by Tom Holt
Now, unless you were born in a cave and raised by wolves, you know perfectly well what happened next. Galba's army closed in on Rome and Nero killed himself before the cavalry could get to him; Galba became emperor and was killed by Marcus Salvius Otho; Otho became emperor, reigned for ninety-five days and killed himself before Aulus Vitellius' men could get at him; Vitellius wasn't so lucky when the governor of Africa, Titus Vespasianus, rolled into town: he was chopped up into little bits and slung in the river, and I'm in no hurry to tell you that it didn't serve him right.
And that's stone-cold history, which you heard about from a very reliable source in the barber's shop while it was going on, or learned about from your elders and betters, who you're duty-bound to believe. The truth is slightly different as regards some of the peripheral details, but nobody's going to stop a galloping horse, as my uncle used to say.
I can tell you a funny story about the Year of Five Emperors, as it's come to be called. One time, several years later, Lucius Domitius and I were in this wine shop in Apamea, which is a horrible dump of a city in northern Syria . So there we were, nursing a small jug of rotgut and minding our own business, and we got talking to this clerk, who was something trivial and boring in the Roman prefecture there. Anyway, he was fairly thoroughly tanked up, and after a bit he suddenly started cussing and ranting and carrying on about how he was the unluckiest man who ever lived, and how all his troubles were the fault of that miserable no-good bastard Nero.
At this point, Lucius Domitius topped up his cup from our jug and said there was a coincidence, because Nero had completely flicked up his life, too, and the clerk said, well, there you go. Then Lucius Domitius said, 'Excuse me asking, but what exactly did Nero do to you?'
Well, the clerk — can't remember his name, and it isn't important — he pulled a very sad face and explained that he hadn't always been a poxy little clerk, once upon a time he was the secretary in charge of production at the Mint in Rome , where they make all the coins. It was, he told us, a very responsible and important job, and he did it very well. His bosses told him how many of each type of coin would be needed each year, and it was his job to commission a sculptor to engrave the dies (for stamping the coins out of sheet metal), get dozens of identical copies made, and make sure the coins were made on schedule and all ready when they were needed for paying the soldiers, and so on.
As you can imagine, he said, it was a major part of his job to keep up with what was going on in the world, particularly anything that might mean a change of emperor. Like the rest of us, when things started going brown and smelly at the end of Nero's reign, he naturally assumed that Vindex was going to be the next emperor, but he was ready for that. He sent one of his house artists right up to Vindex's headquarters in Gaul to take a good look at him, make a few sketches, generally get an idea of what the man looked like so the Mint sculptors would be able to get some dies made up in plenty of time for the start of the new reign.
No flies on him, he told us, as a big fat tear wobbled its way down his nose. He knew perfectly well that as soon as Vindex got in, the first thing he'd need would be barrels and barrels of freshly struck coins to pay off his soldiers with. So he put his top man on engraving Vindex's portrait, and a bloody wonderful job he made of it too. In fact, this sculptor reckoned it was the best work he'd ever done, totally lifelike and outrageously flattering at the same time. Only problem was, of course, that Vindex never got to be emperor; so there's our new friend, trashing those beautiful new dies — something told him that if Galba ever saw them, he'd be explaining to the palace guard exactly what he wanted them for — and chivvying his sculptors for portraits of Galba. Luckily for him, his chief engraver was a quick worker, and pretty soon lovely new denarii and sesterces were tumbling off the die-stampers' benches, ready for despatch to the army barracks.
Then, of course, Galba got scragged and Otho was in charge; and Otho was a pretty-faced type half Galba's age, so there was no chance of just firkling the dies about. In the scrap they went, and all those lovely new coins ended up in the melt, while the chief engraver sat up all night chipping out a suitably impressive portrait of Otho.
Being caught on the hop like that nearly gave the poor bugger a stroke, since what he liked best of all was to get his work done calmly and sensibly without having to rush. But he could get a wiggle on when he had to, and in just three months he'd got new dies installed and was all set to go, just in time for Otho to top himself and leave the way open for Aulus Vitellius.
