'This will be your new charge. Your duties begin immediately.'
The interior was pitch black and filled with an animal smell like no other he had experienced. At first, Rufus didn't dare move. He sensed rather than saw the beast whose living space he now shared; a vast still presence identified only by the sound of easy breathing. Without warning, a powerful, python-like appendage swung out of the darkness and, with incredible tenderness, touched him on the forehead. He looked up into two of the most intelligent brown eyes he had ever seen.
It was not until he opened the main doors that Rufus appreciated the true scale of the animal. As broad in the chest as a four-wheeled cart, the Emperor's elephant towered over him, her vast bulk blocking out the sun. Her? Yes. Something about the way she stood and in the way she greeted him convinced him this was a female. She was large enough to strike terror in the bravest of men, but Rufus did not feel threatened. Fate had led him here. He had nothing to fear.
The elephant was tethered in her pen by a heavy chain wrapped round her rear left leg. It was just long enough to give her access to a large basket of hay hanging from one of the roof beams of the barn. A stone cistern filled with water stood in one corner.
He studied her closely. She had thick, wrinkled skin of a uniform, dull grey-brown, covered in stiff bristles. From the sides of her massive head, two huge ears flapped like giant fans. Long, yellowing tusks jutted from either side of a small mouth. His experience with other animals told him she was in good condition. The reason soon became apparent.
From behind a partition at the rear of the building emerged a skeleton-thin slave with skin so black it was almost purple. He carried a basket of rotting fruit, the scent of which quickly attracted the elephant's attention.
The dark man grinned, showing a mouth containing a few broken teeth. He offered the basket to the elephant. She ran the end of her trunk delicately over the individual fruits within, and, having made her selection, curled it like a hand round a bruised red apple and with infinite skill swung it into her mouth. The black slave placed the basket carefully in front of his charge, and he and Rufus sat in comfortable silence until she had finished everything inside. The tip of the trunk made one last circle round the bottom of the empty basket with a snuffling sound, then picked it up and threw it accurately at Rufus's companion, who caught it and shook his head.
'No more today. It is enough,' he said in a Latin so heavily accented that Rufus could barely make out the words.
Rufus learned that the little man was Varro, from an African province whose name made him none the wiser concerning its whereabouts. He had helped the beast's handler look after her until the man had died. Since then, Varro had been left to cope with the animal on his own, and had taken to hiding away whenever one of the Emperor's servants came near.
'And the elephant, what is her name?' Rufus asked.
'She is called Bersheba,' said the little man. 'It is a great name in her country.'
'Yes,' agreed Rufus solemnly. 'It is a great name.'
Bersheba lifted her trunk and sniffed the air, at the same time emitting a grunt from deep in her chest. When he heard her Varro stared at Rufus, eyes wide, and scuttled behind the partition to the rear of the barn.
The rhythmic clink of armour told Rufus he had visitors. He took a deep breath and stepped out into the sunlight. To meet his Emperor.
XIII
The young man who looked at him curiously from between twin armed guards could have been any other pampered aristocrat from a provincial city. Caligula, still a month short of his twenty-seventh birthday, had ruled Rome for almost two years. Dressed in a simple white toga with a single broad purple stripe, he was at least six inches taller than Rufus. He had the heavy chest and broad shoulders of a trained athlete, but his head was perched on a neck that seemed unnaturally long and his complexion had a sickly sheen. There was a softness, too, to his features, that was somehow childlike. Had Rufus not witnessed the horrors and heard the many stories, he might have been lulled into believing this smiling young man was showing a paternal interest in his latest acquisition. But he had witnessed, and he had heard, and it made him aware, aware that the smile never touched the dull, translucent blue eyes. And that the interest was that of a collector studying his latest specimen. Or of an executioner measuring his victim for a shroud.
'Is this our animal trainer? He looks too young.' The voice that had ordered a thousand executions should have dripped venom and clouded the air with sulphur. Instead, the Emperor's tone was conversational.
