David

by Barbaree Deposed

  After Regulus and the soldiers have untethered their horses and are riding east, towards the Praetorian camp, I signal for Virgilius to let the boy go. Once free, the boy takes two steps away from Virgilius. He straightens his tunic and belt.

  A cow’s bell clatters somewhere in the valley.

  ‘Where did you learn to fight like that?’ I ask.

  The boy takes a deep breath. He looks about, weighing his options.

  ‘The better question,’ the boy says, ‘is where did your man learn to fight? Isn’t he a soldier?’

  For all this boy knows, his life hangs in the balance. Yet, for me, all he has is disdain.

  ‘I wouldn’t call him a soldier.’

  ‘No?’ the boy asks.

  ‘It takes more than the uniform,’ I say. ‘We are always looking for good young men in the legions.’ I’ve arrested his uncle for treason and he has just finished assaulting three of my soldiers, yet I find myself trying to recruit him. Virgilius is smiling. He thinks it reckless, which, he will later say, is very unlike General Titus.

  ‘You want me to be a soldier?’ the boy snorts. ‘Haven’t you noticed? I eat soldiers alive. I can’t very well do that if I’m one of them.’

  ‘I could take you on my personal staff.’

  I’m close to begging now. Virgilius is shaking his head. He can’t believe it.

  ‘I’d rather open my veins.’ The boy is standing up straight now. Defiant.

  I’m growing more aware – and more confident – in my intuition. This rage filled youth should be put to good use.

  ‘Virgilius and I are going to take your advice. We’re going to seek out the witches of Rome who make poison. Come with us. You can help clear your uncle’s name.’

  The boy asks, ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  Strange words echo from above. All three of us look up to the jail’s lone window. It’s small, with three iron bars, and darkened by the shadowy outline of a head. Ulpius’ head. I recognise the language as Oscan – a language near extinction. It’s an ancient saying, one little used. I vaguely recall it from childhood: if the snake is on your doorstep, invite him inside.

  The boy shakes his head. He yells up at his uncle. He speaks in a language I don’t know, not Oscan, or Greek, or Latin. Persian, maybe. Ulpius hollers back. He uses the same tongue.

  Who are these two?

  ‘The answer is no,’ the boy says. Without another word, he walks to his horse, mounts it, and gallops across the plain.

  DOMITILLA

  7 April, afternoon

  The Imperial palace, Rome

  Antonia and I are in the Atrium of Julia, admiring rare stones brought by my Illyrican jeweller Talthybius, when Vespasia bursts in from the hall. She is nearly spitting with rage.

  ‘He has no right!’ she says, ignoring our guests.

  I put the emerald I’m holding down, meet Vespasia’s eyes and say, calmly, ‘A walk in the garden, sister?’

  The tenor of my voice gives her pause. She looks at Antonia, then the jeweller. She smiles. ‘Yes, thank you, sister.’

  I excuse myself and together Vespasia and I exit, arm in arm.

  When we are walking in the shade of the colonnade, I say, ‘You know better than to act like that in front of people outside of the family.’

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘But Titus has no right.’

  Her anger has lessened; but there is despair there, beneath the rancour.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He has arrested Caecina.’

  I stop walking and stare into my younger sister’s eyes. She’s hinted at this for a while now, hasn’t she? What did she say in January? I have pursued love outside of my marriage.

  ‘How long?’ I ask.

  She diverts her eyes. She feigns embarrassment but I see her pride; she thinks Caecina a prize. ‘Since October,’ she says, ‘of last year.’

  I am unable to control my eyebrows, which rise an inch, maybe two. ‘Vespasia! He is married. As were you.’

  ‘I love him, sister.’

  How many men has my sister claimed to have loved? I wonder if she has loved anyone but herself.

  ‘Titus has falsely arrested him. He will kill him on a whim. You must speak with Titus. Please.’

  ‘You know his history with Caecina. He will not listen.’ I shake my head in disbelief: somehow she has persuaded me. ‘We will have to speak to Caesar himself.’

