When next Domitian summoned Marcus Julianus to dine with him alone in the commander’s quarters, news had come by imperial post that Junius Tertullus, the Senator who had secretly appealed to Julianus for help, had died by his own hand. Officially it was claimed Tertullus had been caught with the text of a speech hidden in his clothes; he meant to denounce Domitian before the Senate within the hour. Domitian had sent a letter to Rome, demanding that the Senate try him for treason. When it was read in the Curia, Tertullus opened his veins.
Domitian’s dining chamber was austere; dour-faced busts of the fortress’s former commanders looked out pitilessly from their niches in the walls. The room had a stubborn chill; a charcoal brazier supported by three goat-footed satyrs did little to warm it. The cluster of delicate flames of a candelabrum scarcely penetrated the wells of darkness pooling in the stone corners of the room. To Julianus the gloom teemed with the presences of the unquiet dead, causing him to feel a vast separation from all he loved: His father was there, tonight looking sternly disapproving. He does not like what I prepare to do, Julianus thought. Lycas was there as well, his expression piteous and terrified.
He saw too the placid, bestial face of their murderer, Nero.
That tyrant I could not stop. This one, I must.
Servants set down the first course—silver bowls of marinated asparagus, truffles, cucumbers, capers and olives arranged about two heads of fresh lettuce brought in from the markets of the native settlement. Julianus waited impatiently while a young Greek reader droned through a number of anonymously penned scribblings ridiculing the emperor that had been sent on to Domitian by the Praetorian Praefect in Rome—some were books of couplets circulated about the city by night; others, graffiti copied off public walls. Every day a fresh crop arrived with the imperial post, and Domitian seemed unable to get enough of them—listening to these defamatory writings had become a nightly ritual. It was unsettling to Julianus that Domitian methodically preserved them in a gilded chest.
The couplets Domitian heard this eve were of the category Domitian termed “fly tales” because they played on a persistent rumor that he had spent the opening year of his reign brooding alone in a closed chamber, doing little but stabbing at flies with a stylus.
“My friends, tell me…why does our own Alexander go north?” the reader intoned, his normally full, flowery voice pinched with tension; this was a duty he despised. “Are not Rome’s own flies numerous and valorous enough?”
Domitian was stonily quiet, his gaze locked on nothing. The boy realized with dismay the Emperor still had not heard enough. He cleared his throat and selected another.
“Perhaps, my friends, you have heard we are at war?” he read, perspiration beads forming above girlish lips. “The tawny savages are not frightened at all…but I hear all the flies have left Germania and Gaul.”
Domitian gave a dark grunt like a prodded boar. A scarlet flush began to spread across his solid features. “Enough,” he said, a soft rattle in his throat. “Now get out.”
The boy spun round to flee.
“Leave those,” Domitian commanded.
The young reader slammed down the gilded chest as though it burned his hands. Then he was gone.
Domitian shook one of the offensive bookrolls in Julianus’ face. “Why cannot the authors of these horrible verses be caught? Even were I to punish the man who started that fly story, still it would not die. A single servant creeps up on me once when I am deep in mourning for my brother…and so he does see me absentmindedly stab a fly or two. And for it, the wits make me out to be a madman.” He looked hard at Julianus, demanding commiseration. “What do you say to this?”
“I reserve judgment until I hear from the flies,” Julianus responded coolly. “Now if you’ve done with that, I’ve a grave matter to put before you which—”
“I see you trust I still find your impertinence invigorating.” Domitian poured himself a full cup of unwatered wine, and with baffling swiftness shifted to elaborate self-pity. “Here, the enemy is asleep. At home, the enemy attacks. My father and brother never had to battle this infamy!”
“If you want these slanders to end, ignore them. The wits never stopped calling your father miserly, even to his face. Did he ever punish anyone for it? He was wise enough to laugh at it. Even after he was dead, they said he wanted to be hurled into the Tiber because he was too stingy to pay for his own funeral—”
“True enough but…that was not quite the same case.”
