‘Especially when Venus appears in the guise of this adorable creature you have had the temerity to keep hidden from us until tonight,’ said another man.
With winks and nudges they devoured her with their eyes. Cheeks afire, Fanina no longer knew how to react. How many of them were there staring at her? Twenty at least, of all ages and from all strata of society, as far as she could tell, in spite of the fact that they had all donned the customary white synthesis provided by their host. There were more than twenty of them; some of whom had already drunk over-generously to their victory and were staggering about in all directions, almost falling to the ground.
No one seemed to have recognized her. In spite of Sejanus’s protection, Fanina felt relieved at this as she withstood their persistent stares. Who would ever have guessed that the unknown mistress of the commander of the Praetorians, her hair dressed in the latest style, wearing that dazzling scarlet dress embroidered in gold, was the ‘dead vestal’, the unhappy little priestess who hail been buried alive beneath the Field of Evil-doers and whose ‘ghost’, some ten months ago, had spread panic in the gardens of Domitius Brazen-beard?
Clasping Fanina round the waist and drawing her to him, Sejanus turned to his friends as they continued their indiscreet scrutiny.
‘Let me introduce Bella,’ he said in ringing tones. ‘She is dearer to me than anything else in the world.’
The lord and master had spoken. The woman belonged to him. After allowing them to admire her, he had made this quite clear. Regretfully, the men moved slowly away.
‘I want everyone to be gay!’ Sejanus went on. ‘A day of victory is a day of victory, by Jupiter! Everything here is yours!’
A great cry of delight greeted his words, followed almost immediately by a voice saying:
‘Did you say you were going to dazzle us tonight, Lucius my friend?’
The twelve Egyptian slave-girls had come in after Fanina, their lovely dark eyes on the ground, startled by the presence of all these men who treated them as so many head of first-class cattle, clutching at them so that they could the better appraise the delectable contours of their magnificent naked breasts and the harmonious curves of their long amber-coloured thighs....
The din was growing louder. People were shouting and exclaiming. Anxious on behalf of her servants and ready to fly to their assistance should the enthusiasm of their admirers exceed the permitted bounds, Fanina crossed the banqueting hall to the triclinium, an unusually large one with its three vast beds holding fifteen each, arranged in a horseshoe shape around an open space, from which the food was served from eight round Mauritanian citrus-wood tables that were groaning beneath the weight of food and select wines.
The guests had long since stuffed themselves with hors-d’oeuvres and had drunk more than was good for them. Overcoming the disgust she felt rise up in her at the sight of this unrestrained rabble, feeling slightly queasy from the smell of so much spilled wine, Fanina behaved as if nothing surprised her, and forced herself to smile at all the drunkards with their congested faces, in whom she wished to see nothing but brothers-in-arms joyously feasting a long-awaited victory.
Suddenly she tripped. A fat man was spreadeagled on the floor, which itself consisted of a representation in mosaic of an unswept floor after a copious meal. The man lay there, snoring noisily, his arms spread out across a background of nutshells, broken eggs, fishbones, peelings, fruit stones, empty sea-eggs, claws of crabs and chicken bones.
‘You’ll see more than a few in that state before the night is out, my love,’ said Sejanus with a laugh.
Fanina looked at him. Never had she seen him as he was that evening. Sniffing the wines as they went by, dipping into the dishes, exchanging thumps on the back with all he encountered, grabbing them by the neck as a sign of friendship, his eyes were sparkling, his cheeks pink; he was in his element.
Leading his companion towards the bed at the far end, he helped her up on to it, then, lying beside her, called out in ringing tones:
‘We must make this night the best of our lives, my friends! Bring on some better wine, the best I have, so that we may all drink together and drink again!’
Obeying with undisguised eagerness the desperate signals addressed to them by the tricliniarch — the slave who, in this indescribable chaos was doing his best to organize the serving of the meal — the Egyptian girls took themselves off. Then their crowd of admirers swept back towards the beds, while other slaves scrupulously mixed in a huge bowl hot water with Phanean wine, which had been carried in with full pomp and ceremony.
