The Four Emperors

by David Blixt

  This whole escapade had been Verulana's idea. Intimate with Tigellinus, she had heard all the plans over the last week. Rather than allow themselves to be the chattel in Tigellinus' lakeside inns (which Verulana had actually enjoyed contemplating, especially to see her husband's face after), she had volunteered herself and the Domitias for service as the Pythian priestesses.

  With them was Domitia's slave girl, the little Jewess with the fallen face. She had already taken their shawls and scarves, and was now hovering nearby in the central chamber of the 'temple' to escort her mistress to whichever room she chose for herself and remove her clothing. There were six rooms, each with curtains hanging over the door to conceal them from the prospective profiteers of their 'prophecies.' No doubt some were here as jests upon anyone who entered.

  Only Corbula showed reticence. Which was a shame, as this was all to her advantage. Tigellinus had let slip that the first man to enter this shrine of sex would be that most eligible widower, Titus Flavius Sabinus Junior. As the only one of the three currently unmarried, it behooved Corbula to ensnare him, entrance him, ride him raw and then shame him into marrying her.

  But now the silly thing was having second thoughts. “What if he doesn't choose my cell?”

  “If he enters mine,” said Verulana, “I'll let him know that I learned everything I know from you.”

  That did not seem to ease Corbula's nerves. “What if he does, and I can't..?”

  “Can't what? It's the man who has to do the work. You've been married, girl, you know. Just lie there and moan and he'll feel like Jupiter himself.”

  Domitia took matters in hand. “Go to the lowest chamber. You're right, that's where the Pythia is, and he'll surely take it for himself. He's an honourable man. If you aren't married in a week, you'll have no one to blame but yourself. Perel, help her get ready.”

  “Yes, domina.” Taking Corbula by the hand, Perel led her down the steps to the lowest chamber, the one set between the giant pontoons just at water-level.

  Domitia dropped her chin to hide her smile. The slave-girl did not know that she, too, had been offered up to be a priestess of Nero's floating temple. It was a wonderful perversion. She imagined some Roman nobleman coming to take his pleasure and finding this foreign beauty marred by the slackness of her left cheek and eyelid. Just the sort of thing to make Caesar howl. And Domitia had it in mind to impress Caesar. What could be better revenge upon her husband than to become Nero's mistress? Like as not Nero would force a divorce, or perhaps even order Plautius to kill himself. Wonderful thought.

  She was getting ahead of herself. First she had to prove not only her prowess and willingness, but her love of invention. She had to out-Caesar Caesar. With that in mind, Domitia ascended the steps to the upper level, then climbed the ladder to the rooftop chamber, there to drop her gown and begin preparing.

  * * *

  It was all Abigail could do to restrain Seth from leaving their master's house. “You cannot go! They will murder you.”

  “Slaves are allowed to attend!” he snarled, pushing her hands away as he passed through the central atrium.

  “But not interfere with Caesar's sports!”

  “I have to protect her!”

  They had just heard from a neighbor's slave the true nature of the revels on Nero's Lake this night. It was Saturnalia indeed – a world turned on its head. The slave they spoke to was quite excited, and had been eating oysters on the sly for days to prepare.

  “Let me go, woman!” cried Seth, frustrated enough to raise a hand to her.

  But Abigail had been hit before, and stood her ground. “If you go, you cannot save her, only bring more attention to her. And certainly you will die. Is that what you want? Is it?”

  “You'd leave your daughter to the mercy of Nero?”

  “No!” Abigail hated the hot tears in her eyes. “I leave her to the mercy of the Lord. He protected her once. If He wills it, He shall do so again.”

  Seth looked unconvinced. “I'm going to stand by the lake and watch for her. She may need help.”

  “Then I am going with you,” declared Abigail. “It's the only way to be certain you do nothing foolish.”

  Seth pressed his lips together. “It's not safe. They may demand that you—”

  Abigail shrugged off this fear. “I have survived worse. And she is my daughter. So it is your choice. Stay home and pray, or go and watch silently with me.”

