‘And I have your absolute firm commitment that you won’t be sloping off back to Rome at the first opportunity?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to-’
‘Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!’
Jupiter, she was serious. The lady was shaking.
I got up, went over and kissed her. ‘We stay as long as you like,’ I said. ‘That’s a promise. You make the decision. After all, Clarus’s estimate of when the kid’s due might be out. The birth might not be for another month, at least.’
She smiled weakly. ‘I hardly think so, dear.’
‘Yeah, well. Medical science has been proved wrong before.’
Bathyllus shimmered in with the wine in one of our best dinner-party cups, with more of the same in the matching jug.
‘I thought the Special, sir,’ he said, ‘since it’s an occasion. And Meton says that after your unscheduled absence he will make a particular effort where dinner is concerned. That will be immediately after your bath. Say in two hours’ time?’
‘That’d be great, Bathyllus.’ I took the wine cup and sipped. Not the imperial Caecuban I’d been getting used to (I should’ve had the nous to lug the rest of the jar with me, even if it’d meant taking Felix up on his offer of a litter; too late now), but very nice all the same. And a particular effort? Now there was a phrase you didn’t hear very often from Meton. If to my suspicious mind it hadn’t had a certain Meton-ish ambiguity about it (a particular effort in which direction?), especially taken with the after your unscheduled absence bit, I would’ve been quite touched.
It was good to be home.
I lounged about the next morning and went down to Market Square for a proper shave before turning up prompt at the palace at the seventh hour, wearing my best tunic and mantle. I wasn’t exactly sure of the sartorial code where attending torture sessions was concerned — let’s not mince words here, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, to put it mildly — but a visit to the emperor was a visit to the emperor, and I couldn’t’ve done any less. I gave my name to the Praetorian tribune on duty and he delegated a squaddie to take me in.
We bypassed the usual state apartments and went down a plain stone staircase to the vaults. Shit, it was a different world down here; not a pleasant one, either. When we walked along the bleak, torch-lit, evil-smelling corridor past a row of cells (some of them, judging by the sounds I tried to ignore, obviously occupied), I felt the bile rising to my throat.
Not that it seemed to faze the squaddie, mind, but then maybe, for him, it was all part of the job. We reached a low, iron-bound door, and he stopped.
‘In here, sir,’ he said. He pushed the door open and stood aside.
Oh, bugger. Here we went. I moved past him, ducking my head to clear the lintel. The smell — a mixture of human shit, urine and vomit, plus the flat-iron tang I recognized as old blood — hit me straight away. That and the heat: the place was like a furnace. Or maybe an antechamber to hell would be a better parallel.
I retched.
‘Marcus, petal! How lovely to see you again! So nice of you to come!’
Oh, gods! The man himself!
There were things in the room. And people, one of them fastened naked to a table in the centre and barely recognizable as such. Graecinus, evidently. Him, after that first glance, I tried not to look at. I tried not to look at anything, and not to breathe through my nose.
‘Caesar,’ I said.
‘You’re just in time, dear. We were going to start without you.’ He was wearing a light tunic, crisply laundered, and he looked like he’d just stepped out of the bath. In that room, he was as out of place as a flowering rose in a latrine. ‘You know Julius Graecinus, I think?’
‘Yeah.’ I was still keeping my eyes off the thing on the table. ‘Yes, sir, we’ve met.’ Not, I was sure, that when I did look at him I’d recognize the poor bastard for the dapper figure I’d seen at Longinus’s villa. I felt suddenly angry.
‘Oh, jolly good. Splendid.’ Gaius gave me a sunny smile. ‘Off we go, then. Felix? Your department, I think. Don’t mind me, I’ll just keep Marcus company here on the sidelines.’
‘Sir.’ Felix stepped forward. ‘Valerius Corvinus.’ He turned to one of the other two guys in the room: a slave, stripped to his loin-cloth. ‘The hot iron, I think. Nothing major, just enough to get his attention.’
The slave put on a leather glove and picked up a poker from the charcoal brazier while his partner freshened up the coals with a pair of bellows. He touched the tip of the poker to Graecinus’s thigh; it was no more than a touch, but I could hear the hiss as it made contact and smell the burning flesh.
Graecinus screamed.
There was a bucket next to me. I bent over it and was lavishly sick.
Gaius tutted. ‘Oh, Marcus!’ he said. ‘Really now, petal, don’t be such a big girl’s blouse! If you’re to be allowed to stay then you must behave.’
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t have.
‘If you’d like to ask your questions, sir?’ Felix murmured. Then, more loudly: ‘Sir! Valerius Corvinus!’
‘Yeah. Right.’ I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and forced myself to look at Graecinus’s face rather than at the scarred, twisted and scorch-marked obscenity that the rest of his body had become. I’d been right in thinking I wouldn’t recognize him, but then the condition he was in, I doubted that even his closest friend would. He stared back; one eye was almost completely shut, and from the look of it possibly missing altogether, and his face was a solid mass of bruises. ‘Graecinus, I’m sorry about this,’ I said. ‘Really, really sorry.’ No answer, just the one-eyed stare, with pure panic behind it. ‘Only two questions, and if you know the answers, please tell me them. Who had Naevius Surdinus killed, and why?’
His head moved slowly from side to side. Then he cleared his throat and mumbled: ‘Don’t … know.’
Just the two words, and I had a struggle recognizing them, too. Shit; he’d lost his teeth, or most of them, maybe part of his gums as well. A thin trail of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and ran down his cheek.
Sweet immortal gods!
‘Graecinus!’ I said. ‘Come on! It can’t matter now!’
‘Don’t … know.’
‘Again,’ Felix murmured to the slave with the poker. ‘On the testicles. Leave it there for longer this time.’
I turned away before the scream came, but I could still smell the stench and hear the hiss, counting in my head to stop myself thinking. The count went to ten before the hissing sound stopped, by which time I was biting down hard on my lower lip and clenching my fists so tightly the nails pierced the palms.
‘Corvinus, sir?’ Felix said calmly. ‘Try again, please.’
I nodded, and turned back, forcing myself to bend down with my lips close to the man’s ear. ‘Graecinus, for the gods’ sakes!’ I whispered, ‘I don’t want this either, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Just tell me, OK?’
‘Don’t … know,’ he gasped. ‘Swear. Don’t … know!’ The look in his eye now was a mixture of pain and sheer animal terror, and the words were almost unintelligible. ‘Don’t … know … any … more. Ask … them … kill … me. Please!’
Shit, I couldn’t take this, not even with the emperor involved. I raised my head and tried to keep my voice steady.
‘Felix, give this up, right?’ I said. ‘There’s no point. The poor bastard doesn’t know anything about Surdinus’s murder. You’ve had all you’ll get from him already.’
Felix glanced at the emperor.
‘Marcus, dear, you are so terribly, transparently squeamish,’ Gaius said. ‘Gullible, too. Yes, I know, he says he knows nothing about the man’s death. Of course he does. But they can be such persistent liars, the naughties. That’s the whole point of torture. To get behind the lies to the truth in as short a time as possible. Simple but so beautifully effective.’ He smiled. ‘Which reminds me. I must show you something quite amusing that my predecessor had made. A modification, rather, and one of the old man’s better ideas. Watch and enjoy.’ Then, to the slave: ‘Just two turns, I think, to begin with. To take up the slack, as it were.’