Appius Julianus raised his black eyebrows interestedly as he broke the purple imperial seal and read the message inside the folded sheet of heavy papyrus. An army courier stood at attention before him, trying to look incurious. Appius Julianus had been a famous man in his day, and his military reputation was still unfaded. More important, he had just got a courier message with a “priority” on it, from the emperor himself.
This was an odd retreat to retire to, the courier thought, sneaking a look around the old general’s study. Plain buff walls, a black marble floor, and no furniture to speak of except the big, dark, polished desk and the shelves that covered most of the walls. The shelves were a bit more interesting. In between the scrolls and bound works were a collection of souvenirs, no doubt from the general’s campaigns: weapons mostly – an odd-looking little bow, a big spear with a collar of white feathers, and a bronze knife that looked evil somehow, although it was perfectly plain except for some markings down the blade.
The general took a thin wooden tablet from a compartment in the desk and scratched on the wax surface with a stylus. He closed the leaves and held a sealing stick over the flame of a dog-headed lamp that sat on the end of the desk. When it was softened he smeared the end across the folded leaves and stamped his ring into it.
A slave tapped cautiously on the door and poked his head around it. “My lord, the senator Aemelius is wishing to see you.”
“Very well, send him in.” Appius handed his tablet to the courier. “I am the emperor’s servant, as always,” he said, but the interested expression was still on his face as the courier saluted and left. So the emperor had a need for horses… enough of a need to send for them personally, instead of waiting for the army to acquire them and ship them on. The rumors of a new campaign in Germany didn’t lie, it appeared.
There was the soft scuff of sandals outside the door, and it opened again. “Ah, come in, my friend.”
Aemelius’s round blue eyes flicked nervously about the room, and his plump face was troubled. He pulled up the one visitor’s chair, which sat beside Appius’s desk, and hunched himself into it.
“My dear friend, you are distressed.” Appius gave him a quick, questioning look and called back the slave who had escorted him. “Bring us some wine and something to eat, and then see that we’re not interrupted.”
“It’s good of you to see me,” Aemelius said with a heavy sigh.
“Roma Dea, man, you’re a neighbor and my son’s father-in-law. What’s happened?”
“I’m being robbed!” Aemelius said with a flash of anger. “Robbed by a thieving snake who’s a disgrace to his family name! Marius Vettius has taken me to court.”
“Vettius?” Appius looked concerned. Law-court thievery was all too prevalent and difficult to stop if the judge was corrupt. “How did he get his hooks in you?”
Aemelius’s dejected mood returned. “It was after the fire.” The great fire of the first year of Titus’s reign had consumed the Augustan Library, Pompey’s Theater, and the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, as well as a large portion of the City’s housing. Rebuilding was still continuing in the wake of the destruction. “I agreed to invest in new housing – some land that was going cheap.”
“With Vettius? I’d sooner put my money into ice in Egypt.”
Aemelius nodded gloomily, and the slave came back with the wine, a pitcher of water to mix it with, a silver tray full of figs, and a light bread with nuts in it, the master’s usual noon meal. He had a folding table under one arm. Appius motioned to him to set it up and leave.
“Of course that’s hindsight,” Appius said. “One always has a clearer view after one has made the mistake. What happened?”
“Well, the investment appeared to be going well,” Aemelius said, “although now I don’t think I’ll see the money back; he’ll find some way to bury it in the accounts. But anything I do make isn’t due me for four months yet under the agreement, and Vettius has got hold of a note I took out elsewhere that falls due this month, and he’s demanding payment on it. And the damned thing is forged, and I can’t prove it!” Aemelius’s hands shook as Appius handed him a wine cup. He took a swallow and seemed to be trying to get them under control. When the cup was half-empty, he set it down carefully and began to explain.
It became clear to Appius that Marius Vettius had set out to trap his victim from the start. Some time ago Aemelius had taken out a small loan from a former, slave of his, now a freedman with a thriving interest in the wine trade, in order to make some improvements in the farming of his estate that would more than pay for themselves in a few years. As was often done, the freedman sold the note to raise cash for a venture of his own, and the purchaser had apparently sold it yet again, this time to Vettius, who now produced a note for twenty times the value of the original. The forgery was expert, and the only witnesses whom Aemelius could produce to testify in his behalf were the first purchaser and his own freedman. The purchaser proved to be Vettius’s man and was lying. And under Roman law the testimony of a freedman in favor of his former owner was unacceptable on the grounds of probable prejudice. It was Aemelius’s word against Vettius’s, and Vettius had a forged signature to back him up.
