won’t report you.’
‘You are in no condition to negotiate. I’m the one who decides here,’ replied Carbo without batting an eye.
The soldier who had been on guard duty with him broke in, ‘Listen, my friend, this fellow has me convinced. Why don’t we let him go? Interference with a state messenger in the line of duty can get you into real trouble.’
‘I want proof,’ insisted Carbo.
Rufus was furious with himself for having fallen so stupidly into the hands of an inexperienced recruit seeking to get himself promoted, but he tried to stay calm.
‘I have a badge but I’m not authorized to display it with my hands bound. If I lose it to anyone, I’ll be expelled from the service. Untie me and I’ll show it to you.’
Carbo muttered under his breath for a while, then said to his comrade, ‘All right, then. Untie him. I’m curious to see where he’s hiding this badge of his. I searched him and I didn’t find a thing.’
The other soldier obeyed and released the prisoner’s hands. Without missing a beat, the gigantic Celt landed a lethal punch and sent Carbo falling to the ground. He simultaneously grabbed his knife in a lightning-swift move and wheeled about to send its point straight at the other soldier’s throat before he had even realized what was happening.
‘Do you have questions to ask too?’ he said.
‘No,’ replied the soldier. ‘No, I don’t think I do.’
‘Good,’ said Rufus. ‘If you don’t need me here any longer, I’ll be on my way.’
With that, he jumped on his horse and rode off in the flurrying snow.
Carbo got up slowly, rubbing his swollen jaw. His opportunity for glory had ended ignominiously.
12
Rome, the home of Lucius Caesar, 11 March, three p.m.
Caesar left the bath chamber and went for his massage in the small thermal room that had been set aside for him in the home of his brother Lucius, on the Via Aventinus. Antistius sat opposite him with a linen towel around his loins and a tablet resting on his knees.
The masseur, a powerfully built man from Thrace, grabbed his shoulderblades and pulled them back, causing Caesar to utter a stifled moan of pain.
Ah! My back isn’t getting any better! I don t know how I’ll be able to ride when I’m leading my troops in the East.’
Antistius looked up from his notes. ‘It’s riding too much on all your previous campaigns that got you into this fix. That’s why your back hurts.’
‘It was the Egyptian campaign that really did him in!’ snickered the masseur. ‘They say that the filly you rode there really put you to the test!’ He loosened his hold and let his patient fall back on to the bed.
‘Don’t talk rubbish, you idiot. Just shut up and worry about doing your job if you can,’ said Caesar.
The Thracian began massaging the muscles in his shoulders, then worked his way along the spinal column, dipping his hands now and then in a bowl of scented oil. The room was thick with steam and Antistius was sweating profusely, but he continued to make notes on his tablet.
Caesar raised his head and looked at him upside down. ‘What are you writing, Antistius?’ he asked.
‘Names.’
Caesar gestured to his masseur, who picked up his tools and left the room.
‘Names? What names?’
Antistius hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Names of my patients. I write down their illnesses, the progress made in therapy, any worsening of the symptoms. .’
‘What you say is credible,’ replied Caesar. ‘But something tells me you’re lying.’
Antistius started slightly, but continued writing on the tablet. ‘Want to take a look?’
Caesar sat up on the bed and stared at him with his grey falcon’s eyes without managing to meet his gaze.
‘It’s like playing at dice, isn’t it? You’re inviting me to call you, to see your throw. But to see one has to raise the bet. What do you want, Antistius, to raise the cup? To show me your dice?’
‘Nothing, Caesar. It makes no sense to raise the bet. There’s nothing important to see.’
‘Well, then. . I pass,’ said Caesar, turning his gaze to a fresco faded by the dampness on the wall. It depicted Theban king Pentheus being torn apart by the maenads.
A long silence followed, pierced by the loud squawks of a seagull fishing in the river.
Silius walked in and approached Caesar.
‘The guests will all be present,’ he said. ‘And there’s a message for you.’
‘News about my. . cane?’ asked Caesar.
Silius shook his head as Antistius was saying, ‘You may have an aching back, Caesar, but you don’t need a cane. Not yet. And if you follow my advice you won’t be needing one for quite some time.’
Caesar got up, put on his military fatigue tunic and followed Silius out, under the perplexed, pensive gaze of his doctor. They walked towards the Domus Publica.
‘Unfortunately we haven’t heard anything further from Publius Sextius. Why are you so worried, if I may ask? You have already got the news you were waiting for. What more do you require from him?’
There was the slightest hint of jealousy in his tone.
‘You’re right, Silius, but I’ve been feeling the need to surround myself with people I trust completely and Publius Sextius is one of them. I want him here, now. When that first message came, I thought he’d be following soon after. It’s strange that he hasn’t arrived yet.’
They had reached the Domus, and Silius led the way to Caesar’s study. There, sitting on a silver tray, was the minuscule cylinder of leather, bearing a seal, that had just been delivered. It had a worn look. Caesar smiled.
Words rang in his mind: ‘Have it back, you villain!’
Obsessively: ‘Have it back, you villain!’
‘Have it back, you villain!’
It was Cato’s voice, ringing in his mind. Cato, who would kill himself at Utica. Caesar’s nightmare, the implacable ghost that haunted him like a Fury. And yet those words had brought to mind a situation more comic than tragic. It had happened twenty years ago, in the Senate. Cato had accused him of colluding with Catiline and his rebels in trying to overthrow the state, and as he was still speaking Caesar received a scroll in a leather case just like the one sitting now on his table. Cato had noticed the slave delivering it and he thundered, ‘Here is your proof! This villain is receiving instructions from his accomplices before our eyes, in this very hall!’
Without batting an eye, Caesar had passed the missive directly to the outraged orator, who, upon opening it, realized it was a torrid letter of love from his sister Servilia, inviting Caesar to come to her house in her husband’s absence. In very explicit terms that left nothing to the imagination. Cato had thrown it at him, shouting, ‘Have it back, you villain!’
When he saw the stupefied expression on Silius’s face, Caesar realized that he had actually pronounced those words out loud.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said gently. ‘It’s just my condition. Sometimes the past becomes the present and the present vanishes like a distant memory. I live in uncertainty, Silius. And I still have so much to accomplish. So much needs to be done. But leave me now, please.’
Silius walked away reluctantly.
Caesar broke the seal with the tip of a stylus and opened the case that contained a tiny parchment scroll with a few words written in a hand he knew well. He smiled again and put the message into a drawer, which he locked.
He walked through his bedroom into the dressing room, took off his fatigue tunic and dressed carefully, taking
