Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Does my father know she is not in hers?’

  Burrus felt ill. This situation did not concern him – he knew he had to find his own Lady. Yet he sensed that something was very wrong.

  Tiberia begged him. ‘You are a good and moral slave. I have never been allowed to leave my rooms without my guardians. I am lost here – but you know the way. Come with me as I follow her.’

  Burrus wanted to abandon Tiberia, but was unable to. He darted down the corridor in Livilla’s wake, and Tiberia followed him, neither making a sound. Livilla’s perfume told them where she had travelled but they couldn’t see her. Somewhere up ahead they heard another door open, and the faintest hush of voices. The children came to a corner and Burrus peered around it. Livilla had found a door that led directly to the garden. It had been opened for her by a waiting steward, a servant Burrus did not recognise. Then the door shut behind them both.

  ‘She’s entered the garden, Lady,’ he whispered to Tiberia.

  ‘I want to follow her. Take me through the door.’

  Burrus was very fearful now. If either of them were caught, slave or Lady, the consequences would be far worse for him than her. She would merely receive a beating. Slaves were not permitted in the First Citizen’s garden unless they were part of his inner household. Burrus was not so highly esteemed.

  At the space in the wall where the door was, there was no handle or lever to pull it open. Only a narrow vertical crack in the painted plaster suggested that an exit was here. It was invisible, but Burrus could feel it with his fingers. He took a chance and pushed. The sound of crickets told him the door had given way.

  The children adjusted their eyes to the new surroundings – they were in a narrow space directly behind a grotto to Faunus. They could hear the fountains. Above them the sky was black with cloud. The only light came from lamps burning on the First Citizen’s terraces above and behind them. The garden was a sea of scented ink.

  Ahead, Livilla had reached a solid iron gate in the high wall. This, Burrus guessed, led to the street outside. She was waiting, focused intently on the gate and not the garden. She dropped her slippers to the ground and slid her bare feet inside them. Then she rummaged in the bag she carried and withdrew an item of jewellery: an earring.

  Livilla was hooking it in her ear when fury consumed Tiberia completely. ‘She beautifies herself. She’s obscene.’

  Tiberia took to a path that would lead her to her mother, her mouth wide in accusation, although not another word came out. Burrus froze at the grotto. But before Tiberia could be seen, the garden gate opened from outside. It was the steward again.

  Tiberia stopped still in the grass, but Livilla was oblivious. ‘Where does he want us to meet tonight?’ she whispered to the steward.

  ‘The Temple of Concordia, Lady.’ The steward opened the gate wider so that Livilla could pass.

  Tiberia was frozen in confusion, and Burrus slid behind her and took her hand, hoping to guide her away. She was barely aware of him. ‘Does she go to pray?’ she asked incredulously.

  Livilla laughed to the steward, hooking the other earring in a lobe. ‘He’s very witty and very cunning,’ she said. Then her joy made her self-conscious, and she quickly turned her head to the terraces. There was no-one there to have overheard. Livilla pulled her veil around her and stepped into the street. But in the second before the gate swung shut she saw the face of her daughter staring at her in consternation from the plants.

  Shocked, Livilla thrust her arm into the gap to stop it closing just as Burrus flung Tiberia into the flowers and threw himself on top of her. His hand was on her mouth just as she had done to him. Tiberia tried to scream and kick but he stifled her into silence.

  Frightened, Livilla squinted into the darkness. But now there was nothing to be seen.

  It was the steward’s turn to be anxious. ‘I must secure this gate, Lady.’

  Uneasy now, but deciding that her eyes were playing tricks, Livilla dashed into the street and took her place in the waiting litter. She sat upright, unable to recline for her nerves, thinking only of who awaited her at the temple.

  Burrus took his hand from Tiberia’s mouth and rolled away from her, expecting her to scream. But she didn’t. She was flushed with shame.

  ‘I’ve dishonoured my mother. I’ve harbored false thoughts about her when she is worshipping Concordia. I should be punished for it.’

  A lamp suddenly flared on the ground-level terrace, catching Burrus’s eye. In the brief second of brilliance he saw Little Boots’ face before the light was quelled again.

