The Furies of Rome (2 page)

‘Two million! That’s twice the threshold for admittance into the Senate.’ This time Sabinus did turn round but only to see the portly form of Seneca walking away; he watched as Nero’s chief advisor sidled up to Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, Sabinus’ and Vespasian’s sworn enemy since he had abducted Sabinus’ late wife, Clementina, and taken her to Caligula for repeated and brutal rape. His outrage at Seneca’s price was immediately replaced by curiosity. ‘What’s Corvinus negotiating with Seneca about, Uncle?’

‘Hmm, what, dear boy?’

Sabinus repeated the question.

‘A lucrative governorship. It’s rumoured that he’s trying to get Lusitania because of the tax possibilities on the garum trade; as you can imagine, there’s a lot of money in fish sauce.’

‘It makes you wonder where he’s getting the money to bribe Seneca with.’

‘That’s easy; if Corvinus doesn’t mind paying the exorbitant interest rates, Seneca will lend him the money for his own bribe, provided he can get someone to stand as a guarantor; which will be yet more expense for him but well worth it if he gets Lusitania.’

And that was how it now worked, Sabinus reflected: Seneca, it seemed, cared only for amassing a fortune from his position much to the private amusement of the few who had read his philosophical tracts. However, Seneca was not unusual in this; his predecessor, Pallas, the Flavian family’s chief supporter during Claudius’ reign and the early part of Nero’s, had made his fortune as Claudius’ most trusted advisor before he had fallen from Nero’s favour at the same time as his lover, Nero’s mother, Agrippina; he was now exiled to his country estates, no longer playing a role in imperial high politics. Pallas was more fortunate than Narcissus, the man he had outmanoeuvred and replaced; Narcissus had been executed, despite his fortune – or, it could be argued, because of it.

Unable to think where he would come up with the outrageous amount Seneca was asking for his son-in-law, Lucius Caesennius Paetus’, consulship without borrowing it from the man himself – something he would never allow himself to do – Sabinus cast his mind back to the issue from which he had been dragged away when the Emperor’s summons to dinner had arrived that afternoon. Some of the duties of the prefect of Rome were less onerous than others and the questioning of prisoners who posed a threat to the security of the Empire was one of the more pleasant tasks; and when that man was no longer a citizen and therefore Sabinus had a freer rein then it could be a positive pleasure. That pleasure was made all the sweeter in this case by the fact that this was not necessarily an imperial matter as the man in question had been sent to him by his brother, Vespasian, to be incarcerated and questioned as a favour that he needed to repay; although what that favour was owed for and to whom, Sabinus knew not.

‘My friends,’ Nero’s husky voice cut through the applause for the latest ode that had finally ground to an end, drawing Sabinus out of his thoughts. ‘I would that we had time for more of this sublime gift of the gods.’ Nero raised a hand to the heavens and gazed after it for a few moments, his expression composed into one of deepest gratitude; he then looked over to the lyre-player and inhaled, long and deep, his eyes closed as if he were smelling the sweetest of scents. ‘Terpnus, here, has received the blessing of Apollo with his honeyed voice and skilled fingers.’

There were general mutterings of agreement from the audience, although those with a true ear for music found Nero’s statement exaggerated.

Nero nodded at Terpnus before drawing himself up and filling his chest with air. Terpnus plucked a chord and then, to everyone’s astonishment, some more obvious than others, Nero let out a note, long and quavering; it was reasonably close to the chord that Terpnus had plucked but not nearly as strong nor as constant. Nero’s audience, however, chose to interpret the sound as a harmony of infinite and intricate genius rather than the lamentable discord that was the reality; they burst into unrestrained applause as soon as the note died a miserable death on the Emperor’s lips. Ladies who had suffered violent rape at Nero’s hands and those others who feared it would soon be their turn clapped demurely whilst their husbands cheered the man who would sully their womenfolk and steal their fortunes and their lives. Sabinus and Gaius joined in the lauding wholeheartedly, refraining from catching the other’s eye.

‘My friends,’ Nero rasped, ‘for three years now Terpnus has been training me, bringing out the innate talent within your Emperor. I have lain with lead weights on my chest; I have used enemas and emetics as well as refraining from eating apples and other foods deleterious to the voice. I have done all these things under the guidance of the greatest performer of the age; so, soon I will be ready to perform for you!’

