Nest of Vipers (32 page)

Macro caught his attention, nodding towards a woman in a long grey
palla
, her feet incongruously shod in bath slippers. 'Prefect . . .'

Sejanus looked. It was his wife. She could see him, yet could not see him; she knew where he was and knew that he could see her fully. She said nothing, wanting only to be seen.

'Has she been told yet?' Macro asked.

Apicata had borne two children for Sejanus, a daughter and a son; she had kept his house and shared his dreams. She had shown him nothing but loyalty, yet still it wasn't love Sejanus felt for her – and this made what needed to be done all the easier.

'It was my order that she be told,' said Sejanus. His horse was ready for him.

'Upon her return from the baths?'

'That was my order.'

Man and wife stood still as the statues of the gods that loomed high above them.

'Perhaps she hasn't returned to your home then, Prefect? Perhaps she is still to hear it?'

Sejanus looked at his wife for the last time. 'She has heard.'

He mounted his horse and joined the Praetorian escort to the Viminal Gate.

Apicata waited until the sound of the retreating hooves was lost in the icy wind. Then she waited until the night birds started their cries and she knew that the thin sun had set, ending the day. She had no plan, no idea of what to do or where to go, so she continued waiting. At least there was a certainty of action in this, if not any goal.

Apicata waited exactly where she knew Sejanus had taken his final look at her, burning her image into his mind. She remained where he had seen her and she did not move. She continued to wait as Rome's most desperate and destitute crept around her in the darkness, as fragile as winter leaves in the wind. She waited as she heard the transactions they made with the low and brutal men who purchased them and used them and then discarded them again. She waited as a man asked her if she was for sale. She said nothing in reply, continuing to stand, continuing to wait. When he felt her breasts, she allowed him to – what did it matter now? But when he offered her money, she didn't raise her hands, keeping them balled up tight inside her
palla
until he finally moved on.

She waited as the rain began to fall lightly around her, turning heavier after a time, before ending in hailstones that struck and bruised her face. She waited as the snow followed later, gathering in small drifts at her feet. She waited as the sentries announced watch after watch:
Prima fax
,
Concubia
,
Intempesta
,
Inclinatio
. She waited as she slipped to the ground, the snow cushioning her fall, her limbs weighing heavier than stone. Finally, she waited as a kind woman cradled her head in her lap, singing to her softly, until Apicata could find the strength to speak.

'I am destroyed,' Apicata whispered.

'It happens to all of us in time.'

'I never felt it come. I never even sensed its approach.'

The woman clicked her tongue. 'There was something of that in my own fall, too,' she said. 'Such is Rome.'

Apicata felt comforted and reached for the woman's hands, seeking her touch, her warmth, her humanity. But the hands that found her, that brushed against her palms and fingers were not hands at all, but stumps. The hands were gone.

Apicata had no emotion left when she recognised the woman's voice and realised to whom it belonged. She felt only release. She had completed a cycle. Apicata had once blackmailed this woman into committing murder, and now her own life was ready to be taken in turn. It was justice.

'Finish me,' Apicata whispered. 'Take your revenge – finish me.'

'Don't be foolish,' Plancina answered with a laugh. 'I want to hear what happened first.'

One week later: Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus
thwarts an attack upon his strongholds
by the rebellious Thracians but suffers
the destruction of a legion of Thracian
auxiliaries loyal to Rome

Then a torn, soiled and barely readable curl of papyrus was handed to me by a young maid, my first impulse was to dismiss it. But the girl Calliope pointed out the remnants of the wax seal on the back of the message, saying that it warranted some kind of attention. I stared at what she showed me then and waved at Lygdus to open one of my
domina
's chests. I told the girl to pick out whatever she liked. She chose a jewelled brooch, although she seemed to find little joy in it. She could have taken the lot, for all I cared – for I had realised the letter's worth. I had recognised the handwriting.