  Tiberia was unaware, weeping in remorse. ‘I’m the lowest dog. I’ll tell my guardians everything,’ she sobbed.

  She fled into the gloom, and Burrus made no move to stop her. He knew now where his own Lady had gone, and he was terrified.

  Thrasyllus was planning his moment and still gave nothing to Little Boots.

  ‘Why do you tell me answers to some things and not to others?’ the boy demanded.

  ‘Can we go back to bed now?’ Nilla whined.

  ‘No.’

  The little girl was so tired she crept to a corner and lay on a slave’s pallet. Little Boots didn’t notice, staring at the haruspex and waiting to hear with certainty what lay ahead.

  When Nilla’s eyes had almost closed, she was started awake again by a movement in the opposite corner of the room. It was Burrus, signalling her. She went to exclaim in surprise but Burrus made the gesture of silence. She presumed it was a game.

  Oblivious, Little Boots tried a third time. ‘Just tell me. Will my brothers rule Rome?’

  Thrasyllus’s voice cut through the night air like a sword. ‘The palace is full of those who plot and plan in secret. Their real selves are hidden behind salutes and smiles. Make no mistake, there is evil here and it will have its prey.’

  The boy sucked his breath in. ‘What evil? Who is evil?’ he asked fearfully.

  ‘They hide themselves; they wear masks.’

  ‘Do my brothers have enemies?’

  No answer from Thrasyllus.

  ‘Are they in danger?’

  No answer. Little Boots felt the skin on his forearms turn to goose flesh. From his corner, hidden but expecting with every second to be seen, the skin on Burrus’s arm did the same. Nilla had fallen asleep.

  ‘Am I in danger?’ asked Little Boots.

  Thrasyllus took his time again in replying. ‘Yes, child,’ he said at last.

  The haruspex saw a flash of real terror from the boy and knew that the course was almost set.

  ‘Will I become prey?’ whispered Little Boots.

  ‘Those who plan evil see only those in the sun. You will keep to the shade if you travel two long journeys at the same time.’

  ‘How can I do that?’

  ‘Along the road of he who watches and the road of he who waits,’ said Thrasyllus.

  ‘But no-one can walk two roads.’

  The haruspex let out a low moan and then slumped to the floor. Little Boots rushed forward and shook him, while the terrified Burrus willed himself into nothingness in the dark. The fallen Thrasyllus was now only a few feet away from where he crouched.

  ‘I don’t understand it!’ Little Boots wailed. Then he snatched up the heart of the last bird. ‘See – see what I hold! Tell me the rest of what you saw. Tell me the gods’ will.’

  But Thrasyllus was wordless now. Dismayed and scared, Little Boots cast about the room for an explanation. Curled tight as a ball in the shadows, Burrus kept his eyes to the floor, knowing that the second he raised them Little Boots would feel his gaze and spot him. It worked. Little Boots saw sleeping Nilla and felt his own pressing need to protect her override the awe of what had been said.

  ‘Please tell me one more thing, Thrasyllus. What’s my sister’s fate?’

  And suddenly this question was the one that overrode everything else in Burrus’s heart too.

  Perhaps it was the opiate, or the will of Cybele herself, but Thrasyllus found his
final, unanticipated words when he opened his eyes and saw not Little Boots or Nilla in front of him, or even Burrus the slave, staring back with a courage the boy didn’t feel. Thrasyllus saw me, of course, hidden in the shadows where I’d been since I’d followed Burrus from his bed.

  ‘The child will rule,’ Thrasyllus hissed, then his eyes rolled upwards and backwards until he saw only the painted ceiling.

  And while this was not the first secret visit I’d made to the haruspex since I had discovered who and where he was, it was far and away the most illuminating.

  *

  Later, with the haruspex unconscious and Little Boots gone, Burrus found the nerve to move his curled limbs and waken Nilla. He hushed her when she opened her eyes and saw his loving face.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Safe with me. Let me get you back to your bed before Concubia ends and we both get the whip.’

  She was happy to be guided. ‘Where’s Little Boots?’

  ‘He’s abandoned you.’

