The Snake Catcher

by Bilinmeyen

  Tiberius spun around abruptly.

  We all shook our lethargy away, and strengthened our backs. He walked Adalwulf’s way and stopped before him. “Your watch begins,” he said. “And make sure Hraban will always be near her. I trust you. Give him duties during the night, at first. I see you when I see you.” He clasped the shoulder of Adalwulf and hesitated, as he saw Julia looking at him. I resisted the urge to surge to him so I could tell him about Kleitos and what happened with Antius.

  Adalwulf will deal with it, I reminded myself, and stood my place.

  In an hour, Adalwulf found me. He grunted and nodded towards Palatine. “Time to get to work, Hraban. Tiberius leaves for Germania in the morning. You’ll go to Julia this evening.”

  I nodded. “He doesn’t sleep at home?”

  “He hates her. Now, show you hate us. Come on, she is looking. I’m giving you a shitty order, and you—”

  I felt like a fool. She would know the truth, thanks to Kleitos. And yet, Gernot had told me I had to learn how to act, so I tried my best. I spat, turned around, and marched off to the side, cursing. I felt Julia’s eyes on me, and I was sure we would fail. I caught her looking, indeed. She faced away, and walked to the two boys, where she spoke for a long while.

  We waited.

  Wandal was swaying nearby, Tudrus was speaking softly to his brothers and Sextus, and Adalwulf made quiet preparations, while I felt useless.

  In the end, Drusus was a burning pile of bones and dust, and Augustus sighed and left the field. Men filtered after him, guardsmen on horse and foot, as he conversed with Livia, and Gaius and Lucius, who walked near him. A pudgy man, senatorial and corpulent, followed near, as did dozens of others. We rushed after them. I nodded towards the fat man. “Who—”

  Adalwulf spat. “Ever since Maecnas—the hugely rich, powerful childhood friend of his—died Augustus has been turning to Marcus Lollius. There are many others, like Varus over there, but Lollius, the bastard, is one of his friends.”

  I turned to look at a king-like, blond man of forty, whom Adalwulf had called Varus. “You know this Lollius?” I asked Adalwulf.

  “I know him,” he said thinly. “He tried to kill Tiberius once to hide his incompetence. It happened in Germania, before I served your grandfather. “

  I stared at him. “Tried to kill Tiberius?”

  He hummed. “We have been watching him. There is no connection to Julia. But, who knows. He is one of the prime suspects, indeed. A toad.”

  We walked back to the city through the Porta, took a road to Palatine Hill, and climbed its steps. On top of that hill, gardens and streets mingled and stretched peacefully in the evening light. Flowers were blooming, and their fragrance made one drowsy and relaxed. Adalwulf pushed me, and I nearly fell. I noticed Livia was leaving, and some men of the turma followed her. “Livia’s house.” Adalwulf muttered. We passed it, and it was a pleasant looking house of white and red painted walls.

  Cassia, she was near.

  We passed a round library, the temple of Magna Mater, and along a tight, calm street, Julia parted from the rest.

  “Go,” Adalwulf said. “You will be relieved in Prima Hora.” I nodded, swallowing fear, and Wandal and I walked forward after her. Adalwulf pulled at me briefly. “Be wise. Be smart. Don’t let her fool you. Kleitos, or not, she knows things. She must. And if she never sends a shred of information anywhere, she knows who the conspirator is.”

  She’d not let me in, I thought, but said nothing.

  We followed her, until she stopped before a domus. Flowers adorned the dark red walls around her doorway. She turned. Her eyes rounded with surprise, and I was sure she was contemplating on sending me off.

  Instead, she smiled.

  “You,” she told me. “I saw you looking at me. Were you guarding me in the Forum already?”

  “I was,” I said. “It is my duty.”

  “Surely not a duty alone?” she said with a gentle smile. “You are a new man?”

  “I am,” I said. “Many of us are. We fought with Drusus. Fought well. Now, we guard your life.”

  If she had ordered Kleitos to kill me, or if Kleitos had warned her of me, it didn’t show.

