Nest of Vipers

THE PARTNER IN MY LABOURS

Mercuralia

May, AD 20

Forty-five years earlier: the Senate and

People of Rome award Praetorian Prefect Aelius Sejanus the insignia of the Praetor

The young slave was bewildered by what had been said to him, so Livilla repeated it. 'We adore you, Lygdus, we truly do. You're a pet to us, boy.'

He clung to these words from the corner of the animal pen where he had tried to hide. 'Your pet, domina?'

'My little lamb,' she said. 'That's what I'm telling you. You're our most special of slaves.' She leaned forward and whispered into his ear so that none of the other servants would hear. 'You're the one I love most.'

Pleasure flushed Lygdus's young face. Never before had something so kind been said to him. It was like she had seen inside his heart. He had never known the woman who had borne him. His mistress was the only mother he had. And to think that she loved him… 'I love you too, domina,' he replied.

'Good slave,' Livilla said, standing up again with a smile. She adjusted a long strand of ebony hair from where it had come loose from her pins. She smoothed her day gown with her palms. All would be right now.

Lygdus righted himself, getting up from the corner where he had flung himself when they had tried to break the news.

'Do you know what is expected of you now?' Livilla asked him.

In truth, he did not. He looked to the faces of the other watching slaves in the pen around him. They all looked away, not meeting his eye, except for the Greek steward, Pelops, who grinned openly at him, concealing something in his hands. 'Yes, domina,' Lygdus lied, holding her cherished words against the soft flesh beneath his ear where she'd whispered them.

'Just devotion,' she said, 'what you've always given us — and friendship and truthfulness.'

'Yes, domina.'

'You're thirteen years old — nearly a man. And my daughter is approaching her womanhood. She's very pretty, isn't she, Lygdus?'

'Very,' he said automatically.

'A temptation for some,' said Livilla, nodding affectionately at him and, perhaps, Lygdus half-sensed, a little sadly. He thought for a moment that he'd given her confirmation of something she hadn't even asked.

'Have I done something wrong?' he asked, trembling.

'If what must happen today does not happen, then I'm quite sure you will do wrong in time,' Livilla said. 'But with today will come a transformation — and through that, release. You will never be at risk of doing wrong again.'

'I won't need to be beaten?'

Livilla shook her head, and the strand of dark hair fell from her pins once more. She was so beautiful to him; so dark and alluring. 'You won't be punished in any way,' she said. 'You will be perfect — our perfect slave.'

'That's what I want to be,' he said, staring into her nightblack Claudian eyes — the eyes that she shared with her grandmother Livia. 'That's all I could ever want, domina,' he whispered.

Livilla clicked her fingers and two male slaves seized Lygdus from either side. He struggled but Livilla's tone was soothing again. 'No one's going to hurt you, Lygdus. In your transformation you'll feel no pain at all.'

She clicked her fingers a second time and the slaves forced him to the ground. He tried to crouch on his knees but they kicked his legs out from under him so that he lay flat upon his back on the cold earth. The ground was spongy and moist. He looked up and saw the cobwebs and dust that clung to the rafters, and he wondered how many other lambs had shared this view. That was what she had called him — her little lamb.

'Say a prayer…' His domina 's voice floated to Lygdus from somewhere far away.

'To which god?' he whispered.

He heard her footsteps echo on the paving stones outside as she left the pen and made her way towards the garden and the house beyond. He tried to raise his head to glimpse her retreating form. ' Domina.. To which god, domina?'

The grinning steward's face was like a death mask. 'Cybele,' Pelops smirked. 'She'll have a place in her heart for you, son.'

Two more slaves came forward and took Lygdus's ankles, forcing his legs apart. A sudden fear coursed through him as he tried to struggle.

'Keeping still ensures that nothing goes that needn't,' Pelops said. One of the slaves reached up and snatched at Lygdus's loincloth, pulling it away and exposing him. He was erect; they all saw it — the effect of his domina whispering in his ear. 'Keep still,' Pelops ordered.

Lygdus now saw what Pelops had kept hidden within his hands. It was a razor. He went to scream but a hand clapped hard across his mouth.

'Don't want the domina hearing this — it upsets her,' said Pelops, unwinding a piece of string.

Lygdus shrieked into the hands that silenced him. The steward went between his legs and wound the string around his scrotum until his testes glowed purple. Pelops flicked the razor and Lygdus felt a pain that was worse than any he had known. Two crimson streams of blood shot across the earth. All hands released him.

'My blood!' Lygdus cried. The flow didn't stop, pooling where he lay, soaking into the soil. 'My blood will drain away…'

'It knows when to stop,' said Pelops. The other slaves filed out of the pen.

'What if it doesn't?' Lygdus sobbed.

Pelops shrugged. 'Then you won't be the first.' He joined the slaves outside and Lygdus was left alone.

What were his domina 's words? Lygdus tried to remember what she had said that had so filled his heart. But they were forgotten now, lost in his pain. All Lygdus could hear was Pelops's voice, like another kiss on the soft flesh beneath his ear: 'You won't be the first.' But this was a lie. Surely no other slave had suffered like this in the name of 'transformation'? Surely no other slave had been sent on this path to 'release'?

He was the first, the very first. He was the only slave to suffer such a fate in Rome.

But he was wrong, of course, naive as he was. There was certainly another. Soon, very soon, we would meet.

The two lost children clambered and leaped and slid among the rocks, hurting themselves in their efforts to impress one another and to seem immune to all that fate had dealt them. They never cried — it was a point of honour. They were cousins in blood, descendants of the Divine Augustus, who would not have cried either, no matter how badly his skinned knees and stubbed toes hurt him. They awoke before dawn and went straight to the most bountiful of their hunting grounds, plucking crustaceans from the little pools, finding pretty shells and time-smoothed stones and tiny jewel-coloured fish.

The crustaceans were edible, delicious even — they had established this very soon after they had been washed ashore — and when Burrus showed Nilla how to strike a spark from the dry, brittle grass that dotted the dunes, and how to feed the spark with driftwood until the smoke became a blaze, they had the means to eat the crabs and anything else they caught. It became another point of honour for Nilla never to let the fire go out. She woke in the night and tended it, before snuggling against the sleeping Burrus's warm, brown back. When Burrus thought there might be oysters and clams beneath the waves, Nilla joined him in practising at holding her breath. When each felt they could hold it far longer than they had ever thought possible, they flung themselves into the waves, clutching stones for weight, and succeeded in dislodging molluscs from the sea bed.

The children's outer clothes turned to rags, falling from their bodies and lying discarded in the sand. When Burrus lost his loincloth in a dive, he didn't care; his Lady Nilla would have to accustom herself to his nakedness. When he awoke one morning to see that Nilla was naked too, he made no comment on it. They were savages now, he imagined; the niceties of life at Oxheads meant nothing to them, and never would again. He and Nilla were like man and wife. If Burrus felt a growing sexual desire for her, he didn't understand the impulse for what it was; he was still too young, and so was she. To Burrus, it was protectiveness he felt, nothing more. And yet he loved her with all his being.

They were happy. They hunted for food for hours on end, and when they caught it they ate it. With bellies full, they sat in the shallows, talking, laughing and inventing tales of heroism in which they were the players. When night came, they slept near the fire. At first they kept a distance between themselves — they were mistress and slave, after all — but when the nights grew colder necessity forced Burrus to hug his Lady tightly to him to stop the chattering of her teeth. She complained at first but he insisted. He would not let her suffer. Soon hugging each other was an unconscious thing, as unplanned as thinking or breathing.

Nilla gave Burrus his freedom. She did so spontaneously; he hadn't hinted that it was his heart's greatest desire. She didn't know the manumission ceremony and nor did he, but they had heard that a statement needed to be repeated three times, so Nilla said, 'I set you free, I set you free, I set you free.'

They were equal now. Nilla shyly told him that she had fallen in love with him. It had happened, she said, on their arduous swim, but in her heart she knew it was before. They had been on board a ship that was taking them to her parents in Antioch. But when Burrus had been beaten by Nilla's two bullying brothers, he had thrown himself into the sea, and Nilla had followed him, without a thought of doing otherwise. To have done such a thing for one as lowly as a slave meant she must have loved him truly and not thought of him as lowly at all. Then Burrus had saved her. She had copied his swimming strokes and he had kept her from the waves. Now Nilla loved him as her mother loved her father, she told him.

But Burrus told Nilla she was only a girl — that she was too young for love. Nilla sulked at that, but later Burrus confessed to his Lady that of course he loved her too. He had loved her since she was born and he would love her until he died. They kissed. It was funny and not unpleasant, but they didn't kiss again. Each sensed that this was something for which they weren't quite ready.

'Will we ever be found?' Nilla wondered.

Burrus said yes, but his heart told him no. They had seen no ships, no men and no smoke, except for that from their fire. This shore was a lost place, forgotten or unknown.

'Are we still within the Empire?'

Burrus thought it likely that they weren't.

Days became weeks and then something more, something no longer measured with time. Their skin turned pink and then red and then brown. Nilla's long, fair hair went gold in the sun — a halo of fire in the breeze. Burrus's thick, dark locks went lighter too, growing in curls that fell across his eyes. Their bodies became hard; they were strong now, agile. The last of their softness was swept away.

Their only problem was water.

When it rained, they tried to drink as much as they could, running around with their mouths wide open, catching the raindrops in their cupped hands. Sometimes water gathered in puddles in the land behind the dunes, but it quickly drained away and days went by before it rained again. There were cacti in the dunes. Burrus was the first to try one and he badly pricked his tongue. But the taste was sweet and water dripped from the flesh. With care, this sustained them for a time, but Burrus knew it wasn't enough.

'We need to find the mouth of a stream,' he said, 'some place where water comes down from the hills.'

Nilla agreed, looking up and down the rocky beach. 'Which way should we go to find one?'

Burrus wanted her to think that he knew. 'East,' he said, confidently. 'Towards the morning sun.'

They took nothing with them. Their rags were long lost and when they were hungry they looked for cacti and crabs. The walk was hard, though the weather was consistent. The days were warm but the nights brought a chill. One night they lost control of the fire they'd started and a blaze swept through the scrub. Burrus and Nilla clapped and cheered at the thrill of destruction. When they awoke again in the dawn, they saw what the fire had left them. A litter of rabbit kittens, caught in the scrub blaze, was waiting as a cooked breakfast. Burrus made a prayer to Vulcan. As they gnawed upon the carcasses, they sensed movement in the bushes behind them.

It was a man holding a sword.

Although the sun was bright and warm upon her face, Apicata could see nothing of it. Her eyes were open and aimed at the smiling wedding guests, who nodded and bobbed to her in the gardens all around, but she could not see the expressions upon their faces. An unknown illness had claimed her vision, although her appearance betrayed little sign of it. To the world she still seemed sighted, at least until she was spoken to directly, when her unfocused gaze betrayed her. But the malady had not been wholly cruel. It had left a gift in place of what was stolen. Apicata's ears heard more than the keenest of the palace dogs.

' Veiovis…'

She knew there was a conversation taking place that was hushed and urgent, somewhere to her right.

' Veiovis…'

Apicata shifted on her stone bench while she waited for the doors to the banquet hall to open. She hoped the slaves were running late; she didn't want to go inside until she had determined who this woman was, who was so engaged in this halting, laboured discussion. It was a conversation that would see the woman thrown from the Tarpeian Rock if other people learned of it.

' So long asleep…'

Apicata sensed the presence of a child nearby and took her ears away from the conversation for a moment. 'Hello, little flower,' she said. 'We've met before but I'm very bad with names.'

The child was startled at being spoken to. 'I'm Lepida,' she whispered.

'Lepida, of course you are, and how pretty you look today.'

The child was pleased by the compliment and yet confused by it. This mysterious woman wasn't even looking at her.

Apicata beckoned Lepida to move closer. 'Do you remember who I am?'

Lepida knew she had never met this woman before, yet she had the presence of mind to offer an answer. 'You are the mother of the bride.'

'Yes, I am,' said Apicata. 'My daughter is marrying into the family of the Emperor. That is why we're all here.'

Lepida didn't need this to be explained to her. 'I love weddings. You must be very happy.'

Apicata nodded. 'I am also the wife of Praetorian Prefect Sejanus. My husband has a very special job. He exposes traitors for the Emperor.'

Without understanding why, the child felt fear.

'You mustn't tremble,' Apicata said. 'You are an innocent child. You know nothing of such things.'

Lepida was silent, staring into the eyes of this woman who seemed to see her and yet did not.

'Do you notice, over there,' Apicata whispered, 'just a little distance away in that quiet corner of the garden, there is a woman talking to a very strange man. Do you see them?'

Lepida saw.

'Who is the lady?'

Lepida bit her lip.

'Who is the lady?'

The child said nothing.

Apicata placed her fingers on Lepida's bare arm. Despite the warmth of the spring sun, her fingers were cold. 'Who is the lady, child? You know her, don't you?'

'She is Aemilia, my mother…' The girl pulled her arm away. 'She isn't a traitor. She has done nothing wrong.'

'Of course she hasn't,' said Apicata. 'I am merely asking, that's all. I recognised her but couldn't place her.'

'You want people to think you can see them, but you can't. You can't see anything.' Lepida ran away from Apicata's reach.

'It's true, child,' Apicata whispered after her, amused. 'But I can hear like the wolves themselves.'

She turned her head to the hushed conversation again, to the treasonous, reckless words between the child's noble mother, Aemilia of the Aemilii, and Thrasyllus, the last soothsayer in Rome. The old and broken man was barely lucid, slumped in the dirt while the embarrassed guests ignored him as they would an epileptic. Apicata couldn't imagine why the Emperor Tiberius had permitted his seer to attend the wedding — if he was even aware he had. Perhaps the old man had wandered in, having escaped from wherever it was that Tiberius kept him locked away? No one but Apicata knew who the soothsayer actually was, but clearly Aemilia had chanced an accurate guess.

Although the noble mother was making it seem to those who might be watching her that she wasn't talking to this soiled, unpleasant man, to Apicata, who could only listen, it was obvious what Aemilia was doing. The noble woman sought answers about the future — answers about her children, about her house. The words the soothsayer was saying meant nothing to Apicata, but it hardly mattered. In daring to ask at all, Aemilia had placed the point of Apicata's sword neatly at her own ribs. Apicata would bide her time before letting the woman know of it.

The Praetorian Prefect's blind wife believed no one else witnessed this scene, but she was wrong. I, Iphicles, the lowly slave, saw it too, from where I was shepherding my young dominus, Little Boots, towards the banquet. The soothsayer spoke as if from a thousand miles away: ' The third is hooked by a harpy's look; the rarest of all birds …'

His words meant nothing to me either, but I took note of them all the same.

The doors to the banquet hall opened and the dining slaves announced the commencement of the wedding feast. Apicata arose and waited for someone to guide her in. As she stood there, smiling pleasantly, she wished she could reassure the girl Lepida that whatever she might fear, her mother would not be exposed as a traitor. It would be a needless waste. Apicata had already gathered several intriguing truths about the noble Aemilia, just as she had about so many highborn women in Rome. This new transgression now made the matron among the most useful people there were.

Apicata had no use for Aemilia just yet, but would in time. Her only disappointment was that she would never see the look on the patrician woman's face when the nature of this use was revealed to her.

When the moment came, Apicata would have to imagine it. Blindness had taught her that imagined moments were far often more delightful than reality anyway.

Nilla and Burrus froze with the rabbit bones still in their mouths. In the glare of the dawn they saw that the man's teeth were white — he was smiling at them. He tucked his sword inside his belt and raised his hand in a wave. Only then did the children remember their nakedness, but they had nothing to cover themselves with. The man came nearer, as huge as a mountain, with shoulders as wide as a giant's. His hair was gold, just like Nilla's, and his brown, freckled skin was laced with dozens of scars. He squatted on the sand beside them.

'Are you a gladiator?' Burrus asked him.

The man laughed. 'How did you guess that, boy?'

Burrus pointed at the scars.

'My fighting days are behind me now,' he sighed. 'I've got too old.'

'How old are you?' Nilla asked.

'Thirty years. I'm the oldest gladiator there is, I think.'

'You must have won many fights,' Burrus marvelled.

'I did.' He held out his hand. 'My name is Flamma.'

Burrus accepted the handshake as a newly made freedman, not a slave. 'I am Burrus. And this is the Lady — '

But Nilla stopped him from telling the gladiator her full patrician name. 'I'm just Nilla,' she said. 'We're looking for water.'

'Ah,' said Flamma. 'I can show you where to find some then. There's a stream mouth just beyond the point.'

Burrus grinned at Nilla. 'See? We were right to head east.'

She agreed. 'Would you like some rabbit?' she asked Flamma.

The gladiator's eyes were at the horizon.

'Would you?'

He flicked his eyes to her. 'You're very kind.' Nilla handed him one of the charred rabbit kittens and he stuffed it in his mouth. 'Let's eat on the way to the stream,' he suggested, chewing.

Burrus and Nilla looked surreptitiously at one another. 'Are you our friend, Flamma?' Nilla asked.

Something caught in his throat, but he swallowed it along with the rabbit. 'I'd be honoured to be your friend,' he said. He stood, towering above them. 'Come on. I'll show you where there's good water to drink.'

The children rose, and when Flamma held out his huge hands to them it seemed only natural and right, as his new friends, to fall in on either side of him and place their own hands in his.

'Do you get lonely out here?' Flamma asked them.

They'd never even thought of it. 'We have each other,' said Nilla. Then, giggling, she added, 'We're in love.'

Burrus reddened and complained. 'That's our business, Nilla — a great gladiator doesn't want to know about that.'

Nilla just laughed. But when she looked to see what Flamma thought, his eyes were trained on the horizon again, squinting into the sun. 'Walk faster,' he said. But he had sandals on his feet and the children did not.

Nilla stepped on a grass thorn. 'Ow!' She tried to pull it out with her free hand. 'It's stuck in my toe.' She waited for Flamma to release her other hand so that she could sit down and pull the thorn out, but he held it tightly. 'The thorn,' Nilla said.

