very out of place in the palatial room, laughing and joking with each other, chewing on hunks of bread and swigging from a wineskin that they passed around. They snapped to attention as they saw Antonia.
‘Domina,’ Magnus said through a half-eaten lump of bread.
Antonia’s eyes widened. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘Magnus, domina.’
‘Magnus, of course. What are you doing here?’ she responded, looking not altogether pleased to see him.
‘Me and me mates here are escorting the young masters, keeping an eye out for them, if you take my meaning?’ he replied indistinctly, patting the dagger in his belt.
‘Well, you will have your work cut out tonight: do your job well and you will receive a handsome reward.’
Magnus bowed in acknowledgement, finally managing to swallow the rest of his bread.
Vespasian heard footsteps coming down one of the corridors that led off the atrium, and turned to see a youth of no more than fourteen enter the room. He was tall and thin with spindly legs; his brown hair fell in curls over a broad, pallid, forehead, from beneath which two bright eyes peered intelligently out of sunken sockets.
‘Gaius, my sweet, this is Sabinus and Vespasian, the two young men you are to show to the tunnel,’ Antonia said, kissing her grandson on the cheek.
Gaius smiled at the brothers. ‘What a jolly caper this will be, eh? Rescuing slave girls at midnight from the clutches of the gruesome Livilla and the dastardly Praetorians, I can’t wait.’
‘Let’s hope that it turns out to be just a jolly caper, as you say, Gaius,’ Vespasian said, smiling back, instantly warming to Gaius’ bright and friendly nature.
‘Oh, please, call me Caligula, everyone does except my grandmother here who thinks that it’s not a becoming nickname for a son of the great Germanicus.’
Antonia laughed and ruffled Caligula’s hair with genuine affection.
‘Are these our men?’ Caligula asked, looking over at Magnus and his entourage.
‘Magnus, at your service, sir,’ Magnus said, nodding his head.
‘Excellent,’ Caligula cried. ‘With such a fine body of men behind us, how can we fail? Let’s be off. See you later, Grandmother.’
He went out into the wet night. Sabinus and Vespasian followed with Magnus and his lads joking about being called a fine body of men; Pallas, carrying a heavy-looking sack, brought up the rear. All were buoyed up by Caligula’s enthusiasm.
‘I don’t want to appear rude, sir, but where are we going and what are we going to do when we get there?’ Magnus asked Sabinus.
‘As Caligula said, we’re going to Livilla’s house to free a slave of Antonia’s held there.’
‘Livilla, eh? A nasty piece of work, from all accounts. Well, I’m sure the Lady Antonia knows best.’
‘What’s between you and Antonia?’ Vespasian asked, intrigued by Magnus’ unlikely contacts in high places. ‘She knew you, but seemed embarrassed to see you.’
‘I’d rather not say. I was hoping that she wouldn’t recognise me,’ Magnus mumbled.
‘I think I can guess,’ Caligula ventured. ‘You’re an ex-boxer judging by the look of you, aren’t you?’
‘I am, sir.’
‘My grandmother is very fond of boxing, so fond in fact that she used to go down to their stables and watch the boxers train.’ Caligula smiled mischievously. ‘Now, I’ve heard that some wealthy widows organise boxing bouts as after-dinner entertainment and then, when the guests have gone, hang on to a boxer or two for some entertainment of another sort. Am I close?’
They could tell by Magnus’ expression that Caligula had hit the mark.
‘No, Magnus, surely not?’ Vespasian gasped in disbelief, equally astonished at Caligula’s candour in discussing his grandmother’s sexual preferences, whilst resisting the temptation to ask Magnus what she was like.
‘Oh, it happens all the time with upper-class ladies,’ Caligula went on cheerily. ‘Boxers, gladiators, charioteers, even actors. Personally I see nothing wrong with it. After all, we all have our needs, even my grandmother, and I’m sure that Magnus was well rewarded for his efforts.’
‘The money was just a bonus,’ Magnus said. ‘She was a very beautiful woman – still is. I can’t claim that it was a hardship. Well, it was, if you take my meaning?’
‘I’m sure I do.’ Caligula smiled at him through the rain. ‘Anyway, we should concentrate on the matter in hand. Extinguish the torches; Livilla’s house is about a quarter of a mile away. The tunnel entrance is in the gardens at the back, so we’ll need to walk around the perimeter walls to find a suitable place to climb over; I think I can remember one.’
They carried on in silence up the hill; the wind had got up and the rain pounded down on them. Caligula stopped when they reached a narrow alley that ran off to the right off the main road between two walls, each about twelve feet high.
‘This is the rear of Livilla’s property, the gardens are over the left-hand wall,’ Caligula whispered. ‘About a hundred paces down the alley there’s an overhanging tree, we can throw a rope over its branches and scale the wall there.’
‘Did you bring rope, Pallas?’ Sabinus asked, worried that the whole venture would come to a grinding halt.
‘It’s all right, sir,’ Pallas reassured him, ‘I have one in my bag; Master Gaius had forewarned me.’
‘Oh, excellent, well done, Caligula,’ Sabinus muttered, hoping that he wasn’t going to be shown up by this pasty-looking youth all night. ‘Magnus, leave two of your men here to secure our getaway: we don’t want to be trapped in this narrow alley.’
‘Right you are, sir. Marius, that had better be you, I imagine that your rope-climbing days are over.’
‘Too right.’ Marius grinned, looking at the stump at the end of his left arm.
‘Sextus, you stay here too; when you see us coming back both of you hide over the other side of the street in the shadows. If the Praetorians are after us you follow behind them so if it comes to a fight you can take them in the rear.’
‘Hide in the shadows, take them in the rear. Right you are, Magnus,’ Sextus repeated, slowly digesting his orders.
‘They could probably do with these.’ Pallas pulled out a couple of swords from his sack.
‘What else have you got in there, Pallas?’ Vespasian asked, looking at the bulging sack.
‘Just stuff that we may need, sir,’ the Greek replied smoothly.
‘Come on, we haven’t got all night.’ Sabinus headed off down the dark alley.
The tree was where Caligula remembered it and in a few short moments they had the rope secured around a branch ready for the ascent.
‘The main house is about two hundred paces away to our right,’ Caligula said, ‘and the tunnel entrance is this side of it by a small round temple dedicated to Minerva.’
‘Right,’ Sabinus said. He was now soaked to the skin, as were all the others. ‘Magnus, leave two more of your lads down here to fight off anyone coming from the other direction, and station one more on top of the wall to get the rope in place to help us back over when we return.’
Magnus gave the orders whilst Pallas dished out three more swords to the men staying behind. Sabinus led the way up the rope to the top of the wall; he peered around but could see nothing on the other side in the pitch- black rain-sodden gardens.
‘Well, here goes,’ he muttered to himself, and leapt down into the dark. He landed with a soft thump in some long grass growing beneath the tree.
‘It’s fine,’ he called up softly to Caligula, who was just appearing at the top of the wall. He jumped down without hesitation. Vespasian, Pallas, Magnus and his last remaining brother, Cassandros, followed quickly.
‘We’re lucky with this weather,’ Caligula whispered. ‘If there are guards at the tunnel’s entrance they’ll be sheltering inside. We can approach from the side and they won’t have a chance of seeing us.’
‘You lead the way, Caligula,’ Sabinus said, ‘then when we’re at the entrance Magnus and I will take the guards out. Hopefully one of them will have the key to the cellar door. If not we’ll have to force it.
‘You might find that this will be of help, sir.’ Pallas pulled out a heavy iron crowbar from his sack.
‘Good. Anything else we may need, Pallas?’
