Rome's lost son

CHAPTER V

Snow, driven by a harsh easterly wind, lashed into Vespasian’s face. He pulled his hood lower and hunched his shoulders against the worsening conditions; his mount plodded next to a wagon creaking along the Via Egnatia pulled by a pair of rough-haired horses, their obvious reluctance to move forward into the wind punished by regular licks of Magnus’ whip. Hormus sat on the bench next to Magnus rubbing his hands and looking miserable with chattering teeth. Despite the knitted woollen mittens and socks, Vespasian’s fingers and toes were almost numb and he thought with envy of the relative comfort that Gaius must be enjoying in the covered rear of the vehicle and contemplated joining him.

‘I would if I were you, sir,’ Magnus said, giving his team another sharp reminder of their duty.

‘What?’

‘Get under cover. You’ve glanced over your shoulder three times since the last milestone.’

Vespasian looked up at the eleven lictors — the due of a man of proconsular rank on official business — marching in step in front of the wagon with their fasces on their shoulders and shook his head. ‘They’re having it far worse than I am; seeing as they’re the only protection we’ve got I want them well disposed towards me should I require them to risk their lives. Besides, it can’t be more than another four or five miles to Philippi.’

‘If that’s the case then we should be able to see a huge area of marshland to the south,’ Gaius called from inside.

‘We’re having trouble seeing the horses’ arseholes at the moment, sir,’ Magnus informed him, not quite truthfully. Gaius pushed his head through the flap in the leather wagon cover.

‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ Although the snow had only just started to fall thickly and was yet to settle in depth on the ploughed fields on either side of the dead-straight road, visibility was very limited. ‘Well, take it from me, Vespasian, that your grandfather on your father’s side and great-grandfather on your mother’s and my side were both here just over eighty-four years ago.’

Vespasian thought for a few moments and then remembered his history. ‘Of course they were, but on opposite sides of the field.’

‘Indeed, dear boy. My grandfather served with Augustus and Marcus Antonius in the Eighth Legion.’

‘And my grandfather, Titus Flavius Petro, was, if I remember rightly what my grandmother told me, a centurion of the Thirty-sixth Legion under Marcus Brutus’ command. She said that it was mainly made up of his old Pompeian comrades who had surrendered to Caesar after the Battle of Pharsalus.’

‘It’s a shame that we can’t see that far; between the two armies they fielded almost a quarter of a million men, which must have been quite a sight.’

‘On both occasions,’ Vespasian reminded Gaius. ‘Petro made it through the first battle and then his legion got badly mauled in the second, twenty days later when Brutus was crushed. He managed to escape and made it home to Cosa but he was amongst the couple of thousand equestrians that Augustus forced to commit suicide.’

‘Whereas mine was rewarded with the land of one of those men.’ Gaius chuckled. ‘And now here we are, all those years later, the products of either side of the argument in the breakup of the Republic, trundling across the site of the greatest battle between Roman citizens that’s ever been known, on our way to do the dirty work for two Greek freedmen who are the ultimate beneficiaries of that battle. It would seem that for all the cries of freedom issued by either side the end result has been domination of us all by a couple of ex-slaves. I wonder if Augustus, Marcus Antonius, Brutus or Cassius could have foreseen that and, if they could, would any of them have done things differently?’ He rubbed flakes of snow off his ruddy face, looked around quickly, his mouth pursed ruefully, and then disappeared back inside.

‘Course, it don’t make any difference for most of us, though, does it?’ Magnus stated with certainty. ‘If you was just a common legionary, whether you was on the winning side or losing side in that battle didn’t make a scrap of difference — if you survived, that is. Only a few legions were disbanded; the rest went back to business as usual. Whatever the political changes back in Rome, most of the legions just returned to their camps on the frontiers and guarded the Empire. The only change they noticed was that the oath was worded differently but everything else was the same: their centurions, their food, the discipline, everything was exactly as it was. So the whole exercise was purely for the benefit of a few vain men whose sense of honour meant that they had to be seen to have a say in how the Empire was run. If only they’d realised that most people couldn’t give a fuck. They could have dispensed with the armies and just had a nice scrap amongst themselves; a couple of hundred dead and the whole affair would’ve been sorted out and everyone would’ve been happy.’

Vespasian laughed, despite his freezing lips. ‘Much easier. But it didn’t happen that way and the result of that struggle and all those deaths has been hijacked by two self-serving freedmen.’

