The Oath Keeper

by Alaric Longward

  Thus feasted Caligula as Rome was poisoned.

  CHAPTER 22

  There were many people who were in absolute awe of his accomplishments later. Some wondered at the number of women, and men, he had slept with. There were literally hundreds. I estimated that around half the wives of the senators were paraded naked before all, and sold to the highest bidders for the night, or for a week. He slept with his sisters nearly daily, one by one, and men wondered at how few women bore his bastards.

  They also wondered at the far more dangerous change that occurred in Rome.

  When the king is evil, the worst of his subjects feel they can come out of hiding.

  With the broken Senate, such people felt empowered.

  The trash of the streets, the uneducated, the drunks, the criminals, the people unwilling to work, they all felt Caligula was their kind of god. They had heard the words before from politicians. They had heard the high cajoling them for their support, speaking like them, their crude language, but Caligula was genuinely like them. Utterly merciless, terrifyingly evil, a truly horrendous man in speech and thought, they loved him.

  They acted like him.

  Rome became an even more dangerous city for those who had no armed men to guard them. The vigiles were putting out fires, and the Praetorian Guard was busy with catching criminals.

  Others wondered at his ability to empty the coffers of Rome.

  Military was paid.

  He was not stupid enough to do anything to upset the legions.

  The rabble were fed. He needed the rabble. For that, he allowed for increased imports of wheat from Egypt.

  But the extravagant buildings he had boasted about, the great triumphs of architecture and the glory they were to bring Rome?

  All that glory changed into golden statues to him, the Young Juppiter.

  The billions in gold turned into new and more lavish palaces where he would stay only for a day. What roads he built, ran between these palaces near Rome. Granted, there were buildings and projects where he had only smaller statues displayed, or only his name. A huge racetrack was finished, and a gigantic Egyptian obelisk brought to grace it with mystery and old glory. Ports were fixed, and enlarged, also in the provinces. Syracuse was one city that grew with Roman wealth. He dabbled in the politics of Roman allies in Syria, and built there as well. Two aqueducts were being built, Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, both marvels of the age. Theatre of Pompey was finally finished, as was Temple of Augustus.

  He also built gigantic pleasure ships for himself and his sisters. Running water, hot and cold were installed in them, and gold and silk were the norm as they were decorated.

  He, in defiance to some fool who had told him once he could no more ride a horse over the Bay of Baiae, than be the Princeps, wasted millions in creating a bridge made of ships to do just that, and did it only once.

  Over four billion sesterces were gone in just over one year.

  When he ran out of it, he personally took immense pleasure in making more of it.

  He had been right.

  He could always squeeze coins out of the richer people who had everything to lose.

  He would sell his dinner, simple fish for a million sesterces to his closest enemies, for he kept them all close, fucked their wives and daughters, sometimes in full sight at the feast. He would often auction such women to fill coffins, to pay for his many mad projects.

  And he was happy.

  He was happy as a golden, horny god in a heaven filled with harlots, and his cruelty fit him perfectly.

  When the Senate started to meet in secret, Macro and I began our work again. Treason and investigations began in earnest.

  And I, who had thought the destruction of Rome would be a noble thing, felt Lok had cheated me again.

  For the misery of those who had nothing to do with it began haunting me at nights.

  I slept little.

  Nothing helped. I began drinking wine to excess, and I had no Chariovalda now to save me from that vice. In the end, I began shutting myself out of the day to day horror of Rome. Saturnalia came and went, and new year began, and that summer, just over one year after the death of Tiberius, something happened that changed everything.

  I was summoned to the palace by Macro.

  ***

  I walked to the halls of Augustus that morning and looked around.

  Slaves, and some servants, were cleaning the place after a feast.

  It was a familiar duty for them. Food lay scattered all the way to the streets, broken, precious glass had been swept to a corner, and shattered wine amphorae lay everywhere. I toed a huge stain near the atrium.

  I suspected it was blood.

  I spotted Macro, walking back and forth in the gardens, and walked that way, hopping over some dead-drunk equestrians left to lie on a corridor, and nearly fell over a man I knew was a pig farmer. He had been treated to a feast of his lifetime, for breeding a fine swine for the Princeps.

  It was just one odd story amongst many.

  I found Macro shaking his head and looking at his hands.

  “Not sleeping well, Macro?” I asked him. “I have not, either.”

  He looked at me and said nothing about his sleep. “Ennia and I. We are finally leaving. Cassius shall take my place. I will go to Egypt, thank the gods. He granted me the governorship. This job of mine…it is not really the position it used to be, is it? You are lucky he does not try to force you into any of his feasts or to take part in his murders. I cannot stomach it.”

  I smiled. “You will be happy there. You will be a governor of Egypt? Truly?”

  He nodded.

  I smiled. “That is truly a fine position. The best, one might say. Alexandria is a…wait. This is not a punishment?”

  He smiled back. “I don’t think so. Who knows? But he has been incredibly happy with me. I have performed every one of his wishes.” He looked pale and sad for it.

  “He has forgotten me,” I said, for he almost had.

