honourable military posting; instead he was packed off to an oasis miles from civilisation, stuck in a quarry in the Egyptian desert.’
‘Classic Domitian!’ Vinius guffawed unkindly. ‘I have a thought,’ he then offered. ‘If you do consider moving, Nemurus, I know someone with a working farm on the Bay of Naples. It’s towards Surrentum and escaped the volcano. She might welcome a respectable tenant living there as a rent-free caretaker.’
‘Who is this?’ asked Lucilla a little too quickly.
‘Caecilia.’ Vinius twinkled. ‘It’s her famous legacy. Decent size, room for you to take your parents, if that’s a worry, Nemurus; great views; the best weather in the world. Domitian’s villa is safely on the opposite side of the Bay. The area is being revived after the eruption and there is plenty of culture for a man like yourself.’
‘Have you been there?’ Lucilla demanded.
‘No. Septimus took a look.’
‘He would!’ They had dinner with Septimus and Caecilia occasionally now; Lucilla felt ambiguous about the friendship.
‘Who are these people?’ Nemurus sensed undercurrents.
‘My ex-wife and her husband. Nice couple. Obviously,’ said Gaius, teasing Lucilla, ‘Septimus owes me a favour for freeing up Caecilia and her fabulous farm for him.’
‘Bastard.’ Lucilla showed him no real malice.
Gaius then reached across the arm of her chair and clasped her hand, looking at her tenderly.
Public displays of affection between men and women were traditionally un-Roman, but even with Nemurus awkwardly watching, the couple continued to hold hands. Nemurus could tell they did it frequently, whether anyone was there or not.
The meal ended. The wine flagon was not refilled. Nemurus decided to mention that he must be going.
Lucilla merely waved him off, staying where she was. It was Vinius who saw him out. The Praetorian actually came onto the landing, holding the door closed behind him. ‘I meant what I said about Naples. If it seems good, let me know.’
‘That is unexpectedly kind of you.’
‘I want something,’ Vinius admitted. His tone was unexceptional, but his stare was harder. ‘Don’t look so worried. My affection for Lucilla has always shielded you. Sincerely, I do not expect anyone else to betray you either. Our Master and God permits honest philosophy; what you believe, even what you teach, is your own affair. But I want to protect Lucilla.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t contact her again. This is not personal, though I suppose you are entitled to think so. If ever any informer should look at you too closely, I do not want them to pick up a silver snailtrail leading to her.’
The teacher chewed his lip.
‘She is defiant in her choice of friends,’ said the Praetorian softly. ‘She will not drop you; so you have to do it. “ The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly. ” Seneca,’ Vinius spelt out. ‘You know: wise, compassionate, amiable — one of those worthy men of literature who got himself killed by a mad emperor.’
29
One day, in his thirty-seventh year, when he ought to have known better, the Praetorian cornicularius Clodianus was called in to the Prefects’ office and invited to join a small committee of like-minded men. He could see no way to wriggle out. It was proposed to him, as such nightmares always are, as an honour.
Privately, he thought the term ‘like-minded men’ carried the same whiff as ‘concerned citizens’; it meant madmen with unpleasant designs on society. He had served in the vigiles. He had kept the surveillance lists of mathematicians, Christians and astrologers. He knew what like-minded men who gathered in furtive groups were generally aiming for and as a soldier he disliked it.
‘There has been bit of toing and froing on this,’ the Prefect admitted. It was Casperius Aelianus, the man Gaius first met after Dacia. ‘Usual nonsense. Changes of mind. Waiting for a decision. Still, we seem to be clear now, and you’ll be glad to know it has been agreed you are absolutely the right man for the job.’
No one else will touch it, thought Gaius. Luckily, keeping his private thoughts hidden was one of his talents. It was essential to his job. Being one-eyed with a wrecked face gave him every advantage in appearing inscrutable. With the Prefect, he played on it shamelessly. ‘Thank you, sir.’
His tone was so benign the Prefect shifted on his seat, caught by a riffle of uncertainty. He suspected that under the grave veneer, this Clodianus could be a subversive bugger.
The new committee was official, yet it was secret. Clodianus was given to understand that the Emperor was aware of its existence. That implied Domitian approved. Perhaps he had even suggested it — always a worrying aspect.
‘May I ask who chose me, sir?’
‘Abascantus. Know him?’
‘Vaguely. I know who he is, obviously — chief correspondence secretary. I have dealings with his people.’
There were hundreds of palace clerks, specialising in either Greek or Latin paperwork; Abascantus sat at the top, supervising both. The cornicularius received documents from various officials who had worked out that he was a safe person to push queries out to (where ‘safe’ meant, if the item looked harmless, he would not bother to relay tricky questions back but would diligently lose the original). He had even seen bumf with Abascantus’ signature on it, especially while the Emperor had been away in Pannonia, taking his chief officials with him. A lot of dross had floated back to the Camp then. Gaius had pigeonholed it with good-nature, though he could always be relied upon to find it again if unexpectedly requested.
Indeed, should that happen, he would even add a note or two, prettying up the document so it looked as if trouble had been taken to deal with the matter. Usually that sufficed to get the bumf lobbed back to him harmlessly for filing. He would put it away in the cache he had labelled very neatly with a Greek word for round objects. His symbol of two circles, he would explain sombrely to new clerks on their first day, meant the documents filed there had already been on two full circuits for comment, or as the cornicularius called it ‘chugging to Pannonia and back’. If the new clerk had not twigged the code by the end of the week, he would be transferred to granary records.
Perhaps Abascantus, who came from a family of imperial scribes, had noticed the devotion with which Clodianus tended the altar of bureaucracy.
‘An old-style freedman,’ said Casperius Aelianus. ‘Younger than you might expect, horrible hairstyle, you must know him by sight… I have him down as one of Domitian’s personal choices, not inherited from Titus.’
‘He involves himself in postings?’
‘Don’t they all?’ The Prefect looked demure. ‘I think he prepares most of the Emperor’s personnel suitability briefings.’ That was a new definition, which the cornicularius noted approvingly. He collected jargon.
‘Right,’ said Clodianus. ‘Well, better than having a ballet-dancer in charge of promotions, as that dodgy poet once claimed.’
‘Oh quite!’
‘I once rashly asked my predecessor what happened to promotion on merit.’
‘Oh merit works,’ the Prefect told him, in an offhand tone. ‘So long as you back it up with a large enough thank-you package for the freedman who gives out posts.’
‘So what exactly is my remit, sir?’
He thought the Prefect looked slightly embarrassed.
Aelianus explained that the superstitious Domitian regularly had the hour and manner of his death foretold by astrologers. Such prophecies went back so long that even his late father had chivvied him about it on an occasion when Domitian was handed mushrooms — the famous medium used for poisoning the Emperor Claudius. As his leery son refused the dish, Vespasian had joshed, ‘You’d do better to worry about swords!’ But Domitian was becoming increasingly afraid of assassination, and in the near future.
‘So when’s this scenario due to occur, sir?’
‘Don’t ask me. Highly confidential.’