‘Ah! But at least they didn’t force a quarter of a million men to fight each other so that they could grab power. In a way Pallas and Narcissus have got less blood on their hands than Augustus. You senators almost resent the fact that they’ve come to power without a good civil war in which thousands of common citizens die; that would legitimize them in your eyes. Their greatest crime is sneaking their way to power rather than bludgeoning their way there like all those upstanding families in the Republic used to.’

Vespasian found himself unable to rebut that statement and instead wondered at the truth of it. To follow that line of logic, Augustus was the only ruler for the last eighty years to be legitimate because he had fought his way to power.

He had thought that his resentment of Narcissus and Pallas was mainly based on the way that they had come to power and then held on to it; but was their way any more unjustified than Caligula’s? He too had come to power by trickery and subterfuge if the rumours were to be believed. But then neither of the freedmen’s great-grandfathers had killed more of his enemies’ soldiers than they had his on this plain so far from Rome.

So, therefore, it was to do with who the freedmen were, not how they got to where they were, that was the real cause of the growing resentment. The resentment that he had felt when Narcissus had — as Pallas had predicted — ordered him to a private room as he left Pallas’ apartments had been bitter. The resentment had grown when the freedman had suggested that Vespasian’s appointment as ambassador to Armenia was a very convenient cover for him to use to stop off in Macedonia and speak to his brother so that he could furnish Narcissus with the information he needed to defeat Pallas. When he thought of Pallas he remembered him as Antonia’s steward. Then, he knew his place; now, he was forming imperial policy. He was a man who had risen way beyond his station and Vespasian realised, for the first time, that the real cause of his resentment for the pair of them was envy. Envy that people born so low should have risen so high. Ex-slaves had no right to such power. He came from a family far above them and yet they could order him to do things that he would rather not do. It began to seep into his mind that he was jealous of their power because he wanted it for himself, and if he were to have it he would have to take it in the old-fashioned manner: he would bludgeon — as Magnus had put it — his way there. Then the image of the ‘V’ on the sacrificial liver played in his mind and, much to his surprise, it seemed to calm him.

As the wind lessened and the snow thinned the wagon passed over the plain of Philippi and the walls of the city came into sight. Vespasian left his thoughts of power at the site of the battle that had decided so much and wondered, instead, how his brother would greet him after a three-year separation.

Before they reached the gates that granted access to the city of the living they passed through the city of the dead. Tombs lined the Via Egnatia for the last quarter of a mile or so; large and small and inscribed in both Latin and Greek attesting to the relative wealth and origin of the interred. But it was not just the dead in their cold and sombre dwellings that they passed; there were also the dying. Suspended between life and death, as they hung from crosses, a score or more of pain-wracked, newly crucified, naked men writhed above Vespasian and Magnus as they made their way. Groaning with agony, struggling for every breath, their flesh bluing in the bitter cold, some sobbed and some muttered what sounded to be prayers as their lives trickled away at a painfully sluggish pace.

‘Looks like Sabinus has been very busy,’ Magnus remarked as he cast a glance up at a youth who was staring in horror at the blood-crusted nail impaling his right wrist. Snow flurried around him.

Hormus flinched at the sight and lowered his head, keeping his eyes on the paved surface of the road as a wail of sheer agony rose from a man splayed out on a cross lying on the ground. The volume increased with every blow of the hammer, driving a nail through the base of his thumb, wielded by an auxiliary optio with the dexterity of one old in the way of crucifying men. The auxiliaries holding the victim down laughed at his torment and made jokes aimed at the last two shackled prisoners, eyes brimful of fear and tears, waiting their turn to be nailed to a cross, their breath misting from their mouths.

‘It must have been a serious incident if he’s been obliged to nail this many up,’ Vespasian observed, counting the crosses. ‘Twenty-two plus those last three.’ The executions did not surprise Vespasian: they had been told by the prefect of Thessalonike, on arrival in the capital of Macedonia, that the Governor had been called away the previous day to quell a disturbance in Philippi. This had not been an inconvenience as Philippi lay on their route, straddling, as it did, the main road to the East. ‘I’d guess that my brother has got the disorder in hand now; I can’t imagine that there are too many more who would wish to join them.’ He cast an eye over a bedraggled group of women, watching their menfolk’s execution in miserable impotence, flinching with every hammer-fall as the last nail was driven home and the screams intensified.

‘Well, whatever they’ve done they’re learning their lesson,’ Magnus said as he brought the wagon to a halt outside the city’s western gate.

