Rome 4: The Art of War (56 page)

That was clever. From the little I know of him, Geminus’ first oath was to Vitellius and he cleaved to Lucius only because he was the emperor’s brother. Now that another man had been named emperor …

‘It was Drusus,’ Pantera said.

‘Drusus?’ Lucius laughed. ‘The German masseur? I don’t believe you.’

‘You should; he did his utmost to kill your brother yesterday.’

‘We knew that.’ Lucius’ jaw clamped shut. ‘At your order?’

‘No. Your brother was not a monster; he could have lived, and at worst deserved a decent death. Drusus had his own oath to fulfil and thought others might get in ahead of him.’

‘And you let him?’

‘I couldn’t stop him.’

Across from me, perhaps a dozen paces away, Trabo was still coming to terms with reality. He wouldn’t look me in the eye and his head was clearly addled from the blow that had knocked him flat the day before.

Unexpectedly, he looked up. ‘Jocasta, why?’ So much pain in his voice.

‘Yes, why?’ Pantera’s horse took an uneasy step sideways. ‘You could have thrown the whole of Seneca’s network behind Vespasian and
I would have gladly followed your lead. Why did you not? You can’t have thought
Vitellius
would have made the better emperor?’

‘Vitellius was never emperor.’ I heard the acid in my own voice, but was too shaken to make it mellow; we were beyond that.

My gaze skidded over Pantera’s face. I was studying his hands, just as he was still studying mine, trying to see where the knife was hidden. Like lovers lately parted, we knew each other too well. He was up to something … I just couldn’t tell what.

I said, ‘Lucius has ruled since before his brother reached Rome. If you hadn’t tried to impose your provincial soldier on us, Vitellius would have died by now of a surfeit of eels or bloody flux, or something equally certain.’

‘But then his son would have taken the throne,’ Trabo said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ I snapped, I admit it. ‘The boy was far too young to rule. After Nero, nobody is ever again going to let a child take the throne of Rome. He would have been dead within days of his father.’

‘And what of the men who had been loyal to Vitellius? What of Geminus and his Guards? Were you expecting them to transfer their oaths to Lucius without demur?’

‘When one emperor dies, their oaths are given to the new one,’ Lucius said. ‘It has always been so.’

‘And is so now, with Vespasian.’ It was the middle of winter and the wind was cold, but still, I saw Pantera wipe a trickle of sweat from the side of his face. He kept one hand on the reins; the other fell to his side.

He said, ‘You can’t fight on. We have three legions, you have a handful of cohorts and your men must know that Vitellius is dead. They won’t fight, even if you ask them to. My “provincial soldier” has won, and not yet set foot on Roman land.’

Carefully, carefully … this last was a taunt, thrown in my face, but I didn’t have to rise to it.

I smiled, and made no comment. He thought he had won, but I knew that victory could be pulled from defeat more certain than this. An emperor who was locked in Alexandria was not a real emperor.

Pantera pushed on, needling at what he thought were sore points.

‘That’s the truth of it, isn’t it? You couldn’t bear the idea that a rustic provincial, with only one generation in the senate, could take the throne?’

‘No.’ I gave him a look to freeze his blood. ‘I don’t care about that. I’m sure Vespasian will make a perfectly good emperor, I never disagreed with you on that. But he wasn’t
my
emperor and never would have been. He was yours. You made him. I made Lucius. I brought Seneca’s network to him. You tried to give it to Vespasian instead. And that I could not bear.’

The last words were flung at him, and my knife behind them, and however much he was expecting it, he could never have been completely ready.

Rome, 21 December
AD
69

‘
PANTERA!
’

Domitian shouted, but the spy was already moving, launching himself left, because she threw right-handed and he must have known how the knife would fly. He soared out in an arc from his horse, tucked his head in, pulled his arm in, ready to roll.

His horse was not trained for this. It shied and kicked him in the chest, a glancing blow, but it drove the wind from his lungs and he messed up the roll and landed awkwardly and we all heard something snap, high up, by his shoulder, while over his head Trabo was proving that it had been right to bring him along, that he could think and act properly even when his heart was so clearly broken.

