Maybe Pertinax's farm was a working one, but he'd never been a sour-faced Cato. And taking an interest in building had kept him going since his wife had died three years before.
'Decoration in the dining room's new too. Chap I got in from Naples. Tell me what you think.'
'Let's have the wine first,' I said. 'I've got a throat like a short-legged camel's scrotum.'
Pertinax chuckled. 'You've your grandfather's turn of phrase, boy. And his priorities. Make yourself comfortable while I have a word with Nestor about dinner. I'll send in the wine, don't you worry.'
I lay down on one of the couches in the solar and examined the wall paintings. Pertinax's late wife wouldn't have approved. She had gone in, I remembered, for still lifes. Grapes and hanging pheasants, those were her limits. Nymphs and satyrs were definitely out. And these nymphs and satyrs would have had her reaching for the whitewash. I wondered if Uncle Gaius was fitter even than he looked.
The wine came, with a bowl of last season's apples, wizened now, but hard and sweet inside. They brought back memories.
'Good? The wine, I mean.'
I looked up. Uncle Gaius had come in while I wasn't looking and was helping himself to a cup from the jug.
'Very good,' I said, and meant it. 'I always think Rhodian's overrated but this stuff's not. Where do you get it?'
'Another chap in Naples. The architect's cousin. Clannish lot the Greeks.'
'Did he do the mural as well? The architect?'
'That's right. Do you like it? I thought it was pretty good myself.'
'You'll have to give me his name before I go. The guy's talented.'
'Wait till you see the dining-room. That'll really knock your eyes out.' He settled down on the couch and selected an apple. 'So. The baths are heating up nicely and we've got a couple of hours to kill before dinner. Now do you really want to discuss pornographic art or would you like to tell me what the hell this is all about?'
I sipped my wine. 'Talk to me about Julia,' I said.
'Which Julia?'
'The old emperor's daughter.'
'Ah.' He set his cup down carefully on the table beside him. 'I thought it might be something like that.'
Shit. We were a long way from Rome, but Uncle Gaius still had his contacts.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'Exactly what it says.' He wasn't giving anything away, that was for sure. 'How badly do you want to know?'
'Very badly. Very badly indeed.'
Pertinax stared into his cup. 'I do hear things stuck out here, Marcus. And I may be old but I'm not a fool. What would you say if I told you that what happened to Julia isn't important now, but that you'd be better off not knowing?'
Yeah. I'd heard that one before. It looked like this was going to be a wasted journey.
'I'd say that was for me to decide. And that I have to know for my own peace of mind if nothing else.'
His eyes came up level with mine. 'You're like your grandfather,boy. Very like. That could've been him talking.' He hesitated. 'There's a woman involved in this, isn't there?'
I didn't even think of lying. I owed him that, at least. 'Yeah. There's a woman. A client. Her name's Rufia Perilla. She's Ovid's stepdaughter.'
'You love her?'
My throat was dry. 'Yes.'
'Enough to sacrifice your political career?'
'Yes.'
'You're sure? Absolutely sure?'
'Yes.'
'Because it may come to that, you know. And it may not be worth it in the end. I don't mean her. I mean what comes of just having the information without being cleared for it. You understand?'
'Yes, I understand.'
'And you still want me to answer your question?'
'Yes.'
He sighed and turned away. 'Then you're a fool. Still, I'll give you what I can.'
I relaxed. 'Thanks, Uncle. I'm grateful. Really.'
'I don't want gratitude. Your father would kill me for this if he knew. But then I never could stand young Messalinus and I think your grandfather would've approved, which is far more important. Besides, I'm too old to care. So ask away.'
'I think she was innocent. Julia, I mean.'
'That's not a question.'
'Was she?'
He hesitated for a long time. A very long time.
'Yes,' he said at last. 'Julia was innocent. Of adultery, at least.'
I was tired of fencing. I just wanted hard facts. 'Just tell me what happened that night. Please.'
He got up and went over to where the slave had left the wine jug. He didn't look at me as he carefully filled his cup.
'Very well, Marcus,’ he said. ‘I'll tell you what happened. Exactly what happened. You know our company was responsible for the Eighth Region? The Market Square area?'
