The Splendor Before the Dark

by Margaret George

  “The answer is sleep!” proclaimed Lateranus.

  General Vespasian, standing next to me, snorted. “Don’t hold with riddles,” he said. “Foolishness.” The old general was back in Rome from his time as governor of North Africa. “I see you are disguised as me,” he said.

  “A general?” For a moment I was confused. Then I remembered. Incurring so many debts in Africa, he had had to go into business as a muleteer, earning the nickname Mule Driver. “Oh, I meant no disrespect. In fact, that cruel label was so far from my mind I didn’t even remember it.”

  “Do you like mules?” he asked. “I don’t. Annoying beasts. But there’s money in them. Saved my skin.”

  “Had you not been so honest, you would have come back rich from Africa, not poor.” Almost alone of governors, honest Vespasian had not used his office as a way to make illegal money.

  “Ah, honesty. Where has it got me but the name Mule Driver?”

  “Your career is not over yet,” I said. But he was not young—he was one of the soldiers who invaded Britain for Claudius twenty years before.

  Boudicca was making her way over to us. “You! You!” She pointed at Vespasian. “You brought the vile Romans to my country!”

  “Not me, lady,” said Vespasian. “Blame Julius Caesar. He started it.”

  She laughed, throwing her head back. Now I knew her: Statilia Messalina, Vestinus’s wife. “It is something you will all regret!” she said. “My country has little to offer worth the trouble of garrisoning it.”

  “It has your bravery and nobility. A country that can produce such a leader must be a special one,” I said.

  “Nonetheless you defeated me,” she said.

  “Not easily,” I admitted.

  She sighed and pulled off the heavy wig. “It is late. I have had my three cups of wine. Time to go home.” She looked around for Vestinus. “Time to be Statilia again.”

  I put the wig back on her head. “Be Boudicca for a little while longer. For I always wanted to talk to you and never had the opportunity.”

  And so we playacted, she speaking for the lost queen and I saying all the things I had wanted to ask her, had I ever had the privilege of seeing her in person. But the only way I would ever have seen her in person was if she had been brought to Rome in chains, humiliated and paraded before jeering mobs. I was thankful she had been spared that. No one knew what happened to her—some said she took poison, others that she just disappeared and would come again someday to lead her people. I preferred the latter story.

  The room was slowly clearing; people were drifting away. It must be long past midnight. Poppaea was talking to Scaevinus and his wife, Caedicia, as they lingered near the door. Taking advantage of the ugly scar on his mouth that gave him a sinister look, Scaevinus was dressed as a highway brigand, while Caedicia was a mermaid, covered in shiny scales tinted green.

  Poppaea had taken off her face veil. In the wavering light she suddenly, horribly, looked like Mother. I rubbed my eyes to banish the sight, but when I opened them again, Mother stared back at me, her eyes seeming to pop from her head. Her teeth were bared like a wolf’s. Horrible, horrible. I turned away and saw, even more horribly, myself in a far corner—a dark figure who looked like me, slinking away through the shadows and out the door.

  Without thinking, I ran after him. It wasn’t an apparition; I had to prove it wasn’t, I had to lay hold of him and see who this was. I heard his footsteps on the tile floor; the feet of spirits make no noise. I saw his robe flying out behind him as he turned the corner and fled out the main door.

  Why was he running? He must be a real person; ghosts don’t flee, why should they?

  I reached the front door and looked out at the paved walkway. Nothing. He had vanished into the night.

  Our journey back to the palace was quiet and subdued. The raucous crowds had gone, although there were still a few merrymakers out on the streets. The half moon was low in the sky, near to setting. It threw forlorn light on the snow, trampled and dirty now. The doll was still in the litter.

  XXXIV

  Although the dawn was not far away, I took to my bed, casting off the muleteer’s clothing with relief. At Poppaea’s insistence I had carried the doll inside, and now it rested on a nearby table, its arms flopping over the edge. The strange spell of the last few minutes of the party lingered; if only I could cast them off as easily as the muleteer costume.

  I fell into a deep, surreal sleep. I was floating over the city, watching each of the seven hills, swooping down lower to see more closely. First I hovered over Petronius’s house, and in the light (for it was full daylight in the dream) I searched for the dark man who had scurried away but saw nothing, only chattering guests departing. I drifted away, wafted on a supernatural wind, and looked down at the Golden House, its sparkling lake, its green-bronze roof, its veined Gallia antica marble columns. Up on the hill the pavilion gleamed, its long facade welcoming the rays of the sun. How lovely it was.

  Then before my eyes it shimmered and dissolved, leaving bare ground, overcoming me with a profound sense of dread and sorrow, and a voice whispered in my ear, “Not one stone shall remain standing upon another, nor anything that you hold dear.”

  I cried out but my throat was frozen, and then suddenly it opened and the sound I made rang out in the room, and I was back there, solidly in my bed. The room was intact, the marble walls shining and whole. Gingerly I got out of bed and looked out at the lake. It was still there. It was all still there. In wonder I touched the wall, rejoicing that it was real.

