‘So he’s returned with nothing?’ Nero asks.
Doryphorus keeps cursing. His face is as red as a legionary’s cape.
While still on his knees, Spiculus says, ‘Not exactly,’ and points at the necklace he’s wearing – a necklace he wasn’t wearing before. It’s gold with fat green emeralds, three of them, dangling like juicy pears. Doryphorus gapes and then yells, ‘Ho!’ Nero keeps asking what happened.
After Doryphorus calms down, Spiculus explains how he found a cave underwater.
‘And what’s there?’ Doryphorus asks. ‘More than that necklace?’
‘More gold and jewels than I’ve ever seen.’
Doryphorus starts swearing again, but this time he laughs in between the curse words.
*
We walk back to town laughing the whole way. We trade one of the three emeralds with a local jeweller for coin. We buy a rowboat, lots of long ropes, four horses and a week at an inn. We don’t tell anyone else about what we’ve found. Spiculus says it’s too dangerous, that someone would rob us if they knew.
That night, Nero says, ‘Tomorrow, we go back for more. Much more. Spiculus, you can dive back to the cave with a rope?’
Spiculus nods.
‘Good. Once you’ve secured each chest, we’ll have the horses drag it up.’
‘It will take days,’ Spiculus says.
‘Maybe,’ Nero says. ‘But we can leave some of the treasure where it is if necessary. It’s lasted a thousand years, I’m sure it can last a few more. Either way, we will be the richest men in the Empire.’
XXII
An Experiment in Figs
A.D. 79
CALENUS
4 April, afternoon
The Subura, Rome
Red keeps me waiting for half of an hour. Maybe the client before stays too long. Or maybe she knows making a man wait only adds to the suspense and I’ll want her even more. Either way, I don’t care. As long as she walks through that door and invites me inside, I’m happy.
The waiting room is long and narrow; a bench that runs from one end to the other. To my left is a door that leads to the rooms. It’s closed with a large fellow in front of it. Five other patrons are with me on the bench, waiting patiently. If I wasn’t waiting for someone in particular, I’d be next. But I’m here for Red and only Red.
After I ran into Red in the street, I paid for the drink and everything else she was selling, and I’ve kept coming back to see her ever since.
I’ve asked her about the day we met and the men who’d kidnapped her. She didn’t know why she’d been abducted. ‘They weren’t exactly the kind of men who would answer your questions.’ She’d overheard something she shouldn’t, she said, and stupidly told another customer when she was drunk and worrying about it, and that customer told someone else. ‘Maybe one of them is to blame.’ She said she’d learned her lesson and wasn’t telling anyone anything, me included.
When the fight on the road started, she’d hid in the forest before making her way to Rome. ‘There’s no better place to hide than the biggest city in the Empire,’ she said. ‘And besides, no one would think to look for me here.’ She got a job in this brothel and tried to get on with her life. ‘I’m just keeping my head down,’ she said. ‘From here on out.’
After what feels like a week, the door finally opens and Red pokes her head out. ‘Calenus,’ she says. ‘You weren’t waiting long, were you?’
*
Red rolls off me, haphazardly pulls her stola on, and fetches a bottle of sour wine.
‘One glass,’ she says, ‘then you’ll have to go.’
I snatch my tunic off the floor and fish out what’s left of the money Domitilla gave me.
‘This,’ I say, holding up a silver coin, ‘should get me the rest of this hour and the next.’
She walks over and examines the coin. ‘That, my dear friend, will get you the rest of the day.’
She hands me the drink and sits down beside me.
‘You know I saw him today. The soldier who grabbed me.’
‘What?’ I sit up straight. My right hand clenches into a fist just thinking of that bastard. ‘Where?’
‘Oh, calm down, Calenus! Stop acting like a protective husband. I can take care of myself, thank you very much. Anyway, it happened in the forum. There were thousands of people around. And he’s not looking for me in Rome. So unless I hit him over the head, he’ll never find me.’
‘It happened to us,’ I say, recalling our collision in the Subura.