The sight of eleven lictors and the flash of the seal on Vespasian’s imperial mandate were enough for the duty auxiliary centurion to allow the wagon through without searching it and to send a message on to Sabinus. Vespasian got down from his horse and, helped by Hormus, donned his senatorial toga before proceeding at a stately pace through the town, disdaining to notice its populace, to the Forum at the far end of which stood the residence used by the Governor. A crowd had gathered there, despite the snow, curious to see the high-status new arrival. With auxiliary soldiers smartly at attention lining the steps, Vespasian ascended with the dignity of a proconsul who would never for one moment question his authority or right to respect. Sabinus awaited him in front of the tall, bronze-plated double doors and took him into a formal embrace, to the cheers of the onlookers, before leading him into the building.

‘What are you doing here?’ Sabinus asked without much trace of fraternal affection.

‘And it’s lovely to see you too, Sabinus. Apart from finding out how you are and to bring news of our mother and your daughter and grandchildren, I’m here with Gaius to talk to you.’

Sabinus’ eyes flicked nervously sideways at his brother. ‘Are you here because of the Parthian embassy thing?’

‘The Parthian embassy fiasco, you mean?’ Vespasian enjoyed the pained look that shadowed Sabinus’ face. ‘Yes, but not to bring you any official reprimand. Despite the damage your failure did to our family, I’ve managed to strike a deal with Pallas to have you exonerated of all responsibility.’

‘How did you manage to do that?’

‘Say thank you and I’ll tell you.’

Sabinus pursed his lips. ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘But I think that the explanation will have to wait for dinner. I suspended a trial when I got the message that you’d arrived; I really should complete it.’

‘It’ll keep until dinner.’ Vespasian broke from his Sabine country burr and assumed the clipped accent of the old aristocracy. ‘I assume that you have dinner at the normal hour, even this far from Rome.’

Sabinus was forced to concede a smile. He clapped his younger brother on his back. ‘Do you know, it really is quite good to see you, you little shit.’

Sabinus took his seat at the far end of the high-ceilinged audience chamber in the Governor’s residence; braziers were placed to either side of him to supplement the heat rising from the hypercaust beneath the floor, which failed to fully warm the cavernous room. Vespasian, Gaius and Magnus slipped in through the double doors as Sabinus signalled to a waiting centurion to bring the accused back before him; a couple of clerks, seated at desks to one side, waited to record the proceedings. A woman in her late forties was led in by two auxiliaries; their hobnailed footsteps echoed around an otherwise empty hall, for Sabinus had decided to hold the trial inside in private because of the temperature in the Forum. As the accused was neither a Roman citizen nor male there could be no appeal against the Governor’s decision.

‘Where had we got to?’ Sabinus asked one of the clerks.

The clerk consulted the tablet in front of him. ‘The widow, Lydia of Thyatira, had admitted to giving the agitator, Paulus of Tarsus, lodgings during his stay here in Philippi two years ago.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Sabinus contemplated the well-dressed and evidently wealthy woman standing before him. Her hair was demurely covered and she stood with her hands clasped and her eyes lowered — the image of a respectable lady. ‘Did you allow Paulus to spread his treasonous teachings under your roof?’

‘We had prayer meetings most evenings,’ Lydia replied in a quiet voice.

‘She must be a follower of that nasty bow-legged bastard Paulus,’ Vespasian whispered to Magnus.

‘Who’s he, dear boy?’ Gaius asked.

‘He’s a preacher who’s been travelling around the East stirring up trouble in the name of that Jew that Pontius Pilatus had Sabinus crucify when he was in Judaea.’

Magnus spat in disgust and then wiped it off the floor with his foot as he remembered where he was. ‘We last saw him in Alexandria when he was busy stirring up trouble between the Greeks and the Jews — not that they needed much help.’

Sabinus was carrying on his questioning. ‘And at these meetings did he tell his followers not to make sacrifices to the Emperor when they renew their oath to him and instead ordered them to claim that they have the right to make a sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor and not to him like the Jews do, even though most of his followers here are Macedonians?’

Lydia did not raise her eyes from the floor. ‘There is only one god and Yeshua is his son.’

Gaius frowned. ‘One god? Whoever heard such nonsense? Who’s this Yeshua?’

‘Yosef’s kinsman, the Jewish trader; the one who helped us rescue Sabinus from the Vale of Sulis in Britannia we told you about?’ Vespasian answered, remembering with a chill druids manifesting the goddess Sulis in the body of a sacrificed girl. ‘Yosef revered Yeshua as a teacher but this Paulus has turned him into some kind of god, and a pretty exclusive god, just like that Jewish one from what I can make out.’

