The Furies of Rome (7 page)

Vespasian stroked Hormus’ hair and then helped him up. ‘Your first duty as a freedman is to supervise a slave to pack my things as we’re leaving for Rome.’

‘Yes, master; it’ll be my pleasure.’

Vespasian pointed to the five Arab greys grazing in the paddock next to the house, his pride and joy since receiving them as a gift, five years previously. ‘And tell Pallo to have the stable slaves ready my horses for the journey.’

‘Indeed, master; will they be going back to the Greens’ stable?’

Vespasian beamed at his treasures: ‘Yes, and so much the better for some time out in the country. Magnus will see to their return.’

Hormus inclined his head and went about his tasks.

‘That was a surprise,’ Sabinus said as the rest of the household returned inside.

‘He deserved it and I thought that here and at this time was a suitable place to do it.’

‘Yes, here was a good place to choose,’ Sabinus said, looking around at their land. ‘I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to come back here again, what with my duties in Rome and my estate at Falacrina.’

‘I’ll come as often as I can to make sure that prayers are spoken over the tombs; and I’m sure that Uncle Gaius will want to come out here as soon as he can to pay his respects to his sister.’

‘Once justice has been seen to be done.’

‘Indeed, Sabinus; once justice has been seen to be done. We’ve much to do in the coming days.’

CHAPTER III

‘D
EAR BOYS, I
shall get over the bruising, and the cuts will heal as will the soreness from the splinters in my … well, you know where; I’ve had one of my boys try to remove them all but I think he’s missed one.’ Gaius helped himself to another consoling honeyed cake, popping half of it into his mouth, and then shifted the position of his ample posterior on the deeply cushioned wicker chair, wincing as he did so. ‘But what I’ll never get over is the humiliation of it all: left unconscious in the street with a torch …’ Gaius shook his head unable to complete the sentence. ‘As, apparently, some wag said: like a crude, lopsided model of the Pharos lighthouse protruding from its island in Alexandria.’

Vespasian and Sabinus leant back slightly in their chairs as a blond-haired youth of outstanding beauty set down another platter of cakes on the table, fresh from the oven by the smell of them; the slave’s short tunic exposed more than was decent as he leant over.

‘That will be all, Ludovicus,’ Gaius said, eying the revealed flesh appreciatively before resuming his outraged expression and devouring the other half of the cake. ‘It’s all round the Senate and beyond; I’m a laughing stock. I’ve even heard people refer to me as the Pharos behind my back!’

‘And there was no question that it was Terpnus who did it?’ Vespasian asked once the slave had withdrawn to wait upon his master by the lamprey pond in the middle of Gaius’ courtyard garden in his house on the Quirinal Hill.

‘None. He was wearing a wig and had a cloth tied around his face but I recognised his voice – I’d just been listening to it for hours. Nero was wearing a curly blond wig and the theatrical mask of a slave in a comedy but he ululated, high-pitched, constantly, like some crazed Fury, if Furies can be male, which I don’t think they can. All the others had disguises of varying competence but on such a dark night they were hardly needed; it was their voices that gave them away. But it was Terpnus, may Mars rot him, who committed all the outrages done to my person, including the …’ Unable to vocalise the basest of the outrages, Gaius fortified himself with one of the freshly baked cakes and washed it down with some reviving wine. ‘But worst of all was that I was prevented from seeing my sister at the end. Did she ask after me?’

‘Yes, Uncle,’ Sabinus lied; Vespasia had never quite accommodated herself to her brother’s lifestyle, although she had found his status very useful.

‘Magnus is here with Tigran, master,’ Gaius’ steward announced from the door leading into the tablinum.

‘Send them through, Destrius,’ Gaius said through a mouthful of cake, sending crumbs spraying over the table.

Destrius, a few years older than the slave boy waiting upon them and elegantly handsome rather than ravishingly beautiful, bowed and retired back through the cotton curtains that billowed, after his passing, gently in the fading sun.

Within a few moments Magnus came through them with a man of eastern appearance: a dyed and shaped beard, trousers and an embroidered knee-length tunic with a loose belt, studded with silver discs, from which hung a curved dagger in an ivory and silver scabbard; soft calf-skin slippers and a cap of the same material, covering his ears, completed his attire. Judging by the richness of the rings on his fingers, Vespasian could see that Tigran had done well since taking over as the
patronus
, the leader, of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood from Magnus seven years previously.

‘The horses are back with the Greens,’ Magnus said straightaway to Vespasian, forgetting his manners, such was his excitement at the prospect of his favourite team competing in the Circus Maximus again for his beloved Green racing faction after a rejuvenating country break.

‘We’ll talk about that later,’ Vespasian said, indicating with a nod to his uncle the real reason why he had been summoned.

‘Oh! Yes; right you are, sir.’

