The Horse Changer (46 page)

‘Oh, yes! I know the truth about my new son! My son, not hers and not yours. By right of ancient Roman law the boy is mine. He shall be raised with Tiberius as his full brother. As a Claudian!

‘I hope you live a long life, Dellius,’ he continued. ‘I hope when you are my age some pretty boy steals your wife for an afternoon or two. Just enough to take her heart from you. Perhaps she might even give you his son to raise afterwards, though all and sundry know he is not of your blood.

‘Look at me, lad! You were brave enough to face down Caesar’s bounty hunters. Let me see that courage now.’

‘I am sorry,’ I muttered.

‘Sorry? Sorry for what? Being caught in your lies? I know you are not sorry you fucked her!’

I could not answer him, but stood there as dumb and astonished as dreary old Claudius Nero before Dolabella.

‘You know what I am tempted to do? I am tempted to arrange a meeting for you and Livia. I would do it too, but it is bound to get you both killed. Bad business for the mother of my sons. So I will do what is best for you, if only to save Livia. I will tell you what you must do. You must go as far from Rome as you can get and never come back. If you do not exile yourself, if you attempt to slip away and then come back in a year or two, I will send men to kill you. Far away, Dellius. Far from my child and from the woman whose heart you stole from me. And if you are not sure it is far enough, go even farther.’

Once threatened, I made sure to linger in Rome and visit old friends. I actually hoped Nero would keep his word. I kept my swords handy, but otherwise I was not especially worried. To be honest, I hardly cared whether I lived or died.

The lawyer to whom I had spoken eventually sent a small fortune to me. As per the custom, some of the money came in coins; the bulk of it was a letter of credit. In addition to the money, the lawyer handed me a letter without any mark on the seal.

There was no signature at the bottom of the letter but I knew it was from Livia. She asked to meet me at her former husband’s house. She named the day and hour when she would next visit her children. Servants would be present, she wrote, but we could at least hope to talk to one another.

Nero’s steward led me through the house to Livia, who waited in the porticoed garden at the back of the house. She held her infant son in her arms; young Tiberius was in a room nearby under the care of a slave. ‘I thought you might like to see your son,’ she told me.

I stood before her, wanting her touch but forced to stand apart. Nor did she offer to let me hold the child.

‘What is his name?’

‘Drusus. After my father. I only wish I could have given him your name, instead.’ Her gaze met mine as she said this and I knew she had not betrayed me, that she wanted my touch as much as I wanted hers. But that would not happen. She would not give Nero’s slaves power over her. They would have nothing to tell the dominus except that Livia had a visit from Quintus Dellius, who spoke with her briefly and then left.

‘He is a handsome child,’ I said.

‘If Nero had his way,’ Livia told me, ‘I would never see either of my sons again. As it is, I am permitted an hour with them every fortnight.’

‘Nero is angry because of our love affair.’

‘The permission to visit them comes from Caesar. He tells me the boys must stay with their father and that I am fortunate to see them as often as I do.’ There seemed nothing to say to this. I could certainly do nothing to help her. ‘I am a prisoner, Dellius. There is no other way to put it. I cannot come to you again. I risked everything for this meeting. Nero will find out about it, of course. I can’t very well pretend he won’t, but I don’t think he will tell Caesar.’

‘But surely we can meet again?’

‘Not alone, not even like this.’ By this she meant standing in the open with all of Nero’s servants observing us.

‘In a year or two Caesar will probably want to marry someone else,’ I said.

‘I will not give him cause for it. Besides, if he does, it won’t help us. I am sure he will only pass me on to someone else, certainly not someone I might choose.’

‘I suppose we were fools to imagine it could be otherwise.’

‘You should marry someone, Dellius. Start a family.’

‘I was hoping to marry you.’

‘We have a child, at least.’

‘Nero has him.’

‘Not for long.’ At my look of surprise, she added, ‘I will not lose my sons, Dellius. They will be living with me before the year has ended. That I have promised myself.’

I did not doubt her, though I imagined she meant that she would persuade Caesar to bring them into his house. In fact, Caesar had nothing to do with it. Nero took ill not long after the first frost that autumn. He was dead within a matter of days. After that, Caesar had no choice but to let Livia’s children live with their mother.

We did not kiss goodbye, nor even touch hands. A servant came to her with Tiberius, and Livia wished me happiness. And that was it. A slave escorted me to Nero’s front gate, and I was soon beyond the walls of the house.

After that, there was nothing in Rome to hold me, and I went off to find my secretary, who had stayed with Hannibal on Flavius Petro’s farm. While I was in Judaea Petro had been offered work in the city as a tax collector and had hired a manager to look after the breeding project. I did not care for the situation; for one thing it was too close to Rome, but I thought the broodmares were all fine animals; so I returned to Rome and made an offer to Petro to buy the broodmares. Petro, now committed to a political life in Rome, was happy for an infusion of cash to finance his new lifestyle and I became the sole owner of our enterprise. I hired a few of Petro’s slaves to help take the horses as far as Ostia.

