‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘did you see any of your uncle’s transgressions? Did you see him hand gold pieces to Piso or Scaevinus? Did you see him at any of the conspirators’ clandestine meetings? Did you see him put up his hand, volunteering information?’
‘I was seven. Obviously not.’
‘But you’re certain he did such things. You’re just not sure how you know what you know.’ I pause to take a sip of wine. It burns the back of my throat as it goes down. It’s the sour variety, the type that only the legions drink: a thick, acidic blend that is as impervious to time and temperature as any soldier. After all my years on campaign, it’s all I can drink. The higher-end vintages from Spain or Italy taste like water now. ‘May I ask what happened to his estate?’
‘Nero confiscated most of it. My other uncle, his younger brother, was allowed to retain his real estate holdings in Italy,’ Regulus says. He raises the cup, takes one whiff and his face contorts like a child asked to eat his vegetables. He lowers the cup without taking a sip. ‘But that’s common practice,’ he adds.
‘There,’ I say, ‘you’ve hit the nail on the head.’ I take another sip of wine. It burns less this time. ‘Informers often stand to benefit from their informing. It’s implicit in the act. Why else inform?’
‘For the good of the Empire,’ Regulus says. ‘For the good of Rome.’
‘I thought you frowned on naiveté.’
‘You think my uncle was betrayed by his own brother?’ Regulus asks, incredulous.
‘That I do not know. What I do know is that informers, like everyone in this city, are only looking out for themselves. You can often trace the source of a man’s ruin to where the spoils land. Maybe others stood to benefit from your uncle’s demise. Maybe they are the reason for his ruin. I don’t know. But I would be surprised if he – the uncle accused of conspiring – was actually involved. I’ve never heard of your uncle. I can’t imagine he was an integral part of a plot to overthrow Nero.’
Regulus is quiet for a moment. When he speaks again his voice has a new bitterness to it. ‘Speculate all you like,’ he says. ‘But culling disloyal citizens ensures stability. It guarantees power remains intact. Tiberius ruled for eighteen years using informers to locate and purge his enemies. And Nero’s failure to do this was his downfall.’
‘Tiberius was Augustus’ heir,’ I say. ‘He could have ruled for another eighteen if he’d done away with the practice.’ The rumour – never proven but to which I subscribe – was that Tiberius was suffocated with a pillow by his unhappy staff. ‘Informers and purges didn’t prevent his downfall. They caused it. And no purge would have stopped what happened to Nero. Legions in Gaul and Spain revolted and the Praetorians turned on him. Then, with the help of his freedman, he took his own life. No purge of the senatorial ranks could have stopped that.’
I take another sip of wine before continuing. I’m going slowly now. I’m enjoying watching the look of contrition form on this pretty, patrician boy’s face.
‘It’s unfortunate that you haven’t had more time on campaign,’ I say. ‘All you’ve ever known is Rome so it’s hard for you to see it for what it really is.’
Regulus bristles. ‘I’ve been throughout Italy, and to Greece and Egypt.’
‘Those are recreations of Rome but on a smaller scale,’ I say. ‘Miniature Romes but with different weather and systems of roads that make sense. The provinces are merely copies of the capital. The system of government, laws and regulations – everything is the same. The people are the same as well, though again on a smaller scale. Less rich, less ambitious – but Roman nonetheless.’ I lean back into my chair, hoping to show how at ease I am. ‘No. There’s nothing you can learn about Rome by visiting miniature Romes. But on campaign, after only a few days living as a soldier, you would know more about Rome than from another ten years living here.’
Regulus looks unimpressed. He may have rolled his eyes, but I can’t say for certain in the lamp’s dim light.
‘It’s true,’ I continue. ‘The selfishness of this city, the unchecked greed, and the obsession with status – all of this is obvious to the soldier. It’s obvious because the life of a soldier is different. By necessity it is the very opposite. Selfishness in an individual will get the group killed. The army must work as one unit not only to conquer, but to survive. In Rome, a selfish man is rewarded with his dead brother’s farm and widow. In the field, however, a selfish man is rewarded with death. If you lived as a soldier, even for a short while, you’d see that. You’d view these helpful citizens wishing to inform on their fellow Romans with scepticism. Their motivation would be obvious.’ I tilt my head back and drain the last drops from my cup. ‘Informers, like everyone in this city, are only looking out for themselves. You would do well to remember that.’
