Also by Lindsey Davis

  The Course of Honour

  Rebels and Traitors

  Master and God

  A Cruel Fate

  THE FALCO SERIES

  The Silver Pigs

  Shadows in Bronze

  Venus in Copper

  The Iron Hand of Mars

  Poseidon’s Gold

  Last Act in Palmyra

  Time to Depart

  A Dying Light in Corduba

  Three Hands in the Fountain

  Two for the Lions

  One Virgin too Many

  Ode to a Banker

  A Body in the Bath House

  The Jupiter Myth

  The Accusers

  Scandal Takes a Holiday

  See Delphi and Die

  Saturnalia

  Alexandria

  Nemesis

  THE FLAVIA ALBIA SERIES

  The Ides of April

  Enemies at Home

  Deadly Election

  The Graveyard of the Hesperides

  The Spook Who Spoke Again

  Vesuvius by Night

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  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Lindsey Davis 2017

  The right of Lindsey Davis to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 473 61341 6

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London

  EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Lindsey Davis

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Character List

  Epigraph

  Rome, September AD 89

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Footnote

  CHARACTER LIST

  Emperors

  Domitian, our Master and God a brooding presence

  Nero, damned to the memory a hero to some

  The household

  Flavia Albia licensed to make enquiries

  T. Manlius Faustus her husband, not what he was

  Dromo their slave, a trial

  Graecina their housekeeper, on trial

  Galene a self-styled cook, very trying

  Katutis a secretary from an older culture

  Larcius a clerk of works, down to earth

  The Fabulous Stertinius a visiting harpist

  The family

  Q. Camillus Justinus a helpful uncle, a senator

  Marcia Didia a favourite cousin, packs a punch

  Mariusan other cousin, packs a flute

  Officialdom on the Palatine

  Flavius Abascantus a high-ranking member of Roman intelligence

  Claudius Philippus a rising (or falling) bureaucrat, Albia’s handler

  Trebianus the Parthia-watcher, Albia’s other handler

  Rubrius Philippus’ bagman

  Fuscus a trained killer

  Eutrapelus the ultimate archivist (for the record)

  Gaius Ritellius a missing field agent

  Ilia his wronged wife

  At the Castra Peregrina

  ‘Titus’ the Princeps Peregrinorum (not his real name)

  Plotios his clerk of all trades

  Alfius a ‘plumber’, a nice young man

  ‘Nero’ a prisoner (not his real name)

  Paternus an unknown quantity

  Trophimus an agent provocateur, nasty

  ‘Simon’ a scribe (not his real name)

  Under suspicion

  From Albia’s contact list

  Sodalus an archive clerk, births and marriages

  Perella a wronged ‘dancer’, mainly deaths

  Momus a dissolute fixer

  Rutilius Gallicus the Prefect of the City (top man)

  At the Parthia House

  Dolazebol a devious envoy

  Bruzenus a duplicitous henchman

  Asxen his wife, a nice auntie

  Squilla a piece of work

  Vindobona her white cat1

  Two sight hounds who haven’t read the disclaimer

  ‘a nephew’ someone’s nephew

  Corellius ‘counting tablecloths’

  A gardener ‘pruning’

  Also: veiled ladies, guards, musicians, gardeners, mules (Sabine and other), kittens, cataphracts, slaves with mops, elephant

  Then shall come to the west the strife of war stirred up, and the exiled man of Rome, lifting up a mighty sword, crossing the Euphrates with many tens of thousands.

  The text known as the Sibylline Oracles

  Rome,

  September AD 89

  1

  Many people wanted to believe the Emperor Nero had never died. At least three pretenders passed themselves off as him. One had made a false claim within weeks, under his successor, Galba. Another was dealt with by Titus, and last year Domitian had to tackle a third. Pretending to be a resurrected Nero held a curious appeal. And it was simple: look like him, own a harp, pop up far away in Syria – then keep moving when the legions came to get you. As they certainly would.

  One False Nero was caught at sea; two later ones tried fleeing to Parthia. Bad mistake. Devious foreigners in trousers and conical hats used any False Nero they got hold of as a political tool. But once Rome had negotiated the return of that particular fake, he soon ended his deluded existence, dead in a ditch. In this, at least, he matched the real Nero.

  Beforehand, in establishing a claim, the harp needed to be mastered only loosely because Nero was at best a mediocre musician so any bum notes would sound authentic. Looking like him could be achieved by dyeing the hair yellow and plonking a wreath on top. Strong self-belief was a nice touch.

