Veleda noticed that no one was paying much attention to Octavia, now.
Meanwhile, Labienus was once again advancing upon her. He swung his sword twice, a forehand and a backhand swing, both of which missed. A third swing came closer, but she managed to block it with her own blade at a hand’s width from her face.
“How’s the one-eyed man, Veleda?” he mocked. “Still alive?”
“More alive than you, that’s for sure,” she couldn’t help answering.
“Why? He’s an assassin himself, isn’t he? Do you think I don’t know what he did to Trebonius in Smyrna? Anyway, Cassius has promised to give me an army… I don’t think Octavian will be as generous with your one-eyed man. You’ve chosen yourself a loser.”
“I’d say he beat you when you fought face to face… I’d say that the loser is you!” She too, was beginning to enjoy herself in that perverse game. And with Labienus, every game eventually became perverse.
The reference to his defeat in the duel at Munda seemed to annoy him, and he resumed his attack on her. She dodged him, and again glanced over at what was happening around her. From the corner of her eye she saw Octavia kneeling down and grasping the ankle of the man who was holding her daughter, pulling him off balance. The man fell over and, almost crushing Marcella at the same time, Agrippa leapt on him with all his might and tore his throat open like red fire. They all fell to the ground. Veleda looked back at Labienus and saw that he too had stopped to watch the scene. She was about to take advantage of his distraction, but for some reason continued to gaze at him.
Suddenly, the man with the severed ankle threw himself at Agrippa who, still on his knees, was passing Marcella to her mother. The man’s knife was aimed for his back and Veleda cried out in warning, but the blade was now close to the young man’s shoulders. Etain cried out too, and threw herself between Agrippa’s back and the dagger.
The blade caught her in the chest, just above her heart.
Agrippa turned, following Etain’s body with his eyes as it collapsed to the floor. His attacker pulled back his weapon in order to strike him too, but Agrippa was faster. In an instant, he slid the knife into the man’s chin, slicing his face open lengthways from the bottom up to the top of his head.
Horrified, Veleda turned back towards Quintus, just in time to see him dart out of the room. She took a few steps towards the door, but he was already gone. She heard his hurried footsteps echoing down the hall and then beyond. She had no chance of stopping him. She went back inside to see if Agrippa could help her, although there was now no one left to fight against.
She found him in tears, bent over the lifeless body of Etain, and she decided to respect his pain.
XIII
She had died trying to save him. She had still loved him, then. More than the baby she had been carrying inside herself and which would now never be born. Agrippa continued to stare at Etain’s corpse, hating himself for not having done enough to win her back. He paid no attention at all to the hustle and bustle around him. Under the strict control of the sect, people were coming and going and bodies were being dragged into the tablinum, evidence of the massacre that had taken place in the building before and after his arrival. He thought only of all the things he wished he had said to the only woman he had ever loved – loved so much that, out of respect for her pain, he had left her in peace. If only he had been less respectful and had tried harder, perhaps they could have been together again… and she would not have been forced to sacrifice her life to prove her love.
He thought of all the opportunities that he had thrown away in those last few months, when they could have been happy while he was busy amusing himself with Fulvia, and cursed himself for his shallowness. But when he heard that Octavian had arrived, he roused himself from his stupor, pulled himself together and ran immediately to Atia’s room, ready to comfort him – after all, his friend had suffered the loss of his mother and the near death of his sister, and would be in an even worse state than he, despite being better at disguising his feelings.
“My friend, I grieve with you – she was like a mother to me, you know,” he said, when he entered the room, placing his hand on the shoulder of his friend, who was bent over Atia’s corpse.
He embraced him, but looking into Octavian’s eyes noticed that they were not wet. He saw not desperate pain but grim determination, the same determination that had moved him to avenge Caesar’s death. His friend never gave in and Agrippa tried to force himself to think in operational terms, putting aside the devastation he felt at the death of Etain.
“We need to find whoever did this,” began Octavian. “It is evidently the same person who killed Pedius. I want him at all costs. As soon as they know that we are vulnerable, it will be the end.”
“Then I suggest you talk to Veleda,” said Agrippa. “It seems that he was an old acquaintance of hers.”
Octavian stiffened. “Her… She was not able to protect them. I was wrong to entrust this task to a woman. But she will pay for this, you can be sure of that…” he murmured, a flash of hatred in his eyes.
“I don’t think that’s how things went, actually…” Agrippa ventured to say, but his friend had already left the room, rushing into the tablinum.
The room housed the corpses of the slaves and the assassins, as well as that of Etain. Octavian, lucid and full of foresight even after he had been informed of the assault, had brought with him slaves and not his lictors so as to keep the affair secret. Octavia had had Marcella taken away from the massacre and was talking to Veleda. The leader of the sect walked over to the German and grabbed her by the shoulder, spinning her round. He stared at her with those that icy intimidating eyes of his and hissed, “You knew the killers?”
But Veleda was not one to be cowed easily, and she held his gaze as few people could. “Their leader was Quintus Labienus, the son of Titus Labienus. You know him well, Octavian Caesar.”
