Sejanus

4

I wasn't tired when I got back, at least not sleep-tired. I shoved my head round the bedroom door, but Perilla had given up on me hours ago and was flat out, her hair a tawny cloud across the pillow: she never got her maid to bind it up at night, which was okay by me. Bathyllus was still padding around bright eyed and bushy tailed, as I knew he would be: Bathyllus takes his responsibilities seriously, and he can always find a table to straighten or a spoon or two to buff up. I sent him for a jug of Setinian and lugged it and my bag of notes into the study. Then I got down to serious work.

There were too many names. That was the problem. In the ten years I'd been away Rome had seen twenty-three trials before the senate, for everything from treason through adultery to a guy who'd pushed his wife out the window and claimed he'd been sleepwalking at the time. Yeah, well, as a defence I supposed it'd been worth a try, but he must've been desperate, and it didn't say much for his powers of imagination. Some of the names jumped off the page straight at me, as they'd done when I first read them; Suillius Rufus's for one, Perilla's ex who I'd run foul of in Antioch. They'd nailed Rufus seven years back for pocketing bribes as a city judge, and he'd been exiled at the Wart's insistence to a flyspeck off Sicily. Sometimes emperors do get things right, and I raised my cup to the old boil-encrusted bugger's sense of justice. Calpurnius Piso's brother Lucius was there, and Junius Silanus, whose brother Decimus had once thrown me out of his urban villa for accusing him of not screwing Augustus's granddaughter. Old friends all. Others I'd never met but were familiar from the social register: the young Quinctilius Varus's wife Claudia Pulchra (adultery); Gaius Silius and his wife Sosia Galla; Titius Sabinus…

The rest were a blur. This needed method. Order. Good old Roman thoroughness. Setinian. I reached for the jug and filled my wine cup.

Taking up my biggest wax tablet I drew my pen down the middle. Dates to the left, names and charges to the right. I started with the big one, the obvious one. Treason.

When I counted down the list four cups later I had seven names in chronological order. Caesius Cordus, senatorial governor of Crete and Cyrene: treason and extortion. Decimus Silanus's brother Gaius, the Asian governor, ditto. According to the charge sheet he'd also been found guilty of ‘offences against the divinity of Augustus and the majesty of Tiberius’, which reading between the lines meant he'd let his hair down at the wrong party or opened his mouth too wide in the wrong person's hearing. Third, a guy I'd never heard of but who sounded a real pea-brain, Lucius Ennius, accused of melting down a statue of the Wart and using the bullion to make dinner plates. Big league stuff. Tiberius had quashed that one himself.

The fourth name on the list was Gaius Silius. Silius's case had been more serious. Governor of Upper Germany ten years back, he'd been accused of connivance in the Gallic revolt and of profiteering after the event. He'd killed himself before the verdict was given, and his wife Sosia, who was also implicated, had been sent into exile. This one smelled like a month-old anchovy. I'd known Silius vaguely from his visits to Dad about the time he'd got his first Eagle, and although I'd only been a kid at the time frankly I couldn't believe the charge. Sure, he'd had an ego the size of the Capitol — he'd have to, to get where he was — but he hadn't been traitor material. He'd kept his troops loyal to the Wart when the Rhine frontier blew up after old Augustus died, and he was army to the bone. That didn't sit well with the connivance business: for a dyed-in-the-wool army man like Silius, consorting with rebels ranks with screwing goats and taking orders from civilians. The profiteering, sure: Silius was as human as the rest of us, and once the Gauls were beaten they were fair game. But not the treason. That stank.

Fifth was Lucius Piso, 'my' Piso's elder brother and one of the defence lawyers at his trial. Charged with treasonable conversation about the Wart, possessing poison and wearing a sword to meetings of the senate. I discounted the last two items for what they were: malicious ballast, to give the case extra weight. No traitor is that crazy, and whatever else he might be the guy wasn't stupid. The first charge, though, made me think. The case had never come to trial; he'd died a natural death (precise nature unspecified) before the first hearing, which was, if you like, pat. Maybe too pat. Sure, Lucius was no youngster, and he could've eaten a bad oyster or caught something nasty in the woodshed, but I couldn't forget how his brother had gone four years previously. I wondered what the 'treasonable private conversation' was, although I suspected I knew already: 'my' Piso had certainly had secrets to spill that the Wart would give his best boil plaster to keep under wraps. I'd bet good money that Lucius had been another sucker who'd opened his mouth too wide in the wrong company.

Sixth, Votienus Montanus, someone else I didn't know. Not a Roman, with a name like that. Maybe a Gaul, a Spaniard, or a Lusitanian; the records didn't show. In any case Montanus was accused of slandering Tiberius, and condemned to death. That made me pause, too: the Wart may have his faults but he isn't thin-skinned, and simple slander goes straight past him. There'd been instances in the past when he'd been bad-mouthed in private or public, but when a prosecutor tried to get up a case he'd quite rightly laughed it out of court. This time he hadn't laughed. Instead, he'd taken this guy's head. So what made Montanus special? So special that the Wart made sure he was chopped, or at least stood aside and let the senate chop him?

