“Ah, Tigellinus!” she said. She had an accent of some sort that I couldn’t place. “You have been missed!”
He stood in that proud stance, legs apart, shoulders back, that made him so recognizable from a distance. “Duties, duties,” he said, spreading his hands as if to say, What can I do?
She eyed me. “Brought your young slave with you, eh?”
Tigellinus smiled. “Yes. I thought I would give him a reward for his good service.”
I almost choked. But at the same time I was grateful for the disguise.
“And what do you have in mind?” she asked. “Are you being generous today?”
“Indeed.” He jiggled his money pouch. “Anything he wants! No expense spared.”
“A pleasure to work with such a customer.” She smiled and asked the slave to bring her the book. The book! The book, duly brought and presented to us, contained drawings of men and women in mind-dizzying varieties of coupling. Some of it was difficult to interpret.
“If there is something you prefer that isn’t in the book, we do have girls who specialize in areas we don’t illustrate. Just tell us, and it will be available.” She smiled sweetly and bent over the book, her breasts wafting the perfume I had smelled.
There was a picture of a woman with long golden hair, almost enveloping her partner, in a graceful pose that looked like a gymnastic exhibition. I pointed at it. I still couldn’t get my voice.
Tigellinus shook his head. “Too advanced. I suggest you start with something simple.” He turned the pages and found one he liked. “Then afterward, perhaps a surprise from one of the other suggestions.” He winked.
Vorax nodded, and the slave beckoned to me, leading me down a hallway with many little doors on each side, with placards illustrating the specialty within. My sandals on the stone sounded unnaturally loud. At the end of the hall, she knocked gently, then pushed the door open. She gestured me inside.
The room was very small, with only a bed, a chair, and a small window that let in the afternoon sun. From outside I could hear the shouts of children, the braying of donkeys. A girl rose from the bed. She looked nothing like the brazen Vorax. She was small and dainty, with clouds of reddish hair pinned up on her head, and a white silky robe. “Welcome,” she said, her voice soft. She came over to me and took my head in her hands. “Do I have the honor of being your first?”
It was pointless to lie. So I nodded.
She took my hands and led me to the bed. Gently she eased her robe from her shoulders, then took one of my hands and guided it to her hair. “Pull out the pin,” she said. I did, and masses of glorious red hair tumbled down. I put both hands in it, and from then on everything that followed was as lovely and natural to me as that silky hair.
Afterward the slave appeared and led me to another room, a larger one. “You must rest now, and take some refreshment.” I was sponged off with perfumed water, given a robe of silk, a cup of sweet wine, all in silence. She lit a small pot of cedar incense and left me, the smoke curling upward. The shades were drawn against the hot afternoon sun, and motes danced in the slanting light. I dozed, still stunned by the initiation in the other room. Time was suspended, as suspended as the motes in the air.
Was it a dream? For I saw, in the swirling light around me, a figure approaching. A woman, older than the one I had just been with. Older! Dressed in a way I knew. She came closer, bent down, caressed my cheek.
“My dearest,” she said.
Mother! Her lips were close on my face, her breath warm. She slipped onto the couch with me, embracing me. She slid her arms around me, underneath the robe, peeling it off, and I lay naked beside her. She parted her robe, pressing against me, flesh next to flesh. “I have longed for this,” she said. Then she kissed me, the deepest kiss possible, and I pulled her onto me and did what we had long been journeying toward.
• • •
On the way home, Tigellinus said, “The first girl specializes in boys who have never . . . But the next was Vorax’s idea, really. She said they get many requests for doubles of famous women. Cleopatra, Dido, Messalina. This selection was in poor taste. I apologize.”
Had it been deliberate? Did Vorax know very well who I was? Or was Mother an object of lust and fantasy in Rome? Horrible, either way.
“I would have preferred Dido,” I sniffed, righteously.
But would I really?
XXVI
The day was almost here. May was an unlucky month for marriages, but June, sacred to Juno, was the most fortuitous—although Juno’s marriage to Jupiter was hardly successful. In only nine days I must take Octavia’s hand and put the gold ring on her finger.
