David Wishart - Sejanus

'Which was?'

'A substance called stibium.'

He paused. 'Go on.'

'Sejanus seduced Drusus's wife Livilla. They poisoned him together, with the help of his doctor Eudemus. It was done gradually, over a period of years.'

'You can prove this?' His face was a wooden mask, and I could almost feel the effort he was putting in to keeping it that way. 'You had better answer Yes, Corvinus, because all the gods in the pantheon help you if you can't.'

'I told you, sir. I've talked to the slave. His name is Lygdus and your grandson has him safe in Rome. Yes, I can prove it. No doubt you can question the doctor yourself.' The sweat was dripping from me now. I would've liked to wipe it off with the sleeve of my tunic, but I didn't dare risk it.

Tiberius lay absolutely still, his ice-grey eyes staring straight through me into nothing. Suddenly there was a sharp crack. I looked down at his hand, wrapped massively around his wine cup. Wine was spilling from the crushed silver and running down onto the couch. I doubt if he noticed. There was a long silence.

'Sir?' I said at last. 'Sir?'

The eyes came back into focus.

'Well, young man,' he said. His voice now was dry and level, perfectly controlled. 'My congratulations. You've convinced me.' He picked up a handbell on the table beside him and rang it. The door opened at once and a guard stepped in and waited at attention. 'Publius. My compliments to Thrasyllus. Ask him to step along if he isn't too busy.' He turned back to me as the soldier saluted and left. 'I've changed my mind. Perhaps I should discuss Gaius with you after all.'

I poured us some more wine while we waited. It was excellent stuff, Caecuban, from the same cellar as Livia's, but well watered: Tiberius might've been able to hold his own in the Rhine messes thirty years back, but he obviously had to go carefully now.

'You like the view?' he said. He might have been a dinner-party host showing his guest the property, instead of the most powerful man in the world interviewing a condemned traitor.

'Yeah,' I said. I hadn't really been looking after it had first registered. Now I did. The gods must have a view like that, from the top of Olympus. 'It's fantastic.'

'I had this loggia built specially. We're a thousand feet above the sea, and on a good day I can see almost to Naples. Birds fly level with the windows. I could reach out and touch them.' His lips twisted. 'Even wring their necks. Up here it's easy to think I'll live forever, but of course I won't. In another six years I'll be dead. Or five years, eight months and sixteen days, rather.' I looked at him, but he wasn't joking. The hairs stirred on the back of my neck. 'Don't spread that around, by the way. It's a secret.'

'Uh, yeah,' I said. 'I mean no, I won't. I promise.'

He wasn't listening. He was still staring out over the sea. I didn't dare speak.

'I won't regret giving Capri my death,' he said at last. 'She's done me proud. You know the story of why Augustus bought her?'

I shook my head.

'He was visiting the town when a dying oak tree in the market-place budded. The superstitious old beggar took it for an omen and exchanged the island with the Neapolitans for Ischia. They had much the better bargain, but they had the sense to keep their mouths shut.' Tiberius chuckled. 'Well, perhaps I shouldn't mock. Perhaps Augustus was right, superstition or not. He certainly lived far past his time. And in this air even the goats reach a ripe old age. If I'm to beat him — as I will — then I need all the help I can get. Perhaps even the Divine Augustus's.'

'What about Rome, sir?' Gods! This had to be the wine talking. Watered or not, Caecuban and raw nerves were a dangerous mixture.

Tiberius fixed me with an eye as cold and bleak as a boiled sturgeon's.

'What about Rome?' he said. 'I'll never see her again, nor do I have any desire to. Rome's a stinking sewer populated by sewer-rats. Or do you think I owe her any more blood and sweat than she's had from me already these sixty years past?' He paused. Then, when I didn't speak: 'Go on, man! I don't ask rhetorical questions and I expect straight answers. What about Rome?'

'There've been…uh…rumours.' Oh, Jupiter! 'About the way you spend your time here. Sir.'

'Oh, yes. The rumours.' The yellow teeth flashed in a snarl. 'That I indulge my depraved tastes with a constant round of perversions. That I live on aphrodisiacs and bugger painted children in the open air.' I said nothing: I hadn't known that he knew. 'Fools can believe what they like. I've never cared about their opinion. And so long as my writ runs and I hold the empire here' — he held out a clenched fist — 'I'll take Capri and slander over Rome and the petty squabbles of her fawning lickspittle senate any day. In the end I'll be judged on my actions and not on wineshop rumours. And if I'm not then the future can go and fuck itself. Clear?'

'Clear, sir,' I said. I was still sweating.

'Good.' He raised his wine cup. 'Now. There must be more in that jug still, even though it is mostly water. We'll drink damnation to slanderers, timeservers and hypocrites. Well-intentioned meddlers, too.'

I poured. There was a knock on the door and an elderly man with a beard came in. He glanced at me, then away.

'You wanted to see me, lord,' he said. His Greek was quiet and sibilant.

'Valerius Corvinus.' Tiberius sipped his wine. 'Thrasyllus of Alexandria. The wisest man in the world.'

'Hardly that, lord.' Thrasyllus smiled and nodded to me.

'Rubbish. If you aren't then who is? You were right, my friend, and I apologise.'

'Right about what?' They were still speaking Greek.

'About Gaius.'

'Ah.' Thrasyllus sat down in a chair with his back to the Bay of Naples. 'Of course I was. I had to be. But apologies are unnecessary, especially from emperors.'

'I didn't bring you here just to apologise.' Tiberius motioned towards me with his wine cup. 'Go on. Tell him.'

Thrasyllus shot him a quick glance, then stroked his beard.

'Everything?' he said.

'Don't be a fool! No, not everything. Just the bare facts.'

The old Greek hesitated. 'If you think it's wise, lord,' he said, 'then certainly, but…'

'Do what you're bloody well told!' Tiberius snapped. 'I take full responsibility. Corvinus here has to know what he's asking of me.'

'Very well.' Thrasyllus turned to me. 'Gaius will be the next emperor. Within the next six years. Not for long, fortunately. Four years after his accession the lord's nephew Cl-'

'Stop!' Tiberius held up a hand. 'That's enough. Well, Corvinus?'

I was staring at the two old men in shock.

'How do you know?' I whispered. 'Jupiter, how can you know?'

'Thrasyllus told me years ago. Before Drusus died, in fact.' Tiberius was watching me closely. 'He had it from his charts. I didn't believe him then, and later I didn't want to. Especially when he told me what kind of emperor my grandson would be, and how he would die. If allowing Sejanus to have his way would spare the empire that ' — he spat the word — 'then I was ready to give him his chance. He could be no worse, and the end would've justified the means. However…unpleasant these might appear at the time.'

'Lord, you cannot cheat the stars,' Thrasyllus said softly. 'Sejanus has to fall. Has fallen already, in heaven's eyes.'

'I realise that.' Tiberius was still watching me. 'You think I don't? But I would still try, even now. Corvinus, if I'd known what you were going to tell me I would have ordered Macro to throw you over the cliff unheard. I still would, if I thought that killing you would do me or the empire the barest scrap of good.'

I was shivering, and the hairs stood stiff on my neck.

'Lord, you cannot cheat the stars,' Thrasyllus repeated. 'Not even you can do that.'