More terror.
Stumbling down to see who was attacking their doors, all the Camilli were horrified. As soon as they saw the soldiers, they were sure this time they really were done for. Just when they dared to believe they escaped last night, loud messengers from the Palace had arrived at their homes. They were, after all, being brought a death sentence.
“Morning! Let’s be having you.”
This was a cheery cry from Taurinus, that hardened, diligent officer, still stuck with acting as postman, still subtly troubled by his task. Now he was in charge of waggons. He had two hundred doors to knock on, each time greeting a man who would think that this racket heralded his executioner. There was always a chance, Taurinus knew, that some noble senator, still with sleep in his eyes, would grab a weapon and come running out to spill blood. Nothing to lose. Go down fighting, like his hairy ancestors. Horatius Cocles holding that bridge single-handed. Now some victim of Domitian might finally choose to say no to a polite death. Blood all over the flower urns. Nasty incident. Horribly public.
From various directions, neighbourhood dogs could be heard barking. In other houses, shutters had been discreetly opened.
“Presents!” announced Taurinus. He had been told to keep them guessing until the last moment. “Nice ones,” he added, pretending this was irony. Taurinus had no truck with mothers so he ignored Claudia Rufina, but he winked at Hosidia Meline. She was younger and, in her light sleeping tunic, almost lustworthy. He had taken to her. “These your husbands, are they? Noble A Camillus, noble D ditto?” He sounded chippy. “So, aren’t they the lucky boys!”
The noble A and noble D pushed their wives behind them for safety, not that either of their wives was having it, so the two women moved back out beside them. The senators occupied their home doorsteps, arms folded, knowing that they were probably doomed but ready to turn truculent.
No need for heroics, Taurinus assured them pleasantly. Our Master just wanted to give them treats, mementos of his lovely banquet.
“Oh, he shouldn’t have. The heartburn is enough!” quipped the noble Quintus.
“Nice one, sir! Now look lively, if you please. Sign here!” ordered Taurinus in his now-practiced don’t-give-me-any-trouble voice.
“I shall do it,” said Aulus Camillus, acting the elder brother.
“For what is he signing?” demanded his wife, true daughter of the famous jurist Minas.
Taurinus recited: “Delivered goods. Item: one tombstone. That is, one per person.” The black painted name slabs that had stood beside each dining couch had been cleaned up, revealing an unexpected constituency. “Very desirable, very expensive, very generous of Our Master!” Taurinus congratulated them as the startled beneficiaries noticed that under the dark goo of last night, the tombstones were in fact substantial blocks of solid silver. “What a merry trickster he is.… Item: one serving platter each, elegant comport, seemingly onyx, will look delectable in your display cabinet!” The wives grabbed them. “Item: one slave boy, cleaned up, personal attendant with high-end dancing and serving talents, just watch their habits and their language, which to my mind are both absolutely filthy.”
Aulus used the military response to panic, though he said it quietly. Taurinus responded, with sympathy. “Don’t blame me, sir. I am just the messenger. If anybody asks, I’ll say you was both utterly delighted to get this stuff, shall I?” Aulus and Quintus nodded weakly. Children were crying now—and that was just the two appalling slave boys from the banquet who had been dumped here, almost certainly as spies.
Taking their gifts, the Camillus brothers turned into the Justinus’s house, intending to share more raw mirth at the malevolence of the Emperor’s “joke.”
“I am not having that horrible pervert slave in the same house as my children!” stropped Claudia. “Quintus, I shall give the dirty little beast to your niece Albia. She is setting up a new household and she doesn’t stand for nonsense.”
“She can take ours too,” agreed Meline tartly. “‘We thought you could have them, Albia—you are so scary, you can make them run away.…’ Then my ex-husband, the moneychanger, will turn those hideous tombstones into cash. I shall ask him today, before the silver market crashes due to overload.”
“And maybe today for once,” they chimed fiercely at their husbands, “you noble pair will stay at home for breakfast among your loved ones.”
“All we ever want!” promised the Camillus brothers, sounding meek.
It was too early, but no one would be able to get back to sleep, so Claudia had her Baetican staff bring breakfast now. Appetites returned. The nightmare was over; they had emerged from it unscathed. Everything was all right.
As they ate, light-heartedness coloured requests to pass the chickpeas. Both men were freely teasing their wives over whether they needed a cabbage cure for hangovers; Claudia and Meline acted out disinterest, cradling small cups of mint tea with refined gestures. Wily children snatched slices of Lucanian sausage from other people’s plates. When a saucer of olives was placed on the serving table, a wit cried, “Black food!” so everyone collapsed laughing.…
But perhaps, as their eyes met over their bread rolls, Aulus and Quintus were thinking. As brothers, they knew how to communicate privately. Each could see the other suspected Domitian had miscalculated. He had shown how much he despised the Senate. Yes, he had made clear that his return to Rome would have a cruel tone, while last night he clinched his intention to rule through tyranny. But this relied on his premise that the Senate was composed of cowards.
In fact, Rome had checks and balances. There had always been honourable senators, and the Camilli were not the only ones who were capable of resistance. They, and others at the black banquet, had refused to submit to fear. These dinner guests were all part of a strong network that stretched throughout the empire: relatives, colleagues, contacts in trade and politics, old ties to the legions in which they had served, new ones in provinces where they owned estates. Any emperor relied on the Senate to validate him. They were not moribund: they could vote in a new one and obliterate the predecessor from history.
It had been done; it would be done again. Plotting was a tradition in their family, and they were permanently scarred by it, so what had the brothers to lose? All over Rome that morning, other men who had been made to suffer at the Emperor’s dinner would start to share their mood. It would be slow. It might take years. There would be no oaths, no funny handshakes, no secret notes in code, yet it would happen. Domitian had invited opposition to begin.