Masters of Rome (54 page)

‘Such villainy,' Lucius Vitellius pronounced, just loud enough to be heard over the music, whilst peeling a pear.

Vespasian ignored the remark as he caught a brief, silent exchange between Pallas and Agrippina before she returned her attention to her uncle who was now well into his cups and adding to them.

Signalling a slave to fill his, Vespasian turned to his brother, keeping his voice low, so as not to be heard over the music. ‘What's happened? Why is everyone still here?'

‘None of them wants to leave the others alone with Claudius.'

‘They'll be here all night then. Why are you still here?'

‘I was waiting for you, to remind you to be at the Senate at dawn and make sure that Uncle Gaius comes too.'

‘Of course, the incest law; I'll speak directly after you.'

‘I'd appreciate that. Gaius has managed to persuade Servius Sulpicius Galba to speak for the motion. I'll have him follow you.'

Vespasian grimaced as he took a full pull on his cup, remembering his dealings with Galba when he was first assigned to the II Augusta. ‘He'll shout them into submission.'

‘He can do whatever he likes as long as he helps get the motion passed and I can get off to Moesia, Macedonia and Thracia; and if you want my advice, brother, you should get out of Rome for a while too, because after witnessing Agrippina's
behaviour this evening I can tell you that life with her in power is going to be just as precarious as it was with Messalina.'

‘I will. I'll go back to the estates until my consulship and after that hopefully Pallas will get me a province.'

‘Don't rely on him too much. He's sleeping with Agrippina, I'm sure of it; there's a hint of it in her eyes when she looks at him.'

‘I noticed that too and thought that it would be a good thing for us.'

‘That would depend on which one of them has the stronger will.'

Vespasian looked over at Agrippina, wiping her uncle's mouth and talking soothingly in his ear.

‘But I want her,' Claudius suddenly cried out. ‘I miss my little bird already.'

‘Then summon her now to account for herself. If she is indeed innocent, why wait till morning to find out? And if she's guilty then have done with her and choose another.'

‘I could do that, couldn't I?' Claudius' face lit up at the prospect.

‘Of course you could, Uncle,' Agrippina purred, looking directly at Narcissus, who paled visibly, even in the soft lamplight.

Claudius indicated to his freedman with his cup, slopping much of its contents onto his couch. ‘Narcissus, have Messalina brought to the palace.'

Narcissus regained his composure. ‘Surely you're joking with me, Princeps? You ordered me to have her executed just two hours ago.'

Claudius opened and closed his mouth and then his features froze, staring blankly into vacant space.

‘Uncle!' Agrippina cried. ‘How brave of you to do so. But why didn't you tell me? In fact, why didn't I hear you give the order? I've been reclining next to you all evening.'

Claudius did not answer or even register that he had heard the question. Nor did he seem to hear loud wailing from out in the atrium.

‘It was what you wanted, Princeps, after all,' Narcissus insisted, ‘otherwise I would have questioned it when you gave me the command.'

‘Did you give the command, Uncle, really?'

Claudius lifted his cup to his mouth as if by an automatic impulse, took a swig and then placed it back on the table. An instant later he repeated the movement as the wailing closed in.

‘I think that it's time for us to leave,' Vespasian suggested to Sabinus. ‘I doubt that our departure will be noticed.'

The brothers got to their feet as Claudius and Messalina's two children burst into the room. Obviously in an advanced state of grief they set about their father with slaps and scratches whilst he did nothing to defend himself or even show that he knew that he was under attack.

As Vespasian left the room he caught Pallas smiling at Agrippina, who returned it with interest whilst Lucius Vitellius mouthed two words, inaudible over the commotion.

‘The vote to remove Messalina's statues and name from all public places has been passed unanimously,' the Father of the House announced in the absence of any consuls. ‘The order will be given to the Urban prefect to proceed without delay so that our beloved Emperor can begin the process of choosing a new wife without always being reminded of the old.'

