The Art of War

Chapter 68

Rome, 20 December AD 69

Trabo

Once we were safe in the hut, exhaustion overtook us.

Caenis was asleep on the only bed, blue prints of exhaustion layered under her eyes. Horus and Domitian sat with their backs to the far wall, propped on each other’s shoulders, and they, too, were sound asleep. Matthias lay flat beside his mistress’s bed and snored.

Jocasta and I were the only ones awake. If there had been another room, I would have gone to it: I couldn’t bear the flat slide of her stare, the way it passed over me as if I didn’t exist; worse, as if I were a slave who had let rip a particularly loud and noxious fart while serving dinner and was awaiting shipment to the circus.

I began to envy Domitian his ease in Horus’ company. A whore is never going to cut you dead, even a highly paid one from the House of the Lyre. I took out my blade and began to scour it with the hem of my tunic; it wasn’t useful, but it was something to do. I felt Jocasta move across the room and come to rest beside me.

‘Trabo?’ She sounded doubtful. I kept my head down. She sat next to me; close. Her fingers caught my chin and turned my head so that I had to look at her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘ What? ’ Honestly, if Otho had come back from the grave, I couldn’t have been more surprised. ‘What for?’

She laughed, sadly. ‘Everything. For the past days. For not being yours, or not obviously so.’ She looped her arm through mine. I could feel the heat of her body, the rock of her breathing. I thought I had fallen asleep and was dreaming and didn’t want to wake.

She said, ‘What do you think Pantera is doing now?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Nor did I care. She did, though, so I tried to concentrate. ‘I’d say he’s got out of Rome in some noxious garbage cart and is even as we speak relaying the details of Sabinus’ death to Antonius Primus. He’ll need to attack now, or we’ve lost all the momentum.’

‘Pantera left you with Domitian?’

‘Is that a problem?’ I looked across at the sleeping boy. He looked like a child, and Horus the man.

‘Only that you’ll be blamed if Lucius were to find him.’

‘Lucius is in the south. Pantera lured him down to Tarracina.’

‘And you were taken there to prove it. And then brought back. Even so, Lucius still has agents here who do his bidding and he sends messages four times a day to Rome. What price do you think he would give for the chance to take alive Vespasian’s son and his mistress? And, if not Pantera, then to take the spymaster who has worked against him from the start?’

Understanding snapped into place in my head. I should have known this. Why hadn’t I? ‘Are you the spymaster?’ I asked.

‘They call me the Poet.’ She stared down at her fingernails. They were broken in places. I thought them beautiful. ‘And Lucius knows it now.’

There was an accusation in her eyes that spoke more than her words. ‘Pantera?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘ Pantera has betrayed you to Lucius? You can’t be serious. They loathe each other. They’ve been prosecuting a proxy war with Rome as their battleground since he got off the boat last summer.’

‘That’s what everyone thinks, yes.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘From the beginning, from the day we met in Caenis’ house, Lucius has been one step — one very small step — behind Pantera. All the way along, he knew where he was going and who he was going to see. Still, he didn’t arrest him, or even have him killed, he-’

‘Amoricus was captured alive. If Pantera hadn’t killed him-’

‘But he did. And we could all see how badly he was affected by it. Didn’t we all grieve with him, didn’t we all secretly want to take his arm, pat his shoulder, say don’t worry, it wasn’t really your fault; you did everything you could? Didn’t we?’

‘But why would he betray us? Why now, when he has been with us all summer?’

‘Because there is no other time. If he waits a day longer, Vespasian might be emperor, Vitellius might be dead and Lucius with him, or exiled. And doubly now, because if you want truly to defeat your enemy, you have to let him extend himself to his — or her — fullest. He wanted to see what I knew, how much I could do, what lengths I would go to to get the right man on the throne. He thought he was going to be Seneca’s successor. If he’s going to kill me and take the network for himself, he needs to know as much about me as he can. Now, though, he has to act. What is the greatest prize in Rome just now?’

I was beginning to understand the way her mind worked. I looked across the room at the sleeping boy and the woman on the cot beside him. ‘Them,’ I said. ‘Caenis and Domitian. If either or both is taken prisoner, Vespasian will offer any terms to get them back alive.’

‘Well done.’ She stood, held out her hand, lifted me up, kissed me, drily, lightly on the lips in a way that made my skin tingle. ‘So let’s get them out of here before someone comes to arrest us all. And don’t imagine the silver-boys are on our side. I thought they were, but I have come to understand that their hearts belong to Pantera, and always have done.’