Mater Familias, Antonia, PG-13
Title: Mater Familias
Author: vermin_disciple
Fandom: I, Claudius (leaning more towards mini-series-verse than book-verse)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon character death
Word count: 2,800
Prompt: 102) I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. -- Annie Dillard. This fit incredibly well with the original story I was writing, but that, unfortunately, crashed and burned. For this one I really didn't use it at all.
Summary: Antonia executes her daughter, and tries to live with her disappointing son.
Author's Notes: I've been threatening to write I, Claudius fic for years, due to my slightly scary love for the book, the mini-series and Roman history in general. This was a lovely excuse to finally post some. The first few lines of dialogue have been stolen directly from Episode 8: Reign of Terror, just after the fall of Sejanus. Many thanks to dbassassin for beta-reading, and to gehayi for running this thing so well every year. Many apologies for my incredible and inexcusable lateness.
"Until she dies."
It was the first time she had been able to say the words. Two strong slaves had dragged Livilla into that room and barred the door, and she had not said a single word. Her face was more lifeless than a marble bust and she'd dismissed the servants with a nod. She hadn't looked at Livilla's face at all.
She could sense her son's horror at her response, though she found that she couldn't look at him either. "Dies? Dies?" Claudius' voice nearly broke when he said the word. As expected, he proved himself pathetic in a crisis. "Have you g-gone mad? She's your daughter. How can you leave her to die?"
"That's her punishment."
"How can you bear to sit out here and listen to her?" There was condemnation in his voice, and while condemnation was surely what she deserved, he was the last person on earth entitled to judge her. Perhaps that was a punishment, as well.
"And that's mine," she said. "Leave me Claudius. I shan't move from here until they open that door and find her dead. Leave me."
He did as he was told, though not without much weeping and carrying on. Weak. Always weak. Germanicus would not have wept like a girl over grim but necessary actions. Claudius was not fit physically for military service, but why couldn't he compose himself like a soldier, show a soldier's mental constitution? Why did he have to prove himself, over and over again, to be emotionally unfit as well?
Not more than a few minutes after Claudius' limping egress, another howling figure stormed into the room, and for one brief and terrible moment Antonia was sure it was one of the Furies, come to exact vengeance. But it was only Aelia, odious Aelia, her son's nominal wife and her nominal daughter-in-law. Livilla screeched louder, as if in response, and they were as two dogs goading each other across a dividing wall. Aelia did not appear to notice. She flung herself at Antonia's feet.
"He won't do anything- he won't help me- you have to- you must tell him, you must make him do something. I'm his wife!" Antonia wrenched her gown out of Aelia's shaking hands, and crossed her arms, gazing down at her without pity.
"My son's affairs, such as they are, are not my concern."
At this, Aelia raised herself to her knees, a flash of her familiar self-importance glimmering in her eyes. "I'm your daughter-in-law, and you have a duty to me, same as he does."
Under different circumstances she might have laughed. In the entirety of Claudius's marriage, she had seen her supposed daughter-in-law only three times. On each of those occasions, Aelia had addressed them as though they should be grateful to be in her presence; as if she, merely by standing near them, elevated them to new, exalted heights. Antonia had not been impressed. While Claudius might only reach a great height if someone decided to throw him off of one, she was a daughter of Marc Antony and a niece of Augustus, and a woman of lower birth experiencing a whim of Fortune would do well to remember that.
"I have no duty," she said, never moving from her chair, "to an enemy of Rome."
Aelia crumpled at this, and wailed. "I've never had a treasonous thought in all my life."
"I don't doubt that this is the first time your brother's actions have caused you any great distress. You were content to benefit from the bodies gathered at Sejanus' feet; now you should be content to lie down on the pyre he has built for you. For you, and for himself, and for every wretch who stood by him while he degraded the law for his own purposes."
Aelia tensed and pulled herself away, slowly rising to her feet. "Do you count your son among those wretches?" she snapped. "I've never known a man so adept at 'standing by.'"
