Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  At Oxheads, the household’s official mistress was still my domina, asleep or not, and I was expected to ensure that she was fit to be seen when the day came. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t cook a meal – she was only expected to say that she had. In the first two years of Livia’s sleep-filled state, Matronalia had not been a trial for me. Without knowing the reasons behind her sleep, Tiberius understood that his mother was unfit to be displayed before the assembled palace slaves; he let it be known, truthfully, that she was too unwell for the job. Antonia had performed the duties instead, that redoubtable mother of Livilla, Claudius and the dead Germanicus. But this year Oxheads’ mistress was ‘awake’.

  Kneeling at the centre of his band of supporters, Castor stared into his grandmother’s open eyes. ‘But she is awake, Iphicles – look at her.’

  Jostled and elbowed by the dozen or so men who had crowded with Castor into Livia’s suite, I tried to hide my desperation as I explained. ‘Her eyes are open, yes, domine, but that’s all. There’s nothing behind them. Her mind is still asleep. She cannot appear at Matronalia.’

  Castor waved a hand in front of Livia’s staring eyes. She blinked. ‘My grandmother can see me,’ he said.

  I knew it was true, but still I tried to cover. ‘The physician says that while her eyes seem to be working, her mind is not. She can’t speak and she can’t move.’ I pinched the flesh on Livia’s arm. ‘She can’t feel, domine – you see, she has no feeling.’

  I noticed Little Boots worming his way in among the crowd of men.

  Castor slapped my hand from his grandmother’s arm. ‘The physician is wrong – she can feel it.’ Indeed, my domina’s eyes were watering. ‘She can’t communicate it.’ Castor glared at me. ‘And if I ever see you pinching her like that again, I’ll have you flogged, Iphicles, is that clear?’

  I saw Little Boots stifle a laugh at my discomfort. ‘Yes, domine,’ I cringed.

  ‘Help me sit her up,’ Castor ordered.

  I bent forward to help him lift her in the bed, but his supporters shoved me aside and several of them gave their assistance to Castor in my place, arranging my domina against her pillows so that she sat upright and surveyed the whole room.

  ‘Look,’ said Castor in amazement. Livia’s eyes began to focus on what was now in front of her – the bed linen, the drapery, the faces of Castor’s friends gaping back at her. ‘She can see everything now! She’s the Augusta again.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Grandmother,’ he whispered. ‘Will yourself to speak to me again – I know you can do it. Rome needs you.’

  Livia’s head lolled a little as he embraced her. Her stare fell upon Little Boots and I saw him go pale.

  Castor noticed the boy. ‘Nephew,’ he said, beckoning Little Boots forward, ‘your great-grandmother wants your kiss.’

  I saw the repulsion flooding Little Boots’s face and I felt a terror at what he might do or say that could risk exposing us both.

  ‘Kiss her,’ said Castor. ‘Help her gain the strength to recover.’

  Little Boots looked at me, frightened. The smile I attempted was a grimace. ‘Your great-grandmother loves you,’ I croaked.

  Little Boots gingerly stood on his toes, leaning across my domina’s bed. Her eyes shifted in their sockets, remaining fixed upon him like the eyes of a statue. He brushed his lips against her cheek and then withdrew behind the bedhead where her staring eyes couldn’t reach him.

  ‘Iphicles,’ said Castor.

  I kept my gaze to the ground, fearing that if I lifted my head Livia would look at me with terrible accusation; perhaps the power of her inner fury would even fill her with voice. In the months since her eyes had reopened, I had done everything I could to keep them closed, short of poking them out with a pin. I had plunged the room into near-darkness, closing the window shutters and putting out the oil lamps. I had kept my gaze averted from her face at all times as I fed and bathed her, placing shrouds and shawls and sometimes even cushions across her eyes just to block out her stare.

