Children of Tiber and Nile

by Deborah Davitt

  Selene tried to scurry past with just a little bob, but Alexander caught her by the arm, and insisted on a hug. “Sea voyages are dangerous,” he reminded her. “Don’t leave farewells unsaid.”

  He’d done his best to catch her alone at some point in the past two weeks, but for all that mice were a favorite prey of snakes, it had proven damned near impossible. Once he had, he’d done his best to explain, gently, that he’d feel nothing other than joy if she decided that she and Tiberius would make a good match. “I’d see you happy,” he told her. “I’d see him happy. I’d see nieces and nephews born, and I’d love them for both of your sakes.” All he’d gotten for his efforts were averted eyes and a series of uncomfortable nods. Eurydice adapted. She said she’d try to see the man and not the boy. And she was as good as her word. Selene’s obviously known for a long time. I’m not even sure if she’s uncomfortable with me, precisely. I think it all boils down to . . . people seeing her. Being aware of what she thinks and feels, when she’s been keeping it all in for so long.

  In the here and now, reminded of the need for farewells, she flushed and gave him a quick hug and kiss, whispering, “Be safe and well, brother,” and then scurrying away.

  A quick wrist-clasp with Antyllus. And then the same for Tiberius. Alexander had gone to the Claudii brothers’ villa for dinner the night before they’d all left Rome. And while Drusus had gone up to bed, his head swimming with unaccustomed wine, he and Tiberius had sat up long into the night, playing at dice. And somewhere near midnight, he’d asked Tiberius, very quietly, “Is there going to be any us left?”

  “Depends on your sister’s decision. And on if you get around to marrying Octavia.” Tiberius had sighed. “There’s no future in us, Alexander. You know that.”

  “I’ve never really thought much about the future. The present’s far more interesting.” Alexander smiled faintly. “Futures mean endings. I’d rather stay in the middle of everything. In perpetuity. Nothing but now.” He’d rattled the dice in his cup, and tossed them. Not even a single six.

  A shake of Tiberius’ head. “You changed everything the moment you asked me to court her. You can’t take back the words now.”

  “Then tonight’s good-bye, then.” A tightening of Alexander’s throat as he glanced up across the table. “Want to make it a proper farewell?”

  Tiberius had smiled faintly himself, then. “Alexander, it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that . . . I can’t court her and keep fucking with you. It . . . doesn’t work in my head.” A single calm, melancholy look. “Things change. We change. You’re not riding to the campaign this year. By the time I get back, you’ll be different. And so will I. One or both of us will be married. Or not.” A slight shrug, then a pointed look. “Don’t let the inactivity make you get soft.”

  “No chance,” Alexander returned, putting on a smile he didn’t feel. And there the matter had ended.

  So now, on the quay, nothing more than a wrist-clasp. No other words than, “Neptune protect you, and Mars watch over you.” Just the tightness of fingers, trying to convey more than words. Good-bye.

  And then watching the ships push off from the docks, oars moving in unison through the dark waters. Bumping into the occasional floating barrel, lost overboard during unloading. And then the wind caught their sails at the harbor’s mouth, and Alexander stayed where he was, straining his eyes for a last glimpse, before finally turning away to mount his horse. Exiled here in the heart of Rome or not, I have work to do. Reports to read, once I make my hour and a half ride back to the city and clean up. A speech to give before the Senate, noting that in my brother’s absence, I hold his seal, and that official inquiries will come to me first, and that I will decide what gets passed along. Ably assisted by Lepidus and other counselors, of course.

  And today’s work turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. For in the late evening, as he made his rounds, first to the baths, and then to an assortment of different tavernas, accompanied by a single discreet Praetorian, a runner caught up with him, and whispered that Hostus Titius at Merges had a package for him. And changing the direction of his steps, Alexander headed more or less for Merges, though by an indirect route.

