Defender of Rome

XXXV

Theroom looked and felt different. How could that be in so short a time? Murals he had always regarded as artistic and exotic now appeared merely vulgar and lewd. In the harsh light of day the wall hangings and the furniture seemed tired and worn. The scents which had once made his senses reel were no longer sweet, but cloying, and only just masked the unmistakable musky odour of the aroused men who queued here to couple with her. Fabia looked different too. She had lost the last bloom of youth in a few short weeks. The powder on her face was no longer to enhance her beauty, but to camouflage the lines in the corners of her eyes. Flesh that had been taut and firm had taken on the pasty texture that came with separation from the fine bone structure beneath. A new face. A middle-aged face. She sat on a couch opposite him, straight-backed and refusing to meet his gaze. ‘You had no right to come here without an appointment.’ Her voice sounded like ice cracking in a frozen stream.

‘You have never complained before.’

‘You have never come here coated in filth and stinking like a sewer cleaner. You have never forced your way past my doorkeeper while I was entertaining a friend. Now I will have to have him whipped for failing in his duty.’

Valerius laughed, remembering the scene; the outraged underling and the semi-tumescent senator making his escape still dressed in the distinctive robes of a Vestal virgin. ‘Your doorkeeper or the friend?’

She hissed like a snake. It was clear that everything they’d had was gone, but now he asked himself if it had only ever existed in his imagination.

‘You called me here last night for a reason.’

She darted a glance in his direction, but looked away before he had the chance to read its meaning. ‘To enjoy your company and exchange gossip. You were once an entertaining companion, although it is difficult to believe now.’

‘I remember the verbal exchange as very one-sided.’ Now his voice was as cold as hers. He should have felt hatred, or perhaps pity, but instead an empty space lay where his heart had been. ‘You were keen to hear the latest news of my quest for Petrus, and interested in each and every detail about the theft from the water castle.’

‘We were friends then. Friends are interested in each other’s lives.’

‘What we talked about was known only to Honorius the water commissioner and two men I trust with my life.’

‘Hired thugs, you mean.’

‘Perhaps, but men I can trust — as I once trusted you.’

He saw her face go pink beneath the powder. But was it anger or fear? Then she smiled at him and he was almost disarmed as the beauty shone from her like the sun breaking from behind a cloud.

‘Oh, Valerius, is that what this is about?’ she said lightly. ‘You would take a mercenary’s word against mine? Who is to say that old Honorius, a man who has never been known to speak one word when ten will do, did not blurt out your plans as he devoured one of his legendary midday meals? Surely that is not enough to break up our friendship.’

Valerius rose from his couch. ‘I suppose it is possible that Honorius might have talked to someone, but how did the Praetorians react so quickly? They were exactly where I thought I would find Petrus an hour before we were.’ He was behind her now, caressing her neck as he had once done to give her pleasure.

‘But of course they would be. Torquatus does not want you to get the credit for hunting down the Christian.’

‘Yes,’ he said, and she knew a thrill of fear as his voice hardened again and his left hand twisted in her hair and yanked her head round to face him. ‘But that doesn’t explain why Torquatus has been one step ahead of us ever since Nero gave me this task. It doesn’t explain why Cornelius Sulla and Lucina were arrested when the only people who knew what was said were Gaius Valerius Verrens and the lady Fabia Faustina. That’s right, Fabia. I didn’t even tell Marcus and Serpentius what passed between Cornelius and me. Only you. You betrayed them.’ His grip grew tighter and she cried out with pain. ‘You condemned them to the stake and the cage. You condemned Ruth to death too, because Lucina told Torquatus where the next meeting was to be held.’ She struggled, but he kept his grip. ‘And you betrayed Olivia and my father, and for that I can never forgive you.’

‘ I saved your father! ’ Fabia’s shout echoed from the walls. Valerius hesitated, reluctant to believe her, but he knew the truth when he heard it. He relaxed his grip and she collapsed sobbing on the stone floor.

‘You saved him?’

She raised her head and her eyes were filled with an explosive mixture of pain and shame and righteous fury. ‘Yes, I saved him. Saved him from Nero. Saved him from Torquatus. The doddering old fool would have been dead a month ago if I had told Torquatus everything I knew. I saved him today when I sent a slave to warn him not to go to the Christian ritual.’

‘But…’

She fought to regain her composure. ‘It’s true that I told Torquatus about Cornelius and Lucina, just as I have told him most of what you tell me.’

Valerius shook his head. He’d known it since the moment he’d seen Rodan waiting for them, and perhaps for much longer, but part of him still didn’t believe it.

‘Why? Why would you betray me? We were…’

‘Friends? I thought that once, Valerius, but would a friend have accepted my love without any intention of returning it? While I lay there thinking of you as my lover, you never thought of yourself as anything more than my client. A caring, affectionate client, perhaps, but a client all the same. Think. Does that make you better or worse than a degenerate like Posthumus in his pretty dress? He pays me and takes what he has paid for. You pretended you were my friend and used me just the same. Which of you made me more ashamed of what I am?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he truly was, but there were things he had to know. ‘That still did not give you reason to betray me.’

