‘Thank you,’ Magnus replied from the other side of the room whence he and his crossroads brothers looked on anxiously.
‘What did you clean it with?’
‘Piss.’
‘Very good, the best thing if you can’t get any vinegar. The wound itself has closed, so I just need to apply a salve for the burn and then bind it tight to keep it from tearing open. Attalus!’
A tall, well-built man in his late fifties entered the room. ‘There’s no need to shout, I’m right here,’ he said in an overly patient tone of voice.
‘There you are, you great oaf. Take Magnus and his colleagues and find them something to eat, then bring some bread and ham in here. And whilst you’re about it bring my cup, I don’t know why Vespasian is drinking and I’m not.’
‘Probably because you didn’t ask for your cup before.’
‘Must I think of everything?’
‘Yes, you must, because you are the mistress and everyone else is your slave.’
‘Well, behave like one, then.’
‘I always do. Is that all?’
‘That’s three orders; I don’t think you’ll be able to remember any more.’
Attalus looked over to Vespasian and grinned. ‘Welcome home, Master Vespasian, it will be so nice to have someone sensible around the house again.’
‘Thank you, Attalus. I see that my grandmother and you are still getting along.’
‘I tolerate her,’ he said in a playful whisper.
‘Why I tolerate you I don’t know. I should have you crucified.’
‘Then who would remind you what day it was and what your name is?’
‘Go on, get on with it,’ Tertulla said, slapping him hard on the arse and trying not to laugh.
Attalus left the room rubbing his behind and taking the bemused crossroads brothers with him.
Tertulla gently anointed the wound with a foul-smelling balm and then carefully bound it. As she was finishing Attalus came back with the food and a silver cup.
‘You took your time, did you get lost again?’ Tertulla said sharply, tying the linen bandage with a knot.
‘I’m surprised you remembered that I’d even gone,’ Attalus replied, thumping down the tray of food with a flamboyant flourish. ‘Would the mistress like water in her wine or is she planning on drinking herself into oblivion again this evening?’
‘I’ll pour my wine and then I’ll know there’s no spit in it. Off you go and do something useful like fucking one of my body slaves, put her in a good mood for when she does my hair in the morning.’
‘As a favour to you, mistress, I’ll have all three, then you’ll be surrounded by happy smiling faces when you dress tomorrow.’
‘Get out of my sight, you old goat, and take your little friend with you. You’ll probably need his help, considering your age.’
Tertulla dismissed the lamp slave, who knew better than to laugh at his mistress’s banter with his superior.
Vespasian let out a long laugh as they left the room. ‘I’d nearly forgotten how much fun it is living here, Tute. It is so good to see you.’
‘He keeps my wits about me; a priceless commodity, wouldn’t you say?’ she said, laughing with him. She picked up the wine jug and poured a good measure of wine into her cup. Vespasian gazed at her lovingly as she caressed the plain silver cup with both hands.
‘When I think of you, I always picture you holding that cup; you never drink from anything else, do you?’
‘Your grandfather, Titus Flavius Petro, gave me this on our wedding day. I was thirteen years old and it was the first thing that I could ever call mine; up until then all my possessions had technically belonged to my father. I cherish this as I cherished that dear man, thirty years my senior, who gave me it all those years ago.’ She smiled sadly to herself, remembering the man she’d loved, and then raised her precious cup. ‘To absent friends.’
‘Absent friends.’
They drank and sat in companionable silence for a while. The throbbing in his leg returned and reminded Vespasian of his wound.
‘How long will it take to heal, Tute?’
‘Ten to fifteen days if you rest it. Come on, you must eat,’ Tertulla replied, offering him the plate of ham.
‘I need to leave in seven at the most, I have to be in Genua in twelve days’ time and we won’t be able to take the road.’
‘Why?’
Vespasian briefly related the events of the past few days. He tried to keep the details vague in order to disguise the extent of his involvement in the conspiracy against Sejanus, but it wasn’t easy to pull the wool over Tertulla’s eyes.
‘So, you’re involved with rich, powerful people and you are already choosing sides.’
‘I chose the honourable side, the side that serves Rome.’
‘You must be careful, Vespasian; the side that seems to serve Rome may not always be the most honourable, and even if it is it may not win.’
‘So you would advise that I just choose the side that I think will win, regardless of whether it seeks to serve Rome?’
‘I advise you to keep out of politics that you don’t understand, and to keep away from the powerful, because in general they only have one goal and that is more power. They tend to use people of our class as dispensable tools. We’re very handy for doing the dirty work but a liability once it is done because we may know too much.’
‘Tute, I owe Asinius and Antonia for my commission in the Fourth Scythica; I am duty bound to do what they have asked me and that’s all there is to it.’
Tertulla looked at her grandson and smiled. He was so like her husband when they had married almost seventy-five years before: the same earnestness and desire to do what he felt was right.
‘Just remember what happened to your grandfather Petro; he was duty bound to Pompey Magnus, having served with him during his eastern campaigns, so he re-enlisted in his legions as a senior centurion when the civil war against Caesar flared up. He’d already served his twenty-five years with the legions, but at the age of forty- four, a year after our marriage, he found himself at Pharsalus fighting fellow citizens, whose sense of duty was as strong as his, but directed towards a different Roman cause. Pompey lost everything to Caesar at Pharsalus, but Petro managed to survive the battle and made it home to me. He appealed to Caesar in Rome and won a full pardon; he was allowed to live and became a tax-collector, though he knew he could never again expect advancement.
‘Then, when Augustus came to power with the second Triumvirate after Caesar’s assassination, he re- enlisted again and fought for Cassius and Brutus, Caesar’s killers, against the Triumvirate at Philippi where the last hopes of the Republicans died. Augustus proscribed over two thousand equites who had stood against him or his adoptive father Caesar; your grandfather was one of them. Rather than be executed and forfeit his property he committed suicide here, in this very room, as the soldiers were banging on the gate.’
Vespasian gazed around the room and imagined his grandfather falling on his sword in a desperate attempt to save his family and property by taking the honourable way out. He looked at his grandmother; she was obviously picturing it too. ‘Whenever I asked you how my grandfather died you said only that he had died for Rome.’
‘And so he did. But he died for his idea of Rome, the old Rome, the Republic, not the Rome that emerged after the years of civil war, the new Rome, the Empire.’
‘Do you look back at the Republic and wish that it still survived, Tute?’
‘Yes, but only for my husband’s sake. If it had survived I would have kept him longer. As to how Rome is governed now, I don’t care, as long as I’m left alone; but I think that later tonight Rome will come knocking on my door again, so we had better get all of you hidden.’
‘You think they’ll come out here?’ Vespasian asked. He had been lulled into a false sense of security by the familiar surroundings.
‘Of course; once they find nothing in Cosa they’re bound to search the surrounding countryside on their way
