The Art of War

Chapter 28

Rome, 4–5 August AD 69

Caenis

‘ Lady! ’

It was not Matthias who broke my dreams this time, but young Toma, who rises early every morning to bake the day’s bread, and whose twin sister Dino cooks the rest of my meals.

‘A man is here. He says you will see him. It is about the matter of Antony’s horse.’

Toma, bless him, has no clue about my past, no knowledge of history, no curiosity, unless it concerns the better resting of bread dough.

I prised my eyes open, dragged myself back from the waters of Lethe. ‘Show him into the atrium. I’ll be with you presently.’

‘Lady, he is already there.’

And so he was, but all the same, I had to look to find him. Pantera was sitting on my unswept floor with his back to the fountain, his knees drawn to his chin, his skin slick with tiredness, veins marbling his dye-darkened temples.

Without opening his eyes, he said, ‘Caenis?’

‘What?’ I crouched beside him, and smelled from myself the staleness of sleep and late middle age. ‘You’ll kill yourself if you don’t stop.’

‘Soon. I’ll sleep soon. But you and I must have… ways of talking that are not overheard. The other three men who carried your litter tonight, the big Briton, the boss-eyed Gaul, the gelded priest; you can trust them. And the silver-boys; the tongues, the skins, the hands. They will be true to us.’

I had thought they were only true to me. In a moment’s clear sight, I said, ‘You were one of them?’

‘A long time ago, but they recognize their own.’

‘And their loyalty is absolute.’

‘When you have nothing else of value, loyalty is the greatest coin. They won’t betray us. Anybody else might: Domitian, Sabinus, Jocasta, Trabo — particularly Trabo. He plays the innocent too well.’

‘You really think that Domitian or Sabinus might betray us?’

‘I know that they might. What I don’t know is whether they will.’

He was so tired. His voice dragged with the need to sleep. I said, ‘What is it you want to talk about?’

‘Antony’s messenger service, the Antonine Horse. We spoke of it earlier.’

I opened my mouth to say… I would like to think I was going to say all the things that are obvious now, but I didn’t. Only: ‘Speak, then, or ask what you need to know.’ All the things we didn’t talk about in Sabinus’ company.

He was awake then, animated; impossible not to join in his enthusiasm.

‘This must be between us only, you and me, but if we can revive the messenger service, if we can bring together the men whose grandfathers swore fealty to Antony, whose fathers gave their oaths to Antonia, who are now sworn to you, we will have a network that crosses the empire that Lucius doesn’t know about and so cannot suborn. We need to be able to send messages swiftly and safely. This is our means to do it.’

He spoke crisply, with a clarity that had been missing in the small hours of the morning. Of course, I know now that Domitian was listening. And Jocasta too? Did he know that? I suppose we must assume he did. How much it cost him to speak with such clarity I will never know. A lot, I am sure.

At the time, I was still wrestling with what he was saying, and the implications for my family.

I said, ‘Sabinus knows of this. We discussed it in his house up the hill.’ Less than half a day before, though it felt like an age.

Pantera nodded. ‘And so if Lucius finds out, it will be because Sabinus has told him.’

His eyes were still and cool and his gaze held mine and because of that I did not look towards the blue silk curtain and Domitian’s room on the other side.

I said, ‘You would sacrifice something so precious, to test his loyalty?’

Pantera said, ‘Vespasian may be in open contest against Vitellius, but Lucius and I are engaged in our own, more private war. Each of us is trying to outwit the other, acting second hand through proxies who are themselves not always reliable. Men can be bought, and bought back and bought back again, owned by both sides or neither.

‘The Antonine Horse is a pearl of highest value. For something this big even Lucius may become careless, and in this war whoever makes the first mistake will lose not only his life, but all he has fought for.

‘Sabinus knows the theory, but only you know the detail. Will you write it for me now, please, the step by which I may set the roads alight once again with men who owe their absolute loyalty to you — and, through you, to Vespasian?’