Nest of Vipers

IS IT WRONG YOU ARE NOT QUEEN?

The Kalends of October

AD 26

One week later: the Senate decrees that no one with capital of less than four hundred thousand sestertii may exhibit a gladiatorial show, and no amphitheatre may be constructed except on ground of proven solidity

The temple attendants tried to assist my domina into the pit but she waved away their hands.

'I can get in myself.'

She stood at the edge and inhaled the rich smell of it. 'So intoxicating,' she murmured. 'It's a scent I can never forget, you know. How wonderful to be back.'

The temple attendants bowed and Livia raised the hem of her stola and stepped lightly down the steps until she was fully inside. She seated herself upon the little ledge. Already the walls pressed their juice into her clothes. She dabbed at the growing stains with her fingertips, licking them. 'So intoxicating,' she repeated.

The attendants appeared above with the heavy iron grate, ready to position it over the pit.

'I don't want that,' said Livia.

'Augusta?'

'I don't want it. It's used to stop novitiates from running away — I am not a novitiate, I promise you. I was inducted into the Great Mother's rites many, many years ago.'

The attendants stood looking at each other.

'I said remove it.'

With his eyes closed, slumped against the great alabaster statue of the goddess, the withered husk that was the haruspex Thrasyllus made a gesture with his hand. The attendants saw this and took the grate away. Livia waited inside the hole. After a moment the chief attendant held his face over the side to peer down at her. He was apologetic but felt it was possible the Augusta might have forgotten the other purpose for which the grate was required. She had been so long 'asleep'.

'It is for the sacrifice to stand on, Augusta,' he reminded her.

Livia did not need reminding. 'I wish there to be nothing between myself and the beast,' she told him.

The chief attendant was confused. 'What if the beast falls inside?'

'Then let it.'

This was highly dangerous, but the chief attendant could see no other course. Having removed the grate, his assistants waited with the tethered black bull. The beast was docile and silent. The chief signalled for the proceedings to begin.

Ringed at the dark periphery of the temple's hall, a group of eunuchs began to strike upon the drums they wore on long strings around their necks. Their rhythm built slowly in pace and noise until they began to sing to it.

Inside the pit Livia knew the words. The assistants led the huge black bull to the edge while she sang with gusto, reaching inside her gown. Just as the chief attendant raised his knife to strike at the bull's throat, Livia pulled out a blade of her own, sprang to her feet and plunged it deep into the bull's soft flesh before whipping the blade in an arc, slicing the creature's throat open. The chief attendant dropped his own knife in shock. Thick, rich blood gushed onto Livia as she continued to sing, filling her upturned mouth. She lost her footing and slipped in the gore, just as the dying beast fell forward into the hole, landing on top of her. Her face was pressed hard against the wound she had made, the blood gushing from the bull's throat into hers.

Yet she knew she would not drown. She knew her bones would not be broken. She knew this was how Cybele would re-enter her, empowering her once again for the tasks ahead.

Livia came to consciousness to find she was lying on the temple floor before the great alabaster statue of Cybele. The eunuchs and the attendants were gone. She was slick with the bull's blood; she had been retrieved from the taurobolium pit with great difficulty. The only way to reach her was by dismembering the bull, and every last drop of the creature's blood had drizzled onto her while they hacked away before she was finally pulled free. This was wholly as Livia had intended.

Reorientated as to where she was, she at once sat up. The withered haruspex was slumped in his place at the statue's base, but now he held the guts of a pigeon in his fists. There was not another living thing inside the temple with them. Livia and Thrasyllus were entirely alone.

'Who is the second king?' Livia asked him.

Thrasyllus told her.

'Who is the child who will rule?'

Thrasyllus told her that too, never opening his eyes as he explained the difference. Livia nodded. These were the same answers she had already received in her dreams.

'Tell me who the goddess lets live and who she lets die,' said Livia. 'Tell me their fates. Tell me the worst of it. Prepare me for what I must do.'

Thrasyllus spoke with a voice that was not his own. '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.'

Livia sat still for a long time. She was surprised by very little of what was said and shocked by nothing. At last she rose and made her way towards Thrasyllus. There were tears of gratitude in her eyes.

'The goddess continues to bless my house,' she whispered. 'Thank you, haruspex.' She stooped to where he was slumped against the statue's whiteness and pressed her lips to his eyes. When they opened, it was Cybele herself he saw smiling before him.

'Thank you, Great Mother,' he whispered.

Livia raised her blade and hacked his head from his shoulders with a single slice. The head didn't stop rolling before the flesh had dissolved in front of Livia's eyes. It came to rest at the pit's edge a clean, dry skull. She kicked it inside as she passed, making her way to the door.

In the clear autumn sunlight upon the temple steps two women rose to greet her. She had been expecting them.

'My friends,' said Livia. She kissed Martina first and the sorceress shimmered in the light. She carried a basket of food. 'How thoughtful,' said Livia, taking a piece of bread.

'You look well rested,' said Martina.

'And so I should be.'

She kissed Plancina next, wrapping her fingers around the stumps of her old friend's wrists. 'How have you been getting on with these?'

'As well as can be expected,' said Plancina.

Livia smiled coyly. 'Well, here we all are.'

The three sat together on the steps in the sun and began eating the food.

'Did the haruspex have much to tell you, then?' asked Martina, her mouth full.

'This and that.'

'This and that? So he didn't have much at all?'

Plancina knew her friend better. 'Just look at Livia's shining eyes. Thrasyllus told her a great many things before she cut his head off. Didn't he, Livia?'

Livia had to laugh. 'You read me like a poem, Plancina.'

'Out with it then,' said Martina. 'We haven't got all day.'

Livia told them. When she was done, they sat in silence for a minute more, considering the first of their schemes. When it was planned, another was hatched, and then another quickly afterwards, and then another scheme again. Soon all the plans were in place but one. The food was consumed and they stood up on the steps to leave.

'What about that ball-less prick, your Iphicles?' asked Martina. 'He's got it coming to him, after everything he's done to you.'

Livia coolly agreed. Then she told them what she had in mind for me.

The wicked friends laughed. Both agreed it was apt.

Equirria

October, AD 26

Two weeks later: the freedman Atilius, gamesmaster of the catastrophe at

Fidenae, is sentenced to exile

Naked and glistening with oil, the aged Emperor Tiberius dived from the very highest rock in his grotto into the heated pool of springwater in a strong, graceful arc that was at odds with his advanced state of physical decay. Such athleticism should have killed him, yet it didn't. But if the pool had been in Rome, it would have. In the foul eternal city his body failed him daily, made rank with his stenches and pockmarked with his sores. There, Tiberius would throw the mirrors from his rooms in frenzy, screaming to be rid of his own reflection. But it was pointless. With every creaking step and sharp crack of flatulence his body signalled its imminent demise, and all while his mother gave the appearance of having lost decades. Yet here on the island of Capri Tiberius's destruction seemed less of a certainty. Perhaps it was the 'minnows'?

Tiberius shot to the water's surface, shouting and laughing. The little creatures darted all around him, pecking at his limbs with their tiny puckered lips, nibbling at his privates with their harmless little teeth.

'The darlings!' Tiberius called out in happiness to his beloved Sejanus. The Praetorian Prefect smiled from the side of the grotto pool, his cloak around his shoulders against the chill night air. In the luxury of the heated water Tiberius didn't feel the winter. Nor did his minnows. The Emperor giggled like an infant as they continued pressing their mouths to him beneath the water surface, licking and kissing his flesh. He flung his hands about, splashing and waving, and didn't see which ring it was that flew from his dripping fingers. Sejanus saw. The ring shot high into the air, coming to rest at the edge of the pool. Sejanus stooped to pick it up, while Tiberius began his favourite game of trying to trap an unwary minnow between his knees.

Sejanus moved to where the candles burned in the grotto wall and felt for some soft, fresh wax. He found a likely lump and rolled it in his palm, letting it cool a little. Playfully, Tiberius caught a minnow that was slow in darting away, screaming with laughter as the creature thrashed between his legs.

'You've got to be quicker than that!' Tiberius laughed. The minnow's thrashing lessened, but Tiberius held fast.

Sejanus pressed the ring into the wax and kept it there for a moment, making sure the seal left an impression that was clear. He withdrew it and peered at the result. It was a perfect print. 'Your ring, Father,' he called to the pool.

With only mild consternation Tiberius realised his Imperial seal was missing. 'You have it there?'

'It flew from your finger.'

'I must be losing weight,' said Tiberius. 'My fingers are getting thinner.' He released the minnow from between his knees and swam to the pool's edge. Sejanus handed the ring to him. 'It's all this good living here on Capri,' Tiberius said. 'I'm feeling fitter every day.'

'It's because there is nothing to worry you here, Father,' said Sejanus. 'That's what restores your good health. Rome and its traitors are far away.'

When Sejanus had saved his life in the rockfall, Tiberius knew he had been wrong to feel anything less than love for his Prefect. 'I have a mind not to return to Rome. What do you think?' The unmoving body of the minnow rose to the water's surface behind him.

'I think it's an excellent idea. And who knows, Father — perhaps if you stay here on the island you will live on forever?'

'Perhaps I will…' Tiberius pondered. He turned to see the minnow floating in the water in front of him. The mouths of the others gaped in fear from the surface, dragging in air before diving again to resume their nibbling. Tiberius stared at the face of the lifeless child. 'She is familiar…'

'Who is?' Sejanus studied the ring print in the wax.

'This minnow.'

Sejanus glanced once at the girl. 'She was one of the Patrician Youth Choir — the last of them, Father.'

Tiberius felt a distinct twinge of sadness, but it was gone before it could trouble him. As a precaution against its returning, he reached for his cup of the Eastern flower. He drank and was aware of the nibbling again. 'Aren't all these other little minnows from the choir?'

'No, Father,' said Sejanus, immune to the Emperor's depravity. 'These other children were taken from parents who were traitors.'

'I dislike seeing the minnows' numbers decrease. Find more for me, Sejanus.'

The Prefect nodded, still studying the wax print of the ring. 'Anything you wish, Father.'

When the Emperor and his Prefect had gone, a red-headed youth crept out of the grotto's shadows and knelt beside the pool's edge. The girl lay still upon the steps, half in the water, half out. The youth had seen her struggles and had wanted more than anything to help her, but he had been too frightened. Then, when she had floated lifeless to the surface, he had wept in silence and shame from his hiding place in the dark. But once the Emperor had gone, the red-haired youth had seen what they had missed. Her chest had risen. She had taken air.

But now nothing moved. He placed his ear against her breast and it was still. He listened to her insides. There was no sound. Looking about him, his eyes fell on the burning candles. He crept to the grotto wall and took a waxy stump from its nook, protecting the flame with his fingers. It was beautiful. Just like the girl.

Kneeling beside her again, the red-haired youth held the candle above her. He tilted his hand and a drop of liquid wax struck her skin. The girl stayed still. He tilted the candle further, letting the yellow flame itself caress her.

The girl awoke with a shout.

She was frightened when she saw him and realised what he had done. But when he made her see that she'd almost died and that his flame had saved her from Hades, she was grateful. But the island prison had corrupted her. She knew of no other way to thank the youth than to place his pale, white hand between her legs.

Her name was Albucilla, she told him.

Red-haired Ahenobarbus of the Aemilii could not tell her his name, although he wished to all the gods that he could. Even if he hadn't been born a mute, he suspected, he would have lost the power of speech anyway, such was the strength of Albucilla's earthy beauty.

'I don't want it.'

'But you must have it. You're already fourteen.'

'I don't care — I don't want it. Are you deaf, Iphicles? I'm not going to tell you again.' Although Little Boots's anger was aimed wholly at me, his continued jealousy of Lygdus was such that he made sure his spittle struck the eunuch's face too, even though the matter had nothing to do with my apprentice. We three stood waiting for Livia to emerge from her suite.

'But it's your toga virilis — your robe of manhood. To refuse it is not done, domine.'

'Not if I refuse to be a man. I'm a child.'

'You're nearly fifteen.'

He kicked me in the shin.

' Domine!'

He took off down the hall before I could chase him.

'Come back! The Augusta has requested to see you.'

'You're just a fucking slave!'

He was gone, leaving me clutching my poor shin, aghast. 'What's the matter with him?' I asked Lygdus. 'He's becoming unmanageable.'

'Becoming?' said Lygdus with sarcasm. He wiped Little Boots's spittle from his cheek.

'He still has the greatest respect for me, Lygdus. We are bonded.'

'You're deluding yourself, just as you have deluded yourself about everything.'

Tears rushed to my eyes and I had to blink them back. 'You are so hurtful, Lygdus. You never spoke to me this cruelly before.'

'Before what?' He knew the answer but wanted me to say it.

I just stared at him, heartbroken.

'Before what, Iphicles? Before the domina recovered?'

'Yes,' I whispered, ashamed. 'You know it.'

'Well, she has recovered and everything has changed — for you more than anyone. And I am glad.' He leaned forward, mocking me with his look. 'When will she take her revenge on you? What form will it take? Will it be agonising?'

'Lygdus.' A sob left my lips.

'You led me into evil,' he hissed.

'It was evil for the sake of a greater good.'

'No, it wasn't. And it will never happen again. It's Little Boots we should have killed with the footbath water, not Castor.'

'But the prophecies — '

'They've been twisted by your lies. Just ask the domina. I already have, as it happens.'

'You've been speaking to her without me there to protect you?'

'Cybele came to her, after all, not to you.' Lygdus bent to whisper in my ear. 'And she has come to her again. I don't need you to hold my hand, Iphicles,' he laughed. 'The domina likes me. She tells me secrets.' He stood in contemptuous silence while I gave in to my tears. Then he passed me a small square of linen from his tunica pocket to wipe my eyes.

'You shouldn't concern yourself with it,' he said, with something of his old friendliness. 'Your time has passed, that is all. You are tired and spent. It is not surprising you have so vilely misinterpreted things — and acted with such incompetence, too. It is understandable and even forgivable. But the domina needs youth and vigour now to complete her work, which of course you understand. Cybele has chosen a new Attis.'

I gasped. Then I burned with raw anger. 'Go!' I spat at him. 'Leave me alone. The domina sent for me to bring Little Boots to her, not you. So go!'

Lygdus didn't move. 'The domina summoned me here about another matter.'

'What could that possibly be?' I demanded.

Lygdus looked at me pityingly.

'Tell me!'

'Ah, Lygdus,' said Livia. 'Here you are.' She had appeared silently at the door of her suite while we argued. We threw ourselves to the floor.

'No need for that,' she said. 'We are all friends.'

Lygdus clambered upright again but the look she gave me when I followed him made me stay where I was.

'What have you brought me?' she asked him.

'Information,' Lygdus whispered. His tone was grave.

I couldn't see his face from my position, but Livia's tone at once echoed his earnestness. 'My chair, then, while I try to find the fortitude to hear it, slave.'

She wasn't talking to Lygdus. She meant me. Burning, I crawled on my belly to the wall where a chair rested and dragged the thing back to her while still prone. Livia sat down before I'd pulled my hand from beneath the chair's leg, and a pinch of my skin was caught between the leg and the floor. Livia made no attempt to free me.

'Now, your information, Lygdus. Does it involve my great-grandson Drusus, as I feared?'

'Yes, domina.'

She tut-tutted. 'And my granddaughter Livilla?'

'Her as well, domina. Things are just as you suspected.'

Livia tut-tutted again.

I was in agony but still my mind reeled, trying to calculate the implications. I knew nothing of any schemes involving Livilla and her transvestite nephew Drusus. I was completely in the dark.

'What was the nature of the offer made?' asked Livia.

'The Lady Livilla offered your great-grandson glory, domina.'

'Of course she did. Although I'd be surprised if that alone were sufficient.'

Lygdus nodded his head. 'She made the offer in her dressing room. There were no maids present. And when she had made it, she allowed him to remain in the room while she took herself away to the garden.' Lygdus lowered his voice to indicate his profound disgust. 'She permitted Drusus to remain in the dressing room alone for several hours, domina.'

Livia was grim. 'What was so special to him that he needed such privacy, Lygdus?'

'Her gowns…'

Livia gripped the chair arms tightly, shutting her eyes. 'So depraved!'

'Yes, domina.'

There was silence.

'And what did my granddaughter Livilla ask from Drusus in return for this "glory"?'

'She asked that he supply damning information about his brother Nero in the future, domina.'

'Did Drusus say he would provide it?'

'He did.'

A wretched cry came from Livia's throat and she fell forward with her hands to her face, sobbing into her knees. Lygdus wept too now, howling like a child. It was a long time before either was able to master their emotions. Livia finally righted herself again, her cheeks streaked with tears.

'Brother betrays brother. There is such evil in my family, Lygdus.'

'Yes, domina,' he whispered.

There was silence again. Livia shifted her weight in the chair and the pressure intensified on my trapped hand. I nearly lost consciousness from the pain. Then she shifted once more and the agony eased slightly, but I still didn't pull myself free.

Lygdus spoke. 'We will not let Nero be betrayed, will we, domina?'

She shook her head. 'Not while I breathe.'

The eunuch's face flushed with relief. 'The gods bless you for it, domina.'

'Now, now.'

'You are his saviour, his protector.'

She gently beckoned the eunuch to come close and brushed her lips on his cheek. 'Perhaps he is the real second king?' she whispered. Then she leaned back in the chair so that my trapped hand was tortured anew.

Lygdus saw my redoubled pain and cared nothing. 'Some have claimed it is another,' he said.

'The only claims we should listen to are Cybele's,' said Livia. 'It is our privilege to make the wisest interpretations we can of her words. But some are wiser than others. Beware of frauds, Lygdus, and those who wrongly claim to know the goddess's mind.'

Lygdus narrowed his eyes at me.

