'It'll probably make you angry, but yes, I think you should; but don't punish the boy for it.'

'Go on then.'

Magnus gestured with his head to t.i.tus to come and join them. 'Tell your father what your younger brother did this afternoon.'

t.i.tus, now eighteen and the image of his father with a powerful chest, a round face with a dominant nose, large ears and eyes that normally twinkled with good humour, looked worried.

'It's all right,' Vespasian a.s.sured him, 'I'm not going to do anything about it.'

t.i.tus seemed dubious. 'Well, if you're sure. It's hard to say exactly how it came about but we'd been out hunting for a good three hours without a scent of anything and Domitian was being his usual self, complaining that the dogs weren't trying hard enough, our horses were too slow, the slaves too loud and Magnus was useless at hunting and kept on making the wrong decisions and going the wrong way. Suddenly Castor and Pollux raised their muzzles in the air, got a scent and then bounded off up the hill covered with scrub just beyond the lower pasture.'

'A good place for deer to hide in if they've been disturbed on our grazing,' Vespasian commented.

'Indeed, Father, which is why we went back there, having had no luck the first time around. Anyway, sure enough, a buck and his two does broke from cover and raced on up the hill with the dogs howling in pursuit. But one of the does was heavily pregnant and soon fell behind and Castor and Pollux were on her before Magnus could call them off in order to leave us with a clean kill. Magnus got there quickly and hauled his dogs away but the doe had a lot of bite injuries and the stress had put her into labour.' t.i.tus glanced at Magnus, who urged him on with a nod. 'Well, neither Magnus nor I could kill the doe whilst she was giving birth, it just didn't seem right, I don't know why, so we withdrew a bit and waited as nature took its course. Eventually the thing was done and the fawn was tottering around whilst its mother, despite her wounds, licked it clean. So we decided that the best thing to do was to let the pair go and hope that they would both provide good sport in the future.'

Vespasian felt himself starting to tense up, hoping that what he had just imagined was not going to be the end of the story.

'We hadn't been gone long when Magnus noticed that Domitian was no longer with us; none of the slaves had noticed him go so he must have just let his pony slow so that the hunting party gradually outpaced him.'

Vespasian felt his stomach start to churn now he began to be sure that the story would sicken him.

'Well, we rode back to where the doe had given birth and sure enough Domitian was there, but there was no sign of the doe.' t.i.tus paused and looked at Magnus again.

'The truth, t.i.tus,' Magnus said, 'don't spare him.'

t.i.tus swallowed. 'But the fawn was there, stumbling around; and we could hear Domitian laughing and as we got closer we could see what was amusing him so: he had taken the creature's eyes. It had been alive for less than half an hour and it had been blinded.'

Vespasian fought to contain the rage that welled within him. His throat tightened; the ending was even worse than he had imagined. 'How?'

t.i.tus grimaced and again looked at Magnus, obviously unwilling to go on.

'With his thumbs,' Magnus said in almost a whisper, 'they were covered in blood.' He grabbed Vespasian's arm to restrain him. 'Don't! We told you because you promised to do nothing about it.'

Vespasian struggled against Magnus' grip. 'I'll thrash the little s.h.i.+t to within an inch of his life.'

'No you won't, sir; he's been thrashed enough today from what I hear. But I agree he does need to learn a lesson.'

Vespasian ceased fighting Magnus and let his body relax; his face, however, remained in the strained expression that he had developed during his time as legate of the II Augusta. 'What would you suggest?'

'After the funeral tomorrow morning we should all go out hunting; is there a decent-sized wood on the estate?'

'Yes, over on the eastern edge.'

'Good, because I reckon that with the help of a wild boar we could show him the difference between taking life for amus.e.m.e.nt or sport and wanton cruelty.'

'Seneca?' Vespasian spoke the name aloud for the second time since hearing it from Sabinus; and still it made no sense.

They were sitting in his private study a room off the atrium and were enjoying the warmth of a brazier and a fine vintage of their own estate's manufacture after what had been a subdued meal for obvious reasons.

