Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  Agrippina flew at her friend, and when she reached her, clutched her tight, her lips at her ear. ‘I’ll save you,’ she said. ‘I’ll find a way to save you –’

  Sosia shook her head. ‘Save yourself,’ she said, and she broke down at last. The women around them stopped as one, aware of who the two were and why they wept and clung to each other. Those who lacked courage held back, frightened, but those for whom nobility was as much a part of them as the very air they breathed moved forward, forming a ring around the broken friends.

  ‘Protect yourself,’ Sosia repeated. ‘Save your children, your sons. Take them away from Rome – make them forget the injustices done.’

  ‘I cannot – you know I cannot,’ Agrippina wept.

  ‘This vengeance will destroy you, then,’ Sosia said. ‘It’s what your husband warned – it’ll kill you if you stay on this path. Please, Agrippina, save yourself. This reckless courage is meant for men, not for us. It’s meant for men …’

  Agrippina brushed the hair from her treasured friend’s face and kissed her lips. ‘I will save you,’ she vowed, acknowledging nothing that Sosia had said. ‘I will find you when all this is done and I will save you. Have faith in me.’

  Sosia nodded, but in her heart she knew they would never meet again. ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  Then she turned and was gone in the tide.

  The tiny cry of an infant told me the pomerium was close, and as I saw the row of white cippi stones appear, marking the limits of Rome, I saw the babies too, abandoned at birth and exposed outside the walls. I moved among the scattered tombs, hoping to find a clear view of the road without being seen myself, but a cry distracted me from my purpose. It came from the only infant still alive from the night before; there were half a dozen others cold and dead. It was a miracle this baby hadn’t perished in the chill dawn air, or been taken yet by foxes or some childless wife. I peered at where the tiny thing lay among the wildflowers, naked and streaked with birth blood. I brushed the ants from its face. It was not deformed – that I could tell. Its only crime, I supposed, was being born female in a household that had hoped for a male. This was how such misfortunes were righted in Rome.

  A movement at the roadside took my focus. Among the carts and bullocks and chains of slaves, a woman in undyed wool stumbled on the stones, nearly falling, before she righted herself and made to carry on. Sosia’s bare feet were bleeding already, I saw. I glanced at the tiny infant helplessly and then stole forward, weaving around the tombs to place myself ahead of her. When Sosia drew near, I stepped onto the road. No one else paid attention.

  ‘Lady,’ I called, as loudly as I dared.

  Sosia stopped still, thrown at seeing me. Then she made to move past. ‘I am exiled, Iphicles. No one can speak to me.’

  I sank to one knee before her. ‘I am so sorry, Lady.’ Tears were forming in my eyes. ‘You don’t deserve this fate – you are blameless.’

  She said nothing, staring at the ground. I glanced around us to assure myself we were still being ignored. Then I reached into the sack I carried and retrieved a pair of street shoes. ‘For your feet – please take them.’

  She stared at them for a second, but made no move to accept. I laid the shoes on the road before her. ‘Lady, here.’ I showed her what else was in the sack – bread and cheese, and a small jug of wine. ‘Take them, Lady.’

  Sosia resumed walking, leaving the items by the road. Stricken, I scooped them into the sack again and ran after her. She stopped when I caught her.

  ‘Let me be, Iphicles – I am of no concern to you.’

  ‘Your children,’ I stammered. ‘I’ll try to protect them – I’ll do what I can.’

  Sosia stared at me. ‘What can you possibly do? You’re only a slave.’

  My desire to tell her that I was much more than a slave was so strong that I felt myself succumb to it. ‘Trust me. I can help them. I have means.’

  My words were beyond Sosia’s comprehension.

  ‘Their deaths,’ I whispered, ‘serve no purpose to anyone – this makes my task to protect them easier, don’t you see?’

  ‘What purpose did my husband’s death serve?’ Sosia demanded.

  ‘None, Lady,’ I said. ‘It was a low, criminal act.’