'You may leave me now,' she said to him.

The eunuch bowed and was gone. I remained where I was, in misery on the floor, my hand pinned beneath her chair. Livia didn't move. Then, after another short interval, she said, 'I asked you to bring my grandson Little Boots to me.'

'He was here and then he left again, domina,' I managed to reply.

'I see. What an insult to his great-grandmother.'

'He was sulking about his toga virilis,' I tried to explain. 'He refuses to wear one, which is disgraceful. He's already fourteen.'

'The boy knows his own mind. He shall not wear one, then.'

I was horrified. 'But that's… unprecedented!'

'Let him stay a boy. Perhaps Tiberius will like him for it?'

My mind raced trying to work out what game Livia was playing. She abruptly stood up and my hand was freed.

'Tiberius barely knows who Little Boots is,' I whispered.

'There you are wrong. A letter has come, stamped with the Emperor's own seal, requesting your beloved Little Boots to join him on Capri.'

The blood left my face. 'What for?'

Livia looked up at the tall window that filled her anteroom with light. She placed her hand on the silk curtain, letting it linger there for a moment before she gripped the silk in her fist, watching her knuckles turn white as she pulled. The curtain, its rings and the long bronze rod that supported them came crashing to the floor.

'I don't know what for,' said Livia. 'Perhaps he wants Little Boots to add to his entertainment?'

Chills shot along my spine. 'He will kill him!'

'Surely not.'

'Sejanus will kill him, then — it's a plot. He means him harm, domina. Don't let the boy go, I beg you!'

'You beg me? I can scarcely imagine that.'

I crawled along the floor on my belly until I reached her foot. I began to kiss her toes through the slipper. 'Please, domina.'

Livia stooped and took up the curtain rod, letting the rings slide down its length. They fell to the floor, and she lifted the rod high in the air like Victory's sword. 'Too late, I'm afraid — he's going.'

I pressed my lips to her ankle, closing my eyes tight. 'Nero is not the second king, domina.'

She smashed the rod hard on my back and then raised it again. 'I know that,' she said. She smashed the metal onto my thighs. 'But your greatest mistake was having an opinion about it in the first place.'

She dashed the rod across my back again and again.

As he entered his house in Rome at last, after so many weeks away, Sejanus felt in no way cheated by the sentence of exile that had been passed upon the gamesmaster at Fidenae. It had been within Sejanus's power to have the sentence upped to the cruellest execution imaginable, yet he had not done so. The Forum mob would have loved him for it, but their hatred was far more satisfying. And it was somehow even more pleasing with the blend of the Eastern flower supplied to him by the hunchback.

She who had once appeared loathsome now seemed like a friend. She understood the way that hatred so aroused him. She encouraged him with her eyes. If her disfigurement were not so repellent, he would have made sexual penetration part of their transaction, enjoying the hunchback in front of her fire. Her lustful eyes told him she would have relished such a privilege.

Fuelled by the morning's first draught, Sejanus had allowed the gamesmaster's sentence to pass uncontested in the Senate and had laughed at the mob's howls. The wretch would be hunted down and killed as soon as he left the city walls anyway, but Sejanus liked being seen as having no part in the vengeance. When he finally came to rule in his own right, he would not have himself known as a king who listened to Rome's basest desires. He would do all that he could to be thought of as a king who excoriated them.

Sejanus's slaves undressed him on the heated tiles of the entrance hall, wiping him with sponges before presenting him with a choice of fresh tunicae. He saw the dog Scylax wagging its tail in the atrium.

'The lady is here?' he asked his steward.

'Yes, domine — ' the slave started to explain, but Sejanus dismissed him, eschewing new clothing and moving across the atrium to pat the friendly dog. His lust for the hunchback would be spent on his lover, a more predictable but rarely disappointing pleasure. Naked, he continued down the corridor and flung the doors to his sleeping room wide, ready for her.

My domina 's smile curled from where she displayed herself upon the vast bed. 'You've disrobed for me? What an expectant lover.' She slipped the gown from her shoulders, letting it spill to the tips of her breasts. They were young again, full and firm. 'Have you missed me, Sejanus?'

The Prefect stammered, shocked to find my domina here. Then he saw me, Iphicles, cowering on the floor. He found his tongue. 'I have missed you deeply, Livia. I had believed Death would take you while you slept for so long.'

'So many people tell me they feared this, but Death never came for me at all. Only Somnus came. My illness was spent in his dreams.'

Sejanus stayed standing where he was. 'What was wrong with you? Why were you paralysed?'

Livia paused before answering, casting her eyes pointedly upon me. 'I do not know,' she said. 'I have no recollection of any of it. Even the dreams are like mists to me. I think I can see the answer in the swirls that drift just beyond my line of sight, but when I narrow my eyes to determine them they slip away. Iphicles will confirm it.'

Sejanus looked at me.

'It is true, domine,' I whispered, my face pressed against the tiles. 'The Augusta is angered and dismayed by her vanished memory.'

'I know nothing of what occurred while I slept,' said Livia. 'Or of anything that happened when I awoke. Iphicles tells me I could see and hear and apparently even laugh in my paralysis, but I remember nothing of it, nothing at all.'

Sejanus saw movement in the shadows beneath the bed. Someone was crouched in hiding there.

'Iphicles also tells me that your wife has gone. Please don't chide him for gossiping. I have pressed him for news of all that I missed and he has been most informative.'

I squirmed on the floor.

'Even though I suspect he likes to "edit" certain details,' Livia added.

Sejanus took a tentative step towards the bed. From where I writhed on the floor, I could see that the arousal he had achieved, having been expecting Livilla, had not lessened any upon finding his lover's grandmother instead. I could only admire him for this, despite the peril of my drastically changed circumstances.

'I have divorced Apicata,' Sejanus said.

'Very wise,' said Livia, stretching her slender arms behind her head where she lay. The fabric of her gown slipped beyond her nipples, exposing them. She had the perfect breasts of a virgin. 'I never much enjoyed Apicata. The sightless are so unsettling.'

Sejanus moved closer and the person hidden under the bed curled into a tight, frightened ball. Sejanus knew who was there.

'I suppose you've had a great many lovers in my absence,' Livia offered, coyly. 'I wouldn't blame you for it. I understand a man's needs.'

Sejanus came to rest next to her and took her outstretched hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips. 'No one who compares to you.'

'Oh yes?' said Livia, appearing well pleased. 'No one who compares to me at all?'

'You are my queen,' Sejanus whispered. 'And I thank the gods you have returned to me.'

Livia sighed and let him ease the gown from her body, sliding it down her belly and beyond her hips. She wore no undergarments. Her sex, newly plucked clean of hair, was reborn as the rosebud of a child bride. His fingers stroked before straying to the darker cleft beyond it. She slapped his hand.

'My memory may be in pieces, but yours isn't, my love.' She placed his hand upon her sex again and opened herself for him. 'You know a highborn woman cannot permit the act of beasts. If you need to befoul your lover, you should leave me and seek out a whore.'

He stayed.

In the dust and filth beneath the bed, Livilla lay curled like a baby, her hands pressed against her ears to block out the horrors of this coupling. She had been waiting on top of the bed when she had heard her grandmother's voice in the entrance hall. She had nearly fainted. Then, when she'd heard my domina insisting on waiting for the Praetorian Prefect in his own sleeping room, the naked Livilla had flung herself under the bed in terror of being found.

She believed her grandmother knew nothing of her presence, but she was wrong. Livia knew her granddaughter was there and had known it even before she had made her way from Oxheads to Sejanus's house, with me hobbling by her side. After all, when my beating with the curtain rod had ended, I had been glad to tell my domina of Livilla's many movements.

I had been glad to tell my domina anything.

I was her slave, as she had reminded me with every blow of the rod. This was something I had, apparently, forgotten.

On our short return journey from Sejanus's house to Oxheads, my domina was thoughtful. She said little but didn't neglect to issue me with demeaning instructions. When she reached an area of the road that was splashed with excrement from the windows above, she commanded me to lie in it and then used me as a bridge, walking along my legs and back so as not to stain the hem of her stola. When we passed a brimming fuller's pot, she commanded me to dip my fingers in the urine and taste its suitability to bleach her gowns. The taste of it was indescribable, and the fuller thought my unblinking obedience riotous. When we passed a sore-riddled beggar under a street shrine, my domina commanded me to remove my garments and give them to the wretch, swapping them for his rags. When the stench of all these humiliations became overpowering, she purchased a small vial of gladiolus oil and made me drink it. I choked on the stuff, spewing it down my chest, but I smelled like a flower stall.

'That's much better,' said Livia.

Finally, when we were just inside the Oxheads gates, she asked me what evidence I had that might incriminate her great-grandson Nero. I told her I had many damning things, not the least of which was my record of his shameful intercourse with the victimarius from the Priests' College.

'Make sure it gets to his brother Drusus,' she instructed.

My mind was in complete confusion. 'You wish to aid Livilla's plan?'

'It is really Sejanus's plan, I suspect.'

'And you wish to aid it?'

'It is distressing that you still believe you are deserving of explanations, Iphicles. When you have completed this task, please return to my rooms with another curtain rod. It is clear I must resume my illustration of your worthlessness.'

Sacramentum

January, AD 27

Three months later: the Senate proposes renaming the Caelian Hill the Augustan Hill when a statue of the Emperor is found unscathed by a fire that destroyed fifty houses

It took the boy some time to realise he was not alone in the room. As he waited, frightened in the gloom, the sense that he shared the confines of this strange, unpleasant space grew overwhelming. No sounds alerted him, no touching or smells, but his surety that he had invisible company in the darkness was absolute. He could feel another's mind.

'Who's there?' he whispered.

'Me.'

The boy gasped and then fell to whimpering in fear at whatever agonising fate awaited him. 'Please. Who are you?'

'Who are you?'

This startled him. 'Don't you know?'

'How would I?'

'But I was brought here. Ordered to come.'

'Who ordered it?'

'The Emperor,' the boy whispered.

'Are you the son of a traitor?'

The voice was young — another boy's. Perhaps this stranger was no stronger than he was and could be overpowered? 'My widowed mother was a traitor. She studied witchcraft and consulted with astrologers. She died for it.'

'The Gemonian Stairs?'

'She took poison.'

'How long did it take to kill her?'

'Not long.'

'Interesting.'

He waited for the other boy to say more, but when he didn't, the silence and the blackness proved too much for him. 'Please tell me who you are.'

'Please tell me who you are.'

He gave in. 'I am Aemilius of the Aemilii.'

'Never heard of you.'

This was a strange relief of sorts. 'I am patrician.'

'I suppose you must be, then. How old are you?'

'Fourteen,' said Aemilius.

'Do you have your toga virilis?'

'I was to be given it next week, but then the Emperor's letter came.'

'I wouldn't worry about it, Aemilius.' The other boy crawled along the floor of the pitch-black room, feeling with his hands until he came to the spot where Aemilius crouched. Aemilius cried out when the boy's fingers touched him.

'Stop squawking — I'm not going to hurt you.' The boy crouched by his side. 'Do you know what goes on here?'

'In this room?' said Aemilius, his anxiety rising.

'On this island.'

'My brother Ahenobarbus was sent here before me. He's eight years older than me. He's been here since Saturnalia. Since then we've heard nothing.'

'No. No one does hear much.'

Aemilius's eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. The other boy's features were just discernible. He seemed roughly the same age and size as himself, but his hair was fairer. 'Do you know why I've been sent for? And why my brother was sent for?'

'Because you're the sons of a traitor.'

There was a sickening simplicity to the answer, and yet it told Aemilius nothing. 'Do you have a traitor for a parent?'

'My father was a great man,' the other boy replied automatically. 'But my mother has… upset people.'

'Is that why you're here?'

The other boy became conspiratorial. 'My great-grandmother encouraged me to come here.'

Aemilius tried to imagine such a malicious old relative. 'Why would she do that?'

'I'm not really sure,' the boy whispered.

'Have you been kept here many days?'

'I've been kept here several months.'

Aemilius shuddered. 'In this horrible black room?'

'On and off. I sometimes like to spend time in here when it pleases me.'

'But why?'

'To meet new people.'

Aemilius didn't think he could stand any more of this bewildering conversation. 'You're patrician too — I know it by your voice. Tell me who you are. It isn't fair that I gave you my name but you didn't give yours.'

Little Boots told him and Aemilius caught his breath sharply. 'The Emperor's grandson?'

Little Boots just shrugged in the dark.

Aemilius clutched at his hands. 'Help me — protect me. You've got power here,' he pleaded. 'I don't want to die on this island. I want to live. Please, Little Boots!'

Little Boots was moved by this appeal. 'Grandfather?' he called.

From far across the deceptively large room, Tiberius answered out of the blackness. 'Yes, Grandson?'

Aemilius nearly screamed with the fright.

'I like this boy. I'd like him to be my friend. Can I keep him, Grandfather?'

'But my decreasing minnows…'

'Just send for more. There are always more. Please, Grandfather?'

In the long pause Aemilius heard the beads of his own sweat strike the floor, dripping from the ends of his hair.

'As you wish,' said Tiberius. He began to snore.

Little Boots gave Aemilius a happy squeeze. 'Now we can have some fun,' he whispered.

Later, when they had left the strange, black hall and exhausted themselves playing the games that Little Boots wished to play, Aemilius was taken to the place where Little Boots had made a bed for himself. It was in a room where few of the other minnows ever went, a forgotten attic. It was comfortable and quiet, which was important sometimes, Little Boots assured his new friend, considering how noisy the Emperor's island so often became.

Aemilius quite liked the room and asked if he could live in it too. Little Boots assented, glad of his company. But when Aemilius, seeking sleep, placed his head upon the first cushion that came to hand, Little Boots snatched it away from him and gave him another.

'Is something wrong with that cushion?' Aemilius asked.

Little Boots placed it carefully aside. 'It was given to me by my great-grandmother, Livia,' he said. On the fabric was a single embroidered Latin word: sedeo — 'I sit'.

'Is she the one who encouraged you to come here?'

'Yes.'

Again, this aged relative took on an aura of maliciousness to Aemilius. 'She wanted no one else to sit on the cushion but you?'

Little Boots nodded. 'I think so. She told me a little poem as she gave it to me.'

'What sort of poem?'

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

'What does that mean?'

'Who knows?' said Little Boots. 'But my great-grandmother promised me that a time will come when the poem means everything in the world.'

The three girls peered from the corridor into their grandmother Antonia's room, where the matron sat upright in her chair, facing the light of the window, her little desk in front of her. Her ebony pen made slow, considered progress across a papyrus sheet. It was so quiet in this part of the house that they could hear the scratching sound the pen made.

'She is writing again,' said Julilla, the youngest of the sisters.

'Ssh,' said Drusilla, the middle one.

'Why? She can't hear us.'

'We don't know that.'

'Yes, we do. Our grandmother hears nothing anymore. She never leaves this room,' said Julilla.

'It is true,' said Nilla.

The girls continued to watch Antonia in silence.

'What does she write all the time?' asked Julilla.

'Letters,' said Drusilla.

'Who to?'

Drusilla cast a look at her older sister, Nilla.

'She writes to the Emperor,' Nilla said.

Julilla said nothing for a moment. Then she added, quietly, 'Does she ask about our mother?'

'She does,' said Nilla. 'She asks about our mother and about many other things. She asks the Emperor what his intentions are. She asks whether he still loves his family. She asks if he remembers our blood grandfather, her husband, who was the Emperor's younger brother. He died when his leg was crushed by a horse. He was a hero. Our grandmother asks the Emperor if the past means anything to him. She asks him if he knows how wretched life in Rome is now.'

They watched in silence again.

'Does he receive these letters?' Julilla asked.

None of them knew.

After a time Nilla gave a deep sigh and led her sisters away from the door. Burrus stood from where he had been kneeling by the wall, sharpening the blade of his sword.

'Our grandmother's intentions are good but her energies are ineffective,' said Nilla to her sisters, looking at Burrus as she spoke.

He agreed without saying anything.

'These letters do not work. We need another means to take our family's concerns to the Emperor.'

Burrus had been giving the matter thought. The younger girls peeled away to their own quiet corners of their grandmother's house while Nilla and her slave sat in sunshine in the garden. They made a plan and liked it, considering it from all angles to see where it might fail. They agreed it could fail in many places — it was steeped in risk — but how much worse would it be to do nothing?

'Flamma would agree with us,' Burrus.

'As would my mother.'

They lay in the soft, green grass for a time, kissing and holding hands. Then, when hunger made them rise again, they were shocked to find the Augusta, Livia, in the garden with them. But my domina was unperturbed. She merely nodded at them from where she sat beneath a bare fig tree, enjoying the thin winter sun.

For a brief moment Nilla gave thought to approaching her, bowing and kissing her hands. She considered asking her great-grandmother's opinions on everything she and Burrus had just discussed. She felt as if she could trust her great-grandmother, this beautiful, seemingly ageless woman, who had slept for so long that Nilla had forgotten she existed. Then she remembered her mother's bile. Agrippina believed Livia had been connected to Nilla's father's death, along with the Emperor, too. And although Nilla had loyally echoed her mother's conviction, a voice inside her had never let her wholly believe it. It was Nilla's secret belief that another person had been responsible for Germanicus's murder.

But all these thoughts lasted only an instant before they left Nilla's head. Livia closed her eyes in the pale yellow sun and appeared to doze. Nilla threaded her fingers in Burrus's hand again and kissed his lips.

'She does not mind how close we are,' said Burrus, who had been relieved to see Livia's reaction.

Nilla considered this. 'Perhaps it's because she knows how it is when the one you love most is enslaved.'

