Cerialis' well-formed face high cheekbones, prominent nose, firm mouth and intelligent, dark eyes betrayed momentary confusion. 'Quite so,' he said, knowing that his father-in-law had been married at the age of twenty-nine just like him. 'You had to wait a long time for your legion; I am very lucky.'

'Very lucky, indeed,' Vespasian confirmed as the bridal party disappeared down a corridor, 'it took a few favours called in but we got there; so don't f.u.c.k it up. Britannia has plenty of scope for military glory but it also has plenty of scope for making a b.a.l.l.s-up of everything and coming back in disgrace; I should know as I was within a hundred heartbeats of having my legion hit in the flank, whilst deploying forward, by that man over there.' He indicated with his head to Caratacus who was drinking wine and conversing with Sabinus and his son-in-law, Lucius Caesennius Paetus.

Cerialis was interested. 'And what saved you?'

'Who, more like.' Vespasian pointed out Hormus chatting with Magnus and Tigran on the fringe of the reception, the realm of the less prestigious guests. 'That man over there.'

'Your freedman?'

'He was my slave at the time. An oil lamp in my tent rekindled itself mysteriously and he told me that his mother used to believe that when things behave in a strange way, like that, it's the G.o.ds giving us a warning that we've overlooked something. I didn't take much notice at the time, but as I was leading the legion out of the camp to attack the hill fort we'd invested I realised that I had overlooked something and that something was in the north. I just managed to have the legion form up facing in that direction as thirty thousand hairy-a.r.s.ed savages appeared out of the night, led by Caratacus. It was a very nasty moment; we beat them off but not before I had to send a young tribune to his certain death leading a suicidal cavalry charge that bought me the time I needed for my reserves to arrive. He went without a complaint and we buried him with great honour.' Vespasian slapped Cerialis on the back. 'So, my boy, be prepared for nasty decisions and look out for candles and lamps rekindling all by themselves.'

Cerialis grinned; it was a pleasant sight. 'I will, Father; and I shall make you proud to have me as a son-in-law.'

'I'm sure you will. And by the way; I knew exactly what you were referring to when you first said that you were a lucky man.' It was Vespasian's turn to grin, the strained expression on his face lighting up. 'You played along perfectly, well done; I think we might enjoy each other's company, you and I.'

'I hope we'll have ample opportunity to do so, Father.'

'We will, I'm sure; but not too much, as you should be off winning a name for yourself and making my daughter proud of her husband. And you're right: you are a lucky man.'

A cheer erupted from the younger male guests and Vespasian looked round; Flavia was standing at the end of the corridor. He smiled at Cerialis. 'Well, my boy; time to go and get me a grandson.' He gripped Cerialis' proffered forearm before the younger man walked off to his awaiting bride to the percussion of slow clapping echoing around the atrium. He followed his mother-in-law out of sight and the guests settled down with more wine to wait for the announcement confirming the successful conclusion of the business at hand after which they would depart.

'I suppose it's best not to think about what's happening at the moment,' Vespasian said as he joined Sabinus, Paetus and Caratacus.

Sabinus laughed and threw an arm around Paetus' shoulders. 'Someone's got to do it and it's as well that it's someone you like, as with Paetus and my daughter, and not just a political union with some flaccid patrician from a family that's seen better days.'

'I suppose you're right,' Vespasian agreed half-heartedly, trying not to picture the scene in Cerialis' bedroom.

'Of course he's right,' Caratacus affirmed. 'What use are daughters anyway unless they produce sons?'

Sabinus took a firm grip of Paetus and shook him. 'Especially sons of consuls.'

It took Vespasian a few moments to realise just what Sabinus had implied. 'Really?'

'Yes,' Paetus agreed, his face breaking into a toothy grin, reminding Vespasian of his father, his long-dead friend. 'Nero is coming to the Senate tomorrow to announce the consuls, praetors and governors for the coming year; I'm to be Publius Petronius Turpilia.n.u.s' junior colleague for the first six months.'

