopard. He was with Nero on the night of the fire. I am told he controlled much of the defences?’
I was about to deny any knowledge of who did what — that night was a flame-filled horror of which I remember mercifully little, although my dreams since have been plagued by the stench of burned flesh, and the sound of children screaming — but there was a moment after, in the strange calm of the morning…
‘Lord, does he bear a scar on his face above one eye, and is he stiff in the left ankle?’
Lucius glanced at Caecina, who nodded.
They both stared at me, so I went on with what I knew. ‘I was with Nero in his flower garden at dawn the following morning. I was on duty there. He and this man — Pantera — had a… discussion…’ Do you say to the emperor’s brother that a man argued with an emperor and did not die for it? Nero was different then; there were still people who were not required to kneel in his presence.
I took a glance at Lucius and decided these were details he didn’t need. In fact, now that I studied him properly, he looked like a man who’d had little sleep with no promise of more to come.
His hair hung black to his brow and there were dark circles under his eyes. If he’d been shaved, it was not in the past day. It was said that the emperor planned to leave Rome soon, to escape the stench of a city in summer, the press of an empire’s attention, the constant clamour of those who craved his smile, his word, his law.
In his place, it was said, he planned to leave his brother to carry the weight of the empire, and what man can say that wasn’t the worst of burdens?
Not my business. They wanted to know about Pantera and so I told them what I knew.
‘There was a boy Nero wanted that the others didn’t want him to have. Pantera bought him with a promise.’
‘What kind of promise?’
Caecina asked that, and this was not the affable general, the man-amongst-men who led from the front all the way from the Rhine, beloved by his officers and men alike, and known for his leonine courage and humour. This Caecina was angry, clearly, but it wasn’t clear with whom. He radiated a kind of hard, brittle danger; nothing so crude as a blade in the belly, more the threat of crucifixion, or worse.
I was always taught that, if in doubt, it was safest to fall back on formality. Crisply, I said, ‘In return for the boy’s life, Pantera promised to find the man who set fire to Rome, and to kill him.’
Lucius lifted a lazy brow. ‘Did he succeed?’
Caecina said, ‘We believe so, lord. He killed the arsonist, and then, later, helped to return their stolen eagle to the Twelfth legion.’
Listening to that, I thought Pantera sounded exactly the kind of man who should have been helping to rebuild Rome after a year of civil war. I didn’t say it, I’m not prone to suicide, but it must have shown on my face.
In a voice that crackled at the edges, Caecina said, ‘Pantera has given himself to Vespasian. We have reason to believe he has committed Seneca’s entire network of agents to the traitor’s cause.’
Standing, Lucius walked around the desk. He was nowhere near as tall as his brother, but far leaner. Fitting his shoulders against the wall opposite, he fixed his gaze on me.
‘Vespasian is en route to Egypt. Mucianus is marching towards Rome with his legions. He will take six months to reach us, or at least to be close enough to do us harm. In that time, we must make Rome secure. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, lord.’ Only an imbecile would fail to grasp that much.
‘Good. In order to bring about this security, we are creating the new Guard, as you know. Tomorrow’s investiture ceremony will include a lottery, in which each of the new centurions will draw the name of an enemy of the state, apparently at random. You will draw Pantera’s name; of those we trust, you alone can identify him.
‘Your fellow officers have orders to kill their target on sight. You, however, will do your utmost to bring Pantera and his accomplices to us alive in order that they may be questioned. Failure to do so will be seen as complicity with his cause. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Then go. Pantera’s ship docked at Ravenna last night. When we know where he’s going, you will be informed. You may choose two or three good men to accompany you, but you will be circumspect in what you tell them. It goes without saying that this conversation has not happened. Do you understand?’
‘Lord.’
I backed out of the doorway, bowing as much to hide the sweat on my face as out of respect for the two men inside.
That was the night before the lottery. I had lain awake through the hours of darkness wondering how they were going to rig it so that I chose Pantera’s name and by noon I had found out — and I dared not speak of it to Juvens, who had just drawn the name of the man most revered in all the legions.
Everyone has heard of Trabo, tribune of the Guard, but I can perhaps give you a soldier’s perspective. What marked him out was that he was one of us; an ordinary soldier who became extraordinary.
He didn’t come from a senatorial family. His father was barely an equestrian, although he had been a centurion with the VIth, and there was a great-grandfather back somewhere down the line who’d won a neck ring for valour serving under Marc Antony in the wars of the Triumvirate, but that was it.
Trabo joined up at eighteen and from the start he was… you’d want to say unique, but the point is that he wasn’t. He was one of us but he was just that little bit better than all of us at everything.
He could run a little faster, jump that hand or two higher, fight harder. When we put on displays for the generals, his javelin was the one that flew farthest and hit the mark most cleanly. If he’d lived in the old days of Greece, he’d have been an Olympian. In the legions he won silver to put on his belt or about his neck or on his arms, and by his mid-twenties he’d won pretty much every award there was to win and was heading up the ranks.