I asked Calliope to tell me how she found this letter. She said there was little to tell. Her master Sejanus had received it many months ago, and whatever was written upon it had angered him because he screwed it up and threw it away in the garden. The girl's mistress, Apicata, had searched for the letter without success but had then been exiled from the house. Calliope had later found the letter hidden in the leaves of some ivy. She had now decided to show it to another's eyes – my own. She did not know what was written on it. I thanked her for bringing it to me ahead of any other person in Rome, and I asked her why she had done this.

'I admire you,' she whispered. 'You give hope to other slaves.'

I looked at Lygdus and I imagined that he shared this sentiment – it seemed to me that his eyes were shining. I was moved for only a moment before I felt unease. 'But how do you even know of me?'

Calliope cast a look at Lygdus, who just looked to the ground. 'I know,' was all she would say.

When the maid was gone, Lygdus swore that my fears were baseless; no one knew of me, and my actions were hidden from Rome. I wanted to believe him but I saw my
domina
watching us from her bed. She had seen the slave and heard what was discussed. The look she gave me had nothing but confirmation to it. She wanted me to know that my fears were very real, that my actions were only hidden from a part of Rome – the Rome that ruled. The Rome that served knew me very well.

I read the letter aloud to Lygdus – and to my
domina
. It was from Tiberius, of course.

My son,

Your request has moved me deeply but I must ask for your patience while I devote myself to a period of impartial consideration of it. Other men's plans depend so much upon their ideas of their own interest, but Emperors, who must regulate their actions by public opinion, are in a different position. For this reason, my beloved son, I cannot yet give the answer to your request that my heart wants so freely to give – the answer being that Livilla herself will decide whether she ought to marry again.

Lygdus's eyes opened in amazement. 'Sejanus asked for my
domina
Livilla's hand?'

I was cautious, rereading the words.

'They're both so reckless,' Lygdus said. 'And yet even Tiberius can't see what's going on!'

'He can see
something
,' I said, concerned.

'He can't see anything – he's given the answer. He says Livilla is free to choose Sejanus if she wishes it.'

I looked to my
domina
. Her eyes had a malicious gleam again. She knew the truth, of course, and so did I, being far more familiar with Tiberius's double-speak than the eunuch was. 'He's given nothing at all – just the hope of an answer. He's delaying Sejanus.'

'But why?'

Livia kept her night-black eyes upon mine. 'I don't know,' I said. 'But something Sejanus has done or said has struck Tiberius differently. Something is wrong . . .'

Lygdus looked uneasy now. 'What if Sejanus falls?'

'He'll never fall – Tiberius loves him.'

'But what if he does? What if something happens?'

'Nothing will happen. They are too closely bonded.'

'But what if he does?'

I lost patience with him. 'Get on with your work. Go and spy on Nero.'

Lygdus immediately shut down. 'Nero doesn't need spying on today,' he said.

'He needs spying on every day – do you think the
domina
ever took a day off when she was making plans like ours? Give me something new I can write down and place in the file I'm keeping on him.'

'Nero is blameless today,' Lygdus insisted. I stared at him for a moment and a blush came to his cheeks. But he kept his fat arms crossed on his chest and his lips pursed in determination.

'Lygdus, are you keeping something from me?'

'Of course not.'

'It's been quite a few months since you've given me anything useful about Nero – what has he been up to?'

'Matters of government,' Lygdus said. 'The law courts – that sort of thing. He's been very boring.'

'His private life is not very boring.'

'It is now. He's gone right off that vile
victimarius
.'

Something wasn't ringing true, but I had never known the devoted eunuch to lie to me. 'Lygdus,' I said, keeping my voice low with inherent warning, 'you will go and attend Nero right now.'

'No, I won't.'

I slapped his face with such a blow that the sound of it rang in the air. Then a high-pitched laugh made the two of us spin around in shock. Livia's night-black eyes blazed like a furnace.

'The
domina
!' Lygdus clutched his face in shock. 'She laughed!'

I stared at Livia, incredulous. 'No, it was someone else – there is someone else in here.' I began to open doors and pull aside tapestries. 'Who's in here?' I shouted into the empty rooms. 'Who dares to spy on us?'

