In the Shadow of Heroes Read online

‘Gods above . . .’ Cadmus muttered. ‘It’s real.’

  The Golden Fleece shimmered like a fish catching the light. At one end, the ram’s great, golden head hung slack and empty. The two slaves lifted it carefully from the chest and draped it over Nero’s shoulders. Nero spread his hands as though to frame his splendour. The dinner guests gasped and burst into applause.

  ‘Do you like my new outfit?’ Nero made his strange giggling noise again. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

  The faces on the couches nodded in agreement. They looked just as painted-on as the masks of Nero’s guards.

  ‘Beautiful . . .’ Nero muttered again. His eyes darted in his head, as though following a fly circling over the tables. Behind him the old man in the robe rocked backwards and forwards, watching the sky, and then leant forward again to mutter in the emperor’s ear.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Nero snapped. He turned back to his guests. ‘You are all most welcome. But one of you is more welcome than the rest.’ He suddenly looked directly at Cadmus and his master. ‘Our friend Gaius Domitius Tullus will be travelling to Greece tomorrow in the service of his emperor. We drink to his health and his fortune. And we pray that he isn’t as feeble as the fool who went before him.’

  The emperor erupted into laughter, and the rest of the guests followed suit.

  ‘I thank you for your prayers,’ said Tullus. Cadmus could see he was quivering with rage, or fear, or both. ‘I hope I can be of, ah, some service to you.’

  ‘No, no, no – no need to worry. You won’t fail me. Polydamas has seen it. He has just come from the sacrifice, and the omens were favourable. The gods have given their blessing to my every endeavour. Just as the Golden Fleece belongs to Caesar, so shall all the treasures of the heroes. I shall have Heracles’s club, that I might wield it myself, and crush the enemies of Rome!’ He stood up and made a sweeping gesture, as though armed with an imaginary weapon, and knocked Epaphroditus’s goblet from his hand. The diners laughed again. ‘I shall have Orpheus’s lyre, that I might charm Rome’s allies with my songs. I shall clad myself in Achilles’s invincible armour, so I might lead my people into battle and inspire them to greatness. Shan’t I, Tullus?’

  He suddenly looked at Tullus with such a glare, Cadmus felt compelled to leap in front of his master and shield him from the blow. Tullus’s whole body stiffened.

  ‘I, ah, pray I will not disappoint you, Caesar,’ he stuttered. ‘And I pray that my old bones won’t let me down. Aha.’

  Nero stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled. ‘You needn’t worry about that, my old friend. It is your mind that we need, not your body. I have my heroidai for the hard work,’ he said, gesturing to the guards either side of him.

  His abrupt switch to Greek caught Cadmus by surprise. Heroidai. The Sons of the Heroes.

  ‘I wonder, my friends; would you like to see my new toy?’

  There was a brief, confused pause.

  ‘I want to show you my new toy.’

  Suddenly the guests were talking and nodding, begging him to show them what he was talking about.

  Nero silenced them with a gesture, and then beckoned to one of the armoured men. The bronze figure came towards his couch in a couple of strides.

  ‘I like my heroidai very much,’ he said, caressing the mask with one of his fat, pink fingers. ‘But today I think I found my favourite. Not one of the sons of the heroes, but a daughter of the heroes.’

  The gait, the stature – Cadmus recognized them now. He tried to get Tullus’s attention, but his master seemed lost in thought.

  ‘Take off your mask, my dear,’ said Nero. ‘Show them how well-made you are.’

  Mask and helmet came off as one, and a mass of golden-silver hair tumbled over the shoulders and breastplate. It was Tog.

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’The emperor stared at her with something like awe. His eyes shone in the lamplight and for a moment he looked like an infant about to burst into tears. The diners dutifully applauded.

  ‘Atalanta, reborn! Or Penthesilea? Either way, quite, quite worthy of my little band of heroes. What’s that?’

  Nobody had spoken, but Nero looked around the couches as though he had been interrupted.

  ‘You think it inappropriate that a woman be brought to symposium of civilized men? My friends, if only you knew. There is no one else in this palace I would trust more with my life.’ He turned to Tog. ‘Perhaps, my dear, you would like to give us a demonstration?’

