“You shouldn’t be so suspicious. He means well.”
“I know he does, bless him. And if he’s got me out of Misenum, I’ll kiss him.”
He found a clean loincloth in the clothes chest, knotted it around his hips, and shrugged on an old tunic that Ygerna thought must be a relic of his boyhood. The hem appeared to have been let down twice, and the sleeves rode high on the muscles of his upper arms. He ran a comb through his hair, peering into her dressing-table mirror. The cowlick over his brow lay flat for a moment and then sprang into its usual untidy wave. “You’d think all these years of putting a helmet on my hair would at least make it lie down,” he said. “I’m going to have a ride, if possible, after I talk to Forst.” He picked up an apple from the tray and bit into it. “Don’t forget to eat something.”
She grinned. “Don’t worry.” Ygerna had always had a light appetite, but with her pregnancy she seemed to have developed a state of perpetual starvation. Correus wasn’t sure where she was putting it, but she was going through more food than he could eat.
“Do you want me to explain Eumenes to your father?” she asked. “Someone had better.”
“Yes, please.” Ygerna was on polite if wary terms with Lady Antonia, Julia’s and Flavius’s mother, and did her best to ignore Correus’s mother, Helva, but for some reason the most formidable member of the family, his father, Appius, held no terror for her. He took another apple and headed for the stable and Forst. Whatever he encountered with the Rhenus Fleet wasn’t going to be worse than this.
Two colts, a black and a gray, improbable stilt-legged creatures racing the morning breeze, careened wildly past the lower pasture fence. Correus and Forst leaned with crossed arms on the fence rail, not watching them. Forst was watching nothing, some invisible point midway over the horizon. Correus was watching Forst.
“So he is dead,” Forst said finally. “Truly dead this time.”
“Should I have told you?” Correus sounded half-helpless, half-angry. He would have liked to throw something. “I thought you would only grieve.”
“Yes.”
Wrong to have robbed him of that, maybe, Correus thought. And then, He will grieve now. There was no proper “should” or “shouldn’t,” no easy way to tell Forst that Nyall – his friend and chieftain – was alive, or that he was now dead. There was no easy way out from under the burden of his own knowledge. Finally he had blurted it out and watched Forst wince and crumble a little and then turn around and look at the line of fir trees that lined the road in the distance and masked the horizon. Now Correus wanted only to be gone, back into Rome to talk to the emperor and then onto a horse and north across the Alps, where there were simpler things to cope with than Forst’s grief.
“I would like to know where he is to be buried,” Forst said.
“I will find out.”
Forst nodded and slipped through the fence rails into the pasture. “Tell your father that the red mare foaled last night. It’s a colt, if he would like to see it.”
It was a dismissal, and Correus took it gratefully. “Yes, I expect he would.” He picked up the bridle he had hung on the fence post and very nearly ran back up the hill to the upper barn.
* * *
The emperor Titus Caesar Vespasianus Augustus settled himself on a couch and tugged the purple and gold folds of his toga into place. “Distressing how quickly muscle turns to fat,” he said ruefully. “I should go back in the field. Twenty miles a day is the best way I know to keep a flat belly.”
“That and the army’s cooking, sir,” Flavius said with a smile.
“Fortunately I command enough privilege to save me from that,” the emperor said. He motioned at two other couches, luxuriously upholstered in silk. “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen.”
Correus stretched himself out on one, wondering what horrible things his parade armor was doing to the silk. He had dressed in full kit for his audience with the emperor, the gold scale polished and shining over a full-dress harness tunic of white leather and gold fringe, with every decoration he owned strung across his chest. He felt vaguely like a racehorse. At least the gilded oak leaves of his corona civica made his hair lie flat. Flavius, equally resplendent in the light silvered cuirass and purple tunic of an imperial staff aide, took the third couch, crossing his long legs at the ankles and leaning on one elbow.
There was an ebony table edged in brass in the center, laden with a green glass bowl of figs, two-handled silver drinking cups with gilded edges, and the usual pitchers of wine and water. A pair of slaves hovered beside it, and one of them passed Correus a cup. The wine was a deep, rich ruby, out of the emperor’s private stock.
