Blood Games (30 page)

The horses trembled and the bay almost went down on his haunches, his ears laid back and teeth bared as the crowd pressed nearer. Saint-Germain could feel the team tremble through the reins as he continued to turn them.

It seemed that they must be overset, that the constant battering of countless bodies would dash the fragile chariot to pieces. It had never been intended for this sort of use. It was a racing vehicle, as lightweight as possible, designed for nothing more than the seven frantic laps around the spina of the Circus Maximus. The force of the mob against it shook the frame and nearly dislodged one of the two large wheels. Saint-Germain held the team steady and the chariot crept farther into the turn, moving into the current of the mob. A little more, and they would be pulled into the rush for the gate to the stableyard.

At the most hazardous instant, Saint-Germain pulled the horses away from the gate to the narrow street that ran beside the high walls of the Circus. Here the crowd was thinner, but moving more quickly, the whole motion more frenetic. With a shift of balance, Saint-Germain lowered his hands and let the horses run.

The streets of Rome were narrow, and here the paving stones were rutted and uneven. The chariot lurched like a drunkard over the pavement as the horses lengthened their stride.

Around them ran those parts of the mob that could not get into the stableyard, and with them came the denizens of the dark world under the stands. These were the gamblers, the prostitutes who served the gladiators and the patrons of the Games who found a dark satisfaction in lying with a woman or man or child while the bloody sports raged, the old and useless fighters with their wits gone, the abandoned children who begged, the debauched who reveled in the presence of the condemned and maimed, the traders in misery who corrupted servants and slaves in order to seduce and ruin their mistresses. This bizarre assortment of the exploited and depraved joined the madness with a rare enthusiasm, mocking and jeering as they ran.

Saint-Germain's team plunged onward through the avalanche of people, swaying, curvetting, dragging the chariot after them. They were trained for speed, bred for it, and the nearness of the mob had driven them to a state of panic. There was foamy sweat on their flanks and their breath was taken in sobbing gulps, but they ran gratefully, and Saint-Germain held them on the road.

A long peal of thunder cracked and rumbled across the sky and the horses nearly broke stride. Saint-Germain yelled at them and reached for the light whip at his right elbow as he strained to keep the team moving. With a last wrenching effort he turned the chariot into a side street, away from the Circus Maximus, where few people ran and where the keeper of a wine shop, standing idle while less than a hundred paces away the poor of Rome rioted, cursed the racing vehicle for ruining his business, though the street was empty.

The next clap of thunder was louder still, a deep, awesome crescendo that drowned the shout of the mob. The dark clouds had moved and now commenced to blot out the sun as they roiled in from the west.

Carefully Saint-Germain began to rein in his team. It was nerve-racking to careen through the close, squalid streets, fearing that at any moment something, someone would appear out of nowhere to block their path. The chariot would certainly run down any but the most durable obstruction. With the added boom of the thunder, the horses rushed onward in a new burst of speed, seeking to escape the terrifying noises that surrounded them.

At last, when they were several blocks away from the Circus Maximus, Saint-Germain pulled the team to a dazed, tired walk. He took the reins into one hand and turned to Aumtehoutep just as the Egyptian reeled against him. For the first time he saw the deep gash in his slave's forehead and the blood that covered his face like an elaborate funerary mask. “Aumtehoutep!” He reached out his free hand to brace the other man.

The Egyptian tried to speak, but the words were slurred, and in a language that had never been spoken on the banks of the Tiber. Finally he dropped to his knees on the floor of the chariot. “Drive,” he muttered.

Saint-Germain looked at his quivering, steaming horses. They were breathing hard, but they were bred to run. If he required it of them, he knew they could gallop most of the way to Villa Ragoczy, though it would exhaust them. What worried him the most was their hooves, for the paving stones were notoriously hard on even the toughest hooves.

On the floor of the chariot, Aumtehoutep bit back a groan. It was enough. Saint-Germain had seen his slave take an arrow in the arm and only wince. He reached for the whip in its brace and snaked it over the head of his team.

