Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

Agrippina stared at him for a moment. She left her loom and crouched beside him at the bed. 'I accept.'

He smiled, relieved.

'What can I give you in return, Flamma?'

He found himself reaching out to hold her hand. It was slender in his broad, brown palm, but her fingers were long and supple like his. There was a well of hidden strength to her hands, he saw. 'Death,' he said. 'Just give me death, Lady.'

Angry, she threw down his hand as if it burned her.

Livilla's conclamatio wails of grief filled the corridors of Oxheads long after the funeral had ended. Sometimes Tiberia's voice was added to that of her mother's, and more often the voice of the little boy, Gemellus, joined in too. But mostly it was just Livilla weeping, especially in the hours of darkness. During those long nights her revered mother, Antonia, joined her, a widow herself for many decades. On these occasions Livilla's grief intensified into hysteria. She gave more grief than we slaves could bear.

Sejanus ordered me to close the door of my domina 's suite against it, but Tiberius stopped me.

'I need to hear it,' he murmured, withered and aged at his mother's bedside. 'She grieves so much. It comforts me to know that Castor was loved.'

I made no comment on the sincerity of Livilla's grief and simply bowed, leaving the door open, before I pressed myself against the wall, trying to become invisible. Indeed, I was invisible to Sejanus and Tiberius — they paid me no heed — but my domina was ever aware of me and I felt the boiling hatred behind her eyes. With Castor's death the trips to Asclepius's dogs would cease — I would make sure of it. My plans had come to bud before hers.

Sejanus returned to mixing a new draught of the Eastern flower. Tiberius watched his actions intently, knowing that the drug would take away his pain. In his hands he held my written record of Castor's death dream.

'How could he have thought he wasn't my son?' he asked from the depths of his despair. I knew this question wasn't directed at me and so said nothing.

'It was a dream, Caesar,' Sejanus answered without looking at him. He was carefully measuring the ingredients. 'Dreams can't be taken literally. There are other meanings to them.'

'There is no other meaning here,' Tiberius said. 'He believed I loved his brother more.'

Sejanus paused. Then he said, 'But Germanicus is four years dead. How could Castor still have thought such a thing, Caesar?' He waited, his face betraying nothing of what he hid in his heart.

Tiberius looked up from the papyrus, bewildered. 'So he truly thought I loved Germanicus more?'

Sejanus made a show of embarrassment, as if he was privy to a confidence he had never shared with his Emperor.

Tiberius's tears flowed. 'No… no. Germanicus was my adopted son — my nephew — but he wasn't my blood son.'

Sejanus said nothing, his face a tragic mask.

'Didn't he understand that? Didn't he realise the truth?'

'He knew that the Divine Augustus had wanted you to adopt Germanicus,' Sejanus answered with reluctance. 'This suggested succession plans.'

'That was my mother's doing,' Tiberius spat, glaring viciously at Livia. She met his eye but gave nothing. 'Augustus was insensible to that decision — Castor knew that.'

Sejanus's sad look suggested otherwise. 'He only knew that neither the Divine Augustus nor the Augusta expressed such wishes about him. Castor knew that Germanicus was the better man — the greater general. He knew that his brother's gifts as an ambassador made him invaluable to Rome. He knew that his own gifts were only administrative at best.'

Tiberius wept in despair. 'He was my right hand here in Rome. He was invaluable to me — I am lost without him.'

Sejanus said nothing and began mixing ingredients again, letting the seed he had planted take root in Tiberius's heart. He stirred the draught slowly as he waited, but did not offer the relief it would bring yet. He knew that a more important task must be dealt with first.

The seed bore fruit. An appalling realisation dawned on Tiberius, and for a brief moment's terror Sejanus feared it was not the one he had strived for.

'Castor caused his brother's death?'

Sejanus's flood of relief almost shook the mask from his eyes. He threw himself at the base of Tiberius's chair, shedding tears of gratitude to the gods, but in his performance he dressed it as grief. 'I've always feared it, Caesar,' he whispered. 'I've always suspected it in my heart.'

'You never said it to me.'

'How could I accuse the son you loved?'

Tiberius sank into the cushions, feeling what little remained of his strength ebbing away. After a time Sejanus's weeping ceased and there was silence. A goblet was placed in Tiberius's hand and his fingers curled around the neck. It was the draught.

With a sip he could take away his pain, just as he had done when his brother Drusus had died. With only a gulp of the Eastern flower's nectar he would lose all reason for his suffering, just as he had when his wife Vipsania had opened her veins. With little more than a mouthful of the potion he would obliterate all thoughts in his head, except those that cast reflection upon his greatness. But as I watched him, invisible at the wall, I saw that his broken heart spoke to him, halting him, wanting to know how he'd been so blind to his son. How had he missed the vital signs? Tiberius's heart demanded an explanation: if gentle Castor had envied Germanicus so much that he'd had him poisoned, how and why had Tiberius missed his boy's murderous intent?

I saw all this playing in Tiberius's face, the goblet at his lips not yet sipped. And I saw that Tiberius knew the answer to provide. He understood how he'd missed it, how he'd let both his sons slip through his fingers like sand. There was only one answer he could ever give that explained it all: the Eastern flower.

Sejanus left the room, gently pulling the door closed behind him, despite Tiberius's orders. Tiberius heard him commanding the Praetorians outside that the Emperor was not to be disturbed while he was grieving with his mother. When we heard Sejanus's boots echoing down the corridor, Tiberius rose from the couch and tipped the goblet into the bowl I used for my domina 's waste.

Tiberius had no doubt that Sejanus loved him as a father. But Sejanus was not his son. Tiberius knew that the devoted Prefect would never harm him and that his daily preparation of the draught was only to make his Emperor happy, nothing more. I studied Tiberius as he promised himself that he had finished with the Eastern flower. He would never tell Sejanus; it would upset him, Tiberius knew. I continued to watch as Tiberius hoped aloud that he would find the will to be strong.

He stuck the tip of his little finger into the excrement bowl and withdrew it, dabbing it on his tongue. The taste was foul. From now until the final breath the mighty gods granted him, he would begin his days in this way, he vowed. He would upend his draughts in shit.

What finer way was there to ensure he stuck to his resolve?

Lemuria

May, AD 23

One month later: Emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus orders the banishment of all musica muta artists from Italy, despite widespread appeals for clemency

When together in a pack, the three sisters could be bitches. Often it was Nilla and Drusilla who banded together against the youngest girl, five-year-old Julilla, making her life a hell. Nilla was eight and Drusilla seven, so their younger sister was easily captured, tortured or teased. She was also forever overlooked by her mother and forgotten by the household slaves. Burrus usually observed attentively from the walls with the other companion slaves, and sometimes with Lygdus and me for company. Whether we were there or not made no difference to the girls' torments. I would never interfere unless the child's life was imperilled, and because Nilla and Drusilla never quite took things that far I merely blocked my ears every time little Julilla's screams became too deafening. But Burrus found the games distressing and fought against his natural urge to weigh in.