The Last King of Rome

by Laura Dowers

  ‘Is it important, Lolly? I’ve got a lot to get through today.’

  ‘It’s important to me. I’m pregnant.’

  He dropped his stylus on the desk and sighed as he looked at her. ‘Lucius?’

  Her mouth tightened at the inference. ‘As if you need to ask.’

  ‘I suppose I should congratulate you.’

  ‘I suppose you should.’

  ‘Pregnant at last, after all those barren years with Arruns.’

  ‘Lucius is more potent than Arruns ever was,’ she said dismissively, thinking of the means she had taken not to get pregnant by Arruns.

  ‘Not something I need to know,’ Servius said, picking up his stylus.

  ‘That’s not all,’ Lolly said, taking the stylus out of his hand. ‘I can’t be pregnant and a widow.’

  ‘I see. So, marriage to Lucius. What you always wanted.’

  ‘You should have let me marry him in the beginning.’

  ‘At last, something you and your mother agree on.’

  Mention of Tarquinia caused an uncomfortable silence. Lolly broke it.

  ‘So, can I assume we have your blessing to marry?’

  ‘If you feel you need my blessing. You always seem to do whatever you want with or without it.’

  ‘You know, Mother’s dismal moods are having a terrible effect on you. You should have the doctor see to her.’

  ‘Your mother is fine,’ he insisted.

  ‘If you say so,’ Lolly sighed. ‘So, do I arrange my own wedding or shall I leave that to you?’

  ‘A big wedding?’

  ‘Quiet, I thought.’

  ‘Then you don’t need me,’ Servius said, plucking the stylus back. ‘Get it done. You can leave it to me to tell your mother. Oh, she will be pleased.’

  PART III

  538 BC–525 BC

  17

  Lucius kicked off his sandals and laid back, letting his legs hang over the end of the couch. What a tedious day it had been. All morning standing in for Servius to hear petitioners and then the afternoon inspecting the building works at the Temple of Diana, his father-in-law’s big project that was finally nearing completion. Here he was, forty-two years of age, a husband, a father to four children, and still he was Servius’s errand boy.

  Lucius shouted for wine and a slave hurried to pour him a cup. He downed the wine in one gulp and held it out to be refilled. Resting his head on the bolster cushion, he closed his eyes, feeling the wine starting to loosen the muscles in his neck and shoulders. Ahh, that was better, that was what he needed, a little rest and some good wine.

  ‘And a little peace and quiet,’ he shouted as a baby’s cry echoed through the domus. Was it too much to ask that a man be able to lay down his head and not be tormented by his children?

  ‘What are you shouting for?’ Lolly demanded as she came into the room.

  ‘That noise,’ he growled, pointing in the direction of the crying. ‘Can’t it be shut up?’

  ‘That is your daughter,’ Lolly said, picking up the empty wine cup and staring pointedly into it, ‘and she can’t help it, she’s teething.’

  ‘How can something so small be so loud?’

  ‘All the children cried so when they were teething. You’re just tetchy today.’

  ‘I’m not tetchy, I’m worn out. Put some oil of cloves on her gums, that will help.’

  ‘I do know what to do, Lucius. It will pass, we just have to be patient.’ Lolly lifted up his feet to sit on the couch with him, placing them on her lap instead. ‘You’re brooding about it again.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ he said sulkily.

  ‘It will come, Lucius. Like with Cassia’s teething, we have to be patient.’

  ‘I am sick of being patient,’ Lucius shouted, his body jerking with his vehemence. Lolly forced his legs to be still. ‘How much longer do I have to wait?’ He saw Lolly’s eyes close briefly. She had heard this a hundred times before; he knew she was sick of his whining. There were times when he was sick of it himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  She patted his ankles. ‘I know it’s frustrating, my love. I feel the same about Mother.’

  ‘Hoping your mother will die is not the same as waiting to inherit the throne.’

  ‘I suppose all sons with a king for a father must feel the same as you.’

  ‘Servius is not my father,’ Lucius said through gritted teeth.

  ‘You will be king one day, Lucius, but you could make it easier to become so, you know.’

  Lucius groaned. ‘Oh, not this again, Lolly, please.’

