sheltered his wife. Accordingly, if the wife should make a gift of her virginity to a slave, how could it be seen as wicked in such a home, where the normal rules of morality did not apply? And if this house came with an aged, wizened maid who in the one breath condemned and then abetted those she served, it was surely just another thing to mark it as special among the thousands of homes in Rome.
Held tight in her beloved's arms as he carried her up the stairs, Nilla vowed never to question what this strange marriage might give her.
She heard the gentle rise and fall of Burrus's chest beside her in the bed and knew that he was sleeping. Careful not to wake him, Nilla slipped from the sheets and lowered herself upon the low marble bowl that stood behind a screen at the end of the room. She prepared to wash herself, as she had once been shown — the means to prevent a pregnancy. But as she placed her fingers in the water, an object caught her eye. A tiny length of lead, jammed in a crack between the floorboards.
The water dripped from her hand and Nilla leaned forward to try to dislodge the thing, not knowing why it compelled her so fully. The lead did not come loose easily; she had to prise it free with her nails. When she finally held it in her hand, it had surprising weight. She saw that it was really a flattened tablet that had been folded once and then again. She used her nails to open it, feeling certain, somehow, that she should see what was inside.
The tablet held a message, scratched into the surface with a pin. But the writing was reversed. Not knowing how or why she sensed what to do so exactly, Nilla held up the tablet before the polished silver surface of a mirror. The message became clear at once. The course is cooked by a slave-boy's stroke; the fruit is lost with babes.
The words seemed meaningless. She returned to the bed she shared with Burrus and did not use the water bowl again.
Nilla succumbed to her dreams with her hands pressed gently to her belly.
The Ides of January
AD 29
Ten months later: crushed by the weight of Roman taxes, the Frisian tribe of Lower Germany hang the officials sent to collect them
Tiberius recognised his own seal upon the Senatorial document that had come with the afternoon correspondence. His mark was unmistakable — it could only have come from his hand — yet he recalled nothing of the edict it authorised. His memory told him he had never seen this document before, and yet here it was, a distressing directive, stamped with the print of the ring that did not leave his finger. He must have authorised it, but why? What proof had he been given that made it necessary?
He looked around for Sejanus to enlighten him, but the Prefect was nowhere in sight. Only Tribune Macro was in attendance.
'You there,' called Tiberius from his couch on the terrace.
Macro came forward, raising his hand in salute.
'My grandson Nero,' said Tiberius. 'I am fond of him.'
'Yes, Caesar.'
'He is a fine boy. A very promising future. I may make him my heir.'
'Yes, Caesar,' said Macro, his face giving nothing away.
Tiberius pointed at the edict. 'He's been exiled to Pontia. That barren island where his uncle Postumus died.'
Macro's expression stayed the same.
'Why should I wish to be rid of my grandson? It's his mother who is the menace, not he. He is blameless.'
Tiberius tried to keep his eyes focused hard on the Tribune's face, but his vision blurred. He badly needed the Eastern flower but he didn't want the Tribune to witness him drinking it. 'What was his crime?' he went on, struggling to stay alert. 'What did the boy do?'
Macro watched the Emperor's eyelids droop. It was time to give the answer he had prepared for this moment. 'It is news to me that such a popular and promising young man as Nero should have fallen like this, Caesar,' he said, betraying nothing of the truth — which was that he had been the arresting officer. 'It shocks me. I cannot imagine what must have occurred for exile to be ordered.'
'But I have ordered it,' said Tiberius in bewilderment. 'Here is my seal.'
'I know nothing of it,' Macro repeated. His face, he hoped, showed enough affront on the Emperor's behalf that Tiberius would see him as an ally. He gave just the right length to a pause. 'But Prefect Sejanus will recall the details, I am sure, Caesar.'
'Yes.' Tiberius studied the Imperial ring on his hand. 'Find your superior for me, Tribune. Tell him I am confused by this matter and wish for his help in clarifying it.'
Macro's face creased.
'Well?'
'Prefect Sejanus is no longer on Capri. He has returned to Rome.'
Tiberius stared at Macro in confusion. 'Not here?' Then he remembered himself; it would not do for the Tribune to see that he had not known of this. 'Of course, of course. That will be all.'
Macro bowed and departed, pleased at how the scene had played out.
Alone, Tiberius gulped from his goblet, his tired eyes finding focus again. A flock of migrating birds took his attention, high up in the sky. He squinted to look at them. They were geese.
'No!' he hissed at them. 'No!' He pulled his eyes from the sky and turned his back on the birds to drink from his draught, blocking them out.
But the insistent honks drew him to look up again. The birds were tiny against the horizon.
'Go away!' Tiberius cried out. 'Don't come back! What else are your warnings to me but falsehoods? Lies!'
I had grown so used to spending my hours in Livia's suite with my face pressed hard against the floor that I no longer registered the discomfort of it. The prone position, intended to humiliate me, had become my natural stance. I took to it willingly, throwing myself to the tiles whenever my domina entered and letting out cries to suggest I was suffering, even though I was not. She was pleased by these displays, no longer needing to waste her words in commanding me to adopt poses of supplication.
I became creative in my methods of debasing myself before her. Unhappily, I was forced to reject excrement as a pillow, unless I was out in the open air where the stink would not offend. Instead, I choose fragments of glass, sharp rocks or little tacks to lay my body upon, pressing my bare limbs and cheeks against the torment they provided. I always ensured my domina observed my mattress of choice before I prostrated myself, so that she might increase my debasement by walking upon me or laying weights upon my back.
My enslavement to Livia was more complete than it had ever been through our long lives together. I had foregone every aspect of the humanity I had acquired in her eyes. I was no longer a living thing. My every accomplishment and privilege had been removed from me. Dogs enjoyed greater status now. I was of lesser consequence than a toad or a gnat.
As I spent the hours unmoving upon the floor of my domina 's sleeping room with my myriad wounds beginning to scab, I congratulated myself on the unforeseen consequences of all I had done. I had taken actions that were repellent in a slave, after all. I had thought for myself, instead of bowing to others' thoughts. I had forgotten my place and now was receiving my just reward. I had not foreseen it, which in itself was evidence that correction was required. And now that the consequences were upon me, they were truly exquisite. I, who had never wanted anything for myself other than enslavement, had attained the true zenith of my state.
Part of my torment, as Livia intended, was that I should witness her resumption of her affair with Sejanus. With my violations of her body now a distant memory, my domina wanted the pleasures that her lover enjoyed to be the sharpest thorn in my side. Forbidden to look and allowed only to hear, I wept like a child when Sejanus's cries of ecstasy reached their loudest, a cruel reminder of all I had lost. But this was what my domina demanded and so I imprinted his moans in my mind, coming to know their pattern. The gentle sighs, then the boyish panting; the building groans and the rush of joy. It was like the carefully erected structure of a poem or a hymn: reverent and tender to begin with, becoming urgent for the middle parts before the triumph of the end. I would ease in and out of consciousness, my domina 's lovemaking with Sejanus like a too familiar song, played always by the same
