Did you want them to find you? asked Horo.
‘In doing that you drew all the soldiers patrolling that area on to you and prevented Vindex from meeting me!’ Fanina replied sharply.
Vindex had already been arrested.
‘How do you know?’
I had seen him go by surrounded by Praetorian Guards bringing him from the Forum, where they had taken him prisoner.
Fanina drew back slightly to scrutinize the dwarf more closely.
‘Why did you not warn me?’
You would have run away from me if I had tried to approach you, and how would I have managed to communicate with you in the dark?
After that had come her flight through the streets and the furious onslaught by the prostitutes of the Subura. Tertius had intervened at the very moment the dwarf had been about to disperse the band of women crazy with anger. Then Horo referred to what had happened in Brazen-beard’s garden and Fanina’s flight.
Her voice broken with emotion, Fanina asked:
‘It was you, wasn’t it, who bore me from the room in which my parents committed suicide and took me to Jupiter’s Flamen’s house?’
Horo nodded and wrote on the tablet:
It was also I ivho put the corpse of a young blond Greek slave, who had died of some sickness, into the tomb in the Field of Evil-doers.
And he added:
After that the only thing I could do for you was to send a detachment of cavalry to block the Aurelian Way and, yesterday, to deal with Kald, whose presence in the region had been pointed out to me by Atia, who is ahoays kept well informed by the local people.
‘You have not mentioned Atia up to now,’ said Fanina. ‘Why was I put under her care? What are Tiberius’s motives in banishing me here?’
She broke off. Horo had drawn the back of his hand sharply across the wax on the tablet, flattening what he had written. He was no longer listening to her, but was hearkening in the direction of the entrance to the temple. He signalled her to be quiet.
From the burial ground, where night had fallen, there came the sound of a horse’s hooves.
Horo raised his incredibly long arms and with his great hand cupped the flame of the wax torch that burned above his head and extinguished it. Now the only torches alight were the two stuck in the gallery wall some thirty paces from them, their yellowish light glowing near the entrance to the temple.
In the darkness Horo slowly stood up, without undue difficulty it seemed, as Atia had predicted when she had assured him that the potions she had given him would soon take effect.
With pounding heart Fanina followed suit and they stood side by side in the darkness, waiting.
The horseman had brought his mount to a halt outside the temple; he was dismounting; then he called, in a deep, rough voice:
‘Atia! Hi! Atia!’
Was this the visitor whose arrival Atia had announced to the dwarf? Fanina suddenly wondered, pressing close to him. Why had she not asked Horo who the visitor was to be? Now it was too late. Horo could not answer her questions any more and the horseman was entering the gallery calling: ‘Atia! Where are you?’
By now he was level with the big black chest and the torchlight fell on him. He was a man of about forty with an angular, brown, heavily-lined face, cut across by the unbroken line of his thick, bushy eyebrows. His hair was close-cropped and he wore a short brown coat. Clasping the handle of the Spanish-style dagger he wore hanging from his belt, he stood, firmly planted on the ground, and looked warily about him.
Horo’s powerful hand clasped Fanina by the arm. She must remain silent and wait without moving.
The horseman had moved forward again and had come upon Atia asleep beside the chest. He bent down and shook her roughly.
‘Hi! Old woman, wake up!’ he ordered.
Had the sleeping-draught she had given Atia been too strong? Fanina stood tense and staring. The old woman muttered dully and moved. With hazy eyes, coming round painfully from the heavy sleep in which Fanina had plunged her, she sat up on her mattress.
‘Are you Atia?’ asked the man.
‘Yes, I’m Atia,’ stammered Atia.
‘Well then, since you are Atia, prepare yourself to receive the visitor you are expecting. My...’
The man seemed to hesitate, as if he were choosing what term to use, then went on:
‘My “master” will be here soon.’
Rubbing her temples, Atia got up wearily with a grimace.
