“Minucius Basilus is dead,” she began with a strained voice, keeping her distance.
Gaius wasn’t expecting that. “Thank you for telling me, ma’am,” he replied formally. “Obviously, I cannot help but rejoice. I… uh… I came with a colleague who’s very keen to work for your brother’s cause. He is a great admirer of Octavian, and he’s waiting to…”
She took a step closer. “I didn’t call you here only to tell you of Basilus’s death.”
There was a moment’s pause and the silence returned. Gaius feared he would resume their relationship. Now that he saw her, he wanted to hold her in his arms, and he desperately hoped she wouldn’t give him the chance. He, for his part, would not take the initiative.
“I called you because you must go to get Etain. As you know, it was she who administered justice, just like Ortwin was sent after Decimus Brutus Albinus. But now it seems that all Basilus’s house slaves are to be executed. You must hurry to Apulia to save her: you know how much I care about her.”
He too cared about Etain. She had been Octavia’s eyes and ears in the years when the matron hadn’t been able to see her son grow up. She had kept her mistress informed of Marcus’s progress and had regularly given his father money so the boy would want for nothing and the family could live comfortably in a suitably dignified house. And it had been with Etain that Gaius had communicated in the years when he and Octavia hadn’t been in touch, before the events that followed the Ides of March – Octavian’s rise and the birth of the Sect of Mars Ultor – had brought them back together.
He would have liked to save the girl, but… “But your brother’s orders were very clear, ma’am,” he said finally. “He said I should immediately go to his camp on the Po to tell him about the events in the Senate, and join him for the meeting with Antony and Lepidus…”
Octavia nodded, puzzled. Then she said, “Well, why don’t you send your colleague, then? You said he was anxious to be useful… I want it to be you who goes to Apulia. You’re the only one I trust.” She narrowed her eyes as she spoke. Was she trying to seduce him? “But… Octavian doesn’t know Popilius Laenas… my colleague, that is,” he objected. He knew that Octavia didn’t like it when her instructions were disobeyed. “Besides, Laenas is a soldier, you can’t just move him around like that…”
“I’ll prepare a request for my cousin Pedius” Octavia said. “When it’s the consul dispatching him to my brother, none of his commanders will have any objections. And as regards Octavian… well, your Laenas will take a letter to him in which I’ll explain why I’ve entrusted you with another assignment. He’ll understand: Etain is a member of the sect and so should be defended at all costs.” She immediately went over to a writing desk, picked up a wax tablet and stylus, and began to write. Gaius waited silently until she’d finished. Octavia didn’t look up until she’d signed the message, then she put the tablet in a bag, got up and handed it to him. Only then did she look into his eyes.
Intensely.
“Tell your friend he has to depart tomorrow at dawn,” she murmured, moving even closer. Gaius smelled the essence she had sprinkled on her body and the pleasant breath that accompanied her words. Then he realised that she was taking his hand. “Don’t… don’t you want to meet Popilius Laenas? He was very keen to be introduced,” he said, swallowing. He even found the strength to pull his hand away.
Octavia stiffened. “Call him then, if you must,” she replied, moving brusquely away.
Gaius sighed. Had he hurt her? He made as if to speak, then bowed his head and left the tablinum to find Laenas.
*
Upon arriving at the door of the hut where Decimus Brutus Albinus – one of Julius Caesar’s top lieutenants during the Gallic pro-consulship, victor of the naval battle of Sinus Veneticus, pro-consul designate of Cisalpine Gaul and future consul… but the dictator’s killer – was being held captive, Ortwin trembled with emotion. And that hadn’t happened often lately. The sentries stood aside to let him enter, but the German paused in the doorway for a moment to think things through. Only a few months earlier he’d killed Gaius Trebonius in a campaign that had been even more dangerous than the one which had brought him face to face with his latest victim, and he had to admit to himself that it had been one of the greatest satisfactions of his life. He had fought alongside those commanders, proud of being under Caesar’s command, and his disgust at their betrayal had only been matched by the pleasure he’d taken in being used as an instrument of revenge and justice.