Sabinus glanced at Vespasian, evidently annoyed by hushed voices in the corner of his court, before turning back to the accused. ‘Are you a Jew?’

‘I am a Macedonian and before I met Paulus I was a godfearer.’

‘A god-fearer? What’s that?’

‘We are not Jews as such but worship their god. We do not follow the dietary rules of the Jews and the men do not subject themselves to circumcision. Paulus says that as followers of Yeshua we can honour their god without becoming Jews.’

Sabinus looked less than impressed. ‘I questioned Yeshua.’

‘You spoke with him?’ Lydia asked, forgetting her position.

‘Yes, before I executed him.’

Lydia’s eyes widened at this revelation. ‘You crucified the Christus?’

‘No, I crucified a man called Yeshua who died like any other man. And I can tell you that he didn’t like non-Jews; he called me a Gentile dog, in fact. So whatever nonsense this Paulus is telling you does not come from the teachings of Yeshua; Paulus is perverting them and in doing so has caused a lot of deaths. Do you know that he was the captain of the chief priest’s guard and was sent to claim Yeshua’s body after he’d been crucified so that he could bury it in secret? He persecuted Yeshua’s followers and I asked him why. What was he so afraid of? And he said: “Because he would bring change.” And yet now he seems to be doing the very thing that he feared. Do you really want to trust that man with your life? You can save yourself by telling me where he is, this man who tried to kill Yeshua’s woman and his children.’

‘I saved Yeshua’s wife and children from Paulus in Cyrene when he was trying to expunge all trace of Yeshua’s bloodline and teachings,’ Vespasian informed Gaius as Lydia contemplated the question.

Gaius frowned, confused. ‘But now he spreads them?’

‘It seems that he had a complete change of heart; although Alexander, the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews, thinks that he’s just discovered a way to make himself important.’ Vespasian closed his eyes, thinking. ‘I remember he said that he’s found a way to turn the world upside down with himself finally on the top.’

Lydia lifted her gaze to Sabinus. ‘I was the first person that Paulus baptised in Europa, here in Philippi in the River Gangites; I will not betray him.’

‘You in turn were betrayed by one of his followers who did not fancy spending his last hours on the cross.’

‘I will gladly suffer that fate rather than turn traitor.’

Sabinus paused, evidently less than willing to pronounce sentence on the woman. ‘What was your husband’s business before he died?’

‘He dealt in purple, not porphrya but the cheaper vegetable dye that comes from my home town.’

‘And you now run that business?’

‘As a widow I’m entitled to in law.’

‘And you are prepared to see all the hard work that your husband put in during his life to build up that business wasted, because, if I order your execution, I will confiscate your business. Are you that selfish as to think that Paulus is worth your dead husband’s life’s work?’

Lydia’s silence answered the question.

Sabinus’ fist slammed down on the arm of his curule chair. ‘Very well!’ he shouted. ‘Take her to the cells and leave her there for a few days to consider her position.’

The auxiliaries hauled Lydia away.

‘I will find him,’ Sabinus shouted after her, ‘whether you end your life in agony on a cross or in comfort from the spoils of your husband’s business. I will find Paulus!’

‘I had him,’ Sabinus growled, heading for the chamber door. ‘I had the arrogant little bastard.’

‘You did what, dear boy?’ Gaius asked, waddling hard to keep up with Sabinus’ bad-tempered pace.

‘I had him here, Uncle, locked up in prison.’ Sabinus thumped at the door before the startled auxiliary guarding it had a chance to open it entirely.

‘Here? Why didn’t you crucify him? If there’s one thing he needs it’s crucifixion.’

Vespasian understood the reason for his brother’s seeming omission. ‘That may be but it’s the one thing he can’t have. He’s a Roman citizen.’

‘He’s a what? Then why is he spreading such anti-Roman ideas like not making a sacrifice to the Emperor?’

‘Is that what he was arrested for?’ Magnus asked as they clattered down a cold, dimly lit corridor.

