'You're looking grim.'

Vespasian turned towards the sound of the familiar voice, letting Anicetus and Herculeius go on ahead. 'So you learnt to swim after all, did you?'

Magnus was sitting, leaning against the hull of an upturned fis.h.i.+ng boat. 'Didn't need to in the end; it turned out that swan wings are very buoyant. Me and a few of the lads clung onto one and kicked our way to sh.o.r.e.' He eased himself up and fell into step beside Vespasian. 'I waited here for you because I guessed that when Nero found out what a shambles his attempt at staging an accident was he'd send a party to do it properly and, being already implicated, you'd be part of it.'

'Well, you were right. I heard roughly what happened; so how did Agrippina get away?'

Magnus gave a grim little laugh. 'A lucky piece of selfishness by her slave. After the canopy had come down, crus.h.i.+ng Gallus but missing the two women on account of the high-backed couch that Agrippina was reclining in, the s.h.i.+p started to take in water. Some of the crew were part of the conspiracy but most of them were just s.h.i.+t-scared. Anyway, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who were trying to sink the s.h.i.+p must have had some mechanism to scuttle it that hadn't completely worked so they started to try and capsize it by all going onto one side. This helped and water started flooding in. At this point Acerronia, who was evidently unaware that this was an attempt on Agrippina's life, started to shout out that she was Agrippina and that the crew should save her. This surprised the a.s.sa.s.sins as they'd thought that Agrippina was dead beneath the canopy and were now trying to sink the s.h.i.+p so that there'd be no evidence as such; so they battered Acerronia to death with oars whilst Agrippina managed to slip over the side in the dark. Anyway the s.h.i.+p eventually went down, the a.s.sa.s.sins, and those of the crew who could, swam for the sh.o.r.e whilst me and the rest of the lads floundered around waiting for Neptune to suck us under; only he didn't but sent us a swan wing to float on instead, which I felt to be very decent of him. I shall be sacrificing a swan to him as soon as I have the chance.'

'That's the least you can do.'

'Two, then.'

'That should do it. Sounds like it was more than a shambles. Why put a high-backed couch on board for Agrippina to recline on when you're trying to crush her with something falling from above? Especially when the last time you tried the same trick she was saved by a high-backed piece of furniture.' Vespasian shook his head in disbelief. 'If they had gone about it properly I wouldn't be having to be part of finis.h.i.+ng off the job.'

'Yeah, well, no point in moaning about it now.'

Vespasian's attention was taken by a fugitive fleeing from the house, now only fifty paces away.

'Get her!' Anicetus shouted at the marine centurion.

Two men were despatched and quickly ran the woman down and dragged her, writhing, back. They threw her on the ground; by her attire she was obviously a slave. She was young and not unattractive, if slightly plump, with a shock of angry-red hair.

Anicetus slapped the woman a couple of times across the face. 'Where were you going?'

'Please, master; I saw you coming and was just trying to get away.'

'Who do you belong to?'

'Agrippina, master.'

'Is she in there?'

'Yes, master; she's locked herself into her bedroom.'

'And you were deserting your mistress and running away, were you?' Anicetus drew his sword. 'You know the penalty for that, don't you?'

'Wait,' Vespasian said, putting an arm across Anicetus. He looked down at the slave girl. 'Is Pallas still in there?'

The girl looked with terrified eyes at the sword, unable to answer.

'It's all right; you won't come to any harm. Anicetus, put that away, this girl is now under my protection.'

Anicetus did as he was told.

'What's your name?'

'Caitln, master.'

'So, Caitln, has Pallas left?'

'Yes, master,' the girl said, watching the sword go back into the scabbard. 'He left as soon as the mistress departed for Baiae yesterday evening.'

'What a surprise. Magnus, you look after her; bring her with us and make sure that she comes to no harm.'

'That'll be my pleasure,' Magnus said, eying the girl's full figure with the appreciation of a connoisseur.

Vespasian nodded to Anicetus. 'Deploy your men.'

'Centurion Obartius!' Anicetus called. 'Have your lads surround the villa and bring me anyone who tries to get out.'

