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The Splendor Before the Dark

Page 28

by Margaret George

Once I was away from Rome, my mind cleared. Every mile I traveled lifted the confusion and disquiet that plagued me, and by the time I arrived at Sublaqueum I felt tranquil.

  The villa lay in the Apenninus Mountains, the chain that ran down the center of the country, whence came the snow I used for my decocta Neronis, the drink I loved more than wine. It was secluded, but not remote and inaccessible. Before I entered the building, I stretched my legs outside, walking along the precipitous path, being careful of my footing. The lower valley was already dark; light lingered only at the top of the mountain, kissing the roof of the villa before retreating. The air was bracing, pine-scented. I drank in deep lungfuls of it, feeling it better medicine than anything Andromachus could prescribe.

  “Caesar, the footing is dangerous in the dark; you should come inside,” my accompanying slave said. He was right. I turned away and followed him into the villa, which he and the others had prepared while I was outside.

  Although I had not been here in a long time—and Poppaea had never come here—it felt like home as soon as I walked in the door. It was small enough to feel private and snug, large enough to house some of my favorite artworks, a series of white marble statues of Niobe and her fourteen children. In the low light they seemed to glow white; they were scattered throughout the various rooms, so that each could be appreciated separately. In contrast, a long table of black marble graced the main room, so reflective that candles placed on it doubled their light. A line of them flickered now.

  I kept a library here with my favorite books—histories and poetry. I selected one or two I had wanted to reread—but never had time in Rome—and settled down on my couch with a glowing brazier beside me. The evening was mine. The time was mine. No one could intrude.

  “Please make me a decocta Neronis,” I asked one of the slaves. That was what I needed as a final soother, and the snow to make it was just outside. He would gather a bowl from the cleanest drift, to cool a cup of fresh-boiled water. I might add some dried mint to it.

  I felt safe here. Mother had never set foot in Sublaqueum and could not muddy my memories. Instead, Acte’s presence was very real here, as she had come with me when I first plotted out the design for the villa. We had fled Rome, away from censuring eyes, and slept outdoors in a makeshift tent. I had asked her to marry me. She said it was impossible. I said I was emperor and could make it possible. I was very naïve.

  That was a lifetime ago, it seemed. But here it was just yesterday, alive and fresh. I wondered what Acte thought when Poppaea summoned her to the palace and whether she believed I was avoiding her by not being there. If I ever saw Acte again I would have to conquer the tongue-tied awkwardness that gripped me when I saw her after the Fire.

  Tiredness crept over me like the long shadows at sundown. One moment I was reading Livy, the next my slave was touching my shoulder, clutching the fallen scroll. It was time for sleep. My bedchamber beckoned.

  Whether it was the invigorating mountain air or the cumulative exhaustion of the past few weeks, I slept more soundly than I had in months. No dreams, no Furies, nothing but blessed darkness, as dark as the long table. If death is like this, why do we fear it so?

  The darkness rolled slowly and kindly away, and my wakening was gentle. I looked around the chamber, seeing so much more now than I had at night. One of the statues, a fallen daughter of Niobe, was near the window. I lingered beside her, studying her face. Her head was turned sideways, as if she slept on a pillow. Her lips were parted, but whether in a dream or in death it was impossible to know. How near they were, death and sleep. And how utterly beautiful she was, suspended between the two.

  I have long prayed that I would die before I lost my beauty, Poppaea once said. Only a statue could keep beauty from fading, free from death.

  Turning away from the statue and its melancholy, I dressed and decided to walk up to the lakes in the morning. There were three of them, strung out like beads on a necklace, created by damming the river Anio. The flat expanse of water twinkled in the sunlight. I dipped my hand in and it was stinging cold. I had swum in the lakes, finding them chilly even in summer. When I was training my voice, my vocal coach advised me that swimming in cold water would strengthen my lungs.

