Invitation to Die

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Rome: the Capena Gate and Palatine

  November AD 89

  1

  “In your city—” The speaker paused slightly. “Rome,” she said, as if forcing her lips to form a distasteful word. From her very slight accent, she must be foreign. “In your Rome, is it normal for a dinner invitation to be brought by soldiers?”

  “When it’s from Domitian!” snapped back the man in charge. His name was Taurinus, though he did not feel obliged to give it. He was a lean type, battle-hardened: lips slightly compressed, eyes slightly too fixed. Anyone familiar with soldiers who had experienced too much war might suspect he was liable to run wild.

  Taurinus was wondering why calling it his Rome lumbered him with personal blame. Something wrong with Rome, was it? Hades, how would he know? He was a provincial-born legionary; he’d had fifteen years in the army, fighting for this city, yet had never been here before. Yesterday he marched in from the Danube among the Emperor’s supposedly triumphal troops; today they had him out delivering post. Banquet bids. Bit of a comedown. You never got anything like this when you were stuck in a fort on a remote frontier. Even with winter closing in and the beer running out, there were limits. Thank the gods, this morning he had a man who could map-read – and, amazingly, one of the wily bureaucrats had thought to give them a map.

  “I am not sure…” havered the snooty woman on the doorstep.

  “Lady, we have hundreds of these to deliver, I’ll have to ask you to look lively. If the senator is not around, any responsible person can take this in. Here you go, ‘noble Camillus, First Region, the Capena Gate.’ Sign there.”

  He had a list. For heavens’ sake, this was imperial Rome. Of course he did.

  “Sign?” The woman was astounded.

  Their eyes met. The officer knew that any wife of a senator would be able to read and write. Even though, just his luck, on this particular doorstep he’d run up against one who sounded foreign. That was tricky; Hosidia Meline might appear polite and only mildly baffled, yet every stage of their interview felt dodgy. It was as if one of them, or even both, could not understand the rules.

  All his confrontations today had been a struggle. He could only hope this woman was frowning because asking for a signature implied the respectable household of the noble Camillus could not be trusted to take in a letter and then actually give it to him. Which was true: the officer had been told to make bloody sure he got his list initialled every time.

  “We don’t want any unfortunate losses, do we?” he explained, in what he meant as a helpful tone. According to the custom of her home country, the lady gave him the evil eye. Taurinus, who had been doing this all morning, spelled things out: “Suppose, madam, this evening at the function your husband was missing, so Our Master queried where he was—believe me, Domitian will be counting empty couches. If Our Master were to ask, ‘Oh, where is the noble Camillus?’ then I don’t want anyone claiming he never received his invite.”

  “That would be unfortunate,” the wife agreed. Suddenly, she became more feisty. “You mean, if somebody made an excuse not to go? Refusing the Emperor? How shameful would that be! Believe me, my husband—” This time she gave an odd emphasis to the word “husband.” It was not clear why. With many homes to visit, the soldier had already run into marital tension of many kinds, including one bronze vase flying out from an upper window that had painfully grazed his forehead. “My husband,” said this woman, now sounding proud, “will be honoured to dine at the palace. Of course he will!” she then added, which somehow imposed a note of satire.

  Impatient, the soldier gave his list a slight shake. The senator’s wife looked politely, but still did not take the document.

  It was an unusual situation. She had been called to the door by a slave who was too nervous to accept anything from the military. Domestic staff were jumpy. Yesterday, the Emperor had returned from a season of frontier wars, bringing a rumbustious procession of legionaries. They were certainly campaign-fit, if not really as victorious as everyone pretended. They had “won” once because a frozen river suddenly thawed, which stopped a rebel army reaching them; they ended their other war by paying off the enemy. Neat trick, if you can find the moolah.

  Now they were here. A city full of soldiers acquires a different, more dangerous atmosphere. Large numbers of men spending their cash bonuses on drink can be vile. Doormen wanted to barricade the houses they guarded. Soldiers who brought letters from their dark commander were cause for deep suspicion and, frankly, fear.

  Here, after an irritating delay with the porter, the lady of the house had appeared in person, surrounded by elderly maids. They were all in dark colours, swathing their heads formally as they came into conjunction with men, all jingling with eastern-looking bracelets, all twittering behind their hands. In Greek. Taurinus knew Greek, it was part of basic training. He could tell when his physique was being discussed; he reckoned the senator’s wife realised he understood what her women were jabbering. She silenced them with a sharp exclamation, before he had to.

  The lady was on the young end of the spectrum, elegant and well presented in her silk drapes, yet neither pretty enough nor lively enough to interest a soldier. She had a hooked nose above a small chin, a highly superior attitude, and no sense of fun. He had met worse today however, so he faced out her disdain. Calling a woman of this class from her household tasks was an imposition; he would be lucky if the worst she said was “Remember who pays your wages.” A senator’s wife, even one that the senator had picked up abroad and married to oblige her father, did not expect to conduct interviews with roughnecks in red tunics on her doorstep. Nor was it her domestic role to oblige officers who had found themselves acting as postmen, even if what they were delivering had come from the Emperor.