The stupid girl obviously expected this pronouncement to rattle her. Why should that come as a shock, when even a woman who had not spent more than a few days with him could see how useless her son was? She looked Aelia in the eye and said, evenly, "My son's affairs are not my concern."
Livilla chose that moment to scream for Aelia. She beat the door and begged her friend to save her from her horrid mother, and Aelia froze. Aelia took in the scene with new, startled comprehension, and opened her mouth several times in quick succession, like a gasping fish. Then she departed, apparently too concerned with her own problems to take on anyone else's. That was the last time Antonia ever saw her.
*
This is the way they would destroy a Vestal Virgin who had broken her most sacred vows. This fact had not escaped her. A Vestal, even a ruined Vestal, has a body inviolate, not to be marred by human hands. So the wrongdoer is led into a chamber with a crust of bread, locked in until she has died. In this way men delude themselves into believing that the matter rests entirely in the hands of the gods.
Antonia had no such delusions. The door was locked at her command. Food was cut off at her command. The room had been purged of all sharp instruments, lest Livilla attempt to reclaim her honor through suicide. Antonia would not allow her the feigned nobility of such a cheap gesture. She would not allow her daughter to paint herself as the next Lucretia, to make mockery of brave and virtuous Romans by trying to add herself to their ranks. There were no brave and virtuous Romans left in this world. Sometimes she thought there were no Romans left at all, merely a race of contemptuous vultures, hovering over a corpse of former glories.
*
After the first hour, she told one of the servants to bring her a stool from the kitchen. Soft couches and fine cushions were inappropriate in these circumstances, and she would not have them. She sat perched on this bare wooden tripod like a priestess of Apollo poised to make a grim pronouncement. After the departure of her son and his so-called wife, she spoke to no one, and kept herself straight-backed and rigid, staring at the wall.
Claudius was right; the screaming from the room behind her was unbearable.
The servants retreated to perform whatever duties they could invent for themselves on the far side of the house. An imperious glare from her might have been enough to send them off, but Antonia knew that the screaming terrified them more. It was only right that they should be so unsettled, and she did not want anyone near her now, in any case. She was a fair mistress, strict but never cruel; but now they knew exactly how far she was willing to go to maintain order and virtue in her house. Servants should not have any illusions about their masters, if they were wise.
The stool was uncomfortable, and her knees were growing stiff. So were her fingers, which were clenched and tangled in the soft fabric covering her thighs. The first hour, she kept her arms crossed and dug her fingernails into her forearm. She did not switch to worrying her gown until she saw the blood.
The screaming was unbearable. She had never been a creature of desires, and she had always kept her wants strictly in check. Today, more than anything she had ever wanted before, she wanted to leave this house, she wanted to retreat into her room, she wanted to hide her head beneath a pillow like a child frightened by thunder.
The screaming was unbearable, as it should be. But it must be borne.
*
It was two days before she saw her son again. He was as cowardly as the servants, hiding in some back corner, sniveling over the sorry state of the empire. Well, at least he occasionally got his priorities right.
Claudius slunk into the room, edging too close to the wall at first, as if didn't want to come near the door she was guarding. She suspected that he didn't want to come anywhere near her. He was carrying a round loaf of bread and some cheese, cradled precariously in his clumsy arms. He stumbled forward, his bad leg protesting the move. Antonia didn't sigh or roll her eyes, but she didn't stop staring vigilantly at the opposite wall for longer than it took to take in his presence.
"I've, uh, brought you some food." Hesitation was evident in his voice, but to his credit he didn't stammer. The door behind her was ominously silent.
"You may set it on that table, there," she said, inclining her head. "And leave me be."
"And will you actually eat any of it?"
"If I'm hungry for any of it, yes. I've done perfectly well taking care of myself all these years, Claudius, and I'm not so senile that I need you to look after me now."
