Douglas Jackson: Saviour of Rome

‘I wish you a safe onward journey, lord.’ Petro smiled gravely as they said their farewells at the foot of the gangway.

‘I will miss your stories as much as your company,’ Valerius replied. ‘Who knows, perhaps we will meet again if Fortuna wills it.’

A merchant pointed him in the direction of a trustworthy slave who would carry the small chest containing his belongings to the governor’s palace. The slave led the way through the steep, narrow streets behind the harbour. Valerius had climbed these same streets with Serpentius and he felt a pang of something very close to grief as he remembered looking down at his friend in the medical tent outside Jerusalem. Serpentius had lain on his side with a bloody bandage covering the terrible wound in his back inflicted by the Judaean turncoat Josephus. The feral, vicious sneer that made the former gladiator appear so fearsome had been replaced by a haggard, grey mask. His eyes were closed and his sunken cheeks bristled with a week’s growth of white stubble. Once he’d been the most dangerous fighter to grace the arenas of Rome. Now he looked like an old man.

They had been as close as brothers, and with the same instinctive understanding. Valerius felt more vulnerable without Serpentius by his side than he did without the right hand he’d left in the burned-out ruin of a villa in Britannia.

Tarraco sprawled over a series of ridges overlooking the sea. Valerius followed the slave to a broad square at the top of the largest hill. On the far side lay a single enormous building with white stucco walls and an ochre-tiled roof that shimmered in the midday heat. A pair of legionaries guarded the pillared entrance and they stiffened to attention as Valerius approached and announced he had an appointment with the governor.

‘Your name?’ The men eyed Valerius’s travel-stained cloak with suspicion.

‘Gaius Valerius Verrens. I’m an old friend of governor Secundus.’

One of the soldiers gave him a look that said ‘we’ll see about that’. ‘Wait here.’ He disappeared inside leaving Valerius under the gaze of the remaining guard, returning a few minutes later with a look of consternation on his stolid, peasant face.

‘He said to ask you to show your right hand.’ Valerius flicked back his cloak to reveal the carved wooden fist that replaced the hand he’d lost at Colonia. The soldier slammed his fist into his chest in salute. ‘Please follow me. The governor apologizes for not greeting you personally, but he is indisposed at present.’

Just how indisposed became clear when the guard led Valerius into a shaded courtyard with a garden at its centre. Gaius Plinius Secundus sat on a couch in the portico with one foot raised. He had put on weight since Valerius had last seen him and heavy jowls gave him a mournful air quite at odds with his normally cheerful disposition. The couch was surrounded by low tables, most filled with scrolls, but one left clear for his writing tools. Pliny had a voracious appetite for knowledge, always reading or investigating, collecting specimens, testing out new theories and disproving old ones.

He looked up as Valerius came into view and managed a pained smile. ‘You have never been more welcome, Gaius Valerius Verrens. Pallas?’ A young man stepped from a doorway behind him. ‘Have the main guest room prepared for my friend and tell the cook there will be two for dinner,’ Pliny ordered. ‘I did not expect you for another week at the earliest, or I would have had you met at the harbour. Not personally, of course, as you can see. You’ll have a cup of wine?’

‘I will, Pliny, but I’m sorry to see you like this.’

‘I’m suffering from a touch of gout. It won’t kill me but it makes movement difficult. Hippocrates suggests it is caused by an overindulgence in drink, food and sex.’ He produced a wry smile. ‘While I plead guilty to the first and second, I’m afraid the third is long behind me these days. You had an uneventful journey, I hope?’

Valerius nodded. ‘It gave me time to read the reports you sent to Rome.’

‘Yes.’ Pliny sounded doleful. ‘Would that they had been more optimistic. But I prefer not to talk on an empty stomach. After dinner I will give you a more up-to-date view of the current situation. Now,’ he picked up his stylus, ‘Pallas will see to your baggage and get you settled in. I must finish this chapter of my Historia Naturalis . The subject is medicines we can obtain from plants. Did you know that Colchicum autumnale , the common meadow crocus, can be turned into an infusion which is a specific for gout? Unfortunately, taken in excess it is also a deadly poison and I choose not to test the theory.’

‘Then I will leave you to your work,’ Valerius bowed.

They dined on succulent steaks of tunny fish and squid cooked in its own ink, followed by a pair of roasted fowl and slices of apple and pear coated in honey. The food was served on silver platters and Valerius smiled at a memory. ‘The last time we ate together, it was on chipped fireclay in your kitchen,’ he said. ‘Who would have believed our fortunes could have altered so radically?’

‘That’s true.’ Pliny washed his fingers in a bowl brought by one of several slaves who attended them. ‘We have much to be thankful for, you and I. For instance, it is sometimes difficult to believe that I once watched the friend sharing my table kneel beneath an executioner’s sword. There are few alive who can claim such an experience. It still puzzles me that Domitian saw fit to commute the death sentence to exile.’

The observation contained a certain measure of query, and if anyone deserved the truth it was Pliny, who had risked his reputation by speaking for Valerius at his trial. But Valerius had learned to be wary. Only two other people knew of Domitia Longina Corbulo’s intervention, and the reason for it. Better it stayed that way.

‘There’s nothing he would have liked better than to see my head rolling in the dust,’ he admitted. ‘But the letter Mucianus brought from Vespasian rescinded my original death sentence and he couldn’t go against his father’s express wish.’

‘An emperor’s favour is not to be underestimated, nor disdained.’ Pliny’s features took on a troubled air. ‘For instance, I honour him for this appointment, but there are times when I wish I was alone with my books back in Rome. Any proconsulship would be a burden for an honest man with the Empire’s interests at heart, but this is doubly so. When Vespasian summoned me to the Palatine he told me the man who solved the conundrum of the missing gold of Hispania Tarraconensis would be the man who saved the Empire. Even able-bodied I’m not certain I would have lived up to his expectations. There is so much to do here. The answer lies in the north, and with this leg I doubt I would survive the journey. That is why I asked him to send you. He has outlined the general situation?’

‘Since the late war the yields from the northern mines have dropped dramatically.’ Valerius repeated what Vespasian had told him. ‘Bandits are blamed, perhaps the richest seams have been worked out, and there are said to be manpower problems. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t sent a mining expert to investigate?’

‘But we have,’ Pliny cried. ‘An experienced engineer, Marcus Florus Petronius. Does the name mean anything to you?’

‘Should it?’

‘He said he served with you in Armenia. You traversed some mountain track together. The longest night of his life, he told me.’

Now a face swam into view. Petronius had been the man who’d guided the night march to outflank Vologases, the Parthian King of Kings, before his defeat by Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo.

‘A good choice,’ he complimented Pliny. ‘I remember Petronius as clever, enterprising and courageous.’