held back, frightened, but those for whom nobility was as much a part of them as the very air they breathed moved forward, forming a ring around the broken friends.
'Protect yourself,' Sosia repeated. 'Save your children, your sons. Take them away from Rome — make them forget the injustices done.'
'I cannot — you know I cannot,' Agrippina wept.
'This vengeance will destroy you, then,' Sosia said. 'It's what your husband warned — it'll kill you if you stay on this path. Please, Agrippina, save yourself. This reckless courage is meant for men, not for us. It's meant for men…'
Agrippina brushed the hair from her treasured friend's face and kissed her lips. 'I will save you,' she vowed, acknowledging nothing that Sosia had said. 'I will find you when all this is done and I will save you. Have faith in me.'
Sosia nodded, but in her heart she knew they would never meet again. 'I love you,' she whispered.
Then she turned and was gone in the tide.
The tiny cry of an infant told me the pomerium was close, and as I saw the row of white cippi stones appear, marking the limits of Rome, I saw the babies too, abandoned at birth and exposed outside the walls. I moved among the scattered tombs, hoping to find a clear view of the road without being seen myself, but a cry distracted me from my purpose. It came from the only infant still alive from the night before; there were half a dozen others cold and dead. It was a miracle this baby hadn't perished in the chill dawn air, or been taken yet by foxes or some childless wife. I peered at where the tiny thing lay among the wildflowers, naked and streaked with birth blood. I brushed the ants from its face. It was not deformed — that I could tell. Its only crime, I supposed, was being born female in a household that had hoped for a male. This was how such misfortunes were righted in Rome.
A movement at the roadside took my focus. Among the carts and bullocks and chains of slaves, a woman in undyed wool stumbled on the stones, nearly falling, before she righted herself and made to carry on. Sosia's bare feet were bleeding already, I saw. I glanced at the tiny infant helplessly and then stole forward, weaving around the tombs to place myself ahead of her. When Sosia drew near, I stepped onto the road. No one else paid attention.
'Lady,' I called, as loudly as I dared.
Sosia stopped still, thrown at seeing me. Then she made to move past. 'I am exiled, Iphicles. No one can speak to me.'
I sank to one knee before her. 'I am so sorry, Lady.' Tears were forming in my eyes. 'You don't deserve this fate — you are blameless.'
She said nothing, staring at the ground. I glanced around us to assure myself we were still being ignored. Then I reached into the sack I carried and retrieved a pair of street shoes. 'For your feet — please take them.'
She stared at them for a second, but made no move to accept. I laid the shoes on the road before her. 'Lady, here.' I showed her what else was in the sack — bread and cheese, and a small jug of wine. 'Take them, Lady.'
Sosia resumed walking, leaving the items by the road. Stricken, I scooped them into the sack again and ran after her. She stopped when I caught her.
'Let me be, Iphicles — I am of no concern to you.'
'Your children,' I stammered. 'I'll try to protect them — I'll do what I can.'
Sosia stared at me. 'What can you possibly do? You're only a slave.'
My desire to tell her that I was much more than a slave was so strong that I felt myself succumb to it. 'Trust me. I can help them. I have means.'
My words were beyond Sosia's comprehension.
'Their deaths,' I whispered, 'serve no purpose to anyone — this makes my task to protect them easier, don't you see?'
'What purpose did my husband's death serve?' Sosia demanded.
'None, Lady,' I said. 'It was a low, criminal act.'
'And my exile? That's criminal too?'
I nodded.
'And yet both still occurred. So now my children are as dead as their parents.' She went to move on.
I held her arm. 'This will change,' I assured her.
' This?'
'This rule — this misrule — of Tiberius.' I looked about me in fear of being overheard, but no passersby on the road around us gave us the slightest attention. 'There are some who labour towards ending his time — to bring on the second king,' I told her.
She stared at me again with something new behind her eyes. I had shocked her with my manner, my confidence, my certainty — none of which befitted a slave. 'Those who labour — is this you?' she asked.
I paused. Could I dare to trust her with the life's work that both empowered and corrupted me? 'Yes, Lady,' I whispered.
She reeled.
'The second king has been chosen, prophesied by the haruspex Thrasyllus with the words of the Great Mother. I do everything I can to bring this king's time forward — I labour for it tirelessly.'
'These labours — what are they?'
I missed the anger that was growing in her voice, blushing and looking to the ground. 'They are what must be done,' was all I could say.
It was the longest time before I raised my eyes, and when I did I saw her horror, her black disgust. 'Germanicus,' she whispered.
I paled.
'It was you who killed him… it was you!'
I tried to explain. 'It is not as it looks — I did not kill Germanicus.'
'Was he this prophesied king?'
'No, Lady.'
'Who is, then? Sejanus?'
'No, Lady, I swear — '
'Who else have you killed for this? Castor?'
She saw me fall paler still. 'Oh my gods — I see your guilt!' She lurched and turned where she stood, running back along the road towards the distant city walls again.
'Lady! Lady, please stop!'
'Murderer!' she gasped, stumbling on her bloodied feet. 'Murdering slave!'
'Lady, please, no — '
She turned and pointed at me. 'I will find Agrippina and I will tell her what a viper she harbours — what a poisonous viper!' She fled again along the stones.
Despair crushed me. I had sought to help her, to ease her exile, to promise her that hope was still hers, if only she had patience and strength. But she had seen my naked face and it had terrified her. This, I realised then, was the fate of all gods. We saved nothing in our efforts to achieve destiny. We only destroyed.
I reached inside the sack and found the knife I had meant to give Sosia as a weapon to defend herself with. I felt the blade — it was blunt, yet would do. Sosia stumbled and fell ahead of me, raging incoherently against my crimes. But with her undyed stola and wild, long hair, she was like a mad woman to those who travelled along the road. She was stubbornly, determinedly ignored.
Sosia screamed when she looked back and saw the knife glitter in my hand. 'Let me get to her,' she begged of a man driving a carruca. 'Take me to Agrippina — let me tell her!'
The driver struck her with his whip so that she fell back hard upon the cobbles. She clawed to her feet and began to run once more, limping badly now, and leaving little prints of blood upon the stones.
I continued to follow, keeping her pace, the knife tucked inside my tunica. Soon she would fall again and be unable to rise. I would pull her behind the tombs to the place where the baby wept, and there I would finish her — and perhaps the child too. It would be merciful for both of them.
Sosia screamed again and continued running. Death had her in its scent. It must come for her now — she had forced its hand. I was only death's tool. But it gave me no pleasure to be so — no pleasure at all.
