Rufinus shook his head. ‘But they have issued no commands that are cause for alarm, surely? I have heard nothing.’
‘Saoterus’ the general replied quietly.
‘Sir?’
‘That man who seems young and lost among the gaggle of power-seeking ‘advisors’ appears to be the only one attempting to steer the emperor along a suitable path. Fortunate is the world that he is also the one to whom Commodus pays the most heed; his favourite, if you will. I have heard of potential orders for proscriptions of whole families, lines and tribes tabled by the vultures, vetoed on the suggestion of Saoterus. Had they made it to legal status, half the noble families in Rome would have been arrested and executed. A cursory examination of those families named would illuminate a few choice titbits, too: families with money that would seep into the treasury. Families with lands that abut the estates of men such as Cleander, where the boundaries could easily be redrawn. Saoterus alone seems to be standing between the emperor’s seal and the death of more than a dozen prominent families.’
Rufinus blinked. He remembered Cleander and Saoterus well enough from Vindobona. Cleander he could see as a stirrer of political cauldrons. Saoterus had seemed so young and quiet.
‘It’s hard to believe.’
Pompeianus nodded. ‘Nevertheless, it is true. You see why I ask and share all of this with you?’
Rufinus shook his head and refilled his cup, making the mix stronger this time.
‘I told you why I was doing the bidding of Perennis, despite everything,’ sighed Pompeianus. ‘Survival. Lucilla is dangerous and cold, but she is relatively impotent at the moment. Commodus and his coven of snakes and vultures wield every drop of power in the empire. Tell me, when you know that lines are being drawn, on which side I should pitch my tent?’
Rufinus stared. Could it be that already, so early into the golden-haired prince’s reign, the seedy corruption of the old Republic had already set in?
‘It all sounds so hopeless when you put it in those terms’ he said quietly.
Pompeianus laughed again. ‘Far from it. It is a great game, young Rufinus. The closer you get to the purple, the more often you are required to play. You have entered into the tournament now and you need to learn the rules and how the pieces move, lest you find yourself out of it again swiftly, and the stakes are too high to accept that possibility.’
‘So we foil any attempt against the emperor not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the most expedient thing?’
Pompeianus nodded. ‘Survival. If we hope to help our new emperor achieve everything of which he is capable, we have to survive long enough to gain the necessary influence. You see how this works?’
Rufinus nodded despondently. He did see how it worked, and it sickened him. He felt soiled simply by being told such things. How simple it had been to carry shield and pilum in the front of a century, to brace in the shieldwall against a thousand slavering barbarians. Suddenly he longed for the discomfort of the military marching camp; the cold numbness of the toes in the snow of Marcomannia; the endless ennui of guard duty and the unpleasantness of digging the shit-trench.
Better to dig it than to live in it.
‘I don’t like this.’
Pompeianus shrugged. ‘You don’t have to. Really, you shouldn’t if you are as good a man as you seem. But sadly, the longer you play the game, the more you enjoy it and the more you want to win.’
‘So what do we do?’
The general poured himself another wine and sipped it straight and unwatered for the first time. ‘You need to ingratiate yourself. You need to make yourself important enough to my wife and her cackling whores of friends that you are allowed within the main complex. Only there are you likely to find anything of interest. Make use of slaves, especially this British girl of whom you speak. You now have as much hold over her as she does over you. She may know your secret, but the fact that she has not told anyone is enough to crucify her. You can use that to play her. She is your first piece in the game.’
Rufinus’ eyes widened and he fought to control his tongue. To think of using Senova in such a way made him sick. He would not do so, but equally he was unwilling to reveal that weakness to the general. ‘Any other suggestions, sir?’
Pompeianus shook his head. ‘Not yet. I would say that a man who managed to outwit and remove the impediment of a veteran bully in his unit should be able to engineer some way into the favour of his employer. Think on it.’
Rufinus nodded solemnly and drained the last of his wine. He had thought the conversation would be enlightening for the villa’s master. He had not realised just how much he would learn in return; how much he wished he didn’t have to.
‘I had best go. I need to bathe and dry out and then spend some time in thought.’
As he stood and stretched, replacing his cup on the table, Pompeianus smiled up at him. ‘I presume you can see yourself out? It would go best for you if you weren’t seen to be consorting with me, so try to leave quietly, though I think the rain will keep most observers away.’
Rufinus smiled uncomfortably. ‘Thank you for your time and the wine, general. I will speak to you as soon as I have anything helpful to say.’
With a respectful nod, Rufinus turned and strode from the room, passing through the doorways and chambers and out into the beautiful garden where the pounding rain was still battering leaves with a deafening clatter, splashing up from puddles.
As he passed through the gate to the garden, the way he had first entered, he had that prickly, nervous sensation of being watched, and turned, peering between the trees up the slope. For a moment he thought he’d caught the edge of a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye but, as he watched intently, nothing but the endless torrential rain filled his view.
The rain battered on throughout the evening as the remaining light, such as it was beneath the roiling grey clouds, failed and petered out. Rufinus returned to the baths to find them empty and quiet. Disrobing, he once more laid out his clothes on the floor of the warm room to dry them and clattered around the decorative floors in the wooden sandals provided until he sank gratefully into one of the semi-circular hot baths.
Allowing himself to relax for the first time that evening, he pondered on the wealth of information he had now uncovered and considered the path ahead. As a new arrival, even having served for more than a week without incident, there was no hope of him winkling his way into a position of trust within the main wing of the villa. Pompeianus was making hopeless suggestions. It would be months before they would place enough faith in him to allow him access to the more sensitive areas, and by then the deed he’d been sent here to prevent could have been done.
There had to be a way of speeding things up.
Lazily, he ducked his head beneath the warm water, holding his breath and listening to the distant sounds of the furnaces being fed, muted through the water. In that watery netherworld of peace, he thought it through further. It was a matter of comparative trustworthiness. He was new, and therefore even people who had only served for a month were more trusted than he. Those with half a year at the villa were likely to be trusted in the inner circles. In time there would be new recruits and he would move up the ladder, so the only way to speed up the process was to climb that ladder faster. And doing that meant either removing those above him or adding more below.
Murder was clearly not the way. Likely there would be some men who could have been assigned to this task who would look upon such clandestine wickedness as part of the duty and take it stoically. But the affair with Scopius in the aqueduct tank had taught Rufinus that he simply did not have the coldness required for murder. He would face any man in a fair fight for a real reason, but knives in the dark were not his way.