“By causing plenty of trouble, in many ways” I said. “He has a vast number of men, they say.”
“Trouble means dead men, women, and children,” she said, and shook her head.
“But not ours,” I answered brutally, and she flinched and grasped my hand, shamed by the truth in my words.
She looked down and nodded. “It might work. Augustus will panic if a terrible war threatens him. But when he gets back, and Maroboodus must face war and Tiberius must lead it, it will be awkward, no?”
“Maroboodus will negotiate with Tiberius, I am sure,” I said, and in fact, counted on it. “They will find a way to make a mockery of it.”
She breathed heavily, unhappy but gathering resolve. Her eyes flickered to the open doorway, and she saw Gaius and Livilla speaking now near the garden. “I wish I could change her name. Livilla indeed. Perhaps later.”
“You agree?” I asked.
“I love you Hraban, but I tell you this. I never loved it when Drusus put down kingdoms, planned for murder, or when innocent people died. But I suppose I must now take the mantle and do what he did. So,” she surmised. “You shall try to get close to Lollius. That will not be easy. You will guard Gaius, and my daughter, the idiot Germanicus, the equally foolish Lucius, you will play a dangerous game in many camps. You shall play for time, until and if, Tiberius is back in Rome. And when he is, he shall deal with Livia and everything else. Tiberius shall act, he shall find your family, and he shall pay Maroboodus this prize. He shall be the sword that protects Rome and Gaius and Lucius as well as mine.”
“Yes,” I said simply.
“And if Tiberius refuses after all?”
“Then,” I said desperately. “I shall kill Livia for the good of all.”
She nodded thankfully. “Make sure you succeed.” Her eyes flashed and she nodded. “I shall write to him. So will Vipsania. Her words will nudge his emotions. Mine will push his sense of honor. And let gods help us.”
And I, I thought, will prick his fears. And hopes.
She opened a drawer on the desk and struggled, took out a wooden board, and pulled out a sealed package from inside. It was, I knew, the scroll of Kleitos. “Is there something in it I’d like to read?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Just admission to Livia’s guilt. You may read it, of course.” I gazed at the package that had started the whole affair of Tiberius’s self-imposed exile. “Is it safe in the desk of Drusus?”
She smiled and rapped the board. “There is a hidden layer in there. You will visit him then? I assume that is the only way you can convince him.”
I shook my shoulders, and massaged them. The stress was getting to me, and I was no longer a young man. “Yes. I will. I have a plan,” I said. “It involves Lollius. Why do you take the scroll out of hiding?”
“First, when you go, you should deliver our scrolls to Tiberius,” she said. “And second; give him this.”
“But—”
She shook her head and silenced me with a scowl. It was impressive. “Give him your evidence, Hraban, as you speak to him. As you try to persuade him, give him everything. Give him our words, and know the plight of his son will move him. Give him this, and he will be grateful, awed by your trust. Our words will move him, your trust will honor him.”
“Yes, lady,” I said.
She got up, and walked to me. She hugged me, and wept softly. “For Drusus. Do this for my lost love as well as your family. If you fail and die,” she said simply, robbing me of my brief joy, “I will speak with Augustus.”
I bowed my head in supplication. “Thank you. And if I die, can you try to find my son, if he is alive?”
She nodded sadly and took a shuddering breath. “Can you keep an eye on Lollius?” she said sadly. “He too, will also be worried of my poor Germanicus.”
I hid my shock. I had not considered the possibility that Marcus might harbor the same sort of plans as Livia did. She saw the look on my face. “Gaius will make him one of the most affluent men in Rome. As if he isn’t already. He is worried of the competition.”
“I will, obviously,” I told her, and knew the plans I had been braiding together would not simply succeed. I’d need luck. “I still have to convince him to trust me. He can make it very hard for us to approach Gaius. Or even to guard him. I must intrigue him.” I frowned. “But perhaps I will find a way to please him.”
“Sejanus,” she said simply.
“Eh?”
“Sejanus is a Praetorian, an optio to the century of the Praetorians he keeps close,” she said. “Be wary of him. He obeys Marcus like a dog, but he is not a good man. Greedy, some say a thief, and eager to please.”
