Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  The deliberate mention of her dead husband made Castor flinch a little; Germanicus had been his adopted brother. Castor shifted on his feet, where his right arch pained him with an abscess that never seemed to heal. ‘All the same, Father is encouraging us to show new restraint with household expenses,’ Castor said. ‘It sets a good example.’

  The three women stiffened. If anyone else but Castor had presented Agrippina with one of Tiberius’s petty directives, all three would have spat in his face. But Castor was one of the family members of whom Agrippina was fond. She beamed with grace, but gave no assent that the Emperor’s word meant anything to her. Instead she turned to me. ‘A fan slave, I think, should be added to our shopping list, Iphicles. I feel a need for one of those. And a scissors slave. How can I be expected to cut up my own meat?’ She was being provocative for Castor’s benefit, but I nodded obediently.

  Another look passed between Castor and her boys and Agrippina saw it this time. ‘What is it – do you think Tiberius will be shocked?’ she asked dryly.

  I had noticed a change in the way Nero and Drusus stood next to Castor, no longer as nephews might with their uncle, but with the deference shown to a man with whom they shared a closer bond.

  In front of us at the auction block a landowner’s overseer purchased the Britons, completing the transaction with the scribes while the mangon took a gulp of wine, dribbling it on his gaudy robes. While the mangon drank, a giant of a man, greater than six feet tall, with long, yellow hair tied back with a wire, came out from the covered area. His thick, bare arms and hands, crossed across his broad chest, were covered in battle scars. He looked like the most fearsome of German warriors.

  ‘Look at that one, Lady,’ I whispered.

  Agrippina saw him. The warrior’s gaze – if that’s what he was – found her among the crowd, as if drawn to her by a spell. They held each other in their looks for a moment, Lady and slave, each assessing the other, appraising and measuring their respective strengths.

  ‘Is he for sale, Lady?’

  The two continued to fill their eyes with each other before the golden-haired warrior broke the connection.

  ‘A brute like that would be uncontrollable,’ said Agrippina.

  Castor cleared his throat. ‘There has been news this morning, since you mention my father.’

  ‘I didn’t mention him,’ said Agrippina, turning her back to the giant. ‘You brought him up.’

  Nero and Drusus smiled indulgently at their mother. They held knowledge she did not.

  ‘I am very fond of these two fine boys of yours,’ said Castor. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Agrippina, warmly. She turned her head to the auction block again. The first of the domestic slaves were emerging. Sosia and Claudia made little exclamations of pleasure with the appearance of several attractive young boys.

  ‘Aren’t they sweet?’ said Agrippina. ‘Should I purchase myself a little pet, Iphicles?’

  I nodded, but my eye was on Castor.

  ‘I will always be a protector to them for as long as Nero and Drusus need it,’ Castor went on, ‘in memory of their father.’

  ‘I know you will,’ said Agrippina. She wasn’t looking at him anymore.

  Castor glanced at the boys, and they nodded at him encouragingly. ‘With Nero about to gain his robes of manhood, and Drusus only a year away from it too, I have asked my father for his permission to have the boys placed in my care.’

  Agrippina blanched and spun around. Her retinue of supporters sensed that something had shocked her and strained to listen above the din of the crowd.

  Castor went on. ‘They have no father now. It seems like a sensible idea.’

  ‘You asked him? You went to Tiberius and gave him this … betrayal of Germanicus on your own accord?’

  Castor paled. ‘It is not a betrayal, Agrippina.’

  The boys looked around us, fearing their mother was gathering unwanted attention.

  ‘What else have you done but betray me with this, Castor? You may as well poison me too.’

  ‘Mother, please,’ said Nero. ‘No one is talking about anything like that here.’

  ‘Your father was poisoned,’ Agrippina turned on him. ‘You know that – you were there when he died in my arms – and you know by whose hand it was done.’

  ‘It was Piso, Mother,’ said Drusus, ‘and his wife, Plancina.’

  ‘They were his agents.’

  ‘Agrippina, for the gods’ sake,’ Castor appealed to her.

  She stared into his eyes. There was kindness there, a genuine love for her, along with a deep concern for her welfare. She guessed the truth. ‘You didn’t go to him to ask permission at all, Castor. He summoned you.’

