‘What’s past is past,’ I say. ‘Let’s focus on what to do now. Yes?’
Father nods. ‘Please.’
‘It’s important that we not let the trail run cold,’ Phoebus says. ‘We must inform Cerialis to pursue this False Nero to the ends of the earth.’
Father, then the entire room, look to me.
‘This is not two boys chasing each other in the yard,’ I say. ‘Cerialis just sacked a city.’
Phoebus grimaces. He squeezes the letter from Thrace in his little hands.
‘We must move quickly,’ Phoebus says.
‘Obviously,’ I say, ‘but not rashly. Cerialis must secure the city and root out all of the False Nero’s remaining supporters. He should send riders out in every direction to see if the imposter can be spotted. But Cerialis is an experienced general. I am sure he’s already taken these steps. I suspect the problem is you’re getting your information from someone other than the general himself. Maybe it would be prudent to wait and get our information straight from the horse’s mouth, yes?’
Phoebus’s grimace hardens and I know I’ve hit the mark. There was a time my victories came over armies, not palace freedmen. Even so, I will enjoy the win, however slight. In a city full of vipers, you’re either using your fangs or feeling the bite of another’s.
‘Madness,’ cousin Sabinus says again, to no one in particular. ‘Madness.’
*
When it’s just the two of us, father and son, I draw back one of the curtains, letting natural light brighten the room. It’s not direct sunshine, only a grey radiance, but it’s welcome all the same. Father’s purple pallor morphs to a more traditional antique white. I take a seat in front of his desk.
‘Before you start, I want to talk about your sister,’ he says. He’s fiddling with a dagger the size of his hand, pressing the dull point into his left index finger and twisting it like a screw. His eyes are on the blade. He’s not looking me in the eye, which has me worried. ‘We’re slowly losing numbers, people we can count as friends. You see that? Senators who were once friend are now, possibly, foe?’
I give a slight nod in response.
‘And you know some have more influence than others. Some are shepherds rather than sheep?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you would agree that Marcellus is one of those shepherds?’
Old, scaly Marcellus who is more snake than man. I don’t like where this is going.
‘I agree with the premise, but not necessarily its application.’
Caesar exhales. His eyes remain on the blade.
‘I want you to hint to Marcellus that I would be open to marrying Domitilla . . . to him.’
‘Is that so?’ My jaw clenches. ‘Do you intend on actually following through this time? Or is your daughter to be the carrot once again – the carrot while your oldest son plays the constant stick?’
‘Which would you prefer, Titus?’
He’s looking at me now, defiant. He puts the dagger back on to the desk. I can see the handle, which is fashioned from the tusk of a boar. It’s the knife he was given by the governor of Britannia after he halted the sack of Calidunum. A gift of thanks. I remember the firelight in the camp that evening, as the governor handed Father the knife to a round of cheers. I was only seventeen. I remember hearing those hurrahs and thinking that my father was a god. Where has that man gone? I wonder. Is it the weight of office? Or is it the gout that afflicts his legs? Does constant pain make the task of leading an empire too heavy to bear?
Caesar asks again: ‘Which would you prefer? Would you rather I renege or marry her off?’
‘Neither. I would prefer neither because both are folly. You have done this before, used the prospect of marrying Domitilla to woo dissatisfied senators. But they’re on to the plan. Marcellus is not stupid. He will see it for what it is. A ruse. You’ve refused to marry Domitilla for ten years. You know what they call her, don’t you?’
‘I know.’
‘The Widow,’ I say, carrying on regardless. ‘They say she is cursed.’ My poor sister’s husband died on their wedding night. She was only fifteen. Father had married her off to a man three times her age, and he died hours into their marriage. ‘You won’t marry her because you don’t want to give up the asset. But people say that no one wants her. They say she’s cursed and marrying her means death.’
‘I know, I know.’ Father waves his hands at me. He leans back in his chair but his back stays bent and his shoulders slumped.
‘Ambitious men are growing restless, Titus. I can feel it.’
Now it’s my turn to say, I know. I stay silent, though. He knows I know.