“There is only one century?” I asked.
“Yes, and while the Praetorians aren’t supposed to stay in Rome,” she said, “Lollius has convinced Augustus to keep these men in the Palatine.”
“Yes, I know. Though, I have been totally out of touch of the Guard’s duties of late,” I said. “Sejanus is devoted to him? Surely, he isn’t a problem, if we both try to guard Gaius.”
She smoothed her sleeve, her voice shaking. “Make sure a man like Sejanus doesn’t get to my Germanicus.”
I nodded thanks. “I shall get to work. I will see Lollius this very evening, with luck. And you shall arrange the letters? The one from Vipsania?”
“I shall,” she said heavily. “She is a friend. May things work out, and let there be not too many dead people when it is all over.”
Sadly, she would be wrong. I heard Woden laughing in my head, though it was just my imagination.
I joined Wandal, and soon Gaius turned, saw me and nodded outside. We followed him and Livilla, and the Guards were surrounded by a group of Praetorians, and off we marched. Wandal and I pushed through the shocked Praetorians and took our places beside Gaius. There was some shuffling, chaos, and one man, an optio with dark horsehair on his helmet and a nearly hawk-like nose on a handsome face, was scowling at us. He shook his head, and waved his men on.
Sejanus. A greedy man. Practical.
Livilla turned to grin at me, then saw Sejanus and hesitated, blushed, and looked away.
Evil whispered to my ears, and I knew what to do.
CHAPTER 5
The Princeps was sitting in the garden, looking at a scroll one of his ever-present scribes had discreetly slipped into his hand. He didn’t see well, he squinted, and his guests, those he had been talking with, looked away to give the man privacy. His hair was gray and white, patchy in places, and still that power he clung to jealously was almost visible in his bony face. The man who had picked up the reins after Julius Caesar had died, the man who had stubbornly and wisely settled into the ruins of his great relative’s legacy and built shrewdly and patiently the Rome around us, frowned at the text he was reading.
Such a frown might set nations on fire.
We stood with other Germani guards in the atrium, just next to the peristyle, the hallway leading to the depths of the domus, and every guard looked tense. The Praetorians were outside, but it was our duty to keep the noble people alive, and so our eyes were mostly on the ones whose lives we had been charged with.
In Rome, murder was commonplace. While Livia’s madness was our main concern, there were plenty of other threats in the Roman world.
Despite such threats, the party was a pleasant one.
Some opulently attired people were lounging on rich couches, others were busily mingling, laughing, and harp music was playing softly. A man was throwing up behind his couch, a slave helping him by holding a large bowl up to his face. It was considered a successful party, some said, if the guests vomited, and the Germani and the Romans were very much alike in the acts of revelry. I watched, as Adalwulf was approaching and speaking with Lucius. The latter was excited, in a foolish way, as he eyed the great sword of Adalwulf, asking him questions. Adalwulf was nearly forty, and likely seemed like a hero of ancient Roman legends to the boy.
All in all, the evening was a success as t
he nobles enjoyed and visited Augustus, congratulated Gaius, who was placed in the middle of the room next to round-eyed Livilla, and everyone gossiped about the two, often crudely. Adalwulf and I stood side by side, staring silently over the atrium, where Augustus was now talking with an old Senator. Young Gaius, a so-called youth leader, princeps iuventis, so named because the boy was wildly popular, made Livilla giggle with a whispered comment.
“There,” Adalwulf whispered as he approached, having lost Lucius. I turned my face to look at the man, Marcus Lollius, a rotund, white haired noble who entered the domus and was speaking with a handsome man, one whom I knew well. That was the very man Livia had convinced to speak to Augustus on our behalf.
“Varus,” I whispered.
The governor who had been in Syria, not so long ago, and had put down the revolt in Jerusalem with bloody war, was strolling with Lollius. He was greedy, I knew that. Was he inept, I had no idea. In Jerusalem, he had been besieged for a time. I simply didn’t know the man well enough.
But I know I had left him rich.