"Mother," he said, sighing. "You can't just w-waste away, out here, like…" Like Livilla is doing in there, he did not say.
"I have no intention of doing that," she snapped. "And what are you doing carrying that around like a peasant wife at the markets? What do you think we have servants for? Send one of them, if you're going to insist on taking undue interest in my eating habits."
Something in this exchange awakened the weak voice in the makeshift cell. "Claudius… you must do something, you're the head of the household… she's gone mad…" The voice was faint, and strained, and sounded nothing at all like Livilla's sharp tongue.
Claudius was clearly rattled. "I'll keep that in m-m-mind," he said, eyes flickering between her and the door. "Sorry to have disturbed you."
After he left, Antonia thought she could make out soft weeping behind her. It didn't last long.
*
Claudius made a third appearance, at some point after she had lost track of the number of hours that had passed her by. She slept only when she could no longer keep her eyes open, paying no heed to the position of the sun or moon. The room was entirely silent now, aside from her own steady breathing, and the occasional rustle of fabric as she repositioned her stiff legs. Claudius hobbled into the room with more confidence this time; at least he wasn't slinking against the back wall.
It surprised her to see that he was wearing a dark cloak, as if he'd been travelling. He paused to pick absently at a frayed hem before raising his head to examine her, searching her face as if it was one of his historical references. She met his eyes this time, because the only thing that could make this situation more intolerable was loosing face in front of her own child.
Her only child. This knowledge had been with her, of course, but for the first time she gave it real consideration. This is my only child. This pathetic creature was all that remained of her poor, gracious, courageous Drusus. In that moment of realization, she had never loathed him more.
That was a dreadful thing for a mother to think, so she greeted him with more politeness than she'd managed in a long time, though her voice was as stiff as her knees.
"I've been to the forum," he said, without preamble. A note of revulsion edged into his voice. "From the emperor's perspective, I suspect the purge is going well."
She had lived in army camps, surrounded by soldiers. Many things went on near her and around her that she was not supposed to see. But she was not naïve; she had seen more of the world than a young noblewoman was meant to. Her vivid imagination could call this latest horror to life, like some morbid invocation of the Muses: bodies in the basilicae, severed limbs pushed into the gutters, blood on the Senate steps…
Claudius' face said everything, and his voice said more. The weariness had conquered the tears. This ought to be a stoic front masking the fierce heat of anger and the agony of despair, but this blankly sardonic grimace was something else entirely, raw and bleak.
"The emperor," she said, "deals only in atrocities. So he does not know how to punish the atrocities of others; he can only create worse atrocities, as if to out-do them."
"He could arrest you for treason, for saying a thing like that."
"And would, I don't doubt it."
"Well, I'm not p-planning to tell him, so I think you're safe."
"I doubt he'd believe you, in any case." He was smiling at her now, sadly and absurdly. She changed the subject. "What has become of Aelia?"
"She's still alive. I don't think she's in any more danger, at the moment."
"Good," Antonia said. "You'll have to divorce her, of course. That's not a connection your reputation can stand. And not one you should have sullied yourself with in the first place."
"I know. Of course, I know." He rubbed his temple, sighing. "I'm going to g-give back her dowry in its entirety." He looked as if he was expecting this to be met with rebuke.
But for once Antonia understood him. "That's seems perfectly acceptable, under the circumstances."
The concession seemed to surprise him. She wondered if it was because he'd been hoping to be talked out of it or if it was merely because she was the one agreeing with him. Sometimes she suspected that it was impossible for parents and children to understand one another entirely. The gods alone knew how little she understood hers: one dead, one dying, one who hardly lived at all.
She had once been so full of expectations for them.
Before he left, Claudius bent to kiss her cheek and grasped her hand clumsily. He glanced at the door, swallowed, and half-whispered, "Is she…?"
"I don't know." And that, for the time being, was the end of that.
