Nest of Vipers (43 page)

'Yes, Grandmother, I understand everything, and I think it is so noble what you are doing for Rome.'

Antonia glowed. 'Thank you, child.'

'That is not why I'm here. Two women have come to the house to see you.'

'I have visitors?'

'They have come alone through the streets, at great risk to themselves, with all this . . . disorder going on.'

'They are unescorted?' Antonia was wary. 'They sound like lowborn women. Tell the steward to send them away.'

'One has a patrician's voice, and the other is well-spoken too. They are not rabble.'

'Then what are their names?'

'They would not say.'

'Then what makes them think I will see them? Who on earth are these women?'

Tiberia wished she could rub the unsettling image of the visitors from her mind. 'The patrician woman, she has no
hands
, Grandmother,' she whispered. 'And the other . . . well, she cannot see.'

Something stirred Antonia's recognition. 'Did they say what they want?'

'They claim they have something of urgent importance to tell you.'

From the street below came the sound of renewed screaming. Another name on the list had been found by the mob. 'Send them to me,' said Antonia, blocking out the noise.

When the packing slaves had been dismissed and Plancina and Apicata had been admitted to Antonia's presence, the two visitors bowed.

Antonia couldn't take her eyes from the scarred stumps of Plancina's wrists.

'You remember me, Antonia?'

'Of course.' She gathered her dignity, forcing herself to look Plancina in the eye. 'Your late husband was tried for murdering Germanicus, my son.'

'He was blackmailed to murder him,' said Plancina, sidestepping the truth that it was she who had been coerced into the crime. 'Blackmailed by Sejanus and then forced into suicide.'

Antonia said nothing, but the events of recent weeks had disposed her to believe this.

'And here is Apicata,' Plancina said, pushing forward the sightless woman within whose arm she had threaded her own. 'She is Sejanus's discarded wife.'

'I know who she is,' Antonia said.

'Then did you know your daughter Livilla is Sejanus's secret lover?'

Antonia flushed with shame. 'I have learned of it.'

Outside the door, where she eavesdropped without being seen, Tiberia threw a hand to her lips, her shocked eyes wide.

'Livilla is his victim, too,' Antonia pleaded, 'deceived like a child that she was loved by such a monster. I fear for her life if the truth gets out. People won't forgive such foolish naivety in a highborn woman.'

Antonia waited for the price of silence to be named.

'I want justice.' Apicata spoke her first words. 'Money has no use to me, Lady.'

'You want justice?'

'And perhaps you'll want it too, when you learn the extent of Livilla's depravity in the name of her passion.'

Antonia was frightened now. 'What haven't I been told?'

'Your Livilla had Castor poisoned.'

Tiberia cried out in shock, then rushed into the room when she heard her grandmother collapse. Cradling Antonia's head in her hands, Tiberia faced the two visitors as they gave their story of how her mother had conspired to kill her beloved father with poisoned footbath water. Nothing was more damning in hindsight than Castor's final words. '
My wife . . .
' Tiberia had believed they were words of love. Now she knew better. They were an accusation.

'Justice will be done for my mother's crimes,' the girl said coldly. 'I promise it. And I will personally ensure it.'

Two weeks later: forty-four speeches are
delivered in the Senate about Livilla's
punishment. A few are prompted by
anxiety, but most by routine servility

A picata stole away at dawn from the house she and Plancina shared with Martina, neglecting to tell either friend what she intended. She had travelled the Gemonian Stairs so often that she knew every inch of them, providing a pair of hands for Plancina while her friend provided the eyes. Apicata felt less confident alone, as she would be this time, but she would not let this deter her.

She found the way to the stairs easily enough, picking her path along the familiar streets that led towards the Forum. She might have been delayed if anyone had recognised her, but no one did. Even if someone had, there was no reason to fear it. So notorious was the story of her ill-treatment at her husband's hands that she was seen by Rome as another of his victims. That she had actively schemed for Germanicus's death before her fall had not emerged.

