Nest of Vipers (33 page)

She walked quickly from the room and was gone.

In the excruciating silence that followed a single hand-clap rang through the room.

'Mother?' said Tiberius.

Alarmed, I signalled to Lygdus to raise me so that I could see my
domina
in her chair. Her curled, dry hands were now in her lap, palm touching palm. A single clap it may have been, and not much of a clap at that, but she was applauding me for my performance.

'Run. Just run.' Agrippina dragged the terrified girls from their beds.

'But what has happened?'

'There is no time. Just run. As fast as you can. Your brothers are safe but you are alone. Run into the night and along the little street to Antonia's house. Bang on her door as loudly as you can. Beg her to hide you. She will do it. She loves you.'

'Please, what has happened, Mother?' said Nilla.

Agrippina stared into her eldest daughter's eyes. 'The time has come,' she whispered.

'Then I will stay and fight.'

'You will protect your younger sisters.'

'I will never leave you.'

Agrippina slapped her daughter hard. 'You will do as I say.'

She bundled the younger girls into her arms, kissing Drusilla and Julilla desperately. 'Flamma,' she called.

The gladiator ushered Burrus into the room. 'The boy will escort them.'

'Good.'

'Then I will return,' said Burrus.

'You will not,' Flamma said.

Burrus saw the mark on Nilla's cheek where she had been slapped by Agrippina.

'Why let us train for this moment,' said Burrus, angry, 'if now we must run away like rats?'

Flamma went to strike him but Agrippina stayed his hand. 'This is not your moment, Burrus. It is mine – and my men's. We are outnumbered. The guards will crush us. But we will fight with all we have. Your moment will come later – and Nilla's with it. It will come when you avenge us.'

Nilla started to weep. 'No, Mother, you will win. Your supporters will beat all those guards.'

Agrippina smiled. 'Perhaps I am being pessimistic.'

'You are. The people will rise up when they hear the battle. They will rush to your aid.'

The sounds of running feet echoed from the street outside. Somewhere beyond them, hobnailed boots could be heard ascending the Palatine. The Praetorians had been dispatched from the Viminal Gate.

Agrippina kissed her oldest daughter tenderly. 'Take them, Burrus. Now. Slip out through the sewers.'

The slave-boy nodded and then turned to look soberly into the eyes of his mentor.

'You have a killer's skill now, boy,' Flamma told him. 'Use what I have taught you well.'

Burrus saw the fatherly love Flamma had for him and knelt and kissed the gladiator's great hands. 'I will never forget it,' he said. Then he swept up the girls and was gone.

Emerging with Burrus from the sewers to flee along the back lanes, the sisters' need was so desperate that they did not see the first daubed message on the walls. But when they passed a second, with its paint still running down the stucco, they realised that what little still remained of their childhood was over. They were women now. In a world that was cruel with men.

The Emperor cannot be blamed for taking stern action
against those who accuse him of poison.

On Tiberius's orders, Sejanus had sent out the graffiti slaves before he had even summoned the guards.

Inside the house the widow and her gladiator heard the last of her supporters fall by a Praetorian's sword. Then the ram was taken up and applied with vigour against her door. It would not hold long. The guards were singing.

Germanicus's sword in her hand, Agrippina pressed her lips to the wax mask of her murdered husband and held them there, remembering the touch of his flesh on her flesh, his breath like the breeze in her hair. She released herself and let go of her grief. She was done. Agrippina turned to Flamma and kissed him fully.

'I love you,' she said.

'I know it, Lady. I love you, too.'

Each held their sword as they embraced.

'I will find you in the afterlife,' said Agrippina.

'I will search for you. We will be reunited.'

'Yes, we will.'

They gripped their swords tightly as the front door broke from its pivots.

'Goodbye, Lady.'

'Goodbye, Flamma.'

Agrippina thrust her blade into his chest just as Flamma pierced her ribs. He had trained her too well. Her action split his heart in two before his arm had fully spent itself. His thrust was lost, dissipated by death. Flamma's sword sliced her flesh but did not kill her.

The widow lived.

One week later: the Thracian mountain
tribesmen who did not surrender to
Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus succumb to the
Balkan winter

Sejanus dragged her arms above her head and roped them to the post. Then he tore the linen gown from her back, exposing the soft, pale flesh. The wound at her ribs pulled open again as she fought against the inevitable. Blood dripped to the floor.

