Children of Tiber and Nile

by Deborah Davitt

  Octavia nodded, but she was preoccupied with her own complaints. “And all the other things he has to do,” she went on. “He doesn’t dine at home more than once a week. I never see him.”

  “Well, you may expect that to continue as you have allowed it to begin,” Livia told her wisely, nodding. “Unless you make your displeasure clear to him.”

  Octavia shuddered. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare. The way he looked at me when I asked him about the woman he’s keeping in rooms in the villa. I thought at first it was Servia Sulpicia—that obviously fake red hair—“ she touched her own dyed tresses gently, “but he hates her. He made no bones about that. But still, he told me not to concern myself with whoever it is. Told me that I should act as if she has some horrible, contagious disease, like leprosy. And yet, whoever it is, is still there!” Octavia threw her hands up. “It’s an outrage, isn’t it, to be forced to live under the same roof as his mistress? I mean, it’s one thing if he’s just . . . you know . . . with a slave. That’s just physical. He might actually love this woman.” Face crumbling, she drained her cup, and missed the expression in Livia’s eyes as she did. “Livia—step-mother, please. Tell me what I should do.”

  Livia took her gently into her arms and rocked her, as she’d never done in all the years that Octavia had lived with her and her father, Octavian. “There, there,” Livia crooned. “I was against this marriage from the beginning, as you might remember, but my dear Agrippa insisted on some sort of tie to end the strife between your father’s supporters and these false Julii. And now Alexander has not only corrupted my poor Tiberius, but dishonored you, too.”

  Octavia raised her head, confused. “Corrupted Tiberius? I don’t understand—“

  “Oh, my dear, you didn’t know?” Livia said, her face contorting in a perfect mask of anguish and shame. “I’m so sorry—I shouldn’t have spoken—“

  “Tell me!” Octavia demanded, her stomach twisting.

  “Why, it’s common knowledge that Alexander’s used Tiberius like a woman. They’ve been at that for at least three years. I’ve tried and tried to separate them, to have my son act like a man again, but to no avail. I’m fairly sure that some of it has gone on under the same roof where you have lived, too—to your further dishonor.” Livia sighed heavily, and Octavia sat, rigid, unable to believe what she was hearing.

  Finally, nauseous at the incredible insensitivity of the horrible man to whom she was betrothed, Octavia told Livia, “Please tell your husband Agrippa that I absolutely cannot marry Alexander. That I refuse to do so. Or to live in the Julii house even one day longer.”

  “Oh, I will, I will.” Livia nodded understandingly. “But I think it might be best if you were to be subtle about this, for a few days. A week at most. I think that you should certainly have your revenge on young Alexander. And whoever his current mistress is—the one he has all tucked away in his brother’s house.”

  “And how am I to do that?” Octavia wailed, covering her face with her hands, trying to hold back the tears. It was all too much. The humiliation was so intense, she didn’t know how she was going to live. I am the laughingstock of Rome. Everyone who’s seen me on Alexander’s arm for the past four years—everyone who’s come to dinner at the Julii house—they’ve all known. They’ve all known and laughed.

  Livia smoothed her hair. “It’s very simple,” she crooned. “Bring the poor, sick woman a basket of medicaments and soothing foods. I’ll have the cooks here prepare something suitable myself. Get a good look at her face, and see if it’s someone you know. And if it’s a young woman with a tiny scar, right here,” Livia said, drawing a line by the corner of her right eye, “do tell young Jocasta that you’re sorry that her sister’s health has taken such a turn for the worse.”

  Octavia blinked. “And this will be vengeance?” she said, dubiously.

  “There is such a thing, my dear, as killing people with kindness,” Livia told her gently. “Why, I imagine that if you say such a kind, good-natured thing after she’s eaten from the good things you bring her? She’ll be overcome by remorse. Wouldn’t you be?”

  Octavia thought about that. And, for the first time in ages, feeling as if she had someone’s support, she decided that it all made perfect sense. “Of course,” she told Livia, managing an uncertain smile. “You’re right. You’ve always been right.”

