The Pillars of Rome (32 page)

Vegetius sat silent, his fat face flushing a very deep red. The tribune finished his salute, turned on his heel and marched out. Aulus, still with the same benign smile, turned back to the titular commander. ‘As you see, Vegetius, I am taking responsibility. If the Senate questions my actions, I feel sure that I’ll be able to convince them of my personal probity. Not something I fear, however, that will be available to you.’

Vegetius felt a knot of fear in his stomach. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do. If you want to hang on to any of that money you’ve acquired these last few years, I should get hold of your Quaestor, right away, and confirm the orders that I gave to the tribune.’

Vegetius tried to bluff it out, but the words wouldn’t come. ‘I…’

Aulus finally lost his patience, and, in a voice that had addressed an entire consular army, he told Vegetius in plain language what his fate would be if he did not order the preparations necessary to march.

‘I must warn you that my despatches concerning your actions, or rather the lack of them, are already on their way to Rome. Do as I say or I will personally see you impeached, stripped of all you own, and thrown into the pit of the Tulliniam to be consumed by the rats. You are a disgrace to the name of Rome. Do you think the locals don’t know, to a man, what you have been about? I have already said we can’t rule by force, we must rule by the respect of law, the laws of the city we represent. How can we impose respect for the Imperium of Rome with petty thieves, like you, lining your own pockets? You have a choice Vegetius, redeem yourself or I’ll have you hauled back to Rome in chains.’

Vegetius positively ran out of the tent, and those officers who had little respect for him smiled to themselves.

‘And who knows,’ said Clodius, when the news swept through the camp that they were headed south. ‘There might be a bit of loot to be had after all.’

Claudia would have readily admitted, had she been taxed, that she was probably on a fruitless search. Revisiting the villa was easy, since it belonged to a member of her own family and was, at present, as it had been the night of the birth, unoccupied. She had been tempted to come here so many times, but finding an occasion when Aulus was out of Rome, at the same time as both his sons, had proved an insurmountable obstacle and even now she risked discovery. It was a rare thing that someone as well-born as she should choose to travel with just her personal maid, Callista, and her maid’s husband Thoas, in attendance.

Thoas, sworn to secrecy, had hired strangers to carry her litter instead of using the household slaves. This alone was bound to excite comment in the Cornelii abode and leave a trace that could surface in an accidental comment. Aulus and Titus would be gone for so long that her travelling would hopefully fade from the collective memory before either of them returned. Quintus would be back in a month or so, but he was so heartily disliked that she had every reason to believe the household slaves would ensure he remained ignorant of her strange excursion.

‘I wish you to try and find a midwife who answers to the name of Marcia.’ She took a small bag of coins from her chest and handed it to Thoas.

‘Do you have another name, lady?’ asked Thoas.

‘No,’ she replied with a slightly waspish tone. ‘Nor do I wish you to enquire further. Merely find her, and bring her to me.’

The tall Numidian bowed, which at least brought his head down to her level and Claudia realised, with a start, that she did not know this man very well. He was not the type for domestic service, being tall and physically strong, surely more fitted for manual labour or as a protective body slave. But he was Callista’s husband, so it made sense to bring him along to perform this task, since she could hardly go asking around the neighbourhood herself. He had married the person she had been most intimate with for the last eight years; Claudia trusted Callista absolutely, so surely she could trust him.

‘This is a very personal matter, Thoas,’ she added in a more pleasant tone. ‘I am relying on you to be discreet. It’s not something I would want discussed by the rest of the household.’

The Numidian bowed again. ‘I am yours to command, lady.’

He found Marcia fairly quickly; there was a finite number of local midwives but Thoas was no fool; he added several more days to the search, purloining a fair amount of his mistress’s money in the process, supposedly distributed as bribes to gather information, in reality spent on wine, women and pleasure as well as the greatest of all
satisfactions; the ability to behave like a free man.

Those were days that dragged for Claudia, days when she relived every event in her life: her childhood, in the home of indulgent parents; her father an upright but far from wealthy senator, a good soldier who brought her up as a proud Roman; the flattery of marriage to a man like Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, whose gravity, presence and achievements so impressed a sixteen-year-old girl. It was a match that shocked her friends, yet Claudia had sensed their jealousy too; had she not snared the city’s leading soldier, as well as the richest man in Rome? And despite the age difference, he was handsome as well as gentle, showing to all with eyes to see that he was besotted with her.

Life after the wedding ceremonies turned her head even more; she was no longer a young girl to be indulged but had become the Lady Claudia Cornelia, a person of substance. People, certainly older women, who would have been condescending in her previous station, now showed due deference. She became the mistress of a great house instead of the child of another and Aulus had immediately signified his trust in her by giving her the keys to the strongbox and the doors, so that everyone in the household knew she was in charge of all the domestic arrangements.

Men of all ages, who had in the past flattered her
for her looks, now professed themselves amazed at her sagacity when she advanced an opinion. Her husband treated her with just as much respect and, with an almost paternal care, awoke in her the passionate side of her nature. To wound such a paragon was not easy and Claudia took no pleasure in it, but over the first weeks in the company of Brennos she had realised that she had married Aulus for his standing, not his person, as well as to please her father. She was in love with the image, not the man, and nothing proved that more to her than the physical reaction she felt to the Celt’s presence, a vibrancy to their lovemaking so very different to the tender couplings she had enjoyed with Aulus. There were times she cursed the decision to travel with Aulus to Spain, something that had been brought about partly by her own pleading. Still young, she craved adventure, was in thrall to the notion of being the other half of a Proconsular Imperium. In her imagination, as well as lording it over the provincial Romans of Spain, she would comfort the great general at the same time as inspiring his legions to feats of arms hitherto unheard of. With Claudia by his side Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus would add even more lustre to his name.