  But no matter what I did, I knew she could see. I knew she was conscious and I knew what she was thinking. She planned her vengeance on me. I doubled the amount of ointment I smeared upon the phallus, and then tripled it, until there was enough in her nightly doses to stun a horse into paralysis. But my domina had built up such a resistance to it that nothing I gave her would send her back to Somnus again. It was fast becoming clear that unless she somehow returned to sleep, my only option would be to kill her, my domina, whom I loved more than my own life. I would have to kill her in order to fulfil the very prophecies to which her own life had been dedicated. I would have to kill her to allow Little Boots to become the second king. If I did not, she would awaken fully and kill me, and then kill Sejanus for what he’d done to her chosen second king, Germanicus.

  When it came to the prophecies, Livia placed her wishes above the divine words themselves. This had brought her disaster but she had failed to learn. I had studied the lessons instead.

  ‘Iphicles, look at me,’ said Castor with a tone that permitted no argument.

  I lifted my head and Livia’s vengeance-filled eyes were indeed upon me.

  ‘We owe you a great debt for the service you have given in caring for the Augusta,’ said Castor.

  I opened my mouth, trying to speak.

  ‘A great debt,’ Castor repeated. ‘But I fear we exploited your love for my grandmother, leaving you to care for her wholly on your own.’

  I was being relieved of my duty. Castor was reading me my death sentence.

  ‘But Iphicles wanted to look after great-grandmother all by himself,’ Little Boots piped up from behind the bedhead. ‘He sent the other slaves away.’ He thought he was helping me with this damning defence.

  ‘And we should never have allowed that to happen. Iphicles is too old.’

  I swallowed. My mouth felt like it was full of sand. ‘I don’t feel old, domine,’ I rasped.

  Castor dismissed this and I saw a spark of malicious glee within my domina’s stare. She relished my pain – it would lead to her freedom. I threw myself onto the floor at the end of the bed. ‘Please, domine,’ I wailed. ‘Don’t take me away from her. I’ve given my whole life to serving my domina – I promised I’d never leave her.’

  Castor’s friends and supporters were disgusted by my display.

  ‘You’re old and tired,’ Castor told me. ‘I think you’ve earned a good rest.’

  ‘Domine, please – please!’ I writhed upon the tiles.

  There was a long, condemning pause while I choked and sobbed. When at last I stopped, I raised my head to see that several of Castor’s friends had already left the room, unable to bear me. My domina’s eyes were closed now, but she was listening, I knew. She believed she was free at last.

  ‘You can stay then,’ Castor said.

  Livia’s eyes sprang open.

  ‘But I will provide you with help.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘A slave from my household will join you and take over most of your tasks. You can supervise.’

  I darted a look at Little Boots. He was as shocked by the reprieve as I was.

  My domina’s eyes began to narrow, calculating what this would mean for me and for her.

  ‘Who will this slave be?’ I whispered, hoping my tone conveyed the correct gratitude to Castor.

  ‘I have a eunuch in my household. He lives to serve. I will send him here.’

  My fear of being banished from ever seeing the prophecies fulfilled was gone. My courage returned and I met my domina’s eye with a level stare. But her look had a dark excitement to it now. She knew better than anyone what I was capable of, but she also knew what Castor had done. He had never intended to remove me from caring for her. Why would he? He understood that no one loved her more than I did. He knew that my obsession for her was so all-consuming that I had even sacrificed my manhood just to honour her. But all the same, he didn’t trust me. Castor knew
I had secrets, but he was unsure of what they were. This eunuch was to be his spy in uncovering them.

  If my domina had found her voice at that moment, she would have laughed and laughed at my predicament.

  ‘I would have thought he’d be more upset about it,’ said Livilla to her husband as they ate their breakfast of wine-soaked bread.

  ‘It’s a change of scene for him – new tasks, new responsibilities,’ said Castor. ‘It’s good to vary a slave’s experiences every now and then. Keeps them interested in life, stops them becoming depressed.’

  ‘You’re too slack with them,’ said Livilla.

  ‘And you’re too harsh. It’s why they don’t love you.’

  Livilla was hurt to hear this said but tried to pretend she wasn’t. ‘It’s better to be feared.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Castor. He sat up in the dining couch, breakfast done.

  Livilla’s pup, Scylax, came to lick the dripping wine from her fingers. ‘The eunuch is already depressed – or just plain sullen and disobedient. He used to be such a sweet-tempered boy. I don’t know what’s come over him lately.’