Vespasian was genuinely pleased despite the fact that Paetus had exceeded him by becoming a consul in January, thereby having the year named after him and his colleague. 'Congratulations, Paetus, how did you manage that?'

Paetus looked to his father-in-law but said nothing.

'Well?' Vespasian asked Sabinus.

'There was no way that we could afford to bribe Seneca so I did a trade with him,' Sabinus admitted. 'I've been the prefect of Rome for four years now and Lucius Pedanius Secundus, Corvinus' crony, has been agitating endlessly for the position, so I went to Seneca and offered to step down, pointing out that if I stayed he wouldn't be getting any bribe money from selling the post for the foreseeable future. He said that he could just remove me and sell the post anyway, to which I replied that if he did that who would ever trust him enough to offer him a large bribe again anytime soon?' Sabinus tapped his temple to indicate his own perceived cunning. 'So I said, instead of selling the junior consuls.h.i.+p, for however much, why don't you just give it to Paetus and sell the prefecture for a lot more instead? Being a reasonable businessman he saw the logic and we had a deal.'

'Very good, Sabinus; very well played,' Vespasian said, full of admiration for his brother.

Only Caratacus looked less than impressed. 'I still fail to understand how you Romans can consider that achievement of power by anything other than strength of arms to be honourable.'

Sabinus scoffed. 'It's where you get to that counts, not how you get there; and it's not "you Romans", it's "we Romans", as we keep on having to remind you, Tiberius Claudius Caratacus, ever since you were brought to Rome, pardoned and given citizens.h.i.+p.'

'What good is citizens.h.i.+p to me?' The former Britannic King's eyes flashed for a moment before they resumed their normal mild aspect. 'Prasutagus of the Iceni has been granted citizens.h.i.+p and he is free to stay in the province of Britannia. Yet I, who am also a citizen, cannot leave Rome without the Emperor's permission, which means that I'm a prisoner here.'

Vespasian was stunned by Caratacus' outburst. 'I thought that you had accustomed yourself to that, having had your life spared.'

Caratacus' expression soured. 'I had; up until yesterday.'

'What happened then?' Vespasian asked, frowning as he could think of nothing special occurring the day before.

'Yesterday Seneca released Venutius and procured a pardon for him from the Emperor; he is free to go back to Britannia with his citizens.h.i.+p restored.'

Vespasian, Sabinus and Paetus were all lost for words.

'Why?' Vespasian eventually managed to ask.

'You tell me, Vespasian; all I can say is that I perceive it to be a grave injustice if the man who betrayed me, the man who rebelled against Rome, is free to go back to our own land and yet I, I who have sworn my loyalty, must remain here as a virtual prisoner.'

'It must be about money,' Sabinus hypothesised. 'Seneca, as we all know, does nothing unless it's for money. As we also know, Venutius owed him a substantial amount numbering in the low millions and I suppose there was no possibility of him retrieving that and the interest whilst Venutius was being watched over by you, Caratacus, which is why he put pressure on Vespasian to have you hand him over.'

'But he won't get his money back at all if Venutius goes back to Britannia and on up to the unconquered tribes in the north and starts to stir them up against us. If anything he risks losing all the other loans that he has made in the province by causing another revolt.' It made no sense to Vespasian but it did keep his mind off what was happening to his daughter only a few dozen paces away.

'That's just the point,' Caratacus said, after taking a large draft from his cup. 'The price for Venutius' freedom was that he pay back his debt to Seneca by borrowing from other sources; he's done that and Seneca's destroyed the debt marker.'

Vespasian looked at Sabinus; they both saw the logic of the move. 'That means that if Paulinus was planning on using the information that we provided him with, that Seneca's loan had helped fund Venutius' revolt, then he'll be disappointed as there's now nothing that can prove it any more.'

Sabinus shook his head. 'He's covered his tracks perfectly and will no doubt invest the returned loan somewhere just as dubious.'

