Children of Tiber and Nile (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 2)

by Deborah Davitt

  Spurius shook his head, his eyes narrow. “No. Too many people in the villa have come down sick, it seems. The girl who helped Livia change and brush her hair is ill, or so our man on the inside says.” He frowned over something, then handed Alexander the parchment, going on calmly, “The two slaves who beat our lad here are convulsing. Several others who weren’t in the room are coming down ill, as well—not typical for poison, as they’re all likely to know. They’re closing down the house, saying it could be some sort of disease.”

  “So less evidence to come back to us,” Alexander noted. It had been the most compelling reason to use strychnine in powdered form, in spite of the terrible burden that potential collateral damage put on his conscience. That, and trying to get it into Livia’s food or drink would have been next to impossible. Which left somehow getting it into her blood—difficult, without jabbing her with an arrow—or getting her to inhale a substantial amount of the toxin. Unfortunately, that also means that there will be collateral damage. Ianos was willing to take the risk of becoming a casualty, himself. Brave man. Though he’d quickly tell me he’s neither of those things.

  He sat on a bench in the atrium as Ianthe continued to clean Ianos’ wounds, and read the scroll that Spurius had handed him. One sentence beat at him. Viola was the girl pushed into service, helping Livia brush her hair. No one could have known it would happen. It certainly wasn’t in the plan. She was weak before this; even a trace of the poison will likely kill her. Jocasta will never forgive me if her sister dies. And I’ve promised Ianos that she will be taken care of in return for his on-going service. Gods, I don’t ask for much, or very often. But if you could arrange to spare this poor girl’s life? I’d be grateful.

  “I couldn’t get her out, domina,” Ianos mumbled now thickly, drawing Alexander’s attention once more. “Lady Livia wasn’t going to let me get near Viola, Jocasta. I’m so sorry.”

  “You can stop calling me my lady,” she muttered, looking embarrassed. “You’re about to be a freedman.”

  Ianos nodded, looking pained as he did so. “Yes, my. . . I mean, yes.” He paused. “Hopefully, once this all passes, we can get in there, and bring her out.”

  “Not you, lad,” Spurius told him firmly. “You need to disappear from sight for a while. Resurface later with a different name, even if Lord Alexander has your proper one inscribed as a freedman on the rolls of his family. I’ll go over myself . . . once the anthill quits boiling.” His face and voice revealed nothing.

  Alexander stared at the scroll, feeling ill. He’d taken no joy in the planning or the execution. It was murder, but he preferred to think of it as. . . extra-judiciary punishment. Livia had attempted his murder, and Jocasta’s. Bringing her to trial wasn’t an option. It would expend enormous amounts of political capital, and she would turn the trial into a circus in which she could expound upon her opinions of the Julii for weeks or months at a time. And in the end, they might not get a conviction, since everything hinged on the word of a young foreign whore. No, it had needed to be taken care of. Quickly. Quietly. Decisively. And Caesarion had told him to exercise his best judgment. Which was tacit agreement. Tiberius had given his acquiescence—which made him something of a co-conspirator, from one point of view. Or a fellow judge and juror, from another perspective.

  But he’d never intended so many other lives to be affected. So he sat, staring at the scroll in his hand. Feeling the warmth of the sun beating down on him. And prayed as he’d rarely done since his own death.

  Several days later, they knew more. Something in the order of half of the servants in Agrippa’s villa came down with similar, though lesser variants of the same symptoms that had carried off Livia and her two male slaves. Agrippa and Octavia never contracted the ‘disease,’ and Alexander carefully encouraged gossip from the surviving servants, who’d heard Ianos’ wail that she’d broken the blessing of the priests of Asclepius. The superstitious Roman soul caught ahold of this interesting tidbit, and soon, all of Rome was convinced that this was nothing more than divine retribution. A man had brought the blessing of the god of health, and when it had been scorned, disease struck the house.

