Ovid

31

They stared at me. All three of them. Then the questions began.

I held up my hand. 'Do you think I could have a cup of wine first? Please?'

My throat was parched. Keeping up the politenesses was one thing, but after what I'd been through I'd've killed for a drink. Besides, this was a celebration. Although the puzzle wasn't complete at least I could see now where the missing pieces had to fit in.

'Of course.' Quinctilia was trying hard to preserve her impassive dignity. 'Of course you may. Agron, find one of the slaves and tell him to bring a flask of the guest reserve.' She turned back to me as the big guy went out. 'It is my turn to apologise, young man. My lack of hospitality was unforgivable. I told the servants to stay out of earshot until our…discussions were completed, but I should at least have offered you wine.'

'Forget the wine.' Asprenas's eyes were boring into me. 'What did you mean, Corvinus? About the empress?'

'Just that I've been looking at things the wrong way up,' I said. 'Oh, sure, it was a natural mistake to make. I'd assumed because the Paullus plot was infiltrated and Augustus was the one to take action then he must've known what was going on all along. Maybe he didn't. Maybe Livia was the one to bust it up and Augustus didn't know a thing about it until she chose to tell him.' Gods! Where was that wine?

Asprenas was still staring at me like I'd made an indecent suggestion. 'Why should the empress keep Augustus ignorant of a plot against the state?

But Agron had arrived back at last with the wine slave. I grabbed the cup from the guy's hand and drained it, then refilled it from the flask. Agron jerked his head towards the door and the man scuttled out.

I turned back to Asprenas.

'But it wasn't a plot against the state,' I said. 'That's the whole point. The conspirators didn't want to organise a rebellion, they wanted to put the skids under Livia and Tiberius. It was Julians against Claudians. So who had the biggest vested interest in seeing the plot bomb? A big enough interest actually to get it off and running just so she could pull the floor out from under?'

I could see that I'd rocked Asprenas. 'You're saying that Livia encouraged the Paullus plot? The empress?'

'Sure. Why not? She provided the rope and watched the poor bastards hang themselves.'

'So how did it work?'

I took another swallow of wine. It was good stuff. I was beginning to glow already. 'Okay. First of all it had to have the emperor's backing, right? Paullus and Julia had to think that Augustus was secretly sympathetic.'

'That would make sense, I suppose.'

Not exactly a ball of fire, old Fat Face. 'So we have three conspirators. Paullus, Julia and Silanus. Silanus is a double, but the others don't know that. Also there's a fourth guy who Julia and Paullus think represents the emperor.'

'This fourth conspirator, presumably, being my uncle.'

'Yeah.' I glanced at Quinctilia. She was sitting frozen faced. 'Yeah. Anyway it's Varus's job to deliver the goods. He's their guarantee of a safe haven, their insurance policy. Clear?'

Asprenas nodded. Quinctilia was frowning. Maybe, I thought, I'd lost her already. The old girl had had a busy day.

'So now comes the twist,' I said. 'Augustus doesn't know a thing about the conspiracy. Varus isn't his man at all. Nor is Silanus, for that matter. Both of them are working for Livia. Of course…'

'I'm sorry to interrupt, young man,' Quinctilia said. 'But that is impossible.'

I stopped dead as if I'd run into a brick wall. 'Oh, yeah? Now why would that be?'

Not exactly politely phrased, but I hadn't expected any opposition from that quarter, and it threw me.

'Because Publius got on abominably with the empress,' she said. 'He would certainly never have involved himself with her, whatever the reasons. And equally certainly Livia would never have trusted him to act so blatantly against Augustus, even if he had made the offer. Whoever my brother was working for it was not the empress. Or conversely if the empress was behind things then her agent would not have been Publius.'

'You're sure about that?'

'Of course I'm sure. When you said that Publius was working for the emperor and subsequently for himself I had no reason to disbelieve you. But to have him working for Livia is another matter.'

'Under no circumstances?'

'Under no circumstances.' The words had the finality of a door slamming.

Shit. 'So where does that leave me with my fourth conspirator?'

'Not with my brother. I'm afraid, Corvinus, that you will have to look elsewhere.'

I reached for the flask and filled my cup to cover the sudden silence. I needed to think. Sure, Quinctilia had been pretty dogmatic, but she was a pretty dogmatic person. That didn't mean she had to be right. I wasn't ready to give up on Varus yet, not by a long chalk. He fitted in too well, and anyway I had the hard truth of the letter now to back me up. I knew there were pressures that Livia could've exerted if she'd wanted the guy particularly badly. Like blackmail, perhaps. Varus seemed the kind of guy who'd be a natural for blackmail.

I realised that Fat Face was talking to me.

'So where does the massacre fit into all this?'

