Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  ‘You will open in the name of Triumvir Octavian, the master of this house!’ he shouted for the second time.

  The centurion took the horsehair-plumed helmet from his head and rubbed his skull with his knuckles before dropping it on his head again while they waited. The metal cheek pieces stuck to his face in the unseasonable autumn heat.

  ‘The house looks unoccupied, centurion,’ said the young legionary.

  ‘I agree. The household has moved on.’

  Both men heard the scuffle of sandals on the floor tiles within and looked to their colleagues behind them. ‘We’re wrong – they’re home. We’ll have to batter it down then. Find something we can use,’ the centurion ordered.

  But the door opened a slim crack and the legionary kicked it in, flinging the door wide and throwing the frightened maid Antiope to the floor. ‘She’s not in. She’s not in here,’ the girl tried to say.

  The centurion spoke over her: ‘We’re sent by your dominus, Triumvir Octavian, with a letter for your domina.’

  ‘She’s not inside – please just listen to me. She left here weeks ago,’ Antiope insisted. But from within the house came the unmistakable sound of a woman’s labour pain.

  The centurion was not unsympathetic. ‘You’re a loyal child, but you’re also your master’s property. Your mistress shouldn’t have left Rome like she did – and you shouldn’t have gone with her.’

  Antiope was desperate. ‘That is not my domina’s pain you can hear. It’s a slave’s. My domina is not here.’

  The centurion was not prepared to waste any more time and signalled to the unit of men behind him. The four legionaries in front, including the soldier who had kicked the door, moved into the villa’s small atrium with a rattle of the segmented armour they wore over their jerkins. The short-topped caliga boots on their feet were heavy and hobnailed, and their helmets were low on their brows. Once inside the house, all four legionaries drew short, sharp swords in readiness. Antiope was ignored. The remaining men in the entrance yard parted to allow a corpulent, sow-breasted slave to emerge from behind them. It was Hecuba, Livia’s wet nurse.

  ‘Who are you?’ Antiope demanded of her. ‘We don’t need you here.’

  Hecuba said nothing; the cloth at her nipples dark and damp. Another moan of childbirth filled the house and Antiope burst into tears, unable to do anything more to save Scribonia.

  ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ said the centurion. ‘You’ll not be punished. Your dominus wishes you to go on serving your Lady.’

  But Antiope could only sob.

  Leading the way down the dim hall, the centurion found the sleeping chamber that was the birthing room. He hesitated to step inside.

  ‘Is it right for a man to see a woman in this state, centurion?’ asked the legionary next to him.

  ‘It is not. The room will be unclean.’

  The men grew awkward and the centurion looked to Hecuba. ‘The task is yours then, slave. Don’t dawdle in there or it’ll be your final task.’

  She was quite unfazed.

  The centurion raised his voice so that all those within the birthing room couldn’t fail to hear him. ‘Lady Scribonia, I have been sent with a message from Triumvir Octavian. I will pass it to this slave to deliver to you personally. It is not necessary for you to respond.’ He nodded to Hecuba and she entered.

  The men listened at the door. There was no sound from within. They waited. There was only silence.

  ‘What’s the hold-up in there?’ the centurion demanded after some minutes.

  There was still nothing.

  The men shifted uneasily in their heavy leather boots and the centurion cursed Hecuba under his breath. ‘I need a reply from in there – please answer. What is happening?’

  A stifled scream of pain cut through them. The centurion cast a quick glance at his subordinates and then stepped into the room. Two of Scribonia’s midwives were pressed against the bare wall. A third had a hand clamped across Scribonia’s mouth, smothering her screams as she twisted and writhed, upright in the birthing chair. At the chair’s seat, the corpulent Hecuba gripped two tiny legs that protruded from Scribonia’s opening. The wet nurse pulled and the child came free – followed by a gush of bloody afterbirth. Scribonia slumped to the side, unconscious.

  Battling to keep his breakfast in his stomach, the centurion addressed Scribonia as if she were able to hear him. ‘Triumvir Octavian has no interest in any of his property within this villa, and gives it to you freely, along with the villa itself.’

