Defender of Rome (7 page)

The two men bowed and backed away, but the Emperor wasn’t finished.

‘And Verrens?’ Valerius looked back at the greatest actor in the world on his lonely stage. ‘Fail us at your peril.’

‘You are very fortunate,’ Torquatus said as they left the room.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s not every man who receives a personal performance from the Emperor. You played your part quite well.’

Valerius bit back his anger. ‘I would rather not have had a part.’

‘You are a man who finds it difficult to hide his emotions. You wanted to kill him, and he knew it. But it only made him desire you more.’

‘If I had wanted to kill him he would be dead.’ The sentence was out before his brain had the chance to consider how potentially lethal the words were.

Torquatus stared at him. Coming from another man that declaration would have warranted imprisonment and execution, but perhaps not this man; not for the moment. He pointed back towards the balcony. ‘You have never been closer to death than you were in that room. Four of the finest archers in the Empire stood behind those windows with their arrows aimed at your back. He would have required only to raise a single finger.’

A chill settled on the centre of Valerius’s spine. ‘Why me? Surely there are others better qualified to carry out this task.’

Torquatus stopped at the junction of two corridors. ‘Because you are available. Because you have proved yourself brave and resourceful.’ Somehow the words ‘brave’ and ‘resourceful’ emerged as deliberate insults. ‘The Emperor commissioned a private report from Julius Classicanus, our new procurator, on the causes and conduct of the British war. Governor Paulinus naturally attempted to blame everyone but himself, but he was forced to admit that if he had acted upon the information you provided about the Iceni the conflict might have been avoided.’ He smiled coldly. ‘Of course, a more politically astute general would have had you killed when he had the opportunity. As it was, only yourself and young Agricola came away from that contemptible little island with any laurels. You had the opportunity to rise high in the Emperor’s service if only you had humoured him a few moments ago. A small price to pay. You might have had a legion – he has rewarded other men with more for less – and, for a resourceful man with a legion, no prize is beyond reach.’ Valerius found himself staring. What was Torquatus suggesting: that one day he might supplant Nero? The lazy eyes stared back, touched by the shadow of a smile. No, he was telling him that he would have had him killed. This man had spent years plotting the destruction of Seneca; he would not stand by and watch another rise to take
his
place at Nero’s side. Torquatus nodded, his pale eyes glittering. ‘Good, we understand each other.’

They entered a room with a large desk at its centre. Torquatus took his place behind it, but didn’t offer Valerius a seat. An opened scroll lay on the desk, pinned at the corners.

‘Twenty thousand Judaeans in Rome, most of them in the district around the Capena Gate, but a few living in scattered pockets in the north of the city. Twenty thousand suspects, but only a few will be followers of this Christus. The Jews despised the man as much as we did, probably more. However, the Emperor is minded to go a step further than his stepfather Claudius and remove them permanently from the city. He has his own reasons for this. I have my reasons for advising against it.’

Valerius waited for him to expand on this unlikely humanity, but Torquatus continued to study the document. Eventually he looked up.

‘Twenty thousand Judaeans and only one of them matters. He is the leader of the cult in Rome, a man known as the Rock of Christus. A melodramatic title for the leader of a few fanatics, but he is also a resourceful man because he has thus far managed to elude us. You will identify him to me.’ He paused. ‘But the seizure of this Rock is not your primary purpose. The Judaeans who follow Christus are of little consequence, but the Roman citizens they have seduced with their lies and their promises are. Caesar is right to compare this sect with a disease. Like a disease, they spread their poison silently through the population. And like a disease they target the vulnerable. In this case the vulnerable are not the poor, for whom the prospect of everlasting life is not immediately appealing, but those who have the means to enjoy it. Knights, aediles, quaestors, generals and tribunes. It is possible this evil has reached the Senate. Here is the greatest danger, perhaps even to Rome itself. Hunt them down. If you find one, he – or she – will lead you to the next.’

‘Do you have names?’

Torquatus sniffed dismissively. ‘If I had names I would not need you.’

‘My resources? How many men will I have?’

‘You have the Emperor’s seal. You are his agent in this matter. If you need to recruit anyone else you have his full authority. They will be paid through the Treasury and should be accounted for to Centurion Rodan, whom you have already met. This is not a job for squads of soldiers, or I would have flooded the city with Praetorians. It requires subtlety and stealth. Low cunning, if you like, which I sense you have in abundance.’

Valerius ignored the insult. ‘I need all the information you have on this Christus and his followers.’

Torquatus shrugged. ‘There is very little, but I will have everything sent to your home.’

When the younger man had left, Torquatus returned to the paper on his desk. It was a letter, which contained certain allegations against an unnamed someone in Nero’s inner circle. His face had the look of a fisherman who has just felt the first tug on his line.

