Caligula

XVII

He opened his mouth to speak, but the gladiator cut him off with a shake of the head.

'Fun's over, boy. Time to go home.'

A second Praetorian moved to join him as they turned from the room into a wide corridor, but Cupido waved him away.

'I think I can handle this one alone, Decimus, if I can stand the stink.'

The other man, a broad-faced giant, laughed and said something unintelligible.

'Cupido!' Rufus burst out when they reached the park. 'I — '

'Not here,' the young German hissed. 'Don't say anything until we reach the barn, and then only when I have checked.'

Rufus began to lead the way to the room at the rear of the elephant stall, but Cupido stopped him.

'More secure beside the beast, I think. Speak quietly; the Emperor has listeners everywhere and they are not always who you think they are. In future, visit me at my quarters. When I am off duty I have a room in the palace of Tiberius. I will leave word that you are welcome there.'

Rufus was a little confused by Cupido's excessive caution, but he grinned with the pleasure of seeing the young gladiator again.

'Same old Cupido, always taking the best from life. Forgive me, my friend, but just to be in your presence again fills my heart, even in this dismal place. When they arrested you, I thought you were dead.'

The gladiator raised a sardonic eyebrow and for a moment he truly was the same old Cupido. Yet Rufus could see the months in the palace had changed his friend. The grey eyes contained an embittered weariness that had not been there previously. It was as if the sombre black tunic, which was the symbol of the Emperor's authority, had somehow worked its darkness into his spirit. Combined with the gleaming armour of his sculpted breastplate and greaves, it gave him a dangerous quality Rufus had not seen even on the hardest days in the arena.

Bersheba grunted beside them, and Rufus's face creased into a grin.

'I forget my manners. Mighty Bersheba, this is my friend Cupido, the greatest gladiator of his age, philosopher, wit and now in his most unlikely guise, unless I miss my guess, as First Spear of the Tungrian Cohort of the Emperor's Praetorian Guard.'

Cupido stepped forward and Bersheba's trunk swung out of the darkness to take his scent. She gave a 'harrumph' from deep in her chest.

'You are honoured, Cupido; you have been accepted into Bersheba's inner circle… just as you have into the Emperor's.'

The last words were part statement, but with enough of a question in them for Cupido to remove his iron helmet and place it on the hay beside him as he sat with his back to the barn wall. He looked up at Rufus, his face a mask of shadows and hollows.

'You say you thought I was dead? I was certain of it. I don't have much time, but I will try to explain how all this' — he waved a hand that took in Bersheba, Rufus and himself — 'came about.'

In a steady voice he confirmed what Narcissus had suspected, but there was more. The guards had taken Cupido to a dungeon beneath the palace of Caligula, deep in the bowels of the Palatine, where they stripped him of everything he owned. It was a place known only to the Emperor's closest allies, his torturers, and, for a few mercifully fleeting hours, his enemies.

'It was a dreadful place,' Cupido confessed grimly, 'where the smell of burning flesh invaded the air I breathed, and the screams of the helpless tortured my ears. They took me past the chamber of the hot irons and sharp instruments and I had to turn my eyes away. I have seen suffering in many forms, Rufus, but what I glimpsed there still haunts my dreams.'

He was taken from his cell on the evening of the third day.

'They dragged me before the Emperor naked and coated in my own ordure, so my humiliation would compound my fear. But I called on my father's shade for courage and I stood before him, proud as on any day since coming to manhood, and bade him do as he willed. I expected to feel the kiss of a blade at any moment, but he did not give the order. Instead, he raised himself from his golden throne and stood before me, close as you are now, never flinching at my stink. Then, I swear by the old gods, his mind entered mine and he knew me. Knew me past, present and future.

'At first, I felt more abused than if his torturers had returned me to the dungeons, but he has power, Rufus, great power, and he used it to overwhelm me.'

Cupido swallowed hard and shook his head in wonder.

'How long I was in his thrall I don't know. I felt dizzy with hunger, or perhaps the water they gave me was drugged. Eventually he returned to his throne and ordered his guards to bathe and clothe me. The clothes were these clothes, the uniform of the Praetorian Guard. When I stood before him in them, he returned to me my long sword and asked me for my oath. I gave him it.' His head dropped and he whispered the words again, as if he could barely believe their meaning. 'I gave him it.'

Rufus listened first with horror, then with disbelief. 'It cannot be. The Cupido I know could not pledge his loyalty to that man. He is a monster. I have witnessed it.'

Cupido snorted. 'Witnessed it? You have seen nothing. In this place and among these people you are a child, and you should pray it stays so. You don't know what he is capable of and if you did it would eat your mind and chill your guts. That is what I came here to tell you. You must find a way back to Fronto. It is not as unlikely as it seems. The Emperor's moods are fickle. He will soon tire of you and your elephant.'

Rufus shook his head. 'No. I will not leave you. Teach me to fight as you do and together we can survive. You are right, you must have been drugged. You owe Caligula nothing. An oath administered without honour is an oath in name only.'

Cupido laughed gently. 'The way I fight cannot be taught, Rufus, though I will train you to a standard where you will at least be able to defend yourself when the time comes. But you are wrong: an oath is an oath as long as the oath-sayer believes it. In any case, I owe him more than my loyalty.'

'What?'

'My sister.'

Hours later Rufus sat in the darkness, still stunned by the gladiator's revelation.

Cupido had told of a day of fire and blood when the auxiliary cavalrymen of a Roman army cut down his fellow tribesmen like rows of summer corn and the booted feet of the legions smashed them into the mud of the fields where they made their futile last stand.

'My father was the last to fall. He fought them to his final breath and when the swords chopped him down, he died still shouting his war cry. I was young and had been left behind to defend our village and the women and children. My father said it was an honour, but I think he understood what would happen. When the Romans came I wanted to take my men out to fight, but the village elders knew the Roman way. If we resisted they would have killed everything. Man, woman and child. Horse, dog and pig. Nothing would have been left to mark the passing of my tribe save dry bones and old stories. Still,' his voice grew thick with pride, 'my sister Ilde, only twelve years old, stood on the walls and screamed her defiance until I carried her to our mother.'

He smiled his sad smile. 'The old men would have been better to let me fight. Those who were not fit for the mines and the quarries were put to the sword where they stood. The rest were taken as slaves. I can still feel the weight of the chains on my wrists and smell the woodsmoke from the burning huts. The last I saw of Ilde was in the slave market. I tried to talk to her — to explain — but she would not meet my eyes. I knew she despised me for not having the courage to die with my people.'

Then, three months after his last fight in the arena, and four long years since he had been taken into captivity, Caligula had called him to an audience.

'He told me: "I have a gift for my most faithful servant, Cupido of the Guard, who holds my life in his hands." A girl walked into the room, a tall girl with hair the colour of spun gold and the proud bearing of a princess. At first I thought his gift was a concubine to share my bed — he has rewarded others in this way — but then I looked into the girl's eyes and I knew it was Ilde. My lost sister.'

Rufus could not say when it happened, but there came a moment in Cupido's story when the realization struck him like a blow from Bersheba's trunk. He knew.

'Now she is an honoured member of the palace staff. She is maid to the lady Milonia, the Emperor's wife, and charged with the safekeeping of his daughter. You would know her as Aemilia.'

Aemilia.