Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  He thrust his face into hers. ‘Why do I need a plan, Livia, when we are guided by prophecy? Isn’t that what your dead father would say? Think upon his wise words and comfort yourself.’

  He turned and walked away, leaving Livia in the dust. The infant boy squirmed in her arms and kicked his limbs, complaining. She uncovered a breast and let him take to it. While he suckled, Livia squatted to her haunches and let her fingers play with the stones on the path. She selected a good sized rock, liking the feel of it in her palm, and then rose again. She flung it at Tiberius Nero with all her strength and a pinpoint aim, striking him hard at the back of his head.

  He spun around in bloody astonishment.

  ‘You will come up with a plan between here and Rome,’ she said as if nothing was amiss. ‘A plan to see us rise again.’

  He clenched his teeth in anger and started advancing towards her.

  ‘Not a vague plan – not something without names or times attached,’ Livia coolly continued. ‘This will be a plan with goals. This plan will see you allied to the right people this time – Octavian and his party – even though we despise them. You did not kill Caesar – it was our fathers’ crime. With this made clear and accepted by Rome, you will play the senate correctly. You will make wise investments to replace the wealth they confiscated. You will advance towards power once more. You will plan and plan every aspect of your new life – and mine – if that’s what Octavian will allow to happen. He is where power lies now. You will do all this so that nothing can ever be ruined by poor judgement again.’

  Tiberius Nero reached her, opening and closing his hands. Then he drew his right fist high above her so that he could smash her face with it.

  But Livia would not be intimidated. ‘Because, Tiberius Nero, if you do not do all these things – ‘

  ‘What then?’ his lips stretched thin over his gritting teeth, ‘What will you do then, Livia?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s an empty threat? What will you do if I obey none of your orders? Divorce me?’

  ‘Perhaps I would if I could,’ she whispered.

  ‘But you can’t.’ Tiberius Nero was smug. ‘Only men have the power to choose nowadays. Octavian’s changed the laws. So I choose to keep you as my wife.’

  She didn’t need to reply because Tiberius Nero saw the words themselves in her face: what if she got power? He stared at her in amazement for a second before erupting into laughter. ‘Planning to learn a few tricks from dead Fulvia, are you? What would happen to you then, Livia, is that you’d end up poisoned in your bed just like she was and I’ll be told you died of a “sudden illness”.’

  Livia lost her temper. ‘Why won’t you just listen to me? Why won’t you swallow your little boy pride and just listen to me?’ Their infant son started bawling in her arms.

  Tiberius Nero gathered a fat ball of phlegm in his throat and spat it at Livia’s feet. ‘Because you are Marcus Livius’s daughter,’ he said, ‘the daughter of the pater familias who fooled his own house with sham prophecies and blasphemous rites – outright lies that you continued for him, even when we pulled you out from the rubble of the cave. Still you and your father lied that the haruspex spoke the words of the gods.’

  ‘You were there – you heard the prophecy yourself.’

  ‘It was all theatre,’ said Tiberius Nero. ‘And I married you for it. And to what end? So that your father could join our great and noble house with Caesar’s killers.’

  Devastated that he should have come to such a conclusion without her knowledge – and, what’s more, never shared it with her until now – Livia tried to get her words out. ‘Caesar was a tyrant,’ she insisted. ‘He brought death on himself. My father was a man of courage and honour.’

  ‘Your father wanted the tyrant’s crown. That’s why he really did it, Livia – he wanted Caesar’s throne for himself.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He cost the lives of my father and my brother – and too many more of my cousins and relatives. Your father’s madness is why you and I have been exiles here – and that is why I choose never again to listen to what you advise me. No daughter of Marcus Livius can be trusted.’

  Tears suddenly streamed down Livia’s cheeks.

  Tiberius Nero went to walk towards the Corinth track again but sudden screams made master and mistress look back in alarm at their rented villa. Flames were springing from the roof.

  Forgetting everything else, they ran back towards the gate. Tiberius Nero sprinted ahead with his pigeon-toed gait, his tunica flapping against his knees.

