Caligula

XVIII

He lay back in the great golden throne that dominated the Receiving Room and wondered why he didn't feel happy. Was it too much to ask? After all, he was the leader of the most powerful Empire the world had ever known. He looked over the throng of appellants gathered at the far end of the room. Did they realize how difficult it was?

His surveyors were at work planning the canal across the Ionian isthmus which would be his gift to Greece. He had rebuilt the walls and the temples of Syracuse. Soon there would be a new city among the high peaks that would become the economic driving force of Cisalpine Gaul.

But it was not enough. It was never enough.

They were all waiting for him, but this was important. He was beginning to understand.

How could he have all he had and do what he did and still feel empty?

Limits. It was all about limits.

Everything had a limit. You could have all the pleasure in the world, but unless someone was sharing your pleasure it was never enough. You could eat the most exotic foods the Empire had to offer and drink the finest wines, but eventually they all began to taste the same. Men had their limits. There was a limit to how fast they could run in the games, or how high they could jump. There was a limit to how much pain a man could suffer before he died; he had tested that limit often.

Even love had its limits. Drusilla loved him, he knew, and Milonia had proved her love a thousand times, but was their love everlasting? He doubted it. He had thought of testing the limits of their love in his torture chamber, but he knew that if he did he'd lose them. And who else could he trust?

None of the men in this room. Look at them, every one wearing a mask, trying to hide their fear or their hatred or their greed. Any one of them could be part of the plots against him. Perhaps he should have them all killed? It would make life so much simpler. Clearer.

He looked towards the centurion in charge of the Guard. It was the Germans today. He liked the Germans because they hated the Italians.

The soldier came at his call.

'If I wished it, would you kill every man in this room?' he said quietly.

For an instant, the centurion's eyes went wide, but the discipline that had helped him survive a hundred combats quickly took over. His hand went to his sword.

'Of course, Caesar. At your order!'

Should he? He looked over the faces. Senators and knights. Praetors and tribunes. Men who called themselves his friends and others who did not try to hide their scorn. The Judaean who had been boring him for a week about the problems of his benighted province. It would cause complications. He had another thought.

'If I ordered it, would you kill me?'

The soldier froze. What answer would he give to this unanswerable question?

He watched the man's face grow paler as the seconds passed. Tiny beads of sweat broke out upon his brow as he wrestled with the terrible implications of his next words. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish, which was amusing.

Eventually, he became bored. 'You are dismissed. We will discuss this further another time.'

He picked at the platter of food by the side of the throne. Really, it was all so tedious. Had he tasted everything there was to taste? He let the long list slide through his mind. But there was a gap. Yes, there was one type of flesh he had never tasted. The forbidden flesh. He looked up. It would be interesting, exciting even. Who would it be? The fat one at the back? The athlete fidgeting by the wall? No shortage of choice.

He pondered the question for a full minute.

No, he thought, not today.

He smiled as he learned a new truth. Even he had a limit. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed.

For a short time Rufus became an occasional guest at the Emperor's table. If he was not fouled or dirty enough when they came for him, the Praetorians would order him to rub himself down with dung gathered from the heap behind the barn.

The pattern of the evenings was always the same. The ritual humiliation of Claudius. The unbearable tension. The shocking moment of choice which reminded Rufus that slaves were not the only powerless of Rome.

He came to recognize the Emperor's favourites; the nobles who fawned over him as he raged against the mob and the 'baldheads' of the Senate he believed were working to deprive him of the money he needed to fulfil his ambitions. Chief among them were Appeles, the very young, overly powdered actor who had a laugh like a little girl, and was ever present at Caligula's side; Protogenes, his freedman and trusted adviser, unhealthily pale with a face that never smiled, who was never without the two scrolls the Emperor called his 'sword' and his 'dagger', which were said to contain enough secrets to execute a thousand men; and purple-cheeked Chaerea, the Praetorian tribune, a battle-hardened soldier with an unfortunate high-pitched voice, who had to bear being called a 'pretty wench' by his Emperor.

But, as he tired of everything else, the Emperor eventually tired of Rufus's presence. The 'invitations' stopped and he was left in peace.

