‘Lords, we are under orders – ‘ The Praetorian made a lame attempt to stop him but Tiberius simply brushed past.
‘We’re here to see my boy, Mother.’
From the room within, Julia’s little daughter Agrippina ran into the light. ‘You look so much better, Stepfather. Come and see him – he’s like a doll, so good and quiet.’ The girl took a long look at Sejanus. ‘Who are you?’
Castor went to whisper an answer but Sejanus was faster. ‘I’m the Lord Tiberius’s ward.’ He invented this title on the spot and then feared it would be contradicted. But no-one spoke.
The room was deep in shadow, the windows shuttered. It took some seconds for their eyes to locate Livia, upright in a chair, with Plancina and myself standing nearby, and the ancient wet nurse Hecuba with the baby at her breast. He was suckling quietly.
Castor had not seen his grandmother in weeks and for the first time he realised that she, too, was unwell. But he couldn’t be certain of what ailed her. Livia was pale and weak of voice, but still projected an aura of determined, steely happiness so taut it might snap. Castor saw the worried look that passed between Plancina and the wet nurse, which Livia didn’t notice.
‘My son,’ Livia said to Tiberius. ‘At last you’re here. Have you returned from the Rhine?’
Tiberius blinked at her. ‘I’ve been ill, Mother. I returned from the Rhine weeks ago.’
‘Oh.’ She appeared to recollect this only vaguely. ‘And where is Drusus – did he come home with you?’
Castor gave a little gasp of shock but Tiberius just looked at her. ‘My brother’s ashes have been scattered to the wind,’ he said.
Surprise registered on Livia’s face for a moment before the memory intruded and she creased with grief.
‘He’s dead,’ Tiberius added.
‘Yes. Yes. Of course he is. They told me everything. I’ve been informed.’ Livia was suddenly wracked with sobs which she stifled in her hand as she heaved forward and back in the chair. Never before had Tiberius seen his mother’s real grief; never before had she had reason to feel it. Then the motion stopped. Castor saw that tears were streaming down both my and Plancina’s cheeks.
‘Let me hold my son,’ said Tiberius, genuinely moved by his mother’s state.
Hecuba looked at Plancina again, but Livia rose from her chair and led Tiberius by the hand towards the infant. She took the baby from the aged nurse and placed him in Tiberius’s arms.
‘Look at him,’ she said. ‘He’s a fine boy, such a noble nature. He gives us no trouble at all.’
Castor saw with relief that the effect of the child was immediate upon Tiberius. ‘Ah yes, yes. Indeed you are,’ said Tiberius to the baby. ‘What’ll we name you, boy?’ He squinted in the half-light, trying to study the baby’s features. ‘Open the shutters,’ he said to me. ‘It’s darker than night in here.’
A sharp look from Plancina stopped me from responding.
‘Father, there is news I must tell you,’ said Castor, feeling confident now. ‘Grandmother knows what it is. It’s great news for Rome.’
‘Hush, boy, there’s no news,’ said Livia.
Castor was amazed. ‘Of course there is, Grandmother. Have you forgotten it?’ And it seemed to Castor, as he watched her trying to pull her thoughts together, that perhaps she had.
‘Your grandmother is a little tired today,’ said Plancina, ‘Don’t bother her with gossip.’
‘Gossip?’ Castor was disbelieving. ‘Have you really forgotten it, Grandmother?’
‘Open the shutters, slave,’ said Tiberius again to me.
I looked stricken.
‘The air outside is full of illness,’ said Plancina quickly. ‘We’re protecting the child.’
‘You’re shutting him away like a treasury coin,’ said Tiberius. ‘I’ll open them myself. He placed the baby in the surprised Sejanus’s arms and strode to the shutters. It was as if all the adults in the room suddenly noticed the physician’s apprentice for the first time. But Sejanus held the child reverently, as if this were his expected role. As Tiberius struggled with the latches, Agrippina stroked her baby brother’s head, completely enraptured.
‘What does “ward” mean?’ she whispered to Sejanus, but he ignored her, watching Tiberius.
Castor touched his grandmother lightly on the arm. ‘Don’t you remember?’ he said, wanting to reassure her. ‘It’s a great day for Rome today. The people will be cheering soon.’