Vespasian found it hard not to admire the lengths that Seneca would go to in order to keep his reputation clean whilst at the same time indulging in some of the worst excesses of usury that he had ever heard about.

Eventually there was another raucous cheer, far more boisterous than the one that followed Cerialis' departure, announcing the groom's reappearance, smiling broadly and wearing only a tunic; behind him came two female slaves holding up a bloodied sheet as proof the wife had been a virgin and that was now no longer the case.

'Family and friends,' Cerialis called over the hubbub; it soon died down. 'I have taken possession of my bride and her dowry.' He paused for another bout of cheering. 'Tomorrow I shall hold the formal wedding dinner here in my home. I invite you all to come along two hours after the Senate has risen for the day.' With that he turned and, at some pace, walked back to his new bride.

'Furthermore, after I had Artaxata raised to the ground so it could no longer be held against us and had taken possession of Tigranocerta,' Cossus Cornelius Lentulus, the junior consul, declaimed, reading aloud from a despatch, 'urgent news reached me. Tiridates, the younger brother of Vologases, the Great King of Parthia, was advancing across the border from Media into Armenia in another attempt to claim the Armenian crown; and this in spite of the diplomatic efforts of the emba.s.sy that we sent to Vologases last year. I despatched one of my legates, Verula.n.u.s, ahead with the auxiliaries whilst I followed on with the legions by a series of forced marches.' Lentulus paused as the a.s.sembled senators rumbled their agreement to the wisdom of that course of action.

'Speed, you see, Cerialis,' Vespasian said to his son-in-law, sitting to his right, 'always speed in reaction. I've known Corbulo for almost thirty-five years and I've never seen him dither once. Hit the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds before they get a chance to consolidate.'

Cerialis nodded thoughtful agreement while Paetus, seated on Cerialis' other side, wrinkled his nose. 'He's just doing what anyone with any sense would do.'

Vespasian did not bother arguing as he knew that it was pointless when discussing Corbulo with Paetus. Paetus had never got on with the dour and rigid patrician when he had served under Corbulo's command in Germania Superior as he, Vespasian, had seen at first hand, much to his amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Thus I forced the Parthians' withdrawal,' Lentulus continued, 'subjecting those whom I caught, as well as any towns that held out against us, to wholesale slaughter and burning and so managed to have Armenia completely under Roman control when Tigranes, of the Cappadocian Royal House, whom our Emperor, in his wisdom, has chosen to be our puppet-king in Armenia, arrived in the country. I have installed Tigranes on the throne, have overseen his va.s.sals swear the oath to him and he in turn to Rome. I have left him with a garrison of two cohorts of legionaries, three of auxiliaries and two cavalry alae. As well as that, I have requisitioned fifty talents in gold and one hundred talents in silver that will pay for all our expenses incurred during the struggle; this I have sent overland for fear of s.h.i.+pwreck. I have now withdrawn back into Syria to take up the governors.h.i.+p left vacant by Ummidius' death.' Again a pause for more protestations of approval from the full Senate House. 'I commend myself to my Emperor and my esteemed colleagues in the Senate.' Lentulus rolled up the scroll with a flourish. 'That completes the despatch from Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, proconsul of Syria.' He turned, beaming, to Nero, his senior colleague in the consuls.h.i.+p for the first six months of the year, who sat at the head of the long oblong chamber. If he was expecting fulsome praise from the Emperor to be heaped upon Corbulo for what sounded like a very neat and clinical job in wresting Armenia back into the Roman sphere of influence and at the same time adding to Nero's much depleted treasury, he was sadly disappointed.

Nero's hands were gripping the arms of his curule chair so intensely that his knuckles were white.

'I propose a vote of thanks,' Lentulus ventured, his voice trailing off to almost a whisper.

'There'll be no vote,' Nero rasped. 'Why should the Senate thank one of its members for doing a job that any one of us could have done?'

