“Nero told me tonight that he’s bedded you, and found you most agreeable to his wishes.”
The matter-of-fact way in which the statement was made seemed to require no response. Acte’s cheeks burned, but she continued brushing in silence.
When Acte made no reply, Octavia went on to even more delicate territory. “And how did you find my husband as a lover?”
Acte brushed harder now to try to cover her embarrassment.
Octavia pressed, “Well, did he please you? Did he warm your heart as he invaded your body?”
Acte finally protested gently, “My lady, please. I don’t think it’s proper for this matter to be discussed between us. You offered me to your husband and he’s accepted me as your replacement in this area. That is enough said.”
“But I want to know, Acte, if Nero is a proper lover,” Octavia persisted. “Does he please you, or does he force you to do the loathsome perverted things I’ve heard he enjoys with others?”
Anxious to be done with the subject, Acte responded almost inaudibly, “He never forces me.”
Octavia looked disappointed. “Do you find him as fine a lover as your great Iron Face?”
The brush slipped from Acte’s hand and clattered to the marble floor.
“How—how did you know about him, my lady?”
Octavia laughed at catching Acte so off guard. “When I came to your chamber at dawn after the wedding I saw him leaving. And I found you sleeping naked. I may be a virgin still, but I’m not stupid, Acte. Now do tell me, which of them pleases you more?”
Acte started trembling. If Octavia knew about her night with Sergio, others might know as well. What would Nero do if he found out? And what would Sergio do when he learned, as he was certain to, that she had become Nero’s official mistress?
“You mustn’t speak of this to anyone, I beg of you,” Acte pleaded in an urgent whisper. “I need my privacy as much as any other woman. At this very moment, I’m dying of shame that you know my secrets and speak of them so openly, even to me. Please, my lady, give me your promise that you won’t divulge what you know.”
Octavia smiled with a new glint in her eyes as she took Acte’s hand in hers. “I won’t tell anyone, if only you’ll share your secrets with me. I may never know these things you’ve learned. Tell me what you have in your heart and your mind.” Then her attitude became brusk. “Perhaps Iron Face is your own private affair, but I have a right to know what goes on between you and my husband. I insist you tell me, Acte.”
There was an implied threat in Octavia’s words. Acte would never have thought it of her friend, but now she had to consider the possibility that Octavia might tell Nero of Sergio’s night of love with her. The thought set her trembling all the more.
Acte took a deep breath to steady her voice. “What is it you wish to know?” she asked.
Octavia smiled. “Don’t be nervous, Acte. Haven’t we shared all our secrets since childhood?”
“Yes, all,” Acte said aloud, but in her mind she spoke the truth: Almost all.
“Then tell me who is the better lover and how so.”
“That’s difficult to say. They’re both—” Acte lowered her eyes.
“Both what?” Octavia prompted.
“They are both of such different temperaments. Sergio is older and more experienced in the ways of pleasing a woman. But Nero makes up for his lack of experience with his zeal.”
Octavia’s pale brows shot up. “Oh, so my husband is zealous, is he? In what way?”
Acte’s discomfort grew with each question. She winced each time Octavia referred to Nero as “my husband,” though it was a truth she couldn’t avoid.
Raising her eyes to meet Octavia’s gaze, Acte answered frankly. “I can best describe Nero to you by reminding you of the Sibyl’s words so long ago at Cumae. She foretold your loveless marriage—the tears on the altar of the Temple of Vesta. She also said that I would wear a veil of love and trust. She said a nobleman would bring both fear and love. Nero has brought me both.”
Octavia’s tone grew petulant. “So you’re telling me that my husband is none other than this great love of your life predicted by the Sibyl? You’re mad! He can’t be yours. He’s mine!”
“But, my lady, you handed me over to him,” Acte ven-tured. “We’re well suited to lovemaking. I’m sorry, if this offends you.”
“My husband is not the one given to you by the Sibyl! I will not allow it! I may never have him, but he won’t be yours.” Then, calming herself, Octavia asked malevolently, “And what did my husband say when he first took you? I’d told him you were a virgin. But you weren’t. You’d been deflowered already by Iron Face.”
