Nest of Vipers Read online

the warrior Tarsa, the besieged Thracian

  tribesmen are weakened by dissension

  I was not a witness to the following scene and, because of it, my absence proved pivotal for what happened after.

  Agrippina was so uncharacteristically calm in the face of what had been told to her that her friend feared Agrippina had misheard her. But when the friend went to repeat herself, the widow shook her head, stopping the friend’s words.

  ‘I believe it,’ Agrippina said.

  The friend fell silent, watching as Agrippina rose from her chair and went to the balcony, standing there with her back to the friend, looking out across Rome. She stayed there a long time, and the friend’s inner torment felt like knives in her chest as she waited. But she gave no sign of this when Agrippina reappeared, her face set hard.

  ‘It has come then,’ Agrippina said, ‘as I knew it would.’ The trusted friend nodded while Flamma watched from the door. Agrippina turned to the gladiator. ‘And here we are with our lessons not even finished.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m not dead yet, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Indeed you’re not, which means I am not yet ready.’

  Flamma stepped properly into the room, filling it with his vast frame. ‘You are ready for anything, Lady, and have been for many months. I’m not yet dead because I’ve been expecting you to kill me – it puts me on my guard. And I’ll be honest with you – I would like to see you win your vengeance.’

  Tears came to Agrippina’s eyes. ‘Then I must take it now – the time has come, Flamma.’

  In her corner of the room, where she listened intently, Nilla gave a look to Burrus, who nodded once in unspoken agreement. Nilla stood. Although only eleven, she was as tall as her mother. ‘That would be a mistake,’ Nilla said to her.

  Agrippina stared at her eldest daughter. Something in Nilla’s certainty stopped her from admonishing her. ‘Why, Nilla?’

  ‘What Grandfather Tiberius intends is a threat – there’s no mistaking it – but there are worse threats than this, Mother.’

  ‘Worse than wanting me dead?’

  ‘Worse than wanting you dead in this manner,’ said Nilla. ‘It is an unimaginative attempt on your life that he’s planning – it shows no courage, no boldness. He may want you dead, but not enough to ensure it.’

  The adults in the room looked at one another in some surprise, but only Agrippina kept her eyes steadily upon her daughter. Flamma spoke first. ‘The girl has learned a lot from her sword-craft,’ he said.

  Agrippina agreed. ‘So you don’t advise me to take the steps for which I have long prepared myself?’ she asked Nilla.

  ‘Your loyal men would fight for you at a moment’s notice, we know that,’ said Nilla, ‘but I think it would be a mistake to ask them to do so now. It is too soon, Mother, and if the call is made then we will be unable to reverse it.’ She took a step closer to Agrippina, reaching out to grasp her hands. ‘This threat from Tiberius is a test, yes, but not the final one. That test will come.’

  Agrippina looked at her daughter as tears of pride came to her eyes. ‘So what should I do?’

  Burrus moved forward and spoke quickly and quietly in Nilla’s ear. Then Nilla turned back to her mother and detailed their plan.

  Afterwards, when Nilla had left and Flamma had begun another sword-craft session with Burrus, Agrippina clutched her loyal friend to her heart, whispering thanks. ‘If it were not for your ears, I would be going to my death. I owe you everything.’

  Claudia hugged Agrippina in return and whispered her undying, incorruptible love. The tears she wept were real. As Claudia left Agrippina to prepare for what she had falsely told her would be Tiberius’s attempt upon her life, she felt her feet and calves ache from where the prisoners in the Tullianum had bitten her. She heard again the sobs of gratitude that had been hers when Macro had hauled her from the hole. And she heard again, too, the promise she had made to Sejanus to betray Agrippina with a lie that was as foul as it was simple.

  When Agrippina’s door closed behind her in the street, Claudia told her slaves that she would like to look at the Tiber – she always enjoyed the view from the Fabrician Bridge. When her slaves stared nervously at this request, she asked them why it was so unusual. They said nothing, and neither did Claudia as the litter carried her all the way down the Palatine, across the Forum and towards the river.

