Masters of Rome (37 page)

‘Ahh, they are such good friends those two,' Claudius said, his concentration shifting, ‘aren't they, my dear? It was such a fine idea of your brother's to move young T-T-Titus into the palace.'

‘Yes, dearest,' Messalina replied without the same enthusiasm. ‘But we should listen to what Vespasian has to say. Please continue.'

‘I met him in one of the corridors …'

‘W-where were you going?'

Where had he been going?
For an instant he felt panic well up and then came the moment of clarity in which he saw exactly what Pallas had done: he had defied Narcissus whilst at the same time compromising Callistus with both the Emperor and Empress and he, Vespasian, was expected to lie to condemn an innocent man, a man who had showed him hospitality only the evening before. ‘I was coming here, Princeps.'

‘What for?'

‘Because Narcissus asked me to be present to corroborate my brother's evidence.'

‘What evidence?'

‘That Asiaticus had also boasted to him, whilst they had been in Britannia together, that he took part in Caligula's assassination.' He was acutely aware of Asiaticus' eyes boring into his back as he blatantly bore false witness against a guiltless man, but he knew that he had been dragged in so deep and so quickly that there was no way of extracting himself without condemning his brother and putting his own life in danger. There was nothing he could do; it was just how Rome worked. ‘Sabinus told me of it later. Naturally I was shocked and told him that he should speak to Narcissus about it as soon as he got back to Rome; which he did and that's why he's here today to back up Sosibius' evidence.'

‘So why did Callistus talk to you in the corridor?'

Vespasian did his best nervous glance in Callistus' direction – although no acting was required as he felt the genuine emotion. ‘Callistus said that he had evidence that Asiaticus was innocent and he accused me of being in collusion with Narcissus and Pallas; he said that they knew that Asiaticus was being framed and that the culprit was actually my brother and he was testifying against Asiaticus to keep himself in the clear. It's nonsense of course because everybody knows that at the time of the assassination Sabinus was a thousand miles away serving as legate of the Ninth Hispana; it's a matter of record.'

‘So why did Callistus say this?'

Vespasian lowered his head. ‘I don't know, Princeps; you'll have to ask him.'

‘It's all lies!' Callistus shouted. ‘I haven't seen this man since he was in Narcissus' office, with his brother, helping him beg for his life two days after Caligula's murder.'

Claudius frowned and held onto the arms of his chair to prevent his body twitching in his excitement. ‘Is this true, V-Vespasian?'

‘Yes and no, Princeps; before this morning that was the last time I saw Callistus. But it was a month after the assassination
and no one was begging for their lives; your freedmen had recalled my brother from Pannonia in order that he and I should retrieve the Eagle of the Seventeenth for you, which, I'm ashamed to admit, we failed to do.'

‘Yes, Gabinius got that for me but you loyal Flavians found the Nineteenth's Capricorn and I will always be grateful to you for that. Narcissus, what do you have to say?'

Narcissus got to his feet looking as if the whole thing was a matter of such little significance that he could not quite believe that anyone was taking the trouble to discuss it. ‘It is all exactly as Vespasian says, Princeps; I'm afraid that Callistus has just been mistaken and it would seem that Asiaticus' guilt is beyond doubt. I also have reason to believe that Asiaticus has transferred a great deal of his wealth back to his home province in Narbonese Gaul; it would seem that he is planning on leaving Rome, although for what purpose I couldn't say. However, I would remark that a man who evidently has so little respect for the imperial family could well be a threat back in his homeland surrounded by members of his tribe whose loyalty to Rome is, to say the least, unenthusiastic.'

Vespasian did not turn around to look at Asiaticus but he could well imagine his face and that image added to the sickness that he felt at his own actions; but then, he reflected, he had been forced into lying, although that was no balm for his conscience.

‘D-d-do you have any defence to this charge, Asiaticus?'

Asiaticus did not bother getting to his feet. ‘What can I say, Princeps, apart from denying everything and calling Vespasian a liar?'

‘But it all fits. Lucius, will you speak for him?'

