Nest of Vipers (36 page)

'He was here and then he left again,
domina
,' I managed to reply.

'I see. What an insult to his great-grandmother.'

'He was sulking about his
toga virilis
,' I tried to explain. 'He refuses to wear one, which is disgraceful. He's already fourteen.'

'The boy knows his own mind. He shall not wear one, then.'

I was horrified. 'But that's . . . unprecedented!'

'Let him stay a boy. Perhaps Tiberius will like him for it?'

My mind raced trying to work out what game Livia was playing. She abruptly stood up and my hand was freed.

'Tiberius barely knows who Little Boots is,' I whispered.

'There you are wrong. A letter has come, stamped with the Emperor's own seal, requesting your beloved Little Boots to join him on Capri.'

The blood left my face. 'What for?'

Livia looked up at the tall window that filled her anteroom with light. She placed her hand on the silk curtain, letting it linger there for a moment before she gripped the silk in her fist, watching her knuckles turn white as she pulled. The curtain, its rings and the long bronze rod that supported them came crashing to the floor.

'I don't know what for,' said Livia. 'Perhaps he wants Little Boots to add to his entertainment?'

Chills shot along my spine. 'He will kill him!'

'Surely not.'

'Sejanus will kill him, then – it's a plot. He means him harm,
domina
. Don't let the boy go, I beg you!'

'You beg me? I can scarcely imagine that.'

I crawled along the floor on my belly until I reached her foot. I began to kiss her toes through the slipper. 'Please,
domina
.'

Livia stooped and took up the curtain rod, letting the rings slide down its length. They fell to the floor, and she lifted the rod high in the air like Victory's sword. 'Too late, I'm afraid – he's going.'

I pressed my lips to her ankle, closing my eyes tight. 'Nero is not the second king,
domina
.'

She smashed the rod hard on my back and then raised it again. 'I know that,' she said. She smashed the metal onto my thighs. 'But your greatest mistake was having an opinion about it in the first place.'

She dashed the rod across my back again and again.

As he entered his house in Rome at last, after so many weeks away, Sejanus felt in no way cheated by the sentence of exile that had been passed upon the gamesmaster at Fidenae. It had been within Sejanus's power to have the sentence upped to the cruellest execution imaginable, yet he had not done so. The Forum mob would have loved him for it, but their hatred was far more satisfying. And it was somehow even more pleasing with the blend of the Eastern flower supplied to him by the hunchback.

She who had once appeared loathsome now seemed like a friend. She understood the way that hatred so aroused him. She encouraged him with her eyes. If her disfigurement were not so repellent, he would have made sexual penetration part of their transaction, enjoying the hunchback in front of her fire. Her lustful eyes told him she would have relished such a privilege.

Fuelled by the morning's first draught, Sejanus had allowed the gamesmaster's sentence to pass uncontested in the Senate and had laughed at the mob's howls. The wretch would be hunted down and killed as soon as he left the city walls anyway, but Sejanus liked being seen as having no part in the vengeance. When he finally came to rule in his own right, he would not have himself known as a king who listened to Rome's basest desires. He would do all that he could to be thought of as a king who excoriated them.

Sejanus's slaves undressed him on the heated tiles of the entrance hall, wiping him with sponges before presenting him with a choice of fresh
tunicae
. He saw the dog Scylax wagging its tail in the atrium.

'The lady is here?' he asked his steward.

'Yes,
domine
–' the slave started to explain, but Sejanus dismissed him, eschewing new clothing and moving across the atrium to pat the friendly dog. His lust for the hunchback would be spent on his lover, a more predictable but rarely disappointing pleasure. Naked, he continued down the corridor and flung the doors to his sleeping room wide, ready for her.

My
domina
's smile curled from where she displayed herself upon the vast bed. 'You've disrobed for me? What an expectant lover.' She slipped the gown from her shoulders, letting it spill to the tips of her breasts. They were young again, full and firm. 'Have you missed me, Sejanus?'

The Prefect stammered, shocked to find my
domina
here. Then he saw me, Iphicles, cowering on the floor. He found his tongue. 'I have missed you deeply, Livia. I had believed Death would take you while you slept for so long.'

'So many people tell me they feared this, but Death never came for me at all. Only Somnus came. My illness was spent in his dreams.'

Sejanus stayed standing where he was. 'What was wrong with you? Why were you paralysed?'

Livia paused before answering, casting her eyes pointedly upon me. 'I do not know,' she said. 'I have no recollection of any of it. Even the dreams are like mists to me. I think I can see the answer in the swirls that drift just beyond my line of sight, but when I narrow my eyes to determine them they slip away. Iphicles will confirm it.'