“All my cash went into the building scheme,” Aemelius said miserably. “It wouldn’t have been enough to pay off the amount he’s claiming, but it would have helped. If he gets a judgment against me, they’ll sell everything I own.”
And for far less than it was worth, Appius thought. If Vettius got the court on his side, some man of his would buy the land up and leave Aemelius with nothing. And then let him try to get his money back out of the building scheme. He never would.
“Well, we mustn’t let it come to that,” Appius said, endeavoring to sound encouraging. “I’ll do everything I can, starting with talking to the courts to try to get your freedman’s testimony admitted. And maybe Flavius can persuade the emperor to take a hand. Titus wouldn’t have tolerated this for a minute.”
“Aemelia has already written to Flavius to tell him what is happening,” Aemelius said. “She and my wife are taking this hard. But I’m afraid… Vettius seems to be a pet of the emperor’s, and it was no secret that Flavius was after Vettius’s blood before Titus died. Vettius would be glad to ruin me to settle that score. I’m afraid I don’t have much faith in Domitian’s putting a stop to it.”
“We aren’t lost yet,” Appius said. “I still know a few men with a reasonable amount of influence, and a lot more who would call it a civic benefit to get Vettius convicted of fraud. Try to keep your wife from fretting, and I’ll start working on it.”
“I… I wouldn’t want to involve you too deeply,” Aemelius said hesitantly. “Vettius isn’t a safe enemy to have.”
Appius raised his eyebrows at that. “There’s no such thing as a safe enemy. But this is my business, too. He’ll set his sights on my land next if it’s Flavius he’s trying to get to. In any case, I wouldn’t think much of myself if I sat back and watched him rob you. Go home and rest, and I’ll send a slave in a day or two to tell you if I’ve made any progress.”
Aemelius put his wine cup down and straightened his toga restlessly. His plump hands made little jabs at the folds. Appius came around from behind the desk and called for a slave to escort him. There would be one in the colonnade outside, making sure that no one disturbed them. “No interruptions” was an order that Appius’s staff had learned to take literally.
When Aemelius had gone off down the corridor, the bounce and self-importance that generally imbued his bearing gone from his walk, Appius went back to his desk. He wondered if it were possible simply to have Vettius killed, and decided against it. More than likely, Aemelius would catch the blame. He took another tablet out of the desk and picked up the stylus again. It was nearly evening when he called in his slave.
“I want you to go to all the men on this list and tell them that I request the favor of an interview with them. I will come to them at their convenience. Except for Lucius Paulinus. He’s my son-in-law, he can damned well come here. And send Forst to me as soon as you can find him.”
If Domitian wanted horses in a hurry, he could have them. The local purchase officer for the cavalry wasn’t going to like having horses sold out from under his nose, but he wasn’t an emperor. This was a good time to keep Domitian happy.
In the City, the innumerable officials who made up the government of Rome appeared to feel the same way. It was a summer of games and festivals piled endlessly one upon the other, and there was talk of increasing the grain dole. The emperor Domitian wished the people of Rome to know that their welfare was ever closest to his heart… So said the aedile who opened the games. Of all the things an emperor feared most, a City mob was high on the list, and Domitian’s unpopularity was growing alarmingly.
The day that Forst went into Rome to pick up some breeding stock, Arab mares that had come by ship, there was a wild animal show in the Circus Maximus – not a mere slaughter, but a performing act with ponies that danced on their hind legs, leopards that carried saddles, and other exotic attractions. He installed Emer and a burly slave to guard her in good seats in the public section, and went off to the docks to inspect his horses.
They were unnerved from the voyage, their little ears swiveling in all directions at the confusion of the dockside. One of them snorted in surprise as a crane swung a crate over her head. She reared and came down on Forst’s foot.
