Angry cries echoed as the men railed against Tiberius. “It’s Germanicus who should be emperor,” the ringleaders shouted. “You’re the rightful heir, we’ll fight with you all the way to Rome.” Many took up the cry, banging their shields and chanting. “Lead us to Rome! Together to Rome!” The angry soldiers pressed forward. I shuddered as I saw them roll their swords back and forth against their shields, the prelude to mutiny.
Germanicus pulled the sword from his belt and pointed it at himself. “Better death than treason to the emperor.”
A tall burly man, his body laced with scars, pushed forward and removed his own sword. “Then use mine. It’s sharper.” As the angry crowd closed in around Germanicus, Agrippina pushed her way toward him. A burly soldier more than a head taller sought to bar her way, but she merely thrust her large belly at him, daring any to lift a hand. The front ranks stepped back. Scarred veterans who’d stood with weapons raised slowly lowered them.
As the soldiers cleared a path for her, Agrippina walked proudly to the rock where her husband stood. Father and I dismounted as the men quieted. Mother and Marcella climbed from the wagon and stood beside us. Her wide brown eyes even wider, Mother slipped her arm in Tata’s. Smiling confidently, she took my hand, calling over her shoulder for Marcella to hold my other hand. We were all trembling.
Every eye turned to Germanicus. He looked so brave, his voice ringing clear and true. “In the name of Emperor Tiberius, I grant immediate retirement for those who have served twenty years or more. Men with sixteen years’ service will remain, but with no duties other than to defend against attack. Back pay will be paid twice over.”
Soldiers boosted Agrippina up onto the rock. She stood by her husband, the two making a handsome tableau on the great flat stone. “Germanicus, your leader and mine,” she said, “is a man of his word. What he promises will come to pass. I know him and I speak the truth.” She stood proudly, her face serene despite the silence that greeted her words. At last one man cried out: “Germanicus!” Others joined him, some tossed their helmets high in the air. Their cheers made me want to cry.
“We’re lucky,” Tata said later. “What if they’d demanded their pay now?”
GERMANICUS INSPIRED THE MUTINEERS—AGRIPPINA DID TOO, EVEN Mother admitted that. Hard as it was for me to understand, Caligula, too, was a favorite. He’d been born in an army camp, worn army boots, and drilled with troops when he was still a toddler. Caligula meant “little boots.” Now hardly anyone remembered that his real name was Gaius.
Within the week, rumors that German forces were moving closer rallied the men. It was decided that we women should be sent some forty miles away to the small village of Cologne. Our two families were quartered in what had once been an inn—much too small for so many of us. I hated our cramped, dusty quarters. I hated not knowing what was happening at the front. I missed the sea. Any possible view of the Rhine was obscured by thick pines that surrounded us on all sides, cutting off the sun’s weak winter rays. Snow, at first pure magic, inevitably meant slush and clinging frost. I was miserable.
Day by day, I watched Agrippina grow larger. Everyone agreed she was carrying a boy. The prospect cheered her, helping to fight off the bone-chilling cold that no fire could hold at bay. Information about the military operation, now hundreds of miles to the northeast, was sporadic and unreliable. Finally it stopped entirely. Where was the army? What was happening?
Late one night, a shriek like an animal in mortal agony awakened me. When I rose, the stone floor felt like ice. I pulled on my new wolf-skin robe, grateful for its warmth, and followed the awful sounds down the hall to Agrippina’s room. As I stood uncertainly, shivering from fear as well as cold, the door flew open and Mother emerged.
“Oh! What a start you gave me!” she gasped, nearly dropping the basin she carried. “Go back to bed, dear one. It’s just the baby coming. To listen to her, one would think nobody had ever had a baby before. This is her sixth.”
Unable to imagine Agrippina ever suffering silently, I said nothing. The midwife, plump like a partridge, moved so fast past us down the hall that her two attendants were hard put to keep up. They trailed breathless, one carrying a basin, the other a tray of ointments. “It won’t be long now,” Mother assured me. “Go back to sleep.”