  Thinking she knew his answer, she was both surprised and heartened when Seth knelt and began to pray. She immediately did the same, clasping hands with him, silently imploring the Lord to watch over Perel and keep her from harm.

  Abigail's prayers were far more desperate than her words indicated. She was terrified. She told herself they had to trust in the Lord, that they were powerless to do otherwise. Prayer had worked once before. But that was when Symeon had been the petitioner. Now he was gone, and with each passing day the Lord and his messiah seemed more remote, more unreachable.

  Opening her eyes, the images that met her eye were frightening. The mistress of the house had recently taken her marital vengeance to a higher plane, ordering new frescoes throughout the house depicting sex acts. It had always shocked Abigail how fascinated Romans were with sex. Not just paintings, but pottery and sculpture too. Lamps shaped like men with huge erect penises as wicks. One could not walk down the streets of Rome without seeing a stone penis on every corner – symbols of luck, prosperity, and wealth. They were so ubiquitous that one quite forget they were there until one brushed against a stone phallus and remembered.

  Domitia had done her best to fill the house with images to taunt her spouse. In every room couples copulated or pleasured themselves in pastoral settings. Masturbation was a repeated theme. Bestiality, too, with Pan debauching goats and pigs and geese everywhere one looked.

  But here in the atrium was the most famous sex scene in all of Roman history, the Rape of the Sabine Women. In the background, Romans slaughtered the Sabine men, while in the foreground female Sabines were forced into frenzied positions by superbly endowed men who took their pleasure while creating the Roman race. In the case of every woman, her expression could not be distinguished – was it terror, or ecstasy?

  Seeing these images of rape, glorified by these sex-obsessed people, Abigail wanted to throw Seth instantly out of the house and chivvy him down to the water's edge. But she knew better. She had to put her trust in the Lord.

  It was against the tenets of faith to demand proof. Yet Abigail could not help slipping the thought into her prayer. Lord, if you protect my daughter, I will know that you exist, and are watching over us, who do your work.

  She regretted it almost instantly. One does not bargain with Yahweh, much less threaten Him.

  * * *

  In a house not far distant, the demure revels of Caenis continues. Claudia Acte was reclining on a couch and licking honey from her fingers. “If you think about it, Nero is very traditional.”

  Sextilla sputtered over her wine. “Traditional?! My dear Acte, you must be joking! You call marrying a man traditional?”

  “Sabina is not a man,” said Acte seriously. “She is the vessel for Nero's love of Poppaea. He has only ever loved three women – myself, Poppaea, and Statilia. He tried to marry all three of us. Poppaea he has now wedded twice. In that way, he is very traditional – he marries for love. Or rather, where he loves, he tries to marry.”

  “But isn't it madness?” asked Epira, a widow whose age rendered her immune to fear. “Is he not mad for behaving in this way?”

  “Is it madness to love beyond death? Surely you love your husband still.”

  “I do. But I say it is madness when you caused the death,” retorted Epira.

  “Caesar did not murder your husband, lady,” said Acte very softly.

  Epira stiffened. Her husband had been the late lamented Sextus Afranius Burrus, a Prefect of the Praetorian guard until his death five years earlier. A good friend with Seneca, he had developed a t
umor in his throat. Nero had sent one of Lucusta's potions to cure him, and rumour said that the potion was actually poison. Burrus had been replaced as Praetorian Prefect by Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus, the architect of today's revels.

  “I know how my husband died, thank you,” said Epira. “I also know the stories he brought home. Nero is mad. And when I said Nero caused the death, I meant Poppaea's. You cannot deny it was his boot that caused her demise. You call that love?”

  “Passion,” corrected Acte simply. “I call it passion. A by-product of love. True love.” Implying, of course, that those without such passion did not truly love.

  Sextilla saw an opening. “And you love Nero still, I suppose? Even though his passion for you has cooled?”

  “I will love him forever.” Acte did not seem offended. Indeed, she seemed impossible to offend. Yet she did add, “That is not to say I approve. Mothers still love disobedient children. Wives love unfaithful husbands. Love is not conditional. Love is eternal.”

