Nest of vipers eor-2

by Luke Devenish

  'They also told me — ' But she stopped herself. 'You're a slave. I'm not telling you anything.'

  'They've told you you'll marry Claudius one day, haven't they?'

  Her eyes went wide at me knowing such things. 'Well, I never will! I want a handsome husband!'

  'I don't blame you,' I said. She could only stare in complete confusion now. 'Why don't you come upstairs to visit the Lady Nilla with me?'

  Despite herself, Messalina allowed me to take her hand.

  Weakened by her endless despair, Nilla was still roused by my statement, if only for a moment. 'That's cruel, Iphicles. How can you come here to say Albucilla's fall was due to me?'

  I shook my head sorrowfully, very aware of Burrus glaring at me from his place by her side.

  'You know I have done nothing to her. I am innocent.'

  'Of course I know it,' I said. 'But it is not how others see it. Perhaps Macro believes you could be a threat to his own ambitions.'

  'Macro's ambitions? What am I to him?'

  'Perhaps Albucilla's fall has been intended as a message for you. It seems hard to believe it is a message for the Aemilii, who are of no importance to anything.'

  Burrus was appalled. 'Nilla is innocent of political designs, Iphicles.'

  'Of course,' I said.

  'You speak as if Macro expects such designs in her.'

  I shrugged, watching them keenly. 'Such is the nature of Rome. Women are as much a threat to those in power as men — perhaps even more. Men fight in the open and are defeated in the open. But women scheme in the shadows, their intentions hidden until their net is cast.'

  Burrus kept his eyes hard upon me, and the change in them, when it came, was exactly as I'd hoped it would be. He looked to Nilla with intensity, something I had not seen in him for a long time. 'With others holding these false expectations,' he whispered to her, 'perhaps you would be better to use them to your advantage.'

  Nilla stared, incredulous.

  'If they fear you already,' Burrus explained, 'perhaps you should rise to those fears. Leave this house behind and find the men who loved your father and mother. Become someone to be genuinely afraid of. What have you got to lose, Nilla?'

  She was horrified. 'This is what destroyed my mother — this male ambition is obscene in a woman of Rome!'

  'Nilla.'

  'It's true, you know it is — you were there to see it.'

  'Your mother was hotheaded and reckless, and consumed by grief. It made her blind to her real enemies — and blind to herself.'

  'Burrus!'

  'You have none of those flaws. None of them.'

  Nilla was enraged. 'I am consumed by grief! I am ruined by it. I am my mother's daughter in every way.'

  Burrus looked to the floor. 'Then you have something she never had the benefit of: you are aware of it.'

  They fell quiet for a time. Then Nilla said quietly, 'No ambition, in a man or a woman, can ever be achieved without the Praetorian Guard.'

  Burrus flicked his eyes at me. 'That's true,' I whispered.

  'But it is not insurmountable,' said Burrus.

  'Please,' Nilla beseeched him. 'How could I achieve even my mother's mistakes, let alone her successes? I am weak,' she cried. 'I am broken by Fate!'

  I stepped softly forward. 'You have not been broken by Fate,' I said. 'You are merely being tested by it. And as time begins to pass, you will see that you are really a child of destiny, marked for triumph.'

  Nilla just looked at me. Then she burst out laughing. 'How can this be? I have done nothing to earn this. I have no protectors and no supporters. I am no one.'

  It was true. 'But when you have fought and defeated the cruellest of your enemies, supporters will flock to you. By then you will have earned your destiny. And you won't need anyone to protect you, because you will be Empress of Rome.'

  Nilla couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'Who is this enemy? Is it my husband?'

  'No,' I said. 'He will easily be defeated when the time comes. He isn't worthy of you.'

  'So it's his family, then? They hate me.'

  She was getting closer to the truth. 'You will face a battle with the other three Aemilii in turn, but none will be worthy of you. They are your inferiors. No, your true enemy is she who will exact the greatest cost from you before you win victory.'

  Nilla slid from the bed with her fists clenched at me. 'Who is she?' she demanded. 'Tell me so that I am warned, Iphicles!' Anger was flushing pity from her heart.

  I stood aside to let her see through the door behind me. The child Messalina sat staring over the balcony into the garden below. She had heard nothing of the conversation, but she sensed the hush and turned to us, innocently projecting her beautiful smile into every corner of the room.