Obartius saluted, issued a stream of orders and the marine century split up into eight-man sections, obeying Anicetus' command.

'Right, let's get this done,' Vespasian said once the men were all in position.

Anicetus led Obartius and eight marines up to the front door; it was locked. Without ceremony two of the men shoulder-barged their s.h.i.+elds into it; after three hits it cracked open. Anicetus led them in. The atrium was deserted; very few lamps were lit so despite the growing light outside it was shadowed with gloom.

'Which way?' Vespasian asked the girl.

She pointed a trembling finger down a corridor that ran off the left-hand side of the atrium. 'Down there at the end, on the right, master.'

The marines clattered down the corridor, hobnailed sandals sparking on the marble in the half-light. The same two marines hefted their s.h.i.+elds against the door at the end and within moments it was hanging off its hinges.

There was a screech from within as the marines piled through the doorway. Vespasian followed Anicetus and Herculeius in to see Agrippina standing, four-square, facing up to the marines; defiant to the end.

A slave girl nipped out of a door behind her but Agrippina disdained to follow. 'Are you deserting me too?' she yelled after the fleeing slave, before looking back to Anicetus and levelling her voice. 'If you've come to visit the patient on behalf of my son, I can report to you that she is fully recovered. But if you have come to commit a crime, did the order come from Nero?'

But neither Anicetus nor Herculeius bothered to answer as they moved towards her, the trierarchus brandis.h.i.+ng a club, the other, his sword. The club arced round towards Agrippina's head but she ducked and it just caught her a glancing blow.

'Strike here, Anicetus!' Agrippina screamed, ripping her stola open so that her stomach was exposed. 'Strike me in the belly because that is what bore Nero!'

Straight and true, Anicetus plunged his blade into her womb and, straining, forced it up, slicing through flesh and muscle, laying her open. Agrippina stared at her murderer, her body tensed rigid, her mouth firmly shut as her nostrils flared with deep breaths sucked in against the pain.

And Vespasian watched in horror and awe as she voluntarily submitted to disembowelling in a last act of defiance against the son she had borne, the son to whom she had given sovereignty, for whom she had murdered her uncle-husband, Claudius, her second husband before him and many others. There she stood with blood pouring down her legs and innards slopping out of the hideous wound; but still she stood. And then Anicetus, in an act of mercy for a woman who had so bravely met her end, angled his sword up and pierced the heart that had been filled with the overbearing pride of being a daughter of Germanicus. With a long exhalation that was no louder than a sigh, Agrippina's eyes rolled up and a trickle of blood slipped from the corner of her mouth; she slid off Anicetus' blade and collapsed back onto the bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling with a faint smile on her lips as if her last thought had been of the guilt that her son would for ever feel.

There was complete silence in the chamber for many speeding heartbeats as all contemplated the enormity of the crime that had just been perpetrated.

Vespasian was the first to rouse himself. 'Obartius, have your men seal off this room and then do not allow anyone into the villa until the Emperor arrives. I'm going to wait for him outside.' He turned about and walked at pace back out into the corridor.

Magnus came hurrying after him, still holding the red-headed slave girl by the arm, her eyes brim with the horror of what she had just witnessed. 'What shall I do with her?'

'Bring her with you if you want, Magnus; one slave won't be missed even if they do an inventory of Agrippina's possessions. Once I've fulfilled my duty to the Emperor and he's seen his mother dead, that's enough for me; we're going back to Rome and then straight to the baths. I've got a lot of filth to sweat out and it's not just other people's.'

PART III.

Rome, ad 60.

CHAPTER VII.

THEY TURNED TOGETHER, and then stretched their legs: four Arab stallions in a line, galloping in harmony. Their manes flowed behind them, sweat sheened their coats and dust from the sand-track flicked up from their pounding hoofs as the light racing chariot skidded around the one hundred and eighty degree turn in their wake.

