Rome's Executioner by Robert Fabbri

Author:Robert Fabbri [Fabbri, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857896766
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2012-05-01T06:00:00+00:00

There was a stunned silence in the room; all the men turned towards Antonia. The expected explosion did not come; instead she just nodded her head slowly as she digested the barely veiled meaning of the letter.

‘It seems that you may be right after all, Gaius,’ she said eventually. ‘Claudius the booby isn’t quite as stupid as I thought; he’s hidden it well.’

‘That’s why he’s still here, domina,’ Gaius replied quietly, knowing all too well the fragility of Antonia’s temper when it came to discussing her two surviving children. ‘We need to work out what this means for us. I assume the mutual friend is Sejanus; so it seems that he has already got his support to succeed Tiberius.’

‘What a fool I’ve been,’ Antonia whispered, gazing into the middle distance. ‘When Tiberius suggested that Claudius marry Aelia Paetina I jumped at it, thinking that he was using Claudius to give something to Sejanus that he had always wanted: a connection to the imperial house, without giving him anything of value because his sister was marrying someone who could not possibly aspire to anything. How wrong I was. Sejanus is going to make Claudius Emperor, then depose him and take over as his legitimate brother-in-law; he’ll then secure his position by marrying my daughter Livilla. Claudius recognises this threat and is preparing very sensible precautions: divorcing Aelia Paetina once her brother, Sejanus, has made him Emperor and she is of no more use, thereby taking away Sejanus’ claim to legitimacy. Then he’s going to marry Poppaeus’ daughter Poppaea Sabina, thus ensuring her father’s support for her new husband with his full force of the Moesian legions and all his auxiliary cohorts. She’ll have to divorce her husband, Titus Ollius, with whom she’s just had a daughter, another Poppaea Sabina; that must be the arrangement Claudius wants Poppaeus to make. Well, that’s no great hardship, he’s nobody, and Poppaeus won’t be able to resist the chance of his daughter becoming Empress. The other people of influence he’s approached must be the Governors of provinces with legions close to Rome: Pannonia, Africa and on the Rhine. He’ll try to make himself unassailable and one of his first victims will be my little Gaius. I will not let this happen.’

‘It won’t happen, domina,’ Vespasian said with some confidence, ‘because you’re ensuring that Sejanus will fall. Without Sejanus surely Claudius is impotent?’

‘Not necessarily; if he has ambitions to be Emperor, however ludicrous that may seem, then he won’t let a setback like losing an untrustworthy ally stop him. He’ll resort to another strategy, the only possible alternative in the absence of anyone willing to aid him: murder. If he really is as ruthless and cunning as that letter indicates then his obvious course of action would be to clear the way to the Purple by removing all potential rivals; and again my Gaius will be one of his victims. Claudius has to be stopped but, short of killing my own son, I can’t as yet see how.

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