The Furies of Rome E-Book

Robert Fabbri

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Vespasian
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 594

Beschreibung

THE EXPLOSIVELY GRIPPING, 300,000 COPY BESTSELLING ROMAN EPIC SERIES, PERFECT FOR FANS OF GLADIATOR AD 58: Rome is in turmoil once more. Emperor Nero has set his heart on a new wife but to clear a path for her, he must first assassinate his Empress, Claudia Octavia. Vespasian needs to tread carefully here - Nero's new lover, Poppaea Sabina, is no friend of his and her ascent to power spells danger. Meanwhile, Nero's extravagance has reached new heights, triggering a growing financial crisis in Britannia. Vespasian is sent to Londinium to rescue the situation, only to become embroiled in a deadly rebellion, one that threatens to destroy Britannia and de-stabilise the empire... THE SEVENTH BOOK IN THE BESTSELLING VESPASIAN SERIES

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

PART I

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

PART II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

PART III

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIIII

PART IIII

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIIII

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

For my cousin, Aris Caraccio, his wife, Nathalie, and their children, Mathilde, Arthur, Victor and Margaux; as well as my uncle, Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Caraccio, with much love.

Also to George and Ice, their Corsa hounds upon whom – with a lot of latitude! – Castor and Pollux are based.

PROLOGUE

Rome, November ad 58

FEW ENJOYED NERO’Sfeasts; each seemed interminable and this occasion was no exception.

It was not because of the endless courses, all exquisitely presented, paraded out by dozens of scantily clad – if clad at all – slaves of either sex or none. Nor was it the conversation: anodyne, occasional and humourless; neither was it the entertainment, which had been a repetitive series of heroic odes in the Emperor’s favourite styles, both in Greek and Latin, performed with the sickening smugness of a lyre-player who doubted not his own ability and knew himself to be high in the Emperor’s favour. Even the vulgarity of the size of the dinner – thirty couches, each with three guests reclining at their own low table, arranged in a ‘U’ shape around the entertainer – could be forgiven as it had become the norm in Nero’s reign.

No, it was none of these things that made Titus Flavius Sabinus loathe every moment of the gathering and pray to his lord Mithras for its end. It was a completely different factor: it was the fear.

The fear swathed the room like an invisible, gladiatorial net, with lead weights holding it down to the ground and theretiarius, wielding it, pulling on the drawstrings so that it entrapped all within its grasp, making escape impossible. Most of the guests were entangled in this net of fear although none would let it show in their outward behaviour; recently, after four and a half years of Nero as emperor, theélite of Rome had begun to learn that to show fear in front of him was to encourage him into worse excess.

It had not always been so: in the early years of his rule Nero had shown restraint – at least in public – although he had raped and then poisoned his adoptive brother, Britannicus, the Emperor Claudius’ true blood heir who had been passed over because of his youth. However, that outrage, or the fratricide part of it at least, could be justified by political necessity: had he lived, Britannicus could have become a figurehead for dissension that may have turned into conflict; his death, it was argued, prevented the possibility of another civil war and therefore his sacrifice was made for the good of all. Because of that, people were willing to overlook the boy’s murder on the eve of his becoming a man on his fourteenth birthday.

After the death of his only serious rival – as well as the elimination of a couple of lesser ones – Nero had settled down to a life of pampered luxury, leaving the running of the Empire mainly to his former tutor and now advisor, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and also the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Sextus Afranius Burrus, preferring instead to indulge in his two passions, chariot racing and singing, both of which he, naturally, conducted in private. It was unthinkable for a patrician, let alone the Emperor, to be seen indulging in either of those demeaning pursuits in public, and so Nero, aware of the dignity of his position, had not displayed his taste for the activities of freedmen and slaves to anyone outside a very tight inner circle on the Palatine Hill. As far as the people of Rome were concerned, the Golden Emperor, as they liked to think of their Princeps, whose hair blazed with the colour of the dawn, was an upright and generous ruler – as witnessed by the magnificence of the games and public feasts that he provided. Outwardly he was soberly married to Claudia Octavia, Claudius’ daughter, and conducted himself in a very worthy and Roman fashion – the fact the marriage was technically incestuous was quietly forgotten, again for the greater good – but inwardly it was quite a different story.

However, now, to those close to Nero, it had become clear that only he could curb his own behaviour; but if he chose not to then that was his prerogative. Seneca and Burrus, who between them had taken on the task of moulding the young Princeps into a temperate and just ruler, could do nothing to restrain the desires within Nero that had grown with each of his twenty-one years.

And his desires were great.

Too great to be satisfied by the patrician rigidity of his young wife, reclining to the left of her husband with the blank look on her face that she had worn for the past four years since Nero had humiliated her by taking a freedwoman to his bed and withholding from her the chance to produce an heir. But even the charms of the freedwoman, Acte, had not been enough to fulfil the lust of a young man who had come to realise that he could do anything that pleased him to anyone he chose.

It was now becoming clear that many things pleased him and ordering theélite of Rome to join him for lavish dinners at a few moments’ notice was, however inconvenient, the most innocuous; there were far darker activities that pleased Nero even more. One of those activities, Sabinus guessed, as Tigellinus, the prefect of the Vigiles, approached his couch, the Emperor was going to indulge in, yet again, later.

Dark-eyed and sharp-featured, Tigellinus leant down to whisper in Sabinus’ ear. ‘The Quirinal from the fourth hour.’ With a smile like a rabid dog’s snarl, he patronisingly patted Sabinus on the cheek before walking away.

Sabinus sighed, reached for his cup, downed its contents then held it behind him for a naked slave boy, smeared all over with silver lacquer, to refill as he turned to his corpulent neighbour, keeping his voice low. ‘You should get home quickly as soon as the dinner finishes, Uncle, if it ever does. He’s planning on going out again tonight; Tigellinus just informed me that there are to be no patrols of his Vigiles around the Quirinal Hill after the fourth hour of the night, apart, of course, from the one that shadows Nero to keep him safe.’

His uncle, Gaius Vespasius Pollo, flicking a carefully tonged ringlet of dyed-black hair away from his kohled eyes, looked at Sabinus, alarmed at the lack of Rome’s Night Watch in his neighbourhood. ‘Not the Quirinal again, dear boy? The area is still reeling from his rampage through it last month.’

