A Song For Nero

by Tom Holt

  Well, you could've knocked me down with a stick of celery. All those poor people he'd had killed, and starting the Great Fire, too because, when you think about it, there's coincidence and there's the screaming bloody obvious, right? — all that and the bestial per-versions and insatiable lusts too. Bloody hell, I thought. The bastard.

  'All true, actually,' Seneca went on, quietly, helping himself to a handful of spicy crunches from a finger bowl. 'And all lies, just like the statement for the defence — the facts are the same, but the interpretation differs slightly, and the golden age becomes the reign of terror, simple as choosing adjectives.

  And counsel for the defence will smile, admit the murders, point out that by any criteria the world's a better place without Lepida, Silanus, Rubellius Plautus, Cornelius Sulla, Narcissus, Pallas, Britannicus, Octavia, Agrippina. Even if a few of them were innocent, or as innocent as Roman nobility could ever be, if they'd been spared they'd have been used as figureheads of rebellion; thousands of lives would've been lost because Nero Caesar allowed himself the luxury, the self-indulgence of mercy Quite true. And counsel for the prosecution will brush aside the corn supply and justice for the provinces and corruption stamped out and peace on the frontiers: “That wasn't Nero Caesar, that was all Seneca's doing, Seneca and Burrus, two honest men who had the misfortune to serve the tyrant, who eventually paid for their wisdom and courage with their lives”—'

  Then Seneca stopped suddenly and grinned at me, and said, 'Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm going to die soon. Suicide, it'll be, the decent way, without all the nastiness of a trial and execution. I got found out, you see, after all these years — stealing from the exchequer, manipulating policy to feather my own nest (I didn't get to be the fourth richest man in the world by writing philosophy, oddly enough) and, eventually, plotting with the indescribably awful Calpurnius Piso to murder the emperor. Actually,' he added with a wink, 'it's my sixth plot in five years, but that buffoon Tigellinus couldn't see an elephant if it was crawling up his nose; which is why I had him made chief of police, it goes without saying. You see?' he went on, with a rather graceful gesture. 'All true, and all lies; because I did do some rather fine things — no, Nero Caesar and I together did some very fine things for our fellow citizens, and Nero Caesar and I together and separately did some other things you'll have to make your own mind up about, if you can be bothered. Calpurius Piso, for example — Piso will tell you we plotted to rid Rome of the monster, we're liberators like Brutus and Cassius. I might tell you I did it because of the power and the money; I'm absurdly pleased with my own profile, and I know it'd look simply wonderful on a ten-pence piece, looking down its aristocratic nose at all the fishmongers and garlic-sellers in the Market Square.' He sighed, stood up, paused to rub his foot (cramp, probably). 'The one thing that neither prosecution nor defence will allow you to believe is that it's all true — all the good things, all the bad things together — and that men can be bad and good at the same time, and switch backwards and forwards between the two like a messenger running errands. And that, my young stealer of cloaks from bathhouses, is more philosophy than you could buy anywhere in this city for a gold sovereign, even a genuine one; and even so, it's mostly horseshit. The only truth—' and he stopped smiling and just looked at me, if you see what I mean. One of those looks. 'The only truth is what you stand up in on the beach after a shipwreck, and which of you's still standing after a fight on your own doorstep, and what your dog thinks of you when you come home. And now,' he added, 'I think I'll go and take a leak,' then, pinching a last handful of spicy crunches, he limped away towards the lavatories.

  So there I was, sat in some garden in some house, all on my tod. Just me and my thoughts. You know by now I've been in some pretty dodgy places in my time — condemned cells and up on crosses and God knows what else — but that garden was one of my all-time least favourites.

  For a long time I tried to tell myself, So what? So what, if Lucius Domitius got up to stuff back in the old days? I hardly knew him then, he was just the man who'd saved me from the cross because he'd taken a fancy to my brother. On balance I approved of him, back then. Yes, he was a rich bastard — the rich bastard of all rich bastards, emperor of the Romans, no less — and surely that says it all; you expect that mob to do every nasty rotten thing that it's possible to do, because that's who they are, rich bastards, and that's what rich bastards do. But, on the other hand, he'd got me down off that cross, which I richly deserved to be up on, because I was a thief and I'd got caught. He got me down off there, and it was my fault, not his, that I was up there in the first place. So, on balance, I reckoned he was all right, or at least, all right for a rich bastard.