  Castor’s embarrassment was plain. ‘I … I care for the boys.’

  ‘But it was all his idea?’

  ‘We want this, Mother,’ Nero tried to tell her.

  ‘We love our uncle,’ said Drusus. ‘This is what’s best for us.’

  ‘This is what’s best for Tiberius,’ said Agrippina. ‘He wants you both away from me. He’s frightened I’ll turn your minds against him.’

  ‘Mother, please. This is terrible,’ Nero said. ‘We want our uncle to adopt us.’

  Agrippina lurched with a fury into the mass of attendants, forcing her way through. ‘What about what Rome wants?’ she cried over her shoulder. Sosia and Claudia kept pace, striding behind her, their faces still smiling as if nothing was untoward. Confusion gripped the two groups of followers, with Agrippina’s trying to make their way through the throng of Castor’s clients.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Castor shouted after her. ‘Agrippina!’

  But she was unstoppable.

  I stayed where I was, standing still among the clamour all around me. My mind stayed fixed upon the events of the morning – the carnifex, my domina, the strange portent. My teeth ground in my head; I was at risk of being overwhelmed. I forced my mind back to the task at hand. I was here to buy slaves. Tiberius’s doings, Agrippina’s rage – these were unimportant to me. It was just another day.

  My eye wandered across the new parade of vernae slaves that emerged from the market cells. These were healthy slaves, experienced in household service – and many were attractive too, their appeal enhanced by their nakedness. Thanks to the kindness of Agrippina’s long-dead mother, Julia, I could read and write, so I scanned the information scrolls around the slaves’ bare necks. Each one’s health and nationality was detailed, and his or her accomplishments too, along with warrants assuring buyers that the slave had no tendency towards thieving, suicide or epilepsy.

  My eye settled on two young children tightly holding each other’s hands – a girl of no more than five and a boy of eight or nine. Their scrolls had no warrants but they wore telltale caps on their heads: they were marked as thieves. Alone among the slaves for sale, they showed no fear at their predicament, only courage and a determination that they would never be separated.

  Nilla and Burrus recognised me at once, of course, and I, with joy, sang praise to all the gods at finding them again.

  ‘You have a look about you as if you’ve willfully broken your confinement,’ said Antonia, suspicious of her daughter.

  Livilla groaned. ‘I have been shut up inside this room as a prisoner of my bed, Mother – ask any of my slaves.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare say otherwise, the way you treat them. No, I’m sorry, but you have that look, Livilla, the look you’ve always had when you do wickedness behind me.’

  ‘Mother, for the gods’ sake, I am not a child. And why would I risk wandering pointlessly around the halls when the baby is so close? I could catch a chill from the mists.’

  ‘For years your poor Castor has waited for a son from you, and now you risk everything by exposing yourself to dangers.’

  ‘If you are going to do nothing else but throw hurtful accusations at me, then please leave.’ Livilla rolled on her side in
the bed, turning her back on all the fussing occupants of the birthing room. Her eyes caught those of the castrated Lygdus, who was pressing himself against the far wall. Livilla was made uncomfortable by the drops of blood that still soaked daily into the hem of his tunica. He had gained weight too, which she disliked in a young eunuch. ‘Make yourself busy, Lygdus, if you insist on staring at me rather than doing the job you’re supposed to be doing at the front door.’

  Lygdus bowed and fell to his knees. At a loss as to what might be deemed ‘useful’, he began moving the floor dust into little piles with his palms. From the other side of the room the young midwife suddenly sat up straight in her chair at the sight of his pointless activity. The senior birthing mistress in the chair beside her only glanced in the young eunuch’s direction once before respectfully addressing Antonia.

  ‘The domina has never once left this room since we have been in attendance this last seven days, Lady,’ she said.

  The young midwife watched Lygdus’s fluttering hands like a cat.

  The aged and revered Antonia narrowed her eyes at the senior midwife but chose to give her daughter the benefit of the doubt. ‘If you insist then, Livilla.’

  ‘I certainly do.’ But she kept her back to her mother, her left arm held protectively across her belly.