The Nones of February

AD 27

Four weeks later: seeking a scapegoat for the recent calamities, the people of Rome declare the Emperor's departure to Capri an evil omen

The sisters sat as close together as the tiny boat allowed, their teeth chattering in the chilly night air. Nilla squatted in the middle, with Drusilla and Julilla huddled on each side of her, their arms wrapped around her waist. They presented resolute, determined faces to the world and hid their terror behind their eyes. But Burrus could see it, rowing them across the three placid miles of sea from the Surrentum promontory to the landing on harbourless Capri. He felt terror too, and perhaps would have succumbed to it had the sisters not been present. But for their sake — for Nilla's most of all — he kept it down.

'What will happen to us?' asked Julilla again.

No one replied.

'What will happen?'

'Ssh,' Nilla whispered.

'Why can't you just tell me? Why do we have to go to this place at all?'

Nilla caught Burrus's eye in the moonlight as he rowed them. They found comfort in the looks of love they gave to each other. 'Because of our mother,' she whispered to Julilla. 'And our brother, Little Boots, too.'

'He could be all alone on the island. No one knows. Grandmother Antonia has tried sending letters but they remain unanswered. It is our duty to now take action on her behalf,' Drusilla said.

'Shouldn't we have told her we were going?'

'Julilla, please stop asking questions,' said Drusilla.

'Why didn't we ask our older brothers to help us?'

No one said anything more.

The sisters had received no contact from both Nero and Drusus in months. Nilla guessed they sought to keep their togas spotless from their mother's fall. They could not be blamed. When things improved, perhaps they would embrace their forgotten siblings again.

The only sound was that of Burrus's strong young arms slicing the oars through the waves.

'I want our mother,' Julilla said softly, after a time.

'We all do,' said Drusilla. Each girl felt tears come to her eyes at their continued prevention from seeing Agrippina or knowing of her fate.

'Your mother would want you to be brave, domina,' Burrus said to Julilla.

The youngest sister nodded, but her tears were wet upon her cheeks.

I had never seen such fury in Livilla. I knew her to be sly and scheming, but never so vicious as to beat another person physically. Yet the violence with which she kicked and struck her nephew Drusus was of a magnitude that her grandmother Livia would have respected. When the yelping Drusus fell under her slaps and punches, she struck him in the face with her heel. Then she aimed her foot at his privates, sparing him nothing with repeated sharp blows, while he writhed and screamed in torment. It was fascinating for me, a hidden witness, to see a patrician suffer this assault. Any slave in his place would have taken such treatment resignedly. But to see a patrician suffer it was to marvel that he was nothing so much as surprised.

When Livilla had finally spent herself, she sat down in a chair, exhausted. The dog Scylax, who had excitedly enjoyed the beating, ran to lick her reddened hand while Drusus tried to recover himself on the floor. Having stumbled upon this scene wholly by accident, I was conscious of not moving or even taking a breath from behind the partly open door from where I watched.

'Nothing,' said Livilla at last. 'Absolutely nothing at all.'

'I am sorry, Aunt,' Drusus whimpered.

'How can this be? You swore to me Nero was perverted — that he harboured desires for men. Yet what proof have you brought me of this?'

'I am sorry, Aunt.'

'Nothing at all.'

I was confused. What had Drusus done with the many pages of detailed notes on his brother's activities that I had secreted into his rooms upon my domina 's orders?

'You've failed me, Drusus. Get out of my sight.'

I sprung away from the door and made haste down the corridor before Drusus caught me witnessing this shameful exchange. I reached the end just as he hobbled from the room. I turned and was able to glance at his face before he ducked away. He was transfixed by fear. I almost pitied him. He had made a pact with a woman as captivating as she was terrifying. He was no different to me.

I lingered for a few moments, trying to decide my next course. Then I chastised myself. There was no other course left for me. Already feeling the inevitable blows from the rod, I prepared to stumble through the maze of Oxheads corridors until I found my domina. Within moments of my setting out, however, she found me.

'Iphicles.'

' Domina?' To my vague dismay, Lygdus was in attendance upon Livia as she made her progress through the halls. 'I was just coming to find you.'

'To confess your crimes?'

'Well, I… Yes.'

The look that passed between my domina and Lygdus was one of the deepest disgust. Lygdus came behind me and delivered two hard kicks to the backs of my knees. I fell forward with a shout.

'Better,' said Livia. Her fist was curled around a dozen sheets of papyrus. She flung them at my upturned face. 'Now eat them.'

I must have looked laughable in my confusion because Lygdus burst into giggles.

'Eat them,' said Livia.

'The papyrus sheets, domina?'

She thrust her face into mine. 'Filthy accusations about Nero, my grandson, and written in your hand. Eat them, slave. Then shit them into a sewer and flush them far from Rome.'

I began to tear up the first piece of papyrus, stuffing it into my mouth.

'When will he learn, domina?' Lygdus shook his head sadly.

'When my grandson Nero is the second king,' Livia said.

They remained until I had chewed and swallowed the last sheet. Then Lygdus was posted to ensure I didn't vomit them. He wouldn't speak or look at me.

Livia was playing an elaborate game, I knew. She was playing a game with all of us. She had devised the rules and twists and countermoves throughout her years of paralysis. She had polished and perfected what she would do to the most finite degree. And now that she was free of me again, she was playing her game with the whole of Rome. She would not kill me for what I had done to her. She would let me suffer her vindictive tortures, because she wanted me to see her award the prize at the game's end.

Moaning on the floor with Lygdus pressing his hand to my lips to stop me heaving up the sheets, I knew what Livia's prize was.

But I could not guess who would win it.

The two of them fled.

Burrus took Nilla's hand in his and dragged her from the terrace and into the moonlit garden even before Julilla's screaming had stopped and Little Boots had ceased his manic laughter. He dragged Nilla through the flowers with the sounds of Drusilla's sobbing still in his ears, and when the beds became hedges and the shrubs became trees, he dragged her through the undergrowth and would not let her stop to catch her breath even when she struck him in her hysteria and tried to bite his hand.

The garden became a wood, and still Burrus dragged her along by the hand, lost and directionless, until they came upon a path. There he held her by the shoulders as she wept and shook. When she began to retch, he turned away, but still he held her by the ankle as she sank to the ground, choking in the leaves. Burrus would not let her return to that place of obscenity. He would not let her go back for her sisters. He would not let her pleas break his heart. All that mattered was that she was spared, she whom he loved more than life.

'Julilla!' she sobbed into the leaves.

He kept his heart hard.

The sounds of crashing undergrowth made him pull Nilla to her feet again. They were being pursued. They heard the laughter and the taunts, and Nilla's name being called. They said she was their lover. They said Burrus's life was worthless for daring to take her away.

'Don't listen,' Burrus hissed.

'Leave me,' Nilla begged him. 'Just leave me here. I'll give them what they want. They'll forget about you then. You can hide yourself and get back to the boat. You can make it to Rome. You can tell people what's happening here.'

'Not without you.'

'Do it, Burrus.'

'No. I love you.'

The taunts and laughter came from all around them. Voices behind, more voices in front. Burrus took a sharp turn through a grove of trees. They leaped across logs and under boughs. Nilla landed badly and felt the muscles in her calf tear. She cried out with pain. 'Just leave me,' she begged him again.

Burrus refused. Then the voices ceased. The grove of trees fell silent. In the pale glow of the moon they could see each other's fear-streaked faces. Their clothes were torn, their limbs were scratched raw by the bushes. They had lost their shoes. Their feet oozed blood in the grass. When their breathing stilled, they realised they could see their surrounds. They peered into the trees. There was no one else with them. They were alone.

'Were they ghosts?' Nilla whispered.

Burrus stared into the shadows. 'Your brother is not a ghost.'

'What if he's really dead? What if they're all dead here? What if this is hell?'

'This is the Emperor's own island,' said Burrus. 'If it's hell, then it's a hell made to torment the living.'

'We can reach the boat again,' said Nilla. 'They've lost interest in us. If we move like serpents and don't make a sound, we'll escape this place and come back with men to save my sisters.'

He nodded. But when Burrus took his first step outside the grove, they knew they were deceived. The carpet of leaves hid a net, which sprang up and around him, hoisting him high in the trees. He thrashed and kicked but the net held tight. The pursuers showed themselves, the beasts who were the children of traitors. They were unclothed. Nilla tried to flee in the hope they would follow her but their hands held her fast, a dozen hands it seemed at first, until they fell away and two hands remained, gripping her tight by the arms. They were the hands of the unclothed Emperor. His nakedness was before her.

'Look what happens,' said Tiberius. His eyes were huge in the moonlight, shining like glass. He did not blink. 'Look what happens to him now.'

The naked boys thrust spears at Burrus in the net. The tips nicked his flesh, drawing fine red trickles of blood.

'Aren't the boys clever?' said Tiberius. 'They never kill unless I order it.'

The blood dripped upon her face like the start of an autumn shower.

'Does it hurt him, do you think?' Tiberius wondered.

Nilla's senses left her. Although she screamed, she could not hear it. Although she saw, the image was lost. The Emperor's hands stayed firm upon her arms and she was led away without knowing where she went or caring what befell her when she got there.

'How old are you, child?'

'Twelve, Grandfather.'

'And Julilla?'

'She is nine.'

'That's much too young.'

She stumbled and fell but the Emperor didn't notice. His fist gripped her arm, now pulling her like a straw doll.

'How old is Drusilla?'

'She is eleven.'

'She's far too young as well, if we are to be seemly about it.'

'Yes, Grandfather.'

'If you are twelve, then it really must be you, Nilla. There's no one else.'

Her feet made furrows in the earth behind her. She had no will to resist him as he pulled her like a plow. The leaves and twigs beneath her became flowers. They had arrived in his garden again. 'Here we are,' said Tiberius. He released his hold and Nilla slumped upon her face, tasting the soil.

'Everything will be arranged,' said Tiberius. 'We have been looking forward to it. Sometimes the days get dull. We need novelty and lightness of heart to inspire us, and this will be perfect. Tomorrow I will write a letter to your mother, informing her of it all. What a thing to bring everyone together. And he's really very keen. We've been discussing it at great length, you know.'

Nilla couldn't lift her head. The soil felt comforting beneath her cheek and she wondered if she was not on Capri at all but at home in her bed. 'Who is he, Grandfather?'

'Have I not made things clear to you, Nilla?'

'No, Grandfather.'

'He is the one who will kiss you forever.'

Burrus's name parted her lips but she would not whisper it. From her bed upon the soil she saw the form of a man rise from the flowers. He was unclothed, just like the Emperor and his beasts. He came before her, studying her silently, before crouching to stroke her hair where she lay. His hands were gentle.

'Who is he, Grandfather?'

Tiberius stared at the stars, unblinking.

The stroking man had red pubic hair. It glowed like a forest fire.

'Please, Grandfather. Who is he?'

The Emperor's eyes were like small white stones. 'Ahenobarbus of the Aemilii,' he said. 'He is your groom, Nilla.'

The Ides of February

AD 27

One week later: seeking to disarm criticism of his absence from Rome, Emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus distributes compensation money to victims of the calamities at Fidenae and the Caelian Hill

The fishermen at Surrentum saw the corpse that had washed up in the night. Knowing it was just another drowned sailor, they paid little heed as they prepared for the dawn's catch. Then one man made the observation that the corpse was well dressed — the dead sailor's tunica was sewn from good quality linen, dyed sky-blue. How many sailors were dressed like that? Then another man remarked that perhaps it was not a sailor at all, but a hapless passenger washed overboard. Perhaps the passenger still had his purse?

The three fishermen went to give the corpse closer attention but were disappointed. The corpse wore a slave's collar. This was not a passenger at all, but some rich man's lost property. Two of the three men returned to preparing their boat, but the third fisherman lingered, staring at the corpse. The dead lad was handsome and all too young. It was a sad waste of life, slave or not. The fisherman stooped to scrape the weed from the face and saw a seal that hung from the iron collar. It stirred something in his memory. Before his retirement he had spent long years cooking dinners for the legions.

'That seal is from the House of Germanicus.'

He called out to his colleagues that he knew where the dead slave came from, but when he turned to look at the lad again the situation was changed. The slave's eyes were open. The boy was alive.

The fishermen stood in a circle, debating what to do while the waves continued to lap at Burrus's limbs. He could not move them. He could not sit up. He could only stare. When the children of the traitors had thrown him from the Capri cliff, they had expected him to drown. But they did not know him. Burrus had been lost to the waves before. He could swim like Neptune himself.

The fishermen decided. They would take the slave fishing with them. Better that than leave him here for some other bastard to find. They would see if he revived enough to tell them how he came to be washed up on the promontory when he belonged to so great a house. If they were satisfied with his answers, they would endeavour to return him to Rome. No doubt there was a reward waiting there. But if they were dissatisfied with his answers, then he would become the fishermen's slave and no more would be said about his origins.

When they picked up Burrus to lug him onto the boat, a word left his lips. 'Nilla…'

They did not know what he meant and asked him to repeat it. He was unable.

The fishermen pondered the word. Was it a place, perhaps? The name of a villa by the sea? Or was it a person? His mother, maybe? All lads were known to bawl for their mamas when near to death.

The youngest of the fishermen had another view. Nilla was the name of some girl, he said. She was why the slave was half-drowned. His heart was broken by her and he had tried to end it all. The other men liked this theory, and when they put it to Burrus he did not have the strength to do anything more than look at them. Sentimental, like all ex-soldiers, the fishermen decided this story would do for Burrus until a better one sufficed. It cast him in a light they rather liked.

As the men began to sail from the shore, Burrus vowed in his heart that the first thing he would do when he was able would be to assure them he would never 'end it all' while his Nilla lived. She gave him the will for life, not death, no matter what the Fates decreed for him. While she walked on this earth, so would he. Only when Nilla was gone would he kill himself. It would be his privilege to join her in death.

Agonalia

March, AD 28

Thirteen months later: Titius Sabinus, friend of the widow Agrippina, is arrested for treasonous remarks made in the privacy of his own tablinum. The ceiling is found to conceal a paid informant

Claudius had intended to refuse all wine, wanting to keep his head clear for the day's events, but as the hours wore on and the faces of the young people took on looks that spoke of miseries unexpressed, he felt the stirrings of suspicion that these nuptials were not a joyous thing at all. The doubt made him take his first wine. He missed his cousin Castor at these family occasions, given that no one else ever sank so low as to talk to him. Claudius drank his wine in a rush before asking for another. He downed that just as quickly and believed he felt a little better.

Claudius hoped the wine might grant him heightened powers of observation. Sometimes it did. He looked at the young people closely while they completed the confarreatio rituals. Nilla, his niece, had no expression at all as the lambskin was laid across her knees. Even with her eyes half-hidden under the saffron veil, Claudius could see that her face was a mask. This was strange for a bride on her wedding day. If it wasn't elation being shown to the guests, then tears were just as acceptable. But the girl let nothing through, and Claudius feared it was because her hopes for happiness were less than nil.

Claudius studied the groom. Ahenobarbus of the Aemilii was handsome enough, despite his curly red hair, and was likely little older than twenty-three. Yet, this gave him a good ten years on his bride. Ahenobarbus seemed absent. It was strange that he hadn't yet spoken a word. His eyes looked out the open temple doors and towards the rooftops beyond, and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as if to make a click. Claudius wondered how the wedding night would play out and then chastised himself when he found the thought arousing. It was wrong to think of his niece being roughly deflowered.

Claudius turned his eyes to the other young couple being married at Tiberius's decree. Nilla's brother Drusus was not as adept as his sister in hiding his inner heart. He looked bewildered and almost frightened, as if the news of his nuptials had been broken to him only that morning. With some unease, it occurred to Claudius that perhaps this was so. The double wedding had been a surprise to the guests, who had only been told they would be witness to the union of Nilla and Ahenobarbus. Perhaps the tight-fisted Tiberius had decided at the last minute to get more for his money? Claudius peered at Drusus's bride. She was not a girl he recognised. The priest had named her as Domitia, also of the Aemilii, and with the ignominy of her late mother's conviction for witchcraft still casting a pall over the clan, Claudius suspected that Domitia had spent many years hidden from view. This would account for why nobody knew her.

Claudius accepted a third wine just as the couples began to eat the sacred spelt loaves. He tried to remember what he knew about the disgraced Aemilii and recalled that there were two more children, another daughter and a son. He saw the son among the guests at once, reclining on a couch next to Little Boots. The boys were friends. Claudius looked around for someone who might fit the appearance of the other Aemilii daughter but could find no one. He vaguely recalled that she had been married off several years ago.

'Are you drunk, Grandson?'

Livia's tone cut through the temple air, causing the priest to falter. Claudius spun around to find Livia watching him from her couch. I was in meek attendance at her side.

'I thought so,' said Livia.

Claudius hurried over to her couch as the ceremony resumed, hoping to quieten her. 'It is only my first wine,' he claimed.

'Liar. It's your third.'

Claudius blushed scarlet and Livia laughed at him, placing a cold, dry hand upon his arm. 'I'm only teasing you. It's a wedding — why shouldn't you enjoy yourself?'

The fact that he had drunk three cups of wine in rapid succession made Claudius reply before he had thought about it. 'Nobody else is enjoying it.'

There was a silence. Claudius blushed even darker and began to stammer in his efforts to excuse himself. 'I–I am sorry — '

'Don't be.'

For the first time in his life, Claudius looked into his grandmother's eyes and saw only good humour there. Then he glanced at me and was confused by my stark look of fear.

'Iphicles was making the same observation,' said Livia. 'Well, he would have made it if he were allowed to speak freely, but he is not, I'm afraid. But I could tell it's what he was thinking.'

Claudius knew there was something going on between us from which he was excluded. 'Yes, Grandmother?'

