Nest of vipers eor-2

by Luke Devenish

  'Such a terrible way to end,' Apicata whispered. 'It's so shameful, so obscene.'

  'We don't know how he'll end yet,' said Plancina. 'It could be even worse for him, for all we know. Tiberius might let loose the beasts.'

  This only made Apicata weep again.

  Plancina comforted her, but wanted her new friend to keep focused on their goal. 'You cannot allow yourself to pity him, Apicata, nor can you allow yourself to forgive him.'

  Apicata nodded, and dabbed at her nose with her stola hem. 'But can I allow myself to love him still? Nothing I do can ever stop that.'

  Plancina accepted this. Whether Apicata still loved Sejanus or not was immaterial. They now had the ingredients that would see him broken in the sand.

  'The druid is not there, Prefect,' said Macro, emerging into the alley from the Subura hovel. He tried to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked up at Sejanus astride his horse.

  'Where is he, then?' Sejanus demanded.

  'The woman doesn't know.'

  'What woman?'

  'The woman who claims the druid sold his business to her.'

  Sejanus swung himself down from the horse and thrust his face into the Tribune's. 'Are you mocking me, Macro?'

  Macro didn't flinch. 'No, Prefect. I am reporting what occurred. The druid no longer lives inside this house — he is gone. A freedwoman lives here now.'

  Sejanus grabbed the Tribune by the throat. 'Do you know how important it is that the Emperor gets his Eastern flower?'

  Macro did. He also knew how important it was that Sejanus got a measure of the stuff for himself, too. They were weak-willed lotus eaters, the two of them, Macro thought, not that he was stupid enough to say as much. Sejanus's hand tightened. 'The woman said she can still provide the flower, Prefect,' Macro managed to spit out. 'She bought the druid's business from him.'

  'Then why haven't you come outside with the flower?'

  'The woman's story seemed irregular. I thought it better to inform you of it first.'

  Sejanus let go of Macro's throat and walked directly to the hovel's low door, kicking it hard. The door flew inwards and Sejanus entered the dank room, ducking his head. There was a beautiful woman crouched by the fire in shadow, her slender back blighted by a thick, bulbous hump.

  'Give me the Eastern flower,' said Sejanus. He was repelled by the sight of her deformity.

  'It's all ready and prepared,' Martina smiled. She stood up and stretched as wafts of steam arose from her hump from where she had been warming it. The stink reached Sejanus.

  'Do you know who I am?' he choked, placing his hand in front of his nose.

  'The druid told me it was best to keep things anonymous with the customers,' said Martina. 'I don't know you from Apollo's prick. Let's keep it that way, shall we?'

  In any other circumstance Sejanus would have run Martina through with a sword. 'Show it to me.'

  Martina fumbled in her cloak and brought out a small, square bundle bound in calf skin. 'I wrapped it up nicely for you,' she told him. 'The druid was very particular that I should. He told me you liked your fancy packaging.'

  'Give it to me.'

  Martina threw it to him. Sejanus pulled his knife from the scabbard at his belt and stuck the point into the calf skin. Then he pressed his thumbnail into the hole and withdrew it again, licking it with his tongue. He savoured the taste.

  'No one knows where the stuff comes from,' Martina mused. 'Makes you wonder what sort of a place it must be, doesn't it?'

  Sejanus felt the surge of the flower's magic and loosened the money pouch at his belt. He tossed it to Martina.

  'I'm sure I don't need to count it,' she smiled, tucking the pouch into her cloak.

  Sejanus turned on his heel.

  'Do you think we'll ever be seeing the musica muta again?' she called after him.

  Sejanus stopped and looked back at her over his shoulder. His pupils were huge.

  'I miss all their fun — don't you?' said Martina. 'And now the Emperor's got the hump against the Ludi too. No more gladiators in Rome. Seems a shame, if you ask me. What are people meant to do for entertainment?'

  'They can travel five miles up the Tiber to Fidenae.'

  Martina dismissed this. 'A little bird told me Fidenae will be a one-off.'

  Sejanus just stared at her.

  'Be seeing you again soon?' she asked him.

