The twins left the wealthy district on the Palatine Hill and followed a gray flagstone road toward the nearby Roman Forum.
The unrest had only recently been quelled, and the ancient republic was poised for a new beginning.
Caesar liked to show the world the virtue of his clemency. He had pardoned most of his political enemies in the aristocratic faction and ordered the statues of Sulla and Pompey to be erected again.
Countless citizens crowded the Forum. A herald in a formal Roman robe unrolled a papyrus scroll and read out the latest announcement.
By decree of the Senate, Julius Caesar had formally been elected dictator for a term of ten years.
A triumph would be held three days later to celebrate the Roman legions' victories in Gaul, Egypt, Africa, and the kingdom of Pontus.
Lawyers clutching reed pens eagerly advertised their services to the twins as they passed the marble columns. Beggars of every complexion, with disheveled hair and beards, saw the pair's fine clothes and swarmed toward them like bees and butterflies discovering nectar. The two enslaved guards blocked them with their shoulders.
Gaius took more than a dozen sesterces from his purse and tossed them to the beggars, creating an immediate commotion. Livia hurriedly pulled him away around the noisy crowd.
“Watch out!” A man was washing a bronze statue on the steps to their left. The splashing water soaked the hem of Livia's dark-blue dress.
“Are you blind? Why are you throwing water around when people are walking past?” her brother shouted over his shoulder at the culprit.
“They're cleaning the Forum for the triumph.” Livia lifted her skirt and stepped over the puddle.
“By Jupiter! I've never seen anything so grand in my life!”
“Perhaps one day you'll be more than just a spectator.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you become a senator or an army officer someday, you could participate in a triumph,” the girl explained.
“My dear sister, stop teasing me. Neither of those positions is ever going to have anything to do with me!”
Gaius put a hand to his chest. His extraordinarily handsome face drew sidelong glances from passing women.
“Then you can try praying that one day you'll sit on the raised platform to watch the ceremony as a consul's relative.”
“I don't want to marry Caesar! I don't like men, and besides… he's slept with plenty of kings and queens.” Her brother's cheeks reddened.
“Why would a man as important as that waste his time on an ignorant child like you?” Livia's mockery was merciless.
“Aunt Servilia is Caesar's favorite mistress…” Gaius whispered into his sister's ear. “Lots of people say Brutus, her son, is actually Caesar's child.”
The family relationships were rather complicated. Servilia was ten years older than the twins' father, Drusus. Her mother was the elder sister of Drusus's adoptive father.
The famous Cato the Younger was Servilia's maternal half brother. Drusus's adoptive father had raised the two siblings, who grew up in the same household as Drusus and became his cousins.
Cato the Younger was upright and honest. Fiercely opposed to monarchy, he had devoted his life to defending the republic. He was Caesar's most unyielding enemy and had joined Pompey during the civil war.
“Have you heard the story about the Senate meeting years ago, when Caesar received a love letter from Servilia?” Livia lowered her voice.
“And then?” her brother pressed.
“Cato thought the letter in Caesar's hand contained a conspiracy, so he forced Caesar to read it aloud before everyone.”
“I know! And it turned out to be a love letter from his own sister to his political enemy. What a spectacular embarrassment! If I were Cato, I'd have died of shame on the spot.” Her brother could not help laughing.
“Don't mock him. Back then, everyone was bribing voters, including Father, of course. Cato alone refused to cheat, and in the end he lost the election…” Livia said. “I doubt another person in the Senate has ever shown such noble principles.”
“Has Cousin Cato come back to Rome?” Gaius asked.
“I don't know. Mother hasn't mentioned him recently.”
Still chatting, they entered a narrow street lined with buildings more than two stories high, which blocked out the sunlight.
Street vendors cried out from beside them; despite the narrowness of the lane, people had set up stalls. Merchants thought nothing of squeezing past with ox carts, leaving heaps of wet dung behind and filling the air with an unbearable stench.
Gaius slipped and nearly stepped into a pile. He complained angrily, “When are they going to do something about this chaos? Couldn't they just require carts to enter the city at night?”
“You could suggest it to Father. Perhaps the senators would discuss it and draw up a law limiting traffic.” Livia covered her nose, lifted her skirt, and kept walking.
“Forget it. He'd never take it seriously.”
The market was nearby. Several women approached with flat baskets balanced on their heads, heaped with chickpeas.
“I want to go to the market and see what there is to eat,” the boy suggested.
“Aren't you saving your appetite for the banquet?”