  TITUS

  8 April, afternoon

  The Imperial palace, Rome

  Phoebus, Father’s loathsome secretary and freedman, finds me in my study.

  ‘General Titus,’ he says. As always, he has rolls of paper clutched in his little hands. ‘Caesar sent me.’

  I look up from my papers. ‘Yes, that seemed likely. I couldn’t imagine you thinking for yourself.’

  Ptolemy – somewhere in the room, hidden from view – snickers.

  Phoebus bares his sharp teeth.

  ‘Caesar commands you to release your prisoners. Caecina and Ulpius.’

  I put the roll of papyrus I’d been reading down.

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘He does,’ Phoebus says, luxuriating over each word.

  My response is firm but untroubled, as though I’m advising a misbehaving child. ‘Tell Caesar, no.’

  I reach for the roll of paper and resume reading. After a moment, after Phoebus runs through possible replies and determines none would do, I hear his sandals squeak along the palace floor, as he scutters back to Caesar.

  Ptolemy appears at my side not long afterwards.

  ‘Find my father,’ I say, without looking up from my letter. ‘I want to know when he is alone.’

  *

  Caesar’s eyes are closed. Steam tickles his chin. His old body – once thick as a tree stump, but now thinning out with age – relaxes against the bath’s marble wall.

  ‘Father,’ I say as I approach, ‘I didn’t know you were here.’

  Father doesn’t open his eyes, but a small, ironic smile curls the corner of his lips. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Strange, I’d have thought you’d come running to apologise. It’s not often Caesar is told “no”.’

  I sit down beside him and lean back against the marble. I suck the bright hot steam into my lungs; I let it out. Quietly, so that the slaves hovering nearby cannot hear, I say, ‘I would have thought it would be you who would apologise. Sending your freedman to give me orders. Interfering with my investigation.’

  ‘My freedman didn’t give you an order. I did. He merely delivered it. Is it my fault that my son is so petty he bickers with my freedman? What did he do? Smile when he gave you the order. You are a soldier, Titus. If a man smiles when he delivers an order – what of it? Deal with it.’

  ‘You could have asked me yourself,’ I say, painfully aware of how childish I sound.

  ‘By god!’ Father sits up with a start. ‘We are leading an empire. I have spoken to Plautius. I know the pretence on which you arrested both men. It is too tenuous – especially for men who are friends of the principate. Have you forgotten that there are men in this city who have much to gain from pointing the finger? We are not the Julio-Claudians who believed any bit of gossip concerning the principate.’

  My frustration is only deepened by a memory of my sanctimonious words to Regulus, which seems a lifetime ago. What am I becoming, that I disregard my own counsel? Yet I am loath to relent; I press on.

  ‘They are our friends now?’ I ask.

  ‘They have always been so. Caecina’s defection secured us an important victory in the civil war. And Ulpius gave me a massive sum – funds we could not have taken the Empire without. And I worry your motives with Caecina are personal, not political.’

  ‘That is an old story,’ I say. Father means our fight during the Neptunalia, with wooden swords. The world thinks I’ll never forgive Caecina for his victory and the way he laughed afterward. ‘We were boys. It makes no difference to me now.�
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  ‘Not that,’ Father says. ‘Something else.’ He watches me closely, reading my reaction. He knows something I don’t. ‘But it is nothing,’ he says, ‘Not to an old man who has lived a full life. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, it’s best you remain ignorant. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Let them out. Now.’

  I stand without a word. Whatever Father is referring to, he clearly doesn’t intend to tell me now.

  Before I leave, Father says, ‘I don’t know what you’re concerned about. Plautius has returned, unharmed. The False Nero is defeated and fled east. I thought we’d agreed the crisis has passed.’

  ‘There has always been more going on than Plautius’ disappearance,’ I say. ‘The hand in the forum remains unexplained; your procurator was murdered, within the walls of Rome; and a man’s body was mutilated by the Tiber.’

  ‘The world is a violent place,’ Father says. He relaxes against the marble wall again. ‘Violent acts do not mean Caesar’s life is in danger.’

