Daughters of Rome (18 page)

“Caesar.” She knelt before him, already feeling sticky in a
stola
of lilac silk draped to show as little of her breasts as possible. Nero waved her up with a beautifully manicured hand.

“No, my dear, I am no Caesar tonight. We eat alone, like any common fellow and his beloved. I have often wished I could be a common musician, playing for my supper. Or perhaps an actor; you’ve heard me recite, of course—”

A hot night, spring fading into summer. The slaves, all matched blue-eyed blondes chosen for beauty, brought one meal after another in a graceful ballet. Every dish an aphrodisiac selected to enhance a night of love: sea urchins in almond milk, blue-black oysters from Britannia, cakes sheeted with a haze of edible flowers. Marcella stuffed herself.
I’ll need all the aphrodisiacs I can get to keep from being queasy when he finally stops babbling and gets on with it.
Nero was tall but pot-bellied, his legs spindly, his chin spotted; he wore a wig of auburn curls over a flaking scalp. And his eyes burned too bright, as if he had a fever.
Or the pox.

“Or perhaps I should have been a poet—you’ve heard my poetry, of course? My verse on the love of Adonis and Aphrodite was so much admired in Athens—”

She wished he’d hurry up. He’d set her aside with a casual invitation at the end of a party the night before, hardly bothering to talk to her. Why should he? She was just a passing fancy, hardly likely to last a night.
The sooner he climbs on top of me, the sooner it will all be over and the sooner I can go home.

He pushed his golden plate aside, stroking her arm with damp fingers. Marcella tensed despite herself, but he wasn’t looking at her. Those bright eyes were fixed somewhere between a tall vase of lilies and a reclining marble Leda with her amorous swan. “I’ll play for you,” he said, calling for his lute. “A private performance from your Emperor, eh?”

“I would be honored, Caesar.”

He struck a pose with his lyre, false auburn curls gleaming in the lamplight. A little ditty about spring—“my own work! Do tell me what you think?”

“Brilliant, Caesar.”

A long heroic epic about the deeds of Hercules. His voice was shrill and tuneless.

“Incomparable, Caesar.”

He called for wine in between songs, but Marcella pushed her cup away. She didn’t dare get sleepy—Nero had executed senators before for dozing during his recitals. But he drank cup after cup, in frantic haste. “And this one—a little ditty about spring. My own work, of course. Do tell me what you think?”

The same song he’d begun with. “Brilliant, Caesar.”

More songs. His voice grew shriller, his words slurred. The feverish eyes darted everywhere. He sang the epic of Hercules twice more, rapidly. “I do like to write little verses about heroic deeds now and then, as much as I prefer the deeds of love. You know the Senate’s plotting against me?”

Marcella started to say, “Incomparable, Caesar,” before she realized what he’d said. “Um. Caesar?”

“They think I don’t know. But I hear everything.” He cast his lyre aside abruptly. “They’ll vote me a public enemy. They’ll even vote a new emperor.”

“. . . Surely not, Caesar.”

“They’ll try. I’ll fool them. I have spies.” Jerkily. “They’ll be sorry. I’ll make the Senate steps run with blood—”

He paced to the end of the couch and back again, running his fingers along the chased edge. His nails were varnished pink. “They think you can vote on an emperor,” he said to the tiles. “I am a god. You think I attained divinity by
vote
?”

“Of course not, Caesar,” she said cautiously.

“They’ll look to name some tight-fisted prune like Galba or Sabinus. Break my statues—I have so many statues—my mother always said I had the prettiest profile in marble . . .” He blinked. “I killed my mother. Did you know that? I don’t remember why.”

Sweet Fortuna, just get me out of here alive.
Marcella stayed frozen on her couch, skin crawling. Nero drank another cup of wine, held the goblet out blindly, drank another.