  My music . . . when would I return to it? When could I return to it? So much had been set aside since the Fire. I missed it. But the Fire tainted even the thought of music, because I now associated it with the barbiton player and his instrument. I couldn’t bear to touch the thing, as much as I had wanted to learn to play it.

  The lakes, pristine and pure. When I swam in them, they rinsed me clean and unstained. But it was too cold today.

  Returning to the villa, I sat at one end of the long dining table, where daylight made the small inclusions in the black marble top gleam. This slab of stone was a replacement; the original had been shattered by a bolt of lightning a while ago. Since the old adage held that lightning never struck twice in the same place, presumably this table would not be put to the same test.

  The table made a perfect racetrack facsimile, and as I had a collection of toy chariots here, I enacted a few races on it. I was proud of my collection; the star was a bronze one Claudius had given me. It was a perfect replica of a real chariot. I treasured it not only because of its accuracy but because, in giving it to me, Claudius had shown that he understood the passions of a little boy.

  I would give it to my son. I would hand it to him when he was old enough, say six or seven, and tell him, The emperor Claudius gave it to me when I was a boy. Take good care of it.

  My son. I so longed for his arrival. I realized I did not have a name for him yet, perhaps out of superstition. When I saw him, when I held him in my arms, would be time enough to choose his name.

  * * *

  • • •

  The days passed in quiet solitude, healing days, each evening leaving me more restored. I planned to return to Rome shortly; I did not want to leave Poppaea for very long.

  But a messenger arrived on the sixth morning, telling me it was urgent that I hurry back. He carried no written instructions, just verbal ones, which said I was needed in Rome for personal matters.

  “What sort of personal matters?” I asked. “I need to know more than that.” He was a trusted servant, and I knew his business was official, but I did not want to rush back for a trivial matter.

  “It—it is the Augusta,” he said. “She has sent for you. And Andromachus also asks that you return.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Caesar, I do not know. Whatever it was, they wanted it kept secret. But I assure you, I was dispatched by the Augusta.” He held up her seal.

  Indeed it was hers. And the request of Andromachus meant it was a medical emergency, not a state one.

  “Let us go at once!” I cried. We hurried out of the villa and took to the road.

  The entire way back I was plagued with worry, shattering my hard-won tranquility. By the time I reached Rome it was as if I had never left, never had a respite from this oppression. I rushed into the palace, straight to Poppaea’s apartments. I tried to read the guards’ faces, but they averted their eyes. I brushed past them and walked the long passageway toward the room that was Poppaea’s main chamber. Slaves were standing about but did not look at me. At the chamber door two more guards bowed and opened the door, silently. Neither said Greetings, Caesar.

  I took a deep breath, standing on the threshold. Several people stood, backs to me, shielding the bed. I approached, then parted them to look. Poppaea lay inert, her head turned, her eyes closed, her lips slightly open. Like the statue. O gods! Was she dead?

  My heart stopped, frozen. “Poppaea!” I cried, bending toward her, clasping her. She was warm. “Poppaea!” Her head lolled forward, limp. I hugged her as if I could force her to breathe. Then I felt a slight tremor as her muscles quivered.

  I laid her back down, saw her chest rise and fall. Only t
hen did I ask, “What has happened?”

  A middle-aged woman, a midwife I assumed, said, “She had the baby. It was born too early to live.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Taken away. It was early this morning. She sent the messenger last night, when the labor began. She sleeps now, because the physician gave her a draft. It was a difficult labor, with no reward.”

  “Does she know?” I asked.

  “Yes, she knows.” The midwife laid her hand on Poppaea’s forehead, called for cold clothes. “She will sleep for another few hours. When she awakens, I warn you, she will be devastated.”

  As was I. Crushed and stunned. But Poppaea lived; the tragedy was not entire. “I will stay with her,” I said. “You may go, and rest.”

