‘Ah, yes,’ I say. ‘I’d forgotten.’ Years ago, when Father and what felt like half the Empire spent part of the winter on Capri, Plautius invited – and probably paid – Jacasta to visit him every night. He was quite taken with her. I think she was fond of him as well.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘If Jacasta hears anything, you will be the first to know.’
I decide to change the subject.
‘Will Father name Domitian consul this year?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’
‘He should. Domitian needs experience in administration. He could end up ruling one day.’
‘I know.’
The strained look is back on Titus’s face. He takes Domitian’s superfluousness personally. Poor Domitian. More than ten years junior to Titus – the great, indefatigable Titus: Father forgot all about him. Titus does his best as an older brother, to provide the guidance and advice Domitian requires, but there’s only so much he can do.
‘Jacas—’
Before I can finish the thought, she’s beside me, pouring wine into blue crystal. Jacasta has been with me so long, she knows my moods better than I. Titus’s brow crinkles, subtly acknowledging his moral victory. See, he says without saying anything, wine helps.
‘Have you heard from Vespasia?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ My eyes look to the cup in my lap. ‘The weather has been good, warmer than Rome.’ I force myself to look up. ‘And she’s enjoying her time with her niece.’
‘Did she say anything else?’
Poor Titus. He’s more sentimental then anyone realises.
‘She’s upset, Titus. She thinks her husband was innocent. She did not love the man, but you know Vespasia. She’s very . . . proud. We both know that. She finds the whole affair hurtful and humiliating. She just needs time.’
Titus sizes me up, reading my expression. Is this the gaze that so many senators crack under? He should know sisters are made of sterner stuff.
‘Give her time,’ I say. ‘There is nothing more to it.’ I try to change the subject. ‘Was there another reason you came?’
‘Yes.’ It’s now Titus’s turn to stare at his cup. ‘I’ve come to warn you.’
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘that sounds ominous.’
‘Father intends to approach Marcellus. About marriage . . . to you.’
My heart sinks, but only a smidge. Father has started down this path before only to turn back. He prefers me a lonely widow. My value is higher that way.
‘Is that so?’
Titus looks sympathetic, but what does he know? If Father follows through, it’s not Titus who will have to share his bed with an old man.
‘I have advised against it.’
‘Well, let us hope Father listens to you.’
The strain is back: Titus’s eyes are slits.
Jacasta is called away. When she returns, she says, ‘Mistress, there is a man at the door that insists on delivering a message to you personally.’
‘Was he searched?’ my paranoid brother asks. His Praetorians patrol the Palace at all hours. Titus knows any caller, known or unknown, is checked three times before setting eyes on me.
‘He was,’ Jacasta says nodding. ‘He said his name is Cyrus. A foreigner, I think.’
‘What was he like?’ I ask.
Jacasta says, ‘He has many gold chains and bracelets, and black make-up painted around his dark eyes, like a woman. And he is wearing pants.’ Jacasta raises her eyebrow on this last item to signal she considers it the strangest. ‘He says he has a present for you, from beyond the Silk Road. I know how you favour good silk. He let me inspect it.’
‘Oh?’
She smiles blissfully. ‘It was very good.’
*
The man named Cyrus enters the room with enough pomp it borders on the comic. He walks in with his head held high and his chest puffed out, with long, jumping steps. He is short and plump, with a dark complexion and a thick waist. His coat and trousers (the one’s Jacasta disapproved of) are a deep green embroidered with gold stitching. Gold chains are piled on his neck and they clink and rattle with each of his bombastic steps. Trailing behind him are two strapping young slaves, carrying a large chest over their heads. Cyrus bows to me first, then Titus, in the deep ingratiating way Romans aren’t capable of, because republican blood still runs in our veins.
Cyrus waves his hand and his slaves lower the chest to the floor.
‘In Parthia,’ he says, gaze averted, ‘men talk in court of the unrivalled beauty of the Emperor’s daughter. The sort of beauty one feels in the knees.’
‘You are Parthian then?’ Titus asks, trying to assert control of the conversation. He is Caesar’s eldest son after all.