'I gave Sohaemus half of Arabia and he gave me an elephant. What do I want with an elephant? It's not even a war elephant – the brute's been kept as a pet. I can't put it into the arena. Look what happened when Pompey did it. It ruined his reputation. What do you do with an elephant?'
The unblinking eyes never left Rufus and he realized he was expected to answer. He opened his mouth, his mind blank, but, before he could speak, the Emperor answered his own question with a short laugh.
'You teach it to do tricks, of course. I have plenty of people who can do tricks, but somehow the tricks always lose their attraction, and you have to find new people to do new tricks. Then the same thing happens and suddenly you find you've run out of people who can make you laugh.
'The same happens with animals,' he continued, eyes fixed wistfully on some distant spot. 'Dogs, bears, lions and horses. I've seen every trick they can do, but they all become boring in the end and you have to get rid of them.' The pale eyes re-focused on Rufus. 'But an elephant? Now an elephant that could do tricks would be impressive, don't you think?' He ran his eyes appreciatively over Bersheba's huge bulk. 'Can you teach an elephant to do tricks, boy? They think you're a sorcerer, you know, those people you work with. That old fart of an owner didn't want to part with you. Might have lost his head for trying to keep you. Didn't kill him, though. You can't just kill everybody. Had to give him a contract to supply animals to the Maximus. So you'd better be able to teach an elephant tricks. You have a month.' He gave a curt nod and walked away towards the palace, his guards in his wake.
The Emperor had been gone for more than a minute before Rufus realized he had not even looked to see if either of the two men in Praetorian uniforms was Cupido.
XIV
Fortunately for Varro, and for Rufus, the elephant's handler had been able to impart the basic elements of his knowledge before his illness had reached its inevitable end. Bersheba, it turned out, was a patient creature of regular habits, who was normally happy to oblige when asked to perform any task she considered reasonable.
'Ask,' Varro repeated. 'Always you must ask. Not order. This elephant, she does not like to be ordered. She can be a very stubborn creature if you don't treat her with respect.'
But it soon became clear that no amount of asking was going to fulfil the Emperor's command that she be taught the kinds of tricks that would amuse a man who had already seen everything amusing his world could offer.
The animals Rufus had trained for the arena had been his to mould from infancy. He slept with them, played with them and was able to exert an element of control by giving or withholding their food. Once this discipline had been established, he found it relatively easy to teach them by the simple, if exhausting, method of constant repetition, and building from straightforward exercises to more complicated tricks and circus acts. But Bersheba was already trained. After a fashion.
When commanded, or rather asked, she would walk, halt, and bend on one knee to allow her handler and perhaps one other to mount; and, if she decided they were worthy, she would carry them where they wished. Rufus found he could direct her to the left or right by sharp slaps of the hand on her massive shoulders.
Varro also revealed, and Rufus felt this might offer him some kind of hope, that in her own country Bersheba had been used to haul or push large loads. Tricks? No, she had never been taught any tricks. Who would want to teach an elephant tricks? Varro made it clear he thought Rufus mad even to suggest suc
h a thing. Tricks!
Rufus already felt he had reached a certain level of understanding with Bersheba. The way she looked at him with her small, knowing eyes convinced him that, if he could only find some way of communicating with her, she would be happy to do anything he was able to ask.
But how to ask?
After careful consideration, he decided he had only two choices, and one of these was so unthinkable it was not a choice at all. The quickest way would be to use force: repeated commands, accompanied by repeated use of the goad until pain or frustration made the animal carry out what she had been directed to do. But he would not raise a hand, never mind a staff, to such a magnificent, intelligent creature.
The other course was gentle persuasion, and gentle persuasion took time. But if gentle persuasion was his only option, so be it.
