No, no, I reassured myself. The person must be Britannicus. That made the most sense. Claudius she would leave alone; he was harmless enough now, and the older I was before he passed away, the better a ruler I would be. With no Britannicus, there was no one for him to prefer before me. Yes, it must be Britannicus.
It caused me to look at him with new eyes. He had had a miserable life so far. To be Messalina’s child was bad enough. And who knew if Claudius was really his father? It could have been that actor she’d slept with, or any number of men. Perhaps that was why Claudius had adopted me, since he could not be sure Britannicus was even his son. He was seven when his mother was executed. Then I came along, older and taking the center stage from him. Besides that, he was sickly, prone to bouts of what may have been epilepsy. That was the surest proof he was Claudius’s true son, for Claudius had so many infirmities.
But his very misfortunes made him dangerous, for a person with a grudge can be set on revenge. He still insisted on calling me Lucius, to emphasize that he did not recognize my place in his family. When he was declared an adult—he was still six months away from his fourteenth birthday—who knew what he might do?
Yes, it must be Britannicus Mother would strike at, as a preventive measure.
There was no point in warning him. There were already professional tasters to protect him, but I assumed Mother and Locusta had already thought of that. All I could do was be watchful and hope I could actually intercept some other measure, such as Mother handing him a tainted tidbit in a setting where no tasters were about. I did not want him to die; it was the ultimate cheat in a life already cheated of so much.
• • •
September passed with nothing untoward, but I could not relax my vigilance. I would not be soothed, beguiled. The warm, somnolent days of October fell over Rome, turning everything golden. Fat leaves swirled down, spiraling like benevolent spirits hovering over us. Octavia was particularly pleased that the autumnal mosaic she had selected was finally finished, just in time for the season.
“Don’t you think her face is lovely?” she asked me as we stood over it.
The face had extraordinary beauty, as if the passing of a season, of completion, was to be embraced, not mourned.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You have done well. Her face looks familiar, but not quite.”
“That is because you have seen it,” she said. “My attendant served as a model.”
“Indeed? I don’t remember ever seeing her.”
“That is because you so seldom come to my apartments.” She said it matter-of-factly, not accusingly. Our lives were parallel, running on different roads.
I stared at the face, perfect in its ripeness. “She seems the very goddess of autumn.”
“I don’t think you believe me,” she said. “Well, I’ll call her and you can see for yourself.”
“Oh, you needn’t—” I was in a hurry to get to other business. I had only stopped to visit her to be polite. But she clapped her hands and bade the slave bring Acte quickly.
“I won’t delay you,” she said apologetically. Her whole relationship with me was based on apology, it seemed. “Oh, here you are!”
The woman in the mosaic, living, breathing, moving, came into the room. Perhaps it was that aspect that struck me dumb, a work of art brought to life, even though of course it was the other way around. But I had seen the art first, so to me it was the original.
“Acte, my husband so admired the mosaic he could not believe it was modeled on a living person. So I wanted to prove it.”
“It is true,” I said. “I should have known no artist could have invented you.”
The woman smiled without a trace of a simper. She bowed her head. “It was my honor to do it. I wanted the mosaic to be exactly what you and my mistress wanted.”
Her hair was dark, her eyes warm and inviting to conversation.
“‘Acte’? Are you Greek?”
“Yes. My family is from Lycia.”
“Her father was captured by a Roman garrison commander, executed, and his whole family forced into slavery,” said Octavia. “They were of noble standing in their homeland but put into chains because they resisted becoming a Roman province!”
Acte did not comment or attempt to excuse her origins.
“It is a long way from chains to a princess’s quarters,” I said, hoping to prompt her. I wanted to know all about her. I wanted to stand there as long as possible, looking at her.
“I am a freedwoman now,” she said. “I am here out of choice. I served with the foreign-born household staff of Claudius and, when she married, the lady Octavia chose to take me with her.” Her voice was as rich and assured as her bearing promised. “My Roman name is Claudia Acte, as I was freed by that household.”