Sabinus nodded, thoughtfully sipping from his replenished cup. ‘One tenement block and two houses burnt to the ground, half a dozen rapes, countless broken bones and several murders as well as the forced suicide of Julius Montanus for daring to try to defend himself when set upon by what he thought was a slave in a ridiculous wig.’

Gaius’ jowls and chins wobbled in indignation; he reached for another anchovy pasty. ‘A man of senatorial status ordered to kill himself for apologising when he recognised that his attacker, whom he now had in a headlock, was in fact the Emperor; it’s too much. It’s been going on for more than a year now; how much longer will we have to stand for this sort of thing?’ The pasty disappeared whole into Gaius’ mouth.

‘You know the answer to that: as long as Nero subjects us to it. It’s his idea of fun, and with his friend Otho and other young bucks encouraging him it can only get worse.’ Sabinus looked over at the tall, well-built and exceedingly handsome man reclining to the right of the Emperor: three years older than Nero, Marcus Salvius Otho had been the Emperor’s lover on and off since Nero’s tenth year.

‘And as the Urban Prefect, responsible for law and order in Rome, it’s you who’s made to look stupid, dear boy.’ Gaius joined in the rapturous applause led by Nero, weeping freely, for the conclusion of the performer’s latest rendition.

Sabinus raised his voice over the exaggerated adulation. ‘You know perfectly well there’s nothing I can do about it. Tigellinus tells me where he’s withdrawing his patrols from so that I can order a century of one of the Urban Cohorts to be on standby in the area in case Nero needs to be extracted in a hurry or his activities cause a riot. He claims he tries to keep the violence to a minimum.’

‘My flabby arse he does!’ Gaius scoffed and reached for another pasty. ‘The more violent it becomes the happier he is because it adds another element of fear for us all and the more we fear Nero the more secure his position becomes and Tigellinus’ with it. Thankfully, I’ve got four of Tigran’s lads waiting to escort me home; although since he took over from Magnus as the leader of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood I’m obliged to do more favours in return for the service. And it’s all because you’re failing in your duty.’

A disturbance at the far end of the room saved Sabinus a blustered answer; to the not-that-well-hidden outrage of most present, the Emperor’s mistress, the freedwoman Acte, entered, garbed, coiffured and bejewelled with a vulgarity that was unsurprising in one newly come to money and position. Pausing as her entourage of attendants – and again there was vulgarity in their number – unnecessarily adjusted her costume and her intricate and towering arrangement of blonde hair as well as putting a final touch to her excessive make-up, she glanced around the chamber with a haughty triumph, until her eyes fell on Nero. Slapping away the women surrounding her, she glided towards the Emperor.

A tense silence fell on the room; all eyes went to the Empress.

‘I feel that it is time to take my leave, dearest husband,’ Claudia Octavia said, rising with fluid elegance to her feet. ‘I caught a faint whiff of something that doesn’t agree with me and it would be best if I were to lie down and let my stomach settle.’ Without waiting for Nero’s leave, as his attention was on the sheerness of Acte’s attire and the lack of anything beneath it, Claudia Octavia progressed with rigid-backed, patrician dignity from the room.

‘She has the support of many,’ Gaius whispered to Sabinus, ‘Calpurnius Piso, Thrasea Paetus, Rome’s dourest Stoic, and Faenius Rufus, for example.’

As Nero made a great fuss of greeting his slave-born mistress and Acte made it a point that all should see how favoured she was, Sabinus glanced over to three middle-aged senators on a couch opposite him, their visages clouded with disapproval as they witnessed the supplanting of the daughter of the previous Emperor by a coarsely arrayed sexual-acrobat; their wives, on the couch next to them, pointedly refused to look in the direction of such an affront to female pride. ‘I was going through Faenius Rufus’ annual report as prefect of the grain supply and it would seem that he’s hardly used his position to enrich himself, just a few kick-backs here and there.’

‘He’s always had a reputation for honesty to the point of recklessness, dear boy; he has the morality and sympathies of an upright republican of old – a Cato not a Crassus. And as for Piso and Thrasea, the gods alone know what they must think of the Emperor behaving in such a way to a daughter of the Claudii, even though her father was a fool who drooled. And what they all think of Nero’s rampages through the city I wouldn’t try to imagine, if I were you.’

Sabinus did not answer but, rather, devoted his attention to his cup, frowning at his perceived inability to keep the better quarters of Rome safe as the lyre-player launched into yet another ode. Since his recall, almost two years previously, from the provinces of Moesia, Macedonia and Thracia, where he had been serving as governor, and his surprise appointment as the prefect of Rome, the magistrate overseeing the day to day running of the city, Sabinus had been trying, to no avail, to work out who had used their influence to secure him the position; neither his uncle nor his brother, Vespasian, could help him in uncovering the identity of his anonymous benefactor. Naturally Sabinus found it disconcerting not knowing whose debt he was in and when it would have to be repaid, but he was very happy with the position and the status that it conferred on him: he was one of the five most influential men in the city after the Emperor himself – officially, that was.

Unofficially there were others who had closer access to the Emperor’s ear than he did, namely Seneca, Burrus and the consuls, but the main two were Otho and Tigellinus. Although Sabinus was his superior, in that the Vigiles, as well as the Urban Cohorts, were under the command of the prefect of Rome, Tigellinus was impossible to control. He had used his unabashed depravity to ingratiate himself with the Emperor whom he had recognised immediately as a kindred spirit; it had been Tigellinus who had held Britannicus down whilst Nero had buggered him at what was to be the boy’s last and fatal dinner in this very room. This inability to control his underling was taking the gloss off Sabinus’ status; he felt it made him look as if he condoned all the violence that had gradually increased as more and more young men realised that with the Emperor running amok in the city they too had licence to do the same.

‘I assume from that exchange earlier,’ a voice said, impinging on his thoughts, ‘shall we call it an exchange? No, we can’t because you didn’t say a word back to Tigellinus, did you, prefect? So let’s say it was a command, yes, a command, prefect, from your underling. I assume from that command, Nero’s going out again tonight.’

‘Very astute, Seneca,’ Sabinus said without bothering to look round.

‘Another triumph for Roman law and order; it makes me wonder if I was right to take the very substantial bribe I was given to have you confirmed in your post. Perhaps for the good of all I should have taken less money and got someone more competent.’

