Nero

23

I wasn't such a fool, of course, as to show him I'd noticed anything strange in his behaviour, far less guessed what lay behind it.

'There's no reason for us to go back to Baiae, surely,' I said. 'Why not stay here tonight?'

'Oh, I couldn't do that.' Lucius's eyes were still glazed. He was smiling, or his mouth was, and he suddenly jerked his head sideways in a curious spastic motion. The effect was ghastly. 'Not after promising Mother. The poor darling would be terribly disappointed if I didn't turn up.'

'Let me see if the carriage is ready, then,' I said; and gratefully escaped.

The hallway was empty — most of the remaining guests were occupied in the bedrooms upstairs, or out in the garden — but as I dashed through I collided with Anicetus. The little Greek might be Lucius's Commander of the Fleet but he'd never look anything other than the inky-fingered schoolmaster he'd once been.

'Has she gone?' he said. 'The empress?'

'Yes, she's gone.' His eyes shifted, much as Lucius's had. 'Anicetus, what's going on?'

'For Apollo's sake, don't ask!' He was pale as a ghost. 'How's the emperor?'

'I left him on the jetty. He wants me to go back with him to Baiae.' A slave came up and I sent him to see to the carriage. 'Anicetus, for the last time, what the hell's happening?'

He looked over my shoulder. His eyes widened and he put a skinny finger to his lips. I turned. Lucius was coming from the direction of the garden.

'Titus, where's that bloody carriage?' he said. His voice was more controlled now, and the suppressed excitement was back. 'I want to get home.'

'It's just coming.'

'Well, I wish it would hurry up. I'm completely knackered.' He grinned.'Anicetus, you'll join us, of course.' It was an order. The little man bowed.

We went out of the front door to wait in the drive.

'Mother should be well on her way now.' Lucius gazed up at the sky. 'Isn't it a glorious night for a sail?'

Neither Anicetus nor I replied. The carriage arrived and we climbed in.

The journey to Baiae was uneventful. Lucius said nothing, simply stared out of the window into the blackness. In the corner next to me Anicetus snored gently.

We were a scant mile from the town when I realised that Lucius was looking straight at me, or rather through me. His eyes were empty as they had been on the jetty, and he was crying.

'You only wanted power, darling,' he said softly. 'You didn't love me, not really, not for myself. I couldn't do anything else.'

I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

It wasn't until the next morning when the messenger arrived from Bauli that we discovered that Agrippina was still alive.

The boat had collapsed, as it was meant to, halfway between Bauli and Baiae. Agrippina ought to have been crushed at once by the heavy iron weight which was concealed under the stern canopy, but the sides of her couch supported it long enough for her to roll clear and into the water. Despite a deep gash in her shoulder she swam quietly away and was picked up by some fishermen, who took her back to the villa.

Her maid wasn't so lucky. To give Agrippina time to escape she had cried out from the water that she was the empress, and ordered the crew to help her. They had split the girl's skull with a boathook.

I didn't know all this until much later, of course. Agrippina's freedman carried quite a different story.

He came sidling in while we were having breakfast — Lucius, Anicetus and I — in the imperial villa at Baiae. Lucius lay back on his couch and smiled at him with an air of expectancy.

'Well?' he said.

'I've a message, sir, from your mother. From the Lady Agrippina.'

The smile became a frozen mask.

'From my mother?'

'Yes, sir. She says that by divine mercy, sir, and your own lucky star she's escaped a dreadful accident.' The over-formal words came stiffly, and the last was carefully stressed. 'She says to tell you she's only slightly hurt, and she doesn't want you to visit her until she's better.'

Lucius was on his feet. He had caught the small table beside his couch with his knees as he stood up and tipped the contents out over the floor. A silver plate rolled across the marble and clattered to a stop against the far wall.

'Then she's not dead!' he whispered.

The man swallowed. 'No, lord. Only hurt. And she says — '

'Guards!'

The double doors burst open and the two soldiers on duty outside threw themselves into the room, their swords drawn. They stopped, confused.

Lucius held his hand out to the nearest.

'You!' he snapped. 'Give me that thing!'

The man glanced at his colleague, then handed the sword over hilt first.Lucius dropped it at the messenger's feet.

'He tried to kill me,' he said calmly. 'This man tried to kill me. You all saw it. Titus. Anicetus. He's an assassin, sent by my mother to kill me.'

The messenger was gazing down at the sword in horror.

'Sir, I never!' he whispered. 'Jupiter strike me, I never!'