‘Magnus! Good to see you,’ Gaius boomed, not getting up.

‘And you, sir,’ Magnus replied, embarrassed by his misplaced enthusiasm.

‘And, Tigran, thank you for coming.’

Tigran touched the palm of his right hand to his heart. ‘I cannot ignore the summons of my patron.’ He nodded at the Flavian brothers. ‘Senator Vespasian and Prefect Sabinus.’

‘Sit down, gentlemen, and help yourselves to cakes.’ Gaius signalled to the slave boy. ‘Wine for my guests, Ludovicus.’

‘Yes, that’s how Sextus described it to me,’ Tigran said after Gaius had recounted the incident in full, not sparing his own blushes, ‘and I would dearly love to avenge your humiliation, Senator Pollo, as well as redress the insult to my brethren who were held at knifepoint and prevented from protecting you. However, the way I see it is that it would be impossible to do anything unpleasant to Terpnus without running the risk of hurting Nero.’

‘Then hurt Nero,’ Magnus suggested, ‘and hurt him permanently, if you take my meaning?’

‘It would mean certain death,’ Sabinus said. ‘Nero is very well protected. For a start he’s always with Tigellinus, Otho and a half dozen others and then there’s a unit of Vigiles following his rampage around ready to step in if anyone looks like threatening him; not to mention the Urban Cohort century that I have to have positioned close by. No, you would be killed the moment you tried to attack him.’

‘And even if you did murder him and escape with your life at the time,’ Gaius said, raising a forefinger in the air and waggling it, ‘although there are many who wish for that at the moment, you wouldn’t find his successor showing you any gratitude at all; remember what Claudius did to Caligula’s assassins.’

‘Those that were caught that is,’ Vespasian pointed out, looking meaningfully at his brother who had been the one conspirator whose part in the assassination of Caligula had been covered up and kept secret by Narcissus and Pallas in return for the Flavian brothers’ help in securing Claudius’ position.

‘Indeed, dear boy. But the point is that whoever benefits from Nero’s death will execute his murderers as it would not do for people to be seen to assassinate an emperor and live; that would be a very unwise precedent to set. The only person who can get away with killing an emperor is the man who succeeds him.’

‘I see your point,’ Magnus mumbled from behind his wine cup.

‘So the question is, how to get Terpnus away from Nero,’ Tigran said, running his beard between his fingers.

‘He very rarely leaves the Palatine except in Nero’s company,’ Sabinus informed them, ‘such is his dedication to sycophancy.’

‘Very commendable,’ Gaius observed without irony.

Tigran frowned. ‘I could try an arrow shot from a distance.’

Sabinus shook his head. ‘No; if you wounded him his companions would get him back to the Palatine, and if you killed him outright it would be very unsatisfactory; the whole point of this is to have revenge by ensuring that Terpnus never plays the lyre again but lives, so that his loss eats away at him.’

Tigran pursed his lips, deep in thought. ‘I shall give it serious consideration, gentlemen,’ he said eventually. ‘You say, Prefect Sabinus, that you have some advance knowledge of when and where Nero’s rampages are going to take place.’

‘That’s correct; it’s so that I can order a century of one of the Urban Cohorts to be standing by in the area.’

‘Then perhaps you would be so good as to send word to me next time you hear that the Viminal is due to be targeted; especially the western part.’

Sabinus nodded his assent.

Tigran got to his feet. ‘My thanks for your hospitality, Senator Pollo. Senator Vespasian, Sextus and four of my brethren are waiting for you outside to help you with that bit of business that Magnus mentioned to me; I trust that they will serve you better than they did your uncle the other night.’ With a nod to Sabinus and Magnus, Tigran left the garden.

‘Do you think he’ll come up with an idea?’ Sabinus asked.

Magnus grinned. ‘I’d say he’s already got one and he plans to execute it on the West Viminal Brotherhood’s territory to lessen the chance of retribution falling in his direction; but what it is I couldn’t guess. That’s the thing about Tigran, he doesn’t let on too much, not until he has to, that is. It’s what’s made him so successful, even more so than I was as patronus.’

‘He certainly has more rings than you. So the horses are fine?’

‘Yes, the faction-master said that they were in great shape and he’ll race them as soon as possible.’

‘Good, I’ll go and give them a turn or two around the Flammian Circus as soon as I can.’

Gaius looked horrified. ‘You don’t race them yourself, dear boy, do you?’

‘Of course not, Uncle; I just enjoy driving them, in private, obviously. It’s good exercise and very invigorating.’

‘Let’s hope you don’t start singing as well.’

‘One bad habit is enough, Uncle.’ Vespasian got to his feet. ‘Come, Sabinus; Sextus and the lads are outside and if we’re going to relieve you of that inconvenience we should go now that it’s starting to get dark.’

