He expected to be taken directly to the animal enclosures close to the Circus Maximus, so he was surprised when the two men led him into the centre of the city, to the towering imperial palace complex on the Palatine Hill.
He knew he should be frightened, and was surprised to discover his emotions were mixed and his mind was clear. The sorrow he felt at what was lost stayed with him, but it was balanced by the pragmatism which had carried him unharmed through a lifetime of bondage. A slave must obey. Slaves who thought too much, or forgot that fundamental rule, disappeared into the quarries or the mines. He would obey. He would survive. Each step he took towards his new home was also a step closer to Cupido, and he knew instinctively that if they were both in the palace they would find each other. Then there was a third feeling, buried deep, but powerful just the same. Excitement. He was entering a new world and his life was changing for ever.
As he walked, his eyes were drawn to the fine-detailed glory of the great temples and palaces. From afar, the Palatine looked as if it must sink under the weight of the huge buildings upon it. But when they had climbed the hill, Rufus discovered that for every palace, there was a park, and for every temple a beautiful garden. It was a paradise. A home for the kings and gods who ruled over everything below them.
The escort took him through one of the palaces, along a wide marble corridor lined with ornaments cast in gold and silver, marble busts of Hercules and Apollo, Artemis and Hermes, and painted likenesses of past emperors. Beneath his feet beautiful pictures of red, blue and ochre were woven in stone across every inch of floor. But his eventual destination was no palace.
The barn was set close to the outer wall of the Palatine next to a park which had been created when Tiberius demolished the homes of two allies who forgot the simple truth that the friendship of an Emperor had the longevity of a sacrificial chicken. It had two large double doors to the front, but his escort led Rufus to a single small doorway set in the far wall, opened it with a large key, and pushed him inside.
'This will be your new charge. Your duties begin immediately.'
The interior was pitch black and filled with an animal smell like no other he had experienced. At first, Rufus didn't dare move. He sensed rather than saw the beast whose living space he now shared; a vast still presence identified only by the sound of easy breathing. Without warning, a powerful, python-like appendage swung out of the darkness and, with incredible tenderness, touched him on the forehead. He looked up into two of the most intelligent brown eyes he had ever seen.
It was not until he opened the main doors that Rufus appreciated the true scale of the animal. As broad in the chest as a four-wheeled cart, the Emperor's elephant towered over him, her vast bulk blocking out the sun. Her? Yes. Something about the way she stood and in the way she greeted him convinced him this was a female. She was large enough to strike terror in the bravest of men, but Rufus did not feel threatened. Fate had led him here. He had nothing to fear.
The elephant was tethered in her pen by a heavy chain wrapped round her rear left leg. It was just long enough to give her access to a large basket of hay hanging from one of the roof beams of the barn. A stone cistern filled with water stood in one corner.
He studied her closely. She had thick, wrinkled skin of a uniform, dull grey-brown, covered in stiff bristles. From the sides of her massive head, two huge ears flapped like giant fans. Long, yellowing tusks jutted from either side of a small mouth. His experience with other animals told him she was in good condition. The reason soon became apparent.
From behind a partition at the rear of the building emerged a skeleton-thin slave with skin so black it was almost purple. He carried a basket of rotting fruit, the scent of which quickly attracted the elephant's attention.
The dark man grinned, showing a mouth containing a few broken teeth. He offered the basket to the elephant. She ran the end of her trunk delicately over the individual fruits within, and, having made her selection, curled it like a hand round a bruised red apple and with infinite skill swung it into her mouth. The black slave placed the basket carefully in front of his charge, and he and Rufus sat in comfortable silence until she had finished everything inside. The tip of the trunk made one last circle round the bottom of the empty basket with a snuffling sound, then picked it up and threw it accurately at Rufus's companion, who caught it and shook his head.
'No more today. It is enough,' he said in a Latin so heavily accented that Rufus could barely make out the words.
Rufus learned that the little man was Varro, from an African province whose name made him none the wiser concerning its whereabouts. He had helped the beast's handler look after her until the man had died. Since then, Varro had been left to cope with the animal on his own, and had taken to hiding away whenever one of the Emperor's servants came near.
'And the elephant, what is her name?' Rufus asked.
'She is called Bersheba,' said the little man. 'It is a great name in her country.'
'Yes,' agreed Rufus solemnly. 'It is a great name.'
Bersheba lifted her trunk and sniffed the air, at the same time emitting a grunt from deep in her chest. When he heard her Varro stared at Rufus, eyes wide, and scuttled behind the partition to the rear of the barn.
The rhythmic clink of armour told Rufus he had visitors. He took a deep breath and stepped out into the sunlight. To meet his Emperor.
XIII
The young man who looked at him curiously from between twin armed guards could have been any other pampered aristocrat from a provincial city. Caligula, still a month short of his twenty-seventh birthday, had ruled Rome for almost two years. Dressed in a simple white toga with a single broad purple stripe, he was at least six inches taller than Rufus. He had the heavy chest and broad shoulders of a trained athlete, but his head was perched on a neck that seemed unnaturally long and his complexion had a sickly sheen. There was a softness, too, to his features, that was somehow childlike. Had Rufus not witnessed the horrors and heard the many stories, he might have been lulled into believing this smiling young man was showing a paternal interest in his latest acquisition. But he had witnessed, and he had heard, and it made him aware, aware that the smile never touched the dull, translucent blue eyes. And that the interest was that of a collector studying his latest specimen. Or of an executioner measuring his victim for a shroud.
'Is this our animal trainer? He looks too young.' The voice that had ordered a thousand executions should have dripped venom and clouded the air with sulphur. Instead, the Emperor's tone was conversational.
'I gave Sohaemus half of Arabia and he gave me an elephant. What do I want with an elephant? It's not even a war elephant — the brute's been kept as a pet. I can't put it into the arena. Look what happened when Pompey did it. It ruined his reputation. What do you do with an elephant?'
The unblinking eyes never left Rufus and he realized he was expected to answer. He opened his mouth, his mind blank, but, before he could speak, the Emperor answered his own question with a short laugh.
'You teach it to do tricks, of course. I have plenty of people who can do tricks, but somehow the tricks always lose their attraction, and you have to find new people to do new tricks. Then the same thing happens and suddenly you find you've run out of people who can make you laugh.
'The same happens with animals,' he continued, eyes fixed wistfully on some distant spot. 'Dogs, bears, lions and horses. I've seen every trick they can do, but they all become boring in the end and you have to get rid of them.' The pale eyes re-focused on Rufus. 'But an elephant? Now an elephant that could do tricks would be impressive, don't you think?' He ran his eyes appreciatively over Bersheba's huge bulk. 'Can you teach an elephant to do tricks, boy? They think you're a sorcerer, you know, those people you work with. That old fart of an owner didn't want to part with you. Might have lost his head for trying to keep you. Didn't kill him, though. You can't just kill everybody. Had to give him a contract to supply animals to the Maximus. So you'd better be able to teach an elephant tricks. You have a month.' He gave a curt nod and walked away towards the palace, his guards in his wake.