Sejanus

30

I was standing myself as he came in. If I'd known I'd be entertaining royalty I would've put on a mantle and got Meton to lay on cakes. Bathyllus would kick himself when he found he'd slept through this; a visit from a genuine Caesar would've satisfied the little snob's society cravings for the next five years.

'Valerius Corvinus!' The emperor's grandson strode across the room with his hand outstretched. 'How very lovely to meet you! I'm sorry about the unorthodox circumstances, but I thought I'd come and thank you personally.'

'Uh…sure,' I said. 'Don't mention it.' Not the most original of lines, but what can you expect under the circumstances?

Not a good-looking young man, Gaius Caesar. In fact he reminded me of a tall balding goat: hairy in all the wrong places with a face like he'd been sat on hard as a baby. He was beaming as he shook my hand.

'What a beautiful lobby you have,' he said. 'Most…ah…lobby-like.'

'Yeah. Yeah, it's okay.' I remembered, right at the last moment, to close my mouth when I'd finished using it. 'Would you care to sit down?'

'Thank you.' He threw himself into the other chair. 'Is that wine over there by any chance?'

'Sure.' I reached for the jug, but Felix beat me to it.

'Allow me, sir,' he said, and poured. The perfect butler. Eat your heart out, Bathyllus! I thought.

Gaius lifted the cup. 'Thanks, ah…'

'Felix, sire.'

'Of course. Felix.' He turned to me. 'What do you think of my two spies, by the way, Corvinus?'

'I'm impressed.' I looked at Felix. He smirked.

Gaius was nodding. 'They do a good job,' he said. 'Mind you we had a terrible time dragging…Lamprus, isn't it?' He gave Felix an enquiring glance and got a nod in return. 'Dragging Lamprus away from his damned library and persuading him to help. These academics are such stick-in-the-muds, aren't they? And once they decide to write a treatise they simply will not take a holiday!'

'Ah…treatise?' I looked at the man-mountain in sudden horror.

'You mean you didn't know? He didn't tell you?' Gaius was grinning. 'Oh, how simply marvellous! What was its title again, Lamprus?'

'"On the Concept of Being and Non-Being as expressed by the Milesian Philosophers", sire,' Lamprus said. 'And I don't happen to like holidays all that much.'

I goggled at him. 'Being and Non-Being?' I said.

'To on kai to mé on, if you want the Greek, sir.' The mound of hair and muscle chuckled into its beard. 'I'm afraid I was playing a joke on you, even if it did serve as a little practical experiment as well. Very childish, of course, but I couldn't resist it. You have my apologies.'

'That’s okay.' I sat down and poured myself a cup of wine. 'Forget it.' Jupiter! They certainly made a pair, these two. Whoever the hell they really were.

Gaius was swinging his leg over the chair-arm, perfectly at ease. 'Now we've got that cleared up,' he said, 'perhaps we'd best get down to business. I really am grateful to you. Terribly grateful.'

'From the sound of it you were doing okay on your own, sir.' I took a deep swallow. Maybe things would seem more normal if I was drunk.

He smiled. 'Oh, we weren't doing too badly. We knew Sejanus was hatching a plot, of course, but we didn't know the precise details because we started at the other end and found ourselves up against a blank wall.' He took a swallow of his own wine. 'Mmm! This Setinian is rather good. Much better than Grandma Antonia's.'

'Help yourself.' I indicated the jug. 'A blank wall?'

'Our sources told us that Sejanus had co-opted a slimy little ex-city judge called Paconianus and his friend Latiaris to destroy me with Grampa Tiberius, but that was as far as we could get. The pair have been so careful over the arrangements you wouldn't believe! Very frustrating!'

Latiaris. Now that name rang a bell. Felix was looking at me, an expectant smile on his face. Who the hell was…?

Of course! 'Latiaris was one of the four who set up Titius Sabinus!' I said.