There was a momentary silence as the hideous thought of breaking the taboo against people of consequence – let alone the Emperor – performing in public sank in, before the audience burst into rapturous cheering as if Nero had just announced the very thing that each had desired most in life and yet, up until now, none had thought it possible to attain.

Nero stood, side-on, left hand on his heart and right hand extended to his guests; tears trickled down the pale skin of his cheeks to catch in the wispy, golden beard that grew thickest under his chin, which, despite his youth, had begun to sag with the weight of good living. Thus, he let the adulation wash over him. ‘My friends,’ he said eventually, his voice imbued with rich emotion, ‘I understand your joy. To be finally able to share with me my talent as expressed through my voice, the most beautiful thing I know.’

Acte, now in Claudia Octavia’s place, looked less than impressed by this assertion.

‘As beautiful as my new wife, Princeps?’ Otho asked with a note of drunken laughter on his voice; his closeness to Nero for so long meant he was the only man in Rome with licence to exchange banter with the Emperor.

Nero, far from being aggravated at his announcement being interrupted, turned and smiled at his friend and sometime lover. ‘You’ve boasted all evening of Poppaea Sabina’s charms, Otho; when you bring her to Rome I shall sing to her and then you can judge the relative beauty of your new wife and my voice.’

Otho raised his cup to Nero. ‘That I shall, Princeps, and I shall ravage the winner; she will be here in four days.’

This produced raucous and ribald cheers from the young bucks who considered themselves part of the Emperor’s close associates; they were soon stilled by a withering look from Nero that, once silence had returned, transformed into an expression of abject humility. ‘Soon, my friends, I shall be ready for you; until then I shall practise more. Adieu.’ With mannered gestures to Acte, Otho, Terpnus and his young sycophants to follow him, Nero turned and left the room, bringing the dinner to an end and taking with him, much to the relief of all those remaining, the fear.

‘I’ll be fine, dear boy,’ Gaius insisted as he and Sabinus came to the Forum Romanum, its flagstones wet from a light drizzle, glowing in the light of the many torches of their bodyguards and those of other groups passing through on their way home. ‘It’s only half a mile up the hill and, besides, I’ve got Tigran’s lads looking after me.’

Sabinus looked dubious. ‘Go quickly anyway.’ He slapped the shoulder of the largest and most bovine of the four men with flaming brands accompanying them. ‘Don’t pick any fights, Sextus, and keep to the better-lit thoroughfares.’

‘No fights and keep to the better-lit thoroughfares; right you are, sir,’ Sextus said, slowly digesting his orders. ‘And give all the lads’ greetings to Senator Vespasian and Magnus when you see them.’

‘I will do.’ Sabinus clasped his uncle’s forearm. ‘We leave for Aquae Cutillae at the second hour of the day, Uncle.’

‘I’ll be at the Porta Collina, waiting with my carriage. Let’s hope my sister can hang on for the two days it’ll take us to get there.’

Sabinus smiled, his round face, semi-shadowed in the torchlight, was thoughtfully sad. ‘Mother is very resolute; she won’t cross the Styx until she’s seen us.’

‘Vespasia has always been a woman who enjoyed trying to dominate her menfolk; it wouldn’t surprise me if she died on purpose, before we arrived, just to make us feel guilty at being forced to delay our departure by a day.’

‘It couldn’t be helped, Uncle; the business of Rome takes priority over personal affairs.’

‘It was ever thus, dear boy, ever thus. I shall see you tomorrow.’

Sabinus watched his uncle make his way through a colonnade, into Caesar’s Forum at the foot of the Quirinal and then disappear from sight, with his bodyguards surrounding him like four torch-bearing colossi, warding off the dangers of a city made feral by night.

With a prayer to his lord Mithras to preserve his dying mother for just two more days, he turned and headed the few paces to the Capitoline Hill and the Tullianum at its base.

‘How is he, Blaesus?’ Sabinus asked as the iron-reinforced wooden door to the prison was opened by a heavily muscled, bald man, wearing a tunic protected by a stained leather apron.

Blaesus shrugged. ‘I haven’t touched him, prefect; I hear the odd moan from down there but other than that he’s been quiet. He certainly hasn’t volunteered to talk, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘I suppose it was.’ Sabinus sighed as he sat down on the only comfortable chair in the low-ceilinged room and looked at a trapdoor towards the far end just visible in the dim light of an oil lamp set in the middle of the sole table. ‘Well, we’d better get him up then and carry on. I think we’ll try slightly stronger encouragement this time; I need the answer tonight as I’m leaving the city for a few days tomorrow morning.’