‘And how was Baiae any different?’ Regulus asks. ‘You cut down two men without so much as a trial.’
The boy catches me off guard. I let my pettiness distract me.
‘In Baiae there were no informers. There was no purge,’ I say, without much conviction. It’s now my turn to let emotion seep into my voice. ‘Those men plotted openly against the Emperor. I saw their treachery with my own eyes. There was no opportunity for a trial, nor was there any need for one.’
Regulus is at a loss. The purse to his lips is back. He didn’t like my answer any more than I did.
‘It’s late,’ I say. ‘Go home to that pretty wife of yours. Be here tomorrow before sunrise.’
Regulus gets up to go. He places the glass of wine on the desk. The cup is full.
‘Bad luck, that,’ I say, pointing at the wine.
Regulus reluctantly picks up the cup. He looks at it like Julia looks at her vegetables. But I will say this for the boy: he has manners. In one fell swoop, he tilts his head back and drains the cup. He coughs violently – so much so that he has to place his hands on my desk to brace himself. The mutt wakes up and raises her head from the rug to watch the commotion.
‘I don’t know how you drink that swill,’ he says.
‘I’m a soldier,’ I say. ‘Remember: bright and early tomorrow morning.’
Regulus salutes me before turning to go.
Absently, I turn back to my correspondence, unrolling a letter from the governor of Gaul. But before I’ve read more than two words, I hear someone clear his throat. I look up to see Virgilius standing at attention. I nod my head and the centurion relaxes. I gesture at the chair opposite my desk.
‘General,’ he says before taking a seat.
My old friend’s presence immediately puts me at ease. He has a lean frame, a mop of white hair and a thick, salty beard. Old and battle-hardened, he is everything Regulus is not.
‘How much of that did you hear?’
‘Just the last bit,’ he says. ‘His uncle did it, if you ask me.’
I give the smile he was looking for.
‘Did you find Plautius?’ I ask.
‘No. But his wife is here.’
‘Did you speak with her?’
He shakes his head. ‘Just the staff. They said Plautius was expected in Rome two weeks ago. But letters have been coming in from the Bay saying he’s got further business to attend to.’ Virgilius looks over at the mutt. ‘You think that was his hand?’
I lean back in my chair. Plautius’ letter is on my desk. She heard the words ‘poison’ and ‘Caesar’, he wrote. I will investigate. Leave it to me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, ‘If it’s not, I’d like to speak with him.’
‘Should I go find him?’ Virgilius asks. ‘Or at least try to.’
‘No. Not yet. I need you with me tomorrow. Domitian is there now.’
‘Your brother is in Baiae?’
I nod. ‘He’s been there nearly a week, doing whatever it is young men do in Baiae. I will write to him. I will ask him to find Plautius. It will be good to put him to use.’
Virgilius nods, then asks: ‘If that wasn’t Plautius’s hand, what do you make of it?’
I don’t need to say anything more. Virgilius knows me well enough to see I’m done talking. He stands and says, ‘I will see you tomorrow then.’
He leaves.
I look again at the letters spread out on my desk. The dog – awake now – trots over and places her head onto my lap. Her large, dark eyes stare up at me lovingly.
‘If only you could talk,’ I say to her.
I pick the gold signet ring up and hold it to the light of the lamp’s flame. After I inspect those familiar scratches, I place the ring onto the desk and spin, losing myself in the gold, mesmerising blur.
III
Working Together
A.D. 68
NERO
14 June, cockcrow
City jail IV, Rome
I decide to kill myself the second time I’m lucid. For days, I’ve been consumed by crushing pain and feverish dreams – dreams more vivid than this world will ever be again; nightmares of white-hot blades piercing my eyes and purple-black blood gushing down my cheeks, pulsing out in a constant, endless churn. Until now, only once has the fever broken and the pain subsided enough that I could think clearly. I squandered those hours, as I cried out in anger, cursing the men who did this to me and the gods who let them do it. I’m lucid a second time and I don’t want to waste it. I refuse to be a bargaining chip, or the consideration paid for titles or coin, or whatever it is they plan to do with me. I want a good, clean Roman death; a death deserving of Caesar.
