‘We expect to conceal that we have him.’ Philippus took a deep gulp of our elegant wine. ‘The man will be subjected to interrogation procedures.’

  ‘Torture.’

  ‘I suppose that is inevitable.’ He sounded queasy. That never stops a bureaucrat. Then suddenly Philippus leaned forwards, primarily addressing me. ‘I have a dilemma, Flavia Albia.’

  He might have a dilemma. Now I saw where he was heading I suddenly wanted to withdraw. ‘I would rather not know,’ I admitted frankly, not looking at my husband.

  ‘You object to the process?’

  ‘It must be inevitable,’ I conceded. ‘Death is to be deferred. First a military torturer will make the man give up his secrets – although, Philippus, this has the same disadvantage as when slaves are used as court witnesses. Legally they must be tortured – yet evidence given under torture is always unreliable. Too crude.’ I spelled it out, finding myself aggressive and angry: ‘Ripped fingernails. Chains and pokers. Water. Weights. Stretching and burning. Threats, threats against his family. The victim says whatever will make the pain stop. Inevitably, it is what he believes you want to hear.’

  At least Philippus was now looking shifty. ‘Don’t be hard on me!’

  ‘It’s your responsibility. You work for the Emperor.’

  ‘You must be aware of how it is done.’ Even Tiberius rebuked him.

  ‘Some things are necessary.’ The state servant’s get-out. ‘I cannot afford to dwell on the details.’

  I could have forced him to hear plenty more. My father and an uncle had once had a man in our house and needed to make him talk. Mother took herself and her children away from home, unable to stop it and refusing to stay. Father acknowledged she was ready to divorce him. I was an inquisitive teenager; I saw enough, before she whisked us off.

  Philippus rallied. ‘I apologise. One should not be squeamish. But, as you point out, we must avoid this fellow fooling us with easy answers …’

  Tiberius and I glanced at each other in silence.

  Philippus threw back his head, like someone in the throes of a difficult confession, gazing upwards. The sky had darkened, so normally we would have asked one of our people to put out oil lamps. As it was, the evening had closed in so gradually we could still make out faces. I probably looked annoyed. Philippus looked surprisingly handsome. Tiberius looked ill.

  Philippus restated that once the False Nero reached Rome, he would be secured in an official safe place. After rigorous questioning for the security council, a report with a top-secret classification would emerge; it would have restricted circulation and, once the facts had been digested and acted upon, it would be swiftly buried. After his debriefing, as they chose to call it, the False Nero would disappear from the record.

  So why? Why was he not already dead in a ditch in Syria or Parthia, as everyone assumed?

  I asked; Philippus told me. The reason was what he had previously mentioned: our overseas agents had said that, unlike his predecessors, this False Nero seemed to have nothing to recommend him. His success was odd. Extracting him from the Parthians had been much more difficult than on previous occasions, despite the persuasive talent of Flavius Abascantus (Philippus sounded laconic). So in Rome officials feared that the pretender was not acting for himself; he was a frontman, deliberately set up by hidden backers for their own purposes.

  I remembered how Lusia Paullina had derided him as just a ‘village villain’.

  ‘The third Nero was a puppet? Whose? Domitian blamed Civica Cerialis, but I believed his womenfolk, that he was horrified when the pretender turned up in Asia.’

  ‘Could be anyone. Parthians, eastern clique, highly placed Romans with connections east.’ Philippus unconsciously shook out a few drops from his empty wine cup, then placed it on the ground beside his chair. He folded his hands and gazed between us. ‘Of course, some conclusion will be prepared for the Emperor after this man is questioned. But will it be the truth?’

  ‘Why not?’ Tiberius demanded.

  ‘I think someone will get to him,’ Philippus said. ‘Whoever sponsored him will stop him revealing who they are – and that is because,’ he told us heavily, ‘I believe, this plot comes right back to us at home.’

  After a moment of reassessment, Tiberius turned to me. ‘It makes sense. The objective for a pretender is to overthrow the current emperor. That is sought by plenty of people in Rome.’

