Germanicus

14

Perilla was out when I got back. I had a quick lunch and then set off for the Caelian to see Gaius Secundus, the nearest thing I'd got to a Drusus expert. Until six months ago he'd been a junior staff officer in Pannonia; at which time the silly bastard had fallen down a cliff, smashed the bones in his right leg to smithereens, and been invalided back to Rome. We'd split a few jars together in the past and I reckoned I could rely on him to give me some straight answers.

The slave showed me through to the garden. Secundus was sitting on a chair with his leg stretched out in front of him and a stick within easy reach. Not that he'd been able to use it yet, but that would come. Maybe. If he was lucky.

'Hey, Corvinus!' he said. 'How's the lad?'

'Not bad. 'I sat down on the garden bench facing him and tried not to stare at the shapeless, seamed disaster stretched out between us. 'How are you?'

'Never better. Phidias!' He shouted to the retreating slave. 'Bring us a jug of the Reserve and two cups, okay?' The slave turned and grinned. 'Perilla tired of you yet?'

I laughed. 'Sod off!'

'Yeah, well, just let me know when it happens.'

Having only one leg doesn't cramp Secundus's style. In fact if anything it's an advantage because he's got playing for female sympathy down to a fine art. I was lucky to find him on his own. Disappointed, too, in a way: some of his volunteer nurses are real honeys, with a bedside manner you wouldn't believe.

The wine came and we drank it and swapped insults for a while. Finally, half way down the jug, he set down his cup.

'So, Corvinus. Pleasantries over. Let's get down to business. Tell me what brings you to the Caelian. Besides my riveting conversation, naturally.'

'I wanted to pick your brains.' I sipped my wine. 'About your old boss Drusus.'

'Yeah? Any special reason?'

'Yes.'

He waited. Then, when I didn't elaborate: 'You mixed up in something?'

I wasn't smiling now. Secundus was a friend, and I'd no intention of conning information out of him under false pretences. Also I hadn't been near him for two months, and I felt guilty as hell turning up now just because I needed a favour.

'Yes,' I said again.

'Uh-huh. Feel like telling me what it's about?'

'No. I can't do that.'

'Sure?'

'Sure.'

He was quiet for a long time. Then he shrugged. 'Okay. So move that stool over here and we'll talk.' I looked round and found the stool he meant. As he lifted his bad leg on to it I could see the sweat spring out on his forehead, but he wouldn't've wanted my help, or my sympathy, so I didn't offer either. Finally, when he'd got himself settled, he picked the wine cup up, drained it and held it out for me to fill.

'Right,' he said when I'd done it. 'That'll do me for now. What do you want to know?'

'Everything.' I poured wine into my own cup. 'Let's start at the beginning. What sort of man is he?'

'How do you mean?'

'Friendly? Bastard?'

'He's a good soldier. One of the best.'

'That's no answer, pal.'

He grinned. 'Yeah. I know. But I'm not sure I can give you much more. Drusus isn't exactly the kind to invite confidences.'

'No jolly ragging in the mess with the lads after dinner, then?'

'The Pike?' Secundus laughed. 'No way!'

'That what you called him?'

'Some people make it the Dead Pan. I think Pike describes him better.'

'Why?'

He hesitated. 'You ever see Drusus?'

'Not that I can remember. Not from close up, anyway.'

'You know that little twist the Wart gives to his mouth sometimes? Like he's smiling at some particularly nasty joke no one but him would understand or find funny if they did?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I know the one you mean.' It usually came just before some arse-licker or thick-head found himself flattened by an imperial one-liner. 'Like whoever he's talking to wouldn't measure up intellectually to a backward chicken.'

Secundus nodded. 'That's the one. Drusus has it too. It lifts his upper lip over the canine. When it happens the rest of his face doesn't move, not even the eyes. Just the lip. Like a pike eyeing up a breakfast guppy. Scares the shit out of you, even if you're only watching.'

'You're saying Drusus is like his father,' I said. 'A cold blooded bugger with too much going on between the ears.'

'Uh-huh.' He nodded again. 'That would describe him pretty well. He's fair, mind, and that's like the Wart too. I never heard Drusus chew anyone out over nothing, squaddie, officer or civilian. And he'd make sure he had all the facts weighed before he gave his verdict.'

'And then Jupiter help you if the scales came down on the wrong side.'

'Yeah.' Secundus didn't smile. 'He can be a cruel bastard, when he's in the mood.'

I reached over and helped myself to more wine from the jug, topping up Secundus's cup at the same time, although he hadn't touched the last batch.

'How did he get on with his stepbrother, do you know?' I said.

'Germanicus?' Secundus shot me a sharp look: the guy wasn't stupid, and I'd overdone the attempt at casualness. 'He what all this is about?'

I hesitated a fraction too long. 'Maybe.'

