Verica looked up, his eyes red with exhaustion. ‘I am not a fool, whatever you think. I do not trust Narcissus entirely.’ He paused and pulled a dagger from his belt, the blade glittering in the light from the flames. ‘If he betrays me I will kill him.’
XVIII
Claudius concentrated on his left leg. He could do it. If a man could rule Rome he could stop his left leg from twitching like some demented grasshopper. He chewed his lip. Was it slowing just a little?
‘Caesar?’
He looked up. It was his chamberlain. ‘Yes, Callistus?’
‘I think Senator Galba is seeking a reply.’
Galba? Of course. His mind had drifted during the man’s interminably dull monologue.
‘Perhaps Senator Galba might repeat his question, Caesar?’
‘Y-y-yes, I think that m-might be wise. C-continue, dear Galba. I was m-mesmerized b-by your eloquence.’ Pompous fool.
It was the not knowing that made it worse. He looked out over the receiving room; thirty avaricious, expectant faces, each one seeking some sort of advantage. Contracts for the great aqueduct system he had announced. A monopoly on the supply of grain from the east that would make a man rich overnight. Petitions for the advancement of their unworthy relatives. Until he received word from Narcissus he was as blind as any of these fawning parasites.
When the audience was completed he limped through the palace corridors and out into the sanctuary of the Palatine gardens. This was where he came to think, in the quiet shade of the plane trees, myrtles and cypresses, under the stern gaze of men whose fame was long forgotten, but whose images would live for ever in the marble statues that lined the paths. But not today. He hurried through the gardens and nodded to the doorkeeper who controlled access to the library. As he walked through the bronze-clad double doors into the cool of the interior he felt a guilty rush of pleasure. The atmosphere of this place always made him feel less anxious; he was soothed by the unmistakable scent of old leather and slow decay. From floor to ceiling the walls were lined with thousands of niches, each containing a tight-wrapped scroll in its leather case. Every book in the world, works in a hundred languages including some long dead, and, he guessed, barely a tenth of them opened, never mind read.
The librarian approached, pathetically grateful for his visit. Claudius named the book he had come to study, then took his seat at a desk beneath one of the vast windows that allowed the sunlight to slant into the building and gave the reader light to work until late in the afternoon. When the scrolls were placed before him, he unwrapped the first with studious care and pinned it flat.
Gaius Julius Caesar’s History of the Gallic Wars, Book V.
Lucius Domitius and Appius Claudius being consuls… An hour later, he sat lost in his thoughts, reliving what he had just read. It was the story of Caesar’s invasion of Britain ninety years before. A tale of desperate battles against savage barbarian tribes, of legions lured into cunningly devised ambushes, of epic heroism and glorious sacrifice. The history didn’t say it, but it was clear that Divine Julius had badly underestimated his enemy and that their hit-and-run tactics had rattled the legions quite badly. Overwhelming force had tipped the balance, of course, as overwhelming force always would. But still…
Caesar, naturally, pronounced it a victory. The truth was that it was the story of a failure. He had left within weeks, burdened by a few middle-ranking hostages, treasures which were quickly spent and promises that were never kept.
Claudius shivered, despite the warmth of the afternoon, and searched again for the passage that had disturbed him more than the actual tales of war. Most of the inland inhabitants do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins. All the Britons, indeed, dye themselves with wood, which occasions a bluish colour, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip. At this very moment Plautius could be at the mercy of these terrible, blue-skinned barbarians, and where would that leave Narcissus’s vain-glorious plans? Where would it leave him? His mind made a circuit of the boundaries of the Empire: across the Rhine the same tribes who had destroyed Varus lying in wait, with a sense of growing pressure beyond; Africa, quiescent for the moment but never subdued; and to the east the Dacians stirring in their mountains and their forests. Each a threat that must be faced in time. Compared to them, Britain was an irrelevance. Yet only Britain could provide him with what he needed so desperately. And it was not gold, or pearls, or slaves.
A loud sniff disturbed his contemplation, and he looked up to find a small blond boy in a short linen tunic staring at him. Agrippina’s son, Lucius, who, for reasons no one understood, must be called Nero. He glared back, wondering who had allowed the child access to the library. Of course! The palace staff went in terror of his mother, who insisted he have the run of the place. Should he smile? He didn’t particularly like children, not even his own. In general, they tended to be dirty and to die of the most unlikely diseases at the most awkward times. Still, he supposed he should try. He bared his teeth, but the boy’s expression didn’t change beyond a flicker of unease. For the briefest moment, there was something about his pale, almost colourless eyes that stirred a memory in Claudius — a sort of barren emptiness, as if the person behind those eyes were incapable of emotion. Then it was gone. He realized it was the same imperious stare he received from the statues in the gardens. He’d only seen its like once before in a living, breathing human being. Caligula. Surely it couldn’t be? But there had been rumours about Gaius and his sisters. Tales of noisy night-time visits that were, perhaps, not — quite — brotherly. But no, he was doing the boy and his mother a disservice. Any child of a sire as habitually drunken and casually vicious as Domitius Ahenobarbus would have to learn to hide his true feelings, even by the age of six — or was it five? Some men dispense death casually, almost unthinkingly. Caligula had been one. But his had been a terror born of self-preservation. Nero’s father had enjoyed cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Inflicting pain on friend and foe alike simply because he could. The boy had been very young when Ahenobarbus met his deserved end, but such a beginning would cast its own shadow. The long silence continued until he felt an urgent need to break it. But what does one say to a five-year-old boy with a stare as vacant as an empty cistern and — he shuddered in disgust — an appetite for the fruit of his own nostrils? Eventually he could take no more.
‘Come, child,’ he said as gently as he was able. ‘Sit here beside me and I will read to you. It is a story of war and glory and victory.’ He shuffled along the bench, and, to his surprise, the boy rounded the desk and scrambled up beside him, close enough for Claudius to feel the soft plumpness of his body and the warmth of his presence. With the unexpected human contact, he felt something change. He realized that for the first time in many months he didn’t feel lonely. In a firm voice, he began to read: ‘They, advancing to the river with their cavalry and chariots from the higher ground, began to annoy our men and give battle…’
Caratacus stood on the hill overlooking the broad river and watched the last of the survivors straggle across the narrow bridge of rough planks. So few. He closed his eyes and tried to still the killing rage that seethed and boiled inside him. He must stay in control. He had sent Ballan south as soon as he received news of the defeat. The Iceni had still to return, but the scale of the setback was written clearly in the demeanour of beaten men streaming past him.