'No one's enjoying themselves at all, are they? You'd think it was a funeral, not a wedding. It's such a shame Agrippina is too unwell to be among us. I'm sure she'd be voicing her thoughts loud and clear. It's like we're all pretending we approve.'

It took Claudius a second or two to digest what she was saying to him. 'Are we pretending, Grandmother?'

'Well, I'm certainly not, but it seems I'm the only one.' She looked pointedly to me as she continued. 'My great-grandson Drusus's marriage to this girl from such a disgraced family is a sublime match. I congratulate my son the Emperor for arranging it. I also commend him for neglecting to attend. He refuses to leave his island now, did you know?'

Claudius was smiling in his bewilderment.

Livia kept her eyes on me. 'My great-granddaughter Nilla's marriage to the girl's brother is also something to thank the gods for. Apparently, he has next to no career prospects. He looks half-witted. Do you think he really is, or is it just the way the light strikes his dreadful hair?'

A parrot's squawk pulled Claudius from his stare. 'My bird. Excuse me, Grandmother,' he said hurriedly, glad of a reason to leave. 'I'm sure the two unions will work out well for all concerned.'

'Oh, I have absolutely no doubt of it,' said Livia, her eyes still trained on me.

Claudius hurried to the rear of the hall, where his parrot, Fury, flashed its red eyes and beat its wings. A woman and her little girl stared at the bird in fascination. 'Please,' he called out to them, 'do not provoke her — she has been known to give nasty bites.'

'Is it true this bird talks?' asked the mother.

'She hasn't spoken in years,' said Claudius, placing himself in front of the bird protectively. 'Sometimes I doubt she ever did. I think I must have imagined it.' He was keen for them to return to wherever it was they had come from.

'Maybe she'll speak if we ask her nicely?' said the little girl.

'I doubt it,' said Claudius. He went to guide the child away, but when she turned her face to him fully he gave a little gasp and dropped his hand. 'What a beautiful child,' he marvelled, unable to stop himself. Then he blushed scarlet again. 'Forgive me,' he said to the mother.

'My daughter is very beautiful,' the mother said, smiling warmly at him. 'People say it all the time. Yet she's only six. What effect will she have on men at sixteen, I wonder?'

Claudius felt a sense of peace descend as he considered this, gazing at the girl. 'She will be extraordinary,' he offered. He looked to the mother again. 'Do we know each other, madam?'

'I don't think so. But we are guests at the wedding. It is my brother and my sister who are being married.'

'It is my nephew and my niece,' said Claudius.

'Before my widowhood I was Lepida of the Mesalii. Now I am Lepida of the Aemilii again.'

She was the missing 'other sister'. Enchanted, Claudius told her who he was.

Lepida and her daughter bowed

'And who are you?' the beaming Claudius asked the angelic six-year-old.

Fury cocked her head to one side and squawked. 'Messalina,' she answered on the child's behalf, uttering her first words in years.

Echoing her daughter's delighted cries of amazement, Lepida remembered the words of her long-dead mother. '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…'

I believed I had an ally in Claudius. He had never treated me harshly and was always thankful when I performed some passing task for his benefit at Oxheads. I stole up to him just as he ushered Lepida and her daughter to their chairs.

' Domine,' I hissed.

Claudius barely saw me.

' Domine!'

'What is it, Iphicles?'

'Help me,' I said. Across the room, Livia snoozed in her dining couch.

Claudius looked awkward. 'What's the matter with you?'

'What are the reasons for it?' I hissed. 'These two inauspicious marriages. They don't make sense. Not one guest here believes in these unions. Only my domina does. Why does she believe? What is behind them? What is the plan?'

Claudius was appalled that my words reached Lepida's shocked ears. 'Iphicles, you speak out of turn.'

I was losing my wits. 'Help me, domine,' I pleaded with him. 'Why does she approve of this? Help me see the truth of what she schemes.'

A scream brought our conversation to an end. Across the hall a high-pitched cry stopped the final words of the double wedding ceremony. The brides and grooms turned to see a dozen Praetorians descending, with Tribune Macro at their head. It was Lygdus who had cried out in terror.

'It's lies!'

Macro struck him across the mouth and he fell. Then he turned to the eunuch's dominus. 'Nero Julius Caesar Germanicus, by the order of the Emperor Tiberius I place you under arrest.'

Nero stood up from his dining couch and looked the Tribune coolly in the eye. He was noble and unafraid, the very image of his murdered father in his prime. 'What is the charge?'

'Gross depravity,' said Macro without expression.

I went pale and glanced at the wedding couples. Drusus looked ill. Had he received my damning notes on his brother's proclivities after all? Had Livia made copies before I ate them?

Nero held out his arms for the chains.

' Domina!' Lygdus screamed from the floor. 'See this, domina! Domina!'

But Livia slept on as they led Nero away. Claudius pushed me aside, disturbed and confused by the turn the day had taken. Ever more bewildered, I stumbled back to the sleeping Livia. She was murmuring with a tone that almost seemed smug.

'Iphicles,' she whispered from her slumber. 'Iphicles…'

Trembling, I leaned my ear to her lips. 'What is it, domina?'

' The third is hooked by a harpy's look — the rarest of all birds …'

I recoiled. The words seemed meaningless, yet they held an inestimable importance.

Livia opened her eyes to look at me. 'A harpy is what the Greeks call a fury, you know.' Then she closed them again, asleep once more.

Across the hall Claudius had eyes only for the beautiful child. At last I experienced the first moment of comprehension I had known for a long, long time.

Claudius was the third king.

Nilla threw the ugly thing hard across the room. 'I will not,' she said. 'It is disgusting.'

Expressionless, the aged maid of the Aemilii, once a devoted servant of the condemned Aemilia, retrieved the wooden Mutinus Tutunus phallus and placed it upright on the bed. 'All women of the Aemilii must give their virginity to the fertility deity, domina,' the maid said without apology. 'It is a tradition of many centuries.'

Nilla wouldn't let herself cry or glance at her silent, naked husband. 'I said it's disgusting,' she repeated. 'Take it out of my sight, and yourself with it.'

The maid shot a look to her serving companion and suddenly both women had Nilla by the arms. 'The domina must. My late mistress would have insisted on it. This is her house. This is her room.'

'Let go of me.' Nilla struggled against them. 'Let me go!'

The women dragged her to the side of the bed and pulled the undergarments from her.

'It ensures the birth of a boy child, domina. Your virginity is the treasure most cherished by the god, and he is generous with his rewards.'

The curved phallus was enormous, dull black and ugly. 'Don't make me do this,' Nilla screamed. 'Please!' The tip nudged against her unbroken cleft, seeking to enter her. 'Oh gods!' The tears sprang from her eyes. 'Oh gods!'

Ahenobarbus whipped the thing away just as the servants began to lower her. Shocked, the old maid turned on him. ' Domine — you cannot interfere here!'

Wielding it like a spear, he thrust the thing in her face. The second maid shrieked. Ahenobarbus thrust again, forcing the phallus into the old woman's mouth. She choked and spluttered.

Nilla seized the advantage. 'Get out! Get out!' she screamed at the two women.

Disgorging the fertility tool, the old maid staggered to the door, her companion pulling her outside. Nilla kicked the doors shut behind them, her hand at her breast to steady her heart as she tried to find her breath. At last she turned to face her husband.

'Thank you,' she whispered to Ahenobarbus.

The tall mute said nothing, the light from the oil lamp making his strange, pale skin glow like marble. They stared at each other. The wedding ceremony had been the first time Nilla had been permitted to see him since the announcement of their betrothal. She knew nothing about him at all, except that her body was now legally his to employ as he would. This she could not fight as she had the foul phallus.

She waited for him to make any kind of move towards her but Ahenobarbus remained where he was, standing on the other side of the connubial room. Nilla moved quickly to the bed and slipped under the linen, pulling it under her chin and never taking her eyes from him. Still he didn't move, although he kept his eyes upon hers.

'Are you mute through choice, husband,' she whispered, 'or have you never spoken?'

Ahenobarbus said nothing.

'I think it must be that you have never talked,' she said, 'and have never been able to talk due to some affliction. No one would cease speaking of their own accord.'

She waited. Ahenobarbus moved forward and her heart leaped to her throat. Would he take her now in the way that the phallus would have? But his violence had gone. He sat at the edge of the bed. Yet Nilla saw with apprehension that he was becoming aroused. She grasped at the hope that by continuing to speak to him, the inevitable might be delayed. 'It must be such a cruel thing to suffer, silence. Yet you must have found the means to communicate with the world. How do you do it, husband?'

He reached forward and touched her thigh beneath the linen.

'Do you write your words down so that others might read what you want?'

His hand journeyed towards her belly and Nilla's eyes darted about the room to see if a wax tablet sat anywhere. 'Is that your method, husband? To write it all in wax?'

His penis rose from the corner of her vision, but she would not let her eyes leave his. And she knew how badly they must be betraying her fear.

'Why don't you write it for me, husband? Tell me how you feel about our union. Tell me how I might be a good wife to you.'

Ahenobarbus's hand brushed the nipple of her breast and she blushed to realise it had hardened. Was this desire she felt? How could it be?

Ahenobarbus stood up, his erect penis before her face for a moment until his back was turned to her and she realised he was leaving the room. Gratitude overwhelmed her. He had listened to what she said. He was going to find a wax tablet. 'I will wait here for you,' she whispered after him, and then felt foolish. What else would she do?

Somewhere in the rooms below Nilla heard a water clock chime that the hour of Concubia had come. It was very late. Then, after what had seemed like minutes, she heard the hour of Intempesta signalled and she realised she had fallen asleep. The oil lamp was out. Ahenobarbus had not returned. The doors to the connubial room remained ajar from when he had left her. Nilla crept from the bed and stood at the threshold, peering into the blackness of the corridor.

'Husband? Are you there?'

'It's just as well you spat the phallus from your sex, domina.'

Nilla stifled a scream. The aged maid sat huddled on a pallet near the door.

'It is just as well, for the deity would have choked in your hole once he'd sniffed what had been there before him.'

Nilla went white. 'How dare you use such words!'

'You disgust this house,' said the maid. 'And you'll disgust all Rome when the truth gets out.'

Nilla reeled. 'I am a virgin bride.'

'If that's true, then you've sewn up your hole to become one.'

Enraged, Nilla drew back her hand to strike but the old woman snatched at her wrist, twisting it. 'Slave-fucker,' she hissed. 'You and your little slave. He polluted you for the master — polluted you for this house. The torments of the fallen Aemilii are made unending with this marriage. You are a punishment for us!'

Nilla pulled her arm free. 'Burrus is dead,' she sobbed. 'Drowned!' She could have died herself for even mentioning his precious name to this gorgon. 'I never slept with him. Our love for each other was chaste,' she tried to add.

The old woman's spittle struck her cheek. Blinded by grief, Nilla lurched away, fleeing down the corridor towards the stairs to the floor below. She didn't see the descent until too late and her foot slipped in the darkness, throwing her forward to strike her head against the ancient stone. She rolled and fell the full length of the steps, just as Aemilia of the Aemilii had done years before. Nilla came to rest on the cold stone floor at the bottom, slumped like a broken doll.

Sounds of enjoyment awoke her. A man's pleasure, perhaps, or a woman's sensual moans; it was difficult to be sure. The sounds drifted to her ears from somewhere deep in the house as she slowly climbed to consciousness again. Nilla tried to move her limbs. Nothing was broken, only grazed and bruised. Her head throbbed from where it had struck the edge of the stair. She managed to stand.

From the gloom of the cobwebbed atrium, Nilla could see that the curtains dividing that space from the tablinum had been pulled aside. The private study for the master of the house was a shambles, long neglected and thick with dust. Her hand pressed to her bleeding temple, Nilla stood at the room's edge and looked through to the peristyle garden beyond. Years before, the girl Domitia had picked winter flowers for her condemned mother there. The flowers were long dead too.

Ahenobarbus lay on a pallet in the soil, his loins thrusting upwards and down. Astride him was a girl no older than Nilla, her small, pointed breasts glistening in the moonlight as she moaned again in pleasure, riding him. It was Albucilla, the drowned minnow that Ahenobarbus had revived on Capri. She plucked the lit stub of a candle and waved the flame before her nipples, letting it lick her like a tongue. Ahenobarbus echoed her moan and Nilla heard the only noise she would ever know from his throat. Whether they knew she was there, she couldn't tell, so focused were they on the gratification of their bodies. They achieved climax together, gasping with it, clutching at each other's mouths, as Albucilla let the candle wax drip upon her skin.

The hand that reached for Nilla's was warm. It enfolded her palm and fingers in a manner that felt comforting and familiar, before her wits returned and she jumped with fear. The hand let go and she span around. At the other side of the atrium the front door of the house was open, admitting a warm breeze from the street. The room curtains stirred but Ahenobarbus and his lover were oblivious, slumbering where they lay.

The aged maid shut the door, stilling the breeze, before shuffling away to the shadows.

'How could this be?' Nilla whispered. 'How is this possible?'

Burrus pressed his lips to hers and the taste of him was salty. He enfolded her in his strong young arms, browned by the sun and the sea. 'You know better than anyone how well I swim, Lady.'

If patrician marriage was what she had been given, then this union with an accursed house came with features all of its own. The wordless husband had a lover, a whore, with whom he cavorted under the roof that sheltered his wife. Accordingly, if the wife should make a gift of her virginity to a slave, how could it be seen as wicked in such a home, where the normal rules of morality did not apply? And if this house came with an aged, wizened maid who in the one breath condemned and then abetted those she served, it was surely just another thing to mark it as special among the thousands of homes in Rome.

Held tight in her beloved's arms as he carried her up the stairs, Nilla vowed never to question what this strange marriage might give her.

She heard the gentle rise and fall of Burrus's chest beside her in the bed and knew that he was sleeping. Careful not to wake him, Nilla slipped from the sheets and lowered herself upon the low marble bowl that stood behind a screen at the end of the room. She prepared to wash herself, as she had once been shown — the means to prevent a pregnancy. But as she placed her fingers in the water, an object caught her eye. A tiny length of lead, jammed in a crack between the floorboards.

The water dripped from her hand and Nilla leaned forward to try to dislodge the thing, not knowing why it compelled her so fully. The lead did not come loose easily; she had to prise it free with her nails. When she finally held it in her hand, it had surprising weight. She saw that it was really a flattened tablet that had been folded once and then again. She used her nails to open it, feeling certain, somehow, that she should see what was inside.

The tablet held a message, scratched into the surface with a pin. But the writing was reversed. Not knowing how or why she sensed what to do so exactly, Nilla held up the tablet before the polished silver surface of a mirror. The message became clear at once. The course is cooked by a slave-boy's stroke; the fruit is lost with babes.

The words seemed meaningless. She returned to the bed she shared with Burrus and did not use the water bowl again.

Nilla succumbed to her dreams with her hands pressed gently to her belly.

The Ides of January

AD 29

Ten months later: crushed by the weight of Roman taxes, the Frisian tribe of Lower Germany hang the officials sent to collect them

Tiberius recognised his own seal upon the Senatorial document that had come with the afternoon correspondence. His mark was unmistakable — it could only have come from his hand — yet he recalled nothing of the edict it authorised. His memory told him he had never seen this document before, and yet here it was, a distressing directive, stamped with the print of the ring that did not leave his finger. He must have authorised it, but why? What proof had he been given that made it necessary?

He looked around for Sejanus to enlighten him, but the Prefect was nowhere in sight. Only Tribune Macro was in attendance.

'You there,' called Tiberius from his couch on the terrace.

Macro came forward, raising his hand in salute.

'My grandson Nero,' said Tiberius. 'I am fond of him.'

'Yes, Caesar.'

'He is a fine boy. A very promising future. I may make him my heir.'

'Yes, Caesar,' said Macro, his face giving nothing away.

Tiberius pointed at the edict. 'He's been exiled to Pontia. That barren island where his uncle Postumus died.'

Macro's expression stayed the same.

'Why should I wish to be rid of my grandson? It's his mother who is the menace, not he. He is blameless.'

Tiberius tried to keep his eyes focused hard on the Tribune's face, but his vision blurred. He badly needed the Eastern flower but he didn't want the Tribune to witness him drinking it. 'What was his crime?' he went on, struggling to stay alert. 'What did the boy do?'

Macro watched the Emperor's eyelids droop. It was time to give the answer he had prepared for this moment. 'It is news to me that such a popular and promising young man as Nero should have fallen like this, Caesar,' he said, betraying nothing of the truth — which was that he had been the arresting officer. 'It shocks me. I cannot imagine what must have occurred for exile to be ordered.'

'But I have ordered it,' said Tiberius in bewilderment. 'Here is my seal.'

'I know nothing of it,' Macro repeated. His face, he hoped, showed enough affront on the Emperor's behalf that Tiberius would see him as an ally. He gave just the right length to a pause. 'But Prefect Sejanus will recall the details, I am sure, Caesar.'

'Yes.' Tiberius studied the Imperial ring on his hand. 'Find your superior for me, Tribune. Tell him I am confused by this matter and wish for his help in clarifying it.'

Macro's face creased.

'Well?'

'Prefect Sejanus is no longer on Capri. He has returned to Rome.'

Tiberius stared at Macro in confusion. 'Not here?' Then he remembered himself; it would not do for the Tribune to see that he had not known of this. 'Of course, of course. That will be all.'

Macro bowed and departed, pleased at how the scene had played out.

Alone, Tiberius gulped from his goblet, his tired eyes finding focus again. A flock of migrating birds took his attention, high up in the sky. He squinted to look at them. They were geese.

'No!' he hissed at them. 'No!' He pulled his eyes from the sky and turned his back on the birds to drink from his draught, blocking them out.

But the insistent honks drew him to look up again. The birds were tiny against the horizon.