Claudius sat in his chair, his eyes still vacant and his skin pallid as a rumbled chorus of agreement greeted this thought. He nodded absently and fluttered a shaky hand in acknowledgement of the Senate's gesture but failed to make a verbal reply. In its absence Sabinus stood and caught the attention of the Father of the House.

‘Titus Flavius Sabinus has the floor.'

Sabinus walked to the centre of the House, stood still for a couple of moments and then began: ‘Conscript Fathers, who here does not have the Emperor's welfare at the forefront of his mind? Who here does not consider the Emperor's happiness to be of paramount importance to the wellbeing of the Empire? Who here would therefore deny the Emperor the right to marry the woman most suitable to him?'

*

The House sat in stunned silence as if each man had just been struck a blow on the forehead by the priest wielding the mallet before the sacrificial knife is applied. No one moved as Sabinus sat down after his short speech proposing the law of incest should be changed so that the Emperor could marry his niece. Claudius, too, was speechless but not as before: his eyes had lost their vacant stare and had become focused.

Vespasian got to his feet and was immediately called to speak since no one else had recovered from the shock at the idea of changing a tenet so old and enshrined in the ways of the ancestors.

‘Conscript Fathers,' he began, feigning a look of awed surprise, ‘I did not know what my brother was going to propose when he stood to address you. But I, like you, have heard his words and have weighed them in my mind and have come to the conclusion that my brother has had an idea inspired by the gods; an idea so simple and obvious that no one here could see it until Titus Flavius Sabinus stood up and pointed us in its direction.

‘I have heard rumours of Lollia Paulina and Aelia Paetina being put about by various factions in the palace for their own personal gain; their own personal gain! How dare they play with our beloved Emperor's wellbeing for their – own – personal – gain!' Another rumble, this time of outrage, was emitted from the lines of seated senators. ‘But it took an intellect like my brother's to see exactly where to look for a bride for our Emperor: as close to home as possible – closer even – so that finally the Julian and the Claudian lines in the imperial family are united by a doting uncle and his loving niece. Think, Conscript Fathers, think of the consequences of such a union.'

Vespasian sat, watching the faces of his colleagues as they contemplated the security that the final union of both sides of the Julio-Claudians would bring. Only Claudius seemed to be envisioning a different aspect to that union and he twitched with visible excitement.

‘I believe that we should beg Caesar to make this match!' Galba roared in his harsh, parade-ground voice, startling his
neighbours. ‘For the good of Rome. Although marrying a niece is not the way of our ancestors and consequently there is no precedent for a woman to be escorted to the house of her uncle, we should not consider it as incest, which surely can only be committed by siblings or parents with their children.' He jutted out his jaw as if defying anyone to gainsay him. ‘And if it is not incest then the gods will view the union with pleasure.'

At the intervention of such a renowned conservative, the idea began to gain traction as Sabinus had predicted and one by one the senators began to implore Claudius to consent to the match if they changed the law to allow it.

‘That's got them going,' Gaius observed, as the senators vied with one another to be the most vociferous in support for Agrippina. ‘Even Vitellius looks as if he feels it safe to have an opinion.'

‘Which is one more than you've ever admitted to, Uncle,' Vespasian quipped as the elder Vitellius got to his feet and dramatically held out his arms towards Claudius. ‘Still, his support will make the vote a formality.'

Vitellius waited dramatically for silence. ‘Princeps, will you answer us? Will you take Agrippina as your wife if the law allows you?'

Claudius made an attempt to look solemn but failed to conceal his eagerness for the proposal. ‘I am a citizen of R-R-Rome; I must accept the orders of the people and the authority of the Senate and cannot resist their united voice.'

‘Conscript Fathers, there we have the words of a true servant of the State. Our Emperor, upon whom such crushing labours are placed in the governance of the world, needs to be able to attend to the public good free from domestic worries. We, Conscript Fathers, can ensure that he is. I move that we vote to make it legal for an uncle to marry his niece.'

Vespasian felt a hand touch his shoulder as the House erupted in agreement. He turned to see one of the public slaves used as messengers from people waiting outside. ‘What is it?'

‘Master, there is a man by the name of Magnus waiting for you and your brother; he says that you must come at once.'

