Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Please give me something to help me fall pregnant,’ Livia whispered in desperation.

  Martina pulled her cushion from beneath Livia, her contempt naked. ‘I have nothing for that – go and pray to the gods.’

  ‘Please!’ Livia begged as loudly as she dared. ‘It’ll be the last thing I ask.’

  Martina smiled without joy. ‘You will ask me many more things after this, Lady. And some of them I’ll be glad to do – but not this one. I have offered you help and you’ve rejected it. We’ll speak again when I am no longer offended by you.’

  She began the long descent down the steep theatre steps.

  ‘Martina, please!’ Livia begged in her wake. Some of the other freedwomen watched her again, munching on handfuls of raisins. In the interval between plays, she had become a passing entertainment.

  Martina was deaf to this performance, but the lips of her sex ached a little with the memory of Livia’s last meal between them. She could not deny what the memory told her – she had enjoyed my domina’s hungry pleasuring. Perhaps she would help Livia after all, but in a manner that would surprise her.

  Standing naked at the windswept mouth of the She-wolf’s grotto in the company of such a great man, Tiberius Nero felt like a child. The massive size of Antony’s famous limbs and torso had proved, when he disrobed, to echo in his private parts as well. He had the organs of a horse. Feeling himself shrinking in the cold while Antony achieved the very opposite, Tiberius Nero wanted only to cover himself. But he stopped himself from waving his hands around like some prudish old woman by mustering what little pride he could find in the circumstances.

  Squatting outside on the slope of the hill with several of Antony’s slaves, I smiled encouragingly at my young master inside the grotto.

  ‘Go home, Iphicles,’ he ordered me. ‘There is nothing for you to do here.’

  But I pretended to be deaf in the wind and simply waved and gave a thumbs-up signal. There wasn’t much for me to do, it was true, but what task I had was of great importance. Though my young master didn’t know it, I was to ensure that he completed his induction, no matter how arduous the ordeal.

  Tiberius Nero forced himself to endure standing naked next to Cleopatra’s stallion by keeping his mind fixed wholly on the future. His induction into the college of the Laperci Julii on this, their fifth year at the helm of the Lupercalia festival, was worth any indignity, he told himself. It would bring him close to men of influence again – and Livia would be proud of him, even if he did have to slaughter a poor little dog and rub its blood all over his face.

  ‘Where the fuck are those goatskins?’ Antony muttered. He glanced down at Tiberius Nero. ‘Feeling the chill yet, lad?’

  ‘Just a little, sir.’

  ‘Never feel it myself. Not since the British campaign with Caesar, anyway. Nearly froze the nuts off me, that one did. Since then I’ve grown below-floor heating.’

  Tiberius Nero laughed awkwardly, but stopped when Antony turned his full attention to him with a quizzical expression. ‘While we’re alone, just let me say that you were a good sort for slinging your hook in with Fulvia.’

  Tiberius Nero froze, having dreaded this topic being broached. ‘I know now that it was misguided, sir.’

  Antony made no comment on that. ‘I leave for the Parthian campaign when the storm season has passed,’ he said, comradely. ‘Still a couple of commissions left unfilled.’

  Sweat beaded on Tiberius Nero’s forehead despite the cold. ‘Triumvir Octavian has already signalled his interest in me for something else, sir,’ he claimed.

  ‘Has he now?’

  Tiberius Nero nodded.

  Antony knew a frightened lie when he heard it, and there were a few seconds’ silence as he moved my short-statured young master to the blacklist in his calculating mind.

  Without a trace of self-consciousness Antony took his equine member in hand and pointed it casually to the side before beginning to relieve himself. Urine spouted onto the sacred grotto floor.

  ‘Better piss now, son, there’ll be no time later,’ he said cheerily.

  Tiberius Nero was too shocked to think of a reply.

  ‘What’s up? Offended that I’m pissing in the She-wolf’s den?’

  ‘Should you be? I mean, is it allowed?’

  ‘Don’t you think the whole place would’ve been covered in shit and piss when Romulus and Remus were at her tits? No wet nurse to wipe their arses back then. And the She-wolf would’ve been shitting herself stupid too. Disgusting creatures, wolves. Think about that when you shove the knife into doggy’s throat.’

