The Splendor Before the Dark

by Margaret George

  Her husband, Vestinus, was another matter. I had not been surprised that he was one of the conspirators, for he had always been rather dismissive of my ideas and sarcastic in his evaluations of my policies. And he had never made a show of sham friendship as had Petronius and Lucan.

  “You condemned my husband without hearing his defense and only on the evidence of others.”

  “The evidence seemed convincing to me,” I said. “And he chose not to say anything. He had the opportunity. Instead he held a dinner party and then killed himself upstairs while his guests waited downstairs.” I gave a bitter laugh. “At least he didn’t make a parody of it, like Petronius.”

  “For those of us waiting at the dinner table, it was horrible and interminable. And then you had the effrontery to send a message that the guests were free to leave!”

  “I didn’t mean it to be insulting. Quite the opposite.”

  “I couldn’t leave! I had to wait at the table for hours, not daring to go upstairs. When finally a slave came to tell me it was over, I had to go and see what awaited me up there. They had cleaned him up, but the bloody towels were still in a pile. He had left me a letter.”

  “I am sorry for your loss, but it was a loss for me as well.”

  She gave a short, choking laugh. “What loss for you?”

  “A loss of trust, a loss of friendship. Although I suppose you’ll tell me I never had those things, only the pretense of them.”

  “So you see why I wanted to curse you? I want you to end your life miserably, perhaps forced to kill yourself like my husband did, and the gods only know who will be waiting downstairs? Perhaps no one. Perhaps that is the worst curse of all. To have no one there. No one waiting. No one who cares.”

  Her voice, rich and vibrant, had always been her most compelling feature. In the past she had spoken words that smoothed and amused. Now they pronounced a curse. No need for the cloth or spells. It was simpler than that; words did the conjuring.

  “Now you have doomed yourself,” I said. “You condemn yourself by your own testimony.”

  “Call the guards. Get it over with. Do not toy with me, as my husband toyed with our dinner guests.”

  “Only I know of this.”

  “Soon everyone will. There is no saving me past that point.”

  As if in answer to her, a warm, beguiling puff of air from the gardens, laden with the heady scent of roses, washed over us. And then, walking across the terrace, just visible in the torchlight, Poppaea. But of course it was Sporus. It was no true ghost, just the reverberation of one. My longing for her clutched at me, momentarily searing my soul. But it was a chimera.

  “Marry me,” I said suddenly, shocking myself. “Become my wife. That is the only thing that can save you, make you immune from any charges.”

  She stared at me. “That is your remedy? Marry you? The person who widowed me, the person I have admitted I want to curse?”

  “Yes. The conspiracy has bereaved us both. We are both alone, victims of either the conspiracy itself or its aftermath. Statilia—I cannot call you Messalina; that name chokes me—I have always felt an affinity for you and from you. Tell me I am wrong, that it is only in my own imagination, and I will still release you. I will let you go without charges. As I said, no one knows of this but us. No one heard your words but me.”

  She stood, speechless for a moment. Then, quietly, she spoke. “I am free, regardless? Then I will voice my true thoughts. It is not your imagination. I have felt a kinship of the mind with you, a sympathy of thought. But the conspiracy—”

  “It is over. We are both the poorer for it. But we survive. We are still here. And we must clothe ourselves in what comfort we can, in what remains. Will you be my wife?” I paused. “There will never be another Poppaea for me, and perhaps never another Vestinus for you. But they are gone. Do you not think they would want us to go forward, remembering them but also remembering that life is short and soon we will join them, in the interim snatching whatever the gods will grant us, lessened though it may be?”

  She waited long moments, moments that drew themselves out while I asked myself, Do you really want this? but feeling that somehow it was right.

  Finally she said, “Yes. I will marry you. But I will not marry someone I have not tried first in bed. So until you can prove yourself that way, it is a conditional acceptance.”

  I let her go. “Very well. In the meantime, would you like to come to the imperial box at the Circus Maximus? Like old times? I am racing tomorrow, wearing the colors of the Greens.”

  “Yes, I will come,” she said. “I will wish you victory.”

  She turned and walked away, a free woman, and dropped the square she had cut from the toga. I held it up and fitted it into the empty space it had left at the hem. Perhaps someone could mend it.

  What had I done?

  LII

  I prepared for bed. I was exhausted. The day had been indescribable, one the people called “golden” and one I would never forget. It had begun with the kiss of the light at sunrise in the Forum and ended with a marriage proposal to a woman I barely knew.

  The lamps were guttering, about to run out of oil. It was long past midnight. I needed to rest if I had any hopes of doing well in the races tomorrow. I climbed into bed, drained.

  The races . . . I could not concentrate on them. I knew what I needed to do, I had trained, and I had no control over what the other racers would do, or even over the weather and whether the track would be muddy or hard.

  But my marriage proposal . . . I had just asked someone to become my empress. And she had accepted—on condition. On condition of how well we fitted together in bed. Well, that would remain to be seen, and there was nothing I could do about it in advance, either. Although the thought of it was titillating, I had to admit.