  Hecuba slapped the newborn baby on the rump until it let loose a healthy bawl. The nurse released one of her sow-like breasts and placed the baby on its warmth.

  ‘The exception is this child,’ the centurion continued, and then looked to see what sex it was. ‘This daughter. She remains Triumvir Octavian’s property and your contact with her is forbidden from this moment on.’

  He turned and exited, Hecuba following with the howling baby in her arms. A little stream of blood reached the discarded letter that Octavian had sent from Rome. The dry, curled papyrus absorbed the ruddy liquid, softening in texture, the words coloured. There were only nine words in total – three words repeated three times. ‘I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.’

  They were very soon obliterated with gore.

  The embarrassed doctor, an ugly and small-statured Sabine, was unable, for all his reputation, to diagnose Tiberius Nero’s disturbing heartbeat. ‘You still tell me you eat nothing unusual?’ he reiterated. ‘Nothing with spices? None of those recipes from the East?’

  ‘I eat Roman food,’ Tiberius Nero made clear. ‘I like simplicity – rough, raw things and well-cooked meat.’ He was extremely fragile. He felt ancient and worn.

  The doctor came to a private conclusion that made his eyes widen, but he would not let himself betray it. He was no fool. Instead he gave Tiberius Nero some herbs to take. ‘Too large a dose and your heart will race so hard it will burst from the chest. Smaller doses will even the heartbeat out again – it has worked on others.’

  Tiberius Nero indicated for me to pay the man, and then weakly stood up, leaving the herbs for me to carry as well. ‘I’ll consume them as a last resort then, doctor.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said the Sabine, giving nothing away of what he really suspected. ‘Soak the necessary dose in warm water – hot even. Let them brew.’

  ‘I will. Thank you.’

  I fumbled for silver coins, staring at the doctor. I didn’t know how, but I knew that something had been held back. ‘The domina has left him,’ I muttered so that only the Sabine could hear. ‘They were ill-matched but she has broken his heart. Is that what’s really wrong with him?’

  The doctor looked at me with disdain, accepting the money.

  ‘People die of such things,’ I went on, wanting confirmation of what I feared. ‘We who love both the dominus and the domina fear that it’s the loss of her that’s weakened him. We try to distract him but he can’t take his mind off it.’

  ‘And you can’t take your mind off it either, can you, slave?’

  I was shocked that he could see right through me.

  ‘Don’t pretend such regard for your master – it’s your mistress you’re in love with – you’re naked with it, slave. And if you were in my household I’d have you flogged, so get out now before I tell him what a skinny little snake he harbours.’

  Shaken, I fled from the doctor’s shopfront, and I was in time to hear the concluding words of the praeco’s – the Forum crier’s – morning bulletin. Tiberius Nero was already a devastated witness to it.

  ‘… so listen then, Rome,’ the praeco announced to his audience, ‘to these loathsome words that Tiberius Claudius Nero uttered to his faithful wife, Livia Drusilla, the mother of his son: “I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.” That marriage is over; her new union will shortly begin.’

  Octavian had stepped around his own laws by simply inventing a lie.

  Only weakened further by his
new shame and despair, Tiberius Nero took to his sleeping couch. He dozed fitfully, believing that he would not survive this turn of Fortune’s wheel. In the middle of the night he awoke again and tried to pull himself from the tangle of linen. He had realised my domina’s likely next move and it filled him with anger. ‘My son,’ he called into the dark. ‘Bring my boy to me.’

  After some minutes I ushered in little Tiberius. The boy was still half-asleep.

  ‘Tuck him up with me here,’ Tiberius Nero ordered. He managed to shift himself on the couch without starting another rush to his heart. The boy was laid next to his father and Tiberius Nero settled blankets and furs around him. As he lay back upon the cushions Tiberius Nero slipped his hand over his little son’s.

  The boy spoke as if dreaming. ‘Why am I sleeping here with you, Father?’

  ‘To keep you near me and to keep you safe.’

  ‘When can I see mama?’

  Tiberius Nero didn’t answer.

  For the remaining hours of darkness, he clutched the boy’s hand, forbidding him to turn in his sleep or to make a sound. When the dawn birds woke him, the hold of the boy’s hand inside his own had become familiar enough for Tiberius Nero to imagine it. The touch was a phantom’s. Little Tiberius had slipped away.