  But Sejanus was already outside and mounting his horse.

  When the Prefect and his Praetorians had gone, Martina stirred the iron pot that simmered gently on the fire. The fleshy remains of hands and genitals arose to the surface before settling into the broth again. Martina's friends emerged from the curtained backroom together, Plancina keeping her handless arm hooked through Apicata's good limb, as she always did now.

  'What will it do to him?' Apicata asked when she had taken a seat near the fire.

  'Nothing much, to begin with,' said Martina, scratching her hump.

  Plancina laughed. 'Like all your best poisons, Martina.'

  The sorceress agreed. 'The best ones build their strength slowly — but this one's not a poison. It's not going to make him ill.'

  'What will it do to him?' Apicata asked again.

  'It'll make him careless,' said Martina. 'Very careless.' As an afterthought, she added, 'It'll make poor old Tiberius a bit careless too.'

  Martina and Plancina's cackles spilled through the hovel's door, echoing in the narrow Suburan alley. But Apicata's laughter did not join them.

  Septimontium

  September, AD 26

  Seven months later: Lucius Calpurnius Piso, governor of Nearer Spain, is attacked and murdered by a peasant from Termes while riding unguarded The Emperor cannot be blamed for taking stern action against those who accuse him of poison.

  Whenever this graffiti was whitewashed from a wall or replaced by a pro-Agrippina slogan, it would return within hours. Eventually, when only a few of Agrippina's known supporters remained in Rome, people stopped removing the words. Lygdus was not as effusive about these developments as I wished him to be.

  'What's wrong with you now?' I snapped.

  He shook his head. 'Nothing.'

  'You ought to be glad.'

  'Ought I?' said Lygdus.

  'Elation is what you feel — we have removed an obstacle.'

  He looked depressed. 'I have never known a domina like Agrippina before,' he said.

  'She is very different from Livilla,' I agreed.

  'She is courageous. She is… more like a dominus.'

  I agreed this was also true. 'But she is not charged with treason. She is not dead on the Stairs,' I said, repeating the official line. 'She is merely under guard for her own protection.'

  'Don't insult me, Iphicles. She's not allowed outside her rooms. No slaves can attend her. Not even her children can visit.'

  'She's still very much alive,' I said, 'and so is Nero. He's free to roam the city as he likes. And I dare say he likes it a lot. Keep taking plenty of notes on his adventures, Lygdus.'

  We left the defaced wall and walked a little way down the hill towards the Forum before Lygdus stopped again. He looked so pleadingly into my eyes that I pulled him roughly into an alley, where no one could overhear us. 'All right — what is it?' I said.

  'Can't we… spare some of them?' he asked.

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Not all of them deserve it — not all of our masters. Some have qualities that… surprise me.'

  I could only laugh. 'Castor wasn't a bad man but you were still happy to poison his footbath.'

  'I wasn't happy.'

  I scoffed.

  'All right, I was only happy before,' Lygdus tried to explain, 'before I knew — '

  'Knew the truth about murder?' I sneered. 'Well, you know it now and you wanted to know — let's not forget that, Lygdus. And the other truth about murder is that once you've started, there's no going back.'

  'I joined you in this because I wanted to hurt them, to punish th
em, but now…'

  I didn't say another word until he dared to look me in the eye again. 'Too late.'

  'No, it's not — '

  'Things will move like lightning because of everything we've done, and there's no stopping it now.'

  'We can save some of them — one or two of them.'

  'We can't! They're damned — do you hear me? Every last one of them is damned by the gods, except the one the gods have chosen.'

  'So one of them will be spared?'

  'I have told you many times who that will be — it's Little Boots.'

  Lygdus said nothing more for several moments, until, just as I concluded that our discussion was done, he whispered, 'What if we'd do better sparing another?'

  I raised my hand to strike him but he didn't even flinch. He merely stared me in the eye with a look of hope on his face. I heard a tiny voice of doubt in me, a voice I had heard before. I had ignored it before, and easily. But this time its call was clearer, sharper, and painful in my heart. 'What,' the voice asked me, 'what if the question to be asked is not whether the prophecy is right — about that there is no question — but whether the prophecy is good?'

