The Art of War

Chapter 11

Rome, 3 August AD 69

Antonius Matthias, freedman of the lady Antonia Caenis

We had heard the tumblers in the street outside. My lady was writing a letter to the master, I think; she wrote him a great many letters through that summer. She was his eyes and ears in Rome. Did she send them? Some — not most, but enough — made their way east with messengers she could rely on.

The evening in question, the first we knew of anything amiss was the sound of the crowd surging past, raucous, crude, boorish, loud; all that my lady least liked about Romans en masse. It’s true that she was born here and she had only once been outside Rome and that was to the island of Kos, lately, with her lord, but she had Greek blood in her veins and that is always more civilized, don’t you agree? We both knew that Athens bore herself with a dignity that Rome could never match. That night was proof in point.

We ignored the commotion until we heard someone come close, heard the slurred words and the splash of urine as they pissed on the side of the house, and then they knocked.

My lady would have gone to the door right then — she has the courage of a lion — but I persuaded her to step back and let me answer.

I opened to a man of no consequence and was closing it again when I saw the ring: the oak leaves in gold. I could not turn away any man who bore that. And so I invited them in and took them through to the atrium, where were the couches for visitors. My lady called out and I answered and she came to meet them.

She saw the lady Jocasta first, of course. She was breath-taking, if your mind turns that way, the kind of woman some men lose their heads for: tall, elegant, very graceful in a composed way. She had the true patrician gaze of the noble woman, the one that disdains everyone below them, although I am pleased to say she had the good breeding not to turn it on my lady Caenis.

In looks, she had a neck like a swan, a high, arched brow, and her hair… in years to come, men will take out the poems they wrote to her hair, and re-read them and remind themselves of their fecund youth.

It was raven black, with the blue-brilliant sheen of a perfect feather, and as she walked she pulled out the garish pins that had held it up and let it fall back and back and back past her shoulders, until it swayed halfway down to her waist. Even I, who have never looked on a woman as more than a friend, could not help but imagine her naked. Even my lady was struck by her beauty; I heard the suck of her breath.

But Jocasta was right in what she told you; my lady had been trained by the best. The lady Antonia taught her long ago that the stranger standing in the shadows is always more interesting — and far more dangerous — than whoever is in the light, and nine times out of ten she was right.

I had signalled her with my eyes, but she was already looking towards Pantera. She knew there was a man, you see; she had heard him at the door and so she was looking for him as she walked out of the side room, and, after that one striking moment of looking at Jocasta, she found your Pantera.

He was by the pool, a little back, where the reflections from the water wrought ripples in the air, making of him a shimmering shadow, an almost-not-there spirit. Their eyes locked for a moment, and he gave a small bow. Then my lady spoke.

‘He is alive?’ No name was mentioned. Caenis glanced meaningfully back to the blue silk curtain that blocked Domitian’s doorway; the young lord, you understand, lived with the lady when his father was away.

He was safe with us, and kept himself to himself, but the one thing guaranteed to draw him out of his studies was his father’s name, and I could tell she didn’t want him to come out yet; not until she knew why these two had come. He’s a sensitive boy, and there’s no saying how he would have taken bad news of his father.

Jocasta understood at once. She said, ‘My lady, he is alive and well and sends you his earnest regards. Is there somewhere we may speak in more detail?’

Her necklace was gone with the hair pins and she had wiped the paint from her lips. Without them, she was a different woman. Caenis took her at her word and led them through to the garden.

Here, songbirds, tame to my lady’s hand, followed her about. The small fountain, barely up to knee height, shaped like a rising carp, spilled water into the central pool, making sound enough to cover a quiet conversation from all but those engaged in it.

My lady put her back to an olive bough, seeking the security of its strength as she often did in those early days. ‘Swiftly, then, what brings you here? Is he wounded?’

This time, Pantera answered. ‘My lady, he was in good health when I left him. He was injured in the knee by a sling-stone while assaulting one of the minor cities of Judaea in the winter, but you know of that.’

Caenis did know of that; it didn’t prove that Vespasian had sent this pair, but it was at least a step in the right direction.

‘Then why has he sent you here to- Oh! ’ Her hand flew to her mouth. She is so fast; she thinks things through in a flash. I could tell that even Pantera was impressed. He tipped his head in invitation to her to continue.

She put her fingers together, as she does when she is marshalling an argument. ‘For reasons that will be obvious to you,’ she said, ‘I cannot leave Rome, nor can Sabinus, nor Domitian. You know this: to be safe, we must continue to declare our support for the emperor Vitellius. If we are seen to run, it will be taken as a sign of disloyalty and our lives will be forfeit. This is obvious, and he for whom we care most would not ask you to take us away from Rome. Therefore, he has sent you to offer us protection: he would do that.’

Pantera smiled a little, bowed, even paid her a compliment. ‘My lady, I knew you must be exceptional for your general to have loved you so long, but he did not tell me you had the sharpest mind in Rome. I came expecting to spend the entire evening discussing that which you have just laid out so clearly: you cannot safely leave Rome, but none the less your safety is my first priority. Whatever else happens, it matters most to the general that his family remains unharmed. Perhaps, now, we can discuss how that may be done?’

She saved his life with her quickness, didn’t she? That may not be a good thing, with all that came afterwards, but I don’t think she would have done it differently, even if she had known.

At the time, she said simply, ‘It is best, I believe, to speak as we find. If you are to be our protector, it might be constructive if the general’s son were to be privy to the conversation.’

And so, after all that, there was nothing to be done but to call for Domitian, and let Pantera learn how different was the second of Vespasian’s sons from his brother.