She should have stayed at home! In Rome Claudia would have avoided temptation, bound by family, name and responsibility: she would never
have met Brennos, never have experienced the all-consuming nature of true love, have remained content with her station; she would not have made her upright husband unhappy and never suffered the torment of losing the child of her Celtic lover. Claudia would not have had to live the lie that the child she bore had been unwillingly conceived. To tell Aulus otherwise, to proclaim the joy she felt when she knew she was pregnant by another man, would be to destroy him. She might have been happy, instead of tormented by the knowledge that, having compelled Brennos to break his vows of celibacy, she had failed him by her inability to protect his son.

Many times she imagined telling Aulus, only to recoil from such a thought; first of the battle that had seen the wagon she was travelling in taken by Quintus, of the look in her stepson’s eyes when he had realised her condition. She had thought of killing herself then, in the time between that meeting and his arrival, but with a baby in her womb she could not do it, that followed by a determination to see the child born at whatever cost. Tell Aulus the truth and even he might, in a jealous rage, kill them both. Had that been the right choice? Once under her husband’s care his desire to hide what he thought to be her disgrace had created a prison from which she could not escape. In guarding her from prying eyes, under the protection
of strangers whose only task was to make sure she remained unseen, all choice had been taken away. Her heart was wrenched with fear as she heard of Roman victories, a terror that one day Aulus would walk though her door to tell her Brennos was dead. That did not come, but her lover’s dream collapsed, and with a speed that meant the child in her womb was born here in Italy, instead of Spain.

When the legions came home, Aulus had to come with them. That he chose not to march with them, instead taking ship, was considered strange to troops who had been victorious. When they landed as Ostia the litter in which she was to travel was brought aboard so that no one on shore should see her and they had travelled incognito to this villa, where she had given birth on this very floor on which she now paced to and fro. So much for the pride of the Lady Claudia Cornelia! The image of that baby would be with her forever; the bright blue eyes and that hair, russet mixed with gold, wet from the waters that had eased his birth. Perhaps the charm she had placed round his foot was too valuable, but it was the only thing she had had that might save him, a talisman she had taken from his father the better to remember Brennos. That Celtic goldsmith had been clever, the replica he had made so perfect that had she not switched them directly, she could never have been sure she had the original. And Brennos had never noticed, even when he
fingered the replacement around his neck.

She had felt something very strange at the moment when she put the charm round the baby’s foot, as if her head was filled with flashes of lightning interspersed with fleeting images of her blue-eyed Celtic warrior, images that had subsided as soon as she let go. But then Claudia knew she had been exhausted, and could not be sure that what she had been vouchsafed were genuine visions, instead of hallucinations.

Claudia was so nervous her throat refused to function, sure that the midwife felt more at ease than her. It was way short of true, for in the presence of this high-born lady, whom she recognised at once, Marcia kept her head half-bowed, which hid the fright in her eyes. Each question was answered in a monotone, which suggested indifference.

‘This is a matter of some importance to me.’

The lady’s sharp tone finally made Marcia lift her head and look Claudia in the eye. ‘You forget that I saw you place that talisman round the child’s ankle. I knew you wished him to live.’

Claudia’s voice was full of sadness. ‘But he didn’t live, did he?’

‘Lady, the boy wasn’t exposed around here. I asked everyone, even offering a reward. I knew you would repay me tenfold. Your husband and that
Greek slave used their horses when they took him away. You slept, so you did not see them return. They did not come back till after dawn.’

Claudia stood up quickly. If this Marcia had half a brain, she would be able to find out about her; who she was and, more importantly, to whom she was married. The family connection of the villa would ensure that. Since she could not be of any use, only her silence was valuable.

‘Do you remember the oaths you swore that night?’

‘Only too well,’ the midwife replied, shivering slightly. Yet what she remembered was that look from the black-eyed man, one that threatened her with death.

Claudia gave her a very direct and slightly threatening look. ‘That is good.’

‘Can you not ask the Greek slave where they exposed the baby?’

Claudia treated her to a humourless smile, seized as she was with a vision of a small dead body, a skeleton now, with that eagle the only thing still intact in the tiny grave. Claudia shook her head violently, and reminded herself of the nature of her husband. Certainly he was a warrior and he could be a ruthless one, but for all Aulus’s distress and anger at what had happened, she could not bring herself to believe a man like him could cold-bloodedly murder a new-born infant.

‘No, Marcia. I cannot, any more than I can ask my husband.’

Thoas shot away from the doorway, scurrying to hide behind a pillar as Marcia and Claudia emerged into the vestibule. He did not have it all, there was still more of the mystery, but perhaps he had enough. The Falerii steward had promised him a rich reward for this secret. Over a decade, as he had steadily tired of his tiny wife, Callista, he had given up all hope of release from her tiresome embrace, but now perhaps that had changed. It would be interesting to see if the steward to Lucius Falerius still wanted this information after all these years.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE