His twin brother, Gnaeus Calvinus, spoke too. ‘Marcellus is right.’
‘Go on Gnaeus,’ sneered Trebonius. ‘Lick his boots.’
Instead Gnaeus started to vigorously rub Marcellus’s right arm. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘No,’ he lied, since it stung badly; Gaius Trebonius had given it all he had, in total contravention of the rules of the game, though Marcellus blamed himself for leaving the arm exposed.
‘Why do you always cheat, Trebonius?’ asked Gnaeus.
‘It runs in the family,’ called Publius, who had picked up the fallen stave.
‘Publius!’ snapped Marcellus. ‘Gaius is in mourning for his grandfather, who I would remind you, died as a Roman should.’
The boy named swelled with pride then; the tale of his grandfather’s death at the hands of the Illyrian rebels was nearly as inspiring as that of Aulus Cornelius. He had faced the men who murdered him as a Roman proconsul should, exuding pride and indifference, with nothing in his hand except the axe and fasces that denote the power of the Roman imperium.
Publius pulled a face. ‘Officially, maybe, but I bet he’s really thinking how much closer he is to the family coffers.’
‘It makes no difference. I should have thought it was obvious that remarks about his family were unwelcome at any time, but especially now. I pray to the Gods that you never insult me that way.’
Marcellus turned and stalked across the open field, his boots sending up small puffs of dust. Gnaeus ran after him and Publius sighed. ‘There he goes, Trebonius. The most upright prick in all Rome.’
Gaius Trebonius laughed. ‘Speaking of pricks, do you think his boots are the only thing your brother licks?’
Publius swung the stave up and hit Trebonius hard in the groin. As he doubled over he brought it down on his neck. ‘The trouble with Marcellus is that he’s too soft. He turns the other cheek. If you’d struck me the way you hit him, I’d have taken your head off and I don’t mean the one on your shoulders. I’d make you scream like that horrible sister of yours.’
‘Pax!’ bleated Trebonius.
Publius lifted the stick and whacked him across the buttocks. ‘Come on, otherwise Timeon, our great and glorious teacher, will fetch you a dozen of those.’
The noise of the returning children briefly distracted Lucius and made him wonder whether such boisterous behaviour should be allowed. He had noticed that Timeon, the tutor he had engaged to teach Marcellus and his neighbour’s children, had been less strict of late, ever since the time his son had seen fit to give the Greek a buffet around the ears. The boy had received a sound beating for that transgression but that was only half the solution; it could not be allowed to interfere with the pedagogue’s strict methods, which in the past had seen him employ a vine sapling with vigorous regularity. Timeon had cost a fortune to buy and if he was growing soft, not disciplining sufficiently the boys in his care — all of whose parents paid Lucius a good fee to share his services — he would have to be sold and replaced. There was only one way to bring up and teach a Roman, and that was with rigour, but he decided to let what he could hear be; it would not aid Timeon’s authority to have him intervene.
Perhaps it was the paper before him that softened his natural disapproval of their youthful playfulness. After many years and careful disposal, he had in his hand the document which transferred ownership of two Latifunda farms in Sicily, the last piece of his land not within a day’s journey from Rome. Never again would he be required to think about examining the accounts and organising distant planting and irrigation schemes. Not that he had been to Sicily; his grandfather had acquired these two plots in a distribution of captured Carthaginian land after the Second Punic War. Huge and difficult to manage, they had, if anything, been a drain on his finances rather than an asset, returning such a low yield that some subterfuge had been required to extract a good price from the purchaser, Cassius Barbinus.
Challenged, Lucius would not have wanted to admit the real reason he had got a higher payment for his property than was truly justified. Cassius Barbinus had had his reasons to bid the price up; he wanted to ensure that the censor did not remove him from the senatorial list and there were grounds, he being a sybaritic fellow, a wealthy man who openly engaged in trade, one to whom the sumptuary laws governing conspicuous consumption were observed more in the breach than the letter. On top of that, the fellow was looking for advancement, even though he had never held any office on the cursus honorum, so generosity to a powerful man like Lucius Falerius Nerva might prove profitable.
