Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Where is the boy?’ he asked the servants.

  ‘He left, domine.’

  ‘Where was he going?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  Investigation revealed that Sejanus had taken nothing with him. The balled-up remains of the clothes he was wearing were found thrown in a corner. Missing only was the ragged grey tunica and cloak he had worn for the thousand-mile walk – the two possessions he had arrived with. He’d even left his shoes behind.

  When he didn’t return by sunset, we slaves drew our own conclusions. ‘Just a dirty urchin after all,’ one of the household vulgarii said to me when Tiberius had retired, ‘gone back to the gutter he was born in.’ The strange boy had not been popular.

  ‘But not a thief, would you believe it?’ marvelled another. ‘He didn’t steal nothing that would fetch him any coin, though there’s plenty here to take.’

  ‘Dumb as well, then,’ was the final word.

  I kept my own opinions to myself. Sejanus was forgotten by a household relieved to be spared his filth-caked bed.

  Tiberius gave the appearance of being unaffected.

  In the weeks that passed before his departure Tiberius spent many hours with Castor. The son blossomed under such hitherto unknown attention, but as the simple activities between them wore on, Tiberius struggled to concentrate. His thoughts strayed always to Sejanus; he felt sick at the thought of him alone on the streets. Worse, guilt stabbed Tiberius hard in the sleepless hours of night as he dwelled upon the promise made at the end of their long walk. Sejanus was his charge.

  At the start of his final week in the city Tiberius hired men to find the boy. Already he had used slaves in this capacity, including myself, but none of us had unearthed him. Tiberius wanted free men who were skilled in investigation and unafraid of violence. He was convinced that someone in Rome knew the boy’s whereabouts and would reveal it under force. And although it pained him to voice as much, Tiberius instructed his agents to focus on the haunts of boy prostitutes – bathhouses, theatres, taverns, and brothels too, of course. Sejanus was resourceful but Tiberius couldn’t imagine what other means he would be using to feed himself.

  On the third evening of the search it fell to me to awaken Tiberius. He trusted me – not because of my devotion to his mother but because of my long connection to his father. He believed I had grieved for Tiberius Nero as much he had. It shames me still to think of this falsehood.

  ‘One of the investigators has appeared, domine.’

  Tiberius’s head was throbbing – a returned torture that had come to him nightly since the boy’s disappearance.

  ‘He has a young fellow with him,’ I said.

  Tiberius struggled to sit up. ‘Dress me.’ But the throbbing increased and I was alarmed to see froth at his mouth.

  ‘Can you stand, domine?’

  Tiberius could not.

  ‘I’ll bring the boy to you.’

  Tiberius murmured assent, grateful, and a tear rolled down his cheek to the pillow.

  ‘He’ll comfort you, domine,’ I said.

  Tiberius closed his eyes, willing the emotion away and hating himself for the image of such weakness he would be giving the boy. But the throbbing grew worse when he tried to open his eyes as I brought the boy into the room. He tried to force the agony away, focusing on the familiar lightness of step; it was Sejanus’s footfall. But there was a new smell to him, thick and sickly sweet – perfume. Tiberius clenched his teeth; his instincts had been right about the trade the boy had been plying.

  ‘Please come to me,’ he managed to say.

  Sejanus hesitated.

  ‘You know me,’ said Tiberius, ‘I could never punish you. We’ve been through so much together.’

  Sejanus flung himself upon the bed, clinging to his saviour’s neck and kissing him. ‘I’m yours again, Master. I’ve come back to you. I’m sorry.’

  The throbbing was so loud that Tiberius could barely hear him. ‘I’m not your master – you know that. Why did you leave me? I promised to protect you, Sejanus – didn’t you believe me when I said it?’

  The boy hesitated to answer again and nervously looked to me for guidance. I gave him none. ‘I … I was scared,’ he said, after a moment.

  Tiberius digested this, wishing it were otherwise. Sejanus’s hands reached for him beneath the bed linen. Tiberius realised Sejanus was naked.

  ‘What are you doing? Where are your clothes?’

