“The same way I knew you were all here,” he said, talking as if they were gathered around the table. “You can understand my surprise and my joy when I learned that I would meet my Veleda again. That’s why I had one of the slaves call you, after threatening to kill his mistress if he let on, and he took you to that room. Meanwhile I disposed of Octavian’s mother…”
Veleda quivered with anger but forced herself not to let it show. Octavia was also counting on her staying calm. “Who sent you? Cassius Longinus? You were with him when we saw you at Laodicea, during the siege of the city.”
“No need to deny it, if you say you saw me in Syria,” admitted Labienus. “But this is a personal initiative of mine, although I do not doubt that it pleases him. I had been sent to Rome solely to make contact with the opposition, and I thought I’d make myself useful now that the dissidents have all been eliminated. You know, I could hardly believe it when I stormed Laodicea and they told me that there had been a couple of barbarians in Dolabella’s service – one with only one eye and the other with half her arm missing. I thought it was too strange to be a coincidence, and I knew that we would meet again sooner or later, as you’d placed yourselves at the service of the enemies of the liberators. It seemed logical, in fact, that Ortwin had sided with Caesar’s heir – he always did lick the dictator’s arse and will no doubt do likewise with his step son. And to think I thought you were both in Germany… Funny that you didn’t manage to persuade him to stay, with him drooling over you like that.”
“So did you, for that matter, no?” said Veleda, suddenly finding the strength to argue. Their words echoed in the tense silence of the room, interrupted only by the increasingly tenuous sobs of Marcella.
“But I’ve always made you do exactly what I wanted. Like a real man.”
Just then another of his henchmen appeared at the door and stood there puzzled for a moment before he understood what was going on. He approached Quintus and Veleda with some embarrassment. “What’s the matter? Don’t worry, you can speak,” Quintus ordered him, casually. “She is a friend of mine.” Veleda was beginning to feel tired, but kept her knife pressed against him.
“Err… I killed a slave who had escaped from the house,” said the man. “He was probably going for help. But we need to keep an eye on the others, and I see that there are only a few of us left.”
“Two will do. Everything is under control here. You, go with him,” said Labienus, to one of the surviving soldiers. “Go round the house and kill everyone. I don’t think they’ll cause any trouble. Then come back to report to me and one of you go out to monitor the situation,” he ordered, despite the extremely awkward position he was in.
“But… what about here?” objected the puzzled man.
“Don’t worry, I’ll manage here,” said Quintus. “Ah ah ah, Veleda! Apparently, your plan to get me talking and earn yourselves some time has failed. So what do we do now?”
She did not answer immediately. She had lost her last chance of getting away, nor could she hope that the other slaves would help her: they were destined to be slaughtered in a matter of moments, and in fact a moment later she heard the noise of furniture being overturned and a male voice screaming out in pain. Somewhere in the house a woman screamed and then another, which made Octavia cover her face with her hands and burst into tears.
“What music to my ears, Veleda! And soon you will start singing too,” murmured Labienus, mockingly. “Why are you doing this? For these Romans who you hate so much? Throw down your knife and come away with me. I know that you have not forgotten me – I can feel how you tremble, and I know you well enough to know that it is not out of fear…”
It was only then that Veleda realised that she actually was trembling. She was shocked. No. She couldn’t still feel anything for him. It mustn’t be so: it was insane to feel a bond with a man who had treated her so atrociously. She had loved him purely to spite Ortwin – and then only until she had realised that he loved her too.
“I’m shaking because I hate you,” she whispered. “And because I would kill you right away, but I cannot without jeopardising the life of the person who was entrusted to me.” She was not sure it was true, but she felt better after she had said it, because, for once, Quintus was speechless.
But that did not solve her problem.