'Maybe, shit!' Secundus laughed. 'Okay, Marcus, I'll play as dumb as you like. I've got nothing better to do this afternoon anyway. When Germanicus called in on his way east-'

'Germanicus went to Pannonia?' I was shocked into interrupting, but Secundus didn't seem to notice. Or pretended he didn't.

'Sure,' he said. 'Not for long. Ten days, max. You didn't know that?'

'No,' I said slowly. 'I didn't know that.'

'It was just a courtesy call. The usual thing. Exchange of presents, formal review of the legions. Handing over of dispatches from Rome. Anyway, the two got on fine, in public at least. And don't try to read anything into that qualification, either, because although I only saw the public side I've no reason to think the private one was any different. They hugged each other like…well, like long lost brothers. I'm not sure there wasn't a manly tear in Germanicus's baby blue eyes.'

Uh-huh. I'd caught the tone loud and clear. 'So you didn't like him,' I said.

Secundus shifted in his chair. The breath hissed between his teeth and his eyes screwed shut. He looked grey as death and I thought for a moment he'd passed out, but before I could shout for Phidias the eyes were open again.

'Hey,' I said. 'You okay?'

'Yeah.' He took a deep breath. 'Sure. Sorry, Marcus. I forget sometimes to pamper this lump of meat and it gives me a gentle reminder.' Gods! If that was a gentle reminder I'd hate to see what a twinge was like. 'To answer your question, no, I didn't like Germanicus. Not a lot, anyway.'

'You mind telling me why?'

He grinned, or tried to. 'He was an actor, and I don't happen to like actors all that much. No, I don't mean he was playing a part, he was sincere enough as far as I could see. In fact the bastard oozed sincerity. But he had the actor's temperament. Whatever he did he couldn't help pitching to the gallery. Not his fault, it was the way he was made. And it certainly made him popular.'

Yeah. That fitted. It explained the histrionics in Germany and his visit to the site of the Varian massacre where, by all accounts, Rome's blue eyed boy had literally wept over the bones of her slaughtered legions before collecting what he could find of them for burial. Pious as well as sensitive. I saw what Secundus meant; Germanicus oozed so much sincerity it set your teeth on edge. But then I've never had much time for pious heroes. I hated Virgil's Aeneas at school, for a start; and like with Aeneas I would've found Germanicus a more sympathetic person if just once in his life he'd hauled off and metaphorically slugged the cat. Ah, well, maybe Dad was having more of an effect on me than I thought and I was getting cynical. If this weary world could still throw up the occasional hero then who was I to grouse?

'You know he called in at Troy?' Secundus was saying.

'What?' Following on to my thoughts about Aeneas the question startled me.

'Yeah. After he left us. Wrote a poem to be inscribed over Hector's tomb. Recited it at the dedication ceremony, too. Strange guy, for a Roman.'

'It's odd he and Drusus got on as well as they did, then.'

'Yeah. They were chalk and cheese.' Secundus paused. 'You heard the story of the two of them in the mutiny?'

Agron had mentioned the mutiny, too, although he hadn't gone into detail. It had been six years back, the year old Augustus died and the Wart took over. There had been two separate outbreaks at roughly the same time, in Pannonia and on the Rhine. Tiberius had sent Drusus to deal with the first, and Germanicus, who was the overall commander in Germany, had dealt with the second.

'No,' I said. 'No, I haven't.'

Secundus sipped his wine. He was looking a better colour now, but the sweat was a permanent oily sheen on his forehead. I was still trying to avoid looking at his leg. Just thinking about that formless mass of pulped flesh less than a yard from me made my balls shrink.

'The story tells you a lot about both of them,' Secundus was saying. 'The different ways their minds worked. Drusus went through the mutineers with his two battalions of the Guard like a dose of salts. No flash, just hard cunning and brute force. He had the ringleaders' heads spiked on the Tribunal before the month was out. Meanwhile Germanicus fucked around appealing to the Rhine squaddies' better feelings. He could've called on the two loyal legions further upriver for help, but he wouldn't do it and eventually it was too late. The result was an even bigger bloodbath than would've happened if he'd gone in hard to start with.' Secundus's lips pursed. 'No, I didn't like Germanicus, Marcus. That was him in a nutshell. An idealist who couldn't resist the grand gesture, however impractical it was and whatever it cost.'

'I thought the Rhine legions idolised him,' I said.

Secundus scratched his good leg absently. 'Sure they did. But he was sticking up for Tiberius, and that may've been honourable but it wasn't popular. If they hadn't felt so shamed by the fact that he was sending Agrippina and the kids away for safety they might even have got round to murdering him.' He grinned. 'That brat Caligula may need his backside tanning but he and his mother had more to do with putting down the mutiny than Germanicus did.'

'How did the two wives get on, by the way? Agrippina and Livilla?'

