The baby in her arms hiccups round her nipple, then screws up his face to cry. “There, there,” Julia murmurs. “You cannot cry, Postumus … not when you look so much like your father, who never cried at all …” The baby screams instead, and she says, “Yes, screams are better than tears. Better that you bellow like your father …”
Truthfully, little Agrippa Postumus wails louder than any babe I’ve ever heard, and I remember the way the Admiral’s booming voice could shake a room. I wonder if it is this reminder of her dead husband, of taking his last breath, that stiffens Julia’s spine. Because when Julia looks at me, I don’t see the girl who gave herself over to one wild impulse after the next. I see a woman who knows the world and her own place in it. “My answer is no. I will not woo Tiberius. You may tell my father that I am no whore.”
*
IN the end, the matter is decided by Iullus Antonius.
He waits until the celebration of the Neptunalia, when the citizens camp beside the River Aquilis and splash in the water when the afternoon sun gets too hot. Of the Roman festivals, this one requires the fewest formal prayers and was Admiral Agrippa’s favorite—for he believed that Neptune had granted him his naval victories. Perhaps it is for this reason that Julia arranges for the sacrifice of white bulls, enough to honor the god and feed the people of Aquileia too. The mouthwatering scent of meat roasted over campfires fills the air and we are all on hand to celebrate.
The imperial family has settled in to dine in a lavish tabernacle, complete with garlands wound round every tent pole and flower petals strewn upon the tables. It is in this idyllic setting, where luminescent glowworms light the darkening sky, that Iullus announces, suddenly and without warning, “Caesar, I would marry your daughter.”
It is such an outrageous statement, so bold and out of place, that everyone ignores it. As if our ears had all played tricks on us. As if his words were just a low murmur on the evening breeze, a sound only imagined. Inside the tabernacle, children shriek protests against nursemaids who usher them to bed, guests continue to eat heartily, and slaves still scurry between couches fetching platters, filling wine cups, and wafting giant fans made of ostrich feathers.
In truth, I would wonder if I heard wrong were it not for the narrowing of the emperor’s eyes.
Before I can prevent it, Iullus lumbers to his feet, struggling to pull the end of his toga into proper position over one arm. His low baritone is not unlike my father’s. And this time it carries. “Caesar, give Julia to me and I will seek no other honor as long as I live.”
The crowd’s laughter dies away. But the uncomfortable silence does not stop Iullus. Nor does he see the urgent warning in my expression. He does not even flinch from the gorgon’s glare Livia shoots him from her couch. There is only one woman he sees. And that is Julia.
Still garbed in mourning, the emperor’s daughter is sprawled on a low couch beneath garlands of flowers and fruit, blinking at Iullus with tears in her eyes. It is plain that he has taken her utterly unawares and she is not the only one …
The emperor folds his arms and gazes upon the son of his conquered enemy. Surely Iullus must see that is all he has ever been to Augustus. He must see the malice in the emperor’s eyes, the pure contempt. Any fool would see it, and Iullus is not a fool.
But he is worse than a fool; he is a man in love. “Caesar, all my life, I have defended what is yours. Your name, your family, your legions, your empire. Allow me to defend your daughter and her children with my sword and I swear by Jupiter, it will be my honor and only ambition.”
The emperor’s reply is pure venom from a seething maw. “You are nothing but ambition, Iullus Antonius. I gave my niece to you thinking it might satisfy your appetite, and this is how you repay me?”
It is a small mercy that Marcella retired early for the evening. Perhaps Iullus told her what he intended, or perhaps her absence was the permission he needed to blunder forth. And blunder forth he does with a heartbreaking, wine-soaked passion. “Your niece is a woman of the greatest value, second only in virtue to your daughter. Marcella has been a good wife to me. But it is Julia I love—Julia I have always loved—and I would take her as my wife for all my life long.”
Love. Like a buffoon, he has said the word aloud. It forces Julia’s hands to her face but elicits nervous laughter from the rest of the onlookers, all of whom scoff at love. They are hypocrites, every one of them, for I have learned that Romans feel romantic love like any other people … it is only that they fear it more.