'Arrest him!' Lucius screamed.

Amid total silence the second soldier stepped forward. He took the man's arm and led him out without a word.

Anicetus and I looked at each other.

The unarmed soldier bent to pick up the fallen sword and prepared to follow his colleague.

'Wait a moment.' Lucius laid a hand on his arm. 'Where's your own weapon, darling?' The man simply stared, slack-jawed. 'Don't you know it's death for a soldier on guard duty to be without his sword?'

The soldier said nothing, but I could see the whites of his eyes. His left hand — half hidden behind his back — made the sign of the horns: the peasant's protection against madness and ill-wishing.

Lucius gave the man a violent shove towards the door.

'Oh, go away!' he snapped. 'I'll let you off this time. But don't let it happen again.'

The doors closed behind him. Lucius stood rigid for a moment. Then he started to shake, and his eyes bulged like a terrified bullock's.

'Help me, Titus,' he whispered. 'Help me. She wants to kill me. She's sent one man. She can send others.'

I was too shocked to speak. Anicetus was deathly pale and trembling like a leaf himself. Suddenly Lucius rounded on him, his forefinger stabbing the air.

'You! You're my fucking Commander of the Fleet! You do something! Take a warship over to Bauli and kill her'

'Sir, I c-c-c-…' Anicetus stammered.

Lucius covered the space between them in two strides and grabbed the man by the neck of his tunic. The cloth tore.

'Finish her, you bastard!' he screamed. 'Fucking finish her!'

Anicetus staggered out. I watched Lucius as I would have done a savage animal that had escaped from its cage, but he paid me no attention. Stumbling back to his breakfast couch, he lay down on his side and hugged his knees tight against his chest. One thumb stole into his mouth.

I left him as quietly as I could, still in his foetal crouch, sucking.

Anicetus and his men found Agrippina alone in her bedroom at the Baulan villa. When she knew that death was inevitable she tore her nightshirt to the groin and bared her stomach.

'Strike me here,' she said, pointing.

Her body was burned that evening, on one of my flower-decked party couches.

The next two days were dreadful: Lucius was in a dangerously unstable mood, at the same time remorseful and exultant and absolutely terrified of the consequences of Agrippina's death. If I'd dared I would have gone back to Rome, but in his present state he would have viewed that as desertion and black treachery, and reacted accordingly. Worse, I had him all to myself: Anicetus was gone. When after the murder he had reported back to the emperor looking green as an unripe apple ('I was sick three times at the villa, Petronius. It wasn't the blood, though, it was the smell.') Lucius had thanked him coldly and packed him off to Misenum.

Seneca arrived post-haste from Rome. His carriage wheels had scarcely stopped turning before he was out and closeted with Lucius. I stayed up late, and alone, in the hope that he'd come and talk.

He did, eventually, at two in the morning. I motioned him towards the guest couch, but first he poured and drank a full cup of wine.

'I needed that,' he said simply. He sounded almost human.

'How's Nero?' I asked.

'Asleep. I persuaded him to let the doctor give him some poppy juice. 'He leaned back wearily on the couch. His jowly cheeks were pouchy and grey as wash-leather, and he looked old. 'We'll weather it. It's not the end of the world.'

It irked me a little that he was taking the situation so calmly.

'Personally,' I said, 'I'd've thought you'd be delighted to be rid of Agrippina.'

'No one delights in murder, my dear fellow.' He pursed his lips. 'I applaud the result, I deplore the method. It only remains to minimise the damage.'

'What a very moral attitude.'

'Don't judge me, Petronius. You called me a politician and you were right. It's the politician's task — and the philosopher's — to make the best of a bad job. Sometimes morality must give way to pragmatism. I'm only doing the best I can for Rome.'

It was late, and I'd no wish to quarrel. Besides, the man was clearly exhausted. I shrugged.

'I'm sorry,’ I said. ‘You're right, of course. So what does Rome think?'

He closed his eyes. The effect was horribly corpse-like.

'The Senate's glad to be rid of her, at any price, but the ordinary people are not happy. Not happy at all, in fact.' He frowned and then recited: '"Alcmaeon, Orestes and Nero are brothers. They all drew their pen-knives and did in their mothers."'

I laughed. 'What the hell is that?'

'A piece of doggerel I saw scrawled on a wall near the Appian Gate. Not by any means a unique graffito, I may say.'

'How sweet. At least it's literate.'

