‘What about young Gaius?’ I replied.
‘Oh, you mean “Little Boots”. Well, he’s with the old fox in Capri. Only the Gods know what’s happening to him. Anyway!’ She moved a lock of hair away from her forehead. ‘I’ve told you enough. You can now trot back to Sejanus and report all the juicy bits.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Go on!’
I remained kneeling.
‘Go on!’ she repeated.
‘If I do, you die!’
‘Aye, Parmenon, and so do you.’ She ruffled my hair with her fingers. ‘We are both trapped, aren’t we? You go and tell Sejanus’s minions what I have said and I’ll join my mother, or brother, on some lonely island.’ She pointed to the floor. ‘Or my other brother Drusus in the cells below. As for you, Parmenon, as time passes Sejanus will start to wonder. Why should young Agrippina open her heart to a stranger? Can this Parmenon be truly trusted?’
I strained my ears and hoped the gallery outside was empty. This remarkable young woman had trapped me.
‘Do you know why I chose to sit here, Parmenon? Because that door is thick and there are no ledges outside this window. I’ve also checked the walls and floor carefully. No spy-holes, no little apertures for the ear. So, what are you going to do, Parmenon? Choose life or death?’
‘I am . . .’
‘What are you going to say, Parmenon?’ she mocked. ‘That you are only a servant, a scribe? You are only a flea on Sejanus’s table.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I am taking a gamble. I watched you at the amphitheatre. You don’t like bloodshed, Parmenon.’
‘I always think of my own skin.’
‘No, Parmenon, somewhere you’ve got a soul and a heart. I rather like you, you don’t act like an informer or a spy. So, let me draw you deeper into the net. We haven’t got much time. At the moment everybody’s drunk after the Games – nothing like a little blood is there, Parmenon, to whet the thirst and stir the cock – and Sejanus’s spies will be slaking themselves before they remember their duty. That’s their great mistake: blood blinds them. Such is Rome under Tiberius. Have you heard the poem, Parmenon?’ She closed her eyes.
‘“Tiberius is not thirsty for neat wine. What warms him up is a tastier cup, The blood of murdered men”.’
I shivered. Agrippina was muttering treason. Both of us could be handed over to the executioners to be strangled, our corpses tossed down the Steps of Mourning before being thrown into the Tiber.
‘He’s mad,’ Agrippina continued. ‘Tiberius is mad; either that, or possessed by a demon. Perhaps both. Do you know what my father told me, Parmenon? When Tiberius was a general, he used to study his maps in his tent the night before a battle, and suddenly the lamps around him would abruptly go out.’ She made me jump as she snapped her fingers. ‘Extinguished just like that! Tiberius always took it as a sign that his demon was nearby and he’d be lucky in the coming fight.’
‘Domina,’ I stammered. ‘You shouldn’t tell me all this.’
‘I’ll tell you more, Parmenon. Tiberius is the great Augustus’s successor but he spent most of his early manhood sulking in exile. It turned his mind. He wants to kill and kill again. My father is dead, my mother and two brothers will soon join him and, if Sejanus has his way, I and my sisters have got -’ she coolly shrugged her shoulders ‘- perhaps a year, certainly no more than eighteen months. Go out and check the gallery again, Parmenon. Stay there for a while before coming back.’
I obeyed her command. I closed the door behind me and tried to stop trembling. Agrippina had sent me out to test me. Any sensible informant would have fled like the wind, certainly not to Sejanus but down to Ostia to beg, buy, do anything to gain passage to the western isles or beyond. My face was coated in sweat. My stomach was clenched so tightly I thought I was going to vomit. It was like being woken up from a deep sleep by a jug of cold water splashed over your face. I was no more than twenty-three years of age and so far my life had been like that of a dream-walker, an observer of what was happening around me, but feeling very little. My father killed, my mother a sickly woman who had died before her time. Friends and acquaintances were merely people I talked to, dined or slept with. In an hour all this had changed. I walked up and down the gallery drawing deep breaths. Why, I kept asking myself? Why was Agrippina telling me this? It was all true, of course. Tiberius was a sick, bitter man. The stories from Capri depicted him as a monster. One story currently doing the rounds of the taverns of Rome was that a fisherman on the island had caught an enormous mullet, and eager to please his Emperor, he towed the fish up the trackless cliffs and surprised Tiberius. The Emperor was furious at being disturbed. He ordered his guards to wash the fisherman’s face with the mullet; its scales skinned him raw and the poor fellow screamed in agony, ‘Thank the Gods I didn’t bring Caesar the huge crab I also caught.’
