The old man frowned. ‘If you’re one of Curtius’ men…’
‘I’m not. And don’t let the beard and the hair fool you. Look deep.’
Why was he doing this? He shivered. This went against absolutely everything he and Severus had decided. The governor would be furious if he knew that Rufinus was even in contact with his father. He was supposed to be dead. He was involved in a plot against Cleander. And the old man was one of Cleander’s flunkies now. But the sudden hollowness he felt when he looked at his father robbed him of alternatives. His family was falling apart, and now, just here, once and briefly, he might have the chance to stop it.
‘I don’t know you,’ his father spat, ‘and if I don’t already know you, then I don’t want to know you.’
Still time to walk away. Rufinus felt torn, the inner debate raging. He clamped down on common sense and rode on instinct instead.
‘Publius is safe.’
That got the old man’s attention. His father pulled his hand from the wall and straightened. ‘What?’
‘You might be playing the world’s most dangerous game, but you won’t bring Publius down with you. I sent him off somewhere safe. Neither you nor your new friends will ever find him without me. I lost one brother, and I accept my part in that, but I will not lose the other. Publius is safe.’
His father’s face moved through a wide array of expressions, not one of which were pleasant, and he took an involuntary step forward.
‘Gnaeus?’
‘Yes. I know. The hair and beard. I don’t like it, I truth.’
‘You died. In Dacia. I had a letter.’
‘I am dead. Gnaeus is dead, anyway. I’m not me anymore. I’m not the son you watched leave the villa and seek a new path. I found that path and by all the gods it was a dangerous and winding one to bring me here. And I should not have followed you, and probably no good will come from it, but family is family and I would not rest peacefully if I knew I’d had the chance to do something but had done nothing with it.’
‘What are you blathering about, boy?’ snapped his father and for a moment Rufinus was years younger in their old atrium, listening to a barrage from his father and vowing to leave and never turn back. He fought down his anger. This was too important.
‘You are on a path to ruin, Father, but you have been out of the game too long. Those years in Hispanic exile have left you rusty. We may never have been friends, but I used to think you were at least clever enough in your own way. You certainly should be bright enough to see the trouble you’re headed for.’
‘Speak your piece, Gnaeus. I’m a busy man.’
‘The chamberlain. He’s evil. In every way, he’s an evil man. And when he falls, which will happen soon enough, he will end very badly and everyone who’s tied to his purse-strings will fall with him. Do not hitch the family cart to that horse, Father, I implore you.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Gnaeus. He’s the most powerful man in Rome. You may have given up on your name and the legacy of our once great family, but I would see it ascendant once more. You can live in your poverty under an assumed name, but if a man hopes to rise in this Rome, then he needs a patron like Cleander to help him.’
Rufinus’ eyes darted back and forth as though speaking the name might summon the chamberlain.
‘Father, you are betting on the strongest horse, but the race is far from over. I’m warning you…’
‘No, Gnaeus, I am warning you. The Marcii are now clients of Cleander. The villa is gone, sold and done with. We have a townhouse here now, and a few small clients of our own. The last stock of the estate wine has come to Rome and I have a man setting up a business with it. We shall have all the wealth of the mercantile classes and the culture of the patricians. That is what Cleander has done for Rome – his very presence in power has torn down so many barriers.’
‘Father, you will get yourself killed.’
‘No. You just cannot accept that I am right; you never could, and that is partially why you threw away everything I gave you to wallow in the mud with barbarians. And now I go to seek an audience, for I have urgent business to attend to. While I recognise that I cannot drag Publius’ location from you by force, I tell you here and now that if you do not let me know where he is or summon him back to Rome, I will be forced to take steps. For now, though, I will keep your secret, for your very existence like this undermines everything I have worked for with the chamberlain. But you must disappear and give your brother back to me, or I shall use my contacts among the Praetorians to force you to do so.’
‘Don’t threaten me, old man.’
‘My son is dead. He died in Dacia, and I am content that this is so. Go away and think upon my words’
His father turned and stumped on up the alley, leaving Rufinus standing at the corner, frustrated and angry. He was horribly aware just how much danger he’d just put himself in and, worse still, everyone else he was involved with. Severus would probably gut him in an instant as a liability. He would have to keep this little encounter entirely secret.
He turned back, cold and angry, and stomped down the alley, slipping only once, until he emerged onto that main street once more. Without really intending to, he found himself slipping back into that tavern and ordering another wine. The centurion had gone, and Rufinus took his table. He conscientiously picked up the water jug to mix with his wine, and then banged it back down on the table in irritation, swigging the rich, strong, unwatered wine. He sighed as the old familiar comfort of the heady liquid swilled down his throat, and felt just one thread of the tension within him loosen.
It was noon when he left the tavern, and he knew as he emerged into the cold light, shivering, that he had consumed a lot more wine than was good for anyone, let alone for him. He had broken a vow he had made to himself and to Senova years ago, never again to succumb to the vine as he had just done. Cursing, he told himself that it was just the once. After all, who could blame him with what had just happened? Tottering only a little, he headed back towards the forum and decided that the tabularium could wait. He felt that trying to deal with the minutiae of administration with a slight blurring around the edges of his mind was a bad idea. He would take the documents tomorrow. Now, he would return to his rooms at the Castrum Misenatum and have a lie down until he felt a little more human.