The only question was how to persuade an elephant to extend a repertoire with which she seemed perfectly content. She would walk, but she wouldn't do anything as undignified as trot. She might be persuaded to 'fetch' something edible, but she would inevitably devour whatever she was fetching before she returned to her handler. She would pick up objects with her versatile trunk, including a giggling Varro, but never when Rufus wanted her to. He knew there was nothing intentional about her reluctance and occasionally he felt guilty about the demands he was making. If she detected even the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice she would look at him reproachfully with her brown eyes, which made him guiltier still.
Varro watched all this with a bemused smile, evidently convinced that all Romans were sun-addled. Sometimes when he grew bored he would throw one of the sweet little apples he hoarded for Bersheba and she would catch it dexterously in her trunk and swing it into her small mouth. One day, when Rufus was making yet another futile attempt to train her to roll over, he missed his throw and the apple landed on the roof of the barn, rolling gently down to catch on the very edge of the shingle.
Bersheba gave a groan of frustration. Ignoring Rufus, she ambled off towards the barn. When she reached the building she stopped for a moment, eyeing the apple, which was just visible on the edge of the roof. Her trunk curled out, questing delicately, but the fruit was just beyond her reach. While Rufus was wondering what she would do, she raised herself to her full height on her back legs, took two cautious steps forward and scooped up her prize.
Rufus laughed in astonishment. That was it. He would teach her to walk on her hind legs for the Emperor. Maybe he could even teach her to dance. Dogs trained for the circus sometimes danced, didn't they?
Five minutes later he was perched precariously on the peak of the roof just above the barn door, with one leg on either side. He held on to the tarred shingles with one hand while in the other he grasped a four-foot-long pole. At the end of the pole was a basket filled with the bruised apples Bersheba found so succulent. The first attempt almost ended in disaster. He hung the basket out just beyond the roof and shouted 'Apple', which brought her lumbering forward. But this time there was no gentle halt or cautious step. Rufus felt the whole building shudder as she hit it and used her front legs to climb to her full height. The timbers below him creaked ominously and he heard a distinct crack. He realized she was going to demolish the barn if he didn't act quickly.
'Here,' he shouted desperately, and threw the basket behind her.
For a moment he thought she wasn't going to move and that the barn would collapse and take him with it, but, just in time, she dropped to her feet and began snuffling for the dropped fruit.
'Too close,' Varro said helpfully. 'Apples too close.'
Rufus glared at him and climbed down for another basket.
It was nightfall when he finally gave up. By trying a longer pole, he could get her to rise on her hind legs, but nothing would make her walk. He was hoarse from repeating the word apple over and over again. Sometimes there were apples in the basket, sometimes not. If an apple was available, she would rear for it, but if she felt she had been cheated she lumbered off in a sulk and wouldn't repeat the trick for half an hour.
The days to the Emperor's deadline melted away, and Rufus descended into gloom, and from gloom to something approaching despair.
Dawn on the fateful day found him with little optimism. His only hope was that Caligula had forgotten him. Great emperors surely had more to do with their time than concern themselves with minor slaves and their amusing – or not – elephants.
But, if the worst happened, he was determined Caligula should see Bersheba at her finest. It would also put the elephant on her best behaviour, for she enjoyed nothing more than having her thick, dirtcaked hide scrubbed down with the roughest materials available.
The two men led the elephant out into the soft light of the morning. They then filled a large wooden tub with enough water to soak the huge animal all over her body, using leather buckets Varro had obtained for the purpose. When the dust covering her was the consistency of thick mud it was time to bring out the home-made brushes the late trainer had devised. Fashioned of thick twigs tied firmly to the end of long branches, they allowed them to reach any part of Bersheba's body and loosen the grime, so she could then have a second sluicing with what was left of the water.
Soon, Rufus was so absorbed in his work and the snorting Bersheba's enjoyment of the soaking and scrubbing that he had almost forgotten its purpose. But his idyll was rudely shattered when he heard an unnaturally loud voice behind him.
