Nero Page 20

  That would make sense, and of course it would fit with his character. But then again there was something else, something else....

  Oh, I don't know, and I never will, now. But I left him feeling...well, unsettled is the word. Perhaps I would have felt better if the poor dear had gone divine on me after all. It would've made things much simpler.

  I'm getting philosophical again. Stop it, Petronius, you old fart! Have another slice of pheasant!

  38.

  Lucius had meant what he said about being finished with the Senate. Over the next twelve months relations were stretched to breaking point. Poor silly Petronius, of course, was caught in the middle. I could see what Lucius was after for Rome and to a certain extent – personalities aside – I sympathised. On the other hand I also understood the attitude of Arruntius and his cronies. You can't change eight hundred years of conditioning just by telling people they're wrong and then ignoring them. Not unless you're asking for trouble; and that was just what Lucius was doing.

  That June, I was in the garden at the back of the house deciding where to put a statue I'd just had made when a slave came out to say that Thrasea Paetus had dropped by.

  I was surprised. Thrasea wasn't even an acquaintance, let alone a friend. Nevertheless, we might not have had much time for each other, but I'd a certain respect for him: unlike most senators he had standards and wasn't afraid to stick to them. Lucius, of course, hated the poor dear's guts; but then as I’ve said elsewhere Lucius never could abide genuinely moral people. Thrasea's colleagues weren't altogether happy in his company either, and for much the same reasons.

  So what, I wondered, did this moral paragon want with me?

  The boy showed him through. Thrasea was in his late fifties, big, very florid, with the look of a Gaul: his family came from Patavium, beyond the Po.

  'Good of you to see me, Petronius,' he said. 'What a lovely garden you have.'

  He was nervous – I could see that straight away, although I didn't know why – so we chatted for a while about rose arbours and topiary, on which he was an expert. Finally I got him to come to the point.

  'Petronius, we need your help,' he said.

  'We?'

  'The Senate.' A momentary hesitation: Thrasea was a truthful soul. 'Or anyway the thinking members of it.'

  'Are there any of those?' He frowned. 'Oh, I'm sorry, darling, I'm being flippant. It's just I'm not used to being consulted on anything more vital than what wine to serve with roast flamingo. And certainly not by the Senate.'

  The frown deepened. It covered, I realised, embarrassment, not anger.

  'Yes, I can understand that.' Ouch, my dear! 'But we need someone close to the emperor who is, let's say, an impartial moderate. And we need him urgently.'

  I steered him across to the garden seat next to the box hedge. This sounded complicated and not a little ominous, and if I had to discuss serious matters on a lovely day like this I preferred to do it in comfort.

  'I'm afraid you may be wasting your time with me, then.' I sat. Thrasea did the same. 'We get on well enough but I wouldn't describe the relationship as close. Not any more. Not since Tigellinus.'

  Thrasea's mouth twisted.

  'I appreciate that too,' he said. 'Believe me, if we could find someone more suitable we would.'

  I was beginning to see why the man got up so many people's noses. Honest and truthful he might be, but he had as much sensitivity as a brick.

  'Oh, how terribly flattering.'

  He looked at me; any politician recognises sarcasm when they hear it, even an insensitive one.

  'I said an impartial moderate, Petronius, and I meant it,' he said. 'We know you're not one of us. However you're no Tigellinus either, and that's what matters.'

  I sighed. 'All right. So tell me what you want. If it's within the bounds of my moderate impartiality I'll do it with pleasure.'

  'We want you to help heal the breach between us and the emperor.'

  'What?' I laughed. Not the politest of reactions, but I couldn't help myself. 'Is that all? And after dinner perhaps I might persuade the Parthians to let us keep Armenia.'

  'Certainly, if you can manage that too.' I hadn't expected humour from Thrasea, not even dead-pan humour. It made him a little more human. 'It'll take time and effort, I know, but...'

  'It'll take a lot more than that, my dear! It'll take a minor miracle. Or is Tigellinus dead?'