At Iullus’s declaration, Livia laughs, giving a casual toss of her head that belies the stiffness of her posture. But I do not laugh and neither does the emperor. His eyes are a winter storm, his lips drawn tight and mean. I know this icy expression, for I have seen it countless times before. This is the face of a killer. It is the cold face of death.
My hapless half brother is staring at mortal danger and every part of me wants to scream a warning. I want to rush at Iullus. I want to shield his body with my own and threaten to call down magic in his defense. But I’m frozen in terror that the emperor will blame me for his folly.
Instead, he blames Julia, turning to his daughter, ominous thunder rolling below his words. “I wonder … would such an arrangement be agreeable to you, Julia?”
One glance at her father and she knows, as I know, that he has murder on his mind. If she confesses her love for Iullus, it will mean his death, so Julia steadies herself, rises to her feet, and says, “No virtuous Roman daughter would opine on such a matter. Any arrangement my father finds agreeable is one that I welcome …”
This is too timid to stop what Iullus has put in motion. The emperor’s fury has been unleashed and he will not be humored. “Nevertheless, I am an indulgent father and wish to know my daughter’s preferences in the matter.”
Julia glances at Iullus, who laps up the eye contact with canine hope. All his life he has endeavored to live down the reputation of our ancestors, the Antonii, whose wild love for life has always been our undoing. But now raw emotions play across his face, and it is Julia who retreats behind a cool mask.
Sweeping her lashes low, she says, “If I do have a preference, a hidden softness for a man, it is not for Iullus Antonius …”
She says his name with disdain and Iullus stumbles back as if a blow has caught him square in the chest. As if he did not understand that she is battling for his life. His mouth opens to drag in a pained breath. He is lovelorn. He is suffering. And I hope—I pray—that this deep wound will appease the emperor’s bloodlust.
But that is a vain hope, for the emperor now finds his feet, and we all watch the horrid drama acted out before us. “If not Iullus Antonius, then whom would you wed?”
Julia’s complexion goes to ash but she mimics shyness. “I’ve whispered his name in confession to your wife … but even I am not immodest enough to say it aloud.”
Livia’s smile is slow, triumphant, and chilling. “Tiberius.”
Julia averts her gaze, one hand to her face as if she were blushing, but there is no flush on her cheeks. It’s Tiberius whose cheeks redden. Never at ease in his own skin, he looks as if he’d like to crawl out of it now. He holds his wife’s hand, actually gripping Vipsania’s fingers. Vipsania turns her head to shield her eyes from onlookers and we’re all frozen in an awkward tableau.
A married man in love with a widowed beauty who claims she would rather bed down with her own stepbrother. Not even the most vulgar playwright could write such a farce. Such a hideous farce.
And yet Julia’s theatrics save the day. The emperor plainly enjoys the humiliation of Iullus. If his humiliation were water, the emperor would bathe in it. He is spitting in my father’s face through Iullus, and it is the happiest I have seen him since he told us that Lepidus was dead. “Well, then, Tiberius Claudius Nero, can you refuse an alliance with me and my beautiful daughter, her heart so tender for you?”
Tiberius goes to stone, but we all know what his answer will be.
*
I want to go home. I want to board the first ship and sail for Mauretania. I would swim if I could. But Julia begs me to stay until the wedding and I cannot leave her. Not even when we learn that she’s to marry Tiberius in November. It means I must stay on until after the sea closes even though the dispatches we receive from home are increasingly distressed at our absence. I will miss another sowing season, another growing season, another quiet winter in my beloved kingdom.
My only consolation is that I see my half sister Minora joyfully reunited with her husband. Drusus has been campaigning in Germania, where he took a fleet of ships into the North Sea and ran aground during the low tide, suffering untold casualties. It is a near catastrophe for his campaign, and in retreat, he’ll winter with us in Rome. Augustus wants him with us—his punishment for failure in Germania, I suppose.
