'No, no,' Caligula said almost soothingly. 'Relax. Slave, bring my friend some wine.'
Rufus realized that everyone else in the room was lounging on one elbow on the couches, which were placed within easy reach of the main table so that their occupants could help themselves to the banquet. Awkwardly, he attempted to copy the nonchalant posture of the others, while a slave approached the table and placed a large drinking cup in front of him.
The Emperor raised his own goblet in a silent toast directed at Rufus, the cold eyes daring him to drink. Rufus reached out a shaking hand to lift the cup, which was filled with blood-red wine that had a strong fruity odour. The others supped deeply, but he ensured that not a drop passed his lips.
Caligula was now chatting animatedly with a sickly looking man of similar age who had the couch to his right, and Rufus was able to snatch a covert glance around the room, although he was careful not to meet the eye of any of his dining companions.
There appeared to be two distinct groups round the table. One was made up of men who hung on the Emperor's every word, laughed uproariously at his jokes and matched him drink for drink. The other group was quieter, drank less, and picked at their food. These were all couples of the equestrian class, seated in pairs. They were not all young, but the women had a well-cultivated beauty regardless of age. Rufus noted that their faces wore the same hopeless expression he had last observed on the condemned prisoners he had seen beneath the arena.
Then his eyes locked on those of Claudius.
The Emperor's uncle lay on a couch at the far end of the table. He looked back at Rufus from beneath hooded lids as a dribble of wine escaped the corner of his mouth and ran lazily down the contours of his chin to stain an already unredeemable toga. He appeared quite drunk, but a gleam in an eye that should have been dull indicated he was probably less so than he seemed. Rufus was surprised when the old man raised his goblet in a mock salute.
The food that was served would have fed a family of the poorer sort for a month. First came the small fare: exotic concoctions of the inner parts of birds and beasts, including their livers, tongues and brains; sea urchins, mussels of three distinct varieties, two kinds of sea snails, oysters and other sorts of shellfish; and a plate of roasted thrushes on asparagus. Then the greater: birds of all sizes, including chickens and pigeons, cooked golden brown (he also recognized a swan and a peacock because they had been decorated with their natural livery); meats of various shades and textures, which certainly included a sow's udder and the entire head of a wild boar; and an array of small bowls which held delicately sliced and chopped vegetables.
With every course, the wine flowed faster and the noise grew louder at the end of the table where Caligula held court. Rufus caught snatches of conversation from the Emperor, who was still engaged in an intense discussion with the man on the couch at his right side.
'Scribonius Proculus and his brother are becoming more than irritants, Protogenes, they are dangerous. I want them dealt with. Put them on the little list in your book.'
Protogenes, thin to the point of emaciation, with a sallow, pockmarked complexion, nodded agreement. He had hooded eyes that reminded Rufus of a snake and he felt a thrill of fear as they turned to focus on him. He knew instantly that Protogenes was aware the Emperor's words had been overheard and was equally certain that the man was deciding whether he was worth killing. The unblinking stare held his for a second before moving on. It seemed not.
By now, Rufus had recognized that he was as much part of the entertainment as the Illyrian dancing girls and the fire-eating jugglers who performed after the main courses. A pungently scented diversion to keep Caligula's guests the way he wanted them – off balance and nervous.
As much a part of the entertainment as Uncle Claudius.
During the early part of the banquet the Emperor had ignored the old senator, happy to trade conversation and banter with the sycophants who lounged close by him. But as the evening continued, Caligula began to taunt his uncle about his stutter and his appearance. When he tired of this verbal barrage, the Emperor began to throw pieces of food at the reclining figure, who could only blink as he was hit by slices of meat and half-eaten legs of chicken and, at one point, only just missed by a plate of fricasseed flamingo tongues. Still not satisfied, the Emperor encouraged his guests to follow his example, and, even though the attack was somewhat half-hearted, Claudius could eventually take no more. With a vacant smile he slowly closed his eyes and slipped back on the couch feigning stupor.