  'Petronius, you must understand my position. I deal with these people– I mean the Senate – every day. They could take a tyrant in their stride. They could even take a madman like Caligula or a suspicious fool like Claudius. But they can't and won't take Nero because they don't understand him. And before very long that lack of understanding is going to lead to trouble.'

  He was right, of course. Lucius's public stage debut at Naples earlier in the year had scandalised the Senate. Then, more recently, had come his 'marriage' in full bridal dress to the ex-slave Pythagoras, which parodied the ancient wedding rites. I'd missed that, being in Capua on business at the time, but the emperor's theatrical screams and groans from behind the closed doors of the marriage chamber had been widely reported. Lucius had taken the dignity out of the principate, and if the Senate valued anything in their masters, hypocrites though they might be themselves, it was dignity.

  'So what do you want me to do?' I said.

  'Talk to Nero. Explain. His private life's his own concern, but he must control these' – Thrasea hesitated – 'these public excesses. They're doing terrible harm. Terrible.'

  'Enough to make some of your colleagues consider removing him?' That was too direct, even for Thrasea; he coloured up and his mouth shut like a trap. 'Oh, come on, my dear! That's what you're saying, isn't it?'

  'There are...rumours.' He was cautious.

  'Rumours be damned. You wouldn't be desperate enough to come round here if it were only a case of rumours. I don't expect you to give me names, that would be unreasonable.'

  'That's just as well. I'm not here to betray my friends, Petronius.'

  'I wouldn't expect you to. Anyway, I could name a few front runners myself.' I remembered what Arruntius had said at our ostrich dinner.'Calpurnius Piso, for one.' He looked startled but said nothing. Bull's-eye. 'So you want me to help take the lid off the pot, dear, before the soup boils over?'

  'It would ease matters considerably. These men aren't revolutionaries, they can give and take. But Nero's pushing them too far, and they won't suffer much more of it.'

  'Wait a moment, Thrasea. I told you; we're no longer friends, the emperor and I. Not close friends.' I pulled a twig from the hedge and rolled it between my palms. 'Tigellinus is the only one he'll listen to now. And not only on matters of state. I may still be asked to imperial parties but I don't even advise on them all that often now.'

  His eyes flickered. We moved in different worlds and this, it seemed, was news.

  'You mean the emperor's Adviser on Taste has been retired?' he said. I detected a faint trace of malice.

  'Call it superseded.' I tossed the twig aside and wiped the crushed leaves from my hands. 'Nero has found someone better, my dear. Or rather, someone worse.' For a moment I thought of Seneca's charioteer. 'I understand why, of course. Tigellinus is a very clever man. He knows that the emperor needs someone to be bad for him.' I smiled. 'Besides, he's far more inventive than I am.'

  'A dreadful admission for an Adviser on Taste to make.' The malice was more open now, although Thrasea was polite enough to try to hide it. Not that I was angry, or even annoyed: we were different people, and Thrasea simply didn't understand that.

  'Oh, my dear!' I said gently. 'I didn't say Tiggy had more taste; I said he was more inventive.'

  'I see.' He didn't – his lips were drawn in a disapproving line – but it didn't matter. 'So you will help, Petronius? As much as you can? For the good of Rome.'

  'For the good of Rome.' I got up and held out my hand. He rose and took it, after the barest hesitation. 'Although I doubt, honestly, if
I can do very much.'

  'Anything would be better than nothing.'

  'I'll bear that in mind, darling.'

  I was sorry, when he'd gone, that he hadn't seen the statue. That would really have merited his disapproval.

  39.

  I was at a party on the Caelian the evening of 18 July; alone, since Silia was holidaying with Arruntius in Baiae. When I left my friends' house about two in the morning it was a beautiful night, with a full moon and a clear sky.Halfway down Staurus Incline the litter stopped. I could hear the slaves chattering together, but since the poor dears were Gauls that didn't help terribly much.

  'Rufillus!' I shouted. 'What's going on?'

  My head litter slave opened the curtain.

  'Fire, sir,' he said. Gauls don't waste words. Latin ones, anyway.

  I got out, a little unsteadily and more than a little angry, prepared to do murder: fires were too common in Rome to merit gawping, and I wanted home to bed.

