The horses seemed eager to be on their way. Agrippina shaded her eyes against the sun’s glare off the soldiers’ golden helmets, which were topped by scarlet plumes. Claudius pulled the purple-and-gold curtain of his litter aside and peered out. She waved her scarf at him. He blew her a kiss. And then the emperor and his men moved off down the road.
In the days that followed, the household found a different Agrippina stalking the halls. The slaves had grown lazy and sloppy under Messalina’s rule. Under Agrippina, floggings were frequently administered, and soon there not a slave in the villa who didn’t quake at the sound of Agrippina’s footfall. Her handmaidens suffered in particular. Often they emerged from her chamber crying, their faces bruised or streaming blood from the sharp claws of their new mistress. Agrippina’s entire attention seemed centered on shaping them into her slaves. She had little time now for the three children. Again Nero felt the pain of her neglect.
Britannicus remained sullen for weeks after the death of his mother, spending most of his time in bed because of his frequent and horrifying fits. Nero had witnessed one. Britannicus had fallen to the floor flailing his arms and legs wildly, and contorting his body in an awful fashion while he foamed at the mouth and his eyes rolled back. Since then Nero avoided his sick cousin, not wanting to witness a second attack.
Octavia, on the other hand, seemed to blossom forth without the overshadowing presence of Messalina. She saw herself as mistress of the household now, disregarding Agrippina’s right to the position. Nero found the change in Octavia pleasing, if a bit high and mighty. She showed spirit now where only submission had been.
He rarely saw Acte, but the few fleeting glimpses he caught of her renewed his sense of longing to be with her. Since the funeral she no longer dressed like a slave. He wondered about this but never had the chance to ask her why. One day Nero spotted Octavia at the shrine burning incense in honor of the household gods. She would know, he thought.
He bounded up to her. “Octavia—”
She refused to answer until she finished her duties. Then she turned to Nero with a haughty air. “What do you want, Nero? You seem to be following me around like some unwanted cur. Doesn’t your dear mother have any time for you these days?”
Her sarcastic words stung him. “She’s busy,” he snapped back, “preparing for her marriage to your father.”
Octavia’s almost colorless eyes narrowed. “That’s a lie! He will never marry another. My mother was his whole life!”
Nero glanced about to make sure his mother wasn’t near. Then he replied, “Your mother was nothing but a whore!”
Rather than screaming and crying as Britannicus had done at his words, Octavia didn’t react at all. After a moment she answered, “Perhaps so, but at least she was a virgin when she married my father. Your mother, on the other hand, had been well used by the time she donned the orange veil. It’s common knowledge that if Domitius hadn’t been forced to marry her, you would be a bastard. They even say her own brother, Caligula, was the first to have her. He was a filthy beast! But he so warmed her blood that she couldn’t be without a man from the age of twelve.”
Nero reddened angrily. “Who told you these lies? I’ll kill him with my bare hands!”
Octavia smiled cruelly at her cousin. “Alas, poor Nero, the one who told me is gone forever. My mother told me. And she was told by Grandmother Lepida, your supposed father’s sister. But don’t take my word for it. Ask your mother—if you dare!”
Nero’s hand reared back to strike her, but Octavia only sneered. “Go ahead. I would cheerfully accept your blow to see you suffer the consequences. You are nothing, Nero, nothing! Imagine my father’s wrath if he were told I was struck by anyone, but especially by such a lowly person as you.”
Nero’s face was still scarlet with rage, but his hand dropped to his side. “Nothing, you say! Nothing! I am the grandson of Germanicus, the great-great-grandson of Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. And both descended from Julius Caesar!”
Her calm voice was maddening. “I also have royal blood, though mine flowed down from Caesar through the great Mark Antony and I’m a generation closer to the Divine Augustus. And at least I know for certain who my father is. Just think, you may be from the seed of some slave, delivered to your mother’s womb in a foul-smelling stable when her lust overpowered her. Poor Nero!”
