Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'What has this to do with Livia?' I demanded.

Lygdus just shrugged again. 'He wants to carry her around in his retinue like Castor did.' He disappeared into the crush of Forum traffic.

'Wait! Lygdus!' I tried to shout after him. 'Is this your doing?'

But he was gone.

I stood there devastated. My precious son was hatching schemes of his own.

Ludi Romani

September, AD 26

One week later: the murderer of Lucius Calpurnius Piso escapes his captors while being taken to torture, dashing his head on a rock to kill himself

I felt the stirrings of the subterranean beast again when I was little prepared for it.

My favourite brothel in Rome was Circe's Enchantments, an establishment I had taken to visiting twice a week, using as many sestertii as I could save from tips and pilfering. My capacity for sexual acts was somewhat limited, obviously, but I had found the means of pleasuring myself by way of pleasur ing others, and this I engaged in with vigour. Circe's was a comparatively clean establishment, with a team of passably pretty girls and catamites in hired alcoves built into the side of the Theatre of Marcellus. On festival days these alcoves were awash with high-spirited customers at the end of each performance. But on ordinary days Circe's dropped its prices and ran all the 'she-wolves' from the brothel's other premises at the base of a Suburan apartment block.

The good-natured madam was an old whore called Lena — as madams were invariably called in Rome — and she made a name for herself by providing services for those of us whose needs were 'unconventional'. It should not have been a surprise to me, really, when my life at Circe's and my life at Oxheads collided. I was not the only Oxheads slave to enjoy the establishment. But I was surprised when the collision came and, what's more, I was made decidedly uncomfortable by it.

Tiberius's uncharacteristic tour of the countryside around Rome took him to some delightful locales. We journeyed through towns and bucolic hamlets that he hadn't visited in decades, if ever. On each new road we travelled crowds lined the way, cheering Tiberius and casting flowers. His habit of tossing coins certainly added to their enthusiasm, but they would have cheered him anyway for the sheer novelty of having the Emperor among them. The traitor hunts hadn't extended to rural Italy, and so the people had no reason to think ill of Tiberius — or Sejanus, for that matter.

With his goblet in one hand and his coins in the other Tiberius made an endearing sight for those who saw him smiling down upon them from his throne. He reminded some wags in the crowd of the doddering old uncle from an Oscan farce, being carried off to his wedding to a blushing teenage bride. But in the pretty hills, when Tiberius halted his procession in order to climb down and walk, I was shocked to see that the joke was actually near the truth. Tiberius was sexually aroused. His purple robes couldn't hide the erection he had achieved beneath their folds. Plenty among the crowd saw it too and hooted their approval. Quite without shame, Tiberius strode about like a cockerel, still tossing his coins, while Sejanus smiled indulgently from his horse.

But something in the crowd made Tiberius stop abruptly. His good mood vanished, as did his erection. He rushed back to his throne.

'Caesar?' said Sejanus.

Tiberius would not answer, or even look at him.

'What is it, Caesar?'

Tiberius signalled the men who carried his throne to make haste.

From where I stood among the retinue of household slaves, I craned my neck to see what Tiberius might have been upset by in the crowd. But there was nothing strange. Just a sea of happy faces, some clutching flowers, others babies, and even, here and there, domestic pets. One woman held a puppy in her hands for Tiberius's blessing. Another held a piglet. And one, right at the very back of the crowd, held up a honking goose. Frustrated, I decided that the Emperor was as unknowable as ever.

When we reached our destination for the day, I realised why Tiberius had been engorged — at least until his mood had changed. It was from anticipation. Circe's Enchantments, while running plenty of whores to keep the rabble happy, also provided rarer gems, girls and boys of breathtaking beauty, who were kept in reserve for the best clients. No client was better than Tiberius; for many years, he'd had his pick of them. And so, to provide the Emperor with some holiday amusement, Circe's had set up temporary shop in a unique country villa known as the Cave. This house was built into a cliff-face, and its celebrated banquet room, a magnificent cavern, gave the villa its name.

My reaction upon entering this establishment was not apprehension at finding myself in a vast hole in the ground; instead, I was mortified by Lena telling all and sundry that she had remembered to pack the girl who most enjoyed being pleasured by me. The other slaves found this riotous, and I blushed furiously.

Tiberius made his way quickly through the Cave's warren of rooms, and so determined was his progress that Sejanus lost sight of him. Looking faintly perturbed, the Praetorian Prefect went in pursuit of the Emperor, while we slaves were left to amuse ourselves as we liked. Lena made it clear that none of us were getting free rides. Behind patchwork curtains expectant whores waited, and Lena read out the day's 'specials', which were pinned to each curtain.

Just as I was steeling myself to duck off with my favourite, I heard the deep, guttural groan of the subterranean beast. I froze, looking about wildly. Lena was holding out her hand for payment for services soon-to-be rendered when the echoing tremor, far below in the ground, tossed me off balance. I fell face-first onto her little table by the door, and my fistful of coins flew high into the air, raining on our heads. Several coins rang dull and hollow as they hit, revealing that they'd been clipped. As if that wasn't enough to leave Lena speechless for a moment, another tremor threw me to my feet again.

'He's having a fit!' Lena screamed in the direction of the cubicles.

'No!' I started to explain. 'It's not that — '

Lena tried to pull me out of the room. 'No fits in here — it'll kill us.'

'I'm not fitting,' I said, dragging myself from her grip. But I knew something was very wrong — or was about to be. I rode out the next tremor that boiled beneath the ground just as the brothel's boy returned breathless and panting from the fountain. He had a full pail of water in his hand.

'Throw that on Polyxena,' Lena told him.

The boy raised the wooden pail to toss the water over one of the patchwork curtains when a fourth tremor pitched me backwards and into his splash. I fell hard, striking my head on the floor.

I must have lost consciousness because I found myself outside in the villa's grounds. Lena was bending over me, clucking sympathetically. 'Sorry, love,' she said. 'I can't have that sort of thing inside — it brings too much trouble on us.'

I tried to sit up but my head was throbbing violently. 'You dragged me out?' I asked, dazed and angry.

'What if you'd died? You're an Oxheads slave — people would start yelling murder.'

'They would not! I'm nobody.'

She just looked at me as though the blow to my head had reduced me to a state of childishness, and I saw that some of the brothel's girls were crowded around me too. 'I gave you my money,' I said. 'I want what I paid for.'

'Some of those coins were hollow,' said Lena.

'Then I want what I paid for with the coins that weren't. Help me up,' I pleaded.

Lena and the girls hauled me to my feet. 'How do you feel, love?'

I sensed the violent buckling of the earth again but managed to stay upright. 'I feel… better,' I lied, closing my eyes against the movement in an effort to keep from being ill. When I opened them again, I saw the pallor that had suddenly flooded Lena's face. 'It's all right,' I said. 'I won't vomit on you.'