Something weighted and ugly fell into place for my domina. ‘What day of the week is it?’
‘Mars,’ said Castor. Then he was shocked by the flash of fear that struck her.
‘The news isn’t important,’ Livia insisted, ‘not important at all. Why don’t you take your little friend away to play, Castor?’
Castor badly wanted to tell her that Sejanus was not his friend but a lying slave who had seduced Tiberius. Then the shutters sprang open and the room was awash with light.
‘What’s the news, son?’ Tiberius asked at last.
Livia’s lips froze, her censure unsaid.
To Castor’s mind everyone in the room seemed to look unwell at this moment – except for himself and the baby. But it was stupid for his father to go on so obliviously. ‘The First Citizen announces his successors today,’ he said. ‘We’ve known for days, but now Rome will know. There are two successors, Father. It’s a happy day for us all – my stepbrothers Gaius and Lucius.’
A look of such violent fury as Castor had never seen passed from his father to his grandmother.
‘What’s wrong? Shouldn’t we be celebrating for them?’ Castor said in alarm.
No-one said anything. Tiberius pulled his gaze from Livia and turned it back to the baby in Sejanus’s arms, now fully revealed in the light. He stared at the infant’s face, looking particularly hard at the eyes. The little boy looked at him, yet didn’t look at him, its own stare lost and unfocused. The child saw nothing.
‘What is it?’ Castor continued. ‘What’s wrong with the baby?’
Plancina was at his ear. ‘You stupid brat, even your slave is ahead of you.’
Castor saw with terrible shame that Sejanus had indeed worked out the new problem. Castor’s father traced the tip of his finger beneath the baby’s eyes.
Livia could read his dreadful thoughts. ‘You imagine it, Tiberius. You imagine it. But it isn’t so.’
‘This is why you keep him in the dark from me.’
‘He’s delicate,’ Livia pleaded. ‘That’s the only reason. He’s not as you think.’
‘Not as I think? Look at the eyes on him, Mother – they’re hooded; a barbarian’s eyes.’
‘No.’ Livia’s voice rose. ‘He’s part of our plan. Drusus is dead but we still have our plan.’
Tiberius rounded on her. ‘This child is a shell of a boy. There’s nothing inside him. His heart beats blood to everywhere but his brain. You know what sort of child he is, Mother.’
‘No! Please, Son – ‘
Castor peered at the baby’s unseeing face, wanting only to understand what this new disaster was, but he was now too frightened to ask.
Agrippina was bewildered. ‘But he’s such a good baby,’ she cried, ‘always quiet and good – ‘
Sejanus placed the baby on a table and when Agrippina flew there protectively, it was Sejanus who pulled her back in his arms and placed a hand across her mouth. ‘I’ll not hurt you, but you mustn’t interfere,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘No – oh, Great Mother, no …’ Livia wailed. ‘He’s part of our plan, Tiberius … our plan …’
‘Your plan, mother,’ said Tiberius with black malice. ‘I’ve never had the honour of being consulted, and now it has all come to nothing.’
Castor saw with horror that his father held a cushion in his hands. ‘Don’t be distressed,’ Tiberius told him. ‘He can feel nothing.’
Tiberius placed the cushion across his baby’s face and kept it there as the little boy’s feet made kicks and jabs in the
air. A trickle of urine spilled from the table to the floor.
Castor’s stepmother, Julia, entered the corridor to find her younger children for the Fordicia ceremony. Castor ran from the room and vomited at her feet. He tried to tell her what was wrong but kept on emptying his stomach. Julia ran to the door of Livia’s suite and looked in.
Sejanus stayed exactly where he was, restraining Agrippina. He approved of Tiberius’s action. Then, when the little girl was on the floor sobbing, Sejanus was drawn to Livia. Her face seemed to age before him. Her hair grew grey and dull; her face became lined with deep furrows. Her eyes lost their fire.
Sejanus’s heart broke for her and he placed a hand upon her crinkled cheek, gently stroking her. She allowed him to comfort her. Watching on, I felt no jealousy. Livia’s signs of ageing retreated once more and she became the face of timelessness again that I mirrored. The boy’s unexpected tenderness towards her was something beautiful.