  But I had seen it in ruins. I had seen it, and it was too real to have been a dream. It was a vision, not a dream. My beloved Golden House would not survive.

  And the second part: anything that I held dear.

  Shaken, I sat down on a couch. I did not want to return to bed, lest I dream again, lest the dream continue. It was not over; I had just prematurely ended it by my scream. It was waiting to come back, to finish its dreadful portent.

  Was this a manifestation of the Furies? Was this how they visited, not as maidens with snake hair, dog’s heads, and bloodshot eyes? Did they invade sleep and torment in this way?

  Mother. I had felt her presence recently, speaking from the play, altering Poppaea’s features, even being reminded about Germanicus, her father and still beloved of soldiers.

  The Furies—those avengers of wrongs of the young against the old. They haunted and punished, and their victims died in torment. Orestes had suffered from them because he killed his mother, Clytemnestra, avenging her murder of her husband and Orestes’s father, Agamemnon. Honor had compelled him to avenge his father’s death; honor equally demanded that he protect his mother. He could not do both.

  Mother had killed both my adoptive fathers. Was I not justified in seeking revenge?

  You told Poppaea you did not lie, so do not lie to yourself. You killed your mother, Agrippina, not because of Crispus and Claudius but because she would not let you live without her, and you could not breathe. She strangled you and put you in manacles to serve her purpose. It could not go on. She would not let you be emperor except as a toy—a doll like the one on the table—that she could control. And she even tried to take control of your body itself, drugging you and pulling you into her bed. Incest worse than Oedipus, who sinned in ignorance, not deliberately. But nothing was taboo to her. No, it could not go on. You could not both exist in the same world.

  But as Orestes discovered, the Furies did not reason. There were no extenuating circumstances with them. In that way they were like puppets themselves, unthinking agents.

  Perhaps they were tormenting Poppaea. If it was not poison attacking her, what was it besides the Furies?

  How did one overcome the Furies? Orestes had appealed to Apollo, who in turn asked Athena to intervene. But I needed something quicker than that. The gods could take years to answer, if they answered at all—di
dn’t Orestes wander for ages?—and Poppaea and I must be freed immediately.

  I knew of . . . I had heard of . . . Chaldean magi who had the power to exorcise ghosts of the dead. They could even speak to them. I shuddered. These things were forbidden in Rome, but not to the emperor. That is, no one could prevent the emperor from pursuing what he liked. Is it not a fine thing to be emperor and call anyone you please?

  Tiridates of Armenia was coming to Rome to be crowned by me. He was even a magus himself. But that was a long time off. He would take forever to get here, refusing to travel by sea as it was against his religion. I must find Chaldean magi now. Luckily Rome harbored many nationalities and religions. There must be some somewhere.

  In feverish haste, I called for my slaves to help me dress and sent for Tigellinus.

  Within the hour, he was there.

  “Good morning, Caesar. How was the Saturnalia party? I hope you did not mind that I sent Subrius in my place yesterday. I had . . . er . . . other things to attend to.”

  I could imagine but didn’t want to hear about them. His excursions to the brothels kept them in business, and they were especially inventive at Saturnalia. “It was well done, as the parties of Petronius are known for.” I related the episode about Lucan.

  “He is probably recovering as we speak. He’s young and can drink to oblivion but be fine the next night. In the meantime, I’ve found another of his writings, and it isn’t about the wars of the last century.” He thrust out a scroll at me.

  I didn’t want to read it right then. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Read the title. It will tell you all.”

  I unrolled the scroll just enough to see De Incendio Urbis—On the Burning of the City. I stared at it. “Does he blame me?”

  “He doesn’t blame an accident, put it that way. Or the Christians.”

  What had turned him against me? Was that the work of the Furies as well? To poison others’ minds against me? They worked in evil, insidious ways. Lucan especially grieved me.

  “It is unfortunate,” I said. But I had more pressing concerns. “Do you know of any Chaldean magi?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Priests and religions are not my specialty.” But when he saw I was serious, he said, “I am sure I can locate some. One can find anything in Rome.”

  “Then do so,” I said. “As quickly as possible.”

  There was a reason why Tigellinus had risen to such prominence and why I relied on him so much. By noon he had located two Chaldean magi who lived—ironically near to Petronius—on the Aventine, where many foreign cults and temples flourished, as it was outside the old city boundary.

  “They prefer to come at night,” he said, describing them. “The position of the stars is very important to their—their conjuring, or whatever it is that they do.” He grinned, waiting for me to explain what they did and why I wanted them. I let him wait. The grin faded from his square-jawed face. “Is there anything else you require?”

  “Did they specify anything?” I asked.

  “They asked for meat from a black dog,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “They said no salt must be present. They prefer stormy weather, but of course we can’t control that.” He looked out the window, where the sky was overcast, gray like the aging snow beneath it.