'Indeed, Princeps,' Lentulus agreed as a chorus of voices supported the Emperor's decision.

'Corbulo better watch his step,' Gaius, sitting to Vespasian's left, whispered in his ear, 'it doesn't do a man any favours to be seen to be doing too good a job in a military capacity. Emperors tend to be thankful that the job is done but not grateful to the man who did it. It doesn't matter that Nero's spending more and more on grandiose building projects and Corbulo's just provided the finances to make his new baths on the Campus Martius even more lavish. Remember what happened to Germanicus? If only half the rumours at the time were true then he met his end because of Tiberius' jealousy.'

Vespasian could but agree. 'The trouble with Corbulo is that his innate patrician arrogance won't let him play down his part; he needs everyone to know just what a glorious victory he has gained.'

'Well, dear boy, if he carries on sending despatches like that then it'll be an inglorious death that he gains and he'll have no one to blame but himself.'

'I think you may well be right, Uncle,' Vespasian agreed as the Father of the House called upon the Senior Consul and First amongst them to make the statement that he had prepared.

'In addition to these appointments to the consuls.h.i.+p and praetors.h.i.+p,' Nero declaimed in his husky voice, 'I have a list of suggestions for next year's aediles and quaestors, which I shall give to the Father of the House so that you, Conscript Fathers, can vote on them as is your right.' A round of thankful applause followed for the crumb of autonomy offered by the Emperor to the body that once proudly voted on all its own decisions and appointments. Nero accepted it, smiling benevolently as if it were one of the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard. Eventually, much to everyone's relief, he carried on: 'And so I come to the governors.h.i.+ps for next year: Lucius Vitellius will replace his brother, Aulus, in Africa.' Nero paused, evidently delighted by the murmur of surprise that echoed around the chamber.

Vespasian found himself struggling to keep his temper as he looked over to the smug and porcine younger Vitellius brother.

'I reconfirm Marcus Salvius Otho,' Nero continued, 'in his position as governor of Lusitania.'

'So Otho is doomed to stay in Lusitania until Nero either murders him or forgives him,' Vespasian observed, trying to take his mind off Africa, 'even though he's complied with his wishes and has divorced Poppaea.'

'That's no surprise,' Gaius whispered as Nero carried on with the list of appointments to the imperial governors.h.i.+ps and confirmations of those already in place, 'his presence back in Rome would prove an inconvenience for Nero. What is surprising is that Nero still hasn't divorced Claudia; perhaps he's realised that losing the legitimacy that Claudia gives him might be a precarious move to make, having killed his ...' Gaius dried as he realised that Nero had stopped talking and was looking directly at him and Vespasian; all eyes turned on the two of them. 'My apologies, Princeps,' Gaius stammered; Nero was not used to people whispering whilst he was talking as he expected everyone's full attention all of the time. 'We were just commenting on ... on ...' He trailed off, unable to think of a reasonable excuse.

'I tell you when to comment,' Nero said, his voice dangerously quiet. 'I tell you when to talk and I tell you when to s.h.i.+ne, Pharos!'

Gaius went red as the whole Senate erupted into sycophantic laughter at Nero's use of what had now become, to one and all, Gaius' nickname.

'And finally, I appoint Servius Sulpicius Galba,' Nero continued once the mirth had died down, 'governor of Hispania Tarraconensis.'

Vespasian glanced at the bald and gaunt Galba, sitting opposite, and wondered how he managed to get the posting as it was well known that Galba espoused ancient values and would never demean himself by buying a position.

'And so, Conscript Fathers, I commend these appointments to the House and ask that you vote them into being.' Nero sat down having requested this unnecessary formality.

And now it was the turn of the Senate of Rome to debate the Emperor's appointments; and they did, at length and with fulsome praise for his wisdom, no one daring to leave until, finally, Nero departed, before the House divided on the matter, evidently having had a surfeit of flattery, which, for him, was unusual.

