Master and God (52 page)

Gaius pushed the dog off the bed with the flats of his feet so he could stretch out and turn round. He hauled Lucilla into his embrace. ‘Oh gods, am I glad to have you back . . . !’ He was warm-bodied and warm-hearted; despite the scare she had given him, he remained deeply affectionate.

‘It’s over. She is gone, Gaius. I know she will die there. She will never be allowed home. He means her to die. They will neglect her, and probably starve her, and because she has no hope she will surrender to her fate. That is how he wants it. So he does not have to see what happens, and can shed all responsibility.’

Gaius wrapped himself around her until she felt like a kernel, safe in its nut. ‘There; let it out. You need to cry.’

Lucilla took his comfort but she said, ‘I have not shed one tear since I watched her sail away. I am too angry.’

Gaius was silent. He recognised that she had changed. He saw that he could indeed lose her – though of all the wild doubts he had ever harboured, losing Lucilla would not be in any way he had dreamed. No other man would lure her, nor would she tire of him. Even her long exposure to poets, teachers and philosophers had not achieved this. Flavia Lucilla had joined the opposition to Domitian.

‘It has to end.’ Lucilla’s voice was quiet, her tone stripped, her mood fatalistic. ‘People must do something. Whatever it takes, he will have to be stopped.’

O
ver a year passed, after Flavius Clemens died and his widow was banished. Nothing significant happened. It could be argued that this was because the conspirators took their time and planned things properly. Excuses, said Lucilla.

Organisation did occur, however. A slow current of hatred had begun its drag. In the Senate, men confined themselves to muttering complaints, while Domitian knew they did so, and loathed them more as a result. At the Praetorian Camp, officers and soldiers took another New Year Oath, pledging loyalty to their emperor with set faces. Their Prefects waited, each with his motives. The army loved Domitian; legionary commanders and their provincial governors, with power in their hands, were his loyal appointees. He chose them personally, and they had seen what happened to anyone who challenged him. The public neither loved nor hated, grateful for gifts and favours, yet finding him a cold, distant ruler. The benefit of efficient government with many costly state occasions was that there were no riots – nor would there be, if their ruler was to fall to a well-constructed palace revolution, with the promise that life for the public would continue undisturbed. Juvenal’s famous slur was right; given bread and circuses, people would tolerate anything.

A group of dedicated people worked secretly to identify who was sympathetic, indifferent, suspect or hostile. They rarely met formally. When they did, they chose the summer, so absences looked like normal holidays. Some of these people were senior officials, who were used to running the Empire. They knew how to hobnob. Because they were careful, their meetings often took place far from both Rome and Domitian’s fortress at Alba. So, in the middle of summer, Gaius Vinius and Flavia Lucilla travelled together down the Via Valeria, setting off like cheerful holidaymakers with light luggage, an obvious picnic basket, and their dog.

There was a villa in the hills which by reputation was the farm given from his rich supporter Maecenas to the poet Horace. A will produced in a hurry when the poet died in delirium had bequeathed his entire estate to the Emperor Augustus. Horace had enjoyed imperial patronage and he was a childless bachelor, so no suggestion of sharp practice should be inferred.

The poet’s beloved Sabine farm was swallowed up into the gigantic imperial portfolio, from which imperial freedmen were sometimes rewarded with spectacular presents. Some of the best properties in Italy passed from an emperor to a servant who worked hard, or who knew where the bodies were buried. When the state budget was tight, those who had made a packet from bribes could buy auctioned property at wincingly favourable rates, though sometimes there was a quid pro quo.

Nearly a hundred years after Horace died, the small farm at the head of the wooded valley was in new ownership. Approached by its own informal road, it was encircled by low, scrubby hills with a crown of trees. The dark soil was thin, but supported modest agriculture; Horace had had his own flocks and was able to seal demijohns of his own wine. A small spring provided fresh water. A brook chattered.