As a married couple, Drusus and Minora are famously well suited. Young and handsome, gay and charming, they’re beloved of the people in the way Julia and Marcellus once were. But this time, it is a real romance. Drusus is as much known for fidelity to his marriage bed as he is for his fierceness against the Germanic tribes. And with little children in her arms, Minora is the picture of a happy Roman wife. Perhaps the emperor hopes their marital accord will distract from the colder, more calculating arrangements being made for his daughter.
Or perhaps he hopes they will cheer his sister.
Our poor Octavia.
All Rome remembers when she swooned at the mere mention of her son’s name in Virgil’s poem. We saw her grieve for Marcellus, deeply and bitterly. Her sadness was an exposed wound, the scar visible to everyone. But her lingering grief for Agrippa is hidden … and festering. She was not Agrippa’s mother, his sister, his daughter, or his widow. She was nothing to him in the eyes of the world. She gave him up to win a dynastic game. Now she is defeated, and I can say nothing to comfort her. I know, as she knows, that in spite of our efforts, we’ve failed.
Unless Julia’s children survive to be men, the Claudians will rule.
News of the betrothal between Julia and Tiberius has reached every corner of the empire and Livia is now ascendant. When we make our processional into Rome, Livia rides in a gilded carriage beside Augustus, clutching Julia’s little boys in her talons. Her message is simple: The man who rules Rome today and all the men who might rule Rome tomorrow … they all belong to her.
Livia has usurped Julia’s place as the mother of the empire.
And Lady Octavia is forgotten. She stops weaving. She says the wool is inferior. The dye is no good. The loom is broken. But I see the way she rubs at her hands, the joints of which are swollen. I think she is in pain, though she does not complain of it. And in the weeks before Julia’s wedding, Octavia takes to her bed.
The Antonias and I worry over her, fretting when she turns food away. When her daughters abandon their husbands and move into Octavia’s house to care for her, I can do no less. I take my childhood bed in the room with the loose brick in the wall, where Octavia imprisoned me … and sheltered me.
Octavia’s daughters and I make ourselves a nuisance to the household slaves. We see her shiver and demand a bigger fire in her room, more blankets for her bed, hot cider for her to drink. We see her flush and we demand she be carried out into the courtyard to breathe in the fresh air. Antonia takes on the management of the household, ordering supplies, seeing to repairs, supervising the servants. Marcella rules the kitchen to see that her mother is fed the most healthful foods and ones she can chew easily. Meanwhile, Minora takes on all Octavia’s public responsibilities, giving to charities, making the final decisions on the Theater of Marcellus …
I’m left to discuss Octavia’s health with the physician when she’s asleep and to read to her when she is awake. She asks to hear the sixth book of the Aeneid, when the hero goes down into the underworld and sees the shades of the dead by the River Lethe. And when I finish the verse, Octavia says, “Should we hope it’s true that the dead drink of this river to forget their lives? It would be a mercy to forget the pains of this world, but what of the pleasures? Would I surrender the shame and pain and loss if it meant I must also give up the memory of my children? Of my loves?”
I don’t want her thinking of this; reaching into the realm of the dead before her time. “That isn’t what Isis holds forth for us in death, Octavia. We do not forget ourselves. We do not forget the faces of our children or our loved ones. We are joined with them in the afterlife and walk beside the gods.”
Octavia smiles indulgently, closing her eyes. “Perhaps I should like an Egyptian afterlife …”
That smile stops my heart, for it’s altogether too peaceful and grows more so as she drifts to sleep. It alarms me so much that I hold my hand over her mouth to feel the warm puffs of air, to assure myself that she is still breathing. When I am finally reassured, I leave her to sleep, and find Iullus in the courtyard, sitting on the edge of the cistern, rubbing his hands together against the autumn chill. “How does Octavia fare?”
“Resting now,” I answer. “But stay for supper. She’ll be happy to see you.”
“I doubt that, Selene. I doubt that anyone is happy to see me after the Neptunalia. Certainly not my wife and just as certainly not my motherin-law.”
He doesn’t have to explain himself. Anyone who wasn’t present when he asked for Julia in marriage has heard about it now. And though Marcella holds her emotions close, her husband’s declaration of love for another woman has embittered her. Marcella has been snappish, and it isn’t only her mother’s illness that’s to blame.
