Black Salamander

X

Inside the Aemihan basilica in Rome, the bustling commercial centre on the north side of the Forum which looked straight up at the Palatine Hill, three men dressed, despite the intolerable heat, in full senatorial regalia, paced the upper gallery conversing in Greek. Anyone seeing these politicians-one fat, one cross-eyed, the third man thin from an ulcer-would have assumed they were simply digesting their lunch in admiration of the sumptuous restoration work after a fire two years before. They paused at the columns, as though praising the fine African marbles. Another gentle amble, then a stop to venerate (or so it would appear) the statue of the Emperor Augustus on its podium.

‘So far, so good,’ muttered the fat man. ‘With a combination of silver, cunning and luck, our agent in the delegation has succeeded in separating a sizeable group from the main body of the convoy and the schedule, gentlemen, is on target.’

‘With all due respect,’ cut in Squint, ‘no one doubted the plan. It’s the tribes I’m concerned about. Are they trustworthy?’

‘Trustworthy?’ shrilled the thin man. ‘They’re not in it for the love of Rome, these barbarians, it’s every chieftain for himself.’

‘That’s the whole point of cutting off the delegation,’ Squint explained. ‘We need to stall our so-called allies.’

‘They’re not stupid,’ protested the invalid, gulping a pastille of liquorice. ‘It’ll be a fucking bloodbath if they ever find out.’

‘It’ll be their blood in the soil, not ours,’ the fat man reassured him under his breath. ‘The Empire might have fallen’-he patted Augustus’s marble shin with affection-‘but the legions will still fight for Rome, they’ll crush the barbarians, have them begging on their knees for our mercy, mark my words.’

‘I don’t like it,’ the invalid said doubtfully.

‘My dear fellow,’ Fatso said, wrapping his arm round the other’s bony shoulders. ‘Do you think I’m happy, dancing with the devil? But if we’re going to make a new order for Rome-a better order, I might add, taking Arabia, the Orient, annexing Dacia’s goldmines-for that, my friend, sacrifices have to be made, and if that means sucking up to the likes of the Helvetii, then so be it. Jupiter’s bollocks, it’s only temporary.’

He paused, as a brawl broke out downstairs where the moneylenders set out their stalls, and the thin man sucked voraciously on another pastille. Liquorice was supposed to be helping his ulcer, or so the physician insisted. So far all it had done was give him chronic diarrhoea.

‘Surely,’ said Squint, gazing up at the clerestory window, ‘the point here is to celebrate that our plan is on target. Note I say, our plan,’ he added. ‘I assume you’re still with us on this?’

The invalid nodded solemnly as the trio continued their tour of the gallery. Below, where the central hall of the basilica was divided into three naves separated by pillars of black, red and white marble, throngs of noisy shoppers milled around, shoving their way between the clamouring crowds intent on visiting the law courts, shops and offices which opened straight into the street. Slaves in gaudy tunics, merchants in white woollen togas, red-booted senators and magistrates with purple stripes on their robes, hardly an inch passed between them, they looked for all the world like multi-coloured crystals moving round inside a kaleidoscope.

‘Of course I’m behind it,’ the thin man reiterated, clasping his hands. ‘With Augustus out of the way, the three of us can make a huge difference to the Empire. No more namby-pambying with the Germans, cut right through, I say, and sod leaving them to administer their own bloody territories. That’s where he,’ he shot a glance over his shoulder to his marble Imperial Majesty, ‘has failed us. Allowing the likes of the Gauls and the Egyptians to police themselves.’

‘I quite agree.’ A pudgy thumb made a positive gesture. ‘Autonomy is not the answer. Never mind taxing the buggers, it’s our bloody land, chum. We fought for it, we conquered it, the provinces are ours by right.’

‘Absolutely,’ Squint said. ‘And with the technology we have at our fingertips today, we can work those lands far better than a few backward yokels and with the Gauls, the Africans, the Balkan tribes, the whole bloody lot under our Republican yoke, we’ll have an endless source of cheap labour and by the gods how rich we’ll be. Both personally, and as a nation, and this,’ his arm swept round the basilica, ‘will look like a flea-ridden farmstead in comparison. Gold pillars, gold ceilings, I tell you, gentlemen, when we’ve finished, Rome won’t be a city of bricks and stone, not even a city of marble. Every temple, every public building, every rooftop will be gold, between us we shall create the eighth wonder of the world where even the great pyramids will be dwarfed in comparison.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Fatso said.

‘But I still ask the question,’ Squint continued, ‘are the rebel tribes to be trusted?’

The fat man wiped his bald and sweating pate with the hem of his toga and steered his colleagues to a quiet corner, ostensibly to admire the frieze. ‘I can understand why you’re both jittery,’ he said. ‘It’s been three weeks since our last conference, and we promised to meet only occasionally and in public so as not to draw attention to ourselves.’

Three heads leaned at a forty-five degree angle, as though venerating the artist’s interpretation of the rape of the Sabine women.

‘Now, since I am co-ordinating the plan and have access to the most information, let me reassure you as to the security both from within Rome and as regarding the tribes. As you know, we have set the assassination date for the Ides of July-’

‘Our neatest touch yet.’ The invalid laughed. ‘The old Republic was swept away when the Divine Julius was murdered on the Ides of March. Now history will recall the occasion when it was restored. On the Ides of the month named after Caesar.’

‘Quite.’ With self-satisfied smiles, three heads turned to lean forty-five degrees the other way, as though to admire the frieze from the opposite angle.

‘Obviously it’s not just Augustus who’ll have to go. You both have a full list of the generals, senators, magistrates and servants who’ll have to be despatched that same night, and that should not prove too much of a problem. We have sufficient loyal allies here in Rome and, as agreed, poison will be our chosen method. A silent killer, requiring the minimum number of assassins-any problems so far?’

‘Only that my brother-in-law is on the list,’ said Squint.

‘Does that present an obstacle?’ the fat man asked.

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Good. Now once the Ides of July hits home, chaos will break out, and this is where our last few months of sucking up to the likes of the Treveri come into their own. We can’t hope to restore the Republic without external assistance. Already since we’ve sown our little seeds of unrest, two legions have been despatched to the trouble spots and as of today, sporadic fighting will break out in another four places, five tomorrow, and rather than leave the German border unprotected, Augustus is bound to remove troops from Italy and Gaul.’

‘With such a sodding great hole in our defences, the tribes we’ve bribed will sweep through the Alps and lay siege to Rome in a week,’ said the thin man.

‘And therein lies my concern,’ Squint said. ‘You may recall, we haven’t actually bribed them. All they know is that the State Treasury has been secretly raided for payment, but the treasure, for security’s sake, is stored at some hitherto undisclosed destination.’

The fat man turned away from the fate of the wretched Sabines to lean his arms on the rail as though observing the colourful surge in the nave.

‘But the map’s on its way, is it not?’ Ripples of fat trembled as his great frame began to heave with mirth. ‘The Helvetii know it, the Treveri know it, every bloody rebel chieftain knows we’ve sent the effing thing, and that when it finally arrives in Vesontio, the individual pieces will be handed over to some appointed agent who’ll stitch it together and pass it on, and between them, the tribes can fight over who gets what.’

By now all three senators were mopping tears of laughter from their eyes as the beauty of their double-cross came into focus.

‘Now I ask you.’ The fat man guffawed. ‘What can possibly go wrong?’