The Splendor Before the Dark

by Margaret George

  She was standing very close to me, but not close enough to be improper. I could smell her perfume, a mossy smell that echoed her voice—deep and heady.

  “Perhaps you are right,” I said. “I will not let their remarks spoil my pride in it. I had wanted to do it for years and been forbidden to.”

  She gave a skeptical sound. “Forbidden? The emperor?”

  “I assure you, there are many constraints on the emperor.”

  “Tell that to my husband, the republican.”

  I was startled—first at the idea, then at her boldness in proclaiming it. “There are still republicans?” It had been almost a hundred years since the end of the Republic and the ascent of Emperor Augustus, transformed from plain Octavian. There were no living people left who had experienced the Republic personally. But the idea of it, the ghost of it—did it linger?

  “There are still republicans,” she confirmed. “They long for it, as only someone who has never actually lived under it can. It’s a fantasy, of course.”

  “A harmless one, I hope,” I said. “Come. It is time to go inside.” I motioned to Poppaea, and she joined us. The rest of the crowd fell in behind us.

  I led them into the room opening directly from the courtyard, an enormous reception room with an elaborately decorated and gilded ceiling, glowing in the sunlight, its rich, multicolored marble walls from far-flung places in the empire shining. Even as large as the crowd was, the room swallowed them up.

  Everyone fell silent, stunned, craning their necks to take it all in. Then an appreciative murmur swept through them. One man called out, “This is the house of a god!” but I answered, “No, it is the house of a human being. It is not Olympus. It is only our feeble imitation.”

  The tour continued into the west wing, with its indoor courtyard garden and waterfall ending in the porphyry basin, then to the room with the Ulysses mosaic and the statue of the Muse, which I called the Literary Room in my own mind. People lingered en route, looking into the rooms on each side, marveling at the patterns of different marbles—intense Taenarus red, Numidian yellow, serpentine green from Egypt. Then, turning back toward the east wing, I took them into a large reception room with frescoes of the Trojan War, a magnificent Achilles as a centerpiece high in the ceiling. But it was Achilles only just assuming the guise of warrior—the moment when he embraced his destiny and first took up the sword and shield at Scyros. That is the true great moment in a person’s life—to recognize one’s calling and heed it. That is what separates heroes from the mass of men.

  Now we were near the octagon room. Intense light was spilling out, drawing us to its source like a beacon. I led them in, then stepped back into one of the alcove rooms, letting them behold the room suddenly and personally. The great open circle to the sky let in the sun like the eye of Zeus, beaming down hot and white. It seemed to blind them as they stood stunned beneath it.

  For long moments they were speechless, and the thrill of seeing their wonder made me tremble. Yes, this was what art could do, what art should do. Render us mute in awe. Beside me Poppaea took my hand.

  Finally they moved into the adjoining rooms, making space for those following, who duplicated their astonishment and awe.

  Only when the amazement had begun to wear off did the people notice the artworks arranged around the alcove—masterpieces that at any other time would command exclusive attention but were dimmed by the architectural marvel above them.

  * * *

  • • •

  By the time everyone had seen the room, it was late afternoon, and the banquet was ready in the Hall of the Gilded Vault. The huge room swallowed up the couches and tables and could accommodate all the diners easily. In the middle of the room a gigantic table, with several levels, displayed the food. Guests could walk by, make their selections, and have the slaves bring it to their table. Likewise with the wine—amphoras of many varieties were lined up, with slaves to designate the vintages. Before people drifted to their couches—they were free to choose their own dining companions—I welcomed them.

  “It is with great pleasure and pride that I invite you to dine with me here,” I said. I had to raise my voice so it could carry to the far corners of the room.

  While I spoke, the slaves were lighting the elaborate candelabra, for we would soon lose the daylight. The sinking sun was painting the upper walls and the vault a honey gold, but it was fading.

  “Rome is a mighty empire,” I said. “It stretches from the far north, Britain, to the first cataract of the Nile. From wild misty woods to hot sand. And each place provides its own delicacies. I have offerings from them here.” I walked up and down in front of the table. “Here we have ham from Gaul. Salt fish from Spain. Pomegranates from Cyprus. Olives from Portugal. Dates from Jericho. Mackerel from the Hellespont. Pears from Syria. And a favorite—snails from Majorca.”

  A contented sigh arose from the crowd.

  “And of course the usual array of local seafood—sardines, anchovies, lamprey eels, octopus, mullet. Game—hare, wild boars, deer, partridges. Fresh from gardens and fields—beets, leeks with peppermint, cucumbers, mushrooms, truffles, hearts of palm, wild flower bulbs in vinegar. Cheeses, smoked and flavored. All the nuts you could name—walnuts, beechnuts, pistachios, chestnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts.”

  All this was arrayed on gold platters, artfully.

  “But even the mighty Roman empire cannot command the seasons, so cherries are not here today.” A faint ripple of laughter. “But we still have apples, pears, figs, grapes, and blackberries.” I gestured toward the heaps of fruit. People stared, an unmistakably hungry look in their eyes.

  “And last, if you crave a sweet, there is honeycomb in old wine, pudding, and pine nuts.”