“Here, get off!” He leaned into her shoulder with his own, and she danced skittishly away from him. It wouldn’t be much use to put them through their paces now. The horse dealer he had contracted with for them could always be found later if he had lied, Forst decided. He had brought two stablemen with him, enough to handle six mares, so he sent them back to the farm, the long way around to skirt the City traffic, and went back to the Circus to watch the dancing ponies with Emer.
“You should have stayed,” she said when he appeared beside her. “There were elephants, Forst! One of them wore a toga, and two more ate breakfast at a table, and there was one that played the cymbals!”
Forst smiled at her. “No expense spared.” That was what they always said on the signs that advertised the show. The emperor wasn’t there, of course, but one of his officials, a sleek, fair man named Vettius, was in the imperial box, throwing coins and little wooden balls into the crowd. The balls had tickets that were redeemable for wine or gold or new clothes. Some of the senators were scrambling for them as avidly as the common people, and Vettius was amusing himself by throwing the balls between two men and watching them squabble over them.
Three tumblers with horns ran out onto the sand, flipped themselves into the air, and blew a fanfare as they landed. One of the gates by the track opened, and six little chariots came out, drawn by ponies and driven by furry brown monkeys wearing the colors of the four factions that traditionally raced in the Circus Maximus – red, white, blue, and leek green – as well as the two new ones recently added by the emperor, gold and purple. They trotted around the track with the monkeys grasping the chariot sides with their feet, tails curled up over their heads, and clinging to the reins for dear life with their hands. They wore little tunics in their team colors, and the chariots were painted to match. They were somewhat better mannered than the human drivers, being careful not to crash their chariots into each other.
Emer giggled. “Julius should see this.”
When the monkeys had gone round and disappeared back into the gate under the stands, a pair of leopards came out wearing blue leather saddles and collars with reins attached. A small, solemn boy and girl sat in the saddles with a beaming dark-skinned man walking beside them. Emer thought they were probably the trainer’s children. They waved proudly to the crowd, and the women in the front rows cooed and threw money to them. An older boy in a loincloth and a red jacket ran behind them and scooped the coins up in his cap.
Next was another boy in a loincloth, who wrestled with a tiger, and then the inevitable dancing ponies, and a slim girl in a red costume with glass beads sewn on it who danced on the broad back of a hippopotamus. A trainer walking ahead of it threw it cabbages.
The crowd was in a good mood, and Emer sat happily eating a box of sticky sweets and licking the honey off her fingers. There was another fanfare, this time from a military trumpet, and a gate swung open at one end as the animals disappeared back to their stalls at the other. A gold cart came out, drawn by white horses with gilded hooves and purple ribbon in their manes. It was loaded with every conceivable example of Rome’s conquests: gold vessels from the temple in Jerusalem, silver bowls full of pearls from the waters of Britain, dark furs from Germany, grain from Egypt, wine in red-glazed amphorae from Gaul, bolts of bright silk, and even twenty pairs of slaves, each matched for height and coloring.
Vettius rose and beamed, and a slave beside him held up an enormous silver bowl full of more little balls, these made of gold and silver with the emperor’s name stamped into them. These were the special prizes, the people’s share of the booty and Domitian’s proof of the breadth of his rule. The fact that the conquests were his father’s was not mentioned, and the people didn’t care. Vettius flung the little balls into the crowd, and they scrambled for them with a savagery that was soon appalling. Slaves in the imperial livery were throwing others all through the tiers. There was another trumpet fanfare, and while Vettius continued to toss his prizes with an aim that grew steadily more evil-minded, a garlanded box behind the imperial one began to fill up. The occupants were pointed at eagerly by the crowd, and ignored by Vettius and the aedile beside him, who was supposed to be running the show. They were a display for the crowd only, the same foreign “residents” who had sat with Nyall Sigmundson in their special box in the new amphitheater. They rated no extra courtesies from the imperial box as they sat to watch the spoils of their former territories tossed to the crowd.
Forst shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Are you ready to go?”
Emer shook her head. “There will be animals again later.” A little silver ball dropped from the air, and she shot a hand out and snatched it, laughing, while a bald man with a wrinkled chin glared at her from the seats in front of them. “Look!” She twisted the ball open eagerly and shook the little bronze ticket out into her hand.
“What do you need with a pair of fancy slaves?” Forst said sourly.