  ‘And my exile? That’s criminal too?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And yet both still occurred. So now my children are as dead as their parents.’ She went to move on.

  I held her arm. ‘This will change,’ I assured her.

  ‘This?’

  ‘This rule – this misrule – of Tiberius.’ I looked about me in fear of being overheard, but no passersby on the road around us gave us the slightest attention. ‘There are some who labour towards ending his time – to bring on the second king,’ I told her.

  She stared at me again with something new behind her eyes. I had shocked her with my manner, my confidence, my certainty – none of which befitted a slave. ‘Those who labour – is this you?’ she asked.

  I paused. Could I dare to trust her with the life’s work that both empowered and corrupted me? ‘Yes, Lady,’ I whispered.

  She reeled.

  ‘The second king has been chosen, prophesied by the haruspex Thrasyllus with the words of the Great Mother. I do everything I can to bring this king’s time forward – I labour for it tirelessly.’

  ‘These labours – what are they?’

  I missed the anger that was growing in her voice, blushing and looking to the ground. ‘They are what must be done,’ was all I could say.

  It was the longest time before I raised my eyes, and when I did I saw her horror, her black disgust. ‘Germanicus,’ she whispered.

  I paled.

  ‘It was you who killed him … it was you!’

  I tried to explain. ‘It is not as it looks – I did not kill Germanicus.’

  ‘Was he this prophesied king?’

  ‘No, Lady.’

  ‘Who is, then? Sejanus?’

  ‘No, Lady, I swear –’

  ‘Who else have you killed for this? Castor?’

  She saw me fall paler still. ‘Oh my gods – I see your guilt!’ She lurched and turned where she stood, running back along the road towards the distant city walls again.

  ‘Lady! Lady, please stop!’

  ‘Murderer!’ she gasped, stumbling on her bloodied feet. ‘Murdering slave!’

  ‘Lady, please, no –’

  She turned and pointed at me. ‘I will find Agrippina and I will tell her what a viper she harbours – what a poisonous viper!’ She fled again along the stones.

  Despair crushed me. I had sought to help her, to ease her exile, to promise her that hope was still hers, if only she had patience and strength. But she had seen my naked face and it had terrified her. This, I realised then, was the fate of all gods. We saved nothing in our efforts to achieve destiny. We only destroyed.

  I reached inside the sack and found the knife I had meant to give Sosia as a weapon to defend herself with. I felt the blade – it was blunt, yet would do. Sosia stumbled and fell ahead of me, raging incoherently against my crimes. But with her undyed stola and wild, long hair, she was like a mad woman to those who travelled along the road. She was stubbornly, determinedly ignored.

  Sosia screamed when she looked back and saw the knife glitter in my hand. ‘Let me get to her,’ she begged of a man driving a carruca. ‘Take me to Agrippina – let me tell her!’

  The driver struck her with his whip so that she fell back hard upon the cobbles. She clawed to her feet and began to run once more, limping badly now, and leaving little prints of blood upon the stones.

  I continued to follow, keeping her pace, the knife tucked inside my tunica. Soon she would fall again and be unable to rise. I would pull her behind the tombs to the place where the baby wept, and there I would finish her – and perhaps the child too. It would be merciful for both of them.

  Sosia
screamed again and continued running. Death had her in its scent. It must come for her now – she had forced its hand. I was only death’s tool. But it gave me no pleasure to be so – no pleasure at all.

  The Nones of January

  AD 25

  Seven months later: the historian

  Aulus Cremutius Cordus succeeds

  in starving himself to death midway

  through his protracted treason trial.

  His books are burned in the

  Forum

  Tiberius sat on his favourite chair in his favourite corner of his garden, rugging himself up against the chill. The winter sun would hit him shortly, as soon as the first rays cleared the top of the garden wall. He was happy to wait until it shone; he wanted the warmth to lick his bones. He made himself comfortable on the cushions and pulled his fur-lined cloak tight around his throat.

  ‘Tiberius …’

  He started at the voice, recognising it.

