Rome: The Emperor's spy

Chapter Thirty-One

‘The kithara is played by Rhemaxos,’ Nero said languidly. ‘Do you like it?’

They were in the private imperial baths, exactly as Ajax had predicted, and, despite his best efforts to cleave close to the rest of the Green team, Math was alone with Nero, standing up to his chest in scalding water that sought out every scrape and cut and lapped at them viciously.

He wanted to lie down, to savour again the moments of flying, to find if they might, at last, portend the beginnings of his success as a driver. Instead, he shifted his weight to lean back against the pink marble of the pool’s edge and let one filthy foot rise up. Scrubbing at it with the heel of his hand, he said, ‘The music is beyond words, lord. All of Alexandria is. Compared to Coriallum, this is a city for the gods.’

He spoke Latin with the inflections of court. A winter in the compound had taught him that. He had learned a measure of diplomacy, too, although he had no idea if it was enough to keep him safe.

Each time he looked at Nero, he saw in his mind’s eye an image of the baker, who had died by imperial order, and heard in his mind’s ear Pantera’s warning that if he ever gave way to Nero’s blandishments the emperor would tire of the chase and have Math slaughtered afterwards, or do it himself in the throes of lust.

He had met men like that before and survived them, but in Coriallum, if he had made eyes at a client and then changed his mind, he could simply have vanished into the alleyways and both would have forgotten it within a day.

Here, now, there was no possibility of quiet anonymity. By Akakios’ decree, Math was a hostage to Hannah’s ‘good behaviour’, his life inextricably linked to hers. He wondered if Nero knew that too, and decided he probably did.

He scraped the mud from his toenails with his fingers, dropped his foot back into the water and lifted the other one. Under Nero’s limpid gaze, even something so grubbily basic as cleaning his feet was, it seemed, to be transformed into an erotic invitation. If Math had any doubts on that score, the echoes were above and all around, in mosaics and murals of lechery.

Here on the side wall, the nymph Echo lay naked before Narcissus, her fingers resting lightly on her groin. A little further away, wing-heeled Mercury disported himself with human maids and youths, beguiling them with his brilliance. High up in the domed ceiling, satyrs joined with water spirits, gods with goddesses and mortal women, all modelled on the same tight-breasted girl. The men all had hair that curled about their heads, as Nero’s did.

To bring it all from the walls to reality, white linen cloths lay at the pool’s edge, ready for whomsoever should leave first. Beyond, bedrooms furnished with silk lay with their doors open and beautiful slaves waited tactfully in the background. The lyre’s notes drifted down from the high gallery, at times light as wild blossom in spring, at others stirring as a martial anthem.

A crash of military chords sent a hero to his death. In the lull afterwards, Nero rolled over on to his stomach sending waves teasing across the pool towards Math. Beneath the water, his skin was broiled to the same pink hue as the marble that walled the pool.

‘Alexandria is indeed made for the gods,’ he said pensively. ‘It’s unsurpassed in our empire, except only for Rome. You will see that soon for yourself.’

‘To see Rome, lord, we must win the race against the Blues and the Whites,’ Math said. ‘As you saw today, we are well matched.’

‘No.’ Nero blew on the water, making complex patterns of ripples. ‘What we saw today was that you are all capable of appearing well matched, that the White boy is prone to indulgences of exhilaration, while you and the Blues’ second held your nerve. Above all, we saw that Ajax and Poros are drivers of exceptional talent. We did not see all three teams well matched.’

Math felt his bladder tighten. He remembered something Pantera had said about being honest with this man. Truthfully, he said, ‘The Greens and the Blues are well matched, Lord. If it’s true that the baker was selling information, he couldn’t have sold news of which would win, because none of us knows.’

‘Which is exactly what he sold. That, and news of a damaged tendon that was healed before he ever got word of it.’

‘So, why-’

‘He died for the principle that our compound remains sealed, not for the value of what he knew.’

Abruptly, Nero kicked out towards the deepest end of the pool. There, goat-footed Pan in bronze played his reed pipes to a trio of nymphs. They were polished often, but still the heated water spread green rust on the tips of their elbows and in the creases of their knees.