Sejanus looked at me.

'It is true,
domine
,' I whispered, my face pressed against the tiles. 'The Augusta is angered and dismayed by her vanished memory.'

'I know nothing of what occurred while I slept,' said Livia. 'Or of anything that happened when I awoke. Iphicles tells me I could see and hear and apparently even laugh in my paralysis, but I remember nothing of it, nothing at all.'

Sejanus saw movement in the shadows beneath the bed. Someone was crouched in hiding there.

'Iphicles also tells me that your wife has gone. Please don't chide him for gossiping. I have pressed him for news of all that I missed and he has been most informative.'

I squirmed on the floor.

'Even though I suspect he likes to "edit" certain details,' Livia added.

Sejanus took a tentative step towards the bed. From where I writhed on the floor, I could see that the arousal he had achieved, having been expecting Livilla, had not lessened any upon finding his lover's grandmother instead. I could only admire him for this, despite the peril of my drastically changed circumstances.

'I have divorced Apicata,' Sejanus said.

'Very wise,' said Livia, stretching her slender arms behind her head where she lay. The fabric of her gown slipped beyond her nipples, exposing them. She had the perfect breasts of a virgin. 'I never much enjoyed Apicata. The sightless are so unsettling.'

Sejanus moved closer and the person hidden under the bed curled into a tight, frightened ball. Sejanus knew who was there.

'I suppose you've had a great many lovers in my absence,' Livia offered, coyly. 'I wouldn't blame you for it. I understand a man's needs.'

Sejanus came to rest next to her and took her outstretched hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips. 'No one who compares to you.'

'Oh yes?' said Livia, appearing well pleased. 'No one who compares to me at all?'

'You are my queen,' Sejanus whispered. 'And I thank the gods you have returned to me.'

Livia sighed and let him ease the gown from her body, sliding it down her belly and beyond her hips. She wore no undergarments. Her sex, newly plucked clean of hair, was reborn as the rosebud of a child bride. His fingers stroked before straying to the darker cleft beyond it. She slapped his hand.

'My memory may be in pieces, but yours isn't, my love.' She placed his hand upon her sex again and opened herself for him. 'You know a highborn woman cannot permit the act of beasts. If you need to befoul your lover, you should leave me and seek out a whore.'

He stayed.

In the dust and filth beneath the bed, Livilla lay curled like a baby, her hands pressed against her ears to block out the horrors of this coupling. She had been waiting on top of the bed when she had heard her grandmother's voice in the entrance hall. She had nearly fainted. Then, when she'd heard my
domina
insisting on waiting for the Praetorian Prefect in his own sleeping room, the naked Livilla had flung herself under the bed in terror of being found.

She believed her grandmother knew nothing of her presence, but she was wrong. Livia knew her granddaughter was there and had known it even before she had made her way from Oxheads to Sejanus's house, with me hobbling by her side. After all, when my beating with the curtain rod had ended, I had been glad to tell my
domina
of Livilla's many movements.

I had been glad to tell my
domina
anything.

I was her slave, as she had reminded me with every blow of the rod. This was something I had, apparently, forgotten.

On our short return journey from Sejanus's house to Oxheads, my
domina
was thoughtful. She said little but didn't neglect to issue me with demeaning instructions. When she reached an area of the road that was splashed with excrement from the windows above, she commanded me to lie in it and then used me as a bridge, walking along my legs and back so as not to stain the hem of her
stola
. When we passed a brimming fuller's pot, she commanded me to dip my fingers in the urine and taste its suitability to bleach her gowns. The taste of it was indescribable, and the fuller thought my unblinking obedience riotous. When we passed a sore-riddled beggar under a street shrine, my
domina
commanded me to remove my garments and give them to the wretch, swapping them for his rags. When the stench of all these humiliations became overpowering, she purchased a small vial of gladiolus oil and made me drink it. I choked on the stuff, spewing it down my chest, but I smelled like a flower stall.

'That's much better,' said Livia.

Finally, when we were just inside the Oxheads gates, she asked me what evidence I had that might incriminate her great-grandson Nero. I told her I had many damning things, not the least of which was my record of his shameful intercourse with the
victimarius
from the Priests' College.

'Make sure it gets to his brother Drusus,' she instructed.

My mind was in complete confusion. 'You wish to aid Livilla's plan?'

'It is really Sejanus's plan, I suspect.'

'And you wish to aid it?'