At this point, the chief engraver walked out on him, and went to work for his brother-in-law mending bagpipes. So his assistant got an unexpected promotion, and slaved away night and day in order to come up with a really top-class likeness of Vitellius. It really was a triumph. So good, in fact, that one of the first things Vespasian did when he took over shortly afterwards was send the sculptor and our friend into exile, on the grounds that nobody could turn out such an admirable portrait of someone they didn't really admire.
So, said the clerk, there he was, doomed to spend his last few years scribbling inventories in the flyblown heat of Syria , and none of it would have happened if only that criminal lunatic Nero hadn't screwed things up to the point of being slung out of the palace. People in important, responsible jobs should have more consideration for others, he told us. It was their sacred duty to think of the consequences of their actions on innocent, hard-working people who only ever did their best in really appalling circumstances. In fact, he said, it was a bloody disgrace that Nero had been allowed to kill himself in quiet and peace, because he'd have enjoyed ripping the selfish bastard's lungs out with a blunt trowel.
Well, even though we weren't exactly flush right then, we reckoned it was the least we could do to buy this wretched sod a quart jug of the house blended red; and we ended up drinking Vespasian's health well into the wee small hours.
Coincidentally, next morning we got the news that Vespasian had conked out and his boy Titus was now in charge; and strangers in the marketplace were so upset at the way the three of us took the news that they pulled horrible faces at us and asked us what in hell we thought was so funny.
Oh yes, there's a funny side to everything, if you're in the right place at the right time to appreciate the joke. There were probably quite a few people grinning like camels on the last night I spent in the palace, but I wasn't one of them.
First I knew of it was when someone woke me up out of a deep sleep (I've always had the knack of getting to sleep, even when things are at their hairiest). You know what it's like when you're dead to the world and suddenly you're bounced into being awake, it's like a real bitch of a hangover, distilled into a few seconds of intense pain and bewilderment. So there I was, and there was this shape looming over me with a guttering oil-lamp in its hand, but I couldn't see well enough to tell if it was my brother Callistus, or the emperor himself, or some god appearing to me in a dream looking like one or both of them.
'For fuck's sake, Galen,' the shape hissed at me, 'get up, it's an emergency,' and since it was talking Greek with a thick up-country Athenian accent rather than a poncified Roman one, I guessed it had to be my brother.
'Piss off, Callistus,' I yawned at him. 'It's the middle of the night.'
'Correct,' he snapped at me. 'It's just after midnight , and the whole place is deserted. There's nobody in the whole flicking palace except you, him and me.'
That woke me up, better than having the chamber pot emptied over my head. The palace was about the size of a large town, hundreds of people lived there, maybe even thousands. As well as the servants and the office workers and the cooks and hairdressers and laundry staff and gardeners and God-only-knows what else besides, there ought to have been a hundred or so palace guardsmen on duty all hours of the day and night, not to mention all the guests and hangers-on.
'Are you sure?' I asked him. 'We can't be the only ones here, it's not possible.'
'Come and see for yourself if you like,' he replied. 'And I'll give you a thousand sesterce
s for every man you can point to.'
'Shit,' I said. 'So what's going on?'
'Guess,' Callistus replied, throwing my tunic at me. 'And when you've done that, meet me by the kitchen door. Get us a sword each, and any money you can find.
I'm going to fill a sack with bread and cheese. There's no knowing where it'll be safe to buy food.'
Now once he started gabbling on about swords, I knew we were really in trouble, since Callistus had always been one of those people who has involuntary bowel movements at the sight of anything sharp and pointy. His idea of martial arts was flopping down on his knees screaming 'Please don't hurt me!', and I'm pretty much the same. And a very satisfactory method it's proved to be, over the years.
