He felt himself flying through the air, and for a second he truly believed he had been summoned by the gods, before the flight ended with a bone-rattling crash.
He opened his eyes to see Cupido in a crumpled heap among the straw by the barn door and Bersheba standing over him with her trunk swinging menacingly. There was something in her posture that told him she was preparing to step forward and crush the gladiator beneath her massive pads.
'Easy, girl,' he croaked, massaging his throat. 'Easy.'
He crawled over to the prone body and raised Cupido's head, his hands finding a pronounced lump behind the left ear beneath the golden hair. He looked up to find Livia standing over them, her hands held protectively over her stomach and her eyes wide with fear. Between them, they settled Cupido on the bed and waited.
He opened his eyes two hours later, but it was clear he wasn't aware where he was or how he arrived there. Rufus brought water from the cistern and the gladiator drank it, sitting on the bed. He lifted his head, and the look he gave Rufus was haunted by demons that could not be explained by the events they had witnessed together.
Then, in a voice devoid of emotion, he told them of Caligula's vengeance.
'First they broke the legs of the surviving assassins, so they should be brought low before their Emperor. Not just one break, mind, but smashed up and down with iron bars, so there was no possibility they would ever walk again.
'When this was done and they writhed on the ground below him – for they had brought his throne so he should see the spectacle more clearly – they took the first and hung him from the triangle. He was a young man, well set and handsome . . .' Rufus remembered the scared eyes beneath the hood and wondered if it was the opponent he had faced. 'The Emperor joked he would be favoured by the ladies. Then he ordered Nestor to remove his manhood, since he would have no further need of it. This Nestor did with a single cut of his razor, and the youth's squeals chilled the blood. There were no questions, you understand, for this was mere instruction for those who watched and waited their turn.'
Caligula had discussed the next entertainment with Nestor as the young man bled to death within feet of him.
'When they trussed up the next he was already babbling with terror, and when Nestor placed the instruments before him – the hooks, the shears and the impaling irons – he wailed that he would tell all and they need not put the fire to him. So the clerks took down the names and the dates and all the minutiae of treason. Once he had given all he knew, he thanked the Emperor for his mercy, but the Emperor asked him reasonably how he could be certain this was all, since he had not been tested. Could he not, for instance, have omitted the name of his mother or his sister, out of love and compassion? And the assassin had no answer, for none would do. So they put the hot irons to him anyway, and he expired still listing the names of his loved ones.
'And so it went. Each one gave a dozen names, and a dozen more, and when they ran out of names, the Emperor helpfully suggested other names: the names of aristocrats and knights with land and riches who would give them up to their Emperor to prove their loyalty or to save their lives. When there were no more assassins they brought the first of the men and women they had betrayed, and it went on, and on, and on. All afternoon and into the night they screamed, sometimes one at a time, at the end in twos and threes.
'Only once did the Emperor show compassion, of a kind. When they brought the actress Quintillia to the triangle she was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman in Rome. She was brave – you would be surprised how many of them were brave at first – but Nestor knows his business and in her beauty he saw opportunity. He removed it one piece at a time, and still she did not answer. So he did things which I will not speak of here, and her courage was such that the Emperor wept, and had her taken down. She could not stand, but he knelt by her side and placed eight hundred thousand sesterces in her hand, as if it was enough to buy her beauty back.'
Cupido closed his eyes then and slept. When he rose before dawn to return to his barracks, Rufus accompanied him to the doorway.
'Should we have let him die, Cupido? Think how many lives it would have saved, how much suffering it would have avoided.'
The gladiator's face was hidden in the shadows when he replied, and Rufus could not read his expression.
'If we had let him die it might have saved a thousand lives, Rufus, but not ours, and not Livia's, and not that of the child she carries.'
Rufus thought he had misheard. 'Child?'
'Are you really so blind?'
Rufus shook his head. It could not be. He was too young. He was not ready. He remembered his own childhood, before Fronto and before Cerialis. The beatings and the hunger. What right had he to bring a child into a life of bondage?
