To Be Wolves, page 4
Chapter III
Extrema Primo Nemo Tentavit Loco
No one tries extreme remedies at first.
—Seneca
Capua
“He’s not for sale.”
“Why not?”
Mettius shrugged and drained the wine from his cup. “I’m superstitious. Or sentimental. Maybe both. Scorpus has made me the richest games man in Capua. I’ve owned him for fifteen years and can’t remember the last time he lost a chariot race. Five years ago, maybe?”
“You could still get decent coin for him.”
“Not really. He’s nearly past his prime. Anyway, I promised him years ago that the richer he made me, the sooner he’d have his freedom. His woman too.”
“You’re a fool, Mettius.”
“I’ve been called worse.” Mettius manipulated a handful of cooked pheasant into his mouth and then lazily pushed the platter toward his friend Soren who reclined on an adjacent couch in Mettius’s triclinium. The two men could not have appeared more different from one another. Mettius—round, overindulgent, and nearly bald. Soren—solid and sharp with cropped dark hair combed forward in the style that Julius Caesar had made fashionable. Mettius flicked some meat off his fingers. “You sound like my wife. She thinks with her purse.”
“She is wise.”
Mettius shrugged again. “The wise keep their word. Anyway, if you’re looking for performance slaves, you’ll find better deals. My friend Lucius Bassus may soon be selling a pair that has great celebrity throughout Campania. Thracius and Anchises. They’re both dainties—lovers—but if I weren’t getting out of the business, I’d buy them myself.” He paused and thumped his chest with a fist, clearing a piece of meat from his throat and then immediately pushing more into his mouth and chewing loudly as he spoke. “Thracius is a boxer, but a versatile one. I’ve seen him fight in the arena with a gladius and wrestle too. Anchises is a virtuoso who sings with the voice of Orpheus himself. I’ve heard him.” He raised his eyebrows. “I tell you, take your wife to one of his performances and she’ll be running wetter than Volturnus by the time you get home. Gods, the last time I took Aelina to—”
“I have no wife.”
“That slave girl you’re always buying trinkets for, then.”
“I don’t need to seduce my slaves, Mettius.”
“Oh, you’re as romantic as a three-legged boar, Soren.” Mettius laughed.
Soren allowed him an indulgent smile.
“So tell me, will you settle in Capua? This is the place to be.” Mettius sniffed and pointed absently behind his head. “Marc Antony had a nice estate just south of here. That’s where they found the copy of his will, you know. The one that brought him down. He spent a small fortune in Capua. The bastard probably stole it from the treasury but, oh well, what’s done is done, eh? The man loved the gladiator matches, though, I’ll tell you that much. Always at the arena. I met him once, did I ever tell you? I didn’t think he was all that. The gods know what took the emperor so damn long to finish him. He wasn’t any taller than you. Once, I watched him walk right under a low scaffolding without even bending his head. And since we’re talking about dainties, everyone knew that his favorite boy lived just—”
“I’m going back to Rome.”
“Ah, Rome.” Mettius clucked his tongue. “Hard market to break into. You have to know someone.”
“My brother is a senator. And I have a cousin who is a priestess of Vesta.”
“Oh, what I could’ve done with those connections! Yes, performance slaves are the way to go, then. Just think of all those parties on the Palatine Hill! Not to mention the festivals—”
“I want to go back to Rome with Scorpus,” Soren said flatly. “I want to race him in the Circus Maximus.”
Mettius tried to nibble the last bit of pheasant meat from a small bone and, failing at the attempt, put the whole thing in his mouth. “Soren,” he said, working his tongue around the bone and seeming out of humor now, “he’s not for sale.”
“Name your price.”
Mettius sat up with a quick, angry intake of air. As he did, his eyes widened and again he thumped his chest with a fist. He set his feet flat on the floor and leaned over, trying to cough the bone out of his throat, trying to breathe. He looked at Soren, who remained unmoved, and then rose shakily to his feet, advancing toward the door.
