The Course of Honour Read online

  She stopped, breathless. A political statement had escaped her; worse, she had betrayed something of herself: she shifted from foot to foot with unease.

  The younger man’s serious gaze was disturbing her. That was why she muttered, ‘Oh do stop leering at my sausage! Want a piece?’

  There was a shocked pause.

  It was unthinkable.

  ‘No; thank you!’ said Sabinus hastily, trying to override his brother – no easy task.

  Caenis was gruff but generous. Giving up the struggle for privacy, she offered the young knight a slice on the point of her knife; he nipped it off between his fingers at once.

  ‘Mmm! This is good!’ Laughing now, he watched her while he munched. His grim face lost all its trouble suddenly. She had assumed anyone in a decent white toga dined daily on peacocks aswim in double sauces, yet he ate with the appetite of any starving scullion she knew. Perhaps all their ready money went on laundry bills for togas. ‘Give that fool a bit; he wants it really.’

  Caenis eyed the senator. Once again she offered her knife; Sabinus gingerly lifted the food. His brother clapped his shoulder heavily so she caught the gleam of his gold equestrian ring. Then he admitted to Caenis, ‘His footman, as you say! I clear a path in the street, chase off bailiffs and unattractive women, guard his clothes like a dog at the baths – and I see he gets enough to eat.’

  She could not tell how much of this was a joke.

  By now she found in his face the bright signal that he liked her. She knew the look; she had seen it in men who danced attendance on Veronica. Caenis shrank from it. She found life a burden already. The last thing she needed was fending off some overfriendly hopeful with a broad country accent and no money. ‘Let me give you directions, lords.’

  ‘We’ll get the girl into trouble,’ Sabinus warned.

  For the first time his brother smiled at her. It was the tight, rueful smile of a man who understood constraints. She was too wise to smile back. Still chewing, he refused to move. Studying the floor, Caenis ate her own sausage from the knife point, slowly. It was decent pork forcemeat, flavoured with myrtle berries, peppercorns and pine nuts; she had tossed it on the heat in oil strewn with the good end of a leek.

  Only two slices remained in the pan. The younger brother, Vespasian, reached for one, then stopped and reproached her kindly, ‘You’re letting us steal your dinner, lass.’

  ‘Oh go on!’ she urged him, suddenly shy and cross. It had been giving her pleasure to offer something other than a slavegirl’s usual trade.

  He looked serious. ‘I shall repay the debt.’

  ‘Perhaps!’

  So they had eaten together, she and that big young man with the cheery chin. They ate, while the brother waited; then both licked their fingers and both rapturously sighed. They all laughed.

  ‘Let me show you the way, lords,’ Caenis murmured, newly subdued as the sunlight of a different world filtered into the bleakness of her own. She led them into the corridor; they walked either side of her while she basked in their presence as she took them towards the public rooms.

  ‘Thanks,’ they both said, in the off-hand way of their rank.

  Without answer she spun swiftly on the ball of her loosely slippered foot. She walked away as she had been taught: head up, spine straight, movement unhurried and disciplined. The grime and desolation imposed by her birth became irrelevant; she ignored her grey condition and was herself. She sensed that they had halted, expecting her to look back from the corner; she was afraid to turn, in case she saw them laugh at her.

  Neither did. The senator, Flavius Sabinus, accepted their odd adventure quietly enough. As for his brother, he smiled faintly, but he did not mock.

  He knew he should not attempt to see her again. Caenis had missed the significance, but he realised at once. It was like him; a swift assessment of the situation followed by his private decision long before any public act. He was due to leave Rome again, due to leave Italy in fact. But all through his long journey back to Thrace, and afterwards, Flavius Vespasianus still thought, What an interesting girl!

  II

  At dusk that same day, Caenis obeyed her instructions from Diadumenus, and went to check whether their mistress required her services. Washed and with her hair combed, she walked quietly, carrying a bound note tablet and her wooden stylus box.

