Nest of Vipers (13 page)

Four months later: the patrician matron
Aemilia of the Aemilii is found guilty of
witchcraft, poisoning and consulting with
astrologers regarding the Imperial house

I flinched a little when the
mangon
's six scribes felt the swords plunge deep and hard between their ribs. Some of them had looks of incredulity upon their faces, while the others showed a sad resignation that their lot as slaves had come to this. I met the eyes of one with a look I hoped held sorrow and compassion as the steel buried in his chest. Agrippina's loyal men showed no compunction at all in stabbing these literate, valuable men, withdrawing their blades and wiping them on the fallen slaves'
tunicae
. But I felt it was excessive. They had done no wrong; their master was the criminal. With the scribes gurgling in death upon the floor and adding to the blood shed by the other auction assistants, Agrippina's men looked to their patroness for her next directive.

'Onwards,' she said. 'He is hiding in this stinking hole somewhere.'

The dozen men surged through the tawdry rooms and dank, dark cells of the
mangon
's compound, calling out his name as children would in a hide-and-seek game.

Left in their wake with the scribes' corpses, I imagined I heard a muffled sob. 'Listen . . .'

Nilla and Burrus, waiting with me, hadn't heard.

'Listen . . . there!' I ran my hands along the rough, wooden wall of the compound's atrium.

'What is it, Iphicles?' said Burrus.

'There's a hidden room behind this wall. I heard the bastard crying. Help me find the door, Burrus.'

'Like the door to the Emperor's garden?'

I had forgotten that he knew Oxheads' architectural surprises as well as I did. 'Press gently. We'll find it if we're smart.'

Burrus and Nilla joined me in running their hands along the wall, and I saw the way they stood next to each other – closer and more intimate than a mistress and slave should be.

'Move away,' I hissed at Burrus. 'You look unseemly standing that close, boy.'

Burrus stayed as he was.

'Move!'

'We have a secret,' Nilla whispered to me, feeling along the wall surface with her palms.

I guessed now what it might be and I didn't like it. 'Don't tell me anything I don't need to hear, Lady. Just help me find the man who enslaved you, if you're not bothered by the way Burrus stands next to you so disrespectfully.'

'The
mangon
thought he enslaved me but he never did,' said Nilla, smiling. 'And I never did anything he told me to, either.'

'Then he must have beaten you for being disobedient – and for that he deserves what's coming to him.'

'Burrus took all my beatings for me,' said Nilla. She was humble in revealing this, and it was clear how very much she loved and respected the boy.

'Burrus is very brave –' I began to say.

'Burrus is free,' said Nilla. 'That's our secret. I freed him when we were living on the shore together. That's why he was not enslaved by this man either. We were both free when the
mangon
took us – so the enslavement was illegal.'

I shook my head at this childish logic and moved to another part of the shabby atrium wall, sure that a door was hidden there somewhere. I listened again for the sob but there was nothing. All I could hear was Agrippina's men deep inside the slave complex, looting the
mangon
's coin chests as they searched for him. 'You are too young to perform manumission,' I told Nilla, 'and Burrus is too young to be freed. Only your mother can perform something like that in this household – or your uncle Castor.'

Burrus said nothing, concentrating on the task. I waited for Nilla to tell me I was wrong, but she said nothing either. I saw the sly looks they passed between themselves. 'Burrus is
not
free,' I reiterated. 'Drop these silly notions at once, Lady – it's not fair to him.'

'I know what I know,' said Burrus quietly.

'You know nothing, boy!'

'Mother has given me Burrus,' said Nilla. 'Did you know that?'

'Which only proves he's a slave – you can't "give" a freedman, Lady.'

Nilla just shrugged. 'If Burrus is mine, then it means I can treat him as I like. So I choose not to treat him as a slave.'

I scoffed. 'What are you then, Burrus?'

'I am Nilla's friend,' he said. And for a moment I felt an emotion catch in my throat at his simple, innocent dignity. In his love for Nilla he was just like me in my lifetime of love for my
domina
. But in Burrus's passionate desire to be free he was nothing like me at all. This dream of his was something I had never had and could never hope to understand.

