by George Green
Having delivered the invitation as commanded, we withdrew with our dignity intact, and I fancy that the Germans were – despite themselves – impressed with our demeanour. But they are a rough and uncivilized people and it will surely be many years before the influence of Rome changes their manners in all but the surface. The Greek does not even have the excuse of barbarism.
The details would be tedious. Suffice to relate that the man who spoke assured us that both Serpicus and Decius would be present at your house tomorrow night.
Chapter Eight
The Palace of the Partner of His Labours, as it had been known for several years, was heavily but discreetly guarded. It had been built by Augustus as a home for part of his burgeoning family. Tiberius gave it to Sejanus when the Partner became head of the Praetorian Guard, shortly before Tiberius left for Capri never to return. The Palace was a spear-throw from the Praetorians’ sprawling barracks on the Viminal Hill, and although relatively small was luxurious and expensively appointed. Sejanus, as the Emperor’s Regent and right hand, now spent most of his time in the Imperial dwellings on the Palatine Hill directly opposite the Viminal. Thus Blaesus, Sejanus’ uncle, had come to use the Partner’s Palace as his base. Both palaces overlooked the Senate House. Not only was this symbolic in a way that both Sejanus and the Senate recognized, the buildings were also convenient for the court houses where the treason trials were held. Sejanus did not have time to attend every day, so at his suggestion Blaesus went in his stead. Sejanus found that the presence of a member of his family tended to concentrate the judges’ minds on punishment rather than leniency. And there could be no leniency for treason. Tiberius was many miles away, but his spies reported to him every day. Sejanus had no intention of allowing the Emperor to wonder if his Regent was becoming soft in his absence.
Serpicus and Decius appeared on time and freshly scrubbed for dinner. The captain of the guard at the imposing outside gate was expecting them, but searched them efficiently anyway before escorting them to the main door, a heavy and heavily decorated oak slab, where a household slave took over.
‘Come this way, please,’ the slave said. Serpicus heard the familiar accent and lifted an eyebrow.
‘Thank you,’ Decius replied, using the language of the Treveri, and the slave looked back at him with a startled expression. He opened his mouth to speak as they entered the outer atrium and then he dropped his head and said nothing. Serpicus saw that two men were walking towards them. The older man was in his late thirties, with weather-beaten skin covering wiry muscle, and a long scar on his right cheek. He wore a plain toga and walked like a soldier. The other was a few years younger, heavy-set like a boxer but with the angles of his face beginning to soften with dissipation. He wore a jerkin edged with colour and the careless air of a blade-about-town. His hair was thick and dark blond, almost the gold of fresh straw.
At the sight of them the younger man held out an arm to stop his companion. ‘Look, Marcus,’ he said in a high voice. His face split with a vicious child’s smile as he looked at them intently. ‘These must be the Partner’s Germans.’ He sniffed the air. ‘At least, they smell like Germans.’
The man he called Marcus glanced quickly at him as if he’d said something he shouldn’t, then looked at Serpicus with the expression that Roman patricians used to remind others of their respective status. ‘Certainly Germans,’ Marcus said, staring at Serpicus steadily.
Serpicus swallowed a retort and glanced at Decius, shaking his head slightly but emphatically. They were in the heavily guarded house of the favoured uncle of the most powerful man in Rome, being insulted by men who seemed to be related to him. It was not a time for standing on dignity. He tried to look just respectful enough and hoped they would soon tire of goading him. Decius took the hint and stepped back out of the way.
The blond man sidled up beside Serpicus. ‘I leave for Germany soon. Perhaps you’d like to come with me?’ Serpicus couldn’t help showing his surprise. The young man grinned again. His eyes were unnaturally wide and bright under the pale hair. ‘You see? He wants me to take him home.’
Marcus’ face relaxed into the thinnest of smiles. ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘He might not like what you’re going to do to his people when you get there.’
Something inside Serpicus spilled over. ‘Be careful,’ he said softly. ‘They may do it to you first.’
