Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  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?

  THE CHILD

  WILL RULE

  The Nones of November

  AD 31

  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 a
nger. ‘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.’