“And why was it not?”
Domitian paused, a mildly puzzled look on his face. “I simply know there is a difference. They insulted my father with antic smiles. They insult me with daggers hidden in their cloaks.”
“Here is my opinion on the matter: You you see your unease reflected in others’ faces as if in a mirror and then take it to mean that they are uneasy with you. Your ears are stopped to praise and pricked sharp to ridicule. You hear a symphony of ridicule others do not hear.”
Domitian looked at him with groggy befuddlement, as if he had been sleepwalking and struck a wall. “What? Say it all again?”
“I’m saying…it is but a trick of the psyche. Do you know the theory that all life is but the soul’s dream, a discourse between man and his shadow, put forth by the Alexandrian school of—curses, never mind, I can see when I’ve lost you.”
“And with all else that plagues me,” Domitian muttered bitterly into the humid depths of his wine cup, “my concubines are pushing me to celibacy. One tries to bear a child by me, thinking to supplant the other in my affections. The other cries constantly, wasting away of jealousy, and threatens to drink poison. My physician is secretly administering a draught to one to keep her from conceiving and poison antidotes to the other. And now it’s whispered my plodding-but-wanton wife at home was surprised in her bedchamber snugly tucked in beneath the pantomime actor Paris. Tell me, how do you manage your women? I never hear you complain.”
The question brought Julianus an unexpected jolt of hollow emptiness. His women? There had been a string of them, all of slight account, both freed and noble. Perhaps because confronting Domitian made him feel close to death, it suddenly seemed sad and wrong that none were even near to being of like soul. He pushed the thought away. Never would he speak to Domitian of such things; it would seem a sort of blasphemy.
“I am too unsettled in mind about a certain matter,” Julianus replied evenly, keeping gathering anger under tight control, “to bat about questions that have no true answers.” He looked with cold precision into Domitian’s eyes. “I spoke of illusion. What is not illusory is that Junius Tertullus is dead.”
There was a moment of taut, dangerous silence. Domitian looked at him with veiled eyes. “And thank wise Minerva for it,” he said softly.
“You must know Tertullus was not fool enough to carry such a speech about. It was planted there by an informer.”
“Really?” Domitian raised a brow in mock surprise. “Many sharp-minded loyalists think not. Would you style yourself a loyalist, Marcus Julianus?”
He refused to be forced into a defensive position. “The man couldn’t have opposed an assault of goslings. Tertullus was painfully ill at ease speaking publicly in opposition to anything—it was not in his nature.”
In reply Domitian took out one of the letters that arrived with the day’s post, written personally by the Guard’s Prefect. He flattened it on the serpentine tabletop.
“I want you to understand, Marcus. I care little if the others do.” Somehow the words made Julianus recoil faintly within. They were spoken with a shade too much emphasis, as though Domitian sought to convince both of them. It might be, Julianus thought, that he wants to believe he is more under my influence than he actually is. As if he were not yet used to being under no one’s influence…, but might test it out soon.
“This is a confidential letter. Read it.”
When Julianus had finished, he said firmly, “I cannot believe this.” The letter claimed Tertullus tried
to seduce the Guard by approaching one of the Centurions, offering to double the Praetorians’ annual pay if they would back his try for supreme power. “Let me guess…the Centurion of the Guard he approached happened to be a man connected somehow to Veiento—a relative, an ally, a lover.”
From Domitian’s expression Julianus knew he guessed rightly. “No matter if it was. Veiento has no ambition.”
“Nonsense. He would unseat you if he could.”
“Two fighting cocks, you two.”
“Do not insult me. He tried to murder me juridically, and I turned it against him. Our fight was never mine. You must stop your ears to him. Veiento deceived you—and then drove an innocent man to his death.”