  And then all that stuff had happened. We'd escaped from the palace, Callistus (fuck me, I thought, it always ended up back with him, doesn't it?) — Callistus had given his life for Lucius Domitius, and Callistus couldn't possibly have been wrong about a person. If he reckoned Lucius Domitius was worth dying for, I wasn't going to argue, was I? Not me, the thick one in our family And then we'd gone around together all those years, starving and running together; and all that time, he wasn't a rich bastard any more, he was just a poor bastard and a thief, like me, no better and no worse — so yes, I'd come to the conclusion he was all right, because Callistus reckoned so, and because I reckoned so, judging him as I found him. Now you could say: Of course Lucius Domitius didn't get up to anything nasty while you and he were on the road together because he never got the chance to carry on his old tricks, because the two of you were too busy dodging guards and trying to stay alive on a thimbleful of sprouting grain and there wasn't time or opportunities for that sort of shit. Well, I can't argue with that. Can't be bothered to, either. It's like if you were a magistrate and I got hauled up in front of you for hooking sandals at a bathhouse, and I was to say, Actually I'm not guilty, because really I'd have been an honest, hard working farmer and never screwed anybody, only I never got the opportunity. You'd laugh till you bruised a rib, and then you'd send me to the mines, of course you would. I'd do the same ff1 was up on the curule chair, not stood in front of it. So, right — where's your argument now?

  And I tried to tell myself: Look, you're a pathetic little Greek swindler and everybody in the world is out to kill you, and the only person in the universe who might be on your side is Lucius Domitius, so who cares a screaming fuck what he may have done? If you were drowning, you'd take his hand. And besides, it's none of your business what other people do, so long as they don't do it to you.

  If the whole world's against you, screw the lot of them. And this Blandinia, this murdering thief bitch who might consider letting you live if she feels like it — whose side are you on, hers or your only friend in the whole world?

  Just a pity she got out alive, and lived to be the death of you.

  And that was a bugger, too; because Callistus saved her, and Callistus couldn't have been wrong about a person, could he? If he figured she was worth saving, who the hell are you to call her a murdering bitch or whatever? Can't have it both ways.

  So now do you see what I mean about the gods? Surely, if they're there for any other purpose besides being our rich bastard landlords, shouldn't they be there to tell us this is what's right, this is what's wrong, learn it off by heart because there'll be a test later? But I tell you, I sat in that garden, all alone, and I listened; and they didn't say a word. They didn't even fart. I think all the gods must be Romans. That'd explain a lot, if you ask me.

  And — God forgive me — I started thinking to myself: if that's what gods are like, maybe Callistus was a god. You know how they get their jollies prowling about among us poor mortals, pretending to be one of us, like some low-life swindler, telling the tale; like me, even, and Lucius Domitius. Just suppose Callistus was a god in disguise; and I'd loved him, and Lucius Domitius had loved him, and the murdering bitch Blandinia had loved him, because that's how mortals react to gods, they can't help it, just like cats with catnip. And so this rich bastard of a god com
es down and he sets us all this wonderful riddle, and once we're all tangled up in it like sheep in briars, he fucks off back to Olympus and settles down to see what kind of a mess we make of trying to get ourselves free. Maybe that's what love is, a nasty game that gods like to play on poor mortal, innocent and vulnerable as children. Maybe Callistus was a god, and then we'd all be in the clear. We could load all the bad things we'd done on him, and he could take the blame. In that sense, maybe he'd save us all. Again.

  By this stage my brain was starting to hurt, so it was probably just as well that I was interrupted before it had a chance to boil over like porridge and come dripping out my ears.

