Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'It's so cruel,' Lepida nodded, wiping her eyes. 'And after being so long imprisoned.'

'For "immorality".' Domitia shook her head with dismay. 'What a travesty when the Emperor's own immorality offends every god.'

'Ssh, Domitia,' the elder sister warned, fearful of who might be listening.

'Nilla never leaves that room,' Domitia scoffed, 'and even if she did she'd hear nothing of what we say. She's lost her mind. She's gone mad, locked away up there with that brute of a slave. It's Albucilla who should have been our poor brother's bride, not that horrid Claudian.'

'I agree,' said Lepida. 'If Albucilla and Ahenobarbus had been allowed to marry, none of this would have happened — none of it. But still,' she added in dismay, 'I believed there was something of mother's promise in it — that it would see the blessing of Veiovis. I truly believed it.'

Their brother in their thoughts again, the women returned to weeping.

'What will become of him?' cried Domitia. 'Albucilla loved him so, she truly did. She knew how to talk to him. She understood everything he tried to say. How will he ever find another woman like Albucilla?'

'He's been condemned to loneliness by this,' Lepida sobbed. 'It's just as bad as being exiled.'

They sobbed in pity for several moments more, then were startled by footsteps at the door.

'I have my uncle, Mama.' Lepida's little daughter, Messalina, led the grieving Ahenobarbus into the kitchen.

'Messalina, you're a good girl,' said Lepida, drying her eyes and getting up to kiss her child.

'He needs to eat,' said Messalina. 'I made him come.'

'What a thoughtful girl you are,' said Domitia, patting her sister's child. The women ushered Ahenobarbus to a place by the furnace, stoking the flames for him.

'He always liked it here as a boy,' Lepida whispered to her daughter. 'It comforted him when he was sad at not being able to speak. You did well to think of it.'

Messalina beamed and accepted the honeyed bread her mother passed her before a plate was given to Ahenobarbus. He took the food without eating it.

'Why have no charges been laid against my uncle?' Messalina asked, her mouth full of bread.

'Child!' Lepida cried.

'Well, it is very strange. For Albucilla to have been immoral, didn't she need my uncle to be immoral with?'

'Messalina, you wicked girl!' her mother admonished her. 'Give me back that honeyed bread — you shan't be eating a crumb while you say such things.'

'Mama!'

'Give it.'

'I'm hungry,' Messalina wailed, clutching the bread in her fist.

Lepida went to slap it from her but Ahenobarbus suddenly stood. He moved to where Messalina cowered and stooped to the girl, hugging her to his chest. There were tears in his eyes as he looked back to his sisters.

'My uncle isn't upset with me,' said Messalina, quietly.

Lepida accepted this.

'It is right to ask what she asks, Lepida,' said the younger sister. 'Albucilla has been charged and condemned but our brother has escaped it. If they wanted to destroy him, they would have. Instead he is ignored.' She looked to Ahenobarbus. 'I believe it is all intended as a message to you, brother, just like my forced union with Drusus was, and your own with Nilla.'

Ahenobarbus released Messalina from the hug. He nodded in agreement.

'A message of what?' said Lepida.

Domitia pondered it. 'It's a warning.'

'This makes no sense.'

'It makes perfect sense.' Domitia believed she now understood everything. 'Ahenobarbus is a threat. Nilla has the blood of Augustus in her veins. If our brother were an ambitious man, he could use his marriage to Nilla to attract a following around him, an entourage. He could even fight for the throne in Nilla's name.'

'But our brother would never risk such things. He's a modest man!'

Domitia agreed. 'And they know it, the Claudians. But Albucilla's ruin was a warning to our brother that they will destroy him if he chooses to forget his modesty.'

Lepida looked to their brother and saw that he, too, believed this theory to be true. 'Yet more reason to hate that little bitch,' she said.

While her mother and aunt were focused on her mute uncle, Messalina slipped away from the kitchens, munching her bread. She padded up the corridor that took her back to the grand old house's atrium. She stood for while, contemplating its gloomy corners, glad she was only a visitor and not a resident. The house spooked her. After a time, she peeked in the entrance hall.

'Hello,' I said.

Messalina jumped. 'Who are you?'

'I am only a slave.'

I had to cover a smile as the child at once grew imperious. 'What do you want here, slave?'

'Nothing from you,' I replied. 'I am here to see the mistress of the house.'

The girl curled her lip. 'You mean horrid Nilla?'

I tut-tutted. 'What a disrespectful child.'

'She brings misfortune on my family. I think she's a witch.'

'If you ever met an actual witch, you'd know at once that the Lady Nilla is not one.'

Messalina glared at me. 'Do you know who I am, slave?'

'Of course I do. You are the rarest of birds.'

The girl was taken aback. 'How — how do you know about that name?'

'I know about many things,' I replied enigmatically, enjoying how much I was maddening her. 'Have they told you what it means?'

'Of course they have.'

She was lying, which pleased me. She knew the phrase but little else. 'So, they've told you nothing of Fate?'

The child narrowed her eyes. 'They told me I must be very nice to Claudius,' she whispered.

'Yes?'

'He's so horrible and crippled,' Messalina said. 'He smells, too, and he drools.'

'Oh dear.'

'They also told me — ' But she stopped herself. 'You're a slave. I'm not telling you anything.'

'They've told you you'll marry Claudius one day, haven't they?'

Her eyes went wide at me knowing such things. 'Well, I never will! I want a handsome husband!'

'I don't blame you,' I said. She could only stare in complete confusion now. 'Why don't you come upstairs to visit the Lady Nilla with me?'

Despite herself, Messalina allowed me to take her hand.

Weakened by her endless despair, Nilla was still roused by my statement, if only for a moment. 'That's cruel, Iphicles. How can you come here to say Albucilla's fall was due to me?'

I shook my head sorrowfully, very aware of Burrus glaring at me from his place by her side.

'You know I have done nothing to her. I am innocent.'

'Of course I know it,' I said. 'But it is not how others see it. Perhaps Macro believes you could be a threat to his own ambitions.'

'Macro's ambitions? What am I to him?'

'Perhaps Albucilla's fall has been intended as a message for you. It seems hard to believe it is a message for the Aemilii, who are of no importance to anything.'

Burrus was appalled. 'Nilla is innocent of political designs, Iphicles.'

'Of course,' I said.

'You speak as if Macro expects such designs in her.'

I shrugged, watching them keenly. 'Such is the nature of Rome. Women are as much a threat to those in power as men — perhaps even more. Men fight in the open and are defeated in the open. But women scheme in the shadows, their intentions hidden until their net is cast.'

Burrus kept his eyes hard upon me, and the change in them, when it came, was exactly as I'd hoped it would be. He looked to Nilla with intensity, something I had not seen in him for a long time. 'With others holding these false expectations,' he whispered to her, 'perhaps you would be better to use them to your advantage.'

Nilla stared, incredulous.

'If they fear you already,' Burrus explained, 'perhaps you should rise to those fears. Leave this house behind and find the men who loved your father and mother. Become someone to be genuinely afraid of. What have you got to lose, Nilla?'