  “My stars!” exclaimed Caenis, hoping to guide the conversation back to safer ground. “You sound very philosophical. Have you espoused some Eastern religion?”

  Acte looked shy. “Not one. All. I have taken an interest in religion, and I have a great deal of time to think on what they all mean.”

  Religion! A far safer topic. “And what have you found?”

  “Much. I did not care for Isis. Too much mysticism, too many whips. Magna Mater is fine, but too absorbed in ships, for some reason. Dionysus was, naturally, all about sex.”

  “Give me Bona Dea any day,” sniffed Sextilla. “Good old-fashioned Roman gods. Far better than the pretty Greek and Aegyptian ones.”

  “There was one man, though, whose words moved me…” Acte's voice trailed off, and there was an equally distant expression in her face.

  “Oh? And who is he?”

  “He's dead now,” said Acte simply. “Which is just as well, because I did not like him. He scorned my attempt to understand what he was saying. But the stories he told – I went back to hear him three times before he was arrested.”

  “Arrested?” said Sextilla haughtily. “So this is not a sanctioned religion?”

  “No. It was a religion that focused, so he said, on love. The notion of love, and sacrifice.” She seemed to come out of her trance. “Forgive me. I shouldn't be speaking of it.”

  But I can guess what it is, thought Caenis. Just as well you are beloved of Nero, if you had a taste of that Hebrew sect. Still, a religion of love and sacrifice was just the thing to appeal to Acte, who had sacrificed her happiness for her love, and pined for him every moment.

  * * *

  As the barge docked, Sabinus and the young men crossed the ornate plank up to the floating temple. Old Sabinus cried out, “Go! Go, amuse yourselves, lads! Give her one for me!”

  Sabinus wondered why his father was not being allowed to enter. Probably because it was no part of Nero's plan to heap humiliation upon an old man, a consular senator, and brother to a general in the field. Which meant that whatever lay within, it was going to erode Sabinus' dignitas, his public worth. Sighing, he crossed to the portal and began opening the door.

  * * *

  “I can't do this! I can't!” cried Corbula, shaking and having trouble breathing.

  Perel looked upon her mistress' sister with compassion. She was not the fierce creature Domitia Longina was. She did not live to flout convention and take revenge. Though not a virgin, she was not a nymph either. Corbula was a mouse pretending to be a lioness.

  Perel reached out to comfort the young woman, just her own age. “Domina, you mustn't—”

  Corbula slapped her hand away. “You! You have to do it for me. You stay down here. I'll – I'll hide in one of the rooms upstairs. Under a bed. They'll think it's empty. You stay here and greet whoever comes.”

  Perel froze. “I – stay?”

  “Yes, you stupid whore!” cried Corbula. “You were going to have to anyway. Every woman in here is fair game for any man who enters. Domitia Longina was going to make it a surprise. But to Hades with her jokes.”

  Now it was Perel's turn to shake, to back away. “Domina, I—”

  Corbula was hysterical. “Girl, I order you to strip and wait here for any man who comes, and pleasure him. If you don't do it, you know my sister will have you flogged, then crucified!”

  Perel's knees buckled. Crucified? No.

  Looking like a triumphant jackal, Corbula nodded. Then there was a boom from outside as someone tried the door. The sound transformed the Roman into a mouse once more, and she fled from the low chamber, with only an angry glance back to be sure Perel would obey before she disappeared from sight.

  Crucified, or dishonoured. Suddenly Perel was fourteen again, kidnapped and alone in the house of the miser Elkanah. She wondered if the Lord would protect her again as He had before, sending a fit that lasted an hour, resulting in the fall of her face, the end of her symmetry, her beauty. It was a thing she tried hard not to miss. Was that not simple vanity? Had not the Lord used her ruined face to save her? Had He not also sent Seth and the three masons to rescue her?

  For a moment, thinking of that night, she was reminded of one of those masons. Handsome, like his twin, but gentler. A scholar and a prodigy. She had liked him very much, had lamented when the boat left the shore with him still on land.

  He is probably dead now. Or else at war with Rome. Which means he will either die on the sword, or be crucified. Like my father.

