Daughters of Rome (26 page)

As one, the men in that room sank to their knees. Marcella was among them. She saw men weeping and couldn’t weep herself, but she could feel . . . awe. An emperor was as skilled a performer as any actor; he had to be—and she had just seen a man give the performance of his life.

Nor was it over. He walked among them then, raising every man to his feet, finding a few words for each. He told a weeping Praetor Paetus that he should not gamble so much at dice; he commended Centurion Drusus Densus for his bravery in trying to hold the center line once the flanks collapsed; he joked with Senator Urbinus that now his gambling debts would never have to be paid. One of his commanders tried to argue with him, swearing they could wreak vengeance on Vitellius, but Otho gave a placid smile and told him to offer Vitellius all allegiance. “He is your master now, and Fortuna grant he will be forgiving.”

“Fortuna grant,” Marcella echoed.

Otho gave Lucius Lamia the same advice, telling him to find a discreet escape back to Rome and offer his loyalty when the time came—and then he came to Marcella. “My dear girl, it appears I will never read that history of yours.” He raised her up. “Do me a favor, and write it the way it should have happened? Give me a resounding victory over that tub of lard, and a glorious triumphal procession back to Rome.” He leaned in to kiss the corner of her mouth, adding in a whisper, “And write that I dragged you off behind the bushes at least once!”

Her throat thickened then. She nodded, wordless. A tiny pinpoint of panic danced in Otho’s eyes, but the hands that clasped hers were steady.

“Ah.” Making the circle of the tent, Otho paused at last before the door flap to his bedchamber. A slave stood there with a silver tray, sniffing back tears. On the tray lay two daggers. “This one, I think—” Choosing. “It has a better edge. Good night, everyone.”

Marcella didn’t see him die.

He slept that night, she knew that much. Several of his friends huddled all night by the door flap, waiting to be called, but he never called them. In the steel-gray dawn came a single cry. The guards rushed into the chamber, but Otho was already dead, a blade in his heart. He died alone.

He must have wanted it that way
, Marcella thought. Perhaps he realized the furor that would surround his body afterward: the Praetorians carrying him to a flaming bier so the Vitellians could not despoil his corpse; the weeping as several of his closest friends stabbed themselves rather than serve a new Emperor; the uneasy grumbles from the soldiers; the panic of the remaining courtiers as they struggled to find passage back to Rome. From coronation to funeral, an emperor’s life was a circus.

But even an emperor had to die alone.

 

WHEN
she looked back, Marcella could never remember the details of her journey back to Rome. Lucius stayed, anxious to proclaim his undying loyalty to Vitellius once the new Emperor arrived, so she found a cart or a wagon or something with wheels and paid for a place. Jolting roads, silent companions. Just flashes, when she tried to remember it. A journey of a week’s duration—two weeks?—and then she was back in the city. She looked about vaguely for a hired litter, something to take her home, but a slave in sumptuous livery recognized her at the city gate and whisked her back to the house in comfort.

“Juno’s mercy, you’re safe!” Cornelia enveloped her in a violent hug as she alighted on the doorstep. Half the family was arrayed there, but her sister and cousins were at the forefront and Marcella fell into their comforting arms, wondering how she could ever have thought them exasperating. “We had slaves watching every gate in the city for you, ever since we heard the news—”

“You’re all right.” Lollia was beaming. “I wore down my knees at every temple in Rome—”

“Now you’re the crazy one in the family instead of me.” Diana flung an oddly bruised arm about Marcella’s waist. “Just do what I do, and smile whenever they lecture you. It drives them all mad.”

“Good to have you home,” Gaius said, smiling.

“Gaius, you aren’t condoning this, are you?” Tullia sniffed. “I hope you see the folly of your adventuring, Marcella. You could have been killed.”

“I’m sure you’re sorry I wasn’t,” said Marcella. “Then you could redo my room in that sickly pink you’ve pasted all over the rest of the house.”

