Nest of Vipers Page 11

  Nilla just shrugged. ‘If Burrus is mine, then it means I can treat him as I like. So I choose not to treat him as a slave.’

  I scoffed. ‘What are you then, Burrus?’

  ‘I am Nilla’s friend,’ he said. And for a moment I felt an emotion catch in my throat at his simple, innocent dignity. In his love for Nilla he was just like me in my lifetime of love for my domina. But in Burrus’s passionate desire to be free he was nothing like me at all. This dream of his was something I had never had and could never hope to understand.

  I felt the wall beneath my fingers give way minutely as I pressed against it. When I leaned away, the section clicked softly into alignment once more.

  ‘In here, Lady!’ I called to Agrippina. ‘The man is in here.’

  All three of us heard the muffled sobs again and knew I was right.

  Agrippina and her dozen men returned from where they had been pillaging the mangon’s goods, and I stood aside with Nilla and Burrus as the hidden door was battered in with axes. It soon fell into pieces, revealing a windowless anteroom where the bejewelled mangon cowered and wept on a bed. The giant German warrior we had seen at the slave auction stood impassively by the anteroom wall. I caught Nilla creasing her brow at the sight of him.

  Agrippina saw him too and remembered. ‘Kill the barbarian first,’ she said.

  Two of her loyal men threw themselves into the room with their swords raised but didn’t get two feet closer before the warrior disarmed them with his bare hands. The men were left winded in dismay. The warrior produced a sword of his own and tossed it onto the floor, along with those taken from the men. His eyes flicked to Nilla and there was kindness in them before he turned to Agrippina. ‘Kill me, then,’ he said, in clear, unaccented Latin. ‘But not in the room of this pig. I would rather die in the street where I can breathe the air and see the moon. I know why you’re here. Your vengeance is well deserved, in my view.’

  Agrippina stared at him in astonishment – as did the mangon. ‘Defend me!’ the mangon ordered. But the giant man just crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for whatever would happen next. The two disarmed men sprang forward again and pinned the mangon to the bed by his shoulders, followed by another two, who held his legs. Then the remaining men filled the room to restrain the golden-haired warrior. He made no struggle. All waited for Agrippina’s word.

  It took her a long moment to pull her eyes from the warrior’s features. He was battle-worn and coarse, and yet he had a powerful beauty. He had been an Adonis in his youth, it was clear, but maturity had toughened him, turning his body into an instrument of death. She pulled her gaze away. ‘See, Nilla,’ she whispered, wanting her daughter to feast upon the scene of the mangon’s humiliation. ‘This will be justice done.’

  Nilla was pale, but she held steady in the face of all the violence she had seen so far. Burrus stood resolute by her side. ‘Yes, Mother. Justice.’

  Agrippina cast a determined look to me but I glanced at the floor. Her unstable thirst for vengeance had led her back to the slave market, but I knew it would give her no release, no matter how brutal her retributions. Agrippina’s hatred of the mangon was nothing compared with the depth of her loathing for Tiberius. All this made me extremely uncomfortable, given the extent to which I myself was responsible for Agrippina’s grief. But she was ignorant of that, of course, and I was determined she would remain that way. I had prophecy on my side and I drew comfort from the certainty it gave me while I played my games, hiding my true feelings from the world like any accomplished slave – or god.

  One of the men handed Agrippina a short, thick, legionary’s sword and she felt the weight of it, surprised by its lightness. The mangon’s eyes widened and he scrabbled on his back in the bed like an upended beetle. The men pinned him down harder.

  ‘You enslaved my daughter – how can I not make you suffer?’ she said.

  ‘But I didn’t know who she was –’ ‘No excuse.’

  ‘How could I have known? She never told me!’

  ‘Such a beautiful patrician girl? A great-granddaughter of the Divine Augustus? You knew.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything!’

  Agrippina wielded the sword inexpertly, dragging the tip along the mangon’s tunic and splitting the fabric that stretched across his fat, round gut. A red line streaked his flesh. ‘Please,’ he screamed, ‘I’ll do anything!’