When Apicata reached the base of the Gemonian Stairs, she felt the rotting remains of the traitors near her feet. None were fresh. Some were months old or more. All of them she and Plancina had already picked over on earlier occasions. But ingredients were not what she was here for. With her days spent in silence in front of the fire, Apicata's friends imagined she was losing herself in dreams. They were wrong. She depended so much more upon her remaining senses and lived wholly in wakefulness, her ears sharply trained on the talk of the people passing in the street. This was how she learned she must return to the steps.

Apicata tilted her nose to the wind. The street talk had been accurate. Amid the rot and decay she smelled something fresh. The Gemonian Stairs had seen one final traitor dragged by the hook. Apicata took to the steps with pace, her hands feeling the stones in front as she made the ascent. The dogs knew her well enough by now not to be threatened and allowed her to pass. She flung bones from her path as she ascended towards the Arx.

'I'm coming for you,' she whispered. 'Prepare yourself.'

Her hand met wetness on the stone. She held her fingers to her nose and sniffed. Fresh blood, still warm. She advanced more slowly, one step, then another. She touched the flesh of a hand and gasped. The hand curled, still alive, gripping her fingers.

She fell forward, cradling Sejanus in her arms. 'It is me. I am here for you, my love.'

His throat had been crushed, but not enough to rob him of breath for his final moments. Sejanus lay where the hook had dragged him; he felt the soft hand in his and heard the words that were said to him.

'Forgive me . . . Please, forgive me for what I have done to you.'

The dawning sun was in his eyes when he opened them. It was not Apicata he saw haloed by the rays, but someone else: his lifelong love, whose name they had evoked when they hooked him. His lips mouthed the words, 'I forgive you for it. I love you.'

Tears dripped upon his cheeks. Lips pressed themselves to his. He took them humbly.

'They're the only words I have ever wanted from you.'

'But I give them freely,' Sejanus whispered, almost surprised that his beloved should think they had never been said before. 'I have loved no one else but you.'

Apicata reached inside her
palla
and found the knife. 'Thank you,' she said. 'We can leave this place together now.'

'Together . . .' The last of his life was slipping away.

She placed the blade beneath her breast and embraced him. The knife pierced her ribs, entering her heart.

'Together. Just as we've always been . . .' Sejanus said as her blood joined his. 'I love you, Father.'

The echo of a distant voice came to him, carried on the wings of death. '
The doctor's lad will take the stairs, from darkness comes the wronged, no eyes, no hands and vengeance done, but worthless is the prize
. . .'

Watching from the foot of the Gemonian Stairs, where they had followed Apicata, Martina pronounced herself satisfied. 'A fitting end.'

Plancina used a stump to smear a tear away.

'Oh, what's the matter with you?' Martina said, disgusted.

'You be quiet,' snivelled Plancina. 'I'd grown very fond of her. Despite everything she'd done in the past.'

Martina pressed a handkerchief to Plancina's nose while she blew. 'It had to end this way, and you know it. She still loved him.'

'It's still a shame,' Plancina said. She waved the soiled handkerchief away. 'Now it feels as if all our work is done.'

'Good. Retirement at last.'

'Don't make me laugh, you old sow. Retirement equals death.'

'I was very happy at the
musica muta
, you know.'

'You were a sham. For all I know, you drugged your way in there. Don't think they'll let you pull that trick twice.'

Martina glowered.

'Face it,' said Plancina, as they began to walk away. 'You won't know what to do with yourself when Livia runs out of schemes.'

'She'll never run out.'

'Let's hope. The boredom will kill us both if she did.' Plancina stopped and cast a glance back up the stairs again.

'Look, the blind woman died with him,' Martina said. 'And she was happy to do so. Stop blubbing and let's go.'

'I'm not blubbing.' Plancina had turned and was marching towards the ascent.

'You mad woman! What are you doing?'

