Nest of Vipers Read Online Free Page B

patrician. But this was not to be acknowledged out loud, and a sacred tradition as old as Rome itself was crushed underfoot. But at the wedding banquet, once the rites were done, one guest gave expression to the city's feelings, and in doing so brought the union undone.
    It started with a few sprinkles of water. In honour of Mercury, wedding guests reached from their couches to dip their fingers into their water bowls and then let the contents dribble onto their foreheads. It was a joke – Mercury was only acknowledged by merchants on this, the Ides of May, not by patricians. But the barb behind the jest was not apparent to those who picked up on the idea, mimicking the guest who had started it.
    Nero and Drusus, the teenage grandsons of the Emperor, were the first to follow the lead, sprinkling themselves liberally with water. Then their sisters Drusilla and tiny Julilla did so, seated in chairs at the base of the boys' dining couch. Their cousin Tiberia took it up next, plunging her whole hand into a water bowl and letting it dribble on her face as she laughed. Her mother, Livilla, tried to stop her, but Tiberia was enjoying herself too much to listen. The bride and her patrician groom were next, Aelia and Hector, still babies too, despite the wedding that had been thrust upon them. Other guests around the Imperial children followed, and soon water was sprinkling everywhere, making the marble floors slippery.
    Alone among the children, my dominus , Little Boots, remained stony-faced, his hands in his food, his face creasing with the concentration of stripping flesh from a bone. He looked up at me where I stood by his side in faithful attendance, and I nodded at the wisdom of his foresight in not participating with his brothers and sisters and cousins. Little Boots cast a glance at Tiberius. The Emperor sat in a throne with the wedding guests arranged around him. His mind was elsewhere. He could hear the laughter, but he wasn't taking it in. His eyes were on the open windows and the clear spring sky. Little Boots looked back at me again with a smirk and I gave him a shrug, before our gaze went to the Praetorian Prefect, Sejanus, who sat frozen with his blind wife, Apicata, at the parents' couches.
    Sejanus may as well have been as sightless as his wife at this moment. The Prefect was blind to every guest in the room but one: the guest who had first dipped his fingers in the water, in mockery of Sejanus because he was not a patrician.
    Sejanus was equal to Castor in every aspect but one: he did not have the Emperor's blood in his veins. The power, the wealth, the love, trust and loyalty that were Sejanus's by merit from the very first day he had entered Tiberius's life were worthless without this. Castor alone was the Emperor's son, with the blood of the Claudii inside him. Lacking it, Sejanus was only the 'son'. From blood came the heir.
    'I think the god is honoured enough now, don't you?' Castor called out to him. And then, by way of explaining what he had started, he added, 'I couldn't risk offending Mercury for you on this happy day, could I, Sejanus? I remembered just in time what you like to do for Mercuralia.'
    There was a gasp to Sejanus's left. Castor's crippled cousin Claudius had got his meaning, his hand only inches from his own water bowl, and he paled at the naked insult.
    Castor guffawed.
    Mortified, and with his wits already half-pickled in wine, Claudius did the first thing he could think to distract the room's attention. He plucked an early-season grape from a tray of fruit and tossed it high in the air.
    'I'll show you a trick!' he shouted. He turned his face upwards to catch it, shutting his eyes as the grape plummeted, pelting him with a splat. All those around him shrieked with glee at the sheer stupidity of this act, including Sejanus, who was taken by surprise.
    At once the water was forgotten, as guests started scrabbling for grapes of their own. The Emperor's grandsons Nero and Drusus flung the