  When they arrived, we slaves were flailing everywhere, terrified and uncontrollable.

  ‘How many of our things are still in the house?’ Tiberius Nero demanded of us. ‘How much is in the carruca?’

  Our answers were confused and contradictory; none of us knew for sure what had been loaded or forgotten.

  Livia thought only of her single item of dowry. ‘Who packed my Timanthes – it is here?’

  ‘I don’t know what that is, domina,’ I cringed, skinny and cowering. I was the only slave who listened to her.

  ‘My painting, fool. Remember my wedding day? We have to save it.’

  Tiberius Nero leapt into the seat of the carruca as a stable slave attempted to secure two oxen to the yoke. ‘Iphicles – help your domina and my son into the rear of the carriage,’ he ordered me. ‘We must leave here right now.’

  Livia lashed out as I attempted to carry her. ‘I won’t leave here without it! Don’t you understand?’

  I snatched the little boy from her arms instead and pitched him into the carriage. Livia screamed and threw herself after. ‘Please, Iphicles!’ she begged.

  ‘Do you love me, domina?’ I stared at her.

  She bit down on her fury at me. ‘Of course I do,’ she said, struggling to evoke tenderness. ‘You are my favourite slave.’

  I stared into her starless eyes. Of course she was lying, but it did not matter; she had at least said that she cared.

  I ran into the flames.

  The front of the villa was impassable, the fire having taken hold of the straw piled in bails against the walls, and spread from there to the eaves. I sprinted around the windowless perimeter, sending sparks and ash flying as I tried to run so fast that my sandals wouldn’t hit the still burning grass. I reached the narrow wooden door that opened from the kitchens and kicked and kicked at it until the door gave way just enough for me to shove it wider on its pivot. When there was gap enough to squeeze through I saw what had been blocking my way – one of the other young kitchen slaves was slumped against the opposite side, unconscious.

  ‘Wake up!’ I pulled at the other youth. But he was barely breathing.

  I left him to fend for himself and ran inside the house, not seeing a tiny figure slip through the gap in the door behind me. The villa’s rooms billowed smoke as I stumbled into the cramped triclinium – the dining room. The heat at head height was so intense that I fell to my hands, crawling past the couches and serving table. The smoke was less at floor level but I could see nothing of what hung on the peeling crimson walls above me.

  ‘The domina’s painting!’ I screamed into the void. ‘Where is the domina’s painting?’

  The roof groaned beyond the ceiling and I knew that the roaring in my ears was not my struggle for breath but the flames devouring the timbers. Soon it would fall, and I would be trapped and crushed.

  I scuttled across the courtyard from the dining room steps, glancing up at the leaping flames on the roof as I went. I forced myself up another short flight that led to my young master’s study.

  ‘The painting – where is it!’ I fell to my knees again and came down hard on the edge of something square and flat lying on the floor. I cried out with the pain of it, clutching the grazed skin. Then I saw what I had found – a piece of rough, unpainted board, framed by a ridge of carved wood with a length of thin cord that was pinned at two corners. This was something that hung on the wal
l. I turned the board over and saw the mother and son.

  ‘The domina’s treasure – ‘

  The awning pole smashed so hard on my skull that it snapped clean in two. I pitched forward, the Timanthes wedged under my chest. Hebe took the broken end of the pole she still clutched and viciously jabbed me in the side with it.

  ‘Get off – get off!’ She was so small she could stand at full height and still keep her head from the smoke that choked the upper half of the room. ‘Get off, pig – get off the treasure!’

  I groaned and rolled over. Hebe snatched up the painting and ran for the flaming front door. But I dived at her from where I had fallen, catching her by the ankle. Hebe fell hard on her face, the Timanthes flying from her hands again.

  ‘You’re going to burn in here, piss-drip,’ I swore.

  She kicked herself free, losing a sandal, but I lurched again like a serpent, just as she picked up the painting. ‘You’re the one who’ll burn,’ she screamed, ‘and you deserve it, pig!’

  She stamped on my outstretched hand with her one sandaled foot, and stamped so hard again that I felt something pop in my wrist. Then she turned and fled barefoot into the greater nightmare outside.

