‘Ah, yes, the eunuch,’ Nigrinus said quietly. ‘His name is Gorgonius. He is the steward of the former emperor Maximian’s household. Have you met him before, perhaps?’
‘Never.’ Castus could see the man at the back of the room, Flaccianus, smirking to himself again. Remain calm, he told himself.
‘Because it’s strange, is it not, that the two of you were so quick to go in pursuit of the men? Perhaps with the second you were merely holding him, so this eunuch Gorgonius could get a clear shot?’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Brinno said, raising his voice. He looked as though he wanted to leap across the room and attack the notary.
Nigrinus spread his palms in a placatory gesture, but his eyes remained cold, filled with subtle menace. How much power, Castus wondered, did this man really have?
‘It has come to my attention,’ Nigrinus went on, apparently unmoved by Brinno’s display of anger, ‘that there may be a traitor within the Corps of Protectores.’
‘Not possible!’ Brinno hissed. Castus remained silent. He remembered all too well this game of insinuations, of crafty threats and bargains.
‘Shocking, but true. This person is apparently working in collaboration with agents of a rival power. Perhaps of Maxentius in Rome. Perhaps… somebody else.’
‘And you think one of us is this traitor?’ Brinno’s eyes were wide with fury.
Nigrinus merely smiled. ‘Let us say, some might have reason to suspect so. However, I know that you, Flavius Brinno, are the son of a Frankish chieftain. You owe everything to the emperor Constantine, you are formidably devoted to him, so I hear. As for you…’ He turned to Castus. ‘We have, as you remind me, had dealings with each other before. You seem to me a very… dependable person.’
Expendable, he means, Castus thought. His back teeth were clamped tight.
‘You saved the life of the emperor back in Germania, and he selected you personally for his guard. You seem unlikely to forget such a thing. There are many duplicitous people around us. However, I rather think you… lack the guile for duplicity, shall we say.’
Castus knew very well what he was saying. Let him think that. Many others had thought the same way. The idea that these two men, and perhaps others like them, had been observing him for all these months, studying and assessing how he might be used, made his skin crawl and his scalp contract. But he managed to smile. He refused to be outmanoeuvred by this man again.
‘Loyalty can never be taken for granted,’ Nigrinus went on. ‘It must be demonstrated. Conspicuously demonstrated. So if you wish to be considered loyal, you would do well to be vigilant. Watch your comrades carefully, pay attention to anything they may say or do. I would remind you that in cases of potential treason, all immunity from questioning is withdrawn. That includes questioning by torture…’
‘You want us to spy for you?’ Castus said heavily. He shrugged off the crude implied threat.
‘Such a weighty term,’ Nigrinus said casually. ‘All I require is that you remember the vow you took when you were made Protectores.’
‘I have no need to be reminded of my vow, especially not by you.’ And I will do nothing to help you, he thought.
Nigrinus stared at him for a moment, then smiled as he exhaled through his nose. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘We are, all of us, servants of the Sacred Augustus. Let all of our efforts be directed towards his continuing majesty, eh?’
* * *
‘…Then Romulus, wolf-nursed, proudly clad
In the she-wolf’s tawny pelt, shall further the race,
And bestow upon the Romans his own name.
To them I give no bounds of time or power,
But empire without end…’
The voice came from behind the tall bronze-studded doors of the emperor’s private office, his tablinum. A child’s voice, a boy speaking clearly enough for his words to carry through the close-woven latticed panels of the door and across the painted atrium to the point where Castus was standing on guard duty. Castus himself knew the lines welclass="underline" Virgil, the same verses that the former teacher Diogenes had made him copy time after time during his writing lessons.
Sounds like you’ve been getting the same kind of lessons, lad, he thought.
He shifted his weight gently from foot to foot, while keeping his posture completely immobile. Castus had spent uncountable hours standing on guard, back when he was a legionary, and he could remain like this all day if required and think nothing of it. He had no spear or shield, no helmet, no armour to weigh his shoulders. Only his sword, belted high at his side.
The floor of the atrium was polished marble, grey and white tiles. On the walls, gods in armour battled giant men with serpents for legs, casting them down into the sea or into pits in the earth. Castus frowned slightly as he gazed at the painted figure: had the painter intended the god to look so much like Constantine? And, now he came to notice it, was the largest of the serpent-legged giants, a red-faced, bearded figure, supposed to resemble so closely the emperor’s father-in-law Maximian?
Castus blinked the thoughts away, letting the images on the walls drift out of focus. A wandering mind could conjure dangerous fantasies, after all.
‘…Even Juno, my queen,
Dread tormentor of land, sky and sea,
Will yield to better judgement, and with me,
Protect and bless the Romans, masters of the world…’
The imperial palace was a place of long silences and distant echoing voices. Even now, after seven months, Castus still found it unsettling. At its heart was the great basilica, the imperial audience hall, and all around it spread a complex of gardens and porticos, offices and barracks, with the private apartments of the emperor and his household beyond. The complex had expanded over the years, consuming and incorporating whole blocks of housing; now it took up almost a quarter of the space inside the walls of the city of Treveris.
Constantine liked to conduct business while marching from one part of the palace to another, and his progress along the wide corridors and porticos was always attended by a vast array of secretaries and petitioners, officials both military and civilian, slaves and eunuchs, with Castus and a few other Protectores keeping a close and wary eye upon them all.
There were grander events as well. Already Castus had attended several formal banquets, standing stiffly to one side of the hall while the emperor and his guests drank and ate. On the emperor’s birthday in February, and the birthday of his deified father in March, and on the festivals of the Cerialia and Tubilustrium, Castus had taken his place behind the imperial dais, dressed in his embroidered white uniform, his silvered helmet and his red belts, carrying the black oval shield with the golden emblem of the Protectores. He had marched with his fellow bodyguards through the streets of the city in the great ceremonial processions, every man’s spear wreathed in laurel.
But the emperor, for all his daily appearances, was still a remote and unknowable figure. An awesome figure – and that, Castus thought, was how it should be. Sometimes, as he barked out instructions to his staff, or when leaving some hall of state, Constantine would glance in his direction, but Castus always kept his expression entirely blank. And if the emperor recognised him at all, he never showed it openly.
A shadow fell across the tiled floor, jolting Castus from his thoughts. He glanced around to see a man enter the atrium from the portico. The newcomer was small, almost puny, with a dry shrunken face, but his tunic and cloak were well cut and embroidered, and his round cap and gold-clasped belt proclaimed his membership of the imperial offices.