'Bring the knife,' Plancina called over her shoulder. 'Dead she may be, but so is he. It's stupid to let a good traitor's genitals go to waste. And Livia might like a souvenir.'

'Let me out! Please, Mother, let me out!
Please
, Mother!'

Side by side on wooden stools, their backs pressed to the bolted door of Livilla's room, Antonia and her granddaughter willed the cries to penetrate them like knives.

'Mother, please!' Livilla sobbed from the other side. 'Please don't do this!'

The little boy Gemellus stared uncomprehendingly at his sister and grandmother on their stools.

'It must be done,' Tiberia said to him. Speech was beyond Antonia. 'The Senate ordered it.'

Gemellus threw his hands to his ears. 'I can't bear Mama's cries – let me bring her some water, Tiberia.'

His sister shook her head. 'Go and visit Uncle Claudius,' she said. 'Stay at his house until this is done.'

'No,' Gemellus wailed. 'I want my Mama! Mama!'

Tiberia's look was very cold. 'She is no longer our mama, Gemellus. She is filth. She had Papa poisoned. Papa is the one we must mourn, not her. She is not worthy of tears. She is not worthy of a funeral pyre.'

Gemellus rushed at her and tried to strike her with his fists, but Tiberia stopped her little brother easily, holding him by the wrists. He began to sob hysterically while Tiberia soothed him, still holding his hands. Seated on the other stool, Antonia saw nothing, so focused was she on the sounds behind the door. Gemellus subsided at last, broken.

'How long?' he whimpered.

'Until she is dead from hunger and thirst. That is her punishment.'

'But why that? It's so cruel.'

Tiberia looked to the revered matron at her side. Antonia's eyes were closed as if asleep but she muttered prayers beneath her breath. 'It's what our noble grandmother asked of the Senate,' Tiberia answered. 'And they granted it. So we will not move until it is done. It is a fitting punishment for her and a fitting punishment for us.'

'A punishment for
us
?' Gemellus began to cry. 'But we didn't do anything.'

'No,' said Tiberia. 'We did nothing at all. We didn't see, we didn't hear and, worst of all, we didn't
imagine
what our mother was doing. We were fools in her service, no better than her eunuch. We failed to use the wits the gods gave us and we allowed Papa to die. That is why we will sit here and suffer our mother's cruel death.'

Inside the room Livilla fell to the floor, unable to scream any more. It had been more than a day since she'd swallowed water and another again since she'd taken food. She knew exactly how long people took to die this way. It would not be a matter of days but weeks. In the long hours before death her tongue would blacken, protruding obscenely from her lips. Her fingernails would curl and fall from her hands, along with the hair from her head. Her stomach would dissolve itself in acid, her liver and kidneys too. Her body would weigh less than a child's by the end and its putrefaction would poison the walls. Most ironically of all, her eyesight would fail in her final minutes of existence. She would journey to the Underworld in complete darkness, as blind as her bitterest enemy.

A tiny voice tried to sing in her ear. 'No . . .' she moaned, waving it away. 'Please, no!' But the voice was persistent. It had kissed her at the moment the door had been locked, and whenever she fell quiet it kissed her again. 'Please!' she whispered. 'I don't want to hear – I don't want to hear!' The voice ignored her.

'
One would-be queen knows hunger's pangs when Cerberus conducts her
. . .'

Livilla stared at her companion in starvation, the dog Scylax, whimpering on the floor, condemned by the Senate to die with her. How long, Livilla trembled, before Scylax's loyalty gave way to a baser instinct? Would she be dead when it happened, she wondered? Or would her final words be those of her begging the dog not to tear her throat out?

One week later: Rome's rage against
Sejanus begins to subside when his
children are strangled in prison

Tiberius fought to stop his hands shaking so he could press his ring into the soft wax. He left it there for as long as he dared, blowing on the wax to cool it, before the tremors could be held off no more and he lifted his hand. But the little imprint of the eagle was perfect; no edges had blurred. This was a good omen.