  Alexander cultivated those rumors carefully. Pruned them. Shaped them. Smiled to himself when people began to spread new permutations—that it had been a god-born of Asclepius who’d gone to Livia’s villa, to heal a crippled girl there. Tall, he’d been, and more beautiful than any mortal. And she’d had him beaten and thrown from the villa. “How does it feel to be a god-born?” Alexander asked Ianos, whose cuts were healing—and who was undergoing knife training from Spurius in the peristylium of the Julii villa.

  “I’d feel much better if we knew what happened to Viola, dominus,” Ianos replied, ducking a knife-jab from Spurius.

  So would I, Alexander thought.

  In the end, Jocasta was called to the villa for the sad duty of tending to her sister. Viola had held on, somehow, through the worst of the symptoms. And when Jocasta returned, white-faced, with red-rimmed eyes, she brought with her a treasure, hidden in a fold of her stola.

  “Mithridate,” Jocasta told them, putting the gold and ivory cask on the table in front of Alexander and his various agents. “She told me . . . before she passed . . . that Livia tried to take this before she died, but she couldn’t swallow it. And thank the gods for it, because Viola said that the medicine worked on her.” She stared around them, and then covered her mouth as she laughed a little, half-bitterly, half in wonder. “The poison didn’t take her,” she told them all, giving Alexander and Ianos each a firm look. “The cure worked. It was just. . .” Jocasta sighed. “It was just time. I spent so many years trying to keep her alive. . . .”

  Alexander murmured what he hoped were comforting words. Let Ianos take Jocasta off to weep in private. Made arrangements for a better funeral than the pauper’s grave Viola might otherwise have had. And, just as quietly, arranged for a nice little house outside of Rome for Ianos and Jocasta. He had work for his new agent. And Ianos couldn’t work, if he was constantly worried about Jocasta. So, a little house. Some land. Chickens in the dooryard, and a garden he frankly suspected that Jocasta wouldn’t know what to do with at first.

  And then he quietly and fervently thanked the gods that Viola had survived, because he didn’t for an instant think that a lump of honey, boiled with sixty or so conflicting and contradictory herbs, some of which were poisons in themselves, had had a damned thing to do with Viola’s survival. A perfectly white bull and a lamb, he promised Pluto and Proserpina. Thank you for not offering your hospitality too quickly.

  Chapter XII: The Wider World

  Februarius 22-Martius 27, 20 AC

  The jolting gait of the donkey on which she perched rattled Selene’s teeth with every step the animal took. It was a short-legged creature—so much so, that when she’d balked at learning to ride the little gray thing, Antyllus had laughed, picked her up, settled her on its back, and told her, “Put your feet on the ground.”

  Selene had done so, sheepishly realizing how much smaller the creature was than even Roman horses. And Roman horses were short, compared to the great beasts that came from Hispania and Scythia—only about twelve hands high, in all. Still, she’d never ridden before, and the donkey had looked like an enormous, self-willed machine of destruction.

  It wasn’t. After their first short break, after three hours of riding, her donkey led by its reins, attached to Antyllus’ saddle, she gave in and named the little creature Flora. Not for the female donkey’s sweet smell—donkeys didn’t smell particularly good, Selene had noticed—but for the beast’s persistent habit of eating any flowers it found along the side of the road.

  She’d been married just over a week now, and still couldn’t quite wrap her head around the concept. They’d landed in Syria after seven days aboard ship, and from there, Antyllus had piled her on Flora’s back for the ride east to Antioch. She’d asked about taking a carruca, and Antyllus had given her a patient look, and asked her, “Do you suppo
se they send many of those up into the mountains, my lark? Do you think we can skirt Parthian territory dragging one of those, and get into Sarmatian and Scythian territory quickly? We’ll bring pack horses and wagons, since we’ll need goods to trade with the nomads, in case they don’t want coin. We’ll need guards as well, to make sure none of the trade goods get stolen. But while I realize that enclosed carriages are usually considered fitting for a patrician woman’s dignity and comfort . . .” his smile turned lopsided, “Eurydice rides a horse. I think you can manage a donkey.”

  There were, however, reasons for the tradition of riding in carrucae, Selene learned rapidly. Travel dust and mud splatter from the hooves of the animals caked her stola and her sandals. The sun, not precisely hot, for this was still Februarius, still burned her face until she gave up and pulled her palla up over her face and shoulders, trying to ward off the rays.

