Master and God (23 page)

‘What do you want to know? Why?’

‘Not many people will discuss such things with a hairdresser. It’s all, “So does Julia
really
sleep with him?” As if while I’m pinning up a curl Flavia Julia would exclaim, “Uncle Domitian had incest with me again last night!”, then allot him a score as a lover.’

Gaius Vinius let out an uncharacteristic giggle. He gulped more wine to calm down. ‘So that’s what hairdressers talk about . . . Well,
does
he sleep with Julia?’

‘I don’t know. You’re as well-placed as me to observe.’

‘We don’t do bedroom duty. Thank the gods.’ After another pause, Vinius said not unsympathetically, ‘I see him with the imperial ladies. I’d say he does have genuine affection for the women in his family. The niece. The wife too. They say Julia is the one person who can exert a softening influence on him.’

‘I believe it’s true.’

‘Do you reckon she is frightened of the situation?’

‘She must be. I feel sorry for her. She can never remarry; it would be the man’s death sentence. I just think,’ said Lucilla, ‘as long as Domitian is alive, Julia will have to act sweet, look trusting, appear entirely happy with her fate – and never, ever share her thoughts with anybody.’

In silence, they considered Julia’s loneliness. Vinius offered the wine flask. This time Lucilla had some, then he took it back and drank again, hard.

Vinius was looking at her rather intently.

He changed the mood. He jumped to his feet, exclaiming, ‘We got distracted. So – Dacia!’ He was holding out his hand to her, so although she did not take it, Lucilla stood too and they walked. With night air cooling her flushed face, she felt much calmer; she now allowed herself to enjoy the beautiful location as they sauntered back down the gardens to where a large fountain had been built into the outer wall of the cryptoporticus.

They stopped to admire. Neptune. Two fellows on dolphins, wrestling snakes. Creepers ran up the high walls.

Vinius provided an epitome of the frontier arrangement, the recent Moesian disaster and the ongoing Dacian situation. ‘Free Europe is a vast area and the tribes there are very mobile, constantly roaming, hard to pin down. Gracilis, my centurion, served in Moesia. He says the Dacians live between two different groups of Sarmatians – the Iazyges on the great plains to their west and the Roxolani on their eastern flank – so he reckons they may feel pincered. It is a fluid situation, though. This side of the Sarmatians, the Suebi, who are Marcomanni and Quadi, are clearly eyeing up Pannonia. All these peoples are looking across the frontiers and seeing our Empire, so prosperous and well-organised, so
civilised,
just beckoning to them.’

He explained it well. Lucilla congratulated him and he said it was because his centurion had to instruct the men; as beneficarius, Vinius had to write the brief for the centurion. Lucilla suddenly remembered him at the vigiles station house, dipping pen into ink with a playfully fancy gesture.

Something in his tone had given her another flash of insight: ‘You don’t want to go!’

‘You will never persuade a soldier to say he does not want to fight.’

‘Do you like being a Praetorian?’

‘It’s probably treason to say anything different. You’ll get me sent to the beasts.’

‘You still don’t want to go. I know you, Gaius Vinius.’

‘Yes,’ he said gravely, as if noticing something significant, or seeing a truth for the first time. ‘I believe you do, Lucilla.’

When they began walking on again something – everything? – was different. They were hand in hand, their fingers intertwined.

Close to the fountain, clipped fretwork hedges allowed people to look out again at the panorama, though from intimate niches in the hedge. They stood there and gazed. Neither was seeing much.

Vinius spoke. His voice, that baritone that had always stirred Lucilla, was low: ‘Be true to yourself, girl. Look after yourself.’

‘I am better than you think.’

‘I think you’re adorable.’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘Don’t push me then. Don’t make me the guardian of your morals. Don’t be unfair on both of us.’

In two heartbeats the conversation had plunged into dangerous areas.

They walked again, now like close friends. They were two of a kind, like-minded, both outsiders, naturally bonded, mutually rueful. Whether friends or something else, both knew what was happening between them.

The night grew quiet. Though far from other people, they had a clear sense that elsewhere revellers had dispersed. Scents of roses, lilies and cypresses had whispered around them unnoticed. They descended to lower levels. They passed sunken gardens, parklike areas, belvederes, gazebos, galleries of statues, circular promenades, vistas to ornamental specimen trees or fishponds.

