Fanina, Child of Rome

by Pierre Sabbagh

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Sejanus asked curtly.

  ‘Yes, I heard you, Lucius,’ the old woman replied.

  ‘Then you can guess what I want from you, Atia.’

  Throwing back his cape, with clenched fists he rapped out the words:

  ‘I do not intend to wait another year for Tiberius to appoint me his successor. Give me time to warn the governors of the provinces and the commanders of legions stationed at the frontiers, and I shall be Emperor, Atia.’

  Atia looked at him with a strange expression, her head unsteady on her shoulders.

  ‘Only you’re still scared of the old fox, Lucius,’ she faltered.

  ‘The gods alone know what upheavals might follow on an abrupt change of Emperor, Atia!’

  ‘You are still frightened of the old fox, Lucius,’ the old woman repeated, staggering over to the great black chest and lifting its heavy lid with difficulty.

  ‘What are you doing there?’ Sejanus asked sharply.

  ‘I am going to consult the stars,’ the old woman replied.

  Sejanus came and stood beside her and held the lid open while Atia drew some large, heavy objects from the chest. Wide-eyed Fanina took a step to one side in order to see better. From where she stood she could barely make out what the old woman was handling with such infinite care in the shadow cast by the lid, as if to give herself time to pause, time to reflect....

  Fanina took another step. She recognized the tablets Atia was consulting, or rather, in spite of the distance separating her from them, she recognized them as the venerable originals from which had been cast the tablets the Emperor had given to the House of Vestals when he had retired to Capri, the terracotta tablets of the ancient Etruscan soothsayers, engraved with maps of the heavens that she had studied for many a long year.

  Without thinking Fanina took a further step, then froze; her heart missed a beat and a cold shiver ran down her spine. Something had snapped under her foot making a noise that seemed like the crack of a whip in the dead stillness of the cave.

  Fanina had stepped on one of the ivory tablets Horo had used to reply to her questions!

  As if struck by a thunderbolt Atia gave a sudden jump, and Sejanus sprang back from the chest, leaving the lid to crash down with a noise like a thunderclap. Atia staggered, wild-eyed, a few paces towards the back of the gallery. Sejanus’s escort had already dashed into the temple and Fanina saw one of them suddenly throw his arm forward violently. A javelin buried itself between the old woman’s shoulder-blades, and she gave a terrible cry and fell face downwards on the ground.

  A host of bizarre shadows milled around in the light of the torches, yelling, swearing, shouting contradictory orders and offering confused explanations of what had occurred.

  Sejanus hurled himself at the man who had thrown the javelin and thundered:

  ‘What did you do that for, you son of a bitch?’

  There was a flash of steel and the man collapsed, scalped by a backhanded blow of the sword.

  ‘And you, Dorotheus, did you not tell me that Atia was alone?’ Once again the sword flashed, and the man who had announced Sejanus’s arrival, holding his belly in both hands, fell with a groan on top of his comrade’s body.

  Standing rigidly to attention, with ashen faces, the men looked at their master.

  ‘By Hercules, what on earth are you waiting for?’ Sejanus barked, quivering with rage. ‘There’s someone over there! Bring whoever it is back here alive so that he can talk, now that Atia has been silenced, thanks to that imbecile!’

  The soldiers rushed in a body towards the end of the gallery, clambering over the bodies at their feet as they went. Fanina had gathered her wits together and fled. She was in the labyrinth now, in the dark, smelly domain of the bats. Staggering, bumping against the walls, she could not get very far.

  One thought filled her mind: perhaps Horo was still there! Horo would intervene! He would kill them all! He would save her life once again.

  She was about to shout his name.

  Already the compact mass of her pursuers, a blind force hurled into the dark like a battering-ram, had overtaken her, knocked her down and trampled on her. Brutal hands caught hold of her, pounded her, tore her apart.

  Panting for breath, cheeks afire, she fought wildly as the pack swayed this way and that around her in the darkness. She was roughly grabbed by the hair, bent in two, grasped round the waist. She lashed out with both feet, and a man fell, kicked in the groin, screaming like an animal in agony.