  The House of Livia lay adjacent to the Palace, convenient, yet still private when social distance was required. This was – in theory – the famous modest home which Augustus had ensured he kept. It had helped maintain the myth that despite the honours heaped upon him when he accepted the title of Emperor, he had remained an ordinary citizen: the first among equals, as a phrase wryly had it. In this house, it was said, his wife and daughter had worked at their looms to weave the Emperor’s garments as Roman women were traditionally supposed to do for their male relatives. Perhaps sometimes, when other matters did not detain them, Livia and Julia really did devote themselves to weaving. Not often enough, in Julia’s case. She had still found time to lead a life so debauched it earned her exile and infamy, then finally death by the sword.

  Livia’s House, for the past two years since the venerable Empress died Antonia’s house alone, stood on the south-east corner of the Palatine Hill in an area where notable republicans had once owned houses. Augustus, who was born there, had bought out the other families and made this an exclusive domain of his own. His original private house had been demolished to make way for his great new Temple of Apollo in the Portico of the Danaids, so the Senate had presented him with a replacement next to the temple with magnificent rooms for entertaining. His wife, Livia, maintained her own modest (though exquisite) house behind the temple. So in effect they had the benefits of a private palace, while still pretending to live in a classically simple Roman home.

  Antonia had lived here after she married Livia’s popular and heroic son Drusus. When she was widowed at only twenty-seven, she elected to remain in her mother-in-law’s house, keeping the room and the bed she had shared with her husband. By then the mother of three children herself, she had the right to avoid being placed in the charge of a guardian; living with Livia preserved her independence while avoiding scandal. It had also enabled her to refuse, for the rest of her life, to remarry. Rare among Roman women, Antonia made her independence permanent.

  Livia’s House was set against the side of the hill. Means had been provided for secluded access from the administrative palace complex via underground tunnels. Caenis automatically took the covered route. That way she was unlikely to run into the Praetorian Guards. Their job was to protect the Emperor, but with Tiberius away and their commander, Sejanus, usurping all authority, they had become unendurable. Luckily few were on duty today and none in the underground passages.

  She passed the two side branches, then darted down the final stretch, feeling safe. Not even the Guards would normally interfere with Antonia’s visitors. But if the mood took them, or if they had been drinking more than usual, they could still be dangerous to a slave. They were the arrogant élite, protected by the mere name of Sejanus, thugs who molested anyone they chose.

  As for Sejanus, nobody could touch him. He had risen from the middle rank, a soldier whose ambition was notorious. A man of some charm, he had made himself the friend of the Emperor, who had few close associates otherwise. It was known, though never openly stated, that Sejanus had then become the lover of Livilla, Antonia’s daughter, while she was married to the Emperor’s son. It was even whispered that he and Livilla had conspired to murder her husband. Worse plots were almost certainly afoot. It was safest not to wonder what they were.

  Shivering slightly, Caenis clanged the bell and waited for admittance, knowing the porter would probably be in holiday mood and slow to respond. Coming via the covered way had brought her to the back entrance near the garden, where the porter would be even lazier than at the main entrance near the Temple of Victory. She hated to stand outside a closed door expecting to be spied on by someone unsee
n and unheard within. Feeling exposed, she turned her back.

  When Antonia’s steward had purchased Caenis from the main imperial training school, the process was so discreet it seemed more like an adoption than a business in which title transferred and money changed hands. Antonia herself probably knew nothing about it. The opportunity to work in this high position had not come easily and once achieved it did not automatically lead to full trust. Caenis easily outstripped the competition in basic secretarial tasks, but Antonia was wary of granting access to her private papers, and rightly so. The girl had remained on probation, little more than a copyist. Her first sign of acceptance was when Diadumenus left her on duty alone today. It marked a vital step forward, Caenis knew that. She was desperate to do well.

  A muttering porter finally answered her summons and admitted her. Patiently enduring the delay, she was still revelling in her luck. Through the discreet portals of this comparatively modest house came Roman statesmen and foreign potentates, the scions of satellite countries – Judaea, Commagene, Thrace, Mauretania, Armenia, Parthia – and the eccentric or notorious members of Antonia’s own family. Influential Romans, those with a long-term eye on the future, enjoyed Antonia’s patronage. Since today was a festival, visitors might have been here this evening, though for once Caenis found the house unusually quiet.

