Nest of Vipers

by Luke Devenish

  Little Boots was moved by this appeal. ‘Grandfather?’ he called.

  From far across the deceptively large room, Tiberius answered out of the blackness. ‘Yes, Grandson?’

  Aemilius nearly screamed with the fright.

  ‘I like this boy. I’d like him to be my friend. Can I keep him, Grandfather?’

  ‘But my decreasing minnows …’

  ‘Just send for more. There are always more. Please, Grandfather?’

  In the long pause Aemilius heard the beads of his own sweat strike the floor, dripping from the ends of his hair.

  ‘As you wish,’ said Tiberius. He began to snore.

  Little Boots gave Aemilius a happy squeeze. ‘Now we can have some fun,’ he whispered.

  Later, when they had left the strange, black hall and exhausted themselves playing the games that Little Boots wished to play, Aemilius was taken to the place where Little Boots had made a bed for himself. It was in a room where few of the other minnows ever went, a forgotten attic. It was comfortable and quiet, which was important sometimes, Little Boots assured his new friend, considering how noisy the Emperor’s island so often became.

  Aemilius quite liked the room and asked if he could live in it too. Little Boots assented, glad of his company. But when Aemilius, seeking sleep, placed his head upon the first cushion that came to hand, Little Boots snatched it away from him and gave him another.

  ‘Is something wrong with that cushion?’ Aemilius asked.

  Little Boots placed it carefully aside. ‘It was given to me by my great-grandmother, Livia,’ he said. On the fabric was a single embroidered Latin word: sedeo – ‘I sit’.

  ‘Is she the one who encouraged you to come here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Again, this aged relative took on an aura of maliciousness to Aemilius. ‘She wanted no one else to sit on the cushion but you?’

  Little Boots nodded. ‘I think so. She told me a little poem as she gave it to me.’

  ‘What sort of poem?’

  ‘When tiny shoes a cushion brings, the cuckoo’s king rewarded.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Little Boots. ‘But my great-grandmother promised me that a time will come when the poem means everything in the world.’

  The three girls peered from the corridor into their grandmother Antonia’s room, where the matron sat upright in her chair, facing the light of the window, her little desk in front of her. Her ebony pen made slow, considered progress across a papyrus sheet. It was so quiet in this part of the house that they could hear the scratching sound the pen made.

  ‘She is writing again,’ said Julilla, the youngest of the sisters.

  ‘Ssh,’ said Drusilla, the middle one.

  ‘Why? She can’t hear us.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, we do. Our grandmother hears nothing anymore. She never leaves this room,’ said Julilla.

  ‘It is true,’ said Nilla.

  The girls continued to watch Antonia in silence.

  ‘What does she write all the time?’ asked Julilla.

  ‘Letters,’ said Drusilla.

  ‘Who to?’

  Drusilla cast a look at her older sister, Nilla.

  ‘She writes to the Emperor,’ Nilla said.

  Julilla said nothing for a moment. Then she added, quietly, ‘Does she ask about our mother?’

  ‘She does,’ said Nilla. ‘She asks about our mother and about many other things. She asks the Emperor what his intentions are. She asks whether he still loves his family. She asks if he remembers our blood grandfather, her husband, who was the Emperor’s younger brother. He died when his leg was crushed by a horse. He was a hero. Our grandmother asks the Emperor if the past means anything to him. She asks him if he knows how wretched life in Rome is now.’

  They watched in silence again.

  ‘Does he receive these letters?’ Julilla asked.

  None of them knew.

  After a time Nilla gave a deep sigh and led her sisters away from the door. Burrus stood from where he had been kneeling by the wall, sharpening the blade of his sword.

  ‘Our grandmother’s intentions are good but her energies are ineffective,’ said Nilla to her sisters, looking at Burrus as she spoke.

  He agreed without saying anything.

  ‘These letters do not work. We need another means to take our family’s concerns to the Emperor.’

  Burrus had been giving the matter thought. The younger girls peeled away to their own quiet corners of their grandmother’s house while Nilla and her slave sat in sunshine in the garden. They made a plan and liked it, considering it from all angles to see where it might fail. They agreed it could fail in many places – it was steeped in risk – but how much worse would it be to do nothing?

