The Last Gospel by David Gibbins Read Free Book Online Page B

him just as it had ruined Rome, not by some hideous malformity but through a slow and inexorable wasting, as if the gods who had inflicted the ailment on him, the palsy, were making him endure the full extremity of torment in this life before they pitched him into the fires below.
    He shook himself out of his trance, coughed painfully and looked over the balcony of the villa again, over the rooftops of Herculaneum. When he had faked his own poisoning and escaped Rome, when his work there was done and he craved his former life as a writer and a scholar, his old friend Calpurnius Piso had blocked off an annex to his villa and made a home for him here, his hideaway now for almost a quarter of a century, overlooking the sea and the mountain. He missed nothing in Rome that was not already gone, and had all that a scholar could need. He knew he should be more grateful, but there were irritations. Calpurnius’ grandfather had been a patron of the Greek philosopher Philodemus, whose library of unreadable nonsense was always in the way. And then poor Calpurnius Piso had been forced to commit suicide, here, in front of Claudius’ very eyes, after his failed plot against Nero, leaving the villa to a grudging nephew who did not even know who Claudius was, who thought he was just another one of the Greek charlatans who seemed to beg their way into every aristocratic household around here. It was exactly the anonymity that Claudius sought, but it was also the ultimate humiliation.
    But he had the memories, one above all others. The fisherman by the inland sea, that afternoon all those years ago. The promise Claudius had made him. Everything the fisherman had predicted had come to pass. Now forces beyond Claudius’ control were closing in on him. Claudius would not let him down.
    ‘ Ave, Princeps .’
    Claudius straightened with a start. ‘Pliny? My dear friend. I told you to stop calling me that. We have known each other well since you were a young cavalry officer with my legions in Germany. You have been my closest companion since I summoned you to visit me here when you took up your appointment with the Fleet. I stopped being Princeps when you were still a young man. It is I who should be honouring you, a veteran and an admiral. But we are both citizens of Rome, no more, no less, for what that is worth these days.’
    Pliny came quickly in and helped Claudius back to his seat, taking his cup and filling it. He passed it over and poured himself one, holding it up formally. ‘The gods give you salutations on your ninetieth year.’
    ‘That was three weeks ago.’ Claudius waved his hand dismissively, then looked at the other man with affection. Pliny was tall, unusually so for a Roman, but then he did come from Verona in the north, the land of the Celts. Rather than a toga he wore the emblazoned red tunic and strap-on boots of a naval officer, and he had a sinewy toughness about him. He was everything that Claudius most admired, a decorated war veteran, a natural leader of men, a prodigious scholar who was author of countless volumes, and now the new encyclopedia. Claudius clenched his fist to stop his stutter. ‘Have you b-brought me the book?’
    ‘The first twenty volumes. My present for your birthday, Princeps , even if a little belated. I could not imagine a more auspicious occasion or a more exacting reader for my work.’ Pliny pointed proudly to a leather basket beside the door, carefully placed away from the wine, brimming over with scrolls. ‘A few details on the flora and fauna of Britannia I want to check with you, and of course the space you asked me to keep in the section of Judaea. Otherwise complete. The first natural history of the world not written by a Greek.’
    Claudius gestured at the half-empty shelves in the room, then at the scrolls lying in bundles on the floor. ‘At least now I’ve got space to store them. Narcissus has been helping me to box up these other scrolls. I’ve never been able to bring