Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  But Agrippina would not. She could not.

  There was a commotion at the door to the suite and it was thrown open, flooding all inside with a wash of thin light. The oil lamps blew out in the draught, and Little Boots realised that it was daytime outside and not some endless night.

  ‘My son …’ Antonia fell forward, stumbling on her gown, still sightless under her veil. No-one in the room had any capacity left for surprise.

  Germanicus continued in Agrippina’s ear. ‘Allow yourself protection from my brothers. Let them shield you. Be content with a woman’s life in Rome. Promise me.’

  Sobbing, Antonia threw herself at her son. ‘We are cursed … What have we done to be so cursed …?’

  Nothing existed for Agrippina but her husband. ‘I promise …’ she whispered to him at last.

  But he died before he heard it.

  It fell to Agrippina to read the letter meant for her husband. Drusus stood dumbly by her side, no longer anxious, no longer caring what it contained at all. He didn’t explain that it came from his grandmother, Antonia. He simply waited for his mother to read it – and waited for his fate. Agrippina broke the wax seal and unfolded the papyrus.

  It was written in her disgraced mother Julia’s hand, addressed to Agrippina personally. It was a fragment of something larger – a scroll perhaps, as the words seemed incomplete. It began:

  … her poison, her black poison, no meal was safe, no cup of wine …

  When Agrippina finished reading, Drusus waited for her to strike him and tear the toga from his back and push him before the crowds and declare him a gross perversion. Instead she kissed him, then hugged him tight, her tears hot upon his cheek.

  He was bewildered. ‘You aren’t angry, Mama?’

  ‘I’m grateful,’ she replied at last. ‘I made a promise to your father. I didn’t want to make it but he begged me. But if he had seen what is written in that letter he never would have asked such a promise of me. He would have asked me to avenge him – and avenge my mother, too. So now the promise is broken.’

  She left him alone with the letter, which she discarded on the floor. Drusus crept up to it and slowly read the words. When he’d done with them he realised what an escape he’d had. His perversion was still a secret.

  But Drusus little knew that an iron cage had closed around him, trapping him like a wolf cub, and trapping his grieving family, too.

  The Ides of November

  AD 19

  One month later: First Citizen Tiberius

  Caesar Augustus expels Egyptians and

  Jews from Rome

  The little child was exquisite. Her clean, clear voice was as high and pure as alpine air, and heartbreaking. She sang her ode to Sappho with an uncontrived innocence. She was real, not a theatre act. She sang with simple joy and pleasure. She had never known life’s pain. She was a treasure. A rare find.

  A drop of perspiration gathered at the tip of her nose. Seeing it, Tiberius frowned. The droplet fell.

  ‘Get her out,’ he said.

  The musicians stopped. ‘Caesar?’

  The little girl’s voice trailed on unaccompanied.

  ‘Her nose – a sweat drop. It breaks the rules. Get her out.’

  The girl’s father clapped his hands at the girl and she stopped singing. ‘We must leave, little one,’ he whispered. The happy child accepted it, having no idea she had committed a wrong.

  ‘Wait,’ said Tiberius.

  The little girl smiled expectantly at him.

  ‘You must never clear your throat. What must you never do?’

  The girl was bemused. ‘Clear my throat, Caesar.’

  ‘And you must wipe your perspiration away with your arm. Like this,’ said Tiberius, showing her how it was done. ‘No handkerchiefs. Show me.’

  ‘Yes, Caesar.’ She demonstrated.

  He nodded. ‘And if you ever feel another little drop of perspiration on the end of your nose, you must leave the stage at once for you will have offended your emperor already. Can you remember that?’

  The little girl touched her nose, still unaware of her error. ‘I will try.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Tiberius looked at the father. ‘Perhaps she has a more accomplished sister I can see?’

  ‘No, Caesar.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Tiberius.

  The father bowed, blushing with the failure, and gently led the little girl away – leaving Piso staring into the space they had stood in. In the private audience of three, his had been the second set of ears. ‘Such a pity, Caesar,’ he started. ‘There was talent there, perhaps …’

  Tiberius stopped him. ‘I have refused to participate, did you know that?’

  Piso wished he had a cup of water to soothe his dry mouth. ‘Participate?’