Caligula and his friends were by now finding that the fluency and ingenuity of their earlier conversation had deserted them. The Emperor, his face wreathed in a lazy grin, let his gaze range over his guests until it fell on a striking, raven-haired young woman who reclined, never raising her glance above table height, next to a crophaired knight who was a little older than she, who Rufus assumed must be her husband. From that moment, Caligula's eyes never left her.
As the last of the food was cleared away, the Emperor rose from his couch. Rufus felt the guests around him tense and the guards along the wall seemed to stand a little straighter. Caligula swayed slightly, then walked carefully round the table until he was directly behind the dark girl, who, feeling his presence, began to whimper quietly behind the curtain of her long hair. At her side, her husband was deathly still.
'You will please me tonight, Cornelia,' Caligula said softly, his hand reaching out to caress the white skin of the woman's shoulder.
The young aristocrat beside her jerked violently and made as if to rise.
'You may join us if you wish, Calpurnius,' the Emperor offered. 'No? Perhaps I should insist. Never mind, I shall decide later. Come, Cornelia.'
The last words were an unmistakable command. Still weeping, the dark-haired woman stood up on shaking legs and, with Caligula's hand on her shoulder, walked with him from the room.
The mood of the remaining guests changed in an instant from unbearable tension to ecstatic release. A grey-faced young senator vomited on the marble floor, while nearby another aristocrat appeared to be having a seizure. The women at the table reacted in different ways. One or two seemed to be frozen where they lay, eyes fixed on something only they could see. The blonde matron who occupied the couch next to Rufus ran wailing from the room, pursued by her husband. From the corner of his eye, Rufus noticed Claudius, forgotten by all, raise his head warily.
A tap on the shoulder made Rufus jump and he looked up into a familiar grave face beneath a Praetorian helmet. Cupido.
XVII
He opened his mouth to speak, but the gladiator cut him off with a shake of the head.
'Fun's over, boy. Time to go home.'
A second Praetorian moved to join him as they turned from the room into a wide corridor, but Cupido waved him away.
'I think I can handle this one alone, Decimus, if I can stand the stink.'
The other man, a broad-faced giant, laughed and said something unintelligible.
'Cupido!' Rufus burst out when they reached the park. 'I –'
'Not here,' the young German hissed. 'Don't say anything until we reach the barn, and then only when I have checked.'
Rufus began to lead the way to the room at the rear of the elephant stall, but Cupido stopped him.
'More secure beside the beast, I think. Speak quietly; the Emperor has listeners everywhere and they are not always who you think they are. In future, visit me at my quarters. When I am off duty I have a room in the palace of Tiberius. I will leave word that you are welcome there.'
Rufus was a little confused by Cupido's excessive caution, but he grinned with the pleasure of seeing the young gladiator again.
'Same old Cupido, always taking the best from life. Forgive me, my friend, but just to be in your presence again fills my heart, even in this dismal place. When they arrested you, I thought you were dead.'
The gladiator raised a sardonic eyebrow and for a moment he truly was the same old Cupido. Yet Rufus could see the months in the palace had changed h
is friend. The grey eyes contained an embittered weariness that had not been there previously. It was as if the sombre black tunic, which was the symbol of the Emperor's authority, had somehow worked its darkness into his spirit. Combined with the gleaming armour of his sculpted breastplate and greaves, it gave him a dangerous quality Rufus had not seen even on the hardest days in the arena.
Bersheba grunted beside them, and Rufus's face creased into a grin.
'I forget my manners. Mighty Bersheba, this is my friend Cupido, the greatest gladiator of his age, philosopher, wit and now in his most unlikely guise, unless I miss my guess, as First Spear of the Tungrian Cohort of the Emperor's Praetorian Guard.'
Cupido stepped forward and Bersheba's trunk swung out of the darkness to take his scent. She gave a 'harrumph' from deep in her chest.
'You are honoured, Cupido; you have been accepted into Bersheba's inner circle . . . just as you have into the Emperor's.'