Occupying a fourth couch, pulled slightly away from the perimeter of the conversation, the emperor’s brother, Domitian, reclined, and looked bored and sulky. Flavius and Correus nodded to him respectfully, but the co-consul merely eyed them over his wine cup and continued drinking.
Titus looked at the Julianus brothers’ attentive faces turned toward him, then glanced at his own brother. He hasn’t enough to do, Titus thought. And not much that the emperor could trust him to do if it came to that. Titus had no sons, and Domitian was heir presumptive to the purple – but Titus was thirty-eight and healthy, and it looked like a long wait. The effect on Domitian was unpleasant. Titus had made his brother co-consul with him last year in the hope of soothing his restlessness, but under the empire, there was no real power attached to the title, although it was a great honor. The emperor was generally a consul, and the second consul, if he had any sense, agreed with the emperor. Domitian knew just what his consulship was worth. It was like being given one bite of someone else’s cake, Titus thought, looking at his brother’s heavy face, a younger, cleaner-lined version of his own. It only set Domitian to thinking how to get the rest of it.
If his brother had shown more sense when their father took the purple, the emperor thought, suddenly irritated, he wouldn’t have a problem now. Instead, when the grim days of civil war had ended with the acclamation of Vespasian as emperor, Domitian had reacted to the heady power of being the only member of the new emperor’s family as yet in Rome with all the restraint of a street urchin let loose in a bake shop. Domitian had handed out appointments and commissions with a fine free hand while his father and brother were still on the march from the East. Finally Vespasian had remarked wryly that he was lucky that Domitian hadn’t thought to appoint a new emperor while he was at it. There had been a slight unpleasantness when Vespasian arrived in Rome, and although he had let most of the appointments stand, that episode had set the mark for the amount of power he was willing to allow his younger son. Domitian was appointed Princeps Juventutis and allowed to adopt the name of Caesar, and they both looked very nice on paper and meant next to nothing. The army command for which Domitian had hoped had never been forthcoming, and so far Titus had not seen fit to change his mind on that subject, either.
“So, Centurion Julianus.” The emperor ignored his brother and set his cup on the table. He nodded at Correus to distinguish between the brothers – Flavius also held senior centurion’s rank. “I understand you want to get back to the field yourself.”
“Yes, sir,” Correus said fervently, and hastily qualified it. “I’d be more use to the army there, sir. I don’t feel I’m earning my keep at Misenum.”
“You mean you’re bored.” Titus smiled.
Correus gave up. “To be truthful, sir, yes.” He glared at Flavius.
“Your brother didn’t tell me that,” Titus assured him. “When an officer puts in thirty-seven requests for transfer in the course of a year, I can draw my own conclusions.”
Correus looked embarrassed.
“Well, I think we can oblige you,” Titus said briskly. He waved a hand, and one of the slaves trotted over with a map. He spread it for the emperor on the brass-bound table. “Here.”
The emperor’s thick finger jabbed at the map. Correus recognized the river delta that spread away under the emperor’s hand
– the mouth of the Rhenus where that great river widened out to sink into the cold waters of the German Ocean. “We’ve always had a certain amount of trouble with river pirates around Rhenus mouth,” the emperor said, “but the Lower Rhenus Fleet has kept them in hand. Lately, though, the pirates have been multiplying like flies in the summer, and they’ve been raiding farther down the coast with every foray. The fleet can’t find them, but they seem to have no trouble finding the fleet. The few identifiable goods from their hauls have been turning up in the damnedest places or never surfacing at all. If—” Titus broke off and glanced at the slaves, standing straight-backed against a wall, with the expressionless stares of well-trained servants. “Leave us,” he said brusquely. When they had gone, he gave Correus a long, troubled look. “If the pirates aren’t controlled, they could put a halt to the entire German Ocean trade.” He ran his hand swiftly down the coastline as if in erasure. “And somebody who knows too much about our shipping is courting a treason trial.”
Correus turned on the couch and sat up to get a better look at the map. “Someone’s feeding them information?” That sort of arrangement with a pirate fleet was about as safe as going into partnership with a family of crocodiles – unless a man was operating from a very secure position indeed.
