The Emperor's Games

by The Emperor's Games (retail) (epub)

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look at Titus. I wish he hadn’t been so obsessive about absolute proof – Vettius was guilty as hell, blast his sleek hide – but Titus didn’t go about flinging people onto islands in exile or ordering them to commit suicide just because they once looked cross-eyed at him. Domitian’s just the opposite. He goes off half-cocked on the slightest suspicion. He plays favorites, and he listens to informers.”

  “You aren’t an informer,” Julia said. Their daughter Paulilla was hanging on her skirt and repeated the word thoughtfully. Julia untied her apron and gave it to Paulilla. “Here, take this back to the kitchen, and tell Cook I said you might ask for cakes for you and Lucian.”

  “Lucian doesn’t need cake,” Paulilla said.

  “Neither do you if you won’t share with your brother. Now go.” She turned back to Lucius. “I don’t understand.”

  “I told you, I know too much,” Lucius said. “Mildly incriminating things about a lot of people. Or just scandalous things. Things that Titus had the sense to ignore, but Domitian will blow out of proportion. He has a bee in his helmet about morals at the moment, too.”

  Julia snorted. “Whose?”

  “Well, not his. He’ll make some new laws and use them as he sees fit. I don’t want to be in the position of having to either lie to the emperor or tell him things he’ll overreact to. He’s not stable.”

  “You didn’t tell him that?”

  “No, but I did give him a piece of advice.”

  * * *

  “He warned me about you.” In a bad mood, Domitian had an uncanny resemblance to his brother.

  “Indeed?” Vettius raised his eyebrows in apparent amusement, as if to say that surely Paulinus was misinformed, but the light in his eyes wasn’t pleasant.

  “You and a few others.” Domitian tapped his fingers, an irritable drumming on the gilded arm of his chair. “A nice post in the provinces is a license to steal if a man is inclined that way, and I am told that a number of my appointments have been exercising that inclination. I didn’t appreciate it.”

  “I am sure that all the emperor’s appointments are wise ones,” Vettius said. “There may be one or two, perhaps, who have represented themselves as more honest than they are, but I am sure your judgment is good.”

  “How good is my judgment concerning you, Vettius?”

  “Excellent,” Vettius smiled. “I had hoped that I had sufficiently indicated my gratitude.”

  “I have a bonus to the army to make good on,” Domitian said irritably. “Nothing is ever sufficient.”

  “I shall try to express it further.” Vettius bowed and covered his annoyance as well as he could. His accession to the purple had had an unforeseen effect on Domitian: With his need for power assuaged, the new emperor was not so easily led as he had been. Sufficient money would be doubly important now.

  Domitian leaned forward in his chair, one heavy hand clenched around the arm. There were three gold rings on his fingers: the seal of the Pontifex Maximus, his brother’s seal, and the seal of the tribune of the People. “Pay attention, Vettius. It has been suggested before this, if you will remember, that you have been robbing the state blind. I don’t give a damn if you are, as long as you keep in mind what you owe me. But I won’t be understanding if you get caught.”

  “Flavius Julianus began that,” Vettius said. “Your late brother’s watchdog. Since he won’t be at court to make a pest of himself, I am sure that the emperor’s image will remain untarnished. I need hardly assure you that the emperor’s appointments will remember the emperor’s need for funds.”

  “The emperor’s appointments had better remember more than that,” Domitian said. “They had better remember to watch their step. If I find that an appointment has embarrassed me, the source of the embarrassment will discover that nothing is permanent. As for Flavius Julianus, you’re wrong. He stays on the imperial staff.”

  “Why?” Vettius was startled into bluntness.

  “For my skin’s sake,” Domitian said.

  “Julianus was no friend to you when your brother was alive.”

  “No, but Julianus is a friend to the emperor, whoever happens to be wearing his toga. He has some old-fashioned opinions on that. It’s what made him such a good watchdog.”

  “Do you want that watchdog watching you!” Vettius’s expression was sarcastic. “He’s no fool.”

