Ah, well, it wasn’t every day we got invited to an imperial dinner party. Luckily. Not that I was looking forward to it, mind.
I gave my name to the door slave and he took me through. Not to the atrium: Lentulus was holed up in his study, on a couch big and hefty enough to take half a squad of Praetorians, and the room was heated like an oven.
‘Ah, Marcus,’ he said when the slave had closed the door behind me and left me cooking. ‘Come to visit the invalid on his bed of pain, have you? Good of you, my boy!’
Yeah, well, whatever was wrong with him didn’t look too serious: the table beside the couch was laden with goodies, and his ancient major-domo was in the process of topping up his wine cup.
‘Hi, Lentulus,’ I said, pulling up a stool. ‘You’re ill?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing much. Just a cold. A complete stinker, mind; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.’ He sneezed. ‘Bugger! Desmus, get Valerius Corvinus a drink. Not this muck, Marcus, it’s hot honey wine. Poisonous stuff, but my doctor says it’s the best thing for me. Hot and dry to counter cold and wet, or some such Greek nonsense. The Falernian, Desmus, if you will.’ Another sneeze; he reached for a napkin, blew his nose and tossed the napkin aside. ‘Excuse me. What’s it doing outside, weather wise? Still pissing down hard?’
‘Yeah, more or less.’
‘Good. No fun being snug as a bug in a rug in here if the poor bastards outside aren’t suffering. How’s Perilla?’
‘Blooming. And we’re grandparents now. As of the Winter Festival.’
‘Clarus done his duty and young Marilla’s popped, then, has she?’ It always amazed me that Lentulus had people’s names at his finger-ends: the last time I’d seen him had been two years before, when Marilla and Clarus were first engaged, and I’d only mentioned our son-in-law’s name to him once. Still, among his erstwhile senatorial cronies, Lentulus’s nickname was ‘the Elephant’, and it wasn’t just because of his size, either. ‘What is it? Boy or girl?’
‘Boy. Marcus Cornelius Clarus.’
‘That’s good. Girls’re too much trouble, in my admittedly limited experience. Give them my congratulations and best wishes.’ Desmus was at my elbow, handing me a cupful of Falernian. I sipped: beautiful. Lentulus knew his wines; he ought to, he’d swallowed enough of them in his time. ‘Help yourself to nibbles.’
‘No, I’m OK, thanks.’ I looked at the table: the ‘nibbles’ included quails’ eggs, marinated chicken legs, bean rissoles and a selection of dried fruits and nuts. ‘I’m sorry, Lentulus, I’m disturbing you. Early lunch, is it?’
‘Nothing of the kind, as you well know, you sarcastic young bugger. Just a mid-morning snack. Feed a cold, starve a fever. Didn’t your old grandmother teach you anything?’
From what I remembered of Grandma Calpurnia, she’d’ve told the slaves to remove the whole boiling and replace it with a bowl of nourishing barley gruel. Still, maybe medical theory had moved on in the past thirty years. ‘Obviously not,’ I said.
‘Clearly.’ He grinned, coughed, and selected a chicken leg. ‘Right, boy. Social civilities dispensed with, we can get down to business. You’re here to pick my brains again, yes? So what’s it about this time? Another conspiracy?’
Straight to the point as usual. Another thing I liked about Lentulus. ‘Ah …’
‘Hmm. That bad, eh? Well, in that case don’t bother telling me because I don’t want to know. At my time of life, the less anxiety I have the better. Or so the doctor says, and this time I’d agree with the po-faced old bugger.’ He bit into the chicken leg and chewed. ‘Fire away, then.’
‘Just some background information on a few names. Starting with Valerius Asiaticus.’
‘Asiaticus?’ The eyebrows went up. ‘Not a star performer, that one, young Marcus. Fella’s one of the Johnny-come-lately Gallic crowd. Allobrogian, from Vienne. Good local family, had their citizenship originally from one of your lot about a hundred years back. Valerius Flaccus, that would be, the Transalpine governor. Consul suffect in the old emperor’s last year, resigned before his six-month stint was up. Rich as Croesus, owns a house and gardens the other side of the river that used to belong to Lucullus. Wife Lollia Saturnina, our Gaius’s ex-wife’s sister. Silly woman, too fond of jewellery, thinks that it and good looks make up for brains, and she’s possessed of conversational skills that would disgrace a parrot. He’s technically a senator, but lazy as hell. Doesn’t turn up for meetings very often and steers clear of committee work. Not that I blame him there; it’s the bane of existence and boring as hell. That do you?’
‘No, I knew all that. Barring the bit about the jewellery.’
‘You’re hard to please today, you young sod. What, then?’
‘His reasons for resigning his consulship, for a start. The emperor told me it was because he couldn’t take the pressure.’
That got me a straight look. ‘Been talking to Gaius, have you? This must be important, right enough.’ I said nothing. ‘Well, it’s none of my business. Or rather, I don’t want it to be.’ He downed some more of the wine, tore off another mouthful of chicken and took his time chewing it, not taking his eyes off me all the while. Finally, he swallowed and shrugged. ‘Very well, young Marcus Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Pressure isn’t exactly the word I’d use, although I can see why Gaius chose it.’
‘What, then?’
‘See if you can get there yourself. What was happening, politically, that last year of Tiberius’s life?’
‘Uh …’
‘Come on, Marcus, you’re being slow! Put your thinking cap on! I’ll give you a whopping great clue. Gemellus.’
Shit. ‘Tiberius altered his will. Or the part affecting the succession, anyway.’ He was right; I should’ve thought of that myself. ‘Up to then, Tiberius’s grandson Gemellus had been his only principal heir, in effect his named successor. Only now he named Gaius and Gemellus as joint heirs.’
‘Right. And we’re anticipating matters slightly here, but it’s relevant. Tiberius died in March the following year. Gemellus being underage and several tiles short of a watertight roof to boot, Gaius became emperor. Come December or thereabouts, what happened?’
‘Gaius had Gemellus executed. For conspiring against him while he was ill.’ Fuck; we’d been through all this the last time I’d talked to Lentulus, regarding the Macro business: the whole Gemellus plot had been a sham, from start to finish. ‘What’s this got to do with Asiaticus’s resignation?’
‘Evidence of intelligent planning, boy, and a nose for the way the wind was blowing. He’s a smart cookie in that respect, Asiaticus, always has been. Oh, there was no skulduggery involved on his part, quite the reverse, and at the end of the day it probably saved his life.’
I frowned. ‘I’m sorry, pal, you’ve lost me completely here.’
‘Marcus, Marcus!’ Lentulus tossed the remains of the chicken leg on to the table. ‘Use your brain! We’re talking factions. Julians against Claudians, the way it’s always been ever since that bitch Livia’s day. Asiaticus was and is a protégé and supporter of the old emperor’s sister-in-law Antonia, right? Gemellus’s great-aunt by marriage, and definitely on the Claudian side of the fence. In fact, he’s been a close friend of her son Tiberius Claudius for years. Gaius, of course, is a Julian through and through. So between Gaius and Gemellus, where would his sympathies lie as far as the question of Tiberius’s successor went, hmm? Or rather, where would Gaius assume they lay?’
I was beginning to see light here. ‘With Gemellus, naturally.’
‘Correct. Like I say, Asiaticus isn’t stupid, far from it; he could see the way things were going better than most, and a whole lot earlier. It was getting too hot for him, so he cleared out of the kitchen while he still could. Jacked it in completely and went off to prune his roses on the other side of the Tiber. Which is what he’s still doing.’ He held up his cup for Desmus to fill. ‘At least, that’s his story.’