Deadly Election (13 page)

He could stand again, but it was expensive and he would lose his chance of serving ‘in his year’ (at thirty-six, his first opportunity); also, all Faustus’ campaign work would have to be repeated. Personally I thought that would be a bad idea for him. He needed to do this now, then be rid of it.

‘And do you always vote as you are told by Domitian?’ I demanded of my uncles.

‘I am not ready to die.’ Aulus was taciturn.

‘Who instructed you to favour Volusius Firmus?’

‘Hints and whispers.’

‘The Emperor doesn’t gather you in a bar, offer drinks all round, then name his choice, I take it! But the Senate does what he wants – even when he is abroad?’ (No wonder he despised them, I thought.)

‘Out of sight, yet never out of mind,’ said Aulus. ‘He’ll be back for the vote. He won’t put up with a Pannonian winter.’

Quintus soothed me: ‘If we were told that wild Dacian tribesmen had rushed over the Danube and murdered Our Leader, we might have second thoughts. Though he likes to tease so awfully, he might well start such a rumour himself in order to see our reaction. To be safe, I would want to see the bier carried home. I might even need a peek at his cadaver before I felt free to vote independently.’

We tended to forget that Domitian was absent from Rome. That was because his influence never left. Last January, around the time Manlius Faustus first took up his role as a magistrate, the Emperor was challenged in a revolt by the Governor of Germany. It had been ill conceived and was brutally suppressed, the trouble all over before Domitian himself could arrive there. My family had paid special attention because the brutal suppression was carried out by Ulpius Trajanus, the crew-cut Spanish general to whom Falco was trying to sell Fountain Court – for heaven’s sake, we did not want this man Trajan distracted while we were urging him to sign our property contract …

Domitian only made it as far as Pannonia, where restless tribes from over the frontier had taken advantage of the upset on the Rhine. The Emperor was now embroiled in fighting those tribes at the western end of the Danube frontier, while also making a highly unpopular settlement with the King of Dacia, a more formidable enemy further east. He had harried Rome for some years past. As Quintus alluded, there had been massacres of whole legions, defeat in battle of the Praetorian Guard, and slaughter of Roman high officials by Dacians marauding across the river. They liked to behead significant officials, though had failed with Our Leader. He was rumoured to be out of their reach, safe in a fort, screwing sinful boys and eating specially imported oysters.

As you can tell from that, Domitian liked to see himself as a great military leader in the mould of his father and brother Titus, though he approached it rather differently. These barbarian opponents were tenacious. He could be kept busy in foreign parts for a long time. Despite that distraction, his morbid shadow fell on Rome. The tyrant controlled everything − including the election of minor officials at home.

My uncles moved on. They encouraged Faustus to talk about progress so far. He spoke fluently; one thing he mentioned was that he had canvassed a few senators from overseas because, as an owner of warehouses, his uncle Tullius had contacts among provincial traders. Senators were not allowed to trade directly – that did not stop them, just accounted for the numerous negotiators and agents in Roman society. The father of Vibius Marinus owned land in Gaul, where he had once served in the army, so they had started with Gallic senators.

Quintus and Aulus volunteered that they might be able to interest the small number of Spanish senators (though clearly not Trajan, our building purchaser, who was away governing Spain when not crushing rebels). Aulus, when young, had assisted a previous governor, and Quintus had married a Baetican. Claudia really came to Rome to marry Aulus, but nobody blamed her for transferring to his sunnier, better-looking brother. Aulus’s own first wife was Athenian and he still associated with her so, unexpectedly, he offered Faustus an introduction to Greek members of the Senate.

I was seeing how a good campaign was put together. This approach was all the better, Faustus said, because nowadays most candidates rarely bothered to court anybody outside Rome and never provincials. As a result, the foreign senators were grateful when he did so.

Romans are great snobs. Was this what Quintus Cicero had meant when he instructed his brother to talk even to people they despised? In deference to my uncles, with their foreign wives, I kept quiet. Quintus apparently loved Claudia. Aulus was on better terms with Meline since they divorced than when they were married. (Well, ever since he divorced two later wives, when Meline for some weird reason came back and helped him through it.)

I was probably foreign myself, though could not offer to cajole any senators from Britain. Hades, I dread even to think what they would be like.