Acte chafed under Octavia’s words. So her mistress had plotted to cause her pain by telling Nero she presented him with a virgin when she knew that Acte wasn’t. The answer was simple. Nero had thought nothing of it. He knew the exact moment when she’d lost her innocence because he had been the one to take it. But Octavia must never know this. Acte knew she needed to play a role now to satisfy Octavia and silence her probing questions.
“Your husband grew quite upset with you for sending him used goods,” Acte lied. “But have no fear. He laid the blame fully on me.”
Octavia seemed eager to hear more. “Then did he make you suffer for your indiscretions?”
“He made me suffer. Yes, my lady.” Acte looked away as if she might weep.
“Was he cruel to you, and did you cry out for mercy?”
“He was, and I did.”
“How did he hurt you? You must tell me, Acte. Tell me everything he did to you.” Octavia was breathing faster now.
Acte forced tears to her eyes. “Please, my lady, your innocent ears shouldn’t hear the crudities your husband spoke to me.”
Octavia hung breathlessly on Acte’s every word. “What? What did Nero say to you? What did he do to you, my poor Acte?”
Acte held her breath for a moment to release a blush to her cheeks, and wept earnestly. Then shortly she answered, “He called me a heartless whore and a daughter of the gutter. He said I wasn’t fit to fill the bed of the lowest slave. He ordered me away.”
“But you didn’t go, did you?” Octavia said. Her color rose rapidly. “You stayed and he used you viciously. Tell me, Acte, tell me how it was.”
Acte replied wretchedly through her tears, “Yes, he used me as if I were a whore. When I wouldn’t leave, he made me submit time and time again. He pounded my tender flesh until I cried out for mercy in my pain. But he showed no mercy—no pity.”
Octavia covered her ears and flung herself on her bed, weeping.
“No more! No more!” she screamed. “I can’t stand it! The beast! The brute! To think that it might have been me in his bed of torture.”
Acte wiped away her tears and tried to calm Octavia down. After a while, when she was quiet at last, Acte left her to her dreams. Once outside the room, Acte breathed a sigh of relief.
But as she lay in her own bed that night, Acte couldn’t sleep. Octavia’s ravings haunted her. Her mistress insisted that Nero was not the noble lover the Sibyl had foreseen for her. Acte had believed it was Nero from the first day she met him. Could it be that he wasn’t the one? She tossed about until her sheets were damp and wrinkled. Acte thought of Sergio, now away in the south. Her heart ached for him. She felt on the verge of sleep at last when a knock at the door aroused her.
“Come,” said a low voice outside.
She lit the small lamp beside her bed and went to answer it. In the glow of her light she could see Nero’s slave, Castor.
“He wants me?”
Castor nodded, and waited while Acte slipped into a robe before he led the way to Nero’s chamber.
Domitia Lepida visited the palace for several weeks, always bringing gifts for Nero. Nero also frequented her villa outside Rome, and there was always a gift waiting there for him—a special coin of ancient vintage, a box of carved rosewood fi
lled with musk, a silver flask, or an ivory chariot he had prized when he lived with his aunt as a child. All seemed peaceful. Agrippina made herself unavailable when she knew Lepida was expected at the palace for a visit, and caused no more scenes.
Even Narcissus, Messalina’s archenemy of so long ago, returned to the fold of Lepida’s admirers. She flattered the freedman closest to Claudius at every opportunity and offered him more than a few bribes.
But then one morning Agrippina stormed into Claudius’s bath and dismissed the guards with a heated command. She stood before the naked emperor and with blazing eyes demanded, “When Domitia Lepida comes to the palace today to see my son, she’s to be arrested on the spot!”
Claudius was more than bewildered. “But, my dear, she’s only a harmless old woman seeking some friendship in her declining years.”
Agrippina screamed at him, “Harmless? Harmless! She is a first-class traitor. Her whole scheme has been to turn Nero against both of us with her waggling tongue and all her gifts. She’s even swayed Narcissus. I’m no longer sure that he can be trusted.”