  I bent to kiss Nilla's hand. 'It is time for me to tell you things about your great-grandmother Livia,' I whispered. 'It is time for me to tell you the truth.'

  I left the House of the Aemilii and found my domina waiting for me in her litter.

  'You told Nilla everything?' she asked.

  'Just as you instructed, domina. She now knows all there is to know.'

  ' All of it? You told her of all the deaths? You told her that it was my hand that caused them, and you told her why I killed?'

  'I did,' I replied.

  There was a pause as she studied me through her slender eyes. 'Liar. You left things out. You did not tell her everything.'

  I smirked, amused at how easily Livia could always expose me. 'I told her everything she needed to know about your crimes, domina — and of my own, and what came from them. But of the future, well… if I am Veiovis made mortal, then I would be remiss not to hold a few things back. It will make her stronger to discover them for herself.'

  Livia flashed with anger and I waited for her to strike me. But then she could only laugh. ' The end, the end, your mother says — to deception now depend…'

  I was pleased. 'You quote the prophecy at me, domina?'

  'I accept your judgement in these matters, knowing that I will continue to depend upon your wisdom when I am gone.'

  I was brought up short. 'Gone, domina? Where are you going?'

  She was evasive. 'The end is coming for my schemes. The second queen has been readied, although she will not embrace her destiny for some time, of course. While we wait, we must prepare for the crowning of the second king. A far lesser monarch, obviously, but still of my womb. And he is the means by which Nilla will attain everything.' Livia chuckled. 'If only he knew it.'

  'What should I do, domina?'

  Livia smiled sadly. 'You should comfort me, slave. It will soon be time to farewell my son.'

  The physician Charicles had taken the precaution of filling his loincloth with sawdust before giving his report to Macro. He thanked Asclepius for this foresight as he helplessly pissed himself with nerves before the Prefect had even spoken a word to him.

  'The "herbs" the Emperor has been ingesting to hide his returned dependence upon the flower will reach a critical amount,' the physician said.

  'About time,' said Macro. He despised the Greek.

  'He will then begin his final decline.'

  'How long?'

  Charicles shifted uncomfortably and a little shower of sawdust fell to his feet. 'I am reluctant to provide specifics of time, Prefect.'

  'How long?' Macro repeated, slamming his fist on the table.

  Charicles cleared his throat. 'A year. Perhaps a little more.'

  'The gods help me,' Macro groaned. He hated the eternal waiting, but what choice did he have?

  Dismissing the physician, Macro strode out of the villa looking for Tiberius, seeking any sign that the old man might be showing of the herbs' destruction. He spied the Emperor and Antonia seated together on a stone bench on the far terrace, looking out to sea.

  'For all the world a pair of decrepit, star-crossed lovers,' Macro sneered to himself.

  As if Macro's words were portentous, the Emperor leaned across and kissed the m
atron's lips. Antonia looked as startled as Macro. Tiberius cringed with embarrassment at his spontaneous act, searching for words of apology just as Antonia recovered herself and kissed Tiberius of her own accord. The Emperor beamed.

  Shuddering, Macro left them to it.

  As he neared the villa again, Macro passed Little Boots and Aemilius, lounging in abject boredom upon the grass. He noted the Emperor's grandson was sitting on the cushion as usual and bit back his fury. He knew Livia was right. Until the boy understood the true meaning of the present, its gains would be hopelessly lost on him.

  When Macro had gone, Little Boots got off the cushion. He stood staring at the embroidered words, reading them over in his head for the thousandth time. 'I sit… I sit… I sit.'

  'What are you doing?' said Aemilius.

  Little Boots picked up the cushion and moved across the lawns towards the terrace where Tiberius sat on the stone bench with Antonia.

  Aemilius felt inexplicably alarmed. 'Wait. Little Boots — '

  Tiberius was startled to turn and see the young man standing behind him with the cushion held out. Little Boots smiled the smile of the perfect grandson. 'That stone bench looks hard, Grandfather.'

  'Yes,' said Tiberius.

  'I thought you might like my cushion to sit on — it's very comfortable.'