*
Even to the bathroom. Fulvia followed him everywhere, even to the bathroom, and Agrippa could not even find a moment’s peace in there. Not that he cared, mind: this woman was taking him to places he had never been to with other women – sexually, at least. And he was finding it difficult to manage without her. In reality, he allowed her to guide him, and he was more than happy to explore the limits of intimacy between a man and a woman. Above all now, when the air was full of death and cries of pain and despair echoed along the streets each time someone was taken away from their family or tried and executed on the spot. Sometimes Agrippa felt the need to be alone with his thoughts, reflecting on what he had contributed to creating.
Just a moment before, he had heard one of those cries. It had almost been drowned out by Fulvia’s groans of pleasure during yet another orgasm, but he had nevertheless heard it clearly. He jumped out of bed, taking advantage of the momentary disinterest that overcame Fulvia after her pleasure had reached its peak, and rushed into the bathroom. He knew that his mistress would not relax for long and that they would soon resume their sexual experimentation, but in the meantime he needed to breathe – all the shouting, inside and outside the building, had brought strange thoughts to his mind.
While he was here enjoying himself, out there people were suffering. He did not usually dwell overmuch on public events – he was a man of action, who believed in the cause he pursued and was sure of his righteousness – but somehow Fulvia made him feel dirty. Not so much because of what they did in bed, but because of her amorality, her disregard for others and the cynicism that characterised her. She was cruel, to put it bluntly, and sometimes he was ashamed to feel so attracted to – almost dependent upon – someone so wicked. Octavian might seem increasingly cynical to him, but he never seemed cruel. He did what he thought was necessary and flinched from nothing, revealing a lack of scruples that he had not previously possessed. He had really changed, in the year and a half since he had taken up the sceptre of Caesar, but he felt no pleasure in making or seeing others suffer, nor did he lack an interest in the people – on the contrary, he followed his goals not only out of personal ambition, but also in order to provide the Romans with a better life and future, because he really felt that their happiness was important, and he wanted to be the one to make it happen.
Yet, however ‘dirty’ or guilty Agrippa felt, he couldn’t help desiring that woman, and the irritation he felt when she interrupted his thoughts by entering the bathroom completely naked was immediately transformed into pure pleasure as she seated herself on top of him and began to rub her body against his, kissing his neck while she did so.
And they began all over again. With her, Agrippa found that he always possessed incredible energy and they did not need to rest in order to recover their strength. She always made him feel ready again. Fulvia broke away for a moment and dropped to her knees, putting her head between his legs and ramming his sex forcefully into her mouth, almost choking herself in the process. He started to pull her up, but she wanted to continue. As always, it was Fulvia who decided when to stop.
Agrippa did not make her wait. He turned her round and took her again, on the floor this time. Anyone else would have said enough at that point, but not her. She could have gone on forever, and he felt flattered that he was able to satisfy a woman like that.
After both of them had cried out with pleasure almost in unison, she stood up, and only then did Agrippa realise that her knees were bleeding, grazed by contact with the hard marble of the bathroom floor. Yet she had not stopped. That was Fulvia. They returned to the adjacent bedroom and lay down on the bed, and only then did she ask him to blow a little on
her wounds to relieve the stinging. But while he did so, she took his hand and guided it between her thighs while she started touching him again, her fingers all over his body.
They heard a knock at the door, and a slave’s voice said that the thing the mistress had been waiting for had arrived. Fulvia sat bolt upright as though Agrippa did not exist, rose from the bed and, naked, her hair in disarray and without make-up, walked over to the door and ordered the man to enter. She often even let her servants enter the room while the two of them were making love and was not at all perturbed at being seen unrobed by the staff – indeed, perhaps she even enjoyed the feeling of being desired by men who could never have her. As for the women, Agrippa knew she used them for her own pleasure in the rare moments when she happened to be alone, and sometimes even involved them in their games.
“At last!” said Fulvia, when the slave gave her a sack, which she almost snatched from his hand. She dismissed him and ran over to the bed, where she settled herself down next to Agrippa. Intrigued he asked “What were you awaiting with such trepidation?”
“The best gift that my husband and my future son-in-law could have given me. When he wants to, Mark Antony knows how to make me happy,” she said, and for the first time Agrippa heard her speaking in an enthusiastic, childlike voice instead of the hoarse, deep, sensual voice she adopted when playing the role of seductress and sorceress. She put her hand in the bag, rummaged inside for a moment and then pulled out the gift. A severed head which he immediately recognised as that of Cicero.
Agrippa had known that sooner or later the time would come, but he had not known that Fulvia had specifically requested that gruesome trophy. Then she pulled out a hand as well. At his questioning look, she explained. “This was Mark Antony’s idea, in truth: he wanted to cut off the right hand with which Cicero wrote those shameful orations against him.”
Agrippa had read the Philippicae, and had not found them so awful: they contained many truths, but he could hardly say that in front of the wife of the sect’s principal ally.
The young man stared at the two macabre relics, his eyes on Cicero’s embittered expression – no doubt the one that had been on his face in the moment of his death – and suddenly felt that he wanted to be as far away from there as possible. It was true that one of the men upon whom Octavian had been seeking revenge was dead, and that he should be happy, but the pleasure it gave his mistress bothered him. He saw her snatch up the hairpin which had slipped from her hair before they had begun making love. Fulvia placed Cicero’s head between her legs, adjusting it until she found a position in which she could hold it firmly, then forced the tip of the pin into his mouth and, using her other hand for leverage, forced it open. When she had succeeded, she fumbled about between his teeth and pulled out his tongue, which she immediately began stabbing frantically with the pin. Within a few moments, it was reduced to an unrecognisable pulp, but she continued to attack it. “There, damn you! A stab for every wicked word you dared to say against me in public!” she cried, her eyes burning fiercely. “Now you will never speak again! Never!”
Agrippa was overcome by a wave of nausea and felt as though he was about to vomit. Suddenly, he was seized by a powerful nostalgia for Etain. He had always missed her gentleness and kindness, which had provided a necessary counterpoint to the harshness around him, and now he felt that he needed her more than ever. Overcome with disgust, he longed to see her again – he knew where she was hiding with her mistress, and visiting Octavia to check up on how she was would be a good excuse for visiting her. He could not predict the welcome Etain would give him, but he knew all too well how Fulvia would react if she was to find out. However, it was worth a try and in any case at that moment in time he would rather have been anywhere than beside that bloody woman.
He sprang out of bed, flung on his tunic and robe hurriedly without even washing himself and walked towards the door, saying, “The death of Cicero requires me to meet with Caesar Octavian. We will meet again soon.”
She continued to stab what was left of the orator’s tongue.
She did not even answer him.
*
“Kill her.”
Veleda was desperately trying to think of a way out of this seemingly hopeless impasse, and Quintus Labienus’s order to the man holding Octavia filled her with despair. How could he say that with a dagger pointed at his chest?
She pushed the tip of the dagger in further, digging a deeper furrow in the man’s corset. His henchman, meanwhile, hesitated, probably asking himself the same question.
“You have decided to die then, Quintus?” she asked, trying not to betray the emotion in her voice.
“I will not die. You will not kill me because you cannot. It was you who convinced Ortwin to spare me, remember?”
“And I have never regretted it enough,” she said. At least, not until then.
“Kill her, I said,” repeated Labienus, but the man still hesitated, clearly baffled. Meanwhile, a new cry rang out from another room in the house, Quintus’s two men were still killing the slaves.
Veleda pushed the tip of her dagger even further, piercing the leather. When she realised that she had sliced his tunic and was now touching his skin, she pushed just a little more in order to cut him. But Quintus did not flinch. She wondered if she had the courage to go all the way, but then Veleda realised that was not the point – killing him would do no good if Octavia were dead too. The domina was her priority. She carefully watched the moves of the man who was holding her and decided to take a gamble. She focused her thoughts, ignoring Quintus, who was now screaming at his man to obey him. She would only have one attempt and she tried to remember how, after her hand had been severed, she had trained constantly to compensate for her disability with her great skill in the use of weapons, both as a thrower and as a swordswoman.
