The Blood of the Martyrs (30 page)

Lalage and Sophrosyne walked back together and were arrested at the door of their lodgings. Lalage protested that she'd been on a job, but it was no use. One of the men pulled the harp away from Sophrosyne, threw it on the ground and stamped his foot through the strings. They made a queer little complaining tinkle as they snapped. The two women were marched off to prison. It was fairly obvious to Lalage that she was likely to have a rather worse time during her first examination because of her painted face and professional dress. That would—put ideas into the heads of the prison officials. Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. She had become part of the Will and the Plan for the Kingdom; whatever happened to her body. And that was good.

Tigellinus had in the most gentlemanly way waited until after the marriage. He was not vastly partial to virgins, even willing ones. And now it was all very satisfactory. Aelius Candidus, as Deputy-Governor, had definite hours; no awkwardnesses were likely to occur, although, as a matter of fact, Tigellinus did not really mind if they did. At present he and Flavia were not at all tired of one another. With some surprise, he found himself standing all sorts of things from the girl; she liked presents, but was not grateful for them; what she really liked was inventing physical tests which he, the Praefect of the Praetorians, had to pass. And very peculiar they sometimes were! God, she was live and tough, not like these sticky little Greeks and Persians and Gippos! And a proper little aristocrat. It still gave him great satisfaction to know that. She took the toga as a matter of course, had been known to snub him thoroughly about his own ancestors. And he even took that from her! Of course, when he was tired of her—unless she got tired of him first? He was exceedingly anxious to avoid that.

Flavia was intelligent about politics; all that Stoic nonsense of her father's had slipped off her. She saw the essentials—that you'd got to go on hard with any course of action; you couldn't stop, still less could you go back, to Augustus or any state of things, historical or imagined. That would dislocate every joint of society. People were living differently now; no one could change the set of the current. Some of those barmy old fools even thought they could go back and farm, live on what they grew and made for themselves, like in the middle Republic; they'd forgotten where their money came from now, forgotten imports and taxes and all you got out of the Provinces, forgotten the rise
in the population. You'd got to feed new Rome and new Italy as well as a few senators and their families! There was no standing still either; it was like the chariot you'd put your money on skidding round the bend at the top of the course on one wheel—that could be done if the horses went at it full lick, but not if they were reined in, not if you played safe. So with Government; it had to go thundering on, swinging round the corners of difficulty and danger, balancing on that one wheel—striking out sparks! No good trying to slow it down, or there'd be a smash for everyone in that golden chariot. On the contrary, you had to give more and more oats to the team—here Tigellinus slapped himself on the chest and made a man-size joke about the habits of horses—and you mustn't thwart the Divine charioteer. Flavia interrupted, ‘When do I get asked to meet him?'

Tigellinus looked at her a shade warily—what exactly had she meant? ‘The Emperor has his hands full just now. What with the old gang—your father's pals, Flavia, my poppet. And now these bloody Christians.'

‘Oh,
them
! But isn't that just the moment he'd like a spot of consoling?'

‘Not by little girls like my Flavia.'

‘Funny, I thought he liked little girls. You know. I think I must meet him, all the same.'

The devil of it all, felt Tigellinus, would be if she got it into her head that she wanted to meet him—and managed it on her own, as she was quite capable of doing, blast her! He mightn't ever know—till it was too late. So he took to tipping the maids heavily. He would have been surprised to know how rapidly some of his money got round into the hands of the prison warders in the Mamertine, materialising as food and drink for Christian prisoners. Persis was a pretty, quiet little thing, and never spoke above a whisper when he was there.

The rounding up of the Christians was going on very well. The prisons were nearly full; everything was ready for the great September Games. The various stage managers were in touch with the authorities and had been authorised to take out as many prisoners as they needed for each show. The propaganda had taken well and now the authorities
had comparatively little to do; information was coming in from all sides; everyone was eager to exterminate the brutes. Sometimes Tigellinus himself almost believed they had burned Rome! Of course, some of the information simply came from people who had a grudge against their neighbours; it was easy to finish off a private quarrel that way. Sometimes the person accused turned out not to be a Christian at all, but a reputable follower of Serapis or Mithras or the Great Mother, none of whom had anything against them at the moment; they were all officially recognised and fitted suitably into the structure of the State. And, of course, plenty who were in one of the Christian Churches denied everything the moment they were arrested or had been through a spot of questioning; usually they were let go with a caution, and the knowledge that the police had their eye on them. If they were caught at their tricks a second time, there wouldn't be another chance for them. At first the arrests had been on the definite charge of arson, but that might be difficult to prove satisfactorily at a public trial. The accusation had certainly had its effect on people's minds, and now the arrests were merely for the practice of the Christian superstition.

