‘Is Rome safe?’ Mistress asked.
Everyone in the room – me, Elsie, and all the other slaves waiting on them – we all looked at Master waiting to hear what he said. He shrugged. ‘Rome hasn’t had a civil war in eighty years. Not since the republic came to an end. Rome is safe. Don’t you worry.’
Everyone had been holding their breath waiting to hear what Master said, and when he said we’d be OK, everyone started breathing easy again – everyone but me and Elsie. We knew he was wrong. He didn’t know if Rome was safe, just like he didn’t know Nero was still alive.
*
Outside the jail there’s a soldier. He’s sitting in the dirt with his back against the wall. When I get closer, I can see he’s asleep. Or drunk. His mouth is open and he is holding a jug, which is tilted sideways. I can see dark circles in the dirt where the wine dripped out. It’s usually this one out front, or his friend; the same two that were with the Fox that first day. The soldier doesn’t wake up when I walk past.
I go inside, climb the steps, push open the broken door and, there in his cell, I find the prisoner lying down on his bed of hay. I see right away he’s not shivering. Since the first day, he’s had a fever. Sometimes his body was burning hot and wet with sweat. Other times, he’d be freezing cold. And nearly every day he’d mumble or even yell in his sleep. Once he yelled, ‘My Thebians, my Thebians.’
I told Elsie all about the prisoner’s fever. She said to leave him alone, like the Fox told me to. But I said, ‘What if he dies and they blame me?’ Elsie agreed that wouldn’t be good either. So she told me how to clean his cuts with a rag, and how to make sure he drinks lots of water. I also took two blankets from Mistress’s cupboard to keep him warm.
Today, I start in the way I’ve done each day so far. I go inside his cell, kneel beside him, and whisper, ‘Sire, I have water.’ I have to go in his cell because he’s too weak to come and take the water through the bars. He’s never once said anything besides his strange, feverish mumbles. But today – after he murmurs and wiggles around on the hay – he actually says something.
‘What news from the city?’
I don’t say anything. Elsie said I shouldn’t have spoken to him that first day and I shouldn’t again. So I keep my mouth shut. I help the prisoner sit up, and then I sit down beside him. I can’t tell if he looks any better. He still has the rag wrapped around his head covering his eyes, or where his eyes used to be, and he still has his cuts and bruises.
‘Please,’ he says.
It’s funny to hear him say ‘please’. I told him I was a slave, but he must have forgotten. I shake my head to let him know I can’t say anything, but then I realise he can’t see. So I say, ‘I can’t. I’m not allowed.’
I start tearing the bread up into little pieces on my lap and then place one into his hands. He lifts it up and puts it in his mouth. He chews gingerly.
He gulps the bread down, then says, ‘Who said? Who said you’re not allowed?’
I realise it was a mistake to talk at all because now I’m talking to him. I figure it’s best to say just enough to answer his questions, and maybe then I can stop altogether.
‘The soldier,’ I say. ‘The one who brought you here.’
‘Ah, I see. Well, do you know who that soldier was?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Nor do I. Which tells us something. He’s not important. The men he’s working for may be. But he is nothing.’
I don’t know what to say. He didn’t seem like nothing to me. He locked the Emperor in jail. I don’t say anything else and neither does the prisoner. I put another piece of bread into his hands. He chews and chews. He’s quiet for a while. Then he says, ‘You speak Latin well enough. For a slave, I mean. Are you from Italy?’
I shrug. ‘Not sure.’
‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter where you are from, does it? You are a Roman now.’
I figure that’s a funny thing to say, because slaves aren’t Romans. Not citizens at least. We’re just slaves.
He asks, ‘Your master. Who is he?’
‘Master Creon.’
‘And who is Master Creon?’
‘My master.’
‘We’re going in circles, boy.’
I’m not sure what he means, so I don’t say anything. I stand up and get water. I come back with a full cup and sit beside him. Then I help him take the cup in his hands. Water spills out over the side when we make the switch.
