Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  ‘A choice I upheld.’ Tiberius looked at her levelly.

  ‘Yet all great commanders must make mistakes in their youth,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s natural. To be expected.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  At Tiberius’s shoulder, Sejanus allowed his eyes the tiniest smile.

  Livia dropped her wool again and I felt as though my back was breaking. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But you’re the First Citizen.’

  Tiberius sensed that those around him were forecasting the future for Germanicus, though they knew nothing of the news. He crushed speculation with accord. ‘I owe all my success to my mother’s guidance,’ he declared.

  Livia nodded to him slyly.

  ‘And it seems to me that my adopted son has made a canny move in withdrawing to Vetera,’ he continued. ‘The conquest of Germany is a long and arduous undertaking, requiring, to my mind, a course of slow pacification.’

  Eyes darted to others. Tiberius was announcing a major decision in international affairs.

  ‘With the Senate’s approval,’ Tiberius addressed the assemblage, ‘Rome will stay her hand until the German tribes fall at each other’s throats. This won’t be very long. Despite recent suggestions of unity among them, history has shown that the northern barbarians are incapable of putting aside their squabbles to make a sustained attack against us.’

  Behind the assemblage, three scribes recorded his words, so that the announcement could be relayed to the Senate for acquiescence.

  ‘Germanicus has anticipated the Senatorial debate in his actions,’ Tiberius concluded, ‘and has proven to his First Citizen – and to his father – that he was a wise choice for the Prefecture.’

  As the room commenced upon measured sycophancy, Livia arose, caring nothing for her balls of wool now. Tiberius knew that she disapproved of caution in all forms and that Octavian would have advocated the very opposite. But her beloved grandson had received no public shame, so on this score she could not object.

  I watched Tiberius put his mind toward the more pleasant tasks that awaited him this morning. The Patrician Youth Choir was practising at the Theatre of Pompey; fine Roman boys and girls, and his particular favourites. I watched him planning to arrive in time to observe their costume fittings.

  ‘What other dispatches arrived from your spies, Mother?’ he asked dismissively as Livia made to go.

  ‘News of the price of eggs in Pannonia plus the shortage of pears in Pompeii,’ she replied.

  Tiberius actually laughed.

  ‘Oh, there was one other thing …’ Livia shrugged into a cloak as Plancina hung it on her shoulders. ‘Your former wife is dead.’

  The gathering snapped into silence, just as she had intended it to by the manner of this disclosure. Tiberius was ashen. ‘Vipsania?’

  Livia laid a comforting hand upon his arm, her palm very dry. ‘Good gods no, not the one you valued, my son. Julia.’

  Tiberius said absolutely nothing – which gave Livia the answer to the question she hadn’t needed to ask. He had been the one who had ordered the death, of course. Livia withdrew her hand, tripping towards the garden with a girlish step so at odds with her many years. She, like me, lived on in defiance of age. ‘I’m sure someone will bother officially informing you in due course,’ she said, with her eyes to the winter flowers.

  Much earlier in this history I mentioned my great debt to Apicata. She told me many things in her later years that I would never have guessed at the time they actually happened. The detailed knowledge I have of her husband is entirely from her.

  The young Prefect of the Praetorian Guard held three fingers in front of his wife’s creasing face. The exercise was humiliating for her and for him.

  ‘Four,’ she said. ‘No, three.’

  Grim, Sejanus didn’t bother telling her that guessing right on the second attempt wasn’t cause for any hope. She was going blind. They both knew it.

  ‘Maybe I’ll start hearing like a dog,’ said Apicata. ‘That’s a benefit to losing your sight, isn’t it?’

  Sejanus returned to his undressing. ‘You’re not going blind. Tiberius’s physician will confirm it when he examines you himself.’

  ‘I am going blind, of course I am,’ she told him. ‘The doctor will prescribe knocking me on the head with a hammer – knocking me with it until I stop being a burden on everyone.’ Her throat caught in her misery.

  She actually broke his heart, this wife, whom Sejanus had never particularly loved. He had long only tolerated her because of what was expected from him in marriage. She knew this terrible truth, yet still devoted herself to his advancement.