Fanina started back, as Sejanus, turning towards her, handed her a large Alexandrian glass chalice which one of the servants had just filled to overflowing with a silver ladle.
‘You drink first, my dearest.’
‘But you know I’ve never drunk wine in my life,’ she whispered, growing red.
Pressing close to her, the commander of the Praetorians murmured:
‘All the more reason why you should now. The first wine to pass your lips will be the wine of our victory.’
Everyone was watching them. All the guests, save those who were lying on the ground, whom the slaves carried off into a neighbouring room to relieve their stomachs, had now taken their places on the beds, and were waiting, raised on one elbow, in a religious silence, for Fanina to empty her cup before they did.
‘Come on, illustrious Bella, drink up,’ a little man with a very fat face said at last. ‘And may the gods grant you whatever you wish for.’
‘They certainly will,’ replied the commander of the Praetorians proudly, as he put the priceless chalice once again to Fanina’s lips. ‘The gods are on Bella’s side. They refuse her nothing.’
‘Do you really think so, Lucius?’ asked Fanina smiling strangely.
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘I could wish for anything I want?’
Sejanus raised his eyebrows.
‘What have you in mind to ask for that is so extraordinary?’
‘Only what we have always agreed on, Lucius.’
Taking the cup in which sparkled the heady essence of the most famous of all wines from the island of Chio, Fanina raised it to the assembled company; then, carried away by a feeling of exaltation that transfigured her, in a loud, clear voice she spoke the words that nobody before her had ever dared utter in the city:
‘May the gods give happiness and freedom to the people of Rome and to all the nations Rome has gathered about her!’
Then lifting the chalice to her lips, slowly and reverently she drank it. It was strong, very strong. It created within her a burning, devouring flame, a giddy whirlwind that swept her along towards she knew not what luminous world.
‘What did you say that for?’ Sejanus whispered in her ear.
Some of the drunkards who had emptied their cups in one draught together with her were choking and coughing fit to burst. Everyone stared at Fanina in stupefaction.
‘What did you say that for?’ Sejanus repeated.
Fanina looked at him with heavy eyes and a heavy head.
‘Is it so odd to ask the gods for happiness and freedom?’ she asked.
Then, turning to those who faced her and no longer knew which way to look:
‘Which one of you would wish for anything else? Could there be anyone on earth crazy enough to ask the gods to make them miserable and slaves to tyranny?’
The mist around Fanina was growing thicker.
‘To our success! Let’s drink to our success!’ someone shouted. Sejanus called out:
‘To our future!’
There was a clink of drinking-cups. In the midst of the tumult of toasts that rang across the room, the slaves brought in a dish bearing a huge bowl from which arose white steam. Congratulations flew from one to another. Peals of loud laughter rang out. In the midst of all the noise, Fanina caught a strange scrap of conversation:
‘... even more republican than the old fool, but how much nicer to look at...’
; Sejanus leant towards her:
‘Come now, my love, people have quite forgotten what you said. Let’s enjoy life....’
Beatifically happy, overcome by a delicious sense of euphoria that was gradually making her grow numb, Fanina smiled at the spectacle of a volley of turtle-doves rising from the ‘Trojan’ boar’s head and fluttering across the room.
Beside her, Sejanus was joking with his left-hand neighbour. At the entry to the corridor leading off to the kitchens, the tricliniarch, acclaimed by the guests, ceremoniously announced each of the dishes as they passed in front of him:
‘Peacocks from Samos with green sauce! ... Boiled ostrich, mint flavoured! ... Sterile sow’s vulvas with silphium from Cyrenaica! ... Moray eels from the Straits of Sicily with Damascus plums! ... Hedgehog of Mycenae cooked with wine-and-fish sauce! ... Snails fattened in milk! ... Bauli lobsters with mustard! ... Abydos oysters with cumin! ...
Someone was standing in front of Fanina; it was Eminha, the youngest of her serving-girls.
‘Mistress, Mistress ...’ she repeated, ‘can’t you hear me? Aren’t you hungry?’