Burrus suddenly saw why Flamma stared at the horizon. 'Run!'

But Flamma held their hands in his fists, even when they kicked him and pulled at him and sank their teeth into his flesh. They were less than blowflies to him, less than gnats, but he felt ashamed. He hated himself for so easily betraying children.

Flamma only let them go when the men with the nets had arrived.

The nuptials were performed as a confarreatio — the patrician wedding rite — which caused quiet affront to some because the bride was not, in fact, patrician. But this was not to be acknowledged out loud, and a sacred tradition as old as Rome itself was crushed underfoot. But at the wedding banquet, once the rites were done, one guest gave expression to the city's feelings, and in doing so brought the union undone.

It started with a few sprinkles of water. In honour of Mercury, wedding guests reached from their couches to dip their fingers into their water bowls and then let the contents dribble onto their foreheads. It was a joke — Mercury was only acknowledged by merchants on this, the Ides of May, not by patricians. But the barb behind the jest was not apparent to those who picked up on the idea, mimicking the guest who had started it.

Nero and Drusus, the teenage grandsons of the Emperor, were the first to follow the lead, sprinkling themselves liberally with water. Then their sisters Drusilla and tiny Julilla did so, seated in chairs at the base of the boys' dining couch. Their cousin Tiberia took it up next, plunging her whole hand into a water bowl and letting it dribble on her face as she laughed. Her mother, Livilla, tried to stop her, but Tiberia was enjoying herself too much to listen. The bride and her patrician groom were next, Aelia and Hector, still babies too, despite the wedding that had been thrust upon them. Other guests around the Imperial children followed, and soon water was sprinkling everywhere, making the marble floors slippery.

Alone among the children, my dominus, Little Boots, remained stony-faced, his hands in his food, his face creasing with the concentration of stripping flesh from a bone. He looked up at me where I stood by his side in faithful attendance, and I nodded at the wisdom of his foresight in not participating with his brothers and sisters and cousins. Little Boots cast a glance at Tiberius. The Emperor sat in a throne with the wedding guests arranged around him. His mind was elsewhere. He could hear the laughter, but he wasn't taking it in. His eyes were on the open windows and the clear spring sky. Little Boots looked back at me again with a smirk and I gave him a shrug, before our gaze went to the Praetorian Prefect, Sejanus, who sat frozen with his blind wife, Apicata, at the parents' couches.

Sejanus may as well have been as sightless as his wife at this moment. The Prefect was blind to every guest in the room but one: the guest who had first dipped his fingers in the water, in mockery of Sejanus because he was not a patrician.

Sejanus was equal to Castor in every aspect but one: he did not have the Emperor's blood in his veins. The power, the wealth, the love, trust and loyalty that were Sejanus's by merit from the very first day he had entered Tiberius's life were worthless without this. Castor alone was the Emperor's son, with the blood of the Claudii inside him. Lacking it, Sejanus was only the 'son'. From blood came the heir.

'I think the god is honoured enough now, don't you?' Castor called out to him. And then, by way of explaining what he had started, he added, 'I couldn't risk offending Mercury for you on this happy day, could I, Sejanus? I remembered just in time what you like to do for Mercuralia.'

There was a gasp to Sejanus's left. Castor's crippled cousin Claudius had got his meaning, his hand only inches from his own water bowl, and he paled at the naked insult.

Castor guffawed.

Mortified, and with his wits already half-pickled in wine, Claudius did the first thing he could think to distract the room's attention. He plucked an early-season grape from a tray of fruit and tossed it high in the air.

'I'll show you a trick!' he shouted. He turned his face upwards to catch it, shutting his eyes as the grape plummeted, pelting him with a splat. All those around him shrieked with glee at the sheer stupidity of this act, including Sejanus, who was taken by surprise.

At once the water was forgotten, as guests started scrabbling for grapes of their own. The Emperor's grandsons Nero and Drusus flung the little purple orbs about, trying to catch them in their mouths. Desperate to keep Sejanus laughing, Claudius threw whole handfuls of grapes in the air and stumbled about after them, snapping his jaw like a seal. Sejanus doubled up with laughter. Castor's pinch-faced wife, Livilla, tried to rein in the children from this sport but none would listen to her. Freed from supervision by their own mother's absence from the wedding, Drusilla and Julilla slid wildly about on the marble floor, chasing the cascading grapes and pelting their cousin Tiberia with them, who happily threw them back.

At their bridal couch the children Hector and Aelia now tried to look as if they were above such revelry, but it was hard. Ten-year-old Aelia looked towards her father, Sejanus, who was slapping his thighs, and was bewildered that her tasteful wedding feast had descended into something so Plautine. Nine-year-old Hector cringed, as his own father, the crippled Claudius, tried for one laugh too many and skidded on the fruit mush, hitting the floor and catching his head on a table edge. His cry of pain brought the biggest cheer yet from the guests, and it was all too much for Hector.

'I'll show you how it's done,' he announced to the room, looking accusingly at his father. Claudius was an ignoble parent in Hector's eyes; lame and cursed with a stammer, he had never held high office or a post in the legions, or even a diplomatic position. He was a fool, the Imperial family joke, and Hector was ashamed of him.

When Claudius had told his son of the unexpected betrothal to Aelia, Hector had been delighted, not shocked by the prematurity of it, as his father had expected him to be. To Hector, this union with Sejanus's daughter was a gift from the gods — the one hope he would ever have of being freed of his father's impediments. He didn't care one bit that Aelia was haughty and sarcastic and that they wouldn't be permitted to live with each other until they turned thirteen. All that mattered was that he had gained a new father in the handsome and courageous Sejanus. After all, Hector's grandfather had been the bravest of warriors, killed before his time by a treacherous horse, and it had been Sejanus himself, aged little more than Hector was now, who had walked a thousand miles with Tiberius, accompanying the body to Rome.

Hector selected a fat grape from a tray and rolled it between his fingers. His cousins and playmates were engaged in the same task all around him, but they plucked and threw their fruit without care or deliberation. Hector alone knew the real trick to this. He'd spent hours in the garden doing this very thing, tossing grapes and berries and nuts to the sky and never failing to catch them in his teeth. He could do the trick in his sleep.

With a flick of his wrist Hector sent the grape towards the ceiling, and it seemed, to me and Little Boots, who continued to watch without participating, that time and motion slowed as the little ball of skin and juice and pips achieved its zenith in the fug of incense smoke and soot from the oil lamps. Then it began its descent. I knew what would happen next as if I'd always known, but of course I hadn't. I just experienced that flash of certainty, that confirmation of another's fate that comes with being divine.

Hector caught the grape in his mouth with a plop. Watching sprawled on the floor, Claudius burst into applause. 'Well caught, Hector!'

It was only when Sejanus mirrored the praise that Hector gave a proud little smile, but it was short-lived. A look of consternation crossed his face and he opened his mouth to say something, but no words came. His hands flew under his chin and his eyes went wide. He coughed — a terrible rasp, like a carpenter's file being dragged across a plank. He fell to his knees.

His little bride, Aelia, cried out, 'It's caught in his throat!'

Claudius tried to struggle to his feet but Sejanus reached the boy first, leaping from his dining couch, as Apicata stared after him in blind bewilderment. Hector's eyes were like glass. The grape was lodged in his windpipe.

'Thump him! Thump him!' Claudius stammered, helpless in the mush.

Sejanus threw the boy face-down and hooked an arm under his waist, raising Hector's rump in the air as if to violate him. Then he slammed the heel of his palm between Hector's shoulderblades. 'Breathe!' Sejanus shouted at him. 'Breathe!' He banged the boy's back like a drum, clenching his hand into a fist, punching him, pounding him. Hector's head danced and jerked. The spit dribbled from his lips, slick and frothy on the marble. Sejanus willed the boy not to choke; too much depended on him, far too much.

Then the grape spat free.

'Thank the gods! Thank the gods!' cried Claudius. Unable to find traction for his feet, Hector's crippled father slid across the floor like an engorged serpent, embracing Hector where he lay, kissing the cheek that was still too young for razors or pimples. 'It's all right now,' Claudius whispered to him. 'You're all right now, no harm done. Sejanus saved you.'

He raised the boy up and Hector's head lolled at an obscene angle, swinging like a lead weight on the end of a string. His neck had snapped.

Claudius's frenzied sobbing at last brought the Emperor from his daze. The draught of an Eastern flower he consumed in secret shrouded Tiberius's mind like a mist. But it parted just enough to let him take in the scene.

'Is the boy an acrobat?' he asked Sejanus, puzzled, and noting the strange contortion to Hector's body.

When her efforts at comforting her shattered daughter Aelia made no impact, blind Apicata abandoned the sobbing girl to a wet nurse. There was nothing to be done and, truth be told, Apicata was not devastated by the calamity. She regarded the crippled Claudius in a poor light. Indeed, she viewed the entire Imperial house as something obscene, for all its glamour. Although she hadn't said so at the original betrothal announcement, Apicata had felt little pride in the prospect of joining her family with Rome's rulers. She despised them. Yet that didn't preclude her from wanting to be them. And in order to be them, Apicata felt it necessary to study them.

When Sejanus's devotion to Tiberius had required his family to leave their own house and reside inside Oxheads, the Imperial residence, Apicata had enjoyed wandering the palace corridors at night. Her own ease in darkness gave her an advantage she didn't have in the daylight. She was rarely observed, and when she was, she was merely ignored.

With her daughter sobbing in the wet nurse's bosom, Apicata felt her way along the walls of the palace corridors until she reached the suite of my comatose domina, Livia Drusilla. Livia's state of perpetual sleep was now so well known inside Oxheads — if not yet outside in Rome — that she no longer had guards. Livia's son, the Emperor Tiberius, couldn't conceive of anyone wishing to harm his mother — she was already near dead. Blind Apicata slipped into my domina 's sleeping chamber quite easily.

Once inside, she listened to the air being drawn into Livia's lungs — a movement so slight you could rest a feather on her lips. Apicata placed her hands on my domina 's form, caressing her flesh. Livia was soft and warm. She laid her fingers on Livia's head and pulled the hairs at her temple, feeling the skin stretching from the skull. This was a girlish torture intended to make any victim wince. But when no reaction came, Apicata fumbled for the skin at my domina 's throat, taking a handful of it in her sharp-nailed fingers and crushing it like a square of silk. If she'd had her sight she would have seen the bruise this caused. But still there was no reaction from the sleeper, nor would there have been if Apicata had taken a knife to my domina 's wrists and hacked off her hands. Livia was now upon this earth in body only. In spirit she was elsewhere, sent there in secret by me, who loved her most.

'So long asleep…' Apicata whispered.

'She fascinates you, doesn't she?' I said from the door.

Apicata stood upright. She hadn't heard me enter — a rare lapse for her.

'Don't be frightened,' I said, approaching. 'I am only a slave.'

But Apicata wasn't frightened. She studied me intensely, as if her eyes still saw light. 'I know who you are,' she said. 'You're Livia's creature — the one who doesn't age.'

I was flattered, being then over seventy years old. Most people at Oxheads believed me to be no more than forty at that time.

'Livia was ageless too,' said Apicata, 'but the skin at her throat is like a soft leather bag. Has age caught up with her, creature?'

'It has,' I confirmed, but I didn't tell her that the years would melt away again if I allowed my domina to wake up. 'What fascinates you so much about her, Lady?'

'It's repulsion, not fascination.' Apicata made to leave but I prevented her. She gasped at my daring to touch her.

'I've seen you in here before,' I said. 'Of course it's fascination. I've observed you stroking my domina and smelling her flesh. I even saw you place your hand between her thighs.'

Apicata drew breath, saying nothing.

'I told you not to be frightened, and I meant it,' I said. 'I am fascinated too — by you, Lady.'

I could tell that Sejanus's blind wife was considering whether to scream for a guard, but I knew she wouldn't.

'How did this happen, then?' she said to me at last. 'This strange state she exists in. She's neither dead nor alive, but she's breathing. How did it happen to her?'

The answer was simple. I had achieved the thing I had longed for since I had gazed upon my domina for the very first time, six decades before — I had entered Livia's sex and taken her forcefully. But with my useless eunuch's prick I'd had to employ a phallus, and the poison I smeared on the thing had reduced Livia to this state. But I told Apicata nothing of that. Nor did I tell her why I had done it, which was somewhat more complicated. 'It is a mystery,' was all I said.

Of course, this was not enough for Apicata. 'Is someone scheming against her?' she asked. 'Is this some plot, creature?'

I shrugged, then remembering she couldn't see I repeated that I was only a slave — how should I know? 'Rome is full of so many intrigues, Lady.'

Apicata again made to leave, and this time I stood aside, although I suspected she had more to say. I was right. 'My husband used to pleasure your domina, did you know that, creature?'

'I did know,' I told her, although I had only learned of it at the very end of their illicit liaison. 'She took joy in his attentions — she praised the girth of him,' I added, conjecturing. I wanted to see what game Apicata was playing with me.

But she merely nodded. 'He pleasured her with my encouragement. The Augusta Livia was lonely — a sad state for such a great lady. I saw it as a civic service to make her feel loved again.'

I wanted to laugh. Livia had intended to kill Sejanus during their final encounter, and Apicata certainly hadn't been privy to that. But my own plans had diverged from Livia's by then and I couldn't allow her to do it. I needed Sejanus alive, so Livia took the poison in his place.

'Sejanus was very shocked when this happened to her,' said Apicata. 'It upset him.'

'My domina will wake again one day,' I lied, 'and perhaps when she does she will find things changed — and changed in a way that pleases her. And perhaps she will remember her pleasures again, too, and the friends who think fondly of her still.'

Apicata said nothing for a moment and I feared I'd been too oblique. I wanted her to think of us as allies, not enemies.

'It is nice to have friends,' she said at last, then she felt her way to the door and left me.

I stared after Apicata for a few moments, letting my eyes lose focus while I gathered my thoughts. Then a figure crept into my peripheral vision, startling me. It was my young master, Little Boots.

'You should be in bed, domine,' I admonished him.

'But the blind woman creeps around the halls and wakes me up,' he said.

'How could she wake you up when you're supposed to be sleeping inside your mother's house?'

'I still heard her.'

Lies, of course. Little Boots had stolen out of bed purely to see me, using the slaves' tunnels that linked the Imperial family's various houses. I indulged him and patted a chair for him to sit upon. Little Boots did so, pulling his knees up to his chin, while I set about preparing my domina for the night.

'So, did you hear my talk with the Prefect's wife?' I asked as I rubbed a salve on the bruise Apicata had left at my domina 's throat.

He had heard every word, the monkey. 'The choking has upset Sejanus,' he said, matter-of-factly. If Little Boots had shed any tears for his hapless cousin Hector, he was over them now. 'What do you think Sejanus will do? It must have wrecked his plans.'

I answered that it must have wrecked them badly, even though neither of us knew what Sejanus's plans were. All we knew for certain was that Sejanus had so far caused the death of Little Boots's father, Germanicus, who was the Emperor's nephew and adopted son. This secret murder, which had so devastated Little Boots's mother, older brothers and younger sisters, had left Little Boots himself far from grieved. He had loved his father, but he loved the idea of his father being dead even more. It was because of the prophecies, about which I shall speak more in time.

'It is my guess,' I pondered, 'that because Sejanus has seen that your father's murder will never be traced back to him, he'll only grow bolder in his wickedness.'

'Yes,' said Little Boots, nodding — very sagely for his eight years.

'And with his hopes ruined to marry his daughter into your family, he'll have anger and humiliation in his heart.'

'That's good then, isn't it?' said Little Boots, his eyes shining at the thought.

'Well, yes,' I had to agree. 'Good for what you and I must achieve with even greater secrecy than Sejanus, domine,' I added.

He dismissed my caution. 'I want to be the second prophesied king right now, Iphicles. I'm sick of waiting. There are things I want to do to Rome.'

'You're too young right now. You don't know enough yet.'

'There have been kings in Egypt younger than me.'

'And they were murdered for it.'

That quietened him for a moment. Then his eyes were shining again. 'Who's going to be murdered next in Rome? My big brothers, do you think? Nero next? Or Drusus?'

'It's a terrible thing to hear you hope for their deaths so casually,' I said.

He was incredulous, pointing an accusing finger at my sleeping domina. 'You helped her kill more people than I can count on my hands — and all just to put my grandfather Tiberius on the throne.'

'Be quiet,' I hissed. 'Your grandfather was prophesied, too.'

'He's not much of a king.'

'Little Boots!'

He was unrepentant. 'I bet you talked about your murders all the time — especially with that hunchback witch who used to mix up all the poisons.'

'Quieten down. You only know these dreadful things because I told you when I was ill and raving, domine.'

'I nursed you back to health.'

'Yes, yes, and I'm very grateful.'

'That was when you told me I was a god — and that you were one too.'

Not for the first time, I regretted how much I had told Little Boots in my illness. 'My divine state is no business of yours.'

' My divine state is. The old soothsayer said I was divine too. I was there when he said it, remember?'

I threw my domina 's ointment down and stalked across the room to grip him hard by the shoulders, shaking him. 'Now, listen. Perhaps you will be divine but you are not divine yet — you are only a boy, and not a very nice boy either, and certainly not a boy who is worthy of a throne.'

He stared in shock at me.

'You will wear the crown that was meant for your murdered father — it was prophesied — but your father was loved by all of Rome. It breaks my heart that he was not the chosen one — he deserved to rule — and it certainly broke my domina 's heart. Your father would have been a good and honest king, but it was not to be and that's all there is to it. So…' I stared hard at him. 'Will you be loved, Little Boots?'

He went to answer but I shook him again. 'Not if you carry on like this, you won't. You must look in your heart, domine, and think hard on how the people will love you. Nothing is guaranteed. If you gain the throne tomorrow, you'd still be "the prophesied" but you wouldn't last a minute. Not one minute.'

I released him and he was silent for a long time. 'I'm sorry,' he said at last. 'You are right, Iphicles.'