I felt the wall beneath my fingers give way minutely as I pressed against it. When I leaned away, the section clicked softly into alignment once more.

'In here, Lady!' I called to Agrippina. 'The man is in here.'

All three of us heard the muffled sobs again and knew I was right.

Agrippina and her dozen men returned from where they had been pillaging the
mangon
's goods, and I stood aside with Nilla and Burrus as the hidden door was battered in with axes. It soon fell into pieces, revealing a windowless anteroom where the bejewelled
mangon
cowered and wept on a bed. The giant German warrior we had seen at the slave auction stood impassively by the anteroom wall. I caught Nilla creasing her brow at the sight of him.

Agrippina saw him too and remembered. 'Kill the barbarian first,' she said.

Two of her loyal men threw themselves into the room with their swords raised but didn't get two feet closer before the warrior disarmed them with his bare hands. The men were left winded in dismay. The warrior produced a sword of his own and tossed it onto the floor, along with those taken from the men. His eyes flicked to Nilla and there was kindness in them before he turned to Agrippina. 'Kill me, then,' he said, in clear, unaccented Latin. 'But not in the room of this pig. I would rather die in the street where I can breathe the air and see the moon. I know why you're here. Your vengeance is well deserved, in my view.'

Agrippina stared at him in astonishment – as did the
mangon
. 'Defend me!' the
mangon
ordered. But the giant man just crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for whatever would happen next. The two disarmed men sprang forward again and pinned the
mangon
to the bed by his shoulders, followed by another two, who held his legs. Then the remaining men filled the room to restrain the golden-haired warrior. He made no struggle. All waited for Agrippina's word.

It took her a long moment to pull her eyes from the warrior's features. He was battle-worn and coarse, and yet he had a powerful beauty. He had been an Adonis in his youth, it was clear, but maturity had toughened him, turning his body into an instrument of death. She pulled her gaze away. 'See, Nilla,' she whispered, wanting her daughter to feast upon the scene of the
mangon
's humiliation. 'This will be justice done.'

Nilla was pale, but she held steady in the face of all the violence she had seen so far. Burrus stood resolute by her side. 'Yes, Mother. Justice.'

Agrippina cast a determined look to me but I glanced at the floor. Her unstable thirst for vengeance had led her back to the slave market, but I knew it would give her no release, no matter how brutal her retributions. Agrippina's hatred of the
mangon
was nothing compared with the depth of her loathing for Tiberius. All this made me extremely uncomfortable, given the extent to which I myself was responsible for Agrippina's grief. But she was ignorant of that, of course, and I was determined she would remain that way. I had prophecy on my side and I drew comfort from the certainty it gave me while I played my games, hiding my true feelings from the world like any accomplished slave – or god.

One of the men handed Agrippina a short, thick, legionary's sword and she felt the weight of it, surprised by its lightness. The
mangon
's eyes widened and he scrabbled on his back in the bed like an upended beetle. The men pinned him down harder.

'You enslaved my daughter – how can I
not
make you suffer?' she said.

'But I didn't know who she was –' 'No excuse.'

'How could I have known? She never told me!'

'Such a beautiful patrician girl? A great-granddaughter of the Divine Augustus? You
knew
.'

'I didn't know anything!'

Agrippina wielded the sword inexpertly, dragging the tip along the
mangon
's tunic and splitting the fabric that stretched across his fat, round gut. A red line streaked his flesh. 'Please,' he screamed, 'I'll do anything!'

She flicked the sword at his foot and was startled by how easily it took off a toe. The nub of flesh and bone bounced across the floor as the
mangon
howled with pain.

Nilla kept her eyes on the scene although it disgusted her. The golden-haired warrior showed no reaction. But when Nilla met his eyes again, he smiled at her. There was apology in his face, but also acceptance of whatever Fate would bring.

Suddenly Nilla turned to her mother. 'Please do not kill Flamma.'

'Who?'

'This barbarian. His name is Flamma.'

Agrippina flicked the sword at another toe.

'Please, Mother. No more killing tonight, once the
mangon
is done.'