  “Neither am I,” Domitian said. “I’m bright enough to know I’ll feel safer with one honest man on my staff. His presence may be awkward at times, but I will sleep at night.”

  * * *

  And so I am still at court, and I will admit to a certain relief. I was never much good at a field command, and I am a& good staff officer. At the moment my talents are occupied in smoothing out the domestic machinery and arranging for a less bothersome changeover than might otherwise have happened…

  “That means he’s stopped Domitian from sacking his brother’s staff wholesale,” Correus said. He leaned over Ygerna’s shoulder while she continued reading Flavius’s letter.

  …but it appears that the emperor may make a tour of the Rhenus frontier in the spring, so I will come and visit and bounce the babies on my avuncular knee, in between inspecting the hell out of all fortifications and scaring all the commanders into fits. Beware. The emperor has never felt that our campaign to secure the Agri Decumates and build a more defensible frontier line in that sector was carried to its logical conclusion.

  “Damn. That means Domitian wants a military triumph to put him on a par with his papa and his brother, and he’s coming here to do it,” Correus said.

  “How can you tell all that?” Ygerna asked.

  “You have to know how to read between Flavius’s lines. There’s no telling who’s going to read a letter, even one that goes by imperial post. Maybe especially then. So he leaves out anything touchy. I know his style well enough to fill in the gaps.”

  The family are all well. Papa says to tell you that your young terror Julius is proving a fine hand with a horse and a liability in all other respects. He snuck into the City and got in a brawl with the counterman in a wineshop. He says the fellow was cheating him, and I expect he was, but it made no end of a row.

  “Oh dear.” Ygerna looked up at Correus.

  “Don’t worry, Julius always gets in rows,” Correus said blithely. “Better Papa than us.”

  Mother sat Julius down and lectured him about it, and Diulius took a pony whip to him, so I expect he’s repentant. Everyone else is thriving. Forst seems to have come out of the glooms a bit, and all else is as usual. Cook had a temperament the last time we dined there, and your mother is having her rooms repainted again. Aemelia is well and, we think, is pregnant again. I’m not sure she’s pleased about it, but she’ll come around. Women get these moods…

  “Did you say something?”

  “You heard what I said,” Ygerna said. “If Aemelia wasn’t so stupid, she’d slap him for a remark like that.”

  “Poor child.” Correus put his hands on her shoulders. “You didn’t have an easy time, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Ygerna said, “but you didn’t go around saying ‘Women get these moods.’”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Correus said piously. “But Flavius isn’t so henpecked.”

  Ygerna snorted and returned to the letter.

  …but in any case, she is charmed with the prospect of my staying on the imperial staff. I haven’t the heart to tell her I’ll probably be in Germany by spring. It is pleasant to find oneself still at the center of things, and I honestly think he needs me (or at any rate, some loyal body with no ax to grind).

  Lucius was made a similar offer and has refused it, a choice that, of course, I didn’t have. If I had been a civilian, I would have stayed on, however, and I think Lucius has made a mistake.

  “I think he has too,” Ygerna said quietly.

  I tried to talk to Julia about it, but she is still in the sulks about losing Felix
(I can’t think why – the last time he visited us, he put tadpoles in the atrium pool, and no one noticed it until they were frogs), and all she will say is that she is sure Lucius knows what he’s doing. I don’t think she’s paying any attention to what he’s doing, and I wish she would. Lucius isn’t generally a hothead, but his decision is unfortunate.

  “I can decipher that,” Ygerna said. “Lucius won’t work for the emperor, and Flavius thinks that’s dangerous. That’s what Berenice said when Flavius tried to get the old emperor to listen about Vettius.”

  “Who?”

  “Berenice. The lady who was the old emperor’s lover. I met her in Veii, quite by accident, and—”

  “You mean she’s still in Italy? And you just struck up a conversation with her?” Correus came around to face her and pulled up a chair beside hers. “Ygerna!”

  Ygerna was looking as if she wished she had kept quiet. “Yes, Correus?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “I was afraid you might not like it,” she said frankly.

