‘Allegedly!’

  I remembered Abascantus’ expression when he confirmed he had survived. Trebianus, the Parthia-watcher, had challenged him, which seemed daring. Abascantus had outfaced him, like a man who was openly getting away with it. Domitian had recalled him. Everybody else knew he was a complete crook. Domitian must need him, despite any qualms. Here he was, unassailable.

  ‘Is this,’ Katutis intoned, as if reading a sacred papyrus telling him how to dispense poison to an enemy, ‘sheer madness or a clever device to make him expose himself?’

  ‘Perhaps once he slips up,’ I answered gently, ‘he will disappear into oblivion finally, no reason given.’

  ‘Oblivion!’ Katutis repeated, sounding each syllable like a chant to a dog-headed god. We both glanced around us, as we walked through the elegant courts of Domitian’s palace. They had been equipped with marble from imperial quarries in far-flung exotic places (polished so highly you could see an assassin creeping up behind you), extravagant gold ornamentation on every conceivable surface to impress all comers − and the most observant ‘floor-mopping’ slaves in the world.

  ‘You missed a bit!’ I chivvied one, before we skipped on our way.

  Katutis and I went back to my house. On the journey we did not speak. The streets are full of informers.

  Graecina had arrived. She had rounded up two men from where she had lived before; they had brought her furniture, which they were helping to arrange. She issued instructions in a loud, abrupt tone. They obeyed patiently.

  She owned more than Tiberius and I did. After years of marriage, her accumulated goods were impressive, some items looking like cast-offs from the wealthy people her husband used to work for. He was a wheeler-dealer of renown, so had probably acquired other nice things from people who repaid favours in kind. A steward to the rich has a great deal of power with suppliers.

  It struck me Graecina would run our house in that way. It would be all she knew. I would have to watch it. With Tiberius in trade, he would inevitably engage in the to and fro of Roman patronage – but I knew he would want our carrots to be bought for their taste, not because Graecina had a private set-up with some fast-talking greengrocer.

  Also making her presence felt was Galene, a slave Mother had sent. She had originally come as a nursemaid to my sisters and brother but had decided to be our cook. Typically, my parents simply let this happen. It was true she was better than previous chefs, though she had had no experience. She was still learning after thirteen years. When she had started, she could spread olive paste on bread. Now she could do that, and arrange a salad.

  Fortunately my father loved playing with his brazier and its natty grill up on the roof terrace. Otherwise we would have had to live on Xero’s rabbit pies; they have a bad reputation for causing epidemics. Even if you avoid stomach cramps, the bones choke you.

  So far, Tiberius did not have a brazier for meat and fish kebabs. I must find out when his birthday was and see he was given one. A man needs his gadgets and I like a mixed grill.

  The current problem for me was that Graecina and Galene both had the same idea of what they were there to do. I saw Galene bringing out rejected buckets and pots; they were probably things Graecina had put in the kitchen. Once she finished directing the placement of couches and side-tables in her private rooms (having claimed a whole suite), she would notice what her rival was doing. We were heading for conflict.

  Katutis was exchanging quiet words with Galene before leaving, perhaps advising her to slow down on tossing out stuff. Graecina’s children were sitting in an old dog basket on one side of the courtyard, watching the action as if they knew strife was imminent. Dromo had positioned himself on the opposite side, as far away from them as possible.

  I went over to him. ‘Where is your master?’

  ‘Went upstairs.’

  ‘Is he all right? Why aren’t you looking after him?’

  ‘He didn’t want me.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Full of apprehension, I went up to our bedroom. Tiberius had closed the shutters. He was lying down in the half-light, curled up, with his back to me. Dropping my stole on a chest I went over and sat. When I laid a hand on him, he flinched. I went to a side-table and mixed his painkiller. ‘Sweetheart. All too much for you?’

  He grunted. After a time he turned over, straightening out from his foetal position. Lying on his back, he forced himself to ask me how the meeting had gone. I told him, while I was encouraging him to lean up on his elbow and take the sedative. He sipped morosely. Not even mention of Abascantus gained much reaction. But with gentle persuasion I made him agree to come down in a little while and eat with the rest of us.

