Nero

29

Ah, well. I suppose it was inevitable we should fall out eventually. Seneca was all head, whereas I've never claimed to be an intellectual. Perhaps that was why I got on so well with Lucius. We were very alike in many ways. We still are.

Incidentally, I'm beginning to realise that telling this story has been a journey for me as much as (hopefully) it has been for you, my reader. I feel, for example, a little more sympathetic towards Seneca than I did when I started (Dion is smiling! Rot you, Dion!), and certainly more than I felt at the time. Perhaps it's the loss of blood, and my powers of judgment are going, or changing. Seneca slit his wrists too of course, in the end, and shared suicide does inevitably engender some sympathy, as if we were members of some exclusive club. If I'd been slower to condemn him as a hypocrite, and he'd been less convinced of his own perfection, we might still never have been friends but I think we could at least have reached a better understanding. But that's enough of maudlin philosophy, my friends. It is not, as they say, my bag.

As it was, after that quarrel in the litter we treated each other with a certain wariness. The only time the barriers were lowered and we found ourselves on the same side was two years later, after the murder of City Prefect Pedanius.

Pedanius was a bastard: a thin, sour-faced Cato who weighed life by the scruple and never forgot an injury. He had a chef called Cycnus who'd saved enough from his tips to buy his freedom. After the deal was made Pedanius went back on it without returning the money. That night Cycnus took his best filleting knife along to his master's bedroom and cut the poor dear's throat. Then he gave himself up. As a self-confessed murderer he deserved all he got, but under Roman law where a slave kills his master every other slave in the household is executed with him. Which meant in this case four hundred innocent men, women and children.

When the news broke there was rioting in the streets and crowds surrounded the Senate House where the case was being debated. Thanks largely to the eloquence of another upper-class paragon named Cassius Longinus, the death sentence was confirmed; and to make sure there was no further trouble from the mob a company of Praetorians were detailed to line the route by which the condemned slaves were taken to execution.

Like every other decent person in Rome, I was stunned and shocked; so shocked that I actually set out for the palace hoping to persuade Lucius to override the Senate's decision. I was on my way there, via my banker's in the Market Square, when I bumped into Arruntius. He told me how delighted he'd been by the result of the debate.

'Cassius really stuck it to them,' he said. 'You should've heard him go, Petronius! Marvellous stuff, simply marvellous!'

'"Fortunate ears, to be so blessed,"' I quoted in Greek.

'What's that?' Arruntius frowned: I don't think he'd caught the meaning, let alone the reference. 'Oh. Indeed, yes, certainly. Anyway, he got a standing ovation, and it's not often that happens. It sent a clear message to these wishy-washy liberals that we've had enough, I can tell you.'

I'd had enough myself. Of Arruntius.

'Meaning the emperor, darling?' I said loudly. Several heads turned in our direction. 'And who might "we" be?'

Arruntius paled and glanced quickly to either side.

'Don't do that, you fool!' he hissed. 'You know bloody well who I mean! Anyway, Cassius was right. Someone's got to state the obvious sometimes, just to remind us it is obvious.'

'It's obvious that four hundred innocent people have to die because they happened to be under the same roof when a murder was committed? Oh, Arruntius, dear, how simply lovely!'

'Not people. Slaves. And not so innocent either.'

'How many does it take to cut one person's throat?'

He scowled. 'Don't be so bloody literal! Do you think one or two of them didn't know before the event? That that bastard of a chef kept it a total secret?'

'Even so…'

'Even so nothing!' Arruntius turned to go, having mentally, I suspect, washed his hands of me as a kindred spirit. 'Executing them all will make sure it never happens again. The next time some crack-brained sod takes it into his head to murder his master he won't get within a mile. I'll see you around, Petronius.'

When I finally got to the palace Seneca was already in the anteroom. He looked grey as death.

'Petronius.' He gave me a stiff nod.

'Seneca.' I was equally cool; we hadn't seen each other in months, and even then we'd hardly been on speaking terms. Luckily the secretary appeared at that moment and led us straight through to the emperor's private suite.

Lucius, too, looked haggard. Although it was late in the day he hadn't shaved and he was wearing a rumpled tunic. Even before the slave had closed the door behind us he was holding up a placating hand.

'I know!' he said. 'I know! Don't look at me like that. There's nothing I can do.'

Seneca lowered himself into a chair. His hands were shaking.

'You once said, my dear fellow, when you were asked to sign an order for execution that you wished you'd never learned to write.'

'This has nothing to do with me! It's the law!' Lucius turned towards me. 'Titus, you tell him!'

'You're the emperor.' I sat down too. 'You're above the law.'

'I am not!' Lucius's hand thudded on to the desk beside him. 'The Senate made the decision. The Senate's responsible, not me.'

'You have the power of veto.'

'Darling, I can't! Honestly! Don't you understand?' I stared at him. 'Don't blame me, blame the Senate and their fucking, twisted, Roman ideas of justice!' I thought of Arruntius. Twisted was a good word. 'You weren't there, either of you, when Cassius made his speech.'

'He was only one voice,' Seneca said quietly. 'There must have been others.'

'Oh, yes.' Lucius was pacing the room. He was almost in tears. 'Lots of them. Mostly agreeing, because Cassius's argument was a clincher with these hide-bound bastards: "It's the law as our fathers made it, gentlemen, it's how we've always done things. We've had enough changes these last few years. Make your stand now, before it's too late. Vote for the good old Roman ways!"' He stopped and faced us. 'Do you think I'm a fool? That I didn't see the implications?'

'Cassius made it a political issue.' I felt sick. That was what Arruntius had meant about sending a clear message to the liberals.

'Of course he did! And most of the Senate are with him. I can't fight them, I don't dare, not over this!' Suddenly, Lucius spat. 'Barbarians! Fucking barbarians! I hate them!'

'They're not barbarians.' Seneca had clasped his hands in front of him. His eyes were lowered. I thought perhaps he was praying. 'Just misguided.'

'As misguided as you think I am?' There was no answer. I held my breath, but Lucius didn't press the issue; he was almost gentle. 'My dear, what would your historians — your good, solid, patriotic, Roman historians- write about Cassius and me if we both died tomorrow? They'd say that Nero was a sport of nature, a degenerate who aped the Greeks and gave public performances in theatres. And Cassius? A good old-fashioned Roman who defied tyrants like his namesake. Whose side would you cheer for, Seneca, even when the corpses were counted?'

Seneca said nothing, only looked at his hands. Lucius threw himself onto a couch and slopped wine into a cup.

'They'll regret this, you know,' he said conversationally. 'All of them. I won't forget.'

Seneca and I exchanged glances. Lucius caught us, and smiled with his mouth, not his eyes.

'Oh, don't worry, my dears! I'm not my Uncle Gaius, I don't mean that!’ he said. ‘But they will regret it, eventually. Now piss off, I'm feeling low. Interview over. Request denied.'

We left.

They died. All of them. All four hundred.