Corbulo walked in and with a brief glance at Magnus moved past him, removed his loincloth, hung it on a peg and perched on the hole to the other side of Vespasian. His relief was loud and almost instantaneous.
‘This is more than I bargained for, Vespasian,’ Corbulo asserted once he felt eased. ‘I came here to witness a conversation, not to get involved in high politics.’
‘No, Corbulo, you came here to repay a debt. If anything you should be thanking me because with the praetor elections only a few days away you’re now involved with the Senior Consul whose opinion will count for a lot in the Senate. Perhaps you’ll get in this year; you might even beat my brother in the poll.’
‘I’ve worked that out for myself; and of course someone from my family should always beat a New Man like Sabinus,’ Corbulo replied tersely. ‘What concerns me, though, is that if Antonia puts a stop to this, five important people are going to be seriously upset.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Macro and Herod will lose the chance of real power, Claudius will lose a lot of money, Poppaeus will lose a lot of money and the chance of some power, and Caligula will lose face for being stupid enough to let this come about in the first place.’
Vespasian thought for a moment and realised that he was right.
‘And if they all find out that you brought this to Antonia’s attention,’ Corbulo continued, ‘and that I assisted you, then I really would have some enemies.’
‘What did I tell you, sir?’ Magnus said smugly. ‘Keep clear of imperial politics.’
‘Oh shut up and pass me the bucket.’
Vespasian pulled a stick, with a sponge attached, out of the bucket full of clear water; flicking away the excess liquid he squatted and began to sponge himself clean. ‘Caligula won’t hold it against us, surely? We’re helping to save him from a terrible mistake.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Corbulo agreed as Vespasian dunked the sponge back in the bucket and swirled it round, cleaning it. ‘And for Rome’s sake it needs to be done, we can all see that; but will Caligula?’
‘Of course he will.’ Vespasian tied on his loincloth while Magnus took his turn with the sponge.
‘Or will he see it as an interference with his plans for when he becomes emperor? Emperors can’t be seen to make mistakes, so do you think that we would stand a chance of preferment during his reign if he knows that we’ve helped bring to light one of the biggest he’s ever likely to make?’
‘He’s got a very good point there, sir,’ Magnus said, giving himself a final scrub. ‘Even if you consider Caligula to be a friend now, when he’s the Emperor you might find yourself being an unwelcome reminder of past errors of judgement.’
‘There, Vespasian, even your man has the wit to see that.’
Magnus picked up the bucket and banged it down at Corbulo’s feet so that the now murky water slopped onto his slippers. ‘Sponge, Corbulo?’ he asked politely, handing him the unwashed implement.
‘All of us are agreed that we must put a stop to Macro’s scheme,’ Antonia announced once they were all assembled again in her room. ‘The question facing us is how to do it with the least damage to my interests.’
The three men stared at her. Only Asiaticus had the courage to ask what they were all thinking. ‘Surely you mean Rome’s interests, Lady?’
‘That is the same thing, Consul. I’ll be blunt with you; for the past few years I have been the only person who has stood between a reasonably stable government and a return to civil war. With Tiberius away and out of touch in his own world on Capraea it has fallen to me to play the various factions in the Senate off against each other, ensuring that none ever gets too powerful. It fell to me to deal with Sejanus because Tiberius was blind to his machinations and the Senate was too scared to face up to him.’
Asiaticus went to protest.
‘Spare me your arguments, Consul; you were there in the Temple of Apollo when the Senate met believing that they were going to be asked to vote tribunician power to Sejanus. Tell me, if Tiberius’ letter had asked for that then what would have been the result of the vote?’
Asiaticus pursed his lips. ‘It would have been unanimous,’ he admitted.
‘Yes, because every senator there would have been too frightened to be seen to vote against it. Only those who had “accidentally” forgotten about the vote and gone instead to their country estates or those who’d had the misfortune to eat a bad prawn the evening before would have been spared having to make such a tricky decision.’
Corbulo bridled at the remark, much to Vespasian’s amusement; it had been the excuse that he had used to absent himself from that meeting.
‘I take your point, Lady,’ Asiaticus conceded.
‘I mean no disrespect to you personally, Consul, I am just stating the facts as they are and this being the case it is vital that I can still play a leading part in the politics of Rome once my brother-in-law is dead; either through one of my grandsons, Gaius or Gemellus, or through my son Claudius — an option that I am now coming to consider.’ She paused, enjoying the astounded look on her guests’ faces. ‘But I shall come to that. First let us consider the way to put a halt immediately to Macro’s plans without him suspecting that I’m behind it, because if he does then he will act like a cornered beast and both Tiberius and I would be dead before the month is out. If I interfere with Claudius’ and Narcissus’ plans to sell the deeds, he’ll be suspicious; likewise if I get Gaius to withdraw his promise, Macro is bound to see my hand behind it. So what to do?’
‘Remove him, as you did Sejanus, Lady,’ Asiaticus suggested.
‘I have already taken my first steps along that path. Unfortunately it will be a long journey unless I have him assassinated, which I dare not do for fear of an uprising by the Praetorian Guard who are, as you know, very loyal to him and would see it as an attack on the position that they hold in Rome.’
‘Remove Poppaeus, domina,’ Corbulo said with a vengeful glint in his eye, ‘without him there is no money.’
‘Yes, but how? If I have treason charges brought against him I will alert Macro to the fact that I know what he’s planning.’
‘Then have him murdered,’ Vespasian said, hardly believing that he was suggesting such a thing; how long had it taken him to go from taking bribes to suggesting murder?
‘That would have the same effect as the previous suggestion,’ Antonia said dismissively.
‘Not if it were made to look like he died of natural causes, domina.’
Antonia looked at him; a smile slowly spread across her lips. ‘Well done, Vespasian; that would work. If he just drops down dead Macro will simply have to accept it as bad luck and will have to start looking for another rich and treacherous sponsor, which could take months, even years. That is very clever.’
‘But how could we achieve that and who would do it?’ Asiaticus asked, evidently unconvinced. ‘It’s not as if we could get someone into his house and smother him in his bed, there’d be too many people in his household to get past.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Corbulo offered in a low voice. ‘I know that it’s not an honourable way to kill a fellow senator but the way he tried to have me killed was even less honourable, so if this is my only chance for revenge, I’ll take it.’
Vespasian knew that he would never feel comfortable looking Corbulo in the eye again if, having suggested such an unworthy way of killing their mutual enemy, he did not share in the deed. ‘And I’ll help you, Corbulo,’ he said with a sinking heart. It grieved him that all the high ideals that he had felt when first entering Rome, almost ten years previously, should have come down to this. He realised, in that moment, that there was nothing that he would not do to keep his vision of Rome alight — a Rome ruled with honour, free from the civil wars that brought an end to the Republic. And yet here he was offering to protect that vision with murder; how his grandmother, Tertulla, would laugh if she could see him now, he mused.