She seemed to find it hard to gather her wits. Then suddenly Fanina saw her repress a violent shudder and cast an agonized glance towards the depths of the passageway where Fanina was standing beside Horo, hidden by the darkness, watching intently. The old woman must have just remembered what had happened at lunchtime, and was looking for Fanina and the dwarf. After the cruel blow Fanina had dealt her in putting her to sleep, she no longer knew what to expect, and her emaciated face mirrored a terror that Fanina herself was beginning to share.
‘Very well,’ Atia managed to say at last, in a voice she could not make steadier. ‘You may go and tell your master that, although I was not expecting him so soon, it will nevertheless be a pleasure to welcome him.’
As she spoke, Atia seemed so wretched, and Horo’s grip on her arm had tightened so much, that Fanina began to hope that the rider would go away and leave them alone for a short while. Something serious, something very serious was afoot, something that had taken Atia by surprise, and, what was much more disquieting to Fanina, something that had also surprised Horo.
The horsemen had not stirred. Inscrutable, stubborn, feet spread wide, and hands clasped on the pommel of his sword, he stood there examining Atia. His voice rose in icy tones:
‘That’s out of the question. My ... “master” gave me orders to arrive here unannounced, and to wait here for him, and to stop anyone I might find here from leaving the place.’
Shoulders thrown back, chest thrust forward, he took a few strides, then swung round:
‘You see, it would be all too easy to prepare a trap for him, now it is known that he is coming. And in his position, my ... “master” has no right to act imprudently.’
Screwing up his eyes and looking towards the back of the gallery, where Fanina and Horo were standing, he asked:
‘Are you alone here?’
‘Quite alone,’ Atia replied hastily.
Fanina had pressed herself up close to Horo. The man could not see them, but what would happen were he to move towards them? And what would happen later, when his ‘master’ came? He must be a man of considerable importance, whose arrival, no doubt expected, but before time as far as the old woman was concerned, might well lead to some kind of disaster.
Horo undoubtedly knew the visitor too. If only he had been able to tell her his name!
Meanwhile the dwarf had let go of Fanina’s arm and was slowly bending down. Holding out her hand towards him in order not to lose him, Fanina realized that he was picking up his leather cloak in which his belongings had been wrapped.
Leaning towards him she whispered: ‘Are you going away?’
Horo straightened suddenly, for the sound of a cavalcade rang out from outside: a score or more of horses, coming towards the temple...
The man standing beside Atia suddenly said harshly: ‘Stay right where you are!’ as he advanced, sword in hand, towards the entrance to the gallery.
Atia stood leaning against the chest, unmoving, but she turned her head towards the far end of the passage, and stared, her eyes hollow and darkly ringed, towards the place where Fanina and the dwarf stood, still invisible to her. The old woman was livid and sweating with fear.
‘Are you really going?’ Fanina asked Horo.
The dwarf took her by the hand and drew her towards the labyrinth.
‘Do you want me to go with you?’
Feeling her way through the dark after Horo, Fanina took a few steps. Then suddenly she stopped.
‘I want to see what happens,’ she whispered.
&
nbsp; Horo’s hand tightened round hers, and he drew her three times towards him, then let her go. What was he trying to convey to her?
Time was running out. If Horo was going off, there must be some overwhelming reason for his doing so. Perhaps his strange behaviour meant that he refused to influence her decision in any way.
‘Leave me here,’ she said. She had decided that she wanted to know what was going on.
Horo gently took Fanina’s hand in his and she felt his lips light on her fingers.
‘May the gods protect you,’ she breathed.
He had gone. Once again, he had accepted his role of genie of the shadows. And he left her free to choose the way she was to go.
Then a thought crossed Fanina’s mind: just like the Emperor — from whose allegiance Fanina had been unable to win him — Horo believed in the prophecies of Mastarna and the Sibylline Books. Like the Emperor, not knowing what might help or hinder the intentions of the gods, the dwarf was letting her move on towards her destiny, retaining only the right to intervene should she be in danger of death.
Whether she wanted it or not, she was still the elect, the instrument of the gods.
She suddenly realized that Horo, well knowing how she hated the Emperor, had taken care not to tell her everything. In fact, it little mattered to Tiberius whether she loved him or hated him, whether she were happy or miserable, rich or poor, envied or despised, a vestal virgin or a courtesan, virtuous or depraved.