There was a lick of winter sun across a blade and the slam-sigh of iron on bone. Somewhere, a man called out. It might have been Trabo, I don’t know, because Jocasta was not my problem, and
never had been: Lucius was mine to deal with; my pleasure, my duty.

You see, Pantera might have been goading Jocasta, but his gaze had held mine when Lucius spoke:
When one emperor dies, their oaths are given to the new one. It has always been so.

And about Pantera’s wrist, revealed beneath his sleeve as he had raised his hand to wipe imaginary sweat from his cheek, was a silver wristband with the sign of the house of Vespasian engraved on it.

His thumb had pointed back to his legions and my eye had followed the line. Every single horse I could see, every banner, had the livery of the oak branch in fruit and leaf. Some of those men were mine; I knew their cohort colours.

They had sworn to the new emperor; it’s what we do and the gesture said, as clearly as if Pantera had spoken,
Vespasian is your emperor now. All other oaths are void.

They didn’t have to be. I could have carried on serving Lucius, but really, what sane man would want to serve him? In that one single, liberating moment, I was free and my soul sang.

So when the moment came and Jocasta made her move – really, it wasn’t a surprise to any of us – I unclipped the chain holding Domitian, left Jocasta to Trabo, and spinning my horse let my blade sing out and slice hard, fast, horizontal, across the place where Lucius’ neck had been.

And still was.

His throat came apart cleanly, in a wash of blood. He fell like a stone and I did not do him the honour of bending to hold his hand or to hear his last words. In the heart of my mind, I heard Juvens say, ‘Nicely done!’ I had already turned back, to signal to the cohorts behind not to move, that we had surrendered to Vespasian’s men. In truth, they were relieved, let no one tell you otherwise; they were outnumbered ten to one and they
had heard of the slaughter in Rome. What point in fighting for a dead man? Vespasian was their emperor too now, one we could all respect.

And so I turned again, to see Jocasta not dead, but unconscious, lying flat, with a great gash on her forehead where Trabo’s sword hilt had taken her, and him on the ground, holding Pantera’s head, saying his name, hitting his face.

‘Pantera … Pantera. Don’t die on me now, you bastard. You’ve got too much explaining to do. Wake up, man! You are not going to fucking die now …’

I came to kneel behind him, to find out where the wound was, for I saw only a scratch across the back of his hand where he had thrown up his arm to protect his face. There was no other blood. Nor was his neck at a false angle, as it might have been if he had broken it.

I knelt and reached for her blade, which lay a short distance away.

‘Don’t!’ It was Domitian whose hand clamped on my arm. ‘Don’t touch it. The bitch has used poison. She killed Felix like this.’

I had hardly known Pantera, and yet his name had dominated my life since July. I felt his loss as keenly as I felt Juvens’. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Oh, no. Not yet. You heard her. She’s far cleverer than that. When she comes round, she’ll be ready to bargain with us; his life for hers.’

The new emperor’s son lifted his head. Already there was a gravitas to him, a dignity that only royalty can confer. ‘It would please me, and so my father, if you and Trabo together could take care of her interrogation. I wish this man to live. I owe him my life, many times over.’

Rome, January,
AD
70

This concludes the witness statements of the events leading to the death of Vitellius, the burning of the temple and the death of the emperor’s brother, Titus Flavius Sabinus.

From these, we may conclude that, by his actions, Juvens caused Sabinus’ death and the fire that accompanied it. As to who killed Vitellius, that was the mob, spurred to it by the actions of Drusus, a German.

Both of these men are dead, as is Lucius, who may fairly be said to have engineered both his brother’s rise to fame and his downfall.

The woman Jocasta remains in custody awaiting your decision. She acknowledges that she used poison on the knife that struck the spy Pantera, and she has offered to trade: in exchange for her safety she can supply us with that which will give him life, instead of the endless sleep that now afflicts him.

There are those in your service, Domitian amongst them, who suggest that there are means by
which such a curative may be drawn from her by force, but Caenis has pointed out that if she gives another, lethal, recipe first, under duress, we may lose him altogether.