“No, look, it’s a pearl necklace!” Emer sat looking at the ticket with greed. Never in her life had she owned anything like a pearl necklace. If it was long enough, she could take two of the pearls off and make pins for her hair, too. She caught Forst’s expression. “And don’t say I mayn’t have it! I’ll take Quartus and collect it myself if you won’t!”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t have it,” Forst said. “I reckon that would be too much to ask. But Quartus can fetch it without you.” He glanced at the burly slave sitting next to her. Quartus belonged to Appius Julianus, and he was big enough to defend a pearl necklace. “And without me.” He looked at Vettius with distaste. “I’m damned if I’ll take that toad’s dole with a ticket in my hand.”
It was late when they came back to the farm. Forst left Emer alternately holding the pearl necklace against herself in front of a bronze mirror, and trying to get two pearls off the ends to put in her red hair. The mares were settled in a paddock of their own and seemed to be less twitchy, and a barefoot urchin who belonged to the master’s household was sitting on the paddock rail waiting for him.
“Clear off,” Forst said automatically. “You’ll scare them.”
“I won’t,” the boy said. “And I’m not your slave. They aren’t your horses,” he added as an afterthought.
“Close enough,” Forst said. He raised a hand, and the boy hopped off the fence, out of reach.
“Master wants you,” he said. “Maybe you’re in trouble. They’ve been looking for you all day.” He stuck his tongue out and ran.
“How many mounts have we got,” Appius said almost as
Forst came through the door, “that are ready to go into the line?”
Lucius Paulinus was with him, sitting in the chair by the general’s desk. He gave Forst a friendly greeting, but his face was angry.
Forst thought. Most of the horses ready for the sale ring were only broken to saddle. They would go to a cavalry training camp to be schooled with the recruits who would ride them. Horses with enough training to go straight into the field were fewer. “None,” Forst said after he’d reviewed the stock on hand. “Not enough to do any good. A dozen maybe. That’s not counting the three hundred head we just sold to that Spanish officer.”
“Have they been delivered?” Appius asked.
“Not yet. But he’s paid. Or at least I have an army treasury chit for them.”
“Give it back,” Appius said.
Forst whistled. “He’s going to be mad.”
“I imagine. But the horses are going to the Rhenus.”
Forst’s hands stiffened, and he spent a moment carefully relaxing them. “Is there a war there, sir?”
“I have not been informed of one,” Appius said. “But the emperor has requested all the remounts we can give him, delivered to him personally, so you can draw your own conclusions, like the rest of us.” He shot Forst an ironic look. “You will be in an admirable position to find out, Forst. You are going to take them to him.”
“Me?”
“You.” Appius’s face turned serious. “You’re the only person I’ve got to send with them. Unless you think that old Alan can make an Alps crossing at his age?” He paused. “Or that I can’t trust you in Germany?”
Forst flinched, but it was a fair question. “No,” he said slowly. “I’ll be taking them for you. And you can trust me.” Forst hoped he was right.
As he left he heard the talk start up again behind him. Lucius Paulinus was speaking loudly, in a black, angry voice.
“You can bribe the emperor with three hundred horses if you want to, Appius, but he won’t put a leash on Vettius. And don’t tell me he doesn’t know what Vettius is doing.”
“I have no intention of telling you that,” Appius said grimly.
“Do you want to ask me again why I wouldn’t work for him?” Lucius said.
My dearest Flavius,
The most awful thing has happened since you left and poor Papa is just prostrated by it and so depressed and only mopes about the garden instead of business, and Mama has gone to bed, and I simply don’t know what to do, you must talk to the emperor. Your father told Papa that he might be able to help, but I do think that you could do so much more, don’t you, since you are on his staff?
Flavius blinked his eyes and read the first few lines of Aemelia’s letter again. He held it sideways, as if it might make more sense that way, and peered at it. It was wound on a wooden pin, and it seemed to go on without end. He turned it around again and plunged on.
If you can’t, we are just going to be ruined, and there is another baby on the way, but now I don’t know what to do! It is such a disgrace, and all because of that terrible man that you never liked, poor Papa should never have got involved with him, but of course he didn’t know. But now he can see that Marius Vettius is the worst kind of a thief and all the judges seem to be eating out of his hand and of course all the evidence is forged and Pausanias is only a freedman.