  Lygdus waited.

  'It's not meant to be anyone else but Little Boots,' I said at last. But he saw the effort that saying this cost me.

  The eunuch followed me as I left the alley, but he did not walk at my side. He stayed several paces behind, so that I couldn't see his face and he couldn't see mine. When we had descended the hill and were facing the Forum throng, he called out to me. 'You're going on holiday, Iphicles.'

  I turned. 'What are you talking about?'

  'You're being sent away. I heard them talking about it.'

  'No, I'm not.'

  'Yes, you are. Tiberius is doing a tour of the countryside with Sejanus and he wants you among the slaves.'

  I stared at him. 'Why does he want me?'

  'I've no idea,' said Lygdus. 'But that's what the order was. Like I said, I heard them talking.'

  I was bewildered.

  'It could be worse — at least you'll be near the seaside.'

  'But what about the domina?'

  Lygdus shrugged. 'She'll be with Nero. And me.'

  I was too startled to reply, but when I finally thought of something Lygdus was walking away ahead of me.

  'What do you mean she'll be with Nero? Where is he taking her?'

  'To Fidenae,' Lygdus called over his shoulder. 'Since Tiberius has gone sour on the Ludi now, Nero thinks Rome has become boring. He's right. Rome is boring. But there's a new wooden amphitheatre five miles up the Tiber, so Nero wants to attend the inaugural games there. At Fidenae they still appreciate entertainment.'

  'What has this to do with Livia?' I demanded.

  Lygdus just shrugged again. 'He wants to carry her around in his retinue like Castor did.' He disappeared into the crush of Forum traffic.

  'Wait! Lygdus!' I tried to shout after him. 'Is this your doing?'

  But he was gone.

  I stood there devastated. My precious son was hatching schemes of his own.

  Ludi Romani

  September, AD 26

  One week later: the murderer of Lucius Calpurnius Piso escapes his captors while being taken to torture, dashing his head on a rock to kill himself

  I felt the stirrings of the subterranean beast again when I was little prepared for it.

  My favourite brothel in Rome was Circe's Enchantments, an establishment I had taken to visiting twice a week, using as many sestertii as I could save from tips and pilfering. My capacity for sexual acts was somewhat limited, obviously, but I had found the means of pleasuring myself by way of pleasur ing others, and this I engaged in with vigour. Circe's was a comparatively clean establishment, with a team of passably pretty girls and catamites in hired alcoves built into the side of the Theatre of Marcellus. On festival days these alcoves were awash with high-spirited customers at the end of each performance. But on ordinary days Circe's dropped its prices and ran all the 'she-wolves' from the brothel's other premises at the base of a Suburan apartment block.

  The good-natured madam was an old whore called Lena — as madams were invariably called in Rome — and she made a name for herself by providing services for those of us whose needs were 'unconventional'. It should not have been a surprise to me, really, when my life at Circe's and my life at Oxheads collided. I was not the only Oxheads slave to enjoy the establishment. But I was surprised when the collision came and, what's more, I was made decidedly uncomfortable by it.

  Tiberius's uncharacteristic tour of the countryside around Rome took him to some delightful locales. We journeyed through towns and bucolic hamlets that he hadn't visited in decades, if ever. On each new road we travelled crowds lined the way, cheering Tiberius and casting flowers. His habit of tossing coins certainly added to their enthusiasm, but they would have cheered him anyway for the sheer novelty of having the Emperor among them. The traitor hunts hadn't extended to rural Italy, and so the people had no reason to think ill of Tiberius — or Sejanus, for that matter.

  With his goblet in one hand and his coins in the other Tiberius made an endearing sight for those who saw him smiling down upon them from his throne. He reminded some wags in the crowd of the doddering old uncle from an Oscan farce, being carried off to his wedding to a blushing teenage bride. But in the pretty hills, when Tiberius halted his procession in order to climb down and walk, I was shocked to see that the joke was actually near the truth. Tiberius was sexually aroused. His purple robes couldn't hide the erection he had achieved beneath their folds. Plenty among the crowd saw it too and hooted their approval. Quite without shame, Tiberius strode about like a cockerel, still tossing his coins, while Sejanus smiled indulgently from his horse.