‘Why do you make such a fuss about these idiotic Christians?' Flavia asked. ‘They haven't really
done
anything, have they?'

‘They've no right to exist.'

‘How ridiculous! You look as if you wanted to eat them, darling! Why shouldn't they exist?'

‘Because they're against the State. That's good enough for me. If they didn't actually burn Rome, they might do something as bad or worse some day. You'll see if we leave them alive! They're against property.'

‘Slaves always are! But who cares? A lot of wretched little Jews. You're only drawing attention to them with all these arrests. What does the Emperor think?'

‘Same as me. You can take that for a fact, Flavia.'

‘Oh—can I? You know, I don't believe in facts I can't see for myself.' Flavia jumped up crossly. She'd had another of these quarrels with Candidus the night before. She could say things that hurt him, and she knew he wanted to kill
her—and Tigellinus—but didn't dare. That was all very fine a situation, and one got a lot of kick out of it once or twice, but it didn't get any further. It stuck. And then her father had come back from the country and trotted along to pay her a visit and bleated about the home and the family. She'd picked up her embroidery—the same piece she'd been doing last month, but he'd never notice!—and sat and ached with the tedium and stupidity of it, half longing for the crash—to tell him and see what he'd say! Dig it in and hurt! See them wriggle, him and Beric—if only she could! It would serve him right for talking about grandchildren. So now she was irritated and impatient, and all she wanted at the moment was to see Nero; somehow she couldn't believe he was just an echo of Tigellinus!

And Tigellinus was thinking about Nero too. If only he could be sure that the Emperor agreed with him wholeheartedly! For instance, this business of the execution of the Christians in the Arena: it was good policy: it would go to show there wasn't, after all, to be any nonsense about turning the Games into a wretched, amateur, Greek business, with nothing but races and singing, and wrestling under a set of rules that stopped anything funny happening! If you got the sand well soaked with blood a few times it would get all that out of people's heads. The Emperor had seemed to agree, he'd thought up new ways of dealing with the criminals, got an imagination, he had. Yes, too much: an imagination like a showman's—so that however a thing turned out in the end, it couldn't be as good as you'd figured it. So the Emperor was always getting disappointed. Upset. If you didn't picture things yourself, then whatever was done for you was always fine. If only Nero'd been that way! Then you'd have known what to do. Not made mistakes. Not ever. And he wouldn't ever look at you with those bloody queer eyes of his as though he were looking right through you. Nasty, that was.

Having said a tender goodbye to Flavia, Tigellinus went straight to see Nero; he had started worrying again about the master of the world. Supposing, after all, the Praefect of the Praetorians didn't understand him? Then? Well, then you had the Praetorians anyhow. For what they were
worth. You would probably get enough warning if the Emperor—changed his mind about you. He counted over the number of freedmen and slaves at the Palace who were in his pay. So long as they weren't still more heavily in someone else's pay. Bloody awful not being able to trust a soul, he thought. Not even little Flavia. And he pitied himself heavily.

The Emperor received him almost at once, but insisted on his looking at the architects' models for the new palace, the Golden House. ‘What's it all going to cost?' Tigellinus asked, poking at the pretty little wax and ivory things. ‘But don't you worry, Majesty,' he added, ‘that'll be all right. There's money about in Rome; you trust me and I'll get it for you.'

Nero looked sideways at Tigellinus with that veiled suspicious glance that made him seem so much older; he was only twenty six, and he could have anything in the world he wanted—if only he'd known what. ‘Some of the Senators,' said Nero, ‘have more than they deserve. Ugly old devils. They oughtn't to be allowed to live, as ugly as that. Plotting. Calling themselves Stoics. With as much idea of philosophy or anything Greek as—you!'

