‘Thank you, Hormus,’ Vespasian said as his slave adjusted his dress, ‘I think that everyone has benefited from that. So Theron, now that you’ve apologised for the gross insult you showed me perhaps we can talk business. How much do you owe me?’
Theron looked miserably at the pool of urine surrounding him. ‘All the stock survived the journey, senator; being fine specimens, they fetched between one and two thousand denarii each. I cleared just over six hundred thousand; I will bring you the bills of sale.’
‘So twelve and a half per cent is seventy-five thousand, which, as I’m sure Narcissus has explained, you’ve consented to double, making a total of one hundred and fifty thousand denarii. That is correct, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, noble sen-’
‘Let’s drop the pretence that you consider me to be noble! Where is my money?’
‘I can give you a promissory note.’
‘I want cash.’
‘I don’t have it; I took it all back to Britannia and reinvested it in more stock.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes, senator.’
‘Then you had better sell it quickly; where is it?’
‘Here in Rome; but Narcissus has forbidden me to trade in Italia.’
‘In which case I shall arrange a quick sale; I’ll do a job lot to one of your competitors for, say, one hundred and fifty — no, make it sixty — thousand denarii; I think that sounds fair. That gives you ten thousand to start again with once you’re given permission to trade once more.’
‘But they’re worth much more than that,’ Theron pleaded.
‘Not to me they’re not.’
‘But there’re thousands of them; you saw them all yesterday.’
‘The prisoners in the Ovation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even the chieftains and lesser dignitaries?’
‘Yes, except for the two who were ritually strangled.’
‘Was either one of them a young man?’
‘No, they were both older.’
‘Theron, this could be your lucky day.’
‘This had better be important, Vespasian,’ Sabinus said as he arrived with Magnus and Sextus at the huge slave compound on the Vatican Hill on the west bank of the Tiber. ‘My inauguration begins at the sixth hour.’
‘If vengeance isn’t important then I’ve brought you here for nothing.’
Sabinus raised an eyebrow. ‘Alienus? But I asked Plautius about him yesterday and he told me that there was nothing that he could do as the stock had all been sold.’
‘It has, but to a man who owes me money and favours — you remember Theron, from Britannia, don’t you? Come with me.’ Vespasian led his brother and Magnus and Sextus to the compound’s main gate where the slave-dealer waited, reunited with his bodyguards.
Without any pleasantries, they followed Theron through the gate into a large corral divided into scores of square pens; each one was crammed with manacled slaves, squatting or sitting in their own filth. Despite their numbers they made barely a sound and the eerie silence of unmitigated misery hung over the whole complex.
Theron issued an order to a couple of his guards who nodded and then strolled off. ‘If I give you this man, will you speak to Narcissus about restoring everything that he took?’
‘Once you give me my hundred and fifty thousand denarii, yes.’
‘And he will let me sell my stock at a fair price to raise that?’
‘I’m sure Narcissus will let you do so for a percentage of the proceeds. I’ll speak to him.’
‘You are generous, noble se … sir.’
‘And you are lucky, Theron.’
Theron acknowledged the fact with a cheerful — if sycophantic — bow that surprised Vespasian, considering he had just been urinated upon by an ex-possession of his.
‘There he is,’ Sabinus growled as the two bodyguards appeared from between a line of pens dragging the weakly struggling figure of Alienus between them.
They pushed him forward so that the weight of his chains dragged him down onto the dirt. He got to his knees with sand adhering to the broken scabs of numerous whiplashes across his back and shoulders and looked at the brothers. He smiled wryly. ‘So it’s your turn now, is it?’
Sabinus returned the smile. ‘Yes, Alienus; although I don’t look upon it as taking turns. But tell me, how did I have the good fortune of possessing you?’
‘With both Rome and Myrddin after me I decided the safest place to lose myself was here in the largest city in the Empire. Since I had no silver I thought that the best way to get here was to offer my services to one of the many slave-traders travelling back to Rome. Unfortunately I chose Theron.’
Theron shrugged. ‘One of his own, whom I had just purchased, betrayed him.’
‘Judoc!’ Alienus spat.
‘Perfect!’ Vespasian laughed. ‘I might even forgive the bastard.’
‘The gods have seen to him; he was strangled.’
Sabinus grabbed Alienus’ hair and hauled him to his feet. ‘And the gods have seen fit to bring you to me. You’re going to learn what it is like to spend three months dangling in a cage five times over; and then, if I’m feeling merciful, I’ll just strangle you.’ He thrust him at Magnus and Sextus. ‘Take him to my house, Magnus, and stay with him until I get back from my inauguration.’
Magnus grinned. ‘It’ll be our pleasure, sir; you take your time, we’ll enjoy hanging about with him, if you take my meaning?’
As he was hauled off, Alienus shouted over his shoulder, ‘You’d do best to strangle me now, Sabinus, before it’s my turn again!’
*
The Father of the House examined the ram’s liver on the altar, a fold of his toga pulled over his head out of respect for the divine presence of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
Similarly attired and seated on folding stools in straight rows down either of the long sides of the rectangular Senate House, the five hundred senators present watched with interest the deliberations of the most senior of their number.
Standing to either side of the altar at the far end of the building were the causes for the divine invocation and consultation: Titus Flavius Sabinus and Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, the Suffect-Consuls.
Vespasian sat next to his uncle watching the ceremony with a mixture of jealousy and pride. Pride that for the first time a member of his family had been raised to the consulship, thus ennobling it; and jealousy in that it was not him but his older brother.
The Father of the House turned his palms to the sky and gave a prayer of thanks to Rome’s best and greatest god for consenting to favour them with a good omen and ensuring that the day was auspicious for the business of the city. With that done he went on to administer the consular oath to the two new incumbents and they solemnly swore loyalty to the Republic and the Emperor, who sat, twitching, on a curule chair before the altar.
‘They used to have to swear their readiness to prevent a return of the King,’ Gaius whispered. ‘For some reason the line was removed from the oath.’
Vespasian smiled. ‘I imagine someone felt it was redundant.’
Gaius chuckled. ‘Yes, but it’s rumoured that Claudius, with his legal pedantry and fastidiousness in preserving the ways of the ancestors, is going to reinsert it.’
‘Without seeing the irony of it?’
‘He’ll do it with as straight a face as the gods allow him.’
The oath administered, the assembly removed their head coverings and the newly inducted Consuls took their seats either side of the Emperor.
‘C–C-Conscript Fathers,’ Claudius declaimed, ‘it pleases me to have two of the legates who commanded legions in my great and historic invasion and subjugation of Britannia as consuls at the time when Aulus Plautius has come back to Rome and celebrated the Ovation that you granted him as a favour to me.’