The living quarters remained modest, at least by contrast with the gross spreads flaunted by tycoons along the Bay of Naples. Even so, a luxurious redesign and make-over in the reign of Vespasian had improved both facilities and décor, with plenty of white and grey marble, all worked to a high standard. The most important rooms on the ground floor had impressive geometric mosaic floors in black and white, announcing that this was a high-status home. Pleasant suites occupied two storeys; some rooms opened onto internal courtyard gardens. The master dining room had a splendid view across a peristyle down the main axis towards a particularly striking hill in the distance. A short flight of steps led to a gently sloping garden, surrounded by shady colonnades, that included the usual topiary and urns, a large pool and scallop shell grotto. Natural woodland complemented the formal plantings.

Only a staggeringly outsized bath house showed that although this delightful and very secluded house was in single private ownership, it was occasionally used by travelling rulers and their large, demanding retinues. Freedmen lived here. An emperor could enjoy the attractive dining and sleeping rooms, in the suave company of a host he knew and trusted, while his swarming backup team was foisted onto local villages or bivouacked in the grounds. This rural villa made an ideal stopping point on the way to Nero’s spectacular country palace in the hills at Sublacium, too far from Rome to be reached in one day, which had continued in use by the Flavians. Alternatively, with only a slight detour, this could serve as a way-station en route to Vespasian’s birthplace at Reate and other Flavian family compounds. Though close to the Via Valeria, the house lay down a minor road which lent privacy and made it very secure.

A daytrip from Rome, Horace’s Villa had seemed in the past a superb place to plot. An equally long way from Alba, it still was.

The current owner was Domitian’s great chamberlain, Parthenius. He took on the villa after other wealthy and influential freedmen and women, as he explained on the first evening while his group of visitors relaxed with nightcaps after their hot and bumping journey from Rome.

‘I find it entertaining –’ Perhaps because he had worked for so long for an emperor with a macabre sense of humour, Parthenius was amused by situations that made other people feel faint – ‘that one of my predecessors was Claudia Epicharis. In view of our purpose, this seems a peculiar irony.’

For those of his guests who either never knew or had forgotten, the genial host elucidated: Claudia Epicharis had been an influential freedwoman involved in the famous Pisonian plot against Nero. Epicharis tried on her own initiative to suborn the commander of the Misenum fleet, Volusius Proculus. She made a mistake there. He betrayed the plot to Nero’s chief secretary, Epaphroditus, the freedman Domitian had just eradicated.

Epicharis was arrested and tortured, yet never identified her fellow-conspirators. After being broken on the rack, she was being carried for a new day’s questioning in a chair, since the injuries already inflicted on her meant she could no longer stand. Though in hideous pain, she managed to remove a bustband she was wearing; she fixed it to the chair and by straining on the material somehow throttled herself.

‘The courageous Epicharis owned this villa. I like to think the Pisonian conspirators may have met and discussed their intentions here,’ Parthenius ended. ‘Where they failed, we must prosper.’

A short time afterwards, the urbane freedman bade everyone goodnight; he sauntered out into the garden. There he noticed the tall figure of the one-eyed cornicularius, Clodianus. Arms folded, the disfigured Praetorian stood lost in thought. The impression he gave was gloomy.

‘Are you enjoying the balmy evening – or reviewing your options?’ asked Parthenius, coming up to him. ‘Not reconsidering, I hope?’ Clodianus acknowledged his presence, though did not respond to the question. Around them moths and insects darted, while the fountains on a great square water feature still tinkled, lit with dim lights. ‘Oh, I am so sorry – did my story of Epicharis and her suicide upset Flavia Lucilla?’

‘It upset me.’

‘You are naturally anxious about Lucilla’s safety.’

‘She is her own woman. I can only urge caution.’

‘I am sure she values what you say.’ Parthenius could be bland. She was not his girl.

They were all putting themselves in great danger by this conspiracy and Gaius was suffering as he imagined the disaster of exposure, with Lucilla being tortured or suffering a hideous death. Alone of those here, he had in the course of his duties witnessed torture. Not often, but enough.

Parthenius was married. His wife had been sufficiently visible for politeness, though it had been clear she would stay safely out of discussions tomorrow. There were children. Gaius had glimpsed a boy, Burrus, about twelve or thirteen; he was loafing about like any adolescent, staring at the new arrivals yet unwilling to communicate with his father’s visitors.

