Legatus Legionis: Book Two in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola Trilogy (9 page)

It did not last. On one morning when the weather was particularly mild, Gaius called to see Vipsania. This would be a particularly good day to go riding, and he had brought the usual two horses. However, when he reached the door, to his complete surprise the slave refused him admission.

"The master has gone to the marketplace, and he has ordered me to refuse entry to everybody until he returns," the slave said.

At first Gaius was completely stunned. It had been a long time since anyone had said no to him, and this no was so emphatic. As he stared at the slave, the door began to be closed. On reflex, Gaius slammed his foot into the space, and quickly followed this with his shoulder.

"You will tell your mistress that I am here," Gaius said. The slave stared fearfully at him.

"I understand your problem," Gaius nodded towards the slave. "Do as I say, and I promise you nothing bad will happen to you."

The slave continued to look as if the ground was about to swallow him, but eventually he turned and shuffled off. Gaius entered, and waited. Eventually an ashen-faced Vipsania entered, and informed him that her father had returned from Rome, with orders from Little Boots that she present herself before a God.

"I'm not going," she said simply. "I'll kill myself first."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Gaius grasped her by the arm. After a moment during which she stared blankly at him, he added, "Neither of those things."

"That's easy for you to say," she said, then as if a dam had burst, the outflow began. "I can't! If I don't go, Little Boot's will send the Praetorian Guard to get me, and then he'll add torture to the list of what he's going to do. If I tell Little Boots I'm not going, he's as likely as not to have my father killed, and . . ."

"Calm down," Gaius interrupted. "You can't travel now anyway. It's the storm season, and nobody travels in snowstorms, let alone women."

"And what good's that going to do?" she wailed. "Just waiting around . . ."

"It gives us time to think of something . . ." His sentence stopped. The problem was, whatever he did, that would be treason. The law said this woman had to go and suffer whatever Caesar had in mind. What sort of a law was that? One man seemed to have taken upon himself the right to make any law he wished. The ideals of the Republic were gone.

"Please, Gaius, there's absolutely nothing you can do. Please, leave me, now!" With that, she turned and fled upstairs. Three slaves looked on fearfully. At moments like this, anything could happen.

Gaius stared emptily around the room, then turned and walked away. He strode down the path, booting snowdrifts, oblivious to the cold. This was wrong! What was he going to do about it?

Half of him called the other half a coward: there was a clear wrong, and if he had more spine he would do something. The other half pointed out that a one-man revolt against Rome would lead to his execution, and probably Vipsania's, after she had been raped. There was nowhere to go. There had been organized, if somewhat inept, plotting against Gaius Caesar from the Rhine legions and that had got nowhere.

Which was exactly where he was going, he realized gloomily, as he vigorously booted another snowdrift. There had to be somewhere. Yes, the marketplace. He would find out what truly happened.

It took a little time to find Valerius Messala, and a little more to explain what had happened. "Under no circumstances must you blame the slave," Gaius said. "He really had no choice."

"I was more concerned about somebody following from Rome," came the worried reply.

"Let's go and have some wine, and you can tell me what's gone wrong. Maybe I can help."

"I doubt you can." The voice was that of a broken man. "Young Claudius, you may be better off going away and forgetting us. We are in deep trouble."

"All the more reason for you to tell me about it," Gaius said.

Chapter 9

The problem arose because Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus appeared to be quite fearful of plots against him, and these fears seemed to materialize into something greater on his return to Rome. The two German Legates had been purged, and other Governors had been in trouble, but that was nothing compared to the atmosphere in Rome, because that was where the Senate was.

Perhaps, Gaius thought to himself, but since the time of Tiberius, the Senate had become increasingly irrelevant.

"I don't think anyone knows exactly how this last round of troubles all started," Messala began, as he sipped his wine. "My best guess is this. For some reason, Little Boots got into some argument with a Stoic philosopher, Julius Canus. I've no idea what the argument was about, but it seems Canus got the better of it, and Little Boots was somewhat displeased."

