Without slowing her work, Acte answered, “Yes, at my villa on the shore.”
Another time while Paulus worked over a man whose leg had been cut open by a falling statue, Acte questioned, “What news of Eucerus?”
“He’s with our Lord in heaven now.” Somehow Paulus’s words comforted her.
“And what about Peter?” Acte asked still later.
“At the Pantheon serving other poor sufferers.”
And so the days of the fire passed, until the last ember died out.
As soon as Tigellinus declared it safe, Nero insisted on returning to Rome. Something in his brain snapped as he viewed his ruined city at close range for the first time. Barely a third of it remained, and not one inch was without damage. The ancient temples, the beautiful statues, his beloved gardens and most of his palace all gone. In their place lay a putrefying heap of burned and decaying bodies, both human and animal. As far as the eye could see lay devastation.
In the one part of the palace still covered by a roof, Nero installed himself once more. He ordered Halotus to prepare a sumptuous feast in honor of the new Rome. The confused slave did his best to comply with the outlandish command.
As Nero sat along devouring what Halotus had set before him, Tigellinus burst into the ruined room, his face blackened and smeared with grime.
“Caesar, I bring disturbing news.”
“Yes, yes. Be out with it, man.”
“People are saying that you commanded that Rome be burned to the ground. The mob is becoming dangerously aroused.”
Nero cocked his head in surprise. “Mob? What mob? Do you mean to tell me that there are survivors of this holocaust?”
“Yes, Caesar. Perhaps one out of ten Romans is still alive, though most will probably die of their injuries. And those who are left are a dangerous group—many of them Christians.”
A strange gleam appeared in Nero’s eyes. “And who do you think is responsible for this terrible destruction of my city, Tigellinus?”
Shocked by the unexpected question, but wishing to go along with the emperor’s charade, Tigellinus answered, “There is little doubt in my mind that the Christians had a hand in it, Caesar.”
Nodding vigorously, Nero shouted, “I agree! I agree! A sorry lot—wanting the world to end by fire. Well, they didn’t end the world, but we’ll soon put an end to them. Go now, Tigellinus, and bring me one of them—a woman—” Nero hesitated. “Yes, a woman heavy with child, if you can find one. I’ll question her myself.”
Tigellinus saluted and left. The emperor went back to his sorry feast.
Nero was still at the table when his chief Praetorian returned. Two other guards followed him, holding tight to a struggling woman with a greatly distended belly. Nero smiled his approval.
He rose and advanced toward her. “You’ve done well,” he said to Tigellinus. “I’m sure she’ll be cooperative.”
Nero placed his hand on her stomach to feel the motion of her child.
He nodded and smiled. “It will be a boy. His kick is that of a strong one, too. You have a husband, woman?”
She answered angrily, “My child will be born fatherless. My husband died in your fire!”
Nero shook his head and frowned at her. “Not my fire! It was the Christians who set it.”
“That’s a lie! I’m a Christian. My people would never do such a thing. Only a monster could contrive such a horror.”
Nero smiled again at Tigellinus. “You’ve brought me a spirited one.” Then to the woman, “Where are your friends?”
She offered no answer, but spat in Nero’s face.
He calmly wiped away her spittle. “You see, now she’s given me reason to wring the answers from her in whatever manner I see fit.” No longer smiling, he ordered the guards, “Strip her!”
The woman screamed and fought, but to no avail. In seconds, she stood shivering and naked. Great tears rolled down her cheeks, but she made no sound as Nero walked around her making approving noises.
“Now, woman, do you wish to give me the names of those who set the fires?”
She looked at him and again her anger flared. “I’ll tell you the name! The Emperor Nero!”
Nero looked at Tigellinus and said in delighted tones, “Good! Good! She still defies me.” Then to the woman, “Very well! It’s obvious you’ll give me no information except by force. So I have no recourse.”
