Nest of Vipers Read online

  Sejanus opened his eyelids only once he had imagined the phantom leaving the hall. In his mind’s eye he saw his enemy’s retreating wedding tunica, still stained by grapes and fruit. Then his thoughts wandered to the things that Castor didn’t see, and didn’t know, and would never know until it was all too late.

  These were a comfort to him, even if nothing else was.

  Apicata could tell who it was at the other end of the corridor by perfume alone. Livilla reeked like a whore’s funeral, drenched in more gladiolus oil than anyone else at Oxheads. Apicata paused in her progress for a moment and waited, assuming a respectful expression. When Livilla drew near, headed in the opposite direction, Apicata made a little show of waiting for her to say something. But Livilla said nothing, as Apicata well knew she would, so she stepped into her path.

  ‘Lady Livilla, didn’t you see me here in the dark?’ Apicata said. She could feel the look of contempt on the patrician woman’s face – not that she cared.

  ‘I saw you clearly enough,’ said Livilla.

  ‘Do you look well tonight? I would be so pleased to know.’

  There was an odour to Livilla that lay somewhere beneath the cloy gladiolus. A raw, salty smell. Fetid. Apicata’s nose wrinkled as she tried to determine it.

  ‘I look very well indeed,’ said Livilla. ‘My husband tells me I am glowing like the sun.’

  ‘Does he? How nice for you,’ said Apicata, smiling. She decided that this was where their discourse should end and she made to move on.

  But she had unleashed something within Livilla. ‘Don’t you want to know why?’

  With such an invitation Apicata wasn’t sure how she could resist. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘I am with child.’

  Apicata was taken aback. ‘What a wonderful thing,’ she said, ‘and after so many barren years since the birth of Tiberia. Your husband must have given up hope of ever getting a son.’

  Livilla remained silent, but Apicata knew she was sneering. The buried stink of her grew, as if Livilla’s heartbeat was racing. The smell was sour in Apicata’s nostrils. ‘How many months have passed?’ she asked.

  ‘Nearly eight,’ said Livilla.

  Apicata failed to stop the look of shock that took her.

  ‘I’m quite advanced,’ said Livilla, with pleasure in her voice at Apicata’s expression. ‘The augur promises me that the skies indicate a boy.’

  It was Apicata’s turn for silence. If Livilla was so visibly with child, then why had no one told her of it before now? Why had her own husband, Sejanus, not bothered to report it?

  ‘Do you wish to feel my son?’ Livilla whispered into Apicata’s darkness. Before Apicata could decline, Livilla snatched at her hand and placed it on her full, taut belly. ‘The augur is right, isn’t he? You can tell I’m carrying a boy.’

  Apicata smelled the fecund stink of sex. Livilla was moist in her loins – an obscenity in a woman carrying child. The foul, rank odour of Livilla squeezed Apicata by the throat. She murmured the words of a curse in her mind. This child would never see adulthood and its father would fall, taking the bitch Livilla with him, she vowed. Apicata used this inner malice as a shield, a source of quiet strength. ‘I believe you are right,’ she said at last. ‘It is the feel of a boy. I wish an easy birth for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Livilla.

  Apicata removed her hand, nodded and smiled, then made to continue her passage down the corridor. Livilla said nothing more. After several steps Apicata sensed that Livilla hadn’t moved from where they had stood together – she could hear no movement in the opposite direction. Apicata continued a little further before she stopped again. She could hear nothing at all of Livilla behind her. Apicata slowly turned around. She knew that Livilla must still be standing there – and she knew that Livilla would be looking right at her.

  ‘You think you’re untouchable?’ Apicata whispered low under her breath.

  ‘I don’t think it – I know it,’ Livilla said.

  Apicata gasped at the patrician woman’s blind arrogance. Then she laughed. ‘Only my husband, Sejanus, is untouchable,’ she whispered, ‘because only my husband strives to rid Rome of traitors. Only my husband has dedicated his life to this task in his undying love for the Emperor. And only my husband can say that the hands of vile ambition can never, ever bring him down.’ She waited for any sound at all to come from Livilla’s direction.

