The Nero Prediction

by Humphry Knipe

  I threw myself into the work. There was plenty of it. First Rome. No more narrow winding alleys, only wide, straight streets lined with elegant porticos. Everywhere stone and concrete to be used in place of timber. Petitions and bids relating to this enormous project poured in by the thousand and I was the one to evaluate them. I turned down as many bribes as I could, partly out of honesty, partly out of my conviction that someone was always watching me, a slave, a freedman, I often saw them out of the corner of my eye, usually in the distance, my old disease. But some were offers I couldn’t refuse and so I grew rich.

  Simultaneously I helped Nero and his architects design a giant public park in the burnt out city center. It was going to be the focus of the Golden Age. Its major structure was a complex of art galleries, music halls and shady porticos built on the Oppian hill. Nero called it the Golden House. The remains of the slum that had occupied the swampy valley between the Palatine and Esquiline hills was cleared and became a tear-shaped lake five hundred paces long and nearly a hundred and fifty wide at its broadest part. On its banks deer pranced and sheep grazed, their fleeces dyed imperial purple.

  Construction of the Golden House, which overlooked the lake from a position close to the tower from which Nero had sung while Rome burnt, began even before the plans were complete. Its gilded and jeweled façade, two hundred paces long, faced due south so that it glittered from dawn till dusk like an ethereal fire. On the second floor was a dining hall with a circular roof shaped like an inverted bowl that was powered by a huge water-driven paddle wheel so that it revolved on a track to mimic the daily revolution of the heavens around the earth. The signs of the Zodiac were painted on the rim of this revolving dome so that the ring of fantastic creatures circled once every twenty-four hours. The planets, including the Sun and the Moon, were suspended from the dome by a circle of hooks so that the positions of these heavenly bodies relative to each other could be adjusted daily. The temple of folly was the way I thought of it then.

  "Secret enemies," Balbillus babbled. "The triple conjunction of the Sun, Venus and Mercury warns of secret enemies."

  Time had looped back on itself. Two hours before sunrise, six months and eighteen days after Rachel’s resurrection, I was down in Baiae again taking notes at Nero's Moon of the Year reading. Once again, also, the Moon was full just it had been the night that Agrippina had sent me to kill Nero. The terror of that memory helped me keep a straight face.

  "But it's situated in my House of Music!" complained Nero who by this time, to my relief, had recovered from his bout of feverish excitement. He also appeared to have forgotten all about the Christians and changing Rome’s name to Neropolis, both subjects that I steered well clear of. "I've already drawn the positions of the planets into my chart. Surely its crystal clear, isn't it, that something wonderful is going to happen with my music?"

  Balbillus pinched his chin thoughtfully, well aware that Nero, like the emperor Tiberius before him, spent hours puzzling over his chart in private. "True, Caesar, your music could be implicated, but the triple conjunction is in a square with your ascendant which indicates that it brings misfortune."

  "Not enemies?"

  "No, they are indicated by Mars in your House of Calamities. He's in opposition to your Mercury who is in your House of Enemies."

  "Ah, now I get it. Enemies of my music! Seneca's one of course. He hates me because I've discovered the singing play. So does Thrasea and his whole faction of Stoics who go about with long faces because they think it adds to their gravity. But I'm the one the people love, they love me for my music."

  Balbillus shook his head. "The stars don't indicate open enemies, Caesar. They warn of secret enemies, men whom you may think of as friends."

  "Friends? That could be more serious. When, is there any indication of when they're going to turn against me?"

  "The danger extends itself throughout the year but you should especially beware the Games of Ceres on April 19. Mars will then be on the your descendant and in opposition to your Sun. This configuration threatens a fall from a high position."

  "I won't become a Tiberius and allow fear to send me scuttling off to an island. In any case, I can't avoid my destiny, can I? What’s the expression? ‘What’s not fated to happen is impossible’."

  Balbillus turned up his palms. "Indeed, Caesar. If it's your destiny not to heed a warning from the heavens, then you can’t heed it."