As Vitellius got to his feet, Messalina let forth another stream of tears. ‘I'm sorry, beloved husband, but the proof of this dear man's guilt has unsettled me, I must leave before I swoon.' She rose from her chair. ‘I hope that Lucius' eloquence in defence will persuade you to mercy, but whatever you decide I know it will be just.' Descending from the dais she paused in front of Vitellius as he took the floor, and on the pretext of kissing him on the cheek she whispered in his ear before leaving the room with her retinue.

Vitellius cleared his throat, evidently aroused by close proximity to Messalina's tempting mouth, and took an orator's pose with his chin in the air. ‘Princeps, it grieves me more than I can say that you believe Asiaticus to be guilty as we all know him to be a loyal man. When he spoke to me this morning to ask if he might be allowed to choose the manner of his death I said—'

‘He d-d-did what?'

‘He asked to choose the manner of his death, Princeps.'

‘Well, that proves it beyond question! Any man asking to be able to choose the manner of his own death before he is found guilty
must
be guilty. I'll waste no more time on this, I have the beast hunt to open.' Claudius rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘Asiaticus, I will show mercy owing to our long friendship and the service you have done Rome in Britannia and elsewhere; you may take your own life and your family may inherit your property. I expect you to be dead by morning.'

Without waiting for a reaction, the Emperor lurched down the steps and then paused in front of Vespasian. ‘You and your family shall join us in the imperial box, V-V-Vespasian. N-n-naturally I shall be taking Britannicus to the games and I'm sure that he'd love to have Titus for company and my Messalina always enjoys Flavia's conversation. We shall see you later.'

Unable to refuse the invitation, Vespasian bowed his head. As Claudius turned and lurched out of the room, he glanced at Pallas who acknowledged him with an inclination of the head as if to say that he had played his dishonourable part well. As he made to leave he felt a hand on his shoulder; he turned to see Asiaticus looking at him with a wry smile. ‘I would have done exactly the same in your place, Vespasian; I bear you no malice. I shall spend my last evening dining with friends in the Gardens of Lucullus. I would be grateful if you would join me at my table.'

CHAPTER XV

‘O
F COURSE I
would love to go, Father,' Titus affirmed, earnestly looking Vespasian directly in the eyes, ‘especially if it's with you. I've seen gladiators fight but I've never been to a wild-beast hunt.'

Vespasian smiled at his son and ruffled his hair. ‘This will be very different from watching two armed men fight one another honourably according to rules.'

‘I know, Father; criminals get ripped apart by wild animals and then
bestiarii
fight the animals afterwards. Britannicus told me, he's been to quite a few and he says that they're good fun to watch.'

‘I wouldn't describe them as good fun, Titus; I'd describe them as a very bloody way of re-enacting man's struggle against beasts.'

Titus' earnest expression changed to that of a child in deep thought, processing a new piece of information gathered from an unimpeachable source. ‘But the games are always bloody; especially when the bad people get their heads or limbs chopped off between the fights.'

Vespasian sighed and accepted that there was little he could do to shield his son from the things that he had not witnessed until he had been in his early teens. It was not that he disapproved of the blood-sports of the arena; on the contrary, he enjoyed the spectacle and the skill of gladiatorial competition, the heated excitement of a close finish in a chariot race – even though he still could not bring himself to bet on the outcome – and the sheer nerve it took for a bestiarius to face down a rampant bear or charging lion. However, he considered these to be pleasures for adults and youths, not prepubescent children. The average citizen did not take his seven-year-old boy to the
gruesome spectacles in the arena but Claudius did, anxious to keep his son and heir in the public eye. And as the son and heir's companion, Titus was therefore subject to the rather questionable parenting of his friend's imperial father, who, it was well known, enjoyed the spilling of blood with an intensity that many considered vulgar.

He knew that he could not talk Titus out of wanting to go as the conversation would certainly be repeated to Britannicus. This would doubtless mean Claudius hearing of it and perhaps taking it as implied criticism, so Vespasian had to accept his son's desire to attend the games. ‘Very well, you shall come.'

‘Oh, thank you, Father.'

