“How shall we carry her inside?”
“I cup my left hand thus.” Jono demonstrated, reaching down to lift the tiny creature. “See here . . . I scoop her up, and you will carry her in, and we shall put her in a basket lined with linen.” The white teeth of the giant flashed in a grin as he placed the bird into Philo’s hands. “Mind the wind . . . and there she is. Safe from whatever evil lurks in the sycamore tree.”
The starling’s trembling feathers were soft in Philo’s palm. Philo held her close to his lips and breathed warmth on her back. He whispered the command, “Live, little bird.”
Starling’s heart fluttered in fear.
“Don’t be afraid,” Philo told her. “You are safe now from talons of owls and fangs of cats.”
Cool night air touched Claudia’s face like a silk scarf. She smiled as Philo’s midnight drama played out in the garden below. Philo was a kind child with a tender heart.
A sleek golden cat crouched low, flicked its tail, and crept across the paving stones toward the bird. At the whiff of man and boy, the hunter halted midstride. Too late to catch an easy meal, the cat sat and licked its paws.
By moonlight from her balcony, Claudia observed the nonchalant disappointment of the hungry feline. It lay down and watched the progress of Philo and the slave as they carried the broken bird into the house. The rescue was a success.
Claudia knew it would only be a short while before Philo called for her to come and see what they had found. She returned to her bedchamber and closed the shutters. Except for the gently splashing fountain, the night was quiet again.
She sat at her dressing table and brushed her hair by the flickering candle flame. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the glass, she paused. The golden eyes looking back at her were filled with loneliness.
What would life have been like if she had been able to marry for love? If she were in the arms of the man she longed for?
Eight years of marriage to Pilate had not dulled the knife of her desire for another. She had prayed for a sign, for a way out. The absence of Pilate was a reprieve for her.
Claudia wondered what was in store for her husband and those who fought with him on far-off battlefields.
She thought of Pilate and then of Marcus. Two soldiers. Once friends, raised on the same vineyard estate. They loved the same woman. They fought the same Cherusci enemy. And the two soldiers now warred against one another.
How would Caesar’s soothsayers have interpreted the fallen bird and the cat? she wondered. The priests of Jupiter would read some personal prophecy into the behaviors of animals and humans.
Claudia’s mother had taught her that even small portents were harbingers of something greater. The starling and the cat surely were a prophecy of danger.
Claudia was certain that the diviners of Caesar’s court were hard at work deciphering the future of Rome and Tiberius Caesar by the patterns of the starlings.
But what did the omen of one bird crying outside the house of Ponti mean to her future?
In the tragic drama of Claudia and Pontius Pilate, it was clear who the wounded starling was . . . and who was the prowling cat.
Was there a champion who would rescue her in the nick of time, like Philo and Jono had rescued the starling?
Claudia rubbed her aching forehead.
A knock sounded on her door.
“Mother,” Philo cried, “come quickly! See what Jono and I found in the garden . . . the beautiful bird we have rescued!”
Chapter 4
The night closed in like the lid of a stone coffin. The watch fires of the hilltop refuge flickered low. There were plenty of rocks, but little brush and few remaining limbs on the trees. These were rapidly butchered to use for fuel, and that very sparingly. By Marcus Longinus’s express order, no one lit the tar-soaked torches each man carried tied to his pack.
“The scouts are back,” Quintus reported. “There is a gully to the west we can use. I’ll post a handful of healthy men to remain here and keep the fires going. Perhaps the gods will smile on us. If not . . .” He shrugged.
“Thank you, Sergeant. We will use the gully. And there”—he indicated the glow of many fires only a couple of miles away—“is the main Cherusci camp. If Pilate and any of his men remain alive, that is where they are held.”
“A couple hundred of us against that many thousand?”
Laughing, the centurion corrected, “Quintus, I’ve seen you wager a month’s pay on worse odds than that!” Then he added, “Besides, it is not a move our enemy expects.”
