by M C Scott
The stew was truly excellent. After two months at sea, I imagine anything would be good that didn’t taste of fish, but this was better than that: something to come back for.
I let him savour the first burst of flavours, then said, ‘Who has died?’
Spoon halfway to his mouth, Pantera raised a brow. ‘The two sailors at the corner table, the Gaul and the Greek, are planning the detail of how they will take you when I leave.’
Nice try. I shook my head. ‘They won’t do anything while Barnabus watches over us.’
Barnabus was the tavern’s owner, barman and door guard. I glanced across at him. He smiled at me and nodded; we knew each other well.
‘Ex-navy?’ Pantera asked. The marines of Ravenna had a reputation that made the legions seem restrained.
I said, ‘He was captain of his own ship before he retired and bought himself a wife. I caught the man who raped his daughter and delivered him here.’
‘Alive?’
Of course. I nodded. ‘Nobody will touch me in here. And out there’ – I tipped my head towards the world beyond the door – ‘they won’t find me. But it was a good distraction, a worthy try.’ This was neither the time nor the place for our previous long, weighted silences, so I continued without waiting for him to speak. ‘You sent a message saying you were coming back to work with me to make Nero’s successor. If you are in mourning, it may affect what we do. I need to know the details. Who was he?’
Menachem. The name stuck on the two sides of his tongue, closing his throat.
My informants had been effusive in their eulogies of the warrior-king on his milk-white Berber mare, his black hair flowing from his helmet, and the thin loop of his crown dazzling in the morning sun. A legionary of the XIIth killed him, they said: Demalion, with Pantera’s own bow.
The story told itself anew on Pantera’s face: the shock of the death, the emptiness after, the slow climb back to normality, if his life could ever be described as normal.
It was not my place to be kind to him. I said, ‘I need to hear you speak his name. To know you can.’
Pantera set down his spoon. ‘Menachem. His name was Menachem ben Yehuda ben Yehuda. He made himself king in Judaea.’
‘He made himself king?’ I asked. ‘Or you made him?’
‘I helped show him how it could be done, but he was the raw material that made it possible. He was born to it. I have never met his like.’ He looked down; we both did. His finger, clearly unbidden, had sketched a horse in spilled wine on the tabletop.
It was not a good horse. He swept it away with the heel of his hand.
‘Did you love him?’ I asked.
‘Not in the carnal sense. But I found in him a man worth following. I could have lived in his service and not felt my life wasted.’
‘I envy you,’ I said, and it was true.
Pantera raised one brow. ‘I thought you had found the same in Nero?’
‘Nero?’ I was genuinely puzzled.
‘Why else does he use Seneca’s network as his plaything?’
Now, I was horrified. ‘Do you seriously think I have taken all that Seneca built and handed it to Nero?’
‘I think that Nero thinks that you have. Certainly he has made full use of all your resources this past year in Parthia and in Britain.’
If ever I was going to strike a man, it was then. Pantera saw it; his entire body grew tense. But I am not so impulsive as that, not so caught up in the chaos of my own feelings that I would have given him the satisfaction of driving me to violence.
Softly, with venom, I said, ‘The empire has had use of our resources; it has always been so. Nero can still be guided. Until or unless we remove him, we must offer him aid in the interest of the greater whole.’ I leaned back, still angry. ‘Why are you here? Why did you come back when you could have stayed in Judaea?’
He shrugged. ‘Last winter, in Caesarea, we heard the news of Corbulo’s death.’
Well yes, that was old news; nobody in Rome thought of Corbulo by then, except with faint regret for what might have been.
Pantera said, ‘I have met his replacement. Someone who can do what Corbulo could have done, but better than he could have done it.’
‘Really?’ If I was cynical, I had good reason. Do you know how often I had heard that?
‘He’s a war-hardened general and he’s only the first generation in the senate. His brother’s a notorious sycophant, but he himself hasn’t had time to become corrupt or venal and he certainly isn’t weak.’