  ‘Not always for decent reasons,’ Philippus agreed. ‘Some disapprove of Domitian – which can disguise the fact that others have the oldest aim in the world: they seek the pure exercise of power themselves.’

  ‘Surely the security council will expose them just the same,’ I pondered. ‘If not—’

  ‘It means I suspect my colleagues.’ Philippus finally said it.

  Tiberius stirred. He liked to be precise. ‘One of them, or all?’

  ‘It might be more than one. I can’t see how it could be all.’

  ‘Someone I met this morning?’ I asked.

  ‘Has to be.’ Was that why he had taken me to the meeting? He wanted me to see them before he told me this idea?

  ‘Whom do you suspect?’

  ‘I cannot say.’

  ‘Cannot? Unwilling to speculate – or simply don’t know?’

  He would not answer.

  I saw an obvious contender. ‘Abascantus?’

  Philippus writhed unhappily. ‘Don’t you feel he is just too obvious, Flavia Albia? His life is built on service to the Emperor.’

  ‘Well, you know him,’ I snapped heartlessly. ‘He may have decided that service to the Emperor is not enough. He is the top freedman. If he is a traitor, that is desperately dangerous. You must not let him know you suspect him. So what would you do if he was loyal, Philippus? Wouldn’t you share your fears with Abascantus?’

  ‘I did.’ Philippus could probably tell that surprised me. Did he have more backbone than he showed? ‘I wanted to test his reaction. I went to him privately. He expressed horror that we might have a traitor, though on considering the facts, he agreed it seems probable. He assured me he will look into it. He said I can leave everything to him.’

  ‘Ha! Are you satisfied with that?’

  ‘I pretended to be.’

  ‘Keep pretending!’ I said forcefully. ‘Then check what he actually does.’

  ‘He has the best resources to investigate.’ Philippus went back to looking unhappy. ‘He has the ear of the Emperor.’

  ‘He is also best placed to stop you poking your nose in!’

  Philippus understood. ‘Of course. Now that is why I need you, Albia. I ask you to help me investigate. It needs utter secrecy. Your role, our role, must be invisible.’

  I saw that, saw it all too clearly. I wished my report had been anonymous. I wished the document was simply labelled ‘from a reliable source’. ‘It might have been better not to take me to the meeting today, Philippus.’

  ‘I couldn’t help that. It was his idea.’

  ‘Abascantus?’ I did not like that!

  I chose not to point out to either of my companions that, if Abascantus was a traitor, he had had me invited for a reason. He wanted to assess me. There was no doubt that if Abascantus really was plotting, and if he decided that in helping Philippus I posed a danger, he would eliminate me.

  Calm and steady, Tiberius asked, ‘What brought you to your belief in a traitor, Philippus? Why do you feel the False Nero was being organised from Rome?’

  ‘Recent history. There have been plots.’

  ‘Other than Saturninus in Germany? And at home? What plots?’

  ‘Two years ago. September. The ten-days-before-the-Kalends-of-October plot.’ I groaned. I find Roman dating ridiculous. ‘Domitian was quickly on top of it. Prominent men lost their lives.’

  ‘Very quietly!’ commented Tiberius.

  Plots against Domitian were endemic now. It was easy to forget the ones he suppressed − or simply never to know they happened.

  ‘Think about the way the Saturninus affair was buried,’ Philippus insisted. ‘Someone helped a cover-up. Someone at home, because not one senator here has ever been identified. Think, too, about the timing of the False Nero. The Empire is under serious threat from outsiders – Pannonia, Dacia, the Chatti in Germany, who were coerced by Saturninus. We know the Parthians have been making overtures to the Dacians. The Emperor has his hands full with foreign wars. There could never be a better time to depose him.’

  ‘But he is coming home,’ I pointed out.

  Dimly in the dusk I saw the freedman nodding. ‘They can hardly install a usurper while Domitian is outside Rome, with all the legions at his command, and many of those soldiers loving him. But that is why we need to move fast. Once he returns, he will be at his most vulnerable.’

  ‘Can you warn him of your fears?’

