Caligula

by Douglas Jackson

  'Would you burn for your Drusilla? A final fiery coupling before we join the gods in their endless dance?' She laughed, like dry twigs crackling underfoot on a forest floor, and drew his face to hers until their lips touched and he felt her tongue enter his mouth and tasted the vileness of her affliction. Despite himself he recoiled from her, giving her the answer she sought. 'No? I thought not. For you are but a slave and will always be a slave while Drusilla will be a goddess. Her brother does not understand the true nature of her sickness, but she has made him promise it.'

  The strength seemed to drain away from her and she swayed drunkenly. Instinctively, he placed a hand on her arm to steady her and felt brittle bone beneath the thick cloth of the cloak, but she shrugged him off, staring at him as if surprised he was still there.

  'Not the slave then, but who? The soldier? Surely his method would be more violent, less subtle. The spy? The very opposite. Milonia would not have the courage. Livilla does not have the hate. Agrippina has the skills, but she would not risk her brother's wrath. Uncle Claudius . . .'

  Rufus listened to the rambling litany of names and backed away to where Lucius waited in the shade.

  'You survived then?' the young soldier greeted him. 'I'm pleased.'

  Rufus stared at him, puzzled.

  'No, truly, I am pleased. All she had to do was raise her hand and I was to cut your throat, with this.' He pulled a curved dagger from his belt. 'I took it from a Parthian warrior, but I've never used it. When you were on your knees I thought she was about to give the signal.'

  Rufus flinched at the sight of the knife. 'But why? I have done nothing. I am no danger to Drusilla or anyone else.'

  Lucius shrugged. 'She believes she has been poisoned. Her physician told her she has a sickness, a cancer, but she would not listen to him. When the old fool insisted he was correct, she had him sent to her brother's executioners. She said she would know when she looked in your eyes if you had betrayed her. That was when I would strike. But you must have convinced her otherwise, because you are still here. As I say, I'm glad. It is too nice a morning to spoil by killing someone you hardly know. Here, take it.' He held out the short dagger and pressed it into Rufus's hand. 'I have no more need of it. You might find it useful some day.'

  He turned to leave, but Rufus hesitated, his eyes drawn back to the slight figure in the shadows at the end of the garden.

  'How long . . .?'

  Lucius stopped and followed his gaze. 'She has been sick for more than a month. I have watched her wither as a flower does after a spring frost. First her beauty dulled; then it faded away. Her flesh fell from her bones and her hair from her head. I can scarce bear to look at her, yet she sends for me every night.' He shuddered at the memory and Rufus saw his eyes harden. 'I would rather endure the hot iron of her brother's torturers than the anticipation of another summons.'

  'I loved her, I think.'

  Lucius stared at him and Rufus feared the young tribune might strike him for his insolence. Then the look was gone. It seemed their similar ages and shared experience gave them a bond that bridged the void between slave and soldier.

  'I didn't know it at the time, and it still confuses me, but Drusilla lit a fire in my heart even this cannot extinguish. At first I resented what she was taking from me; then I realized that in the taking she was also giving, if you can understand that. I began as her slave, but by the end she said she was mine.'

  'Then you are a greater fool than you appear. It is not a slave's place to love, but to obey.' Lucius snorted his disgust. 'Do you not understand she corrupts everything she touches? The ugliness you saw today was always there, but it was inside, and more disgusting still. The words that drip like honey from her lips are all lies, the kisses she bestows more poisonous than any viper. She is like her brother, a foul thing whose caresses are merely preparing your flesh for the blade or the pincers.'

  The final words were forced through clenched teeth and Rufus realized with shock that Drusilla's was not the only bed the handsome tribune was forced to share.

  'I am sorry. I did not realize –'

  Lucius cut him off. 'Do not waste your pity on me,' he said. 'This sickness which afflicts Drusilla is a sign that the time of reckoning is close. I . . .' His voice tailed off as he realized what he had said. 'Forgive me, I talk too much. Forget Drusilla. She will be dead within the week.'

  He was wrong. It was two more weeks before the announcement came and the Palatine held its collective breath and waited for the inevitable retribution.

