I had no time to change, to wash. I dragged a comb through my hair, and checked myself in the mirror. My eyes were rimmed in black and it had smeared; I must have shed a tear without knowing it. I picked a scrap of linen from a pouch in my sleeve and scrubbed it away before I opened the door.
Two men stood on the threshold: Lucius, whom I had been expecting, but also another man, with a broader, more open face, and kinder eyes, whom I know now to be Geminus, but then did not know at all.
I bowed, anyway. ‘Gentlemen, come in. Lord Lucius, be welcome. Let me move Cerberus first. He does know you mean me no harm, but…’
My voice was a hoarse rasp. I thought of saying I had a throat fever, but Lucius could smell falsehood the way Cerberus could smell meat.
I unhooked the hound’s collar and led him in to chain him at his kennel, but Lucius, brave, or foolhardy, did not wait; he was already in the room, sweeping back the beaded curtain and straight through to the balcony. I had been right; if Pantera had tried to escape…
‘We nearly had him. He was seen coming in here. Where is he?’
Lucius: brusque, brisk, abrupt, was running to the end of his temper. I did not know him before his rush to power, but what I saw in him then was a man overhorsed by the glory fate had handed him, riding by sheer force of will, knowing he must be thrown sometime, and that it would hurt.
In my experience, men who find themselves in receipt of unasked-for luck become either benign, believing themselves unworthy, or dangerous, believing everyone else sees them as unfit. Vitellius, by all accounts, leaned towards the former. Lucius, quite evidently, was the latter.
I said, ‘My lord, Pantera has gone. He heard you downstairs and he fled.’
‘Fled? How? Where to? We have men at front and back.’
‘Down two flights of stairs and out on to the rooftops of the Street of the Tanners. He never comes into any house without at least two exits.’
‘And you never thought to tell us about that?’
‘Lord, you never asked. You said you would never come while he was here. I thought you wanted to know what he knew, not to catch him.’
‘Nevertheless…’ There was a pause, some pacing. ‘No matter. He was here. What did he want?’
‘To send a dove to Vespasian. He — that is Pantera — is going south to the marines at Misene. The message was to tell the gen- the usurper that the base will be his by the end of December as long as he sends gold enough to cover the next month. The dove didn’t go. We had not the time to send it.’
‘South?’ He stared at me as if I had spoken Mauretanian, or impugned the chastity of his mother. ‘ South? ’
‘So he said, lord.’
‘South. South. South! ’ He was pacing, speaking the word on every step. His face split in a wide grin. ‘And he tried to send me north. But I have him now… When will he leave?’
‘Soon. He seemed in a hurry. He may be going there now.’
‘When will he next come back here?’
I thought, not ever; he will never come here again, but I said, ‘I have no idea. He said I would need to know enough to manage in his absence, but he left before he could say more.’ I let the silent reproach on my face show: see, lord, how much more useful I would have been had you not barged in here?
Lucius ignored me. He was pacing, thinking, frantic. ‘Could you summon him?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Certainly! You told us of the ways you have of reaching him if you need to: a message left with the date-seller; a mark made on the base of a fountain; a stone weighting down cloths of a particular colour in the Tiber. We have men watching them, and yet he has not been to check them in three months. Why?’
‘Perhaps because you have men watching them?’
‘ Fool! ’
He struck me! Granted it was open-handed, and not a fist, but he hit me, hard, across the left cheek. I had been too waspish. And Lucius, too impatient, had hit me.
He really, really shouldn’t have done that.
There was a scrabble of claws on wood and Cerberus was on his feet. He was silent in his fury, which was, I promise you, a deal more frightening than if he had snarled.
Lucius grew very still.
‘How long is that chain?’
‘It reaches the length of the room, lord. He is here for my safety. It would be foolish were he not able to defend me in my need.’
The moment crystallized around the understanding that Cerberus could reach Lucius in one bound. And Lucius had bolted the door behind him as he entered; it had seemed a wise precaution at the time.
A question hung between us. Do you want to be found dead in a brothel, Lucius? In this brothel?
You could have anchored a ship off the weight of the silence.
Swiftly, I said, ‘My lord, I tell only the truth. Pantera was a silver-hand until his skill was seen by Seneca and he was trained beyond anything the gutter could allow. Who trained your men? Are they invisible? Do they blend with the landscape so that you don’t see them even if you are looking? Can they step into a doorway as one man and emerge moments later as another? If not, he will have seen them.’
‘Fuck.’ A pace. Two. Three. Lucius came to a halt by the tall Greek vase. Have I mentioned how much it cost? ‘And yet he still comes? Does he know you have betrayed him?’
‘If he did, he gave no sign. He will know now, though.’
‘But if he were to believe you a victim, rather than a willing traitor, he might continue to believe you loyal. Would you agree?’
‘Possibly. I have never known how his mind works.’
‘Still…’ The gap was shorter this time, a single pace, and then all peace was lost in the explosive splinter of the vase, crashing to the floor. Afterwards, very softly, Lucius said, ‘Geminus, you will kill that hound.’
He was a good man, Geminus; he didn’t want to do it and it wasn’t all fear for his own safety; he didn’t want to kill in cold blood, even a hound.
But the order came from Lucius, who could have had him flogged to death in an instant, and so the moment’s hesitation was no longer than that before Geminus drew his blade.
‘Cerberus!’ I hurled myself across the room, thinking to throw myself in front of my friend, to save him with my own person, but Geminus was fast and I was too far away and all that I achieved was that my hound, my beloved great black monstrous friend, was looking at me, puzzled, as he was struck.
I reached him before he died. The brute of a soldier had slashed his blade across his throat, and the blood! So much blood. More than at a pig killing, and you know how much that is. It drenched my floors, sprayed up my walls, soaked into my tunic as I cradled his poor, dear head in my arms. I wept like a child; I was broken.
I heard Lucius walk to me and if he had cut my throat then, and sent me to be with Cerberus, it would have been a mercy.
All I heard was his voice by my ear. ‘You are mine. You will remain mine. If Pantera returns, you will let me know as soon as he walks in the door. If you fail, I will make your death last so many days it will be longer than your life was before it. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘How will you get word to me?’
‘Tell your men to watch the front of the house. When he comes here, I will have Marcus open the blinds to let in the sun. Your men will notice that, I imagine?’
I was angry, but there was nothing left he could do to me and I was one of the few who might have led him to Pantera. He was desperate, but he could not, yet, afford to kill me.
He left then, without another word, taking his swordsman with him.
A long time later, I looked up, and Pantera was standing in front of me, holding a beaker of water and a strip of linen.
‘You have to let him go sometime.’ He knelt, held the cup to my lips, supported my head as if I were a child. He said, ‘Horus, I’m so sorry. I know what Cerberus meant to you.’
He was my friend. My only true friend. I could not believe that he was gone.