downing the rest. His nerves vanished, and with them his doubt. He felt invincible once again. His imminent tribunitia potestas felt truly earned.
A pleasant buzzing filled Sejanus's ears, as though the anteroom had grown into a garden and bees now flitted among the flowers. The Senators' words floated in the air like specks of pollen, some reaching him, some not. He heard a letter from Tiberius being read out by the leader of the house. Sejanus stood. The Emperor's words reached him, but not their meaning.
'… my former friend… murderous plotting… family of Germanicus…'
The great temple fell into silence. Sejanus guessed his cue. He stepped from the anteroom and into the midst of the Senators, saluting and smiling.
Emboldened by the lack of Praetorians, the highborn men surged forward to order the vigiles to arrest him.
The ugly lavatory slave shook with terror. He covered his ears, which, although deformed, still heard the shrieks of violence clearly. The screams in the Forum dulled, replaced by a worse sound: the voice of the long-dead Senator.
' If the German revolt had spread to my brigades, Tiberius would never have kept his throne…'
He heard his own response — ' Really, domine?' — and remembered the malicious intent he had hidden.
' It would have tipped the balance — too many against him. But I kept my lot loyal and he kept his crown. So you're right, boy, Tiberius really does owe me one…'
'It's not fair!' the ugly slave cried out. 'It's not fair! I hardly got anything for it. Just a few silver coins. That doesn't make me one of them!'
He tried to shut his eyes to squeeze the voice from his head, but it intensified his guilt. He ripped his hands from his ears, only to hear the Forum screams louder than before. Every person who had profited from accusations of treason was being dragged across the flagstones to their deaths. Men or women, it made no difference; freeborn or slave. Children would see no mercy either. Hundreds of Sejanus's clients had already been beheaded, and they were the lucky ones, having been caught and dispatched by the vigiles in the very first wave of reprisals.
But those who had hidden or fled were less fortunate, having to face the rage of the mob, which now flung them into fires or ran them through with spears before their heads were lopped off. A list of any and all persons remembered by victims of Sejanus as having prospered from accusations of treason was being compiled. Years of court records were being raked for every trial witness. How long, the ugly little lavatory slave wept to himself, would it be before they got to his name and read his lowly occupation?
He flew down the flight of steps into the toilet room, slamming the iron gate behind him while fumbling for the key. He tried to stretch through the bars and lock the gate behind him, but the key would only turn from the outside, the need never having been foreseen to lock it from within. He couldn't reach. The key slipped from his sweat-dripping fingers, clattering on the steps. 'No!' He had to throw open the gate again to retrieve it.
How long until they remembered him? How long until his name joined the list? 'Hurry!' he screamed at himself. 'Hurry!' He had the key at the lock once more but still it would not turn. He nearly pissed in his fear. Then he thought of another way to save himself. If they found the building locked, they would guess he was cowering inside anyway. But if he left the gate wide open, just as it always was, the mob would find the lavatory empty. They would never guess where a skinny slave could hide.
He stumbled into the room and saw the very seat the long-dead Senator had taken. It had the widest of all the openings, and the one best suited to a man of broad stance. It was the best hole to slip through. The ugly slave mounted the foot rests and slipped his legs into the gap, ready to drop to the sewer. But shooting flames suddenly burned the hair from his legs. He shouted with pain. A little papyrus boat was in the water below him, loaded with burning leaves. The slave dropped, crushing the burning vessel in the water beneath him.
'You fucking cunt, Duro!' he screamed into the blackness of the cloaca maxima. 'It's the last time you do it to me, hear? The last fucking time!'
'You're right about that.'
The lavatory slave span around. Duro, the slave from the lavatory at the Forum's opposite end, was holding a knife.
'It's the last of anything for you, cocksucker.'
The ugly slave's corpse spilled into the Tiber along with the rest of the filth from the cloaca maxima. There it joined the scores of other dead — masters and slaves, magistrates and criminals, gladiators and mangons, prostitutes and praetors — all those in Rome who had, in any way, however miniscule, profited from Sejanus's reign.
Fearful of the screams from the streets, but forbidden to look out to determine what was causing them, Tiberia stood timidly at the door to her grandmother's room. Antonia, supervising the packing of her possessions, didn't see the girl.
'Grandmother?'
Antonia acknowledged her but didn't stop. 'So much to do, child. And time so precious.'
'Grandmother, please — '
Antonia saw the confusion in Livilla's daughter's face and came over at once, thinking she knew what troubled her. 'We have talked of this, Tiberia,' she said, kissing her granddaughter, 'and I know how it pains you, but the Emperor needs me.'
'Yes, I know,' Tiberia tried to say.
'I can only stay in Rome for as long as it takes me to pack up my household. Then I must return to Capri permanently. My guidance is needed. The Emperor's hand is so burdened.'
'Yes, Grandmother, I understand everything, and I think it is so noble what you are doing for Rome.'
Antonia glowed. 'Thank you, child.'
'That is not why I'm here. Two women have come to the house to see you.'
'I have visitors?'
'They have come alone through the streets, at great risk to themselves, with all this… disorder going on.'
'They are unescorted?' Antonia was wary. 'They sound like lowborn women. Tell the steward to send them away.'
'One has a patrician's voice, and the other is well-spoken too. They are not rabble.'
'Then what are their names?'
'They would not say.'
'Then what makes them think I will see them? Who on earth are these women?'
Tiberia wished she could rub the unsettling image of the visitors from her mind. 'The patrician woman, she has no hands, Grandmother,' she whispered. 'And the other… well, she cannot see.'
Something stirred Antonia's recognition. 'Did they say what they want?'
'They claim they have something of urgent importance to tell you.'
From the street below came the sound of renewed screaming. Another name on the list had been found by the mob. 'Send them to me,' said Antonia, blocking out the noise.
When the packing slaves had been dismissed and Plancina and Apicata had been admitted to Antonia's presence, the two visitors bowed.
Antonia couldn't take her eyes from the scarred stumps of Plancina's wrists.
'You remember me, Antonia?'
'Of course.' She gathered her dignity, forcing herself to look Plancina in the eye. 'Your late husband was tried for murdering Germanicus, my son.'
'He was blackmailed to murder him,' said Plancina, sidestepping the truth that it was she who had been coerced into the crime. 'Blackmailed by Sejanus and then forced into suicide.'
Antonia said nothing, but the events of recent weeks had disposed her to believe this.
'And here is Apicata,' Plancina said, pushing forward the sightless woman within whose arm she had threaded her own. 'She is Sejanus's discarded wife.'
'I know who she is,' Antonia said.
'Then did you know your daughter Livilla is Sejanus's secret lover?'
Antonia flushed with shame. 'I have learned of it.'
Outside the door, where she eavesdropped without being seen, Tiberia threw a hand to her lips, her shocked