  ‘In the funeral. It’s become a circus. I find the extravagance of all this grief distasteful. Rome has lost her mind to this. It goes on and on.’

  ‘I agree with you, Caesar,’ said Piso. ‘It is an affront to the Ways of the – ‘

  ‘– the Fathers, yes. It has become ridiculous – that’s my issue with it. Weeping, weeping and weeping. The whole city’s doing it. No-one’s working any more. There’s unrest in the streets too – that’s why I threw the Jews out, and the Egyptians with them. For their own safety. There could well be riots and those people are always the targets.’

  Piso just stared as Tiberius drew breath. ‘Yes, Caesar.’

  ‘When I think of it, even Augustus received less pageantry,’ Tiberius continued. ‘Agrippina is stretching this out for weeks. And all she has left is his ashes. She already made the cremation a circus in Antioch, and now she’s in Rome doing it all over again. I’ve forbidden my mother and Antonia to have any part of it.’

  Tiberius was silent again. Piso didn’t know what to say. ‘Yet he was your son, Caesar,’ he added finally.

  ‘My adopted son. Augustus made me do it. He saw Germanicus as my successor, you see. But really it was all my mother’s doing. Augustus just went along with it in the end. He’d lost his will.’

  Piso stared at his emperor. Tiberius was weeping.

  ‘You loved the boy, Caesar,’ Piso said softly. ‘Like he was your son.’

  There was another long silence as the emperor’s tears fell. ‘Yes,’ he said, eventually. ‘I loved him very much, you see.’

  Piso stared at his own lap.

  Sejanus, the third man in the room, stood up from the chair he occupied next to the emperor. He placed his hand on his sword.

  ‘This is why the accusations are so very cruel to me,’ said Tiberius, recovering himself.

  ‘Cruel and unfounded, Caesar,’ Piso said.

  ‘People think I killed Germanicus, in league with my mother. They think we feared he would fight to restore the Republic. As if he would have. Only sentimental fools want a return to the old days, and Germanicus was not one of those, for all his inexperience.’

  For a fleeting moment’s wistfulness, Piso thought of the old days with fond nostalgia. Yet he had never even known them,

  of course.

  ‘Rome wants me to bring you to trial, Piso,’ Tiberius said.

  ‘Wait – ‘

  Tiberius held up his hand. ‘People accuse you of acting as my agent – and Plancina too. They say you killed on my behalf.’

  ‘It is ridiculous.’

  ‘I know it is. I’ve told the Senate as much in no uncertain terms.’

  Piso flooded with relief. ‘No-one will dare tell you otherwise, then.’

  ‘No-one has. I told them you acted alone. Your motivation was jealousy – driven by an unsound mind.’

  A shocked sob escaped from Piso’s throat.

  ‘You’ll be charged with poisoning my son.’

  ‘But I’m innocent …’

  ‘I believe you.’

  And Piso saw that Tiberius meant it. He did believe him. Tears came to Piso’s eyes. ‘Thank you, Caesar.’

  Tiberius waved this away. ‘You’ll also be charged wit
h arrogant behavior towards your superior.’

  ‘What superior?’

  ‘He was my son, Piso …’

  Sejanus pulled the sword from its hilt.

  ‘You must also be charged with sedition.’ Tiberius threw up his hands in despair. ‘There you have it. It’s Rome’s will, not my own.’

  Piso swallowed. There was another long pause.

  ‘But I don’t want to see you on trial, Piso,’ Tiberius said finally. ‘I really don’t. And so I won’t. It would be beneath you, an insult to a man of your standing. And it would be unnecessary, too. You’re innocent.’

  Piso fell to the floor sobbing, pressing Tiberius’s toga hem to his lips. ‘Thank you, Caesar, thank you … Thank you, my friend.’

  ‘But I’ve done nothing for you.’

  ‘You’ve saved me … You’ve saved me.’

  ‘From a trial, yes.’

  Piso looked up from the floor.

  ‘But I can’t save you from death.’

  Sejanus held out the sword for Piso to take.