By the time I accepted the fact that no one else was in the
domina
's suite at all, Lygdus had slipped away. Putting his worrying behaviour aside for the time being, I returned to my
domina
's bed to find that her tongue was now poking from between her closed lips. It was as though she were mocking me.

'You are
not
regaining your voice, so don't try to pretend that you are,' I scolded her, trying really to convince myself. 'I've stopped your visits to Asclepius, and that disgusting snake you harboured is dead. If you were getting well again,
domina
, you aren't any more.' I prised open her jaw and jabbed her tongue back inside her mouth.

I picked up Tiberius's letter again. There was more to it than I had read out aloud – another paragraph. I knew in my gut that Sejanus had made a false step somehow – that he'd done something that made Tiberius's reply to him a carefully veiled warning.

Your simplicity of thought and abhorrence of ambition is my greatest treasure, my son, but it leaves you – and leaves your Emperor – open to insinuation from others who are not so pure. You are mistaken, I fear, if you hope that Livilla will have the strength of mind and heart to pass her future years with a Roman knight. How could it be tolerated by those who have seen her brother, her father and her most noble ancestors take the highest patrician offices of state? Already venal and jealous men claim openly that you forget your rank and act beyond it – claims I deny and deplore – and from their dislike of you they also condemn me. I can endure it – but you, my loyal son in all but my blood, should not be expected to. Your Emperor does not expect you to.

I tried to read what was unwritten. These were merely more delaying words; the heart of Tiberius's exception to Sejanus's request was not clear. I read the final passage.

While I pass my time in impartial consideration, may I make a new request of you, my son? It is not an onerous call, but is only this: when feminine jealousies occur within my house, I fear for my grandsons' gentle hearts. I ask you to protect them. Nero and Drusus are now grown men, but their hearts are soft, like the hearts of boys, as they still have so much to learn. Little Boots and Gemellus are very much boys still. Feminine jealousies risk all; sons will always honour their mothers. It is my deepest wish that no grandson of mine should ever rival the other, so that when the time comes for me to name one as my heir, I will do so in the knowledge that the others will celebrate him, not defy him.

My pulse began to race as I finally saw the glimmers of Tiberius's secret heart opening before me.

Nothing is too great to be undeserved by your tireless goodwill towards me, my son. My period of impartial consideration of your request will end so much the sooner when Agrippina embraces me again as a father. When I look into her eyes and see my affection for her returned, happiness will be shared by all. Unity, not enmity, will then be ours, my son. It truly will.

I placed the soiled papyrus on a table, feeling lightheaded. I needed to sit. When I had gathered my thoughts, I knew without question what Sejanus had done – and I knew what it was that Tiberius most secretly desired. Sejanus, the former physician's apprentice of redoubtable loyalty but doubtful origins, had overstepped himself in his obsession with destroying Agrippina. The Emperor was in love with her.

The only way forward for Sejanus was to smash that love into tiny pieces. His claims of plots and factions and prominent ringleaders scheming in secret for Agrippina's cause had failed to dent the love in Tiberius's heart. Others might be guilty, but Tiberius believed Agrippina to be wholly innocent. And yet it was unlikely, I knew, that Sejanus had not already conceived of another way to deprive Agrippina of her most devoted protector. As I pondered on what this might be, my
domina
's tongue slipped from her lips once more, lolling at me. It was naked mockery, but this time I left her tongue hanging, allowing her to look undignified and comical.

'Laugh at me all you like,
domina
,' I said, smirking into her onyx eyes, 'but I am going to help Sejanus, not hinder him – and there's nothing you can do to stop me.'

Three weeks later: following the suicide of
the warrior Tarsa, the besieged Thracian
tribesmen are weakened by dissension

I was not a witness to the following scene and, because of it, my absence proved pivotal for what happened after.

Agrippina was so uncharacteristically calm in the face of what had been told to her that her friend feared Agrippina had misheard her. But when the friend went to repeat herself, the widow shook her head, stopping the friend's words.

'I believe it,' Agrippina said.

