“I swear that every word I tell you is what I heard from the lips of Nike and Getio. Nike went to deliver a message from the Lady Messalina. She plans to meet him for an escape to the south tonight. I heard the whole plot!”
A feverish excitement gripped Agrippina. This was the opportunity she had prayed for—a way to rid the emperor of his wife without throwing suspicion on herself.
“These are all the details you know, Nero? You’re sure you’ve left nothing out?”
He nodded. He’d left out the part about Nike’s pouch of gold, but his mother didn’t need that information to bait her trap.
“Go to your room, Nero, and stay there no matter what you might hear in the night. Have Dorph sleep on the floor outside your door. We haven’t finished our discussion of this matter. But for now, it will have to wait. Go! And not a word of what you’ve told me to anyone else!”
Messalina, returning to her chamber to make ready for her escape, was surprised to find a tearful Nike there, but paid little attention to her other than to demand her slave tunic in exchange for the scarlet gown. In her hurried attempt to collect a few things for the trip, Messalina only half heard Nike’s tale of Nero’s stealing her gold as a bribe for his silence.
“Nike, I have no time for your problems. Go through my wardrobe. Take anything which strikes your fancy. I won’t need silks as a fisherman’s wife.”
Nike continued her pleading. “But, mistress, it isn’t fine gowns I need. I must have gold! I have nothing now.”
Messalina, unnerved by the delay Nike was causing, flung her jewel case across the room.
“I don’t have any more gold, but take these. Whatever you like is yours, just leave!”
Nike fell to her knees to gather up the jewels of centuries—emeralds worn by the wife of Julius Caesar, rubies meant for Cleopatra, amethysts from ancient Crete. Messalina sighed with relief as Nike scurried out of the chamber wrapped in a cloak which had been hers, a gift from Claudius, now weighted down with the imperial jewels.
It would be more than an hour until midnight, but Messalina had to get out of the villa. What if the wine didn’t take its desired toll on Claudius? He would soon send for her. As a precaution, she drew her drapes and told one of the slaves to stand guard outside her apartment telling anyone who asked for her that she felt ill and wasn’t to be disturbed.
Then, climbing out a window like a common thief, she fled through the gardens to Getio’s cottage. As she flung the door open, her lover turned, startled, with his dagger at the ready.
“Messalina! Thank the gods, you’re here! We must get away quickly.”
She didn’t answer, but melted into his arms and clung to him, letting all of her surpressed desires bubble to the surface. After devouring him with kisses, she spoke in a tone choked with passion. “I came so we could have some time together before we leave. There’s no danger. I’ve sent Nike on her way with more them enough riches to see her safely to freedom, and Claudius is in his chamber in a drunken stupor. I must feel your love before we begin our long voyage.”
Getio protested. “But you don’t understand, Messalina. Someone has been lurking about in the shadows outside. I’m not sure, but whoever it was may have overheard my conversation with Nike.”
Messalina covered his lips with her fingers and let her weight fall against him.
“Do I taste of love, my Getio? Devour me! Savor my whole body and its need for you. Believe me, we’re safe. My only danger at this moment is that I may die from wanting you.”
Getio’s dark face smiled down into the blue pools of passion that were her eyes. Then his gaze traveled down the rest of her quivering form.
His voice was low as he taunted, “It’s been some time since I made love to a slave girl. My tastes lately have run more to empresses. Drop your tunic, girl, and I’ll pleasure your body, since you beg so.”
At once letting her tunic slip and unbinding her hair, Messalina stood before Getio as he brought the lamp closer. He ran his long fingers through the bright rippling strands, then brushed them back over her creamy shoulders to uncover her breasts. He fondled her less than gently, then, moving around behind her, ran a rough fisherman’s hand down over the smooth curve of her buttocks.
Coming closer to her face, he spoke in an offhand manner. “Yes, you’ll do. Were you on the block at the market square, I might pay a few sesterces for you, wench. But you’d have to do my bidding well to make up for your use by other masters before me.”