  ‘Flamma would agree with us,’ Burrus.

  ‘As would my mother.’

  They lay in the soft, green grass for a time, kissing and holding hands. Then, when hunger made them rise again, they were shocked to find the Augusta, Livia, in the garden with them. But my domina was unperturbed. She merely nodded at them from where she sat beneath a bare fig tree, enjoying the thin winter sun.

  For a brief moment Nilla gave thought to approaching her, bowing and kissing her hands. She considered asking her great-grandmother’s opinions on everything she and Burrus had just discussed. She felt as if she could trust her great-grandmother, this beautiful, seemingly ageless woman, who had slept for so long that Nilla had forgotten she existed. Then she remembered her mother’s bile. Agrippina believed Livia had been connected to Nilla’s father’s death, along with the Emperor, too. And although Nilla had loyally echoed her mother’s conviction, a voice inside her had never let her wholly believe it. It was Nilla’s secret belief that another person had been responsible for Germanicus’s murder.

  But all these thoughts lasted only an instant before they left Nilla’s head. Livia closed her eyes in the pale yellow sun and appeared to doze. Nilla threaded her fingers in Burrus’s hand again and kissed his lips.

  ‘She does not mind how close we are,’ said Burrus, who had been relieved to see Livia’s reaction.

  Nilla considered this. ‘Perhaps it’s because she knows how it is when the one you love most is enslaved.’

  The Nones of February

  AD 27

  Four weeks later: seeking a scapegoat for

  the recent calamities, the people of Rome

  declare the Emperor’s departure to Capri

  an evil omen

  The sisters sat as close together as the tiny boat allowed, their teeth chattering in the chilly night air. Nilla squatted in the middle, with Drusilla and Julilla huddled on each side of her, their arms wrapped around her waist. They presented resolute, determined faces to the world and hid their terror behind their eyes. But Burrus could see it, rowing them across the three placid miles of sea from the Surrentum promontory to the landing on harbourless Capri. He felt terror too, and perhaps would have succumbed to it had the sisters not been present. But for their sake – for Nilla’s most of all – he kept it down.

  ‘What will happen to us?’ asked Julilla again.

  No one replied.

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘Ssh,’ Nilla whispered.

  ‘Why can’t you just tell me? Why do we have to go to this place at all?’

  Nilla caught Burrus’s eye in the moonlight as he rowed them. They found comfort in the looks of love they gave to each other. ‘Because of our mother,’ she whispered to Julilla. ‘And our brother, Little Boots, too.’

  ‘He could be all alone on the island. No one knows. Grandmother Antonia has tried sending letters but they remain unanswered. It is our duty to now take action on her behalf,’ Drusilla said.

  ‘Shouldn’t we have told her we were going?’

  ‘Julilla, please stop asking questions,’ said Drusilla.

  ‘Why didn’t we ask our older brothers to help us?’<
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  No one said anything more.

  The sisters had received no contact from both Nero and Drusus in months. Nilla guessed they sought to keep their togas spotless from their mother’s fall. They could not be blamed. When things improved, perhaps they would embrace their forgotten siblings again.

  The only sound was that of Burrus’s strong young arms slicing the oars through the waves.

  ‘I want our mother,’ Julilla said softly, after a time.

  ‘We all do,’ said Drusilla. Each girl felt tears come to her eyes at their continued prevention from seeing Agrippina or knowing of her fate.

  ‘Your mother would want you to be brave, domina,’ Burrus said to Julilla.

  The youngest sister nodded, but her tears were wet upon her cheeks.

  I had never seen such fury in Livilla. I knew her to be sly and scheming, but never so vicious as to beat another person physically. Yet the violence with which she kicked and struck her nephew Drusus was of a magnitude that her grandmother Livia would have respected. When the yelping Drusus fell under her slaps and punches, she struck him in the face with her heel. Then she aimed her foot at his privates, sparing him nothing with repeated sharp blows, while he writhed and screamed in torment. It was fascinating for me, a hidden witness, to see a patrician suffer this assault. Any slave in his place would have taken such treatment resignedly. But to see a patrician suffer it was to marvel that he was nothing so much as surprised.

