Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [17]
But few men are so fortunate.
'My good friend,' said Thalius, half-standing and offering a seat to Gemellus in the peristyle, a secondary atrium courtyard with a wide, opened ceiling that allowed exterior light to flood in. The yard was surrounded by a garden shrouded in shrubs and bright and colourful flowers. Candles were lit around the praefectus's table as sunset was approaching with the stealth of a fox. 'Please join me, we have much to discuss,' commanded Thalius. Gemellus sat beside his friend and looked around the newly decorated yard. 'I approve of the changes here,' he said. 'Your absence has, at least, proved beneficial to the decor. If not to the political and social situation.'
Thalius winced. Ànd not to my health, and strength,' he added with a wry smile, pausing while breaking some bread to mop up the juices on his plate. He belched, loudly, as he swallowed the bread and then returned his attention to the unasked question that Gemellus was obviously itching to hear answered. 'Woe to all Rome, my friend. It is in a sick and sorry state of crisis and depression.'
The little adviser nodded, sagely, having suspected such a tale of misery from occasional injudicious or wine-provoked comments made by visitors from the Imperial city. 'The boy emperor is, I suspect, proving to have fewer administrative abilities than was hoped.'
`Nero is a fool,' spat Thalius, bitterly. 'He always was a fool, he always will be a fool. His father was no idiot, no matter what the history books of our children will tell us, for history is written by the winning side and, make no mistake, my friend, but this arrogant pup has won it all.' He stopped, shook his head and then looked closely at his advisor. 'I tell you this, Gemellus. If this popinjay with his ludicrous notions of grandeur is not bridled and harnessed well by someone with integrity, and soon, then Rome shall drown in an ocean of its own vanity. But who shall this be? For all of the good men are now gone: Palas, Narcissus, Burnes. And now Seneca.'
Gemellus gasped. 'Seneca is dead?'
`So the rumours state. Last month, in Pompeii. The new praetorian praefectus is a deranged madman named Tigellinus who casually brings out the worst despotism in Nero's disposition. The energy and hope of the quinquennium has disappeared from the hearts of all true men. Instead, there is wilful narcissism and depravity abroad, even within the senate itself.'
Again, Gemellus said little, but cast a quick and nervous glance over his shoulder to make sure that they were not being overheard. 'Chose your words carefully, my friend.
There is no sense in drowning yourself before the flood is upon us.’
Òh but I am weary and lost, Gemellus,' replied Thalius, sadly `Sometimes I yearn for the simpler life. The people of this land, the growers of grapes and olives and wheat, and the herders of sheep and cattle. The merchants and craftworkers who practise their trades in the city. Do they have the troubles that I am party to? Do they spend half of every night doubled in the pain of indigestions and diarrhoeas caused by worries for my beloved Rome?'
Ìn their own way,' said Gemellus with a little smile, 'they probably do, my friend. What are the troubles of one man but dust in the wind to another? For he has troubles of his own and no one with whom to share them. The servant who breaks his master's vase shall have the skin whipped from his back, yet he cares not for Lucius Nero and his mismanagement of the great empire.'
Thalius Maximus seemed satisfied with this piece of beautiful philosophy. He was well aware of how others saw him - as a bored politician, who was thoroughly mistrusted by the military and who mistrusted them in return. He hated this part of the empire, cursing the very day that he had been sent by the emperor to this benighted land. He truly longed to return to somewhere closer to