The Snake Catcher

by Bilinmeyen

  She nodded, gravely. “I know there was an attack on you. It won’t happen again.”

  “Why?” I asked with a frown.

  “Because now we know there is a danger from Kleitos,” she answered. “I’m sorry you were in danger.”

  “I nearly died,” I said between bites. “A whore saved me.”

  She smiled. “Fortuna in the guise of a harlot.”

  “She was a Greek whore,” I added. “Not Fortuna.”

  She sighed. “Goddess is with us, Corvus. We watch them carefully, and I thank you for exposing the danger. And the duty is useful. Did you tell her of your father?”

  I shook my head. “No chance,” I lied. “Look. We can watch her during the night just fine. Is that not enough?”

  She nodded. “Yes. You will. Your men will. My men and slaves will, even better than yours. And that might be enough, eventually. But, no, you aren’t off the hook. How did the night go?”

  I waved my hand and made no comment on the past night, and I saw this annoyed her. “Look. Adalwulf said he is in charge of everything else in this matter but Julia. And yet, I found out plenty in one night. Things Adalwulf had no idea about. I could be useful in other ways.”

  “You are trying to go past Adalwulf, Hraban? It’s not proper,” she said softly. “He told me.”

  Stubbornly, I pressed on. “Nonetheless, I would like to look into Kleitos. And the gladiator,” I added, as I ate something that was probably cheese.

  She dipped her head, with an unreadable expression on her face. “I see. Adalwulf was of an opinion you are a hard-headed one. That you rather listen to your own counsel than someone who actually knows better.” She shook her head with annoyance. “So, how did you like Julia? Stop squirming.”

  I grunted with distress. I ate and said nothing.

  She smiled thinly. “You liked her.”

  “I don’t know her,” I said defensively. “She is intelligent.”

  Livia smiled. “She is.”

  “And there is misery she doesn’t hide, and deep thoughts she does,” I continued.

  “Yes, she is a Roman matron,” Livia agreed. “She knows how to keep secrets, though she doesn’t know how to behave in public. I wanted to slap her so hard yesterday, so hard her jewelry would have flown in an arc of gold and silver. Her dress in the burial of Drusus? Disgraceful. Filthy. And you saw she disdained the lot of us. I blame my husband. He let her run wild when she was young.”

  I nodded, squinting my eyes. “Yes, I saw it. Everyone did. She wanted to rebel. Perhaps her spirit demands it, after so many forced marriages.” I shook my head. “There is a bit of that spirit in me as well.”

  “Kindred spirts, except she killed your family,” she said evenly.

  I said nothing to that, and stopped eating. Instead, I spoke resentfully. “She hates her father. Might be she didn’t run so free all her life, after all.”

  She said nothing for a time, and then turned to me. “There was a time she had no restraints. Then, she grew up. Your daughters don’t marry whom the father chooses?”

  I squirmed. “Sometimes. But …”

  “Go on,” she said.

  I slapped a fly out of the air angrily, making her flinch. “Our families are not torn up to make a new, sensible alliance. Once joined, they are one. That would kill a man, seeing his beloved wife with another. It won’t make the new wife happy either. We’d take the spear, if someone tried to break our family. Only sorrow follows such a union.”

  She laughed softly. “You feel sorry for her. You like and feel sorry for her.”

  “I feel sorry for both of them, Tiberius and Julia,” I said softly.

  “Oh?” she said with apprising eyes. “I told you what she spoke with this mystery man. What she agreed on. Despite that, after one night standing before her door, do you now believe she had nothing to do with Drusus’s death? Do you think she is no danger to my other son, or my grandchildren?”

  I massaged my neck and sighed. “I believe you. And I will try. I don’t claim to know her. She seems kind, but even your favorite hound might bite your balls unexpectedly,” I said, and then I was mortified, and she stared at me in shock. I stammered and bowed my head. “My pardon. I’m a soldier.”

  She raised her eyebrow and covered her mouth with her hand, apparently smiling behind the cover. “Drusus was like that when he returned from the Alps and Germania. I tried to raise him right. One has to wonder which one of you influenced the other. The soldiers ruined him, or he the soldiers.”

  “He taught me to swear in Latin, my lady,” I said mischievously.