The smile vanished and the dark man’s face was an implacable mask. ‘You suppose so?’ he said in tones colder than a glacier stream.
‘Varus thought as you do,’ Serpicus said, meeting his gaze. ‘He had to change his mind when they lit a fire around him in the forest.’
The younger man let out a noise that was almost a scream, and leapt towards Serpicus with his arm upraised.
‘Consilius!’
At the sound of Marcus’ voice the blond man stopped as if he’d hit a wall, though the expression of excited malevolence on his face didn’t alter. Serpicus knew that, if Marcus had not snapped the order, a moment later they would have been rolling on the floor like boys in a playground. Consilius lowered his arm and leant his face close to Serpicus.
‘This is not the place,’ he hissed. ‘We will meet again, and then there will be a reckoning.’
Serpicus said nothing, knowing he had said far too much already. The two Romans swept past him and through the door.
The household slave, who had evidently acquired the invaluable knack of melting into a wall when necessary, rematerialized by his side with Decius immediately behind him.
Serpicus gestured to the door. ‘Who were they?’
The slave looked surprised at his ignorance. ‘Marcus and Consilius,’ he said. ‘The sons of Blaesus, cousins to Sejanus.’ He switched from Latin to his own tongue, speaking rapidly and quietly. ‘You have made a bad enemy in Consilius. He and Marcus leave in a few days with the Seventh Legion to put down the revolt in Germany. I would advise staying out of their way until they depart.’
‘Revolt? What revolt?’
Serpicus wanted to ask the German slave more but they were at the open door leading into the main apartments, and through it he could see their host rising to meet them. The slave did his disappearing-into-walls trick again as Blaesus came forward.
‘Serpicus, so glad you were able to come tonight. And Decius, welcome. Come in, come in. I am Blaesus, the Partner’s uncle. You may have heard of me.’
There was only a hint of a question at the end of the sentence. Blaesus was a general, a senator, and Sejanus’ uncle. He looked like a man who enjoyed the benefits of all three positions. His voice was deep and sonorous. As the Senator came across the cool marble flagstones that lay at precise geometric angles across the atrium of his house to meet his guests, Serpicus felt something stir in his memory. Perhaps he’d seen Blaesus in the Forum or at the games without knowing who he was. There were a lot of rich men in Rome and they all looked a lot like Blaesus. No doubt, to him, poor men all looked a lot like Serpicus.
‘Come, sit. We’ll have some wine.’
They slipped off their shoes and reclined on low couches, Blaesus facing the two Germans.
Serpicus had never liked the fashion of lying down rather than sitting, not when talking and especially not when eating, but reclining was plainly what was expected and to do anything else would have been the mark of a bumpkin. Decius perched silently on his couch with the air of a man who had been told that at any moment it might suddenly fall through the floor.
Blaesus said nothing, letting his guests absorb their surroundings. There were coloured silks thrown carelessly over the couches. Serpicus was used to seeing cloth from Tarentum dyed by being soaked in water containing the powdered shells of the local mussels. He had a feeling that Blaesus’ cloth and colours came from rather further away. It was intended to impress.
He looked around and saw a shadow move in a distant corner of the room. They were being spied upon. He wondered if Blaesus knew. Perhaps Blaesus took it for granted that a man in his positi
on should assume that he was never alone.
They were separated from the Senator by a long narrow table. The legs and frame were made of a dark wood Serpicus did not recognize, decorated with finely detailed gold leaf. The surface of the table was made from a single sheet of startlingly white polished marble with thin veins of the faintest grey running through it. A large gold bowl of fruit sat in the centre. The bowl overflowed with russet apples, smooth-skinned oranges, black sticky dates, and several armfuls of tiny yellow grapes, all resting on a bed of ice chips that made clear runnels of cold sweat run down the outside of the bowl to pool on the pale stone underneath.
