Nest of Vipers by Luke Devenish Page B

some comfort in the cold floor tiles. They were sobering somehow. They brought her back to the present again, to what she must do in her husband's name. She saw there was a pattern in the floor – one she had never noticed before.
    'Look,' she whispered to her friends, 'dancing skeletons. It's a reminder to enjoy life, since death can come so easily.'
    Sosia gently lifted Agrippina's head from the floor. Agrippina looked up then and saw me waiting for her.
    'Lady,' I said. 'I have good news for you.'
    'Do you?' she said. 'It will have to be something very special for me to consider it good, Iphicles.'
    I stood aside and let her see.
    The tiny girl was clothed now, but she still held tightly to her boy-slave's hand.
    'Mama,' Nilla said. She let go of Burrus and ran forward to hug and kiss the woman she had believed she would never see again. The slave Nymphomidia, Burrus's own mother, wept at her son's side, as Sosia and Claudia now joined in too.
    But Agrippina had no more tears left to give. She clung to the daughter she had long thought drowned, whispering her name. 'Agrippinilla . . . my Agrippinilla,' she said softly. 'My little Nilla.'
    The steward had a smile to split his face in two as Castor returned home from a long morning at the magistrate's courts, accompanied by his nephews Nero and Drusus. Agrippina's reaction at the slave market still weighed heavily upon Castor as he lifted his feet before crouching Lygdus. The young eunuch began removing their leather street shoes, his every movement agony from where the nailed whip had scourged him. He was dressed in a fresh scarlet tunica , to better hide his new wounds.
    'What is it? You look odd,' Castor said, conscious of the pain behind the eunuch's movements.
    Lygdus lingered over his master's liberated feet and saw that the abscess on his master's arch was no better. He cast a glance at the grinning steward, Pelops. There was an understanding in place among the slaves about all that had happened today. 'My back is stiff, domine , that is all,' Lygdus lied.
    The steward grinned all the more as Lygdus began rubbing a salve on Castor's sore foot. 'There has been happy news while you were away, domine ,' Pelops said.
    'Happy?'
    There was a scurry of movement in the atrium beyond the entrance hall, a flap of women's gowns. Castor looked past Pelops and saw that most of the household slaves were assembled in the light-filled central room, kneeling on the floor and looking through to him expectantly.
    'What's the matter with everyone?'
    Tiberia popped her head into the hall. 'Please come inside, Father – we're all waiting for you.' She cast a quick smile at Nero, but the smile he returned was for politeness only.
    Lygdus gave a whimper at having to rush his one and only pleasure – sponging perfumed water over three pairs of bare feet. Castor didn't wait for the slave to dry him. He walked into the atrium after Tiberia, leaving wet footprints behind him as all the servants bowed to the floor.
    Castor laughed. 'What a lot of silliness – what's got into you all?' Then he saw. The two midwives were among the servants. They rose before him, presenting a bundle in fresh, white linen. It was a baby.
    'Your son has been born, domine ,' the senior woman announced. She placed the boy upon the marble floor at Castor's feet.
    A rush of emotion overcame Castor in the surprise. 'I have a son?' He stooped to lift the child, formally accepting the boy, and all the household slaves burst into applause. Lygdus and Pelops joined the throng. The baby stirred and opened his eyes, grumbling a little at the noise. His eyes were perfectly formed, as were his ears, his mouth and his head.
    'The Lady Livilla's labour came early – and very fast,' said the senior midwife. 'It lasted barely three hours. One of the easiest births we've attended, domine .'
    The younger midwife kept her eyes hard on the floor. Antonia had commanded that no mention was to be made by anyone of what else had occurred.