‘C-c-c-come, Herod, Narciss-ss-cissus will see them out, let us enjoy the g-g-garden. Good day, g-g- gentlemen.’ Claudius grabbed Herod’s elbow and led him from the room at a suspiciously fast speed as Herod’s freedman came scuttling back into the house.
‘My master thinks that he’s adept at subterfuge, but unfortunately he’s not,’ Narcissus commented. ‘I’ll do my best to make Herod think that it was purely legal business or suchlike that brought you here. Unfortunately his eyes, ears and nose are trained to detect intrigue; he may well be a problem.’
‘Then we should get this done as soon as possible,’ Corbulo suggested.
‘Your judgement is faultless, senator,’ Narcissus crooned, ‘and does you great credit. Poppaeus too is keen to seal the deal. I’m sure that he won’t object to being here at the second hour tomorrow to do so; there is no meeting of the Senate owing to the festival of Apollo.’
‘We shall be here at dawn unless we hear otherwise from you, Narcissus,’ Pallas said, picking up the chest. ‘I will let Asiaticus know to be in position in the Forum from the third hour onwards to waylay the litter.’
‘Excellent, my friend; and I will have a rope and a barrel full of water ready. May the gods look kindly upon our venture.’
The doorman let them out into the street.
As the door closed behind them Pallas surprised them all. ‘Fuck!’
They had left Corbulo at the foot of the Caelian Hill to make his way home and were now ascending the Palatine. Hundreds of people were making a slow progress up the hill singing paeans to Apollo while holding polished bronze discs in the air symbolising the sun. Unable to push their way through the densely packed crowd, they were obliged to walk at the steady slow pace of the three white oxen that led the procession.
‘There’s going to be a sacrifice to Apollo, Ziri,’ Magnus explained to his slave.
‘Apollo? What is?’ Ziri asked looking around nervously at the crush of people.
‘He’s the god of lots of things: truth, shepherds, colonisation, archery, all sorts…’ Magnus paused; Ziri’s blank face showed that his Latin was not coping with his explanation. ‘Never mind. After the sacrifice there’re going to be gladiatorial games in the Taurus amphitheatre on the Campus Martius — we’ll go along, there should be some good fights.’ Magnus looked at Vespasian. ‘You fancy it, sir?’
‘No thanks; once I’ve spoken with Antonia I’m going to the baths,’ Vespasian replied as they managed to leave the procession and turn onto Antonia’s street. ‘We haven’t been since Creta,’ he added, looking pointedly at Magnus.
‘Yeah, well, one more day ain’t going to make a difference then, is it? Besides, I’m looking forward to seeing how Ziri reacts to everyone having a good…well, you know.’
Vespasian frowned. ‘Do you think he’s ready for that?’
‘I’m not sure that public masturbation every time a gladiator is killed is something that Romans should be overly proud of,’ Pallas remarked.
Magnus grinned. ‘Yeah, but it adds spice to it all, don’t it? Especially if you’ve got a nice young whore to help you along, if you take my meaning?’
‘Masturbation? What is?’ Ziri asked.
‘I’m afraid that you’re just about to find out, Ziri,’ Vespasian replied as they reached Antonia’s door.
Dismissing Magnus and Ziri with orders to be at Gaius’ house an hour before dawn, Vespasian followed Pallas indoors. After a brief wait Antonia appeared, accompanied by Caenis dressed in a hooded cloak.
‘Is it set up?’ Antonia asked Pallas.
‘Yes, domina. But Herod Agrippa and his freedman, Eutyches, saw us there.’
Antonia’s face froze. ‘Herod! Of all people he’ll see the coincidence in Poppaeus’ death. I’ll need some time to think about how to deal with this. Who’s this freedman?’
‘Herod was obliged to give him his freedom a couple of years ago so that he could sign for a loan on his behalf. I don’t know much else about him, just that Herod has treated him as an idiot since he purchased him when he was a boy.’
‘Is he loyal?’
‘I doubt it. Who can be loyal to a man who has no loyalty to anyone but himself?’
