Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'Who else have you killed for this? Castor?'

She saw me fall paler still. 'Oh my gods — I see your guilt!' She lurched and turned where she stood, running back along the road towards the distant city walls again.

'Lady! Lady, please stop!'

'Murderer!' she gasped, stumbling on her bloodied feet. 'Murdering slave!'

'Lady, please, no — '

She turned and pointed at me. 'I will find Agrippina and I will tell her what a viper she harbours — what a poisonous viper!' She fled again along the stones.

Despair crushed me. I had sought to help her, to ease her exile, to promise her that hope was still hers, if only she had patience and strength. But she had seen my naked face and it had terrified her. This, I realised then, was the fate of all gods. We saved nothing in our efforts to achieve destiny. We only destroyed.

I reached inside the sack and found the knife I had meant to give Sosia as a weapon to defend herself with. I felt the blade — it was blunt, yet would do. Sosia stumbled and fell ahead of me, raging incoherently against my crimes. But with her undyed stola and wild, long hair, she was like a mad woman to those who travelled along the road. She was stubbornly, determinedly ignored.

Sosia screamed when she looked back and saw the knife glitter in my hand. 'Let me get to her,' she begged of a man driving a carruca. 'Take me to Agrippina — let me tell her!'

The driver struck her with his whip so that she fell back hard upon the cobbles. She clawed to her feet and began to run once more, limping badly now, and leaving little prints of blood upon the stones.

I continued to follow, keeping her pace, the knife tucked inside my tunica. Soon she would fall again and be unable to rise. I would pull her behind the tombs to the place where the baby wept, and there I would finish her — and perhaps the child too. It would be merciful for both of them.

Sosia screamed again and continued running. Death had her in its scent. It must come for her now — she had forced its hand. I was only death's tool. But it gave me no pleasure to be so — no pleasure at all.

The Nones of January

AD 25

Seven months later: the historian Aulus Cremutius Cordus succeeds in starving himself to death midway through his protracted treason trial. His books are burned in the Forum

Tiberius sat on his favourite chair in his favourite corner of his garden, rugging himself up against the chill. The winter sun would hit him shortly, as soon as the first rays cleared the top of the garden wall. He was happy to wait until it shone; he wanted the warmth to lick his bones. He made himself comfortable on the cushions and pulled his fur-lined cloak tight around his throat.

'Tiberius…'

He started at the voice, recognising it.

'Tiberius…'

He looked about the garden around him. 'Is that you, Antonia?'

'Are you in good health?'

'I am. Such a fine winter's day.'

'I would like to see you. To talk about things.'

Tiberius was confused. 'Aren't you seeing me now?'

'You know I'm not.'

Tiberius's mind was always slow to work while the sun's rays remained hidden.

'I am on the other side of this wall.'

Tiberius got up from his chair in wonder and made his way towards the garden's edge. 'On the other side?'

'Yes.'

There was silence while Tiberius ran his palms across the cold, stone surface.

'Why won't you let us visit you?' Antonia asked, after a moment.

'Who?'

'Your family, who loves you.'

Tiberius tried to recall the reason.

'Why won't you let me visit you, at least?'

'You are welcome any time.'

'The guards turn me away. They turn us all away — on your orders, Tiberius.'

'Absurd. I'll have them flogged for it. Come and see me today, Antonia. It would be so nice to have some wine with my old friend.'

He heard Antonia start weeping.

'Yes. It would be very nice. There are so many things I would like to talk to you about.'

'Then I look forward to it.'

He started to turn away.

'Do you remember when your brother died, Tiberius? My husband? Do you remember when he died?'

A stab of pain brought ugly memories back.

'We grew so close, you and me. No one else ever understood the depth of the loss we felt.'

Agonising grief creased his face. He remembered his brother. Then he remembered his son. Then he remembered why it was easier to keep his family at bay. He felt cold. 'I don't think I can see you today, after all.'

'Tiberius?'

'No. Now go away.'

'Please let me see you.'

'I said go away.' He hurried back to the comfort and safety of his chair. If Antonia had remained behind the wall, she said nothing else and was as good as gone. Soon her intrusion began to recede as Tiberius resumed his wait for the sun. His grief was forgotten.

There was movement among the denuded winter shrubbery and he saw that Thrasyllus was curled in the snow.

'You are naked, haruspex?'

The soothsayer said nothing.

Tiberius waved for an attendant slave; it took a long time for one to come because so few were allowed to attend him. When one at last arrived, crawling on his hands and knees, Tiberius pointed at the haruspex. 'He is naked. Where are his clothes?'

'You ordered us to strip him, Caesar.'

Tiberius considered this, and then dismissed it as ridiculous. 'That's a bald lie.'

The slave remained on his hands and knees.

'Take off your clothes and give them to him. He is too valuable to waste in this way.'

'Yes, Caesar.' The slave began to undress in the snow, tossing his clothes at Thrasyllus's frostbitten feet.

'Put them on him — can't you see he's ill?'

The slave did his best to fit the clothes to Thrasyllus as Tiberius clapped his dry, cracked hands with a noise that barely rose above the winter birds. But the choirmaster was tuned to him. The man straightened from where he had fallen against the steps, waving his shattered hands towards where he hoped the children would still be. He had lost his sight with so many beatings, but his hearing remained sound. The children saw him and picked themselves up from where they huddled in groups in their soiled and ragged clothes; many were ill. Their memories of mothers and fathers and happy homes had dimmed, so that these things seemed like dreams to them now. Some could not remember when they first came to Oxheads — or when they had been told that they would not be returning home. Out of habit and fear, they began the morning's first song.

Tiberius regarded his morning correspondence. Direct contact with his person had been banned in favour of written petitions, and the sense of liberation this gave him hadn't faded. No longer were his mornings wasted with people he despised; he could sit in the sun and force anyone who wished for his guidance to write to him — and write prettily too. He enjoyed laughing at what they requested from him, but as an unspoken rule he only read letters from people who pleased him; he returned letters unopened to those who didn't. The morning's scrolls were bundled in canisters. He took a quick look at the contents and then kicked the lot aside. They were all too long — and boring. He wanted diversion. Other letters, written on folded, flattened papyrus, had been placed in a pile. Presuming these missives to be briefer than the scrolls, he began to examine them. The first two were immediate rejects. He scratched a cross on them in black ink and threw them to the ground.

The next letter was from Sejanus.

Tiberius smiled. With the children's hoarse, broken voices ringing pleasantly in his ears, he began to read.

Caesar, It has become my habit to confide my hopes and wishes to your ears as readily as I do the gods. Since the days of our Great Walk together, I have asked for nothing more than to watch you and protect you and to serve you as a common soldier. That you have rewarded me with high distinctions is something I treasure, Caesar, but have never craved. The most glorious honour I have won is the reputation of being worthy of your friendship.