Nest of Vipers (35 page)

Lena saw me running towards her. 'There's nothing more to do, Iphicles.'

'Terrible. Terrible,' I said. 'They've found Sejanus?'

'Buried in the rubble. Curled on his hands and knees.'

'Shameful.' I peered through the rows of diggers, trying to catch a glimpse.

'There's nothing shameful about it – he's a hero.'

I still couldn't see. 'Curled on his hands and knees? He must have been cowering like a dog to have died in a pose like that.'

'But he's not dead.'

I went white. The Fates chose that moment to part the throng of slaves in front of me. Sejanus had been found in the very position he had adopted just as the cavern roof collapsed. He had not been cowering – far from it. As the boulders had begun to fall, he had flung himself across the Emperor, protecting him. Tiberius came to consciousness before my eyes. He looked up to see Sejanus still above him. Both were unscathed.

'You saved me . . .' Tiberius whispered.

Beside them were the ruins of a meal: a honey-glazed roast goose stuffed with dormice. The stones had flattened it, splitting the goose wide open. A dozen little dormice spewed from its behind.

'My son,' Tiberius breathed.

The tears Sejanus wept were like those of a lover.

The Fates were mocking me – and there was a crueller joke to come.

The first to see who it was that was standing among them in shock and incomprehension at the magnitude of what the gods had caused to happen in Fidenae were the town's slaves. Ever watchful, ever expectant, always anticipating blows and curses, the household slaves of Fidenae saw Tiberius first, as the shattered remains of his retinue carried him through town on the road back to Rome from the ruined Cave.

Every door in the street had been flung open on its pivot, every atrium within had its artworks and treasures and ancestral masks unguarded, exposed. Every slave in Fidenae had rushed from these doors when the earthquake had happened, and they didn't stop rushing as far along the shattered, twisted, buckled street towards the amphitheatre as they dared, before running back hopelessly, wailing, and then trying again. But they stopped in this tumult, one by one, and their eyes like slits in the dust opened fully in childlike amazement. They knew him from his face. They knew him from his coins. They knew the Emperor as they knew their own hands.

Tiberius moved among them, and we moved with him too, along the palsied street, the looming catastrophe before us. More people saw him, and yet more still. Masters and mistresses, merchants and legionaries. Those who kissed the lips of their dead loved ones saw him, while they pulled and tore them lifeless from the ruins. Those who fought like wildcats and jackals saw him, brawling over the faces of their still, grey children in the rubble. Even those who had been crushed in the very first moments of the earthquake saw him, their eyes like glass where they lay, seeing nothing and yet seeing all. Those whose suffering was unendurable saw him, as their limbs were hacked free, sawn from their joints by people only wishing to save them. Those who could hear the tormented cries of wives and husbands and parents and lovers saw him without seeing anything more, their loved ones lost and unreachable in the amphitheatre's ruin.

So many people saw their Emperor: some living, some dead; some mutilated, some whole; some with minds and lives in pieces at their feet; some with courage and nobility that would make their forebears proud. When the amphitheatre of Fidenae – so hastily planned, so cheaply assembled, so inadequately, obscenely ill-designed – when this shoddy place of fun and spectacle and Roman entertainment had been filled beyond capacity by greedy ticket-sellers eager to exploit the stark lack of entertainments in Rome, when this ignoble, shameful, calamitous structure had been struck by the thrashing of the beast that had nearly cost us our own lives back in the Cave, the amphitheatre had fallen inwards on itself.

Fifty thousand people had been killed.

As we stood in the middle of the very worst catastrophe that anyone could remember, I saw with even greater shock what further miracle the mocking Fates had shown me. I remembered the portent I had seen so long ago at the slave market: the thrashing of the beast; the broken, bronze hair; the slave in the hands of the
carnifex
. With her face triumphant, her valour glorious, Livia turned in freeing her great-grandson Nero from the morass. Her youth had returned – her eighty years were no more. She was exquisite, all-conquering. She was a goddess.

