Master and God (34 page)

Finally their ordeal concluded. When they rose to leave, no one could forget that Domitian’s family had previously executed opponents when a meal ended. False smiles were a Flavian signature. Tottering back to the great vestibule, the disorientated guests then found that all their personal attendants had vanished. Slaves they had never seen before escorted them home in carriages and litters. At every step of the journey they expected to be dragged out and murdered.

They fell into their houses. As they shuddered in recovery, new terror arrived. Loud banging announced messengers, sent after them from the Emperor. Every tormented man now imagined the worst.

Exactly as Domitian intended . . .

That tense evening had been observed by Vinius Clodianus. Because this dinner was for the fallen in Dacia, as a survivor Vinius had been ordered to be there, to represent the lost army.

He was not required to smother himself in black war paint. Thank you, gods! The night was an ordeal for him. It gave him no solace for his dead comrades; it granted no release from his survivor’s guilt. He would endure it as a soldier, but his mood was doleful.

He was dressed up in a hybrid parade uniform, with special dispensation for one night only to be armed within the walls of Rome. Over the standard off-white tunic, which soldiers bloused up short ‘for ease of movement’ (or to show off their legs), he wore a muscled breastplate and military belt, with his most decorative dagger. The belt was composed of metal plates, ornamented with silver and black niello, and heavy with its apron of metal-tanged leather strips. He carried the long oval Praetorian shield, covering his left side from shoulder to knee, exquisitely decorated with a motif of moon and stars behind the Guards’ scorpion emblem. He had neatly tied his neckerchief; his cloak hung smartly. Most spectacularly, he had been loaned a gilded cavalry helmet, not crested like the usual parade helmet, but crowned by an eagle’s head. Its full-face metal mask, with shadowed eye, nose and mouth holes, looked remote and mysterious, although the only effect for the soldier inside was to make breathing difficult.

‘Very pretty!’ smirked the cornicularius. He still thought that Vinius Clodianus lusted after his job. He could not decide whether to loathe his cheek or admire his hunger. ‘Women who like a man in uniform will be lined up with their legs open.’

‘I’m in luck then, Cornicularius sir!’ The face-covering helmet muffled how much Vinius disliked the idea.

‘Shag one for me, son.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Suit yourself!’ the cornicularius grumbled under his breath, as he sensed that this fussy soldier would never take advantage of the hypothetical queues of good-time girls.

The official view of Clodianus was complimentary. From behind the parade helmet, he was conscious of being inspected by Rome’s most senior men. He saluted so often, and so smartly, he got pins and needles in his arm. Both Praetorian Prefects approved his turnout as if they had buffed his breastplate and sharpened his sword themselves. The Prefect of Vigiles had a good word for him. The gruff Prefect of the City, most senior of all, was Rutilius Gallicus who had served as Domitian’s deputy in Rome when the Emperor left on campaign and opened the city gates to receive him for his double triumph; Rutilius had less to say, though it clearly was not personal. He hardly spoke to anyone. On a night when Domitian was tweaking senators’ fears of death, perhaps Rutilius Gallicus was remembering that he inherited his lofty position when his predecessor was executed.

Occasion was taken to award Clodianus promotion: ‘liaison officer’, a runner for the cornicularius.

‘I think I’m going to drown myself!’ groaned that worthy, although Gaius was certain he must have been consulted. His own modest fears about the responsibility were biffed aside. ‘Take the money,’ ordered his superior. ‘For a scroll-worm like you, it will be a piece of piss.’

While the guests choked on their dinner, the Praetorian had to stand sentry outside. He joked with himself grimly that his role was not to prevent unsanctioned intruders but to stop guests making a getaway.

Towards the end, he spotted Flavia Lucilla. She was sitting on the edge of the great courtyard pool. Hugging his knees alongside her was a misshapen figure in red. Vinius saw it was Domitian’s dwarf, a man-child with an extremely small head to whom the Emperor often whispered comments on people at the court. Lucilla and the confidant were deep in conversation.

Vinius marched over and put a stop to that.

‘Hop it, Diddles.’

The dwarf grumbled but ambled away, while a shocked Lucilla snarled, ‘You arrogant bastard, Vinius!’

Vinius Clodianus removed his fabulous helmet. ‘How did you know it was me?’

