There were general mutterings of agreement from the audience, although those with a true ear for music found Nero’s statement exaggerated.
Nero nodded at Terpnus before drawing himself up and filling his chest with air. Terpnus plucked a chord and then, to everyone’s astonishment, some more obvious than others, Nero let out a note, long and quavering; it was reasonably close to the chord that Terpnus had plucked but not nearly as strong nor as constant. Nero’s audience, however, chose to interpret the sound as a harmony of infinite and intricate genius rather than the lamentable discord that was the reality; they burst into unrestrained applause as soon as the note died a miserable death on the Emperor’s lips. Ladies who had suffered violent rape at Nero’s hands and those others who feared it would soon be their turn clapped demurely whilst their husbands cheered the man who would sully their womenfolk and steal their fortunes and their lives. Sabinus and Gaius joined in the lauding wholeheartedly, refraining from catching the other’s eye.
‘My friends,’ Nero rasped, ‘for three years now Terpnus has been training me, bringing out the innate talent within your Emperor. I have lain with lead weights on my chest; I have used enemas and emetics as well as refraining from eating apples and other foods deleterious to the voice. I have done all these things under the guidance of the greatest performer of the age; so, soon I will be ready to perform for you!’
There was a momentary silence as the hideous thought of breaking the taboo against people of consequence – let alone the Emperor – performing in public sank in, before the audience burst into rapturous cheering as if Nero had just announced the very thing that each had desired most in life and yet, up until now, none had thought it possible to attain.
Nero stood, side-on, left hand on his heart and right hand extended to his guests; tears trickled down the pale skin of his cheeks to catch in the wispy, golden beard that grew thickest under his chin, which, despite his youth, had begun to sag with the weight of good living. Thus, he let the adulation wash over him. ‘My friends,’ he said eventually, his voice imbued with rich emotion, ‘I understand your joy. To be finally able to share with me my talent as expressed through my voice, the most beautiful thing I know.’
Acte, now in Claudia Octavia’s place, looked less than impressed by this assertion.
‘As beautiful as my new wife, Princeps?’ Otho asked with a note of drunken laughter on his voice; his closeness to Nero for so long meant he was the only man in Rome with licence to exchange banter with the Emperor.
Nero, far from being aggravated at his announcement being interrupted, turned and smiled at his friend and sometime lover. ‘You’ve boasted all evening of Poppaea Sabina’s charms, Otho; when you bring her to Rome I shall sing to her and then you can judge the relative beauty of your new wife and my voice.’
Otho raised his cup to Nero. ‘That I shall, Princeps, and I shall ravage the winner; she will be here in four days.’
This produced raucous and ribald cheers from the young bucks who considered themselves part of the Emperor’s close associates; they were soon stilled by a withering look from Nero that, once silence had returned, transformed into an expression of abject humility. ‘Soon, my friends, I shall be ready for you; until then I shall practise more. Adieu.’ With mannered gestures to Acte, Otho, Terpnus and his young sycophants to follow him, Nero turned and left the room, bringing the dinner to an end and taking with him, much to the relief of all those remaining, the fear.
‘I’ll be fine, dear boy,’ Gaius insisted as he and Sabinus came to the Forum Romanum, its flagstones wet from a light drizzle, glowing in the light of the many torches of their bodyguards and those of other groups passing through on their way home. ‘It’s only half a mile up the hill and, besides, I’ve got Tigran’s lads looking after me.’
Sabinus looked dubious. ‘Go quickly anyway.’ He slapped the shoulder of the largest and most bovine of the four men with flaming brands accompanying them. ‘Don’t pick any fights, Sextus, and keep to the better-lit thoroughfares.’
‘No fights and keep to the better-lit thoroughfares; right you are, sir,’ Sextus said, slowly digesting his orders. ‘And give all the lads’ greetings to Senator Vespasian and Magnus when you see them.’
‘I will do.’ Sabinus clasped his uncle’s forearm. ‘We leave for Aquae Cutillae at the second hour of the day, Uncle.’
‘I’ll be at the Porta Collina, waiting with my carriage. Let’s hope my sister can hang on for the two days it’ll take us to get there.’
Sabinus smiled, his round face, semi-shadowed in the torchlight, was thoughtfully sad. ‘Mother is very resolute; she won’t cross the Styx until she’s seen us.’
