not been sighted since the discovery of the murdered twins. There was still no body, which was vaguely worrying, but he breathed more easily and stopped looking over his shoulder every day.
'You are to appear before the Emperor's secretary at the seventh hour.'
Rufus almost dropped with fright. But the voice was wrong. Too polite. He turned and where he expected to find a squad of swordbearing Praetorians stood a gilded youth in a fine-spun tunic held tight at the waist with a thin silver belt.
He must have been gaping, because the boy repeated his message, louder and more slowly, as if he was speaking to an old man or an idiot.
'You… are… to… appear… before… the… Emperor's… secretary… at… the… seventh… hour.'
'I'm not deaf.' Rufus decided the young peacock before him presented no danger, and therefore insolence was not only required, but expected. 'Am I to… attend… the… secretary… like… this?'
The boy looked him over carefully, taking in the stained tunic and dung-spattered legs, and frowned. 'Perhaps you might like to change?'
'I don't have anything to change into.' It was a lie, he still had the tunic he wore for his wedding, but Rufus sensed there might be profit here, and sport. A slave was granted little opportunity for sport and he felt an intense desire to take advantage of this one.
The frown deepened. 'I… I could possibly find something for you.'
Rufus grinned. 'That might be wise.'
The boy sighed, and was about to turn away.
'I stink.'
'What?' The messenger blinked.
'I stink… of shit.'
'You could wash while I'm fetching you a new tunic,' the boy suggested.
'I would still stink. I always stink. It's from working with the elephant.' Rufus pointed to Bersheba, who was munching hay contentedly in the barn.
The boy bit his lip. This was a problem he hadn't considered. Secretary Callistus had famously sensitive nostrils.
'You could bring me some perfumed oil. A lot of it. I could smother myself in it, then the secretary wouldn't have to smell my stink. Or I could stand outside the door when he speaks to me,' Rufus suggested helpfully.
The messenger grabbed the solution as if he was a drowning man and it was the last plank from a burning galley. 'Yes, perfume,' he said, hurrying off before Rufus could come up with some new suggestion.
'Lots of it,' Rufus shouted to his retreating back. He would give the perfume to Livia, he thought; then, with a guilty shiver, And if there is really a lot I might even keep some for Aemilia. Callistus would just have to put up with his stink.
XXVII
Had anyone ever suffered as he did? Had anyone ever been more alone? Drusilla was gone. His only friend. His sister. The only one he had ever really trusted. How could she have left him?
He sniffed, blinking away a tear. He stank, but he did not care. His hair was slick with grease and undressed, but it was nothing. He hadn't shaved for three months and would not until her murderers were found, or he had given her the divinity she had craved when she was alive. She, above all, deserved immortality.
How he wished he could have accompanied her to that other life. There was nothing for him in this one but grief and pain, and he wanted neither. What were his accomplishments now, when there was no one with whom he could savour them? Every one a monument to vainglory. What was the point of the battles that were inevitably to come, when each victory would taste of ashes? It was she who had made all the effort worthwhile. In her, he could see the reflection of his greatness. But no more.
Who could he trust now?
As he recognized the answer, an unfamiliar sensation developed deep inside his body, and swarmed upwards into his brain. He felt the first breathlessness of panic.
It was a long time since he had felt fear.
When the seventh hour arrived Rufus was standing outside the door to the secretary's offices enjoying the feel of a silky cloth tunic finer than anything he had ever owned. His dark hair was damp and his nostrils were filled with the scent of some flowery perfume from the east that the boy had insisted on dousing him with. It didn't matter too much; there was plenty left for Livia… and Aemilia.
'Enter.'
The voice was strong, the tone full of natural authority, and it had an edge that made Rufus stand a little straighter. He pushed the door, which swung back easily on its single wooden hinge.
Of all the great men who ruled Rome from the Palatine Hill and attempted to square the circle of the Emperor's chaotic brilliance, ever-changing moods and overwhelming ambition, Callistus, the imperial secretary, held the position of strength. No man crossed the threshold to Caligula's outer apartments without first being interviewed by the secretary. It was a privilege that had brought him immense wealth as well as power. But power did not come without a price, and the price was clear on the strained face of the man who sat across the scroll- filled desk from where Rufus stood.
Callistus had a wide, sloping forehead which swept down without obstacle to an identically angled, aristocratic nose, giving him the look of some long-beaked bird of the plains. The effect was emphasized by his hair, which had receded in a perfect half-moon leaving behind it a vast, open expanse. He was unhealthily pale, with an enormous bag of flesh beneath each eye and cheeks that sagged beneath the level of his lips, drawing them down in a permanent disapproving frown.
The secretary's eyes swept back and forth across an opened scroll on his desk, accompanied by repeated tuts of dismay, or disbelief, at the perceived failings of some far-off provincial official. Eventually, he rolled up the scroll with a sigh, deposited it in a leather case, and placed it carefully on the left-hand pile on the desk. Only then did he look up and acknowledge Rufus's presence, inspecting him with a jaundiced eye and not attempting to hide his disapproval.
'You are the keeper of the Emperor's elephant?'
Rufus nodded. 'That is correct, sir. I — '
Callistus waved him to silence. 'That is all I wish to know. And, for the moment, all you need to know is that the Emperor has decided you have an important role in the celebrations of his sister's divinity. You and your elephant.'
Rufus swallowed and tried to stay the panic that filled his stomach with a ball of frantically mating toads.
'Since it is obviously beyond your capabilities to carry this out without supervision, the Emperor' — Callistus shook his head in resignation — 'has decided that among my numberless other responsibilities I must oversee your part in it. To that end you will have yourself and your elephant ready for inspection tomorrow at the second hour.'
'May I ask your honour what form this mission will take?' Rufus asked politely, adding hurriedly, lest his question be taken for insolence, 'in case any specialized preparations are required to ensure Bersheba is ready for the task.'
Callistus closed his eyes. Perhaps this was going to be more tiresome than he thought. 'Specialized preparations?'
'Yes, sir. Special harness, or perhaps a new basket. If Bersheba is to carry the Emperor he would need to be carried in something fitting. Something in the ceremonial line?'
The secretary pursed his lips. 'The beast will not be carrying the Emperor. However, it may be that you need to be aware of its burden. It is rather weighty, I'm told.'
Rufus spent a sleepless night preparing himself and Bersheba. At the appointed hour he and the elephant stood in front of the barn, she in her ceremonial finery and he in the tunic he had acquired from Callistus's gilded messenger. But it was another two hours before the secretary came puffing down the slope from the palace with an
