Viper's Nest

by Rachel Ford

  “All we need is one or two of his agents to turn,” she’d say one minute. “With all of the names on Felix’s list, we’ll get that. No problem.”

  Then, she’d wonder, “But what if he has some kind of plan? Caius is too clever to leave himself without a plan.”

  “But he thought he was invincible. He got over confident,” she’d argue the next moment.

  He just listened. This was an argument she was waging with herself, and she didn’t need his input.

  Finally, exhausted, she sank onto a divan. “I am glad of one thing. Two things, actually.”

  “What’s that, Cas?”

  She smiled. “I told you the first already: that you’re here, with me.”

  He smiled too. “So you did. What’s the second?”

  The smile faded and she sighed. “That Faustus isn’t. Hopefully, wherever he is, the news won’t reach him until we have our confessions.”

  He nodded again. “Do you think he’ll oppose you, even with all the evidence?” He hated Faustus, but he couldn’t imagine even he would be that blind. Gallus and the others had come around, if only to save themselves. Surely not even Faustus could be that blind.

  “I don’t know, Tryg. Perhaps a month ago, he would not have. But now…” She shook her head. “You know only too well that politically, Faustus’s ideas and mine have never aligned. Even when we were on better terms – good terms. But now?”

  He took her point. A man might, in hatred, lose sight of reason. He knew that too well, didn’t he? “Then let us hope he stays away until we have our case.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The case came together rather more quickly than Cassia expected. Whatever they were – and she didn’t want to inquire too closely – Prefect Celsus’s persuasions proved quite effective. He’d extracted full confessions from not one or two, but three of Caius’s agents by nightfall.

  The others, hearing that the truth was already coming to light, abandoned ship with all the haste of rats after that.

  By the next morning, word had spread throughout the city. The priests declared a day of mourning for the emperor who would never be, the child that had been stolen from Cassia. Women wept in the streets, and left flowers at the palace gates for the empress.

  This was something she had not anticipated, any more than she anticipated breaking down in tears at the sight of it. Tryg was there, and she was glad of that. She’d needed his steadying arm, because her own legs didn’t seem quite up to the task of keeping her upright.

  But not everything worked out quite as well as it seemed it might. News spread to Blackstone Island as it had spread throughout the city. And when the men who had been dispatched to arrest the governor returned, they returned emptyhanded.

  “The governor fled, my lady, in a ship. Someone must have sent word, because he’d been gone for eight hours at least by time we reached the island.”

  The days passed slowly after that, waiting for word. Cassia dispatched the Stellan fleet, and sent urgent word to their neighbors to the north and south. But no good news came, and after the third day, the senate declared a trial in absentia.

  She would have preferred to wait until he could be brought to answer for his crimes. But the members of that august body seemed eager to put the whole business behind them.

  That worried her too. Even Gallus pressed to begin rather than to wait. Cassia wished Felix was still alive. She had so many questions for him, and she’d never needed his guidance so much as she did now.

  But Felix was dead. She’d be getting no answers from him.

  She hadn’t told Trygve what Felix’s letter to her had said, nor had he disclosed the contents of his. She didn’t expect him to. Private correspondence was just that. And yet, in knowing that they each had some secret they wished to conceal from the other, it seemed to her a distance had settled between them. She wanted to put her questions to him. She wanted to know his thoughts.

  But he kept them to himself, instead directing his attention to her comfort and safety with an almost maddening persistence. And she, in turn, kept her questions to herself, trying and failing to reassure him that she was fine. She wasn’t sure what to make of this development. She wasn’t sure what to make of anything these days.

  It didn’t help that Faustus returned on the fourth day. And he returned in rare form. It was early in the morning. Trygve and she had been preparing to go to the Forum. She’d resumed her dark stola, her mourning stola. And he wore an appropriately grimly colored tunic. She was just finishing her breakfast, and Tryg urging her to eat more.