‘By birth, yes. But I am here in the employ of another; a Roman citizen.’
Cyrus claps his hands and the two slaves fling open the trunk. He pulls out a bolt of light blue silk and brings it over to me, displaying it on his arms. ‘My patron sends you these gifts. He has heard you are a woman of impeccable tastes, with an eye for fine fabric.’
‘Has he?’ I ask. The man’s hyperbole is somehow both grating and pleasurable. ‘And are all those for me?’ I nod at the trunk.
‘Yes. He only asks that you accept an invitation to dinner at his home. Many of the city’s notable families will be there, but without Caesar’s eldest daughter, my patron fears the evening will be a failure.’
This man is too much – too many compliments, too much make-up around his eyes, too much of everything.
‘Who is your patron, sir?’ Titus asks. His annoyance at being ignored is becoming obvious to more than his sister.
‘The illustrious Senator Lucius Ulpius Traianus of Spain.’
Titus and I exchange looks.
‘Who?’
TITUS
12 January, first torch
The home of Eprius Marcellus, Rome
Marcellus’s slave answers the door. He’s nearly as old as Marcellus, but where the latter is all bone and sinew, the slave is loose skin, long arms and glassy eyes. Following him through the atrium into Marcellus’s study feels an eternity. Beside me Secundus rolls his eyes. For Secundus – always the academic – time spent travelling is a waste unless a slave is reading aloud from one of his books.
Marcellus is in his study, sitting at his desk. A weak blend of lemony incense tries but fails to supress the room’s damp staleness. Two slaves – no more than boys – stand behind their master holding rolls of paper. On the desk, a lone lamp burns oily black smoke. Murals of vermillion look a dark, muddy brown; I make out a few trees, a nymph, and a satyr balancing his oversized member on a tree stump. The woodland scene is oddly playful for such a serious, unhappy man.
Marcellus is squinting at a roll of paper an inch or so from his face. His slave announces our presence. Marcellus, however, finishes reading – just a line or two – but enough to send the message: you are in my home now. I doubt he knows why we’ve come. But he knows Caesar’s son is visiting him, which is a victory in itself. If I were here as prefect of the Praetorians, sword in hand, I would not wait for his slave to lead me into his study.
‘Ah –’ he finally looks up from the page ‘– Titus Flavianus and . . .’ He squints. ‘. . . Secundus.’ He feigns standing by raising his backside three inches from his chair. ‘Please.’ He points at the two chairs across from his desk.
We sit. Secundus’s chair creaks under his massive bulk.
We hear a cough from the back corner of the room.
My skills have dulled here in the capital. The general who took Jerusalem would enter a room and note every detail: the number of people, their age, their weight; whether they were left handed or right; whether they carried arms or were likely to carry arms; their disposition towards the Emperor; whether the man harboured republican sympathies; whether his father did; his father’s father. I turn around and see the girl I’d missed, lost in the shadows. She is almost naked, save for a blanket of wool wrapped haph
azardly around her hips. Her eyes are wastelands, listless and white, blankly staring at the wall. Her back and bony shoulders are bent toward the floor. Her cheek is bruised. She coughs again – a choleric, sickly cough. What any man does in his home is his own business. Still . . . Why is she just sitting there, bruised and half naked? At the very least, it lacks decorum. I turn back to Marcellus. He pays no attention to my having noticed the poor girl or the look of disgust I am not bothering to hide. Empty regret shimmies up my belly and stabs my heart. Poor Domitilla.
‘To what do I owe the honour?’ Marcellus asks.
Secundus – sensing my disgust, my desire to leave without another word – is the first to speak. ‘We’ve come to make a proposal to you, Marcellus. On behalf of Caesar.’
‘Oh,’ Marcellus says bitterly. ‘Caesar remembers me, does he?’
‘Caesar will never forget the good work you did for the party,’ Secundus says.