They came across a pavilion, empty now, though it had been occupied earlier. A fastidious man, Vinius wondered by whom? There were still sun-bleached cushions on couches, among abandoned flower garlands, cold perfume burners, and half-eaten bowls of tiny wild strawberries from Nemi.

By a pillar, they stopped. Vinius turned Lucilla towards him. They kissed quietly, without prior fuss. It seemed inevitable.

‘This is not a good idea.’ A cliché, but Vinius was fumbling to express reluctance while not really feeling it. He let her go. They were still close. They could not bear to draw apart.

‘A man of honour.’

‘Probably insane.’

Lucilla forced herself to support his decision. ‘We should go back, before we do something we shall both regret forever.’

‘And regret it all night if we don’t . . .’ Vinius was almost laughing. Both knew: they thought they were strong-willed but the attraction between them had become intense.

‘You go.’

‘I want to see you safe.’

‘I shall be. Let me stay here by myself a little longer, then when no one is about I’ll walk up quietly.’ To encourage him to go, Lucilla moved away, further into the pavilion, where she perched on a couch hugging her knees lightly. It was a flat stone structure, made like a triple dining-couch for picnicking in this dainty gazebo which in daylight would have dramatic views. Head back, she savoured the warm night air.

Gaius Vinius decided to take himself off. ‘Goodnight then.’

‘Goodnight.’

Next minute he was back, urgently leaning down over Lucilla. ‘Stuff honour!’ His lips were on hers. He was so aroused that to refuse him would be frightening.

Lucilla did not want to refuse. She kissed him back, much more intently than the first time. Juno – just for once it was her turn. Time to forget rectitude, time to ignore caution, time for what she so much needed, all she sensed this man would give her . . .

‘Agreed?’

‘Once!’

‘Once then,’ said Gaius, terse. His hands were moving over her. She was reaching for him . . . Lucilla seemed to hesitate. Still just in command of himself, Gaius cancelled her objections. ‘Accept it. You’re desperate. I’m going to Dacia and may never come back.’

‘No cheap excuses,’ said Lucilla.

He laughed quietly. Gaius Vinius showed amusement more often than she had realised; he could be full of warmth, overwhelming the affection-starved Lucilla. ‘No excuses at all!’

He was unfixing the roundel fasteners of her sleeves, tugging and trying not to seem like a man who had undressed too many women. Lucilla pulled the tang on his belt to release the buckle, hoping not to reveal how rarely she had undressed men. He took her in his arms, with a suppressed groan. For a short, wild moment she wished she had a better body, bigger breasts, more energy, enough experience – before, for the first time in her life, Lucilla gave herself into the care of a man whose competence, as a matter of pride, included both their needs.

He was not normally one who boasted, but he heard himself declare to her crazily, ‘If it’s only once, it must be good! Flavia Lucilla, I am going to make love to you all the way to the gates of Hades, then all through the Elysian Fields and all the way back here. You won’t know whether to beg me to stop or plead with me for more . . .’

Gaius Vinius knew all about routine love-making in some anaemic relationship for his own swift relief. He wanted better, much better tonight. He was ready to deploy heart, lungs, muscles, imagination, and an unlikely sensitivity in order to achieve it. He wanted to blot bloody Dacia from his consciousness, his reluctance to go there, his centurion’s dark premonitions, his own emptiness at what his life had been so far and its pointlessness if he should not survive battle. He wanted to purge the profound sadness that had swept through him at the music recital. To do so, every fibre of him wanted this girl who could be so sweet, and who was so worth saving, and with whom on this strange evening he had felt such extraordinary closeness.

You fuck to forget. Every soldier knows that. On the eve of departure, you fuck blindly to create memories to see you through that long march which may be your last . . . Yet there could be more. Gaius Vinius believed in it, and that night he found it: in not just extreme physical passion, but complete exultant joy.

D
omitian travelled via Dalmatia, bringing five legions. The Romans’ arrival in what they called Moesia was swifter than Diurpaneus had hoped. They came the same autumn; they marched in by October. He would have liked to have deterred them longer. If they had stayed away until winter he could have established firmer footings, but they came, and with them their bald, bewigged Emperor. His presence with them was bound to give his soldiers heart, whatever stories these Romans had heard of the Dacians’ fierceness.

