Текст книги "Empire"

Автор книги: Steven Saylor

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Mnester snorted. “That means he’s afraid of being caught.”

That was true, but it was not the entire truth. Certainly, Titus felt a quiver of apprehension, considering the consequences that might arise from betraying the emperor’s trust, but he also felt genuinely grateful to Claudius, and even admired him, despite his flaws. As emperor, the old fellow had proven to be a disappointment to many people; he had ordered numerous executions and often showed poor judgement, and was said to be easily led by those around him, most notably Messalina and his trusted freedman Narcissus. But all in all, most people agreed Claudius, doddering as he might be, was an improvement over the cruelties of Tiberius and the madness of Caligula. Certainly Titus thought so; Claudius had done a great deal to help him and his family, and had never harmed them.

“The consequence you should worry about is the consequence of disappointing me‚” said Messalina. “Does the name Gaius Julius Polybius mean anything to you?”

“The literary scholar and friend of the emperor who was executed for treason?”

“That was the official charge. The fact is, Polybius stood right where you’re standing, and refused to do what I wished. Later, I told my husband he had made unseemly advances and I insisted that he be punished.”

“Surely Polybius protested his innocence?”

“When it comes to a choice between believing me or believing anyone else – including even you, Titus Pinarius – my dear husband will side with me every time. We can put it to the test, if you insist; but do you really want to risk suffering the fate of Actaeon? Think how much more enjoyable it would be to lie beside me on this couch and sip a bit of wine.”

“It’s very good wine,” said Mnester, raising the cup in invitation.

Torn by indecision, Titus continued to hesitate.

Mnester laughed. “I understand your dilemma, friend. I tried to resist her myself, at first – to no avail. Like you, my fear of offending Claudius outweighed my desire for Lycisca, desirable as she is. She made promises; she made threats; she used all her seductive wiles. Still I refused. Then, one day, Claudius summoned me for a private meeting, just the two of us. He told me that his wife was complaining that I had refused to perform for her, and that this had made her very unhappy. He ordered me in no uncertain terms to do whatever she demanded. ‘Must I submit to anything she asks?’ I said. ‘Yes, anything!’ So here I am, merely doing my emperor’s bidding.”

“But Claudius couldn’t have known what you were talking about! He couldn’t approve of this.”

“No? Most husbands give themselves the freedom to seek pleasure outside their marriage, and some husbands are enlightened enough to allow their wives the same freedom, especially if the wife is much younger and possessed of strong appetites, and has already produced a healthy heir.”

Little Britannicus would be close to seven years old now, thought Titus. There was nothing maternal in Messalina’s appearance at this moment. “Are you suggesting that Claudius wouldn’t object if I were to join you? I hardly think he would agree to such a thing if I asked him.”

“Not if you asked him explicitly, and performed the deed under his nose, giving him no way to retain his dignity. That’s not how the game is played. It all happens with a wink and a nod, and out of sight, don’t you see? The important thing is that Messalina should be happy. Don’t you want to make her happy, Titus?” Mnester moved closer to Messalina and slipped his fingers inside the sheer gown, cupping his hand around one breast, squeezing it so that the nipple pressed against the fabric. Messalina sighed. “She’s very responsive,” whispered Mnester. “I’ve never made love to another woman like her. You really owe it yourself to join us, Titus.”

The last of Titus’s resistance faded. They were both young and beautiful and appeared to be completely without inhibitions. The duty would hardly be onerous, as long as Titus could keep his thoughts from leaping to the all the fearsome outcomes that might ensue. He was suddenly extremely aroused. Could it be that the element of danger, even more than Messalina, was exciting to him?

“Well, if I really have no choice,” he muttered, taking a step forward. “And if Claudius does not object,” he added, not believing this lie for a moment. He soon found himself between the two of them, no longer standing but horizontal. The couch was firm, the cushions soft. They took turns refilling the cup with wine and putting it to his lips. They pulled off his shoes and his trabea, and undid the loincloth underneath. Warm hands stroked his flesh. Someone was kissing him – he was not sure which, but the lips were soft and pliant, the tongue eager. It was Messalina who kissed him. Mnester was doing something with his mouth elsewhere. Messalina pulled back so that Titus could see.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” she whispered. “I love him and I hate him for the same reason – because he’s prettier than I am!” From somewhere she produced a thin leather whip with an ivory handle. With a crack that made Titus jump, she wielded it with surprising strength against Mnester’s broad shoulders. He moaned but did not stop what he was doing. If anything, he performed more avidly, making Titus writhe with pleasure.