  At the taverna now owned by a former member of the Tenth, and a current frumentarii, he accepted a cup of watered wine from Titius. Listened to conversation in the common room for almost a half an hour—mostly a buzz of gossip about the Emperor’s departure for Egypt, Lydia, Syria, and other such parts. And then, once he’d faded from the notice of the others there, he slipped behind a curtain and upstairs. Used the key that Titius had slipped into his hand with the cup of wine, and unlocked the door there. And found Servia Sulpicia, lying on her stomach on the bed, her feet in the air, her red-gold hair shining in the lamplight. Reading a scroll and drinking a cup of wine. “There you are,” she said, her eyes flicking up, wary at first, but lightening at the sight of him. “I was just beginning to get bored.”

  Alexander closed the door behind him. Locked it. And tossed the key to her, watching it bounce on the sleeping couch. For some reason, his heart pounded in his ears, and he had to take a deep breath to control his voice before he told her, smiling, “My lady, seeing you tonight makes the rest of the day worth having lived through.” He approached, taking one of her hands in his and kissing it lightly, but not releasing it as he straightened once more. “Before I proceed too much further,” he added, still smiling, “is this visit business? Or did you come in search of pleasure?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You are direct,” Sulpicia chided softly.

  “It saves time and misunderstandings. I’m none too fond of having my face slapped.” He rubbed his thumb against her palm, looking into her eyes.

  “A little of both, then, if you find that you can be accommodating,” she murmured, a secret smile stealing across her face.

  Alexander nodded. “I can be very accommodating. Business first, however.” He released her hand and stepped away, taking one of the room’s two chairs and sitting some five feet away.

  Sulpicia nodded, sitting up straight on the bed now. “I asked some time ago if you were the one to whom I should report interesting opinions. You’re aware of my uncle’s reputation for . . . agile loyalties.”

  Alexander nodded. “Yet he removed you from your marriage to Lento on hearing of his decidedly, hmm. Anti-Egyptian sympathies.”

  “Anti-Egyptian, anti-Julii.” She nodded. “My uncle’s social circle is quite wide. I happened to overhear last night, quite by chance, a conversation about how you’ve been given too much authority for someone who hasn’t stood election. How your brother should have left his seal with one of the consuls.”

  Alexander nodded. That wasn’t entirely unexpected. “And here we have as consul this year Rullus and Licinus. I can’t quite see my brother putting the seal into the hands of Rullus, one of his political enemies, and Licinus hasn’t made his affiliations clearly known. He shifts between the Julii and the Octavianites as the wind blows.” He eyed Sulpicia. “This doesn’t seem to require an urgent meeting.”

  Little more than a half-smile at his words. “Not that, no,” she murmured. “It was more the suggestion that it would be unfortunate should anything happen to you. What with your brother not here to enforce his decree that his family should be . . . off-limits . . . in such matters.”

  Alexander’s hand moved under his toga, and he rubbed absently at the scar just over his heart. “Did you happen to see the faces of those who spoke those words?”

  She nodded. “It was carefully said. No overt treason,” Sulpicia told him. “Rullus made the comment in tones of great concern for your well-being. Livia laughed and replied that she would be surprised if a young man didn’t occasionally take risks, but that on the whole, you seemed to be in wonderful health.” She grimaced. “It’s not much, I realize. But when I drew it to my uncle’s attention, he asked me to bring it directly to you.”

  “He couldn’t bring it to me himself?” Alexander asked mildly.
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  “If he visited the Julii villa, it would be noticed,” Sulpicia replied, leaning back against the pillows. “His agile loyalties give him access to many people that you can’t always hear from inside the Julii walls. People like Licinus. The consul who wavers with the wind.”

  Alexander nodded slowly. “So you’re here with your uncle’s approval?”

  “At his specific request.” Sulpicia smiled slightly. “But I think I’d have come here anyway. Have you really read my poems?”

  “Every one of them,” Alexander told her, standing and approaching the bed. “I liked the one in which you begged your uncle not to banish you to the countryside. And complained that there was no such thing as free will, because he controlled everything.” He ran his fingers lightly up her leg from her ankle to her knee. Then higher, watching the expressions on her face carefully. “Do you always carry a knife under your stola?”

  She reached down and pulled up her skirts. Unbuckled the sheath there, and handed it to him. “Only when I’m about to meet with someone in a room in a taverna that’s completely under his control,” Sulpicia replied. “My uncle suggested I bring it. However, I don’t think I’ll be needing it.” She ran her own fingers lightly over his shoulders now, before interlacing them behind his neck.

