Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'But you're injuring yourself.'

'How does a man learn sword-craft?' she shot at me.

Watching, Nilla gave me a cold look for my slave's petty concern and I saw that Burrus mirrored it. Chastened, I took my place next to my fellow slave Nymphomidia at the edge of the peristyle, feeling no less uneasy.

'Once more,' said Flamma.

Agrippina sprang to her feet and rushed at the hulking gladiator, repeating her scream, hatred still firing in her eyes. She got a sword stroke in, and then another, before the gladiator deflected her once more and she crashed hard to the ground. Agrippina lay there, panting and dazed. I wanted only to stop this but the child Nilla's fierce eyes were upon me, forcing me to keep silent.

Flamma waited, watching Agrippina impassively. Slowly, she got to her feet and stood before him once more with an exultant look. The gladiator nodded then.

'Is this what you claimed me for, Lady?'

'What other use have you?'

Flamma guffawed. 'Well, you got two strokes in — your best effort yet.'

She lunged at him without a sound, seizing the advantage of surprise. Her blade slashed his upper arm, and before he could respond she plucked a knife from her waist and nicked his thigh with it. The gladiator caught her under the ribs with his shield, lifting her feet from the ground. For a brief second their eyes connected, both registering amazement, but deep respect too, before Agrippina was thrown to the ground again. The fall left her winded and unable to draw breath. The noise she made was terrible to my ears as she tried to suck the air back into her lungs. I clenched my hands into fists, desperate to aid her somehow, but I knew it was pointless and I was very aware of Nilla's eyes. At last Agrippina's breath returned, but her strength was gone and she remained where she had fallen in the dust. Nilla moved to her and gently stroked her mother's brow, whispering loving words.

I couldn't hold myself back any longer. 'How long will this go on?'

'Until I am dead,' said Flamma. 'That's our agreement, and there's no shame in it from where I'm standing.'

I quaked at the huge man addressing me directly.

'It will finish when the Lady has killed me — isn't that so, Lady?'

Agrippina's eyes remained closed, but she managed to nod her head in the dust. Flamma began to dab at his flesh wounds with a linen rag moistened in water.

'You will teach Nilla the same skills before that happens,' Agrippina spoke from the ground.

The gladiator looked up and met Nilla's gaze. I saw the hesitation in his face. 'She is too young for it.'

'I am nine,' said Nilla, without a trace of fear.

He considered this for a moment and then nodded. 'As you wish,' he replied to Agrippina.

Nymphomidia pushed Burrus forward slightly, so that he caught the gladiator's attention. Long-limbed and ungainly, he was now the tallest in the courtyard apart from Flamma himself. But his build was still slim.

'You will teach another one, too,' said Agrippina from the ground, her eyes still closed. 'You will teach this boy, Burrus.'

The gladiator looked Burrus up and down. 'And how old are you now, lad?'

'Fourteen.' Like Nilla, he met the professional killer's gaze levelly.

'A man, then,' said Flamma. 'Very well. This is turning into quite a school.'

Agrippina gave a hacking cough and a new trickle of blood ran from her lips, but she nodded at the gladiator's words.

'But only one of you will kill me,' Flamma said. This was not a question or even a request, but a statement of fact. 'And that is you, Lady, and no other.'

'That is our agreement,' said Agrippina.

'And it will be my honour,' said Flamma. 'Your husband was the greatest man in Rome — he should have been Emperor.'

I kept my eyes hard on the ground, frightened of what he might see in them if I dared to look up.

'My training you in sword-craft is vengeance for his death, and when you kill me you will be ready to take your own vengeance.'

Agrippina opened her eyes and there was profound gratitude in her face. 'Your sacrifice will be remembered by Rome, I promise you,' she whispered, 'and you will live like a king in this house while we learn from you.'

He picked up the sword from where it had fallen from Agrippina's hand and tossed it high in the air. 'Who's next for their lesson?'

Burrus leaped forward and caught the sword. Then he turned and presented it to Nilla, bowing his head. She took it from him, weighing it in her hand and curling her tiny fingers around the hilt.

Flamma smiled. 'You are your mother's daughter, child.'

'And vengeance burns in me just as strong,' Nilla said.

It was never the corpulent Senator Silius's first choice to avail himself of public lavatories, but when nature's call made evacuation imperative he was glad the facilities were there. His bladder was not what it was, he was sorry to admit; it needed emptying far more often than it once had, even though he tried to counter things by drinking less. Silius's bowels demanded hourly easing as well, so all in all he knew it was either the civic latrines that received him when he was caught short away from home — or the banks of the Tiber with the beggars. The latrines, he knew, were marginally less unsavoury.

He halted his retinue in its noisy progress from the Senate. 'My apologies, friends,' Silius said, waving his large and expressive hands at the latrine enclosure at the edge of the Forum. 'You know the drill by now, I'm sure.'

His slaves and clients cracked good-natured jokes as he descended the steps. 'Send someone ahead to tell my lovely wife I have been delayed,' he called over his shoulder. 'No need to tell Sosia the reason — she'll guess it herself.'

The assembled men laughed and one of the slaves was detached to take the message. At the bottom of the steps Silius stuck his head inside the entrance, trying not to look apprehensive. He had campaigned for seven long years in Germany, after all, and had endured far less hygienic conditions than this. But still, as a general, he had always been granted privacy. The nature of the public latrines was just that — inescapably public. The usual arrangement was a dozen or so raised openings in a row where there was nothing else to look at but one's fellow defecators, male and female. There was no room for modesty.

The attendant lavatory slave bowed — an ugly boy with deformed ears.

Silius realised with relief that there was no one else inside. 'What good fortune,' he declared to the boy.

The ugly lad smirked. 'Got the throne room all to yourself, domine.'

Silius ruffled the boy's hair and strode past him to select a suitable squatting hole. At least they were clean. The boy had been at work with his brush. Silius made his selection and hoisted himself onto the platform, pulling his toga folds above his hips and untying his loin cloth. Placing his feet in the rests, he closed his eyes and sighed with contentment as relief began to come. When he opened his eyes again, he found the cauliflower-eared boy standing unexpectedly close.

'Are you Gaius Silius?'

Silius hesitated in replying until dignity won out, despite the circumstances, and he confirmed that he was.

The boy was impressed. 'You're the great general, then?'

Silius nodded.

'You beat that bastard Sacrovir.'

Silius shrugged.

'I saw your triumph.'

'Good for you, lad.' He would have got up to leave if his bowels weren't informing him to hold fast for a second act.

'You're the one man in Rome that old Tiberius won't dare charge with treason,' said the boy, laughing. 'Must be nice to feel safe.'

Silius was taken aback with astonishment but the boy just kept laughing. 'What an extraordinary thing to say,' said Silius, a politician first and a general second. 'Those charged with treason deserve their fate — it is no laughing matter. Give me a sponge.'