  To be realistic, nowadays such impersonations were harder. People in Syria joined uprisings whenever they were asked, but even they were growing tired of failure and its horrible consequences. Rome has developed reprisals to its own fine art. Rome puts down a revolt so firmly that it lingers long in the memory. I should know. I come from Britain. We had all that after Boudicca.

  In any case, two decades had passed since Nero died. Even in districts where he always drew a cult following, his mad appeal became more nebulous. New pretenders found it harder to tickle up rebellions, even among gullible people who convinced themselves that Nero was wonderful and had not cut his throat with a razor, or had had it cut for him because he was too cowardly. He went into hiding only until the moment came to reappear and conquer tyranny …

  In Rome, Nero was seen rather differently, even though we had a real need for a protector who could see off tyrants. We had our tyrant. He spent a lot of time looking around for people who might want to dislodge him, then had them put to death. Pretenders made him especially nervous.

  The third False Nero, the recent one, remained ‘shadowy’. In part, this might have been because Rome’s Daily Gazette couldn’t be bothered with him. The editors wanted new news stories, not yet another harp-twangler, with more mischievous involvement from Parthia, leading once again to the sordid death of the hop
eless hopeful. If number three was dumped in that useful ditch, who cared? Failed fakes were old news.

  Besides, it was overseas. Any False Nero had to compete for public interest with the nitty-gritty of our daily life: senatorial decrees, the harvest, aristocratic births, crime, scandal, wills, portents, athletics results and the so-called military successes of our all-too-living emperor, Domitian.

  The Gazette’s column about amazing spectacles had a cracker this week anyway.

  SHOCK NEWS MIRACLE ON AVENTINE Aedile struck by lightning on wedding day. ‘He is determined not to miss the Roman Games,’ vows weeping bride of miracle survivor. ‘Manlius Faustus will appear in his official role.’

  Juno. That was as preposterous as most Gazette reports. It ranked with three-headed calves being born in a village in Mauretania or a small earthquake, not many dead. I was the bride so I should know. I had had no time to weep, even though the half-killed new husband was mine. And until I was sure he was fit again, my man was damn well not going to be dragged out in public at the Games, even though it was his duty to help organise them.

  The mangled report did have consequences, however. That September, the toiling bureaucrats in their vast office complex on the Palatine were still tidying up loose ends on the newest False Nero. They were making sure he remained as ‘shadowy’ as possible. For a routine chore, they all read the Gazette to ensure compliance with official policy − where ‘official policy’ meant ‘the paranoid decisions of Domitian’. The Gazette’s amazing-spectacles section was less sternly policed than others − who cared about a rain of brilliant green frogs in Thrace? − but the SHOCK NEWS MIRACLE made the bureaucrats pause. In the way of their inquisitive trade, they must have checked whom this unlucky magistrate had been marrying when the lightning bolt felled him.

  The report did not specify that his allegedly tearful bride was a daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, who had once worked as imperial informer, or that I myself carried out personal enquiries for the general public. The Daily Gazette probably left this unsaid because it does not accuse magistrates’ brand-new wives of low activities − not unless they have committed adultery with actors, and even then it has to be actors the public had heard of. But the bureaucrats existed to know who people were and what they did. They had their own resources − crude spies, torturers, death squads – or sometimes, for light surveillance, they would hire freelance investigators. They kept lists of all Rome’s freelances. Whether I liked it or not, they knew what I did.

  Just my luck: one of them needed a task carried out discreetly. Widows were involved, nobly born widows with élite ex-husbands. To have the usual repulsive armed men approach these matrons would be undiplomatic, even in Domitian’s Rome. So when my marriage came to their attention, the officials thought of commissioning me.

  My name is Albia, Flavia Albia. I carry out work for troubled people who need answers. I am efficient and discreet. I came to Rome from Britain, which makes me mysterious and exotic. But the bureaucrats knew that, as the adopted daughter of Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina, I could be passed off as a decent, intelligent woman whose mother was a senator’s daughter and her father a man of standing in Rome. Wonderfully for the palace, I had just married a well-regarded magistrate − and, as the Daily Gazette said, I would soon be seen nibbling nuts with him among people of the best quality at the Roman Games.

  Forget the British angle. The scroll-beetles were eager to overlook any rumours that I was a bad-tempered, straight-talking Druid. For tricky interviews with highly placed widows, I was ideal.