‘Vespasian?’ I laughed and that shocked him, but there was a look of discovery in his eyes, as if he had learned something new about me, and interesting.
Drily, I said, ‘I’m the daughter of a consul and sister to a celebrated poet; of course I know Rome. I know every second son and disgraced cousin, I know their strengths and their weaknesses and how they might be bought. Certainly, I know Titus Flavius Vespasianus.’
‘Then you must agree that he is all that Corbulo was, and more?’
And so I understood at last the fire in Pantera’s eyes. Losing Menachem, he had lost everything, but now he had once again found his soul’s dream: a man he could respect, a man he could follow, a man he could serve and not feel himself demeaned.
Seneca had always told me that Pantera was looking for this, and that when he found it no one sane would stand in his way.
But I am Jocasta, not Seneca, and I did not love Pantera; nor was I afraid of him. I did not intend to let his obsession ruin Rome.
I said, ‘This is a man who didn’t even want to be a senator until his elder brother shamed him into it. And you think he wants to be emperor?’
The smile he threw me was gone so fast that if I’d blinked, I’d have missed it. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t. Which is exactly why he’ll be so good.’
‘Only if he has what it takes to see it through,’ I said. ‘A half-cocked civil war will be worse than no war at all.’
‘If he can be made to want it, he has what it takes.’ Pantera leaned across the table, took my hands in his own. You know him, you know how unusual that is. The men at the neighbouring tables were one step closer to killing him for it.
Ignoring them all, he said, ‘I’ve seen him with his men. He’ll sweep through Judaea and the legions will adore him. They’ll follow him to Hades if he asks them. All we have to do is make sure he asks at the right time.’
This was long before Galba made his move; it was even before the Judaean war had really started. We didn’t know yet what Vespasian could do. Except Pantera, obviously, who had seen enough to be sure.
He went on, ‘He has eight legions he can call on. That’s enough if we can put the weight of the Senecan network behind him. With them he could rule the world from Jerusalem. Or Alexandria. Or the Rhine. But he won’t need to. We can give him Rome.’
This, then, was the true reason Pantera had come back to see me that autumn: to find out if I would throw the network’s full weight behind Vespasian when I had only given parts of it to Nero, and then only at second hand.
Then and there, in the bar of the Rest, I still had a choice. I could have tried to turn him back and I didn’t.
The decision not to was mine alone, and I take full responsibility for it. I gave him what he wanted and if you want to call that weakness on my part, you are welcome. But ask yourself this: in my place, knowing him as you do, would you have acted differently? Could you have?
‘Does Vespasian know you want this of him?’ I asked.
It was as good as saying ‘yes’. The light in Pantera’s face was something to see.
He shrugged, like a boy caught out in a half-truth. ‘Not yet, but there are people around him who do. Hypatia, Mergus, Estaph … They’ll help to steer him in the right direction.’
‘He’s a stubborn man,’ I said. ‘It won’t be easy to change his mind.’
‘But it can be done. There’s a prophecy in Judaea which says a leader will arise out of the east to rule the whole world. He
listens to such things.’
‘Does it apply to him?’
‘It can be made to.’
And it was. I have no idea how he did it, you’d have to ask Demalion for the details, but after the fall of Jotapata, Yusaf ben Matthias had emerged alive from the wreck of Hebrew hopes, and proclaimed Vespasian the inheritor of the Star Prophecy; then, later, an oracle at Mount Carmel said the same, and another at the shrine to Venus outside Alexandria.
They say Vespasian paid attention to such things, but even if he didn’t, his men certainly did.
All that said, it was Lucius’ assassin who tipped the balance and set Vespasian on the path to civil war. We might not be here if that one man hadn’t tried and failed to kill the general, and if he hadn’t said what he did to Pantera.
But he did, and that led directly to our third meeting.
