Fire and Sword. Harry Sidebottom

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СКАЧАТЬ had stalled. Eventually he had mortgaged his estates to raise the money to buy the Consulship. Then he had re-mortgaged them to obtain the governorship of a province. Rather than Asia or Africa Proconsularis, wealthy provinces where he could have made good all the bribes and recouped his fortune, he had received Numidia. Flyblown deserts and barren mountains, intractable natives and savage tribes, scorching in summer and freezing in winter; a host of mundane duties, scarcely rewarded; an office for junior Senators who would climb no higher. The bitterest draught was swallowed when old Gordian had been installed in Carthage: an aged Silenus lording it over the second city of the empire, reaping the riches of neighbouring Africa Proconsularis.

      They rode under the aqueduct, and through the necropolis. Fresh corpses were strewn among the resting places of their forebears, like blood offerings in some barbaric religion. The small cavalcade passed a pretentious, half-finished tomb in white marble. Capelianus had given Carthage over to the soldiery. For three days they could do as they pleased. It gave Capelianus a grim satisfaction that the bereaved family might never again have the means to finish the tomb. If any lived to attempt the task.

      The Hadrumetum Gate was blocked with the dead and dying. They reined in. Some auxiliaries were energetically stripping bodies. The corpses were pallid things, all humanity gone. Capelianus shouted at the soldiers to clear a path. Reluctantly they turned to the unwanted and unremunerative task, heaving and shoving as they handled the recalcitrant sides of meat.

      ‘Faster, you dogs, unless you want to feel the lash.’

      Gordian the Elder must not escape. Capelianus turned to Sabinianus.

      ‘Will he try and get away by the harbour?’

      Sabinianus took his time answering. ‘I do not think so. They trusted to their numbers. There was no provision for flight. No ship was readied.’

      Nothing appeared to ruffle the patrician assurance of Sabinianus. Late last night, he had crept out of the city, deserted the Gordiani. In the camp of Capelianus, to prove his change of heart, Sabinianus had cut a prisoner’s throat. The prisoner had been his closest friend. It was said Sabinianus had loved Arrian like a brother.

      No one could trust such a man. Sabinianus had revealed the ambush set by the Gordiani: the five hundred horsemen hidden among the warehouses and walls of the Fish Ponds beyond Capelianus’ left wing, poised to take his army in the flank, to roll up the line. Without the intervention of Sabinianus the battle might have had a very different outcome. Capelianus looked at him with loathing and contempt. Love the treachery, detest the traitor.

      ‘What will the old man do?’

      ‘Make a stand in the palace.’

      ‘A stand?’ Capelianus failed to keep the anxiety out of his voice. ‘They kept troops in reserve?’

      ‘A handful.’ Sabinianus smiled. ‘Nothing to bother the conqueror of Carthage, the new Scipio.’

      Capelianus had granted Sabinianus his life. Yet the decision could be revoked.

      The way clear, they clattered into the town.

      It was a vision of the underworld, Tartarus, where the wicked endure their eternal punishments. Bodies, slumped and naked. Old women and young children wailing. Smashed heirlooms, desecrated homes. A smell of spilt wine and burning, a reek of vomit and excrement.

      They rode up the Street of Saturn, between the Temples of Venus and Salus. As if to mock the divine assurances of Love and Safety, a young matron ran pell-mell from an alley. Hot in pursuit, a dozen or so Numidians.

      Despite himself, despite the urgency of his mission, Capelianus stopped to watch.

      The Numidians caught her on the steps of the Temple of Salus. As they stripped her, there was something arousing about her sharp, desperate screams. Her body was very white, even her legs and arms; a well-brought-up young wife, sheltered from the sun, modest and chaste.

      She lashed out, but they forced her down, bent her over a low balustrade. Her buttocks were pale as marble, her sex dark and desirable. The heat of the climate inclined Numidians to rape, their loose, unbelted tunics facilitated the act. When their leader mounted her, she called some appeal to the men on horseback.

      Capelianus smiled. ‘Health and great joy to you.’

      The men laughed.

      This would not do. Capelianus had an infinitely more pressing desire. Not lust, but vengeance.

      They entered the Forum, passed the white altar of Peace and the bronze tablets inscribed with the ancient laws of Rome. At the far end soldiers and tribesmen promiscuously went to and fro among the pillars of the governor’s palace.

      A Prefect, the commander of one of the auxiliary Cohorts, came down the steps.

      ‘Gordian the Elder is in a small dining room, the one they call the Delphix.’

      ‘Alive or dead?’

      ‘Dead.’

      Before dismounting, Capelianus addressed the Prefect. ‘Your Cohort broke ranks, disobeyed orders, chased the rebels. After the three days of licence, there will be punishments.’

      The officer saluted. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

      The chastened Prefect led them into the corridors of the palace. From deeper in the labyrinth, muffled by inlaid doors and heavy curtains, came the sounds of bestial revelry. Capelianus half-remembered a passage of Polybius from his schooldays. The Greek historian had been much impressed by the order with which the Romans sacked a town. No soldier turned to looting until he was given the command. All the plunder was heaped in one place to be distributed according to rank and merit. No man kept anything back for himself. But that was long ago. Things were different now. Discipline and virtue were only words. The way of the ancestors, the mos maiorum, all forgotten, no more than an expression.

      In the Delphix a semi-circle of troops stood like a tragic chorus around the hanged man. An overturned chair and a pool of liquid beneath the dangling feet of the corpse. The front of Gordian’s tunic was wet. It was said a hanged man ejaculated. By the smell, it was just urine.

      Capelianus studied the bulging eyes and protruding tongue. A coward’s death. Not the steel, but the rope. A woman’s way of suicide. The dissatisfaction habitual to Capelianus consumed his thoughts. There had been a prophecy that the Gordiani would die by drowning. Capelianus had looked forward to making that come true. A butt of wine would have been fitting. Father and son had both cheated him.

      ‘We have captured one of their friends.’ The young Prefect was eager to make amends.

      The man was pushed forward. He was battered, his clothes torn, his arms and legs laden with chains.

      ‘Name? Race? Free or slave?’ Capelianus intoned the traditional beginning to an inquisition.

      The prisoner did not answer. He was staring at Sabinianus.

      ‘Name?’

      Now the man gave his attention to Capelianus.

      ‘Mauricius, son of Mauricius, town councillor of Thysdrus and Hadrumetum.’

      Capelianus knew of him. ‘The СКАЧАТЬ