Vettius. Flavius grasped the name and held onto it. Who Pausanias was, he had no idea. And it appeared that Aemelia was pregnant, again, which always seemed to render her hysterical. He revised that thought guiltily. The last time she had lost the baby in her fourth month, so no wonder she was upset. But something besides the baby had reduced her to a state of total unintelligibility.
He read on and gradually began to sift the details from the letter. His mouth had a furious set to it by the time he had finished.
“My dear Julianus, I never interfere with the law.” Domitian was stretched out on a couch having his back rubbed by a blond slave with a pretty face and bowed legs like a frog’s. He talked to Flavius over his shoulder.
He looked like he was half-asleep.
“It would appear that the law has already been interfered with, sir,” Flavius said. He felt like a fool standing at attention talking to a man who was lying face down.
He expected Domitian knew it.
Domitian made a clucking noise with his tongue. “Then I am sure that the courts will put things to rights. I never tolerate dishonesty, you know. But I really can’t run around personally arguing lawsuits; it isn’t dignified.” Flavius sighed. He really hadn’t expected much more. The emperor was setting a high record for spending money, and some of it was certainly coming from Vettius. Looked at one way, Domitian was being remarkably tactful. He might have simply confiscated the disputed estate and let both claimants whistle for their money. Flavius hoped he wouldn’t think of that.
“Do let me know how it all comes out, Julianus,” Domitian said as he left. The slave poured a sweet oil between the emperor’s shoulder blades and rubbed it in with the heels of his hands. “I do hate to see you troubled.”
Forst sat on a rock that looked down into the horrifying gorge that fell sheer from the side of the road. The horses were being given their morning ration by the team of stableboys he had taken with him. It took too long and left too much time to think. The last time he had crossed the great barrier of the Alps, he had walked, with a rope around his neck, in the company of a hundred other hopeless and captive souls and a guard commanded by a soldier who spoke no German and made his wishes known with a stick.
It was all a long time ago, and it had all been buried under the neat layers of a pleasant life that were built up in Emer, the horses, and the small whitewashed house with a garden that Appius Julianus had given them. He hadn’t even wanted to go back to Germany, not for years, not since he had married
Emer. Now suddenly all the layers were stripped away again, and he felt naked under them, going back to Germany with Nyall’s ghost by his side and three hundred head of horses to be used to fight his own people.
Even the horses were part German, many of them, bred from a German stud that Correus had brought back from the Rhenus seven years ago. It might be no bad thing to be a horse, Forst thought, and not know the difference.
One of the stableboys shouted to him, and he picked himself up and dusted the dirt and gravel off the seat of his breeches. The ground was cold, even through his boots. He swung himself into the saddle, grateful for the horse’s warmth against his legs.
The loose horses were boxed in between the riders, and they went slowly, hoping to meet no traffic in the opposite direction. One spooked horse on this road could panic the lot of them. Forst was grateful that they were all cavalry-trained. It made them more unflappable. They were weapons, Forst thought. He might as well be shipping a load of new pilums to the Rhenus forts.
That thought had been coming into his mind more often with every day on the road. And every night it had been replaced by sad, disjointed dreams in which he rode side by side again with Nyall and Kari and the rest. But the dreams always ended with a fight against the Romans, and at the end Nyall and Kari would be dead, and Forst would look down at himself and find he was wearing Roman armor.
One of the stableboys was whistling. Forst recognized the tune and gritted his teeth.
Oh, we’re going to fight the heathen in the
wilds of German-ee,On a tall horse, a black horse, a
horse named Victor-ee!
It was an old cavalry canter song that Alan used to sing. Alan had served in the auxiliaries when Claudius was emperor. Now they were fighting in Germany again, maybe fighting the last sad remnants of Forst’s own folk. The cavalry canter tune went maddeningly, insistently through his head, and last night’s dreams came up in his mind’s eye in cadence with it. The
Germans had never had enough horses – only the lords could ride into battle.
Such thoughts were dubious companions for a man with nothing but a grief to keep him company. It may have been small wonder that by the time they were on the downward side of the trail, into Augusta Raurica, Forst was no longer sure to whom he was taking those horses – or himself.