'Beg forgiveness,' said Tiberius.

'Never,' said Agrippina.

Sejanus cracked the whip at her spine and a left a long scarlet ribbon on her skin.

'Beg it,' said Tiberius.

'You're a cunt,' said Agrippina.

Sejanus whipped her until his arm ached. The knots in the lash held tiny hooks that tore the skin and then took the muscle from her back. Her bones gleamed white beneath the gore.

Tiberius sobbed to see her beauty spoiled and raised his hand. Sejanus waited. The Emperor crept forward and placed his lips at Agrippina's ear. 'How could you have thought it?' he said, weeping softly. 'How could you have thought I would poison you?'

'I was wrong,' said Agrippina. Her mouth dribbled blood. 'There was no poison in the food at all – it was in the air. The words were poisoned.'

'My words?'

She shook her head. 'Sejanus. He'll kill you with his words once he's killed all the rest.'

Tiberius snatched the whip from Sejanus's hand and took to her in a frenzy. Ignoring her back, he attacked her belly, lashing at her wound, her breasts and her face. He dislodged her left eye, and the shock of seeing it slip from the socket to hang loose upon her cheek made him drop the whip. Those geese, those noisy geese that had once saved Rome from the Gauls – he could hear them. They were loud and insistent in warning.

'Make them stop,' said Tiberius, his hands to his ears.

'Make what stop, Caesar?' said Sejanus.

'The birds. Make them stop!' He staggered from the room.

Sejanus regarded Agrippina for a moment. Then he cut her down from the post. Left alone, Agrippina heard a tiny voice whisper in her ear – a voice she had already heard once before.

'
One would-be queen is one-eyed too until the truth gives comforts
. . .'

'The one-eyed queen.' She began to laugh.

If Agrippina now knew the truth, she was thankful for it – but it was yet to give her comfort.

The sight of relatives weeping over traitors dead on the Gemonian Stairs was so commonplace in Rome that the two women who moved slowly from corpse to corpse aroused no interest at all in those who could see their progress from the Forum below. The grim stairs had become such a place of fear in Rome that people avoided looking up at them anyway, in terror of tempting the Fates.

The two hooded women picked their way carefully around the limbs and heads that had been torn loose by the dogs, and only halted when they came across corpses still intact. If anyone had watched their actions long enough, they would have seen the women crouch over the executed traitors, seemingly muttering prayers. The way the two women never remained at any one corpse for very long before moving on to the next one might have struck an observer as unusual, or then again it might not have: many in Rome had lost more than one friend or family member to Sejanus.

But the truth was that the two women went about their business unobserved, and so were able to hack off rotting hands and male genitals from some two dozen executed traitors, filling the sack they carried to capacity by the time they reached the summit of the Arx.

Plancina had been unable to wield the knife, of course, owing to her lack of hands, but Apicata proved adept at the task, despite her lack of eyes. Standing in the chill February wind on the Arx, Apicata ran her hands along the seat of the empty garrotting chair. Two tears fell from her useless eyes. Plancina saw them and hooked her handless arm through Apicata's, leading her away.

'Such a terrible way to end,' Apicata whispered. 'It's so shameful, so obscene.'

'We don't know how he'll end yet,' said Plancina. 'It could be even worse for him, for all we know. Tiberius might let loose the beasts.'

This only made Apicata weep again.

Plancina comforted her, but wanted her new friend to keep focused on their goal. 'You cannot allow yourself to pity him, Apicata, nor can you allow yourself to forgive him.'

Apicata nodded, and dabbed at her nose with her
stola
hem. 'But can I allow myself to love him still? Nothing I do can ever stop that.'

Plancina accepted this. Whether Apicata still loved Sejanus or not was immaterial. They now had the ingredients that would see him broken in the sand.

'The druid is not there, Prefect,' said Macro, emerging into the alley from the Subura hovel. He tried to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked up at Sejanus astride his horse.

'Where is he, then?' Sejanus demanded.

'The woman doesn't know.'

'What woman?'

'The woman who claims the druid sold his business to her.'

Sejanus swung himself down from the horse and thrust his face into the Tribune's. 'Are you mocking me, Macro?'