'That's what he said,' Sabinus confirmed, 'and I've got no reason to suspect he was lying. He was being eaten at the time, after all, and by a creature that would make you believe that it wouldn't finish until every last morsel was tucked away.'

'But why would Seneca want to finance a rebellion by the Brigantes?'

'Venutius didn't say that he financed the rebellion as such; he said the rebellion was financed by a loan from Seneca. I don't imagine that our Stoic friend questioned Venutius too closely as to what he was planning to do with the loan; he doesn't care for niceties like that. All he's concerned about is the exorbitant interest that he charges. He seems to think that he can get away with even higher rates if he lends to provincials.'

'I know; and from all accounts he does.' Vespasian took a sip of wine and remained for a few moments in contemplation. 'What have you done with Venutius?' he asked eventually.

'Nothing; I left him with Blaesus and his pet. I imagine that he'll behave himself with the threat of being Beauty's supper hanging over him.'

'And no one else knows that he's there?'

Sabinus shook his head. 'So, are you going to tell me what this is about?'

Vespasian shrugged and placed his cup down on the desk between them. 'As I told you, I'm doing a favour.'

'Who for?'

'Domitilla's future husband, Quintus Petillius Cerialis.'

'Cerialis?'

'Well, his older brother, actually.'

'Caesius Nasica? Wasn't he the one who defeated and captured Venutius in the first place with the Ninth Hispana? If he had him then why didn't he ask him anything he wanted to know in Britannia rather than send him all the way to Rome? I'm sure they've got plenty of hairy beasts that are only too happy to rip chunks out of people there.'

'I'm sure they have, and worse, as we both know. But the new Governor of Britannia wanted Nasica to get Venutius away from the province as soon as he could because he knew that Cartimandua would find a way to murder her former husband, even if he were kept in secure custody. She's a woman who will never relent until she's had her way.'

'Why worry about her killing him?'

'Because without him Governor Paulinus would have nothing to threaten Cartimandua with: if she doesn't behave herself then he can replace her with an equally legitimate king.'

'Even though Venutius has already rebelled once and now has a hunk of muscle missing from his chest and so would probably be looking out for revenge and therefore the first thing that he'd likely do as king is rebel again?'

'Even then, because it won't come to that as Cartimandua wouldn't dare call his bluff for fear of actually losing her power. Don't forget that, at present, Britannia is not viable as a province. It costs us far more to keep it pacified than what we claw back through taxes and it's not even half conquered yet. We've got to keep as many tribes as we can subdued, by whatever means possible, in order to stand a better chance of defeating the others one by one and thus making the province feasible. There are certain people who feel that we should pull out of Britannia altogether for the financial good of the rest of the Empire; however, another ignominious retreat like that, a mere fifty years after the withdrawal from Germania Magna having been defeated by Arminius in the Teutoburg Forest, might give encouragement to other disaffected areas. Judaea springs to mind, Pannonia is often restless and there always seem to be disturbances in northern Hispania. If we still want to have an empire in fifty years' time then, however misguided the original invasion was, we can't afford to lose Britannia.'

'Indeed; I understand. We keep Venutius safe in Rome as a guarantee that the Brigantes don't cause any trouble whilst Paulinus struggles on with the rest of the conquest and Rome isn't forced into a humiliating retreat with dangerous repercussions. But why the secrecy? It sounds to me as if you're helping Paulinus and Nasica formulate imperial policy without reference to the Emperor; and even though Nero takes very little interest in policy unless it concerns the filling of his treasury or the boosting of his vanity, what you're doing is dangerous.'

Vespasian tapped the side of his forehead with his forefinger and leant across the desk, the flickering lamplight playing in his eyes and warping the shadows on his face. 'Information, Sabinus; information buys patronage and Paulinus wanted to know something. We've now found out where Venutius' money came from, which is something that we wouldn't have been able to do if he was pa.s.sed on immediately to the Emperor because Seneca would have intervened to protect his reputation. I can convey that information to Nasica, who will in turn tell Paulinus who will then have leverage enough over Seneca to ensure that he doesn't have to pay a ma.s.sive bribe if he desires another lucrative position after Britannia. Although how he suspected that the source of the money was someone so close to the Emperor as Seneca, I don't know, but Nasica said that he was adamant that Venutius be kept and questioned in secret. I was happy to help because Nasica's time with the Ninth Hispana will be at an end in a year or so and Paulinus has promised to use his influence to make sure that Cerialis takes over his older brother's position.'

