Rome's Sacred Flame Read online

  ‘Did he find any of the other seven?’

  ‘Just one, master, last year; why?’

  Vespasian waved his hand, dismissing the question. ‘When I came back from Britannia after the revolt there, three years ago, your father mentioned that there had been a few instances of mules being slaughtered or stolen but he never mentioned anything like this happening.’

  Philon shrugged, shaking his head, clearly at a loss. ‘I’ve lived on the estate all my forty-five years and I’ve never seen anything like it. My father would surely have told you had he witnessed something similar and I never heard him mentioning atrocities such as this.’

  Vespasian looked back up at the mule; its front legs had been broken so that they could be pulled sideways at unnatural angles in order for the beast to be nailed to a couple of the lower branches in the tree in a parody of a human crucifixion as if imitating the young runaway, the only survivor of the gang, whom he and Sabinus had crucified nearby. Its rear legs hung free whilst its head lolled to one side on its chest exposing an eye socket pecked empty. ‘That’s the first one that has been so obviously nailed up; the rest were much cruder.’ He turned to Magnus who was having much difficulty in restraining his dogs. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Make of it? Well, no one is going to do something like that for fun, at least not without a reason.’ Magnus gave up the fight with the straining beasts, releasing them to their fetid feast, and indicated down the slope of rich pasture behind them, rolling from the wood to the gully at its bottom beyond which were hills, covered with rocks and stunted trees, of no use for cultivation. ‘But we’re right at the eastern border of the estate here; and you know only too well about the outlaws that roam around in those hills.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking about,’ Vespasian said with a frown. ‘And I’ve a feeling that it’s not random but personal.’ This thought had been growing in his mind ever since the third such find had come to light soon after the New Year had been celebrated.

  He and Magnus had caught up with the convoy as dusk fell on the day they had left Rome. They had then ridden ahead and arrived in Aquae Cutillae in advance of Flavia, Gaius and the households, giving Philon time to prepare for such an influx of domestic slaves.

  Life had quickly settled down into the normal routine he followed when on the estates: a mixture of estate management and hunting. Magnus’ reunion with Castor and Pollux had involved much slobber and wagging of tails and the hounds were keen to follow the scent of game all over the estate in the company of their master, who in turn was always keen to get back, after a long day in the open, to be ministered to by his slave, Caitlín, who had travelled up as part of Gaius’ household.

  Having spent a month in Aquae Cutillae, investing half of Sabinus’ loan in new slave-stock and thus greatly increasing the estate’s efficiency, Vespasian then went to join Caenis at Cosa for a month. Here he fell into a different routine, which involved seeing a good deal more of Caenis than he had done of Flavia as well as attending to the running of the estate that he had inherited from his grandmother, Tertulla, and spending the rest of Sabinus’ loan upgrading its slave-stock. And thus he had divided his time, alternate months on each estate, as the wreckage was cleared from Rome, sent back down, in the barges that had brought emergency grain to the city, to the mouth of the Tiber where it was being used to reclaim marshland. But clearing the city was a long process and with government virtually paralysed there was little for the Senate to do other than tend to their estates; the main administrative work was being done by the Emperor, Sabinus as prefect of the city and the Urban praetors and aediles.

  But it was the Emperor, according to the regular reports that Sabinus sent Vespasian, who had come out of the cataclysm as the hero of the mob. He had selflessly deprived the people of Egypt of the chance to witness his talent by cancelling his trip to Alexandria so he could care for the welfare of his subjects. This he did by personally supervising the daily distribution of bread at least once a month and by keeping very clear of the festering city of tents, baking in the late summer heat, that had sprung up in and around his gardens on the Vatican Hill. But it was merely that he had opened his property and was occasionally seen to give out bread that had made him the darling of the people and they would not hear a word said against him. They saw nothing in the fact that he spent most of the time ensuring the clearing of a huge tract of land right at the centre of the city and supervising the surveying and marking out of what would soon be the foundations of the Golden House, which in his mind was the centre of Neropolis and the sole reason for the city to exist at all: how else would his needs be seen to if there were not people around to do his bidding?