When he was off duty, and they could find some quiet place where they would not be overlooked, Cupido would give Rufus the training in arms he had requested. It was a perilous business for them both. For a slave to be found with a sword in his hand on the Palatine the penalty was instant death. The man who gave him the sword would die screaming in the Emperor's torture cells. The hill was a small, compact and bustling community but the park in front of Bersheba's barn was close to the tree-lined walls and they discovered that among the trees there were suitable places to conceal their activities.

On the first day, Cupido handed Rufus a short wooden baton the approximate dimensions of a legionary gladius. 'Being so obviously harmless may not save us,' he explained. 'But at least it may make them stop and think.'

Cut, thrust, parry. Cupido began with the simplest moves, making Rufus repeat them again and again until his arms ached. 'Later we will study the more intricate manoeuvres, the feint to the groin, the backcut and the gutting stroke, but for now this will do.'

Towards the end of the session, when Rufus began to tire, the gladiator laid down his wooden sword and ordered Rufus to do the same. 'A tired man is a dead man. I can teach you to defend yourself, but what use is that if your guard drops and you offer your life to your opponent like a sacrificial goat? You are strong, but you must be stronger.' He jogged across to the stone wall and in one smooth movement flipped himself upside down, so he was standing on his hands with his feet against the wall. 'Watch and learn,' he ordered. Rufus watched the muscles in Cupido's arms bunch and the tendons in them squirm like tree roots as, with quick easy movements, he bent at the elbows then straightened a dozen times.

'Now you.'

Rufus tentatively approached the wall and clumsily copied the gladiator's position, instantly feeling the strain on his arms. Cupido bent low, so his upside down face was close. 'Ten,' he said.

'Ten?' Rufus croaked in disbelief.

'Ten, and then we work on the abdominal muscles.'

When the session was finished Rufus's arms and upper body felt as if they were on fire, and his breath came in short gasps. He started to walk towards the barn, but Cupido's remorseless voice stopped him.

'So, you can fight. But what happens when the fighting is over?'

Rufus stared at him, puzzled. 'You celebrate?'

Cupido laughed. 'You're a slave. You run.' He trotted past, whacking Rufus across the buttocks with the pretend sword. 'You run. Twenty circuits of the park. Come on. No one is going to execute us for running.'

Rufus shook his head in disbelief, but his face creased into a grin and he forced his tired body into a trot. Staying alive was going to kill him.

The more time he spent with Bersheba, the more he appreciated his enormous charge's serene acceptance of life in captivity. She was happy to accommodate his wishes — if they coincided with her own — and her few complaints were made in what he chose to believe was a spirit of fellowship. They were both in this together, she seemed to be saying; they should make the best of it.

And she had a sense of humour. It was true. She played tricks on him, hiding things when he was not looking, placing small obstacles where he would trip over them. Afterwards, she would feign innocence. He could even look back now and believe that she had been aware of exactly what she was doing when she had drenched Claudius on that fateful day.

Claudius.

Claudius the fool.

And now, Claudius the enigma.

It happened at a time when the Emperor retired to his villa in the hills above Rome to escape the savage heat that turned the city's streets into ovens.

Three days after Caligula left, Claudius appeared at Bersheba's barn.

At first Rufus wondered whether the limping patrician with the drooping eye sought revenge for his humiliation, but Claudius motioned him to continue his work and moved into the interior of the barn where he could study the elephant more closely.

This happened on three consecutive evenings. On the fourth night, as Rufus lay on his pallet, he heard the creak of the barn doors opening, and then closing again.

Claudius was back, standing in the darkness talking softly to the elephant, but what was more astonishing was the manner of his speech. The stutter that made him the butt of cruel jokes for everyone from the meanest palace slave to the Emperor himself was gone. This was a Claudius none would recognize. The tone was confident, the words flowed unhindered and the thoughts were articulately expressed.

And he was talking treason.

'Oh, Tiberius, what have you done to us? I know, I know, I had such high hopes for them too; the one so adventurous and full of ideas, the other a thinker, an organizer, and born to rule wisely. How naive we were, how reckless. How long did we expect the stronger eaglet to share the nest with the weaker?

'Now your grandson Tiberius Gemellus is dead and Gaius Caligula holds Rome by the throat. Do you know what he said to me only a week ago? He said: "If the mob had but one neck I would sever it with a single stroke." He despises them, and they begin to hate him. Only the spectacle of the arena binds them to him, and they will only be blinded by blood for so long. Then we will all reap what he has sown.