‘Perhaps we could try and talk to him; he might be willing to expose a few little secrets.’
In a moment of clarity a thought came to Vespasian as he remembered Sabinus’ idea of how to expose a secret of Herod’s. ‘Domina, why not threaten to expose Herod as a grain speculator? You could do it without endangering Claudius for selling it to him in the first place.’
‘How?’
‘By using my brother. As the grain aedile he has the right to impound Herod’s stockpile in Egypt in a time of shortage. I’m sure that Sabinus won’t look too closely at where Herod bought it.’
She turned to Vespasian and smiled. ‘Leaving Herod the choice between losing all that money or keeping quiet about any suspicions that he might have about Macro’s property deal collapsing. Very good; you’re learning, Vespasian. I shall start working on that immediately. Meanwhile, Caenis wants to go to the sacrifice at the Temple of Apollo; I know that it’s very unusual to ask a member of the Senate to accompany one’s slave but I thought that this once you might be willing to make an exception.’
Vespasian looked at Caenis who smiled shyly at him. ‘It will be my pleasure, domina.’
‘Good. Pallas, come with me. We have work to do; send a message to Sabinus to come here as soon as he’s finished at the granaries.’ With a reassuring squeeze of Caenis’ arm she turned and left the room.
Vespasian took a step towards Caenis. ‘Caenis, I…’
She moved away. ‘Not here, my love, let’s walk.’
‘My mistress has explained,’ Caenis said through gritted teeth, bringing both clenched fists down hard onto her thighs. ‘I know now that we can never marry, but I’d never heard of that law until my mistress told me about it just before she gave me Corvinus’ letter to copy. I didn’t understand why she was telling me that at the time, it just came from nowhere and hurt me deeply. I’d been dreaming of marrying you, my love; then I find out that I can’t and moments later I understood why Antonia told me then: to prepare me for the news that you were after another woman.’
‘It’s my duty to have sons,’ Vespasian replied rather lamely.
‘Duty! I know it’s your duty,’ Caenis exploded, causing people all around them in the street to turn their heads. ‘But what about me? Us? Where is our love in all this?’
‘First and foremost, Caenis, as it will always be,’ Vespasian replied, keeping his voice hushed, aware of the amusement that the perceived lovers’ tiff was causing around them.
‘So while you have a family with this other woman you just expect me to move aside, waiting for the odd morsel of comfort that you have time to cast my way on the rare occasions that you manage to free yourself from your duty to your family and to Rome? Meanwhile, I’m left to burn with jealousy knowing that my lover, my best friend, is being given something, by someone he claims not to love as much as me, that I am forbidden by law to give him, something that I so desperately want to give him: children.’ Caenis stopped and squared up to him. ‘How can I do that, my love? How can you expect so much from me?’ she asked in a gentle, quavering voice.
‘But Flavia has disappeared, I won’t find her again.’
‘You’ll find another; it’s only a matter of time.’
Vespasian looked into her pleading eyes, rimmed with tears, and felt a knot of raw emotion gnawing at his bowels. Caenis was right, that was exactly what he had expected of her; yet he had never thought of it in those terms. In all of his planning of his future domestic arrangements he had made the assumption that Caenis would make room for his future wife and that both women would submit to the arrangement; he could see now that he had been deluded. He had, whether consciously or not, considered Caenis’ feelings only in relation to her social status — that of a slave soon to be freed. He saw her for the first time as his equal; now they were just a man and a woman deeply in love with one another.
‘We’re trapped, aren’t we, my love?’ he whispered, oblivious now to the crowds of people passing them on either side. Caenis was all he could see.
She took both his hands in hers. ‘Yes, Vespasian, we are, unless I forgo the children that my body is screaming at me to give you, or you give up the position and career that your dignitas demands of you.’
‘What do we do?’
She smiled weakly, lowering her eyes. ‘For now all I can suggest is that we walk to the sacrifice.’
The crowd outside the Temple of Apollo was as large as it had been on that momentous day when Sejanus