At one time, Marcellus was one of Father’s closest advisers. He was particularly instrumental in fighting the Stoic opposition. Those years were eye-opening for me. Before I’d viewed power through the lens of war. It was about might and logistics. You won a war if you had strategy, better training, more advanced arms and more men. If I answered honestly what ultimately won us the war in Judea, if I had to boil it down to one advantage, I’d say it was armour. We had it, the Jews didn’t. Political power is different. In Rome, power is about increments and measuring yourself against another; the measure of one’s political power is merely the inverse of another’s. The Stoic opposition sought to undermine Father – not to gain the throne themselves – but merely for the sake of undermining him. They thought: bring the principate down an inch and we’ll go up that same inch. And this is why we are here tonight. Father is conceding an inch to Marcellus, rather than sitting back and watching him reach for it. We cannot have every man in the Empire looking to gain an inch or we will bury ourselves.
‘Never forget?’ Marcellus repeats Secundus’s words with sarcastic inflection. ‘Never forget, you say. I’ve been shut out for years. No appointments, no honours, no nothing. Caesar either forgot me or he spurns me on purpose.’
I cannot remember why Marcellus fell out of favour. Allegiances also occur in increments. We push away an inch, he pushes away two, until we are on opposite sides of the senate floor.
Marcellus continues, ‘Why his own son visits my home and doesn’t say a word.’
Everything is a slight to the dignity of an entitled senator. Even silence. I decide to cut our visit short. Despite my dislike for Marcellus, we need his support.
‘Father is willing to offer Domitilla,’ I say abruptly. ‘She will marry you, but in exchange you must not only cease your diatribes in the senate, you must fight whatever trouble we are facing now.’
Marcellus is silent. He was not expecting this. It is a reversal in fortune and it takes him a moment to digest it. Finally, he asks, ‘Trouble? You mean this business with the hand?’
‘For a start,’ I say. ‘And there is the False Nero. You know he is still on the run.’
Marcellus nods.
‘A dissident senator could make much of such a story,’ I continue. ‘But the incident could be turned to our favour. Cerialis was victorious. We would like your support, rather than your dissent. On this and any other issue.’
As the offer begins to sink in, Marcellus’s serpentine lips tighten into the echo of a smile. He says, ‘I will consider your offer,’ but I know he has already accepted.
I stand up. Secundus does the same.
‘You have until this time tomorrow to decide.’
On our way out, I keep my eyes in front of me, avoiding even a glance at the bruised, choleric girl in the corner.
*
Secundus and I make our way through the dark streets of Rome, quickly marching down the slope of the Esquiline Hill, escorted by a dozen Praetorians and just as many slaves. Torches light up the deserted streets. As we near the bottom of the hill, we spot Virgilius and a group of Praetorians waiting for us where the road levels out.
‘You’re up late,’ I say, ‘well past your bedtime.’
Virgilius doesn’t answer; his face is grave.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘I will take you.’
We follow Virgilius south, toward the Capitoline Hill. At night, it looks like a mountain of black shadow rising up from the city’s centre. At its peak, the Temple of Jupiter’s domed roof of bronze looks a silver-green in the moonlight. We round the Temple of Caster, in to the forum, to the foot of the Capitoline.
The southern side of the hill is a sheer rock, straight up and down, like a palisade. Directly above is the Tarpeian Rock, a ledge ten storeys above the forum. During the republic, those guilty of treason would be thrown from it to their death. Under the principate, however, it has fallen out of fashion. Capital punishment, especially under the Julio-Claudians, was administered in more creative ways.
A cluster of Praetorians at the foot of the hill part as we get closer, revealing a mound of linen – no, not linen. A body.
Secundus and I look up in unison, imagining the man’s fall. Then we look down. The man’s arms are spread out, like he’s been crucified; and his left leg is bent and twisted in the wrong direction. He seems deflated after his fall, like he’s missing half of what made him substantial, a tent with the poles removed. His skull has spilt open in the back, and a mess of red gore has spilled out onto the road. His face is bloodied and swollen. Despite his disfigurement, the man is familiar. I know him, though I cannot quite place him.