The question is: how?
Everything is black. The world has been reduced to touch, smell and sound. There is little left of my Imperial self, nothing but broken ribs and chewed-up flesh, bruises on top of bruises; my beard is caked with my own blood, a coagulated paste that stinks of the butcher’s block; and every one of my bones aches. But all of this pales in comparison to the pain emanating from whatever is left of my eyes, which may occasionally wane, but is always too much to bear.
I’m lying on my back in what I presume is a prison cell. A thousand pricks of hay irritate my back and neck. It’s quiet, save for the clatter of a cow’s bell, a dwindling staccato off in the distance. They must have taken me outside the city walls. I hope they will return my remains to the city proper, to our family’s crypt. I hope they will grant me that.
I test my surroundings, sliding my hands out in every direction over the dusty brick, searching for anything to use. My right hand brushes the wall and I happen upon a loose brick. I get onto my knees, slowly, with extreme effort, and then wiggle the brick with a ferocious shake until it dislodges from the wall. I hold the brick above my head and swing it down against the floor, again and again. It smashes on the sixth try. I slide my hand over each piece, until I find one that’s shaped like a spearhead, a jagged shard, which tapers to a point. It will serve.
Still on my knees, I raise the terracotta shard to my neck and press it against where I think the vein is. I apply enough pressure to break the skin; a trickle of blood slides down my neck . . .
I hesitate.
My mind wanders. I imagine my subjects – not mourning their lost emperor or even rejoicing at his fall – but indifferent, going about their day as they would any other. I think of my mother. I picture the look of satisfaction she’d have if she could see her son at this very moment, dethroned and on his knees like a beggar, about to open his veins. I think of the men who did this to me, alive and well. Not just the soldiers who took my eyes, but the men in positions of favour who must have been involved: senators, generals, my ungrateful Imperial staff – the men who truly stood to gain from my fall. At this very moment, they’re probably enjoying a cup and a laugh that the whole affair has come off without a hitch, that the man they’d worshiped as a god now sits in a cell, blind and helpless.
I scream, a frothy, wordless torrent of anger; my body quakes with rage. I scream a second time, then a third.
Exhausted, I crumple to the bricks.
Time passes. I breathe. Long. Deep. Breaths.
Something has changed.
I put the shard of brick aside. I will use it, but not yet.
MARCUS
15 June, afternoon
The fullery of Proculus Creon, Rome
‘How many times do I have to say it?’ Master says. ‘The slower you go, the less money I make. Is that so hard to understand? So why in Jupiter’s good name do you children take so long? You’re not composing poetry; you’re collecting piss. Yellow, white, green, or red – I don’t give two figs. Just bring it here, to the fullery, so I can turn it into money. Does this look hard?’
Master holds up a pisspot and a fat terracotta urn, the kind we carry from building to building. He pretends to pour the pisspot into the urn. Both are empty, but the sound of the women behind him, sloshing away in the vats cleaning and rubbing clothes, makes it sound like they’re full.
‘Do you see that? How long did that take? I’ve had sneezes take longer.’
Master tosses the urn and pot to Socrates; he fumbles but doesn’t drop them.
‘Do you want a hard life? I can whore you out to the degenerates of this city, if you’d prefer? Then, instead of dawdling from apartment to apartment with the sun on your back, you can feel the hot stinking breath of some lonely knight in your ear.’
Me and the other children start shaking our heads, protesting.
Master rests his hands on his fat belly. ‘No? Then hurry. Collect the piss and move on. Bring it to the fullery so the women can clean.’
Master stops; the women keep splashing around in the vats.
‘Well? What are you waiting for?’ Master says. ‘Go!’
The children scatter but Master calls me over before I leave. He talks as he’s inspecting cloths. ‘I had a soldier visit me.’
My heart starts racing at the word ‘soldier’.
‘He said the freedman is gone, but they’ve already brought in a new prisoner. Is that right?’
I nod my head, too scared to say anything about the new prisoner.