It was a concession from him — not something I received very often. Affection overcame me and I hugged him. 'You'll be a glorious king one day, Little Boots,' I whispered. 'Just let your loving Iphicles help you become it.'

He kissed my cheek.

'Now. Your older brothers,' I said, breaking the hug. 'The first thing for you to learn is that even though they're marked for death, we must never disrespect them or make jokes about it. If we do, they'll learn of it, and then we'll be the first ones they visit when they come back as shades.'

'Do the ghosts of all the others haunt you, Iphicles?'

'No,' I answered truthfully. 'I loved and respected all those I led towards death, but I did what I did because prophecy demanded it — and because my domina demanded it. I did nothing for pleasure or excitement or revenge. All those who died would have learned the reasons for my actions when they went to the Underworld — and it would have helped them rest, knowing why they had to die. Plus I always spit the beans.' My decades-long habit of spitting mouthfuls of black beans during Lemuria — the festival of the dead — always proved very effective against ghosts. 'I advise you to try spitting them too, Little Boots.'

He nodded again.

'Your older brothers' deaths will not be easy to achieve,' I went on. 'Your poor mother has got them so surrounded by loyal slaves and protectors that poison could never be administered.'

'I'll help get it through,' Little Boots suggested.

I slapped his hand. 'You will not.'

'You can get it through, then,' he said. 'You're a very cunning slave.'

I slapped his other hand. 'And end up being fed to the bears? Some good I'll be to you then.'

Little Boots turned petulant. 'I want my brothers murdered now, Iphicles — they're standing in my way!'

'What have I just been saying to you? Respect and patience.'

He tried not to look sulky, even though he was, and I retrieved my domina 's wooden phallus from its chest, wrapped in its silk shroud. 'Keep going on like this and Sejanus will think of poisoning you next,' I told him.

'He wouldn't — '

'He will in time, if he wants the throne — and what else would he want? You're an obstacle in his path, just like your poor brothers are.'

Little Boots was on the verge of tears. 'But I don't want to die..'

'Don't worry,' I said. 'Your poor mother keeps you protected too — Sejanus will never be able to poison you either.'

'But you have to give me extra protection, Iphicles.'

'Then you should stop sneaking out of bed at night.'

Chastened, he shut up. I was right, of course. He would become Sejanus's target. It was inevitable.

'So who will it be then?' he whispered to me after a few minutes. 'Who will Sejanus murder next?'

I smeared the special ointment on my domina 's phallus and was ready to put it to its purpose. 'You know the answer to that,' I said. 'If you don't, then you're even sillier than you'd have me believe.'

He stuck out his bottom lip, but I could tell that he knew the answer.

'So our job is to see if we can help Sejanus in his next murder without being discovered ourselves. And then we'll help him with the one after that, and then the one after that. And then, when everyone with the blood of the Claudii in their veins has been killed off except you, we will kill Sejanus himself and you'll be king. Simple.' There was nothing simple about it, of course. Six decades of such carnage had taught me that. But at least we had prophecy on our side.

Little Boots smiled, feeling happy. 'I'll go back to my bed and see if my dreams can give me clues.' With that he vanished into the gloom.

Alone again with my domina, I began my nightly ritual of easing the smeared phallus inside her to maintain her endless sleep. I congratulated myself at how my approaching divinity had brought me such cleverness. My domina would never wake up — I could promise it — and when we were eventually reunited upon Olympus I knew she would forgive me for everything I had done — and everything I would do. It was from her Claudian womb that four great kings had been prophesied to spring. The glories of their reigns were and would be entirely for my domina. Her son Tiberius, the first of the four, had been placed on the throne by Livia herself. But she had been naive to think the other three would owe their ascendency to her efforts alone. After all, no one had received greater schooling as her apprentice than I.

If it hadn't been the day of young Hector's death, perhaps I would have had my wits better about me. I was distracted, my mind on Little Boots and the prophecies and Rome. I wasn't paying attention to my domina 's slender hands. Livia was lost with Somnus in her dreams, her body no longer hers to control, and yet, impossibly, as I gently wielded the implement that kept her in this state, her useless fingers, so long lifeless by her sides, slowly began to curl into tight, hard fists.

She no longer slept as soundly as I intended.

Sejanus squatted on the floor among the ruins of the wedding banquet, his head cradled in the hands that had broken the neck of his young son-in-law. It was no surprise to him to hear Castor's voice — barely a whisper — seep inside his ear, as it always did when fate brought him low. He had been expecting it — almost hoping for it; how could Castor resist the urge?

'My father calls you "the partner in my labours",' Castor's voice whispered, and Sejanus imagined his enemy's lips speaking from just behind his ear. It was almost as if he could have turned and kissed them if he wished — or bitten them off.

'My father's partner,' Castor's voice repeated. 'How consoling that must be. Clutch it as you clutch the pretty Praetor's insignia he gave you, Sejanus, and take comfort from these things. They're all that will ever comfort you. You can be his partner, after all, but not his son, and never his heir.'

Sejanus stiffened, but he wouldn't open his eyes. He wouldn't acknowledge Castor's voice as the phantom that it was. It suited Sejanus at times like this to think of the phantom's whisperings as real.

'What a blow the boy's death must have been to your hopes of marrying into my family,' Castor's voice went on. 'It's best if you give up that dream now.' Sejanus imagined the sound of Castor breathing deeply through the nose, then stopping abruptly, as if detecting a thing he disliked. 'No matter how many Claudian princes you marry your brats to, you'll never scrub the stink of the kitchens from your hair.'

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 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…'

The girl Lepida told her sister what had happened outside their mother's receiving room door but the younger girl didn't believe it. Domitia wanted to march up the stairs to see for herself, but Lepida's horror at the prospect was so real that Domitia knew something very frightening was taking place in their house.

'It was the blind woman — the one at the wedding. Her husband hunts down the traitors.'

'But our mother is not a traitor!'

Lepida wanted to echo this denial but now found that she couldn't. Perhaps their mother was a traitor, and this was why the blind woman had come? 'What does "traitor" even mean? Nobody seems to know.'

Domitia tried to define it but found that she barely could. 'It's someone who hates Rome.'

'Is that really our mother?'

Domitia shook her head vehemently, but Lepida was still unsure. 'She talked to a very strange man at the wedding… What if he was a traitor?'

Domitia didn't know what to think and the two girls found comfort in crying for a time. When their tears had dried, they were left feeling angry.

'How dare this blind woman offend us by upsetting our mother?' said Domitia, the younger girl, wiping a hand under her nose. 'We are the Aemilii. What is she?'

'Not even patrician,' whispered Lepida.

'What would the great Augusta Livia do in this terrible situation? Or widow Agrippina?'

'They would both be outraged.'

'And their fury would give them courage,' Domitia declared.

There was barely two years' difference in their ages, but Lepida assumed a motherly role and took Domitia's hand. They retrieved a sharp knife from the kitchens, and when the worried slaves tried to accompany the girls, aware that something distressing was taking place in the rooms above, Lepida thanked them for their concern but said she would call upon them only if the situation was dire. They were patrician ladies, after all, and should be able to handle dangers with nothing more than their wits. The slaves agreed, hiding their relief, but wanted the girls' brothers to accompany them. Lepida rejected this, too. Their younger brother, Aemilius, was only seven and yet would hog all the glory once their mother was rescued. Besides, he was in the Forum with his tutor, and they could not waste time waiting for him to return home. The slaves then pointed to Ahenobarbus, Lepida's twin, who glanced up from his place by the fire. Not only was he cursed with ugly red hair, he was also mute and half-witted. The girls pronounced him useless in a crisis and left Ahenobarbus gazing into the kitchen furnace.

Still holding hands, but with Lepida now clutching the knife, the sisters crept up the broad marble stairs and along the corridor to their mother's room. The door was now wide open. Inside, they found Aemilia sitting in her favourite chair, staring blankly at the walls.

Lepida dropped the knife and rushed to her first. 'What has happened?'

'Where is the blind woman?' said Domitia.

The anxiety was all too much and both girls burst into tears again.

'The Praetorian Prefect's wife has gone,' said Aemilia. There was an unsettling edge to her voice, a desperation — or exhilaration — that their mother was just managing to keep at bay.

'What did she want? Why was she here?'

'To blackmail me. To force me to help her against my will.'

The sisters wept again.

'Oh Mother! What did you do?'

'I did as she asked. I had no choice.'

Only now did the girls see the strange items spilled on the floor at their mother's feet. Little tablets made of clay and wood, pieces of twine and hair, a stylus, feathers from birds. Lepida stared at the dried-up husk of a toad. 'Are you going to die?' Lepida sobbed. 'Is this woman going to take you away as a traitor?'

'Ssh,' said Aemilia, smoothing her oldest girl's hair. But she didn't answer the question. Whatever fear she had felt when Apicata had revealed what she knew, Aemilia felt free of it now. The blind woman had been right. Her heart was lighter for sharing a burden. 'That man I spoke to at the wedding was a soothsayer,' she said. 'I was reckless and foolish to do it, but there he was just waiting to be spoken to, and so I did.'

Both girls went very pale.

'It's illegal to speak to such a person — I know it, girls. It has made me a criminal. That's what the blind woman has used against me. That and, well, some other things.'

'How did you even know what he was?' Lepida whispered. 'I saw that man — he just looked like a dirty slave to me. Or a beggar.'

Aemilia tried to explain it. 'I had never seen him before in my life. I didn't even know his name. I still don't. But I just knew what he was. He was staring at me so intently, you see. He wanted me to talk to him.'

'But why?'

Aemilia smiled, and in doing so her heart felt lighter still. It seemed so appalling in the bleakness of her circumstances, yet she actually felt happy. She realised the significance of what had befallen her. 'It was destined that he would speak to me — and that the blind woman would overhear it. The gods intended both things to occur. The blind woman's blackmail is not a curse at all, but a blessing, girls. We are destined to prosper from it.'

'The gods?' said Domitia.

'One god — Veiovis, our god of deception. I have learned that he favours us, you see.'

The girls just stared at their mother.

'But he is a very bad god,' said Lepida. 'A lying god…'

'Not for everyone. Behind every lie is a truth.'

'Mother, he is a frightening god — there are vermin in his temple,' said Domitia. 'He doesn't even have priests.'

'Perhaps he has no wish for them?'

The frightened sisters stared into their mother's beautiful brown eyes. Desperation was etched deeply on her soul, but excitement boiled there too. She was balanced on a sword's edge.

'Please,' whispered Domitia. 'What did the soothsayer tell you about Veiovis, Mother?'

'He told me about the rarest of birds,' Aemilia began, 'and the woman who is so long asleep…'

The Nones of June

AD 20

Two weeks later: laws against celibacy lead to profit for those who inform against the 'deliberately childless'

The young midwife stared in confusion at the object in her hand. It was the length and breadth of a woman's finger, nothing more, and yet it had weight to it. It was heavy, covered by a small linen sock. The young woman went to take it out for closer inspection.

'I wouldn't do that,' said Apicata.

The midwife stopped. 'What is it?'

Apicata told her and the midwife dropped the thing as if it was poisoned. It bounced dully at the fountain's edge and sank to the bottom of the shallow courtyard pool.

'Pick it up,' said Apicata. Her tone was such that the midwife obeyed, dipping her hand in the water and retrieving the thing. She held it fearfully in her fingers.

'It is not addressed to you, therefore it cannot hurt you,' said Apicata. 'It is harmless for you.'

But the midwife couldn't stop shaking. Apicata reached out and gripped the young woman's arm. 'Do you know who I am?'

Of course the midwife did.

'What I do, I do in response to provocation. I have been pushed to do this thing — do you understand me?'

'I do, Lady.'

Apicata retrieved a small purse that hung from her girdle and gave it to the young midwife. 'This is yours. There'll be another just like it once I've learned of what happens when my little present is found.'

The midwife emptied the purse into her hand. There were five gold coins, a staggering amount of money. She stopped shaking as she stared at the shining Emperor's heads. 'I will tell you as soon as it's done, Lady.'

'Don't bother. I will only pay you when I've heard the account from others. But do not worry. I have no doubt at all that I will hear.'

The young midwife slipped the coins back inside the purse and placed the sinister little object and its sock in with them. She briefly wondered if the golden Emperor's heads would be tarnished by their companion, corrupted in some way. Then she decided it didn't matter. Money was money, no matter how little it might shine by day's end.

The warm morning in early summer brought people into the open air. Hundreds flocked through the annual slave fair, which was held on the Field of Mars before the start of the festival for the war goddess, Bellona. Some shopped in earnest but many more just browsed, the slave fair being a great haunt for those who enjoyed ogling the less fortunate. But the widow Agrippina strode across the market flagstones with the sole purpose of restocking her household. Malaria had returned to Rome with the warmer weather and she'd lost half her staff to the pestilence.

As the trusted companion slave of her youngest son, Little Boots, who was busy this morning with his tutor, I was included among the retinue of friends, surviving servants, freedmen and beggars that now accompanied Agrippina everywhere. Some forty attendants milled about but I managed to hold my place behind her shoulder. At Agrippina's left and right, her two greatest friends, Sosia and Claudia, guided her through the market clamour with radiant, public smiles.

Short and squat, Sosia Galla was loved for her sharp eye and quick mind. She was fiercely loyal to beautiful Agrippina. Sosia thought nothing of kicking the ankles of those who moved too slowly in front of them and then smiling challengingly when they turned on her to complain. Claudia Pulchra, at Agrippina's right, was a Claudian cousin possessing a dark allure that almost eclipsed Agrippina's famed golden hair and milky skin. Claudia's loyalty was as steadfast as Sosia's, and both friends harboured scars on their hearts from Agrippina's husband's untimely death.

There was a buzz of excitement in the crowd that the widow was among them. Agrippina's celebrity burned as brightly as the sun. No other woman's face was then as known and as loved by Rome — not even my sleeping domina 's. And no other woman's tragedy was known as intimately, or was so passionately discussed. If Rome could have crowned its queen, the crown would have belonged to Agrippina.

The caged slaves awaiting auction were the focus of the three women's attention, but my eyes were on the other features around us. 'Look, Lady,' I spoke before thinking. 'They're giving the domina new hair.'

Agrippina looked. The Field of Mars's statue of Livia was having a fashionable bronze hairstyle fitted, so that she wouldn't look outdated. I thought this was happy news, of course, but I should have known better than to express it to Agrippina. The widow hated my domina.

'It means that the Augusta is still in people's hearts,' I explained to her. 'They want her to keep up with the times.'

Agrippina said nothing and Sosia cast a censuring look at me. Rome was still even to learn of my domina 's 'illness', although the goddess Rumour was concocting stories to explain Livia's long absence from public view.

The din of panpipers and musicians playing tambourines and cithara increased in volume for a moment, then ceased, creating expectation in the crowd.

'The mangon is appearing,' Claudia motioned.

Agrippina could not be expected to bid personally, so that was my role here. The lavishly dressed mangon — or slave trader — looked like he was off to a festival banquet instead of a slave sale. He came into view from behind his caged captives, rubbing his hands together cheerily and greeting customers he recognised in the crowd. He saw Agrippina with her friends and changed his expression to one of deep respect, bowing to her, before he continued greeting others. Agrippina absorbed this with dignity, and I could tell she approved of it, as did Sosia and Claudia.

'He knows who you are, Lady,' I said, 'and he respects you.'

'Good,' said Agrippina. 'You can use that to drive down his price.'

The gate on the first of the slave cages was released and the mangon 's assistants poked sticks through the bars at the dozen grime-caked men. With nothing to protect them, they cowered, before realising they were expected to come out so that the buyers could examine them. Agrippina frowned as they started to emerge.

'Sardinians,' said Claudia, using the slang term for cheap captives not necessarily from Sardinia but from anywhere with a repressed population. Nerve-wracked, they looked like Britons to me. A commotion from behind the cages caught our attention. A woman was screaming, begging for her life in Latin. A ripple went through the crowd as all craned their heads to see what was happening. But Agrippina and her friends looked away from the distasteful scene.

I saw the source of the drama — a female slave was being dragged from a holding area that was covered from view. She was older and with few physical charms. The clothes she wore were rags but I could tell that they had once been fine garments. She was not a regular slave.

'What's happening?' Claudia whispered to me, still looking elsewhere.

'A woman is being taken away by the mangon 's men.'

'Why?'

'She is not being offered for sale,' I muttered.

'Has she committed a crime?' asked Sosia, who was too short to see, even if she'd wished to.

'Yes,' was all I could say. It didn't matter what that crime was, only that the wretched woman had been accused of it and was now facing the price.

'They won't do it here, will they?' said Claudia, appalled, as she realised this too.

Agrippina gave her friend a look and moved a short distance away to speak with some other members of her retinue.

'No, Lady,' I whispered.

Beyond us, among the auction crowd, people began to part and retreat as an ass-drawn cart trundled into the marketplace, led by a naked, leather-masked driver. Cries of disgust broke out from some as they realised what he was, while others — slaves, many of them, and freedmen with strong memories — could do nothing but stare. Claudia was compelled to look and she paled with dismay. 'That's not… him, is it?'

I shook my head, blinking back tears of pity for the condemned slave woman. 'No, Lady,' I said. 'The carnifex is too polluted to be here — he's not allowed inside the city. He has sent a man in his image to retrieve her.'

The ass-driver's leather mask would strike terror in anyone, let alone a slave. It was a copy of the mask worn by the real carnifex — the public executioner — who was forbidden to offend the gods by showing his accursed face. The slave woman's cries were terrible.

'Make it swift for her, Cybele,' I whispered in prayer to the Great Mother.

The mangon 's men bundled the woman inside the stinking cart, binding her hands to an iron hook.

Claudia saw what I had already noticed. 'Her clothes are well made — she speaks in Latin. Is she a well-born woman?'

'Slavery can be the fate of even the greatest, Lady,' I said. 'She could be the mother of a chief.'

'Which means she stood against Rome,' said Agrippina, coldly. The widow had returned to us and was keen for this upsetting spectacle to end.