‘I’ve never heard of your master,’ the prisoner says. ‘Senator?’
‘Freedman.’
‘Ah,’ the prisoner says. He takes a sip of water. ‘And how does Master Creon make a living?’
‘He owns a fullery. And buildings.’
‘So he collects Caesars and piss, does he? Well, he must like me. Freedmen have done well under me.’
Master used to talk well of Caesar. But yesterday Master said something about knowing the direction the wind is blowing, and told Socrates to get rid of the figurines he had of Nero. ‘Pulverise them,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave a trace.’
I tell the prisoner the first part, but I leave out the last bit. He nods his head, like he expected as much. He says: ‘You said there was fighting in the city?’
‘Yes. I –’
I realise I didn’t say anything about fighting in the city. He tricked me. He got me talking and then asked me again about the city. I don’t know how he guessed about the fighting, but he did. I tell the prisoner about it because I figure it’s too late now: he’s already tricked me.
NERO
15 June, afternoon
City jail IV, Rome
The boy tells me some story about speeches in the senate and how it inspired treachery in the forum. It’s amazing what the dregs will drink up like honeyed wine. I press the boy for more. His understanding of events is a muddied mess, but sifting through the dirt, I find the nuggets I need to piece the story together. The senate has named the Hunchback emperor. What folly! Galba has a temper worse than Hera, and the intelligence of a mule. Worst of all: half the world thinks I’m dead. I’ve been gone a handful of days yet men are already clamouring to piss on my grave.
If the boy’s story is true, Nerva’s duplicitousness is staggering. I raised him up from nothing. He comes from obscure plebeian stock. How many consulships did the Cocceii have before me? One? Without my favour, little Nerva and that mountainous nose of his wouldn’t have advanced past aedile. But now that I’m gone, he’s disparaging Caesar! This won’t do. I can’t have it. Apollo, grant me patience . . .
And then doubt creeps in. What if Nerva – a man I relied on a great deal – what if he was involved in the coup? Doubt is like poison: a drop can spread and infect the whole. I’ve been reluctant to point a finger at those closest to me, to think seriously about who it was who betrayed me, but someone in my inner circle must have been involved. Four men were entrusted with a key to my chamber: Spiculus, the ex-gladiator and my personal bodyguard; my chamberlains, Epaphroditus and Phaon; and Tigellinus, one of two Praetorian prefects. And whoever it was, they wouldn’t have acted alone. None could have hoped to seize the throne themselves. At least one senator orchestrated the whole affair, a man who knew, if I was out of the way, he could be accepted as Caesar. The question is: who? Who thought themselves equal to Caesar? Galba is the obvious answer, given his quick rise to the principate. But he was in Spain – a difficult spot from which to plot a coup. Who else thought themselves up to the task? Who was ambitious and grasping enough to dare to bring me down?
I will not put it off any longer. Steps must be taken to right what has been done. I order the boy to fetch me a ram for the appropriate sacrifice to Apollo. He gives me excuses as to why this isn’t possible. I tell him this is unacceptable, but when he offers me some cockroach walking across the prison floor, I surprise myself and accept. This is new to me. Compromise.
He hands me the insect, placing it upside down in my palm. Its tiny legs furiously maim the air. I don’t
see this, of course; but I feel a tiny breeze along my palm and experience fills the void that blindness leaves.
I say the appropriate rights in Etruscan, invoking Apollo’s name, asking he guide me in the days to come and in what I must do. Then I snap the cockroach in two.
MARCUS
15 June, afternoon
City jail IV, Rome
The crunch is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. Nero says he was making a sacrifice to the gods so they can help in the long road ahead, but the strange language he used makes me think it was a spell.
Nero hands me the dead bug and says, ‘Dispose of this in the appropriate manner.’ I don’t know what the ‘the appropriate manner’ means, but I don’t want to ask. He’s already frustrated with me because I didn’t know how to secure a ram. So I stand up and throw the bug out the window, first the head, then the tail. I watch each piece pass between the rusty bars and fall out of sight.