  Alexander and Pony-tail came out into the courtyard, carrying a couple of small tables with covered dishes on them. When I saw who it was, my first thought was, Oh shit, she's changed her mind and they're going to kill me, but then I thought, Yes, but the tables, and the nosh. Why bother to poison me, when a bash on the head is so much quicker and cheaper? And if they were going to kill me by feeding me to death with potted hare tartlets — well, there are worse ways to go, at that. The likelier explanation was she'd said, You'd better see to the prisoner, or something along those lines, and they'd taken that as licence to go and cook something.

  'It's just a snack,' Alexander said, lifting the lid on shoulder of mutton Etruscan style, with creamed leeks and beans in gravy 'Something to help you keep your strength up, that's all.'

  Fine, except what would I be needing my strength for? Didn't say anything, of course, just, Thanks, that's really thoughtful of you, or words to that effect.

  Pony-tail said not to mention it, and I got the impression he was upset about something. Guilty, almost. A moment later, Alexander confirmed that by adding, Really, it was the least we could do. That was interesting.

  'Oh?' I said. 'How do you mean?'

  They looked at each other, like a couple of embarrassed mountains. 'Truth is,'

  Pony-tail said, 'we feel a bit bad about — well, you know'

  'It wasn't right,' Alexander said. 'I mean, he was so nice to us. Not a lot of people are, you know'

  So which one was he talking about, Pollio or Lucius Domitius? Could've been either, except if they were feeling bad about Pollio, why be nice to me? I took a chance. 'Yes,' I said, 'well. Does you credit, I'm sure, but where I come from we have a saying, fine words oil no greens. He trusted you.'

  You know, even though they were so big and mean-looking, I almost wished I hadn't had to say that, because it obviously hurt. Alexander turned away;

  Pony-tail stood there staring at his toes. They didn't come across as angry or anything, just ashamed. This went on for some time (and all the while my shoulder of mutton Etruscan style was going cold, but I didn't want to spoil the mood; bitter reproaches don't come across so well when spoken through a mouthful of creamed leek). Then Alexander said, 'You know what makes it worse?' Pony-tail put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. 'What makes it really, really bad?' he went on. 'He was my hero, you know? I worshipped him; all those wonderful songs and poems, and that voice — I went to all his public recitals, I even dressed up as a senator, purple stripe and everything, so I could sneak in to the closed concerts. People think that just because you're a gladiator and you were born in some village you haven't got any finer feelings, you can't appreciate music and poetry Balls,' he spat angrily 'Back then, I'd have cut off my right hand just for a chance to meet him and say how much I loved his music.

  Well, I say that. Someone said he'd introduce me once, back in the old days, but I couldn't, I was too shy I mean, it'd have been like meeting Phoebus Apollo, what could I possibly have said? And then I actually do get to meet him 'Bashed him on the head,' I muttered. 'You must've felt so proud.'

  'Don't.' Alexander shuddered. 'Look, you've got to believe me, we didn't know, either of us. Oh, we knew she was pretty much running the show, but we thought she was just doing what Pollio told her to. We didn't know she was involved with Strymon and his mob. Otherwise—'

  'Really,' I interrupted. 'So where were you when they burst in and started killing people? You could've stopped them, you two. Or were you afraid?'

  Pony-tail twitched when I said that, but Alexander just looked very sad. 'We were in the kitchens, weren't we?' he said. 'We were slicing onions, and suddenly these blokes came in, with swords and clubs and all. We had no idea. We thought it must be a robbery, only they said, stay right where you are and nobody'll get hurt. Look, we got through the arena without getting killed or carved up, we've done our share. The two of us, take on a dozen armed men without even knowing what it's about? No, we stood there, and they stood there, and then someone called them and they pissed off and left us, then we heard screams, so we ran to the dining room, but by then it was all over. Just dead people everywhere. We still didn't have a clue what was happening, but then Blandinia came in and told us—'

  'We should have killed her,' Pony-tail muttered. 'Only it wouldn't have solved anything, would it? And we don't want to get murdered by Strymon's men, thank you very much.'