Still Sabinus did not look round. ‘When did you ever do anything for the good of all?’

‘That’s harsh, Sabinus; I’ve moderated the Emperor’s behaviour for the past few years.’

‘And now you can barely restrain him. I suppose you enjoy making me look stupid as the Urban prefect. By the way, who did bribe you on my behalf?’

‘I’ve told you before, that as a man of a strict moral code I could not possibly divulge such confidences; without the appropriate, what’s the best word … er … inducement, yes, that’s it, inducement. Anyway, that’s by the by; it’s about your enquiry that I wanted to speak to you.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Still Sabinus did not turn.

‘Yes. The consulships are all spoken for …’

‘Bought, you mean.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous; the Emperor does not buy his consulship.’

‘More’s the pity for your purse.’

‘I’ll ignore that. Three years’ time is the earliest that your son-in-law could expect one and the price is non-negotiable: two million sesterces.’

‘Two million! That’s twice the threshold for admittance into the Senate.’ This time Sabinus did turn round but only to see the portly form of Seneca walking away; he watched as Nero’s chief advisor sidled up to Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, Sabinus’ and Vespasian’s sworn enemy since he had abducted Sabinus’ late wife, Clementina, and taken her to Caligula for repeated and brutal rape. His outrage at Seneca’s price was immediately replaced by curiosity. ‘What’s Corvinus negotiating with Seneca about, Uncle?’

‘Hmm, what, dear boy?’

Sabinus repeated the question.

‘A lucrative governorship. It’s rumoured that he’s trying to get Lusitania because of the tax possibilities on the garum trade; as you can imagine, there’s a lot of money in fish sauce.’

‘It makes you wonder where he’s getting the money to bribe Seneca with.’

‘That’s easy; if Corvinus doesn’t mind paying the exorbitant interest rates, Seneca will lend him the money for his own bribe, provided he can get someone to stand as a guarantor; which will be yet more expense for him but well worth it if he gets Lusitania.’

And that was how it now worked, Sabinus reflected: Seneca, it seemed, cared only for amassing a fortune from his position much to the private amusement of the few who had read his philosophical tracts. However, Seneca was not unusual in this; his predecessor, Pallas, the Flavian family’s chief supporter during Claudius’ reign and the early part of Nero’s, had made his fortune as Claudius’ most trusted advisor before he had fallen from Nero’s favour at the same time as his lover, Nero’s mother, Agrippina; he was now exiled to his country estates, no longer playing a role in imperial high politics. Pallas was more fortunate than Narcissus, the man he had outmanoeuvred and replaced; Narcissus had been executed, despite his fortune – or, it could be argued, because of it.

Unable to think where he would come up with the outrageous amount Seneca was asking for his son-in-law, Lucius Caesennius Paetus’, consulship without borrowing it from the man himself – something he would never allow himself to do – Sabinus cast his mind back to the issue from which he had been dragged away when the Emperor’s summons to dinner had arrived that afternoon. Some of the duties of the prefect of Rome were less onerous than others and the questioning of prisoners who posed a threat to the security of the Empire was one of the more pleasant tasks; and when that man was no longer a citizen and therefore Sabinus had a freer rein then it could be a positive pleasure. That pleasure was made all the sweeter in this case by the fact that this was not necessarily an imperial matter as the man in question had been sent to him by his brother, Vespasian, to be incarcerated and questioned as a favour that he needed to repay; although what that favour was owed for and to whom, Sabinus knew not.

‘My friends,’ Nero’s husky voice cut through the applause for the latest ode that had finally ground to an end, drawing Sabinus out of his thoughts. ‘I would that we had time for more of this sublime gift of the gods.’ Nero raised a hand to the heavens and gazed after it for a few moments, his expression composed into one of deepest gratitude; he then looked over to the lyre-player and inhaled, long and deep, his eyes closed as if he were smelling the sweetest of scents. ‘Terpnus, here, has received the blessing of Apollo with his honeyed voice and skilled fingers.’

There were general mutterings of agreement from the audience, although those with a true ear for music found Nero’s statement exaggerated.

Nero nodded at Terpnus before drawing himself up and filling his chest with air. Terpnus plucked a chord and then, to everyone’s astonishment, some more obvious than others, Nero let out a note, long and quavering; it was reasonably close to the chord that Terpnus had plucked but not nearly as strong nor as constant. Nero’s audience, however, chose to interpret the sound as a harmony of infinite and intricate genius rather than the lamentable discord that was the reality; they burst into unrestrained applause as soon as the note died a miserable death on the Emperor’s lips. Ladies who had suffered violent rape at Nero’s hands and those others who feared it would soon be their turn clapped demurely whilst their husbands cheered the man who would sully their womenfolk and steal their fortunes and their lives. Sabinus and Gaius joined in the lauding wholeheartedly, refraining from catching the other’s eye.

‘My friends,’ Nero rasped, ‘for three years now Terpnus has been training me, bringing out the innate talent within your Emperor. I have lain with lead weights on my chest; I have used enemas and emetics as well as refraining from eating apples and other foods deleterious to the voice. I have done all these things under the guidance of the greatest performer of the age; so, soon I will be ready to perform for you!’

There was a momentary silence as the hideous thought of breaking the taboo against people of consequence – let alone the Emperor – performing in public sank in, before the audience burst into rapturous cheering as if Nero had just announced the very thing that each had desired most in life and yet, up until now, none had thought it possible to attain.

Nero stood, side-on, left hand on his heart and right hand extended to his guests; tears trickled down the pale skin of his cheeks to catch in the wispy, golden beard that grew thickest under his chin, which, despite his youth, had begun to sag with the weight of good living. Thus, he let the adulation wash over him. ‘My friends,’ he said eventually, his voice imbued with rich emotion, ‘I understand your joy. To be finally able to share with me my talent as expressed through my voice, the most beautiful thing I know.’

Acte, now in Claudia Octavia’s place, looked less than impressed by this assertion.

‘As beautiful as my new wife, Princeps?’ Otho asked with a note of drunken laughter on his voice; his closeness to Nero for so long meant he was the only man in Rome with licence to exchange banter with the Emperor.

