Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  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.’

  ‘He was here and then he left again, domina,’ I managed to reply.

  ‘I see. What an insult to his great-grandmother.’

  ‘He was sulking about his toga virilis,’ I tried to explain. ‘He refuses to wear one, which is disgraceful. He’s already fourteen.’

  ‘The boy knows his own mind. He shall not wear one, then.’

  I was horrified. ‘But that’s … unprecedented!’

  ‘Let him stay a boy. Perhaps Tiberius will like him for it?’

  My mind raced trying to work out what game Livia was playing. She abruptly stood up and my hand was freed.

  ‘Tiberius barely knows who Little Boots is,’ I whispered.

  ‘There you are wrong. A letter has come, stamped with the Emperor’s own seal, requesting your beloved Little Boots to join him on Capri.’

  The blood left my face. ‘What for?’

  Livia looked up at the tall window that filled her anteroom with light. She placed her hand on the silk curtain, letting it linger there for a moment before she gripped the silk in her fist, watching her knuckles turn white as she pulled. The curtain, its rings and the long bronze rod that supported them came crashing to the floor.

  ‘I don’t know what for,’ said Livia. ‘Perhaps he wants Little Boots to add to his entertainment?’

  Chills shot along my spine. ‘He will kill him!’

  ‘Surely not.’

  ‘Sejanus will kill him, then – it’s a plot. He means him harm, domina. Don’t let the boy go, I beg you!’

  ‘You beg me? I can scarcely imagine that.’

  I crawled along the floor on my belly until I reached her foot. I began to kiss her toes through the slipper. ‘Please, domina.’

  Livia stooped and took up the curtain rod, letting the rings slide down its length. They fell to the floor, and she lifted the rod high in the air like Victory’s sword. ‘Too late, I’m afraid – he’s going.’

  I pressed my lips to her ankle, closing my eyes tight. ‘Nero is not the second king, domina.’

  She smashed the rod hard on my back and then raised it again. ‘I know that,’ she said. She smashed the metal onto my thighs. ‘But your greatest mistake was having an opinion about it in the first place.’

  She dashed the rod across my back again and again.

  As he entered his house in Rome at last, after so many weeks away, Sejanus felt in no way cheated by the sentence of exile that had been passed upon the gamesmaster at Fidenae. It had been within Sejanus’s power to have the sentence upped to the cruellest execution imaginable, yet he had not done so. The Forum mob would have loved him for it, but their hatred was far more satisfying. And it was somehow even more pleasing with the blend of the Eastern flower supplied to him by the hunchback.

  She who had once appeared loathsome now seemed like a friend. She understood the way that hatred so aroused him. She encouraged him with her eyes. If her disfigurement were not so repellent, he would have made sexual penetration part of their transaction, enjoying the hunchback in front of her fire. Her lustful eyes told him she would have relished such a privilege.

  Fuelled by the morning’s first draught, Sejanus had allowed the gamesmaster’s sentence to pass uncontested in the Senate and had laughed at the mob’s howls. The wretch would be hunted down and killed as soon as he left the city walls anyway, but Sejanus liked being seen as having no part in the vengeance. When he finally came to rule in his own right, he would not have himself known as a king who listened to Rome’s basest desires. He would do all that he could to be thought of as a king who excoriated them.

  Sejanus’s slaves undressed him on the heated tiles of the entrance hall, wiping him with sponges before presenting him with a choice of fresh tunicae. He saw the dog Scylax wagging its tail in the atrium.

  ‘The lady is here?’ he asked his steward.

  ‘Yes, domine –’ the slave started to explain, but Sejanus dismissed him, eschewing new clothing and moving across the atrium to pat the friendly dog. His lust for the hunchback would be spent on his lover, a more predictable but rarely disappointing pleasure. Naked, he continued down the corridor and flung the doors to his sleeping room wide, ready for her.

  My domina’s smile curled from where she displayed herself upon the vast bed. ‘You’ve disrobed for me? What an expectant lover.’ She slipped the gown from her shoulders, letting it spill to the tips of her breasts. They were young again, full and firm. ‘Have you missed me, Sejanus?’

  The Prefect stammered, shocked to find my domina here. Then he saw me, Iphicles, cowering on the floor. He found his tongue. ‘I have missed you deeply, Livia. I had believed Dea
th would take you while you slept for so long.’

  ‘So many people tell me they feared this, but Death never came for me at all. Only Somnus came. My illness was spent in his dreams.’