“Quintus Labienus? Of course, that makes sense. What would you expect from the son of that damn traitor?” mused Octavian. “What else do you know?”
“As you may recall, I had already seen him in Laodicea, when he replaced Cassius Longinus in the siege that preceded the death of Dolabella,” explained the barbarian. “He’s in Cassius’s service. He confirmed that today, but told me that this was his own personal initiative. If he spoke true, Cassius sent him to Rome simply to make contact with the enemy.”
“Unlikely,” said Octavian, shaking his head. “And perhaps he also told you how he knew where my mother and my sister were hidden…”
“No. I’ve wondered that myself. They knew their way around. They knew the layout of the rooms. They went straight to your mother’s bedroom. They knew where it was and even that she was already in bed.”
Octavian approached her menacingly. “All you’re doing is trying to excuse your own ineptitude. It is thanks to you that my mother was killed…”
At that point, Octavia intervened. “She saved me and Marcella.”
“It was Agrippa who saved you….”
“No, Octavian,” said his friend. “I had come here to… to see Etain. I noticed that there were no guards at the entrance, and it seemed strange to me, so I looked for an open window and entered by stealth. I saw the bodies of the slaves and then I went around the house until I got to the tablinum, where Veleda had a dagger at Quintus Labienus’s throat to stop his men from killing Octavia. The rest we did together. This woman knows her job, just like Ortwin,” he concluded, earning a look of gratitude from the German.
“She did everything possible, Octavian, I assure you,” his sister confirmed. “If she had not played for time, we would all have died well before Agrippa’s arrival. It was too late for our mother, there was nothing we could have done. Veleda is right – whoever did this knew the house and entered secretly, knowing exactly where they were going. We didn’t notice anything until they barged their way into this room.”
Octavian grimaced. He looked fleetingly at Veleda, unable to find the
strength to change his opinion, then beckoned for Agrippa to follow him out of the room.
“Someone in the sect told Labienus,” said Octavian gravely.
“That much seems clear,” confirmed Agrippa.
“It’s unheard of. They took an oath… They took an oath before the gods, damn it!” said Octavian.
“And now they have joined the assassins of Julius Caesar.”
“Before you call the others to inform them of this, let us take a moment to reflect,” said the head of the sect. “You are the only one I can trust – you’ve risked your life for them, and for a thousand other things too.”
“So has Veleda, I would say,” stated Agrippa. He had seen her fight like a tiger.
“So she has, yes,” admitted Octavian.
“And so Ortwin is trustworthy too.”
“Yes. If she is, so is he. To say nothing of Octavia, of course, and poor Etain, who lost her life,” added Octavian gently. “I will never forget that it is thanks to her that we were able to punish Minucius Basilus.”
There was silence. The two friends were thinking.
“Only resentment can force someone to take a similar course of action,” Octavian went on, “so we must work out who has grievances…”
“…we haven’t seen much of Gaius Chaerea for a while,” said Agrippa, cautiously.
“Yes. Yes, he has seemed indifferent for some time now,” admitted Octavian. “But even though he knew where we kept them hidden, he’s never been in this house, so I don’t see how he could have described its layout to Labienus.”
“And Maecenas? He’s been here, but he would have no reason to betray us – he has done so much for you and saved our skin countless times,” said Agrippa. “I owe him a lot. It was he who got me back into the sect.”
“All this is true. But then none of us really knows why he came looking for me and offered me his help in the first place. Who can say they really know the reasons why he has done so much?”
“Lucius Pinarius too has done much for the sect. He even donated his share of his inheritance, without being forced to. He genuinely admires and believes in you…” continued Agrippa.
“But he wasn’t happy with the fact that I chose Pedius as consul over him. I was following the principle of seniority, but he didn’t seem to take it well. He might have resented that.”
“But he would only have had to wait – you would have made him a consul soon enough. He must have known that, mustn’t he? In fact, now he will have to replace Pedius.”
“All the more reason to eliminate him and take revenge on me,” said Octavian thoughtfully.
Agrippa knew that there was another name he must now mention, but he could not bring himself to be the one to do it. Rufus had made his woman pregnant and then, apparently, had abandoned her – he had good reason to dislike Rufus, and therefore was unwilling to make allegations against him.
“Rufus is eaten up with ambition,” said Octavian.
“As are we all, right?” Agrippa said.
“He often appears to me to be unhappy. Very unhappy. He feels superior to everyone. Even to the head of the sect.”
Agrippa was silent. He knew that Octavian was right. His friend had noticed everything and was painting a lucid portrait that Agrippa had only guessed at.
“Anyway, it seems that no one is above suspicion,” he admitted. “But can we exclude the fact that it was perhaps some slave or soldier?”
“Of the soldiers, I knew only the escort, and they were all killed. As for the slaves, they were all people who had been with us for years. I think that Octavia would swear to their loyalty,” said Octavian. “Not to mention that they were all killed.”
“Nobody else had been in the house?”
