The Furies of Rome (14 page)

Vespasian groaned. ‘What do you want?’

‘Well, for a start, I want Venutius, the Britannic King that you’ve got tucked up nice and safe with Caratacus, to be delivered secretly into my custody so that he can’t go spreading his tittle-tattle about me lending him money.’

Vespasian looked at Seneca in astonishment.

‘Don’t act so surprised, Vespasian; don’t you think that when a man seriously in debt to me goes missing I wouldn’t take the trouble to find out where he is?’

‘I suppose you would; so you have some form of a conscience as well, Seneca?’

‘Not when it comes to how I make my money. Nevertheless, I do want to be seen as someone who is civilised, thoughtful and erudite, so lending large amounts to warlike Britannic kings and queens might be … misconstrued, shall we say?’

‘We shall; it wouldn’t really sit well with your philosophical treatises, from what I hear of them. Very well, I’ll get Venutius for you.’

‘As soon as we get back to Rome.’

‘Agreed; but that’ll be it.’

Seneca beamed again. ‘Will it? I don’t think so, my dear fellow; Nero has a very long memory.’

Before Vespasian could object, Nero came into the room accompanied by Poppaea Sabina whom he had also taken care to hide from Agrippina. ‘Friends,’ he declaimed in his husky voice, ‘we shall sacrifice again in thanks to Minerva, the goddess of two of my passions, music and poetry, and also to the gods of my household, for the safe delivery of my mother to her villa. May they hold their hands over her as she sails.’

And so all joined Nero in the prayers around the
lararium
and as Nero pronounced the auspices good that the goddess would, indeed, hold her hands over Agrippina, a dishevelled man burst through the door escorted by a couple of Praetorian Guardsmen.

‘Princeps, Princeps!’ he called, interrupting the prayers. ‘A tragedy has occurred.’

Nero flung his hands in the air, melodramatically rolling his eyes, doing his best impression of someone receiving awful and unexpected news; Vespasian found himself cringing at the sight. ‘What is it, man? Out with it!’

‘The Augusta’s ship has gone down and—’

The howl that Nero let fly was of titanic proportions and it echoed around the columns of the atrium, louder and stronger than any sound he had ever made before. Senators immediately rushed to support their Emperor in his grief as Vespasian prayed to Mars for Magnus’ deliverance, but without much hope.

‘Minerva!’ Nero wailed. ‘Cruel goddess to accept the sacrifice to protect my mother and then to renege.’

‘But, Princeps! Princeps!’ the messenger shouted over Nero’s robust lamentations. ‘The Augusta, she’s safe, she managed to get ashore.’

The change was almost instant; Nero went from red-faced grief to pale fear. ‘What?’

Poppaea screamed.

The messenger seemed confused by the reactions but pressed on with his news. ‘The Augusta managed to swim to safety.’

Burrus stepped forward. ‘Are you certain?’

‘Yes, prefect, she was seen swimming away from the ship and was picked up by some fishermen who took her to her villa at Bauli.’

‘Then surely that’s good news, Princeps,’ Burrus said, turning to the Emperor.

Vespasian felt a small hope for Magnus now that he knew there were boats in the vicinity of the wreck.

Poppaea grabbed Nero’s arm and whispered urgently in his ear.

Panic was now in Nero’s eyes. ‘You’re right; she’ll kill me! She’ll arm her slaves or send soldiers; the legions have always loved her because she is Germanicus’ daughter.’

‘It would seem that Minerva did answer Nero’s prayers after all,’ Vespasian observed dryly to Seneca.

‘I don’t think she was meant to,’ Seneca muttered as he went forward. ‘Princeps! Whatever is the matter? You must be confused; your mother has been saved. It is good news, surely?’

Nero turned with wild eyes to Seneca and then rushed towards him, grabbing his shoulders. ‘No, don’t you see? It was all an act; I planned to kill her. I wanted her dead.’ He glanced back at Poppaea. ‘We wanted her dead; she was meant to drown on the ship, not escape. She’ll know it was me, she will, and she’ll want her revenge because she’s a beastly woman when roused and her desire for vengeance knows no end. She’ll kill me!’

Seneca tried to pull the rambling Nero from the room as all who had witnessed the outburst realised the significance of what had been said and what a hideous crime their Emperor had attempted. It had become public knowledge even sooner than Seneca had predicted.

