‘Gaius, you are a barbarian!’ Lucilla called.
He shrugged off the tease. ‘And pepper is essential. A good sprinkle all over, before serving.’
‘Not a dish for the poor then?’ joked Maximus.
‘No. I take my own peppercorns if I’m eating out, in case the waiter is mean.’
‘He really does,’ confirmed Lucilla, as she made her way over to Gaius. ‘He makes them bring a mortar to the table. You have to find it endearing — or you would cringe.’
Reclining alongside Gaius, Lucilla unexpectedly made a declaration to the company at large. For Gaius and her, this was a rare public appearance as a couple. She surprised herself with the confidence that gave her: ‘I know we agreed to have no business talk at table, but this is what we want. Don’t we need to recover a world where you can dine at ease, at home or in public, enjoying the fabulous ingredients our Empire makes available? Enjoying skilled cookery and service? Most of all, enjoying such good company as we have here tonight — without getting heartburn because you are racked with tension, and without constantly looking over your shoulder in case an informer reports unguarded words to a cruel tyrant?’
‘Being able to trust dinner companions, hired waiters and the little slave who helps remove your shoes,’ Parthenius agreed.
Even Gaius took a hand, smiling: ‘A world where Parthenius can safely bring his boy to listen in on the grown-ups.’ The sleepy-eyed young Burrus woke up and blushed. Gaius went on seriously, ‘Where you never have to look sideways at your wife nor keep your opinions hidden from your girlfriend — assuming you can get one as fine as I fortunately have to share my couch this evening!’
Lucilla smiled at his compliment. She could see that Parthenius was still wondering if this was a clever ploy from Gaius or if he had genuinely opened up. Was it the wine talking? Gaius had been quaffing in Praetorian style. He was mellow though not drunk, she thought, even though he turned and smiled back at her with giddying sweetness.
They returned to Rome the next day. Many decisions had failed to materialise, yet the project had moved on. People took away tasks — even though Gaius claimed knowledgeably that at the next meeting there would be complaints of inaction, caused by plotters being too terrified to approach anyone.
Lucilla was buoyant. Gaius, too, felt a hardening of purpose, which became all the more fixed after a couple of months when, simultaneously, they realised that Lucilla was to have a child.
A pang of uncertainty passed between them, before it was obvious they both welcomed this. Although pregnancy was unpredictable and birth a threat to both mother and baby, they were both happy that they were now to become a family. Ironically, they also treated their news like diagnosis of an incurable disease: during the next months, both began putting their affairs in order.
Gaius had decided to leave the Praetorians as soon as he had served his sixteen years. He informed both Prefects that his girlfriend was carrying, so he wanted to legitimise their relationship, and he started training an optio. The conservative Norbanus was particularly solicitous; it was a good Roman tradition to father a family and he assumed Gaius intended to produce a row of soldiers.
Strictly speaking, a retired Praetorian would be in the reserves for two years. ‘That assumes they can find me!’ muttered Gaius.
Lucilla meanwhile had learned about the compensation money Gaius squeezed from Lachne’s lover, Orgilius. She split it between the two slavegirls she worked with, giving them their freedom too. Calliste wanted to get married; Glyke in all probability never would, but Lucilla saw no reason for her to lose out. She treated them equally, letting them know that if ever she and Gaius decided to move away from Rome, she would leave them her business.
The couple vaguely prepared people for the idea that they might relocate one day, if they were not too disorganised to manage it. There was mention of Campania, where unclaimed land whose owners died in the Vesuvian eruption was being made available. Gaius cracked jokes about returning to Dacia as one of the Roman experts sent to support King Decebalus under Domitian’s unpopular treaty. Lucilla dropped other hints: that the prospect of a baby had given her the freedwoman’s dream to see the eastern homeland from whence her mother was originally taken…
‘Rome is a glorious city,’ claimed Gaius, ‘but not the only city in the world.’
‘Oh you do like a laugh!’ Felix and Fortunatus chortled.
Gaius wrote a new will.
‘Everything will come to you, Lucilla. Listen; you won’t like this, but to make it easy legally, I named you my wife.’
‘Then we are heading for divorce.’
He gazed at her, with that wry tightening of muscle at one end of his mouth that Lucilla knew so well. ‘Just go along with this, precious.’ He produced a gold ring. A woman’s wedding ring. ‘Wear this to look good.’
He saw Lucilla’s expression. ‘How many of your wives — ?’
‘Be easy. The last person who wore that ring was my mother, Clodia.’
Lucilla knew how he thought of his mother. She did try it on. ‘I am supposed to accept this for the child?’
‘Let our child be born a citizen! If anything should happen to me, I want to think you are both provided for — otherwise the state will deny your rights and snaffle everything.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to you.’
‘Not if I can help it… I found this, when I was burrowing.’ Gaius produced an elderly tablet, the wood stained and the wax hard. It was from his time in the vigiles, and on it in his handwriting was her name. ‘ Flavia Lucilla; some girlie who made an impression on me in the vigiles. Look, I never smoothed it over in nearly twenty years.’
‘Oh Gaius, why?’
‘I didn’t know.’ He grinned at her. ‘But I know now.’
He still had a handsome profile, and Lucilla still thought he was too aware of it.
34
On the first of September new consuls were sworn in.
The conspiracy revived. They had considered the mid-year consuls unsympathetic to their aims: one with a military background had worked with Domitian closely in Pannonia, and another came from Reate, Vespasian’s birthplace, the Flavian heartland whose politicians were intensely cliquey. Both men looked dangerous to the plotters. With two powerful consuls against them, they felt stymied.
Those consuls were replaced for the last four months of the year by Calpurnius, whom nobody knew much about although they knew nothing against him, and a much healthier prospect: Caesius Fronto. He was the son or adopted son of the famous lawyer and senator, Silius Italicus, who was now swelling the ranks of retired poets in Campania; Italicus was writing an epic about the Carthaginian war, a work which was bound to involve reminiscing about the good old days when politicians had sanity and integrity. He came from Patavium, birthplace of the martyred philosopher Thrasea Paetus; this town had produced many members of the stoic opposition, men who tended to meet and collaborate when they went to Rome.
The son, Fronto, mingled with those men, held the same views and was, like others before him, awarded a consulship by Domitian to mitigate his hostility. Parthenius believed in Fronto as his ideal controller of the Senate if the plot went ahead.
That finally seemed likely. Flavia Domitilla’s steward Stephanus suddenly learned he was accused of theft. Everyone knew what that meant. He was next up for banishment, if not execution. He approached Parthenius and offered to carry out Domitian’s murder.
Stephanus looked suitable. So far, he still worked at the palace, so he could get close to the Emperor. Stephanus was angry enough and strong enough. He still raged at the injustice to his mistress and her family; he loathed Domitian. With both career and life under threat, Stephanus had nothing to lose. They would have to act fast though, because of the theft accusations. Delay only increased the chance of discovery.
Domitian was in Rome. That was what they wanted. He was officiating at the Roman Games which,
