Nest of Vipers (7 page)

She had been seen – of course she had – by eyes that would say nothing of what they saw for now. They were not her daughter's eyes, nor the sightless orbs of Apicata. These were the eyes of another. Eyes that loved her like a child. Eyes that loathed her like coming death.

When the castrated slave Lygdus returned to the great house, he clutched his
domina
's secret to his heart, with no inkling of how he might use it. He had seen her slip from her bedroom and had not intended to trail her as far as the Emperor's garden. But when she failed to notice him and he followed further, Lygdus became intoxicated by the tiny amount of power this gave him. She did not know he was there. She did not know he knew. He had stealth.

But the castrated boy failed to see the other set of eyes that watched from the banks of flowers. So absorbed was Lygdus in his little victory over his mistress that he missed the soothsayer. The aged Thrasyllus still sat where he had been since the wedding, half-hidden by leaves and shadows.

The old man found his mouth filling up with words just as the slave slipped away. The soothsayer wanted to call out and stop him – some of the words concerned Lygdus, after all. But he let him go. Lygdus was not the goddess's intended recipient. The words the Great Mother, Cybele, gave Thrasyllus to impart were meant for another: she who was so long asleep. Thrasyllus closed his eyes and let the words come.

The son with blood, by water's done, the truth is never seen.

The third is hooked by a harpy's look – the rarest of all birds.

The course is cooked by a slave-boy's stroke; the fruit is lost with babes.

The matron's words alone are heard, the addled heart is ringed.

The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding's tongue.

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.

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

One brother's crime sees him dine at leisure of his bed.

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

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

Your work is done, it's time to leave – the sword is yours to pass.

Your mother lives within this queen: she who rules beyond you.

The end, the end, your mother says – to deception now depend.

So long asleep, now sleep once more, your Attis is Veiovis.

When Sejanus came to their bed, Apicata had already arranged herself upon the linen, lying on her chest with her arms resting beside her, two cushions placed beneath her loins so that her rump was raised and displayed for him. She said nothing, knowing how deep his despair at the destruction of their plans had been, and she intended saying nothing when he took her – her silence aroused him most. Afterwards, she would begin to soothe him with words, coaxing him back to confidence and hope.

But Sejanus made no move to enter her, and Apicata realised that sodomy would not please him tonight. Leaving the bed, she sank to her knees in front of him, pressing her lips to his thighs. The smell of him was sour – he had not washed – but there was nothing about this man that could repulse her. She took him in her mouth, tasting his dirt and sweat, but his sex wouldn't grow. He lifted her away. Apicata sat next to him at the edge of the bed, and was heartened that when she placed her hand in his he did not let go.

After a time he said, 'They don't deserve my father's love.'

'Who don't?'

'His family. Any of them. They don't love him back. They pretend to love him, but it's false.'

'Only your love is true, husband.'

'It breaks my heart for him.' He wept a little then and Apicata knew simple joy when he placed his head at her breast while the tears flowed. She stroked his hair, placing her lips in the curls. He had a hero's hair, her husband – the hair of Hercules.

When he stopped, she said, 'You will think of a new plan, Sejanus, and I will help you in it.'

He lay back on the cushions.

'My ears are always open. I hear the things no one else can hear.'

He closed his eyes and his breathing grew fainter. Apicata placed her mouth to his thighs and took him again, for her own contentment if not for his. She lost herself in the motion. Her mind was freed from her body, from the shackle of her blindness, as it always was in this pleasure. She remembered what she'd heard in the garden before the banquet hall doors had opened – the conversation between the soothsayer and the noble matron. Apicata played it over in her mind until inspiration came.

Then she said, 'I have a plan of my own, husband. Would you like to hear it?'

But Sejanus was asleep.

'No matter,' she whispered. 'I will enact it on my own account and then delight you with what occurs.'

She nestled into his loins and allowed sleep to claim her too.

One week later: Emperor Tiberius Julius
Caesar Augustus rejects the Senate's proposal
that a golden statue of Mars the
Avenger be erected in memory of Germanicus

The shocked cry that came from the beautifully dressed patrician was every bit as satisfying as Apicata had imagined it would be. It cut through the air, as polished and sharp as a blade.

'I know everything,' Apicata smiled. 'And, what's more, the festival of Veiovis begins today.'

The noble Aemilia went wide-eyed, clasping her hand across her mouth.

'Isn't that appropriate?' Apicata continued.

'Veiovis?'