'Go away!' Tiberius cried out. 'Don't come back! What else are your warnings to me but falsehoods? Lies!'

I had grown so used to spending my hours in Livia's suite with my face pressed hard against the floor that I no longer registered the discomfort of it. The prone position, intended to humiliate me, had become my natural stance. I took to it willingly, throwing myself to the tiles whenever my domina entered and letting out cries to suggest I was suffering, even though I was not. She was pleased by these displays, no longer needing to waste her words in commanding me to adopt poses of supplication.

I became creative in my methods of debasing myself before her. Unhappily, I was forced to reject excrement as a pillow, unless I was out in the open air where the stink would not offend. Instead, I choose fragments of glass, sharp rocks or little tacks to lay my body upon, pressing my bare limbs and cheeks against the torment they provided. I always ensured my domina observed my mattress of choice before I prostrated myself, so that she might increase my debasement by walking upon me or laying weights upon my back.

My enslavement to Livia was more complete than it had ever been through our long lives together. I had foregone every aspect of the humanity I had acquired in her eyes. I was no longer a living thing. My every accomplishment and privilege had been removed from me. Dogs enjoyed greater status now. I was of lesser consequence than a toad or a gnat.

As I spent the hours unmoving upon the floor of my domina 's sleeping room with my myriad wounds beginning to scab, I congratulated myself on the unforeseen consequences of all I had done. I had taken actions that were repellent in a slave, after all. I had thought for myself, instead of bowing to others' thoughts. I had forgotten my place and now was receiving my just reward. I had not foreseen it, which in itself was evidence that correction was required. And now that the consequences were upon me, they were truly exquisite. I, who had never wanted anything for myself other than enslavement, had attained the true zenith of my state.

Part of my torment, as Livia intended, was that I should witness her resumption of her affair with Sejanus. With my violations of her body now a distant memory, my domina wanted the pleasures that her lover enjoyed to be the sharpest thorn in my side. Forbidden to look and allowed only to hear, I wept like a child when Sejanus's cries of ecstasy reached their loudest, a cruel reminder of all I had lost. But this was what my domina demanded and so I imprinted his moans in my mind, coming to know their pattern. The gentle sighs, then the boyish panting; the building groans and the rush of joy. It was like the carefully erected structure of a poem or a hymn: reverent and tender to begin with, becoming urgent for the middle parts before the triumph of the end. I would ease in and out of consciousness, my domina 's lovemaking with Sejanus like a too familiar song, played always by the same musicians with only the slightest variations each time.

But one day, with this torture in my ears and my mind drifting like the tide, I heard a departure from the song. I had not been upright when Sejanus had entered the room and so had not seen him, only heard. I was prone still from the night before, and my domina had quashed the stink of my newest sores by dripping scented oil where I lay. Yet she did not order me gone.

When I had heard Sejanus arrive, I had allowed myself to snooze. But the Prefect's cries, when they came, woke me not because of their passion or volume, but their tone. There was a new delight behind them — a childlike thrill. Sejanus was like a lover experiencing euphoria for the first time. He shouted with all the glee of discovery, as if my domina was a novelty to him, a precious treasure he had long desired. Then I saw why.

Wanting the wounds on my face to be equal on each cheek, I made the one movement I allowed myself when prone. I lifted the left side of my face and turned my head so my right cheek could press against the tacks. In doing so my eyes opened involuntarily, barely a crack, and I glimpsed Sejanus's clothes upon the floor. His helmet seemed odd: the plume had been altered in some way. It was not the decoration I recognised as a Prefect's. Had the rank signifiers been changed, I wondered, in the face of centuries of tradition? Or, even more extraordinarily, had Sejanus been demoted? His was not the helmet of a Prefect on the floor but of a Tribune.

Then I guessed the answer. It was not Sejanus seeking his pleasures upon my domina at all, but his subordinate, Macro, for whom the joy was new. Livia had a fresh instrument in her schemes.

Despite being lower than a worm, I could never cease admiring her for keeping me so constantly surprised.

Little Boots and Aemilius stared in fascination at the cup. 'Pick it up,' said Little Boots.

'You pick it up,' said Aemilius.

Little Boots hated to appear a coward in the face of a dare. He let his fingers stroke the jewels on the side of the vessel for a moment before clutching the thing by the stem and raising it.

His little sister Julilla gasped. 'You'll be caught.'

This spurred him further. He posed with the thing, mimicking Tiberius's gestures. 'He's asleep — how will he know?'

'No one but Grandfather touches that cup.'

'So why did he leave it here where we could find it?'

'Perhaps he's not well today?' Drusilla suggested, electrified, watching on with her younger sister.

'When is he well any day?' quipped Little Boots.

This prompted the others to laugh before they clapped hands to their mouths, lest they be heard.

'Smell it,' said Little Boots, thrusting the cup towards Aemilius's nose.

'No!' Aemilius recoiled.

'Weakling,' said Little Boots. He held his own nose to the cup. The dregs of a thick brown liquid sat in the bottom. Whatever it was, it did not smell unpleasant. It smelled sweet, if anything, like wine brewed from honey.

'What is it?' asked Julilla, wide-eyed. 'Is it poison?'

'Why would Tiberius drink poison?' said Drusilla.

'To fortify himself against his enemies?'

'That's hell of a lot of fortifying he does then,' said Aemilius, smirking at Little Boots. 'He does it all day and all night.'

'Perhaps it's an antidote?'

Julilla's theory was dismissed by the older children, who already had their own suspicions about what the strange liquid might be.

'Drink it,' said Little Boots to Aemilius.

'No fear,' said Aemilius. 'I'm not touching anything the old man's been drooling in.'

'But it's magic,' said Little Boots. 'You know it is. Don't you want to see the trick?'

'What trick? Turn into something like him? I see that trick every day when he does it, thanks.'

'Weakling,' said Little Boots again, making as if to throw the contents at him.

'Don't you dare!' yelled Aemilius, trying to cover himself.

Drusilla's eyes followed her brother's best friend, secretly liking the way his long, bare limbs moved with such athletic grace in the sun. She knew what the drink did; she had watched her grandfather enough times to guess it. It removed inhibitions. It made a person bolder — and happier. She could see nothing wrong with attaining such things when forced, as she was, to live in constant unhappiness on this island. To be made free of conscience and self-loathing would be the greatest of gifts, she thought. It was no wonder the Emperor so jealously guarded it.

'I'll drink it,' she said.

The boys turned to her in surprise before casting looks at each other.

'Really?' said Little Boots.

Drusilla clicked her fingers for her brother to pass it to her before her courage failed. 'Why not? It's magic, isn't it?'

'Go on then,' said Little Boots, thrusting the thing at her. He doubted she had the nerve.

'What'll you give me if I do?' said Drusilla, gazing into the cup. She raised her eyes and met Aemilius's look.

'Aemilius will give you a kiss,' laughed Little Boots, thinking this would appall her.

It didn't. Aemilius flushed red.

'Don't, Drusilla,' said little Julilla, horrified. 'The Emperor spat in it!'

Drusilla let the liquid touch her lips. It was as sweet as it smelled — like nectar. 'Mmm,' she purred, making a show of her daring for Aemilius's benefit. 'It really is quite nice…'

Burrus stood back as the midwives presented the tiny child to Ahenobarbus, placing it at his feet.

'A girl, domine,' said the older midwife. 'An ornament to your house. And the mother is resting well.'

The companion midwife cast a glance at the woman standing next to this silent master, staring at the newborn with intensity. It was unorthodox for a husband to have a female friend in attendance with him during his firstborn's birth — let alone one so immodestly dressed. But it was no more unorthodox, perhaps, than a domina holding the hand of a male slave throughout her labour.

'She has come into this world with her mother's beautiful fair hair,' said the older midwife, hoping to elicit a response from Ahenobarbus. 'But who knows? Perhaps she'll grow her papa's fiery locks before long?'

Something in these words snapped Ahenobarbus from his stare. He met eyes with Burrus, who looked down to the ground. The slave was not anxious at what Ahenobarbus's response to the baby might be. He already knew that Nilla's husband would pick up the child and acknowledge it. There was an agreement in place between all four of them — he and Nilla, Ahenobarbus and Albucilla — an agreement had been struck when Nilla's monthly flow ceased and she had known she was carrying a child. Albucilla's hand brushed her lover's arm and he cocked his ear to let her whisper in it. Practised in tactfulness, the midwives gave no visible reaction to this provocative display, waiting in silence. Ahenobarbus stooped and picked up the child.

'Ah. There now,' said the older midwife, beaming.

Ahenobarbus and Albucilla raked the child with their eyes.

'The hair,' said Albucilla. 'You say it will turn red?'

'I'm sure it will, yes,' said the midwife, good-naturedly. But she was not sure. Sometimes babies didn't gain the colour of red-haired fathers — a misfortune that had been known to cause wills to be redrawn even when the mother was blameless. But in this case, the midwife already suspected, there was blame on all sides.

Ahenobarbus met eyes with Burrus again, expressionless. Then his lips split to reveal an unsettling grin.

Albucilla was not grinning. 'Fetch its mother,' she said to Burrus.

Burrus frowned. 'She is asleep. She lost blood.'

'Fetch her,' she repeated. 'Bring her down to your master now. He wishes to congratulate her.'

Burrus knew that something was awry. The agreement was threatened. 'All right.' He left the room.

The midwives were apprehensive without knowing why.

Burrus took the stairs two at a time, but slowed when he reached the upper gallery, not wanting to wake Nilla in alarm. He reached the door to her room they shared, the room that had once been the witch Aemilia's. The aged maid was seated crosslegged on the pallet.

'I must wake her,' Burrus whispered.

The old woman shrugged. 'What interest is that to me?'

Burrus went to go inside but the woman clutched at his ankle. 'She is exhausted from the birth. Leave her be, for the gods' sake. Let her sleep.'

'The red-haired one demands it.'

The old woman stiffened. 'Has he rejected the child?'

'He picked her up. He has acknowledged her.'

She relaxed. 'Then no one will know of the shameful secrets we harbour here.'

'You and your "shame", old woman. You walk the halls muttering that we're the house of the walking damned, but you see the love Nilla and I share and you encourage it. Just as you do with red-hair and his whore.'

The old servant wouldn't acknowledge this as true, even if it was. 'Wake her gently, you oaf. Don't worry her.'

'What else do you think I'll do?'

Burrus crept to sleeping Nilla in the bed. 'My love,' he whispered, softly kissing her cheek. 'Wake up, my love.'

Nilla stirred from the depths of her exhaustion. 'So tired, Burrus …'

'The red-haired one wants you to come to him. The whore says he wants to congratulate you for the birth.'

'My little girl?'

'He has picked her up. The midwives are with her. All is well and happy, as we planned.'

'That is good…'

Burrus lifted her from the bed, carrying her easily to the door. The old servant placed a sheepskin on Nilla. 'Careful,' she whispered. 'Watch your step.'

Burrus didn't need to be told. He took the stairs slowly, the mother of his child a sleeping bundle in his arms. Reaching the ground floor, he moved swiftly through the atrium and into the study, where Nilla's husband was waiting. The oil lamps had been extinguished. The room was now in semi-darkness. Albucilla rose from a chair, silhouetted against the moonlit garden beyond.

'I have brought Nilla to you,' Burrus whispered. 'Say your congratulations.'

The midwives were gone. Albucilla was the only other woman left in the room. 'Congratulations,' she said.

'They're your lover's most heartfelt words, are they?' said Burrus. Turning to the shadows, he called, 'Show your wife a smile at least, domine, so that she can see that our agreement still stands.'

'Our agreement does not stand,' said Albucilla.

Alarmed, Burrus realised she had a sword in her hand. 'What do you mean? What is that for? You plan to attack us?'

'I plan only to defend myself. Should the need arise.'

Burrus looked around the dark room and realised with dismay that Ahenobarbus was not even there. 'I have woken his wife and brought her downstairs and now he's playing jokes on us?'

'He has left,' said Albucilla simply, her fingers tightening around the sword.

A dread seized Burrus, with Nilla still sleeping in his arms. 'The baby — where is our baby?'

'He has taken it. Without the red hair, Rome would have whispered that the child wasn't his. He was a fool to ever hope otherwise. He's too softhearted, and you took advantage of him with your little "agreement". I've made him see sense.'

If Burrus's beloved Nilla had not been sleeping in his arms, he would have snatched the sword from Albucilla and slit her belly with it.

'Where has he taken her?'

'Beyond the walls,' said Albucilla. 'Just like any other needless child. He will leave her near a tombstone, slave, and there she will be exposed.'

Drusilla laughed and laughed, and when Aemilius touched her again, she laughed some more — a ringing, delighted cry that sounded like birdsong, she thought, as she rolled in the grass with flowers and leaves in her hair.

Aemilius's voice was dulled and thick, as if coming from another room, even though he was right next to her with his warm, soft hands upon her skin.

'That feels lovely,' she said. 'So balmy and nice. Do you like it?'

He answered with that thick voice again and she couldn't determine the words.

'Kiss me,' she said. 'Or have you already? That was what my present was to be for drinking it, remember?' He kissed her hard on the mouth and she liked it. 'You're all wet inside,' said Drusilla, laughing again, until she found she couldn't stop laughing, or didn't want to stop — she wasn't sure which.

His hands were all over her and she thrilled to it. 'Look at how the sunlight catches the hair on your tummy,' she told him. Then it struck her as funny that she could see his tummy at all. 'Look at your belly button,' she said. She wanted to peer at it closely. 'It's so delicious!' She was aware of her sister Julilla crying somewhere. 'I'm all right,' she called out, hoping to placate her. Then, to Aemilius's stomach again, she cried, 'I want to eat it!' She clamped her lips to his skin, thrashing with her tongue. Then she thought she could hear Little Boots somewhere too.

She felt hot. Her garments constricted her. 'Take them off,' she moaned. 'I feel suffocated.'

Aemilius's hands were on her eagerly, clawing at her clothes.

'That's better,' she told him. 'That's so much better…' She was on her back in the grass, feeling free and alive. She spread her arms and legs and let the cool breeze reach her. 'So much better,' she murmured. 'So nice…'

Aemilius's hands were at her sex. 'Naughty,' she admonished. 'I wouldn't let anyone else do that, you know.' She felt his fingers reach inside her. 'That tickles… that tickles!'

Suddenly her brother was there with flailing fists. She heard his words distinctly. 'Bastard!' he cried. 'That's my sister, you bastard!' The nice game in the grass had become an ugly fight. Little Boots pulled Aemilius from her and was beating him. She heard Julilla's cries. Drusilla tried to direct her eyes, but she couldn't see anything but flowers. 'I don't mind,' she called out. 'I want it to happen — I'm ready for it. It's because I drank the potion.'

Her sex was filled before she knew it — then a mouth was on her mouth, a tongue tasting hers. 'Aemilius,' she murmured. 'Did you win the fight? Did you make Little Boots go away?'

Bruised and bloody, Aemilius watched the taking of Drusilla's virginity from the other side of the garden, where he cowered. Across the lawn, beneath the chestnut trees, Drusilla writhed beneath the lover she thought was him. Little Boots had been unable to bear his friend being the one to claim her, when he himself loved Drusilla so dearly. He beat Aemilius with his fists until his friend agreed to enjoy the drugged Drusilla only when Little Boots had claimed first prize.

Once, Aemilius supposed, he would have been disgusted with himself for partaking in such degeneracy. But this was the Emperor's island. Still, he found his head turning away from the incestuous scene to watch little Julilla rocking back and forth inside a rosebush. The thorns looked very cruel, and he saw that they had torn her skin. But still he found it easier to watch the girl than her older sister. Aemilius wanted the image of Drusilla he held in his mind to be unsullied by anything Little Boots did to her.

Burrus returned to the House of the Aemilii with his arms around Nilla, wanting to protect her but knowing he had failed. Dawn came, bringing the fifth day since their daughter's birth, but Nilla's eyes, when the sun's rays fell on them, were soulless. Her spirit had gone as surely as if she'd died. She drifted somewhere at the limits of Rome, calling for her child. The Nilla in Burrus's arms was a shell, alive but not living. The aged maid let them in from the street, bolting the huge bronze doors behind them.

'Will you keep up this search?' she asked.

Burrus nodded.

'It will kill her. Look at her eyes.'

'It will kill her if we stop,' said Burrus.

'Then it will take both your lives,' said the old woman. She had soup ready on a little brazier in the entrance hall and she gave Burrus a cup. 'What would be the point of it, then? Both of you dead?'

Burrus tried to make Nilla take the cup in her hands, but when she would not grip it he held the soup to her mouth. The old woman nodded. 'How can we ever stop looking?' he said. 'She is our baby. She is out there beyond the city walls.'

'She is dead. Taken by foxes.'

'No,' Burrus moaned.

'Enslaved then. Found by a mangon.'

'Stop it,' begged Burrus. 'Stop it!'

'You think your pain is unique? You think no other parent has suffered this before?'

Tears coursed down Burrus's face as he pressed his lips to Nilla's hair. Nilla heard nothing of the old woman's words.

'I want to kill them,' Burrus wept. 'I'll kill them for what they've done.'

'No, you won't,' said the old woman softly. 'Your loss would only be the greater for it. Nilla might love you like a patrician but you are still a slave. Revenge cannot be yours. So you will live on together in this dishonoured house, just as the master and his slut will live on. You will all live your lives in here and Rome will never know the truth. If you slit them with a sword, Burrus, your Nilla will watch you torn to shreds by jackals.' She took the cup of soup from where he held it to Nilla's lips. 'Drink this yourself. If she cannot eat, then so be it. But you must keep your strength for her sake.'

Burrus drank the soup and the three remained where they were in silence. The old woman shuffled in her shrouds to locate something, then Burrus saw she held a little bronze statue in her hands. 'Take it,' she said. It was the figure of a child.