The Emperor entrusted command to the chief of his own Guards, Fuscus. Domitian had appointed him, weeding out Titus’ previous incumbent, so he had been in post as Praetorian Prefect for almost five years. It was normal to have an aristocrat as general to a field army, but Cornelius Fuscus was from the middle rank which Domitian preferred to trust (although the Prefect came from a rich family and had remained an equestrian by choice). A fiery supporter of Vespasian, Fuscus’ reputation was for seeking novelty and risk.

So the Emperor’s own corps was to take prime position in clearing out the invaders. The message was clear: defeating Dacia was personal. That kind of edge to a campaign suited Diurpaneus.

The Roman battle-force was powerful. After a first, fast scramble out of the way upon their sudden appearance, the Dacian retreated carefully. He eased his troops back to the brim of the Danube, then slipped away across the river. He seemed to have given back to Domitian what the warriors had seized in Moesia that summer, but although the Roman counter-offensive appeared successful, their opponent’s response to it was reactive only; he had fight in him yet. For Diurpaneus, a good tactician, the struggle against Rome was only beginning. Shooing the invaders out of Moesia might temporarily satisfy the Romans, but both sides knew the Dacians would be back.

On the south bank, the Romans restored order as systematically as always. They rebuilt the forts, gave at least cursory protection to the native civilians, scoured the country for unwanted foreigners. They made occasional use of scouts and informers. There had to be a new governor; and once on the spot Domitian began to consider splitting Moesia in two, which would strengthen it administratively. Few people remembered that Domitian had a connection with the area; his Uncle Sabinus had been governor of Moesia for about seven years, an unusually long period. He had been hearing about this part of the world from childhood.

Denigrating stories circulated that while on the Danube, Domitian abandoned himself to loose living. His troops scoffed that this presupposed Moesian cities offered licentious possibilities. It was one thing to have live oysters delivered overland for Roman commanders, but supping shellfish was not quite a life of riot. As the soldiers knew (for they had looked into this diligently), Moesia suffered from a perennial shortage of dancing-girls, not to mention a complete famine of fancy boys.

The Dacians meanwhile sought to return to their previous relationship with Rome, suing for peace. Domitian rejected their overtures.

Satisfied that Moesia had been restored to order by these few months of his glorious presence, late in the year Domitian left Fuscus to it and returned home. There the returning victorious commander-in-chief, resplendent with triumphal honours, could call on the services not only of well-drilled belly-dancers, but impossibly handsome cup-bearing catamites, and if he was really desperate – or gracious – his wife.

Some Praetorians had to be in Rome to guard the Emperor, but many stayed on campaign with their commander. This included the century of Decius Gracilis, who had had useful experience in Moesia previously. Now Vinius frequently heard him grumbling, convinced that the apparently dispersed enemy were not being taken seriously, muttering that crisis-management was slack and everything bound to go wrong . . .

They spent the winter consolidating. With the province’s whole infrastructure needing to be rebuilt, the soldiers were constantly busy, but sometimes the weather prevented effort and they had rest periods. At such times, Gaius Vinius found his thoughts straying to his own unresolved issues back in Rome.

As dawn broke on the morning of their unexpected tryst at Alba, he had awoken with Lucilla on what he assumed were affectionate terms.

Better?

Much better . . .

Want more?

You can’t.

I bet I could . . .

He had left her briefly, to carry out basic ablutions: a long pee, a quick wash in a fountain, a deep breath while thinking
now get out of this, lad
. . . When he looked for the girl again, he discovered that she had slithered off somewhere, presumably for a pee, a wash and thinking what a wonderful lover fortune had gifted her. Then he realised she had disappeared completely. At least that saved embarrassing conversation, was his first thought.

As Gaius plodded back up through the gardens alone, he found he regretted that attitude. He walked very slowly, absorbing the beautiful day and delightful surroundings. To his surprise, he felt there was unfinished business between them, and not merely a longing for more sexual contact. He wanted to see her, to find her. He wanted to talk things over. She had charmed him, astonished him, devastated him.