  She was still half-asleep and had no reaction to this.

  ‘But I’m here,’ said Burrus. ‘And I’d never do something so cruel to you.’ As he led her through the back passages and dim stairwells known only to us slaves, Thrasyllus’s words rang over and over in Burrus’s ears. The child will rule.

  The words also rang in mine as I followed secretly behind them. But only I understood their real meaning.

  Plancina was unaccustomed to having to wait. When making dawn salutatio calls upon my domina the concept was unknown to her. She was Livia’s most favoured friend, so for that reason it was very dismaying to be sent to a draughty reception hall that was nowhere near Livia’s suite – and with nothing to read or amuse her.

  She saw me passing in the corridor outside and waved to gain my attention. I saw her and nodded back, but I didn’t stop. I had my own errands to complete, little realising what had occurred.

  Plancina felt a knot tighten in her bowel. Something was wrong. She knew that it mightn’t be to do with Livia – it probably wasn’t. The ‘wrong’ thing was more likely to be with Tiberius. The sudden sense of powerlessness upset Plancina as she sat in the hard wooden chair. Unpleasant scenarios played out in her mind. Confirmation of having fallen from favour could come to her now from the reading of charges in the Senate. Or perhaps she might overhear a staged ‘rumour’. Or it might simply be told to her by one of the Praetorians as they led her away in chains. Plancina shuddered.

  The one pleasure for her eyes was an ornate Grecian screen that divided part of the hall. She was apparently alone. Then the sound of a child crying in the corridor distracted her. She craned her neck to see, and spotted a pale little girl being scolded by a lady in blue. The lady was rather thin and Plancina recognised her as Livilla, Castor’s wife, whom she knew only vaguely. Plancina considered Livilla a malingerer, whingeing about her health but still living on while others died in the streets. Plancina surmised that the crying child was Tiberia, the malingerer’s daughter. Plancina mused that Tiberia’s mother probably didn’t let her out of her sight very much.

  Plancina was so lost in this little reverie that when she turned her head back to the Grecian screen she got a jolt to see another woman in front of her.

  ‘Have we met before?’ Apicata asked politely.

  ‘No. I don’t think we have.’ Plancina was not in a mood for pleasantries with anyone other than Livia and did not seek an introduction.

  ‘Would you mind if I sat with you?’ Apicata asked. ‘They’ve sent me here to wait.’

  What the woman was waiting for, Plancina didn’t much care, but at least she had company that wasn’t capable of arresting her. She watched as the younger woman put her hand out to reach for another chair without even looking at it.

  Apicata sat down. ‘It’s just that you seem familiar to me, that’s why I asked if we’d met,’ she said.

  As Piso’s wife and Livia’s close friend, Plancina knew that she had acquired an aura of celebrity. The pleasure of this made her drop the chill. ‘I am Plancina,’ she said, letting her name speak for itself.

  ‘Ah. Then we haven’t met at all. But I do know your face, of course. And your reputation.’ There was the slightest edge to the second statement.

  ‘I’m waiting for the Augusta,’ Plancina began a conversation. ‘She’s delayed, though I’m sure not for long.’

  ‘You’ve been friends with the Augusta for many years, haven’t you?’

  ‘Many, many years – though I was just a girl, of course, when I first attended her.’

  ‘My head spins when I think of all the things you must have seen,’ said Apicata. ‘The people you’ve met, the tragedies you’ve witnessed. Extraordinary times under the reign of Divine Augustus.’

  Plancina was easily nostalgic. ‘Wondrous times, magnificent occasions. Spectacular events.’

  ‘But dreadful suffering, too,’ said Apicata, ‘especially in the Divine Augustus’s own house. So much family taken from him.’

  Plancina gave Apicata an odd look. ‘I choose not to dwell on unpleasantness.’

  Apicata nodded with understanding and a pause fell between them. The younger woman smiled at Plancina without turning away her eyes, and though Plancina looked back to the Grecian screen, she found Apicata disconcerting. She decided she might as well mine the young woman for gossip if she was going to be stared at. Plancina tipped her head to the corridor, where the child’s crying had stopped and Livilla and daughter were now in quiet conversation.