Claudia shuddered, nodding. There was nothing more to add. But as the ass-drawn cart trundled away from the market, I felt the stirring of a tremor at my feet. It was tiny at first, barely there, but I felt it, a movement deep in the ground. At once my memory rushed back sixty years, to when I had felt such a tremor before. It had been in the cave of Cybele, where my domina and I had heard our destinies revealed. The earth bucked again now and I staggered in my shoes. I looked around but I knew the truth already — no one else had felt the tremor. I was alone in my experience. For a moment or two more I tried to appear as if all was right while the fair screeched on around me. But the beast continued to churn below the earth while I appealed in desperate silence to the skies.

'What is wrong with you, Iphicles?' said Agrippina. 'The carnifex 's man is gone.'

I smiled and went to make a joke, but then my eye fell on the statue of my domina. The updated hairstyle, cast in bronze, slipped from the statue's head, striking the skull of the sculptor's assistant. The man fell to the ground as his fellows rushed to him. The heavy bronze hair had snapped in two.

My mouth grew dry. The slave woman, the carnifex, the tremor and the statue — they were a portent, an omen. Together they made a signal meant for me and no one else. But what did they mean?

The mangon clapped his hands, casting winks and smiles, anxious to get the proceedings underway and lift the spirits of the crowd. The stick-wielding assistants forced the disgorged captives to strip off their rags.

'Shall I bid for any of these, Lady?' I asked, hoping I had pulled myself together.

'These men are good for nothing but field work — they'll last two years at best. Health and skills are what I want today — good vernae. Slaves born in captivity — like you.'

'Agrippina!'

A voice behind us made us turn. Castor was approaching with a large retinue of his own. Agrippina's older sons, Nero and Drusus, were among them.

'Good morning, Mother,' Nero called out.

Her face lit up with pleasure as Castor's mass of rowdy followers merged with her own. 'Well, this is nice — some extra company while I shop today,' Agrippina shouted above the noise. She and Castor kissed, and then the boys exchanged embraces with her, before everyone greeted Sosia and Claudia.

Nero looked at the captives for sale. 'I don't think much of these — where will you put them all?'

'I don't want those poor men,' Agrippina said. 'I'm after household slaves to replace the ones I lost. They're just selling off the dross first before they bring out the decent men.'

Castor exchanged a quick look with the two boys. 'You won't need to be too extravagant today,' he said to Agrippina.

Sosia laughed.

'When am I extravagant?' said Agrippina, knowing why Sosia thought it funny. Agrippina was famously frugal. 'All I want to do is restock my house in a fashion that Germanicus would have approved of.'

The deliberate mention of her dead husband made Castor flinch a little; Germanicus had been his adopted brother. Castor shifted on his feet, where his right arch pained him with an abscess that never seemed to heal. 'All the same, Father is encouraging us to show new restraint with household expenses,' Castor said. 'It sets a good example.'

The three women stiffened. If anyone else but Castor had presented Agrippina with one of Tiberius's petty directives, all three would have spat in his face. But Castor was one of the family members of whom Agrippina was fond. She beamed with grace, but gave no assent that the Emperor's word meant anything to her. Instead she turned to me. 'A fan slave, I think, should be added to our shopping list, Iphicles. I feel a need for one of those. And a scissors slave. How can I be expected to cut up my own meat?' She was being provocative for Castor's benefit, but I nodded obediently.

Another look passed between Castor and her boys and Agrippina saw it this time. 'What is it — do you think Tiberius will be shocked?' she asked dryly.

I had noticed a change in the way Nero and Drusus stood next to Castor, no longer as nephews might with their uncle, but with the deference shown to a man with whom they shared a closer bond.

In front of us at the auction block a landowner's overseer purchased the Britons, completing the transaction with the scribes while the mangon took a gulp of wine, dribbling it on his gaudy robes. While the mangon drank, a giant of a man, greater than six feet tall, with long, yellow hair tied back with a wire, came out from the covered area. His thick, bare arms and hands, crossed across his broad chest, were covered in battle scars. He looked like the most fearsome of German warriors.

'Look at that one, Lady,' I whispered.

Agrippina saw him. The warrior's gaze — if that's what he was — found her among the crowd, as if drawn to her by a spell. They held each other in their looks for a moment, Lady and slave, each assessing the other, appraising and measuring their respective strengths.

'Is he for sale, Lady?'

The two continued to fill their eyes with each other before the golden-haired warrior broke the connection.

'A brute like that would be uncontrollable,' said Agrippina.

Castor cleared his throat. 'There has been news this morning, since you mention my father.'

'I didn't mention him,' said Agrippina, turning her back to the giant. 'You brought him up.'

Nero and Drusus smiled indulgently at their mother. They held knowledge she did not.

'I am very fond of these two fine boys of yours,' said Castor. 'You know that, don't you?'

'Of course I do,' said Agrippina, warmly. She turned her head to the auction block again. The first of the domestic slaves were emerging. Sosia and Claudia made little exclamations of pleasure with the appearance of several attractive young boys.

'Aren't they sweet?' said Agrippina. 'Should I purchase myself a little pet, Iphicles?'

I nodded, but my eye was on Castor.

'I will always be a protector to them for as long as Nero and Drusus need it,' Castor went on, 'in memory of their father.'

'I know you will,' said Agrippina. She wasn't looking at him anymore.

Castor glanced at the boys, and they nodded at him encouragingly. 'With Nero about to gain his robes of manhood, and Drusus only a year away from it too, I have asked my father for his permission to have the boys placed in my care.'

Agrippina blanched and spun around. Her retinue of supporters sensed that something had shocked her and strained to listen above the din of the crowd.

Castor went on. 'They have no father now. It seems like a sensible idea.'

' You asked him? You went to Tiberius and gave him this… betrayal of Germanicus on your own accord?'

Castor paled. 'It is not a betrayal, Agrippina.'

The boys looked around us, fearing their mother was gathering unwanted attention.

'What else have you done but betray me with this, Castor? You may as well poison me too.'

'Mother, please,' said Nero. 'No one is talking about anything like that here.'

'Your father was poisoned,' Agrippina turned on him. 'You know that — you were there when he died in my arms — and you know by whose hand it was done.'

'It was Piso, Mother,' said Drusus, 'and his wife, Plancina.'

'They were his agents.'

'Agrippina, for the gods' sake,' Castor appealed to her.

She stared into his eyes. There was kindness there, a genuine love for her, along with a deep concern for her welfare. She guessed the truth. 'You didn't go to him to ask permission at all, Castor. He summoned you.'

Castor's embarrassment was plain. 'I… I care for the boys.'

'But it was all his idea?'

'We want this, Mother,' Nero tried to tell her.

'We love our uncle,' said Drusus. 'This is what's best for us.'

'This is what's best for Tiberius,' said Agrippina. 'He wants you both away from me. He's frightened I'll turn your minds against him.'

'Mother, please. This is terrible,' Nero said. 'We want our uncle to adopt us.'

Agrippina lurched with a fury into the mass of attendants, forcing her way through. 'What about what Rome wants?' she cried over her shoulder. Sosia and Claudia kept pace, striding behind her, their faces still smiling as if nothing was untoward. Confusion gripped the two groups of followers, with Agrippina's trying to make their way through the throng of Castor's clients.

'Where are you going?' Castor shouted after her. 'Agrippina!'

But she was unstoppable.

I stayed where I was, standing still among the clamour all around me. My mind stayed fixed upon the events of the morning — the carnifex, my domina, the strange portent. My teeth ground in my head; I was at risk of being overwhelmed. I forced my mind back to the task at hand. I was here to buy slaves. Tiberius's doings, Agrippina's rage — these were unimportant to me. It was just another day.

My eye wandered across the new parade of vernae slaves that emerged from the market cells. These were healthy slaves, experienced in household service — and many were attractive too, their appeal enhanced by their nakedness. Thanks to the kindness of Agrippina's long-dead mother, Julia, I could read and write, so I scanned the information scrolls around the slaves' bare necks. Each one's health and nationality was detailed, and his or her accomplishments too, along with warrants assuring buyers that the slave had no tendency towards thieving, suicide or epilepsy.

My eye settled on two young children tightly holding each other's hands — a girl of no more than five and a boy of eight or nine. Their scrolls had no warrants but they wore telltale caps on their heads: they were marked as thieves. Alone among the slaves for sale, they showed no fear at their predicament, only courage and a determination that they would never be separated.

Nilla and Burrus recognised me at once, of course, and I, with joy, sang praise to all the gods at finding them again.

'You have a look about you as if you've willfully broken your confinement,' said Antonia, suspicious of her daughter.

Livilla groaned. 'I have been shut up inside this room as a prisoner of my bed, Mother — ask any of my slaves.'

'They wouldn't dare say otherwise, the way you treat them. No, I'm sorry, but you have that look, Livilla, the look you've always had when you do wickedness behind me.'

'Mother, for the gods' sake, I am not a child. And why would I risk wandering pointlessly around the halls when the baby is so close? I could catch a chill from the mists.'

'For years your poor Castor has waited for a son from you, and now you risk everything by exposing yourself to dangers.'

'If you are going to do nothing else but throw hurtful accusations at me, then please leave.' Livilla rolled on her side in the bed, turning her back on all the fussing occupants of the birthing room. Her eyes caught those of the castrated Lygdus, who was pressing himself against the far wall. Livilla was made uncomfortable by the drops of blood that still soaked daily into the hem of his tunica. He had gained weight too, which she disliked in a young eunuch. 'Make yourself busy, Lygdus, if you insist on staring at me rather than doing the job you're supposed to be doing at the front door.'

Lygdus bowed and fell to his knees. At a loss as to what might be deemed 'useful', he began moving the floor dust into little piles with his palms. From the other side of the room the young midwife suddenly sat up straight in her chair at the sight of his pointless activity. The senior birthing mistress in the chair beside her only glanced in the young eunuch's direction once before respectfully addressing Antonia.

'The domina has never once left this room since we have been in attendance this last seven days, Lady,' she said.

The young midwife watched Lygdus's fluttering hands like a cat.

The aged and revered Antonia narrowed her eyes at the senior midwife but chose to give her daughter the benefit of the doubt. 'If you insist then, Livilla.'

'I certainly do.' But she kept her back to her mother, her left arm held protectively across her belly.

Antonia stood to leave. 'I have other calls to make this morning. My friend Aemilia is unwell. Perhaps she'll be glad of my attentions.'

Lygdus's fingers connected with something jammed in a gap between the floorboards under Livilla's bed. He gripped it, unable to squeeze beneath the bed to properly see what it was. He tugged at the thing by the fabric it seemed to be encased in. The object came free. 'Have you lost something, domina?' he whispered to Livilla, holding the surprisingly heavy little object up for her to see.

Livilla glanced at him with only minor interest, but the young midwife stiffened in her chair. 'I've never seen it before,' said Livilla.

Lygdus gave it to her and Livilla upended the little sock. A tiny roll of flattened lead fell into her palm. She looked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, as did Antonia, who had paused in leaving the room. Then mother and daughter met eyes in a shared moment of horror.

'It's a curse tablet!' Livilla screamed, flinging the lead aside. It bounced across the floor, stopping at the guilt-ridden young midwife's feet. 'Oh my gods!'

'Witchcraft!'

'How did it get inside here?'

The young midwife shrank into the wall.

'Open it,' said Antonia. 'Open the foul thing.'

The young midwife froze. Her senior colleague stooped with creaking joints to retrieve it, trying to look as if she felt no fear. 'Could it hold a blessing, Lady?'

Antonia snatched the thing from her and Livilla wailed. 'I won't let you see it, daughter,' said Antonia, 'but I must read it to know who would wish us ill will.'

'Are you sure it's not a blessing?' said the old midwife again.

Antonia dug her nails under the curl of rolled lead. The tablet bent easily in her fingers and she smoothed the abhorrent thing in her palm.

'Tell me what it says,' moaned Livilla.

'It's indecipherable…'

Livilla threw herself from her bed and snatched the tablet from her mother's hands.

'Livilla!'

'It's written backwards…'

'Oh help us, gods,' cried Antonia, feeling weak.

'A mirror — where's my mirror?'

Fearful and bewildered, Lygdus picked up the polished silver disk that Livilla used to study her complexion. ' Domina…'

Livilla plucked it from him and held the tablet to its surface with shaking hands. Legible words were revealed in the reflection. White-faced, Antonia read them with her daughter. By Veiovis, may the child of the slut Livilla lose its eyes and its ears and its mouth and its head.

Only Lygdus, young and strong, had the speed to catch his mistress as she slipped forward. He stopped her swollen belly from striking the ground. But the effort of saving Livilla tore open his wound, causing fresh blood to spill down his leg, before it was lost in a greater flood. Livilla's waters broke around him, gushing to the floor from her loins.

When the tortures of labour went on to claim her, so did the irrationality of terror. With every stab in her guts she begged the goddesses who guided her — Venus, Diana and Juno — to tell her who had invoked the god of deception and lies to curse her so cruelly. When, after an hour of this, she claimed that Venus had given her the answer, no amount of appalled dissuasion from Antonia could shift Livilla's conviction. Lygdus had done it, Livilla screamed — he had found the curse tablet under her bed only because he had placed it there. The eunuch had invoked Veiovis to curse her for his castration.

By the second hour of her agony Livilla was only persuaded not to crucify Lygdus by Antonia's desperate proposal of a lesser punishment. For every contraction that gripped Livilla's womb, Lygdus received a stroke of the nail-studded whip. In short time his screams were louder than hers, which became a comfort to Livilla in her fear.

None found this punishment more difficult to observe than the guilt-ridden young midwife.

The two Praetorians on duty opened the doors to such a shocking scene that they rushed into the room with their swords drawn. Agrippina ran in behind them with a sharp scream, leaving Sosia and Claudia to stare after her in confusion. Tiberius was sprawled on the floor, struggling to get up from where he had fallen, as Consular Senator Gallus gripped him around the knees, sobbing like a child. The guards were so alert to assassination attempts that Gallus was only just saved from being cut to pieces by Tiberius himself.

'Wait!'

The men halted with their swords raised.

'The fool has lost his reason but he's not trying to kill me,' said Tiberius. 'Get off, Gallus,' he winced, kicking at the senator.

Gallus let go, realising that his show of supplication had nearly been the death of him. 'Caesar,' he stammered. 'I… I meant no harm.'

'You caused it anyway — just get out.' Tiberius saw Agrippina standing behind the guards with a look of dark disgust on her face. He knew it had nothing to do with Gallus and clambered to his feet.

The Consular Senator tried to exit backwards, bowing as he went, but he struck a lampidarium, nearly pulling it down before Agrippina's quick actions steadied it. She kept her eyes hard upon Tiberius. Gallus's tears started again and he crawled out of the reception room weeping noisily. There was a stunned lull in his wake, and then the guards made it clear they wanted an explanation. Agrippina realised that Charicles, Tiberius's physician, was also in the large room, seated in a chair with a scroll in his lap, and quite unperturbed by any of it.

'The idiot Gallus thinks he's the target of a plot,' Tiberius addressed the guards like boys. 'Villains are attempting to smear him, he claims. All rubbish, of course. Gallus is deluded with self-importance.'

'And why would that be?' Agrippina asked. Charicles glanced up from his scroll. There was a look of defiance in Agrippina's face. 'Because he married your former wife?'

The past year's experiences had taught Tiberius that the best way to deal with his headstrong widowed daughter-in-law was to seize the advantage from her early. He lurched forward and kissed her on the forehead, placing his arms around her broad shoulders. In the room outside, Sosia and Claudia stared in disgust. The sheer unexpectedness of this gesture disarmed Agrippina long enough for Tiberius to dismiss the guards. He reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out some aureus coins.

'Gallus's union with my former wife Vipsania is something Rome celebrates,' he said, tossing the coins to the Praetorians and waving them out of the room. 'But if this has inflated his sense of self then perhaps it can't be helped. Vipsania is a fine woman, after all, much admired.'

This was an invitation for Agrippina to bring up Tiberius's cruel divorce of Vipsania prior to his marriage to Agrippina's late mother. But she saw it for the trap it was and went straight to the point of her visit. 'My sons,' she said. 'I wish to speak to you about Drusus and Nero.'

'Do you seek my advice on some matter?'

The Praetorians closed the doors on the conversation and on Sosia and Claudia outside. Only the physician Charicles remained in the huge room with them.

'I seek an explanation,' said Agrippina.

Tiberius kissed her on the forehead again, embracing her tightly and pressing his lips to her skin. 'My poor daughter-inlaw,' he said at last. 'Your grief has left you slow in recognising the benevolence of my actions.'

Agrippina reeled from his breath as rage stuck in her throat. She forced herself not to react. 'You are right,' she said. 'My grief for your adopted son is unending — I will never be rid of it, and nor will I wish to be.'

'Nor I,' said Tiberius, unblinking in his smile. The odour of him was sour in the air.

'Together we are united in our devotion to his sons,' said Agrippina. 'We want them to live with those who love them most.'

'Of course we do.' Tiberius made a movement to suggest he was going to kiss her again and Agrippina tensed in his arms. Then he playfully released her but remained standing next to her in unpleasant intimacy. 'I have a new idea,' he said.

She waited.

'We'll knock holes in the walls that separate your house from Castor's.'

'Castor's house is this house — Oxheads.'

'No, no, no,' said Tiberius. 'Castor and his household are entirely separate.'

'The buildings are connected. It is all one.'

'Is it?' Tiberius considered this as if the layout of the Imperial family's homes had never been revealed to him. 'Perhaps you're right. Then your house will be connected, too. We should have done it long ago, when Germanicus was still alive. We're one family, after all. As soon as your sons are moved into their new rooms in Castor's house this afternoon, we'll set the slaves to work on your walls. Then it won't feel like the boys have moved away from you at all, Agrippina. It'll feel like your house has expanded. All that extra space.'

He placed an aged and withered arm around her shoulder again, and it felt to Agrippina like his skin was alive with worms. Tiberius returned his lips to her hair, breathing in her perfume for a moment as he nibbled at her. She willed herself to swallow her rage again.