  That she came from an old patrician family, that of the consul Statilius Taurus, I already knew. Her family name gave that away. But I would ask Epaphroditus to look further into her background.

  What had made me do it?

  When I had been with her on other occasions, I had sensed some connection, some mutual understanding. Perhaps I was wrong and she had lied to me to save her own life. Or to try again to take mine, although I did not believe that. And that I needed an empress was clear. And she seemed ideally suited for it. She was older—I must find out how old, but I believed she was somewhat older than I—but not beyond childbearing years. She seemed to come from the right family background, proper enough to satisfy the sternest critics in the Senate. And I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I could speak openly to her.

  The all-consuming, wild love I had had for Poppaea could not be repeated. I would be foolish to look for it. That was what I told myself.

  * * *

  • • •

  The day was fair. The race would be on dry sand, making for a faster time and more skidding. My race was the first scheduled, and I was just as glad, because the wait to compete could induce such apprehension it might worsen my performance. Once I had prepared and could do no more, it was best to plunge in and have it over with, the quicker to return to normal breathing.

  I was proud to be wearing the colors of the Greens, honored that they had offered me that place. Donning the green racing tunic and fastening the ribbons on the harnesses, I tried to think only of the race and its strategy and put all else out of my mind. But it was almost impossible. Waiting for me in the imperial box was Tiridates and his entourage and Statilia.

  My team was skittish and eager to run, though, and sprang out of the starting box like demons released from a cage, jerking the chariot forward so quickly it strained the fittings and stretched my arms painfully. All the teams were fast at the start, but we did not tangle, hurtling toward the alba linea. Had it not dropped, the chariots would have been wrecked, but it did fall just in time and we flew past. I was in the second lane and dared not turn my head
to look back, but I could hear hoofbeats behind me on both sides, and soon, on the left, the Blue came alongside me. I urged my team to speed up, and they obeyed, so we left him behind, but the first turn was ahead of us, with him on the inside, and he got around it faster than I did.

  From then on it was a lost cause. My horses seemed to lose their spirit, or their stamina, and responded sluggishly. Or is it true that animals can sense the master’s mood and reflect it? Certainly I was distracted and only half there, and on the last turn, with both the Blue and the White ahead of me, I steered too close to the metae, glancing off them without (thank Zeus!) destroying the chariot or the horses, but careening off to the right and across the path of the Red, just barely missing him. Although I regained control of the horses and guided them around the turn way on the outside, my finish was a victory only in the sense that I managed to cross the line intact.

  My competitors were gracious and congratulated me anyway.

  “Thank you for not crashing into me!” said the Red, grinning. Well, that took at least some skill, so I deserved a little credit there. No one had been hurt.

  “Don’t thank him,” said the Blue. “He robbed the crowd of seeing a grisly accident.” He turned to me. “How could you be so thoughtless?” But he was grinning, too.

  “The emperor ran a good race,” said the White. “But, of course, he was competing against us, the best in the land.”

  “You are not far off the truth,” I said. “You are the best Rome can offer.”

  * * *

  • • •

  After the track was cleared and swept, the next race commenced, and I made my way to the imperial box, shielding myself from the showers of flowers thrown at me and waving in response to the deafening cheers. I think the people liked me best for coming in last and laughing about it. People are strange; that is why pleasing them is fraught with mystery.

  The box was draped with garlands and racing colors, and as I entered, the company stood and greeted me. I had not changed clothes and still wore the charioteer costume, drenched in sweat and covered with a light coating of fine sand.

  Tigellinus grasped my forearm and made a face. “Covered in grit! You could sand down a piece of wood.”

  “A souvenir of the race,” I said. “Proof that I did it.”

  Tiridates inclined his head in a slight bow. “So now I have seen the Roman method of horse racing. When you come to Parthia, we will show you ours.”

  “Going to Parthia?” asked Nymphidius. “When?”

  “Tiridates and I are planning a joint military venture,” I said.

  Tigellinus barely suppressed a guffaw. “Military?” You? he might as well have said.

  I had not decided yet, but the scorn and disbelief that I could be interested in a military campaign irked me. “Yes, a campaign against the Alani tribes north of Armenia,” I said. “After I return from Greece. You remember, I am leaving for Greece in July. But after that, when the new legion is raised, I will lead it.”

  “What new legion?” asked Tigellinus. “What are you talking about?”

  “I am recruiting a new legion with men from Italy, the first one raised from here in over a century.” There, did he think I knew nothing of the history of Roman legions? “They must be at least six feet tall, and we will call them ‘the Phalanx of Alexander the Great,’ although their formal name will be the legio I Italica.”

  “Why have I not been told of this?” Tigellinus asked.

  “It has only just now been decided.” This very moment, thanks to your skepticism.

  “Perhaps you should recruit from the barbarians instead,” said Nymphidius. “They tend to be enormous.”

  Tiridates quickly said, “We have come to an understanding, then? You promised to decide quickly, and you have fulfilled that promise.” He turned to the company. “Endless debate and procrastination are a plague, a sickness your emperor is wise enough to avoid.”