“You are right about that,” Quintus agreed drily.
“The wounded and one man out of each company of fifty are to remain behind and tend the fires. Let them make as much noise as they wish—to convince the Cherusci we are all still here. If our men have received no further order beforehand, at dawn they may make whatever escape they can.”
Well past midnight the Roman troops slipped down the slope, across the creek, and up to the outskirts of the Cherusci encampment. A lone Cherusci guard rose up out of the darkness and offered a guttural challenge. But before he raised an alarm, two Romans seized him, clamped his mouth shut, and silenced him permanently.
Marcus formed his men into an arc to the northwest of the enemy camp. Lying prone, he, Cassius, and Quintus surveyed the position from a ridgeline screened with holly bushes, while his men waited behind the brow of the hill.
Quintus whispered hoarsely, “I was wrong. We’re not outnumbered ten to one. It’s more like a hundred to one.”
“Courage leads to honor,” Marcus said.
“Courage leads to honor,” the guard sergeant repeated. Then, anticipating the next query, he replied, “All the captains know what to do.”
Two Cherusci sentries were plainly dozing. Two more leaned sleepily on the staffs of their spears. Seeing only one pacing his post, his tread slow, the centurion judged the time to be right.
“Now!” he shouted, jumping upright. Placing a trumpet to his lips, he gave a blast that shattered the night. To the left and right other hunting horns repeated the call, the way tribesmen warriors drive wild hogs into a waiting trap of spearmen.
Every tenth Roman carried a gourd. Rather than transporting water, the hollow containers held embers from the fire. In seconds new life was breathed into the concealed coals, and the torches blazed.
“Courage and honor!” Marcus called.
Four hundred voices echoed, “Courage and honor!”
The near side of the Cherusci camp awoke first, stumbling out of their tents and blundering about. One running guard, likely mistaken for an assassin, was skewered by a friend’s spear. Two of his comrades must have believed their enemies were already in the camp, for they hacked and hewed at each other.
Dazed men, bumbling about without any orders, pointed toward the legionaries and cried with alarm. The enemy that appeared out of nowhere, with torches blazing and trumpets blaring, seemed to be a force of thousands surrounding them.
“Drive them! Drive them now!” Marcus bellowed.
Like fire falling from heaven, wave upon wave of flaming brands poured down the slope. The Romans yelled and flailed their arms like demonic attackers dancing between the flames. A forest of javelins arched out of the darkness, piercing some where they slept.
Remembering the heads of their butchered comrades, the Roman troopers needed no encouragement. They swept into the Cherusci camp, overwhelming the first resistance. More and more combat broke out amongst the Cherusci, and between them and their allies, as friend fought friend.
By Marcus’s command, every tent they passed was set afire, adding to the panic and c
onfusion. The Cherusci made no attempt to form lines. Single combats dissolved into flight.
As the Romans approached the center of the camp, Marcus spotted a captured Roman standard propped outside a burning tent. “There!” he yelled to Quintus. “Follow me!”
Slashing his way past two defenders, he ducked his head and entered amid smoke and flames. Pontius Pilate was tied to a pole, but his guards had run away. Cutting him free, Marcus tossed him a sword. The three emerged from the pavilion just as it erupted entirely into flames, falling in on itself with a roar. It exhaled smoke and belched fire.
Pilate and Marcus fought back to back. The Cherusci regrouped and returned to the battle, so the two Romans faced off against eight of the enemy.
Pontius Pilate was headstrong, arrogant, and ambitious, but also an excellent swordsman. When cornered, he fought ferociously, swiftly dispatching two of his opponents before taking on the remaining enemies.
The four who surrounded the centurion tried to close in but got in each other’s way. None had room enough for a full swing of an ax or a decent thrust with a sword.
Marcus used this situation to his advantage, lunging at one man who already looked fearful. The opponent leapt back just as one of his comrades swung a blow, but the slash landed across the Cherusci’s own hand.