With the speed and warmth of a man wearing a wine coat, he pushed his way through the chilled busy streets and past the great Flavian amphitheatre. He wondered what had happened to the world since he had won his fame there, saving the emperor. He had hoped, assumed even, that things would be golden after that, and yet he seemed to have slipped down a slope into Tartarus gradually over the ensuing years.
He reached the castrum, and the guards, now fully familiar with their prefect, stepped aside. He moved into the archway and emerged from the shade once more into the bright cold light of the square where sailors practiced their moves. Making his way between the groups, he closed on his office. Reaching the door, he pulled it open, for he had left that unlocked, securing only the door between the office and his personal apartments. He stepped inside, shivering, and stamped his feet, closing the door behind him.
‘Hello, my love.’
He turned in shock to see Senova sitting behind his desk, dressed in elegant finery and with auburn hair and pale, beautiful face. By the wall stood three chests and several bags.
‘Senova?’
‘No, dear. I am Julia Triaria, of course. Your wife. Has it been that long?’
Rufinus blinked. He was suddenly acutely aware that he probably stank of wine and looked rough. On the other hand, the fuzz had all gone, this sudden shock sobering him up in an instant.
‘But what are you doing here?’
‘The governor sent me, dear. Everyone has a part to play, even the wife of the fleet prefect.’
Rufinus felt a momentary flash of anger. Severus had no right to drag Senova into this mess. ‘He shouldn’t have…’
‘I insisted, dear. What use was I sitting i
n a house in the middle of nowhere, listening to your brother fret over what was happening elsewhere. Like a good Roman matron I am here to see to the management of your household. And the first thing we have to establish is that this is not your household. You have a townhouse in the city, according to the governor. We need to move you there so that you are more appropriate. And there we can work together.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Why ruling the seas, of course, dear. You have your fleet to deal with. I have the considerable finances of our family to invest and, on the advice of the governor, I am thinking of investing it in mercantile vessels. Particularly ones from Africa, Aegyptus, Ostia and Puteoli.’
‘Where the grain fleets operate.’
‘Oh? Do they? Well that would be very inconvenient for someone, if I were to outbid government contracts and retain the services of the larger vessels for our own little empire, eh?’
Rufinus felt a chill run through him. He had been silently urging Severus to move with his plans, but he’d not expected it to start with Senova. He tried to find a reason to refuse, but every excuse evaporated as he grasped it. It was the norm of a Roman wife to invest the household’s money and to control all the finances. And some of the women of the equites in Rome were well known for their business acumen, controlling numerous cartels and organisations that kept the family coffers overflowing. There would be nothing unusual in what Senova was planning. And Severus had clearly managed to secure plenty of money to support it. His eyes strayed to the chests, which he’d assumed were full of clothes, but he now began to suspect contained coins. She was in danger, yes, but probably no more than where she had been before. His disguise was complete with a wife, and moving out to their own house would be nice and secure. And he knew her to be clever and headstrong. He couldn’t imagine her ventures going bad. No, ridiculously he could find no solid reason to argue.
‘It will be nice to work with you,’ she smiled.
Rufinus chuckled, despite everything. He could not deny that it would be nice to have her home.
‘And,’ she said, rummaging in a bag and fishing out a scroll case, ‘here is a letter from the governor for you.’
Rufinus, still reeling from today’s events, broke the seal and let the vellum sheet slide out. Unfurling it, he ran his eyes down it. Oddly, he’d half expected something like this for months.
‘What is it?’ Senova asked.
‘Severus thinks it is time the purge began. I’m to excise the rotten flesh from it all.’
A list of four names, all of whom he had found in the cavalryman’s paperwork.
It had started.
Chapter Eight – Purgo
Ostia, mid-January 188 A.D.
Neratius Onirus leaned on the rail of the barge and relaxed, watching the river slide by like a cold, grey-green dream. He had been tense all his time in the city. Working in the Horrea Galbana was easy enough, when you were at a sufficiently important level to lift nothing heavier than a wax tablet and stilus, but it was not the work that was nibbling at the edges of his nerves.
He was starting to think that his boss, the Praefectus Annonae Dionysus, was onto him. There had been small hints over the last month. Onirus, and his companion Silvius, had been given more and more mundane and distant tasks. Having been at the heart of the work in the capital, they had gradually found themselves being sent further afield to perform unimportant and menial tasks that kept them out of the city for extended periods. Ten days ago Silvius had been sent to Centum Cellae to negotiate priority docking for grain ships there, as though more than half a dozen ever put in at that small northern port each year. And Onirus had been dispatched to Puteoli to oversee the rebuilding of a granary there. The two men had quite by chance returned to Rome at the same time, two days ago, hoping to spend a little informative and lucrative time in the capital, but Dionysus had immediately given them orders that carried them out of the city once more.
It was going to be extraordinarily hard to make any money like this.
And money was all of it for Onirus.
