Free The Furies of Rome by Robert Fabbri

never quite accommodated herself to her brother’s lifestyle, although she had found his status very useful.
    ‘Magnus is here with Tigran, master,’ Gaius’ steward announced from the door leading into the tablinum.
    ‘Send them through, Destrius,’ Gaius said through a mouthful of cake, sending crumbs spraying over the table.
    Destrius, a few years older than the slave boy waiting upon them and elegantly handsome rather than ravishingly beautiful, bowed and retired back through the cotton curtains that billowed, after his passing, gently in the fading sun.
    Within a few moments Magnus came through them with a man of eastern appearance: a dyed and shaped beard, trousers and an embroidered knee-length tunic with a loose belt, studded with silver discs, from which hung a curved dagger in an ivory and silver scabbard; soft calf-skin slippers and a cap of the same material, covering his ears, completed his attire. Judging by the richness of the rings on his fingers, Vespasian could see that Tigran had done well since taking over as the patronus , the leader, of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood from Magnus seven years previously.
    ‘The horses are back with the Greens,’ Magnus said straightaway to Vespasian, forgetting his manners, such was his excitement at the prospect of his favourite team competing in the Circus Maximus again for his beloved Green racing faction after a rejuvenating country break.
    ‘We’ll talk about that later,’ Vespasian said, indicating with a nod to his uncle the real reason why he had been summoned.
    ‘Oh! Yes; right you are, sir.’
    ‘Magnus! Good to see you,’ Gaius boomed, not getting up.
    ‘And you, sir,’ Magnus replied, embarrassed by his misplaced enthusiasm.
    ‘And, Tigran, thank you for coming.’
    Tigran touched the palm of his right hand to his heart. ‘I cannot ignore the summons of my patron.’ He nodded at the Flavian brothers. ‘Senator Vespasian and Prefect Sabinus.’
    ‘Sit down, gentlemen, and help yourselves to cakes.’ Gaius signalled to the slave boy. ‘Wine for my guests, Ludovicus.’
    ‘Yes, that’s how Sextus described it to me,’ Tigran said after Gaius had recounted the incident in full, not sparing his own blushes, ‘and I would dearly love to avenge your humiliation, Senator Pollo, as well as redress the insult to my brethren who were held at knifepoint and prevented from protecting you. However, the way I see it is that it would be impossible to do anything unpleasant to Terpnus without running the risk of hurting Nero.’
    ‘Then hurt Nero,’ Magnus suggested, ‘and hurt him permanently, if you take my meaning?’
    ‘It would mean certain death,’ Sabinus said. ‘Nero is very well protected. For a start he’s always with Tigellinus, Otho and a half dozen others and then there’s a unit of Vigiles following his rampage around ready to step in if anyone looks like threatening him; not to mention the Urban Cohort century that I have to have positioned close by. No, you would be killed the moment you tried to attack him.’
    ‘And even if you did murder him and escape with your life at the time,’ Gaius said, raising a forefinger in the air and waggling it, ‘although there are many who wish for that at the moment, you wouldn’t find his successor showing you any gratitude at all; remember what Claudius did to Caligula’s assassins.’
    ‘Those that were caught that is,’ Vespasian pointed out, looking meaningfully at his brother who had been the one conspirator whose part in the assassination of Caligula had been covered up and kept secret by Narcissus and Pallas in return for the Flavian brothers’ help in securing Claudius’ position.
    ‘Indeed, dear boy. But the point is that whoever benefits from Nero’s death will execute his murderers as it would not do for people to be seen to assassinate an emperor and live; that would be a very unwise precedent to set. The only person who can get away with killing an emperor