“Someone’s holding their hands like a nanny,” Titus said. “Or bribing them to keep us busy. Or both. You’re going to find out, Centurion. And you’re going to find out where their home harbor is. Then you’re going to take the Lower Rhenus Fleet and knock them into kindling.” The emperor bent his head over the map again, motioning Flavius into the conference, too.
Behind them, Domitian cast a disgusted glance at the three men and the map, and rose, lifting his bulk from the couch with unexpected grace. He was heavyset like his brother, a stocky, businesslike figure, but with a touch of the courtier in his walk. He ambled down the palace hallways at random, partly bored with this matter of pirates that seemed to occupy his brother’s mind so thoroughly just now, and partly angry that Titus hadn’t seen fit to ask his advice. He wasn’t overly surprised when, a few minutes later, Marius Vettius appeared at his elbow. Vettius generally knew where Domitian was. Vettius made it his business to know anything that might be useful.
“A fine day, Consul,” Vettius said genially. “Too fine to spend on affairs of state.”
“I haven’t been requested to!” Domitian snapped. Vettius put on a bland, soothing expression. The shipping prefect was tall, with a smooth, pale cap of prematurely graying hair and a toga that fell in perfect, graceful folds. His tunic displayed the broad purple stripe of a senator. Domitian knew that Vettius was not above provoking trouble between him and his brother the emperor, but today he felt like having someone treat him with the respect that Titus so pointedly denied him. “My brother is exercising his brain over a bunch of raggedy German river pirates,” Domitian said. “He does not feel the need of my assistance in the matter.”
“Oh?” Vettius’s pale eyes looked interested, but he only said, “How tiresome for you. But hardly a matter of great importance. I am sure the consul has more pressing matters before him.”
“Certainly,” Domitian said. “I can go and inspect the Praetorian Guard again – it keeps them on their toes. Or I could bring a few decrees before the Senate for the fun of watching my brother withdraw them. Or I could go and inspect a whorehouse – they might actually pay some attention to me there. There’s supposed to be a new one, with a most interesting stable, just below the new amphitheater.”
“Hardly in the province of a consul,” Vettius said.
Domitian cocked an eye at him. “Too proud for a whorehouse, Vettius?” He shrugged. “Then don’t come.” The shipping prefect came from a family that was nearly as old as the City of Rome itself, and had what Domitian regarded as a fastidious streak. Domitian had a taste for whorehouses and the wineshops that were little more than holes in the wall along the Tiber docks, and it amused him to drag Vettius there.
Vettius gave him a genial smile that masked a fleeting look of distaste. “Certainly I will come with you, if that’s what you’re in the mood for.” Domitian’s appetites were repellent but useful. He wasted his lust on fleeting pleasures; thus he was easily controlled. Marius Vettius had only one lust, of the abiding sort, and that was for power. “I only thought it a pity,” he said carefully, “that the emperor doesn’t see fit to give his heir more responsibility during the, uh, emperor’s lifetime.”
“That will come,” Domitian said sourly. “So my brother says. There is, unfortunately, plenty of time.”
“I cannot help feeling that that is shortsighted,” Vettius said seriously. “I should not wish to criticize the emperor, but – one never knows what the Fates have in store, does one?”
Domitian gave Vettius a sharp look. “Don’t pussyfoot with me, Vettius. Are you suggesting I have my brother killed?”
“Certainly not!” Vettius made a shocked face, but he kept his words plain and unable to be misconstrued. This was dangerous ground. “That would be treason. I do not suggest treason. Ever.” And you will come to it yourself in a year or two, he thought, watching Domitian’s surly, discontented face. “Only that it is well to be prepared.”
Domitian scowled, but the seed was in his mind now. Eventually it would flower. “Who are these pirates your brother is so exercised with?” Vettius changed the subject.
Domitian shrugged. “No one so important. A nuisance merely.” Titus had forbidden him to discuss the matter with anyone, he remembered now. He wasn’t ready to risk his brother’s wrath just yet by disobeying. The word “treason” hung in the air. The matter of the pirates was nearly as dangerous as murder.