I sigh. “They know you meant no harm to anyone.”
Iullus tilts his head. “Are you defending me?”
It seems to shock him as much as it shocks me. “I suppose I am, and not for the first time either. It was an ill-considered thing you did, but your intentions were good.”
He swallows, reaching for a leather pouch on his belt. Unlacing it, he says, “I have something for you.”
He withdraws two matching cameos and presses them into my palm. One is a carving of my father, his curly hair wild. The other is my mother, her features rendered on onyx. I recognize the style, for the artist, Master Gnaios, now serves in my court. “Where on earth did you come upon these?”
“In one of our father’s villas. A small one in Ostia that I was allowed to inherit. I found these in a niche by the bed. They must have been overlooked … at any rate, I’ve no use for the cameos or for the villa. I’ll happily sign it over to you if you like.”
He says it with the pretense of contempt, and once I would have believed it. Iullus forged his whole identity around being anything, anyone, but Antony’s son, but even contempt would not cause him to give away what wealth he has left, nor would he give any thought to the sentimental value of these cameos if he weren’t suffering a winter of the soul. “Why are you in such a generous mood, Iullus? Don’t you want to leave anything for your wife and your children?”
“For it to be taken by my neighbors when I am officially proscribed?”
It has been a long time since the bloody purges in which men were condemned, stripped of citizenship, and hunted down for the reward money. Still, the idea of proscription strikes the heart with terror and I am not immune. My fist closes tight around the cameos. “I’m glad you’re finally wise enough to fear the emperor, Iullus, but if Augustus wanted to be rid of you, he’d do it with less fanfare.”
He shrugs, lips turned down, drawn tight. “He won’t have to do anything.”
It isn’t the flatness of his eyes but the catch in his voice that fills me with foreboding. He’s ready to take his leave, but I catch him by the wrist and hold tight. “Don’t you dare!”
He looks down at me, his expression as bleak as my father’s after the Battle of Actium. “It’s the only way, Selene. It’s the only thing I can do for honor.”
“Honor be damned,” I say, my nails digging into the very wrists he intends to slit. Or will he take his sword and position the tip
beneath his ribs, falling with his weight upon it? It won’t be poison. It won’t be a venomous snake. He’s a Roman. It will be bloody …
“Let go, Selene. The emperor wants me dead and if I wait to be proscribed, Marcella cannot marry again and my children will inherit nothing. Our family … the Antonii—”
He doesn’t finish. Perhaps he cannot finish. He has never wanted to carry our father’s name or family legacy. For all his resentments and pettiness, Iullus has never wanted anything but to please the emperor and to love Julia. My heart breaks for him. Truly, it does.
“Our father was a drunken general,” Iullus rasps. “A besotted fool in love. A weak-willed man who had the whole world in his hand and lost it. But I? I am even less than that. I am nothing.”
I shake my head violently. “It isn’t true.”
“Give me a sword and I can outfight Tiberius and Drusus. I could outgeneral them too, if Caesar would give me a command. But he will never do it, Selene. He will never let me lead men. He will never let me become anything. Now I’ve lost Julia. She won’t even see me. I have nothing. I am nothing.”
“You’re my brother,” I say fervently, as the meaning and weight of our connection finally settles upon me. He is my brother. He is the only one of them left to me, the others dead or … gone. “I won’t let you give your life for honor. I’ll work the vilest magic I know to keep you in this world, I swear it. If not for my sake, then for Julia’s. For Marcella. For the Antonias. For your beautiful little children. You’re not nothing, Iullus. You’re a father.”
“That has to be enough?” he asks, eyes red and wet.
Taking a deep breath, I say, “Our father was a drunk. He was a besotted fool in love. You didn’t know him, but he was everything you said and more. A womanizer. A spendthrift. An overgrown boy. But I would give anything to have him back.”
“Because he was honorable and brave. Yes, I’ve heard—”
“Because he was my father and he made me feel cherished. You have a tender heart for your children too. I know you do. Think of them before you do this.”
Daughters of the Nile Page 31