Vespasian drew a deep breath and followed Gaius and many of the senators who had reached the same conclusion down the steps and towards the theatre.
Caligula stood, now silent, in the middle of the stage holding Drusilla in his arms; blood dripped from her ruptured innards into a puddle that surrounded his feet. Lying dead around them were the bodies of the men who had had the misfortune to be involved in her fatal, last appearance. Clemens and half a dozen Praetorians stood to one side with bloodied swords.
The Senior Consul led the senators down through the deserted seating towards the stage. Caligula stared at them with uncomprehending eyes; Drusilla’s head lolled from side to side over his left arm as he shook with grief.
‘Where do I go for comfort and consolation?’ Caligula suddenly shouted. ‘Where? A child may turn to its mother, a wife may turn to her husband and a man may turn to his gods; but to whom does a god turn? Answer me that, you wise and learned men of the Senate.’ He fell to his knees, splashing into the ever growing pool of blood, and broke down into sobs as he greedily kissed his dead sister’s mouth and neck.
No one in the auditorium said a word as Caligula’s ardour rose and he petted the corpse, murmuring into its unhearing ears. The shocked silence lengthened as he rolled the limp body over onto its knees. All knew he was capable of breaking any taboo — but this…this was abhorrent.
‘I command you to live,’ Caligula cried, driving himself into his lifeless sibling. ‘Live!’ Tears streamed down his face, creating flesh-coloured lines through the red stains left by his sister’s blood, as he desperately attempted to pump life back into Drusilla’s body. ‘Live! Live! Live! Live!’
With a final, desolate wail enjoining his sister to return from the shades he climaxed and collapsed forward onto the floor to lie as motionless as her corpse.
No one moved as they stared at the Emperor, who showed no sign of breathing. Vespasian felt a thrill of hope, thinking that perhaps Caligula had committed one outrage too many and the gods had tired of his existence.
But that was not to be; with a sudden violent intake of breath Caligula seemingly came back from the dead, but alone. He got to his knees and looked around blankly at his audience. After a few moments his bloodshot, sunken eyes rested on Vespasian; he smiled wildly and slowly gestured to him to step forward.
With a sinking heart Vespasian approached the stage.
Caligula slithered forward and, putting his hand on the back of Vespasian’s head, drew his face up close to his so that their foreheads touched. ‘I have nothing to console me but my own greatness, my friend,’ he hissed. ‘Do you remember how I said I would build, Vespasian?’
‘Yes, Princeps,’ Vespasian replied, standing rigid with fear, ‘you said you would build magnificently as you’ve already proved with your bridge.’
‘Indeed, but that’s just a trifling bridge. Now, in Drusilla’s memory, I shall surpass the greatest achievement ever; I shall make the bridges that both Darius and Xerxes built from Asia to Europe seem like children’s toys.’
‘I’m sure that you could, but how?’
‘I’m going to build a bridge worthy of a god. I will build one across the Bay of Neapolis, and then to show my fellow gods and all humanity that I’m the greatest leader that ever lived, I’m going to ride across it wearing the breastplate of the man I’ve surpassed: Alexander.’
‘But that’s in his mausoleum in Alexandria.’
Caligula grinned maniacally. ‘Exactly, and you want to go there, so I give you my permission, on condition that you go to the mausoleum and take Alexander’s breastplate from him. Bring it back to Rome for me.’
PART IIII
CHAPTER XVII
‘That has to be the tallest building that I’ll ever see,’ Vespasian muttered under his breath as he looked up, his eyes wide with astonishment, at the lighthouse that soared above him to over four hundred feet into the sky. He calculated that if an insula, or apartment block, back in Rome had been that tall it would have almost fifty floors and then wondered what chance Caligula’s proposed bridge had of outstripping it. He gripped the side-rail of the imperial trireme to steady himself as the ship was buffeted again by another large wave repelled by the huge mole that protected the Great Harbour of Alexandria. Fine spray flew on the salt-tanged breeze, dampening his toga and cooling his skin from the sun’s intense heat. The stroke-master’s piped beats slowed and the mainsail was furled; the voyage was nearing its end.
