Douglas Jackson: Claudius

The column of prisoners disappeared over a low rise at the end of the avenue, Medb with it, but the chariot came to a halt at the foot of a roadway leading towards the great palaces that towered above. Caratacus allowed himself a bitter smile. He had quite forgotten why he was here. Soon. With the gods’ will it would be quick. If not? He was Caratacus of the Catuvellauni; let them do what they would. A phalanx of Praetorians closed in around him and an officer took his chains and led him upwards. To the Emperor.

Claudius sat on a golden throne beneath a broad canopy on the balcony overlooking the forum. The palace, like the throne, had once been Caligula’s and it had taken years to uncover all its secrets. Even now, he was certain, old bones waited to be discovered in their unlikely resting places. His heart was still fluttering with excitement from the moments earlier when he had watched the tall, noble figure being paraded below him. Every available vantage point in the forum was packed with faces looking upward for the moment when conqueror met conquered. When Emperor met king. The moment when his conquest of Britain was finally complete after all the long years.

‘You say he speaks Latin well?’

‘So I believe, Caesar,’ Narcissus confirmed. He felt Agrippina’s eyes boring into him. Would the woman never let him be? He had been right. Claudius should never have married her. She came with too much baggage, including her brat of a son. And spite. He remembered looking down upon Valeria Messalina’s twitching body; the beautiful face swollen to ugliness by the poison she had been forced to take. He wished the face had been Agrippina’s. The thought made him smile. He saw her eyes widen and he realized Caratacus must have been brought in. She had always had an eye for a man. He turned and confirmed what he had been told. The British king was taller by a head than the Praetorians who surrounded him. Somehow, he managed to convey the impression that the guard was his to command and the balcony his to dispose of as he willed.

Caratacus in his turn studied the figure on the golden throne; small and sickly pale but with bright, intelligent eyes, almost lost in his white toga with the broad purple stripe. A laurel wreath of gold rested on his thinning hair. So this was his nemesis; the man who had sent the legions to his country with their blood and their iron and their fire. The man who had enslaved half the tribes of Britain and corrupted the rest. And, yes, he acknowledged, the man who had defeated him and was about to kill him. He allowed his gaze to rove over the others in the little group. A tall, bald man with dark eyes and an inscrutable expression. A plump woman who studied him hungrily, and a boy, who must be her son, with the coldest eyes he had ever seen.

‘You may kneel and seek my forgiveness.’

Caratacus understood the imperial command, but he stared back as if the words had never been spoken. The Druids had told the story of Vercingetorix, the Gaul, who had knelt before a Caesar and whose reward was the strangling rope. They could strangle him if they wished, but he would not kneel. He heard the song of a dozen iron swords being drawn and he waited, stone-faced, for his fate.

Claudius stared at him, realization dawning as he studied the stern, unyielding figure in the golden chains. This giant of a man, this warrior, this king, was a reflection of his glory. No. More than that. He magnified it a thousand times. He had intended a public execution; an example to all that the only reward for any man who stood against Rome was a painful death. But it could not be. Caratacus of Britain would live, he decided — a wolf in a gilded cage. But first the formalities must be followed.

‘Caratacus, enemy of Rome, you have forfeited your life a hundred times by your actions. You are guilty of sedition and rebellion, and, by association, of common murder, rape and the torture of innocents. By your actions you brought war, death, famine and sorrow to your people.’ The words rang out, sharp and clear, and Caratacus knew they were aimed, not at him, but at the crowd below. This was the justification for his execution, though he could deny or defend every word of it. Claudius continued: ‘Yet you fought hard and you fought well and, though your cause was unworthy, you fought with honour and valour and won the respect even of your foes. At the end, mighty Rome brought you low, and now you are brought before me, defeated, but not subdued; for you are a king, and a king prefers death before dishonour. Death is your right and is your due. As is your right of reply.’ The Emperor gestured graciously towards the balcony edge.

Caratacus recognized the moment he was meant to plead for his life, but there was no honour in pleading and he was certain no purpose would be achieved by it. He would not make some self-serving address that these Romans could use to tarnish his memory. But there was one thing. He turned and looked out beyond the gawping multitude among the marble-columned temples below and over the endless sea of terracotta that sheltered the countless thousands of his enemies.

‘Why, when you have all this, did you need our poor huts?’ he asked.

The Latin was slow and unnatural, but the voice was strong and the words were understood. Claudius’s face froze. Narcissus blinked. The tang of fresh grass on a diamond-bright British morning filled his nostrils. He saw again the sea of dead, snarling faces on the day of the ambush. An Emperor, who was a god, on a great golden beast. He wondered what had become of the young man and his elephant.