'Yes. That's why I'm asking you.'
'Right. So I'd gone out with the lads. We started our patrol at dusk, just as usual. We picked up a couple of disorderly drunks near Marcellus's Theatre and banged their heads together. Then we walked up towards Pallacina Street. One of the lads thought he saw someone breaking into a wineshop but it turned out to be a cat. We came back along the north side of the Capitol, down past the edge of the Citadel and into the Market Square. Then we went up the Sacred Way. Young Publius Afer had a stone in his boot so we stopped while he leant against a shop wall and got rid of it.'
Shit. What was going on here? It wasn't like Pertinax to spin a story out. He spoke like he wrote. Give the guy a nut to crack and he went straight to the middle.
'Look,' I said. 'I just want to know about Julia, right? Remember her? The hot little number being gang-banged on the Speakers' Platform?'
'And I'm telling you what happened that night. Exactly. When Publius got his boot back on we went up towards the Subura. It was pretty quiet...'
By this time I'd caught on.
'You mean nothing happened?’ I said. ‘Nothing at all?'
Pertinax brought the cup back to his couch and lay down. Now his eyes were sharp as chips of marble.
'Nothing happened, boy. Not a thing. If the emperor's daughter got herself laid in the Market Square then it wasn't that night. Or whoever saw her it wasn't us.'
'But she must've been there! Everybody says...' I stopped. Yeah, sure. Perilla had tried that argument with me when we were talking about the other Julia. It didn't cut any ice then, either.
Pertinax was nodding. 'That's right. Circular logic. Everybody says she was there so she was there. QED.' He took a large swallow of his wine. 'Only she wasn't. The orgy story's a myth. Believe me.'
'But what about the men she was with? She was screwing some of the top guys in Rome!'
'Fine. Give me names.'
'Uh.' I thought. 'Sulpicianus. One of the Scipios. Sempronius Gracchus. The others I can't remember, but they're on record. And Iullus, of course.' Iullus Antonius had been cited as Julia's principal lover.
'Of course,' Pertinax said drily. 'You notice anything?'
'What's to notice? Like I said, they're all big names but–'
'Not good enough, boy. Listen.' He ticked the guys off on his fingers. 'Cornelius Scipio. Grandson of the emperor's first wife Scribonia and so Julia's first cousin. Gracchus. A "persistent adulterer" according to the charge-sheet. Supposed to have been sleeping with Julia when she was Agrippa's wife. Helped her compose a certain letter of complaint to Augustus. Sulpicianus. Consul seven years before. Quiet man, no previous convictions except for a deep devotion to the emperor.' He paused. 'Are you getting the idea yet?'
My scalp was beginning to tingle. 'I might be. Go on.'
'I could give you a few more you haven't mentioned, but let's just settle for Iullus. Iullus Antonius, Adulterer-in-Chief. Mark Antony's son. Brought up by Augustus's sister Octavia like he was her own. Deeply devoted to Augustus. Married to the emperor's niece Marcella, with three children. Full political career under Augustus's personal supervision. As a child he was even included on the Altar of Peace along with the rest of
the imperial family with his hand on Julia's head. Come on, Marcus! Do you want me to spell it out for you?'
Something cold with lots of legs was running up my spine. 'They're all political. Attached to the imperial family, by blood or obligation.'
‘Getting there. The imperial family?’
Shit. 'Augustus, then. Augustus personally. Or his first wife.'
'Remember that. Now, you say they're all attached to Augustus personally. You mean that? All of them?'
'Yeah. Apart from Gracchus.'
'So what was special about Gracchus? Come on, you can do it! You can do it, boy! How did they describe him? What did I say was on the charge sheet?'
The sweat was pouring off me in bucketfuls. 'He was a "persistent adulterer". Julia's long-standing lover.'
'That word “persistent” sound familiar?'
Persistent depravity. Holy shit! 'Postumus?'
'You're doing well. Keep it up. So. Who's Postumus?'
'Augustus's grandson.' The Augustus connection again! Jupiter!
'And whose son?'
'Julia's. Our Julia's. The emperor's daughter.'