'What is this?' Burrus asked.

'I kept a little shrine for many years. The master's grandfather once allowed me it. His guilt, it was.'

'Guilt at what?'

'At taking the child I bore him and selling it to a brothel.'

Burrus stared at her. 'Your master sold your child?'

The old woman nodded. 'If it had been a boy, he might have raised him as part of the household. But not a girl. Just another costly mouth to feed.'

Burrus said nothing.

'I didn't take the loss well,' the old woman whispered. 'When beatings made no difference, the old master gave me that little statue. It's her genius, her soul. I placed it on a shrine and kept an oil lamp burning night and day.'

Nilla's eyes were fixed on the thing. Burrus pressed it into her hands.

'Make a shrine for your little one, as I did,' said the old woman. 'It will help you heal.'

'Thank you,' Burrus whispered. He led Nilla into the atrium and up the stairs while the old woman followed in silence. When Nilla's head was placed upon the pillow, Burrus tried to ease the little figure from her hands.

'Don't,' said the old woman.

Burrus let her sleep with it.

At the door the woman turned to him, preparing to retire to her pallet. 'The child needs a name for the shrine. You must name the lost girl. Have you thought of one?'

With shame, Burrus told her that he hadn't. She was just 'the child' to him.

'That's a pity,' said the old woman.

'Acte,' said Nilla.

They turned to look at the bed.

'Acte,' Nilla repeated, her eyes closed in sleep. 'Our little girl, Acte, taken from us. Our little one… Acte.'

Thus was named the girl who would one day transcribe my history.'

The Kalends of April

AD 30

Fifteen months later: the writer Phaedrus is accused of making unflattering allusions to Praetorian Prefect Sejanus in his translation of Aesop's Fables. All copies are seized

The reckless request was unheard at first, lost among the crowd's screams for blood, but it began to grow louder as the tantalising nature of what was being asked tickled people's fancy and compelled them to add their voices. Those in the stands who could see into the Imperial box where Sejanus sat first saw the movement's potential. It was they who started the shout, insisting that the honour of raising or lowering his thumb should go to the Prefect in the absence of the Emperor. More and more spectators realised the implication — and got the joke of it — while the two helpless gladiators dripped sweat on the sand, one with the point of his sword at the other's throat, waiting to see the decision.

'Sejanus decide!' they chanted. 'Sejanus decide!'

Pressed into the shadows of the Imperial family's box, I held my breath, waiting to see what would come. Sejanus remained in his chair, watching the crowd, his face a mask. But the corners of his mouth were twitching. He was electrified by what was being asked of him. I felt a hand brush my ear. Startled, I turned. My domina, by whose ivory chair I was crouching, smiled at me.

'What will he do?' Livia purred in my ear. 'Play the Emperor and play into their hands? Listen to them. They want him to reveal his desire.'

My heart seemed to beat louder than the crowd's calls. She was talking to me in confidence again: I could scarcely believe it. 'Because they love him, domina?'

She laughed at me. 'Poor Iphicles, you've been in the dirt for far too long. They hate him, you idiot. They loathe him.'

'Then why are they shouting for him?'

'To hand him the rope with which to hang himself.' My domina 's hands were pressed together as she muttered into the air, 'Take it, Sejanus! Take the pretty rope!'

Sejanus stood and the crowd roared its approval. 'Look now, Iphicles,' Livia hissed to me, her eyes bright with fire. 'Look how his doom comes!'

Sejanus raised his hand high and the gesture was seen for what it was: a plea for silence. The roar ebbed as people held their breaths, in awe of what might happen next. When the arena was hushed, Sejanus regarded the gladiators below for a long time.

'Spare him!' came a voice from the crowd. 'He fought bravely! Spare him, Prefect!'

Sejanus raised his eyes to the crowd.

'Here it comes!' Livia thrilled.

'No one but the Emperor or the gods,' declared Sejanus, 'may decide a gladiator's fate.'

A murmur swept through the stands. Would Sejanus declare himself the Emperor-in-waiting?

'The Emperor is not here,' Sejanus boomed, 'so we must leave it to the gods.' Livia's face fell as Sejanus took an aureus coin from his tunic. 'Chance is the god!' He tossed the coin high in the air. Livia left her seat before Sejanus caught it.

' Domina?'

'I am cold. I wish to go home.'

'But domina — '

'Attend me.'

I scurried to fetch her palla, throwing it around her shoulders as she strode to the exit. She had no interest in whether the coin let the fallen gladiator live or die.

'So he didn't take the rope,' I said as we left. 'Are you really so surprised? When does Sejanus ever put a foot wrong?'

'Quite often, lately.'

I was astonished. 'Not in any way that I've heard.'

She sneered. 'Like I said, Iphicles, you've been prone in the dirt too long. He should have played to the crowd. He should have hanged himself. His response was too sensible.'

She wasn't speaking a drop of sense to me. 'Do you know Sejanus at all?' I asked.

She didn't hear my words. 'Martina will have to up the dose,' she muttered. 'He should have been acting far more recklessly than this. It's embarrassing.'

'Martina?' I spluttered.

'If it weren't for her, I'd be flat on my bed with your dummy prick still inside me.'

I flushed with shame. ' Domina… '

She waved her hand, dismissing the episode. But when I made to follow her to the litter, she cut me short. 'Who said you could leave? Go back to the box and be a slave. I have no more use for you.'

I dropped to the ground. 'Yes, domina.' I watched her depart, my heart soaring. At least she was sharing things with me again, however small.

When I returned to the Imperial seats, I took my place among the other slaves. Lygdus was there. In my joy at Livia's thaw I felt pleased to see him. It had been more than two years since we had interacted in any way. I had barely seen him since Nero's arrest; I didn't even know to which household he had been reassigned.

'How goes it?' I asked. Our disagreements were all in the past, as far as I was concerned now.

The look he gave me was haunted and I was shocked by the pain I saw in his face.

'Lygdus?'

He wouldn't speak.

I felt a surge of pity. I sat down where he crouched and placed my arm around his bulk. 'You must move on from Nero's fall,' I said. 'It has been too long. Your master is exiled. Look only to what is ahead.'

'And what is that?' he asked. 'Little Boots?' A tear rolled down his cheek.

I couldn't answer. I did not know. The resurgence of my domina had reminded me that, for a slave, taking actions that had not been ordered was a crime. The prophecies could not be my concern now.

'Nero was a good master — kind, even,' I said. 'But the domina is running things now. Bask in her mercy as I do. I was very wrong to take charge, but the domina forgives me. Surrender your will to her, son — surrender your mind. She will forgive you too. Embrace the ignorance you discarded. Be the pet again. I know in my heart that this is best for us slaves.'

Lygdus's eyes were red. 'You called me son?'

I was caught out — a slip of the tongue. But I had revealed what had long lived inside my heart. My love for Lygdus made me embrace him. 'Once I was like a father to you, son — let me be that father again.'

He looked away, but the nod, when it came, told me he had now accepted things.

Megalesia

April, AD 30

One week later: Jesus of Nazareth is crucified in Judea for aspiring to be King of the Jews

Albucilla was quietly thrilled that Ahenobarbus's younger sister had come to her. Having no sisters of her own, and with all her family hooked on the Gemonian Stairs, she wanted nothing so desperately as to belong to the House of the Aemilii. And now here was Domitia treating her as if she did. Nilla, Ahenobarbus's legitimate wife, had been ignored.

Albucilla drew her arm around her frightened 'sister-inlaw'. 'You must tell me what has upset you, Domitia, and how I can help.'

'No one can help. I am trapped by it.' Domitia began to cry.

'Trapped by what? What has happened to you?'

'This marriage,' Domitia said bitterly. 'It is obscene. Not a marriage at all.'

Albucilla was alarmed. 'Is your husband starving you? Is that why you look so thin?'

'Of course not. I'm thin because I have no appetite for food.'

'Oh Domitia.'

'My sister Lepida's marriage was bad. Her husband ignored her — and worse, he ignored their little girl. I prayed that when my own union came, it would never be with so loveless a husband. My sister is a widow now and she's never been happier. And here I am imprisoned in my own corner of wedded hell, and it's a thousand times worse than hers ever was.'

Albucilla thought she'd guessed what Domitia seemed reluctant to say. 'Your husband — is he… unable to consummate?'

Domitia looked up with a start. 'Of course not. He got that over with on our wedding night. He did his duty and he continues to do it. Even when I weep, he still goes through with it. He knows what's expected.'

Albucilla was lost. 'What is it, then? What does he do to you that's so bad?'

'It's what he does to himself.'

'Ah.' Convinced she had the answer now, Albucilla wondered what Domitia would think if she knew of the pleasure she and Ahenobarbus gained from pain. Domitia was plainly an innocent. She had not received the benefit of an education at Capri. 'As long as he only hurts himself,' Albucilla said to her gently, 'no harm can really come from it. And he promises never to try that stuff on you.'

Domitia stared at her like she was simple. 'Try that stuff on me? It is my stuff. He wears my clothes, Albucilla — all my gowns and shoes. He wears my underthings and even my veils. He tries them all on and parades about. He treats me with kindness, constant kindness, but my wardrobe has become his property.' She sniffed at her stola. 'Every single thing I wear smells of him!'

Albucilla wanted to laugh. 'He's — he's a transvestite?'

'If that's what it's called, then yes, that's what he is.'

'Oh Domitia, you've got off lightly,' Albucilla beamed at her. 'So many wellborn wives end up with real monsters for their grooms.'

'I don't think you understand,' Domitia began to say.

'Of course I do. So he puts on your clothes? Let him. What harm does it do? I bet Rome is full of such secretive men.'

'You don't understand,' Domitia said again, with an edge to her voice. 'He is Drusus, the second son of Agrippina, who is locked up in a prison without charge. His older brother, Nero, is already an exile and his younger brother, Little Boots, is a captive on the Emperor's island.'

Albucilla was silent.

'My husband is the son of a damned house, the House of Germanicus — damned by Sejanus. My sister believes it is a marriage blessed by Veiovis, but she is wrong. It is devoid of glory. The marriage was meant as a warning to Drusus, a humiliation. I am the daughter of a traitor, and the message meant for my husband was that I am all he is worthy of — a traitor's seed.'

Albucilla couldn't believe this was possible. 'No, Domitia, surely — '

'Nilla was given the same message. Why else force her to marry my idiot mute brother?'

'Ahenobarbus is a good man — ' Albucilla began.

Domitia raised a hand. 'There is another message in the marriage, and it's meant for me, the traitor's child.'

'Another?'

'I can be redeemed. I can remove my mother's stain from myself and from my unborn children. I can then move on. I can gain another marriage, a better one. But only if I show Sejanus my loyalty with a gift.'

'What gift? What do you mean?'

'An accusation,' Domitia began to weep again, 'made in public. Declaring my husband's perversions. Sejanus will be blameless, of course. No one will accuse him of bringing about Drusus's downfall when I'm the one who's come out with it.'

Albucilla stared at Domitia in horror. 'But that's evil. It's a betrayal. A monstrous thing to do to a man for something that causes no harm. With Rome as it is, you'd be sending him to his death.'

'I know,' Domitia sobbed. 'I know!'

Albucilla held her close. 'Oh Domitia, whatever will you do?'

'I thought you realised.' Domitia stared at her with shame. 'I've already done it… '

'Oh, the shame,' Livia muttered from the balcony, where she had an uninterrupted view of proceedings. 'The dreadful shame of it. If my husband Augustus were still alive, I do believe this would kill him again.'

Even I, observing the scene from her shoulder, thought her commentary a bit much. Especially given she'd poisoned Augustus with her very own hands.

'Poor Drusus. What a vice to choose. If only he'd gone for something less disgusting.'

' Domina, really,' I admonished.

In the square below, the weeping Drusus was dragged in chains towards a waiting cart, which would take him to his imprisonment. He was dressed in a woman's gown — his wife's.

'Still, I must commend the way the fabric clings to his form,' said Livia. 'A very pleasing effect. I can see why he likes it.'

' Domina, you are outrageous. He is your great-grandson.'

Livia shrugged and turned to go back into her suite. But there was a twinkle in her eye. The arch words and wicked humour were all for my benefit. She was enjoying playing to an acolyte again. And I was enjoying being closer to determining the intentions behind her schemes. I could not ask what they were, of course, but I suspected now that she would tell me in time, when my curiosity had become unbearable.

Lygdus roused himself at the door, opening it for her. His face still had a haunted look.

'Lygdus, you look like a wraith,' said Livia, not without sympathy.

He tried to bow. Tears were dripping down his cheeks.

'My slave,' said Livia, moved. She cupped her hand under his chin, lifting him up to look at her. His tears wet her fingertips. 'You must remember that Drusus was the one who brought the carefully recorded details of Nero's perversions to light. You should be pleased that further perversions have now claimed Drusus. It's a fitting reward for his treachery, don't you think?'

Lygdus broke down.

'Speak to me, slave. Tell me what you feel.'

'I am unable to feel anything but misery at Nero's unknown fate on Pontia, domina,' he sobbed.

'Oh dear. Poor slave. It is such a dreadful thing to be haunted by what we do not know. Go and rest on your pallet. I do not need you to serve me today.'

Crying noisily, Lygdus departed.

Although I continued to feel great pity for him, I was not surprised to note the speed with which Livia's own pity dropped away the second he was gone. Emboldened after being so long sublimated, I dared to comment. 'The "carefully recorded details" that Drusus used against his brother were the ones that Lygdus himself recorded, domina, under my direction.'

She waited.

'The very details you forced me to eat, letting me think you'd made no copies.'

She tittered at her past joke.

' Domina, are you torturing Lygdus with purpose?'

'"Torture" is such an inadequate word.'

'Please stop it.'

She raised her eyebrow at my returning presumption. I was walking a knife edge. One false step could see me gifted to the carnifex.

'I believe, domina, that with time and affection Lygdus will become a useful slave again. After all, he was happy to kill once. Perhaps if my domina eases her treatment of him, Lygdus will be persuaded to kill a second time? And even a third?'

There was a long silence. Every muscle tensed as I prepared to retrieve the curtain rod upon her command, ready to face her rage. But to my astonishment Livia agreed with me. 'Lygdus's "torture", as you call it, will cease. I can already sense that he will shortly become more useful than he has ever been.'

Intoxicated by my victory, I threw myself at her feet. She purred with pleasure at my grovelling and took care to tread cruelly upon me as she went to sit at her looking glass. Glowing with pride, I risked a final question from the floor. 'Dare I ask, domina, whom next you intend employing in your mysterious plans?'

Admiring her unnaturally youthful reflection, Livia was coy. 'I feel it will soon be time for Antonia to play her part,' she replied.

Equirria

October, AD 31

Eighteen months later: the prophet Stephen is tried by Sanhedrin priests in Judea for blasphemy against the Jewish god

Livilla tended her ailing mother with such a depth of love it shocked her. For her entire life her relationship with Antonia had been one of combat. All Antonia's attempts to censure and correct Livilla's wilful nature had been countermanded by sullen resistance during Livilla's younger years, and then outright refusal once she had married. Whatever feeling Livilla held for her mother was, previously, something she was unable to define. She had certainly hated Antonia at times — she knew that — and had kept many wicked secrets from her, all the while half-hoping that her mother would expose them, if only so she could relish Antonia's shock.

But now that Antonia's decline had become so marked, along with the fall of the House of Germanicus, Livilla's true love for her mother won through. Her own life was so happy. Everything for which she had hoped and prayed was imminent. Rome would soon nestle in her hand. She could afford to sweep aside the enmity of so many years and tend to her mother as the great matron prepared to board the barge for the Underworld.

'What led her to this state?' asked Livia, taking the chair next to sleeping Antonia's bed.

Livilla sponged her mother's limbs. 'I believe a madness gripped her, Grandmother.'

'From a river mist?'

'It could well have been.'

Livia clicked her tongue. 'Is that what drove her to write the letters?'

Livilla hesitated. 'You know of those?'

'So sad,' said Livia. 'Your dear mother and my son, the Emperor, were such devoted friends. I think back to when your father was taken from us, Livilla, Tiberius's dear brother. You were only a child — you can't be expected to remember it — but they were united in grief, Antonia and he. They became so close. I harboured thoughts that perhaps they'd even marry.'

'How nice that would have been,' said Livilla, trying to imagine it.

'But now he refuses even to reply to her. So cruel, my son.'

Livilla was wise enough to say nothing. She pressed the sponge to her mother's forehead and Antonia stirred a little.

'I suppose her bewilderment at Tiberius's treatment has led her here?' said Livia. 'That and other, equally perplexing, things, perhaps?'

Livilla stayed silent, sponging her mother's face. Then Antonia awoke and she saw the ageless woman, whom she had always called friend, at her bedside. 'Livia?'

My domina kissed her cheek. 'Don't excite yourself. I am here to see how you are. And Livilla has been so kind to me while you slept.'

Love shone in Antonia's eyes, filling their dull grey with life. Livilla had often doubted her feelings for her mother, but Antonia's love, despite the austerity with which it sometimes manifested itself, had never wavered. 'She has been so stoic, so dignified,' Antonia whispered.

Livilla held her mother's hand.

'So admirable,' Antonia added. 'An example for all Rome, my Livilla.'

'Yes,' said Livia, smiling at her granddaughter. 'That's just the word for her. An example.'

Livilla looked away. The memory of Livia's lovemaking with Sejanus was still too raw, as was the narrowness with which she herself had escaped exposure.

'Whereas I have fallen to pieces,' Antonia said. 'I, who was once so revered.'

'Now, now,' said Livia. 'You mustn't distress yourself with all this.'

