Nest of Vipers Page 24

  ‘Nero is the son of Germanicus too,’ he whispered to himself.‘Sometimes I think you forget that, Iphicles.’

  Tiberius’s eye was on the large silver bowl that sat on the floor in an alcove, beyond the tapestry that hung behind his ivory curule chair. And although Tiberius occupied the chair and had his back to the tapestry and the alcove and the bowl, Sejanus knew that it was still where Tiberius’s eye was aimed, if only within his churning, tortured heart. Tiberius hoped that by hiding the shameful bowl from view and filling the room with witnesses, he would be better able to resist what the bowl offered. But Sejanus knew better.

  Sejanus’s own eye was at the peephole in the heavy bronze doors, which Tiberius was yet to realise allowed a viewer to look outside the receiving room or to look in. From the other side of the doors Sejanus stared at Tiberius intently, waiting for the old man to reply to him. He knew the Emperor had heard what had been asked – Sejanus had seen the words strike Tiberius like a pebble thrown at the surface of a pond. The ripples of understanding slowly spread to the water’s edge.

  ‘Civil war?’ said Tiberius.

  ‘She has a faction, Caesar. She gathers more supporters to her side every day,’ said Sejanus from outside, through the join of the doors.

  Tiberius made to wave his hand in a gesture he intended to be dismissive, but the effort was too much for him and his hand flopped at his side.

  ‘It’s what she plans, Caesar – the streets are full of it.’

  ‘Your spies are paid to tell you these things,’ Tiberius muttered. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that this only encourages them to fabricate?’

  Sejanus felt the hurt in his heart at this but said nothing, waiting.

  Inside the room two of the youngest choirgirls began to cry softly. ‘Stop that,’ Tiberius said. The girls did.

  The petrified choirmaster attempted to speak without raising his head from the floor where he had prostrated himself before Tiberius’s curule chair. ‘Caesar?’

  ‘Stop that,’ said Tiberius again. He turned slowly around in his chair until the rich, golden tapestry filled his vision. It was beautiful.

  ‘But if the choir could just sing for you, Caesar …’ the choirmaster tried to say.

  Tiberius slapped his hand on the chair’s arm and a slave shuffled forward with an iron rod in his hands. ‘Hit him,’ said Tiberius.

  The slave struck the prostrate choirmaster twice on the legs, and the hapless man bit back his pain as the forty assembled children of the Patrician Youth Choir bit back their own cries of fear and distress.

  The room stayed in tomblike silence. Tiberius rose unsteadily from his chair and fell to his knees before the tapestry.

  ‘Civil war can be avoided, Caesar,’ Sejanus said from the other side of the door, still watching Tiberius through the peephole.

  The reminder that Sejanus was still there snapped Tiberius from the tapestry. ‘How?’

  ‘By removing the ringleaders.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘I have made a list,’ said Sejanus. He began to slip a sheet of papyrus under the door. ‘And I have detailed some other matters –’

  ‘More tall tales from spies, you mean.’ Tiberius watched the papyrus curl under the door – as did the frightened children of the Patrician Youth Choir. But he didn’t move to read it. ‘I will not have my daughter-in-law attacked, Sejanus,’ he said, as his eye returned to the tapestry. ‘Grief has made Agrippina unstable – she isn’t well. She no longer knows her own mind.’

  Another wave of hurt crushed Sejanus. ‘But she plots against you, Caesar. I have the evidence. She is a danger to you.’

  ‘She no longer knows her own mind.’

  Sejanus said nothing for a time. Then he said quietly, ‘She is innocent – a figurehead for the sedition of others.’

  Tiberius ran his hands along the rich embroidered fabric. ‘She is a widow worthy of Rome’s respect.’

  ‘You will see that I have not even listed her,’ said Sejanus. ‘You have no reason to fear for her, Caesar.’

  ‘Good. Very good …’

  Another child began to weep from the choir. The slave with the iron rod tensed himself, expecting to be called for further disciplinary measures. But Tiberius only brushed aside the tapestry from the wall.

  ‘Why don’t you sing something?’ he said over his shoulder.

