Vespasian pointed at Ziri. ‘What’s he doing helping?’
‘He insisted; showed me where to look, as a matter of fact,’ Magnus replied as they put the chest down next to a pile of valuables retrieved from the tent; two keys were tied to a handle.
‘Yes, that is mine,’ Capella confirmed.
‘How can you prove it?’ Corvinus asked him, as Vespasian bent down and untied the keys.
‘That’s simple. I could tell you what’s in there and then let you open it, but I don’t think you’ll thank me if I did.’
Vespasian slipped the keys into the locks at either end of the chest. ‘Why not?’
‘Because the chest may be mine but the contents belong to my patron. I’d completed his business here in Siwa and was on my way back to Cyrene when the Marmaridae caught me. If my patron were to find out that you’d seen what I’m carrying for him, he would be obliged to kill you.’
Vespasian looked at Magnus. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think that it depends on who his patron is.’
Capella nodded his approval. ‘Your man is very wise, Vespasian; it’s always best to keep out of imperial politics, if you can avoid it. My patron is — how should I put it? — almost at the top of the imperial tree.’
Vespasian took the keys out of the locks.
Dawn was breaking and Vespasian surveyed the camp; the townsmen and released captives had worked hard overnight. All trace of the burned tents and dead bodies had been buried; areas of damper sand marked the positions of the pits, but they would soon dry out.
Everything salvageable had been loaded onto the camels and the hundred or so slaves had been roped into lines with their hands tied behind their backs. The freed captives and the townsfolk had formed up into a rough column; they were ready to move back to the town.
‘Lead off, Corvinus,’ Vespasian ordered.
With a sharp word of command from their prefect the auxiliaries leading the column moved forward.
‘Let’s hope that the Marmaridae come to the conclusion that their caravan was buried by the sandstorm in the desert and not by those townspeople in this place,’ Vespasian said to Magnus as they watched the column shamble forward, ‘otherwise they’ll be in the shit.’
Magnus shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’ll teach them to observe the laws of hospitality in future instead of getting their guests drunk and then selling them.’
‘Well, they’ll have all those slaves to sell next time the Marmaridae come calling; by rights I should try and reunite them with their owners but I think that would be virtually impossible, so I’ve given them to the townspeople in exchange for everything that we need to get back across the desert.’
‘I take it that you had a successful little chat with Capella, seeing as he seems to be coming with us.’
‘Yes, very successful, thank you.’
‘And?’
‘And he said that his patron would reimburse the loss to the province.’
‘And?’
‘And that he would let me have Flavia, if I asked her myself; and she so wished.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘Yes.’
Magnus started laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Vespasian asked, annoyed.
‘He’s sharp, that one.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’ll bet he said: take her if she wants to go, she costs me a fortune and I’m getting bored with her.’
‘Words along those lines, yes,’ Vespasian admitted, taken aback by the accuracy of Magnus’ guess.
‘You’ve been had.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You should have made him swear to repudiate her, then she wouldn’t have had much choice but to go with you or find herself alone in a strange province without anyone to protect her. Whereas what he’s done is say: go and ask her, I don’t care.’
‘And I will,’ Vespasian asserted through gritted teeth.
‘Come on, sir, don’t you get it? She’s going to take one look at you, a quaestor in one of the least prestigious provinces in the whole Empire, who’ll be lucky to finish his term with enough cash to keep a woman like her in jewellery and perfume for the next couple of years; and then she’ll look at her rich man who has the contract to supply wild animals to the circuses in Africa, probably owns his own ship and has contacts in high places. What is she going to decide?’
‘I am wealthy, I’ve got my estates.’
‘Yes, but that money is tied up in land, mules and slaves. She’s not going to want to go to the jewellers with you dragging a braying mule behind you to pay with, is she? Nor is she going to want to live on the estates surrounded by bumpkins; she’ll want a fine house on the Esquiline.’
‘I’ve got cash,’ Vespasian almost shouted; his voice had gone up in tone.
‘Not as much as Capella.’
Vespasian opened his mouth and then realised that it was futile to argue; Magnus was right. He put a hand to his forehead, massaging it for a few moments. ‘He’s offered me the chance to have her, knowing that she’ll say no; his obligation to me is then discharged without costing him a copper coin. Brilliant!’
‘I’d say so.’
‘The clever bastard; and I can’t now go back on the agreement we made.’ Trying but failing to hide the embarrassment that he felt for being so duped, he strode off, leaving Magnus with an amused look on his face.
Walking briskly up the column as it entered the palm forest, Vespasian reflected upon his naivety. He had been carried away by his own self-importance in everything that he had done since meeting Flavia, thinking that he was acting in his own interests; whereas he now realised that it had been Capella, a man older and cannier than he, who had played him all along. Now Capella was to deny him the prize that he had used to tempt him: Flavia.
Capella had been right: he was here solely to impress her.
He remembered his last conversations with his grandmother, Tertulla, and knew that she would be horrified at his recent behaviour. He had not been following an instinct in his heart that he deemed to be right but had been acting upon a base desire, using his power in an immature and rash way solely for his own ends, and all those men had died because of his arrogance. He had forgotten the ideals that he had espoused when he had beheld Rome for the first time — back when he had felt it wrong even to take a bribe — and he was heartily ashamed.
‘Quaestor!’ a voice from the heart of the column called, bringing Vespasian out of his damning introspection.
Vespasian turned to see a man in his early thirties push his way towards him through the ex-captives. ‘What is it?’ he asked, pleased to turn his mind to other things.
‘Firstly I must thank you for saving us from a living death in the desert,’ the man said as he fell into step beside him.
‘You should thank the men who died in doing so; not me,’ Vespasian responded, looking side-on at the man; judging from his features and headdress Vespasian supposed him to be Jewish.
‘It is the mark of a compassionate man to give such an answer,’ the Jew replied. ‘However, you led them to our rescue when you could have just remained in Cyrene and left us to our fate.’
‘If only you knew the truth of the matter,’ Vespasian said, almost to himself.
‘Whatever the truth may be it cannot change the fact that you are responsible for our freedom, so all the people here are in your debt; I for one will never forget that.’
Vespasian grunted his acknowledgement. ‘And secondly?’
The Jew looked at him quizzically. ‘What?’
‘You said “firstly”, so I assume that there’ll be a “secondly”.’
The Jew carried on staring at him for a few paces as they walked along. ‘Forgive me for asking, quaestor, but you look very much like a man I met in Judaea, a good man: Titus Flavius Sabinus.’
‘He’s my elder brother,’ Vespasian confirmed, wiping the sweat from his brow as the sun and the temperature both rose higher.
‘Then I am doubly in your debt because he hastened the death of a kinsman of mine on the cross; he had his centurion finish him cleanly with a spear rather than break his legs and let him die in agony. He then returned the body to us.’