  The Consular Senator stared. ‘But I didn’t kill Germanicus – I would never have done it. We had disagreements, the two of us, but I upbraided him on your orders, Caesar. And the poisoner was a Parthian – I’m sure of it. The brutes were in the palace when it happened. They should be arrested. We should be at war – ‘

  Tiberius hushed him. ‘Die with courage, Piso. Honour the Fathers.’

  The last of Piso’s life dripped to the floor. He looked up and saw Tiberius smiling at him paternally. He had won the First Citizen’s approval and he was comforted by it.

  But in the last seconds that the Fates allotted to him he saw Sejanus’s face appear at Tiberius’s shoulder. The face of the cuckoo.

  Sejanus mouthed words to Piso, smiling like the emperor was, but for different reasons. Piso couldn’t understand what Sejanus was noiselessly saying to him.

  Then he did.

  ‘It was me,’ Sejanus mouthed. ‘I’ll wear my father’s crown.’

  My domina clutched the treasured friend to her breast, holding her so tightly that Plancina heard my domina’s heart beating. The sound was slow and steady, like a funeral drum.

  ‘It’s done,’ said Livia to her. ‘Piso has taken his life.’

  A wail flew from Plancina’s throat like the fleeing spirits of the dead. ‘But he was innocent,’ she sobbed. ‘He knew nothing, he didn’t do it. He was innocent.’

  ‘I know, my love, I know,’ Livia whispered, stroking Plancina’s hair. ‘Because it was you, wasn’t it? You killed him.’

  The sob caught in Plancina’s throat.

  ‘You must tell me,’ Livia soothed her. ‘I must hear it from your lips. Please, my friend …’

  Plancina nodded imperceptibly.

  ‘Good …’ My domina relaxed her embrace and gently lifted Plancina’s head in her fingers to face her. ‘Now look at me, my child.’

  Plancina looked. There was only love within Livia’s eyes. My domina had forgiven her. ‘Oh, Lady …’ Plancina wept.

  Livia wiped her friend’s tears. ‘Were you blackmailed to do it?’

  Plancina nodded again.

  ‘What did they know about you?’

  ‘Everything I’d done to serve you – and that my mother had done. They knew of Marcellus. They knew of Julia and Jullus. They knew of the children, too, Gaius and Lucius – and Postumus. They knew of …’ She caught herself, too fearful to voice the very last of it.

  ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘They knew of Augustus …’ Plancina whispered.

  My domina was silent for a long time. ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ she asked at last.

  Plancina shivered, remembering the sight of Livia and her lover cavorting in bed.

  ‘You can trust me, my friend. Why didn’t you come to me and share your pain?’

  ‘Because … I forgot that trust,’ Plancina whispered. ‘They said they’d expose me, and I believed them … I lost my faith that you’d protect me if the truth were known.’ She threw her hand to her eyes to weep again and knocked the basket she’d brought with her into Livia’s room. It contained all she had left. Jewels and rings spilled to the table – and the thin-bladed knife. It was the same knife I had used to mutilate Clemens – and the knife that Plancina had stabbed me with in return.

  This time Livia didn’t dry her friend’s tears. ‘You’ve robbed my womb of a king,’ she said simply. ‘You know that, don’t you, Plancina?’

  Plancina met her gaze. ‘Yes …’

  ‘You placed yourself above Rome – above the Great Mother. You murdered a king who was prophesised …’

  ‘Perhaps – perhaps there is another one?’ Plancina clutched at hope. ‘Perhaps Germanicus wasn’t the second king at all – there could be another king who fits the words. Your grandson Castor? Tiberius’s blood son – he could wear his father’s crown … Or Claudius even. He’s not such a fool …’

  Livia hushed her. ‘Germanicus was already a king to me …’

  Plancina had no more tears left to shed. ‘Am I to die?’ she asked, barely breathing now.

  A look of shock struck my domina’s face, and then vanished again. Her features returned to placidity. ‘Still you don’t trust me …’ she sighed. ‘Perhaps I deserve that.’ She smiled sadly at Plancina. ‘No, you’ll not die, my friend. I value you far too dearly, despite everything.’

  Plancina looked to the ceiling and praised Cybele in relief.

  Livia picked up the thin bladed dagger and severed Plancina’s right hand. Plancina’s gaze snapped back to the stump of her wrist.