  The children gaped at each other in bewilderment. From the floor in front of the curule chair the prostrate choirmaster dared to raise his head a fraction. ‘What would please you, Caesar?’

  Tiberius gazed into the alcove. ‘Something pretty …’

  The choirmaster looked to the rod-wielding slave to see if he would be beaten again, but the slave seemed as confused as he was. The choirmaster stood gingerly, his legs black with bruises. ‘Choir,’ he called to the frightened children, ‘let’s start with number fourteen.’

  The children haltingly began to sing as a tiny voice inside Tiberius willed him not to move a muscle of his hand, even though he let it hover in the air. The tiny voice then willed him not to go any further, even though his hand began to circle and descend. The tiny voice then told him he was weak and effeminate if he intended giving in to his cravings, and that if he went any further it was clear he lacked the resolve of the Fathers.

  The tiny voice was familiar – a voice Tiberius knew and loved – yet he hadn’t heard it in many long years. It was the voice of his dead brother.

  ‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ Tiberius screamed as his fingers made contact with the rim of the large silver bowl.

  The children snapped into silence.

  ‘Who told you to stop?’ Tiberius turned on them. ‘Sing!’

  The children lurched into song again as Tiberius felt the contents of the bowl with his fingertips.

  From the peephole at the door Sejanus saw everything. He was shamed by the sight – disgusted by it too. He knew that his Emperor was debasing himself. But he also knew that it was best that it happened – best for Tiberius, best for Rome. ‘Shall I summon the slave to remove your night soil, Caesar?’ he spoke through the door join.

  Tiberius shook his head. Then he placed his face inside the bowl. The taste was unexpectedly sweet; the draught of the Eastern flower had obliterated all the filth and impurities with its healing magic.

  ‘Have you read the names upon the ringleader’s list yet, Caesar?’

  The Emperor paused in lapping his excrement. ‘I will read it shortly,’ he replied, feeling much better humoured. ‘I shall read it with considerable attention.’

  Drusus’s eyes were on Sosia’s yellow stola. The feather-light fabric of it transfixed him in the last of the sun’s rays, which streamed through the windows of the dining room. The desire to reach out from where he lay on his couch and touch the lovely garment was so strong it was dangerous. It made Drusus’s heart beat like a musician’s instrument; it made the sweat gather in the pits of his arms. His practised look of calm hid the frenzy of excuse-making that raged inside his mind. If he touched it, Drusus told himself, he could claim he’d seen a bee on Sosia’s arm and that he’d sought to brush it off. Or he could say he’d seen the stola about to snag on a furniture nail. Or he could even say that he simply wanted to feel it, which was the truth – why should it be thought of as shameful? The garment was overwhelmingly beautiful. It was a pleasure to Drusus’s eyes – and it was surely an unparalleled pleasure to the skin, too. His hand left the dining cushion and floated in the air, towards his mother’s unwitting friend as she delivered her news.

  ‘Drusus,’ said his grandmother Antonia.

  His hand fell back to the dining cushion with a clap as Antonia looked sternly at him. ‘Have you been listening?’

  Drusus reddened. His grandmother knew everything – all the contemptible urges and needs that dwelled within him. She knew what he wanted; she knew what he was. She had even written a letter about it to his father, Germanicus, that he had been ordered to de
liver in person so that he would receive the consequences. But when the family came to Antioch, they found his father dead. His grief-maddened mother had opened the letter, but the words inside had not been written by his grandmother at all; they said nothing about him. When Drusus read the letter himself, it made no sense; it just contained lurid accusations. All that had mattered to Drusus was that the terrible words – ‘transvestite’, ‘perversion’, ‘obscene’ – had not been there and would never be seen. But his grandmother still knew, even though she had not sought to use it against him since.

  ‘Listening to what?’ said Drusus.

  There was an uncomfortable pause among the dinner guests. Sosia and her senator husband, Silius, were Agrippina’s guests of honour, both seated at her right. Antonia and her widowed daughter Livilla were also in attendance, along with all of Agrippina’s children except for Nero. The two youngest sisters began to giggle in their chairs, but the older girl, Nilla, watched her brother Drusus with quiet interest. Agrippina cast an indulgent look at Sosia and Silius, but Antonia’s look grew darker.