  Then I saw what Rufillus had meant.

  The city was burning.

  It was burning from beneath where we stood to almost half way to the river, and even from here I could hear the screaming. Once alight, tenements burn like torches, and when they fall they block the surrounding streets and alleyways. The Racetrack District, where the fire was, was one of the most densely populated in Rome, and packed tight with tenements. The gods knew how many were dying down there. Hundreds, certainly. Probably thousands. And the fire was spreading, blown by the wind towards the city centre, destroying and killing as it went. As I watched, a long, low warehouse on the north side of the blaze collapsed in on itself. Tongues of flame leaped up and curved northwards, licking against a new line of buildings no more than a few hundred yards from the Palatine.

  'Oh, Serapis!' I whispered. 'Oh, sweet Serapis!'

  We weren't alone. People were streaming past us towards the higher ground, filthy, soot-streaked and stinking of smoke and sweat: one man carried a pig, another a bronze cooking stove. There was a child clutching a three-legged toy horse, and a woman with a string of onions. These were the lucky ones. None of them paid us any attention.

  I turned back to the Gauls and tried to keep my voice steady.

  'Home, dears. And quickly, please.'

  We fought our way down Staurus Incline and on to the Septizonium. It was choked solid with traffic and pedestrians, moving at a snail's pace. There was no panic, but it was like being in a captured city surrounded by refugees. Behind us the whole sky was a huge livid bruise; the wind at our backs carried a drift of oily black specks and the stench of charred wood and, horribly, roasted meat. I'd seen fires before, of course, but nothing on this scale. The only way to stop it now would be to form fire breaks by knocking down great swathes of the city in its path. That would take time, and probably more authority than even the consuls might care to exert without the emperor's approval. And Lucius was away in Antium.

  Once we were clear of the Tenth District the crowds began to thin. Cuprius Street was no busier than it would've been during the day, and by the time we reached the Quirinal if it hadn't been for the lurid sky behind I could have believed everything was normal. My front gate was open, and the door slave was standing outside gaping at the sky.

  I left the litter in the courtyard and hurried indoors. Crito, the head slave, was waiting in the hall.

  'The baths are hot, sir,' he said. 'And I've given instructions for the more valuable items of furniture to be crated.'

  'Well done, my dear.' I felt unutterably weary as I stripped off my soot-streaked party mantle. 'Very sensible of you.'

  We were halfway across Rome from the fire, but if Crito thought we should be ready to evacuate it was as well to be safe.

  'Also, sir' – Crito took the mantle – 'there was a message from Laecanius Bassus.'

  I paused. 'The junior consul?'

  'Yes, sir. He asks if you could possibly meet him at your earliest convenience at Maecenas Tower.'

  'Did he say what he wanted?'

  'It's not only you, sir. I believe he's calling on the help of several gentlemen outside the Senate. The authorities are very short-handed at the moment, as you'll appreciate.'

  That made sense. In July and August most broad-stripers left the city for their villas in the Alban Hills or on the Campanian coast. And Bassus, unlike his senior consular colleague, had more between his ears than bone.

  I dozed in the steam room of the baths for an hour or so, had my masseur coax the wine from my tired muscles, and set off for the Esquiline.

  The tower was part of Maecenas Gardens, built into the line of the old Servian Wall. The last time I'd been inside was at one of Lucius's all-night parties, in the more circumspect days before Tigellinus when he held his orgies in private. It was eighty feet high, taller than the tallest tenement but far more strongly built, of good stone with oak beams supporting each floor and a solid internal staircase. From the parapeted roof you could see the whole of Rome.

  'Petronius! You're the first! Well done, my dear fellow!' Bassus, usually an elegant dresser, looked like he'd slept in his clothes. If he'd slept at all.

  I didn't answer. I was staring out over the city. Or what had been the city. The whole southern section from Palatine to Aventine and all the way to the river was hidden by a thick pall of smoke lit with flames. It had been bad enough from down below. From here it was mind-numbing.

  Bassus was standing at my elbow.