The friend fell silent, watching as Agrippina rose from her chair and went to the balcony, standing there with her back to the friend, looking out across Rome. She stayed there a long time, and the friend's inner torment felt like knives in her chest as she waited. But she gave no sign of this when Agrippina reappeared, her face set hard.

'It has come then,' Agrippina said, 'as I knew it would.' The trusted friend nodded while Flamma watched from the door. Agrippina turned to the gladiator. 'And here we are with our lessons not even finished.'

He shrugged. 'I'm not dead yet, if that's what you mean.'

'Indeed you're not, which means I am not yet ready.'

Flamma stepped properly into the room, filling it with his vast frame. 'You are ready for anything, Lady, and have been for many months. I'm not yet dead because I've been expecting you to kill me – it puts me on my guard. And I'll be honest with you – I would like to
see
you win your vengeance.'

Tears came to Agrippina's eyes. 'Then I must take it now – the time has come, Flamma.'

In her corner of the room, where she listened intently, Nilla gave a look to Burrus, who nodded once in unspoken agreement. Nilla stood. Although only eleven, she was as tall as her mother. 'That would be a mistake,' Nilla said to her.

Agrippina stared at her eldest daughter. Something in Nilla's certainty stopped her from admonishing her. 'Why, Nilla?'

'What Grandfather Tiberius intends is a threat – there's no mistaking it – but there are worse threats than this, Mother.'

'Worse than wanting me dead?'

'Worse than wanting you dead in this manner,' said Nilla. 'It is an unimaginative attempt on your life that he's planning – it shows no courage, no boldness. He may want you dead, but not enough to ensure it.'

The adults in the room looked at one another in some surprise, but only Agrippina kept her eyes steadily upon her daughter. Flamma spoke first. 'The girl has learned a lot from her sword-craft,' he said.

Agrippina agreed. 'So you don't advise me to take the steps for which I have long prepared myself?' she asked Nilla.

'Your loyal men would fight for you at a moment's notice, we know that,' said Nilla, 'but I think it would be a mistake to ask them to do so now. It is too soon, Mother, and if the call is made then we will be unable to reverse it.' She took a step closer to Agrippina, reaching out to grasp her hands. 'This threat from Tiberius is a test, yes, but not the final one. That test will come.'

Agrippina looked at her daughter as tears of pride came to her eyes. 'So what should I do?'

Burrus moved forward and spoke quickly and quietly in Nilla's ear. Then Nilla turned back to her mother and detailed their plan.

Afterwards, when Nilla had left and Flamma had begun another sword-craft session with Burrus, Agrippina clutched her loyal friend to her heart, whispering thanks. 'If it were not for your ears, I would be going to my death. I owe you everything.'

Claudia hugged Agrippina in return and whispered her undying, incorruptible love. The tears she wept were real. As Claudia left Agrippina to prepare for what she had falsely told her would be Tiberius's attempt upon her life, she felt her feet and calves ache from where the prisoners in the
Tullianum
had bitten her. She heard again the sobs of gratitude that had been hers when Macro had hauled her from the hole. And she heard again, too, the promise she had made to Sejanus to betray Agrippina with a lie that was as foul as it was simple.

When Agrippina's door closed behind her in the street, Claudia told her slaves that she would like to look at the Tiber – she always enjoyed the view from the Fabrician Bridge. When her slaves stared nervously at this request, she asked them why it was so unusual. They said nothing, and neither did Claudia as the litter carried her all the way down the Palatine, across the Forum and towards the river.

When they reached the bridge, Claudia left her litter and stood staring out at the water from the stone barrier that ran along the bridge edge. She glanced at her slaves and saw the quick, frightened glances they gave each other. Claudia asked them what was wrong, but still they said nothing. Silently, they recalled how their
domina
had been in recent weeks, and recalled, too, her unexplained absence and return. She watched them as they silently acknowledged the contrast in their
domina
before and after these occurrences, and they looked back at her and saw the emptiness, the shocking bleakness deep in Claudia's eyes. But they spoke of none of these things aloud, and eventually expressed surprise that their
domina
hadn't heard of what had been happening here lately – that too many people had been throwing themselves into the Tiber from this very spot at the Fabrician Bridge; it was no longer a pleasant place to be.

