Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

Drusilla laughed and laughed, and when Aemilius touched her again, she laughed some more — a ringing, delighted cry that sounded like birdsong, she thought, as she rolled in the grass with flowers and leaves in her hair.

Aemilius's voice was dulled and thick, as if coming from another room, even though he was right next to her with his warm, soft hands upon her skin.

'That feels lovely,' she said. 'So balmy and nice. Do you like it?'

He answered with that thick voice again and she couldn't determine the words.

'Kiss me,' she said. 'Or have you already? That was what my present was to be for drinking it, remember?' He kissed her hard on the mouth and she liked it. 'You're all wet inside,' said Drusilla, laughing again, until she found she couldn't stop laughing, or didn't want to stop — she wasn't sure which.

His hands were all over her and she thrilled to it. 'Look at how the sunlight catches the hair on your tummy,' she told him. Then it struck her as funny that she could see his tummy at all. 'Look at your belly button,' she said. She wanted to peer at it closely. 'It's so delicious!' She was aware of her sister Julilla crying somewhere. 'I'm all right,' she called out, hoping to placate her. Then, to Aemilius's stomach again, she cried, 'I want to eat it!' She clamped her lips to his skin, thrashing with her tongue. Then she thought she could hear Little Boots somewhere too.

She felt hot. Her garments constricted her. 'Take them off,' she moaned. 'I feel suffocated.'

Aemilius's hands were on her eagerly, clawing at her clothes.

'That's better,' she told him. 'That's so much better…' She was on her back in the grass, feeling free and alive. She spread her arms and legs and let the cool breeze reach her. 'So much better,' she murmured. 'So nice…'

Aemilius's hands were at her sex. 'Naughty,' she admonished. 'I wouldn't let anyone else do that, you know.' She felt his fingers reach inside her. 'That tickles… that tickles!'

Suddenly her brother was there with flailing fists. She heard his words distinctly. 'Bastard!' he cried. 'That's my sister, you bastard!' The nice game in the grass had become an ugly fight. Little Boots pulled Aemilius from her and was beating him. She heard Julilla's cries. Drusilla tried to direct her eyes, but she couldn't see anything but flowers. 'I don't mind,' she called out. 'I want it to happen — I'm ready for it. It's because I drank the potion.'

Her sex was filled before she knew it — then a mouth was on her mouth, a tongue tasting hers. 'Aemilius,' she murmured. 'Did you win the fight? Did you make Little Boots go away?'

Bruised and bloody, Aemilius watched the taking of Drusilla's virginity from the other side of the garden, where he cowered. Across the lawn, beneath the chestnut trees, Drusilla writhed beneath the lover she thought was him. Little Boots had been unable to bear his friend being the one to claim her, when he himself loved Drusilla so dearly. He beat Aemilius with his fists until his friend agreed to enjoy the drugged Drusilla only when Little Boots had claimed first prize.

Once, Aemilius supposed, he would have been disgusted with himself for partaking in such degeneracy. But this was the Emperor's island. Still, he found his head turning away from the incestuous scene to watch little Julilla rocking back and forth inside a rosebush. The thorns looked very cruel, and he saw that they had torn her skin. But still he found it easier to watch the girl than her older sister. Aemilius wanted the image of Drusilla he held in his mind to be unsullied by anything Little Boots did to her.

Burrus returned to the House of the Aemilii with his arms around Nilla, wanting to protect her but knowing he had failed. Dawn came, bringing the fifth day since their daughter's birth, but Nilla's eyes, when the sun's rays fell on them, were soulless. Her spirit had gone as surely as if she'd died. She drifted somewhere at the limits of Rome, calling for her child. The Nilla in Burrus's arms was a shell, alive but not living. The aged maid let them in from the street, bolting the huge bronze doors behind them.

'Will you keep up this search?' she asked.

Burrus nodded.

'It will kill her. Look at her eyes.'

'It will kill her if we stop,' said Burrus.

'Then it will take both your lives,' said the old woman. She had soup ready on a little brazier in the entrance hall and she gave Burrus a cup. 'What would be the point of it, then? Both of you dead?'

Burrus tried to make Nilla take the cup in her hands, but when she would not grip it he held the soup to her mouth. The old woman nodded. 'How can we ever stop looking?' he said. 'She is our baby. She is out there beyond the city walls.'

'She is dead. Taken by foxes.'

'No,' Burrus moaned.

'Enslaved then. Found by a mangon.'

'Stop it,' begged Burrus. 'Stop it!'

'You think your pain is unique? You think no other parent has suffered this before?'

Tears coursed down Burrus's face as he pressed his lips to Nilla's hair. Nilla heard nothing of the old woman's words.

'I want to kill them,' Burrus wept. 'I'll kill them for what they've done.'

'No, you won't,' said the old woman softly. 'Your loss would only be the greater for it. Nilla might love you like a patrician but you are still a slave. Revenge cannot be yours. So you will live on together in this dishonoured house, just as the master and his slut will live on. You will all live your lives in here and Rome will never know the truth. If you slit them with a sword, Burrus, your Nilla will watch you torn to shreds by jackals.' She took the cup of soup from where he held it to Nilla's lips. 'Drink this yourself. If she cannot eat, then so be it. But you must keep your strength for her sake.'

Burrus drank the soup and the three remained where they were in silence. The old woman shuffled in her shrouds to locate something, then Burrus saw she held a little bronze statue in her hands. 'Take it,' she said. It was the figure of a child.

'What is this?' Burrus asked.

'I kept a little shrine for many years. The master's grandfather once allowed me it. His guilt, it was.'

'Guilt at what?'

'At taking the child I bore him and selling it to a brothel.'

Burrus stared at her. 'Your master sold your child?'

The old woman nodded. 'If it had been a boy, he might have raised him as part of the household. But not a girl. Just another costly mouth to feed.'

Burrus said nothing.

'I didn't take the loss well,' the old woman whispered. 'When beatings made no difference, the old master gave me that little statue. It's her genius, her soul. I placed it on a shrine and kept an oil lamp burning night and day.'

Nilla's eyes were fixed on the thing. Burrus pressed it into her hands.

'Make a shrine for your little one, as I did,' said the old woman. 'It will help you heal.'

'Thank you,' Burrus whispered. He led Nilla into the atrium and up the stairs while the old woman followed in silence. When Nilla's head was placed upon the pillow, Burrus tried to ease the little figure from her hands.

'Don't,' said the old woman.

Burrus let her sleep with it.

At the door the woman turned to him, preparing to retire to her pallet. 'The child needs a name for the shrine. You must name the lost girl. Have you thought of one?'

With shame, Burrus told her that he hadn't. She was just 'the child' to him.

'That's a pity,' said the old woman.

'Acte,' said Nilla.

They turned to look at the bed.

'Acte,' Nilla repeated, her eyes closed in sleep. 'Our little girl, Acte, taken from us. Our little one… Acte.'

Thus was named the girl who would one day transcribe my history.'

The Kalends of April

AD 30

Fifteen months later: the writer Phaedrus is accused of making unflattering allusions to Praetorian Prefect Sejanus in his translation of Aesop's Fables. All copies are seized