Macro didn't flinch. 'No, Prefect. I am reporting what occurred. The druid no longer lives inside this house – he is gone. A freedwoman lives here now.'

Sejanus grabbed the Tribune by the throat. 'Do you know how important it is that the Emperor gets his Eastern flower?'

Macro did. He also knew how important it was that Sejanus got a measure of the stuff for himself, too. They were weak-willed lotus eaters, the two of them, Macro thought, not that he was stupid enough to say as much. Sejanus's hand tightened. 'The woman said she can still provide the flower, Prefect,' Macro managed to spit out. 'She bought the druid's business from him.'

'Then why haven't you come outside with the flower?'

'The woman's story seemed irregular. I thought it better to inform you of it first.'

Sejanus let go of Macro's throat and walked directly to the hovel's low door, kicking it hard. The door flew inwards and Sejanus entered the dank room, ducking his head. There was a beautiful woman crouched by the fire in shadow, her slender back blighted by a thick, bulbous hump.

'Give me the Eastern flower,' said Sejanus. He was repelled by the sight of her deformity.

'It's all ready and prepared,' Martina smiled. She stood up and stretched as wafts of steam arose from her hump from where she had been warming it. The stink reached Sejanus.

'Do you know who I am?' he choked, placing his hand in front of his nose.

'The druid told me it was best to keep things anonymous with the customers,' said Martina. 'I don't know you from Apollo's prick. Let's keep it that way, shall we?'

In any other circumstance Sejanus would have run Martina through with a sword. 'Show it to me.'

Martina fumbled in her cloak and brought out a small, square bundle bound in calf skin. 'I wrapped it up nicely for you,' she told him. 'The druid was very particular that I should. He told me you liked your fancy packaging.'

'Give it to me.'

Martina threw it to him. Sejanus pulled his knife from the scabbard at his belt and stuck the point into the calf skin. Then he pressed his thumbnail into the hole and withdrew it again, licking it with his tongue. He savoured the taste.

'No one knows where the stuff comes from,' Martina mused. 'Makes you wonder what sort of a place it must be, doesn't it?'

Sejanus felt the surge of the flower's magic and loosened the money pouch at his belt. He tossed it to Martina.

'I'm sure I don't need to count it,' she smiled, tucking the pouch into her cloak.

Sejanus turned on his heel.

'Do you think we'll ever be seeing the
musica muta
again?' she called after him.

Sejanus stopped and looked back at her over his shoulder. His pupils were huge.

'I miss all their fun – don't you?' said Martina. 'And now the Emperor's got the hump against the
Ludi
too. No more gladiators in Rome. Seems a shame, if you ask me. What are people meant to do for entertainment?'

'They can travel five miles up the Tiber to Fidenae.'

Martina dismissed this. 'A little bird told me Fidenae will be a one-off.'

Sejanus just stared at her.

'Be seeing you again soon?' she asked him.

But Sejanus was already outside and mounting his horse.

When the Prefect and his Praetorians had gone, Martina stirred the iron pot that simmered gently on the fire. The fleshy remains of hands and genitals arose to the surface before settling into the broth again. Martina's friends emerged from the curtained backroom together, Plancina keeping her handless arm hooked through Apicata's good limb, as she always did now.

'What will it do to him?' Apicata asked when she had taken a seat near the fire.

'Nothing much, to begin with,' said Martina, scratching her hump.

Plancina laughed. 'Like all your best poisons, Martina.'

The sorceress agreed. 'The best ones build their strength slowly – but this one's not a poison. It's not going to make him ill.'

'What will it do to him?' Apicata asked again.

'It'll make him careless,' said Martina. 'Very careless.' As an afterthought, she added, 'It'll make poor old Tiberius a bit careless too.'

Martina and Plancina's cackles spilled through the hovel's door, echoing in the narrow Suburan alley. But Apicata's laughter did not join them.

Seven months later: Lucius Calpurnius
Piso, governor of Nearer Spain, is attacked
and murdered by a peasant from Termes
while riding unguarded

The Emperor cannot be blamed for taking stern action
against those who accuse him of poison.

Whenever this graffiti was whitewashed from a wall or replaced by a pro-Agrippina slogan, it would return within hours. Eventually, when only a few of Agrippina's known supporters remained in Rome, people stopped removing the words. Lygdus was not as effusive about these developments as I wished him to be.

