In the meantime, her men, exploiting the element of surprise, managed to surround Bauto, who suddenly found himself with at least three blades at his throat before the Gauls had time to react. They immobilised the soldiers holding Ortwin, and unhitched the horse from the wagon.
Veleda climbed down from it and approached the Gaul chief, who was looking at her in bewilderment. All around them were seething warriors and women, desperate to intervene, but the blades pressing into Bauto’s body seemed to be a sufficient deterrent.
For the moment, at least.
Ortwin managed to free himself from his guards’ grip, taking a sword from one of them and ordering his men to disarm everyone in the immediate surroundings, then he walked over to Veleda, smiled, grasped her stump, and whispered in her ear, “I knew you’d do something, but I didn’t think you’d handle it so skilfully. I also thought you might have got us all killed. I’m proud of you.”
Veleda’s chest swelled with pride. She knew that Ortwin loved her more than anything, but as for respecting her… well, she’d always had her doubts. Because of the bad choices she’d forced him to make, as much as anything. She stepped back to let him take over.
“Well, my lord,” said Ortwin to Bauto in an openly mocking tone, “it would seem that you have no choice but to accept our offer. Hand over Decimus Brutus Albinus or these miserable lands will have a new owner. And naturally you’ll come some of the way back with us on our return journey. We wouldn’t want your friends here getting any ideas about taking revenge for this little episode.”
“If you kill me, none of you will get out of here alive,” said Bauto. He was attempting to appear sure of himself, but his voice had lost its tone of ostentatious self-confidence.
“Maybe,” admitted Ortwin. “But there will be a massacre. Before your men can overpower us, we’ll kill everyone we’ve disarmed. And anyway, what would it matter to you – you’d be dead anyway. In fact, you’d be the first to go.”
Bauto’s face remained grim a moment longer, then he shrugged his broad shoulders, sighed deeply and said, “So be it – take that dandy if you must. I just hope the sum is generous.”
Veleda heaved a sigh of relief. They’d done it. Now all they needed was for someone to show them which hut the former Pro-consul, who had kept himself well hidden from view since she’d entered the village, had crept into.
“Kill him if you want. He’s no longer the chief.” A voice from over near the fence stopped her in her tracks. She turned in the direction from which it had come, and saw a young man, fully armed and with thirty well-equipped warriors and more by his side, moving forward.
Ortwin looked at the lad and then at Bauto in bewilderment.
“Who’s that?” he asked the chief.
“My son,” said Bauto bitterly. “It would seem he’s decided to take advantage of the situation to bring forward the succession. I’d say we’re in trouble.”
*
“Do you want to end up the same way?”
Etain stared at the slave she’d started sleeping with, sneaking into his bed in the dead of night while the Basilus household slept. She didn’t especially like the lad, and she found it tiresome making love whilst pregnant, but she was working for the sect. “I love playing with this thing,” she said, smiling, as she stroked his member, now limp after he had climaxed earlier, “and I wouldn’t know what to do with you if they cut it off. Spending time cuddling isn’t exactly my idea of making love…” She was amazed to hear herself talking like this. Only a month before, when Rufus had left her after discovering that she was pregnant, she’d still had a romantic view of love and sex. Agrippa and Rufus were the only men she’d ever been with, apart from the criminals who had raped her, and she had never imagined she would have gone looking for lovers. Now, though, she had begun to use her body as a tool, and men as a means to achieve her ends. She was becoming a corrupt woman, like that Fulvia – and she didn’t at all mind the feeling of power it gave her. That poor frightened slave was putty in her hands, as she could see clearly now, and would do anything to remain close to her.
“The young master hasn’t forced me to do anything so far…” the slave objected, but with little conviction.
Etain rose from the pillow and sat up, flaunting her beautifully sculpted breasts, and a spark of desire re-ignited in the boy’s eye.
“So far, as you rightly say,” she replied. “But you don’t know how long that will last. How many house slaves have been castrated since that boy started having sexual urges? Three? Four?”