Tigellinus laughed, ‘I don't need to. You do all that for me, Majesty. That's why we're such a good couple. Husband and wife, as you might say.' He passed one hand round the Emperor's narrow shoulders and squeezed his arm. ‘They talk treason too. And they're such a pack of old fools they get themselves overheard by my chaps. They don't mean half of it, but they like making noises about Brutus and that. Then they get into trouble. But we're always prepared to believe they're loyal subjects again when they fork out a nice little present to pay for these pretty palaces of yours.'

‘They ought to be proud,' Nero said, looking sombrely at his models. ‘I am giving Rome the most beautiful buildings in the world!'

‘Old Gallio must have made pots when he was Governor of Achaea,' said Tigellinus. ‘We might catch him out.' He wondered what Nero would say to that, whether the Emperor was still half-afraid of his old tutor Seneca—in
spite of Seneca having been safely banished to the country—and wouldn't have Seneca's adopted brother touched. But Nero seemed aware and acquiescent: enough to move on. Tigellinus added that everything was ready for the next Games. These Christian atheists would then get what was coming to them. It would be the finest show there'd ever been yet. ‘All Rome's going to be crazy over you for that,' he added.

‘They ought to be,' said Nero, ‘they ought! When I consider what I do for them. Things that none of the others ever thought of doing. The music. The spectacles. Strength through joy! They ought to be crazy about me. To love me. They ought to do more than love me!'

‘They'll honour you,' said Tigellinus. ‘Your name will live for ever. Things will be called after you. Solid things.'

‘My Golden Palace.'

‘They'll remember Nero's reign long after old Augustus is forgotten.' But Nero was fidgeting. Tigellinus made a great effort of the imagination. ‘Towns will be named after you. Cities. Altars will be dedicated to you everywhere.' Ah, that was better. ‘A god, that's what you'll be. A regular god.'

‘I feel like a god,' said Nero, ‘sometimes. Coming into the Arena, slowly, grandly, at the head of the great procession serpent-stretching behind me, lifted on the voices, the closing, rising cheers, the love, lifted above the sand that is so soon to take the blood. Lifted and floating.' He raised his arms, moving about the room on the balls of his feet, hovering round his models. He went on, his voice rising a little, ‘I am the Will of Rome and the people know it, the ordinary people who love me. For whom I make the great blood sacrifices. You
said
they loved me! It is only the hideous old men, the Senators, who refuse to know I am the Will. Some day I shall make them. I have been merciful, but my patience will not endure everything. Heads must roll! If they thwart me, they thwart the Will and Voice of Rome. They become enemies of society. Isn't that right, Tigellinus, isn't that right?' But before Tigellinus had time to think of an answer, the Emperor began again. ‘The Epicureans as well, they are enemies of society. They want to thwart the natural wish of the people for gods and the gift of the gods,
the natural wish for a leader! I have read some of the books of the Epicureans. Why have they not been suppressed?'

‘Most of them have been, Majesty.'

‘All must be, all! Atheism is as much a crime against men as against the gods. Men need gods.'

‘They need the Divine Image on earth, Majesty,' said Tigellinus, getting his cue. ‘They need to see it walking among them, doing the things they like doing themselves.'

But Nero was not listening; he was leaning now on the marble sill, looking down and out over Rome, screwing up his eyes so as to see it less blurred. Even here, even still, there was the faint, sour, sultry smell of an August city, the remains of an ashy taste in the air. ‘Roses!' Nero cried out suddenly, ‘oh, my God, roses! Will someone be quick?'

After the room had been filled with flowers, Tigellinus took his leave. He understood Nero; it was all right. But sometimes rather exhausting. He had made up his mind to catch Gallio out: old fool, coming round in his toga, grunting about justice! He'd have had Flavius Crispus too, but for the fact that he was a certain little lady's father. Not that she'd mind most likely—grand little bitch! But you never knew. Besides, it might look bad.

Nero had asked for a particular singing girl; two boys had dashed off to fetch her. She was Asteropé, the daughter of one of his old nurses, Alexandra; she looked like a pure Greek, spoke a rather affected Attic, and knew all his poems by heart; he treated her exquisitely. At the moment he was making a wreath of buds for her with his own hands, as Apollo might have done for a favourite Muse. With her he would be able to be good, to escape from one of his selves into the other.