  Nero rose. "Then I shan't. If my friends wish to strike me down like Julius Caesar's did, so be it. Better still Epaphroditus, you take care of them, you're my shield, aren't you? Work with Tigellinus. Now please excuse me, I seem to need a lot more sleep these days and I've got a rehearsal at dawn."

  Nero was rehearsing seven days later when I went, on his behalf, to a reception given by Seneca. As the Secretary of Petitions it was I who decided who would have access to the emperor's ear. A mere ex-slave with more power than a Consul! How they hated me, the blue bloods of Rome.

  This was why I'd prepared my entrance, perhaps too carefully, taking particular care not to be pompous. I'd watched too many freedmen make fools of themselves by putting on haughty airs. The key to Roman aristocratic deportment was complete candor, the impression that there was nothing to hide. I'd learnt that from Nero.

  Seneca's guests were already in his garden, strolling down landscaped terraces which descended to the sea or standing in knots around ancient statues which, for the sake of pathetic affect, had been allowed to lose their covering of paint so that patches of bone-white marble showed through.

  When I made my appearance they all glanced at me, perhaps to confirm with their own eyes that Nero had openly insulted Seneca by sending an ex-slave in place of himself. A moment later I couldn't catch an eye except for the hostile stare of Marcus Scaevinus, a senator who'd already drunk too much wine, and his reedy parasite Natalis, a knight, whose nudge had brought me to the senator's attention.

  "Where's the emperor?" Scaevinus growled.

  I made a point of looking surprised at his tone of voice. "He was unfortunately detained by -"

  Scaevinus narrowed his bloodshot eyes as he cut me off. "An out-of-tune kithara?"

  Natalis sniggered. "Or even a broken string?"

  I was gratified to see fear flicker across the little man's pinched face when I struck back. "I'll be delighted to convey your personal interest in the emperor's musical instruments."

  A woman's voice, ripe and rich, hailed me. "Epaphroditus!"

  It was Epicharis, raven-haired, willowy and willful, an ex-slave and mistress of Mela, Seneca's brother. She disengaged herself from the brawny arm of the consul-designate Plautius Lateranus, handsome, blue-eyed Lateranus who'd been one of Messalina's lovers and who was now giving me a glance spiked with mockery and a grin spiced with contempt.

  Epicharis sounded perfectly sincere, I thought that perhaps she was. We'd been acquaintances for years and quite often, when she'd had something to drink, I'd caught her staring at me under half-closed eyelids.

  She said, "How very nice to see someone from the court, we were beginning to feel quite snubbed. Before you shake another hand, though, you must come and try some of the Baiaen seafood stew before it's all gone. It's really quite a masterpiece."

  In fact it was. Much to Epicharis's amusement, I shed my imperial demeanor long enough to take down the recipe.

  "What? You've got it all down already?" she asked when I finished writing as soon as the server had finished rattling off its ingredients.

  I showed her the ciphers. "Yes, in shorthand."

  Epicharis smiled. It unsettled me the way she looked into my eyes. "You're teasing me."

  "I'm not. Until quite recently, taking dictation was just about all I did."

  The tip of her tongue slid mischievously between her lips. "All right then, read it back."

  "Minced poached oysters, mussels and sea nettles put in a saucepan with toasted nuts, rue, celery, pepper, coriander, cumin, raisin wine, broth, reduced wine and oil,"
<
br />   She looked to the server for confirmation.

  He nodded, a lopsided, obsequious smile on his face.

  Epicharis shook her head in disbelief that revealed the splendid pearl earrings hanging from her tiny ears. "Amazing! You could just sit there and keep a record of a whole conversation between two people and read back to them exactly what they said."

  "I've done that often enough, which reminds me, I'd better go and pay the emperor's respects to Seneca. Come with me, I can do with an escort."

  Her smile was quick and she took my arm. Seneca was talking about citron-wood tables with Afranius Quintianus, a fat senator with blubbery mauve lips and a head as bald as a mirror, who did nothing to hide his affection for boys past their prime. They both ignored me. When I thought I'd waited as long as politeness required, I interrupted them. In spite of his air of Stoic imperturbability a shadow passed over Seneca's face. Without as much as a nod to me he took Quintianus by the arm and walked away, still talking about tables.