Something appeared under his feet, and he fell to the floor. He felt Soren’s hands on him—Finally, some help!—but the larger man’s hands suddenly covered his mouth while the weight of his body pressed into his back from above, holding him down. Mettius’s movements and thoughts dispersed into a painful panic and what he knew, somewhere in the last remnants of his consciousness, was an unwinnable fight for his life.
As Mettius’s body went limp, Soren slipped the crook of his elbows under the man’s armpits and began to lift him back up onto the couch. At the same moment—What a perfectly timed moment! thought Soren—a house slave strode casually into the room. His eyes popped, and he ran toward Soren to help heave Mettius’s body onto the couch.
“He’s choking,” said Soren. “Do something.”
The slave bent over his master and opened his mouth, sticking his fingers down Mettius’s throat to retrieve the bone and open his airway. It was no use.
Two more slaves appeared in the doorway and then rushed to the couch.
“What happened?” one of them asked Soren.
“A pheasant bone.” Soren shook his head and looked down at the lifeless form of his friend. “Dying over such a little thing . . . What a shame.”
Chapter IV
Dies Caniculares
The dog days
Rome
Gods, it was hot. Even at night—late at night, when the sun had been down for hours—the radiant heat never let up. Livia stood outside on the balcony of her bedchamber and looked up at the moonless night sky over the Palatine Hill. The stars were scattered brightly and thickly over the black canopy of the heavens, like shards of shining silvery gems spread haphazardly over a vast ebony marble floor.
She heard a rustle and looked over her shoulder. Octavian, reclining on a low couch a few steps away, was rousing. He had spent the better part of his recovery dozing on the balcony, even taking most of his meals there. During the day, a small desk was brought in for him to attend to the most important state affairs.
“Livia,” he said, stopping for a moment to clear the phlegm from his throat, “did I ever tell you about the dream my mother had when I was in her womb?”
She turned to face him, leaning against the balustrade. Of course he’d told her about it. He’d told her about it a thousand times. The same stupid dream, the same stupid retelling.
“I think so, my love,” she answered. “But tell me again. I do love to hear it.”
“She dreamed that her womb stretched to the stars,” he said, “and the next morning an astrologer told her that I was sired by Apollo and would one day rule the world. This all happened under the sign of Capricorn. Help me up.”
A slave noiselessly emerged from the shadows, the way they always did when summoned, to help Octavian off the couch. He shuffled to Livia’s side and leaned against the balustrade, looking up at the starry night sky.
“Can you see Capricornus?” he asked.
“It is not the right time of year,” replied Livia. “Now is the dies caniculares, when the dog star is brightest.” She pointed overhead. “There. Sirius and Canis Major. They bring the heat.”
“And some say plague.”
“It is not plague, Octavian. Musa has been studying those miserable old medical scrolls of his. They smell like the unwashed Chimera! Anyway, he says the symptoms are not those described during the plague of Athens. The Black Death is different. Worse, if you can imagine.”
“I can always imagine worse.”
“That is why you are a good emperor.”
“You flatter, Livia.” Octavian managed a grin. “What is your purpose?”
Livia lowered her head and closed her eyes. She waited a long strategic moment and then, keeping her head lowered, raised her eyes to look up at Octavian as if she were overcome by her vulnerability and his greatness. Octavia used to look at him like that all the time, and he never denied her a thing. Livia did her best to improve upon the performance, taking his hands and looking up at him with such adoration that her eye sockets throbbed.
“Pluto stood by your bedside, husband. The god of death was here, in our bedchamber. That is how close you were. It was only the relentless prayers of the Vestals and the mercy of Apollo that saved you. If you had died, what would have become of Rome?” She pulled his hands to her breast. “What would become of me?”
“You have nothing to fear, Livia.”
“Not while you are emperor.”
“Ah.”
“Octavian—”
“Tiberius will never be emperor.”
