Your father
*
The withered captain was hard of hearing. Because of this, few bothered to talk to him unless it was essential. Those who felt they had no other option yelled in his face, hoping this would force their words in. It never worked. Old Gordius lived in a noiseless world where understanding the communications of others was always hoped for but rarely achieved. What little he knew he gleaned from pointed looks, careful gestures and, when dealing with the literate, written instructions. But those who could write were few and far between. His long-suffering pair of sailors thanked the stars that at least he wasn’t blind as well.
It was nothing new to Gordius when a handsome man in city clothes approached him at the little wharf at Fregenae and was unable to get through to him. Gordius responded politely, but didn’t want to mislead the fellow that he actually comprehended him. He knew from experience the trouble that ensued from taking politeness to that extreme. Better to end things now.
‘Sorry, son. I’m deaf as a pole,’ he said. ‘Maybe you want to go somewhere in my boat? Good luck to you. I’ve got my route that I follow when the tide’s kind. It takes me up and down the coast a little way and that’s it. To Cosa one way and Circei the other – nowhere too far. No other stops. Is that good enough for you?’
Gordius didn’t need to be able hear to tell that it wasn’t. But he was annoyed that the man still continued speaking. ‘I can’t hear you, son. Didn’t you get me? Or are you deaf as a pole too? Try one of the other boat captains if my route doesn’t suit you. I won’t be offended.’
Clemens, the illegitimate son of Octavian and Hebe, stopped talking and walked away.
‘First well-mannered patrician I’ve ever met,’ Gordius said to his pair of sailors. ‘His sort usually thump you one if they don’t like what you’re telling them.’
The sailors nodded sagely in agreement.
‘Where did he want to go to anyway?’ Gordius wondered.
The sailor told him.
‘Can’t hear you, boy,’ said Gordius, with a twinkle in his eye. It was an old joke that had long worn thin with his crew.
Gordius went below deck to have a snooze on the wheat sacks. It was a pity he did. His sailors were shortly surprised to see Clemens thrown onto the ground by the captain of one of the other boats. The name that the captain called Clemens startled them even more. Rather than defend himself, Clemens took to his heels and fled.
Hours later, on deck again, Gordius pondered aloud as if no time had passed. ‘Well-dressed patrician man like him – why didn’t he just write his words down? I would have understood him then.’
The two sailors looked at each other, now having a fair idea why Clemens hadn’t done so.
The next day Gordius got another chance. Clemens reappeared shortly after dawn, dressed in a new tunica cut from expensive cloth; he was perfumed and oiled. Part of Gordius wanted to bow but Clemens was looking about the wharf cagily. The sailors knew why. Fortunately, the captain who had assaulted Clemens was not in sight.
‘You again, son?’ Gordius greeted him. ‘Didn’t have any luck elsewhere, eh?’
Clemens shook his head.
‘I should have thought of this yesterday: why don’t you write your words down for me? I can read, you see. Then I’ll have a proper idea of what you’re going on about.’
Clemens’s eyes darted to the two watching sailors, who added words of encouragement. But Gordius was unaware of their malicious tone as he waited for Clemens to approve his idea. To Gordius’s surprise, the would-be passenger instead looked back to the shadows of the warehouse that faced the wharf. He didn’t speak, but a figure stepped into the light – a woman, tall and striking, with the limbs of a warrior and skin the colour of honey. She had Nubian blood in her somewhere, Gordius guessed, and his own sluggish blood made the strongest surge to his privates in several years. She was beautiful, and Gordius was very partial to a honey-coloured lovely. The intense look that passed between Clemens and this woman spoke silent volumes that only Gordius understood. For once his sailors missed the truth.
‘They love each other,’ said Gordius in his mind. ‘Poor bastard – wonder what his missus thinks?’
Gordius found his train of thought. ‘I’ve got a wax tablet you can use, son,’ he said out loud. ‘Then we’ll all know everything, won’t we?’
Clemens’s suppressed frustration threatened to explode but he stilled it. He was frozen for a moment in indecision, then he turned and walked back towards the girl. The palpable despair in both of them brought a knot to Gordius’s gut. He was shocked by their depth of feeling.