  Passing through the peristyle garden and down a short internal corridor she reached a roofed atrium with a black and white tiled floor at the centre of the formal suite. Opposite, a long flight of steps led down from the main door. To either side of her lay public rooms, a reception area and a dining room, both exquisitely decorated with high-quality wall paintings. The private suites and bedrooms lay beyond them and on upper floors, all much smaller rooms.

  Her role was to present herself to the usher Maritimus, then if required for dictation she would attend on her mistress in one of the cubicles attached to the receiving room. Tonight Maritimus, who seemed flustered, left her in the receiving room; then for some reason she had to wait. She studied the fine fresco of Io, guarded by Argus, and apprehensively eyeing Mercury as he crept around a large rock to rescue her; he looked like the kind of curly-haired lad-about-town Io’s mother had probably warned her about.

  Trying to calm herself, Caenis arranged her waxed note tablet and took out a stylus. Normally Diadumenus, as Chief Secretary, would be here to prevent her feeling so exposed. Still, she was familiar with the kind of correspondence required. Antonia owned and organised a vast array of personal property, including estates in Egypt and the East inherited from her father, Mark Antony. At her court she had brought up the princes from far-flung provinces who had been sent to Rome by shrewd royal fathers or simply carried off by the Romans as hostages, and many letters were still written to those who had since returned home. They held no terrors for an able scribe, although this would be the first time Caenis had worked unsupervised with Antonia.

  Maritimus the tetchy usher bustled in again. ‘I’m supposed to find Diadumenus. Is there only you? Where’s Diadumenus?’

  ‘Given free time for the festival.’

  ‘It won’t do!’ He was sweating.

  ‘It will have to,’ said Caenis cheerfully, refusing to acknowledge an emergency unless he explained.

  Maritimus scowled at her. ‘She wants to write a letter.’

  ‘I can do that.’ Caenis longed for authority. She enjoyed her new work. She took genuine pleasure in using her skills, and was fascinated by what she saw of Antonia’s correspondence. She accepted that she did not yet see it all. Even so, this sense of not being acceptable tonight grated on her. ‘Will you tell her I’m here?’

  ‘No; she wants Diadumenus. I don’t know what’s going on, but something’s upset her. You can’t do this; it’s something about her family.’

  Antonia never talked about her family. She bore that dreadful burden entirely alone.

  ‘I am discreet!’ Caenis blazed angrily.

  ‘It’s political!’ hissed the usher.

  ‘I know how to keep my mouth shut.’ Any sensible slave did.

  It was not enough. Maritimus clucked and bustled off again. Caenis resigned herself to frustration. She wondered what crisis had upset Antonia.

  Now she was seeing the world and her-own place within it through fresh eyes. Working in a private house felt wonderful. She had already witnessed at close hand how Roman government was conducted. Like most family matters, it was based on short-term loyalties and long-term bad temper, pursued in an atmosphere of spite, greed and indigestion. Caenis had never had a family; she watched with delight.

  Whatever had disturbed her mistress this particular evening, the young secretary already appreciated the background: the Emperor Tiberius, whose famous brother, Drusus, had been Antonia’s husband, spent the last years of his bitter reign in depraved exile on the island of Capri; it had come to be accepted in Rome that he would never return here again. He was already over seventy so the question of a successor was never far away.

  Since Augustus had first based his political position upon his family ties with Julius Caesar, ruling Rome had become an inheritable right. Between genuine accidents and the grappling ambition of their fearsome womenfolk, most of the male heirs had gone to their graves. The Emperor’s own son, married to Antonia’s daughter Livilla, had died in rather odd circumstances eight years before. By default the choice now fell between Livilla’s son, Gemellus, and his cousin Caligula. A fine pair: Caligula, who when barely into his teens had seduced his own sister here in Antonia’s house, or Gemellus, who was deeply unpleasant and permanently sickly. But if Tiberius died in the near future Rome would be left to these two very young boys while immense power was also being wielded by Sejanus. Maybe Sejanus would prefer another solution.