CHAPTER TEN
Rome, 3 August AD 69
Jocasta
THE THIRD MEETING between Pantera and me took place on the same day that Trabo returned to Rome. I didn’t know that at the time, but we found out soon enough.
Pantera had sent word ahead that he would meet me in the early evening at the Inn of the Crossed Spears. I got there before him and took a place in a corner of the courtyard, where it looked out on to the street, and waited.
He arrived near dusk, weaving drunkenly through the crowd, jeering and laughing at the girls on the tightrope, at the jugglers who flung their fire sticks up and round and tossed swords at each other.
He looked seasick. He isn’t a good traveller, and while it was two days since he had hit land at Ravenna, I think he was still feeling the ground sway beneath his feet. He looked as if the smell of wine was going to make him vomit, but it may have been an act; he was playing the part of a centurion and carried papers in his belt pouch that said he was from Britain, sent with news of the latest insurrection.
It was a subterfuge he could carry easily; he’d lived in the province for long enough to be able to talk for days about the tribes and their uprisings if he had to. It was all to waste, though: nobody challenged him. Rome was full of strange centurions; another one here or there made no difference.
He reached my table, just another drunken officer greeting his wife, or more likely his mistress. That evening, I was better than a tavern slut, but rather more gaudy than a good Roman matron; more gilt on the brooches in my hair, brighter stones around my neck. If I was a bought woman, I was expensive.
We each played our parts with the ease of long practice. Anyone looking at us would have thought our attention was all for each other; a passionate, erotic delight, barely kept decent by the public place in which we met. In reality, we were both watching a bearded carter with a wide-brimmed hat who was not paying quite enough attention to the whore on his knee.
I had watched him come in and knew he was out of place, but I was impressed by how fast Pantera picked him out from the rest. He sloshed his wine on the table, hiccoughed a laugh, swept the mess away with the heel of his hand and stumbled down beside me.
Leaning in for a kiss, he said, ‘Man at the far corner. The one with the girl on his knee who’s watching a house in the street of the widows. He walks like a soldier.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s Trabo.’
Pantera eyed me sideways. ‘Are you sure?’
It was well over a decade since anybody had questioned my skills. Tightly, I said, ‘We lived next door to each other as children. My brother was in love with him. It’s him.’
‘So, then, what is an enemy of Vitellius doing watching the house of Vespasian’s mistress? He is Vitellius’ enemy?’
‘If he wasn’t, he is now. A tribune of the Guard drew his name in the lottery two days ago: Juvens.’
‘That should be interesting.’ Pantera whistled, softly, then glanced around the bar. Really, it was barely a look, but he said, ‘I count three men that are yours, plus the boy collecting the empty beakers. Did you pay the tumblers too?’
I could have lied, I suppose, out of professional pride, but why bother?
‘Yes.’ I shrugged. ‘I thought we might have need of them. Zois and Thaïs can provide a distraction that no man will be able to withstand.’
‘And all without losing their maidenhood. Very clever.’ He toasted me, lifting his beaker. He tipped it back, but he didn’t drink.
Two small boys were watching us, round-eyed. For their benefit, Pantera hooked an arm around my shoulders and drew me into the shadows where it was possible to speak almost normally.
‘Tell me about Juvens. I thought Nero had killed him with Seneca and the rest?’
‘He did.’ I rested my head on his shoulder. He held me close, pressed his lips to my head, but he didn’t lose his focus as another man might have done. Did I want him to? I didn’t expect it, he was too professional for that, but I expected … something. Some stirring of the loins or quickening of the pulse to show that I had reached him. There was none of that.
I might have thought he loved only men, but I knew about the healer-woman, Hannah, about the child they’d had, about what she’d meant to him.
What I didn’t know was whether there had been another woman since the night of the fire when he had loved her. The news from the east was limited and it all came from people who knew him, and cared for him. He had that effect on those he touched: they wanted to protect him because he spent so little effort protecting himself.
So if he had his secret loves, they stayed secret, and he was not about to be seduced by his own spymaster.