Then she turned and was gone before the stunned Nero could say anything more.
“Bitch!” Nero muttered under his breath as he watched her walk away from him, her head high, her royal nose in the air.
A rustle behind him made him turn. He was surprised to see Acte standing there—a lovely vision out of nowhere.
“She isn’t really, you know,” Acte’s said in a silky, smooth voice.
Nero stared dumbly at her. “What?”
“That name—the name you called Octavia. She’s only acting this way because she knows the truth about her mother, as we all do. She tried to hurt you because she’s been hurt—deeply.”
Nero’s gaze took in her pale-blue gown accented with silver. Most becoming, it showed off Acte’s high, firm breasts and small waist.
Forgetting the loathsome Octavia, Nero asked abruptly, “Why don’t you dress like a slave any more? You haven’t since the day of the funeral.”
“Because I am no longer a slave,” Acte answered with emotion. “My mother was Lady Messalina’s slave from childhood. They bore daughters on the same day—Octavia and me. But my mother was very young and not strong. She died when I was born. Lady Messalina was so overcome with grief that she said on my thirtieth birthday or her death, whichever came first, I would be freed. But since the law forbids freeing a slave under the age of thirty, I must remain as Octavia’s paid servant until I reach that age.” She looked down at the ground. “I find my new status very difficult to deal with. I’ve been in bondage all my life. Even these clothes seem strange to me.”
Nero reached out to lay a hand on her slender waist. She didn’t resist his touch, though she blushed.
“Why did you run away from me that first day in the garden, Acte?”
Her warm doe eyes met his as she answered, “You frightened me, Nero. I’m not used to such abuses.”
Nero softened. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
To his own amazement, he really meant the words. He let his other hand creep up her bare arm.
“It was nothing really,” she said. “The pain, I know, wasn’t meant cruelly. That counts most. But, I had to leave before—” Her voice broke off.
Nero prompted gently. “Before what, Acte?”
Acte’s eyes darted about the atrium. “It doesn’t make any difference. No harm was done. I must go now.”
Nero slipped both arms about her waist and drew her to him, feeling faint as her heart pounded against his chest. He closed his eyes. In Acte he felt that he’d found someone who understood—someone who cared. She struggled against his hold, and he released her reluctantly.
“Please, Acte, don’t go. Stay and talk to me. Tell me why the emperor said I could have any girl of my choice except for you.”
Acte’s cheeks flamed at his question, and she seemed on the verge of tears. “I must go. Octavia wouldn’t be pleased if she knew that you and I were together. Though I’m no longer her slave, I still owe her my loyalty.”
She was gone before he could say another word. Nero was still standing in place, gazing after her gracefully retreating form, when his mother swept in.
“So, here you are! I’ve been searching the villa for you. Didn’t I tell you that as of today your mornings would be spent on lessons? You’ve gone against my wishes. I will not have it, Nero!”
He flinched at her tone, the same with which she had harangued the slaves since the departure of the emperor. Was he no more to her now than a slave? He stared into his mother’s face trying to picture her fumbling in a stable with a slave astride her. No! It wasn’t possible!
“We
ll, Nero, what have you to say for yourself?” Her folded arms heaved over her ample breasts. Nero knew the signs. He would be better off with no defense.
“I’m sorry, Mater. I didn’t know my tutors had arrived yet.”
“They haven’t. Until proper tutors are found for you, you’ll be instructed by Anicetus, Britannicus’s teacher. Mind you, pay attention to your lessons. More now than ever before, you must cram your brain with knowledge for the future. A great obligation awaits you. Now go!”
Nero didn’t tarry. Though his mother’s words had meant nothing to him, he did know her wrath.
The classroom was a pleasant, airy place. Anicetus, an officer of the imperial fleet, proved neither polished philosopher nor military strategist, but he was a tutor demanding high respect all the same. Nero took an immediate liking to this great hulk of a man.