VIII

VALERIUS ARRIVED AT
the
ludus
to find the gladiators lounging in the shade of the barracks, sipping at goatskins of tepid water and gossiping. They’d rest for another two hours until the heat went out of the sun and they returned to their relentless training. He approached one group and asked where Marcus could be found. A heavily built fighter jerked his head towards the doorway and Valerius entered to find the scarred veteran muttering over a piece of scroll filled with figures.

‘Things are a little slow,’ the old gladiator said without looking up. ‘Too many recitals by the songbird on the hill and not enough blood and guts. Someone should remind him that he’s allowed a bet.’

Valerius smiled at the veiled reference to the Emperor, whose dedication to the finer arts was not always appreciated in a city coarsened by three hundred years of more down to earth entertainment. Nero had famously banned gladiators from fighting in the arena at Pompeii over the small matter of a few deaths in a riot involving rival supporters. There had even been a rumour that he planned to stop opponents fighting to the death altogether. Valerius shook his head at the thought. He might as well try to ban the chariot races that were his obsession. ‘I always thought you appreciated music, what with all the practice you get in the Green Horse.’

Marcus grunted. ‘That’s only for the ladies. And to what do we owe this honour, lord Valerius? Come for another sparring match with Serpentius, or have you finally decided to take up an honourable profession?’

‘I’m looking for some hired help.’ Valerius pulled the chain with the golden ring from his cloak and placed it on the table. ‘Two or three men who know how to look after themselves and can keep their mouths shut.’

Marcus gave a low whistle when he recognized the ring. ‘Interesting. And dangerous?’

‘Worth good money to whoever signs on, though.’ Valerius had already decided to fund the men from his own purse. He suspected it would be more secure if Torquatus remained unaware of the type of help he was hiring.

‘Do you have anybody in mind?’

‘I wondered if you might be interested in a change of scenery.’ Valerius shrugged. ‘We’ll need someone to carry the rations.’

‘Someone to hold your hand, you mean,’ Marcus growled. ‘Anybody else?’

‘I thought I’d leave it up to you. You’ll be their leader.’

‘How many?’

‘Four, for a start. If we need more we know where to come. I’ll compensate the
lanista
and fund clothes and weapons. Good quality, no auxilary rubbish. Three meals a day and a roof over their heads. In return I’ll expect military discipline and no chasing women until I say they can.’ He mentioned a sum of money for Marcus and a third of that for his men.

The gladiator chuckled. ‘For that much, who do you want us to kill?’

‘Nobody, I hope,’ but even as he said it Valerius had a suspicion it wasn’t going to be true. ‘Call it legal research. Just a little snooping around.’

On the short walk from the
ludus
to the Basilica Julia he took time in the shade by Pompey’s theatre, stopping off as always to read the inscription on the great marble-faced arch dedicated to Germanicus Caesar. Germanicus was the father of Caligula and the man who, but for his untimely death, would have been Emperor in his stead. In his heart lay the true glory of Rome, unsullied by corruption or dishonour. Germanicus, whom men hailed as the noblest of Romans, had been Valerius’s hero since boyhood, and Valerius made a habit of saying a prayer to his shade whenever he passed beneath the monument with its golden chariot.

Duty done, he doubled back towards the Forum. His pulse always beat a little faster when he entered the hallowed ground between the imperial palaces on the Palatine and the great Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline summit. Here was Rome’s beating heart. Here he was at the centre of the world. All around him were tributes to the men who had made Rome great: emperors and generals, consuls and senators, some whose deeds were long forgotten, but whose names would live on for ever in this sacred place. A pair of giant triumphal arches commemorated the victories of Augustus and Tiberius. On the Rostra Julia the great orators still made their pronouncements above the beaks of ships captured a century before at Actium, beside the frozen stone figures of Scipio and Sulla and Caesar and Pompey. Here was the little shrine to Venus Cloacina, goddess of the sewers, and, along the Via Sacra, fluted pillars topped by the golden figures of Mars and Jupiter, Venus and Minerva. And, in simple contrast to the man-worked grandeur all around, the little group of olive and fig and grapevine which marked nature’s most precious gifts to Rome.

Other men would say that the heart of the heart was the Curia, where the Senate sat, but for Valerius it would always be the Basilica Julia. Already, though it was only early afternoon, slaves and servants were making their way to the shops and stalls on the margins of its pillared aisles. He knew the lawyers would be slower to return from the midday meal with their families and took his time. He had three cases outstanding which needed dealing with before he could begin Nero’s mission. They couldn’t be more different: an inheritance dispute he was defending before the Court of the Hundred; a complicated civil case involving the demolition of a semi-derelict apartment block on the other side of the Pons Aemilius that would take some delicate negotiation; and, by far the most pressing, an accusation of water theft which he was due to prosecute for the water commissioner. Fortune favoured him when he noticed Quintus Fuscus, a lawyer he knew, a dozen yards ahead on the Vicus Jugarius. Valerius explained his dilemma, but not the reason for it. ‘I can put off the building case and I owe the water commissioner some kind of explanation, but I need someone to take the inheritance suit off my hands.’