‘Hang on – what’s the matter with you?’ he called after them.
But the beautiful couple disappeared.
Since he’d reached his sixth decade, old Gordius had become easy prey to sentiment. He wanted to help the strange pair but couldn’t understand why the patrician man had refused his sensible suggestion. Putting their captain out of his misery, the sailors painstakingly mouthed what they had learned about this man. Gordius was astonished and doubted that he had properly understood them. The sailors emphasised their meaning for Gordius by miming the appearance of iron collars around their necks.
‘But he didn’t have one of those on!’ Gordius exclaimed. ‘I would have seen it there.’
The sailors said nothing more – they didn’t need to. Some slaves of the handsome fellow’s ilk didn’t wear collars at all. It meant they were famed for their loyalty. Gordius thought about it all night as he lay upon his wheat sacks. He was angry to think he’d been duped.
Clemens was waiting under the arch of the closed warehouse door when Gordius threw open the hatch at dawn and climbed from the hold arthritically. The honey-skinned girl was there too. Gordius had already decided what he would do if the couple reappeared, and spotting them immediately he said a little prayer to Venus. ‘I’m not a hard man, goddess. But I deserve some fun every now and then, don’t I?’ The deity made no sign of disagreement.
Gordius signalled them over. Clemens stepped forward, but the honey-skinned girl stayed where she was. ‘This is becoming as regular as breakfast,’ said Gordius. ‘Are we going to make better progress today?’
Clemens had not changed his clothes from yesterday and didn’t look quite as well-groomed. Gordius wondered if he’d even returned to Rome for the night, and suspected not. Likely he’d slept in a ditch. ‘The offer of the wax tablet still stands,’ he shrugged, though he now knew why it had been rejected. ‘Unless you’ve thought of some other way?’
Clemens had. He produced a roll of parchment from his cloak and handed it to Gordius. It was covered in writing.
‘Ho ho! That’s more like it,’ said the old sailor, taking it from him. But when he’d opened it he added slyly, ‘Got someone else to write it down for you, eh?’ Clemens looked exposed, and with pleasure Gordius saw the honey-skinned girl take an alarmed step from the warehouse arch.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he called to her happily. ‘We’re all friends here, there’ll be no trouble.’
The couple looked at each other intensely again, and Gordius envied the depth of attachment between them. The sea life had never allowed him a wife that would put up with it, and his scant earnings only bought him the very ugliest of whores. He had never tasted a beautiful woman.
Gordius read the parchment carefully, raising his eyes to Clemens once or twice, but saying nothing. The slave held his gaze. When Gordius was done he rolled the parchment up again and made to hand it back. Clemens took it but Gordius didn’t let go. ‘I told you when you first showed up here that I only do the coast,’ he said. ‘From Cosa to Circei – remember?’
Clemens’s hand tightened into an angry fist, crushing his end of the parchment.
Gordius just smiled, toying with him. ‘But today I’ll make an exception.’
The slave Clemens had been so loved by his exiled master Postumus that the iron collar of ownership had been cut from his neck. He knew that Gordius�
�s generosity would come with a price beyond mere sestertii. When Gordius named it Clemens showed no sign of shock, though in truth he felt it. Not because the price was abhorrent to him – far from it. It would cost him little personally. But he was taken aback that it was so benign – it was sad almost. If he didn’t already despise Gordius for delaying his desperate mission for three crucial days, he would’ve felt a mild affection for him, but not now. He would do as he was asked only to save Postumus.
The creaking cargo boat pulled up its anchor within the hour and set sail on its course. It would hug the coast as usual, until it neared the first of the islands. Then it would brave the rougher waters. When evening came, the passengers retired to a space that was indicated as theirs in the hold. Their bed was wheat sacks. The two sailors remained on deck. Nymphomidia, the honey-skinned slave, was distracted by making their space comfortable and didn’t notice where old Gordius got to. Watching the girl busying herself, Clemens succumbed to apprehension and stopped her. He explained the details of the bargain he had struck with the deaf captain, expecting Nymphomidia to scream and strike him. But she didn’t, only looking searchingly into his eyes.