‘True,’ she says and reaches up and rubs the scar on my cheek. (She does this often. She says it’s good luck.) ‘But you and me have an affinity.’
‘How do you know it was him?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I’m not likely to forget a beast like that. Plus he had that cut below his eye, the one you said you gave him. You’ll be happy to know its healing badly.’
‘Well, you come find me next time you see him.’
‘Why?’ She says, smiling. ‘How’s an old, washed up cripple like you going to protect me?’
‘Its not for protection,’ I say. ‘Nerva told me he’d pay to know who he was. And it might help me get more work from him again.’
‘You never told me what happened. Why did your patron drop you so quickly?’
I shrug. ‘Because I went from a fly on the wall to Caesar’s best friend.’ I tell her the story of being brought to the palace to translate for the Batavian after he’d saved the Augusta’s life. ‘A man like me looses his value when people know my face – that’s what Nerva said anyway.’
Red narrows her eyes. She thinks I’m boasting to impress her.
‘The life you lead,’ she says. ‘So what will you do for money?’
‘Not sure,’ I say, depressed at my prospects. ‘Nero still owes me coin. I can collect that.’
Red smiles. ‘I thought you were a friend of the Royal family now. I’m sure Caesar could use the services of Julius Calenus?’
I laugh at the prospect. ‘Imagine that?’
‘Well,’ she says, ‘you’ll think of something.’
‘I always do.’
DOMITILLA
10 April, afternoon
The gardens of Diana, Rome
Vespasia and I find Titus on the second level of the colonnade, looking down into the garden of Diana. Cleopatra, his adopted mutt, is beside him, staring up at her master with affectionate eyes. Titus’s hands are on the marble railing. He is bent over, watching everything like a bird of prey. Below there are four men sitting at a long, rectangular table. In front of each man there is a basket of figs; a wax tablet sits in front of each basket, numbered one to four. The men are all chewing; their mouths overflowing with freshly picked (and possibly poisoned) fruit. Behind the men, Titus’s grizzled soldier Virgilius paces the length of the table.
We’d been searching for Titus all morning, from one end of the palace to the other, until Father let slip he could be found here, in the gardens of Diana, a little used, almost forgotten Imperial garden on the outskirts of the city.
Titus allows us to observe his experiment after swearing we would not tell a soul what we witnessed; and, for a time, we quietly watch the men aimlessly chew their possible demise. But then, not being able to bite my tongue any longer, I say, ‘This seems ignoble, Titus. Even if they are criminals.’
From the corner of his mouth, without breaking his hawk-like observance, Titus says, ‘They are all criminals, Domitilla, condemned to death. They are being put to better use here than in the arena.’
‘It’s cruel,’ I say.
Titus straightens his back, then turns and looks me in the eye. ‘These men are all convicts. Each one has volunteered. They know the stakes. I have promised to release anyone who lives. The man who dies will have a thousand sesterces sent to his family.’
Vespasia stops biting her nail, ‘Domitilla is right. This is cruel.’
‘You only think it cruel because it is novel,’ Titus says. ‘It’s no cruell
er than the arena.’
‘That’s not true,’ Vespasia says. ‘This is different to the arena.’
Titus shakes his head. ‘It may be different in form, but not substance. Every day you see cruelty and condone it. The Empire feeds off of it – it couldn’t exist without it, no civilisation could. But you see it so often that you’ve grown used to it. It is only when the form is new that you notice it and raise an objection.’ He finally looks at us. ‘Cruelty is merely another word for novel. Once a practice becomes routine, it is no longer novel and therefore no longer cruel.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I say with conviction. ‘This is cruel.’
Vespasia says, ‘I agree with Domitilla.’
Titus ignores us both; he is done explaining himself. We stand in silence, watching.
I miss my brother, the boy who would smile in the face of adversity. It was his constant calmness that I found supernatural. But this year has been too much for him – the unexplained events that he cannot attack head on. The hand in the forum, Plautius’s disappearance, the body by the Tiber. I wonder if my brother, for the first time in his life, feels helpless.