  I flushed with anger. Everyone must have seen the snub. Seneca would have to be reminded that I was no longer a slave.

  I was on my way out when Epicharis fell into step with me, smiling as if nothing had happened. Even through the glaze of my fury I saw promises in her eyes.

  "What Seneca just did to you. He couldn't stop himself, you do realize that, don't you? It was his destiny."

  "Yes, just as it is my destiny to do what I'm about to do."

  She touched my bare forearm. Her fingers were smooth and cool. "What's that?"

  "Report to the emperor."

  "Does he expect you tonight?"

  "No. But in the light of what just happened -"

  We'd entered the portico which lead to the gate. Epicharis turned me towards the west where the Sun was setting behind the mountains of Misenum. "You'll tell him, but you won't tell him tonight."

  "Why not?"

  "This is Baiae. Today is the Liberalia, hard to tell from this cold-blooded gathering. But I have friends with warmer blood in their veins. They've had a ship fitted out for an all-night celebration of true pleasure. I want you to sail with us."

  I tried to say no. Epicharis’s fingernails bit into my arm. Veil after veil seemed to fall from the eyes that stared into mine, each revealing a promise more seductive than the last.

  We didn't leave the reception together, Epicharis thought that unwise. I met her at a quay where a boat rode at anchor, a three-masted Alexandrian grain ship, a hundred and sixty foot long and thirty-five wide, which had been refitted as a pleasure boat for the season. In addition to the sails that billowed from its three masts it was propelled by a single row of long oars manned by beautiful, athletic young slaves, all heroically naked.

  The sternpost, which curved backwards towards the prow like the tail of an angry scorpion, was carved into the shape of a gigantic phallus. The prow-post was the head of Bacchus, hair decorated with oozing grapes, an expression of fierce ecstasy on his face. There were similar boats everywhere, lit by the colored paper lamps that perched in their rigging like phoenixes. Lascivious shouts rolled across the water from ship to ship. There was something about the rocking of the boat, about the enveloping arms of liquid, about the way the sky bent over you, that inflamed the senses. It was why, in Baiae, lust sets sail.

  But the ship would have sailed without me if I'd discovered that one of its passengers was Quintianus, he of the bald pate and mauve blubbery lips who'd been talking about tables when Seneca had snubbed me.

  Epicharis's breath was already heavy with wine. "Ignore him, I can promise that he'll ignore you. This is a night for abandonment, what everyone craves is anonymity."

  A drum took up an unsteady beat somewhere in the bowels of the boat. A sudden, fiendish shriek of flutes announced the emergence of a troop of Maenads through a hatch disguised as the mouth of a grotto. Gradually, as the tempo built up, some of the guests joined the frenzied dance. The revels had begun.

  They included scenes that depicted every convolution of sexual experience spiced with the whiplashes doled out by beautiful young priestesses. Men equipped like Priapus and costumed like satyrs demonstrated the virile arts on beautiful young representatives of both sexes. I'd even heard Quintianus whinnying in a falsetto while his rotund rear was being serviced by the two young men with bulging loin-cloths and insolent expressions who followed him about.

  There was the sound of thunder, although the sky was clear. A creature that was not of this earth came up from the hold. Her top half was a beautifully formed woman with seaweed green hair but her bottom half was a scaly fish.

  Atargatis.

  Epicharis pulled me towards her, slid her tongue into my ear. "Do you know the Syrian goddess? What she offers is an ancient potion that has survived only among the devotees of her cult. I've drunk it before. It's the elixir of love."

  I drank with her, straight from a wineskin. The potion was sweetened with honey but the aftertaste was bitter.

  Epicharis put her hand over my eyes. "Forget who you are, just as all of us are already forgetting who we are. Close the eyes of reason, see only with your senses. That's the only way to see the truth of Atargatis."

  Dancers in Asiatic costume followed the fish goddess as she swayed her wet, shimmering body in the sinuous undulations of the Syrian dance. Her suggestive hand movements beckoned not to the body but the soul.