Vespasian gave the team a lick of the four-lash charioteer's whip over their withers, not so much that they needed reminding of their duty of speed but more out of habit at the start of a new lap. With only one left to go of the seven in total he was in the lead in this two-team race and he intended to keep it that way until coming down the final straight where he would, of course, allow the Emperor to pa.s.s him and win just. It always took fine judgement. Not that there was anything at stake that Nero wanted to claim by coming first, it was just that no one had ever beaten Nero at anything in his life so there was no sure way of knowing how he would react to losing; Vespasian was certainly not going to be the first person to find out.

Wind rushed past his head, hammering grains of sand into his face, stinging his squinting eyes and drying his throat; he felt the stallions extending their stride as they straightened up for the dash to the next turn at the far end of the spina, the central barrier down the middle of the circus built by Caligula for his own private use on the far side of the Tiber at the foot of the Vatican Hill.

It was here that Nero enjoyed the privacy that he still felt that he needed in order to pursue his pa.s.sion for chariot racing, and it was to here that Nero had taken to ordering Vespasian to bring his four remaining Arabs on a regular basis so that they could race together.

Vespasian hauled back on the reins, wrapped about his waist, putting more pressure on the left-hand side so that the inner horse slowed more than the outer. Its job was to be sure-footed as it guided its three team mates around the turn whereas the outside beast, taking a longer way round, needed the ability to keep its footing and greater pace as the corner was negotiated so that the team rounded the bend as one, in a line and not as a ragged disorder of horse-limbs that would come to grief with the slightest b.u.mp. Again Vespasian flicked the whip but not so hard this time as he was aware of Nero's chariot just behind him, no more than a length away; this was how Nero liked it and it was worth getting it how Nero liked it as it made him much more amenable to favours asked after the race and Vespasian had a big favour to extract from the Emperor.

Since the 'suicide' of Agrippina as Nero liked to think of it in his state of deep delusion Vespasian had found himself becoming a favourite of the Emperor's. As to the reason, he was not quite certain but he a.s.sumed that it was to do with the fact that he was the only witness left to Agrippina's death, apart from Anicetus who was fiercely loyal to his patron and so would never divulge the truth. Herculeius, Obartius and the eight marines who had accompanied them had disappeared and Vespasian a.s.sumed that they were dead as Nero had given Anicetus orders, upon his arrival at his mother's villa a couple of hours after her death, that they were all to be arrested and kept in close confinement; that had been the last he had heard of them. Magnus and the plump, red-headed slave girl's presence at Agrippina's a.s.sa.s.sination had not been noticed by Nero, and Vespasian thought it best to keep it that way; as did Magnus who had kept the girl for himself and was, from all accounts, putting her to extremely good and frequent use.

Vespasian had then accompanied Nero to examine Agrippina's corpse. The Emperor had studied it, stroking the limbs and running the tips of his fingers over the contours of the face and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and remarking over and over how he did not realise that he had such a beautiful mother. He then announced to the members of her household and the rest of the marines that Agrippina had committed suicide out of remorse for making an attempt on his life and showed them, from a distance, the wound to her belly as if it were proof of the act. After that he ordered that her body be unceremoniously burnt on a dining couch and her ashes entombed nearby, again without ceremony, before returning to Baiae and going into mourning, bewailing her tragic suicide just when they were getting along so well. However, he had not dared to go back to Rome for a couple of months, fearing what the people might think. It was to this end that he had kept Vespasian, a man of proconsular rank and therefore, obviously, of unimpeachable character, as the only witness, giving him instructions to tell Nero's version of events whenever he was asked about Agrippina's death and say that it was indeed a suicide and he had arrived there, tragically, just too late to prevent it. No one, of course, believed him but no one questioned his story or, indeed, blamed him for sticking to it as all knew that to do otherwise would mean certain death. Indeed, the Senate had accepted, almost unanimously, Nero's version of events as presented to it in a letter written by Seneca; only Thrasea the Stoic had walked out of the chamber in silent protest and had remained absent from the a.s.sembly ever since.

And so, Vespasian a.s.sumed that the likely reason for his being so favoured by the Emperor was that as the only 'witness' to the mode of Agrippina's death, Nero liked to keep him close in order to add strength to his delusion that he had not murdered his mother; as far as Vespasian was concerned, the Emperor could think whatever he liked if it kept him from going the same way as Herculeius, Obartius and the eight marines who had accompanied them.