He’d begun to get a taste for it, and he hoped that he’d be able to get rid of many more of the cowardly traitors who had eliminated their benefactor, not to mention one of the greatest men in history.
He looked at Veleda: her expression was inscrutable and she indicated that he should enter without her. He understood, ordered two men to accompany him, and went through the door. He found Decimus Brutus sitting at a makeshift desk, busy writing on a tablet. The Roman lifted his head slightly when he heard him enter, resumed writing, then looked up again and stared intently at him. It took him a moment, due to the eye missing from Ortwin’s face, but he finally recognised him.
“So it’s you, Ortwin, Octavian’s servant come to take me to Rome… I thought you died at Munda.”
The barbarian was determined to enjoy every wound he would inflict with his words before running him through with his sword. “Not to take you, Decimus Brutus, but to kill you. If anything, the only part of you that will reach Rome is your head,” he said, measuring out every syllable.
Decimus Brutus began to fidget in his chair. Beads of sweat started to drip from his forehead. “You can’t. I’m a magistrate appointed by the Senate. There has to be a trial. And I’m writing my defence.”
“Maybe some people think that. Perhaps Antony himself does. But that’s why Octavian wants you out of the way right now.” Decimus Brutus could no longer mask his terror. He glanced over at his equipment, piled in a corner of the hut, and Ortwin immediately positioned one of his men between the Roman and his weapons. In an instant, Brutus found himself surrounded, with a wall behind him. “I know where to find a pile of money… all for you, Ortwin,” he said, in a trembling voice, his hands clutching the edge of the table.
Ortwin smiled contemptuously. “I’d pay to execute you, you revolting traitor, so you can imagine how much I care about your money! But I’d like to know why you did it. I didn’t get the chance to ask Trebonius before I cut his throat like the dog he was.”
“You’d have done it too if you’d have been a Roman of high birth, instead of a loutish barbarian with no pride,” snapped Brutus, irritably. “We could no longer tolerate a man setting himself above everyone else – a man so sure of his own superiority that he was convinced no one would dare kill him. And yet everyone wanted to, everyone! We did it, the twenty of us, but others would have willingly participated had they dared, so they limited themselves to backing us. I didn’t want to. I didn’t hate him that much… I would have been happy to strip him of his power, but I also knew that he would never have agreed to stand aside. And Cassius and Trebonius made me feel like a coward. They convinced me that I would be a tyrant’s servant, and so I was forced to join the conspiracy. If I could, I’d go back, I swear on my Lares, and…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Ortwin could stand no more of his whining litany, and struck him in the head with his sword. Only after he’d seen it split in two, brains splattering the table top, did he realise that he’d lost the chance to take irrefutable and intact proof to Octavian that he’d carried out his mission. But the sense of gratification the act gave him was, for the moment, worth it.
“Cut the head off and patch it up as best you can,” he ordered one of his men, “we’ll take it with us.” He walked out of the hut and, catching Veleda’s eye, smiled conspiratorially at her and took her hand, and together they walked towards Bauto. The chief was dipping his hands into a series of bags of gold hanging from horses’ saddles in the midst of an expanse
of dead bodies.
“So Bauto?” he asked. “Are you satisfied?”
“I’d say so, yes. And you?”
“Immensely.”
“Good. So this business is concluded profitably for both of us.”
“Well, you lost a son…”
Bauto shrugged. “Better to lose a son like that than find one. And anyway I’ve got two other younger sons. Too young to be a threat. I shouldn’t have to worry for a few years yet…” He smiled. “You’re free to go, my friend.”
“There’s one more thing that the consul Octavian wants from you in exchange for all that money,” Ortwin added, as he signalled for his men to move off.
Bauto looked at him suspiciously. “What, by Toutatis?”
“He needs it to look as though this traitor,” and he pointed to the bag, still dripping blood, that the man who’d just joined him was carrying, “was killed on behalf of Mark Antony. So I’d be grateful if you would tell that to anyone who asks.”