‘And we shall be in the imperial box,' Flavia purred. ‘The other women will be so jealous.'

Vespasian refrained from comment, unwilling to stoke his lingering anger at his wife in front of the children, and smiled instead at his daughter. ‘And you'll stay here with your nurse, Domitilla.'

Domitilla twisted a rag doll in her hands and smiled back. ‘Yes, Tata.'

‘Oh, but she must come, Vespasian,' Flavia insisted, ‘we should be seen as a family.'

‘She will stay here and I won't discuss the matter any further.'

‘But it would—'

‘You will start doing as you are told without questioning me, Flavia; then we may have a small chance of harmony in the house and you might find me better disposed towards you than I'm currently feeling. Domitilla will stay.'

Flavia caught the steel in her husband's voice and stilled her tongue.

Vespasian pulled his daughter close and kissed her. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.'

‘Won't you be back after the games, Tata?'

‘No.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘I've got to go and say goodbye to a man who has to leave Rome because of me.'

*

A white handkerchief fluttered in the light wind; a quarter of a million pairs of eyes fixed on it and a quarter of a million voices echoed around the Circus Maximus calling for its release. With a shaking hand, Claudius held the handkerchief aloft, displaying it to the masses crammed on the stepped-stone seating along both sides of the circus's six hundred-pace length. Messalina stood next to him at the front of the imperial box, her head held high and her arms around her two children, Britannicus and Claudia Octavia, bathing in the reflected glory of the husband who had been an object of ridicule and the butt of countless jokes when she had married him. But now the people of Rome loved their Emperor for his gift of the Secular Games, which, for the last ten days, had been celebrated in lavish style. Today would be the climax of the festival and they cheered Claudius with savage ferocity as he dropped the handkerchief and the first of the hundred pitch-soaked prisoners chained to stakes around the track burst into flames.

A team of men wielding torches jogged around the circus igniting the howling victims, one by one, to the roars of approval of all who watched. Black smoke rose in columns from the flames and then, wafted by the breeze, circulated around the crowd, bringing the acrid tang of blazing pitch and burning flesh to the nostrils of delirious spectators as they savoured every writhe and scream of the agonised human torches. Once the last had been fired, and his skin had begun to shrivel and blister, the torch-bearers left the circus through the great gates at the northern end, passing a herd of filthy, condemned prisoners. Whipped onto the sand-covered track, soon to be soaked in their blood, the hapless men – and a few women, there to add spice to the proceedings – looked around with eyes wide with terror at the scene that greeted them. On either side of the
spina
, the low barrier running down the centre of the track around which chariots sped on race days, the flaming carcasses of the human torches sagged against their chains, life still just evident in a few of them, whilst the onlookers jeered at their suffering. Forced even further out onto the track by
the lashes of their drivers the prisoners cried, unheard above the din, to their disparate gods to save them from a fate worse than burning: to be ripped asunder and their flesh consumed before their very eyes by beasts starved to the point of madness, for the delectation of the people of Rome.

With vicious farewell cracks of their whips, the drivers retreated to the gates and the noise began to dull. Bored of the opening act of the spectacle, which was now doing nothing more exciting than spasm occasionally, the crowd eyed the huddled prisoners with interest. There were a lot of them, at least a hundred, and the knowledgeable in the audience – which was most of them – knew what that meant: many beasts. Anticipation settled on the Circus Maximus.

‘I b-b-believe the crowd are pleased, my d-dearest,' Claudius observed, seating himself on his well-padded chair.

Messalina took her seat next to him. ‘It was an original idea of yours to surprise them by setting fire to those prisoners. I'm sure everyone thought that they were going to be mauled to death. You're so clever, dear Claudius.'

Claudius twitched and took his wife's hand. ‘We must keep them entertained if we're to keep their love.'

Vespasian sat behind the imperial couple, between Lucius Vitellius and Flavia, who could not help but scan the crowd nearest the imperial box to see who was looking at her. Behind them sat a sallow-faced little man with a crooked back, whom Vespasian knew by sight to be a drinking companion and toady of Claudius.