“Five…” he replied, swallowing, and caressing her breast.
“That’s right. You do know that when he turns to you, you won’t be able to refuse his attentions? You’ll finish up like all the others. Every slave he chooses is forced to go along with him in the hope that they’ll get away with the lesser evil, as long as Basilus doesn’t find out. But Basilus always finds out, sooner or later…”
“Maybe… maybe his father will finally manage to get him to like women.”
“There are some impulses that can’t be suppressed. He’ll always be attracted to men, starting with the easiest ones to lust after: his slaves. The only thing left for you is to decide how to die. Either way, you lose me,” she said, colder than she’d ever imagined she could be. But then, she cared nothing for the young man. She had a life growing inside her, and all that mattered was protecting her own future and that of the child she would be raising. Once she’d completed the sect’s mission, she would quickly return to Octavia, the best mistress anyone could hope to have. Because, if Basilus didn’t die, her child would have to grow up in the horrible atmosphere of that house.
“What do you think I should do?” the young man replied, burying his face between her breasts like a child looking for protection.
Etain hugged him, then caressed his back and ran her hands down his body. She drew his head to her nipples, prompting him to suck them, and held his penis, making him shudder with pleasure. “I’ll explain,” she whispered in his ear, then bent down between his legs to demonstrate what he’d miss if he didn’t take action.
Within two days, the boy said he was ready. She knew that no matter what steps he might take to hide his tracks, it would be extremely difficult for him to get away undetected. It was quite probable that every male slave in the house would be executed as punishment for the master’s death, but she didn’t care. Their death would be a small price to pay for achieving the sect’s main objectives, as well as a kind of revenge for everything that men had inflicted on her.
It was the dead of night again. He had come to her room carrying a dagger in his hand. They had made love, and she had used every sensual trick she knew, all those that Agrippa and Rufus had taught her as well as any others that came to mind. She had put aside every last trace of modesty to convince him to overcome his fears and refuse to become the object of a spoiled boy’s pleasure and the cruelty of a traitor like Basilus.
“Just think: when you’ve killed the master, I’ll be yours forever. And when I’ve given birth, you’ll be the father of my child and won’t have to see me with this big ugly belly…” she told him as she lay beneath him, caressing him. Her voice didn’t even tremble: by now she had learned how to lie.
In the end she had to practically push him out of bed: the slave continued tossing and turning under the sheets, stroking her naked body and trying to put off the moment of action. But it would be dawn shortly and they would have lost the perfect opportunity. He had to do it that night, and make it look like suicide. In that way, the slave naively hoped, the household staff wouldn’t suffer the family’s reprisals. Eventually the boy went, silent and hunched under the weight of responsibility and fear for the consequences. He threw one last hopeful look at her.
She blew him a kiss of encouragement and remained in bed, waiting for the events she had instigated to unfold. She strained her ears but the house lay cloaked in silence. Gradually, as the minutes passed, she realised that she was breat
hing more heavily, that her heart was beating faster, and that her stomach felt like it was being squeezed in an ever-tightening vice. Just then, the door opened, and the man who had left her bed what seemed like an eternity ago dived under the sheets, sweating and breathless.
“Have you done it?” she asked, trying not to reveal the turmoil she was feeling.
“Y-yes,” he stammered, hugging her and kissing her all over.
Irritated, she pushed him away. She knew that she should comfort him, but first she had to know. “What happened?” she urged.
He was hurt. He was more fragile than ever at that moment.
“Er… I think it went well. He was sleeping when I went into his room. Without thinking, I stabbed him in the chest with all my strength, and he just shuddered slightly. I saw blood pouring from his mouth, and his eyes widen and stay like that.”
“So you’re sure he’s dead?”
“As sure as I am that you’re here with me, in my arms,” replied the young man, holding her and searching for her mouth.
“And then?” she insisted, turning her face away.