Sabinus slowed his pace. ‘No, it was before we knew he was encouraging such things. He claimed to have cast an evil spirit out of a slave girl of one of the leading magistrates here; she was a well-known seer. Mithras only knows whether he did or not, but the end result was that her powers of divination were gone and the magistrate was incensed because he lost the income from her soothsaying. He had Paulus and his companion whipped and then thrown into prison for tampering with his property without permission and referred the case to me. I had to decide what to do with the odious little shit; I couldn’t execute him because it was not a capital charge and his followers had not yet refused to take the oath to the Emperor. As he had the law on his side I was on the point of letting him go when there was an earthquake, not a big one, but big enough to break open the prison gates and Paulus and his companion were free. Of course, this was seen as divine intervention and proof that Paulus must be favoured by this god who is powerful enough to free him from gaol. However, he didn’t run but stayed in the gaol and demanded that I acknowledge that he had been treated unlawfully. Unfortunately he was right and I had to have the magistrate apologise to him for having him whipped. Once that had happened he left and the gaoler became a follower of his as well as a few score others in the town, some of whom are presently languishing outside the gates. It was terrible. After that he disappeared and I’ve lost all trace of him, although I do know that he was in Thessalonike because I’ve had to nail a few of them up there too. He leaves a trail.’

Gaius’ jowls wobbled with indignation. ‘Then why haven’t you followed it?’

‘Because it’s not continuous; you have to wait to see where the malignancy starts sprouting next and then hope that he hasn’t moved on. He seems to have headed south into Achaea. I’ve warned the Governor, Gallio, about him.’

‘Seneca’s brother?’

‘Yes, but he hasn’t heard even a rumour of him; it looks like we’ve lost him for the time being.’

‘You’re good at losing things at the moment,’ Gaius pointed out.

Sabinus stopped in front of a closed door, understanding exactly what his uncle was alluding to. ‘I was seasick; I couldn’t think straight.’ He turned and barged through the door into a triclinium with a table and couches set for the evening meal. ‘They sent out three ships as a diversion and whilst we were taking them the Parthians rowed by in a fast little liburnian. We didn’t have a hope of catching them.’

Vespasian shrugged, dismissing the explanation as a steward bustled in with Hormus and four slave girls following. ‘Well, it’s got us into a lot of unnecessary trouble and the end result is that I’ve got to go to Armenia.’ He launched into an account of the sequence of events that had followed Sabinus’ failure to deal with the Parthians, as the slave girls took their togas and shoes and then provided them with slippers and washed their hands in preparation for the meal.

‘So what could I possibly know that could prove that Agrippina is behind this?’ Sabinus asked when his brother had finished his tale.

‘Something that links the embassy to her. Something that Uncle and I will recognise. Tell us all you know about them.’

Sabinus scratched his thinning hair and accepted a cup of wine from his steward. ‘Well, the agent said that there were three of them all richly attired as if kings in their own right in order to impress. They were men of influence, their leader was a cousin of Vologases, the Great King of Parthia. They brought gifts of gold, incense and spices for each of the Kings that they met.’

‘What were their names?’

‘There was the Dacian King, Coson, Spargapeithes of the Agathyrsi — they’re Scythians who worship Thracian gods and seem to enjoy dying their hair blue. Then there was Oroles of the Getae and Wisimar of the Bastarnae who are Germanic. And countless chieftains of all the sub-tribes of each nation.’

Vespasian looked at his uncle as the gustatio of six varied dishes was carried in. ‘Do any of the names mean anything to you?’

‘My dear boy, they all sound positively barbarous.’

Magnus, unsurprisingly, looked equally uninspired.

‘Did you ever find out just what was discussed?’

Sabinus shook his head with regret and helped himself to some of the leek and egg salad. ‘No, I couldn’t send the agent back because he insisted on reporting to his real pay-master.’

‘But we don’t know who that is.’

‘Oh, but we do. His pay-master, or mistress actually, is our old friend the former Queen Tryphaena.’

‘Tryphaena! You’re in contact with her?’

‘Not as such; but she does share information with me occasionally. She’s instructed her agents to report things to me if they deem their information to be of interest to Rome. She is very helpful to me.’

‘She is also Agrippina’s cousin,’ Gaius said slowly, his mouth full of semi-chewed sausage.

‘I suppose it’s a connection but it hardly proves that Agrippina set this embassy in motion, and anyway, why would Tryphaena draw it to your attention if she was in league with her cousin?’

‘Because, dear boy, she doesn’t know about the embassy; that must be it. She may be the great-granddaughter of Marcus Antonius but on the other side of her family she is a princess of Pontus.’

‘I thought that she was Thracian.’

Gaius wagged the remains of his sausage at his nephew. ‘She married a Thracian king but she has no Thracian blood; she’s Greek. Her family have provided kings and queens for half the client kingdoms in the Empire and beyond. Her younger brother is King Polemon of Pontus and her elder brother Zenon was also known as King Artaxias, the third of that name, of Armenia.’ Gaius let the last word hang for a few moments as everyone contemplated the significance and wondered if it was just a coincidence. ‘When he died,’ Gaius continued, ‘the Parthians tried to place their own king on the Armenian throne but we wouldn’t accept that so we compromised by having Mithridates, the brother of the Iberian King, crowned instead.’