'See, Macro,' he said. 'The eagle is beautiful. Agrippina's release from imprisonment is signed, and Drusus's too. My family are freed.'

'Caesar is merciful,' said Macro, who was now Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. He carefully took the directive from Tiberius's hands.

With the day's most pressing task complete, Tiberius felt his anxiety return. 'When will Antonia come back?' he asked. 'Has she sent word from Rome?'

'Until the Lady informs you directly of her plans, Caesar, I cannot know. Her correspondence is for your eyes only.'

'Yes. Yes, of course. There is nothing among my letters, nothing from her?'

'It appears not.'

'Perhaps tomorrow, then.' The skin on Tiberius's arms felt as if ants were crawling on it, but when he scratched the itch there was nothing to be seen.

Macro studied him with detachment. 'I'm sure Antonia's letter is imminent, Caesar, as is her return. I have been told that Livilla is dead.'

Tiberius took some comfort from this. When Macro had gone, he rifled through the morning's letters and scrolls again, making sure that nothing from Antonia had slipped his eye. The lid on a nondescript canister was loose, and when he tossed it aside the thing opened. A little glass vial slipped out and onto the ground.

Tiberius stopped still, staring at the object. Fear clenched him at once, but as he stared the feeling subsided after several minutes, replaced by something more familiar to him: compulsion. His tremor was terrible as he tried to reach for the vial, his right hand shaking so much he couldn't grip the glass. He had to use both his hands, the left steadying the right, just to pick it up. He opened the lid and the sweet stink of the Eastern flower emerged. He flung it away into the garden.

'Macro!' he stammered in rage, looking wildly about him. 'Is this some joke from you, Macro, is it? Taunting your Emperor?'

But Macro had left the terrace. Tiberius was alone.

Tiberius gawked at where the vial had fallen. The draught was seeping into the soil of an autumn flowerbed. Beginning to weep at his shattered willpower, Tiberius stumbled from his couch and crawled to the bed on his knees. Once he reached it, he pressed his mouth to the spill, sucking the dirt through his teeth.

He had begun the morning hoping for Antonia's return. He finished it praying she would be endlessly delayed.

On his way to the dock to where the trireme waited, Macro saw Little Boots and Aemilius lazing themselves in the Emperor's pleasure garden. He smiled to himself. 'Not at school?' he called out.

The two boys started at being sprung and snatched up scrolls, having him believe they were studying. Macro laughed.

Little Boots tossed his scroll aside with disgust, not bothering with a front. 'I'm far too old for school – it's humiliating,' he called, plumping the cushion he had been resting on.

As he turned to continue on his way, Macro noticed which cushion it was.
Sedeo
– 'I sit' – was embroidered on its seat. 'Is that the present from your great-grandmother?' he rebuked over his shoulder. 'You should take greater care not to get it dirty, Little Boots.'

'How did
he
know who gave it to you?'Aemilius said, amazed.

Little Boots looked blank for a moment, then took off at a run.

'Where are you going?' Aemilius called.

Macro heard him coming as he approached the dock and stopped, not bothering to turn around. The youth faced him and Macro cocked an eyebrow at him benignly.

Little Boots realised his mouth had gone dry. 'Do – do you know the significance of my great-grandmother's present?' he stammered.

'Yes, I do,' said Macro.

Little Boots waited but nothing more came. 'Well? Will you tell me?'

'No,' said Macro.

Frustration boiled in Little Boots. 'That is unfair! If you know what it is, you should tell me. Why is a stupid cushion so significant?'

Macro shrugged. 'Who can say?'

'You can say!' complained Little Boots. 'If my great-grandmother has told you, then tell me, Prefect.'

Macro leaned close and Little Boots felt intimidated anew. 'Your great-grandmother told me a number of things, and to each of them she added that I must not tell you.'

Little Boots's mouth gaped.

'You must discover all things for yourself. And only when you
do
discover them, your great-grandmother believes, will you be ready to know what they mean.'