Dueling with his remaining adversaries, Pilate remarked to Marcus, “You still fight like a farm boy playing with sticks.”
Parrying an ax cut with his blade while giving back a pace, Marcus let his assailant’s blow overbalance him. The attacker’s chest fell on the point of the Roman’s sword; then Marcus kicked him loose. One of the other Cherusci stumbled over the wounded man, and both tumbled to earth.
“You’re welcome,” Marcus said to Pilate. “Should I have let you roast?”
Three more Cherusci rushed up to attack.
“Is this”—Pilate panted as his blow disarmed another man—“your idea of a rescue?”
Quintus appeared at exactly the right moment. Catching two enemies from behind, he cracked their heads together, then flung them onto another Cherusci swordsman.
More trumpets rang out, this time from off to the east, in the direction of the marshy plain.
“You may be right,” Marcus admitted to Pilate, wondering if he was about to join Pilate as a captive.
“No,” Quintus corrected as he chopped the legs out from under another assailant. “Those are Roman trumpets. General Severus has seen the flames and is attacking.”
On the morning following the battle, the plain between the central hill and the river was torn and scored, as if a monstrous yoke of oxen had plowed it in every direction. Heaps of dead bodies were mounded into artificial hills in front of the Roman camp. Piles of discarded or captured Cherusci weapons formed others.
The four hundred soldiers with Marcus had scattered seven thousand Cherusci. The panic that followed the night assault not only saved Pontius Pilate but decided the battle in favor of the Romans.
Weary Roman troops and their tribal allies drew themselves up in ragged lines, facing a hastily constructed platform. On it stood General Severus, his key officers, and Marcus.
“Victors and heroes of Rome!” Severus shouted.
This opening provoked a cheer from the men.
The general motioned for Marcus to come to his side, then flourished a bronzed crown woven of spiked leaves above the centurion’s head. “This is the corona obsidionalis. It is always woven from whatever grows on the field of battle. It is only awarded when someone performs a heroic action that saves an army from destruction. Ten years ago it was won by Centurion Marcus Longinus at the Battle of Idistaviso and presented to him from the hands of General Germanicus himself. The centurion has once again proven his worth to Rome. Victors!” he repeated to louder cheering. “I give you the Hero of Idistaviso and Scourge of the Cherusci, Centurion Marcus Longinus. Courage and honor!” With that he placed the crown of thorns atop Marcus’s head.
Thousands of hoarse throats bellowed, “Longinus! Courage and honor.”
Severus continued. “Hail, Rome. Hail, Tiberius Caesar. Courage and honor. Hail, Marcus Longinus!”
“Rome! Caesar!” the men cheered. Then, “Longinus! Longinus! Longinus!”
Marcus saw only one sour face in the crowd that day. Standing below the front of the platform, his face still streaked with blood and soot, his uniform torn and muddy, was Pontius Pilate. Instead of cheering, Pilate sulked. He stared at the ground and dug into the mire with the toe of his boot.
After the ceremony concluded, the Roman army went back to licking their wounds. General Severus announced to much cheering that most of the legions were going home. One unit would remain posted on this northern frontier to keep the peace.
Severus summoned Marcus into his tent, dismissed his servants and his lieutenants, and invited the centurion to sit. “I have decided to keep your unit here.”
Marcus nodded.
“But not you,” Severus added. “You are detached from your troop and coming back to Rome with me.”
A tall silver flagon stood on a table beside the general, flanked by a pair of onyx chalices worked in a vine leaf pattern. Severus poured two cups of wine and handed one to Marcus. With his free hand he indicated the holly wreath that ringed the top of Marcus’s head. Marcus glanced up past his bushy brows at the overhanging circlet of spiked leaves. His face reddened with embarrassment as he removed the corona.
Severus revolved it slowly in his hands before placing it on the table beside the jug of wine. Turning to a discussion of the nighttime battle, the general praised, “Brilliant strategy, Centurion. How did you come up with it?”