“Then I'll just see what interesting new things they've got and won't buy any food yet.” He took the round amulet from his chest, wound its leather cord around his forefinger, and swung it back and forth.
An endless stream of pedestrians passed Livia, wearing every sort of dress and speaking many different languages.
“Look, what's painted on that?” Gaius suddenly stopped to study the plaster wall to their left.
A fresh piece of graffiti adorned it. The paint was still wet, as though it had only just been applied.
An old man in a toga lay in a pool of blood, a dagger in his hand, his abdomen split open and his entrails spilling out. Three lines of words had been written beside him in vivid red paint.
“Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis…” Livia read aloud. “The last hero of the republic.”
“Down with the tyrant Caesar.”
“That's supposed to be Cato? What happened?” Her brother felt little attachment to Cato, but he was curious about how the man had met his end.
“I don't know.” In fact, she had already guessed that Cato had chosen suicide after Caesar's victory. For a moment, she could not put her feelings into words.
“Let's go,” she said.
At the market, Gaius examined the wares of a Greek merchant and eventually took a liking to a black Attic pottery vase depicting a man and a cow.
“What's this?” he asked the stallholder.
“Zeus pursued Io and turned her into a heifer so Hera wouldn't discover her.”
“Hah. Don't buy it…” Remembering her time as the goddess of shooting stars, Livia let out a cold laugh beside her brother's ear. “Poor Io. Later generations look upon the scene of her suffering as something marvelous to admire.”
“Oh, my Jupiter, please keep your voice down!”
“Your Jupiter? Find another god to call on next time. Try Diana.”
“All right. Let's look at the other stalls.”
Gaius took a fancy to an exquisite glass bottle. It appeared to have been blown using the latest techniques, with a deep-red inner layer and a winged woman painted on the outer white glass.
“Who's that?” he asked the merchant.
“The goddess Isis,” Livia answered for him.
“Exactly! This is glass made in Egypt!”
It was impossible to tell where the merchant came from. A bushy black beard obscured most of his face, and his skin was exceedingly rough, as though he had endured years of wind and sun.
“Is Egypt ruled by a queen now?” her brother asked.
“Rome helped Cleopatra win the throne. Her ancestors came from Greece,” the girl answered.
“How much is the bottle? I'll buy it.”
“Nine hundred sesterces.” The merchant held up his hands to show the number.
“That much? I've only brought seven hundred. Oh, never mind.” Her brother sighed.
“Seven hundred would do.”
“You agreed awfully quickly. Were you trying to swindle me?” her brother realized something was wrong.
“Six hundred sesterces…” Livia suddenly spoke. “Six hundred at the most.”
“Six hundred? That's too little—”
“For someone selling stolen goods, six hundred sesterces for nothing is better than being arrested.” The girl's gaze was as sharp as shards of glass as it swept over the calluses on his fingertips and in the web of his hand.
“A deserter? A runaway slave? Or both?” she asked under her breath.
“Six hundred sesterces. One hundred and fifty denarii would do just as well.” The man immediately yielded.
“Sorry, I've changed my mind. Three hundred sesterces, and not a coin more.”
“My noble young lady…” The merchant raised his hands in surrender. “I'll tell you the truth. I used to serve in Pompey's legions.”
“Our superiors couldn't pay our wages. When the troops mutinied, I took the opportunity to sneak home.”
“Later, my father became gravely ill. I sold my fields, but I still owed six hundred sesterces. Debt collectors seized me and made me a slave. Has anyone in the world ever had worse luck?” He spread his hands helplessly.
“Your father's supposedly at death's door, yet you don't look the least bit sad.” Livia kept studying his expression, missing not the smallest change.
“Never mind. I'll give you seven hundred sesterces. Once you've paid off your debts, go home and look after your father.” Her brother made his decision.
Seven hundred sesterces amounted to the cost of just two dishes for the twins. For a poor family, however, it could save a life.
Gaius did not hesitate. He ordered a guard to hand the man the purse.
“But you have to return whatever you stole.”
Her brother liked the glass vase very much. He held it up one last time. Sunlight refracted through it in fantastic colors, and its shape resembled a clear, crystalline heart.
“You're a truly good person. I'll remember your kindness forever.” The man gave Gaius a long, searching look.
“I think half of what he said was true and half was false. I don't believe he has a gravely ill father at home…” Livia told her brother. “Have you really decided to give him the money?”