The bay faltered, stumbling as the tip of the lash flicked over his rump. Then he collected himself and set the pace for the other three horses, taking as fast a trot as the horses could maintain together without breaking into a gallop.

He was well along the Vicus Patricus between the Cespius and Viminalis hills when he heard another sound, the ordered tramping of feet coming from the north. Saint-Germain pulled his team to the side of the road and waited anxiously.

Within a few minutes a century of the Praetorian Guard appeared, marching four abreast so that little could get past them. As they came to Saint-Germain's chariot, the centurion bawled an order, and one side of the wide column dropped out of line with the rest so that the Guard could pass. The centurion paused beside the chariot. “You come from the Circus Maximus, foreigner?"

"Yes. We got away just as the mob broke in the gate to the stableyard.” He spoke briskly, with a certain touch of haughtiness.

"We?” questioned the centurion.

"Yes. My body slave lies on the floor of this chariot with a gash on his face. Worse would have been done if we had not got away when we did.” Saint-Germain made no effort to hide his impatience.

Apparently the centurion chose not to notice. “That's a racing rig you've got there. Not the kind of vehicle I'd want to take on the streets, though it's small enough for the law to allow it."

"I hadn't planned to,” Saint-Germain said sardonically, wishing that the centurion would not detain him any longer.

"They say it's the biggest riot yet,” the centurion went on. “We've had three estimates, twenty thousand, thirty thousand and seventy thousand. It's probably around thirty thousand.” He made a face. “Well, who can blame them? They haven't had the grain dole for close to a month and there's been no oil distributed for ten days. They're hungry.” He slapped the rail of the chariot and it sagged under the impact. “Well, if your slave is wounded, you probably want to get him to a physician, if he's worth anything to you. I won't keep you. But you know,” he added as the thought occurred to him, “when Galba is Caesar, he'll get the dole going again soon enough.” With a wave he fell in with his column as the last twelve soldiers marched by.

As he whipped his team up again, Saint-Germain wondered if many others agreed with the centurion, and now supported Galba's claim to the purple. Then he turned his whole attention to his driving as he sped toward the Viminalis Gate and the road to Villa Ragoczy that lay beyond.

TEXT OF A REPORT TO THE SENATE OF ROME BY THE TRIBUNE MARCUS ANTONIUS DEVA.

To the august and revered Senators of Rome, hail!

It has been said of the Ahenobarbus family that their bronze beards are a fitting match for their iron faces and leaden hearts, though in the case of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who ruled as Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, the matter is open to question. His death, when he finally accomplished it, showed him to have a few virtues left, and indicated that he was not entirely given over to the effeminate conduct of the Greeks.

When news of the battle of Vesontio was brought to him a few days ago, on the seventh, and though he rejoiced to hear of the death of Vindex, he realized that the situation was much more serious than he had previously believed. Until then he had planned to go to Gallia and into the west, perhaps as far as Lusitania, for the purposes of appealing to his troops and singing new songs for them that would win them to him again, as he had done years before. He had not taken into account the action of the legions at Carthago Nova who had already hailed Galba their Emperor, and who, in spite of Nero's attempts to seize his lands and property, and even take on the role of counsel for himself, had found many among you Senators to side with him in open defiance of Nero.

With Tigellinus gone, Nymphidius Sabinus could make no decision, and so the Praetorian Guard was left to flounder, with those who opposed Nero having the stronger voice.

On the night of the eighth, the troops guarding Nero left their posts, his personal guard taking his box of poisons with them. According to his slaves and others at the Golden House, his freedman Phaon suggested that they leave the palace and go to his house outside of the city. Phaon had heard some of the troops talking earlier that night about a plan to kill Nero as he slept, and so thought to remove him from danger this way.