‘The Piso affair,’ Gaius challenged bluntly. ‘Total cock-up, I recall. Debauched candidate. Huge group of conspirators – over forty people, no? – all with conflicting motives. Action delayed until it all unravelled hopelessly; slaves snitching on masters; promises of immunity that were filthily broken; suicides; betrayals; amoral prosecutors, out to make a mint. None showed a jot of the morality of Epicharis.’

‘No, indeed. Faenius Rufius, the Praetorian Prefect, was originally right in it,’ added Parthenius, who must have been an official at the time. ‘Became one of the most vicious accusers, covering himself. He died anyway.’ Mentioning this reprehensible Prefect was a mean sideswipe. ‘Lessons must be learned, Clodianus. We rely on you to keep
our
Prefects in order!’ Gaius sniffed at that. He would need to be ambidextrous. Parthenius lowered his voice, though it was hardly necessary on his own property and so far from Rome: ‘I am entertaining your esteemed Petronius Secundus later this week.’

‘After the rest of us leave?’

‘He will feel happier. A happy Prefect is a friendly one, I hope . . . Well, to your bed, man,’ Parthenius urged. ‘Our delectable Lucilla will be wondering what kept you. I hope your room is satisfactory.’

‘We have simple tastes,’ Gaius assured him.

A chamberlain was bound to fuss about domestic matters. ‘I want everyone to be comfortable.’

‘Appreciated.’

Gaius would not be packed to bed like a teenager. He stood his ground until Parthenius wandered off on whatever household rounds were necessary in such a remote location, then he deliberately stayed longer in the garden. Above, the open sky had faded to a magical violet hue. A few faint stars became visible.

Once alone, Gaius mused despondently on the likelihood that a half-baked, behind-the-scenes bunch of fancy factotums might actually one day (the day in question being one of tomorrow’s agenda items) manage to dispose of Domitian.

Kill him.

Kill the Emperor. Words a good Praetorian Guard was conditioned to find outrageous. Any Praetorian. Including Gaius Vinius Clodianus.

Blundering noises from the nearby woods announced arrivals; nothing sinister, just Lucilla, holding a leash, and Terror, dragging her excitedly. Previously a complete town dog, Terror had been here less than an hour when he disgraced himself by assuming the horticultural plant pots buried in the garden had been put there with hidden bones for him. He had worked his way down half a row, destroying the elegant specimens they contained, before he was stopped. Gaius and Lucilla had underestimated the hard work involved in bringing a spoiled pet from Rome to the wilds of the country.

‘Done his business?’

‘Eventually. You take him next time!’ Lucilla grumbled. ‘It’s so dark! I was petrified – you know Horace once saw a wolf here when he was strolling about singing. It ran away from him, luckily.’

‘Any wolf that turns tail from a poet is a crap wolf.’

‘And a tree fell on Horace once and nearly brained him.’

Gaius, now softened by the quiet country night, enveloped her and kissed her. ‘You might be brained by a windowbox in a city street just as easily . . . I could live in a place like this.’

‘On a
farm
?’

‘I own a farm,’ Gaius reminded her. He made it sound significant. ‘In Spain.’

The dog had covered his snout and legs with leaf litter and had rolled in a pungent substance that had been deposited by a wild animal with a foul diet. They had to take him to the baths to be washed before he could go back in the house. There was no one about, but the single slave on duty volunteered to clean up Baby, keeping him well outside the pristine suite of hot rooms. Gaius and Lucilla had arrived too soon before dinner for more than basic ablutions, so as there was still hot water they went in and enjoyed the rare thrill of bathing together.

Gaius thwacked into the plunge pool, emerging to find Lucilla laughing as she watched him. After shaking off showers of water drops, he floated on his back naked and cheerful – the Gaius that Lucilla loved to see.

‘Oh I could get used to this! In Tarraconensis, I am told, my old centurion’s estate includes a farmhouse, like the simple place Horace had here originally. My manager says it’s become a hovel, so I could transfer money out there and rebuild. Mosaics and my own bath house to chase you round – there’s a thought.’

‘
That
much money? And
Tarraconensis
?’ repeated Lucilla in pretend tones of horror.

Parthenius’ slaves had kindly left snacks and wine in their bedroom. The bed was soft with feather mattresses and pillows, in the lush, almost effeminate taste most wealthy palace freedmen had. Giggling, they made the most of it. At least they tried to, until Baby began howling.