  There was a brief moment where the Emperor held the young man's gaze. Then Tiberius accepted the gift. 'Thank you, Grandson,' he said, slipping the cushion beneath himself. He and Antonia continued to sit, now hand in hand.

  Little Boots returned to Aemilius and sat on the bare grass.

  'You gave it to him?'

  Little Boots nodded.

  'So what, then? You understand what it's all about now?'

  Little Boots despaired. 'I don't know why I gave it to him, Aemilius. Macro walked past us and the idea just came in to my head.'

  'Now you've lost the stupid thing,' Aemilius admonished him. 'And don't think you'll ever get it back.'

  'I thought it would reveal something to me,' said Little Boots in frustration, 'but it failed. I know nothing of what my great-grandmother meant by her accursed gift and I never will.'

  Terminalia

  February, AD 37

  Twenty months later: a fire devastates the Aventine Hill and adjacent parts of the Circus Maximus

  Antonia prayed fervently at the makeshift shrine. 'Restore his health, Asclepius, I beg you. Keep him from death. Keep him from death.'

  Drusilla and Julilla went through the motions, repeating their grandmother's words to please her. 'Restore his health, Asclepius. Keep him from death. Keep him from death.'

  Antonia turned to them. 'He ignores us. The god of medicine gives us nothing, girls.' She began to cry.

  'No, no,' said Drusilla, shuffling awkwardly on her knees towards her. She signalled Julilla to find a handkerchief. 'We cannot read the god's mind, Grandmother. Asclepius will listen to our prayers. Have faith.'

  'He won't. He ignores us,' said Antonia, bitterly. Julilla passed her a grubby rag. 'And it is the Emperor's own fault. His years of depravity have led him to this. Asclepius knows it's deserved.'

  The sisters looked at each other. 'Perhaps if we sacrifice again?' Julilla suggested, uncomfortable with her grandmother's tears.

  Drusilla seized on this. 'Yes, another bull, a pure white one. We'll get the ship to bring it from Rome.'

  Antonia looked up sharply. 'No one in Rome must know of the Emperor's illness.'

  'But isn't it right they should know?' said Drusilla. 'Perhaps this is why the god doesn't hear? Not enough prayers are being said for our grandfather.'

  Antonia was adamant. 'No one. The secret stays here.'

  The sisters made to leave the shrine room. 'I shall get another piglet from the pens, then,' Drusilla said. 'We can sacrifice that to Asclepius. It cannot hurt.'

  Antonia waved them away, returning to her prayers.

  Outside, Drusilla gave her own thoughts on why Rome was forbidden to know. 'Everyone hates him,' she whispered. 'Our grandmother fears people would pray for his death, not his recovery.'

  Julilla had a wicked look in her eye. 'That's what I've been praying for!'

  'Julilla!' said Drusilla, mortified. Then she took on a look to match her sister's. 'Me too.' Giggling, they went off in search of a piglet, intending to take their time about it. But Drusilla couldn't help a vague apprehension as she went. If their grandfather died, she wondered, wouldn't the Eastern flower die with him? How would she obtain it by other means?

  Inside the shrine room Antonia abandoned formal prayers to appeal personally to the god. 'I saved Rome from the threat of those who coveted the throne, Asclepius,' she whispered, 'and now it is threatened again. Please, god, save Tiberius for Rome. He has not named his heir. We will descend into civil war and anarchy again, just as Augustus always said we would without a succession in place.'

  The scented oil lamps burned around the god's image. 'I feel so helpless and alone,' Antonia wept. 'Send me a friend to guide me in what to do — send someone whose wisdom in these matters is far greater than my own.'

  She heard footsteps at the door and presumed the sisters had returned. She tried to pull herself together. 'The pig cannot help us, girls. I am sorry,' she said. 'Take the poor thing back to the pens.'

  'Asclepius is such a fickle god,' said Livia from the door, 'but over the years I've found he has a soft spot for me.'

  Antonia's tears vanished in her astonishment. 'Oh, my dear friend!' She rushed to embrace her. 'My prayers have been answered.'

  'It was well time I made a visit to Capri,' said Livia.

  Antonia's eyes opened over Livia's shoulder and settled briefly on me.

  'But what are you praying for?' asked Livia. 'Has something happened?'

  'Oh, Livia, my friend, the most terrible thing,' said Antonia, the tears returning again.