Mother was as cold-blooded about it as ever, seeming to care only that the legalities were in order. “I was younger than you when I married your father,” she said.
“Yes, and you had no choice, either. Tiberius paired you, and there was no argument.”
“And had there been, my dearest, there would have been no Nero.” She came closer, sliding next to me. I felt myself starting to tremble; her nearness was now tinged with the memory of that afternoon in the brothel. Was it she? No, it couldn’t have been, although there were stories about Messalina sneaking out and working in a brothel under the professional name “She-Wolf.” But the image, the double at Vorax’s establishment, seemed exact, perfect, even to the clothes and perfume and touch. And the knowledge of the acts we had indulged in seared my mind, ever raw and vivid.
“Don’t pull away,” she said. “I was only trying to tell you how something precious can come of something unwanted. You are the most precious thing in my life.” Before I could move, she embraced me and kissed my cheek, lingeringly. Then I did not want to move, no, I did not.
• • •
On a hot afternoon I stood with Octavia in a mosaic-decorated room in the palace and we spoke words neither of us wanted to say. She wore the traditional veil of bright saffron; I, a new, blindingly white toga. The windows were open, letting in the sweet early-summer air, with a scent of hay. The families stood watching, along with a very select number of officials and friends: Seneca, Burrus, Pallas, several senators. Anicetus and Beryllus, being freedmen, were deemed unsuitable to attend, even though they were closest to me of anyone, and Tigellinus was ruled equally unwelcome. That was just as well; I could not have endured having him witness my hypocrisy. Or cowardice? Or perhaps, to be kinder to myself, it was an act under compulsion, and only that, not a character flaw.
Afterward there was a small celebration, with wine and music. Poignant lyre music, aching and sweet, made the event even more painful to me, underscoring the gap between what a wedding should be and what this one was.
Bosh. You sound like a schoolgirl! Mother’s words rang through my head. Perhaps she was right. But I couldn’t help it.
Finally the long day ended: the sun set; the fragrant summer evening began. I was to escort my bride to my rooms, with the procession of well-wishers following us. For ordinary people, the bride was customarily escorted through the streets by torchlight to the groom’s house. Since we all lived in the same palace, it was a bit of a farce here. But the torches were duly lit and the musicians accompanied all of us. At the threshold I was supposed to pick her up and carry her in, a remembrance of the Sabine women who were forcibly abducted by the Romans. In this case, it was closer to the truth than usual.
I bent down and picked her up. We turned to look at everyone, then I stepped over the threshold and the waiting slave closed the door. Outside, a great cheer went up.
The slave scurried around, lighting oil lamps, pouring wine for us, and smoothing the bed. We stood awkwardly waiting for him to be finished. I told him to leave. Then we were alone.
She was looking at the floor, not at me. Her thick, dark lashes made little crescents on her cheeks.
“Please look at me,” I said. She raised her eyes. She was paler than
ever. “Who do you see?”
“I—I—see Nero, who used to be Lucius, whom I have known all my life. There was never a time I did not know you.”
“But who is he to you?”
“He was a cousin, then he became my adopted brother; now he is my husband.”
“A raft of relatives all in one.” I smiled. But the pleasantry fell short. She gave a weak laugh. I handed her a cup of wine, then took one myself. Perhaps this would help. We both gulped them down.
We must get it over with. It had to be done. I took her hand and led her to the bed. It felt as if I was leading an acquiescent animal to a barn.
She lay down obediently, stiff as an oar. The wine had done no good at all. I knew she was frightened, and I tried to soothe her. I spoke softly, I was careful not to be anything but gentle. But it was nothing like the time at Vorax’s; it was utterly devoid of any pleasure at all. Perhaps if I had had no comparison . . . But no, that would have been worse, because then we both would have been fearful and paralyzed into complete inaction.