  A man costumed as the rustic god Liber with a huge, engorged penis reclined on a gilded couch in front of the dancers. Atargatis danced for him as she drank deep. When her wineskin was empty she threw it overboard with an abandoned gesture and slipped into his arms.

  Somewhere a drone instrument started up, its single deep note sending delicious shivers coursing through my body. Epicharis's robe fell open. The pink nipples of her breasts thrust upwards as she drew my mouth down towards hers. Her breath reeked of the elixir, redolent of dank, dark places. We sank onto a couch and became one. I didn’t allow the suspicion that someone was watching me blunt my passion.

  I returned to the imperial villa shortly before sunrise and left instructions not to be disturbed unless summoned by Nero. As usual someone was following me, I was sure, but I was too tired to care. It wasn't until half way through the third hour that I arrived at my desk. I found I couldn't concentrate on my work. Epicharis was the only woman who aroused me more than Rachel had, and love is the one appetite that is stimulated by satisfaction.

  Even before reviewing my first petition, I sent a note to her, asking to see her in the afternoon. I was at dinner, and Nero had joked more than once about my air of distraction, when her reply was delivered. It was to the point, merely specifying sunset and a particular quay at the harbor. I was there early but it was dark before she arrived with an escort of three sailors. The sight of her sent a flood of delicious memories washing through me but when I tried to embrace her she brushed me away.

  "Not now," she whispered.

  I followed her onto a trim yacht with a love nest just in front of the mast where I resisted the lure of her distinctive perfume until we were well away from the shore.

  Again she rejected me. "We have to talk."

  "What about?"

  She gave my hand a chaste squeeze. "How is the emperor?"

  I told her that Nero was in high spirits and that he was composing a new musical.

  It was only when we were off Agrippina's villa at Bauli, which is just south of Baiae, that she took off the mask of the intelligent lady of fashion and became the woman who had just given me the most passionate night of my life.

  Her lips seemed to swell with desire in the light of the single paper lantern hanging from the mast. "Epaphroditus, I've consulted my horoscope. I'm about to have a love affair which could end with my heart being broken."

  An echo of Atargatis's elixir tingled through my body. "What makes you think I'll hurt you?"

  She fell silent for a moment as if she were reluctant to tell me. "Are you aware that there was a conjunction of the Sun, Mercur
y and Venus during the Full Moon of the Year?"

  "Yes, Balbillus mentioned it."

  "It took place in my seventh house which is of course not only the House of Marriage and Partnerships but of love affairs also. Unfortunately the conjunction is exactly square my Mars. I'll enjoy passion from this affair, such as the passion of last night. But with it comes grave danger."

  "Not from me, I swear it."

  "Why should you have free will and no one else?"

  “What if there is no such thing as Fate? What if is no sympathy between heaven and earth. What if the movement of the planets means nothing at all?”

  She gave me a quick, startled glance, then looked away. “Then I would feel so terribly alone,” she said.

  I followed the line of her eyes. She was looking towards the shore, at the great somber villa, eerily unlit in spite of the festive season. Agrippina's. A single light shone on the second floor, in a sea-facing room. Her office. In a horrible moment of inward vision I could see her sitting at her desk, drenched from her ordeal at sea, deathly pale, her eyes burning like fireflies in the hollows of her skull as she stared at the two charts in front of her. My shadow's horoscope and Nero's. Our futures written in code.

  I started when a hand touched me. Epicharis whispered as she touched me again, and there was sadness in her voice. "I didn't believe it when I was told. But it’s true, isn't it? You did steal the emperor's horoscope from his dying mother."

  This came as a nasty shock although I did my best to sound annoyed. "Who told you that?"

  "The same man who said that you use it to take advantage of Nero, to manipulate him."

  "That’s nonsense!"

  Epicharis's eyes were awash with tears, her lower lip trembled, the sound that escaped her was a little cry of misery.

  I squeezed her hands which I noticed were a lot warmer than mine. "What do I have to say to convince you?"

  She squeezed back. "Reveal a secret to me that will bind us together like man and wife," she whispered. "Tell me the time of Nero's birth."