David

by Barbaree Deposed

  ‘As I see it,’ I say, ‘we have three threads to pull. Cassius, Lepida and Tullinus.’

  Virgilius leans back in his chair, nodding. ‘Cassius was banished to Sardinia. We can send someone to find him, but that will take time. Lepida is here in Rome. Do we arrest her?’

  Lepida, Nero’s former mistress and ex-wife to Iulus, one of two men I put to death in Baiae last December. Lepida, who always seems on the periphery of tragedy, but never quite implicated herself.

  ‘No. Not yet. She either isn’t involved or, judging by how she played Nero, she is too smart to say anything she shouldn’t. Better not to give away what we know. Not yet. For now, we wait.’

  ‘Well, Tullinus is of no help.’ Virgilius says. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘He is?’ Now that Virgilius mentions him, I’m not sure I know much of Tullinus. He wasn’t particularly important or influential. I’m not sure I ever met the man.

  ‘He was Marcellus’s nephew,’ Virgilius says. ‘He was with his uncle in Asia when he died, years ago.’

  ‘How is it you know so much about Tullinus?’

  Virgilius shrugs. ‘His freedman lost money to me in a dice game. He ran off to Asia with his master before paying me back. I never saw the cheat again.’

  *

  Priests – thirty or so, blood-red cloaks, heads bowed and hooded – stream out of the temple and out into the forum. I work my way through the crowd and casually match stride with Marcellus.

  ‘Good morning, Marcellus.’

  ‘Eh?’ Because of his hood, in order to set eyes on me, Marcellus has to turn not only his head, but his shoulders as well. ‘Oh, Titus.’ He stares at my priestly cloak. ‘I didn’t recognise you out of your armour. You hardly look the prince.’

  I bite my tongue: I knew I’d have to put up with his snide comments in order to get the information I want.

  ‘I wanted to ask you of your nephew, Tullinus.’

  Marcellus stops walking. He bends forward, squinting his reptilian eyes, as though I’m a page he can’t quite make out in the morning’s pallid grey light.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tullinus, your nephew.’

  ‘What of him?’

  ‘I wish to know how he died.’

  Marcellus’s bottom lip curdles. ‘He drowned. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Where did he drown? How?’

  Marcellus sighs. ‘He was on my staff when I was proconsul of Asia. When we were visiting Rhodes he got very drunk. He washed up on the shore the next morning. Now will you tell me why you wish to know how some lowly nephew of mine died six years ago?’

  ‘What do you know of the trouble he was in under Nero? When Cassius was banished from Italy.’

  Marcellus sneers; he waves his hand. ‘That? He was manipulated by a pretty but very sick woman. Lepida. He didn’t tell me more than that. I guessed the rest. As could you, if you took the time.’

  ‘What do you know of Torcus?’

  Marcellus’ expression doesn’t change. He shrugs. ‘Is that a place or a person? Stop!’ He holds up his hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve never heard of it. Or him. Are we done?’

  I nod and Marcellus trudges off.

  *

  Virgilius meets me on my walk back to the palace. ‘Any luck?’ he asks.

  ‘Tullinus drowned. That’s all he would say.’

  ‘Do you think he knows more?’

  ‘Yes, but I am distrustful by nature.’

  ‘And Lepida?’ Virgilius asks.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘So we are at an impasse.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’

  *

  Antonia visits in the afternoon. It is the first time we have shared a bed since Cerialis’s ovation. I had been reluctant to continue after Plautius’s miraculous return. I’d thought it was one thing when Plautius was missing and likely dead, but another when he was alive, within the city limits. I’d refused to see her for several days. But today I sent word, asking her to visit me discreetly. I’m not sure what changed. Maybe I truly care for her and I can’t stay away. Maybe I just needed the distraction.

  When we’re finished, Antonia, still naked save for the pins in her hair and a gold bracelet on her wrist, pours herself a cup of wine and walks to my desk. She playfully traces her finger along the wood. Then she sits down and starts examining the papers I have left spread out.

  Through the window, we can hear the call of a starling.

  ‘Plautius is safe and sound,’ she says, ‘yet you’re still hard at work I see?’