  That early year, I had made him a lot of coin. I had discovered more ways to extort coin from Rome, and no thanks was ever forthcoming. He found me tedious, and still, he still knew my bride was my sword, and he’d have to sleep with it, if he went too far.”

  We were silent, and I saw he had tears in his eyes.

  I looked away and closed my eyes. I felt something was about to change.

  “He had me sleep with Drusilla last night,” he said softly, as if sharing a secret, but it was not really. Gaius, in love with Drusilla, for some reason wanted to see her with other men, before he joined in. Macro was looking pale. “I have had to do it before. And I had to pay him for it.”

  “He is a filthy pimp, isn’t he?” I said. “I am not sure why you are telling me this. I prefer not to know. Claudius is hard at work, so am I. Work is more important—”

  “He is…without restraints,” he said. “And I have my Egypt. But I cannot simply tell him…”

  I placed a hand on his shoulder. “What are you asking me?”

  He rubbed his face. “I think he has gone too far. Far too far. With his sisters, I mean. His dreams are not their dreams, but nightmares. He cannot…I think Drusilla is mad. Sick. Would you look after her, and the others…when I am gone?”

  I looked at him, and saw he was terribly sorry. “How? How would I do that? I have not been here. They don’t know me.”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Antonia might…I know not. She hasn’t been around. Could you, just…”

  I shook my head and closed my eyes. “What exactly do you think I can do?”

  “Cassius will not help them,” he said with a strained voice. “He hates Caligula, but is too honorable to see how much damage—”

  “Silence,” I said, and sat on an edge of a fountain. I looked at my old hands and closed my eyes.

  How far could I play the dice with gods.

  How much further, until I became a drunk, or a…murderer.

  I were both already.

 
; “Where is she?” I asked him.

  The relief on his face was clear.

  “Here, in a room just over here,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Let me have a chat with her,” I said heavily. “Is the great man up yet?”

  “He is waking up as we speak,” he told me. “He asked to see us both. Taxes. He wants new taxes.”

  I lifted a finger and got up.

  He pointed me to a room with a white door. I walked there, knocked, and when there was no answer, I walked to the room.

  And stopped by the doorway.

  There sat Drusilla, holding her face, shivering in terrible fear. Her body was bared, and she had bruises up and down her arms. I stared at her, and she shook, and tried to be still, and not move. She was so terrified, she was pissing herself, and for a moment, a door opened in my mind, and I remembered Lif, and the girl I had loved, and how Drusilla, daughter to Germanicus, was innocent.

  I felt the ground opening under me.

  I felt the horror so acutely, I had to bend over, and then I went to my knees, and vomited. When I was done, she was still weeping. I stared at her, and loathed myself so much, I considered killing myself.

  All for lies, but also, because I could not let go of an insult. Of a broken oath. Of my need to find the truth, and to slay my enemies.

  I had done this.

  Her eyes were on mine. “Where is your husband?” I finally asked.

  “Which one?” she asked softly, weeping. “I have...”

  I stepped near her and kneeled. She flinched. “He loves you,” I said, and closed my eyes at the stupidity of those words.

  She looked ahead. She was shaking her head. Her eyes were pools of terror. I felt bile rise to my throat again and tried to focus. “There is no escape....”

  She wept, and suddenly clung to my arm and I stood there, and felt I was tired. I was so very tired.

  I was also guilty of this. And many other things, and I could not deny it. Everyone else had seen it, but I.

  I felt the words coming, and then I let them out. “Do you want to leave?”

  She blinked.

  In the deepest pools of helplessness, hopelessness, there was hope.

  Just a bit of it lived in the deepest, most hidden parts of any soul. She might have nodded.

  “I need to…plan,” I said.

  She nodded. “Please,” she whispered. “I will do anything.”

  “You need to wait, that is all,” I said, and felt rudderless, a sailor on a black sea.

  Where would I take her?

  I had gold. Plenty of it. I would never need gold. It could not fix this.

  They would need it, but it would never pay them back for what I had done.

  Them, for I was sure she would not escape alone. And I was right.

  “My sisters,” she said softly, “they too, want to escape. They speak of it, all the time. But I have had no hope. But if you…”

  I had killed their father. And now I was their only hope.

  Lok be damned for what he had done, what I had, but surely, he too could see the irony.

  I stood up, as she looked at me with fear that I would run away, never to be seen again.

  Caligula would kill her, eventually. The madness would swallow her, and I knew I would have little time. “We need to do something fast, then. Give me time to arrange something. Can you survive until tomorrow?”

  She closed her eyes and mouthed something I took to be a ‘yes.’

  “I will be back here tomorrow morning,” I said. “Lepidus is still your husband?”

  She clenched her fists. “Yes.”

  “Where does he stay? And you stay there too?”

  She nodded. She told me where with soft whispers to my ear.

  “And you are there every morning?” I asked. “And you can find your sisters’ homes after I get you? Will they be home?”

  She nodded. “No feast set for today. He will…go to baths through the underground passage, as he does every day, but he will be hunting all evening. We will be in our homes.”

  “Make sure?”

  She nodded.

  “Gods, fuck me,” I whispered, as I realized how desperate it all was. “Tomorrow morning,” I said. “I shall come to you. Do not prepare. Do nothing different. Just be…brave. No, wait. If you usually are not, don’t be now either.”