Nero, far from being aggravated at his announcement being interrupted, turned and smiled at his friend and sometime lover. ‘You’ve boasted all evening of Poppaea Sabina’s charms, Otho; when you bring her to Rome I shall sing to her and then you can judge the relative beauty of your new wife and my voice.’

Otho raised his cup to Nero. ‘That I shall, Princeps, and I shall ravage the winner; she will be here in four days.’

This produced raucous and ribald cheers from the young bucks who considered themselves part of the Emperor’s close associates; they were soon stilled by a withering look from Nero that, once silence had returned, transformed into an expression of abject humility. ‘Soon, my friends, I shall be ready for you; until then I shall practise more. Adieu.’ With mannered gestures to Acte, Otho, Terpnus and his young sycophants to follow him, Nero turned and left the room, bringing the dinner to an end and taking with him, much to the relief of all those remaining, the fear.

‘I’ll be fine, dear boy,’ Gaius insisted as he and Sabinus came to the Forum Romanum, its flagstones wet from a light drizzle, glowing in the light of the many torches of their bodyguards and those of other groups passing through on their way home. ‘It’s only half a mile up the hill and, besides, I’ve got Tigran’s lads looking after me.’

Sabinus looked dubious. ‘Go quickly anyway.’ He slapped the shoulder of the largest and most bovine of the four men with flaming brands accompanying them. ‘Don’t pick any fights, Sextus, and keep to the better-lit thoroughfares.’

‘No fights and keep to the better-lit thoroughfares; right you are, sir,’ Sextus said, slowly digesting his orders. ‘And give all the lads’ greetings to Senator Vespasian and Magnus when you see them.’

‘I will do.’ Sabinus clasped his uncle’s forearm. ‘We leave for Aquae Cutillae at the second hour of the day, Uncle.’

‘I’ll be at the Porta Collina, waiting with my carriage. Let’s hope my sister can hang on for the two days it’ll take us to get there.’

Sabinus smiled, his round face, semi-shadowed in the torchlight, was thoughtfully sad. ‘Mother is very resolute; she won’t cross the Styx until she’s seen us.’

‘Vespasia has always been a woman who enjoyed trying to dominate her menfolk; it wouldn’t surprise me if she died on purpose, before we arrived, just to make us feel guilty at being forced to delay our departure by a day.’

‘It couldn’t be helped, Uncle; the business of Rome takes priority over personal affairs.’

‘It was ever thus, dear boy, ever thus. I shall see you tomorrow.’

Sabinus watched his uncle make his way through a colonnade, into Caesar’s Forum at the foot of the Quirinal and then disappear from sight, with his bodyguards surrounding him like four torch-bearing colossi, warding off the dangers of a city made feral by night.

With a prayer to his lord Mithras to preserve his dying mother for just two more days, he turned and headed the few paces to the Capitoline Hill and the Tullianum at its base.

‘How is he, Blaesus?’ Sabinus asked as the iron-reinforced wooden door to the prison was opened by a heavily muscled, bald man, wearing a tunic protected by a stained leather apron.

Blaesus shrugged. ‘I haven’t touched him, prefect; I hear the odd moan from down there but other than that he’s been quiet. He certainly hasn’t volunteered to talk, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘I suppose it was.’ Sabinus sighed as he sat down on the only comfortable chair in the low-ceilinged room and looked at a trapdoor towards the far end just visible in the dim light of an oil lamp set in the middle of the sole table. ‘Well, we’d better get him up then and carry on. I think we’ll try slightly stronger encouragement this time; I need the answer tonight as I’m leaving the city for a few days tomorrow morning.’

Blaesus beckoned to a corner. A hirsute giant of a man, dressed only in a loincloth, unfurled himself from where he had been curled up on a pile of rags in the shadows; he held a bone in one hand whose provenance Sabinus did not like to guess at. ‘Down you go, Beauty,’ Blaesus said as he hauled on a rope that raised the trapdoor. ‘Bring him up and don’t bite him more than once.’

Beauty grunted, his face, flat as if it had been pummelled by a spade, cracked into a leer and he nodded furious understanding of his instructions, dropping his bone. Sabinus watched the monstrosity lower himself through the floor and out of sight, revolted by his grossness and briefly wondering what his real name was before deeming it far beneath his dignity to ask.

A cry of pain echoed around the bare stone walls, emanating from the cell below, which was the only other room in Rome’s public prison; the cry was followed by a deep snarl, which Sabinus took to be Beauty encouraging his charge to move. A few moments later, the head of the only occupant of the Tullianum appeared through the hole in the floor, his arms pulling himself up, wriggling his body in his desperation to get away from the hideous beast below him. After a couple more racing heartbeats of scrabbling, the terrified prisoner emerged, whole but naked, from the dark pit below, his long hair and moustaches matted with filth.

‘Good evening, Venutius,’ Sabinus crooned as if the sight of the prisoner was the most pleasing thing in the world. ‘I’m so pleased that you managed to avoid becoming Beauty’s dinner; now perhaps we can get back to what we were discussing this afternoon.’

Venutius drew himself up; the muscles in his chest, thighs and arms were sculpted and pronounced, and, despite his nudity, he managed to exude an air of dignity as he looked down at his gaoler. ‘I have nothing to say to you, Titus Flavius Sabinus; and as a citizen of Rome you can do nothing to me until I’ve exercised my right to appeal to the Emperor.’

Sabinus smiled without humour. ‘You betrayed that citizenship when you led the Brigantes in revolt against Rome; your citizenship, as I told you earlier, is revoked and I don’t think you’ll find anyone who would argue against a traitor having his legal protection removed. The Emperor is unaware of your presence in Rome, which is just as well for you as I believe he would order your immediate execution. So, I’ll ask you again, nicely, and for the last time: who gave you the money to finance your rebellion in Britannia?’

Venutius flinched and moved away from the trapdoor as Beauty reappeared, snarling softly to himself in what could be described as a form of singing as of one happy in his work. ‘I’m protected by someone very close to the Emperor; you can’t touch me,’ Venutius said once Beauty had retrieved his bone and retired to his rags to gnaw on it.

‘And I’ve been asked by someone very close to the Emperor to find out where all your cash came from.’ That, Sabinus knew, was a lie; however, it was close enough to the truth for it to be believable. ‘And that someone is very anxious to find out quickly; tonight in fact.’ Sabinus nodded to Blaesus.