“Mnester is so pretty, even Claudius has been known to kiss him after a particularly fine performance,” said Messalina. “Do you know, I think he’s the only man my husband has ever kissed. Claudius has no interest in either men or boys, the silly old fool!”

Messalina kissed Titus again, taking his breath away. “And what interests you, Titus Pinarius? No, don’t answer. Between the two of us, Mnester and I will discover everything that gives you pleasure.”

After everyone had been satisfied, and satisfied again, there was a long, languid hour of utter indolence as the three of them lay close together, naked and silent and drained of desire.

It Messalina who finally spoke. “Don’t you have a brother, Titus?”

He was almost dozing. It took him a moment to answer. “Yes.”

“A twin brother?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. I remember meeting the two of you when you first came to Roma. I could tell you apart, though. I knew you were the playful one.”

“You were certainly right about that!” said Mnester sleepily. Titus smiled, enjoying the praise.

“But one never sees him about. He’s still alive, isn’t he, your twin brother?”

“Yes.”

“And still in the city?”

“Yes.” Titus shifted uneasily. He was wide awake now.

“Then where are you hiding him, Titus? You must bring him to meet me. One of you is delightful; two of you would be divine. Can you imagine, Mnester? Identical twins.”

Mnester made a growling sound.

Titus squirmed a bit, not liking the drift of the conversation. “Actually, we’re not as alike as we used to be. Kaeso… doesn’t look after his appearance. He’s rather unkempt these days.”

“A wild man? All the better!” Messalina purred. “I can catalogue the differences and similarities between the two of you.”

Titus was now acutely uncomfortable, reminded for the second time that day of his long-ago audience with Caligula. That occasion had been a torment, the stuff of nightmares. Today’s tryst, equally unexpected and to some extent coerced, had delivered him to a state of bliss. It was a curious thing, how the same acts, resulting in the same physical release, could bring either misery or joy, depending on the circumstances and the people involved.

Messalina was quiet for the moment, and Titus deliberately tried to think of other things.

“At the Secular Games,” he said, “That’s where it was.”

“What are you talking about?” said Messalina.

“That’s where I saw Mnester play Ajax, at one of the plays put on during the Secular Games last summer. I’ve been trying to remember ever since I stepped into this room and recognized him. I could remember the performance, but not the venue.”

“At least I was memorable,” murmured Mnester.

“More than memorable,” said Titus. “You were brilliant. I believed every moment that you were the world’s greatest warrior, wearing that magnificent armour. When Athena put you under a spell, I really thought you were sleepwalking. And when you woke up covered in blood and realized you’d killed a herd of sheep instead of your enemies, well, I had to laugh and shudder at the same time. And your suicide scene – truly, you had me in tears.”

Mnester made a contented noise.

“Now that I think of it,” Titus went on, “the whole festival was remarkable. Everything about the Secular Games was first-rate – the gladiator matches, the races, the plays, the banquets, the concerts in the temples. The panther-hunt in the Circus Maximus – that was spectacular! Though I think I was even more impressed by the Thessalian horsemen, the way they drove that herd of bulls in a stampede around the track, then dismounted and wrestled them to the ground. Amazing stuff! I think those games were the highlight of Claudius’s reign so far. And why not? They say the Secular Games are held only once in a lifetime, and these marked the eight hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city, quite a grand occasion-”

He stopped abruptly. Mnester was kicking him under the thin coverlet. He turned to see that Mnester was frowning and shaking his head, as if to warn Titus away from the subject.

But it was too late. Messalina sat upright and crossed her arms. Her pretty face was twisted by a vexed expression. “The Secular Games – that was where she made her move!”

“She?” said Titus.

“Agrippina, Claudius’s niece. The bitch!”

Mnester cringed and shifted toward the far side of the couch. “Now you’ve set her off,” he whispered.

“It was during the Troy Pageant,” Messalina said. “Were you there that afternoon in the Circus Maximus, Titus? Did you see?”

“The Troy Pageant? No, I missed that.” Watching patrician boys dressed up as Trojan warriors perform maneuvers on horseback was a pastime he considered more suitable for doting mothers and grandparents.