'That's right. So let's get back to Gracchus. Anything else? Come on, boy! What about that letter to Augustus I mentioned? The letter Gracchus helped Julia write? Who was she complaining about?'
My head was bursting. 'For God's sake! How the hell should I know?'
'All right. She was complaining about her husband, Marcus. And her husband was...?'
The answer hit me between the eyes like a butcher's hammer. 'Tiberius! Julia's husband was Tiberius!'
Pertinax leaned back with a smile of satisfaction.
'Give the man a handful of nuts,' he said.
I sat stunned. So there was a connection after all. We always came back to Tiberius, to the emperor. The Elder Julia. Her daughter. Paullus. Fabius and Postumus...
Ovid?
'You mean it was Tiberius?’ I said. ‘Tiberius framed Julia? His own wife?'
The smile disappeared. I'd missed something, obviously. But I couldn't see what it was.
'Marcus,' Pertinax said carefully, 'I don't usually talk politics. I crawled out of that particular sewer years ago and I've never regretted it. But I'm going to educate you, son. You've asked for it and you're going to get it. Tiberius is only half the story, and you're going to get the whole thing. Even if it kills you. As it well might if you're not careful. Very careful indeed. Remember that.'
I said nothing. Pertinax rose from the couch, brought over the wine-jug and filled first my cup and then his own. 'The only reason – the only reason, boy! – that I'm telling you this is because you remind me so much of your grandfather. I think he would've trusted you and I think he would've wanted you to know. So pin your stupid over-privileged Roman-patrician ears back and listen.'
* * *
Varus to Himself
We were talking of treachery.
Mine, as you have seen, is a harmless thing, and hardly worth the name; a piece of diplomacy of which I am sure the emperor will approve but of which I am loath as yet to inform him. In the long run it will turn to Rome's benefit as well as being – rather more immediately, I hope – profitable to myself: to my mind, the perfect combination. I am certainly not a traitor in the grand style, as is Livia. If the gods regard treason and murder as crimes of any weight then Livia is damned.
I am revealing no secrets here. The facts are known to most of the inner circle, not excluding Augustus. No doubt the empress, in common with most traitors (such as myself!) would say that she has acted for the good of the state. Perhaps she could even argue her point. One can also understand a mother's preference for her own son over the offspring of her predecessor. However, for Livia to further Tiberius's interests through subterfuge and false accusations is quite another matter. To put it plainly, the empress is a treacherous, murdering bitch.
Where are they all now, the Julians? Where are they, Augustus's own family, who should have followed him in honour? Call the roll. His only child Julia, accused of a filthy crime she never committed, rotting in exile at Rhegium. Her sons Gaius and Lucius, whom Augustus was grooming for empire: dead, poisoned abroad in the performance of their duty by their stepmother's agents. Their younger brother Postumus: slandered, disgraced and banished to Planasia. But for young Agrippina, a clean sweep...
Bitch!
Finally, a year past, the other Julia, Augustus's grandchild. Like her mother, exiled on a trumped-up charge, her husband executed for a conspiracy that was no conspiracy at all...
And the emperor is helpless. What began in secrecy must remain secret. His letter to me, of course, is long-burned – burned, indeed, upon receipt. There was never anything else. I do not blame Augustus. He could not have acted otherwise, and the fact that he protected us (and still protects us) shows that he has not entirely given up hope.
Bitch!
If there is any justice then Livia will burn, and her bastard of a son with her. And if I am a traitor then I thank the gods that at least I am a clean one.
25.
I left Pertinax's early the next morning, my head still buzzing. I was glad now I'd brought the big sleeping carriage because it gave me the chance to think in comfort.
Oh, sure, the old guy hadn't told me anything I didn't know already, not as far as the facts went. How they all connected up was something else: like looking at a complex piece of embroidery from the back. I'd always known that the old empress was a callous bitch, but just how callous she was, and how much of a bitch, I hadn't even begun to suspect.
