Protogenes, thin to the point of emaciation, with a sallow, pockmarked complexion, nodded agreement. He had hooded eyes that reminded Rufus of a snake and he felt a thrill of fear as they turned to focus on him. He knew instantly that Protogenes was aware the Emperor's words had been overheard and was equally certain that the man was deciding whether he was worth killing. The unblinking stare held his for a second before moving on. It seemed not.
By now, Rufus had recognized that he was as much part of the entertainment as the Illyrian dancing girls and the fire-eating jugglers who performed after the main courses. A pungently scented diversion to keep Caligula's guests the way he wanted them — off balance and nervous.
As much a part of the entertainment as Uncle Claudius.
During the early part of the banquet the Emperor had ignored the old senator, happy to trade conversation and banter with the sycophants who lounged close by him. But as the evening continued, Caligula began to taunt his uncle about his stutter and his appearance. When he tired of this verbal barrage, the Emperor began to throw pieces of food at the reclining figure, who could only blink as he was hit by slices of meat and half-eaten legs of chicken and, at one point, only just missed by a plate of fricasseed flamingo tongues. Still not satisfied, the Emperor encouraged his guests to follow his example, and, even though the attack was somewhat half-hearted, Claudius could eventually take no more. With a vacant smile he slowly closed his eyes and slipped back on the couch feigning stupor.
Caligula and his friends were by now finding that the fluency and ingenuity of their earlier conversation had deserted them. The Emperor, his face wreathed in a lazy grin, let his gaze range over his guests until it fell on a striking, raven-haired young woman who reclined, never raising her glance above table height, next to a crophaired knight who was a little older than she, who Rufus assumed must be her husband. From that moment, Caligula's eyes never left her.
As the last of the food was cleared away, the Emperor rose from his couch. Rufus felt the guests around him tense and the guards along the wall seemed to stand a little straighter. Caligula swayed slightly, then walked carefully round the table until he was directly behind the dark girl, who, feeling his presence, began to whimper quietly behind the curtain of her long hair. At her side, her husband was deathly still.
'You will please me tonight, Cornelia,' Caligula said softly, his hand reaching out to caress the white skin of the woman's shoulder.
The young aristocrat beside her jerked violently and made as if to rise.
'You may join us if you wish, Calpurnius,' the Emperor offered. 'No? Perhaps I should insist. Never mind, I shall decide later. Come, Cornelia.'
The last words were an unmistakable command. Still weeping, the dark-haired woman stood up on shaking legs and, with Caligula's hand on her shoulder, walked with him from the room.
The mood of the remaining guests changed in an instant from unbearable tension to ecstatic release. A grey- faced young senator vomited on the marble floor, while nearby another aristocrat appeared to be having a seizure. The women at the table reacted in different ways. One or two seemed to be frozen where they lay, eyes fixed on something only they could see. The blonde matron who occupied the couch next to Rufus ran wailing from the room, pursued by her husband. From the corner of his eye, Rufus noticed Claudius, forgotten by all, raise his head warily.
A tap on the shoulder made Rufus jump and he looked up into a familiar grave face beneath a Praetorian helmet. Cupido.
XVII
He opened his mouth to speak, but the gladiator cut him off with a shake of the head.
'Fun's over, boy. Time to go home.'
A second Praetorian moved to join him as they turned from the room into a wide corridor, but Cupido waved him away.
'I think I can handle this one alone, Decimus, if I can stand the stink.'
The other man, a broad-faced giant, laughed and said something unintelligible.
'Cupido!' Rufus burst out when they reached the park. 'I — '
'Not here,' the young German hissed. 'Don't say anything until we reach the barn, and then only when I have checked.'
Rufus began to lead the way to the room at the rear of the elephant stall, but Cupido stopped him.
'More secure beside the beast, I think. Speak quietly; the Emperor has listeners everywhere and they are not always who you think they are. In future, visit me at my quarters. When I am off duty I have a room in the palace of Tiberius. I will leave word that you are welcome there.'
Rufus was a little confused by Cupido's excessive caution, but he grinned with the pleasure of seeing the young gladiator again.
'Same old Cupido, always taking the best from life. Forgive me, my friend, but just to be in your presence again fills my heart, even in this dismal place. When they arrested you, I thought you were dead.'
The gladiator raised a sardonic eyebrow and for a moment he truly was the same old Cupido. Yet Rufus could see the months in the palace had changed his friend. The grey eyes contained an embittered weariness that had not been there previously. It was as if the sombre black tunic, which was the symbol of the Emperor's authority, had somehow worked its darkness into his spirit. Combined with the gleaming armour of his sculpted breastplate and greaves, it gave him a dangerous quality Rufus had not seen even on the hardest days in the arena.
Bersheba grunted beside them, and Rufus's face creased into a grin.
'I forget my manners. Mighty Bersheba, this is my friend Cupido, the greatest gladiator of his age, philosopher, wit and now in his most unlikely guise, unless I miss my guess, as First Spear of the Tungrian Cohort of the Emperor's Praetorian Guard.'
Cupido stepped forward and Bersheba's trunk swung out of the darkness to take his scent. She gave a 'harrumph' from deep in her chest.
'You are honoured, Cupido; you have been accepted into Bersheba's inner circle… just as you have into the Emperor's.'
The last words were part statement, but with enough of a question in them for Cupido to remove his iron helmet and place it on the hay beside him as he sat with his back to the barn wall. He looked up at Rufus, his face a mask of shadows and hollows.
'You say you thought I was dead? I was certain of it. I don't have much time, but I will try to explain how all this' — he waved a hand that took in Bersheba, Rufus and himself — 'came about.'
In a steady voice he confirmed what Narcissus had suspected, but there was more. The guards had taken Cupido to a dungeon beneath the palace of Caligula, deep in the bowels of the Palatine, where they stripped him of everything he owned. It was a place known only to the Emperor's closest allies, his torturers, and, for a few mercifully fleeting hours, his enemies.
'It was a dreadful place,' Cupido confessed grimly, 'where the smell of burning flesh invaded the air I breathed, and the screams of the helpless tortured my ears. They took me past the chamber of the hot irons and sharp instruments and I had to turn my eyes away. I have seen suffering in many forms, Rufus, but what I glimpsed there still haunts my dreams.'
He was taken from his cell on the evening of the third day.
'They dragged me before the Emperor naked and coated in my own ordure, so my humiliation would compound my fear. But I called on my father's shade for courage and I stood before him, proud as on any day since coming to manhood, and bade him do as he willed. I expected to feel the kiss of a blade at any moment, but he did not give the order. Instead, he raised himself from his golden throne and stood before me, close as you are now, never flinching at my stink. Then, I swear by the old gods, his mind entered mine and he knew me. Knew me past, present and future.
'At first, I felt more abused than if his torturers had returned me to the dungeons, but he has power, Rufus, great power, and he used it to overwhelm me.'
Cupido swallowed hard and shook his head in wonder.