  And so Vespasian had put all his energies into squeezing as much from his estates as he could; mules were bred and nurtured and then sold on to the army or one of the many construction companies that had sprung up around Rome, eager for a portion of the business generated by the reconstruction. Due to demand, the price of mules was at a premium and by the end of the season as the Saturnalia approached, Vespasian felt a great deal more confident about his financial status than he had upon his return from Africa. The fact that his house, and indeed Gaius’ and Caenis’, had been spared destruction was also an added bonus sent by Fortuna.

  But it was not Fortuna to whom Vespasian sent a prayer, as he contemplated the crucified mule, but to Mars, his guardian god, for a cold dread had begun to gnaw at his belly and he had learnt to trust his feelings. ‘Have it cut down and burned, Philon.’ He took Magnus to one side away from the wood as Philon gave the orders to the accompanying slaves for the carcass’ disposal. ‘Do you remember those poachers that we caught last time we were here? The ones who took Domitian hostage.’

  Magnus scratched his head. ‘The bastards who left an arrow in Castor’s leg? Of course I do; a couple of them died very pleasingly unpleasant deaths.’

  ‘Yes; but I let the last one go.’

  ‘Which I thought was very stupid at the time, and still do as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I’d given my word.’

  ‘Bollocks; one’s word to scum like that is worth about as much as a Vestal’s advice on cock-sucking.’

  ‘Yes, well, be that as it may, I kept my word.’

  ‘And you think that this poacher might be trying to have his revenge for some worthless mates? I doubt it, not after this amount of time; it’s been four years or more.’

  ‘I know; but during that period I haven’t stayed on the estate for more than a few days at a stretch. This time I’ve been here for longer visits, much longer; long enough for it to be noticed that I’m around.’

  ‘Then why haven’t they tried anything other than slaughter a few mules in a nasty manner?’

  ‘That’s what’s been bothering me but then I remembered what one of the poachers’ last words were; he said that someone called The Cripple would hear of his death and would avenge him.’

  Magnus nodded as the dying man’s words came back to him. ‘That’s right; and he said that The Cripple takes his time because he can’t move quickly.’

  ‘And he always takes his revenge and shows no mercy because none was ever shown to him.’

  Magnus looked back to where the mule had been chopped down and was now subject to the attentions of Castor and Pollux who had tired of entrails. ‘And you think that mule being nailed up is a sign that The Cripple has arrived in the area?’

  Vespasian shrugged. ‘I don’t know; but what I would say is that it won’t do any harm to be cautious.’

  Flavia was outraged; she sat up on the couch she had been reclining on with Domitian. ‘What do you mean: I can’t leave the house without a couple of freedmen guarding me?’

  Vespasian drew a breath and formed his sentence in his head. He knew the sort of situation that he was dealing with very well; well enough to understand that this was no time for a misplaced word. He took a prawn from the dish before him on the triclinium table and shelled it with deliberation. ‘My dea
r.’ He paused to crunch the tail flippers. ‘I didn’t say that you had to be accompanied, I just said that I thought it was best if you were.’

  Flavia snorted and pointed to Gaius, trying to be inconspicuous, next to Magnus, on the third couch around the table. ‘And does that apply to your uncle too; or is it just for weak women?’

  ‘I won’t be accompanied,’ Domitian stated with an adolescent’s finality.

  Vespasian did not even bother to look at his son. ‘You’ll do what you’re told. Now, Flavia, Gaius is not my legal responsibility but you are. I cannot order Gaius to do anything but I can give him advice from one equal to another and yes, I do advise Gaius not to stray from the buildings without an armed escort.’

  ‘And I, dear boy, will be very happy to take that advice.’ Gaius held out his hand for one of his exquisite boys to wipe clean of prawn juice. ‘If Vespasian says there may be a threat then I value my skin far too well to ignore it.’