  2

  Many a bride wakes on the morning after her wedding feeling full of dread that her new husband may not be the man she had thought. In our case, if I had made a mistake, it was not his fault. The gods had struck him down and caused a great change in him; I must hope it was temporary. They were not my gods, or if they had been (if I had any gods), the whole Olympian pantheon would be answering to me.

  Tiberius Manlius Faustus, a sweet and serious person, had wanted us to have the full marriage ceremony, with a big public procession from my father’s house to his. He believed a show was needed. He was committing himself to an informer, a bad move socially. Even I admitted that. My father swears informing is all above board, but he is also an auctioneer, so false claims come easily to him. Besides, people knew I had come from Britannia, that peculiar province at the end of Europe. Britain fascinates everyone in Rome − none of whom would want any son of theirs to set up home with a British orphan. So, while the full marriage procedure is not a legal requirement, Faustus and I went through it as a public gesture.

  During my bridal procession, a huge thunderstorm broke above the Aventine Hill. A bolt of lightning felled my new husband. Nobody had yet dared to suggest this was his punishment for marrying me, although I knew people thought it.

  Three other men were killed outright. At the time I could barely take in what had happened to them, but despite the rain pouring down on us, I noticed a smell of smoke. At the second of impact, I glimpsed flashes from weapons they had been carrying. I then saw agitated helpers shake their heads, gesturing to me that I should not look at the corpses, which had been stripped by the blast, leaving their clothing in shreds and their shoes blown off.

  Tiberius survived. He was thrown to the ground, briefly unconscious. Family members worked frantically to revive him; they put him on his feet again, although they had to drag him to our house for he could not walk. At first he was unable to swallow or to speak, but then he bravely managed to croak an approximate bridegroom’s welcome to his new wife. I wanted to shoo everyone away but felt I must allow the formalities, because they meant so much to him.

  As soon as I could, I put him to bed. It was hardly a normal wedding night. Tiberius seemed to pass it reasonably well. I did not sleep. Terrified for him, I was in anguish. We had been so full of happiness and hope. I knew how nearly I had lost him and realised from the start that he might be significantly altered.

  At first, he showed few physical marks. Next morning, a huge bruise appeared on his chest. My father was to confess eventually that he must have caused it when he thumped Tiberius with a double fist because his heart had stopped. Father knew that, by horrible coincidence, I had been widowed once before in a freak street accident; Falco could not bear it to happen twice, especially right in front of me. His action saved Tiberius’s life, though he would always remain rather quiet about just how hard he had whacked him.

  ‘Try to hang on to this one, chuck. You attract disaster. I can’t see any other man being brave enough to take you.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Pa!’ No orphan could have been adopted by anybody better. He was deeply upset; I could tell by his making a joke of the chance to beat up his new son-in-law.

  Examining Tiberius further, I discovered strange spreading red ferny marks, which had developed upwards from his feet to his torso. By then Mother had sent us a doctor, who told me these patterns on the skin were typical. He reckoned the lightning had made a direct hit on the other three men; it had killed them, then bounced along the ground in lessened strength before it sprang into Tiberius. That had spared his life, although I was warned that my poor man would suffer unpredictable after-effects, probably for ever. Different people were affected in different ways, and even if he seemed unharmed, serious damage might show itself even in many years’ time.

  Still shocked, he was in pain and extremely withdrawn. He let me tend him, though he hurt all over and had panic attacks. Apart from his uncle, who looked in on him briefly, I barred visitors. Most of our relatives were interested only in finding out whether our marriage had been consummated (what in Hades did they think?). Fortunately, quite a few were still too drunk to leave their houses.

  The event attracted strangers. People stood outside our house and stared. Other members of the medical profession scrambled to call on us, cadging fees. I picked their brains on the doorstep, then sent them packing. Mother’s man prescribed mild sedation, while he advised letting time take its course. He was a doctor I approved of.

  We had planned various parties, which I cancelled. Normally, socialising for days is compulsory for new couples, but I’d had enough at the wedding. I did consult Tiberius, who agreed we had made our point. We had announced our union in spectacular style − then when the Daily Gazette reported the event, our families told us people paid good money for this kind of recognition. Father’s secretary was sent to the Forum to write down full details, which he brought and read to Tiberius, leaving the copy for us. I tossed it into a chest. I knew what had happened. I relived it every time I tried to rest.