  'And then,' Alexander went on, 'she told us she was going to fetch you, and then we found out you'd been arrested, so we went with her to get you out. And that's all we've done, really'

  I sighed. Actually, I couldn't blame them, but I couldn't very well admit that.

  'Too bloody right,' I said. 'That's all you did. Not very impressive, was it?'

  And while I was saying that, some god whispered an idea in my ear, and I went on. 'Now if I was a really famous gladiator, the best in the world like you were, and I had a loyal fan, someone who worshipped the ground I trod on—'

  Alexander made a little whimpering noise, like a hungry dog, but I carried on.

  'If he was in terrible danger and I was there, I think I'd have taken the trouble to save him, rather than just standing around like a prune. He believed in you two. He talked about you all the time, you know; how you were the best he'd ever seen, how he wished he'd had a chance to meet you, all that stuff. I bet he was thinking as they dragged him away, It's all right, Alexander and Julianus'll rescue me— That was too much for Alexander; he was crying, dripping huge fat tears into my bean casserole. 'I know,' he said. 'God, I'm so ashamed.

  It's true, we were scared. You're away from the arena so long, you forget what it's like, how scared you are at the sight of sharp metal. Back then, when I was fighting, every time I went out on the sand I'd be shivering so much I could hardly hold my sword. But you get used to it, something cuts in and takes over and you get through it somehow, till the next time. But it's been ten years, for God's sake, and thumping people from behind in dark alleys doesn't count; it's not the same thing at all as looking down a newly honed edge at some bastard who wants to kill you. When they came in our kitchen with swords, we were scared, and that's all there is to it.'

  Shit, I thought, I'm in serious danger of liking these two nut-cases. But I was still busy thinking. I was telling myself, Blandinia's made a mistake here with these two; she's got them down in her mind as just a pair of thugs. Only they're not, they're more like Lucius Domitius than anybody else I've come across. Under that muscle and scar tissue they're all delicate and sensitive, they're artistes. So who are they going to listen to, when the screws are on: her, or me?

  'It's all right,' I said, and they looked at me like they were drowning and I'd chucked them a rope. 'I understand. It's not your fault.'

  Gratitude's not something I've had a lot to do with, certainly not gratitude pointed at me. Funny feeling, makes you pleased with yourself and a bit guilty, like you're really just a big fraud, both at the same time. 'Thank you,'

  Alexander said. 'Thank you for saying that.'

  I nodded. 'Don't worry about it,' I said. 'Everything's fine. Now, are you going to help me, or not?'

  That made them go a bit thoughtful, but only for a second. 'How do you mean?'

  Pony-tail said.

  'I'd have thought that was obvious,' I replied. 'We've got to get out o
f here and rescue Lucius Domitius.'

  Pony-tail looked puzzled. 'Who's he?' he asked.

  'Nero Caesar, you idiot,' Alexander snapped without looking round. 'But just a moment. We don't even know where he is.

  I looked at him all stern and hard. 'You could find out,' I said.

  'Could we? How?'

  'Well,' I said, 'you could try getting a hold of that bitch round the neck and squeezing till she tells you. That ought to do the trick.'

  They didn't like the sound of that for some reason, so I went on: 'Or you could go round and ask Strymon, if you think that'll be any easier.

  Personally, though, I'd rather take my chances with Blandinia.'

  They thought about it, but not for long. 'Yes, all right,' said Pony-tail. 'You wait here, we'll be right back.' They went off the way they'd come, and, since there was nothing else for me to do, I had a bit of the shoulder of mutton Etruscan style. It wasn't bad, at that, though it could've done with warming through.

  Blandinia didn't look quite so cocky as she had the last time we'd talked; she was spitting-angry, no question about that, but she was also very scared. I think she realised they weren't kidding around. What gave her that impression, I'm not sure, though probably Pony-tail's enormous fingers on either side of her windpipe might have put her on the right track.

  'You're crazy,' she said, in a rather strained voice, 'all of you. You're also three dead men, unless you pack this in immediately.'

  Well, she had me worried, right enough, so it was just as well that Alexander and Pony-tail weren't chickenshits like me. But then, I never said I was brave.

  Quite the reverse.