It had been years since Gaius had seen such crowds in the Forum. Evidently the cold, grey sky was no deterrent to the citizens. Every senator and councillor who made his or her way up the fifty-five steps to the entrance of Senate House was cheered.

‘Make way,’ a grey-haired man in the middle-ranking clothes of an engineer or architect shouted. ‘Make way for senator Gaius Flavius Norbanus.’ All around him were friendly faces. Stunned, Gaius could barely respond. His world was turned upside down. Having anticipated aggression and hostility – a knife in the ribs even – it was hard to adjust to the excited mood of the citizens. Why were they so cheerful? Doing his best to return their smiles, Gaius began his ascent of the marble stairs, which were slippery from melted snow.

A hand caught briefly at his shawl and Gaius flinched away from the attack. But it was only an elderly matron, kept warm in a fur that had been dyed a pious pale blue. ‘Will it be war, senator?’

Not wishing to display his ignorance, Gaius simply smiled and made a non-committal gesture.

Inside the building, having handed over his shawl and outer tunic to the slaves, again Gaius was taken aback by the fact that no one turned away from him. Indeed, one elderly senator fell in step with Gaius and muttered, ‘interesting times, eh?’

There is a famous painting of the scene that met the eyes of Gaius Flavius Norbanus upon his entering the debating chamber. The mural was created by artists of the school of Gordianus on the east wall of the atrium of the royal palace. I am no enthusiast for the modern style, which abandons allegory and metaphor for realism, even so, I must acknowledge this was well done. It is painted from the point of view of someone about to address the Grand Council. Thus, facing the viewer, in a series of expanding semi-circles, rising up to the roof, are all the men and woman of the senate and council. Every member of the Grand Council can be identified in this picture and, without exception, they are given expectant, enthusiastic expressions.

The real artistry, however, is in the depiction of the empress, her brother, and their guest. The empress sits on her mosaic-clad throne to the left of the viewer, wrapped in purple blankets (the tenth Kalends of June felt like a winter’s day that year, even in a room warmed by some two hundred bodies). There are several well-known paintings of Lisia’s predecessors sitting on that throne and Gordianus’s artists consciously echoed them in their new mural. Except that where Julius Caesar was tall, his descendant was short and stocky. Where he was balding, she had a thick, brown haircut of the type that our soldiers call a basin chop.[1] And where Caesar was always depicted as sitting up alertly, Lisia is slouched. Even so, there is something in her eyes that matches the typical expression portrayed on the face of her ancestor. She is calculating, weighing up the future, and clearly enjoying the scenes that she has conjured up in her imagination.

Her brother, Johannes, is on his throne to the right of the viewer. He has a distinctly unmilitary paunch and the suggestion of jowls on his pale face. He is leaning towards the speaker, their guest. His chin is supported by a cupped hand, as though he were a chess-player deep in thought. And yet our artists have managed to capture, by the gleam in his eyes, that his thoughts are not on profound, philosophical matters but are absolutely shackled to the beautiful woman before him. Curiously, there is an aspect to this portrait that contradicts the spirit of realism that informs the style of the painters. In that moment, Johannes was embodying a quality whose universality means that we can consider this an allegorical painting after all: one called ‘Cupidity’.

Then there is the guest who made this day famous and worth recording: Princess Borshea. Here stands an extraordinary woman, more accurately a Sí. By the reckoning of the artists, she is perhaps seven feet tall. Her clothing is all a sparkling white, as though diamonds have been liberally woven into a cape made of purest lamb’s wool, her bodice of silver silk, and her skirt of white velvet. Her hair glitters too, it is a gold so pale as to be nearly silver and it reaches to the small of her back like a shinning, frozen waterfall. A dozen intricate braids are woven into her hair, but otherwise her hair is free and the motion of her body as she speaks is caught in the artists’ rendering of the strands of pale gold that faintly float around her like the halo of a star. Again, though, it is not her clothes but her face that is the strongest evidence for the skills of our painters. For the princess has pale blue eyes that look haunting, lonely, cold, and dangerous (and somewhat reptilian). An elegant, glove-covered hand is gesturing towards the Grand Council and it suggests authority, confidence and perhaps even contempt.

Did I say that her entire audience are depicted as excited and enthusiastic? I must correct that. In the mural – which still exists in the royal palace – is a one face that is at odds with the others. Towards the back, a man with short, grey hair looks on with scepticism. Senator Gaius Flavius Norbanus.

‘What’s going on?’ Gaius whispered to his neighbour, a senator from Sicily whose name he could never remember even though she was an elderly woman who had served (quietly and without ever speaking to the assembly as far as he could remember) for years.