  Sejanus stayed standing where he was. ‘What was wrong with you? Why were you paralysed?’

  Livia paused before answering, casting her eyes pointedly upon me. ‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘I have no recollection of any of it. Even the dreams are like mists to me. I think I can see the answer in the swirls that drift just beyond my line of sight, but when I narrow my eyes to determine them they slip away. Iphicles will confirm it.’

  Sejanus looked at me.

  ‘It is true, domine,’ I whispered, my face pressed against the tiles. ‘The Augusta is angered and dismayed by her vanished memory.’

  ‘I know nothing of what occurred while I slept,’ said Livia. ‘Or of anything that happened when I awoke. Iphicles tells me I could see and hear and apparently even laugh in my paralysis, but I remember nothing of it, nothing at all.’

  Sejanus saw movement in the shadows beneath the bed. Someone was crouched in hiding there.

  ‘Iphicles also tells me that your wife has gone. Please don’t chide him for gossiping. I have pressed him for news of all that I missed and he has been most informative.’

  I squirmed on the floor.

  ‘Even though I suspect he likes to “edit” certain details,’ Livia added.

  Sejanus took a tentative step towards the bed. From where I writhed on the floor, I could see that the arousal he had achieved, having been expecting Livilla, had not lessened any upon finding his lover’s grandmother instead. I could only admire him for this, despite the peril of my drastically changed circumstances.

  ‘I have divorced Apicata,’ Sejanus said.

  ‘Very wise,’ said Livia, stretching her slender arms behind her head where she lay. The fabric of her gown slipped beyond her nipples, exposing them. She had the perfect breasts of a virgin. ‘I never much enjoyed Apicata. The sightless are so unsettling.’

  Sejanus moved closer and the person hidden under the bed curled into a tight, frightened ball. Sejanus knew who was there.

  ‘I suppose you’ve had a great many lovers in my absence,’ Livia offered, coyly. ‘I wouldn’t blame you for it. I understand a man’s needs.’

  Sejanus came to rest next to her and took her outstretched hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips. ‘No one who compares to you.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Livia, appearing well pleased. ‘No one who compares to me at all?’

  ‘You are my queen,’ Sejanus whispered. ‘And I thank the gods you have returned to me.’

  Livia sighed and let him ease the gown from her body, sliding it down her belly and beyond her hips. She wore no undergarments. Her sex, newly plucked clean of hair, was reborn as the rosebud of a child bride. His fingers stroked before straying to the darker cleft beyond it. She slapped his hand.

  ‘My memory may be in pieces, but yours isn’t, my love.’ She placed his hand upon her sex again and opened herself for him. ‘You know a highborn woman cannot permit the act of beasts. If you need to befoul your lover, you should leave me and seek out a whore.’

  He stayed.

  In the dust and filth beneath the bed, Livilla lay curled like a baby, her hands pressed against her ears to block out the horrors of this coupling. She had been waiting on top of the bed when she had heard her grandmother’s voice in the entrance hall. She had nearly fainted. Then, when she’d heard my domina insisting on waiting for the Praetorian Prefect in his own sleeping room, the naked Livilla had flung herself under the bed in terror of being found.

  She believed her grandmother knew nothing of her presence, but she was wrong. Livia knew her granddaughter was there and had known it even before she had made her way from Oxheads to Sejanus’s house, with me hobbling by her side. After all, when my beating with the curtain rod had ended, I had been glad to tell my domina of Livilla’s many movements.

  I had been glad to tell my domina anything.

  I was her slave, as she had reminded me with every blow of the rod. This was something I had, apparently, forgotten.

  On our short return journey from Sejanus’s house to Oxheads, my domina was thoughtful. She said little but didn’t neglect to issue me with demeaning instructions. When she reached an area of the road that was splashed with excrement from the windows above, she commanded me to lie in it and then used me as a bridge, walking along my legs and back so as not to stain the hem of her stola. When we passed a brimming fuller’s pot, she commanded me to dip my fingers in the urine and taste its suitability to bleach her gowns. The taste of it was indescribable, and the fuller thought my unblinking obedience riotous. When we passed a sore-riddled beggar under a street shrine, my domina commanded me to remove my garments and give them to the wretch, swapping them for his rags. When the stench of all these humiliations became overpowering, she purchased a small vial of gladiolus oil and made me drink it. I choked on the stuff, spewing it down my chest, but I smelled like a flower stall.