  But something in the crowd made Tiberius stop abruptly. His good mood vanished, as did his erection. He rushed back to his throne.

  'Caesar?' said Sejanus.

  Tiberius would not answer, or even look at him.

  'What is it, Caesar?'

  Tiberius signalled the men who carried his throne to make haste.

  From where I stood among the retinue of household slaves, I craned my neck to see what Tiberius might have been upset by in the crowd. But there was nothing strange. Just a sea of happy faces, some clutching flowers, others babies, and even, here and there, domestic pets. One woman held a puppy in her hands for Tiberius's blessing. Another held a piglet. And one, right at the very back of the crowd, held up a honking goose. Frustrated, I decided that the Emperor was as unknowable as ever.

  When we reached our destination for the day, I realised why Tiberius had been engorged — at least until his mood had changed. It was from anticipation. Circe's Enchantments, while running plenty of whores to keep the rabble happy, also provided rarer gems, girls and boys of breathtaking beauty, who were kept in reserve for the best clients. No client was better than Tiberius; for many years, he'd had his pick of them. And so, to provide the Emperor with some holiday amusement, Circe's had set up temporary shop in a unique country villa known as the Cave. This house was built into a cliff-face, and its celebrated banquet room, a magnificent cavern, gave the villa its name.

  My reaction upon entering this establishment was not apprehension at finding myself in a vast hole in the ground; instead, I was mortified by Lena telling all and sundry that she had remembered to pack the girl who most enjoyed being pleasured by me. The other slaves found this riotous, and I blushed furiously.

  Tiberius made his way quickly through the Cave's warren of rooms, and so determined was his progress that Sejanus lost sight of him. Looking faintly perturbed, the Praetorian Prefect went in pursuit of the Emperor, while we slaves were left to amuse ourselves as we liked. Lena made it clear that none of us were getting free rides. Behind patchwork curtains expectant whores waited, and Lena read out the day's 'specials', which were pinned to each curtain.

  Just as I was steeling myself to duck off with my favourite, I heard the deep, guttural groan of t
he subterranean beast. I froze, looking about wildly. Lena was holding out her hand for payment for services soon-to-be rendered when the echoing tremor, far below in the ground, tossed me off balance. I fell face-first onto her little table by the door, and my fistful of coins flew high into the air, raining on our heads. Several coins rang dull and hollow as they hit, revealing that they'd been clipped. As if that wasn't enough to leave Lena speechless for a moment, another tremor threw me to my feet again.

  'He's having a fit!' Lena screamed in the direction of the cubicles.

  'No!' I started to explain. 'It's not that — '

  Lena tried to pull me out of the room. 'No fits in here — it'll kill us.'

  'I'm not fitting,' I said, dragging myself from her grip. But I knew something was very wrong — or was about to be. I rode out the next tremor that boiled beneath the ground just as the brothel's boy returned breathless and panting from the fountain. He had a full pail of water in his hand.

  'Throw that on Polyxena,' Lena told him.

  The boy raised the wooden pail to toss the water over one of the patchwork curtains when a fourth tremor pitched me backwards and into his splash. I fell hard, striking my head on the floor.

  I must have lost consciousness because I found myself outside in the villa's grounds. Lena was bending over me, clucking sympathetically. 'Sorry, love,' she said. 'I can't have that sort of thing inside — it brings too much trouble on us.'

  I tried to sit up but my head was throbbing violently. 'You dragged me out?' I asked, dazed and angry.

  'What if you'd died? You're an Oxheads slave — people would start yelling murder.'

  'They would not! I'm nobody.'

  She just looked at me as though the blow to my head had reduced me to a state of childishness, and I saw that some of the brothel's girls were crowded around me too. 'I gave you my money,' I said. 'I want what I paid for.'

  'Some of those coins were hollow,' said Lena.

  'Then I want what I paid for with the coins that weren't. Help me up,' I pleaded.

  Lena and the girls hauled me to my feet. 'How do you feel, love?'