‘So why would Tryphaena want to replace the uncle with Radamistus the nephew?’

‘Radamistus’ mother is the daughter of Artaxias, Tryphaena’s brother. Mithridates is no relation to her, but Radamistus is her nephew. She’s ensuring that her blood-family remain in control of Armenia.’

‘Then why alert us to the embassy that seems to have triggered this all off?’

‘Because she didn’t know about it. The embassy didn’t trigger the crisis off, it’s just been timed to seem that way. Tryphaena isn’t being disloyal to Rome; if anything she’s securing our position in Armenia by replacing a compromise puppet king with a controllable one. Radamistus will be loyal because Tryphaena will see to it that he is.’

‘So, Narcissus is wrong,’ Sabinus said. ‘Agrippina hasn’t committed treason.’

A smile slowly crept across Vespasian’s face as the truth dawned on him. ‘No, brother, he’s not wrong; far from it. He’s seen a pattern. Tryphaena’s agent that came to you was murdered by an assassin of Agrippina’s on the way to inform his mistress; Narcissus’ freedman Argapetus intercepted the message from the killer. This tells us two things: first, that Agrippina didn’t want Tryphaena to know about the embassy and, second, that Agrippina must have known about it. How else could she have given orders to her people to prevent news of it reaching Tryphaena’s ears?’

Magnus drained his cup and held it out for more. ‘And why didn’t she want Tryphaena to know about it?’

Gaius had followed Vespasian’s logic. ‘Because, Magnus, it would have alerted her to the fact that Agrippina had used her. I would hazard that it was at Agrippina’s suggestion that Tryphaena supported her nephew’s usurpation of the Armenian throne, and I would guess that the timing of it was made to look as if it was sparked by the embassy travelling through Iberia so that we would blame the Parthians and therefore march an army in to restore Mithridates.’

Sabinus looked confused. ‘But you said that Radamistus would be loyal to Rome; why would we want to get rid of him?’

‘This is the clever bit of Agrippina’s plan: Tryphaena suspects nothing, she readily agrees to placing her nephew on the throne; as she sees it, it’s good for her family and good for Rome. But then we see that Radamistus invades from Iberia at exactly the moment that a Parthian embassy is in the kingdom and so we assume that the two things are linked and that it’s a Parthian plot. Meantime, Agrippina manoeuvres Claudius into recalling Rome’s up and coming general, Corbulo, and has him posted to a province close to Armenia. Now play out the scenario, Sabinus.’

Sabinus sighed. ‘We demand that Mithridates is restored but we’re probably too late as he would have been murdered along with his family. Then we negotiate with Radamistus, who refuses to go. Parthia sees the new King as too pro-Roman because of his blood-tie with Tryphaena and demands that he is removed, which confuses us so we decide to let matters rest. This will then prompt a military response from Parthia that we will, in turn, have to counter with a proven general who just happens to be in the region, and before we know it we have a war with Parthia.’

Vespasian spread his hands to emphasise the simplicity of the scheme. ‘Exactly; and at the same time the northern tribes swarm over the Danuvius as arranged by the embassy and the situation starts to look very bleak, and who will be blamed? The Emperor; old, drooling, drunk most of the time and not at all popular with the Senate; time for him to go and no one will look too closely if he just suddenly drops down dead. And if he does that soon then there’ll be only one choice to succeed him: Nero. That’s what this is all about: it’s ensuring that Claudius is removed before Britannicus comes of age and blurs the inheritance issue. Nero comes to the throne, Corbulo wins a great victory and Nero, the grandson of the great and martial Germanicus who also famously prevailed in the East, takes the credit, celebrates a Triumph in the first year or so of his reign, making him very popular and securing his position. Brilliant.’

‘So the evidence of Agrippina’s treachery is with Tryphaena,’ Gaius concluded.

‘Yes, we need to talk to her.’

‘She’s at Cyzicus on the Asian coast of the Propontis,’ Sabinus informed them glancing around at the window onto the courtyard; hobnailed boots clattered across at an urgent speed. ‘I’ll organise a ship for you.’

‘Then we can pass by on the way to Armenia.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Why would you want to do that? You’ll spend the whole voyage vomiting.’