He rested his aching arms and turned, sweat dripping from his chin, to see Caligula approaching across the grass, accompanied by a smaller figure, who walked with a pronounced limp. They were backlit by the sun as it rose behind the trees and Rufus was unable to recognize the second man.
'I told you this would be worth rising early for, Claudius, you lazy old drunk. Did you think I'd let you forget your promise and leave you lying with that little slut you sneaked away with when you thought I wasn't looking?'
The braying tones, the stained clothes and the way the Emperor's head lolled on his long neck told Rufus that even if this Claudius had been to bed, Caligula himself had not yet called a halt to the night's revels.
'Boy! You, boy. Let us see what the beast can do. It had better be goo –'
The roar of an elephant whose morning toilet had been rudely interrupted obliterated the words.
Caligula blinked and rocked back on his heels. Then, with a loud laugh, he slapped his companion on the back so hard that the man was almost knocked off his feet.
'Nearly scared the shit out of you, eh? You were never very brave, Uncle Claudius. 'S why old Tiberius sent you away. Lucky I brought you back. Tricks, boy,' he said in a voice now with a worrying edge to it. 'I brought Senator Claudius here to see some tricks. And because he's got ears as big as an elephant's, haven't you, Claudius?'
The Emperor stood behind his companion, took a remarkably prominent earlobe in each hand and pulled outwards.
'See, just like an elephant. Uncle Claudius hasn't had a lot of luck in his life, have you, Uncle? Runt of the litter. Talks l-l-l-l-like that and is bloody useless in every way. Still, he's family,' he said, rubbing his hand affectionately through the older man's thinning hair. 'Tricks, now. We want to see some elephant tricks.'
Rufus felt something curl over his shoulder and pull impatiently at his arm. He said nervously: 'If the Emperor could wait a few moments longer, I –'
He was interrupted by Caligula's snarl. 'I don't wait, boy.'
Heart sinking, Rufus bowed. His only hope was to put Bersheba through her paces and pray that Caligula – at least he was still drunk – was somehow impressed. He was about to turn back towards the elephant when a tremendous jet of water shot past his shoulder. It was a mighty effort, an entire trunkful propelled with all the power of Bersheba's prodigious lungs. It took the shocked Claudius full in the chest and face, soaking him to the skin and rocking him back on his heels, and was instantly followed by a squeal of outraged indignation.
Rufus froze. It couldn't have happened. Not that.
He was a dead man.
The two men, Emperor and uncle, could have been part of one of the marble tableaux that adorned Caligula's palace. They stood, stockstill, pale-faced, eyes wide in shock.
Then Caligula laughed.
It started deep in his belly, a pulsating unstoppable rumbling that surged into his chest and finally erupted in a series of hysterical whoops. The Emperor held his stomach with one hand, helpless to stop the relentless guffaws, while with the other he pointed at the hapless Claudius.
The older man's wispy grey hair was plastered across his pink scalp and his sodden toga dripped a steady stream of water on to the ground at his feet. His lips moved, but the words he searched for eluded him and his pale eyes stared at Rufus with a look of pure bewilderment.
By the time the Emperor's laughter subsided to a series of breathless sobs, Rufus's instinct for self-preservation had reasserted itself. He strode across to Bersheba and whispered the order to mount. She took a single step forward, bent one giant knee until it touched the ground, and bowed her head forward. But Rufus didn't use her leg to vault on to her back as he normally would. Instead, he stood motionless beside Bersheba until the Emperor recovered and looked in their direction. Then he gave a deep bow.
To Caligula it appeared as if both animal and slave were making their obeisance to him. He clapped his hands, crying: 'Wonderful. What a trick. I haven't seen anything that made me truly laugh for years. Now I shall bring all my friends to see the elephant and it can greet them as it greeted Uncle Claudius. Come, Claudius, let's get back and get you dried out,' he said, taking the still-dripping senator by the arm. 'But you're not even smiling? You must see the funny side, surely. A senator of Rome looking like a drowned rabbit. Ha, ha, ha . . .'
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