‘Footfall. Voice. Bad manners.’

‘I’ve seen you in some company, but that beats all.’

‘The lad needs friendly conversation. He listens to terrible things all day: “Do you know why I appointed so-and-so to a praetorship . . . ?” No one will have anything to do with him because he looks so odd and they are petrified he will inform on them to Domitian.’

‘You, on the other hand, befriend any freak at court.’

‘Yes, I have even been a friend to you in a crisis!’

There was a silence, broken only by the soothing splash of waters. Vinius massaged his earlobes where the helmet had rubbed. On another occasion, he might have dropped beside Lucilla, but he would not sit where that dwarf had squatted; anyway, on duty in full uniform, he was obliged to stand smartly. Leaning on his shield, he held the parade helmet in the crook of the other elbow, posing: the noble warrior.

After fiddling with her baskets, readjusting her sandal straps and brushing off water droplets from her hems, Lucilla deigned to take notice.

‘Nice rig.’ She was really thinking Vinius had a strange hard attitude these days.

‘I am glad you’ve seen me in it.’ Vinius then heard himself give her a line even he cringed over: ‘Once I’m released from duty, I shall need help taking it all off.’

‘You are pathetic.’ Lucilla grasped the handles of various baskets and struggled upright. ‘Find another handmaid to unarm you!’

She skittered away. Vinius loped after her.

‘Is this because I said no the other night?’

‘Weak moment.’

‘Give me another chance.’

‘No. Don’t pester me.’ Lucilla had not expected to see Vinius, she was tired after painting wriggly pageboys black all afternoon, and the soldier looked so fine tonight that fending him off was killing her. He seemed equally unsettled. Tiptoeing around the matrimonial laws was hard enough, but grappling with their own confused feelings was beyond these two.

‘I know you want me.’

‘
You
don’t want
me
. Too risky. You could be cashiered . . .’ Lucilla was testing him, to see if her interpretation of his scruples was right. ‘Vinius, you are
so
wise! Think about Plum Street: you could be accused of “making a room available for illicit sexual purposes”.’

‘
I’ve
never had any sex there!’ grumbled Vinius bitterly.

‘Whose fault is that? Pious you, the noblest Roman of them all.’

The dinner was ending. Fraught guests began coming out to the vestibule. Someone whistled to Lucilla and she shot off, as if the summons was expected. She had scampered down a flight of steps. Vinius followed, but slowly; with his one eye, downhill treads always troubled him, and studded military boots could be lethal on marble. By the time he negotiated the obstacle, Lucilla had disappeared.

The evening was going disastrously wrong. Then Vinius ran into the dwarf again. Jealous of this creature’s familiarity with Lucilla, Vinius was filled with loathing and wild fantasies. If the dwarf laid a paw on her, Diddles would find himself hung upside down in the elegant fountain until he suffocated among the sluicing water-sheets and his tiny feet stopped kicking in the spray . . .

‘Be careful!’ Vinius warned him off. ‘You could be had for following a married woman around.’

‘Catch up, you prick!’ The dwarf spent so much of his time being pleasant to Domitian that when he was released he became filthy-tempered and foul-mouthed. Many men are complete opposites at work and at home. The imperial dwarf was no different.

‘What do you mean?’

The dwarf tended to speak too loudly. ‘She fucking left him. So get to the back of the queue, soldier!’

Gaius Vinius Clodianus was not a man who queued.

Storming off in the direction he had seen Lucilla vanishing, he followed his instincts and, eventually, much noise. He happened upon her, which was just as well because as he coursed through the spectacular spaces of this palace, he had absolutely no damned intention of asking anyone for directions.

Flavia Lucilla was divorced!

Flavia Lucilla was giving him the run-around.

She had gone to a bath house. It took a while to find her. Then, Vinius stepped into a scene so extraordinary he almost lost his equilibrium.

Every exalted guest at the Black Banquet had had a painted boy attendant; all those boys were now being hastily cleaned up in a vast marble warm-room. The noise was appalling: shouts, squeals and splashes, plus continual clanks of buckets and swooshes of rinsing water. The conceited little midgets would not behave. Swilling the boys down amidst the steam to a tight timetable, slaves and attendants were red-faced and frantic.

