Nest of Vipers (12 page)

One week later: the rebel army of the
nomad Tacfarinas resumes hostilities in
Numidia, raiding villages and looting
extensively

The day was warm but the flesh on Livilla's arms rose as if she were chilled. She clutched her summer cloak about her shoulders, pulling the collar of it up to press against her hair. She took a step forward, and then another, forcing herself to brave the ascent up the damp, moss-covered stairs. She glanced behind her, catching eyes with her eunuch where he waited in the square. She glared at him hard. 'Do not move!' she hissed. 'Do not move an inch until I return for you.'

She turned to look upwards again, and the malevolent temple loomed high before her, vile and foreboding, shrouded in shadow on its densely wooded hill. The sun hadn't touched the temple's doors in all the centuries it had stood in this place, blocked from the rays by glowering, guarding oaks. The stale, dank structure was older than Rome, a relic from Etruscan times, like the sinister god it housed. Sly Veiovis loathed all that was light. The deity of deception demanded that his acolytes worship him in mire.

'Please welcome me, dark god,' Livilla whispered, taking care with each tread on the slimy, uneven steps. 'I am new to your home but the need I have for your love is great. Please welcome me, Veiovis . . .' She felt the little bag that was slung at her shoulder, and the three precious objects within. She touched them inside the soft leather, reassured by their purpose. She would enter this dark place. She would damn the bitch blind woman to hell.

Loose masonry shifted under her foot and she lost her balance, falling forward with a cry to crack her knee on the blunt step edge. Pain shot through her limb like a spear thrust. She tried to rise, but the agony of it was worse than childbirth.

'Veiovis,' she gasped. 'Admit me, foul god . . .'

The watching eunuch in the square did not move.

A wind gust whipped the cover from Livilla's head, picking her long, black hair from its pins and tossing it into her eyes, shrouding her. The vast, iron door creaked inwards in the draught, exposing the temple's maw. But nothing could be seen inside. The open door was a sneer, mocking Livilla and enjoying her pain, yet daring her to venture forward to receive more.

She crawled up the remaining steps on her hands and knees, her leg limp behind her. When she reached the temple portico, she dragged herself along on her belly, her summer
stola
fouled in the lichen and slime.

Livilla reached the door and clawed herself upright, clutching at her precious bag. Her knee throbbed, coursing pain the whole length of her body. She stared into the gloom. There was no light at all. No windows and not a single lit lamp. Only the door admitted the daylight from outside, just as it admitted acolytes.

'Do you see me, Veiovis?' Livilla's eyes began to adjust and the god's blackened bronze statue emerged from the shade. She gasped when she saw it fully. One hand clutched a fistful of lightning bolts, while the other rested on the horned head of a goat. Veiovis's image was that of a god no longer young but not yet elderly. He was neither handsome nor heroic. He was ordinary, dressed in a simple
tunica
. If Veiovis had been a man, no one would have looked twice at him in the Forum. Yet Livilla sensed something familiar about this god, as if she
had
passed him in the Forum – and not once but many times – and yet had never stopped to
see
him.

Livilla sensed a fluttering at her lips as her breath quickened. A drip of fluid left her sex, running down the soft, inner flesh of her thigh and pooling at the wound of her knee. She felt lust surge in her heart, lust for this deceiving god. She let go of the great doorway and placed her weight upon her weakened leg. The pain seemed less. 'You are a god of healing too, Veiovis,' she whispered. 'I see it in your face.'

She moved forward, edging into the tomb-like hall. A stench gripped her nostrils – like spoiled fruit or rotting flesh. Livilla breathed in deeply, letting the foulness fill her. 'Your perfume, god . . . the smell of your power.' The reek gave her courage. Livilla held her head high, staring hungrily at the statue, her hand at the darkening fabric at her loins. 'I am here for you, my god. Claim me. Take me. Strike me with the lightning that you hold . . .'

