To give him his due, Bathyllus didn’t blink. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell him I know why he had to kill Sextus Papinius. And tell him I want to speak to that slimy bastard Felix as soon as he can get his duplicitous arse over here. Exact words, please.’
‘Yes, sir. Although the messenger may have problems with “duplicitous”.’
‘My heart bleeds. Do it, sunshine.’
He left.
Meanwhile I’d go on up to the Esquiline to talk to Carsidius. If Felix arrived before I’d got back then tough cheese. Let the bastard twiddle his thumbs and sweat.
31
By the time I’d reached Carsidius’s I’d realised what the itch in my brain had been trying to tell me, and the last bit of the mosaic was in place.
Carsidius wasn’t going to like it. I didn’t much like it myself.
He was at home. Mind you, I’d spotted three or four unconvincing loungers across the street who looked hard and mean enough to have filled the same number of sets of Praetorian armour no problem, so maybe he didn’t have much option. If Macro — and my old pal Felix — were anything, they were thorough. Carsidius, like Fregellanus, wasn’t going nowhere.
A scared-faced slave showed me through to the guy’s study, where we’d talked first time round. He was lying on the reading-couch with an open book-roll in his hands, and he looked like death warmed up.
‘Ah, Valerius Corvinus.’ He grinned like a skull. ‘I won’t say “welcome”, because you’re not, or not particularly. But you don’t come entirely unexpected, and in a way I’m glad of the chance to talk to you again. Our last conversation left a bad taste in my mouth. Sit down, please. Flavius’ — to the slave — ‘some wine. We may as well be civilised about this.’ The slave bowed nervously and left. Carsidius held up the book-roll, then laid it aside. ‘Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods. A great man, a true Roman and a fine writer. I find he has a steadying effect. Now. Would you like to start, or shall I?’
‘You were involved in a plot to assassinate Gaius Caesar and Sertorius Macro,’ I said. ‘The other conspirators were Lucia Albucilla, Acutia, Pontius Fregellanus, Laelius Balbus, Domitius Ahenobarbus and Sextus Papinius. Fregellanus’s job was to assassinate Macro, Papinius was to kill Gaius the next time he visited the Greens’ stables. How am I doing?’
Carsidius had heard me out impassively. He nodded. ‘All quite correct,’ he said. ‘I’m impressed. Incidentally, that latter opportunity would have occurred within the month. Gaius is in a very difficult position, you see: he has to be at the emperor’s bedside on Capri in case Tiberius dies, and yet he can’t leave Rome — and Sertorius Macro — unsupervised for too long. So he has to shuttle back and forth.’
‘Gaius would’ve had a bodyguard. Papinius was just a kid. How would he do it?’
‘You mean there’s something you don’t know?’ I waited. ‘Very well. You remember the story of Pelops and Oenomaeus, of course?’
‘Ah…’ Shit. ‘Remind me.’
Carsidius chuckled: coming from that mouth, the sound was like a death rattle. ‘Really, Corvinus, I’m shocked. Didn’t you learn anything at school? To win King Oenomaeus’s daughter Hippodameia, any prospective suitor had to beat him in a chariot race. Hippodameia fell in love with Pelops and persuaded her father’s groom to substitute lynch-pins made of wax for the real ones. The wheels came off Oenomaus’s chariot at full gallop and he was killed.’
Right. Clever. A good classical education is never wasted. ‘So Papinius was going to sabotage one of the cars.’ I said. ‘How would he know Gaius would play ball?’
‘Oh, Gaius always takes a turn round the practice course when he visits the Greens, and he always uses the lead driver’s team and chariot. It wouldn’t have been difficult for the young man to arrange things in advance. He was trusted completely, and he’d had the run of the stables unsupervised since he was a child. That was why he was so essential to the plan. Papinius was unique, perfect. If he hadn’t existed, or if he had not been the true, patriotic Roman that he was, our task would have been much more difficult. That’s what I meant by the bad taste. To protect myself — or rather others far more important than I–I had to slander him to you, and I found it repugnant in the extreme. I ask his soul’s forgiveness.’
‘You couldn’t be sure that Gaius would actually be killed.’
‘No. But the way the Prince drives…Well, let’s just say that it would have been a miracle if he’d survived. Gaius has never lost the child’s ambition to be a racing driver, and indulges it to the full whenever he can. Besides, as you’ll appreciate, a staged accident gave us a far better chance of success than a more direct approach would have done.’
Yeah, well, that was true enough. As a common-or-garden assassin an inexperienced kid like Papinius wouldn’t’ve had a hope in hell of killing Gaius. Stilclass="underline" ‘Even if you did succeed you’d never have got away with it. There’d still be an enquiry.’
‘Would there? Who would authorise it? Who would care? By that time Macro would be dead too. The assassinations were to be simultaneous, or as near so as possible.’
‘Tiberius would still be alive. The Wart may be on his last legs, but he wouldn’t ignore the killing of his heir, and he’s no one’s fool. He’d find out it was murder, and you and your pals would be up shit creek without a paddle before you could whistle.’
Carsidius got off the couch. Like I said, he was an impressive guy, tall, silver-haired, straight as a ramrod, and he was looking down at me like I’d just scuttled out of his salad.
‘You think, then,’ he said, ‘that Tiberius didn’t know?’
It was like being slugged in the brain with an iron bar. I gaped at him, and the silence lengthened. He moved over to stand beside the shelf of portrait busts, and I could see the physical resemblance: strong jaw, firm mouth, straight aristocratic nose.
Oh, Jupiter! Oh, sweet holy Jupiter!
‘You’re telling me he did?’ I said at last.
‘Not just that. The plan was Tiberius’s own, right from the start. I told you when we talked before: I’m no traitor and I’ve always been a faithful servant of the emperor. The same goes for the others, the men, anyway.’ He frowned. ‘Do you think I, or Fregellanus, or Balbus, or even Ahenobarbus for all his moral shortcomings, would ever dare consider killing the legitimate heir except on explicit orders from Tiberius himself? Let alone Sextus Papinius, who was one of the bravest and most honourable young men I have ever known.’
Gods, this made no sense! Or maybe it did, and I didn’t want it to. ‘Tiberius wanted Gaius dead?’ I said. ‘His own fucking successor?’
‘Tiberius hated Gaius and dreaded his becoming emperor. You know that yourself from your own conversation with him five years ago.’ Carsidius smiled; again the effect was ghastly. ‘Oh, yes. He told me about that, when we discussed things and I put that very question to him. “Ask Valerius Corvinus”, he said. “When it’s all over, naturally. Remind him of Thrasyllus’s forecast and what I said to him about the consequences to Rome of destroying Sejanus.” Well, it is all over, bar the shouting, although not as the emperor hoped, and I am asking you.’
Shit. I felt sick. If I’d thought the guy was lying, or been hoodwinked somehow — and the thought had crossed my mind — then I’d no doubts now. That part of it he couldn’t’ve known except from the Wart himself, because I’d never, ever spoken to anyone about what had been said in that loggia on Capri. Not even to Perilla.
Still, you don’t buck a direct order from the emperor. That was the whole point of this business.
‘He told me,’ I said, ‘that Thrasyllus had predicted that Gaius would be the next emperor. And what kind of emperor he would be. He said that if the choice had been his, even knowing what kind of man Sejanus was and what crimes he’d committed, he would’ve chosen him over his grandson, or let his plots go unhindered. For the good of Rome.’