The vote, once all had spoken and had their remarks placed on the record for all to read in the future, was unanimous and, at last, Rome's elite were free to file out.

'That was an extremely nasty moment, dear boys, I don't mind telling you,' Gaius said as they came out into the Forum, 'very nasty indeed; I felt like I was ten and under the withering stare of my grammaticus.'

Sabinus laughed. 'Well, Uncle; if you and Vespasian had not been so busy talking in cla.s.s then you would have noticed something very interesting.'

'The only thing I noticed was that I didn't get Africa,' Vespasian grumbled.

'Do stop going on about that. That was not what I was talking about. What you obviously didn't notice was that Nero mentioned every province except one.'

'Yes, I noticed that,' Cerialis said, frowning.

Vespasian was unimpressed. 'So? He probably just forgot it.'

'He was reading from a list,' Sabinus pointed out.

'Then he missed it out by mistake.'

'Really? The Emperor forgot the most important province at the moment by mistake? I doubt that very much.'

'All right then, which one?'

'Why do you think Cerialis noticed it?'

Vespasian did not need to think for too long to work that out. 'Ah!'

'"Ah!" indeed, brother. Now why do you think Nero didn't reconfirm, or name a replacement for, Suetonius Paulinus as governor of Britannia?'

CHAPTER VIII.

'AND WHAT MAKES you so sure, my love?' Vespasian sat with Caenis the following day, in the cool of her garden, escaping from the worst of the midday sun.

Caenis took a sip of her pomegranate juice as she contemplated her answer. 'I suppose it's because for the last two months, Seneca has written to every one of his debtors in Britannia changing the terms of their loans; he's given them the choice between immediate repayment or a rise of five per cent on the interest.'

'Five per cent!'

'I know; even by his standards, it's iniquitous.'

'What are people choosing to do?'

'I've no idea, as none of them have responded yet to any of his letters; that's why he keeps on writing. I think he's starting to get desperate. The trouble for him is that with Nero getting increasingly more profligate, he daren't bring too much cash back to Rome; Nero would have it off him as soon as he heard about it.'

Vespasian could appreciate Seneca's dilemma. 'And yet if he leaves it invested in Britannia and if the Emperor does decide to withdraw from the province after all then he's as good as lost it all. But that is a very big if.'

Caenis did not look so sure. 'Is it? I was doing a transaction with the Cloelius Brothers' banking business in the Forum Romanum a couple of days ago and Tertius told me that they've given instructions to their agents in Londinium to stop issuing any more loans in the province and where possible to recall all those who have in any way fallen behind on their payments. They've stopped short of calling in every loan that they've made, like a few of the less respectable Londinium bankers have begun to do, but Tertius says that unless there is a clearer sign from the Emperor that he intends to stay in the province then the Cloelius Brothers will have no choice but to take their money out. Although, he did say that he had heard that Suetonius Paulinus was planning an invasion of the Isle of Mona in an attempt to wipe out the druids altogether. He thinks that if this can be achieved then resistance to our rule would decrease significantly and the province would stand a chance of being financially viable eventually.'

'He was very free with his thoughts; what did he want in return?'

Caenis smiled, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng sapphire in the sun. 'You always a.s.sume that someone wants something if they let slip a bit of information.'

'Well, they normally do in my experience.'

'And you're right, this was no exception. Tertius was very keen to know what Seneca was planning to do.'

'So you told him about his dilemma?'

'No, my love; I told him nothing, but I did promise Tertius that should I hear that Seneca plans to take his money out then he would be the first to know. He was so pleased that he refused to charge a fee for taking deposit of my five thousand aurei.'

'Five thousand! You could almost pay a legion for six months with that. Where did you get it all?'

'As Seneca's secretary it's even more lucrative charging for access to him than it was for Pallas or Narcissus. Corvinus gave me a hundred aurei the other day to get him an immediate appointment with him; which I was only too happy to do.'