  Without a knock or any other manner of warning, her door burst open. Faustus marched in, his steps quick and agitated. “What in the gods’ names am I hearing about you and Caius? Is it true? That you’ve sent men to arrest him?”

  Trygve was on his feet and at her side in an instant. She rose too, though with more gravity. “Your spies are not misinformed, husband. Although, I wonder if you’ve bothered to inquire the reasons?”

  “Reasons?” He practically spat the word out. “What reasons, Cassia? You’ve always despised Caius. And now you wait until I am out of the city to prosecute your revenge?”

  “Revenge?” An eyebrow crept up her forehead. “You have hated me, Faustus, for refusing to die for a child that could not have lived.

  “And yet now you hate me for trying to arrest the man who killed your hopes of a child? Who killed Felix?”

  “Felix?” Faustus’s expression darkened. “I’d heard that the old fool got himself killed. Now you’d blame Caius for that?” He barked out a laugh. “You are mad, Cassia.”

  “Did you not hear me? Your child, husband, your precious child: the one you would have killed me over. Caius sent a poisoner to kill him. That is why we lost him.”

  “We lost him because you murdered him,” Faustus shot back.

  “We lost him because Ameillia was a poisoner. She was Caius’s poisoner.”

  He scoffed again, but there was less certainty in his expression. “Caius? You’re mad. He would never kill my child.”

  “But he would kill your wife. And since your child had not yet formed, since I was making that child, well…” She spread her hands. “So you see, my love, your precious friend would harm us both for his ends.”

  She hadn’t meant the words my love to come out with quite so much bitterness. She hadn’t meant for her tone to rise to the pitch it had risen. But at the moment, she was almost shouting. And he blanched in the face of her raw emotion.

  “No. No, you’re wrong. He’d never do that.”

  “The evidence is overwhelming. We have multiple confessions, and Felix’s work too. The senate – even Gallus and Albus – are going to convict him in absentia.”

  Faustus licked his lips. “I don’t believe it.”

  She snorted. “I don’t really care, husband. Believe what you will. I have to go.”

  “I will come with you,” he said in a minute. “I will hear this evidence.”

  She turned a cold look toward him. “Do what you will. But you will need to make your arrangements for travel. I am not disposed to entertain companionship this morning.”

  He blinked at this, and she turned without giving him a chance to protest. “Come, Trygve. We must go, or we will miss the opening.”

  Faustus didn’t follow, and Cassia didn’t see him again that day. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, she did not know.

  But she had more important things on her mind. The trial progressed quickly. The evidence was, as she’d told her husband, conclusive.

  Caius’s agents testified against him, in damning detail. He’d arranged to place Aemelia in the empress’s household. He’d arranged to get regular progress reports. And when she’d sent the word that she’d been compromised, that Felix had found them out, he’d arranged for her murder and his.

  It was coming together well. Too well. Cassia didn’t know why, but something about how easily the senate accepted all of this sat wrong with her.


  “Cass,” Trygve asked on the way home that night. “What’s wrong?”

  She glanced up. “What?”

  “Are you alright?”

  She nodded absently. “Fine.”

  “Is it…is it Faustus?”

  She blinked at the question. The truth was, she’d hardly given her husband a second thought since the morning. She supposed she’d have to brace herself to see him when she got back. But at the moment, she wasn’t thinking about him. “No. It has nothing to do with him, actually. It’s the case.”

  “Oh?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Tryg. It’s just…I expected…more resistance, I guess. I expected Gallus and the others to fight. Not to turn on him so quickly.”

  He considered for a moment, then nodded. “It makes sense, though. They know it’s over for him. They want to distance themselves from him. And, more importantly, they probably want to make sure we don’t dig any deeper.

  “You know Caius wasn’t acting alone. You know some of these bastards knew something. But if they convict him in a few days, and keep the focus on him…”

  “They’ll get away with it,” she finished. “Dammit. How could I not have realized that? And how am I going to stop them?”

