Empire, and you did it in the very heart of Oxheads. Just imagine the punishment you'll get for that.'
Aemilia began sobbing again, and Apicata leaned forward. 'Will it be the bears, do you think, or the jackals for you?'
'Mother?' The bewildered voice of a child came from the other side of the closed door.
Apicata stood and, remembering exactly the number of steps she had taken from the door to get to the chair, retraced them. She spoke through the door crack. 'Your mother is in no harm, girl, but she will be if you listen to another word of this private conversation.'
The child gave a cry from the other side, recognising Apicata's voice.
'You remember me, don't you, Lepida? I'm the wife of the Praetorian Prefect. What a lovely talk we had at the wedding.'
When she heard Lepida running down the hall towards the stairs, Apicata returned to where she had been seated. 'I will ask this once, Aemilia. Are you recovered?'
The matron went still.
'Good.' Judging where Aemilia lay on the floor, Apicata reached for her cup of watered wine and tossed the contents in Aemilia's face. 'Remain on the floor while we discuss our arrangement. It becomes you.'
Neither woman said anything for a time.
'Does your husband know?' asked Aemilia at last.
'He doesn't know a thing about your crimes, and I see no reason for him to. What purpose would it serve?'
'What do you want from me?'
Once Apicata had told her, she said, 'It's nothing you haven't done for others, is it?'
Aemilia confessed this was true. 'But not against someone so.. '
'Powerful? Yet who has more power right here?'
When Apicata gave permission for Aemilia to move — but not stand — the beautiful patrician crawled like a dog to the small cedar box she kept hidden under the loose boards of the floor. The box retrieved, she asked Apicata what sort of material she would prefer. There was a choice when it came to constructing these things.
'Which material would Veiovis enjoy?' asked Apicata.
Aemilia tried to force her hands to stop shaking. 'Lead. Perhaps lead…'
The girl Lepida told her sister what had happened outside their mother's receiving room door but the younger girl didn't believe it. Domitia wanted to march up the stairs to see for herself, but Lepida's horror at the prospect was so real that Domitia knew something very frightening was taking place in their house.
'It was the blind woman — the one at the wedding. Her husband hunts down the traitors.'
'But our mother is not a traitor!'
Lepida wanted to echo this denial but now found that she couldn't. Perhaps their mother was a traitor, and this was why the blind woman had come? 'What does 'traitor' even mean? Nobody seems to know.'
Domitia tried to define it but found that she barely could. 'It's someone who hates Rome.'
'Is that really our mother?'
Domitia shook her head vehemently, but Lepida was still unsure. 'She talked to a very strange man at the wedding… What if he was a traitor?'
Domitia didn't know what to think and the two girls found comfort in crying for a time. When their tears had dried, they were left feeling angry.
'How dare this blind woman offend us by upsetting our mother?' said Domitia, the younger girl, wiping a hand under her nose. 'We are the Aemilii. What is she?'
'Not even patrician,' whispered Lepida.
'What would the great Augusta Livia do in this terrible situation? Or widow Agrippina?'
'They would both be outraged.'
'And their fury would give them courage,' Domitia declared.
There was barely two years' difference in their ages, but Lepida assumed a motherly role and took Domitia's hand. They retrieved a sharp knife from the kitchens, and when the worried slaves tried to accompany the girls, aware that something distressing was taking place in the rooms above, Lepida thanked them for their concern but said she would call upon them only if the situation was dire. They were patrician ladies, after all, and should be able to handle dangers with nothing more than their wits. The slaves agreed, hiding their relief, but wanted the girls' brothers to accompany them. Lepida rejected this, too. Their younger brother, Aemilius, was only seven and yet would hog all the glory once their mother was rescued. Besides, he was in the Forum with his tutor, and they could not waste time waiting for him to return home. The slaves then pointed to Ahenobarbus, Lepida's twin, who glanced up from his place by the fire. Not only was he cursed with ugly red hair, he was also mute and half-witted. The girls pronounced him useless in a crisis and left Ahenobarbus gazing into the kitchen furnace.
Still holding hands, but with Lepida now clutching the knife, the sisters crept up the broad marble stairs and along the corridor to their mother's room. The door was now wide open. Inside, they found Aemilia sitting in her favourite chair, staring blankly at the walls.
Lepida dropped the knife and rushed to her first. 'What has happened?'
'Where is the blind woman?' said Domitia.
The anxiety was all too much and both girls burst into tears again.
'The Praetorian Prefect's wife has gone,' said Aemilia. There was an unsettling edge to her voice, a desperation — or exhilaration — that their mother was just managing to keep at bay.
'What did she want? Why was she here?'
'To blackmail me. To force me to help her against my will.'
The sisters wept again.
'Oh Mother! What did you do?'
'I did as she asked. I had no choice.'
Only now did the girls see the strange items spilled on the floor at their mother's feet. Little tablets made of clay and wood, pieces of twine and hair, a stylus, feathers from birds. Lepida stared at the dried-up husk of a toad. 'Are you going to die?' Lepida sobbed. 'Is this woman going to take you away as a traitor?'
'Ssh,' said Aemilia, smoothing her oldest girl's hair. But she didn't answer the question. Whatever fear she had felt when Apicata had revealed what she knew, Aemilia felt free of it now. The blind woman had been right. Her heart was lighter for sharing a burden. 'That man I spoke to at the wedding was a soothsayer,' she said. 'I was reckless and foolish to do it, but there he was just waiting to be spoken to, and so I did.'
Both girls went very pale.
'It's illegal to speak to such a person — I know it, girls. It has made me a criminal. That's what the blind woman has used against me. That and, well, some other things.'
'How did you even know what he was?' Lepida whispered. 'I saw that man — he just looked like a dirty slave to me. Or a beggar.'
Aemilia tried to explain it. 'I had never seen him before in my life. I didn't even know his name. I still don't. But I just knew what he was. He was staring at me so intently, you see. He wanted me to talk to him.'
'But why?'
Aemilia smiled, and in doing so her heart felt lighter still. It seemed so appalling in the bleakness of her circumstances, yet she actually felt happy. She realised the significance of what had befallen her. 'It was destined that he would speak to me — and that the blind woman would overhear it. The gods intended both things to occur. The blind woman's blackmail is not a curse at all, but a blessing, girls. We are destined to prosper from it.'
'The gods?' said Domitia.
'One god — Veiovis, our god of deception. I have learned that he favours us, you see.'
The girls just stared at their mother.
'But he is a very bad god,' said Lepida. 'A lying god…'
'Not for everyone. Behind every lie is a truth.'
'Mother, he is a frightening god — there are vermin in his temple,' said Domitia. 'He doesn't even have priests.'
'Perhaps he has no wish for them?'
The frightened sisters stared into their mother's beautiful brown eyes. Desperation was etched deeply on her soul, but excitement boiled there too. She was balanced on a sword's edge.