  As I regained the courtyard, Graecina bustled up. ‘What exactly is that woman here to do for you, Flavia Albia?’

  ‘Galene?’ I chickened out. ‘Oh, Galene is an old family nursemaid. Very faithful. My mother, the noble Helena Justina, will have given her instructions.’

  That put Graecina in a dilemma. Should she allow the intruder to care for her children, leaving her free to domineer, or should she go into a full-frontal attack over kitchen rights? She had to be cautious about ‘the noble Helena’, not wanting to make any error in respect of my mother, an unknown quantity, possibly a terror.

  Galene had made sure she listened in, so she had to decide when to own up to calling herself a cook. Outsmarting Graecina over kitchen control would cause a furore; I could see it was tempting.

  We had two people now to organise our meals. They were too busy stalking around one another. I myself fixed supper.

  Katutis stayed. When he could, he muttered to me solemnly, ‘I shall remain with you temporarily, Flavia Albia.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘There are too many women.’

  ‘There are two!’

  ‘Indeed. Two.’

  The Egyptian had a knack of making cryptic utterances. He could be put back into any temple and would be revered for prophecy.

  Tiberius, who had just come down with his hair combed, noticed this exchange. He bent to kiss my cheek; close to, I sensed amusement. That was better. I filled him a food bowl; he picked at it slowly.

  At the moment he did not look like a husband who could fire up a home barbecue. But I told myself he would like it when he saw it. Three days in, and I was a typical wife already.

  We finished supper. Katutis made himself scarce indoors, Graecina was putting her children to bed, and Galene had gone to the kitchen to clear up, bullying Dromo into helping. The sky above our courtyard was still light, though draining of colour. I was enjoying a quiet sit alone with Tiberius when Philippus turned up.

  Spies have no sense of timing.

  17

  Since we had been due to hold wedding parties, there was wine in a locked cupboard. I was the bride here; I had been ritually handed the keys. While Tiberius and Philippus exchanged polite nothings, I went for refreshments.

  Galene had tidied the kitchen, studiously changing the positions of any items she thought Graecina might have arranged. At least it all looked neat and clean. Galene herself was now on her knees, furiously scrubbing out the small wood-burning oven. So long as I did not let her cook in it, this was an improvement. Dromo hung about, hoping she would dispense biscuits. I could have warned him hers were best avoided, but somehow it slipped my mind.

  I took Philippus a very small saucer of hard green olives, with a small beaker of poured wine. ‘Excuse us if we don’t join you. We have eaten already.’ Well, I tried. It seemed spies are impervious to hints not to stay long.

  I sat silent, close to belligerent, as I waited to hear why Philippus had come. Tiberius had the excuse that he was an invalid, so he sank into reverie. So far, our home was none too welcoming for visitors. I quite liked it that way.

  Philippus ate one olive, then put down the tiddy-bit dish. Small-talk, about the Roman Games and the part Tiberius had played in them, withered.

  ‘Albia indicated you had something to discuss?’ Tiberius made an opening. Of the two of us he was the politer host. This could be the future: him gracious, me obstructive. He could see me thinking that. If he had been feeling better, he might have grinned at me. Even so, there was a hint of a smile in his grey eyes.

  ‘Aren’t you curious?’ Philippus tried on me.

  ‘No, I came to your meeting, which seemed a waste of time. Otherwise, your fee was never intended to cover supplementary questions!’

  Tiberius clucked at me gently.

  ‘Why did you feel it was a waste of time?’

  ‘Mainly, Philippus, because there was nothing to add. The men there, your watchers, your specialists, must have more idea than me about what goes on in Britain, Germany and the devious east. The east especially. Their agents must have told them who did, or did not, support the False Nero.’

  ‘You felt the widows were an irrelevance?’

  He was my employer; I made myself answer seriously. ‘You could find out more about Sallustius Lucullus from a javelin-maker than from his wife – assuming the man really did invent a weapon. I was genuinely interested in the eastern situation. Yet even there, why harass the widow? Your expert’s agents could ask around among the locals. I suspect they did.’

