One With the Darkness (27 page)

“Everyone s-said the f-family was g-going to use L-Livia Quintus L-Lucellus’s freedm-man. And a-after all, I’m f-family.” Claudius’s expectant look was comic, an effect Livia was sure he intended.

Julia tittered and took two steps away from Jergan. “Not you, Claudius. Why, I’m sure you’ve never tortured a slave in your life, let alone raped one.”

Now all were turned toward Claudius, even the man who held his loincloth to cover his erection. Livia noted a pile of greaves and a breastplate on the floor. He must be one of the guards. And he was clearly planning on raping Jergan. Rage boiled up into her throat. She slid out of the shadows.
Companion!
The room went red.

Claudius looked from Caesar and Agrippina to Julia, disappointment on his face. Livia saw his eyes register her and move on. She glided up behind Julia and the naked guard.

More power!
The blackness started at Livia’s feet even as she closed on Jergan. His eyes grew big. She touched his mouth. The blackness was at her knees.

“Hey!” one of the guards cried.

She’d been seen. She threw her arms around Jergan, pressing her body to his.

“This will hurt,” she whispered. The blackness engulfed him as well. It was at their chests. The others were turning back now. Chaerea saw her. She thought about her house, her bedroom.

As the blackness descended over all, Jergan bellowed in pain.

T
HEY COLLAPSED IN
a heap, gasping for breath, Livia on top of Jergan. Slowly the sleeping quarters of the house on the Capitoline Hill settled around her. The colors of the carpets swirled before her eyes. The feel of Jergan’s bare flesh against her, the dim sconces flickering, all registered slowly. They were free. But it might be brief.

She rolled off Jergan so he could catch his breath. Translocating was even harder on humans than it was for her. “I’m sorry. I know that was … painful.”

His chest heaved. “How did you … do … that?”

She flushed. “Did I forget to tell you about that?”

His breathing steadied. “Apparently.”

“Well … the power of the thing in my veins can be used to push me out of one place and into another. I … just held on to you.” She touched him, here, there, her hands running lightly over his body. He was still violently erect. It could not be natural.

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“I … I think that’s the last of it.” The burns were ugly but not deep. They would heal. No wounds she could see. But … “Did they … violate you?”

His eyes darkened. “Of course they did, the bitches.” Rage warred with shame in his expression. “They used my cock with some kind of cream that made me hard.
They whipped me and burned me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing hard. Then he forced himself quiet. Deliberately, he opened his eyes. “But the guards had not yet gotten at me, or … or the emperor.”

Who would come through such an experience unscathed? Not a proud warrior like Jergan. He could hardly acknowledge that he was a slave. “This is my fault,” Livia lamented.

He put a finger to her lips. “You are the last person to be blamed.” He reached up and brought her down to lie against his welted chest. “Without doubt I have you to thank for what shred of self-respect I have left.”

“I should never have allowed them to drag you along today.” Tears welled. They would drip salt into his welts. But she couldn’t stop them.

“You had no choice.” He stroked her hair.

She took a breath. She could not afford to give in to weakness now. She sat up, determined. “We have not much time. They will be wondering how you disappeared from among their midst. I think Chaerea and one of the guards saw me. They’ll be at our door shortly.”

“Will Claudius pay the price for his distraction?”

So, Jergan realized what the plan had been. “I think Claudius can take care of himself,” she chuckled. “That man is more intelligent, more devious, than even I gave him credit for.”

“Courageous, too,” Jergan said, struggling to sit. “I hope I get a chance to thank him.”

“No time for that,” she said, standing. “I will engage the plan tonight. If they have not yet seen all the senators, so be it. We must to Tuscany with the servants. It is the only way I can keep you safe if the plan fails.”

Pain stabbed through her head as the voice inside her shouted,
You cannot leave Rome.

“Livia?” Jergan staggered to his feet and took her by the shoulders. “What is wrong?”

She took several ragged breaths. “I … I don’t know. The feeling that we shouldn’t leave was so … strong … it was like a needle in my brain.”

“It is these dreams you have been having.”