Lucilla was near the door, rubbing a sponge over a reluctant child who suddenly made a bolt for it. Vinius blocked him with his shield, then dropped it and grasped the naked escapee. This forced Lucilla to paddle over, through the ankle-high wash of diluted lamp-black, or whatever it was. She was barefoot and wearing just an old sleeveless undertunic, having anticipated this dirty task. Her bare arms and legs disconcerted Vinius briefly.

She resumed sponging the boy so roughly it was easy to see why he fled.

‘Explain?’ demanded Vinius. ‘– Ah shit, your little blighter dripped dye on my moon and stars!’ As well as the soiling on his shield, he was disgusted to find the hand with which he had grabbed the boy was covered with sticky black goo.

‘Next stage of the torture. The diners have been sent home,’ Lucilla told him. ‘Their last scare will be Domitian sending presents. They will assume it’s their personal executioner. But they will get their pageboy, washed and adorned, plus their fake tombstone, which will turn out to be a big slab of silver, and the platters they were served off, also made of costly materials.’ Gripping the boy by his hair, she dredged off the last of his paint, sloshing water from a pannikin.

More outrage gripped Vinius. ‘You are washing him
all over
!’

‘Yes, first I painted his little winkle – what a thrill – and now I have to clean it off . . . One imaginative evening takes hours of unseen work.’ Lucilla gritted her teeth as she struggled with the flailing child. ‘Don’t be pompous. It’s only the same as bathing my nephew.’

For Vinius the most hideous aspect was that he had found himself caught in this scene of watery mayhem, while simultaneously trying to start a furious argument with the love of his life. ‘It is not respectable!’

‘What a prude! You surprise me . . . It’s all Domitian’s sinister showmanship.’ Lucilla released the boy, who ran to be fluffed up and dressed. ‘Can you imagine household after household full of elderly maids and set-in-their-ways secretaries, when they wake up tomorrow to find they have to take in a gruesome little stage child with the morals of a rabbit warren.
And
they dare not get rid of him.’

Lucilla reached for Vinius’ hand and dabbed at the paint, but his dark mood reached her; she gave up and threw the sponge at him. ‘Oh do it yourself.’

As rapidly as the baths must have filled with the blackened boys, they emptied. A parade of imperial gifts, some human, was leaving the Palatine. Relieved officials ticked off addresses on note boards.

‘When I said to explain, Lucilla, I did not mean this fiasco.’ Thoroughly self-righteous, Vinius sensed he was making no impression. ‘You got divorced.’

Lucilla was gathering her equipment, then pushing her way to a changing room. It was almost deserted, since most of the other attendants were still involved in swilling away the grimy water, or just descending into horseplay now their earlier frantic activities had finished.

‘Turn your back, Vinius.’ Her undertunic was drenched; she intended to remove it before climbing back into her other clothes, which she had retrieved from a manger above the bench. ‘
Face away!
’ Vinius haughtily held up a towel to hide her. She must have forgotten he had once seen her all by starlight.

‘You got divorced!’

Lucilla shook down her dry gown and, once decent, began forcing on sandals. As the straps resisted, she snatched the towel to dry her feet roughly. ‘So?’

‘You bloody well got divorced and never told me.’

Silence.

‘Every pervert in this putrid palace knows – but not me. We had a conversation earlier and you never even mentioned it.’

Lucilla bundled her wet tunic into one of her baskets.

‘
When
were you intending to tell me?’

Silence.

‘What –
never?
’

‘My marriage is private.’

Vinius was livid. ‘And this sudden split has no connection with me?’

‘Causing a divorce would do you no credit.’

Lucilla was ready to leave. She made her way to the vestibule, gave her name to an orderly, and a litter was called for her. Vinius had tailed her like a hopeful dog. There was no room for him in the conveyance, especially as those who had helped behind the scenes tonight were being sent home with hampers of leftover food and unused amphorae.

Lucilla gave the bearers instructions for Plum Street. A fraught transport queue was building up behind. ‘Leave it, Vinius.’

‘Am I expected to follow you?’

‘Do what you like. Go to the Camp.’

‘I thought I meant something to you.’

‘For heaven’s sake. I only just left one man I regretted – Goodnight, soldier.’

Lucilla was carried away. Vinius was left standing in the vestibule in his gorgeous array, while hard-hearted imperial planners with rotas to organise openly sneered at him.