  * * *

  • • •

  All was in readiness. Poppaea and I waited in my innermost room. She was bewildered but acquiescent to whatever I required of her. I had made sure we were alone; the ever-present guards were relegated to the outer doors. A covered platter of cooked dog meat stood on a table. This room, although small, had excellent views of the heavens from two windows. And outside, although it was not stormy, fog from the melting snow hugged the ground. I had done all I could. Now we awaited the knock on the door—the knock that I hoped would deliver us from whatever had tormented us.

  It was almost midnight when a gentle tap came. I myself opened the door to find two men standing there, their glittering dark robes adorned with zodiac signs. I ushered them in.

  “Welcome,” I said. Then I suddenly wondered what language they spoke. Should I have had a translator at hand? Tigellinus had spoken to them, but he had not said how he managed that.

  “Thank you,” the taller of the two replied, in Greek. What a relief.

  They walked into the room. I waited to see what they wanted to do—stand or sit, and where? It was all up to them. “I have the proper dog meat here, and there is no salt, as you requested.”

  “That is acceptable,” the smaller man said in a soft voice. “We require very little.” He motioned toward the window. “The stars supply our power. All we need now is your birth date so we know what the stars said when you were born, and we need to know the entity who is troubling you. Is it a regular demon or a deceased person?”

  He had a bushy beard that overpowered his small, foxlike face. But his voice, though gentle, was authoritative.

  I related both our birth dates and then said quietly, as if to admit it was dangerous, “It is a person.”

  “How long has the person been deceased?” the taller man asked. His beard was tamer, but his dark penetrating eyes made him seem wilder than his companion.

  “Five years,” I said.

  “A pity. If it were recent, we could perhaps reanimate the corpse.”

  “She was cremated,” I said. How ghoulish, to think of meddling with Mother’s body. Suddenly the question at Petronius’s party slid across my mind. Has anyone ever brought a dead person back to life?

  “Then we shall summon the spirit.”

  “No! She is already present. I want you to banish her, send her away. Don’t strengthen her presence here with us!” I cried.

  “We have to summon her, call her to heel, to answer to us, before we can send her away,” said the smaller man. “We shall prepare the ritual.”

  He went over to the table and lifted the cover off the meat. “We eat dog to honor Hecate, the goddess of death. Her companion is a black dog. And we cannot have salt present, for salt is a preservative, the opposite of decay.”

  He opened the bag he carried and extracted two plates with an unknown writing on them. He handed one to his companion, and together they put the dog meat on the plates, mumbling something before they ate it. Then they swayed on their feet a long time, before saying, “Now extinguish all but one lamp. We must have darkness.”

  All the lamps gone but one, the flickering faint light threw long, jumping shadows on the walls. The taller man asked us to stand with our backs to the lamp.

  “Now.” He spoke in a low voice. “Do you have any possession of the deceased?”

  “Yes,” said Poppaea. She held up the jeweled dress from the imperial wardrobe.

  “Good. Now, you will tell me the name of the person.”

  I whispered in the right ear of first one magi, then the other. “Julia Augusta Agrippina.” I paused. “And the Erinyes, the Furies, whom she has sent.”

  If they were taken aback, they did not show it. “Now we shall call her. It is good that it is misty outside. The spirits show up better against fog.”

  “I don’t want to see her!” I said.

  “Then don’t look,” one of them said. “Perhaps we alone will see her. It often happens that way.”

  I shut my eyes. Poppaea did likewise. And the men began to chant in a high singsong voice, in an unknown tongue. How could Mother understand them? Or did the shades know everything?

  What was happening? Was she there?

  Then they spoke so that we could understand.

  “In the name of Hecate, in the name of Proserpine, in the name of Pluto, we command you to retreat to the depths of Hades and never come no more. Cease your torment of these people who stand in the sacred place here. You are banished, you are dispelled, you are vanquished.”

  Utter stillness prevailed. How long
should we stand there? When was it safe to open my eyes? The magi began chanting again, a discordant sound. Then they stopped.

  Finally one of the men touched my shoulder. “It is over, Caesar. The spirits have come and gone.” Slowly I opened my eyes. The lamplight still wavered. The room was empty of anyone but us. Poppaea was weeping softly in the corner, sunk down on a couch.

  “Did you prevail?” I asked.

  “We used our strongest magic.”

  “But did you prevail?” I had to know.

  “Only time will tell.”

  XXXV

  I stood on the cliff edge, looking down over the steep drop to the dark woods below, where the rushing river sang its melodious notes. Although it was cold here, with snow on the ground, the river was not frozen. Nor were the three artificial lakes higher on the mountain, a gift of the river as well. I was in Sublaqueum, appropriately named “under the lakes,” for I had created those lakes and built my cliffside villa beneath them. It was one of my earliest architectural experiments, and it had been successful. Now this villa served as my special retreat, a place where I could withdraw and think.

  I had desperate need of it after the encounter with the magi, which had left me more apprehensive than ever and even more protective of Poppaea. It was out of the question for her to travel with me here, but she had urged me to go.

  “You must regain your peace of mind, your equilibrium,” she said. “I depend on you for that.” She herself would rest in her apartments.