  I sank down in a chair beside her as the attendants drifted away, leaving us alone. I put my head in my hands, as if that would ease the pain, drive it out. Hours passed while she quietly slept, eventually becoming more restless, finally opening her eyes. She gave a ragged smile.

  “Your face is the first thing I see,” she murmured. “You came.”

  I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I never should have left.”

  “It would have made no difference.” Her voice was weak. She struggled to sit upright but lacked the strength. She reached her hand out to mine. “The baby was too small to live. He—”

  “It was a boy?”

  “Yes, a son. But he never breathed. He was so small. He should not have come for another four months.” Her voice held steady, but tears slid down her cheeks. She took a deep breath. “You must divorce me,” she said. “It is clear that I cannot give you a living child, and you must have an heir. You are young and strong and must not be tied to me.”

  Her words appalled me. Surely this was the shock affecting her mind. “No, never,” I said. “You will recover, you will feel better, and such thoughts will go back where they belong—nowhere.”

  “You are not practical, my love. You refuse to see the stark truth. I am thirty-three and have had two pregnancies and no living child. You cannot go on like this—you need a younger wife.”

  “I can’t live without you!” I cried. I had thought she had died and then rejoiced to see her breathe. Now she wanted to leave me anyway.

  “Yes, you can, and you have to. I love you enough to insist that you look to your own safety, even if you must cast me aside.”

  “I won’t! I won’t do it!” I grabbed her hand, squeezing it so tightly she winced. “You made a vow. Whenever and wherever you are Gaius, then I am Gaia. That means that no matter where we are, no matter what is happening around us, we are one. If you did not mean the vow, you should never have spoken the words.”

  “Oh, my love, you forget that these words apply to everyone but the emperor. What is happening around him alters everything, and he must then think of his own survival.”

  “I can’t survive without you.”

  She sighed, as if I were an obstinate child. “You will not let me go, then?”

  “No.”

  She lay back down, closing her eyes. “I am glad, then,” she murmured. And slept again.

  XXXVI

  Poppaea slowly recovered. The color returned to her cheeks and the strength to her limbs. We held the sorrow of our lost son close inside, so secreted that we dared not talk about it, lest it loosen the grief again, a flight of woe, like the evil creatures Pandora had released. And I was afraid she would again offer me a divorce. No! Life without her was for me unthinkable.

  We went about our daily lives, the never-ending round of ceremonies, rituals, official correspondence, diplomatic meetings. The sheer monotony of it acted as an anesthetic, numbing us while underneath the grief lessened, diluted, losing its first fierce strength. And there came a day, as winter ebbed away and the subtle signs of spring were at hand, a rare day when there were no official duties to distract, a forgotten feeling of almost-happiness came to me, for a moment. A moment that seemed bright and hopeful and, if not joyous, held the promise of joy.

  The Festival of Ceres was at hand. It was the ominous date when the baby would have been born, but the festival must go on regardless. I had looked forward to the festival, thinking then to have my own celebration to double the significance of it, but now there would be only a single meaning. Nonetheless it came at a lovely time of year—April twelfth to nineteenth, and two days later was the official birthday of Rome. On the last day of the festival there would be chariot races at the Circus Maximus, and I planned to preside over them. The racing season would begin, and that would lift my heart.

  On that last day, the games would not start until noon, but I was up early to sign papers and put business behind me. Outside the window I could hear birdsong, loud chirping in a chorus that died away as the sun rose. It was hard to be downcast with such exuberant bursts of rapture outside. It was warm enough to open the window, and I went over to do so.

  Before I reached the window, there was an urgent knocking at the door, and Epaphroditus hurried in.

  “Caesar, I do not mean to disturb you so early, but I must!” His usually calm face was flushed and his eyes bulging.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a plot to assassinate you! Today!” He waved a dagger.

  I shrank back. For a moment he looked as if he would thrust it into me. Was he the assassin?

  But then he said, “A slave, along with his wife, has come to us, betraying the plot of his master.”