‘Beauty!’ Blaesus shouted in a commanding voice. ‘Put the bone down.’

The monster growled deep and long, as he, with obvious reluctance, complied with his master’s will.

‘He’ll start getting hungry soon if he’s not allowed to gnaw on his bone,’ Sabinus observed to Venutius, who looked sidelong at the hair-covered thing in the corner, concern showing in his expression.

A couple more growls caused Venutius to glance at Sabinus before looking back at Beauty. ‘No one financed my rebellion, it was my own money. It was after my bitch of a wife, Cartimandua, replaced me as her consort with that upstart, Vellocatus, I decided to have my revenge and remove her; which I did with pleasure.’

‘But it cost a lot of money to raise so many warriors and to keep them with you; and then taking on the survivors of Cartimandua’s army was yet more expense.’

Beauty growled again and let out a reverberating fart as he got to his feet, slavering at Venutius.

Venutius spoke quickly: ‘I found Cartimandua’s hoard, there was plenty in it; all freshly minted silver denarii – tens of thousands of them – as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands of gold aurei.’

‘Roman coinage that you then used to rebel against Rome,’ Sabinus observed as Beauty began to lumber across the room.

Venutius’ face now registered an unusual thing to see in the expression of a Britannic chieftain: fear. ‘I couldn’t stop once I defeated Cartimandua. My men were stirred up to it by the druids; Myrddin, the chief druid of all Britannia, came amongst us. To keep my position I had to lead a rebellion against Roman rule.’ Venutius started to back away from Beauty, who glanced over to his master for reassurance that he was, indeed, doing what was expected of him.

Blaesus smiled, inclining his head at his pet to encourage him.

Venutius now had his back to the wall; Beauty, snarls grinding in his throat, was almost upon him. ‘I didn’t have any choice.’

‘Yes you did; you could have fled here to Rome, to your benefactor, and thrown yourself at the mercy of the Emperor. Instead you used all that newly minted money against the Emperor and now you try to blame the druids.’

With a surprisingly agile bounce, Beauty pounced on the Britannic chieftain, his snarl turning into a hunger-fired roar. Venutius screamed as he was thrown flat on his back with the monster astride him, clawing at his chest.

Sabinus got to his feet and stood over the scene from which nightmares are woven, his face unmoved by the potential horror. ‘So where did that money come from?’

‘It was a loan!’ Venutius screamed as Beauty’s jaws opened, teeth honed by bone, and his head dropped towards him.

‘And your wife’s?’

‘The same; now call this thing off!’

With a guttural rumble of satisfaction, Beauty clamped his teeth into the muscular flesh of Venutius’ pectoral and, shaking his head like a beast at its prey, began to rip at it.

With cries that would have disturbed the peace of Hades, Venutius howled for mercy, sobbing with the terror of being devoured by a thing. As Beauty’s jaws worked, so did Venutius’ shrieks increase, his fists beating uselessly on the beast’s furred back and head, his eyes looking up at Sabinus, pleading.

‘Who gave you and your wife your loans?’ Sabinus asked with an enquiring furrowing of his brow.

Beauty wrenched his head back and blood arced above it, black drops in dim light.

Venutius stared in horror at the lump of dripping meat dangling from the hideous, masticating jaws. His eyes rolled as he watched Beauty chewing on his own precious flesh; then he screamed once, even louder than previously: ‘Seneca!’

PART I

Aquae Cutillae, November ad 58

CHAPTER I

SHE WAS DYING;there was no doubt about it in Vespasian’s mind as he looked down at his mother, Vespasia Polla. Late afternoon light, seeping through the narrow window above her bed, illuminated the small bedroom, simply furnished, that was to act as the starting point for Vespasia’s last journey. Her face, with skin the texture and hue of wrinkled tallow wax, was peaceful: her eyes were shut, her thin lips, dry and cracked, trembled apart with each irregular breath and her long, undressed grey hair lay spread upon the pillow, arranged so by one of her body slaves in order that there would still be feminine dignity in death.

Vespasian increased slightly the pressure on the frail hand that he held in both of his as he said a prayer to his guardian god, Mars, that the messenger he had sent to Rome had made good time and his brother and uncle would arrive before she had need of the Ferryman’s services; he promised a white bullock to the deity should this be so.

Vespasian felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up to see Flavia, his wife of nineteen years, standing next to him.

His prayer had been so intense that she had entered the room without his noticing. Her make-up and jewellery were lavish and extensive; they were complemented by a high and ornate coiffeur and a crimson stola and saffron palla of the finest wool that allowed her comely form to be admired. Vespasian felt a twinge of annoyance at his wife for coming into a dying-chamber dressed as if she were about to entertain guests of the highest rank, but refrained from saying anything as he knew that dressing down would never have occurred to Flavia; instead he focused on family matters: ‘Are the boys still out with Magnus and his new hunting dogs?’

‘Titus is but Domitian came back with one of the hunting slaves half an hour ago sulking because Magnus had stopped him from doing something; what, I don’t know. He then pinched and scratched his sister.’

‘Domitilla’s had worse from him.’

‘She’s twice his age and soon to be married; she shouldn’t have to take that from a child of seven. I’ve given him to his nurse, Phyllis, she can restrain him, and I’ve promised him that you’ll give him the thrashing of his life once …’ Flavia trailed off knowing exactly what was preventing her husband from disciplining their youngest son immediately. ‘May Mother Isis ease her passing. Shall I send for the doctors again?’

Vespasian shook his head. ‘What can they do? Cutting out the swelling in her stomach will kill her quicker than leaving it in. Besides, she sent them away last time.’

Flavia could not resist a snort. ‘She always thought that she knew best.’

Vespasian gritted his teeth. ‘If you insist on carrying on a pointless feud with a dying woman, Flavia, it would be better to do so in the privacy of your own room and your own head. I am not in the mood, nor do I have the time, for women’s petty quarrels.’

Flavia tensed and took her hand from Vespasian’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, husband, I meant no disrespect.’

‘Yes you did.’ Vespasian returned his concentration to his mother as his wife left the room at an irritated pace; her footsteps faded into the courtyard garden beyond.