  ‘The only burden you could ever be is upon the slaves,’ he said, ‘and what do we care for them?’ Yet she was facing it more realistically than he gave her credit for. ‘And you’re no burden to me, Apicata, you could never be. You’re my wife.’

  They were words she needed.

  ‘You can still see many things, can’t you?’ Sejanus said. ‘Things that make the world look well? The sun, for instance? The Tiber?’

  ‘I don’t need to see the Tiber – I can smell it perfectly,’ she said.

  Sejanus smiled and she made room for him on the couch where she lay. ‘Hope has not left me yet. I can still see the sun very well,’ she said, ‘and the moon too when it’s full – and your fine form in Praetorian Prefect’s armour too.’

  ‘My fine form will always be before your eyes,’ said Sejanus, his breath heavy in her ear.

  In bed at least, they were glad of others’ foresight in arranging their union. She reached a hand between his thighs and he allowed her. She stayed there several moments in silence, feeling him, and there was comfort in the intimacy for both. The conversation resumed while her hand remained.

  ‘A lucky escape for Germanicus today,’ said Sejanus. ‘You’d have enjoyed it.’

  ‘Not his last, I’m sure.’

  ‘Probably not. Livia looks upon him like he’s some Apollo.’

  ‘Apollo with very thin legs.’

  Sejanus smirked and spread his own thick thighs a little wider for her.

  ‘But she’s his granny, after all,’ said Apicata, concentrating on her hand. ‘Of course she’s going to dote on him, isn’t she?’

  ‘I think Tiberius wishes she would dote just as much on his blood son.’

  Apicata knew the right phrases to make her husband smile. ‘Perhaps the Augusta knows that grandson number two isn’t much worth doting on. Good-natured as Castor is.’

  ‘That’s treasonous, Apicata.’

  ‘Is it?’ she said innocently. ‘You must punish me.’

  Sejanus loved it. He watched her deftly moving hand with affection. ‘If only Tiberius could see things as clearly as you do.’

  ‘He’s jealous for Castor – who can blame him?’ Apicata’s voice was a only whisper. The river birds were harmonious in their dusk songs and Sejanus allowed their calls to lull him until Apicata’s hand quickened and Sejanus let his mind wander to his most private fantasy. In it, the First Citizen was loving father and Sejanus was the dutiful son. Sejanus was the only son. Loyal in his attentions, Tiberius was extravagant to Sejanus in his thanks, until the old man’s health began to fail, sending Sejanus to the sickbed filled with grief. ‘You’re my heir, loyal son,’ was how the fantasy father phrased his last words. He thrust the ready and able Sejanus into the birthright created for him: the First Citizenship; the Empire; the World.

  Sejanus moaned and Apicata felt the seed shoot from her motions. This gave her contentment. She would always be able to pleasure her husband, even when blind. He had grown to become a powerful man, in body and heart; a man of ambition, courage and stealth. His path would be a great one and Apicata would guide him to its zenith, in all that she could.

  I was in danger of tipping the boat.

  ‘Be careful – you’ll spill us,’ Plancina cried. ‘Why don’t you sit down to steer?’

  ‘This is how I learned as a boy,’ I answered her tersely
. ‘I’ve never spilled.’ But I’d never steered around so many sharp rocks either.

  The little craft gave a jolt as it hit something and Plancina would have abused me if she hadn’t smelled it for a corpse. ‘At last,’ she announced. ‘We must be here, then. The floodwaters have made everything so unrecognisable but that stinking thing tells me we’ve found the base.’

  Plancina cast her unlovely eyes at the corpse bobbing in the twilight and tried to make out its features. Then she glanced to the towering rock above, imagining the fall and the corpse’s impact. ‘This might even be him, Iphicles. In fact, I’m sure of it, look at him. Does he have any eyes?’

  I gave the corpse a poke with my oar. ‘He has no face at all, only meat.’ A river snake darted from an orifice that was once a mouth.

  Plancina beat her hand in the water to make the snake swim away from us and peered at the other skeletons now visible in the sludge. ‘But it must be him, he’s the freshest here.’