  ‘Especially as there is so much of it,’ Domitian muttered and immediately received a sharp slap about the ears from his mother whose annoyance at her husband precluded any easing of the force of the blow.

  ‘And I shall do as I please,’ Flavia said, rubbing her hand as Domitian blinked incessantly, his head evidently ringing. ‘And if I choose to go on a walk by myself, to get some air, then that is what I shall do.’

  Vespasian almost choked on his prawn. ‘My dear, you haven’t been on a walk once since we’ve been here. You spend all your time visiting other bored wives in the area in the raeda so you can all complain about your husbands together. And when you do that you always have an armed escort.’

  ‘Because the roads are not safe; but here on our own property? Besides, how do you know what I get up to whilst you’re away with Caenis? I might spend all my time strolling around the estate, conversing with country-folk.’

  ‘Flavia, you never tire of pointing out just how much you hate the country and how much the estate bores you. You wouldn’t know the difference between an olive tree and a pomegranate.’

  ‘Then perhaps it’s time that I learnt.’

  ‘I would be delighted should you decide to take more interest in the estate but would ask you just to take the small precaution of being accompanied. Please, my dear?’

  ‘I ain’t going anywhere without my dogs,’ Magnus informed them in an attempt to bolster Vespasian’s argument.

  Flavia’s face showed just what she thought of the dogs. ‘And you’re welcome to them, Magnus. I will certainly not be going anywhere with them.’

  Vespasian had the distinct impression that Magnus had to check himself from saying that Castor and Pollux had similar opinions; he knew that he would have, had he been in his friend’s place. ‘We will all be accompanied. I have asked Philon to have Drustan see to it.’

  Flavia’s face elongated in horror. ‘That brute! He’s covered in tattoos and smells worse than the pigsty.’

  ‘How do you know? You’ve never been to the pigsty.’

  ‘I’ll not have anything to do with that Britannic savage!’

  ‘You don’t have to have anything to do with him, just have him and one of his comrades escort you; they can walk behind you or downwind, whatever you like. Just don’t go—’

  ‘Master!’ Philon said, hurrying into the room and interrupting without any ceremony. ‘I think you had better come and look at this.’

  Vespasian, Magnus and Gaius followed the steward out into the courtyard garden; a blazing torch at each corner of the colonnade shone flickering light over the shrubs and central fishpond and cast unstable shadows from the columns supporting the terracotta-tile-covered walkway. The evening air was cooling but still retained the residue of an early spring day as all about the cicadas began to wind down their daytime exertions to make way for the sounds of the night.

  Philon led them around the colonnade to the right and then out through a wooden door at the far end, minded by an old slave, that brought them out, between two stable stalls, into the enclosed farmyard that adjoined the main house. To the right was the single-storey freedmen’s quarters, forming the western wall of the yard; opposite stood the two-storey slave-block with the field slaves’ stables on the ground floor and the more trusted house slaves’ dormitory on the floor above. To the east were the workshops, forge and more stabling for horses; in the middle of this wall were the gates, two sturdy wooden constructions. It was in front of these that a group of freedmen had gathered, looking down at something on the ground.

  ‘Move back, lads,’ Philon said as they approached the group, ‘and hand me a torch.’

  Vespasian, Magnus and Gaius stepped forward and looked at the cause of interest as Philon held a flame close to it.

  ‘It was thrown over the gate just now,’ Philon explained. ‘I sent some of the lads out to see if they could catch whoever did it, but they seem to be long gone into the night.’

  ‘It’s a mule’s head,’ Magnus said, giving the thing a nudge with his toe.

  ‘Yes,’ Philon agreed. ‘But look closely at it.’

  Vespasian knelt down and squinted. ‘It’s got burn marks and is missing its eyes.’ The relevance of the observations sunk in immediately. ‘It’s the head from the mule this afternoon; someone must have pulled it out of the fire.’

  Philon nodded. ‘That’s what I thought, master.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that at all, dear boy,’ Gaius said, heaving himself upright from the squatting position and passing wind with the effort.