  She had definitely decided not to sign for it. For one thing, she had spotted a key reason to say no. Her father, lately dead, had been Minas of Karystos, a master of jurisprudence. Minas, whose grasp of law was monumental even when he was tipsy—best of all when he was rolling drunk, her husband joked—her loud, florid father, deemed by many to be ghastly, had somehow found the time between riotous symposiums to make his youngest child a stickler. She signed nothing without reading it.

  The officer pushed the letter into her hand. Hosidia Meline, wife to the noble Camillus Aelianus, inspected the address label. She stared at the receipt list that she was supposed to initial. Then she drew herself up so her fine bangles rattled.

  “I cannot accept this!” She spoke as if she had been sucking grapeskins until the inside of her mouth dried up: “I see you have my husband’s name on your list, but that is immaterial. This letter is addressed to someone else.”

  Then, sneering as if she had been passed a counterfeit coin by a money-lender but had spotted it coming, Hosidia Meline tossed the dinner invitation back.

  2

  “Oh shit!” said the soldier. This was and always will be the o
fficial military response to panic.

  He managed to catch the invitation; he scrabbled at his scroll of names, could not find the right line, did find it, compared, saw what the woman meant, then said it again. “Shit!”

  “My husband,” Hosidia Meline stated, making her sneer a touch more gentle, “is the noble Aulus Camillus Aelianus.”

  The letter was addressed to the noble Quintus Camillus Justinus.

  “Mistakes can be made.” She was feeling sorry for the messenger now.

  “On behalf of the Palace, domina, I must apologise.…” Taurinus would need to send one of the lads running back to the bureaucrats—at least the Palatine was close, but delays in the labyrinthine imperial quarters were the last thing he needed.

  The wrong senator’s wife had made her point. She came from an ancient civilisation that had set fine standards of behaviour for the world, so she would help him out. She nodded to one of her women. The maid, bent with arthritis, began turning inside the house but Hosidia Meline clapped her hands. “No, no. Be quick! Don’t bother with the corridor, come out and knock on their door here. We must not keep these poor men waiting; they have a lot to do.”

  As the maid scurried outside into the street and hobbled up the steps of an adjoining property, the soldier leaned back to survey where he was. A large building took up a whole block at the end of a stubby side road; it had been built as one dwelling originally, probably with land behind and a back entrance for deliveries. At some point the grand piece of real estate had been divided up. Now it was two adjoining homes, each with its own front entrance. You could see where the old central porch had been bricked up, a botched job with poor rendering.

  The whole place looked rundown nowadays. This side had received desultory attention, but the other part was very neglected. Paint faded and peeled in the hot Roman sun. Urns lost their plants to drought. Senators were millionaires; they had to be in order to qualify. Many had trillions; those tycoons swanked around, spending freely to demonstrate their social worth. But a few, new men, who barely made the cut, tended to have all their collateral invested in Italian land and consequently a poor cash flow.

  The officer noticed a bunch of dark little heads craning out of an upstairs window then heard a young boy shout satirically, “Mama, mama, time for the jewels!”

  The other front doors jerked open partway, as if a nosy porter had been peeking out. Hosidia’s maid hauled herself inside. The tall double doors snapped shut, almost catching her stole between them. There was audible scuffling. A pause. Squeals. The doors reopened fully, though one side was sticky on its hinges.

  What must be the aforementioned jewels now swanned outside. Lopsidedly hung upon their tall owner, they dominated the scene with flash and sparkle. Their wearer was fastening an awkward clasp on her enormous statement necklace, while stooping low so a little girl who liked helping mama could attach a matching earring to its customary dock on her lobe. These were huge pieces of kit. Weighty green gemstones glittered forbiddingly.

  Announced by her treasure as a person of consequence, this new woman left her chaperoning staff in the doorway while she sailed forwards among a slew of interested, intelligent children. Two of her boys had found the time to throw on red tunics and grab their little wooden toy swords—as had her daughter. This girlie, only about four years old, seemed even more excited than her brothers to be meeting real soldiers. All three ran straight up to take a close look.

  The soldiers shrank together. They only knew civilians as foreign scum, tribal trolls that they were allowed to plunder, curse and rape. Bold, rich Roman tots were new. They were worried.

  “Leave them alone,” said the mother vaguely. She had a big nose and a distracted manner. “You don’t know where they’ve been.” Although this was presumably addressed to the children, it could just as easily be a warning to the soldiery about her offspring.

  “Germany, Pannonia and Dacia!” replied her eldest boy calmly. This factual lad, who took an interest in current affairs, was about thirteen; too old to dress up and play with toy swords, he wore a white tunic with thin purple braid, over which a big gold bulla hung on a thong around his neck, supposedly to protect him from evil. In fact, he had the air of a lad who would punch evil squarely on the nose. Clearly accustomed to reassuring his mother, he announced, “Don’t worry, the men are not armed. Inside the sacred city boundary they are not allowed to be.”

  A couple of the soldiers quickly altered the hang of their cloaks to hide weapons they were not supposed to have. Others merely played with their neckerchiefs self-consciously.