  “Cass,” he said, and his voice was very soft when he spoke, “you’ve been through hell these last weeks. You almost died. You lost a pregnancy. You lost Felix. You and Faustus…” He shook his head. “You expect too much out of yourself. You can’t do everything.”

  “Who else will do it? I have no one.”

  “You have me,” he reminded her, and there was – had she imagined? – injury in his tone.

  “But what can you do? You are a stranger here. I am empress, and I have lived with them all my life. I know their weaknesses and their histories. Even I cannot stop them. How can a stranger?”

  He reached out his hand and took hers. It was a familiar gesture that, from anyone else, would have been a grave overstep. But from him? She felt something like relief wash over her at his touch. “Give me a little while. I will figure something out.”

  Now, she frowned. “What do you mean? What do you plan to do? These men, they’ll kill you, Tryg. They killed Felix. They would have killed me. I cannot lose anyone else. I cannot lose…you.”

  He nodded solemnly. “You will not, Empress. I promise you.”

  Trygve drew in a long, steadying breath. Then, he knocked.

  “Go away. I’m indisposed to visitors,” Faustus’s voice answered, and there was a worrying slur to his speech.

  The Northman hoped he wasn’t already intoxicated. That would not do, not for his purposes. So he knocked again, this time with a bit more energy.

  A moment later, he heard the latch slide back, and a red faced emperor appeared. “Are you deaf? I said-” But he cut off at the sight of the visitor, and his scowl deepened. “You? Get out of my sight, you Northern bastard. Whatever she wants, I don’t care. Tell her I’m indisposed.”

  There was definitely a hint of overindulgence in his tone – and a heavy helping of injured pride. The Northman cleared his throat. “I am not come at Empress Cassia’s request, my lord.”

  Faustus snorted. “Then what the hell do you want? We’ve nothing to discuss.”

  “I believe we do. I believe…” Here, he lowered his voice. “I believe I have information that you will want to hear.”

  The emperor surveyed him with cold eyes. But there was the faintest gleam of interest in those eyes – a gleam that no pretense of nonchalance could bury. “Oh?”

  Trygve glanced around the hall significantly. “It is a matter better discussed in private, my lord.” He was pushing his luck, he knew. Faustus was not in a cooperative mood. But the truth was, he didn’t want anyone overhearing this. If he had any chance of succeeding, it would – could – only be in secrecy.

  Faustus frowned for a long moment, but then nodded and pulled the door back. Once Trygve had stepped through, he said, “Well, hurry it up Northman. I’ve got a bottle of wine whose company I suspect I will enjoy a lot more than yours.”

  “Then I will cut to the chase, Emperor. The senate is poised to convict Governor Caius.”

  He snorted. “Yes. And it seems with reason.”

  Trygve nodded. “Indeed.”

  “So my beloved wife was right after all.” There was a bitter emphasis to the word beloved, but he didn’t linger on it. “That miserable son of a whore Caius killed my son.”

  “Yes, Emperor. But he did not act alone.”

  Faustus frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Caius had allies all throughout the city. Many of them are the same allies rushing to convict him. The empress fears that the trial will conclude tomorrow, and the matter be laid to rest – before his conspirators are brought to light.”

  Faustus studied him for a long moment. “You are not so stupid as you look, Northman.”

  Trygve forced a smile. “Thank you, my lord.”

  “I dare say, she’s right. But why come to me with this? I thought my beloved was ‘indisposed’ to entertain me? Now that she finds a problem beyond her abilities, she sends you to come sniveling to me, to beg for assistance?”

  Trygve shook his head. “No, Emperor. She does not know I’m here.”

  One eyebrow crept up Faustus’s forehead, and then he laughed. “Really? Well, well. We are making something of a Stellan out of you after all.

  “Tell me, why are you creeping around behind your empress’s back, Northman?”

  He shrugged. “As you say: this is a problem beyond the empress’s abilities.”

  Faustus laughed again. “Now I wonder how my beloved would feel if she heard her precious barbarian say that aloud.”