  ‘Not without proof.’ Philippus was now showing how agitated he was. ‘I dare not accuse someone like Abascantus wrongly – if I am right but cannot justify my claims, that will be worse. I must make the False Nero confess who in Rome supported him, Albia. I must do it discreetly before his interrogation starts. The official questioning will be compromised, I am certain.’

  ‘So long as you doubt Abascantus, you have to do this behind his back … So you are alone?’

  ‘Nominally the security council controls all counter-conspiracy efforts,’ Philippus stated. ‘But I can trust no one else.’

  ‘It is dangerous, dangerous to you, Philippus. Be very sure you want to undertake it.’

  He reacted earnestly: ‘I realise what acting independently entails. I know that if I initiate an undercover inquiry, I am fighting for my career.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You work at the palace. You know the rules. Once you start any independent action, Claudius Philippus, you will be fighting for your life.’

  After a time, Tiberius asked, keeping his tone neutral, ‘Why must you involve Flavia Albia?’

  It sounded as if Philippus had not expected the question. That was foolish of him. ‘I need help. I could have asked her father, which is what my father would have done. But Didius Falco appears to have retired.’ So he thought Falco was too old now.

  ‘Not him,’ I said. ‘But never ask him to work for Domitian.’ Reluctantly I added, ‘If you are trying to prevent an overthrow, does this mean you approve of our Master, Philippus?’

  ‘I am a palace official,’ Philippus excused himself. ‘I want stability. I approve of the proper transference of power. The Emperor must be legitimate − his candidacy open, his reign confirmed by the Senate. Once you permit individuals to manoeuvre in secret, unasked, and for their own purposes, there is chaos. The Empire is already under stress from external sources. We cannot have a civil war.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Tiberius sounded dry. Even Domitian had been suspected of murdering his brother Titus; there had been nothing ‘open’ about that transference of power.

  Once more Philippus leaned towards me, his plea urgent. ‘Albia, I work with documents. I understand reports. I can hold a conversation …’ He paused a little. ‘You can make people talk. People who want to keep their secrets. I need you. You must help me.’

  Tiberius Manlius stood up abruptly. Without a word, he walked away, going upstairs on his own as he must have done earlier today, taking the stairs stiffly, not looking back.

  In alarm, Philippus demanded, ‘Will he refuse to let you do it?’

  ‘No.’

  Tiberius would never refuse me anything. In our short time together we had survived disaster more than once. He found it unbearable to see me go into danger. But this husband of mine would allow me the choice.

  He represented the best Roman values. That was his dilemma. He wanted to protect me but he knew my skills. If there was treachery, Tiberius, believing in a citizen’s duty to Rome, had to let me pursue it.

  19

  Although I accepted the task, I was cautious. I had been an informer for a long time. All I agreed was that I would meet the False Nero. Then I would decide whether making him spill what he knew was a workable option.

  My own plan would have been to intercept delivery of the secret ‘package’ from Bruttium. Not even let the prisoner reach Rome. Take him to a safe house of our own choosing, question him there. I suggested Laeta’s villa, the place of retirement where Philippus’ father had lived his last years; it lay conveniently just outside Rome on the Via Appia. The prisoner could subsequently come into the city as expected; nobody else in the security council need know of the journey delay.

  That did not happen. Philippus lacked the resources. Since he was manoeuvring in secret, he dared not give direct orders to his usual staff. Acting like this, he had no way to contact those guarding the prisoner; in any case, he doubted the escort would accept his authority and divert.

  Of course, by then I was stuck. Whatever I said, Philippus believed he had won me over. The more I felt he was an amateur, the more I was lured into setting him straight.

  Then he admitted where the False Nero would be held. He finally came clean and said that, according to the movement timeline, the prisoner was due to arrive tonight. Rather than risk anyone finding out he was in Rome, they would act without delay. The torturer would begin first thing tomorrow.

  I had had images of them stowing their charge deep in the bowels of the palace. It was full of buried corridors. There were reckoned to be underground playrooms that the worst emperors had used for sexual perversions; under the Julio-Claudians it was commonplace, reputedly, to starve unwanted relatives to death down there. That Nero ever survived to inherit the throne, despite the risks of exile, strangling, stifling, poisoning and genuine illness or accident, was remarkable. Growing up while his family dropped like flies around him might explain his mania.