  ‘Listening to what Sosia has been telling us,’ Antonia said. ‘It is very serious, Drusus – the Emperor has worked himself up into a state about it.’

  ‘I think it’s ridiculous,’ said Agrippina. ‘What on earth does it matter?’

  Antonia’s look moved to her daughter-in-law. ‘Tiberius is not … wholly well.’

  I hovered among the serving slaves, taking all this in.

  ‘His mind is troubled,’ Antonia said – and it was all she would say.

  ‘He’s madder than ever,’ said Sosia, who had none of Antonia’s tact.

  The corpulent Senator Silius looked pained from where he sprawled on his dining couch.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ said Sosia for his benefit. ‘We’re among friends here and we can speak with honesty, can’t we? His mind is slipping, cracking, whatever you wish to call it. He’s making decisions that are deranged – he finds treasonous activities that simply aren’t there.’

  ‘He was kind when he was young – a good and decent man,’ said Antonia. ‘I’ll never forget how good he was to me when his brother, my husband, died – your great father, Livilla.’

  Curled up like a cat on her own couch, Livilla said nothing, concentrating intently on her food.

  ‘But he is not that man anymore,’ Antonia went on. ‘Yet perhaps I could still get through to Tiberius? He has no women around him, you see. His only friends are his guards. He needs a woman’s words.’

  ‘He might listen to you,’ said Agrippina, although she held little faith.

  ‘Is this about the prayers?’ asked Drusus, his mind leaving the lure of Sosia’s stola.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Antonia. ‘The priests made an unforgivable error – unforgivable.’ She turned to Livilla. ‘Don’t you have anything to say about it?’

  Livilla looked up at her mother. ‘It was all very unfortunate,’ she replied. Then she returned to sucking the flesh from a chicken wing.

  ‘But all they asked for was my wellbeing,’ said Drusus, ‘and Nero’s, too. I’m pleased to know they care.’

  Antonia was incredulous. ‘They asked for it before they asked for the Emperor’s wellbeing, Drusus. That’s the sort of protocol breach that upsets your grandfather greatly.’

  His two youngest sisters wisely ceased their giggles and an uncomfortable pause returned. Drusus caught Nilla’s eye and saw how intently she followed what was being discussed. He understood now what the problem was. ‘But he would never think that the mistake was mine, would he? Or Nero’s?’

  ‘What he thinks is unfathomable,’ said Agrippina, sipping her wine. In truth she was just as upset by what had occurred as Antonia was, but she was refusing to show it.

  ‘He’s had all the priests questioned by Sejanus,’ said Sosia. ‘All except Nero, obviously.’

  Livilla’s eyes flicked up from her chicken bone before she threw it to the floor. She held her fingers out for another and, as I was the slave nearest to hand, I offered the serving tray to her. She took a fresh wing from me as if I didn’t exist.

  ‘What did the priests tell him?’ asked Antonia.

  ‘That it was all an accident, an oversight,’ said Silius from his couch. He was a large man, unattractive in his dining tunica, and his dignity was always diminished whenever he wore anything other than his toga. Resuming her seat next to him, Sosia placed her hand upon his. ‘But still it’s put Tiberius into one of his fogs,’ said Silius.

  Drusus vaguely wished his older brother were there, so that he could share the burden of this unpleasantness. But Nero had taken to avoiding evening meals with his family.

  I took a small jug of liguamen from one of the other serving slaves and dribbled the pungent fish sauce over Little Boots’s food, using the opportunity to catch his eye. He had been silent throughout the entire meal, which was nothing new, but he had been steadily avoiding me since the incident with Lygdus at the baths. I presumed he was still guilt-ridden, and not for the first time I attempted to mend things between us. But the look he gave me as I poured the sauce was chilling. This caught Antonia’s attention.

  ‘At least Little Boots was spared this unpleasant incident,’ she said. Her favouritism for her youngest grandson was never far from the surface, and Little Boots always knew how to exploit it.

  ‘They spared me their prayers, Grandmother, but they didn’t spare me an insult,’ he piped up.

  ‘Little Boots – what a thing to say!’ Agrippina admonished him.