  They let go of her and writhing out of their grasp, out of their hands, that clutched at her and bruised her cruelly without succeeding in holding her, she plunged forward blindly. Her sharp nails dug into their flesh while they, pouring out oaths and imprecations, constantly surged back towards her.

  Ten times she escaped them, her tunic in ribbons, her bosom bare, hair on end, and ten times they surged back towards her.

  Horo! Where was Horo? Still Horo did not come to her assistance. Now she was certain that if he was still in the labyrinth, he would obey Tiberius’s orders and would not intervene, since her life was not at stake.

  Her life was sacred to these men too, for they wanted her alive. Sejanus had so ordained, and the nightmare went on. Heaping coarse insults upon her, the soldiers surrounded her on all sides while a light approached from the distance.

  Sejanus came up unhurriedly, torch in hand.

  She would never get out of this crazy circle. Once again a man had grabbed her and was crushing her against his chest. His breath heavy with wine filled her lungs while his rough cheek sticky with acrid sweat was crushed against her mouth.

  This could not be the end. She had fought too long to admit defeat. Undismayed, she bit the man’s cheek like a wolf, and dug her nails savagely into his eyes.

  The soldier deafened her with his roar of terror. A fist struck her on the temple and she lost consciousness.

  Chapter Ten

  When Fanina regained consciousness, she found herself slung across a horse like a bale of cloth.

  It was still dark. Aching from the blows she had received, shivering with cold, her arms and legs dangling, while her head was pierced through and through with unbearable stabbing pains, she heard the heavy tread of about twenty horses climbing up a stony path.

  Shaken to the very core by the jerky movements of the horse, and disturbed by the smell of its damp coat in which her face was buried, she stirred.

  ‘It looks as if she’s coming round, master,’ said the rider who, with one hand in the small of Fanina’s back, was holding her bent double across the pommel of his saddle.

  ‘Don’t let her escape, Romilius. That young tigress has done enough damage as it is. She might have some nasty surprise in store for us yet.’

  It was Sejanus who had spoken. Riding immediately behind the horse that bore Fanina, the Prefect of the Praetorians went on:

  ‘Are you quite sure no one saw us?’

  ‘Some shepherd or other may have heard us go by, master,’ Romilius replied. ‘Tomorrow when they find Atia’s body, he will no doubt say we were a band of highway robbers who killed her to steal her treasures. Who would ever think we had anything to do with it, since we have brought the bodies of Dorotheus and Nealces away with us?’

  They fell silent.

  Bit by bit Fanina gathered her wits about her. She could not escape, so for the moment the best thing to do was not to draw attention to herself, but rather to put up stoically with her uncomfortable position. Her head ached, but her mind was lucid once more, and calmly and deliberately she began to analyse her impossible situation.

  After striving to make it look as if Atia had been murdered by one of the many bands of brigands that infested the countryside around Rome, Sejanus had set off again in all haste without even taking the trouble to revive her. The Prefect of the Praetorian Guard undoubtedly attached great importance to her capture.

  What fate had he in store for her?

  She had overheard the convers
ation he had had with Atia and was a dangerous witness he must needs get rid of. But Sejanus would not dispose of her without asking her why she had been with Atia, and, what was more, why she was spying on him.

  What would she reply?

  The small group of riders had reached a kind of plateau and had spread out. Sejanus had ridden up beside Romilius, and from time to time his long cloak brushed against Fanina giving her a whiff of the heady oriental perfume with which it had been impregnated.

  ‘Give the signal,’ said the leader of the Praetorians suddenly to Romilius.

  The rider gave a long trilling whistle. From near by there came another whistle in reply.

  The horses had slowed down and their hooves rang out louder than before, as if they were trampling stony ground underfoot. Pivoting on its rusty hinges, a heavy door groaned open. The horses’ hooves rang out still louder; they must have been passing beneath a low arch. Then they halted. Men rushed out from all sides, brandishing torches whose smoky light was reflected in the muddy flagstones of a great courtyard. In silence they surrounded the new arrivals as they dismounted.