  ______________

  Februarius 21, 20 AC

  Alexander spent an intoxicating evening with Sulpicia, listening to her read scenes from the play he’d asked her to write, and laughing uproariously for the better part of two hours. The father figure of the play had a catch-phrase: “For the family is everything!” and he used it at every inappropriate moment possible—when being mounted by his male courtesan, for example.

  The mother, by the end of the play, on realizing that the patriarch of the house actually preferred to play the woman’s part, threw up her hands in exasperation. “Well, why didn’t you say so years ago?” she exclaimed. “I could have given you that pleasure, without you ever having to leave the house! You’ve never left the lamps burning while you did your marital duties, so my deepest secret has been, till now, something between me and the gods alone. For they saw fit to give me the parts of both sexes—I am Hermaphroditus, reborn!” she said, lifting up her skirts.

  “I have never loved you more!” her husband cried.

  “I am undone!” the butler, her erstwhile lover mourned. “No one will ever believe that I didn’t know!”

  And in the meantime, the noble maiden who’d been betrothed to the son of the house, had been so nervous about her wedding night, and so desirous of ensuring that her betrothed would love her, that she’d gone to the same bawdy house frequented by the father, and had paid for instruction in the arts of love. The same concubine who’d mounted the father, now mounted the prospective daughter-in-law, and she enjoyed the act so thoroughly, that she declared she’d never leave the house—she’d become a hetaira, shame to her family or not, and pleasure herself and anyone else she chose, for the rest of her days.

  So in the end, the son of the house was able to marry his half-Egyptian beloved, and the butler exiled himself to Syria, lest anyone in Athens see his face again. The father and mother, reconciled and newly enamored for . . . very obvious reasons. . . waved from the balcony of their house to the audience, before both disappearing back inside, while the young groom below carried his wife into the house, asking her, somewhat nervously, “Is it all right with you if I leave the lamps on, my love? For while the family is everything, I’d rather not have any surprises.”

  Alexander curled in on himself and laughed until tears ran, unashamed, from his eyes. “Oh my dear gods,” he gasped after she’d finished reading. “I don’t have enough money to bribe the censors to show that unedited at your theater, love.”

  “It’s set in Athens, not Rome,” she said, making a rude noise. “And I don’t even have any of the actors wearing enormous fake phalluses, like when they play Aristophanes. All the sex takes place off-stage, too—all I have them do is make noises. Very loud, barnyard noises, I will admit, but noises, nonetheless.” They were sitting side by side on the sleeping couch at Merges. “You really like it? The verse is very rough so far—“

  “Like it? I love it. It’s a breath of fresh air. Ends in gamos, male-female union, like every other comedy, reaffirms the social order but overturns it completely. Aristophanes has nothing on you.” He meant every word, sincerely. “I think you should change the title to The Family. And maybe a little more polish on the final lines. But once you’re happy with the verse, I will spend every night copying it for you for a month.” He kissed her hand. “And now, I need to leave you.”

  Sulpicia sighed. “Duty calls?”

  “It never really stops.” Alexander stroked her face. Octavia is more perceptive than I gave her credit for—or her accusations are proof that even a blind man can throw a dart and hit a target now and again. I’ve haven’t dared have Sulpicia over for dinner,
for fear people would be able to read my face, or hers. And what would someone like Livia do with information like that? Target her. Try to kill her, or use her to get to me. “My goal in the next several years,” Alexander told her softly, “is to make myself one of the most hated men in Rome. So that Caesarion doesn’t have to. It’ll be dangerous for anyone associated with me—“

  “I know how to keep secrets,” Sulpicia assured him. “Have you decided what to do about Livia yet?”

  “I’ve sent Caesarion a coded letter on the subject, but there’s one more person I need to speak to about the matter. Who’s also, similarly, too far away to speak with readily.”

  “Tiberius?” Sulpicia regarded him steadily. “When you were poisoned, you said you loved his spirit. And my mind.”

  Alexander blinked as he pulled his tunic over his head. “Then the poison loosened my tongue more than it should have.” I’ve only known I loved this woman for a few months. My emotions could run off with my mind. I can’t tell her all my secrets, much as I want to. Not yet. Not until I’m as sure of her, as I’ve ever been of Tiberius. He sighed, taking her hand lightly in his as he stood by the bed. Soberly, Alexander said, “I asked my brother, in the same letter about Livia, if he’d object if I broke my betrothal to Octavia. So that I could pursue marriage with you.”