‘And why should I not just strangle the treacherous bastard?’ Caratacus asked, the ruddiness of his clean-shaven, oval face accentuated by barely supressed ire. ‘He and his bitch-queen, Cartimandua, broke every law of hospitality to hand me over to you Romans.’

‘
Us
Romans, Tiberius Claudius Caratacus,’ Vespasian reminded the former Britannic chieftain. ‘Seeing as you are now a citizen and hold equestrian rank, I think you should count yourself as one of us. We don’t discriminate against race, as you know – we’ve even had consuls of Gallic descent – so, as far as I’m concerned, my friend, you are Roman, and therefore you will help me do what is best for Rome and that is to keep Venutius safe so that Paulinus has something to threaten your bitch-queen with.’

Caratacus smiled at his former adversary as they looked down at the filth-encrusted figure of Venutius glaring up at them from inside a cage placed in the corner of Caratacus’ cellar in his house on the Aventine Hill. ‘I suppose I still get the pleasure of keeping his confinement as uncomfortable as possible.’

‘So long as he’s kept alive and doesn’t have any more bits missing than he already does, then you can do what you will.’

‘You’ll pay, traitor,’ Venutius hissed, grabbing the bars of his cage.

‘Me? A traitor?’ Caratacus kicked at the cage, catching one of Venutius’ hands under the sole of his sandal, cracking a couple of fingers. ‘I was resisting the invaders up until the moment that you gave me to them.’

‘It was nothing to do with me,’ Venutius said, grimacing as he held his broken fingers tight beneath his armpit. ‘It was all Cartimandua’s doing.’

‘She’s your wife, and a husband is responsible for the actions of his wife.’

‘She
was
my wife until she went to the bed of my armour-bearer, Vellocatus.’

Caratacus sneered. ‘That’s not what I heard, Venutius. I heard she took Vellocatus into your bed, dishonouring whatever honour was left in it. But it is nothing to me what your domestic arrangements are or have been. You were the King of the Brigantes when I sought refuge there and therefore you,’ he pointed with his forefinger at his betrayer, ‘were responsible for my safety.
You
should have controlled your wife.’ He turned on his heel. ‘Come, Vespasian, let’s waste no more time on, what we would call in our language, a pussy-whipped weakling.’

Vespasian followed Caratacus out and up the stone steps thinking the term appropriate for one who had allowed his wife to dominate him so. ‘There is one thing, though, my friend,’ he said as they came out into the moonlight of the stable yard behind Caratacus’ house.

‘No one should know?’ Caratacus questioned with a grin.

‘Exactly.’

‘That was obvious when you surprised me with him. I still get to know about most things of importance that occur in my homeland; I had heard that Venutius had rebelled against Cartimandua and that he had replaced her on the throne. And I had heard that Myrddin had encouraged him to carry on his rebellion and take it against Rome but he had been defeated by the older brother of your future son-in-law.’ Caratacus shrugged and held out his hands as they entered the house through the back door. ‘And then you turn up with him in the night; I had not even heard that he had left Britannia and yet suddenly he’s here in Rome, in a cage and guarded, not by soldiers of the Urban Cohorts, but by what I assume are your own personal militia.’

‘They’re members of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood who have a strong connection with my family through my uncle.’

‘Well, I hope they’ll see you back to the Quirinal in one piece. The streets are far from safe these days.’

‘I know; my uncle was attacked a few nights ago and outrageously treated.’

‘Take my advice, my friend, and leave now. I shall rudely not offer you refreshment of any sort so that you can get on your way. We can carry on our reminiscing about our respective parts in the invasion of my island another time; in daylight hours.’

Vespasian grasped Caratacus’ proffered forearm and clenched it, happy not to have to refuse any hospitality as he had plans for the rest of the evening and they did not include refighting old battles. ‘Thank you, I always look forward to our talks, Caratacus. I’ll be in touch with you once I’ve been told what we should do with Venutius.’

Caratacus looked puzzled. ‘I thought Paulinus wanted him kept in Rome.’

‘Yes, he does, for now; but since he’s given up the information Paulinus wanted perhaps he might be of more use elsewhere.’

Whether or not Nero had been out on one of his rampages that night Vespasian did not know, for he passed with his escort peacefully between the Aventine and Quirinal Hills by way of the Forum Boarium and the Forum Romanum. His mind, however, was not at peace as he fretted on the truth of what Sabinus and his mother had said on the night of her death. He had not gone into assisting Paulinus with his eyes shut; he had been well aware that what he had been asked to do was indeed, as Sabinus had put it, dangerous. Nevertheless, he had acquiesced, ostensibly for the furtherance of the career of his future son-in-law; but although that had been a strong factor in his calculations, it had not been his overriding reason. That had been far more self-seeking.