A Song For Nero

by Tom Holt

  'So Lucius Domitius is with this Strymon,' I said.

  She nodded. 'Unless he's contrived to lose him again,' she said mournfully 'And there's Scyphax to consider, too. Trouble is, Strymon has the delicacy of touch of a bull elephant. Like when he tried to barge into that inn and grab you.

  Scyphax could outsmart him easily, only Strymon's got me on his team, and I'm brighter than Scyphax.'

  'That's right, is it? You're working for Strymon?'

  She lifted her head. 'No,' she said, 'I'm working for me, silly I'm just using Strymon to do the heavy lifting, if you follow me. With Scyphax in reserve, if I need him for anything. Not bad, really, for a girl from the kitchens. Of course,' she added, with a little shake of her head, 'it could all go horribly wrong and I could end up being fished out of the river on a long hook, with my face just starting to flake off the bone. But there you are. Can't ford a river without getting your feet wet, as they say There was something about the way she said that, all flippant and devil-may-care, that made me think that maybe, deep down where it didn't show, she was almost as shit-scared as me. In which case, served her right. Of course I may have been kidding myself. We do a lot of that, us Greeks, particularly if there's nobody else around we can kid. We talk to ourselves as well, though I expect you've noticed that.

  'All right,' I said. 'So, since we're being all frightfully civilised and chatting away like this, maybe you can tell me what's going to happen to Lucius Domitius. And,' I added, remembering something vitally important, 'me. Are we as good as dead, or is there some way we can possibly get out of this alive?'

  She considered the question gravely, which frightened me so much I nearly pissed down my leg. 'I think your friend isn't long for this world,' she said eventually 'You, on the other hand, I'm not sure about. You might make it, you might not. I don't want to build your hopes up, of course, but really, it's too early to say'

  'Oh,' I said. 'Any idea when you might know for sure?'

  'It all depends,' she said, wrinkling her nose. 'There's a long way to go yet.

  If it was up to me, I'd probably let you go. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because you're so pathetic — and I don't mean that in a nasty way, but let's face it, you are what you are. Unfortunately, there's only so much I can do.'

  I thought, Big of you, I'm sure. Now, what if I were to jump up suddenly, grab you round the throat and tickle you under the chin with that dinky little bone-handled knife you've got hanging off your belt? Would that make it easier for me to get out of this house, or would it guarantee I'd never reach the street alive? And this is where I've got a bone to pick with the gods. They ought to tell you stuff like that. You listen to the old poems, your Wrath of Achilles and your Man of Many Wies, and the gods are always stopping by to whisper good advice in people's ears. But where were they when I really needed them? Well, exactly. If you ask me, the gods are just another lot of rich bastards who happen to live for ever and know how to do conjuring tricks. Screw the lot of 'em, I say 'Well,' I said, 'thanks for that, I appreciate it. Now, another question for you. What the fuck do you and this Strymon and Scyphax want with Lucius Domitius and me? Particularly if they don't know who he is.'

  'Ah.' She grinned. 'And I had you figured for a clever man. Never mind. Come to think of it, clever man is one of those figures of speech they teach you about in law school; like hot snow or cold fire. You really don't know, do you?'

  'Me? Nah, I'm just a dumb peasant. You're going to have to tell me. Otherwise,'

  I added, 'how can I do what you want, if I don't know what it is?'

  She looked at me as if I was a sea bass she was thinking of buying. 'I believe you when you say you don't know,' she said. 'And besides, it doesn't cost me anything. Does the name Dido, queen of Carthage , ring any bells?'

  Bloody hell, I thought, so that's what all this is about. It's a damn fool bloody stupid treasure hunt. That huge fortune in gold and stuff that was supposed to be sitting there in a cave somewhere on the African coast — just as well Lucius Domitius had seen fit to mention it, or I'd have been screwed.

  I thought quickly 'No,' I said, trying to sound like I was lying through my teeth. 'Sorry, haven't got a clue what you're on about.'

  'Really?' She smirked at me. 'What a pity, because that makes you far less valuable than you were a moment ago.

  'Fine,' I said. 'No reason to keep me, then.'