I answered his question.
‘Juvens the father is dead. The elder son tried for the consulship and when he failed he fled into exile. This is Juvens the younger. He escaped to the Rhine legions, and was there when they made Vitellius emperor.’
‘And thence to the new Guard. Does Trabo know about the lottery?’
‘If he doesn’t, he deserves to die. If he does, it would explain why he’s made himself into a carter.’
‘But not why he’s watching the home of Vespasian’s mistress.’
I thought about that. ‘He was Otho’s man. He might have the same purpose as us. Your letter was less than explicit, but I am assuming our purpose is to visit Caenis?’
That was a guess, and only recently made. I had ordered her house watched, of course, from the moment Pantera had named Vespasian as his man; information is the currency of a spy and I needed as much as I could get, but nothing had been reported beyond the daily routines of every other woman whose man was away on extended duty, or dead.
Every day without fail, the lady Antonia Caenis rose with the dawn and walked down to the markets that line the Tiber in the company of the retained freedman who kept her accounts, served her at dinner and organized the maintenance of her cottage. She returned to the cool of her atrium before the noon sun roasted the day, and in the afternoon she visited friends, or entertained them, before an early supper and bed.
In the streets around were women whose candles burned long after the midnight hour, but there, in the Street of the Bay Trees, the widows retired at a seemly hour and their night lamps were rarely lit. There was a brief span of time just before dusk in which the daily household chores were completed, and visitors might approach the house.
Now, in fact.
Pantera said, crisply, ‘My letter was designed to endanger neither you nor the person carrying it if either was stopped and searched. Yes, we are going to visit Caenis, and if Trabo has a similar plan and he’s recognized and taken for questioning before they kill him, we could be finished before we start. We’d better move.’
He leaned back and lifted his beaker. It was almost empty: what little had been in it he had sloshed on the table. Theatrically, he drained the last dribbles, and stretched out his hand.
‘I think it’s time the centurion and his lady paid their respects to Vespasian’s mistress, don’t you? Do you suppose your acrobat friends could be persuaded to create a small diversion?’
They
did as he asked.
At my nod, they danced out of the courtyard, across the road and into the Street of the Bay Trees. The crowd followed, as goats follow the herd boy.
Caenis’ house was halfway along on the right. We staggered arm in arm towards it, laughing, carousing, waving our wine beakers with the rest.
Near the house with the oak leaves carved above the lintel, Pantera bellowed a laugh, threw a coin at Zois – he missed – and leaned in to kiss me, fumbling at his toga, as if unfamiliar with the raising of it. By happy fortune, we fell up against the door with the oak-leaf carving. It was unpainted and otherwise unembellished, but new, of strong, green timber; someone had spent gold on it, recently.
Pantera thumped the heel of his hand once above the latch. Footsteps padded close and presently the door cracked ajar.
‘Leave,’ said the little Hebrew freedman. He was bald, with a small pointed beard and sad eyes. He was already closing the door.
Pantera jammed his foot in the doorway to hold it open. Through the gap, he proffered Vespasian’s ring; the big, heavy one, of poor gold, with the oak leaves on it. ‘Your mistress will want you to let us in.’
The little man knew that ring. The colour leached from his face. ‘What news?’ His voice was hoarse.
‘Nothing bad,’ Pantera said. ‘The general is well. But in his name, we must speak to your mistress. We are only two. And you should lock the door after we enter.’
The door swung back, letting out a whisper of cool air, scented with lilies. Beyond was a small vestibule and beyond that a modest, four-pillared atrium with an angled roof open to the sky and a pool below the centre that reflected the few clouds left over after all the rain.
Plaster busts of past emperors and their women – mostly their women, when I looked more closely – were set in niches along the walls. Between them, curtained doorways led off. From one of these a melodious voice, light and true as a flute, asked, ‘Matthias? Who comes?’
‘Two persons, lady, with news of the master.’
Sober now, stripped of pretence, we followed him in.