Sejanus (Marcus Corvinus Book 3)

by David Wishart

  Uh-oh. There went the bell. I paused, just to the right of her mouth, and tried to keep my voice light. 'You joking, Perilla? After that crack about vipers what kind of a mother do you think she'd make?'

  'Torquata isn't as hard-bitten as she likes to appear. And what woman doesn't want children? Even a Vestal?'

  There was no answer to that, not one I wanted to make, anyway. And I could feel the spot of dampness on Perilla's cheek under mine. Quietly, I gathered her in and we made love, as we always did, as we'd been doing for the past ten years. In terms of comfort it wasn't much, but it was all I could offer.

  Perilla had been right about the brain. I couldn't sleep. Leaving her huddled under the blanket I picked up the nightlight and crept downstairs to the study, via the wine cellar: Bathyllus was in bed long ago and if he'd heard me moving around he would've got up. I'd run the little guy pretty ragged these past few days, and he deserved a break. Bathyllus gets sarky when he doesn't have his eight hours.

  I lit the reading lamp next to the couch, pulled out my notes and poured myself a cup of Setinian (no Caecuban left; really no Caecuban left, this time. I'd checked). 'You Know Who'. Yeah, well, I did at that. Torquata must've been talking about Agrippina, especially with the bit about the kids: Germanicus's widow was tough as old army boots, and she'd kept both her sons right under her thumb; the third one, too, Gaius, although he was the favourite.

  So. Silanus had been mixed up with Agrippina. Sure, I knew from my talk with Lippillus that he'd been a Julian supporter, but this sounded more specific. And it involved money.

  Okay, what had we got? I laid it out. Gaius Silanus had been the governor of the richest province in the empire; better, Asia was senatorial, so although Tiberius kept a watching brief, as he did throughout the provinces, he wasn't directly concerned with the admin. Or the taxes. Right. A scenario. Let's say Silanus was creaming a bit off the top, like governors do and have done since we took Sicily from the Greeks and Carthaginians almost three hundred years back; only instead of the money going into his own pocket it went to the Julians. That would fit in with what Torquata had said about her brother not sticking to feathering his own nest. It would explain the treason charge, too, and why the Wart hadn't wanted the details to be made public. He couldn't afford an open breach with Agrippina, and he wouldn't've wanted it, either, not when he was grooming her sons for higher things. So long as the hole was plugged, that was enough. He'd even commuted Silanus's death sentence to exile, as a goodwill gesture.

  I took a swallow of wine: the Setinian tasted almost rough after the Caecuban, but like I'd told Perilla Livia's thank-you present had gone to the best home possible. Yeah, that fitted. It fitted with Caesius Cordus, too, the Cyrenean governor who'd also been prosecuted for extortion and treason. Cordus was the other half of the scam. Maybe he'd put in a penny or two himself – Crete/Cyrene wasn't in Asia's league, but it was no pauper – but I suspected his main job had been to launder the cash-flow between Silanus and Rome. Whichever way it was, he'd been nailed at the same time; only not jointly, because that would've started people thinking. Or at least made a point that the Wart didn't want made...

  Asia. There had been something else about Asia, if I could only find it. I shuffled through the notes looking for the reference. There it was, on the top of the third sheet; one of the prosecutions I hadn't included in my shortened treason list. A year after Silanus was exiled to Cythnos a guy named Lucilius Capito had been condemned for – quote – 'usurping the governor's authority and using military force'. And Capito, so my notes said, had been the Wart's Asian factor...

  Things were falling into place sweet as a nut. I sat back. That made sense, too. As emperor, Tiberius had private estates which he ran through factors: narrow-stripers, plain-mantles, even a few freedmen. Most of the estates were in Italy, but a lot were overseas, and of these Asia was the biggie. Taken together, the revenues from the Wart's Asian properties would've equalled the tax returns of a small province: Noricum, say. or Lusitania. With both the governor and the imperial agent chipping in to the kitty we weren't talking peanuts.