As Nero began to disrobe, even Tigellinus felt shock at what the emperor seemed about to do. In a low and guarded whisper, he said, “But, Caesar, she’s heavy with child. Her time could be only weeks away at most. You don’t mean to—”
Nero cut him off. “All the better. You and your guards may stay and watch. If she tries to kill me, I may need your assistance.”
At length, the woman, half-crazed from her torture, gave Nero the names of Paulus and Peter and where they could be found. Then came a long string of other names and places, as the poor woman even blamed the fire on her friends.
When at last she stopped speaking, Nero touched her breast and whispered, “You’ve done well. Now I have a surprise for you. We’ll see whether your child would have been a boy or a girl.”
Taking a dagger from one of the guards, Nero poised it over the woman’s heaving belly. She screamed in horror. Nero carefully slit open her stomach, reached in and removed the unborn child. He exclaimed in disappointment, “Too bad! I was wrong. It was going to be a girl.”
He lay the dead child beside its mother and wiped the blood from his hands. Then he put his robe back on. The guards moved in to carry the bodies from the room.
“No! Stop! I want them left exactly as they are. When Tigellinus brings the others in for interrogation, I want them to see what’s happened to their friend. Perhaps it will loosen more tongues.”
On seeing their dead and mutilated sister, the Christians brought before Nero at first refused even to give their names. But Nero set Tigellinus’s men on the group and before long the list of names had swelled beyond all Nero’s hopes. Soon he was faced with a new problem—what to do with the growing number of prisoners.
While the rubble of Rome was being cleared away, Nero ordered the arena put in order for the entertainment of the survivors. They would be treated to a proper show of the execution of the Christians who had supposedly burned their city and caused the deaths of their loved ones. As yet, neither Paulus nor Peter had been apprehended, but it was only a matter of time.
Over his own objections, Paulus was being kept in the underground hideaway on the Via Appia.
“Acte, I must go and try to save our people. The emperor will destroy us all.”
“No, Paulus. You and Peter above all others must live to see that the Lord’s work is done. Those of us who are insignificant will satisfy Nero’s cry for blood.”
But even as Acte spoke, a traitor lurked in their midst. By the next day, Acte and Paulus found themself prisoners.
Nero toured the dark dungeon crammed with Christians. He didn’t recognize Acte’s smoke-blackened face among them. She might have cried out to him and saved herself, but this madman wasn’t the Nero she’d loved so long ago.
With a sweep of his arm, Nero sentenced two hundred to the arena that day. Among them were Paulus and Acte.
Before Nero left he said to Tigellinus, “Do clean them up a bit before the games. I won’t have my citizens viewing such a ragtag lot.” Then he walked off.
Acte began to cry. Paulus put his arm about her shaking shoulders. “It will all be over soon,” he said. “Though death may not come quickly, we must remember that neither did our Lord’s. He waits for us, Acte. Pray as you go to Him. It will quiet your fears and lessen your pain. Remember that He is with you always.”
Through her tears, Acte asked, almost fearing to hear the answer, “How will we die, Paulus?”
Paulus was not going to tell her, but a passing guard, hearing her question, grinned and answered, “The emperor’s got any number of ways to do a
way with the lot of you. But today, I believe, the main event for the women is the bulls. They tie your pretty feet with a stout rope of a good length, then tie the other end to the tender parts of the bull. The weight on his balls drives the bull crazy. The faster he runs, the madder he gets. When the dumb beast finally sees that it’s the thing on the other end of the rope that’s hurtin’ him so, he usually tramples it to pieces. The crowds love it! And then, too, you’ll be naked to add to the fun of it all. I’ll be there and look for you special, little lady.”
The guard walked away, chuckling to himself. Acte threw herself into Paulus’s arms and sobbed uncontrollably.
As usual before these shows, Nero was escorted through the cage area below the arena to see that all the Christians were presentable and point out any women he might want saved for his own enjoyment.
Acte stood with a dozen other women. Even in the heat of the close quarters, she shivered in her nakedness as she waited for her group to be led to the arena above. She tried to pray, but no words would come. All she could think of was how thankful she was that Ecloge and Alexandra had gotten away with Lucius. He would be well cared for and Nero would never find him. When it was safe, Lucius would join Sergio in Athens.