For a few days over forty-nine years now, Vespasia Polla had been a part of his life and, as he again squeezed her hand, he thanked her, for he knew that neither he nor his brother would have reached the consulship had it not been for her drive and ambition for her family. His father’s side of the family were respectable, rustic equestrians; Sabine in ancestry and accent.Vespasia, however, came from a family that could boast a senator who had reached the rank of praetor: her older brother, Gaius Vespasius Pollo. It had been that connection she had used to launch the career of her sons in Rome and it had been Gaius’ relationship with the Lady Antonia, niece to Augustus, sister-in-lawto Tiberius, mother of Claudius, grandmother of Caligula and great-grandmother of Nero, that had propelled them into the mire of imperial politics in which they had managed to swim not sink – just. Both had reached the pinnacle of the Cursus Honorum, the succession of military and magisterial ranks that were the career structure for theélite in Rome, which was far more than most New Men from non-senatorial families could expect; indeed, Sabinus had progressed from the consulship to being a provincial governor and was now the prefect of the city of Rome. Yes, Vespasian reflected, rubbing the thin crown of hair that was all that remained on his otherwise bald head, Vespasia could be proud of her achievement for her family.

Yet there was one thing that she had left undone in Vespasian’s eyes: she was going to her grave with a secret; a secret almost as old as him. That secret had been enforced by an oath administered, at Vespasia’s insistence, to all who had been a witness to the incident – Sabinus, aged almost five, included. It had occurred at Vespasian’s naming ceremony, nine days after his birth and it had to do with the markings on the livers of the sacrificial ox, boar and ram; what these markings were, no one had been able to tell him because of the oath. He knew, though, that his parents had believed the marks prophesied his future for he had overheard them discussing it, in vague terms, as a youth of sixteen; but what was prophesied, he knew not. And now his mother was going to the shaded land beyond the Styx without releasing people from that oath. However, due to certain strange occurrences and prophecies that Vespasian had been subject to throughout his life, he had formed a reasonable idea of what the omens may have predicted for him all those years ago; and it was an idea that was as outrageous as it was implausible with the political settlement as it was and the Principate in the hands of one family.

But, should that line fail, what then? If the Emperor were to die childless whence would a new emperor come?

It had been to this end that Vespasian had been instrumental in bringing about a state of war, still continuing, between Romeand Parthia over the nominally autonomous kingdom of Armenia.The war was seen by the powers behind the throne as a good thing to help secure the young Emperor Nero’s position and Vespasian wanted Nero’s position to be secure; he wanted Nero to rule for some time because he had a suspicion, no, it was more than a suspicion, it was a feeling bordering on certainty, that Nero would run to excesses that would make the depravities of his predecessors seem as mere foibles to be shrugged off with indulgence. If that were to be the case then Vespasian doubted that Rome would tolerate another emperor from the same unstable family. And so to whom would Rome look to fill that position? The candidate would have to be of consular rank with a proven military record and there were many men in Rome like that, Vespasian included; but, Vespasian had reasoned, if it wereto be someone like him then why not him?

And that was what Vespasia was taking to her grave: the confirmation, or not, of Vespasian’s suspicions; and he knew that even if she did regain consciousness he would never be able to get her to change her mind.

‘Master?’ A voice intruded into his inner thoughts.

Vespasian turned; his slave stood silhouetted in the doorway. ‘What is it, Hormus?’

‘Pallo sent me to tell you that your brother has arrived.’

‘Thank Mars for that. Have our finest white bullock prepared for sacrifice as soon as Sabinus and my uncle have seen my mother.’

‘Your uncle, master?’

‘Yes.’

‘There must be a misunderstanding; it’s just your brother arriving, your uncle is not with him.’

Although the atrium of the main house on the Flavian estate at Aquae Cutillae benefited from the underfloor heating of a hypocaust and, despite a raging log fire in the hearth, the chamber still felt chill after the warmth of Vespasia’s dying-chamber. Vespasian rubbed his arms as he followed Hormus across the floor, decorated with a pastoral mosaic illustrating the various ways that the family supported itself through working the land. Before they reached the front door, Pallo, the aged estate steward, came in from outside and held it open for Sabinus, dusty and dishevelled from travel.

‘Is she still here?’ Sabinus asked without any pleasantries.

Vespasian turned and fell in step with his brother. ‘Just.’

‘Well, just is good enough. I don’t think I’ve ever made the journey from Rome in such quick time.’

‘Did you leave Uncle Gaius behind you on the road?’

Sabinus shook his head as they passed through the tablinum, the study at the far end of the atrium, and then on out into the courtyard garden. ‘I’m afraid not; he wasn’t well enough to make the journey.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’

Sabinus looked at his brother as they paused outside Vespasia’s room, his eyes full of concern; although whether that was due to their mother’s imminent death or their uncle’s illness, Vespasian could not tell. ‘I’ll tell you after we’ve watched Mother …’ He left the sentence unfinished; they were both only too well aware of what they were going to watch their mother do.

Vespasian opened the door and allowed Sabinus to step in first; as Vespasian followed, Vespasia surprised them both by opening her eyes. Her lips twitched into a weak smile. ‘My boys,’ she croaked, ‘I knew that I would see you both together before the end.’

The brothers went to her bedside, Sabinus taking the chair and Vespasian standing at his shoulder.

Vespasia reached out a hand to each of her sons. ‘I’m proud of your achievements for our family; the house of Flavius is now a name to be remembered.’ She paused for a couple of uneven, wheezed breaths, her eyes flickering between open and closed; neither Vespasian nor Sabinus attempted to interrupt her. ‘But it does not stop here, my sons; Mars has spoken. Sabinus, I’ve left a letter for you safe in Pallo’s care; take it, read it and act upon it when you see fit.’ Another struggle for breath made the siblings hold theirs until she managed to carry on: ‘Although I won’t release you from the oath you made all those years ago, the secondary oath that your father made you both swear, not just before Mars but before all of the gods including Mithras, to help each other does, as he rightly claimed, supersede it should it become necessary.’ Her hands squeezed those of her sons as her frail frame was wracked by a series of coughs, each more rasping than the previous.

Vespasian raised a cup of water to her lips and she drank, immediately gaining relief.

‘And it will become necessary, Sabinus,’ Vespasia continued, her voice markedly weaker. ‘Because you will need to guide your brother.’ She fixed her watery eyes on Vespasian. ‘And you, Vespasian, will need to be guided. Indecision could be fatal.’