The face of Claudius changed at the disparagement of his closest adviser. “I have the greatest faith in Narcissus. He would never give up his loyalty to me.”
“The emperor can never allow himself to trust anyone completely,” Agrippina answered in a cold and controlled voice. “As for the whore’s association with Nero, he admitted to me only this morning that while at her villa he was subjected to her seductive advances. Imagine! That horrid old woman and my son!”
Claudius stared at Agrippina, not quite believing her.
She went on, “I’ve already sent word to Burrhus to have her arrested the moment she enters the palace. I put your seal to the warrant. I thought you should know about it.” Agrippina turned abruptly and left.
Now she was signing arrest warrants. Would she soon take over all his duties? He wondered. But Claudius was too weak to fight her on the issue. The arrest was made and the trial date set.
Nero quaked at the thought of giving false testimony against his aunt, especially after she’d treated him so kindly. When his mother had questioned him about his aunt’s attentions, she’d made Lepida’s actions seem dirty, tainted. The ordeal of the trial would be painful, he knew, but he could no more escape his mother’s will than the emperor.
The day came and Nero reluctantly gave his false testimony. He knew it sealed his poor aunt’s doom. But as the senators were about to pass judgment, the emperor halted the proceedings.
He stood up and said solemnly, “We plead for mercy on behalf of this woman, since she was at one time a member of the royal family. Let her sentence not be that handed down to any common criminal, but an honorable death.”
The senators took a vote and, of course, agreed. On hearing the judgment, Claudius rose again, feeling the furious eyes of Agrippina on him as he spoke.
“Domitia Lepida, you will be escorted to your villa by my guards.” He reached for stylus and scroll, scrawled out a few words, then handed the decree to her.
Tears came to Domitia Lepida’s eyes as she read the sentence. Her voice cracked only slightly when she said to Claudius, “I thank you, my emperor, for allowing me this honorable death by suicide.”
She bowed, but left the chamber with her head held high. Nero couldn’t bring himself to look at his aunt. To think that this woman, who’d cared for him in infancy and loved him as a son, now went to take her own life because of his lies shamed him beyond anything he’d ever done.
He swore under his breath. Never again would he lie for his mother! And he looked on Claudius now with kinder eyes. How cruel a fate it would have been for the noble Lady Domitia Lepida to be carted off to prison in chains to await beheading as his mother had wished.
All of Rome had buzzed with the story of the trial, and Lepida’s funeral drew a great throng, friends as well as enemies, plus a good number of ex-lovers.
The one face conspicuous by its absence was that of Narcissus. When he saw that the emperor could not stop Agrippina from doing what she wanted, he began fearing for his own life. He pleaded illness and, with the emperor’s permission, retired from palace service to his villa at Sinuessa near Naples, where he could take advantage of the healing waters of the mineral baths. With Narcissus’s departure, Claudius was left without a friend.
All at the palace now paid their allegiance to Agrippina. All except two—Octavia and Britannicus. Nero’s plain and sullen wife ignored Agrippina’s offered friendship, wanting no more to do with the mother than with the son. When Agrippina tried to be solicitous of the sickly Britannicus he ran to his sister for comfort. The two seemed to move in a nebulous world all their own, excluding any attempts at intrusion from the outside.
Shortly after Lepida’s death, a warning wind blew into the city from the west. Claudius, feeling his control of his Empire and household slipping from his grasp, began to assert himself, challenging Agrippina on every occasion. Nero felt the bond between himself and the emperor weakening. At the same time, Claudius’s old eyes began to look with interest on his own son for the first time in many years. He would call Britannicus to him and remain locked in conversation with the lad for hours at a stretch.
Agrippina’s nervousness increased with each of these sessions, but it wasn’t until the occasion of a small but formal dinner party one evening that her fears roused her to action.
Among the group were several of the most powerful men in Rome. They were seated with their wives on low couches in arrangements of threes around small dining tables which were clustered about the emperor’s table.