My
domina
looked to her son Tiberius and smiled at him with an old affection – a mother's love. She looked to Sejanus next, and the smile she gave him spoke of secret things, of a lover's words.

Then she looked to me.

'Ah, Iphicles,' Livia said. 'My most loyal of slaves.'

One week later: the Senate decrees that no
one with capital of less than four hundred
thousand
sestertii
may exhibit a gladiatorial
show, and no amphitheatre may be
constructed except on ground of proven
solidity

The temple attendants tried to assist my
domina
into the pit but she waved away their hands.

'I can get in myself.'

She stood at the edge and inhaled the rich smell of it. 'So intoxicating,' she murmured. 'It's a scent I can never forget, you know. How wonderful to be back.'

The temple attendants bowed and Livia raised the hem of her
stola
and stepped lightly down the steps until she was fully inside. She seated herself upon the little ledge. Already the walls pressed their juice into her clothes. She dabbed at the growing stains with her fingertips, licking them. 'So intoxicating,' she repeated.

The attendants appeared above with the heavy iron grate, ready to position it over the pit.

'I don't want that,' said Livia.

'Augusta?'

'I don't want it. It's used to stop novitiates from running away – I am not a novitiate, I promise you. I was inducted into the Great Mother's rites many, many years ago.'

The attendants stood looking at each other.

'I said remove it.'

With his eyes closed, slumped against the great alabaster statue of the goddess, the withered husk that was the
haruspex
Thrasyllus made a gesture with his hand. The attendants saw this and took the grate away. Livia waited inside the hole. After a moment the chief attendant held his face over the side to peer down at her. He was apologetic but felt it was possible the Augusta might have forgotten the other purpose for which the grate was required. She had been so long 'asleep'.

'It is for the sacrifice to stand on, Augusta,' he reminded her.

Livia did not need reminding. 'I wish there to be nothing between myself and the beast,' she told him.

The chief attendant was confused. 'What if the beast falls inside?'

'Then let it.'

This was highly dangerous, but the chief attendant could see no other course. Having removed the grate, his assistants waited with the tethered black bull. The beast was docile and silent. The chief signalled for the proceedings to begin.

Ringed at the dark periphery of the temple's hall, a group of eunuchs began to strike upon the drums they wore on long strings around their necks. Their rhythm built slowly in pace and noise until they began to sing to it.

Inside the pit Livia knew the words. The assistants led the huge black bull to the edge while she sang with gusto, reaching inside her gown. Just as the chief attendant raised his knife to strike at the bull's throat, Livia pulled out a blade of her own, sprang to her feet and plunged it deep into the bull's soft flesh before whipping the blade in an arc, slicing the creature's throat open. The chief attendant dropped his own knife in shock. Thick, rich blood gushed onto Livia as she continued to sing, filling her upturned mouth. She lost her footing and slipped in the gore, just as the dying beast fell forward into the hole, landing on top of her. Her face was pressed hard against the wound she had made, the blood gushing from the bull's throat into hers.

Yet she knew she would not drown. She knew her bones would not be broken. She knew this was how Cybele would re-enter her, empowering her once again for the tasks ahead.

Livia came to consciousness to find she was lying on the temple floor before the great alabaster statue of Cybele. The eunuchs and the attendants were gone. She was slick with the bull's blood; she had been retrieved from the
taurobolium
pit with great difficulty. The only way to reach her was by dismembering the bull, and every last drop of the creature's blood had drizzled onto her while they hacked away before she was finally pulled free. This was wholly as Livia had intended.

Reorientated as to where she was, she at once sat up. The withered
haruspex
was slumped in his place at the statue's base, but now he held the guts of a pigeon in his fists. There was not another living thing inside the temple with them. Livia and Thrasyllus were entirely alone.

'Who is the second king?' Livia asked him.

Thrasyllus told her.

'Who is the child who will rule?'