“They’ll strip my pretty palace.” He looked around his beautiful, sumptuous triclinium. “My golden house. I never really lived until I built this palace. They’ll strip it bare, all those stingy old senators—sell off my pretty slaves, and my chorus boys, and the gold plate I ordered in Corinth . . . but I won’t live to see that. They’ll kill me first. Hack me to death with spears in my own bathhouse, or on the privy—it’s no way for a god to die—”

Marcella groped for words, any words. Her ready mental pen had fallen silent. “The world would lose a great artist in you, Caesar.”

His fever-bright eyes wandered back to her, surprised.
Does he even remember why I’m here?
Or had he even wanted her at all? Perhaps he’d just set her aside to show his cronies that the Senate’s grumbling hadn’t made him afraid. “Yes, a great artist.” He nodded vigorously. “I must remember that. There was never another artist like me, was there?”

“No,” Marcella agreed.

“No,” he echoed, and suddenly he stumbled across the room, crawling onto the dining couch and laying his head in her lap. “No,” he said again, shivering, and under the perfumes of amber and myrrh and lilies there was the sharp, malodorous stink of terror.

They said he’d laid his head in his mother’s lap and cried, after her murdered body was brought back for his inspection.

“No one will hack you to death with spears, Caesar. You’ll defeat them.” Marcella felt herself sweating. He could still have her strangled and thrown down the Gemonian Stairs if she displeased him—this was a man who had kicked his pregnant wife to death when he was in a bad mood. Marcella forced herself to stroke his hair, though her fingertips itched as if fire ants were devouring them. “You’ll defeat them.”

“If I don’t?” His voice rose, a thin edge higher and higher. His bright eyes snapped open and held hers. “If I
don’t
?”

“You will fall on your own sword,” she found herself saying. “Like the kings of old. You’ll never see them strip your palace or deface your statues. You’ll stab yourself and then you’ll sit at Jove’s right hand. You’ll escape it all.”

“Yes,” he said, voice spiraling down again. “I’ll escape it all. I’ll escape it all.”

He fell asleep, still muttering. Marcella would have sat all night with the Emperor’s head on her lap, too frozen to move, but the slaves descended and bore him skillfully off without waking him, more used to this than she was. She’d staggered home, reeking of scent from that horrible revolving ceiling, to a family that wouldn’t quite look her in the eye. In two days’ time Nero was pronounced a public enemy of Rome by the Senate. Galba was proclaimed Emperor and Nero fled, committing suicide long before the Praetorians could imprison him—escaping it all. His last words, so they said, were “What an artist dies in me!”

I think I did it, you see
, Marcella thought. The one thing she had not put in her history of Nero.
I think that in my way, I killed an emperor.

A
slave dropped a dish outside the bedroom door with a crash and burst into tears. “Stow that,” Cornelia heard another slave hiss. “Or Domina will have the skin off your back!”

Feet pattered. She listened at the door, alert for every sound.

Sandals clicked sharply. “Oh, this rain,” Tullia moaned somewhere down the hall, rapidly coming closer. “Such bad timing; our guests will have to swim to get to the front door.” She and Gaius were hosting a dinner party and the whole house was in an uproar, but that hardly concerned Cornelia. She wasn’t going.

That is, she was going somewhere, but not their wretched dinner party.

“Sea urchins and turbot, is it ostentatious?” Tullia’s voice again, hectoring the steward. “Perhaps turtle doves boiled in their plumage instead. Perhaps both. Yes, both.
Gaius
—”

Cornelia left the door and went to her window, pushing the shutter aside and looking down at the street outside. Gray waves of rain beat down in gusts, and passersby scurried like mice wrapped in wet wool, wading ankle deep in the gutters. The winter rains had finally arrived last week, and arrived with a vengeance. The Pons Silica had come crashing down just yesterday when the Tiber overflowed. The oldest bridge in the city—Cornelia had heard the slaves whispering about it, saying it was a bad omen for Otho’s reign. Surely Tullia would cancel the party? That would have ruined everything, but no, Tullia hadn’t canceled her party. “Why should we? Nobody we know lives on the other side of the Pons Silica!”