As to how Pallas had fared since being liberated from the enc.u.mbrance of Agrippina, Vespasian knew only that he was still exiled to his country estates and was still managing to retain his considerable fortune. Whereas Seneca had made good his promise and t.i.tus was now a military tribune in Germania Inferior, Pallas had reneged on his; he had not made any attempt to secure Vespasian the governors.h.i.+p of Africa. This rankled with Vespasian as he considered that an agreement was an agreement and the fact that Pallas had, as suspected, cancelled his trip to Britannia was not his concern; Pallas should still, in all honour, fulfil his side of the bargain. His lack of progress since stepping down as consul was made all the more bitter by the fact that Aulus Vitellius had been given Africa and it was rumoured that his brother, Lucius, would take over from him next year.

Ululations from behind the same as those that Nero used to make when rampaging through Rome told Vespasian that the Emperor was gaining on him and pulling his chariot out into the straight in preparation for pa.s.sing him. He pulled slightly on the reins, equal pressure on each, so the team slowed infinitesimally but enough. The ululations increased in volume as Nero drew level, his team disordered and failing to gallop in time. Vespasian made a great show of brandis.h.i.+ng his whip but took care that none of the strokes should make contact and cause his Arabs to accelerate. Hard he worked at it, time and time again, furiously arching his back and then bringing the whip down, overarm, but flicking his wrist up at the last moment so the lashes never touched. Nero looked over to him, grinning and whooping furiously, whipping his team without mercy so that, despite their chaos, they eased ahead of Vespasian's now cruising Arabs. On went the Emperor, his fist punching the air as he crossed the winning line and the seventh dolphin, used to mark the laps, dipped to line up with the six others on a pole, high above the spina, next to the towering obelisk that Caligula had had brought over from Egypt.

Nero had won, yet again, and Vespasian was very pleased to see him do it.

'You make the same mistake every time, Vespasian,' Nero a.s.serted, unwrapping the reins from around his waist as Vespasian drew up his team next to the Emperor's chariot. 'You drive your horses far too hard for the first six laps and then they're blown by the final one. I, on the other hand, with my eye for the subtleties of the track, conserve my team's strength, nursing them through the opening laps, just sitting behind you, ready to pounce at the last moment; which I do to great effect. It takes a great skill to have that judgement.'

'Indeed it does, Princeps, and you are blessed with it in abundance,' Vespasian agreed, with all solemnity, as he too attended to his reins; grooms ran up to hold the teams steady as the two charioteers dismounted. 'I so wish that I could learn to judge the pace correctly but just when I think I've got it right your extraordinary talent beats me yet again.' He shook his head in a creditable display of disbelief. 'I hope that I can better you next time.'

'You can try, Vespasian, you can try,' Nero said jovially, taking a towel from one of the grooms; he was never more pleased than when boasting of his prowess on the track having won yet another race, and this, Vespasian had noticed, showed in his far more straightforward conversation and manly deportment. 'But I think that by the time men get to your age, fifty-one? Fifty-two?'

'Fifty-one this coming November, Princeps.'

Nero started to walk towards the gates, rubbing the sand from his face with the towel. 'Well, by the time men get to that age they're too set in their ways to learn much. And seeing as you don't possess my natural talent I don't hold out much hope for you. A shame really, as I believe that you have the better team.'

'You do, Princeps?' Vespasian hoped that his tone sounded as if he had never even countenanced the possibility.

'Of course; they're eight-year-old Arabs in their prime who run beautifully together; I'll prove it to you that they're the best. Next time we race I'll take your team and you can choose any of mine and I'll wager I'll beat them. How much shall we have on it?'

Vespasian's dry throat dried even more. 'A bet, Princeps?'

'How about ten thousand?'

'Ten thousand sesterces, I ...'

'Of course not; denarii.'

If Vespasian could have swallowed he would have; the biggest bet he had ever laid in his life had been one sestertius on his team the first time they had raced in the Circus Maximus; the thrill of winning two whole denarii when they had come in first had not been enough to tempt him from being so reckless with his money ever again. 'Could we, perhaps, bet with something other than money, Princeps?'