Thrasyllus told her that too, never opening his eyes as he explained the difference. Livia nodded. These were the same answers she had already received in her dreams.

'Tell me who the goddess lets live and who she lets die,' said Livia. 'Tell me their fates. Tell me the worst of it. Prepare me for what I must do.'

Thrasyllus spoke with a voice that was not his own.

'The son with blood, by water's done, the truth is never seen.

The third is hooked by a harpy's look – the rarest of all birds.

The course is cooked by a slave-boy's stroke; the fruit is lost with babes.

The matron's words alone are heard, the addled heart is ringed.

The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding's tongue.

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.

One would-be queen knows hunger's pangs when Cerberus conducts her.

One brother's crime sees him dine at leisure of his bed.

One would-be queen is one-eyed too until the truth gives comforts.

When tiny shoes a cushion brings, the cuckoo's king rewarded.

Your work is done, it's time to leave – the sword is yours to pass.

Your mother lives within this queen: she who rules beyond you.

The end, the end, your mother says – to deception now depend.

So long asleep, now sleep once more, your Attis is Veiovis.'

Livia sat still for a long time. She was surprised by very little of what was said and shocked by nothing. At last she rose and made her way towards Thrasyllus. There were tears of gratitude in her eyes.

'The goddess continues to bless my house,' she whispered. 'Thank you,
haruspex
.' She stooped to where he was slumped against the statue's whiteness and pressed her lips to his eyes. When they opened, it was Cybele herself he saw smiling before him.

'Thank you, Great Mother,' he whispered.

Livia raised her blade and hacked his head from his shoulders with a single slice. The head didn't stop rolling before the flesh had dissolved in front of Livia's eyes. It came to rest at the pit's edge a clean, dry skull. She kicked it inside as she passed, making her way to the door.

In the clear autumn sunlight upon the temple steps two women rose to greet her. She had been expecting them.

'My friends,' said Livia. She kissed Martina first and the sorceress shimmered in the light. She carried a basket of food. 'How thoughtful,' said Livia, taking a piece of bread.

'You look well rested,' said Martina.

'And so I should be.'

She kissed Plancina next, wrapping her fingers around the stumps of her old friend's wrists. 'How have you been getting on with these?'

'As well as can be expected,' said Plancina.

Livia smiled coyly. 'Well, here we all are.'

The three sat together on the steps in the sun and began eating the food.

'Did the
haruspex
have much to tell you, then?' asked Martina, her mouth full.

'This and that.'

'This and that? So he didn't have much at all?'

Plancina knew her friend better. 'Just look at Livia's shining eyes. Thrasyllus told her a great many things before she cut his head off. Didn't he, Livia?'

Livia had to laugh. 'You read me like a poem, Plancina.'

'Out with it then,' said Martina. 'We haven't got all day.'

Livia told them. When she was done, they sat in silence for a minute more, considering the first of their schemes. When it was planned, another was hatched, and then another quickly afterwards, and then another scheme again. Soon all the plans were in place but one. The food was consumed and they stood up on the steps to leave.

'What about that ball-less prick, your Iphicles?' asked Martina. 'He's got it coming to him, after everything he's done to you.'

Livia coolly agreed. Then she told them what she had in mind for me.

The wicked friends laughed. Both agreed it was apt.

Two weeks later: the freedman Atilius,
gamesmaster of the catastrophe at
Fidenae, is sentenced to exile

Naked and glistening with oil, the aged Emperor Tiberius dived from the very highest rock in his grotto into the heated pool of springwater in a strong, graceful arc that was at odds with his advanced state of physical decay. Such athleticism should have killed him, yet it didn't. But if the pool had been in Rome, it would have. In the foul eternal city his body failed him daily, made rank with his stenches and pockmarked with his sores. There, Tiberius would throw the mirrors from his rooms in frenzy, screaming to be rid of his own reflection. But it was pointless. With every creaking step and sharp crack of flatulence his body signalled its imminent demise, and all while his mother gave the appearance of having lost decades. Yet here on the island of Capri Tiberius's destruction seemed less of a certainty. Perhaps it was the 'minnows'?