  What would happen now?

  Her time was nearly up. But meanwhile, Fanina took care not to show any sign of life. Romilius seized her by her pliant waist and drew her to him. The man’s rough, ice-cold hands clutched her breasts and caught her roughly under the arms, but she made no move.

  ‘I must have been mistaken, master,’ growled the soldier. ‘The tigress has not come round yet.’

  Sejanus replied:

  ‘We shall see about that, Romilius. Take her to my room. I’ll see to her.’

  He said this in such a tone of voice that Fanina shuddered as Romilius gave a hearty heave and loaded her on to his shoulder.

  Apparently inert, her arms and legs trailing as if she were dead, Fanina half opened her eyes. Through the double curtain of her long, curling eyelashes, a host of images reached her in the sombre torchlight. She saw the men whose faces had become grim at the sight of the bodies of their two comrades, so brutally executed by Sejanus, tied to one of the horses. She saw the sacks crammed to bursting, from which fell a glittering stream of dishes, cups, ewers of precious metal, piles of golden pieces and jewellery set with precious stones, all of which Sejanus had stolen from Atia.

  Then she saw the two soldiers laid on the cobblestones: the first was bent double, clasping his stomach and moaning in pain, while the face of the second was wrapped in a blood-stained cloth. It would be a long time before the two men forgot the unnerving fight in the labyrinth of the ancient temple of Vulci, in which they had come to grips with the woman Sejanus had nicknamed ‘the tigress’.

  Romilius entered a dank passageway, and began to climb some decrepit stairs; he pushed a door open with his foot and they found themselves in a large, brilliantly lighted room.

  ‘Where should I put her down?’ asked the soldier, panting noisily.

  ‘On the bed, Romilius.’

  It was Sejanus again. He had come up to his quarters without Fanina hearing him. Standing in the middle of the room, with his long peacock blue cape thrown back, hands on hips, he watched her as Romilius threw her down like a bundle on to a low bed almost hidden beneath a mass of white bear-skins.

  With scarlet cheeks, Fanina pressed her knees together, for the caressing touch of the thick furs against her skin had served to remind her of the fact that her tunic, torn to shreds and pulled well up on her spread thighs left nothing of her intimate charms to the imagination of the two men watching her.

  ‘She seems to be fitter than we thought, master,’ said Romilius, his face aflame, trying in vain to clear his throat, for his voice had grown thick with passion.

  The head of the Praetorian Guard spoke sharply:

  ‘Go and fetch me a bucket of cold water to bring her round completely.’

  In a flash, Fanina had sat up, her eyes blazing in anger. She sat facing them, with her thick golden hair falling over her shoulders and her arms crossed over her bare breasts.

  Sejanus looked intensely surprised, and took two steps backwards so that he could see her better.

  ‘Lovely!’ he murmured. ‘A few seductive details I have already glimpsed told me that you were not to be despised, but the general impression ... the general impression ...’

  In spite of herself, Fanina shrank back. Ever since she had come round from her faint, she had tried to imagine all the dangers that assailed her. She had thought of them all save the one she could read in the eyes of the commander of the Praetorian Guard, that burned with that disturbing glow she had seen in the eyes of so many men since the time she had ceased to be protected by the sacrosanct robes of a vestal.

  It was the same glow of desire she had seen already in Sejanus’s eyes when he had encountered her in the Via Triumphalis.

  ‘She’s lovely and miraculously unharmed after the crazy fight she forced on us before we could catch her,’ he went on, as if talking to himself.

  Wetting his lips and screwing up his eyes, he continued:

  ‘She’s lovely ... and her loveliness is somehow familiar....’