  ‘Tiberius …’

  He looked about the garden around him. ‘Is that you, Antonia?’

  ‘Are you in good health?’

  ‘I am. Such a fine winter’s day.’

  ‘I would like to see you. To talk about things.’

  Tiberius was confused. ‘Aren’t you seeing me now?’

  ‘You know I’m not.’

  Tiberius’s mind was always slow to work while the sun’s rays remained hidden.

  ‘I am on the other side of this wall.’

  Tiberius got up from his chair in wonder and made his way towards the garden’s edge. ‘On the other side?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was silence while Tiberius ran his palms across the cold, stone surface.

  ‘Why won’t you let us visit you?’ Antonia asked, after a moment.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your family, who loves you.’

  Tiberius tried to recall the reason.

  ‘Why won’t you let me visit you, at least?’

  ‘You are welcome any time.’

  ‘The guards turn me away. They turn us all away – on your orders, Tiberius.’

  ‘Absurd. I’ll have them flogged for it. Come and see me today, Antonia. It would be so nice to have some wine with my old friend.’

  He heard Antonia start weeping.

  ‘Yes. It would be very nice. There are so many things I would like to talk to you about.’

  ‘Then I look forward to it.’

  He started to turn away.

  ‘Do you remember when your brother died, Tiberius? My husband? Do you remember when he died?’

  A stab of pain brought ugly memories back.

  ‘We grew so close, you and me. No one else ever understood the depth of the loss we felt.’

  Agonising grief creased his face. He remembered his brother. Then he remembered his son. Then he remembered why it was easier to keep his family at bay. He felt cold. ‘I don’t think I can see you today, after all.’

  ‘Tiberius?’

  ‘No. Now go away.’

  ‘Please let me see you.’

  ‘I said go away.’ He hurried back to the comfort and safety of his chair. If Antonia had remained behind the wall, she said nothing else and was as good as gone. Soon her intrusion began to recede as Tiberius resumed his wait for the sun. His grief was forgotten.

  There was movement among the denuded winter shrubbery and he saw that Thrasyllus was curled in the snow.

  ‘You are naked, haruspex?’

  The soothsayer said nothing.

  Tiberius waved for an attendant slave; it took a long time for one to come because so few were allowed to attend him. When one at last arrived, crawling on his hands and knees, Tiberius pointed at the haruspex. ‘He is naked. Where are his clothes?’

  ‘You ordered us to strip him, Caesar.’

  Tiberius considered this, and then dismissed it as ridiculous. ‘That’s a bald lie.’

  The slave remained on his hands and knees.

  ‘Take off your clothes and give them to him. He is too valuable to waste in this way.’

  ‘Yes, Caesar.’ The slave began to undress in the snow, tossing his clothes at Thrasyllus’s frostbitten feet.

  ‘Put them on him – can’t you see he’s ill?’

  The slave did his best to fit the clothes to Thrasyllus as Tiberius clapped his dry, cracked hands with a noise that barely rose above the winter birds. But the choirmaster was tuned to him. The man straightened from where he had fallen against the steps, waving his shattered hands towards where he hoped the children would still be. He had lost his sight with so many beatings, but his hearing remained sound. The children saw him and picked themselves up from where they huddled in groups in their soiled and ragged clothes; many were ill. Their memories of mothers and fathers and happy homes had dimmed, so that these things seemed like dreams to them now. Some could not remember when they first came to Oxheads – or when they had been told that they would not be returning home. Out of habit and fear, they began the morning’s first song.

  Tiberius regarded his morning correspondence. Direct contact with his person had been banned in favour of written petitions, and the sense of liberation this gave him hadn’t faded. No longer were his mornings wasted with people he despised; he could sit in the sun and force anyone who wished for his guidance to write to him – and write prettily too. He enjoyed laughing at what they requested from him, but as an unspoken rule he only read letters from people who pleased him; he returned letters unopened to those who didn’t. The morning’s scrolls were bundled in canisters. He took a quick look at the contents and then kicked the lot aside. They were all too long – and boring. He wanted diversion. Other letters, written on folded, flattened papyrus, had been placed in a pile. Presuming these missives to be briefer than the scrolls, he began to examine them. The first two were immediate rejects. He scratched a cross on them in black ink and threw them to the ground.