The door closed. I turned obediently, but couldn’t bring myself to leave the dark mystery inside. Agrippina’s cries ceased after what seemed an eternity. Had the baby been born? The scent of hot oil and quince mixed with strong, minty pennyroyal assailed me as I quietly opened the door. Mother and the others, faces white and drawn, leaned over the couch where Agrippina lay.
“I don’t understand,” Mother whispered. “She’s full-bodied as Venus herself. Such women are born to bear children.”
The midwife shook her head. “She might look like Venus, but best pray to Diana. It’s in her hands.”
My breath caught. Was Agrippina’s condition so desperate that only a goddess could save her? The midwife looked up, startled. “Go, child, this is no place for you.”
“What’s the matter?”
“A breech birth.” Her voice softened.
Suddenly Agrippina awakened, arching upward, a mass of tangled, tawny hair, eyes wild in a glistening face. “This boy—this boy—is killing—me!” she panted.
“No!” I heard my own voice as from a distance. “You are not going to die.” Without realizing it, I’d crossed the room and now stood at Agrippina’s side. A picture was forming before my eyes, blurry as though glimpsed through water. I paused as the image sharpened. “I see you with a baby…it’s a girl.”
Mother leaned over Agrippina. “Did you hear that? Take courage from her words.” She and the midwife lifted Agrippina, slumped between them. The vision had disappeared. Suddenly, Agrippina’s body contorted. She lifted her head, hair matted, eyes like a terrified animal. “Diana!” she shrieked. “My goddess, help me!”
The smell of blood, fetid yet sweet, filled the room, as the midwife held up something dark and shriveled. Slapping the baby’s buttocks, she was rewarded by an outraged cry. “Look, Domina, look. The child spoke truth. You have a fine daughter.”
But Agrippina lay as though dead. Mother was sobbing now, quietly. I touched her hand. “Don’t worry, Auntie will be all right. I know it.”
“I’LL NEVER HAVE A CHILD,” I INFORMED MOTHER THE NEXT MORNING.
Smiling, she smoothed back an unruly lock of my hair. “I hope that’s not the sight speaking. I shouldn’t want you to miss the happiest moment in a woman’s life.”
“Happy! You mean horrible. Why would anyone do it?”
She laughed. “You’d not be here if I hadn’t.”
When she spoke again, her voice was thoughtful. “Childbirth’s a test, the measure of a woman’s bravery and endurance, as war is a man’s. No woman knows when she lies down to bear a child whether she’ll survive.”
I looked up at Mother’s brown velvet eyes; Agrippina’s screams still echoed in my head.
“Having children is our duty to the family and to the Empire,” she reminded me. “Now, why don’t you visit Agrippina? Perhaps she’ll allow you to hold her newest princess.”
The edge was back in Mother’s voice. I guessed that Agrippina was her haughty self again.
Weeks passed without news of the army. Then a messenger finally arrived. A slender boy in his teens, he told us how Germanicus had subdued the savage Germans. I listened, bursting with pride and excitement. Forging on, Germanicus’s troops had reached the Teutoburg Forest where six years earlier one tenth of the Roman army had been slaughtered. “When we went to bury our dead, we saw skeletons everywhere.” The boy shuddered. “Their heads were pegged to tree trunks. We didn’t know if the bones belonged to friend or stranger, but what did it matter? They were all our brothers.”
I opened the door a few days later to another breathless courier. Bloodshot eyes fearful, he described a situation grown desperate. Arminius, the general responsible for the carn
age, lurked in a treacherous swamp near the battle site. Germanicus was determined to find him.
Soon the rumors began. Wounded men stumbled to our gate. The army had been cut off, surrounded. Fleeing deserters shouted that German forces were on their way to invade Gaul. Soon it would be Rome itself. All around us, panic-stricken villagers insisted that the Rhine Bridge be destroyed. Agrippina, dragging herself from bed, put a stop to that. “In the absence of my husband, I am the commander,” she announced. “The bridge will stand.”