“This much money doesn't matter much to me…” Gaius looked like a hopelessly carefree fool being taken advantage of. “At least it's better than spending it on food, swallowing that food, and turning it into shit.”
“Licinus, you bastard!” An angry shout suddenly came from nearby, and five burly men surrounded them.
The guards stepped in front of the twins.
“Who are they?” her brother asked the man.
“Probably a city gang. They trade in slaves, collect debts for people, and lend money,” Livia explained.
“You're not getting away!” Four of the five raised their clubs and charged at Licinus.
“Stop!” her brother shouted. “I'm Gaius Livius Drusus! I'll pay off his debt!”
“Livius?” The gang leader turned his head. His eyes looked like a fish's, and his face resembled a cracked flatbread.
“My name is Cali. I've done business with your father… In fact, we're still on very good terms…” He lifted an arm to tell his henchmen to hold Licinus and stop attacking for the moment. “How much of his debt can you pay?”
He had done business with Drusus? Livia immediately seized on that detail.
“I have seven hundred sesterces,” her brother answered.
“Seven hundred?” Cali squeezed a laugh through his teeth, a strange sound like the mournful cry of an owl whose wing was being pulled. “Do you know how much your father could earn if I sold him?”
“Twenty-four thousand sesterces.” He held up two fingers and waved them before the boy's face.
“I'm worth a fortune!” Licinus interjected.
“You're not yet an adult, are you? Would your father allow this? Selling this slave could bring in twenty-four thousand sesterces. Even a pretty slave girl your father bought long ago cost only twenty thousand.”
At the words “slave girl,” Licinus immediately straightened his back, seemingly listening with great attention.
Livia was intrigued too. It seemed Drusus and Licinus were both hiding secrets.
“How much does he owe you?” her brother asked Cali.
“Six hundred sesterces. With a year's interest, it's now a thousand.”
“I can afford that. I'll send one of my guards home to fetch the money.”
“No, no, no, my dear boy…” Cali remained polite toward Gaius. “Licinus failed to repay his debt, so by law he has already become a slave. To help him, you would have to repay what he owes and also pay me to purchase him.”
“But either way, it would be our family's money. Why not just give him to me? What difference would it make?”
“Your father has no shortage of slaves, and he's a man who values his wealth very highly. Without his permission, I really wouldn't dare make such a decision on my own.”
“Besides, Licinus stole from me. I'll have to cut off one of his hands,” he added.
“You lend money at usurious rates?” Livia suddenly asked.
“Your father is our patron. A little girl shouldn't meddle in her elders' business…” The gang leader's tone toward her was contemptuous. “Even if your brother sold every stitch of clothing you're wearing, he couldn't afford to buy a slave!”
Ice crystallized in the girl's eyes. “The families you've insulted are the Claudii and the Livii.”
“I haven't insulted the Claudii or the Livii. I greatly respect your father…” Cali shrugged and sighed. “Does he know the two of you are running around outside making trouble?”
“I understand…” As things stood, she was merely an appendage of her father. “You're absolutely right.”
Livia offered him a perfectly proper smile.
Something struck her as wrong. Even if their father disliked both her and her brother, they should not be treated with such open disrespect. Was this gang leader truly one of Drusus's men? If he really served Drusus, why would he dare insult the man's children so brazenly?
Cali stopped speaking to the twins and drew a dagger from its leather sheath. “Get moving! Seize him and cut his hand off!”
The dagger came from Egypt. The relief of the goddess Isis on its hilt was carved from white shell, with two clear blue sapphires set into the goddess's eyes. It was a treasured heirloom that had once belonged to a bankrupt merchant.
Cali had boasted of the precious weapon to many people.
The gang members lunged at the runaway slave. Licinus was a large man, but his movements were remarkably nimble, like a shuttle darting between the threads of a loom.
“Help him!” Gaius ordered the guards.
“Young master, we are your father's slaves. Our only duty is to protect you.”
“But I'm his heir—”
“If we knew what sort of man he really was, I'd genuinely like to buy him too…” Livia interrupted her brother, speaking close to his ear. “But if you oppose Father's friend and Father hears of it, the ones punished will be these two innocent guards. They'll pay the price for your recklessness.”
“But I can't stand by and watch him die. My conscience won't allow it. I want to give him these seven hundred sesterces…” Gaius looked back at Licinus, who was still fighting.
The man continued to struggle, his black beard covered in filth and numerous knife wounds cut across his back and arms. Blood dripped onto the ground like scarlet flowers opening.