Anyway, he buggered off before I had a chance to get any further news out of him, so I had no option but to do as he said. I pulled on my tunic in the dark — he'd taken the lamp with him — and I eventually managed to find my boots, groping about on the floor with my hands. To be fair to myself, I did try and find the stuff he told me to get, but everybody else in the place must've had the same idea: no money and no swords to be found anywhere. After I'd wasted loads of time looking, it struck me that if I didn't get down to the kitchens straight away the bastards might leave without me, so I packed in the search and hurried off as fast as I could go. He was absolutely right, of course. The whole building was as empty as a tinker's purse, and the echoing noise my boot heels made on the marble floors was the scariest sound I'd ever heard in a lifetime jam-packed with scary sounds.
'Where the hell have you been?' Callistus barked at me, when I caught up with the two of them at last. 'We thought something bad must've happened to you.'
Oddly enough, I was under the impression that something bad was happening to all three of us, right then and there, but I wasn't in the mood to argue the point.
A bloody comical sight we must've looked, so it was just as well there was nobody to see us. At least Callistus and I had our tunics and boots on. Lucius Domitius was still in his nightgown and slippers — crazily exotic slippers they were too, silk and seed-pearls, embroidered with the Rape of the Sabine Women in gold thread —with a ratty old cloak on top and a battered old leather hat that I'd last seen on the head of one of the gardeners. Considering how finicky he'd always been about how he looked, that was another very bad sign.
'Now then,' Callistus was saying, 'let's pull ourselves together, there's no reason why we can't get out of this if we only keep our heads. I say we head over to Phaon's place.' (Phaon was an ex-slave, freed by Lucius Domitius as a reward for twenty years' faithful service to the family; since then he'd made an obscene amount of money out of highway contracts and aqueduct concessions. He lived about four miles out of town, in a villa that looked like the sort of thing Zeus might have built for his retirement, if only he could have afforded it.) 'Anyone got any better ideas?'
Truth was, neither of us had any ideas of any description, so we set off for Phaon's house. Now, Lucius Domitius wasn't used to walking. Running, yes. He liked taking part in athletics and all that shit, and he wasn't half bad for an amateur. But walking wasn't something he'd ever had to do, especially not in the dark, down cobbled alleys and rutted lanes, in thin-soled pornographic sandals.
As a result, our progress was a bit more leisurely than any of us would have liked. It got worse. For one thing, the shortest route to Phaon's place took us right past the gates of the Guards' barracks, and it was a year's wages to a second-hand mackerel that if the soldiers recognised Lucius Domitius we'd all be for the chop. We put our heads down and hurried past, which was a bloody silly thing to do, since it made us look furtive and suspicious — what we should have done was lurch along singing objectionable songs, as if we were plastered, but we didn't think of that. Anyhow, we got stopped by the soldiers and asked to explain ourselves.
Looking back, the expression on the soldiers' faces when they shoved their lantern under our noses and saw not one but two apparent Lucius Domitiuses was one of the most comical things I've ever seen. Wasn't quite so droll at the time, though. Fortunately, Callistus' brain was still just about turning over.
He grinned like an idiot, and told them we were entertainers.
The guardsman wasn't expecting that. 'You what?' he said.
'Entertainers. Actually,' Callistus went on sheepishly, 'we're professional Nero impersonators, and this is our manager.' He nudged me savagely in the ribs and I nodded three times. 'What we do is we show up at parties and weddings and stuff, and we do Nero impressions; you know, singing and playing the harp and doing little dances. It's not a bad gig, so long as you're careful not to overstep the mark.'
The soldiers were staring at us as if we had three heads each. 'You can make a living doing that?' one of them said.
'Sure. Twenty sesterces a night, plus nosh and a drink or two. Better than digging ditches. But we sort of got the impression that the bottom's about to fall out of the Nero business, so we're clearing out of town for a while.'
The soldiers just stood there gawping at us for a scarily long time, then one of them shrugged, as if to say that nobody could possibly make up a bloody stupid story like that so it must be true. 'Good idea,' he said. 'In fact, if I was you I'd put a good long stretch of road behind you as quick as you can.
'Thanks,' Callistus said, 'we'll do that. Have a nice day.'