Macro resumed his progress to the dock, leaving the youth staring after him. Little Boots saw that a document had slipped from the bundle under Macro's arm.

'You dropped this!' he shouted. Macro stopped again and looked to where Little Boots pointed. 'A sealed letter. You dropped it.'

Macro made no move to retrieve the thing, watching Little Boots. Not knowing what game was being played, the young man stooped and picked it up for him, holding it out.

'That's unfortunate,' said Macro.

Little Boots just looked in confusion.

'Look, the wax is cracked,' Macro went on. 'The seal is broken. It must have happened when you touched it.'

Affronted, Little Boots went to defend himself but Macro raised his hand to stop him. 'If I weren't in such a hurry to return to Rome, I would go back to the Emperor and ask him to seal it again. But I do not have the time.'

Little Boots tried to fathom what was really being said to him.

'Perhaps you can bring it to the Emperor's attention?' said Macro. 'I will collect the letter when I return in five days' time – provided the Emperor remembers to reseal it. If he does not remember, then perhaps you can bring that to his attention too?'

Macro departed, leaving Little Boots holding the document in silence. The Prefect's real instruction was clear. He wanted Little Boots to read what the document contained. But why? Would it help Little Boots to discover all that he presently had not? He slowly unfurled the papyrus in the thin November sun, letting the cracked fragments of wax break off and fall to the ground.

It was Tiberius's directive to the Senate instructing the release of Little Boots's mother and brother.

With Little Boots having been snoring upstairs in their cramped room for hours, Aemilius rubbed his eyes and prepared to join him, blowing out his oil lamp and putting his pen and ink away. He shared Little Boots's frustration at having to complete scholarly tasks now that both of them were men, but he did not share his friend's recklessness. The thought of defying the Revered Lady Antonia's orders – and, what's more, being caught by her for it – filled Aemilius with dread. And so, whenever Little Boots fell asleep before he did, which was now quite often, Aemilius took the opportunity to slip away and cram in secret in a little downstairs room. He had managed to read a great deal in this manner, comforting himself that he could answer any and all of Antonia's questions, should the formidable matron return to quiz him.

Tucking his scroll of Livy's
History of Early Rome
under his arm, Aemilius entered the ground floor latrine. He disliked sitting down on household lavatories when it wasn't necessary, preferring to piss from the standing position, as if filling up a fuller's pot. It was of no concern to him that half his urine missed its mark. He stared into space, trying to recall as many of Livy's names and events as he could, until he realised that his piss was making an unusual sound as it struck the sewer below. It was not the sound of water hitting water, but of water hitting something that didn't belong in there. Livy left his head. Aemilius shook himself off and peered into the void. A crumpled piece of papyrus floated on the water, the remains of its red wax seal still visible. It was the Emperor's mark. Intrigued, Aemilius considered fishing the thing out to read it.

'Here you are,' said Little Boots, sticking his head around the door.

Aemilius jumped. 'I thought you were asleep.'

'How can I sleep at a time like this?'

'It's long past sunset – when else are you supposed to sleep?'

'When my grandmother hasn't just shown up, for a start.'

Aemilius was shocked. 'Lady Antonia is here?'

'Her ship has docked. She's in a hell of a temper, demanding all of us attend her so she can discuss the schoolwork she set.'

'But it's the middle of the night.'

'You'll tell that to my grandmother, will you?'

Aemilius knew he would do nothing of the kind. But he felt the scroll of Livy under his arm and felt a degree less panicked.

'Go ahead, they're all gathering,' said Little Boots. 'I'm right behind you.'

When his friend had left the room, Little Boots loosened his loincloth and sat at the latrine. Nature took its course, and he gave a satisfied smile at what it was also doing to the crumpled piece of papyrus.

When my
domina
proposed I accompany her on a walk through the streets to the Temple of the Great Mother, I threw myself to the floor automatically.

'Thank you,
domina
– it would be a great honour.'

After several moments of silence I looked up from the floor, thinking I had offended her again.