A squeal of vermin made her scream. A dozen black rats threw themselves at her slippered feet, nipping at her, sinking their teeth into her toes, tearing at the hem of her ruined
stola
.

'My god!'

Livilla spun on her weakened limb to flee, but her knee gave way and she crashed hard to the floor as the vermin flew like crows at her beautiful face and hair.

Outside the dark temple Lygdus heard his
domina
's screams. He lurched awake at the sound, plucked from the vicious fantasies that filled his daydreams. He ran up several of the slick, dank steps and then stopped. His
domina
screamed again, a bloodcurdling noise that felt as if it stripped the skin from his back. His young brow creased at the memory of all he had so recently suffered at her hands, and he took a single step back. Livilla screamed again and Lygdus took two more steps backwards, reaching the broken flagstones of the temple's neglected square.

'Save me!' Livilla screamed from deep inside the temple's murk.

The sound of her terror thrilled the young eunuch. It was like the music and laughter from the happy tavern down the hill that he, a lowly slave, was forbidden to know. Her terror was a joy.

His eyes glittering, Lygdus returned to the place where his
domina
had told him to wait. 'Perhaps your god will save you,
domina
. . . or perhaps not,' he whispered into his cupped hands.

Livilla struck the first rat dead with the hammer she snatched from the bag; the vermin's skull split like a berry. She wielded the stout, iron head of the implement at the next rat and then the next, splattering their brains on the floor. Vermin flew at her other hand and Livilla struck at them wildly, crushing her palm but killing the beasts, feeling nothing else now in her terror of what had to be done. She heaved herself upright, her leg twisting before her. She bit back the pain of it and lurched towards the statue of the god, her eyes filled with what so many other desperate acolytes had already left for their god before her: curse tablets.

The last of the rats flew at her slipperless feet, but Livilla felt nothing of them – her determination to reach the statue's plinth was her one goal. She threw herself forward and grasped hold of the edge of the stone with her fingernails as she fell once more, crashing to her knees. The pain nearly made her lose consciousness, but Livilla summoned all the will that was hers as a Claudian and as a granddaughter of the great Augusta Livia. She plunged her hand into the bag and brought out the flattened square of lead. She didn't repeat aloud the words that were written on it; she didn't need to. They were already etched into her heart. She plunged her hand into the bag again and seized a long bronze nail. Then she slapped her leaden curse tablet against Veiovis's plinth, dislodging others. Gripping the heavy hammer in her fist, she drove the nail into the tablet, striking it again and again, nailing the evil of Aemilia's new curse to the base of the dark god.

'Read me!' she screamed at Veiovis. 'Read my curse and grant it!'

A sharp slap to his cheek awoke Lygdus.

'Get up.'

'
Domina
. . .'

She slapped him again, harder. 'I said get up. We're done here.'

Lygdus scrambled to his feet, shocked at the sight of his mistress. Livilla was caked in slime and filth, with the blood of rats splattered along her arms. Her long, black mane was wild like a witch's hair. Her eyes were frightening, rimmed with gore and glittering with malicious triumph from their night-black depths. Her wounded leg twisted before her.

'What happened to you,
domina
?'

Livilla just laughed and Lygdus felt his skin crawl.

'Do you want to redeem yourself, little lamb?'

Lygdus bit back his anger. His
domina
now knew that he was innocent of planting the curse tablet under her bed, and yet she treated him as if she didn't. 'I'll do anything to serve you,
domina
,' he muttered.

Livilla made the young eunuch carry her down the slope of the wooded hill to where her litter waited, well away from Veiovis's surrounds. As he stumbled and slid on the stones, she told him what must happen next in her plan to destroy the blind woman.

She told Lygdus what he must do if he wanted to return to his
domina
's heart.