T
he Camillus brothers lived immediately beyond the Capena Gate, which was also convenient for our next call. Like many imperial freedmen, my father’s old contact Claudius Laeta had acquired a large, elegant villa outside Rome, though not far outside. It was as if, even after they were allowed to retire, palace servants felt they must remain near the court. This often came in handy when there was an imperial assassination, because the loyal freedmen or women would make their beautiful gardens available for otherwise-awkward funerals. Phaon had let Nero commit suicide in his villa garden. Dispossessed emperors or their disgraced relatives never had to lie unburied. The freedmen stepped in when a state funeral was out of the question, thus avoiding any disrespect for the once-important.

Laeta’s villa happened to be down the Via Appia, which exits the old Servian Wall through the Capena Gate. After we left my uncles, Faustus and I went straight there. I had Patchy the donkey, though I walked alongside. We strolled out past the Gardens of Asinius Pollio in warm sunlight without conversing until we reached the old man’s handsome spread.

As far as I knew, this property had never yet hosted a cremation, though someone might one day have to salvage the bloody corpse of Domitian … Once, Claudius Laeta had been the kind of administrator people might turn to for removing a despotic ruler (my father always thought that in his younger years Laeta must have worked behind the scenes when Nero was ousted). He was past all that now. Retirement meant Domitian should leave him alone – although the Emperor did bear grudges against ancient freedmen, and notoriously executed them, even decades after their perceived sins. A despot may well brood over anyone who has a history of removing despots.

We arrived, wormed our way in past the defensive team who cared for Laeta and were led to him in his long chair. We may have looked like a pair of would-be conspirators. Our host would have been used to that in younger days. Plotting was in his blood.

Tiberius Claudius Laeta had had a long career as chief secretary, a post where he reckoned he ruled the Empire using old Vespasian as his mouthpiece, while the easy-going Vespasian valued him enough to let him think it. Laeta could be any age between sixty and seventy, older than average. At the palace he had led a pampered life. He still had all his hair (dry-looking grey stuff, cut short and straight); his face was an unhealthy red; his eyes were dim and watery. He wore a white tunic that fitted awkwardly on his slack frame. On one liver-spotted hand he kept the wide gold ring of the middle class, but he twisted it uneasily as if his fingers had grown too fragile for the weight of the metal.

My father had told me Laeta’s aims were always long-term and his motives devious. He was intelligent and could be vicious, a man who consistently disposed of his rivals, generally before they saw him coming. For instance, with my father’s assistance, he had won one long-standing feud, with a dangerous Chief Spy whom nobody else would have managed to oust. Don’t ask how, or how I knew. It was still unsafe to mention.

Many of Laeta’s schemes had been like that. His relationship with Falco had lasted many years, on both sides a mixture of reluctant admiration and steely distrust. If there was one man on earth who had wheedled out the truth of my father’s own troubles with Domitian, this was he – but, if so, it was not Falco who had told him.

We had met before, though in view of his frailty I introduced myself anew. ‘I am Flavia Albia, eldest daughter of Didius Falco and the noble Helena Justina. I know that you and Father worked together.’

For a time it seemed he would not respond. Could he even remember Falco? He seemed to need to recall the memory, but he suddenly piped up, ‘Plenty in common. Much we disputed … I sent him to Baetica.’

‘He often speaks of it.’ The words ‘olive oil’ still made Falco groan. ‘And to Britain.’

‘Hah! I never count Falco’s escapades in Britannia as real!’

I did. That was how I came to be adopted and made Roman. Just in case this devious man would query my citizenship documents, I kept quiet. He liked to know something against everyone. My position was legal, my adoption duly certified, but once you have been outside acceptable society, you never relax.

‘And who is this?’ Laeta was staring, his face alert and inquisitive.

‘This is my good friend Tiberius Manlius Faustus, one of this year’s plebeian aediles. He wants to talk to you about the next election.’

‘Take him away! No one talks to me, these days. I have absolutely no influence.’

‘Flavia Albia thought you might nevertheless have advice for us. Better advice than we can obtain from your successor.’ Faustus knew how to get along with stubborn pensioners, apparently. ‘I am acting for one of the candidates.’

‘You want me to subvert senators.’

