Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  The eunuch sneered at the kitchen slave. ‘Go back to the spits.’

  The boy opened his mouth to complain but the look on Lygdus’s face was enough to make him obey. Lygdus smoothly took the cloak from Nero’s shoulders, keeping his eyes downcast. Nero said nothing, but his wine-drenched breath was strong. Lygdus sensed him trying to work out what was amiss. Lygdus sank to his knees. ‘You are missing a shoe, domine,’ he said, still not raising his eyes.

  ‘Lost it, fell off,’ said Nero, his voice thick with drink. He slumped into a chair.

  Lygdus removed Nero’s remaining sandal. Both feet were black with street dust. Lygdus clung to the small amount of pleasure the sight and smell of them gave him – the one joy he knew. He turned to the footbath stowed beneath the janitor’s box, his back to Nero so that the young dominus couldn’t see his relief that he hadn’t been exposed. He heard the young man’s breath grow heavier and he wondered if Nero had fallen asleep. On his hands and knees, Lygdus poured fresh water from a ewer into the shallow bronze bath and reached to a vase of herbs, tearing off some leaves.

  He felt the rear hem of his scarlet tunica being lifted.

  Lygdus froze, his eyes fixed on the footbath water and the herbs, his weight on his hands, his fat buttocks raised in the air before his drunken young dominus. Neither said a word as Nero’s fingers touched Lygdus’s flesh and then hooked beneath the fabric of the loin cloth. Nero gently pulled, and the loin cloth unravelled, slipping to the floor.

  One tear, then another rolled down Lygdus’s nose and struck the footbath water. He had brought this ultimate shame upon himself, he knew. The young dominus had realised that Lygdus had been outside the house without permission, and now he meant to enjoy him in a manner that was only discussed in shameful whispers. Lygdus knew he would be treated brutally by Nero now, and perhaps even maimed. There was nothing he could do and nothing he could say. His endless suffering would only increase. More tears fell into the bath, and Lygdus cursed himself in his heart for being such a novice in this world, forever misjudging things. To have believed that such a naked approach to the Emperor would ever succeed was a fool’s mistake, and he deserved the failure. Now he deserved everything that would come from Nero.

  Something snapped in the young eunuch’s mind. He span around with anger in his face, pulling his tunica down to cover himself.

  ‘Kill me, domine – I don’t want to live if all that’s left to me is your prick. Stab me in the guts if you want, but you’ll never rape me while I’m alive.’

  Nero flushed and fell back into his chair.

  There was a long, shocked silence while Lygdus kept his rage-filled eyes on his young master. ‘Well, domine?’

  He realised that Nero was trembling. In his abject drunkenness Nero had expressed the desire he kept hidden from Rome. This, his darkest secret, he fought constantly within himself, and the sordid lust, never satisfied, grew stronger and ever hungrier within the prison of his heart.

  Lygdus saw that Nero was desperate and ashamed and he suddenly understood. The moment was Lygdus’s now – the one moment in his life that was unequivocally his. He could choose to show his triumph and humiliate Nero, and then enjoy a few days’ intoxicating joy before Nero took the vengeance that would inevitably come. Or he could show that he was discreet and honourable and, if his master was discreet and honourable in return, then Lygdus would not sink so low as to betray him.

  Lygdus chose the second option. With a last, loaded look, he lowered his eyes and turned to drag the footbath across the floor and under his young master’s feet. Lygdus lifted the right and then the left foot, placing them in the herb-scented water and watching the dust and grime dissolve. Then he began to knead the flesh, gently pressing the arches and squeezing the toes. He glanced up only once and saw that Nero’s eyes were now closed. Lygdus returned to his task, and when his heart at last stopped racing, he felt the gradual return of pleasure, however faint.

  For all that was loathsome and vile about Nero, he still had handsome feet.