Tiberius sent for the crab, had it used in the same way, before his hapless victim was thrown from the cliff top. A party of marines stationed below dealt with the fisherman, as they did others sent hurtling to their death, whacking him with oars and boat hooks. The poor man’s corpse was left a bloody mess upon the rocks. In Rome the hunger for blood was no different. The prisons were full, and those detained were deprived of light, food, even conversation. Some of the accused, on being warned to appear in court, felt so sure the verdict would be guilty that, in order to avoid public disgrace, they stayed at home, took a warm bath and opened their veins. If Sejanus’s police suspected this might happen, the house was raided, the poor unfortunate’s wounds were bandaged and he was hurried off to prison. A few senators, knowing they were going to be accused in public, drank poison openly, toasting their colleagues whilst cursing Caesar’s name. Their corpses were always displayed on the Steps of Mourning, before being dragged by hooks along the muddy lanes of Rome to the Tiber. Men, women, even children were imprisoned. Sejanus often toured the prisons, where one of his victims, half-mad from the torture, begged to be put out of his misery.
‘Oh no,’ Sejanus replied. ‘We are not friends yet.’
Such thoughts heightened my anxiety, standing in that dusty gallery of the Palatine Palace. I decided to flee. I was not one of the powerful ones of Rome so why should I be troubled? I stopped and stared back at Agrippina’s room. If I returned to that chamber, I could die an excruciating death, yet Agrippina was right, for if I reported her conversation, the same fate awaited me. I heard a footfall on the stairs and stepped into a shadowy recess. A slithering, soft sound, someone taking their time, coming up slowly, stealthily. Was Agrippina playing some cruel game? I peered out and recognised Metellus. I’d been introduced to him in the imperial box at the Games. He was a balding, narrow-faced scribe, responsible for ordering stores and ensuring the kitchen was well supplied. However, he wasn’t mounting those stairs like a scribe, more like the spy he was. He came onto the gallery and tiptoed by. I held my breath. He stopped at Agrippina’s door and listened carefully. Satisfied, he withdrew and slipped back down the stairs. I made my decision, or rather Metellus had made it for me. I waited until I was sure he wouldn’t return and crept back into the chamber. Agrippina was sitting where I had left her, tapping her foot as if listening to some invisible tune.
‘Well?’ she asked, raising her head.
I was about to kneel in front of her but she tapped the couch beside me.
‘You are with me, aren’t you, Parmenon?’
I nodded. She pulled down the front of her stola, exposing her beautiful breasts, their nipples dark and enlarged. She took my hand and pressed it against her left breast, her face only a few inches from mine.
‘Swear, Parmenon, by earth, sea and sky!’
I found it difficult to speak. My throat had gone dry. It was a strange sensation, my hand clasped against that beautiful breast, her lovely lips not far from mine, juxtaposed to the silence of the room, the terrors beyond the door, Metellus waiting like some snake.
‘Swear!’ she hissed.
‘What’s the matter, Parmenon? Are you shocked?’
‘No, Domina, frightened. Metellus is slinking like a fox outside.’
‘Foxes can be trapped.’
Clearing her throat, a mannerism employed whenever she was excited, Agrippina snuggled closer.
‘Tiberius is Emperor,’ she whispered. ‘He’s mad, bad or both.’ She smoothed her face. ‘But, there again, I’m no different. We have rotten blood in our veins. Tiberius’s son was poisoned.’
I started.
‘No, be still.’ She tapped my knee. ‘The Emperor’s true son is dead and that’s the end of the matter. Tiberius, therefore, has several possible heirs: Gemellus who is weak; or one of my elder brothers. However,’ she sighed, ‘we must consider them, like my mother, as dead. That leaves me, my sisters and “Little Boots”.’