It is quiet for a moment, almost serene, the only sound the slow monotony of chewing and, somewhere hidden, a bird coos.
And then the sound of choking is everywhere. A man stands up from the table, clutching his throat. White foam leaks from the corners of his mouth. He falls backwards and his fit of coughing is momentarily interrupted by the dull thud of his head hitting stone. He writhes for a time on the ground. Then there is only silence; his body is still.
Two Imperial slaves attend the cadaver and drag it away.
Titus calls down to his grey-haired soldier, Virgilius. ‘What number?’
Virgilius is standing beside the now unmanned bushel of figs. ‘Three,’ he answers back.
The felons talk excitedly. They think they’ve earned a pardon.
‘Why have you stopped?’ Titus cries down to them. ‘You’re not done yet. I need each garden checked. You’re not done until your bushel is done. Back to work.’
The three remaining men grow silent; their faces blanch. None, however, move.
Virgilius claps his hands. ‘Move!’
Downcast, the convicts sit back at the table and reluctantly insert another barely-ripe fig into their mouths.
*
I roll the die and, when I see three ones making dog, I curse aloud. Antonia waits to see that I’m not too upset before laughing. She reaches for the die.
She says, ‘I see your luck is no better than mine.’
I bite my lip, holding back more curses.
‘No,’ I say. ‘But it does give us a good excuse to visit, doesn’t it?’
‘It does.’ Antonia smiles. ‘Do you know what your brother has been up to? I called on him yesterday but he was not at the palace.’
Since Titus swore me to secrecy, I am forced to say, ‘I’m not sure. Off finding those working against Caesar, I suppose.’
Antonia tips her head to the side and rubs a spot on her neck just behind her ear; a cord tightens and her collarbone juts out. Unexpectedly, I picture my brother kissing this particular outcropping. I wince. One should not picture their brother doing such things. But there are rumours . . .
‘Well,’ Antonia says, ‘whatever it is, Titus always chooses the best course.’
. . . and one can’t help but believe the rumours when the alleged mistress is suddenly an expert on the alleged adulterer.
Antonia soon changes the subject. ‘They are saying the False Nero has disappeared. The trail has gone cold.’
‘Yes, but I am sure he will surface eventually. Strange, isn’t it? How people would risk their life to follow such a man?’
‘Oh, I’m not so sure,’ Antonia says. ‘I always thought the tyrant was handsome.’
I smile, appreciating Antonia’s love of controversy. ‘He was too short for my tastes,’ I say.
‘Ah, yes,’ Antonia says; she grins. ‘I’d forgotten you prefer your men tall – tall as a Batavian.’
I blush – though not as severely as I would have before. The Batavian has kept his promise, more or less. He has done nothing to embarrass me since Calenus spoke with him. It’s what I wanted . . . and yet I find myself missing the attention. His attention. My worth has always been inextricably tied to Father. When a man showed interest, I was never sure of the reason: did he like me (my eyes, my wit, my love of poetry, the way I curl my hair) or did he like the wealth and connections that marrying Vespasian’s daughter would bring? The Batavian was different. There was something simple in his blue gaze. It was unpolluted by politics or Rome’s social hierarchy. But I know it’s for the best: aside from the slight boost to one’s morale, nothing good could have come from a Batavian’s lingering blue eyes.
Later – after I am down three games to one – Plautius comes rushing into the atrium. He is gripping a piece of paper above his head. He is angry and visibly shaken.
‘This is beyond the pale. Simply ludicrous.’
Antonia grimaces. She is embarrassed at her husband’s lack of composure.
‘What is it, Lucius?’ she asks.
‘Look at this.’ Plautius thrusts a piece of paper into Antonia’s face. ‘They have brought a case against me. I can’t even say why. It is too much, too much.’
‘An action,’ Antonia says. ‘For what?’
Plautius sits and drops his head into his hands; he shakes his head back and forth; finally, he looks up. ‘It is alleged that after my time at sea, I am no longer a free man.’ His eyes tear up.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say.
