The Consul had not stirred. Vindex’s voice rang out once more, scathingly:
‘Do I need to remind you of the talk we had last night, Regulus? I did not hide from you the contents of the letter you seem to be at pains to appear to have read for the first time. You told me then that you were ready to carry out the Emperor’s orders. This man has been arrested; I hand him over to you. Act without further delay!’
The seconds were passing relentlessly. Transfixed, the assembled company watched Vindex and Sejanus, now standing. Ashen, Fanina could not take her eyes off the two men whom destiny had once more placed face to face.
‘I shall destroy you, Sejanus,’ the young man had sworn, ‘later, token you are still more powerful....’
In spite of the accusations levelled at him by Tiberius, Sejanus was more powerful now than he would ever be, even when he had acquired the title of Emperor which had meant so much to him. Vindex was keeping his word. Alone, tragically alone at this terrible moment, Caius was challenging the fantastic power his rival had built up around him: his cohorts, the legions whose leaders were his accomplices, governors of provinces he had made his allies, the masses of officials at every level whom he had appointed, men who owed their all to him, and the people of Rome whom he was so adept at handling.
Finding himself for the second time face to face with the only adversary who for many years had dared to defy him openly, Sejanus was recovering his self-possession. In the midst of an oppressive silence the formidable personage Sejanus had once more become and the young officer took stock of one another.
Was it her they were both thinking of at that moment, to help them toughen their wills for the coming clash? Fanina wondered in terror.
‘Regulus!’ Vindex called again.
From his platform, the Consul stammered pitifully:
‘Most illustrious Sejanus, you are summoned to appear ...’
The commander of the Praetorians appeared not to have heard him, and the Consul repeated in a voice that grew less and less confident:
‘Most illustrious Sejanus ...’
With icy disdain, and without even honouring him with a glance, Sejanus replied:
‘Are you addressing me, Regulus?’
The Consul’s hesitant mumblings were lost in the rumble of benches being swung hastily around. Like Fanina all those present turned in the direction of the monumental bronze doors of the temple which were swinging open with tantalizing slowness. Pressed close to Hemonia Fanina saw the silhouette of an officer with a naked sword in his hand outlined against the brightness of the opening door and then a huge black shadow on the paving which moved towards Caius.
‘Caius is lost!’ she breathed.
The tramp of soldiers’ feet as they deployed along the temple steps echoed the firm footsteps of the officer as he came towards Caius, his naked sword in his hand.
Pushing her nurse aside Fanina plunged down the stairs. Hemonia rushed after her. They bumped against one another in the dark, tripped and fell against the walls. The nurse seized Fanina and compelled her to come to a halt.
‘Where are you trying to go? What do you expect to achieve?’
‘I shall throw myself at Sejanus’s feet! I shall beg him to spare Caius. He can do what he likes with me. I’ll be his mistress, his servant, provided that he leaves Caius alone, even if it means that Caius despises me even more than he does now.’
‘He doesn’t despise you, he loves you!’
‘I want him to live, Hemonia. His life is all that matters to me. What do I matter?’
Once again Fanina was slipping from Hemonia’s grasp. Without quite knowing how, she found herself, closely pursued by her nurse, in the temple behind the pedestal of Apollo’s chariot.
The silence which had marked the officer’s entry had given way to a fantastic uproar. Standing on their seats and climbing on to the bases, and in some cases even the lower cornices of the columns, the senators were all turned in the same direction, away from the two women.
Fanina heard Vindex’s voice rising over the tumult and shouting:
‘In the name of the Emperor, illustrious Graecinus Laco, I commit to your custody Lucius Aelius Sejanus.’
Dumbfounded, Fanina and the nurse looked at one another. The officer who had entered the temple was not a Praetorian; he was the Prefect of the Watch who, as Fanina knew, was a rival, or rather one of the avowed enemies, of Sejanus, a man who delighted in casting ridicule upon him at every possible opportunity.
The two women had no time to consider these developments. Jumping down from their perches and gathering up their imposing togas about them, senators, striding over the benches, shouting, brandishing their fists, rushed in a mob towards the doorway through which the Prefect of the Watch was about to lead off Sejanus.
‘Kill him, kill the traitor.’
‘Death to the murderer!’
‘Your downfall is more rapid than your rise to power, Sejanus!’
‘Die like a dog!’
‘Strangle him immediately!’
‘Death, death, death!’
Shamelessly changing their tune and heaping threats and insults on the selfsame man they had venerated less than an hour before, the Conscript Fathers gave vent to their ferocious anger and hideous jubilation which stirred painful memories in Fanina’s breast as she stood bewildered by this sudden and dramatic turn of events.
Vindex had triumphed, by what miracle she knew not. The fearful joy to which she hardly dared give way could not blot out the horrible memory of that rainy evening when she too had been led away by her judges, like Sejanus, whose incredible downfall left her stupefied.
Relieved and grateful, she heard Vindex’s voice quivering with unutterable contempt as he uttered the scathing words that she would have loved to shout at this spineless multitude besetting the beaten man:
‘Yesterday I would have been glad to see you display the anger which today dishonours you, Conscript Fathers!’
