M. Scott: Rome: The Emperor's spy

‘Did they?’

‘In every way possible. Within months, when I fought with them, I fought for them. By the second year, I was leading their warriors, and at the very end, when Suetonius Paullinus marched his men down from his battle with the Boudica and the men and women I loved were caught between two lines of sword and shield, I fought as I have never fought before, and it was not for Rome.’

‘But you lost.’

‘Everyone I knew and cared for died.’

Pantera’s face was a mask. Seneca railed against that as much as what he had heard. ‘You can’t take the blame for a battle’s loss all on yourself. You are one warrior, one sword, one shield, one-’

‘I should have died with them. They were expecting me to do that, to join them with their gods. I had the blade ready. It would have been so easy…’

The river-brown eyes came round to meet Seneca’s. The pain in them was beyond any man’s bearing.

‘Why did you not die, Sebastos?’

Sebastos. Seneca had not used that name in the reign of two emperors. It came now from the unexplored depths of his soul, unsettling them both.

Pantera turned. He was holding a small, broad-bladed knife of the kind stabbed into the bull’s throat at sacrifice. ‘I tried,’ he said. ‘I killed four men when they came to take us. I didn’t think they would let me live after that.’

‘And yet, if what I’ve been told is true, you withstood three days of torture and told them nothing, even when they crucified you.’

The knife spun in the air, sharp as a leopard’s tooth. ‘And still I didn’t die. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I should have done. I could have done. I wanted to. The god didn’t let me.’

Seneca was barely breathing. Pantera lifted a second knife and began to juggle the two, spinning them high from one hand to the other. Iron caught soft gold candlelight and muted it to silver.

Seneca said, ‘Was it my name that stopped them killing you?’

‘Sadly not.’ Pantera smiled. It was not a good thing to see. ‘When I told them I was one of yours, they spat at me for a liar and brought in new inquisitors with fresh ideas of how to break a man. It was only at the end, after they had grown tired of their sport and hung me up to die, that one of them passing heard me call on the god to take my soul. No Briton would ever have called on Mithras. The man spoke to his commander, who thought to find the legate and tell him they had one of the faith dressed as an enemy warrior. When he came, they thought I was dead. The physicians proved otherwise.’

Pantera stopped juggling at last. He turned to face Seneca. ‘You are going to ask me to work for Rome,’ he said. ‘And I have just explained why you can never again trust my oath and should not ask for it. In the sight of my god, I tell you now that, for the rest of my life, whatever I do, for whatever pay, the oath of my heart — however and to whomsoever it is given — will carry more weight than the oath of my voice.’

‘The oath of your heart was given to Rome, once.’

‘It will never be so again.’

Seneca pressed his cupped palms to his eyes. ‘Very well. You have told me why and I can believe it. With a wife and child dead at your own hand, it would be impossible for you to come back to us. But, in the sight of your god, whom I respect,’ Seneca let his hands fall, ‘I will tell you that I am not going to ask of you any more oaths. You weren’t listening. I am asking you to retire. It’s Nero who’ll ask you to work for Rome.’

Seneca had spoken the truth, and it changed the balance between them so that it was possible to lean on the couches, to eat, to drink the cool well water that was laid ready for them. They didn’t speak. Once, it had been possible to spend hours in the balm of each other’s company in reflective silence, and at last it seemed to Seneca that it might be possible again.

Presently, a scratching at the door led Pantera to cross the foyer and open it, saying, ‘Welcome, Math. Have you brought us news?’

The boy scampered in and then slowed at the sight of the room’s stark beauty. His slight, angular shadow came to rest on the floor near the philosopher’s feet. An outdoor smell of stale urine and tree sap and mud and moss clung about him.

Seneca turned slowly. The boy was filthier than he had been in the alley, which was hard to credit. His tunic had a rent in the hem on the right side and his bare feet and stick-thin legs were coated to the knee in congealing mud so that he left a trail of footprints across the clean marble floor. His hair was no longer gold, but hung in damp dregs to his shoulders. A scrape marred one malnourished cheek, blushing the skin blue in the hollows that hunger had left.

For all of that, his wide grey eyes still commanded all of his face, lighting it with the incendiary mix of insolence, desperation, exhilaration, tenacity and sheer exhaustion that Seneca had seen once before, a long time ago, in the archer’s son who had walked to him from Judaea.

That boy, now a scarred and wounded man, followed Math across the room and laid a hand on one thin shoulder. ‘Did he catch you?’ he asked.

Math shook his head. He held himself silent one moment longer, then words spilled out, tumbling over themselves in their hurry.

‘He followed you here and stayed a while watching the door, but left when the moon reached its height and went back into town. He met one of the emperor’s men at the Striding Heron tavern opposite the docks. He said,’ his voice deepened in a good approximation of a man’s Latinized Greek speaking Gaulish, ‘“The Leopard met with the Owl at Africanus’s house. The emperor should know before morning.” They left together. I followed them some of the way, but they went into the magistrate’s residence. I nearly went in after them, but…’

‘But better to stay alive and come back to tell us,’ Pantera said, drily, ‘than to face certain death at the emperor’s hand. Nero doesn’t like to be spied on. Ask Seneca — he was paid to see it didn’t happen for the first five years of his reign. Description?’

Math stared, mouth agape.

Pantera said, ‘What was he like?’

‘He was rich. He had silver and gold in his purse and a green jewel on his dagger’s handle. He didn’t look at any of the boys, even when they offered. I think he was going to bed the serving-’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Oh.’ Math closed his eyes and wrinkled his face. ‘Tall. Tall and lean and bitter-faced with no hair on the front half of his head, but straight black hair behind and a high brow and a nose like a hawk’s. There was a triangular tear in the left elbow of his tunic and he wears his knife to the right, so that his left hand can draw it. He spoke Greek and Gaulish and Latin.’ Math opened his eyes. He looked from Pantera to Seneca and back again. ‘That’s all I found out.’

There was a weighty pause. Pantera looked past the boy to Seneca. ‘Well?’

‘Well what? Aren’t you going to tell him well done?’

‘I might when I know who it was.’

Seneca frowned. ‘Tall, bitter-faced with a high brow setting off straight black hair, left-handed, prone to tearing his clothes, speaks eight languages that I know of and kills without a second thought? That would be Akakios. Notionally, he’s a tribune in the Praetorian Guard. In practice, he’s Nero’s unseen hand in the outside world: if someone threatens the emperor, Akakios sees them dead first; quite often they die before they’ve had a chance to make their threat. He’s more dangerous than a nest full of scorpions. If we’re all still alive this time tomorrow, then Math did immensely well. I told you he’d be better than you one day.’

‘Then he should be paid.’ Pantera took a silver denarius from his purse and spun it high, catching the candle’s light. ‘Thank you, Math. That was well done.’