  From the moving carruca Livia saw the little girl darting through the blaze, lifting the masterpiece from destruction.

  ‘The painting!’

  Hebe ran behind her mistress, breathless with terror and shame. ‘I knocked it from the wall, domina – I’m so sorry.’

  The baby at her breast, Livia stretched her free arm towards Hebe in an attempt to save her treasure. ‘Let me have it.’ She just managed to retrieve the artwork, leaving the girl in the smoke.

  I appeared at the villa door, my lips flapping and spitting in a soundless wail, flames all around me. My domina waved the painting above her to show that it was safe. Then the roof caved in behind me with a terrible eruption of noise and sparks.

  Livia wouldn’t let herself feel the horror of any of this. She had to save her son and her household. ‘Please help the little girl – jump down and help her into the carriage,’ she called to my young master.

  Too weak for such massive beasts, Tiberius Nero struggled to steer the oxen on the other side of the mound of furniture in the carruca. ‘We’re full – I’m not stopping now, Livia – she can run alongside.’

  ‘Please – the spreading fire – she’s being burned!’

  ‘Make her run.’

  Hebe did so without orders. But as the fire set the brush and olive groves ablaze, the oxen panicked. Tiberius Nero couldn’t steer the carruca at all and Hebe made faster progress. Cinders from the villa’s roof landed on the bed silk thrown on top of the load, turning the carriage into a roaring siege tower. Flames above and below her, Livia nearly fainted in terror.

  ‘Throw me little Tiberius,’ Hebe cried from the ground, ‘I can save him.’

  Seeing no other rescue, Livia threw her baby into Hebe’s arms, and then, clutching the Timanthes, she threw herself from the carriage.

  ‘Tiberius Nero! Tiberius Nero, where are you?’

  Livia searched blindly, but her husband was lost. She ran through the inferno, the little girl beside her holding the baby, until all three stumbled into a brook. Livia plunged the boy into the water, his flesh steaming as she willed him to survive. ‘This is not how you end, my son. I won’t let it be like this.’

  Little Tiberius gasped with shock, springing from his death sleep. Livia sang with relief. Then she realised her hair was in flames. Hebe pushed her mistress’s head into the brook until Livia sprang upright again, coughing and crying, but extinguished.

  She realised then that Hebe was sobbing from pain in her feet. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

  The fire had cooked the skin from the little girl’s soles – she had run to the brook on crusts.

  But at least the Timanthes was unscathed.

  Telling Hebe to keep her feet in the water and look after baby Tiberius, Livia staggered through the smoking landscape, calling for Tiberius Nero. There was no sign of him. All around her were the blackened stumps of olive trees and the corpses of animals and slaves. She sank to her heels and stared at the ruin.

  A low moan from the charred body of a carriage ox reached her. Rising again and walking over to where the burnt beast lay, she saw it was still alive. Finding a sword among the destroyed possessions Livia raised it to put the animal out of its pain. Then she realised that the ox was as dead as everything else – yet still it moaned.

  The blood-drenched Tiberius Nero slipped from a slit in the ox’s belly and fell at Livia’s feet.

  Her mind lost its logic in the seconds she needed to comprehend this. ‘Did it eat you? Did the ox eat you in the fire?’

  It took Tiberius Nero a moment to sharpen his own mind as he scraped the bile from his eyes. ‘I disembowelled it with that sword – I placed myself inside,’ he said. He managed to stand, reeking and dripping, and went to embrace her. ‘The flames passed over me.’

  At that moment Livia knew that any plans made by her husband, no matter how well directed by herself, could only be doomed to end in moments like this. He would always be younger and shorter. ‘Get away from me, Tiberius Nero,’ she said.

  ‘We’re alive – ‘

  ‘Don’t touch me. I’ve found you stuffed inside an ox for guts and now I wish I was dead with the shame of it.’

  ‘Livia – we have been spared. We should offer thanks for it.’

  ‘Where were you when I ran through the flames with my hair on fire, clutching your son? Where were you to care if he lived or died?’

