about it. 'Nobody else is enjoying it.'

There was a silence. Claudius blushed even darker and began to stammer in his efforts to excuse himself. 'I–I am sorry — '

'Don't be.'

For the first time in his life, Claudius looked into his grandmother's eyes and saw only good humour there. Then he glanced at me and was confused by my stark look of fear.

'Iphicles was making the same observation,' said Livia. 'Well, he would have made it if he were allowed to speak freely, but he is not, I'm afraid. But I could tell it's what he was thinking.'

Claudius knew there was something going on between us from which he was excluded. 'Yes, Grandmother?'

'No one's enjoying themselves at all, are they? You'd think it was a funeral, not a wedding. It's such a shame Agrippina is too unwell to be among us. I'm sure she'd be voicing her thoughts loud and clear. It's like we're all pretending we approve.'

It took Claudius a second or two to digest what she was saying to him. 'Are we pretending, Grandmother?'

'Well, I'm certainly not, but it seems I'm the only one.' She looked pointedly to me as she continued. 'My great-grandson Drusus's marriage to this girl from such a disgraced family is a sublime match. I congratulate my son the Emperor for arranging it. I also commend him for neglecting to attend. He refuses to leave his island now, did you know?'

Claudius was smiling in his bewilderment.

Livia kept her eyes on me. 'My great-granddaughter Nilla's marriage to the girl's brother is also something to thank the gods for. Apparently, he has next to no career prospects. He looks half-witted. Do you think he really is, or is it just the way the light strikes his dreadful hair?'

A parrot's squawk pulled Claudius from his stare. 'My bird. Excuse me, Grandmother,' he said hurriedly, glad of a reason to leave. 'I'm sure the two unions will work out well for all concerned.'

'Oh, I have absolutely no doubt of it,' said Livia, her eyes still trained on me.

Claudius hurried to the rear of the hall, where his parrot, Fury, flashed its red eyes and beat its wings. A woman and her little girl stared at the bird in fascination. 'Please,' he called out to them, 'do not provoke her — she has been known to give nasty bites.'

'Is it true this bird talks?' asked the mother.

'She hasn't spoken in years,' said Claudius, placing himself in front of the bird protectively. 'Sometimes I doubt she ever did. I think I must have imagined it.' He was keen for them to return to wherever it was they had come from.

'Maybe she'll speak if we ask her nicely?' said the little girl.

'I doubt it,' said Claudius. He went to guide the child away, but when she turned her face to him fully he gave a little gasp and dropped his hand. 'What a beautiful child,' he marvelled, unable to stop himself. Then he blushed scarlet again. 'Forgive me,' he said to the mother.

'My daughter is very beautiful,' the mother said, smiling warmly at him. 'People say it all the time. Yet she's only six. What effect will she have on men at sixteen, I wonder?'

Claudius felt a sense of peace descend as he considered this, gazing at the girl. 'She will be extraordinary,' he offered. He looked to the mother again. 'Do we know each other, madam?'

'I don't think so. But we are guests at the wedding. It is my brother and my sister who are being married.'

'It is my nephew and my niece,' said Claudius.

'Before my widowhood I was Lepida of the Mesalii. Now I am Lepida of the Aemilii again.'

She was the missing 'other sister'. Enchanted, Claudius told her who he was.

Lepida and her daughter bowed

'And who are you?' the beaming Claudius asked the angelic six-year-old.

Fury cocked her head to one side and squawked. 'Messalina,' she answered on the child's behalf, uttering her first words in years.

Echoing her daughter's delighted cries of amazement, Lepida remembered the words of her long-dead mother. 'Always look for the path. Veiovis will offer it, but it is up to you to see what he offers and recognise it for what it is…'

I believed I had an ally in Claudius. He had never treated me harshly and was always thankful when I performed some passing task for his benefit at Oxheads. I stole up to him just as he ushered Lepida and her daughter to their chairs.

' Domine,' I hissed.

Claudius barely saw me.

' Domine!'

'What is it, Iphicles?'

'Help me,' I said. Across the room, Livia snoozed in her dining couch.

Claudius looked awkward. 'What's the matter with you?'

'What are the reasons for it?' I hissed. 'These two inauspicious marriages. They don't make sense. Not one guest here believes in these unions. Only my domina does. Why does she believe? What is behind them? What is the plan?'

Claudius was appalled that my words reached Lepida's shocked ears. 'Iphicles, you speak out of turn.'

I was losing my wits. 'Help me, domine,' I pleaded with him. 'Why does she approve of this? Help me see the truth of what she schemes.'

A scream brought our conversation to an end. Across the hall a high-pitched cry stopped the final words of the double wedding ceremony. The brides and grooms turned to see a dozen Praetorians descending, with Tribune Macro at their head. It was Lygdus who had cried out in terror.

'It's lies!'

Macro struck him across the mouth and he fell. Then he turned to the eunuch's dominus. 'Nero Julius Caesar Germanicus, by the order of the Emperor Tiberius I place you under arrest.'

Nero stood up from his dining couch and looked the Tribune coolly in the eye. He was noble and unafraid, the very image of his murdered father in his prime. 'What is the charge?'

'Gross depravity,' said Macro without expression.

I went pale and glanced at the wedding couples. Drusus looked ill. Had he received my damning notes on his brother's proclivities after all? Had Livia made copies before I ate them?

Nero held out his arms for the chains.

' Domina!' Lygdus screamed from the floor. 'See this, domina! Domina!'

But Livia slept on as they led Nero away. Claudius pushed me aside, disturbed and confused by the turn the day had taken. Ever more bewildered, I stumbled back to the sleeping Livia. She was murmuring with a tone that almost seemed smug.

'Iphicles,' she whispered from her slumber. 'Iphicles…'

Trembling, I leaned my ear to her lips. 'What is it, domina?'

' The third is hooked by a harpy's look — the rarest of all birds …'

I recoiled. The words seemed meaningless, yet they held an inestimable importance.

Livia opened her eyes to look at me. 'A harpy is what the Greeks call a fury, you know.' Then she closed them again, asleep once more.

Across the hall Claudius had eyes only for the beautiful child. At last I experienced the first moment of comprehension I had known for a long, long time.

Claudius was the third king.

Nilla threw the ugly thing hard across the room. 'I will not,' she said. 'It is disgusting.'

Expressionless, the aged maid of the Aemilii, once a devoted servant of the condemned Aemilia, retrieved the wooden Mutinus Tutunus phallus and placed it upright on the bed. 'All women of the Aemilii must give their virginity to the fertility deity, domina,' the maid said without apology. 'It is a tradition of many centuries.'

Nilla wouldn't let herself cry or glance at her silent, naked husband. 'I said it's disgusting,' she repeated. 'Take it out of my sight, and yourself with it.'

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