Fanina pushed away the dish the Egyptian girl was holding out to her.
‘That wine did you no good, Mistress.... You should only have drunk one mouthful.’
Articulating with difficulty, Fanina replied:
‘To make a wish come true you have to drink the cup to the dregs, Eminha.’
Then noticing a long red scratch on one of the slave-girl’s breasts, she exclaimed:
‘You’ve hurt yourself.’
The girl lowered her eyes.
‘It’s nothing serious, Mistress,’ she replied in a flat voice. ‘One of the guests insisted I drink with him ...’
A long burst of cheering rose up from the assembled company, cutting off what the slave-girl was saying. Supported by two other Egyptian servants, Marrha and Hyra, who were almost carrying him, their heads turned away in disgust, a fat man entered the room. Fanina recognized him as the drunk she had stumbled over as she had crossed the hall.
‘Here comes our dear Prefect of the Treasury!’ they all shouted.
‘Here comes the man who will plunge his hands into the State coffers and bury us under a shower of gold!’
After having been brought relief by a slave detailed to perform this revolting task, still hiccuping, the latest arrival stretched out with some difficulty beside Fanina who drew back in horror against Sejanus.
‘Don’t worry about him, my love,’ whispered the commander of the Praetorians in her ear. ‘In a few minutes he will have drunk so much that he’ll have to go and get rid of it all again. If you like, after that I’ll leave him to sleep it off ... but he needs to be carefully handled at the moment; he’s the most valuable of our allies . . . the Emperor’s Treasurer. I owe a lot to him....’
The most valuable of Sejanus’s allies, this piggish creature, the very sight of whom was an intolerable imposition! It was not possible! She must be dreaming. In desperation Fanina fought to free herself from the baleful nightmare she found herself caught up in.
Meanwhile they brought the Prefect of the Treasury a large cup filled with a greenish gruel that he swallowed in one draught.
‘What was that?’ Fanina stammered, sickened.
‘Hemlock,’ Sejanus replied simply.
‘But he’ll die.’
‘He would indeed die if we stopped him drinking now. Look ...’
One of the servants handed the repugnant man a great big bowl of Falernian wine which he tossed off without drawing a breath, while everyone applauded furiously.
‘Now he’ll be all right,’ Sejanus commented. ‘It’s his way of forcing himself to drink. First he takes some hemlock. Then, as he knows he will die if he does not drink, he is so terrified that he goes on drinking till he passes out. The slaves relieve him of it and get him on his feet again, then he takes some more hemlock, and so on and so forth ...’
Feeling sick, Fanina rose to her knees. Sejanus also smelt of wine. The whole room smelt of wine. She too smelt of wine. Her head felt as if it were gripped in a tight iron band. Her stomach burned and she felt sick, so sick. Everything was spinning about her.
Why had she agreed to attend the banquet? Why had Sejanus not warned her about the scenes she would witness?
She looked at her lover. He was talking to his neighbour, eating little and he too was emptying cup after cup of wine. This spectacle was something quite normal in his eyes. He must surely be getting drunk too after all he had imbibed. No doubt he behaved better than his guests, but his face would soon be as red as theirs, with the same half-closed eyes with that clouded, vague look....
‘By the way,’ stuttered the Prefect of the Treasury beside her, ‘what’s the state of the game?’
His neighbours looked at him in dismay.
‘Has Lucius sent . . . messages ... to the legions to . . . tel I them to be ready ... to occupy the strategic bridges . . .’ the Prefect of the Treasury went on with difficulty.
A huge burst of laughter rose up from the assembled company. Almost in tears, a young man called out:
‘Did you hear that, Lucius? Publius didn’t know we had won without having to strike a single blow.’
Then with a sidelong glance at Fanina, Sejanus said:
‘Everything’s fixed, Publius. We have won.’
‘Then you’re the Emperor!’ the fat man said in astonishment.
‘Everything is fixed, Publius! Everything is fixed!’ the commander of the Praetorians replied hastily, as if to drown the Prefect’s voice.
With aching temples and clenched jaws, Fanina watched Sejanus.