Tiberius shot to the water's surface, shouting and laughing. The little creatures darted all around him, pecking at his limbs with their tiny puckered lips, nibbling at his privates with their harmless little teeth.

'The darlings!' Tiberius called out in happiness to his beloved Sejanus. The Praetorian Prefect smiled from the side of the grotto pool, his cloak around his shoulders against the chill night air. In the luxury of the heated water Tiberius didn't feel the winter. Nor did his minnows. The Emperor giggled like an infant as they continued pressing their mouths to him beneath the water surface, licking and kissing his flesh. He flung his hands about, splashing and waving, and didn't see which ring it was that flew from his dripping fingers. Sejanus saw. The ring shot high into the air, coming to rest at the edge of the pool. Sejanus stooped to pick it up, while Tiberius began his favourite game of trying to trap an unwary minnow between his knees.

Sejanus moved to where the candles burned in the grotto wall and felt for some soft, fresh wax. He found a likely lump and rolled it in his palm, letting it cool a little. Playfully, Tiberius caught a minnow that was slow in darting away, screaming with laughter as the creature thrashed between his legs.

'You've got to be quicker than that!' Tiberius laughed. The minnow's thrashing lessened, but Tiberius held fast.

Sejanus pressed the ring into the wax and kept it there for a moment, making sure the seal left an impression that was clear. He withdrew it and peered at the result. It was a perfect print. 'Your ring, Father,' he called to the pool.

With only mild consternation Tiberius realised his Imperial seal was missing. 'You have it there?'

'It flew from your finger.'

'I must be losing weight,' said Tiberius. 'My fingers are getting thinner.' He released the minnow from between his knees and swam to the pool's edge. Sejanus handed the ring to him. 'It's all this good living here on Capri,' Tiberius said. 'I'm feeling fitter every day.'

'It's because there is nothing to worry you here, Father,' said Sejanus. 'That's what restores your good health. Rome and its traitors are far away.'

When Sejanus had saved his life in the rockfall, Tiberius knew he had been wrong to feel anything less than love for his Prefect. 'I have a mind not to return to Rome. What do you think?' The unmoving body of the minnow rose to the water's surface behind him.

'I think it's an excellent idea. And who knows, Father – perhaps if you stay here on the island you will live on forever?'

'Perhaps I will . . .' Tiberius pondered. He turned to see the minnow floating in the water in front of him. The mouths of the others gaped in fear from the surface, dragging in air before diving again to resume their nibbling. Tiberius stared at the face of the lifeless child. 'She is familiar . . .'

'Who is?' Sejanus studied the ring print in the wax.

'This minnow.'

Sejanus glanced once at the girl. 'She was one of the Patrician Youth Choir – the last of them, Father.'

Tiberius felt a distinct twinge of sadness, but it was gone before it could trouble him. As a precaution against its returning, he reached for his cup of the Eastern flower. He drank and was aware of the nibbling again. 'Aren't all these other little minnows from the choir?'

'No, Father,' said Sejanus, immune to the Emperor's depravity. 'These other children were taken from parents who were traitors.'

'I dislike seeing the minnows' numbers decrease. Find more for me, Sejanus.'

The Prefect nodded, still studying the wax print of the ring. 'Anything you wish, Father.'

When the Emperor and his Prefect had gone, a red-headed youth crept out of the grotto's shadows and knelt beside the pool's edge. The girl lay still upon the steps, half in the water, half out. The youth had seen her struggles and had wanted more than anything to help her, but he had been too frightened. Then, when she had floated lifeless to the surface, he had wept in silence and shame from his hiding place in the dark. But once the Emperor had gone, the red-haired youth had seen what they had missed. Her chest had risen. She had taken air.