'But it's true. The calamities that have befallen us. Livilla's poor brother Germanicus, and her fine husband Castor. And then her nephews' disgrace. Yet my daughter remains a bastion throughout all these trials. And all I can do is grow ill.'

Livia could only shake her head. 'You will be well again, when all this unpleasantness has passed us by. You will be renewed, Antonia, I can feel it.'

Antonia's smile was sad. She didn't believe it.

'Now, rest,' said Livia, rising. 'I will visit you again very soon.'

Antonia drifted into the state of being neither asleep nor awake. She only vaguely heard the sounds of Livia's departure, made with heartfelt wishes for Livilla's continued good health. Antonia was just getting ready for Somnus to take her fully when she lurched back to consciousness. Livia had returned and was bending over her. Livilla was not in the room.

'What is it?' Antonia said.

Livia was playful. 'I have a confession to make.'

'A confession?'

'Yes.' She leaned closer. Her mischievous look was like a girl's. 'You see, I know why Livilla has been such a rock of strength for the family throughout these trying times. But you mustn't tell her that I know.'

Feeling weak and ill, and wishing only to sleep in peace, Antonia struggled to indulge her old friend. 'But what reason would there be, Livia?'

'Because she is blessed with a strong, noble man in her life,' Livia whispered. 'Because she is so in love…'

Our ears were pressed to the door, straining to determine the words from among the moans.

'But what are they saying about him?' Lygdus asked, wide-eyed. 'I heard his name — didn't you?'

'I think so,' I said.

'Nero. He said Nero's name to her.'

On the other side of the door Tribune Macro penetrated my domina with impressive vigour.

'If he'd just stop pounding her like that, maybe the bed would stop squeaking and we could listen properly.'

As if this complaint had embarrassed them, we heard the sounds of the lovers changing position. My domina was now astride Macro and the bed ceased moving with quite such vitality. We pressed our ears harder. Nero was indeed being discussed.

'Oh my gods!' Lygdus blurted out as he heard it. He barely stifled a cry. The lovers fell abruptly silent inside my domina 's suite. We sprang away from the door.

'You fool!' I hissed. 'You've alerted them.'

We threw ourselves to the floor, waiting for the second when my domina would fling open the door in rage. But nothing came. We heard the bed begin to squeak again. Lygdus raised his head.

'Don't risk it,' I whispered. 'Please!'

Lygdus was hell-bent. 'They're discussing Nero. Macro has heard something of what his fate will be and he's telling the domina of it.'

'Lygdus — no!'

He was upright again with his ear at the door. Too fearful, I remained where I was, watching intently as he listened to a conversation I could not hear.

'She's sobbing,' Lygdus whispered. 'She's crying in there.'

'It's the way he penetrates her,' I said. 'It makes her do that. I think she's grateful.'

'She's distraught. She's begging him to intervene.'

'It's their lovemaking again.'

Lygdus went white. 'She's pleading for Nero's life.'

I sat upright. 'Lygdus, come away right now.'

He shook his head, listening. 'No. No!' he gasped, clamping his hands to his mouth.

'Stop it — they'll hear you now for sure!'

He lurched from the door, flapping uselessly around the room.

'Oh gods,' I muttered, 'you'll bring the carnifex upon us.'

'He's been condemned!'

'Lygdus — '

'Sejanus has ordered it — Sejanus has ordered it. Not the Emperor himself, but his Prefect!'

I thought of Livia's hints about her scheme involving Martina and 'upping the dose'. 'Calm down, I'm begging you.'

Lydgus sank to the floor, gripping me by the hands. 'He's to be killed in exile. It's not done yet but it's imminent. Imminent, Iphicles!'

Somewhere inside me a little voice urged caution. 'Listen,' I said. 'There's something not quite right about this.'

He almost laughed. 'There's nothing quite right! Nero's going to be executed — and not on Tiberius's orders but Sejanus's. The Prefect's acting like he's Emperor! What can possibly be right?'

'Lygdus, please just listen to me. That's not what I mean — '

But he silenced me with a look so sincere my heart broke. 'Thank you, Iphicles. For all you have done for me in the time we have known each other.' He stood up again. 'Despite our fights you have been a true mentor to me. A father, as you say. You helped me gain confidence and courage and strength.'

I was thrown. Why was he saying this? 'Our adventures together have only just begun, Lygdus,' I told him. 'We will live on our wits as a team for years more to come — we'll outlive the whole of Rome.'

Lygdus shook his head, now smiling at me. But his eyes were bright with tears. 'Our time together is done, Father.' He stooped to kiss my head. 'Goodbye.'

'Wait!'

But he was running down the hall.

Suddenly the truth of this whole, strange scene was revealed to me. I saw what it was that had felt so wrong. I guessed the workings of my domina 's plan. 'Wait, Lygdus!' I cried as I struggled to get to my feet. 'Wait, Lygdus! Wait!'

But he was gone from me.

Antonia lay tormented for many hours by the 'confession'. She had felt bewildered by its unlikelihood at first, but when Livia had insisted, Antonia had seen that it was very much the truth. Her daughter Livilla had taken the Prefect Sejanus as her lover. This was, Livia believed, a happy little secret that had been kept from Antonia's knowledge only out of embarrassment. The Praetorian Prefect was not her social equal, of course, so she wanted it hushed.

But when Livia had gone, Antonia had been left to deplore her friend for being so blind to the implications. This was not some girlish indiscretion on Livilla's part. The appalling ramifications of the affair took the breath from Antonia's chest.

Livia had made Antonia a gift of the hitherto unseen element that united her family's tragedies. A macabre pattern emerged. It was there, she now realised, in her son Germanicus's death. It was there, too, in her son-in-law Castor's demise. There it was again in Agrippina's decline, with the fall of her friends having fanned the flames of her madness. And there it was, too, in Nero's disgrace, followed so soon after by Drusus. Now that she had learned that poor, deluded Livilla actually believed herself loved, the common element to all these sorrows was revealed as starkly as the sun. Sejanus stood to profit from her family's destruction. Sejanus, Antonia now knew, had ensured that not one of the letters she had written to Tiberius was received.

Cold rage empowered Antonia. She sensed the shadow of her former self flitting across the walls, taunting her for the years of ignorance. She had once been called Rome's most revered matron. What matron would let this ever come to pass?

Antonia forced herself upright. She placed her feet on the floor. Her head span with the effort, but she determinedly stood, catching her breath for a moment. She took her first steps in many weeks as she went to her clothes chest, flinging it open to pluck out the first warm garment she saw.

She fell still as she heard Livilla moving around in the room next to hers. She waited. Livilla returned to her own bed and Antonia resumed dressing in careful silence.

She knew what must be done — and done without her daughter knowing of it. She needed an ally she could trust, someone young and resourceful, blessed with physical strength.

As Antonia stole from her room into the darkened house beyond, she realised that she knew just such a person.

Burrus pressed his lips to Nilla's ear. 'Wake. Please wake!'

Nilla stirred but tried to cling to the comforts of Somnus.

'My love, please wake,' Burrus whispered, insistent. 'It is important.'

She felt the dreams slipping from her fingers, leaving grief in their wake. The loss of Acte lifted her to consciousness again, kissing her just as Burrus kissed her cheek. It never left her, the pain, but sometimes in her dreams she could escape it.

'Leave me be, Burrus…'

'No, my love. You must come with me.'

'Leave me. Let me sleep.'

Burrus lifted her in his arms. 'Ssh,' he whispered. 'Don't make a sound. Red-hair and his whore must not know of this.'

'Know of what?'

He kissed her into silence, taking her from the room and down the stairs. A draught of wind from the street swept her hair.

'The door is open?'

'Yes, love.'

'Who is here?'

Antonia stepped forward from the shadows, embracing Nilla tightly.

'Grandmother?'

'I shall not stay here long,' said Antonia. 'I'm going on a journey that will save the lives of your mother and your brothers, if I succeed.'

Tears filled Nilla's eyes. 'Oh Grandmother, yes!'

Antonia embraced her again.

'Let me help you,' Nilla begged. 'What can I do?'

'Will you give me something that is precious to you?'

'Anything,' Nilla said. 'What do I have left to give?'

Antonia looked to the strong, young man who had cradled her granddaughter so tenderly down the stairs. 'Your loyal slave,' she said. 'Give me Burrus.'

With Macro gone, Livia found me quietly crying in the corridor.

'Oh, Iphicles.'

'I am so sorry, domina,' I snivelled, trying to stand. But my legs failed me and I couldn't rise.

'Look at you.'

'Please, domina. Just leave me here,' I wept.

But she would not. Livia knelt on the floor where I lay. 'Here, now.' She lifted my head. 'Poor slave.' Tenderly, she placed me in her lap and began to stroke my hair as a mother might.

After a while I asked, 'Was it a lie that Sejanus ordered Nero to be killed?'

'Of course,' said Livia. 'Nero has not been condemned.'

'The lie was told for Lygdus to hear?'

'And no one else.'

'Why, domina? Why do that?'

'Oh, Iphicles. And here I thought you'd gathered your wits once more.'

I began to cry again. Of course I knew why. 'To prompt him into action… That's what it was for.'

'Much better,' she said. 'Now your wits have returned.'

'Oh, my poor son,' I sobbed. I knew what Lygdus's fate would be.

'Ssh,' she murmured softly. 'The sacrifice of a child is nothing when one possesses a great destiny. I, too, will know this pain, Iphicles.'

She began to hum a lullaby.

' Domina… will you ever call me Attis?'

'But you are not that god any more. If you ever were.'

'Not Attis? Am I a god at all?'

'Of course you are.' She continued to hum.

'Which god?' I asked, looking deep into her night-black eyes. 'Which god am I, domina?'

She smiled at me. A mother's smile. 'I am surprised you have not discovered it by now.'

Armilustrium

October, AD 31

Four days later: the condemned prophet

Stephen is stoned to death by a mob led by

Saul of Tarsus

The dozens of naked minnows stared in stunned and fearful silence as Antonia progressed through the gardens with only a slave to accompany her. This slave, they all realised, was the same slave they had thrown from the cliffs to drown. Burrus regarded them with contempt, marking each and every face for vengeance.

At the far end of the terrace, staring out to sea, the Emperor knocked over his cup. The contents spilled to the ground.

'Curse it,' he muttered.

Antonia picked it up. 'It is a curse. This drink does you no good, Caesar.'

He leaped to his feet. 'It cannot be…'

'Yes, it is.' She embraced him. 'I am your old friend Antonia here to visit you.'

He basked in the warmth of her kisses. 'Oh, my friend — it is so good to see you again.'

She let him go and stood facing him sadly.

'What is it? Why are you here to see me?'

'I'm here in warning…'

From somewhere Tiberius heard the honking of the geese.

'Sejanus has enacted a conspiracy,' Antonia said, 'and its victim is you.'

The honks became a goddess's voice, from so far away. ' The matron's words alone are heard, the addled heart is ringed…'

He touched the Imperial ring on his ringer and knew that Antonia was his saviour.

Tiberius watched as Antonia poured the last of the Eastern flower into the water far below. There was no more left. The island was now rid of it.

'How do you feel?' she asked him.

'Frightened,' he said with unvarnished honesty. 'I have tried this before, you see — and I have failed.'

'You did not have a friend to help you. Now you do.' She began to lead him away from the cliff and back to the green of the garden, where the minnows stood staring from the grass. 'Is frightened all you feel, Caesar?'

'Fear is much of it,' said Tiberius, 'but it is not all, no. I feel resolved.'

'Good.'

'And inspired. By your loyalty and dignity, Antonia.'

She smiled at him. 'They are two things I will go to my pyre still possessing.'

Tiberius squeezed her hand then looked about him for the Praetorian he trusted. 'Tribune.'

Macro came forward. 'Hail, Caesar.'

'You understand your orders?'

'I do,' said Macro. 'With Caesar's permission I will depart for Pontia right now.'

'It is nearly November. The seas there will be treacherous.'

'Time is imperative,' said Macro, 'and the Prefect's treachery is worse.'

'The gods bless you, Tribune. Free my grandson. Bring him here, where he'll be safe.'

'It will be done, Caesar.' Macro saluted again and left.

When Antonia was satisfied that Tiberius was resting comfortably, she turned her eye to the assembled minnows. 'So then,' she began. 'This is how you appear before your Emperor? Stark naked?'

Little Boots resented her opprobrium. 'It is how he orders us to appear,' he replied.

Antonia slapped him in the face. 'It is not how you appear before your grandmother.'

Shocked, Little Boots clutched his cheek.

Antonia strode to where Drusilla and Julilla cowered near Aemilius. 'Face me,' she demanded. Cringing, the girls stepped forward and Antonia gripped them viciously by the ears. 'Put on your clothes! You have the blood of the divine Augustus in your veins — how dare you disgrace it?'

The girls fled inside the Emperor's villa.

Antonia turned to the rest of the children. 'If you are to be fit company for your Emperor and me, then not only will you be attired with decency and humility from this day forward, but you will also be attending school.'

Clutching his throbbing cheek, Little Boots's look to his friend Aemilius was one of genuine horror.

The eleventh day before the Kalends of November AD 31

Two days later: the nascent cult of Christ proclaims Stephen its first martyr

Staring out to sea from the island's best vantage point, high up on the rocks, Lygdus saw a ship on the horizon. He watched its progress for a moment before he knew with certainty what sort of vessel it was: an Imperial trireme. The day had come. Resolute, he picked his way from his perch and along the beach and up the path again towards the island's single dwelling.

Tending the vines in a wide straw hat, Nero read the expression on the eunuch's face and discerned what the news was without Lygdus even needing to say it. 'So then.'

Lygdus could only nod, anxious of what he might do if he spoke. His emotions were in danger of overwhelming him.

Nero took off his straw hat. His face showed no fear.

Lygdus fell to one knee. 'Give me your courage, domine,' he pleaded.

Nero touched his shoulder and made him rise again. 'Courage brought you here in the first place, Lygdus. If you had not heard Macro's pillow-talk and acted with true courage by coming to Pontia, I would not have had the luxury of acceptance. To know your own fate in advance is a gift in situations like this. It has let me prepare for it.'

'But it is wrong.'

Nero didn't disagree. But in the long months spent alone on this island he had learned one true thing about himself: he was his mother's son. 'I have no fear at what is ahead, only gratitude that this waiting will end.'

'Oh domine — '

Nero shook his head. They had spoken of what the final moment must be and it could not include tears. Side by side, they left the vines and entered the small villa. Two swords lay in readiness before the wax mask of Nero's murdered father.

'Thank you, domine,' Lygdus whispered, 'for the privilege of being your slave.'

'You were never my slave,' said Nero. 'From the beginning you have been nothing less than my friend.'

As the two friends took the swords in their hands, the faintest refrain of a song kissed the air: ' The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding's tongue…'

It came too late. The words fell unheard.

The Imperial trireme had docked at Pontia's tiny wharf. Macro waited at the prow, watching the progress of two of his men as they made the return trek from the lone villa. They were distressed; he could tell it from a distance.

'Where is he?' Macro demanded of them when they reached the dock again. 'Where is the Emperor's grandson? We have come here to free him.'

The Praetorians saluted. 'We must report a tragedy, Tribune. Nero is dead, along with a eunuch. They have fallen on swords.'

'But Nero was alive! We saw him tending the vines on the hill as the ship neared the dock.'

'His blood is still warm, Tribune, but his life has expired. He is dead.'

Macro feigned horror convincingly enough for his unsoph isticated men. 'This makes no sense. Why would he kill himself before he'd heard what we have to tell him? His liberty had been granted!'

The Praetorians had no answer.

'The poor lad,' said Macro, as if it now came to him. 'I see what it was. He'd become so maddened in his exile that he believed we were here to kill him.'

The Praetorians nodded, moved. This was likely so, they agreed.

'Lament my fate, boys,' Macro said. 'It falls to me to break this tragedy to the Emperor.'

On his public horse Sejanus rode at walking pace up the graceful slope of the Palatine. The hillside poplars had turned gold in the crisp autumn sun, and the majestic Temple of Apollo slowly came into sight. In excellent spirits Sejanus turned to the cohort behind him. 'There it is!'

The Praetorians were all cheers. Sejanus dismounted his horse to ascend the Temple steps with the full body of guards behind him. A brigade of vigiles, the civic police, was posted at the great iron doors.

'Hail, Prefect,' said the superior officer.

'This is irregular,' said Sejanus. 'Why are you vigiles here?'

The civic officers looked at each other. 'Nothing irregular about it for us, Prefect,' said the superior. 'This is where we're always posted. It's the Temple of Apollo. And a great day of honour for you, Prefect, if you'll accept our congratulations for it.'

Sejanus disliked vigiles. They were undisciplined street rabble, in his view. 'You are not required. The Praetorian Guard will do duty here today. Take your men and go.'

The vigiles didn't move. 'If you'll forgive me, Prefect,' said the superior, 'we will not go. This Temple has been our patch since it was built. Augustus himself posted us here. You Praetorians have your little duties and we have ours. This is one of them.'

Sejanus thrust his face at the other man. 'Do you even realise what is happening inside here today?'

'Yes, Prefect,' said the superior. 'You are receiving the tribunitia potestas from the Senate, which holds an extraordinary session in this Temple on the same day every year. It is a day of honour for us — we're posted here to guard the Senators — and it is a day of honour for you, Prefect, to be so highly awarded. As I said, allow us to offer our — '

'Stand aside and let me and my men enter the Senate meeting,' Sejanus demanded.

The officer stood aside but his men grasped their swords. 'Please enter with our best wishes and congratulations, Prefect. But your Praetorians may not follow you. This is our turf and they must leave it now.'

It was only Sejanus's keen anticipation of the high honour within that stopped him from arresting the man as a traitor, and all the vigiles with him. He turned to his own junior officer. 'Secure my horse, but take yourselves back to the barracks.'