'Our god of deceivers. It is the right of all Romans to call upon Veiovis to protect just causes and give pain and deception to our enemies. But you already know that, don't you, Aemilia? And what cause is more just than protecting the Emperor from treason? You, who are so accomplished in deception, must surely appreciate that? Yet perhaps you're not quite as accomplished as you would like to be? You were overheard in your treason by a blind woman, after all.'

'Oh gods . . .' Aemilia stammered.

Apicata laughed. Overwhelmed, Aemilia flew from her chair and ran uselessly around the room, sobbing into her balled-up veil. The look on the patrician matron's face, had Apicata been able see it, matched exactly the image Apicata had conjured in her mind. Aemilia's beautiful face was creased with fear.

One of her maids came running to the receiving room to see what had upset her mistress, but Aemilia begged the girl to get out. When the slave had pulled the door closed, Aemilia sank to her knees. 'Please. Not this!'

Apicata sipped the cup of watered wine she had been given. 'How dreadful,' she said. 'And yet I can tell how ashamed you are of your crimes, Aemilia.'

The patrician matron bit her lips.

'It must be a relief for you, though, now that your guilt is unburdened. You can face your fate with a lighter heart.'

'You low bitch!' Apicata pretended the insult had not been said. 'How did you know?'

'About the witchcraft you've been practising? It wasn't very hard. My husband and I enjoy the loyalty of informers. Your mistake was in being so good at all those spells and curses you do, Aemilia. People love success – they talk about it.'

Perspiration ran down Aemilia's high cheekbones. 'Please believe me . . . I don't practise magic with any seriousness – it's just for my amusement.'

'Don't offend me with lies,' said Apicata, sipping her wine. 'It's within my power to have you thrown from the Tarpeian Rock for the magic alone, but you've also consulted with a soothsayer. Such a thing is banned across the Empire, and you did it in the very heart of Oxheads. Just imagine the punishment you'll get for that.'

Aemilia began sobbing again, and Apicata leaned forward. 'Will it be the bears, do you think, or the jackals for you?'

'Mother?' The bewildered voice of a child came from the other side of the closed door.

Apicata stood and, remembering exactly the number of steps she had taken from the door to get to the chair, retraced them. She spoke through the door crack. 'Your mother is in no harm, girl, but she will be if you listen to another word of this private conversation.'

The child gave a cry from the other side, recognising Apicata's voice.

'You remember me, don't you, Lepida? I'm the wife of the Praetorian Prefect. What a lovely talk we had at the wedding.'

When she heard Lepida running down the hall towards the stairs, Apicata returned to where she had been seated. 'I will ask this once, Aemilia. Are you recovered?'

The matron went still.

'Good.' Judging where Aemilia lay on the floor, Apicata reached for her cup of watered wine and tossed the contents in Aemilia's face. 'Remain on the floor while we discuss our arrangement. It becomes you.'

Neither woman said anything for a time.

'Does your husband know?' asked Aemilia at last.

'He doesn't know a thing about your crimes, and I see no reason for him to. What purpose would it serve?'

'What do you want from me?'

Once Apicata had told her, she said, 'It's nothing you haven't done for others, is it?'

Aemilia confessed this was true. 'But not against someone so . . .'

'Powerful? Yet who has more power right here?'

When Apicata gave permission for Aemilia to move – but not stand – the beautiful patrician crawled like a dog to the small cedar box she kept hidden under the loose boards of the floor. The box retrieved, she asked Apicata what sort of material she would prefer. There was a choice when it came to constructing these things.

'Which material would Veiovis enjoy?' asked Apicata.

Aemilia tried to force her hands to stop shaking. 'Lead. Perhaps lead . . .'

The girl Lepida told her sister what had happened outside their mother's receiving room door but the younger girl didn't believe it. Domitia wanted to march up the stairs to see for herself, but Lepida's horror at the prospect was so real that Domitia knew something very frightening was taking place in their house.

'It was the blind woman – the one at the wedding. Her husband hunts down the traitors.'

'But our mother is not a traitor!'

Lepida wanted to echo this denial but now found that she couldn't. Perhaps their mother was a traitor, and this was why the blind woman had come? 'What does "traitor" even mean? Nobody seems to know.'

Domitia tried to define it but found that she barely could. 'It's someone who hates Rome.'

'Is that really our mother?'

Domitia shook her head vehemently, but Lepida was still unsure. 'She talked to a very strange man at the wedding . . . What if he was a traitor?'