“Then you missed Agrippina’s triumph. I was there, of course, with Claudius and little Britannicus in the imperial box. Before the pageant commenced I stood with Britannicus and we waved to the crowd. There was hardly any applause at all. What were people thinking, to pay so little honour to the wife, and more especially to the son of the emperor? Eventually I sat down, thoroughly disgusted.

“In the box with us was Agrippina. Claudius invites her to everything. He says it’s his duty as her uncle, since both her parents are dead and Agrippina is a widow again, raising her son alone. After I sat, Claudius called on her to stand, along with that spotty-faced brat of her, little Nero. Numa’s balls! I couldn’t hear myself think over the applause and the cheering. It went on and on. Why? All I could think was that people had been reading that insipid memoir of hers, in which she paints such a puffed-up portrait of herself and all her suffering. Have you read it, Titus?”

“No, I haven’t,” he said. Strictly speaking, this was true, but Titus knew most of the stories in Agrippina’s book because his wife had read it. Chrysanthe had been greatly inspired by the tale of a woman born into privilege but forced by Fate to fend for herself and her young one. At bedtime, after finishing a chapter, she had breathlessly repeated the stirring details for Titus’s edification.

Messalina clearly had a different impression of Agrippina’s story. “You’d think she was Cassandra at the burning of Troy, the way she goes on about her woes. Daughter of the great Germanicus and an irreproachable mother, both struck down in their prime – well, everyone’s parents die sooner or later. Sister of Caligula, who turned against her, confiscated her possessions, and exiled her to the Pontine Islands, where she was forced to dive for sponges to support herself. Of course she doesn’t mention her incest with Caligula, or the fact that she plotted to do away with him. Widowed twice and forced to raise the Divine Augustus’s one and only great-great-grandson all by herself – though the suspicious death of her last husband left her very wealthy indeed. Poor, long-suffering Agrippina! Her campaign to endear herself to the people certainly seems to be working, to judge by their reaction at the Troy Pageant. And once the cheering started, the spotty-faced brat stepped in front of his mother and began turning this way and that, smiling and making gestures to the crowd – what do you actors call it, Mnester, ‘milking’ the audience for applause?”

Mnester grunted, trying to stay out of the conversation.

“Then Agrippina announced that Nero would be participating in the Troy Pageant, despite the fact that he was only nine and the other boys were all older, and down he went to put on his mock armour and take up a wooden sword and mount his pony. More cheering! Though I must admit, for a nine-year-old, he handled himself rather well on horseback.”

“Born to ride,” muttered Mnester.

Messalina snorted. “What a little showman! Precocious, Claudius calls him, as if that were a compliment. Some people find his affectations charming; I think there’s something repulsive about the boy. And about his mother as well. Parading one’s sorrows in public and seeking accolades from the mob is terribly vulgar, don’t you think?”

Her gaze demanded a response. Mnester gave Titus another surreptitious kick, and Titus vigorously nodded his head.

“It’s so obvious what the scheming vixen has in mind,” said Messalina. “She thinks her little Nero should be the next emperor.”

“Surely not,” said Titus.

“Claudius isn’t getting any younger, and Nero will reach his toga day ahead of Britannicus, and the brat is a direct descendant of Augustus. Of course, so was Caligula, and we all know how that ended.”

“Do you really think Agrippina is thinking that far ahead?”

“Of course! The maudlin memoir, the way she grooms Nero and presents him in public, her fawning deference to Claudius, her calculated role as the virtuous widow – oh yes, with Agrippina everything is a means to an end. She and that whelp of hers need to carefully watched.”

Mnester rolled farther away. The coverlet slipped and exposed his meaty buttocks. Messalina abruptly picked up the whip with the ivory handle and gave him a cracking lash across his backside. “What are you smirking at?”

“I wasn’t smirking, Lycisca!” Mnester hid his face in a cushion and his whole body trembled. Titus thought he was quaking with fear until he realized that the actor was trying to hide his laughter.

“You lout!” Messalina gave him another lash.

“Please, Lycisca!” cried Mnester, though to Titus it appeared that he made no effort to avoid the blow, but instead raised his hips and wriggled them a bit. So far, Messalina had spared Titus the whip, and though it was stimulating to see a naked, well-built fellow like Mnester take a thrashing, he did not care to receive one himself, not even from Messalina. Also, he was tired. If this was the prelude to more lovemaking, Titus was not sure he was up for it.