Easing himself round Pan’s raised right hoof, Nero came to sit on a ledge that let him submerge up to his neck. He crooked a finger, calling Math to him. Math checked again on the positions of the others in case he had the chance to call on them. At the pool’s shallower end, the artful pages still held Ajax, Poros and Lentus in a group. The other boys were playing dice with a pair of guards. Caught between them, Akakios looked no more bitter than any man who was forced to disport himself naked with boys he has ordered flogged and men who would see him dead in a heartbeat if they but had the power.

‘Does Akakios frighten you?’ Nero asked, as Math splashed round to join him.

‘He does, lord. Only a fool would not fear him. Except my lord, of course, who need fear no man.’

‘Indeed. Such is his bane and his bounty and the reason he is so useful to us. But you should not be afraid of him. Remember that, whatever he threatens; you have our protection. But we asked how you thought you might best get to Rome?’

Nero turned to lie on his back, letting his hands drift across the oily water, keeping his linen cover decently over his groin as if either one of them might be surprised at the wonder they found there. There was a question in his eyes.

Creasing his brow, Math said, ‘Ajax is the better of the two drivers. Poros has been here longer and has the fitter team. To beat him, we must use our horses to their best advantage. I think we might take some spars from the race-chariot to make it lighter and that way give Brass and Bronze a better chance.’

Nero shook his head. ‘That won’t do it. Not unless you take so much wood from the chariot that it falls apart.’ At his signal, a slave brought him wine in a goblet that might have been carved from a single piece of amber. He drank, and spilled a little in the pool as a libation to the gods. It stained the water, thin as blood. Nero slid through it to Math’s side and gripped his arm.

‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Poros runs fours stallions in his team while Ajax runs only Brass and Bronze, with two geldings behind. We believe that if he were to run Brass and Bronze in front, with Sweat and Thunder behind, he would win, and you would come to Rome. We wish you to come to Rome, but it must be done fairly.’

It was framed as a suggestion, but emperors never made suggestions; they gave orders which were followed. So Math frowned as if the concept of running all four of the Green team’s colts together were a new one, not something he chewed over once every half-dozen days with Ajax until the arguments on both sides were worn thin and his ears dulled with all the reasons why it wouldn’t work.

One reason, actually: Bronze hated Thunder with a vast and deadly passion and was hated equally in his turn. However much both stallions might give to their racing, if ever they were harnessed to the same rig there would be carnage.

The northern tribes of the snow wastes, it was said, bred horses for fighting. They set stallions one against the other in a pen and then ate the loser, letting only the final victor of a season’s battles mate with their mares. The men mated with the mares first, apparently.

Math wasn’t sure he believed that, but if ever Bronze was stolen away in the night, he was sure he would only have to search the nearest northmen’s camp to find him serving their mares, having killed every other stallion in single combat.

None of which was worth saying aloud. There was, in fact, no way out. For the fifth or sixth time, he strove to catch Ajax’s eye. Miraculously, he succeeded, but it came to nothing. Ajax blinked twice, to show he had seen, and then tilted his head a little to his left, to where Akakios had clearly positioned himself between him and Nero.

‘The horses would need to be schooled for such a thing, but it’s not impossible.’ Math chewed his lip as a thought came to him. ‘We have three days until the trial against Poros is due to run. Perhaps if it could be put back for a further two days, that would give us time to try out your idea and make it work?’

Across the pool, something had changed. Akakios had taken a step to the left and Ajax was coming at last, drifting slowly through the chest-high water, his colour pinked by the heat from torso to gleaming scalp. Nero saw him and let go of Math’s arm.

Relief made Math reckless. He splayed his hands and slid them through the water, making of them chariots and horses that raced side by side. ‘Could you do such a thing? Could you set the trial back by another two days so we can try out the four colts together a few times before we have to race?’

‘We are emperor. We can do anything.’ The water surged as Nero levered himself up on to the tiled pool side. Slaves ran forward, bringing towels for his torso, his shoulder, his hair. Behind them, the pool emptied as other men, too, brought their bathing to a close.

Math lifted himself out and sat naked at the pool’s edge. Nero handed him his own towel, reeking of rose-oil, wine and hot sweat.

‘But we cannot do as you ask,’ Nero said sadly. ‘The senate makes demands on us that we cannot ignore. We leave for Rome on the fifth day from now and would take you with us. You may therefore have one day extra, so four in total. It is not beyond you and Ajax to work your magic with the horses by then, surely?’