  XXVI

  Rufus waited with the rest. Every hour of every day he anticipated the tread of Praetorian boots and the knock on the door, the grip on his shoulder and the bite of cold iron on his wrists. The fear ate at his spirit and chewed away his courage. Livia noticed the change in him, and tried without success to understand it. He did not give her any help. If he revealed what had occurred between himself and Drusilla he would drag her into the Emperor's net. At least if she knew nothing, her ignorance might save her, even if he fell. He knew it was unfair, but he had retreated so far inside himself he found it difficult to communicate with anyone. He spent more time with Bersheba than with his wife, but often could not bring himself to meet even the elephant's unruffled eye.

  Narcissus kept him informed of events inside the palace. Claudius's freedman seemed unperturbed by the upheaval, even to be enjoying it. Clearly he believed himself above suspicion, and he revelled in the tribulations of his rivals.

  'The Emperor uses Drusilla's death to rid himself of a dozen senators who oppose him. They have the choice of taking their own lives or enduring the glowing iron, with the knowledge that if they choose the second, their family will suffer with them. Of course,' he added complacently, 'their final decision is of little interest to Caligula. He knows they have nothing to do with his sister's demise. To solve that puzzle, he has tasked his chamberlain, who sees this as an opportunity to bring his own enemies low, but has neither the intellect nor the capacity to bring it about.' He shook his head in wonder at the man's bumbling. 'The old fool pinned his hopes on questioning the two eastern sisters who attended Drusilla's bedroom and kept her many secrets. As if he could force anything but screams from two mouths that had been silent from birth. Fortunately, someone else saved him the trouble. They were found in their quarters this morning with their throats cut. Convenient, is it not?'

  Rufus had a curious dizzy-making instant when his brain was divided between relief that two potential witnesses to his midnight tryst with Drusilla were no longer a threat and guilt that his survival should be at the expense of the innocent dark-eyed twins who cooed over his body. 'My little doves.'

  'I am sorry. They were harmless enough creatures. Their only crime was to serve their mistress.'

  Narcissus skewered him with a look of disbelief. 'Harmless? Their crime was not to serve their mistress, but to know too much. Many people have died for lesser crimes. If they had been sensible they would have entrusted the fruits of their knowledge to someone who had the power to protect them. What a pity they did not.' His tone made it plain who should have been trusted, although Rufus doubted it would have saved them. He knew by now that Narcissus would never risk his position, never mind his life, for anyone. He looked carefully at the Greek: handsome despite his baldness, in a cultured, even decadent way. Educated and intelligent; cunning, certainly, or he would never have survived for so long. Claudius's spy, who also, to his certain knowledge, spied on Claudius. Ruthless? He recalled his momentary suspicion that Narcissus might have poisoned Drusilla, or at least manoeuvred it.

  'If they knew so much about so many, then there must be any number of suspects?' he suggested hopefully.

  Narcissus gave a knowing smile. 'That might appear likely, but apparently there is only one. He would have been swept up with the rest, so he very sensibly disappeared. But it does not matter where he hides, even if his aristocratic relatives are foolish enough to provide a refuge. Half of Rome seeks the Emperor's favour by
providing his head, and the other half will betray him because they are too frightened not to.'

  Rufus knew without asking who the suspect was. Only one link remained who could tie him to Drusilla; only one tongue could be persuaded to speak his name.

  'It is only a matter of time,' Narcissus predicted. 'The life of the tribune Lucius Sulpicius Galba can be counted in days.'

  But Lucius was not arrested that week, nor the next. Narcissus speculated that the young aristocrat might have vanished into the seething rabbit warren of lesser streets and dangerous, evil-smelling alleys of the Subura out towards the Esquiline Gate. 'He has done surprisingly well to survive for so long in a place where every man's hand is against him. Pray that he dies there and your secret dies with him.'

  In the meantime, Narcissus watched, taking in every nuance, tasting every mood and studying every changing dynamic in the intricate web of hatreds and alliances that were the lifeblood of the palace.