  Thinking of her father, she remembered his prayers for her, and his orders to her, his insistence that she live and carry on his work. She must survive. Above all, she must survive. Which meant she could not disappoint whatever man came down those steps, else her mistress would indeed have her flesh flayed, her body mounted upon a cross to die.

  Slowly she reached her shaking hands up to push away the shoulders of her gown, dropping it to the wooden floor.

  * * *

  Walking into the floating temple, Clemens had to keep his heart from racing. No one knew that he, too, had received an audience with the Oracle. No one knew that he now recognized how perfectly done this replica was, right down to the weapons lining the walls. No one knew that he, too, had descended steps just like those at the far end, leading down.

  Yet there were also stairs going up, where there had been none in Delphi. There were also curtained rooms to either side, and more higher up on a balcony level. Then there was a ladder leading to one room that was higher still.

  Just days after his sixteenth birthday, Clemens was torn between his natural youthful desire to experience female company and his understanding of Nero's game. This was no cheerful homage to Apollo. This was a way to demean the Oracle, make her unimportant. And by forcing the Flavians to take the lead, he was inviting Sabinus to either reveal what was said to him, or draw the god's wrath upon himself.

  His father stood staring at the red leather curtain at the bottom of the descending steps. Clemens knew that it was the one most likely to hold whatever jest Nero had planned. Or was that too predictable? Was it therefore another door that held torment, ridicule, dishonour?

  “I'll go up,” said Domitian suddenly, though his eyes too were fixed on the lowest door, as if he recognized and feared it. Nimbly climbing the stairs, Domitian grasped the ladder and, with a wry glance down, entered the topmost chamber, far from the cellar.

  Tertius shrugged and, with what he hoped was casual ease, crossed to the nearest door on his right and pushed through the curtain. From within they heard him say in a husky voice, “Io, Saturnalia.” So at least he was pleased.

  Gaudentius took the door to the left. Sabinus shared a glance with his son, then gestured to the other doors. Not wanting to see which Clemens chose, the father stalked forward and plunged down the steps, into the lowest room.

  Clemens glanced at the two remaining doors, unsure what he wanted to encounter. Then, with an air of decision, he mounted the steps and picked the left hand portal on the
balcony level. Pushing the curtain aside, he stepped into the chamber.

  XIV

  “Shame,” said Acte. “He is a man obsessed with shame.”

  The talk had turned remarkably serious, with none of the light gaiety that Caenis had anticipated. It was as though they were under some spell – or rather, had been released from one. The chains on their tongues had evaporated. Led by Claudia Acte, they were all discussing the greatest man in the world as if he were a man like any other, or a child they all thought had gone astray. All knew it was dangerous. All knew it could cost them everything. But, free for once, none could bring themselves to stop.

  “He could have been good, I think,” continued Acte. “I mean, he's a great man. He's bold, he's brave, he's inventive. Yes, he has the Ahenobarbus streak. But I think he could also have been a good man. He wants what good men want – to love, and to be loved. He just doesn't know how to be good. He finds himself unworthy, and yet the world says how worthy he is.”

  “The worst tyrants are the insecure ones,” observed Epira.

  “He feels shamed,” persisted Acte. “Everything stems from that.”

  “No need to look for the root of his shame,” said Sextilla. “Agrippina's love was most unnatural.”

  At this, all the women exchanged knowing looks. Sextilla had mentioned the unmentionable.

  Caenis had known Agrippina as a little girl. Nero's mother was the grand-daughter of Caenis' mistress, Antonia. Married at thirteen to the red-eyed if not red-bearded Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, he of the chariot races and cruel murders of children, it would be easy to think she had been twisted by events. But the ugliness was in her veins. When her brother Gaius had been Princeps, he had displayed his madness openly. Though no one called him Gaius now – he was remembered simply as Caligula, 'Little Boots,' a name given to him by his father's soldiers. How Caenis' mistress had wept with disgust at the actions of her grandson. Such was the madness, and such was the disrespect heaped upon Antonia, that the elderly matron had taken her own life. Caenis would never forgive Caligula for that.