‘Don’t quibble. You know what I mean. Although yeah, Cicero’s relevant as well, as it happens. Didn’t he have the idea of forming a sort of alliance of the orders, a party above party?’
‘Marcus, that is very good! Sometimes you surprise me. How on earth did you know that?’
‘Bugger off, lady. What I’m saying is that that’s exactly what we’ve got. Asiaticus, Callistus, Clemens: senate, imperial admin, military. And my bet is that they’re not the only representatives in their class. The three main divisions of the state, all wanting rid of Gaius for the good of Rome.’
‘The good of Rome. Where have we heard that phrase before?’
‘Yeah, well, maybe this time it’s genuine. The man’s becoming a luxury that the empire can’t afford.’
She sat up. ‘Marcus, whose side are you on here? I thought you wanted to stop the emperor from being assassinated.’
‘Yeah, well, I do, if I can. Murder’s murder, whatever the excuse. But the point is that this time at least there is an excuse, and a valid one. Oh, sure, Vinicius may not be in on the conspiracy himself, but six gets you ten his nephew is. Maybe for the best of reasons, but nonetheless. And if it succeeds — when it succeeds — my guess is that he’ll fling his uncle’s cap into the ring.’
‘Vinicius would never be a party to that sort of arrangement! How many times do I have to tell you, dear? The man is not political!’
‘He wouldn’t have to be. And he needn’t even know about the existence of the conspiracy in advance; in fact it might be safer if he didn’t. By the time the knowledge became relevant, Gaius would be dead, Rome would be short one emperor, and there’d be no one else on offer to take on the job. Plus the invitation would be official; as a senator, Vinicianus could put his uncle’s name forward to the senate himself, and I’ll bet he’s already sounded out some of his colleagues on the benches. Which probably explains why Lentulus knows.’ I topped my cup up from the jug. ‘The broad-striper brigade would fall over themselves to vote Vinicius in.’
Perilla sighed. ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do hear what you’re saying, and yes, it does make sense, but I still can’t see Marcus Vinicius agreeing, not even out of altruism. He’s very old-fashioned in many ways, very much the traditionalist. A bit like you, really.’
‘Hah!’
‘I mean it. And it’s a compliment. Vinicius has principles, and he keeps to them. Gaius would be dead as a result of treason, and whether he’d known beforehand that he was a factor in the plot or not, that would matter to him. He’d never agree to become emperor under those circumstances. Not even for the genuine good of Rome.’
‘You’re very sure about that, lady?’
‘Yes, I am, as it happens.’
Bugger. I frowned, and let it go. Me, well, I had my serious doubts about her reading of Vinicius. Oh, sure, I was ready to grant from my own knowledge of the guy that he wasn’t the conspiring type and didn’t seem to have an ambitious bone in his body, but timing and circumstances were all-important here; like I said, he’d be the perfect man for the job, and modesty aside he’d recognize that. A strong sense of duty, plus the pressure that would no doubt be put on him by his broad-striper colleagues, would do the rest.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘That still doesn’t solve the problem of Gaius’s replacement. If not Vinicius then who?’
‘What about Claudius?’
I stared at her. ‘What?’
‘Why not? He’s Gaius’s uncle, and the only remaining male of the direct-line imperial family.’
‘Why not? Jupiter, Perilla, where do you start? He’s Gemellus over again, or as good as. The guy’s a mental defective, he’s never held political office barring a grace-and-favour suffect consulship when Gaius came to power, never served in the military, never even been given the smallest bit of real responsibility. You can practically count the times he’s even appeared in public on the fingers of one hand. And this at, what, age fifty or thereabouts? The senate would never ratify him as emperor, not in a million years. And that’s what the conspirators would need, because with Gaius dead and no one being groomed for crown prince, it’d be the senate choosing the emperor.’
‘Claudius is not a mental defective. He limps and stammers badly; he twitches, yes, of course he does, but those are physical disabilities, not mental ones. There’s nothing wrong with his brain, quite the contrary.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes. I’ve met him, at Vinicius’s, several times, and if you have the patience to wait until he gets the words out and ignore the twitching, you realize that he is a very intelligent man indeed. If he’s been kept under wraps all his life then it’s not through any fault of his own but because he offends the imperial family’s sensibilities.’
Well, I wasn’t going to argue. Still, if Claudius was our conspirators’ emperor of choice — and remember we were talking altruism and the good of Rome here — then I’d eat my sandals.
Bathyllus buttled in. ‘Excuse me, sir. Madam,’ he said. ‘I’ve given instructions for the furnace to be stoked. I thought that having been out in today’s inclement weather you might like a hot bath before dinner. Meton says that will be a little earlier than usual.’
‘Good idea, little guy,’ I said. ‘Very thoughtful of you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He left, and I cocked an eye at Perilla. ‘You noticed our new hyper-conscientious major-domo, lady?’ I said.
She was grinning. ‘Don’t complain, dear,’ she said. ‘Make the most of it while it lasts. It has something to do with the emperor’s dinner invitation, I think.’
Yeah. Which was for the next day as ever was. Whoopee, I could barely contain my excitement. Still, it mightn’t be too deadly; we’d probably just be two out of at least fifty or so, and we could leave as soon as it was polite.
I took a last swallow of wine and got up to change for our pre-dinner steam.
TWENTY-SIX
Next day, we turned up prompt at the palace in our best bib and tucker — by litter, of course, despite the fact that it was a dry evening, since if I’d even hinted about thinking of walking and meeting her there, Perilla would’ve handed me my head. As it was, she’d made sure our litter slobs were given a decent scrub-up and polish before they started, and they pulled up at the gate gleaming like thoroughbreds. I nodded to the two very large Praetorians on guard, gave my name and the invitation to the door slave on duty, and we were escorted through.
I’d been inside the palace before, naturally, more often than I’d’ve liked, but this bit was new to me, obviously one of the function suites and decorated to impress. Which it did, in spades: top-grade mosaic flooring with tesserae so small you could practically have used them for signet-ring inlays, cedar wall panelling, bronzes that could’ve belonged to Postuma’s pal Alexander — and probably had. And above was a ceiling featuring every god and goddess in the pantheon, scattering their benevolence down on the favoured mortals beneath. All lit by more gilt candelabra than you could shake a considerable stick at. Gaius’s oil bill alone must’ve been eye-watering.
How the other half live, right enough.
‘Close your mouth, lady,’ I murmured as we cleared the threshold and went into the room itself. ‘You’re gaping.’
‘Nonsense, dear.’
I’d been right about the numbers; the place was crowded. So; not a cosy, intimate, snuggle-up-to-your-couch-partner dinner party, then. Even though I’d neither expected nor wanted that, my heart sank: me, I hate these stand-up affairs, where you have to make polite conversation stuck with a plate in one hand and a wine cup in the other. Although to be fair this’d be just the drinks-and-nibbles stage, and we’d be eating elsewhere, probably in the room beyond the set of folding doors in the far wall.
‘Drink, sir?’ said a slave with a wine tray. I took a cup of wine.