  ‘Find him – find my son!’ Tiberius Nero called out in terror. The first to peer around the door was little Tiberius himself. He had only been to the lavatory. ‘I thought you’d been taken from me.’

  ‘But who wants to take me?’ the confused boy asked.

  Again Tiberius Nero couldn’t answer, fearing that if he told his son the truth the boy might wish to leave him anyway.

  Hebe fainted as she served Tiberius Nero his wine-soaked bread. Her own health had grown weak without anyone even noticing. I prepared to move her onto a pallet in an attic room and leave her there, expecting her to die. When I lifted her, a little glass vial slipped from her tunica and fell inside a gap between her old pallet and the wall.

  I returned to the vial later and felt a spark of recognition. I knew I had seen the thing somewhere before. I had an image of it sitting inside my domina’s own hands, but I couldn’t remember where or when. Then I dismissed it. In my own heartbroken state I made no connection between the little glass vial and any of the household’s calamities.

  Two houses joined. The Julii and the Claudii.

  Octavian felt a stab of doubt so sharp and fast it that had passed before his thoughts could expand it into something that made any sense to him. He looked at my domina, half-hidden in her flame-coloured wedding veil and garland of flowers, and perhaps he heard the hungry temple words she had once prayed to the Great Mother in his presence. From my perspective among the staring crowd at the bottom of the temple steps, it was hard to be certain; only those who had been invited to the ceremony could have been sure.

  The raven-haired bride beside Octavian in the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter was modest, unassuming, a complement to his greatness, not a challenge. He surely knew this to be certain; he would not have been marrying my domina if there was anything about her that told him otherwise. The visible flash of doubt was gone, and perhaps Octavian thought then of her hard nipples beneath the tunica recta that was her slim-fitting wedding gown.

  Marcus Lepidus, the self-appointed pontifex maximus, stumbled in his improvised ceremony as he searched for appropriate phrases. The third and weakest of the Triumvirs, Lepidus’s position as the head of Rome’s religion gave him a status above his colleagues only on occasions like this. He insisted that Octavian marry his new wife before the gods – a request that Octavian had not hesitated to accept.

  With no need for witnesses beyond the traditional pronuba – or matron of honour – Octavian attempted to wrap up Lepidus’s words quickly until Lollia gave a small cough. Livia looked sharply to her friend from beneath her flame-coloured veil.

  ‘You must both join hands,’ said Lollia unapologetically. ‘It’s my duty as pronuba to ensure that you do it.’ Mindful of the bride, Lollia had taken care to dress demurely so as not to attract more attention than she deserved.

  Octavian took my domina’s delicate hand inside his long-fingered palm. ‘Thank you, pontifex; stirring words,’ he continued to Lepidus. ‘We are grateful to you, and I appreciate that marriage ceremonies are irregular in this temple.’

  Lepidus was stilted in his exchange. It was well known that he didn’t like the younger man, and he trusted him even less. ‘Marriages are legal unions, not spiritual ones. However, given the unique nature of this betrothal, it’s likely that I have placated Jupiter today. But I can’t be sure, of course.’

  Octavian was all confidence. ‘Well, I am very sure, Lepidus – Jupiter will understand. And the birds will confirm it in no time – although I don’t think they’re even needed.’

  ‘We’ll find out as soon as the augur has seen the answer in the sky, then,’ said Lepidus coolly.

  ‘But didn’t the great god once gain a new wife just as he’d pruned himself of an old one?’

  Even Livia knew that this playfulness was skirting very close to sacrilege.

  ‘No, Octavian,’ said Lepidus.

  ‘My mistake.’ Octavian made a more appropriate show of seriousness and signalled to Palamedes. The small wooden chest the Phrygian slave carried was placed on a table before Lepidus.

  ‘I’m very grateful for the Pontifical College’s special dispensation to allow me to marry Livia so quickly,’ said Octavian. ‘This is how I wish to show that gratitude.’ The chest was opened and the one hundred aureus coins spoke for themselves.

