from her granddaughter's hands. 'It is quite exquisite, Aemilia,' she said, kissing the Aemilii matron on the cheek, 'and chosen with your famous good taste.'
Aemilia accepted the revered Antonia's kiss with affection, but her eyes stayed upon Livilla and the baby.
Antonia brought the mirror to the mound of gladiolus-scented cushions that supported Livilla at the head of the bed. 'See? Isn't it beautiful? Now you can give away your old mirror to one of the slaves …'
Livilla caught sight of her own pale, drawn expression in the reflection, and in doing so saw the precise moment when revelation changed it. A tremor of horror swept her face and she looked up to see Aemilia's beautiful chestnut eyes boring into own, her hands at the waists of her daughters.
'The old mirror had become so tarnished,' Antonia went on. 'You were lucky to see anything in it at all.'
Livilla's jaw snapped shut in terror. She felt unable to breathe. Then it seemed as if her baby son stopped breathing too. Tiny Gemellus went limp in her arms. 'My son…' she tried to say.
Aemilia's eyes gave nothing away. But Livilla looked behind them and saw that they were dead. For the brief moment that her baby's breath left his lungs, Aemilia of the Aemilii had the sightless eyes of a blind woman.
Then Gemellus's chest filled with air.
'Thank you so much, Aemilia,' said Antonia, wholly unaware. 'You really are far, far too kind to us.'
Livilla stumbled into the Palatine street with her mother's bewilderment ringing in her ears. 'No, just… go back inside, Mother.'
'But, Livilla — '
'Go back inside!'
Livilla pulled the front door closed behind her, blocking Antonia from seeing into the street. 'Just tell me what's happened. You're not well enough to go out…' her mother's muffled voice cried from behind the door.
Livilla scanned up and down the busy thoroughfare. 'My litter.. Where is it?' she shouted into the throng. Customers and slave assistants in the shops on either side of her door stared in surprise. 'Don't look at me! Do you know who I am?'
Nervous, they looked at the ground or at their purchases.
'My litter! Why is it taking this long?'
She heard the sounds of running steps and panting men as her official litter came lurching and swaying up the hill in the hands of her six bearers, with her lone Imperial lictor, whose job it was to clear the way, at the head. The men had been summoned at haste from the lecticarii station at the banks of the river and were unprepared for her emergency. The shabby transport was dirty with the mud from recent rains.
'Hurry!' Livilla screamed at them.
The bearers staggered on the cobbles, tripping to a halt where Livilla stood. She spat on the ground in front of them. 'Too long!' She hoisted herself inside. Her abdomen hurt her, still stretched and raw from the birth.
'Where to, Lady?' the panting lictor asked.
'To the House of the Aemilii.'
'There will be an additional passenger,' said Aemilia. The finely boned matron slipped from the shadows of the yew tree where she had been waiting and slid inside Livilla's transport.
'Wait!' Livilla cried. The bearers lifted and then dropped the litter again in confusion. 'Move away — move away from here,' Livilla yelled at the men outside. 'Leave us be in here — and keep anyone else away.'
The lictor took charge of pushing back the bearers and all pedestrians. He thought that his mistress was of unsound mind. A cleared circle soon surrounded the stationary litter.
Livilla stared at Aemilia in horror. 'So it was you?'
'Yes,' said Aemilia. There was genuine sorrow in her beautiful face. 'The blind woman has me in her claws.'
'That foul bitch! Both of you — to curse my unborn child!' Livilla began to weep, until anger stemmed her tears. She clenched her jaw, bearing her teeth.
'He is a beautiful boy, born whole and well,' Aemilia began to say.
'The curse you sent him will haunt him into manhood! I will kill you for this — you know that, don't you? You'll die for this in agony.'
Aemilia nodded. 'I would do the same in your place.'
Livilla could only stare at the fallen woman in incomprehension. 'Why make yourself known to me? Why flaunt your crafts by giving me the mirror as an obscene reminder of what you did to my child?'
'To show you that Veiovis is a two-faced god,' said Aemilia simply. 'The blind woman summoned a deity who delights in deceit, and she is a fool for it. I made a curse tablet for her under duress. Now let me make one for you. Let me promise you that the powers I summoned for the dog Apicata will be nothing to the powers I summon on a patrician woman's behalf.'
Livilla stared at her in fear. Then she twitched the litter curtain to address the lictor holding back the pedestrians. 'Take us to the Aemilii.'
Neither woman said another word for the duration of the short journey. Neither woman took her eyes from the other's delicate, highborn face.
Summania
June, AD 20
One week later: the rebel army of the nomad Tacfarinas resumes hostilities in Numidia, raiding villages and looting extensively
The day was warm but the flesh on Livilla's arms rose as if she were chilled. She clutched her summer cloak about her shoulders, pulling the collar of it up to press against her hair. She took a step forward, and then another, forcing herself to brave the ascent up the damp, moss-covered stairs. She glanced behind her, catching eyes with her eunuch where he waited in the square. She glared at him hard. 'Do not move!' she hissed. 'Do not move an inch until I return for you.'
She turned to look upwards again, and the malevolent temple loomed high before her, vile and foreboding, shrouded in shadow on its densely wooded hill. The sun hadn't touched the temple's doors in all the centuries it had stood in this place, blocked from the rays by glowering, guarding oaks. The stale, dank structure was older than Rome, a relic from Etruscan times, like the sinister god it housed. Sly Veiovis loathed all that was light. The deity of deception demanded that his acolytes worship him in mire.
'Please welcome me, dark god,' Livilla whispered, taking care with each tread on the slimy, uneven steps. 'I am new to your home but the need I have for your love is great. Please welcome me, Veiovis…' She felt the little bag that was slung at her shoulder, and the three precious objects within. She touched them inside the soft leather, reassured by their purpose. She would enter this dark place. She would damn the bitch blind woman to hell.
Loose masonry shifted under her foot and she lost her balance, falling forward with a cry to crack her knee on the blunt step edge. Pain shot through her limb like a spear thrust. She tried to rise, but the agony of it was worse than childbirth.
'Veiovis,' she gasped. 'Admit me, foul god…'
The watching eunuch in the square did not move.
A wind gust whipped the cover from Livilla's head, picking her long, black hair from its pins and tossing it into her eyes, shrouding her. The vast, iron door creaked inwards in the draught, exposing the temple's maw. But nothing could be seen inside. The open door was a sneer, mocking Livilla and enjoying her pain, yet daring her to venture forward to receive more.
She crawled up the remaining steps on her hands and knees, her leg limp behind her. When she reached the temple portico, she dragged herself along on her belly, her summer stola fouled in the lichen and slime.
Livilla reached the door and clawed herself upright, clutching at her precious bag. Her knee throbbed, coursing pain the whole length of her body. She stared into the gloom. There was no light at all. No windows and not a single lit lamp. Only the door admitted the daylight from outside, just as it admitted acolytes.
'Do you see me, Veiovis?' Livilla's eyes began to adjust and the god's blackened bronze statue emerged from the shade. She gasped when she saw it fully. One hand clutched a fistful of lightning bolts, while the other rested on the horned head of a goat. Veiovis's image was that of a god no longer young but not yet elderly. He was neither handsome nor heroic. He was ordinary, dressed in a simple tunica. If Veiovis had been a man, no one would have