  The emperor clicked his fingers and demanded the tables be removed. Slaves appeared from the darkness of the colonnade and cleared the space in front of his couch, quickly, effortlessly, with the merest patter of feet on the mosaic floor. Tog herself looked utterly bewildered as Nero led her by the hand, as though she were a young bride, into the centre of the triclinium.

  ‘Come, then,’ he declared. ‘Who would like to provide us with a little pre-dinner entertainment?’

  The diners’ laughter was muted, as though they were unsure if he was joking or not. Cadmus could see that he was quite serious.

  ‘No one?’ Nero’s voice again took on the tone of a child who had been denied a treat by his mother. ‘I’m surrounded by cowards! To hell with all of you! She’s just a girl!’

  The guests exchanged glances and elbowed each other in nervous encouragement. Finally, a man emerged from the shadows at Nero’s back. He had been standing there all along, and Cadmus hadn’t even realized. It was Tigellinus, the head of the praetorian guard. As soon as the man’s trenched and broken face came into the lamplight, Cadmus could see that his reputation for cruelty was well deserved. He looked like he’d never smiled in his life. He wasn’t much taller than Tog, but was thicker set, and the muscles in his arms stood out like banded iron.

  ‘Ah, Tigellinus!’ Nero clapped with delight. ‘Of course. Good to see there are still some proper Roman men left in the city – not just these lazy, womanly creatures!’ He licked his lips. ‘Now, perhaps you would like to arm yourself? We should try and make this a fair fight.’

  Every muscle in Cadmus’s body was tensed. His teeth ached from clenching his jaw so much. Nero was setting the pair of them up for gladiatorial combat.

  There was another ripple of nervous excitement as Tigellinus wandered along the line of the heroidai, and eventually chose the huge club of the guard dressed as Heracles. He hefted it in one hand. Tog, meanwhile, picked at something she had found in her ear.

  ‘Very good, very good,’ said Nero, as the tribune returned to the centre of the dining area. ‘Two worthy adversaries! Now, salute your patron.’

  Tigellinus made a small bow in the direction of the emperor, but scarcely took his eyes off Tog. Cadmus could see the man’s knuckles going white around the handle of the club, the sinews in his forearm thick and taut under its weight.

  ‘Are we ready?’ cried Nero, as though appealing to the audience at a satyr play. The dinner guests cheered. He turned to Tog. ‘Fight as though my life depends on it, yes? And be wary – ’ he added this in a stage whisper – ‘Tigellinus doesn’t play very fair.’

  Then he withdrew to his couch.

  ‘Begin!’ he shouted, in tones so shrill the whole room jumped.

  Tigellinus immediately assumed the stance of a boxer, knees bent and shoulders hunched. Tog still hadn’t moved. She regarded her opponent with curiosity. The atmosphere turned bitter and mocking, although Cadmus couldn’t work out which of the two were the target of the laughter. Tigellinus seemed infuriated by what he took to be Tog’s insolence, took his club in both hands, and swung it with brutal force into her midriff.

  Cadmus winced and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Tog was still upright, swaying slightly like a tree in a storm. Still she didn’t move. The guests began to murmur. Nero came forward again, frowning.

  ‘Come now, girl. Show a little spirit. Let’s give our guests something to cheer about, shall we?’

  Again he stirred the drunken enthusiasm of the onlookers, and befo
re he was even back in his seat Tigellinus had brought the club down between Tog’s neck and shoulder, with a blow heavy enough to crack marble.

  Once more, Tog staggered backwards but made no move to defend herself or return the blow. The emperor stared at her, his tongue protruding a little as though it were too big for his mouth. He stepped forward and brought his face very close to hers.

  ‘Listen to me, you wretch. I don’t think you’re trying very hard. It’s almost as if you don’t like having fun.’ He cocked his head like a chicken. ‘I don’t like people who don’t like having fun. Do you understand?’

  The other guests fell quiet.

  ‘Now. Shall we try one more time?’ he said.

  Tigellinus clasped his club in two hands again, and gave a broken grin. This time, just before Nero screamed, Tog looked round and caught Cadmus’s eye. He nodded fractionally, his body so rigid with worry that he couldn’t manage anything more expressive.

  ‘Begin!’