  The pain was blinding but he forced open his eyes and saw the gross misconception: it was not Sejanus in his bed but a painted boy-whore. Tiberius roared with rage and flung the child from the bed.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m no-one, just a comfort to you,’ the boy cowered. ‘They call me Ganymede.’

  I cowered in terror too. I’d been convinced it was Sejanus.

  Tiberius tightened his hands into fists. ‘You and every other little whore – you’re all called Ganymede!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to tell lies,’ begged the boy. ‘I was happy to be anyone they wanted me to be just so I could eat, Master.’

  Ignoring me completely, Tiberius launched at the boy in fury but Ganymede scuttled aside.

  ‘Don’t hurt me – I can be your Sejanus! Let me try it for you.’

  But with another lunge Tiberius had Ganymede by the throat, crushing him hard in his hands. ‘Do you even know who Sejanus is?’ Tiberius screamed. The hapless boy did not, his eyes bulging in his head, his hands trying to tear Tiberius’s away. ‘He’s a boy with honour and courage. You’re just a filthy catamite and a stain. That you even live at all is a disgrace to Rome!’

  Tiberius gripped till he felt something bend to breaking point beneath his fingers. Ganymede’s eyes rolled backwards in their lids. Then Tiberius pulled his hands away and stared at them. Ganymede wasn’t quite unconscious yet, the breath sucking back into his lungs. ‘Help him – help him,’ Tiberius waved uselessly at me. ‘Give him water.’

  Ganymede still had a voice.

  ‘Let me help you, Master,’ he rasped. ‘Let me guide you to him.’

  Tiberius stared at the naked, cowering child for what seemed like many minutes. ‘You’re as good a hope as I have left,’ he said at last.

  Deaf to my dismay, and letting no-one else accompany him but the boy-whore, Tiberius was led into the midnight streets. What happened there was told to me by Ganymede himself, who will return to this history again.

  The boy-whore said nothing, but Tiberius tied his own hand to a belt he made Ganymede wear around his waist. Tiberius walked as though floating, the pains that cracked his skull robbing him of all other feeling. He had no sense of where he was taken. He felt no fear, only hope. He would find Sejanus before the new day. He would succeed where incompetents had failed.

  Tiberius was taken to every place of corruption where Ganymede had ever been purchased for coins. Pimps and pederasts gave them scant attention as child after child was sold and consumed around them. Tiberius peered at any boy Ganymede led him to, but it was never Sejanus who smiled back with flat, blank eyes and asked him if he wanted company.

  In the hour before dawn the calls of the birds began to replace the shouts of commerce. The prostitutes disappeared and the carts of the fruit and vegetable sellers took their places unloading in the squares. Tiberius found himself slumped against a fountain in a part of the city he recognised as the lower Palatine. He turned to tell Ganymede to wrack his head for more brothels, but the boy was gone too. Tiberius’s hand was still tied to the unclasped belt.

  The birdsong merged with a different tune – rowdy cheers of good fortune. Weaving drunkenly downhill through the refuse a group of wedding guests approached – the bride and groom held high in the air in the final moments of a night-long celebration. Oblivious to Tiberius in his night tunica, the wedding guests shrieked with glee, tormenting the newlyweds with the threat of being tossed into the fountain. The laughing bride refused to believe they would ever dare do such a thing, which was all
the goading they needed to hurl her in. The spluttering groom followed. Soon it was a free-for-all as intoxicated patricians pushed in their protesting slaves, only to be dragged in after them. The old and young alike were drenched. Tiberius sat where he was, splashed by each new bather, until he was as wet as the rest of them.

  ‘You look familiar,’ said a young man to him. ‘Have you been with us for Gallus’s big night?’

  ‘No,’ said Tiberius.

  ‘Are you sure? I know your face from somewhere.’

  ‘I am no-one,’ said Tiberius, ‘We have never met.’

  Another guest joined. ‘He’s having you on,’ he said. ‘He’s famous for something. What did you do, mate?’ he asked Tiberius.

  Tiberius wanted to leave but had no strength left in him. The throbbing had become a solid press of pain. ‘I won a horserace once,’ he said, for want of anything near the truth.

  The young man and his friend seized on this. ‘That’s it! Riding for the Greens then, weren’t you?’