  Antonia stood to leave. ‘I have other calls to make this morning. My friend Aemilia is unwell. Perhaps she’ll be glad of my attentions.’

  Lygdus’s fingers connected with something jammed in a gap between the floorboards under Livilla’s bed. He gripped it, unable to squeeze beneath the bed to properly see what it was. He tugged at the thing by the fabric it seemed to be encased in. The object came free. ‘Have you lost something, domina?’ he whispered to Livilla, holding the surprisingly heavy little object up for her to see.

  Livilla glanced at him with only minor interest, but the young midwife stiffened in her chair. ‘I’ve never seen it before,’ said Livilla.

  Lygdus gave it to her and Livilla upended the little sock. A tiny roll of flattened lead fell into her palm. She looked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, as did Antonia, who had paused in leaving the room. Then mother and daughter met eyes in a shared moment of horror.

  ‘It’s a curse tablet!’ Livilla screamed, flinging the lead aside. It bounced across the floor, stopping at the guilt-ridden young midwife’s feet. ‘Oh my gods!’

  ‘Witchcraft!’

  ‘How did it get inside here?’

  The young midwife shrank into the wall.

  ‘Open it,’ said Antonia. ‘Open the foul thing.’

  The young midwife froze. Her senior colleague stooped with creaking joints to retrieve it, trying to look as if she felt no fear. ‘Could it hold a blessing, Lady?’

  Antonia snatched the thing from her and Livilla wailed. ‘I won’t let you see it, daughter,’ said Antonia, ‘but I must read it to know who would wish us ill will.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not a blessing?’ said the old midwife again.

  Antonia dug her nails under the curl of rolled lead. The tablet bent easily in her fingers and she smoothed the abhorrent thing in her palm.

  ‘Tell me what it says,’ moaned Livilla.

  ‘It’s indecipherable …’

  Livilla threw herself from her bed and snatched the tablet from her mother’s hands.

  ‘Livilla!’

  ‘It’s written backwards …’

  ‘Oh help us, gods,’ cried Antonia, feeling weak.

  ‘A mirror – where’s my mirror?’

  Fearful and bewildered, Lygdus picked up the polished silver disk that Livilla used to study her complexion. ‘Domina …’

  Livilla plucked it from him and held the tablet to its surface with shaking hands. Legible words were revealed in the reflection. White-faced, Antonia read them with her daughter.

  By Veiovis, may the child of the slut Livilla lose its eyes and its ears and its mouth and its head.

  Only Lygdus, young and strong, had the speed to catch his mistress as she slipped forward. He stopped her swollen belly from striking the ground. But the effort of saving Livilla tore open his wound, causing fresh blood to spill down his leg, before it was lost in a greater flood. Livilla’s waters broke around him, gushing to the floor from her loins.

  When the tortures of labour went on to claim her, so did the irrationality of terror. With every stab in her guts she begged the goddesses who guided her – Venus, Diana and Juno – to tell her who had invoked the god of deception and lies to curse her so cruelly. When, after an hour of this, she claimed that Venus had given her the answer, no amount of appalled dissuasion from Antonia could shift Livilla’s conviction. Lygdus had done it, Livilla screamed – he had found the curse tablet under her bed only because he had placed it there. The eunuch had invoked Veiovis to curse her for his castration.

  By the second hour of her agony Livilla was only persuaded not to crucify Lygdus by Antonia’s desperate proposal of a lesser punishment. For every contraction that gripped Livilla’s womb, Lygdus received a stroke of the nail-studded whip. In short time his screams were louder than hers, which became a comfort to Livilla in her fear.

  None found this punishment more difficult to observe than the guilt-ridden young midwife.

  The two Praetorians on duty opened the doors to such a shocking scene that they rushed into the room with their swords drawn. Agrippina ran in behind them with a sharp scream, leaving Sosia and Claudia to stare after her in confusion. Tiberius was sprawled on the floor, struggling to get up from where he had fallen, as Consular Senator Gallus gripped him around the knees, sobbing like a child. The guards were so alert to assassination attempts that Gallus was only just saved from being cut to pieces by Tiberius himself.

