Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'I can do it, please — the flowers will add to your beauty.'

Aemilia smiled, pressing her hands to her belly again.

Domitia ran down the passage towards the stairs. The assembled household slaves in the atrium below looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes as she came towards them, two steps at a time. 'Scissors! Or a sharp knife!'

A kitchen slave had a knife at his belt. 'Here, domina.'

Domitia took it from him and ran through her dead father's study and into the courtyard garden beyond. The first of the winter bulbs were in flower, sweet-smelling narcissi, and Domitia slashed the knife at their stalks. She looked to the floor above and saw her mother's pale face smiling down at her. Aemilius had his hand at her forehead, wiping her brow. 'See, Mother, look,' Domitia called, gathering a small bunch. Aemilia's hands were at her belly again.

Domitia left the knife and ran back through her dead father's study and into the great atrium. The red-eyed slaves parted like the winter flowers she had harvested as Domitia flew towards the stairs. Her mother waited at the top, smiling with love. Domitia held the little yellow bunch before her as she ascended, panting and out of breath. 'Look, they're so lovely, Mother.'

Aemilia leaned forward, almost touching the flowers with her fingertips. 'Thank you,' she whispered, inhaling the rich scent. Then the light of love went out in her eyes.

'Mother?'

Aemilia fell, crashing hard on the stairs. Her body tumbled past as Domitia screamed, still clutching the flowers in her fist. The revered matron of the Aemilii came to rest in the arms of her household slaves, who caught her before she struck the atrium floor. The sweet perfume of the narcissi was the last thing Aemilia had known before the poisoned Falernian wine had spared her from the Tarpeian Rock.

Aemilius opened the great bronze door to the waiting Praetorians. 'My mother's life is not the Emperor's to take,' he told them with dignity. 'She wishes the Emperor to know that she has claimed that great privilege herself.'

The Praetorian Tribune nodded, neither surprised nor outraged. 'Any last words?'

Aemilius didn't hesitate, handing the Praetorian Domitia's little bunch of flowers. 'She praised her winter bulbs,' the boy said. 'And she asked that you place these in a vase of water for the Emperor's pleasure.'

Returning from the broken mangon 's house, I was late in performing my nightly services for Livia. Unwrapping the silk from the phallus, I placed the fertility tool under the bedclothes while I moved away to tidy my domina 's feeding implements. I kept her nourished via hollow reeds, which I filled with soup and slid down her throat. I was rinsing these in a pail of water when I had the sensation of being watched.

'Little Boots, get back to your bed at once,' I called out.

There was no reply. I turned around to see where he was but there was nothing, only my domina in her endless slumber.

'Go — now,' I hissed into the shadows of the oil-lit room.

There was no answering sound. The boy wasn't there. I turned back to where I'd been dipping the reeds in the pail and felt the eyes again.

The faintest voice whispered in the lamplight. ' So long asleep..'

I spun around. There was still no one but my domina, the phallus a lump under the linen.

'Who's there?' I cried out. I began to fear it was a vengeful spirit from the dead. 'Who are you? Is it Tiberius Nero? Marcellus?'

The shades did not reply.

Uneasy, I returned to my task. But as I took the reed from the pail and let the water drip free, another chill gripped me. I knew there was no one else in the room, and yet the certainty that I was not alone was terrible. I forced myself to remain where I was and not turn around a third time, so that the ghost couldn't enter my soul through my eyes. I kept my fearful gaze fixed upon the pail of water.

'What do you want?' I murmured. 'Please, tell me how I can make amends for what I've done to you.'

There was not another sound in the room — not a sound in all of Oxheads, it seemed to me. It took a great toll on my courage, but I compelled myself to turn around once more and face the spectre. But the room was unchanged. My domina was still lost in sleep on her bed.

As I stepped forward to reassure myself that my mind was playing tricks, my foot connected with an object and sent it spinning across the tiles. It was the phallus I had hidden under the bedclothes. How had it fallen from the bed without me hearing it?

I stooped to retrieve the wooden implement from the floor, and as I raised myself I glanced at my domina 's eyes.

They were wide open.

Matronalia

March, AD 21

Four months later: the Numidian rebel leader Tacfarinas sends diplomats threatening perpetual war upon Rome if he is not paid off with land

There are only two days in the calendar when Roman slaves are not required to work. The better-known is Saturnalia, which falls in the middle of winter, when household roles are reversed and nervous slaves are 'waited upon' by their masters for an evening meal. It's a sham, of course. If any slave dared cook and serve the sort of slops our masters hurl at us on that day, we'd meet agonising deaths with the carnifex. Yet we all giggle and joke, pretending we're living like princes while our 'servants' get steadily drunk before giving up the game and retiring to bed. We 'masters' are then expected to clean up the mess. No pity is given to any slave who may have taken the frivolity a step too far, putting on airs and forgetting his place. Many an idiot has woken up the following day to a savage whipping from his dominus as the natural order of the household is returned.

The other day off for slaves is Matronalia, Juno's festival of motherhood, when women wear their hair long and loose and are forbidden to tie belts around their gowns. On this day mothers receive presents from their husbands and daughters, and each household mistress prepares a 'special' evening meal for her slaves. Like Saturnalia, it's a sham too, but when your life is one of servitude and drudgery interspersed with occasional cruelty, any day that takes you out of the humdrum is still to be cherished. But in the year the rebel Tacfarinas sent his stinking envoys to Rome, I lived in growing terror as Matronalia approached.

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.'