Blaesus plucked a sprig of grapes and motioned to them to do the same. The grapes were very sweet. The three men chewed slowly and in silence as they waited for a slave to pour three cups of wine from a heavy stone jug. Once the slave was finished and had stepped back out of sight but not out of hearing, Blaesus cleared his throat noisily and unselfconsciously. Serpicus hesitated. Blaesus leant across the table and handed a cup to each of them.
‘Your health,’ he said with a smile.
There was a moment during which Serpicus felt that Blaesus was waiting to see what he would do with it. In Rome, above a certain social station, the normal rules of hospitality had become reversed. A poor man in the country entertaining a guest will delay drinking, waiting for the guest to sample the wine first. A rich Roman’s guest, however, would far rather see his host drink before he tried it himself. Serpicus knew enough to be aware that poison had been changing history since Romulus and even before, but in the recent past too many people for comfort had died of mysterious stomach ailments after dinner parties. The problem had become worse since the Blessed Julius’ legions marched him into Egypt and into Cleopatra’s bed. The Romans brought aqueducts to Egypt, and in return a wealth of knowledge in the theory and practice of using narcotics flooded back into Rome, spreading like the Nile spilling onto the desert sands. Poison expanded from the exclusive use of the upper classes to the wider population, and moved from the social to the political arena. Before Egypt became part of the Empire, most cases of deliberate poisoning were carried out by amateurs motivated by passion, lovers getting rid of rivals or wives removing inconvenient husbands, but increasingly the poisoner’s art was becoming a tool of political debate. It was easier – and far cheaper – to engage a professional poisoner to deal with a political rival than it was to spend the fortune necessary to beat him in an election. The problem now was to ensure that your own personal poisoner knew more than your rival’s.
This development meant changes in dining etiquette. At business meetings between rivals, the host sometimes drank first from every cup on the table, just to show good faith. A few of those hosts fell foul of guests with a sense of irony, who paid a servant to lace the master’s cup.
Serpicus swallowed the wine and examined the flavour without knowing what he was looking for. There was nothing unusual about it that he could discern, except that it tasted a good deal better than that which he was used to, but he reasoned that the mark of a good poisoner is presumably that the victim doesn’t know he is dying until he is actually dead. He waited for whatever was in the wine to reach out inside his chest and squeeze his heart till it stopped. His heart continued to beat and he felt only a pleasant warmth. Perhaps he would survive the night after all. He tipped the goblet slightly towards Blaesus in tribute. ‘Excellent. Cretan?’
The Senator looked mildly impressed. ‘Close enough, and the same vines,’ he said. ‘Rhodes. My own vineyards.’
‘My compliments.’ Serpicus wondered which poor bastard had owned the vineyards before Sejanus raised Blaesus to his present position, and what type of treason had been conjured up against him in order that he could be relieved of his possessions. Serpicus took another sip. The manner of its getting hadn’t affected the quality of the wine. He waited without speaking.
Decius was looking at his cup like a man staring at a letter that might just possibly contain news of a legacy and a promotion but might equally well contain his death warrant. Then he took a hurried gulp.
Serpicus remembered his father saying that when the wolf has fed well, he walks past the deer with hardly a glance. The deer sees the wolf’s full belly and knows that he is safe for a time, but the deer still doesn’t take its eye off the wolf. So do rich men move slowly past poor men, and the poor men watch them always, more carefully than the rich men watch them, for they never know how quickly the wolves may become hungry again.
Which was fine common sense, but it didn’t stop Serpicus feeling annoyed and contrary when it happened.
Serpicus heard Decius shift uneasily on his couch. He watched as Blaesus ate the last grape left in his hand. He then picked up an apple the colour of the finest Tuscan wine and began to peel it in precise movements using a tiny fruit knife with a carved ivory handle. Serpicus waited. Blaesus put a thin shaving of fruit between his thin lips, then he pointed at both of them with two languid flicks of his forefinger.
‘You were both born in Germany.’
Serpicus nodded. ‘As the Senator knows.’
Blaesus looked at the apple as if it were of great interest. ‘You, in Gelbheim, Decius in Praunberg, and your rumbustious friend in Glaudern. All villages in the lands of the Treveri.’