Her voice took on a mocking tone as she referred to her brother, the seventeen-year-old Caligula, who was now Tiberius’s house prisoner on Capri.
‘Tiberius,’ she continued, ‘is worrying enough. Sejanus, however, is the more pressing danger. He’s Prefect of the city and commands the Praetorian Guard. The Senate are a claque and his bosom friends command the German legions. Sejanus has spun a web in which everyone is caught up. What he’ll do next is try to get rid of Caligula, myself and my sisters before we can beget any children. We’ll soon be arrested for treason, and either exiled or imprisoned. And then we shall certainly be executed, probably sooner rather than later.’ Agrippina paused as if she had forgotten something. ‘Yes, yes, that’s how it will go. Once he’s finished with us, Sejanus will turn on Tiberius, and the Emperor will go into the dark. Sejanus will marry Tiberius’s widowed daughter-in-law and have himself proclaimed Emperor.’ She tapped her foot and cleared her throat.
‘So, what can you do? Flee Rome?’
Agrippina threw her head back and laughed. ‘Flee Rome, Parmenon? We wouldn’t get as far as the Forum.’ She pinched my arm. ‘Don’t you have any life in those veins, a heart which beats? Haven’t you heard of a blood feud? Tiberius and Sejanus have struck at my family. Now I will strike at theirs.’ She waggled a finger like an aged housewife telling her husband off. ‘Where’s the weakness in all of this, Parmenon?’
‘You’ve thought all this through, haven’t you?’ I asked.
She grinned. ‘The weakness, in fact, is Sejanus himself. Tiberius regards Sejanus as too low-born to pose any real threat. However, our Emperor, by nature, is very suspicious. At the moment he puts up with Sejanus because he once saved Tiberius’s life. They were dining out in some cave and there was a rock fall. Tiberius believes he has a debt to pay. He must now be made to realise that this debt is cleared and Sejanus is his greatest enemy.’
‘How will you do that?’
‘We must get to Capri.’
Agrippina got up, walked to the door and opened it.
‘You will arrange that, Parmenon. In the meantime, ask Metellus to come up!’
I looked up in surprise.
‘Go on!’ she urged. ‘Tell him I need him now!’
I obeyed her command and went down the gallery. I could hear shouts, doors opening and closing. The festivities after the Games were now in full swing. I slipped downstairs into the gallery below, where servants and their girls were milling about, some much the worse for drink. Metellus was sitting at a table, tapping his fingers as if mystified by what had happened.
‘Domina Agrippina will see you now!’ I declared.
‘Will she? Where has she been? Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been nowhere,’ I slurred, pretending to be tipsy. ‘You’d best go upstairs now.’
Metellus scraped back the stool and followed me up. I went along the gallery and knocked on the door. Agrippina opened it, almost dragged the fellow through, then slammed it shut in my face. I stood wondering what was to happen. I heard Agrippina laugh, the clink of cups. Was she playing some game? I tried the handle but the bolts were in place. I was walking down the gallery when I heard the screams, terrible piercing yells, so strident they quelled the clamour below. I ran back towards the door and pushed against it. From inside I could hear the clatter of noise as if a violent struggle was taking place. The alarm was being raised. Two Praetorian guards came running up, swords drawn. Burly fellows, they shoved me aside. Using the pommel of their swords, they hammered on the door, from behind which came Agrippina’s screams and yells, and the sounds of a scuffle grew more strident. Stools and benches were used to force open the door and I followed the soldiers into the room. Metellus lay sprawled on the floor before the couch, a gaping wound in his chest. Agrippina, her tunic covered in blood, knelt beside him holding a dagger. Her stola had been ripped, and she had scratch marks on her face. She pushed her hair back and stared wildly at the soldiers.
‘He tried to rape me!’ she hissed. She pointed to the goblets lying in a pool of wine in the middle of the room. ‘He was drunk.’
She caught my gaze and, for a second, I saw the smile in her eyes. She got to her feet still holding the dagger.
‘Is this the way -’ she yelled, ‘- to treat the daughter of Germanicus? Am I some common whore to be pawed at by servants?’