I felt almost relieved. I was on firmer ground there as far as Varus was concerned. He'd stage-managed the whole thing, even if it had gone wrong. And given the Livia connection his reasons were pretty obvious.

'Okay,' I said. 'Forget the Julians for the moment and look at it from Livia's point of view. She's been out from the start to get her baby boy into the purple. She wants him to shine, for people to notice him. The only problem is that young Tiberius isn't the shining type. He's got boils, halitosis, dandruff, all the personal problems you can think of and to cap it all his manner would make a rhino look sociable. Also Augustus hates his guts.'

'You're talking about the emperor, Corvinus.' Fat Face wasn't looking too happy. 'Let's have a little more respect please.'

'Oh, don't be so stuffy, Lucius!' Quinctilia said sharply. 'Corvinus is perfectly right. Tiberius may have many excellent qualities but the man's a boor and always has been. Carry on, young man.’

Jupiter! the old girl never ceased to surprise me. Asprenas stiffened as if she'd run a needle into his backside and his mouth closed so fast I could hear his teeth snap together.

'Okay,' I said. 'Now the Wart may not look much but he's a grade-A general. The only problem is that even when he's winning victories nobody notices. And recently he hasn't been shining all that much on the military side either. In fact he's been coming in for quite a bit of stick back home over his conduct of the Illyrian campaign. You'd agree?'

Asprenas inclined his head stiffly, but I could see that I had him hooked. Agron, too.

'So the empress has a problem. Somehow she has to manoeuvre things so that her baby boy can come up smelling like roses. Only he has to do it in his own right, not as stepdaddy's deputy. Diplomacy is out. The Wart hasn't got the charisma. A big military success, now, that's a different thing and it's right up Tiberius's street. The trouble is he's had them before and they haven't got him anywhere. The only way this one is going to be any different is if it fulfils two requirements.'

'Which are?' Fat Face's lips hardly moved.

'One.' I held down a finger. 'The Wart gets full credit, not just a pat on the back as Augustus's stand-in. Two. Connected with this.' I held the second finger down. 'The campaign's necessary to clear up a mess for which Augustus was personally responsible.' I paused. You could've cut the silence with a knife. 'Germany was perfect. If Livia could arrange for a disaster and a recovery there she'd really be cooking. Frontier policy was Augustus's baby. Also Varus was the emperor's personal choice for the German command.'

'And if he were shown to be incompetent,' Quinctilia said, 'Augustus would share the blame. How very ingenious.'

'It worked, too,' Asprenas had finally got his mouth unstuck. 'The massacre nearly broke him. He thought of suicide, did you know that?' I shook my head. No, I hadn't known, but it didn't surprise me. 'It's not common knowledge, for obvious reasons, but it's fact. And then of course you're right about the outcome. When the crisis was over and Tiberius came back to Rome he got his co-regency. I apologise, Corvinus. And I agree with my aunt. Your theory is both ingenious and plausible.'

Quinctilia cleared her throat. 'There is only one flaw, young man,' she said. 'I must reiterate what I said earlier, even if my opinion is totally contradicted by the facts. Assuming he knew what he was doing, my brother would certainly not have involved himself in a scheme such as you have described.'

We stared at her; and she stared back, completely unmoved. I wondered if Perilla would look like her in another fifty years.

'What I said in regard to the Paullus conspiracy applies here also.' Her voice was firm. 'Doubly so. Publius may have been greedy, he may have betrayed his trust, but he was certainly not capable of treachery to that degree. Especially if the empress was involved.'

It was time for a bit of tact. 'Lady Quinctilia.' I laid my hand on her arm. 'I realise that you must have cared for your brother very deeply, but…'

She pulled the arm away. 'Publius was a greedy, self-indulgent pig with a grossly overdeveloped sense of his own importance. I never could stand him. Nevertheless, there were things at which even he drew the line. And treachery such as you have described would have been one of them.'

Jupiter! 'Then maybe he was pressured into it, lady. Blackmailed, even. Whatever his reasons…'

She held up her hand. I stopped.

'Valerius Corvinus,' she said. 'You are a very clever and able young man. You also, as far as I can tell, have all the facts of the matter firmly on your side. That is not in dispute. However I knew Publius all his life and you did not. I tell you now that he could no more have consciously been involved in such a scheme as you describe than renounced his patrician's stripe and joined the mob.' She stood up. 'And now I think that you had better go.'

There was grief and pride in her voice as well as certainty. I set my winecup down on the table.

'I'm sorry,' I said, and meant it. 'I'd like to believe you. But you must see that it's impossible.'

She drew herself up a finger's-breadth straighter. She was so tall that her pale eyes were almost on a level with mine.

'And do you think,' she said slowly, 'that I don't know that?'

There was no more to be said. I thanked them and left.