  “Who is his master?” I dreaded the answer.

  “Flavius Scaevinus,” he said.

  My friend! Now I felt as if I was stabbed. “What did this slave say?”

  “His name is Milichus. I will bring him in, and he can tell you the story directly.”

  “Very well.” I braced myself against the desk, leaning on my knuckles. Oh, Zeus, give me strength for this. How can I hear this? The dagger lay before me, glinting in the early-morning sunlight—the thing meant to be plunged into me up to its hilt.

  In a moment Epaphroditus returned, a burly, bald man in tow, with his stocky wife. They bowed low.

  Epaphroditus said, “Now repeat to the emperor what you told me.”

  Milichus nervously wrung his hands. “Caesar, my master has acted strangely. Yesterday he rewrote his will with extravagant bequests. Then he called me in and gave me this dagger, which he said he had taken from the shrine of Fortune at Ferentum, said it was too dull, had lost its edge, and I must sharpen it. He also told me to lay in a supply of bandages.”

  Odd, but not damning. “What else?”

  “Then he gave a banquet for his friends from the Senate, and it was obviously a farewell banquet, from the toasts and the speeches.”

  “Has he made travel preparations?”

  “No. The only preparations he made were the knife and the bandages.”

  “So . . . a journey that involved bloodletting and bloodshed?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Perhaps he was preparing for suicide.” But why would he? However, we cannot know what is eating at the peace of mind of someone.

  “No. He was—the mood was wrong for that. He was nervous, jumpy.”

  “Wouldn’t you be, if you planned to kill yourself?”

  “From what I understand, suicides are calm, and their only worry is that something will prevent them from carrying through their plan.”

  I nodded to Faenius, the Praetorian on guard today. “Send soldiers to bring Scaevinus here,” I ordered.

  Within an hour, Scaevinus was brought in, a soldier holding each of his arms.

  “Hello, Scaevinus,” I said.

  He looked around and saw Milichus. Immediately he drew himself up indignantly. “Caesar, what has this slave been telling you?” he demanded.

  I recounted the accusations, and Scaevinus was dismissive. “He’s a lying s
coundrel.” He pointed toward the dagger. “This is a family heirloom, kept in my bedroom, and Milichus has stolen it. As for the bandages, he made that up, so he has a charge that can rest solely on his own evidence.”

  “What about the banquet and the bequests? Why the change in your will?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “Is it a crime to be generous? You, who are generous to a fault, would not call it so. I have given slaves their freedom and made bequests before, but this time I made them larger because with my dwindling estate I wanted to distribute it before my debt collectors swooped down.” He laughed. “With these lies from Milichus, I am glad I did not give him a bequest. Perhaps that is why he wants revenge.”

  It made sense. I felt an immense relief. There was no plot after all. I started to set Scaevinus free when Milichus’s wife spoke up to her husband. “Aren’t you forgetting something, my dear? Our master spent all afternoon closeted with Antonius Natalis.” She turned to me. “Why don’t you send for Natalis and question him as to what this conversation was about?”

  “Yes, ask them!” said Milichus eagerly.

  Again I nodded to Faenius. “Bring him in.”

  While we waited, Scaevinus attempted to make pleasantries but then fell silent. Milichus and his wife stood quietly. Soon Natalis was escorted in, and his face fell when he saw Scaevinus.

  “Wh-what is this all about?” he asked.

  “I have a few questions for you,” I said. “It has to do with a conversation that you and Scaevinus had recently.”

  “Oh, we will gladly answer, Caesar.”

  “Separately,” I said. “Take them to different rooms and interrogate them,” I ordered the soldiers, along with scribes to record their words.

  Now I must wait. I was seized with a chill dread. Scaevinus and Natalis. And the dagger was to be used today . . . where? When? It would soon be time for the Ceres festival and my opening of the games. But should I go?

  Hours passed. I did not go. In midafternoon the soldiers and scribes came back with their report.

 

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