“Necessity, sir. Not original with me, either. Written in the book of Jewish wars. A general named Gideon.”
Severus nodded. “I shall remember that, if ever I fight the Jews.” Drawing his chair closer and leaning forward, he asked, “As a child, you were taken captive by Rome, were you not? And also from Britannia?”
“Very young, yes, sir. I remember very little.”
In the latter Marcus was lying. He remembered well his mother and the aching grief that haunted him for years as he grew up apart from her. She was a princess of the Catuvellauni and so a more valuable prisoner than Marcus.
“Yet you fight for Rome . . . you serve Rome?”
The centurion answered with the response he had rehearsed many years before. “I serve Rome because Rome is ultimate power. Power is the only god any rational man can serve.”
Severus nodded. “And you were raised as a fosterling alongside Pontius Pilate?”
Where was this conversation leading? Because of Pilate’s connection to the household of Tiberius, the general knew all the correct replies without having to ask.
Cautiously, Marcus replied, “Rome has no better servant than Pontius Pilate.”
Severus raised his brows. “But Pilate’s ego and ambition led to a costly gamble . . . a gamble that cost the lives of nearly all his men, and almost his own. I do not say your actions saved the army as at Idistaviso, but it seems you have saved Pilate and his honor.”
Spreading his hands, Marcus said, “I did my duty as a soldier, sir. Pilate would have done the same . . .”
Waving dismissively, Severus interrupted. “Pilate is your friend, I understand that.” There was a long pause while the general stared into Marcus’s eyes. “Is he also a friend of Caesar?”
“Sir? He is married to Caesar’s daughter.”
“Claudia. Caesar’s beautiful, illegitimate daughter.” There was another searching inspection of the centurion’s carefully guarded expression. “Did you not also
seek her hand? With, it is said, her encouragement?”
Marcus brushed his calloused hands over his stained tunic. “She is the daughter of the emperor, and I am a common man.”
“But an uncommon soldier.”
“Claudia is well loved by her father. Pilate is of the equestrian class. The match is suitable. And they have a child . . . Tiberius’s grandson.”
“Pilate’s boy . . . Philo, yes? . . . is a cripple.” Severus drained his cup of wine.
Marcus took advantage of the interruption imposed by his swallows to argue, “Claudia loves her son, and Tiberius loves his daughter. Sir, it is not for me to have an opinion about these things, much less meddle in them. Pilate is a brave man. It takes great courage to throw the dice when so much is at stake.” Lowering his chin, the centurion stared into the red wine, tightened his jaw, and said nothing further. His words sounded false even to his own ears.
“But thanks to you,” Severus continued, “Pilate did not die, and Tiberius has another victory to celebrate. I find your friend vain, proud, tedious, and foolish. But at your recommendation, Pilate is spared the consequences of his incompetence. I am sending both of you back to Rome. Caesar can deal with his own household in his own way.”
“General.” Marcus stood and saluted with his arm across his chest. “I hope you will consider taking me with you on your next campaign. It would be my honor to serve with you again.”
Severus returned the gesture, but his thoughts already seemed far away.
The triumph decreed by Tiberius Caesar to celebrate Severus’s victory over the Cherusci was set for a day in late spring.
“A most auspicious day,” the emperor’s astrologer decreed. “The anniversary of the founding of Rome.” His casting of Caesar’s horoscope was confirmed by a favorable reading of the entrails of a goat. “Very auspicious indeed.”
“Very good for the emperor,” Severus remarked as he and Marcus Longinus waited in the predawn mist hovering above the Campus Martius for the parade to begin. “Once more a little victory and he proclaims we have peace throughout the Empire.” The broad sweep of his arms took in the gathering crowds, the rising clouds of incense, the hawkers of sausages, and the purveyors of sprigs of laurel. Severus pointed toward the mobs lining the rooftop parapets, waving handkerchiefs and branches and shouting, “Triumph! Triumph!”