  ‘For the Blues,’ claimed Tiberius.

  The two guests nodded knowingly. ‘You’ve got luck on your side, mate. Why don’t you kiss the bride for us? She could use a bit of that. Second marriage you see. First one went belly-up.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Tiberius. ‘It wouldn’t be seemly.’ He couldn’t make his legs bend. He was immobile.

  ‘Don’t be like that, just a little kiss. Gallus is too drunk to do it to her himself now.’

  Tiberius tried to protest, but the laughing, splashing bride who turned to face him stopped the words inside his throat.

  ‘Look who it is,’ the first young man enthused to her. ‘Recognise his face?’

  Vipsania stared as though she’d opened the door to murder. ‘I have never seen him in my life,’ she said at last, the laughter gone.

  ‘Yes, you have – he’s famous!’

  Tiberius found hollow platitudes. ‘I wish you luck on your new marriage.’

  She looked at him coldly, without blinking. Then she struck him in the mouth.

  Tiberius was woken by the heat of the sun on the skin where his first wife had slapped him. It was sore to the touch, but the hand that rubbed a salve on it and then rubbed some more on his dry, cracked lips was gentle – a physician’s hand.

  ‘You’ve risked your health,’ said the voice that went with it, a high, pure voice, unbroken and clean. ‘Your body won’t stand much more of this. Death will claim you.’

  ‘I’m just so tired of all the pain,’ Tiberius whispered.

  ‘I have something for that.’ The hand now held a wine cup and placed it to Tiberius’s bruised mouth. ‘It’s your old friend. Drink. You’ll feel better.’

  Tiberius smelled the longed-for sweetness of the Eastern flower and hesitated only for a moment as he stared at the devoted boy. ‘Why won’t you let me guide you, Sejanus?’

  ‘Because the gods have chosen me to guide you,’ said Sejanus humbly.

  Then he gently tipped the cup so that Tiberius drank it down.

  Listening to my domina’s clear-headed, dispassionate intentions, I tried to hold myself from breaking down, but the dreadful course of the words was inevitable. I knew in my gut what path her words would take, and when the final, terrible question was asked I finally lost the hold on my anguish.

  My domina was concerned. ‘Are you unwell, Iphicles? What upsets you so much?’

  I was unable to pull myself together. ‘Doesn’t it torture you, domina?’ I wept. ‘What must be done – what has been done? Doesn’t the guilt of it all crush you in your bed?’

  I expected Livia to strike me for having dared to voice this but I was wrong. ‘I’ll go to my tomb with the guilt of it,’ she said. ‘But it’s the burden I carry. I serve Rome. You serve Rome, Iphicles. The guilt will be ours, but so will the glory in the end. I beg you, don’t crumble on me now. See it through.’

  I swam in her raven eyes and then she tenderly kissed my wrist and stroked it, touching the bones. ‘These are your most delicate features – your wrists and hands. I’ve long admired them in you but have never told you. But they’re why I need you so much, you see? You have the hands of an artist. And the treasure that you paint will be for Rome.’

  I was a little boy again, cradling each hand with the other.

  ‘Now, my friend,’ she said gently. ‘I suspect you have the answer that I need. How could you not? You’ve been a dear friend to her, you’ve loved her too – just as I do. But now you’ve lost your fear and doubt, haven’t you, Iphicles?’

  I said nothing, but no longer wept. My heart was heavy as stone, but the gate to all that I hid within it had been prised open. I knew what had to be given up.

  ‘You’ve found the key to this, haven’t you? You know what will remove the barriers that stop Tiberius from becoming the first King.’

  I stared at the Timanthes on the crimson-painted wall behind Livia’s head. I had saved it twice – first from the flames, and then from Aurelia. And then I returned it to my domina again when it inspired me to make my sacrifice. The gods had drawn me to the painting – and drawn my domina to it too. We were both connected to it – and by it. I stared at the double-portrait: the strong and confident woman, the submissive and contented man. Cybele and Attis. Livia and Iphicles.

  ‘Yes, domina,’ I said at last, remembering what I had seen on the night of the banquet for Octavian’s chosen successors; and remembering what I had seen on so many other occasions too. ‘I have the key to achieve our goal.’

