Part 4 (1/2)

'Yes, that's how s.e.xtus described it to me,' Tigran said after Gaius had recounted the incident in full, not sparing his own blushes, 'and I would dearly love to avenge your humiliation, Senator Pollo, as well as redress the insult to my brethren who were held at knifepoint and prevented from protecting you. However, the way I see it is that it would be impossible to do anything unpleasant to Terpnus without running the risk of hurting Nero.'

'Then hurt Nero,' Magnus suggested, 'and hurt him permanently, if you take my meaning?'

'It would mean certain death,' Sabinus said. 'Nero is very well protected. For a start he's always with Tigellinus, Otho and a half dozen others and then there's a unit of Vigiles following his rampage around ready to step in if anyone looks like threatening him; not to mention the Urban Cohort century that I have to have positioned close by. No, you would be killed the moment you tried to attack him.'

'And even if you did murder him and escape with your life at the time,' Gaius said, raising a forefinger in the air and waggling it, 'although there are many who wish for that at the moment, you wouldn't find his successor showing you any grat.i.tude at all; remember what Claudius did to Caligula's a.s.sa.s.sins.'

'Those that were caught that is,' Vespasian pointed out, looking meaningfully at his brother who had been the one conspirator whose part in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Caligula had been covered up and kept secret by Narcissus and Pallas in return for the Flavian brothers' help in securing Claudius' position.

'Indeed, dear boy. But the point is that whoever benefits from Nero's death will execute his murderers as it would not do for people to be seen to a.s.sa.s.sinate an emperor and live; that would be a very unwise precedent to set. The only person who can get away with killing an emperor is the man who succeeds him.'

'I see your point,' Magnus mumbled from behind his wine cup.

'So the question is, how to get Terpnus away from Nero,' Tigran said, running his beard between his fingers.

'He very rarely leaves the Palatine except in Nero's company,' Sabinus informed them, 'such is his dedication to sycophancy.'

'Very commendable,' Gaius observed without irony.

Tigran frowned. 'I could try an arrow shot from a distance.'

Sabinus shook his head. 'No; if you wounded him his companions would get him back to the Palatine, and if you killed him outright it would be very unsatisfactory; the whole point of this is to have revenge by ensuring that Terpnus never plays the lyre again but lives, so that his loss eats away at him.'

Tigran pursed his lips, deep in thought. 'I shall give it serious consideration, gentlemen,' he said eventually. 'You say, Prefect Sabinus, that you have some advance knowledge of when and where Nero's rampages are going to take place.'

'That's correct; it's so that I can order a century of one of the Urban Cohorts to be standing by in the area.'

'Then perhaps you would be so good as to send word to me next time you hear that the Viminal is due to be targeted; especially the western part.'

Sabinus nodded his a.s.sent.

Tigran got to his feet. 'My thanks for your hospitality, Senator Pollo. Senator Vespasian, s.e.xtus and four of my brethren are waiting for you outside to help you with that bit of business that Magnus mentioned to me; I trust that they will serve you better than they did your uncle the other night.' With a nod to Sabinus and Magnus, Tigran left the garden.

'Do you think he'll come up with an idea?' Sabinus asked.

Magnus grinned. 'I'd say he's already got one and he plans to execute it on the West Viminal Brotherhood's territory to lessen the chance of retribution falling in his direction; but what it is I couldn't guess. That's the thing about Tigran, he doesn't let on too much, not until he has to, that is. It's what's made him so successful, even more so than I was as patronus.'

'He certainly has more rings than you. So the horses are fine?'

'Yes, the faction-master said that they were in great shape and he'll race them as soon as possible.'

'Good, I'll go and give them a turn or two around the Flammian Circus as soon as I can.'

Gaius looked horrified. 'You don't race them yourself, dear boy, do you?'

'Of course not, Uncle; I just enjoy driving them, in private, obviously. It's good exercise and very invigorating.'

'Let's hope you don't start singing as well.'

'One bad habit is enough, Uncle.' Vespasian got to his feet. 'Come, Sabinus; s.e.xtus and the lads are outside and if we're going to relieve you of that inconvenience we should go now that it's starting to get dark.'

'And why should I not just strangle the treacherous b.a.s.t.a.r.d?' Caratacus asked, the ruddiness of his clean-shaven, oval face accentuated by barely supressed ire. 'He and his b.i.t.c.h-queen, Cartimandua, broke every law of hospitality to hand me over to you Romans.'

'Us Romans, Tiberius Claudius Caratacus,' Vespasian reminded the former Britannic chieftain. 'Seeing as you are now a citizen and hold equestrian rank, I think you should count yourself as one of us. We don't discriminate against race, as you know we've even had consuls of Gallic descent so, as far as I'm concerned, my friend, you are Roman, and therefore you will help me do what is best for Rome and that is to keep Venutius safe so that Paulinus has something to threaten your b.i.t.c.h-queen with.'

Caratacus smiled at his former adversary as they looked down at the filth-encrusted figure of Venutius glaring up at them from inside a cage placed in the corner of Caratacus' cellar in his house on the Aventine Hill. 'I suppose I still get the pleasure of keeping his confinement as uncomfortable as possible.'

'So long as he's kept alive and doesn't have any more bits missing than he already does, then you can do what you will.'