  Okay. In Capito's case I was guessing. But let's say he was in on the scam. While Silanus was governor there was no problem; the governor took his cut from the ordinary provincials and Capito milked the private sector for what he could get, with the governor's connivance and support. Only then Silanus gets chopped and Capito is on his own. Sure, the guy could simply have pulled in his horns and crawled back into his shell, but he didn't; maybe he'd just got used to being the big shot and couldn't give it up. Anyway, he carries on the way he's been doing, using the local government troops to provide the muscle, and the new governor, who's Tiberius's man, naturally blows the whistle. Whereupon the Wart hauls Capito back to Rome and has the senate detach his balls...

  It would work. Sure it would, although I'd need to dig if I wanted proof. The important thing was that I had that tingle at the base of my skull that told me I was right. With that amount of cash flowing into Agrippina's secret fund on a regular basis she could really make things happen. Even when the cash-flow stopped. A careful Roman housewife like her would know how to make the best use of the pennies...

  My jaw muscles tightened and I yawned. Yeah, well, maybe that was enough for one night. If I'd uncovered a major Julian finance scam it wasn't a bad evening's work. A shame to leave the wine, though; I'd hardly touched it. And I knew that as soon as I got upstairs my brain would start buzzing again. Ticking. Whatever.

  Okay. One final stretch, and we'd call it a day. What was it for, the Asian money?

  I had the answer to that one already. I'd had it ten years back. When Germanicus had been chopped he and Agrippina had been plotting treason. Treason doesn't come cheap, not these days. People have to be bought, and kept bought: I knew a few of them now myself. Oh, sure, there are the altruists who conspire out of principle, but they're pretty thin on the ground. Even the Julians couldn't expect all their supporters to be dewy-eyed devotees willing to give their all for the cause. A Roman doesn't give anything for nothing. He expects something back.

  So. Silanus and his pals had been financing a Julian war-chest. The big question was why? The Julian plot was dead; thanks to Sejanus and the Wart it had gone down the tube with Germanicus's own death, a full three years before Silanus had been prosecuted. Yet Torquata had talked about a specific scam, an 'idea', she'd called it, that was linked with Agrippina. When Germanicus had died, he and his wife had had the empire all sewn up, potentially: the Rhine legions, the east, even Italy and Rome itself. The only really important bits left unaccounted for were...

  Were...

  I sat up so fast I spilled my wine. Jupiter! Oh, holy Jupiter! Jupiter Best and Greatest!

  The only really important parts left had been Gaul and Spain!

  I scrabbled for the notes, ignoring the spilt wine, and fumbled through them. It was all there, starting at the same time as Capito had been prosecuted, four years after Germanicus's death: Vibius Serenus, the Spanish governor, convicted of public violence; Gaius Silius, governor of Upper Germany, convicted of involvement in the Gallic revolt: Silius, whose involvement with rebels I couldn't understand, who commanded half of the biggest army north of the Pyrenees. Shit! And there was more, sure there was! I leafed through the papers frantically. Serenus again, hauled back from exile later in the same year and for the same crime as Silius: involvement with the Gauls. Votienus Montanus, Gaul, condemned for slander...

  Gaul. Spain. The two major western provinces. The only parts of the empire barring Africa that Agrippina didn't already have her claws into. Or at least at the time I hadn't thought she had. And although Sejanus's uncle Junius Blaesus had held Africa he'd been kept too busy with the rebel Tacfarinas even to scratch himself...

  The prosecutions all dated to four years after Germanicus's death. Four years after the Julian plot was officially dead and buried. And the year before that...

  Bull’s-eye! I reached out a trembling hand, refilled my
empty wine cup and drank the Setinian down.

  Sacrovir!

  8.

  Next morning I went down to Watch headquarters again to see Lippillus. He'd had a late-night mugging and was taking the morning off, but the squaddie I'd caught him bawling out gave me directions to his new flat. I hoped I'd find it. Lippillus was right; the guy was thick as two short planks. Three short planks. Jupiter knew how he'd made it through puberty, let alone been accepted for the Watch.

  On the way I turned over in my mind what I already knew about the Sacrovir revolt in Gaul. It wasn't much; I'd been in Athens at the time, and for Athenians Roman politics is a topic of conversation that ranks on a par with bedbugs and the finer points of sewage disposal. For all the Greeks cared, the Germans could've swum the Rhine, taken out all six of our legions and been giving lieder recitals on the Palatine with the Wart singing bass.