  ‘Good,’ said Livia. ‘Very good. And what is it, my friend …?’

  Septimontium

  September, 2 BC

  Seven years later: the Senate declares First

  Citizen Caesar Augustus pater patriae –

  ‘Father of the Nation’

  Plancina left her house at sunrise, just as the first clients were forming their salutatio queues at the doors of her neighbours. She squeezed past them and made her short but hurried journey up the Via Victoriae towards Oxheads. It was Septimontium – the Festival of the Seven Hills – and she passed the first seven of the day’s sacrifices that were planned to take place on the Palatine. The sacred priests of the Septemviri shepherded a sheep, an ox, a dog, a hen, a goose, a pig and a duck between them, all destined for the blade and the flames. Identical processions were being enacted at that moment on the Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Caelian, Viminal and Esquiline hills, and would be enacted again another six times throughout the day.

  Plancina caught the eye of the dog as she passed it. The unwitting beast was happy, enjoying its walk in the early autumn air. She felt a brief wave of pity for all those that were blind to their fates.

  Admitted to the First Citizen’s house without question, Plancina went not to Livia’s rooms but to the kitchens, and then to the cellars below. At the door to the descending steps she spoke to the armed slave whose task it was to stop all from going further, including the First Citizen, though Octavian didn’t know it. The guard was jovial – his lone charge below was in excellent spirits and presently teaching him how to win at dice. It was all in the spin of the wrist. Plancina asked if his teacher was ready.

  She was.

  Plancina was admitted to go down and retrieve her.

  Later that morning, as Julia took breakfast at her customary sixth hour, Plancina told her a sad tale. She had been to the slave market on the Via Turbino and had found a girl of great beauty there. She had bought her at once for her looks and her lovely singing voice; Plancina prized any slave that was musical. She took the young girl home but, when Plancina asked her to disrobe for washing, the girl turned wilful and reluctant, causing Plancina to take up the rod.

  The first blow exposed the girl’s dark secret: she was hunchbacked. The shawl around her shoulders hid a gross disfigurement. Plancina felt only pity for poor girl, but unfortunately, when Livia later met the slave she was so disgusted by the sight of her that it made her ill. Livia sent her steward back to the Via Tur
bino to find the carnifex, the municipal executioner of slaves. The slave would be culled as a mercy. But Plancina was tortured by conscience. Surely the girl could not help her affliction? Did she truly deserve this fate?

  Plancina crushed hard any shame she felt inside her when Julia responded as she knew she would. The girl must move house, Julia said. They mustn’t have the poor slave executed. With Tiberius in retirement on Rhodes, Julia’s household was her own to control; the slave-girl could serve a new mistress here while remaining protected – and she would also be cherished for her lovely singing voice. Plancina bowed in grateful thanks; Julia’s heart was the kindest in Rome.

  Then she stood aside to let Martina enter.

  When Plancina had gone, Julia lingered at her breakfast, studying the folds of Martina’s shawl where it stretched around the mountain of her back. In the muted light of the dining room the girl was certainly exquisite in the face, but as Martina stepped near the steps to the garden a wash of daylight hit her. In the harsh, white glare she suddenly aged by forty years; she was a not a girl at all. But then she moved to the shade again and the crinkled skin and sagging flesh were gone. The light was playing tricks on Julia’s eyes. How could this slave be more than twenty?

  Martina wanted only to be useful. ‘More soup, domina?’ Julia had eaten plenty, but she allowed the girl to serve her another bowl. She sensed that the slave wanted to bond with her.

  ‘It tastes a little different,’ she said absently as she drank it.

  ‘The ingredients must have settled in the pot, domina,’ Martina proposed.

  Julia finished the last of it and decided on a short nap before her exercise. As Martina cleared away the dishes and left her new mistress to silence, she thought of another mistress from many years past, one who had also drunk what Julia had drunk, but knowingly.

  The lust that had gripped Cleopatra then had carried her to glory, at least for a short time, and the Egyptian queen had enslaved two great Roman men with her body. To what great heights would the paste of crushed insects now take Julia, Martina wondered.