• • •
Summer nights are short, and dawn came very early. I got out of bed and put on a robe while she still slept. The creeping light showed her face, which was pretty enough. She was a good person. There was nothing wrong with her, just nothing right for me. I thanked all the gods that I was a man and would not be bound to her for my one source of pleasure.
She stirred, then sat up and saw me. Instinctively she clutched at the sheets to shield herself.
“Good morning,” I said, realizing how trite that sounded but unable to come up with anything else.
“Good morning,” she murmured. She scurried out of the bed and looked for her own robe, which she quickly put on. The thick gold ring on her left hand shone in the faint light.
We sat together on the couch. She felt insubstantial next to me, a waif. “I promise to be a good wife,” she murmured. She looked up at me, a shy smile on her lips. Her eyes were shining. Perhaps the night had not been so bad for her as it was for me. She entwined her fingers in mine. The ring was cold and hard.
I squeezed her hand, bowed my head, and nodded. But I couldn’t say the words I should have replied with. I could not say, I promise likewise. I was still young enough to be honest.
XXVII
My married life, such as it was, soon assumed a formal and predictable schedule: dinner with the emperor and family, return to our quarters, and retire to separate bedrooms. I could hear her moving around in her nearby room and chastised myself for my inability to follow her in there. There were a few times when I was able to make myself invite her to my bed, or seek her in hers, but each time was a disappointing failure, and the more failures there were, the less inclined either of us was to repeat it. Every morning we greeted one another politely, perhaps strolled in the gardens together, then separated.
I was curious about what she was truly like, but she was hardly likely to confide in me, nor I in her. Our marriage was doomed by the shadows of our parents: her father was married to my mother, and her mother had tried to kill me. Not promising grounds for love. Oh, I knew tales of the children of enemies becoming lovers, like Jason and Medea, but those usually ended with people killing themselves. So Octavia and I soldiered on, smiling in public, dreaming separate dreams in separate beds by night.
That is not the whole picture, however. My bed at the palace may have been empty, but thanks to Tigellinus I had plenty of company in other beds, even if they were hired ones. The brothels of Rome offered infinite variations and versions of pleasure and I took advantage of most of them. They reassured me that my inability to feel passion for Octavia was specific to her. For I suffered no such shortage of desire for the other women; they were probably relieved that there were more than one of them because I would have worn out my welcome (so to speak) on only one.
Because Rome lured people from all the world, a veritable menu of ladies offered any type I could fancy: strapping Gallic women, delicate blondes from the far north, dusky girls from the Levant, women from the steppes beyond the Caucasus. If I wanted a fragile beauty, she was available. If I preferred a big, domineering one (who might even brandish a whip), she was available, too. What I never asked for again was the second woman at Vorax’s. Not because I did not want to but because I feared what I would feel if I did. There were times when it was all I could do not to request her, but two things stopped me. The first, that it would unlock something within myself that I could never cage again. The second, more practical reason was that Vorax would know, and remember, that I myself had requested her this time. I did not want to put such a weapon in anyone’s hands, one that could prove so dangerous to me in the future.
“You can trust Vorax,” said Tigellinus as we walked back late one afternoon. “You can ask her for anything.”
Anything—except that one thing.
“Did you like the Chaldean girl today?”
Vorax had just hired her, a slim, dark-skinned beauty with the longest eyelashes I had ever seen—if they were real. She had whipped me up into multiple passions so that the “short” afternoon visit had lasted several hours. I laughed. “Do you need to ask?”
He gave me a knowing look. “Like most sheltered aristocrats, you crave the foreign, forbidden, and exotic,” he said.
“Perhaps.” And perhaps that was what was wrong with Octavia, in addition to the other impediments. It was true, I was drawn to people who promised escape, adventure. Like Tigellinus himself. As it was, he functioned as my doorway to it.
• • •
A few hours later I was the obedient and dutiful son/husband reclining on the dining couch at the usual family dinner. I was famished after the exertions of the afternoon so it took no playacting for me to relish the food and down many cups of wine.