‘It won’t be painful for me,’ she said after a time.
‘I would never let it be,’ he said. ‘I would never allow you to be hurt in any way.’
‘I know you wouldn’t. I mean that it won’t be painful to give myself in the way that he asks.’ She didn’t look away from Octavian’s illegitimate son, feeling no shame, although her breathing increased a little. ‘I’ve desired it for so long, you see.’
Clemens kissed her full, plum lips. ‘I prayed that our master – our friend – would see the love we have for each other and allow us this. When he was taken from us too soon, before he knew how we felt for each other, I prayed that we’d find a way to save him. He never treated me as a slave – I was his brother, and he knows whose blood we both share. In two more nights we’ll reach him. The old man’s bargain is not a humiliation – not really. It’s a means to an end – an end that’ll be glorious and the saviour of Rome.’
Nymphomidia now saw where old Gordius sat crouched in the dark, watching. She couldn’t see his face, though she guessed he was licking his lips in readiness. She lit the single oil lamp they had been given and the light it gave made her skin glow like amber when she unclipped her stola at the shoulder and let it drop to the floor. She stepped out of the folds and displayed herself – both for Gordius and Clemens.
‘It won’t be painful for me,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve long loved you, Clemens, and tonight I’m your wife.’
The unacknowledged son of Octavian let his own tunica fall before taking her in his arms. As they began to stroke and kiss each other Gordius felt the sluggish surge of blood to his privates. They briefly stirred, and he dared hope for more, before they fell away to uselessness again. Not to worry. Gordius had long given up on his manhood – it had grown as unreliable as his ears. But his eyes worked as well as they did when he could once screw like a stud bull and hear every moan from his prize. Gordius believed in valuing what the gods were happy to let him keep in his old age. He settled down to watch the lovemaking.
When the cargo boat secured itself at the little berth three days later, Clemens went ashore alone. Nymphomidia waited on deck, watching her beloved climb the steep steps towards the villa they had sighted at the clifftop. Planasia, like Pandataria, was a tiny island. It had one residence and one prisoner. Overjoyed, Clemens couldn’t stop himself from calling his master’s name as he ran to the open door. But when he found Postumus inside he couldn’t stop himself from weeping it again, over and over.
Some hours later, when he reappeared at the berth streaked with ash and with his hands red-raw from breaking up furniture for the pyre, Clemens told Nymphomidia why their hopes for the future had changed. They would not be going on to the legions of Germany. They would not be led by Postumus, their master and friend, because Postumus was dead. They would now have to lead themselves.
Although their hopes were changed, they would never be abandoned.
*
Livia cradled the sleeping First Citizen’s head in her lap, marvelling at the way that age had so changed him. His beautiful hair, once the sign of the boy that dwelled within his heart, had long ago lost its curl. Greyed and thin, the few strands left were brittle in Livia’s fingers, like old straw. Octavian’s skin, which he once kept shaved and oiled so that he shone like a pearl to the crowds, was now so deeply creased that it looked as if he’d run a blade across it, slicing himself without bleeding. Livia wondered if he still had any blood in his veins at all, he was so palid. She felt for his heartbeat and sensed it barely.
In just over a month he would reach seventy-seven years of age. Within the same month Livia would reach seventy-two. Now among the oldest men in Rome, Octavian looked every inch his age, but Livia looked little more than forty. Her enduring beauty and apparent agelessness were the talk of Rome; the Acta Diurna had even posted a bulletin on the subject. Livia publically attributed her remarkable looks to a simple diet and daily exercise. In private she made no attribution at all. Whether she was aware then of the truth or not, I don’t know. It didn’t matter. I knew the reason for her unnatural preservation because I, too, was still agile, lean and unwrinkled. We had been chosen to live as immortals.
Livia stroked Octavian’s hair with tenderness, thinking upon the many years of their marriage. They were pleasant years, some of them, although others were less so. Several she remembered now with dull ambivalence, and a few she recalled sharply for their pain. But this year, the final year of waiting, Livia knew would stay always in her memory as the happiest year of all.