  Down came the club, but this time Tog’s arm flew up and caught the man’s wrist in mid-air. Her biceps bulged. Opposite her, Tigellinus’s eyes suddenly widened under his heavy brow, and Cadmus saw a flash of teeth behind his lips. He strained against her, and a vein on his forehead began to pulse and shine with sweat.

  Nero cackled, and the dinner guests roared their approval. Even Tullus managed to peer out from behind his fingers. Slowly, inexorably, Tog brought the club down to the level of her waist, Tigellinus hissing like an irate asp. Even through the din of the onlookers, Cadmus thought he heard the crack of bones, though he didn’t know whose. The weapon dropped heavily to the floor.

  Tigellinus managed to free one of his broken hands from Tog’s grasp and began to fumble frantically under his leather breastplate. He withdrew his hand. There was a flash of steel. Cadmus looked on, silent and sick, while Nero jumped and clapped like a lunatic.

  An agonized groan undercut the cheering, and for a moment Cadmus thought that the dagger had found its target; but then the groan was echoed by the other guests, as Tigellinus slumped to the floor, clutching his abdomen.

  The triclinium fell silent, apart from Tigellinus’s whimpering. Tullus had clapped a hand over his mouth. Still Tog peered down at her floored opponent, frowning, as though he were something she didn’t fully understand. She was barely out of breath.

  Nero came forward, smiling broadly.

  ‘You see!’ he said. ‘Atalanta reborn. A true daughter of the heroes!’

  One man made a strangled laugh. Another clapped twice, and then stopped when he realized he was alone. Two slaves made their way among the couches and dragged the moaning Tigellinus into the inner rooms of the palace. He left a thick smear of red over the white tiles of the mosaic.

  ‘Now,’ Nero announced into the silence. ‘Shall we eat?’

  X

  By the time the food started to arrive, everyone seemed to have forgotten that the head of the praetorian guard was bleeding out his life somewhere in another room. Perhaps, thought Cadmus, there was nothing unusual about this sort of occurrence at one of the emperor’s dinner parties. But the whole episode had left him quite shaken, and even a dinner as lavish as Nero’s didn’t serve as much of a distraction.

  Lavish, in fact, hardly did it justice. Each dish was a masterpiece of gastronomic design. There was a peacock, with its glittering tail feathers still attached to its crisped rump; a giant turbot on a bed of sea urchins, arranged to look as though it were leaping from its serving platter; a circular dish of different sweetmeats, big as a cartwheel, each selected to represent a different sign of the zodiac; a huge sow, the centrepiece of the whole dinner, with roasted fowl carved and shaped to look like piglets suckling at each of her teats. Not only that, but when the carver came to open up the pig, a dozen thrushes flew, alive and twittering, from inside its belly.

  Amid all of these grotesque delights, Cadmus watched Tog standing awkwardly behind the top couch. Nero was feeding her scraps from his plate like she was a dog. She chewed what she was given with a kind of furious boredom, and then spat it on to the floor as soon as the emperor’s back was turned. She looked like she’d forgotten about the evening’s entertainment too. Her face was glowing and scarless in the reflected light of the Golden Fleece.

  Cadmus leant in to his master, who was struggling to swallow a flamingo’s tongue without retching, and whispered: ‘What are we going to do about her? We can’t just leave her with Nero.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Tullus, grimacing as the next plate was added to the table. ‘She looks like she can take care of herself.’

  ‘Well, for starters, she technically belongs to you. Silvanus gave you ownership.’

  ‘What difference does that make? I thought my mind and my body belonged to me, but that didn’t stop Nero claiming them as his own.’

  ‘But she helped us. Silvanus promised her that we’d look after her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Cadmus, but we have more pressing concerns than the life of a Gaulish slave—’

  ‘British.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s from Britannia.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Tullus, waving a hand dismissively.

  ‘So you’re not going to do anything?’ Cadmus tried hard to keep his voice down. He knew this wasn’t how a slave should speak to his master, even when his master was as innocuous as Tullus; but his anger from earlier was still simmering gently somewhere around his navel. ‘You’re happy to abandon both of us?’