The last words were part statement, but with enough of a question in them for Cupido to remove his iron helmet and place it on the hay beside him as he sat with his back to the barn wall. He looked up at Rufus, his face a mask of shadows and hollows.
'You say you thought I was dead? I was certain of it. I don't have much time, but I will try to explain how all this' – he waved a hand that took in Bersheba, Rufus and himself – 'came about.'
In a steady voice he confirmed what Narcissus had suspected, but there was more. The guards had taken Cupido to a dungeon beneath the palace of Caligula, deep in the bowels of the Palatine, where they stripped him of everything he owned. It was a place known only to the Emperor's closest allies, his torturers, and, for a few mercifully fleeting hours, his enemies.
'It was a dreadful place,' Cupido confessed grimly, 'where the smell of burning flesh invaded the air I breathed, and the screams of the helpless tortured my ears. They took me past the chamber of the hot irons and sharp instruments and I had to turn my eyes away. I have seen suffering in many forms, Rufus, but what I glimpsed there still haunts my dreams.'
He was taken from his cell on the evening of the third day.
'They dragged me before the Emperor naked and coated in my own ordure, so my humiliation would compound my fear. But I called on my father's shade for courage and I stood before him, proud as on any day since coming to manhood, and bade him do as he willed. I expected to feel the kiss of a blade at any moment, but he did not give the order. Instead, he raised himself from his golden throne and stood before me, close as you are now, never flinching at my stink. Then, I swear by the old gods, his mind entered mine and he knew me. Knew me past, present and future.
'At first, I felt more abused than if his torturers had returned me to the dungeons, but he has power, Rufus, great power, and he used it to overwhelm me.'
Cupido swallowed hard and shook his head in wonder.
'How long I was in his thrall I don't know. I felt dizzy with hunger, or perhaps the water they gave me was drugged. Eventually he returned to his throne and ordered his guards to bathe and clothe me. The clothes were these clothes, the uniform of the Praetorian Guard. When I stood before him in them, he returned to me my long sword and asked me for my oath. I gave him it.' His head dropped and he whispered the words again, as if he could barely believe their meaning. 'I gave him it.'
Rufus listened first with horror, then with disbelief. 'It cannot be. The Cupido I know could not pledge his loyalty to that man. He is a monster. I have witnessed it.'
Cupido snorted. 'Witnessed it? You have seen nothing. In this place and among these people you are a child, and you should pray it stays so. You don't know what he is capable of and if you did it would eat your mind and chill your guts. That is what I came here to tell you. You must find a way back to Fronto. It is not as unlikely as it seems. The Emperor's moods are fickle. He will soon tire of you and your elephant.'
Rufus shook his head. 'No. I will not leave you. Teach me to fight as you do and together we can survive. You are right, you must have been drugged. You owe Caligula nothing. An oath administered without honour is an oath in name only.'
Cupido laughed gently. 'The way I fight cannot be taught, Rufus, though I will train you to a standard where you will at least be able to defend yourself when the time comes. But you are wrong: an oath is an oath as long as the oath-sayer believes it. In any case, I owe him more than my loyalty.'
'What?'
'My sister.'
Hours later Rufus sat in the darkness, still stunned by the gladiator's revelation.
Cupido had told of a day of fire and blood when the auxiliary cavalrymen of a Roman army cut down his fellow tribesmen like rows of summer corn and the booted feet of the legions smashed them into the mud of the fields where they made their futile last stand.
'My father was the last to fall. He fought them to his final breath and when the swords chopped him down, he died still shouting his war cry. I was young and had been left behind to defend our village and the women and children. My father said it was an honour, but I think he understood what would happen. When the Romans came I wanted to take my men out to fight, but the village elders knew the Roman way. If we resisted they would have killed everything. Man, woman and child. Horse, dog and pig. Nothing would have been left to mark the passing of my tribe save dry bones and old stories. Still,' his voice grew thick with pride, 'my sister Ilde, only twelve years old, stood on the walls and screamed her defiance until I carried her to our mother.'
