The Nero Prediction

by Humphry Knipe

  Nero was playing discords on his kithara. "You didn't really threaten them with torture did you Tigellinus? You know that's not allowed."

  "That rotten egg Natalis is on the point of cracking, Caesar. All he needs is a tap."

  "Out of the question, not only is he a citizen, he's a knight!"

  "He could be stripped of his citizenship."

  "Stripped? On what grounds?"

  "Treason."

  "You're going around in circles. You can't prove treason until he confesses, he won't confess unless he's tortured, he can't be tortured... Oh, you know what I mean."

  "I think I can cut the circle."

  "How?"

  "Epicharis."

  “Ah, the tasty morsel Epaphroditus locked up in a love nest!”

  "Yes. She's a mistress of Seneca's brother Mela, remember, and both Seneca and Mela are friends of Scaevinus. It's quite obvious now that she got wind of the plot."

  Nero's gloomy expression brightened. He chewed on his lips. "We still have her?"

  That icy light in the velvet eyes. "Yes Caesar, we do. And she's not a citizen."

  Pain And Poison

  April 15 – April 18, 65 A.D.

  Epicharis's eyes, wide and wet, stayed fixed to mine while they stripped her and tied her to the whipping block, eyes which accused me of breaking my promise not to let them torture her but told me that she loved me anyway.

  The whip bit into her firm flesh, I don't know how many times, without wringing a sound from her. All the while her eyes boiled in the same hot glue as mine. I was faintly aware of how the whistling leather sent wave after wave of shock through her body, how it threw her head backwards and heaved her breasts into the air. But my eyes didn't stray from hers, couldn't. It was her concentration on me that halved the pain, the fact that I was sharing it because I loved her.

  Her fierce eyes dimmed, her head fell forward, her body went limp. The lash fell twice more in vain.

  "Stop!" It was Tigellinus. "Water."

  A bucket of water splashed over her. Tinted with blood, it ran into the grating under her naked feet.

  She woke from her faint. Her eyes found mine, clung to them. The tormentor raised his whip.

  Tigellinus shook his head. "The irons."

  They were in the smoldering brazier which, in spite of the ventilation shaft above it, had filled the room with a thin haze of blue smoke.

  My eyes tore themselves away from Epicharis's to watch the tormentor hang up the whip. He lifted the cherry-red branding iron by its wooden handle and tapped it on the edge of the brazier to shake off the loose particles of glowing coal.

  I didn't want to look into Epicharis's eyes again but there was that little matter of Nero's time of birth that I must help her keep to herself. Her body stiffened as the iron sizzled against her flank, somewhere at the bottom of my field of vision. Her mouth dragged itself open. A scream, half formed, escaped from the grip of her resolve and fled up her throat, out of her lips, an aborted scream, never meant to see the light of day.

  The tormentor grinned at this, the first commendation of his skill. He rotated the iron, grinding it into the bubbling wound. When the flesh no longer sizzled he returned the iron to the fire.

  Tigellinus stood up, his boots creaking in the silence as he walked up to Epicharis who was breathing evenly and deeply, her face set in concentration, steeling herself for her next bout with agony. He put his hand under her chin, lifted it. Her eyes didn't flinch when they met his. He ran his fingers down her cheek, slick with sweat.

  His tone was affectionate, a ghastly touch. "You're a beautiful woman, and a brave one Epicharis. But you'll tell the truth sooner or later so why not make it sooner while you still have your beauty, the use of these lovely young limbs? What's the point in waiting until you are disjointed and disfigured? Will the man you are trying to protect love you then? Won't he be disgusted by the hideous cripple you've become? Even if you escape the cross, the most you'll have to look forward to is a miserable life on crutches in some hovel in the provinces. Come on woman, you've already proved yourself braver than the man who has left you rotting in prison for a month without lifting a finger to help you. Flush him out from under your skirts. Let's see him stand on his own two feet!"

  Like arrows on bows fully drawn back, Epicharis pointed her eyes at me. "There is no conspiracy," she said. "You can force me to invent one, but that won't make any difference. There is no conspiracy, don't you understand that?"