Unexpectedly, Domitian’s eyes were muddied with a misery that seemed genuine. In that moment he seemed to suffer for his acts as any man of conscience would. Julianus caught himself believing for one instant this was true remorse; Domitian’s playacting was becoming disturbingly subtle. “You believe me wrong,” Domitian said in a shame-ridden voice. “That is not easy to live with.” Then he gave Julianus a mock-friendly grin that chilled him.
“Would it please you if I stepped down? And let you rule in my place?”
“Thank all the gods—for a moment I thought you seized with a fit of reasonableness.”
“You’d certainly rule me if you could, but you cannot, you and all your ilk who sprinkle yourselves daily with the bathwater Seneca died in. I’ll tell you what you can do, however, to put my suspicious nature to rest, since you seem to be seized with a fit of meddlesome helpfulness. I’ve a task for you I would not trust to any other.”
“Only one of us can put your suspicious nature to rest—and it is not I.”
Domitian ignored this. “Tomorrow I would have you ride out to the camp of the Eighth Augusta. Ostensibly your purpose will be to inspect those new ballistae to see if they’re properly tuned.” Marcus Julianus was known as an authority on these war engines; he had written a manual of engineering, and based on it, Domitian’s engineers had built catapults capable of greater range than any previously constructed.
“But your true purpose,” Domitian continued, eyes hard and intent, “is to observe closely the behavior of Regulus. Now there’s a commander whose men have made an idol of him—”
Julianus felt a dull throb of disappointment.
Indeed, nothing has changed. Corner him with reason and he vanishes, only to reappear standing behind you donning a fresh mask. Once again I fail utterly.
“Hold your tongue, I hear your thoughts! This case is different,” Domitian went on. “I’ve had several reliable reports that Regulus is stockpiling weapons in a disabled native fort just above the camp. On top of it he’s far too pleased with his wit and his looks, and he’s just the sort of slithering serpent to turn on me out there. You read a man’s soul better than anyone I know. Watch him. I want you to thoroughly inspect that camp and look inside that old fort.”
“I warn you, you will not like me in the role of informer.”
“Surely you’re not frightened the Chattians will attack while you’re out there? Not after what I hear you did in north Africa.”
“What I fear more is that the truth will bore you. Uncovering a conspiracy is so much more entertaining than finding no conspiracy.”
“Risk boring me then. It will not be the first time.”
Domitian struck a silver bell to summon one of his personal servants. The unwatered wine all at once struck him a stunning blow and he needed aid in getting up. Lately his solidly made form was becoming comfortably and evenly padded with fat; two servants staggered under his leaden weight.
Julianus was surprised that Domitian forgot his collection of treasonable epigrams—wine had indeed befuddled him. It occurred to Julianus that something might be gained by his looking at them. Someone under his protection might be represented there, and he would need to warn the author.
“My lord,” he said casually to Domitian’s retreating back as the two servants who guided him nearly collided with a third bearing a silver tray of dried figs stuffed with almonds, “can I take these and look at them at my leisure?…they are to literature as hog slop is to cuisine, but I would like to more closely study this villainy.”
“Be certain to give them back,” Domitian replied, obviously pleased, thinking it would do Marcus Julianus good to see what he endured. “I mean one day to watch their authors eat that hog slop.”
In his own chambers Julianus read until far into the night, slowly realizing Domitian had been saving these writings since the time of his accession. He was nearly ready to retire when something odd caught his eye at the beginning of one of the two hundred and more bookrolls.
One of the earlier books was disfigured by deep impressions made either by a reed or quill pen; it looked as though Domitian had written a hasty message or letter over it on some light, poor quality papyrus and the marks had gone through. There was no doubt in Marcus Julianus’ mind who penned it: Domitian’s hand was distinctive. Intrigued, he closely studied the blank impressions made by the quill. Domitian had written the words, these, for certain, followed by a list of six abbreviated names.
When he made out the letters of the third name, “Tertul” —and knew it must be Tertullus—he felt a cold hand close round his heart.