  ‘I have read things,’ I say.

  ‘What things?’

  For the first time, I explain in detail Secundus’ translation of the scrolls found on Halotus. ‘Halotus’ death was related in some way to the body by the Tiber. These are not random acts. There are forces at work in the city.’

  Father waves his hand. ‘What nonsense. There are always strange cults in Rome: Isis, Mithras, Christ. Romans are as promiscuous with their religions as they are with their wives. Religions come and go. And they’re all dark in their own way. Don’t let some scroll you found on a poisonous eunuch scare you. You’re prefect of the Praetorians, for fuck’s sake. Leave it.’

  *

  In the evening, well after the sun has set, as I sit lost in thought, aimlessly staring at the papers on my desk, Ptolemy leads senator Cluvius Rufus, the academic, into my office.

  ‘Good evening, Titus,’ Cluvius says. A wooden box is pinched under his arm. Rolls of papyrus stick out of the lid.

  I stand – ‘Cluvius’ – and point at the seat across from my desk. ‘Please.’

  Cluvius sits. Ptolemy begins tidying papers.

  ‘I hope I am not disturbing you,’ Cluvius says. ‘I know you are busy.’

  ‘Not at all. In fact, I could use the distraction. How goes the writing?’

  Cluvius bites his lip, considering the question. He is a particular case, Cluvius. Slight, with a patchy beard, and the delicate hands of a woman. He was one of Nero’s favourites. He drank with Nero, caroused and gambled. I always thought he was as bad as his patron. Now, however, with Nero gone and the civil wars ten years behind us, he is the academic. He is writing a history, from Augustus to the present, and he has taken the task seriously. He sits at all hours in the libraries, scouring histories, family trees, edicts, dispatches, correspondence. A man can change – that is obvious – but to this degree? Was it a change in circumstance – with his patron gone and a new man to the purple – that led to this transformation? Or did it provide the opportunity to stop, exhale, and become the man he always was, the quiet intellectual sitting before me?

  ‘The writing is coming along,’ Cluvius says, ‘slowly but surely. But I often feel as though I have bitten off more than I can chew. History is a difficult animal to master; it is a chimera, with too many heads.’

  A chimera? I’m not sure the analogy is apt. In any event, I ask, ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes. Quite so. There is a plethora of information: documents, official and unofficial, first-hand accounts, second-hand accounts, commentary from this person or that. The information is endless. I could read day and night, until I was old and grey, and I still would not run out of material to review. On the other hand, the material is often contradictory and probably unreliable. And then there is the matter of direction, my literary bent, that is. What themes do I focus on? How do I balance one against the other?’

  I am not sure I care, but to be polite, I ask: ‘How so?’

  ‘History is a narrative,’ he says. ‘You cannot write everything down or the story is lost.’

  These are his concerns? The life of a writer: I would give my left arm.

  ‘Otherwise,’ I ask, ‘it goes well?’

  ‘Yes, yes. The support you and your father give is most welcome.’

  Father has done much to cultivate Rome’s men of letters. He is confident the policy will manifest itself in a way that favours the party. He says the trick to ensure favourable treatment is to not ask for it. ‘Tell them to write something and they will bristle. But give them money and a safe city in which to write and the rest will follow.’

  ‘In fact,’ Cluvius continues, ‘it is your family’s support that has . . . compelled me to come here tonight. To draw something to your attention, something I discovered yesterday, which may be of assistance.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You recall I was given access to Nero’s letters?’

  ‘Yes. But I thought there wasn’t much there. You said it was mainly love letters, gambling chits, angry letters to architects. That sort of thing.’

  ‘When you asked, I had not yet reviewed it in its entirety.’ Cluvius chooses his words carefully. ‘I have now reviewed all that I was given. For the most part, I was correct. The majority of the letters are as I described them. There are, however, a series of letters which he kept separate from his official letters – letters I do not believe anyone else has seen, other than perhaps the palace secretaries who made the copies before sending them out.’

  ‘And these letters are of interest to me how?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  Cluvius continues to plod.