Sabinus finally understood. 'Ah! So you're ensuring that your soon-to-be son-in-law has the status that you feel your daughter deserves; very commendable, but what about the risk of going behind the Emperor's back?'

'If no one knows that Venutius is in Rome then there's no risk of that ever being found out. Once we've buried Mother, I'll come back to Rome with you and take him off your hands.'

'What will you do with him?'

'Something that he really won't like: I'm going to give him to Caratacus; I'm sure that he'll enjoy keeping, in a very small little cell, the man who, along with his former wife, betrayed him to us and I know that he'll take extra special care that he doesn't escape.'

Sabinus grinned at his brother. 'I'm sure he will; no one will find him there. Then, once that matter is out of our hands, we can think about how to avenge the outrage perpetrated upon our uncle.'

With the day's events having been so draining, Vespasian had practically forgotten about the non-appearance of Gaius. 'What happened to him?'

'It was one of Nero's rampages.'

'He got Gaius?'

'Gaius said that it wasn't Nero himself but rather Terpnus the lyre-player; although Nero encouraged him on whilst Otho, Tigellinus and some others held Tigran's lads at knifepoint.'

'Terpnus beat up Gaius?'

'Yes, and p.i.s.sed all over him and then left him lying in the street, unconscious, with the haft of a flaming torch stuffed up his a.r.s.e, which they, apparently, considered to be hilarious.'

The brothers looked at each other over the table and reached a silent, mutual agreement before both picking up their cups and downing the contents in one.

'We'll organise it through Tigran,' Vespasian said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 'I'm sure that after his lads have been so humiliated he'll be only too keen to ensure that Terpnus loses the ability to play the lyre.'

CHAPTER II.

A DAMP MIST SWIRLED around the front door as Vespasian and Sabinus stepped out of the house the following morning soon after dawn. Sabinus held the waxen funeral mask of their father who had died, seventeen years previously, far to the north in the lands of the Helvetii; Vespasian held the newly crafted one of Vespasia. Following them came the rest of the family displaying the funeral masks of their ancestors and then the body, borne on a bier by the household freedmen. The slaves came last; the household ones and the exterior ones, who could be trusted, free; but the field slaves, whose lives were one long blur of pure misery, remained shackled under the eyes and whips of their overseers.

Crows cawed from up in trees whose topmost branches were barely visible in the weather conditions that seemed to Vespasian to have been sent by the G.o.ds specifically with a funeral in mind.

With sedate dignity the procession made its way around the house, past a paddock where Vespasian's five grey Arab chariot horses grazed on the dew-laden gra.s.s, and on to where the pyre had been built near Vespasia's newly constructed tomb. Next to it was that of her husband, whose ashes she had brought with her when she had returned to Aquae Cutillae, soon after his death.

As the light grew with the sun cresting the peaks of the Apennines, in whose western foothills the Flavian estate was situated, the bier was placed upon the pyre; Pallo then led a fat sow, coloured ribbons tied around its neck, up to the brothers standing next to the pyre with folds of their togas covering their heads in deference to the deities about to be invoked. Pallo's son, Hylas, followed his father with a tray upon which was placed the necessities for sacrifice.

Sabinus held out his hands, palms upwards, and kept his gaze to the ground; with a voice made flat by the dampening mist, he intoned the ritual ancient prayer to Ceres, the agricultural G.o.ddess who was always addressed at funerals.

