The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 21

The next day, Ky was up early again, consulting with the Emperor who had thoughts about the planned meetings with the disenfranchised senators, and the senators who represented Devnum itself who were backed by the city's merchants.

"If they have lost their lands, then do they still hold any power in the senate?”

“Yes, although less than they did when we still controlled the lands their families owned. Our traditionalism is one of our more defining traits and it would take more than just losing their land to the Carthaginians to lose their vote in the Senate. Besides, stripping them of their place in the Senate would be admitting that we will probably never get that territory back, which no one in the Senate wants to publicly say. So yes, they have a vote, if not the power to push legislation on their own. They are normally ignored by the rest of the Senate, but for what you want, we will need their votes to get over the large block of traditionalists.”

“I see. It’s such a strange idea though, the …”

Ky was interrupted by the appearance of a guard in the audience chamber.

“Yes?” the Emperor said.

“Emperor, your son is here, accompanied by the senators Marcus Umbrenius Silo, Publius Lusius Mutilus, and Paulus Palpellius Mercurialis.”

The Emperor’s shoulders visibly drooped as he squeezed the bridge of his nose, a sigh of frustration setting it.

“Show them in,” he said to the guard before turning to Ky. Softly, he said, “I wish I could just send them away. These will be our strongest opponents in the Senate and will lead the opposition to everything we are planning.”

Four men strode into the audience chamber. Ky couldn’t help but noticed that none bowed before the Emperor, something he’d seen every other Roman presented to him do. He still didn’t know enough about Roman etiquette, but he’d guess that it was an intended slight on the aged ruler.

“Father,” Caesius said. “We continue to hear rumors of what you and this … man are planning, and we are here to tell you we will not allow it.”

“Funny. I don’t remember you being part of the Senate, Caesius.”

“He is a trusted adviser,” one of the men said. “I, however, am a member of the Senate and the princeps senatus, and I agree with Caesius. Once the people find out you are planning on changing everything that makes us Roman, they will not stand for it. We are here to give you one warning. If you do not back down from these changes, especially the ridiculous notion that Rome will free all of its slaves, the people will hear about it. You will have the mob at your door, demanding your abdication as Emperor.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a threat, Silo.”

“It is simply my judgment as what is most likely to happen. Rome has stood as an institution for hundreds of years. We have survived being expelled from our homelands. We have survived the Carthaginians pushing us off of the continent. We will not give away what makes us Romans.”

“The Carthaginians defeated you when you were far stronger than you are now,” Ky said. “They clearly intend to finish the job. What makes you think you can withstand them now, when you couldn’t defend against them while you controlled the resources of half the known world?”

“You are an outsider, and don’t know what it is to be Roman. I have even heard whispers that you were, perhaps, sent by the Carthaginians to weaken us. You play at being a messenger of the gods, defiling our beliefs. For you to stand as Rome's Consul is an affront to every Roman.”

“I am an outsider, but I have eyes. It was only through trickery and luck that we survived the last army that the Carthaginian’s sent, losing more than a legion’s worth of soldiers doing it. You must have seen the intelligence reports. That was far from the largest army the Carthaginians will send against you. When they come again, and they arecoming, you will not be able to stop them. Rome will be gone, and you will all be dead. There is a chance we can face them and survive, but it requires Rome to become something greater than it is right now.”

“Imperator,” Silo said, ignoring Ky. “I give you this last warning. We will not stand idly by while you allow this man to destroy us.”

“You overstep yourself, Silo. I am still Emperor. The Senate has regained much of its power since my ancestor established the empire, but it does not control Rome itself. I have heard you and my son's opinion on the subject, and I think you are wrong. Ky is the only reason Devnum still stands, and the people know that.”

“Senator,” Ky said. “I know this is a difficult time, and it is hard to change, but please look at the situation around you. You have to see that Rome is on the precipice of falling into the wastes of history, a footnote of the Carthaginian hegemony. You must adapt or die.”

Ky’s words didn’t help. If anything, it hardened the man more, as he stared daggers at Ky. Finally, he broke his gaze to look back at the Emperor.

“Last warning,” he said, before turning and storming out of the room, followed by Caesius and the rest.

“That could have gone better,” Ky said.

“I don’t think so. No words will ever bring him and the like around. They would rather see Rome burn than lose an ounce of their power. He’s afraid, and fear drives men to act like wild animals, biting the hand that feeds them.”

“What will they do?”

“Try and stir up the people against us. When he said the mob would take to the street, he was serious. That is how they have pushed past Emperors into bending to the Senate's will, giving over much of the power that Germanicus took when forming the new Rome here on Britannica. He will have agents out on the streets, preaching the evils of new, foreign ideas.”