Thus we await your decision in this as in many other affairs of state. Geminus serves as tribune of the Guard. Trabo is your Master of Horse. My lord Mucianus has order of Rome and your son Domitian is a willing pupil, ably learning the reins of state from one who understands what must be done. Those who need to die are dead, save for the woman Jocasta, whose fate remains uncertain.

We await your order.

Rome, September,
AD
70

IT ENDS AS
it began, with the scent of wild strawberries filling the throne room.

I could smell it when I entered this morning, and can smell it still now, when everyone else has left us. We are here alone, just me and Caenis; the emperor and his woman, who can never be his wife.

It’s the first time we’ve been alone together since I landed. Being a soldier was my life and I was moderately good at it. Being emperor will be my future and perhaps, having taken the wolf by the ears, I will learn how to ride it. But today I am a man long separated from his woman, and the petitioners and robe-makers and goldsmiths can all wait.

As the last grovelling senator leaves, I open my arms. She steps slowly into my embrace, as if she, or I, were too fragile for sudden moves.

‘What?’ I know her every frown, every line about her mouth. I kiss them, each one, gently, with lips tired from talking. She
tastes sweet as nectar, ripe, perfect. She is Diana, Isis, Astarte, Demet—

‘There is one more,’ she says. ‘One more to see, to talk to, before today is done.’

‘Oh, please … Must we?’ I am beyond tired. I have fought battles that lasted from dawn until dusk and felt less exhausted after them than I do today, when I have done nothing more than ride up from Misene to Rome, and there met with my senate and all who serve my state.

But I know that look. I close my eyes. ‘Who?’

‘Look,’ she says, softly, and I do, and there is a man standing before me who was not there when I turned my head away.

‘Pantera.’

Am I glad to see him? I am certainly surprised. I am surprised first that he is able to walk when I had heard he was still on a nodding acquaintance with death, and second that he looks so thin, so hollow, so unlike the man I knew.

Except he doesn’t, really. His eyes are the same, and the dry, knowing intelligence that burns at their core.

‘I believe I owe you my throne,’ I say; an exaggeration, but not by a great deal. Antonius Primus claims that distinction for himself. Mucianus claims it, louder, as his own. Nobody has claimed it for Pantera, but he is here, which is perhaps claim enough.

I glance at Caenis; she knows why he is here, and I don’t.

‘Yes?’ I ask.

She says, ‘He won’t take Seneca’s spy network on my command. I thought your word might do it.’

Pantera is smiling; however blue his lips, however haggard his cheeks, however thin his arms, he can still make me feel like a child in front of a stern parent.

‘You don’t want it?’ I ask.

He bows, just
a little. ‘Lord, I am not fit to take it, on any level. The lady Caenis would do far better.’

‘The lady Caenis,’ says the lady Caenis, crisply, ‘has absolutely no wish even to attempt such a thing.’

My spy (is he mine? Ever? Truly?) casts me a glance that says
Is she always uncontrollable?
and since she is there seems little I can do. I am not prepared to become caught between these two who ran Rome while I was locked in Alexandria, hearing of my war at second hand.

But there is, possibly, a way through.

I say, ‘But perhaps my lady could organize the administration under Pantera’s direction until he is well enough to take up the reins fully? He, meanwhile, can recuperate at our expense, since his … affliction was garnered in our defence.’

Myself, I think this is an ideal solution. They both look at me sourly, at each other, open their mouths to protest.

I hold up my hand. ‘I order it,’ I say. ‘There will be no discussion.’

They both look surprised and I have no doubt I will pay later, but there are advantages to being emperor and I could begin to enjoy this, given time. These two, between them, might give me the time.

There is nothing else to say, and I am a man who has not seen his woman in nearly two years. I turn to her, take her into my arms again, and she resists only a little.

‘You may leave,’ I say to the man who still waits.

‘Lord.’

Pantera turns and walks out of the room. Gods be thanked, he doesn’t back away bowing.

‘Stop.’