Vespasian glanced over his shoulder; the end of the alley was faintly illuminated by the glow of the fire raging through the tavern, two hundred paces away. There were no signs of their attackers nor of Magnus’ brethren who had split up into small groups and fanned out in different directions, blending into the neighbourhood and losing themselves. But that was easy for men dressed in the rough woollen tunics and cloaks favoured by the urban poor; their passing would cause no more notice amongst the footpads and cut-throats than that of one of the mangy dogs that infested these lawless lanes.
He pulled off his cloak and handed it to Narcissus in front of him. ‘Cover your clothes with this; and keep your hands inside it so that your rings aren’t visible.’
‘Surely we’re safe enough with Magnus; no one’s going to rob us in his area when we’re with him?’
‘You may not have noticed,’ Magnus said, stumbling over an unseen obstacle that squelched and then gave off the sickly scent of decomposition, ‘but someone has just burnt down my crossroads headquarters and tried to kill me. I’d say that my authority in the area is at quite a low ebb at the moment. And besides, if a gang of thieves catch a glimpse of your rings or fine clothes in a pool of light and they outnumber us, they ain’t going to have a look to see who you’re with until we’re all lying down bleeding copiously from our slashed throats. I think that it’ll be a bit late by then, don’t you?’
Narcissus drew the cloak about him, breathing heavily after the exertion of talking and walking fast.
Gaius pulled his hood over his finely tonged hair. ‘Who do you think that was, Magnus?’
Magnus turned right with the confidence of a man who knew his way. ‘If it was one of the brotherhoods then it could be any number of them, but my guess is it was Sempronius’ lads from the West Viminal; we share a border and have a few disputed streets. Sempronius and me have never got on personally since a dispute over whore-boys twenty-five years ago. We’ve had a few run ins and he holds a grudge better than a woman.’
‘Do you want me to do something about him?’ Vespasian asked.
‘Oh, you’ll never be able to touch him, even as consul.’
‘Who protects him?’
‘His brotherhood controls the Viminal Gate and so consequently has close ties with the Praetorian Guard who use the brothels along the Vicus Patricius; Sempronius and Burrus, the prefect, have a very good understanding, if you take my meaning?’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I ain’t going to do anything, Tigran will. I spoke to him and told him to take the strongbox; he’ll take over now. It’s a younger man’s game and I don’t qualify any more, especially after losing the eye. He’ll do nothing until he knows for certain who it was and who’s behind them. If it was one of the brotherhoods, he’ll have to hit them hard and quickly. A lot of blood needs to be spilt in order for the South Qurinal to reassert itself.’
‘What do you mean “if”? Surely it was a rival brotherhood? You just said it was.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, sir? That is until you look at the timing. It might be just a coincidence but why did they choose to attack at precisely the moment that the Junior Consul and the imperial secretary were on the premises?’
CHAPTER IIII
‘He wants me to help him force either Pallas or Agrippina into admitting to Claudius that she has cuckolded him not only with Pallas but also with her own son.’ Vespasian ran his fingers through Caenis’ raven hair, enjoying the musk scent rising from it. ‘He says that he believes she is responsible for a treasonous crisis that Pallas is ignorant of but would be implicated in anyway.’
Caenis ran a hand across his broad chest, moist with the sweat of exceedingly active sex, and nuzzled her cheek on his shoulder. ‘What treason?’
‘He was about to tell me when the attack started and then, when we eventually managed to get to Gaius’ house, he refused to elaborate and insisted on being escorted back to the palace by almost every one of Uncle’s slaves; he left promising that he’ll be in contact when he’s made the necessary arrangements for what he wants us to do, warning us that it will involve leaving Rome for a while. He wouldn’t give us any more details. However, he did say that it was connected with the Parthian embassy to the tribes north of the Danuvius and the timing of the toppling of the last Armenian King. And he says that Agrippina’s using my brother’s failure to intercept the embassy against me and has had my governorship of Africa revoked so that the only hope I have of preferment is to help him get rid of the bitch and in the process bring down Pallas.’ Vespasian stared up into the dark of Caenis’ bedroom slowly shaking his head in disbelief at the position he was being forced into.
Once again he had been sucked into the mire of high imperial politics, caught between two opposing forces who cared only for safeguarding their own positions. In the past he had learnt to make as much money as possible out of his enforced involvement in situations not to his liking. That had helped to wash away the inevitable bad taste that was left in his mouth as he acted in ways so contrary to his lofty, youthful ideals of service to his family and to Rome; those lost ideals had existed only in his imagination when he had first entered the city twenty-five years before as a naïve lad of sixteen. He had discovered over time that Rome was an entirely different place to his delusional juvenile picture of it; the only goals worth achieving were the twin gods of status and power, and access to these was only through the much worshipped deities of patronage and wealth. Nothing else mattered.
This time, however, he could see no way of benefitting financially from what he was being compelled to do and no way that he could extract himself without damage to the patronage that he enjoyed of Pallas and, to a lesser extent, Narcissus. He had betrayed Narcissus already by telling Caenis just what the imperial secretary required of him and Narcissus would be sure to find out at some point; if the imperial freedman ever rose to prominence again, Vespasian could expect no preferment from that quarter. Therefore it seemed to him that his best option was to work for Pallas; but even if he remained loyal to him, Agrippina would continue to block his career and Pallas’ patronage would be worthless. And then there was also the question that Magnus had planted in his mind as they escaped from the tavern: the question of Pallas’ loyalty to him. Only Pallas had known of the time and place of his meeting with Narcissus and he had made a special point of having Vespasian confirm the location; had he ordered that attack as a convenient way of getting rid of his rival as collateral damage in a supposed underworld feud? Was Vespasian’s life the price paid for such an opportune demise? This thought he dared not share even with Caenis because he felt sure that if it were true she would either know about it, in which case her love was false and she was no more than a spy in his bed and that thought he could not endure; or, more likely, she was unaware of her master’s duplicity and would be suitably outraged and feel obliged to take some form of vengeance on Pallas, thus exposing herself to his wrath should he suspect her of moving against him.
All in all, Vespasian could see no satisfactory way forward other than to retire from politics and live out the rest of his life farming his estates with the seasons marking the years and, as his brother had once said, the years being differentiated solely by the standard of the annual wine vintage. That was something he could not contemplate: how could his sons hope to thrive in Rome if their father had no influence to push them through the series of military and magisterial appointments that was the Cursus Honorum? How would they get the plum posts in the provinces and legions if he just disappeared? And then, more to the point, how would he ever manage to pursue and realise the destiny that he felt sure had been conceived for him as the sacrifice’s liver had indicated only a few hours ago that morning?