His lessons were tedious. Nero would rather have spent the time composing verse than working with navigation charts, but his mother checked the classroom too often in those first days for either him or Anicetus to be lax with his lessons. Britannicus joined them on some mornings, but his mind wandered and he seemed a dull student to Nero, rather than the genius the emperor had described. Anicetus left him to his daydreaming, which annoyed Nero even more. If Nero was to be driven so to learn, then why was the emperor’s son left to drift?
One brilliant morning Nero stared out his classroom at the sunlight dancing like diamonds on the caps of the waves in the bay. He longed to be on the shore with other children frolicking at the water’s edge, instead of being cooped up with sums to figure and nautical laws to memorize.
Anicetus cut short his daydreaming. “My dear Nero, don’t you think I’d like to be out there in the sunshine, too?” He smiled kindly at the youth. “I also love the sea. It’s like a good woman—giving of her charms, but asking only loyalty in return. The waters surround a man like the soft body of his lover—caressing, soothing, giving.”
The fleet officer’s eyes closed in meditative reverie and he didn’t see Agrippina standing in the doorway.
“That will be quite enough!”
Anicetus jumped at the sound of her voice.
“Pack your things,” she went on. “You and your corrupting influences are to be out of the villa and away from my son within the hour, or I’ll see to it personally that the emperor signs your death warrant!”
Though the abrupt dismissal of Anicetus meant that Nero was released from his lessons for the rest of the day, he found little comfort on the seashore. He’d grown truly fond of Anicetus and would miss him. His mother’s action seemed an excessive punishment for a moment’s contemplation of something other than dull lessons.
As Nero wandered the beach alone, he thought of the words of Anicetus and then visions of Acte crept into his mind. She was like Anicetus’s description of the sea. He threw himself down on the warm, wet sand and closed his eyes, trying to imagine what love with a woman must be like. He had never experienced it, though he’d watched others.
What would it feel like to hold softness in his arms, to touch and kiss, to have warm breasts pressing against his bare chest? The thoughts brought a quickness in his blood and a shortness of breath which dizzied him. When would he find the answers to these questions, and with whom? He whispered to the sand, “With Acte, if it please the gods, for surely it would please me.”
Activity at the villa reached a fever pitch in the next days. Preparations were under way for the move to Rome and the royal wedding.
Nero smiled in inner triumph as he saw Octavia’s stricken face when she was told the news. But like a dutiful daughter she went to Agrippina and kissed the offered cheek. She even said she was pleased to be getting a new mother so soon.
Nero mused at the tender, but false, scene. “Octavia is almost as great an actress as Mater herself,” he muttered.
The retinue from Baiae was hailed upon its arrival in Rome as if it were a conquering legion returning victorious from battle. The long train of slave-borne litters and wagons filled with gold plate, clothing, jewels and other treasures wound like a great serpent through the narrow streets and up the Palatine.
Agrippina parted the curtains of the litter to wave at the cheering throngs. She smiled in smug satisfaction to see that the statues honoring the former empress had been removed from their pedestals. Messalina had been ousted forever. Soon statues of the new empress would shine in the brilliant sun.
Poking the sullen Nero seated beside her, Agrippina commanded, “Open your curtain and wave! The crowds want to see you. And do smile!”
Nero did as ordered in spite of his reluctance. At least the parted curtains would relieve some of the suffocating heat inside. He grimaced as he looked out, staring directly into the faces of Rome’s poor. Their rag-covered bodies looked unwashed and unhealthy. The swaying of the litter and the heat made his stomach turn. He dropped the curtain back in place.
“What’s wrong with you, Nero? Greet the emperor’s people!” His mother stared at him coldly.
Trying desperately to ignore his nausea, Nero mumbled, “If these are the emperor’s people, I am glad that I’ll never be called Caesar!”
At his words, Agrippina dropped the curtain just long enough to deliver a resounding slap to her son’s face. Then once again she took up her task of waving and smiling.
Nero huddled in the far corner feeling ill and miserable. If this was a taste of what it would be like to be the empress’s son he wanted no part of it. Nevertheless, he couldn’t ignore his mother’s wishes.