  I roll on to my side and prop myself up with my elbow. ‘There is more happening than the public knows. Men continue to plot to bring down Caesar.’

  ‘Yes, but that is always the case.’

  I snort sarcastically in reply. I think of Father’s ten years in power beating back ambitious men. I think of Nero’s letters and the plots he constantly faced. ‘True. Very true.’

  She holds up the bloodstained scroll found on Halotus. She tips her head to the side trying to make out the Germanic writing. ‘Honestly, Titus . . . the things you collect.’

  ‘All of it is important.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, sceptically. ‘What importance does this gibberish hold?’

  ‘That is evidence of a cult,’ I say, ‘German in origin, which has infected Rome.’

  She drops the scroll like it’s on fire. ‘I see. Well, that does sound important.’ She picks up another piece of paper. ‘But what’s this? How can this be important?’

  She is holding the note Ptolemy transcribed on Vettius, the knight who went missing in Pompeii; the note he put to paper after jotting down Epaphroditus’s information that night at Ulpius’ dinner party. Antonia reads it aloud. ‘Name: Gaius Vettius; Class: Roman knight; Occupation: gardener; Specialty: fruit trees, particularly fig and pear; Missing: 12 December.’ She looks up from the paper. ‘Honestly, Titus, what do you care of some knight in Pompeii?’

  I explain this was the man her husband told me of, how he was interrogated and then went missing.

  Antonia laughs. ‘Proven wrong once again. I shall think twice before questioning prefect Titus’s methods.’ She considers Ptolemy’s note again. ‘You know they say that’s how Livia poisoned Augustus.’

  I reach for my tunic. Absently, I ask, ‘What is?’

  ‘Figs. Some said Livia wanted her husband, Augustus, out of the way to make way for her son, Tiberius. To avoid Augustus’s tasters, she painted the palace figs with poison. He picked the poisoned fruit straight from the tree. It’s nonsense, of course. Augustus died of natural causes. But,’ she says with a sigh, ‘that’s what some say.’

  All of a sudden the floor feels as though it has given way and I am falling. My stomach churns. How did I miss this?

  I throw on my tunic and scream for Ptolemy. Antonia, still naked, runs to the bed and hides under the covers.

  ‘What is it, Titus?’ she asks. ‘What’s wrong?’

  When Ptolemy arrives he diverts his eyes away from Antonia.

  ‘Who is chief gardener of the palace?’

  Ptolemy stares blankly back at me. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Find out who and take me to him. And do this quietly, Ptolemy. No one is to know of my interest in the gardens. Do you understand?’

  Ptolemy returns half an hour later and takes me and Virgilius to a man called One-Eyed Luke (though he has both eyes), a Jewish freedman who oversees the palace gardens.

  ‘How many of the palace gardens have fig trees?’

  ‘Four,’ he says confidently. He explains there are different gardeners for each type of tree in each garden.

  ‘Are you in charge of hiring these gardeners?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he says. ‘Sometimes I’m told who will do what.’

  ‘When are the fig trees picked?’

  ‘The harvest was thrown by the cold snap. We expect the next harvest this month.’

  Luck. Luck is the only reason Caesar is still alive.

 
To Ptolemy, I say, ‘No one is to pick, let alone eat, any of the fruit. Go. Find four slaves, each to guard one of the gardens.’

  Virgilius says, ‘If word gets out you know about the figs we lose any advantage we may have. And this palace has more leaks than a Thracian ship.’

  I nod at this and to Ptolemy say, ‘Have the slaves guard the trees during the day. Once the sun sets and the palace is asleep, we will have them picked clean and the fruit taken to a separate location, away from the palace. Pick four people you trust. Tell no one else.’

  When it is just Virgilius and me, he asks. ‘What do you think happened? Vettius was originally chosen to poison the trees and he wasn’t up for it, so they killed him and found someone else?’

  ‘We shall see.’

  ‘What do you plan to do?’ Virgilius asks.

  ‘Find the tree that’s been poisoned. If we find the tree we can find the man who poisoned it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Taste each one, I suppose.’