*
Antonia was the first to enter the room. She made sure of that. After the slaves had unbarred the door, she made them step aside while she opened it. Claudius, to his credit, put a hand on her shoulder in what he must have thought was a comforting way, and tried to accompanied her. She shook him off and wordlessly made him stand back.
The room was in a sorry state. The crashes and bangs she had heard from her post had been very telling, so the damage did not shock her at all. A Greek vase had been smashed with particular enthusiasm, sending black and red shards out across the whole room, until they seemed a part of the floor mosaic. Little vials of cosmetics, made from fine Egyptian alabaster, had been knocked from a table that had once held the now shattered mirror. Some jars must have held perfume; the room stank of myrrh and roses.
Livilla had retreated to her bed. The stiffness of death had already taken hold; it would no doubt be easier to wrap the body in the coverlet before carrying it out, rather than attempting to disentangle her from it. Antonia ran her fingers across the finely embroidered fabric, tracing the faces of Bacchus and Ariadne at their seaside wedding. It ought to be burned. Such a waste of a beautiful thing.
She didn't touch the body itself, not for a long time. Antonia stared for an eternity, and thought, The Furies will hound me for such an act. She almost welcomed the idea; after all, she was the woman who gave birth to such a daughter. She had raised this creature to adulthood, and kept her eyes averted all the while, as if afraid to see snakes grown in place of hair.
But there were no snakes here now. Livilla's hair was loose and limp, her pale face wiped clear of make-up. Not some monstrous legend from the age of heroes, but a foolish girl who had grown into a malicious woman. Malice and wickedness and murder: these were the properties of men as well as monsters.
Claudius sat down quietly beside her on the bed. She did not notice him until he placed his hand on hers. When she looked back, he was weeping. Weak. Foolish. Pathetic. Intolerably weak. But she didn't say any of it. Instead she grasped his hand tightly in hers and pulled it gently to her lap, as if he were a child crying over his sister's unjust bullying, and not a grown man crying over his sister's justifiable death.
That was what this was, she reminded herself firmly: Justice.
If it left her feeling hollow and cold, then she had no one to blame but herself.
Finis
Author: vermin_disciple
Fandom: I, Claudius (leaning more towards mini-series-verse than book-verse)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon character death
Word count: 2,800
Prompt: 102) I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. -- Annie Dillard. This fit incredibly well with the original story I was writing, but that, unfortunately, crashed and burned. For this one I really didn't use it at all.
Summary: Antonia executes her daughter, and tries to live with her disappointing son.
Author's Notes: I've been threatening to write I, Claudius fic for years, due to my slightly scary love for the book, the mini-series and Roman history in general. This was a lovely excuse to finally post some. The first few lines of dialogue have been stolen directly from Episode 8: Reign of Terror, just after the fall of Sejanus. Many thanks to dbassassin for beta-reading, and to gehayi for running this thing so well every year. Many apologies for my incredible and inexcusable lateness.
"Until she dies."
It was the first time she had been able to say the words. Two strong slaves had dragged Livilla into that room and barred the door, and she had not said a single word. Her face was more lifeless than a marble bust and she'd dismissed the servants with a nod. She hadn't looked at Livilla's face at all.
She could sense her son's horror at her response, though she found that she couldn't look at him either. "Dies? Dies?" Claudius' voice nearly broke when he said the word. As expected, he proved himself pathetic in a crisis. "Have you g-gone mad? She's your daughter. How can you leave her to die?"
"That's her punishment."
"How can you bear to sit out here and listen to her?" There was condemnation in his voice, and while condemnation was surely what she deserved, he was the last person on earth entitled to judge her. Perhaps that was a punishment, as well.
"And that's mine," she said. "Leave me Claudius. I shan't move from here until they open that door and find her dead. Leave me."
He did as he was told, though not without much weeping and carrying on. Weak. Always weak. Germanicus would not have wept like a girl over grim but necessary actions. Claudius was not fit physically for military service, but why couldn't he compose himself like a soldier, show a soldier's mental constitution? Why did he have to prove himself, over and over again, to be emotionally unfit as well?