  She laughed and agreed. “Probably. But, your kind taught him to swear first, I bet.” She nodded and smiled. “Don’t worry. You are allowed to like Julia. She can be likable. You are doing better than I thought you would. We Romans often think ourselves as superior, but you have cunning as well as bravery in that tall and wide frame of yours. Will you keep to your duty? Your duty,” she said empathetically, “is to save my son. So, you didn’t tell her you are son of Maroboodus?” She put down the pruning knife on a table near the tree and walked to sit next to me.

  “No,” I said defensively. “What, am I supposed to just blurt it out, just like that? No, I spoke of my life, spoke of Father, told her how I was there fighting him, and perhaps she guessed something?”

  “Did she like you?”

  “Julia?” I asked, and shook my head. “I know not. She might have? She might be acting?”

  “She liked you,” Livia said with a smile. “Like father, like son. You both appeal to her.” She put a hand on mine. “Get close to her. Forget everything else. We watch her day, and you watch her by night. You are right to have doubts. We miss much, Hraban. She might have her own spies. She has her allies. Those allies might try to kill you, or already tried. But, she is the key, Hraban. She is the one who sends our enemies information.”

  “Kleitos does,” I told her mulishly.

  She shook her head. “Kleitos didn’t know about Antonia and the house she stayed in while we travelled here, or even that we stayed in that town. Kleitos was not in Rome. Only Julia knew, as Augustus begged her to come to us.”

  I shook my head and gave up. “Fine, my lady. But, Kleitos tried to kill me.”

  “She is going to go and sacrifice to the gods today,” she said patiently. “We are watching her. She might go at night, as well. She visits that witch occasionally, when she gets distressed. If she does, you be careful. Have your men and slaves close. Follow her. But, Corvus, the one sure way to find a way into the depths of this treason is Julia herself.” She leaned near me. “She is lonely.”

  “She is,” I agreed. “She seems to be. She lives alone in that domus, and meets few people. She should be happier.”

  She crinkled her nose, briefly annoyed with me. “Become her confidant. Tell her secrets. Tell her you are son of Maroboodus, tell her more. Listen to her and her secrets. We need to capture her in the middle of lies and deceit.”

  “Secrets,” I said, uncomfortable. “Just like that? Secrets for secret? I have few to share.”

  “Get close to her,” she said, as if I was a particularity thick child.

  “You give me a lot of credit, lady,” I answered. “A lot. I cannot speak like she does. I don’t have her past. I barely speak the same language—”

  She put a hand on my knee. “Sit still,” she said.

  “What—”

  “And be quiet,” she said, and ran it up my inner thigh. She was swift, strong, and her hand pulled the chain mail with it and came to rest on my manhood, which she grasped firmly under my pants. I stared at her with horrified eyes, not daring to move. She held it, fingered it, and smiled. “It is sizable. Very sizable. And reacts.”

  I blushed.. “I will have to ask you to—”

  She didn’t, but held it tightly, and her face was flushed as she tugged at the thing. “This is what you have. It can do the speaking for you. You have a cock, man. Seduce her. You can, you know
. She’s unhappy, as you keep saying. Unhappy women are open to seduction. Find her secrets, when you are in bed with her,” she said, took her hand away gently and too slowly, and smiled feverishly. “Bed her, and she’ll speak of the things she truly cares about. Or,” she said hoarsely, “of the things she hopes to accomplish.”

  I stared at her aghast, not sure what to make of what had just happened. I adjusted my chain mail, sat with my knees together and braced myself. I forced out a breath. “When I bed her? You want me to—” I went silent, and cursed inside my head. She had grabbed my cock! “I think that the gladiator, and Kleitos, are a better way to solve the issue, than betraying my wife.”

  She nodded, getting angry. “Forget the gladiator. He is a nothing. Just a sword. Seduce Julia. Compromise her. Trust me, this is the better way. Didn’t Tiberius tell you to listen to me? He did. Didn’t Drusus tell you to obey Tiberius? Surely he did.”

  I sat there, staring at the woman. She got up, and let me think about it. I leaned back, wishing I had kept a closer eye on Cassia and gone with Tiberius. She went back to pruning the tree, and I kept staring at her back, until she sighed. “Germani. Honor makes them so useless, sometimes,” she murmured. “Good for dealing death, and useful in the art of violence, but useless in the filthy matters of the state. Giving oaths to a Roman lord, Hraban, means you must sometimes forgo your honor.”