  When they reached the bridge, Claudia left her litter and stood staring out at the water from the stone barrier that ran along the bridge edge. She glanced at her slaves and saw the quick, frightened glances they gave each other. Claudia asked them what was wrong, but still they said nothing. Silently, they recalled how their domina had been in recent weeks, and recalled, too, her unexplained absence and return. She watched them as they silently acknowledged the contrast in their domina before and after these occurrences, and they looked back at her and saw the emptiness, the shocking bleakness deep in Claudia’s eyes. But they spoke of none of these things aloud, and eventually expressed surprise that their domina hadn’t heard of what had been happening here lately – that too many people had been throwing themselves into the Tiber from this very spot at the Fabrician Bridge; it was no longer a pleasant place to be.

  Claudia knew exactly what they feared and why, but she told them not to be foolish. Such a low, desperate act was a suicide worthy only of a traitor, she told them – a disgusting traitor, lower than a dog. Their tears slid down their cheeks as she lifted herself to stand high upon the bridge barrier, looking out at the rushing current, the wind catching at her gown and hair. She repeated her words to them, just to make sure they fully understood. To throw oneself into the Tiber was a suicide worthy of a dog, she said, a cowardly dog, and the worst type of traitor in Rome. And when she saw that they knew and yet still forgave her for it, she stepped off the barrier and was gone.

  Every time I glanced at her, Agrippina seemed barely to be eating. Her mouth was never full, her hands held nothing, and yet her plate, when I looked at its contents, was missing whatever the dining slaves or I had given her. At first I took note of this in my mind without turning it into a thought as such, being too occupied with my domina. But it was because of my domina that I realised what was amiss with Agrippina.

  Livia’s so-called ‘recovery’ meant that, on occasions when Tiberius requested it, she was included in his evening meals. When such calls came, Lygdus and I arranged her carefully in a high-backed chair, which was then carried into Tiberius’s vast triclinium by her throne-bearers. She stared fixedly at whoever else was dining and ate nothing, but gave the appearance of eating plenty. She couldn’t speak or move her jaw, but we heaped her plate with food and surreptitiously flicked bits to the floor while we attended her, to make it seem as if she’d somehow ingested them.

  It was while carrying out this sleight of hand for my domina that I realised Agrippina was performing the same trick. Confused, I stared at her from across the room and saw her scoop a handful of meat from her plate and drop it onto the floor beside her dining couch. My mind was so occupied with my domina that I was slow in guessing her reason. But Lygdus was not. He ducked to the floor to scrape up Livia’s wasted food as an offering to the household gods, and then pulled me down by my tunica hem.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, not comprehending.

  His eyes blinked. ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘Yes – but what’s she doing?’

  ‘Iphicles,’ said Lygdus, ‘she’s not eating anything because she fears it’s been poisoned.’

  I was so shocked that I stood up again. Agrippina’s beautiful blue eyes rested briefly on mine before turning to Tiberius. He had the couch next to hers and his arm reached over to drape across her hands. For all the world this was an unconscious gesture, but I knew it was not. If Agrippina had actually eaten any of the meal she would have had trouble keeping it in her stomach. I bobbed to the floor again, hidden by my domina’s chair.

&n
bsp; ‘He’s not going to kill her – he’s in love with her,’ I hissed into Lygdus’s pink ear.

  ‘You can see what she fears in her eyes.’

  ‘Why would she think this? She’s completely wrong.’

  Lygdus shrugged, and for several seconds more we pondered what we might not know. Suddenly I saw the opportunity that had presented itself. ‘We can take advantage of this,’ I whispered.

  Lygdus raised his eyebrows at me.

  ‘I don’t yet know how,’ I said, answering his unspoken question, ‘but I know that we must. We won’t get something like this handed to us again.’

  Lygdus looked worried.

  ‘Will we?’ I stressed.

  He reluctantly shook his head. I gave him a pointed look and we both stood up. I immediately saw what Tiberius had just discovered. He was staring at the slopped food on the floor beneath Agrippina’s couch, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Lygdus!’ I hissed. The eunuch took his cue from me and scuttled between the furniture to begin scooping up the mess, breaking Tiberius’s attention from it.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Tiberius said to Agrippina, smiling widely. Several of his teeth had fallen from his gums since the last time she’d been granted one of his grins. Beads of perspiration formed at her temple. ‘I don’t blame you at all,’ he said.