The Celtic chief maintained his superior manner. “As you wish. After all, it’s he who’s paying me now, not Antony…”
“Right – be sure to remember it,” Ortwin reminded him. “It would be in your best interests to keep him as a friend: he’s young and already very powerful, and one day he’ll be more important than Caesar.”
He saw Bauto swallow: the warning had had an effect. Yes, he’d keep quiet. And, as Octavian had wanted, it would look as though Antony had one of the conspirators brutally killed. It was the best way to separate Antony’s cause from that of Caesar’s killers and force him over to Octavian’s side.
*
Executed. Etain hadn’t thought that could happen. And, what was probably worse was that her mentors, her mistress and the head of the sect, hadn’t considered it either. Or perhaps they had taken it into account but hadn’t cared much about it: she was one of the group’s expendable pawns, after all.
Their goal had been achieved: another of Caesar’s killers was dead. What might happen now was irrelevant when compared to their aims of revenge and power. That she might lose her life was of no concern to anyone, not even to Rufus, who would also lose his unwanted child, or to Agrippa, who had probably returned to Fulvia’s arms by now.
It didn’t even matter to her any more. Ever since the sect had become part of her life, after an initial moment of happiness she had only ever known bitterness and disappointment. And were it not for the child who would never see the light of day, she wouldn’t care about dying. She had begged the mistress to delay killing her until the baby was born: that creature was completely blameless. If nothing else, the mistress would have gained a slave without spending a sestertius.
But the woman had proved herself heartless and had been adamant. She’d been so in thrall to the magistrate that she hadn’t wanted to hear reason. She’d barely even managed to tolerate waiting the three days it took the decurion to complete his investigation and clear up any doubts.
And soon it would be her turn. Rather, their turn. She felt a shiver run down her spine when she heard yet another muffled cry from the tablinum. And she saw that the slaves winced too as they sat awaiting their turn in the atrium with her. The decurion’s soldiers were carrying out the sentence in the study, executing the house slaves one by one. Those still alive were forced to drag the bodies away and load them onto carts parked in front of the domus’ entrance from where they were taken off and burned, together and without any funeral rites, as if they’d never existed. Every time the study door opened, two grim-looking slaves would appear, dragging a freshly strangled slave whose face was still contorted into the grimace typical of suffocation. Etain imagined herself the same way, her beautiful face showing the signs of its agonising end, and her baby dying an even slower death, perhaps suffocating in a body no longer capable of sustaining it.
And to think that she wasn’t even a slave. But she was in no position to shout from the rooftops that she was a freed woman and had the right to a trial. She might save herself, but she would reveal the intrigues that had brought her to the house, and expose Octavian’s family to public disapproval. And they would have made her pay: once you joined the sect, you had to be ready to die for it. And she’d known that – or at least she had before she got pregnant. Now she had another reason to live.
The two slaves charged with moving the bodies returned. This time they were carrying the body of the man who’d been her lover: the real assassin, although the decurion hadn’t thought it necessary to proceed any further with his enquiries and ascertain who had really killed the dominus. The slaves’ lives counted for nothing in the eyes of free men. She decided she would at least have the satisfaction, a moment before being strangled, of screaming in the mistress’s face that the slave had only been a tool, and that it had been she who had despatched him.
She saw the two slaves disappear into the vestibule, and immediately the tense, bleak silence of the wait descended again. As usual, the few remaining slaves began to wonder who would be next. And when Etain saw them re-appear, she realised it was her turn even before they fixed their eyes upon her. She was tempted to remain sitting and start shouting, to force them to lift and drag her into the killing room, but, absurdly, it occurred to her that it would agitate the baby and make it suffer. She therefore got up meekly and surrendered to her executioners, who escorted her into the tablinum. In the study she saw five soldiers, the decurion, a chair in the centre of the room, and, sitting at a desk, a grim expression on her face, the mistress of the house and her frightened, distraught son. It was clear that the lady was forcing the fragile youth to watch the spectacle, perhaps hoping to make him feel guilty for being the indirect cause of the tragedy. Etain almost managed to smile: if the young man ever had any hope of growing up with a modicum of mental stability, what his mother was putting him through now would negate it.
