Free Rome 4: The Art of War by M. C. Scott

Nobody, reading it, would have known that it was written in the maw of death; a final, dying plea. Two final pleas, actually.
    I ask you to honour this woman as you honoured me.
    It’s obvious now, of course, but it wasn’t then. Pantera was being asked to give to me the same loyalty he gave Seneca, to accept me as the new spymaster. Her name will be the Poet .
    Seneca hadbeen known to all of us as the Teacher and that name died with him. I chose the name Poet for myself and do not think it any more arrogant than his.
    But for Pantera?
    A woman, this woman: me. Not him. Spymaster.
    Owner, commander, caregiver to the entire Senecan network.
    He raised his head. I was trapped by his gaze. His eyes look through you, until they don’t …
    Outside, small birds tussled over a nest. I wrested my gaze from his. I said, ‘He presumes much.’ I didn’t ask if it was too much.
    Pantera laid the scroll down on the table, and placed his palms flat beside it. ‘He wanted to believe himself loved,’ he said. ‘And if not loved, then hated.’
    If I had misunderstood him then, I have no doubt that Pantera would have left, and there was every chance that he would have taken the network with him. I knew he had planned for this moment and that he could have done it. Whether he would have destroyed it or run it for his own ends was a different question; I’m not certain even he knew the answer.
    Uncertainty lit the air between us.
    I said, ‘We all want that, don’t we? Not to be ignored? Not to be so insignificant that we are not even worth hating?’ I smoothed my stola and let him see that I carried a knife at my girdle, although in truth he had already seen it.
    It’s not as if I expected him to be afraid. Or unarmed. But I wanted him to understand the same of me: that I was not afraid, nor unarmed; a match for all he had become.
    I said, ‘It’s hard not to hate the man who uses you and would throw your life away on an instant did it suit his ends.’
    ‘Will you do the same?’ Pantera asked: will , not would . He was halfway to a decision.
    ‘Of course.’ I smiled, butit felt tight, and not convincing. I had worked for years to bring us to this point, and everything balanced on the blade’s edge. Control was all, for both of us. ‘You would do the same if Seneca had named you, not me. And you’d hate yourself for it daily, as he did and I will.’
    Looking out of a window, I bit the edge of my thumb, carelessly. I was in profile, then, with the sun behind, and there are few spring fabrics that are not at least a little translucent.
    I heard the catch in his breath; he was not one to be snared, only to be reminded that snaring was possible.
    When I looked back, he had dropped his eyes and was reading the letter again, where were only a dead man’s words.
    From Seneca to the son of his soul … He did say something like that once; I heard him.
    I said, ‘He told me that you’d be hardest. But also that I could not succeed without you. I would like to suggest that we forget any loyalty either of us might have had to our late teacher. As the new spymaster, I will ask only that you keep what promises you give. And if you can keep none, nor wish to make any, that you say so and leave. Now.’
    ‘Did he tell you that I had sworn never to give my oath to Rome?’
    ‘He did. He said that you had told him once that you would give the oath of your tongue, but never the oath of your heart. But he also said that you had changed since then, that there were things that mattered to you more than the sum of your dead. He said he hoped you knew that.’ All this is true, I swear it now, by your gods and mine.
    Pantera said nothing. He had reached the letter’s second request. If anything, it was more momentous; certainly more dangerous.
    If I am dead, then Nero still lives: I made him and I would have destroyed him, but I have failed in that and you are left to repair the damage I have wrought. Find a man of worth andsubstance: