“And we’ll all be very happy for you when you die like a man tonight.”
“Thank you, Vellia.”
Petronius turned and left the room.
The granite slabs of the dark hallway were cold against his bare feet and silent, absorbing all sound like a tomb. Petronius thought of his own tomb, dark and ungiving like this, wherein he would be laid tomorrow. He felt, impatiently with himself, as if he were already his own ghost, wandering the subterranean halls that connected his vault to the rest of the necropolis, the temple of Apollo, the acropolis, and ultimately to the cave of the Sibyl and its hidden entrance to the underworld. How long would he wander, padding silently like this, searching for the way out? Months, years? Having crossed the threshold, would he even remember what it was he was supposed to be looking for, or who he was or had been? He paused, and allowed the chill to seep up into the bones of his feet. There would be no ache like this, of that he was reasonably certain, and possibly no sensation of any kind, no sense of pressure, weight, temperature, humidity, breath entering and leaving the body, light pushing against the ragged edges of shadow. The very walls and archways, perhaps, would seem as insubstantial as mist, translucent and shifting, their layout arbitrary and mystifying. What purpose could they serve to a spirit who can walk in a straight line through mountains and seas, through the center of the earth? And yet he was quite convinced that he would be wandering them dutifully this time tomorrow, that even in the daze of the newly dead he would somehow recognize the patterns they traced, their dim echo of some immutable law of nature, as a newborn bird somehow knows to open its beak skyward to receive its first meal. Yes, surely the dead have instincts to guide them through their new world, and quite probably they heed those instincts the way animals in this world heed theirs, with unthinking trust, instead of ignoring and despising them the way living men do. But do they have memories?
Petronius passed along the corridor to the little room where Commagenus awaited him in the lamplight. The brass krater and the gold-hilted dagger had been washed and polished. There was a clean roll of bandages on the table beside them.
“Let’s go,” he said, stepping forward through the doorway. He held his wrist out and Commagenus began to unroll the bandage. The first few layers of cotton were white and loose and came away readily, but then it began to turn brown—in patches first, finally solid—stiff and recalcitrant; nearer the skin, it became hopelessly glued, both to itself and to the wound. Any attempt to force it, both men saw, would result in a messy, uncontrolled opening of the gash, blood everywhere. It must be done cautiously, with dignity and an eye to posterity, even with no one but a slave as witness.
“I’ll fetch some warm water,” Commagenus muttered, and slipped from the room. Petronius propped his damaged wrist in the palm of his right hand, as if it were a dying child, though he felt no sympathy for it, and looked vacantly about the spare chamber. There was nothing to catch his eye but a small round window, high up on the outer wall, that framed a few bright, indeterminate stars. Had he followed a more traditional career path, Petronius would have studied for some priesthood or other, he would have learned to identify the constellations in their multitudes, and they would not be such strangers to him as they were tonight. Was it possible, after all, that they held a message for him? Or that, on some other night—one spent, perhaps, lying on one’s back at the side of a sleeping lover, wondering how to draw blood from a stone—they had been speaking to him of alternate ways and he had been deaf to their advice? How unlikely it all seemed, yet even if it were true he doubted there was any consolation to be found there, or in the flights of wild birds, the steaming entrails of sacrificial beasts, the omens that served as currency to the augurers. The omens were always bad. You didn’t need to be a priest to know that.
Commagenus returned with a bowl of water and some hand towels draped across his forearm. Petronius sat on the edge of the bed and the slave knelt at his feet. Moistening a towel, Commagenus began dabbing delicately at the encrusted wound, and shortly the soiled bandage fell away into the bowl, immediately turning the water a sickly pink. The exposed gash, some two inches long, was raw and pulsing, almost a living thing in its own right, and clearly ready to reopen at the slightest pressure. Commagenus continued to swab it lightly.
“Get on with it,” Petronius snapped, although he was rather touched by the slave’s solicitude. “It doesn’t need to be clean. Get the krater.”