  “What about my oaths to my wife?” I asked her miserably.

  She nodded. “I can respect that, I suppose. You love her. She is your rock, you are hers. You hang on to each other and weather the winds of the world.” She shook her head. “I’ve not had such luck with love. But, I see you have. I have spoken with your wife. She is a Celt of a noble family. She knows Latin, she has manners, her beauty is fierce and loyalty legendary. She has probably been through many harsh days during her time with you, and withstood storms that would pull down a house.” She stared at me mirthlessly as she came back. I kept my knees together fiercely. “I envy you,” she said. She placed a fig on my plate. “I grow everything here, Hraban. Figs, pleasant flowers, and my bitterness as well. I’m sorry if I seem heartless to you.”

  I nodded guardedly as I picked up the fig. “I’ve heard of your marriages, and how they came about.”

  “My son, Drusus, never could keep his mouth shut,” she chuckled. “Loved his father, whom he really never knew. Grew up with the stories of him defying Octavianus’s power, our glorious Princeps’s terrible tyranny. He hated Octavianus from the moment he could walk. They spoke cordially, played games, wrote to each other, but all Drusus could see was the man who had separated me from his father. He saw my husband become the Princeps, the Augustus, and he kept thinking about the drab Senate like a mule.” I flinched at her tone, and she smiled wistfully as she calmed herself. “He couldn’t understand why I married Augustus.”

  Why, indeed? I thought, but didn’t give the thought a voice.

  “And I see you know when to stop asking questions,” she smiled. “Have the fig.”

  I twisted off the stem, and ate it. It was sweet, and I nodded thanks.

  She nodded gravely. “You are one of the few who men who have received one from my hand. I trust you, and honor you. Your wife is in that room to the side.” She pointed her finger to a doorway, and I began to get up. She placed a hand on mine, holding me still. “Antonia and the children are going to be in the countryside soon. Some men of the third go with them. They’ll be safe, but they cannot stay there forever. My son left for Germania, accompanied by men of the Germani Guard. He, too, must come home. Seeking a gladiator takes you nowhere, Hraban. Pursuing idiot Kleitos will just make a fool of you. Do not alert them, Hraban. Go for Julia. “

  “I understand,” I said guardedly.

  “You have to be smarter than they are. Julia will want Tiberius to take his place alongside Drusus in that cold mausoleum. She’s afraid of him, and his power, and terrified of his hatred of her. She’ll also make sure she will have no competition from the children of Germanicus—”

  “Germanicus?” I asked her, confused.

  “Ah, you didn’t hear,” she smirked. “My husband gave Drusus the hereditary title of conqueror of Germania, Germanicus, and that will mean the oldest son of Antonia, the little Tiberius, is now called Germanicus.”

  That was the first time I heard the name that would echo in the northern woods for a raging decade, and make all our lives horrible torment and misery. “There’s a lot of land to be conquered up there still,” I said critically. “Hardly a fair title to be given so lightly. And—”

  She chuckled. “Tiberius will inherit Drusus’s honor. He will avenge Drusus, and men will love him for it. It is good there is a lot to be conquered still. But, you think of Julia. Think about her. We must compromise her, and ultimately, we must find who drives the fool.” I fidgeted. She nodded. “Ask.”

  “What I asked before,” I whispered. “And what shall I do,” I asked tentatively, “if this man is her father?”

  I risked much. She let her breath out. “And if that is the case, you will see a mother fight for her son. And perhaps, Hraban of the Marcomanni, you will find you are needed for many a dark deed.”

  “I am unhappy with this discussion,” I said. “Unhappy and afraid.”

  “So am I. But, Drusus trusted you. I need you,” she said softly. She rubbed her knee, like a scared old woman, and spoke. “None shall kill Tiberius. I love him dearly.” She looked at me sternly. “Will you do anything that’s needed? Anything? Including take lives, if it is necessary. Perhaps high lives.”

  Anything? Murder?

  I felt my belly churning with disgust.

  That gladiator. He could be made to talk. He could be hidden, tortured, and he would give a name. I’d have to find him.