Then the cage door opened. Amid tears and frightened screams, Acte was pushed along by guards to the staging area, where they would be tied to their bulls. All afternoon they had waited with growing dread as they listened to the death screams of their friends in the arena.
A guard with rough hands and foul breath caught Acte and held her tightly in his arms.
“Ain’t you a pretty one, missy. Too bad! Here’s a kiss for luck.”
She gagged as his wine-thickened tongue found its way into her mouth. At the same time, his hand fumbled over her body. Then he dumped her on the ground, grasped her ankles and tied them together tightly. She stared in fright at the great black bull, who bellowed angrily as the other end of the rope squeezed his testicles.
“There you are, missy. Ready for your ride!”
“Wait! Untie that one! There’s been a mistake!”
The gate opened and the bull began his charge into the arena. Acte heard the familiar voice only faintly as her head and body bumped along the ground with the forward motion.
“By the gods, cut that rope or I’ll have your head and your balls as well!”
With a sudden jerk of her ankles, Acte realized that she was no longer attached to the animal. She opened her eyes to see Nero standing over her, his face incredulous.
He put his cape over her and knelt beside her. “Acte, whatever are you doing here?”
“I am one of the Christians.” Her voice sounded calm compared to the emotions she was experiencing.
He drew away. “No! That’s not possible!”
“I am, and so is my son, Luke.”
Nero’s face colored with rage. “I will not have it!” he screamed at her. “My son is Lucius—a Roman!”
“Luke no longer has a father.”
Her words infuriated him all the more.
He shouted, “Guards, take this one and tie her on the spina in the arena. I want her out of harm, but in full view, so that she can watch and be seen by all.”
Nero stalked away with his cloak and returned to his viewing stand. He cheered when Acte was fastened to a pole on the barricade down the center of the arena. She would pay for having turned his son against him.
Acte was so close to the torture she almost felt every gouge and slash during the long, hot afternoon. The smell of blood and the screams of the dying made her stomach churn, but she stood erect, defiant, staring straight at Nero until he squirmed in discomfort.
As the sport drew to a close with a group of children being trampled into the blackened sand by wild beasts, Nero rose to announce one final attraction.
“Citizens, there has been one among us for some time known as Paulus. It was he who led his followers to this most awful destruction of our fair city. We now bring him before you to meet his god.”
Acte turned her head to see Paulus being led into the arena in chains. His body had been pitifully beaten. She could see from his glazed eyes that he was beyond pain now. He stood only inches away from her, but didn’t answer or look up when she called his name.
The guards grabbed him by the hair and thrust his head on the marble spina. When the ax fell, Paulus’s blood splattered Acte’s body. She gasped and fainted. Fortunately she didn’t see her friend’s head paraded around the arena on a pole to the frenzied cheering of the crowd.
When Acte awoke, she was in a strange, but somehow familiar, place. Her head ached dully as her recent experiences came back to mind. Was she still alive while so many others had died? She wasn’t sure. But certainly the charred and smoke-blackened walls about her were not the heaven Paulus had described to her so often. Paulus! He was dead!
At that moment, Nero burst into the ruined chamber with a stern expression on his flushed face.
“So, my beautiful Christian has returned to me.” He sat on the low couch beside her and took her hands in his. “Tell me that this has all been a wild nightmare, Acte. Tell me that you’re not one of them—that you haven’t led our son down this wayward path.”
Suppressing her disgust, Acte answered softly, “All right, Nero, I’ll tell you that it’s all a nightmare. But, if so, it’s a nightmare of your own making. And the Nero I’ve seen in the past weeks has no son!”
Nero slapped her sharply across the mouth, then in his next motion took her into his arms to crush her to him.
She struggled to free herself, but he wouldn’t let her go. He pushed her backward, then held her hands with one of his while he used his other to free her from her garment.