He need not have worried. The conversation had put Messalina in a foul mood, and Mnester’s giggling had cooled her ardour. She told Titus to dress, and when he was again in his trabea, she handed him a little sack of coins.

“What’s this?” he said.

“Your fee. Isn’t it customary to pay an augur for his services?”

“But I performed no augury.”

“Nonetheless, you performed. And your wife will be expecting you to bring home a little something to add to the household coffers, won’t she? Now off with you.”

“Will you want to see me again?” Titus asked.

“Who knows? No, don’t pout! I hate it when men pout. You were a raging stallion, you were an elemental force of nature, you made me melt with ecstasy – honestly. Of course I’ll want to see you again. But now get out!”

Titus left the house on the Esquiline with mixed feelings. An afternoon of debauched lovemaking was the last thing he had expected that day, and to be paid for his services made him feel a bit like a spintria, as people had taken to calling the male prostitutes of the city, adapting the word that Tiberius had coined. Still, his performance must have been superior, for Messalina, who clearly could have any man she wanted, said she would want to see him again.

The autumn day was short. Shadows were gathering; it was the hour for lighting lamps in the streets. Tripping lightly down the slope of the Esquiline and passing through the Subura, Titus passed the alley that led to the shabby tenement where Kaeso lived. What a dreadfully dull existence his brother led, compared to his own eventful life.

AD 48

Days passed, and then months, and Titus received no further summons from Messalina. He felt a bit piqued that she seemed to have forgotten him, but it was probably for the best. His afternoon as Lycisca’s plaything had been a novel experience, but when he thought of the danger, it took his breath away. Besides, Titus was quite happy with his home life. No man had ever had a more loving wife than his Chrysanthe.

It was from Chrysanthe, of all people, that Titus heard the rumour that explained why Messalina had lost interest in him. “You won’t believe what I heard from the neighbor’s wife this morning,” she said one day when Titus returned home from performing an augury at a temple on the Quirinal Hill.

“Try me.”

“It’s about the emperor’s wife.”

“Oh?” Titus attempted to look only mildly curious.

“Everyone knows she’s a wanton woman.”

“Really? I’ve always heard that Messalina is a steadfast wife and mother.”

Chrysanthe made a rude sound. “That would describe the emperor’s niece, Agrippina, but hardly his wife. You are clearly in the dark about that woman, husband, as is your friend the emperor. Of course it’s no surprise that Messalina should have taken an occasional lover. Claudius is so much older, and based on the behaviour of previous members of the ruling family, starting with the Divine Augustus’s daughter, it seems these imperial women are incapable of behaving decently. But now Messalina may have gone too far. They say she’s settled on a single lover, the senator Gaius Silius. That was how Silius got himself appointed consul this year, through Messalina’s influence.”

Titus had met the man. He was young for a consul, broad shouldered, undeniably handsome, vain, and ambitious – just the sort of man Messalina might take for a lover. “Go on.”

“The shocking thing is, she calls Silius ‘husband.’ Can you imagine? As if Claudius didn’t exist. Or soon might not exist.”

“How could the neighbour’s wife possibly know such a thing?”

“Slaves talk,” Chrysanthe said. This was her standard explanation for the otherwise inexplicable transmission of certain rumours. She raised her eyebrows. “They say Claudius is so addled, he truly knows nothing about it.”

Titus was briefly struck by the irony that Chrysanthe, who was young and had all her faculties, had never suspected Titus’s infidelity. The omniscient slaves had stayed quiet about that, at least!

Titus frowned. Chrysanthe’s news, if it was true, posed a dilemma. Could Messalina seriously be thinking of doing away with Claudius? Had she carried her play-acting as Lycisca to a stage beyond harmless dalliance, to the point that she was considering murder and a palace revolt? If so, surely Titus had an obligation to warn his old friend and mentor about Messalina’s seditious behaviour, but how could he do so without compromising himself?

He would have to sleep on the matter.

Titus lost no sleep that night over the question of Messalina and her new “husband.” He simply pushed the matter to the back of his mind. Why had he thought that some action was called for on his part? If even the neighbour’s wife knew such a rumour, then everyone knew it, so it hardly fell to Titus to run to Claudius to warn him that his unfaithful wife might or might not be plotting against him.