  She flicked the sword at his foot and was startled by how easily it took off a toe. The nub of flesh and bone bounced across the floor as the mangon howled with pain.

  Nilla kept her eyes on the scene although it disgusted her. The golden-haired warrior showed no reaction. But when Nilla met his eyes again, he smiled at her. There was apology in his face, but also acceptance of whatever Fate would bring.

  Suddenly Nilla turned to her mother. ‘Please do not kill Flamma.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This barbarian. His name is Flamma.’

  Agrippina flicked the sword at another toe.

  ‘Please, Mother. No more killing tonight, once the mangon is done.’

  Agrippina gave her daughter a look that was unfocused and lost. I saw the terrible despair in her face, the tormenting grief, and I wished to the gods that I could deliver her from it somehow – without exposing my guilt. For all that I had done, I meant Agrippina no personal ill will. But when she turned to look at the giant again, she was shocked to find pity in his eyes. Angry, she jabbed the sword near his face. ‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for me, barbarian.’

  Flamma didn’t flinch or take his eyes from her.

  ‘Mother,’ said Nilla gently, ‘we would do well to have Flamma as our own slave. He is very strong and brave – but also kind.’

  ‘He kidnapped you, Nilla – there was nothing kind in that. He is a barbarian.’

  ‘My grandfather was a barbarian,’ said Flamma, ‘but not I, Lady. I am neither a warrior nor a German. I lived my life as a gladiator before this cur purchased me. I kidnapped the children as I was ordered, but it stuck in my heart to do so. It was wrong. It was always obvious to me that the girl was highborn.’

  ‘Shut up!’ screamed his pinned master.

  Agrippina was again transfixed by Flamma. ‘You look too old to be a gladiator,’ she said.

  ‘I am thirty years,’ he agreed, ‘but I was the best gladiator in Antioch in my prime.’

  Agrippina faltered at the reminder of the place where her husband had died.

  ‘I fought before the great Germanicus once.’

  ‘Mother,’ said Nilla, as Agrippina’s eyes began to mist.

  ‘It was the highest honour I have known,’ Flamma went on, speaking softly to Agrippina, ‘fighting before that great and noble man – and achieving victory before him too. I was the last man standing that day and Germanicus threw me a wreath. My life is worthless now, but if I could dedicate whatever I have left to something, it would be to avenging his memory.’

  Agrippina blinked back her tears, raking Flamma’s face for the smallest hint of cynicism or flattery, or the stink of claims made in haste by a frightened, cornered man. But Flamma showed none of these things. He was courageous and sincere. She turned to Nilla. ‘Will justice still be done if we spare this man? Is that what you want?’

  The girl nodded. ‘Flamma will be loyal to us if he is made ours, I know it.’

  The sword slipped from Agrippina’s fingers, clattering to the wooden floor. ‘We will take this man then,’ she said to the room. ‘The mangon can keep his pathetic life – if not his toes. Cut the rest of them off.’

  The men began their work on the shrieking slave-seller while Agrippina pulled her palla tightly around her shoulders and led Nilla from the room. Flamma’s deep blue eyes watched after her, revealing nothing. Agrippina stopped at the door and turned around to look at him one last time. The men paused in slicing up the mangon’s feet.

  ‘The greatest gladiator in Antioch, are you?’

  Flamma bowed slightly. ‘
I claimed that title in my prime, Lady.’

  ‘Well, you’re in Rome now, gladiator. Perhaps your prime will return?’ She looked to the leader of her men. ‘Put this Flamma out to fight. There will be arena combats for the Ludi Romani next year. Let’s have him prepared for them so that we can see whether thirty years is the maximum age a gladiator can attain in Rome – or whether the very best from Antioch can live to see thirty-one.’

  She ushered Nilla from the room, refusing to meet the gladiator’s gaze again.

  The guards announced their presence at the great bronze door, beating on it twice with a sword hilt and then waiting in silence. Seated in her upstairs receiving room, with her four children arranged around her like the statues of household gods, Aemilia heard the noise and closed her eyes. ‘They are prompt,’ she said. She took a last sip of the Falernian wine she cradled, savouring its fine taste. ‘Exquisite,’ she said, after a moment.