Nero threw the towel back to the groom. 'Like what?'

Again Vespasian wished he could swallow; he was at a loss for an idea.

'So it's agreed then,' Nero carried on when Vespasian failed to furnish him with another form of currency. 'Twelve thousand denarii from the loser to the winner; we'll do it next time I'm in the mood for it.'

Vespasian nodded blankly, registering Nero upping the wager and wondering how his innate parsimony would allow him to deliberately lose a race to the Emperor; he was sure that even driving his team of Arabs the Emperor's ability to race chariots was only slightly greater than his talent for singing. But for Nero it was the delusion that counted.

Suddenly remembering the objective of the morning, Vespasian steeled himself to get the favour he desired from Nero. 'Princeps, as you may know, my daughter is to be married in a couple of days now that she is of an age. Her husband-to-be was a praetor last year.'

Nero thought for a few moments. 'Quintus Petillius Cerialis, yes, I granted him an audience yesterday. I hope you don't expect me to be coming to the wedding?'

Vespasian held up both hands as they approached the gates. 'No, Princeps, no; I would never expect you to do anything. Should you wish to attend the festivities then we would be the most honoured family in Rome but should you wish to confer some mark of distinction on the couple, merely a ...' Vespasian trailed off hoping that Nero would fill in the rest of the sentence.

And he did as the gates were swung open for them. 'A wedding present! I must think of a suitable wedding present for the couple.'

'A wedding present, Princeps? That would be a great distinction; such an honour.'

'Yes, it would be, wouldn't it? Have you any suggestions?' Nero asked as he walked out onto the open ground beyond the gates where his litter and Praetorian Guard escort awaited him, all snapping smartly to attention at the bellowing of their centurions.

'Me? Well, let me see.' Vespasian knew that he was getting close to his objective and just had to play the next few lines carefully. 'What did Cerialis come to see you about, yesterday, Princeps, if I might ask?'

The transformation that came over Nero by stepping out of the masculine environment of the racetrack and back into his world of art and creative pretence was palpable. He struck a pose, suggesting thought, before answering. 'Oh, just the usual: he offered me his greetings and complete loyalty and then gave me a present of an amber ring. Oh yes, and he pa.s.sed on a letter from his brother, Caesius Nasica, the legate of the Ninth Hispana in Britannia.'

'He's ... er ... he's coming back to Rome soon, I believe.'

'He is; and Suetonius Paulinus, the Governor of Britannia, has written to me with a few suggestions as to who should ...' Nero took an inspirational pose. 'Wait! Cerialis' name was on that list.'

'Was it now?' Vespasian said, knowing perfectly well that it was and that had been Paulinus' repaying Vespasian the favour he owed him for dealing with Venutius even though the Britannic chieftain was now in Seneca's custody; the other names on the list were mediocrities or plain no-hopers.

'Perfect! That will be the ideal gift,' Nero announced as the curtains to his litter were drawn back for him, 'I will confirm Cerialis as the new legate of the Ninth Hispana; I shall have his Imperial Mandate sent to your house on the day of the wedding. He can leave for Britannia once he's done his duty by your daughter, provided it doesn't take more than a moon.'

Vespasian's grat.i.tude was genuine and his expression told no lie. 'Princeps, he'll be entirely in your debt.'

'The whole of Rome is in my debt.' Nero clapped his hands and the litter rose, lifted by bearers chosen for their bulk rather than their good looks. 'It is all mine.'

Vespasian watched the Emperor depart, contemplating the frightening truth of that simple statement.

Vespasian listened to the ribald comments of the young, male wedding guests with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and paternal outrage at such things being said about his daughter as she was led off by Flavia and the other women to prepare herself for the consummation of the marriage in her new husband's house on the Aventine.

'I am a very lucky man,' Cerialis, Vespasian's new son-in-law, admitted, watching his bride walking away.

'You are indeed, Cerialis. I didn't get mine until I was thirty-two; you've managed it just before your thirtieth birthday.'