  The palace was not the venue. They had a much scarier lock-up. It came with an entire staff of sinister truth-extractors. The False Nero was being taken to the Castra Peregrina.

  ‘Forget it,’ I snapped. ‘I am not going there.’

  Somehow Philippus persuaded me. Curiosity is a terrible inducement.

  The Castra Peregrina, or Strangers’ Camp, was built by Augustus but heavily redeveloped by Domitian. The dark barracks stood on the Caelian Hill, close to Domitian’s Gladiating School. Nearby streets had become a no-go area for respectable women, or even men. The bars and brothels were notorious. For soldiers getting drunk, making a noise, throwing their weight around, it was worse than the Praetorian Camp; that at least lay outside the city walls.

  We went by night. Closely wrapped in cloaks, we had Dromo and Philippus’ slave as bodyguards; mine was naturally useless, his a mere boy. They carried torches; these only served to illuminate our nervous faces.

  As we walked, keeping our steps as silent as possible, Philippus told me how the camp was peopled. Each legion in the field had on its complement dedicated scouts. From them, the Emperor had extracted twelve or thirteen per legion. He transferred them here. They lived in their own camp. They were removed from their legions’ staff list and answered directly to Rome. Their loyalty to their home legions ceased, superseded by loyalty to the Castra and direct faith to the Emperor.

  Every element of their role was filthy. First, they reported on the province where they had been stationed, on suspected elements in their own legion, and even on the governor. This was likely the mechanism through which Domitian had heard of and dealt with grumblings in Britain under Sallustius Lucullus and betrayal in Asia by Civica Cerialis.

  For the chosen, once they came here, their chief role was to spy on the people of Rome. They were known to go out among the public in plain clothes, inciting indiscretions. On occasion, these men would form an execution squad. After the 22 September plot two years ago, which Philippus had told us about, death sentences on prominent men would have been carried out from here. Their work was undercover – yet their existence unconcealed. That is how fear works.

  Standing outside their intimidating barracks, I felt that fear.

  ‘Philippus, this is what to say: you are a member of the security council, come to inspect the prisoner. You want to check on his well-being before the torturer begins. Be open. Better the traitor thinks you acted out of pushiness and ambition than that he learns you have been here in secret.’

  ‘Will he find out?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  I would have urged him to be brave, but preferred not to remind him of his danger. Myself, I was terrified, but I knew how to pretend.

  There was the usual delay at the guardhouse, though surprisingly they let us in. Entry was nothing to worry about; my real anxiety was whether they would ever let us out again.

  We asked to see the camp commander. He was a big-bodied, sure-of-himself bastard, who reeked of many years of war. Battle-hardened officers can be awarded gold discs they call phalerae to decorate their breastplates on ceremonial occasions; up to nine are possible. This man had eight. On duty, he wore them. Every day for him was ceremonial.

  He was naturally hostile, yet gave truculent respect to authority. Philippus summoned up just enough of an act. Despite hints that he would evict us, this specimen accepted that Philippus, in his palace livery, had a legitimate interest. Philippus knew the prisoner was there, after all. Luckily for us, we could say the palace was avoiding written evidence – ‘So you know we can’t show you a docket.’

  Nearly-Nine-Gongs looked at me quizzically. He probably thought Philippus and I were lovers, or that Philippus hoped we would be, if he treated me to the cheap thrill of prison visiting. I have had lovelier treats. Being introduced as the wife of an aedile only proved I was a shameless bint, slumming. Still, so long as the commander presumed a top-class freedman was bedding me, he held off his own seduction spiel. Dear gods, I was grateful to be spared.

  He told us his name. He spat it out like a challenge, saying we had better not identify him to anyone outside. Let’s call him Titus. My pa says in any group you come across there will always be a big twit called Titus, the one who is messing you about.

  Titus let us go to see the prisoner. He did not bother to come with us. Having a mysterious guest in the camp was routine.