Claudia knew exactly what they feared and why, but she told them not to be foolish. Such a low, desperate act was a suicide worthy only of a traitor, she told them – a disgusting traitor, lower than a dog. Their tears slid down their cheeks as she lifted herself to stand high upon the bridge barrier, looking out at the rushing current, the wind catching at her gown and hair. She repeated her words to them, just to make sure they fully understood. To throw oneself into the Tiber was a suicide worthy of a dog, she said, a cowardly dog, and the worst type of traitor in Rome. And when she saw that they knew and yet still forgave her for it, she stepped off the barrier and was gone.

Every time I glanced at her, Agrippina seemed barely to be eating. Her mouth was never full, her hands held nothing, and yet her plate, when I looked at its contents, was missing whatever the dining slaves or I had given her. At first I took note of this in my mind without turning it into a thought as such, being too occupied with my
domina
. But it was because of my
domina
that I realised what was amiss with Agrippina.

Livia's so-called 'recovery' meant that, on occasions when Tiberius requested it, she was included in his evening meals. When such calls came, Lygdus and I arranged her carefully in a high-backed chair, which was then carried into Tiberius's vast
triclinium
by her throne-bearers. She stared fixedly at whoever else was dining and ate nothing, but gave the appearance of eating plenty. She couldn't speak or move her jaw, but we heaped her plate with food and surreptitiously flicked bits to the floor while we attended her, to make it seem as if she'd somehow ingested them.

It was while carrying out this sleight of hand for my
domina
that I realised Agrippina was performing the same trick. Confused, I stared at her from across the room and saw her scoop a handful of meat from her plate and drop it onto the floor beside her dining couch. My mind was so occupied with my
domina
that I was slow in guessing her reason. But Lygdus was not. He ducked to the floor to scrape up Livia's wasted food as an offering to the household gods, and then pulled me down by my
tunica
hem.

'Did you see that?'

'Yes,' I said, not comprehending.

His eyes blinked. 'Did you
see
it?'

'Yes – but what's she doing?'

'Iphicles,' said Lygdus, 'she's not eating anything because she fears it's been poisoned.'

I was so shocked that I stood up again. Agrippina's beautiful blue eyes rested briefly on mine before turning to Tiberius. He had the couch next to hers and his arm reached over to drape across her hands. For all the world this was an unconscious gesture, but I knew it was not. If Agrippina had actually eaten any of the meal she would have had trouble keeping it in her stomach. I bobbed to the floor again, hidden by my
domina
's chair.

'He's not going to kill her – he's in love with her,' I hissed into Lygdus's pink ear.

'You can see what she fears in her eyes.'

'Why would she think this? She's completely wrong.'

Lygdus shrugged, and for several seconds more we pondered what we might not know. Suddenly I saw the opportunity that had presented itself. 'We can take advantage of this,' I whispered.

Lygdus raised his eyebrows at me.

'I don't yet know how,' I said, answering his unspoken question, 'but I know that we must. We won't get something like this handed to us again.'

Lygdus looked worried.

'Will we?' I stressed.

He reluctantly shook his head. I gave him a pointed look and we both stood up. I immediately saw what Tiberius had just discovered. He was staring at the slopped food on the floor beneath Agrippina's couch, trying to make sense of it.

'Lygdus!' I hissed. The eunuch took his cue from me and scuttled between the furniture to begin scooping up the mess, breaking Tiberius's attention from it.

'I don't blame you,' Tiberius said to Agrippina, smiling widely. Several of his teeth had fallen from his gums since the last time she'd been granted one of his grins. Beads of perspiration formed at her temple. 'I don't blame you at all,' he said.

Agrippina blanched, but her barely buried anger took control. 'Blame me, Caesar? Blame me for what?'

He looked a little surprised by her tone. 'For having no appetite for this food. It's substandard. Even my mother won't eat it.'

Agrippina just stared at him.