That wasn't all. No sooner had we got out of earshot of the barracks but the ground started jumping up and down, and there was a terrific crash of thunder, followed by lightning. Too much for Lucius Domitius, who'd always been pathetically superstitious; and I can't pretend I didn't feel a sharp twitch in the bladder, even though I'm savvy enough to tell the difference between a mild earth tremor with thunderstorm accompaniment and the wrath of the gods. It took us several minutes of comforting, cajoling and arse-kicking to get Lucius Domitius back on his feet, and even then he was gibbering away in Latin under his breath all the way out of town and into the country lanes.
Did I mention I hate the countryside? May sound odd coming from a farm boy like me, but the great outdoors gives me a pain in the tush. It's horrible all the time, but at night, when you can't see spit and you don't know where you're going, it's at its unspeakable worst. We walked into brambles and went in up to our knees in reed beds. We wandered into an abandoned gravel pit and couldn't find our way out. In the end we had to scale a small cliff: Callistus on top, me bringing up the rear, and the two of us puffing and pushing Lucius Domitius like a pair of dung-beetles. Eventually, just when we'd convinced ourselves that we were hopelessly lost, we walked straight into the outer wall of Phaon's place (literally). That was all right, but we couldn't find the gate. We trudged up and down, following the wall, but if it was there we contrived to walk straight past it. This was getting ridiculous, so we dropped down on our heels and tried to figure out what to do. Climbing the wall was out of the question, with Lucius Domitius doing a wonderfully lifelike impression of a three-hundredweight sack of onions. Then Callistus laughed and said, 'Not to worry. If we can't go over the bugger or through it, we'll go under.'
That bothered me a lot. Things were bad enough already without Callistus cracking up and starting to babble. But he was quite serious. We'd get down on our hands and knees and scrabble away with our fingers and burrow under the wall.
And that's what we did; and it worked. Turned out we were sat right next to the spot where a drain ran under the wall. We cleared away a bit of mud and shit, and there was a nice big hole for us to crawl through — even big enough for Lucius Domitius, and he was quite a size back then, especially round the bum.
So, we were through. Lucius Domitius was all for striding up to the front door, assuming we could find it, and banging on it like gentlemen. But Callistus didn't like that idea. He'd been turning things over in his mind ever since we left town, and he'd come around to thinking that maybe Phaon wouldn't turn out to be quite as friendly as we'd thought. Well, we weren't too happy about that, and I might have suggeste
d that it'd have been better all round if he'd thought of that earlier. Anyway, while we were discussing the point, Lucius Domitius happened to find some gardeners' tools —actually, he stood on a rake and got smacked on the nose by the handle — and that set Callistus off again. If we could dig under the outer wall, he reckoned, we could bust into the house the same way, and nobody would know we were there; and if you don't know someone's there, you can't turn him in to the soldiers, however treacherous a bastard you may happen to be.
You can tell how tired and screwed up we all were from the fact that that line of reasoning seemed to make sense. So we prodded and groped around until we found tools to dig with: a pick, a double-tooth mattock and a shovel, to be precise. This isn't the tool kit of choice of your career housebreaker, but it was better than using our hands and risking Lucius Domitius breaking a fingernail. We chose a spot at random just under the back wall of the house and began to dig, and we'd hardly got started when the ground just seemed to give way under us, and there we were, sitting on our rear ends on the cold flagstones of Phaon's cellar.
Long silence, then Lucius Domitius pipes up. 'Well, here we are, then,' he says.
'Now what?'
Things are different in real life to how you imagine they'll be. Needless to say, all that racket didn't pass unnoticed. Phaon turns up at the cellar door holding a lamp. He peers at us through the darkness and says, 'Oh, it's you,' like he'd met a poor relation at the racetrack. 'What do you want?' he says, and we get the impression he's not thrilled to bits to see us — though it's understandable, I guess, because how would you feel about a party of uninvited guests who've just caved in a hole in your cellar roof?
Well, we'd achieved our objective against all the odds: we'd got to Phaon's villa, and you'd have thought we'd be pleased with ourselves. Not so, because it dawned on us that even though we'd completed our mission, we were still just as much up to our knees in cowplop as we'd ever been. At best, all we'd done was buy ourselves a little time.