One week later: Decrius, Commander
of the Numidian battalion at Pagyda
River, fights to his death against the
overwhelming forces of Tacfarinas. His
fleeing men abandon his corpse

Apicata emerged into sunshine from the huge bronze door that admitted only the very best people of Rome into the noble house of the Aemilii. She heard it close sharply behind her and she laughed. They despised her, of course, this great patrician clan, but they would have despised her even if she wasn't blackmailing their matriarch. They would have despised her on principle. She was lowborn, the daughter of a man of wealth but no distinction, while they were only one step removed from deities. It thrilled Apicata to know that these arrogant demigods now bowed to her word and hated her like an illness. She marvelled at the all-consuming loathing felt for her by the trapped Aemilia, and it gave Apicata ecstasies to think that she would never let the Aemilii go. When Apicata was queen, she would formally enslave the Aemilii, she decided, removing their names from the official records of Rome. Then she would turn on the other noble houses, one by one, making slaves of their finest too.

Apicata moved unimpeded along the narrow, winding street that would take her down the hill to where her maids waited. No one dared accost her or ask what she had hidden inside the earthenware pot that she clutched to her breast. No one would dare do anything to her at all, because there was no one who didn't know who Apicata was. She was the Praetorian Prefect's wife. In Rome, she was fear.

'What are you carrying, Lady?'

Apicata was brought to a halt at the young man's voice.

'What's in the pot? Is it magic?'

She flushed red. 'How dare you address me?'

'Don't be like that. What's inside it? Tell me what it is, blind woman.'

Apicata tried to shove the stranger from her path, grabbing a fistful of slack flesh as she thrust her right hand at him, clutching the pot tighter with her left.

'Ow!'

'Get out of my way.'

He offered no resistance, so she easily slipped past him, increasing her pace down the hill.

'It must be very special,' the stranger called after her.

'Girls!' Apicata shouted into the air for her waiting maids. 'Where are you? Come here to me!' She had lost count of the number of steps she had taken from the Aemilii door towards the bend in the street where she had ordered her sedan chair to wait for her. The total distance was sixty paces, and she had gone at least half that – or was it something less? She could hear her maids' voices, but the step count flew out of her head. 'Come to me,' she called, panicked. 'I have lost the number –'

Apicata reached the bend before she realised it, and the abrupt descent of the street made her lose her footing, pitching her forward. She fell hard on her face, the pot smashing beneath her. She lay there dazed, blood filling her mouth as she heard the sounds of her frightened maids running towards her.

'
Domina!
'

'
Domina
, your face!'

'There's blood!'

'She has hurt herself – let me help you lift her,' said the voice of the young man who had accosted her. Apicata tried to tell her women that this youth must not be allowed to touch her, but the words, when they came, were garbled.

'She has struck her head,' said the young man.

Apicata felt herself being lifted from the cobbles. 'No . . . no, wait . . .' The broken pot and its contents were exposed. 'Don't . . . touch it . . .' She twisted in the young man's grip and tried to stretch towards the ground to save what was most precious. Her fingertips brushed a tiny wax hand.

'You'll drop her!'

'I've got her, look,' said Lygdus. Apicata weighing nothing in his arms, he tossed her into the chair of her sedan. The maids rushed around to dab at her bloodied face and Apicata tried to fight them off, but the pain in her head made her faint.

When one of the maids went back to where her
domina
's pot had smashed, she found nothing there but pieces of broken clay. She thought she remembered there being something more. She looked around for the young eunuch who had been so helpful but he was gone.

Aemilia closed the great bronze door a second time, shutting the scene in the street from view. It was done.

'Mother?' said her oldest daughter, Lepida. The girl was fearful.

Aemilia smoothed the girl's hair. 'We must summon your brothers now,' she said.

The younger girl Domitia looked grim. 'Aemilius is with his tutor in the Forum.'

'His schooling is done now. It is his day to act as a man. Ask the steward to retrieve him, will you, Domitia?'

'And Ahenobarbus?'

'He'll be sitting by the kitchen furnace. Send him in here.'

'Yes, Mother.' Domitia left the hall.