  “That’s the most dangerous damned thing—”

  “Correus, nobody knew about it but Cottia and Julius, and I told them I would make them more than sorry if they told anyone. She is a very lonely lady, and very interesting—”

  “I expect so,” Correus said. “She ought to be. But – Berenice! Mithras god!”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Ygerna said. “Poor woman. I wonder how she felt when she heard. No one would come and tell her. She would have heard it in the marketplace.”

  “What was she doing in Italy, anyway? I would think she would have gone back to the East.”

  “Well, I know,” Ygerna said, “but it wasn’t a very safe secret. I found out by accident, and it scared me half to death, just knowing. That was another reason I didn’t tell you.”

  “Titus?”

  Ygerna nodded.

  Correus ran a hand over his forehead. “I don’t blame you for being scared. It gives me a cold sweat just thinking about his finding out you knew that.”

  “It was the day before I left,” Ygerna said. “After that, I was ready to run all the way across the mountains. Well, poor man, it doesn’t matter now. But what Flavius said – that is what Berenice said. That Domitian isn’t… safe. And this Vettius person isn’t, either.”

  “He certainly isn’t, and with Domitian on the throne, he may be an absolute menace. He’s already got good reason for a grudge against this family. I don’t blame Lucius – I wouldn’t work for Domitian that way myself. But I see what Flavius means. I hope Lucius keeps his disapproval very quiet. I wonder if Flavius thinks I have any more influence over Lucius than he does. I don’t think anyone has any influence on Lucius, frankly. Except maybe Julia.” Correus frowned. Lucius Paulinus was his closest friend, and Correus’s sister, Julia, was very dear to him. If the emperor grew angry with them, it could be appallingly dangerous.

  Ygerna had picked up Flavius’s letter and was puzzling over it. “This is a very odd letter. All the chat about the family. I get the feeling it’s a… a framework, or – no, a… a wrapping. I can’t think of the word I want.”

  Correus dragged his mind away from Lucius and Julia. There were more dangers than that one in Flavius’ letter. “You bet it is,” he said. “And he’s gone to a lot of trouble to do it. Flavius hates to write anything. He’s very articulate, but it’s a misery for him to put anything down on paper, much less a long, chatty letter. He doesn’t write to anyone. The family’s used to it. Can you pick out what it is that he thinks is worth my knowing?”

  “Oh yes,” Ygerna said. “Lucius. And… and the emperor coming here, isn’t it? What you said about wanting a triumph. He’s not just telling you to shape up for an inspection.”

  “Good girl. The emperor should put you on his staff. Flavius was out here when I was. We had our first postings in the same legion, in Argentoratum, when Vespasian decided to consolidate the Agri Decumates – the Black Forest lands, I showed you that on the map – after there was a rebellion here. That was when the Semnones, Nyall Sigmundson’s people, got into it. Nyall didn’t like Rome getting any closer to his own lands. If Domitian’s going to push into the Agri Decumates again – we stopped short of the lines Vespasian originally planned – or worse yet, beyond it, he may precipitate more than he bargained for. The Semnones are pigheaded, but they don’t have much strength; however, there are signs that another tribe, the Chatti, who are right across the Rhenus from us, are looking for a fight. They’re the ones who worry me right now, and the emperor’s been warned too, but I don’t think he’s listening.”

  “Could the Chatti win?” Ygerna said.

  “No. Not in the long ran. Think of your own folk, Ygerna.”

  Ygerna put the letter down. “So many dead, from your legion and my tribe. Why can’t Domitian just stay in Rome? There is peace here now.”

  “I expect that’s what Flavius thinks, but it doesn’t sound like he’s having much luck with the suggestion. Domitian’s touchy about comparisons with his brother. He wants a triumph, so he’ll get one, one way or another.”

  “There are enough wars,” Ygerna said disgustedly, “without making one up. Will you tell the governor?”

  Correus nodded. “Between us, maybe we can put the fear of the gods into the Chatti. And if Flavius can persuade Domitian not to push too far, we might just slide by.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I don’t, either,” Ygerna said. The governor’s palace was heated by a hypocaust with hot-air channels that ran under the floor, but there was a fire burning, too, in an iron brazier in the center of the room. Ygerna picked up the letter and looked inquiringly at Correus.