‘Vespasia has always been a woman who enjoyed trying to dominate her menfolk; it wouldn’t surprise me if she died on purpose, before we arrived, just to make us feel guilty at being forced to delay our departure by a day.’
‘It couldn’t be helped, Uncle; the business of Rome takes priority over personal affairs.’
‘It was ever thus, dear boy, ever thus. I shall see you tomorrow.’
Sabinus watched his uncle make his way through a colonnade, into Caesar’s Forum at the foot of the Quirinal and then disappear from sight, with his bodyguards surrounding him like four torch-bearing colossi, warding off the dangers of a city made feral by night.
With a prayer to his lord Mithras to preserve his dying mother for just two more days, he turned and headed the few paces to the Capitoline Hill and the Tullianum at its base.
‘How is he, Blaesus?’ Sabinus asked as the iron-reinforced wooden door to the prison was opened by a heavily muscled, bald man, wearing a tunic protected by a stained leather apron.
Blaesus shrugged. ‘I haven’t touched him, prefect; I hear the odd moan from down there but other than that he’s been quiet. He certainly hasn’t volunteered to talk, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘I suppose it was.’ Sabinus sighed as he sat down on the only comfortable chair in the low-ceilinged room and looked at a trapdoor towards the far end just visible in the dim light of an oil lamp set in the middle of the sole table. ‘Well, we’d better get him up then and carry on. I think we’ll try slightly stronger encouragement this time; I need the answer tonight as I’m leaving the city for a few days tomorrow morning.’
Blaesus beckoned to a corner. A hirsute giant of a man, dressed only in a loincloth, unfurled himself from where he had been curled up on a pile of rags in the shadows; he held a bone in one hand whose provenance Sabinus did not like to guess at. ‘Down you go, Beauty,’ Blaesus said as he hauled on a rope that raised the trapdoor. ‘Bring him up and don’t bite him more than once.’
Beauty grunted, his face, flat as if it had been pummelled by a spade, cracked into a leer and he nodded furious understanding of his instructions, dropping his bone. Sabinus watched the monstrosity lower himself through the floor and out of sight, revolted by his grossness and briefly wondering what his real name was before deeming it far beneath his dignity to ask.
A cry of pain echoed around the bare stone walls, emanating from the cell below, which was the only other room in Rome’s public prison; the cry was followed by a deep snarl, which Sabinus took to be Beauty encouraging his charge to move. A few moments later, the head of the only occupant of the Tullianum appeared through the hole in the floor, his arms pulling himself up, wriggling his body in his desperation to get away from the hideous beast below him. After a couple more racing heartbeats of scrabbling, the terrified prisoner emerged, whole but naked, from the dark pit below, his long hair and moustaches matted with filth.
‘Good evening, Venutius,’ Sabinus crooned as if the sight of the prisoner was the most pleasing thing in the world. ‘I’m so pleased that you managed to avoid becoming Beauty’s dinner; now perhaps we can get back to what we were discussing this afternoon.’
Venutius drew himself up; the muscles in his chest, thighs and arms were sculpted and pronounced, and, despite his nudity, he managed to exude an air of
dignity as he looked down at his gaoler. ‘I have nothing to say to you, Titus Flavius Sabinus; and as a citizen of Rome you can do nothing to me until I’ve exercised my right to appeal to the Emperor.’
Sabinus smiled without humour. ‘You betrayed that citizenship when you led the Brigantes in revolt against Rome; your citizenship, as I told you earlier, is revoked and I don’t think you’ll find anyone who would argue against a traitor having his legal protection removed. The Emperor is unaware of your presence in Rome, which is just as well for you as I believe he would order your immediate execution. So, I’ll ask you again, nicely, and for the last time: who gave you the money to finance your rebellion in Britannia?’
Venutius flinched and moved away from the trapdoor as Beauty reappeared, snarling softly to himself in what could be described as a form of singing as of one happy in his work. ‘I’m protected by someone very close to the Emperor; you can’t touch me,’ Venutius said once Beauty had retrieved his bone and retired to his rags to gnaw on it.