The whole affair had begun with the death of Herod Agrippa, and that unfortunate event had left many applicants to the throne, and one Sabinus, a man who had been sent to gather a tithe of the estate for Augustus, had robbed more than a tithe, and had pushed the Jews into a terrible revolt. Talents of gold and silver and the temple’s greatest treasures had been looted. The gold and silver of Jerusalem’s Temple had been in that room where I had finally killed Antius the Fat. It was not hard to imagine where it had gone.
My friends had filled their pouches, so had others, but the vast riches were likely grasped by some very greedy hands.
Marcus saw us. He frowned as his eyes went from me to Adalwulf.
Adalwulf spoke. “So, here we go.” I gave him an angry glance, and begged the gods I knew how to act well enough.
I shifted just a bit and he spoke again. His face looked stern as he turned to give me what Marcus would think were commands. Instead, Adalwulf was speaking of his past. “I’ve wondered for a long time if my mother yet lives. Is he watching?”
I gave him an enraged look. “He is. And I don’t care about your rancid mother,” I told him.
And that comment made him an excellent actor as well. His face burnt with the insult and he poked me. “You shit-mouthed bastard. She was a good woman.”
“Can’t be,” I told him. “Otherwise you would have turned out pretty.”
He gnashed his teeth and turned abruptly, enough to attract some attention from some of the guests and walked to further rooms, out of sight.
I turned my face back forward, kept a heavy scowl on my face, and saw Varus was still speaking to Lollius.
But Lollius was looking at me, his mouth slightly open. Then he watched the departing, enraged Adalwulf, and then, he watched me again. Then he shook himself free from Varus, making excuses, and headed for Gaius. I watched Gaius go still as he spied the approaching figure and then stand up to receive Lollius, and it occurred to me even Augustus might not get that sort of a welcome.
Lollius embraced the man, apparently complimented Livilla, and spoke at length with Gaius.
At one point in the discussion, Gaius nodded at me and Lollius gave me a thoughtful look.
***
Later, that evening, he approached me.
I was standing outside, as Gaius and Lucius and Germanicus were drinking wine, sitting on a wall of a small fountain not far from the domus. They had wanted air and I had stalked after them, and outside, had pushed past the Praetorians to stand close, but not too close to Gaius. Other guards were there as well, those of Lucius and Germanicus, and the young nobles ignored the lot. Gaius, older than the other two, seemed occasionally embarrassed by their antics, but staunchly smiled.
“He is terrified of a marriage,” I heard a man say, and turned to see Sejanus.
I watched him carefully. “Any man might be, if forced into it.”
He chuckled. “Oh, a man like him marries for power, for the future. Men like you and I? We marry what will take us.” He smiled crookedly, saw I was not amused and nodded at Gaius. “In Rome, you do as you please anyway. Wife, lover, another lover, perhaps a whore. Gaius there, I think, is going to be faithful, so let us hope the girl is pleasing to him.”
“What would you marry, if you could?” I asked him.
He chuckled. “A high-born woman. I’d give the union ruthlessness, and she would give the access. Perhaps a son or two.” He chuckled again, his voice guttural and dangerous. He gave me a quick, snake-like look. “Why did they change the guards? The last ones knew it is us, who actually watch over him. You seem not to—”
I grunted and gave him a baleful look that made him shut up, and step back. “Because Augustus asked for it. This is the fourth turma, not a pack of lazy monkeys. They think we have the most experience in keeping high lords alive,” I answered. “And you will step back to your usual role now. Meaning; stay around, watch the door from the outside, but don’t come near us.”
“Ah, I heard of you last year,” he answered. “Yes, Corvus.” He was taking a stock of me, and was no doubt going to do it to the rest of us. “They said you saved Tiberius and even Augustus from the damned pirates. And that it had something to do with Julia.” He was nodding. “They also said it was Livia with whom you have worked.”
“No, it is my Decurion,” I said bitterly, spewing poison. “Adalwulf. That shit had us work for years on Julia’s case. It was a good service, since we saved Augustus, wasn’t it? And what followed? No bonus, nothing but promises for advancement. And now, no doubt there will be more shit. I know Adalwulf got paid. I hate the bastard. But I’ll do my duty.” I nodded at Gaius. “He seems decent.”