Not more than a few minutes after Claudius' limping egress, another howling figure stormed into the room, and for one brief and terrible moment Antonia was sure it was one of the Furies, come to exact vengeance. But it was only Aelia, odious Aelia, her son's nominal wife and her nominal daughter-in-law. Livilla screeched louder, as if in response, and they were as two dogs goading each other across a dividing wall. Aelia did not appear to notice. She flung herself at Antonia's feet.
"He won't do anything- he won't help me- you have to- you must tell him, you must make him do something. I'm his wife!" Antonia wrenched her gown out of Aelia's shaking hands, and crossed her arms, gazing down at her without pity.
"My son's affairs, such as they are, are not my concern."
At this, Aelia raised herself to her knees, a flash of her familiar self-importance glimmering in her eyes. "I'm your daughter-in-law, and you have a duty to me, same as he does."
Under different circumstances she might have laughed. In the entirety of Claudius's marriage, she had seen her supposed daughter-in-law only three times. On each of those occasions, Aelia had addressed them as though they should be grateful to be in her presence; as if she, merely by standing near them, elevated them to new, exalted heights. Antonia had not been impressed. While Claudius might only reach a great height if someone decided to throw him off of one, she was a daughter of Marc Antony and a niece of Augustus, and a woman of lower birth experiencing a whim of Fortune would do well to remember that.
"I have no duty," she said, never moving from her chair, "to an enemy of Rome."
Aelia crumpled at this, and wailed. "I've never had a treasonous thought in all my life."
"I don't doubt that this is the first time your brother's actions have caused you any great distress. You were content to benefit from the bodies gathered at Sejanus' feet; now you should be content to lie down on the pyre he has built for you. For you, and for himself, and for every wretch who stood by him while he degraded the law for his own purposes."
Aelia tensed and pulled herself away, slowly rising to her feet. "Do you count your son among those wretches?" she snapped. "I've never known a man so adept at 'standing by.'"
The stupid girl obviously expected this pronouncement to rattle her. Why should that come as a shock, when even a woman who had not spent more than a few days with him could see how useless her son was? She looked Aelia in the eye and said, evenly, "My son's affairs are not my concern."
Livilla chose that moment to scream for Aelia. She beat the door and begged her friend to save her from her horrid mother, and Aelia froze. Aelia took in the scene with new, startled comprehension, and opened her mouth several times in quick succession, like a gasping fish. Then she departed, apparently too concerned with her own problems to take on anyone else's. That was the last time Antonia ever saw her.
*
This is the way they would destroy a Vestal Virgin who had broken her most sacred vows. This fact had not escaped her. A Vestal, even a ruined Vestal, has a body inviolate, not to be marred by human hands. So the wrongdoer is led into a chamber with a crust of bread, locked in until she has died. In this way men delude themselves into believing that the matter rests entirely in the hands of the gods.
Antonia had no such delusions. The door was locked at her command. Food was cut off at her command. The room had been purged of all sharp instruments, lest Livilla attempt to reclaim her honor through suicide. Antonia would not allow her the feigned nobility of such a cheap gesture. She would not allow her daughter to paint herself as the next Lucretia, to make mockery of brave and virtuous Romans by trying to add herself to their ranks. There were no brave and virtuous Romans left in this world. Sometimes she thought there were no Romans left at all, merely a race of contemptuous vultures, hovering over a corpse of former glories.
*
After the first hour, she told one of the servants to bring her a stool from the kitchen. Soft couches and fine cushions were inappropriate in these circumstances, and she would not have them. She sat perched on this bare wooden tripod like a priestess of Apollo poised to make a grim pronouncement. After the departure of her son and his so-called wife, she spoke to no one, and kept herself straight-backed and rigid, staring at the wall.
Claudius was right; the screaming from the room behind her was unbearable.