Cupido turned into the light and laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Life was much simpler in the arena.'
XXX
When Cupido left, Rufus turned back into the barn and walked past Bersheba to where Livia waited.
'Is it true?' he asked.
'Yes,' she admitted, surprised he knew without being told. 'I have consulted old Galla, who understands these things. My time will be in the spring. We have much to do.'
Her eyes shone and she took his hand and led him to their bed, where they made love for the first time in many nights. When it was over and Livia chattered her plans and hopes for the child, Rufus nuzzled her neck . . . and tried to clear his mind of Aemilia's face.
He attempted to come to terms with his new status, but his mind spun in a demented chariot race of doubts and fears. There was so much to consider, so much he didn't know. Whom could he turn to? Not Cupido, who in his own way was as naïve as Rufus himself in this area. Certainly not Narcissus. There was only one answer.
Fronto.
Cupido arranged the meeting for three evenings later at the warehouse where Rufus usually collected Bersheba's hay. Rufus was loading her cart when the flicker of torchlight on damp cobbles warned him that someone was approaching. It was the animal trader, accompanied by two men who had all the wary reserve and muscle-bound confidence of bodyguards.
Rufus ran forward to take his old friend in his arms, but his pleasure quickly faded. Fronto had changed, and not for the better. It was not only the white of his thinning hair and matted beard, or the deep lines etched in his cheeks, that made him seem older. The bulk that had reminded Rufus so much of a bear had melted away, leaving only the emaciated husk of the man he knew. The hands that held him shook like reeds in a strong wind.
But Fronto still had some of his old spark.
'So this is the reason the Emperor took you away from me,' he said, waving towards Bersheba, who stood placidly in front of the cart. 'If I had a few like her I would not have half the worries I do now. Perhaps he would sell her to me? You could come too, of course. No? No, I don't suppose he would. Never mind, never mind. We'll manage somehow.'
'Is your business going so badly?' Rufus's voice betrayed his concern. 'I was certain you would be a rich man by now.'
'Oh, I am rich enough,' Fronto replied airily. 'But success has brought burdens as well as rewards. Burdens I could never have imagined.'
'Is that why you must be followed everywhere by a pair of beatenup old gladiators? Look at that one. Cupido would squash him as Bersheba would a butterfly.'
'Yes, I suppose he would at that. But even Cupido, with his great talent, was eventually undone by that man.'
'That man?'
'The Emperor. I fear he has turned against me, or more precisely been turned against me. Protogenes has spies everywhere. Everything I touch, every bargain I conclude, is recorded in those two ledgers he always carries around with him.'
Rufus shook his head. 'But that should not concern you. You have always been honest in your dealings.'
'Perhaps, who knows? Did I occasionally take more than a lion was worth, or sell an antelope I knew was injured? Yes, I probably did. But so did everyone else and we all laughed about it together over some wine. But n
ow . . .'
'Now?'
Fronto's voice dropped and Rufus could see he was struggling to avoid looking behind him like a bad actor in one of the interminable dramas at Pompey's theatre.
'Now I am dealing with Caligula's creatures, Protogenes and his like. They stink of corruption as a bull buffalo stinks in the heat and the smell lingers, Rufus. Whenever I am near them I return home and scrub myself until my body bleeds, but I can still smell that stink in my nostrils. I can smell it now and it sickens me.
'The Emperor has an insatiable appetite for the games. He can watch a hundred – no, five hundred – animals die, and he is still not satisfied. And who must replace those animals, and more like them? Fronto.' He slapped his hand to his chest.
'You understand how difficult it is to find good stock these days? But I, Fronto, always manage to find a source, and, because I have the Emperor's sanction, the suppliers have no choice but to sell them to me. It is a power I have never known before. If I had had it ten years ago I would be the richest man in Rome.'
'But now?' Rufus repeated.