Far outside, in the Forum Romanum the trumpeters blared in preparation for the First Citizen’s succession announcement.
In the hour of Inclinatio, the first watch after midnight, Octavian departed Gaius and Lucius’s celebratory feast before anyone else, falling asleep in his dining couch and being carried out, as was now his custom. His exit saw the departure of four other guests, each barely noticed in the revelry except by me, who noticed everything.
Antonia faded into the shadows where the lamps didn’t reach, feeling her way along the walls until she found a door and used it. Famous now for her grief, her company was less welcome than it had been when she was famous only for being dour.
Julia kissed her golden sons, and then kissed her third boy, Postumus, before slipping away to the dark herself. Once alone, the façade fell and her emotions at Tiberius’s murderous act took over. Julia crawled on her knees to find her rooms, unable to stand and barely able to see.
Tiberius was the next to leave the feast, standing up and departing without acknowledgement of the dinner or its guests of honour, his own stepsons. To those around him he seemed dazed and still unwell, but he was admired for making the effort. Having anticipated the route Tiberius would take, Sejanus was waiting in the hall that Tiberius wandered into. Letting Tiberius lean on him, the boy led them to their shared suite, but as they neared it Tiberius stopped short and sent the boy away.
‘Let me take you to your bed,’ Sejanus insisted. ‘Your face is grey and you’re sweating again.’
‘Take yourself to bed, Sejanus, you shouldn’t be waiting up for me anyway.’
The loyal boy was left abandoned in the gloom.
Conflicted at disobeying the man who had saved him, Sejanus followed Tiberius’s footsteps, unable to bear being separated from him. He reached a wing of Oxheads he hadn’t seen before and he hid behind a screen, sick with fear. When he summoned the courage he crept in the darkness to the one door that opened onto a suite. It was ajar.
Inside, Sejanus saw Tiberius sitting with Antonia on the edge of her bed. Neither looked at each other but stared into space; both were still dressed. Tiberius had his hand on hers. Antonia suddenly placed herself on cushions and widened her legs; Tiberius could have her if he wished. Gently, he told her it would be wrong to take advantage of such a grieving widow. Showing little reaction, Antonia resumed her place on the bed edge and took his hand again. They were companions in private tortures. Some pain they shared, like the terrible loss of Drusus. But other agonies were Tiberius’s alone to comprehend. Sejanus returned to the screen and tucked himself behind it again. He would wait for his saviour.
Jullus would have been the fourth guest to leave the feast. Reclining in stiff discomfort with Marcella, neither he nor his wife were enjoying the evening and he made excuses to visit the lavatory.
‘You can’t,’ Marcella hissed. ‘It’s not done. You have to hold on to it. People will be offended.’
‘The First Citizen has gone and people will be more offended if I wet myself lying here.’
He got up, fully aware that Julia had already gone, and he fixed the exit she had used in his sightline.
‘Please don’t leave me here.’
‘I’m going to piss, my love, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Yes, of course that’s all.’
He stopped. ‘What does that mean?’
Marcella said nothing more.
But when Jullus made to continue again, she said, ‘Agrippa’s women are cursed by her. She stole him from me, and she stole Tiberius from Agrippa’s own daughter. Am I going to be robbed a second time now?’
Stung, Jullus struggled for an answer and, in a moment of weakness, showed his guilt to her. ‘I’ve never betrayed you, Marcella.’
‘Then what do you do to me in your heart? Aren’t I betrayed inside it every time you make love to me?’
Jullus could only stammer, caught out and ashamed. Desperate, Marcella snatched his hand to her breast and the need that Jullus saw in her eyes only shamed him more.
‘How can you love me so much?’ he pleaded. ‘I’m worthless and undeserving.’
‘Please stay with me, I forgive everything, Jullus – ‘
‘I’ve never betrayed you in deed,’ he said. ‘Never.’
‘And you never will,’ said Marcella. ‘Not with me to help you. I’ll keep you strong. I’ll keep you safe from her.’
He returned to the dining couch again and, after a moment’s repose, with his hand held tightly in hers, he looked carefully around to see if their little scene had been witnessed.