  ‘Don’t cry out. Don’t make a sound,’ Livia whispered. ‘Noone knows you’re here with me; no-one knows that I protect you. I’m going to let them think that you’re dead, but you won’t be, my friend – you’ll be safe with me.’

  Plancina bit back her agony. ‘Thank you, Lady …’

  ‘Who was it that blackmailed you?’

  Plancina answered through frothing spit. ‘The blind one. And her husband.’

  Livia’s heart shattered like glass. It was a long, long moment before she could speak again. ‘Ah,’ she said at last. Then she took the blade to Plancina’s other hand and severed it too.

  As Livia escorted her dear friend to the door, she wrapped the bloody hands in a length of silk and placed them inside the basket. Then she hooked this on the stump of Plancina’s dripping wrist.

  ‘You have no more to fear.’ My domina kissed her in final farewell. ‘The Great Mother will deal with Sejanus now …’

  Little Boots came into my attic room wearing his new uniform. It was cold outside but in my little space it was warm. I had a brazier with me, and my bed was lined with sheep’s wool and fur.

  ‘Is it done?’ I asked him.

  He nodded. ‘Father’s ashes have been placed in Augustus’s tomb. They have put an urn for Nilla in there too. My mother and brothers are still inside, praying.’

  ‘Why aren’t you with them?’

  ‘Because I wanted to see you.’

  I laughed. The boy had such impish charms. His new uniform fitted him very well; he had grown so much in the four years since we had made the first one. Upon his feet he had new ‘little boots’ too.

  ‘See my caligula?’ he showed me. ‘I had them made by a proper bootmaker this time.’

  ‘They’re very fine,’ I smiled at him. ‘You are the image of your father now. He would be proud of you.’

  Little Boots kissed my forehead and helped me sit up in my bed.

  ‘Are you feeling better today, Iphicles?’

  ‘I am,’ I told him. ‘The worst has passed for me now. I am healing inside.’

  He was very pleased.

  ‘You saved my life,’ I said. ‘You saved the life of a slave.’

  Little Boots dismissed this but I knew he was glad of what he’d done for me.

  ‘You are a very special boy,’ I told him. ‘Not every boy would have done as you did. Most would’ve left
me to my fate.’

  He looked into my eyes

  ‘You’re divine, I think,’ I told him.

  He didn’t disagree. ‘So are you, Iphicles.’

  I nodded. I had told him so much about my life as he nursed me on the long sea voyage home.

  Little Boots picked up a jug of water from the stool next to my bed and began to pour some into a cup. I stopped him.

  ‘Aren’t you thirsty, Iphicles?’

  ‘Whether I am or not no longer matters,’ I said.

  He was confused. ‘You’re still ill – let me pour you some water. I like caring for you.’

  ‘I know you do,’ I said, ‘but now it must stop.’

  I finished pouring the water into the cup myself. Then I picked it up and offered it to him.

  ‘But it’s for you,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It is only and always for you.’

  He took it.

  I eased myself from under the bed linens, biting against the pain of my back wound. I placed my feet on the floor, and then pitched forward so that I fell from the bed to my knees.

  Little Boots stared but didn’t stop me.

  I leaned forward again and fell upon my face against the rough wooden floor of the room. Then I stretched out my arms so that I was prone before him, my eyes seeing nothing, my body his to crush or kick or whip at his will.

  ‘There is a plan,’ he whispered. ‘Sejanus’s plan.’

  I had guessed of it already.

  ‘He doesn’t know that I know.’

  ‘Nor will he,’ I told him. ‘I’ll make sure of that.’

  ‘But others will want to crush it,’ Little Boots said, ‘when they hear of his plan. But nothing must stand in the way of it succeeding – until the very end.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Little Boots,’ I said, lifting my head now to gaze at him. ‘I have lived for great plans my whole life. Nothing will stand in the way of this one – because nothing can stand in the way of prophecy. Prophecy is all. I will take care of everything. Have no fear.’

  He was moved to tears by my devotion.

  ‘Everything is for you,’ I assured him. ‘You and you alone are now my dominus …’

  She was in the cave again, crushed beneath the rocks that weighed no more than feathers.