‘No. It did not. I have known shame since the day Seneca destroyed my father and forced him to send me to that place, but I buried my shame deep and I disguised it with a smile. I had manners and beauty and I learned quickly and that saved me from the worst of it: the lowborn and the dangerous with their stinking breath and their dirty crawling hands and hungry mouths. They kept me for people like you — arrogant, perfumed patricians with power and money. I learned about power and I learned how to part you from your money and in time I was able to buy myself out and set up here. But the shame remained, Valerius. I knew I had lost my honour and that I would never marry, and I gave up hope… until I met you. When you came to me I understood that here was someone as broken as I. Britain had come close to destroying you, just as what I am had come close to destroying me. Your missing hand was as much a burden as my lost virtue. So I allowed myself hope, until I realized that hope was in vain.’

‘I didn’t know about Seneca. If I had it might have been different.’

Her face transformed into a bitter smile. ‘No, Valerius, because you think of Seneca as your friend and Gaius Valerius Verrens stands by his friends. If you learn only one lesson from today, let it be never to trust your friends.’

‘But Seneca didn’t betray me, you did, and Seneca is not my enemy. So who is?’

She shook her head again. ‘Still so loyal, Valerius. Who has most to gain if your father dies, and his son is implicated in his plotting? Ask Seneca about the marble. Ask him about the geological survey he has just had carried out on his estate. The estate which borders your father’s.’

Valerius remembered the day Honorius had congratulated him on Lucius’s good fortune and another building block fell into place.

Fabia nodded. ‘Now you understand. But you are right, Seneca is not the man you must fear most. That man is Torquatus.’

The name was hardly a surprise, but it still didn’t explain the lengths to which the Praetorian prefect had gone to sabotage a mission for which he was partially responsible. ‘I can understand why Torquatus dislikes me, even hates me, but not why he would want to destroy me. I am no threat to him and never could be. Why would he want me to fail when he was instrumental in giving me the mission to hunt down Petrus and the Christians in the first place?’

‘Because if you fail, Torquatus succeeds. He can’t allow you to find this Petrus when he could not. That is why he has had Rodan dog your footsteps ready to pounce on Petrus. With the Christian in his grasp he would denounce you as a traitor who knew all along that your father was one of the people you sought. If your enemies have their way, you and Lucius will die on neighbouring pyres, Valerius, and the Emperor’s greatest amusement will be in deciding who burns first.’

‘That still does not explain why Torquatus should be so determined to have me killed, or what I have done to earn so much hatred.’

She laughed, short and sour. ‘You mean apart from being you, so handsome and so strong and always so certain? He mentioned it once, quite casually, as if he was discussing a horse that needed disciplining. A family matter, he said, some cousin who had served with you in Britain. The man was a centurion in the Twentieth legion who sent Torquatus a letter claiming you had destroyed his career and demanding help to gain reinstatement. He died in the British rebellion, but our Praetorian prefect was left to salvage the family’s honour. Such a trivial reason to die, don’t you think?’

Valerius stared at her. It didn’t seem possible. Crespo? Rapist, bully, murderer and thief, the man had been a senior centurion in Valerius’s cohort. It had been Valerius’s accusation which had forced Crespo into the service of Catus Decianus, Britain’s procurator, who had made the decision to strip Boudicca of her lands and her people. Crespo had vowed revenge for that humiliation. Before he could fulfil his promise, the centurion, whose rape of Boudicca’s daughters helped ignite the rebellion, had met a terrible end at the hands of the Iceni queen. Now Crespo had reached from beyond the grave to destroy Valerius. He could almost hear the gods laughing.

He shook his head. ‘You could have come to me instead of betraying me.’

Some of the old spark returned and her eyes flashed. ‘You can be such a fool sometimes, Valerius. If I had come to you, we would both be dead. While you are close to finding Petrus, Torquatus has to keep you alive so that he can take the credit. He tried to have you killed in Dacia because he already had Lucina and thought he no longer needed you. You must believe me, I have always tried to protect my friends, whatever Torquatus has asked of me and however he has asked it.’ Her voice was close to breaking and Valerius realized how much anguish lay behind those words. A man like Torquatus had many ways of inflicting pain so that the wounds did not show. She recognized the look on his face. ‘Yes, pity me, Valerius, for there is no escape for me in this life. If you can find Petrus and present him to Nero you can still thwart Torquatus, but the only escape for Fabia Faustina is death.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Come with me and we will fight him together.’

‘You mean die together? If I leave Rome without Torquatus’s permission he will know that I have betrayed him; perhaps he knows it even now. If I stay it will give you the time to do what you must do.’

He hesitated, but he knew she was right. The only chance he had to find Petrus was to leave her. Another friend failed. He got up to go, all his anger forgotten.