He glanced to his left, where Quintus Silvius similarly leaned on the rail, looking either relaxed or bored. It was hard to tell with Silvius. The man had been recruited by the chamberlain’s men almost a year ago. Onirus didn’t know the precise details, though suffice it to say the deal must have been tempting to lure the dour Silvius in. But then the man was an idealist, and idealists were always easy to hook if you knew what bait to use.
Silvius was a freedman who had climbed the ladder swiftly following his manumission. His master had been fond of him and had willed him his freedom when he passed away, and Silvius had taken his savings and put his administrative talents to use. Eight years later, he was one of the more important men on the grain commissioner’s staff. But despite his master’s generosity, Silvius had continued to harbour that background disgruntlement that all freedmen seemed to have towards the ruling classes. He had hated all the old blood of Rome. He’d spent years pulling them to pieces over lunch with Onirus, so it came as no surprise when he began to work for Rome’s most prominent freedman. Silvius believed in a new Rome built upon talent and hard work and not the family into which one was born. He had a vision of a Rome where the poor and the disenfranchised had as much say as the old families. It was ridiculous, of course, but Onirus could see why it had happened.
That was Silvius. A man of principle who worked for Cleander because he thought Cleander would bring about his utopian world. And over the last year, Silvius had gradually and very carefully introduced to Onirus the idea that he too might work for the chamberlain.
Onirus was not a man of principle. He was a pragmatist. He too was a freedman, though his manumission had come about entirely by chance. His master had set his price of freedom at a fairly high sum, which Onirus was unlikely ever to amass through his meagre earnings. And then one day while out on a chore, the poor slave had happened across a pouch of coins resting on the edge of a fountain. He’d taken it, of course, and had been astonished at the small fortune it contained. He suddenly had quite sufficient funds to buy his freedom. He’d approached his master that night at a party the dominus had held, and his master had been angry, demanding to know where he had found enough money, and raising the price by more than double. But his noble friends at the party had been scathing and persuaded him that he should just take the money and smile, for he could easily buy another slave cheap, while money was always useful. So Onirus had become free. And he had worked half a dozen minor jobs before landing his position on the grain commissioner’s staff.
But Onirus did not care about Cleander or the plight of the slave or freedman. Silvius’ perfect world was unimportant to him. Money, on the other hand, opened doors. And occasionally underwear when he was feeling flush enough. And Cleander’s network offered money in return for information.
They had had a good year for a while, sending weekly reports of every aspect of the grain commissioner’s work, listening to the talk of the other men and sending on details of anything that sounded dubious, dangerous or important.
Three men had disappeared in direct response to their reports. Men who had voiced dislike of the chamberlain or concerns over his actions. Three men had gone to the torturer’s cellars on the say of Silvius and Onirus. Silvius had been proud to do it, happy that he was helping create his new world. Onirus had been happy, too. The recompense had kept him drunk and in a whore’s bed for days.
But now there was no chance to earn money like that. Things had changed.
This morning, in response to the latest orders of Papirius Dionysus, the two men had reported to the dockside on the emporium and boarded the barge for Ostia Portus. As part of the prefect’s drive to improve the grain flow, given the ever increasing need and the tightening supply during such a time of plague, Dionysus had put in a bid for a plot of land close to the waterfront at the port, where he intended to construct a new granary complex that would store the overflow from the African shipments that
could not be immediately transferred to Rome via barges. Silvius and Onirus were to examine the site, confirm its condition and sign the purchase documents. Then they were to retain the services of a building firm and begin work, only returning to Rome when the granary was under construction. It would keep them away from the city and out of money-making circles for a month at least.
Damn it.
He turned away from Silvius now, looking ahead past the prow of the ship. They were approaching Portus. Ostia itself had once been the prime dock for Rome at the mouth of the Tiber, but the sheer volume of sea traffic had proved to be far too great for that city to handle, and Claudius had constructed a new port a mile or so up the coast, attached to the river by a canal, effectively bypassing Ostia entirely. Even this new complex had proved inadequate for the volume of shipping, though, and consequently Trajan had enlarged the place immensely with a whole new enormous harbour and surrounding complexes, even including an imperial residence.
They drifted past the marble yard with its perpetual noise of hammering and clouds of white dust, and a small region of workshops and storehouses, past a small but pretty temple to Mercury. Ahead, the small channel – if a waterway fifty paces across could be called small – continued on to the coast, but before that the entrance to the great Trajanic harbour cut off to the right. Onirus heaved a sigh as the barge turned laboriously with all the handling ease of a dead ox, and made for the narrower canal that led into the harbour.
This perfectly straight and angular channel cut between a grand colonnaded market on one side and a series of high private granaries on the other. Ahead he could now see the priority wharf, where ships that carried important persons or loads that were destined to make a quick drop and then depart within the hour were moored. He noted with interest a quinquireme secured there. The great vessel was of a rare and huge design, not often seen in civilian harbours. His interest deepened as he noted not only the colours of the Misenum fleet, but also the pennant at the rear that announced the presence of an admiral. The Prefect of the Fleet was in Portus for some reason.
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