eye. ‘Herod Agrippa. He used to be a friend of Antonia’s and used to borrow money off her but he never paid her back, thinking that because he was a favourite of Tiberius and a good friend of his son Drusus — they were educated together — he was owed a living. However, when Drusus died he fled Rome and his debts and went back to his homeland, Iudemaea.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Fuck knows, but close to Judaea, I should think, as he’s Jewish. Anyway, he soon had to leave there, debts again, and then spent his time pissing off every petty king and tetrarch in the East demanding a position of power or a loan just because he’s the grandson of Herod the Great. A couple of months ago he returned to Rome and managed to wheedle his way back into Tiberius’ favour. According to your uncle he’s organised an embassy of Parthian rebel noblemen to come to Rome next year; they want Tiberius to help them depose their king. As a reward Tiberius has made Herod Agrippa tutor to his grandson Tiberius Gemmelus.’
‘So what makes it strange that Macro and he should be friends?’
‘Because while Macro is trying to ingratiate himself with Caligula, he’s at the same time snuggling up to Herod, the person who has the most influence over another possible heir, Gemmelus.’
‘So he’s backing both chariots?’
Magnus grinned and shook his head. ‘No, sir, it would seem that he’s backing all three. Herod Agrippa has another contact, a very good childhood friend of his who was educated alongside him and Drusus: the third possible heir from the imperial family, Antonia’s son Claudius.’
The sun was beginning to dip in the west and the sea sparkled bronze below as Vespasian and Magnus passed under Cyrene’s principal gate into the lower city. The litter-bearers had to force their way through scores of beggars — refugees from the failed silphium farms hoping to receive alms from newly arrived merchants before they tired of being importuned by the countless destitute now obliged to rely on charity.
‘I’m getting to really hate this place,’ Vespasian commented as he pushed away supplicating hands. ‘It just rubs my face in the fact that my family’s standing in the Senate is very low; only the most insignificant quaestors get sent here.’
‘You drew it by lot.’
‘Yes, but only the insignificant quaestors go to the ballot; the ones from the great families get the plum jobs in Rome. Sabinus was lucky to draw Syria last year.’
Magnus kicked away an overly persistent old crone. ‘I’ve got a letter from Caenis in my bag, hopefully that’ll cheer you up; you certainly seem to need it.’
‘It’ll help,’ Vespasian shouted back over the torrent of abuse that Magnus was receiving from the floored crone, ‘but I don’t think that I’ll feel cheerful until after the sailing season starts again in March and my replacement arrives. I need to get back to Rome, I need to feel that I’m making progress rather than festering in this arsehole of the Empire.’
‘Well, we’ve got four months to kill, I’ll keep you company. To tell you the truth, when Antonia failed to get your Egypt travel warrant I told her that I’d still come anyway to bring the bad news. Things are a little too hot for me at the moment in Rome; your uncle is going to smooth it all over while I’m away.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing, just a bit of business looking after the interests of my Crossroads Brotherhood; I’ve left my second, Servius, in command, he’ll look after things.’
Vespasian knew not to pry into Magnus’ underworld life as the leader of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood; protection and extortion were the primary business of all the Brotherhoods. ‘You’re welcome to stay but there isn’t much to do.’
‘What about the hunting; what’s that like here?’
‘It’s not up to much close to the city, but apparently if you go south for a couple of days you might find some lions in the foothills of the plateau.’
‘It’s your birthday in a few days; we’ll kill a lion to celebrate,’ Magnus suggested.
Vespasian looked at his friend apologetically. ‘You go and celebrate by yourself, I’m afraid that I can’t. I’m not supposed to leave the city unless it’s on official business.’
Magnus shook his head. ‘I can see that this is going to be a very dull few months.’
‘Welcome to my world.’
‘What are the whores like?’
‘I’m told they’re nice and old, just as you like them, but rather sweaty.’
‘Now come on, sir, don’t mock, it’s not out of choice; I just do as the good lady tells me. And, as I said, it doesn’t happen much nowadays.’
Vespasian smiled again. ‘I’m sure that Quintillius, my clerk, can procure something suitable to make up for that.’
The street opened out into the busy main agora of the lower city.
‘What’s going on there?’ Magnus pointed at a large crowd of mainly Jewish men jeering at a tall, broad- shouldered young man standing on a plinth attempting to address them. Next to him stood a young woman carrying a one-year-old girl-child; a three-year-old boy squatted at her feet looking fearfully at the crowd.
‘Another Jewish proselytiser, I expect,’ Vespasian replied with a sigh. ‘There seems to have been an influx of them recently, preaching some new sort of Jewish cult. I’m told that the elders don’t like it, but as long as they don’t cause any trouble I leave them alone. The one thing that I’ve learnt here is that it’s best to keep out of Jewish affairs, they’re impossible to understand.’
Unimpeded now by beggars, the litter-bearers made good progress along the lower city’s wide main thoroughfare, lined with the old and tatty, but still imposing, two-storey houses of the richer merchants, and they soon started the short ascent to the upper city.
Heartened somewhat by the prospect of reading Caenis’ letter, Vespasian turned his thoughts to his lover whom he had not seen for over seven months. Still a slave in the Lady Antonia’s household, she would be thirty in three years’ time and he lived in hope of her being freed upon attaining that age, the youngest allowed by law for the manumission of slaves. Although it was against the law for a man of senatorial rank to marry a freedwoman, he hoped to take her as his mistress as soon as she was able to make decisions in her own right. He planned to set her up in a small house in Rome with the money that he was quite quickly accruing from the bribes and gifts that naturally came his way from provincials anxious to have the favour of the highest ranking Roman official in the area. Now that he had put his scruples to one side and was taking the bribes he hoped that by the time he got back to Rome he would have enough not only for a house for Caenis but also for himself and the wife he must soon take to fulfil his duties to his family. A series of letters from his parents, now living in Aventicum, in Germania Superior, where his father had purchased a banking business, had impressed upon him the need to produce an heir for the security of the family.
They soon reached the street of King Battus in the upper city; at its eastern end was the Roman Forum, beyond which stood the Governor’s Residence — a much more modern building that had been purpose-built by the Romans one hundred years previously after Cyrenaica had become a Roman province.
Vespasian’s litter was set down in front of the Residence and, brushing off his bearers’ attempts to help him, Vespasian stepped down, adjusted his toga and mounted the steps.
Magnus followed, grimacing at the quality of the four auxiliary guards beneath the portico as they brought themselves haphazardly to attention. ‘I see what you mean,’ he commented as they passed through the doors and into a large atrium with clerical staff working at desks down one side, ‘they’re a fucking shambles; not even their mothers could be proud of them.’
‘And they’re among the best from the first century,’ Vespasian replied. ‘There’re a couple of centuries who can’t even dress themselves off into a straight line; the centurions are getting through vine-sticks at an incredible rate.’
Before Magnus could express his opinions on the effectiveness or otherwise of beating discipline into sub- standard soldiery, a well-groomed, togate quaestor’s clerk approached them.
‘What is it, Quintillius?’ Vespasian asked.
‘There’s been a woman waiting to see you for three hours now; I tried to get her to make an appointment to come back at a more suitable time but she refused. She said that as a Roman citizen it’s her right to see you as soon as you return. And also that it’s your duty to see her as her father was your uncle’s clerk when he was a quaestor in Africa.’