  But, to murder for Livia?

  I would have for Drusus, but for this woman? She had many layers, and I knew none of them, save the one of a mother. “I’ll have to see my wife, my lady.”

  She went still, her face frozen. “I see.”

  I breathed deep. For Drusus. And his family. Isn’t that what he asked from me, to be a sword in the dark. And so I spoke. “I will do anything that’s necessary to keep them alive. My oath on that.”

  She smiled and looked supremely relieved. “Meet your wife. She is pregnant, and will need you soon. She will give birth to a fine, stubborn child. And I will make sure she gets the best possible care. I know you are an honorable man, Hraban. Service like this cannot change your heart.”

  I nodded. I hoped she was right. Lif had made me an honorable man. Fulcher as well.

  Lif.

  She had changed everything. My daughter was safe now, where Cassia was not. I looked at the doorway where Cassia was quartered, and felt filth flowing around me, trying to smother the love I had found in her, trying to drown the honor. It was burying the man I had found with great difficulty, and whom Drusus had loved. For Drusus, I had to let go of it. For Tiberius, Antonia, for myself, and my family, we had to find the guilty ones. I was tied to Livia, through Cassia.

  “I will make her trust me,” I said, got up, collected my weapons, and bowed. “No matter how. And may gods and Cassia forgive me.”

  She nodded. “She will. I already prepared her for it.”

  I stared at her with fury. She had told Cassia her husband would be required to bed Julia? I calmed myself with difficulty, and bowed.

  She hesitated. “And I’m sorry I touched you. I did it to get your attention, and I had to know you are not incapable of giving woman pleasure. And, to be honest, I, too, am lonely sometimes. I, too, love to touch a strong man.”

  I hesitated, bowed and walked off.

  ***

  Most rooms in all the Roman noble houses were merely alcoves. They were meant for sleeping, and nothing else. The ones in Livia’s house were mostly the same, but there were also a set of larger rooms to the side of the gardens. Cassia was settled in one of these rooms. My gratitude to Livia was not apparent in my
furious face as I opened the doorway.

  Seduce Julia? I thought. Shit. And she touched me!

  I forgot my anger, at least partly.

  Cassia.

  There she was. She was combing her hair, as a slave girl left her, having failed to convince her to adopt a Roman hair style. I cleared my throat. “So, you decided to accompany Livia to Rome? Such a generous, warmhearted wife I have.”

  Cassia looked up at me and smiled widely. She looked apologetic, just briefly, then proud. “She was dizzy, sick, and since I had no intention of leaving your side this time, I made a decision of my own. Mathildis helped me carry her.”

  “Carry her?” I snorted. “She could carry both of you. All four, in fact. And Brimwulf is not happy,” I said darkly. “And I’m—”

  “Going to stop running around protecting me, and you need to get to work,” she said simply. “I’ll be useful here.” She tried to get up from her low bed with stubborn determination. A woman came in, and beamed at me. She was a beautiful lady, with a hugely long red and black hair, and she noticed Cassias brave attempt.

  “Here,” she said and moved for her. She was the goddess of patience, as Cassia wasn’t an easy one to aid. Cassia was shaking her head, and the girl was hissing encouragements at Cassia in our language as she tried to help her.

  “Camulos kick the bastard who crafted this bed,” Cassia moaned.

  Mathildis came to the room from a corridor and winked at me. “She’s horribly moody. It’s high time you get your share.”

  “You two were supposed to leave for the north—”

  “Shh,” she said and leaned to me. “I agree, but I didn’t want her to leave on her own.”

  I grinned wryly at Mathildis in thanks, flipped my helmet away and stared at Cassia, forgetting the shame of Livia’s suggestion and actions for just a moment. I lifted my eyebrow at huffing Cassia. “You won’t get up to greet your husband?”

  Cassia’s face was a thing of red fury. “You dare … You crawl to me on your knees, man,” Cassia cursed and settled back down, holding her belly. “He’s busy.” She pointed at the belly.

  I walked in and kneeled next to her, and put my ear on her mound. A kick greeted me, and I grinned, remembering the joy of Lif’s birth. The girl next to Cassia looked at me gravely, her eyes full of sorrow.