  Trygve ignored the comment. “You and Caius were confidantes.”

  “Are you insinuating I had something to do with this?” Faustus’s entire demeanor changed in a moment. His smirk morphed into a snarl, his eyes flashed with anger.

  “Certainly not,” he hastened to assure. “Caius betrayed you, as he betrayed the empress. But you know something of the man, and his allies. You know more about him than any other member of the royal household.

  “And if anyone, my lord, can take down the men who murdered his son…well, it’s you.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Cassia rose in a troubled state of mind. She’d had no epiphanies overnight. She could still see no way to bring her would-be murderers to light. The trial would conclude today, as it had been scheduled to do. Caius would be pronounced guilty, and his guilt would encompass the entirety of the crime. And there was nothing she could do about it.

  Trygve, though, seemed in a more optimistic frame of mind. “Have faith in your Minerva, Cass. We shall yet see what the morning holds.”

  When she pressed him for the source of his optimism, he would say nothing beyond, “I have planted a seed. A seed I think will bear fruit.”

  She’d snorted at his cryptic words. “You are picking up where Felix left off, I see.” But she could not deny that her heart felt lighter at his words. Even when the arrived at the Forum, when Gallus and the rest of the snakes greeted her with airs of so much compassion and consideration, she could not help but trust in his prediction.

  She didn’t know why. Rationally, she could conceive of no hand that Trygve could play to change this situation. Their cards were already on the table.

  And yet, his cool, quiet confidence and warm, solicitous glances put her mind at ease. She remained at ease as the proceedings opened – right up until the far doors opened with the clatter of someone not much concerned about disrupting things. A moment later, her heart sank as Faustus strode into the chamber.

  He walked with a purposeful step, not for one of the empty seats, but straight to the central dais.

  A few of the senators exchanged glances. Gallus called, “Emperor Faustus, we are honored – and we grieve with you over the business that brings us all together.”

  Cassia, m
eanwhile, turned anxious eyes to Trygve, but he smiled at her and whispered, “The seed, Cass.”

  She didn’t understand, not at once. But Faustus turned to her, with a warmth that almost seemed authentic. “My lady. My Cassia.” He lowered his head, not in a full, deferential bow, but in a solemn acknowledgement. Now, he focused on the senators, turning in a full revolution until he’d scanned the entire room. “Senators, I am come to demand justice. Real justice.”

  “We want nothing more than to see that you get it, my lord,” someone called.

  “We all know Caius is guilty. We can keep calling witnesses until we die of old age or boredom. But you’ve established his guilt.

  “Now, let us establish the guilt of his conspirators.”

  A hushed murmur ran through the crowd. “Emperor,” someone said, “I don’t understand.”

  “What conspirators?”

  “His accomplices will be dealt with in the harshest terms, I assure you,” Gallus offered. “We have promised leniency to those agents who cooperated, but not even they –”

  “I don’t mean his minions, his letter carriers and message procurers. I mean the men who smiled to my face while they poisoned my wife and murdered my son. I mean the men – including those in this chamber – who knew only too well his plan to kill my heir. Our heir. Who conspired with him, and now stand here to condemn him.”

  Another murmur, this time louder than the first, ran through the Forum. Cassia turned questioning eyes to Trygve, and he smiled again.

  “My lord,” Senator Albus declared, “we understand the shock, the grief, that you have experienced. But –”

  “I mean you, Senator Gallus, and you Albus. And you too, Corenus and Thracius and Quintius. I mean you, Marcellus, and you Tiberius. I mean every one of you snakes who sat in Caius’s council while he plotted to murder my wife and child.”

  Cassia wasn’t sure what she felt at these words. Joy? Alarm? Perhaps. But mostly, she seemed surprised. Stunned. What miracle had Trygve wrought? How had he persuaded her husband to come here, and say this – the same husband who would have let her die not so many weeks ago, who raised his hand to her? How had he persuaded him to turn on his once allies?