The Emperor Series Books 1-4. Conn Iggulden

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       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      As the moon rose, Marius frowned at the centurion.

      ‘My orders were clear. Why have you not obeyed them?’

      The man stammered a little as he replied: ‘General. I assumed there had been a mistake.’ His face paled as he spoke. He knew the consequences. Soldiers did not send messengers to query their orders, they obeyed them, but what he had been asked was madness.

      ‘You were told to consider tactics against a Roman legion. Specifically, to find ways to nullify their greater mobility outside the gates. Which part did you not understand?’ Marius' voice was grim and the man paled further as he saw his pension and rank disappearing.

      ‘I … No one expects Sulla to attack Rome. No one has ever attacked the city –’

      Marius interrupted him. ‘You are dismissed to the ranks. Fetch me Octavius, your second-in-command. He will take your place.’

      Something crumpled out of the man. More than forty years old, he would never see promotion again.

      ‘Sir, if they do come, I would like to be in the first rows to meet them.’

      ‘To redeem yourself?’ Marius asked.

      The man nodded, sickly.

      ‘Granted. Yours will be the first face they see. And they will come, and not as lambs, but wolves.’

      Marius watched the broken man walk stiffly away and shook his head. So many found it difficult to believe that Sulla would turn against their beloved city. For Marius it was a certainty. The news he received daily was that Sulla had finally broken the back of the rebel armies under Mithridates, burning a good part of Greece to the ground in the process. Barely a year had passed, and he would be returning as a conquering hero. The people would grant him anything. With such a strong position, there was no chance of him leaving the legion in the field or in a neighbouring city while he and his cronies came quietly back to take their seats in the Senate and go on as usual. This was the gamble Marius had taken. Though there was nothing else he could find to admire about the man, Sulla was a fine general and Marius had known all along that he could win and return.

      ‘The city is mine now,’ he muttered thickly, looking about him at the soldiers building ramparts onto the heavy gates for arrow fire. He wondered where his nephew had got to and noted absently how little he'd seen of him in the last few weeks. Tiredly, he rubbed the bridge of his nose, knowing he was pushing himself too hard.

      He had snatched sleep for a year as he built his supply lines and armed his men and planned the siege to come. Rome had been recreated as a city fortress and there was not a weak point in any of the walls. She would stand, he knew, and Sulla would break himself on the gates.

      His centurions were hand-picked and the loss of one that morning was a source of irritation. Each man had been promoted for his flexibility, his ability to react to new situations, ready for this time, when the greatest city in the world would face her own children in battle – and destroy them.

      * * *

      Gaius was drunk. He stood on the edge of a balcony with a full goblet of wine, trying to steady his vision. A fountain splashed in the garden below and blearily he decided to go and put his head into the water. The night was warm enough.

      The noise from the party was a crashing mix of music, laughter СКАЧАТЬ