'We're talking about Pannonia now, right?' Secundus said. I nodded. 'Like fire and ice, Agrippina being the ice. I wouldn't care to bed either of those two, and they're both stunners so that's not the reason. Making love to Agrippina would be like screwing a marble statue. And Livilla's got too much of her grandmother in her for anyone's liking.'

'Her grandmother? You mean the empress?'

'Yeah. She and Drusus are well matched, maybe too well matched. The lady may be a hot little cookie in some ways but she's got a cold calculating streak a yard wide, and there's more in her head than fluff. Also she knows Tiberius has been playing favourites, and she doesn't like it above half.'

Uh-huh. This was something I hadn't thought of. I pricked up my ears.

'Is that right? Tell me.'

Secundus took a swallow of wine from his cup and set it down again. 'You've just got to look at the consuls for the past few years,' he said. 'Most of them've been Germanicus and Agrippina's friends. And Drusus may've got his own consul's chair five years back, but he didn't share it with the Wart. Germanicus did, twice.'

I sat back. Yeah. Yeah, that was true, and it was important: joint consulships with the emperor are the accepted way of showing imperial favour. Taking that together with Germanicus's prestigious eastern command and her dislike of Agrippina, it was no wonder if Livilla had been pissing her pants with jealousy. Then there was the matter of the children. As suspects Drusus and Livilla were beginning to look pretty promising material.

Someone coughed behind me: Secundus's slave Phidias. I turned round.

‘Excuse me, sir,' he said, 'but the Lady Furia Gemella has just arrived.'

I looked behind his shoulder and grinned. Furia Gemella was a curvy little brunette with tinkling earrings and breasts that'd knock the eyes out of an octogenarian priest. She was carrying what looked like a bowl of soup.

'I'm sorry, Gaius,' she said. 'I didn't know you were busy.' Nice voice, too.

I took my eyes off her just long enough to give Secundus a quick wink.

'No, that's okay,' I said. 'I was just leaving.'

'You sure, Marcus?' Secundus didn't exactly sound pressing. 'Gemella won't mind, I'm certain. Will you, Gemella?'

'Of course not.'

Yeah, I thought, and I'm a blue-rinsed Briton. The lady was sending me looks already that would've scuttled a trireme. I know when I'm not wanted. I got up.

'Thanks for the talk, pal,' I said. 'It's helped a lot.'

'I'm glad of that,' Secundus grinned. 'You married men need a bit of stimulation.'

I gave him the finger under the cover of my cloak. He beamed back at me and I turned to the brunette.

'Watch he doesn't dribble down his tunic when you feed him that soup,' I said.

Her rosebud mouth made an 'oh' of disapproval. Secundus chuckled and jerked his head.

'Piss off, you bastard,' he said.

I waved at him, grinned and left.

Perilla was getting changed after a bath when I got home. Too good a chance to miss.

'Marcus, for heaven's sake!' She squirmed away, or tried to.' It's the middle of the afternoon!'

'You noticed.' I took a mouthful of ear.

'Someone will come in. One of the slaves.'

'Not unless they want to be sold for cat's-meat.' I'd edged her over as far as the bed. Finally. I really would kill that architect. 'Ha! Gotcha!'

But I hadn't, because at the last moment she pulled back. 'What did you have for lunch?' she said.

Non sequiturs get me every time. I paused. 'What the hell does that have to do with anything, lady?'

'Just curious.' She kissed me. A long kiss, while I removed one of the few bits of clothing she'd been wearing when I grabbed her. 'After all, there must be some good reason for this. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. Academic interest only.'

'Okay. Leftover pork liver with bacon. Cold chickpeas with fennel. And half of a chicken and parsley dumpling. Satisfied?'

'Wine?'

'Uh…yeah. Just a few cupfuls.'

'Maybe it's the weather, then.'

'Mmmm.'

…at which point she gave up on academic interest and co-operated; and by the time we came up for air dietary considerations were forgotten.

We lay side by side for a while, staring at the plaster key pattern on the ceiling.

'Marcus?' Perilla said finally.

'Yeah?'

'Your brain's buzzing. I can hear it through your skull. What're you thinking about?'

'How lucky I am to wear my sandals in pairs.'

She sat up and stared down at me. 'What?'

'Sorry.' Well, she had asked me. 'My mind's going. Must be the booze.' I pulled her back down and we watched the cornice again. It didn't move at all. 'Hey, Perilla.'

'Mmm?'

'You ever wear these earrings with little chime bars in? The Egyptian things?'

'Of course not. I'd sound like part of a street band.'

I grinned and turned my head to kiss her cheek. 'Yeah. You're right. Terrible things, chime earrings. In the wrong hands. Ears.'

She stared at me. 'Are you all right?'

'Never better.' I winced. 'Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Why?'

'It's just that you seem a little strange this afternoon.'

What can you do when the woman in your bed says something like that? I kissed her, put the events of the morning out of my mind and set about proving to her and myself that I felt absolutely fine.

Really.