by M C Scott
Thus, simply, did Vespasian’s lady and his brother appear as we needed to appear while each knowing where the danger lay. Sabinus took me inside. Neither of us looked at the men watching his house.
Like my own, Sabinus’ home was built around an atrium, but where mine had a small pond and only four columns holding up the central roof, his had a water garden with five fountains shaped like nymphs and satyrs and sixteen columns, and as many rooms linked by a covered walkway around the edge.
The walls were painted in crimson overlaid by frescoes and mosaics showing Greek tragedies and Roman victories. It was a man’s house with no redeeming subtlety, a statement of ostentation; quite hateful, really.
I didn’t hate Sabinus, that must be clear; he was a good, kind man and from the first, when Vespasian and I were new lovers, he treated me with utmost respect, which I have returned in kind. Even so, he was, in all ways, the opposite of his brother.
Where Vespasian was over-generous, impecunious, a hater of politics and a lover of war, Sabinus hoarded money all his life, and thrived in the backstabbing atmosphere of the senate. He was never likely to be exiled by Nero for sleeping through a recital, nor to emerge from a governorship with less money than when he entered it.
For all that, he was still the bluff country boy, one generation away from the soil, and he was kind to me in the dark years when Vespasian was married and siring two sons and a daughter on another, more suitable, woman.
His wife and daughter are both dead now, and I had care of the younger son. I was as married as I could ever be to the man who had let his legions name him emperor. Nobody was likely to forget that I was once a slave, but next to Vespasian, his brother Sabinus had always come closest to managing that particular feat of perpetual amnesia.
That evening, as soon as we stepped indoors, Sabinus held out his arm for me to lean on while I took the pebbles out of my shoe as if it were normal to greet any visiting lady this way.
After, he walked ahead of me through the vestibule to the atrium and came to stand by a fountain shaped as Youth.
It was an unfortunate juxtaposition of images. He was sixty-nine years old and each year had cut another line of worry at the margins of his eyes. He was not as ruddy as his brother, more olive in his complexion, but his chin narrowed to the same point and his ears stuck proud of his head in the same way. He took my hand and kissed it fondly.
‘What news? Or are you here simply to confound the Guard?’
‘Wait.’
I held up my hand, listening. Matthias had left the litter at the tavern and returned by the servants’ entrance. He walked past in one of the servants’ corridors and I could tell by the singular rhythm of his feet that he was unhappy. I listened after, and heard, if not a sound, then what we might call the absence of a sound; a gap, that was more telling than anything.
Aloud, I said, ‘The spy, Pantera, has perhaps more news than either of us? If he has access to the general’s messengers?’
I was right: he was there! Pantera’s quiet voice answered me, from somewhere nearby.
‘My lady, I can tell you that the general is safe in Alexandria where he chafes against the bit and yearns for action, that Mucianus is on the march and that the King of Kings in Parthia has offered forty thousand archers, and has promised not to invade Judaea while Vespasian is emperor.’
‘He can’t accept the archers!’ I spun to face the place whence I thought Pantera’s voice had come. ‘He’ll be said for ever to have used foreign aid to take the throne, to have made Rome a vassal of Parthia.’
‘He knows that, lady. He won’t accept.’ He wasn’t where I thought he was. I spun again as he spoke on. ‘But it’s good news that Vologases won’t invade either. I think they find much in common, our general and the King of Kings. It will be good for them to find this out for themselves.’
I could see him at last, and it was not only that he had found the darkest shadows in Sabinus’ blood-red room to hide in that had made him hard to see, but that he was black of head and foot and hand and hair; he was, in fact, the Berber who had carried my litter and I tell you truly, had he not spoken, I would not have known him.
To give him credit, Sabinus didn’t call his own steward to have this intruder ejected. He stood on the far side of the room biting down on his lower lip, which Vespasian only did when he was immensely angry.