'When Nero turns fourteen, I will commend him to the Senate,' said Tiberius. 'I will propose that he is given the privilege of seeking the quaestorship, too, five years before the legal age, and the priesthood of Jupiter. I will ask the Senate to mark these honours with generous donatives to the people, naturally. Rome will think quite well of Nero as a result — don't you agree, Agrippina?'

She knew he was dangling her son's future before her like a jewel. Any objections she held could only seem baseless now. 'He will be popular,' she said.

Agrippina heard her friends' voices rise in some unseen commotion on the other side of the doors.

'Yes, he will be,' said Tiberius. He raised his lips from her hair and placed his hands at his side. He made no signal that Agrippina should go, but neither did he say another word. Agrippina just looked at him, boring deep into his eyes. She thought she saw the glow of triumph within them. She imagined braying, mocking laughter.

She turned on her heel and walked swiftly to the door. It was only as she was about to slap her palms on the bronze panels to summon the guards that Tiberius spoke again.

'He'll be betrothed as well. Nero, I mean. To my granddaughter Tiberia, Castor and Livilla's girl. She's very pretty. What do you think, Agrippina?'

'I think we'll be lucky if her mother allows her even to attend the wedding,' said Agrippina. 'What if there's a mist she might catch cold from?'

Tiberius erupted in laughter, throwing his head back. When it ended, there were tears on his cheeks. 'Livilla's obsession with illness extends to poor Tiberia, it's true,' he said, wiping his face with his hands, 'but like all good daughters-in-law, Livilla will see the sense in following a father's advice. There will be a wedding day, mist or no mist. I'll give thought to betrothing Drusus too.'

He paused again, looking at Agrippina with a paternal smile. Then his gaze lost focus. He saw her but no longer saw her, as if she had already left the room. 'Charicles?'

The physician looked up from his scroll at the other side of the huge room.

'Do I have unpleasant breath?'

'It is possible, Caesar…'

'What should I do about it?'

'Chew ginger. And then drink perfume mixed with wine. I will arrange it for you.'

Agrippina slapped her hands against the heavy plated doors. The Praetorians pulled them open from outside and she stumbled into the corridor, unable to choke back her sobbing. Sosia and Claudia rushed to her, trying to tell her something as the doors closed again. But Agrippina didn't hear them as she sank to the mosaic floor, her body wracked with grief for her murdered husband, her murdered mother, her murdered father, her murdered brothers and her tiny daughter too — all lost, all dead, all taken from her far too soon. She wept for her loved ones and she raged in her heart against Tiberius for what she believed was his part in so much misery.

When no more tears were left, Agrippina allowed herself some comfort in the cold floor tiles. They were sobering somehow. They brought her back to the present again, to what she must do in her husband's name. She saw there was a pattern in the floor — one she had never noticed before.

'Look,' she whispered to her friends, 'dancing skeletons. It's a reminder to enjoy life, since death can come so easily.'

Sosia gently lifted Agrippina's head from the floor. Agrippina looked up then and saw me waiting for her.

'Lady,' I said. 'I have good news for you.'

'Do you?' she said. 'It will have to be something very special for me to consider it good, Iphicles.'

I stood aside and let her see.

The tiny girl was clothed now, but she still held tightly to her boy-slave's hand.

'Mama,' Nilla said. She let go of Burrus and ran forward to hug and kiss the woman she had believed she would never see again. The slave Nymphomidia, Burrus's own mother, wept at her son's side, as Sosia and Claudia now joined in too.

But Agrippina had no more tears left to give. She clung to the daughter she had long thought drowned, whispering her name. 'Agrippinilla… my Agrippinilla,' she said softly. 'My little Nilla.'

The steward had a smile to split his face in two as Castor returned home from a long morning at the magistrate's courts, accompanied by his nephews Nero and Drusus. Agrippina's reaction at the slave market still weighed heavily upon Castor as he lifted his feet before crouching Lygdus. The young eunuch began removing their leather street shoes, his every movement agony from where the nailed whip had scourged him. He was dressed in a fresh scarlet tunica, to better hide his new wounds.

'What is it? You look odd,' Castor said, conscious of the pain behind the eunuch's movements.

Lygdus lingered over his master's liberated feet and saw that the abscess on his master's arch was no better. He cast a glance at the grinning steward, Pelops. There was an understanding in place among the slaves about all that had happened today. 'My back is stiff, domine, that is all,' Lygdus lied.

The steward grinned all the more as Lygdus began rubbing a salve on Castor's sore foot. 'There has been happy news while you were away, domine,' Pelops said.

'Happy?'

There was a scurry of movement in the atrium beyond the entrance hall, a flap of women's gowns. Castor looked past Pelops and saw that most of the household slaves were assembled in the light-filled central room, kneeling on the floor and looking through to him expectantly.

'What's the matter with everyone?'

Tiberia popped her head into the hall. 'Please come inside, Father — we're all waiting for you.' She cast a quick smile at Nero, but the smile he returned was for politeness only.

Lygdus gave a whimper at having to rush his one and only pleasure — sponging perfumed water over three pairs of bare feet. Castor didn't wait for the slave to dry him. He walked into the atrium after Tiberia, leaving wet footprints behind him as all the servants bowed to the floor.

Castor laughed. 'What a lot of silliness — what's got into you all?' Then he saw. The two midwives were among the servants. They rose before him, presenting a bundle in fresh, white linen. It was a baby.

'Your son has been born, domine,' the senior woman announced. She placed the boy upon the marble floor at Castor's feet.

A rush of emotion overcame Castor in the surprise. 'I have a son?' He stooped to lift the child, formally accepting the boy, and all the household slaves burst into applause. Lygdus and Pelops joined the throng. The baby stirred and opened his eyes, grumbling a little at the noise. His eyes were perfectly formed, as were his ears, his mouth and his head.

'The Lady Livilla's labour came early — and very fast,' said the senior midwife. 'It lasted barely three hours. One of the easiest births we've attended, domine.'

The younger midwife kept her eyes hard on the floor. Antonia had commanded that no mention was to be made by anyone of what else had occurred. Not that the guilt-ridden midwife would have mentioned it anyway.

'Where is Livilla?' said Castor, transfixed by the baby.

'With the Lady Antonia, resting,' said the senior midwife, 'but she waits for you, domine.'

Castor cradled his son. 'You weren't expected to come today,' he whispered to the little bundle, 'but I'm so glad you did.'

The young midwife risked raising her eyes in Lygdus's direction, but the beaten eunuch didn't notice her. Weakened by his ordeal, he pressed his back against the wall. The midwife saw that he left a smear of blood behind him.

'I have a baby brother now,' Tiberia whispered to Nero, whose feet were still wet too. 'Aren't you happy for me?'

Nero made the appropriate face.

'His name will be Gemellus,' Castor announced to his nephews. 'He'll be as a brother to you.'

The household slaves applauded again, repeating the name.

'Welcome, Gemellus!' Drusus shouted above the noise.

Castor moved into the middle of the room, with Tiberia and the boys behind him, while the servants surged around them to give praise.

On the periphery Lygdus echoed the cries of the others as he detached himself from the group, keeping one eye on the entrance and edging further along the wall. Only Pelops looked away from the baby for a moment when he thought he heard the sound of the front door pulling closed. But the hall was empty; he told himself he was hearing things. Why would anyone wish to depart the house on such a happy day for their master?

Tiberius strained to write by lamplight, but the glow was so poor that the letters ran together under his hand. He finished the pen stroke and then couldn't even discern whose name he had added to the list. He knew the name in his head — of course he did — but did the scroll match? He held it closer to the flame, squinting to bring the letters into sharper focus as he took another sip of his draught. The effects of the Eastern flower let his mind knit together again, however briefly, and he saw that his writing was just legible.

Tiberius did not intend reading from the list himself tomorrow. That task was beneath him and he deemed it too painful. Instead, he would listen in silence, just as he had when all the earlier lists had been read out by whichever toady of the moment stepped up to serve his Emperor. Tiberius didn't care which fawning senator claimed the task — all that mattered was that the names be read out loudly and correctly. Tiberius hated to be responsible for an innocent man being accused of treason. Or, more precisely, he hated to be responsible for a loyal man being accused.

The scroll was too close to the lamp and the papyrus caught alight. Tiberius clutched it in his hands, not comprehending what was happening. The names were illuminated beautifully. Then the flames met his fingers and still he didn't drop the burning paper. He just read and reread his favourite's name.

'Gallus… dear Gallus,' he whispered. Then he felt the pain of the fire and cried out.

Sejanus flung the study door open and a gust of air blew the oil lamp out. He planted his boot on the flaming papyrus scroll, extinguishing it. Tiberius was left staring and dazed.

'Are you hurt, Father?'

Tiberius tried to focus on Sejanus's face, confused at who this was. 'Is that you, Castor?'

'Are you hurt, Caesar?' Sejanus said, with an edge.

'No, boy,' Tiberius said, realising it was Sejanus. Then he saw the lamp was out. 'Look at that — the best omen I know.'

Sejanus regarded the old man with deep love and indulgence. Tiberius was sixty-one but seemed so much older. Years of consuming opiates had made him haggard. His health was still sound, but his mind drifted badly at night.

'What is the omen, Caesar?'

'The lamp going out like that — it's happened to me before. And when it does it always means that my battle the next day will be won.'

'What is your battle tomorrow?'

'Perhaps it's not a battle then, but it will be an effort for me. I have signed your new treason list — it's bound to cause a fuss.'

Sejanus lifted his boot from the charred papyrus.

'Oh,' said Tiberius, realising.

Sejanus tried to pick up the papyrus but it fell to ashes in his fingers. 'I'll have the list drawn for you again, Caesar.'

'Don't bother.'

'Caesar?'

'It was Fate, an act of the gods. The men on the list must now be spared.'

'They were guilty men — '

Tiberius waved his hands. 'Perhaps they weren't. The gods think otherwise. Let's leave them be.'

Sejanus remained standing there in confusion.

'What is it, boy?'

Sejanus suddenly gripped Tiberius by the hand, kissing it. 'Everything I do, I do for you, Caesar.'

'Of course you do.'

'I have given my life to defending you — to saving you from enemies.'

'I know how loyal you are to me.'

'The city is full of traitors — jealous, evil men and women who want to harm you, who want Rome for themselves…'

'And you root them out for me — I am very grateful.' He placed his free hand on the young Prefect's head, stroking his thick, black hair.

'I am nothing without you,' Sejanus whispered.

Tiberius nodded, accepting these words, even though they embarrassed him. Sejanus stood again at last. 'There has been a death,' he said. 'Someone you know has opened a vein in their bath.'

'Is it Gallus? It all got too much for him, did it?'

'It's Vipsania.'

Tiberius went white. Then he lurched forward in the semi-darkness, crashing his fists on his desk, trying to find his draught goblet. The drug eluded him until Sejanus slipped it into his hands. Tiberius gulped at the dregs.

When he'd drained the last, he found that the grief of his former wife's suicide had ceased before he had even begun to feel it.

Sejanus left Tiberius alone again and took several moments to collect his thoughts on the other side of the doors. He felt some pity for Vipsania. She had been a noble woman and widely liked, but she had been wrong to remarry again when Tiberius divorced her. It had insulted Tiberius.

Sejanus saw that the Tribune Macro was signalling him. 'What is it?'

There was a smirk on his second-in-command's face. 'A slave wishes to speak with the Emperor.'

'He doesn't speak with slaves.'

'The eunuch says he's from Castor's household and has news of great importance for Tiberius.'

Sejanus considered this for only a second before rejecting it. 'It's a kitchen squabble. Throw him out.'

As huge as a bull, Macro saluted Sejanus and pulled open a door. Sejanus caught only a glimpse of Lygdus cowering behind it before turning to depart.

'Won't he see me?' Lygdus asked the Tribune as he watched Sejanus walking away.

'Why would he, turd? You're offensive.'

Lygdus was immune to abuse. He stared at Macro's large, square feet encased in their woollen house-shoes. 'But the news I have is important — my domina has delivered her child.'

'That news is his son's to break, then, not yours.'

'But there's more.'

'Spit it.'

Lygdus lowered his voice. 'It's a secret… too important… I would never have told it, but she's pushed me to it, you see… and she lied when she called me her little lamb.'

Macro struck him with the back of his hand.

The new blood from Lygdus's day of wounds dried brittle on his skin as he fled.

The young eunuch couldn't risk knocking at the bronze front door. He couldn't risk approaching the side entrances along the alleys that would take him into the kitchens, or the gardens or the lavatories either. He couldn't risk taking any of the labyrinthine tunnels that connected his master's house and the houses of the other family members with the Emperor's home, the house he'd just fled. He couldn't risk anything. He had been missing for hours. He was trapped.

Lygdus tried to melt into the twilight shadows as he waited under the ancient yew tree. In his blood-sodden scarlet tunica and knee-high woollen boots, he stood out like the gaudy Saturnalian novelty Livilla intended him to resemble. He was a pet to her; loved, she claimed, but really loathed, he now knew. He was her little joke.

The edifice of his master's house loomed high above him. The shops on either side of the front door were shuttered and closed. The street was nearly deserted, save a few shuffling beggars and prostitutes, who were darting towards the Forum to begin their night's work. In the distance, towards the bottom of the hill, the sounds of flutes and cymbals could be heard — and laughter. Musicians were entertaining revellers at a tavern. Lygdus had never been permitted to visit such an establishment. He had never been permitted to leave his master's house without purpose. If they found him out here, Lygdus would never be permitted to do anything again.

He wept miserably, wondering how his wretched life could grow any worse. Yet he knew that it could. Only the appeals of the Lady Antonia had saved him from crucifixion today. The injustice of being accused of planting the curse tablet chewed at his heart. He had no idea how the filthy thing had found its way under his domina 's bed. In a way, he almost understood why Livilla had blamed him for it. Who else in the house was so low and abused as he was? Who else harboured so much hatred?

A hooded figure appeared in the twilight, lurching up the cobbled road towards the house. Lygdus tried to press himself into the bark of the yew tree, painfully aware of his scarlet bulk. But the figure didn't see him. It was a young man, tall and slim under the hood. The sound of his step was odd, as if he walked on one foot not two. Yet he wasn't a cripple. Lygdus listened to determine it. The tread was hard then soft, hard then soft. He saw why. The young man was missing a shoe — one foot was bare. He lurched within a few steps of where Lygdus cowered. Lygdus smelled the wine on the young man's breath. The hood slipped from his head as he raised his hand to thump at the door to Castor's house.

The door was opened by one of the kitchen slaves, a boy scarred from the spits. 'Good evening, young Master Nero,' the boy simpered.

Nero ignored him and went to move inside as Lygdus saw his chance. Nero was drunk. The steward Pelops was no doubt in a similar state, given that he'd left a kitchen slave on door duty. The newborn baby was being celebrated. No better hope would present itself for gaining entrance to the house undetected. Lygdus leaped to his feet and took his place in Nero's wake, just as the kitchen slave was closing the door. The boy recognised him and gave him a startled look, but Lygdus stared him down, willing the boy to believe he'd been in the young master's company all evening. The boy nodded and bolted the door behind them. Only then did Nero seem aware of Lygdus for the first time.

The eunuch sneered at the kitchen slave. 'Go back to the spits.'

The boy opened his mouth to complain but the look on Lygdus's face was enough to make him obey. Lygdus smoothly took the cloak from Nero's shoulders, keeping his eyes downcast. Nero said nothing, but his wine-drenched breath was strong. Lygdus sensed him trying to work out what was amiss. Lygdus sank to his knees. 'You are missing a shoe, domine,' he said, still not raising his eyes.

'Lost it, fell off,' said Nero, his voice thick with drink. He slumped into a chair.

Lygdus removed Nero's remaining sandal. Both feet were black with street dust. Lygdus clung to the small amount of pleasure the sight and smell of them gave him — the one joy he knew. He turned to the footbath stowed beneath the janitor's box, his back to Nero so that the young dominus couldn't see his relief that he hadn't been exposed. He heard the young man's breath grow heavier and he wondered if Nero had fallen asleep. On his hands and knees, Lygdus poured fresh water from a ewer into the shallow bronze bath and reached to a vase of herbs, tearing off some leaves.

He felt the rear hem of his scarlet tunica being lifted.

Lygdus froze, his eyes fixed on the footbath water and the herbs, his weight on his hands, his fat buttocks raised in the air before his drunken young dominus. Neither said a word as Nero's fingers touched Lygdus's flesh and then hooked beneath the fabric of the loin cloth. Nero gently pulled, and the loin cloth unravelled, slipping to the floor.

One tear, then another rolled down Lygdus's nose and struck the footbath water. He had brought this ultimate shame upon himself, he knew. The young dominus had realised that Lygdus had been outside the house without permission, and now he meant to enjoy him in a manner that was only discussed in shameful whispers. Lygdus knew he would be treated brutally by Nero now, and perhaps even maimed. There was nothing he could do and nothing he could say. His endless suffering would only increase. More tears fell into the bath, and Lygdus cursed himself in his heart for being such a novice in this world, forever misjudging things. To have believed that such a naked approach to the Emperor would ever succeed was a fool's mistake, and he deserved the failure. Now he deserved everything that would come from Nero.

Something snapped in the young eunuch's mind. He span around with anger in his face, pulling his tunica down to cover himself.

'Kill me, domine — I don't want to live if all that's left to me is your prick. Stab me in the guts if you want, but you'll never rape me while I'm alive.'

Nero flushed and fell back into his chair.

There was a long, shocked silence while Lygdus kept his rage-filled eyes on his young master. 'Well, domine?'

He realised that Nero was trembling. In his abject drunkenness Nero had expressed the desire he kept hidden from Rome. This, his darkest secret, he fought constantly within himself, and the sordid lust, never satisfied, grew stronger and ever hungrier within the prison of his heart.

Lygdus saw that Nero was desperate and ashamed and he suddenly understood. The moment was Lygdus's now — the one moment in his life that was unequivocally his. He could choose to show his triumph and humiliate Nero, and then enjoy a few days' intoxicating joy before Nero took the vengeance that would inevitably come. Or he could show that he was discreet and honourable and, if his master was discreet and honourable in return, then Lygdus would not sink so low as to betray him.