The wounded, returning on foot, using sticks for crutches, would soon have need of it. Agrippina improvised a field hospital, using her own money and soliciting everyone, from noble to peasant, to help. I eagerly fetched bandages and water, washed wounds and held water to the lips of feverish men. Then the visions started. Though I had no medical knowledge or even aptitude, it seemed that I could tell by looking at the wounded who would survive and who would not.
Late on my second day at the hospital, I sat beside a soldier not much older than myself. His wound seemed slight, a relief after so many gory ones. I smiled as I offered him water. His lips moved in an answering smile as he reached for the cup. Then slowly his round face changed before my eyes into a skull. Horrified, I staggered to my feet.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, taking the water, looking at me curiously, normal again. Muttering an excuse, I hurried outside. Forcing myself to believe I’d imagined it, I continued with my rounds. The next day I learned that the boy had died in the night.
It happened again. Then again. Despite the increasing proficiency of Agrippina’s hastily assembled staff, the men whose skulls I saw invariably died. When this happened to a merry young soldier of whom I’d grown fond, I fled the hospital sobbing.
Climbing onto a large crag overlooking the river’s dark waters, I struggled to compose myself. It was here that Agrippina found me. I looked away, not knowing what to say. Auntie, with her regal self-assurance, would never understand the dread I felt each day, the sense of helplessness at being suddenly possessed by this unwelcome knowledge. I nodded politely and rose.
“Don’t go,” she said, touching my hand lightly. “I see that you are troubled. It has to do with the sight, doesn’t it? You have the gift.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “This is no ‘gift,’ it’s a curse.”
“Poor child.” Agrippina shook her head sadly. “From what I hear, the sight chooses you. It can never be removed.”
“What good is knowing something terrible if I can’t change it?”
“Such knowledge could bring you power,” she suggested.
“No! I don’t want to know bad things,” I said, fighting tears that stung my eyes.
“Then pray,” she suggested. “Ask that you not be shown more than you can bear. Ask for courage to face your destiny.”
“Thank you for understanding. Mother and Marcella don’t like to talk about the sight. It makes them nervous.”
“I am rarely nervous,” Agrippina’s imperious tone was back. “I think it best we return to the hospital. They need us there.”
I sighed, thinking of all those sweet young men, their frightened souls preparing for flight. “There are so many coming now. I’m afraid for the rest, for my father and—Germanicus.”
“Your sight tells you nothing?”
I shook my head. “It never does when I ask.”
“Then I will.” She smiled confidently. “A courier arrived only a short while ago. I was about to post the news when I saw you steal away. The tide of battle has turned. Germanicus lured the Germans from the swamp. He will soon return with his army, victorious. I will welcome them at the bridge.”
“My father—my father is safe?”
She smiled broadly, assuring me.
A frisson ran through my body as she spoke of victory, but there was something more…“You’re certain Uncle Germanicus is safe?”
“Quite certain,” she replied, rising to her feet. “You will see him soon.”
Agrippina was right. Tata returned and Germanicus was hailed a conquering hero, yet the memory of the young wolf remained, his face frozen in surprise and anguish.
CHAPTER 2
A Triumph
One day Marcella was playing with dolls. The next day it was men. Our old slave, Priscilla, laughed about it—when Mother wasn’t there to hear her. Priscilla was wrong. Marcella hadn’t changed—neither had the men. As long as I could remember, battle-scarred veterans had stared at Marcella, while small boys turned cartwheels in her path.
With time, I could identify the hint of pleasurable fulfillment that clung to her like perfume. At twelve, I knew only that Marcella was special. Mother knew it too. Though warm and loving to us both, Mother’s large brown eyes lingered often on my sister. Grateful for the extra freedom granted me by default, I wondered idly what my mother planned.
One spring afternoon Agrippina gave Marcella her first grown-up gown—a scarlet tunica of the softest Egyptian linen, clasped at the shoulders, and a filmy violet stola. “Few can wear such colors together,” Agrippina said. Clearly they hadn’t worked for her own daughters, Druscilla or Julia, or my sister wouldn’t have been the lucky recipient.
Delighted by her good fortune, Marcella hurried outside. From the balcony off Mother’s room I watched her dance along the orderly rows of barracks. Out of every building she passed came at least one young officer, smiling, waving, hurrying to her side.