I stepped between them, saying, ‘My lord, may I introduce to you the agent sent by your brother to keep us all from harm in the coming months? Circumstances overtook him and now he must come under subterfuge.’ I favoured Pantera with an acid glance. ‘Sebastos Abdes Pantera, this is Titus Flavius Sabinus, prefect of Rome, commander of the Urban cohorts and the Watch and uncle to Domitian. I must tell you that the Guard are offering eight hundred in silver for you—’
‘Alive. I know. And I am told that alone of Nero’s people, the inquisitors have survived all three of the recent palace purges. It takes a long time to find individuals with the skill and vocation to break a man and yet leave him able to answer questions. You could enquire of your friend Scopius, sometime, as to the content of my dreams. He has been very careful not to interpret them for me.’
That was clever. I felt Sabinus’ anger dissolve as he came over to join me. It would have taken a harder heart than his to feel anger for long at a man whose dreams were filled with his own long-drawn death.
I was perhaps the one feeling most aggrieved. I asked, ‘Does Matthias know who you are?’
‘If he doesn’t,’ he said, ‘you really ought to find another steward. Nobody in his right mind would have taken on the men currently carrying your litter.’
That set me back. Something of my discomfort must have shown, for Pantera said, drily, ‘Matthias cares for you so much that he will set aside his honour to lie for you. And he finds in himself surprising depths, I think, and a versatility that does you great service.’
‘Did you come just to tell me to praise my steward, or are you here for a better reason?’ I was sharp with him, I admit it, and not yet ready to think well of Matthias.
‘I came to introduce myself to the senator, to bring his brother’s greetings and to tell him personally that the safety of Vespasian’s family is my first responsibility while in Rome. And to tell you both that you must be assiduous in your support of Vitellius and your denigration of Vespasian.’
‘You tell us what we already know,’ Sabinus said. ‘I have pledged my oath to Vitellius more times than I can count. When he resides in Rome, I attend him when he wakes, I host dinners that will beggar me for years, I assure him of the devotion of the Urban cohorts and the Watch. I tell him how reckless is my brother and what a stain he lays on the family name. If there is more I can do, you have only to say it, but I know of nothing.’
‘There is no more you can do, lord.’ Pantera gave a small bow, hand on heart, after the manner of the Egyptians. ‘But the lady Caenis, I think, may be able to lend other aid to our venture?’
I had no idea what he was talking about, but there was a warning in his eyes, or perhaps a plea, so I said, ‘Go on,’ as if this were something we had planned.
He said, ‘The general wishes to ascend the throne with as little Roman blood spilled as can be managed. To achieve that, we must find those tribunes and legates of the legions most readily persuaded to his cause. We must commend them, flatter them, bribe them, threaten them; do whatever it takes to win them to our side. To do that, we must have a means of communication by which we can reach them and they can reach us.’
‘You need messengers,’ Sabinus said. ‘My brother has many.’
‘He does, but everyone knows it and what Lucius knows of, he may buy.’
‘We can’t trust them?’ Sabinus sounded genuinely perplexed. He was a politician, but he had the blind spot of all well-bred Romans who think that men who vow to their service will be loyal for ever.
Gently, Pantera said, ‘When the future of Rome is at stake, we must trust very few and all of them s
ecretly. I have a means of communicating with Vespasian and Mucianus, but I cannot reach the men of the Rhine and Balkan legions, or the navies at Ravenna and Misene, who are crucial to our cause. To connect with these, we need men with horses: honest men who can be trusted to deliver a sealed letter and return with its answer; resilient men who have good reason to be on the roads and can answer questions honestly when stopped; above all, men unknown to those who know Seneca’s routes and Vespasian’s. Lady—’ His eyes were on me, sharp, hard, direct. ‘Would I be right in thinking that the lady Antonia inherited her father’s message service, and that it was greater, in its day, than that of Julius Caesar?’
I blinked, slowly, thoughtfully, to cover my shock. ‘You would be correct, yes.’