Commagenus lowered the bowl to the floor and replaced it with the brass krater beneath Petronius’s wrist. He held it by the stem in both hands, his fingers splayed along the underside as if he were a priest receiving a libation. With his right hand, Petronius grasped his own left forearm, pressing his thumb into the soft flesh above the wound. He pulled the thumb back toward the elbow, and the scab gave way with only the mildest sensation of tearing. The blood immediately poured forth as it had earlier, splashing raucously into the hollow of the krater. Petronius felt a bubble of nausea rise in his belly and subside. He willed himself to focus on the matter at hand and to closely monitor the flow of blood, lest he spill too much and incapacitate himself for the rest of the dinner.
It was only as the krater began slowly to fill that he noticed that it had been assiduously washed and polished since the first bloodletting. Had Commagenus done it himself, or had he delegated the distasteful chore to a lower-ranking member of the household staff? What had happened to the blood? Had it been poured down the courtyard drain, to be sluiced away into the sea? Petronius was abruptly struck by the odd image of its being carried to the kitchen, where Lucullo might set it aside to allow the fat to separate and congeal, later to be incorporated into his justly famous black pudding, or as a thickening agent for one of his rich wine-and-honey-based sauces. Alternately, it might be fed to the pigs on the farm, who would surely be grateful and perhaps, like the vineyard slaves, enjoy some short-lived thrill of vindication.
Petronius had tasted human blood before—both his own and that of friend and foe, whipped into his face and open mouth in the frenzy of hand-to-hand combat—and it evoked little fascination or revulsion in him. But was blood sacrificially spilled different somehow? Was there something hallowed about it, or accursed? He searched his mind for some forgotten instruction or ritual exaction. Oh, let the pigs have it, then! Or maybe Mar-tialis would want it, should he ever return to Spain, where certain ancient Celtic practices were said to still be practiced. Perhaps it could be used to summon his spirit from the underworld? It was only when the absurdity of this last thought struck him that Petronius realized that his mind had been wandering, and that he had already drained the requisite pint, and a little surplus.
“That’ll do,” he said curtly, and even in these brief words heard the slurring in his voice.
Again, Commagenus pressed a thick wad of cotton on the wound and wrapped it tightly in linen. Again, the dressing held. Petronius dismissed the slave with a flick of the wrist, and continued to sit with his head slumped between his shoulders. The nausea had returned, his face felt hot and prickly, his sandals as heavy as lead slabs. Two more pints would kill him off. Two more pints, two more pints. It sounded like a marching song, and for a moment he thought himself on horseback at the head of a column riding to Volandum in Armenia, where great things awaited him if only he could rid himself of these damned locusts chirping in his ears. It was a brutally hot summer’s day on the high plateau, his cheeks burned, but water was short and it would hurt morale if he were seen to be abusing the rations. His mouth was parched and evil-tasting; he rode with his head bowed to maximize the shade upon his neck and chest. Two more pints, two more pints, the men sang. He tried to harness his attention to the marching rhythm.
Melissa stood at the door with a bowl of wine in her hands. He could hardly place her at first, but then the room and the night snapped into focus, and he knew that he would be all right.
“Is this a place for you, Melissa?” Petronius said coldly, turning his back to her. “Is it
right that our guests should be left unattended?”
There was a light rustle of fabric, and then he felt her hand on his shoulder. It was not the first time she had touched him all evening, and it still felt wrong, ill-balanced.
“Would this be a good time to talk?”
“You pick your moments.”
“There aren’t many left.”
She held the wine to his lips, and he drank. It was cold, and sweetened, and tasted good.
“You are angry with me tonight, Titus. Why is that?”
“I am not angry with you, Melissa Silia.”
Melissa considered him pensively. “We expect a great deal of you tonight, Titus, as much as you expect of yourself,” she said. “And as for all this silly, secretive bloodletting, I don’t think you should go through with it.”
