Roma Eterna by Robert Silverberg Page A

for the safety of his own quarters. Menandros agreed reluctantly, but only after seeing a phalanx of Praetorians moving through the street across from them, freely clubbing anyone who seemed to be behaving in a disorderly fashion.
    Faustus was the last of the officials of the Chancellery to reach the administrative headquarters, just across the way from the royal palace. The Chancellor, Licinius Obsequens, greeted him sourly. “Where have you been all this while, Faustus?”
    â€œWith the ambassador Menandros, touring the Underworld,” Faustus replied, just as sourly. He cared very little for Licinius Obsequens, a wealthy Neapolitan who had bribed his way to high office, and he suspected that under the new Emperor neither he nor Licinius Obsequens would continue to hold their posts at the Chancellery, anyway. “The ambassador was very eager to visit the chapel of Priapus, and other such places,” Faustus added, with a bit of malice to his tone. “So we took him there. How was I to know that the Emperor was going to die today?”
    â€œ We took him, Faustus?”
    â€œThe Caesar Maximilianus and I.”
    Licinius’s yellowish eyes narrowed to slits. “Of course. Your good friend the Caesar. And where is the Caesar now, may I ask?”
    â€œHe left us,” said Faustus, “the moment news reached us underground of His Majesty’s death. I have no information about where he might be at the present time. The Imperial palace, I would imagine.” He paused a moment. “And the Caesar Heraclius, who is our Emperor now? Has anyone happened to hear from him?”
    â€œHe is at the northern frontier,” Licinius said.
    â€œNo. No, he isn’t. He’s off at his hunting lodge behind Lake Nemorensis. He never went north at all.”
    Licinius was visibly rocked by that. “You know this for a fact, Faustus?”
    â€œAbsolutely. I sent a message to him there, just the other night, and he came back to the city that evening and met with the ambassador Menandros. I was there, as it happens.” A look of sickly astonishment came over Licinius’s jowly face. Faustus was beginning to enjoy this more than somewhat. “The Caesar then went back to his forest preserve yesterday morning. Early today, when I was informed of His Majesty’s grave condition, I sent a second message to him at the lake, once more summoning him to Roma. Beyond that I can tell you nothing.”
    â€œYou knew that the Caesar was hunting, and not at the frontier, and never reported this to me?” Licinius asked.
    Loftily Faustus said, “Sir, I was wholly preoccupied with looking after the Greek ambassador. It is a complicated task. It never occurred to me that you were unaware of the movements of the Caesar Heraclius. I suppose I assumed that when he reached Roma the night before last he would take the trouble to meet with his father’s Chancellor and ascertain the state of his father’s health, but evidently it didn’t occur to him to do that, and therefore—”
    Abruptly he cut his words short. Asellius Proculus, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, had just shouldered his way into the room. For the Praetorian Prefect to set foot in the Chancellery at all was an unusual event; for him to be here on the day of the Emperor’s death verged on the unthinkable. Licinius Obsequens, who was starting to look like a man besieged, gaped at him in consternation.
    â€œAsellius? What—”
    â€œA message,” the Praetorian Prefect said hoarsely. “From Lake Nemorensis.” He signaled with an upraised thumb and a man in the green uniform of the Imperial courier service came lurching in. He was glassy-eyed and rumpled and haggard, as though he had run all the way from the lake without pausing. Pulling a rolled-up dispatch from his tunic, he thrust it with a trembling hand toward Licinius Obsequens, who snatched at it, opened it, read it through,