  Apicata lay prone in silence as her husband claimed his pleasure from her in the manner that was said to leave the wives of lesser men unhinged. She thought nothing of the degradation – not when her husband was Fortuna’s favourite. To Apicata there was only a deep, rich honour in inflaming such lust in her prince. Her body was her husband’s to employ in all the ways that pleased him. All that mattered, she whispered to herself through the low, perverted act, was that Sejanus be pleased by all she could give. She drew immeasurable comfort in knowing she was desired. For too long his lusts had seemed perfunctory, his pleasures taken hurriedly upon her body without a word. She had feared she now repelled him and she blamed her eyes for it. Did it repulse Sejanus to penetrate a wife who could not see him? But now her husband had returned to her renewed, and his moans of deep release were cherished companions to her total, tomblike stillness.

  When he was spent, Apicata dripped perfume on all the linens, blocking out the bestial stink of the pleasure. Then she lay next to Sejanus, listening to his breath. He was awake, breathing in the scent.

  ‘Castor has a newborn son,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  Apicata expected him to ask how she knew, given that the child had been born only hours ago. But Sejanus rolled onto his side, turning his back to her. For one delirious moment Apicata started to compose the words in her head that would tell him of the witchcraft and the dreadful, unimaginable curse that now hung over Livilla’s newborn child. But when she went to speak of it, she sensed that her husband had drifted off to Somnus. Despair stabbed her, as so often happened when she was left alone in the wake of pleasuring him. Did he love her? Was she really his future queen? Or was she his whore, never called as much to her face, but derided as a whore in his mind? Was that all she was to him?

  She thought upon Aemilia again. The matron’s magic had great potency, made all the stronger as it came from highborn hands. Apicata resolved to visit the patrician woman a second time.

  Apicata resolved to use Aemilia’s witchcraft to banish despair from her bed.

  The Ides of June

  AD 20

  One week later: Emperor Tiberius Julius

  Caesar Augustus accepts a Senate proposal

  that he, Livia, Antonia, Agrippina

  and Castor be thanked by Rome for

  avenging the death of Germanicus. At the

  Emperor’s request, Claudius, the crippled

  brother of Germanicus, is not included in

  Rome’s thanks

  ‘Aemilia, how very kind,’ said Antonia approvingly. ‘It is nothing at all,’ said Aemilia, presenting her birth gift to the Claudian women. ‘Look, Livilla, isn’t that thoughtful?’ Antonia hovered above her daughter in the bed. Livilla made a strained smile from where she rested, nursing her infant son.

  ‘It is nothing,’ Aemilia repeated. ‘Merely a small token from the Aemilii in expression of our great joy at your happy event.’

  Livilla’s daughter, Tiberia, perched at the end of her mother’s woollen mattress, smiling at Aemilia’s accompanying daughters. ‘That’s very pretty fabric you’ve wrapped the gift in.’

  The sisters smiled back. ‘It’s silk,’ said Domitia.

  ‘Where do you suppose silk comes from?’ wondered Tiberia.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ said Domitia, ‘only that it comes from the East.’

  ‘I heard that it’s squeezed out of worms,’ Lepida ventured.

  Already on edge at the prospect of receiving more presents since the curse tablet, Antonia and Livilla flinched at the thought of something made from worm excrement. ‘Well, well … we should see what’s inside the pretty fabric then, shouldn’t we?’ Antonia said. But neither she nor Livilla made any move to touch it.

  Tiberia was oblivious. ‘Can I?’

  A flash of fear passed between Livilla and her mother.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll like it,’ said Lepida.

  ‘We thought it was very bea
utiful,’ Domitia agreed.

  Aemilia smiled, placing her hands on her daughters’ shoulders. But her eyes intently watched Livilla in the bed. Livilla clutched her infant son to her bosom, unaware of Aemilia’s look. Her eyes were fixed on Tiberia’s fingers as the child undid the silken wrap.

  ‘Oh! Look,’ said Tiberia. It was a hand-mirror, made from the finest polished silver and decorated at its edges with pieces of aquamarine. Tiberia stared at her own pretty face in it. ‘I have never seen one that reflects so beautifully.’

  Domitia and Lepida nodded at each other approvingly.

  ‘It’s like looking at myself through a window,’ said Tiberia. ‘It’s so very clear.’ Then she saw a spot on her chin. ‘Why didn’t you tell me I had a pimple, Mother!’

  ‘It is only a very small one,’ said Lepida, trying to be helpful.

  Tiberia covered her chin with her hand, dismayed.

