‘He was not below the great Doryphorus?’ Spiculus asks.
Doryphorus sighs. ‘He was not the pick of the litter, if that is what you are asking. It was more to our advantage, though. He was grateful for the attention. He paid me back with information.’
Spiculus laughs.
‘According to the assistant secretary, Halotus works very closely with Marcellus.’
‘Does he?’ I ask.
‘There is more,’ Doryphorus says. ‘Marcellus intends to visit Rhodes next month.’
‘That is good news,’ Spiculus says. ‘Halotus will likely accompany him.’
‘Where the devil is Marcus?’ I ask, annoyed.
‘I will find him,’ Spiculus says.
Spiculus leaves. Doryphorus continues his story.
MARCUS
1 September, sunset
The shore, the island of Rhodes
Orestes and I make our way to the water. We skip rocks to pass the time. Turquoise waves lap the shore.
‘What did you learn today?’ he asks.
‘Nothing really.’
Orestes is short – shorter than me – with black eyes, black scruffy hair, and cheekbones that jut out like little hills. He doesn’t go to school because his father can’t afford it, and because he has to help with their flock. Orestes is poor (Nero calls him a pleb’s pleb) but I still think he’s lucky. His father doesn’t tell him what to do or what to think or which famous general to measure himself against. Orestes can do what he wants once he’s finished his chores. I met him when I was hiking through the hills behind our home. He and his father (who looks exactly like him but with more wrinkles and eyebrows twice as thick) were herding their flock up a hill. They were kind and they let me pet their sheep, so I started to go every day after school and help them.
I like spending time with Orestes because he’s not like the rich, mean kids in Musonius’s class – kids I’m nothing like because I’m not actually rich; I’m only pretend rich. I’m always afraid someone will find out I’m a slave and then I’ll be laughed at or maybe even put on a cross and crucified. (Sometimes I dream Master Creon finds me and drags me back to his home and I have to carry urns of piss for the rest of my life.) But if Orestes found out I’m a slave, I wouldn’t care and neither would he, because he’s the son of a shepherd, and that isn’t much better than being a slave.
I pick up a rock.
‘Will you tell me about Alexander again?’ he asks.
Orestes is my age, but I know more than him, a lot more. Sometimes I tell him about things I learned in school. He likes to hear about Alexander the Great most of all.
I throw the rock – spinning it with my wrist – and it bounces once, twice, three times, before sinking through the water. Plop. As I bend down for another rock, I start to tell Orestes about Alexander in Persia.
‘Where’s Persia?’ he asks.
I look for the sun, which is close to setting, and then point in the opposite direction. ‘That way, over the sea and across Asia.’
Orestes’s mouth opens up. He has more questions, but he can’t figure which to ask, or which ones not to, so he won’t sound stupid.
‘Well, well –’ someone is behind us ‘– if it isn’t the Marcus and his lover.’
We turn to see three boys on the crest of the hill, Peleus and two boys that follow him everywhere. Peleus is the largest boy in our class and everyone is afraid of him.
Peleus scrambles down to the rocky shore. His friends follow. To Orestes, he says, ‘Hello there. Does Marcus give you what you like? Does he suck your cock?’
The other boys laugh. Peleus picks up a rock and throws it at me. I duck just in time. Then all four boys – Peleus and his friends – pick up rocks and start throwing them at me. Orestes stands in between and a rock hits him in the face. He bends down and I can see blood drip to the rocky shore.
Peleus and his friends run over and grab Orestes. They hold his arms behind his back. Peleus grabs his collar and, with his other hand, raises his fist.
‘Come on, Marcus,’ Peleus says. ‘Come save your lover.’
I don’t move. I feel frozen to the shore.
‘What’s happening here?’
Spiculus is on the crest of the hill. As he scrambles down, Peleus and his friends run away.
Before he leaves, Peleus smiles at me. A big, gloating, I-know-you’re-a-coward smile.
Shame burns my skin like fire. I can’t look Orestes in the eye.