  Philippus shook his head urgently. ‘No, no! We cannot question them. They would never answer, and they would be upset that we made the request.’

  ‘Touchy! Well, we know how they work,’ I agreed. ‘Tiptoeing into tents for private plotting. Business meetings that seem to be on one subject but are intended to cover something different. Too much sharing of peculiar drinks in tiny metal or glass cups.’ I raised a little finger, while mimicking the act of sipping from a fancy foreign tot. ‘Presents that are meant to secure favours.’

  ‘People arriving wrapped up in carpets!’ Tiberius supplied satirically, a Cleopatra joke.

  ‘The aedile has a sense of humour!’ Philippus remarked, as if joking was sedition.

  ‘The aedile does not hold with bosh,’ I answered.

  The aedile closed his eyes as if the pains from his lightning strike were bothering him again.

  ‘So what is your worry, Philippus?’

  I screwed it out of him. He wanted to talk about the False Nero.

  Because he was a bureaucrat, his first move was to put it in context. He had to discuss the real Nero. He ran us through what had happened when that emperor died; that is, he invited me to say what I knew about it.

  ‘His end was up.’ I was terse. I do not like powerful maniacs. I particularly hated the one who had caused the Boudiccan revolt in Britain. But for Nero, I would know my birth parents. ‘He agreed to leave. He fled the palace, could not decide where he wanted to go, considered pleading for refuge in Parthia, considered requesting the Prefecture of Egypt, considered Greece where he was loved because he took part in their Olympic Games. The Greeks didn’t care that he rigged the results and supposedly won a chariot race in which he fell out of the chariot.’

  Tiberius continued the narrative, more soberly: ‘Retirement in exile would never have been allowed. He ran out of time. He accepted an invitation to his freedman’s villa.’

  ‘Phaon.’ That was Philippus. Trust an imperial official to know and name his predecessors. He sounded almost envious that someone else had played a part in history.

  ‘Nero hid in a ditch they had dug to be his grave,’ I said. ‘Mounted soldiers were approaching. Nero could not do it, so Phaon and one of the others –’

  ‘Epaphroditus.’

  ‘– helped him cut his throat with a razor. In the east, where he is so weirdly revered, some believe Nero escaped death, fled Rome, and went into hiding. He will return and, curiously, some say “overturn tyranny”.’

  Philippus took up the story. ‘The obscure location, at a private villa outside Rome −’

  ‘In a ditch!’ I could not resist it.

  ‘− made it easier for foolish people to deny his death. I of course believe it,’ Philippus stated gravely. ‘The incoming Emperor Galba had his freedman – Icelus – inspect the corpse and make a full report.’

  Very bureaucratic. Lovely. Always have your mad dictators’ deaths formally witnessed. Always be able to prove they are dead and gone.

  Tiberius roused himself. ‘I suppose the problem was exacerbated because Nero had been deposed. So he was buried not with pomp among his imperial ancestors in the Mausoleum of Augustus, but almost secretly, by his lover Acte, in the tomb of his father’s people, the Ahenobarbi.’

  ‘Immediately afterwards, we had the first imposter inflicted upon us,’ Philippus glumly went on, as if he had reached the nub of some lengthy position paper. ‘The first of any significance emerged in Greece. Nero’s visit had flattered them and there will always be Greeks eager to oppose Rome. That first was either a slave from Pontus or a freedman from Italy, whichever obscure version you care to believe. He took advantage of the chaos in the Year of the Four Emperors. Somehow he assembled a ragged bunch of army deserters, took ship with them, perhaps heading for Rome. He was blown off course by a storm to an insignificant island among the Cyclades, Cythnus. He made that his base for piracy, arming the slaves of any merchants he captured, while trying to seduce sea captains to his side to give him a navy.’

  ‘Galba had him captured?’ asked Tiberius.

  ‘Casperius Asprenius, on his way to take up the governorship of Pamphylia, learned the imposter’s whereabouts. He diverted, stormed the ship he was on and beheaded him. The severed head was sent around the eastern provinces to prove the False Nero no longer lived.’