  Beaming with relief that the gift was nothing that might have upset the fragile Livilla, Antonia took the mirror from her granddaughter’s hands. ‘It is quite exquisite, Aemilia,’ she said, kissing the Aemilii matron on the cheek, ‘and chosen with your famous good taste.’

  Aemilia accepted the revered Antonia’s kiss with affection, but her eyes stayed upon Livilla and the baby.

  Antonia brought the mirror to the mound of gladiolus-scented cushions that supported Livilla at the head of the bed. ‘See? Isn’t it beautiful? Now you can give away your old mirror to one of the slaves …’

  Livilla caught sight of her own pale, drawn expression in the reflection, and in doing so saw the precise moment when revelation changed it. A tremor of horror swept her face and she looked up to see Aemilia’s beautiful chestnut eyes boring into own, her hands at the waists of her daughters.

  ‘The old mirror had become so tarnished,’ Antonia went on. ‘You were lucky to see anything in it at all.’

  Livilla’s jaw snapped shut in terror. She felt unable to breathe. Then it seemed as if her baby son stopped breathing too. Tiny Gemellus went limp in her arms. ‘My son …’ she tried to say.

  Aemilia’s eyes gave nothing away. But Livilla looked behind them and saw that they were dead. For the brief moment that her baby’s breath left his lungs, Aemilia of the Aemilii had the sightless eyes of a blind woman.

  Then Gemellus’s chest filled with air.

  ‘Thank you so much, Aemilia,’ said Antonia, wholly unaware. ‘You really are far, far too kind to us.’

  Livilla stumbled into the Palatine street with her mother’s bewilderment ringing in her ears. ‘No, just … go back inside, Mother.’

  ‘But, Livilla –’

  ‘Go back inside!’

  Livilla pulled the front door closed behind her, blocking Antonia from seeing into the street. ‘Just tell me what’s happened. You’re not well enough to go out …’ her mother’s muffled voice cried from behind the door.

  Livilla scanned up and down the busy thoroughfare. ‘My litter … Where is it?’ she shouted into the throng. Customers and slave assistants in the shops on either side of her door stared in surprise. ‘Don’t look at me! Do you know who I am?’

  Nervous, they looked at the ground or at their purchases.

  ‘My litter! Why is it taking this long?’

  She heard the sounds of running steps and panting men as her official litter came lurching and swaying up the hill in the hands of her six bearers, with her lone Imperial lictor, whose job it was to clear the way, at the head. The men had been summoned at haste from the lecticarii station at the banks of the river and were unprepared for her emergency. The shabby transport was dirty with the mud from recent rains.

  ‘Hurry!’ Livilla screamed at them.

  The bearers staggered on the cobbles, tripping to a halt where Livilla stood. She spat on the ground in front of them. ‘Too long!’ She hoisted herself inside. Her abdomen hurt her, still stretched and raw from the birth.

  ‘Where to, Lady?’ the panting lictor asked.

  ‘To the House of the Aemilii.’

  ‘There will be an additional passenger,’ said Aemilia. The finely boned matron slipped from the shadows of the yew tree where she had been waiting and slid inside Livilla’s transport.

  ‘Wait!’ Livilla cried. The bearers lifted and then dropped the litter again in confusion. ‘Move away – move away from here,’ Livilla yelled at the men outside. ‘Leave us be in here – and keep anyone else away.’

  The lictor took charge of pushing back the bearers and all pedestrians. He thought that his mistress was of unsound mind. A cleared circle soon surrounded the stationary litter.

  Livilla stared at Aemilia in horror. ‘So it was you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aemilia. There was genuine sorrow in her beautiful face. ‘The blind woman has me in her claws.’

  ‘That foul bitch! Both of you – to curse my unborn child!’ Livilla began to weep, until anger stemmed her tears. She clenched her jaw, bearing her teeth.

  ‘He is a beautiful boy, born whole and well,’ Aemilia began to say.

  ‘The curse you sent him will haunt him into manhood! I will kill you for this – you know that, don’t you? You’ll die for this in agony.’

  Aemilia nodded. ‘I would do the same in your place.’

  Livilla could only stare at the fallen woman in incomprehension. ‘Why make yourself known to me? Why flaunt your crafts by giving me the mirror as an obscene reminder of what you did to my child?’

