Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'Yes, domina.'

There was silence.

'And what did my granddaughter Livilla ask from Drusus in return for this "glory"?'

'She asked that he supply damning information about his brother Nero in the future, domina.'

'Did Drusus say he would provide it?'

'He did.'

A wretched cry came from Livia's throat and she fell forward with her hands to her face, sobbing into her knees. Lygdus wept too now, howling like a child. It was a long time before either was able to master their emotions. Livia finally righted herself again, her cheeks streaked with tears.

'Brother betrays brother. There is such evil in my family, Lygdus.'

'Yes, domina,' he whispered.

There was silence again. Livia shifted her weight in the chair and the pressure intensified on my trapped hand. I nearly lost consciousness from the pain. Then she shifted once more and the agony eased slightly, but I still didn't pull myself free.

Lygdus spoke. 'We will not let Nero be betrayed, will we, domina?'

She shook her head. 'Not while I breathe.'

The eunuch's face flushed with relief. 'The gods bless you for it, domina.'

'Now, now.'

'You are his saviour, his protector.'

She gently beckoned the eunuch to come close and brushed her lips on his cheek. 'Perhaps he is the real second king?' she whispered. Then she leaned back in the chair so that my trapped hand was tortured anew.

Lygdus saw my redoubled pain and cared nothing. 'Some have claimed it is another,' he said.

'The only claims we should listen to are Cybele's,' said Livia. 'It is our privilege to make the wisest interpretations we can of her words. But some are wiser than others. Beware of frauds, Lygdus, and those who wrongly claim to know the goddess's mind.'

Lygdus narrowed his eyes at me.

'You may leave me now,' she said to him.

The eunuch bowed and was gone. I remained where I was, in misery on the floor, my hand pinned beneath her chair. Livia didn't move. Then, after another short interval, she said, 'I asked you to bring my grandson Little Boots to me.'

'He was here and then he left again, domina,' I managed to reply.

'I see. What an insult to his great-grandmother.'

'He was sulking about his toga virilis,' I tried to explain. 'He refuses to wear one, which is disgraceful. He's already fourteen.'

'The boy knows his own mind. He shall not wear one, then.'

I was horrified. 'But that's… unprecedented!'

'Let him stay a boy. Perhaps Tiberius will like him for it?'

My mind raced trying to work out what game Livia was playing. She abruptly stood up and my hand was freed.

'Tiberius barely knows who Little Boots is,' I whispered.

'There you are wrong. A letter has come, stamped with the Emperor's own seal, requesting your beloved Little Boots to join him on Capri.'

The blood left my face. 'What for?'

Livia looked up at the tall window that filled her anteroom with light. She placed her hand on the silk curtain, letting it linger there for a moment before she gripped the silk in her fist, watching her knuckles turn white as she pulled. The curtain, its rings and the long bronze rod that supported them came crashing to the floor.

'I don't know what for,' said Livia. 'Perhaps he wants Little Boots to add to his entertainment?'

Chills shot along my spine. 'He will kill him!'

'Surely not.'

'Sejanus will kill him, then — it's a plot. He means him harm, domina. Don't let the boy go, I beg you!'

'You beg me? I can scarcely imagine that.'

I crawled along the floor on my belly until I reached her foot. I began to kiss her toes through the slipper. 'Please, domina.'

Livia stooped and took up the curtain rod, letting the rings slide down its length. They fell to the floor, and she lifted the rod high in the air like Victory's sword. 'Too late, I'm afraid — he's going.'

I pressed my lips to her ankle, closing my eyes tight. 'Nero is not the second king, domina.'

She smashed the rod hard on my back and then raised it again. 'I know that,' she said. She smashed the metal onto my thighs. 'But your greatest mistake was having an opinion about it in the first place.'

She dashed the rod across my back again and again.

As he entered his house in Rome at last, after so many weeks away, Sejanus felt in no way cheated by the sentence of exile that had been passed upon the gamesmaster at Fidenae. It had been within Sejanus's power to have the sentence upped to the cruellest execution imaginable, yet he had not done so. The Forum mob would have loved him for it, but their hatred was far more satisfying. And it was somehow even more pleasing with the blend of the Eastern flower supplied to him by the hunchback.

She who had once appeared loathsome now seemed like a friend. She understood the way that hatred so aroused him. She encouraged him with her eyes. If her disfigurement were not so repellent, he would have made sexual penetration part of their transaction, enjoying the hunchback in front of her fire. Her lustful eyes told him she would have relished such a privilege.

Fuelled by the morning's first draught, Sejanus had allowed the gamesmaster's sentence to pass uncontested in the Senate and had laughed at the mob's howls. The wretch would be hunted down and killed as soon as he left the city walls anyway, but Sejanus liked being seen as having no part in the vengeance. When he finally came to rule in his own right, he would not have himself known as a king who listened to Rome's basest desires. He would do all that he could to be thought of as a king who excoriated them.

Sejanus's slaves undressed him on the heated tiles of the entrance hall, wiping him with sponges before presenting him with a choice of fresh tunicae. He saw the dog Scylax wagging its tail in the atrium.

'The lady is here?' he asked his steward.

'Yes, domine — ' the slave started to explain, but Sejanus dismissed him, eschewing new clothing and moving across the atrium to pat the friendly dog. His lust for the hunchback would be spent on his lover, a more predictable but rarely disappointing pleasure. Naked, he continued down the corridor and flung the doors to his sleeping room wide, ready for her.

My domina 's smile curled from where she displayed herself upon the vast bed. 'You've disrobed for me? What an expectant lover.' She slipped the gown from her shoulders, letting it spill to the tips of her breasts. They were young again, full and firm. 'Have you missed me, Sejanus?'

The Prefect stammered, shocked to find my domina here. Then he saw me, Iphicles, cowering on the floor. He found his tongue. 'I have missed you deeply, Livia. I had believed Death would take you while you slept for so long.'

'So many people tell me they feared this, but Death never came for me at all. Only Somnus came. My illness was spent in his dreams.'

Sejanus stayed standing where he was. 'What was wrong with you? Why were you paralysed?'

Livia paused before answering, casting her eyes pointedly upon me. 'I do not know,' she said. 'I have no recollection of any of it. Even the dreams are like mists to me. I think I can see the answer in the swirls that drift just beyond my line of sight, but when I narrow my eyes to determine them they slip away. Iphicles will confirm it.'

Sejanus looked at me.

'It is true, domine,' I whispered, my face pressed against the tiles. 'The Augusta is angered and dismayed by her vanished memory.'

'I know nothing of what occurred while I slept,' said Livia. 'Or of anything that happened when I awoke. Iphicles tells me I could see and hear and apparently even laugh in my paralysis, but I remember nothing of it, nothing at all.'

Sejanus saw movement in the shadows beneath the bed. Someone was crouched in hiding there.

'Iphicles also tells me that your wife has gone. Please don't chide him for gossiping. I have pressed him for news of all that I missed and he has been most informative.'