‘That must be the biggest fucking thing in the whole fucking world,’ Ziri said; his proficiency in Latin now matched that of his swearing. ‘I’d say that it would look big even next to the biggest mountain in the middle of the fucking desert.’
‘It must have taken some building,’ Magnus commented beside him.
Vespasian nodded. ‘Seventeen years. It was finished just over three hundred years ago. The first Ptolemy commissioned it and his son completed it. I suppose if you want to be remembered then that’s the way to do it: build something magnificent.’
‘Like Caligula’s bridge?’ Magnus asked with a smile.
‘That’ll just be remembered as a folly. I mean build something that’s of practical use to the people, then they’ll remember your name.’
‘Who built the Circus Maximus?’
Vespasian frowned and thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’
‘There you go, you see, it don’t always work.’
Vespasian looked up again at the Pharos of Alexandria, which had been growing in size all day since, while more than fifty miles out to sea, they had first spotted its light — the rays of the sun during the day or a mighty fire at night, both reflected off a huge, polished bronze mirror. It was truly magnificent: set at the eastern tip of the long, thin Island of Pharos it was built on a base, ninety feet high and three hundred and fifty feet square, constructed of granite blocks fused together by molten lead to resist the impact of the sea. The tower itself had three different sections: the first was square and just over half of the whole tower’s height, the next was octagonal, and the topmost part, in which were housed the mirror and fire, circular. The whole edifice was crowned with a giant statue of Poseidon and ornamented by four statues of Triton at each corner of the base. He could not imagine any building ever surpassing it.
‘Stop gawping, Ziri, and go and pack up our stuff,’ Magnus ordered after a few more moments of admiration. ‘We’ll be docking soon.’
‘Yes, master.’ The little Marmarides scuttled off towards their cabin in the stern of the ship.
Vespasian shouted after him: ‘And don’t forget-’
‘No, I won’t forget Sir’s fucking box,’ Ziri shouted back, cutting him off.
Vespasian looked at Magnus. ‘Do I have to put up with that sort of cheek?’
Magnus shrugged. ‘You don’t have to, you could always ask me to keep him away from you, but then, seeing as you didn’t bring a slave of your own, who would look after your needs?’
‘I can see that it’s high time that I invested in my own slaves,’ Vespasian said. Hitherto he had always relied on his parents’ or Gaius’ slaves and it had never occurred to him to purchase his own; even when he had been in Cyrenaica he had been looked after by the official slaves in the Governor’s Residence. ‘The trouble is they’re so expensive to buy and then feed.’
‘Once you’ve cashed that bankers’ draft with Thales you’ll be able to afford plenty; until then stop moaning when I lend you mine for free.’
The ship slipped through the harbour mouth and all thoughts that Vespasian had about the hideous expense of slaves were put to one side. The Great Harbour of Alexandria was built on a scale that matched the Pharos: almost two miles across and a mile and a half deep. To his right was the Heptastadion, a huge mole, seven stadia or one thousand four hundred paces long and two hundred paces wide, that joined the Island of Pharos to the mainland; beyond this, in the commercial port that was almost as vast as the Great Harbour itself, Vespasian could see the massive hulks of the grain fleet docked next to large silos. To his left was the Diabathra, a dog-legged mole, equally as long, that ran from the harbour mouth to the Temple of Artemis next to the Royal Palace of the Ptolemys on the natural shoreline. Between these two mammoth man-made sea defences the waterfront was lined with buildings that rivalled in grandeur even those of Rome. At the waterfront’s central point, on the tip of a small promontory, stood the colonnaded Timonium, built by Marcus Antonius after his defeat at Actium by Augustus. West of this, extending to the Heptastadion, were the jetties and quays of the military port. Here the massed triremes, quadremes and quinqueremes of the Alexandrian fleet bobbed at their moorings, looking clean and pristine after their recent winter refits. The sun glinted off their half-submerged bronze-plated rams and picked out the innumerable tiny figures toiling on their decks. Speckled around the three square miles of the harbour were a plethora of other, smaller craft, with bulging triangular sails and escorts of cawing seagulls, going about their daily routine, whether as lighters, ferries or fishermen, and adding to Vespasian’s impression that he was entering the busiest and grandest port in the world.