"Surely Caesar could take losing a philosophical argument?" Gaius asked.

"He may well have been able to. It's what happened next, and after that, and after that . . ."

"Go on!"

"What happened next is that Caesar went to the Senate. Not only that, he took armed guards, which is quite against the rules. It implied that the Senators might attack him, and . . ."

"There's precedent," Gaius pointed out. "First of all, the other Gaius Julius Caesar
was
murdered in the Senate. There may have been rules against Senators taking in weapons, but that didn't stop the plotters."

"I know. For that matter, even Augustus used to wear armour under his toga, but Tiberius refused armed escorts, even though he was granted them."

"True, but I rather suspect in Tiberius' case it was more a case of not giving weapons to people whose loyalty was questionable, and once he went to Capri, the permission for him to have an escort hardly mattered."

"That's true," Messala nodded.

"So Caesar went to the Senate with armed guards. What's the problem?"

"Oh yes, he gave a speech as only Little Boots could give one. You may have heard that once before he verbally lashed the senate for their handling of Macro? Well, this time he was most conciliatory. Basically, he said that while he knew there were conspiracies against him, there were very few Senators against whom he felt anger, and he was granting a general amnesty for events up to this point," Messala said, then paused to see Gaius' reaction.

"That doesn't seem to be a problem," Gaius frowned.

"It was a disaster," Messala scowled. "Can't you see what happened next?"

"Sorry, but no," Gaius replied.

"What do you think the Senators should have done next?"

"From what I gather," Gaius replied in a puzzled tone, "declare their loyalty to Caesar."

Messala shook his head as if in sorrow at Gaius having missed the point and said, "Yes, well they decided to demonstrate it. You see, young Gaius, Caesar had implied there were
some
Senators that were plotting, so each went to great lengths to show their loyalty. Firstly, they heard about Julius Canus, so they tried him for disloyalty and had him executed."

"Disloyalty?"

"Something like that. They may have dressed it up in various ways. Being of Senatorial class is now the way to get on the wrong side of Little Boots. The next one to go was Julius Graecinus, who was also of a Stoic bent, and Little Boots may well have been fearing a Stoic conspiracy."

"Was there a Stoic conspiracy?" Gaius asked, and while he sipped his wine and looked as if this was a question asked simply out of curiosity, he carefully watched for a reaction out of the side of his eye.

"Who knows," Messala shrugged.

There had been a momentary hesitation. The odds were strongly in favour of Messala being linked with a conspiracy, Gaius realized. He had to be very careful.

"Anyway," Messala continued, "the Senators became even more fearful, because Graecinus was of Senatorial class, so they decided that the best way to demonstrate their loyalty was to get rid of a traitor. They selected Scribonius Proculus, and about fifty of them hacked him to death in the Senate."

"Which just about justifies Caesar's desire to have protection," Gaius pointed out. "If fifty of them were taking knives into the Senate, the so-called rule that there are no weapons in the Senate is clearly being broken frequently."

"I suppose so," Messala admitted.

"So, what happened next?" Gaius asked. He was still quite puzzled how all this related to Vipsania, unless the father was being accused of being a conspirator.

"Well, somehow Caesar was told that Betilienus Bassus was a conspirator . . ."

"Was he?" Gaius asked casually.

"Yes," Messala said, without thinking.

Interesting, Gaius thought to himself. Only a conspirator would know. He nodded and said, "Go on."

"Bassus, of course, was sentenced to death, and his father, Betilienus Capito was ordered to watch. Capito was horrified, and begged Caesar to let him close his eyes, so Caesar, in disgust, said that they would be closed forever, and ordered the two to be executed together."

"Was Capito a conspirator?" Gaius asked.

"There was no evidence against him," Messala shrugged evasively, "but he certainly went about arguing his innocence in a strange way. He then said he would name conspirators, and out gushed a number of names."

"Were they conspirators?"

"Not all of them," Messala laughed hollowly. "He spoiled it all at the end by naming Caesonia."

