Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

She knew he was dangling her son's future before her like a jewel. Any objections she held could only seem baseless now. 'He will be popular,' she said.

Agrippina heard her friends' voices rise in some unseen commotion on the other side of the doors.

'Yes, he will be,' said Tiberius. He raised his lips from her hair and placed his hands at his side. He made no signal that Agrippina should go, but neither did he say another word. Agrippina just looked at him, boring deep into his eyes. She thought she saw the glow of triumph within them. She imagined braying, mocking laughter.

She turned on her heel and walked swiftly to the door. It was only as she was about to slap her palms on the bronze panels to summon the guards that Tiberius spoke again.

'He'll be betrothed as well. Nero, I mean. To my granddaughter Tiberia, Castor and Livilla's girl. She's very pretty. What do you think, Agrippina?'

'I think we'll be lucky if her mother allows her even to attend the wedding,' said Agrippina. 'What if there's a mist she might catch cold from?'

Tiberius erupted in laughter, throwing his head back. When it ended, there were tears on his cheeks. 'Livilla's obsession with illness extends to poor Tiberia, it's true,' he said, wiping his face with his hands, 'but like all good daughters-in-law, Livilla will see the sense in following a father's advice. There will be a wedding day, mist or no mist. I'll give thought to betrothing Drusus too.'

He paused again, looking at Agrippina with a paternal smile. Then his gaze lost focus. He saw her but no longer saw her, as if she had already left the room. 'Charicles?'

The physician looked up from his scroll at the other side of the huge room.

'Do I have unpleasant breath?'

'It is possible, Caesar…'

'What should I do about it?'

'Chew ginger. And then drink perfume mixed with wine. I will arrange it for you.'

Agrippina slapped her hands against the heavy plated doors. The Praetorians pulled them open from outside and she stumbled into the corridor, unable to choke back her sobbing. Sosia and Claudia rushed to her, trying to tell her something as the doors closed again. But Agrippina didn't hear them as she sank to the mosaic floor, her body wracked with grief for her murdered husband, her murdered mother, her murdered father, her murdered brothers and her tiny daughter too — all lost, all dead, all taken from her far too soon. She wept for her loved ones and she raged in her heart against Tiberius for what she believed was his part in so much misery.

When no more tears were left, Agrippina allowed herself some comfort in the cold floor tiles. They were sobering somehow. They brought her back to the present again, to what she must do in her husband's name. She saw there was a pattern in the floor — one she had never noticed before.

'Look,' she whispered to her friends, 'dancing skeletons. It's a reminder to enjoy life, since death can come so easily.'

Sosia gently lifted Agrippina's head from the floor. Agrippina looked up then and saw me waiting for her.

'Lady,' I said. 'I have good news for you.'

'Do you?' she said. 'It will have to be something very special for me to consider it good, Iphicles.'

I stood aside and let her see.

The tiny girl was clothed now, but she still held tightly to her boy-slave's hand.

'Mama,' Nilla said. She let go of Burrus and ran forward to hug and kiss the woman she had believed she would never see again. The slave Nymphomidia, Burrus's own mother, wept at her son's side, as Sosia and Claudia now joined in too.

But Agrippina had no more tears left to give. She clung to the daughter she had long thought drowned, whispering her name. 'Agrippinilla… my Agrippinilla,' she said softly. 'My little Nilla.'

The steward had a smile to split his face in two as Castor returned home from a long morning at the magistrate's courts, accompanied by his nephews Nero and Drusus. Agrippina's reaction at the slave market still weighed heavily upon Castor as he lifted his feet before crouching Lygdus. The young eunuch began removing their leather street shoes, his every movement agony from where the nailed whip had scourged him. He was dressed in a fresh scarlet tunica, to better hide his new wounds.

'What is it? You look odd,' Castor said, conscious of the pain behind the eunuch's movements.

Lygdus lingered over his master's liberated feet and saw that the abscess on his master's arch was no better. He cast a glance at the grinning steward, Pelops. There was an understanding in place among the slaves about all that had happened today. 'My back is stiff, domine, that is all,' Lygdus lied.

The steward grinned all the more as Lygdus began rubbing a salve on Castor's sore foot. 'There has been happy news while you were away, domine,' Pelops said.

'Happy?'

There was a scurry of movement in the atrium beyond the entrance hall, a flap of women's gowns. Castor looked past Pelops and saw that most of the household slaves were assembled in the light-filled central room, kneeling on the floor and looking through to him expectantly.

'What's the matter with everyone?'

Tiberia popped her head into the hall. 'Please come inside, Father — we're all waiting for you.' She cast a quick smile at Nero, but the smile he returned was for politeness only.

Lygdus gave a whimper at having to rush his one and only pleasure — sponging perfumed water over three pairs of bare feet. Castor didn't wait for the slave to dry him. He walked into the atrium after Tiberia, leaving wet footprints behind him as all the servants bowed to the floor.

Castor laughed. 'What a lot of silliness — what's got into you all?' Then he saw. The two midwives were among the servants. They rose before him, presenting a bundle in fresh, white linen. It was a baby.

'Your son has been born, domine,' the senior woman announced. She placed the boy upon the marble floor at Castor's feet.

A rush of emotion overcame Castor in the surprise. 'I have a son?' He stooped to lift the child, formally accepting the boy, and all the household slaves burst into applause. Lygdus and Pelops joined the throng. The baby stirred and opened his eyes, grumbling a little at the noise. His eyes were perfectly formed, as were his ears, his mouth and his head.

'The Lady Livilla's labour came early — and very fast,' said the senior midwife. 'It lasted barely three hours. One of the easiest births we've attended, domine.'

The younger midwife kept her eyes hard on the floor. Antonia had commanded that no mention was to be made by anyone of what else had occurred. Not that the guilt-ridden midwife would have mentioned it anyway.

'Where is Livilla?' said Castor, transfixed by the baby.

'With the Lady Antonia, resting,' said the senior midwife, 'but she waits for you, domine.'

Castor cradled his son. 'You weren't expected to come today,' he whispered to the little bundle, 'but I'm so glad you did.'

The young midwife risked raising her eyes in Lygdus's direction, but the beaten eunuch didn't notice her. Weakened by his ordeal, he pressed his back against the wall. The midwife saw that he left a smear of blood behind him.

'I have a baby brother now,' Tiberia whispered to Nero, whose feet were still wet too. 'Aren't you happy for me?'

Nero made the appropriate face.

'His name will be Gemellus,' Castor announced to his nephews. 'He'll be as a brother to you.'

The household slaves applauded again, repeating the name.

'Welcome, Gemellus!' Drusus shouted above the noise.

Castor moved into the middle of the room, with Tiberia and the boys behind him, while the servants surged around them to give praise.

On the periphery Lygdus echoed the cries of the others as he detached himself from the group, keeping one eye on the entrance and edging further along the wall. Only Pelops looked away from the baby for a moment when he thought he heard the sound of the front door pulling closed. But the hall was empty; he told himself he was hearing things. Why would anyone wish to depart the house on such a happy day for their master?