Empire - Saylor Steven - Страница 27

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The stamping feet reached the doorway. A group of men entered the room.

“He’s not here, sir,” said a deep voice.

“But the tribunes said they saw him in this room, standing on that balcony.”

“Well, he’s not here now.”

“We didn’t pass him in the hallway…”

“Think he jumped from the balcony? Ha! Shirking his duty!”

“Quiet, you fool! Use our eyes. Do you see what I see?”

Claudius and Titus both looked down. Claudius’s feet were protruding beyond the hem of the drapes. He drew them back, but it was too late.

Footsteps approached. The drapes were pulled aside.

Titus braced himself. Next to him, Claudius dropped, quivering, to his knees. He began to babble, unable to speak because of his stutter, then covered his face with his arms and let out a shriek.

The soldiers drew back. If they were amused or startled, their emotionless faces did not show it. Having served Caligula, thought Titus, there was probably not much that could shock or titillate them.

The small company of Praetorians threw back their shoulders and stiffly saluted. “Hail, Dominus!” they shouted in unison.

Claudius slowly lowered his arms. He blinked and wiped the drool from his chin. “What did you c-c-call me?”

Titus helped him to his feet. Claudius was so shaky that he could barely stand. He gave a start when more Praetorians entered the room, but the men kept their distance, drew to attention, and saluted.

“Hail, Dominus!”

Whispering a prayer of relief, Titus reached up to touch the fascinum, but it was not there. At such a moment – a moment he would never forget, a moment he would talk about to his children and their children – he should have been wearing the fascinum of the Pinarii. What a fool he had been to spurn the amulet and give it to Kaeso! What a fool he had been not to trust in the gods and in his own good fortune! One moment he had been plunged in despair, a humiliated subject at the mercy of a mad emperor, and then, in the blink of an eye, he found himself standing next to his late father’s dear cousin, his own friend and confidant, the new emperor of the world.

Titus backed away from Claudius, leaving the emperor alone on the balcony. He joined the soldiers and bowed his head respectfully.

“Hail, Dominus!” he shouted.

“What do you think, father?” whispered Titus Pinarius.

He stood in the vestibule of his house on the Aventine, before the rows of niches that housed the wax effigies of his ancestors. Among them was the death mask of his father, which had been cast in Alexandria. Its placement in the vestibule, along with all the other effigies, had been among their first duties when Titus and Kaeso moved into this house.

Titus was wearing the trabea he had inherited from his father. He held the elegantly carved ivory lituus that had been in the family for generations. At twenty-four – the same young age at which his father had been inducted – Titus had become an augur, thanks to the sponsorship of his cousin, the emperor Claudius. Now, at twenty-nine, Titus was an experienced and highly respected member of the college. Chrysanthe, noting that the saffron-stained wool with its broad purple stripe had begun to fade a bit, had recently suggested that Titus acquire a new trabea, but he would not hear of it. Instead, the best fullers in Roma had thoroughly cleaned it and applied fresh dye so that the garment was as soft and bright as the first day his father wore it.

Titus gazed at the effigy of his father – it was a good likeness, just as Titus remembered him – and he felt that his father approved. “When I wear this trabea, I honour the gods,” Titus said quietly, “but I also honour you, father.”

He felt a twinge of guilt, and it was almost as if his father had spoken aloud: But where is your brother, Kaeso? He should be here, as well

Titus could not remember the last time his brother had stood with him in this vestibule and paid homage to their ancestors. As soon as he could after the incident with Caligula – about which no one ever spoke – Kaeso had moved out of the house. He had taken the fascinum with him, despite Titus’s request that they share it again, but he had been happy to leave the wax effigies with Titus; Kaeso seemed to care nothing at all about their ancestors, not even about their father. Kaeso never sought any favours from Claudius, and spurned Titus’s repeated suggestions that he, too, should become an augur, or secure some other respectable position worthy of his patrician status. Instead, Kaeso sold to Titus his half of their interests in the Alexandrian grain trade, saying he had no desire for possessions. What had become of Kaeso’s share of the family fortune? Apparently he had dispersed it among fellow members of his cult, of whom there were more than Titus would have thought in Roma. Kaeso and Artemisia were living in a squalid apartment in the Subura. Kaeso seemed unconcerned that he had descended into poverty, and his behaviour and beliefs had become more bizarre with each passing year.

“You look splendid!” said Chrysanthe, joining Titus in the vestibule to see him off. In her arms she carried their newborn son, Lucius. The boy had a remarkably full head of hair for an infant and bore a striking resemblance to his grandfather.

To stand before the image of his father, dressed in his father’s trabea, with his wife and new son beside him – this seemed to Titus as fine a moment as a man could hope for. Why had Kaeso turned his back on a proper life? Kaeso and Artemisia did not even enjoy the blessing of a child, and apparently this was not by chance but by choice. “Why bring a new life into such a foul world,” Kaeso had once said to him, “especially when this world is about to come to an end?” That had been another of their conversations that did not go well.

“What sort of augury will you perform today?” asked Chrysanthe. “Some public event with the emperor present?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s a request for a private augury. A family matter, I imagine. The house is over on the Esquiline.”

“Will you take the sedan?” She referred to the newly fashionable conveyance carried by slaves in which the occupant sat upright, rather than reclining as one did in an old-fashioned litter.

“No. It’s a beautiful autumn day. I’ll walk.”

“You should take one of the slaves for a bodyguard.”

“No need. I’ll go alone.”

“Are you sure? Walking down to the Forum is one thing, but through the Subura-”

“No one interferes with an augur going about his official duties,” Titus assured her. He kissed his wife and his son and set out.

In fact, he had chosen to go alone because he wished to pay a call without the risk that his wife would find out about it later from a loose-lipped slave. On his way to his appointment on the Esquiline, he was going to visit Kaeso.

Passing by the Circus Maximus, Titus ducked inside to have a look at the large-scale refurbishments that had been finished just in time for the recent Secular Games. Among many other improvements, the tufa barriers at the starting area had been replaced with marble and the conical, wooden posts at each end of the spine with pillars of gilded bronze. Only a few chariot drivers were practising on this day, putting their horses through easy paces around the huge track. How different it was to see the place empty, instead of filled to capacity with eighty thousand cheering spectators.

Crossing the Forum, he wore his trabea proudly and nodded to acquaintances in their togas, and paused for a moment to watch the Vestal virgins on their way to the temple of the sacred hearthfire.

Beyond the Forum, a neighbourhood of respectable shops and eateries quickly gave way to increasingly less-reputable venues. Dogs and children played in the narrow streets outside gambling dens, taverns, and brothels. Tall tenements shut out the sunlight. The stifled air grew thick with an assortment of unpleasant odours that Titus could not remember ever smelling on the airy slopes of the Aventine.

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