Lepida was left to stare as her mother retrieved a folded piece of papyrus. 'You remember what this letter says, don't you, Lepida?'

The girl's eyes filled with tears, but she wouldn't shame her mother by shedding them. 'It is your confession, Mother.'

Aemilia nodded. 'The day has arrived and now it must be sent.'

Lepida bit her lip.

'When your brothers are here, you are to go – the four of you together – all the way up the hill to Oxheads, just like we spoke of. Do you remember?'

'Of course, Mother.'

'You will have your brothers with you but be sure to take some amulets. Aemilius will speak to the guards.'

'He's only seven.'

'He is now a man,' Aemilia stressed. 'Tell him to show the guards Ahenobarbus's red hair. They will be very struck by that. Soldiers think such things lucky.'

'I understand.'

'When you are admitted into the presence of the Emperor, you are to give my confession to him. You are to tell him that your heart is broken by doing it, but that you have no choice. Your love for Rome is stronger than your love for a mother who so betrays it.'

Lepida nodded and a tear broke free of her will, slipping down her nose. Aemilia's voice caught in her throat and she kneeled, grasping her daughter in her arms, kissing her face and hair. 'I will soon be gone, but you will not need me.'

'But we will, Mama, we always will,' Lepida sobbed.

'Not at all. You have your destinies now. Each one of you has been chosen by Veiovis to know power – even poor Ahenobarbus. The Aemilii will be great again – it is the god's will – and each of you will be given your path. Veiovis has decided it.'

Lepida wept as if her heart would break.

'Ssh,' said Aemilia tenderly. 'Ssh, my little pearl. Your brothers will come to know what it is to stand at the very summit of Rome, and your sister will know it too. But the path that will be given to you, Lepida, is the path that will lead the Aemilii to a power no man before us has known.'

Lepida fell silent, her cheeks wet with tears.

'Because it will be a
woman's
power, my daughter, not a man's. It is the power of she who is so long asleep . . . It is the power of the rarest of birds.'

'Pitiable,' said Livilla, as Lygdus handed her the stolen contents of the jar.

Lygdus said nothing, oblivious to the significance of the strange objects he had taken from the blind woman's broken pottery. 'Am I redeemed now,
domina
?' he muttered.

'Hmm?'

'Am I redeemed?'

Livilla was distracted by her little Laconian puppy dashing into the room. 'Scylax!' She swept up the dog in her arms, kissing its snout and ears as it licked her cheeks and beat its tail like a whip. 'My little lamb,' Livilla murmured lovingly at the beast. 'Mama loves her little lamb.'

When Livilla remembered Lygdus again, he had gone.

She dismissed him from her thoughts. Putting the pup aside, she picked up Aemilia's magic in her hands. There were two red wax figures, a man and woman, closely entwined. The man had human hair, black and thick, glued to his head. At the loins of the figure was an oversized wax phallus, thick and curved, piercing the sex of the wax woman.

'Pitiable,' said Livilla again. The pup Scylax cocked his head to the side, waiting for his mistress to kiss him. But Livilla was focused wholly on the witchcraft. She guessed who the figures were meant to represent – the blind woman and her husband. The wax woman had Apicata's light brown hair. 'She fears she's losing him,' Livilla smirked.

Digging her nails into the wax, she prised the two figures apart. The phallus of the man slipped out easily, exposing a yawning cleft in the woman. Livilla carefully placed the Sejanus figure aside and regarded the wax Apicata. She brought the head of it to her mouth, gripping her teeth around it and holding the figure there, enjoying the sensation of Apicata's hair upon her tongue.

Then she clenched her teeth together and bit the head from the neck, swallowing it. She gagged as the wax ball slid down her throat. Placing her hands at her belly Livilla felt the churn as her stomach greeted her enemy's head. In a few days the hairy wax ball would reappear again, having passed through Livilla's body. Livilla would order a slave to scoop it from the lavatory and, following Aemilia's instructions to the letter, she would enact the final outrage of Apicata's demise.