  'Dreadful, isn't it?' he said quietly. 'The whole Eleventh District's ashes. The Palatine'll be next, including the palace itself. Nothing we can do about that.'

  Thank the gods Silia was in Baiae; her house was on the Palatine's northern slopes. I was sure that her head slave would've given orders to evacuate all the movable valuables, but the house itself would burn.

  'You've sent word to the emperor?' I said.

  'The courier left hours ago. I've prayed to Jupiter that Nero comes at once.' He meant it literally, too: Bassus was that rarity in Rome, a pious man who believed prayers had some effect.

  'How did it start? Do you know?'

  He shrugged. 'Probably in one of the oil shops behind the racetrack. It doesn't matter. What with the dry weather, if we don't stop it now we could lose the whole city.'

  I knew that, of course; how could I not, standing there on the tower roof with Rome dying beneath me? It was chilling, though, hearing Bassus put the thought into words.

  'What do you want me to do?' I said.

  'Come over to the table. I'll show you.'

  The 'table' was a number of planks laid over trestles, on which was a scale model of the city.

  'Isn't it beautiful?' Bassus said.

  'Lovely.' The hills were sculpted in clay, and the river was a line of glass. Public buildings had been carved from ivory, and although the other buildings were simple wooden blocks they were in the right places. There was no sign of the Temple of Claudius, let alone anything more recent, so I guessed the thing was a dozen years old at least, probably more.

  'I brought it from the palace.' Bassus signalled to a slave to bring over one of the torches. 'The emperor won't mind, it would've burned anyway. So, Petronius. These're our problem districts.' His finger drew lines in the air above the miniature Rome. 'Isis and Serapis. The Subura, from Palatine to Viminal. The centre itself between the river, the Palatine and the Capitol.'

  I nodded. The parts he'd indicated were the fire's natural routes, heavily built-up areas that followed the low ground between the more sparsely-populated hill slopes where tenements gave way to middle- and upper-class housing.

  'That's a lot of ground, my dear.'

  'Tell me something I don't know.' Bassus rubbed his eyes. 'It's the minimum to keep the blaze contained, but we're stretched thin already and the situation's getting worse. Co-ordination's the problem. We haven't enough men. We need responsible people at ground level, as many as we can get. Organising water supplies, allocating manpower where and when it's needed, clearing buildings, giv
ing the order for demolition.' He paused. 'Well? Will you help?'

  'You flatter me,' I said.

  He gave a weary grin. 'True, Titus. Very true. But then I'm desperate.'

  I laughed. When he wasn't being super-efficient Bassus was excellent company, unlike the aristocratic Licinius Crassus Frugi, who was a bore of quite staggering proportions. Which reminded me.

  'By the way, where is your esteemed colleague?' I said.

  'At his villa in Tusculum, as far as I know.' Bassus's brows came down. 'Where the bastard can stay, as far as I'm concerned. I may be desperate, but not that much. I'll handle this myself. And carry the can, until Nero gets here.'

  'In that case, darling,' I said, 'I'll be delighted to help.'

  40.

  We fought the fire for six days, and lost. Bassus had put me in charge of part of the section between the Pullian Incline and the Caelian, although by the end that was a burned desert and we'd moved east almost as far as the Querquetulan Gate. If I close my eyes I can still see the flames and taste the acrid smoke at the back of my throat, and hear the slipping rumble of masonry and the screams that went with it. I see other things, too, that are worse: the half-charred corpse I trod on in an alleyway, that I thought was a dog and which turned out to be a child. The woman who jumped from the roof of a tenement I'd ordered cleared for demolition, just before it fell. The fear-crazed mule, broken jars dangling from its sides, that ran past us soaked in blazing oil. There was never enough time, never enough help. Never enough water, either: the nearest mains supply was the Claudian Aqueduct, a mile away on the Caelian, and we had to make do with the public stand-pipes and fountains. Even if one happened to be nearby and clear of rubble a full bucket moved down the chain with nightmare slowness. When I got home at night – if I got home at night – to the false peace of the Quirinal the first thing I noticed was the obscene sound of water splashing into my ornamental pool.