He was right. This voice inside her was tied up with the premonitions and the feeling she had done all this before. The dream that told her so flashed into her memory. How had she forgotten that dream? Or had she suppressed it? It did not matter that the whole thing was incredible. She herself was incredible to people like Jergan and Claudius. She could not deny there was
something
she should do. She didn’t know what it was. But the voice knew.

“Tell me …” she whispered, to whom she did not know. “Tell me what to do.”

Let me out. Give me control.

She couldn’t do that. That might be giving in to madness. And they couldn’t stay in Rome, disappearing every time the Guard recaptured them. Jergan might be killed the next time. She straightened. “It doesn’t matter. We have to go.” Again the stabbing pain.

NO!!

She moaned a little, her knees going weak. Jergan caught her about the waist.

“Just start the plot in motion,” he whispered. “If it succeeds, there is no need to leave.”

She nodded, rubbing her temples as if that would make the pain go away. “Yes. Yes. Dress yourself.” She gestured toward the trunk for Jergan’s new clothes. “Wait. … I will send for a cooling astringent to ease your arousal and some unguents for the burns—”

“No time.” He guided her to the desk and sat her down.
He pushed the stylus and the inkwell toward her, before turning to the chest to dress.

Livia pulled out a parchment with shaking hands. She could do this. Caligula must die if she and Jergan were ever to be safe. She would convince him to go to Tuscany without her. She could stay and see it through. She didn’t seem to have much choice. The voice would not let her go.

She scratched the stylus across the parchment. “Now is the time, my friend,” she wrote. She melted tallow from the candle and pushed her signet ring into the wax. After dusting sand across the ink, she rolled the parchment and tied it with a red ribbon. She went to the door. “Lucius.”

He appeared as he always did, almost instantly, as though he had foreseen her wish.

“Have Tufi take this to the statue of Drusilla. He must place it in the basket of flowers she carries. No one must see him do it. Do you understand?”

Lucius nodded. He hesitated. “And if there is no opportunity?”

“Pray to the gods there is an opportunity, Lucius. Then he must return here immediately.”

Lucius nodded, turned on his heel, and left. It was done.

“Will your instrument know to look there?”

She nodded. “He looks there every night.” The preparations needed for the household to relocate to safety were complex and immediate. She hoped Tuscany would provide safety long enough for them to disperse to places where the Roman army wouldn’t find them.

Jergan pressed. “This plan must go forward quickly. What if he doesn’t look tonight?”

“He will look tonight of all nights, after what he saw. He’ll know I can’t stay long.”

Jergan took her arm and turned her toward him, his
eyes searching her face. “Chaerea is your instrument, isn’t he?”

She saw Jergan’s disbelief, his sudden doubt. “Who is closer to Caligula?”

“Why would he do this thing?”

“Because he, of anyone, knows what Caligula is.” She sighed, and turned. “And he is the perfect choice. Only the Praetorian Guard could protect those who killed an emperor. Only they can ensure a republic is viable.” She cupped Jergan’s jaw with her hand. “A republic is a tenuous thing, Jergan. It cannot stand against armies without an army of its own, and the Praetorian Guard is the only army allowed anywhere near Rome. It cannot stand against chaos and bickering. Free men must be granted the luxury of time to establish their fragile rules and policies, until those laws live on their own. So yes, it must be the Guard that kills Gaius, and the Guard that supports the republic that will follow. Chaerea is the only choice.”

She took a breath. “Now, prepare to escort the servants to Tuscany. I will not rest easy until they, and you, are out of harm’s way.” Again the headache stabbed her.

He cannot go, either.

“I’m not leaving you here.” His voice was hard. He took her arms. “I’m staying if you stay. The voice, it tells you that is right, doesn’t it?” Jergan clutched her to his chest. “Livia, listen to this voice. It must be from the gods.”

“If you stay and the plot fails or is delayed, you will be back in the palace chained to two posts before morning.” Her vision was swimming. “What if I cannot rescue you again? Do not worry for me. They cannot hold me.”

“We will leave the house, but not Rome. Is there not somewhere we can hide?”

She couldn’t think. “I … Where would he not think to look?”

