Flavia led him down the corridor to the next room; it was unguarded. She opened the door and ushered Vespasian inside; again it was dimly lit by a single lamp. He crossed the floor to a small bed on the far side beneath a shuttered window and with a fluttering within his chest beheld his daughter for the first time. Born soon after he had left Rome, Domitilla was now almost six; she lay on her back sleeping with the serenity that only a young child can. One arm was draped above her head, entangled in her long brown hair, and the other dangled off the side of the bed; her head was tilted to one side so that it faced Vespasian and he saw that she was beautiful. She had inherited her mother’s features; Vespasian could not help but wish that she would not also share her mother’s taste for the finer things in life but knew that to be a forlorn hope, given the comfort she was already used to. As this thought went through his mind, Domitilla stirred in her sleep and opened her eyes, looking directly into Vespasian’s; for a moment she held his gaze and then smiled at him before turning over and resuming her soft, rhythmic breaths. Vespasian could not be sure if she had actually seen him, having been so deeply asleep, but he had seen her eyes and he was smitten. It was with abundant joy that he kissed his daughter for the first time and then followed Flavia from the room.
‘And now, Vespasian,’ Flavia said as she closed the door, ‘it’s time for you to remind me again what it’s like to have a husband at home.’
Vespasian acquiesced with a grin and took her by the hand. Having seen his children, he was feeling very affectionately disposed towards his wife.
*
The dawn was warm and resounded in birdsong. Vespasian looked down from his bedroom window into a garden at the heart of the palace complex, surrounded by a colonnade crowned by a sloping terracotta-tiled roof, still damp after a light, nocturnal summer rain. Within the garden, slaves were moving around, watering the plants and bushes and preparing the lush oasis for Rome’s élite to use.
There was a knock on the door and Vespasian glanced down at Flavia, still asleep in the bed; she did not stir. ‘Enter.’
Two female slaves stepped into the room with their heads bowed; the younger one had a robe draped over one arm and held a pair of slippers.
‘What is it?’
The elder of the two, a dumpy woman in her thirties with the vague hint of a moustache, raised her eyes. ‘We’ve come to attend to the mistress, master; she asked to be wakened at dawn.’
Flavia opened an eye and let out a contented sigh as she focused on Vespasian. ‘Good morning, husband.’ She then noticed the two slaves in the doorway and her countenance changed. ‘Out! Both of you!’
The two slaves fled as ordered, closing the door behind them.
‘Come back to bed, Vespasian,’ Flavia offered, raising the blanket and revealing the shadowy outline of her naked body.
‘I don’t have the time,’ Vespasian replied, picking up his tunic from where it had been discarded the night before and slipping it over his head. ‘I want to be presented to the children and then I have to go.’
Flavia made a noise that sounded like a cross between disappointment and an enticing purr.
‘Do you always treat your dressers like that?’
‘Oh, they weren’t my dressers, Isis no; they’re just the girls who get me out of bed and escort me to my dressing room. My dressers attend me there, along with my make-up girls and hairdressers; those two come back here and clean the bedroom whilst I get ready.’
‘You’ve got slaves to do each of those things?’
‘Of course, my dear; what fashionable woman does not?’
Vespasian eased his feet into his red senatorial shoes. ‘So, Flavia, how many women help you to make yourself presentable each morning?’
‘Oh, very few; not nearly as many as Messalina has.’
‘I should hope not; she’s the Empress and you’re just the wife of an ex-legate — a very poor ex-legate at that.’
‘There’s no need to worry about the money, Vespasian; I’ve got plenty of it. How else could I have afforded to furnish this place and purchase nine girls?’
‘Nine! Whatever for?’
Flavia sat up and began to count off on her fingers. ‘Well, three hairdressers, two make-’
‘Did you just say that you had plenty of money?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I told the Cloelius Brothers’ banking house in the forum not to advance you more than five thousand a year.’
‘I know, and the horrid little men couldn’t be talked out of it; that’s why Messalina kindly gave me a very generous loan. She said-’
‘She did what!’
‘Gave me a loan.’
‘A loan!’ Vespasian almost spat out the word as if it were the most deadly of poisons. ‘You never asked permission from me to take a loan.’
‘You had much more important things on your mind and, besides, I didn’t need to. It was just a little arrangement between good friends, as a personal favour — from the Empress, no less, the other women were so jealous — to tide me over until you got back and could see that the allowance you’d given me wasn’t nearly enough to cover my outgoings and could remedy the situation. She said she’d charge only a nominal interest.’
‘How much interest?’
‘I can’t remember now, but it’s written down on the contract somewhere.’
‘You signed a contract?’
‘Of course.’
Vespasian sat, with a jolt, on a convenient chair and attempted to master his growing rage. ‘Just how much have you borrowed?’
‘My dear, hardly anything; just half of the value of that money that you brought back from Alexandria eight years ago, and have done nothing with since.’
Vespasian’s eyes narrowed as he struggled to prevent himself from slapping his wife. ‘You’ve borrowed one hundred and twenty-five thousand denarii from Messalina?’
Flavia’s voice hardened. ‘I’m now a lady of consequence, the mother to the heir’s companion; I need to appear as such and your allowance was insufficient. How else was I going to make a comfortable home for the children and for you to come back to? We need somewhere to entertain the finest people in Rome without feeling humiliated each time they turn their noses up at our tawdry furnishings.’
‘The Alexandrian money has already been spoken for: Gaius used it to secure a house on the Quirinal; your house! The one I bought for you to move into as soon as I can extract you from this labyrinth of intrigue without causing offence.’
‘Why should we move out of here? I’ve made it very comfortable.’
‘With borrowed money from Messalina, which puts me in her debt! No one in their right minds would put themselves in that situation! And at the moment I can’t afford to pay her off.’
‘Nonsense, one hundred and twenty-five thousand is nothing, husband; you must have made a fortune in slaves and plunder. Everyone always does; Messalina told me so.’
Unable to take any more without risking serious damage to either Flavia or her precious furnishings, Vespasian rose to his feet and stormed out of the door.
‘What about the children?’ Flavia called after him.
‘I’ll see them later — once I think you’ll be safe in my presence again!’
Vespasian had calmed somewhat by the time he saw his uncle arriving on the Palatine. Gaius was surrounded by his retinue of clients and preceded by Magnus and a couple of his crossroads brethren bearing stout staves to beat a way through the crowds. In the hour since leaving Flavia’s apartment in a rage greater than he could recall ever being in before, other than in battle, he had stalked up and down outside the palace cursing Flavia and contemplating his options. He had to extract himself from Messalina’s debt before she could call it in. Once he had begun to compose himself he thought of a way to do so without mortgaging any of his property; however, he still had no idea how to curb his wife’s extravagance and naïvety. That would have to wait, he decided, as Magnus approached and Gaius began to dismiss his clients.