‘Did he say why?'

‘Only that it's a matter of the utmost urgency.'

Vespasian leant close to Sabinus. ‘We've got to go, brother; Magnus needs us urgently.'

‘But the vote hasn't happened yet.'

‘Look around, it's a foregone conclusion now.' Vespasian got to his feet.

‘In my experience,' Gaius shouted over the uproar, ‘when Magnus says it's urgent, it always is.'

‘But Pallas wants me to propose an auspicious day for the wedding.'

‘I thought that it was to be on the festival of the October Horse.'

‘No, that was just to goad Messalina into swift action.'

‘I'll propose it for you, dear boy,' Gaius offered. ‘What's the date?'

‘The first of January.'

‘Why wait for two months?'

Sabinus handed Gaius a list. ‘Because Pallas wants time to have all these men prosecuted properly in the courts and condemned to death for conspiring with Messalina, so that they can be executed on or before the wedding day. Read out the list after you've proposed the date, and have the Senate order their arrest; they'll do anything for Claudius at the moment.'

Gaius' jowls wobbled. ‘But that'll make me very …'

‘… conspicuous? Yes, but it will also gain you the favour of the man who has just become the most powerful person in Rome.' Sabinus followed Vespasian from the chamber, leaving Gaius staring unhappily at the death-list.

‘We've got to hurry,' Magnus told the brothers as they came through the Senate House door, ‘I've sent Marius and Sextus on to tell Clementina to get out of the house but I don't suppose that she'll listen to them.'

‘What do you mean: tell Clementina to get out?' Sabinus asked, hurrying down the Senate House steps after Magnus.

‘I mean that I think she's in danger.'

Vespasian was surprised to see Magnus so agitated. ‘From what?'

‘I'm not sure exactly. A couple of hours ago we finally managed to get hold of one of the slippery bastards who've been watching Sabinus' house and we took him back to the tavern for that chat we talked about.'

‘Did he talk?'

‘No, not a word, no matter what we did to him; I was really impressed.'

‘So we don't even know where they come from?'

‘No, we don't; but we do know one thing: he must have been a fanatic to endure what he did in silence.'

‘Either that or he's more scared of whatever it is he's protecting than of your knives and hot irons.'

‘Yeah, well, either way, they're not just some hired thugs who've been paid to keep an eye on you; they evidently want something that's in the house, so we need to get Clementina out.'

Sabinus increased his pace, forcing passers-by to dart out of his way. ‘What makes you think that it's her they're after?'

‘Nothing for sure; but the fact is that they've been watching just your house for a few days now, which would mean that whatever interests them is in there. I would guess that once they notice the disappearance of their mate this morning they'll be prompted into some immediate action.'

A steady, thin drizzle from a heavy sky moistened the raised pavement as Vespasian, Magnus and Sabinus hurried up the Aventine Hill. A hundred paces to their left the massive hulk of the Circus Maximus towered above them, grey in the damp morning light. To their right the Appian Aqueduct carved its way across the hill to its final destination at its foot; turning towards it and passing under one of its diminishing arches, they skirted around the Temple of Diana and entered Sabinus' street, which ran the last couple of hundred paces gently to the summit.

Having been destroyed by fire a dozen years before, most of the residences on the Aventine had been rebuilt and, on a normal day, the area had an elegant feel about it, unusual in the residential quarters of Rome, most of which had grown shabby through age. But this did not seem like a normal day as they drew in sight
of Sabinus' house. It was not the oppressive greyness of the weather or the dampness of the paving underfoot and the plastered brick to each side; nor was it the continual dripping from overhanging vegetation splashing into puddles below or down the necks of passers-by. It was not even the cold that had suddenly descended with unseasonal harshness as they approached their destination.

It was the emptiness and consequent quiet.

No other person moved in the street; no stray dog or darting cat crossed their path, nor were there any signs of birds flitting across the dull sky or sheltering from the rain in trees or on windowsills or in other nooks. It was as if a plague had carried off every living creature and the fear of its return had dissuaded others from taking their place.