‘A conquest that is far from over.’
‘So I believe; it should make for an interesting dinner conversation.’ Nero got to his feet to officially welcome the Armenians; Vespasian lowered his voice. ‘I shall be making a tour of mine and my brother’s estates soon. I should be back after the Saturnalia at the end of December, we shall dine then.’
Caratacus inclined his head. ‘It’ll be my pleasure, Vespasian,’ he said before disappearing back into the crowd.
The speeches had been long and formal and the people’s interest had waned as the sun had fallen and the crowds had thinned out to the point that it had become noticeable. With an eye to the possibility of completely losing his audience, Nero interrupted the latest in the line of Armenian delegates in the middle of an impassioned speech about his country’s love of Rome and Rome’s new Emperor and hatred for all things Parthian, which, considering his eastern attire, was raising more than a few eyebrows.
As soon as it was clear that Nero was about to speak the background chatter that the Armenian delegates had been forced to fight against immediately died down. The Golden Emperor got to his feet and graciously indicated to the Armenians to rise from their bellies, from which position they had voluntarily made their cases. For quite a while Nero made a great show of contemplating everything he had heard, scratching his downy beard, rubbing the back of his neck with a pained expression on his face and then gazing into the middle distance over the heads of his adoring audience, seeking inspiration from afar.
‘I have made my decision,’ he eventually announced. ‘This golden age shall have peace and I shall soon be able to close the doors of the Temple of Janus. But before that happens we shall have war!’ He stood with one hand in the air and the other on his hip, the soldierly image of a general addressing his troops, and the crowd roared their approval. He silenced them with a swipe of his raised hand. ‘I shall prosecute this war in a firm and positive way and not in the haphazard, half-hearted manner of my father, who despite his many qualities could not be considered martial.’ As the crowd cheered their agreement to this point Nero signalled to Burrus to hand him up his sword. Nero held it aloft. ‘I will give Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, our most competent general in the East, full powers to resolve the Armenian question and beat the Parthians back to their homeland. He shall report only to me and shall have the benefit of my advice.
‘And so I shall deal with our external problems, safeguarding the sanctity of Rome’s borders; but whilst doing this I shall also address an internal infestation: I have been told that there were a few, this morning, who refused to take their oath to me, your Emperor. These people, I have been informed by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, do not acknowledge me as the supreme authority in the Empire but, rather, some crucified criminal called Chrestus. Find them for me, people of Rome; root them out and bring them to me for judgement and sentence. Together, my people, together we shall fight our enemies within as well as without and together we shall be victorious.’
Vespasian looked at Gaius as the people screamed their love for their Golden Emperor; he smiled. ‘Now he’s united them with common enemies both here and abroad, Uncle. He’ll secure his position and then we shall see how he handles absolute power.’
‘I’m sure we will, dear boy; let us pray to the gods of our houses that we don’t get to see too closely.’
‘I’ve found it!’ Caenis said, handing an unrolled scroll across the garden table to Vespasian. ‘It’s all there: the clause, the amount of the bequest and then the original valuation of Paelignus’ father’s estate as registered in the will at the House of the Vestals. It specifies its actual size in terms of land, goods, chattels and cash. Narcissus must have had this stolen.’
‘Or paid the Vestals for it.’ Vespasian read through the scroll, smoke from the bonfire occasionally wisping into his eyes. ‘But this doesn’t tell us how much was paid to the imperial treasury.’
‘It doesn’t need to. All bequests made are logged and filed at the treasury; you just have to get Pallas to cross-check what was received from Paelignus against what’s in that record.’
Vespasian looked at the valuations, did some mental arithmetic and then whistled. ‘I make the total value about twenty million denarii, which means that Claudius should have got ten but only received a quarter of that. Paelignus swindled the Emperor out of seven and a half million. That’ll do nicely.’ He slapped the scroll down on the table.
Caenis pointed to the rest of Narcissus’ records that they still had not read through. ‘Do you want to carry on looking through?’