Nest of vipers eor-2

by Luke Devenish

  The caged slaves awaiting auction were the focus of the three women's attention, but my eyes were on the other features around us. 'Look, Lady,' I spoke before thinking. 'They're giving the domina new hair.'

  Agrippina looked. The Field of Mars's statue of Livia was having a fashionable bronze hairstyle fitted, so that she wouldn't look outdated. I thought this was happy news, of course, but I should have known better than to express it to Agrippina. The widow hated my domina.

  'It means that the Augusta is still in people's hearts,' I explained to her. 'They want her to keep up with the times.'

  Agrippina said nothing and Sosia cast a censuring look at me. Rome was still even to learn of my domina 's 'illness', although the goddess Rumour was concocting stories to explain Livia's long absence from public view.

  The din of panpipers and musicians playing tambourines and cithara increased in volume for a moment, then ceased, creating expectation in the crowd.

  'The mangon is appearing,' Claudia motioned.

  Agrippina could not be expected to bid personally, so that was my role here. The lavishly dressed mangon — or slave trader — looked like he was off to a festival banquet instead of a slave sale. He came into view from behind his caged captives, rubbing his hands together cheerily and greeting customers he recognised in the crowd. He saw Agrippina with her friends and changed his expression to one of deep respect, bowing to her, before he continued greeting others. Agrippina absorbed this with dignity, and I could tell she approved of it, as did Sosia and Claudia.

  'He knows who you are, Lady,' I said, 'and he respects you.'

  'Good,' said Agrippina. 'You can use that to drive down his price.'

  The gate on the first of the slave cages was released and the mangon 's assistants poked sticks through the bars at the dozen grime-caked men. With nothing to protect them, they cowered, before realising they were expected to come out so that the buyers could examine them. Agrippina frowned as they started to emerge.

  'Sardinians,' said Claudia, using the slang term for cheap captives not necessarily from Sardinia but from anywhere with a repressed population. Nerve-wracked, they looked like Britons to me. A commotion from behind the cages caught our attention. A woman was screaming, begging for her life in Latin. A ripple went through the crowd as all craned their heads to see what was happening. But Agrippina and her friends looked away from the distasteful scene.

  I saw the source of the drama — a female slave was being dragged from a holding area that was covered from view. She was older and with few physical charms. The clothes she wore were rags but I could tell that they had once been fine garments. She was not a regular slave.

  'What's happening?' Claudia whispered to me, still looking elsewhere.

  'A woman is being taken away by the mangon 's men.'

  'Why?'

  'She is not being offered for sale,' I muttered.

  'Has she committed a crime?' asked Sosia, who was too short to see, even if she'd wished to.

  'Yes,' was all I could say. It didn't matter what that crime was, only that the wretched woman had been accused of it and was now facing the price.

  'They won't do it here, will they?' said Claudia, appalled, as she realised this too.

  Agrippina gave her friend a look and moved a short distance away to speak with some other members of her retinue.

  'No, Lady,' I whispered.

  Beyond us, among the auction crowd, people began to part and retreat as an ass-drawn cart trundled into the marketplace, led by a naked, leather-masked driver. Cries of disgust broke out from some as they realised what he was, while others — slaves, many of them, and freedmen with strong memories — could do nothing but stare. Claudia was compelled to look and she paled with dismay. 'That's not… him, is it?'

  I shook my head, blinking back tears of pity for the condemned slave woman. 'No, Lady,' I said. 'The carnifex is too polluted to be here — he's not allowed inside the city. He has sent a man in his image to retrieve her.'

  The ass-driver's leather mask would strike terror in anyone, let alone a slave. It was a copy of the mask worn by the real carnifex — the public executioner — who was forbidden to offend the gods by showing his accursed face. The slave woman's cries were terrible.

  'Make it swift for her, Cybele,' I whispered in prayer to the Great Mother.

  The mangon 's men bundled the woman inside the stinking cart, binding her hands to an iron hook.

  Claudia saw what I had already noticed. 'Her clothes are well made — she speaks in Latin. Is she a well-born woman?'

  'Slavery can be the fate of even the greatest, Lady,' I said. 'She could be the mother of a chief.'

  'Which means she stood against Rome,' said Agrippina, coldly. The widow had returned to us and was keen for this upsetting spectacle to end.

  Claudia shuddered, nodding. There was nothing more to add. But as the ass-drawn cart trundled away from the market, I felt the stirring of a tremor at my feet. It was tiny at first, barely there, but I felt it, a movement deep in the ground. At once my memory rushed back sixty years, to when I had felt such a tremor before. It had been in the cave of Cybele, where my domina and I had heard our destinies revealed. The earth bucked again now and I staggered in my shoes. I looked around but I knew the truth already — no one else had felt the tremor. I was alone in my experience. For a moment or two more I tried to appear as if all was right while the fair screeched on around me. But the beast continued to churn below the earth while I appealed in desperate silence to the skies.

  'What is wrong with you, Iphicles?' said Agrippina. 'The carnifex 's man is gone.'

  I smiled and went to make a joke, but then my eye fell on the statue of my domina. The updated hairstyle, cast in bronze, slipped from the statue's head, striking the skull of the sculptor's assistant. The man fell to the ground as his fellows rushed to him. The heavy bronze hair had snapped in two.

  My mouth grew dry. The slave woman, the carnifex, the tremor and the statue — they were a portent, an omen. Together they made a signal meant for me and no one else. But what did they mean?

  The mangon clapped his hands, casting winks and smiles, anxious to get the proceedings underway and lift the spirits of the crowd. The stick-wielding assistants forced the disgorged captives to strip off their rags.

  'Shall I bid for any of these, Lady?' I asked, hoping I had pulled myself together.

  'These men are good for nothing but field work — they'll last two years at best. Health and skills are what I want today — good vernae. Slaves born in captivity — like you.'

  'Agrippina!'

  A voice behind us made us turn. Castor was approaching with a large retinue of his own. Agrippina's older sons, Nero and Drusus, were among them.

  'Good morning, Mother,' Nero called out.

  Her face lit up with pleasure as Castor's mass of rowdy followers merged with her own. 'Well, this is nice — some extra company while I shop today,' Agrippina shouted above the noise. She and Castor kissed, and then the boys exchanged embraces with her, before everyone greeted Sosia and Claudia.

  Nero looked at the captives for sale. 'I don't think much of these — where will you put them all?'

  'I don't want those poor men,' Agrippina said. 'I'm after household slaves to replace the ones I lost. They're just selling off the dross first before they bring out the decent men.'

  Castor exchanged a quick look with the two boys. 'You won't need to be too extravagant today,' he said to Agrippina.

  Sosia laughed.

  'When am I extravagant?' said Agrippina, knowing why Sosia thought it funny. Agrippina was famously frugal. 'All I want to do is restock my house in a fashion that Germanicus would have approved of.'

  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 pi
les 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?'