Valens stared up at us, gape-mouthed, his eyelids sewn shut by an unsteady hand with black silk: a row of unstable exclamations that signalled the end of his life.
It signalled more than that for the emperor: last January, Valens was the man who had persuaded him that he could be more than simply a legionary legate in Germany.
‘This is barbaric!’ Vitellius was still faintly green around the mouth. The rest of him was grey. ‘We are Roman! We don’t butcher our officers.’
‘We do if it prevents further bloodshed,’ Juvens said. ‘The men had convinced themselves that Valens had escaped capture and was bringing up the legions from Gaul, to assault the Vitellian forces from behind. Antonius Primus swore it wasn’t true. He had the living Valens paraded in front of us but he could not bring him close enough for the men to see him clearly in case they tried to free him. And so our men shouted that he was an impostor and they would kill him, too, when they advanced. When he had no other way to convince them, Antonius Primus had his head struck from his shoulders and carried to us on a pole. Then the men believed him.’
‘Did they surrender?’
‘They were permitted to exit the town with their weapons, and not forced under the yoke. They have been sent north, to the German border. Technically, they are not defeated, they merely changed allegiance. But yes, they surrendered.’
‘ You swore you would die with them. ’
The empress Sextilia Augusta’s voice would have skewered a lesser man, but Juvens was bred for this kind of encounter.
He dipped his most formal bow. ‘My lady Augusta, Antonius Primus gave me that option. He said my head could join Valens’ in the sack, or I could bring it to you, with his message. I thought of someone else bringing both heads into your royal presence and it seemed… more honourable to come myself. If you wish me to die now, I will do so, with great pleasure. I will find it hard to live longer with the disgrace of this.’
With no great drama, Juvens stepped apart from us and addressed Drusus. ‘I would fall on my sword, but you have taken it from me. If I may have it back?’
‘No!’
Vitellius’ balled fist slammed on the wall. Now, too late, he was finding his strength as a man.
‘Drusus, I forbid it. No man will die needlessly on my behalf. Too many have done so already. Otho understood, didn’t he, when he killed himself, that too many good men die, and it is not possible to go on in the pretence of ruling?’
A taken breath behind me was silenced by a peremptory sweep of the imperial hand. ‘No, Mother, you will not speak. I am your emperor and I command it. And don’t wail at me, either. If you wish to leave the room, you may do so.’
She went! By Jupiter, Minerva and Juno, the empress snapped a finger to summon her ladies to follow, and was gone.
With a short, sharp, satisfied smile, gone before it was truly there, Vitellius turned back to Juvens. ‘Antonius Primus sent you with a message. Give it to me now, and then you may go with Geminus and plan for the defence of the city.’
Juvens paled, but he was a man of astonishing courage. With his gaze focused on the far wall, he said, clearly, ‘Antonius Primus, commander of the forces loyal to Vespasian, offers his respectful request that you enter into immediate negotiations with Titus Flavius Sabinus, brother to the future emperor, with respect to the details of your abdication.’
‘ What details? What abdication?’
‘Perhaps the one I am empowered to discuss?’ said Titus Flavius Sabinus, prefect of the city, quietly from the doorway. ‘If I may be permitted to enter?’
Chapter 49
Rome, 17 December AD 69
Caenis
A day was lost in the discussions between Vitellius and Sabinus without their reaching any satisfactory conclusion.
On the morning of the seventeenth, Sabinus went to meet the emperor once again. On this occasion, the designated place was the temple of Apollo next to the palace and the whole of Rome knew they were there to discuss Vitellius’ abdication. Present were two men of good character to ensure that the agreements reached were fair and reasonable.
Jocasta and I remained in my house together. We talked of small things; of good wine, of the ways to make a pastry with spiced raisins at its heart; of our plans for Saturnalia, nearly upon us, when masters traded places with their slaves, and mistresses served the servants.
Matthias would not hear of such a thing. Jocasta had an old serving woman who felt the same. For both of them, the holiday was no different from any other day. We talked of how things had been in our childhoods. We talked of nothing at all.
On hearing a knock at the door, we both rose, swiftly.
Matthias, answering, padded white-faced from the door.
‘My lady, it is the lady empress Sextilia Augusta, mother to-’
‘She knows to whom I am mother. The entire world knows to whom I am mother. The entire world shares my shame.’
The empress’s voice was sharp and hard; fingernails dragged over fractured glass. The face was sharp and hard to go with it, although less ostentatious than one might have imagined.
I must have seen the lady Sextilia at some point when she was merely mother to two middle-ranking generals, but I cannot recall the event. I had seen her more recently, of course, but only ever entering her litter, and then only from a distance, when she was draped in porphyry silk, with a diadem on her high, tight headpiece.
Here and now, she was dressed in sober white, as if for mourning, with only a silver ring around her perfect, brush-stiff silver hair. She looked haggard and old and tired.
She said, ‘Lady Caenis, forgive my intrusion, but I have come to buy the services of the lady Jocasta.’
‘Buy them?’
I didn’t understand. And then I did, or thought so.
‘What services?’ Jocasta asked, more slowly.
‘Those you used with such effect against Valens. Do I look a complete idiot? Men don’t listen to the bathing-room rumours, or if they do, their talk is all of battles and whores and children got out of wedlock on hidden mistresses. Ours is of each other, and our skills. You are a poisoner. I would buy from you some poison.’
‘Why?’ Jocasta looked suddenly guilty, like a young Vestal caught in the act of fornication, for which the penalty was death.
She had not denied the old woman’s accusations, if they were accusations. They sounded more like compliments; in the upturned world Rome had become, nothing was impossible.
‘Because of my two sons, the wrong one inherited the throne. Or perhaps neither son was worthy. Lucius has allowed himself to be lured south on a fool’s errand, taking with him more men than Rome can afford to lose. And he has left behind the spineless fool I gave birth to first, may the gods curse the day of his creation.’
‘My lady, Vitellius is a good man. He-’
‘He is a weak and vacillating idiot. If he were not reminded moment by moment by his men that he is emperor, he would forget. And he thinks he will be allowed to abdicate!’
I said, ‘My lady, he will. Of that I am certain.’
‘By Sabinus, yes, but Sabinus is as weak as he is. You should see them, two weak men together, each trying not to damage the pride of the other by stating clearly what must be said. My son is finished. He can go now on the pretext of abdication and await Antonius Primus’ mercy, or he can cling on a few days longer, and die at the hands of the Guards.’
‘Antonius Primus will not be emperor, lady. Vespasian will honour any agreement made in his name.’
‘Ha!’ The old crow’s laugh was hoarse and full of acid. ‘Vespasian is in Egypt. He will be here when? Next September? July if he hurries? And in the time before that, who will rule Rome? Antonius Primus or Mucianus and his train of catamites. I do not expect mercy from either man; each knows his duty. They will do what must be done so Vespasian can rule in benevolence. I choose to make my own fate. I have had a long life and a good one and it is time for it to end. And so I ask of the lady Jocasta that she sell me that which will bring about my demise most swiftly. I have gold.’ The skin was fine as paper on her hands, bare covering to the knotted old-blue veins. She wrested two gold coins from her purse. Neither showed her son on the face.