'Yet I truly think he does not know the ruin he is causing. He is like a small child who has stumbled upon an ant heap. He is fascinated by the comings and goings, but how long before he decides to stir it with a stick and discovers he has the power to cause havoc among its populace? When he does, how much longer before, if he is that kind of child, he discovers he has the power of life and death over them? And how much longer before he uses that power? A certain kind of child might grow up to stick pins in the eyes of frogs and burn fledglings in their nests. Perhaps, as an adult, he would burn men.

'Caligula is curious to find out the limits of this power we have given him. But it has no limits; nor, I fear, does his curiosity. He will not listen to reason. Those close to him who spoke out are all long gone. The Senate lives in terror of his every pronouncement. I don't have the courage to stand in his way, and if I had I would be dead by now, "Uncle Claudius" or no. Only the army has the strength to rid us of him. But who gave him this childish nickname he bears so proudly, Caligula — Little Boots? No, the army loves him. But if not the army, then who?'

Having no answer, he left, shaking his head.

There were other such visits, and Rufus learned more than he wanted to know about the inner workings of the palace before the return of Caligula brought the encounters to an abrupt end. However, they did have one other consequence.

Narcissus appeared without warning on a fine morning when the dew still sparkled on the grass and clung to the gossamer webs the spiders had spun on the bushes.

'I am glad to hear you have settled in so well,' he called, as Rufus gave Bersheba her morning feed. 'You will no doubt have seen your friend? I understand he is high in the Emperor's favour. He has much to be thankful for… as do you.'

Rufus stared at him. He had turned this matter over in his mind a thousand times and every time he had come to the same conclusion.

'This is your doing, Greek,' he said accusingly. 'It was you who had me brought here, to this place where the stink of death taints every hall. Do not expect my thanks for that. Cupido is my friend and I rejoice at his safety, but I would rather spend a thousand nights among Fronto's big cats than one more day on the Palatine Hill.'

'You think you would be safer with Fronto?' Narcissus laughed. 'Perhaps I should arrange to have you sent back to that fat oaf. We could have a wager. Will Rufus the slave live one week or two? Why do you think I suggested to the Emperor's chamberlain that an animal trainer of mighty talent could be bought to work with the Emperor's elephant? Sometimes, there is safety in proximity. You may not believe it, but you have the Emperor's favour, for what it is worth. None will harm you while you are here.'

'I still don't understand. Why should you do this for me? I am a slave. I am nothing to you, unless…' Rufus's face coloured and his eyes filled with horrified confusion. Visions of a day in the bathhouse with Albinius, the slave who ran Cerialis's household, flew through his mind. He could still feel the loathsome touch of the oily fingers on his upper thigh and the rubbery tongue pushing at his lips. He had eventually escaped, but it had cost him a night with the guard dogs.

Narcissus shook his head. 'No, not that. I can assure you I have interests in other directions. But have you forgotten already what you said? "I would always be in your debt." It so happens you might be able to repay your debt more quickly here.'

'How can I do that?'

'I understand you have had a night-time visitor. I hope he did not

… expose himself to any danger… with your elephant?' Narcissus said, weighing each word carefully. 'It would not do if my master put himself into that situation. I don't suppose he said… anything of interest while he was here?'

'I don't know,' Rufus lied. 'He comes at night. He spends time with Bersheba. He talks, but I don't listen.'

The Greek shrugged. 'No matter. There will be other occasions, and perhaps you will find it profitable to listen. If you have something for me, hang a white cloth on the barn door. The next day, be at the little fountain behind the palace of Augustus at the seventh hour and I will meet you there. You can never have too many friends, Rufus. And I would make a very dangerous enemy.' The last words were said with a gentle smile, but Rufus understood the threat that lay behind them.

Narcissus then asked about Caligula's banquets. Of course, he knew Rufus attended. Who else was there? What was said? Who was chosen and what was her husband's reaction? Small things, but morsels that could be traded for other morsels. Here, Rufus was happy to supply the intelligence the Greek sought, and Claudius's freedman left satisfied. Rufus wondered if he would have been quite so sanguine if he had known what passed between Caligula and Claudius at the last banquet.

'Tell your Greek to keep his long nose out of other people's business, Uncle Claudius, or I will have the guards cut it off,' the Emperor had warned.