  Tiberius Nero flushed, shocked by the blasphemy and ashamed that Antony had guessed at what he most dreaded of the Lupercalia rites.

  Another of the college magistri entered the grotto from the hill outside, goatskins heaped in his arms. He saw the pool of piss with dismay. Antony gave a toss of his head in Tiberius Nero’s direction and a disapproving frown. The magister looked at Tiberius Nero disgustedly.

  ‘It’s about time you got here,’ said Antony, pulling the top goatskin cloak from the magister’s arms. ‘The lad’s a mass of nerves in this cold.’ He cast a playful smirk at Tiberius Nero.

  ‘The dog is prepared, gentlemen,’ said the magister, ‘and there’s an excellent crowd of young women lining the full length of the Steps of Cacus to see you.’

  ‘Magnificent,’ said Antony, clipping the goatskins at his shoulders.

  Tiberius Nero began pulling his own allotted cloak over his head as the magister addressed him: ‘Once the dog is dead, the blade must be wiped with the wool dipped in milk that Marcus Antonius will give you. You must clean the blade thoroughly and then rub the wool on your forehead.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Tiberius Nero, already feeling sick.

  ‘And then the fun starts,’ said the magister with a smile. ‘I have an excellent whip ready for you, Tiberius Nero. One with a real sting to it.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ With embarrassment, Tiberius Nero discovered that the goatskin cloak – the one item he was permitted to wear as an inductee to the college – did not conceal his privates unless he held it closed from inside with his hand. ‘How am I supposed to run without exposing myself?’

  Then he saw that Antony’s goatskin exposed everything too – and Antony was making no attempt to keep it closed.

  ‘You can’t – ‘ and the great man elbowed him in the ribs – ‘that’s the whole point, lad. There are three hundred panting women lining the streets and stairs, all waiting to get an eyeful of you – Lupercalia’s the best advertisement for a man’s meat in Rome!’

  Poor Tiberius Nero shrivelled even more.

  The first girl my young master ran up to had her eyes closed but her face and limbs were exposed to him. He whipped her with the long strips of goat meat he clutched in his hands with only a token effort.

  She beseeched him angrily under her breath: ‘Harder. Make it hurt. I can bear it.’

  He whipped her again with more force.

  ‘Harder!’ she begged, with her eyes tightly closed.

  This time he left an ugly red welt on her face.

  ‘Mother She-wolf,’ the girl cried to the sky. ‘Give me a child in my womb – make me fertile!’

  The next women he whipped as he sprinted up the long Steps of Cacus were just as impassioned. ‘The She-wolf will listen to your prayers, I feel sure of it,’ he promised them, feeling the blood rushing through his limbs now.

  ‘Hit me with real force. Make me bleed!’ a matron screamed.

  Every woman had her eyes closed in protection from the blow. None stared at Tiberius Nero in his near nakedness at all. At first he was relieved – Antony had been teasing him – but as he neared the summit of the steps by the Temple of the Great Mother’s square, he felt disappointed. The induction was exhilarating. The winter chill had disappeared in the heat of his exertions, and his blood circulation was excellent. He was erect with it.

  Tiberius Nero leapt to the last step, lashing
identical twins on their arms and legs with the goat strips, and then whipping them again as they wept gratefully. Near the sacred hut of Romulus, more pleading women waited for him and he laid into their pliant flesh like a charioteer whipping his steeds to victory. A heavily pregnant woman rushed at him from the portico of the Temple of the Great Mother.

  ‘Ease my birth-pains, She-wolf,’ she shouted. ‘Make my labour short and happy!’

  Tiberius Nero lashed at her with such force that she slipped to the flagstones. As she struggled to get up again, he planted his bare foot on her chest, bending over her and panting with arousal as he painted long, scarlet stripes down the woman’s calves.

  He stood straight again, engorged and spinning, the blood thumping at his temples. ‘Grant these women their hearts’ desires, She-wolf!’ he screamed to the grey February sky. Then he turned to whip a girl who lay prone on the Great Mother’s steps, her slim body enrobed in a milk-white stola, a translucent veil falling slowly from her face.