  By night, her entire body ached from exhaustion, and being as stiff and tired as she was, she found it stupefying that Antyllus had only requested one bedchamber for them at the inns. “Ah . . . isn’t something missing?” she asked tactfully, still in her travel-stained clothing. One room for him, one room for their guards. . . .

  “No, I think the servants brought up all our belongings,” Antyllus replied, already pulling his tunic over his head, the new-healed scar over his chest red and angry in the lamplight. “I told the innkeeper to send up a cask of warm water. That’ll take off most of the dirt, and I’ll give you a good rub with oil and a scrape with a strigil in a bit. And then you can return the favor before we go to bed. What do you say?” They were traveling light, for the sake of speed; still only two guards, who doubled as servants.

  She blinked, looking around in consternation. It had been one thing aboard the ship; cabin space was at a premium, even for wealthy nobles. But now, in a relatively clean, Hellene-style inn? “I meant, where’s my room?” Selene finally asked, as a tap at the door announced the arrival of the tub and buckets of warm water from downstairs.

  Antyllus didn’t answer till the tub had been set up, and the servants had been sent away again. In fact, he didn’t answer until he’d helped her take off her clothes, and had gotten her into the tub, where the warm water started doing some good for her aching muscles. “Selene,” he finally said, as he rubbed her shoulders gently under the water, his tone a little taken aback, “I’m somewhat under the impression that, ah, your brother and sister share a bedchamber. Don’t they?”

  “Well, Eurydice does have Mother’s old bedchamber, next to Caesarion’s, which used to belong to Father,” Selene replied sleepily. “I think she mostly uses it as an office.”

  His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Then why on earth would you think I’d be any more inclined to antique patrician notions like separate bedchambers than they are?” His tone remained a little odd. “My family’s plebeian, love. Through and through. Octavia brought her chilly notions with her, but before she came along, the only time the room beside my father’s saw use when my mother was sick, or was nursing Jullus. Not that we spent much time at the villa, back then. It was mostly this castra or that. Always in a tent or a command building. Where they stayed together.”

  She shrank a little in on herself, feeling foolish. “Oh.” Selene swallowed. “Then . . . how will I . . . practice music without bothering you?” Or sew. Or anything, really, that you won’t want to be around for?

  “Whenever we get back to Rome, we can worry about it then. But I’d imagine that you could use that room beside mine, the way you say Eurydice uses her room as an office.” A shrug in his voice. “Just don’t get the idea that you’ll be sleeping in there often,” he added, his voice droll. “I’m entirely too fond of the notion of waking up and finding a wife beside me to give that up easily.” He helped her out of the tub at that point, adding, lightly, “You know, sooner or later, I’m going to enjoy hearing you say my name.”

  “Marcus,” she said immediately and politely, wrapping a length of towel around herself to try to catch all the drips.

  He made a face. “No. That’s my father. Actually, Antony is my father, too. Anyone says either name, and I turn around to see where he’s standing.” He paused, raising his eyebrows, clearly hoping for a laugh from her. “I actually prefer my cognomen, strange as it might sound.”

  The six days after that had set the tone for the entire journey. She hurt every night from head to toe, and felt exhaustion deep into her bones. Yet his energy seemed indefatigable. And she couldn’t really fathom how he could still be so interested in marital relations after eight hours a day spent riding. He was very considerate about it, always making sure most of the soreness had been rubbed out of her body first. But also politely and kindly insistent. She decided drowsily one night that this was probably just a result of what he called being hardened to the saddle; he just didn’t feel the tiredness. Also, she decided, there was probably a bit of a novelty aspect. She’d often worn the same new stola three days in a row, simply because it was new. But when she’d grown a little accustomed to it, then it might lie in a chest for weeks on end, until she remembered that she owned it. It’s probably something like that, she thought, and let herself go to sleep.

  On the twenty-ninth, they reached Antioch, and Selene let her palla slide back from her face, staring ahead of her in awe. Hundreds of wagons and horses and thousands of people lined the road leading into the great city, which had its back to the Amanus mountains, which were wild and green with all the rain that winter brought the region.