  'Drusilla was a friend and trusted adviser as much as a sister. Of all Caligula's passions, she was the greatest. He does not eat and seldom drinks. He keeps to his apartments during daylight and at night he barely sleeps. Callistus cannot get near him, and mistrusts anyone who can. He fears Protogenes, who fears no one, and in the background Chaerea smiles his scorpion's smile and waits.'

  He reported that the Emperor was too distraught to attend his sister's funeral, but stayed in Rome until the Senate voted Drusilla the honours she was due, including a marble arch which he vowed would be the greatest the Empire had ever seen. This duty done, he left for Campania, with Milonia and his daughter and his closest advisers. Aemilia – who, despite his newly wedded state, sometimes invaded Rufus's dreams in the most disturbing of fashions – accompanied them.

  When the imperial retinue returned to Rome in September, it was Cupido's sister who brought Rufus the news.

  'He has declared Drusilla divine,' she said. 'She is to be worshipped as a goddess.'

  It was unheard of – sacrilege, even. The wives and mothers of emperors had been voted great honours in the past, but this was different. Drusilla was to stand beside Venus in the pantheon. Only an Emperor strong enough or feared enough could have achieved it. Caligula's opponents in the Senate were outraged. The priests warned of terrible retribution from the slighted deities. But the Emperor was unmoved. Drusilla would receive her divinity at the end of the lengthy formal period of mourning, in May, three days before the festival dedicated to Mercury.

  Rufus's fears over his fleeting relationship with the new goddess subsided as the weeks passed. Lucius had not been sighted since the discovery of the murdered twins. There was still no body, which was vaguely worrying, but he breathed more easily and stopped looking over his shoulder every day.

  'You are to appear before the Emperor's secretary at the seventh hour.'

  Rufus almost dropped with fright. But the voice was wrong. Too polite. He turned and where he expected to find a squad of swordbearing Praetorians stood a gilded youth in a fine-spun tunic held tight at the waist with a thin silver belt.

  He must have been gaping, because the boy repeated his message, louder and more slowly, as if he was speaking to an old man or an idiot.

  'You . . . are . . . to . . . appear . . . before . . . the . . . Emperor's . . . secretary . . . at . . . the . . . seventh . . . hour.'

  'I'm not deaf.' Rufus decided the young peacock before him presented no danger, and therefore insolence was not only required, but expected. 'Am I to . . . attend . . . the . . . secretary . . . like . . . this?'

  The boy looked him over carefully, taking in the stained tunic and dung-spattered legs, and frowned. 'Perhaps you might like to change?'

  'I don't have anything to change into.' It was a lie, he still had the tunic he wore for his wedding, but Rufus sensed there might be profit here, and sport. A slave was granted little opportunity for sport and he felt an intense desire to take advantage of this one.

  The frown deepened. 'I . . . I could possibly find something for you.'

  Rufus grinned. 'That might be wise.'

  The boy sighed, and was about to turn away.

  'I stink.'

  'What?' The messenger blinked.

  'I stink . . . of shit.'

  'You could wash while I'm fetching you a new tunic,' the boy suggested.

  'I would still stink. I always stink. It's from working with the elephant.' Rufus pointed to Bersheba, who was munching hay contentedly in the barn.

  The boy bit his lip. This was a problem he hadn't considered. Secretary Callistus had famously sensitive nostrils.

  'You could bring me some perfumed oil. A lot of it. I could smother myself in it, then the secretary wouldn't have to smell my stink. Or I could stand outside the door when he speaks to me,' Rufus suggested helpfully.

  The messenger grabbed the solution as if he was a drowning man and it was the last plank from a burning galley. 'Yes, perfume,' he said, hurrying off before Rufus could come up with some new suggestion.

  'Lots of it,' Rufus shouted to his retreating back. He would give the perfume to Livia, he thought; then, with a guilty shiver, And if there is really a lot I might even keep some for Aemilia. Callistus would just have to put up with his stink.

  XXVII

  Had anyone ever suffered as he did? Had anyone ever been more alone? Drusilla was gone. His only friend. His sister. The only one he had ever really trusted. How could she have left him?