Suddenly, giving up her resistance, Acte looked into his lust-mad eyes and pleaded, “Don’t do this, Nero. Let me remember you the way you were on that first night our bodies found each other—gentle and loving. Everything else is gone now.”
Nero pulled away from her, rose from the couch and turned his back.
“What will you do with me, Nero?” Acte asked nervously. She braced herself for his response.
He turned. “Do with you? Do with you? What do you expect? You’re only one more of the Christian women I’ve saved from the arena. I’ve spared your life, and in gratitude you’ll do my bidding.”
Then Nero did an about-face and marched out. Acte wasn’t surprised to see two armed guards take their places outside the sagging door moments later.
While Acte remained prisoner, Nero threw himself into a frenzy of building. The rubble of what had been old Rome continued to be hauled away by barge and dumped into the sea. Plebs and patricians alike found shelter where they could. The poor and homeless were fed cheap corn.
With the aid of architects Severus and Celere, Nero went about designing the world’s most exquisite palace, which he called Domus Aurea, his Golden House.
“I’ll have a thousand rooms in my Golden House, and surround it with lakes, gardens, parks and villages. My ships are bringing the most exotic animals of the world for my game preserve. Have you ever heard of a strange, long-necked creature called a giraffe, Poppaea?”
“No,” she admitted, laughing gaily. “But I’m sure if no such beast exists, you’ll have one made. Imagine! Is there another empress in the world who lives in such a place? Tell me again, Nero, about my rooms with the golden walls encrusted with precious jewels.”
Poppaea never tired of hearing about Nero’s dream palace. But the Romans grew tired and hungry. Winter was coming and their houses were barely begun, while Nero’s Golden House stretched in all directions. The citizens began more than grumbling. When a huge barge filled with what appeared to be corn was spotted from Ostia, the word of food arriving spread quickly. The hungry rushed to the shore. When the barge proved to be filled with Egyptian sand for the emperor’s wrestling arena, a riot broke out. Many were killed before the fighting ended.
“Fewer
to feed,” Nero remarked on hearing of the incident.
Acte had been kept with the other Christian women in a burned-out portion of the old palace for months while the new palace was under construction. She hadn’t seen Nero since the night of Paulus’s death. The other women were often called for and returned bruised and battered. Acte tried not to listen to their tales, for each new account would sadden her more. She tried to concentrate her thoughts on Sergio. He would come for her, she knew.
Her heart ached, too, for news of her son’s well-being. But any news from the outside was kept from her.
One evening as she sat alone, having just seen the nine-year-old Caletta taken to Nero’s room for the night, Acte received a visitor. Old Ecloge came hobbling into the room. Acte’s heart leaped at the sight of her. As they embraced, their tears mingled.
“How did you get here? Is it safe for you?”
“Sh-h-h, child.” Ecloge covered her mouth to shield her voice from the ears of the guards. “I was brought here—the emperor’s order. He tried to get information from me, but I told him nothing. The one you love is safe and well. But how do you fare in this awful place?”
Acte cast her eyes down to hide her tears. “I’m alive. As long as there’s life, there’s hope. I haven’t seen Nero in many weeks. He punishes me with loneliness.”
“Be prepared, my child. Before I overheard that the great hall of his new palace is completed. He’s preparing for a huge banquet there. His wife is pregnant again and won’t attend. But be assured that your presence will be required. Now I must go. God bless you!”
The next day Acte found out Ecloge’s words were true. The guards brought her a gown of transparent silk all colors of the rainbow. She and the other Christian women were scrubbed roughly by slaves, then gowned and made up as if they were common whores.
The head slave, a formidable woman by the name of Aelia, stood before them and gave them their orders. “You are to entertain the emperor’s guests at his opening festivities of the Golden House tonight. Whatever commands you are given, you will obey. There are only a few of you and thousands of guests. Some other slaves have been imported, but you are the main attraction—a special honor to his guests, since the emperor himself has had each of you once or more. Should you do the slightest thing to anger or insult a guest or the emperor, you will find yourselves back in the arena. Now, follow me.”
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