  ‘The fine lady down there – is that the Lady Livilla?’ she asked.

  Apicata was stricken, having no idea. She couldn’t see. ‘I believe so, yes,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t she thin? Do you think she’s unwell?’

  ‘The Lady Livilla often says she is.’

  Plancina chortled. ‘What she says and what she suffers are two different things.’

  Apicata tittered too, then ventured more: ‘The Lady’s child is often beset with illness, although the child herself never complains. Only her mother does.’

  This was a sorry tale to Plancina’s ears.

  ‘I’ve heard the little girl is never allowed in the sun,’ Apicata went on.

  ‘That’s dreadful.’

  ‘Livilla keeps her locked away, fearful of mists.’

  ‘Shameful,’ said Plancina. ‘A child needs to build a resistance. A few colds and a couple of chills can do the world of good in the end.’

  Apicata leant forward conspiratorially. ‘I have it on the best authority that the poor little girl secretly escapes and plays with her cousins on the Field of Mars. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the dear little thing was there now!’

  Plancina looked thrown for a moment. ‘But if she’s down on the Field, then who’s that little girl with Livilla?’

  Apicata stumbled to think of a reply, and Plancina at last realised that the younger woman couldn’t see them – or, indeed, anything. She was blind. She had been talking to a lying blind woman.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said angrily.

  Apicata recovered her composure, still polite. ‘I am the wife of Praetorian Prefect Sejanus.’

  A cold seized Plancina. ‘Why are you here?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you talking to me?’

  Apicata kept her voice very low. ‘I’ve been asked to bring a request to you from someone who knows much about your past.’

  Plancina felt the blood rush from her heart.

  *

  Hidden behind the Grecian screen, Little Boots hadn’t intended to be there when Plancina was shown into the room by Praetorians. And when he realised that he shared his special hiding place with the poor blind woman, he hadn’t intended to keep so still that she couldn’t detect him either.

  But now that he had done two thrilling things that he had not intended to do, Little Boots wondered if the gods were guiding him again, just as they had guided him to Thrasyllus. He thanked them.

  And he thanked them for the shocking conversa
tion they let him listen to as well.

  She was desirable still; her lover proved it, for he was the most desired man in Rome. But he was respectful with it, in awe of her power. He expected Livia to straddle him, to make him play the submissive role, but Livia declined. She lay chastely in repose, her ankles crossed, one arm draped across her breasts, the other placed lightly upon her sex as if she were a child on the cusp of deflowerment.

  She offered him the wine. He drank it and so did she. It was fifty years since she had last tasted the insects’ sweetness, and she realised then that she had missed it.

  Livia cried out in shock as her lover eased himself inside her, then she bit her lip and placed her mouth against his nipple to stop herself from making further sounds. She didn’t want the slaves to know; she didn’t want a single living soul to know except her lover and herself. She was made a young woman again, not merely in appearance, but now in her heart. But he was concerned – was he hurting her?

  On the contrary, Livia assured him; he was pleasuring her greatly, the first man to do so since Octavian had died. The width and length of him were perfect – a sublime fit. She was already in ecstasy. Her lover was pleased and began a gentle rhythm, sliding deep before withdrawing – then sliding deep again; a tender and unhurried lovemaking. Her senses sang with it, her breasts and sex grew aflame with rebirth.

  Livia had no knowledge of poor Plancina, now freed from Apicata and stumbling sobbing along the corridors where no Praetorians stopped her. Few guards or slaves even noticed Plancina at all. The sight of her in tears had become mundane.

  Livia offered her lover the wine again and he gulped it down from the amphora, draining it to the dregs. She was fearful then – he’d consumed enough for five men. Would he now take her violently, as Octavian had often done? But her lover’s pace built slowly, a gradual climb, as if he were strolling in ascent of the Palatine. Livia didn’t know that a lifetime’s consumption of the Eastern flower had dulled his senses to other draughts. He knew the wine was corrupted, but he had no fear of it. The insect paste, a potent magic upon most men, had no effect upon him. Sejanus’s ardour was real, not sorcery.