The sow remained calm during the prayers and hardly stirred as Sabinus took a salt cake from the tray and crumbled it over its head and then poured a libation over the crumbs. It stared at Sabinus with dark, unquestioning eyes as he approached it, with the sacrificial blade in his right hand; it did nothing to try to escape as he lifted its snout with his left hand. It was not until the blade bit into its throat that it recognised the danger it was in but by then it was too late and the blood was pouring from the wicked gash in powerful, heart-pounding spurts. As its veins emptied, so its strength faded and within a score of heartbeats its front legs buckled and its snout crashed into the bloodied earth whilst its hind legs shuddered their last, eventually weakening under the weight they still supported so that they too collapsed and the dying beast rolled onto its side, its limbs twitching feebly.

At a nod from his brother, Vespasian took a flaming torch from one of the freedmen and thrust it into the oil-drenched wood of the pyre. Deep in its centre it was constructed of brushwood and small kindling; this caught with growing fury, emanating heat outwards that transferred into the larger logs around the edge; they soon began to smoulder and then eventually burst into flame, sending spirals of black smoke skywards. With tears welling, Vespasian watched the smoke, the by-product of his mother's physical form's consumption, ascend and then disperse on the breeze. The constant that had been there for him and his brother throughout all their years, the woman who had helped shape their lives by her ambition for the family, had departed; now he and Sabinus were responsible for taking the family forward and he prayed that they would not be found wanting. He lowered his head, a tear fell, and he felt the weight of familial responsibility pa.s.s onto the shoulders of his generation.

The sow had been turned on its back and Sabinus was making the belly and chest incisions as the first flames licked Vespasia, and her hair and clothes began to crackle and smoke. As he worked to remove the heart, fire caught all along the corpse and the skin started to blacken and blister. With a prayer to Ceres asking that she deign to accept the sacrifice, he threw the heart onto the pyre so that it landed next to the corpse, hissing and spitting now as it began to be consumed. With a few more incisions of the razor-sharp blade, the liver, richly brown, emerged from the chest cavity, dripping with blood. Sabinus examined it and found it to be perfect; he showed it to the congregation, so that they too could witness it as being so, before throwing it, after the heart, into what was now a raging conflagration hiding all signs of the melting corpse. Now the only evidence of Vespasia was the smell of crisping and then burning meat as the mourners took steps back to avoid the scorching heat.

The sacrifice made and the G.o.ddess appeased, Hylas began to butcher the sow; Sabinus apportioned a small amount to the dead but the most part to the living. With the meat divided and Vespasia's share given to the flames, she was left to burn to ashes as her family departed with their portion of the offering that would provide an ample meal for all later in the day when they returned from the hunt.

Vespasian urged his horse to the crest of the hill and then pulled it up; the beast snorted, breath steaming from flared nostrils, and pranced a couple of high steps as it settled. Vespasian let the pressure off the reins and gazed across the valley of lush pasture, edged by a wood to the right, to the scrub-covered hill on the other side of a gully, on the far side.

'The last time that we were both here together,' Sabinus said, bringing his mount to a halt next to him, 'I had to save you from being strangled to death by a mule thief, you little s.h.i.+t.'

Vespasian laughed at the t.i.tle by which Sabinus used to address him in youth and cast his mind back to that time when the brothers had, with the help of Pallo and six of their father's freedmen, ambushed and killed a band of runaway slaves who had been stealing mules from the estate. It had been the day after Sabinus had returned from his four years as a military tribune serving with the VIIII Hispana in Pannonia and Africa and it was probably the incident that had begun the siblings' journey from mutual detestation to mutual respect. It had also been the day after he had overheard his parents mentioning the prophecy made at his naming ceremony.

Whatever it was, it was a long time ago but the memory was still clear in Vespasian's mind for it had been the first time that he had come close to death and would have died had it not been for his brother. 'That's where you crucified that boy,' he said, pointing to an area of pasture, just to the right of the wood, in which they had hidden, waiting for the runaways to take the bait of tethered mules with seemingly no minders about.

'Where we crucified the boy,' Sabinus reminded him as t.i.tus and Magnus joined them. 'We all did it together; although I do remember you complaining that it was a waste of money crucifying what could be a hard-working field slave.'