“Why not? Why do you distrust him so? He has done nothing—”
“That is true. He has done nothing. He has not yet distinguished himself in any way, political or military. Agrippa is the better choice.”
“Agrippa will tear down all that you have built, Octavian. He will restore the Republic and return power to the Senate. The memory of you as emperor—your very empire—will be forgotten. He has been a loyal ally to you in life, but in death he will forsake you. You will not become a god as your divine father did.”
Octavian shuffled back to the couch and sat. Livia knelt on the floor before him and put her hands on his knees. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You are not wrong.”
“Tiberius has always admired you.”
Octavian didn’t seem to hear her. “Drusus may be an option.”
Livia sat back on her heels. Drusus was not an option for her. He was her son, yes, but who was his true father? Her former husband, Tiberius, or that hairy Greek pig Diodorus? If Drusus were named Octavian’s heir, that would give Pomponia, who also questioned Drusus’s parentage, too much power. All Pomponia would need to do was whisper a rumor in Octavian’s ear and the suspicion would take root. Drusus, the bastard half blood, would lose favor.
Worse, Octavian would divorce her. Julius Caesar had divorced his second wife for a lesser matter, declaring that the wife of Caesar must be above all suspicion. Octavian was even more moralistic. For all Livia knew, he was already looking for an excuse to divorce her and her barrenness. No, it could not be Drusus.
“Drusus has always served you best on campaign and in the provinces,” she said. “He is needed in Germania, and he knows little of politics in Rome. Plus, it is against custom to favor the second son,” she said.
“They are not my sons.”
“They love you. You are their adoptive father. As the adopted son of Julius Caesar, you should know the weight of that.”
Octavian’s face tightened. Livia licked her lips and stood up. She had gone too far.
“I am tired, Livia. I must rest for the Neptunalia tomorrow. Leave me now.”
“As you wish, husband.”
Octavian said nothing as she left, but even as she closed the door of the bedchamber behind her, she could hear him asking for a bed slave.
She suppressed a wave of anger. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Her hands moved down to her belly. She had sacrificed to Fortuna Virilis and thrown enough coin at her temple to reach the gods. With any luck, she could soon tell Caesar that she carried his pure-blood heir inside her.
The dog days, she ruminated. Pray Fortuna they bring forth a pup.
* * *
The ride in the horse-drawn carriage from the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum to the Basilica of Neptune in the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars, was a stifling one; and Pomponia was relieved when she, Quintina, and Lucretia finally arrived.
She pushed back the heavy red curtain before her guards or slaves could even get to it and stepped down. It was no cooler outside the carriage, but at least the open air felt less claustrophobic. She inhaled and glanced up at the red banners affixed to the buildings and columns around the basilica. They hung down, long and heavy, unmoving in the breezeless air, as stabs of sunlight flared off the golden Roman Eagle in their center.
Blinking away sunspots as a slave adjusted her suffibulum veil, Pomponia noticed more banners hanging from the Corinthian columns near the basilica’s entrance. Solid gold in color with a raised black emblem of Rome’s legendary she-wolf in the center, they reflected even more sunlight. They also made a statement: Remember you are a Roman. Stay strong, do your duty, and Rome will get through this crisis as it has every crisis since its founding.
Although not a particularly large structure by Roman standards, the Basilica of Neptune was nonetheless impressive with its wide columns and wall fountains that sent a constant flow of water down the building’s marble facade to spray cool mist into the air. Pomponia had always admired the intricate marine-themed relief carvings that decorated the length of the basilica’s frieze on all sides: dolphins, seashells, octopuses, exotic sea plants, and of course Neptune’s trident.
A memory pushed its way into her thoughts: Ankhu had told her that Quintus had always prayed to the ocean gods when sending one of his messages to her across the sea from Alexandria. She forced the memory from her mind and focused on duty. On Rome.
