beneath the janitor's box, his back to Nero so that the young dominus couldn't see his relief that he hadn't been exposed. He heard the young man's breath grow heavier and he wondered if Nero had fallen asleep. On his hands and knees, Lygdus poured fresh water from a ewer into the shallow bronze bath and reached to a vase of herbs, tearing off some leaves.
He felt the rear hem of his scarlet tunica being lifted.
Lygdus froze, his eyes fixed on the footbath water and the herbs, his weight on his hands, his fat buttocks raised in the air before his drunken young dominus. Neither said a word as Nero's fingers touched Lygdus's flesh and then hooked beneath the fabric of the loin cloth. Nero gently pulled, and the loin cloth unravelled, slipping to the floor.
One tear, then another rolled down Lygdus's nose and struck the footbath water. He had brought this ultimate shame upon himself, he knew. The young dominus had realised that Lygdus had been outside the house without permission, and now he meant to enjoy him in a manner that was only discussed in shameful whispers. Lygdus knew he would be treated brutally by Nero now, and perhaps even maimed. There was nothing he could do and nothing he could say. His endless suffering would only increase. More tears fell into the bath, and Lygdus cursed himself in his heart for being such a novice in this world, forever misjudging things. To have believed that such a naked approach to the Emperor would ever succeed was a fool's mistake, and he deserved the failure. Now he deserved everything that would come from Nero.
Something snapped in the young eunuch's mind. He span around with anger in his face, pulling his tunica down to cover himself.
'Kill me, domine — I don't want to live if all that's left to me is your prick. Stab me in the guts if you want, but you'll never rape me while I'm alive.'
Nero flushed and fell back into his chair.
There was a long, shocked silence while Lygdus kept his rage-filled eyes on his young master. 'Well, domine?'
He realised that Nero was trembling. In his abject drunkenness Nero had expressed the desire he kept hidden from Rome. This, his darkest secret, he fought constantly within himself, and the sordid lust, never satisfied, grew stronger and ever hungrier within the prison of his heart.
Lygdus saw that Nero was desperate and ashamed and he suddenly understood. The moment was Lygdus's now — the one moment in his life that was unequivocally his. He could choose to show his triumph and humiliate Nero, and then enjoy a few days' intoxicating joy before Nero took the vengeance that would inevitably come. Or he could show that he was discreet and honourable and, if his master was discreet and honourable in return, then Lygdus would not sink so low as to betray him.
Lygdus chose the second option. With a last, loaded look, he lowered his eyes and turned to drag the footbath across the floor and under his young master's feet. Lygdus lifted the right and then the left foot, placing them in the herb-scented water and watching the dust and grime dissolve. Then he began to knead the flesh, gently pressing the arches and squeezing the toes. He glanced up only once and saw that Nero's eyes were now closed. Lygdus returned to his task, and when his heart at last stopped racing, he felt the gradual return of pleasure, however faint.
For all that was loathsome and vile about Nero, he still had handsome feet.
Apicata lay prone in silence as her husband claimed his pleasure from her in the manner that was said to leave the wives of lesser men unhinged. She thought nothing of the degradation — not when her husband was Fortuna's favourite. To Apicata there was only a deep, rich honour in inflaming such lust in her prince. Her body was her husband's to employ in all the ways that pleased him. All that mattered, she whispered to herself through the low, perverted act, was that Sejanus be pleased by all she could give. She drew immeasurable comfort in knowing she was desired. For too long his lusts had seemed perfunctory, his pleasures taken hurriedly upon her body without a word. She had feared she now repelled him and she blamed her eyes for it. Did it repulse Sejanus to penetrate a wife who could not see him? But now her husband had returned to her renewed, and his moans of deep release were cherished companions to her total, tomb-like stillness.
When he was spent, Apicata dripped perfume on all the linens, blocking out the bestial stink of the pleasure. Then she lay next to Sejanus, listening to his breath. He was awake, breathing in the scent.
'Castor has a newborn son,' he said.
'I know.'
Apicata expected him to ask how she knew, given that the child had been born only hours ago. But Sejanus rolled onto his side, turning his back to her. For one delirious moment Apicata started to compose the words in her head that would tell him of the witchcraft and the dreadful, unimaginable curse that now hung over Livilla's newborn child. But when she went to speak of it, she sensed that her husband had drifted off to Somnus. Despair stabbed her, as so often happened when she was left alone in the wake of pleasuring him. Did he love her? Was she really his future queen? Or was she his whore, never called as much to her face, but derided as a whore in his mind? Was that all she was to him?
She thought upon Aemilia again. The matron's magic had great potency, made all the stronger as it came from highborn hands. Apicata resolved to visit the patrician woman a second time.
Apicata resolved to use Aemilia's witchcraft to banish despair from her bed.
The Ides of June
AD 20
One week later: Emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus accepts a Senate proposal that he, Livia, Antonia, Agrippina and Castor be thanked by Rome for avenging the death of Germanicus. At the Emperor's request, Claudius, the crippled brother of Germanicus, is not included in Rome's thanks
'Aemilia, how very kind,' said Antonia approvingly. 'It is nothing at all,' said Aemilia, presenting her birth gift to the Claudian women. 'Look, Livilla, isn't that thoughtful?' Antonia hovered above her daughter in the bed. Livilla made a strained smile from where she rested, nursing her infant son.
'It is nothing,' Aemilia repeated. 'Merely a small token from the Aemilii in expression of our great joy at your happy event.'
Livilla's daughter, Tiberia, perched at the end of her mother's woollen mattress, smiling at Aemilia's accompanying daughters. 'That's very pretty fabric you've wrapped the gift in.'
The sisters smiled back. 'It's silk,' said Domitia.
'Where do you suppose silk comes from?' wondered Tiberia.
'Nobody knows,' said Domitia, 'only that it comes from the East.'
'I heard that it's squeezed out of worms,' Lepida ventured.
Already on edge at the prospect of receiving more presents since the curse tablet, Antonia and Livilla flinched at the thought of something made from worm excrement. 'Well, well… we should see what's inside the pretty fabric then, shouldn't we?' Antonia said. But neither she nor Livilla made any move to touch it.
Tiberia was oblivious. 'Can I?'
A flash of fear passed between Livilla and her mother.
'I'm sure you'll like it,' said Lepida.
'We thought it was very beautiful,' Domitia agreed.
Aemilia smiled, placing her hands on her daughters' shoulders. But her eyes intently watched Livilla in the bed. Livilla clutched her infant son to her bosom, unaware of Aemilia's look. Her eyes were fixed on Tiberia's fingers as the child undid the silken wrap.
'Oh! Look,' said Tiberia. It was a hand-mirror, made from the finest polished silver and decorated at its edges with pieces of aquamarine. Tiberia stared at her own pretty face in it. 'I have never seen one that reflects so beautifully.'
Domitia and Lepida nodded at each other approvingly.
'It's like looking at myself through a window,' said Tiberia. 'It's so very clear.' Then she saw a spot on her chin. 'Why didn't you tell me I had a pimple, Mother!'
'It is only a very small one,' said Lepida, trying to be helpful.
Tiberia covered her chin with her hand, dismayed.
Beaming with relief that the gift was nothing that might have upset the fragile Livilla, Antonia took the mirror