‘You’ll note he has both his hands,’ Virgilius says. ‘Which could be good news or bad, depending on how you look at it.’
Virgilius means this man’s death was not related to the hand Cleopatra dragged into the forum – not directly at least.
I notice half of the corpse’s left index finger is missing. The wound is old though; the tissue well healed.
Secundus has his hand to his mouth. For a moment, I wonder whether he will retch. But he swallows back whatever was bothering him and asks, ‘Who is he?’
‘I had a hunch.’ Virgilius kneels and starts to pull up the man’s tunic. ‘And I think this proves it correct.’
Virgilius points at the man’s exposed crotch. ‘One cock. Zero balls.’
‘They could have been crushed in the fall,’ Secundus says.
‘You can see the scar,’ Virgilius pushes the corpses’ member to the side. ‘It’s an old scar. This man was cut, long ago.’
‘Halotus,’ I say.
‘Ah, the eunuch,’ Secundus says. ‘I’d thought he had a procuratorship somewhere. Asia, maybe.’
‘He’s been back in Rome for a week or so,’ I say. ‘He’d been trying to meet with me, but I hadn’t had time. Or the desire.’
Secundus scratches his beard. His shock has faded and he is once again the academic. ‘It’s a serious thing,’ he says, ‘to kill a procurator. The eunuch was universally despised; even Caesar did not like him. But still, one cannot kill a man vested with Caesar’s power. It’s like an attack on the Emperor himself.’
Virgilius inspects the body, pressing and patting, looking for more evidence on how he died, when we hear an odd sound, like the crinkle of paper. Virgilius looks up at us, his eyebrow raised. He presses the man’s torso until he pushes on the right hip and hears the sound again. He takes a small dagger and cuts a hole in Halotus’s tunic and pulls out a roll of papyrus. He stands and unrolls it. The page is filled with strange writing, letters I’ve never seen before. Nearly half of the page is stained with the eunuch’s blood.
‘That’s not Latin, is it?’ Virgilius asks quizzically.
‘No,’ Secundus says. ‘Nor is it Greek.’ He points at the paper. ‘May I?’
Virgilius nods and hands it to Secundus.
‘If I had to hazard a guess,’ Secundus says, ‘I’d say it was German. Which particular dialect, I’ve no idea.’
‘Can you
translate it?’ I ask.
‘Possibly,’ Secundus says.
I look around us, confirming none of the other Praetorians can hear our discussion.
‘Secundus is right,’ I say. ‘An attack on the procurator is akin to an attack on the Emperor. And with Plautius still missing . . .’
I have been denying it for too long. It is time I admit the state of affairs.
‘. . . we are at war. There is a concerted effort at work, aimed at undermining the Emperor. We must assume the ultimate aim is to seize the throne. Until we know who the traitors are, we must minimise the damage.’ I point at Halotus’s corpse and, to Virgilius, say, ‘Have this cleaned up. For now, the name of the man who died does not go beyond the three of us. Understand?’
Secundus and Virgilius nod in agreement.
‘What will we do, Titus?’ Secundus asks.
‘We will find the men who did this,’ I say, ‘and we will bring them to justice.’
IX
The List
A.D. 68
MARCUS
2 September, afternoon
City jail IV, Rome
‘No. No, no, no, no.’
It’s wrong. Everything I do is wrong.
‘You’ve missed its other leg,’ Doryphorus says. ‘Otherwise, it’s just a “P”.’
Doryphorus is standing over my shoulder. His finger is pointing at my ‘R’ – the ‘R’ I’ve messed up. Again. I’m holding a wax tablet and a stick, whittled and smoothed. I’ve pressed lines into the wax to make my ‘R’ but I guess it’s just a ‘P’ right now. My bum hurts from sitting so long. I’ve never had to sit so much before.
‘Draw its other leg,’ he says. He’s puffing air like a bull again. I get scared when he does this. I can’t think very well. All I do is clam up and wait till it’s over.
‘Come on,’ he says again. ‘Draw the other leg.’
He grabs my hand and forces me to draw a sideways line from the middle of the letter, down and away.
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