‘Hush. Listen. She’s from Tartarus,’ the senator waved him away.

There are many ways to address an audience and before Gaius concentrated on the words of this extraordinary guest speaker, he first noted her manner of speech. Initially, he considered it to be hesitant: that of a provincial, someone intimidated to find herself in the heart of the mighty Roman empire. But very quickly, Gaius changed his assessment. No, she wasn’t hesitant, she was perfectly in control of herself. What appeared to be timidity was carefully staged oration; the Sí had dropped her voice to an intimate, inviting whisper. You felt as though you were sitting one-to-one with her, across a table on which stood a bottle of the finest wine, hands almost touching as she leaned in to stare at you with those extraordinary eyes.

And what was she saying? She was telling the senate, each of them personally, a tale of cruel civil wars, of the lordships of Tartarus being in a state of complete chaos. Of armies having been annihilated. Of vast stores of treasure now poorly defended. Of powerful magic items that could be brought to Rome and displayed alongside those captured by Julius Caesar. And if the Roman legions would march with her and restore her to her lands, Princess Borshea would be a loyal vassal of the empire and ensure that for generations to come Rome would be a power in Tartarus as well as on Earth.

Her audience were utterly absorbed in this vision, Gaius too. Perhaps his belief that nothing good could some of having ambitions in Tartarus was a little exaggerated. If what she was describing was the true state of affairs — and why else would she be here? — there had never been a better time to send the legions in to the underworld. And surely it would not do much harm if a scouting expedition were sent to explore the situation there?

Then Johannes Reecli Barbula stood up to reply to their guest and the spell was broken.

Even before Johannes had said a word, Gaius had begun to feel more sober than he had when the gloriously beautiful Sí woman had been speaking. The contrast between her and Johannes was so very striking. Where she deployed a whole range of oratorical skills and flattered the senators with her modesty and references to their wisdom, Johannes had only one approach to public speaking: bombast. Bombast in which he was the star and they were made to feel fortunate to be present in the company of such a great hero of Rome.

Already, Johannes was criticizing Julius Caesar for making a series of mistakes that had culminated in the Romans being forced out of Tartarus. Those mistakes would be avoided this time. Johannes acknowledged that Caesar was a giant, but those who stood on the shoulders of giants could see a little further and they could now see that the time had come to invade Tartarus again. Johannes, in the opinion of Gaius, wasn’t fit to lick the sandals of Rome’s first and greatest emperor. Yet here he was, gesticulating from the podium and suggesting he could see a lot further than Caesar.

Looking around, it did not seem that anyone else present shared the same sense of contempt. No one caught his eye, not even one of the older members. How someone who had failed so far in his career to perform any noteworthy deed should speak so patronizingly of a general who had, without fail, reduced Rome’s enemies to despair was beyond belief. Yet evidently the council accepted that this tone from Johannes was appropriate and inspiring even, to judge from the rapt faces.

After this preamble, concerning the lessons that had been learned since Caesar’s day, Johannes came to the point: ‘And I will personally lead three legions into Tartarus and win for Rome new territories and enormous riches!’

With unnatural enthusiasm the senators and councillors rose to their feet with applause and cheers.

‘Does anyone care to speak against the proposal that we assign three legions under the command of Johannes Reecli Barbula to the invasion of Tartarus?’ The chair, as eager and excited as anyone, had lifted an ancient copper bell his big, fleshy hand in the expectation that he would be able to ring it and close the business with a unanimously positive response. Yet then he saw Gaius and frowning, lowered the heavy bell.

‘Gaius Flavius Norbanus.’ This was said in a most discouraging tone and a muttering began at once all around the room.

Much to his own surprise, Gaius had raised his hand.

I know Gaius very well and I have to say that this small motion of his arm was brave and utterly out of character. For decades, Gaius had been a careful, solid, politician. His contributions, often valuable and always well-informed, were never original. Rather, like so many in the Senate and Grand Council, he waited to see what the emperor, or latterly, the empress was advocating and then came in to reinforce the official message or to help work out the details.

Now, however, he was about to disagree with Johannes, which meant the end of him as a senator and possibly as a human being. A part of him was aware of this, an animal part that was screaming in terror. This was evident to Gaius from the repeated clenching and release of his stomach, from a sweat that had broken out over his entire body, and from the fact that his legs would barely take his weight. Yet he mastered all these signals from his physical being: communications that screamed that his animal self wanted to survive and he stood up.