  ‘To show you that Veiovis is a two-faced god,’ said Aemilia simply. ‘The blind woman summoned a deity who delights in deceit, and she is a fool for it. I made a curse tablet for her under duress. Now let me make one for you. Let me promise you that the powers I summoned for the dog Apicata will be nothing to the powers I summon on a patrician woman’s behalf.’

  Livilla stared at her in fear. Then she twitched the litter curtain to address the lictor holding back the pedestrians. ‘Take us to the Aemilii.’

  Neither woman said another word for the duration of the short journey. Neither woman took her eyes from the other’s delicate, highborn face.

  Summania

  June, AD 20

  One week later: the rebel army of the

  nomad Tacfarinas resumes hostilities in

  Numidia, raiding villages and looting

  extensively

  The day was warm but the flesh on Livilla’s arms rose as if she were chilled. She clutched her summer cloak about her shoulders, pulling the collar of it up to press against her hair. She took a step forward, and then another, forcing herself to brave the ascent up the damp, moss-covered stairs. She glanced behind her, catching eyes with her eunuch where he waited in the square. She glared at him hard. ‘Do not move!’ she hissed. ‘Do not move an inch until I return for you.’

  She turned to look upwards again, and the malevolent temple loomed high before her, vile and foreboding, shrouded in shadow on its densely wooded hill. The sun hadn’t touched the temple’s doors in all the centuries it had stood in this place, blocked from the rays by glowering, guarding oaks. The stale, dank structure was older than Rome, a relic from Etruscan times, like the sinister god it housed. Sly Veiovis loathed all that was light. The deity of deception demanded that his acolytes worship him in mire.

  ‘Please welcome me, dark god,’ Livilla whispered, taking care with each tread on the slimy, uneven steps. ‘I am new to your home but the need I have for your love is great. Please welcome me, Veiovis …’ She felt the little bag that was slung at her shoulder, and the three precious objects within. She touched them inside the soft leather, reassured by their purpose. She would enter this dark place. She would damn the bitch blind woman to hell.

  Loose masonry shifted under her foot and she lost her balance, falling forward with a cry to crack her knee on the blunt step edge. Pain shot through her limb like a spear thrust. She tried to rise, but the agony of it was worse than childbirth.

  ‘Veiovis,’ she gasped. ‘Admit me, foul god …’

&nb
sp; The watching eunuch in the square did not move.

  A wind gust whipped the cover from Livilla’s head, picking her long, black hair from its pins and tossing it into her eyes, shrouding her. The vast, iron door creaked inwards in the draught, exposing the temple’s maw. But nothing could be seen inside. The open door was a sneer, mocking Livilla and enjoying her pain, yet daring her to venture forward to receive more.

  She crawled up the remaining steps on her hands and knees, her leg limp behind her. When she reached the temple portico, she dragged herself along on her belly, her summer stola fouled in the lichen and slime.

  Livilla reached the door and clawed herself upright, clutching at her precious bag. Her knee throbbed, coursing pain the whole length of her body. She stared into the gloom. There was no light at all. No windows and not a single lit lamp. Only the door admitted the daylight from outside, just as it admitted acolytes.

  ‘Do you see me, Veiovis?’ Livilla’s eyes began to adjust and the god’s blackened bronze statue emerged from the shade. She gasped when she saw it fully. One hand clutched a fistful of lightning bolts, while the other rested on the horned head of a goat. Veiovis’s image was that of a god no longer young but not yet elderly. He was neither handsome nor heroic. He was ordinary, dressed in a simple tunica. If Veiovis had been a man, no one would have looked twice at him in the Forum. Yet Livilla sensed something familiar about this god, as if she had passed him in the Forum – and not once but many times – and yet had never stopped to see him.

  Livilla sensed a fluttering at her lips as her breath quickened. A drip of fluid left her sex, running down the soft, inner flesh of her thigh and pooling at the wound of her knee. She felt lust surge in her heart, lust for this deceiving god. She let go of the great doorway and placed her weight upon her weakened leg. The pain seemed less. ‘You are a god of healing too, Veiovis,’ she whispered. ‘I see it in your face.’