‘We need to do something,’ Father says. ‘What you did in Baiae was good. It rid us of a few enemies and it sent a message. But now? This business with the hand – it’s the smell of blood in the air. Aspiring minds are salivating.’
Silence eats at us for a moment. Our anxiety breathes.
‘What do you make of the hand?’ I ask. ‘We haven’t spoken of it yet.’
Father gives a sarcastic harrumph. ‘Oh, it was planned. I’ve no doubt. Some senator who doesn’t have the figs to do anything but fake an omen. Find a senator with a cock this big’ – Father shows me a short distance between his thumb and index finger – ‘and we’ll have our man.’
‘But how would someone plan it?’
Father shrugs. ‘How should I know? Our enemies are industrious.’ He sighs, collects himself, then says, ‘What was it you wanted to speak with me about?’
I fish out what I need from between the leather and steel of my cuirass. I reach my hand out, open it, and the gold ring falls onto the desk. Father squints, scrutinising the circle of gold with his opaque eyes. His top lip curls slightly.
‘What . . . is that?’
‘A ring. A gold ring. It was on the hand.’
‘And?’
‘It means the hand likely belonged to a senator or knight. Not some drunk pleb in a back alley. And there’s more.’
I fish out Plautius’s letter and drop it on Father’s desk. He picks it up and reads. He rolls his eyes three times before his expression changes. ‘Ah. And you think this hand belonged to this missing knight, Vettius? Or Plautius himself?’
‘I’m not sure. At first, I didn’t think very much of the letter. You know what Plautius is like. But he said he’d be in Rome by now. I called on Antonia today and she’s not seen him in weeks.’
Father shakes his head. ‘No one would be fool enough to kill a Plautii. They’re too close to our family. We’ve had an alliance for more than forty years. They’re almost our kin. But I agree: none of this is good.’
‘I have Domitian looking for Plautius.’
‘Domitian?’ He shakes his head, letting me know what he thinks of Domitian’s chances. ‘You couldn’t have found someone more capable?’ He reads the letter again. ‘None of this is good, Titus. None of it.’
*
We reach the forum as the sun is starting to set. Vendors are closing up shop; a lawyer exits the courts with an entourage of slaves carrying rolls of papyrus; and half a dozen vestal virgins tiptoe towards home, all in white, a cloud of incense trailing behind.
We enter along the Clivus Capitolinus, which snakes its way down the Capitoline Hill’s steep slope, between the tabularium and the Temple of Saturn. As we’re making the descent, I see a boy with his back to us, writing on the wall of the senate house. At our vantage, I can’t see what he’s writing. Graffiti on a public building should not be the prefect’s concern, but often I find it’s indicative of the people’s mood, a weathervane of public sentiment. I signal for my escort to stop and make my way toward the boy alone.
He is dressed as a common pleb: worn tunic, bare feet, and a mange of strawberry-blond hair. He pauses and cautiously looks to his left then his right, but he doesn’t see me coming from behind.
When I’m directly behind the boy, I can see what he’s scrawling on the wall:
Nero
Lives
Questions run through my mind, the sort a confident general would never ask, but which occur often to Caesar’s son. Does he know about the False Nero in Thrace? Has he been hired to write this? Is this part of a larger campaign to undermine my father . . .? Underneath the insecurities of Roman politics, I know, odds are, this boy is just that: a boy; one who probably couldn’t think of anything more clever to write. Nearby there is a girl, hidden, watching after she was asked to, deciding whether this boy’s bold act impresses her or not.
I hear a dog panting behind me. I turn to see Virgilius and the mutt. Virgilius looks at the boy, then at me. He sardonically arches his left eyebrow. Orders?
I give him a wink and then silently walk the remaining five yards to the boy. When I’m directly behind him, I say, ‘It would help if you could give us more details. Such as where.’
The boy freezes. He turns around slowly. When he sees my armour, he starts to shake. (Does he know I am Caesar’s son?) He drops the brush and runs.
Virgilius watches as the boy disappears into an alley. ‘You’ll make him pine for Nero even more now.’
‘Fear is good. It makes everyone more compliant.’