Domitia didn't know what to think and the two girls found comfort in crying for a time. When their tears had dried, they were left feeling angry.

'How dare this blind woman offend us by upsetting our mother?' said Domitia, the younger girl, wiping a hand under her nose. 'We are the Aemilii. What is she?'

'Not even patrician,' whispered Lepida.

'What would the great Augusta Livia do in this terrible situation? Or widow Agrippina?'

'They would both be outraged.'

'And their fury would give them courage,' Domitia declared.

There was barely two years' difference in their ages, but Lepida assumed a motherly role and took Domitia's hand. They retrieved a sharp knife from the kitchens, and when the worried slaves tried to accompany the girls, aware that something distressing was taking place in the rooms above, Lepida thanked them for their concern but said she would call upon them only if the situation was dire. They were patrician ladies, after all, and should be able to handle dangers with nothing more than their wits. The slaves agreed, hiding their relief, but wanted the girls' brothers to accompany them. Lepida rejected this, too. Their younger brother, Aemilius, was only seven and yet would hog all the glory once their mother was rescued. Besides, he was in the Forum with his tutor, and they could not waste time waiting for him to return home. The slaves then pointed to Ahenobarbus, Lepida's twin, who glanced up from his place by the fire. Not only was he cursed with ugly red hair, he was also mute and half-witted. The girls pronounced him useless in a crisis and left Ahenobarbus gazing into the kitchen furnace.

Still holding hands, but with Lepida now clutching the knife, the sisters crept up the broad marble stairs and along the corridor to their mother's room. The door was now wide open. Inside, they found Aemilia sitting in her favourite chair, staring blankly at the walls.

Lepida dropped the knife and rushed to her first. 'What has happened?'

'Where is the blind woman?' said Domitia.

The anxiety was all too much and both girls burst into tears again.

'The Praetorian Prefect's wife has gone,' said Aemilia. There was an unsettling edge to her voice, a desperation – or exhilaration – that their mother was just managing to keep at bay.

'What did she want? Why was she here?'

'To blackmail me. To force me to help her against my will.'

The sisters wept again.

'Oh Mother! What did you do?'

'I did as she asked. I had no choice.'

Only now did the girls see the strange items spilled on the floor at their mother's feet. Little tablets made of clay and wood, pieces of twine and hair, a stylus, feathers from birds. Lepida stared at the dried-up husk of a toad. 'Are you going to die?' Lepida sobbed. 'Is this woman going to take you away as a traitor?'

'Ssh,' said Aemilia, smoothing her oldest girl's hair. But she didn't answer the question. Whatever fear she had felt when Apicata had revealed what she knew, Aemilia felt free of it now. The blind woman had been right. Her heart was lighter for sharing a burden. 'That man I spoke to at the wedding was a soothsayer,' she said. 'I was reckless and foolish to do it, but there he was just waiting to be spoken to, and so I did.'

Both girls went very pale.

'It's illegal to speak to such a person – I know it, girls. It has made me a criminal. That's what the blind woman has used against me. That and, well, some other things.'

'How did you even know what he was?' Lepida whispered. 'I saw that man – he just looked like a dirty slave to me. Or a beggar.'

Aemilia tried to explain it. 'I had never seen him before in my life. I didn't even know his name. I still don't. But I just
knew
what he was. He was staring at me so intently, you see. He
wanted
me to talk to him.'

'But why?'

Aemilia smiled, and in doing so her heart felt lighter still. It seemed so appalling in the bleakness of her circumstances, yet she actually felt happy. She realised the significance of what had befallen her. 'It was destined that he would speak to me – and that the blind woman would overhear it. The gods intended both things to occur. The blind woman's blackmail is not a curse at all, but a blessing, girls. We are destined to prosper from it.'

'The gods?' said Domitia.

'One god – Veiovis, our god of deception. I have learned that he favours us, you see.'

The girls just stared at their mother.

'But he is a very bad god,' said Lepida. 'A lying god . . .'

'Not for everyone. Behind every lie is a truth.'

'Mother, he is a frightening god – there are vermin in his temple,' said Domitia. 'He doesn't even have priests.'

'Perhaps he has no wish for them?'

The frightened sisters stared into their mother's beautiful brown eyes. Desperation was etched deeply on her soul, but excitement boiled there too. She was balanced on a sword's edge.

'Please,' whispered Domitia. 'What did the soothsayer tell you about Veiovis, Mother?'

'He told me about the rarest of birds,' Aemilia began, 'and the woman who is so long asleep . . .'