With that, she strode regally to the door, the rays of rosy sunset striking the hump on her back through the open windows. She paused for a second, letting the sun turn the stola fabric a dull orange where it stretched across her deformity. Liking the effect this had upon Lygdus, she gave him a wink. He looked like he was about to be sick.
'Well, I'll be off, then,' she said.
She stole into the corridor and was gone.
I gave no further thought as to how she might leave Oxheads without me to escort her — she'd been pulling similar escape tricks for decades. Likewise, I gave no other thought as to how I might find her again. I was arrogant in my victory; I had won the poison and now held the power of life and death in my hands.
But as Lygdus and I relished our little triumph, we were startled when Martina's head reappeared. 'Let me know when it works, won't you?'
A little thrown, I nodded automatically. But it was only when she had vanished again that it occurred to me she had not been looking in my direction when she made her final words.
She had been looking at my domina.
The blood of twelve good men stained the sand at Flamma's feet, his own blood with them, running from his limbs in streams. Yet still he stood, while none around him did. He was the last left alive. He had dispatched his first opponent in little more than a minute, and the astonished mob demanded he be given another. When that man, too, had joined his colleague in death, another man was thrown at him, and then another and then another, until the mob lost count. Flamma killed them all. Some took little more than seconds, others longer, providing the mob with the spectacle they craved.
At first no one knew his name; few had even listened when it was announced. But as the bodies piled up around him and, from the Imperial box, Castor forbade the slaves to carry them away, the mob demanded to know who he was — this star they had never seen before, who killed his fellow men as easily as mice. When the twelfth and final man was dead, Castor called out the question so that the enthralled and dumbfounded mob would hear the reply and remember it.
'I am Flamma,' he answered.
His name was taken up by all, repeated like an echo around the tiers — like a prayer. Their cherished favourites were barely minutes dead but already the mob had a new star — a shining, freshly painted god to laud in bright graffiti all over Rome. Another cry arose at once: 'Thirteen! Thirteen! Thirteen!'
Castor listened to it build then looked to the exhausted, bloody man staring up at him from the sand. Castor's foot abscess gave him pain but it was nothing, he knew, to what this Flamma must feel, having killed twelve and now facing the mob's demand that he take on a thirteenth. 'They want your fight to go on,' Castor called down to him.
Flamma just nodded, ready, blood trickling into his eyes.
Castor felt for the handkerchief and went to raise his hand to signal that a thirteenth opponent be brought. Then a woman stood up in her seat behind him and held his arm. Flamma saw her whisper in his ear, and as she did so, her hooded veil fell from her head, revealing rings of golden hair. It was Agrippina. Castor's brow creased but she was adamant in what she said to him. Castor nodded at last and Agrippina returned to her chair, folding her hands in her lap but leaving her fallen hood upon her shoulders.
Castor turned to the mob. 'We have a new hero at this Ludi and his name is Flamma!'
The mob was ecstatic.
'But twelve good kills is enough for a hero — Hercules himself stopped at that amount. Flamma is named the Widow's champion!'
The mob reacted with glee to this news.
'So, I say that Flamma has earned a rest,' Castor concluded. 'Let him fight again for us another day!'
There were some howls of disappointment at first, until cries of support for Castor's words — and Agrippina's connection — began to drown out the others. Then sentiment took hold entirely and the arena mob rose to its feet, stamping and screaming and applauding Flamma, while the musicians took their cue to blast upon the tubas and the choir began a reprise of the most popular song.
Flamma's eyes met Agrippina's, where she sat upright and graceful in her chair. She was so very far above him, like the goddess of vengeance that he likened her to, while he was far beneath, her savage beast of prey. But there was pride in Agrippina's eyes, pride in his achievements — pride that she had been the one who had claimed him. Flamma mouthed two heartfelt words to her — 'thank you' — which Agrippina saw and understood with a smile.
Then he gripped his sword in his fingers and plunged it into his chest.
My domina let the little white ball loll upon her tongue, feeling it there and enjoying the sensation of its textured surface. It was hard and strong, but not so strong that it wouldn't shatter if she bit it. She was gentle with this thing — it was precious.
Livia's mouth filled with spittle and the desire to swallow was strong, but this special thing could not be eaten. A string of drool left her lips, gathering at her chin and I saw it — although at this time I had no idea of what she harboured.
'Look at you, domina,' I chastised.
I mopped her face and she wouldn't look at me as I did so. I took this for shame on her part and returned to my place at the wall, feeling the little blue vial safely in the pocket of my tunica as I began to snooze.
My domina waited until my eyes were closed before allowing the little white ball to slip beneath her tongue. There it rested, safe and warm. She had nestled such a thing with her body once before, long ago, when she had mothered a chicken's egg cupped in her hands until a tiny rooster emerged. This new thing was also an egg, and Livia had the will to mother it for the many months required until a very different beast would emerge.
It would be a test of her endurance, but she would pass. She had to.
The baby within this egg would be her saviour.
The Day of Ill Omens
October, AD 21
One month later: the anniversary of the Battle of Arausio
Only those who have never known true disaster use a word like 'catastrophe' with ease, applying it to trivial matters — a ruined hairstyle, an oil-stained gown, a malaria plague in the slave quarters. But those who have suffered through calamity at its worst and survived it remember forever the day that it befell them; the horrors and loss are seared into their minds. If there are enough survivors — and for many catastrophes, this has not been so — the date passes into the shared memory of a nation. In Rome we declare dies nefasti — days of ill omens — when true catastrophes occur. They become annual dates marked on the calendar — to be feared.
On an official level the courts are suspended on the nefasti, and the Senate too; no voting may take place. On an unofficial level some people choose not to leave their beds, spending the day with covers drawn across their faces or in the company of distracting slaves. Others polish their household gods — the Lares and Penates — and say urgent prayers to their family's genius, the spirit that is passed down from their ancestors. But others still — younger people, mostly, and those blessed with arrogance and a belief in their own indestructibility — laugh in the face of such measures and go about their business as they would on any other day.
The third day before the Nones of October is the anniversary of the Battle of Arausio, one of the blackest dies nefasti of them all. On this day, one hundred and twenty-six years before the events I am about to detail, one of the greatest catastrophes in history befell Rome. Two vast armies of the Republic ranged themselves against the marauding Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutoni. The two armies of Rome had two great commanders, Caepio and Maximus, whose bitter personal feud prevented the armies from cooperating. The debacle that ensued saw the destruction of both commanders and over eighty thousand Roman men.
Livilla counted herself among those Romans who paid no heed to dies nefasti. The greatest military loss that Rome had ever known meant nothing to her. Instead, she was merely startled to find the eunuch in the hall.
'Lygdus? Are you serving us again?'
The crouching eunuch's hands hovered over her street shoes, not daring to touch yet. 'If my domina allows it.'
'Aren't you attending my grandmother?'