There were groans of disappointment but Sejanus raised his hand. 'I will return in time. Pour some wine for me in readiness.' The guards grumbled until the junior officer initiated a cheer. Sejanus saluted them off before looking the vigiles ' superior officer hard in the eye. 'I will remember this,' he said.

'I don't doubt it,' said the officer, once the Temple door had closed securely behind Sejanus.

Inside, escorted by four vigiles to an anteroom, Sejanus learned that Senate protocol dictated he must wait until called. Sejanus bridled at this, too, but the men were sympathetic. In the bestowing of great honours, they told him, Senators traditionally strived to make the glory reflect upon themselves. Sejanus could well be waiting for some time while his achievements were lauded by the august body. When he was eventually called, Sejanus could be sure that the Senators would have worked themselves up into such a congratulatory frenzy that the applause would bring him near to deafness and the backslapping would likely cripple him. Sejanus laughed at their humour — a rare thing — accepted a cup of wine and sat down in the anteroom alone.

He could half-hear the proceedings being conducted — dull administrative matters. But when his ears pricked at the first mention of his name, Sejanus found himself struck by nerves. For his entire life his Achilles heel had been the mystery of his birth. That he was Roman was not doubted but his parentage was a mystery. His earliest memories were of the Greek physician he had been apprenticed to from the time he could walk. He knew no birth father. When he was a child, some people had called him slave for this, but he had never been treated as one.

When Sejanus was twelve, the physician's downfall had caused him to be thrust before Tiberius. He had seen then what his life could be. The grieving general and future Emperor had a need for him, a need that Sejanus could ensure did not go away. It never had. Tiberius's need had led his loyal 'son' to the very cusp of true greatness. Everything Sejanus had strived for — all he deserved — was so close.

Yet with the august body of highborn men now lauding his name, Sejanus felt the familiar twinge of doubt. When he stepped out to receive his honour, would the congratulations be real? Or would he look behind the Senators' eyes and see them calling him slave in their hearts?

Sejanus removed a little vial from beneath his cuirass and loosened its stopper, sipping the contents. The effects of the Eastern flower were instant. He took another sip, letting the wave of pleasure wash over him, before downing the rest. His nerves vanished, and with them his doubt. He felt invincible once again. His imminent tribunitia potestas felt truly earned.

A pleasant buzzing filled Sejanus's ears, as though the anteroom had grown into a garden and bees now flitted among the flowers. The Senators' words floated in the air like specks of pollen, some reaching him, some not. He heard a letter from Tiberius being read out by the leader of the house. Sejanus stood. The Emperor's words reached him, but not their meaning.

'… my former friend… murderous plotting… family of Germanicus…'

The great temple fell into silence. Sejanus guessed his cue. He stepped from the anteroom and into the midst of the Senators, saluting and smiling.

Emboldened by the lack of Praetorians, the highborn men surged forward to order the vigiles to arrest him.

The ugly lavatory slave shook with terror. He covered his ears, which, although deformed, still heard the shrieks of violence clearly. The screams in the Forum dulled, replaced by a worse sound: the voice of the long-dead Senator.

' If the German revolt had spread to my brigades, Tiberius would never have kept his throne…'

He heard his own response — ' Really, domine?' — and remembered the malicious intent he had hidden.

' It would have tipped the balance — too many against him. But I kept my lot loyal and he kept his crown. So you're right, boy, Tiberius really does owe me one…'

'It's not fair!' the ugly slave cried out. 'It's not fair! I hardly got anything for it. Just a few silver coins. That doesn't make me one of them!'

He tried to shut his eyes to squeeze the voice from his head, but it intensified his guilt. He ripped his hands from his ears, only to hear the Forum screams louder than before. Every person who had profited from accusations of treason was being dragged across the flagstones to their deaths. Men or women, it made no difference; freeborn or slave. Children would see no mercy either. Hundreds of Sejanus's clients had already been beheaded, and they were the lucky ones, having been caught and dispatched by the vigiles in the very first wave of reprisals.

But those who had hidden or fled were less fortunate, having to face the rage of the mob, which now flung them into fires or ran them through with spears before their heads were lopped off. A list of any and all persons remembered by victims of Sejanus as having prospered from accusations of treason was being compiled. Years of court records were being raked for every trial witness. How long, the ugly little lavatory slave wept to himself, would it be before they got to his name and read his lowly occupation?

He flew down the flight of steps into the toilet room, slamming the iron gate behind him while fumbling for the key. He tried to stretch through the bars and lock the gate behind him, but the key would only turn from the outside, the need never having been foreseen to lock it from within. He couldn't reach. The key slipped from his sweat-dripping fingers, clattering on the steps. 'No!' He had to throw open the gate again to retrieve it.

How long until they remembered him? How long until his name joined the list? 'Hurry!' he screamed at himself. 'Hurry!' He had the key at the lock once more but still it would not turn. He nearly pissed in his fear. Then he thought of another way to save himself. If they found the building locked, they would guess he was cowering inside anyway. But if he left the gate wide open, just as it always was, the mob would find the lavatory empty. They would never guess where a skinny slave could hide.

He stumbled into the room and saw the very seat the long-dead Senator had taken. It had the widest of all the openings, and the one best suited to a man of broad stance. It was the best hole to slip through. The ugly slave mounted the foot rests and slipped his legs into the gap, ready to drop to the sewer. But shooting flames suddenly burned the hair from his legs. He shouted with pain. A little papyrus boat was in the water below him, loaded with burning leaves. The slave dropped, crushing the burning vessel in the water beneath him.

'You fucking cunt, Duro!' he screamed into the blackness of the cloaca maxima. 'It's the last time you do it to me, hear? The last fucking time!'

'You're right about that.'

The lavatory slave span around. Duro, the slave from the lavatory at the Forum's opposite end, was holding a knife.

'It's the last of anything for you, cocksucker.'

The ugly slave's corpse spilled into the Tiber along with the rest of the filth from the cloaca maxima. There it joined the scores of other dead — masters and slaves, magistrates and criminals, gladiators and mangons, prostitutes and praetors — all those in Rome who had, in any way, however miniscule, profited from Sejanus's reign.

Fearful of the screams from the streets, but forbidden to look out to determine what was causing them, Tiberia stood timidly at the door to her grandmother's room. Antonia, supervising the packing of her possessions, didn't see the girl.

'Grandmother?'

Antonia acknowledged her but didn't stop. 'So much to do, child. And time so precious.'

'Grandmother, please — '

Antonia saw the confusion in Livilla's daughter's face and came over at once, thinking she knew what troubled her. 'We have talked of this, Tiberia,' she said, kissing her granddaughter, 'and I know how it pains you, but the Emperor needs me.'

'Yes, I know,' Tiberia tried to say.

'I can only stay in Rome for as long as it takes me to pack up my household. Then I must return to Capri permanently. My guidance is needed. The Emperor's hand is so burdened.'

'Yes, Grandmother, I understand everything, and I think it is so noble what you are doing for Rome.'

Antonia glowed. 'Thank you, child.'

'That is not why I'm here. Two women have come to the house to see you.'

'I have visitors?'

'They have come alone through the streets, at great risk to themselves, with all this… disorder going on.'

'They are unescorted?' Antonia was wary. 'They sound like lowborn women. Tell the steward to send them away.'

'One has a patrician's voice, and the other is well-spoken too. They are not rabble.'

'Then what are their names?'

'They would not say.'

'Then what makes them think I will see them? Who on earth are these women?'

Tiberia wished she could rub the unsettling image of the visitors from her mind. 'The patrician woman, she has no hands, Grandmother,' she whispered. 'And the other… well, she cannot see.'

Something stirred Antonia's recognition. 'Did they say what they want?'

'They claim they have something of urgent importance to tell you.'

From the street below came the sound of renewed screaming. Another name on the list had been found by the mob. 'Send them to me,' said Antonia, blocking out the noise.

When the packing slaves had been dismissed and Plancina and Apicata had been admitted to Antonia's presence, the two visitors bowed.

Antonia couldn't take her eyes from the scarred stumps of Plancina's wrists.

'You remember me, Antonia?'

'Of course.' She gathered her dignity, forcing herself to look Plancina in the eye. 'Your late husband was tried for murdering Germanicus, my son.'

'He was blackmailed to murder him,' said Plancina, sidestepping the truth that it was she who had been coerced into the crime. 'Blackmailed by Sejanus and then forced into suicide.'

Antonia said nothing, but the events of recent weeks had disposed her to believe this.

'And here is Apicata,' Plancina said, pushing forward the sightless woman within whose arm she had threaded her own. 'She is Sejanus's discarded wife.'

'I know who she is,' Antonia said.

'Then did you know your daughter Livilla is Sejanus's secret lover?'

Antonia flushed with shame. 'I have learned of it.'

Outside the door, where she eavesdropped without being seen, Tiberia threw a hand to her lips, her shocked eyes wide.

'Livilla is his victim, too,' Antonia pleaded, 'deceived like a child that she was loved by such a monster. I fear for her life if the truth gets out. People won't forgive such foolish naivety in a highborn woman.'

Antonia waited for the price of silence to be named.

'I want justice.' Apicata spoke her first words. 'Money has no use to me, Lady.'

'You want justice?'

'And perhaps you'll want it too, when you learn the extent of Livilla's depravity in the name of her passion.'

Antonia was frightened now. 'What haven't I been told?'

'Your Livilla had Castor poisoned.'

Tiberia cried out in shock, then rushed into the room when she heard her grandmother collapse. Cradling Antonia's head in her hands, Tiberia faced the two visitors as they gave their story of how her mother had conspired to kill her beloved father with poisoned footbath water. Nothing was more damning in hindsight than Castor's final words. ' My wife… ' Tiberia had believed they were words of love. Now she knew better. They were an accusation.

'Justice will be done for my mother's crimes,' the girl said coldly. 'I promise it. And I will personally ensure it.'

The Kalends of November

AD 31

Two weeks later: forty-four speeches are delivered in the Senate about Livilla's punishment. A few are prompted by anxiety, but most by routine servility

A picata stole away at dawn from the house she and Plancina shared with Martina, neglecting to tell either friend what she intended. She had travelled the Gemonian Stairs so often that she knew every inch of them, providing a pair of hands for Plancina while her friend provided the eyes. Apicata felt less confident alone, as she would be this time, but she would not let this deter her.

She found the way to the stairs easily enough, picking her path along the familiar streets that led towards the Forum. She might have been delayed if anyone had recognised her, but no one did. Even if someone had, there was no reason to fear it. So notorious was the story of her ill-treatment at her husband's hands that she was seen by Rome as another of his victims. That she had actively schemed for Germanicus's death before her fall had not emerged.

When Apicata reached the base of the Gemonian Stairs, she felt the rotting remains of the traitors near her feet. None were fresh. Some were months old or more. All of them she and Plancina had already picked over on earlier occasions. But ingredients were not what she was here for. With her days spent in silence in front of the fire, Apicata's friends imagined she was losing herself in dreams. They were wrong. She depended so much more upon her remaining senses and lived wholly in wakefulness, her ears sharply trained on the talk of the people passing in the street. This was how she learned she must return to the steps.

Apicata tilted her nose to the wind. The street talk had been accurate. Amid the rot and decay she smelled something fresh. The Gemonian Stairs had seen one final traitor dragged by the hook. Apicata took to the steps with pace, her hands feeling the stones in front as she made the ascent. The dogs knew her well enough by now not to be threatened and allowed her to pass. She flung bones from her path as she ascended towards the Arx.

'I'm coming for you,' she whispered. 'Prepare yourself.'

Her hand met wetness on the stone. She held her fingers to her nose and sniffed. Fresh blood, still warm. She advanced more slowly, one step, then another. She touched the flesh of a hand and gasped. The hand curled, still alive, gripping her fingers.

She fell forward, cradling Sejanus in her arms. 'It is me. I am here for you, my love.'

His throat had been crushed, but not enough to rob him of breath for his final moments. Sejanus lay where the hook had dragged him; he felt the soft hand in his and heard the words that were said to him.

'Forgive me… Please, forgive me for what I have done to you.'

The dawning sun was in his eyes when he opened them. It was not Apicata he saw haloed by the rays, but someone else: his lifelong love, whose name they had evoked when they hooked him. His lips mouthed the words, 'I forgive you for it. I love you.'

Tears dripped upon his cheeks. Lips pressed themselves to his. He took them humbly.

'They're the only words I have ever wanted from you.'

'But I give them freely,' Sejanus whispered, almost surprised that his beloved should think they had never been said before. 'I have loved no one else but you.'

Apicata reached inside her palla and found the knife. 'Thank you,' she said. 'We can leave this place together now.'

'Together…' The last of his life was slipping away.

She placed the blade beneath her breast and embraced him. The knife pierced her ribs, entering her heart.

'Together. Just as we've always been…' Sejanus said as her blood joined his. 'I love you, Father.'

The echo of a distant voice came to him, carried on the wings of death. ' 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…'

Watching from the foot of the Gemonian Stairs, where they had followed Apicata, Martina pronounced herself satisfied. 'A fitting end.'

Plancina used a stump to smear a tear away.

'Oh, what's the matter with you?' Martina said, disgusted.

'You be quiet,' snivelled Plancina. 'I'd grown very fond of her. Despite everything she'd done in the past.'

Martina pressed a handkerchief to Plancina's nose while she blew. 'It had to end this way, and you know it. She still loved him.'

'It's still a shame,' Plancina said. She waved the soiled handkerchief away. 'Now it feels as if all our work is done.'

'Good. Retirement at last.'

'Don't make me laugh, you old sow. Retirement equals death.'

'I was very happy at the musica muta, you know.'

'You were a sham. For all I know, you drugged your way in there. Don't think they'll let you pull that trick twice.'

Martina glowered.

'Face it,' said Plancina, as they began to walk away. 'You won't know what to do with yourself when Livia runs out of schemes.'

'She'll never run out.'

'Let's hope. The boredom will kill us both if she did.' Plancina stopped and cast a glance back up the stairs again.

'Look, the blind woman died with him,' Martina said. 'And she was happy to do so. Stop blubbing and let's go.'

'I'm not blubbing.' Plancina had turned and was marching towards the ascent.

'You mad woman! What are you doing?'

'Bring the knife,' Plancina called over her shoulder. 'Dead she may be, but so is he. It's stupid to let a good traitor's genitals go to waste. And Livia might like a souvenir.'

'Let me out! Please, Mother, let me out! Please, Mother!'

Side by side on wooden stools, their backs pressed to the bolted door of Livilla's room, Antonia and her granddaughter willed the cries to penetrate them like knives.

'Mother, please!' Livilla sobbed from the other side. 'Please don't do this!'

The little boy Gemellus stared uncomprehendingly at his sister and grandmother on their stools.

'It must be done,' Tiberia said to him. Speech was beyond Antonia. 'The Senate ordered it.'

Gemellus threw his hands to his ears. 'I can't bear Mama's cries — let me bring her some water, Tiberia.'

His sister shook her head. 'Go and visit Uncle Claudius,' she said. 'Stay at his house until this is done.'

'No,' Gemellus wailed. 'I want my Mama! Mama!'

Tiberia's look was very cold. 'She is no longer our mama, Gemellus. She is filth. She had Papa poisoned. Papa is the one we must mourn, not her. She is not worthy of tears. She is not worthy of a funeral pyre.'

Gemellus rushed at her and tried to strike her with his fists, but Tiberia stopped her little brother easily, holding him by the wrists. He began to sob hysterically while Tiberia soothed him, still holding his hands. Seated on the other stool, Antonia saw nothing, so focused was she on the sounds behind the door. Gemellus subsided at last, broken.

'How long?' he whimpered.

'Until she is dead from hunger and thirst. That is her punishment.'

'But why that? It's so cruel.'

Tiberia looked to the revered matron at her side. Antonia's eyes were closed as if asleep but she muttered prayers beneath her breath. 'It's what our noble grandmother asked of the Senate,' Tiberia answered. 'And they granted it. So we will not move until it is done. It is a fitting punishment for her and a fitting punishment for us.'

'A punishment for us?' Gemellus began to cry. 'But we didn't do anything.'

'No,' said Tiberia. 'We did nothing at all. We didn't see, we didn't hear and, worst of all, we didn't imagine what our mother was doing. We were fools in her service, no better than her eunuch. We failed to use the wits the gods gave us and we allowed Papa to die. That is why we will sit here and suffer our mother's cruel death.'

Inside the room Livilla fell to the floor, unable to scream any more. It had been more than a day since she'd swallowed water and another again since she'd taken food. She knew exactly how long people took to die this way. It would not be a matter of days but weeks. In the long hours before death her tongue would blacken, protruding obscenely from her lips. Her fingernails would curl and fall from her hands, along with the hair from her head. Her stomach would dissolve itself in acid, her liver and kidneys too. Her body would weigh less than a child's by the end and its putrefaction would poison the walls. Most ironically of all, her eyesight would fail in her final minutes of existence. She would journey to the Underworld in complete darkness, as blind as her bitterest enemy.

A tiny voice tried to sing in her ear. 'No…' she moaned, waving it away. 'Please, no!' But the voice was persistent. It had kissed her at the moment the door had been locked, and whenever she fell quiet it kissed her again. 'Please!' she whispered. 'I don't want to hear — I don't want to hear!' The voice ignored her.

' One would-be queen knows hunger's pangs when Cerberus conducts her…'

Livilla stared at her companion in starvation, the dog Scylax, whimpering on the floor, condemned by the Senate to die with her. How long, Livilla trembled, before Scylax's loyalty gave way to a baser instinct? Would she be dead when it happened, she wondered? Or would her final words be those of her begging the dog not to tear her throat out?