Limits. It was all about limits.
Everything had a limit. You could have all the pleasure in the world, but unless someone was sharing your pleasure it was never enough. You could eat the most exotic foods the Empire had to offer and drink the finest wines, but eventually they all began to taste the same. Men had their limits. There was a limit to how fast they could run in the games, or how high they could jump. There was a limit to how much pain a man could suffer before he died; he had tested that limit often.
Even love had its limits. Drusilla loved him, he knew, and Milonia had proved her love a thousand times, but was their love everlasting? He doubted it. He had thought of testing the limits of their love in his torture chamber, but he knew that if he did he'd lose them. And who else could he trust?
None of the men in this room. Look at them, every one wearing a mask, trying to hide their fear or their hatred or their greed. Any one of them could be part of the plots against him. Perhaps he should have them all killed? It would make life so much simpler. Clearer.
He looked towards the centurion in charge of the Guard. It was the Germans today. He liked the Germans because they hated the Italians.
The soldier came at his call.
'If I wished it, would you kill every man in this room?' he said quietly.
For an instant, the centurion's eyes went wide, but the discipline that had helped him survive a hundred combats quickly took over. His hand went to his sword.
'Of course, Caesar. At your order!'
Should he? He looked over the faces. Senators and knights. Praetors and tribunes. Men who called themselves his friends and others who did not try to hide their scorn. The Judaean who had been boring him for a week about the problems of his benighted province. It would cause complications. He had another thought.
'If I ordered it, would you kill me?'
The soldier froze. What answer would he give to this unanswerable question?
He watched the man's face grow paler as the seconds passed. Tiny beads of sweat broke out upon his brow as he wrestled with the terrible implications of his next words. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish, which was amusing.
Eventually, he became bored. 'You are dismissed. We will discuss this further another time.'
He picked at the platter of food by the side of the throne. Really, it was all so tedious. Had he tasted everything there was to taste? He let the long list slide through his mind. But there was a gap. Yes, there was one type of flesh he had never tasted. The forbidden flesh. He looked up. It would be interesting, exciting even. Who would it be? The fat one at the back? The athlete fidgeting by the wall? No shortage of choice.
He pondered the question for a full minute.
No, he thought, not today.
He smiled as he learned a new truth. Even he had a limit. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed.
For a short time Rufus became an occasional guest at the Emperor's table. If he was not fouled or dirty enough when they came for him, the Praetorians would order him to rub himself down with dung gathered from the heap behind the barn.
The pattern of the evenings was always the same. The ritual humiliation of Claudius. The unbearable tension. The shocking moment of choice which reminded Rufus that slaves were not the only powerless of Rome.
He came to recognize the Emperor's favourites; the nobles who fawned over him as he raged against the mob and the 'baldheads' of the Senate he believed were working to deprive him of the money he needed to fulfil his ambitions. Chief among them were Appeles, the very young, overly powdered actor who had a laugh like a little girl, and was ever present at Caligula's side; Protogenes, his freedman and trusted adviser, unhealthily pale with a face that never smiled, who was never without the two scrolls the Emperor called his 'sword' and his 'dagger', which were said to contain enough secrets to execute a thousand men; and purple-cheeked Chaerea, the Praetorian tribune, a battle-hardened soldier with an unfortunate high-pitched voice, who had to bear being called a 'pretty wench' by his Emperor.
But, as he tired of everything else, the Emperor eventually tired of Rufus's presence. The 'invitations' stopped and he was left in peace.
When he was off duty, and they could find some quiet place where they would not be overlooked, Cupido would give Rufus the training in arms he had requested. It was a perilous business for them both. For a slave to be found with a sword in his hand on the Palatine the penalty was instant death. The man who gave him the sword would die screaming in the Emperor's torture cells. The hill was a small, compact and bustling community but the park in front of Bersheba's barn was close to the tree-lined walls and they discovered that among the trees there were suitable places to conceal their activities.
On the first day, Cupido handed Rufus a short wooden baton the approximate dimensions of a legionary gladius. 'Being so obviously harmless may not save us,' he explained. 'But at least it may make them stop and think.'
Cut, thrust, parry. Cupido began with the simplest moves, making Rufus repeat them again and again until his arms ached. 'Later we will study the more intricate manoeuvres, the feint to the groin, the backcut and the gutting stroke, but for now this will do.'
Towards the end of the session, when Rufus began to tire, the gladiator laid down his wooden sword and ordered Rufus to do the same. 'A tired man is a dead man. I can teach you to defend yourself, but what use is that if your guard drops and you offer your life to your opponent like a sacrificial goat? You are strong, but you must be stronger.' He jogged across to the stone wall and in one smooth movement flipped himself upside down, so he was standing on his hands with his feet against the wall. 'Watch and learn,' he ordered. Rufus watched the muscles in Cupido's arms bunch and the tendons in them squirm like tree roots as, with quick easy movements, he bent at the elbows then straightened a dozen times.
'Now you.'
Rufus tentatively approached the wall and clumsily copied the gladiator's position, instantly feeling the strain on his arms. Cupido bent low, so his upside down face was close. 'Ten,' he said.
'Ten?' Rufus croaked in disbelief.
'Ten, and then we work on the abdominal muscles.'
When the session was finished Rufus's arms and upper body felt as if they were on fire, and his breath came in short gasps. He started to walk towards the barn, but Cupido's remorseless voice stopped him.
'So, you can fight. But what happens when the fighting is over?'
Rufus stared at him, puzzled. 'You celebrate?'
Cupido laughed. 'You're a slave. You run.' He trotted past, whacking Rufus across the buttocks with the pretend sword. 'You run. Twenty circuits of the park. Come on. No one is going to execute us for running.'
Rufus shook his head in disbelief, but his face creased into a grin and he forced his tired body into a trot. Staying alive was going to kill him.
The more time he spent with Bersheba, the more he appreciated his enormous charge's serene acceptance of life in captivity. She was happy to accommodate his wishes — if they coincided with her own — and her few complaints were made in what he chose to believe was a spirit of fellowship. They were both in this together, she seemed to be saying; they should make the best of it.
And she had a sense of humour. It was true. She played tricks on him, hiding things when he was not looking, placing small obstacles where he would trip over them. Afterwards, she would feign innocence. He could even look back now and believe that she had been aware of exactly what she was doing when she had drenched Claudius on that fateful day.
Claudius.
Claudius the fool.
And now, Claudius the enigma.
It happened at a time when the Emperor retired to his villa in the hills above Rome to escape the savage heat that turned the city's streets into ovens.