Pantera was up there with them, at the highest point, a hundred yards in front of the temple. He leapt down, landed in dirt, skidded, made his way down through muddy slurry to the barricades where I was rallying my small band of defenders.
I was filthy, I am sure. My hair was stiff with grime; I could feel it sticking up from my head in hedgehog spines, falling away at the back in tumbling, rat-knotted tails. My shift was in rags, my nails were torn.
I was enjoying myself more than any time I can remember.
‘Did Felix make it safely out of the city?’ I asked.
Pantera raised a brow. He hadn’t told me about Felix; I had overheard Trabo talking about it to Sabinus. ‘We can only hope so.’
The Guards came on up the hill. The first of Domitian’s missiles rained down on them and they slowed. We pulled on our levers and sent our rocks tumbling down at them and they slowed more. It was tremendously satisfying when we hit a man and rolled him over, but it wasn’t stopping the rest from coming on.
‘Is Antonius Primus likely to rescue us?’ I asked.
‘I have sent a message in Sabinus’ name requesting that he does exactly that. If we’re lucky he may choose to make a hero of himself.’
‘Or he may choose to be just too late.’ Someone had to say aloud what was so plainly coursing through his mind. ‘He may find it easier to let us fight the Guard until we or they are dead, possibly both, then he can overrun their positions and claim victory for himself.’ I raised my voice. ‘To the levers. Second wave: now! ’
Pantera looked at me queerly for a moment. ‘There was a woman in Britain,’ he said, after a while, ‘named Aerthen. Translated, her name meant “at the battle’s end”. Just then, you looked exactly as she did when the fighting was about to start. You were born to be a warrior. Did you know that?’
Ahh, what could I have said? He had that power to strike where it hurt and I don’t think he knew it, or meant it; it was just that he cut through to what mattered so much more keenly than anyone else.
I studied his face, seeking the weak points; found none. But I knew some things from Seneca’s notes, enough to ask, ‘What happened to Aerthen when the battle ended?’
‘All times but the last one, we found somewhere apart from the rest and made love.’
‘And the last battle? What happened after that?’
‘I killed her. I cut her throat so that no man of Rome might make her a slave.’ He could not meet my eyes. His gaze stretched over the barricade to where Domitian’s rooftop army was in full swing, raining rocks on the Guards.
He said, thoughtfully, ‘It’s the real difficulty of being a spy. You come to believe that you are what you say you are. I said I was the enemy of Rome, and I became it.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I want to see Vespasian on the throne as much as I have ever wanted anything.’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘The same could not necessarily be said for everyone on this side of the barrier. Remember that, when the fighting starts. There is at least one un-friend here who wants to see our downfall.’
There was no time to ask him what he meant, for, although the silent mass of Guards had slowed to a standstill, the smell of new fire spiked the air, sharply.
‘ Fuck. ’
‘Fuck,’ I said, in agreement. ‘The Guards have set fire the priests’ houses. Are you all right?’
I wasn’t in Rome when the fire took it; my memories of that night don’t run so deep, nor with such horror. But Pantera had been there, and from the look on his face I’d say his ears were ringing with old memories, the snap and bustle of fire, the screams of burning women, growing higher, harder, more desperate, more impossible to forget.
He wrenched his eyes away to look at me. I said, ‘Shouldn’t we…’
‘Run? Yes. Swiftly. The barricades won’t hold against fire. Get back into the temple and tell Sabinus he needs to block the gates. After that, find Caenis and make sure she is safe.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Up on to the rooftops, where else? Domitian is up there and it won’t be easy to talk him down.’
Chapter 63
Rome, 19 December AD 69
Trabo
Domitian was on the roof and I was there with him, babysitting after a fashion, or at least keeping an eye on him to be sure he wasn’t captured.
Losing Domitian now would have meant the end; everyone knew that Vespasian adored his children and the boy would have been a bargaining counter beyond price, with or without the woman Caenis.
So I watched him, and while he may have spent a night with a catamite, in daylight he had courage, of a kind; he was certainly fit to be a Caesar’s son.
With flames playing over his face and crisping his hair, he was a dancing, leaping, manic satyr with a startlingly accurate aim for one who had spent the greater part of his life studying insects and collecting coins.
Bending, he ripped tile after tile from the roof beneath his feet, and flung them after the manner of a discus thrower so that they spun blade-wise through the air and sliced edge- first into the men below. Around him, a band of senators’ sons were throwing their missiles likewise into the faces, raised arms, hands and chests of the under-defended Guards.
By tradition, the Guard never carry shields; honour says that these men need only a blade to defend the emperor, and while this might be accurate after a fashion there are times — now — when a shield wall would have made all the difference between success and ignominious defeat.
Domitian had been winning. Supported by the youth of Rome, he had been at least holding the Guard at bay for longer than they would have wanted; they were men bent on a mission and didn’t want to be stopped by a boy.
Which is, presumably, why they lit the fire. It was a clever move; everyone knows that fire is the opposite of water and runs up hills, and besides, the wind was behind the Guards; they could safely torch the priests’ houses and perhaps burn the temple and run no risk that the rest of Rome would fall to ash around them.
The flames were small and faltering at first, but they grew quickly into a roaring wall that fed fast on the old, old houses with their oak beams and wattle walls. Soon there was a level of heat that even the son of an emperor could not withstand. Already Domitian’s face was scarlet, sweat swimming off him. His brows had been scorched away, leaving his face naked of hair.
Pantera came up round about then.
He reached us just as Domitian staggered back from the fire’s leading edge. The Guards were level with Jocasta’s abandoned barricades by now. With nobody left there to man them, the planks and sacrifice-knives were of little more than nuisance value; just enough to slow the oncoming men for the time it took to lift the knives away without slicing their fingers.
‘My lord.’ Pantera heaved himself up beside Domitian as he wrenched a fresh tile from the disintegrating roof. ‘Please, you’ve done all a man could do. The women are safe in the temple. But if you remain out here, you will be caught between the fire and the Guard and the one will eat you while the other will hold you to ransom against your father’s claim to the throne.’
Domitian laughed, drily. ‘My father would not abandon his ambition on my behalf.’
‘I think you would be surprised by what your father would do for you.’
The round, bulging eyes met his. Domitian’s naked brows slid upwards. ‘It might be interesting to test it.’
Fire was scorching the left side of Pantera’s face. With studied calm, he said, ‘If you find death a source of fascination then yes, it might be interesting. Those of us who live in its shadow tend to believe we will see the Styx soon enough and we are best served by avoiding too early a crossing. If you wish to die, lord, now is your opportunity. If you wish to live to serve Rome, the temple awaits. We can barricade the gates when you’re in.’