I felt as I imagined Hades must have when he saw Persephone gathering her flowers in the field; I wanted to abduct her, carry her away, spend hours finding out all about Acte, the Greek from Lycia. Instead I just nodded and said, “Thank you, Octavia, for showing me the inspiration for the mosaic.” I looked at Acte. “Every time I see it I will bring your face back into my imagination.” Then, abruptly, I turned and left.
Even Acte and the thought of her (in my bed? walking beside me in the fields? lying on the banks of a stream with me, watching the birds soar?) could not banish the gnawing anxiety within me. I would jump every time there was a loud noise, watch suspiciously if any unknown person was seen in a palace passageway. Yet I never discerned where the danger would strike, or how near it was.
• • •
The annual observance of the divinities Fides et Honos—Faith and Honor—was upcoming, and Claudius decided to have a banquet to celebrate these quaint virtues, sorely lacking in his own household. There were entertainments—acrobats, dancers, poetry recitations—that lasted long enough that by the time we were called to dinner our appetites were keen.
What a jolly gathering. Mother was next to Claudius on the left couch, and I was next to her. The middle couch had a familiar-looking stocky fellow in the place of honor, with Britannicus next to him and Octavia at the end. Directly across from me was the couch with Seneca and two men I didn’t recognize. At least this promised novelty in conversation—three people I wasn’t familiar with, a rarity at an official gathering. Behind us, a second arrangement held another three couches with more people I didn’t know.
Claudius flourished his goblet and gave a confused speech about the history of faith and honor in Rome. He was sober at this point. Mother also welcomed everyone and spoke effusively of the nobility of the Romans. I knew she would manage to slip in Germanicus’s name somehow, and she did. She announced that she had just renamed the fortress on the Rhine where she was born Colonia Agrippinensis. “I was born when my noble father, Germanicus, commanded the legions there,” she said. “It will be a colony where retired soldiers will settle.”
Let no occasion pass without a bow to Germanicus. I held out my cup for more wine.
“Another first for the Augusta,” said Seneca, across the way. “A colony named for a woman!” He lifted his cup.
The man at the end of his couch chimed in. “About time! I say, who’s next?” He had the broad face and ready smile of someone who always brought the wineskins to the party.
“Serenus,” said Mother, “who would you nominate? One of the damsels you have rescued from a fire?” In so doing, she put him in his place. He was commander of the watch—chief of the city fire brigades, the Vigiles Urbani—I found out later.
“My cousin would have many to nominate, then,” said Seneca smoothly. “He is a favorite with the ladies.”
“Indeed,” piped up the man in between them, a foppish-looking fellow with a disarming grin. “I know, I’ve been on rounds with him.”
“That lasted well past the time the fires were put out, eh, Otho?” said Serenus, nudging him. Otho giggled. Was
that a wig he was wearing?
“Days and nights mix all together with him,” said Otho.
Mother put a stop to this frippery by saying, “Now, here’s a true soldier and protector of Rome,” indicating the stocky man with the short choppy hair in the guest of honor place. “Sextus Afranius Burrus, who has just been appointed head of the Praetorians.” The man nodded curtly.
“I thought there were supposed to always be two heads of the Praetorians,” said Britannicus. His voice had completely changed by now. “What happened to Rufrius Crispinus and Lusius Geta?”
“It’s better security to have it all in the hands of one person,” said Mother airily. “Burrus is well qualified. He’s served bravely in the army—injuring his hand in the process—as well as a financial agent to myself and the emperor.” Don’t argue, her mien announced. Britannicus glowered and looked away.
“I will always make the protection of the imperial family, and Rome, my highest priority,” Burrus said. For some reason I believed him. Could it be that he was actually honest? He nodded to the company, and we all drank to him.
