Medea leapt up and ran out of the room.
The empress sat up. Suetonius Tranquillus looked round, blinking in confusion. Sabina turned to her other handmaidens. ‘Someone go and see what’s wrong with that Greek girl,’ she commanded. ‘The rest of you, leave us. I wish to speak with the secretary.’
The handmaidens hurried out after Medea. Suetonius Tranquillus carefully rolled up his scroll and crossed over to Sabina.
‘You wished to speak to me on some matter?’ he said, rather formally. She patted the couch beside her.
‘Sit with me,’ she invited.
Confidently, he sat. ‘You’ve ended your fling with the Praetorian Prefect?’ he asked archly.
Sabina smiled. ‘That was all a misunderstanding,’ she lied. She patted his neatly clasped hands reassuringly. ‘There never was any fling. It was all in your imagination. Everything between us is as it was in the past.’
‘Ah, the past,’ said Suetonius Tranquillus dreamily. ‘The past. It was better then.’
‘You mean when Nero was poisoning all and sundry?’ she asked, deliberately trying to provoke him.
‘No…’ Suetonius Tranquillus murmured. ‘Before the emperors seized control.’
‘You do know my husband is an emperor?’ she reminded him. She poured a beaker of wine and held it out to him. As he took it and sipped at it, she added, ‘I was brought up by one emperor and I married another.’
‘And yet you yearn for the days of the Republic as much as I,’ Suetonius Tranquillus murmured. ‘So does Septicius Clarus, of course.’
‘So do we all,’ said Sabina, moving closer to him.
They kissed long and passionately. His hands begin to travel up her body, halting and uncertain at first, then diving greedily beneath the material of her stola. She broke off, leaving him looked uncertain. Smiling, she pushed him away.
‘That Praetorian tribune doesn’t seem to yearn for the Republic,’ she commented pensively.
‘The young fellow who was accused of murdering his centurion?’ Suetonius Tranquillus murmured, disappointed that she had broken off the kiss. ‘You’ve got him investigating the murder, I understand. Yes, he visited me in the library the other day, asked a lot of silly questions. He seems a reasonable enough fellow, but I supposed all these Praetorians are blindly devoted to the new ways.’
‘Except their prefect, of course,’ Sabina commented.
Suetonius Tranquillus shrugged. ‘Septicius Clarus is an exception. But surely he owes his current situation to others. My old patron Pliny favoured him just as he favoured me. Another man who wanted to see a return to the days when the Senate ruled and there was no “first among equals”. And yet he owed a great deal to Trajan...’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Sabina. ‘Still, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been simpler to have had Tribune Flaminius executed in the first place.’
‘He had an alibi,’ Suetonius Tranquillus reminded her. ‘You surely wouldn’t manufacture evidence to have an inconvenient person removed! That’s the way a despot works. Including, if you don’t mind me saying so, your husband. He had his rivals murdered. But surely we’re better than that.’
Sabina studied him. There was so much he didn’t know about her. He knew a great deal about the past, and had been a help to her. He was also a caring and tender lover beneath that dreamy, pedantic exterior. But for all this he was an impractical man, and he couldn’t be trusted with the secrets she shared with Septicius Clarus. She needed to keep both of them pliant and submissive, and to avoid either learning that the other was still her lover.
She’d tried her wiles on the young tribune, but clearly he was only interested in mere slips of things like that gauche Greek girl, and he had successfully evaded her charms. Now he was learning too much, getting too close to the truth. She had to find some way to deal with him. But how? She had only commissioned his investigation to test their security.
From what he had said, he had learnt a great deal, although he still hadn’t correctly guessed who had committed the murder. That might be the key to dealing with him. She had suggested that he would be found guilty if he didn’t prove the killer’s identity. But in the process of investigating, he had uncovered too much. He would have to go. He would have to go.
What if he did learn the identity of the centurion’s killer? How would he react when he found out the truth?
‘You’re deep in thought,’ Suetonius Tranquillus remarked.