Agrippina gave her daughter a look that was unfocused and lost. I saw the terrible despair in her face, the tormenting grief, and I wished to the gods that I could deliver her from it somehow – without exposing my guilt. For all that I had done, I meant Agrippina no personal ill will. But when she turned to look at the giant again, she was shocked to find pity in his eyes. Angry, she jabbed the sword near his face. 'Don't you dare feel sorry for me, barbarian.'

Flamma didn't flinch or take his eyes from her.

'Mother,' said Nilla gently, 'we would do well to have Flamma as our own slave. He is very strong and brave – but also kind.'

'He kidnapped you, Nilla – there was nothing kind in that. He is a barbarian.'

'My grandfather was a barbarian,' said Flamma, 'but not I, Lady. I am neither a warrior nor a German. I lived my life as a gladiator before this cur purchased me. I kidnapped the children as I was ordered, but it stuck in my heart to do so. It was wrong. It was always obvious to me that the girl was highborn.'

'Shut up!' screamed his pinned master.

Agrippina was again transfixed by Flamma. 'You look too old to be a gladiator,' she said.

'I am thirty years,' he agreed, 'but I was the best gladiator in Antioch in my prime.'

Agrippina faltered at the reminder of the place where her husband had died.

'I fought before the great Germanicus once.'

'Mother,' said Nilla, as Agrippina's eyes began to mist.

'It was the highest honour I have known,' Flamma went on, speaking softly to Agrippina, 'fighting before that great and noble man – and achieving victory before him too. I was the last man standing that day and Germanicus threw me a wreath. My life is worthless now, but if I could dedicate whatever I have left to something, it would be to avenging his memory.'

Agrippina blinked back her tears, raking Flamma's face for the smallest hint of cynicism or flattery, or the stink of claims made in haste by a frightened, cornered man. But Flamma showed none of these things. He was courageous and sincere. She turned to Nilla. 'Will justice still be done if we spare this man? Is that what you want?'

The girl nodded. 'Flamma will be loyal to us if he is made ours, I know it.'

The sword slipped from Agrippina's fingers, clattering to the wooden floor. 'We will take this man then,' she said to the room. 'The
mangon
can keep his pathetic life – if not his toes. Cut the rest of them off.'

The men began their work on the shrieking slave-seller while Agrippina pulled her
palla
tightly around her shoulders and led Nilla from the room. Flamma's deep blue eyes watched after her, revealing nothing. Agrippina stopped at the door and turned around to look at him one last time. The men paused in slicing up the
mangon
's feet.

'The greatest gladiator in Antioch, are you?'

Flamma bowed slightly. 'I claimed that title in my prime, Lady.'

'Well, you're in Rome now, gladiator. Perhaps your prime will return?' She looked to the leader of her men. 'Put this Flamma out to fight. There will be arena combats for the
Ludi Romani
next year. Let's have him prepared for them so that we can see whether thirty years is the maximum age a gladiator can attain in Rome – or whether the very best from Antioch can live to see thirty-one.'

She ushered Nilla from the room, refusing to meet the gladiator's gaze again.

The guards announced their presence at the great bronze door, beating on it twice with a sword hilt and then waiting in silence. Seated in her upstairs receiving room, with her four children arranged around her like the statues of household gods, Aemilia heard the noise and closed her eyes. 'They are prompt,' she said. She took a last sip of the Falernian wine she cradled, savouring its fine taste. 'Exquisite,' she said, after a moment.

The children wore their mourning clothes already, their faces streaked with grief. Aemilia's two sons, the young Aemilius and the red-haired mute, Ahenobarbus, just seven and fifteen respectively, wore the unbleached funeral
togae
of men. Lepida and Domitia, fifteen and thirteen, were mirrors of their mother's great beauty, despite their undressed hair and grey
stolae
. Three of the four heirs of the Aemilii looked at their mother with a depth of love that went beyond any words. The fourth heir, Ahenobarbus, was unable to look at anything but the flame of the oil lamp.

Aemilia stood, placing the cup on her table and reaching for a goblet of water. She drank deep, carefully wetting her lips with it, before putting it aside. 'I am ready now,' she said.

The children assembled in a line.

Smoothing her simple white gown at her lap, she lifted the edge of the silk shawl she wore at her shoulders so that it rested on her hair.