Claudius said nothing; he was unashamed that his wife made all the political appointments and openly admitted it. But what was that, next to the fact that he allowed her to receive foreign ambassadors on a dais next to his, as if she were an equal ruler? I glanced over at him. He was beginning to look drunk already.
The long parade of courses and food commenced. Pigs’ teats stuffed with sea urchins. Herons’ tongues in honey sauce. Moray eels drowned in hot sauce. In between, oceans of wine.
Claudius was nodding. Then a platter of stuffed mushrooms was proffered. The odor was tantalizing. Mother extended a long, thin blade and speared one for herself, munching it noisily. I started to reach for one myself, but she forestalled me, selecting one from the edge of the platter and feeding it to me; I sucked it off the end of her knife, succulent in all its juices. It was oddly erotic; she looked at me deeply, holding my eyes with hers. Then she turned and speared another one from the middle of the platter, offering it to Claudius. He opened his mouth like a great fish and took it in. In a few moments his head drooped and he fell asleep. No one noticed at first, it was such a common occurrence. But when he could not be roused, Mother ordered a litter to be brought and for him to be taken to his room. She assured the guests that there was nothing amiss. “Alas, the emperor often drinks too much at dinner,” she said. “But he would be disappointed if tomorrow he learned that his sleepiness had spoiled the banquet. Stay, stay, drink and enjoy yourselves.”
She slid her hand across my back, caressing me. I knew then that there would be no tomorrow for Claudius. It had come, the danger I had watched for, right under my nose, and I had missed it. Then suddenly I wondered what was in the mushroom she had fed me. Moments passed, and nothing happened. My stomach felt the same. At least so far. But she had had the power to kill me then and there and chose, for now, to spare me. That was what her caress had said. I could have, but I did not. See how I love you? Or perhaps it was only to allay suspicion. It would have been too obvious if both of us had died the same night. Lurching, my legs shaking, I got up from the couch and left the room.
• • •
I did not sleep—how could I? Instead I sat in my tunic, perched on the side of my couch, watching the flames flickering in the oil lamps. Dancing, jumping, swaying, throwing shadows on the walls. Outside, the winds of autumn blew leaves against the windows, making a crackling sound. The wine wore off and the naked truth stood before me, too large to comprehend. I stood on a precipice, looking down into an abyss—the abyss of the future. Dark, dark, no bottom in sight.
Gradually the darkness faded and the sky grew gray; the light from the lamps faltered and sputtered out. Mother stole into the room, a ghostly figure who slid next to me. She put her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. The feel of her was comforting, for at that moment I was a child again, a lost child adrift on a perilous sea.
“You are shaking,” she said. She held me tighter. “Do not be afraid. This is what you were born for. The moment that has waited for you.”
“Claudius is dead?” I asked.
“Yes. Just now. It took several hours.” So she openly admitted it. “He didn’t suffer. In fact, he never woke up. It was like every other evening.”
“Except that it ended.” I drew back. “How did you accomplish it? The tasters had tested the platter, I assume.”
“Only one mushroom was poisoned,” she said, “and only I knew which one. I knew they would test an outer one; they always do. Predictability makes any system easy to evade—a guard who always passes at a certain hour, for example.”
So her aim had not been Britannicus after all. I had been looking in the wrong direction.
“Now listen,” she said. “Here is what will happen. We will give out the news that the emperor is ill. We will seal the palace shut and let no one in or out. Burrus—why do you think I appointed him?—will summon the Praetorians. The Senate will pray for the emperor’s recovery; we will have the acrobats from last night perform in his chamber to entertain him. At noon, the time the astrologers have told me is the fortunate hour, you will step forth out of the palace gates and be announced as emperor. The Praetorians will cheer and march you right away to their barracks, where they will salute and proclaim you emperor. You will give a speech and distribute money. Then you will go to the Senate house and have them formally recognize you as emperor. You will give this speech”—she thrust a scroll into my hands—“prepared for you by Seneca. We want no nonsense of the delay that kept Caligula and Claudius in limbo before they could assume the office.”