  The children wore their mourning clothes already, their faces streaked with grief. Aemilia’s two sons, the young Aemilius and the red-haired mute, Ahenobarbus, just seven and fifteen respectively, wore the unbleached funeral togae of men. Lepida and Domitia, fifteen and thirteen, were mirrors of their mother’s great beauty, despite their undressed hair and grey stolae. Three of the four heirs of the Aemilii looked at their mother with a depth of love that went beyond any words. The fourth heir, Ahenobarbus, was unable to look at anything but the flame of the oil lamp.

  Aemilia stood, placing the cup on her table and reaching for a goblet of water. She drank deep, carefully wetting her lips with it, before putting it aside. ‘I am ready now,’ she said.

  The children assembled in a line.

  Smoothing her simple white gown at her lap, she lifted the edge of the silk shawl she wore at her shoulders so that it rested on her hair.

  ‘You look beautiful, Mama,’ said Aemilius.

  Aemilia placed her lips to his and then kissed his hands. The boy pressed his palms to his face when she released him, holding them there with his eyes closed. Aemilia moved to the mute Ahenobarbus, kissing him in the same way.

  ‘You are simple, you cannot speak, and these are things that won’t be fixed, my son. But still Veiovis has marked you – remember that.’ Ahenobarbus kept his pale blue eyes fixed on the lamp flame.

  Aemilia embraced her girls.

  ‘Remember everything I have told you,’ she whispered to

  Lepida. She turned to them all. ‘Always look for the path. Veiovis will offer it, but it is up to you to see what he offers and recognise it for what it is. The chance for power will come for each one of you – it is promised. The Aemilii will be great again. The hopes of our ancestors rest in your hands.’

  All the children except Ahenobarbus nodded, their eyes shining.

  She laid her hands at her belly as if something kicked inside her, and then placed them at her breast.

  ‘Are you ready, Mama?’ said Aemilius.

  She nodded. ‘Very much. Let us descend.’

  Aemilia led the small procession of her family from her receiving room into the airy passage outside. She looked past the balustrade and down to the beautiful garden for the last time. Some of the potted trees still held their red and golden leaves from autumn. ‘You’ll tend my garden for me, won’t you?’ she asked of no child in particular.

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Domitia whispered.

  Aemilia touched her youngest daughter’s cheek. ‘The pleasures it brings are very simple ones, you’ll find, but the escape it can bring you from all of Rome’s woes, well …’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘Wait, Mother, let me pick something from the garden for you to carry,’ Domitia said.

  ‘We don’t have time for it, child – the guards will grow impatient of me.’

  ‘I can do it, please – the flowers will add to your beauty.’

  Aemilia smiled, pressing her hands to her belly again.

  Domitia ran down the passage towards the stairs. The assembled household slaves in the atrium below looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes as she came towards them, two steps at a time. ‘Scissors! Or a sharp knife!’

  A kitchen slave had a knife at his belt. ‘Here, domina.’

  Domitia took it from him and ran through her dead father’s study and into the courtyard garden beyond. The first of the winter bulbs were in flower, sweet-smelling narcissi, and Domitia slashed the knife at their stalks. She looked to the floor above and saw her mother’s pale face smiling down at her. Aemilius had his hand at her forehead, wiping her brow. ‘See, Mother, look,’ Domitia called, gathering a small bunch. Aemilia’s hands were at her belly again.

  Domitia left the knife and ran back through her dead father’s study and into the great atrium. The red-eyed slaves parted like the winter flowers she had harvested as Domitia flew towards the stairs. Her mother waited at the top, smiling with love. Domitia held the little yellow bunch before her as she ascended, panting and out of breath. ‘Look, they’re so lovely, Mother.’

  Aemilia leaned forward, almost touching the flowers with her fingertips. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, inhaling the rich scent. Then the light of love went out in her eyes.

  ‘Mother?’

  Aemilia fell, crashing hard on the stairs. Her body tumbled past as Domitia screamed, still clutching the flowers in her fist. The revered matron of the Aemilii came to rest in the arms of her household slaves, who caught her before she struck the atrium floor. The sweet perfume of the narcissi was the last thing Aemilia had known before the poisoned Falernian wine had spared her from the Tarpeian Rock.