‘I believe that I know the contents of the prophecy, Mother,’ Vespasian ventured. ‘It’s that—’

‘Don’t try to guess, Vespasian,’ Vespasia cut in, her voice now barely more than a whisper. ‘And certainly never make your thoughts public; indeed, the fact that there were portentous omens at your naming ceremony should never even be admitted outside the family. You may think that you can guess at the meaning, but I tell you, you can’t. There were three livers, three different signs; I’ve written them all down in Sabinus’ letter to refresh his mind as he was so young at the time.’ Her eyes closed with the effort of speech, but she pressed on. ‘It’s what, when and, most importantly, how.’

‘Then tell me now, Mother.’

Vespasia seemed to consider that for a few moments as she laboured to draw more breaths. ‘To do that would be to tempt the gods. For a man to know the exact course, timing and mode of his destiny would mean that his decisions would be shaped by something other than his own desires and fears; it would unbalance him and ultimately bring him down. A prophecy made is not necessarily a prophecy completed.’

‘I know,’ Vespasian said, thinking back to what Myrddin, the immortal druid of Britannia, had said to him when he had tried to kill him. ‘A man can always accept death voluntarily.’

‘A man can also push too hard for the fulfilment of a prophecy. By trying to make it so he can alter the timeframe so that the various factors that are needed to bring it about are no longer in conjunction and so therefore the whole thing can never be. I made all the witnesses swear that oath for two reasons: firstly so that it would never reach the ears of those who would jealously guard their position and, secondly, to prevent you from knowing the details in order that you would always follow your instincts rather than a course that you thought had been fabricated for you; that way would have ended in failure and death.’ Vespasia opened her eyes, the strain of her many words showing in them and telling also in the shallowness of her breathing. ‘What you may suspect will come to pass may indeed be so, Vespasian; but it’s Sabinus who holds the key as to how and when. And to prevent you from acting precipitously he will guard that knowledge until such time that he deems you ready to receive it, using the oath that your father made you swear to each other. You are bound together now, my sons; now that I am gone, only between the two of you will you have the power to make this family one of the great families of Rome.’

Vespasia’s eyes ranged slowly from one son to the other and, as the siblings met her gaze, they both bowed their heads in acknowledgement of her wishes; whilst they did so they felt her grip on their hands strengthen a fraction and then release. When they raised their heads again, they met with the blank eyes of the corpse that had been their mother.

‘I’ll not! I’ll not go! She was never nice to me.’ Domitian faced his parents, standing in the tablinum, looking up at them, defiant, his fists clenched, ready to strike. Phyllis, his nursemaid, stood behind him with a hand on each of his shoulders.

‘You mean she tried to discipline you,’ Vespasian said, attempting to keep his voice level in the face of such insubordination from his youngest son, ‘which is exactly what I will do if you refuse to go and pay your respects to the body of your grandmother.’

‘You’re going to thrash me anyway for what I did this afternoon, so why should I?’

‘I’ll thrash you twice as hard and for twice as long if you don’t.’

The child responded to this threat in an age-old fashion: he stuck out his tongue and then tried to wriggle free of his nursemaid’s clutches. Phyllis, although no more than twenty, was wise to the tricks of young boys and had the child by the hair before he had gone two paces.

‘Bring him here,’ Vespasian said, unbuckling the belt about his waist.

Phyllis, sturdy and with an attitude that would brook no nonsense from children, hauled the writhing Domitian over to his father who pointed at a table. ‘On that.’

Grappling with the twisting child, Phyllis managed to manoeuvre him so that he lay on his belly on the table; she had him pinned down by the shoulders, in what was almost a wrestling move, but his legs were free to kick. But Vespasian did not care, such was his anger with his son; it was an anger that was not novel, due to Domitian’s constant wilfulness. He wrapped the buckle end of the belt about his right wrist, grasped the other end in his hand, doubling it over, and caught the flaying legs with his other hand, holding them down. With the combined grief of mourning a mother and the outrage at his child for refusing to show due respect to her in death, he thrashed Domitian until the boy’s howls brought concern to Flavia’s eyes and he restrained himself.

Panting, Vespasian lowered the belt. There was a giggle from behind him and he turned around to see his daughter, Domitilla, peering through the curtains that separated the room from the atrium.

‘Thank you, Father,’ Domitilla said, favouring him with a radiant smile that put him in mind of Flavia when he had first met her in Cyrenaica, ‘that served the little beast right.’

Crowded around the body in the death-chamber, Vespasian stood with Sabinus, Flavia and his three children – Domitian snivelling quietly and Titus, his eldest son, still in his hunting clothes – in contemplation of the deceased, who remained exactly as she had died, untouched until the ritual of death could commence. Outside the room all the family’s freedmen and slaves had gathered in the dusk-swathed courtyard garden, ready to play their part in the lamentation.

After a respectable period of reflection, Sabinus, as the eldest blood relative present, stepped forward and knelt down next to Vespasia. ‘May your spirit pass,’ he whispered before leaning over her, kissing her lips and then pulling the palm of his hand over her eyes, closing them for the last time, thus sealing the passing of the spirit. ‘Vespasia Polla!’ Sabinus cried, ‘Vespasia Polla!’

Vespasian and the rest of the family joined in the calling of the deceased’s name and were soon followed by the men in the household outside as the women began to wail in grief, the sound echoing around the house as it grew in intensity and conviction.

Vespasian shouted himself almost hoarse calling his mother’s name, but to no avail as she had already begun her final journey and was now beyond hearing.

When Sabinus deemed the grieving to be sufficient, he got back to his feet and placed his hands under the arms of the corpse as Vespasian took hold of the ankles; between them they lifted Vespasia from the bed and laid her on the ground. This final duty done, the menfolk left the corpse in the charge of Flavia and Domitilla, along with the rest of the women for washing and anointing before being dressed in her finest attire and then brought into the atrium to lie in state with her feet pointing towards the front door.

‘So it’s to be tomorrow then,’ Magnus, Vespasian’s friend of many years despite their very different social status, said as Sabinus concluded the final prayer at the household altar in the atrium, having placed a coin under the tongue of his dead mother.

‘Yes,’ Vespasian replied, pulling down the fold of his toga with which he had covered his head during the religious ceremony. ‘Pallo is going to have the slaves work all night to build a pyre for her and assemble her tomb.’