  ‘It might have been helpful to do that with the real Nero! That should have been the end of fakes.’ I tried to hurry him along.

  ‘It was, for a decade. Vespasian was too strong to allow such nonsense. When Titus inherited, Terentius Maximus, an adventurer from Asia, popped up as the second pretender. He was something of a legend for his physical resemblance to Nero, and for ghastly harp-playing.’

  ‘Oh, that should have convinced people!’ joked Tiberius.

  ‘Terentius Maximus gained surprising support,’ grumbled Philippus. ‘A significant armed force. He went marauding all the way to the Euphrates. Approaching the Parthians, he claimed – as Nero – they owed him a return for restoring Armenia to them. Their king, Artabanus, was an enemy to us, always looking for excuses. He received the pretender eagerly, then put plans in motion to enthrone the nonentity in Rome. But even the Parthians had to look shamefaced when we outed his true identity. After some diplomatic shuffling, we retrieved Terentius Maximus and he, too, was executed.’

  ‘Head sent on another circuit?’ Tiberius asked.

  ‘I believe we did not bother.’

  ‘Well, if people want a new Nero, they will find one. Now, the third?’ I nudged.

  ‘More mysterious in origin, less care taken to make him look the real thing, but for some odd reason very much harder to extract from the Parthians. They were obstinate – but we got him.’ Philippus paused. ‘Abascantus did good work there, no one can deny it. The third Nero was returned to us.’

  ‘Dead in a ditch?’ Tiberius prompted.

  Not reacting to that, Philippus then explained, ‘I am on a mission to find out who gave him support.’

  ‘Other than the Parthians?’ I asked, curious.

  ‘We can discount the Parthians. Their motives are transparent. I mean people who should have known better.’

  ‘People supposedly on our side?’

  ‘If someone like that existed. The pretender might have told us, if he was kept alive.’

  ‘If kept alive – not dead in a ditch – the pretender could have been persuaded. Inducements to talk,’ Tiberius spelled out. ‘Freedom. Lifelong pension. Nice house with sea views. Fast chariot. Pulchritudinous slave-girls. Boys, if he preferred.’

  ‘If he was alive,’ I repeated, as I began to suspect where Philippus was heading. Tiberius must already have been speculating.

  ‘I have received a message,’ Philippus announced portentously.

  ‘From?’

  ‘Best not to know.’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘Two days ago. It said, “The package you are expecting has been landed in Bruttium”.’

  ‘Code?’

  ‘Not necessary. The security council knows what is going on. With use of the imperial post, my package should reach Rome tomorrow.’

  ‘You may as well tell us,’ I chivvied him.

  Tiberius broke in and made it official: ‘Your incoming “package” from Bruttium is the third False Nero.’

  18

  That was a stunner. More followed.

  Before we continued, Tiberius held up a hand. He took the keys from me, then went for a flagon of wine and extra cups. He and I would need sustenance for this. Philippus and I waited in silence; he filled it by awkwardly drinking the rotgut I had given him earlier.

  Tiberius returned. Hearing him on the move, Dromo wandered into the courtyard to see what his master was up to, but Tiberius spoke to him quietly so he lurched out of sight again.

  In silence I held out my hand. Smiling, Tiberius gave me back the keys. Philippus looked unsettled.

  Tiberius poured. We clinked cups. Even Philippus blinked as if, despite being preoccupied with his political troubles, he had subconsciously noticed a superior vintage. We owned fine wine. Some of our relatives were decent people; their wedding gifts had been generous.

  ‘Thank you, Uncle Tullius!’ I raised my cup again, a toast to the absent donor. In the refreshment pause, Philippus filled time by asking about the lightning bolt. Tiberius cut him off.

  ‘My husband wants to forget.’ I was terse. ‘Tell us about your imposter. I would have thought it was dangerous to let him loose in Rome.’

  ‘Oh, he will never be released.’

  ‘So what lies in store for him?’ There were various ways Rome dealt with a captured enemy: paraded in a triumph, kept in a deep pit for the next twenty years, strangled by the public executioner and his body cast onto the Gemonian Stairs …