The next morning, Titus received a summons to the imperial residence, in the form of a message from the emperor himself. The courier handed him a little wax tablet bound in elaborately decorated bronze plates and tied with a purple ribbon. Inside was written, in a crabbed hand that must have been that of Claudius himself, “Come, my young friend, quick as asparagus! I require a very private augury.”

The reference to asparagus meant nothing to Titus, but he quickly put on his trabea and fetched his lituus.

It had been some time since Titus had been inside the imperial residence. As the courier led him through various rooms and corridors, he noticed changes in the decor – new mosaics on the floors, freshly painted images of flowers and peacocks on the walls, gleaming new statues of marble and bronze. Since Claudius cared little about decoration, Titus assumed it was the hand of Messalina that he saw at work.

He and the courier were made to wait in a room where two statues faced each other across a green marble floor. The marble statue of Messalina presented a familiar image. There were several statues of her around the city, all depicting her as a dutiful mother. Her body was wrapped in a voluminous stola with one fold draped over her head like a mantle. With a serene expression she gazed upon the naked baby Britannicus cradled in her arms.

Across from the Messalina was a bronze statue that Titus had never seen before, depicting a nude, heroic figure. Gold covered the naked flesh, while the Greek helmet cradled in the left arm, the upraised sword in the right hand, and the nipples on the muscular chest were chased with silver. The precious metals shone with fiery brilliance in the slanting rays of morning sunlight. The shoulders were so broad and the hips so narrow that one might have thought the artist had taken liberties, but Titus could attest that the portrayal was accurate. The inscription on the pedestal said AJAX, but the model had clearly been Mnester.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said the courier.

“Stunning. It must have cost a fortune.”

The courier smiled. “There’s an interesting story about that. After Caligula was gotten rid of, the Senate voted to have every one of the coins that bore his likeness taken out of circulation and melted down. They never wanted to see his face again! The bullion sat for a long time, until the emperor gave instructions to use the silver and gold to decorate this statue. The emperor is certainly fond of Mnester, but they say it was his wife’s idea to make this statue.”

“Is that right?”

“She said it was proper to use Caligula’s coinage to honour Caligula’s favourite actor.”

“I see.” The two statues had been situated so that they faced each other across the room; the eyes of the two figures appeared to meet, as if exchanging knowing looks. It was cruel of Messalina, thought Titus, to flaunt her affair, even in this covert manner, in the very heart of the palace, under her husband’s nose and in front of his visitors.

At last Titus was called for.

A thorough inspection was required of anyone entering the emperor’s presence. Not even women or children were exempt from the indignity of being searched for weapons, and even the lowliest scribe was made to empty his stylus box. Titus had been through the process before and was ready to have his lituus examined and the folds of his trabea shaken. But on this day the examination was more thorough than ever. He was taken to a private room and politely asked by a hulking Praetorian to remove his trabea.

“Surely that’s not necessary.”

“It is,” said the Praetorian.

“And if I refuse?”

“You’re here at the emperor’s request. This is the prescribed procedure. You can’t refuse.” The guard crossed his arms. Titus saw that the man had positioned himself to block the door. He felt a tremor of uneasiness.

As he removed the trabea, he was reminded of his first visit to the imperial residence, long ago, and the audience with Caligula. He drove the memory from his mind with thoughts of how Caligula had met his end, bleeding from thirty stab wounds. That was the reason, after all, for this indignity: Claudius had never forgotten the violent manner of his predecessor’s death, and had no intention of meeting a similar fate.

Once upon a time, it had seemed that the emperor was invulnerable and untouchable, protected by the gods; the beloved Augustus and the detested Tiberius both lived to be old men and died in bed. But the violent end of Caligula changed all that. His murder proved that an emperor could be made to bleed and to die just like any other mortal. Caligula’s assassination rid the world of a monster but set a terrible precedent; that was why Claudius, instead of rewarding the tribune Cassius Chaerea, eventually had the assassin put to death. No man could be allowed to kill an emperor and get away with it, not even by the man who had benefited most by becoming the next emperor.

At last the indignity was done with, and Titus was allowed to dress. Clutching his lituus, he was shown not into a formal reception room but into the emperor’s private study. The shelves were crammed with scrolls and the tables covered with scraps of parchment. Maps, genealogical charts, and lists of magistrates were hung on the walls. The dust in the air made Titus sneeze.