“And then… I put his hands on the weapon as though he had stabbed himself, and came back here to you. I’m sure no one noticed anything. We’ll just have to wait until someone finds the body. They’ll put two and two together.”
“Let’s hope so,” sighed Etain, finally conceding the man a reward but without actively participating herself. Her mind was focused on the coming dawn when the whole household would wake up and discover the crime. She would then have to wait for the news to reach Rome. At which point Octavia would immediately set about buying her back, enabling her to escape this place full of madness.
The scream came shortly after sunrise. Etain recognized the voice of the slave responsible for waking the master, and then, suddenly, a great clamour broke out, shaking the walls of the building. The two lovers had to pretend to be curious about the commotion and so they also left their room – some people saw them rushing out of the cubicle together. It was perfect, just as she’d hoped: that way the young man had the alibi of having spent the night with her. Etain was comforted by the chaos into which the house had been plunged as it meant that the slave really had carried out his task – another of Caesar’s murderers was dead, and yet another step had been taken along the path of revenge in the name of Mars Ultor.
She saw the despairing domina embracing her son – the very person who had indirectly sparked off the uproar. The young boy cried like a little girl, but the slaves were terrified by the thought that they were the obvious suspects. Before long, the city’s decurion appeared. He immediately ordered the four gladiators of his escort to search the house. The magistrate, a clumsy, greasy, middle-aged man, began to question the servants one by one. The questions were the customary ones: “did you seen any strangers enter the house?”, “did anyone here have any reason to hold grievances against the master?” This last question, in particular, elicited embarrassed responses from everyone.
Clearly, the magistrate was trying to examine every possibility and determine if it really was suicide: if Basilus had decided to settle in that obscure part of Apulia, it was obvious that he had been able to count on the support of the city authorities. Perhaps the decurion was a friend of his, or Basilus had paid him handsomely? In any case, the decurion felt duty bound to check the circumstances of his death in far more detail than the duties of his position actually called for. After all, Basilus had been a declared enemy of the Roman Senate, and he shouldn’t really have tolerated his presence in the city. For a magistrate loyal to the institutions, Basilus’s death should have been good news, something he didn’t need to worry about.
However, he was not a magistrate loyal to the institutions, though, but a client of Caesar’s killers. And when it emerged that the master had castrated several slaves, his murderer began to tremble. Etain feared that it might give him away and elbowed him to urge him to keep control. He had yet to be questioned, and in his condition would almost certainly break down.
The decurion began to check the slaves and got someone to point out who had been castrated. There were only three of them left – the other two had already died following their mutilation. The unfortunate slaves were interrogated, harassed and pressured to confess to a crime they hadn’t committed. They screamed, protested their innocence, and knelt in supplication, but the magistrate remained unmoved. Then a gladiator took him by the arm and whispered in his ear. The decurion nodded, thought a moment, and went to confide something to the sobbing widow. The woman opened her eyes wide and looked at the three castrated slaves before passing a gaze full of hatred over each of the household slaves.
The magistrate cleared his throat and declared: “I don’t think there is any point continuing this questioning. One of my bodyguards found bloody footprints by Senator Minucius Basilus’ bed. The murderer was so stupid that he didn’t even notice he’d stepped in the blood dripping from the bed… understandable given that he acted in total darkness. In any case, we now have evidence that this wasn’t suicide. And I don’t care which of you is the killer. As is the custom, every slave in the house will be put to death.”
Etain had reckoned that it might go like that. She didn’t even bother to cast a look of understanding at the boy she’d driven to kill. She didn’t care about the slave’s fate, nor about that of the rest of the staff.
“I hope the authorities will refund the cost of all the new slaves I’ll have to buy,” said the sobbing domina. “To add insult to injury we risk becoming penniless if we’re forced to make such an expensive purchase. With all the confiscations we’ve suffered during Octavian’s regime, our financial situation is far from rosy.”