“Then leave the purse over there. It's getting late, and there's a banquet tonight. We need to hurry home and get ready.” She signaled to the guards, who took her brother by the arms and carried him away between them.
…
The twins did not know that after they left, someone crouched and picked up the purse.
Licinus knocked three of the burly men down but was pinned to the ground by the other two. His injuries were superficial and not especially serious, yet he had completely exhausted his strength.
Cali pressed his dagger to the man's throat, then suddenly grew reluctant to cut off his hand. After all, a slave with all four limbs intact would fetch a higher price.
“How much for this slave?” The voice belonged to someone between boyhood and young manhood, as smooth as a pearl sliding across a silk-smooth sea without a breath of wind, leaving only the slightest indentation in its wake.
Pearls needed no polishing to possess their own distinct, lustrous radiance, dazzling to behold.
The fight must have attracted someone with an eye for quality. Cali prepared to raise his price on the spot.
“Forty thousand sesterces.” The man looked up, saw the newcomer's extraordinarily beautiful face, and could not tear his eyes away. A strange sense of guilt inexplicably rose inside him.
Once that guilt subsided, an instinctive, wicked desire awoke. The boy's hair shone more brightly than any gold in the world. If he could possess and defile him as a slave, Cali would gladly die the next day.
But the gang leader had spent more than twenty years in the underworld and committed every sort of crime. He quickly recovered his composure. Realizing that the stranger was only sixteen or seventeen, he began concocting ways to intimidate the boy and extort money from him.
“Is Licinus a foreigner?” the newcomer asked before Cali could speak.
“Of course not,” Cali answered.
“Someone gave him these seven hundred sesterces.” The youth extended his hand toward the villain. Resting in his palm was the purse the young Livian boy had left on the ground.
“How naive, child…” Cali's evil desires were clamoring wildly inside him. “He owes six hundred in principal alone, a thousand with interest. If you want to buy him, you'll need another forty thousand.”
“Usurious lending violates the new law. Under its provisions, a citizen need repay only six hundred and seventy-two sesterces, principal and interest combined…” The youth spoke gently, his voice exceptionally pleasant. “These seven hundred sesterces are his property, enough to settle the loan. Since he can repay his debt, he is not a slave.”
“You've got the order of things wrong. He only obtained the seven hundred sesterces after he became a slave. Since he's a slave, you must pay his redemption price as well as the principal and interest. What's wrong with charging high interest? I have plenty of influential friends.” Cali stared fixedly into the boy's blue eyes.
“Your patron Drusus has invited Julius Caesar to dinner this evening. Naturally, I'm on the guest list as well.”
“Dictator Caesar is rebuilding Rome's order…” The youth's eyes were like a windless sea, calm to the point of betraying no emotion. “At the beginning of his rule, I'm sure he would be delighted to show every citizen the consequences of violating his new laws, if given the chance.”
“Do you think those friends of yours would save you?”
“…”
“May I take him away, then? Here are seven hundred sesterces. That's twenty-eight more than the six hundred and seventy-two the law allows you to collect.”
The gang leader had run headlong into someone he could not afford to offend. He swallowed his resentment, sheathed the dagger at his waist, accepted the purse, and ordered his men to release Licinus.
The man found himself unexpectedly freed. He walked up to Cali and gave him the middle finger.
Mindful of the youth's status, Cali did not dare make trouble. He gave them both a lingering look, then turned and left with his men.
“Young master, what would you like me to do?” Licinus hurried after the boy.
“You aren't a slave. I never meant to buy you. I only happened to help with a small matter, and I expect no repayment. You are free to live your own life and finish whatever you set out to do.”
“But I've gravely insulted the gang leader with that gesture. They'll be looking for a chance to retaliate. I have nowhere left to turn. I can only ask for your protection.”
“That was terribly impulsive…” The young master looked hesitant, behaving in a manner perfectly suited to his age. “Why should I protect someone so reckless?”
At this, Licinus grinned and put his hands behind his back. His wolf-green eyes glittered in the sunlight.
When he extended his hand again, an expensive dagger had somehow appeared in it. The hilt bore a shell carving of the goddess Isis, with twin sapphires set into the goddess's eyes.
It was Cali's prized blade.
“You'd better keep that weapon yourself. Don't let anyone discover it…” The youth said nothing more and showed no particular delight. He merely assumed an expression of concern. “I'll do what I can to provide protection and compensation. For now, please fetch some water from the fountain and clean your wounds.”