* * *
While Domitian found his amusement with Marius Vettius in the whorehouse by the amphitheater, Correus and his brother trotted down the Via Salaria out of Rome.
“Merciful Athena! Oh, my departed ancestors!” Flavius leaned over the saddle horns and hooted weakly. “Well, you wanted a field command! Pirates and treason! You can’t say he didn’t oblige you!” Flavius’s mount, a big gray, sensed his master relax and took advantage of the moment to swing his head around, teeth bared, at Correus’s kneecap.
Correus punched him hard in the nose, and the gray jerked his head back with a snort. “Your concern for my skin is touching.” Flavius grabbed the reins and dug hard into his horse with his heel. “Mannerless bastard!”
Correus chuckled. “That’s one of Aeshma’s colts, isn’t it? They all bite.”
“They make good troop horses, though,” Flavius said, “once you knock it out of them. The third-generation lot seems to be a touch tamer.”
“I miss that demon,” Correus said wistfully, thinking of the big gray stallion he had brought back from Germany at the end of his first posting there. “You and Freita and Julius and I were the only ones he didn’t bite. It will be odd, going back there now.”
Flavius watched him sympathetically. Correus had ceased to grieve for his first wife after he had found Ygerna, but he wasn’t going to forget her, ever. “I expect you’ll have enough to keep busy.” His voice was serious now. “Don’t be too big a hero. I don’t doubt you can take on a fleet of pirates, but if they’ve got a connection in Rome, that part could get dangerous.”
“Don’t I know it. Palace intrigue scares me a hell of a lot more than pirates and Germans put together.”
“What are you planning?” Flavius asked him. “Getting yourself held for ransom?”
Correus grinned at him. “How well you know me. I don’t really see any other way, do you? I can hardly go and say I’ve heard they have a profitable venture and I’d like to sign on. Even if I could find them. Successful pirates are not generally stupid by nature. If we want them to bite, we’re going to have to let them take a ship with me on it. Then you and Father can argue with them about the ransom while I nose around their camp. We’ll have to work out some sort of code.”
“That’s dangerous,” Flavius said.
“So’s war.”
Correus noticed that his brother looked more interested than disapproving. He wondered if Flavius was getting bored with his palace post.
“You’ve done this before,” Flavius said thoughtfully, remembering that Correus’s commanders had found that his ear for foreign tongues and his ability to slip on another man’s skin made him an admirable spy.
“A time or two.”
“Well, see that what you’re up to doesn’t get around in
Rome,” Flavius said. “If there is a connection here and he gets wind of it, the pirates will drop you off the deck in midocean and never mind the ransom.”
Correus put his heel to his horse’s flank. “Kick that menace of yours up a bit. Julia and Lucius are coming to dinner. It occurs to me that this is right up Lucius’s alley.” Their brother-in-law was an unofficial adviser to the emperor and knew most things that went on in Rome.
“Anything Lucius can tell us,” Flavius said, “he’ll have told Titus already. And if Titus didn’t want to tell us, you can bet that Lucius won’t.”
“Dear gods,” Correus said disgustedly. “Spies and secret messages! A nice war will be a pleasure.”
* * *
Their sister Julia’s husband, Lucius Paulinus, proved annoyingly evasive when Correus and Flavius cornered him by the fish pool in the garden before dinner.
When they had recounted their interview with the emperor, he merely said, “Oh, dear,” in a mild voice and contemplated the fish. Flavius ground his teeth, but Correus thought that he could probably winnow what he wanted out of Lucius later, unless Lucius had orders from the emperor to keep it confidential. Lucius Paulinus was a slim, sandy-haired man with a plain, pleasant face and ears that stuck out too much. He looked younger and more innocent than his twenty-eight years. Correus and Flavius had first encountered Lucius in the Rhenus country when the brothers had been very junior centurions on their first tour. Ostensibly Lucius was a historian, occupying himself as did most gentlemen of letters, with publishing his most recent work, a History of Modern Rome, and with extensive revisions of the work that would one day make him famous. What Lucius really did, Correus and Flavius had since discovered, was serve as the emperor’s eyes and ears. In those days it had been the emperor Vespasian; now it was his son Titus.
The Emperor's Games Page 5