'Here,' said Tiberius. 'Why don't you try what I have?' The breath audibly left Agrippina's chest as Tiberius reached for a bowl of ember-roasted eggs from the low table in front of him. He held them out before her. 'These are not too heavy upon the stomach,' he said. 'Not spicy or rich – will you have one, daughter?'

This was my moment. I left my
domina
's side, walking quickly around the other couches towards Agrippina as she stared at the bowl of eggs.

'From my own chickens,' Tiberius went on. 'Laid especially for me and prepared only for me too. No one else is given them.' In an action reminiscent of a shade awning being slowly lowered and then raised on a balcony, he laboriously winked. He was hideous. 'They're my little secret!' he whispered.

I saw the fear in Agrippina's look as her hands stayed frozen at her side. As I reached the couch, I caught Lygdus's worried eye from where he squatted in the mess. I shot out my hand and plucked an egg from the bowl that Tiberius offered. 'Let me try one for you, Lady.'

In the moment of bewilderment that Agrippina and Tiberius shared, I had shelled the thing and popped it in my mouth. I kept my eyes on Agrippina as I chewed the leathery treat. 'Mmm,' I said, my mouth full. 'It's delicious, Lady.'

A wave of relief washed over Agrippina's face. She took an egg from Tiberius and began delicately shelling it.

But to Tiberius there seemed to be a secret drama being played out before him. 'Why did you eat my egg, Iphicles?'

I bowed deeply to avoid looking directly at him. 'The Lady Agrippina's stomach is weak,' I said. But my voice held just the right note to suggest there was another reason.

'But my eggs are mild. I told your mistress that.'

I deliberately met Agrippina's eye again – and let Tiberius see that I was meeting it. Her fingers paused in shelling the egg. 'I would hate my Lady to fall ill,' I whispered.

'You can return to the Augusta now, Iphicles,' Agrippina said quickly.

I bowed deeply again, and as I did so I placed my hands at my stomach. Righting myself, I kept them there. Then I turned to move back to my
domina
's high-backed chair. I had only moved several paces before I stopped again, as though a private thought or some other sensation had compelled me to stillness. I knew that all eyes were upon me.

'Agrippina –' Tiberius started to say.

I fell to my knees and vomited.

Agrippina sprang from her dining couch. 'Iphicles!'

Lygdus leaped up from the floor and ran to me. 'What is it?' He turned me over and the spewed-up egg was seen by all.

'I'm unwell,' I moaned.

The look that Agrippina gave to Tiberius blazed with a hatred so fierce he shrank into his cushions.

'What's wrong with the slave?' he stammered.

'Could it be your "little secret"?' she said.

Tiberius was beyond bewilderment, and suddenly Agrippina was too. She looked into his eyes and saw not malice in them but hurt. She had wounded him. He knew nothing of what she insinuated. He was completely innocent. With a lurch of her heart she knew she had been lied to. Another pair of staring eyes made her spin around. Sejanus was at the door.

'There is news, Caesar,' he said. 'The Lady Claudia Pulchra is dead.'

Agrippina threw her hand to her mouth. In her grief she had been blind to the truth. Tiberius had not murdered Germanicus. His killer was the 'son'. And now she, too, saw death rushing forward at his bidding.

'Who?' said Tiberius.

'Claudia Pulchra. Her own slaves fished her out of the Tiber. It was suicide.'

'Was she a traitor?'

Sejanus looked directly at Agrippina. 'Traitors take on many forms. To some she was a friend.'

Agrippina snatched her shawl from an attendant and Tiberius looked at her again.

'Do I know this woman?' said Tiberius, now impatient.

'Perhaps not, Caesar,' Sejanus shrugged and turned away.

The hurt Agrippina had seen in Tiberius's eyes evolved into something else. Deep behind the mists of the Eastern flower burned rage. 'Are you leaving me, daughter?'

Agrippina stooped to where Lygdus cradled my head in his lap. Her look of deep and humble affection for me was so moving that it almost made me falter. 'I will recover,' I whispered. 'I feel sure of it.' My own part was done.