It was the year of destiny.
For the first time in many decades, Livia heard her mother’s voice whispering in her ear. Livia welcomed her, and welcomed the memory that returned. She crossed the space of fifty-eight winters and felt again what it was to be buried in the cave. She found herself asking the same pressing question she had asked of the woman who had spoken with her mother’s voice, but who was not her mother at all.
‘Will I ever know love, Mama? Will I ever know what it is to be truly loved by a man?’
Cybele softly kissed Livia’s cheek. ‘Many men will love you, but none will love you as much as one man, child. He will love you more than his life itself. And when the time comes, he will love you more than your life too …
‘Will this man be my husband?’
Cybele gave no answer.
‘Holy Mother?’
The goddess was silent.
‘I never loved you at all,’ Octavian whispered.
Livia lurched from her memory of the cave. Octavian’s eyes were open. She had awoken him by speaking aloud what she thought she had said only in her mind.
Octavian rasped, ‘It was never me. I didn’t love you, I lusted for you. And that was just your witchcraft. You’re a foul witch, Livia.’
A lesser woman would have been shattered by such words, but not my domina. She had never loved Octavian either, so how could he hurt her by declaring the same? Instead she was perplexed. ‘Of course you love me. You have always loved me. Love and lust are just the same.’
A laugh cracked in Octavian’s throat and then he tried to spit at her, but the effort was too much and the phlegm ran to his chin. Livia didn’t wipe it. Instead she edged a cup to his mouth and when Octavian clenched his teeth to it, she forced them open with the rim, breaking his incisors, and she watched him choke on the last dregs of poison. Then she threw the cup away and stood, enjoying the sound of Octavian’s head dropping hard from her lap to the mosaic floor.
She moved quickly to the door, intending to declare with feigned horror to those outside that the First Citizen was dead in his sleep. But she stopped herself before she pushed the door open. A question had entered her mind. If Octavian hadn’t loved her more than his life itself, who had? Who would?
The door opened from the outside before she could twist
the handle. She looked up in shock and saw who had dared to intrude. It was Sejanus, now handsome and strong in a centurion’s cuirass, a grown man. He had returned from Rhodes with Tiberius.
The words of outrage and recrimination died on her tongue as Livia remembered the comfort Sejanus had given her once before, long ago, when the baby’s kicking feet had stilled under Tiberius’s hand. She felt a rush of tears burst forth. ‘He’s dead,’ she stammered. ‘He’s gone …’
Sejanus looked to Octavian’s corpse on the floor. Then he enfolded Livia in his arms. ‘He was old. It was his time.’
Livia sobbed as if her heart would smash, but it wasn’t for Octavian. She cried anew for the little lost boy. Then she cried in pity for herself. Then, last of all, when a long time had passed, she wept softly for love, feeling warm and safe in Sejanus’s strong arms.
The final delivery brought Julia’s escape.
Since the one true letter from her father, she had waited at the berth on each day of Mercury in readiness. But the final boat, when it came, was different. It was not of the Imperial fleet but a merchant vessel, filthy and unsound, like the hulk of a barge from the Tiber. As the vessel drew near, Julia scanned the heads of those aboard, but – as always, now – she recognised no-one. When the boat anchored, her fresh food ration was thrown onto the rocks. It had been halved. The other boxed items of cargo stank overpoweringly of human excrement. Because Julia had never encountered these men before she chanced that they would be unfamiliar with the Senatorial rules.
‘Do you have any news from Rome?’ she asked them.
The sailors looked at each other. ‘Only one thing,’ they said, smirking. ‘We’ve got ourselves a brand new First Citizen.’
Julia felt no need to ask further questions. The additional cargo, she knew, was his gift to her.
While the stinking crates were smashed open by the sailors at the berth, Julia walked with dignity back to the villa. She locked and bolted the doors, and instructed the two slaves to help her place furniture against the timbers. They must do all they could to save themselves, she told them.
Empress Of Rome 1: Den Of Wolves Page 36