“My stepfather and Octavia’s husband,” he admitted. “But Marcius Philippus was sincerely devoted to my mother. I don’t think he would have betrayed her like this, although I cannot exclude it entirely. I would be less certain of Claudius Marcellus. It is true that he would never have killed his wife and daughter, but we know that he hated Caesar and that he sympathises with the murderers. Even though, at the end of the day, he’s not the type who likes taking sides…”
They fell silent once more. “What do you intend to do now?” asked Agrippa.
“First of all, not to let this murder confound us like Pedius’s did,” said Octavian. “I will say that my mother died of natural causes whilst she was in the country. It might seem strange that it has happened to two people from the same family in a matter of days, but people generally believe the official version of things. Let’s hope that the other triumvirs believe it too. As a second step, we must hunt down this Labienus. I doubt he’ll want to try again. I rather think he will try to get away from Rome now, and it will be hard to find him. Obviously he goes on the list of our primary objectives. He will die like Cassius, Brutus and the others, and since Ortwin is the only one I trust at the moment, he will lead the investigation. And anyway, he is the only one of us to know this Labienus well, right?”
“And what about the traitor among us?”
Octavian grimaced. “That’s the third step, and for the moment the only solution that comes to mind is to keep our ears and eyes open… We will say that one of the slaves had been corrupted by Labienus and we’ll see how the real culprit reacts once he feels safe.”
Agrippa had no better solution to offer him, but realised that not knowing who to trust was the quickest way of destroying the sect and their aspirations.
*
There had been better times, Maecenas said to himself. He wanted to organize the next moves against Sextus Pompey in Sicily and against the assassins of Julius Caesar in the East with Octavian and the other ministers of the sect. He wanted to create and promote a pool of talented writers with whom to surround himself. He wanted the terror the proscription had caused to be over. And he wanted, finally, to chat amiably with Horace, to whom he felt irresistibly attracted. But none of his aspirations were becoming a reality, despite the fact that only a short time ago none of these things would have seemed so impossible.
The tension within the sect had become almost unbearable since the day of the massacre in which Atia and Octavia’s handmaiden had been killed. Meetings between ministers had become less frequent, and their leader seemed to trust only Agrippa, who had saved his sister’s life. His single concern was that of finding Quintus Labienius, who Veleda had named as one of the killers, and he seemed to be so obsessed by this that he was forgetting the sect’s other objectives.
At the same time, his plan to become the patron of a literary circle, which had begun as a pretext for arousing Horace’s interest and drawing him into his orbit, was not taking shape at all. This was not a good time for people to be writing poems nor works of history – one might all too easily inadvertently provoke the resentment of someone powerful by neglecting to mention him, or by speaking unflatteringly of his ancestors. Without a clear, unambiguous political situation, the risks were too high for people to wish to be seen with a representative of the institutions like him. One might end up an outlaw for nothing at all.
And Horace wasn’t interested. He had refused him an interview and denied him access to the camp when he announced a visit. Plotius Tucca, the soldier Maecenas had met near Bologna, kept telling him what a superior talent he possessed, which only exacerbated his curiosity and increased his desire to know the man better to the point of it becoming almost an obsession.
Plotius was pleasant company, and he might now consider him a good friend had he not so many secrets to hide from him about the sect. But now that things had grown tense, the legionary was the only one to offer him the intellectual stimulation he needed and he often visited him in his legion’s camp, which had been set up outside the walls of Rome to provide immediate support for Mark Antony in the case of riots.
Hoping in vain to find some interesting and inspiring poem among those he was examining with his friend, he lay on a triclinium next to a table set wit
h a lavish banquet in the pavilion that an angusticlavius tribune had placed at Maecenas’s disposal for his visits.
“This is absolutely ridiculous!” said Plotius, throwing a papyrus he had been reading to the ground, while picking at some olives. “It’s not even worth you reading it. It was written by the magister of the son of a prostitute I visit from time to time. Trash. Oozing flattery in every line and inadvertently ridiculing the object of its praise, your commander. Listen to this – he talks about ‘youth, climbing the highest peaks to reach his father and all the other gods.’ He writes as though Caesar Octavian is already dead and deified without even realising he’s doing it! And then, ‘Frail and weak, his body grows, turning him into a giant in the face of his enemies, a new titan before Zeus.’ This person should be proscribed in an instant without even realising why, so stupid is he!”
Maecenas knew he should smile, but he had no desire to. He felt discouraged. He usually took pleasure from the minds of others. “I’ve had enough, Plotius. Maybe there’s no place for my idea of reviving culture at this moment in time.”
“You might be right, you know. There is too much politics about at the moment for anyone to produce inspired and sincere art that might actually provoke real emotion,” said Plotius. “Everything is calculated and based upon survival and personal benefit. We want people who care nothing for the consequences of what they write, but then we risk losing them immediately afterwards… or rather, we risk seeing their heads hanging from the Rostra. I swear, Horace will come to the same end. It would be a waste of an unimaginable talent. In more suitable times, one like him would vastly ennoble our culture.”
‘Well I’ve tried to get him out of his shell, but he really doesn’t want to know anything about me, or about fame,” admitted Maecenas, bitterly.
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