It certainly had been: by me. But I saw Jullus’s relief. He believed that no-one of importance had noticed anything.
The terrible words delivered behind Livia’s closed doors at sunrise were directly heard only by those who spoke them. Outside, the meaning was obscured, but others tried to learn what was being so violently said by listening at any vantage point they could. I had the best of all observation posts, hidden inside my domina’s privy. That door was the thinnest and it also had a viewing hole for the occupant to observe the room outside.
Tiberius’s face was scratched and bleeding from where his mother had gouged him. She would have blinded him but Tiberius pushed her to the floor.
Then he held his shredded face above her. ‘You can’t do it. No-one can do it. It’s over now, Mother. It’s done.’
Livia ripped the words from her throat. ‘It’ll never be done until our goal is seized. I’ll never rest until we’ve reached it. I’ll carve a new path to get us there. Just watch me.’
‘I’ll watch you die, Mother, for that’s what it’ll cost you.’
‘You’ve no idea of my strength.’
‘I’ve every idea of your madness. There’re no more paths to this. The last one has closed.’
‘Tiberius!’
He spat hard in her face, and then, as she raised a shaking hand to wipe it, he kissed her once on the palm. ‘Farewell to you.’
Tiberius wrote to Octavian for permission to return to Lower Germany to finish Drusus’s campaign against the Marcomanni. And when that was done, he hoped to visit Greece as a private citizen. The long walk had depleted him, he wrote; his health was fragile and his mind, he now believed, had been disordered by the profound grief and deprivations of the ordeal. He was a danger to Rome in his unpredictability, and worse, he was a danger to Julia and her sons. He was unable to control his impulses and dwelled hourly upon acts of violence. He wanted to hurt and kill. Better that he be in Germany.
Permission from Octavian was quick, as Tiberius knew it would be. He didn’t bother to read his stepfather’s consoling words of deep sympathy and despair.
Shocked, Castor absorbed the news. He would not be accompanying his father on this new journey. His education must continue in Rome.
‘But you’re not even well – how can you begin another trip, Father?’
‘This will make me well.’
‘But how long will you be away?’
‘Only a few months,’ Tiberius lied, t
hough it pained him to mislead his son. He prayed that one day Castor would understand him. ‘Stay on good terms with your stepbrothers. They’ll have need of true friends. Watch out for them – others may wish them harm.’
To Castor this was unnecessary advice. ‘I’m always their friend, and I’m not jealous of them either.’ Tiberius saw how much his son was like him with this remark. The boy had little natural interest in power.
‘You don’t wish you were in their place?’ Tiberius asked.
But the idea had not even occurred to Castor. He was tortured only by the boy he was genuinely jealous of. He refused to acknowledge it or even ask the question that ate him from inside.
But Tiberius read it in him all the same. ‘Sejanus won’t accompany me either.’
Castor showed that he was not entirely like his father after all – his satisfaction at this information was plain. Tiberius would have hidden it.
When the news was broken to Sejanus himself the strange boy was far less readable. Tiberius explained his plans – Sejanus would be attached to a legion to begin his training as a soldier. The boy gave a response that was automatic, almost token, and Tiberius had the sensation that Sejanus was boring into his deepest emotions, seeing all the hurt and anger he had hidden in his heart.
‘Why are you running from this?’ Sejanus whispered.
‘What?’
‘Why are you running? The fight can be won. Let’s find weapons.’
Tiberius was thrown for a response, and then, as if his tongue was not his own, he answered with complete honesty. ‘Because my time has passed.’
Sejanus shook his head. ‘It’s not yet here, that’s all.’
Tiberius was incredulous. ‘How do you know of this?’
The boy continued without giving an answer. ‘Take me with you then. You’ll never have a more loyal servant than me.’
‘Sejanus, you’re not my slave, you’re freeborn – ‘
The boy prostrated himself in denial of it. ‘I am your slave. Freedom means nothing if I can’t serve you. Please take me with you. You need me. We understand each other.’
Tiberius was unsettled by this scene and left the boy to collect his dignity for an hour. When he returned to discuss the plans further Sejanus had vanished.
Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves Page 32