‘Well, you do the same for this one as you did for the other. Yes? It’s a lucrative contract to run that prison, and I won’t lose it because of you. Water and bread, collect the piss, then move on. Understand?’
Master snaps his fingers. ‘Understand?’
I nod my head.
‘Good.’ Master goes back to inspecting the clothes. ‘Go. Get moving.’
*
I use the gate called Pig. I forget its real name, but it’s beside a canteen with a pig painted on the wall, long and fat with its tail in a twist – so I call it Pig. After I’m through the gate, I follow the road north.
The road is empty except for a cart pulled by an ox and an old man slowly flicking the reins. The sun is straight up in the air and hot as an oven. My tunic sticks to my sweaty back. I walk along the road until I reach a dirt path and then I take it east. Soon I can see the jail, red-orange brick all by itself in a green field.
I used to like the walk. It was quiet, away from Master and Mistress and Giton and everyone else. I’d walk beside the dirt path, through the tall grass. Sometimes the grass would be slippery and cool, and I could feel it crunch under my feet. Some days I’d spot a hare, or a cow, and in the spring there are lots of red poppies along the way.
Now I don’t like the walk, not since the soldiers came. Now each day my heart starts pounding faster and faster the closer I get, and I can’t get a proper breath because it keeps slipping out of me. But I have to go, like Elsie says.
She’s the only one I told about what happened. That night, after the soldiers brought the new prisoner to the jail, I snuck back to Master’s late. I came in through the kitchen from the alleyway and Elsie was there, kneading dough for the next day’s bread. She saw me and right away knew something was wrong. She wiped her hands on her apron and then bent down so our eyes could see each other. She said: ‘Tell me, child. Tell Elsie.’ That’s all she said
.
I told her everything. I started going and couldn’t stop. I cried and she pressed my head against her bony chest. Her grey hair was up, but a few itchy strands hung down and tickled my neck. She wasn’t angry with me, and she didn’t tell me I did anything wrong – which made me feel better, but for some reason I cried even harder.
She said, ‘Everything is fine, child. Yes? Listen to Elsie. Everything is fine.’
The next morning, before anyone else in the house was awake, Elsie hurried me down to the Subura. It was so early its narrow streets were nearly empty. She pulled me into a dark alleyway. At the end of it, there was a man sitting cross-legged on the bricks. He was naked, I think, except for the red paint that covered half of his body. He was so fat that his big round belly covered his thighs and crotch. Elsie kneeled in front of him and motioned for me to do the same. Then she told the magi everything. When she was done, he waved his hand and said the remedy was simple. ‘Lion fat with rose oil rubbed between the eyebrows. It grants popularity with kings,’ he said. ‘It will work with emperors. Even their ghosts.’ Elsie paid him and then he rubbed lard on my forehead.
Elsie said it was best not to tell anyone about the prisoner, at least until the magic ran its course. ‘Keep doing what’s expected of you,’ she said. So every day I keep going to the jail, doing what I’m supposed to. And I haven’t told anyone but Elsie about the prisoner.
The whole city is talking about Nero. Some people say he’s dead; others say he’s gone north to raise an army – or east, or west. Even Master and Mistress can’t agree. Last night, I heard Mistress tell Master she thinks Nero is on his way to Parthia to buy an army from their king. Master said, ‘Don’t be stupid, my dear. Nero is gone. He’s as dead as our dinner.’ And he held up a half-eaten drumstick.
There’s a new emperor now. His name is Galba, but people call him the Hunchback. Elsie says he’s old – older than she is – with a crooked back and a bald head. He was governor of Spain before being named emperor, so he isn’t in Rome yet. Master says he’ll likely be here by the end of the summer. Some people aren’t happy that he’s the emperor. Yesterday there was even fighting in the streets. I heard Master tell Mistress it started in the senate. Senators made speeches against Nero. (One name sounds like Nero. Nera or Nevi or Nerva.) Later, in the forum, Nero’s friends laid flowers on the rostrum and made speeches about him. Other people started to boo and hiss. Both sides started yelling at each other and throwing rocks. Then the fighting started. I heard Master tell Mistress a few people were killed. ‘Torn apart,’ he said, ‘like the legs off a cooked chicken.’
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