  ‘. . . beyond being of interest to an historian, there is reference to certain . . .’

  He is sitting at the edge of his chair, labouring over each word, his eyes aimed at the floor.

  ‘. . . to certain religious practices conducted during Nero’s day, which could be related . . .’

  ‘Out with it, Cluvius. Related to what?’

  Cluvius finally raises his eyes to mine. ‘The body discovered by the Tiber.’

  ‘Explain that. What do you mean?’

  Cluvius seems relieved now that he’s finished. ‘Have you heard of Torcus before, the god of the marsh?

  I sit up in my chair. He places a stack of paper on my desk. ‘Nero exchanged letters with a barbarian, the famous Caratacus. I have marked the letters which are most pertinent to Torcus, but I suggest you read all of them in order to achieve context. Send word when you are done, if you wish to discuss it further.’

  He reaches for the stack of letters. As he’s walking out, I say, ‘Cluvius . . .’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘You know the chimera is fiction, yes?

  ‘I do. Goodnight, Titus.’

  XIX

  The Personal Correspondence of Nero Claudius Caesar

  A.D. 65 to 68

  Rome, 3 January [A.D. 65]

  Dear Caratacus:

  Last night I dreamt of a coup. My own, actually, so I’m in a mood. I know the dreams of one man can put the next to sleep, but grant me this indulgence, old king: I have a point.

  The dream began in the following manner. I was asleep, buried under soft silk, with naked, satisfied flesh spread out beside me. Then, without warning, soldiers burst through the door and dragged me out by the feet. They hurried me to my family’s crypt and sealed me inside, alive. My screams for help went unanswered; the soldiers’ taunts seeped through cracks in the stone. Hours stretched into days, days into weeks. A new man donned the purple and the Empire moved on. I did not. There I stayed, alone in the dark. Forgotten.

  The dream was unsettling. However, it was not the violence of it that still haunts me, hours later. It was their common-ness. The soldiers, I mean. Each had a plain face and dark little eyes – men from some lowly Gallic town where there are few alternatives for breeding; where a plain face has no choice but to settle down with dark little eyes. And yet they wore the uniform that ha
s conquered the world: steel cuirass, greaves, a sword at the hip, plumed helmet. The humdrum of humanity festooned in the greatness of Rome. The contrast was unnerving. It led to one thought in particular, one I’d never had before. You see: I may be a god, but unlike Jupiter, my power is divisible, divided up into every man who serves at my leisure. The true source of my godliness has a mind of its own, should he choose to use it.

  My dream follows unfavourable portents. Never before (or so I am told) has there been such frequency of lightning. In Placentia, a calf was born with its head fused to its leg. Worst of all, a comet appeared three nights ago.

  I consulted with the astrologer Balbilus. He has referred to his texts and conferred with the College of Augers. He is confident the portents are warnings, rather than the signs of anything inevitable. Remain vigilant, he says, and I shall rule for another twenty years.

  My secretary Epaphroditus agrees with Balbilus. So too does the prefect Tigellinus. Trust in the gods, they say. Balbilus has never been wrong, they say.

  I know they are right. Still, on a cold evening such as this, with only a lamp, papyrus and pen to keep me company, I find myself thinking of the advice you gave my uncle, Claudius Caesar, all those years ago. Do you remember? It was the first time we met. Claudius and the Imperial cortège paid a visit to your Italian estate. I was only a boy. It was the beginning of spring.

  I remember a road of white stone that crunched under the wheels of our carriage. There was pollen in the air and my eyes itched. The sky was an empty blue. Your farm was two storeys of terracotta sitting atop a green hill. Truth be told, I was disappointed. You were the first king I had ever met, and the first barbarian. I expected a garrison manning parapets, trenches, screams in a guttural tongue, and foreign flags whipping in the wind. I knew that your defeat at Roman hands had come and gone, but I was young and life had not yet robbed me of my romanticism. I craved adventure. I was not prepared for a staff of ten, groves of olives and lemon, and an old man who waved as we came up the drive.