  Aemilius opened the great bronze door to the waiting Praetorians. ‘My mother’s life is not the Emperor’s to take,’ he told them with dignity. ‘She wishes the Emperor to know that she has claimed that great privilege herself.’

  The Praetorian Tribune nodded, neither surprised nor outraged. ‘Any last words?’

  Aemilius didn’t hesitate, handing the Praetorian Domitia’s little bunch of flowers. ‘She praised her winter bulbs,’ the boy said. ‘And she asked that you place these in a vase of water for the Emperor’s pleasure.’

  Returning from the broken mangon’s house, I was late in performing my nightly services for Livia. Unwrapping the silk from the phallus, I placed the fertility tool under the bedclothes while I moved away to tidy my domina’s feeding implements. I kept her nourished via hollow reeds, which I filled with soup and slid down her throat. I was rinsing these in a pail of water when I had the sensation of being watched.

  ‘Little Boots, get back to your bed at once,’ I called out.

  There was no reply. I turned around to see where he was but there was nothing, only my domina in her endless slumber.

  ‘Go – now,’ I hissed into the shadows of the oil-lit room.

  There was no answering sound. The boy wasn’t there. I turned back to where I’d been dipping the reeds in the pail and felt the eyes again.

  The faintest voice whispered in the lamplight. ‘So long asleep …’

  I spun around. There was still no one but my domina, the phallus a lump under the linen.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I cried out. I began to fear it was a vengeful spirit from the dead. ‘Who are you? Is it Tiberius Nero? Marcellus?’

  The shades did not reply.

  Uneasy, I returned to my task. But as I took the reed from the pail and let the water drip free, another chill gripped me. I knew there was no one else in the room, and yet the certainty that I was not alone was terrible. I forced myself to remain where I was and not turn around a third time, so that the ghost couldn’t enter my soul through my eyes. I kept my fearful gaze fixed upon the pail of water.

  ‘What do you want?’ I murmured. ‘Please, tell me how I can make amends for what I’ve done to you.’

  There was not another sound in the room – not a sound in all of Oxheads, it seemed to me. It took a great toll on my courage, but I compelled myself to turn around once more and face the spectre. But the room was unchanged.
My domina was still lost in sleep on her bed.

  As I stepped forward to reassure myself that my mind was playing tricks, my foot connected with an object and sent it spinning across the tiles. It was the phallus I had hidden under the bedclothes. How had it fallen from the bed without me hearing it?

  I stooped to retrieve the wooden implement from the floor, and as I raised myself I glanced at my domina’s eyes.

  They were wide open.

  Matronalia

  March, AD 21

  Four months later: the Numidian rebel

  leader Tacfarinas sends diplomats

  threatening perpetual war upon Rome if

  he is not paid off with land

  There are only two days in the calendar when Roman slaves are not required to work. The better-known is Saturnalia, which falls in the middle of winter, when household roles are reversed and nervous slaves are ‘waited upon’ by their masters for an evening meal. It’s a sham, of course. If any slave dared cook and serve the sort of slops our masters hurl at us on that day, we’d meet agonising deaths with the carnifex. Yet we all giggle and joke, pretending we’re living like princes while our ‘servants’ get steadily drunk before giving up the game and retiring to bed. We ‘masters’ are then expected to clean up the mess. No pity is given to any slave who may have taken the frivolity a step too far, putting on airs and forgetting his place. Many an idiot has woken up the following day to a savage whipping from his dominus as the natural order of the household is returned.

  The other day off for slaves is Matronalia, Juno’s festival of motherhood, when women wear their hair long and loose and are forbidden to tie belts around their gowns. On this day mothers receive presents from their husbands and daughters, and each household mistress prepares a ‘special’ evening meal for her slaves. Like Saturnalia, it’s a sham too, but when your life is one of servitude and drudgery interspersed with occasional cruelty, any day that takes you out of the humdrum is still to be cherished. But in the year the rebel Tacfarinas sent his stinking envoys to Rome, I lived in growing terror as Matronalia approached.