  ‘If you can brood, then I can nag.’ She gave him a meaningful look. ‘Just being a prince will not guarantee the throne for you. Yes, the people are accustomed to kings now. Yes, you are the obvious choice, but you haven’t done enough to prove yourself. You haven’t been able to prove yourself in battle and you haven’t pursued any policies of your own in the senate, only my father’s.’

  ‘Why don’t you just say it?’ Lucius said irritably. ‘I’m a nobody as far as the senate is concerned.’

  Lolly leant towards him and slapped his face. ‘I won’t have you talk like that. And I will not be the wife of a nobody, Lucius. I’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to end up as that.’

  ‘You’re a harpy,’ he muttered, nursing his cheek.

  Lolly fingered his right foot, then gently bent back the little toe, enjoying his cry of pain.

  ‘What was that for?’

  Lolly shrugged. ‘I want to make sure you’re paying attention. You need to work at becoming king, Lucius. You need to talk to people.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been doing.’ Lucius told her of all the people he’d seen that day during his time at the temple building site and in the senate.

  Lolly nodded approvingly. ‘That’s good, but did you make any of those people your friends?’

  ‘I don’t need friends, Lolly.’

  ‘You will, when the time comes. And it’s never too early to start cultivating people who will be of use to us. That is one lesson I’ve learnt from Grandmother. She knew people could be valuable, Father told me. Learn from that. Oh, there’s the children now.’

  The sound of little pairs of feet could be heard in the corridor. A moment later, three young children burst into the room and headed for their parents. The eldest, Titus, leant over the back of the couch, one hand idly playing with his mother’s hair. The second eldest, Arruns, slumped on the couch opposite, slapping his stomach rhythmically as though it were a drum, and the youngest of the three, Sextus, climbed up on his father’s lap.

  ‘What do you want?’ Lucius said in an indulgent tone.

  ‘Can we dine with you tonight, Father?’ Sextus asked, looking at him with eyes that were so like Lolly’s.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Lucius replied.

  ‘But I’m upset,’ Sextus pouted.

  ‘Why are you upset, my darling?’ Lolly asked, stroking her son’s soft blonde hair.

  ‘Because Grandmama hurt me,’ he said and thrust out his arm. There was a thick red mark across the plumpest part.

  Lolly grabbed his wrist and yanked it beneath her nose. ‘Grandmama did that?’

  ‘With the rod,’ Sextus nodded, his chin wobbling. ‘And I didn’t do anything, I promise.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t,’ Lolly said, pulling his face towards her and kissing his forehead. ‘Lucius, do you see what she’s done?’

  ‘I’m not blind, Lolly.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m not going to do anything about it. It’s only a mark. See, it’s fading already.’

  ‘I won’t have her hitting my children,’ Lolly said. ‘How dare she. Lucius, you must tell her.’

  ‘Tell her yourself, she’s your mother.’

  Lucius wished the children hadn’t come in, wished Sextus hadn’t told them about the beating. Lolly was going on about Tarquinia, Titus and Arruns were play wrestling over the couches, kicking the tables and knocking cups o
ver in their fun, and Sextus was bouncing up and down on his bladder. He endured it for as long as he could, then decided he’d had enough. He told Sextus to get off him and Sextus clambered down, his little face threatening to crumple. He drew his legs away from Lolly’s lap and rose from the couch. Lolly was only halfway through her diatribe against her mother when she demanded to know where he was going.

  ‘To Cossus,’ Lucius replied.

  ‘To get drunk, I suppose?’

  ‘That’s right, my love. To get drunk.’

  ‘If you end up with another woman, I’ll know,’ she warned, taking Sextus into her arms.

  ‘Believe me, my love,’ he said, tying his cloak around his neck, ‘I want no other woman but you. I leave you to your children and your mother. Enjoy yourself, won’t you.’

  Tarquinia was reading in her cubiculum. It was getting harder to read, the writing growing ever more blurry with each passing year. She supposed there would come a time when she would either have to give up reading or hire someone to read to her. Maybe that would be better, she reflected, as she was sure reading aggravated her headaches. But reading was one of the few, perhaps the only pleasure she had left to her now and she was loathe to give it up.