'Now every bargain I make must be guaranteed by Protogenes, or one of his slaves. The money goes direct from the Emperor's coffers to the seller and I get my cut later.'
'So Protogenes is cheating you?'
'Surprisingly, no,' Fronto admitted. 'I receive what I am owed and sometimes a little more, a bonus perhaps, or more likely to buy my silence, although nothing is ever said. But suddenly people avoid me. Old friends will not look me in the eye. I hear whispers. Fronto is a thief. Fronto is a cheat. I have even been threatened, Rufus, threatened for my life, which is why I always have my companions with me these days. I think Protogenes and his gang are cheating the suppliers at one end, and the Emperor at the other. With all the stock that comes across from Africa they must be making a fortune at the expense of my honour.'
Rufus pondered this for a moment. 'But you are the key to their supply; it is in their interests to protect you. They would not threaten you?'
'No, the threats come from the suppliers they have cheated out of hundreds of thousands of sesterces, and who believe I am to blame. But protect me? I don't know. Maybe I have said too much in the wrong company. Complaints. Accusations.'
Oh, what have you done, my old friend, Rufus thought, and how can we get you out of this cesspit?
'The Emperor must know,' he said.
Fronto's eyes opened wide in terror. 'No. No. It cannot be. If Protogenes had the merest hint of suspicion that I was going to denounce him I would be dead before I could catch another breath. Have you not heard how he destroyed Proculus? And Proculus was a senator, not a mere businessman. Protogenes condemned him as a traitor within the very walls of the Curia and the poor man was torn apart by his fellows.'
'Then the denunciation must not come from you,' Rufus said. The statement hung in the air for a moment between them before Fronto realized its true significance.
'I will not allow you to do it,' he said. This was the old Fronto speaking and the command was back in his voice. 'Do you think I would ask you to endanger yourself for me? You were like a son to me, Rufus. I only wish that I had been more like a father to you. But this father's duty I will accept. My son will not die before me, if it is within my power to prevent it.'
Rufus struggled with his emotions, and they stood in silence for a while. At last Fronto said: 'But I forget. It was you who summoned me here. What did you want of me? I would deny you nothing. Your inheritance is still safe.'
Rufus smiled at him. How could he add another burden to the load already carried by this man? 'Oh, it wasn't important. I only wanted to see you again.'
XXXI
Rufus waited for the summons that would bring him the reward he dreaded for his part in the Emperor's deliverance. But if Caligula had noted his presence during the defence of the golden carriage he gave no sign of it or, more likely, regarded it as nothing more than his due. In the meantime, the Emperor filled the cells below the palace to overflowing and the taint of death hanging over the Palatine grew stronger with every passing day.
Rufus and Livia settled into a domestic rhythm which had the child growing in her belly at its centre and irritated her to distraction. He followed her around the house as she cleaned and cooked, offering to do this task or help with that chore, until she screamed at him in frustration. The tension between them in their narrow bed meant Rufus increasingly spent his nights beside Bersheba.
One night he was lying awake, buried in the straw at the rear of the barn, when he heard the rattle of chains. Bersheba gave a sniff that Rufus recognized as a welcome for someone she knew. At first, he feared it was Cupido, whose experience of Caligula's justice at the temple of Julius had created conflicts between duty and honour which made him more and more unpredictable. But the steady voice that reached him from the darkness was not in the German-accented Latin of the gladiator.
Claudius was back.
Rufus lay still as death as the Emperor's uncle addressed his uncritical audience. He was being dangerously indiscreet.