Lygdus chose the second option. With a last, loaded look, he lowered his eyes and turned to drag the footbath across the floor and under his young master's feet. Lygdus lifted the right and then the left foot, placing them in the herb-scented water and watching the dust and grime dissolve. Then he began to knead the flesh, gently pressing the arches and squeezing the toes. He glanced up only once and saw that Nero's eyes were now closed. Lygdus returned to his task, and when his heart at last stopped racing, he felt the gradual return of pleasure, however faint.

For all that was loathsome and vile about Nero, he still had handsome feet.

Apicata lay prone in silence as her husband claimed his pleasure from her in the manner that was said to leave the wives of lesser men unhinged. She thought nothing of the degradation — not when her husband was Fortuna's favourite. To Apicata there was only a deep, rich honour in inflaming such lust in her prince. Her body was her husband's to employ in all the ways that pleased him. All that mattered, she whispered to herself through the low, perverted act, was that Sejanus be pleased by all she could give. She drew immeasurable comfort in knowing she was desired. For too long his lusts had seemed perfunctory, his pleasures taken hurriedly upon her body without a word. She had feared she now repelled him and she blamed her eyes for it. Did it repulse Sejanus to penetrate a wife who could not see him? But now her husband had returned to her renewed, and his moans of deep release were cherished companions to her total, tomb-like stillness.

When he was spent, Apicata dripped perfume on all the linens, blocking out the bestial stink of the pleasure. Then she lay next to Sejanus, listening to his breath. He was awake, breathing in the scent.

'Castor has a newborn son,' he said.

'I know.'

Apicata expected him to ask how she knew, given that the child had been born only hours ago. But Sejanus rolled onto his side, turning his back to her. For one delirious moment Apicata started to compose the words in her head that would tell him of the witchcraft and the dreadful, unimaginable curse that now hung over Livilla's newborn child. But when she went to speak of it, she sensed that her husband had drifted off to Somnus. Despair stabbed her, as so often happened when she was left alone in the wake of pleasuring him. Did he love her? Was she really his future queen? Or was she his whore, never called as much to her face, but derided as a whore in his mind? Was that all she was to him?

She thought upon Aemilia again. The matron's magic had great potency, made all the stronger as it came from highborn hands. Apicata resolved to visit the patrician woman a second time.

Apicata resolved to use Aemilia's witchcraft to banish despair from her bed.

The Ides of June

AD 20

One week later: Emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus accepts a Senate proposal that he, Livia, Antonia, Agrippina and Castor be thanked by Rome for avenging the death of Germanicus. At the Emperor's request, Claudius, the crippled brother of Germanicus, is not included in Rome's thanks

'Aemilia, how very kind,' said Antonia approvingly. 'It is nothing at all,' said Aemilia, presenting her birth gift to the Claudian women. 'Look, Livilla, isn't that thoughtful?' Antonia hovered above her daughter in the bed. Livilla made a strained smile from where she rested, nursing her infant son.

'It is nothing,' Aemilia repeated. 'Merely a small token from the Aemilii in expression of our great joy at your happy event.'

Livilla's daughter, Tiberia, perched at the end of her mother's woollen mattress, smiling at Aemilia's accompanying daughters. 'That's very pretty fabric you've wrapped the gift in.'

The sisters smiled back. 'It's silk,' said Domitia.

'Where do you suppose silk comes from?' wondered Tiberia.

'Nobody knows,' said Domitia, 'only that it comes from the East.'

'I heard that it's squeezed out of worms,' Lepida ventured.

Already on edge at the prospect of receiving more presents since the curse tablet, Antonia and Livilla flinched at the thought of something made from worm excrement. 'Well, well… we should see what's inside the pretty fabric then, shouldn't we?' Antonia said. But neither she nor Livilla made any move to touch it.

Tiberia was oblivious. 'Can I?'

A flash of fear passed between Livilla and her mother.

'I'm sure you'll like it,' said Lepida.

'We thought it was very beautiful,' Domitia agreed.

Aemilia smiled, placing her hands on her daughters' shoulders. But her eyes intently watched Livilla in the bed. Livilla clutched her infant son to her bosom, unaware of Aemilia's look. Her eyes were fixed on Tiberia's fingers as the child undid the silken wrap.

'Oh! Look,' said Tiberia. It was a hand-mirror, made from the finest polished silver and decorated at its edges with pieces of aquamarine. Tiberia stared at her own pretty face in it. 'I have never seen one that reflects so beautifully.'

Domitia and Lepida nodded at each other approvingly.

'It's like looking at myself through a window,' said Tiberia. 'It's so very clear.' Then she saw a spot on her chin. 'Why didn't you tell me I had a pimple, Mother!'

'It is only a very small one,' said Lepida, trying to be helpful.

Tiberia covered her chin with her hand, dismayed.

Beaming with relief that the gift was nothing that might have upset the fragile Livilla, Antonia took the mirror from her granddaughter's hands. 'It is quite exquisite, Aemilia,' she said, kissing the Aemilii matron on the cheek, 'and chosen with your famous good taste.'

Aemilia accepted the revered Antonia's kiss with affection, but her eyes stayed upon Livilla and the baby.

Antonia brought the mirror to the mound of gladiolus-scented cushions that supported Livilla at the head of the bed. 'See? Isn't it beautiful? Now you can give away your old mirror to one of the slaves …'

Livilla caught sight of her own pale, drawn expression in the reflection, and in doing so saw the precise moment when revelation changed it. A tremor of horror swept her face and she looked up to see Aemilia's beautiful chestnut eyes boring into own, her hands at the waists of her daughters.

'The old mirror had become so tarnished,' Antonia went on. 'You were lucky to see anything in it at all.'

Livilla's jaw snapped shut in terror. She felt unable to breathe. Then it seemed as if her baby son stopped breathing too. Tiny Gemellus went limp in her arms. 'My son…' she tried to say.

Aemilia's eyes gave nothing away. But Livilla looked behind them and saw that they were dead. For the brief moment that her baby's breath left his lungs, Aemilia of the Aemilii had the sightless eyes of a blind woman.

Then Gemellus's chest filled with air.

'Thank you so much, Aemilia,' said Antonia, wholly unaware. 'You really are far, far too kind to us.'

Livilla stumbled into the Palatine street with her mother's bewilderment ringing in her ears. 'No, just… go back inside, Mother.'

'But, Livilla — '

'Go back inside!'

Livilla pulled the front door closed behind her, blocking Antonia from seeing into the street. 'Just tell me what's happened. You're not well enough to go out…' her mother's muffled voice cried from behind the door.

Livilla scanned up and down the busy thoroughfare. 'My litter.. Where is it?' she shouted into the throng. Customers and slave assistants in the shops on either side of her door stared in surprise. 'Don't look at me! Do you know who I am?'

Nervous, they looked at the ground or at their purchases.

'My litter! Why is it taking this long?'

She heard the sounds of running steps and panting men as her official litter came lurching and swaying up the hill in the hands of her six bearers, with her lone Imperial lictor, whose job it was to clear the way, at the head. The men had been summoned at haste from the lecticarii station at the banks of the river and were unprepared for her emergency. The shabby transport was dirty with the mud from recent rains.

'Hurry!' Livilla screamed at them.

The bearers staggered on the cobbles, tripping to a halt where Livilla stood. She spat on the ground in front of them. 'Too long!' She hoisted herself inside. Her abdomen hurt her, still stretched and raw from the birth.

'Where to, Lady?' the panting lictor asked.

'To the House of the Aemilii.'

'There will be an additional passenger,' said Aemilia. The finely boned matron slipped from the shadows of the yew tree where she had been waiting and slid inside Livilla's transport.

'Wait!' Livilla cried. The bearers lifted and then dropped the litter again in confusion. 'Move away — move away from here,' Livilla yelled at the men outside. 'Leave us be in here — and keep anyone else away.'

The lictor took charge of pushing back the bearers and all pedestrians. He thought that his mistress was of unsound mind. A cleared circle soon surrounded the stationary litter.

Livilla stared at Aemilia in horror. 'So it was you?'

'Yes,' said Aemilia. There was genuine sorrow in her beautiful face. 'The blind woman has me in her claws.'

'That foul bitch! Both of you — to curse my unborn child!' Livilla began to weep, until anger stemmed her tears. She clenched her jaw, bearing her teeth.

'He is a beautiful boy, born whole and well,' Aemilia began to say.

'The curse you sent him will haunt him into manhood! I will kill you for this — you know that, don't you? You'll die for this in agony.'

Aemilia nodded. 'I would do the same in your place.'

Livilla could only stare at the fallen woman in incomprehension. 'Why make yourself known to me? Why flaunt your crafts by giving me the mirror as an obscene reminder of what you did to my child?'

'To show you that Veiovis is a two-faced god,' said Aemilia simply. 'The blind woman summoned a deity who delights in deceit, and she is a fool for it. I made a curse tablet for her under duress. Now let me make one for you. Let me promise you that the powers I summoned for the dog Apicata will be nothing to the powers I summon on a patrician woman's behalf.'

Livilla stared at her in fear. Then she twitched the litter curtain to address the lictor holding back the pedestrians. 'Take us to the Aemilii.'

Neither woman said another word for the duration of the short journey. Neither woman took her eyes from the other's delicate, highborn face.

Summania

June, AD 20

One week later: the rebel army of the nomad Tacfarinas resumes hostilities in Numidia, raiding villages and looting extensively

The day was warm but the flesh on Livilla's arms rose as if she were chilled. She clutched her summer cloak about her shoulders, pulling the collar of it up to press against her hair. She took a step forward, and then another, forcing herself to brave the ascent up the damp, moss-covered stairs. She glanced behind her, catching eyes with her eunuch where he waited in the square. She glared at him hard. 'Do not move!' she hissed. 'Do not move an inch until I return for you.'

She turned to look upwards again, and the malevolent temple loomed high before her, vile and foreboding, shrouded in shadow on its densely wooded hill. The sun hadn't touched the temple's doors in all the centuries it had stood in this place, blocked from the rays by glowering, guarding oaks. The stale, dank structure was older than Rome, a relic from Etruscan times, like the sinister god it housed. Sly Veiovis loathed all that was light. The deity of deception demanded that his acolytes worship him in mire.

'Please welcome me, dark god,' Livilla whispered, taking care with each tread on the slimy, uneven steps. 'I am new to your home but the need I have for your love is great. Please welcome me, Veiovis…' She felt the little bag that was slung at her shoulder, and the three precious objects within. She touched them inside the soft leather, reassured by their purpose. She would enter this dark place. She would damn the bitch blind woman to hell.

Loose masonry shifted under her foot and she lost her balance, falling forward with a cry to crack her knee on the blunt step edge. Pain shot through her limb like a spear thrust. She tried to rise, but the agony of it was worse than childbirth.

'Veiovis,' she gasped. 'Admit me, foul god…'

The watching eunuch in the square did not move.

A wind gust whipped the cover from Livilla's head, picking her long, black hair from its pins and tossing it into her eyes, shrouding her. The vast, iron door creaked inwards in the draught, exposing the temple's maw. But nothing could be seen inside. The open door was a sneer, mocking Livilla and enjoying her pain, yet daring her to venture forward to receive more.

She crawled up the remaining steps on her hands and knees, her leg limp behind her. When she reached the temple portico, she dragged herself along on her belly, her summer stola fouled in the lichen and slime.

Livilla reached the door and clawed herself upright, clutching at her precious bag. Her knee throbbed, coursing pain the whole length of her body. She stared into the gloom. There was no light at all. No windows and not a single lit lamp. Only the door admitted the daylight from outside, just as it admitted acolytes.

'Do you see me, Veiovis?' Livilla's eyes began to adjust and the god's blackened bronze statue emerged from the shade. She gasped when she saw it fully. One hand clutched a fistful of lightning bolts, while the other rested on the horned head of a goat. Veiovis's image was that of a god no longer young but not yet elderly. He was neither handsome nor heroic. He was ordinary, dressed in a simple tunica. If Veiovis had been a man, no one would have looked twice at him in the Forum. Yet Livilla sensed something familiar about this god, as if she had passed him in the Forum — and not once but many times — and yet had never stopped to see him.

Livilla sensed a fluttering at her lips as her breath quickened. A drip of fluid left her sex, running down the soft, inner flesh of her thigh and pooling at the wound of her knee. She felt lust surge in her heart, lust for this deceiving god. She let go of the great doorway and placed her weight upon her weakened leg. The pain seemed less. 'You are a god of healing too, Veiovis,' she whispered. 'I see it in your face.'

She moved forward, edging into the tomb-like hall. A stench gripped her nostrils — like spoiled fruit or rotting flesh. Livilla breathed in deeply, letting the foulness fill her. 'Your perfume, god

… the smell of your power.' The reek gave her courage. Livilla held her head high, staring hungrily at the statue, her hand at the darkening fabric at her loins. 'I am here for you, my god. Claim me. Take me. Strike me with the lightning that you hold…'

A squeal of vermin made her scream. A dozen black rats threw themselves at her slippered feet, nipping at her, sinking their teeth into her toes, tearing at the hem of her ruined stola.

'My god!'

Livilla spun on her weakened limb to flee, but her knee gave way and she crashed hard to the floor as the vermin flew like crows at her beautiful face and hair.

Outside the dark temple Lygdus heard his domina 's screams. He lurched awake at the sound, plucked from the vicious fantasies that filled his daydreams. He ran up several of the slick, dank steps and then stopped. His domina screamed again, a bloodcurdling noise that felt as if it stripped the skin from his back. His young brow creased at the memory of all he had so recently suffered at her hands, and he took a single step back. Livilla screamed again and Lygdus took two more steps backwards, reaching the broken flagstones of the temple's neglected square.

'Save me!' Livilla screamed from deep inside the temple's murk.

The sound of her terror thrilled the young eunuch. It was like the music and laughter from the happy tavern down the hill that he, a lowly slave, was forbidden to know. Her terror was a joy.

His eyes glittering, Lygdus returned to the place where his domina had told him to wait. 'Perhaps your god will save you, domina… or perhaps not,' he whispered into his cupped hands.

Livilla struck the first rat dead with the hammer she snatched from the bag; the vermin's skull split like a berry. She wielded the stout, iron head of the implement at the next rat and then the next, splattering their brains on the floor. Vermin flew at her other hand and Livilla struck at them wildly, crushing her palm but killing the beasts, feeling nothing else now in her terror of what had to be done. She heaved herself upright, her leg twisting before her. She bit back the pain of it and lurched towards the statue of the god, her eyes filled with what so many other desperate acolytes had already left for their god before her: curse tablets.

The last of the rats flew at her slipperless feet, but Livilla felt nothing of them — her determination to reach the statue's plinth was her one goal. She threw herself forward and grasped hold of the edge of the stone with her fingernails as she fell once more, crashing to her knees. The pain nearly made her lose consciousness, but Livilla summoned all the will that was hers as a Claudian and as a granddaughter of the great Augusta Livia. She plunged her hand into the bag and brought out the flattened square of lead. She didn't repeat aloud the words that were written on it; she didn't need to. They were already etched into her heart. She plunged her hand into the bag again and seized a long bronze nail. Then she slapped her leaden curse tablet against Veiovis's plinth, dislodging others. Gripping the heavy hammer in her fist, she drove the nail into the tablet, striking it again and again, nailing the evil of Aemilia's new curse to the base of the dark god.

'Read me!' she screamed at Veiovis. 'Read my curse and grant it!'

A sharp slap to his cheek awoke Lygdus.

'Get up.'

' Domina…'

She slapped him again, harder. 'I said get up. We're done here.'

Lygdus scrambled to his feet, shocked at the sight of his mistress. Livilla was caked in slime and filth, with the blood of rats splattered along her arms. Her long, black mane was wild like a witch's hair. Her eyes were frightening, rimmed with gore and glittering with malicious triumph from their night-black depths. Her wounded leg twisted before her.

'What happened to you, domina?'

Livilla just laughed and Lygdus felt his skin crawl.

'Do you want to redeem yourself, little lamb?'

Lygdus bit back his anger. His domina now knew that he was innocent of planting the curse tablet under her bed, and yet she treated him as if she didn't. 'I'll do anything to serve you, domina,' he muttered.

Livilla made the young eunuch carry her down the slope of the wooded hill to where her litter waited, well away from Veiovis's surrounds. As he stumbled and slid on the stones, she told him what must happen next in her plan to destroy the blind woman.

She told Lygdus what he must do if he wanted to return to his domina 's heart.

The Kalends of July

AD 20

One week later: Decrius, Commander of the Numidian battalion at Pagyda River, fights to his death against the overwhelming forces of Tacfarinas. His fleeing men abandon his corpse

Apicata emerged into sunshine from the huge bronze door that admitted only the very best people of Rome into the noble house of the Aemilii. She heard it close sharply behind her and she laughed. They despised her, of course, this great patrician clan, but they would have despised her even if she wasn't blackmailing their matriarch. They would have despised her on principle. She was lowborn, the daughter of a man of wealth but no distinction, while they were only one step removed from deities. It thrilled Apicata to know that these arrogant demigods now bowed to her word and hated her like an illness. She marvelled at the all-consuming loathing felt for her by the trapped Aemilia, and it gave Apicata ecstasies to think that she would never let the Aemilii go. When Apicata was queen, she would formally enslave the Aemilii, she decided, removing their names from the official records of Rome. Then she would turn on the other noble houses, one by one, making slaves of their finest too.

Apicata moved unimpeded along the narrow, winding street that would take her down the hill to where her maids waited. No one dared accost her or ask what she had hidden inside the earthenware pot that she clutched to her breast. No one would dare do anything to her at all, because there was no one who didn't know who Apicata was. She was the Praetorian Prefect's wife. In Rome, she was fear.

'What are you carrying, Lady?'

Apicata was brought to a halt at the young man's voice.

'What's in the pot? Is it magic?'

She flushed red. 'How dare you address me?'