  He nodded. “I don’t want that lying around.”

  She dropped the papyrus into the flames, and it began to curl and blacken. “What do we do now?”

  “Enjoy the winter,” Correus said. “We might as well.” Outside the ground was sleek with new snow. The gardener had laid the palace gardens down under a bed of straw and tied sacking over the governor’s rosebushes. Correus was wearing his uniform tunic and the wool breeches and fur leggings that the army had adopted from the native dress for winter wear. He drew his chair closer to the brazier and stuck his long legs out toward it. “Where are the children?”

  “Eilenn is with the Nurse, and Felix has ran away again. Don’t worry, he only goes as far as the pottery works. There is a foreman there who shows him how the clay is made. He made a pot for the governor yesterday and brought it home, and the governor put it on a pedestal in the atrium. He is a very kind man.”

  “Poor soul, I’m afraid his life is going to heat up considerably in the spring.” Sulpicius Clarus, the governor of Lower Germany, was a civilian. He had held military commands, of course, all Roman officials had, but his pleasure was in a peacetime administration, with leisure to oversee the construction of public buildings and the peaceful expansion of his capital. He wasn’t going to be happy that the emperor had decided to gain a military reputation on Clarus’s territory.

  “Come and sit in my lap before Nurse comes in or someone finds Felix.” He held out his arms, and Ygerna came over dubiously.

  “Or someone starts a war?”

  “You know what active duty’s like. Do you really want me back in Misenum shipping sand and giraffes up to Rome and having nightmares?”

  “Of course not.” She sat. “Have those dreams really stopped?”

  “Oddly enough, yes. It seems as if there’s nothing like a nice war to put my mind at rest.”

  “You don’t mean that. You sounded so worried.”

  “I am. But if I have to choose, I think I’d take a frontier war over an arena fight. The Chatti, at least, will bring it down on their own heads, and so will we, from one point of view. That’s just the way things are. The arena is different. It’s evil minded. A war will be such a damned waste, but I don’t get bad dreams from it. I don’t think I can
really explain it more than that.”

  “Don’t worry. You make sense to me.” She put her arms around him affectionately. “As much as Romans will ever make sense to me.”

  “Good.” He kissed her. She was wearing fur boots and an undershift under her woolen gown, and he began to rummage through the layers of cloth. “There’s a girl in here somewhere. Shall we spend the winter in bed and let the Chatti and the emperor look out for themselves?”

  “What about the governor?”

  “Let him get his own girl.”

  X Meeting in Colonia

  In one way or another, everyone who had a hand in the matter of the Rhenus frontier came to Colonia that spring.

  Domitian set out with staff, hangers-on, and almost the entire Praetorian Guard to conduct a census-taking tour of Gaul and an inspection of the German borders. It was not an unobtrusive march, and the Chatti took due note of it, especially when the emperor ordered the auxiliary units of the Rhenus augmented by forcible conscription from among the tribesmen of the Usipi on the eastern side of the river. By the time Domitian had made his leisurely way through Gaul to Augusta Treverorum and thence to Moguntiacum on the Rhenus, he might as well, as Flavius said, have been carrying a banner that read “Come out and fight.”

  The Usipi’s treaty with Rome stipulated recruiting privileges among the tribesmen, but not involuntary conscription. The Usipi weren’t strong enough to protest the change in terms, but Marbod of the Chatti sent a furious message to Sulpicius Clarus at Colonia. When, acting on a message from Domitian at Moguntiacum, Clarus responded with an invitation to come to Colonia and talk about it, Marbod clattered across the Rhenus bridge with two hundred warriors for a guard and another fifty who, he said blandly, belonged to his friend and ally the chieftain of the Semnones. The chieftain himself, representing an alliance among the peoples of the farther Free Lands, would come to Colonia when Rome agreed to negotiate with him as well. The Semnones were an added complication. Clarus agreed to include their chieftain, and sent a hasty courier message to the emperor.