  It was Livia.

  The goat strips slipped from his hand. Tiberius Nero sank to the steps, kissing and stroking her, trying to make her stand up. ‘What have I done? Are you hurt?’

  Alone among the women, Livia had her eyes wide open. ‘Whip me,’ she whispered. ‘I want the She-wolf’s blessing too.’

  ‘I can’t – Livia, I can’t.’

  ‘I want a baby, Tiberius Nero – I must have it.’

  ‘You’ve done enough to get a new child. Just give it more time.

  She grabbed his erect penis. ‘Give me a new child, She-wolf! Give me a new child!’

  ‘Livia – this is not for you!’

  She squeezed him until the skin went purple in her fingers.

  ‘Oh gods …’ Tiberius Nero moaned. Taking up the fleshy whip he scourged her in the milk-white gown until the fabric spotted red.

  The mouth that was smiling at my domina was a woman’s mouth. The lips were full and crimson; the teeth clean and even and spotlessly white. But the voice was unmistakably a man’s: ‘So here you are, girl. What a picture you make – sprawled on the steps like a touting harlot. Shall I pay you to fuck me, girl?’

  My domina tried to fight her way to full consciousness. She knew she was awake, yet not awake. She also knew that she had experienced something like this before.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Don’t you remember me?’ the hermaphrodite purred. ‘I helped you bathe in Cybele’s blood. It was all theatre, of course. None of it was true. Your father paid me to manipulate the child.’

  Livia gulped for air.

  ‘Except I failed,’ said the full, red lips in her ear. ‘The child gave his own reading. I couldn’t affect his words.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The haruspex saw what was there,’ the hermaphrodite whispered. ‘His prophecy was true. He refused to name Drusus as the sire of all your kings but named his little brother instead. It was the Great Mother speaking through him. The boy was speaking her will. But then, you’ve never doubted it, have you?’

  My domina grappled with memories. ‘Of course I doubt it. It is not Tiberius Nero. My father misinterpreted the words. Take me to Thrasyllus again so I can confirm the real sire – I already know who it is, you see. Take me to Thrasyllus so that he can tell me I’m right.’

  But the hermaphrodite ignored that request. ‘Murder brings the promise of power, girl …’

  The phrase rang like the bell of a temple, echoing deep inside Livia’s guts and loins. Her breathing grew easier and her lungs took in air. The welts on her limbs stopped throbbing.

  ‘Your father struck the first blow to take the Claudii to the very top of Rome. Will you take the blade from his hands and strike the second?’

  Livia opened her eyes and used her bruised hands to sit up straight on the temple steps. The hermaphrodite was gone. The voice was all inside her head. Instead, it was my placid face that she found herself looking into, just as it had been the last time she had awoken from such a strange dream.

  ‘Did the She-wolf hear you, domina?’

  A scrap of papyrus blew from the portico behind her in the wind. The gust of air flung it down the steps to where it caught at Livia’s hand. She turned the paper over. It was a message: Seek out Thrasyllus at your father’s dead house.

  ‘Yes, Iphicles,’ Livia answered me at last. ‘I think the She-wolf heard me very well.’

  Hebe answered the door only because we other slaves were occupied in celebrating our master’s Lupercalia induction. Unable to walk, no-one had asked her to join in the fun. But strength was slowly returning to Hebe’s feet, although she shared it with none of us. She tested herself when there was no-one to watch her, and she was doing this when she heard the soft knock on the bolted front door.

  Standing tentatively on her scarred and twisted toes, Hebe tried to peer through the viewing hole, but she was too small to reach it with her eye. ‘Who is it?’

  The voice was a tired old woman’s. She was a friend, she told Hebe, here to deliver the domina’s wine.

  Hebe knew nothing of this but opened the door. The old woman shielding her face from the sun outside was the ugliest crone Hebe had ever seen. The sight of her filled the girl with pity – and also stirred an old memory. Had Hebe met her before? In Greece, perhaps? But that was so long ago now. The crone was also cursed with a cruel affliction that was only clear when she passed by to step inside the entry hall. There are always others whose lives are worse than our own, Hebe thought to herself.

