Dawn came red and angry.
Adalwolf brought me bread and watered wine. His hands didn't shake anymore. Battle does that.
"How many did we lose?" I asked.
"Seven dead. Twelve wounded."
Seven. Against however many they lost. The math still said we lose eventually.
"Show me the wounded."
They'd laid them in the eastern portico. A slave woman was tearing bandages from old linens.
I knelt beside the first man. Thigh wound. Deep.
"What's your name, soldier?"
"Titus." He winced as the girl pressed cloth to the wound. "Titus Labienus."
I almost laughed. Labienus. My best legate in Gaul. Different Labienus. Different life. Still—the name sat strange in my ears.
"You're going to live. You know why?"
"Because the Emperor says so?"
"No. Because I need you."
Scarface found me by the well, washing blood off my arms.
"Majesty. The prisoners."
"Talk to them?"
"One of them. Centurion. Name of Pullo."
"Bring him here."
They brought him in chains. Big man. Thick neck. He looked at me with hate. Then confusion.
"You're Nero," he said.
"I'm whoever I need to be. Right now, I'm the man who just handed your century its ass. What's your name?"
"Lucius Vorenus Pullo. First Centurion, Tenth Legion."
"You've got a choice. Quick death, or carry a message back to Galba."
"What message?"
I leaned close. "Tell him Caesar's back. Not Nero. Tell him the man who conquered Gaul is standing in that villa with two hundred men. And tell him that if he wants Rome, he'll have to come through me."
Pullo's eyes went wide. They unchained him. He walked to the gate, then stopped.
"Two hundred men against five thousand. You really think you can win?"
"I don't think, Pullo. I know."
The next three days were chaos. Not the bad kind—the good kind. Everyone working. Digging. Building. Gunter—Red—became my right hand.
"Majesty, if we put a ditch here—"
"Not a ditch. A trench. Wide. Deep. With spikes at the bottom."
"We don't have spikes."
"Then make them. Olive grove past the hill. Cut them down. Sharpen the branches."
Gunter squinted. "That's a lot of work."
"Galba's army is five thousand men. Which sounds like more work?"
He grinned.
On the third day, Adalwolf came running.
"Majesty! They're moving!"
I climbed the wall. Squinted. Galba's camp was boiling like an anthill.
"How many?"
"All of them."
I watched. Studied the formations.
"They're not coming," I said. "They're marching. There's a difference. Galba's scared. He's feeling us out."
"Should we hit them?"
"No. Today we're a fortress. Let him break his teeth on our walls."
They came at dusk. A cohort. Five hundred men. Perfect Roman formation. Shields up. Spears forward.
Beautiful, in a terrible way.
"Archers. Wait until they're in range."
The first volley took them by surprise. Men fell. The formation buckled.
"Second volley!"
More fell. The cohort stopped. Started to back away.
"Hold! Don't waste arrows on a retreat."
Galba pulled back. He'd learned something—that we weren't running.
But I'd learned something too. Galba was cautious. Too cautious. A politician playing soldier.
And politicians? Politicians I could beat.
That night, I called a meeting.
"We can't stay here forever," Scarface said.
"We're not staying. We're leaving tomorrow night."
"Where?"
"Rome."
Silence.
"Majesty, Rome is where Galba's supporters are. That's the last place—"
"The Senate thinks I'm dead. They think I'm hiding here. That's why it'll work."
I drew on the table with wine. "Tomorrow night, we march east. Galba will see us. He'll think we're running. He'll chase."
"He'll catch us."
"No. Because while he's chasing us, fifty men break off. Double back. Take the southern road. Straight to Rome."
Scarface's eyes went wide. "A diversion."
"Exactly. By the time Galba realizes we've split, we're already inside Rome."
"And what do fifty men do in Rome?"
I smiled. "Change minds."
We left at midnight. No torches. Two hundred shadows slipping out the back gate.
The main force marched east. Loud enough to be heard. The rest of us—fifty men, me, Scarface, Adalwolf—doubled back south.
Toward Rome.
"Majesty," Adalwolf whispered, "what happens when we get there?"
"Then we find out if the Senate remembers how to be afraid."
Dawn found us in the hills south of the city. Rome spread out below. Gold and marble and lies.
"Scarface. How well do you know the sewers?"
"The sewers?"
"The Cloaca Maxima. There's a way in south of the Aventine. Leads to the Forum."
"You want us to go through the sewers?"
"I want us to get into Rome without being seen."
He sighed. "I'll find the entrance."
Two hours later—filthy and exhausted—we climbed out of a drainage grate in the Forum's eastern edge.
The Senate house was ahead. Lit from within.
"Scarface. Take twenty men. Guard the doors. No one leaves."
"You're going in? Alone?"
I checked my sword. "Caesar always met the Senate alone."
"That's how you died."
I smiled. "This time's different."
The guards at the Senate doors s