NERO
21 September, vesper
The home of Lucius Ulpius Traianus, the island of Rhodes
Finally, after years of waiting, the proconsul comes to Rhodes. Six days pass before we are invited to dinner. The richest and most important residents (by Rhodian standards, not Roman) are invited. Senators mainly, one or two knights, Commagenian royalty (embarrassingly deposed and transient), and a Parthian ambassador. The proconsul’s presence has the island’s inhabitants buzzing – they are excited, but there is an edge to it. Rhodes, when compared with Rome or Alexandria, is sleepy and provincial. So with the proconsul and his retinue – soldiers and attendants and staff numbering in the hundreds – the island feels overrun. The city is jammed with people and the markets have been laid to waste, as all supplies are diverted to the proconsular residence, a complex of white stone near the shore, which stands empty three hundred and sixty days of the year.
Marcellus has not left the residence since arriving, though his soldiers and freedmen walk through the city, day and night, leaving a swaggering path of entitled destruction as they go. I wonder if my retinue acted as badly when I travelled abroad. Actually, in truth, I know they did. I simply didn’t care. How was I to know that one day I would be a mere citizen, fearful of falling victim to such behaviour?
With Halotus behind doors, we have waited and hoped for an invitation to dinner, for an excuse to get close enough and learn the answers we need. The arrival of the proconsul and his staff coincided with the disappearance of a man, a shepherd or farmer, something in that vein. He has been missing for two nights so far. Whether this is a sign of something sinister, we do not know.
The invitation to dinner came two days before the dinner itself. The late delivery means we were probably late additions, after more palatable guests dropped out.
We are all on edge as dinner approaches. Last night, I dreamt of men in golden masks drinking the blood of a shepherd. (In my dreams I still have my eyes.) When the deed was done and the men faded into the black of night, I went to the shepherd and turned the body over, rolling it face up in the freshly tilled dirt, and found the body belonged to Marcus – or he had the face I’ve given to Marcus in my dreams: soil black hair, green eyes, a hard chin and a gentle smile. But the corpse wasn’t smiling; it was open-mouthed, with his tongue lolling between his teeth.
The dream is fresh in my mind the day we are to attend Marcellus’s dinner. Marcus asks to help look for the missing shepherd. ‘Most of the town is going,’ he said. ‘We are going to walk through the woods and along the shore from here to the next town. Please.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘absolutely not. You know what’s at stake tonight.’
‘You won’t even let me come to the dinner.’
‘You’re not invited. What am I to do about that? But we need you here in case anything happens.’
‘Please!’
I tell him no and he runs off in a huff.
‘Leave him,’ Doryphorus says. ‘He is still upset over the encounter by the beach. He will obey.’
*
We arrive at the residence in the eighth hour. The smell of roasting mint-drenched peacock greets us at the door. The air, as it has been all week, is cool, but when we enter the house the radiance of a hundred lamps envelops us, as though we are stepping into the sun.
Tonight, Doryphorus and Spiculus are my faceless attendants. Doryphorus takes my arm and leads me about the room. Spiculus – if he is sticking to the plan – slowly and inconspicuously loses himself in
the building. He will find a place to hide and, when the party is over and all the guests have gone home and the residence is quiet, he will abduct the man I wish to speak to.
The dinner goes well enough, though I find I am not as important as I thought. I am relegated to the second table, along with two knights and the Parthian ambassador. The conversation is fine. I try to create controversy but the men are bland enough that they simply accept whatever strange notion I present as genuine fact. Doryphorus (once again in his Persian disguise) held up well when the Parthian ambassador questioned him. He gave a believable tale of leaving Parthia and finding himself in the employ of a Roman. It was entertaining, believable, brief – everything it needed to be.
Marcellus and Halotus sit at the main table. It’s strange, Halotus’ rise in fortune. I wonder what he has on Marcellus. In my court, he wouldn’t have dreamt of sitting with senators. He was an Imperial freedman, yes, but a taster, nothing more. I try to listen to their conversation, to get a sense of their relationship. Is Marcellus anything more than Halotus’ patron?