  “Excellent. I’m honored. Follow me. I would hear all your stories later. I don’t sleep well, and you can entertain me. You can tell me why my husband and his dog-like Decurion is not to your liking.”

  I nodded, and we entered her house.

  BOOK 3: THE SCRIBE AND THE PREFECT

  “I grow everything here, Hraban. Figs, pleasant flowers, and my bitterness as well. I’m sorry if I seem heartless to you.”

  Livia to Hraban

  CHAPTER 9

  She sat on a chair, the legs having been carved to resemble cat’s paws. Her servants were preparing her house, and I wondered how many were Livia’s spies. A late dinner was set on a table before a beautifully painted scene of mountains. The painting boasted a lake, a serene thing of blue and emerald, and a family lounging on a green bank. They were happy and loving, and the child had brilliant blond hair. She looked up at it wistfully, smiling to herself as she removed her palla, which a servant immediately took from her. I stood by the corridor, unsure where I should guard her, and felt I was failing already. Wandal looked as distraught as I felt, and we took places on each side of the corridor that led inside, the vestibulum. We could see the whole atrium from there.

  I gazed around the fine house.

  Was this the place my father had stood guard? I thought.

  No.

  She would have lived with Agrippa, elsewhere. This was the house of Tiberius.

  I tried to listen, but didn’t hear a word. Gaius and Lucius were not there, nor my likely half-brother. Postumus, if he was that. Julia received a goblet of wine, and began to remove her jewelry, piece by piece. It took time, and I had several uninterrupted moments to stare at her. At thirty, she was a striking woman, yet a guarded one. She was unhappy, it was clear, but had she been happy with my father? Or with others? Had she been in love with her first husband, Marcellus? Surely not with Agrippa, an old man?

  Finally done, she waved her hand, and the jewelry, a heap of gold and silver, disappeared into a chest in the atrium. There was a sturdy young man, with honey-colored hair, squatting in the shadows, probably a guard for the chest. He maneuvered himself near it, until Julia waved her hand lazily at him, and dismissed him. “We have guards, Lucius. Fine guards. You may go to sleep.”

  “Yes, mistress,” the boy said, eyeing us with suspicion as he left.

  We stood still, staring ahead. Wandal was giving me glances, mouthing something. He was nodding towards Julia and looked like a horse with a dislocated jaw.

  What did the sandal licker expect? That I go strike up conversation with her?

  She looked hard and long at us, and chuckled, taking control of the awkward situation.

  “Latin?” she asked. “Or Germani?” she added with a terrible, guttural sentence one might take for Batavi dialect, if one were really generous. Wandal chortled. I wanted to kick him through the wall.

  Julia, it turned out, had a sense of humor. She laughed. She held a hand before her mouth and laughed merrily. She stopped after a shuddering breath.

  I turned my head to her. “Latin, my lady.”

  “Ah, I agree! Your Latin’s better than my gibberish,” she giggled. “I hear,” she said silkily, “that you came to Rome just yesterday.”

  “That is true, my lady,” I answered, and wondered where she had heard of it. Kleitos? Her contacts? She didn’t supposedly talk with many people, except her father, occasionally. She had her ways, apparently.

  She frowned as we kept standing still like statues.

  “Come, don’t be mutes. Come inside. I want a good look at you two. I usually don’t care who guards me, but there is something peculiar about you. You are a new Tall One, and already in active duty. I hear you saved Antonia.” She smirked spitefully. She didn’t like Antonia. “And yet, my husband is said to have ta
mpered with your citizenship and the Guard? I noticed you were upset with that blond Decurion, who is a creature of Tiberius.”

  She knew a lot. I told her, “I am honored you know all these things.”

  She smiled. “I asked around at the funeral. I was curious. My husband was unhappy, I suppose, with your duty on the way here. You saved Antonia but left him exposed. And so you have night duty. I hear for weeks.” She smiled and winked. “A citizen. I bet they all hate you in the Block. Cruel for Tiberius to allow Drusus to make a citizen of you, but still force you to serve in the Guard. Rules. Tiberius loves rules and justice.”