Once there it took me nearly a week to find someone willing to sail to Spain with twenty-five horses for cargo.

I found Trajan at the house where I had recuperated following the battle at Ronda. After explaining my situation to him, Trajan said he would be happy to lease me whatever property I desired for my stud farm, but if I cared to be his son-in-law he would provide the land as a dowry instead. After some negotiations, I married his eldest son’s daughter, Ulpia, the very girl who had nursed me back to health in the days when the divine Julius Caesar still walked this earth. In those early days of my career she had been a mere child, seven or eight years old; even so she had been eager to see me whole and healthy again. As a young wife she came into my life again and healed me of a broken spirit.

A few months after our wedding, I looked up one morning and saw my land stretching out for as far as I could see. The broodmares had foaled and the offspring were grazing with their mothers. Ulpia was standing a short distance from me. She was soon to give us our first child, and I knew that I was content. Recalling that my father had encouraged me to believe that contentment was a worthy aim in life I suddenly found myself smiling at the memory. At the time my father had given his opinion I was too young to appreciate the wisdom of it. The years, however, had changed me. I could now see my life taking a new direction and I knew I need never touch my swords again, not for the sake of Rome, at least. My ties to the past, to Antony and Caesar and Herod and Livia seemed perfectly severed that day and I could almost imagine that nothing could ever pull me back.

I was mistaken of course. I was to spend several more years in the service of the empire. There were differing reasons each time I returned, but gone was the savage ambition of my youth; gone, too, the young fool’s lust for the glory that one buys with the blood of other young fools. What mattered in my life waited for me in Spain, and to Spain and my family I would always return.

The story of a man’s youth is sometimes not entirely finished with the advancement of years. There are threads that haven’t been cut, answers to riddles that have long remained obscure.

I was in my fifty-seventh year when a traveller came through Seville carrying a letter for me. I did not know the man, but he was a legionary freshly retired from service in the north. He was on his way to Cadiz, where he had friends and hoped to marry a girl and start a family. The letter he carried was from my old friend Horace. For taking the trouble to deliver it, I gave the man a couple of nights in my house and the best food and wine my estate could offer.

Only after my guest had departed did I instruct my secretary to open Horace’s letter and read it to me. The letter was mostly an introduction to a poem Horace had written, called
Ode to Dellius
. I attach it at the end of this manuscript for anyone curious about its details, though of course it is now published everywhere. I expect one may find a copy of it in almost any decent city bath, though it is much altered from the draft I possess.

I listened eagerly to the poem, but to be honest I did not recognise myself. There was no reference in it to our youth together, nothing at all of those inglorious days we had spent huddled in Antony’s prison at the edge of the marsh at Philippi. Nothing of my duel with a Celtic gladiator or the fortune we both won in its aftermath. Not even a poetic allusion to my fondness for fighting with two swords.

No, Horace had left those memories for the wind. He chose instead to chide me, poetically, for my contentment. And then of course, because he was Horace, he brought me face-to-face with the prospect of my death. This was more chilling than cruel, but I reacted defensively. Yes, I thought, life is short for the rich man and the poor, Horace, but what can any of us do about it?

Then I poured myself a cup of my good Spanish wine – not the Falernian vintage so many Romans worship that tastes to me like beetle piss – and as I sipped pure ambrosia I told my secretary, Judah’s predecessor, ‘We all have to die, but this I can tell you from personal experience: while we live it is far better to be rich and loved than poor and forgotten!’ That was my answer to Horace’s pretty poem.

Trained to please his master, my secretary answered crisply, ‘Yes, Dominus.’

And then, as I listened to the poem once more, I finally understood what it was really about. Horace was chiding the poetic Dellius for the very things Horace had always loved. And that could only be for one reason.

I took all my sons and one of my grandsons on the journey to Italy. My grandson was then of an age to put on his toga virilis and sign his name into the immortal list of Roman citizens; so that was our excuse. I took as well two of my dogs, since at least on part of my trip I expected to be travelling with only my secretary. He was a fair hand with a sword, not nearly the equal of Judah, but not a disappointment like the secretary Horace had given me either. I still carried my two swords of course and could hold my own with most men, but dogs are keener than soldiers during a night watch and mine are trained to fight at the flanks like good cavalry. They are also fine companions for a long journey. Better than sons in some respects.

Once my progeny had settled with my old friend Petro and his family, I left them to their gaudy pleasures in the city and made my way by hired carriage to the estate Maecenas had bought for Horace.