Her maids appeared. Agrippina yelled obscenities, asking them where they had been. They tried to reply but Agrippina threw the dagger on the floor. She crumpled on the couch, put her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly. The soldiers, both outraged and fearful at what had happened, grabbed Metellus’s corpse and flung it through the window onto the courtyard below. I decided it was time to act as if I was the Domina’s secretarius. Water and towels were ordered. I thanked the soldiers and asked them to leave. Once they had, Agrippina got to her feet and allowed the maids to dab at the cuts on her face and hands. She seized a moment in the hustle and bustle to beckon me over.
‘Go, tell Sejanus’s minions,’ she whispered, ‘that I am of the blood imperial. I have been attacked! A lowling has tried to rape me. I demand to see the Emperor!’ She grabbed my hand and pulled me closer. ‘Use your wit, Parmenon. Act as if you were truly Sejanus’s spy. Tell the truth!’
I left immediately, threading my way through the passageways of the Palatine Palace across the parklands. Darkness was falling, and torches and lamps were being lit. I found the Minion in the same chamber in which we had first met. I suspect he already knew what had happened but when I gave him the details his face paled. He plucked at his face and sifted the parchments on the table.
‘I see. I see,’ he muttered. ‘You’d best stay here.’
An hour passed. The darkness deepened, the light from the oil lamps gutted out. At last the Minion returned.
‘His Excellency will see you now!’
Chapter 5
‘I wish the Roman populace had only one neck’
Suetonius, ‘Lives of the Caesars’: Caligula, 30
‘So, she wishes to go to Capri?’
Sejanus lounged on a couch, one arm on the headrest, a wax writing tablet on his knee. A small tripod next to the couch held quills, ink and pumice stone. He put the tablet down and glanced at me, fingers laced. Sejanus was at his most avuncular: patrician, his grey hair carefully combed, smiling eyes, slightly hooked nose, his face freshly shaved and oiled.
‘I’ve heard what happened.’ He smiled. ‘Do you believe it?’
I recalled Agrippina’s advice.
‘No, I don’t, Excellency.’
Sejanus furrowed his brow. ‘I am glad you said that. Neither do I. Metellus was a cold fish, who prefered little boys to women so why should he try and rape Agrippina?’ He clicked his tongue.
I was standing about three yards from him. I hoped he couldn’t smell my fear.
‘But Agrippina acted foolishly. Surely she would have known about Metellus’s preferences? Let me think this through.’ Sejanus reflected. ‘Agrippina sent you to bring Metellus to her room, and then locked the
door. Almost immediately she started to scream a yell and when the Praetorians broke in, Metellus, one of my spies, was found with a dagger thrust through the heart. Now Agrippina is acting the hysterical bitch and pleading to be sent to Capri to complain to the Emperor.’ He sighed. ‘To be perfectly honest I suspect the Divine One won’t believe her either.’
He lowered his head and clicked his tongue. I stared round the marble room. Purple and gold drapes hung against the walls and two crumbling gravestones, a memento mori, perched at either end of the couch. Was it Sejanus’s idea to terrify visitors or had this been the great Augustus’s writing chamber? The furniture was exquisite, much of it of Egyptian design, as were the statuettes – an Apis bull, a Hermes, a dancing girl – and a silver lamp-stand carved in the shape of a tree. Agrippina later explained that it was all looted from Cleopatra’s court. At the time I didn’t really care, only aware of the warmth and the brooding silence. The drapes moved slightly, and I glanced down and caught sight of the toe of a boot peeping out beneath. Sejanus was no fool: he appeared to be frightened of no one but the chamber was full of guards, their swords drawn, ready to protect him or to carry out his slightest whim. He continued to click his tongue, an unnerving sound: sometimes fast, sometimes slow it seemed to echo the beat of my heart. I stared down at the floor and studied the mosaic which was of Demeter rising from the corn fields.
‘I am wondering,’ Sejanus smiled, ‘dearest kinsman, if you are part of this plot?’
He picked up a bell and rang it vigorously. A door in the wall opened and the Minion stepped through. Sejanus didn’t even bother to turn his head.
‘Who’s in the chamber below?’ he demanded.
‘Tibullus.’
Domina (Paul Doherty Historical Mysteries) Page 7