'Don't be like that. What's inside it? Tell me what it is, blind woman.'

Apicata tried to shove the stranger from her path, grabbing a fistful of slack flesh as she thrust her right hand at him, clutching the pot tighter with her left.

'Ow!'

'Get out of my way.'

He offered no resistance, so she easily slipped past him, increasing her pace down the hill.

'It must be very special,' the stranger called after her.

'Girls!' Apicata shouted into the air for her waiting maids. 'Where are you? Come here to me!' She had lost count of the number of steps she had taken from the Aemilii door towards the bend in the street where she had ordered her sedan chair to wait for her. The total distance was sixty paces, and she had gone at least half that — or was it something less? She could hear her maids' voices, but the step count flew out of her head. 'Come to me,' she called, panicked. 'I have lost the number — '

Apicata reached the bend before she realised it, and the abrupt descent of the street made her lose her footing, pitching her forward. She fell hard on her face, the pot smashing beneath her. She lay there dazed, blood filling her mouth as she heard the sounds of her frightened maids running towards her.

' Domina! '

' Domina, your face!'

'There's blood!'

'She has hurt herself — let me help you lift her,' said the voice of the young man who had accosted her. Apicata tried to tell her women that this youth must not be allowed to touch her, but the words, when they came, were garbled.

'She has struck her head,' said the young man.

Apicata felt herself being lifted from the cobbles. 'No… no, wait…' The broken pot and its contents were exposed. 'Don't… touch it…' She twisted in the young man's grip and tried to stretch towards the ground to save what was most precious. Her fingertips brushed a tiny wax hand.

'You'll drop her!'

'I've got her, look,' said Lygdus. Apicata weighing nothing in his arms, he tossed her into the chair of her sedan. The maids rushed around to dab at her bloodied face and Apicata tried to fight them off, but the pain in her head made her faint.

When one of the maids went back to where her domina 's pot had smashed, she found nothing there but pieces of broken clay. She thought she remembered there being something more. She looked around for the young eunuch who had been so helpful but he was gone.

Aemilia closed the great bronze door a second time, shutting the scene in the street from view. It was done.

'Mother?' said her oldest daughter, Lepida. The girl was fearful.

Aemilia smoothed the girl's hair. 'We must summon your brothers now,' she said.

The younger girl Domitia looked grim. 'Aemilius is with his tutor in the Forum.'

'His schooling is done now. It is his day to act as a man. Ask the steward to retrieve him, will you, Domitia?'

'And Ahenobarbus?'

'He'll be sitting by the kitchen furnace. Send him in here.'

'Yes, Mother.' Domitia left the hall.

Lepida was left to stare as her mother retrieved a folded piece of papyrus. 'You remember what this letter says, don't you, Lepida?'

The girl's eyes filled with tears, but she wouldn't shame her mother by shedding them. 'It is your confession, Mother.'

Aemilia nodded. 'The day has arrived and now it must be sent.'

Lepida bit her lip.

'When your brothers are here, you are to go — the four of you together — all the way up the hill to Oxheads, just like we spoke of. Do you remember?'

'Of course, Mother.'

'You will have your brothers with you but be sure to take some amulets. Aemilius will speak to the guards.'

'He's only seven.'

'He is now a man,' Aemilia stressed. 'Tell him to show the guards Ahenobarbus's red hair. They will be very struck by that. Soldiers think such things lucky.'

'I understand.'

'When you are admitted into the presence of the Emperor, you are to give my confession to him. You are to tell him that your heart is broken by doing it, but that you have no choice. Your love for Rome is stronger than your love for a mother who so betrays it.'

Lepida nodded and a tear broke free of her will, slipping down her nose. Aemilia's voice caught in her throat and she kneeled, grasping her daughter in her arms, kissing her face and hair. 'I will soon be gone, but you will not need me.'

'But we will, Mama, we always will,' Lepida sobbed.

'Not at all. You have your destinies now. Each one of you has been chosen by Veiovis to know power — even poor Ahenobarbus. The Aemilii will be great again — it is the god's will — and each of you will be given your path. Veiovis has decided it.'

Lepida wept as if her heart would break.

'Ssh,' said Aemilia tenderly. 'Ssh, my little pearl. Your brothers will come to know what it is to stand at the very summit of Rome, and your sister will know it too. But the path that will be given to you, Lepida, is the path that will lead the Aemilii to a power no man before us has known.'

Lepida fell silent, her cheeks wet with tears.

'Because it will be a woman's power, my daughter, not a man's. It is the power of she who is so long asleep… It is the power of the rarest of birds.'

'Pitiable,' said Livilla, as Lygdus handed her the stolen contents of the jar.

Lygdus said nothing, oblivious to the significance of the strange objects he had taken from the blind woman's broken pottery. 'Am I redeemed now, domina?' he muttered.

'Hmm?'

'Am I redeemed?'

Livilla was distracted by her little Laconian puppy dashing into the room. 'Scylax!' She swept up the dog in her arms, kissing its snout and ears as it licked her cheeks and beat its tail like a whip. 'My little lamb,' Livilla murmured lovingly at the beast. 'Mama loves her little lamb.'

When Livilla remembered Lygdus again, he had gone.

She dismissed him from her thoughts. Putting the pup aside, she picked up Aemilia's magic in her hands. There were two red wax figures, a man and woman, closely entwined. The man had human hair, black and thick, glued to his head. At the loins of the figure was an oversized wax phallus, thick and curved, piercing the sex of the wax woman.

'Pitiable,' said Livilla again. The pup Scylax cocked his head to the side, waiting for his mistress to kiss him. But Livilla was focused wholly on the witchcraft. She guessed who the figures were meant to represent — the blind woman and her husband. The wax woman had Apicata's light brown hair. 'She fears she's losing him,' Livilla smirked.

Digging her nails into the wax, she prised the two figures apart. The phallus of the man slipped out easily, exposing a yawning cleft in the woman. Livilla carefully placed the Sejanus figure aside and regarded the wax Apicata. She brought the head of it to her mouth, gripping her teeth around it and holding the figure there, enjoying the sensation of Apicata's hair upon her tongue.

Then she clenched her teeth together and bit the head from the neck, swallowing it. She gagged as the wax ball slid down her throat. Placing her hands at her belly Livilla felt the churn as her stomach greeted her enemy's head. In a few days the hairy wax ball would reappear again, having passed through Livilla's body. Livilla would order a slave to scoop it from the lavatory and, following Aemilia's instructions to the letter, she would enact the final outrage of Apicata's demise.

Ludi Plebeii

November, AD 20

Four months later: the patrician matron Aemilia of the Aemilii is found guilty of witchcraft, poisoning and consulting with astrologers regarding the Imperial house

I flinched a little when the mangon 's six scribes felt the swords plunge deep and hard between their ribs. Some of them had looks of incredulity upon their faces, while the others showed a sad resignation that their lot as slaves had come to this. I met the eyes of one with a look I hoped held sorrow and compassion as the steel buried in his chest. Agrippina's loyal men showed no compunction at all in stabbing these literate, valuable men, withdrawing their blades and wiping them on the fallen slaves' tunicae. But I felt it was excessive. They had done no wrong; their master was the criminal. With the scribes gurgling in death upon the floor and adding to the blood shed by the other auction assistants, Agrippina's men looked to their patroness for her next directive.

'Onwards,' she said. 'He is hiding in this stinking hole somewhere.'

The dozen men surged through the tawdry rooms and dank, dark cells of the mangon 's compound, calling out his name as children would in a hide-and-seek game.

Left in their wake with the scribes' corpses, I imagined I heard a muffled sob. 'Listen…'

Nilla and Burrus, waiting with me, hadn't heard.

'Listen… there!' I ran my hands along the rough, wooden wall of the compound's atrium.

'What is it, Iphicles?' said Burrus.

'There's a hidden room behind this wall. I heard the bastard crying. Help me find the door, Burrus.'

'Like the door to the Emperor's garden?'

I had forgotten that he knew Oxheads' architectural surprises as well as I did. 'Press gently. We'll find it if we're smart.'

Burrus and Nilla joined me in running their hands along the wall, and I saw the way they stood next to each other — closer and more intimate than a mistress and slave should be.

'Move away,' I hissed at Burrus. 'You look unseemly standing that close, boy.'

Burrus stayed as he was.

'Move!'

'We have a secret,' Nilla whispered to me, feeling along the wall surface with her palms.

I guessed now what it might be and I didn't like it. 'Don't tell me anything I don't need to hear, Lady. Just help me find the man who enslaved you, if you're not bothered by the way Burrus stands next to you so disrespectfully.'

'The mangon thought he enslaved me but he never did,' said Nilla, smiling. 'And I never did anything he told me to, either.'

'Then he must have beaten you for being disobedient — and for that he deserves what's coming to him.'

'Burrus took all my beatings for me,' said Nilla. She was humble in revealing this, and it was clear how very much she loved and respected the boy.

'Burrus is very brave — ' I began to say.

'Burrus is free,' said Nilla. 'That's our secret. I freed him when we were living on the shore together. That's why he was not enslaved by this man either. We were both free when the mangon took us — so the enslavement was illegal.'

I shook my head at this childish logic and moved to another part of the shabby atrium wall, sure that a door was hidden there somewhere. I listened again for the sob but there was nothing. All I could hear was Agrippina's men deep inside the slave complex, looting the mangon 's coin chests as they searched for him. 'You are too young to perform manumission,' I told Nilla, 'and Burrus is too young to be freed. Only your mother can perform something like that in this household — or your uncle Castor.'

Burrus said nothing, concentrating on the task. I waited for Nilla to tell me I was wrong, but she said nothing either. I saw the sly looks they passed between themselves. 'Burrus is not free,' I reiterated. 'Drop these silly notions at once, Lady — it's not fair to him.'

'I know what I know,' said Burrus quietly.

'You know nothing, boy!'

'Mother has given me Burrus,' said Nilla. 'Did you know that?'

'Which only proves he's a slave — you can't "give" a freedman, Lady.'

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.

At Oxheads, the household's official mistress was still my domina, asleep or not, and I was expected to ensure that she was fit to be seen when the day came. It didn't matter that she couldn't cook a meal — she was only expected to say that she had. In the first two years of Livia's sleep-filled state, Matronalia had not been a trial for me. Without knowing the reasons behind her sleep, Tiberius understood that his mother was unfit to be displayed before the assembled palace slaves; he let it be known, truthfully, that she was too unwell for the job. Antonia had performed the duties instead, that redoubtable mother of Livilla, Claudius and the dead Germanicus. But this year Oxheads' mistress was 'awake'.

Kneeling at the centre of his band of supporters, Castor stared into his grandmother's open eyes. 'But she is awake, Iphicles — look at her.'

Jostled and elbowed by the dozen or so men who had crowded with Castor into Livia's suite, I tried to hide my desperation as I explained. 'Her eyes are open, yes, domine, but that's all. There's nothing behind them. Her mind is still asleep. She cannot appear at Matronalia.'

Castor waved a hand in front of Livia's staring eyes. She blinked. 'My grandmother can see me,' he said.

I knew it was true, but still I tried to cover. 'The physician says that while her eyes seem to be working, her mind is not. She can't speak and she can't move.' I pinched the flesh on Livia's arm. 'She can't feel, domine — you see, she has no feeling.'

I noticed Little Boots worming his way in among the crowd of men.

Castor slapped my hand from his grandmother's arm. 'The physician is wrong — she can feel it.' Indeed, my domina 's eyes were watering. 'She can't communicate it.' Castor glared at me. 'And if I ever see you pinching her like that again, I'll have you flogged, Iphicles, is that clear?'

I saw Little Boots stifle a laugh at my discomfort. 'Yes, domine,' I cringed.

'Help me sit her up,' Castor ordered.

I bent forward to help him lift her in the bed, but his supporters shoved me aside and several of them gave their assistance to Castor in my place, arranging my domina against her pillows so that she sat upright and surveyed the whole room.

'Look,' said Castor in amazement. Livia's eyes began to focus on what was now in front of her — the bed linen, the drapery, the faces of Castor's friends gaping back at her. 'She can see everything now! She's the Augusta again.' He kissed her cheek. 'I've missed you so much, Grandmother,' he whispered. 'Will yourself to speak to me again — I know you can do it. Rome needs you.'

Livia's head lolled a little as he embraced her. Her stare fell upon Little Boots and I saw him go pale.

Castor noticed the boy. 'Nephew,' he said, beckoning Little Boots forward, 'your great-grandmother wants your kiss.'

I saw the repulsion flooding Little Boots's face and I felt a terror at what he might do or say that could risk exposing us both.

'Kiss her,' said Castor. 'Help her gain the strength to recover.'

Little Boots looked at me, frightened. The smile I attempted was a grimace. 'Your great-grandmother loves you,' I croaked.

Little Boots gingerly stood on his toes, leaning across my domina 's bed. Her eyes shifted in their sockets, remaining fixed upon him like the eyes of a statue. He brushed his lips against her cheek and then withdrew behind the bedhead where her staring eyes couldn't reach him.

'Iphicles,' said Castor.

I kept my gaze to the ground, fearing that if I lifted my head Livia would look at me with terrible accusation; perhaps the power of her inner fury would even fill her with voice. In the months since her eyes had reopened, I had done everything I could to keep them closed, short of poking them out with a pin. I had plunged the room into near-darkness, closing the window shutters and putting out the oil lamps. I had kept my gaze averted from her face at all times as I fed and bathed her, placing shrouds and shawls and sometimes even cushions across her eyes just to block out her stare.

But no matter what I did, I knew she could see. I knew she was conscious and I knew what she was thinking. She planned her vengeance on me. I doubled the amount of ointment I smeared upon the phallus, and then tripled it, until there was enough in her nightly doses to stun a horse into paralysis. But my domina had built up such a resistance to it that nothing I gave her would send her back to Somnus again. It was fast becoming clear that unless she somehow returned to sleep, my only option would be to kill her, my domina, whom I loved more than my own life. I would have to kill her in order to fulfil the very prophecies to which her own life had been dedicated. I would have to kill her to allow Little Boots to become the second king. If I did not, she would awaken fully and kill me, and then kill Sejanus for what he'd done to her chosen second king, Germanicus.

When it came to the prophecies, Livia placed her wishes above the divine words themselves. This had brought her disaster but she had failed to learn. I had studied the lessons instead.

'Iphicles, look at me,' said Castor with a tone that permitted no argument.

I lifted my head and Livia's vengeance-filled eyes were indeed upon me.

'We owe you a great debt for the service you have given in caring for the Augusta,' said Castor.

I opened my mouth, trying to speak.

'A great debt,' Castor repeated. 'But I fear we exploited your love for my grandmother, leaving you to care for her wholly on your own.'

I was being relieved of my duty. Castor was reading me my death sentence.

'But Iphicles wanted to look after great-grandmother all by himself,' Little Boots piped up from behind the bedhead. 'He sent the other slaves away.' He thought he was helping me with this damning defence.

'And we should never have allowed that to happen. Iphicles is too old.'

I swallowed. My mouth felt like it was full of sand. 'I don't feel old, domine,' I rasped.

Castor dismissed this and I saw a spark of malicious glee within my domina 's stare. She relished my pain — it would lead to her freedom. I threw myself onto the floor at the end of the bed. 'Please, domine,' I wailed. 'Don't take me away from her. I've given my whole life to serving my domina — I promised I'd never leave her.'

Castor's friends and supporters were disgusted by my display.

'You're old and tired,' Castor told me. 'I think you've earned a good rest.'

' Domine, please — please!' I writhed upon the tiles.

There was a long, condemning pause while I choked and sobbed. When at last I stopped, I raised my head to see that several of Castor's friends had already left the room, unable to bear me. My domina 's eyes were closed now, but she was listening, I knew. She believed she was free at last.

'You can stay then,' Castor said.

Livia's eyes sprang open.

'But I will provide you with help.'

I held my breath.

'A slave from my household will join you and take over most of your tasks. You can supervise.'

I darted a look at Little Boots. He was as shocked by the reprieve as I was.

My domina 's eyes began to narrow, calculating what this would mean for me and for her.

'Who will this slave be?' I whispered, hoping my tone conveyed the correct gratitude to Castor.

'I have a eunuch in my household. He lives to serve. I will send him here.'

My fear of being banished from ever seeing the prophecies fulfilled was gone. My courage returned and I met my domina 's eye with a level stare. But her look had a dark excitement to it now. She knew better than anyone what I was capable of, but she also knew what Castor had done. He had never intended to remove me from caring for her. Why would he? He understood that no one loved her more than I did. He knew that my obsession for her was so all-consuming that I had even sacrificed my manhood just to honour her. But all the same, he didn't trust me. Castor knew I had secrets, but he was unsure of what they were. This eunuch was to be his spy in uncovering them.

If my domina had found her voice at that moment, she would have laughed and laughed at my predicament.

'I would have thought he'd be more upset about it,' said Livilla to her husband as they ate their breakfast of wine-soaked bread.

'It's a change of scene for him — new tasks, new responsibilities,' said Castor. 'It's good to vary a slave's experiences every now and then. Keeps them interested in life, stops them becoming depressed.'

'You're too slack with them,' said Livilla.

'And you're too harsh. It's why they don't love you.'

Livilla was hurt to hear this said but tried to pretend she wasn't. 'It's better to be feared.'

'No, it isn't,' said Castor. He sat up in the dining couch, breakfast done.

Livilla's pup, Scylax, came to lick the dripping wine from her fingers. 'The eunuch is already depressed — or just plain sullen and disobedient. He used to be such a sweet-tempered boy. I don't know what's come over him lately.'

Castor had a theory but didn't bother inflaming his wife by sharing it. 'He will join our grandmother's house this morning. I have told him to pack anything he feels he might need.'

Livilla scoffed. 'The slave's got possessions now?'

'Things that might be useful in his work. Honestly, Livilla, try to think of a kind departing word you can say to Lygdus — you owe him that at least.'

Livilla glared as Castor walked out of the dining room. 'What's that supposed to mean?' she called after him. But he had gone. Livilla kissed the slender head of her beloved Laconian. 'I won't miss that fat lump,' she told the pup. 'Good riddance to him. I hope my grandmother gives him hell.'