'What's wrong with you now?' I snapped.

He shook his head. 'Nothing.'

'You ought to be glad.'

'Ought I?' said Lygdus.

'Elation is what you feel – we have removed an obstacle.'

He looked depressed. 'I have never known a
domina
like Agrippina before,' he said.

'She is very different from Livilla,' I agreed.

'She is courageous. She is . . . more like a
dominus
.'

I agreed this was also true. 'But she is not charged with treason. She is not dead on the Stairs,' I said, repeating the official line. 'She is merely under guard for her own protection.'

'Don't insult me, Iphicles. She's not allowed outside her rooms. No slaves can attend her. Not even her children can visit.'

'She's still very much alive,' I said, 'and so is Nero. He's free to roam the city as he likes. And I dare say he likes it a lot. Keep taking plenty of notes on his adventures, Lygdus.'

We left the defaced wall and walked a little way down the hill towards the Forum before Lygdus stopped again. He looked so pleadingly into my eyes that I pulled him roughly into an alley, where no one could overhear us. 'All right – what is it?' I said.

'Can't we . . . spare some of them?' he asked.

'What are you talking about?'

'Not all of them deserve it – not all of our masters. Some have qualities that . . . surprise me.'

I could only laugh. 'Castor wasn't a bad man but you were still happy to poison his footbath.'

'I wasn't happy.'

I scoffed.

'All right, I was only happy before,' Lygdus tried to explain, 'before I
knew
–'

'Knew the truth about murder?' I sneered. 'Well, you know it now and you
wanted
to know – let's not forget that, Lygdus. And the other truth about murder is that once you've started, there's no going back.'

'I joined you in this because I wanted to hurt them, to punish them, but now . . .'

I didn't say another word until he dared to look me in the eye again. 'Too late.'

'No, it's not –'

'Things will move like lightning because of everything we've done, and there's no stopping it now.'

'We can save some of them – one or two of them.'

'We can't! They're damned – do you hear me? Every last one of them is damned by the gods, except the one the gods have chosen.'

'So one of them
will
be spared?'

'I have told you many times who that will be – it's Little Boots.'

Lygdus said nothing more for several moments, until, just as I concluded that our discussion was done, he whispered, 'What if we'd do better sparing another?'

I raised my hand to strike him but he didn't even flinch. He merely stared me in the eye with a look of hope on his face. I heard a tiny voice of doubt in me, a voice I had heard before. I had ignored it before, and easily. But this time its call was clearer, sharper, and painful in my heart. 'What,' the voice asked me, 'what if the question to be asked is not whether the prophecy is right – about that there is no question – but whether the prophecy is
good
?'

Lygdus waited.

'It's not meant to be anyone else but Little Boots,' I said at last. But he saw the effort that saying this cost me.

The eunuch followed me as I left the alley, but he did not walk at my side. He stayed several paces behind, so that I couldn't see his face and he couldn't see mine. When we had descended the hill and were facing the Forum throng, he called out to me. 'You're going on holiday, Iphicles.'

I turned. 'What are you talking about?'

'You're being sent away. I heard them talking about it.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Yes, you are. Tiberius is doing a tour of the countryside with Sejanus and he wants you among the slaves.'

I stared at him. 'Why does he want me?'

'I've no idea,' said Lygdus. 'But that's what the order was. Like I said, I heard them talking.'

I was bewildered.

'It could be worse – at least you'll be near the seaside.'

'But what about the
domina
?'

Lygdus shrugged. 'She'll be with Nero. And me.'

I was too startled to reply, but when I finally thought of something Lygdus was walking away ahead of me.

'What do you mean she'll be with Nero? Where is he taking her?'

'To Fidenae,' Lygdus called over his shoulder. 'Since Tiberius has gone sour on the
Ludi
now, Nero thinks Rome has become boring. He's right. Rome is boring. But there's a new wooden amphitheatre five miles up the Tiber, so Nero wants to attend the inaugural games there. At Fidenae they still appreciate entertainment.'

'What has this to do with Livia?' I demanded.

Lygdus just shrugged again. 'He wants to carry her around in his retinue like Castor did.' He disappeared into the crush of Forum traffic.

'Wait! Lygdus!' I tried to shout after him. 'Is this your doing?'

But he was gone.

I stood there devastated. My precious son was hatching schemes of his own.