Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust Read Free Page A

of the sword. Let them not gaze long upon the sun and earth. The throne of the Caesars is polluted. Those who ascend it will discover for themselves that they cannot evade punishment.’
    Anullinus raised his sword. ‘Go! Depart!’
    Mamaea did not flinch.
    ‘ Exi! Recede! ’ he repeated.
    Anullinus stepped forward. The blade fell. Mamaea moved then. She could not help raise her hand. But it was too late. Alexander looked at the severed stumps of her fingers, the unnatural suddenness of the wide red gash at his mother’s throat, the jetting blood.
    Someone was screaming, high and gasping, like a child. Anullinus was standing over him.
    ‘ Exi! Recede! ’

CHAPTER 2

    The Northern Frontier
A Camp outside Mogontiacum,
Eight Days before the Ides of March, AD235
    A blustery spring day, as was to be expected in Germania Superior eight days before the ides of March. It had still been dark, spitting with rain, when they rode out of Mogontiacum. It was mid-morning and the sun was out when they reached the camp near the village of Sicilia. Soldiers moved through the lines with no pretence of discipline. Some saluted, some did not. Most were drunk, a number to the point of insensibility.
    The cavalcade dismounted. Maximinus Thrax stretched his large frame and handed his reins to a trooper. The Rhine rolled past, wide and glittering in the sun. The outer walls of the great complex of purple pavilions shifted and snapped in the wind.
    ‘This way.’
    Maximinus followed the Senators Flavius Vopiscus and Honoratus. There were naked corpses in the corridors. They were grey-white, waxy, with a sheen as if rubbed in oil.
    ‘Not all the familia Caesaris fled in time,’ Honoratus said.
    ‘Servants and some of the secretaries, easy to replace,’ Vopiscus said. ‘The Praetorian Prefects were the only men of any account to die.’
    A rack of bodies blocked their path. The heads of the dead lay close together in some final conclave.
    Maximinus thought of the squalor of blood and death. It did not upset him. He had seen many massacres. He had let none trouble him since the first.
    They stepped carefully over the splayed limbs. Maximinus knew his face would be set in what Paulina called his half-barbarian scowl. He thought of his wife and smiled. There could still be beauty, trust and love, even in a debased age.
    It was gloomy in the throne chamber. The atmosphere was close, smelling of incense and blood, of urine and fear. Anullinus and the other two equestrian officers were waiting.
    ‘The mean little girl is dead.’ Anullinus held the head by its short hair.
    Maximinus took the severed head in both hands. As was always the case, it was surprisingly heavy. He brought it close, scrutinized the long face, the long nose, the weak and petulant mouth and chin.
    Was it true that this weakling had been Caracalla’s son? The mother had claimed so; the grandmother too. Both had boasted of the adultery. Morality had yielded to political advantage, as could be anticipated with easterners.
    Maximinus carried the object back to the opening. In the better light, he turned it this way and that. Of course, he had seen Alexander many times before, but now he could really study him. He needed to be sure. The nose was not dissimilar. The hair and beard were cut in the same style. But, although he had begun to go bald, there had been more curl in Caracalla’s hair. Certainly his beard had been fuller than this wispy affair. Maximinus was no physiognomist, but the shape of the head was wrong. Caracalla’s had been squarer, like a bull’s or a block of stone. And his face had been strong, even harsh. Nothing like this delicate, inadequate youth.
    Maximinus felt in some measure reassured. Little could have been worse than being party to the killing of the son of his old commander, the grandson of his great patron. Maximinus acknowledged he owed everything to Caracalla’s father, Septimius Severus. That Emperor had picked him out of backwoods