  It had happened not long after I left Rome. I wasn't sure of the reasons, but they probably involved complaints about taxes. Revolts usually do, when you come right down to it, although you can substitute tribute or reparations or whatever the appropriate term might be, depending on the status of the areas concerned and what their precise relationship with us is; at least the relationship as we see it. Keeping an empire running doesn't come cheap, and the guys who run it are mostly ordinary human beings with families to feed and expensive tastes to pander to, ready and willing to turn an honest penny when opportunity presents itself. Or even a dishonest penny if they can get away with it. For all Augustus and the Wart's attempted reforms you still get the old Republican spiral: high taxes leading to debt leading to profiteering by private loan sharks leading to deeper poverty and discontent. When that gets bad enough – and it happens more quickly in the poorer provinces where cash-money isn't too plentiful and a tax demand means bad news for the goats – there's always trouble. Usually the local rep keeps it in check by knocking heads together, but sometimes things get out of hand and the governor has to send in the heavies.

  Which was what had happened in Gaul. The trouble part, anyway. There'd been two revolts, one in the east towards the German border and one in the centre. The eastern rebellion, led by a local chief named Florus, had been put down pretty smartly. The other, which was Sacrovir's, was a tougher proposition altogether. Sure, we broke them, but it took the German governor Silius and a major slice of both Rhine armies to do it; the same Silius, if you remember, who was later prosecuted for helping the rebels...

  Interesting as far as it went, but not a lot to go on as far as nitty-gritty details were concerned. Which was why I needed to talk to Lippillus again.

  I was lucky. Maybe the squaddie had concrete filling between his ears but there was nothing wrong with his directions. I found the tenement without much trouble. It was upmarket for a city island; which meant the graffiti on the stair walls was correctly spelled and passing dogs or local residents who couldn't be bothered to make the trip to the public toilet didn't use the entrance lobby as a latrine. Marcina Paullina answered the door. She was wearing a loose red tunic that made a fantastic threesome with her glossy black hair and olive skin

  'Corvinus!' she said. 'How lovely to see you! Do come in. Decimus is having breakfast.'

  'Hi, Marcina.’ I tried not to look down as I eased past her in the narrow lobby: tenement flats aren't exactly spacious. Jupiter! Stepmothers like that shouldn't be allowed! And if she'd put on weight then she'd done it in all the right places. 'I'm sorry to disturb you this early.'

  'Oh, that's all right. Anyway, it's not early. I was just going shopping, in fact.' As I always did, I wondered about Marcina's accent. She was African, sure, but she spoke the kind of pure Roman Latin you don't expect to hear in a city tenement, and I couldn't imagine her haggling for beans in the market.

  'Corvinus!' Lippillus was sitting at the small folding table which was one of the few bits of furniture in the room, working his way through a plate of bread and cheese. 'Pull up a stool. You eaten yet?'

  'Yeah.' I sat down. 'Some of that cheese would be good, though.'

  'Help yourself.'

  Marcina brought a flask of wine and two cups. Sensitive as well as beautiful.

  'So how was the mugging?' I said.

  'The usual.' He pushed the plate of cheese towards me. 'Smartass Esquiline kid with more money than sense slumming it in Cattlemarket Square. Luckily he had a hard skull. He'll be okay in a month or two, if he lives. So. How's your own investigation going?'

  Marcina had taken a red headscarf and a cloak down from a hook behind the door and put them on. 'I'll see you later, Decimus,' she said. 'Sprats for dinner?'

  'Fine.' Lippillus grinned at her. 'If I'm back in time. Don't wait up.'

  'Do I ever?' She gave me a smile and left. Ah, well. Maybe it was for the best. With Marcina around I'd've found it difficult to keep my mind on business. I turned back to Lippillus.

  'What do you know about the Gallic revolt?' I said.

  Lippillus poured wine into the two cups. 'Florus and Sacrovir? No more than anyone else.' Yeah. I'd expected that, and I ignored it. The guy was a walking encyclopaedia. 'You think there's a connection with your stuff?'

  I told him about the treason trials, the Asian scam, and what Torquata had said. When I'd finished, he nodded slowly.

  'It sounds possible. Just. But if you think it was meant to pave the way for a Julian coup in Rome then you're fantasising.'

  'Is that right?' I took a sip of the wine. Rough country stuff, but it went well with the goat's cheese.