  Tullus looked at him sternly. ‘You are unkind, Cadmus,’ he hissed. ‘None of this is going as I would have wished. But Fate and Fortune have their own plans. All we can do now is pray to the gods for deliverance.’ He paused and looked at the plate in front of him. ‘And for some food that’s actually edible.’

  Cadmus straightened up, the frustration of the situation contending with the frustration of knowing Tullus was right. Fortune raised you up one day and cast you down the next. All one could do, his master always told him, was endure. He tried to regain his sense of calm, his sense of balance, as a good Stoic should. But it was difficult when the room was whirling like it was.

  The slaves still pranced about the diners, endlessly filling and refilling their wine cups. Some people had already passed out. As expected, the emperor looked more worse for wear than just about anyone. The Golden Fleece kept sliding off his back when he turned or rolled on his couch. Each time it did, Tog stepped forward and draped it back over him.

  ‘Well, here’s something positive,’ said Cadmus. ‘It looks like Nero’s forgotten all about you.’

  Just as the words left his mouth, he saw Polydamas staring at him, his eyes like curdled milk. Without looking away, the ancient priest said something into Nero’s ear, and the emperor sat upright.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course,’ he burbled, lips wet with wine. ‘Tullus! It is time for your performance!’

  There was a chorus of laughter and belching from the diners who were still conscious.

  Tullus tensed. ‘My performance . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, we must have our second round of entertainment. Something more cultured, perhaps? My secretary says that your slave found something special in Silvanus’s tomb. Come out here, old man. Come, come, come. Tell me what that dog Silvanus was hiding from the Divine – ’ he hiccoughed – ‘Caesar.’

  They both made their way out into the centre of the triclinium. Some of the guests began booing and hissing – they’d obviously been expecting the bar to be raised after the excitement of Tog’s fight. Cadmus limped a little, his sandal strap loosening with every step. Nero had raised himself unsteadily from his couch and was trying to quell the noise. The fleece had fallen off his shoulders again, and behind him Tog was holding it in her fist like an old dishrag.

  ‘We have made several, ah, useful discoveries,’ said Tullus. No one heard a word of it. Cadmus felt like he’d been thrown into the middle of the amphitheatre. The guests roared and roared. A wine cup sailed across the room in
front of Tullus’s nose, and there was a cheer when it hit a diner on the other side.

  ‘Speak up, Tullus!’ cried Epaphroditus, sharing Nero’s couch and obviously enjoying the old man’s discomfort.

  ‘In particular, ah, a map . . .’

  ‘Louder!’

  The emperor was laughing now too. Tullus shot a terrified glance at Cadmus.

  ‘We think,’ he said, his voice straining, ‘that Athens may hold an interesting clue. There is a woman, a prophetess of some sort, who Silvanus thought might know the location of the heroes’ graves. And possibly of the, ah, Argo.’

  Suddenly the guests fell silent.

  ‘The, ah, boat,’ Tullus finished weakly.

  Cadmus looked around. From where he was standing, the couches, the tables, the columns wreathed with vines, everything seemed to take on a strange, disorientating slant. At first he thought it was something to do with Tullus’s mention of the Argo, but when he looked ahead he realized the party had frozen for a very different reason. The priest was upright. He was pointing a bloodstained finger at Cadmus.

  The sound from the old creature’s mouth sounded like wind over a desert. A collective shiver went through the mute dinner guests.

  Polydamas lowered his finger and indicated Cadmus’s foot.

  Nero yelped like he was waking up from a bad dream. He began to tremble. His purple face now had the colour and consistency of unbaked dough. Cadmus looked down to see that he was missing half of his footwear.

  ‘He is here!’ said the emperor, a fat hand over his mouth. ‘The boy! He is only wearing one sandal!’

  A freezing sweat surged from Cadmus’s skin. He knew what Nero was referring to. His lungs felt as cold and heavy as marble. In the silence he managed: ‘I have two sandals, Caesar. Only, one of them is broken.’

  ‘How dare you, Tullus?’ said Nero, as though Cadmus had never spoken. ‘You would bring this monster into my home?’

  Tullus’s lips quivered. ‘Please . . .’ was all he managed, and that wasn’t more than a whisper.

  ‘The boy will be the end of me!’ Nero looked around frantically around him, and then screamed like a child: ‘Kill him! Kill him!’