She had said nothing for some time now. He seldom spoke unless spoken to, and even then it was usually little more than a murmur. She had to do all the running in their conversations except the most intimate, when at last he took over. He seemed only capable of asserting his manhood in the bedchamber.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There is much on my mind.’
‘The tribune?’ he said. ‘But why do you want to get rid of him?’
Sabina shook her head. ‘I’m afraid he will uncover other matters,’ she said. Inspiration struck. ‘That he will learn about us! You must realise that if word of our affair were to get out, it would be disastrous. My husband would hear of it, and who knows what would happen.’
Suetonius Tranquillus paled. ‘I see,’ he said gravely, and moved away from her. He gazed at her from the end of the couch. ‘I understand why you are so troubled,’ he added. ‘Well, yes, indeed—in that case I can see why he must go. What was the arrangement you made with him?’
‘He must learn the murderer’s identity by tomorrow, or he will be tried and executed for the murder himself.’
Suetonius Tranquillus shook his head. ‘We can’t risk a trial; he may have found out all sorts of things that he might say in public. We must remove him now. But how to do it?’
‘We can’t poison him, of course,’ said Sabina. ‘That would be lowering ourselves to the level of those emperors you write about, just as you said.’
Suetonius Tranquillus stared bleakly into the distance for a long time. She watched him closely. At last his eyes focused on hers. ‘I did say that,’ he murmured. ‘But I wonder. Under these circumstances, perhaps we could take a leaf out of an emperor’s book.’
‘What do you suggest?’ she said, fixing him intently with her eyes.
Suetonius Tranquillus brooded. ‘Caesar was stabbed by the conspirators…That won’t work. Augustus… some say he was killed with poisoned figs…’
‘Figs aren’t in season yet,’ Sabina said, ‘and attacking Flaminius has already been tried. He fought his attackers off.’
Suetonius Tranquillus stared at him. ‘You’ve already tried to kill him?’
The admission had been a mistake. She thought up a lie that would mollify him. ‘The attempt failed. That’s why I decided to seek your erudition. From your ghoulish stories of former emperors, I’m sure we could cook up something. Go on, how did the other emperors die?’
‘Tiberius died naturally... Caligula was assassinated by the Praetorians…Claudius was poisoned by his wife... Not figs this time, but mushrooms.’
‘Mushrooms?’ Sabina gave it some thought. ‘There may be mushrooms in the woods by now. It’s a possibility. Go on.’
‘Nero killed himself,’ Suetonius Tranquillus said, ‘after conspiring to murder several people, including Claudius, some say. He even kicked his own wife to death, you’ll remember!
‘Galba was murdered by supporters of Otho. Otho was killed by supporters of Vitellius. Vitellius was killed by the Roman mob. Vespasian died from a stomach complaint. Titus was poisoned. Domitian was stabbed…’
‘Poison is a theme that runs throughout your work,’ Sabina said darkly. ‘It seems like an omen.’
‘An omen,’ Suetonius Tranquillus murmured wonderingly. He shook his head. ‘It’s a difficult decision to make, how to take a man’s life. Perhaps we should seek guidance from the gods.’
‘What had you in mind?’ she asked. She knew he was a great believer in magic arts.
‘Vergilian lots,’ said Suetonius Tranquillus. He produced another
scroll from his box, a well-thumbed copy of Book One of Virgil’s Aeneid. ‘I find bibliomancy never fails to provide good guidance.’
‘Bibliomancy?’ She knew less of magic than she did of history.
‘It’s quite a new idea,’ he admitted. ‘But we writers certainly find it most congenial. It entails opening a book of Virgil’s at random and interpreting the passage that your eyes first light upon. Shall we?’
Sabina nodded. ‘We certainly need the gods to guide us here,’ she said piously. ‘Do it.’ And then whatever they did would be the gods’ will, she told herself, and she would be absolved of blood guilt.