Just half an hour ago Cornelia had watched her sister dashing into the wetness, chivvied off on some errand of Tullia’s. She’d been gone in an instant behind shifting curtains of rain, and Cornelia’s heart squeezed.
The last time I’ll ever see my sister.
If she could have just said good-bye . . . but no. Marcella would ruin everything if she knew. Better to get it all finished and done with while she and her sharp all-seeing eyes were safely out of the house. The rest of the household was busy, after all, running itself ragged for the upcoming party. Tullia wouldn’t come looking for hours, or Gaius, or the harried slaves.

It was time.

“Zoe.” Cornelia turned to her maid. “Get out my black
stola
, please. And make up the bed.” Perhaps a little dusting too . . . Cornelia ran a finger through the dust on the bedside table, frowning. She was certainly not going to commit suicide in an untidy room.

“Gaius, did you confirm Otho’s chamberlain for this evening?” Tullia’s hectoring voice, floating up the stairs. “
Gaius
, I asked you to invite him a week ago!”

Cornelia reached under the bed for the black basalt urn she’d stored so carefully. Piso’s ashes, which she’d had brought up from the mausoleum yesterday. He’d be with her at the end. Perhaps his shade was waiting even now, smiling.
Not much longer, my love
, Cornelia thought as her maid tidied the bed.
Not much longer.
What else was there for her? A near-empress, a beloved wife, turned into an obscure unwanted widow. She might as well put a knife in this endless pain in her chest, and have done.

“Tullia, can you squeeze one more guest in tonight?” Marcella’s husband Lucius’s voice came from the other end of the hall. “Pomponius Ollius, he’s very useful to me—”

“Another guest? Another guest at this late notice?
Lucius
—”

Why couldn’t Marcella have been the one to be widowed?
Cornelia didn’t think her sister would have cared at all—Lucius was such a bombastic drone, he hadn’t even troubled to present his sympathies on Piso’s death now that Cornelia was no longer important.
Why not Lucius instead of Piso? Why not Marcella instead of me?
Cornelia scrubbed at her eyes a moment and then made an effort to smile at her maid. “A goblet of wine, please, Zoe. And then you’re free to go.”

She waited until Zoe slipped out, then drew out the dagger she’d hidden beneath her cushions. No use involving the slaves, after all. Either they’d run tattling to Tullia, or they wouldn’t and would then get a beating for it once Cornelia was dead.

She drew a finger down the dagger’s edge, sharpened to a whisper, and laid it on the table beside the black basalt urn. No emotional haste here; nothing messy, nothing squalid; all done properly. There were forms to be observed for suicide, after all.

Cornelia slipped into her black
stola
, binding her hair tight and glossy about her head. No jewelry; that would be ostentatious. Another Cornelia had become famous long ago for saying that her sons were her jewels—well,
this
Cornelia might have no sons, but her name would be known too, as a good and loyal wife who had followed her husband into death once honor became impossible. She’d already written out a scroll with instructions for her funeral, as well as good-byes for each of the family. Quite beautiful, really. She’d spent hours on them.

She went to close the shutter and saw Diana splashing through the mud toward the door, her pale head sleek as a seal’s in the rain. Not even taking a litter in this storm, never mind a chaperone.
Perhaps my example of wifely duty will inspire her to better behavior in future.

Cornelia poured herself a cup of wine and sat on the edge of the bed, arranging the dagger across her knees. Properly there should be music playing, preferably a harp—she’d always liked the sound of a harp. Surely drifting away into death would be much easier to the sound of good music. But for a harp you had to have a harpist—and Juno’s mercy, what was that racket coming from downstairs?
Can’t I get any peace to commit suicide in?

“—holding you personally responsible if they drown, Gaius!” Diana was yelling downstairs.

“Diana, my dear, be reasonable—I’m sure the Reds faction director has any number of places he can send his horses if the stables flood—”

“Yes, on the other side of the city, and hours away now that the Pons Silica is down! I’m just asking if I could put up my Anemoi here a few days if the rains get harder; Father doesn’t have the room—”