Last and not least came Titius Sabinus, charged with straight treason. Reading between the lines, it was obvious that he'd been set up six ways from nothing by a gaggle of informers and his hide very carefully nailed to the senate house floor. We'd never met, but I knew of him. Although he came from a good family, like me he was a political nobody: no consulship, not even a city judgeship. No military command. A narrow-striper, not a senator. Hardly, in other words, the usual traitor material. He wasn't all that rich, either, by aristocratic standards, which since the successful prosecutor usually gets a large slice of the cake is a common reason for starting up a case. What did make him stand out was that he'd been a close friend of Germanicus's and — gossip said — an even closer one of Agrippina's after the Caesar's death. Scratch the obvious implication: Agrippina wasn't the type for affairs, casual or otherwise. Also, the records showed that when charges were brought the Wart had written personally to the senate demanding a conviction; which, for the Wart, was queer as a five-legged cat. Sabinus had been condemned nem. con. and strangled the same day.

Interesting, right?

I sat back and took a sip of my wine. At my elbow, the reading lamp guttered. It'd been full when I'd started, and I hadn't realised how long I'd been lying here. It must be almost dawn.

So. Where to now? Sure, there were plenty of other names in my notes, and I wasn't fool enough to believe they weren't important, maybe even more important than the ones I already had. When you get right down to it treason's only a word; the charge itself doesn't matter if the result's the same. As I'd found years back with sweet little Julia, a prosecution for adultery can cover a multitude of sins. Then there were the off-the-wall cases. Like the sleepwalking murder, or the hack poet prosecuted for publishing a premature lament for Tiberius's son Drusus. Bad taste, sure, since Drusus had recovered; but hardly worth garrotting the poor bugger for. Or was it? I could be missing something there or in half a dozen other places. I probably was.

I needed expert help with this. So who could I ask?

I took another mouthful of Setinian and considered the options. A broad-striper like Arruntius or Lamia would've been perfect, but senators were too high profile to be safe and I doubted anyway if when push came to shove that there was one of them I could trust. Dad might've helped this time; but Dad was dead. Of my other relatives Priscus would be about as much use as a eunuch in a brothel, and I didn't consider Cotta for one second. So who did I know who had both ears to the ground, more inside his skull than feathers, and a low enough profile not to run the risk of going down with me if the shit hit the shovel?

Lippillus, that was who. Flavonius Lippillus.

I'd met him over the Germanicus business, and we'd kept in touch off and on since. When I was back in Rome he and his stepmother had come round for dinner a few times. Forget every stepmother story you've ever heard. Marcina Paullina was a honey: a tall, willowy African with sleepy eyes, not five years older than he was. Yeah. Lippillus would do very well. In fact, he was perfect.

Something was going squeak squeak in the lobby outside. Either we'd got a ghost in a new pair of sandals or…

I got off the couch and opened the study door. Bathyllus was polishing the bronze statue in the alcove.

'You not in bed yet, little guy?' I said.

'No, sir.' He breathed gently on the dryad's toenails and gave them another rub.

I felt guilty as hell. When I'd taken the jug into the study I should've told him I'd finished for the night. He probably wouldn't've taken any notice, but at least I'd've salved my conscience.

'Then go now,' I said. 'Okay?'

'Yes, sir. In a moment.' He moved on to the left ankle. Ah, well. I'd tried. I paused, my hand on the doorknob.

'Hey, Bathyllus. You happen to know if Flavonius Lippillus is still in town?' One thing I learned early in life: assume your slaves know everything. They usually do, and it saves endless hassle.

The little guy's rag didn't pause. 'Yes, sir,' he said. 'He's a district commander now, I believe. Of the Racetrack and Public Pond regions.'

That made sense. Lippillus had been the best the Aventine Watch could show, and the Watch didn't waste their talent. 'He still live in the same tenement? On the Aventine?'

'That one collapsed a few months ago, sir. During the night, I believe.'

'Sweet gods!' Falling tenements are no joke. It isn't so bad during the day when most of the residents are out at work or gossiping in the street, but a collapse at night when everyone's in bed is bad news. 'Is Marcina okay?'

'Oh, yes, sir.' Bathyllus was blushing. He may be getting on a bit and have a scalp as bald as a marble statue's backside, but he'd always had a soft spot for Marcina Paullina. Unrequited, let it be said. Luckily; the little guy wears enough hernia supports to power a catapult. 'She was at her sister's at the time, and Lippillus was on duty. They have a first-floor flat now, near the Temple of Mercury.'

I nodded and yawned. I suddenly felt tired. 'Okay. Bed, Bathyllus. And not too early in the morning, right? We're on holiday, remember.'

As I dragged myself upstairs I thought: Yeah. Some holiday. First a funeral, now an investigation that's practically an act of suicide. Nice one, Corvinus.

Perilla had been right about us being different, anyway. Most people go to Baiae.