‘Emperor!’ she whispered.
The commander of the Praetorians did all he could to silence his ‘accomplices’ with imperious looks, but they were very excited and overflowing with joy as they shouted to the Prefect of the Treasury.
‘He soon will be, Publius!’
‘It’s as if he were already!’
‘We’ve only got to wait for old Tiberius to die!’
‘And that he may do sooner than anyone expects.’
Giddy with delight, answering one another like the members of a chorus, they began to reveal why they were so sure.
‘The Emperor sent a message to the Supreme Vestal!’
‘The message was intercepted!’
‘Tiberius wrote to tell poor Vibidia that he would not believe all the horrible things she said about poor Lucius...’
‘And he told her a letter was on its way to the Senate to say that he had decided to confer the power of Tribune on Lucius....’
‘He also said that before the end of next week he would communicate to her a last will and testament that disinherited all other claimants, leaving the Empire to “his dear Lucius...’
Stupefied, the Prefect of the Treasury stammered:
‘Then you are the Emperor, Lucius ... You are the Emperor! ...’
Staggering as he went, a little bald man came forward into the open space between the three gigantic beds of the triclinium, then, leaning on one of the tables, dramatically proclaimed to Sejanus, who lay watching him with ashen face:
‘Ave Imperator!’
Then accompanied by thunderous applause, he turned to the guests reclining on the same bed as the commander of the Praetorians and Fanina and said:
‘Greetings, Latinus Latiaris, Legate of Spain! Greetings to you, Sextius Paconianus, Legate of Syria! ... And greetings to you, Julius Marinus ...’
Trembling in every limb, Fanina slipped off the end of the bed. The world was collapsing about her....
Someone was following her with unsteady steps. It was Sejanus, who joined her in a small room adjoining the main hall.
‘Bella! Bella!’ he murmured.
‘Emperor!’ she snapped back at him in utter disgust.
‘I swear, Fanina!’
Fanina! Now he had the effrontery to call her Fanina! Her anger was such that all her limbs were trembling, and she rasped out
:
‘What are you going to swear to me, Emperor?’
Clasping her burning forehead in her hands, she went on:
‘Emperor of all the scum of the earth! ... An Emperor whose lieutenants are the vilest men in the Empire, the most despised ... Latinus Latiaris, Sextius Paconius, Julius Marinus ... Informers! Men who have kept the public executioner busy with a supply of unfortunates they accused of high treason, swearing to the gods that hey had offended Tiberius, and all so that they could lay their I lands on that part of these men’s worldly goods that was thrown to them by way of recompense, like to so many dogs ... Men bathed in innocent blood whom you call friends, Sejanus; men you clasp in your arms, Sejanus, men you embrace, Sejanus; men you give whole provinces to for them to pillage, Sejanus, so that they will make you Emperor, when all you needed to do was to go to the Forum and harangue the people for Tiberius to be overthrown and the Republic proclaimed. Now I understand why that scum reacted .is they did — and you too — when I was naive enough to ask the gods for liberty and happiness for all the peoples of the Empire.’
Wild-eyed, Sejanus had sunk into a chair.
‘You have made a mockery of me, Sejanus,’ Fanina went on more quietly. ‘A shameful, low mockery! ... What have we still got in common, I wonder?’
He leapt to his feet.
‘You don’t want to leave me, do you, Fanina? You are the only tiling I care about. I would have restored you to a world that drove you out so ignominiously, given you a place above all others. I would have rehabilitated you in so spectacular a way that everyone would have been obliged to adore you like a goddess. You would have had the most powerful man in the universe as your slave. I would have wiped from the face of the earth all those who persecuted you. Your friends would have been my friends ...’
‘And your friends mine,’ Fanina interrupted in loathing.
Stretching out his arms towards her, he growled:
‘One word from you and I shall hand that scum over to the executioner!’
She replied scathingly:
‘You would, too, Sejanus, if it helped you to hang on to the Empire!’
Rushing over to her, he took her by the shoulders; then, looking her in the eyes, murmured:
Fanina, Child of Rome Page 24