  'Nice of you to see it that way I'll call Alexander and have you killed.'

  The way she said it, I got this picture in my mind of Alexander wringing my neck like a chicken and filleting me neatly with a sharp knife for escalopes of Greek, marinaded in garlic butter. 'You can if you like,' I replied, wanting to sound like I didn't believe she'd do any such thing, though of course I knew she would, if she believed I didn't really know (and of course I didn't, not the details anyway). 'But honestly and truthfully, I don't know anything about any Queen of Carthage.'

  She frowned. 'Don't be silly, Galen,' she said. 'Both of us know Nero Caesar found out where Dido's treasure's buried from that knight he had tortured. Why else do you think you've been allowed to wander round the empire for the last ten years, miraculously not getting strung up on a cross every time you bungle a scam? It's because the whole world's been watching you, waiting for you to lead them to where the treasure is. To be honest, the one thing we haven't been able to figure out is why the hell you've waited all this time. All we could think of is you've realised that as soon as you make a move for it, we'll have you, while as long as you're drifting aimlessly around, it's in the interest of the government to let you stay alive and loose. Of course,' she went on, 'that doesn't explain why the government hasn't scooped you in and loosened your tongues with the rack and the hot irons, but I suppose they were afraid you'd die under torture or something idiotic like that. Anyway, they may have the patience of camels, but I don't. What scares me is the thought that some clown of a mule driver might stumble on it quite by accident, and then all our work'd be floating down the river, along with yesterday's wilted greens. Or else you're perfectly capable of dying of starvation or the plague, just to be insufferably difficult.' She leaned forward, like a cat crouching down before it jumps on some poor little furry bugger. 'Go on,' she said, 'why don't you tell me where it is? Just me, and then I'd be able to get it for myself, and there'd be nobody else involved. Then I could let you go. Why not? You haven't got anything to lose.'

  Tread carefully, I told myself, you're crossing a plank bridge over a lake of ripe shit here. 'What about Lucius Domitius?' I said. 'Will he be all right, too?'

  She scowled at me out of a pure sunny grin. 'No,' she said, 'he's not included in my good nature, I'm afraid. This is just you and me. So, how about it? Deal?'

  I could tell she was getting excited — one up to me in the sparring match. 'Why don't you tell me why you're so down on Lucius Domitius?' I asked her. 'I get the feeling you really don't like him at all.'

  She laughed, all dry and brittle. 'You're quite right,' she said, 'I don't like him. If it wasn't for Dido's treasure, I'd have seen him dead a long time ago, one way or another. But I don't want to talk about that.'

  'Sorry,' I said, 'but I want to know Else, how can I tell what you're serious about and what's just salad?'

  'Very well,' she said, and you'd have sworn the gorgon had just turned her heart to stone. She'd gone as white as a statue that's been out in the sun and wind a long time, and all the paint's flaked off the marble. 'I'll tell you, though really you should be able to figure it out from what you've heard already You know I was brought up in the Golden House, and my parents were slaves.'

  I nodded. 'Is that it?' I said. 'Just a grudge?'

  'Just a grudge.' She sighed. 'You clown, Galen. You were there in the Golden House, you obviously knew what went on there. You must know the sort of games Nero Caesar liked to play with little girls and little boys. For God's sake,' she said shrilly, 'I was seven years old. I still have the most horrible dreams, even now And my parents knew, and th
ere was nothing at all they could do about it because of what we were, slaves, just bits of property. Oh, I was lucky, I'm still alive. I suppose that's lucky,' she added, 'though there are times I'm not sure. Why are you looking at me like that? Are you seriously trying to tell me you didn't know?'

  'Yes,' I said. 'I mean, I didn't know, this is all news to me. But I was just a hanger-on, Callistus' brother, nobody ever told me anything.'

  'Really So you never knew what sort of man you've been going round with these last ten years. You're really that stupid.'

  I shrugged. 'I never said I wasn't,' I told her. 'I didn't know, really I believe you, because why would you bother lying to me? But it's just sort of gone in my ear, I can't make any sense of it. I mean, I know Lucius Domitius has got his faults, God knows. But— Well,' I said. 'I believe you. I guess.'