  Agrippina blanched, but her barely buried anger took control. ‘Blame me, Caesar? Blame me for what?’

  He looked a little surprised by her tone. ‘For having no appetite for this food. It’s substandard. Even my mother won’t eat it.’

  Agrippina just stared at him.

  ‘Here,’ said Tiberius. ‘Why don’t you try what I have?’ The breath audibly left Agrippina’s chest as Tiberius reached for a bowl of ember-roasted eggs from the low table in front of him. He held them out before her. ‘These are not too heavy upon the stomach,’ he said. ‘Not spicy or rich – will you have one, daughter?’

  This was my moment. I left my domina’s side, walking quickly around the other couches towards Agrippina as she stared at the bowl of eggs.

  ‘From my own chickens,’ Tiberius went on. ‘Laid especially for me and prepared only for me too. No one else is given them.’ In an action reminiscent of a shade awning being slowly lowered and then raised on a balcony, he laboriously winked. He was hideous. ‘They’re my little secret!’ he whispered.

  I saw the fear in Agrippina’s look as her hands stayed frozen at her side. As I reached the couch, I caught Lygdus’s worried eye from where he squatted in the mess. I shot out my hand and plucked an egg from the bowl that Tiberius offered. ‘Let me try one for you, Lady.’

  In the moment of bewilderment that Agrippina and Tiberius shared, I had shelled the thing and popped it in my mouth. I kept my eyes on Agrippina as I chewed the leathery treat. ‘Mmm,’ I said, my mouth full. ‘It’s delicious, Lady.’

  A wave of relief washed over Agrippina’s face. She took an egg from Tiberius and began delicately shelling it.

  But to Tiberius there seemed to be a secret drama being played out before him. ‘Why did you eat my egg, Iphicles?’

  I bowed deeply to avoid looking directly at him. ‘The Lady Agrippina’s stomach is weak,’ I said. But my voice held just the right note to suggest there was another reason.

  ‘But my eggs are mild. I told your mistress that.’

  I deliberately met Agrippina’s eye again – and let Tiberius see that I was meeting it. Her fingers paused in shelling the egg. ‘I would hate my Lady to fall ill,’ I whispered.

  ‘You can return to the Augusta now, Iphicles,’ Agrippina said quickly.

  I bowed deeply again, and as I did so I placed my hands at my stomach. Righting myself, I kept them there. Then I turned to move back to my domina’s high-backed chair. I had only moved several paces before I stopped again, as though a private thought or some other sensation had compelled me to stillness. I knew that all eyes were upon me.

  ‘Agrippina –’ Tiberius started to say.

  I fell to my knees and vomited.

  Agrippina sprang from her dining couch. ‘Iphicles!’

  Lygdus leaped up from the floor and ran to me. ‘What is it?’ He turned me over and the spewed-up egg was seen by all.

  ‘I’m unwell,’ I moaned.

  The look that Agrippina gave to Tiberius blazed with a hatred so fierce he shrank into his cushions.

  ‘What’s wrong with the slave?’ he stammered.

  ‘Could it be your “little secret”?’ she said.

  Tiberius was beyond bewilderment, and suddenly Agrippina was too. She looked into his eyes and saw not malice in them but hurt. She had wounded him. He knew nothing of what she insinuated. He was completely innocent. With a lurch of her heart she knew she had been lied to. Another pair of staring eyes made her spin around. Sejanus was at the door.

  ‘There is news, Caesar,’ he said. ‘The Lady Claudia Pulchra is dead.’

  Agrippina threw her hand to her mouth. In her grief she had been blind to the truth. Tiberius had not murdered Germanicus. His killer was the ‘son’. And now she, too, saw death rushing forward at his bidding.

  ‘Who?’ said Tiberius.

  ‘Claudia Pulchra. Her own slaves fished her out of the Tiber. It was suicide.’

  ‘Was she a traitor?’

  Sejanus looked directly at Agrippina. ‘Traitors take on many forms. To some she was a friend.’

  Agrippina snatched her shawl from an attendant and Tiberius looked at her again.

  ‘Do I know this woman?’ said Tiberius, now impatient.