"Caesar's wife?" Gaius asked in disbelief. He also noted the 'not all of them', which implied that he knew who were and who were not. And if he, Gaius, could work that out in such a short conversation, the chances were that Caesar could too.

"The same. If he had any chance before, that was it."

"But that's not all, is it?" Gaius asked.

"Help no! Senators fell over themselves to betray conspirators. One of the worst was that despicable Anicius Cerialis. He even betrayed his own son, as well as a Sextus Papinius, and he happily watched their executions. I tell you, Caesar is out of control."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Gaius replied.

"You don't believe this?"

"Maybe I don't believe they're all so innocent," Gaius replied. "I've heard a little from Rome too."

"And what've you heard?"

"One ex-Consul, Pompeius Pennias, was arrested for treason, probably because of one of these wretched Senators making up conspiracies to cover their own miserable arses. Anyway, Caesar personally decided to get to the bottom of this, and one of Pennias' freed-women, by the name of Quintilia, was also arrested. Quintilia was tortured, but she refused to bear false witness against her old master."

"So?"

"Caesar was taking a personal interest in this, and he soon realized that Pompeius was in fact innocent. He immediately freed him and congratulated Quintilia for her devotion to the truth. As a reward he gave her 800,000 sesterces, a sum that ensured she could live in luxury for the rest of her life. Anyone who does that must have a sense of justice."

Messala seemed unsure what to say, so Gaius continued, "Caesar then said that he rather suspected that there would be a number of leeches, thieves, and others who might try to take this money from her. Even Senators, he said, who should know better. Caesar then promised that anyone who deprived Quintillia of her money would end up begging for a simple crucifixion. I gather everybody believed Caesar on this matter."

"They'd believe him on that," Messala said. He paused, then added in a tight voice, "Why are you interested? Where's this going?"

Gaius could not help noticing the tension. Yes, this man was either a conspirator, or was associated with conspirators, or he feared that he was going to be so associated. Whatever, here was one frightened man. "I wish to help Vipsania," Gaius said simply, "but so far, I have no idea why she is in such fear."

"One of the men Capito accused was Valerius Asiaticus," Messala explained.

"Yes, but I gather from what you've told me, Capito also accused Caesonia, so this can't be the worst type of accusation."

"Yes, but mud sticks."

"Was Asiaticus a conspirator?" Gaius asked.

"How would I know?" came the delayed and not particularly convincing response.

"So, the
gens
has been named, but I still don't see . . ."

"As you know, I was in Rome," Messala explained, "and I was invited to dine with Caesar, alongside many others, including Asiaticus. When Caesar was about to retire for the night, he got up, thanked us for being there, then said something about there being conspiracies everywhere."

"A pledge of loyalty wouldn't go astray here," Gaius muttered.

"That's just what Asiaticus did. He got up and praised Caesar, and said all the accusations against him were nonsense."

"He would have been better off to leave that last bit out," Gaius said. "The pledge of loyalty would have been fine."

"You're certainly right there," Messala sighed. "That really got Caesar going. He turned to Asiaticus and said for all to hear that he understood that Asiaticus was having a difficult time, after all, he, Caesar, had been bedding his wife, and by the Gods she was useless in bed. Nothing more than a lump! Poor Asiaticus! Everybody was laughing at him. It was disgraceful!"

"And then?"

"As he was leaving the room, he turned and said something to the effect that a true member of the Valerian
gens
wouldn't be so useless. Then he pointed to me and said that the honour of the Valerian
gens
was at stake. I had a daughter. Send her to Rome to restore the honour of the Valeria."

"That sounds like one of Caesar's jokes," Gaius offered.

"You weren't there!"

"No, I wasn't, but look at it this way. There are no shortage of closer Valerias, in fact Caesar probably sees Valeria Messalina every day, and I have it on good authority," Gaius bluffed, "that they all enjoy exactly the same privileges and freedoms as all other Roman women, and because of their
gens
, more than most."

"Yes, but being here you wouldn't know, would you?"