‘And I’ve been asked by someone very close to the Emperor to find out where all your cash came from.’ That, Sabinus knew, was a lie; however, it was close enough to the truth for it to be believable. ‘And that someone is very anxious to find out quickly; tonight in fact.’ Sabinus nodded to Blaesus.
‘Beauty!’ Blaesus shouted in a commanding voice. ‘Put the bone down.’
The monster growled deep and long, as he, with obvious reluctance, complied with his master’s will.
‘He’ll start getting hungry soon if he’s not allowed to gnaw on his bone,’ Sabinus observed to Venutius, who looked sidelong at the hair-covered thing in the corner, concern showing in his expression.
A couple more growls caused Venutius to glance at Sabinus before looking back at Beauty. ‘No one financed my rebellion, it was my own money. It was after my bitch of a wife, Cartimandua, replaced me as her consort with that upstart, Vellocatus, I decided to have my revenge and remove her; which I did with pleasure.’
‘But it cost a lot of money to raise so many warriors and to keep them with you; and then taking on the survivors of Cartimandua’s army was yet more expense.’
Beauty growled again and let out a reverberating fart as he got to his feet, slavering at Venutius.
Venutius spoke quickly: ‘I found Cartimandua’s hoard, there was plenty in it; all freshly minted silver denarii – tens of thousands of them – as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands of gold aurei.’
‘Roman coinage that you then used to rebel against Rome,’ Sabinus observed as Beauty began to lumber across the room.
Venutius’ face now registered an unusual thing to see in the expression of a Britannic chieftain: fear. ‘I couldn’t stop once I defeated Cartimandua. My men were stirred up to it by the druids; Myrddin, the chief druid of all Britannia, came amongst us. To keep my position I had to lead a rebellion against Roman rule.’ Venutius started to back away from Beauty, who glanced over to his master for reassurance that he was, indeed, doing what was expected of him.
Blaesus smiled, inclining his head at his pet to encourage him.
Venutius now had his back to the wall; Beauty, snarls grinding in his throat, was almost upon him. ‘I didn’t have any choice.’
‘Yes you did; you could have fled here to Rome, to your benefactor, and thrown yourself at the mercy of the Emperor. Instead you used all that newly minted money against the Emperor and now you try to blame the druids.’
With a surprisingly agile bounce, Beauty pounced on the Britannic chieftain, his snarl turning into a hunger-fired roar. Venutius screamed as he was thrown flat on his back with the monster astride him, clawing at his chest.
Sabinus got to his feet and stood over the scene from which nightmares are woven, his face unmoved by the potential horror. ‘So where did that money come from?’
‘It was a loan!’ Venutius screamed as Beauty’s jaws opened, teeth honed by bone, and his head dropped towards him.
‘And your wife’s?’
‘The same; now call this thing off!’
With a guttural rumble of satisfaction, Beauty clamped his teeth into the muscular flesh of Venutius’ pectoral and, shaking his head like a beast at its prey, began to rip at it.
With cries that would have disturbed the peace of Hades, Venutius howled for mercy, sobbing with the terror of being devoured by a thing. As Beauty’s jaws worked, so did Venutius’ shrieks increase, his fists beating uselessly on the beast’s furred back and head, his eyes looking up at Sabinus, pleading.
‘Who gave you and your wife your loans?’ Sabinus asked with an enquiring furrowing of his brow.
Beauty wrenched his head back and blood arced above it, black drops in dim light.
Venutius stared in horror at the lump of dripping meat dangling from the hideous, masticating jaws. His eyes rolled as he watched Beauty chewing on his own precious flesh; then he screamed once, even louder than previously: ‘Seneca!’
PART I
Aquae Cutillae, November ad 58
CHAPTER I
SHE WAS DYING; there was no doubt about it in Vespasian’s mind as he looked down at his mother, Vespasia Polla. Late afternoon light, seeping through the narrow window above her bed, illumined the small bedroom, simply furnished, that was to act as the starting point for Vespasia’s last journey. Her face, with skin the texture and hue of wrinkled tallow wax, was peaceful: her eyes were shut, her thin lips, dry and cracked, trembled apart with each irregular breath and her long, undressed grey hair lay spread upon the pillow, arranged so by one of her body slaves in order that there would still be feminine dignity in death.