  As though she were innocent in the extreme, Livia settled down to be informed of Tiberius's grave ill health, giving a masterful performance of a mother's breaking heart.

  Shivering in his bed, Tiberius relived the only moment from his long life that Postverta, that capricious goddess of the past, would grant him. No other memories were permitted. It was this, the goddess told him, and this moment alone.

  All around him were flames. The long dry grasses, the olive trees, the Grecian villa — all were on fire, and Tiberius, his mother and his father fled in an ox-drawn carruca from the blaze. Cinders from the villa's roof landed on the loaded carriage and it burned too, becoming a roaring siege tower. Baby Tiberius screamed in his mother's arms.

  'Throw me little Tiberius!' the slave-girl Hebe shouted from the ground. 'I can save him!'

  Seeing no other rescue, his mother pitched him from the carruca high into the smoke. Hebe snatched him from the sky just as his mother threw herself from the carriage.

  'Tiberius Nero!' his mother cried blindly, desperately scanning the inferno for his father. There was no sign. She ran through the blaze, the little slave-girl beside her and Tiberius clutched tight in her arms. They reached a little brook and she saw that his flesh was steaming. His mother plunged him into the water. 'This is not how you end, my son,' she vowed. 'I won't let it be like this.'

  The baby Tiberius gasped with shock, springing from his death sleep. His mother sang with relief. He looked into her eyes and saw an extraordinary sight. She was smiling at him with love while her hair was alive with flames.

  The past became the present. Tiberius opened his eyes to see an identical image: Livia smiling above him, her hair ablaze like the sun.

  'You saved me, Mother,' he whispered.

  'I did,' said Livia. 'And now you must save Rome.'

  'Save Rome? Is it in peril?'

  Livia nodded, slipping a pen into his hand. 'Rome needs you, my son.'

  'How?' Tiberius rasped. 'What must I do?'

  My domina guided his wrist towards a sheet of papyrus. 'You must name your successor.'

  The words the pap
yrus contained were a blur to Tiberius. 'Castor?' he asked. 'Has my son come back to me again?'

  Livia shook her head.

  'It is Nero, then? Or is it Drusus, Mother?'

  Livia looked away wistfully.

  'Who, then?' croaked Tiberius. 'Tell me whose name it should be..'

  She bent to where he lay and kissed his cheek. Then she whispered the name in his ear. Tiberius stared at her and Livia nodded reassuringly, giving him the strength to scrawl the unlikely name upon the papyrus sheet. As she helped him press his seal into the warm wax, his ring slipped from his finger to the floor. She let it stay there. Tiberius tried to cover his eyes against the glow of her flames. 'It burns,' he whispered. 'It's burning, Mother.'

  'Here, son,' she said, soothingly. She handed him a cushion from his bed. 'Place this across your eyes to shade them.'

  Tiberius covered his face with the cushion. 'Thank you, Mother.'

  As my domina crept from Tiberius's room, she saw her great-grandson hovering in the shadows.

  'Ah, Little Boots,' she murmured. 'The Emperor has called for you. There is something he wishes to tell you.'

  Little Boots was fearful. 'What is it?'

  Livia slipped away into the gloom without answering him.

  He stood outside the sleeping chamber for a long time. No sound came from within. Steeling himself, Little Boots pushed open the door. The air that emerged was foul with sickness, and Little Boots gagged. In the shadows cast by a single oil lamp, he could see no sign of his grandfather. The bed appeared empty.

  Little Boots's bare foot stepped on something sharp. He looked down to see the glint of the Imperial ring. Amazed, Little Boots stooped to pick it up. Then the magnitude of what it was struck him. This seal held life and death. A man could be saved by its imprint, or condemned. The Divine Augustus had worn the ring, and before him the Divine Julius Caesar. The ring conferred the powers of a god.

  Staring at the hallowed eagle seal, Little Boots felt a compulsion seize him. He knew it was wrong — that to give in to it would be an offence to Fate — but the pull was too great. Little Boots slipped the ring of the Caesars upon the third finger of his right hand — the finger that led to his heart. A white-hot surge of divine supremacy flushed through his veins. His limb began to swell. The dulled, scratched gold bit into his flesh. The fit was ideal. It pleasured his hand. The ring belonged there.