“She’s very tired, dear,” Gaius whispered quickly in his wife’s ear. “Maybe crazed.”

There was a family dinner to celebrate Marcella’s return. Cornelia shared her couch, deflecting the family’s questions for her while Marcella ate, and Marcella could have cried in gratitude. She gave her sister’s hand a fierce squeeze under the cushions, and Cornelia squeezed back.

“So Salvius is alive?” Lollia asked. “I’m glad. He’s harmless enough, despite his knuckle cracking. Though this means another divorce for sure.” She sighed. “Grandfather is already looking for a Vitellian husband for me.”

“You know Vitellius is a Blues fan?” Diana wrinkled her nose. “Well, at least it means more races . . .”

“I’m sorry.” Marcella put down her goblet. “But I need to get outside—I need to walk. Can you cover for me?”

“Of course,” Cornelia said at once, and headed Tullia off with a complaint about the oysters. Lollia distracted Gaius by letting her dress fall off her shoulders, and Diana tossed Marcella her own cloak.

Marcella’s hands were shaking when she climbed into the litter, and despite the fine breeze in the spring twilight she closed the curtains. The slanting sun made rosy shadows through the pink silk, and she lay back on the cushions with the heels of her hands pressed to her eyes as the bearers rose beneath her. “The gardens,” Marcella said through her hands, “take me to the nearest gardens.” It was a long time before the tremors went away, before she lowered her hands from her face.

When she did, she was smiling.

The bearers stopped, and she climbed out of the litter. A nameless little green patch at the top of the Quirinal Hill; not much of a garden. Just a grassy hillock with a few trees and a stone bench or two, where the pleb boys liked to take their sweethearts on fine evenings—but it did boast a high, wide view of Rome, and Marcella had it all to herself as she strode up the slope on legs still faintly shaky and looked out over the city. Dusk now, the sun falling orange-pink behind purple bands of clouds, the sky on the other side a cool darkening blue. Torches and lamps lighting the streets below, a sprawling forest of lights. Rome. She’d seen four emperors within the past year—Nero, Galba, Otho, and now Vitellius. Four emperors . . .

Three of them,
thought Marcella,
done away by me.

Partially, anyway.

Nero really had been an accident. “The world would lose a great artist in you, Caesar,” Marcella had told him at that private banquet, just trying to soothe his frantic nerves. And instead he’d sobbed into her lap and asked her how he could possibly escape it all, and she’d said he would fall on his sword before the Senate could execute him. All she had wanted was to get out of there and go home . . . but Nero did fall on his sword a week later. He’d even stolen Marcella’s words about the death of an artist. Nero never could write a decent line for himself.

Galba . . . well, one could say he was an accident too. Almost. Piso had been declared heir, Marcella jibed at Otho about how he might be declared Emperor yet if the omens weren’t favorable, and he had seized the idea, bribing a priest to interpret the omens badly and using the discontent of the soldiers to his own ends. Her little joke hadn’t really been a joke—even at the time Marcella had wondered if Otho might take the hint. But she never dreamed he’d go as far as he did. She certainly hadn’t wanted Piso dead; hadn’t wanted to end up dead herself on the steps of the Temple of Vesta along with her sister and cousins, as had so nearly happened.
That really did get a bit out of hand.

Otho. That had been more of an experiment. Poor Cornelia was so blind with rage about Piso’s death, so burning with hatred for anything Othonian. Marcella couldn’t resist dropping her sister a few tidbits of information, wondering what she’d do with them. She’d been much more daring than Marcella would have anticipated—she’d started meeting Vitellius’s supporters on her supposed trips to the bathhouse, in fact, to pass along any information that might help defeat Otho. Marcella had been perfectly prepared to meet with the conspirators herself, but with Cornelia being so obliging, all she had to do was feed her sister the necessary information. Movements of legions, supply lines, petty rivalries among Otho’s generals—she’d dropped it all into Cornelia’s ear or left little jotted notes lying on her desk where they could easily be found. Cornelia had passed it all on for her, every weakness the Vitellians had exploited to defeat Otho at Bedriacum.
Did Otho lose the battle due to my information-passing?
Perhaps not, but it was certainly amusing to think so. Pity Otho had committed suicide, though—Marcella had liked him, very much.