  She looked at me for a while. 'Who cares what you believe, anyway?' she said, cold as a dead body 'I'd have had them kill you at the dinner party, only you're Callistus' brother. Oh, he'd have been able to tell you all right. That's why I loved Callistus more than anybody I've ever known. He rescued me, you see. He got me out of there.' She stood up suddenly 'I'm going in now,' she said. 'You'd better stay there. If you try and leave, they won't kill you but they will break your arms and legs. If I were you, while you're waiting, you might care to think about what I've just told you.' Yeah, I thought. Right.

  TWELVE

  You may remember a while back I told you about the time I met the world's cleverest man, the great Seneca. We got chatting about Stoic philosophy and stuff, and I was able to fill him in on some things he didn't know about my line of work, thieving and swindling and so on.

  Well, sorry to bang on about it, like I'm name-dropping or whatever, but the truth is, that conversation must've made a real impression on me because I can remember pretty much all of it, even now, including all the long words. I gave you the gist of some of it earlier, but I left out the interesting bit because it wasn't really anything to do with what I was telling you about, then. But you're going to hear the rest of it now; partly because, as I sat in Blandinia's garden with bugger all else to do but think about what she'd told me about Lucius Domitius, not to mention me being about to die, I went over it all in my mind and thought, Yes, well; partly because I've been lugging it round in my head all these years because it's too good to waste, and it's cracking stuff, really. Besides, you've put up with me chattering away all this time, you deserve a bit of quality as a reward.

  Like I said just now, old Seneca and me, we'd been talking about good and evil and lies and truth and all that, and I think Seneca had pretty much forgotten I was there, or who I was — he was getting on a bit, after all. The other day I figured it out on my fingers. It was the same year he died when we had our chat, so he can't have been a day under sixty, and even the best of us gets a bit blurry round the edges at that age.

  Anyhow — I don't know how exactly, but the conversation had somehow worked its way round to the Great Fire, which had happened the previous year. I think Seneca brought it up as an example of some point he was making, and I must've said something like, Yeah, what about that? or, That was really something else, wasn't it? Doesn't matter what I said; point is, after a while Seneca went all thoughtful, or else he had an attack of heartburn from eating crunchy snacky things out of a finger bowl, because he went dead quiet and stared past me, and then he started talking about history.

  Great, I thought, getting my money's worth here, and I hadn't even had to pay for my seat, so I pinned my ears back and opened my mind up like a rabbit-catcher's net, hoping that at least some of the good stuff'd stick in it.

  Unfortunately my left leg chose that time to go to sleep on me, and it's bloody difficult concentrating on the sublime and the profound when you've got pins and needles shooting through your toes and right up into your bollocks; so I missed a load of what was probably really good stuff, and by the time I caught up again he'd made at least one extremely telling point, probably two or three, because the first thing I remember him saying was: 'And for an example of this, of course, we need look no further than His Majesty, Caesar himself. I do believe his own circumstances illustrate my point exactly Don't you agree?'

  Well, naturally I said yes, of course, because a scruff like me can't go saying, Sorry, I missed that bit, would you mind going over it again? 'Absolutely,' I added, wiggling my toes about. 'Couldn't agree more.

  I remember him smiling — not at me, more sort of past me, like when the archers in a battle shoot high over the heads of their own side to drop the arrows down on the enemy 'It's rather sad, actually,' he was saying. 'History will remember Nero Caesar as a bad man, quite probably as some kind of monster; or else they'll say he was mad, which saves the difficulty of trying to understand. And they'll remember me, ironically enough, as a good man, a wise and humane man born tragically out of his time, a flower blooming in desolation. The injustice of it all disgusts me so much, I'm delighted I won't live to see it.

  'You bet,' I said awkwardly 'Um, how do you mean?' I added.

  'Oh, come now' He frowned a little. 'Surely it's obvious.' He looked at me. 'Or not,' he added, with a slight click of the tongue, or you wouldn't be scowling at me like that. Very well. Let's set out the facts in the daylight, like honest lawyers — prosecution and defence. Only we'll let the defence open, shall we, just for a change? What do you think?'