Choking back his emotions, Nero parted the curtain. He decided to pretend he was a great poet on stage being cheered by his admiring audience. At least acting, he was able to ignore what he didn’t want to see, and yet do his mother’s bidding.
He imagined himself dressed in an elaborately embroidered and fringed toga gleaming gold and silver. On a raised stage in the center of a great amphitheater, he stood with lyre in hand and sang the ancient poems of the Greeks. The adoring crowd cheered as his performance ended—all too soon. The great poet and songster waved and bowed to them. Yes, he thought, this is my calling—to fire the blood of others with great tales of the ancients. The daydream faded slowly, leaving a sparkle in Nero’s eyes.
The parade passed the Senate, where rows of senators stood on the snow-white marble steps of the gleaming building. Their purple-banded togas fluttered in the hot wind as they cheered: “Hail the daughter of Germanicus! Hail the granddaughter of the Divine Augustus! Hail the Lady Agrippina, the next Empress of Rome!”
Nero turned to see the glow of pride on his mother’s face. She put her arm around him and drew him to her side so the senators would see them together—mother and son. On the appearance of Nero’s bronze head, they heard: “Hail Nero! Hail the son of Agrippina! Hail Nero!”
The greeting warmed Nero. Suddenly, it struck him that no cheers had gone up for Britannicus, the next in line to be emperor, or for Octavia.
Nero looked up at his mother. “Mater, why are they only cheering us and not my cousins?”
Agrippina had also been softened by the crowd’s welcome. She tenderly ruffled her son’s hair. “Because, my sweet, the son and daughter of the emperor are a dull pair,” she answered. “They are no doubt cowering in their litters behind closed curtains—afraid of a little dust. Romans want to see the faces of their leaders. They shun those who stay locked behind their palace doors.
“Today, my son, they saw you, not Britannicus. For that reason they’ll begin to love you. “See,”—she pointed to the still-cheering senators—”they love you even now. And I love you, too, Nero, my pet.” Agrippina kissed his forehead lightly. “I’m sorry if I was harsh with you earlier, but it was for your own good. Don’t you feel your blood stirring at the sound of your name on so many lips?”
Nero melted at his mother’s words. She loved him! The cheers of thousands couldn’t fill his heart as his mother’s words had.
At last the
litters reached the palace. Claudius stood outside to greet his family. As a slave handed Agrippina down from her litter, with Nero behind, the emperor came down the steps to embrace her. Next he hugged Nero. Then he welcomed Octavia and Britannicus, and finally Acte.
They ascended the stairs as a group. For several minutes Claudius, with his arm around Agrippina’s slim waist, faced his subjects and accepted their tribute.
The emperor seemed much taller and younger now, dressed in his toga of royal purple fringed in gold, a golden laurel wreath adorning his balding head. Agrippina looked radiant in white stola trimmed with gold. Sapphires burned blue fire at her ears, and her coiffured hair towered high above her high brow. Nero swelled with pride at the sight of her beside her future husband.
Inside the palace at last, Nero was staggered by its immensity and beauty. In the atrium, a green marble dolphin adorned a fountain in which golden fishes swam about lazily. The floor was paved with gold-and-purple tiles. Sunlight streamed down through an opening in the ceiling above, brightening the room with shimmering reflections. Slaves cooled the interior of the palace with beautiful peacock fans.
The travelers dispersed to their separate chambers to bathe before the banquet. Nero found his suite of rooms spacious and airy, overlooking the royal gardens. Spying the sunken yellow-and-green marble bath, he felt a pang of regret. Dorph had been left in Baiae this time at his mother’s insistence. He let out a sigh. “Ah, Dorph, what good times we could have had together here.”
On returning to his bedchamber, he found his new body servant, Castor, waiting for him. The man was much older than Nero and, to his distaste, a eunuch. Nero’s thoughts centered on Dorph as the staid Castor undressed him for his bath.
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