  XXI

  Dido’s Gift

  A.D. 69

  MARCUS

  2 April, afternoon

  The shores of Carthage, Africa

  Each step the mule takes I think will be its last. It’s old and slow and so skinny that I can see every single one of its ribs beneath its hide. Every so often it will pause and the creaking wheels of our cart will stop and I think the mule won’t take another step. But then Spiculus will whisper in its ear and pat its rear and it starts again.

  Doryphorus, Nero and I are on the cart. Spiculus is walking beside the mule, holding its reins, encouraging it along. Beside us is a cliff. At the bottom, after a long, long drop, is the sea, crashing against the rocky shore. The back of my neck is sizzling under the African sun.

  Doryphorus looks up from a roll of paper. To Spiculus, he says, ‘Water.’

  ‘No,’ Spiculus says, looking back with his one good eye. ‘We need to make sure we have enough for the trip back as well.’

  Doryphorus swears under his breath.

  I’m glad Spiculus is with us. I didn’t know he was coming until we were leaving Sardinia. I was happy when Nero told me because Spiculus had started teaching me things Nero couldn’t: how to throw a punch, track a boar, and bait a hook; which knot to use and why; how to sharpen a blade and start a fire. And he’s nicer than Doryphorus. He doesn’t get mad and scream at me. His voice is quiet (even though he’s as big as a bull), and he doesn’t mind telling me things twice or three times.

  The day we left Sardinia the sky was grey and I thought a storm would come, but none did. All of the bandits saw us off. As we rowed out to sea, we could see a fight starting. Spiculus said it was to see who’d replace him as their leader. We didn’t get to see who won.

  We took a rowboat to a ship anchored in the deeper water, which was owned by merchants Spiculus knew. He said they owed him a favour, so they took us to Carthage for free. On the ride to Carthage, Doryphorus and Spiculus talked about money. We were running low and they wondered where we would get more. But Nero said there wasn’t anything to worry about. He said we’d be rich soon enough.

  Once we got to Carthage, we only had enough money to buy a mule, a cart, a skin of water and three loafs of stale bread. We didn’t even have enough coin to buy a night at an inn, so we left right away, following Nero’s instructions.

  We’ve been on the road for hours. I’m sweaty and tired and hungry. And thirsty. I’m the thirstiest I’ve ever been. I want more water but Spiculus says we need to be careful.

  ‘What if we run out of water?’ I ask.

  Nero is sitting beside me on the cart. He tries to ruffle my hair but misses and nearly pokes me in the eye. ‘We won’t, Marcus,’ he says. ‘We won’t.’

  I remember what Doryphorus said in Sardinia. How Nero was mad and would be the death of us.

  ‘How do you know?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe a story would help,’ Spiculus says. ‘To occupy the boy’s mind.’

  Nero nods. ‘Yes, a wonderful idea. Why don’t I tell you the story of where we are going.’ He scratches his copper beard, which is now very long. ‘Where to start? I’ve already told you about Queen Dido.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, nodding.

  ‘How she was buried with a massive treasure, with gold and silver and jewels, buried along the shores of Carthage?’

  I keep nodding, then I remember he can’t see me nod, so I say, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what I haven’t told you is that when I was emperor, a knight visited me. He said he knew the location of Dido’s treasure. But he needed the resources of an emperor to dig it up. He had been a student in Alexandria, like you will be, when he stumbled upon his first clue. He was in the great library reading a play by Menander, The Man from Ephesus. The knight said it was his favourite play and he knew it by heart. He was midway through when he happened upon text that didn’t belong. “The words were wrong,” he told me, “nothing but gibberish.” At first he was furious the book was ruined. But then, the oddity began to eat at him. He would return to the library every day after school and look at that damned page, hoping the answer would leap out and grab him by the shoulders. For months he read and reread the page. Then, one day, it occurred to him, the answer may be in the correct version of the text. So he found another copy of the play and compared the two. In the correct version, the chorus mused on Dido’s lost treasure. This passage was missing in the altered version of the play. The knight pondered this – he thought about it for years until it occurred to him: the altered page is a cipher. He was sure of it. So he began decoding the cipher. He worked on it for years, first in his nights after school, and then, after he was finished his studies, in the office of the magistrate. After five years he decoded the first line. It read, “Follow these directions to the grave of Dido, Queen of Carthage.” This, as you can imagine, spurred the man on. Decode the entire cipher and he’d find Dido’s grave and the fortune she was buried with. The man continued to live a full life. He married, had five children, and became a prominent citizen. But he remained obsessed with decoding the cipher. Every night he plodded along, working letter by letter. And after twenty-five, he finally cracked it. Or so he thought.