Virgilius gives me a mock bow to feign defeat. When he bends down, one of his gloves, which was tucked into his belt, falls to the ground. He kneels to pick it up. But before he can, the mutt snatches it in her mouth. She tries to run away but the leash stops her. Virgilius has to use both hands to stop her from running away.
‘Strange,’ Virgilius says. ‘She’s behaved all day.’
The dog is aiming her snout at the Temple of Concord. The leash is taut. She wants to run.
‘Let her go,’ I say.
Virgilius, good soldier that he is, drops the leash without a word. The mutt – still carrying Virgilius’s glove – trots toward the Temple of Concord. We follow.
We follow her across the forum, up the steps of the temple and onto its portico. The dog is near the temple doors. She slowly turns to face us. She opens her jaws and drops the glove.
When the glove hits the portico, Virgilius and I stop in our tracks. For a moment, we stand there, in front of the dog and glove, dumbfounded.
‘How did she do that?’ Virgilius asks. ‘Again.’
The dog is panting, her tongue lolling out to the side of her mouth. She’s content now that her job is complete.
‘She was trained,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘The question is who, Virgilius,’ I say. ‘The question is who.’
V
Magnificence of Mind, Part I
A.D. 68
MARCUS
21 July, afternoon
The home of Proculus Creon, Rome
‘You don’t know who Hector is? Or Achilles?’ Giton is laughing. ‘What do you know?’
We’re outside, under the colonnade. Master and Mistress are somewhere inside taking their siesta. Their son, Giton, is sitting on the steps that lead to the garden. He tosses a piece of fish to the puppy that’s spinning in circles at his feet. Somewhere in the city people are fighting – like they have nearly every day since Galba was named emperor. We can hear it, but it’s so far away it only sounds like giants whispering.
‘I know some things,’ I say. I’m holding a palm fan but I stopped swishing it when Giton started making fun.
He says, ‘I know some things, sir.’ Giton wants me to call him ‘sir’ even though he’s younger than me and smaller. He says I should show the proper respect, because he’s my master, just like his mother and father. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what is it? Tell me something? You don’t know anything, do you? I’ll be twice as smart as you when I’m your age.’
‘I know . . . I know how to get the favour of kings.’
Giton crooks his eyebrow. ‘What?’
‘I know how to get the favour of a king. Or an emperor.’ I shouldn’t say anything: Elsie took me to the magi in secret. But I hate when Giton teases me. When he starts, he doesn’t stop. ‘I know a potion. It works.’
Giton frowns. ‘Well? Tell me.’
‘Lard of a lion, mixed with rose water,’ I say. I point at the spot between my eyes where the magi rubbed the lard. ‘You’ve got to rub it right here.’
‘How do you know it works?’
I open my mouth but don’t say anything; Giton starts to laugh.
‘See, you don’t know anything. You’re so stupid. I should tell Father to whip you for talking like that, for making things up.’
Giton tosses the plate onto the ground and it smashes into a hundred pieces.
‘Tell mother you did it,’ he says. He does this sometimes, breaks things for no reason and tells me to say I did it. He stands up. ‘I’m Achilles. You’re Hector. I always win. That’s all you need to know about Homer.’
He walks way along the colonnade, the little puppy nipping at his heels.
*
Elsie is in the kitchen. She’s busy chopping white-green leeks. I ask her who Hector is. Without looking up, she says, ‘Stories? I don’t have time for stories.’
I say, ‘Giton says I don’t know anything.’
Elsie looks up and her face changes. She comes over to me and bends down and looks into my eyes. She says, ‘I have a better story for you. Yes? The story of how I found you. Should I tell you this story?’
Elsie takes me out into the alleyway. It’s hot and dusty and the sun is just peeking in over the neighbours’ roof. We sit on an amphorae lying on its side like a log. Elsie’s hair is grey and thirsty. She keeps it tied into a big knot, but a few loose strands are hanging down to her shoulders. She swipes at them and sticks them behind her ear. Then she takes out a handful of pistachios and drops them in her apron. I pop one into my mouth and it’s so salty I’m thirsty right away. She tells me a story – one I’ve heard before, but I like hearing again.
‘Let’s see. Maybe I start at the beginning. Yes?’