  Quite quietly and without any warning, Antonia came into the room. Caenis sprang to her feet.

  Antonia was nearly seventy, though she still had the round face, soft features, wide-set eyes and sweet mouth that had made her a famous beauty. Her hair, thinning now, was parted centrally and taken back above her ears to the nape of her neck in a neat, traditional style. Her gown and stole were unobtrusively rich, her earrings and pendants heavy antiques – attributes of extreme wealth and power to which she paid no regard.

  ‘You are Caenis?’ The slavegirl nodded. The effect of her mistress’ assurance was to make her feel coarse and clumsy. ‘You are on duty alone? Well, something important has to be done. This cannot wait. We shall have to make the best of it.’ Her mistress gave her a hard look. A decision occurred. The slavegirl’s life took a sudden twist; for indecipherable reasons she was admitted to Antonia’s confidence.

  Somehow Caenis detected from the first that whatever was to be written had already been thoroughly considered. She had often seen her mistress composing correspondence as she went along; this was different. Now Antonia led her briskly into one of the more private little side rooms then signalled her to a low stool, while she herself continued pacing about, barely able to wait until Caenis had her stylus poised. It was a strange reversal; in Rome the great were seated while their inferiors stood. Caenis had been trained to take shorthand normally while on her feet at the foot of a couch where the dictator reclined.

  ‘This is a letter to the Emperor about Lucius Aelius Sejanus.’

  Then Caenis understood. The brief formal announcement warned her – and it stunned her. Her mistress was about to expose the man.

  Speaking with pain and deliberation, Antonia dictated for Tiberius facts which she hated to acknowledge and which he would hate to hear. She had uncovered a great conspiracy. The sensational story would surprise few in Rome, although few would ever have voiced it, least of all to the Emperor. Here in this sheltered house Antonia’s realisation of it had been desperately slow to emerge, but those close to her had revealed the plot. She had not taken their word; she made her own investigations. Because of her privileged position she possessed the courage to inform Tiberius, and she supported all her accusations wi
th telling detail. She did not spare even the parts which convicted her own daughter.

  She told the Emperor how his friend the Praetorian commander Sejanus had been plotting to gain complete power. His feared position had ensured the allegiance of many senators and many of the imperial freedmen who governed the Empire; leading figures in the army had been bribed. Recent honours had been heaped upon Sejanus, increasing his own ambition and the control he wielded throughout Rome. He had moved in on the Imperial House by marrying one of his relatives, Aelia Paetina, to Antonia’s son Claudius, by betrothing his daughter to Claudius’ son (though the boy had died), and now after several attempts by persuading the Emperor to agree that he himself might marry Antonia’s daughter. But he had already seduced Livilla, then either poisoned her husband or persuaded her to do it, and schemed to ally himself by marriage to the Imperial House in order to legitimise his own position as a future emperor. His own ex-wife, recently divorced, was now prepared to speak as a witness against him.

  Sejanus planned to eliminate Caligula, the more prominent of the Emperor’s heirs. If the old man refused to die of his own accord the Guard commander clearly intended to destroy Tiberius himself.

  The dictation completed, Caenis managed to keep her face expressionless. At a brusque nod from Antonia she fetched the necessary materials from her work basket and absorbed herself in the letter’s careful transcription to a scroll.

  Pallas, Antonia’s most trusted slave, came into the room, dressed in a travelling cloak and clearly primed to collect the letter. Their mistress motioned him to wait in silence while Caenis completed her task. Newly confident, she copied her notes without mistakes, writing calmly and steadily even though her mouth felt dry and her cheeks flushed. What she was committing to ink and parchment could be a death warrant for all of them.

  Antonia read through and signed the letter. Caenis melted wax to seal the scroll. Pallas took charge of it.