The servants retreated to perform whatever duties they could invent for themselves on the far side of the house. An imperious glare from her might have been enough to send them off, but Antonia knew that the screaming terrified them more. It was only right that they should be so unsettled, and she did not want anyone near her now, in any case. She was a fair mistress, strict but never cruel; but now they knew exactly how far she was willing to go to maintain order and virtue in her house. Servants should not have any illusions about their masters, if they were wise.
The stool was uncomfortable, and her knees were growing stiff. So were her fingers, which were clenched and tangled in the soft fabric covering her thighs. The first hour, she kept her arms crossed and dug her fingernails into her forearm. She did not switch to worrying her gown until she saw the blood.
The screaming was unbearable. She had never been a creature of desires, and she had always kept her wants strictly in check. Today, more than anything she had ever wanted before, she wanted to leave this house, she wanted to retreat into her room, she wanted to hide her head beneath a pillow like a child frightened by thunder.
The screaming was unbearable, as it should be. But it must be borne.
*
It was two days before she saw her son again. He was as cowardly as the servants, hiding in some back corner, sniveling over the sorry state of the empire. Well, at least he occasionally got his priorities right.
Claudius slunk into the room, edging too close to the wall at first, as if didn't want to come near the door she was guarding. She suspected that he didn't want to come anywhere near her. He was carrying a round loaf of bread and some cheese, cradled precariously in his clumsy arms. He stumbled forward, his bad leg protesting the move. Antonia didn't sigh or roll her eyes, but she didn't stop staring vigilantly at the opposite wall for longer than it took to take in his presence.
"I've, uh, brought you some food." Hesitation was evident in his voice, but to his credit he didn't stammer. The door behind her was ominously silent.
"You may set it on that table, there," she said, inclining her head. "And leave me be."
"And will you actually eat any of it?"
"If I'm hungry for any of it, yes. I've done perfectly well taking care of myself all these years, Claudius, and I'm not so senile that I need you to look after me now."
"Mother," he said, sighing. "You can't just w-waste away, out here, like…" Like Livilla is doing in there, he did not say.
"I have no intention of doing that," she snapped. "And what are you doing carrying that around like a peasant wife at the markets? What do you think we have servants for? Send one of them, if you're going to insist on taking undue interest in my eating habits."
Something in this exchange awakened the weak voice in the makeshift cell. "Claudius… you must do something, you're the head of the household… she's gone mad…" The voice was faint, and strained, and sounded nothing at all like Livilla's sharp tongue.
Claudius was clearly rattled. "I'll keep that in m-m-mind," he said, eyes flickering between her and the door. "Sorry to have disturbed you."
After he left, Antonia thought she could make out soft weeping behind her. It didn't last long.
*
Claudius made a third appearance, at some point after she had lost track of the number of hours that had passed her by. She slept only when she could no longer keep her eyes open, paying no heed to the position of the sun or moon. The room was entirely silent now, aside from her own steady breathing, and the occasional rustle of fabric as she repositioned her stiff legs. Claudius hobbled into the room with more confidence this time; at least he wasn't slinking against the back wall.
It surprised her to see that he was wearing a dark cloak, as if he'd been travelling. He paused to pick absently at a frayed hem before raising his head to examine her, searching her face as if it was one of his historical references. She met his eyes this time, because the only thing that could make this situation more intolerable was loosing face in front of her own child.
Her only child. This knowledge had been with her, of course, but for the first time she gave it real consideration. This is my only child. This pathetic creature was all that remained of her poor, gracious, courageous Drusus. In that moment of realization, she had never loathed him more.
That was a dreadful thing for a mother to think, so she greeted him with more politeness than she'd managed in a long time, though her voice was as stiff as her knees.
"I've been to the forum," he said, without preamble. A note of revulsion edged into his voice. "From the emperor's perspective, I suspect the purge is going well."