  ‘I don’t doubt your words,’ Livilla said.

  Apicata remained where she was for what seemed like an eternity. Then, when Livilla’s retreating footsteps told her the conversation was done, Apicata used her nose to return to the place where Livilla had stood. She dropped and held her face an inch from the floor. The juice of Livilla’s sex had run down her legs, falling to the floor like raindrops.

  ‘She is a slut,’ Apicata whispered to herself, ‘the lowest and filthiest of sluts. She’s on heat like a she-wolf while she carries an innocent in her belly.’

  Apicata stayed where she was for some minutes, crouched low and inhaling, willing her hatred to empower her.

  Livilla felt in darkness for the crack in the wall and found it – then gently pushed forward. At once the sounds and scents of the Emperor’s night-time garden caressed her as the hidden door invited her outside. The air was warm and tinged with honey, but she was not there to admire the flowers. The garden was her thoroughfare, the secret path she took to her secret devotions. Livilla intended worshipping her god tonight.

  She felt the thrill of anticipation and the longing for pleasure. Her god would need his comforts, she told herself. His spirits had been brought very low, and she, his most loyal acolyte, would be assiduous in her ministrations. The libations she would make would heal her god, replenish and inspire.

  Livilla entered the little grotto that lay behind the secret door, throwing a backward glance into the corridor as she went to pull the door closed behind her. She thought she heard a footfall and listened. But there was nothing. The scented breeze lured her into the garden.

  Her shoes in her hand, she tripped lightly along the path, which led to a gate opening onto the street. Her god’s attendants were already waiting patiently as Livilla’s thighs rubbed together, slick and pungent. She had been suffering in an unbearable state of arousal all day, all through the wedding and the calamity that followed. Her senses had been addled by it. She had spoken like an automaton to Claudius and Sejanus of her sorrow at what had happened, but her emotion had been false. All she could think about was her god and the pleasures she would gift to him. She brushed her sex with her fingers, as if by accident. Her bead was hard and full.

  The attendants nodded a greeting to Livilla while they held the heavy gate open just enough for her to glide through to the litter. She thought she heard another footfall and a shiver shot along her spine. She threw a glance behind her but the only noise to be heard was from the velvet wings of a bat.

  ‘There is no one there, Lady,’ one of the attendants whispered, knowing what she feared.

  She smiled at him, thankful, but she had a recollection of a moment like this before, when she had passed through the same gate and looked over her shoulder to see the face of her little daughter, Tiberia, staring back. The girl had vanished like a ghost on that occasion and Livilla had later wondered what she had really seen. Had it been her own guilt?

  She dismissed all notions of shame and remorse from her mind. Why should there be guilt in worshipping a god?

  ‘Hurry, Lady,’ the slave whispered.

  Livilla stepped forward and the gate clicked closed behind her. The garden was gone. She reclined upon the litter cushions and felt the hard, swollen bead in her sex again as the curtains were drawn around her, protecting her from Rome. Still she sensed the eyes that remained hidden behind the wall – eyes that knew her and knew her secrets. Knew what she really was.

  She had been seen – of course she had – by eyes that would say nothing of what they saw for
now. They were not her daughter’s eyes, nor the sightless orbs of Apicata. These were the eyes of another. Eyes that loved her like a child. Eyes that loathed her like coming death.

  When the castrated slave Lygdus returned to the great house, he clutched his domina’s secret to his heart, with no inkling of how he might use it. He had seen her slip from her bedroom and had not intended to trail her as far as the Emperor’s garden. But when she failed to notice him and he followed further, Lygdus became intoxicated by the tiny amount of power this gave him. She did not know he was there. She did not know he knew. He had stealth.

  But the castrated boy failed to see the other set of eyes that watched from the banks of flowers. So absorbed was Lygdus in his little victory over his mistress that he missed the soothsayer. The aged Thrasyllus still sat where he had been since the wedding, half-hidden by leaves and shadows.