  I stepped aside then to allow them to come up and make their choices. I retired to the set of couches at the back of the room, set off a bit from the others, where I would dine, although later I would make the round of the other couches to speak personally to the guests.

  Poppaea, of course, was with me, and Vitellius took his place on one of the couches. Quintianus wandered by, looking lost, so they waved him over. Piso and Atria followed, and then a man named Antonius Natalis, a friend of Scaevinus’s. Finally Vestinus and Statilia joined us, making the nine.

  I stretched out on the couch, glad to get off my feet. They were still a bit sore from bracing myself in the race chariot, holding my footing on the flimsy floor.

  Poppaea leaned over, whispering, “I am glad to lie down.”

  “As am I,” I answered. That worried me—was she still not feeling well?

  Antonius Natalis settled himself down across from me and leaned forward. He had a cap of dark brown shining hair that reminded me of a sable pelt. “Fine driving at the Circus,” he said. “It was the ultimate surprise to look down and see you in the arena that day. But I have to confess, not knowing you were competing, I had bet on the White.”

  “You bet against the emperor?” asked Vestinus, false shock in his voice. “Don’t you know that’s illegal?”

  “Is that your republican sentiment, Vestinus?” I asked lightly, as if I were joking.

  “Hardly. Just good common sense!” he said, holding out his goblet to a passing slave. “A good republican is thrifty and wouldn’t bet at all.”

  We flagged the line of slaves over to choose from their amphoras. They dutifully recited the available ones: from Tarentinum? Calenum? Albanum? Spolentinum? Falernum? Chios? Knossos?

  “Take what you like, not what you ought to like. Petronius isn’t here to judge you!” I said, gesturing for the Tarentinum, a light wine that did not easily make one drunk. I wanted a clear head tonight.

  Atria looked to Piso to make all her choices, holding out her goblet to take the same wine and having identical food on her plate. The others made individual choices. Natalis wanted the Albanum, the dry variety. Quintianus chose Calen
um, a light wine much prized by connoisseurs. He sipped it daintily.

  With arched eyebrows, he smacked his lips. “I say, superlative vintage for this one!”

  Everyone groaned.

  “Quintianus, how precious is your taste!” said Vestinus. “As for me, give me Nomentanum, if you have anything so lowly.”

  “The emperor would not, my dear,” said Statilia. She looked directly at me with her smoky gray eyes. “He is much too refined. You will have to resort to the slaves’ store after we return home and help yourself.”

  Vitellius shifted his bulk, rolling almost onto his stomach, trying to find a comfortable position for his injured hip. His wide shoulders hunched as he stared at his plate. “There are worse places to go,” he said. “I should know; I’ve availed myself of their offerings—of all sorts—many a time.”

  “I say, let us drink to the man who is at home wherever he finds himself,” said Piso, raising his cup.

  Several groups of musicians, with lyre and flute, were playing in the corners of the room, but they were barely heard over the chattering voices. Later entertainers would arrive—acrobats, dancers, actors reciting famous lines. The food tables would be removed, and the middle of the floor would belong to the entertainers.

  When they arrived, it was obvious I had hired the best, and they gave spellbinding performances, enthralling the onlookers, who even stopped gossiping and drinking to watch.

  At length the banquet was over. At the end of the entertainments, I walked around the various couches, speaking to people. I spotted Senecio at one of the farther corners. I went over to him, remembering what Acte had told me about his visit and his questions.

  He sat up, startled, pushing his hair off his forehead.

  “You should have joined us,” I said, pointing to the place where I had been. “It has been a long time since I have seen you. Not since Petronius’s party, I think.”

  “Yes. I have been away from Rome,” he said.

  So I hear. “And where have you been? Traveling?”

  “Yes, visiting my villa near Naples. You know, waiting until the rebuilding is over here. So much noise, and then so many roads still being paved.” He gave a bleating laugh.

  “That’s amusing?” I asked. I had no desire to put him at ease—quite the opposite.

  “No, no, not really,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  “For what?” I let the question hang. “Not for laughing, surely. For one must find humor in what goes on around us if at all possible. It is what makes life bearable.”

  “Indeed,” he said.

  I left him and made my way to the center of the room. Night had fallen, and the only light, from hundreds of oil lamps, glowed yellow. The time had come to address the entire company and present the grand finale.

  “Follow me now, for the final presentation of the day,” I said, then turned toward the octagon room. It was in almost complete darkness when I arrived, a black cave, aside from small lamps on the floor. Not until the crowd had gathered did the slaves light the big lampstands, flooding it with light.

  Above us the ivory ceiling was in place, turning slowly. The slaves thrust flaming torches aloft to illuminate it as it rotated.

  “The sun by day,” I cried, “and the stars by night!”

  The twelve signs of the zodiac were etched on the ivory, and from the center of the disc rose petals rained down, a shower of red and white.

  The entire company was gripped with silence, standing openmouthed in wonderment.

  XXVII

  They had left. The great company had departed out into the night, murmuring and clutching keepsakes—flower petals, napkins stained with rare wine, pilfered oil lamps stamped with images of the Golden House. Even senators were not above helping themselves to the lamps and even small gold platters tucked into the folds of their togas.