  Hot-faced with helpless rage, Fanina straightened up in an attempt to check the fit of trembling that had come upon her. A picture of her as he had last seen her, dazzlingly graceful in the white pallium of the priestesses of Vesta, must be forming in Sejanus’s mind, and, although still hazy, the image might well come into focus at any moment now. He knew he had seen her before, but did not know where or in what circumstances. Still puzzled, he went on softly:

  ‘Lovely creatures like you are not twopence a dozen. I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere before ...’

  ‘Of that I am quite sure,’ he went on, his mouth assuming a lustful smirk, ‘for when the gods produce such a masterpiece, they don’t usually run off several copies, for fear of lowering its value.’

  The soldier stood goggling at his chief. Sejanus turned to him:

  ‘Don’t pull such a face, Romilius, old fellow,’ he said. ‘I have not forgotten the reason we brought this pretty young thing here in the first place.’

  He paused for a moment, then as if to convince himself, added:

  ‘I simply wanted to show the dear girl that I can be good company when I so choose.’

  So saying, he unclasped his cape, and with his long, sinewy hands held out as if already caressing her, he walked towards her, his gaze clouded, while she moved across with a shudder to the other side of the bed. Pushing Romilius to one side, he moved in closer, his lips already wearing the smile of a man who has made a conquest.

  Then Fanina heard a heavy tread on the stair, and someone scratched at the door.

  ‘May the gods rot you all to the very roots!’ roared Sejanus furiously. ‘Leave me in peace!’

  Nevertheless the door opened and the ruddy face of a fat soldier appeared in the gap. When he saw the soldier, Sejanus made an effort to regain his self-control.

  ‘What do you want, Gryllus?’ he asked, forcing himself to speak more softly.

  ‘The men are furious,’ said Gryllus, creeping into the room. ‘They are angry with you for having killed Nealces and Dorotheus.’

  Fanina felt a surge of hope. Sejanus had been exceedingly unwise to execute those two men when he was engaged in preparing a conspiracy. She could already imagine the Praetorians rising in mutiny to avenge their comrades, and she had a vision of herself hastening across the plains towards Rome, towards Vindex.

  ‘I would have killed them ten times over for what they did. Dorotheus should have searched the temple before we arrived; and Nealces killed Atia without giving her time to defend herself,’ replied Sejanus sharply.

  ‘The men are holding protest meetings, master,’ Gryllus went on insistently.

  ‘Which men?’

  ‘The new ones, master ... the ones we can’t still be completely sure of...’

  ‘Then you can tell them that there are enough of the old guard here to punish anyone who raises his voice!’

  Gryll
us pulled a wry face which reinforced Fanina’s hopes. Sejanus must have noticed the man’s expression, for he clenched his fists in fury and added:

  ‘Tell them too that tomorrow I shall pay a hundred gold pieces down to every man, as his share of the treasure we brought back tonight.’

  ‘That’s exactly what they hoped you would say, master,’ Gryllus sniggered as he walked back towards the door.

  Dry-mouthed, Fanina watched him go. Her heart seemed to have stopped beating. Once again, everything was collapsing about her. She seemed to be caught up in one of those morbid, interminable dreams in which you think you have reached a happy end, when, with refined cruelty and desperate slowness, it all turns into a still more terrible nightmare.

  She cursed herself. She cursed Horo. The dwarf should not have obeyed her! Knowing full well whom Atia was expecting he should have dragged her away by force!

  She had not reached the end. Things were moving on inexorably, and she had never felt so weak, so helpless. She was alone, all alone! Up till then, there had always been someone to protect her. Where was Vindex? She had given her all for him. Why had he abandoned her? Where was Horo? Why had they taken Hemonia from her? Why did not Vibidia rescue her? Why was the worthy Vibius dead? Why had the gods allowed Tertius to die? At this juncture, she even wished Tertius were there.

  Crouching there, she looked at the leader of the Praetorian Guard with the wild, terrified look of a hunted beast that knows full well that it has already lost the battle, yet is still prepared to fight tooth and claw to its last gasp.

  With an imperious gesture, Sejanus had stopped Gryllus in his tracks.