The terror on the boy's face and the b.e.s.t.i.a.l screeches he had howled as the nails were hammered home had ingrained themselves on Vespasian's memory; it had also been the first time he had witnessed an execution of that sort and, although the boy had been thoroughly deserving of his fate, Vespasian had tried to argue for his life as he had felt an empathy towards him because of their similar ages. However, Sabinus had insisted on the boy's death and they had left him shrieking on the cross with the dead bodies of his comrades and mules beneath him; his cries had followed them most of the way home until they had been suddenly curtailed, most probably by friends finding him and putting him out of his misery.

'I'll let Castor and Pollux loose,' Magnus said, dismounting and taking the leads, from a couple of mounted slaves, of two huge and sleek, black hunting hounds, broad shouldered, with almost square heads and sagging, dripping lips that barely concealed fearsome, yellow teeth.

'They'll be as useless as they were yesterday,' Domitian stated with certainty as he looked down at the beasts from the back of his small pony that was barely taller than the dogs.

Magnus ignored the remark as he rubbed Castor and Pollux's flanks and lavished praise for their beauty upon them; the dogs responded with slimy licks and much tail wagging, evidently genuinely fond of their master. With a final scratch behind the ears of each of the beasts, Magnus detached their leads, slapped them both on their rumps and sent them lolloping across the hill towards the wood to do what they did best: hunt. Behind them the hunting party kicked their mounts into action and cantered after them with Magnus, having remounted, bringing up the rear with Domitian.

Vespasian, with t.i.tus and Sabinus to either side of him, gripped the flanks of his horse with his thighs, feeling the ease of its movements whilst enjoying the wind on his face; his mind was now off the funeral of his mother whose ashes were still too hot to collect. His bow and ash-shafted hunting-spear rattled in their holsters attached to the rear of his saddle and his cloak flapped behind him, pulling at his throat as he watched the two hounds disappear under the eaves of the wood with the two hunting slaves in close pursuit. He followed them in; moisture, collected on the naked branches, dripped down upon him as he slowed his horse to a trot, mindful of its footing amongst the tree roots. From further ahead came the deep-throated barks of Castor and Pollux, although the dogs themselves were now out of view. Seeing that the undergrowth was still thin and the lie of the fallen-leaf-covered ground was clear, he urged his horse into an easy canter, following the direction of the dogs' noise, across the line of the hill, deeper into the wood as t.i.tus whooped with excitement next to him. The hunting slaves could just be glimpsed through the cover, fifty or so paces away, expertly weaving their horses between the trunks as they tried to keep pace with the dogs. Glancing back, Vespasian could see Magnus and Domitian, who was struggling to keep up on his pony, pa.s.sing under the first of the trees. His horse navigated its own twisting path through the obstacles with Vespasian just guiding it in the direction of the barking. From up ahead came a shout followed by a human cry of fear. Vespasian could see the hunting slaves change direction and head downhill as Castor and Pollux's barks became fiercer with growls rolling in their throats.

Vespasian tugged on the left rein so that his mount followed the slaves downhill, a sense of urgency growing unbidden within him as he ducked and dodged overhanging branches; t.i.tus and Sabinus came with him, their heads low about the horses' necks.

A guttural, rattling snarl accompanied by a human howl of pain followed by the growl-barks of dogs fighting caused Vespasian to lose all caution and accelerate his mount forward as something unseen fizzed past him. He crashed through the wood, branches whipping about him, as the canine frenzy became increasingly more savage; the hunting slaves had dismounted, at least that's what he a.s.sumed, as he glimpsed their horses running off unaccompanied. Breaking out into a small clearing he saw a flurry of s.h.i.+ny black fur twisting and writhing on the ground on what looked to be, at first glance, a red mattress but after a moment he realised was the bloodied body of a horribly mauled man; the sheen to the dogs' pelts was his blood. Just next to the carnage, one of the hunting slaves knelt over his companion who lay on his back; an arrow protruded from his shoulder and another was stuck in his gut. As Vespasian jumped from his horse and rushed forward, the kneeling slave juddered and went suddenly rigid, his eyes wide open; he dropped his companion's hand and, with a slow start that quickly accelerated, keeled over to lie on his side exposing a shaft buried in his temple as yet another unseen object hissed within a couple of paces of Vespasian's head.

