'Excellent. And who is the third?'
'A woman I once overlooked.'
'Who?'
'Livilla.'
Unable to place this woman, Acte read back through some of the tablets again to find reference to her. 'Oh yes,' she replied. 'Here she is.'
'Livilla was Castor's wife,' I said. 'Castor, the son of the Emperor Tiberius. Castor, who was kind yet jealous, and who hated the Praetorian Prefect Sejanus with all his heart.'
'I'd barely noticed her,' said Acte. 'Shall we start with this Livilla, then?'
'Yes. But the slave-boy will be our focus.'
'Which slave-boy?'
'An important one.'
'Has he been in the history before?'
'He hasn't — but now he must enter.'
'Who is he, Iphicles?'
I felt a tear swell in my eye. I brushed it away before it had the chance to roll down my cheek. 'He is my son.'
Acte looked down respectfully at the wax tablet, her hand poised. 'I didn't know.'
I closed my eyes and saw a tiny speck of light within the darkness. 'Clio,' I whispered. 'Muse, is that you?' The speck of light twinkled like a star and the first of the new words began to fall upon my tongue, and as they did, the first drops of perspiration left my body once more. Mortal death edged closer.
'There was a phrase I used for this slave,' I said, my eyes still closed, 'a phrase the Emperor Tiberius coined, although he meant it for Sejanus. He loved that man like a son, you know.'
'I do know,' said Acte softly. 'Yet you felt it better fitted this slave — your own son. What was the phrase, Iphicles?'
I opened my eyes and told her.
THE PARTNER IN MY LABOURS
Mercuralia
May, AD 20
Forty-five years earlier: the Senate and
People of Rome award Praetorian Prefect Aelius Sejanus the insignia of the Praetor
The young slave was bewildered by what had been said to him, so Livilla repeated it. 'We adore you, Lygdus, we truly do. You're a pet to us, boy.'
He clung to these words from the corner of the animal pen where he had tried to hide. 'Your pet, domina?'
'My little lamb,' she said. 'That's what I'm telling you. You're our most special of slaves.' She leaned forward and whispered into his ear so that none of the other servants would hear. 'You're the one I love most.'
Pleasure flushed Lygdus's young face. Never before had something so kind been said to him. It was like she had seen inside his heart. He had never known the woman who had borne him. His mistress was the only mother he had. And to think that she loved him… 'I love you too, domina,' he replied.
'Good slave,' Livilla said, standing up again with a smile. She adjusted a long strand of ebony hair from where it had come loose from her pins. She smoothed her day gown with her palms. All would be right now.
Lygdus righted himself, getting up from the corner where he had flung himself when they had tried to break the news.
'Do you know what is expected of you now?' Livilla asked him.
In truth, he did not. He looked to the faces of the other watching slaves in the pen around him. They all looked away, not meeting his eye, except for the Greek steward, Pelops, who grinned openly at him, concealing something in his hands. 'Yes, domina,' Lygdus lied, holding her cherished words against the soft flesh beneath his ear where she'd whispered them.
'Just devotion,' she said, 'what you've always given us — and friendship and truthfulness.'
'Yes, domina.'
'You're thirteen years old — nearly a man. And my daughter is approaching her womanhood. She's very pretty, isn't she, Lygdus?'
'Very,' he said automatically.
'A temptation for some,' said Livilla, nodding affectionately at him and, perhaps, Lygdus half-sensed, a little sadly. He thought for a moment that he'd given her confirmation of something she hadn't even asked.
'Have I done something wrong?' he asked, trembling.
'If what must happen today does not happen, then I'm quite sure you will do wrong in time,' Livilla said. 'But with today will come a transformation — and through that, release. You will never be at risk of doing wrong again.'
'I won't need to be beaten?'
Livilla shook her head, and the strand of dark hair fell from her pins once more. She was so beautiful to him; so dark and alluring. 'You won't be punished in any way,' she said. 'You will be perfect — our perfect slave.'
'That's what I want to be,' he said, staring into her nightblack Claudian eyes — the eyes that she shared with her grandmother Livia. 'That's all I could ever want, domina,' he whispered.
Livilla clicked her fingers and two male slaves seized Lygdus from either side. He struggled but Livilla's tone was soothing again. 'No one's going to hurt you, Lygdus. In your transformation you'll feel no pain at all.'
She clicked her fingers a second time and the slaves forced him to the ground. He tried to crouch on his knees but they kicked his legs out from under him so that he lay flat upon his back on the cold earth. The ground was spongy and moist. He looked up and saw the cobwebs and dust that clung to the rafters, and he wondered how many other lambs had shared this view. That was what she had called him — her little lamb.
'Say a prayer…' His domina 's voice floated to Lygdus from somewhere far away.
'To which god?' he whispered.
He heard her footsteps echo on the paving stones outside as she left the pen and made her way towards the garden and the house beyond. He tried to raise his head to glimpse her retreating form. ' Domina.. To which god, domina?'
The grinning steward's face was like a death mask. 'Cybele,' Pelops smirked. 'She'll have a place in her heart for you, son.'
Two more slaves came forward and took Lygdus's ankles, forcing his legs apart. A sudden fear coursed through him as he tried to struggle.
'Keeping still ensures that nothing goes that needn't,' Pelops said. One of the slaves reached up and snatched at Lygdus's loincloth, pulling it away and exposing him. He was erect; they all saw it — the effect of his domina whispering in his ear. 'Keep still,' Pelops ordered.
Lygdus now saw what Pelops had kept hidden within his hands. It was a razor. He went to scream but a hand clapped hard across his mouth.
'Don't want the domina hearing this — it upsets her,' said Pelops, unwinding a piece of string.
Lygdus shrieked into the hands that silenced him. The steward went between his legs and wound the string around his scrotum until his testes glowed purple. Pelops flicked the razor and Lygdus felt a pain that was worse than any he had known. Two crimson streams of blood shot across the earth. All hands released him.
'My blood!' Lygdus cried. The flow didn't stop, pooling where he lay, soaking into the soil. 'My blood will drain away…'
'It knows when to stop,' said Pelops. The other slaves filed out of the pen.
'What if it doesn't?' Lygdus sobbed.
Pelops shrugged. 'Then you won't be the first.' He joined the slaves outside and Lygdus was left alone.