  He watched her mouth open, soundlessly, and went on, quietly, “It wouldn’t be at first. It’s probably better—safer, anyway—if no one knows about us. For the time being. So that you’re not a target for poison and knives. But I do want to marry you, Via. Aurea. My love, by any name.” He closed his eyes. “For the moment, let that be enough. I’ll tell you everything you ought to know. But some secrets aren’t entirely mine to give. Can you respect that?”

  Sulpicia sat up, and as his eyes opened, he met her gaze. “Of course I can,” she said, simply. “We’ve only been together for months. That’s enough to know how I feel about you—now, today.” She half-laughed, a rueful snort through her nose. “To know that it’s more than I felt about Cerinthus, years ago. But I trusted then, and look where it got me.” Her lips quirked. “And that was just one woman’s heart, not the secrets of the Julii, or the Empire. You shouldn’t trust me entirely. Not yet. And I won’t ask twice about things you’re not ready to tell me.”

  Alexander gripped her hand tightly. “There are dark places in me,” he warned. “I’ve helped torture men for information. I’ve killed men for treason. And I sleep well at night. The only nightmares I suffer are for . . . far different reasons.” Yes, I see myself dying again, only this time, Caesarion doesn’t pull me back, and then I’m trapped in the nothingness for all eternity, just on the verge of oblivion. Or I get to watch everyone I care for, murdered. Eurydice poisoned, Tiberius suffocated, Caesarion drowned, Selene garroted. And I’m powerless to help. Or worse, I’m not me, but Octavian. And I arranged it all.

  Sulpicia kissed his hand. “You do what you need to do. Not just because the family is everything, with all the pride of place and name with which so many people say those words,” she added, quoting the ironic lines of her own play, “but because you love your family, and Rome. And those are no bad things.”

  ____________

  Ianos had spent the last week caring for Jocasta as if she were a babe. He was used to having to pick up Viola and carry her to the lavatory—the public ones, for the rooms in which his two mistresses lived, were up several flights of stairs in their tenement, and Viola couldn’t quite manage those easily with her withered legs. There were several lavatories in the lavish Julii villa, but Jocasta had been severely weakened by the poisoning, and hadn’t been able to walk at all, the first few days. After that, she’d struggled to her feet, but had needed to be held upright while she took one shaky step after another. “Why is Lord Alexander being so generous?” Jocasta had whispered to Ianos, over and over. “He knows I betrayed him!”

  “You didn’t betray him, mistress,” Ianos told her, carefully. He hated the sound of his own voice, but for her, he’d speak more than a handful of words. “You didn’t mean to kill him. He’ll explain it all for himself, when he’s less busy, and when you’re well.”

  “Oh, but I did betray him,” Jocasta said, wretchedly. “I was going to listen to his secrets. He has to know that. He knows he can never trust me—at least for so long as Livia has my sister.” She closed her eyes. “I should have told him. I should have told him that Livia had Viola, but Viola seemed so . . . peaceful there . . . .”

  “It’s being taken care of,” Ianos assured her. “You just need to be better, first.”

  He couldn’t tell her that he was going to be the one taking care of it. That Lord Alexander had promised him, that if he survived his mission, he’d be manumitted. Given the Julii name. As a freedman, he’d always be under the supervision of Lord Alexander. Always look to him for employment. But . . . eunuch or not, former puer or not, he could maybe even take care of Jocasta—if she let him. She had her pride, after all. Which is all people like us have, some days.

  And then, in the late afternoon, while Jocasta dozed, trying to regain her strength, and Ianos struggled through a scroll written in his native Hellene—his previous master had ensured that he could read and write enough to make decent conversation, on those occasions when the mistress of the house wasn’t available, and the master wanted someone to share his couch over dinner—there came a great commotion from outside the door. A female voice, rising sharply as the guards prevented her from advancing.