  The old man found his mouth filling up with words just as the slave slipped away. The soothsayer wanted to call out and stop him – some of the words concerned Lygdus, after all. But he let him go. Lygdus was not the goddess’s intended recipient. The words the Great Mother, Cybele, gave Thrasyllus to impart were meant for another: she who was so long asleep. Thrasyllus closed his eyes and let the words come.

  The son with blood, by water’s done, the truth is never seen.

  The third is hooked by a harpy’s look – the rarest of all birds.

  The course is cooked by a slave-boy’s stroke; the fruit is lost with babes.

  The matron’s words alone are heard, the addled heart is ringed.

  The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding’s tongue.

  The doctor’s lad will take the stairs, from darkness comes the wronged,

  No eyes, no hands and vengeance done, but worthless is the prize.

  One would-be queen knows hunger’s pangs when Cerberus conducts her.

  One brother’s crime sees him dine at leisure of his bed.

  One would-be queen is one-eyed too until the truth gives comforts.

  When tiny shoes a cushion brings, the cuckoo’s king rewarded.

  Your work is done, it’s time to leave – the sword is yours to pass.

  Your mother lives within this queen: she who rules beyond you.

  The end, the end, your mother says – to deception now depend.

  So long asleep, now sleep once more, your Attis is Veiovis.

  When Sejanus came to their bed, Apicata had already arranged herself upon the linen, lying on her chest with her arms resting beside her, two cushions placed beneath her loins so that her rump was raised and displayed for him. She said nothing, knowing how deep his despair at the destruction of their plans had been, and she intended saying nothing when he took her – her silence aroused him most. Afterwards, she would begin to soothe him with words, coaxing him back to confidence and hope.

  But Sejanus made no move to enter her, and Apicata realised that sodomy would not please him tonight. Leaving the bed, she sank to her knees in front of him, pressing her lips to his thighs. The smell of him was sour – he had not washed – but there was nothing about this man that could repulse her. She took him in her mouth, tasting his dirt and sweat, but his sex wouldn’t grow. He lifted her away. Apicata sat next to him at the edge of the bed, and was heartened that when she placed her hand in his he did not let go.

  After a time he said, ‘They don’t deserve my father’s love.’

  ‘Who don’t?’

  ‘His family. Any of them. They don’t love him back. They pretend to love him, but it’s false.’

  ‘Only your love is true, husband.’

  ‘It breaks my heart for him.’ He wept a little then and Apicata knew simple joy when he placed his head at her breast while the tears flowed. She stroked his hair, placing her lips in the curls. He had a hero’s hair, her husband – the hair of Hercules.

  When he stopped, she said, ‘You will think of a new plan, Sejanus, and I will help you in it.’

  He lay back on the cushions.

  ‘My ears are always open. I hear the things no one else can hear.’

  He closed his eyes and his breathing grew fainter. Apicata placed her mouth to his thighs and took him again, for her own contentment if not for his. She lost herself in the motion. Her mind was freed from her body, from the shackle of her blindness, as it always was in this pleasure. She remembered what she’d heard in the garden before the banquet hall doors had opened – the conversation between the soothsayer and the noble matron. Apicata played it over in her mind until inspiration came.

  Then she said, ‘I have a plan of my own, husband. Would you like to hear it?’

  But Sejanus was asleep.

  ‘No matter,’ she whispered. ‘I will enact it on my own account and then delight you with what occurs.’

  She nestled into his loins and allowed sleep to claim her too.

  Veiovia

  May, AD 20

  One week later: Emperor Tiberius Julius

  Caesar Augustus rejects the Senate’s proposal

  that a golden statue of Mars the

  Avenger be erected in memory of Germanicus

  The shocked cry that came from the beautifully dressed patrician was every bit as satisfying as Apicata had imagined it would be. It cut through the air, as polished and sharp as a blade.

  ‘I know everything,’ Apicata smiled. ‘And, what’s more, the festival of Veiovis begins today.’