His hand trailed down a new part of her body, making her flesh quiver under his touch. He smiled, mindless of all the dangers which had seemed to be closing in on them only moments before. Messalina had a way of making any man forget that other realities existed in the world besides her softly pliant body.
Grasping her buttocks in his hands, Getio raised her off the floor to bring her lips to his. She wrapped her bare legs around him, moving her body in a rising rhythm.
When their lips parted, she breathed, “You are my master now, Getio. Any privilege you demand, I will give. Take me as your slave—as any slave girl you’ve had before—not as the empress I was until tonight. Force me with the lust of the bull, Getio, please—now!”
Getio carried her to his cot without another word.
Clutching her stola about her, Agrippina hurried to the emperor’s apartments. Urgency spurred her through the villa’s winding halls, the only sound the whisper of her sandaled feet on the marble floor.
At the entrance to Claudius’s wing, she was halted by two Praetorian guards. Her attempts to push them aside proved unsuccessful. She was losing valuable time. Then she hesitated. Perhaps not! If Messalina and Getio were given time to escape, a major obstacle would be removed from her path. She tried to put herself inside the emperor’s thought processes. No! She must alert him to the truth. If Messalina vanished into the night, Claudius would assume she had been kidnapped. He might spend months, even years, searching for his missing wife. If he never found her or knew the true circumstances of her disappearance, he might remain without an empress for the rest of his life. He had an heir in Britannicus and any woman of his choice at his beck and call. What need did he have of a wife, after all?
Agrippina snapped at the guards, “You must let me in to speak with the emperor! It’s urgent!”
“Pardon me, my lady, but we’ve been given strictest orders that no one is to enter his chamber tonight except the empress.”
“But you must let me in, if only for a moment. The matter concerns the Lady Messalina and is of the gravest importance. I assure you, the emperor won’t be pleased if this news is kept from him.”
She was pleading now—a rare thing for the Lady Agrippina. The guards exchanged confused glances. They knew the punishment for disobeying the orders of the emperor—he eqjoyed watching torture sessions. But if the message was so urgent, they might also be punished for not allowing the emperor to receive it.
The ranking officer spoke to Agrippina with a slight apology in his voice. “My lady, you must understand that in order to see the emperor, you’ll have to be searched for weapons. Are you willing to undergo this in order to deliver your message?”
“I will gladly strip naked before the entire Praetorian Guard, if that’s the only way I can get in to see the emperor!”
To prove her words, Agrippina threw off her stola and began to unclasp her sleeping gown. The alarmed guard stopped her.
“That won’t be necessary, madam. Follow me.”
Falling in behind the spit-and-polished guard, Agrippina made her way to the chamber of Claudius. At the doorway she stopped.
“I must speak to the emperor in private. Please remain in the corridor.”
The guard again looked perplexed. He barred the way, staring at Agrippina, trying to make up his mind again.
The situation looked hopeless. She had to be alone with Claudius when she told him of Messalina’s plans.
“Here, take this.” Agripp
ina handed the guard her stola. “And this.” She untied the waistband of her gown. “Now I have nothing on me, as you can see, with which I might harm the emperor. I can’t smother him with my stola or strangle him in his sleep. You’re wasting valuable time!”
Grudgingly, the guard stepped aside, allowing Agrippina to slip through the curtained opening into the room. Only one oil lamp burned beside the bed. Its light reflected the golden embroidery of the purple coverlet on the bed. Claudius lay with his eyes closed. The covers had slipped, exposing his bare chest with its furring of silver hair.
Agrippina moved silently to the side of the bed. Trying not to arouse him too suddenly, she laid a hand on his arm and whispered, “Claudius.”
He smiled in his sleep and mumbled something unintelligible as he grasped her hand to hold it to his arm.
Agrippina tried again, leaning closer. “Claudius, wake up.”
Before the words were out of her mouth, his strong arms pulled her down to the bed and he kissed her. Surprised, Agrippina pulled away.