  Castor had a theory but didn’t bother inflaming his wife by sharing it. ‘He will join our grandmother’s house this morning. I have told him to pack anything he feels he might need.’

  Livilla scoffed. ‘The slave’s got possessions now?’

  ‘Things that might be useful in his work. Honestly, Livilla, try to think of a kind departing word you can say to Lygdus – you owe him that at least.’

  Livilla glared as Castor walked out of the dining room. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she called after him. But he had gone. Livilla kissed the slender head of her beloved Laconian. ‘I won’t miss that fat lump,’ she told the pup. ‘Good riddance to him. I hope my grandmother gives him hell.’

  Leaving the house to spend the morning at the magistrates’ courts, Nero found Lygdus waiting in the entrance hall. The eunuch had chosen to take nothing with him, despite Castor telling him he should.

  ‘You’re leaving us, I hear?’ said Nero.

  Lygdus was surprised it warranted any comment. He met the young dominus’s eyes for a moment, before Nero was the first to look away. Lygdus automatically bobbed to the floor and ran a damp piece of sponge across Nero’s street shoes, wiping the dust from them. ‘Yes, domine,’ he mumbled. ‘I am being sent to the household of the Augusta.’ Nero said nothing else on the matter.

  When Lygdus was done, he stood, keeping his eyes downcast and waiting for Nero to walk out to join his retinue. But Nero stayed where he was. When Lygdus dared to meet the young master’s eyes again, he was confused by the lack of shame or anger there. Instead there was a look to Nero’s face that the eunuch barely knew. Was it affection?

  ‘Thank you,’ Nero said, ‘for all that … Well, just thank you.’

  Lygdus gaped. Then he felt an object placed in his hand. It was a gold aureus coin. He looked at Nero in astonishment but the young man was already joining his retinue in the street outside. When the front door closed, Lygdus stayed staring at the coin for a long time. He had never known what it was to hold such a thing. He turned the weight of it over in his palm, wrapping his fingers around it and uncurling them again to stare at the golden image of the Emperor’s profile.

  When the time came to make the very short journey to the Augusta’s house, Lygdus left the aureus sitting in the bottom of the footbath water. Let the next foot-washing slave find it, Lygdus thought. The House of Castor had mutilated him, and now, just as they decided they should be rid of his embarrassment, they deigned to grace him with compensation. No. Lygdus had his dignity intact, if nothing else. His butchered manhood would not be paid for in gold.

  But as he stepped into the daylight, Lygdus felt a pang of regret. The Augusta’s household could well be worse than the home he was leaving. He would endure it, of course, no matter how bad it was. That was his lot as a slave. But how sad it would be to look back on his life and know he had rejected the one act of kindness that had not been a mask for cruelty. The young master had rewarded him out of gratitude. It wasn’t hush money. Lygdus had been given the coin because he had already held his tongue and would have done so even if he had not been rewarded. Nero recognised nobility in Lygdus, yet Lygdus was only a slave.

  Lygdus ducked inside again and retrieved the coin from the footbath.

  As he reappeared in the daylight with the wet aureus tucked inside his loincloth, the faintest echo of a whisper touched his ear.

  ‘The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding’s tongue …’

  Startled, Lygdus turned to see who had spoken to him.

  There was no one there.

  The Kalends of April

  AD 21

  One month later: Julius Sacrovir of the

  Aedui sows the seeds of rebellion in Gaul

  With Livia’s ‘recovery’ the order was given that she should be paraded around Rome like a goddess, as a part of Castor’s public retinue. Whenever her grandson traversed the Forum, fronted the courts, witnessed the floggings or attended the Senate, the Augusta was to accompany him, sitting upright in a canopied throne held by eight litter-bearers. This would provide an indelible image for Rome, the city for which spectacle and display was all.