Livia was looking at me, but not with anger. 'Just the two of us will walk,' she said. 'No one else.'

I writhed again at her feet. 'Such, such a great honour.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Too much grovelling from you. I'm bored with it. Time to smarten yourself up, Iphicles, if you want to get on. I'm bored with having to spell everything out to you.'

I lurched upright as fast as my old bones would let me. 'Spell everything out?'

'Sometimes you're just cretinous,' she said, making her way down the corridor. I struggled to keep up, trying to guess what she had planned. I was at a loss but had no intention of staying behind and missing out.

We stepped into the Palatine streets and began our progress towards the summit of the hill, where the Temple stood, but we'd barely gone a hundred feet when we sighted fresh graffiti upon a wall:

When the moment of succession arrives, the son of
Germanicus will have the full support of the Praetorian
Guard.

I was astonished and had to reread it, repeating the words aloud. 'The son of Germanicus . . . Moment of succession . . . Full support of the Guard.'

'Isn't it appalling?' said Livia, watching me read. 'These ruffians with their paintbrushes should have their hands cut off for defacing property. I deplore whoever pays them to write such provocative things.'

I knew without question it was her. 'This concerns the second king.'

'Does it?' She resumed the walk towards the Temple.

I hurried to stay at her side, a new excitement empowering me. 'Does this mean you accept what I have been saying about the identity of the second king?'

'Possibly,' said Livia, now in a playful mood.

This was momentous for me. '
Domina
,' I stammered, 'when did you at last come to believe that Little Boots would be that king?'

'When it became so irrelevant.'

I stopped dead. 'Irrelevant? The second king?'

'Yes. Completely irrelevant.'

'But Cybele? Her prophecies?'

'Also irrelevant. I had it all wrong. Thrasyllus showed me my error. First in a dream while I was paralysed at your hands, and then again, right before I cut his head off. When I think of it, I'm ashamed. All those years spent fretting about my kings, when if only I'd known what the goddess actually had in store, I could have saved myself. She sent her original prophecies to test my mettle, I think, to see what I was made of – to see if I was worthy of her.'

I was hopelessly confused. The sky-blue face of the Temple came into view.

'Yes, the second king couldn't be more irrelevant,' Livia declared.

I snapped. 'That's ridiculous,
domina
! What could be more important than the second king?'

She smiled wickedly at me. 'The second
queen
?'

I could only stand there with my mouth open.

'All that time worrying about Tiberius's successor, when really we should have been worrying about my own.'

'
Your
successor,
domina
?'

'Indeed. Which descendant from my womb will be Empress of Rome?' Livia winked at me. 'That's the real position of power, of course, and of so much greater interest to the goddess. But you already know that, don't you, Iphicles?'

I realised I did. 'Who is this second queen?' I whispered in awe.

She told me.

We reached the great temple's steps and Livia began to ascend, with me following her. 'Where do you think you're going?' she demanded.

I was still reeling and couldn't answer.

'I warned you about all this spelling out – I've had enough of it,' she said. 'For the final time you are no longer Attis, therefore you cannot come in here. The shrine of Cybele is no longer open to you, slave.'

Crushed, I begged her for final enlightenment. 'Just tell me who I am,
domina
. Which temple is my own?'

She pulled the veil from her face and held it before her, as light as gossamer. 'The winds will direct you to it,' she said. 'I'm afraid I've lost all patience.' She turned on her heel, letting the hillside breeze snatch the veil from her hand and take it high in the air. Confounded, I heard Livia laughing at me as I went to run after it.

Exhausted, I stood staring in dismay at where the veil had come to rest. 'This is no temple,
domina
!' I yelled with frustration. It was Calypso's Spell, a dilapidated brothel in the Subura. My heart sank as I realised Livia was still playing jokes to torment me. I was indeed cretinous for believing a floating veil could illuminate anything.

A familiar head stuck out of the brothel door. 'Gods help me – it's the ball-less stud.'