‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because I know what will happen; Britannicus told me. Claudius will be assassinated, Nero will become emperor and Britannicus’ life will be over. He’s no fool, Britannicus. He knows that Claudius must die before he comes of age in order for Nero to become emperor unopposed; it’s obvious, therefore, that he’ll be assassinated sometime in the New Year. I assume that you telling me that I’ve got to break my ties with Britannicus is because you’ve found out about the assassination. Pallas’ presence here means that he’s told you so that you can be prepared to work for him in the Senate, supporting Nero.’
Vespasian was astounded. ‘Did you work all that out yourself?’
‘The part about the reason for Pallas being here, yes, but all the rest was with Britannicus.’
‘Has he told his father?’
Titus was dismissive. ‘Of course; but Claudius won’t listen and just laughs it off and says “good luck to you, my boy” as if Fortuna can postpone the inevitable. He’s told Britannicus that once he reaches his fourteenth birthday he’ll change his will and make Britannicus his heir instead of Nero.’ Titus gave a grim chuckle. ‘Claudius is as stupid as Britannicus is clever and if Claudius chooses to do nothing then both their deaths will be inevitable. Britannicus does get some comfort from the fact that his idiot father will die before him; but I’ll get no comfort from losing my friend who helped me keep my mind off you when we thought you were …’ Titus trailed off, evidently embarrassed to display such sentiments.
‘You mustn’t say a word of this to anyone, Titus.’
‘Of course not, Father; unlike Claudius, I’m blessed with a brain.’
Vespasian looked into his son’s eyes, assessing him for the first time as an adult and not a child any more. ‘Yes, I can see that, and so I will trust you. You’re right: Pallas is planning Claudius’ death and Nero’s ascension. I will aid him for two reasons: firstly, I have no choice, and secondly, even if I did have a choice, I believe that this is the best for our family. So your friend’s life is over, I’m afraid.’
Anger flared for a brief moment in Titus’ eyes and the muscles in his jaw pulsed; he took a deep breath. ‘Now do you see how important it is for Britannicus to be present at my coming of age ceremony, Father? He’s never going to have his own so he would dearly love to see mine.’
Vespasian thought about it for a few moments and then sentimentality, for once, got the better of cold reason. ‘Very well, Titus, you can invite him; tell him to be at our house tomorrow at the second hour of the day, after I’ve finished greeting my clients.’
‘Of course, not all your clients have remained loyal,’ Gaius said, wiping his lips, moist with the juice of a pear that had rounded off the light lunch of bread, cold meats and fruit. ‘They all attended me for the first six months or so, once I got back, but then after you hadn’t been heard of for a while a few started to cultivate other senators.’
Vespasian swung his feet off his couch for one of Gaius’ boys to slip on his red, senatorial shoes. ‘Who, Uncle?’
‘Generally, the sitting consuls and praetors.’
‘No, I meant which of my clients?’
‘Oh, I see. I don’t have their names to hand but I know that Ewald has a list. He’ll give it to you before you leave.’
The steward acknowledged his master’s wish and went in search of the document.
Vespasian stood and allowed the boy to begin draping his toga around him. ‘Thank you, Uncle; if there is one thing that I can’t abide, it’s ingratitude.’
‘My feelings exactly, dear boy; that’s why I had Ewald make up the list,’ Gaius said as he patted his tonged curls into place with the help of a bronze mirror held up by another of his slave boys. ‘We should hurry if we want to be at the Senate House before Claudius starts his address; assuming, of course, that he hasn’t imbibed too much of this year’s vintage in his enthusiasm for the Meditrinalia. If Pallas is right then the Emperor’s going to set himself up for the most enormous, and fatal, piece of ingratitude.’
CHAPTER XVIII
The people of Rome interrupted their business and cheered their Emperor as he passed, borne in a litter preceded by twelve lictors, down the Via Sacra from the Palatine to the Forum Romanum. They cheered and waved and applauded and then, as soon as the rearmost litter-bearer had passed, they immediately returned to their more pressing affairs, leaving the cheering to those further down the route so that the praise rippled down the street, desultory and conspicuously lacking the enthusiasm with which they had lauded Claudius at the beginning of his reign.
Claudius, for his part, either did not, or affected not to notice the lack of fervour with which he was received by his people; he reclined on his litter, hailing the crowd with a shaking arm — as much due to excessive drink as it was to his afflictions — while his head twitched erratically and his slack mouth oozed drool that he occasionally dabbed at with a handkerchief.
Two centuries of German Imperial Guardsmen surrounded the Emperor, tall and muscled, their hair and beards long but well groomed; their right hands gripped their sword hilts, ready for immediate action. They loped by with long strides, their barbarian trousers and strange tattoos reminding the people of Rome just how removed the Emperor was from them. But still they cheered, if only the bare minimum to ensure that Claudius was not insulted and would not decide to spend less money on the Ludi Augustales, the ten days of games that cumulated in the Augustalia, the celebration of the first Emperor’s achievements, due to be marked on the following day, three days before the Ides of October.
Vespasian stood next to Gaius amongst the other five hundred or so senators currently present in the city on the steps of the Curia, ready to welcome their Emperor. It had clouded over and a light rain now fell from the dull sky, dampening the wool of their togas and bringing out the scent of the urine in which they were washed.
The procession turned into the Forum and transactions along the arcades and the damp, open-air trial came to a brief halt, for politeness’ sake, until, with the Emperor’s passing, they could continue.
‘He does look his age,’ Vespasian commented out of the corner of his mouth as Claudius’ litter was set down at the foot of the steps. Pallas and Narcissus both accompanied it; the latter, with swollen ankles and making heavy use of a walking stick.
‘He looks eighty-four, not sixty-four,’ Gaius muttered. ‘He’s the same age as me and Magnus yet he looks as if he could be our father; his trouble is that he doesn’t abstain enough.’
Vespasian looked pointedly at his uncle’s corpulence. ‘Whereas you do, Uncle?’
Gaius rubbed his ample belly with affection, obscured not in the slightest by the copious folds of his toga. ‘A well-rounded physique is not necessarily the sign of reckless overindulgence; whereas bloodshot, baggy eyes that lack focus and a florid, to say the least, complexion does hint of excessive consumption of the fruit of Bacchus. And that, along with his almost complete baldness, his sagging arse and breasts, makes him look twenty years older than me and helps me to feel remarkably good about myself.’
Vespasian could not argue, for his uncle’s description of the ageing Emperor was very accurate; he looked even more ravaged than Tiberius had at the age of seventy-three, when Vespasian had been brought before him on his island hideaway of Capreae, twenty-four years before.
‘Moreover,’ Gaius continued in a whisper as the litter came to a halt in front of the Senate House, ‘it’s affected his mind; his grasp on detail has faded and his literary endeavours are so rambling now as to be barely intelligible.’
Pallas helped Claudius to his unsteady feet; he had evidently taken the Meditrinalia very seriously that morning. Claudius looked around at the senators, his eyes red and dewy and slightly downturned like his mouth, before shambling up the steps in a series of weak-kneed lurches, forcing his lictors to ascend faster than dignity dictated.