Yeah. So to get her blue-eyed boy's boil-encrusted bum on the throne Livia had stalked the Julians one by one and knocked them off their perches. That was fun to know, but like my father had tried to tell me it just wasn't relevant any more. After all, the Wart had become emperor, everything was sweetness and light and only a fool bucks the system. The trouble was that something wasn't irrelevant. It hadn't lost its smell over the years, it wasn't common knowledge, and it had something to do with the Paullus plot. If I could just work out what that thing was then we were home and dry.
I was still thinking when the coachman gave a shout and the carriage stopped. I threw open the door and looked out.
That one look was enough. We were in trouble. Real trouble. We still had half a mile to go before joining the Appian Way and the track led over boggy ground across a line of wooden piles. Fifty yards ahead of us it had been blocked with a hurdle of sharpened stakes. We'd got zero room to turn, backing off was impossible and from the look of the ground either side even the Sunshine Boys' horses wouldn't've made it more than a yard or so. Behind the hurdle stood a dozen mean-looking bastards wearing leather armour and holding short swords.
I ducked back inside. At least this time I'd come prepared. There're stiff penalties for arming slaves; have been ever since Spartacus scared the shit out of us a hundred years back. If we'd been in Rome I'd never have risked it, but out here in the sticks was another matter. In the baggage compartment under the seat were six cavalry longswords, which are serious weapons in anybody's book.
'Hey, boys!' I yelled to my Gauls. 'Look what Daddy's got!'
The guys' eyes lit up like fifty-lamp candelabra and they were already champing on their moustaches and grinding their teeth before they so much as touched the things. That figured. Put a Gaul within reach of a sword and it's like you've taken the lid off Tartarus. We might still be outnumbered two to one – the coachman and my body slave hardly counted for shit – but things were looking brighter. Or so I thought when I drew my own sword and jumped down from the carriage to grab my bit of the action.
Mistake. I knew that as soon as the first guy went for me. The vicious punching stab was straight from the army manual, and it nearly spitted me. I slammed the carriage door sideways, catching the guy on the left shoulder and spinning him round, then brought my own sword up and shoved it in under the armpit where his jerkin would give no protection. One down. I glanced anxiously towards the Sunshine B
oys. I needn't've worried. They were happily slogging it out on foot Gallic style: no points for finesse, several million for enthusiasm. Three more of the bastards fell apart like carved chickens before you could say Vercingetorix.
The ones who were left shifted tactics, working as a team, which again was pure army. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Flavus, my body slave, go down to a thrust that turned his throat into a bloody mash. Then two of them jumped me at once and I felt the edge of a blade slice along my ribs. No pain, not yet. Without thinking I brought the heavy pommel of my sword down hard. It connected with the guy's wrist. Bone crunched, and he screamed. Before he could recover I buried the dagger I was holding in my left hand hilt deep in his groin and twisted it, gutting him.
I stepped back just as what looked like a beanpole flew past my shoulder and thudded into the woodwork of the carriage. The second guy, sword drawn back to stab, saw it too. He looked behind me, eyes wide, then turned and ran. A second javelin spitted him like a hare.
I risked a look myself.
I couldn't believe it either.
'Hey, good shot, Titus!'
'Bull’s-eye!'
'Ti-tus! Ti-tus! Ti-'
'Watch me! Hey, you guys, watch me!'
They swarmed over and around the barricade like a pack of frisky wolf-cubs, squeaky clean in their nice new armour. None of them could've been more than nineteen or less than five-ten, except for the decurion bringing up the rear, who was small and grey haired, and red as a beetroot with yelling orders no one was listening to:
'Hey, you bastards! Keep together! You there, Marcus Sedilius, get that effing point up! Quintus, not the effing edge, you little bugger! If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times...'
It wasn't the time or place for it, I knew, but I couldn't help myself. Maybe it was hysteria. I sat down with my back against one of the coach wheels and laughed until the tears came while those kids took the bastards apart. Not that it was any great deal. The few still on their feet after the javelin volley probably didn't know what day it was or which way was up, let alone what had hit them. I only saw the youngsters in trouble once when a big guy with shoulders hunched like a bear had one of them backed up against the barricade. The decurion was between the two before you could say "knife", and he finished the bastard off with as nice a parry-feint-and-thrust as I'd seen outside a demonstration bout.
Ovid (Marcus Corvinus Book 1) Page 17