  The next letter was from Sejanus.

  Tiberius smiled. With the children’s hoarse, broken voices ringing pleasantly in his ears, he began to read.

  Caesar,

  It has become my habit to confide my hopes and wishes to your ears as readily as I do the gods. Since the days of our Great Walk together, I have asked for nothing more than to watch you and protect you and to serve you as a common soldier. That you have rewarded me with high distinctions is something I treasure, Caesar, but have never craved. The most glorious honour I have won is the reputation of being worthy of your friendship.

  Moved, Tiberius closed his eyes for a moment as the sun’s rays began to glow at the top of the wall. He reached his hand along the seat until his goblet was slipped inside it, placed there by the shivering, naked slave. He sipped, and the Eastern flower kissed him just as the sun did. He opened his eyes again and read on.

  The tragedy of the boy Hector’s choking will never leave me, but the honour of the union between he and my girl only grows, despite his premature death. I have heard that the Divine Augustus, when seeking a first marriage for his daughter, even entertained some thoughts of worthy men drawn from the Equestrians. If this is so, and if a husband is sought for a widow of Caesar’s family, then I will make the first request that I have ever made of my Emperor. Please think of a friend who finds his reward simply in the glory of friendship.

  Tiberius stopped reading in surprise. Then he carefully reread the sentences. He reached for his goblet as the children reached the end of their song. ‘Again,’ he commanded them, his eyes on the letter and his voice already slurred with the draught. He tried to free his mind of its clouds, hoping the sun’s rays would help him, but the struggle was too much. He let the pleasure claim him and turned his energies to recalling who the widows in his family actually were. His mother was one, he knew; Antonia was another. Were there more?

  He returned to the letter.

  If Caesar grants my request, know this: his family will be made all the safer against the unjust displeasure of Agrippina.

/>   Sejanus

  Tiberius frowned. Or rather, he thought he should frown, but when the impulse came to do so, he found that his face remained placid in the dawning sun. Yet still the thought to frown was there; something stirred deep within him to prompt it – was it a warning? He couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t the same as the reactions he had to the long lists of citizens accused of treason; those merely sickened him. This was something else, a feeling far darker. He was reminded of the honk of the sacred geese from the summit of the Capitoline. Those famous noisy geese had once saved Rome from the Gauls with their alarm.

  What were his geese telling him, Tiberius wondered. Where, if anywhere, was the threat?

  ‘The matron’s words alone are heard …’ said a tiny voice in his ear.

  Tiberius turned to Thrasyllus in the snow. ‘I no longer like you in my garden, haruspex. I no longer like you here at all. What you say has become meaningless. Do not let me find you here when I return to my chair tomorrow.’

  Apicata knew the sound of crisp, smooth, quality papyrus when it rubbed against the skin of her husband’s rough hands. It was the sound she heard now and it meant he had a letter. There was no other noise to be heard but the dry, soft rustle as he clutched it, worrying the surface with his fingertips. The letter consumed him utterly.

  Apicata waited patiently at her loom, her own hands smoothing and tightening the yarn with the bar, crushing it in. She reached for the weights, adjusting them. ‘Is there news, husband?’

  She sensed his eyes on her briefly before he returned to what he read. Apicata’s patience was her strength. After another minute or so she tried again. ‘Is it the Emperor who writes? Is he happy with you?’

  This time she didn’t even sense him looking up at her. The letter held him totally. Apicata rose to her feet and stood still for a moment. When Sejanus made no comment, she crept towards him across the courtyard, knowing where the earthenware pots stood in her path and gliding around them, never missing her step. She reached him and kneeled. ‘Is it bad news?’ she whispered.