The chief Vestal hadn’t been to this area of the city for some time and was surprised to see Agrippa’s latest building project was well underway. The Senate had sent the plans to her in Tivoli: a round temple with a soaring dome and a wide oculus in the center to let in the sunlight. The design was not unlike the Temple of Vesta, but the scale of the new temple, to be called the Pantheon in honor of all the gods, was massive.
No structure in the world, whether within or beyond the empire, boasted the size of dome this temple’s architects were building. Only Roman ambition paired with the Roman invention of concrete made it possible. Yet considering the temple was to house statues of the twelve Dii Consentes, including Vesta, such a grand initiative was only fitting. So was the timing. With the contagion showing no signs of abating, and the heat even less so, Rome needed its gods.
The Vestals Lucretia and Quintina stepped out of the carriage after Pomponia, Quintina’s eyes already scanning for Septimus among the senators, priests, and various magistrates who were passing through the colonnade and portico to enter the interior of the basilica.
Quintina spotted the tall bulk of General Agrippa surrounded by a group of politicians and officials. They were all motioning toward the nearby building site of the Pantheon and nodding their heads. Agrippa looked as serious as ever with his heavy brow furrowed in conversation. Although he preferred to wear a soldier’s uniform to such events, he was today dressed in an ivory-colored toga with a deep reddish-purple border that denoted his status. The emperor had recently ordered that all respectable citizens wear traditional Roman clothing in public: togas for men, stolas for women. The order was part of Octavian’s larger legislation to restore moral decency and tradition to Rome.
Behind Agrippa, Roman soldiers held the public at bay. The soldiers looked as they usually did when relegated to civic crowd control instead of foreign battle. Bored. Irritable. Insulted. They scanned the moving masses around them, eager to spot a transgression—anything that would allow them to justify hauling some poor soul out of the crowd and beating him to within an inch of his life on the cobblestone. Most in the crowd knew better than to test them. Those who didn’t know better were too fatigued by the heat to cause any real trouble.
Alerted to the Vestals’ presence by a sudden wave of excitement that swept through the crowd, Agrippa excused himself from his companions to cross the street and greet the priestesses at their litter. He lowered his head as he arrived. “Priestess Pomponia.”
“General Agrippa,” replied Pomponia.
He bowed to Lucretia and then to Quintina. “Lady Quintina,” he said, “Caesar’s daughter, Julia, will be happy to see you again.”
“Thank you for saying so, General. I’ve missed our friendship while in Tivoli.”
Pomponia felt her scalp itch from the woolen infula on her head and the heat of her veil. Trying to ignore it, she looked beyond Agrippa to watch the imperial litter approaching the basilica. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of the emperor walking before his grand lectica instead of riding within it. After weeks of being weakened by the contagion, not to mention the rumors of his death that continuously circulated, the message was obvious: Caesar is stronger than ever.
A number of toga-clad lictors cleared a path for Caesar, carrying their ax-headed fasces and looking as official as ever. A soldier held the Aquila atop a staff as if it were an immortal. In many ways it was, for it looked down on Rome and its people, its wars and peace, its health and disease with the unflinching gaze that only an immortal could master.
Pomponia leaned into Agrippa. “Fabiana loved to tell the story of how Julius Caesar tore the Eagle off its staff and hid it in his cloak to save it from enemy hands during battle. She once wrapped a gold wine cup in her palla to mock him.”
Agrippa grinned. “Blood is thicker than water,” he said. “She could get away with it.”
Pomponia let her arms drop to her sides as the imperial litter stopped at the entrance to the basilica and the well-muscled lecticarii, dressed in impressive knee-length red tunicas, set it down. Empress Livia quickly exited the lectica, no doubt as keen to escape the closed-in heat as Pomponia had been. Tiberius stepped out after her.
Agrippa glanced at Livia without expression and offered a respectful head bow to Pomponia, Quintina, and Lucretia. “I will take my leave, Priestesses.”
“By all means, General,” Pomponia replied without looking at him. She, too, was watching Livia, who now stood on the cobblestone as two body slaves straightened the bottom of her white stola. White, like a Vestal. Good.
