Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

Terminalia

February, AD 37

Twenty months later: a fire devastates the Aventine Hill and adjacent parts of the Circus Maximus

Antonia prayed fervently at the makeshift shrine. 'Restore his health, Asclepius, I beg you. Keep him from death. Keep him from death.'

Drusilla and Julilla went through the motions, repeating their grandmother's words to please her. 'Restore his health, Asclepius. Keep him from death. Keep him from death.'

Antonia turned to them. 'He ignores us. The god of medicine gives us nothing, girls.' She began to cry.

'No, no,' said Drusilla, shuffling awkwardly on her knees towards her. She signalled Julilla to find a handkerchief. 'We cannot read the god's mind, Grandmother. Asclepius will listen to our prayers. Have faith.'

'He won't. He ignores us,' said Antonia, bitterly. Julilla passed her a grubby rag. 'And it is the Emperor's own fault. His years of depravity have led him to this. Asclepius knows it's deserved.'

The sisters looked at each other. 'Perhaps if we sacrifice again?' Julilla suggested, uncomfortable with her grandmother's tears.

Drusilla seized on this. 'Yes, another bull, a pure white one. We'll get the ship to bring it from Rome.'

Antonia looked up sharply. 'No one in Rome must know of the Emperor's illness.'

'But isn't it right they should know?' said Drusilla. 'Perhaps this is why the god doesn't hear? Not enough prayers are being said for our grandfather.'

Antonia was adamant. 'No one. The secret stays here.'

The sisters made to leave the shrine room. 'I shall get another piglet from the pens, then,' Drusilla said. 'We can sacrifice that to Asclepius. It cannot hurt.'

Antonia waved them away, returning to her prayers.

Outside, Drusilla gave her own thoughts on why Rome was forbidden to know. 'Everyone hates him,' she whispered. 'Our grandmother fears people would pray for his death, not his recovery.'

Julilla had a wicked look in her eye. 'That's what I've been praying for!'

'Julilla!' said Drusilla, mortified. Then she took on a look to match her sister's. 'Me too.' Giggling, they went off in search of a piglet, intending to take their time about it. But Drusilla couldn't help a vague apprehension as she went. If their grandfather died, she wondered, wouldn't the Eastern flower die with him? How would she obtain it by other means?

Inside the shrine room Antonia abandoned formal prayers to appeal personally to the god. 'I saved Rome from the threat of those who coveted the throne, Asclepius,' she whispered, 'and now it is threatened again. Please, god, save Tiberius for Rome. He has not named his heir. We will descend into civil war and anarchy again, just as Augustus always said we would without a succession in place.'

The scented oil lamps burned around the god's image. 'I feel so helpless and alone,' Antonia wept. 'Send me a friend to guide me in what to do — send someone whose wisdom in these matters is far greater than my own.'

She heard footsteps at the door and presumed the sisters had returned. She tried to pull herself together. 'The pig cannot help us, girls. I am sorry,' she said. 'Take the poor thing back to the pens.'

'Asclepius is such a fickle god,' said Livia from the door, 'but over the years I've found he has a soft spot for me.'

Antonia's tears vanished in her astonishment. 'Oh, my dear friend!' She rushed to embrace her. 'My prayers have been answered.'

'It was well time I made a visit to Capri,' said Livia.

Antonia's eyes opened over Livia's shoulder and settled briefly on me.

'But what are you praying for?' asked Livia. 'Has something happened?'

'Oh, Livia, my friend, the most terrible thing,' said Antonia, the tears returning again.

As though she were innocent in the extreme, Livia settled down to be informed of Tiberius's grave ill health, giving a masterful performance of a mother's breaking heart.

Shivering in his bed, Tiberius relived the only moment from his long life that Postverta, that capricious goddess of the past, would grant him. No other memories were permitted. It was this, the goddess told him, and this moment alone.

All around him were flames. The long dry grasses, the olive trees, the Grecian villa — all were on fire, and Tiberius, his mother and his father fled in an ox-drawn carruca from the blaze. Cinders from the villa's roof landed on the loaded carriage and it burned too, becoming a roaring siege tower. Baby Tiberius screamed in his mother's arms.

'Throw me little Tiberius!' the slave-girl Hebe shouted from the ground. 'I can save him!'

Seeing no other rescue, his mother pitched him from the carruca high into the smoke. Hebe snatched him from the sky just as his mother threw herself from the carriage.

'Tiberius Nero!' his mother cried blindly, desperately scanning the inferno for his father. There was no sign. She ran through the blaze, the little slave-girl beside her and Tiberius clutched tight in her arms. They reached a little brook and she saw that his flesh was steaming. His mother plunged him into the water. 'This is not how you end, my son,' she vowed. 'I won't let it be like this.'

The baby Tiberius gasped with shock, springing from his death sleep. His mother sang with relief. He looked into her eyes and saw an extraordinary sight. She was smiling at him with love while her hair was alive with flames.

The past became the present. Tiberius opened his eyes to see an identical image: Livia smiling above him, her hair ablaze like the sun.

'You saved me, Mother,' he whispered.

'I did,' said Livia. 'And now you must save Rome.'

'Save Rome? Is it in peril?'

Livia nodded, slipping a pen into his hand. 'Rome needs you, my son.'

'How?' Tiberius rasped. 'What must I do?'

My domina guided his wrist towards a sheet of papyrus. 'You must name your successor.'

The words the papyrus contained were a blur to Tiberius. 'Castor?' he asked. 'Has my son come back to me again?'

Livia shook her head.

'It is Nero, then? Or is it Drusus, Mother?'

Livia looked away wistfully.

'Who, then?' croaked Tiberius. 'Tell me whose name it should be..'

She bent to where he lay and kissed his cheek. Then she whispered the name in his ear. Tiberius stared at her and Livia nodded reassuringly, giving him the strength to scrawl the unlikely name upon the papyrus sheet. As she helped him press his seal into the warm wax, his ring slipped from his finger to the floor. She let it stay there. Tiberius tried to cover his eyes against the glow of her flames. 'It burns,' he whispered. 'It's burning, Mother.'

'Here, son,' she said, soothingly. She handed him a cushion from his bed. 'Place this across your eyes to shade them.'

Tiberius covered his face with the cushion. 'Thank you, Mother.'

As my domina crept from Tiberius's room, she saw her great-grandson hovering in the shadows.

'Ah, Little Boots,' she murmured. 'The Emperor has called for you. There is something he wishes to tell you.'

Little Boots was fearful. 'What is it?'

Livia slipped away into the gloom without answering him.

He stood outside the sleeping chamber for a long time. No sound came from within. Steeling himself, Little Boots pushed open the door. The air that emerged was foul with sickness, and Little Boots gagged. In the shadows cast by a single oil lamp, he could see no sign of his grandfather. The bed appeared empty.

Little Boots's bare foot stepped on something sharp. He looked down to see the glint of the Imperial ring. Amazed, Little Boots stooped to pick it up. Then the magnitude of what it was struck him. This seal held life and death. A man could be saved by its imprint, or condemned. The Divine Augustus had worn the ring, and before him the Divine Julius Caesar. The ring conferred the powers of a god.