‘I need to talk to her about putting down all resistance in Thracia to Rome once and for all; if we’re threatened by the northern tribes, I cannot afford to have disloyal nobles in the south. She will know who they are, their weaknesses and what to bribe or threaten them with. After we’ve spoken with her you can drop me at Byzantium; it’s time I visited the city and gave it a taste of Roman justice. You can sail on up through the Bosphorus into the Euxine and then along the northern coast of Bithynia to Trapezus in Pontus. From there it’s about two hundred miles over mountainous terrain to Armenia.’

Magnus held out his cup for yet another refill as a slave entered with a platter of grilled diced lamb on skewers. ‘There is one thing that doesn’t fit: for all this to have worked, Agrippina would have had to know the timing of the Parthian embassy; how could she have known that?’

‘That’s the fact that proves her treason: she couldn’t have known about it unless she instigated it. It’s what Narcissus suspected but couldn’t prove: she’s been in contact with the Par-’ Vespasian was cut short by the auxiliary centurion who had allowed him into the city bursting into the room; Vespasian’s senior lictor was close behind him.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Sabinus almost shouted.

‘I’m sorry, sir, excuse me,’ the centurion puffed, his eyes darting around the occupants of the room, ‘but you need to come to the western gate; there’s been an attack.’

Vespasian and Sabinus walked at a dignified pace behind the centurion who was doing his best to restrain himself from breaking into a run. Vespasian’s lictors carried torches to light the way through the city that was now muffled by a blanket of snow.

‘I apologise for the meal; the cook is local,’ Sabinus said, trying to keep an air of nonchalance in his voice. ‘I left my cook behind in Thessalonike when I raced here a few days ago to round up those idiots who’d started a riot rather than make their annual sacrifice.’

‘What makes them think that they have the right to change their oath of loyalty?’ Gaius asked, gnawing on a skewer of lamb as he waddled along behind, evidently not sharing the same reservations as Sabinus about the local cook’s ability; Hormus followed him with some reserve skewers.

Sabinus sighed. ‘Paulus has convinced them that the highest power is not the Emperor — or his wife and freedmen — but this Yeshua and his father, who was the Jewish god but now seems to be everybody’s god. Anyway, after things had come to a head I gave them the choice between obeying the law or opting out of society on a permanent basis.’

‘And them that made the wrong decision are the ones hanging around outside the gates, if you take my meaning?’ Magnus observed, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders as Gaius handed a finished skewer to Hormus, receiving a new one in return.

‘Yes, about half of them made that choice. It’s beyond me; perhaps they like the idea of dying in the same manner as their beloved Yeshua.’ Sabinus shivered. ‘He was a hard man; I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody with such strong will. It was as if he could push you over with just one look from his piercing eyes. But somehow I couldn’t dislike him. I had to order that his death be hastened so that his body wouldn’t still be on the cross on what the Jews call the Sabbath, which is their sacred day every seven days; but rather than have his legs broken, I ordered merciful death and had him speared instead. I don’t know why but I just didn’t want him to suffer. Then I allowed his mother, wife and his kinsman Yosef to take his body even though the chief priest had sent his men for it, mainly just to annoy Paulus.’

‘But it also put Yosef in your debt,’ Vespasian pointed out as they approached the closed western gate, ‘and without him you would have died at the hands of the druids.’

Sabinus blew on his hands, rubbing them.‘True, but now I wish that I’d given it to the priests to bury in secret; then we wouldn’t be having all this rubbish about Yeshua coming back to life three days later, just as my Lord Mithras did, to show that death could be beaten.’

‘It would be a potent message if you could believe it.’

Sabinus signalled for the gate to be opened. ‘From what I’ve seen, it is a potent message for the poor who have nothing in this world.’

‘We’re promised all in the next.’

The gate swung opened but neither Vespasian, Sabinus, Gaius nor Magnus walked through; they just stared in shock at the source of the remark. Hormus lowered his eyes, his pallid face coloured.

‘Are you one of these, Hormus?’ Vespasian asked, recovering himself.

‘I know of them, master; there are growing numbers amongst the slaves in the houses on the Quirinal but I have not joined their sect.’

‘What do you know about the sect?’

Hormus held the lamb skewers close to his chest with both hands as if seeking protection from them. ‘Only that God loves us all, even someone as irrelevant as me, and the way to him is by following the teachings of his son, Yeshua, the Christus, who died for us.’

‘My Lord Mithras is the way to God,’ Sabinus asserted dismissively, turning and walking through the gate. ‘We follow his light and at the Lord’s Supper we are cleansed by the blood of a bull and nourished by its flesh.’

‘They are cleansed by the blood of Yeshua, the Lamb of God, and gain sustenance by eating his body.’