In the silence that fell at these words the young tribune went on:
‘Is this the behaviour becoming judges whose duty it will be to give this man a fair trial?’
Fanina pressed Hemonia’s arm. How could she have doubted Caius? How could she have doubted this man who, laying aside all the wrongs he might have thrown in Sejanus’s face, now went on to say severely:
‘Now that he is a prisoner overwhelmed by disaster Sejanus has become the most valuable and the most respected of you all. I will strike down without pity anyone who dares to raise his hand against him.’
Subdued the senators fell silent and streamed rapidly out of the main door of the temple.
It was then that the thin voice of an old man made itself heard:
‘By Cypris this is all very fine, my friends. Sejanus has fallen into a clever trap, very prettily arranged, but what are the Praetorians going to think of this little comedy?’
‘The cohort that was guarding him is no longer in the forecourt,’ called someone standing near the entrance of the Temple. ‘Troops of the Watch have replaced it...’
Lost in the crowd the old man sniggered:
‘There are eight other cohorts, some eight thousand men, patrolling the city. When they find out what’s been happening here, they’ll join up and set about getting their commander out of his tight spot. When that happens it’ll be healthier to be a long way, a very long way, from here, my illustrious friends.’
‘He’s right,’ murmured Fanina. What had happened surpassed her understanding.
Drawing Hemonia away she darted into one of the lateral galleries, which was dark and deserted.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Hemonia breathlessly.
‘Out into the Forum,’ replied Fanina. ‘That’s where everything will be decided.’
A few senators with dismayed faces were still standing around the entrance anxiously plying with questions one of their number, who, with his toga cautiously drawn up over his head, was in the act of stating:
‘What
do I decide, by Jupiter? The safest thing is to wait until it becomes clearer which way things are going to go before taking sides.’
‘Let us hurry!’ breathed Fanina.
Without hesitation they ran straight towards the senators and slipped between them, arousing indignant exclamations as they did so.
‘Women in our assembly now!’
‘May Mars make mincemeat of me; nothing will surprise me after that.’
Already, slipping between the soldiers of the Watch spread out along the colonnade of the temple of Apollo, Fanina and Hemonia were disappearing into the crowd swarming on the forecourt.
‘It’s her! It ... it can’t be....’ a senator stammered behind her.
That grating voice, quite unlike any other! It was only then that Fanina realized that the man, around whom the wretched Conscript Fathers had been flocking, dismayed by the thunderbolt that burst upon them, was none other than Brazen-beard.
And Brazen-beard had recognized her.
Chapter Twenty-eight
‘The dog, the accursed dog!’ grumbled Hemonia, beside herself with anger.
‘What does Brazen-beard matter?’ exclaimed Fanina. ‘It’s Caius who’s in danger now!’
The two women pushed their way laboriously through the crowd massed in the square surrounding the Temple of Apollo. In the distance, from the flights of steps leading up to the Forum, came the sound of shouting.
Were those shouts of hate against Sejanus whom Caius Vindex was conducting to the Tullianum prison? Or were they expressions of good-will and support for the man who until an hour ago had been master of the Empire? Who could tell?
Her nerves straining, Fanina looked anxiously about her. She was watching for the reactions of the people of the huge city, who had come down into the streets in search of news. She sensed that they were near to breaking-point, ready to align themselves in their usual fickle way with whoever showed himself the stronger. Then would come the moment of horror. The populace would be completely out of control and would indulge in the most appalling excesses. If the Praetorians, or whatever other supporters Sejanus might still have, showed signs of winning, Caius would be lost.
For the time being, the multitude gathered on the forecourt of the temple, and surrounded by the troops of the Watch with their hard, drawn faces and their naked swords in their hands did not dare express their feelings. In the direction of the Forum the shouting went on, but here no one yet knew what to think. So they waited in fear.
In despondent tones a man who was clearly dumbfounded by what he had seen was explaining how Macro had got rid of the guards Sejanus had posted around the building in which the Senate was in session:
‘As soon as the temple doors were shut and while the letter from which Sejanus had such high hopes was being read out to the senators, Macro called the Praetorians together. He told them that he was now their commander and that he was ordering them to return to barracks. Two officers stepped out of rank to protest. Straight away, how I do not know, they fell as if pole-axed. At that very moment, from all sides at once, through the entrances to the forecourt and on to the portico surrounding it, on to all the roofs in the neighbourhood came the troops of the Watch. The Praetorians were surrounded. Their only choice was between a battle already as good as lost and the thirty pieces of gold offered by Macro to those who obeyed without argumest. They chose the pieces of gold.
‘They say that there was only one officer in the temple to arrest Sejanus, a certain Vindex,’ said a little old woman. ‘If Macro had failed, he would have been done for.’
Glancing around him suspiciously a tall thin man with a narrow ratlike face spoke:
‘I’ll tell you why Vindex and Macro have succeeded, at least so far. Last night Sejanus was so foolish as to turn out his men to look for some woman who had left him. If, instead of being scattered all over the city, the Praetorians had been concentrated in their barracks, Vindex and Macro would have been cut to pieces even if they’d been Mars in person.’