“We’ll see what can be done,” the decurion assured her. “In any case, you’ll have to buy new female slaves as well. Custom dictates that all the slaves are executed to set a clear example. If not, we risk having a second Spartacus revolt sooner or later.”
Etain felt her stomach tighten. This was something she hadn’t foreseen.
*
“I can have no doubts about who to side with in a conflict!” re-iterated Cicero, as a growing number of senators tried to have their say. “Could I ever give my trust to someone who has already betrayed it? Could I ever agree to collaborate with a man who has made a mockery of the Republic on several occasions, ignoring the deliberations of the Senate just as Caesar did before he crossed the Rubicon? Could I ever choose the dissolute Antony – a drunk and a womaniser who prefers to spend his time revelling rather than governing the State – as a political ally? A man even Caesar no longer trusted, going so far as to punish him upon discovering the trouble he’d caused when he’d been left to govern Italy while Caesar was in Egypt? How could I ever accept the Senate collaborating with him, when I can debate with gentlemen like Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus? Why should I ever be content to ally myself with such an unpleasant, treacherous individual when doing so would lead to the elimination of people I love and respect?”
Not many people were still listening to him at this point. Quintus Pedius, seated on his curule chair, was one of the few, but he was also trying to gauge the mood of the senators whose increasingly noisy shouting was drowning out the illustrious orator’s words. Many disagreed with Cicero’s views, but many others showed support. The old man didn’t realise – or perhaps realised all too well – that speaking about Caesar’s murderers in such complimentary terms de-legitimised Octavian’s work. Having praised the young consul and publicly supported him in the face of his colleagues’ scepticism only to then continue doing all he could for his enemies was either a sign of bad faith or of senility. And the fact that so many would follow him proved that there were still those who supported the conspirators. Only force and the threat of a military regime in Rome had silenced them, but they were still out there, ready to rise up at any moment.
“…As smart as he is, Octavian is still young and naive. If he tries to make an agreement with Antony, that
old fox will twist him around his little finger: he’s completely without scruples or morals.”
“But we can’t entrust the destiny of Rome to a child! Antony has broader shoulders. They must join forces, and then they’ll keep each other in check. Hasn’t that always been the essence of the Republican system? Two consuls, two supreme magistrates who keep each other in line. If we had two tyrants who detested each other, it would be like not even having one. The problem is when they get along.”
This last sentence made Pedius’s ears prick up. He decided to let Octavian know as soon as possible that he could push for more than a simple back-room deal with Antony: certain senators would actually be happy to be officially led by such a partnership in the conviction that the two parties would cancel each other out.
“But how can we trust a boy who first convinces us to give him supreme power by promising to fight a man who betrayed us, and then proposes to make an agreement with him? If you don’t trust Antony, I don’t see why you should trust someone who wants to be his accomplice!”
“We’ve had plenty of proof that the so-called ‘liberators’ will never do anything against the Senate. If anything, they will support it. Why should we contribute to their downfall, and by so doing arm our worst enemies?”
“As long as it remains a case of maintaining the equilibrium between the liberators, the young Octavian and Antony, count me in. But if the situation changes to their advantage, this will no longer be a Republic! Nor a democracy! And at that point it will no longer be in the Senate’s best interests.”
“Of course! Let’s remember that consuls, magistrates and dictators come and go, but the Senate remains! It’s the Senate that’s the beating heart of Rome and its true leader, and we must do all we can to preserve its integrity!”
Pedius had heard enough. There were still many who defended the insular position of an institution which was no longer capable of deciding anything. Just as Octavian had always said, it was no longer a question of freedom or tyranny but one of making the state function, and the Senate was too weak to do that. The time had come to entrust the state to less cumbersome systems and to fresher men – men concerned with the interests of the common good rather than of a single political class. The Senate was willing to accept a civil war between Octavian and Antony, or Octavian and Caesar’s assassins, in order to continue serving as the balance of power and retain its increasingly flimsy influence. But it too was a tyranny, albeit one that championed freedom.
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