  Alexander tossed the knife across the room and lowered himself to the bed. Kissed her deeply, and murmured in her ear, “Talk to me,” before nibbling his way down her throat.

  “About . . . what?”

  “Anything.” That came out in a hungrier tone than he’d ever intended her to hear.

  She closed her eyes and, as he kissed lower, and still lower, began to quote, “So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is—“

  “Only in adversity?” Alexander asked, pulling her skirts up higher, and applying lips and tongue to her sweetest place. Felt her hips, in his hands, buck in surprise.

  “So . . . Lucretius. . . says. That truth’s then drawn—oh my gods—from his heart . . . and reality . . . shines through . . .” Her fingers locked in his hair, and for a moment, Alexander thought she couldn’t decide if she wanted him to stop, or to keep him precisely where he was.

  “Does he say anything about being able to tell who a man is, in moments of extreme pleasure?” he asked mildly, kissing the inside of her thigh.

  “I can’t seem to remember right now,” she admitted, her eyes sparkling.

  “I think I’m finding out quite a bit about you at the moment,” he murmured. “You can quote accurately from memory even under . . . duress.” At her laugh, he added, “Of course, I must remember, that what a woman says to her lover in passion, should be written in the wind, or in swift-running water.”

  And as he lowered himself to her, he was rewarded with a gasp and a light slap on his arm. “Catullus? You quote Catullus to me?”

  “Can you write better?” he taunted in her ear, and found his neck bitten for his pains—but lightly, oh, so lightly.

  “I’d like to try,” she murmured. “I haven’t set stylus to wax in three years, thanks to my wretched old husband.”

  “Will you write about us?” He rocked his hips against hers, letting her feel his desire.

  “Only . . . after. . . I change . . . your name. . . .” Her eyes closed, and he could feel her relaxing against him. Yielding.

  “What do you want me to call you when I love you?” he whispered. He wanted, quite badly, to join their bodies, but a lingering voice of caution warned him that this would be a bad idea. Not least because he could get her pregnant. “Servia is a severe name. And Sulpicia,” her family name, “. . . seems . . . very formal. . . at the moment.” Each set of words punctuated with a little more pressure. Edging closer and closer to union.

  He felt her fingers slide down to lift his face up, so that her hazel eyes could meet his. “No Roman woman has her own name,” she whispered, a hint of bitterness in her voice, even in this moment of deep intimacy. “I hate the sound of my own.”

  He’d rarely encountered such breathtaking honesty. “Choose one for yourself,” Alexander told her. “I’ll call you by nothing else.”

  Her lips curled up. “Then you’ll have to wait a while, for I wouldn’t wish to choose a name in haste, only to hear something I grow to detest, ever on your lips.” She leaned up and kissed him. “Love me.”

  Alexander wrapped his arms around her, and did precisely that. Heard her shocked gasp as he joined their bodies. A voice at the back of his mind hissed that this was not the best of ideas, but he ignored it for the moment, driving himself as deeply into her as he could. Finding, if not peace precisely, at least forgetfulness, for a time. Though he made very certain to pull himself free of her delightful embrace when his release hit. And in the bright wake of it, he swore repeatedly and silently to himself at having allowed himself to have explored her so completely. You know better. There’s a dozen ways you could have found pleasure, all less risky. And yet, rolling over, to her side, he felt surprisingly . . . content. An odd sensation, to be sure. He forced himself to sit up.

  “Ah, you don’t fall asleep immediately,” Sulpicia murmured stretching. “Refreshing.”

  “I never sleep anywhere but in my own bed,” Alexander told her lightly. “I’m sure I’ll live longer for it.” He caught her hand, kissing it lightly, and changed the subject. “You know, in and around all the distractions I just found myself . . . distracted by. . .” he grinned. “I didn’t get around to asking. Was there a Cerinthus?”

  She laughed, peals of it echoing through the room, and threw herself back into the pillows with the abandon of her own mirth. “You are persistent.”

  “Utterly.” That, with more seriousness than he’d intended.