“The brothel?” Jergan asked, lifting her chin.

She blinked. The pain receded. The brothel. Not an unacceptable idea. “But Drusus Lucellus must not pay the price of harboring us.”

“We are enjoying his facilities. He can disclaim all knowledge.”

“Yes …” But they would torture him anyway. She was putting him in danger. But what choice was there? He would be suspect anyway, just because he shared her name. She straightened. “Yes.” At least her next course was certain. And there was no stabbing pain in her head to tell her no. Did that mean this was right? She felt unmistakably, as she had so often in the last days, that she had done all this before. “There is much to do.” Her mind raced. Lucius would need money for the journey. The household had only minutes to pack. They must be roused.

“What can I do to help?” Jergan asked, as though girding himself for battle.

16

J
ERGAN TOOK LIVIA’S
hand and led her behind a pillar of the portico at the brothel owned by Drusus Lucellus. Dawn was near now. The night had taken its toll. Jergan was exhausted. His other palm caressed the pommel of his short sword. There had been no litter, no bearers, no escort. He and Livia had hurried through the wet night streets of Rome like the refugees they were. Tufi had returned, victorious. The message had been delivered. The household was dispatched like thieves in the night, practically as the Guard appeared in the street. Jergan and Livia slid out through the garden past the baths that held such bittersweet meaning for him.

A vengeful emperor would have mobilized all Rome against them. Jergan had no faith that the captain of the Praetorians would find Livia’s note and a way to kill the emperor all in one night. Jergan listened for pursuers. Cats screeched in mock battle. Drunken revelers wended their way home. But there was no tramp of soldiers’ boots, no hiss of metal withdrawn from a scabbard.

Livia moved to the knocker on the brothel door.

“Let me.” He pressed her into the shadows, then raised the heavy round iron ring and let it fall. The hollow thunk sounded like a call to any guards who might be looking for them. It seemed forever until the door cracked open.

“You are late, citizens,” the fat man said as he opened the door. He froze as he registered who it was, and peered past Jergan into the night. Had the word spread already?

Livia stepped into the light of the sconces hung at either side of the great door. “We come only to purchase a room, Drusus.” Jergan had never heard her sound so humble, even to the emperor.

The man she had freed and whose business she had staked swallowed once and opened the door wide. “Your patronage is always welcome, Lady Lucellus.” He ushered them into the anteroom. But this time he did not take them into the main room where patrons usually waited for their choice of partners, and dancers undulated in sinuous provocation. He opened a side door, a worried frown creasing his forehead. “Will you need a slave today?”

“No,” she said gratefully. “Just a room.”

“And perhaps some refreshment for my lady,” Jergan added. “It has been a long night.”

The brothel owner’s face softened. “Of course. I will send both food and drink.” He guided them to a chamber with a heavy door, rather than the usual curtain. It was sumptuous, but it also looked lived in. Heavy shutters blocked out the dawn. Parchments were scattered across a writing table along with two plates strewn with bread, cheese, and a half-eaten bunch of grapes. These were his private quarters.

Jergan sat Livia at the table and cleared away the plates. She seemed almost in a trance. In truth, the worry eating at him had so many sides, he could not focus on it. The emperor would be looking for them even though he did not know about her plot. She had thwarted his will, and he was a petulant child who would not tolerate that. Her plot might fail. Rome was not big enough to hide her in that case. Jergan had no faith that the old men who had been
lobbying for a republic would not be taken by the emperor and questioned. They would reveal her role at the first flash of a hot iron. Jergan had no faith in this Chaerea, and he couldn’t see why she did. And he could not forget that someone knew she was the lynchpin of the plot and had made attempts on her life. Everything seemed to be closing in around her.

And yet she would not leave.

The pain she had experienced when she even thought about leaving was disturbing in itself. The gods had marked her. That was certain. The dreams, the premonitions, the voices in her head … these were as disturbing as her other qualities, because she, who was so mysterious and wise, did not understand them.

A male slave appeared in the doorway wearing a discreet loincloth. He proved to be the head of a procession of slave girls clad in short
stolas
, carrying amphorae of wine, plates of food.