She had lived in army camps, surrounded by soldiers. Many things went on near her and around her that she was not supposed to see. But she was not naïve; she had seen more of the world than a young noblewoman was meant to. Her vivid imagination could call this latest horror to life, like some morbid invocation of the Muses: bodies in the basilicae, severed limbs pushed into the gutters, blood on the Senate steps…
Claudius' face said everything, and his voice said more. The weariness had conquered the tears. This ought to be a stoic front masking the fierce heat of anger and the agony of despair, but this blankly sardonic grimace was something else entirely, raw and bleak.
"The emperor," she said, "deals only in atrocities. So he does not know how to punish the atrocities of others; he can only create worse atrocities, as if to out-do them."
"He could arrest you for treason, for saying a thing like that."
"And would, I don't doubt it."
"Well, I'm not p-planning to tell him, so I think you're safe."
"I doubt he'd believe you, in any case." He was smiling at her now, sadly and absurdly. She changed the subject. "What has become of Aelia?"
"She's still alive. I don't think she's in any more danger, at the moment."
"Good," Antonia said. "You'll have to divorce her, of course. That's not a connection your reputation can stand. And not one you should have sullied yourself with in the first place."
"I know. Of course, I know." He rubbed his temple, sighing. "I'm going to g-give back her dowry in its entirety." He looked as if he was expecting this to be met with rebuke.
But for once Antonia understood him. "That's seems perfectly acceptable, under the circumstances."
The concession seemed to surprise him. She wondered if it was because he'd been hoping to be talked out of it or if it was merely because she was the one agreeing with him. Sometimes she suspected that it was impossible for parents and children to understand one another entirely. The gods alone knew how little she understood hers: one dead, one dying, one who hardly lived at all.
She had once been so full of expectations for them.
Before he left, Claudius bent to kiss her cheek and grasped her hand clumsily. He glanced at the door, swallowed, and half-whispered, "Is she…?"
"I don't know." And that, for the time being, was the end of that.
*
Antonia was the first to enter the room. She made sure of that. After the slaves had unbarred the door, she made them step aside while she opened it. Claudius, to his credit, put a hand on her shoulder in what he must have thought was a comforting way, and tried to accompanied her. She shook him off and wordlessly made him stand back.
The room was in a sorry state. The crashes and bangs she had heard from her post had been very telling, so the damage did not shock her at all. A Greek vase had been smashed with particular enthusiasm, sending black and red shards out across the whole room, until they seemed a part of the floor mosaic. Little vials of cosmetics, made from fine Egyptian alabaster, had been knocked from a table that had once held the now shattered mirror. Some jars must have held perfume; the room stank of myrrh and roses.
Livilla had retreated to her bed. The stiffness of death had already taken hold; it would no doubt be easier to wrap the body in the coverlet before carrying it out, rather than attempting to disentangle her from it. Antonia ran her fingers across the finely embroidered fabric, tracing the faces of Bacchus and Ariadne at their seaside wedding. It ought to be burned. Such a waste of a beautiful thing.
She didn't touch the body itself, not for a long time. Antonia stared for an eternity, and thought, The Furies will hound me for such an act. She almost welcomed the idea; after all, she was the woman who gave birth to such a daughter. She had raised this creature to adulthood, and kept her eyes averted all the while, as if afraid to see snakes grown in place of hair.
But there were no snakes here now. Livilla's hair was loose and limp, her pale face wiped clear of make-up. Not some monstrous legend from the age of heroes, but a foolish girl who had grown into a malicious woman. Malice and wickedness and murder: these were the properties of men as well as monsters.
Claudius sat down quietly beside her on the bed. She did not notice him until he placed his hand on hers. When she looked back, he was weeping. Weak. Foolish. Pathetic. Intolerably weak. But she didn't say any of it. Instead she grasped his hand tightly in hers and pulled it gently to her lap, as if he were a child crying over his sister's unjust bullying, and not a grown man crying over his sister's justifiable death.
That was what this was, she reminded herself firmly: Justice.
If it left her feeling hollow and cold, then she had no one to blame but herself.
Finis