“You don’t seem worried about that?”

“I am, but only to a degree. Ramirez keeps agents throughout Devnum specifically to keep us in tune with the passions of the mob. Silo is discounting the sheer volume of your popularity. The people of Rome love you. They see you as the savior of Devnum, and your performance in the Arena convinced them that you are indeed sent by the gods. He has made a mistake, pitting you as the evil that has infected Rome. I think the mob will not be as receptive to his propaganda as he thinks it will.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

It spoke volumes about the lower power levels of the disenfranchised senators that, unlike the men from the Northern districts, Ky did not have to travel to them. A small gathering of senators arrived shortly after Silo’s grand exit.

For men who had lost their land and family legacies, they were still elaborately dressed. That either spoke well of their investments outside of their lost lands or, more likely, the ability of men in power to siphon off money if they were in a high enough position. At this level of society, where graft and corruption were built into the system, Ky wasn’t surprised. It was one of the variables he had already tried to account for in his planning.

“Thank you for coming,” The Emperor said.

“It has been some time since any of us has received an imperial audience, how could we refuse?” one of the gathered men said.

“I know things have been difficult for you since your lands were taken by the Carthaginians. The reason we asked to see you will hopefully rectify that situation.”

“Every time our votes are needed, we hear that they have plans to retake the lost lands and restore our legacies. I do not know about my peers, but I remain skeptical of those claims.”

“Have the people making you promises defeated a Carthaginian army?” The Emperor asked.

“No, which is why we all came when called.”

“That was wise of you. Ky?”

Ky stepped forward at his cue and said, “I’m sure that, as have the other Senators I’ve spoken to, you’ve heard some things about what we’ve been doing.”

“Rumors have been flying across the Empire, yes.”

“There will be a series of new proposals coming in the next several weeks. They will call for some radical changes in how Rome is governed, and we are expecting a significant amount of pushback from the more conservative elements in the Senate. We are trying to shore up votes ahead of time.”

“If even half of what I've heard is true, then calling your proposals ‘radical’ doesn’t do them justice. Is it true you’re planning on freeing all the slaves?”

“No, at least not entirely. There will be four bills coming. The first is the installation of something called a patent department, that tracks and approves new inventions along with who invented the patent. We will have more specifics later, but the basics of the law will allow the person who patented the invention the right to collect fees for the right to produce that invention, which the person paying the licensing fee can then sell the invention.”

A different man spoke up, saying, “I’ve heard you were having meetings all over Devnum, talking to people about new ideas and technologies they can use to improve their business. Wouldn’t you stand to make a fortune from this law? You will fit in quite well with the others asking for our support.”

The sarcasm in the last sentence was almost palatable, and Ky did not doubt that most the other senators who came to these men for support did so to personally gain. From what Ky had seen, both in conversation with senators already and in the historical records shown to him by the AI, this seemed to be the norm in Roman society.

“While, for at least a long period, I will be providing a large number of new patents, I will not be profiting off of them. Any new technology I introduce will be signed over to the empire, with the empire receiving any of the royalties from those patents. One of this law's goals is to generate the funds needed for a large expansion of the military, so Rome stands a chance against the Carthaginians.”

“Why not simply levy a new tax, instead of creating some complex new system.”

“A tax on everyone would be burdensome, especially as Rome is pushed into smaller and smaller territory. Many barely stay afloat as it is, and a new tax could lead to more Romans in poverty, which is the opposite of what I am trying to achieve. Nearly all of the new technology I am introducing will greatly increase the efficiency of the areas it touches, allowing those who adopt the changes to produce more for less. This system will keep the burden limited to those who benefit from the new technologies. Aside from that, my hope is that it will spur Roman inventors to look at what I introduce and find new and better ways of doing things on their own, launching a new technology revolution. Since you will never be able to match the Carthaginians in raw numbers of men available, the only chance Rome has is through better weapons.”

“That’s all fine. Even if you were to profit off these new laws, it is not the issue we’ve heard about that will cause the most problems.”

“No, I’m certain it isn’t. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the two proposed laws dealing with Rome’s slave population.”

“You said you weren’t freeing the slaves?”

“What I said was that it wasn’t entirely true. I should be fair, while we are not proposing freeing all of Rome’s slaves directly, we are going to greatly affect how Rome deals with its indentured population. I will say that, if it were just me, I would be pushing for the complete freeing of Rome’s slave population. The very idea of something like this is anathema in my homeland, and it stains your civilization to its very core. I have, however, been convinced by the Emperor and his advisors that outright freeing the entire population would lead to wide-scale destabilization, which is the exact opposite of what I’m trying to achieve.”