Vespasian increased slightly the pressure on the frail hand that he held in both of his as he said a prayer to his guardian god, Mars, that the messenger he had sent to Rome had made good time and his brother and uncle would arrive before she had need of the Ferryman’s services; he promised a white bullock to the deity should this be so.
Vespasian felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up to see Flavia, his wife of nineteen years, standing next to him.
His prayer had been so intense that she had entered the room without his noticing. Her make-up and jewellery were lavish and extensive; they were complemented by a high and ornate coiffeur and a crimson stola and saffron palla of the finest wool that allowed her comely form to be admired. Vespasian felt a twinge of annoyance at his wife for coming into a dying-chamber dressed as if she were about to entertain guests of the highest rank, but refrained from saying anything as he knew that dressing down would never have occurred to Flavia; instead he focused on family matters: ‘Are the boys still out with Magnus and his new hunting dogs?’
‘Titus is but Domitian came back with one of the hunting slaves half an hour ago sulking because Magnus had stopped him from doing something; what, I don’t know. He then pinched and scratched his sister.’
‘Domitilla’s had worse from him.’
‘She’s twice his age and soon to be married; she shouldn’t have to take that from a child of seven. I’ve given him to his nurse, Phyllis, she can restrain him, and I’ve promised him that you’ll give him the thrashing of his life once …’ Flavia trailed off knowing exactly what was preventing her husband from disciplining their youngest son immediately. ‘May Mother Isis ease her passing. Shall I send for the doctors again?’
Vespasian shook his head. ‘What can they do? Cutting out the swelling in her stomach will kill her quicker than leaving it in. Besides, she sent them away last time.’
Flavia could not resist a snort. ‘She always thought that she knew best.’
Vespasian gritted his teeth. ‘If you insist on carrying on a pointless feud with a dying woman, Flavia, it would be better to do so in the privacy of your own room and your own head. I am not in the mood, nor do I have the time, for women’s petty quarrels.’
Flavia tensed and took her hand from Vespasian’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, husband, I meant no disrespect.’
‘Yes you did.’ Vespasian returned hi
s concentration to his mother as his wife left the room at an irritated pace; her footsteps faded into the courtyard garden beyond.
For a few days over forty-nine years now, Vespasia Polla had been a part of his life and, as he again squeezed her hand, he thanked her, for he knew that neither he nor his brother would have reached the consulship had it not been for her drive and ambition for her family. His father’s side of the family were respectable, rustic equestrians; Sabine in ancestry and accent. Vespasia, however, came from a family that could boast a senator who had reached the rank of praetor: her older brother, Gaius Vespasius Pollo. It had been that connection she had used to launch the career of her sons in Rome and it had been Gaius’ relationship with the Lady Antonia, niece to Augustus, sister-in-law to Tiberius, mother of Claudius, grandmother of Caligula and great-grandmother of Nero, that had propelled them into the mire of imperial politics in which they had managed to swim not sink – just. Both had reached the pinnacle of the Cursus Honorum, the succession of military and magisterial ranks that were the career structure for the élite in Rome, which was far more than most New Men from non-senatorial families could expect; indeed, Sabinus had progressed from the consulship to being a provincial governor and was now the prefect of the city of Rome. Yes, Vespasian reflected, rubbing the thin crown of hair that was all that remained on his otherwise bald head, Vespasia could be proud of her achievement for her family.
Yet there was one thing that she had left undone in Vespasian’s eyes: she was going to her grave with a secret; a secret almost as old as him. That secret had been enforced by an oath administered, at Vespasia’s insistence, to all who had been a witness to the incident – Sabinus, aged almost five, included. It had occurred at Vespasian’s naming ceremony, nine days after his birth and it had to do with the markings on the livers of the sacrificial ox, boar and ram; what these markings were, no one had been able to tell him because of the oath. He knew, though, that his parents had believed the marks prophesied his future for he had overheard them discussing it, in vague terms, as a youth of sixteen; but what was prophesied, he knew not. And now his mother was going to the shaded land beyond the Styx without releasing people from that oath. However, due to certain strange occurrences and prophecies that Vespasian had been subject to throughout his life, he had formed a reasonable idea of what the omens may have predicted for him all those years ago; and it was an idea that was as outrageous as it was implausible with the political settlement as it was and the Principate in the hands of one family.
The Furies of Rome Page 2