  The dungeon rang with the slap that Tigellinus administered to her face. His violet eyes seemed to be consuming her. "You lie! "

  Blood ran from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. There was fury in her voice. "Names? You want me to give you names? Write me a list, put any name you like on there, it doesn't matter to me. I'll recite them all like a parrot, word for word. Will that satisfy you?"

  Tigellinus shook his head. "No it won't. Put her on the rack."

  In principle the rack worked like the horse except that instead of stretching only the victim's legs, it applied steady and increasingly agonizing traction to all four limbs. I listened to the ratchet click, each time more sharply with the increase of tension. Epicharis's body stiffened. Her head shook with the struggle to control the pain. Another click from the ratchet as the wheels turned. A scream clawed its away out of her throat, then another.

  Tigellinus turned to the colonel standing behind him. "Bring Natalis."

  Epicharis was still shrieking, a hopeless, mindless, primeval sound that scratched at the eardrums and resonated in the bones, when the little knight was pushed through the door.

  His face was the color of egg yolk and his lips were fluttering with fear. "Look here," he said to Tigellinus, "this has gone far enough. I demand to see the emperor."

  That coal dark smile. "It's already too late for that."

  Natalis's mouth opened. His tongue wet his lips. His voice, barely audible above the screams, wore only the bare shreds of indignation. "What do you mean 'too late'?"

  "What? I can't hear you." said Tigellinus. "Let's go next door where we can talk. You too Epaphroditus. Bring your stylus."

  The cell had a narrow slit of a window high in the wall that separated it from the torture chamber. Through it came Epicharis's shrieks, now punctuated with heart-rending sobs.

  "What do you mean, 'too late'?" Natalis repeated.

  Again Tigellinus ignored him. "Bring him a heavy set of chains," he told the Praetorian.

  The knight gave up the struggle to keep the tremor of panic out of his voice. "What do you think you're doing? What do you mean by 'too late'?"

  "Too late to see Nero. She's already named you. You're a traitor. The revocation of your citizenship is a mere formality that can be speeded up. You'll be changing places with her within twenty minutes."

  "No!" It was a word that raced all the way from Natalis's toes, gaining momentum as it went.

  "Very well then, I'll help you if I can but I need to know everything, right now."

  "My citizenship?"

  "All depends on what you tell me."

  Natalis glanced at me.

  My stylus was poised above the wax tablet. I was willing this little man to talk so that her pain would stop.

  There was a loud click of the ratchet. Epicharis screeched. Natalis shook with fright. "All right, I'll tell you what I know but you have to stop that, I can't think with that going on."

  Tigellinus nodded at the colonel. A few moments later the screaming stopped.

  Natalis mopped at his face with his pink handkerchief. "I'm not one of them, I want to make that clear from the start. I've got absolutely nothing against Nero. In fact I think he's a musical genius. The only reason I know what's going on is because I got into this ... well, wager."

  Tigellinus nodded as if a wager was quite the most obvious and compelling reason to be involved in treason. "A wager."

  "Yes, believe it or not. That drunken sot Scaevinus bet me ten thousand that the emperor's going to di
e at the Games today, he believes it's in Nero’s stars." A grin that looked like a tree fungus. "I've made a lot of money betting against astrology."

  "Who else is involved?"

  "Piso and Seneca and all the rest of the Stoic brethren as they like to call themselves. They're all sure this is the day he's destined to die.”

  Tigellinus's smile was positively genial, his interest in the conspiracy no more than mischievous. "And who were the others?"

  "I've already told you, most of them were at that reception of Seneca's down in Baiae, the one Epaphroditus went to instead of Nero. That really got their backs up."

  "But Epaphroditus isn't one of them, is he?"

  Natalis glanced at me. There was a malicious glitter in his eyes. "Not as far as I know."

  "I see. Look, you're going to have to be more specific, if you want me to help you. I need more names, important names."

  Natalis rattled off a few. Nobodies.

  A trace of impatience. "Natalis, I need you to do better than that. I want the ringleaders."

  "I'd tell you if I could, but you'll have to ask Scaevinus. He's the one who told me what little I know. Did it when he was in his cups."