  ‘Nor do I, Uncle. Someone is telling us very clearly that they are watching our every move.’

  Vespasian had slept little that night, managing only to snatch an hour or two between organising the arming of the freedmen and those slaves that could be trusted and then keeping up a regular watch on the walls and roofs of the complex. But as dawn had broken nothing further untoward had happened and the estate had roused itself into another working day. The field slaves were given their fodder and then whipped out to their hard labour by their overseers whilst the domestic household worked their far less rigorous routine.

  By the second hour of the day it seemed to many of the people of the estate as if the incident of the mule’s head was but a fading dream as they became immersed in daily tasks that barely changed from month to month and year to year.

  It was something of a relief to Vespasian when Philon disturbed him in the tablinum to tell him of the approach of a rider. ‘He’s coming from the Via Salaria, master; he must have left it at Reate.’

  Vespasian rolled up the scroll of last year’s accounts he had been perusing. ‘He’s from Rome most likely. It’s good to know that we’re not cut off. Whoever this Cripple is, he hasn’t got the manpower to surround us; that makes me feel much easier within myself. Offer the rider a bed for the night if he wishes.’

  Philon bowed and retired as, from the atrium, there came the sound of someone being admitted. He was soon back and handed Vespasian a couple of leather scroll-cases.

  ‘Letters, dear boy?’ Gaius said, following the steward in. ‘Something to relieve the tension at least.’ He sat down without being invited and awaited the news.

  ‘Titus,’ Vespasian said, looking at the seal of the first letter and then breaking it open. ‘He says he’s on his way here to discuss a proposal for a new marriage.’

  ‘Is he now? That’s quick; his first wife is only just cold in her grave. He should never have taken her out to Asia with him. Surely now that he’s back he should be concentrating on becoming a quaestor and getting into the Senate, not getting remarried.’

  ‘Perhaps he sees this match as a way of improving his chances of doing so; after all, at the moment this family cannot even afford the bribe to get Epaphroditus to put him on the list of prospective candidates.’

  ‘You might be right. Whose daughter is it?’

  ‘Quintus Marcius Barea Sura’s.’ He looked to the steward. ‘Philon, go and tell the mistress that we can expect our eldest son in the nex
t day or two. She had better warn the young master that his older brother is coming so that he has time to get used to the fact.’ He turned back to Gaius as the steward left the room. ‘That could be a very good match for our family. We should be honoured that Sura has suggested it. I assume it’s to Marcia Furnilla as I seem to remember the older Marcia getting married some time ago, unless she’s been recently divorced.’

  Gaius warmed immediately to his favourite pastime of gossiping. ‘No, she’s still married to Marcus Ulpius Traianus who is serving in the East with Corbulo at the moment; with great distinction, I hear. They’ve got an eleven-year-old son who you should have your eye on for Domitilla’s daughter. There’s also an older daughter, Ulpia Marciana, who’s made a very good match just recently with Gaius Matidius Patruinus; he, as you know, has more money than he knows what to do with even after he’s given interest-free loans to the Emperor.’

  ‘They certainly are a coming family.’

  Gaius considered the match whilst Vespasian opened the second letter from Sabinus and began reading. ‘I have heard that Sura’s brother, Soranus, is a close associate of Piso’s.’

  Vespasian lifted his eyes from Sabinus’ letter. ‘How close?’

  ‘They know each other.’

  ‘So? I know Piso; as do you.’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t get invited to his dinner parties.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it with Titus when he arrives; it’s no doubt something that he would wish to raise. He says that he’s provisionally said yes, subject to my approval; Sura’s very keen to complete the formalities as soon as possible so he suggests that should I have no objections we could meet with Sura and the marriage could take place the following day, auspices being favourable, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously. He seems uncommonly hasty.’

  ‘Titus has only been back from his province for less than a month and finds himself a widower. He’s the nephew of the prefect of Rome and my son, to boot; he’s a good match as far as Sura is concerned. I’m minded to agree to it if only to make closer links with the Ulpii.’