Decius smothered a startled cough. Serpicus said nothing, though he too was surprised. Not many Romans would even know the Treveri existed, let alone be able to name three villages there. Blaesus had done his research.
‘And, as any man of the Treveri no doubt knows, I fought with Germanicus against the Germans. Against the Treveri. And others.’ His gaze flicked up at Serpicus, and he let a pause fall. Serpicus kept his eyes on Blaesus.
‘The war is long finished,’ he said carefully. ‘The past is over, what is done is done. Germany is a loyal part of the Pax Romana. There is peace between the peoples of Germany and Rome along the length of the Rhine.’
Blaesus pulled a flake of apple off the knife blade, extending his top lip like a horse. ‘Actually,’ he said in a way that was carefully offhand, ‘there isn’t, not just at the moment. Several tribes revolted just a few weeks ago. Others are very likely to join them.’
Decius sat silently, listening. Even though the Treveri slave had already let the news slip, Serpicus was careful to look startled. ‘I had not heard.’
Blaesus looked at Serpicus carefully and then gave a little shrug. Either he decided to believe him or he didn’t want to pursue it just then. ‘Not many know, yet,’ he said, ‘but the news is travelling towards Rome. The Senate will be told officially tomorrow.’
‘Do we know why the tribes are in revolt?’
Blaesus gave another shrug and put a tiny grape in his mouth. ‘Between ourselves, it has been coming for some time. Romans and Germans aren’t designed to sit well together. Rome knows that the price of empire is a war every so often, and Germany is one of the places where it will always happen.’ Another grape vanished. ‘The official reason is that a temple was desecrated and a Roman soldier’s knife was found there afterwards. Ergo, it was Roman soldiers who did the desecrating, and the next day twenty thousand outraged Germans are attacking garrisons all along the Rhine.’ He sighed. ‘If I were Emperor, religion would be banned.’
Serpicus took a breath. ‘Are the Treveri among the rebel tribes?’
Blaesus shook his head. ‘I understand not, yet.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Presumably you have relatives, friends still in Germany?’
Serpicus saw the danger in front of him. ‘Of course. But I cannot believe that they will be involved in any rebellion against Rome.’
The Senator smiled, and looked at Decius. ‘Of course not. Tell me, are there not hostages still in Rome since the…’ He paused momentarily, as if chewing over the word to extract every subtle flavour – ‘the pacification of your tribe?’
Serpicus looked blank. ‘I would not know about that. I understood that hostages are normally exchanged after five years.’
>
‘Normally, yes. But not always. It depends on… so many things.’ Serpicus winced. The Senator knew his history.
‘So,’ Blaesus said cheerfully, looking at his two guests. ‘Your tribe is likely to be at war with Rome soon. You have lived here for some time, and will not be unaware of the privileges you enjoy as a result. Is there any way the two of you would wish to serve Rome at this time?’ His eyes narrowed very slightly. Serpicus took the hint.
‘If the Senator would tell us any way in which we can serve Rome, it would be a privilege and an honour to carry out his wishes.’ The words felt like grit in soft bread in his mouth. Decius was still sitting immobile.
Blaesus tapped thoughtfully at a very white front tooth with the blade of the fruit knife. The sound was high and clear. ‘Very well,’ he said, putting the knife down. His voice was, different, decisive. ‘I want the two of you to do something for me.’ Serpicus waited. Of course he did.
‘We are your servants.’
‘I want you to take a journey.’
‘We enjoy travel.’
‘I want you to go back to Germany, to your village. Specifically, to Gelbheim.’
Serpicus hesitated. ‘Did you not say that there was a revolt in progress there?’
Blaesus frowned slightly. ‘No. I said that the Treveri are at peace. Even if they are rebels, that need be no concern of yours. Unless, that is, you choose to make it so.’
‘Why me – why us?’ Serpicus asked. Blaesus paused and gave him a shallow smile.
‘It’s actually very simple,’ he said.
Serpicus was prepared to wager that it wasn’t anything of the kind.