'It is distressing that you still believe you are deserving of explanations, Iphicles. When you have completed this task, please return to my rooms with another curtain rod. It is clear I must resume my illustration of your worthlessness.'

Three months later: the Senate proposes
renaming the Caelian Hill the Augustan
Hill when a statue of the Emperor is
found unscathed by a fire that destroyed
fifty houses

It took the boy some time to realise he was not alone in the room. As he waited, frightened in the gloom, the sense that he shared the confines of this strange, unpleasant space grew overwhelming. No sounds alerted him, no touching or smells, but his surety that he had invisible company in the darkness was absolute. He could feel another's mind.

'Who's there?' he whispered.

'Me.'

The boy gasped and then fell to whimpering in fear at whatever agonising fate awaited him. 'Please. Who are you?'

'Who are you?'

This startled him. 'Don't you know?'

'How would I?'

'But I was brought here. Ordered to come.'

'Who ordered it?'

'The Emperor,' the boy whispered.

'Are you the son of a traitor?'

The voice was young – another boy's. Perhaps this stranger was no stronger than he was and could be overpowered? 'My widowed mother was a traitor. She studied witchcraft and consulted with astrologers. She died for it.'

'The Gemonian Stairs?'

'She took poison.'

'How long did it take to kill her?'

'Not long.'

'Interesting.'

He waited for the other boy to say more, but when he didn't, the silence and the blackness proved too much for him. 'Please tell me who you are.'

'Please tell me who you are.'

He gave in. 'I am Aemilius of the Aemilii.'

'Never heard of you.'

This was a strange relief of sorts. 'I am patrician.'

'I suppose you must be, then. How old are you?'

'Fourteen,' said Aemilius.

'Do you have your
toga virilis
?'

'I was to be given it next week, but then the Emperor's letter came.'

'I wouldn't worry about it, Aemilius.' The other boy crawled along the floor of the pitch-black room, feeling with his hands until he came to the spot where Aemilius crouched. Aemilius cried out when the boy's fingers touched him.

'Stop squawking – I'm not going to hurt you.' The boy crouched by his side. 'Do you know what goes on here?'

'In this room?' said Aemilius, his anxiety rising.

'On this island.'

'My brother Ahenobarbus was sent here before me. He's eight years older than me. He's been here since Saturnalia. Since then we've heard nothing.'

'No. No one does hear much.'

Aemilius's eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. The other boy's features were just discernible. He seemed roughly the same age and size as himself, but his hair was fairer. 'Do you know why I've been sent for? And why my brother was sent for?'

'Because you're the sons of a traitor.'

There was a sickening simplicity to the answer, and yet it told Aemilius nothing. 'Do you have a traitor for a parent?'

'My father was a great man,' the other boy replied automatically. 'But my mother has . . . upset people.'

'Is that why you're here?'

The other boy became conspiratorial. 'My great-grandmother encouraged me to come here.'

Aemilius tried to imagine such a malicious old relative. 'Why would she do that?'

'I'm not really sure,' the boy whispered.

'Have you been kept here many days?'

'I've been kept here several months.'

Aemilius shuddered. 'In this horrible black room?'

'On and off. I sometimes like to spend time in here when it pleases me.'

'But why?'

'To meet new people.'

Aemilius didn't think he could stand any more of this bewildering conversation. 'You're patrician too – I know it by your voice. Tell me who you are. It isn't fair that I gave you my name but you didn't give yours.'

Little Boots told him and Aemilius caught his breath sharply. 'The Emperor's grandson?'

Little Boots just shrugged in the dark.

Aemilius clutched at his hands. 'Help me – protect me. You've got power here,' he pleaded. 'I don't want to die on this island. I want to live. Please, Little Boots!'

Little Boots was moved by this appeal. 'Grandfather?' he called.

From far across the deceptively large room, Tiberius answered out of the blackness. 'Yes, Grandson?'

Aemilius nearly screamed with the fright.

'I like this boy. I'd like him to be my friend. Can I keep him, Grandfather?'

'But my decreasing minnows . . .'

'Just send for more. There are always more. Please, Grandfather?'

In the long pause Aemilius heard the beads of his own sweat strike the floor, dripping from the ends of his hair.

'As you wish,' said Tiberius. He began to snore.

Little Boots gave Aemilius a happy squeeze. 'Now we can have some fun,' he whispered.