  She said it with such sympathy I almost thought I had been robbed. I reminded myself to keep calm. “I don’t like this much either,” I growled. “I fought well for Drusus, and I’m sure he didn’t have this in mind when he told Tiberius I would be a citizen. I mean, serving in the Guard is a great honor. It truly is. That’s what I wanted. We all did. Then I was given more. A citizen. Then … this again.” I bowed. “Though guarding you, lady, is an honor.” I was immensely pleased with my words.

  She nodded sagely. “You’ll go crazy with night duty. But, as for saving Antonia? Very valiant. I feel safer for that. My sleep will be peaceful.”

  I looked at her closely. She should be upset with Istros’s failure to kill Antonia. Whoever set up the murder for her would probably have hard time explaining their failure. Or perhaps she truly didn’t know what her conspirator friends had done. She looked serene. She drank the wine, looking dreamily at me.

  She went on. “That was well done. Someone said they were not robbing, though, but hoping to kill. To kill, guard. Imagine? Was it like that?”

  I played the game and faced her, and she rewarded me with a smile. I felt like a fat trout circling wriggling bait, and she was a patient fisher. But, I wasn’t the trout. I was the snake catcher, and I would lure her into my trap. I bit my lip at the idiotic thought, but spoke nonetheless. “I didn’t let it go far enough to find out.”

  She snorted and mulled the wine. “Braggart. I’m happy she survived. And the children. Cannot imagine how much she has suffered since Drusus died.”

  Liar.

  She went on. “You probably noticed I don’t get along with the other ladies in the family?”

  I opened my mouth and shut it.

  “Come now,” she chortled, and opened her stola a bit. She drank wine and waited.

  “I noticed,” I said, “that you don’t seem to get along with the men either.”

  Her eyes flashed, and she contemplated the wine fervently, nodding to herself. “You see what most everyone sees, but well done, anyway. I don’t. I’m not sure how much you have heard, but—”

  “I see the master’s bedroom is empty,” I told her frankly.

  She ticked her tooth with a nail and frowned. “Perhaps I made a mistake to encourage you to speak so openly. Rarely done that before with a guard.”

  Rarely. With Father, she had done more.

  She snapped her fingers. “One of you stands outside the door. The other one inside. I see they gave you few instructions, and probably hoped you would embarrass yourselves. You.” She spoke to Wandal. “The lion’s mane.” Indeed, Wandal had a thick, blond mane, but not the frightening face of one. Instead, he looked timid as a cow.

  “Lady?” he spoke, one of the few words he knew in Latin.

  “You will stand outside first,” she explained. “At attention, outside the door. Don’t let anyone enter. Later you stand here, when he is outside. Simple.”

  Wandal blinked, and I whispered the instructions to him. He nodded and walked out. Julia smiled as he left. “Looks strong enough to kill a bear.”

  I smiled. “He killed a bear with me, not that long ago.”

  “A small bear?” she teased.

  “It had just chewed and clawed down four men,” I said stiffly. “I have scars for it.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Really! Show me!”

  I shook my head. “I cannot. I—”

  She frowned. “It took your cock?”

  “No!” I said, and blushed and went silent as she giggled softly.

  Eventually, she shook her head, and drank down a long gulp of wine. “Oh, don’t be so boring. Come, come, smile a bit,” she chided me and inspected her dinner. There was bread, meat, but she seemed a frugal eater, only picking up morsels from the plates, as if judging some more worthy than the rest. I looked down, and listened again. Upstairs was quiet. If there was a child there, he was quiet as grave. Nothing.

  “They live with Augustus and Livia,” she said emotionlessly, having noticed what I was doing. “They are the future of Rome, after all, and cannot be trusted to live with their mother. And the master of the house is rarely in Rome, and never in this house. You are right. Tiberius does not sleep here. The children get a better education with wise Livia and Father, or course.” Her face didn’t show any emotion, though her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

  “They are handsome boys,” I told her foolishly.

  “They are,” she whispered. “Agrippa was old, but a very handsome man. And brave. A peasant, but a brave man.”

  Peasant.

  So, she resented him as well. Who did she not resent?

  Father?

  “Do you have children?” she asked. She had a small smile on her lips.

