‘By the gods, what an end to make. You may think differently now, but you will learn in time that a hand is a small price to pay for having been present. Suetonius was wrong, though, to take such a terrible retribution. I am not too old to learn from his dispositions, but I know that a general, or a politician for that matter, cannot be motivated by anger or hatred. He should have made an example of the woman and her chieftains, enslaved a few hundred noblemen and kept the rest happy by parcelling out the confiscated lands among them. Now, tell me again about the last battle. The slope was where…’
By the time they reached Vindobona, Valerius had fought the last battle until he was ready to jump overboard and take his chances in the river. It was a hasty farewell, delayed only by the legate’s obvious reluctance to be abandoned.
‘Do not forget my offer, Valerius,’ he reminded him, offering his hand. ‘We would do very well together, you and I, and they tell me that Africa is not such a bad place. Rich, but quiet, and the women are willing and beautiful. By the end you might well have a legion. An African legion, but still a legion. Think on it.’
Valerius said he would, reflecting that a great many people seemed to be tempting him with a legionary command. They agreed to meet in Rome before Vitellius left for his province.
As they rode out of the city he felt Serpentius studying him. ‘What is it?’
The Spaniard shrugged. ‘I was just thinking you got on very well with the general considering he tried to get us killed.’
Valerius laughed. ‘Isn’t that what every general does? You can’t fight them all.’
Serpentius grinned and they kicked their horses on, towards the great wall of white-tipped peaks to the south. To Rome, and Nero — and a stark choice.
XXVI
It was strange, this sensation of being one of the walking dead. He could almost feel the executioner’s breath on the back of his neck. Of course, nothing was certain in Nero’s world, but there was no denying he had failed, and in Nero’s world death would always be a potential consequence of failure.
On his return to Rome, Valerius had spent a few minutes with his sister before dropping into his bed, exhausted after four days in the saddle. Julia was nowhere to be seen, but he sensed an unease among his household staff that might have been prompted by Olivia’s condition. She had made little progress and it was clear that if he didn’t track down the Judaean healer soon it might be too late. When he woke next day he decided against going directly to the palace, but rather to test the political temperature with Fabia first. The beautiful courtesan welcomed him with an embrace that almost crushed his ribs and a kiss that didn’t seem respectable at that hour of the morning.
‘You must never leave me for so long again,’ she scolded, making him feel guilty the way only a woman can. Vitellius’s suggestion intrigued her. ‘He has powerful friends and it is a good offer. You could be a combination of general, administrator and politician, thus satisfying your own ambitions and your father’s.’
Valerius nodded. ‘But before I give him his answer I have to survive, and that seems less likely with every passing day.’ She turned pale as he told her about the mountain ambush in Moesia and the trap the legate had set for him.
‘You must be careful, Valerius. If you have truly made an enemy of Nero you will never be safe.’
‘If it is Nero then I am already dead, and there is little point in worrying about it. I will put my affairs in order and act as if every day is my last. But if it is not, then I need to find out who it is and why. I don’t trust Torquatus, but I can’t see why he would want me killed. If Cornelius Sulla had still been alive I might have suspected him, but…’
‘Rome still whispers of Cornelius’s execution,’ Fabia said. ‘The Emperor went too far. The rest were slaves and criminals but Cornelius was born a Roman citizen and a patrician. To put him to death without trial, and in such a fashion, went against everything the Empire stands for. If it can happen to Cornelius then no one can feel safe.’
‘Publius Sulla hinted that Nero had a Christus follower at the very heart of his court. These people operate in the shadows, but they are not solitary. Their worship is a communal affair. Whoever it is must have the freedom to come and go from the palace — unless they used Cornelius as a channel to Petrus. It’s possible that is why he took the risk of meeting Lucina. I need to find out who of the inner circle was most friendly with Cornelius.’
‘And you want me to help you? Of course I will try, but it sounds so unlikely. You have experience of palace occasions, but you cannot imagine how suffocating it is to be part of Nero’s inner circle.’
‘You were part of it,’ he pointed out.
A shadow fell over the sapphire eyes. ‘Oh, Valerius, you can be so naive. The reality is that I was nothing more than an object to be used and discarded. I neither listened nor spoke, because to do so would have put my life at risk. I played my part in their little games and left.’
‘But you know who they are?’
Fabia nodded. ‘Too many to make your task simple. Cornelius made himself accommodating to many. Torquatus for one. Epaphradotus, the Emperor’s secretary, for another. Poppaea’s ladies in waiting. Menecrates, the harper, and Spicillus, who is the new darling of the arena, are the latest targets of Nero’s affections. Cornelius was close to both. Any one of them could be a candidate for your Christus follower, but after what happened to Cornelius they are even less likely to stand on the rostrum and shout about it. If you are right and it was one of them who tried to engineer your death they would have to feel very secure.’
‘Someone like Torquatus?’
Fabia laughed bitterly. ‘I cannot think of anyone less likely to be seduced by the rantings of some obscure Judaean mystic than Decimus Torquatus.’
‘I would never have suspected Cornelius,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Not Torquatus.’
He studied her. She seemed very certain and he wondered why. Fabia had always been well informed about what happened on the Palatine. When he’d occasionally asked where she’d heard some of the things she told him she’d passed it off as malicious pillow talk, but, when he thought back, there had been times when he’d wondered how she could know quite so much. Still, every detail could help him understand the nature of the threat against him. ‘I can’t delay reporting to the Emperor any longer. Tell me what has been happening at the palace while I’ve been gone.’
When she sulked she looked like a little girl. ‘Always business these days, Valerius. You must come for a little relaxation soon. Galba is still out of favour…’
He left twenty minutes later and made his way through the Forum to the Palatine. The day had started bright, but while he was with Fabia grey thunderclouds had gathered low above the city, piled up like untidy pyramids over the rumpled expanse of ochre, white and gold that was Rome. The gloom cast by the clouds suited his mood. Here in the monster’s shadow his Stoic acceptance of his fate was exposed for the sham it was.
Six stony-faced palace guards who collected him at the summit of the Clivus Palatinus appeared to confirm his intuition. The soldiers escorted him down a set of steep steps to a marble-lined tunnel that cut beneath the palaces and the gardens. It was long and curved and floored with beautiful mosaics, with curtained alcoves set at intervals along its length. The alcoves contained the usual gilded collection of emperors, generals and gods, and it wasn’t until he noticed the long neck and soft, boyish features of one of these figures that he realized this must be the passageway where Caligula had been assassinated by men just like his escort. The thought sent a shiver through him. It seemed an unlikely place for such an act of savagery, but it would take only a single word of command and he would follow the former Emperor to the otherworld in a blizzard of swords. He was sweating by the time a second set of steps took them back into the open at the southern edge of the hill. Once, ordinary men had lived here, if you could call men whose names rang down through the ages, like Cicero and Catulus, Marcus Antonius and Quintus Hortensius, ordinary. Their mansions had originally lined the hilltop, but they had been driven out by money and power and by death. Every man had to die, but of all the men he had named only one had died in his bed.