Agrippina watched Claudius speak in guarded tones to Senator Catus. The man nodded repeatedly at the emperor’s whispered words, a serious expression on his shiny pink face.
She was already annoyed that Nero made a public display that evening of his affection for Acte while Octavia sat at his side unnoticed. The emperor’s quiet scheming beside her forced the limit of her patience.
Agrippina reached for his arm, pulled him away from the senator, and said in a loud voice, “My emperor, you’re neglecting your other guests. Do mind your manners and stop your whispering. Why, our company will think you’re plotting a purge.”
Claudius jerked his arm away and turned an icy eye on Agrippina. The room fell silent.
“Leave me alone, woman! I’ve already rid myself of three wives. One more will matter little!”
Agrippina’s eyes met her plate. How dare he humiliate her with such a threat in front of guests? She hadn’t yet recovered from the blow when Claudius rose steadily to his feet, his equilibrium unhampered by wine, and rapped the table for attention.
“Britannicus, my son,” he said warmly, “come and stand by my side, for what I have to say concerns you.” He held his hand out in invitation.
A dramatic and painful pause followed as all eyes fixed on the faltering step of the sick boy slowly making his way across the room. As Britannicus took his place beside his father, he looked up, his eyes rolling in his head in that peculiar way of his. Claudius put a protective arm about the boy’s quaking shoulders. Then, gazing out over the faces in the room, he soberly made his announcement.
“You all know my son and heir, Britannicus. It has been decided, by virtue of the fact that he is the emperor’s son, that he will receive his toga uirilis this very week. Though he is not of age, the laws have been set aside because of his royal blood. The Senate is in full agreement with this move. Following his entrance into manhood, the proper ceremonies will be held, including games at the Circus.” Then looking once more at his son, Claudius urged, “Say a few words to our guests, Britannicus.”
Pained embarrassment swept over the room as everyone watched the shy boy struggling to maintain his composure. His arms and shoulders twitched and his eyes continued to roll as he tried to stammer a few words. Then, straightening his back with what seemed an enormous effort, he turned to his father, raised his right hand in the forma
l salute, and with a steady voice said, “Hail Caesar!”
The relieved dinner guests all jumped to their feet to add their acceptance of the announcement. “Hail Caesar!” resounded in the chamber.
Claudius didn’t turn to look back at his wife. Instead, he watched with pride as Britannicus returned to his seat, walking with his shoulders straighter than usual.
Marcus Otho, who was sitting with Poppaea Sabina at his side, reached over to slap Nero on the back. “Well, old friend, it looks as if you might get that career of a poet and songster after all. The old boy has given us quite a surprise.”
Nero smiled at Otho for the first time all night. He’d made a great show of his love for Acte, not for the benefit of Octavia or his mother, but to show Otho that he wasn’t impressed with the more sophisticated Poppaea. All evening he tried to pretend that the woman’s beauty had no effect on him, though he burned with wanting her body.
Nero leaned close between Otho and Poppaea and whispered only loud enough for the two of them to hear, “Should we take young Britannicus out for his initiation next week?”
Otho howled at the suggestion. “Oh, Nero, wouldn’t that be a show? But I fear the lad wouldn’t survive the night.”
Nero, with great solemnity in his voice, said, “Perhaps he might be able to handle a ewe.”
Through choked laughter, Otho replied, “A ewe? Don’t you remember, my friend, that the ewe was the downfall of the gladiator?”
Nero cocked his head to one side and looked at Otho with a lewd twinkle in his blue eyes. “Perhaps a smaller ewe would do!”
Otho lost all control at this. He slapped the table, stamped his feet, and bent double with laughter. Tears of mirth ran down his cheeks as he chortled, “Nero, you have just made your first poem!” Then repeating the line,“‘Perhaps a smaller ewe would do’—too much, my friend, too much! You are a poet, indeed!”
Acte now felt left out. She felt her beauty fade like a wilting wild flower next to the radiance of Poppaea Sabina, who now held both Otho and Nero enthralled. The three whispered in conspiratorial tones, excluding all others in the room. Their laughter grated on Acte’s taut nerves.
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