  ‘That’s much better,’ said Livia.

  Finally, when we were just inside the Oxheads gates, she asked me what evidence I had that might incriminate her great-grandson Nero. I told her I had many damning things, not the least of which was my record of his shameful intercourse with the victimarius from the Priests’ College.

  ‘Make sure it gets to his brother Drusus,’ she instructed.

  My mind was in complete confusion. ‘You wish to aid Livilla’s plan?’

  ‘It is really Sejanus’s plan, I suspect.’

  ‘And you wish to aid it?’

  ‘It is distressing that you still believe you are deserving of explanations, Iphicles. When you have completed this task, please return to my rooms with another curtain rod. It is clear I must resume my illustration of your worthlessness.’

  Sacramentum

  January, AD 27

  Three months later: the Senate proposes

  renaming the Caelian Hill the Augustan

  Hill when a statue of the Emperor is

  found unscathed by a fire that destroyed

  fifty houses

  It took the boy some time to realise he was not alone in the room. As he waited, frightened in the gloom, the sense that he shared the confines of this strange, unpleasant space grew overwhelming. No sounds alerted him, no touching or smells, but his surety that he had invisible company in the darkness was absolute. He could feel another’s mind.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he whispered.

  ‘Me.’

  The boy gasped and then fell to whimpering in fear at whatever agonising fate awaited him. ‘Please. Who are you?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  This startled him. ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘How would I?’

  ‘But I was brought here. Ordered to come.’

  ‘Who ordered it?’

  ‘The Emperor,’ the boy whispered.

  ‘Are you the son of a traitor?’

  The voice was young – another boy’s. Perhaps this stranger was no stronger than he was and could be overpowered? ‘My widowed mother was a traitor. She studied witchcraft and consulted with astrologers. She died for it.’

  ‘The Gemonian Stairs?’

  ‘She took poison.’

  ‘How long did it take to kill her?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  He waited for the other boy to say more, but when he didn’t, the silence and the blackness proved too much for him. ‘Please tell me who you are.’

  ‘Please tell me who you are.’

  He gave in. ‘I am Aemilius of the Aemilii.’

  ‘Never heard of you.’

  This was a strange relief of sorts. ‘I am patrician.’

  ‘I suppose you must be, then. How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ said Aemilius.

  ‘Do you have your toga virilis?’

  ‘I was to be given it next week, but th
en the Emperor’s letter came.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Aemilius.’ The other boy crawled along the floor of the pitch-black room, feeling with his hands until he came to the spot where Aemilius crouched. Aemilius cried out when the boy’s fingers touched him.

  ‘Stop squawking – I’m not going to hurt you.’ The boy crouched by his side. ‘Do you know what goes on here?’

  ‘In this room?’ said Aemilius, his anxiety rising.

  ‘On this island.’

  ‘My brother Ahenobarbus was sent here before me. He’s eight years older than me. He’s been here since Saturnalia. Since then we’ve heard nothing.’

  ‘No. No one does hear much.’

  Aemilius’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. The other boy’s features were just discernible. He seemed roughly the same age and size as himself, but his hair was fairer. ‘Do you know why I’ve been sent for? And why my brother was sent for?’

  ‘Because you’re the sons of a traitor.’

  There was a sickening simplicity to the answer, and yet it told Aemilius nothing. ‘Do you have a traitor for a parent?’

  ‘My father was a great man,’ the other boy replied automatically. ‘But my mother has … upset people.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  The other boy became conspiratorial. ‘My great-grandmother encouraged me to come here.’

  Aemilius tried to imagine such a malicious old relative. ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ the boy whispered.

  ‘Have you been kept here many days?’

  ‘I’ve been kept here several months.’

  Aemilius shuddered. ‘In this horrible black room?’

  ‘On and off. I sometimes like to spend time in here when it pleases me.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To meet new people.’

  Aemilius didn’t think he could stand any more of this bewildering conversation. ‘You’re patrician too – I know it by your voice. Tell me who you are. It isn’t fair that I gave you my name but you didn’t give yours.’

  Little Boots told him and Aemilius caught his breath sharply. ‘The Emperor’s grandson?’

  Little Boots just shrugged in the dark.

  Aemilius clutched at his hands. ‘Help me – protect me. You’ve got power here,’ he pleaded. ‘I don’t want to die on this island. I want to live. Please, Little Boots!’