  Or foolish enough to ignore.

  Wine was poured to celebrate the informal agreement, and we drank. It was a luxury to permit myself the ease of wine erasing my jitters now that the race was safely over. For the sparring that now lay ahead, wine would help rather than hinder.

  “So the emperor will go a-soldiering?” said the husky voice of Statilia, who had stood quietly in the back. As if to make a point, she was wearing dark clothing that betokened her mourning status.

  “Yes, it’s time, don’t you think?”

  “The emperor excels in all he does,” said Tiridates eagerly. “So he should make a valiant warrior.”

  Now Tigellinus had to visibly stifle a laugh, his shoulders shaking.

  Damn them all! I was the grandson of Germanicus, and if I wanted to be a soldier, I had no doubt I could be one. A good one, too. “With you by my side, brother, we will vie for valiancy,” I said. I could spout eastern flattery, too.

  “Yes, it is time,” said Statilia, ignoring the interchange between Tiridates and me. “I believe the strength of Rome lies in its legions, and the strength of the legions depends on the strength of the individual soldiers in them.”

  “Well said, descendant of the great Titus Statilius Taurus, consul and Triumphator,” said Tigellinus.

  “I do have many of his decorations and honors,” she said, “which I inherited. I would be pleased to show my emperor the collection any time he pleases, in my house in what is left of the Taurian Gardens.”

  And thus was the place of assignation decided. It would be on her grounds, not on mine. And not in the house where her husband had died but in the house she retained from the little Mother had let her keep when she seized her family’s garden on a trumped-up charge of sorcery and made them imperial property.

  “I would be most pleased to view them,” I said.

  She nodded, and her eyes met mine.

  * * *

  • • •

  I set out from the palace at twilight. Birds were winging their way through the glowing sky, black outlines against the tender blue. The Taurian Gardens were not far from the pavilion of the Domus Aurea. When I stood on the terrace and looked northeast, I could see the house where Statilia had bid me come, a rich yellow set in the greenery of the gardens around it.

  I would go by litter. That meant observers could know where I was going and how long I stayed, but there was no help for it. Privacy was not something an emperor could have, a privilege beyond his grasp.

  The evening breeze was sweet as only May wind can be. I told myself not to think of what the next few hours would hold for me. That did not stop me from thinking about them.

  I am accustomed to performing. I have stood on stage and sought the approval of hundreds of people. I have driven chariots and sought the approval of thousands. But the approval of one person, in private, and an audition for which there is no practice?

  The bearers set down the litter on the graveled path before the entrance to the house. It was large but not imposing, built in a simpler time. Her ancestor Titus Statilius Taurus had fought in the dying gasps of the Republic a hundred years ago, commanding the land forces of Octavian in the battle of Actium. His reputation as a general was such that Antony’s forces surrendered to him without a fight, rather than face Octavian’s greatest general after Agrippa. He returned to Rome a hero, building what was then a showcase of a house. Its shrunken grounds—all the rest had been appropriated by Mother—were well tended, with rows of plane trees, boxwood hedges, and pebbled paths framing the dwelling well.

  A slave with a lighted torch appeared at the door, coming to me where I stood beside the litter.

  “Caesar,” he said, bowing. He motioned me to follow him into the house, and I dismissed the litter. Before I got back into it, much would have passed.

  The atrium was shadowy; it was that time of day when the outside light has waned but lamps do not help much. A faint glow still outlined the
opening above the impluvium, reflected dully in the water beneath.

  Statilia came out of the shadows and greeted me. “Welcome, Caesar,” she said. “You have come to view the honors of my illustrious great-great-grandfather?”

  “Indeed. Is that not why I was invited?” What an odd game we were playing. But let it commence.

  “Yes,” she said. “A glimpse at the old Republic, her honors, and what mattered then.”

  Oh, gods. She was going to make this political. That should not have been a surprise to me, as Vestinus was a committed republican.

  “Show me,” I said.

  She led me to the back of the atrium, where her ancestor’s Triumphator toga in purple and gold was displayed on a stand, its folds falling to the floor and so artfully arranged I expected to see feet protruding. I reached out to touch it and nearly made a hole in it. The material had deteriorated and was as fragile as a spider’s web. I stopped just in time.

  “It is exactly a hundred years old,” she said. “We never touch it, except to brush it with feathers to keep the dust off.”

  “A hundred years ago,” I said. “When Antony and Cleopatra were still alive.”

  “He won it for his campaign in Africa, when Octavian and Pompey Sextus were at war.” She gestured toward a marble bust on a pedestal, protected by a little barrier of urns. On the white brow of the bust a withered wreath drooped above the eyebrows. It was a duplicate of the laurel wreath he had worn the day of his Triumph.

  “Don’t touch it!” she warned. “It will fall to dust!”

  Suddenly it seemed pathetic to me, this futile attempt to preserve what was perishable. The years had turned the once-green leaves black and twisted, making it a mockery, not a tribute.