  Tigellinus turned his back on Natalis. "Take him away. Bring in Scaevinus."

  The senator's eyes darted around as if he expected to be surprised by some dreadful scene of carnage. Wherever they'd put him, it had obviously been close enough to hear Epicharis.

  Tigellinus indicated a stool. "Sit down, Scaevinus, there's something I want you to listen to."

  I read him my notes of Natalis's interrogation.

  Tigellinus interrupted me at the point that Natalis reeled off the list of nobodies. "I won't bore you with all the names, it goes on and on, knights, senators, the lot. Now what have you got to say for yourself?"

  Even the red spots of color had drained from the senator's cheeks. A sad, sweet little smile of self-pity took up residence on his lips. "The fool, selling out his country to win a paltry wager. Well at least he's made certain that I won't be around to pay up, that's a consolation. In fact I'm going to make sure he gets nothing. I'll make a bargain with you, Tigellinus. I'll tell you everything I know if you make certain that the dishonorable cur doesn't get one penny from my estate."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A plot of enormous scope against the ruler of the world was unraveling because of a wager!

  Tigellinus's lips puckered as he savored the humor of it all. "All right, Scaevinus, if I'm satisfied with what you give me."

  "Names? Piso and Seneca and so on, all Nero's friends of course, at one time or another, the ones closest to him, who know what a mockery he's making of his position. Lucan, he admires Lucan, thinks he’s a greater poet than Virgil. Yes Lucan is one of us." The sad smile spread. "All the best people."

  "You're going to have to be more specific if you want me make sure that Natalis doesn't get away with it."

  The senator shook his head at the injustice of it all. "All those free dinners and then he goes and cheats me ... There were a lot of other people but I don't know their names. We were organized in cells, each group self-contained. Oh, except for that fat degenerate, Afranius Quintianus, did Natalis give you that one?"

  Afranius Quintianus, he of the bald pate and blubbery mauve lips, eyed me morosely. Lack of sleep had given him the bloodshot eyes of a sow. "Caesar, there's no need to search the Senate for enemies. We are your friends and admirers. The evil lies much closer to you, here in your own palace."

  This was the next morning. There were Praetorians at strategic points all over the city. Already alerted that something dreadful had happened by the news that the Games of Ceres had been cancelled, people crowded into the streets, numb with shock. Ominous rumors had already spread to the surrounding countryside. People stood on hilltops, on the roofs of houses, staring at Rome, wondering.

  Nero squinted to bring the rotund senator into focus. "What do you mean?"

  "Only that your Secretary of Petitions has a pet diviner named Thallus whom he has been using to manipulate you."

  This news was so momentous that it took a few moments to sink in. Weak blue eyes blinked at me out of a puzzled face. "Epaphroditus?"

  I shook my head. "Lies, of course."

  The senator applauded my effort with a derisive chuckle that wagged his double chin. "Oh, it's true all right. Twice he used Thallus to feed you false prognostications. The second one led to the deaths of Rubellius Plautus and Sulla, patricians who deserved better. You don't look as if you believe me, Caesar. The one who carries Thallus around, that black man, he told me how they stuck needles into the livers of live animals to create ominous-looking lesions. Ask him about it, it's really all quite educational. Unsettling at the same time though, you'll admit."

  Nero did look unsettled. "Bring them both in."

  It was less than twenty minutes later that the word came back. "They're dead, murdered."

  "Dead?" echoed Nero who'd been gazing out of the window in the direction of the Palatine where they were rushing his entertainment complex, the Golden House, to completion.

  The colonel was sweating in his armor, he must have galloped all the way back from Subura. "Yes Caesar, the black slave was stabbed to death, the diviner was smothered with a liver."

  There was the ring of wonder in Nero’s voice. “Killed by the future! Why that’s exactly what he predicted would happen!”

  The senator interrupted the advance of a streak of sweat on his bald temple with a chubby finger. "Well we’re all killed by the future, aren’t we Caesar? But how very convenient the timing of this diviner’s death was – for someone. Beware Augustus, here we have a man who will stop at nothing."