Later, when they had left the strange, black hall and exhausted themselves playing the games that Little Boots wished to play, Aemilius was taken to the place where Little Boots had made a bed for himself. It was in a room where few of the other minnows ever went, a forgotten attic. It was comfortable and quiet, which was important sometimes, Little Boots assured his new friend, considering how noisy the Emperor's island so often became.

Aemilius quite liked the room and asked if he could live in it too. Little Boots assented, glad of his company. But when Aemilius, seeking sleep, placed his head upon the first cushion that came to hand, Little Boots snatched it away from him and gave him another.

'Is something wrong with that cushion?' Aemilius asked.

Little Boots placed it carefully aside. 'It was given to me by my great-grandmother, Livia,' he said. On the fabric was a single embroidered Latin word:
sedeo
– 'I sit'.

'Is she the one who encouraged you to come here?'

'Yes.'

Again, this aged relative took on an aura of maliciousness to Aemilius. 'She wanted no one else to sit on the cushion but you?'

Little Boots nodded. 'I think so. She told me a little poem as she gave it to me.'

'What sort of poem?'

'
When tiny shoes a cushion brings, the cuckoo's king rewarded
.'

'What does that mean?'

'Who knows?' said Little Boots. 'But my great-grandmother promised me that a time will come when the poem means everything in the world.'

The three girls peered from the corridor into their grandmother Antonia's room, where the matron sat upright in her chair, facing the light of the window, her little desk in front of her. Her ebony pen made slow, considered progress across a papyrus sheet. It was so quiet in this part of the house that they could hear the scratching sound the pen made.

'She is writing again,' said Julilla, the youngest of the sisters.

'Ssh,' said Drusilla, the middle one.

'Why? She can't hear us.'

'We don't know that.'

'Yes, we do. Our grandmother hears nothing anymore. She never leaves this room,' said Julilla.

'It is true,' said Nilla.

The girls continued to watch Antonia in silence.

'What does she write all the time?' asked Julilla.

'Letters,' said Drusilla.

'Who to?'

Drusilla cast a look at her older sister, Nilla.

'She writes to the Emperor,' Nilla said.

Julilla said nothing for a moment. Then she added, quietly, 'Does she ask about our mother?'

'She does,' said Nilla. 'She asks about our mother and about many other things. She asks the Emperor what his intentions are. She asks whether he still loves his family. She asks if he remembers our blood grandfather, her husband, who was the Emperor's younger brother. He died when his leg was crushed by a horse. He was a hero. Our grandmother asks the Emperor if the past means anything to him. She asks him if he knows how wretched life in Rome is now.'

They watched in silence again.

'Does he receive these letters?' Julilla asked.

None of them knew.

After a time Nilla gave a deep sigh and led her sisters away from the door. Burrus stood from where he had been kneeling by the wall, sharpening the blade of his sword.

'Our grandmother's intentions are good but her energies are ineffective,' said Nilla to her sisters, looking at Burrus as she spoke.

He agreed without saying anything.

'These letters do not work. We need another means to take our family's concerns to the Emperor.'

Burrus had been giving the matter thought. The younger girls peeled away to their own quiet corners of their grandmother's house while Nilla and her slave sat in sunshine in the garden. They made a plan and liked it, considering it from all angles to see where it might fail. They agreed it could fail in many places – it was steeped in risk – but how much worse would it be to do nothing?

'Flamma would agree with us,' Burrus.

'As would my mother.'

They lay in the soft, green grass for a time, kissing and holding hands. Then, when hunger made them rise again, they were shocked to find the Augusta, Livia, in the garden with them. But my
domina
was unperturbed. She merely nodded at them from where she sat beneath a bare fig tree, enjoying the thin winter sun.

For a brief moment Nilla gave thought to approaching her, bowing and kissing her hands. She considered asking her great-grandmother's opinions on everything she and Burrus had just discussed. She felt as if she could trust her great-grandmother, this beautiful, seemingly ageless woman, who had slept for so long that Nilla had forgotten she existed. Then she remembered her mother's bile. Agrippina believed Livia had been connected to Nilla's father's death, along with the Emperor, too. And although Nilla had loyally echoed her mother's conviction, a voice inside her had never let her wholly believe it. It was Nilla's secret belief that another person had been responsible for Germanicus's murder.

But all these thoughts lasted only an instant before they left Nilla's head. Livia closed her eyes in the pale yellow sun and appeared to doze. Nilla threaded her fingers in Burrus's hand again and kissed his lips.

'She does not mind how close we are,' said Burrus, who had been relieved to see Livia's reaction.

Nilla considered this. 'Perhaps it's because she knows how it is when the one you love most is enslaved.'