  When Livilla had finally spent herself, she sat down in a chair, exhausted. The dog Scylax, who had excitedly enjoyed the beating, ran to lick her reddened hand while Drusus tried to recover himself on the floor. Having stumbled upon this scene wholly by accident, I was conscious of not moving or even taking a breath from behind the partly open door from where I watched.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Livilla at last. ‘Absolutely nothing at all.’

  ‘I am sorry, Aunt,’ Drusus whimpered.

  ‘How can this be? You swore to me Nero was perverted – that he harboured desires for men. Yet what proof have you brought me of this?’

  ‘I am sorry, Aunt.’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  I was confused. What had Drusus done with the many pages of detailed notes on his brother’s activities that I had secreted into his rooms upon my domina’s orders?

  ‘You’ve failed me, Drusus. Get out of my sight.’

  I sprung away from the door and made haste down the corridor before Drusus caught me witnessing this shameful exchange. I reached the end just as he hobbled from the room. I turned and was able to glance at his face before he ducked away. He was transfixed by fear. I almost pitied him. He had made a pact with a woman as captivating as she was terrifying. He was no different to me.

  I lingered for a few moments, trying to decide my next course. Then I chastised myself. There was no other course left for me. Already feeling the inevitable blows from the rod, I prepared to stumble through the maze of Oxheads corridors until I found my domina. Within moments of my setting out, however, she found me.

  ‘Iphicles.’

  ‘Domina?’ To my vague dismay, Lygdus was in attendance upon Livia as she made her progress through the halls. ‘I was just coming to find you.’

  ‘To confess your crimes?’

  ‘Well, I … Yes.’

  The look that passed between my domina and Lygdus was one of the deepest disgust. Lygdus came behind me and delivered two hard kicks to the backs of my knees. I fell forward with a shout.

  ‘Better,’ said Livia. Her fist was curled around a dozen sheets of papyrus. She flung them at my upturned face. ‘Now eat them.’

  I must have looked laughable in my confusion because Lygdus burst into giggles.

  ‘Eat them,’ said Livia.

  ‘The papyrus sheets, domina?’

  She thrust her face into mine. ‘Filthy accusations about Nero, my grandson, and written in your hand. Eat them, slave. Then shit them into a sewer and flush them far from Rome.’

  I began to tear up the first piece of papyrus, stuffing it into my mouth.

  ‘When will he learn, domina?’ Lygdus shook his head sadly.

  ‘When my grandson Nero is the second king,’ Livia said.

  They remained until I had chewed and swallowed the last sheet. Then Lygdus was posted to ensure I didn’t vomit them. He wouldn’t speak or look at me.

  Livia was playing an elaborate game, I knew. She was playing a game with all of us. She had devised the rules and twists and countermoves throughout her years of paralysis. She had polished and perfected what she would do to the most finite degree. And now that she was free of me again, she was playing her game with the whole of Rome. She would not kill me for what I had done to her. She would let me suffer her vindictive tortures, because she wanted me to see her award the prize at the game’s end.

  Moaning on the floor with Lygdus pressing his hand to my lips to stop me heaving up the sheets, I knew what Livia’s prize was.

  But I could not guess who would win it.

  The two of them fled.

  Burrus took Nilla’s hand in his and dragged her from the terrace and into the moonlit garden even before Julilla’s screaming had stopped and Little Boots had ceased his manic laughter. He dragged Nilla through the flowers with the sounds of Drusilla’s sobbing still in his ears, and when the beds became hedges and the shrubs became trees, he dragged her through the undergrowth and would not let her stop to catch her breath even when she struck him in her hysteria and tried to bite his hand.