‘In other words,’ observed the little old woman, ‘if this woman hadn’t left Sejanus, he’d be Emperor by now. When you come to think of it, it was that woman who settled the fate of the Empire.’
With hardened face Fanina brusquely thrust aside the people in her way. That last sentence kept running through her head: ‘It was that woman who settled the fate of the Empire.’
Whether she liked it or not, she always came back to the same point. She would always be ‘the woman of Destiny’, the instrument of the gods, who were perhaps recalling themselves to her mind through the voice of the little old woman giving nai've expression to her version of the affair that had changed the course of history.
Gripping her arm closely, Hemonia whispered:
‘The gods be praised for it, my dear. If it had not been for you Caius would have been lost. You heard; it was you and you alone that saved him.’
Fanina shrugged her shoulders. That was not how she would have wished things to have worked out. What risk had she run? What had she sacrificed for the man she loved? Caius’s initial success had in fact been due to her, but without her participation. And the task undertaken by the young officer was not yet completed.
What a dreadful state of affairs! As long as Sejanus was alive Caius would be in mortal danger.
She started back in horror. As she rushed headlong on her way, pushing through the crowd and murmuring vague excuses to those she jostled, she had suddenly come into an open space in the middle of which lay two bodies in a pool of blood — Gryllus and Romilius.
The two officers who alone of all the Praetorians massed around the temple of Apollo had stood up to Macro were Sejanus’s two faithful companions: Gryllus, vulgar and unscrupulous, who was allowed to speak to his master without mincing his words and who knew the art of extracting gold piece after gold piece from him: Romilius, coarse and brutal, a man of few words: these were the two men whom the commander of the Praetorians had for a long time trusted as his bodyguards, and who knew so many things she was ashamed of.
The two faithful decurions were dead and Fanina knew who it was that had struck them down with his unerring sling — Horo, Tiberius’s right arm, the deformed killer with the face like a god’s who always intervened at the crucial moment.
The dwarf in the russet leather cloak must be somewhere near by, keeping his eye on her as he had always done for the Emperor, the Emperor whom Vindex served too and against whom she had thought that she was fighting.
‘The senators and all who have the right to vote in the Senate are to assemble in the temple of Concord.’
Punctuated by hoarse trumpet calls the proclamations of the public criers had long rung out in the streets of the crowded city. Fanina and Hemonia were caught in the tightly packed mass on the slope leading to the Capitol and could neither advance nor retreat. How long was it that they had stood stifling in the fantastic press of human beings that held their arms pinned to their sides? Fanina had no idea; she had lost all sense of time, like the thousands upon thousands who could not tear their eyes away from the temple of Concord, the long Corinthian colonnade of which they could see and the troops of the Watch clustering in their hundreds on the uppermost steps.
Almost a year before, Fanina had rushed to this same spot to save Vindex, when he was condemned to death by the Senate. Today it was the all powerful Sejanus who had come to be sentenced from the sinister Tullianum prison with its monumental staircases, so often stained with the blood of executed men who were exposed there after being strangled by the public executioner.
It was Sejanus who was on trial just a few hours after his arrest and it was for Caius that Fanina trembled.
Exaggerated and distorted, the most inconsistent rumours were running through the crowd around the temple. It was said that Macro had his hands full trying to get the patrols of Praetorians scattered throughout the city back to their barracks and that, immediately after conducting Sejanus to Tullianum, Vindex had hastened to his assistance. It was
said that unruly elements had plundered Sejanus’s house, and that, if the Supreme Vestal had not intervened, the slave-girls living there would have been massacred — this was an act for which Fanina, who had been in considerable anxiety about the fate of the Egyptian girls, was profoundly grateful to Vibidia. It was said that some units of urban cohorts had sided with Sejanus and that there had been disturbances in several districts. Finally, it was said that only the troops of the Watch, who were involved beyond the point of withdrawal in the campaign launched by their Prefect, were solidly behind Vindex and Macro.
What were people not saying?
There was anxiety written on every face and the unintelligible trumpet calls arising on all sides in the distance were hardly calculated to reassure. Each one scanned his neighbour, looking for a lead, and what Fanina could read on the faces of those around her filled her with fear.
She had seen them before these coarse faces, degenerate and brutalized by drink and vice — the faces of the denizens of the disreputable districts of the city, always the first to come down into the streets when the situation deteriorated and there was an opportunity of plundering and a chance to satisfy their morbid passion for the spectacle of an execution, or to hurl themselves upon some defenceless victim so as to tear him pitilessly to pieces.
From time to time a sudden eddy in the crowd threw the mass towards the temple where Sejanus was fighting his most tragic fight. The Watch, who were more accustomed to patrolling the city by night than to managing a crowd, and who also feared to think of the risks they were taking, lost their tempers and hit back brutally.
People fell and the populace growled, but was sufficiently cowed to calm down again, at least superficially. One final clash had just occurred when a shout went up:
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