It all happened in an instant. She realised that the man was about to carry out his order. With Quintus’s voice resounding in her ears, she pulled the knife from his chest, aimed it at the face of his henchman – which by now was about a foot away from that of Octavia – and threw.
The woman screamed. The weapon hit the man in the eye, and he staggered back, his hands to his face, giving a wild scream. Before Quintus had the chance to realise the dagger was no longer pointed at his heart, Veleda cracked him in the face with her maimed arm and with the other she elbowed him in the sternum, which took his breath away and made him double over. This gave her time to throw herself towards Octavia, retrieve the dagger from the man she had killed, who was now slumped along the wall under the window, and put herself between the woman and the other armed men.
Immediately after that, exactly what she had hoped for happened. Etain, eluding the other intruder, rushed over to her with the baby in her arms and stood beside Octavia, between Veleda and the window.
At that moment, the two thugs Quintus had sent to scour the building returned. Now Veleda found herself forced to defend two women against four men.
Well, she thought, I have only put off the inevitable, as Quintus reminded her as soon as he had managed to get up and get his breath back. “Well done. Beautiful performance,” he said, picking up his dagger. “Better than I remembered. Lads, you start with the little girl. I’ll deal with her myself.”
It was over. The four men advanced towards the women at the same time, making it impossible for Veleda to defend herself against Quintus and protect the other three. The child’s screams in her ears, she positioned herself in front of them, but then realised that Octavia was alongside her. The domina took off her gown and wrapped it around her left arm to give it some protection. Soon after, Veleda saw Etain on the opposite side copying her mistress.
“If I must die,” said Octavia, with unusual determination in her voice, “I will fight, as would my brother.”
Veleda nodded and stared into Quintus’s eyes with an expression of defiance. He smiled back at her. “All right, we’ll start with the big bellied one,” he said, gesturing to one of his
men to focus on Etain.
“No, let’s start with you, instead!” boomed out a voice from behind Quintus – a man in the shadows outside the door, his head covered by the hood of a cloak. Veleda did not have time to see who it was, for he had already moved forward and pounced upon one of the thugs. He grabbed the man’s arm and plunged his knife into his stomach, pulling it out immediately and hurling his victim to the ground before leaping over to the one closest to him and swinging his blade through the man’s ankle, nearly severing his foot. A geyser of blood erupted from the stump while the man slumped to the ground screaming.
“Agrippa!” cried Etain. Could it really be him? And what was he doing there? However, she felt sure that it was him, despite the speed of his movements, the cloak and the shadows. He jumped up to his feet and only then did the hood slip down onto his neck, revealing his identity. Etain was right. He rushed towards the only one of Labienus’s men left, while Labienus attacked Veleda. Quintus was no longer trying to be funny, and upon his face there was the fierce expression she knew all too well. Veleda dodged nimbly out of the way of his blade, then swung her own at him, attempting to take advantage of his momentary unsteadiness, but her swing connected with thin air.
For an instant, Quintus came face to face with Octavia. He stared at her for a moment, undecided as to whether or not to take the opportunity to kill her, but the domina had enough presence of mind to raise her arm and punch him in the face. The impact sent him staggering back a step, and Veleda, finding him within striking distance, prepared to stab him, but at that moment the man threw himself to the floor and rolled out of her reach, getting to his feet on the other side of the room.
A moment later, he was ready to attack her again. Veleda just had time to look around her, and saw that the remaining killer had pushed Etain to the floor and grabbed Marcella, while Octavia was busy defending herself against Labienus, who was using her as a shield to defend himself against Agrippa. Etain, her swollen belly impeding her movements, stood up with difficulty, then looked around her and picked up a knife one of the dead men had dropped before making for the man who was holding the little girl hostage. Agrippa tried to push her out of the way, but she stayed doggedly by his side.
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