  She heard long, striding footsteps heading for her door and rolled up the scroll expectantly. They were Lolly’s footsteps, she could tell, and she knew why her daughter was taking the unusual step of coming to see her. She raised her chin a little, determined to be defiant not conciliatory, strong not weak.

  The door was thrown open – Lolly never bothered to knock anymore – and Lolly stormed in, dragging Sextus behind her.

  ‘Look at that,’ Lolly said, showing Tarquinia Sextus’s arm. The red mark had all but faded.

  ‘Why must I look at his arm?’ Tarquinia said, keeping her eyes on Lolly’s.

  ‘You hit him. You hurt my son.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I didn’t hit him as hard as he deserved.’

  ‘My son never deserves to be beaten.’

  ‘That little monster,’ Tarquinia jabbed a finger at Sextus who was attempting to hide behind his mother, ‘threw a stone at one of the servants. It could have blinded her.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Lolly scoffed. ‘A little stone won’t hurt anyone.’

  ‘It was not a little stone.’

  ‘I don’t care if it was a big bloody rock,’ Lolly shouted. ‘You will not lay a finger on my children or—’

  ‘Or what, Lolly?’ Tarquinia rose angrily, her determination not to lose her temper forgotten by her daughter’s attitude.

  ‘Or… or…,’ Lolly blustered, her anger barely contained, ‘or I’ll have you dragged to the forum and whipped for everyone to see.’

  Tarquinia laughed and sank back onto her chair. ‘Oh Lolly, now who’s being ridiculous?’

  ‘I will, I mean it.’

  ‘And you still sound like a petulant little girl.’

  Lolly stamped her foot. ‘I’m not a girl, Mother. I won’t have you talking to me in this way.’

  ‘You’re not queen yet, Lolly, nor the gods willing, will you ever be. I hope Rome realises before it’s too late that Lucius is not fit to be a king and that they elect someone who will do Rome good.’ She was getting to her daughter, Tarquinia could see, and the knowledge sent a thrill through her tired body.

  ‘Oh,’ Lolly growled through her teeth, ‘why don’t you just die?’

  ‘Like your sister did? Like your husband?’

  Mother and daughter stared at each other for a long moment.

  ‘You’re old, Mother,’ Lolly said at last. ‘Your mind is going. Come, Sextus.’

  Tarquinia was shaking as the door slammed. The way Lolly had looked at her was dreadful. There had been such contempt, such hatred in her eyes. Oh, why had she let herself say that about Arruns and Tullia? She hadn’t meant to. She tried not to think about her dead daughter and son-in-law anymore, it hurt too much. Her nose was running and she tremblingly wiped it with her handkerchief. She was suddenly worried she had given her daughter a terrible idea.

  Cossus threw a slice of meat from his plate to his dog at his feet, smiling as the animal swiftly devoured it and looked for more. ‘You had a row with Lolly?’

  ‘No,’ Lucius said, helping himself to a plate of walnuts, ‘I just had to get out of the domus. The children were making nuisances of themselves.’

  ‘Why’d you have all those kids if you didn’t want them?’ Cossus wondered aloud. He had managed to become a widower before his wife saddled him with children and he had no desire to marry again, finding everything he needed in a woman in Rome’s whorehouses.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want them,’ Lucius said, ‘they just happened.’

  ‘Well, they will happen if you keep humping your wife.’

  ‘You try and stop Lolly,’ Lucius laughed, remembering how relentlessly Lolly had used him the previous night. He had spoken the truth when he said no other woman compared to her. He’d tried quite a few both before and after their marriage and he’d enjoyed none of them as much as he enjoyed Lolly. ‘And besides, I need the children.’

  Cossus rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, that’s right, I forgot, because you never mention the fact that you need your kids for your dynasty.’

  Lucius heard the sarcasm in his friend’s voice and chose to ignore it. ‘I just hope I get a chance to sit on the throne before I’m too old to enjoy it.’

  ‘I saw Servius the other day in the senate,’ Cossus said, trying to extract a shred of meat from between his teeth with his fingernail. ‘He looked in fairly robust health to me.’