I nod.
‘I was born free – a point of pride for your Elsie, yes? – on the other side of the Middle Sea. Our village was small – too small for a name – surrounded by trees as tall as the Palatine.’ She looks up at trees that aren’t there. ‘One day, when I was still just a girl, I was playing with my sisters in the forest. We were laughing and singing and hiding, carrying on like we always did, when suddenly raiders appeared, a dozen of them, covered in furs and boils, with beards as long as your little arm.’
Inside, Mistress is hollering for boiled water.
A big blob of sweat trickles down my back.
‘The raiders took me and sold me to soldiers, and the soldiers brought me to Rome and a knight named Quintus Proculus purchased me. It was in Master Proculus’s home that I met my Silva. Silva was much older than me. His hair was grey, like mine is now, and his skin was droopy –’ she pulls at the loose skin on her neck ‘– like mine is now. But he was kind to me, in his way.’
She plops a pistachio into her mouth. She rummages around with her fingers and pulls out the shell.
‘Master Proculus had Silva teach me Latin and some Greek. We spent hours and hours together. Silva declared his love very early.’ Elsie smiles. ‘Too early. He began the first lesson with, ‘This is the letter “A’’, and ended with, “I love you with all of my heart.” I wasn’t interested. He was old, like I said. But my Silva was persistent. He wore me down. Months later, when he said, “This is the letter ‘Z’,” I said, “I love you with all of my heart.’’’ Elsie squints, thinking. ‘The heart is strange. Yes? I’m not sure what changed. Maybe, after so much hardship, Silva’s kindness was all I wanted. We weren’t allowed to marry, but Master Proculus let us share a room. We lived like that for many years until, finally, I was with child. But then – suddenly – Master Proculus died. Silva and I had hoped Master Proculus would have freed us in his will, -but others were given that privilege. Instead, he – what’s the word? Bequeathed? Yes, he bequeathed us to his former slave, a freedman named Creon.’ She makes a face like she smelt sp
oilt milk. ‘You know who I mean.’
A cart pulled by a mule slowly crosses the entrance to the road; its wheels squawk like birds.
‘As my belly started to bulge, Mistress told me I would be able to raise the baby in their home. But, because I was their property, my child was theirs, according to law. The law, the law, the law.’ She sighs a big, heavy sigh. ‘Our baby was born in March. A little girl. Silva and I raised her for five years. You should have seen her, Marcus. She was as pretty as an empress and as smart as a banker. She was my pride and joy. But then one day Master decided she wasn’t welcome. He said she didn’t have value. So Master sold my little girl. I don’t know to who. The day the traders came to take her away, Silva – seeing my tears – fought to keep her, throwing his old arms around like he was a boy of twenty. But the traders were young and strong. One of them hit my poor Silva on the head so hard it slowed his wits for good. He slurred his words like a drunk for a year and then he was gone.’
For a moment, I think Elsie is going to cry, but she doesn’t.
‘For two years, I cried and prayed to Diana for relief. I wanted to die.’ She flicks another pistachio into her mouth. ‘In the mornings, before Master and Mistress would wake, I would walk by the Tiber, looking at the deep-green swirling water and I would think of my little girl. Each morning I would think about jumping in. Each morning, I would think: tomorrow I will jump. Tomorrow. But then, one morning, as I was walking along the shore I heard a mighty howling. I thought I was dreaming again – dreaming of my little girl crying as the slavers dragged her away – but the sound didn’t stop. So I trudged into the water, up to my waist, and found in the reeds a baby boy, pink and screaming.’
‘Was it me?’ I ask, even though I know it was.
‘It was you, howling like a wolf.’
‘Why was I in the reeds?’ I ask this every time. ‘Did my mother not want me?’
‘Oh no,’ Elsie says. ‘Diana left you for me. I prayed for months and months and this was how she answered.’ She nods. ‘I took you to a Chaldean priest – the best in the Subura. He said the heavens foretold greatness for you, and I thought: this boy could be anything! Maybe one day he will own a bakery or learn a craft, like painting. Maybe he could own slaves himself! Imagine that!’
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