Blaesus beckoned to a corner. A hirsute giant of a man, dressed only in a loincloth, unfurled himself from where he had been curled up on a pile of rags in the shadows; he held a bone in one hand whose provenance Sabinus did not like to guess at. ‘Down you go, Beauty,’ Blaesus said as he hauled on a rope that raised the trapdoor. ‘Bring him up and don’t bite him more than once.’

Beauty grunted, his face, flat as if it had been pummelled by a spade, cracked into a leer and he nodded furious understanding of his instructions, dropping his bone. Sabinus watched the monstrosity lower himself through the floor and out of sight, revolted by his grossness and briefly wondering what his real name was before deeming it far beneath his dignity to ask.

A cry of pain echoed around the bare stone walls, emanating from the cell below, which was the only other room in Rome’s public prison; the cry was followed by a deep snarl, which Sabinus took to be Beauty encouraging his charge to move. A few moments later, the head of the only occupant of the Tullianum appeared through the hole in the floor, his arms pulling himself up, wriggling his body in his desperation to get away from the hideous beast below him. After a couple more racing heartbeats of scrabbling, the terrified prisoner emerged, whole but naked, from the dark pit below, his long hair and moustaches matted with filth.

‘Good evening, Venutius,’ Sabinus crooned as if the sight of the prisoner was the most pleasing thing in the world. ‘I’m so pleased that you managed to avoid becoming Beauty’s dinner; now perhaps we can get back to what we were discussing this afternoon.’

Venutius drew himself up; the muscles in his chest, thighs and arms were sculpted and pronounced, and, despite his nudity, he managed to exude an air of dignity as he looked down at his gaoler. ‘I have nothing to say to you, Titus Flavius Sabinus; and as a citizen of Rome you can do nothing to me until I’ve exercised my right to appeal to the Emperor.’

Sabinus smiled without humour. ‘You betrayed that citizenship when you led the Brigantes in revolt against Rome; your citizenship, as I told you earlier, is revoked and I don’t think you’ll find anyone who would argue against a traitor having his legal protection removed. The Emperor is unaware of your presence in Rome, which is just as well for you as I believe he would order your immediate execution. So, I’ll ask you again, nicely, and for the last time: who gave you the money to finance your rebellion in Britannia?’

Venutius flinched and moved away from the trapdoor as Beauty reappeared, snarling softly to himself in what could be described as a form of singing as of one happy in his work. ‘I’m protected by someone very close to the Emperor; you can’t touch me,’ Venutius said once Beauty had retrieved his bone and retired to his rags to gnaw on it.

‘And I’ve been asked by someone very close to the Emperor to find out where all your cash came from.’ That, Sabinus knew, was a lie; however, it was close enough to the truth for it to be believable. ‘And that someone is very anxious to find out quickly; tonight in fact.’ Sabinus nodded to Blaesus.

‘Beauty!’ Blaesus shouted in a commanding voice. ‘Put the bone down.’

The monster growled deep and long, as he, with obvious reluctance, complied with his master’s will.

‘He’ll start getting hungry soon if he’s not allowed to gnaw on his bone,’ Sabinus observed to Venutius, who looked sidelong at the hair-covered thing in the corner, concern showing in his expression.

A couple more growls caused Venutius to glance at Sabinus before looking back at Beauty. ‘No one financed my rebellion, it was my own money. It was after my bitch of a wife, Cartimandua, replaced me as her consort with that upstart, Vellocatus, I decided to have my revenge and remove her; which I did with pleasure.’

‘But it cost a lot of money to raise so many warriors and to keep them with you; and then taking on the survivors of Cartimandua’s army was yet more expense.’

Beauty growled again and let out a reverberating fart as he got to his feet, slavering at Venutius.

Venutius spoke quickly: ‘I found Cartimandua’s hoard, there was plenty in it; all freshly minted silver denarii – tens of thousands of them – as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands of gold aurei.’

‘Roman coinage that you then used to rebel against Rome,’ Sabinus observed as Beauty began to lumber across the room.

Venutius’ face now registered an unusual thing to see in the expression of a Britannic chieftain: fear. ‘I couldn’t stop once I defeated Cartimandua. My men were stirred up to it by the druids; Myrddin, the chief druid of all Britannia, came amongst us. To keep my position I had to lead a rebellion against Roman rule.’ Venutius started to back away from Beauty, who glanced over to his master for reassurance that he was, indeed, doing what was expected of him.