Understanding snapped into place in my head. I should have known this. Why hadn’t I? ‘Are you the spymaster?’ I asked.
‘They call me the Poet.’ She stared down at her fingernails. They were broken in places. I thought them beautiful. ‘And Lucius knows it now.’
There was an accusation in her eyes that spoke more than her words. ‘Pantera?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘ Pantera has betrayed you to Lucius? You can’t be serious. They loathe each other. They’ve been prosecuting a proxy war with Rome as their battleground since he got off the boat last summer.’
‘That’s what everyone thinks, yes.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘From the beginning, from the day we met in Caenis’ house, Lucius has been one step — one very small step — behind Pantera. All the way along, he knew where he was going and who he was going to see. Still, he didn’t arrest him, or even have him killed, he-’
‘Amoricus was captured alive. If Pantera hadn’t killed him-’
‘But he did. And we could all see how badly he was affected by it. Didn’t we all grieve with him, didn’t we all secretly want to take his arm, pat his shoulder, say don’t worry, it wasn’t really your fault; you did everything you could? Didn’t we?’
‘But why would he betray us? Why now, when he has been with us all summer?’
‘Because there is no other time. If he waits a day longer, Vespasian might be emperor, Vitellius might be dead and Lucius with him, or exiled. And doubly now, because if you want truly to defeat your enemy, you have to let him extend himself to his — or her — fullest. He wanted to see what I knew, how much I could do, what lengths I would go to to get the right man on the throne. He thought he was going to be Seneca’s successor. If he’s going to kill me and take the network for himself, he needs to know as much about me as he can. Now, though, he has to act. What is the greatest prize in Rome just now?’
I was beginning to understand the way her mind worked. I looked across the room at the sleeping boy and the woman on the cot beside him. ‘Them,’ I said. ‘Caenis and Domitian. If either or both is taken prisoner, Vespasian will offer any terms to get them back alive.’
‘Well done.’ She stood, held out her hand, lifted me up, kissed me, drily, lightly on the lips in a way that made my skin tingle. ‘So let’s get them out of here before someone comes to arrest us all. And don’t imagine the silver-boys are on our side. I thought they were, but I have come to understand that their hearts belong to Pantera, and always have done.’
Chapter 69
Rome, 20 December AD 69
Geminus
The burning of the temple was bad enough. We were all heart-sick at the sight of the blaze on the hill, smelling smoke in the air, tasting ash on everything we ate, wondering if the empire was coming to an end because of it.
Then Juvens came back in the dark time before dawn and brought with him news of Sabinus’ appalling death and it seemed an omen too far: if the prefect of Rome could be slaughtered by a group of Guards running out of control, against the explicit order of their commanding officer, then truly the world had changed beyond all understanding.
I waited until after Vitellius had broken his fast to tell him.
He took it badly, as you’d expect. He also understood the extent to which his own life was even more precarious now: no chance of abdicating when his men had just slaughtered his rival’s brother.
‘We need to stop Antonius Primus.’ He was pacing up and down the small audience room that had become his study, his dining room and his conference chamber, although he only conferred with me, Juvens and Drusus now. ‘We need to take the heat out of this, for the sake of Rome. Who can we send to Antonius Primus? Who will he listen to? Not you,’ he said to me and Juvens before we could answer. ‘I need you here.’
‘The Vestals?’ I offered. ‘No one will touch them, and it would not be the first time they’ve sued for peace in the name of Rome.’
He stared at me, frowning, with a look unnervingly like one Lucius might have given. Then he broke into a broad smile.
‘Brilliant!’ He clapped my shoulder. ‘Arrange it in my name.’
He was direct now, succinct; the man he could have been if his mother and brother had not spent fifty years telling him how weak he was. ‘And find Vespasian’s kin; Caenis and the boy, Domitian. They’ll be in the city somewhere, I feel it in my water. With Sabinus gone, they’re our best chance of getting out of here alive.’
Chapter 70
Rome, 20 December AD 69
Borros
The early hours of the morning found Pantera and me in a side alley about three streets away from the hut where we’d left Trabo and the others; in essence, we’d run round a couple of corners and stopped.
Pantera had left me standing at the street’s end with orders to keep a lookout, and then hopped on to a wall, and from there up on the rooftops where he dropped out of sight into some hidden hollow.
He returned some short time later, looking satisfied, and we walked on through the waking city, with every street lit by the burning temple, every house smeared with soot and ash.
We passed slaves and freedmen in the street, vendors and craftsmen, setting up for the day. None of them paid us any attention, nor we them until we came at last to a particular bakery where the ovens were already fierce and the scents warm, crisp and mouthwatering.
In the store room to one side we found Marcus eating newly baked cake; that was the blond-haired Marcus who led the silver-boys and had so discomfited Trabo earlier in the year.
I didn’t listen to their conversation, but I can tell you it was short and swift and Pantera came out of this one, too, looking as if what he planned was going well.
‘Do you suppose Cavernus is awake at this hour?’ he asked.
‘The entire staff of the White Hare was required to be up with the sun when I was there,’ I said. ‘On the day the temple burned down, I’d be surprised if they weren’t up all night.’
‘Then with luck we can go there and eat, and perhaps sleep. It’s going to be a long day.’
‘Antonius Primus…?’
‘Will hear what has happened from a dozen mouths. We don’t need to speak to him personally.’
Pantera didn’t look tired. He looked like a man whose life had suddenly sharpened, but I was exhausted and I wasn’t going to turn down the offer of sleep. So we went to the tavern that had been my home for eighteen years and Cavernus greeted us like royalty — discreet royalty, which must be hidden, but royalty none the less — and gave us food and a little wine and a bed to sleep in and there would have been a girl to warm it if either of us had wanted.
For myself, unconsciousness came as I fell on the bed. Pantera, I think, made himself lie down and close his eyes as an act of will, but he was too vibrant to slip into sleep.
Marcus tapped on our door a couple of hours later, with news that Domitian, Caenis and the others had moved from the hut near the Crossed Spears and were believed to be heading in the direction of the Aventine.
Our task, I learned, was to find them and then follow them, discreetly. The silver-boys guided us with occasional whistles and many gestures, but our progress and theirs was hampered by the crowds who had emerged with the dawn. Some had come to stare at the fire, but most had gathered to watch the procession of Vestal Virgins make their way down from the emperor’s palace on the Palatine, through the forum and down toward the Tiber. Rumour said they were going to meet Antonius Primus on the far side of the bridge on the Flaminian Way; he had come that close to the city.
We were near the forum when we first saw them: a column of women, dressed and veiled all in white, with white and red ribbons in their hair and criss-crossed on their bodices. They seemed to float, so slowly did they move, and in utter silence; they were attended by none of the horns and drums and pomp that customarily announced Roman ceremony.