“I’m surprised at you, Melissa. You know better than that. Of course I have to do it. I want to do it.”
“No, Titus …”
“There is no life without honor, no honor without … Are you really going to force me to preach to you at this late hour? Please go back.”
“You misunderstand me, Titus. Of course you must act as honor requires. I simply mean you need not do it now, while the others are here. It can wait until supper is over and the guests have gone. If you lose any more blood tonight, you’re not going to be able to see to your guests. You were almost delirious earlier. What if you were to pass out in the middle of the symposium? Where’s the dignity in that?”
Petronius stared down at the bandage on his wrist, already spotted with blood. Certainly there was nothing beautiful about it, nothing seductive. It looked like the sheath of skin discarded by a diseased, elderly snake.
“If that’s what you came to say, you’ve said it now.”
“Actually, I came to tell you that the captain of the guard has stopped by to pay his respects. You ought to go out to him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sextus Gnipho.”
“I know him. Does he not know me?”
“Of course he knows you. You know he knows you.”
“But you said earlier …”
“He did not mention your acquaintance when we were making our arrangements.”
“Perhaps he was being discreet, thinking you are my wife.”
“Discretion was hardly the hallmark of his behavior.”
“Well, go along. I’ll be out shortly.”
“Shall I wait with you?”
“Go along.”
Petronius was tired, light-headed, nauseated, and anxious, but he had recognized the wisdom of her suggestion the moment she’d made it. It made little sense to carry through with his original plan. Nero was unlikely, at this time of night, to dispatch his thugs to finish the job. Far better—more dignified, yes—to do it in one final act in the early hours, when all had gone. He could have a quiet word with Martialis, persuade him to tweak the account of his death to reflect his dramatic intentions, just as Paulina had done for Seneca. It would only be a minor fabrication, not a wholesale reinvention. Biographers operated on hearsay all the time.
But he had been very rude to Melissa. He was angry, it was true. In fact, he recognized that he had been irrationally resentful of her all night, and now, perhaps, he understood why. It was not, of course, about what she had done with Gnipho that afternoon in return for the liberties they were all enjoying this evening. She had done it for him, Petronius, and with evident distaste and reluctance—an act of heroic, matronly martyrdom straight out of Republican myth. It can’t have been pleasant, allowing herself to be pawed and poked by that grizzled, hairy Gaul. Of course, ever thorough and courteous, she would have feigned pleasure, climax even, to ensure Gnipho’s complacency, make him feel he’d got the best of the deal. Maybe she’d even enjoyed it, though he doubted it—she liked smooth men with sophisticated technique. Where had they done it? Up against a tree by the roadside, within earshot of the guardsmen? No, Gnipho would have been too respectful for that. They’d have gone to the tradesmen’s cemetery up the hill, and he’d have had her sprawl over a moss-covered sarcophagus, her synthesis hitched above her waist, and taken her from behind. No danger of seeing her opinion of him reflected in her unruffled gaze. He’d have grunted like a hog, given her a moment or two to compose herself, then resumed his martial demeanor, stood to attention before his superior, and she’d have smiled at him gently, not forgiving, but open and cool, like a hostess greeting a guest she had never met before, to let him know that as of that instant they had no history together of any kind. Of course, Gnipho would never have had a woman like Melissa before, and would immediately feel abashed, a thief and a liar. Petronius had seen legionaries lustily, hilariously cut down little children in the fever of a broken siege, then later weep to themselves in shame in some darkened corner where they thought they could not be seen. Gnipho would feel like that after fucking Melissa. He would not be the first upon whom she’d had that effect.