'You'll pay, traitor,' Venutius hissed, grabbing the bars of his cage.

'Me? A traitor?' Caratacus kicked at the cage, catching one of Venutius' hands under the sole of his sandal, cracking a couple of fingers. 'I was resisting the invaders up until the moment that you gave me to them.'

'It was nothing to do with me,' Venutius said, grimacing as he held his broken fingers tight beneath his armpit. 'It was all Cartimandua's doing.'

'She's your wife, and a husband is responsible for the actions of his wife.'

'She was my wife until she went to the bed of my armour-bearer, Vellocatus.'

Caratacus sneered. 'That's not what I heard, Venutius. I heard she took Vellocatus into your bed, dishonouring whatever honour was left in it. But it is nothing to me what your domestic arrangements are or have been. You were the King of the Brigantes when I sought refuge there and therefore you,' he pointed with his forefinger at his betrayer, 'were responsible for my safety. You should have controlled your wife.' He turned on his heel. 'Come, Vespasian, let's waste no more time on, what we would call in our language, a p.u.s.s.y-whipped weakling.'

Vespasian followed Caratacus out and up the stone steps thinking the term appropriate for one who had allowed his wife to dominate him so. 'There is one thing, though, my friend,' he said as they came out into the moonlight of the stable yard behind Caratacus' house.

'No one should know?' Caratacus questioned with a grin.

'Exactly.'

'That was obvious when you surprised me with him. I still get to know about most things of importance that occur in my homeland; I had heard that Venutius had rebelled against Cartimandua and that he had replaced her on the throne. And I had heard that Myrddin had encouraged him to carry on his rebellion and take it against Rome but he had been defeated by the older brother of your future son-in-law.' Caratacus shrugged and held out his hands as they entered the house through the back door. 'And then you turn up with him in the night; I had not even heard that he had left Britannia and yet suddenly he's here in Rome, in a cage and guarded, not by soldiers of the Urban Cohorts, but by what I a.s.sume are your own personal militia.'

'They're members of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood who have a strong connection with my family through my uncle.'

'Well, I hope they'll see you back to the Quirinal in one piece. The streets are far from safe these days.'

'I know; my uncle was attacked a few nights ago and outrageously treated.'

'Take my advice, my friend, and leave now. I shall rudely not offer you refreshment of any sort so that you can get on your way. We can carry on our reminiscing about our respective parts in the invasion of my island another time; in daylight hours.'

Vespasian grasped Caratacus' proffered forearm and clenched it, happy not to have to refuse any hospitality as he had plans for the rest of the evening and they did not include refighting old battles. 'Thank you, I always look forward to our talks, Caratacus. I'll be in touch with you once I've been told what we should do with Venutius.'

Caratacus looked puzzled. 'I thought Paulinus wanted him kept in Rome.'

'Yes, he does, for now; but since he's given up the information Paulinus wanted perhaps he might be of more use elsewhere.'

Whether or not Nero had been out on one of his rampages that night Vespasian did not know, for he pa.s.sed with his escort peacefully between the Aventine and Quirinal Hills by way of the Forum Boarium and the Forum Romanum. His mind, however, was not at peace as he fretted on the truth of what Sabinus and his mother had said on the night of her death. He had not gone into a.s.sisting Paulinus with his eyes shut; he had been well aware that what he had been asked to do was indeed, as Sabinus had put it, dangerous. Nevertheless, he had acquiesced, ostensibly for the furtherance of the career of his future son-in-law; but although that had been a strong factor in his calculations, it had not been his overriding reason. That had been far more self-seeking.

For over four years now Nero had been emperor and during that time his degeneration had been slow but palpable; however, in recent months it had been accelerating as he had made the transition from youth to man without the benefit of the restraint of the Cursus Honorum. It had not been Nero's lot to work his way up the ladder, commanding and being commanded in differing ratios the higher one climbed. No, Nero had found himself at the top without ever having to obey an order; he had achieved absolute power but had never felt the threat of such power. He knew not what it meant. And it was because of this that the murmurings against him had grown stronger with every year that pa.s.sed of his reign; conspiracy was in the air and that was to Vespasian's advantage if his suspicions concerning the omens at his naming ceremony were correct. Therefore, if Paulinus was part of a conspiracy against Nero he was happy to aid it provided his actions could remain secret, which he felt, by giving Venutius into Caratacus' charge, they could.

But Sabinus was right, Vespasian accepted: what he was doing was dangerous; but what concerned him more was his mother's observation that: for a man to know the exact course, timing and mode of his destiny would mean that his decisions would be shaped by something other than his own desires and fears; it would unbalance him and ultimately bring him down. Had his decision to act as he had done been motivated by what he thought was prophesied for him, and in which case was he guilty of trying to force it to come true and thus putting it at risk? Or had it been a decision influenced solely by the opposing forces of his genuine fears and desires? Only Mars knew the truth of it and he was unlikely to share it with him as that was always the way of the G.o.ds.

Thus his mind whirred as he walked, unsure in his course one moment and then confident the next, as was ever so when contemplating things that are not fully understood. So it was that he came to the Quirinal but it was not to his house in Pomegranate Street that he went but, rather, to a smaller house a couple of streets away.