Since no one yet knew how she would save Rome, the main thing was to keep her alive.
Cruel, unjust and inhuman, the State and its interests took precedence over everything else.
Fanina felt a twinge of the heart as she realized that, in his blind obedience to her, Horo was in fact obeying his friend, Tiberius.
A clamour arose at the entrance to the gallery. Fanina crept silently back to where she had stood before. There was a group of men standing in the entrance to the temple; soldiers in mufti, like the rider who had preceded them, Fanina thought. Everything pointed to their being soldiers: their close-cropped hair, the severe cut of their clothes, their stiff posture and the way they kept drawing themselves up, their voices and the curt, unadorned phrases they exchanged.
‘Leave me alone with this woman!’
The man who had spoken was draped in a long dark cloak of fine wool. Silence fell immediately, and his companions left the gallery in an orderly fashion, as if on parade.
When the last one had gone, the man in the long dark cloak walked over to where Atia stood, still motionless, defeated, her shoulders bowed, beside the coffer.
The man gradually emerged into the light cast by the torches stuck in the wall.
Her hands clenched over her chest, mouth agape, Fanina watched as slowly his features grew clearer: a dull complexion, very large eyes that slanted up towards the temples, the hard, cruel, narrow jaw of a beast of prey, beneath a greedy mouth, as red as a woman’s. He was a man whom, once seen, one could never forget: Lucius Aelius Sejanus, Tiberius’s all powerful favourite, his partner in his fifth consulship; Sejanus, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard; he who, tomorrow perhaps, would be the master of Rome.
Chapter Nine
‘Pleased to see you, Atia,’ drawled Sejanus, coming to a halt, hand on hip, in front of the old woman.
Still leaning heavily on the big black chest, Atia slowly raised her head. In spite of the distance that lay between them, Fanina could easily follow her every expression, for the flickering torchlight intensified the shadows and highlights of her tormented face.
Atia seemed to be having great difficulty in keeping her eyes open. She was still stupefied by the soporific potion Fanina had given her to drink. In spite of every effort she made, in spite of her acute anxiety, which, in a woman of her nature must have had the effect of increasing her faculties tenfold, she somehow could not manage to master herself. All she wanted to do was to sleep. She replied in a toneless voice, like an echo:
‘Pleased to see you again, Lucius.’
The Prefect of the Praetorian Guard stood, one hip jutting out slightly, his head on one side, and stared at Atia as she spoke. He seemed surprised at the way she was behaving, and slightly disquieted to see her so vague, so far away.
The silence went on and on, and the atmosphere grew imperceptibly more and more tense.
In spite of herself, Fanina clenched her fists. She did not know why these two had met in the half-ruined temple, the strange old woman about whom she knew nothing save that she was in league with Horo, Tiberius’s man, and this formidable personage, possibly the first man of the Empire. Then suddenly a forgotten episode from her painful past sprang to mind. She remembered with extraordinary precision the last dramatic conversation she had had with her father in the parlour of the House of Vestals. Had she not been about to rush to the Forum that day to denounce to the people the plot Sejanus was hatching against the Emperor, to incite him to rise up against the ambitious leader of the Praetorian Guard who was eliminating methodically and pitilessly everyone who might prevent him from attaining absolute power? It all seemed both very far off and very close, just like that other scene that had taken place on the Triumphal Way only a few moments before she caught sight of Vindex for the first time: her face-to-face encounter with this same Sejanus, when he had examined her from head to foot in the most cavalier fashion, undressing her with his eyes, as if she had been a tart available for everyone. So many dramatic episodes had befallen her since then, that Fanina no longer recognized herself, neither in that innocent vestal, embarrassed and faint with shame and helpless fury, beneath the impudent glance of a profligate, nor in the young woman, carried away at the thought of the historic role she burned to play, and even more by the heady taste of suicide that an act of despair held for her when she thought she had lost Vindex.
