Ovid

My head was bursting. 'For God's sake! How the hell should I know?'

'All right. She was complaining about her husband, Marcus. And her husband was…?'

The answer hit me between the eyes like a butcher's hammer. 'Tiberius! Julia's husband was Tiberius!'

Pertinax leaned back with a smile of satisfaction.

'Give the man a handful of nuts,' he said.

I sat stunned. So there was a connection after all. We always came back to Tiberius, to the emperor. The Elder Julia. Her daughter. Paullus. Fabius and Postumus…

Ovid?

'You mean it was Tiberius?’ I said. ‘Tiberius framed Julia? His own wife?'

The smile disappeared. I'd missed something, obviously. But I couldn't see what it was.

'Marcus,' Pertinax said carefully, 'I don't usually talk politics. I crawled out of that particular sewer years ago and I've never regretted it. But I'm going to educate you, son. You've asked for it and you're going to get it. Tiberius is only half the story, and you're going to get the whole thing. Even if it kills you. As it well might if you're not careful. Very careful indeed. Remember that.'

I said nothing. Pertinax rose from the couch, brought over the wine-jug and filled first my cup and then his own. 'The only reason — the only reason, boy! — that I'm telling you this is because you remind me so much of your grandfather. I think he would've trusted you and I think he would've wanted you to know. So pin your stupid over-privileged Roman-patrician ears back and listen.'

Varus to Himself

We were talking of treachery.

Mine, as you have seen, is a harmless thing, and hardly worth the name; a piece of diplomacy of which I am sure the emperor will approve but of which I am loath as yet to inform him. In the long run it will turn to Rome's benefit as well as being — rather more immediately, I hope — profitable to myself: to my mind, the perfect combination. I am certainly not a traitor in the grand style, as is Livia. If the gods regard treason and murder as crimes of any weight then Livia is damned.

I am revealing no secrets here. The facts are known to most of the inner circle, not excluding Augustus. No doubt the empress, in common with most traitors (such as myself!) would say that she has acted for the good of the state. Perhaps she could even argue her point. One can also understand a mother's preference for her own son over the offspring of her predecessor. However, for Livia to further Tiberius's interests through subterfuge and false accusations is quite another matter. To put it plainly, the empress is a treacherous, murdering bitch.

Where are they all now, the Julians? Where are they, Augustus's own family, who should have followed him in honour? Call the roll. His only child Julia, accused of a filthy crime she never committed, rotting in exile at Rhegium. Her sons Gaius and Lucius, whom Augustus was grooming for empire: dead, poisoned abroad in the performance of their duty by their stepmother's agents. Their younger brother Postumus: slandered, disgraced and banished to Planasia. But for young Agrippina, a clean sweep…

Bitch!

Finally, a year past, the other Julia, Augustus's grandchild. Like her mother, exiled on a trumped-up charge, her husband executed for a conspiracy that was no conspiracy at all…

And the emperor is helpless. What began in secrecy must remain secret. His letter to me, of course, is long-burned — burned, indeed, upon receipt. There was never anything else. I do not blame Augustus. He could not have acted otherwise, and the fact that he protected us (and still protects us) shows that he has not entirely given up hope.

Bitch!

If there is any justice then Livia will burn, and her bastard of a son with her. And if I am a traitor then I thank the gods that at least I am a clean one.

25

I left Pertinax's early the next morning, my head still buzzing. I was glad now I'd brought the big sleeping carriage because it gave me the chance to think in comfort.

Oh, sure, the old guy hadn't told me anything I didn't know already, not as far as the facts went. How they all connected up was something else: like looking at a complex piece of embroidery from the back. I'd always known that the old empress was a callous bitch, but just how callous she was, and how much of a bitch, I hadn't even begun to suspect.

Yeah. So to get her blue-eyed boy's boil-encrusted bum on the throne Livia had stalked the Julians one by one and knocked them off their perches. That was fun to know, but like my father had tried to tell me it just wasn't relevant any more. After all, the Wart had become emperor, everything was sweetness and light and only a fool bucks the system. The trouble was that something wasn't irrelevant. It hadn't lost its smell over the years, it wasn't common knowledge, and it had something to do with the Paullus plot. If I could just work out what that thing was then we were home and dry.

I was still thinking when the coachman gave a shout and the carriage stopped. I threw open the door and looked out.

That one look was enough. We were in trouble. Real trouble. We still had half a mile to go before joining the Appian Way and the track led over boggy ground across a line of wooden piles. Fifty yards ahead of us it had been blocked with a hurdle of sharpened stakes. We'd got zero room to turn, backing off was impossible and from the look of the ground either side even the Sunshine Boys' horses wouldn't've made it more than a yard or so. Behind the hurdle stood a dozen mean-looking bastards wearing leather armour and holding short swords.

I ducked back inside. At least this time I'd come prepared. There're stiff penalties for arming slaves; have been ever since Spartacus scared the shit out of us a hundred years back. If we'd been in Rome I'd never have risked it, but out here in the sticks was another matter. In the baggage compartment under the seat were six cavalry longswords, which are serious weapons in anybody's book.

'Hey, boys!' I yelled to my Gauls. 'Look what Daddy's got!'

The guys' eyes lit up like fifty-lamp candelabra and they were already champing on their moustaches and grinding their teeth before they so much as touched the things. That figured. Put a Gaul within reach of a sword and it's like you've taken the lid off Tartarus. We might still be outnumbered two to one — the coachman and my body slave hardly counted for shit — but things were looking brighter. Or so I thought when I drew my own sword and jumped down from the carriage to grab my bit of the action.

Mistake. I knew that as soon as the first guy went for me. The vicious punching stab was straight from the army manual, and it nearly spitted me. I slammed the carriage door sideways, catching the guy on the left shoulder and spinning him round, then brought my own sword up and shoved it in under the armpit where his jerkin would give no protection. One down. I glanced anxiously towards the Sunshine Boys. I needn't've worried. They were happily slogging it out on foot Gallic style: no points for finesse, several million for enthusiasm. Three more of the bastards fell apart like carved chickens before you could say Vercingetorix.

The ones who were left shifted tactics, working as a team, which again was pure army. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Flavus, my body slave, go down to a thrust that turned his throat into a bloody mash. Then two of them jumped me at once and I felt the edge of a blade slice along my ribs. No pain, not yet. Without thinking I brought the heavy pommel of my sword down hard. It connected with the guy's wrist. Bone crunched, and he screamed. Before he could recover I buried the dagger I was holding in my left hand hilt deep in his groin and twisted it, gutting him.

I stepped back just as what looked like a beanpole flew past my shoulder and thudded into the woodwork of the carriage. The second guy, sword drawn back to stab, saw it too. He looked behind me, eyes wide, then turned and ran. A second javelin spitted him like a hare.