And now, Vitellius.

From what Marcella knew of him, he was just a big, beery, bleary sportsman. Not too clever; surely a pawn in the hands of other ambitious men. What could be done with Vitellius?

She sat down on the worn mossy bench, looking out over the city. Rome. She had written Rome’s history in a dozen careful scrolls, but what good were her histories? A woman’s writings could never be published, would never be read. She’d written them anyway, thinking there was nothing else to do. Because women didn’t
make
history, of course. They could only be the watchers.

But now here she was, Lady Cornelia Secunda known as Marcella, looking down at all Rome with three emperors lying dead at her feet. No one else knew they were there—not the husband who despised her, not the sister who made pained expressions about her writing, not the idiot cousins who cared only for lovers and horses. None of them knew.
But I know.
Marcella laughed aloud, imagining the look on Tullia’s face if she knew her hated sister-in-law had brought down three emperors.

Making history was much better than writing it.

“Marcella.” A harsh voice behind her. “I went to your house. The slaves said you went out, so I followed your litter.”

“Goodness, Domitian.” She turned and smiled at the stocky figure coming up the slope toward her. “Such devotion.”

“Every day you were gone, I prayed for your safety.” His black eyes had never been so intent. “Nessus said you’d be safe, but I didn’t believe him till I heard the news.”

“Well, you did say your Nessus was never wrong.” Domitian . . . younger son to the brilliant and shrewd Vespasian, who was Governor of Judaea and who had the only army in the Empire to match that of Vitellius. Vespasian had sworn loyalty to Galba, to Otho—would he swear loyalty to Vitellius now? His own men had wanted to make him Emperor after Nero died, or so Marcella had heard . . .

“Thank the gods you’re unharmed,” Domitian said roughly, and seized her.

“Yes, yes, I’m unharmed.” She laughed, pushing him as he began tugging at her skirts, but there was surprising strength in his arms. He dragged her down to the grass, pushing himself inside her before his lips even landed on hers. His eager tongue filled her mouth to gagging, but a savage little tendril uncoiled in Marcella’s stomach and suddenly she was ravenous. She locked her thighs around him and began tearing at his tunic, sinking her teeth into his cheek when he tried to kiss her again. He buried his face in her breasts but she slapped him away, panting as she crushed him down into the grass. She raked his chest with her nails, drawing blood as she rode him. He cried out in the falling dusk, spasming, and Marcella bared her teeth at the sky.

“You’re mine,” he gasped, clutching her. “You’re mine.”

No, you’re the one who belongs to me.
She rolled off him, pulling her torn
stola
around herself.
Domitian. Vespasian’s son. What can I do with you?

She’d have to be stealthy, of course. Sneaky, underhanded. But why not? Every time she’d tried to be forthright this year—with her husband, with her brother, with anyone—she’d been ignored, brushed aside, or outright stepped on. Had she
ever
gotten her own way with honesty? Not once. Only by stealth.

The sun had sunk below the horizon now. The stars were out, shining in a blue-purple sky over the torch-lit city. Rome. The city that in this year alone, even though it was only spring, had already seen three emperors.

Marcella wondered idly,
Why not four?

April A.D. 69–December A.D. 69

—JOSEPHUS

C
ORNELIA
couldn’t stop herself from smiling, even when Lollia hurled a hairbrush at the mirror.

“That’s it.” Lollia scowled as her maids made soothing noises and swept up the fragments. “I’m done. This is the
last wedding
. Vitellius had better hang on to his throne, because three husbands in one year are
enough
.”