His eyes open now, Claudius realized his mistake. “Agrippina! I’m sorry. I would never have kissed you—er—that is to say, I find your lips delightful, but I was expecting my wife, dreaming of her coming, when you entered the room. Where is Messalina?”
“It’s because of Messalina that I’ve interrupted your sleep, Claudius,” Agrippina said, her poise recovered.
He sat up in bed, ignoring the covers as they fell away to expose his nakedness.
“She isn’t ill?”
“No, Claudius. Try to stay calm.”
He nodded, listening.
“Do you know of a freedman named Getio?”
His face remained expressionless as he answered, “Yes, the fisherman who lives in the old gardener’s cottage on the seashore. But what does he have to do with Messalina?”
Agrippina looked down at the white marble floor as she spoke. “It grieves me deeply to have to be the one to bring you this news, Claudius, but Messalina and Getio are lovers. Even now they’re making plans to flee to the south together. You’ve been betrayed again.”
His face twisting into a mask of outrage, he rasped, “Then it was all an act tonight. She has a lover, as I suspected. And you’re telling me that they plan an elopement tonight?”
Agrippina nodded, nervously twisting the pearl ring on her finger.
“Guards! Guards!” Claudius screamed, at the same time grabbing a tunic to throw over himself.
The already suspicious Praetorians rushed into the chamber and grabbed Agrippina roughly by both arms, thinking she had tried to kill the emperor after all.
“No, you fools! Unhand the Lady Agrippina! I have other work for you.”
Taking Agrippina aside, out of the hearing of the guards, Claudius whispered, “Do you know where they’re meeting?”
“She may be in Getio’s cottage now or on the way south to Puteoli.”
Stalking about his chamber like an enraged beast, Claudius thundered his commands. “You men, hurry! Find the fisherman Getio. Go to his cottage on the seashore and kill anyone you find there. Kill all! Man or woman, rid the earth of this scum! At once!”
Standing in the shadows, Agrippina allowed herself a brief smile of satisfaction. The words rang in her ears like the tinkling of a fountain on a summer day: “Kill all!”
Nike delayed her escape until she was sure the household slept. She spent her last hour at the villa with the one person she knew she could trust—Acte. It had been a simple matter to slip from the empress’s chambers to the quarters Acte occupied just down the hall from Octavia. Nike felt safe there, and she wanted to tell someone of the events of the evening so that, if she was caught, there would be a second party to stand up in her defense. Acte was trusted among the members of the royal household as well as among the slaves.
As she heard Nike’s strange tale, tears came to Acte’s soft brown eyes. She reached out to caress her friend’s flushed cheek.
“I’ll miss you, Nike. But I know how you’ve longed for your freedom—how we all long for it.”
Nike voiced her surprise at Acte’s statement. “But, Acte, you’re treated almost like a member of the emperor’s own family. Why would you want more freedom?”
Acte answered wistfully, “I may play the part of the happy slave, but there are shackles around my heart, always pressing and causing pain. Perhaps the empress’s escape is only the beginning of many changes to come for all of us.” Then she whispered, as if afraid to break some magic spell by speaking aloud, “My love has come as the Sibyl predicted.”
Nike forgot her own danger for the moment. “You don’t mean your ‘love’ with the whip and cruel hands? And how can a slave bring another slave freedom? You’re a young dreamer, Acte!” Then a light dawned in Nike’s blue eyes as she stared at her friend. “Or could it be that Iron Face has caught your eye? I heard you were sent to take care of him earlier. Has he conquered your heart already?”
Acte’s olive cheeks flushed. “The Sibyl promised he would soon come and bring both fear and love. Sergio—Iron Face—does stir me, but I’m sure he can’t be the one. Already I’ve experienced both of the promised sensations at the hands of someone else. And I never said he was a slave. You only assumed that, Nike. The Sibyl promised me a nobleman.”
“But who is he, Acte?”
Acte’s whole face beamed as she spoke. “Nero. I’ve been forced to remain a virgin all these years because of Octavia. But when the time Anally comes that I give my body and my love to a man, I know deep in my heart that it can’t be anyone but Nero.”