Magnus’ lined and battered face, moulded over sixty-eight years, creased into a questioning aspect; his left eye, a crude glass replica, stared at Vespasian with the same intensity as his real one. ‘Assemble her tomb? Do you mean you’ve already commissioned it? Before she was even dead?’

‘Well, yes, evidently, otherwise the slaves wouldn’t be able to put it together tonight.’

‘Wasn’t that a bit previous, if you don’t mind me saying, sir? I mean, what if she had got better? Might it not have looked as if you were actually hoping that she would die and were so keen on the idea that you’d got everything ready because you couldn’t wait?’

‘Of course not; a lot of people order tombs in advance because you can get a better price from the stonemasons if you’re not in a hurry for it.’

Magnus scratched his grey hair and sucked the air through his teeth, nodding his ironic understanding. ‘Ah, I see, economising in death; very wise. After all, she was only your mother; you wouldn’t want her to cause you too much unnecessary expense now, would you?’

Vespasian smiled, used to his friend’s criticisms of his use – or lack of it – of his purse. ‘It makes no difference to my mother whether her ashes are placed tomorrow in a tomb or if they hang about in the casket for four or five days while a stonemason builds exactly the same tomb for twice the money.’

‘I’m sure it don’t,’ Magnus agreed as the rest of the family started to make their way, past Vespasia’s body seemingly at sleep on her bier, to the triclinium where the household slaves waited to serve dinner. ‘But perhaps propriety should occasionally take precedence over thrift, at least in matters concerning the death of family members; you don’t want to set a bad example to the next generation as we’re none of us getting any younger, if you take my meaning?’

‘Oh, I do, indeed; and if by that you’re implying that my children might not give me the respect that I deserve in death then you’re wrong: Titus and Domitilla will do me proud with my tomb.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I ordered it at the same time as I ordered my mother’s and got a discount for commissioning two at once!’

Magnus could not help laughing at his friend’s self-admitted parsimony. ‘I notice you didn’t include Domitian in the list of children doing you proud in death.’

Vespasian shook his head with regret as he looked over to his youngest son being led, firmly by the wrist, off to his room by Phyllis, his protests falling on deaf ears as all the family were now as used to them as they were to the spatter of the fountain in the impluvium. ‘I mustn’t write him off but I can’t see how he’ll ever have respect for anyone or anything that doesn’t in some immediate way benefit him.’

‘I’d have thought that was an attitude to be proud of in a son; it’d hint at a ruthless ambition.’

‘Normally I would agree with you, Magnus; why should anyone waste time on something that was going to prove of no use to them? However, you will have noticed that I used the word “immediate” and I’m afraid that is what Domitian’s real fault is: if the gain is not immediate then he doesn’t see the point of it. He has no patience and cannot take a long view. In other words, there is no innate cunning for planning and manoeuvring, which is one of the main requisites for success and survival in society; without that he doesn’t stand much chance.’

Magnus took a moment in sombre thought before turning his one good eye to Vespasian. ‘Do you want to know why I sent Domitian back to the house this afternoon?’

‘Do you think I should?’

‘It’ll probably make you angry, but yes, I think you should; but don’t punish the boy for it.’

‘Go on then.’

Magnus gestured with his head to Titus to come and join them. ‘Tell your father what your younger brother did this afternoon.’

Titus, now eighteen and the image of his father with a powerful chest, a round face with a dominant nose, large ears and eyes that normally twinkled with good humour, looked worried.

‘It’s all right,’ Vespasian assured him, ‘I’m not going to do anything about it.’

Titus seemed dubious. ‘Well, if you’re sure. It’s hard to say exactly how it came about but we’d been out hunting for a good three hours without a scent of anything and Domitian was being his usual self, complaining that the dogs weren’t trying hard enough, our horses were too slow, the slaves too loud and Magnus was useless at hunting and kept on making the wrong decisions and going the wrong way. Suddenly Castor and Pollux raised their muzzles in the air, got a scent and then bounded off up the hill covered with scrub just beyond the lower pasture.’

‘A good place for deer to hide in if they’ve been disturbed on our grazing,’ Vespasian commented.

‘Indeed, Father, which is why we went back there, having had no luck the first time around. Anyway, sure enough, a buck and his two does broke from cover and raced on up the hill with the dogs howling in pursuit. But one of the does was heavily pregnant and soon fell behind and Castor and Pollux were on her before Magnus could call them off in order to leave us with a clean kill. Magnus got there quickly and hauled his dogs away but the doe had a lot of bite injuries and the stress had put her into labour.’ Titus glanced at Magnus, who urged him on with a nod. ‘Well, neither Magnus nor I could kill the doe whilst she was giving birth, it just didn’t seem right, I don’t know why, so we withdrew a bit and waited as nature took its course. Eventually the thing was done and the fawn was tottering around whilst its mother, despite her wounds, licked it clean. So we decided that the best thing to do was to let the pair go and hope that they would both provide good sport in the future.’

Vespasian felt himself starting to tense up, hoping that what he had just imagined was not going to be the end of the story.

‘We hadn’t been gone long when Magnus noticed that Domitian was no longer with us; none of the slaves had noticed him go so he must have just let his pony slow so that the hunting party gradually outpaced him.’

Vespasian felt his stomach start to churn now he began to be sure that the story would sicken him.

‘Well, we rode back to where the doe had given birth and sure enough Domitian was there, but there was no sign of the doe.’ Titus paused and looked at Magnus again.

‘The truth, Titus,’ Magnus said, ‘don’t spare him.’

Titus swallowed. ‘But the fawn was there, stumbling around; and we could hear Domitian laughing and as we got closer we could see what was amusing him so: he had taken the creature’s eyes. It had been alive for less than half an hour and it had been blinded.’

Vespasian fought to contain the rage that welled within him. His throat tightened; the ending was even worse than he had imagined. ‘How?’

Titus grimaced and again looked at Magnus, obviously unwilling to go on.

‘With his thumbs,’ Magnus said in almost a whisper, ‘they were covered in blood.’ He grabbed Vespasian’s arm to restrain him. ‘Don’t! We told you because you promised to do nothing about it.’

Vespasian struggled against Magnus’ grip. ‘I’ll thrash the little shit to within an inch of his life.’