I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 169: The Parley at the Pass

The wind that howled through the Serpent's Tooth pass was a wild, untamed thing, carrying the bone-deep chill of the high mountain snows. It whipped at the canvas of the large command tent that had been erected in the precise center of the valley floor, a small island of forced neutrality in a sea of tension. Inside, the atmosphere was even icier than the wind outside.

General Gaius Maximus sat at the head of a simple, rough-hewn campaign table, his presence as solid and unyielding as the mountains themselves. He was the arbiter, the Emperor's judgment made manifest. Across from him sat Lucilla, her posture rigid with a coiled, furious energy. She was dressed not in the flowing stola of a Roman lady, but in a practical, dark wool tunic and a commander's cloak, her hair braided back severely. She was here as a proconsul, a general, and she would not let them forget it. Beside her, looking exhausted and profoundly miserable, was Senator Servius Rufus, the unwilling chaperone to this entire debacle.

Standing behind Maximus's chair, his arms crossed over his broad chest, was Titus Pullo. The centurion was a silent, menacing statue of muscle and scars, his eyes fixed on Lucilla with the unwavering intensity of a zealot judging a heretic. The two armed camps they represented, the Legio I Urbana and the Legio V Devota, were just out of sight, watching and waiting on opposite sides of the pass, their standards planted in a defiant challenge.

This was the divine arbitration Alex had ordered, and it felt more like a prelude to a civil war.

Lucilla spoke first, her voice as sharp and cold as shattered ice. She did not engage in pleasantries. She began her case with the brutal efficiency of a prosecutor.

"General Maximus," she began, her tone formal, acknowledging his authority while simultaneously challenging it. "Let us dispense with the fiction that this is a simple border dispute. This is a matter of Roman law and military order. I have been granted full proconsular authority over this province by a decree of the Senate. That authority is absolute."

She gestured towards the silent Pullo. "This... centurion, and his cohort of fanatics, refuse to acknowledge my lawful command. They operate as a rogue state within my province, conducting their own secret war, answerable to no one. They refuse my logistical oversight. They deny my officers access to their camps. They treat the duly appointed governor of this province with contempt."

Her voice hardened, each word a carefully placed stone in the foundation of her argument. "This is not just insubordination. It is a threat to the stability of the entire frontier. Armies cannot function with two heads. We cannot have a disciplined Roman legion on one hill and a cult of personality on the other, both claiming to serve the Emperor. It is chaos. It is madness."

She leaned forward, her eyes flashing with cold fire. "I demand that this unit, the so-called 'Devota,' be disbanded immediately. Its soldiers are to be integrated into the ranks of the Legio I Urbana, where they can be properly disciplined and re-educated in the Roman way of war. They will fall under my direct command, as is my right. This is not a request, General. It is a legal and military necessity."

She had laid out her case perfectly. It was logical, lawful, and from a traditional Roman perspective, entirely correct.

Maximus turned his stony gaze to the centurion. "Titus Pullo. You have heard the Lady Lucilla's accusation. You will answer."

Pullo stepped forward, his knuckles white where he gripped the back of Maximus's chair. He spoke not of law or military order, but of unwavering, absolute faith. His voice was a low, rumbling growl, utterly devoid of fear.

"We answer to a higher authority," he declared, his eyes never leaving Lucilla's. "We answer to the divine will of the God-Emperor Alexius himself, a will delivered to us by you, his chosen Shield." He was cleverly binding Maximus into his own defense. "We fight a spiritual plague, a contagion of the soul that the Lady Lucilla, in all her worldly wisdom, cannot comprehend. She sees barbarian raiders. We see puppets whose humanity has been scoured clean by a dark, silent god. She sees a province to be pacified. We see a world to be saved."

He straightened to his full, imposing height. "Her 'order,' her demand that we cease our sacred hunt and submit to her mundane command, is not just interference. It is sacrilege. It would put the souls of all Romans at risk. We cannot, and we will not, obey any command that contradicts our holy mission."

He had made his position just as clear. There was no room for compromise. One stood on the side of Roman law, the other on the side of divine mandate.

Maximus listened to both, his expression unreadable. For a long moment, the only sound in the tent was the howling of the wind outside. Then, he delivered the judgment Alex had so carefully prepared for him, his voice a flat, impartial declaration that would satisfy neither party.

"You are both correct," he stated, his words stunning both Lucilla and Pullo into silence.

He addressed his sister-in-law first. "Lady Lucilla. You are the lawful proconsul of Noricum. Your authority, granted by the Senate and affirmed by the Emperor, over the temporal matters of this province is absolute. All Roman forces must respect your position and adhere to your logistical commands regarding supply and quartering. You are the law in this land."

Lucilla's expression was one of triumph, but it was short-lived.

Maximus then turned to Pullo. "Centurion Pullo. You are the chosen instrument of the Emperor's divine will, tasked with a sacred duty that transcends provincial boundaries. Your holy mission against the servants of the Silence must not be impeded. You are the Emperor's fire in this land."

He let the two contradictory rulings settle in the tense air. "Therefore," he continued, delivering the brilliant, impossible compromise, "this pass, the Serpent's Tooth, is clearly of immense importance to both the temporal and the spiritual defense of the Empire. As such, it cannot be entrusted to a single faction. I hereby declare this pass to be Ager Sacer—Sanctified Ground. It will be garrisoned by neither of your forces."

Lucilla's face, which had been triumphant, now hardened into a mask of pure fury. She realized she had been outmaneuvered. This ruling didn't give her control over the Devota; it merely acknowledged her existing titles while creating a new authority that superseded her own.

"This is unacceptable, General!" she snapped, rising to her feet. "This is a political trick, not a military solution! I will not have my authority undermined by..."

Her tirade was cut short by the sudden arrival of a courier, his cloak dusted with the grime of the road. He hurried into the tent, bowed low before Senator Rufus, and handed him a sealed dispatch.

"From your chief aide in Rome, Senator," the courier said breathlessly. "Sent with the utmost urgency."

Rufus, looking puzzled by the interruption, broke the seal. As he read the coded message, the color drained from his face. His usual expression of weary resignation was replaced by one of profound, slack-jawed shock. He looked up, not at Maximus, but at Lucilla, his eyes filled with a new and terrible understanding.

Without a word, he silently handed the dispatch to her.

Lucilla snatched it from his hand, her brow furrowed in annoyance at the interruption. She read the first few lines, and her own expression mirrored Rufus's. The fury drained from her face, replaced by a cold, calculating alarm. The message was a summary from Perennis's spy network, delivered through Rufus's trusted channels. It detailed Pertinax's secret meetings with the Parthians, the rumors of foreign gold, the whispers of an eastern army being prepared for a march on Rome.

In that instant, the entire context of her world shifted. Her petty squabble with a fanatic centurion in a remote mountain pass suddenly seemed insignificant, a child's game. While she had been fighting for control of a single province, a far more dangerous rival was plotting to steal the entire Empire. A civil war, a true, Empire-shattering civil war, was brewing, and it threatened to make her own ambitions, her own power, utterly and completely meaningless. The serpent had been so focused on the mouse before her that she hadn't noticed the lion circling behind.