Sejanus stood up, a signal that his business with the centurion was finished. Longinus arose quickly to stand at attention, concerned that even yet he might reveal in the Prefect’s presence the revulsion mounting within him.
“Send me reports as often and as regularly as you have valuable information to give, Longinus. Use great care to see that your messages are well-sealed and not likely to go astray. Watch those three. Let nothing of significance escape your notice, and let nothing be omitted from your reports. Keep Claudia under surveillance, but don’t get so occupied with her that you aren’t fully alive to everything that is happening. Watch her, regardless of what else you two may be doing!”
9
Longinus led his century from its quarters at Castra Praetoria westward through the Viminal Gate along the way that skirted the leveled-out northern extremity of Esqueline Hill.
At the point where this way joined Via Longa the procession entered the cobblestoned street and moved westward and then straight southward. Longinus glanced over his shoulder and had a glimpse, between shops that crowded the lower level of Quirinal Hill, of his father’s great house high on that elevation. But quickly he lost sight of it as his century became virtually submerged in the dense traffic fighting its way slowly along Via Longa. Fortunately, the legionaries were bearing only their lightest armor; the heavier gear had been sent ahead and put aboard the “Palmyra.” But even thus equipped, in the narrow, packed street, though it was one of Rome’s important thoroughfares, they were finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a steady march.
As the century began to pass north of the crowded Subura, that motley district of massed tenements, shops, taverns, and brothels already being pointed out as the birthplace more than a century ago of the great Julius Caesar, the press of the throng so increased that the soldiers were almost forced to fight their way forward. But progress became easier in the area below the Forum Augustus, and as the troops were pushing past it toward the Forum Romanum, Longinus glanced toward the summit of Palatine Hill crowned by the sprawling great Imperial Palace; his eyes went immediately to the northeast wing and to the window in Claudia’s bedroom through which he had heard, one recent morning, the rising trumpet call from the post.
Longinus had not seen the Emperor’s stepdaughter since the day the Prefect had visited her, though they had exchanged messages left with Stephanos the goldsmith at his shop in Vicus Margaritarius. Claudia’s last message had assured him that she would contrive some plan for seeing him immediately upon her arrival with Pilate at Caesarea; that shouldn’t be too difficult. Tullia had relayed Claudia’s message to Stephanos, and Longinus had received it verbally from the goldsmith. “We will have the Great Sea between the Emperor and Sejanus and us,” she had sent word to the centurion. “It will be much safer then; as for Pilate, I am little concerned with what he thinks or does; in fact, he’ll do nothing.”
Before the Forum Romanum Longinus led his troops straight southward. At the northwest end of Circus Maximus they veered westward and went along the way leading across the Tiber on the ancient Pons Sublicius, fashioned of great stones fitted together to span the swiftly flowing muddy water. Near the bridge entrance the column turned left and paralleled the stream to halt at the pier just below the Sublicius. Quickly the legionaries went aboard the “Palmyra.”
Longinus’ troops were the last to embark, and within an hour the “Palmyra” began slowly to shove its stern out into the stream. When the ship was safely away from the pier, the hortator gave a sharp command, and the long oars, manned by galley slaves chained to their three-tiered benches, rose and fell in perfect cadence, with the starboard oarsmen pushing forward and those on the port side pulling hard, so that the “Palmyra’s” bow came around; soon the vessel was moving steadily downstream.
Longinus and Cornelius, having stowed their gear, returned to the deck to stand together on the port side near the stern. By now the vessel was rounding the slight westward bend in the river and was passing the Aventine Hill. Cornelius, watching the yellow waters churning in the wake of the “Palmyra,” raised his eyes and pointed across the stern toward the Imperial Palace, the western front of which they could see jutting past the squared end of the Circus Maximus. The upper section of the great palace was visible above the race course. “Longinus, I’m surprised you’re leaving her in Rome. I thought that if you ever went back to Palestine, you’d be taking Claudia with you.”