  He sniffed, blinking away a tear. He stank, but he did not care. His hair was slick with grease and undressed, but it was nothing. He hadn't shaved for three months and would not until her murderers were found, or he had given her the divinity she had craved when she was alive. She, above all, deserved immortality.

  How he wished he could have accompanied her to that other life. There was nothing for him in this one but grief and pain, and he wanted neither. What were his accomplishments now, when there was no one with whom he could savour them? Every one a monument to vainglory. What was the point of the battles that were inevitably to come, when each victory would taste of ashes? It was she who had made all the effort worthwhile. In her, he could see the reflection of his greatness. But no more.

  Who could he trust now?

  As he recognized the answer, an unfamiliar sensation developed deep inside his body, and swarmed upwards into his brain. He felt the first breathlessness of panic.

  It was a long time since he had felt fear.

  When the seventh hour arrived Rufus was standing outside the door to the secretary's offices enjoying the feel of a silky cloth tunic finer than anything he had ever owned. His dark hair was damp and his nostrils were filled with the scent of some flowery perfume from the east that the boy had insisted on dousing him with. It didn't matter too much; there was plenty left for Livia . . . and Aemilia.

  'Enter.'

  The voice was strong, the tone full of natural authority, and it had an edge that made Rufus stand a little straighter. He pushed the door, which swung back easily on its single wooden hinge.

  Of all the great men who ruled Rome from the Palatine Hill and attempted to square the circle of the Emperor's chaotic brilliance, ever-changing moods and overwhelming ambition, Callistus, the imperial secretary, held the position of strength. No man crossed the threshold to Caligula's outer apartments without first being interviewed by the secretary. It was a privilege that had brought him immense wealth as well as power. But power did not come without a price, and the price was clear on the strained face of the man who sat across the scroll-filled desk from where Rufus stood.

  Callistus had a wide, sloping forehead which swept down without obstacle to an identically angled, aristocratic nose, giving him the look of some long-beaked bird of the plains. The effect was emphasized by his hair, which had receded in a perfect half-moon leaving behind it a vast, open expanse. He was unhealthily pale, with an enormous bag of flesh beneath each eye and cheeks that sagged beneath the level of his lips, drawing them down in a permanent disapprovin
g frown.

  The secretary's eyes swept back and forth across an opened scroll on his desk, accompanied by repeated tuts of dismay, or disbelief, at the perceived failings of some far-off provincial official. Eventually, he rolled up the scroll with a sigh, deposited it in a leather case, and placed it carefully on the left-hand pile on the desk. Only then did he look up and acknowledge Rufus's presence, inspecting him with a jaundiced eye and not attempting to hide his disapproval.

  'You are the keeper of the Emperor's elephant?'

  Rufus nodded. 'That is correct, sir. I –'

  Callistus waved him to silence. 'That is all I wish to know. And, for the moment, all you need to know is that the Emperor has decided you have an important role in the celebrations of his sister's divinity. You and your elephant.'

  Rufus swallowed and tried to stay the panic that filled his stomach with a ball of frantically mating toads.

  'Since it is obviously beyond your capabilities to carry this out without supervision, the Emperor' – Callistus shook his head in resignation – 'has decided that among my numberless other responsibilities I must oversee your part in it. To that end you will have yourself and your elephant ready for inspection tomorrow at the second hour.'

  'May I ask your honour what form this mission will take?' Rufus asked politely, adding hurriedly, lest his question be taken for insolence, 'in case any specialized preparations are required to ensure Bersheba is ready for the task.'

  Callistus closed his eyes. Perhaps this was going to be more tiresome than he thought. 'Specialized preparations?'

  'Yes, sir. Special harness, or perhaps a new basket. If Bersheba is to carry the Emperor he would need to be carried in something fitting. Something in the ceremonial line?'

  The secretary pursed his lips. 'The beast will not be carrying the Emperor. However, it may be that you need to be aware of its burden. It is rather weighty, I'm told.'

  Rufus spent a sleepless night preparing himself and Bersheba. At the appointed hour he and the elephant stood in front of the barn, she in her ceremonial finery and he in the tunic he had acquired from Callistus's gilded messenger. But it was another two hours before the secretary came puffing down the slope from the palace with an escort of soldiers.