Since then, she had found him again, then lost him, found him and lost him yet again. She had lost her parents. She had lost Hemonia. She had lost Vibidia. She had lost her faith in Tiberius. She had lost her faith in the mission she was predestined to fulfil. She had lost everything that mattered to her, and the pure love she felt for Vindex was stained, stained by a doubt of which she could not purge it.
Finally, Sejanus broke the silence. His hands clasped behind his back, he walked slowly in front of the old woman, without taking his eyes off her.
‘You don’t look at all well, my dear Atia,’ he said sharply.
Atia stiffened.
‘It’s nothing serious, Lucius,’ she replied in a voice she seemed unable to rid of its huskiness. ‘It’s only the inevitable after-effects of a violent attack of marsh fever.’
She let go of the chest and, staggering on her wobbly legs, but standing very erect, she went on:
‘It was certainly not to inquire after my wretched health that the illustrious Aelius Sejanus came to see me. What can I do for you, Lucius?’
Sejanus glanced swiftly about him, then, stepping closer to the old woman, he half spoke, half whispered:
‘First I wanted to congratulate you on the accuracy of the predictions you made me and also to thank you for the sacrifices you offered, which assured me of the protection of the gods. You are truly the worthy successor of the soothsayers and priests of our ancient Etruscan people. You foretold that I would become Consul this year, and I have. You foretold that Tiberius would gradually relinquish his power and hand it over to me ...’
A fleeting smile lit up his face.
‘The old fox has shown himself more subtle than that. He gives with one hand and takes back with the other. He flatters, he reprimands. But taking things all in all, whatever he was not prepared to give me, I took for myself, since the offices he refused to entrust to me have been given to relatives or friends of mine who are utterly devoted to me.’
His smile grew broader:
‘It is possible that you, who always advised me to bide my time, may reproach me for hurrying things on, but I thought it better to consolidate my position whenever th
e opportunity arose. Now, without drawing Tiberius’s attention to the fact, I have him in so tight a net that he is no more than “the King of Capri”, and he cannot lift a little finger without my hearing about it. Today, Atia, although I do not bear the title, I am in fact the real Emperor.’
Sejanus said this last sentence so quietly that Fanina guessed rather than heard what he had said. So it was not for nothing that she had stayed where she was. In spite of herself, she felt drawn into the spirit of this strange meeting. She had studied Roman history in too much detail and had been far too interested in it not to be deeply conscious of the importance of this moment she was being allowed to live through. It was a critical moment in which the whole future of the Empire was to be decided. For what Sejanus had come to seek in this sanctuary of the Etruscan people from whose stock he had come, like Atia and Fanina as well, was confirmation of the good-will of the Etruscan deities: Tin, Uni, Menerva, Sethlans, Turms, Turan, and Maris, whom the Romans worshipped under the names of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Vulcan, Mercury, Venus and Mars.
‘But,’ he went on, with close lips and narrowed eyes, all his features grown taut in a hard, implacable expression, which served to accentuate his oriental appearance, ‘I have now reached an age when a man wearies of wielding power in the name of an old man who refuses to depart to the Kingdom of the Shades. I have reached an age, Atia, when one grows weary of preparing the Imperial couch for one of the few members of the line of the Caesars whom I have not got rid of, for I regard them all as idiots, corrupt, emasculated degenerates.’
Holding her breath, Fanina strained to hear. The conclusion came as expected, cold and clear:
‘I want to be Emperor, Atia, and to hand down the title to my heirs.’
Fanina looked at Atia. Fighting with all her strength to overcome her torpor, the old woman had shuddered at his words.
Fanina tried hard to guess what Atia was thinking. What game was she playing? Whom was she betraying? Tiberius or Sejanus? Possibly both of them. What Sejanus had said could scarcely have surprised her, for during previous conversations she had had with the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, the soothsayer had undoubtedly received confidences every bit as precise; but tonight she was not in her usual state of mind. By putting her to sleep as she had, Fanina had damped down her reflexes and upset her schemes. It was obvious that Atia no longer knew where she was. She had not been able to arrange her hand. She did not know what had happened to the young woman who had put her out of action in so masterly a way. She did not know whether Horo was still there or not, and she was on tenterhooks.
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