  “As the lady has probably heard, Livia has more guests than just your children,” I said with a small smile. “My wife is there as well. Since the Guard is not supposed to be married, Drusus arranged—”

  “He was very busy in his deathbed,” she said pertly. “Very busy indeed. Alas, for the great boy soldier.”

  My jaws tightened with anger. Patience, whispered the Hraban, who had been well instructed by Adalwulf and Tiberius, and who had suffered so much for being a fool previously. And then, there was the Hraban who had loved Drusus, and he took over in an eye blink, burying the new raven. My voice was harsh. “He won the war, took care of his family, his wounded, and even the ones he had captured. All the while rotting from inside. Yes, he was very busy, the great Consul and the best general of Rome.”

  Julia’s eyes flashed with surprise. A guard speaking to her in that tone? She could have me run through. She could easily pull the sleeve of Kleitos, or even Augustus, and what little I understood the laws of Rome, it would not be hard to send me to Drusus.

  Instead, she nodded. She put down the bread she had been dipping in oil. “Well. I guess you knew him very well. But, remember, I knew them as we grew up. He had ideas I found very disagreeable. He had no love for the family, much less than Tiberius had. And to be fair, I think my husband is the better general. I saw the losses, terrible figures from the debacle in the north. The war against the Sigambri? Yes. I might not love Tiberius, but I hate how little credit he has been given for his abilities. Instead, the mob loves the one who is forever rushing forward, heedless of the danger, and with few well-laid plans.”

  “It was in the lands of the Bructeri,” I corrected her. “Though the tribes were all there.”

  It had been a terrible battle. And Drusus had stumbled in and through the traps of Armin.

  “Yes,” she agreed, her eyes burning into mine. “And did he not drop the spear in that battle, our Drusus? No matter what fine knight he was, did he not fail where a prudent general would have conquered?”

  I sighed. “I agree. Tiberius might be a better general.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Come over here.”

  I walked forward, standing before her. Her eyes looked up at me, and she had a small smile on her face. “I like a man with spirit. Perhaps it’s the direct ways of the north I prefer to the lies and manners of Rome. Rome has not made a eunuch out of you yet. Don’t let it, soldier,” she said. “Smile. I hate brooding faces. You have seen the family. They could curdle milk with their presence.”

  I smiled, though tentatively. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  Her eyes probed the scar on my face. “Kind
is not one of my faults. Fancy scar. Lift your helmet.” I did, and she frowned. “Did you get that fighting for him?”

  I shook my head. “Before.” If only she knew Maroboodus had given it to me.

  She nodded at my spear. “Put that away, you brute. Your man outside seems able to handle an army.”

  She got up with her wine, as I leaned the spear and the shield to the wall, begging for them not to rattle or fall. I noticed she had moved to an unusual doorway to the side of the atrium, which she pushed open, and cool evening air filled the room, making the water in the atrium ripple with a gust of wind. There were orange flowers set on the surface, and they were colliding gently, and drapes made of wool moved like ghosts. She stepped out, and I, like a fool, walked after her, stumbling.

  It was a terrace with one of the best views across Rome. The view opened over the buildings in the slopes of Palatine, towards the mighty Circus. I could see torches burning under many of the porticos of the mighty structure below, and a steady bustle of wagons was arriving to supply the shops within.

  Go to the Circus, the centurion had said. Find out if they know the gladiator by the name of Istros.

  The Tiber’s lights were glowing far in the Portus, beyond Forum Bovarium and the Circus. There life never went to sleep as the beast called Rome had to be fed, and its people kept entertained. Wagons rolled in the streets though the night from the warehouses of that area, and I was not sure, but I thought there were gangs of men destroying barges.

  “The barges bring wood, and they use them for firewood,” she said. “Easier to build new ones. She waved down to the Circus. “Father does not care for the games as much as most. It was a first time I have seen him in Circus for months. How did you find it?”

  “Overwhelming?” I answered, standing there looking at the gigantic place. It had been overwhelming, though I had been frantic with worry as we tried to make sure nobody hurt the family. Yet, the massive size, the stands, the seats, the sand? It was nothing I could have imagined before.