  The noble Aemilia went wide-eyed, clasping her hand across her mouth.

  ‘Isn’t that appropriate?’ Apicata continued.

  ‘Veiovis?’

  ‘Our god of deceivers. It is the right of all Romans to call upon Veiovis to protect just causes and give pain and deception to our enemies. But you already know that, don’t you, Aemilia? And what cause is more just than protecting the Emperor from treason? You, who are so accomplished in deception, must surely appreciate that? Yet perhaps you’re not quite as accomplished as you would like to be? You were overheard in your treason by a blind woman, after all.’

  ‘Oh gods …’ Aemilia stammered.

  Apicata laughed. Overwhelmed, Aemilia flew from her chair and ran uselessly around the room, sobbing into her balled-up veil. The look on the patrician matron’s face, had Apicata been able see it, matched exactly the image Apicata had conjured in her mind. Aemilia’s beautiful face was creased with fear.

  One of her maids came running to the receiving room to see what had upset her mistress, but Aemilia begged the girl to get out. When the slave had pulled the door closed, Aemilia sank to her knees. ‘Please. Not this!’

  Apicata sipped the cup of watered wine she had been given. ‘How dreadful,’ she said. ‘And yet I can tell how ashamed you are of your crimes, Aemilia.’

  The patrician matron bit her lips.

  ‘It must be a relief for you, though, now that your guilt is unburdened. You can face your fate with a lighter heart.’

  ‘You low bitch!’ Apicata pretended the insult had not been said. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘About the witchcraft you’ve been practising? It wasn’t very hard. My husband and I enjoy the loyalty of informers. Your mistake was in being so good at all those spells and curses you do, Aemilia. People love success – they talk about it.’

  Perspiration ran down Aemilia’s high cheekbones. ‘Please believe me … I don’t practise magic with any seriousness – it’s just for my amusement.’

  ‘Don’t offend me with lies,’ said Apicata, sipping her wine. ‘It’s within my power to have you thrown from the Tarpeian Rock for the magic alone, but you’ve also consulted with a soothsayer. Such a thing is banned across the Empire, and you did it in the very heart of Oxheads. Just imagine the punishment you’ll get for that.’

  Aemilia began sobbing again, and Apicata leaned forward. ‘Will it be the bears, do you think, or the jackals for you?’

  ‘Mother?’ The bewildered voice of a child came from the other side of the closed door.


  Apicata stood and, remembering exactly the number of steps she had taken from the door to get to the chair, retraced them. She spoke through the door crack. ‘Your mother is in no harm, girl, but she will be if you listen to another word of this private conversation.’

  The child gave a cry from the other side, recognising Apicata’s voice.

  ‘You remember me, don’t you, Lepida? I’m the wife of the Praetorian Prefect. What a lovely talk we had at the wedding.’

  When she heard Lepida running down the hall towards the stairs, Apicata returned to where she had been seated. ‘I will ask this once, Aemilia. Are you recovered?’

  The matron went still.

  ‘Good.’ Judging where Aemilia lay on the floor, Apicata reached for her cup of watered wine and tossed the contents in Aemilia’s face. ‘Remain on the floor while we discuss our arrangement. It becomes you.’

  Neither woman said anything for a time.

  ‘Does your husband know?’ asked Aemilia at last.

  ‘He doesn’t know a thing about your crimes, and I see no reason for him to. What purpose would it serve?’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  Once Apicata had told her, she said, ‘It’s nothing you haven’t done for others, is it?’

  Aemilia confessed this was true. ‘But not against someone so …’

  ‘Powerful? Yet who has more power right here?’

  When Apicata gave permission for Aemilia to move – but not stand – the beautiful patrician crawled like a dog to the small cedar box she kept hidden under the loose boards of the floor. The box retrieved, she asked Apicata what sort of material she would prefer. There was a choice when it came to constructing these things.

  ‘Which material would Veiovis enjoy?’ asked Apicata.

  Aemilia tried to force her hands to stop shaking. ‘Lead. Perhaps lead …’