‘Wait, Valerius. There is more you need to know.’

She told him about Poppaea.

‘In many ways she is very like me, trapped in a loveless world and forced to sell herself to stay alive. Perhaps that is why we became friends. You think you know Nero, but you do not. His subjects see a charming young man who wants to be loved for his talents. Yes, he can be irrational and even vicious if the mood takes him, but men look at his line, shake their heads and ask: how could it not be? But in the night, in the privacy of his palace, he is different, more beast than man, and willing to couple with either if Torquatus is able to provide it. Poppaea is not a wife to him; no woman could be. She is flesh, as we all are, and she survives by being willing flesh, but not too willing, for she must be seductive as well as available. Compliant, but a challenge for his talents in the bedchamber. And, of course, she must entertain, as we all must entertain who enter beyond the doors of his personal quarters. What sordid piece of theatre will Torquatus provide tonight? Will it please him? Will we be able to suffer it with a smile? Will we survive it?’

Fabia stared into the distance and Valerius knew that she was only telling him part of what went on in the palace. She wore the same look as a soldier who has stared death in the face, lost in the Otherworld that is at the centre of every human soul.

‘Poor Poppaea, she confides in me, all unaware that I am part of the trap Torquatus has set for her. He knows that she hates him more than she hates Nero, and he fears her, because her access to Nero makes her powerful. To Torquatus that combination is a threat which cannot be ignored. He too is like a beast, and will lash out at anything which endangers him.’

‘She confides in you and yet she has come to no harm?’

Her voice took on the fierceness of a mother leopard protecting her cubs. ‘Believe me, Valerius, Fabia Faustina values her friends. Torquatus may have me by the throat, but there are things that I tell him and things that I do not.’

‘Then with your protection she will survive. She does not need me.’ He said it with finality and she shook her head at his failure to grasp what she was saying.

‘You don’t understand. Only by saving Poppaea can you save your father and Olivia, and only by saving Poppaea will you find Petrus.’

‘How can that be?’

‘It is very simple. Poppaea Augusta Sabina has become a Christian.’

The room seemed to suddenly go cold.

‘Nero knows?’

She shook her head. ‘Nero suspects.’

‘Then Torquatus knows.’

‘Torquatus believes he knows, but he has no evidence yet, and without evidence he cannot denounce Poppaea. If he does and Nero does not believe him, his own life will be forfeit.’

‘How…?’

‘Cornelius Sulla first intrigued her, then seduced her. He opened her eyes to a world beyond the pain of this world. Somehow he arranged that she meet Petrus and from that day onwards she was a different Poppaea; a Poppaea prepared to challenge Nero’s tyranny, to fight him from within his own palace.’

Still Valerius was not entirely convinced. ‘You protect her, but you gave Cornelius to Torquatus? He could have exposed her with a single word.’

‘If you had known Cornelius, you would know that he would never betray her. He sacrificed his brother to blind Torquatus to Poppaea, then went through the torments of hell to ensure she stayed hidden. That was the kind of man he was; if he gave his life for Poppaea he gave it gladly.’

Valerius remembered the burning red eyes in the blackened skull and wondered at the strength of will it had taken to stay silent. Nero was right not to underestimate the Christians. An enemy without fear is an enemy to fear.

‘And you, Fabia?’

‘Am I a Christian?’ She laughed. ‘Surely, Valerius, you understand by now that I am beyond saving. I have sent too many to their deaths for an unguarded word to believe I have any value. Yet I hope I still have some honour in your eyes. Each time I provided Torquatus with an opportunity to bring you down, I provided you with one to thwart him.’

He studied her, wondering if that was true and knowing that, in the end, it didn’t really matter. He had to trust her.

‘How do I find Petrus?’

‘By finding Poppaea.’

‘And where is Poppaea?’

‘She sailed for Neapolis this morning. She will visit her people at the family villa while Nero makes his preparations for his great performance at the theatre in the city.’

He shook his head. ‘You are talking in riddles. What does a trip to Neapolis have to do with Petrus?’

‘You have spent days looking for a waterfall, Valerius, is that not true? Then perhaps it will not surprise you that the villa at Oplontis has the finest ornamental waterfall in the Empire.’ She laughed at the sudden flare of comprehension. ‘Poppaea has yet to be saved. To be saved, she must be baptized by Petrus, who has persuaded her that everyone who was to take part in today’s ceremony should be sanctified along with her, including your father.’

‘It’s madness!’

‘Yes, Valerius, but there is a joy in such madness, is there not? They are prepared to risk everything for what they believe. Do you believe in anything that much?’

He shook his head. Once, he had believed in the Empire and would have been happy to die for it, but not now. ‘Only my family.’

‘Then go to Neapolis and reach them before Torquatus. Perhaps by saving them you will save yourself.’

‘Torquatus?’

‘Do you think I am his only spy?’