But Jocasta was right in what she told you; my lady had been trained by the best. The lady Antonia taught her long ago that the stranger standing in the shadows is always more interesting — and far more dangerous — than whoever is in the light, and nine times out of ten she was right.
I had signalled her with my eyes, but she was already looking towards Pantera. She knew there was a man, you see; she had heard him at the door and so she was looking for him as she walked out of the side room, and, after that one striking moment of looking at Jocasta, she found your Pantera.
He was by the pool, a little back, where the reflections from the water wrought ripples in the air, making of him a shimmering shadow, an almost-not-there spirit. Their eyes locked for a moment, and he gave a small bow. Then my lady spoke.
‘He is alive?’ No name was mentioned. Caenis glanced meaningfully back to the blue silk curtain that blocked Domitian’s doorway; the young lord, you understand, lived with the lady when his father was away.
He was safe with us, and kept himself to himself, but the one thing guaranteed to draw him out of his studies was his father’s name, and I could tell she didn’t want him to come out yet; not until she knew why these two had come. He’s a sensitive boy, and there’s no saying how he would have taken bad news of his father.
Jocasta understood at once. She said, ‘My lady, he is alive and well and sends you his earnest regards. Is there somewhere we may speak in more detail?’
Her necklace was gone with the hair pins and she had wiped the paint from her lips. Without them, she was a different woman. Caenis took her at her word and led them through to the garden.
Here, songbirds, tame to my lady’s hand, followed her about. The small fountain, barely up to knee height, shaped like a rising carp, spilled water into the central pool, making sound enough to cover a quiet conversation from all but those engaged in it.
My lady put her back to an olive bough, seeking the security of its strength as she often did in those early days. ‘Swiftly, then, what brings you here? Is he wounded?’
This time, Pantera answered. ‘My lady, he was in good health when I left him. He was injured in the knee by a sling-stone while assaulting one of the minor cities of Judaea in the winter, but you know of that.’
Caenis did know of that; it didn’t prove that Vespasian had sent this pair, but it was at least a step in the right direction.
‘Then why has he sent you here to- Oh! ’ Her hand flew to her mouth. She is so fast; she thinks things through in a flash. I could tell that even Pantera was impressed. He tipped his head in invitation to her to continue.
She put her fingers together, as she does when she is marshalling an argument. ‘For reasons that will be obvious to you,’ she said, ‘I cannot leave Rome, nor can Sabinus, nor Domitian. You know this: to be safe, we must continue to declare our support for the emperor Vitellius. If we are seen to run, it will be taken as a sign of disloyalty and our lives will be forfeit. This is obvious, and he for whom we care most would not ask you to take us away from Rome. Therefore, he has sent you to offer us protection: he would do that.’
Pantera smiled a little, bowed, even paid her a compliment. ‘My lady, I knew you must be exceptional for your general to have loved you so long, but he did not tell me you had the sharpest mind in Rome. I came expecting to spend the entire evening discussing that which you have just laid out so clearly: you cannot safely leave Rome, but none the less your safety is my first priority. Whatever else happens, it matters most to the general that his family remains unharmed. Perhaps, now, we can discuss how that may be done?’
She saved his life with her quickness, didn’t she? That may not be a good thing, with all that came afterwards, but I don’t think she would have done it differently, even if she had known.
At the time, she said simply, ‘It is best, I believe, to speak as we find. If you are to be our protector, it might be constructive if the general’s son were to be privy to the conversation.’
And so, after all that, there was nothing to be done but to call for Domitian, and let Pantera learn how different was the second of Vespasian’s sons from his brother.
Chapter 12
Rome, 3 August AD 69
The lady Antonia Caenis
Domitian. What can one say of him, who is son to me in all but name and blood?
I am offering no insult, I think, if I tell you that Domitian was not in a sociable frame of mind on the evening Jocasta and Pantera came to my home with their so-clever illusion.
If one were to be truthful, it would be more accurate to say he was never in a sociable frame of mind, but within the confines of our family this rarely posed undue embarrassment. I was happy to leave him to his solitary games of dice, right hand against left, to his collection of insects pinned to a board, to his early sleep and late rise and the occasional day when he could go from dawn to dusk without once noticing my existence.
The day in question was one of those. I knew it already, but if I had not I would have read it in the brittle smile fixed on Matthias’ face as he held back the blue curtain that screened Domitian’s private chamber from the atrium. I indulged myself in a moment’s silent cursing, and then, as I must, forced a smile.
‘Domitian, welcome. These people have come from your father. They have news.’
My eyes signalled him a warning. The boy — he is eighteen and I really must start thinking of him as a man, but he has the round-faced, smooth-skinned look of one who has barely begun to shave and his voice is still light, like the touch of soft rain, and it’s hard to think of him as anything but a child — the boy chose once again to ignore me.
He was gazing at Jocasta, which was a surprisingly normal response. You’ve met her, so you know how striking she is. Any man would favour her with a second glance. Domitian, being… Domitian, stared straight at her for an uncomfortably long time, and then said, ‘You can’t have been near my father. Titus would have kept you.’
There was a moment’s scandalized silence. If he would only smile as he said these things, but no, he thought it and so he said it and there was no humour anywhere in it. I shut my eyes; a coward’s way out, I admit, but there are times when the solitude of darkness is one’s only respite. I looked again only at the sound of Jocasta’s flute-like laugh.
She said, ‘You flatter me, lord, but it is true; I have not been with your father. My business kept me in Rome. Pantera, whom you see here, is the one who has journeyed by fast ship from Judaea.’
Lord. Nobody except Matthias had ever spoken thus to Domitian. Flushing, he bowed. ‘Madam, you honour me. Will you come and take wine? I see you are not yet served.’
It was stiff. It was awkward — a series of phrases stolen from other mouths and stitched together without any true understanding of their import — but it was said, and it was real and it took a great effort for me to keep my hands by my sides that I might not clasp his face and kiss his brow in my joy. Both would have dismantled all the good just made.
Matthias didn’t need my nod to go and fetch the wine; he backed away, bowing, and I followed Domitian back through into the garden area where the late, rich sun gilded everything in tones of amber.
We stood amid the citrus and lilacs in silence until the wine was served; it wasn’t expensive, but it was white and sweet and had been cooled in the well so that beads of water formed on the outside of my best glass beakers.