  ‘I know,’ Lucius said sourly.

  ‘So, you’re just going to have to wait, aren’t you?’

  ‘Lolly thinks I should be making friends in the senate.’

  Cossus laughed. ‘She was talking about you when she said that, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Go boil your head,’ Lucius said, throwing a walnut at him. ‘People like me. You like me.’

  ‘Ah, but I’ve known you for years,’ Cossus reminded him, ‘I know what you’re like. And besides, I’m not the sort of friend Lolly means.’

  Lucius wiped his mouth, thinking. Cossus was saying the same things as Lolly. Maybe they were both right and he needed to be more assiduous in making himself agreeable if he wanted to be king. Despite his protest to Cossus, he knew he wasn’t the most likable of people. He was too abrupt, too sarcastic, too intolerant to be well liked. Not that he cared much. He had everyone he needed in Lolly and the few friends he had kept from his boyhood.

  ‘Tell me then,’ he said, ‘how do I get the people who matter to like me?’

  ‘You’ve got to approach it differently. If you ask me, there’s no point wanting people to like you. Why do you want to be liked? Likable people are usually weak arseholes. I think you should work to show people you are the best option when it comes to succeeding Servius. You’ve got to show the senate how you will improve their lives as king. Do that and they’ll like you well enough, I guarantee.’

  ‘Prince Lucius, you honour my humble house.’ Quintus Sanctus bowed to Lucius and Lolly and gestured for them to follow him through to the dining room.

  ‘Remind me why we’re here,’ Lucius muttered to Lolly as they smiled at their host and followed.

  ‘Quintus may be useful to us,’ Lolly murmured, smiling at the other guests who all stood, waiting to greet them, ‘and tonight is an excellent opportunity to start some rumours. Narcissa, how lovely you look. Is that silk from Phoenicia?’

  Lucius let Lolly slip from his arm and watched with amusement as she feigned interest in their hostess’s finery. Lolly could turn on the charm when she wanted, he knew. For his part, he felt a little exposed in this company. What exactly was he supposed to say to these people? He barely knew them and he certainly had nothing in common with them.

  ‘Prince Lucius,’ Quintus said, the slight lisp in his voice making Lucius’s skin crawl. ‘Please, do sit.’ Quintus gestured towards the medias co
uch, which had been piled high with plump-looking bolster cushions.

  It was the place of honour at any banquet and it satisfied Lucius that he had not been given a lesser position. At least these people knew how to treat a prince. He called softly to Lolly and held her hand as she climbed onto the couch. She shifted over to make room for him. Once he and Lolly were settled, the other guests took their places, Narcissa pointing to the couches each should occupy.

  As the evening worn on, Lucius realised that had he come alone, as Cossus had suggested, making the dinner a male-only event, he would have managed the whole thing wrong. He would have grown bored with the talk of olive oil and grain prices, the gossip about neighbours and the deeds of foreigners that worked their way back to Rome. He would have tried to turn the conversation on to Servius’s various faults and ineptitude too early and too obviously, rousing his hosts’ and the other guests’ indifference or worse, their ire.

  Lolly knew better how to manage these things and Lucius was proud of the way she monopolised the conversations without seeming to, how she steered the talk onto political matters, but most of all, how she managed to imply that her father’s policies had not been to Rome’s benefit without ever actually saying so.

  And Lolly had a wonderfully receptive audience. Quintus and Narcissa had good reasons of their own, Lucius supposed, for having no great love for Servius. What those reasons were, he couldn’t fathom, nor did he care. They served a good dinner and Lolly was wrapping them around her finger.

  ‘Of course, my father is feeling his age now,’ he heard Lolly say. ‘The duties have become a great burden to him.’

  ‘But he does not do everything himself, surely?’ Narcissa asked, pushing a plate of oysters towards Lolly.

  Lolly took one of the shells. ‘Lucius does all he can to help my father, of course. Father’s eyesight is very bad and he asks Lucius to read him the foreign dispatches and draft replies, doesn’t he, Lucius?’

  ‘It’s the least I can do for him,’ Lucius said.

  ‘And good training for you, I expect,’ Quintus nodded sagely.