  ‘See up there, then.’ I pointed to another corpse some distance from us, broken on a crag. ‘He’s been thrown today.’ The body was very fresh indeed and could only be Clemens.

  ‘But look where he is, for the gods’ sake,’ Plancina wailed. ‘How can I get up there?’

  She missed my patronising smile in the gloom. ‘Let me.’

  But this was unacceptable. ‘You can’t, Iphicles – are you a moron? Only I can gather ingredients. If they touch your hands they’ll be contaminated and completely useless.’

  I let the problem of the body’s location speak a reply for me and hummed a little tune while I waited. Plancina was as notorious for her misguided vanity as anything else, and would never risk spoiling her hair in the climb.

  ‘Perhaps I could temporarily initiate you …’ she proposed.

  ‘Anything to aid you.’

  Plancina improvised. ‘Bend down then, so I can reach your head.’ The little boat rocked as I shifted my feet. ‘Careful!’

  I presented my head for Plancina’s inspection and, after a moment’s grooming, she yanked a clump of hair from my crown. I barely felt it. Rubbing the bare patch of skin, I mused on Plancina’s endlessly surprising skills. All had been learned from Martina, of course, in the days before the sorceress grew jealous.

  Muttering into the hair, she threw part of it into the Tiber’s floodwaters with a little evocation to Pluto. This was just to be on the safe side. The rest of it she stuffed inside her mouth. I watched with repulsion. Nearly gagging on the texture of it, she forced my hair down her throat with a dry swallow before falling into a coughing fit.

  I dipped the wooden cup I kept tied to my belt into the floodwater, and handed it to her. ‘Drink this.’

  She did so, though the water tasted worse than the hair. After a moment or two she could speak without retching. ‘You’re my acolyte now; don’t abuse it, Iphicles. The power will last for several days, although you may find yourself wishing you didn’t have it.’

  I felt a twinge of worry. ‘Why?’

  She dismissed my question. ‘You know what I want from the corpse.’

  I returned to steering with the oar again and guided the little boat towards the crag where Clemens had landed. Although the water had laid waste to many of the poorer parts of the city, I was glad of the flood. Without it the crag would have been a formidable climb. While I was still very agile, I was by no means a young man.

  The boat nudged the stone and I found a twisted tree branch that I could tie a mooring rope to. That done, I stepped out of the boat and found a footing on the crag.

  Plancina kept quiet until I began the ascent. ‘Wait!’

  I looked back to her, heart in my mouth.

  ‘Your knife won’t do, you must use mine.’ She held a golden dagger, thin as a blade of grass, and passed it to me with the point outwards.

  I was lucky not to cut myself and I placed it between my teeth, probing it with my tongue as I climbed to where Clemens had hit the rock. Only half his head was still attached to his neck, it had split down the middle, but that half had a pit where his eye had been.

  ‘Did he die with his sight?’

  ‘No, and he died with no tongue either. Just a slave’s collar.’

  Plancina clapped her hands. ‘It’s him, without question! Get me what I need.’

  The dagger was the slimmest I had ever wielded, but sharp. Slicing through the joints of the dead Clemens’s hands was like carving a broiled chicken’s wing. First the left, then the right was removed. I held them up so that Plancina could see. ‘The tokens.’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Any idiot might hear.’

  I stuffed the hands into my pouch and prepared to climb down again.

  ‘Wait! I want the pizzle too,’ Plancina hissed.

  I looked with distaste at the dead Clemens’s genitals.

  ‘Cut it off,’ ordered Plancina. I did so, finding the penis even easier to detach than the hands. For good measure, I cut off the scrotal sac too, which brought back another fond memory of my own.

  When I was in the little boat again, Plancina fondled the pizzle with particular attention, muttering uses to which she might put it.

  I couldn’t help comparing the small-statured Clemens’s organ with my own. ‘Poor specimens really. I’m sorry for you that Clemens was not a finer-built slave.’

  The fire in Plancina’s eye made me feel better. ‘It’s his betrayal of Rome that makes him so very potent, Iphicles. Have you learned nothing in all these years?’