Nike felt a lump form in her throat at the thought of sweet, vulnerable Acte at the mercy of the vicious Nero, but she didn’t relate the incident of earlier in the evening when Nero had stolen her gold. How could she crush Acte’s dream, even if she was looking at Nero through the distortion of first love’s vision?
Kissing Acte affectionately before leaving, Nike promised to remember her always. They embraced and their tears mingled, then Nike was gone.
As she watched Nike disappear into the night, Acte whispered after her, ‘Take care, my friend, and may the gods watch over you.”
In a moment, Nike was lost in the shadows of the garden. She tried to keep herself well concealed, but the full moon worked against her. Slipping along a line of cedars, she heard sounds from the villa. Lights glowed from windows which had been black an hour earlier. Did they know already? Perhaps her gold had been wasted on Nero.
Her nerves strained with tension as she tried to make haste and avoid detection at the same time. She must get away from the villa. She must—she must—she must! Her pace and her heartbeat kept up a steady rhythm to the sound of the words in her brain.
Nike screamed as the wind whipped a willow branch out to lash her face. Then, shrinking back in the shadows to recover for a moment, she prayed no one had heard her. There was now so much noise from inside the villa that she thought her cry might well go unnoticed.
Acte, still sitting at her window staring out into the night, heard her friend’s shriek and shuddered at the sound. Had the guards found Nike? If so, she prayed the scream had been one of capture and not of death.
Closing her shutters against the night, Acte went to bed, drained of every emotion from the long day. But sleep wouldn’t come. How could she relax when her world was being turned upside down—with love and fear and pain and joy washing over her in ever-increasing waves? If only her mother, Sophia, had been empress, how different things would be now.
She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up a vision of her mother. Had Sophia ached for Claudius the way that she now suffered for Nero? Yes. Sophia had paid the ultimate price for love—her life.
On and on Nike ran. Was there no end to the gardens of the villa? And then she saw it, looming ahead like some mythical opening to a cave of hidden treasures—the gate, her opening to freedom. Throwing caution to the wind, she ran toward the fretted archway over an
open path, a dark figure in the moonlight.
She tried to encourage herself as she ran. “Just a few more steps and then—”
Nike swallowed her words as a great hand came out of the darkness to halt her progress and smother her scream. Her body froze with fear. Behind her closed eyes she saw the emperor’s cruel torture rack—waiting for her!
A man’s voice confirmed her worst fears. “Balbus, I’ve caught him—the one the emperor’s issued orders to kill. Shall I run him through on the spot or should we take him to the villa to see if the emperor wants him for the rack? Might bring us a handsome reward.”
Nike squirmed and kicked, finally biting the hand that held her mouth. The guard tore his hand away but held her fast.
“I’m not the one the emperor’s searching for. I’m a freedwoman. Let me go!”
The second guard, a giant of a man, strode up to the pair.
“Well, well, Gaius! You’ve caught yourself a real hellcat. Let’s see what treasures she’s hiding in that cape.”
Searching her roughly, they discovered her pockets filled with jewels.
The shivering girl begged the men, “Please, let me go. I’ll give you half the jewels. I’m no longer a slave. I was granted my freedom by my mistress, the Lady Messalina. I didn’t steal these jewels. She gave them to me.”
The guards laughed raucously, then the one named Gaius spoke. “Of course she gave them to you. And the reason you’re sneaking around in the dark is that you like to take walks alone at night. You should watch yourself more carefully, girl. There are degenerates who roam these parts in search of just such tempting prey as you. This fellow here beside me is one of the worst.”
He slapped the other man on the back and they both guffawed loudly.
“As for the jewels, why should we settle for half when we can take them all?”
“All right, take them. Just let me go. I’ll be away from here in moments and you won’t have to trouble yourselves with me any longer. If I’ve stolen the jewels as you seem to believe, the Lady Messalina will pay a handsome reward for their return. I ask only my freedom.”
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