The case was the most lucrative of the three and Fuscus’s face lit up. ‘I’d be delighted to oversee it; I haven’t tried a case before the
centumviri
for years. It will be a pleasure.’

Valerius thanked him and walked on to his next meeting.

‘This is most unusual,’ Commissioner Honorius complained. ‘The case is ready to present and all parties are available.’

‘If you wish to find another prosecutor I will be happy to withdraw,’ Valerius assured him.

‘No, no. It’s just that I believe you underestimate the importance of this case. The theft of water from Rome’s aqueducts has always been a most serious offence and is on the increase. The time is right for an example to be made.’

Valerius made his apologies and agreed to speak to the representative of the accused, a builder with interests all over the city who was alleged to have tapped into one of the main aqueducts feeding the capital to supply his brickworks.

By now the Forum hummed with activity. The avenues were thronged with senators, each with his guard of bullies and drifting cloud of clients; with lawyers and their clerks and the crowds of gawpers who had come to see them win or lose; with money changers, soothsayers, shoppers and worshippers, men offering themselves for work, and the beggars, blinded and maimed, who reminded Valerius of the ache in his missing arm. It was as he fought his way east along the Via Nova past the House of the Vestals that he felt someone brush against him. His first thought was that he was being robbed, but then he realized that something had been placed in his left hand.

He looked down and discovered he was holding a torn piece of scroll.

IX

POPPAEA AUGUSTA SABINA
lay back on the padded couch and took a sip of well-watered wine. From the other side of the wide table in the shaded gardens on the Palatine, Fabia smiled at her old friend; two of Rome’s most striking women comfortable in the knowledge that they would never need to rival each other. The tone of their relationship had been set by the manner in which they had been introduced, a manner which tolerated no shyness or embarrassment on either side. They were of a similar age, when giggling girlhood was long past, but the first true challenges of the passing years still lay in the future. As they studied each other they knew they would never appear more beautiful. Had circumstances been different it might have been Fabia who shared an Emperor’s bed and Poppaea who endured any rich man’s company, but circumstances were not and neither of them would ever mention it.

‘It is such a pleasure to be able to speak freely and enjoy another’s companionship just for the sake of it,’ Poppaea sighed. ‘I think palace servants were born with flapping ears. Even when they are not spies they are gossips for whom no secret is sacred.’

‘Even your ladies in waiting?’

‘
Particularly
my ladies in waiting.’

‘Then your husband will be told of my visit. I hope it won’t cause you any difficulty.’

Poppaea laughed at her friend’s naivety. ‘Has it ever before? The very thought of our friendship has my husband panting like a little bull at the sight of a tethered cow. He understands that he profits in the bedroom from each little secret you impart.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I even give you the credit for some of the more interesting ideas I introduce myself, because it arouses him to imagine us discussing them together and rehearsing them for his pleasure.’

‘I thought …’

‘Because you are no longer summoned to join us?’

Fabia nodded. It had been months now. At first she had been relieved, but relief had turned to concern and then to outright fear. She had known it could not last, but the rewards of the relationship had been beyond her imagination and it could be dangerous to be discarded by the Emperor. And the truth was that Poppaea created physical desires in her that were just as intense as any inspired by a man. She was certain she aroused the same feelings in the dark-haired woman. She studied her now, long slim legs peeping from the crimson shift as she lay languidly on her side, and imagined her naked and wide-eyed on a bed. The thought produced a liquid sensation and she shifted slightly. She saw a look of understanding in Poppaea’s eyes, resignation too, for without Nero’s sanction there would be no more such encounters. The Emperor’s jealousy extended to anyone, male or female, who took their pleasures where he did not and his retribution would be swift and final.

Poppaea’s tone changed and she lowered her voice. ‘Let this be entirely between us, Fabia. You should regard yourself as fortunate that you do not share his bed. His appetites grow ever more dangerous. Even with your experience and inventiveness I think you would be hard put to it to keep him interested for long. Sometimes, more often than I would like, his passions do not satisfy my needs and I must watch as he plays with his squealing boys and lisping geldings.’

Fabia risked a glance around to ensure no one was within hearing distance. This was dangerous territory. Nero had agents everywhere and she had experience enough of spyholes and listening tubes to know that they were not confined to brothels.

Poppaea saw the look. ‘Do not think me such a fool, Fabia. We are so far away that not even the trees can hear us and I have checked every inch of the grass. Unless the dandelions have ears we may say what we like and that man will never get to hear it.’

