supporters; their enemies they could ignore but those who purported to share their views were a source of constant irritation. Fellow senators, supposedly august and dignified individuals, were really like a set of squabbling children, intent on endlessly pressing petty complaints.
One would have a grudge about the distribution of public land, to satisfy which required some form of compensation. Another would complain that the proper order of precedence had been ignored in some insignificant debate, this an affront to his dignity. Mollifying them could only be achieved if both the reigning consuls, and all their living predecessors, could be persuaded to yield the right to take the floor first. Quintus knew that money, in the shape of monopolies, land grants and dispensations, oiled the process more than political principle. A realist, he was not shocked by this, but it did add to his own woes.
Personally, he had to be seen as above any suspicion of corruption; the slightest hint that he was feathering his own nest by giving himself concessions that others would claim as their due could cause a haemorrhage in their ranks. So Quintus Cornelius was forced to endure endless toil, spend money to please the mob, while denying himself income to appease his peers. He complained about it loudly, though never once to the point where he even hinted at a willingness to lay down the burden.
A slave entered to remind him of the hour; he was due at the Forum to partake in a civic welcome to be extended to an embassy from Parthia, so Quintus threw aside the despatch from Silvanus, the governor of Sicily, warning of an increase in the problems caused by runaway slaves. His request for regular troops to help weed them out was absurd and surely the consuls would share his view; let the planters, who made the profits, pay to keep the peace. As he dressed, taking great care with his toga, his mind wandered from one problem besetting the Republic to the next. The frontiers were bad enough, but here in the city he had to decide what advice to offer regarding the activities of certain knights. Wealthy enough to advance to the Senate, they were being denied admittance on the flimsiest of excuses, mostly concerned with their personal morality. Would they, once elevated, behave as they should and drop any demands for reform of the courts? Or would they come to the chamber and try to tip the balance towards the class they had just left?
Could he do something to stop the other Italian states from bribing senators to advance the idea of universal citizenship, or find a means to shift some of the slum dwellers, non-Romans, back to their own lands? Each fold in the heavy white garment seemed to represent a different conundrum, which would require as much care in the tackling as the fuss he was making about his appearance. Quintus was not yet bored by such ceremony, still excited to be required to represent his city when external potentates sought either alliance or peaceful coexistence. He desired to be elegant without being overt. Against the gorgeously clad ambassadors from the east he wished to stress that Rome was controlled by men who required no glitter to enhance their dignitas. Today there would be, at the request of Lucius Falerius, no gold rings in the Senate. Plain iron, as of old, was sufficient for him, therefore it was enough for all. Finally satisfied, Quintus left his private rooms and made for the gate. He was halfway across the atrium when the door was opened to admit Cholon and the senator fixed the Greek with a jaundiced look.
‘I don’t know why you don’t move in here.’
‘I value my freedom, Quintus.’
Cholon took great pleasure from the way the double meaning of that upset the owner of the house and he was rewarded with a scowl. ‘The number of times you dine with my stepmother! If it was anyone else I’d be worried, but then I don’t suppose her virtue is in any danger from you.’
Cholon could not care less what most people said of him and that particularly applied to his sexual inclinations, but this man annoyed him enough to elicit a sarcastic response, no matter what he said. ‘I do so agree, Quintus. She is in much greater danger when I’m not around. How gratifying it is that you take the precaution of observing her every move.’
The look of confusion on Quintus’s face was genuine. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Of course you don’t. It’s mere coincidence that Thoas always has his ear to her door.’
‘Thoas. The Numidian?’
‘Who else?’ replied Cholon, pursing his lips at what he considered blatant obfuscation.
‘You’re imagining things, Cholon. My stepmother bought him and his wife off me on the very day the will was read. He’s her slave now, not mine.’
That threw the Greek, who stood aside to let Quintus pass. He made his way to Claudia’s suite of rooms in curious mode. There was no doubt that the Numidian listened at doors and Quintus did not actually have to own him to get information. He could be paying the man for it. His opinion of the head of the Cornelii household was so low he never even stopped to consider any other possibility.
‘Why do I feel that you are always on the verge of asking me something?’ Claudia smiled at him, giving a good impression of curiosity, but she was obviously flustered. ‘May I speak plainly?’
‘I was never aware that you did anything else,’ she replied.
‘I get the impression that often, when we talk, you have a question on your lips. When you speak, your expression does not always match the words you use.’
‘Perhaps I have a singular expression.’
‘Or an awkward question, Lady!’ He had spoken more sharply than intended and the look of alarm on her face proved it. ‘Please, forgive me. I did not intend to distress you.’
‘Do you like me, Cholon?’ she asked.
‘I never dine regularly with people I hate,’ he replied, flippantly.
But Claudia was serious, her handsome brow knitted with the lines of worry. ‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘If I were to ask you for the one secret which you have, and I crave, would you tell me?’ He shook his head, but that was because of doubt, not a refusal. Her voice was under very tight control, which gave it a hard quality, when she was really striving for a supplicant one. ‘You must be able to guess what that is, Cholon. I want to know where Aulus exposed my son.’
He sat still for some time, his head shaking very slowly from side to side. ‘I am given to wondering, having at last been asked, if that is the only reason I’m invited to dine so often.’
The voice broke and she was on the verge of tears. ‘I’m so desperate for an answer, Cholon, that I would not be able to tell you if that is right or wrong.’
Cholon stood up suddenly. ‘I must go.’
Her hand was out in panic. ‘No. Stay!’
‘I cannot. You asked me if I liked you. Would it serve as an answer to say that if I stayed here I would be tempted to betray a sacred trust?’
‘Please?’
The tears came and he could not help crying too. ‘The boy is dead, Lady Claudia. I betray no secret when I say that your husband made sure of that.’
‘He wouldn’t kill him. He couldn’t!’
‘Not by his own hand, but he was so far from a place where he might be found that he could not have survived.’
‘Then it would do no harm to tell me where it is.’
Thoas, on the other side of the door, was willing Cholon to speak as much as Claudia. When the door flew open he was caught half-crouched and the tearful Greek, leaving in haste, nearly knocked him over.
Marcellus was privileged to be allowed to observe the unfolding scene from a good vantage point. Careful to remain hidden behind the pillar, he watched as the file of senators, each in a white toga bordered with a thick purple stripe, made their way out onto the steps overlooking the open space of the Forum Boracum. The ambassadors from Parthia, who had been accommodated outside the city for a week, made their entrance through the city gates a spectacle to remember. Ahead of them sweepers, with constant prayers to the Goddess Deverra, cleared the Sacred Way, while a line of slaves bearing water pots spread their load to kill the clouds of dust, the sunlight playing on the gold threads that spun through every garment. The Roman crowd did not roar, as they would for a conquering hero coming to the heart of Rome garlanded by success in war, but they did gasp at the sheer quantity of precious jewellery that adorned these gorgeous, dark-skinned creatures.
Every hat, each neck and all their fingers bore some evidence of the wealth of the Parthian Empire. Behind the ambassadors, their escort carried with them gifts for the people, each valuable object borne on a velvet