Perhaps it was only the contrast, but the group seemed unusually stiff and dull that night. I kept drinking wine to blur the edges. But I could hardly keep up with Claudius, who continually held his cup out for refilling, gulped it down, and requested another round. Mother tried to stop him, but he swatted her restraining hand away. “Leave me ’lone,” he mumbled.
“Father, perhaps you should stop,” said Britannicus suddenly, his high child’s voice sounding shrill. “We want to hear your wise words, so don’t go to sleep.” But in the last sentence, the voice broke and ended lower.
Mother’s face was a sheet of dismay as she heard what I had.
Claudius propped his head on his arm. “’Rhaps you are right, son.” He burped. “’Nuff for now, you are r-right.” He leaned over and rumpled Britannicus’s hair. “My dear son.” He looked around. “So, what sh-shall we—talk about?”
A moment of silence while we all searched for a topic, then Octavia said brightly, “Nero and I would like to redecorate our apartments.”
We would?
“Some new mosaics for the atrium—” she continued. But Claudius had already fallen asleep, his head lolling on the armrest, his mouth gaping.
Mother made a cluck-cluck sound. “Too late, my dears. You will have to ask him earlier in the day. But I think I can speak for him and say that of course you may redecorate your apartments. We are pleased at this sign you are so happy together.”
Back in our quarters, Octavia did not retire to her rooms but sat in our common room. She motioned to the mosaics on the floor and said, “Do you agree with me?”
I had no argument with a change and said, “Yes. It would be a good idea.”
“Perhaps we could visit some workshops together and choose a design. I know you have an interest in art.”
“Yes, I do.” So she had noticed? “I know more about painting than about mosaics, though.”
“We can learn together.” She stood up and came over to me. She held out her hands and drew me up. “Oh, Nero, I would like that. For us to have our own project, not a task dictated by our parents.” Suddenly she thr
ew her arms around me.
I was so startled I almost fell backward into the chair again. Tentatively I held her. “Yes, that would be welcome.” My words sounded stupid and staid. But I had been taken unawares, and every conversation I had ever had with her had been a safe, prescribed one, never spontaneous.
I heard a stifled catch of disappointment from her, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed me. Her lips were cool and soft, but chaste as a sister’s—which she always would be to me. “Nero, please,” she murmured, taking my hand and turning toward her rooms. Silently she led me into her bedroom, dark and waiting. She sat on the bed. “Hold me,” she said. “Hold me.” I did, feeling her small body, even the bones in her shoulders, delicate little wings.
“Sometimes I am so afraid,” she said. “Of all of them.”
I held her closer. “So am I, sometimes.” She did not know the half of it. I felt a great surge of protectiveness toward her, truly a helpless victim of her circumstances, which included having to marry me.
Protectiveness, however, is the opposite of desire, and as I held her I felt the bracelet pressing into my forearm: the bracelet that enshrined her mother’s attempt on my life, an unbreachable barrier between us. It killed whatever passion was trying, weakly, to emerge for me.
• • •
The months passed, nothing changed between us, and Octavia and I had soon been married a year. Summer came again, the noons growing ever hotter, as the sun gathered strength, blazing down upon Rome. Even on the Palatine, breezes were feeble and the marble halls sweated with humidity, little rivulets running down the walls. Still, life in the palace went on doggedly. Seneca outlined speech material for me to develop; Chaeremon, a tutor from the Mouseion in Alexandria, unrolled the maps of the entire empire, then brought in slaves from different regions to talk about the details of their homelands; my lyre teacher worked with the swollen strings to make melodies of a sort. Octavia busied herself overseeing the new mosaics. Britannicus—who knew where he was or what he was doing? He seemed to have vanished. As for Claudius, there was little for him to do. The empire was remarkably quiet—there were no large-scale rebellions, no major campaigns, even very few foreign embassies seeking audience in Rome. It was a remarkable moment, with the world seemingly holding its breath. Claudius chose to enjoy it by stupefying himself with wine most of the time.