eat.’
Caligula chewed on a swan leg and waved a dismissive hand at the hundreds of senators reclining at the many tables around the room. ‘Look at them all,’ he confided disdainfully to Vespasian and Sabinus on the couch next to him. ‘They all hate me now after what I’ve been doing to them in the last couple of years; but what would they give to be here where you are, next to your Emperor?’
‘You honour us with your favour,’ Vespasian acknowledged, looking at the food on the table in front of him with little appetite.
‘I do; and each one of those sheep is spitting jealous that they aren’t receiving the same treatment. No matter what I do to them they still feign love for me.’
‘It’s not a feigned love, they don’t hate you.’
Caligula looked at Vespasian in amusement. ‘Don’t lie to me, my friend. What do you think I’ve been doing since I became emperor? Ruling justly?’
Vespasian studied Caligula’s face for a moment and was surprised to see his eyes clear and lucid. ‘You have done some great things and next year you will do greater deeds,’ he replied cautiously, trying to put the massacre that day out of his mind.
‘I have; but the greatest thing that I’ve achieved is to hold a mirror up to the Senate so that they can see themselves for what they really are: sycophants and flatterers who know no other way to live. All those years of treason trials when they denounced one another in the hope of gaining favour with Augustus, Tiberius or Sejanus and in the knowledge that if they brought a successful prosecution they would gain the estate of their victim has left them morally bankrupt. It also cost me most of my family and I’m honour bound to avenge them.’
Vespasian and Sabinus looked at each other, both startled that Caligula was confiding in them in a way that had a hint of truth in it.
‘These humiliations have been all about revenge?’ Sabinus asked.
Caligula smiled coldly. ‘Naturally. You see, Vespasian, your brother is not dissembling now; you should try it. Do you think I’m mad?’
The answer stuck in Vespasian’s throat; either way he would condemn himself.
‘Answer! And answer truthfully. Do you think that I’m mad?’
‘Yes, I do, Divine Gaius.’
Caligula burst out laughing but the humour did not reach his eyes. ‘My friend, well done, you are the first person who has told me the truth even though you fear for your life. Of course you think I’m mad, who wouldn’t? And perhaps I am or perhaps I just have no desire for self-control. However, by each seemingly mad act I humiliate the Senate even more; I want to see how low they will stoop and yet still try to flatter me in the hope of favour. As I lay sick, each day they came to my door having offered prayers and sacrifices for my recovery and I knew that they only wanted news of my death. So I decided to make them crawl, make them do what no Roman has ever done: worship a living god. And look at them, they do. But I’m no god; they know that I’m not, and, furthermore, they also know that I know that they know it, and yet we all now maintain the pretence. Even you pretend to my face that I’m a god, don’t you?’
Vespasian swallowed. ‘Yes, Divine Gaius.’
‘Of course you do, you have to preserve yourself. I’m the most powerful man in the world and what is power if you don’t flaunt it? People worship those who hold it out of a desire to be shown favour. It’s deliciously amusing. Do you remember that idiot who offered his life in exchange for mine? He expected reward for such sycophancy but I took him at his word. But then I rewarded with a million sesterces the liar who swore that he saw Drusilla’s spirit rise into the heavens to commune with the gods, so now they don’t know what to do. Sheep! I’ll push them and push them because I can and it pleases and amuses me to do so.’
Vespasian frowned. ‘But one day you’ll push someone too far.’
‘Will I? I don’t think so. If someone did manage to kill me, which would be very difficult, they would themselves die. Who here would do that and lose all his property, thereby making his family destitute? Would you?’
Neither Vespasian nor Sabinus answered.
Caligula sneered and got up. ‘You see, you wouldn’t, would you? You’re both as bad as the rest of them; and I’ll prove it to you.’ He walked over to Corvinus who stood by one of the doors; Clemens was next to him still looking devastated. Music continued to rise from the players nearby. ‘Corvinus, if you please?’
‘A pleasure, Divine Gaius,’ Corvinus said, opening the door and disappearing through it; there was a brief cry before he emerged leading a naked woman roughly by the arm.
‘Clementina!’ Sabinus shouted, leaping up from his couch.
Vespasian slammed a restraining arm across his brother’s chest as he tried to go forward. ‘No!’ he hissed. ‘Caligula’s right, you’ll die and your property would be forfeit; Clementina and the children would be destitute.’
‘Doesn’t that look delicious,’ Caligula said slowly and with palpable relish. ‘Corvinus took it upon himself to fetch her from wherever you’d hidden her, Sabinus, without me even asking him to. Wasn’t that kind of him, Clemens?’
Clemens closed his eyes and breathed deeply, shaking with suppressed fury. Behind the ugly scene the pipes and lyres blended their notes in delicate harmony.
Vespasian held onto Sabinus who still struggled and was now heaving with sobs.
Caligula grabbed Clementina’s wrist. ‘Your husband was only now wondering how he could thank me; how fortunate he is to have found a way so quickly.’ He gave the brothers a malicious, questioning look. ‘Sheep?’
Time seemed to slow; sound became muffled and indistinct as Vespasian suppressed his horror. With his feelings wiped from his face, he held Caligula’s gaze for a moment and knew then that the Emperor had been wrong: he would be killed and his death would be soon; how could it not be so?
But who would stand in his place?
Vespasian turned and stared, his face still impassive, at Claudius, the only direct adult heir of the Julio- Claudian line, twitching and drooling in lust at the sight of Clementina’s body while unconciously cupping Messalina’s breast. He saw Messalina and her brother, Corvinus, both staring at Clemens and then share a brief, satisfied look of ambition. Vespasian understood what Corvinus had knowingly set in motion when he had seized Clementina, the sister of the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and brought her here for his master to defile — Corvinus knew that Messalina could ultimately benefit, for what choice as emperor was there other than her future husband?
Vespasian looked past Messalina to Caligula’s sister, Agrippina, who was staring with loathing at her while holding her carrot-topped infant — another male heir but far too young. His eyes moved on to Caesonia Milonia, swelling with Caligula’s seed, looking haughtily down her long nose at the other two women, and he knew that the fruit of her belly could not be allowed to survive the Emperor’s death. It would be Claudius, he thought, certain now. He looked back at the malformed man whose erection protruded shamelessly from under his tunic. This would be the best that Caesar’s line could offer. For how long could that be tolerated?
The wavering note of a pipe pierced his consciousness and from that germ the song of the Phoenix filled the silence within his head. Thrasyllus’ prophecy came unbidden behind it and, as his gaze lingered on the heirs of Caesar, Vespasian knew for an instant the question that would one day take him back to the Temple of Amun at Siwa. It disappeared as quickly as it had come as sound flooded back into his ears and time ground back up to its unrelenting pace.
Clementina looked first at her husband and then her brother, her eyes pleading, but they could do nothing as the arbitrator of life and death dragged her out of the dining room.
The door closed; Clementina screamed; Clemens walked over to the brothers and whispered into Sabinus’ ear: ‘Not here, not now, but at a time and place of my choosing, together.’
Sabinus gave the faintest of nods as tears streamed down his face and, for the first time in his life, Vespasian feared for his brother: the man whose sense of honour would be strong enough to overrule his judgement.
And then he began to fear for himself; he knew that when Sabinus next returned to Rome it would be with death in his heart and he, Vespasian, would be forced to make the choice between turning his back on the sacred bonds of blood or aiding his brother in assassinating an emperor.