“So, what are these laws?”

“The first allows any slave to join the legions, where they will be paid, treated the same as other citizens, and offered their freedom at the end of a ten-year enlistment.”

“What about their owners?”

“For slaves held before the law is passed, their owners will be given a reduction in taxes for the term of their slave's service, as well as the knowledge that they are contributing to their homes not burning under the heel of the Carthaginian hegemony.”

“You’re going to train slaves to fight? No Roman in their right mind will support training slaves to rise up against us.”

“Once they join the legions, they will no longer be slaves. After ten years of service, they will be free citizens, hopefully with an appreciation of the value of being Roman.”

“You want us to vote for this?”

“Yes, as well as the second provision, the stick, if you will. Any Roman whose slaves, either new ones taken in or ones not sent to the army, including women and children, will be subject to a new slave tax on any person they continue to own. That money will then go towards funding and expanding the legions, their new equipment, and a pension system that is in the third law.”

“What about criminals and debtors? If they are not sent to slavery, then how will we preserve order?”

“First, debtors being made into slaves should not be happening at all. I have numerous reports of unethical practices to load a citizen up with debt for the sole purpose of being allowed to take those people as slaves. There can be other remedies for debt, but this should not and will not be one of them. For criminals, the law will put into effect a system where they are incarcerated by the state and loaned out to the businesses in need of hard labor, for a fee. That money will help pay for feeding and maintaining prisoners not currently in a labor detail.”

“It still seems like a far stretch to most of us. You can’t upend the entire system of doing things that we’ve lived under for hundreds of years, especially not when you need to build an army at the same time.”

“The changes coming will upend Rome no matter what. You are not the first to argue that slaves are indispensable to Rome's future, so I will tell you what I told them. Once they’re all in place, the technology I am introducing will increase the efficiency of every aspect of Rome beyond your imagination. It will take time, but in the years to come you will be able to move multiple shiploads of goods from one end of Britannia to the other in a single day. A single farm will grow magnitudes more crops than they currently can, and lands previously unfarmable will become usable. I am not just offering military technology I am going to bring Rome into a new age. This new technology comes with a price. Most aspects of life will become more complicated. For starters, nearly everyone in the workforce will need to know how to read if they are able to operate the equipment needed to produce these new inventions. They will need to understand numbers and some basic principles of science. These are not things a Roman would want to train a slave to do, since it increases the chance of an uprising. You will need to hire citizens to do the jobs. The upside is that even with paying a citizen to do the tasks needed, everyone will be able to make more money, as goods will be easier, faster, and cheaper to produce.”

“What if you don’t live up to your promises.”

“This is the other thing that everyone I have met with has asked. If I fail in my promises, then come the Spring a Carthaginian army will march over Devnum and sow the land with salt. At which point, my promises will matter very little.”

The men thought on that for a long while until their leader spoke up again.

“You said there were four primary laws you wanted to introduce.”

“The fourth has to do with the military. Your current structure will not work for what we have coming. Armies cannot be private fiefdoms of their legates. The law will create a standing army, answerable to the Senate and the Emperor. Instead of handing out land grants to soldiers at the end of a campaign, they will be paid a pension based on the number of years they serve and their ending rank. The previous system of land grants forced a constant conquering of new lands for soldiers to settle, creating more enemies and stretched out borders you were unable to maintain. Soldiers will no longer be paid at the largess of their commander, but by the empire itself, which means their loyalty will be to the empire, and not their paymaster.”

“While I can see some of the current legates having issues with that, it isn’t something that will bother most senators. More than once a popular legate tried to subvert the Republic to their own command.”

“I would argue one did just that,” one of the other men said.

“Only out of necessity,” Ky said. “The Republic was already crushed by the time that happened.”

“Emperor,” their leader said, turning to Germanicus. “You have been quiet through these proceedings.”

“Only because Ky has my complete faith and trust.”

“That speaks … volumes.”

“As it should. I have spent long hours in conversation with our savior, and I have learned that he has many things to teach us, if we are only willing to listen.”

“Tell me truthfully,” the man said, turning back to Ky once more. “Can you get our lands back?”

“Yes. It won’t be easy, and it will require sacrifice from all of Rome, but we will take back all of Britannia.”

“This might be a first. I actually believe you. Give us some time to confer among ourselves. We will have an answer for you within the day.”

“Thank you,” Ky said, slightly inclining his head in a nod.

The Emperor and Ky spoke for a while after the senators left, discussing further strategy. Ky had written out more notes that he wanted Lurio and Taenaris to look at, discussing additional ideas he was recommending for the new structure of the legions.