  The colonel held out a piece of paper. "We found this letter, it was on a table near the bodies. It’s in the senator’s handwriting. I think it explains what happened."

  Nero squinted as he read it. "Will he die tomorrow, yes or no? That is the question. As before, be sure to destroy this letter." His eyes peered at the senator from under heavy brows. "You wrote this?”

  "Of course not!" The senator held out his hand. "Let me see it."

  Nero gave him the letter.

  The senator's russet eyes darted forwards and backwards over the short text. "It's a forgery. Epaphroditus is good at that, I hear. Obviously he’s trying to slough off his guilt onto me."

  Nero held up a finger. "Ah-ha! But how do you suppose he knew that you were going to denounce him?"

  The senator floundered. "He's been plotting to destroy me for some time now, ever since I summoned him to my villa in Baiae and confronted him with this business about Thallus. I warned him that he'd better stop doing it or I'd have to inform you."

  "Hmm, nothing more than a warning. Not even a gentle slap on the wrist? Unusually lenient treatment for an ex-slave guilty of treason, don’t you think? Or is Epaphroditus a lover of yours?"

  The senator stuck his nose in the air to indicate that he would never dream of stooping so low. "Certainly not. "

  Nero pouted at me. "Not his lover, Epaphroditus?"

  I snorted with contempt. "I went to the senator's villa in Baiae, that's true. He said he had something important to tell me. Instead I had to listen to him fuming about that epigram you wrote about him. He said that it had made him a laughing stock. He couldn't go anywhere without hearing some wag reciting it behind his back. I got the feeling he wanted you to apologize."

  Nero waved his hand in dismissal. "Take him away and put him somewhere cool. He’s sweating too much for his own good." When the senator waddled out with a Praetorian on each arm Nero breathed a sigh of relief, tilted back his head. "How very kind of them! They're reciting my poetry. That's all that really matters."

  Tigellinus blinked like a man who can't believe his eyes are open. "What do you want me to do with him, Caesar?"

  "Quintianus? I want this whole thing to be done strictly by the book, no short cuts. We need a second witness to build a case against him, so find me
the witness. What about that woman, Epicharis, have you got anything useful out of her?"

  Tigellinus inclined his head. "Not yet, she's proving uncooperative. We're going to question her again, first thing tomorrow. We'll have everything she knows by midday."

  I went to see her two hours before dawn. She wasn't in prison, I'd seen to that. She'd been returned to the room in an undamaged section of Tiberius's palace where she'd been kept locked up for the nineteen days since our return from Baiae.

  Her eyes were shut. "Is she asleep?" I asked the guard.

  "If you can call it sleep. She cries out every few minutes." The guard slapped her face. "Wake up."

  She sat bolt upright with a cry. "Not yet!"

  "You have a visitor."

  When the guard left the room she held up her swollen arms to me. "Epaphroditus!"

  I sat on the bed and embraced her. She reeked of acrid sweat. "Is he going to put me back on..." she couldn't say the word, "that thing?"

  The word "yes" wouldn't leave my throat.

  She was crying. "Epaphroditus, you must help me, you promised to, remember? I was on the point of telling Tigellinus everything yesterday, everything about you, when he stopped."

  "Why are you trying to fight him?"

  Her lips curved downwards, her misery compounded by my inane question. "What will they do to you if I don't?"

  "Epicharis, I know that I'm not the one you're trying to shield. Who did you give Nero's birth time to?"

  "I told you, no one."

  "Tell me the truth. I can only help you if you tell me the truth."

  "How? How can you help me?"

  "I've brought you something to take it all away. I got it from Lucusta, for myself."

  Somewhere a cock crowed. Her eyes widened in relief. "Give it to me," she hissed.

  "First the truth. They'll be coming for you soon and then I won't be the only one you'll betray to Tigellinus."

  She turned her face away from me. A heart-rending sob. "Plautius Lateranus, the consul-designate, oh such a proud, handsome man. When he petitioned Nero for money in the Circus Maximus during the games of Ceres he was going to throw him to the ground for the others to stab. He loves his country. He wants to stop Nero before he makes Rome the laughing-stock of the world." A long pause. The cock crowed again. "We were lovers."