Gaius wrinkled his nose. ‘That’s disgusting.’

Vespasian shook his head as he followed his brother out through the gate. ‘I don’t think it’s literal, seeing as he died nineteen years ago; it’s symbolic. Magnus and I have seen it done.’

‘We have?’ Magnus looked puzzled.

‘Yes, with Yosef in his house on the Tor in Britannia. He filled a cup with wine, remember? He said that the cup had belonged to Yeshua.’ Vespasian looked up at the line of sillouhetted, occupied crosses. ‘Then he shared a loaf of bread and made us drink and eat. I thought that it was strange at the time but then I remembered in Alexandria someone saying that Paulus claimed to turn bread and wine into Yeshua’s body and blood, and I realised that Yosef had just done the same thing.’

‘Well, he didn’t do it too well, did he? I ate bread and drank wine.’

‘I know, you drained the cup. But the point is it’s symbolic.’

‘So what happened here, centurion?’ Sabinus asked, coming to a halt at a cross lying on the ground, its occupant missing; two bodies lay close to. He signalled to one of the lictors to come closer with a torch.

The centurion swallowed. ‘I don’t rightly know, sir. I had the gate closed at the sunset curfew as usual and left a couple of the lads outside just to keep an eye on the crosses.’

‘Just a couple?’

The centurion winced. ‘Well, what with the weather and all I didn’t think-’

‘No, you didn’t, did you.’ Sabinus bent down and looked at the bodies of the two dead auxiliaries. ‘They’ve both had their throats cut, so I suppose they were taken by surprise from behind by whoever took down this cross.’ He touched one of the wounds. ‘The blood’s drying so they’ve been dead for at least half an hour or so. When did you find them, centurion?’

‘When their relief went out. I came straight to you to report it myself.’

‘As if that would help excuse your slackness; a patrol of just two men outside the gates at night.’ Sabinus shook his head in disbelief as he looked at the empty cross; the nails had been wrenched out but their positions were marked by blood glinting in the torchlight. ‘Who did they take down?’

‘The young lad, sir; I don’t know his name.’

Sabinus took the torch from the lictor and walked along the line of crosses touching the flame to the torso of each victim; a few groaned but none showed any sign of strength, their breath was forced and shallow as the last of their life slipped away. ‘Well, he won’t survive the night and anyway he’d be a total cripple if he did.’ He looked back down at the vacant cross. ‘That seems to be wanting an occupant, centurion.’

‘Er, yes, sir.’

‘Get that woman Lydia and nail her up instead.’

‘What, now?’

‘Yes, now! I’ll not have people interfere with Roman justice and I’ll show them what happens if they try to.’ Sabinus thrust the torch at the centurion and turned on his heel. ‘Just who do these people think they are? You’re the expert, Hormus, tell me, what do they really believe?’

‘They believe that through Yeshua the meek will gain strength in the next life.’

‘Who the fuck are the meek?’ Magnus asked, taking one of Gaius’ lamb skewers from Hormus. ‘I’ve never heard of them. What have they got to do with it?’

Vespasian was thoughtful. ‘I think that in the context of Paulus’ religion the meek are just about everybody in the Empire who’s not of magisterial rank, a merchant or in the army. Comparatively few other people have any wealth to speak of, so aiming a message promising more at the meek who want more is clever.’

‘Fucking meek!’

Gaius pointed a half-finished skewer at Sabinus. ‘The one thing that I can see from all this is that it’s a very dangerous new movement. If you start having these meek people believe that everything is going to be far better in an afterlife so that they stop worrying about what they get up to in this life, thereby lies chaos, dear boys.’ He waved his skewer at the crucified men. ‘Look at those idiots you had to deal with yesterday: they practically nailed themselves to their crosses judging by what you said. Granted, it can’t be a very pleasant way to die, not like lying in the bath with an open vein, but if they think that they’re marching off to another world where they’re not going to be meek any more then we’ll be getting a whole underclass that has no fear of death, and then how will we control them and who will do the work? It’ll be like another slave revolt; there aren’t many people who don’t shudder at the name of Spartacus. If this carries on, the names of Paulus and Yeshua will resonate just as nastily as his still does.’

‘What would you recommend, Uncle?’ Sabinus asked, heading back towards the gate.

‘Kill the lot of them; get them off to their non-meek world as soon as you can before this thing starts to grow. Don’t imprison them or send them down the mines because they’ll just infect other unsuspecting meek people with their twaddle. But most of all you’ve got to find and execute this Paulus and put a stop to the filth that he’s spreading.’