'To your left, Father!' t.i.tus shouted.

Vespasian glanced in that direction to catch glimpses of a couple of figures, dressed in the colours of the forest, pelting away, bows in hand, jumping obstacles and swerving around trees. 'After them, t.i.tus,' he ordered as he ran towards the dogs, hoping that there may be a little life left in the victim; enough, perhaps, to answer a few questions. But whether there was or not he could not tell and he did not dare risk coming between Castor and Pollux and their prey, so reluctant did they seem to desist from their ravaging; one, although Vespasian could not tell which, so covered in gore were they, had an arrow embedded in its hind left thigh.

'I'll sort them out, sir,' Magnus called, jumping from his horse and putting two fingers to his teeth as Sabinus went cras.h.i.+ng through the wood after t.i.tus. A shrill whistle rent the air, changing note up and down; the dogs reacted immediately, the snarls tailing off and their bloodied teeth leaving the fresh meat of their victim who was, much to Vespasian's annoyance, obviously dead. They turned to look at their master and immediately the one with the arrow wound began to whine. 'What have they done to you, Castor, you poor boy?' Magnus said, getting down to his knees and taking his wounded dog's head in both hands. He looked down at the mangled corpse of the dogs' victim and spat at his ripped face. 'Whoever you are you deserved what you got for shooting one of my dogs, a.r.s.e-sponge!'

Magnus eased Castor around and examined the entry wound, pulling gently on the shaft; the hound whimpered but made no move to savage its master for causing it more pain. Looking relieved, Magnus hugged the dog and kissed its broad shoulders whilst tightening his grip on the arrow. 'You'll be fine, Castor; it went in at an angle and hasn't touched the bone.' Castor yelped, brief and high-pitched, as his body stiffened; his head turned, jaws open, and began to lunge at Magnus. But Magnus held up the arrow and the hound checked itself, recognising that its master had done it a service and not a mischief and, rather than attack Magnus, it licked his face before turning its tongue's attention to the open wound. 'That's a good boy,' Magnus said as if talking to a favoured slave or a small child.

A groan from behind him took Vespasian's attention away from Magnus and his dogs as he remembered that one of the hunting slaves was still alive. He lay, breathing in ragged gasps, lying on his back staring up at the canopy, a hand clutching each of the arrows piercing him.

'What happened?' Vespasian asked, kneeling down next to him.

The slave turned frightened eyes onto his master. 'The dogs got their scent, master. There were four of them butchering a wild boar carca.s.s. But they ran when they heard us. Three escaped.' He indicated with his head to the savaged man. 'He was the fourth. As the dogs brought him down, Gallos and me went after the other three but ...' He looked miserably at the two shafts piercing his body.

Vespasian squeezed the slave's arm. 'Lie still; we may be able to save you if we get you back soon, before you've lost too much blood.'

The slave nodded, smiling faintly, evidently aware of the remoteness of that possibility as Vespasian suddenly realised that there was somebody unaccounted for. 'Where's Domitian, Magnus?'

Magnus stood and looked around. 'I don't know, sir; the last time I noticed him was when the dogs went crazy, he was behind me.'

Vespasian looked back in the direction whence they had come; there was no sign of his young son or his pony. Hoof-beats from down the hill to his right gave him a moment of relief until he saw Sabinus returning, alone and at speed.

'Where're the boys?' Vespasian asked.

Sabinus pulled his mount up to a skidding halt. 't.i.tus is fine; he had his horse shot from under him but not before he brought one of them down; he's stayed with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You need to come quickly as we have rather a delicate situation on our hands.'

's.h.i.+t!' Vespasian swore as the reality of the predicament that Sabinus had explained to him became apparent. He stood at the eastern edge of the wood looking down the slope to the gully that was the limit of the Flavian lands.

'You see?' Sabinus said, dismounting next to him.

'The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!' Magnus growled, hauling a straining Pollux back by the lead; Castor stood gingerly on three legs next to him, s.h.i.+vering slightly and making no attempt to pull his master away down the hill.