  'That's right. Florus and Sacrovir were amateurs. They caused a stir at the time, but nothing really serious, and nothing long term. Certainly not major enough to threaten the security of the empire.'

  Yeah. That was true. If Agrippina had expected the west to rise as one man to the Julian cause she'd been disappointed. 'So you think I'm wrong?'

  'No. Not necessarily.' Lippillus cut himself a slice of cheese. 'But you are looking at things from the wrong angle.'

  'Okay, Aristotle. Tell me.'

  He didn't smile. 'It's obvious. Like I said, Florus and Sacrovir were lightweights, in Roman terms at least. Sure, they had a lot of local support but once the legions were called in they didn't have a chance. The revolt never spread much beyond their own two tribes, let alone to Germany or the Spanish provinces. And if like you claim Silius and the Spanish governor were Julian supporters then that's significant, because if they intervened publicly at all it was on the Wart's side.'

  True. All of it. Shit.

  'So what was going on?' I said.

  'You want an educated guess?'

  'Yes, I want an educated guess!' Gods! Getting this clever midget to commit himself was like taking a bone from a seriously disgruntled wolverine.

  'All right.' He sipped his wine. 'Let's say the purpose of the rebellion wasn't military at all. It was political; at least as far as the Julians were concerned. Wouldn't that make more sense?'

  Uh-huh. It rang a few ten-year-old bells, too, and I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before. 'You mean the Julians were going for the Wart personally? For his political street cred?'

  Lippillus nodded. 'Tiberius had his back to the wall at the time. He was in trouble financially, the army was stretched and grousing, and as far as his personal prestige was concerned he'd've had trouble running for office as Caretaker of Weights and Measures if he had to, let alone emperor. Whereas Agrippina and her sons were universally popular.'

  Yeah, right. The old story, in other words, only for Germanicus read his wife and kids. And the financial aspect tied in nicely. Wars were expensive. The Treasury was already pretty empty after Pannonia and Germany, and the Wart was scraping in the pennies by cutting public spending to the bone. Logical enough, but your average city punter isn't logical over his Games and corn dole, and even emperors ignore the city punter at their peril. As far as Rome's not so silent majority were concerned Tiberius was a stingy bastard, full stop, end of story. More cuts, to pay for yet another war, might
just put the lid on things. This was beginning to sound promising.

  I took another swig of wine. 'So anything the Julians could do to mess things up even worse for Tiberius would be a definite plus?'

  'Right. The aim was destabilisation, coupled with a smear campaign.' Lippillus pulled off a piece of the loaf. 'I doubt if they planned a formal coup. I'd guess the intention was to weaken him enough to force political concessions, and in those terms I'd say the revolt was pretty successful.'

  'Yeah?'

  'Yeah. You weren't in Rome at the time, Corvinus. You didn't hear the rumours that were going around. If you'd believed half what was said –and I'm not just talking about wineshop gossip, either – you'd've thought the whole of the west was up in arms, Sacrovir was heading over the Alps like Hannibal with half Gaul, Germany and Spain at his back, and the Wart couldn't care a tuppeny toss.' He bit into the bread and chewed. 'Those rumours weren't accidental. And they did a lot of damage.'

  I sat back. It made sense. Sure it did, and if that was where the Asian cash had gone then it'd been money well spent.

  'Okay,' I said. 'There's the general theory. Where's the proof?'

  'You want me to do all your work for you?' Lippillus's smooth, too-young face split into a grin. 'You're the big political thinker. I'm only an overworked public servant with a nasty mind. And with a nasty mind you can prove anything.'

  'True. But you don't get any extra points for modesty.' I took the last bit of cheese from under his knife. 'You've probably got this all worked out already six ways from nothing. Cut the flannel and give.'

  The grin changed to a laugh and he ducked his head.

  'Okay. So maybe I do have some thoughts. Just don't quote me, right?' He bent down a finger on his left hand. 'One. You know that the family name of both Florus and Sacrovir was Julius?'

  'Is that so, now?' No, I hadn't known that, and it was an interesting point. Provincial families given Roman citizenship take the name of the Roman who got it for them, just as a freed slave adds his ex-master's first names to his own. It's not only a compliment, it has a practical and legal purpose as well: out in the sticks, being able to sign three names to a document means you're someone to be reckoned with. 'You think they had Julian connections? Specific Julian connections?'