Dinner ends. No one notices Spiculus’s absence as we leave. We go home and wait. Marcus is not up. Doryphorus thinks about waking him, saying he should be awake in case we need him, but I tell him to leave him be. ‘Let him have his rest.’
We sit in the atrium. Doryphorus reads Homer aloud to pass the time. It is well after midnight when my ex-gladiator returns.
‘Everything is ready,’ he says.
‘You didn’t experience any trouble?’ Doryphorus asks.
‘None,’ Spiculus says. ‘I waited in his bedroom, hidden behind a curtain. When he returned, I subdued him, gagged him and dragged him out the window. The house was quiet, anyway, very quiet.’ Spiculus grabs my arm. ‘Come, I will take you to the man you have been dying to question.’
*
Spiculus leads us to the outskirts of town, to an old, abandoned hut we purchased months ago, sitting at the base of a hill, far beyond prying ears. The windows have been boarded up as a precaution.
Doryphorus leads me into the shack. I don’t hear anything, which strikes me as odd. You would think a man recently abducted would struggle and yell for help. But the room is as quiet as a temple.
‘Is he awake?’ I ask.
Doryphorus whispers in my ear. ‘He is awake. He seems at ease. Maybe he knows his time is up.’
‘Remove his gag,’ I say.
There is a brief rustling, then: ‘Is it you?’ The voice is cruel and easy. I picture Halotus’ light blue, wolf-like eyes, his thin lips, his sneer. ‘You won’t believe me,’ he says, ‘but I had my suspicions at dinner.’
‘What gave me away?’
‘The frown you had when you were told you wouldn’t be seated at the head table. It was the frown of a spoilt child. I can’t count how many times I saw it in the past.’
‘Well spotted,’ I say, ‘though you didn’t do much with the conclusion, did you?’
‘Perhaps.’
I can hear the smile in Halotus’s voice. For the man who tasted my food every night, he has always possessed such inexplicable confidence.
‘You are going to answer my questions, Halotus.’
‘I had no role in your fall.’
‘No? What of Torcus?’
There is a brief pause, then: ‘You know the name, do you? Not altogether ignorant, I see. It is nothing. It is a dalliance.’
‘It is a perversion.’
‘Why? Because we murder man rather than beast. How is it different than the soldier? Or the Emperor?’
‘Is that what you tell yourself? Is that how you justify your actions?’
He sighs like a mother exasperated with her child. ‘Torcus had no hand in your fall; nor did I. It was a group of ambitious soldiers who wanted Galba’s favour. They bribed your chamberlain, Epaphroditus. He let them into your bedroom.’
He speaks half-truths to convince me of a greater lie. The truth of it all is difficult to parse.
‘Epaphroditus may be involved, but I know you were as well,’ I say. ‘You were working with Nymphidius and his centurion, Terentius. But they didn’t stick to the plan. They didn’t bring your man to the Praetorian camp and have him proclaimed emperor. I have your angry letter to Nymphidius complaining and vowing revenge.’
My bluff works. The eunuch doesn’t deny authoring the letter we stole from Nymphidius. It feels good to have finally confirmed my suspicion.
He says, ‘You are bursting with information, aren’t you? Yes, we had a man chosen for the principate, but then Nymphidius – for whatever reason – double-crossed us. There’s a lesson there: never trust the son of a concubine. But it’s water under the bridge now. Nymphidius is gone. As are you, technically speaking . . . so tell me, Nero: how does it feel to know so many of the men you trusted jumped at the chance to bring you down?’
I shrug, trying to match his indifference. ‘It has kept me busy,’ I say. ‘Was Marcellus the man you sought to put on my throne?’
‘You should ask him yourself. He is but a short ride away.’
‘Were Nymphidius and Terentius members of Torcus?’
‘Those two? No, they had a different vice. They were soldiers.’ He laughs. ‘Do you know they are practising tonight?’
‘Who is?’
‘Why, the adherents, of course.’
I am silent. Is this another half-truth? Or a lie?
‘They found two boys today . . .’
My heart, my lungs, my very flesh – every part of me ceases up.