Nero resisted all attempts to remove him from the room. ‘What shall I do, Seneca, Burrus, my friends, my protectors? I don’t want to die; it wouldn’t be fair if I should die and she should live. What should I do? I know, I’ll take a ship to Alexandria and hide from her there. Have my things packed at once.’

‘Princeps, who is the Emperor?’ Seneca asked.

Nero calmed, the answer clearing his mind. ‘I am.’

‘Indeed; so let us act in the manner of an emperor. An emperor hides from no one. An emperor issues commands. An emperor is above the law because he is the law.’

‘He’s right,’ Poppaea hissed. ‘Act before she does; send someone to execute her.’

‘But I can’t do that in cold blood; what would people think?’

Burrus had no doubt. ‘She’s plotting against you with people who would have rather seen Germanicus on the throne. The people will praise the gods for your safe delivery from the murderous conspiracy hatched by your own mother. They’ll applaud your resolve for the sake of the peace of the Empire. I’ll have the Praetorian Guard reaffirm allegiance to you immediately and you can distribute a donative to them in gratitude and this whole affair will turn into a triumph for you, Princeps.’

Nero pulled himself together, nodding gravely. ‘You’re right, both of you.’ He smiled at Poppaea. ‘And you, my sweet dove, thank you.’ Looking around the room he soon found who he sought. ‘Anicetus, this is your failure.’

The prefect of the Misenum fleet paled as Nero approached him, and then looked with relief at the door as the second interruption of the evening was escorted in by smart-stepping Praetorians.

‘Who is this?’ Nero demanded.

‘My name is Agermus, Princeps,’ the new arrival replied. ‘I am a freedman of your mother’s. She sends me with a message to say that she is well, having escaped from the unfortunate foundering of your beautiful gift with nothing but a minor wound to the head. She knows that you will be mortified to hear of the accident but she entreats you to in no way blame yourself as she is sure that you could have had nothing to do with the canopy collapsing and killing Gallus nor did you have knowledge of the men who battered Acerronia to death. She begs to be excused your visit tomorrow as she feels that she must take a few days to recuperate.’

‘Lies!’ Nero screamed, moving next to Anicetus. ‘All lies; she’s sent you here to kill me, hasn’t she? Admit it.’

‘P-P-Princeps, no.’

Nero grabbed Anicetus’ sword in what he hoped was a surreptitious manner and approached the freedman so that their faces were a hand’s breadth apart. ‘Admit that you were sent to kill me.’

‘No, Princeps, never.’

There was a metallic clang and Nero stepped back; at Agermus’ feet was the sword.

‘Then what’s that that has just fallen out of your tunic?’ Nero demanded.

Agermus looked in horror at the weapon. ‘That’s not mine, Princeps, you dropped it.’

‘Me! Why would I drop a weapon so close to someone sent to assassinate me? I’d be mad to do that. Burrus, have him taken away and executed.’

As the pathetically framed man was dragged away pleading in desperation for his life, Nero turned back to Anicetus. ‘It’s your duty to remedy this; do you understand?’

The prefect just nodded, dumbly.

‘Take the trireme and a century of marines and go now.’

Anicetus saluted and turned smartly on his heel.

Nero addressed the senators. ‘Agrippina has directly threatened the life of your Emperor; you were all witness to it.’

No one objected to that interpretation of events.

‘You can all see that after the kindness that I have tried to show her here and despite it, she does this.’ Nero pointed to the sword still lying where he had dropped it. ‘She cannot be trusted and therefore I have no alternative. And, Vespasian,’ Nero growled, turning to him. ‘I think that Seneca’s finished borrowing you now; seeing as you’re part of all this you can go with Anicetus to make sure that he does the job properly this time and then keep the villa closed and stay there so that no one sees her body until I arrive soon after dawn.’

Thus, a couple of hours later as dawn revealed a sky clear of cloud, Vespasian found himself walking with Anicetus and Herculeius, the trierarchus, along the jetty at Bauli; behind them a century of marines was disembarking from the trireme. Up ahead, becoming ever more distinct in the growing light, lay Agrippina’s villa. No one spoke as there was nothing to say, no debate; should they not complete the task that they had been assigned by their Emperor then their lives would be forfeit.