  ‘Wait!’

  The men halted with their swords raised.

  ‘The fool has lost his reason but he’s not trying to kill me,’ said Tiberius. ‘Get off, Gallus,’ he winced, kicking at the senator.

  Gallus let go, realising that his show of supplication had nearly been the death of him. ‘Caesar,’ he stammered. ‘I … I meant no harm.’

  ‘You caused it anyway – just get out.’ Tiberius saw Agrippina standing behind the guards with a look of dark disgust on her face. He knew it had nothing to do with Gallus and clambered to his feet.

  The Consular Senator tried to exit backwards, bowing as he went, but he struck a lampidarium, nearly pulling it down before Agrippina’s quick actions steadied it. She kept her eyes hard upon Tiberius. Gallus’s tears started again and he crawled out of the reception room weeping noisily. There was a stunned lull in his wake, and then the guards made it clear they wanted an explanation. Agrippina realised that Charicles, Tiberius’s physician, was also in the large room, seated in a chair with a scroll in his lap, and quite unperturbed by any of it.

  ‘The idiot Gallus thinks he’s the target of a plot,’ Tiberius addressed the guards like boys. ‘Villains are attempting to smear him, he claims. All rubbish, of course. Gallus is deluded with self-importance.’

  ‘And why would that be?’ Agrippina asked. Charicles glanced up from his scroll. There was a look of defiance in Agrippina’s face. ‘Because he married your former wife?’

  The past year’s experiences had taught Tiberius that the best way to deal with his headstrong widowed daughter-in-law was to seize the advantage from her early. He lurched forward and kissed her on the forehead, placing his arms around her broad shoulders. In the room outside, Sosia and Claudia stared in disgust. The sheer unexpectedness of this gesture disarmed Agrippina long enough for Tiberius to dismiss the guards. He reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out some aureus coins.

  ‘Gallus’s union with my former wife Vipsania is something Rome celebrates,’ he said, tossing the coins to the Praetorians and waving them out of the room. ‘But if this has inflated his sense of self then perhaps it can’t be helped. Vipsania is a fine woman, after all, much admired.’

  This was an invitation fo
r Agrippina to bring up Tiberius’s cruel divorce of Vipsania prior to his marriage to Agrippina’s late mother. But she saw it for the trap it was and went straight to the point of her visit. ‘My sons,’ she said. ‘I wish to speak to you about Drusus and Nero.’

  ‘Do you seek my advice on some matter?’

  The Praetorians closed the doors on the conversation and on Sosia and Claudia outside. Only the physician Charicles remained in the huge room with them.

  ‘I seek an explanation,’ said Agrippina.

  Tiberius kissed her on the forehead again, embracing her tightly and pressing his lips to her skin. ‘My poor daughter-inlaw,’ he said at last. ‘Your grief has left you slow in recognising the benevolence of my actions.’

  Agrippina reeled from his breath as rage stuck in her throat. She forced herself not to react. ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘My grief for your adopted son is unending – I will never be rid of it, and nor will I wish to be.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Tiberius, unblinking in his smile. The odour of him was sour in the air.

  ‘Together we are united in our devotion to his sons,’ said Agrippina. ‘We want them to live with those who love them most.’

  ‘Of course we do.’ Tiberius made a movement to suggest he was going to kiss her again and Agrippina tensed in his arms. Then he playfully released her but remained standing next to her in unpleasant intimacy. ‘I have a new idea,’ he said.

  She waited.

  ‘We’ll knock holes in the walls that separate your house from Castor’s.’

  ‘Castor’s house is this house – Oxheads.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Tiberius. ‘Castor and his household are entirely separate.’

  ‘The buildings are connected. It is all one.’

  ‘Is it?’ Tiberius considered this as if the layout of the Imperial family’s homes had never been revealed to him. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Then your house will be connected, too. We should have done it long ago, when Germanicus was still alive. We’re one family, after all. As soon as your sons are moved into their new rooms in Castor’s house this afternoon, we’ll set the slaves to work on your walls. Then it won’t feel like the boys have moved away from you at all, Agrippina. It’ll feel like your house has expanded. All that extra space.’