Nest of Vipers

'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?

THE CHILD WILL RULE

The Nones of November

AD 31

One week later: Rome's rage against Sejanus begins to subside when his children are strangled in prison

Tiberius fought to stop his hands shaking so he could press his ring into the soft wax. He left it there for as long as he dared, blowing on the wax to cool it, before the tremors could be held off no more and he lifted his hand. But the little imprint of the eagle was perfect; no edges had blurred. This was a good omen.

'See, Macro,' he said. 'The eagle is beautiful. Agrippina's release from imprisonment is signed, and Drusus's too. My family are freed.'

'Caesar is merciful,' said Macro, who was now Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. He carefully took the directive from Tiberius's hands.

With the day's most pressing task complete, Tiberius felt his anxiety return. 'When will Antonia come back?' he asked. 'Has she sent word from Rome?'

'Until the Lady informs you directly of her plans, Caesar, I cannot know. Her correspondence is for your eyes only.'

'Yes. Yes, of course. There is nothing among my letters, nothing from her?'

'It appears not.'

'Perhaps tomorrow, then.' The skin on Tiberius's arms felt as if ants were crawling on it, but when he scratched the itch there was nothing to be seen.

Macro studied him with detachment. 'I'm sure Antonia's letter is imminent, Caesar, as is her return. I have been told that Livilla is dead.'

Tiberius took some comfort from this. When Macro had gone, he rifled through the morning's letters and scrolls again, making sure that nothing from Antonia had slipped his eye. The lid on a nondescript canister was loose, and when he tossed it aside the thing opened. A little glass vial slipped out and onto the ground.