'Quite right, sir!' Felix beamed at me like I was a performing monkey who'd finally managed to perform. 'Oh, well done! I knew you'd get there eventually. You see my reasons for mentioning the name now?'

'Sure.' Gods, what an idiot! I'd taken it from the wrong end myself. Felix hadn't been pointing me at Sabinus per se after all, he'd wanted me to think about the prosecutors. And I hadn't, because like the accusers in all the trials they'd simply been 'friends of Sejanus'. 'Next time just draw me a picture, pal. That way something might get through.'

'Actually, it was quite lucky you didn't solve Felix's little clue,' Gaius said. 'As I say, Paconianus and Latiaris were being terribly careful. You might have traced a link between them and Servaeus, but I doubt it. Instead working from the other end you've given us all the information we didn't have. Not only about the precise nature of the plot but also the name of the assassin and the date. Personally I think that's first-rate, my dear, and so much better than just finding mouldy old Paconianus.'

'There's more good news,' I said. 'You needn't worry about Silanus any longer. The guy's bowing out.'

Gaius's interest sharpened. 'You're sure about that?' he said.

'Yeah.' I told him about our interview.

'So Silanus thought he was doing it for me?' The prince frowned. 'A dreadfully stupid man, isn't he? And a positive danger.' He and Felix exchanged glances. Lamprus had glazed over; probably he'd decided the conversation wasn't stretching enough and had gone back to solving the problem of human existence.

Something touched the hairs on the back of my neck. 'Appius Silanus is no intellectual giant, sure,' I said carefully. 'But his heart is in the right place. And he knows better now.'

'Yes, that's true.' The smile was back. 'Perhaps you're right, Corvinus. I'll think about it. The date, by the way, is interesting.'

'Yeah?' I took a swallow of wine. 'How's that?'

'You know that I've been living in poor but honest obscurity with my grandmother since the old empress died?' I nodded. 'Well, Sejanus has been dropping hints that I might be invited to Capri shortly, and on a permanent basis.'

'Uh huh.' He was right, that was interesting. 'Did he give a reason?'

'Oh, yes.' Gaius threw an arm over the back of his chair. 'He said that Grampa Tiberius felt he should have his beloved family around him in his declining years. Such of them as he'd left alive and at liberty, at least. And that I'd be much more…comfortable was the word he used, on Capri than at Rome. For which, of course, read isolated from my treasonous friends and wellwishers.'

'So the plan was that you arrive on Capri, closely followed by Silanus with his poison-pen letter. He tries to stab the Wart and then says he did it all for you.' I nodded. 'Yeah. That fits in nicely.'

'It does. Sejanus would have me bang to rights, as I believe they say. Caught' — Gaius gave a shudder — 'in fragrante delicto, and ripe for the plucking. Nasty but neat. Oh, dear, the man really is such a clever bastard, isn't he?'

'Yeah.' I was thinking hard. 'Yeah, he is. Still, it may solve one problem.'

'Oh? And what's that?'

'My ticket to Capri.'

'But why should you want to go to — ?' Gaius's brow cleared. 'Oh. Yes, but of course you would. I'm sorry. Now I'm the one who's being stupid.'

Uh-uh; that I wouldn't believe. Prince of the Blood or not, Gaius was a smart cookie. He just didn't look very far outside his own interests.

'I've got everything now,' I said. 'Or at least I think I have. In any case, it's all I'll get. My only problem is delivering it to the emperor, and I have to do that personally.'

'Part of your agreement with Great-Granny Livia, I suppose?' He smiled. 'Oh, Corvinus, don't look at me like that, my dear! Of course I know! The old harpy told me about it herself years ago.'

'She told you?'

'Oh, yes. We used to have such cosy chats about all sorts of things after Mother was exiled and she became my guardian. After all, if I was to be emperor one day I had to know what was going on, didn't I?'

'You…ah…you're going to be emperor,' I said as neutrally as I could manage.