“Marcella has so many friends,” I commented to Mother.
Mother’s eyes strayed absently from the loom before her. As her gaze followed mine, her glossy brows came together. “Friends! Find Priscilla. Order her to bring Marcella in this minute!”
THAT EVENING, PLAYING UNNOTICED BEHIND A COUCH, I WATCHED Mother pour Tata’s wine. He scattered a few drops on the hearth for the gods, then lifted the glass to his lips. “My favorite,” he smiled, “and you didn’t cut it with water.”
Mother smiled back at him. “Marcella grows more lovely every day, don’t you think?” she asked, her voice light and casual.
“Half the camp’s besotted with her.”
Mother’s smile faded. “Such attention goes to a girl’s head. In a rude garrison like this, anything can happen.”
Father’s cup thumped the table, splashing wine on the carefully mended cloth. “No soldier with a brain in his head would risk—”
“Come now, darling. What moved you at that age—surely not your brain.”
“Selene! This is not a barracks.”
“No, it is not, or I might use any number of words with which you are more familiar.”
“Not from my wife…not in a while. Do you remember that furlough—”
“In Capri?” Mother’s voice softened. “Of course. We conceived Claudia there.”
Holding my breath, I moved closer.
“You were lovely. You are still lovely—when you don’t frown.”
“Who would not frown? Gaul’s better than those wretched German forests, but still provincial, so far from Rome. I never thought we would be here this long. And then there’s Agrippina. You have no idea—”
“Come now, she means well. The girls often show me pretty things she has given them. Only today Marcella showed me a very pretty tunica.”
“Cast-offs! You’re a man, a soldier, how could you understand? Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit one another. Perhaps we should just live next door and visit now and then.”
Tata chuckled. “That would never work. Your house would be in Rome.”
“And yours an army tent.” Mother laughed too. “I suppose we’ll just have to muddle through.” She moved to his couch and made a place for herself close him. “But you see,” she touched his cheek, “I want something more for the girls. Marcella’s manner is provocative. You can hardly blame the young men for responding…and now that she’s a woman—”
“A woman!” Tata looked startled.
“A woman,” Mother repeated firmly. “It is time we took
steps to secure her future. You men see only the surface. That girl charms people—women as well as men. She leaves them pleased with themselves. Such a wife would be an asset to anyone…why not Caligula?”
“I don’t like that lad. Never mind those damn boots, there’s something not quite right about him. He’s not at all like his older brothers, and nothing like his father.”
“All the better,” Mother argued. “Let his brothers risk everything on war, dragging their wives from camp to camp. Marcella could have a marvelous life at court.”
“Tiberius’s court?”
“Why not? It’s the center of the world. Why shouldn’t she enjoy all it has to offer?”
“Perhaps…if she has the stomach for intrigue.” Father’s face cleared. “Why are we even talking about it? Agrippina will want someone rich for her brat.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Mother admitted, “but she is fond of Marcella. The boy is so spoiled. When the time comes, he’ll marry whomever he chooses—dowry or no. After all, it’s not as if he will ever be emperor.”
My hands clenched as Caligula’s image appeared in my mind’s eye. Oh, but he will. I saw him commanding the emperor’s dais, Marcella nowhere in sight. Where was she? And Drusus, Nero? If Caligula was emperor…where were they? I shook my head, not wanting to see more.
Father shrugged his shoulders. “Time enough to talk of this after the spring campaign. Germanicus has vowed to cross the Rhine again.” His face brightened at the prospect.
BUT TATA WAS NOT TO HAVE HIS BATTLE. TIBERIUS FORBADE IT. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the emperor called Germanicus back to Rome. “You have sacrificed enough for your country,” he wrote. “It’s time the people honored you. A triumph is scheduled to commemorate your victories.”
Rome was charmed by Tiberius’s generosity. In Gaul we knew better. The emperor was jealous of his relative’s military success and the immense popularity that it had brought him. The only way to curb the hero worship was to bring the hero home, toss a triumph at him as a bone to a dog, then assign some new, more obscure posting.
Pilate's Wife Page 2