'Alcmaeon was misspelled.' He paused, and the eyes opened again. 'The army's a potential problem, too, of course. But then they always have been where the empress was concerned.'

I nodded, understanding. Hulking great legionaries can be soft as butter over the silliest things, and Agrippina had been the daughter of their hero Germanicus.

'Do you think there'll be trouble?'

'I hope not. There are no obvious contenders for the throne, Burrus is keeping his eyes open, and the officers at least are on our side. As I said, we'll weather it.' He reached over and poured himself another cup of wine. 'Do you mind?' I shook my head. 'My main worry — and this isconfidential, Petronius — is the Emperor himself. You will no doubt have noticed a certain deterioration in his condition.'

'He has seemed a little…distraught these last two days.'

Seneca gave a mirthless smile. 'Distraught. Yes. An understatement, of course. When I saw the lad he was raving. He claims Agrippina committed suicide after sending her freedman to murder him.'

'That's not true.'

'Oh, I know that perfectly well! The point is that Nero quite genuinely believes it.'

'He can't possibly. I was there.' I described the scene in the breakfast room. 'The poor man was executed for nothing.'

'Quite.' Seneca hesitated. 'If you take my advice you'll forget that little drama. And it was a drama, you know, pure theatre, despite its unpleasantly real conclusion. I wonder at times if the emperor is altogether sure of the difference between play-acting and reality any longer. You're very fortunate, my dear fellow, not to be packed off like our friend Anicetus. I doubt if Nero will want to see him again in a hurry.'

'I agree. So what do we do?'

He spread his hands. 'We do nothing, of course. What else can we do? Nero's in a state of panic at the moment, but that will pass when he sees that he's quite safe. And for the future all we can do is act as we have been acting these five years. Keep the poor boy's mind, such as it is, off the realities of power and occupied with his…other pursuits.' He tried a thin smile. 'Incidentally, your help there is invaluable and greatly appreciated.'

'Thank you. But I still feel that — '

There was a crash as the door of the room was thrown open. We both turned, startled. Lucius stood on the threshold supporting himself against the jamb, his eyes wide and staring.

'She was there!' he whispered. 'She was there, in the corner! Looking at me!'

He stumbled across the room towards us. Behind him a frightened slave held up a cloak as if it were a bird-catcher's net. We were both on our feet by now. Seneca was the first to move. He grabbed the cloak from the slave and wrapped it round Lucius's shoulders. Meanwhile I filled a cup with wine and held it ready.

'It's all right,' I said quietly, as I would have done to a terrified child. 'It's all right, Lucius. You've been dreaming. It was just a dream.'

Lucius turned his blank gaze in my direction. 'But I saw her! Standing in the corner! Her hair was loose and blowing in the draught from the window, and her belly…'

He made a horrible cutting and sagging movement with his hand across his own stomach, and I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Then he turned his head away and was violently sick on the floor. The room suddenly stank of vomit and stale poppy juice mixed with wine.

'My dear boy.' Seneca spoke firmly. 'The empress is dead.'

'You think I don't know?' Lucius's head swung towards him, his mouth flecked with sick. 'She said I'd killed her! How could she lie to me likethat?'

'It was a bad dream.' Seneca's hand was on his shoulder. 'Nothing but a bad dream. Now go back to bed, my dear fellow, and — '

'No!' He lurched over to the nearest couch and collapsed onto it, his face buried in his hands. 'It wasn't a dream! I saw her! I saw her and she lied and lied and her eyes burned me, they burned! How could she say those things? I'd never hurt Mummy, never, no matter how bad she was!' Suddenly he sat up. 'Maybe she isn't dead after all. Maybe it's all a mistake. Seneca!' He grabbed the old man's wrist. I could see his fingers whiten and I wondered that the bone didn't snap. 'Make her dead! Please! Make her dead!'

'Nero,' Seneca said quietly, but with great firmness, 'listen to me, my boy. She's dead already. You've had a nightmare, that's all. It's very late. Go back to bed and sleep.'

I motioned to the slaves — there were three of them now, wide-eyed as owls. Gently, as Seneca prised the emperor's fingers from his wrist, they eased him to his feet and half-carried, half-walked him towards the door.

When he had gone we looked at each other. Then Seneca shook his head, and left without another word.

I didn't sleep much myself that night. Yes, it was a dream. Of course it was. It couldn't have been anything else.

The strange thing was that I'd been present when Anicetus had made his report, and he hadn't given any details of the murder to Lucius. Certainly he had not told him that he had stabbed the empress in the belly.