‘. . . you know one of them. You claim to be his uncle, which I seriously doubt, seeing as you are an only child.’
His self-assurance now makes sense. He knew since I walked in the door. He knew that Marcus was taken.
‘Where is he?’ I demand. ‘Where have they taken him?’
‘Release me,’ Halotus says. I can hear the smile in his voice.
But then he is screaming. Spiculus (I presume) has applied pressure to compel him to speak. He has pulled his hair back and applied a blade to his neck; or he has broken a finger. I have to control myself, and Spiculus, or we will lose our only hope of knowing where Marcus is.
‘Take his finger,’ I say. ‘The smallest.’
Halotus screams again, this time with blood-thinning vigour; and then he is moaning and sucking in deep breaths.
‘Where is he?’ My voice – which is all I have – is sharpened steel.
Silence.
‘Another finger,’ I say to Spiculus.
‘No,’ Halotus pants.
‘Tell me now, at this very moment, where they’ve taken the boy, or Spiculus will take each finger, then your cock, then your eyes. There will be no second chance.’
Halotus names a valley we know, beyond the forest, a mile or two east. Before he is finished, Spiculus is through the door. I can hear it swing open and clatter against the wall. Doryphorus and I are right behind him, leaving nine-fingered Halotus, bleeding and panting for air.
MARCUS
21 September, first torch
The forest, the island of Rhodes
All I can smell is horse. They’ve tied my ankles together and my wrists behind my back and thrown me over the side of a grey horse. My face is pressed against the animal’s hot, hairy flesh. It smells of mouldy hay and sweat. I think Orestes is beside me, but I’m not certain. All I can see is the horse’s furry shoulder and, out of the corner of my eye, torches lighting up the night.
People are walking beside me, in front and behind. I can hear their steps through the tall grass, but they aren’t talking. I don’t think I’d be as scared if they were talking.
I want to scream for help and hope that Spiculus or Nero can hear me. I want to scream because I’m scared and angry and I want to be away from here right now. But they’ve tied a gag around my mouth and the horse’s back is digging into my stomach, sucking out my breath.
We walk and walk and walk, and my head gets woozy from the horse’s rollicking steps.
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I don’t know why they’ve taken me or what they plan to do with me. All I know is that I don’t want to die – not now that life is so much better than it used to be. Before I used to worry every day about Master beating me, or Giton thinking up some humiliation to put me through, or Mistress scolding me. But since I met Nero life has been so much better. I’ve learned how to read and how to write, how to speak Greek and I’m learning Persian. I’ve learned about the poets (the good ones and the bad). I’ve learned philosophy and mathematics. I’ve eaten oysters and drank Falernian wine. I’ve lived in Alexandria, the best city in the world. I’ve gone sailing and hunting. I’ve diced with bandits and found buried treasure.
I don’t want to die. I want to live so badly that I start to cry. I cry so hard I start to whimper like a little girl. Nero would be disappointed. ‘You must be courageous in death as well as in life. It matters how one dies.’ But I can’t help it.
When the horse finally stops walking, they pull me off it and drag me into a clearing in the trees and drop me on the grass. In the middle of the clearing is a large, flat-topped boulder. It looks like an altar. Beside it is a man dressed all in black. The other men or women, ten or so, are dressed in dark red, hooded cloaks. Beyond their hoods, each wears a mask, like an actor would wear, but made of gold.
Another person is dragged and dropped beside me. Orestes. I try to talk but there’s a gag in my mouth and all that comes out is a harried mumble.
We’re dragged to a spot beside the altar. The man in black looms over us. He starts to speak in a tongue I’ve never heard before. The red-cloaked priests move into a semi-circle around the altar. They begin to chant softly in the same language. It sounds like the hissing of snakes.
Two red priests grab Orestes and pull him up on to his knees: one grabs his shoulders, the other his head. Orestes’s hands are still tied behind his back. His eyes are wide with terror.
The man in black moves forward. A knife is in his hand. One of the men in red, the one holding Orestes’s head, grabs his jaw and forces his mouth open.
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