“He is odd,” Sejanus said softly, looking at Gaius, thinking. “A bit timid. Secretive. Useful.”
I watched him. “Useful for whom?”
“For Rome,” he added and winked. “What else?”
I shook my head and turned away. “For Rome.”
He turned and nodded at the shadows.
A hand covered the shoulder of Sejanus. Lollius stepped next to me. He had been listening, and I was impressed by how silently the old noble could move. The rotund man adjusted his toga and waved at Gaius, who had watched the altercation with interest.
Sejanus moved off.
Lollius waited until he did, and then spoke. “He is mine,” Lollius told me, as Sejanus walked off.
“Which one?” I asked. “Sejanus or Gaius?”
He gave me a cold look. “Gaius, of course will one day rule all of us. Surely you meant Sejanus? Because Sejanus is mine, his centurion is mine, the century as well. And I am a guard and guide to Gaius, who is surrounded by greed and traitors. But now, you stand here, staring at my—”
He went quiet.
“Your Gaius,” I finished for him.
“You are playing an odd game for a simple guard,” he mused. “I shall speak to Augustus about this. I have not had time, but the fact Varus asked him to replace—”
“I think,” I told him plainly, “that Augustus will want guards, rather than Praetorians around Gaius. Everyone thinks you are too close to him, and the Praetorians look like your men. You are a friend and guide to Gaius, but Gaius, if he is to rule, must be his own man. Perhaps Varus was thinking about this? Perhaps Augustus agreed.”
He stared at me with his mouth open. “My, but you have plenty of ideas unsuitable for a guard.”
I shrugged. “It seems obvious, doesn’t it? We have princes in Germania as well.”
He chortled dryly. “Sejanus is mine. Not Gaius.”
I shrugged. “In that case, I meant Sejanus.” I endured his hostile look, and spoke with dripping regret. “I apologize, of course. I am merely doing my duty. It is not a good day, and I tend to be like a thorn when things are not going well.”
“Troubles, eh?” he said, slightly mollified. “I’m troubled a guard of Gaius would be troubled. I heard you speaking.”
; “You should not—”
“That … Adalwulf?” he said with a frown. “I wasn’t happy with him joining this detail. I do not like it. I—” he spoke, and rubbed his face with a sweaty palm. “I do not like him. And I heard you saying you do not like him either?”
“We have a strained relationship, due to broken promises,” I said.
“He broke them?” he asked.
I looked troubled. “He, or …”
“Go on,” he said. “You can say it.”
“I go and give his reports every now and then to Livia,” I told him. “It was she who set him on the trail of Julia. I was the one who discovered the plot of Iullus and Julia, and the bonus that was to be paid, apparently went to Adalwulf, and there was no promotion.” I shook my head. “I am sorry. Truly, a guard should not—"
“Speak,” he said simply.
“Years of work wasted. I’ve spoken to him a few times about the matter, but he lies to us. And now, no doubt, our Decurion Adalwulf is after another bonus, even better duty, and Woden knows what he will be asked to do. He is not a loyal man.”
“What do you mean?” Marcus asked, his eyes on me like an owl’s.
I took a shuddering breath. “I know not. For some reason, I do not trust the wife of—” I stammered and looked down. “I don’t trust her.”
“Wife of Augustus,” he said softly. In a moment, I could be arrested, taken to the Carcer, and strangled. To voice such doubts of the wife of the Princeps was treason.
He hesitated, and then he snorted. “You have good instincts. Very good. I do not trust her, or Adalwulf either.”
Had it worked? Woden above, let it work.
I smiled thinly in thanks. “I’ll do my duty. The rest of the men are good boys, the lot. Bitter, robbed and cheated men, but excellent guards all, from boot to nose. All want good service, and this could be it. I will stay close to Gaius, and if your man Sejanus there wants to step in between, he should know I have no aversion to stepping on, and then over him. I do that. Step on men I don’t like. I can make men … go away.”
Lollius chuckled and shook his head. “Like this Adalwulf?”
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