‘And so would I also be correct in thinking that her freedwoman, her amanuensis, inherited that service when her mistress died?’
I could feel Sabinus’ gaze burn into the side of my face. He was a decent man; kind, honest in his way, but for all his scheming in the senate he didn’t have the depth of deceit that was needed to stay three steps ahead of men such as Lucius. Or Pantera.
I was not sure that I had that depth of deceit either, but I knew where I was being led, if not why.
I said, ‘Did Vespasian tell you?’
‘No. If he knows, he would not say so to me. He will do nothing, ever, to risk your safety, and what I propose is not safe.’
‘Yet still, you will do it?’
‘If it can be done without risk to you.’ He took a breath and I thought him uncertain, which was unusual enough to be interesting. ‘I am asking that you cede control of the network into my hands. That you give me the pass-phrases, the names of the men, the means to set it all in motion. And that you trust me enough to allow me not to tell you all that I do with them.’
‘For my own safety, of course,’ I said, drily. ‘And so that if I am arrested, I cannot be made to divulge it. You, of course, will never be taken?’
Pantera had dreams that said otherwise and had been rash enough to mention them; there was nothing he could say to that.
I said, ‘I will cede you control, but only under the condition that you inform me of everything you do. If you are taken, we will find ways to leave Rome. We are not without resource, but if you don’t know what we plan, then we have that much protection.’
I had bargained with merchants all my life and I knew my own bottom line and how to hold it. There was a moment’s silent pressure and I saw him concede.
‘As you will, lady. If you would—’
‘Having messengers is only the first step,’ Sabinus said. ‘You need a list of officers in the legions who may come to Vespasian’s side.’
‘Can you provide such a list?’
‘I can make a series of educated guesses. I can have them within a day, but we have the problem of how to get them to you without being seen. As you will have observed, we are closely watched. Perhaps if the lady Caenis were to be taken ill now, and was unable to dine tonight, she might recover and return again tomorrow? We can plan together what to do.’
So it seemed that Sabinus, too, wanted to join in the planning. I could tell Pantera didn’t like that. It was obvious that the fewer people who knew what he was doing the safer he was, but this was Vespasian’s brother, and Pantera didn’t have the authority to argue.
His lips were set in a straight, hard line and I decided that I didn’t want to be the focus of his anger on the day when it turned outward rather than in.
But he bowed to us both, saying, ‘My lady, if you give me a time to return to the porter’s inn, and then send Matthias to fetch us, we will bring the litter for you. Make your illness a good one; we shall be watched.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rome, 4 August AD 69
Trabo
I HAD NO idea what was wrong with Vespasian’s mistress as her litter came back down the hill again.
She wasn’t screaming in pain or anything; well-bred ladies rarely do until they’re staring death in the face, and often not even then, but she was clearly unwell, in a decorous kind of way. The echoes of her anguish rippled up and down the Quirinal in a manner that seemed likely to draw her to the attention of even more cutthroats and bandits than carried her litter.
Sure enough, they turned up before she was halfway down; five or six, or eight, or possibly ten quietly shambling figures homing in on either side of the floating white cave like jackals on a new corpse.
The Guard detachments should have stopped them, but, bizarrely, I couldn’t see any Guards any more. They’d shadowed Caenis all the way up the hill and kept covert watch on the house she had been in from the moment she entered. Now, though, they’d all vanished, even on this, the second largest street up the Quirinal, which was, at the very least, a dereliction of duty. When I was employed to protect Rome, my men and I had marched the hill in tent-units of eight and, believe me, none of us was ever out of sight of those coming behind or going ahead.
The litter-bearers seemed to have noticed neither the lack of Guards nor the bandits slowly closing in on them. They trotted across the courtyard to Isis’ shrine as if there was nothing amiss and continued down the hill.