Gaius had seen a hundred or more politicians fall from grace. Most of those on whom the axe of disapproving authority was falling grovelled beneath it and, now and again, abject humiliation proved to be a path to salvation. Those few who managed to appease imperial wrath through ingratiation and sycophancy provided an example to encourage others in their position to adopt the path of complete surrender.

Many senators and councillors just fled when it was clear that their downfall was imminent and these men and women lived out their lives in exile, as Antonius was doing. A very few stood up and made impassioned speeches or attempted to rally support for their oppositional stance. In such cases, they were met by jeers, boos, and soon afterwards, the anger of the Roman public. Or rather, the anger of that part of society funded by the empress to take to the streets. More than one oppositionalist had been murdered by a mob with links to the palace. Of course, the empress lamented such deeds and the army made a token effort to catch the perpetrators, but no one was ever punished for murdering a politician who was an irritant to imperial self-esteem.

Now it was his turn. Why, when Gaius knew it was hopeless (and dangerous), did he struggle through the jostling, irritated men and women of the council? In part, it was pride. Having tasted humiliation the day before, after attempting to ingratiate himself back into favour, he wasn’t going to crawl and lick the hem of the empress’s skirt any more. In part, also, it was the influence of Antonious. His friend might be at the very edge of the empire but his beliefs and moral values were present in Rome; one day he would hear about this moment and be proud of Gaius. In fact, it was only by imagining that Antonious was in the audience that Gaius had the strength to push on to the front and turn to a room of hostile faces. Above all, though, Gaius was driven to this desperate act by a most admirable feeling. Rome was in danger and as he was the only one who could see this, it fell to him to sound the alarm.

Standing at the lectern, away from the bodies of the other councillors, Gaius was shivering with cold. His breath, he noted, was pouring from him as mist every time he emptied his lungs. His white fingers were trembling as he gripped the wooden sides of the podium.

‘Senators and Councillors. You are under a spell. What are you thinking? Since when is it safe to take advice from a Sí? If she even is a Sí. Some of you are old enough to remember when the supposed ambassador of Prince Eleron came to live in Rome and the plague of vampyres that resulted. All of you know that Tartarus — or more accurately Faerie — is full of dangerous, powerful and wicked spirits, out to deceive us. Who is to stay this creature is not one of them? What proofs does she bring of anything that she has claimed? All she has done is beguile you, charmed and flattered you.

‘Think, also, of the extraordinary cold that we are experiencing. Look at my breath! In June! There is magic at work at the heart of our empire.

‘Losing three legions will be catastrophic, yet that is the likely outcome of this plan. And that won’t be the worst result. Our barbarian neighbours, currently at peace and in awe of the might of our empire will rise up against us. Worse still, we could draw upon us reprisals from a realm that has powers we do not understand and cannot control.

‘What is the purpose of sending good men and women to become lost in Faerie? Is it to attempt to establish Roman rule there? Even the greatest of all our generals and emperors, Julius Caesar had to acknowledge that such a goal was futile. Is it a raid for wealth and magical items? We have had a long history of such and even today, we all know about private expeditions that break the ­ban and enter the land of the Sí. And can any of them ever be called a success? Most end in disaster. And most of the magic items in circulation in our realm are cursed.’

The muttering was growing louder now and within the general hubbub could be heard calls of, ‘sit down’ and ‘nonsense’.

‘I’ll speak the truth, though none of you will hear me. This plan is being promoted by Johannes because he has no achievements to satisfy his desire to be remembered among the greatest Roman generals. Writing a book about the dialectic is hardly the same as mastering living challenges in the heat of battle. He knows this. We all know this. Johannes wants his triumphs, statues, and his place in history. Well…’

And here Gaius dropped his voice. Strangely, the room went quiet too. The young senators who were beginning to bay for his head wanted to hear more. They were delighted that Gaius was incriminating himself so badly and like watching a chariot running on one wheel, doomed to crash, they wanted to give him their full attention so as to relish even more the coming moment of destruction. Thus, everyone heard the final words of the final speech to the Grand Council of Gaius Flavius Norbanus.

‘Cui caput puteat, omnia membra languent. We will all suffer if our head is rotten. And it is.’

[1] Unlike many of the aristocracy, the empress made an effort to represent herself to the court, the senate, and the populus more generally that she was a woman of the people. Although entitled to wear purple, she typically did not do so outside of formal affairs. She often presided with gaiety over games at the colosseum, even though she hated them. And her usual, soldierly, haircut signalled to the world that she was not so aristocratic as to shun the practices of the proletariat. In truth, she despised the commoners and, like her peers, considered their forms of dress and entertainment far beneath her own sophisticated tastes.