The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,55

ready, as you ordered, but the legions know that you proposed the Senate amnesty. If I give that command, they could tear us apart.’

Mark Antony’s chest swelled as he took a step towards the man, looming over him.

‘I am weary of being told the dangers of crowds. Is this a mob? No, I see Roman legionaries, who will remember their discipline.’ He spoke more for the benefit of those listening than the legate himself. ‘Take pride in that discipline. I tell you, it is all you have left.’

The legate gave the order and a line of bound men were brought out from a nearby building. Centurions forced their way through the packed crowd, dragging the men into position so that they faced the rest. In any legion, there were always a few offenders who fell asleep on watch, or raped local women, or stole from their tent-mates. Optios and centurions kicked and cuffed the chosen hundred to their knees.

Mark Antony could feel the rage sweeping through the rest. As the grumbling roar swelled, the legate appealed to him once again, keeping his voice low.

‘Consul, if they mutiny now, we are all dead. Let me dismiss them.’

‘Step away from me,’ Mark Antony said in disgust. ‘Whoever you are, resign your commission and return to Rome. I have no place for cowards.’

He stepped back to the rostrum and his voice was a harsh roar.

‘Rome has moved on while you sat here and mourned the death of a great man,’ he bellowed. ‘Has grief stolen your honour? Has it torn away your ranks and traditions? Remember you are men of Rome, no, soldiers of Rome. Men of iron will, who know the value of life and death. Men who can go on, even in the face of disaster.’

He looked down at the miserable legionaries on their knees. It had not been hard for them to guess their fate when they were rounded up and left in darkness to await the consul’s punishment. Many of them struggled against their ropes, but if they tried to stand, they were kicked back down by the watchful centurions.

‘It was mutiny when you refused orders,’ Mark Antony told them all. ‘Mutiny must be washed in blood. You have known that, from the first moments the orders came from Rome. This is the stone that began to fall that day. Centurions! Carry out your duty.’

With grim faces, the centurions removed hatchets from their packs, smacking the blunt ends into their palms over the heads of the kneeling soldiers. In swift, cracking blows, they broke skulls, raising their arms high again and again, then moving on to the next.

Spatters of blood and brains were flung up with the raised weapons, reaching the faces of the closest ranks. The legionaries there began to growl and their officers roared at them. They stood, with chests heaving and expressions feral, repelled yet fascinated as the men died.

As the last body was released to spill the pale contents of its skull onto the ground, Mark Antony breathed hard, facing them again. Slowly the dipped heads came up. The gazes were still hostile, but no longer filled with his imminent destruction. They had held. Most of them realised the worst was past.

‘And the stone has fallen. There is an end,’ Mark Antony said. ‘Now I will tell you something of Caesar.’ If he had promised them gold, he could not have achieved a more perfect silence as the noise fell away.

‘It is true that there has been no vengeance for the Ides of March. I called the amnesty myself, knowing that if I did, his killers would see no danger from me. I wanted to speak to the people of Rome and not have myself exiled or slaughtered in turn as a friend of Caesar. That is the nest of snakes that politics has become in Rome.’

They were no longer drifting away at the edges. Instead, they were pressing back in, thirsty for news from a man who had been present. Brundisium was far away from Rome, Mark Antony reminded himself. At best, they would have only third-hand gossip about what had gone on there. No doubt the Senate had its spies to report his words, but by the time they did, he would have moved again. He had made his choice when he left Rome with his wife and children. There was no taking it back.

‘Some of those responsible have fled the country already. Men like Cassius and Brutus are beyond our reach, at