  It fell to me – and my new ‘apprentice’, Lygdus – to coordinate these processions. I tied Livia’s neck and torso to the back of the throne, then draped her in concealing robes and placed a diadem on her head. Lygdus made a contribution to these preparations that could only be described as token. It became clear to me that he was lazy and offensive and showed no talent for work. All he did was eat, sleep and complain. Yet still I had to suffer his daily presence along with the nagging certainty that he was Castor’s agent. This meant I couldn’t slight him, or – which would have been more deserved – strike him in the teeth and push him down the stairs. And the stealth required to employ the phallus under these circumstances was exhausting in the extreme. Lygdus was my millstone.

  I carefully watched my domina’s eyes during these preparations, as did Little Boots whenever he was present. If Livia had any objection to being exhibited, we saw no sign of it in her. To the people of Rome who witnessed her passing by in the canopied throne, she seemed regal and worthy of awe. They were glad she was back. Castor’s public dignity increased tenfold when people saw that she was with him. The fact that she neither spoke nor moved but only stared fixedly into the middle distance seemed to strike no one as odd. But this was no surprise. In her days as the wife of Augustus she had rarely spoken in public; more often, she’d been seen exactly as she was now.

  On one occasion, in glorious spring, when the streets and temples were vivid with flowers, the domina’s processional preparations took longer than usual. In addition to her diadem and robes, I was attempting to hang garlands on her person, Castor’s order being that she should remind the people of the goddess Flora. But various slaves had been in and out of the suite since dawn, filling me in on a developing morning of scandal in the Forum. Burrus’s mother Nymphomidia stole in, eating pears from a bowl.

  ‘Have you heard about Annia Rufilla?’

  This was a notorious widow whose financial improprieties had brought her before the courts. ‘She’s been convicted of fraud,’ I said. ‘That’s old news, Nymphomidia.’

  The slave’s lips peeled into a smile. ‘You haven’t heard then?’

  ‘I’ve been hearing it all morning.’

  ‘Sounds to me like you’ve been hearing the old news, Iphicles. Oh well, I won’t trouble you,’ said Nymphomidia, crunching a pear and making to go.

  I saw that listening Livia was keen for the next instalment and decided to allow her this pleasure. ‘Tell me, then – what’s happened now?’

  Nymphomidia had become used to speaking to me as if Livia wasn’t even in the room. ‘Annia’s been screaming in the Forum that Gallus is a cunt. She called him a boy-lover, too, and said he took it up the ars
e.’

  I guffawed and Livia’s eyes shone with mirth. ‘She can’t say that sort of thing in the Forum! Gallus is a senator.’

  ‘And he’s also the magistrate who convicted her.’

  ‘Has Gallus found out?’

  ‘She was on the Senate steps. It was hard for him to miss it.’

  I laughed again. ‘I suppose she’s been arrested?’

  ‘Guess again,’ said Nymphomidia. ‘Gallus sent the lictors out with their rods raised ready to give her one, but they stopped in their tracks when she pulled a surprise out of her palla.’

  ‘A knife? Why would they care if she killed herself?’

  ‘It wasn’t a knife – it was a bust of Tiberius.’

  I felt a twinge of dread and caught my domina’s eye again. Her look of amusement had turned malicious. ‘What did Annia mean by doing that?’

  ‘To have Gallus accused of treason.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘If the lictors had beaten her, she would have dropped the bust – it would have smashed on the ground. Gallus would have been seen as the one who had caused it.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘People are being accused of treason for breaking busts of the Emperor now?’

  ‘Where have you been, Iphicles? It’s very lucrative for those who make such accusations. They get a share of the traitor’s estate.’

  That was the first time, I think, that I questioned the wisdom of Cybele. It had been the Great Mother’s prophecies that I had dedicated my life to fulfilling, and this had led me to commit many crimes. But everything had been necessary for the greater good of Rome, I had always told myself, and for the greater glory of my domina, Cybele’s mortal manifestation. And without this certainty, how else could I have continued with so many innocent dead around me? Yet, hearing the news of Annia’s shameless behaviour, I wondered whether the actions of Tiberius, the prophesied first king, could also be called for the ‘glory of Rome’. Tiberius’s vanity had allowed this travesty to happen – and it opened the door for so much more.

  ‘What did Gallus do?’