  ‘The cipher translated into directions from Carthage to the shore. He took his three sons and together they visited the site. He thought the fortune was buried under a mountain. He took one look at the mound of earth and thought, I’ll never do it by myself. I’ll need the help of a god. So he hired a ship and sailed to me, the nearest thing to a god on earth. He told me his story and I thought, why not? It was a whim, but of whims Caesar has an infinite supply. I gave him all the men and supplies he asked for. Month after month, the mountain was carted off, one pail of dirt at a time. But when it was all said and done, there was no treasure to speak of. There was nothing but a massive hole in the ground. It was all too much for the knight. He’d spent too many years stewing over his obsession to finally learn he’d been mistaken. Plus, he now owed me quite a bit of money – Caesar’s help is never free. So, on the day I recalled my men from Carthage, he opened his veins.

  ‘I learned of the knight’s failure when I was in Greece. Several months later, when I’d finally returned to Rome, I found a chest of the knight’s belongings waiting for me in my chamber – not his personal effects (I suppose those went to his wife), but the chest held the altered Menander play, and the knight’s cipher. I had an aptitude for puzzles (as Caesar I’d had an aptitude for most things), so I sat down and gave the cipher a try. For months I kept coming back to it, feeling as though something was off . . . And something was off. Now, Marcus, it is true that Fortune is fickle, but this is especially true for idiots. The knight had made one small error that had ruined the entire translation; one little mistake – one letter missed – and the whole endeavour was ruined. The man had missed the “w” in west, and this small, stupid error sent him in the wrong direction from the start. He’d no hope of finding the treasure. But we do.’

  ‘B
efore they took my eyes, I spent so many months learning the cipher and decoding that particular section of the altered play, that I memorised all the information we need. I knew where to go the moment we landed in Carthage. And this is where we are headed now.’

  ‘So you’ll be rich?’ I ask.

  ‘We,’ Nero says. This time he finds my hair and ruffles it. ‘We will be rich.’

  *

  Spiculus pulls on the mule’s reins and we come a stop. He looks at the paper he’s holding and then the shore. ‘This should be it.’

  The shore looks as it has all day: a big drop down into the water. There’s no city or anything for miles.

  Doryphorus starts to curse. ‘We’re going to die poor and hungry,’ he says, ‘by the fucking seaside.’

  ‘What is it?’ Nero says. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Spiculus starts pacing the shore, looking about intently.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Doryphorus is angry. He jumps off the wagon. ‘We are going to die of poverty. Or thirst. That’s what’s wrong.’

  Spiculus looks out over the edge of the cliff. He tosses a rock and a moment later we can hear a plop as it hits the sea.

  ‘Calm down, Doryphorus,’ Nero says. ‘Calm down. Will someone explain to me where we are? Where is the treasure?’

  Doryphorus starts swearing and kicking sand. He picks up a rock and throws it.

  Spiculus starts to take off his clothes. Doryphorus stops swearing and watches Spiculus.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Nero asks.

  Once Spiculus is naked he walks to the cliff, stands with his toes over the edge, and then dives head first. He disappears from view.

  ‘What’s happening, for the love of Jove?’ Nero says.

  ‘Spiculus jumped,’ I say.

  ‘Good,’ Nero says. ‘I’m glad someone is trying something other than cursing.’

  Doryphorus and I walk to edge and look over. We don’t see Spiculus, just the sea.

  After a while, too long for any man to hold his breath, I ask Nero if he’s dead. Nero says, ‘I hope not.’

  And then we hear a huge splash below. We look over the edge and watch as Spiculus swims to the shore and carefully climbs the cliff face. When he’s up and over the ledge and we see his hands are empty, Doryphorus starts cursing again.