  A huge citadel loomed over the city, up on the slopes of Mt. Silpius, but the city itself sat on the Orontes River, with its baths, circus, and small stadium all clustered on an island formed where the Orontes split briefly, and then rejoined. Golden walls girdled each area of the city, running up and down the rugged hills like water leaping over stones in a brook. And just past the great gates, Selene could see a mix of architectural styles—many buildings with Hellene pillars and porticos, along the neatly intersecting grid of streets that made her think of Alexandria. But in and around these greater buildings, stood smaller, humbler structures, with fewer arches and no pillars at all. Spare and lean, they’d have looked out of place here, if they weren’t made of the same golden stone, just as weathered as all the rest.

  “Antioch was built by the Seleucids,” Antyllus called back to her, looking over his shoulder as he did. “There was a town here, of course, before Alexander the Great passed through. After he died, and his generals carved up his empire, Seleucus Nicator, whom I’m sure got along beautifully with your own ancestor, Ptolemy,” a laugh in his voice as he added that, “decided that this would be a good place for a city. He built it up into the seat of his power, and from here, he controlled Armenia, Persia, Parthia, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. Basically, everything from here, to the Indus River.” He gestured towards the east with a sweeping gesture. “I think he got a better deal than Ptolemy did, don’t you? The gold mines of Egypt notwithstanding?”

  Selene stared up at the hilly city, which, in spite of its exotic architecture, still spoke to her far more than the alien hieroglyphs and paintings of Alexandria, and nodded, fervently. “It’s wonderful,” she said, managing to find her tongue, but then they were crowding through the gate as part of a long line of people, and she tried to nudge Flora a little closer to Antyllus’ horse. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so many people around her; even at the games, the Praetorians usually managed to keep a little bubble of space around the Julii family. And she certainly hadn’t gone to the Lupercalia any of the last three years, in spite of Eurydice’s cheerful invitation to come with her. There were so many faces and voices, and all those hands reaching out of the crowd.

  Flora finally took the hint and ambled a bit closer to Antyllus’ horse. Selene breathed a little easier; he wasn’t in armor, since that was the function of their guards for the moment, but she felt better for being beside him. Though, clearly, he didn’t feel any of her anxiety; he just smiled
down at her from the top of his tall horse, and told her cheerfully, “We’ll take a few days here. Pick up servants, guards, trade goods, and, most importantly, guides for the trip northeast.”

  By nightfall, they’d found another inn, this one in the teeming Hellene quarter of the city—which had a surprising number if Judean people bustling around. She hadn’t seen many Judeans before. The men tended to wear long beards; the women, veils. She couldn’t fathom why; in Rome, only the Vestals wore such, usually in saffron yellow. Or perhaps elderly widows. Then again, maybe it’s just to keep the sun off their faces. I can see a need for that.

  Selene found that Antioch didn’t even smell like Rome. For starters, if it had a sewer system, she had yet to see evidence of it. Since it was a Hellene city in its bones, there were efforts to keep the horse and ox manure from the carts from piling up in the streets; she’d seen men sweeping the mess up and carting it away, at least. But ordure made up a constant undertone to the odor of the city, and she decided she wouldn’t enjoy the place much in summer. But there were other aromas, too—cinnamon and coriander and truly exotic notes like sandalwood, imported all the way from India.

  During their stay, they passed through the crowded marketplace on foot, Selene once more trying to adhere herself to Antyllus’ side, which seemed to amuse and please him, and she gaped at the delicately-worked silks there. “I’m starting to understand,” Selene said, very quietly, while examining one of the bolts of material, “why Eurydice keeps telling me not to bother with weaving for her. When you can buy silk this fine, and just sew it into whatever you want? This is amazing work.” Far better than anything I’ve ever made. The individual threads were so fine, she almost couldn’t see them, and somehow, a pattern of leaves was in the weaving itself; the pearl-like luster of the cloth became matte periodically, outlining the leaves. The whole thing had been dyed a rich, vibrant red, and it needed no embroidery; the skill of the weaving was its own adornment.