Savannah Thorne

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Capri

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Spring, 37 CE

 

 

There was no blood. A soft pillow had smothered the last sour breath in the old emperor’s lungs, like water dashed over wet logs—no blaze, just a quiet seethe before the ember hissed out.

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Macro withdrew and wiped his hands on his cloak. “It’s done,” he murmured. He turned to Gaius, then to me, his expression already shifting from assassin to master of ceremony.

 

Within moments, his men fanned out across the villa grounds, rounding up the household, the officers, the freedmen and senators with sharp whispers and steel. A crowd was forced together like coals awaiting a spark. Macro took Gaius by the arm and steered him into the light—out beneath the bronze she-wolf on the terrace, with me a few paces behind.

 

He raised his voice so it whipped through the morning mist. “Tiberius clung to life past the Ides of March by a single breath,” he announced. “Thank the gods he named his successor. Now you are free. Free to return to Rome with the son of Germanicus as your Emperor!”

My brother stirred as if waking from a trance, hushed as a prisoner beholding the light of release. Macro’s purple-cloaked men encircled him, pressing him to stand tall before the people. He straightened like a warrior, but his face lit with the brightness of a boy. He held up his hands to speak, but the crowd would not be silenced.

Voices surged—tumbling, thunderous, like water loosed down the mountain side. “Our little star!” they cried, echoing the soldiers’ cheers from his boyhood. Faces blurred together—Balbus, Silanus—into a tide of devotion. “Caesar Caligula!” The name twisted, reshaped itself as it passed from mouth to mouth—already something that was not my brother.

 

Savior. 

 

Germanicus reborn. 

 

They could never know the sensitive, clever, fragile boy who had always walked in our father’s shadow. Only I had seen him blinking for sleep, the smell of horse still fusty on his fingers, worn from leaping into the saddle like a little warrior. They hadn’t seen him give up piece after piece of his life to the dying emperor—scrubbing his soul sweeter, safer, until even his laughter had the salt-sheen of obedience. Today, at last, all those efforts were rewarded, and he stirred like a god looking down on the clay of his creation.

 

“Drusilla!” He opened his arms to me. I ran to him. The arm of his toga billowed as he swept me into a fierce embrace. The damp scent of wet wool prickled with the earthy musk of lanolin. Then the familiar scent of his herbs wrapped around me: cardamom’s fiery breath, the bitterness of cinquefoil, the lace of peony’s sweetness. It was the smell of home on the German warfront, of afternoons chasing one another through the rain-drenched fields, of nights weaving tales as shadows danced on the walls.

 

“Hail Caesar!” Macro’s voice rang like struck bronze.

 

The sun broke through the morning mist, casting golden light upon the terrace. A metallic scent clung to the air, like blood on iron, as if the villa itself had soaked in the violence. And the moment shimmered with uncertainty, the future as uncharted as a newfound sea.

 

“Let those who would stand against you know this—I will hunt them to the ends of the empire. The law is slow and justice cold. My sword is neither. My own children are not more precious than your reign, and I will see your enemies trampled beneath your feet.”

 

Silanus, always quickest to sniff out the mood, smiled with the surety of a man who smelled safety. “This,” he cried, “is surely the dawn of a golden age.”

 

Balbus’ chin wobbled; he folded his hands as if to hide the trembling of his belly. “We shall send envoys to Rome and create a welcome worthy of our new Caesar. The great Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus has saved us all. His glory has come.”

 

As the crowd's adoration swelled, I couldn't help but notice the fleeting glances exchanged among the senators—calculating, wary. Their smiles didn't reach their eyes. Their noise faded, layer by layer, and they waited for my brother to speak.

 

My fingers entwined with his. Easily, naturally, a gesture done a thousand times. But now the warmth of Gaius’ grip contrasted starkly with the chill that had settled in the chamber of death. He swung my hand high in his, in triumph.

 

“If Rome summons us,” he crowed, “we shall not disobey.”

 

As he embraced me, something in his touch lingered—too tight, too long. His palm flattened against my back as though testing whether I might be molded into shape. A shiver ran down my spine—not from cold, but from the realization that something was changing—had changed. The brother I knew was slipping away, replaced by someone I could not name.

 

“Our family will be whole again,” he murmured, gaze fixed as if he could hear my churning blood. The first time he looked at me like this—pulled me behind a closed door—I had forgotten. Until now.

 

I nodded dumbly. Perhaps his hopes were true, or we could make them so. Perhaps the world would right itself at last. The shadow of Tiberius, that had stretched over the island paradise—over my life, my lineage, my very pulse—that had blackened the memory of my poisoned father, my ambitious mother—was now bleached pale as the pebbles on the island’s shore. We were hostages no longer. A moment of cloud had flickered briefly across our sun but meant nothing.

 

The shock of the truth vibrated up my limbs into my heart, and I rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. We would return to Rome, rejoicing in triumph—to rule.

 

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