  Ianos went to the door and cracked it open, spotting the lady he’d seen before. Younger than Jocasta by a few years, in spite of her heavily-embroidered stola and elaborately-coiffed hair—only this time, tears rolled from her eyes as the guards seized a basket from her hands. “I know what she is!” the young woman wailed, as the guards walked her back from the door—gently, but with authority. “I know she’s his mistress! He’s supposed to be my betrothed, and he brings his mistress here! You tell her—you tell her that I brought those medicines in good faith, to . . . to make her well! And you tell her that her sister’s very sick now, too! My step-mother Livia said so!”

  Ianos stared out the door, hearing Jocasta stir behind him in the bed. “These high-born have complicated lives,” he whispered, looking back at her. “He’s betrothed to the daughter of that harpy. Gods have mercy.”

  Jocasta had managed to sit up on her own, her face white. “My sister’s sick? I . . . doubt that. That’s a threat.” Hands shaking, she tried to get out of the bed on her own, and would have fallen, if Ianos hadn’t bolted to her side to catch her. “I have to go. I have to go to Livia’s villa.”

  “No, mistress,” Ianos whispered, crouching beside her. “If you do that, you’ll die. You’re the only evidence linking her to an attempt on Lord Alexander’s life. Right now, she doesn’t know if you’re alive or dead. Her daughter hasn’t seen your face, I think.” He smoothed her back. “Lord Alexander has promised that I will go to Lady Livia’s house at least once more. If Mistress Viola’s able . . . I’ll bring her home with me. I promise.”

  Gradually, she let him put her back to bed. Snug the sheets up to her neck. But her hand crept out from under the coverlet, and clutched his until she finally drifted once more to sleep. And then, Ianos dared to kiss her forehead, lightly. Perhaps, once I’m free . . . she’ll let me marry her. She might not. It was only one night. And she probably only did it because she felt sorry for me. Which is a terrible basis for marriage. I can never give her children. Never give her a family. The priests will object, since I’m not much of a man. But I can dream of being something more than a puer.

  ______________

  Alexander arrived home to a tumult. Octavia was screaming and sobbing at some of the frumentarii guards from her room, where they’d locked her in, to Alexander’s consternation. “What’s going on?” Alexander demanded of Spurius, one of the men on duty, frowning.

  “The young domina tried to get past us again,” Spurius said, grimacing. “T
his time, with a basket of sweet cakes and medicines for the invalid. When we wouldn’t let her past, and took the basket, she lost her head,” he went on, shaking his own. “Started shouting past the door that she knew what your guest was. And rambled on about the young woman’s sister being in poor health. The slave kept his mistress from the door, so her face still hasn’t been seen. Shot in the dark, my lord, is my guess. A damned bad one, since we tested the medicines in the basket on some rats in the barn. No survivors.” A snort. “Medici usually have a better rate of success that that, especially when they start with entirely healthy patients.”

  Gods damn it, Alexander thought grimly, spinning and heading for Octavia’s chambers. I have at least a week still before Caesarion receives my letter. I can’t change time or speed up the passage of a ship over the sea.

  The scene with Octavia was ugly; he’d expected nothing else after what Spurius had said. She sobbed as she spewed Livia’s venom, probably almost word-for-word as the older woman had fed it to her, clearly never having given it a moment of analysis before accepting it as the kind of truth that came from the gods’ own lips. “You’ve systematically humiliated me and everyone I call family for years. Tiberius is my step-brother, and you’ve . . . you’ve . . . turned him into a woman! For years! With me under the same roof! And now low-class harlots, again in the same villa! I told my step-mother that I want my betrothal broken!” Octavia shouted, her face blotchy with tears of humiliation and rage. “She said Agrippa would take care of it directly. And that she’d find someone who’d treat me with respect, like Rullus or Gallus or someone like that!”

  Alexander’s eyebrows rose. And, calmly, almost without affect, he replied, “I’m glad you’ve decided that we won’t suit, Octavia. I’d come to that conclusion years ago, but felt obliged to follow through on the agreement between Agrippa and my brother. I’ll ensure that the servants gather all of your belongings immediately, and escort you to Agrippa’s villa forthwith. We of the Julii won’t even demand compensation from him for the magnificent education you were offered under our roof, largely as it’s evident that you never once partook of it.”