But none of this was the cause of Petronius’s displeasure with her tonight. She was free to do as she pleased; Petronius could make no claim of exclusivity upon her. It was, rather, her unwonted actorship in his drama that bothered him, the fact that she had come to play an adult role, the role of an equal, in a performance he had written for himself as sole protagonist, director and impresario. Had she not always before been to him precisely what he had asked her to be, especially when she had understood better than he did what that was? Two years earlier, when he had sent her away—or at least encouraged her to explore her independence—had she not gone in precisely the right, forward-looking spirit, without a word of recrimination? And last week, when she’d offered to remain with him to the end—to today—it had all seemed so natural that she alone should be the companion of his last days. He had seen her as a silent spectator, or at best a prompter, whispering his cues when he lost them; instead, in the course of the week, she had become a principal player in the production, hiring the supporting cast, arranging their blocking, stepping into his character when he fell short. She had made him feel inadequate at precisely the moment when he most needed to feel invincible, just as she had surely done to Gnipho. It was not her fault, of course; he had pushed her into it with his own insufficiency, and she, naturally, had proved her unflappable competence at every step along the way, as she had always done. That competence, of course, had been their undoing. It was despicable, but he wanted her grateful and worshipful, and even though he knew perfectly well that she could be none of these, he wanted to punish her for it. Oddly, there seemed to be no way to do right by her, precisely because she made it so easy for him. She’d come to him, and he’d sent her away—again. How childish, and typical! Well, perhaps there was still time to set it right. Yet he had to admit to himself that even this prospect of atonement was self-serving and polluted with self-regard. He hung his heavy head. Had it always been this way between them? He closed his eyes and allowed the past to overtake him.
WHEN HE RECEIVED confirmation that the ninth cohort had marched for the eastern frontier, Petronius dispatched his own lictors to Prusa with a letter and orders to escort Melissa to Nicomedia. In the letter, he excitedly described the tasteful little townhouse he’d purchased for her in a quiet residential district near the palace; the domestic slaves he would place at her disposal; the generous allowance she would enjoy to decorate her new home and clothe herself presentably; the privacy and freedom that would soon be theirs for the first time. He also sought to anticipate her objections. “Please understand,” he’d written, “I am trying neither to buy your loyalty nor to entice you into a gilded cage. The deed to the house is in your name and will remain so regardless of your decision.”
Petronius was not terribly surprised when the lictors returned from Prusa with nothing but a written response. “Governor,” it read, “I wish you had consulted me before going to such great effort and expense on my behalf. Now please understand me: It is precisely because I have been entrapped and unhappy for so long
that I am in no hurry to exchange one situation of dependency for another. I know you think it unfair of me to compare you, patriarch of the Petronii and Proconsul of Bithynia, to a lowly centurion, but I have spent half my adult life regretting one decision and have no intention of spending the other half regretting another.”
As he galloped that afternoon for Prusa, Petronius was forced to ask himself a question he had hitherto managed to evade: Could she be playing him for a fool? Was it possible that she—about whom, after all, he knew so very little—was simply raising the stakes to a point at which Petronius would offer her anything, even her own independent fortune, to secure her commitment? He considered it highly unlikely, though not impossible, yet decided that it made no difference to him whatsoever. So long as he could have her, and keep her, and not have to share her, he was prepared to go to any lengths necessary. If that was what she wanted, that was what she should have. Yet, as he approached the city gates, his confidence began to waver as he recalled that he really had no idea what she wanted from him, and never had, and perhaps never could, because he was so obtuse and ridiculous, and because she refused to explain herself. It was not a question of throwing offers at her, any one of which was likely to offend her, but of throwing himself upon her mercy, and promising to do whatever it was she wanted him to do, if only she would condescend once and for all simply to tell him how to please her.
The camp was all but deserted, with the exception of a few officers’ wives and a handful of sentries too old or feeble to make the march eastward. Petronius was carelessly, perhaps foolhardily indifferent to the stares he attracted as he tracked her down to the barracks washhouse, where he found her rinsing white sheets at a trough of cold flowing water. She did not seem in the least put out to see him, but simply offered her cheek and went on with her washing. Still, when Petronius found himself incapable of opening his mouth, painfully conscious of his almost limitless potential for aggravating the situation with a single word, she was kind enough to launch the negotiations.
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