Some of it would go into the law he was suggesting, which solely dealt with the legions' funding, both while they were active and the veterans. Ky wanted to build in incentives for more men to become career soldiers, instead of the current structure, which leaned to soldiers joining up as needed, receiving their spoils after a campaign, and going off to be farmers.

Except for some tercios and legates, very few legionaries made a lifetime career of it, and hardly any of the rank and file men did. Most of the centurions were simply the best-liked of the men who signed up, leaving very little institutional memory, which Ky knew was a key to a standing army.

Beyond the financial situation, there were additional changes he had in mind for the legions. Their current structure worked for an army that could not communicate at distances, where each had to be an organization unto themselves, but didn’t lead well to organized movements of large groups. That might not matter now, while they fought on Britannia, but if they were going to take the fight to the Carthaginians and their overwhelming army, one of the biggest changes they needed to make was organizational. Any significant strategic moves would be hampered by such a flat chain of command.

The Emperor looked at his notes and listened to his suggestions, but made few comments. Ky didn’t know if this was because he didn’t have much to offer or he was skeptical and playing it close to the vest. Unlike with the technical changes Ky was introducing, the Emperor, who had led men in the field in his younger days, was intimately familiar with Rome’s military. Ky made a point to say that if he was going to introduce these changes, he needed to do it soon, since it would work best with the new recruits, as they came into the new environments, rather than with existing legionaries in the new noncom rolls.

A messenger interrupted their conversation as Ky was winding down.

“Imperator, the first, second and third legions have arrived from the north.”

“Finally. It has been weeks since we called them,” The Emperor said, pushing himself up from his chair. “Where are they?”

“The legions themselves are headed around the town, set to link up with the camps of the seventh and ninth legions on the plains south of Devnum. The Legates and their officers are headed here.”

“Excellent. Show the legates in as soon as they arrive, their officers can wait outside.”

The messenger bowed and left the room.

“Now things will get interesting. I must warn you Ky, these men are much like Globulus was. They are old men and set in their ways. While we need their forces, I can promise you we will have some issues with the changes you are proposing.”

“How well do you know them?”

“Well. They have been in command for years, fighting border skirmishes and trying to fend off the slow advance of the Carthaginians.”

Three men came walking into the audience chamber with purpose. Two of them fit the Emperor’s description perfectly. Old, weathered warhorses whose skin looked like leather. The third was completely different. A young man, perhaps in his thirties. He walked a step or so behind the other two, leaving Ky to guess he was the trio's junior.

“Ky, I would like to introduce you to Secundus Tremellius Eborius, legate of the first legion, Flavius Maximus Pius, legate of the second legion, and … I’m sorry, I do not know you. Where is Catilina?”

“Emperor,” Eborius said. “Legate Catilina came down with the sweats hours after we began our march south. He succumbed to his illness two days south of the wall. This is Titus Virius Auspex, his Tribunus. As we were in a hurry to join the legions in protecting Devnum, we thought it best to allow him to take over the third legion for the time being.”

“I see. Have you been apprised of the situation here?”

Their eyes darted to Ky several times as they spoke, no doubt taking in the strange clothes he was wearing.

“Yes. Congratulations on a battle well fought. We had hoped to arrive before the battle, since word was the force was much too large for the two legions we had at our disposal. Is it true Globulus is dead?”

“Yes, his legion was crushed at the beginning of the conflict. The remaining legion, plus the under-strength ninth legion you sent south before the Carthaginians made their move, was enough to save the city, with the help of our new Consul.”

“The messengers we have received have had much to say about this man, some of it very confusing.”

“This is Ky, our new Consul. I assure you whatever rumors you heard about the battle are true. Ky managed to lead our soldiers to a remarkable victory.”

“I saw a camp full of prisoners as we rode in,” the man called Pius said.

“That is what remains of the Carthaginian army and their camp followers. The rest were slain on the battlefield. Workers have only now managed to clear the dead from our fields.”

“Why do we have them in what looks like a permanent camp?”

“That was Ky’s suggestion. We have been very busy in the week since the battle ended. Ramirez has confirmed that the Carthaginians are already building a much larger army in Londinium, set to finish what this army failed to do. We believe they will march on us when the snows melt. With Ky’s help, we are preparing for them now.”

“We have heard of some of these things too,” Eborius said. “Much of what we have heard is very troubling.”

“I can imagine. Return to your camps and freshen up from the long march. This evening there will be a military council, where we will introduce some of these changes and discuss the plans and the building of weapons we plan over the winter. There is much to do, so I want you to return with your aides ready to help us determine how we will save Rome.”