  Of course, I wasn't thinking anything, except what an idiot I'm making of myself and my foot hurts. So I said, 'Good idea, why not?', and he grinned, then went on.

  'The case for the defence,' he said, sitting up straight like he had a javelin up his bum, 'is that Nero Caesar, on ascending the throne in his sixteenth year, immediately set about sweeping away the notorious corruptions and vicious practices that so marred the last years of his uncle's reign; the evil men who'd secretly controlled the empire during Claudius' dotage were winkled out of power, disgraced and punished; misappropriated public funds went back into the treasury where they belonged; corrupt colonial governors were brought to trial; even his mother — quite the worst of the parasites —couldn't escape what can only be described as justice. Meanwhile, the battered economy was nursed back to health, taxes cut, Rome 's food supply secured, the vital interests of Italian agriculture safeguarded. In political life, all traces of Claudius' reign of terror were swept away, free speech was restored in the senate, the power of the army curbed, pointless wars of aggression abandoned, while at the same time genuine foreign threats to national security were promptly and efficiently dealt with — the Parthians, Armenians and the rebel British, to name but three. At home, of course, conditions are better than at any time in living memory, and even disasters, like last year's catastrophic fire, have been turned to good use — in place of appalling slums, clogged streets and derelict tenements, we now have a city whose beauty at last truly reflects the worth of her people.

  Accordingly, we live in a city where the rich and powerful no longer oppress the common man, where the foreigner can at last claim redress for his wrongs against the citizen, where the senate and people of Rome have taken back the reins of government from nameless, corrupt Greek bureaucrats and court favourites, where crumbling brick has been replaced with shining marble — and all of this in a mere eleven years since Nero Caesar came to power, and all this because Nero Caesar came to power, spurned the temptations of power, turned power against those who would abuse it, for the benefit of the entire commonwealth. Surely' — and Seneca pulled a funny face, like he'd just swallowed a wriggly snail —

  'surely we live in the best of times, and the age of gold has come again.'

  He stopped talking and looked at me, like he was expecting me to say something.

  Me, I was sat there with my face open, thinking, Stuff me, he's right, this is a wonderful time to be alive, and all thanks to Lucius Domitius; well, who'd have thought it?

  'You see?' Seneca went on. 'All facts; all true; you can go and read the edicts, or sit in the l
ibrary and look up the figures for corn supplies and public expenditure. All true — as true as the facts presented by the prosecution, which would go, I fancy, something like this ...'

  He paused, changed his expression, tightened his eyebrows, made his mouth thinner. Quite scary, he looked, and not nice and affable at all. 'We live,' he said, 'in a cursed city, in unspeakable times, ground under the heel of a monster whose name will ever after be a byword for savagery and wickedness. A murderer — the word is hopelessly inadequate, we must invent another to describe the sort of man who kills, first his uncle, then his uncle's trusted advisers, then the flower of our nation's noblest families — Lepida, Silanus, Rubellius Plautus, Cornelius Sulla — then his cousin, the innocent Britannicus, then on through a torrent of blood to his own wife, his own mother. A freak — what other word can describe a nobleman, a senator, an emperor who daubs his face with paint, curls his hair, dresses in the disgusting attire of a common actor and makes an exhibition of himself in front of the entire world, playing at poetry and music and theatre while the senate and people of Rome are forced to sit still and watch, yearning to look away from the degrading spectacle, but not daring to do so for fear of the stone quarries or the executioner's sword? A common fire-raiser — are you so pathetically naive that you can bring yourself to believe that the murderous inferno that consumed our beloved city was an accident, or the work of heathens or cannibal Christians, when the ashes were barely cool before the tyrant's Greek architects and Greek sculptors and Greek landscapers and design consultants were scuttling among the ruins, kicking aside the charred bones of murdered innocents as they pegged out the foundations of the tyrant's obscene palace, his blasphemous temple to his own evil megalomania? As to the other charges — the bestial perversions, the insatiable lusts, the reckless extravagance, the callous cruelty — words fail me, all words fail me, the golden voice of Apollo himself fails to convey in mere words what the eye witnesses infallibly for itself, in every alley, on every street corner poisoned by the monster's filth.'