Claudius was fifty-eight but looked older. His purple toga was askew, the way one sometimes saw togas on old men who could not look after their appearance and had no one to do it for them. There was a dark spot just above his chest; while Titus watched, Claudius clutched that bit of cloth and used it to wipe the spittle from the corner of his mouth. He seemed fretful and distracted, shuffling through piles of scrolls and glancing this way and that before looking at Titus.

“You must p-p-perform an augury for me, Titus.”

“Certainly, Caesar.” This was the title Claudius preferred to Dominus. “What is the occasion?”

“The occasion?” Claudius put his fist to his mouth and made a strange noise. “The occasion is a decision that I have to m-make.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“No, not yet. But I can say this: someone will d-d-die, Titus. If I make the wrong decision, people will die, and for no reason. Or I could d-die. I could die!” Claudius gripped the folds of Titus’s trabea. Titus saw fear in his cousin’s eyes, such as he had seen on the day of Caligula’s murder.

“People have died already, of course, because of her. Because I was an old fool and believed everything she told me. Polybius, with whom I spent many happy hours in this room, reading b-b-books no one but the two of us had ever heard of… and my good friend Asiaticus, whom I would have acquitted of treason except for her meddling… and young Gnaeus Pompeius, the last descendant of the triumvir, stabbed to death in his b-b-bed in the arms of a b-b-boy – all dead, because she wanted them dead! And when I think of the family members and old friends I’ve sent into exile, because of her scheming – oh, Titus, you are lucky man, that you never crossed her!”

Titus nodded, his mouth dry.

“But before I say another word, you m-m-must take the auspices. I’m afraid to do it myself.”

“But I still don’t understand the purpose of the augury.”

“You needn’t know. The gods know my mind. They know what I intend to do. You must merely ask if they favour my intentions – yes or no. Here, we can do it in the garden off the study. There’s a clear patch of sky to the north.”

With Claudius standing behind him, Titus marked a section of the sky. For long, tense moments the two men watched in silence, until finally two sparrows appeared, flying from right to left. Titus was ready to declare that the auspice was negative, when from nowhere a hawk descended on the sparrows, seizing one of them in its talons. The hawk with its prey flew in one direction, the surviving sparrow in the other. From the empty sky a single sparrow feather drifted down and landed on the far side of the garden.

Behind Titus, Claudius sucked in his breath. “Without question, a favourable omen! Do you agree?”

Titus’s heart pounded. “Yes,” he finally said. “The gods favour your action. What do you intend to do, Caesar?”

Titus felt his cousin’s hand on his shoulder and flinched. Claudius seemed not to notice his reaction. “Thank the gods for the Pinarii! I could always unburden myself to your father, and though the gods took him from me, they gave me you in his stead.”

Claudius shambled across the garden and picked up the feather, groaning as he bent and straightened. There were flecks of blood on the vane. “For years, I’ve b-b-been an utter fool, allowing Messalina and her lovers to make a cuckold of me. I believed all her lies, accepted all her evasions, trusted her above all those who tried to warn me. But now the truth has finally c-c-come out, and it’s worse than anything I could have imagined. Messalina has behaved like a whore. She kept a house on the Esquiline under an assumed name and she ran the place like a b-b-brothel, allowing other highborn women to meet their lovers there, staging all manner of orgies. They say that once she gathered prostitutes from the Subura and held a c-competition to see who could satisfy the most customers in a night – and she was the winner! Can you imagine, the wife of the emperor took p-p-payment to have sex with any man who wanted her, one after another! What would Great-Uncle make of such a thing?”

He turned to look at Titus. Titus could think of nothing to say.

“I see you’re too shocked to speak, Titus. No words can express your outrage, I’m sure. And what could you possibly say that would bring me comfort? But I haven’t told you the worst of it yet. Messalina has entered into a b-b-bigamous marriage with the consul Gaius Silius. They even held a ceremony, with witnesses, as if the marriage were a legal union, blessed by the gods. I suppose they intended to stage my funeral next!”

Titus at last found his voice. “But, Caesar, how can you know these things?”

Claudius’s answer was the same as Chrysanthe’s. “Slaves talk,” he said. “And so d-d-do free men, under torture.”

“Does Messalina know you’ve discovered her secrets?”

“A slave warned her. She fled to her house in the Gardens of Lucullus – the love nest she acquired from Asiaticus, when she tricked me into executing the poor fellow. Praetorians have surrounded the grounds. She awaits her fate.”