  ‘You have brought wine for my domina?’ she asked the crone, nodding to the small amphora the old woman clutched.

  The crone was looking at Hebe’s feet. ‘It’s a regular delivery. Perhaps you don’t know of it because the domina keeps it secret?’

  Hebe was a little shocked, although she knew her mistress kept many secrets. ‘Let me find one of the other slaves. Perhaps they’ll know of it.’

  The old woman nodded, but somehow Hebe’s desire to find someone else left her as soon as she had said it. She stayed where she was.

  ‘The wine has healing qualities,’ said the old woman. ‘It cures many ailments, you know.’ She held the amphora out again and this time Hebe took it.

  The old woman showed no interest in receiving money. ‘It’s been paid for.’

  ‘All right then.’ Hebe waited for the old woman to leave again, but she didn’t. ‘Would you like a cup of water?

  The old woman refused. ‘How did you scar your feet?’ she asked.

  ‘I was caught in a fire,’ said Hebe simply.

  The old woman pursed her thin, leathery lips together and nodded. ‘Scars like those always vanish in time.’

  This was the first that Hebe had heard of this being so. She’d been told she’d be scarred forever.

  ‘How long ago was the fire?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Hebe, wishing the old woman would stop staring at her. ‘Two years ago, perhaps.’

  ‘That long?’ The old woman grew concerned.

  ‘Perhaps longer,’ said Hebe, ‘I was very young. I don’t remember much from that time.’

  ‘Then there is something stopping the recovery,’ said the old woman. ‘There is something preventing your feet from getting better again.’

  Hebe had no answer to this. She ate well – or as well as any of us slaves could expect to. She did little physical work; her days were mainly filled with listening to her mistress talk.

  The crone pulled at the long tuft of whiskers on her chin. ‘Tell me about your master,’ she asked after a while. Again, Hebe had little to say in reply. Tiberius Nero barely acknowledged Hebe.

  The crone nodded sagely. ‘The reason that your feet are so slow in healing is because your master doesn’t love you.’

  Hebe laughed in astonishment. Then she saw that the old woman was quite serious.

  ‘Your feet will only heal fully when you are loved by domina and dominus,’ she said. ‘How can you expect to get well when the pat
er familias doesn’t wish it upon you?’

  Hebe looked into the old woman’s surprisingly clear, sharp eyes and saw only kindness and wisdom there. Then she found herself crying. The crone ushered her to the janitor’s box where the seat was soft and warm.

  ‘My master hates me,’ Hebe sobbed. ‘I’ve always known it. I’ve tried anything I can think of to make him see me differently but he never has. I’m nothing to him.’

  The crone was grandmotherly and comforting. ‘What a terrible thing, you poor, sad child. Have you tried magic?’

  Hebe made a sudden intake of breath.

  ‘It is not so shocking,’ said the old woman. ‘Many use it to solve their problems.’

  ‘I would never dare …’

  ‘You shouldn’t be frightened – magic can be employed for good. Your domina uses it for a very fine purpose.’

  Hebe looked at the amphora that lent against the janitor’s box and wondered what on earth her mistress employed it for.

  ‘The wine’s healing qualities are the result of many spells and potions,’ said the old woman. ‘You should never close your mind to such possibilities.’ She stroked Hebe’s hair where it had loosened from its knot and the girl began to feel a little better.

  ‘Perhaps …’ said Hebe tentatively. ‘Perhaps I could try magic – if no-one ever knows about it.’

  The old woman pressed a little glass vial into Hebe’s hand.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It will cure your feet. Just put a drop of the liquid on your evening meal – your cena – every night until there’s no more left inside.

  ‘That’s all? Just the drops will cure me?’

  ‘You must also place a drop of the liquid in your master’s cena as well.’

  Hebe went very quiet.

  ‘Is that so hard? Your feet will be well again. You’ll be just like any other girl.’

  ‘But if he catches me, won’t he think I’m trying to poison him?’

  ‘You mustn’t let yourself be caught.’

  When the old woman had gone, having again refused payment, Hebe stayed in the entrance hall holding the little vial in her hand for a long time, staring at it. She slipped it inside her tunica just as I came out from the kitchens with a cup of ewe’s milk and honey for her.