  ‘Why did my welfare count for nothing with the priests, then? And Nero and Drusus’s welfare counted for everything?’

  Drusus groaned at his brother’s predictable sulking. ‘Because you still piss the cot?’ he suggested.

  Little Boots threw a finger bowl at him.

  ‘Ow!’

  Agrippina was suddenly on her feet and Little Boots shrieked as he found his earlobe pinched between her sharp fingernails. ‘Mother – let go!’

  She looked to me. ‘Iphicles, will you conduct Little Boots into the atrium and instruct him on how to conduct himself at the evening meal?’

  The two youngest girls shrieked with mirth again but ceased when Agrippina turned her glare upon them.

  I bowed. ‘Yes, domina.’

  Agrippina released her youngest son and Little Boots shot off from his place on his grandmother’s couch and ran from the room. ‘He may be twelve, but he is not too old for the rod,’ Agrippina said to me.

  I bowed again, deeper this time, and followed the boy. I found him in the atrium with a murderous look to his face. ‘Are you really so idiotic, domine?’ I reproached him.

  He was enraged by my choice of words and went to strike me.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said. ‘Just stop it.’ I grabbed his wrists so that he couldn’t lay a blow on me, but he was surprisingly strong for his age and we grappled a moment longer before he gave in. I released him again. ‘There.’

  ‘The priests insulted me,’ he pouted.

  ‘Who cares if they did?’

  ‘You should care!’

  ‘I’m thrilled they ignored you, and do you know why? To be ignored is to be safe from Sejanus – and from Tiberius, too. Look at the trouble Nero and Drusus have gained for themselves. To be overlooked is to see our destiny come to pass.’

  He looked at me levelly. ‘Our destiny? Are you the second king too?’

  As ever with him, I knew when to upbraid and when to assuage. ‘Of course not, Caesar,’ I said, knowing that he would love me calling him that. ‘My role is only to serve.’ I gave my deepest bow, knowing also how well he enjoyed physical displays of devotion. But when I righted myself, I saw that his expression was unchanged.

  ‘I’m surprised you notice me at all.’

  ‘Domine?’ I said.

  ‘You have no time for me at all nowadays.’

  ‘I labour tirelessly for you.’

  ‘I wonder.’


  ‘Domine, please, stop all this and come back to the dining room.’

  ‘You say you work tirelessly for me, Iphicles, but how do I know? You tell me nothing of what you actually do.’

  I hissed into his ear, mortified that someone might overhear him. ‘If you knew, you would be endangered by it. To keep you ignorant is to keep you safe.’

  ‘You promised me that I’d be helping.’

  ‘You are helping,’ I claimed.

  The murderous look returned to his face. ‘Don’t treat me like a child, Iphicles, or you’ll regret it.’

  I took an involuntary step back from him and he instantly liked the effect his words had on me. At least he was smiling now, so I tried again, phrasing with extreme care. ‘When the next plan is in place, domine, I will tell you all about it and then you can participate in it with me.’

  ‘With you and fat Lygdus?’

  ‘Your jealousy is so insulting –’ I began.

  He kicked me viciously in the shin. ‘So I’m jealous of a fat eunuch slave? Jealous of a turd without any balls? You insult me, Iphicles – you offend me like the filthy slave you really are. And you haven’t got any balls either, have you?’

  ‘Little Boots!’

  We span around. The entire family had entered the atrium. Sosia and Silius were about to go home. A fierce, loaded look passed between Little Boots and me before he responded sullenly to his mother. ‘What?’

  A violent pounding on the front door of Agrippina’s house shocked us all from the exchange.

  ‘Open in the name of the Emperor!’

  Agrippina and Antonia blanched. Had the accident with the priests’ prayers led to Drusus being marked for arrest?

  ‘Not my son …’ Agrippina murmured.

  ‘This is madness – I’ll talk to them,’ Antonia said quickly.

  Agrippina rushed to Drusus and clutched him to her. He gave a terrified whimper as he realised what was happening. ‘Am I being arrested?’

  The pounding came again. ‘Open up – this is Tribune Naevius Sutorius Macro of the Praetorian Guard!’