Unrolling the scroll, eyes closed, he laid it down on the couch. Then he opened his eyes and read what he saw. A grunt escaped his lips. She leant over, trying to read upside down. Their heads brushed gently together, her curls tangling with his sparse hair. She made out:
But Venus, anxious for her son’s affairs,
New counsels tries, and new designs prepares:
That Cupid should assume the shape and face
Of sweet Ascanius, and the sprightly grace;
Should bring the presents, in her nephew’s stead,
And in Eliza’s veins the gentle poison shed: [17]
She looked up. So did he. Their eyes met once more.
‘Poison again!’ she murmured.
‘Poison,’ he repeated. He swallowed. ‘Poison.’
‘Poison it is then,’ she said. ‘I must speak with our own little Locusta, wherever she’s hidden herself. In the meantime, I will have the slaves prepare a dinner for tonight. Septicius Clarus will be joining us then, I believe, and we have guests, including Ursus Servianus. I think Tribune Flaminius will also be on the guest list.’
‘Am I right in thinking that during dinner the tribune will meet with… a mishap?’ Suetonius Tranquillus breathed. He gave a nervous little smile. ‘Surely it will put people off their meals.’
She nodded, leaned forward, and kissed him. This time when his fumbling hands quested clumsily across her body she did not shake him off.
Accompanied by Centurion Junius Italicus, Flaminius was checking his patrols. They walked in silence through the park.
Had he got everything wrong? The empress was convinced that Septicius Clarus was innocent. Her reaction had suggested she knew more than he did. What did she know? She was so sure that the prefect was not behind the murder. Did that mean that she knew the murderer’s identity?
Something she had said about Septicius Clarus had puzzled Flaminius; that he had ordered Rufinus Crassus’ murder. Flaminius was sure that Messalus had carried out that murder on Septicius Clarus’ order, but he had not mentioned this suspicion to the empress—he had kept a lot of his conclusions to himself, and that had been one of them. So how did she know?
A patrol marched past them and Junius Italicus halted to return their salutes. Flaminius hadn’t seen them, so deep in thought he was. He halted clumsily, and saluted them in turn.
As he continued his stroll, Junius Italicus commented, ‘Something on your mind, sir? You’re very quiet.’
Flaminius shot a suspicious glance at him. Although he’d been warming to the centurion recently, he was no closer to trusting him than he had ever been. Not that Junius Italicus had ever done anything wrong. But he was constantly watchful, like a hunter. Flaminius wondered who his centurion reported to.
‘Pressures of the job, centurion,’ he said. ‘Simply pressures of the job.’
‘I see, sir,’ Junius Italicus replied. They strolled on.
‘Difficult people to work for,’ the centurion ventured after a short while. ‘All things considered.’
‘We’re the Praetorians, centurion,’ Flaminius told him. ‘This is our work.’
Together they strolled down the gravel path between the laurels. If it wasn’t for his undercover work, Flaminius thought this really would be a cushy number. But Junius Italicus was right. It was the people you met in this job that made it difficult.
He heard a thunder of hoofs and turned to see, in the distance, a messenger riding up an avenue towards the main villa complex. The man dismounted, flung his reins to a waiting slave, and hurried inside. Junius Italicus and Flaminius walked on.
A group of girls crossed their path. Medea was among them. Flaminius caught her eyes but she looked away and hurried after the others. He felt a pang of regret. What for, he couldn’t exactly say.
Returning to barracks, he found an invitation to dinner waiting for him.
‘The empress wants me to join her for a little banquet to celebrate the imminent return of the emperor,’ he told Junius Italicus, after reading the note he found on his desk.
‘It’s a hard life,’ the centurion said, straight faced.
Flaminius cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Enough of your lip, centurion,’ he said. ‘Get about your business.’
After Junius Italicus had departed, Flaminius took his seat at his desk and pondered.
A few hours later, after a refreshing trip to the bathhouse, magnificent in his freshly laundered toga, Flaminius joined the other guests in the atrium of the palace where they were having pre-dinner drinks. A slave played a harp in the corner of the garden. The empress greeted Flaminius after the chamberlain had announced him.
‘I think you know everyone who is present,’ she said.