'But naturally!' Gaius's eyes widened. 'At the very least! I've known that since I was a child.'

'"At the very least"?' I glanced at Felix, but he was carefully looking the other way. Lamprus was still communing with the celestial spheres. 'Uh…correct me if I'm wrong, sir, and no offence, but I sort of thought being emperor was top of the ladder.'

'Not in my case.'

'Ah.' Jupiter with little bells on! And Lippillus had said his brother Drusus was the crazy of the family! 'Fine, fine.'

'Besides,' Gaius went on, 'Thrasyllus said so. About the emperor part, anyway. And Thrasyllus isn't wrong, ever.'

Oh, yeah. The Wart's tame astrologer, the one Livia had been so impressed with. I edged my chair back a little. If the guy started talking about little green worms coming up through the floor I wanted room to move.

'Did Thrasyllus give you a date for this?' I said carefully.

'No, the old meanie. And he wouldn't say how long I'd last or who'd come after me, either. I told him I'd hand him over to the torturers and have them crack his crystal balls for him unless he made that my accession present, but he just said he'd be dead himself by then so I could do what I liked and sucks to me.' Gaius laughed. 'It's all silly. Don't let's talk about it. Now. How are we going to get you into Capri?'

My brain had gone numb. 'Capri?'

He sighed and held out his cup. Felix rushed over with the wine. 'Corvinus, now don't you go stupid on me, dear! You were the one who mentioned the place, after all. You'll need a passport, of course, and you can't go as yourself, not with this treason thing. And an ordinary slave or freedman is really out, because you're so obviously Roman-stroke-Italian the guards wouldn't be fooled for a moment. Felix?'

The little guy was topping up my cup on the rebound.

'A consultant of some kind, sire?' he said. 'One of your personal retinue?'

'Mmm. That's a possibility.' Gaius took a reflective sip of his wine. 'A hairdresser, say. My professional hair stylist. Sejanus would love that, he's always getting nasty digs in with Grampa about me being too soft.'

'That would be admirable, sire,' Felix said.

They were both looking at me like I was the ape in Lucullus Gardens. I cleared my throat.

'Yeah,' I said. 'Okay. Whatever. So long as you don't expect me to do any barbering.'

'My dear man, I wouldn't let you anywhere near my hair!' Gaius chuckled. 'Very well. That's settled. I'll make the arrangements when necessary, and Felix will be in touch.' He stood up. 'Now we'd better be getting back, I suppose. Grandma Antonia will be worrying.'

'I'm sorry, sire,' Felix murmured. 'One more thing. You were going to tell Valerius Corvinus about…' He paused.

'What? Oh. Oh, yes. Silly of me. Our most recent acquisition.' Gaius set his cup down on the table. 'You said you had everything you were going to get for Grampa, Corvinus. Not so, my dear, not so at all, not by a long chalk. I really think you should talk to the cook at…' He turned to Felix. 'Where is the place?'

Felix smiled at me. 'The Plum Tree, sir. It's a wineshop off Cattlemarket Square, near the Temple of Fortune.'

'Yeah. I know the district,' I said. 'A talk about what?'

'The man's name is Lygdus,' Gaius said. 'And you'll come as a surprise to him, by the way, because he doesn't know we've dug him up, so do tread very carefully, won't you, love?'

'Sure.' The name didn't ring any bells at all, not even faint ones. 'You want to tell me who he is?'

'No.' Gaius smiled slightly. 'We'll leave that part as a surprise. A sort of thank-you present for services rendered. Don't mention my name, or Felix's, just get him somewhere he can't run and whisper one word to him. I think you'll enjoy the result.'

'Yeah? And the word?'

The prince's smile broadened.

'Stibium,' he said.

I got him to repeat it, but I'd heard it clear enough the first time.

'And what the hell is stibium when it's at home?'

'You don't know, Corvinus? Then think of it as another surprise. Lygdus certainly will.'