  The two senators’ wives plunged into each other’s arms to formally kiss cheeks, even though the second one was still adding bracelets from her expensive set of gems. Next, even more costumed in bling, she turned to the officer. At that point, the Greek lady pushed in to explain coldly, “Claudia darling, this man has brought Quintus an invitation; he is summoned to dine with the Emperor. Give her the letter, centurion!” He was not a centurion. His centurion was lolling in a flea-ridden bar, much too important to take messages.

  Immediately fearing the implications, Claudia felt her mouth go dry. “Oh! Meline dearest, why Quintus? Quintus and not Aulus?” Aulus was older, so slightly more senior.

  Meline dearest made a high-shouldered don’t ask me, darling! gesture; under her show of good manners she was clearly put out on behalf of her noble partner.

  “Give it to me!” commanded Claudia. Despite her woolly manner, she now demonstrated how she habitually took it upon herself to sort problems. She sighed slightly, as if life was one long swathe of incidents that other people messed up, due to their hysterical incompetence. She alone took charge. Nobody else ever would.

  Quicker-witted than anyone assumed, the unhappy Taurinus had already begun searching his documents again. Claudia whipped the invitation from his hand as if he were a naughty child, then confiscated his list too. Behind him, troops shifted anxiously; the rackety old lags were disturbed to see their empty-handed officer being bullied—which was supposed to be his role.

  “Oh for heavens’ sake!” Claudia reacted irritably, muttering it to herself as she read. “This list is alphabetical by forenames: secretaries are idiots.”

  Agreeing, the officer managed to recapture the list, which allowed him to make his own search of many praenomina As and Qs. Rome had only twelve commonly used first names so bunching the entire Senate that way was decidedly unhelpful.

  By now Taurinus, poor dog, was feeling desperate. Sure enough: among quite a few—Camilli, a second was listed, also at the Capena Gate. “A Camillus Aelianus, Decimifilius plus Q Camillus Justinus, also Decimifilius.” Aulus and Quintus, the two sons of Decimus. Both members of the Senate, they both bloody would be. Both with tricky foreign wives and an almost identical home address. How was a soldier supposed to cope? He muttered to his man with the despatch satchel, who began burrowing inside. “So, then, don’t mind me checking—I’ve got two noble Camilli hereabouts?” he said gamely, to fill in time.

  “Brothers!” chorused their two noble wives and some of the noble children. The three nippers with wooden swords were too busy posing confidently with the soldiers as if part of their detachment, while the nervous soldiers stared ahead and pretended not to notice.

  “They are not here?”

  “Bunked off, ‘to the courthouse,’” Claudia said frankly. “—or, since we had a triumph yesterday, to avoid being nagged about morning-after hangovers.”

  A second letter was extracted.

  “Shit!” said the officer again, glad to have the answer, yet needing to relieve his annoyance at this pickle. A couple of the children took up the word, noting the kind of occasion when you could officially use it. With sidelong glances towards their mother, they began trying it out together in undertones, testing it on the tongue like an exotic new fruit.

  The two letters were handed over. Meline and Claudia made sure they had been allocated correctly. Finding they were not, they both sighed dra
matically then swapped them.

  The officer’s clerk proffered an inkwell and reed pen. Meline inspected the pen for sharpness, heaved another sigh then signed the receipt list. Neatly, but in Greek. When the clerk looked troubled, she gave him her Medusa glare then smoothly added her name again in Latin letters.

  Claudia’s eldest boy interrupted. “I’d better have it next. I should do this, Mama.” His mother shrugged hopelessly; she was learning on a daily basis that her role was to be shoved aside by the assertive sprites her children were turning into. The young boy subjected the officer to a frank gaze, but spoke politely. “I am Gaius Camillus Rufius Constantinus, eldest son of Quintus Camillus Justinus, grandson of Decimus Camillus Verus. I shall accept the letter for my father.” He looked at the close columns. “I shall have to use abbreviations in order to fit my whole name in.”

  “You do that, son!” said Taurinus.

  Just scratch something on the bloody list so my lads and me can get on.…

  “What legion are you from, sir, if I may ask you?”

  “Seventh Claudians. Viminacium—Moesia.”

  “Are they any good?”

  The officer managed to stay nice. “The best!”

  “That’s very interesting. My papa served with the First Adiutrix at Moguntiacum in Germany. Don’t worry, I know what you think of them—he is the first to admit they were a shower of ex-sailors, crudely thrown together to beef up the legions. But he speaks of them fondly.”

  “Oh, does he?” Taurinus remained deadpan, though with an effort.

  “Will you tell us about this invitation?” instructed Claudia Rufina, reclaiming her position as the woman who took charge. “We had the banquet last night of course, sharing it with the whole city at the end of the Emperor’s Triumph.” That was the traditional street party held on such occasions. “What is this extra meal about? What does Domitian want to say to the Senate? Is he up to something?” she cajoled. As the wife of a man who depended on her for money, and as the mother of many self-willed infants, she knew how to squeeze; people faced with Claudia Rufina found they would weakly cooperate.