It had been an unpleasant business; indeed it was a sign of the times in which he lived that Lucius could even consider transacting business with such a man. He had visited Barbinus at his cattle ranch near the small town of Aprilium in the company of his son, this to avoid being seen to have any kind of dealings with such a fellow, which in Rome would set tongues wagging. The luxury of the man’s villa was alone enough to displease Lucius, but the open way that Barbinus had tried to bribe him with gifts had set his teeth on edge, first with some tame leopards, then with the present of a young slave girl. Having turned down the first proffered gift he had been obliged to accept the second, manners demanded it, but he had seen to it that the girl never entered his house. She had been sent to a farm between Rome and the port of Ostia.
His steward entered silently and, without distracting him, laid the latest batch of reports, fresh in from the Republic’s scattered provinces, on his desk. Lucius threw aside his bill of sale and turned eagerly to read them. Illyricum was now at peace, the governorship having gone to another Flaminus, in part a recognition of his success in turning Vegetius, who had once been a political enemy, into a client, albeit a reluctant one. Locked away in his nearby strongbox he had the private correspondence that Aulus Cornelius, as head of the investigative commission, had sent back to him, reports that were enough to see Vegetius stripped of more than just his Senate seat; indeed they were so damning they could see him impeached, condemned as a thief and thrown naked off the Tarpien Rock.
He remembered the man’s face as he had read them at his legionary camp outside Rome, flabby like his body, with too much wine and food, so that in his soldier’s armour he looked like a buffoon instead of a general. Lucius also made it plain that he knew the truth about the way Vegetius had left Aulus Cornelius and his men to die, made it clear that his goodwill was the only thing that stood between the ex-governor and impeachment. Vegetius Flaminus had understood with an alacrity that showed his true, shameless character; as long as he toed the Falerii line and supported the Optimates in the house, those letters would stay locked away. Stray from that and they would be laid before the people.
That sanction not only locked in Vegetius Flaminus, it also included the faction of which he was a leading member, a group of senators who made mischief by flirting with the opposition, people that had to be continually bought off to keep that mischief from turning into real trouble. With them neutralised, Lucius Falerius now had the kind of power in the house which ensured that any vote that came before the chamber was almost certain to go the way he wanted. Over ten years it had taken to fully repair the damage done to his cause by the defection from his side of Aulus Cornelius, the pity being that he had to acquiesce in the granting of a triumph for a man he considered a slug, a man who could, on the most elementary examination, be denied that reward. There would, no doubt, be those who wanted Vegetius arraigned; they could bleat, but they had no evidence, only he had that.
For all the satisfaction he had had at the moment he had shown Vegetius Flaminus the secret correspondence of Aulus, he had felt a pang of guilt, plus an ache for the friendship he and Aulus had once enjoyed. From boyhood they had been inseparable, an unlikely couple to many; Aulus so gifted physically, he of a lesser build, with a sharp tongue in place of a keen sword blade. Yes, he had soldiered, and though it had been far from a disgrace, it had not brought to him what it gifted to Aulus, an arena for what Lucius wished were his natural talents. Those had lain elsewhere; not in battle and command, but in supply and support. The legions to which he was attached were better equipped and better fed than any others either before or since, and because of that he could lay some claim to be, even if another was the actual commander, the partial author of their success.
Prior to the murder of the plebeian tribune, Tiberius Livonius, he had had in Aulus a man with whom he could share his innermost thoughts and concerns and it hurt him even now to admit that he missed that greatly. Marcellus would one day become his confidant, but as yet he was too young. Powerful as he was, Lucius knew he was not immune from struggle. Quintus Cornelius, if not handled properly, could easily become a focus for dissent. He must be brought to see where his true interest lay, not in pursuit of Vegetius Flaminus but in loyalty to his fellow- patricians. It was good to observe that Aulus’s eldest son showed some sign that he understood, proving he had a better appreciation of his duties and prospects than his late father.