I followed, a strategic distance behind. I hadn’t killed any Guards yet that night and my blood still sighed for the hunt, but this was more interesting: Vespasian’s mistress had been visiting Vespasian’s brother and one corner of her litter was borne, if my instincts were right, by Vespasian’s spy.
It may have been that the shady men following didn’t know that, but they were careful, not the mindless thugs of the night before, and if I had had to bet, I would have said these were off-duty Guardsmen, sent out under cover of night to do what could not openly be done by day.
The litter came to the steepest part of the hill. The bearers leaned back, stiff-legged, taking the full weight on their shoulders in an effort to stop their burden careering down the hill. Sweat shone from them, briefly, in the light of the few lamps. Then, in three paces, they left the lucent puddles behind and entered a lampless dark where there was no sweat, no shine, only the ghosted outline of the litter and the sound of men in labour, and a woman’s groaning.
‘Go!’
I didn’t need to hear the hissed order to know this was where the ambush must take place; I had set enough myself to see the obvious. But the command came in Latin, which confirmed all I had thought and gave me, if I needed it, the last excuse to intervene.
As the men converged on the lumbering litter, I ripped off my money belt and wound it round my right hand. No pain now; the promise of battle made me well-nigh immortal.
I was Achilles. I was Zeus. I was the bear-man the Guards feared so much that Lucius had threatened to flog anyone who mentioned it in his hearing.
The attackers were running downhill, cautiously because it was dark. This might have been the Quirinal, but that didn’t mean the route was necessarily free of debris.
I caught the last man in the line before he reached the litter. Surprise was my best weapon and I needed to kill in silence. My left arm hugged my enemy’s throat, crushing it tight. My gold-weighted right fist struck hard below his ribs, from the side and slightly in front. It crushed upwards, seeking the heart, the liver, the kidneys; anything soft that could be bruised and broken.
There was a moment’s frantic struggle; fingers clawed at my arms, a gladius swung up and had to be blocked, a nailed heel struck down on my instep, ripping the skin; I had to step back to avoid it a second time.
The man was good, and fought well, but I had the first grip and that’s what counts. I braced my right fist against my left to make a lever, pulled once, hard, and the fight was over. I lowered the body to the ground.
I had armed myself during the day with a small double-edged knife which I had strapped to my left ankle. It came free with a tug. They thought me a bear, and so I used the blade to slash once across his throat, and then thrice more across his face: no harm in keeping up the illusion.
For one last moment, the night was perfectly still. To the east, a star fell from the sky, leaving a long singing trail across the dark. As if on that divine signal, the remaining ambushers attacked. There were a dozen of them; a tent-unit and a half, and they came forward in a particular formation that all the Guards know, called the Goose Wing: a staggered line that curves into the enemy and can slice open a waiting block.
There was a gap at the far right-hand edge of their formation where the man I had killed should have been. I slotted myself into his place, wielding my little knife in my gold-weighted fist; once committed to a thrust, nothing short of a shield could stop it and these men weren’t carrying shields.
The nearest of the attackers was to my left. Reaching him, I turned, lifted my blade in salute and was rewarded by the fleeting grin of one who thought he had a friend at his side. The illusion lasted another two paces and then, launching forward, I struck my blade across his unarmoured throat.
Too easy! And there was not time to crow over the body. Happy now, but not happy enough, I spun, found another target, swept up the fallen gladius and used it in my left hand, to balance the knife in my weighted right. Another enemy fell, his throat laid open, his blood soaring in diminishing arcs on to the empty street.
A fourth came at me, blade thrusting fast, straight for my chest. I slewed sideways, felt it skitter past, shifted the gladius to my right hand and stabbed in, ferociously fast, hard, at an angle to the man’s unprotected flank.
There was a sense of resistance destroyed and I lost my fist in the blood-hot ribcage as the weight of my belt carried me through mere skin and flesh and fragile bone. The Guard choked on a gout of his own blood and toppled like a tree, dragging me with him.