Free Domina (Paul Doherty Historical Mysteries) by Paul Doherty Page A

overlooking a dusty courtyard. I was invited there as soon as she returned. She lay on a couch beneath the window, leaning against the headrest, staring up at the ceiling, her sandals and shawl tossed on the floor. She tapped the side of the couch.
    ‘Come here, Parmenon.’
    I stared. Yesterday I had been wandering the narrow lanes of Rome, and now a member of the imperial family was asking me to sit on the edge of her couch.
    ‘Come on!’ she urged. ‘Sit here! I won’t bite you.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘Yet!’
    I took a step forward.
    ‘No, first open the door, quickly! See if anyone’s in the corridor outside.’
    I obeyed but the gallery was empty. Dust motes danced in the pale afternoon sun which streamed through one of the high windows. I closed the door.
    ‘Again!’ Agrippina whispered. ‘Open the door quietly and look down! Do it quickly, quietly!’
    I obeyed but still saw no one there. I closed the door and she beckoned me over. I sat on the edge of the couch and stared down at her. She looked even more beautiful: her eyes had turned a dark blue, her skin had the sheen of porcelain, her lips seemed fuller and redder. I wondered what it would be like to kiss her.
    ‘If Livia was still alive,’ she murmured, pulling herself up and resting on her elbow, ‘and she walked through that door, you’d be strangled and I’d be off to exile. You’re uncomfortable, aren’t you? You are almost sitting with your back to me, having to twist your neck round. Do you know who taught me that? Livia! She had a genius for making people feel uncomfortable: she taught me a lot more as well.’ She gently pushed me off the couch. ‘Kneel down.’
    She sat on the edge of the couch, and I knelt on the floor before her. I could have refused, I was a free-born Roman citizen, but I was fascinated. I had never expected this to happen. Agrippina clasped her hands before her.
    ‘You are Parmenon,’ she began. ‘And you are related very slightly, may the Gods be thanked, to that human spider, that vile viper, the Prefect Aelius Sejanus. He’s a very, very dangerous man, Sejanus. Our Emperor’s dark shadow! A man of infinite ambition. You know he wants to be Emperor? Oh yes! He has pretensions enough. After all, if the line of Caesar can produce an emperor why not that of Sejanus?’
    ‘Yes, but—’ I protested.
    ‘But, but what?’ she mimicked. ‘Who’s in the way! Livia’s been dead two years. My father twelve!’
    ‘Your brothers?’
    ‘Drusus is in prison. He’s been lowered into a pit called the Sepulchre. Sejanus arranged that. They are going to starve him to death. And Mother? You are going to ask about my mother, aren’t you?’ she continued. ‘And my other brother Nero. Well, I’ll tell you where they are. Nero’s in Pontia and Mother’s on Pandateria, a little island. They say she’s gone mad, and they had to restrain her so forcibly she lost an eye. Can you imagine that, Parmenon? The kinswoman of Caesar Augustus, with her eye knocked out by a centurion, being force-fed by sweaty ex-gladiators, and roaming the rocks like a mountain goat?’
    ‘What about young Gaius?’ I replied.
    ‘Oh, you mean “Little Boots”. Well, he’s with the old fox in Capri. Only the Gods know what’s happening to him. Anyway!’ She moved a lock of hair away from her forehead. ‘I’ve told you enough. You can now trot back to Sejanus and report all the juicy bits.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Go on!’
    I remained kneeling.
    ‘Go on!’ she repeated.
    ‘If I do, you die!’
    ‘Aye, Parmenon, and so do you.’ She ruffled my hair with her fingers. ‘We are both trapped, aren’t we? You go and tell Sejanus’s minions what I have said and I’ll join my mother, or brother, on some lonely island.’ She pointed to the floor. ‘Or my other brother Drusus in the cells below. As for you, Parmenon, as time passes Sejanus will start to wonder. Why should young Agrippina open her heart to a stranger? Can