But now nothing moved. He placed his ear against her breast and it was still. He listened to her insides. There was no sound. Looking about him, his eyes fell on the burning candles. He crept to the grotto wall and took a waxy stump from its nook, protecting the flame with his fingers. It was beautiful. Just like the girl.

Kneeling beside her again, the red-haired youth held the candle above her. He tilted his hand and a drop of liquid wax struck her skin. The girl stayed still. He tilted the candle further, letting the yellow flame itself caress her.

The girl awoke with a shout.

She was frightened when she saw him and realised what he had done. But when he made her see that she'd almost died and that his flame had saved her from Hades, she was grateful. But the island prison had corrupted her. She knew of no other way to thank the youth than to place his pale, white hand between her legs.

Her name was Albucilla, she told him.

Red-haired Ahenobarbus of the Aemilii could not tell her his name, although he wished to all the gods that he could. Even if he hadn't been born a mute, he suspected, he would have lost the power of speech anyway, such was the strength of Albucilla's earthy beauty.

'I don't want it.'

'But you must have it. You're already fourteen.'

'I don't care – I don't want it. Are you deaf, Iphicles? I'm not going to tell you again.' Although Little Boots's anger was aimed wholly at me, his continued jealousy of Lygdus was such that he made sure his spittle struck the eunuch's face too, even though the matter had nothing to do with my apprentice. We three stood waiting for Livia to emerge from her suite.

'But it's your
toga virilis
– your robe of manhood. To refuse it is not done,
domine
.'

'Not if I refuse to be a man. I'm a child.'

'You're nearly fifteen.'

He kicked me in the shin.

'
Domine
!'

He took off down the hall before I could chase him.

'Come back! The Augusta has requested to see you.'

'You're just a fucking slave!'

He was gone, leaving me clutching my poor shin, aghast. 'What's the matter with him?' I asked Lygdus. 'He's becoming unmanageable.'

'Becoming?' said Lygdus with sarcasm. He wiped Little Boots's spittle from his cheek.

'He still has the greatest respect for me, Lygdus. We are bonded.'

'You're deluding yourself, just as you have deluded yourself about everything.'

Tears rushed to my eyes and I had to blink them back. 'You are so hurtful, Lygdus. You never spoke to me this cruelly before.'

'Before what?' He knew the answer but wanted me to say it.

I just stared at him, heartbroken.

'Before what, Iphicles? Before the
domina
recovered?'

'Yes,' I whispered, ashamed. 'You know it.'

'Well, she has recovered and everything has changed – for you more than anyone. And I am glad.' He leaned forward, mocking me with his look. 'When will she take her revenge on you? What form will it take? Will it be agonising?'

'Lygdus.' A sob left my lips.

'You led me into evil,' he hissed.

'It was evil for the sake of a greater good.'

'No, it wasn't. And it will never happen again. It's Little Boots we should have killed with the footbath water, not Castor.'

'But the prophecies –'

'They've been twisted by your lies. Just ask the
domina
. I already have, as it happens.'

'You've been speaking to her without me there to protect you?'

'Cybele came to her, after all, not to you.' Lygdus bent to whisper in my ear. 'And she has come to her again. I don't need you to hold my hand, Iphicles,' he laughed. 'The
domina
likes me. She tells me secrets.' He stood in contemptuous silence while I gave in to my tears. Then he passed me a small square of linen from his
tunica
pocket to wipe my eyes.

'You shouldn't concern yourself with it,' he said, with something of his old friendliness. 'Your time has passed, that is all. You are tired and spent. It is not surprising you have so vilely misinterpreted things – and acted with such incompetence, too. It is understandable and even forgivable. But the
domina
needs youth and vigour now to complete her work, which of course you understand. Cybele has chosen a new Attis.'

I gasped. Then I burned with raw anger. 'Go!' I spat at him. 'Leave me alone. The
domina
sent for me to bring Little Boots to her, not you. So go!'

Lygdus didn't move. 'The
domina
summoned me here about another matter.'