  ‘There was so much confusion. I couldn’t see beyond my own escape,’ said Tiberius Nero, but this abruptly exposed him. ‘That’s not what I mean. Let me start again –’

  Livia’s cold fury stopped him. ‘You couldn’t see anything beyond your own cowardice – and now I can’t see one single thing beyond your stupidity.’

  Tiberius Nero struck her so hard she was thrown to the ground. Then he leant over and struck her again and again before he even realised this was the first time she had driven him to violence. He tried to cling to his rage as a cover for the wounds of her words, but his conviction slipped. He stood up straight again, pushing the mat of sticky hair from his eyes. ‘Get up, Livia. Acknowledge your wrong in abusing me. Get up now.’

  Bloody and bruised, with the remains of her own hair spread across her face like claws, Livia stayed where she was. ‘I’ve got a better idea, Tiberius Nero. Kick the life from me. Finish what you’ve started and kill me. Then you’ll take from me this shame of being cursed with dung for a husband.’

  His rage snapped again and he kicked her with savagery. ‘You stupid cow,’ he screamed. ‘You stupid, stupid cow!’

  She cried out with the pain of it but kept her coal-black eyes fixed hard upon his. ‘Is that all the strength you’ve got left?’ she asked when he stopped. Blood dribbled from her lips. ‘I could still kick you harder, you little bastard.’

  Tiberius Nero doubled over with a shriek as something jabbed him in the kidneys. Behind him, a naked youth stood filthy and blistered, barely recognisable, brandishing a broken awning pole.

  ‘Iphicles!’ cried my domina.

  The fire had claimed my clothes, sandals and hair, but I was still alive. I raised the broken pole to gouge Tiberius Nero in the face with it.

  ‘Who the fuck is this arsehole to beat you, domina?’

  ‘He is your master.’

  I choked in fright, dropping the pole. ‘Domine – I didn’t realise it was you!’

  But the depth to which Fate had reduced us all consumed Tiberius Nero with shame. He broke down sobbing, spit and snot dribbling from his chin. I didn’t exist for him at that moment – he saw only Livia. ‘I am so sorry for hurting you,’ he wept at her. ‘I am not myself – I am not myself …’

  She stared at him in silence for a long, bleak minute, as I shifted awkwardly on my blackened bare feet. Then she answered with apparent sympathy. �
��You are in every aspect yourself, Tiberius Nero,’ she said. ‘You’ve acted as you have always acted since the day we entered this marriage.’

  He tried to comprehend that, unsure if she had insulted him again. ‘I’ve grown to love you, you know that – I’ve always tried to do what’s best.’

  ‘You have.’

  He clung to her hand, trying to win her forgiveness. ‘When we return to Rome, I’ll follow your counsel again – how’s that for a plan, Livia? I’ll seek my wife’s advice – it’ll be a scandal to those who ever hear of me taking advice from a woman, but I’ll have the last laugh, won’t I? You’re far smarter than any of the men. You’ll give me the advantage over all of them. We’ll progress my career together again – and fulfil the prophecy. What do you think?’

  My domina nodded only to silence him.

  He helped her to stand, thinking he’d won her around, and kept her hand inside his, slick from the gore of the ox. As they walked back to the brook together, with my naked self lagging behind them with the awning pole, Livia had a sudden memory of what she thought was her mother’s voice: ‘You have the whole earth in your hand now …’

  She stopped in surprise. Then she crouched to the soil, picking up a handful of scorched sand in her fingers as the words echoed in her mind again. ‘Fulvia could have had it all …’ she said vaguely.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Tiberius Nero.

  ‘Fulvia. She could have had everything. But she wore her ambitions too nakedly.’

  ‘Of course she did, but they weren’t her ambitions, were they? They were Antony’s. Everything she did, she did for him.’

  ‘She didn’t care at all that he was screwing the Egyptian queen?’

  ‘Well, that’s quite a question.’ Tiberius Nero felt embarrassed to hear coarse words in the mouth of his wife. ‘Perhaps she didn’t know the full extent of it?’

  Livia pondered Fulvia’s apparent blindness.