Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

Something cold brushed against my face where I lay. I gave a shout of fright and leaped up. My bare feet made contact with dry, scaly flesh. 'A snake!'

I ran to throw open the window shutters to let in the light of the moon. When I turned back to the room, in my terror I saw the ghostly faces of Castor and Lygdus staring at the floor.

' Domine,' I gasped. 'I felt a serpent!'

Lygdus gave me a beseeching, fearful look and Castor pointed at the carved leg of Livia's bed. The small, thin form of an infant viper was entwined around the carving. 'There it is — kill it!' I said. But none of us moved.

The viper slowly wound itself up the bed leg until it reached the edge of my domina 's woollen mattress. Then it disappeared beneath the linen.

'It will bite her!' I cried. Neither Lygdus nor Castor made any move, so I ripped the linen from Livia's sleeping form, shaking it in horror. Nothing emerged. Gripped by fear, I beat the mattress around my domina 's body, hoping to drive the snake out of hiding. But when nothing came, I was forced to feel beneath her torso and limbs for any sign of the serpent.

There was nothing there. The viper had vanished. Livia remained in deepest sleep.

I saw the look in Castor's eyes again — an expression echoed by Lygdus. 'It was a message,' Castor said. 'A message from the gods, I think.'

I was bewildered. 'From the gods, domine?'

Castor stayed silent for some time, pondering. 'From one god, I believe. The Divine Augustus.'

This left me utterly incredulous, but I struggled hard to hide it.

'He watches over my grandmother from Olympus. He loved her so very much, you know. Well, of course you know, Iphicles.'

I said nothing, knowing far more than Castor could ever be privy to.

'He sent the serpent to me and I followed it all the way here, to my grandmother's bed. It is obvious what he meant to tell me.'

I went very still. 'Yes, domine?'

'Serpents are sacred to Asclepius. If we take my grandmother to the temple of the god of medicine, she will be cured.'

I felt sick to my guts and tried to catch the eye of Lygdus. But the eunuch wouldn't look at me at all. His eyes were on his master. Castor laid his hand upon the eunuch's fleshy shoulder and then removed it again. There was an atmosphere of profound reverence between them. Castor's affection for my apprentice was unmistakable.

The Nones of April

AD 22

One month later: Praetorian Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus prevents a fire at the Theatre of Pompey from spreading to nearby temples and is rewarded by the Emperor with a statue of his likeness erected in the theatre's ruins

In Flamma's slow journey towards death he encountered a strange bird. Its plumage was a dull, metallic grey like a pigeon's, but the bird itself was larger in size, and with three blood-red feathers in its tail. Its pus-yellow eyes didn't blink as it stared at him.

'Are you from Hades?' Flamma asked the creature. 'Are you my escort to the place of the dead?'

'Why did you do it?' the creature questioned him in return.

Only a bird from Hades could have the power of speech, Flamma marvelled. After so many months of hovering near the edge of the precipice, at last his end was close. He tried to find the right response for the creature but felt himself already drifting towards oblivion.

'Those beasts are obscene!' I gasped. ' Domine, you cannot allow this!'

'Ssh,' Castor hissed at me.

'But, domine, snakes are bad enough — '

'You heard the god's words.'

'I heard the priests' words.'

Castor glared hard at me. 'It would be disappointing for my grandmother should I grow to dislike you now, Iphicles, after so many years as your friend.'

I shuddered at the warning in the words. 'Yes, domine,' I nodded, but my anxiety was devouring me.

The priests of Asclepius finished the final examination of my apparently sleeping domina. She lay wrapped in a shroud on the damp temple floor. The head priest nodded to Castor.

'It is as you first thought?' Castor asked him.

The head priest nodded again. 'The god's serpent may have brought you here, Lord, but the sacred serpents of this temple cannot help the Augusta. She is beyond their reach.'

Castor's mouth tightened. 'Very well. If there is no other option.'

'There is not.'

Behind them another priest secured six whining dogs that pulled tight against their leashes.

'This is wrong, domine,' I wailed. 'It defiles her.'

'Out!' said Castor, turning on me.

' Domine?'

'Out, Iphicles. Now! We'll collect you again when my grandmother's treatment is over.'

'How can such a thing be called treatment — ' I began, but Castor's glare silenced me. 'Please don't make me leave,' I begged.

'Then allow your domina to receive the god's attentions in silence.'

I whimpered, my guts tying into knots, but I said nothing more. I was in terror not at how Asclepius's treatment might harm my domina, but at the far more alarming prospect of its proving successful. The god of medicine was unpredictable. What if the strange snake really had been a sign of his interest in Livia's recovery? While I certainly doubted that the Divine Augustus had had anything to do with the serpent's portent, the nature of the medicine god's ways were unknown to me. Once, as a disrespectful youth, I had spat a ball of phlegm on the god's temple threshold when I believed him ill-disposed towards my then master, Tiberius Nero. I had been wrong in that belief. Asclepius had held no feelings towards Tiberius Nero at all, ill-disposed or otherwise. But what god would remain indifferent to the spitballs of a slave?

The six temple hounds pulled against the tethers, their claws scraping against the floor. I hid my eyes, but couldn't stand not knowing and uncovered them again.

'Release them,' said the head priest.

The dogs' master dropped the leashes and the dogs leaped forward in a single motion, flying at my domina where she lay still upon the floor. I wanted to scream but Castor's eyes were on me.

'Go well, domina,' was all I could mutter, but the sentiment was false. I wanted her to sleep forever and never wake up.

The first of the temple hounds detected an odour to Livia's sex and pressed its snout between her legs, inhaling what she hid beneath the shroud. A second dog followed and then a third, before all six dogs were snuffling and licking, baring their teeth to pull the shroud from my domina 's most private parts.

With relief I saw Castor flush and look ill at what the dogs were doing. 'What is this?' he shot at the head priest. But the old man just shook his head gravely and held up a hand, reassuring Castor that nothing was out of place. The dogs had Livia's shroud in pieces now and her private parts were exposed. Their six snouts had spread her legs apart, nuzzling her obscenely. I hoped Castor would vomit.

'She is the Augusta!' he appealed to the head priest. 'Pull the dogs off her, for pity's sake!'

The head priest was immovable. 'They have found the location of her illness, Lord. If it is distressing for you, then look away, but I cannot stop the god's beasts now. They are curing her. They are making her whole.'

It was too much for Castor and he left the room. I stayed for only a moment more, my eyes boring into my domina 's closed lids. She knew I was there and her right eye opened just a crack.

'This isn't going to work,' I hissed at her. 'Give it up, domina — this isn't going to succeed.'

Livia winked at me. Each of us had our secret plans; the Fates would decide whose came first to bud.

Feeling weak with disgust and tiredness, Castor listened to the head priest's directives from a stone bench in the temple's portico. My heart anxious, I pulled off Castor's street shoes to let his foot abscess air. It annoyed him that it never seemed to improve, but he'd grown accustomed to its constant ache.