‘The owner of the ship I was on. He says I was taken according to the law. He’s brought an action, to prove I’m servile. To prove I’m his property.’
‘Can he do such a thing?’ Antonia is incredulous. ‘To a senator?’
‘It’s a perversion of the law,’ Plautius says. ‘A court can restore a freeborn citizen his rights. It’s done when freeborn children are put to work as slaves. This, though – this is mad. The ship’s captain is manipulating ancient laws to steal a freeborn Roman citizen.’
‘Why would a merchant do this?’ Antonia asks. ‘It’s foolish to want a senator to row your ship.’
‘It must be political,’ I say. ‘There must be an aim beyond putting Lucius back in chains.’
Plautius drops his head into his hands again. ‘I won’t go back to that boat. I can’t.’
Antonia sits beside Plautius on the couch. Out of a sense of duty rather than true empathy, she pats Plautius’s back. ‘There, there.’
Plautius starts to sob.
XXIII
Alexandria
A.D. 69
NERO
23 May, morning
The home of Lucius Ulpius Traianus, Alexandria, Egypt
Doryphorus and I are on the balcony when Spiculus and Marcus trudge in. Their feet, still slick from their swim in the Great Harbour, slap the marble with each step.
‘How was the lesson?’ I ask.
‘He’s coming along,’ Spiculus says. ‘He will be better than me in no time.’
A slave takes my hand and then places a cup into the palm. He knows to wait until I’ve gripped it with both hands before letting go. He, like all of the other slaves we have purchased, speak only Aramaic, leaving us free to converse in Latin or Greek, without curious ears listening in.
‘You’ve missed quite a lot while you’ve been swimming,’ I say. ‘A new emperor has been named.’
‘Another one?’ Spiculus asks.
‘It’s true,’ Doryphorus says. ‘The city prefect had the troops here in Alexandria declare a new man emperor. It’s unfortunate Otho killed himself. We could have had three at one time.’
‘Who?’ Spiculus asks.
‘Vespasian,’ I say.
‘The legate in Judea? The one you named?’
‘The very one,’ I say. ‘Three years ago the man went into hiding after an ill-timed n
ap. Yet here he is, co-emperor of Rome.’
‘Not of Rome,’ Doryphorus says. ‘He has only been declared emperor by the troops here in Alexandria and maybe in Judea. But if his pedigree is what you say it is, a provincial two generations removed from a Gaul, I cannot fathom the senate or the patricians bowing down to such a man.’
I shake my head. ‘Armies are the ultimate counter-argument. The eastern legions were once famous for their lethargy. But they have lately been hardened by war. Vespasian is now backed by a formidable army. And look at the man he is up against. Vitellius is the lowliest of creatures. I enjoyed his company over a cup of wine or banquet – the man had appetites that took your breath away – but I would never have trusted him with the safe keeping of a mouse, let alone the Empire. It’s only a matter of time before Vespasian wins. When he does, the senate will have no choice but to recognise him as Caesar.’
‘Will the war come here?’ Marcus asks tentatively. He loves Alexandria. To him, Rome is stiflingly hot, its people brutal. Alexandria is bright and mild, and here he is free, not a slave to a brute. He doesn’t want Alexandria ruined by war.
Doryphorus, indifferent to the anxiety underlying the question, says, ‘We can’t be certain of anything. However, we can use this turn of events to our advantage.’
‘How?’ Spiculus asks.
‘Assist Vespasian,’ Doryphorus says. ‘Place him in our debt.’
‘And how does one get a general owing us a favour?’ Spiculus asks.
‘Empires cost money,’ I say, ‘and now money is something we have in ample supply. This will also provide an opportunity to advance the name of Ulpius.’
Doryphorus snorts. ‘For the boy’s sake?’
‘For all of ours,’ I snap.
‘Come now, Doryphorus,’ Spiculus pleads. ‘We work to further the name of Ulpius now. We all agreed.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We best be getting on with it.’
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