Leaving the house to spend the morning at the magistrates' courts, Nero found Lygdus waiting in the entrance hall. The eunuch had chosen to take nothing with him, despite Castor telling him he should.

'You're leaving us, I hear?' said Nero.

Lygdus was surprised it warranted any comment. He met the young dominus 's eyes for a moment, before Nero was the first to look away. Lygdus automatically bobbed to the floor and ran a damp piece of sponge across Nero's street shoes, wiping the dust from them. 'Yes, domine,' he mumbled. 'I am being sent to the household of the Augusta.' Nero said nothing else on the matter.

When Lygdus was done, he stood, keeping his eyes downcast and waiting for Nero to walk out to join his retinue. But Nero stayed where he was. When Lygdus dared to meet the young master's eyes again, he was confused by the lack of shame or anger there. Instead there was a look to Nero's face that the eunuch barely knew. Was it affection?

'Thank you,' Nero said, 'for all that… Well, just thank you.'

Lygdus gaped. Then he felt an object placed in his hand. It was a gold aureus coin. He looked at Nero in astonishment but the young man was already joining his retinue in the street outside. When the front door closed, Lygdus stayed staring at the coin for a long time. He had never known what it was to hold such a thing. He turned the weight of it over in his palm, wrapping his fingers around it and uncurling them again to stare at the golden image of the Emperor's profile.

When the time came to make the very short journey to the Augusta's house, Lygdus left the aureus sitting in the bottom of the footbath water. Let the next foot-washing slave find it, Lygdus thought. The House of Castor had mutilated him, and now, just as they decided they should be rid of his embarrassment, they deigned to grace him with compensation. No. Lygdus had his dignity intact, if nothing else. His butchered manhood would not be paid for in gold.

But as he stepped into the daylight, Lygdus felt a pang of regret. The Augusta's household could well be worse than the home he was leaving. He would endure it, of course, no matter how bad it was. That was his lot as a slave. But how sad it would be to look back on his life and know he had rejected the one act of kindness that had not been a mask for cruelty. The young master had rewarded him out of gratitude. It wasn't hush money. Lygdus had been given the coin because he had already held his tongue and would have done so even if he had not been rewarded. Nero recognised nobility in Lygdus, yet Lygdus was only a slave.

Lygdus ducked inside again and retrieved the coin from the footbath.

As he reappeared in the daylight with the wet aureus tucked inside his loincloth, the faintest echo of a whisper touched his ear.

' The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding's tongue…'

Startled, Lygdus turned to see who had spoken to him.

There was no one there.

The Kalends of April

AD 21

One month later: Julius Sacrovir of the Aedui sows the seeds of rebellion in Gaul

With Livia's 'recovery' the order was given that she should be paraded around Rome like a goddess, as a part of Castor's public retinue. Whenever her grandson traversed the Forum, fronted the courts, witnessed the floggings or attended the Senate, the Augusta was to accompany him, sitting upright in a canopied throne held by eight litter-bearers. This would provide an indelible image for Rome, the city for which spectacle and display was all.

It fell to me — and my new 'apprentice', Lygdus — to coordinate these processions. I tied Livia's neck and torso to the back of the throne, then draped her in concealing robes and placed a diadem on her head. Lygdus made a contribution to these preparations that could only be described as token. It became clear to me that he was lazy and offensive and showed no talent for work. All he did was eat, sleep and complain. Yet still I had to suffer his daily presence along with the nagging certainty that he was Castor's agent. This meant I couldn't slight him, or — which would have been more deserved — strike him in the teeth and push him down the stairs. And the stealth required to employ the phallus under these circumstances was exhausting in the extreme. Lygdus was my millstone.

I carefully watched my domina 's eyes during these preparations, as did Little Boots whenever he was present. If Livia had any objection to being exhibited, we saw no sign of it in her. To the people of Rome who witnessed her passing by in the canopied throne, she seemed regal and worthy of awe. They were glad she was back. Castor's public dignity increased tenfold when people saw that she was with him. The fact that she neither spoke nor moved but only stared fixedly into the middle distance seemed to strike no one as odd. But this was no surprise. In her days as the wife of Augustus she had rarely spoken in public; more often, she'd been seen exactly as she was now.

On one occasion, in glorious spring, when the streets and temples were vivid with flowers, the domina 's processional preparations took longer than usual. In addition to her diadem and robes, I was attempting to hang garlands on her person, Castor's order being that she should remind the people of the goddess Flora. But various slaves had been in and out of the suite since dawn, filling me in on a developing morning of scandal in the Forum. Burrus's mother Nymphomidia stole in, eating pears from a bowl.

'Have you heard about Annia Rufilla?'

This was a notorious widow whose financial improprieties had brought her before the courts. 'She's been convicted of fraud,' I said. 'That's old news, Nymphomidia.'

The slave's lips peeled into a smile. 'You haven't heard then?'

'I've been hearing it all morning.'

'Sounds to me like you've been hearing the old news, Iphicles. Oh well, I won't trouble you,' said Nymphomidia, crunching a pear and making to go.

I saw that listening Livia was keen for the next instalment and decided to allow her this pleasure. 'Tell me, then — what's happened now?'

Nymphomidia had become used to speaking to me as if Livia wasn't even in the room. 'Annia's been screaming in the Forum that Gallus is a cunt. She called him a boy-lover, too, and said he took it up the arse.'

I guffawed and Livia's eyes shone with mirth. 'She can't say that sort of thing in the Forum! Gallus is a senator.'

'And he's also the magistrate who convicted her.'

'Has Gallus found out?'

'She was on the Senate steps. It was hard for him to miss it.'

I laughed again. 'I suppose she's been arrested?'

'Guess again,' said Nymphomidia. 'Gallus sent the lictors out with their rods raised ready to give her one, but they stopped in their tracks when she pulled a surprise out of her palla.'

'A knife? Why would they care if she killed herself?'

'It wasn't a knife — it was a bust of Tiberius.'

I felt a twinge of dread and caught my domina 's eye again. Her look of amusement had turned malicious. 'What did Annia mean by doing that?'

'To have Gallus accused of treason.'

'That doesn't make sense.'

'If the lictors had beaten her, she would have dropped the bust — it would have smashed on the ground. Gallus would have been seen as the one who had caused it.'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 'People are being accused of treason for breaking busts of the Emperor now?'

'Where have you been, Iphicles? It's very lucrative for those who make such accusations. They get a share of the traitor's estate.'

That was the first time, I think, that I questioned the wisdom of Cybele. It had been the Great Mother's prophecies that I had dedicated my life to fulfilling, and this had led me to commit many crimes. But everything had been necessary for the greater good of Rome, I had always told myself, and for the greater glory of my domina, Cybele's mortal manifestation. And without this certainty, how else could I have continued with so many innocent dead around me? Yet, hearing the news of Annia's shameless behaviour, I wondered whether the actions of Tiberius, the prophesied first king, could also be called for the 'glory of Rome'. Tiberius's vanity had allowed this travesty to happen — and it opened the door for so much more.

'What did Gallus do?'

Nymphomidia took another bite of her pear. 'What could he do? She caught him, it's the perfect revenge. She's still out there now, dragging his dignity through the horseshit while he sits in the Senate blocking his ears.'

There was a tiny sound from the back of my domina 's throat, barely perceptible, but loud enough for Nymphomidia and me to hear in the brief silence.

The slave dropped her pear. 'Did the Augusta just speak?'

I would have denied it, anxious to cover all evidence of my domina 's returning senses, but the news had unsettled me and I wasn't fast enough with my reply before the noise came again.

Nymphomidia peered into my domina 's face. 'She is speaking. What are you trying to say, Lady?'

Livia kept her eyes fixed wholly upon me and I felt an old chill grip my spine again. 'She's not saying anything,' I insisted.

'But she is, Iphicles.'

'No,' I said, ill in my guts. 'She's not saying anything… she's laughing.'

Livia's wicked eyes glinted. It was true.

When Nymphomidia made her hasty excuses to leave, I flew to the chest that held the phallus. 'Things will be worse with you finding voice again,' I hissed at Livia. 'Do you love it that your son Tiberius's rule brings such shameful things to pass? Do you think it glorifies you all the more with people so debased? I am starting to wonder whether this is really for Rome's good at all. Perhaps it is time for the second king to ascend. A boy's rule can only be better than this sort of disgrace — especially if he has wise heads to guide him.'

I flung the lid of the chest open. It was empty. Livia made the tiny noise again, mocking me from her processional throne. I ripped the linen from her bed to see if I'd left it there in my distraction, but I hadn't. 'Where is it?' I spat at her. 'I'm going to make you sit on the thing for the whole procession just to punish you.'

Her eyes flashed fire.

I ran from chest to chest, flinging them all open. I pulled a tapestry from the wall, exposing the storage shelves of vases and ornaments behind it. There was no sign of the wooden fertility implement anywhere in the room.

'I know what you do with this thing,' said Lygdus.

I span around in shock. The young eunuch was lolling at the door, cradling the phallus in his hands.

'I know what you do — you shove it inside her.'

All words failed me in my exposure.

Lygdus smirked. 'You think I just stuff myself with cakes all the time while whining like a brat? I'm studying you, Iphicles, in all the hours we spend together. I study you like a book.'

I said nothing, waiting for him to make clear his intentions.

Lygdus placed the phallus tip beneath his nostrils and gave it a little sniff. He recoiled. 'So is this what her sex smells of? This stinks like poison.'

My guilty silence was the most the damning noise I could have made.

Lygdus's eyes widened. 'This is poison?'

The time it took for the breath to leave my lungs was all I had to decide on how to respond. Lygdus wasn't screaming in horror, or calling me a monster or a wretch. He was staring in shock, yes, but there was something else, too. He was impressed. I saw the merest shadow of my reflection in his eyes.

'It paralyses her,' I said.

Lygdus dropped the thing like it burned his hands.

'But it's failed. She can already see again and now she's beginning to speak.'

A wave of thrilled delight washed over the eunuch's face. 'You hate the Augusta?' he whispered.

Of course this wasn't true. I loved my domina more than anything and everything there was. But I saw in his smile the answer he wanted me to give, so I said, 'I hate her with all my soul.'

Lygdus gave a little giggle. 'Really?'

I nodded, solemn.

'Well, I can beat that — I hate them all!'

I burst out laughing in surprise.

'I want to see them dead. I want to see them nailed to trees. Every last dominus, every domina — they're all pigs. I want to slaughter them. I want to eat them.'

I had to steady myself.

'They cut off my balls,' Lygdus went on. 'They left me in a sheep's pen with the blood and the pain, and no one even cared if I lived or died. But I beat them — I didn't give up. Yet still I swelled like an elephant and my voice stayed like a boy's.'

I tried hard not to laugh now.

'I heard they cut off your balls too?' he said.

I couldn't tell him that I had made this sacrifice myself. 'It's true,' I lied.

The eunuch leaped from the door and threw his arms around me. 'We're brothers,' he declared, kissing my face and hair, 'brothers in suffering.'

I could only nod.

Lygdus stopped his kisses and took a step back to examine my face. 'Have you ever hurt one?' he whispered. 'One of them — have you ever hurt one, Iphicles?'

I took my final gamble. It was time for the truth again, or at least a version of it. 'I've done more than hurt — I've killed one, Lygdus. More than one, actually.'

Lygdus went white. I felt the back of my tunica belt, letting my fingers rest on the dagger I kept there. I intended killing him if I had misjudged my gamble, and would have to face the consequences later. Everything hinged on what he would do next.

The eunuch sank to his haunches and started kissing my shoes.

'What are you doing?'

'Show me your skills,' he begged me. 'Let me learn from your wisdom, Iphicles.'

'Stop that — let go of me.'

'I want to kill them too.'

'What?'

'Trust me, Iphicles — I want to kill them like you.'

I tried to pull my feet away but one of my woollen house shoes came loose in Lygdus's hands. The eunuch seized upon my bare foot, plunging his tongue between the spaces and placing my toes within his lips. My repulsion only lasted a few moments. I looked back to my domina, who was watching the whole exchange from her throne.

I gave her a long, bright smile, showing her every one of my teeth. She could not return the smile, but I wondered then, if she had regained the ability, whether she would have grinned back at me regardless of our differences. If only because I so richly deserved it.

I looked down at the fawning Lygdus and thanked the Great Mother for the gifts she continued to give me.

When my domina was nearly smothered in garlands and ready for her procession, Lygdus and I resumed our conversation while we waited for the litter-bearers. I asked the eunuch what he expected to gain from such murderous desires. Lygdus claimed to want nothing. Money had no appeal for him, nor did sexual pleasure, he said. The only things that held his interest were matters of the heart. His greatest desire was to serve a master who loved him. But he had given up this dream as hopeless. None of them would love him. This was why he wanted them dead.

I suspected the young eunuch was not wholly right in the head, but when I thought of the intense interest he had shown in my feet I could only marvel. Perhaps Lygdus's 'deserving master' could even be a slave?

It was then that he told me about his thwarted visit to Tiberius. Thrown by this revelation, I went very still. 'Why did you go to see him, Lygdus?'

The eunuch told me that he'd wanted to inform the Emperor of the birth of Livilla's boy. I absorbed this. 'But Tiberius would have found out himself the same night. Why did he need to hear it from you?'

Lygdus raised his eyes again and his look was flirtatious. 'Because I knew what no one else knew, Iphicles, and I still know it now.'

Although my eyes narrowed, my smile took on a shadow of flirtation too, just to encourage him to tell me. 'What would that be?'

Lygdus placed a hand upon his breast to feel the heartbeat fluttering beneath the mound of his flesh. 'My dominus Castor is not the father of that child.'

After a long moment I said, 'No one else knows it?'

'No one but my domina, Livilla, and she'll never dare tell anyone. And the baby's father knows it too. He's always known.'

'And how do you know?'

'I overhear my domina 's prayers.'

The eunuch had greater stealth and cunning than I had given him credit for. All he lacked was execution. There was another long pause as we stared at each other.

'And who is the father?' I asked at last, my voice the lowest of whispers.

Lygdus told me.

I gave a sigh of pleasure as so many things made sense. I fancied I heard Livia make a similar noise, although I'm sure there was little pleasure in it for her. But when I looked to her, she gave nothing away. We heard the litter-bearers' boots echoing up the corridor towards the suite. Castor's Forum procession was starting.

'Perhaps it's time the secret lovers came out into the open?' I whispered to Lygdus.

'They'll never do that. It would ruin them both.'

'Perhaps we can do something so that there will be no scandal? Perhaps we can make them see that they have a hope of being happy one day?'

'Will we kill someone to do it?'

The eight litter-bearers entered the room and took their positions under the poles that ran along each side of my domina 's throne. I saw the glint of what I thought were tears in her eyes. Tears of what, I wondered. Horror? Misery? Or, perhaps — dared I allow myself to hope it — even excitement? I knew she had heard every word we'd spoken. The bearers lifted her and I saw her eyes no more. I turned back to Lygdus.

'Yes, we will,' I whispered. 'We will kill someone very soon. And not long after that, we will kill again. And then again.'

Lygdus laughed with delight and we took our places in our domina 's wake, trailing among the other household slaves who streamed from all corners of Oxheads as Livia's throne was borne along the great halls. We crossed the front threshold and left the grand house, stepping into the golden light of day. Livia looked resplendent as Flora. The eunuch basked in her reflected glory as the mob in the street began to shout and cheer the sight of their Augusta. Lygdus preened as though the cries were meant for him. I indulged him in this folly of youth. In my state of advanced years the love of the mob meant very little. Too often I had seen it turn.

' Why do you kill them?' he whispered to me once we had begun our progress down the Palatine. 'Is it for vengeance?'

I could have lied and claimed this to be true. Looking back on it now, I see how much less painful it would have been if I had. But in my happy realisation that I had found in Lygdus not only a kindred spirit and an ally, but also that very rarest of things in Rome, a friend, I chanced the greatest risk I had taken in my life.

'I do it all for Cybele,' I said.

He blinked at me in confusion. 'For the Great Mother?'

I nodded, my eyes shining with joy. Then I told him everything about the prophecies and divinity, and how Cybele gave her greatest gifts to her eunuchs. We had reached the Forum by the time I was done, and hundreds of people trailed behind and around us, screaming my domina 's name. Lygdus was bewildered by what I had told him, the glories of the procession forgotten. His heart burned with new hope and possibility.

I pointed to the head of the procession, where Castor walked like a prince, his baby son in his arms and his three fine nephews by his side. 'See,' I said, 'see up there? There he is — our second prophesied king.'

Lygdus struggled to comprehend it all. 'My dominus Castor?'

'No, not him…'

'Then the second king is Nero…?' he said in wonder.

I shook my head, still smiling, and showed him who it really was that Cybele had ordained.

'Little Boots?'

I closed my eyes, nodding. 'And what a king he will be.' I was enraptured. But when I opened them again, my spirits soaring to the skies, I saw the look of utter confusion that remained upon the eunuch's face. I guessed why he was so puzzled — Little Boots was still a boy, after all.

'The Great Mother is unknowable,' I said. 'We cannot understand all that she commands. All we know is this: everything she does, she does for Rome.'

Lygdus nodded slowly, and for the remainder of the procession, for the full duration of our long, magnificent path, he repeated all that I had told him, whispering it under his breath, telling himself to believe.

Dazzled by the possibilities that his once bleak future now held, Lygdus wanted nothing more than to find the comfort that was mine in holding so much deep certainty in my heart. He wanted to achieve the blissful ignorance that I nursed in the blindness of such faith.

I would not discover it for many years, but Lygdus tried and failed, and tried and failed, and tried that much harder again that day to achieve these things that were mine. And when the tiny, nagging doubts flared up in his heart, biting, gnawing and grinding against his conscience, Lygdus beat them back, enraged that comfort and ignorance were denied to him. He would achieve all that I had achieved, Lygdus told himself violently.

As all the gods were his witnesses, he would achieve what was mine.