I toyed with the scroll. So Seneca was in on it, too? How many people were party to this plot?
Once again she read my mind. “I learned from the mess with Caligula—that botched assassination. I knew I should manage it myself. Conspirators are a nuisance. But it’s been obvious you would succeed Claudius. Seneca merely prepared a speech to be used anytime.”
She was lying, of course, but doing it to assure my cooperation and assuage my conscience.
“Now make yourself ready, my son. My son the emperor.” She stood, bent down, and kissed my cheek, then held my head against her, cradling me. “The youngest emperor there ever has been, you are. Even Alexander and Cleopatra were older. But you will eclipse them both; your name will be legendary. So do not fear.”
Light was stealing into the room by the time she left. It was true morning. Morning of the first day I was emperor.
Emperor. I could barely comprehend it; my head swam from the lack of sleep and the emotions. They say that a dying man sees his whole life pass before his eyes, quick as a flash. I was dying, dying to my old life and my old self, and it was true, a pageant passed before my eyes: the boats of Caligula, the olive harvest at Aunt Lepida’s house, the house of Alexander Helios, the sands of the practice arena, the oracle at Antium, the Troy game. Sixteen years of life. Sixteen years that were hardly adequate preparation for what lay before me.
I stood up. Is anyone ever ready, ever prepared, enough?
XXXI
The palace was quiet, as if it lay under a spell. I stole down corridors, devoid of the usual bustle and company. I had dressed in a clean tunic and under my arm I carried my finest toga, which I must appear in when I first stepped out of the palace. It would be the first glimpse the crowd would have of their new emperor, and may all the gods let me look like one.
Within Claudius’s quarters, another spell was working. The dead emperor was propped up in bed, resting against pillows, while the troop of acrobats performed their antics to amuse him. Either their eyesight was bad (doubtful) or they had been well paid (more likely) not to notice that the emperor’s expression never changed.
I made my way over to him, bending close. In that instant I comprehended the enormity of death, how utterly different it was from life. The face was
the same, the expression one I had seen many times, but the form was as remote from life as a statue is. With no one looking, I slipped a coin for the Ferryman into his cold mouth.
“Farewell, my father,” I whispered. He had been kindly to me. I pressed the little ring he had given me long before against his arm. “Safe journey, dear friend. I thank you for your protection all my years.”
“Sssh, he is resting.” Mother appeared by my shoulder.
In one corner, Britannicus and Octavia clutched one another, weeping. Did they know, or were they blind, too?
“I should not have argued with him,” blubbered Britannicus. “How did I know it was the last time we would speak?” So he knew.
“No matter when or how we part in life,” Mother said, “we always feel that way.” She clasped him to her bosom. “Oh, you are the very image of him, all I have left of him now!”
There was a clamor outside the door, and Britannicus turned toward it, but Mother clung to him, preventing him from moving. The last thing she wanted was for anyone outside to see him at this time. She managed to keep both Octavia and Britannicus effectively detained inside, shoving them into the keeping of one of the chamber attendants.
While the acrobats were performing their finale, Mother told me, “Put on your toga; the hour is here.” I did so, and before Britannicus or Octavia could see us at the far end of the room, she threw open the doors and quickly closed and locked them behind us. “Outside, quickly!” We walked through the corridors and out to the palace steps, where a vast crowd had gathered, ringed by the Praetorians.
The sun was at its height, the auspicious hour predicted. Bright sunshine poured down, anointing my head. I stood and surveyed the people stretching out as far as I could see.
Burrus, impressive in uniform, signaled for the trumpets. The rich sound rang out, echoing from the surrounding buildings. “Emperor Claudius is dead. Behold your new ruler, Emperor Nero.” There was a moment of stunned silence. Where is Britannicus? they were wondering. Then a roar of approval, of welcome.