David Wishart - Sejanus

'Indeed you have, sir.' Felix glanced at the slave. 'If you've finished your questioning we'll take over now. Don't worry, we'll keep him safe. Until he's wanted.'

I could've gone for him, sure, but it wouldn't've done any good, even without Lamprus waiting outside. Gaius would make a bad enemy, and I had more of these already than I could handle. Not that those excuses made me feel any better, mind.

I walked out without a word.

I spent an anxious month twiddling my thumbs. Here I was with all the proof I needed to grease Sejanus's wheels and I couldn't do a thing with it: now his spoof assassination had fallen through Sejanus had no reason to send Gaius to Capri, and if Gaius didn't go then I was screwed totally as far as seeing the Wart was concerned. Also there was Appius Silanus himself. The featherbrain might not blow the whistle on me of his own accord, but it didn't take much nous to see that five minutes after he'd told his ex-pal Servaeus where he could stick his special dagger Sejanus's frighteners would be round to ask why he'd changed what passed for his mind; and under that sort of pressure I reckoned our purple-striped Adonis would cave in faster than an egg under a marble cart. No, by this time Sejanus would know if he didn't already that Corvinus was alive and very definitely kicking. I just hoped he hadn't linked me with Gaius, because if so the pair of us were cooked.

It was a relief when half way through July Felix brought word that Tiberius had insisted on having Gaius where he could keep an eye on him. The move was still on, and the passports had been approved. We left Rome before the month was out.

I hate travelling, especially slow travelling in convoy, and gods! we were slow. Forget official messengers or two-horse chariots stripped for speed haring down the Appian Road with vital despatches; we had snails laughing themselves sick all the way to Capua. We'd left Lamprus behind solving the remaining mysteries of existence, but as Gaius's tonsorial consultant I shared the last coach with Felix, Gaius's head chef and the Master of the Wardrobe; both unselfconscious lardballs with a penchant for raw onions and cold boiled chickpeas. When the atmosphere got too thick — which was most of the time — I got out and walked. It was faster, anyway.

We took three days to reach Surrentum. I was blistered and footsore, but at least I could breathe. And by that time not even my own mother would've looked twice at me; which was just as well, because the next part was the tricky bit.

I had to hand it to Sejanus. Even with the local mayor escorting us personally security at the harbour was tighter than a constipated gnat's sphincter. The place was crawling with soldiers; not just marines, either, although I noticed a shit-hot little galley moored at the dock, but a detachment of hard-eyed Praetorians who looked like they'd run in their own grandmothers if they couldn't prove identity five ways from nothing. There were enough fishing boats around, sure, but I'd've bet a gold piece to an anchovy that anyone trying to bribe one of the local crab-catchers wouldn't even make it to the gangplank, let alone past the breakwater. As we climbed down from the carriages and Gaius's head slave handed the sheaf of passports to the guard-commander I crossed my fingers and prayed to every god I could think of that nothing would go wrong.

I'd need all the divine help I could get, too. The guard-commander was moving up the line, checking faces against descriptions. Not a cursory check, either, and he had a gorilla both sides of him and two paces behind armed to the teeth and looking like they'd welcome the opportunity of terminating any poor bastard whose face didn't fit. I started to sweat. Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea after all. Maybe I hadn't been as smart as I thought. Maybe Sejanus had made the Gaius connection or traced me some other way and he'd simply given orders for me to be picked up at the boat. If so then I wouldn't even live long enough to wonder where I'd screwed up.

'Marcus Ufonius?' The guard-commander's eyes were two chips of ice that flicked down to the passport and back to me.

'Yes, sir,' I said.

'You're a Capuan?'

'That's right.'

'You don't look it.'

I swallowed. Beside me I felt Felix stiffen.

'My father was Roman, sir. A senator, I understand. My mother was a laundress.'

'Uh-huh.' The eyes raked me again. 'So where's Harmodius's wineshop, then?'

'Off the main square, sir. By the Shrine of the Graces.'

He grunted. 'And the Statue of Pan?'

Oh, Jupiter! Dear, sweet Jupiter, do something! Capuan wineshops I could handle. Statues were another matter. I weighed up my chances of punching the guy in the throat and making a successful run for it. They were as close to zero as you can get. The silence lengthened…

At which point the chef — the only one of us left for vetting — belched and broke wind simultaneously, spilling a foetid smell of onions across the dock.

'Sweet God almighty!' The guard-commander fanned the air, scowled at the glassy-eyed chef, then snapped at the sniggering Praetorians behind him: 'All right. That's it. Let them board.'

I shuffled gratefully forwards. It's times like these when I feel that maybe there's something to religion after all. Sure, my flatulent pal's performance had probably been due to nerves, but it'd taken the soldiers' attention off me when I least wanted it, and after all the fate of Rome had been in the balance there. For a manifestation of the divine it'd been unorthodox, but gods have their own way of doing things, and if I'd just witnessed a minor miracle then who was I to scoff. I offered up a quick but sincere thank-you to Aeolus and boarded the ship.

Capri is something else. It rises blue-grey and sheer out of the sea three miles from the Italian coast, and there're cliffs everywhere except for the main harbour in the north and a cove on the south side where boats put in in bad weather. Both places are watched, seriously. Try landing anywhere else and even if you escape the patrol boats by the time the sea and the rocks have finished with you there'd be nothing to arrest. We were getting close. I could see a lighthouse at the point of the cape, and the sun glinting on white marble.

'That where we're headed?' I said to Felix.

'Yes, sir.' He motioned with his head: we were both talking in whispers. 'You can just see the road up from the harbour. That's the emperor's main villa. He has others, of course.'

'Is that right? How many?'

'Twelve, I believe.'

'Twelve?' Jupiter, I didn't think the Wart would stint himself, but twelve luxury villas on a piece of rock this size was pushing it. How did he fit them all in? 'Why the hell does he need twelve?'

'For guests. And, now, family. However, I suspect we'll be staying at the main one for the time being. You'll like it, sir. It really is very beautiful, by all accounts.'

'It'll make a change from the Subura flat, sure.' Well, I suppose he was trying to sound encouraging, but as far as I was concerned you could take the whole boiling and drop it down a very deep hole. I was wondering what Perilla was doing now. And whether I'd ever see her again.

We docked, and more sharp-eyed Praetorians double-checked the passports. I noticed that even Gaius was looking pale and preoccupied. I didn't blame him: Sejanus was the Praetorian commander, and these guys would be hand-picked for loyalty. Maybe we were on a hiding to nothing after all, and Tiberius was a prisoner of his own bodyguard; in which case Gaius was up shit creek without a paddle and I'd shoved my head into a noose and handed Sejanus both ends of the rope.

The trip up to the villa through two hundred vertical feet of formal gardens didn't offer any more encouragement. Once we were away from the quayside the only people we saw were slaves and soldiers, and there were more uniforms around than homespun tunics. Not friendly, either. From the way those bastards eyed you you knew they'd take you out just to break the endless monotony. Sure, the villa was beautiful, although not flashy — the Wart's dislike of flash was no pose — but I hated it like poison already. The whole thing was a gigantic trap, and you knew the further you went into it the more impossible it would be to get out again.