He keeps talking. He’s happier now, after saying his spell. He tells me to stay clear of the fighting in the city as best I can. ‘The masses often need to work this kind of thing out physically,’ he says, ‘with violence.’
He doesn’t ask me any more questions. I figured he’d ask me to carry messages to the city like Icelus had done, but he doesn’t. He finishes his bread without saying anything else. When he’s done, I leave him with his back against the wall and a cup of water in his hands. I shut the cell door.
I’m on my way out the door when he says, ‘Marcus, bring me wine next time. Yes? And fish sauce. I can’t eat this stale bread without fish sauce.’
I start to tell him I can’t bring him wine and he waves his hand in frustration. ‘If we are to work together . . . I cannot keep hearing excuses. Leave me.’
I nod before turning to leave. When I’m outside and walking along the dirt path, I wonder what he meant by working together.
IV
The False Neros
A.D. 79
CALENUS
10 January, cockcrow
Across-the-river, Rome
Flat on my back, arms crossed, staring up into empty black, I listen to them whisper; no choice, really. Back and forth they go, faster and faster, until they’re laughing – giggling like there aren’t eight of us crammed into one room six storeys up. What hour is it anyway? I figure it’s still early because the wine in my belly hasn’t turned to poison (not yet at least), and the hole the landlord calls a window has a nice silver glow.
It’s a useless habit here in the teat, waking before the sun rises. In the barracks, as a raw recruit, they drum it in to you. ‘Up, you rogues! Up!’ the centurion screams each morning, and up you get. One moment you’re dreaming of the pretty girl that you left a hundred miles south, and the next you’re jumping out of your blanket in the dark, and it’s cold as a Thracian’s tit. And then it dawns on you that the voice you just heard was an ugly monster of a man, with more hair on his back than a pony, and the girl you were dreaming of is far away, and your heart aches.
But then, over time, experience breaks you in; habit takes over. One day, when the centurion yells ‘Up!’, you’re already awake, lying on your back, arms crossed, and you’re hoping the moments you’ve got before all the drills and marching and digging frozen dirt stretches out just a wee bit longer. And you don’t jump when you hear the centurion’s voice, which is now more familiar than that pretty girl’s. Instead, you give a mighty sigh and slowly stand up like the good soldier you are.
There was a man in my cohort by the name of Publius. He said waking early isn’t learned by habit. Sleeping late is what young men do, he said. If you’re awake before the centurion comes in, it means you’re getting old. He’d say, ‘Calenus, you’re old. You’re damned near ancient. Make your peace with it.’ Then I’d tell him where he could go.
I miss those days, from time to time. Not the centurion yelling – nobody misses that. But I miss Publius and the rest of my cohort. Good boys, the majority.
More giggles in the dark. It’s the Syrian, I’d wager. He never has trouble keeping his bed warm. The others always get after him for bringing back girls and boys. I can’t begrudge him, though. This is our lot: if you’re born in an attic, you can’t sleep in a palace.
I roll over on to my side and try to get a few more hours. I think of my wife, to calm my nerves. I think of her curls, a bird’s nest of black, and the way she’d touch my arm, right above the elbow, when she’d whisper something sweet in my ear. A good thought on a cold, dark morning.
*
I hear the forum before I see it: laughter, bartering, bargains, cursing, catcalling, a cock crowing, and two angry pigs crying out like a couple of newborns. As I slow down, my knee begins to throb. It’s bad on mornings like this. It’s cold – too damned cold for the teat. Everyone has been complaining, not just cripples like me. Rome’s coldest winter in two hundred years, they’re saying – not many Romans have woken up beside the Rhine, with snowdrifts up to their waist, and the only heat you’ll feel for months is the smoky-steam twisting up from your piss – and I know I’ve been living in Rome too long because I’m starting to agree. I’m softening into the southerner I’ve despised my whole life. But the body forgets; the blood thins out, like watered-down wine.