He quickly lit extra lamps to better see. Then he rubbed charcoal over the paper to highlight the indentations left by the quill. It meant he would have to destroy the book; he prayed time would elapse before Domitian noticed it was missing, which would reduce the possibility the theft would be connected with him. If not, he would have to contrive some excuse for its fate.
The first two names were those of Fabianus and Serenus, whose deaths he already counted gravely suspicious—and then that of Tertullus.
It seemed far too great a burden for coincidence that the first three men on this list were dead. Nevertheless, for long moments he fought the inevitable conclusion: that this was the impression of a letter directed to some accomplice, possibly Veiento or someone in the Guard, listing men who were to die.
He was suddenly certain not Veiento but Domitian himself had arranged for the incriminating speech to be found on Tertullus. He envisioned some anonymous ruffian enlisted for the task; doubtless the fellow brushed past Tertullus in a thick crowd and slipped the speech into the folds of his toga. The next two names were illegible to him. The last was “Satur.” Again he felt the touch of an icy hand. Saturninus. Who else?
The world seemed to melt in sadness and horror. This was the final betrayal, one that could not be overlooked. His thoughts flashed from Domitian’s occasional fits of guilt, seemingly so heartfelt, to this shameless, premeditated murder. It made no sense. How could two such diverse sentiments be contained within one mind?
He must be stopped. He must be stopped violently. We the living must arrange it before our own time comes.
But what a task, one to make kings shy off.
It cannot be done without the aid of my peers—and if I approach the wrong man, my own life is done. It cannot be brought about without the support of the Senate and the Praetorian Guard. And most importantly it cannot be arranged without first selecting an heir all will agree upon—or the atrocities that followed Nero’s fall will be repeated and the world will once again erupt into civil war.
I will need at once to begin enlisting help.
Restlessly he paced, scarcely breathing; once he paused before the marble bust of his father that he had brought with him from Rome. On this night that worried, well-meaning face gave no comfort; the old man seemed to mock him for thinking he could bind a tyrant with reason.
The bust was still crowned with a garland of wildflowers, dried now, that he had placed there on his father’s birthday. Reverently he removed the garland, taking up the brown petals as they fell. He heard his father saying to him on that long-ago day when they were reunited, “Learn to bend… or perish.”
Forgive me. I knew then I could not, nor wo
uld I ever.
His hand went to the amulet of earth at his throat, the sacred mold that had once restored him to his father. At the same time he looked into the twin flames of his lamp. After a few moments he felt a strong and steady upwelling of calm, a clarity of mind.
A year had elapsed between the first two deaths, he realized. Apparently Domitian was in no great hurry. He would have time to plan.
Here I am on the border of dark and light, the one check on a rational madman who painstakingly rewrites the laws with one hand while he murders in the dark with the other.
Domitian, tyrant and friend—how could you put this on me? You kept not one promise to me. I thought I could soften your blows. It seems I can, but then you turn about and strike another crueler one soon as I’ve turned round.
I’ve never seen a duty more clearly. You leave me no choice but to plan your death. And it shall be done if it takes years—I swear it on my father’s tomb.
CHAPTER XXIV
ON THE FOLLOWING DAY MARCUS JULIANUS crossed the Rhine bridge with an escort of ten cavalrymen and galloped northeast toward the line of battle, following the arrow-straight assault road cut by the Eighth Augusta. The drumming of hooves intensified his sense of urgency and his mind ran ahead of the horses as he considered whom he should approach first to lay the groundwork for conspiracy. But after an hour’s riding the forest’s regal peace quietly overwhelmed him, undermining rational thought, stirring old dreams. From the first he had allied himself with this land against his own people. The country about seemed almost feminine, and it seemed to mourn. The hips of gentle hills veiled modestly in mist, the sweep of changeable sky, had a proud, enigmatic beauty. The slender pines reached out piteously, begging help, struggling to claim his attention. There rose again that haunting feeling, elusive as ground mist, that something here was in need of his protection.
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