A soldier pointed to the chair and, after a moment’s hesitation, she sat down. Only then did she notice that one of the soldiers was holding a noose, and that he was approaching her. When she felt the rope tighten round her neck, she spontaneously began to think of Agrippa. She hadn’t intended to, but images of their happiest moments filled her mind. At that point she realised that something inside her was urging her to go out surrounded by positive thoughts, and her time with Agrippa had undoubtedly been the happiest of her short life. She’d loved him more than she ever thought herself capable, and had deluded herself that her love had been reciprocated. The young man had then exposed himself to all sorts of dangers to avenge her and had even got himself expelled from the sect to show her how much he loved her, but she’d refused to give him another chance. Perhaps she’d been wrong, but how could she ever have trusted him again?
Yet she should have done, she said to herself, a moment before seeing the decurion nod his assent to the executioner, who immediately began to tighten the noose.
Within a few moments, her vision became blurred and the noises around her became louder as she began to struggle for breath. Her temples throbbed and her stomach clenched in a grip as tight as the rope around her neck. She was slow to realise that someone had knocked at the door. She felt the noose loosen and saw indistinct figures enter the room. When she was able to focus on them she recognised the massive form of Gaius Chaerea, the sect’s centurion.
It took her several seconds to understand the words being exchanged between the various people present.
“…You are not authorised to proceed. The consul forbids it. I have come from Rome to remove the suspects. The Senate will conduct the investigation,” Chaerea said.
“You can’t do that,” protested the decurion, “custom dictates that all the slaves are killed.”
“You, Decurion, are relieved of your duties and charged with sheltering a criminal. You’ll come with me to Rome, where you’ll be judged by a court.”
“But that’s not possible!” cried the woman. “These people killed my husband.”
“Ma’am, I’d urge you to remain quiet un
less you want to lose what little there will be left to you after the confiscations the Senate has already sanctioned against your husband,” the centurion said coldly.
Chaerea’s words and his authoritative tone had the effect of quashing any other attempted protest. The officer took a few steps towards Etain, extended his arm and offered her his hand.
With the sweetest smile anyone had given her since Agrippa.
IV
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian felt omnipotent. It seemed to him that the gods really had chosen him for great things, as he’d been telling people for months in an attempt to impress them. He tightened his grip on the knife and plunged it into the neck of the bull that had been stunned in preparation for the sacrifice and now stood meekly, ready for his blade. Blood spurted onto his face, veiled by a white toga which instantly turned scarlet. The bull collapsed to the ground and the young man dragged his knife through its stomach, ripping it open and releasing the streaming entrails. His three ministers prayed to Mars Ultor and their cries echoed around the small clearing, surrounded by a screen of densely packed trees in the Po Valley. A cordon of soldiers positioned at a suitable distance kept prying eyes away.
Not even he could resist the impulse to voice his excitement by shouting the name of the god to whom he’d dedicated the sect, but a deep roar came out, a noise which no one would have thought could have come from such a slight, sickly body. He marvelled at the sound which seemed to come straight from the underworld, as though he had been invested with the strength of Mars. And he too, started to believe that he was the chosen one. The one to whom the gods had assigned the task of saving Rome, completing what his father Caesar had only started.
Only a year and a half earlier he’d been a boy of nineteen, with no political or military experience, a physique unsuited to hard work, a family threatened by factions on all sides, an inheritance that seemed unrealisable, seemingly unassailable enemies and a vendetta to carry out with no prospect of success. Now he was a consul of Rome at the head of a fifty thousand strong army; he had the Senate in his pocket and he was able to impose terms on the most powerful men in the Urbe. Above all, though, he had made progress with his vendetta, if the latest news from Apulia and the farthest reaches of Gaul were anything to go by.
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