wound she had made, the blood gushing from the bull's throat into hers.
Yet she knew she would not drown. She knew her bones would not be broken. She knew this was how Cybele would re-enter her, empowering her once again for the tasks ahead.
Livia came to consciousness to find she was lying on the temple floor before the great alabaster statue of Cybele. The eunuchs and the attendants were gone. She was slick with the bull's blood; she had been retrieved from the taurobolium pit with great difficulty. The only way to reach her was by dismembering the bull, and every last drop of the creature's blood had drizzled onto her while they hacked away before she was finally pulled free. This was wholly as Livia had intended.
Reorientated as to where she was, she at once sat up. The withered haruspex was slumped in his place at the statue's base, but now he held the guts of a pigeon in his fists. There was not another living thing inside the temple with them. Livia and Thrasyllus were entirely alone.
'Who is the second king?' Livia asked him.
Thrasyllus told her.
'Who is the child who will rule?'
Thrasyllus told her that too, never opening his eyes as he explained the difference. Livia nodded. These were the same answers she had already received in her dreams.
'Tell me who the goddess lets live and who she lets die,' said Livia. 'Tell me their fates. Tell me the worst of it. Prepare me for what I must do.'
Thrasyllus spoke with a voice that was not his own. 'The son with blood, by water's done, the truth is never seen. The third is hooked by a harpy's look — the rarest of all birds. The course is cooked by a slave-boy's stroke; the fruit is lost with babes. The matron's words alone are heard, the addled heart is ringed. The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding's tongue. The doctor's lad will take the stairs, from darkness comes the wronged, No eyes, no hands and vengeance done, but worthless is the prize. One would-be queen knows hunger's pangs when Cerberus conducts her. One brother's crime sees him dine at leisure of his bed. One would-be queen is one-eyed too until the truth gives comforts. When tiny shoes a cushion brings, the cuckoo's king rewarded. Your work is done, it's time to leave — the sword is yours to pass. Your mother lives within this queen: she who rules beyond you. The end, the end, your mother says — to deception now depend. So long asleep, now sleep once more, your Attis is Veiovis.'
Livia sat still for a long time. She was surprised by very little of what was said and shocked by nothing. At last she rose and made her way towards Thrasyllus. There were tears of gratitude in her eyes.
'The goddess continues to bless my house,' she whispered. 'Thank you, haruspex.' She stooped to where he was slumped against the statue's whiteness and pressed her lips to his eyes. When they opened, it was Cybele herself he saw smiling before him.
'Thank you, Great Mother,' he whispered.
Livia raised her blade and hacked his head from his shoulders with a single slice. The head didn't stop rolling before the flesh had dissolved in front of Livia's eyes. It came to rest at the pit's edge a clean, dry skull. She kicked it inside as she passed, making her way to the door.
In the clear autumn sunlight upon the temple steps two women rose to greet her. She had been expecting them.
'My friends,' said Livia. She kissed Martina first and the sorceress shimmered in the light. She carried a basket of food. 'How thoughtful,' said Livia, taking a piece of bread.
'You look well rested,' said Martina.
'And so I should be.'
She kissed Plancina next, wrapping her fingers around the stumps of her old friend's wrists. 'How have you been getting on with these?'
'As well as can be expected,' said Plancina.
Livia smiled coyly. 'Well, here we all are.'
The three sat together on the steps in the sun and began eating the food.
'Did the haruspex have much to tell you, then?' asked Martina, her mouth full.
'This and that.'
'This and that? So he didn't have much at all?'
Plancina knew her friend better. 'Just look at Livia's shining eyes. Thrasyllus told her a great many things before she cut his head off. Didn't he, Livia?'
Livia had to laugh. 'You read me like a poem, Plancina.'
'Out with it then,' said Martina. 'We haven't got all day.'
Livia told them. When she was done, they sat in silence for a minute more, considering the first of their schemes. When it was planned, another was hatched, and then another quickly afterwards, and then another scheme again. Soon all the plans were in place but one. The food was consumed and they stood up on the steps to leave.
'What about that ball-less prick, your Iphicles?' asked Martina. 'He's got it coming to him, after everything he's done to you.'
Livia coolly agreed. Then she told them what she had in mind for me.
The wicked friends laughed. Both agreed it was apt.
Equirria
October, AD 26
Two weeks later: the freedman Atilius, gamesmaster of the catastrophe at
Fidenae, is sentenced to exile
Naked and glistening with oil, the aged Emperor Tiberius dived from the very highest rock in his grotto into the heated pool of springwater in a strong, graceful arc that was at odds with his advanced state of physical decay. Such athleticism should have killed him, yet it didn't. But if the pool had been in Rome, it would have. In the foul eternal city his body failed him daily, made rank with his stenches and pockmarked with his sores. There, Tiberius would throw the mirrors from his rooms in frenzy, screaming to be rid of his own reflection. But it was pointless. With every creaking step and sharp crack of flatulence his body signalled its imminent demise, and all while his mother gave the appearance of having lost decades. Yet here on the island of Capri Tiberius's destruction seemed less of a certainty. Perhaps it was the 'minnows'?
Tiberius shot to the water's surface, shouting and laughing. The little creatures darted all around him, pecking at his limbs with their tiny puckered lips, nibbling at his privates with their harmless little teeth.
'The darlings!' Tiberius called out in happiness to his beloved Sejanus. The Praetorian Prefect smiled from the side of the grotto pool, his cloak around his shoulders against the chill night air. In the luxury of the heated water Tiberius didn't feel the winter. Nor did his minnows. The Emperor giggled like an infant as they continued pressing their mouths to him beneath the water surface, licking and kissing his flesh. He flung his hands about, splashing and waving, and didn't see which ring it was that flew from his dripping fingers. Sejanus saw. The ring shot high into the air, coming to rest at the edge of the pool. Sejanus stooped to pick it up, while Tiberius began his favourite game of trying to trap an unwary minnow between his knees.
Sejanus moved to where the candles burned in the grotto wall and felt for some soft, fresh wax. He found a likely lump and rolled it in his palm, letting it cool a little. Playfully, Tiberius caught a minnow that was slow in darting away, screaming with laughter as the creature thrashed between his legs.
'You've got to be quicker than that!' Tiberius laughed. The minnow's thrashing lessened, but Tiberius held fast.
Sejanus pressed the ring into the wax and kept it there for a moment, making sure the seal left an impression that was clear. He withdrew it and peered at the result. It was a perfect print. 'Your ring, Father,' he called to the pool.
With only mild consternation Tiberius realised his Imperial seal was missing. 'You have it there?'
'It flew from your finger.'
'I must be losing weight,' said Tiberius. 'My fingers are getting thinner.' He released the minnow from between his knees and swam to the pool's edge. Sejanus handed the ring to him. 'It's all this good living here on Capri,' Tiberius said. 'I'm feeling fitter every day.'
'It's because there is nothing to worry you here, Father,' said Sejanus. 'That's what restores your good health. Rome and its traitors are far away.'