  “They want some tangible reminder of the event,” I said to Poppaea, not without satisfaction.

  Around us slaves were clearing up, sweeping the crushed flower petals, carrying away the goblets and cushions.

  “Come. Let us go outside,” I said. I had not had a chance to observe what was happening on the lower levels yet. We stepped out onto the stone courtyard, the brisk autumn wind carrying the sound of revelry toward us. As we walked closer to the edge of the terrace, I could see torches below, could hear singing, could see lively dancing. They were celebrating, and it pleased me.

  “The common people stay up later than rich people,” said Poppaea. “Just listen to them! What a raucous bunch. Worse than a barnful of roosters.”

  I laughed. “Or peacocks. Considering that the peacock is Juno’s special bird, I am surprised it has such an ugly voice.”

  “Everything beautiful has an ugly side.”

  I put my arms around her. “Not you.” I drew her close.

  “You don’t see it in me because you don’t wish to,” she said. “But there are strands of things running through me that taint the rest.”

  “For all the gods’ sake, don’t tell me about them, or I will look for them and looking, find them.”

  “Sometimes I wish you would see them, so we would be equal—human beings with faults. For I know full well you aren’t perfect.”

  “As you often remind me,” I said. But I had always found it a comfort that she could see the things I hid from others. The three Neros—she knew them all. The daylight Nero was visible to all, as he performed his imperial duties clad in a toga. The artist Nero strove now to show himself publicly. But the third Nero, the dark one who enabled the other two to exist, who stopped at nothing to protect them—ah, that Nero must never be revealed, except to the one person who could understand him and forgive all his faults, including that one. “Come, it’s too cold to stand out here. I have one more thing to show you.”

  “Oh, no more! I am tired.” She pulled on my arm. “I want to go to bed. I want to take off these sandals. Jeweled sandals hurt!”

  “Take them off, then, but come with me.” She bent down and untied them, and I led her back indoors. Only a few slaves were still padding about but most lamps had been extinguished, and the ones that remained were on the floor and threw flickering light only halfway up the walls. The ceilings were lost in shadow and could have been a hundred feet high.

  I led her through the largest alcove room with its splashing fountain and then from one adjoining room to the next, passing deeper into the building, away from the open south side. Voices echoed from distant rooms as the slaves finished their work, dying away as we got farther from them.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, tugging at my hand. “I can’t see anything. I told you, I want to go to bed. No more displays!”

  We rounded a corner, and there it was—our room. A black room, high-vaulted, with delicate cream, red, and blue painted threads weaving a pattern on the dark walls. A lampstand in a corner was only partially lit, making the room feel like a cave.

  “You didn’t!” she said.

  “I did,” I answered.

  “But it doesn’t match the rest of the building, the frescoes,” she said. “What did Fabullus say?”

  “I didn’t ask him to paint this room. I wanted it to be entirely different from anything else here, so we could go away to Pompeii without having to travel.” The room was set up with a bed, a couch, small tables, lampstands, and braziers. “You said you wanted to go to bed,” I said. “It awaits.”

  She walked slowly toward it, as if she did not believe what she was seeing. Finally, patting it gingerly, she sat on it.

  “You see? It is real,” I said.

  Her face softened. “You did this to duplicate the room in my villa?”

  “I know we can never duplicate what happened there, because that can happen only once. But the memory is as precious to me as a shrine.” I sat down beside her.

  “We were a thousand
years younger then, it seems. But oh!” She reached up and touched my cheek. “I would not take back a single day we have had since then, even to restore that first rapture.”

  “I want the baby to be born here,” I said. “Not at Antium.” I need not explain why. “A new place for a new beginning. Just as Rome is starting over, so will we be.”

  “Hold me,” she said. “Hold me, here, in our black room.” She crushed herself against me, and we toppled sideways onto the soft bed. “Our black room . . .”

  It was long since we had been together in total privacy or without looming worries and pressing decisions, those deadly enemies of passion. The black room would serve as our island from all that, from now on.

  “My beloved is mine and I am his,” I said into her soft ear. “You taught me those words.”

  She ran her hands over my back, slowly and gently. “How fair and pleasant art thou, O love, for delights.” Her voice was drowsy, thick.

  But no words, no, not even the finest poetry, could capture the depth of my love for her. “No words,” I whispered. “No words.” We must have utter silence, no sound but the faint sigh of the fountain in the far room and our own breathing. Thus we create our own sacred space.

  * * *

  • • •

  Later, Poppaea lay languid beside me, limp from our lovemaking. I cradled her, feeling her sweet warmth, her smooth flesh. But I was invigorated, quivering with energy. I wanted to get up and walk around but could not bear to leave her, to forgo even the briefest instant of lying close to her. So, while my body lay still, my mind was racing, running down forgotten—or repressed—roads.

  The baby. I want the baby to be born here. Not at Antium. A new place for a new beginning. Lying in the dark, the smell of the fresh-painted room enveloping me—stronger than Poppaea’s myrrh perfume—I felt that everything was beginning anew. The Fire had cleansed Rome and given it a rebirth.