  ‘I’ll confirm the auspices, then,’ said Lepidus, leaving the temple interior and walking to the great portico, where the aged augur was already raking the sky with his eyes.

  Octavian stooped and kissed Lepidus’s robe as he passed, and Livia did the same. Then Palamedes indicated the arrival of Hecuba, who placed the newborn child in Octavian’s arms. ‘Jove, you have honoured me already,’ the triumvir whispered to the statue of the god behind him.

  ‘It is …?’

  ‘A daughter,’ Livia said, creeping up to him in her saffron-coloured shoes. ‘Can’t you tell by looking at her little face?’ Livia’s overwhelming relief that it was not a son was concealed, but the quick look that passed between her and Lollia allowed a glimmer of it to show. None of this escaped me at the bottom of the temple stairs, where I was studying them all.

  ‘A daughter …’ Octavian gazed at the little swaddled face and reached into the folds of his toga. He withdrew a golden bulla amulet on a delicate chain.

  Livia was touched. ‘You had that ready for her?’

  ‘Her arrival was imminent.’ He slipped the charm over the infant’s head and whispered a spell to ward off evil eyes. ‘You will be Julia, my dove – a perfect little Julia.’ The baby girl opened her eyes to look at him and took the amulet in her fists. ‘Your name will honour the uncle who adopted me, and in whose memory I fought for Rome,’ said Octavian.

  ‘Julia …’ Livia repeated. ‘She wears it well already.’

  ‘I couldn’t be happier,’ Octavian declared, and Livia knew it to be true for there were tears forming in his eyes. She felt a pang of envy. Had marrying her been a lesser pleasure than this baby’s birth?

  ‘I’ll betroth her to one of Antony’s sons by Fulvia,’ Octavian mused on his daughter’s future political usefulness. ‘They’re both decent boys. Perhaps Antyllus.’

  ‘What an honour for him.’

  Octavian passed the tiny baby to his new wife – and was further moved by the image of Livia’s apparent easy motherhood. ‘A new child for you on the first day of our new life together, Livia.’

  My domina cooed at the baby that was not her own and Octavian found himself fighting the sharp stab of doubt again. What was causing it? Livia glanced up and saw the troubled look in his face – as did I from my own vantage point.

  ‘Will you always love Julia as you love Tiberius?’ Octavian asked.

  �
�Of course I will,’ said Livia without hesitation, ‘I will love her completely.’

  ‘Even though she is not from your womb? I would understand it, you know, if you found it difficult to love her fully. It would be natural.’

  My domina’s look was reassuring. ‘There is nothing natural about not loving a child. She is yours, husband, grown from your seed. How couldn’t I worship such a precious thing?’

  Octavian’s doubt was forgotten again. ‘We’ll have a discussion about all our children when we are alone in bed,’ he said. ‘About Tiberius – and about the child in your womb, of course.’

  ‘There will be so much more room for us all at Oxheads,’ said Livia, and then, turning to her friend: ‘You should see the beautiful rooms, Lollia. Plenty of space for a child to play in.’

  But only Lollia and I saw the look of discomfort that then passed across Octavian’s face. ‘Tiberius is growing big so fast,’ Lollia said, watching him.

  Octavian flicked his eyes to Lollia, who smiled encouragingly, but he said nothing and looked away.

  As the party walked through the dappled sunlight of the portico towards the steps on which I stood, the old augur pointed with a shout to the sky. Lepidus followed his gaze, the leaves of the olive branch in his head piece rustling in the breeze.

  ‘There,’ said the augur. ‘Look there, pontifex.’

  Two distant specks – a pair of vultures – hung in the air above the hill that lay across the crowded valley from the Capitoline. The ugly birds floated above the rooftops and trees, carried by the rising gusts of warm Roman air until they saw a landing place to their liking. They settled together and were still. The hill they had flown over was the Palatine. Their roost was the Temple of the Great Mother.

  The augur was very pale as Octavian looked at him fixedly. ‘Is it a good omen then?’

  The aged augur looked to Lepidus, but the third triumvir gave him nothing, his face unreadable.

  ‘They landed on the right-hand side of the temple’s roof, at least,’ the augur replied at last, clutching at straws, ‘I would, I think, call that quite a positive omen.’