He smiled his sad smile. 'The old men would have been better to let me fight. Those who were not fit for the mines and the quarries were put to the sword where they stood. The rest were taken as slaves. I can still feel the weight of the chains on my wrists and smell the woodsmoke from the burning huts. The last I saw of Ilde was in the slave market. I tried to talk to her – to explain – but she would not meet my eyes. I knew she despised me for not having the courage to die with my people.'
Then, three months after his last fight in the arena, and four long years since he had been taken into captivity, Caligula had called him to an audience.
'He told me: "I have a gift for my most faithful servant, Cupido of the Guard, who holds my life in his hands." A girl walked into the room, a tall girl with hair the colour of spun gold and the proud bearing of a princess. At first I thought his gift was a concubine to share my bed – he has rewarded others in this way – but then I looked into the girl's eyes and I knew it was Ilde. My lost sister.'
Rufus could not say when it happened, but there came a moment in Cupido's story when the realization struck him like a blow from Bersheba's trunk. He knew.
'Now she is an honoured member of the palace staff. She is maid to the lady Milonia, the Emperor's wife, and charged with the safekeeping of his daughter. You would know her as Aemilia.'
Aemilia.
XVIII
He lay back in the great golden throne that dominated the Receiving Room and wondered why he didn't feel happy. Was it too much to ask? After all, he was the leader of the most powerful Empire the world had ever known. He looked over the throng of appellants gathered at the far end of the room. Did they realize how difficult it was?
His surveyors were at work planning the canal across the Ionian isthmus which would be his gift to Greece. He had rebuilt the walls and the temples of Syracuse. Soon there would be a new city among the high peaks that would become the economic driving force of Cisalpine Gaul.
But it was not enough. It was never enough.
They were all waiting for him, but this was important. He was beginning to understand.
How could he have all he had and do what he did and still feel empty?
Limits. It was all about limits.
Everything had a limit. You could have all the pleasure in the world, but unless someone was sharing your pleasure it was never enough. You could eat the most exotic foods the Empire had to offer and drink the finest wines, but eventually they all began to taste the same. Men had their limits. There was a limit to how fast they
could run in the games, or how high they could jump. There was a limit to how much pain a man could suffer before he died; he had tested that limit often.
Even love had its limits. Drusilla loved him, he knew, and Milonia had proved her love a thousand times, but was their love everlasting? He doubted it. He had thought of testing the limits of their love in his torture chamber, but he knew that if he did he'd lose them. And who else could he trust?
None of the men in this room. Look at them, every one wearing a mask, trying to hide their fear or their hatred or their greed. Any one of them could be part of the plots against him. Perhaps he should have them all killed? It would make life so much simpler. Clearer.
He looked towards the centurion in charge of the Guard. It was the Germans today. He liked the Germans because they hated the Italians.
The soldier came at his call.
'If I wished it, would you kill every man in this room?' he said quietly.
For an instant, the centurion's eyes went wide, but the discipline that had helped him survive a hundred combats quickly took over. His hand went to his sword.
'Of course, Caesar. At your order!'
Should he? He looked over the faces. Senators and knights. Praetors and tribunes. Men who called themselves his friends and others who did not try to hide their scorn. The Judaean who had been boring him for a week about the problems of his benighted province. It would cause complications. He had another thought.
'If I ordered it, would you kill me?'
The soldier froze. What answer would he give to this unanswerable question?
He watched the man's face grow paler as the seconds passed. Tiny beads of sweat broke out upon his brow as he wrestled with the terrible implications of his next words. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish, which was amusing.
Eventually, he became bored. 'You are dismissed. We will discuss this further another time.'
He picked at the platter of food by the side of the throne. Really, it was all so tedious. Had he tasted everything there was to taste? He let the long list slide through his mind. But there was a gap. Yes, there was one type of flesh he had never tasted. The forbidden flesh. He looked up. It would be interesting, exciting even. Who would it be? The fat one at the back? The athlete fidgeting by the wall? No shortage of choice.
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