  The garden became a wood, and still Burrus dragged her along by the hand, lost and directionless, until they came upon a path. There he held her by the shoulders as she wept and shook. When she began to retch, he turned away, but still he held her by the ankle as she sank to the ground, choking in the leaves. Burrus would not let her return to that place of obscenity. He would not let her go back for her sisters. He would not let her pleas break his heart. All that mattered was that she was spared, she whom he loved more than life.

  ‘Julilla!’ she sobbed into the leaves.

  He kept his heart hard.

  The sounds of crashing undergrowth made him pull Nilla to her feet again. They were being pursued. They heard the laughter and the taunts, and Nilla’s name being called. They said she was their lover. They said Burrus’s life was worthless for daring to take her away.

  ‘Don’t listen,’ Burrus hissed.

  ‘Leave me,’ Nilla begged him. ‘Just leave me here. I’ll give them what they want. They’ll forget about you then. You can hide yourself and get back to the boat. You can make it to Rome. You can tell people what’s happening here.’

  ‘Not without you.’

  ‘Do it, Burrus.’

  ‘No. I love you.’

  The taunts and laughter came from all around them. Voices behind, more voices in front. Burrus took a sharp turn through a grove of trees. They leaped across logs and under boughs. Nilla landed badly and felt the muscles in her calf tear. She cried out with pain. ‘Just leave me,’ she begged him again.

  Burrus refused. Then the voices ceased. The grove of trees fell silent. In the pale glow of the moon they could see each other’s fear-streaked faces. Their clothes were torn, their limbs were scratched raw by the bushes. They had lost their shoes. Their feet oozed blood in the grass. When their breathing stilled, they realised they could see their surrounds. They peered into the trees. There was no one else with them. They were alone.

  ‘Were they ghosts?’ Nilla whispered.

  Burrus stared into the shadows. ‘Your brother is not a ghost.’

  ‘What if he’s really dead? What if they’re all dead here? What if this is hell?’

  ‘This is the Emperor’s own island,’ said Burrus. ‘If it’s hell, then it’s a hell made to torment the living.’

  ‘We can reach the boat again,’ said Nilla. ‘They’ve lost interest in us. If we move like serpents and don’t make a sound, we’ll escape this place and come back with men to save my sisters.’
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  He nodded. But when Burrus took his first step outside the grove, they knew they were deceived. The carpet of leaves hid a net, which sprang up and around him, hoisting him high in the trees. He thrashed and kicked but the net held tight. The pursuers showed themselves, the beasts who were the children of traitors. They were unclothed. Nilla tried to flee in the hope they would follow her but their hands held her fast, a dozen hands it seemed at first, until they fell away and two hands remained, gripping her tight by the arms. They were the hands of the unclothed Emperor. His nakedness was before her.

  ‘Look what happens,’ said Tiberius. His eyes were huge in the moonlight, shining like glass. He did not blink. ‘Look what happens to him now.’

  The naked boys thrust spears at Burrus in the net. The tips nicked his flesh, drawing fine red trickles of blood.

  ‘Aren’t the boys clever?’ said Tiberius. ‘They never kill unless I order it.’

  The blood dripped upon her face like the start of an autumn shower.

  ‘Does it hurt him, do you think?’ Tiberius wondered.

  Nilla’s senses left her. Although she screamed, she could not hear it. Although she saw, the image was lost. The Emperor’s hands stayed firm upon her arms and she was led away without knowing where she went or caring what befell her when she got there.

  ‘How old are you, child?’

  ‘Twelve, Grandfather.’

  ‘And Julilla?’

  ‘She is nine.’

  ‘That’s much too young.’

  She stumbled and fell but the Emperor didn’t notice. His fist gripped her arm, now pulling her like a straw doll.

  ‘How old is Drusilla?’

  ‘She is eleven.’

  ‘She’s far too young as well, if we are to be seemly about it.’

  ‘Yes, Grandfather.’

  ‘If you are twelve, then it really must be you, Nilla. There’s no one else.’

  Her feet made furrows in the earth behind her. She had no will to resist him as he pulled her like a plow. The leaves and twigs beneath her became flowers. They had arrived in his garden again. ‘Here we are,’ said Tiberius. He released his hold and Nilla slumped upon her face, tasting the soil.