Vespasian recalled when he had been present at the execution of Messalina, which had been, in part, brought about by Agrippina so that the way would be clear for her to marry her uncle, Claudius, and thus become the most powerful woman in Rome. He smiled inwardly at the dark justice of fate: Agrippina’s death had been decreed by Poppaea Sabina, the woman who would now move to become the most powerful of her sex in Rome; with Agrippina gone there would be nothing to stop her from having Nero divorcing Claudia and so leaving the way clear for her to become empress.

‘You’re looking grim.’

Vespasian turned towards the sound of the familiar voice, letting Anicetus and Herculeius go on ahead. ‘So you learnt to swim after all, did you?’

Magnus was sitting, leaning against the hull of an upturned fishing boat. ‘Didn’t need to in the end; it turned out that swan wings are very buoyant. Me and a few of the lads clung onto one and kicked our way to shore.’ He eased himself up and fell into step beside Vespasian. ‘I waited here for you because I guessed that when Nero found out what a shambles his attempt at staging an accident was he’d send a party to do it properly and, being already implicated, you’d be part of it.’

‘Well, you were right. I heard roughly what happened; so how did Agrippina get away?’

Magnus gave a grim little laugh. ‘A lucky piece of selfishness by her slave. After the canopy had come down, crushing Gallus but missing the two women on account of the high-backed couch that Agrippina was reclining in, the ship started to take in water. Some of the crew were part of the conspiracy but most of them were just shit-scared. Anyway, the bastards who were trying to sink the ship must have had some mechanism to scuttle it that hadn’t completely worked so they started to try and capsize it by all going onto one side. This helped and water started flooding in. At this point Acerronia, who was evidently unaware that this was an attempt on Agrippina’s life, started to shout out that she was Agrippina and that the crew should save her. This surprised the assassins as they’d thought that Agrippina was dead beneath the canopy and were now trying to sink the ship so that there’d be no evidence as such; so they battered Acerronia to death with oars whilst Agrippina managed to slip over the side in the dark. Anyway the ship eventually went down, the assassins, and those of the crew who could, swam for the shore whilst me and the rest of the lads floundered around waiting for Neptune to suck us under; only he didn’t but sent us a swan wing to float on instead, which I felt to be very decent of him. I shall be sacrificing a swan to him as soon as I have the chance.’

‘That’s the least you can do.’

‘Two, then.’

‘That should do it. Sounds like it was more than a shambles. Why put a high-backed couch on board for Agrippina to recline on when you’re trying to crush her with something falling from above? Especially when the last time you tried the same trick she was saved by a high-backed piece of furniture.’ Vespasian shook his head in disbelief. ‘If they had gone about it properly I wouldn’t be having to be part of finishing off the job.’

‘Yeah, well, no point in moaning about it now.’

Vespasian’s attention was taken by a fugitive fleeing from the house, now only fifty paces away.

‘Get her!’ Anicetus shouted at the marine centurion.

Two men were despatched and quickly ran the woman down and dragged her, writhing, back. They threw her on the ground; by her attire she was obviously a slave. She was young and not unattractive, if slightly plump, with a shock of angry-red hair.

Anicetus slapped the woman a couple of times across the face. ‘Where were you going?’

‘Please, master; I saw you coming and was just trying to get away.’

‘Who do you belong to?’

‘Agrippina, master.’

‘Is she in there?’

‘Yes, master; she’s locked herself into her bedroom.’

‘And you were deserting your mistress and running away, were you?’ Anicetus drew his sword. ‘You know the penalty for that, don’t you?’

‘Wait,’ Vespasian said, putting an arm across Anicetus. He looked down at the slave girl. ‘Is Pallas still in there?’

The girl looked with terrified eyes at the sword, unable to answer.

‘It’s all right; you won’t come to any harm. Anicetus, put that away, this girl is now under my protection.’

Anicetus did as he was told.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Caitlín, master.’

‘So, Caitlín, has Pallas left?’

‘Yes, master,’ the girl said, watching the sword go back into the scabbard. ‘He left as soon as the mistress departed for Baiae yesterday evening.’

‘What a surprise. Magnus, you look after her; bring her with us and make sure that she comes to no harm.’

‘That’ll be my pleasure,’ Magnus said, eying the girl’s full figure with the appreciation of a connoisseur.

Vespasian nodded to Anicetus. ‘Deploy your men.’

‘Centurion Obartius!’ Anicetus called. ‘Have your lads surround the villa and bring me anyone who tries to get out.’

Obartius saluted, issued a stream of orders and the marine century split up into eight-man sections, obeying Anicetus’ command.