‘True. And I wasn’t sneering.’ I frowned; Graecinus’s wasn’t a name I wanted to be reminded of. I like my villains to be villains, and he just didn’t qualify, or if he did the price the poor bastard had paid was too high for me to stomach. ‘Fair enough. Altruism it is. For the time being, anyway. Mind you, Lentulus didn’t know much about Callistus apart from the fact that he’s good at his job and seems to be all that’s saving Gaius from having to hock the silver and rent out the Treasury vaults as vacant office space.’
‘Really?’
‘More or less.’ I took another swig of the Setinian. ‘Apropos Callistus, though, I’ve come across one or two of those shit-hot-genius-with-numbers guys before. Their brains work a different way, they live in a world of their own, and they’ve got different priorities. Maybe seeing treason and assassination as a viable means of solving the niggling problem of a minus figure at the bottom of his monthly balance sheet makes perfect sense to him. Or maybe he has other reasons. Gaius did say he was ambitious.’
‘Ambitious in what direction?’
I shrugged. ‘Pass, lady. I’ve never even met the man. It’s all hearsay.’
‘How about Clemens? Altruism again, yes?’
‘Yeah. At least, like I said, no other reason that’s obvious, which is why he didn’t end up chopped along with the others before the festival or at best moved to where he couldn’t do any harm. Gaius admitted himself that having a Commander of Praetorians on the team would be a pretty big plus for any conspiracy, yet he didn’t take the thing any further. And Gaius is no fool.’
‘Then perhaps he’s innocent after all.’
‘Maybe he is. Still, like Callistus, he’s got strong professional reasons for wanting Gaius out of the picture that happen to fit with his personal inclinations.’
‘Namely?’
I told her what Lentulus had told me about Jamnia, the business of the statue, and the potential Jewish problem. Not that I needed to go into too much detaiclass="underline" Perilla had been with me in Alexandria and seen for herself how a cultural head-to-head could end up. By the time I’d finished she was staring at me wide-eyed.
‘But, Marcus, that’s dreadful!’ she said. ‘The emperor can’t be serious!’
‘Yeah, well, as far as putting his statue up in the Jerusalem Temple’s concerned, that side of it’s been shelved for now. But you know Gaius. Tell him he can’t do something because of the possible consequences and he’ll go ahead and do it anyway, just to show who’s boss. And the Jews are just as bad. They don’t give an inch either. Throw in the Greeks and their keep-poking-and-watch-the-bastards-jump attitude, and with Gaius running things it’s a disaster waiting to happen.’
‘And you think Clemens means to stop it? By killing the emperor?’
‘That’s the idea. Certainly as a motive for treason it makes sense. The guy’s sympathies first and foremost are with the Jews, sure, that’d weigh pretty heavily, but it wouldn’t be the only factor. According to Lentulus he’s a professional soldier. Just to sit on his hands and watch while Gaius put the whole of the east at risk militarily wouldn’t be an option. For someone who thinks in straight lines, in terms of doing, assassination would be the obvious answer.’ I took another swallow of wine. ‘Besides, there’s a valid link between him and Capito. Gaius said they didn’t know each other, that there was no connection. But it turns out that Capito was the emperor’s rep in Jamnia when the whole thing started.’
‘Why should that be significant?’
I shrugged. ‘Search me, lady. Maybe it’s just coincidence; these things happen. But certainly the link is there. Maybe when Capito was recalled to Rome Clemens went round to see him, spoke his mind a bit too freely, even went a bit OTT where criticising Gaius’s response went. That can happen too.’
She was twisting a lock of hair. ‘One thing you haven’t considered, dear.’
‘Hmm?’
‘Who they’re doing it for. I mean, you can’t just have a conspiracy to topple an emperor in a vacuum. If they want to get rid of Gaius then surely they’d have to have someone to put in his place. Someone valid, I mean.’
‘Yeah.’ I was frowning. ‘Actually, I was coming to that. Lentulus mentioned a name at the end of the conversation. Just pulled it out of the air apropos of nothing, then dropped the subject like a hot brick.’
‘What name was that?’
‘Vinicianus. Annius Vinicianus.’
‘Ah.’
‘You know him?’
‘I know of him, certainly. We may even have met once or twice at literary get-togethers. He’s Marcus Vinicius’s nephew.’
Right; I should’ve guessed from the name, or at least that there was some sort of family connection. Marcus Vinicius was the closest we — or rather Perilla — had to a VIP acquaintance: ex-consul, political high-flier, one of the imperial set, married to Gaius’s youngest sister Livilla, and the star member of Perilla’s poetry-klatsch circle. We’d met a couple of years back, at the time of the Macro business, when Perilla engineered an invite for me to a reading at his house, and I’d been very favourably impressed. Not a bad guy, Marcus Vinicius. For an imperial.
‘Is that so, now?’ I said.
‘You can’t mean Vinicianus, though. As a replacement for Gaius, that is. Oh, he’s certainly well liked and respected, from what I hear, but I wouldn’t’ve thought he was emperor material, even in his own estimation.’
‘Actually, I was thinking of Vinicius himself.’
Perilla stared at me. ‘You’re not serious!’
‘Why not? He’s got the political mileage and the street cred, easy. He’s proved a dozen times over that he can handle responsibility. He’s level-headed, popular with the senate and the army. He’s even married to Gaius’s sister. What more could you want?’
‘Marcus, be sensible! We’ve been through all this before. Two years ago. Vinicius is no traitor, he hasn’t got it in him to be: you suspected him then, and you admitted you were wrong. You can’t go back on that now.’
‘Sure I can, lady, because this time we’re in a completely different ball game. And I never said Vinicius was a traitor, one of the conspirators. If Lentulus had wanted to finger Vinicius per se, he’d’ve done it, not faff around being cryptic.’
‘What, then? And why should Cornelius Lentulus know anything about the plot?’
I grinned. ‘Perilla, never underestimate Lentulus, right? What he hears and what he admits to hearing, let alone acts on, are two different things, which is why the crafty bugger’s survived with all his wollocks attached through sixty-odd years of politicking, three emperors, the gods know how many conspiracies and more senatorial intrigue and back-stabbing than you can shake a stick at. Plus he’s got a brain like a razor. Which means that, no, I haven’t a fucking clue how he knows about the plot, but I’ll bet you a dozen new mantles against a used corn plaster that he does. OK?’
She ducked her head. ‘Very well, Marcus. And there’s no need to swear, thank you. Even so, I’d like an answer to my other question, please. If you aren’t saying that Marcus Vinicius is involved in the plot, then what are you saying?’
‘Look. The situations two years ago and now are completely different, right? Two years back Gaius was doing OK; the guy wasn’t perfect, but no one had any real legitimate grouses. That conspiracy — Lepidus and the rest — was just about power and greed. Yes?’
‘Fair enough. So?’
‘So this one isn’t, or not completely so. You said it yourself: sometimes there’s a place for altruism where motive’s concerned. Two out of the three guys we’ve got earmarked as conspirators here have no personal grudge against Gaius, quite the contrary: Callistus is his freedman, with all the obligations that entails, and the guy’s been promoted according to his merit rather than his social standing, while Clemens is holding down one of the top military jobs in the empire. Not bad for a no-namer from Arpinum.’
‘Cicero was from Arpinum, dear, and look how far he went. Plus the fact that one of Clemens’s predecessors was Aelius Sejanus. Another no-namer as far as family was concerned.’