  “I’ll not do anything out of ordinary,” she agreed.

  “Good,” I said. “I am happy to hear it.”

  Then I got out and walked for Macro with unsteady legs. I stopped before him. He looked up at me. “When do you leave for Egypt?”

  “When I choose,” he said. “I suppose when I want. Gaius has delivered me all the needed scrolls. And the rank. Ennia wants to leave tomorrow. We have a ship, in Ostia.”

  I kneeled before him. “I need to know all about it. The pier, the name.”

  He frowned.

  “You will book room for five more people,” I told him harshly. “Five. All adults. Pay what you must. I will pay you.”

  He looked at me with sudden comprehension.

  He got up fast. Then he crashed down and held his face. “I asked you. I suppose I must…five?”

  “Five,” I said. He agreed, and spoke softly, and told me what I needed to know.

  I placed a hand on his shoulder. “They will be there after midday. I need to know something else.”

  He flinched. “I can count. Agrippina. Drusilla. Livilla. You. And one more. You want to know if Tiberius Gemellus is still being held in Rome. And where, exactly.”

  I nodded. “I will not drag you down with me. We just need a ship out of the place.”

  And then, he told me that too.

  I turned to go. “Tell Gaius, that I shall have to go. That there are some victims of his who are about to escape, and only I can do something about it.”

  He smiled wryly.

  I walked out and left the Palatine.

  If they captured Macro, or questioned him, they would think we would be going to Ostia.

  I would go to Ravenna. We would hide there, for time.

  ***

  I was busy all that day. I made sure, many times, that I was not followed.

  I went to the house where the gold was still hidden, and went to the basement.

  There, millions of sesterces worth of treasure.

  I sat there, and wondered at the wealth, and how many deaths it had cost.

  Then, I filled a sack with gold, and left, and hid the doorway well.

  Then, I left, and found a slave trader. That trader listened to me, frowning, until he understood I wished to buy his business, all of it, and when I was done, I told him to prepare several wagons for the next afternoon, ready to travel north. He was happy to do it.

  And then, that night, I rode to Antonia. I would need her help, if I failed to escape, for I would have to save Tiberius Gemellus in some way.

  Before her building, burned no fires.

  I dismounted, and left the horse behind, and walked to her doorway. There, I knocked. Nobody answered. Wind was blowing in the roof, scattering trash and leaves, and I looked around. A man was walking the street, hurrying, for the streets were dangerous at night, and I stopped him. He flinched as he saw me, and he knew who I was.

  “Where is the lady who lives here?” I asked him. “Where is Antonia—”

  He stepped back. “I know not!” he said. “She hasn’t been here since the Princeps came to power.”

  I stared at him.

  I looked to the house, and walked around it, until I found the slave doorway. There, someone had broken the lock, and I pushed it open.

  Inside, carnage.

  I walked in there and looked around at the dark corners. The formerly rich house of Drusus, the house where all her children had grown up, was a mess. A ransacked pit of refuge. There, shadows moved, as rats rushed about the house. Nothing else lived there, not then, but it was clear people had spent nights there, criminals, homeless.

&n
bsp; Antonia was not there, certainly.

  Nor were her servants, or slaves.

  No guards either.

  Nothing of value had been spared.

  I checked the house, up and down stairs three times, and found nothing. I walked out of the house, and looked at the light of Mani, and frowned. Then I mounted the horse, and rode to find Tiberius Gemellus, but this time I armed myself, for I was sure I was riding to trouble.

  ***

  The house where they kept Tiberius Gemellus in the woods was easy to find, even during night. The way led north on Via Aurelia, and then, just after the first waystation, I took a road to the right, into the depths of the night, and then went through a village at the foot of the hills.

  Asking around, I found it.

  There, on the edge of that village, was a house with orange walls, and it too, was dark.

  I wondered if Macro had lied to me.

  I jumped off the horse and walked a path to the house.

  The doorway was small, and there were no guards.

  Perhaps Cassius had moved the guards?

  I checked my gladius was not stuck in the sheath, and looked right and left, the falx in my hand, newly sharpened. It all, the house, the falx, the danger, reminded me of the death of Gernot, and the suffering it had inflicted on the men who had killed him, but I did not have time to think about that time, for I saw the house was not empty.

  Inside it, burned a light. I saw it from the cracks on the door.

  I walked to the doorway and pushed it open.

  The light fell on the ground before me, and inside the house, there was a large room.

  There were three chairs.

  There were two corpses on two chairs, and one heavily cowled one on the third.

  I stepped forward, and saw, in the light of an oil lamp that one of the corpses was Antonia. She was a dried out husk and had died a year ago, I was sure.

  And so had Tiberius Gemellus.

  Both had bled to death. Their formerly splendid clothing was stained dark and brown with blood.

  I stepped forward, and then the third corpse turned out to be alive.

  Under the cowl was revealed the beautiful face of Cassius. He looked at me and at my falx and lifted an eyebrow. “I heard, Raven of Rome, that you might be coming here. Usually, we have just one man here on guard, but now, few more.”