Flaminius glanced round. There was Suetonius Tranquillus, avoiding his gaze as he examined the floor mosaic, Ursus Servianus, accompanied by his wife Paulina, talking at length to the newly arrived Septicius Clarus, both of them in well laundered togas, Erichtho, standing in the corner glaring suspiciously at people through her tangled hair, and Medea with the rest of the handmaidens.
‘I’ve met them, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s an honour to be invited.’
The empress seemed oddly nervous. She glanced at Suetonius Tranquillus, then at Erichtho, and finally at her handmaidens.
‘We’ve come to value your presence here,’ she said. ‘We hope your investigation will solve the mystery of the centurion’s murder, one way or another. In the meantime, what else is there to do but enjoy ourselves? Medea, you’ve been very quiet. Will you accompany the tribune into dinner?’
Medea crossed the atrium to join them.
‘Very well, ma’am,’ she said. The empress drifted away and they were left looking at each other in strained silence.
‘I haven’t had a chance to speak to you recently,’ he said at last.
‘I suppose you must be busy with your investigation,’ she replied distantly.
‘Yes,’ said Flaminius wryly. ‘With what her imperial majesty is pleased to call the sword of Damocles hanging over my head. It’s an incentive, if ever there was one.’
The guests were going in to dinner and her and his companion followed them into the banquet hall. ‘So are you any closer,’ she said, not meeting his gaze, ‘to learning who poisoned the centurion?’
‘This is supposed to be a party,’ Flaminius protested. ‘Can’t we find something more pleasant to talk about?’
‘It’s preying on all our minds,’ Medea confessed, as slaves came forward to pour water over their hands and wash their feet. ‘Well, what do you want to talk about?’
The empress took her place at the head of the room, with Septicius Clarus on the couch beside her own. Everyone else sat down. Flaminius took his couch, Medea reclined on the couch next to him, and they sat almost head to head. She eyed a glass pitcher, glazed with ochre, which a slave had placed on the little table between them, while she toyed absently with a ring on her finger. As the other guests settled down, Flaminius commented on the ring, which he hadn’t seen before.
Medea looked at it as if she had never seen it before. ‘It was a present,’ she told him seriously. ‘From my mistress.’
‘I was about to ask who your new admirer was!’ Flaminius laughed. Medea looked away in silence, her eyes bitter. Flaminius wondered what he had done to offend her.
Matters had been strained between
them recently; the empress made it clear that she disapproved of their friendship. He understood that Medea had to obey her mistress’ wishes, and yet now the empress seemed to want them to renew their acquaintance, had thawed towards them. Did she now think Flaminius worthy of her handmaiden’s time? But Medea didn’t seem happy.
What on earth had he done? He could think of nothing. he remembered her listening in to his conversation with the empress. Spying was his business, not hers. What had she wanted to know? He thought back on their days in Britain together, the time they had spent together while her master Governor Falco was absent. Medea had hated Britain’s rains and fogs but she found comfort in the arms of Flaminius.
Maybe she really did have another admirer, he thought with a pang. She was an attractive girl, after all.
More slaves entered the banquet hall bearing plates and platters filled with hors d’oeuvres. Plates of the finest Samian ware were piled high with Alexandrian dates, mussel sausage canapes on a grill of silver, dormice with poppy seed and honey, fish pickles with cheese, and several other delicacies. The food was certainly better than Flaminius had been accustomed to when he was serving with the Ninth Legion.
A slave began to recite excerpts from Ennius’ Annals.
Flaminius tucked into the canapes. All around the guests were chattering as they ate, paying little attention to the slave. Suetonius Tranquillus picked absently at the dates, Ursus Servianus crunched the bones of a dormouse with relish. The empress was drinking wine quietly, displaying little appetite for the morsels spread before her, but Septicius Clarus showed no such restraint.
Erichtho she seemed overwhelmed by the selection, and she was staring around her as if she didn’t know why she had been invited. Flaminius supposed the Marsi were unaccustomed to the food available to the people of the cities.
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