'What could that possibly be?' I demanded.

Lygdus looked at me pityingly.

'Tell me!'

'Ah, Lygdus,' said Livia. 'Here you are.' She had appeared silently at the door of her suite while we argued. We threw ourselves to the floor.

'No need for that,' she said. 'We are all friends.'

Lygdus clambered upright again but the look she gave me when I followed him made me stay where I was.

'What have you brought me?' she asked him.

'Information,' Lygdus whispered. His tone was grave.

I couldn't see his face from my position, but Livia's tone at once echoed his earnestness. 'My chair, then, while I try to find the fortitude to hear it, slave.'

She wasn't talking to Lygdus. She meant me. Burning, I crawled on my belly to the wall where a chair rested and dragged the thing back to her while still prone. Livia sat down before I'd pulled my hand from beneath the chair's leg, and a pinch of my skin was caught between the leg and the floor. Livia made no attempt to free me.

'Now, your information, Lygdus. Does it involve my great-grandson Drusus, as I feared?'

'Yes,
domina
.'

She tut-tutted. 'And my granddaughter Livilla?'

'Her as well,
domina
. Things are just as you suspected.'

Livia tut-tutted again.

I was in agony but still my mind reeled, trying to calculate the implications. I knew nothing of any schemes involving Livilla and her transvestite nephew Drusus. I was completely in the dark.

'What was the nature of the offer made?' asked Livia.

'The Lady Livilla offered your great-grandson glory,
domina
.'

'Of course she did. Although I'd be surprised if that alone were sufficient.'

Lygdus nodded his head. 'She made the offer in her dressing room. There were no maids present. And when she had made it, she allowed him to remain in the room while she took herself away to the garden.' Lygdus lowered his voice to indicate his profound disgust. 'She permitted Drusus to remain in the dressing room alone for several hours,
domina
.'

Livia was grim. 'What was so special to him that he needed such privacy, Lygdus?'

'Her gowns . . .'

Livia gripped the chair arms tightly, shutting her eyes. 'So depraved!'

'Yes,
domina
.'

There was silence.

'And what did my granddaughter Livilla ask from Drusus in return for this "glory"?'

'She asked that he supply damning information about his brother Nero in the future,
domina
.'

'Did Drusus say he would provide it?'

'He did.'

A wretched cry came from Livia's throat and she fell forward with her hands to her face, sobbing into her knees. Lygdus wept too now, howling like a child. It was a long time before either was able to master their emotions. Livia finally righted herself again, her cheeks streaked with tears.

'Brother betrays brother. There is such evil in my family, Lygdus.'

'Yes,
domina
,' he whispered.

There was silence again. Livia shifted her weight in the chair and the pressure intensified on my trapped hand. I nearly lost consciousness from the pain. Then she shifted once more and the agony eased slightly, but I still didn't pull myself free.

Lygdus spoke. 'We will not let Nero be betrayed, will we,
domina
?'

She shook her head. 'Not while I breathe.'

The eunuch's face flushed with relief. 'The gods bless you for it,
domina
.'

'Now, now.'

'You are his saviour, his protector.'

She gently beckoned the eunuch to come close and brushed her lips on his cheek. 'Perhaps he is the real second king?' she whispered. Then she leaned back in the chair so that my trapped hand was tortured anew.

Lygdus saw my redoubled pain and cared nothing. 'Some have claimed it is another,' he said.

'The only claims we should listen to are Cybele's,' said Livia. 'It is our privilege to make the wisest interpretations we can of her words. But some are wiser than others. Beware of frauds, Lygdus, and those who wrongly claim to know the goddess's mind.'

Lygdus narrowed his eyes at me.

'You may leave me now,' she said to him.

The eunuch bowed and was gone. I remained where I was, in misery on the floor, my hand pinned beneath her chair. Livia didn't move. Then, after another short interval, she said, 'I asked you to bring my grandson Little Boots to me.'