One of the Praetorians claims that he paid Phaon to reveal Nero's hiding place in the storage shed behind Phaon's house, but that may be an idle boast. Phaon himself did not go with the Emperor, but sent him two messages, one assuring Nero that all would be well, and one informing him of the sentence handed down by your rule: that he was to be stripped and beaten to death with heavy staves. According to Epaphroditus, his minister who had accompanied him to Phaon's house with Sporus, it was then that Nero decided to take his own life, and had a grave dug to his measure. He lacked the courage to throw himself in the river, though Sporus said that he made a joke about cold water having always been his favorite drink. He sang a few choruses in Greek, chiding himself for indecision and cowardice, and lamented how ugly his life had become. Epaphroditus tells us that Nero was particularly upset that he would no longer enjoy the arts. He was confident that if he could restore the dole and remove Vespasianus from office in Egypt, the people would love him as they always had.

It was when he heard the sound of approaching horses that he made up his mind to use his knives, or so Sporus says.

I had ridden there with four other Praetorians on your orders, anxious to arrest Nero and deliver him up for the death you had decreed for him. It had taken almost an hour to get the information we needed to find him, and then we rode fast, for we feared he would escape.

When I found him, he was already dying from a cut in his throat, and as I raised his head, he gave me a look of greatest derision and with an obscene gesture said, “You are too late, my loyal Praetorian.” My three companions entered soon after, and Nero's attendant ministers were taken into custody, and you have their statements as well as my own as to what transpired.

I recommend that the petition of Nero's old mistress Acte be granted and that she be given charge of the body so that the former Emperor may have a proper funeral. For all his faults, he was much loved by the people and they will want to do him honor. It is not suitable that he be cast into the river like a beggar or burned with refuse in the fields. Nero has already lain two days without cremation or burial, and it is imperative that proper disposal be made as soon as possible.

It is the opinion of Sporus that Phaon was tricked into betraying Nero's hiding place, but if that is so, I very much doubt that he was unaware of what he did. There is a rumor that Phaon was trying to find a captain to carry Nero away from Rome until he could rebuild his support and return to Rome in victory. It may be that, driven by desperation, Phaon did such a foolish thing. Any captain in Rome approached by Nero's freedman on the morning of the ninth would have known what was being planned, and would have come to the Praetorians or to the Senate with the report, for feeling was running high in the city. I only know that Nymphidius Sabinus gave us our orders at midmorning, and that Nero was hiding where we were told he would be.

By my own hand, under seal, on the eleventh day of June in the 820th Year of the City.

Hail Galba!

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IN THE PRIVACY of Justus’ study, the man in the outrageous wig paused by the window. He was in his middle thirties, with rather deep eyes, a long nose and a dissatisfied mouth. “I admit that your caution is understandable, Justus. The rumors from Germania are distressing, and it is perfectly true that Aulus Vitellius is an ambitious man. I admit that Galba is old. But then, I am not. And Caesar has assured me that I will be designated his heir."

"But it hasn't happened yet,” Justus pointed out. He had been talking with Marcus Salvius Otho for the better part of an hour, and he had yet to be convinced to give public support to the new Emperor, Servius Sulpicius Galba.

"You have my word on it,” Salvius said grimly.

Justus could not resist provoking his guest. “And if he does not? What if Galba names another heir?"

This time Salvius glared at Justus. “If Galba appoints another heir, he will regret it."

"Why should he?” Justus asked, for the first time beginning to be interested.

"Because if he does not live up to our agreement, I will rebel against him. More than one Caesar has fallen for forgotten promises. Most of the troops are with me, and they will fight if it comes to that.” He began to pace the room.

"Do you know that? Have you asked?” Justus found Salvius’ all-consuming vanity difficult to deal with; the wig, the spectacles he refused to wear in public although without them he could not see more than a dozen paces, his elaborate armor and jewelry, his silk clothing, mitigated against him in Justus’ mind, though he respected Salvius’ ambition.

"Yes,” Salvius admitted after a moment. “There seemed a time when Nero had declared Galba an enemy and was seizing his property and lands, that Galba might not carry his claim. I made sure then that if support failed for him, it would come to me. I know that it is true now. I have guarantees of that.” He tapped his lorica that was decorated with a representation of Mars ravishing Rhea Silvia while his woodpecker and vulture hovered above.