Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

In the dream the master's loins went slack and cold. He could not rise; his wife's nakedness enflamed his heart but nothing else. His legs and arms went cold — his torso, too — and then his hands. In the sleeping room the master's teeth began to clash together as he continued to speak the vivid scene in his mind. The slaves looked at each other in increased alarm.

'We must wake him now — look at him,' one of them whispered at me.

But I willed them to silence, for suddenly the dream's truth was speaking to me and me alone. The message from the gods was for Iphicles, not the master. They spoke to me as one of them — their equal. They saw my nascent divinity, earned in sacrifice, and they welcomed me. They promised me the joys that would come once I had served the great prophecy to its very end — once I had crowned the fourth king. And with this promise came their assistance. They would aid me in my plans. And I realised they were aiding me at that very moment.

The master lurched forward in his bed and then threw himself back against the pillows. 'I cannot enter you. I cannot have you,' he shouted to his dream wife.

And in his dream she began to fade away, her breasts still bare, her cleft moist and waiting for him. But he was unable. He was unworthy. He was not a man.

The master screamed with terror and all the slaves shook where they crouched at the walls. They began to weep, but still none woke him. The master screamed again — a dreadful howl — then tore his tunica from his throat. The fabric ripped, revealing his chest livid with sores.

'Look at him! Look at him!' cried the youngest slave.

The others slapped the boy hard, but nothing would wake the master now, I knew. No noise could bring him back. Froth bubbled from his lips, first white and then pink, as blood began to rise in his throat. The scarlet phlegm spewed through his lips.

The slaves were in terror. 'Master!' they screamed. 'Master, please wake up!'

Livilla threw the chamber door wide just as Castor opened his eyes and saw her. Then he saw Lygdus, the slave that had been posted to wait by his wife's door, and he saw the flash of unspeakable guilt that filled the eunuch's face. I saw Lygdus, too, and I expected him to throw me a smile of triumph at this heady victory, a grin of joy at this job well done. But he showed me nothing of the kind. Castor's eyes bore into him and the eunuch knew that his master realised how totally he had been betrayed. Castor looked to the uncomprehending Livilla, standing with her mouth wide and her long hair loose upon her shoulders. He tried to warn her — to tell her what a viper Lygdus was, coiled inside their home.

'My wife…'

But she didn't understand.

Castor's last breath bubbled from his lungs. The final words he heard were the echo of a whisper in his ear.

' The son with blood, by water's done, the truth is never seen.. '

Suddenly she was aware of his absence. Her husband's space in the bed was warm, the scent of him was strong and reassuring upon the linen — and yet she was alone. His side was empty. Apicata lurched awake and ran her hands beneath the covers to make sure it was true. He was gone. She sat up without making a sound and let her toes rest upon the mat. In her nakedness she felt the cold, but she wouldn't risk the moment's ignorance that would come from putting on garments and distracting her ears.

She strained to determine the noises of her sleeping house. She heard the gentle rise and fall of her daughter's chest as she slumbered in her room across the peristyle. She heard the louder snores of her gangly son. She strained to hear the breathing of the sleeping maids upon their pallets outside her own door and realised there were none. The slaves must be awake — or they had been moved. Then she heard the low murmur of her husband's voice in his study.

Apicata felt for her tunica at last and pulled it on. Then she found her woollen palla and wrapped it tightly around herself. She felt for her shoes next to the bed but her foot only found one. Perhaps Sejanus had kicked the other in accident as he left? She felt under the bed to see if she could find it and instead connected with something she didn't recognise: a small, oblong box, less than the length of her hand. Her senses told her it was nothing to be alarmed by, and yet it perplexed her by being there. It was smooth to the touch. She shook it and something rattled. It was sealed tightly and her fingers couldn't open it. But the absence of her husband was more pressing, so Apicata left the little box on the bed, intending to prise the thing open when she returned.

Barefoot, she crept to the door and listened. Sejanus's voice grew louder — he was questioning someone. She stole into the open hallway, where the row of chambers ran along one side and the courtyard of the peristyle along the other. There was a chill breeze; an owl hooted as it saw her from where it was perched upon the gutter. There was a good omen in that, Apicata thought, but she couldn't remember what it was. She stole towards the study, but before she had gone more than a few paces Sejanus emerged and saw her in the shadows.

She stopped, caught out. 'Has something happened, husband?'

There was shock in his voice — but excitement too. 'Castor is dead.'

She held her hand out to steady herself against a pillar.

'He died of a fever — he was raging in nightmares.'

'But… I could have helped you in this, as I have with all the other things we've planned together. Why didn't you let me know it was coming so soon after Germanicus? Why didn't you share it with me, husband? Couldn't I have made the task easier in some way?'

Sejanus was as ignorant of Lygdus and the poisoned footbaths as his wife was, but Apicata assumed that it was her husband who had somehow brought on Castor's death. He didn't want her to know that he had been thrown by the sudden development. 'I was protecting you,' he said eventually.

There was a tone to his voice that she couldn't identify; it sat oddly in her ear. 'I didn't need protecting with Germanicus.'

'This was different. We… we had no agent to do our work for us this time.'

She found his face with her hands. 'You did this alone?'

He avoided answering. 'I have to leave,' he said, taking her hands from his cheeks. Apicata heard the unmistakable noise of a dog's claws clicking on the floor tiles. Although she couldn't see it, she heard and smelled the presence of a large hound emerging from Sejanus's study and brushing its snout against his hand. Apicata recoiled, frightened, but didn't ask where this beast had come from or why it was there.

'I have to leave,' Sejanus said again, moving past her to their sleeping room.

The dog's breath was strong and rank in her nostrils. 'I'll never betray your secrets — your secrets are mine,' she whispered after him.

Sejanus snatched at a cloak and began pulling on his boots. From the corner of his eye he saw the little oblong box that Apicata had left on the bed. It took his curiosity for only a second before he dismissed it.

Apicata was standing where he'd left her when he came out again. 'Congratulations, then,' she whispered as he went to pass her.

For a moment he felt the old emotion that always confused him. He had not felt it for some time — several years, in truth — but it was with him now, as it sometimes was when she became like this: pliant, vulnerable and so full of love for him. Was it love he felt in return, however small? He could never determine it. All he understood was that it was an emotion, but it was different from love as he felt it for others. 'What is wrong with you?'

'You've taken another step closer to your great destiny,' said Apicata. 'The destiny that Fortuna chose when she gifted you Julia's letter.'

He grunted an acknowledgement. The dog panted at his side. 'It was you who killed Castor, wasn't it, husband?' Her voice held an unmistakable note of doubt. 'Who else could it be?' he said over his shoulder as he left her, the dog at his heels.