‘I couldn’t possibly—’

‘Then I am glad you are not
my
agent!’ This was proving harder than I had hoped. ‘Get the buggers on your side. It’s no use hoping they will just like the look of your candidate’s scrubbed face. Bribe them!’

Faustus had become rather stiff. ‘I am aware of your past work, sir – and your legacy to today’s state servants.’

‘Bloody Abascantus! Scented fool.’

‘Domitian has sent him away, sir.’

‘In irons?’

‘I believe not.’

‘Suggested he top himself?’

‘Perhaps a temporary seaside sojourn?’

‘Domitian’s gone soft! Abascantus will creep back. Long-haired lightweight. No sense of tradition. They say his wife pushes him. The man is unbelievable …’ The old stylus-pusher added waspishly, ‘You know the type:
poets
think him wonderful!’

Faustus must have been aware that Abascantus, until recently the most powerful freedman at the palace, was generally regarded as a talented young man. While Laeta was still sniggering to himself over poets, my friend pressed on valiantly: ‘Sir, even if his exile proves to be temporary, Abascantus is no use to us if he’s on gardening leave. I can find nobody of his calibre, let alone of
your
calibre. You are sadly missed.’

Laeta took some thick invalid drink from a redware beaker. He swallowed it with studious care, very slowly, then grimaced to himself. ‘What do you want from me?’ Before Faustus could say anything, the old man answered himself: ‘Who does Domitian support? Why that one? What is wrong with the others? Will he damn your own man? Which way will the Senate jump? Does anybody dare cross Our Master-Who-Believes-Himself-A-God?’

Faustus gave a wan smile. ‘All those questions, please. We originally understood that Our Master supported Volusius, though Volusius has inexplicably pulled out.’

‘Volusius Firmus?’ Laeta was on it immediately. ‘Family in oar-making, or some watery industry? Married to Verecunda’s daughter? Has, therefore, the mother-in-law from Hades? That woman is loathsome, and all her girls are Furies – she brought them up deliberately to be full of hate.’

‘You are still well informed!’ I commented.

‘I keep up. Somebody has to. Abascantus never has any idea what is going on. Does what his wife tells him – not my way! No contacts. No initiative.’

‘No subtlety,’ I said, smiling. Laeta gave me a sharp look as if he suspected satire. Manlius Faustus did the same. Our eyes met. Faustus understood: I believe that ‘subtlety’ equates with fraud.

‘Dear me, I shall have to investigate Volusius Firmus,’ Laeta decided, fussing, fretting, agitated not to have the gossip. ‘This simply will not do. The Emperor’s favourite stands down? Somebody failed to foresee that. He should never have been on the list in the first place. Standards are slipping …’

‘So why was he Caesar’s candidate?’ I asked. ‘How would Domitian know him?’

‘Domitian has never met him, depend on it.’ Laeta was crisp. ‘Abascantus must have pushed Firmus, for some reason.’ Money changed hands, I presumed. ‘Now that Abascantus has been nudged aside, Firmus is wise to step down. Just in case Abascantus is out of the picture permanently,’ Laeta said, clearly hoping for it.

‘Do you then approve of the Senate being given a steer from the Emperor?’ asked Faustus, shifting ground.

‘Provided the Emperor has been steered by wise counsel first.’

I laughed. ‘Claudius Laeta means, Faustus, the Emperor’s choice should be steered by his freedmen. Government by secretariat. Democracy through bureaucracy.’

‘Long-term planning,’ Laeta decreed. ‘A suitably strong briefing note.’ He must have written hundreds of those. ‘They need it!’ he scoffed.

‘And how do you see the current mood in the Senate, sir?’ asked Faustus.

‘Abject terror.’ This was despite the fact Laeta cannot have visited the Senate for some years. ‘Their anxiety is heightened by the Saturninus shambles.’ That was January’s military revolt in Germany.

Faustus was settled on his stool now, enjoying the debate. ‘I thought the received wisdom was that Saturninus failed because he omitted to organise Senate backing? He was in Germany, raiding legionary funds, but here in Rome he had worked up no support. So, everyone assumes the Emperor regards the Senate, for once, as innocent?’

‘Just because the Emperor has not dispatched swords at dawn, do not suppose Domitian exonerates them,’ Laeta answered. ‘My sources say his suspicions have, if anything, increased. He believes the members
were
coerced − but it was cleverly covered up.’