  She sat up, meeting his eyes, her amusement fading. “There was,” Sulpicia told him frankly, but her eyes, for the first time, looked a little ashamed. “Marcus Claudius Marcellus.”

  Alexander felt as if she’d jabbed him with a red-hot poker. “One of my friend Tiberius’ distant cousins,” he said, blinking rapidly to cover his confusion. The Claudii family was large and extensive; he’d met Marcellus at a dinner at Tiberius’ villa just a few months ago. The man was younger than Caesarion, but older than Alexander himself by four years. Pleasant-faced, with a constant, rather braying laugh. Memory’s scroll unfurled, and his eyebrows shot up. “The son of Octavia, by her first husband. Before she was pawned off on Antony.” A step-brother of Antyllus, too—and half-brother to some of Antyllus’ half-sisters. Not quite an in-law, thank the gods. This . . . well, it’s unexpected, but all the noble families are densely intermarried. He slid back down into the sheets, lying on his side to take her hand and play with her fingers. “Why on earth didn’t your family marry you off to him? He sounds perfectly suitable. Not that I’m complaining about your availability,” Alexander added, fervently.

  “He was betrothed when he was three to Sextia Pompeia, daughter of your father’s sworn enemy, Sextus Pompey Magnus Pius. Youngest son of Pompey the Great himself,” Sulpicia reminded him dryly. “His family didn’t annul the betrothal when Pompey was defeated and his daughter disappeared in the east somewhere. So Marcellus and I found all sorts of occasions on which to meet. And he introduced me to practically everything two people could do that wouldn’t break my all-important maidenhead.” She sighed.

  “Oh?” Alexander said, with more enthusiasm, sitting up. “Do tell—“ She pushed at his supporting elbow, making him laugh. “What happened?” he asked, more gently.

  “Sextia Pompeia and her guardians re-appeared three years ago, once your brother took power. Her father was dead. But they all reminded the noble Claudii of their arrangement. Worse, she’s also a distant cousin of mine on her mother’s side, so my father couldn’t fight it. Marcellus married her, and my family rapidly found someone for me. Just in case I had been lying about having kept my so-called virtue intact.” Brittle humor. A smile, but one that covered years of unhappiness.

/>   “Do you still love him?” No emphasis on the question.

  She snorted. “You quoted Catullus at me not long ago. Do you remember this one? ‘It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-cherished love.’”

  Alexander went still at the words. Forgetfulness faded away. “It is,” he said, looking away. Gods. She’s so warm. So open. All the hurts in her have formed her differently than Tiberius. Instead of folding in, to protect herself, she blazes out. And yet, if he were here with us . . . I wonder if she’d like him. Us. Not that it matters now. And perhaps it won’t ever matter. Don’t think about it. There is no future. There’s only now.

  “It’s far less difficult to do so when that love tells you that he’d appreciate it if the poems you wrote for him never saw further circulation.” Her tone remained brittle. “As they might prove embarrassing to his new wife.” Sulpicia shrugged. “He told me that he burned his copies. I was fortunate to have kept my own, and my uncle had tucked a few in with Tibullus’ in a manuscript that’s been passed around. I never even used his real name. He could have returned my pages to me,” she added, emptily. “Instead, he burned them. As if they didn’t matter at all.” She sighed, and Alexander wrapped his arms around her tightly. “In the end, it’s an old story, but not as bad as it could have been. I didn’t present Lento with any children that he could have used to shore up his reputation for virility even in old age.” She nuzzled Alexander’s shoulder. “I did appreciate your, ah . . . discretion.” She glanced down between them, meaningfully.

  “Mmm.” Never had to worry about pregnancy with Ti. Exposure, yes. Pregnancy, no.

  She had an independent enough mind that he suspected she’d be a resource even without her uncle’s ‘permission’ to tell the Julii what she heard in his household. She was an asset. And she made his heart race. “I’d like a chance to be discreet with you again, domina.” He kissed her fingers. “As often as you’re willing to meet with me. Bring your poems. I want to read all the ones I haven’t seen publically circulated.” He stroked her hair back from her face. “Bring your books, too. If you ever just want a quiet place to work . . . I can provide that, my lady.” He gestured at the room, encompassing the desk, chairs, and bed.