That man
. Poppaea had harboured an almost irrational fear of Torquatus since Octavia, Nero’s first wife, had been first banished then killed. The conspiracy had cemented the Praetorian prefect’s power on the Palatine. Now he saw Poppaea as his rival for Nero’s affections and trust, and any rival of Torquatus must necessarily check beneath the bed for vipers. Outwardly, Poppaea was like any other rich, spoiled Roman matron – only interested in the latest fashions, hairstyles and palace gossip – but as their friendship developed Fabia had seen a different Poppaea, one torn by doubt and capable of clutching at any passing fancy and making it her life’s passion. Parthian mystics, astrologers from Aegyptus and a smelly, bearded Gaulish ancient who called himself the last Druid had all found refuge in her household at one time or another.

Experience told Fabia her friend was for ever destined to be disappointed. Her fate would always lie in the hands of her husband.

That night Nero stared from his palace window over the city of a million people he ruled, centre of an Empire of forty million and more. The thought, as always, sent a thrill of panic through his breast and he had to hold on to the balcony. So many people. So much wealth. So much power. All his to command.

So why did they taunt him, all these millions? He could hear them inside his head, a tumult of voices that never left him alone.
Nero does nothing. Nero has achieved nothing. Nero gives us songs but what has he given us to ensure he is remembered? Nero sits in a palace built by other men, looking out on a city built by other men. Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius. Who is this Nero who dares to stand alongside them and call himself their equal?
They taunted him and he had no answer.

The thought began a chain reaction in his stomach and he vomited over the balcony, a choked, retching spew that dribbled in strands from his mouth. Tears filled his eyes. He knew the taunts meant his mother would visit him tonight and that made the panic return. At first, in the dreams, she had been beautiful, as she had been in life, but lately that had changed. She had begun to disintegrate before his eyes: hair falling in hanks from her skull, parchment skin breaking open to reveal rotting flesh, eye sockets filled with wriggling, milk-white tadpoles. Still, he could have endured it if only the whispers would stop. He had explained why he had to have her killed. It had been his time, not hers. Didn’t she understand that he could not live in her shadow? Why not take out her anger on those who had been as complicit as he, or Seneca, who had stood silent as the decision was made? They were to blame, not him.

The moonlight fell on the giant table he had commissioned, the scale model of Rome with the moveable buildings; a single beam of white light fell directly on the Forum. A sign. A sign from his mother? A sign from the gods? He studied the wooden city and decided it was a deceit. This glory of Rome was nothing but a sham. Poverty and filth and degradation hidden beneath a veneer they liked to call civilization. With one hand he swept buildings from the table, sending the wooden blocks clattering across the mosaic floor and leaving a vast empty space in the centre of the city. The breath caught in his throat. It was perfect.

He would build a new Rome.

‘Caesar?’

The fury rose in him like a flame.
Not now. Not when I have just begun to understand
. He turned, ready to bring his hand across her face, and was only prevented by the concern in the round, frightened eyes. He touched her silken hair instead, running the strands through his fingers. She stood as tall as he, lithe and slim as a dancer, with the face of an Assyrian queen.

‘Poppaea? You startled me.’

‘I was concerned for you, lord,’ she said with the little girl’s pout she knew made him burn. A gossamer robe of the palest blue did nothing to hide her heavy, pink-tipped breasts or the shadowy secret of her sex. He felt his desire stir. So different from Octavia, who did her
duty
. She tried to hide it from him, but he knew Poppaea revelled in what other men would call his depravity, but he was moved to call his
pleasure
. When she offered herself to him the offer was unconditional. Everything she had was his to be taken as and when he desired. He dropped his hand to caress her breast through the thin material and watched the nipple harden, then took the ripening bud between his fingers and squeezed it so she gasped.

‘I wanted a boy today, but I could not have him. It vexed me.’

‘Then punish him, lord.’ Her voice was a husky whisper.

‘I cannot punish him.’ He slipped his hand to her other breast and felt her breathing quicken. ‘For he is a Hero of Rome.’

‘You are the only Hero of Rome, lord.’ Her body moved against his now, soft and urgent.

‘Will you reward your Hero of Rome, Poppaea?’ His voice could have belonged to a ten-year-old. He dropped his head to her breast and she gave a low moan.

‘Yes, lord.’

‘How will you reward him, Poppaea?’ The desire was thick enough to clog his throat. ‘Will you be his boy?’

She turned away hiding her face and dropping the robe so the silken flesh of her body turned silver in the moon-shadow. Slowly she bent forward over the table so he could take her in the way he chose. ‘Yes, lord,’ she whispered. ‘I will be your boy.’

When he moved over her he wasn’t sure whether she cried out in pain or pleasure.

Later, when she was gone but he could still smell the raw scent of her on himself, he stood at the window again.

Was she betraying him?