  Saturnalia

  December, AD 15

  Three weeks later: the province

  of Macedonia is given over to the

  personal control of First Citizen

  Tiberius Caesar Augustus

  It had taken Germanicus weeks to receive his reply, and when I finally returned to Vetera with it the news was bad. Germanicus read the return communiqué as his thumbnail scraped the arm of the chair. I awaited his orders.

  Agrippina entered the commander’s tent holding Little Boots by the hand. She was now recovered from the birth and resuming her receptions for well-mannered non-Romans. She gave me a quick nod of acknowledegment. ‘We saw a deputation from the town,’ she said to her husband. ‘You would have loved them – very polite and quite shy. They wish to erect a memorial in your honour. Well, our honour, really. Or Nilla’s, I suppose, to be precise.’

  Germanicus lifted his eyes. ‘The baby’s?’

  I saw that Little Boots was very displeased about something, dressed in his miniature uniform.

  ‘The memorial will honour Nilla’s safe delivery at Vetera.’ Agrippina started laughing. ‘Isn’t that funny? These Gauls are even more sentimental than our troops.’

  ‘They’re just toadying.’

  ‘Of course they are. Still, they phrased it very sincerely and assured me it would be tasteful. They said it would become an attraction for travellers.’

  ‘There are no tourists in Germany.’

  ‘They told me I’d “be surprised”. How far will people come to see it, do you think? All the way from Egypt? Let’s hope it’s as big as a pyramid.’

  ‘Tell them they must honour the First Citizen for the safe delivery too.’

  ‘What did he have to do with it?’

  ‘He allowed it.’

  Agrippina realised from my anxious look that she had walked in at a difficult moment. She turned to Little Boots. ‘Go and find Burrus to play with.’

  ‘Where’s my memorial?’ he demanded. This was why he was sulking, of course.

  ‘You’re too small for such things,’

  ‘Nilla’s smaller – it’s unfair.’

  ‘I agree. But one day, if you’re good, you’ll have hundreds of memorials, and theatres and circuses too. Think about how nice that will be and go and tell Burrus about it.’ Little Boots took pleasure in that idea and left at once.

  Agrippina nodded to the Imperial scroll. ‘He has written then.’

  ‘A very chatty letter, in his usual style,’
said Germanicus.

  ‘Tell me then. What’s fit for my ears?’

  Germanicus left his chair and embraced her, putting his cheek to her curls. He tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. ‘The Senate has awarded me a Triumph. The recovery of Varus’s lost eagles is a great victory for Rome. The people wish to celebrate it and a date has been set during the Ludi Florales. There will be a day-long festival in my honour with extravagant games. They plan to slaughter two hundred lions.’

  She closed her eyes to his breath in her hair. ‘You’re recalled to Rome, then.’

  ‘I’m given twelve months to return.’

  ‘He’s clever. It spares you any disgrace.’

  ‘With a Triumph out of proportion to the achievements I’ve made – that’s an irony that Rome will be kept unaware of in order to enjoy the party.’

  I could see that Agrippina felt sick to her guts. ‘So he’s angry?’

  Germanicus thought long on this. It was true that not one of the First Citizen’s words had conveyed any fury. All the sentences were respectful and fatherly. Yet it was the unsaid that always pointed to Tiberius’s true emotions, be they malignant or benign. But in this case Germanicus could read nothing – and nor could I, having read it with him. ‘I think he forgives me and accepts my mistake,’ he said. ‘I really do.’

  Agrippina didn’t hide her private scepticism. ‘He’s your father – of course he does.’

  ‘You doubt it?’

  She did. ‘My husband has warned me not to engage in treasonous talk.’

  ‘Agrippina, why don’t you read it yourself?’ He handed her the scroll. I gave a gasp and Germanicus remembered too late what else it contained.

  ‘Wait, there’s another thing I must tell you …’

  But she’d seen it. ‘My mother is dead …?’

  ‘She was ill,’ he said hurriedly. ‘It would have come as a relief to her in the end, I am sure.’

  But his kind face made Agrippina harden her own against memory. ‘She was a traitor; she plotted against Augustus. She was no mother to me or to any of us – she was just a highborn slut.’