The Art of War

Chapter 44

Rome, November, AD 69

Caenis

I woke to the comfort-sounds of the house: Toma and his sister Dino in the kitchens, Matthias filling the lamps, young Katos sweeping the floors.

In the normal course of things, one of them would have come to rouse me shortly. I knew I could have risen early and surprised them, but that morning for the first time I was warmer under the covers than out, and didn’t want to move.

I dozed, thinking of Vespasian, wondering what he was doing. Outside, murmuring voices mingled with the sounds of doves and the waking street. Somewhere nearby, a question was asked and answered, but I couldn’t hear the words. Naked feet padded on my marble floors. My marble floors. Mine. To own a house still felt daily like a miracle. To have one with floors built to one’s own design… the wonder of that would have silenced me if I had let it.

I let it instead lift me out of bed and dressed in the simple tunic I kept for days when I was not planning to see anyone. I slipped my feet into the sandals that had once caused me so much pain; there were no pebbles in the soles by then. Pantera had long since given up bearing my litter and so I was walking normally again.

I heard Matthias come to rouse me, his careful shuffle as distinctive as his face, and swept my fingers through my hair in lieu of a comb and splashed rosewater on my face. I was patting my cheeks dry with a linen cloth when he tapped, and, at my call, entered.

‘Matthias, I-’ I caught sight of the face in the silver plate that was my mirror. It wasn’t Matthias. ‘Pantera? Is Matthias all right?’

‘Exceptionally so, I would say. A life lived half in stealth suits him.’

He was right about that: Matthias had discovered in himself previously unknown skills. He could lie with a straight face, could hold a Guard in lengthy conversation for the time it took me to hide away incriminating documents and have the Guard think that he — the Guard — was the one prolonging the conversation.

He had skills in sleight of hand that impressed me greatly and I had hoped would impress Pantera. The thought that he might have seen them without my being there was unexpectedly irritating. I spun round, ready to tell him so.

And then I caught sight of his face, the grey-white exhaustion, the near-defeat, the haunted, aching eyes.

‘Oh, my dear, who has died? Is it Jocasta?’

He shook his head. ‘Amoricus,’ he said, and when I didn’t react, ‘The gelded priest of Isis. Lucius has him.’

‘Alive?’

‘Dead.’ He didn’t say ‘I killed him’, but it was written across his brow and in the lines about his eyes. He said, ‘Lucius is too close. I have to leave Rome. I’m going south tonight. I came to tell you.’

I closed my eyes, so that he might not see tears shine in them. Of course he had to go, but I didn’t have to like it, any more than I had liked Vespasian going to war when we were in Greece.

Even to me, it was a surprise how much I had come to rely on his certainties, his half-spoken thoughts, his elisions and allusions and secrecy. I felt safe when he was close. With him leaving…

He said, ‘I gave my word to Vespasian that I would protect you. Just at this moment, the best I can do is not to know what your plans are. But you must have them.’

‘Plans for what?’

‘For how you will escape from Rome if I make a mistake. If I am taken, there will be a limited amount of time before I start to give them the truth. You must be gone before then.’

The thought made me ill. I said, ‘Sabinus and Domitian and I can all-’

‘Not them. Just you. You must make your plans alone.’

I snapped my mouth shut. From the beginning, it had been clear that Pantera didn’t fully trust Sabinus and Domitian, but he had never said it so openly. What could I say? I nodded.

He gave a short, dry smile. ‘Thank you. I would suggest you talk to the vintners who take empty barrels out of the city. They are large enough for a small woman, and rarely searched.’

‘Oh, Hades.’ I pressed my hands to my eyes. In the dark behind my closed lids, I was a small girl, hiding in a tiny store cupboard, savagely beaten when found. I had always promised myself I would not do anything like that again.

A thought crept in from the darker parts of my nightmares. I said, ‘I can’t do that, because you know about it.’

‘No. So you must pick something similar, but different.’

‘How will I know when I have to go? Lucius is hardly likely to send a slave round with a warning.’

‘Marcus will come to you, one of the silver-boys. He will say that the mule has foundered, and ask you to help him move it. You will leave with him at that moment, and he will get you safely to wherever you ask to go. After that, the less I know, the better.’

He gripped my shoulder, briefly, a quick squeeze and away. From the doorway, he said, ‘Be safe, Caenis. In the end, it’s what really matters.’

I stood in my room a long time after he had gone, and then went to find Matthias and asked him to take me to the market by the Tiber, where I remade the acquaintance of a Greek reed-seller with whom I had once had dealings and who had had a passing crush on me.

The years had treated us both well, and he was as glad to see me as I was him. He was still moving great carts of reeds from the riverbank out of the city for the limers to catch birds. They were big loads, but light, and a small woman hidden amongst them could hope to escape detection.

His name was Philiskos. I bought him pastries and agreed to visit again soon.