'What has Rome done, that it must destroy itself in this way? Our brightest and our best sent to the axeman and the impaler while the Emperor's jackals compete among themselves to discover who can be the cruellest or the most foul.' He gave a long sigh. 'Everything I have put in place, every stratagem and scheme, threatened by the impetuosity of youth. How many times did I tell them that one opportunity and one only would be granted to bring about that which is so imperative? Yet they throw everything into a hopeless gamble the Emperor has hysterically drowned in blood. Why? Lucius was no fool; he would not have acted without guarantees. But who could have given them? Bassus might have had the means, but would he have been so foolish? Guilty or innocent, it made no difference to his fate, since he died in front of his father's eyes. Asiaticus? No. Our aspirations run parallel: the return of the Republic by peaceful means; rule by democracy, not dictat. Pomponius had the means, but not the motive. Narcissus? Surely not. Yet can even I truly trust Narcissus, who is privy to my most inner thoughts, when he takes those thoughts and uses them to his own advantage at every opportunity? If not Narcissus, who?'
He paused for a moment and Rufus could almost feel the power of his mind picking the conundrum apart a piece at a time.
'Chaerea,' he announced, pleased with his own cleverness. 'Yes, Cassius Chaerea, or more likely someone acting on his behalf. Perhaps his signature on the order to hold back the Praetorians when the assassins attacked was not forged after all. He has become so warped by the Emperor's jibes he has been driven beyond rage to blind hatred. It was he who persuaded Lucius he could attack without fear of retribution. And when the deed was done, who would rise beyond his intelligence and his powers, beyond blood and ability? Who would take the mantle of Caesar and sully it beyond redemption, if it is not sullied beyond it already? Why, Cassius Chaerea, loyal commander of the Guard. And where is he now? Up to his elbows in blood in the place where he is most visible and of most use to his Emperor. Yet even as he performs his duty, he is quaking inside lest the next name screamed from the rack be his own. For he too was betrayed, or why did the German guards fight when they were meant to flee? Only one man was in a position to ensure that outcome, and only one man will profit from it.'
He paused again, and when he resumed it was clear from the change in his voice that he was talking directly now to Bersheba.
'All the unruly strength of your kind lies within you. Yet for all that strength, what are you but an ornament to reflect your master's power? But in times past you were a proven weapon of war, a champion of the battlefield. Be thankful your master has not used you so, or used you worse. He has not bent his mind in that direction thus far, but it may come to it. Unless? What if, by some accident, your might was employed not for but against him? Could even Caesar survive the strength of your caress, or the weight of your body upon his? Think upon this, mighty one: an Empire may depend on it.'
By the time the door closed behi
nd Claudius, Rufus was in a cold sweat. The names he had heard were among the most influential and powerful in Rome. And here was proof of their treason. Proof of Claudius's treason. He wanted to unhear what he had just heard, but no matter how hard he tried it gnawed at his brain. So he did the only thing possible. He put it away in a compartment inside his head where it would stay until it could be used as a bargaining chip – or he felt the bite of the executioner's blade.
With few official duties and a wife who wanted little to do with him, Rufus spent each waking moment of the coming weeks pondering how he could help Fronto. He knew there was only one person he could go to, but could he trust him when even his master did not? There was only one way to find out. He put a white rag on Bersheba's door and the next day set off for the little fountain.
Narcissus was still in the benign mood he had affected since Drusilla's death and it was clear he felt Claudius's patronage placed him above harm from the purges.
'We really must find somewhere else to meet. It stinks here.' He sniffed at Rufus. 'It's not you, so it must be the drains. Have you something for me?'
Rufus mentioned a few things he had heard among the servants, but nothing seemed to interest the Greek. Then he said hesitantly, 'I would like to ask your advice. A friend is in trouble. Fronto. I thought you might be able to help.'
'Mmmmm.' Narcissus let the syllable linger, and stared at Rufus as if seeing him for the first time. 'Fronto is an acquaintance,' he conceded. 'But I have so many acquaintances. Advice? Yes, I can probably provide advice. But help you? Why should I help a slave?'
Rufus thought the answer was self-evident: 'Because I tell you things.'
Narcissus actually laughed. Did Rufus really think the palace gossip he provided was of the least importance? Did he not understand he was merely a minute part of a larger whole? A tiny worker ant who could be crushed underfoot in an instant and not even be remembered, never mind missed.
Caligula Page 20