  ‘Perhaps not, Caesar,’ Sejanus shrugged and turned away.

  The hurt Agrippina had seen in Tiberius’s eyes evolved into something else. Deep behind the mists of the Eastern flower burned rage. ‘Are you leaving me, daughter?’

  Agrippina stooped to where Lygdus cradled my head in his lap. Her look of deep and humble affection for me was so moving that it almost made me falter. ‘I will recover,’ I whispered. ‘I feel sure of it.’ My own part was done.

  She walked quickly from the room and was gone.

  In the excruciating silence that followed a single hand-clap rang through the room.

  ‘Mother?’ said Tiberius.

  Alarmed, I signalled to Lygdus to raise me so that I could see my domina in her chair. Her curled, dry hands were now in her lap, palm touching palm. A single clap it may have been, and not much of a clap at that, but she was applauding me for my performance.

  ‘Run. Just run.’ Agrippina dragged the terrified girls from their beds.

  ‘But what has happened?’

  ‘There is no time. Just run. As fast as you can. Your brothers are safe but you are alone. Run into the night and along the little street to Antonia’s house. Bang on her door as loudly as you can. Beg her to hide you. She will do it. She loves you.’

  ‘Please, what has happened, Mother?’ said Nilla.

  Agrippina stared into her eldest daughter’s eyes. ‘The time has come,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then I will stay and fight.’

  ‘You will protect your younger sisters.’

  ‘I will never leave you.’

  Agrippina slapped her daughter hard. ‘You will do as I say.’

  She bundled the younger girls into her arms, kissing Drusilla and Julilla desperately. ‘Flamma,’ she called.

  The gladiator ushered Burrus into the room. ‘The boy will escort them.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Then I will return,’ said Burrus.

  ‘You will not,’ Flamma said.

  Burrus saw the mark on Nilla’s cheek where she had been slapped by Agrippina.

  ‘Why let us train for this moment,’ said Burrus, angry, ‘if now we must run away like rats?’

  Flamma went to strike him but Agrippina stayed his hand. ‘This is not your moment, Burrus. It is mine – and my men’s. We are outnumbered. The guards will crush us. But we will fight with all we have. Your moment will come later – and Nill
a’s with it. It will come when you avenge us.’

  Nilla started to weep. ‘No, Mother, you will win. Your supporters will beat all those guards.’

  Agrippina smiled. ‘Perhaps I am being pessimistic.’

  ‘You are. The people will rise up when they hear the battle. They will rush to your aid.’

  The sounds of running feet echoed from the street outside. Somewhere beyond them, hobnailed boots could be heard ascending the Palatine. The Praetorians had been dispatched from the Viminal Gate.

  Agrippina kissed her oldest daughter tenderly. ‘Take them, Burrus. Now. Slip out through the sewers.’

  The slave-boy nodded and then turned to look soberly into the eyes of his mentor.

  ‘You have a killer’s skill now, boy,’ Flamma told him. ‘Use what I have taught you well.’

  Burrus saw the fatherly love Flamma had for him and knelt and kissed the gladiator’s great hands. ‘I will never forget it,’ he said. Then he swept up the girls and was gone.

  Emerging with Burrus from the sewers to flee along the back lanes, the sisters’ need was so desperate that they did not see the first daubed message on the walls. But when they passed a second, with its paint still running down the stucco, they realised that what little still remained of their childhood was over. They were women now. In a world that was cruel with men.

  The Emperor cannot be blamed for taking stern action against those who accuse him of poison.

  On Tiberius’s orders, Sejanus had sent out the graffiti slaves before he had even summoned the guards.

  Inside the house the widow and her gladiator heard the last of her supporters fall by a Praetorian’s sword. Then the ram was taken up and applied with vigour against her door. It would not hold long. The guards were singing.

  Germanicus’s sword in her hand, Agrippina pressed her lips to the wax mask of her murdered husband and held them there, remembering the touch of his flesh on her flesh, his breath like the breeze in her hair. She released herself and let go of her grief. She was done. Agrippina turned to Flamma and kissed him fully.

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  ‘I know it, Lady. I love you, too.’

  Each held their sword as they embraced.