I turn the corner out of the alleyway and I’m met by an army of citizens flanked by towering walls of white marble and stone. I cut through the middle of the square, from one corner to the next, dragging my bad leg as I go.
I push my way through faded tunics. Rooster red, olive green and icicle blue. To my right is a senator, in his spotless white toga, with a legion of slaves trailing behind. To my left, on the steps of the courts, a few kids are playing pirates and soldiers; I walk close enough to hear the marbley-crunch of their pieces banging together. A woman – heavyset, with cheeks pinker than a sunset – looks me up and down as we pass each other, like she’s pricing a cut of meat. Hidden somewhere in the crowd, a snake hisses. In front of the Temple of Saturn, two soldiers are giving a freedman a hard time. One is holding the man’s basket upside down. The other is patting the man’s sides, searching for a coin or two.
I reach the other end of the square and stop at a fountain. Water gushes out of a fish’s mouth into a pool. I stick my head into the stream, hoping cold water will soothe what’s turning into a hangover. The water is nice enough, but the fiery spear of pain between my temples stays put.
‘Calenus!’
The hands of a giant pull me in for a hug. When the giant’s hands finally let me go, I wipe water away from my eyes.
‘Morning, Fabius,’ I say. ‘Long time.’
Fabius looks up at the sun. ‘Morning? Barely, I’d say. You know you’re a long way from the barracks if you consider hour three the morning.’
I look up at the same sun. ‘No, we can’t be free of the second hour. Anyway, we’re both a long way from the barracks.’
Fabius looks older than I remember, fatter and greyer, especially his beard. But he’s still built like a gravestone. He asks, ‘Do you have time for a dip?’
‘Not today,’ I say. ‘I’m expected somewhere.’
‘Well, at least grab a cup with me.’
Fabius sees me thinking it over. He grins and says, ‘Whoever it is, they’ll wait to speak with the great Julius Calenus.’
‘One cup,’ I say.
*
‘I’m making good coin, working for Montanus,’ Fabius says. ‘You should think about joining up.’
The vendor pours us both a double cup. Red, the cheapest he has, sour as a lemon. Fabius and I are standing, leaning over the bar, looking into the canteen, our backs facing the bustling street. Inside, two women are descaling fish. Behind them, oil sizzles.
‘Don’t think so,’ I say. ‘I never liked Montanus. The man couldn’t take orders before. I can’t imagine what he’s like now that he’s the one giving them.’
Fabius and I both served in I Germanica, a legion of 6,000 good men stationed near the Rhine, which had t
he bad fortune of fighting against Vespasian in the civil war. After he won, Vespasian, in all his wisdom, sent each and every man in the first packing, as though it’d been our decision to oppose him, rather than the whims of a few greedy legates. But I’d had enough before that. I deserted after Cremona fell – after I’d watched a four-day-long sack of a city, and I’d seen enough murder and rape and all the rest of it, and I said, ‘Fuck the legions and fuck the Empire,’ and I ran. It was a cowardly act, one that will haunt me the rest of my days. What makes it worse, though, is that if I’d stayed on like Fabius, just a few months longer, I’d have been dismissed anyway, and I’d be in the same spot as I am now. Ten years after the war and Fabius and I are both here in the capital, doing our best to earn a living.
Fabius works for Montanus now, another soldier we served with. A giant of a man, twice as tall as any I ever knew, and three times as mean. I’ve only got an idea of how he’s making money in Rome, and I don’t want any part of it.
‘It’s not the best way to earn a living,’ Fabius says. ‘But it beats holding the line if you ask me. Montanus has us doing heavy work, sure. But there’s no killing. I don’t carry a sword or a spear. Now all I have is a stick.’
‘A stick?’
Fabius nods. ‘The size of my arm. Everyone in this city acts tough, but shake a stick in their face and most of them will crumple up like papyrus.’ He makes a fist, crushing paper he doesn’t have. He laughs at his own joke.
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